title: South African Navy

text: The command structure is depicted below. The Chief of the Navy, based at Navy Headquarters at the Navy Office (SAS "Immortelle") located in Pretoria, is head of the South African Navy. All operational forces, including ships and submarines, fall under the control of the Flag Officer Fleet who is based in Simon's Town.


title: South African Navy

text: Fleet Command includes all vessels and units of the Navy other than Naval Headquarters, Pretoria. Fleet Command is based in Simon's Town under control of Flag Officer Fleet.


title: South African Navy

text: As of the end of the financial year 2018/19, there were approximately 6,816 active uniformed members of the SA Navy, just short of the 7,071 target. In addition, there are a further 1,071 civilian staff that further support the Navy.


title: South African Navy

text: In 2006, the old Naval Reserve Units that were modelled on the Royal Naval Reserve system were closed down. A new Navy Reserve system was created consisting of roughly 1,000 reserve posts. These posts are pooled and members are drawn from them as needed to augment full-time units and ships' companies.


title: South African Navy

text: From 1922 to the 1940s the SA Navy was effectively an extension of the Royal Navy, and therefore wore the same uniforms and similar insignia. As British influence was gradually curtailed, in 1959 the British Crown in the SA Navy cap badge was replaced with the Lion of Nassau from the crest of the country's coat of arms. A black beret later replaced the peaked cap in working uniforms.


title: South African Navy

text: In 2000 the new Coat of Arms was unveiled and the Chief of the Navy tasked Fleet Command to look at revising the Navy uniforms to reflect the new coat of arms. This saw new rank insignia for non-commissioned officers being implemented as well as the introduction of a side cap.


title: South African Navy

text: Although the SA Navy does not operate any aircraft itself, aircraft used on ships or supporting are operated by 22 Squadron SAAF:


title: South African Navy

text: There is a planned programme to equip the frigates with UAVs to supplement the helicopters. Previously before its retirement, the SAAF operated the Westland Wasp for the SA Navy in the anti-submarine warfare role.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury is a market town in the county of Berkshire, England, and is home to the administrative headquarters of West Berkshire Council. The town centre around its large market square retains a rare medieval Cloth Hall, an adjoining half timbered granary, and the 15th-century St Nicolas Church, along with 17th- and 18th-century listed buildings. As well as being home to Newbury Racecourse, it is the headquarters of Vodafone and software company Micro Focus International. In the valley of the River Kennet, south of Oxford, north of Winchester, southeast of Swindon and west of Reading.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury lies on the edge of the Berkshire Downs; part of the North Wessex Downs Area of outstanding natural beauty, north of the Hampshire-Berkshire county boundary. In the suburban village of Donnington lies the part-ruined Donnington Castle and the surrounding hills are home to some of the country's most famous racehorse training grounds (centred on nearby Lambourn). To the south is a narrower range of hills including Walbury Hill and a few private landscape gardens and mansions, such as Highclere Castle. The local economy is inter-related to that of the eastern M4 corridor, which has most of its industrial, logistical and research businesses close to Newbury, mostly around Reading, Bracknell, Maidenhead and Slough. Together with the adjoining town of Thatcham, distant, Newbury forms the principal part of an urban area of approximately 70,000 people.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: There was a Mesolithic settlement at Newbury. Artefacts were recovered from the Greenham Dairy Farm in 1963, and the Faraday Road site in 2002. Additional material was found in excavations along the route of the Newbury Bypass. Newbury was founded late in the 11th century following the Norman conquest as a new borough, hence its name. Although there are references to the borough that predate the Domesday Book it is not mentioned by name in the survey. However, its existence within the manor of Ulvritone is evident from the massive rise in value of that manor at a time when most manors were worth less than in Saxon times. In 1086 the Domesday Book assesses the borough as having land for 12 ploughs, 2 mills, woodland for 25 pigs, 11 villeins (resident farmhands, unfree peasant who owed his lord labour services), 11 bordars (unfree peasants with less land than villans/villeins), and 51 enclosures (private parks) rendering 70s 7d.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Doubt has been cast over the existence of Newbury Castle, but the town did have royal connections and was visited a number of times by King John and Henry III while hunting in the area. The first reference to a bridge on the site of the current Newbury Bridge is an account of its reconstruction in the 14th Century. In 1312, King Edward II directed that its bridge should be kept in good order. By 1623, when the bridge collapsed, it was recorded as being built of wood, being in length and in width, and having shops on it. The bridge was presumably rebuilt, as it is recorded that in 1644 a guard was placed on the bridge.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Historically, the town's economic foundation was the cloth trade. This is reflected in the person of the 16th-century cloth magnate, Jack of Newbury, the proprietor of what may well have been the first factory in England, and the later tale of the Newbury Coat. The latter was the outcome of a bet as to whether a gentleman's suit could be produced by the end of the day from wool taken from a sheep's back at the beginning. The local legend was later immortalized in a humorous novel by Elizabethan writer Thomas Deloney. Newbury was the site of two battles during the English Civil War, the First Battle of Newbury (at Wash Common) in 1643, and the Second Battle of Newbury (at Speen) in 1644. The nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in the aftermath of the second battle. The disruption of trade during the civil war, compounded by a collapse of the local cloth trade in the late 16th century, left Newbury impoverished.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: The local economy was boosted in the 18th century by the rise of Bath as a popular destination for the wealthy escaping London's summer heat and associated stench. Newbury was roughly halfway between London and Bath and an obvious stopping point in the two-day journey. Soon Newbury, and the Speenhamland area in particular, was filled with coaching inns of ever increasing grandeur and size. One inn, the George & Pelican, was reputed to have stabling for 300 horses. A theatre was built to provide the travellers with entertainment featuring the major stars of the age. In 1795 local magistrates, meeting at the George and Pelican Inn in Speenhamland, introduced the Speenhamland System which tied parish poor relief (welfare payments) to the cost of bread.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: In 1723, the Kennet Navigation made the River Kennet navigable downstream from Newbury to the River Thames in Reading. Some 70 years later, in 1794, work started on the centre section of the Kennet and Avon Canal, which would extend the Kennet Navigation to Bath, thus providing a through water route between London and Bristol via Newbury. This route was finally completed in 1810. The opening of the Great Western Railway from London to Bath in 1841 effectively killed the canal and coaching trades, and as the line passed some to the north it brought no advantage to the town. had to wait until 1847 to join the railway network, with the opening of the Berks and Hants Railway branch line from to via Newbury, and until 1906 to be on a main line, with the opening of the Reading-Taunton line. As a result, Newbury became something of a backwater market town, with an economy based largely on agriculture and horse-racing. In the 1980s, British electronics firm Racal decided to locate their newly formed telecommunications company Racal Vodafone, later Vodafone UK, in the town. In the subsequent decades Newbury became something of a regional centre for the high-tech industries, and the town has since enjoyed a return to general economic prosperity.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: A large Royal Air Force station was established during the Second World War at Greenham Common on the edge of the town. In the 1950s, it became home to US Air Force bombers and tankers, for which it was equipped with the longest military runway in the United Kingdom. In the 1980s, it became one of only two USAF bases in the UK equipped with ground-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles, causing it to become the site of protests by up to 40,000 protesters and the establishment of the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. With the end of the Cold War, the base was closed, the runway was broken up, much of it used as fill material in building the Newbury bypass, and the area was restored to heathland. This project then saw Greenham and Crookham commons reopened to the public in 2000.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: On 10 February 1943, two German bombers, Dornier Do 217s from ll/KG40 Bomber unit in Holland, on a nuisance raid, followed the Great Western Railway line running west from London. One of the bombers headed towards Reading while the other followed the line all the way to Newbury. At 4:43pm the bomber dropped eight high-explosive bombs over the town. There had been no time for a warning siren. The Senior Council School, St. Bartholomew's Almshouses, St. John's Church (just the altar was left standing) and Southampton Terrace were all destroyed, and another 265 dwellings were damaged, many of which had to be demolished. St John's Church was completely rebuilt after the war. 15 people were killed and a further 41 people were injured, 25 seriously.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury is the administrative centre of the district administered by the unitary authority of West Berkshire, which as of 2011 has a population of 153,822 (an approximately straight-line increase of 15,022 since 1991). Newbury is also a civil parish, with parish council responsibilities undertaken by Newbury Town Council, based at Newbury Town Hall, since 1997. Newbury Town Council currently has 23 councillors, representing seven wards of the town, currently: Brummel Grove, Clay Hill, Falkland, Northcroft, Pyle Hill, Victoria and St Johns. As of 2019, 19 of the councillors represent the Liberal Democrats, 2 represent the Conservative Party and 2 represent the Greens.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: In the House of Commons, the town is in the Newbury constituency. Since the general election of December 2019 this constituency has been represented by Laura Farris, a Conservative. From 1999 to 2020 Newbury was part of the South East England European Parliament constituency electing MEPs by proportional representation. The twinning was held at The Corn Exchange Newbury. Newbury is twinned with the following:


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: The Civil Parish of Newbury consists of the town and the suburbs of Wash Common, The City, West Fields, East Fields and Speenhamland. The modern conurbation of Newbury, however, with close bus and road links and almost contiguous development, may be taken to include the surrounding villages of Speen, Donnington, Shaw and Greenham. Speen, which is now a suburb of western Newbury, is roughly equidistant between Bristol and London.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Elevations vary from a minimum of 72 m above mean sea level to 122 m at Wash Common. Elevations reach 150–200 m in the directly adjoining hills. The River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal flow east through the centre of the town to reach the Thames at Reading, while the River Lambourn (beside which is the country's largest horse-training paddocks in the Valley of the Lambourn Downs) partly forms its northern boundary, ending in the town. A tributary that is smaller still, the River Enborne, forms the southern boundary (and also the county boundary with Hampshire).


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Adjoining the town's south-eastern border is Greenham Common and the famous Newbury Racecourse. Newbury is surrounded on three sides (north, west and south) by the North Wessex Downs. The downland to the south rises steeply out of the river valley providing scenic views, including Watership Down (made famous by the novel of the same name), Beacon Hill, the southeast's highest point Walbury Hill, and Combe Gibbet.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: inh. as at 2011) and Shaw cum Donnington (1,686 inh. as at 2011) forming an identifiable, informal greater Newbury urban and suburban conglomeration. In major use classes 11% of Newbury's land is occupied by roads and as of 2005, 34% of its land was occupied by domestic gardens.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury and its immediate surroundings constitute the major commercial and retail centre of West Berkshire. The local economy is inter-related to that of the eastern M4 corridor which has most of its industrial, logistical and research businesses close to Newbury, Reading and Slough, with smaller industrial estates in the county at Theale, Bracknell and Maidenhead. Newbury is home to the United Kingdoms headquarters of the mobile network operator Vodafone, which is the town's largest employer with over 6,000 workers. Before moving to their £129 million headquarters in the outskirts of the town in 2002, Vodafone used 64 buildings spread across the town centre.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: As well as Vodafone, Newbury is also home to the United Kingdom headquarters of National Instruments, Micro Focus, Stryker Corporation, Grass Valley (formerly Snell Advanced Media which was formerly Quantel), Cognito, EValue and Newbury Building Society. The pharmaceutical company Bayer AG are also headquartered in the town, although in October 2015 the company announced their intention to move to the Green Park Business Park near Reading.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury spans the River Kennet, the valley of which has for millennia formed an important east–west transport route, served by the Kennet and Avon Canal, and the Reading to Taunton Line, one of three routes from London to the West Country.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Today, Newbury is served by two railway stations, and , which both are on the Reading to Taunton line. It was also served by the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway until this closed in the 1960s.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Following a similar east–west route is the A4 road from London to Bristol, historically the main route west from London. This road has been superseded as a long-distance route by the M4 motorway which runs almost parallel and can be accessed to the north at the Chieveley interchange at Junction 13. At Newbury this east–west route is crossed by a dual-carriageway north–south trunk road, from the major south coast port of Southampton to the industrial centres of the Midlands. Although this route was once served by the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway, today it is only served by the A34 road, which now bypasses Newbury to the west on an alignment partially using the old rail route (see also 'Newbury Bypass' below).


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Until the completion of the bypass, the A34 and A4 met in the town centre at the Robin Hood Roundabout, a complicated gyratory system encompassing 6 approaching roads, a fire station, ambulance station and an exit on the inside of the roundabout, which has a north–south flyover across the roundabout. In 2007, the sculpture "Couple in Conversation" was unveiled on the roundabout, providing a new landmark for one of the major gateways into the town. Other significant roads radiating from Newbury include the A339 which now includes the renumbered part of the old A34 through the town centre and then heads towards Basingstoke and the M3 motorway, the A343 to Andover, the B4000 to Lambourn, the B4494 to Wantage and the B4009 to Streatley.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Most local bus services were provided by Newbury Buses, a division of Reading Buses before August 2011. This was when they were transferred to private companies. The Link and route 7 remain in private hands, operated by Stagecoach South, with West Berkshire Connect also operating a couple of services. The main operator being Weavaway Travel, trading as Newbury & District. However, West Berkshire Council contracted services were transferred back to Reading Buses, who continue to operate the Vodafone Buses and the Jet Black 1 service, initially alongside Weavaway, under the Kennections brand in September 2016. 2 years later, in September 2018, they also acquired Newbury & District from Weavaway.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: The town's location at the intersection of the routes from London to Bristol and from Southampton to Birmingham made it, for many years, a transport bottleneck. In 1963 a dual carriageway was built east of the town centre to ease congestion and the opening of the M4 motorway in 1971 moved the intersection of these major trunk routes north of the town, to Chieveley. The ring road around the town still suffered serious congestion and the Newbury bypass was proposed in 1981. The plans were approved in 1990.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: However they were extremely controversial and this led to a major environmentalist campaign opposing the road development (dubbed the "Third Battle of Newbury" by parts of the national media). In spite of this, the road was built and finally opened in 1998. Within two months the road surface began to break up and the entire length of the bypass was eventually resurfaced over two weekends using an improved low-noise water-absorbent surface. In August 2004, the improved A34-M4 junction was re-opened which allowed north–south traffic on the A34 to completely bypass the earlier roundabout at the M4. This junction continued to be improved, with new road markings and traffic signals completed in 2008.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: There is also Newbury College, a further and higher education college, funded by a private finance initiative, and Mary Hare School, a residential co-educational community special needs school for deaf pupils.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury is home to one of England's major racecourses, Newbury Racecourse, which celebrated its centenary in 2005. The most prestigious race in the calendar is the Hennessy Gold Cup which normally takes place in late November. Newbury has one of the last remaining lidos in the United Kingdom. It was originally built in the 1890s, although the structure we see today was erected in the 1930s. The pool is still in use today and is capable of receiving more than 1000 visitors a day during peak times. It is owned and subsidised by West Berkshire Council but is managed by an external contractor, Parkwood Leisure.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury's rugby union club, Newbury R.F.C. sponsored by Vodafone, is based in the town. The club was founded in 1928 and in 1996 moved to a new purpose-built ground at Monks Lane, which has since hosted England U21 fixtures. Cricket clubs in the town include Newbury Cricket Club, situated right in the town centre, and Falkland CC. Newbury also has two athletics clubs: Team Kennet and Newbury Athletics Club. Newbury District Leagues exist in many other sports such as badminton, table tennis, squash and darts.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury was home to A.F.C. Newbury, also sponsored by Vodafone] but in May 2006 Vodafone ended its sponsorship of the club, following which the club collapsed. A local pub team from the Old London Apprentice took over the ground temporarily and now compete in the Reading League as Newbury F.C. Their future at the ground is uncertain as the owner, West Berkshire Council, plans to turn it into a car park. Victoria Park, near the centre of the town, is used for several events during the year such as the Newbury Waterways Festival, the Keep Off The Grass (KOTG) dance music event and Crafty Craft, an improvised raft race along the canal.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: Newbury Library moved to a new building in July 2000. The Corn Exchange provides a venue for both professional and amateur live performances. Other theatres near the town are the Watermill Theatre, and New Greenham Arts on the former Greenham Common air force base. Annually the Newbury Spring Festival of classical music brings internationally renowned soloists and ensembles to a variety of venues in and around the town. The Newbury Comedy Festival, which started in 2004, has become a feature in the town's cultural calendar. Newbury is also home to the Donnington Grove estate, where a golf course was opened in 1993. The Donnington Grove mansion, built between 1763 and 1772, is a local historic landmark.


title: Newbury, Berkshire

text: There are four main local radio stations broadcasting in the Newbury area; BBC Radio Berkshire; a community radio station, Kennet Radio; and two Independent Local Radio stations – Greatest Hits Radio Berkshire & North Hampshire (formerly 'Newbury Sound' and 'Kick FM') which broadcasts from Newbury, and Heart South (formerly 210FM) which broadcasts into the area from nearby Reading. Film and media production companies in Newbury include 822 Productions, Preview Productions, Dudleigh Films and MWS Media, based at Greenham Business Park. The following local newspapers are distributed in Newbury (circulation):


title: Moondance

text: Moondance is the third studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released on 27 January 1970 by Warner Bros. Records. After the commercial failure of his first Warner Bros. album "Astral Weeks" (1968), Morrison moved to upstate New York with his wife and began writing songs for "Moondance". There, he met the musicians that would record the album with him at New York City's A & R Studios in August and September 1969.


title: Moondance

text: The album found Morrison abandoning the abstract folk jazz compositions of "Astral Weeks" in favour of more formally composed songs, which he wrote and produced entirely himself. Its lively rhythm and blues/rock music was the style he would become most known for in his career. The music incorporated soul, jazz, pop, and Irish folk sounds into songs about finding spiritual renewal and redemption in worldly matters such as nature, music, romantic love, and self-affirmation.


title: Moondance

text: "Moondance" was an immediate critical and commercial success. It helped establish Morrison as a major artist in popular music, while several of its songs became staples on FM radio in the early 1970s. Among the most acclaimed records in history, "Moondance" frequently ranks in professional listings of the greatest albums of all time. In 2013, the album's remastered deluxe edition was released to similar acclaim.


title: Moondance

text: After leaving the rock band Them, Morrison met record producer Bert Berns in New York City and recorded his first solo single, "Brown Eyed Girl", in March 1967 for Berns' Bang Records. When the producer unexpectedly died later that year, Morrison was offered a record deal by Warner Bros. Records executive Joe Smith, who had seen the singer perform at Boston's Catacombs nightclub in August 1968. Smith bought out Morrison's Bang contract, and he was able to record his first album for Warner Bros., "Astral Weeks", that year. Although it was later acclaimed by critics, its collection of lengthy, acoustic, revelatory folk jazz songs was not well received by consumers at the time and the album proved to be a commercial failure.


title: Moondance

text: After recording "Astral Weeks", Morrison moved with his wife, Janet Planet, to a home on a mountain top in the Catskills near Woodstock, a hamlet in upstate New York with an artistic community. According to Planet, he was influenced by Bob Dylan, who had just moved out of town when Morrison arrived. "Van fully intended to become Dylan's best friend", Planet recalled. "Every time we'd drive past Dylan's house ... Van would just stare wistfully out the window at the gravel road leading to Dylan's place. He thought Dylan was the only contemporary worthy of his attention."


title: Moondance

text: Morrison began writing songs for "Moondance" in July 1969. Because of "Astral Weeks"s poor sales figures, the singer wanted to produce a record that would be more accessible and appealing to listeners. "I make albums primarily to sell them and if I get too far out a lot of people can't relate to it", he later said. "I had to forget about the artistic thing because it didn't make sense on a practical level. One has to live." The musicians who went on to record "Moondance" with Morrison were recruited from Woodstock and would continue working with him for several years, including guitarist John Platania, saxophonist Jack Schroer, and keyboardist Jef Labes. The singer left after the Woodstock music festival in August attracted an influx of people to the area.


title: Moondance

text: Morrison began recording sessions for "Moondance" at Century Sound in New York, accompanied by most of the musicians from "Astral Weeks" and its engineer Brooks Arthur. Lewis Merenstein—"Moondance"s executive producer—had brought in "Astral Weeks" session musicians Richard Davis, Jay Berliner, and Warren Smith, Jr. for the first session, but Morrison—according to Platania—"sort of manipulated the situation" and "got rid of them all. For some reason he didn't want those musicians." In place of these jazz-influenced musicians were a horn section and chorus enlisted by Morrison, who Merenstein recalled had grown more confident, outspoken, and independent of the producer. Around this time, the singer made it known to Warner Bros. that he would lead production duties for all his future recordings, which forced producers recruited by the label into assisting roles. It also led to frequent enlisting and dismissal of musicians to meet Morrison's creative vision.


title: Moondance

text: Morrison went on to record "Moondance" at the Studio A penthouse of A & R Studios in New York from August to September 1969. He entered A & R Studios with only the basic song structures written down and the songs' arrangements in his memory, developing the compositions throughout the album's recording. Without any musical charts, he received help with developing the music from Labes, Schroer, and flautist/saxophonist Collin Tilton. "That was the type of band I dig", the singer recalled. "Two horns and a rhythm section – they're the type of bands that I like best." According to biographer Ritchie Yorke, all of the "tasteful frills" were generated spontaneously and developed at the studio. Most of Morrison's vocals were recorded live, and he later said that he would have preferred to record the entire album live. Shelly Yakus—one of the audio engineers who recorded the singer—remembered him being "very quiet and really introverted" in the studio, "yet when he sang it was a 'Holy Shit!' moment."


title: Moondance

text: "Moondance" was the first album for which Morrison was credited as the producer; he later said "no one knew what I was looking for except me, so I just did it." While not an overbearing presence among the record's personnel, the singer later conceded to creating an atmosphere of artistic autonomy during the sessions: "When I go into the studio, I'm a magician. I make things happen. Whatever is working in that particular space at that particular time, I use, I take advantage of."


title: Moondance

text: For "Moondance", Morrison abandoned the abstract folk compositions of "Astral Weeks" in favour of rhythm and blues sounds, formally composed songs, and more distinct arrangements that included a horn section and chorus of singers as an accompaniment. The album found Morrison using more traditional melodic figures, which VH1 editor Joe S. Harrington said lent the songs a "rustic and earthy" quality. In Robert Christgau's opinion, "Moondance" showed the singer integrating his style of Irish poetry into popular song structure while expanding on "Astral Weeks" "folk-jazz swing" with lively brass instruments, innovative hooks, and a strong backbeat. The songs were generally arranged around Morrison's horn section; music journalist John Milward called it "that rare rock album" on which the solos were performed by the saxophonist rather than the guitarist. In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (1992), Paul Evans observed upbeat soul music, elements of jazz, and ballads on what he considered a "horn-driven, bass-heavy" record. Rob Sheffield said it debuted the musical style Morrison would become known for—a "mellow, piano-based" fusion of jazz, pop, and Irish folk styles.


title: Moondance

text: Morrison's lyrics on "Moondance" deal with themes of spiritual renewal and redemption. It departed from "Astral Weeks" discursive, stream-of-consciousness narratives as the singer balanced his spiritual ideas with more worldly subject matter, which biographer Johnny Rogan felt offered the record a quality of "earthiness". As a counterpart to "Astral Weeks", AllMusic critic Jason Ankeny believed it "retains the previous album's deeply spiritual thrust but transcends its bleak, cathartic intensity" by rejoicing in "natural wonder". According to Christgau, the essence of Morrison's spirit was, much like the African-American music that inspired him, "mortal and immortal simultaneously: this is a man who gets stoned on a drink of water and urges us to turn up our radios all the way into the mystic." His "giddy" preoccupation with "natural wonder" on the album was a product of the new approach to composition and the mellow feel of his new band, Harrington said. In his opinion, the record's exuberant spirit and theme of self-affirmation were partly inspired by the singer having "settled into a life of domestic bliss". Musicologist Brian Hinton argued that Morrison was celebrating a "natural alternative" in his music after quitting soft drugs around this time because they had impeded his productivity.


title: Moondance

text: The opening song, "And It Stoned Me", was written about feelings of ecstasy received from witnessing and experiencing nature, in a narrative describing a rural setting with a county fair and mountain stream. Morrison said he based it on a quasi-mystical experience he had as a 12-year-old fishing in the Comber village of Ballystockart, where he once asked for water from an old man who said he had retrieved it from a stream. "We drank some and everything seemed to stop for me", the singer recalled, adding that it induced a momentary feeling of quietude in him. According to Hinton, these childhood images foreshadowed both spiritual redemption and—in Morrison's reference to "jellyroll" in the chorus—sexual pleasure. AllMusic's Tom Maginnis argued that the singer was instead likening the experience to the first time hearing jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton. The largely acoustic title track featured piano, guitar, saxophone, electric bass, and a flute over-dub backing Morrison, who sang of an adult romance set in Autumn and imitated a saxophone with his voice near the song's conclusion. "This is a rock musician singing jazz, not a jazz singer, though the music itself has a jazz swing", Hinton remarked. "Crazy Love" was recorded with Morrison's voice so close to the microphone that it captured the click of Morrison's tongue hitting the roof of his mouth as he sang. He sings in falsetto, producing what Hinton felt was a sense of intense intimacy, backed by a female chorus.


title: Moondance

text: "Caravan" and "Into the Mystic" were cited by Harrington as examples of Morrison's interest in "the mystifying powers of the music itself" throughout "Moondance". The former song thematises music radio and gypsy life—which fascinated the singer—as symbols of harmony. Harrington called it an ode to "the transcendent powers of rock 'n' roll and the spontaneous pleasures of listening to a great radio station", while biographer Erik Hage regarded it as "a joyful celebration of communal spirit, the music of radio, and romantic love". "Into the Mystic" reconciles "Moondance"s R&B style with the more orchestrated folk music of "Astral Weeks", along with what Evans described as "the complementary sides of Morrison's psyche". Harrington believed it explores "the intricate balance between life's natural wonder and the cosmic harmony of the universe". Hinton said the song evoked a sense of "visionary stillness" shared with "And It Stoned Me" and the gypsy imagery of "Caravan", while working on several other interpretive levels. Its images of setting sail and water in particular represented "a means of magical transformation" for the writer, comparable to Alfred Lord Tennyson's poems of leave-taking such as "Crossing the Bar", which had "the same sense of crossing over, both to another land and into death". The lyrics also deal with "the mystical union of good sex", and an act of love Hinton said was intimated by Morrison's closing vocal "too late to stop now"—a phrase the singer would use to conclude his concerts in subsequent years.


title: Moondance

text: "Come Running" was described by Morrison as "a very light type of song. It's not too heavy; it's just a happy-go-lucky song." By contrast, Hinton found the song's sentiments tender and lustful in the vein of the 1967 Bob Dylan song "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". He argued that "Come Running" juxtaposed images of unstoppable nature—wind and rain, a passing train—against "which human life and death play out their little games", and in which the narrator's and his lover's dream will not end "while knowing of course it will". According to the writer, "These Dreams of You" manages to be simultaneously accusatory and reassuring. The lyrics cover such dream sequences as Ray Charles being shot down, paying dues in Canada, and "his angel from above" cheating while playing cards in the dark, slapping him in the face, ignoring his cries, and walking out on him. Morrison said he was inspired to write "Brand New Day" after hearing the Band on the radio playing either "The Weight" or "I Shall Be Released": "I looked up at the sky and the sun started to shine and all of a sudden the song just came through my head. I started to write it down, right from 'When all the dark clouds roll away'." Yorke quoted Morrison as saying in 1973 that "Brand New Day" was the song that worked best to his ear and the one with which he felt most in touch.


title: Moondance

text: Along with "Brand New Day", "Everyone" and "Glad Tidings" form a closing trio of songs permeated by what John Tobler called "a celebratory air, bordering on spiritual joy". Labes opened "Everyone" by playing a clavinet figure in time. A flute comes in, playing the melody after Morrison has sung four lines, with Schroer playing the harmony underneath on soprano saxophone. Although Morrison says the song is just a song of hope, Hinton says its lyrics suggest a more troubled meaning, as 1969 was the year in which The Troubles broke out in Belfast. The final track, "Glad Tidings", has a bouncy beat but the lyrics, like "Into the Mystic", remain largely impenetrable, according to Hinton. In his opinion, "the opening line and closing line, 'and they'll lay you down low and easy', could be either about murder or an act of love." In Hage's opinion, "'Glad Tidings' was a premonition of the future, as for the next four decades, Morrison would continue to use a song here and there to vent about the evils of the music industry and the world of celebrity."


title: Moondance

text: The album's cover photo was shot at Morrison's home by Elliot Landy, who had previously done the cover for Dylan's 1969 album "Nashville Skyline". Landy captured Morrison's face closely and cutting away from his forehead to conceal a sizeable pimple the singer had on the day of the shoot.


title: Moondance

text: Planet wrote the album's liner notes, drawing on the style of fairy tales in narrating Morrison's story; the notes began, "Once upon a time, there lived a very young man who was, as they say, gifted". According to Planet, Warner Bros. encouraged her to help promote him, believing "that my image, precisely because it was so enigmatic, was the perfect visual to describe what was going on musically". In retrospect, she found that "being a muse is a thankless job, and the pay is lousy."


title: Moondance

text: "Moondance" was released by Warner Bros. on 27 January 1970 in the United Kingdom and on 28 February in the United States, receiving immediate acclaim from critics. Reviewing for "The Village Voice" in 1970, Robert Christgau gave the album an "A" and claimed that Morrison had finally fulfilled his artistic potential: "Forget "Astral Weeks"—this is a brilliant, catchy, poetic, and completely successful LP." Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs jointly reviewed the album in "Rolling Stone", hailing it as a work of "musical invention and lyrical confidence; the strong moods of 'Into the Mystic' and the fine, epic brilliance of 'Caravan' will carry it past many good records we'll forget in the next few years." Fellow "Rolling Stone" critic Jon Landau found the singer's vocals overwhelming: "Things fell into place so perfectly I wished there was more room to breathe. Morrison has a great voice and on "Moondance" he found a home for it." Ralph J. Gleason from the "San Francisco Chronicle" also wrote of Morrison's singing as a focal point of praise: "He wails as the jazz musicians speak of wailing, as the gypsies, as the Gaels and the old folks in every culture speak of it. He gets a quality of intensity in that wail which really hooks your mind, carries you along with his voice as it rises and falls in long, soaring lines."


title: Moondance

text: After the commercial failure of "Astral Weeks", "Moondance" was seen by music journalists as a record that redeemed Morrison. "Billboard" magazine predicted it would reach rock and folk audiences while rectifying music buyers' oversight of the singer's previous record "with a more commercial entry, still rich with the soul-folk nuances of this sensitive Irish song surrealist". "Moondance" reached the top 30 of the American albums chart and the top 40 of the British chart in 1970, while establishing Morrison as a young, commercially successful, and artistically independent singer-songwriter with great promise. Its eclectic, lushly arranged style of music proved more accessible to listeners and translatable for live audiences, leading Morrison to form the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, a large ensemble of musicians with whom he would find his greatest concert success. According to Harrington, "Moondance" was very successful with hippie couples who were "settling into complacent domesticity" at the time. In Hage's opinion, its success lent Morrison a rising cultural iconicity and presence in the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement of the early 1970s, first indicated by his front cover feature on the July 1970 issue of "Rolling Stone".


title: Moondance

text: In artistic and commercial terms, "Moondance" would "practically define [Morrison] in the public consciousness for decades to follow", according to Hage. It made the singer a popular radio presence in the 1970s, as several of its songs became FM airplay staples, including "Caravan", "Into the Mystic", the title track, and "Come Running", which was a top 40 hit in the US. Some songs from the album became hits for other recording artists, such as Johnny Rivers' 1970 cover of "Into the Mystic" and the 1971 "Crazy Love" recording by Helen Reddy. "Moondance" was also a precursor to the decade's adult-oriented rock radio format—typified by the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, James Taylor, and Paul McCartney—and the first hit album for mixing engineer Elliot Scheiner, who went on to have a prolific career engineering some of the 1970s' most popular recording artists. In summarising the album's legacy, Ryan H. Walsh wrote in "Pitchfork":


title: Moondance

text: Although the album never topped the record charts, it sold continuously for the next 40 years of its release, particularly after its digitally remastered reissue in 1990. In 1996, "Moondance" was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, having shipped three million copies in the US.


title: Moondance

text: In the years following the original release, "Moondance" has been frequently ranked as one of the greatest albums ever. In 1978, it was voted the 22nd best album of all time in Paul Gambaccini's poll of 50 prominent American and English rock critics. Christgau, one of the critics polled, named it the 7th best album of the 1970s in "The Village Voice" the following year. In a retrospective review, Nick Butler from Sputnikmusic considered "Moondance" to be the peak of Morrison's career and "maybe of non-American soul in general", while "Spin" deemed it "the great white soul album" in an essay accompanying the magazine's 1989 list of the all-time 25 greatest albums, on which "Moondance" was ranked 21st. In 1999, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and in 2003, it was placed at number 65 on "Rolling Stone"s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was also included in the 2000 edition of Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums" (where it placed at number 79), the music reference book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" (2005), and "Time" magazine's 2006 list of the "All-TIME 100 Albums". The following year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named "Moondance" one of their "Definitive 200" albums, ranking it 72nd. In 2009, "Hot Press" polled numerous Irish recording artists and bands, who voted it the 11th best Irish album of all time. Based on such rankings, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists it as the 101st most acclaimed album in history.


title: Moondance

text: A deluxe edition of "Moondance" was released by Warner Bros. on 22 October 2013. It featured a newly remastered version of the original record, three CDs of previously unreleased music from the recording sessions, and a Blu-ray disc with high-resolution audio of the original album. The packaging included a linen-wrapped folio and a booklet with liner notes written by Scheiner and music journalist Alan Light. Select alternate takes from the deluxe edition were later compiled, along with previously unreleased mixes of "And It Stoned Me" and "Crazy Love", for "The Alternative Moondance", an album conceived as an alternate version of the original record and released exclusively in vinyl format for Record Store Day in April 2018.


title: Moondance

text: The 2013 deluxe reissue was met with widespread critical acclaim; "Record Collector" called it an aural "marvel", while "The Independent" said the remastering "strips away centuries of digital compression and makes the music sound as if you've never heard it properly". In "Rolling Stone", Will Hermes felt the numerous outtakes possessed an intimate quality that compensated for lacking the "sublime, brassy" arrangements featured on the final version of Morrison's "jazzy-pop masterpiece". Morrison, however, disowned the release as "unauthorised" and done without his consultation while claiming his management company had given away the rights to the music in the early 1970s.


title: PARAM

text: PARAM is a series of supercomputers designed and assembled by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in Pune, India. PARAM means "supreme" in the Sanskrit language, whilst also creating an acronym for "PARAllel Machine". As of June 2021 the fastest machine in the series is the PARAM Siddhi AI which ranks 89th in world with an Rpeak of 5.267 petaflops.


title: PARAM

text: C-DAC was created in November 1987, originally as the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing Technology (C-DACT). This was in response to issues purchasing supercomputers from foreign sources. The Indian Government decided to try and develop indigenous computing technology. More information about "Param: The First Super Computer of India" had been elaborated by Avishek Bhattacharjee in a research paper.


title: PARAM

text: The PARAM 8000 was the first machine in the series and was built from scratch. A prototype was benchmarked at the "1990 Zurich Super-computing Show": of the machines that ran at the show it came second only to one from the United States.


title: PARAM

text: A 64-node machine was delivered in August 1991. Each node used Inmos T800/T805 transputers. A 256-node machine had a theoretical performance of 1GFLOPS, however in practice had a sustained performance of 100-200MFLOPS. PARAM 8000 was a distributed memory MIMD architecture with a reconfigurable interconnection network.


title: PARAM

text: The PARAM 8000 was noted to be 28 times more powerful than the Cray X-MP that the government originally requested, for the same $10 million cost quoted for it.


title: PARAM

text: The computer was a success and was exported to Germany, United Kingdom and Russia. Apart from taking over the home market, PARAM attracted 14 other buyers with its relatively low price tag of $350,000.


title: PARAM

text: PARAM 8600 was an improvement over PARAM 8000. In 1992 C-DAC realised its machines were underpowered and wished to integrate the newly released Intel i860 processor. Each node was created with one i860 and four Inmos T800 transputers. The same PARAS programming environment was used for both the PARAM 8000 and 8600; this meant that programs were portable. Each 8600 cluster was noted to be as powerful as 4 PARAM 8000 clusters.


title: PARAM

text: The PARAM 9000 was designed to be merge cluster processing and massively parallel processing computing workloads. It was first demonstrated in 1994. The design was changed to be modular so that newer processors could be easily accommodated. Typically a system used 32–40 processors, however it could be scaled up to 200 CPUs using the clos network topology. The PARAM 9000/SS was the SuperSPARC II processor variant, the PARAM 9000/US used the UltraSPARC processor, and the PARAM 9000/AA used the DEC Alpha.


title: PARAM

text: The PARAM 10000 was unveiled in 1998 as part of C-DAC's second mission. PARAM 10000 used several independent nodes, each based on the Sun Enterprise 250 server; each such server contained two 400Mhz UltraSPARC II processors. The base configuration had three compute nodes and a server node. The peak speed of this base system was 6.4 GFLOPS. A typical system would contain 160 CPUs and be capable of 100 GFLOPS But, it was easily scalable to the TFLOP range. Exported to Russia and Singapore.


title: PARAM

text: Further computers were made in the PARAM series as one-off supercomputers, rather than serial production machines. From the late 2010s many machines were created as part of the National Supercomputing Mission.


title: PARAM

text: A 838 Terra FLOPS super computer at IIT Guwahati have 107 CPU nodes , 10 GPU nodes , 9 high memory nodes, 740 CPU cores,102400 CUDA core. It runs on low and high microwave power with active and passive high energy source.


title: PARAM

text: PARAMNet is a high speed high bandwidth low latency network developed for the PARAM series. The original PARAMNet used an 8 port cascadable non-blocking switch developed by C-DAC. Each port provided 400 Mb/s in both directions (thus 2x400 Mbit/s) as it was a full-duplex network. It was first used in PARAM 10000.


title: PARAM

text: PARAMNet II, introduced with PARAM Padma, is capable of 2.5 Gbit/s while working full-duplex. It supports interfaces like Virtual Interface Architecture and Active messages. It uses 8 or 16 port SAN switches.


title: PARAM

text: PARAMNet-3, used in PARAM Yuva and PARAM Yuva-II, is next generation high performance networking component for building supercomputing systems. PARAMNet-3 consists of tightly integrated hardware and software components. The hardware components consist of Network Interface Cards (NIC) based on CDAC's fourth generation communication co-processor "GEMINI", and modular 48-port Packet Routing Switch "ANVAY". The software component "KSHIPRA" is a lightweight protocol stack designed to exploit capabilities of hardware and to provide industry standard interfaces to the applications. Other application areas identified for deployment of PARAMNet-3 are storage and database applications.


title: PARAM

text: PARAM supercomputers are used by both public and private operators for various purposes. As of 2008, 52 PARAMs have been deployed. Of these, 8 are located in Russia, Singapore, Germany and Canada.


title: PARAM

text: PARAMs have also been sold to Tanzania, Armenia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ghana, Myanmar, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.


title: Seal of the President of the United States

text: The seal of the president of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the president of the United States to the U.S. Congress, and is also used as a symbol of the presidency itself. The central design, based on the Great Seal of the United States, is the official coat of arms of the U.S. presidency and also appears on the presidential flag.


text: The presidential seal developed by custom over a long period before being defined in law, and its early history remains obscure. The use of presidential seals goes back at least to 1850, and probably much earlier. The basic design of today's seal originated with Rutherford B. Hayes, who was the first to use the coat of arms on White House invitations in 1877. The precise design dates from 1945, when President Truman specified it in . The only changes since were in 1959 and 1960, which added 49th and 50th stars to the circle following the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii as states.


text: The current seal is defined in , made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on February 5, 1960, and effective since July 4, 1960. It states:


text: The blazon (design) is essentially the same as the obverse of the Great Seal of the United States as defined in 1782, although with some extra colors specified, and a different arrangement of the stars, clouds, and glory than is typically seen in modern versions of the Great Seal. The only purely distinct element is the ring of 50 stars, representing the 50 states. Likewise, the symbolism follows that of the Great Seal:


text: The actual seal die is only used on correspondence from the president to the United States Congress, closing the envelopes with wax seals. This has been the primary use throughout the seal's history, though isolated uses have been made for correspondence with other members of government. Documents signed by the president when representing the nation are instead sealed with the Great Seal of the United States.


text: Strictly speaking, the brass die used at the White House is the only actual seal of the president – other versions are technically "facsimiles". The Bureau of Engraving and Printing has other dies, used to produce such facsimiles on documents, stationery, and invitations as requested by the White House. Other versions of the seal are often used as a visual symbol to represent the president, and are most often seen:


text: The presidential coat of arms (the central device on the seal, i.e. without the encircling "SEAL PRESIDENT UNITED STATES" legend) has even wider usage. It appears:


text: In general, commercial use of the seal is prohibited by 18 USC 713 of the United States Code, and further defined by Executive Orders and . The United States Secret Service is authorized to use the seal in conjunction with fund raising sales for its charitable benefit fund.


text: Unofficial use of the seal is regulated by the White House Graphics and Calligraphy Office and monitored by the office of the White House Counsel. On September 28, 2005, Grant M. Dixton, associate counsel to George W. Bush, requested that the satirical newspaper "The Onion" remove the presidential seal from its website. The Graphic and Calligraphy Office will approve of the seal's use in application of official gifts, an example being its application to a silver cigarette box presented as a gift to Franklin Roosevelt.


text: The early history of the president's seal remains obscure, as there is essentially no record on early usage, nor when its use started. It appears that the primary use was to seal the envelopes on correspondence from the president to Congress, and the envelopes were presumably discarded even if the correspondence was kept, so there is little record remaining. The first documented seal was in 1850 (which almost certainly was not the first one), and the design used on today's seal had its origins in a coat of arms used on invitations by President Hayes in 1877. It was not defined in law until an executive order by President Truman in 1945.


text: During the period of the Congress of the Confederation, prior to the creation of the U.S. federal government and thus the presidency, the president of the Continental Congress (a mostly ceremonial position, elected to preside over meetings) had a seal. It was a small oval, with the crest from the recently adopted Great Seal (the radiant constellation of thirteen stars surrounded by clouds) in the center, with the motto "E Pluribus Unum" above it. Much like today's presidential seal, the primary purpose was apparently to seal envelopes on correspondence sent to the Congress. Benson Lossing (writing in 1856) claimed it was used by all the presidents of the Congress after 1782, though only two examples from Thomas Mifflin are documented today: Lossing described a 1784 letter, and Commodore Byron McCandless (while doing research for the 1945 seal redesign) photographed a seal on a November 17, 1783 Mifflin letter to the Governor of Rhode Island. An 1885 article from the "Daily Graphic" included an original engraving of the seal supposedly from a 1784 letter; it is not known if this was just based on Lossing's version or if they had a separate impression. None of these impressions are known to still exist, and no confirmation of an order for this seal (proving an official status) has been found in Continental Congress records.


text: In 1894, Palemon Howard Dorsett (a lifelong Department of Agriculture employee) turned up with a metal die very similar to the original die of the Great Seal, except that the arrows and the olive branch were switched, indicating an intentional "difference" to distinguish it from the actual Great Seal. The die had apparently been owned by George Washington, though there are no known uses of this die, and there even is no indication it could actually be used as a seal. The origins and purpose of this die remain unknown, though the authors of a 1978 book on the Great Seal speculated it was a gift to Washington and possibly an early version (or forerunner) of a presidential seal. The Dorsett seal was subsequently loaned to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association to be displayed at Washington's estate.


text: There is little extant evidence of any seals actually used by early U.S. presidents. One possibility is a letter from 1835, sent from Paris to President Jackson and then forwarded to the Department of State. The envelope has a small circular red wax seal, with the upper portion appearing to have a circle of cloud puffs similar to the Great Seal, with rays of a glory. However, the rest of the design has been obliterated, so nothing further can be determined, and no other uses of this seal have been found.


text: The documented history begins in 1850, when a seal was made after a crude drawing submitted by President Fillmore. It depicted an eagle "displayed with wings inverted", i.e. with its wingtips down, holding an olive branch and three arrows in its talons. The shield is essentially the same as the Great Seal, with a blue chief and red and white stripes and the eagle facing to its right, though there were nineteen stripes and the outermost stripes were red, both unlike the Great Seal. Thirty-one stars were distributed above and around the eagle, indicating that the seal dates from after when California became the 31st state in September 1850. It was made by Edward Stabler, a farmer and postmaster in Sandy Spring, Maryland, who had earlier made seals for the Senate, House of Representatives, and several government departments. Stabler had also made a seal for the vice president in 1846, and the correspondence surrounding it indicated that even earlier vice presidential seals existed, so presumably earlier presidential seals existed as well. The president's seal was described by Benson Lossing in 1856 as "round, with an eagle upon it" (contrasting it to the seal used during the Continental Congress).


text: The information on Fillmore's seal is from an 1885 article in the "Daily Graphic", and (according to Daniel S. Lamont, the private secretary to President Cleveland and one of the article's sources) the 1850 seal was still in use at that time and was used to seal envelopes sent to either house of Congress. The article claims that Stabler made two seals, the other being a smaller one for use on letters, and stated that both were illustrated in the article. While the large seal was illustrated, the rendering of a smaller seal was labeled the "Old Seal" and had only twenty-seven stars, seeming to indicate it would date from 1845 during James K. Polk's administration rather than being a smaller 1850 seal. While Fillmore did use a personal seal (a simple script "F" in a circular border) it does not appear that this was the smaller seal mentioned. The design on the "Old Seal" was quite similar to the large version, though it was a different rendering of the eagle with small differences in positioning. The inscriptions were also slightly different; the large seal had , while the smaller one (like the present-day version) omitted the word "The" at the beginning.


text: The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum owns a small seal used by Abraham Lincoln, which was previously a part of the Taper Collection. It is about the size of a penny, has an ivory handle, and is still encrusted with red wax. The design is exactly the same as the one labeled the "Old Seal" in the "Daily Graphic" article, except it has 36 stars (Nevada became the 36th state in October 1864). A 1927 book also describes a red wax presidential seal on a letter from Lincoln to Hiram Barney.


text: In September 1864, an engraver named J. Baumgarten from Baltimore, Maryland made and sent Lincoln an unsolicited seal, marked with "A Lincoln" on its side, meant for personal use. Baumgarten also claimed to have made seals of the "same plan" for both Presidents Fillmore and Buchanan. This was just prior to Nevada becoming the 36th state, but as the design of this seal is not described, and no reply from Lincoln is known and no payment is recorded, it is not possible to know if it was the aforementioned 36-star seal, something similar to the simple "F" seal used by Fillmore, an entirely different seal, or if it was used at all. Baumgarten may well have been related to Selig Baumgarten, an engraver who emigrated to Baltimore from Hanover with eight children in 1852. One of Selig's sons, Herman Baumgarten, later engraved the 1877 version of the Great Seal.


text: President Hayes was the first to use the presidential coat of arms on White House invitations, and the design used was the direct precursor to the modern version. Its first appearance was in April 1877, about six weeks after his inauguration. The eagle's wings were shown "displayed" (wingtips up), with an arc of cloud puffs between the wings, and thirteen stars scattered below the arc and surrounding a scroll reading "E Pluribus Unum". The eagle's head was turned to its left toward the arrows for the first time, a feature which would last until 1945. The eagle itself was similar to the Great Seal rendering at the time (prior to the more robust eagle used in the 1885 redesign of the Great Seal). The designer of this embossing is not known; with minor variations it was used on invitations until the early years of President Wilson's administration.


text: The design using the arc of clouds is reminiscent of an early rendering of the Great Seal made by James Trenchard in 1786, which was then later used on Indian Peace Medals handed out by President Washington. It is also very similar to a design seen on the letterhead of a proclamation by President Polk in 1846, which also had the eagle facing its left but additionally switched the olive branch and arrows so the head was still looking towards the branch. (Earlier proclamation letterheads, and even the Andrew Jackson White House china, also switched the arrows and branch and had the eagle facing to its left, though they were completely different designs otherwise.) Other influences may have been some U.S. coins and President Grant's china, which used the general design of an arc of clouds though the rest of the details were different.


text: The actual seal used by the president was changed to have a similar design, though apparently not at the time. The "Daily Graphic" article reported the 1850 seal was still in use in 1885, but the change had been made by 1894, as an impression of this new seal was obtained from Henry T. Thurber (President Cleveland's private secretary) for use in a book on heraldry. This version moved closer to the modern design, with the words in smaller capital letters than the other words (a feature which is still used), and the layout of stars being slightly changed into essentially the arrangement still used today. This seal remained in use until 1945, as Gaillard Hunt confirmed the design was still current as of 1916, and it also matches actual impressions taken from the presidential seal in 1936 during Franklin Roosevelt's administration. The design continued to evolve in other places in the meantime, particularly the presidential flag, and these evolved designs were used when the seal was changed again in 1945.


text: During renovations in early 1903, a bronze inlaid version of the seal was placed in the floor of the Entrance Hall of the White House, directly under the lantern. It was made from a model by the sculptor Philip Martiny, who followed the general arrangement of the Hayes arms but used considerable artistic license with the details. The eagle is substantially altered, with differently-shaped wings and thickly feathered legs. The shape of the shield was different, and the stars were arranged differently, with all stars appearing above the scroll using an arc of 10 stars with three more directly underneath. The scroll's inscription was .


text: President Truman later felt that it was not right for people to walk over it, so when the White House was renovated again in 1948 he had the seal removed and placed over the door to the Diplomatic Reception Room, where it still is today. The plaster seal in the Oval Office ceiling (originally installed in 1934 and at some point changed so the eagle faces to its right) is also based on this design, and a version is in the floor next to Wilson's tomb in the Washington National Cathedral.


text: In 1916 President Wilson decided to make a change in the presidential flag, the Navy version of which used the Great Seal on a blue background (there was a competing design from the Army, which was different but also used the Great Seal). The Aide to the Secretary of the Navy, Lt. Commander Byron McCandless, suggested adding four stars to the Navy version. Wilson however wanted the "president's eagle" used on the flag instead, showing McCandless the Martiny plaque as an example. Wilson at some point obtained a color print of the president's seal, probably from the Philadelphia firm of Bailey Banks & Biddle, which was also used in the discussions. The eagle in this version was more based on the 1885 Great Seal, and is essentially the design used in the modern seal – the style and details of the eagle, the rays of the glory, the arrangement of the thirteen stars, and the cloud puffs have all been carried over into the current version.


text: This design was used for the 1916 flag, and also on subsequent presidential invitations and Wilson's presidential china, meaning the coat of arms was effectively changed as well. The actual presidential seal die was not changed at the time, though a 1917 McCandless publication on flags did show the new design as its depiction the seal.


text: In March 1945, President Roosevelt (who had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy during Wilson's administration and was involved in the four-star 1916 presidential flag design) noted that the flags for the new ranks of Fleet Admiral and General of the Army both had five stars, and asked the Army and Navy Departments for suggestions. The Secretary of the Navy (whose flag also had four stars) replied that there was no issue, as the combination of four stars and the Coat of Arms of the Presidential Seal was indicative of higher rank.


text: Roosevelt persisted though, and in March sent a query to Commodore Byron McCandless, then commanding the Naval Repair Base in San Diego, California. Roosevelt died on April 12, before McCandless could reply, but President Truman expressed a continuing interest in the matter and eventually a long reply was sent. McCandless recommended changing the four stars such that they were each made of 12 small stars, arranged in the shape of a larger six-pointed star; the four large stars would represent Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, the 48 total stars would represent the states, and the six-pointed star would be representative of the president's rank above five-star generals and admirals. Truman however disliked the idea of representing relative rank, and instead decided on a simple circle of 48 stars.


text: The proposed design was sent to the War and Navy Departments for comment. In a memorandum dated August 22, 1945 Arthur E. DuBois, the chief of the Heraldic Section of the Army's Office of the Quartermaster General (forerunner to the Army Institute of Heraldry), made several suggestions. He recommended making the eagle in full color per heraldic tradition (the presidential flag of the time depicted the eagle as entirely white), and recommended against using 48 stars, believing that flags and seals should not be subject to external changes such as adding additional states and instead suggested a ring of 13 stars. DuBois also noted that the seal had never had an official definition, meaning there was also no explanation for the eagle facing to its left instead of the typical heraldic custom of having such figures face to their right ("dexter"), which is considered the honorable side. Therefore, he recommended changing the direction the eagle faced, and provided an illustration along with a suggested blazon to be used in an official description. Truman agreed with most of these suggestions, additionally liking that the eagle would now face towards the olive branches (which he felt was symbolic of a nation on the march and dedicated to peace,), but decided to keep the 48 stars. Truman also considered adding a lightning effect to the arrows as a reference to the atomic bomb, but later decided against it. On August 28 Truman had DuBois make a model containing all the final decisions, which was then approved.


text: On October 25, 1945, President Truman issued , which officially defined the presidential coat of arms and seal for the first time, and unified the design between the seal and the flag. The only changes since have been to add stars to the outer circle.


text: Alaska was admitted as the 49th state on January 3, 1959, which caused the 49th star to be added to the United States flag on the following July 4. On May 26, President Eisenhower issued , which added a 49th star to the outer ring on the presidential coat of arms (and therefore the seal and flag as well), also effective on July 4. The order was otherwise identical to Truman's order, which it replaced. Hawaii was admitted as the 50th state on August 21, 1959, and Eisenhower duly issued on February 5, 1960 (effective July 4, 1960) to add the 50th star to the coat of arms. Once again, it was identical to the previous orders other than the number of stars. This remains the official definition today.


text: Because the upcoming admission of Hawaii would cause a further change the following year, no seal dies were made in 1959 with 49 stars, and the 1945 dies continued in use. New dies with 50 stars were made by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing only after the 1960 executive order came into effect.


text: A popular but erroneous myth is that the seal is changed during times of war, so that the eagle faces the arrows in its left talon. This belief may have arisen because major changes to the seal have coincidentally been made before or after wars – specifically, the 1945 change in the seal, and also the 1916 change in the "flag" (though not the seal) from the right-facing Great Seal to the left-facing presidential seal.


text: This misconception may also have arisen from a comment made by Winston Churchill, who (regarding Truman's redesign of the seal) joked: "Mr. President, with the greatest respect, I would prefer the American eagle's neck to be on a swivel so that it could face the olive branches or the arrows, as the occasion might demand".


text: The belief is perpetuated by a 2000 episode of "The West Wing" entitled "What Kind of Day Has It Been?". Character Admiral Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, notes that the presidential seal in the center of the Oval Office carpet contains a shield bearing a bald eagle clutching the olive branch in its right talons and arrows in its left. The eagle's head is turned toward the olive branch. Fitzwallace alleges that in times of war the Seal is replaced with one in which the eagle's head is turned toward the arrows.


text: Similarly, the Dan Brown novel "Deception Point" (2001) includes a passage implying that the seal embroidered on the carpet in the Oval Office is switched by White House workers. The novel states that an alternative carpet is stored in the basement, and the workers make the change overnight when no one notices.


text: In the 2007 film "", there is a variation of the Presidential Seal that shows the eagle clutching a scroll. This variation is supposed to represent the president's secret book that is passed down from president to president and contains the country's secrets.


text: The seal is sometimes used in modified form as a marketing tool, or to make a political statement. The punk rock group the Ramones used a personal variation of the seal as their logo, replacing the arrows with a baseball bat and the inscription around it with the members' names, and also changing the motto and the design on the shield. Blink-182 and other bands have also used the logo on T-shirts. Some fashion brands (mainly for teenagers) have also used the logo as an added design for accessories like bags. In addition, the animated menu sequence on all DVDs of "The West Wing" contains a slightly altered version of the seal (40 stars, added country name, segmented ribbon). In the backing video for Skinny Puppy's "VX Gas Attack", featured on the "Greater Wrong of the Right LIVE" DVD, another altered version of the seal is shown (the olive and arrows replaced with bleeding gas nozzles, and the eagle replaced with a skull). It is also used by rap group The Diplomats as their trademark logo, except that the olive branch and arrows are usually replaced by two guns and the word "Diplomats" is across the center of the eagle. In the video game "Metal Wolf Chaos", the titular powered armor is piloted by President Michael Wilson, the protagonist, and is adorned with large images of the seal, although modified from the real-life version.


text: On July 23, 2019, President Donald Trump, the forty-fifth president, gave an address to young Republicans at the Turning Point USA Teen Student Action Summit 2019 in front of a screen onto which a spoof caricature of the seal was projected. The graphic was switched after 80 seconds. At the time, no one from the White House, the hosting facility, the hosting organization, or the summit organizers appears to have been aware of the substitution. The story was reported by "The Washington Post" on July 24, including photos and video of Trump speaking in front of the fake seal. Turning Point USA later blamed an audio-visual employee for the gaffe.


text: The "faux seal" showed a double-headed eagle, in the tradition of the Russian state (suggestive of Russian interference in U.S. politics). In one claw the arrows had been replaced with golf clubs (representing the president's connection to the sport), while the other held a wad of green banknotes. The chief of the shield bore five white hammer-and-sickle devices; and the motto "E pluribus unum" had been replaced by the phrase , Spanish for "Number 45 is a puppet".


text: The graphic had been designed and marketed in 2016 as a joke by Charles Leazott, a disillusioned Republican who opposed President Trump. He later commented that the unidentified perpetrator was "either wildly incompetent or the best troll ever. Either way, I love them." He subsequently displayed an image of Trump speaking before his seal design on the site for his related products.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The history of Myanmar (also known as Burma; ) covers the period from the time of first-known human settlements 13,000 years ago to the present day. The earliest inhabitants of recorded history were a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people who established the Pyu city-states ranged as far south as Pyay and adopted Theravada Buddhism.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Another group, the Bamar people, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley in the early 9th century. They went on to establish the Pagan Kingdom (1044–1297), the first-ever unification of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. The Burmese language and Burma culture slowly came to replace Pyu norms during this period. After the First Mongol invasion of Burma in 1287, several small kingdoms, of which the Kingdom of Ava, the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, the Kingdom of Mrauk U and the Shan States were principal powers, came to dominate the landscape, replete with ever-shifting alliances and constant wars.


title: History of Myanmar

text: In the second half of the 16th century, the Toungoo dynasty (1510–1752) reunified the country, and founded the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia for a brief period. Later Taungoo kings instituted several key administrative and economic reforms that gave rise to a smaller, more peaceful and prosperous kingdom in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In the second half of the 18th century, the Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885) restored the kingdom, and continued the Taungoo reforms that increased central rule in peripheral regions and produced one of the most literate states in Asia. The dynasty also went to war with all its neighbours. The Anglo-Burmese wars (1824–85) eventually led to British colonial rule.


title: History of Myanmar

text: British rule brought several enduring social, economic, cultural and administrative changes that completely transformed the once-agrarian society. British rule highlighted out-group differences among the country's myriad ethnic groups. Since independence in 1948, the country has been in one of the longest running civil wars involving insurgent groups representing political and ethnic minority groups and successive central governments. The country was under military rule under various guises from 1962-2010 and again from 2021-present, and in the seemingly cyclical process has become one of the least developed nations in the world.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The earliest archaeological evidence suggests that cultures existed in Burma as early as 11,000 BCE. Most indications of early settlement have been found in the central dry zone, where scattered sites appear in close proximity to the Irrawaddy River. The "Anyathian", Burma's Stone Age, existed at a time thought to parallel the lower and middle Paleolithic in Europe. The Neolithic or New Stone Age, when plants and animals were first domesticated and polished stone tools appeared, is evidenced in Burma by three caves located near Taunggyi at the edge of the Shan plateau that are dated to 10000 to 6000 BC.


title: History of Myanmar

text: About 1500 BCE, people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice, and domesticating chickens and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so. By 500 BCE, iron-working settlements emerged in an area south of present-day Mandalay. Bronze-decorated coffins and burial sites filled with earthenware remains have been excavated. Archaeological evidence at Samon Valley south of Mandalay suggests rice growing settlements that traded with China between 500 BC and 200 CE. During the Iron Age, archaeological evidence also out of Samon Valley reveal changes in infant burial practices that were greatly influenced by India. These changes include burying infants in jars in which their size depict their family status.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Pyu entered the Irrawaddy valley from present-day Yunnan, c. 2nd century BCE, and went on to found city-states throughout the Irrawaddy valley. The original home of the Pyu is reconstructed to be Qinghai Lake in present-day Qinghai and Gansu. The Pyu were the earliest inhabitants of Burma of whom records are extant. During this period, Burma was part of an overland trade route from China to India. Trade with India brought Buddhism from South India. By the 4th century, many in the Irrawaddy valley had converted to Buddhism. Of the many city-states, the largest and most important was the Sri Ksetra Kingdom southeast of modern Pyay, also thought to once be the capital city. In March 638, the Pyu of Sri Ksetra launched a new calendar that later became the Burmese calendar.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Eighth-century Chinese records identify 18 Pyu states throughout the Irrawaddy valley, and describe the Pyu as a humane and peaceful people to whom war was virtually unknown and who wore silk cotton instead of actually silk so that they would not have to kill silkworms. The Chinese records also report that the Pyu knew how to make astronomical calculations, and that many Pyu boys entered the monastic life at seven to the age of 20.


title: History of Myanmar

text: It was a long-lasting civilisation that lasted nearly a millennium to the early 9th century until a new group of "swift horsemen" from the north, the Bamars, entered the upper Irrawaddy valley. In the early 9th century, the Pyu city-states of Upper Burma came under constant attacks by Nanzhao (in modern Yunnan). In 832, the Nanzhao sacked Halingyi, which had overtaken Prome as the chief Pyu city-state and informal capital. Archaeologists interpret early Chinese texts detailing the plundering of Halingyi in 832 to detail the capturing of 3000 Pyu prisoners, later becoming Nanzhao slaves at Kunming.


title: History of Myanmar

text: While Pyu settlements remained in Upper Burma until the advent of the Pagan Empire in the mid 11th century, the Pyu gradually were absorbed into the expanding Burman kingdom of Pagan in the next four centuries. The Pyu language still existed until the late 12th century. By the 13th century, the Pyu had assumed Bamar ethnicity. The histories/legends of the Pyu were also incorporated to those of the Bamars.


title: History of Myanmar

text: According to the colonial era scholarship, as early as the 6th century, another people called the Mon began to enter the present-day Lower Burma from the Mon kingdoms of Haribhunjaya and Dvaravati in modern-day Thailand. By the mid 9th century, the Mon had founded at least two small kingdoms (or large city-states) centred around Bago and Thaton. The earliest external reference to a Mon kingdom in Lower Burma was in 844–848 by Arab geographers. But recent research shows that there is no evidence (archaeological or otherwise) to support colonial period conjectures that a Mon-speaking polity existed in Lower Burma until the late 13th century, and the first recorded claim that the kingdom of Thaton existed came only in 1479.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Burmans who had come down with the early 9th Nanzhao raids of the Pyu states remained in Upper Burma. (Trickles of Burman migrations into the upper Irrawaddy valley might have begun as early as the 7th century.) In the mid-to-late 9th century, Pagan was founded as a fortified settlement along a strategic location on the Irrawaddy near the confluence of the Irrawaddy and its main tributary the Chindwin River.


title: History of Myanmar

text: It may have been designed to help the Nanzhao pacify the surrounding countryside. Over the next two hundred years, the small principality gradually grew to include its immediate surrounding areas— to about 200 miles north to south and 80 miles from east to west by Anawrahta's accession in 1044.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Over the next 30 years, Anawrahta founded the Pagan Kingdom, unifying for the first time the regions that would later constitute the modern-day Burma. Anawrahta's successors by the late 12th century had extended their influence farther south into the upper Malay Peninsula, at least to the Salween River in the east, below the current China border in the farther north, and to the west, northern Arakan and the Chin Hills. The Burmese Chronicles claim Pagan's suzerainty over the entire Chao Phraya Valley, and the Thai chronicles include the lower Malay Peninsula down to the Strait of Malacca to Pagan's realm.


title: History of Myanmar

text: By the early 12th century, Pagan had emerged as a major power alongside the Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia, recognised by Song China and the Chola dynasty of India. Well into the mid-13th century, most of mainland Southeast Asia was under some degree of control of either the Pagan Empire or the Khmer Empire.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Anawrahta also implemented a series of key social, religious and economic reforms that would have a lasting impact in Burmese history. His social and religious reforms later developed into the modern-day culture of Myanmar. The most important development was the introduction of Theravada Buddhism to Upper Burma after Pagan's conquest of the Thaton Kingdom in 1057. Supported by royal patronage, the Buddhist school gradually spread to the village level in the next three centuries although Vajrayana Buddhist, Mahayana, Hindu, and animism remained heavily entrenched at all social strata.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Pagan's economy was primarily based on the Kyaukse agricultural basin northeast of the capital, and Minbu, south of Bagan, where the Bamars had built a large number of new weirs and diversionary canals. It also benefited from external trade through its coastal ports. The wealth of the kingdom was devoted to building over 10,000 Buddhist temples in the Pagan capital zone between 11th and 13th centuries (of which 3000 remain to the present day). The wealthy donated tax-free land to religious authorities.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Burmese language and culture gradually became dominant in the upper Irrawaddy valley, eclipsing the Pyu and Pali norms by the late 12th century. By then, the Bamar leadership of the kingdom was unquestioned. The Pyu had largely assumed the Bamar ethnicity in Upper Burma. The Burmese language, once an alien tongue, was now the lingua franca of the kingdom.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The kingdom went into decline in the 13th century as the continuous growth of tax-free religious wealth—by the 1280s, two-thirds of Upper Burma's cultivable land had been alienated to the religion—affected the crown's ability to retain the loyalty of courtiers and military servicemen. This ushered in a vicious circle of internal disorders and external challenges by Mons, Mongols and Shans.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Beginning in the early 13th century, the Shan began to encircle the Pagan Empire from the north and the east. The Mongols, who had conquered Yunnan, the former homeland of the Bamar, in 1253, began their invasion in 1277 in response to an embassy crisis, and in 1287 sacked Pagan, ending the Pagan Kingdom's 250-year rule of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery when the Pagan king of that time abandoned his palace on the news of the Mongol march. Pagan's rule of central Burma came to an end ten years later in 1297 when it was toppled by the Myinsaing Kingdom of Shan rulers.


title: History of Myanmar

text: After the fall of Pagan, the Mongols left the searing Irrawaddy valley but the Pagan Kingdom was irreparably broken up into several small kingdoms. By the mid-14th century, the country had become organised along four major power centres: Upper Burma, Lower Burma, Shan States and Arakan. Many of the power centres were themselves made up of (often loosely held) minor kingdoms or princely states. This era was marked by a series of wars and switching alliances. Smaller kingdoms played a precarious game of paying allegiance to more powerful states, sometimes simultaneously.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Founded in 1364, Kingdom of Ava (Inwa) was the successor state to earlier, even smaller kingdoms based in central Burma: Taungoo (1287–1318), Myinsaing–Pinya Kingdom (1297–1364), and Sagaing Kingdom (1315–64). In its first years of existence, Ava, which viewed itself as the rightful successor to the Pagan Kingdom, tried to reassemble the former empire. While it was able to pull the Taungoo-ruled kingdom and peripheral Shan states (Kalay, Mohnyin, Mogaung, Hsipaw) into its fold at the peak of its power, it failed to reconquer the rest.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Forty Years' War (1385–1424) with Hanthawaddy left Ava exhausted, and its power plateaued. Its kings regularly faced rebellions in its vassal regions but were able to put them down until the 1480s. In the late 15th century, the Prome Kingdom and its Shan States successfully broke away, and in the early 16th century, Ava itself came under attacks from its former vassals. In 1510, Taungoo also broke away. In 1527, the Confederation of Shan States led by Mohnyin captured Ava. The Confederation's rule of Upper Burma, though lasted until 1555, was marred by internal fighting between Mohnyin and Thibaw houses. The kingdom was toppled by Taungoo forces in 1555.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Burmese language and culture came into its own between the last period of the Pagan Kingdom (Old Burmese starts in the XII° century) and the Ava period.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Mon- kingdom was founded as Ramannadesa right after Pagan's collapse in 1297. In the beginning, the Lower-Burma-based kingdom was a loose federation of regional power centre in the Mottama, the Pegu and the Irrawaddy Delta. The energetic reign of Razadarit (1384–1421) cemented the kingdom's existence. Razadarit firmly unified the three Mon-speaking regions together, and successfully held off Ava in the Forty Years' War (1385–1424).


title: History of Myanmar

text: After the war, Hanthawaddy entered its golden age whereas its rival Ava gradually went into decline. From the 1420s to the 1530s, Hanthawaddy was the most powerful and prosperous kingdom of all post-Pagan kingdoms. Under a string of especially gifted monarchs, the kingdom enjoyed a long golden age, profiting from foreign commerce. The kingdom, with a flourishing the Mon language and culture, became a Centre of commerce and Theravada Buddhism.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Due to the inexperience of its last ruler, the powerful kingdom was conquered by the upstart Taungoo dynasty in 1539. The kingdom was briefly revived between 1550 and 1552. It effectively controlled only Pegu and was crushed by Taungoo in 1552.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Shans, ethnic Tai peoples who came down with the Mongols, stayed and quickly came to dominate much of northern to eastern arc of Burma, from northwestern Sagaing Division to Kachin Hills to the present day Shan Hills.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The most powerful Shan states were Mohnyin and Mogaung in present-day Kachin State, followed by Hsenwi (Theinni) (split up in a northern and a southern state in 1988), THsipaw (Thibaw) and Momeik in present-day northern Shan State.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Minor states included Kalay, Bhamo (Wanmaw or Manmaw), Hkamti Long (Kantigyi), Hopong (Hopon), Hsahtung (Thaton), Hsamönghkam (Thamaingkan), Hsawnghsup (Thaungdut), Hsihkip (Thigyit), Hsumhsai (Hsum Hsai), Kehsi Mangam (Kyithi Bansan), Kengcheng (Kyaingchaing), Kenghkam (Kyaingkan), Kenglön (Kyainglon), Kengtawng, Kengtung (Kyaington), Kokang (Kho Kan), Kyawkku Hsiwan (Kyaukku), Kyong (Kyon), Laihka (Legya), Lawksawk (Yatsauk), Loi-ai (Lwe-e), Loilong (Lwelong), Loimaw (Lwemaw), Nyaung Shwe and many more.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Mohnyin, in particular, constantly raided Ava's territory in the early 16th century. The Monhyin-led Confederation of Shan States, in alliance with Prome Kingdom, captured Ava itself in 1527. The Confederation defeated its erstwhile ally Prome in 1532, and ruled all of Upper Burma except Taungoo. But the Confederation was marred by internal bickering, and could not stop Taungoo, which conquered Ava in 1555 and all of the Shan States by 1563.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Although Arakan had been de facto independent since the late Pagan period, the Laungkyet dynasty of Arakan was ineffectual. Until the founding of the Mrauk-U Kingdom in 1429, Arakan was often caught between bigger neighbours, and found itself a battlefield during the Forty Years' War between Ava and Pegu. Mrauk-U went on to be a powerful kingdom in its own right between 15th and 17th centuries, including East Bengal between 1459 and 1666. Arakan was the only post-Pagan kingdom not to be annexed by the Taungoo dynasty.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Beginning in the 1480s, Ava faced constant internal rebellions and external attacks from the Shan States, and began to disintegrate. In 1510, Taungoo, located in the remote southeastern corner of the Ava kingdom, also declared independence. When the Confederation of Shan States conquered Ava in 1527, many refugees fled southeast to Taungoo, the only kingdom in peace, and one surrounded by larger hostile kingdoms.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Taungoo, led by its ambitious king Tabinshwehti and his deputy general Bayinnaung, would go on to reunify the petty kingdoms that had existed since the fall of the Pagan Empire, and found the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia. First, the upstart kingdom defeated a more powerful Hanthawaddy in the Taungoo–Hanthawaddy War (1534–41). Tabinshwehti moved the capital to newly captured Bago in 1539.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Taungoo had expanded its authority up to Pagan by 1544 but failed to conquer Arakan in 1545–47 and Siam in 1547–49. Tabinshwehti's successor Bayinnaung continued the policy of expansion, conquering Ava in 1555, Nearer/Cis-Salween Shan States (1557), Lan Na (1558), Manipur (1560), Farther/Trans-Salween Shan states (1562–63), the Siam (1564, 1569), and Lan Xang (1565–74), and bringing much of western and central mainland Southeast Asia under his rule.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Bayinnaung put in place a lasting administrative system that reduced the power of hereditary Shan chiefs, and brought Shan customs in line with low-land norms. But he could not replicate an effective administrative system everywhere in his far flung empire. His empire was a loose collection of former sovereign kingdoms, whose kings were loyal to him as the Cakkavatti (, ; Universal Ruler), not the kingdom of Taungoo.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The overextended empire unravelled soon after Bayinnaung's death in 1581. Siam broke away in 1584 and went to war with Burma until 1605. By 1597, the kingdom had lost all its possessions, including Taungoo, the ancestral home of the dynasty. In 1599, the Arakanese forces aided by Portuguese mercenaries, and in alliance with the rebellious Taungoo forces, sacked Pegu. The country fell into chaos, with each region claiming a king. Portuguese mercenary Filipe de Brito e Nicote promptly rebelled against his Arakanese masters, and established Goa-backed Portuguese rule at Thanlyin in 1603.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Despite being a tumultuous time for Myanmar, the Taungoo expansions increased the international reach of the nation. Newly rich merchants from Myanmar traded as far as the Rajahnate of Cebu in the Philippines where they sold Burmese Sugar ("śarkarā") for Cebuano gold. Filipinos also had merchant communities in Myanmar, historian William Henry Scott, quoting the Portuguese manuscript Summa Orientalis, noted that Mottama in Burma (Myanmar) had a large presence of merchants from Mindanao, Philippines. The Lucoes, a rival to the other Filipino group, the Mindanaoans, who instead came from the island of Luzon, were also hired as mercenaries and soldiers for both Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar), in the Burmese-Siamese Wars, the same case as the Portuguese, who were also mercenaries for both sides.


title: History of Myanmar

text: While the interregnum that followed the fall of Pagan Empire lasted over 250 years (1287–1555), that following the fall of First Taungoo was relatively short-lived. One of Bayinnaung's sons, Nyaungyan Min, immediately began the reunification effort, successfully restoring central authority over Upper Burma and nearer Shan states by 1606.


title: History of Myanmar

text: His successor Anaukpetlun defeated the Portuguese at Thanlyin in 1613. He recovered the upper Tanintharyi coast to Dawei and Lan Na from the Siamese by 1614. He also captured the trans-Salween Shan states (Kengtung and Sipsongpanna) in 1622–26.


title: History of Myanmar

text: His brother Thalun rebuilt the war-torn country. He ordered the first ever census in Burmese history in 1635, which showed that the kingdom had about two million people. By 1650, the three able kings–Nyaungyan, Anaukpetlun, and Thalun–had successfully rebuilt a smaller but far more manageable kingdom.


title: History of Myanmar

text: More importantly, the new dynasty proceeded to create a legal and political system whose basic features would continue under the Konbaung dynasty well into the 19th century. The crown completely replaced the hereditary chieftainships with appointed governorships in the entire Irrawaddy valley, and greatly reduced the hereditary rights of Shan chiefs. It also reined in the continuous growth of monastic wealth and autonomy, giving a greater tax base. Its trade and secular administrative reforms built a prosperous economy for more than 80 years. Except for a few occasional rebellions and an external war—Burma defeated Siam's attempt to take Lan Na and Mottama in 1662–64—the kingdom was largely at peace for the rest of the 17th century.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The kingdom entered a gradual decline, and the authority of the "palace kings" deteriorated rapidly in the 1720s. From 1724 onwards, the Meitei people began raiding the upper Chindwin River. In 1727, southern Lan Na (Chiang Mai) successfully revolted, leaving just northern Lan Na (Chiang Saen) under an increasingly nominal Burmese rule. Meitei raids intensified in the 1730s, reaching increasingly deeper parts of central Burma.


title: History of Myanmar

text: In 1740, the Mon in Lower Burma began a rebellion, and founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom, and by 1745 controlled much of Lower Burma. The Siamese also moved their authority up the Tanintharyi coast by 1752. Hanthawaddy invaded Upper Burma in November 1751, and captured Ava on 23 March 1752, ending the 266-year-old Taungoo dynasty.


title: History of Myanmar

text: Soon after the fall of Ava, a new dynasty rose in Shwebo to challenge the authority of Hanthawaddy. Over the next 70 years, the highly militaristic Konbaung dynasty went on to create the largest Burmese empire, second only to the empire of Bayinnaung. By 1759, King Alaungpaya's Konbaung forces had reunited all of Burma (and Manipur), extinguished the Mon-led Hanthawaddy dynasty once and for all, and driven out the European powers who provided arms to Hanthawaddy—the French from Thanlyin and the English from Cape Negrais.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The kingdom then went to war with the Ayutthaya Kingdom, which had occupied up the Tanintharyi coast to Mottama during the Burmese civil war (1740–1757), and had provided shelter to the Mon refugees. By 1767, the Konbaung armies had subdued much of Laos and defeated Siam. But they could not finish off the remaining Siamese resistance as they were forced to defend against four invasions by Qing China (1765–1769). While the Burmese defences held in "the most disastrous frontier war the Qing dynasty had ever waged", the Burmese were preoccupied with another impending invasion by the world's largest empire for years. The Qing kept a heavy military line-up in the border areas for about one decade in an attempt to wage another war while imposing a ban on inter-border trade for two decades.


title: History of Myanmar

text: The Ayutthaya Kingdom used the Konbaung preoccupation with the Qing to recover their lost territories by 1770, and in addition, went on to capture much of Lan Na by 1775, ending over two centuries of Burmese suzerainty over the region. They went to war again in 1775-1776, 1785–1786, 1787, 1792, 1803–1808, 1809–1812 and 1849–1855, but these all resulted in a stalemate. After decades of war, the two countries essentially exchanged Tanintharyi (to Burma) and Lan Na (to Siam).


title: History of Myanmar

text: Faced with a powerful China in the northeast and a resurgent Siam in the southeast, King Bodawpaya turned westward for expansion. He conquered Arakan in 1785, annexed Manipur in 1814, and captured Assam in 1817–1819, leading to a long ill-defined border with British India. Bodawpaya's successor King Bagyidaw was left to put down British instigated rebellions in Manipur in 1819 and Assam in 1821–1822. Cross-border raids by rebels from the British protected territories and counter-cross-border raids by the Burmese led to the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26).


title: History of Myanmar

text: Lasting 2 years and costing 13 million pounds, the first Anglo-Burmese War was the longest and most expensive war in British Indian history, but ended in a decisive British victory. Burma ceded all of Bodawpaya's western acquisitions (Arakan, Manipur and Assam) plus Tenasserim. Burma was crushed for years by repaying a large indemnity of one million pounds (then US$5 million). In 1852, the British unilaterally and easily seized the Pegu province in the Second Anglo-Burmese War.