title: Buju Banton

text: Mark Anthony Myrie (born 15 July 1973), professionally known by his stage name Buju Banton, is a Jamaican reggae dancehall musician. He is considered to be one of the most significant and well-regarded artists in Jamaican music. Banton has collaborated with many international artists, including those in the hip hop, Latin and punk rock genres, as well as the sons of Bob Marley.


title: Buju Banton

text: Banton released a number of dancehall singles as early as 1987 but came to prominence in 1992 with two albums, "Stamina Daddy" and "Mr. Mention", the latter becoming the best-selling album in Jamaican history upon its release. That year he also broke the record for No. 1 singles in Jamaica, previously held by Bob Marley and the Wailers. He signed with the major label Mercury Records and released "Voice of Jamaica" in 1993. By the mid-1990s, Banton's music became more influenced by his Rastafari faith, as heard on the seminal albums "'Til Shiloh" and "Inna Heights".


title: Buju Banton

text: In 2009, he was arrested on drug-related charges in the United States, his first trial resulting in a hung jury. His 2010 album "Before the Dawn" won a Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards. In 2011 he was convicted on the aforementioned criminal charge and was imprisoned in the U.S. until December 2018, whereupon he was released, and deported home to Jamaica.


title: Buju Banton

text: Buju Banton was born in Kingston, Jamaica in an area known as Barbican Road, Kingston 8. Buju is a nickname given to him by his mother as a child. "Banton" is a Jamaican word that refers to someone who is a respected storyteller, and it was adopted by Myrie in tribute to the deejay Burro Banton, whom he admired as a child. Buju emulated Burro's rough vocals and forceful delivery, developing his own distinctive style. Buju's mother was a higgler, or street vendor, while his father worked as a labourer at a tile factory. He was the youngest of fifteen children born into a family that was directly descended from the Maroons of Jamaica.


title: Buju Banton

text: As a youngster, Buju would often watch his favourite artists perform at outdoor shows and local dancehalls in Denham Town. At the age of 12 he picked up the microphone for himself and began toasting under the moniker of Gargamel, working with the Sweet Love and Rambo Mango sound systems. In 1986, he was introduced to producer Robert Ffrench by fellow deejay Clement Irie, and his first single, "The Ruler" was released not long afterward in 1987. This led to recording sessions with producers such as Patrick Roberts, Bunny Lee, Winston Riley, and Digital B.


title: Buju Banton

text: In 1991 Buju joined Donovan Germain's Penthouse Records label and began a fruitful partnership with producer Dave Kelly who later launched his own Madhouse Records label. Buju is one of the most popular musicians in Jamaican history, having major chart success in 1992, with "Bogle" and "Love me Browning", both massive hits in Jamaica. Controversy erupted over "Love Me Browning" which spoke of Banton's penchant for lighter-skinned black women: "Mi love my car mi love my bike mi love mi money and ting, but most of all mi love mi browning." Some accused Banton of denigrating the beauty of darker-skinned black women. In response, he released "Love Black Woman", which spoke of his love for dark-skinned beauties: "Mi nuh Stop cry, fi all black women, respect all the girls dem with dark complexion". 1992 was an explosive year for Buju as he broke Bob Marley's record for the greatest number of #1 singles in a year. Buju's gruff voice dominated the Jamaican airwaves for the duration of the year. Banton's debut album, "Mr. Mention", includes many of his greatest hits from that year including "Bonafide Love" featuring Wayne Wonder, the singer who first brought Buju out as a guest star on the annual Jamaican stage show Sting.


title: Buju Banton

text: 1992 also saw the unsanctioned re-release of "Boom Bye Bye", a controversial song recorded several years earlier in 1988 when the artist was 15 years old, which resulted in a backlash that threatened to destroy his career. several years later, the song would later become the subject of outrage in the United States and Europe, leading to Banton being dropped from the line-up of the WOMAD festival as well as numerous other scheduled performances. Banton subsequently issued a public apology.


title: Buju Banton

text: Now on the major Mercury/PolyGram label, Banton released the hard-hitting "Voice of Jamaica" in 1993. The album included a number of conscious tracks. These tracks included "Deportees", a song which criticises those Jamaicans who went abroad but never sent money home; "Tribal War" a collaboration with Tony Rebel, Brian & Tony Gold, and Terry Ganzie, a sharp condemnation of political violence that interpolates Little Roy's classic reggae song of the same name; and "Willy, Don't Be Silly", which promotes safe sex and the use of contraceptives, particularly the condom, profits from which were donated to a charity supporting children with AIDS. Banton was invited to meet Jamaican Prime Minister P. J. Patterson, and won several awards that year at the Caribbean Music Awards and the Canadian Music Awards.


title: Buju Banton

text: Some of Banton's lyrics dealt with violent themes, which he explained as reflecting the images that young Jamaicans were presented with by the news media. The reality of Kingston's violence was brought home in 1993 by the murders in separate incidents of three of his friends and fellow recording artists, the deejays Pan Head and Dirtsman and singer Mickey Simpson. His response was the single "Murderer", which condemned gun violence, going against the flow of the prevailing lyrical content in dancehall. The song inspired several clubs to stop playing songs with the excessively violent subject matter. Late in 1994, Buju was also affected by the death of his friend Garnett Silk. Buju's transformation continued, as he embraced the Rastafari movement and began growing dreadlocks. His performances and musical releases took on a more spiritual tone. Banton toured Europe and Japan, playing sold-out shows.


title: Buju Banton

text: "'Til Shiloh" (1995) was a very influential album, incorporating live instrumentation as well as digital rhythms, and incorporating the sounds of roots reggae along with the harder-edged dancehall sounds that first made Banton famous. The artist was embracing his Rastafari faith and his new album reflected these beliefs. "Til Shiloh" successfully blended conscious lyrics with a hard-hitting dancehall vibe. The album included earlier singles such as "Murderer" along with "Wanna Be Loved" and "Untold Stories". In 1996 Buju contributed "Wanna Be Loved (Desea ser Amado)" along with Los Pericos to the Red Hot Organization's album "" for the Red Hot Benefit Series. This series raises money to increase AIDS awareness.


title: Buju Banton

text: That same year Buju Banton took control of his business by establishing his own Gargamel Music label, releasing the popular single "Love Sponge" on vinyl in Jamaica and overseas. In years to come Gargamel would expand into an outlet for Buju's own productions.


title: Buju Banton

text: "Inna Heights" (1997) substantially increased Banton's international audience as Buju explored his singing ability and recorded a number of roots-tinged tracks, including the hugely popular "Destiny" and "Hills and Valleys". The album also included collaborations with artists such as Beres Hammond and the legendary Toots Hibbert. The album was well received by fans at the time and critics praised Buju's soaring vocals. The album has aged well and remains a highly regarded work over 20 years after its release. In 1998 Buju met the punk band Rancid and recorded three tracks with them: "No More Misty Days", "Hooligans" and "Life Won't Wait". The latter became the title track of Rancid's 1998 album "Life Won't Wait".


title: Buju Banton

text: Buju signed with Anti- Records, a subsidiary of Brett Gurewitz's Epitaph Records, and released "Unchained Spirit" in 2000. The album showcased diverse musical styles, and featured guest appearances by Luciano, Morgan Heritage, Stephen Marley, and Rancid. It carried little of the roots feel heard on "Til Shiloh" and virtually none of the hardcore dancehall sound which had brought him to public acclaim early in his career.


title: Buju Banton

text: Several singles followed in the start of the new decade, which was perceived as more mellow and introspective, as opposed to the dancehall approach of his early career. In March 2003 Banton released "Friends for Life", which featured more sharply political songs, including "Mr. Nine", an anti-gun song that was a hit in Jamaica's dancehalls as well as internationally. The album focused on political messages regarding the African diaspora, featuring excerpts from a speech made by Marcus Garvey. "Paid Not Played", also featured on the album, displayed a gradual return to the themes more popular in dancehall. The album also featured some hip hop influence with the inclusion of rapper Fat Joe.


title: Buju Banton

text: 2006 saw the release of the "Too Bad", an album that was more dancehall-oriented in style. One of the slower tracks from the album, "Driver A", went on to become a major hit, while at the same time reviving Sly and Robbie's "Taxi" riddim. Banton performed at the 2007 Cricket World Cup Opening Ceremony with Third World and Beres Hammond. The album "Rasta Got Soul" was released in 2009. Produced by Banton, with contributions from longtime collaborators Donovan Germain, Stephen Marsden and Wyclef Jean, "Rasta Got Soul" was a 100% roots reggae album recorded over a seven-year period before its release. It went on to earn Banton his fourth Grammy nomination for Best Reggae Album in 2010.


title: Buju Banton

text: On 13 February 2011, one day before the scheduled start of his second court trial in Tampa, Florida, Buju Banton's "Before the Dawn" album was announced as the winner of Best Reggae Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.


title: Buju Banton

text: Upon his release from prison in the United States in December 2018, Banton started The Long Walk To Freedom tour and performed his first concert at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica in March 2019, the concert attracted over 30.000 people. During his tour, he continued putting out new music and new singles including "Bagga Mouth", "False Pretense", and "Country for Sale".


title: Buju Banton

text: In May 2019, Banton released "Country For Sale", the song topped the iTunes Reggae Chart within minutes after the announcement of its release. The song was recorded at the Gargamel Music Studio, Donovan Germain's own recording studio in the Corporate Area. On 12 November of the same year, he released his first official music video entitled “Trust”. The video marked the first anniversary of Banton's release from prison and was produced in collaboration with Dave Kelly and directed by Kieran Khan. The track peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Reggae Digital Song Sales chart.


title: Buju Banton

text: Banton announced his partnership with Jay-Z's Roc Nation in November of that year, becoming the second Jamaican reggae artist be represented by the agency, which coincided with the release of his music video "Steppa". He also announced that Island Records will be the distributor of the collaboration's new music.


title: Buju Banton

text: In January 2020, Buju was featured on the "Bad Boys for Life (soundtrack)" which was produced by DJ Khaled. His song titled "Murda She Wrote" was a nod to a 1992 dancehall classic called "Murder She Wrote" by Jamaican reggae duo Chaka Demus & Pliers.


title: Buju Banton

text: On 29 February 2020, Buju produced the "Steppaz Riddim" under this own Gargamel Music label. The riddim, released under Roc Nation, featured 11 tracks and included contributions from Vershon, Delly Ranx, Agent Sasco, Bling Dawg and General B. Banton released his 13th studio album and his first in a decade, "Upside Down 2020" on 26 June 2020. The album includes guest appearances from John Legend, Pharrell, Stefflon Don and Stephen Marley. Buju appeared on the track "Believe What I Say" by Kanye West, off his 2021 album "Donda".


title: Buju Banton

text: In 2021 Buju began a project releasing NFT's. "Banton has teamed up with CrimsonTide Ltd. to create a collection of original NFT art pieces that will come in digital and autographed canvas pieces". Buju has become one of the first Jamaican artist to release a NFT.


title: Buju Banton

text: Banton has been criticised for the lyrical content of his song "Boom Bye Bye", which was released when he was 19 years old in 1992. The song has been interpreted as supporting the murder of gay men. In 2009, gay-rights groups appealed to venues around the United States not to host Buju Banton.


title: Buju Banton

text: In 2007, Banton was allegedly among a number of reggae artists who signed a pledge, called the Reggae Compassionate Act, created by the Stop Murder Music campaign, to refrain from performing homophobic songs or making homophobic statements. The Act stated that the signers "do not encourage nor minister to HATE but rather uphold a philosophy of LOVE, RESPECT, and UNDERSTANDING towards all human beings as the cornerstone of reggae music" and promised that the artists involved no longer believed in sexism, homophobia, or violence and that they would not perform music that went against these beliefs on stage. Banton later denied that he had made any such commitment, although he did refrain from performing "Boom Bye Bye" and other offensive songs at the 2007 Reggae Carifest concert. He did, however, continue to play such songs afterwards.


title: Buju Banton

text: On 20 March 2019, Banton and his team officially removed "Boom Bye Bye" from his catalog. Banton's team pulled the song from streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify, and Banton announced his intention to never perform the song again. Banton issued a statement in which he clarified the importance of tolerance and love, saying, "In recent days there has been a great deal of press coverage about the song ‘Boom Bye Bye’ from my past which I long ago stopped performing and removed from any platform that I control or have influence over. I recognize that the song has caused much pain to listeners, as well as to my fans, my family and myself. After all the adversity we've been through I am determined to put this song in the past and continue moving forward as an artist and as a man. I affirm once and for all that everyone has the right to live as they so choose. In the words of the great Dennis Brown, 'Love and hate can never be friends.' I welcome everyone to my shows in a spirit of peace and love. Please come join me in that same spirit."


title: Buju Banton

text: In December 2009, Drug Enforcement Administration agents remanded Banton to custody in Miami, where the U.S. Attorney charged him with conspiracy to distribute and possession of more than five kilograms of cocaine. Banton was then moved to the Pinellas County Jail where he remained until trial.


title: Buju Banton

text: A six-day trial in Tampa, Florida was declared a mistrial on 27 September 2010, after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision. During the trial, audio recordings were presented of Banton and a drug-dealer-turned-government-informant discussing drugs, drug prices and smuggling. Banton was also seen on a video recording meeting the informant in a police-controlled warehouse tasting cocaine from a kilogram bag. The informant was reportedly paid $50,000 for his work on the case.


title: Buju Banton

text: He was allowed to perform one concert between trials, which was held on 16 January 2011 to a sold-out crowd in Miami. A few weeks after the performance he was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album but was not allowed to attend the ceremony.


title: Buju Banton

text: On 22 February 2011, Banton was found guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking offense and using communication wires to facilitate a drug-trafficking offense. He was found not guilty on the charge of attempted possession of five kilograms or more of cocaine. Four months later, he was sentenced to ten years and one month in a federal prison for the cocaine trafficking conviction. His sentencing on a related firearms conviction (despite the fact that Banton was never found with a gun) was scheduled for 30 October 2012, and then postponed on his lawyer's request for an investigation of possible juror misconduct. Despite the fact that a juror was found guilty of misconduct, Buju Banton waived his right to an appeal. On 14 May 2015 federal prosecutors agreed to drop the firearms charge.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: Guilt is a Scottish thriller and mystery series, which was the first drama commission of the new BBC Scotland channel and first broadcast there before being broadcast on BBC Two. Written and created by Neil Forsyth, the show initially centres on two brothers, played by Mark Bonnar and Jamie Sives, who get involved in a hit and run, before involving a large number of cast in an ongoing story. The first series of "Guilt" was broadcast in 2019, and the second series broadcast in the autumn of 2021. The show was a critical hit and was subsequently broadcast around the world including in America (PBS), France (Arte), Australia (BBC First), Sweden (Sveriges Television), Germany (Arte), Portugal (RTP2) and South Africa (Showmax).


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: Forsyth was keen to write a show about siblings, which he has called "the most interesting dramatic relationship", and a show with a leitmotif that ran through all the characters, in this case guilt. He spent several years developing the show before finding a home for it at the BBC. "Guilt" was produced by Happy Tramp North and Expectation Entertainment. It was directed by Robert McKillop.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: "Guilt" became the first drama commission for the new BBC Scotland channel, which premiered the show's episodes a week before UK-wide transmission on BBC Two.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: "Guilt" was shot in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In Edinburgh, locations included Calton Hill and Charlotte Square. In Glasgow, a studio was built at Parkhouse Business Park and other locations included Clydebank Docks, Glasgow Caledonian University, Aberfoyle and the Lanarkshire town of East Kilbride.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: A second series of "Guilt" was confirmed by the BBC in July 2020, and filming began in Scotland in November 2020. New cast members included Phyllis Logan, Sara Vickers, Stuart Bowman and Iain Pirie. The second series was directed by Patrick Harkins.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: The show begins with two brothers, Max and Jake, in a car returning from a wedding. When they accidentally run over and kill an elderly man on an Edinburgh street, they make the decision to try to cover up the crime. As the show progresses, the brothers’ difficulties intensify and the story opens up to bring in other characters and storylines, within a narrative theme of guilt.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: "Guilt" received strong viewing figures and a highly positive critical reception. "The Times" called it, "An absolute cracker", "The Observer", "an utter triumph, a word-of-mouth dazzler", with "welcome Coen brothers echoes". "The Telegraph" called it a "stealth hit" which "felt like "Fargo" relocated to Leith, or "Midnight Run" reimagined by Irvine Welsh". "The Independent" termed it "the unexpected treat of the year”, "The Guardian" described it as a "darkly delicious tale" that was "fast becoming a word-of-mouth hit", the "Radio Times" called it "Hitchcockian" and "The Herald" deemed it the most impressive Scottish small screen debut since the 1987 comedy-drama "Tutti Frutti".


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: The second series was equally well received. The "Sunday Times" called it "irresistible, just as good as the original", "The Herald" said it was "among the realms of modern television classics", "The Times" called it "magnificent, a Scottish "Fargo"", "The Guardian" "witty and scintillating", and "The Scotsman", "one of Scotland’s most acclaimed television dramas".


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: The first series of "Guilt" was nominated for a large number of awards and won 2020 Best Drama at the Scottish BAFTA Awards, the Royal Television Society of Scotland Awards, the Celtic Media Festival, and the Broadcast Digital Awards.


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: "Guilt" has been broadcast widely around the world. It was broadcast on BBC First in Australia where The Australian called it "clever, stylish and absorbing". In France it was retitled "Petit Meurtre Entre Frères" (A Small Murder Between Brothers) by Arte. It was retitled "Vår Lilla Hemlighet" (Our Little Secret) by SVT in Sweden, where Aftonbladet called it "exemplary television craftsmanship". It was broadcast in South Africa by Showmax. In Germany it was retitled "Keiner ist schuld" (Nobody Is Guilty) by Arte, where Die Rheinpfalz said "this combination of tragedy and humour is a high art, which succeeds here".


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: In America, Guilt premiered on the PBS Network's Masterpiece Mystery series in September 2021. The New York Times called it "tense but textured" with characters that are "funny and well-drawn" while NPR said Guilt had "a verve that made me think of the TV series Fargo, which I mean as high praise".


title: Guilt (British TV series)

text: In August 2021, it was announced that "Guilt" was being remade in Hindi by Applause Entertainment, starring the Indian actors Jaideep Ahlawat and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: American settlement in the Philippines () began during the Spanish colonial period. The period of American colonialization of the Philippines was 48 years. It began with the cession of the Philippines to the U.S. by Spain in 1898 and lasted until the U.S. recognition of Philippine independence in 1946. After independence in 1946, many Americans chose to remain in the Philippines while maintaining relations with relatives in the US. Most of them were professionals, but missionaries continued to settle the country. In 2015, the U.S. State Department estimated in 2016 that more than 220,000 U.S. citizens lived in the Philippines and more than 650,000 visited per year, with a significant mixed population of Amerasians and descendants from the colonial era as well.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: The United States invaded the Philippines, which was then governed by Spain as the Spanish East Indies, during the Spanish–American War. During that war, Philippine revolutionaries declared independence. Wanting to maintain a stronghold over the island nation as a stepping stone to Japan and continental Asia, the United States maintained authority of the archipelago and the Philippine–American War ensued. America then held the Philippines until granting full independence on July 4, 1946.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: American colonial rule in the Philippines saw an increase in immigration to the Philippines. Retiring soldiers and other military-men were among the first Americans to become long-term Philippine residents and settlers; these included African-American Soldiers and former volunteer Soldiers primarily from the Western states. The Education Act of 1901 authorized the colonial government to recruit American teachers to help establish the new educational system, and 80 former soldiers became teachers. They were soon joined by 48 teachers recruited in America who arrived in June 1901 on the ship "Sheridan", named after Philip Sheridan and by 523 others who arrived on August 1, 1901, on the "Thomas". Collectively, these teachers became known as the Thomasites. Besides English, the Thomasites taught agriculture, reading, grammar, geography, mathematics, general courses, trade courses, housekeeping and household arts (sewing, crocheting and cooking), manual trading, mechanical drawing, freehand drawing and athletics (baseball, track and field, tennis, indoor baseball and basketball). Many of these people settled in the Philippines and had Filipino spouses.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: By 1913, there were more than 1,400 mestizos with American parentage, the product of the nearly 8,000 Americans living in the Philippines. 15% of the children of Americans who settled in the Philippines were orphans. Prior to World War II, Americans were not prevalent in the Philippines, most living in enclaves, particularly around Fort Santiago; one term for those who settled in the Philippines was "Manila Americans". By 1939, 8,709 Americans were in the Philippines, primarily in Manila, and of whom only 4,022 were working age and employed. The Japanese invasion of the Philippines brought about an abrupt end to the distinctions of race, due to the external threat caused by the invasion.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: The 1940s was a period of large-scale American immigration to the Philippines. However, this abruptly ended after the Philippines gained independence from the United States in 1946 and Many Americans chose to permanently settle in the Philippines. The Americans, until the mid-1990s, had a heavy presence in the cities of Angeles and Olongapo, northwest of Metro Manila, due to the presence of large US military bases there. During the American colonial period (1898–1946), a recorded number of more than 800,000 Americans were born in the Philippines. Large concentrations of Filipinos with American ancestry aside from Metro Manila are located in the areas of the former US bases such as the Subic Bay area in Zambales and Clark Field in Angeles City.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: The colonialization period of the Philippines formally ended in 1946, yet scholars continue to debate about the lasting impacts of American settlement in the Philippines. Critical internationalists of the early Cold War saw the similarities between US-Philippines relations and European imperialism. Notions of neocolonialism have been attached in describing the United States' relations with the Philippines. Some historians of American foreign relations have argued that Philippine formal independence in 1946 was incomplete and unequal, and that there exists a 'dependent' alliance between the two countries. It has also been argued that historians who have drawn conclusions mainly from hindsight should pay closer attention contemporary views.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: As the Philippines lies in Southeast Asia, the offspring of a Filipino national and an American service member or contractor is termed an Amerasian. These individuals were not covered under the American Homecoming Act.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: In 1939, there were an estimated 50,000 mixed race American mestizos, The 1939 census was undertaken in conformity with Section 1 of Commonwealth Act 170. The Philippine population figure was 16,000,303. In 2012, the number of American mestizos is estimated to be 52,000. Most speak English, Tagalog and/or other Philippine languages. The majority are to be found in Angeles City, which has the largest proportion of Amerasians in the Philippines. Amerasians born in the Philippines have also intermarried with other Amerasian and Filipino natives creating a large number of Amerasian people with less than 50% Amerasian heritages.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: A 2012 paper by an Angeles, Pampanga, Philippines Amerasian college research study unit suggests that the number of military origin, biracial Filipino Amerasians probably lie between 200,000 and 250,000, and possibly substantially more. The paper maintained that the number of Filipino Amerasians, the progeny of U.S. servicemen, private corporate contractor and government employees stationed over the years in the Philippines, is so significant that mixed-heritage Anglo, African and Latino Amerasians qualify as a genuine human diaspora. It focused on stigmatization, discrimination, psychosocial risks, and mental disorders among a sample of African and Anglo Amerasians residing in Angeles, site of the Clark Air Force Base. The paper asserts that the Angeles-Manila-Olongapo Triangle (AMO) contains the highest concentration of biracial Anglo, African and Latino Amerasians in the world.


title: Americans in the Philippines

text: Today, the Philippines has a large population of Americans and people with American roots, including a significant Amerasian population; there are estimates of 52,000 to 250,000 Amerasians in the Philippines in 1992. These Americans have been joined by a number of Filipino Americans with U.S. citizenship who had immigrated to the United States, then returned to their country of birth. In addition, there is a population of Filipino Americans, who were born in the United States, who are immigrating to the Philippines, known as "baliktad". In 2016, the total number of US citizens living in the Philippines was estimated officially as more than 220,000, with an unofficial source having estimated 600,000 in 2013.


title: Caboose

text: A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting, keeping a lookout for load shifting, damage to equipment and cargo, and overheating axles.


title: Caboose

text: Originally flatcars fitted with cabins or modified box cars, they later became purpose-built with projections above or to the sides of the car to allow crew to observe the train from shelter. The caboose also served as the conductor's office, and on long routes included sleeping accommodations and cooking facilities.


title: Caboose

text: A similar railroad car, the brake van, was used on British and Commonwealth railways (the role has since been replaced by the crew car in Australia). On trains not fitted with continuous brakes, brake vans provided a supplementary braking system, and they helped keep chain couplings taut.


title: Caboose

text: Cabooses were used on every freight train in the United States and Canada until the 1980s, when safety laws requiring the presence of cabooses and full crews were relaxed. A major purpose of the caboose was for observing problems at the rear of the train before they caused trouble. Lineside defect detectors and end-of-train devices eliminated a lot of this need. Older freight cars had plain bearings with hotboxes for crews to spot overheating – as freight cars replaced these with roller bearings, there was also less need for cabooses to monitor them. Nowadays, they are generally only used on rail maintenance or hazardous materials trains, as a platform for crew on industrial spur lines when it is required to make long reverse movements, or on heritage and tourist railroads.


title: Caboose

text: Railroad historian David L. Joslyn (a retired Southern Pacific Railroad draftsman) has traced the possible root of "caboose" to the obsolete Low German word "Kabhuse", a small cabin erected on a sailing ship's main deck. This was absorbed into Middle Dutch and entered the Dutch language "circa" 1747 as "kabhuis", the compartment on a ship's main deck in which meals were prepared. In modern Dutch, "kombuis" is equivalent to "galley".


title: Caboose

text: Eighteenth century French naval records also make reference to a "cambose" or "camboose," which described both the food preparation cabin on a ship's main deck and its stove. Camboose may have entered English through American sailors who had come into contact with their French allies during the American Revolution. It was already in use in U.S. naval terminology by the 1797 construction of the USS "Constitution", whose wood-burning food preparation stove is known as the "camboose." In modern French, "cambuse" can refer both to a ship's storeroom and to the North-American railcar.


title: Caboose

text: Camboose as a cook shack was in use in English at least by 1805, when it was used in a New York "Chronicle" article cited in the "New English Dictionary" describing a New England shipwreck, which reported that "[Survivor] William Duncan drifted aboard the canboose ." As the first railroad cabooses were wooden shanties erected on flat cars as early as the 1830s, they would have resembled the cook shack on a ship's deck.


title: Caboose

text: The earliest known printed record of "caboose" used to describe the railcar appeared in 1859 in court records in conjunction with a lawsuit filed against the New York and Harlem Railway.


title: Caboose

text: Use of cabooses began in the 1830s, when railroads housed trainmen in shanties built onto boxcars or flatcars. The caboose provided the train crew with a shelter at the rear of the train. The crew could exit the train for switching or to protect the rear of the train when stopped. They also inspected the train for problems such as shifting loads, broken or dragging equipment, and hot boxes (overheated axle bearings, a serious fire and derailment threat). The conductor kept records and handled business from a table or desk in the caboose. For longer trips, the caboose provided minimal living quarters, and was frequently personalized and decorated with pictures and posters.


title: Caboose

text: Early cabooses were nothing more than flat cars with small cabins erected on them, or modified box cars. The standard form of the American caboose had a platform at either end with curved grab rails to facilitate train crew members' ascent onto a moving train. A caboose was fitted with red lights called markers to enable the rear of the train to be seen at night. This has led to the phrase "bringing up the markers" to describe the last car on a train. These lights were officially what made a train a "train", and were originally lit with oil lamps. With the advent of electricity, later caboose versions incorporated an electrical generator driven by belts coupled to one of the axles, which charged a lead-acid storage battery when the train was in motion. The addition of the cupola, a lookout post atop the car, was introduced in 1863.


title: Caboose

text: Coal or wood was originally used to fire a cast-iron stove for heat and cooking, later giving way to a kerosene heater. Now rare, the old stoves can be identified by several essential features. They were without legs, bolted directly to the floor, and featured a lip on the top surface to keep pans and coffee pots from sliding off. They also had a double-latching door, to prevent accidental discharge of hot coals caused by the rocking motion of the caboose.


title: Caboose

text: Cabooses are non-revenue equipment and were often improvised or retained well beyond the normal lifetime of a freight car. Tradition on many lines held that the caboose should be painted a bright red, though on many lines it eventually became the practice to paint them in the same corporate colors as locomotives. The Kansas City Southern Railway was unique in that it bought cabooses with a stainless steel car body, and so was not obliged to paint them.


title: Caboose

text: Until the 1980s, laws in the United States and Canada required all freight trains to have a caboose and a full crew, for safety. Technology eventually advanced to a point where the railroads, in an effort to save money by reducing crew members, stated that cabooses were unnecessary.


title: Caboose

text: New diesel locomotives had large cabs that could house entire crews. Distant dispatchers controlled switches, eliminating the need to manually throw switches after trains had passed. Improved signaling eliminated the need to protect the rear of a stopped train. Bearings were improved and lineside detectors were used to detect hot boxes, which themselves were becoming rarer with more and more freight cars gaining roller bearings. Better-designed cars avoided problems with the loads helped as well. The railroads also claimed a caboose was a dangerous place, as slack run-ins could hurl the crew from their places and even dislodge weighty equipment.


title: Caboose

text: Railroads proposed the end-of-train device (EOT or ETD), commonly called a FRED (flashing rear-end device), as an alternative. An ETD could be attached to the rear of the train to detect the train's air brake pressure and report any problems to the locomotive by telemetry. The ETD also detects movement of the train upon start-up and radios this information to the engineers so they know all of the slack is out of the couplings and additional power could be applied. The machines also have blinking red lights to warn following trains that a train is ahead. With the introduction of the ETD, the conductor moved up to the front of the train with the engineer.


title: Caboose

text: A 1982 Presidential Emergency Board convened under the Railway Labor Act directed United States railroads to begin eliminating caboose cars where possible to do so. A legal exception was the state of Virginia, which had a 1911 law mandating cabooses on the ends of trains, until the law's final repeal in 1988. With this exception aside, year by year, cabooses started to fade away. Very few cabooses remain in operation today, though they are still used for some local trains where it is convenient to have a brakeman at the end of the train to operate switches, on long reverse movements, and are also used on trains carrying hazardous materials.


title: Caboose

text: CSX Transportation is one of the few Class 1 railroads that still maintains a fleet of modified cabooses for regular use. Employed as "shoving platforms" at the rear of local freight trains which must perform long reverse moves or heavy switching, these are generally rebuilt bay-window cabooses with their cabin doors welded shut (leaving their crews to work from the rear platform). BNSF also maintains a fleet of former wide-vision cabooses for a similar purpose, and in 2013 began repainting some of them in heritage paint schemes of BNSF's predecessor railroads.


title: Caboose

text: The form of cabooses varied over the years, with changes made both to reflect differences in service and improvements in design. The most commonly seen types are:


title: Caboose

text: The most common caboose form in American railroad practice has a small windowed projection on the roof, called the cupola. The crew sat in elevated seats to inspect the train from this perch.


title: Caboose

text: The invention of the cupola caboose is generally attributed to T. B. Watson, a freight conductor on the Chicago and North Western Railway. In 1898, he wrote:


title: Caboose

text: The position of the cupola varied. In most eastern railroad cabooses, the cupola was in the center of the car, but most western railroads preferred to put it toward the end of the car. Some conductors preferred to have the cupola toward the front, others liked it toward the rear of the train, and some just did not care. ATSF conductors could refuse to be assigned to a train if they did not have their cabooses turned to face the way they preferred. However, this would be a rare union agreement clause that could be used, but was not a regular issue.


title: Caboose

text: The classic idea of the "little red caboose" at the end of every train came about when cabooses were painted a reddish brown; however, some railroads (UP, and NKP, for example) painted their cabooses yellow or red and white. The most notable was the Santa Fe which in the 1960s started a rebuild program for their cabooses in which the cars were painted bright red with an eight-foot-diameter Santa Fe cross herald emblazoned on each side in yellow. Some railroads, chiefly the Wabash Railway, Norfolk and Western and Illinois Central Gulf, also built or upgraded cabooses with streamlined cupolas for better aerodynamics and to project a more modern image.


title: Caboose

text: In a bay window caboose, the crew monitoring the train sits in the middle of the car in a section of wall that projects from the side of the caboose. The windows set into these extended walls resemble architectural bay windows, so the caboose type is called a bay window caboose. This type afforded a better view of the side of the train and eliminated the falling hazard of the cupola. It is thought to have first been used on the Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad in 1923, but is particularly associated with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which built all of its cabooses in this design starting from an experimental model in 1930. The bay window gained favor with many railroads because it eliminated the need for additional clearances in tunnels and overpasses.


title: Caboose

text: On the West Coast, the Milwaukee Road and the Northern Pacific Railway used these cars, converting over 900 roof top cabooses to bay windows in the late 1930s. Milwaukee Road rib-side bay window cabooses are preserved at New Lisbon, Wisconsin, the Illinois Railway Museum, the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and Cedarburg, Wisconsin, among other places.


title: Caboose

text: The Western Pacific Railroad was an early adopter of the type, building their own bay window cars starting in 1942 and acquiring this style exclusively from then on. Many other roads operated this type, including the Southern Pacific Railroad, St. Louis – San Francisco Railway, Katy Railroad, Kansas City Southern Railway, the Southern Railway, and the New York Central Railroad.


title: Caboose

text: In the UK, brake vans are usually of this basic design: the bay window is known as a lookout or ducket.


title: Caboose

text: In the extended-vision or wide-vision caboose, the sides of the cupola project beyond the side of the car body. Rock Island created some of these by rebuilding some standard cupola cabooses with windowed extensions applied to the sides of the cupola itself, but by far, the greatest number have the entire cupola compartment enlarged. This model was introduced by the International Car Company and saw service on most U.S. railroads. The expanded cupola allowed the crew to see past the top of the taller cars that began to appear after World War II, and also increased the roominess of the cupola area.


title: Caboose

text: Additionally, Monon Railroad had a unique change to the extended-vision cabooses. They added a miniature bay to the sides of the cupola to enhance the views further. This created a unique look for their small fleet. Seven of the eight Monon-built cabooses have been saved. One was scrapped after an accident in Kentucky. The surviving cars are at the Indiana Transportation Museum (operational), the Indiana Railway Museum (operational), the Kentucky Railway Museum (fire damaged), and the Bluegrass Railroad Museum (unrestored but serviceable). The remaining three are in private collections.


title: Caboose

text: A transfer caboose looks more like a flat car with a shed bolted to the middle of it than it does a standard caboose. It is used in transfer service between rail yards or short switching runs, and as such, lacks sleeping, cooking or restroom facilities. The ends of a transfer caboose are left open, with safety railings surrounding the area between the crew compartment and the end of the car.


title: Caboose

text: A recent variation on the transfer caboose is the "pushing" or "shoving" platform. It can be any railcar where a brakeman can safely ride for some distance to help the engineer with visibility at the other end of the train. Flatcars and covered hoppers have been used for this purpose, but often the pushing platform is a caboose that has had its windows covered and welded shut and permanently locked doors. CSX uses former Louisville & Nashville short bay window cabooses and former Conrail waycars as pushing platforms.


title: Caboose

text: Transfer cabooses are not to be confused with Missouri Pacific Railroad (MoPac) cabooses, as their cabooses were fully functional.


title: Caboose

text: Drover's cabooses looked more like combine cars than standard cabooses. The purpose of a drover's caboose was much more like a combine, as well. On longer livestock trains in the American West, the drover's caboose is where the livestock's handlers would ride between the ranch and processing plant. The train crew rode in the caboose section while the livestock handlers rode in the coach section. Drover's cabooses used either cupolas or bay windows in the caboose section for the train crew to monitor the train. The use of drover's cars on the Northern Pacific Railway, for example, lasted until the Burlington Northern Railroad merger of 1970. They were often found on stock trains originating in Montana.


title: Caboose

text: Although the caboose has largely fallen out of use, some are still retained by railroads in a reserve capacity. These cabooses are typically used in and around railyards. Other uses for the caboose include "special" trains, where the train is involved in some sort of railway maintenance; as part of survey trains that inspect remote rail lines after natural disasters to check for damage; or in protecting the movement of nuclear material within the United States. Others have been modified for use in research roles to investigate complaints from residents or business owners regarding trains in certain locations. Finally, some are coupled to trains for special events, including historical tours.


title: Caboose

text: The Chihuahua al Pacífico Railroad in Mexico still uses cabooses to accompany their motorail trains between Chihuahua and Los Mochis.


title: Caboose

text: Cabooses have also become popular for collection by railroad museums and for city parks and other civic uses, such as visitor centers. Several railroad museums roster large numbers of cabooses, including the Illinois Railway Museum with 19 examples and the Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California, with 17. Many shortline railroads still use cabooses today. Large railroads also use cabooses as "shoving platforms" or in switching service where it is convenient to have crew at the rear of the train.


title: Caboose

text: Cabooses have been reused as vacation cottages, garden offices in private residences, and as portions of restaurants. Also, caboose motels have appeared, with the old cars being used as cabins.


title: Caboose

text: A bay window caboose numbered FCD-17 is still being used by the Philippine National Railways for non-revenue maintenance trains. Particularly, it was built in Japan in 1962 and is used as an inspection car by the Philippine National Police.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: The Northrop YB-35, Northrop designation N-9 or NS-9, were experimental heavy bomber aircraft developed by the Northrop Corporation for the United States Army Air Forces during and shortly after World War II. The airplane used the radical and potentially very efficient flying wing design, in which the tail section and fuselage are eliminated and all payload is carried in a thick wing. Only prototypes and pre-production aircraft were built, although interest remained strong enough to warrant further development of the design as a jet bomber, under the designation YB-49.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: The B-35 was the brainchild of Jack Northrop, who made the flying wing the focus of his work during the 1930s. In 1941 before the USA entered World War II, Northrop and Consolidated Vultee Corporation had been commissioned to develop a large wing-only, long-range bomber designated XB-35 and XB-36. Northrop advocated a "flying wing" as a means of reducing parasitic drag and eliminating structural weight not directly responsible for producing lift. Consolidated Vultee proposed a more conventional design with fuselage and tail, which was much larger and heavier. In theory, the B-35 could carry a greater payload faster, farther, and cheaper than a conventional bomber. In December 1941, the Army Air Forces awarded prototype contracts to both Northrop and Consolidated Vultee for a bomber that could carry of bombs to a round-trip mission of . Requested performance was a maximum speed of , cruise speed of , and service ceiling of . This aircraft would be able to bomb Nazi-occupied Europe in the event that Britain fell (this was similar to Nazi Germany's own "Amerikabomber" program design competition through the RLM, itself initiated in the spring of 1942). The original April 1941 USAAC proposal was first submitted to Boeing and Consolidated Aircraft Company and led to the production of the Convair B-36. In May, one month before the USAAF was created, the contract was also extended to include Northrop, inviting it to submit a design along the lines it was already exploring.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Since the new aircraft would require a significant amount of engineering work in untested waters, the first order placed was actually for two prototypes of the XB-35, and included Northrop's plan to also build two all-wood one-third scale flying models to measure performance and stability; these were dubbed the Northrop N-9M (M standing for model). This aircraft would be used to gather flight test data on the Flying Wing design. Jack Northrop also hired part-time the leading aeronautical designer of the day Theodore von Kármán, to evaluate and who approved of Northrop's initial design, and to start building the tooling for building the prototypes ... as explained in detail in the book "Goodbye Beautiful Wing" by Terrence O'Neill. The N9Ms would also be used as a flight trainer, to familiarize pilots with the radical, all-wing concept. Early in 1942, design work on the XB-35 itself began in earnest. Unlike conventional aircraft, truly "tailless" flying wings cannot use a rudder for lateral control as it was absent, so a set of clamshell-like, double split flaps (so-called flaperon, a portmanteau of flap and aileron) on the trailing edge of the wingtips were used. When aileron control was input, they were deflected up or down as a single unit, just like an aileron. When rudder input was made, the two surfaces on one side opened, top and bottom, creating drag, and yawing the aircraft. By applying input to both rudder pedals, both sets of surfaces were deployed creating drag so that the airspeed or the glide angle could be manipulated.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: On 22 November 1941, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF, or AAF) signed the development contract for an XB-35; the contract included an option for a second aircraft, which was exercised on 2 January 1942. The first was to be delivered in November 1943, the second in April of the next year.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Detailed engineering began in early 1942. A fuselage-like crew cabin was to be embedded inside the wing; it included a tail cone protruding from the trailing edge. This tail cone would contain the remote sighting stations for the bomber's gunners and a cluster of rear-firing machine guns in the production aircraft. In the midsection of the cabin, there were folding bunks for off-duty crew on long missions. The aircraft's bomb load was to be carried in six smaller bomb bays, three in each wing section, fitted with roll-away doors; this original design precluded the carrying of large bombs, and the early atomic bombs, without bomb bay redesign and modifications. Production aircraft would have defensive armament of twenty machine guns or 20 mm cannon, carried in six turrets, two turrets along the aircraft's center line, four above and below the outer wings, and four in the "stinger" tail cone. The B-35 would take advantage of a new aluminum alloy devised by Alcoa; it was considerably stronger than any alloy used previously.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: In June 1946, the XB-35 made its first flight, a 45-minute trip from Hawthorne, California, to Muroc Dry Lake, without incident. The XB-35's engines and propellers were AAF property, and had not been tested for engine-propeller compatibility by either Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton Standard, or by the AAF which bought them at Wright Field without testing them or assuring reliability, and then shipped them to Northrop. Microfilmed records of reports and correspondence of the XB-35 program relate that after three or four flights, power plant and propeller vibrations increased, and the very efficient contra-rotating propellers began failing with frustrating frequency. Meetings were called by Northrop, of the AAF, Pratt & Whitney and Hamilton Standard where no one would take responsibility for correcting the AAF's engines and propellers. In addition, the AAF failed to supply the AC electrical alternator, insisting on Northrop using an onboard auxiliary power unit (APU) unit driven by an automotive engine which limited the high-altitude, high-speed XB-35 to test flights below . The AAF also refused to allow Northrop proposed modification of the bomb bays to carry the standard Mk. 3 atomic bomb, while at the same time declaring the AF would not buy the bomber unless it could carry the A-bomb. Northrop reluctantly agreed to try a single-rotation propeller, which slightly increased takeoff distance and a reduced rate-of-climb and maximum speed.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Problems with the quartet of contra-rotating propellers' shafts comprising each aircraft's drive-line system continued until finally Jack Northrop himself grounded the XB-35s until the government fixed their propulsion system. Concurrently, the AAF ordered Northrop to convert two of the YB-35 airframes to YB-49s, essentially substituting eight jet engines for four reciprocating engines. As a result, the airframe promptly flew to more than and topped in flight tests, verifying the XB-35 air frame's aerodynamics, but at the price of range. The prop-version had a design range capable of reaching targets away, but the jet-engine version's range was cut nearly in half. The new version disqualified it for the Air Force's top-priority mission as a strategic bomber, which at that time meant striking at the USSR's industrial and military complexes in the Ural Mountains. The Air Force, itself involved in a confusion of rank and job changes, eventually cancelled the XB-35 project, while continuing testing the B-35 airframe as the YB-49, even ordering 30 of the jet-powered bombers after the first YB-49 crashed. The first and second XB-35s were scrapped on 23 and 19 August 1949, respectively.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: On 30 September 1943, 13 pre-production YB-35s were ordered by the Army Air Force. The first one did not fly until 15 May 1948. While some Air Force generals felt the piston engines made the B-35 obsolete, it remained superior in overall performance and range to its competitor, the Convair B-36, and General Hoyt Vandenberg wrote that only the B-35 and the B-36 had adequate range for the Air Force's primary mission, and nothing comparable would be available until the mid-1950s. Only the first YB-35 was ever flown. Multiple flight testing demonstrated that it was airworthy; it was then parked and ignored for more than a year until being scrapped on 20 July 1949. The unfinished YB-35 #2, was scrapped almost a month later, on 19 August 1949. The other 11 of 13 YB-35 aircraft ordered underwent conversion to other power plants.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Two of those airframes were converted to use eight Allison J35 jet engines, and designated YB-49. The second YB-35 converted to a YB-49 all-jet airframe crashed after Air Force test pilot Forbes pulled the outer wing panels off during stall tests at . The first YB-35 airframe jet-modified to a YB-49 completed all stall tests and even demonstrated recovery from a spin. It was later destroyed after the Flying Wing's forward landing gear strut and wheel collapsed after encountering high vibration during a highly unusual taxi test procedure made with the engine's fuel tanks full, causing a fire that spread rapidly. Seven incomplete airframes began conversion to jet power as YB-49B but were never finished.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: A third YB-35 airframe was converted to use six jet engines (two placed in under wing pods) for use as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, designated YRB-49A. After only a few months, the Air Force's order for 30 YRB-49As was suddenly cancelled without explanation. The sole YRB-49A built flew 13 test flights and then was returned to Northrop's Ontario Airport. The last of Northrop's big Flying Wings sat abandoned at the airport's edge for two years and was finally ordered scrapped on 1 December 1953.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: In order to test the advanced Northrop T37 Turbodyne turboprop engine, produced by a Northrop subsidiary, the final YB-35A was to be converted to a single EB-35B test aircraft (in this case the prefix "E" for the designation meant "Exempt," not the later Electronic). The test aircraft would use two of the powerful T37 engines, each driving a pair of contra-rotating, paddle-blade propellers; the first planned ground tests were to be made using a single T37 engine. When the EB-35B project was canceled, the Air Force had Northrop's Turbodyne engine name, all its patents, and technical data reassigned to General Electric.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: The XB2T-1 was a U.S. Navy designation for one YB-35 airframe to be used for development trials; the project was canceled while still in the planning stage.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: The U.S. Army Air Forces had originally ordered 200 production model B-35s. Since Northrop's facilities were not up to the task of producing them, the Glenn L. Martin Company agreed to undertake mass production. This proved irrelevant when the aircraft had too many development problems. Even disregarding these, so many of Martin's engineers had been drafted by 1944 that Martin pushed the first delivery date back to 1947. Seeing that it would almost certainly never be ready in time for the war, the Army Air Forces canceled the production contract, though the Air Technical Services Command continued to run the program for research purposes.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Actual flight tests of the aircraft revealed several problems: the contra-rotating props caused constant heavy drive-shaft vibration and the government-supplied gearboxes had frequent malfunctions and reduced the effectiveness of propeller control. After only 19 flights, Northrop grounded the first XB-35; the second aircraft was grounded after eight test flights. During this time, the contra-rotating propellers were removed and replaced with four-blade single-rotation propellers. In addition to having continued drive shaft vibration problems, the new single-rotation props greatly reduced the aircraft's speed and performance. Furthermore, the intricate exhaust system turned into a fiasco to maintain. After only two years of use, the engines already showed signs of metal fatigue.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: In the end, the program was terminated due to its technical difficulties and the obsolescence of its reciprocating propeller engines, and the fact it was far behind schedule and over budget. Another contributing factor to the program's failure was the tendency of Northrop to become engaged in many experimental programs, which spread its small engineering staff far too wide. While the competing propeller-driven B-36 was obsolete by that time and had just as many or even more development problems, the Air Force needed a very long-range, post-war atomic bomber to counter the perceived Soviet threat. It had more faith that the B-36's "teething" problems could be overcome, compared to those of the new and radical "Flying Wing", the unofficial name that was later associated with all the Northrop "all-wing" designs.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: There are long-standing conspiracy theories about the cancellation of the Flying Wing program; specifically, an accusation from Jack Northrop that Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington attempted to coerce him to merge his company with the Atlas Corporation-controlled Convair. In a 1979 taped interview, Jack Northrop claimed the Flying Wing contract was cancelled because he would not agree to a merger because Convair's merger demands were "grossly unfair to Northrop." When Northrop refused, Symington supposedly arranged to cancel the B-35 and B-49 program. Symington became president of Convair after he left government service a short time later.


title: Northrop YB-35

text: Other observers note that the B-35 and B-49 designs had well-documented performance and design issues while the Convair B-36 needed more development money. At that time, it appeared the B-36 program might be cancelled as well as the B-35. The USAF and the Texas Congressional delegation desired to have a production program for the large Fort Worth aircraft production factory, and Convair had much more effective lobbyists in Washington DC. The Northrop Corporation was always a technological trailblazer but the independent nature of Jack Northrop often collided with the political wheeling-and-dealing in Washington that tended to run huge military allocations. Consequently, the B-36 prevailed, with just over 380 aircraft built. Furthermore, earlier the same year, when the YB-49 jet bomber was cancelled, Northrop received a smaller production contract for its F-89 Scorpion fighter as compensation for the lost Flying Wing contract.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: The Man Who Never Was is a 1956 British espionage thriller film produced by André Hakim and directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Clifton Webb and Gloria Grahame and features Robert Flemyng, Josephine Griffin and Stephen Boyd. It is based on the book of the same name by Lt. Cmdr. Ewen Montagu and chronicles Operation Mincemeat, a 1943 British intelligence plan to deceive the Axis powers into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily would take place elsewhere in the Mediterranean.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: "The Man Who Never Was" was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, and Nigel Balchin's screenplay won the BAFTA for that year.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: In 1943, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu (Clifton Webb) devises a scheme to deceive the Nazis about the impending invasion of Southern Europe. It entails releasing a corpse with a fictional identity off the coast of Spain, where strong currents will carry it ashore near where a known German agent operates. The non-existent Royal Marine courier, Major William Martin, would appear to be a plane crash victim carrying documents about an upcoming Allied invasion of German-occupied Greece, rather than Sicily, the more obvious target. Overcoming the reluctance of high officers, Montagu receives Winston Churchill's approval to execute his plan, known as Operation Mincemeat.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: Following a medical expert's advice, Montagu obtains the permission of the deceased's father and procures the body of a man who died of pneumonia, which would give the appearance he had drowned. The corpse is placed in a canister packed with dry ice and transferred to a waiting submarine. The body is released off the Atlantic coast of Spain and washes ashore as intended. Local authorities, observed by German and British consulate staff, identify the body and conduct an autopsy. After the attaché case containing the deceptive documents is returned to London, a forensics expert confirms that the key letter, which describes an Allied invasion of Greece, was cleverly opened, photographed, and resealed.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: Hitler is convinced the documents are genuine, though Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the "Abwehr", is sceptical. The Germans dispatch to London an Irish spy, Patrick O'Reilly (Stephen Boyd), to investigate. O'Reilly investigates Martin's American "fiancée", Lucy Sherwood (Gloria Grahame), who is the roommate of Montagu's assistant, Pam (Josephine Griffin). O'Reilly arrives at their flat, posing as Martin's old friend, on the same day Lucy has received news that her real boyfriend was killed in action. Her genuine grief mostly convinces O'Reilly. As a final test, he gives Lucy his north London address, telling her to contact him if she needs anything. He then radios his German contacts that if he does not send another message in an hour, he has been arrested. As Montagu, General Coburn (Michael Hordern) of Scotland Yard's Special Branch and police officers are en route to O'Reilly's flat, Montagu realizes why O'Reilly left his address with Lucy and convinces a reluctant Coburn to let O'Reilly go. After no one arrests him, O'Reilly sends a "Martin genuine!" radio message. The Germans then transfer most of their Sicily-based forces to Greece, which helps the Allied invasion of Sicily succeed.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: After the war, Montagu receives several decorations and awards for his wartime service, including the Order of the British Empire (OBE). He visits Spain and leaves his OBE medal at the grave of Major Martin, "the man who never was".


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: Operation Mincemeat involved the acquisition and dressing up of a human cadaver as a "Major William Martin, R.M." and putting it into the sea near Huelva, Spain. Attached to the dead body was a briefcase containing fake letters falsely stating that the Allied attack would be against Sardinia and Greece rather than Sicily, the actual point of invasion. When the body was found, the Spanish Intelligence Service passed copies of the papers to the German Intelligence Service which passed them on to their High Command. The ruse was so successful that the Germans still believed that Sardinia and Greece were the intended objectives weeks after the landings in Sicily had begun.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: The exact identity of the "man who never was" has been the centre of controversy since the end of the war. On the one hand, certain accounts claim the true identity of "Major William Martin" was a homeless, alcoholic rat-catcher from Aberbargoed, Wales, Glyndwr Michael, who had died by self-administering a small dose of rat poison. However, in 2002, authors John and Noreen Steele published the non-fictional account of "The Secrets of HMS Dasher", about an ill-fated escort carrier that exploded and sank in the Firth of Clyde around the time Operation Mincemeat had commenced. The Steeles argued that "Major Martin's" body was actually that of seaman John Melville, one of the "Dasher's" casualties. Further, it has been reported that the accuracy of this claim was verified by the Royal Navy in late October 2004, and a memorial service was held for Melville, in which he was celebrated as one whose "memory lives on in the film "The Man Who Never Was" ... we are gathered here today to remember John Melville as a man who most certainly was." There is some circumstantial evidence that also supports the identity of the body used as being Meville's. But in fact, Professor Denis Smyth, a researcher at the University of Toronto, has counter-argued that Glyndwr Michael was indeed the real "Major Martin". To support his claims, Smyth published the contents of a secret memo and an official report, both authored by Ewen Montagu himself, confirming the Glyndwr Michael story.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: Regardless of the identity of Major Martin, Nigel Balchin's script stayed as close to the truth as was convenient, yet the film does fall back on some dramatization. For example, the episode of the Irish spy, O'Reilly, is a complete fabrication. The British Security Service controlled the German spy network in the UK with its Double-Cross System, though this fact was still secret at the time the film was made. Ewen Montagu declared that he was happy with the fictitious incidents which, although they did not happen, might have happened.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: During filming, Montagu has a cameo role, that of a Royal Air Force air vice-marshal who has doubts about the feasibility of the proposed plan. It was described by Ben Macintyre as a "surreal" moment when the real Montagu addressed his fictional persona, played by Webb.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: The "Radio Times" wrote, "the picture may appear overly reverent by today's standards. But this is still a crucial wartime spy tale that is well worth watching."


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: The BBC's radio comedy show, "The Goon Show", made a send-up of the story of "The Man Who Never Was" (based on the book) and incorporated most of the regular "Goon Show" characters. Written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens, the first version of the script formed two-thirds of the episode broadcast on 31 March 1953, before the film's release, with the first third comprising a separate sketch. Like most of these early episodes, this no longer exists.


title: The Man Who Never Was

text: Milligan and Stephens later wrote a full-length version which was broadcast on 20 March 1956. Milligan later revised this script for the episode broadcast on 17 February 1958. Both of the later versions have been issued on CD sets. Coincidentally, Peter Sellers (one of the Goons) provided the voice of Winston Churchill in the film, although the character did not appear in the "Goon Show" adaptation.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: "Low" is the debut single by American rapper and singer Flo Rida featuring fellow American rapper and singer T-Pain, from the former's debut studio album "Mail on Sunday" and also featured on the . An official remix was made which also features Pitbull. The song peaked at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The song was a massive success worldwide and was the longest-running number-one single of 2008 in the United States, spending ten consecutive weeks atop the "Billboard" Hot 100. With over seven million digital downloads, it has been certified Diamond by the RIAA, and was the most downloaded single of the 2000s decade, measured by paid digital downloads. The song was named third on the "Billboard" Hot 100 Songs of the Decade.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: Several of T-Pain's stylistic effects are present in this song, including Auto-Tune and call and answer during the chorus. It contains electronic elements featuring 808-style drums and an arpeggiated note sequence instead of a chord progression. Flo Rida has sexually charged (but not explicit) lyrics, for example he refers to a woman's buttocks as "birthday cakes" which "stole the show". T-Pain also relies heavily on synthesizers. The song is written in the key of E♭ minor. A harmonic minor melody is played over the E♭ minor, and at different times different instrumentation cycles, i.e., sometimes only the synthesizer plays, sometimes only the bass, sometimes only the vocals. Flo Rida uses a style that is common in 1990s hip-hop party music. "Low" is written in common time with a moderate tempo of 128 beats per minute while T-Pain's vocal range spans nearly two octaves from B♭ to F.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The music video of "Low" was directed by Bernard Gourley and contains certain clips from "". It also contains cameos from Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Cool & Dre, Briana Evigan, Torch and Gunplay of Triple C's and Jermaine Dupri. Also, T-Pain and Flo Rida are in a nightclub in a few scenes. The music video reached the number one spot on "106 & Park" for five days and 22 days on "TRL". The music video was also nominated at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Male Video and Best Hip-Hop Video, but lost to Chris Brown's "With You" (Best Male Video) and Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" (Best Hip-Hop Video) music videos.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The song debuted at number 91 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 for the week of November 6, 2007, and reached number one for the week of December 30, 2007. The song generated the second greatest one-week digital sales in the history of "Billboard"s Digital Songs chart (behind Flo Rida's "Right Round"), with 467,000 digital copies in one week. "Low" was number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for ten weeks and remained in the top ten of the chart for 23 weeks, making it both T-Pain and Flo Rida's most successful single to date. The song stayed on the Hot 100 for 39 weeks, before dropping out in June 2008.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: As the first number one on the Hot 100 of 2008, "Low" held the top position longer than any song did in 2008 (see List of "Billboard" Hot 100 number-one singles of 2008), and was the longest-running Hot 100 number one single since Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable." The song is also the longest-running number one single in the history of the "Billboard" Digital Songs chart, topping the chart for 13 weeks, and also on the now-defunct Pop 100 chart, where it ruled for 12 weeks. For the week of June 29, 2008, it became the first song ever to sell four million digital copies in the US, and then for the week of June 21, 2009, the first to sell over five million copies. It was best-selling digitally-downloaded song of all time until it was surpassed by The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" in May 2010. The song sold over six million in digital sales by August 7, 2011, and reached its seven millionth sales mark in sales in June 2014.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The physical release of the single occurred in the UK for the week of March 24, 2008. For the week of July 20, 2008, the song moved up to number 19 on the UK Singles Chart, several months after its official release. Although it failed to reach number one in the UK, it amassed 53 weeks inside the UK top 75 (making it the joint 20th longest-runner of all-time), and 75 weeks inside the top 100. As of January 2012, the song has sold 613,434 copies in the UK.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The song was ranked at number 26 on "Billboard"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s All Time Hot 100. The song was also ranked the number-one song for 2008 in "Billboard"s ranking of the "Billboard" Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2008. For the week of December 28, 2008, it was listed at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart year-end countdown and was named the highest-selling single in Australia in 2008.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: The song was performed live with the band Simple Plan at the 2008 MuchMusic Video Awards. Albuquerque, New Mexico based crunkcore group Brokencyde released a cover of this song on "THA $C3N3 MiXTaPe" in 2008. Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker added a drum version cover of the song. On October 23, 2012, the cast of "The Big Bang Theory" made a flash mob during the live taping of an episode, which featured the song as well as others. The song was featured in "Suburgatory". The song was also featured in "Tropic Thunder" and "Zookeeper".


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: In 2019, the viral video "Jessica" or "Jessica, did you sleep with your teacher?" used the song in the background that "Jessica" sung along with until her "Mom" confronted her about sleeping with her teacher. A year later, in 2020, the American grocery chain Kroger and their subsidiary stores began to use the song's chorus for a series of animated ads, appropriately highlighting coupons and low prices. At the start of 2021, the ads became a minor Internet meme with user-generated YouTube and TikTok remixes. Also, a parody of the song highlighting price drop was used in the 2021 Lazada 11.11 TV commercial featuring K-Pop boy group Seventeen in the ASEAN region, where it was sung in Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, and English.


title: Low (Flo Rida song)

text: Another way the song is used in meme culture is in "fake covers," where the song is remixed and sung in the style of a different artist, under the title of "Apple Bottom Jeans".


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The PRC officially recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within China in addition to the Han majority. As of 2010, the combined population of officially-recognized minority groups comprised 8.49% of the population of mainland China. In addition to these officially-recognized ethnic minority groups, there are Chinese nationals who privately classify themselves as members of unrecognized ethnic groups, such as the very small Chinese Jewish, Tuvan, and Ili Turk communities, as well as the much larger Oirat and Japanese communities.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: In Chinese, 'ethnic minority' has translated to (), wherein () means 'nationality' or 'nation' (as in ethnic group)—in line with the Soviet concept of ethnicity—and () means 'minority'. Since the anthropological concept of "ethnicity" does not precisely match the Chinese or Soviet concepts (which are defined and regulated by the state), some scholars use the neologism "zúqún" (, 'ethnic group') to unambiguously refer to ethnicity. Including "shaoshu mínzu", Sun Yat-sen used the term "zhōnghuá mínzú" (, 'Chinese nation' or 'Chinese nationality') to reflect his belief that all of China's ethnic groups were parts of a single Chinese nation.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The ethnic minority groups officially recognized by the PRC include those residing within mainland China as well as Taiwanese aborigines. However, the PRC does not accept the term or its variations, since it might suggest that Han people are not indigenous to Taiwan, or that Taiwan is not a core territory of China. Also, where the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taiwan, as of 2020, officially recognises 16 Taiwanese aboriginal tribes, the PRC classifies them all under a single ethnic group, the "Gāoshān" (, 'high mountain') minority, out of reluctance to recognize ethnic classifications derived from the work of Japanese anthropologists during the Japanese colonial era. (This is despite the fact that not all Taiwanese aborigines have traditional territories in the mountains; for example, the Tao People traditionally inhabit the island of Lanyu.) The regional governments of Hong Kong and Macau do not use this ethnic classification system, so figures by the PRC government exclude these two territories.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Throughout much of recorded Chinese history, there was little attempt by Chinese authors to separate the concepts of nationality, culture, and ethnicity. Those outside of the reach of imperial control and dominant patterns of Chinese culture were thought of as separate groups of people regardless of whether they would today be considered as a separate ethnicity. The self-conceptualization of Han largely revolved around this center-periphery cultural divide. Thus, the process of Sinicization throughout history had as much to do with the spreading of imperial rule and culture as it did with actual ethnic migration.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: This understanding persisted (with some change in the Qing under the import of Western ideas) up until the Communists took power in 1949. Their understanding of minorities had been heavily influenced by the Soviet models of Joseph Stalin—as has been the case for the neighbouring Communist regimes of Vietnam and Laos—and the Soviet definition of minorities did not map cleanly onto this Chinese historical understanding. Soviet thinking about minorities was that a nation was made up of those with a common language, historical culture, and territory. Each nation of these people then had the theoretical right to secede from a proposed federated government. This differed from the previous way of thinking mainly in that instead of defining all those under imperial rule as Chinese, the nation (as defined as a space upon which power is projected) and ethnicity (the identity of the governed) were now separate; being under central rule no longer automatically meant being defined as Chinese. The Soviet model as applied to China gave rise to the autonomous regions in China; these areas were thought to be their own nations that had theoretical autonomy from the central government.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: During World War II, the American Asiatic Association published an entry in the 40th volume of their academic journal, "Asia", concerning the problem of whether Chinese Muslims were Chinese or a separate 'ethnic minority', and the factors which led to either classification. It tackled the question of why Muslims who were Chinese were considered a different race from other Chinese, and the separate question of whether all Muslims in China were united into one race. The first problem was posed with a comparison to Chinese Buddhists, who were not considered a separate race. It concluded that the reason Chinese Muslims were considered separate was because of different factors like religion, culture, military feudalism, and that considering them a "racial minority" was wrong. It also came to the conclusion that the Japanese military spokesman was the only person who was propagating the false assertion that Chinese Muslims had "racial unity", which was disproved by the fact that Muslims in China were composed of multitudes of different races, separate from each other as were the "Germans and English", such as the Mongol Hui of Hezhou, Salar Hui of Qinghai, and Chan Tou Hui of Turkistan. The Japanese were trying to spread the lie that Chinese Muslims were one race, in order to propagate the claim that they should be separated from China into an "independent political organization."


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Early documents of the People's Republic of China (PRC), such as the 1982 constitution, followed the Soviet practice of identifying 'nationalities' in the sense of ethnic groups (the concept is not to be confused with state citizenship). The Chinese term (), borrowed from Japanese during the Republican period, translates this Soviet concept. The English translation (common in official documents) of 'nationality' again follows Soviet practice; in order to avoid confusion, however, alternative phraseology such as 'ethnicity' or 'ethnic group' is often used. Since the anthropological concept of "ethnicity" does not precisely match the Chinese or Soviet concepts (which, after all, are defined and regulated by the state), some scholars use the neologism "zuqun" (, 'ethnic group') to unambiguously refer to ethnicity.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: After 1949, a team of social scientists was assembled to enumerate the various "mínzú". An immediate difficulty was that identities "on the ground" did not necessarily follow logically from things like shared languages or cultures; two neighboring regions might seem to share a common culture, and yet insist on their distinct identities. Since this would lead to absurd results—every village could hardly send a representative to the National People's Congress—the social scientists attempted to construct coherent groupings of minorities using language as the main criterion for differentiation. Thus some villages with very different cultural practices and histories were lumped together under the same ethnonym. For example, the "Zhuang" ethnic group largely served as a catch-all for various hill villages in Guangxi province.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The actual census taking of who was and was not a minority further eroded the neat differentiating lines the social scientists had drawn up. Individual ethnic status was often awarded based on family tree histories. If one had a father (or mother, for ethnic groups that were considered matrilineal) that had a surname considered to belong to a particular ethnic group, then one was awarded the coveted minority status. This had the result that villages that had previously thought of themselves as homogenous and essentially Han were now divided between those with ethnic identity and those without.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The team of social scientists that assembled the list of all the ethnic groups also described what they considered to be the key differentiating attributes between each group, including culture, custom, and language. The center then used this list of attributes to select representatives of each group to perform on television and radio in an attempt to reinforce the government's narrative of China as a multi-ethnic state and to prevent the culture of the minority ethnic groups from assimilating by the Han and the rest of the world. However, with the development of modern technology, these attempts brought little effect. In fact, many of those labeled as specific minorities bore no relationship to the music, clothing, and other practices presented with images and representations of "their people" in the media.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Under this process, 39 ethnic groups were recognized by the first national census in 1954. This further increased to 54 by the second national census in 1964, with the Lhoba group added in 1965. The last change was the addition of the Jino people in 1979, bringing the number of recognized ethnic groups to the current 56.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: However, as China opened up and reformed post-1979, many Han acquired enough money to begin to travel. One of the favorite travel experiences of the wealthy was visits to minority areas, to see the exotic rituals of the minority peoples. Responding to this interest, many minority entrepreneurs, despite themselves perhaps never having grown up practicing the dances, rituals, or songs themselves, began to cater to these tourists by performing acts similar to what the older generation or the local residents told. In this way, the groups of people named Zhuang or other named minorities have begun to have more in common with their fellow co-ethnics, as they have adopted similar self-conceptions in response to the economic demand of consumers for their performances.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The categorization of 55 minority groups was a major step forward from denial of the existence of different ethnic groups in China which had been the policy of Sun Yet-Sen's Nationalist government that came to power in 1911, which also engaged in the common use of derogatory names to refer to minorities (a practice officially abolished in 1951). However, the Communist Party's categorization was also rampantly criticized since it reduced the number of recognized ethnic groups by eightfold, and today the "wei shibie menzu" (literally 'undistinguished ethnic groups') total more than 730,000 people. These groups include Geija, Khmu, Kucong, Mang, Deng, Sherpas, Bajia and Youtai (Jewish).


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was a shift in official conceptions of minorities in China: rather than defining them as 'nationalities', they became 'ethnic groups'. The difference between 'nationality' and 'ethnicity', as Uradyn Erden-Bulag describes it, is that the former treats the minorities of China as societies with "a fully functional division of labor," history, and territory, whereas the latter treats minorities as a "category" and focuses on their maintenance of boundaries and their self-definition in relation to the majority group. These changes are reflected in uses of the term () and its translations. The official journal "Minzu Tuanjie" changed its English name from "Nationality Unity" to "Ethnic Unity" in 1995. Similarly, the Central University for Nationalities changed its name to Minzu University of China. Scholars began to prefer the term "zuqun" (, 'ethnic group') over "minzu". The Chinese model for identifying and categorizing ethnic minorities established at the founding of the PRC followed the Soviet model, drawing inspiration from Joseph Stalin's 1953 'four commons' criteria to identify ethnic groups: "(1) a distinct language; (2) a recognized indigenous homeland or common territory; (3) a common economic life; and (4) a strong sense of identity and distinctive customs, including dress, religion and foods."


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Following the breakup of the Soviet Union intellectuals and policymakers within China began to argue that the designation of minority groups could be a threat to the country. Violence in Xinjiang and Tibet provided evidence for this argument. Beijing University professor Ma Rong argued that the Chinese Communist Party had unwittingly created a “dual structure” of governance in which the representation and identity given to recognized ethnic groups would increase ethnocultural differences and create social conflict. He recommended new policies of ethnic fusion and assimilation. These proposals made by Ma and others were controversial at the time but they would find a place at the heart of the policy of the Xi Jinping administration. Xi has shifted state policy towards assimilation in what he calls the “grand minzu fusion” or “the coalescing of blood and minds.” The CCP under Xi has reacted to violence committed by a number of Uyghurs by the imprisonment of this group in the Xinjiang internment camps.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: In 2020 a Han Chinese was named director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission for the first time since 1954.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: China is officially composed of 56 ethnic groups (55 minorities plus the dominant Han). However, some of the ethnic groups as classified by the PRC government contain, within themselves, diverse groups of people. Various groups of the Miao minority, for example, speak different dialects of the Hmong–Mien languages, Tai–Kadai languages, and Chinese, and practice a variety of different cultural customs. Whereas in many nations a citizen's minority status is defined by their self-identification as an ethnic minority, in China minority nationality ("xiaoshu minzu") is fixed at birth, a practice that can be traced to the foundation of the PRC, when the Communist Party commissioned studies to categorize and delineate groups based on research teams' investigation of minorities' social history, economic life, language and religion in China's different regions.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The degree of variation between ethnic groups is not consistent. Many ethnic groups are described as having unique characteristics from other minority groups and from the dominant Han, but there are also some that are very similar to the Han majority group. Most Hui Chinese are indistinguishable from Han Chinese except for the fact that they practice Islam, and most Manchu are considered to be largely assimilated into dominant Han society.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: China's official 55 minorities are located primarily in the south, west, and north of China. Only Tibet Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have a majority population of official minorities, while all other provinces, municipalities and regions of China have a Han majority. In Beijing itself, the Han ethnic composition makes up nearly 96% of the total population, while the ethnic minority total is 4.31%, or a population of 584,692 (as of 2008).


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Much of the dialog within China regarding minorities has generally portrayed minorities as being further behind the Han in progress toward modernization and modernity. Minority groups are often portrayed as rustic, wild, and antiquated. As the government often portrays itself as a benefactor of the minorities, those less willing to assimilate (despite the offers of assistance) are portrayed as masculine, violent, and unreasonable. Groups that have been depicted this way include the Tibetans, Uyghurs and the Mongols. Groups that have been more willing to assimilate (and accept the help of the government) are often portrayed as feminine and sexual, including the Miao, Tujia and the Dai.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The largest ethnic group, Han, according to a 2005 sampling, constitute about 91.9% of the total population. The next largest ethnic groups in terms of population include the Zhuang (18 million), Manchu (10 million), Hui (10 million), Miao (9 million), Uyghur (8 million), Yi (7.8 million), Tujia (8 million), Mongols (5.8 million), Tibetans (5.4 million), Buyei (3 million), Yao (3.1 million), and Koreans (2.5 million). Minority populations have grown fast due to them being unaffected by the One Child Policy.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Ethnic minorities with low populations (fewer than 100,000 individuals) were not taken into account here.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: "Undistinguished" ethnic groups are ethnic groups that have not been officially recognized or classified by the central government. The group numbers more than 730,000 people, and would constitute the twentieth most populous ethnic group of China if taken as a single group. The vast majority of this group is found in Guizhou Province.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: These "undistinguished ethnic groups" do not include groups that have been controversially classified into existing groups. For example, the Mosuo are officially classified as Naxi, and the Chuanqing are classified as Han Chinese, but they reject these classifications and view themselves as separate ethnic groups.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Citizens of mainland China who are of foreign origin are classified using yet another separate label: "foreigners naturalized into the Chinese citizenship" (). However, if a newly naturalized citizen already belongs to a recognized existing group among the 56 ethnic groups, then he or she is classified into that ethnic group rather than the special label.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: The PRC's Constitution and laws guarantee equal rights to all ethnic groups in China and help promote ethnic minority groups' economic and cultural development. The constitution prohibits both discrimination and acts of disunity. Articles 115 and 116 of the constitution state that in the provincial level autonomous regions and the autonomous prefectures and counties set aside for minority administration, local states via the local people's congresses "have the power to enact regulations on the exercise of autonomy and other separate regulations in the light of the political, economic, and cultural characteristics" of those areas.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: One notable preferential treatment ethnic minorities enjoy was their exemption from the population growth control of the One-Child Policy. But according to an investigative report by The Associated Press published at 28 June 2020, the Chinese government is taking draconian measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other minorities as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, even as it encourages some of the country's Han majority to have more children.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP investigation based on government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor. The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of "demographic genocide". Ethnic minorities enjoy other special exemptions which vary by province- these include lower tax thresholds and lower required scores for entry into university. The use of these measures to raise ethnic minorities' human capital is seen by the central government as important for improving the economic development of ethnic minorities. Ethnic minorities are represented in the National People's Congress as well as governments at the provincial and prefectural levels. Some ethnic minorities in China live in what are described as ethnic autonomous areas. These "regional autonomies" guarantee ethnic minorities the freedom to use and develop their ethnic languages, and to maintain their own cultural and social customs. In addition, the PRC government has provided preferential economic development and aid to areas where ethnic minorities live. Furthermore, the Chinese government has allowed and encouraged the involvement of ethnic minority participation in the party. Even though ethnic minorities in China are granted specific rights and freedoms, many ethnic minorities still have headed towards the urban life in order to obtain a well paid job.


title: Ethnic minorities in China

text: Minorities have widely benefited from China's minimum livelihood guarantee program (known as the "dibao") a programme introduced nationwide in 1999 whose number of participants had reached nearly twenty million by 2012. The nature of the selection process entails that the programme's providers be proactive and willing in seeking out impoverished prospective participants, as opposed to more comprehensive welfare schemes such as the Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance Scheme (URBMI), which is universally implemented. As such, the selection process for participants in the "dibao" programme has generated a perception among observers of the scheme that this programme have been used to mitigate dissent and neutralize any threat to the government that could lead to unrest- including negative performance evaluations of local officials.


title: Oxide

text: An oxide () is a chemical compound that contains at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. "Oxide" itself is the dianion of oxygen, an O (molecular) ion. with oxygen in the oxidation state of −2. Most of the Earth's crust consists of oxides. Even materials considered pure elements often develop an oxide coating. For example, aluminium foil develops a thin skin of AlO (called a passivation layer) that protects the foil from further corrosion.


title: Oxide

text: Oxides are extraordinarily diverse in terms of stoichiometries and in terms of the structures of each stoichiometry. Most elements form oxides of more than one stoichiometry. A well known example is carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. This applies to "binary" oxides, that is, compounds containing only oxide and another element. Far more common than binary oxides are oxides of more complex stoichiometries. Such complexity can arise by the introduction of other cations (a positively charged ion, i.e. one that would be attracted to the cathode in electrolysis) or other anions (a negatively charged ion). Iron silicate, FeSiO, the mineral fayalite, is one of many examples of a ternary oxide. For many metal oxides, the possibilities of polymorphism and nonstoichiometry exist as well. The commercially important dioxides of titanium exists in three distinct structures, for example. Many metal oxides exist in various nonstoichiometric states. Many molecular oxides exist with diverse ligands as well.


title: Oxide

text: Oxides are associated with all elements except a few noble gases. The pathways for the formation of this diverse family of compounds are correspondingly numerous.