title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Two diametrically opposed anti-slavery positions emerged regarding the United States Constitution. The Garrisonians emphasized that the document permitted and protected slavery, and was therefore "an agreement with hell" that had to be rejected in favor of immediate emancipation. Lincoln deeply supported the Constitution and rejected this position. Instead he adopted and promoted the mainstream anti-slavery position of the new Republican party. It argued that the Constitution could and should be used to eventually end slavery but meanwhile the Constitution gave the government no authority to abolish slavery directly. However there were multiple tactics available to support the long-term strategy of using the Constitution as a battering ram against the peculiar institution. First Congress could block the admission of any new slave states. That would steadily move the balance of power in Congress and the electoral college in favor of freedom. Congress could abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and the territories. Congress could use the Commerce Clause to end the interstate slave trade, thus crippling the steady movement of slavery from the economically stagnant southeast to the growing southwest. Congress could recognize free blacks as full citizens, and insist on due process rights to protect fugitive slaves from being captured and returned to bondage. Finally the government could use patronage powers to promote the anti-slavery cause across the country, especially in the border states. Pro-slavery elements considered the Republican strategy to be much more dangerous to their cause than radical abolitionism. Lincoln's election was met by secession. Indeed the Republican strategy mapped the "crooked path to abolition" that prevailed during the Civil War.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The Republican Party was committed to restricting the growth of slavery, and its victory in the election of 1860 was the trigger for secession by Southern states. The debate before 1860 was mainly focused on the Western territories, especially Kansas and the popular sovereignty controversy.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln was nominated as the Republican candidate for president in the election of 1860. Lincoln was opposed to the expansion of slavery into the territories, but agreed with nearly all Americans, including most radical abolitionists, that the federal government was prevented by the Constitution from abolishing slavery in states where it already existed. His plan was to halt the spread of slavery and to offer monetary compensation to slave owners in states that agreed to gradually end slavery (see Compensated emancipation). He was considered a moderate within the Republican party in taking the position that slavery should be put on a course of "ultimate extinction" with the help of the federal government.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: In a letter to Senator Lyman Trumbull on December 10, 1860, Lincoln wrote, "Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery." In a letter to John A. Gilmer of North Carolina of December 15, 1860, which was soon published in newspapers, Lincoln wrote that the "only substantial difference" between North and South was that "You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted." Lincoln repeated this statement in a letter to Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia on December 22, 1860.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: On December 15, 1860, Kentucky Senator John J. Crittenden proposed the Crittenden Compromise, a series of constitutional amendments intended to coax the Confederate states into returning to the Union. President-elect Lincoln rejected the Crittenden Compromise out of hand because it would have permitted the expansion of slavery, stating "I will suffer death before I will consent or will advise my friends to consent to any concession or compromise which looks like buying the privilege of taking possession of this government to which we have a constitutional right."


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: On February 22, 1861, at a speech in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lincoln reconfirmed that his convictions sprang from the sentiment expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which was also the basis of the continued existence of the United States since that time, namely, the "principle or idea" "in that Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope to the world for all future time. (Great applause.) It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. (Cheers.)"


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The proposed Corwin amendment was passed by Congress before Lincoln became President and was ratified by three states but was abandoned once the Civil War began. It would have reaffirmed what historians call the Federal Consensus—the nearly universal belief that under the Constitution the federal government had no power to abolish slavery in a state where it already existed. In his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861, Lincoln explained that while he had not seen the amendment and took no position on amendments in general, "holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." The Corwin amendment was a late attempt at reconciliation but it was doomed to fail because southerners knew that it would not stop the federal government from adopting a host of antislavery policies that did not violate the Federal Consensus. Most significantly, the Corwin amendment would not have interfered with Lincoln's plan to ban the expansion of slavery into the federal territories, which was one of the main points of contention between pro- and anti-slavery factions.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln's long-term goal was to apply federal pressure on the slave states to get them to abolish slavery on their own, beginning with the four loyal, non-seceding border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. But he also warned that if the slave states seceded from the Union they would forfeit the constitutional protection of slavery, including any claim to the recovery of their fugitive slaves.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The American Civil War began in April 1861, and by the end of May the Lincoln administration approved a policy of not returning fugitive slaves who came within Union lines from disloyal states. Such slaves were deemed "contraband of war," or "contrabands." On August 6, 1861, Congress declared the forfeiture of contraband to be permanent by passing the first of the Confiscation Acts, and two days later Lincoln's War Department issued instructions emancipating all the slaves who came within Union lines from disloyal states or owners. By the end of the year thousands of slaves were being emancipated.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: So as not to alienate the border states, Lincoln was careful to ensure that his generals followed the letter of the law. He encouraged General James K. Lane in western Missouri to emancipate thousands of slaves of disloyal masters who came voluntarily within his lines. But in eastern Missouri, when General John C. Frémont issued a decree emancipating the slaves of disloyal owners in areas the Union did not control, Lincoln ordered the general to revise his decree to conform with the law. Lincoln promoted Lane to brigadier general but would later fire Frémont for corruption and military incompetence. In western Missouri, Lincoln replaced Frémont with an abolitionist general, David Hunter. The care Lincoln took to distinguish legal from extralegal emancipation was reaffirmed in May 1862, after Hunter issued two emancipation proclamations covering the areas his troops recently occupied "along the Carolina, Georgia, and Florida coast." The first proclamation, which was legal, freed "all persons of color lately held to involuntary servitude by enemies of the United States." The second proclamation declared all the slaves in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina "to be 'forever free,' not just those belonging to disloyal masters." That second proclamation, like Frémont's, went beyond the law, and Lincoln reversed it, as he had Frémont's.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: After revoking Hunter's attempt at emancipation, Lincoln issued a statement explaining that Hunter had issued his proclamation without Lincoln's knowledge or approval, and the authority to free slaves in the rebel states was held only by the President, not his generals. He concluded by referring to a congressional resolution passed in March that stated the federal government's intent to provide compensation to assist states that were willing to voluntarily abolish slavery and encouraged all slave states to come up with a plan to carry it out.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: By the end of 1861 tens of thousands of slaves were emancipated as they crossed into Union lines at Fort Monroe, Virginia, the Sea Islands off South Carolina, and in western Missouri. In December the Lincoln administration announced its emancipation policy in a series of annual reports by the president and by several of his cabinet secretaries. By January Lincoln himself declared that no federal authority, civil or military, could legally return fugitive slaves to their owners. By then the sentiment for a more radical approach to emancipation had been building, and in July Congress authorized the president to issue a more general emancipation proclamation, freeing all the slaves in all areas in rebellion. A few days after Lincoln signed the law—known as the Second Confiscation Act—he drafted the first version of what would become his Emancipation Proclamation.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Because the Constitution could sanction emancipation only under the president's war powers, freeing slaves could be justified only as a means of suppressing the Southern rebellion and winning the war. As a result, until the very end of the war, Lincoln claimed that the purpose of the war was the restoration of the Union. Southern leaders denounced Lincoln as a bloodthirsty revolutionary whose emancipation policies proved that the secessionists were right all along about those they labeled "Black Republicans." Northern Democrats, meanwhile, denied that emancipation was a "military necessity," as Lincoln and the Republicans claimed it was. But Lincoln never deviated from his official position, that because the Constitution recognized slavery in the states, the only constitutional justification for freeing slaves was military necessity.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: All throughout 1862, the Lincoln administration took several direct actions against slavery. On April 16, Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which abolished slavery in Washington, D.C. Two months later, on June 19, Congress banned slavery in all federal territories, fulfilling Lincoln's 1860 campaign promise to ban the expansion of slavery. On July 17, Congress passed the second of the Confiscation Acts. While the initial act did not make any determination on the final status of escaped slaves who fled to Union lines, the Second Confiscation act did, stating that escaped or liberated slaves belonging to anyone who participated in or supported the rebellion "shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." The act also prohibited anyone in the military from returning escaped slaves to their masters, even if the slaves had escaped from a Union slave state.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: On August 22, 1862, Lincoln published a letter in response to an editorial titled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" by Horace Greeley of the "New-York Tribune", in which the editor asked why Lincoln had not yet issued an emancipation proclamation, as he was authorized to do by the Second Confiscation Act. In his reply Lincoln differentiated between "my view of official duty"—that is, what he can do in his official capacity as President—and his personal views. Officially he must save the Union above all else; personally he wanted to free all the slaves:


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: At the time that Lincoln published this letter, he had already chosen the third of the three options he named: He was waiting for a Union victory to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which would announce that he would free some but not all the slaves on January 1, 1863.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Just one month after writing this letter, Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that, on January 1, 1863, he would use his war powers to free all slaves in states still in rebellion as they came under Union control. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this [the letter to Greeley] after he had already drafted a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter was, in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as a liberator." Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union." However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to the cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both at the same time. In his 2014 book, "Lincoln's Gamble", journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was in fact crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free the slaves was as a tactic of war—not for its own sake. But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates, for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of the Dred Scott decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: But a constitutional amendment has to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. There were too many slave states and not enough free states for a constitutional amendment to be ratified, so even as he was preparing to issue his Emancipation Proclamation he proposed a series of constitutional amendments that would make it easier for the federal government to pressure states to abolish slavery on their own, including compensation, a gradual timetable for abolition, and subsidies for blacks willing to colonize themselves outside the United States. None of those constitutional amendments came close to passage. But by 1863 Lincoln had other ways of pressuring the state to abolish slavery: By refusing to return slaves who escaped from loyal masters in loyal states, and by enlisting slaves from loyal states into the Union Army with the promise of emancipation, the Lincoln administration systematically undermined slavery in many of the Southern states.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln had begun pressuring the border states to abolish slavery in November 1861, with no success. In 1862 he began to warn the states that if they did not abolish slavery on their own, the institution would succumb to the "incidents of war" and would be undermined by "mere friction and abrasion." But the abrasion was no mere incident; it was the policy of emancipation. Beginning in mid-1863 Lincoln intensified the pressure on all the slave states, and in early 1864 the policy began to pay off. Between January 1864 and January 1865, three slave states abolished slavery, all under intense pressure from the federal government. By the time the House of Representatives sent the Thirteenth Amendment to the states for ratification, the ratio of free to slave states was 27:9, or the needed three-quarters.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Early in the war, several counties of Virginia that were loyal to the Union formed the Restored Government of Virginia and applied for statehood for part of western Virginia into the Union as a new state. Lincoln required West Virginia to have a constitutional plan for gradual emancipation as a condition of statehood. In response, West Virginia passed the Willey Amendment, which declared "The children of slaves born within the limits of this State after the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be free; and all slaves within this state who shall, at the time aforesaid, be under the age of ten years, shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-one years; and all slaves over ten and under twenty-one years shall be free when they arrive at the age of twenty-five years; and no slave shall be permitted to come into the State for permanent residence therein." Lincoln considered this satisfactory, writing, "the admission of the new state, turns that much slave soil to free; and thus, is a certain, and irrevocable encroachment upon the cause of the rebellion." West Virginia was granted statehood on June 20, 1863, and went on to fully abolish slavery on February 3, 1865, roughly three months before the end of the war.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln came to appreciate the role that black troops played in this process. In the end some 180,000 blacks served in the Union Army, a disproportionate number of them from the states that ended up abolishing slavery. He made his feeling clear in an eloquent letter a year later to James C. Conkling on August 26, 1863.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The Conkling letter was dated August 26, 1863, the month after two great Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, but also at a time when Americans were reading the first reports of black troops fighting courageously in battles at Milliken's Bend and Battery Wagner. It was also in the summer of 1863 that Lincoln initiated his intensified effort to get various slave states to abolish slavery on their own.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln addresses the changes to his positions and actions regarding emancipation in an 1864 letter to Albert G. Hodges. In that letter, Lincoln states his moral opposition to slavery, writing, "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling." Lincoln further explained that he had eventually determined that military emancipation and the enlistment of black soldiers were necessary for the preservation of the Union, which was his responsibility as president.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Having won re-election to the presidency in November 1864 on a platform of abolishing slavery, Lincoln and several members of his cabinet embarked on a sustained lobbying effort to get the abolition amendment through the House of Representatives. The amendment abolishing slavery everywhere in the United States was ratified by every state that had abolished slavery during the war, and it became part of the Constitution on December 6, 1865.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: On December 8, 1863, Lincoln used his war powers to issue a "Proclamation for Amnesty and Reconstruction", which offered Southern states a chance to peacefully rejoin the Union if they abolished slavery and collected loyalty oaths from 10 percent of their voting population. Before the end of the war, Louisiana. Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri,


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Tennessee, and West Virginia, abolished slavery. In addition, the Union loyalist, Restored government of Virginia, abolished slavery before the end of the war.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: On June 28, 1864, President Lincoln signed into law Congress's repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: As Lincoln began to be concerned about the 1864 presidential election and the potential for a new administration that would end the war without emancipation, he turned to Frederick Douglass. He said, according to Douglass, "I want you to set about devising some means of making them [slaves] acquainted with it [the Emancipation Proclamation], and for bringing them into our lines," thereby making emancipation an accomplished fact before a potential next administration could take office.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: When Lincoln accepted the nomination for the Union party for president in June 1864, he called for the first time for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, to immediately abolish slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. He wrote in his letter of acceptance that "it would make a fitting and necessary conclusion" to the war and would permanently join the causes of "Liberty and Union." He won re-election on this platform in November, and in December, 1864, Lincoln worked to have the House approve the amendment.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: When the House passed the 13th amendment on January 31, 1865, Lincoln signed the amendment, although this was not a legal requirement, and said in a speech the next day, "He thought all would bear him witness that he had never shrunk from doing all that he could to eradicate slavery by issuing an emancipation proclamation." He pointed out that the emancipation proclamation did not complete the task of eradicating slavery; "But this amendment is a King's cure for all the evils [of slavery]."


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln, having gotten the constitutional amendment to abolish slavery through Congress, began his second term. He discussed slavery throughout his second inaugural address, describing it as not only the cause of the Civil War, but claiming that, as an offense to God, it drew God's righteous judgment against the entire nation.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, provided no compensation to slave owners, but previously, President Lincoln had made numerous proposals to the loyal border states to agree to "compensated emancipation." None did. The only area of the country that would ever receive compensated emancipation would be Washington, D.C. Because Washington, D.C. was a city under federal jurisdiction, Lincoln was able to convince Congress to pass the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: President Lincoln advocated that slave owners be compensated for emancipated slaves. On March 6, 1862, President Lincoln, in a message to the U.S. Congress, stated that emancipating slaves would create economic "inconveniences" that justified compensation to the slave owners. The resolution was adopted by Congress; however, the Southern states rejected it. On July 12, 1862, President Lincoln, in a conference with congressmen from the four border states of Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri, urged that their respective states adopt emancipation legislation that compensated slave owners. On July 14, 1862, President Lincoln sent a bill to Congress that allowed the Treasury to issue bonds at 6% interest to states for slave emancipation compensation to slave owners. The bill never came to a vote.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: In his December 1, 1862, Annual Message to Congress, Lincoln proposed a constitutional amendment that would provide federal compensation to any state that voluntarily abolished slavery before the year 1900.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: As late as the Hampton Roads Conference in 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate leaders and proposed a "fair indemnity," possibly $500,000,000, in compensation for emancipated slaves.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Like many self-styled moderates, Abraham Lincoln supported the colonization (resettlement) of African Americans outside the United States, notably in Liberia. Historians have disputed his motivation, with scholars such as James McPherson, David Reynolds, and Allen Guelzo arguing that Lincoln advocated colonization of the freedpeople in order to assuage racist concerns about the Emancipation Proclamation. Other historians, such as Phillip W. Magness, Richard Blackett, Phillip Paludan, and Mark E. Neely, Jr., have challenged that contention by highlighting the quiet, even secretive basis of most of Lincoln's colonization activity; the lack of falsifiability to any unsubstantiated claim that historical actors did not mean what they said; and the inadequacy, for a deportationist target audience, of Lincoln's adherence to African American consent. The author of the one book-length study of black colonization during the Civil War era, Sebastian N. Page, argues that Lincoln believed in colonization to his death, but that the policy failed due to the corruption, controversy, and the inadequate African American interest that it generated.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Probably present at the 1845 founding of a short-lived Illinois auxiliary to the American Colonization Society (ACS), Lincoln had helped transfer a donation to the latter during his residency in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Thirtieth Congress. In 1852, he made his first recorded remarks on African American resettlement in a eulogy for the president of the ACS (and national statesman), Henry Clay. The next year, he helped an Indiana colonizationist, James Mitchell, who had come to Springfield, Illinois, to rekindle that state's colonization movement. In 1854, in his Peoria speech, Lincoln articulated two motifs of his support for colonization: first, the unwillingness of "the great mass of white people" to accept black equality, and second, on a note of qualification, Liberia's liability to be overwhelmed by any sizable influx of immigrants. Accordingly, he supported the colonization program of Francis Preston Blair and his sons Frank and Montgomery (until 1860, better-known Republicans than Lincoln), who rejected Liberia in favor of closer destinations in the American tropics.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: In his first annual message to Congress (now known as the State of the Union Address), of December 3, 1861, Lincoln advised Congress to provide for the colonization of free African American people, even if it required the United States to acquire further territory. He encouraged the Thirty-Seventh Congress's insertion of voluntary colonization clauses into its District Emancipation and Second Confiscation Acts, intimating that he would not sign those bills unless they contained such a provision. Once Congress had passed this legislation, which it reinforced with a $600,000 fund for colonization, Lincoln appointed his old collaborator, James Mitchell, to an ad hoc position within the Department of the Interior. Together, they arranged his famous meeting of August 14, 1862, with a deputation of black Washingtonians, whom he told, "without the institution of Slavery and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have an existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated." Civil War historian Jonathan W. White wrote of this meeting, "Few moments in Lincoln’s presidency appear as regrettable as this one... Lincoln’s words were terribly condescending." Lincoln biographer Michael Burlingame took a more favorable view of Lincoln's remarks to his visitors, finding one statement "remarkably empathetic."


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: During a series of three cabinet meetings of late September 1862, Lincoln rebuffed Attorney General Edward Bates's suggestion of compulsory colonization, but decided to ask Congress, in his second annual message of December 1, 1862, to pass an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to promote black resettlement by treaty with putative host states. Legislators' lack of response drove Lincoln thereafter to his own public silence on colonization, though he quietly continued to pursue colonization schemes, and in two waves.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The president's two best-known colonization projects, Linconia (in Chiriquí Province, today in Panama) and the Île-à-Vache (Haiti), would both fail, albeit at different stages of their development, because of Lincoln's initial proclivity for pursuing colonization through U.S.- based concessionaires rather than the sovereign states that had granted them their leases.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: For over a year from October 1861, Lincoln hoped to found a black colony in the Chiriquí district of what is now Panama, then an outlying part of Colombia. The settlers would mine coal to supply the U.S. Navy, and might even secure isthmian transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The president appointed the U.S. senator for Kansas, Samuel Pomeroy, to lead the expedition and choose pioneers from the 13,700 African Americans who applied to join him. Lincoln also signed a contract with Ambrose W. Thompson, the leaseholder of the tract in question, which allowed for tens of thousands of African Americans to immigrate. The secretary of the interior, Caleb B. Smith, also issued Pomeroy $25,000 from the colonization fund, to pay for transportation and equipment.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln suspended the project in early October 1862, before a single ship had sailed, ostensibly because of diplomatic protests by the governments of Central America, but really because of the uncertainty caused by the Colombian Civil War. The president hoped to overcome these complications by having Congress provide for a treaty with Colombia for African American emigration, much as he outlined in his second annual message, but he shelved the Chiriquí project over the New Year of 1863 when he learned that its stakeholders included not only a personal friend, Richard W. Thompson, but also the new secretary of the interior, John P. Usher.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: By way of substitute, on New Year's Eve, 1862, Lincoln arranged with a New Orleans businessman, Bernard Kock, to establish a colony on the Île-à-Vache, an island off Haiti. Although the White House subsequently remade the agreement with more trustworthy partners than Kock, the new contractors retained Kock as the supervisor of the settlement, for which more than 400 freed slaves sailed from Fort Monroe, Virginia. Lack of shelter on the island, an outbreak of smallpox, and an ever-growing mistrust between the administration and its contractors doomed the colony. In February 1864, at Lincoln's behest, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton dispatched a vessel to rescue the survivors.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: A critic of the "contract colonies," the commissioner of emigration, James Mitchell, encouraged Abraham Lincoln to promote African American emigration to British Honduras (Belize) and the British West Indies at large. Separately, the U.S. minister to the Netherlands, James Shepherd Pike, negotiated a treaty for black resettlement in the Dutch West Indies (Suriname). Lincoln believed that by dealing with the comparatively stable European empires, he could avoid some of the problems that had plagued his earlier contracts with private interests.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln signed an agreement on June 13, 1863, with John Hodge of British Honduras, which authorized colonial agents to recruit ex-slaves and transport them to Belize from the approved ports of Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston. Later that year the Department of the Interior sent John Willis Menard, a free African American clerk who supported colonization, to investigate the site for the government. The scheme petered out when John Usher refused to release funds to the would-be pioneers of Henry Highland Garnet's African Civilization Society and when the British Colonial Office banned the recruitment of "contraband" freedpeople for fear that the Confederacy would deem this a hostile act.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: The question of when Lincoln abandoned colonization, if ever, has aroused debate among historians. The government funded no more colonies after the rescue of the Ile à Vache survivors in early 1864, and Congress repealed most of the colonization funding that July.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln left no surviving statements in his own hand on the subject during the last two years of his presidency. An entry in the diary of presidential secretary John Hay, dated July 1, 1864, claims that Lincoln had "sloughed off" colonization, though attributes that change to the president's frustration with corrupt contractors rather than to any philosophical departure. In the fall of 1864, Lincoln wrote Attorney General Edward Bates to inquire whether the legislation of 1862 allowed him to continue pursuing colonization and to retain Mitchell's services irrespective of the loss of funding. General Benjamin F. Butler claimed that Lincoln approached him in 1865, a few days before his assassination, to talk about reviving colonization in Panama. Since the mid-twentieth century, historians have debated the validity of Butler's account, as Butler wrote it years after the fact and was prone to exaggerating his prowess as a general. Recently discovered documents prove that Butler and Lincoln did indeed meet on April 11, 1865, though whether and to what extent they talked about colonization is not recorded except in Butler's account.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: A postwar article by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles suggested that Lincoln intended to revive colonization in his second term.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: In his second term as president, on April 11, 1865, Lincoln gave a speech in which, for the first time publicly, he promoted voting rights for some blacks, stating "It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers." John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner and outspoken Confederate sympathizer, attended the speech and became determined to kill Lincoln for supporting citizenship for blacks. Booth assassinated Lincoln three days later.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Known as the Great Emancipator, Lincoln was a complicated figure who wrestled with his own views on race. Through changing times, successive generations have interpreted Lincoln's views on African Americans differently. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr.: "To apply 20th century beliefs and standards to an America of 1858 and declare Abraham Lincoln a 'racist' is a faulty formula that unfairly distorts Lincoln's true role in advancing civil and human rights. By the standards of his time, Lincoln's views on race and equality were progressive and truly changed minds, policy and most importantly, hearts for years to come."


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Lincoln's primary audience was white (male) voters. Lincoln's views on slavery, race equality, and African-American colonization are often intermixed. During the 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln clearly stated his then-view that whites were biologically superior to blacks. On August 22, 1862, he said to a delegation of five black men whom he'd invited to the White House:


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: While president, as the American Civil War progressed, Lincoln advocated or implemented anti-slavery policies, including the Emancipation Proclamation and limited suffrage for African Americans, which he had earlier opposed. Former slave and leading abolitionist Frederick Douglass unequivocally regarded Lincoln as sharing "the prejudices of his white fellow-country-men against the Negro", but also observed of Lincoln that "in his company, I was never reminded of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color." According to Douglass, Lincoln "was pre-eminently the white man's president" and also, “emphatically the black man’s President: the first to show any respect to their rights as men.”


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: Douglass attested to Lincoln's genuine respect for him and other blacks, and to the wisdom of Lincoln's course of action in obtaining both the preservation of the Union (his sworn duty as president) and the freeing of the slaves. In an 1876 speech at the unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (later renamed the Emancipation Memorial), he defended Lincoln's actions:


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: In his past, Lincoln lived in a middle-class, racially mixed neighborhood of Springfield, Illinois; one of his long-time neighbors, Jameson Jenkins (who may have been born a slave), had come from North Carolina and was publicly implicated in the 1850s as a Springfield conductor on the Underground Railroad, sheltering fugitive slaves. In 1861, President-elect Lincoln called on Jenkins to give him a ride to the train depot, where Lincoln delivered his farewell address before leaving Springfield for the last time. Accompanying Lincoln to Washington was a free African American, William Johnson, who acted during the trip as valet, messenger, and bodyguard. Johnson was afterward employed by the White House and then as messenger in the Treasury Department. The two men called on each other for favors. When Johnson contracted fever, probably from Lincoln, and died in 1864, Lincoln satisfied Johnson's family debts and paid for his burial and tombstone in Arlington.


title: Abraham Lincoln and slavery

text: When Lincoln arrived at the White House, for the first time in his life he lived within a large community of free African Americans employed there. Many had previously been enslaved or were descendants of slaves, and their success as free people may have influenced Lincoln's own thinking. Lincoln is said to have showed these employees "a peculiar care and solicitude," and it was, perhaps surprisingly, noted that Lincoln treated them "like people". "He 'sympathized with us colored folks,' one former servant said, 'and we loved him.'" White House Usher, William Slade, who became an "intimate friend," was often the first person Lincoln asked to review parts of his writings and speeches, including likely, drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: Cecil Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden ("née" Pawle; 9 May 1921 – 27 February 2004) was a British socialite and artist, best known as the first wife of Group Captain Peter Townsend, who later became romantically involved with Princess Margaret.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: She was the daughter of Brigadier Hanbury Pawle CBE DL (1886–1972), a Deputy Lieutenant for Hertfordshire, by his marriage to Mary Cecil Hughes-Hallett (d. 1971), both of whom were from families of the landed gentry.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: On 17 July 1941 at Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, she married Peter Townsend (1914–1995). Townsend was a decorated Royal Air Force pilot, who early in the Second World War had brought down the first German bomber to crash in England since 1918. In 1941, he was recovering from injuries incurred in a dogfight. The young Rosemary met the glamorous young ace, and married him after a whirlwind two-week courtship. Townsend later joined the Royal Household in 1944 under an "equerries of honour scheme". With Townsend, she had two sons, Giles (1942–2015) and Hugo (born 1945). King George VI was godfather to Hugo, who was briefly a monk and later married Yolande Princesse de Ligne, fourth daughter of Antoine, 13th Prince of Ligne.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: Their marriage began to collapse due to Townsend's prolonged absences from home. According to news reports, he later discovered Rosemary's affair with John de László, the youngest son of the painter Philip de László, and was granted a decree nisi in 1952 for his wife's adultery. Since Townsend was a divorced man, and divorce was then anathema to the British establishment and the royal household, Princess Margaret was told that she would lose her royal status and privileges if she married him.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: The accounts of this period are somewhat in conflict, and some obituaries for Rosemary and her former husband have suggested a different story behind the official one. Princess Margaret and Townsend became close at some point before Townsend sued for divorce in November 1952; most obituaries state that the Princess turned to Townsend for comfort after the sudden death of her father in February 1952.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: Rosemary married John de László a year later and they had two children, Piers and Charlotte. John de László worked first in export and later as a stockbroker. Meanwhile, Rosemary became a painter, from which she made an income. According to "The Times" obituary, she had previously refused large sums from newspapers that wanted exclusives. She never spoke publicly about her first marriage or her divorce.


title: Rosemary Pratt, Marchioness Camden

text: She was divorced from her second husband in 1977; and on 12 January 1978, at Kensington registry office, she became the third wife of John Charles Henry Pratt, 5th Marquess Camden. He died in 1983, and she died in London on 27 February 2004, aged 82, having outlived all three of her husbands: Townsend died in 1995 and de László in 1990. She was survived by three sons and one daughter: Giles Townsend (b. 1942), Hugo Townsend (b. 1945), Charlotte Watkins (née de László), and Piers de László, and several grandchildren.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: The Nanaimo bar is a bar dessert that requires no baking and is named after the Canadian city of Nanaimo in British Columbia. It consists of three layers: a wafer, nut (walnuts, almonds, or pecans), and coconut crumb base; custard icing in the middle; and a layer of chocolate ganache on top. Many varieties exist, consisting of various types of crumb, various flavours of icing (such as peanut butter or coconut, mocha), and various types of chocolate.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: The earliest confirmed printed copy of the recipe using the name "Nanaimo bars" appears in the Edith Adams' prize cookbook (14th edition) from 1953. Following research into the origins of Nanaimo bars, Lenore Newman writes that the same recipe was published in the "Vancouver Sun" earlier that same year under the name "London Fog Bar". The recipe later also appears in the publication "His/Her Favourite Recipes", Compiled by the Women's Association of the Brechin United Church (1957), with the recipe submitted by Joy Wilgress, a Baltimore, Maryland, native. (Brechin United Church is in Nanaimo.)


title: Nanaimo bar

text: In 1954, the recipe "Mabel's Squares" was published in "The Country Woman's Favourite" by the Upper Gloucester Women's Institute (New Brunswick). The recipe was submitted by Mrs. Harold Payne, the daughter of Mabel (Knowles) Scott (1883–1957).


title: Nanaimo bar

text: The first printing of recipes featuring Nanaimo bar ingredients is found in the 1952 "Women's Auxiliary to the Nanaimo Hospital Cookbook", which features three nearly identical recipes that differ only slightly from the modern Nanaimo bar. They are referred to as the "chocolate square" or the "chocolate slice".


title: Nanaimo bar

text: Other unconfirmed references date the bar back to the 1930s, when it was said to be known locally as "chocolate fridge cake". One modern reference mentions the bars' existence in 19th century Nanaimo.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: The popularity of the bar in Nanaimo led local residents to mobilise to have it voted "Canada's Favourite Confection" in a "National Post" reader survey. In 1985, Mayor Graeme Roberts initiated a contest to find the ultimate Nanaimo bar recipe. The recipe submitted by Joyce Hardcastle, a resident of Nanaimo, was unanimously selected by a panel of judges. The Nanaimo bar was popularized nationwide after being highlighted as a classic Canadian dessert at Expo 86.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: Recipes for similar desserts are found in various places, under various names, in North America and Europe. The designation "Nanaimo bar" is Canadian, and appears in the "Canadian Oxford Dictionary", but not in other language or dialect versions.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: An episode from the first season of the competition television show "MasterChef Canada" features an elimination challenge where competitors made desserts inspired by Nanaimo bars, chosen among three Canadian desserts.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: A 2016 US state dinner in honour of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau featured Nanaimo bars as the main dessert. The elaborate dinner, hosted by then-US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, consisted of a blend of American and Canadian dishes. The Nanaimo bars were presented on a plate inspired by the Rocky Mountains.


title: Nanaimo bar

text: In April 2019, Canada Post announced the release of a booklet of postage stamps dedicated to Canadian desserts and sweets. The booklet of 10 stamps features images of the Nanaimo bar, the butter tart, tarte au sucre (sugar pie), blueberry grunt, and Saskatoon berry pie. Canada Post described the stamps as "fun-shaped", and the booklet of stamps resembled a recipe card. The image of the Nanaimo bar on the stamp received some criticism for its ratio of "the crumbly base, the custard filling, and the chocolate ganache icing."


title: Tyrone Power Jr.

text: Tyrone William Power IV (born January 22, 1959), usually billed as Tyrone Power Jr., is an American actor, the only son of Hollywood star Tyrone Power and his third wife Deborah Minardos Power. He was born after the death of his father.


title: Tyrone Power Jr.

text: He is the fourth actor to bear the name Tyrone Power, the first being his great-great-grandfather the Irish actor Tyrone Power (1795–1841). He is known as Tyrone Power Jr. because his father is the most famous of the four (his grandfather has retroactively become known as Tyrone Power Sr.). Tyrone Jr. also made a guest appearance on the NBC sitcom "Cheers".


title: Livonian Order

text: The order was formed from the remnants of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword after their defeat by Samogitians in 1236 at the Battle of Schaulen (Saule). They were incorporated into the Teutonic Knights and became known as the Livonian Order in 1237. In the summer of that year, the Master of Prussia Hermann Balk rode into Riga to install his men as castle commanders and administrators of Livonia.


title: Livonian Order

text: In 1238, the Teutonic Knights of Livonia signed the Treaty of Stensby with the Kingdom of Denmark. Under this agreement, Denmark would support the expansion ambitions of the order in exchange for northern maritime Estonia.


title: Livonian Order

text: In 1242, the Livonian Order tried to take the city of Novgorod. However, they were defeated by Alexander Nevsky in the Battle on the Ice.


title: Livonian Order

text: Fortresses as Paide in land ceded by Denmark in the Treaty of Stensby allowed the order to contain the threat of Russian troops. For that reason, the order focused on its southern borders and Semigallia.


title: Livonian Order

text: Semigallia was a strategic territory for the Livonian Order. Lithuanians passed through Semigallia to raid settlements in Livonia, and they took advantage of the winter ice pack in the Gulf of Riga to reach Oesel Island. Also, this territory kept the Livonian Branch of the Teutonic Order separated from the Prussian Branch.


title: Livonian Order

text: Between 1237 and 1290, the Livonian Order conquered all of Courland, Livonia, and Semigallia. In 1298, Lithuanians took Karkus Castle north of Riga, and defeated the order in the Battle of Turaida, killing Livonian Land Master Bruno and 22 knights. In 1346, the order bought the Duchy of Estonia from King Valdemar IV of Denmark. Life within the order's territory is described in the "Chronicle of Balthasar Russow" ("Chronica der Provinz Lyfflandt").


title: Livonian Order

text: The Teutonic Order fell into decline following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 and the secularization of its Prussian territories by Albert of Brandenburg in 1525, while the Livonian Order managed to maintain an independent existence.


title: Livonian Order

text: The Livonian Order's defeat in the Battle of Święta (Wiłkomierz) on September 1, 1435, which claimed the lives of the master and several high-ranking knights, brought the order closer to its neighbors in Livonia. The Livonian Confederation agreement ("eiine fruntliche eyntracht") was signed in Walk on December 4, 1435, by the Archbishop of Riga, the bishops of Courland, Dorpat, Ösel-Wiek and Reval; the representatives of the Livonian Order and vassals, and the deputies of Riga, Reval and Dorpat city municipal councils.


title: Livonian Order

text: During the Livonian War, however, the order suffered a decisive defeat by troops of Muscovite Russia in the Battle of Ergeme in 1560. The Livonian Order then sought protection from Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, who had intervened in a war between Bishop William of Riga and the Brothers in 1557.


title: Livonian Order

text: After coming to an agreement with Sigismund II, Augustus and his representatives (especially Mikołaj "the Black" Radziwiłł), the last Livonian Master, Gotthard Kettler, secularized the order and converted to Lutheranism. In the southern part of the Brothers' lands he created the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia for his family. Most of the remaining lands were seized by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The north of Estonia was taken back by Denmark and Sweden.


title: Livonian Order

text: From the 14th to the 16th centuries, Middle Low German as spoken in the towns of the Hanseatic League was the established language, but was subsequently succeeded by High German as official language in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries.


title: Livonian Order

text: The Livonian Master, like the grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, was elected by his fellow knights for a life term. The grandmaster exercised supervisory powers and his advice was considered equal to a command. The grandmaster of Teutonic knights did not limit local autonomy, he rarely visited Livonia or sent ambassadors for oversight.


title: NOTA (film)

text: NOTA () is a 2018 Indian Tamil-language political thriller film directed by Anand Shankar. It stars Vijay Deverakonda, making his Tamil debut, playing the lead role along with Mehreen Pirzada. Sathyaraj, Nassar, Sanchana Natarajan, Karunakaran, Priyadarshi Pullikonda, Yashika Aannand, M. S. Bhaskar, and Rajendran, among others portray supporting roles. Produced by K. E. Gnanavel Raja, under his production house Studio Green, the film was adapted from novel "Vettattam" by Shan Karuppusamy who is also involved in the film's screenplay.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The film revolves around Varun, the son of a chief minister, who rises to his father's position after corruption charges are brought against the father. Varun, who has no political experience, soon finds himself stuck to the chair for a longer time.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The musical score and soundtrack are composed by Sam C. S. and the cinematography and editing were handled by Santhana Krishnan Ravichandran and Raymond Derrick Crasta. The film premiered on 5 October 2018 in India and on 4 October 2018 in the United States. The film opened to mixed reviews from critics and was a failure at the box office.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Varun Subramanyam (Vijay Deverakonda) is a video game designer living in the UK. He is the son of Vinodhan Subramanyam, the long-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Varun visits Chennai for his birthday to be celebrated in the orphanage which he runs and also to see his little half-sister Narmada (Amrutha). Later he goes out partying, but a heavy police convoy nabs him by 1:00 AM and brings him home for a shocking news: Varun is to be sworn in as the new Chief Minister by 5:00 AM to protect the party, as Vinodhan (Nassar) is to be sentenced guilty in a corruption case the next day. Despite his reservations, Varun is sworn in as Chief Minister.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Despite being head of government, CM Varun, who has no idea about all this, accepts for it, provided that his father will be out in bail within two weeks and remains confined in a self-imposed house arrest. Varun actually does nothing except play video games in his room and signs the documents provided by the Chief Secretary. Unfortunately, consequences turn plates negatively to Vinodhan, who is sentenced to prison in the high court appeal until end of case. After Vinodhan gets arrested, riots take place in the city. In the riots, a bus gets burnt in which a little schoolgirl dies in the fire. Varun, who was out to meet his guru Mahendran (Sathyaraj) goes to the spot where the bus was burnt. He asks Mahendran to meet him at the spot. He is heartbroken upon seeing the wails of the little girl's mother. He then realizes the importance of his position and stops the riots, by threatening, in an immediate press meeting on the accident spot. Unfortunately, this is not liked by the opposition party led by Varadarajan (K.S.G.Venkatesh). Varun then gains the name "Rowdy CM" given by the opposition party after being mocked as "Dummy CM".


title: NOTA (film)

text: On the other side, Vinodhan thinks the reason why he passed on the post to his son reason was due to the advice of a swamiji Satyananda (Tej Sapru) who predicted that there is a threat to Vinodhan's position and that he has to resign, while the position has to be taken up by someone of his own bloodline. Vinodhan doubts if Varun is his own son because years ago, Varun's mother (Abhirami Venkatachalam) realized that Vinodhan was a famous actor at that time and was cheating on her with other co-actresses. During a heated argument, she tells him that she might also be cheating on him, which angers him, and he almost chokes her to death. The next day she is found dead, having taken 23 sleeping pills. Thus, Vinodhan never got the answer if Varun was ever his son. Meanwhile, Vinodhan is attacked in a bomb blast by some anonymous men and gets admitted in the hospital, which leads him into a coma. Now, since Varun has to take the responsibility as the CM, he goes through his father's things, in which he finds a diary with codes and bank accounts. He, along with his friend Wong, investigates about it. Due to sudden heavy rain, a dam was required to be opened without prior notice opening. It turned out that the officials were waiting for the CM's order. Varun mocks them by telling them to wait until Vinodhan is released from jail, but he later acts immediately, creating awareness and asking the youths to help; thus, when the dam was opened, it only destroyed properties but not lives. Also, Mahendran talks to Varun and his daughter Swathi (Mehreen Pirzada) about his first love, which was broken due to his friend's selfishness. When Varun stands for the post as CM, a video of him which was taken earlier that had him kissing a foreigner named Sylvia (Brooklyn) in a nightclub party is released, but in reality, he was drugged by the opposition party. Varun cleverly clears his name with the help of director A. R. Murugadoss. Also, the foreigner tells him that she is an actress who joined Varun to do a short film.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Varun sends Wong (Priyadarshi Pulikonda) to Panama to hack the account of the fake owners of the property and transfer the money to his account. Vinodhan, hearing his daughter Narmada talking to his second-wife about Varun winning the temporary election and the clean sweep of the bank accounts, wakes up from his coma and asks for Varun. Thus, when he visits, Vinodhan acts in a way to gain his son's pity. Believing this, he tells it to Mahendran, to which he replies that his father was an actor and there is trouble yet to come.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Meanwhile, a chain of events begin to happen: Swathi meets with an accident; Wong ends up being caught in Panama but somehow escapes; and the foreigner commits suicide and blames it on Varun, who is searched by the police to be arrested, but Varun, with the help of Varadarajan's daughter Kayal (Sanchana Natarajan), stays in her house, where treatment is given to Swathi. Now, the cunning Vinodhan announces one of his goons as the CM instead of Bhai a very well-experienced friend of his. Vinothan and his friend then have a heated argument. Varun, who has hacked the CCTV footage of the hospital, calls and tells his father's friend to tell the followers to vote for him because he has all the money of his party's followers. It is also shown that Satyananda brainwashed Vinodhan for a $20,000,000 deal.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Varun wins the trust vote 122 to 110 (in absentia) and retains his job as CM, and Mahendran tells him that he loved Vinodhan's wife Chitra, before they got married, but Vinodhan broke their relationship to marry Mahendran's lover for her wealth. Mahendran admits that he did not meet her after that. He also said that Varun was Vinodhan's own son and not any other's. Vinodhan realizes his mistake and asks Varun to forgive him. Varun then continues his duty as the CM and decides to bring many changes in the State and also win the next election by people's true votes rather than bribing them .


title: NOTA (film)

text: Principal photography of the film was officially launched on 9 March 2018, but the shoot was cancelled due to the standoff between Nadigar Sangam and Digital Service Providers on the increase of Virtual Print Fee charges. The shooting was resumed after the strike called off. Vijay Deverakonda nailed an immense Tamil dialogue scene in one single take, which impressed the crew members. He shared a picture from the film's shoot through the social media. It was revealed that he is playing a role of the powerful politician in the film. And it is also known that director A. R. Murugadoss, is playing a cameo role in this film. Filming completed in August 2018. The film was partially reshot in Telugu.


title: NOTA (film)

text: While the film is based on a novel "Vettattam", written by Shan Karuppaswamy, the film also features scenes which parodies the current political happenings in Chennai, which includes the 2015 South Indian floods, hospitalization of Chief Minister and MLA's in resort etc.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The musical score and soundtrack were composed by Sam. C. S. The audio rights of the film were secured by Lahari Music and T-Series. Vijay Deverakonda released the "Shot Number" song on 20 September 2018. The full album was released in both Tamil and Telugu versions on 4 October 2018.


title: NOTA (film)

text: For the theme song "The Rise Of A Leader" composer Sam worked with the Macedonian Symphony Orchestra with 150 live musicians, were a part of the film's background score, especially for this song.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The background score of the film was appreciated whereas the songs were criticised. Writing for "The Times of India", Thinkal Menon reviewed the song "Yethikka Yethikka" as an "energetic party song which celebrates the spirit of youth" and "Raja Raja Kula" as "an average one", while "Hey Amaicha" is stated as "neither exceptional nor a tiresome one and "Yaar Kalikku as "a poignant track" - calling the album an above average fare.


title: NOTA (film)

text: It was earlier announced that, the film will be released on 4 October 2018. Later, speculations were clarified that the film releases on 18 October 2018, due to the delay in post-production works, clashing with "Vada Chennai", "Sandakozhi 2" and Telugu film "Hello Guru Preme Kosame". However, the post-production works were completed earlier and the film was released on 5 October 2018.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The distribution rights of the Tamil version were bought by Abinesh Elangovan under the banner Abi & Abi Pictures. The US distribution rights were acquired by Freeze Frame Films and the film was released on 4 October 2018, a day before original release.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The Telugu version of the film was made available to stream on 4 November 2018 on Prime Video. The Tamil version was released on the same platform on 27 February 2019. The satellite rights of the film in Tamil version were sold to Zee Tamil & Zee Thirai. While the Telugu version were sold to Star Maa.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The first look poster was released on 8 March 2018, with Deverakonda showing an inked middle finger. A sneak peek was released on 2 September 2018 and the following day, the theatrical trailer was unveiled. The makers promoted the film via mock campaigns and mock public meetings, in Vijayawada on 30 September and in Hyderabad on 1 October. A pre-release event was not held.


title: NOTA (film)

text: The film has reportedly collected 11.10 crore Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, 4.50 crore in Tamil Nadu, 5.15 crore in Karnataka, 1.70 crore in other parts of India and 2.45 crore in the US in the opening weekend. It has reportedly collected 25.50 crore gross at the worldwide box office on the first weekend and earned 11.50 crore for its distributors. The film was a disaster at the box office.


title: NOTA (film)

text: Regarding the criticisms on the film, Vijay Devarakonda wrote on Twitter reading "I will not make excuses, I take responsibility, I am proud of NOTA. It's a story I wanted to tell, a character explored and a performance delivered." The film was a failure at the box office.


title: People's Daily

text: The People's Daily () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language edition, the "People's Daily" is published in multiple languages.


title: People's Daily

text: The paper was established on 15 June 1948 and was published in Pingshan, Hebei, until its offices were moved to Beijing in March 1949. Ever since its founding, the "People's Daily" has been under direct control of the CCP's top leadership. Deng Tuo and Wu Lengxi served as editor-in-chief from 1948 to 1958 and 1958–1966, respectively, but the paper was in fact controlled by Mao Zedong's personal secretary Hu Qiaomu.


title: People's Daily

text: During the Cultural Revolution, the "People's Daily" was one of the few sources of information from which either foreigners or Chinese could figure out what the Chinese government was doing or planning to do. During this period, an editorial in the "People's Daily" would be considered an authoritative statement of government policy, was studied and reproduced nationwide, and analyzed globally for insight into the Party's plans. The most important editorials were jointly published by "People's Daily", "People's Liberation Army Daily" and "Red Flag", from 1967 to 1978, so called "Two newspapers and one journal" (), directly representing the highest voice of CCP.


title: People's Daily

text: Newspaper articles in the "People's Daily" are often not read for content so much as placement. A large number of articles devoted to a political figure, idea, or geographic focus is often taken as a sign that the mentioned official or subject is rising.


title: People's Daily

text: Editorials in the "People's Daily" are regarded both by foreign observers and Chinese readers as authoritative statements of official government policy. Distinction is made between editorials, commentaries, and opinions. Although all must be government approved, they differ sharply on the amount of official authoritativeness they contain by design – from the top. For example, although an opinion piece is unlikely to contain views opposed to those of the government, it may express a viewpoint, or it may contain a debate that is under consideration and reflect only the opinions of the writer: an editorial trial balloon to assess internal public opinion. By contrast, an official editorial, which is rather infrequent, means that the government has reached a final decision on an issue.


title: People's Daily

text: During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the "People's Daily" editorial of 26 April, which condemned "unlawful parades and demonstrations," marked a significant moment in the newspaper's history. The editorial increased tension between the government and protesters, and top CCP leaders argued about whether to revise it. An article that compiles the most important editorials was released by the "People's Daily" during the student movement.


title: People's Daily

text: Since the mid-1990s, the "People's Daily" has faced a decline of governmental subsidies combined with increasing competition from international news sources and Chinese tabloids. As part of its effort to modernize, it began an online edition in 1997, and the web bulletin forums, such as the Strengthening Nation Forum in the Chinese edition.


title: People's Daily

text: An analysis of the wording of all the issues of the "People's Daily" from 1995 to 2000 was used in the writing of "The First Series of Standardized Forms of Words with Non-standardized Variant Forms".


title: People's Daily

text: The "People's Daily" is also responsible for the publication of the nationalistic tabloid "Global Times."


title: People's Daily

text: In 2020, the United States Department of State designated the "People's Daily" a foreign mission, thereby requiring it to disclose more information about its operations in the U.S.


title: People's Daily

text: The "People's Daily" also maintains a multilingual internet presence; and established the "People's Daily Online" (人民网) in 1997. The website of "People's Daily" includes content in Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese and English. In comparison to the original Chinese version, the foreign-language version offers less in-depth discussion of domestic policies and affairs and more editorials about China's foreign policies and motives.


title: People's Daily

text: The "People's Daily" in recent years has been expanding on overseas social media platforms. It has millions of followers on its Facebook page and its accounts on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. However, an unusually high proportion of its followers are virtually inactive and are likely to be fake users, according to a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists. According to a 2021 report by "The Washington Post", the "People's Daily Online" provides overseas public opinion monitoring outside of the Great Firewall for various police, judicial, and CCP organizations.


title: People's Daily

text: The "People's Daily" employs "writing task groups" () of various staff to compose editorial pieces to signal the significance of certain pieces or their relationship to the official views of the CCP. These groups are published under "signatures" (i.e., pen names: 署名 "shǔmíng") that may correspond with the topic and weight of a piece, and what specific government or CCP body is backing it, often with homophonous references to their purpose.


title: People's Daily

text: During the AIDS epidemic, the "People's Daily" downplayed the epidemic domestically while "presenting AIDS as a relatively innocuous social problem for the country."


title: People's Daily

text: A 2013 study of the "People's Daily" coverage of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak reported that it "regurgitated triumph and optimism" and framed the outbreak as an "opportunity to showcase China's scientific achievements, and the strength of national spirits, as well as the wise leadership of the party and effective measures to protect the lives of ordinary citizens."


title: People's Daily

text: In February 2020, the "People's Daily" published an article stating that the novel coronavirus "did not necessarily originate in China." In March 2020, the online insert of the "People's Daily", distributed by "The Daily Telegraph", published an article stating that Traditional Chinese medicine "helps fight coronavirus." In May 2020, the "People's Daily" stated that the novel coronavirus had "multiple origins." In November 2020, the "People's Daily" published a claim that COVID-19 was "imported" into China. In January 2021, the "People's Daily" inaccurately attributed deaths in Norway to the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.


title: People's Daily

text: In 2021, ProPublica and "The New York Times" reported that the "People's Daily" was part of a coordinated state propaganda campaign to deny human rights abuses in Xinjiang.


title: People's Daily

text: In November 2012, American satire news site "The Onion" published an article where it declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as the 'Sexiest Man Alive for 2012'. In response, "People's Daily" republished the article with 55-page photo spread of Kim and tongue-in-cheek quotes from "The Onion". They later took down the article from its site after realizing that it was a parody. "The Onion" later updated their article about Kim stating; "For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc."


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography in Europe has been dominated by a few pan-European producers and distributors, the most notable of which is the Private Media Group that successfully claimed the position previously held by Color Climax Corporation in the early 1990s. Most European countries also have local pornography producers, from Portugal (e.g. "Naturalvideo") to Serbia (e.g. "Hexor"), who face varying levels of competition with international producers. The legal status of pornography varies widely in Europe; its production and distribution are illegal in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and Bulgaria, while Hungary is noted for having liberal pornography laws.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Albania, pornography is illegal only for producing, delivery, advertising, import, selling and publication of pornographic materials in persons under 18 years old. Child pornography is strictly prohibited.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In 1990, the "Federal Act Against Obscene Publications and for the Protection of Youth Morally Endangered" was passed to regulate pornography in Austria. In 1994 a prohibition on child pornography was added to the law. Under these regulations the minimum age for buying softcore pornography in Austria is 16 and the minimum age for buying hardcore pornography is 18. Publication of pornography or material depicting bestiality is illegal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Azerbaijan in accordance with article 3 of the Media Act of 7 December 1999, "pornographic materials" are defined as works of art, photographic reproductions of paintings, information and other materials the main content of which is the crude and undignified depiction of the anatomical and physiological aspects of sexual relations. Pornography in Azerbaijan is easily and cheaply obtainable in Baku, although not in most other places. There are reports of bribes being charged for taking hardcore pornography across the country's borders. Meanwhile, the legal activity to combat child pornography is governed by 1998 Rights of the Child Act, 1999 Media Act, the Plan of Measures to Solve the Problem of Homeless and Street Children and the National Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography is illegal in Belarus. Production, distribution, promotion, exhibition as well as possession with intent of distribution or promotion of pornographic materials or objects of pornographic nature is punished by Belarusian criminal law and results in compulsory community service, fine or up to 4 years imprisonment.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In the People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990) pornography was only available to a comparatively limited number of people. What pornographic materials there were (mostly magazines and videocassettes) were smuggled into the country. The abandonment of censorship in the early post-communist period resulted in pornography becoming widely available. In the early 1990s pornographic magazines were sold at newsstands, pirated foreign pornographic videocassettes became available and foreign pornographic television stations were accessible. The first Bulgarian pornographic film was made in 1992.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The production and distribution of pornography is illegal in Bulgaria. The filming of pornography and the online distribution of sexual content are illegal. There are no Bulgarian pornographic production companies. Accessing, possessing or storing pornographic materials is not illegal (except for child pornography).


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The penalty for production or distribution of pornography is up to one year imprisonment (or up to two years if the criminal used the Internet) and a fine of to . The penalty for distribution or possession of child pornography is up to one year imprisonment or a fine of up to . Authorities tolerate illegal distribution of hardcore porn in designated shops, and on TV after 11 pm. Softcore material is rarely censored. Magazines and pornographic papers have become increasingly available since the fall of communism in 1989, and local editions of many international porn magazines are published. Society is often exposed to sexual content in advertising.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography in the Czech Republic was legalized in 1993 following the Velvet Revolution, when the country ceased to be a communist state and returned to liberal democracy. Among the Czech companies that produce pornography are LegalPorno Studios, based in Prague.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The sale and distribution of child pornography is illegal and is punishable by imprisonment for up to 3 years. Possession of child pornography was made illegal in 2007 and carries a penalty of up to 2 years in prison. The Czech penal code also bans the sale and distribution of pornography depicting sexual intercourse with an animal and pornography depicting violence or disrespect to human beings, with a penalty of up to 1 year in prison.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: A ban on pornographic literature was lifted in 1967. In 1969, Denmark became the first country in the world to legalize pornography. People in Denmark have free access to pornography. Pornography including minors younger than 18 years is prohibited, and possession of the same is also illegal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Finland, child pornography is illegal, along with violent and bestial pornography. It is legal to sell pornography in any store, but magazines may not be sold to buyers less than 15 years of age, and hardcore is restricted to buyers aged at least 18.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Prior to 1 January 1999, all indecent publishing, including the import and export thereof, was banned.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography is legal with the exception of child pornography. Like in many other countries, child pornography in Germany is illegal. German prosecution authorities and legal bodies of Germany's sixteen states handle the definition of child pornography very differently. The German Edathy affair of 2013/14 following the neglected cooperation of BKA within the Canadian child pornography uncoverings gave way for new legislation procedures in parliament to define the status of either posing or exhibitive pictures of minors. New laws were still in parliamentary debating as lately as 19 December 2014.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography in Greece is legal by selling or publishing material, but it is illegal to minors under 18 years old. Despite the fact, the practice is still commonly done because the law is weakly enforced. Pornographic material is sold in sex shops, DVD-clubs, mini markets, and kiosk shops. There is also a local pornographic production which began unofficially in the 1970s, which then became official and full legal since 2008. Child pornography is illegal and is punished by imprisonment and money penalties.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Hungary, the production of pornography mainly dates from the period after the fall of communism in 1989. The production and distribution of pornography was illegal under communism, but the laws were liberalised with the emergence of democracy. Permissive government policies soon propelled the country to the forefront of the European pornography industry. Several foreign directors were attracted to the country's liberal legislation, cheap production costs and large supply of attractive female performers. Eventually, domestic producers began to prosper as well, and several female actresses made big names for themselves within the industry. Hungarian pornography is different from that produced in America in the more natural appearance of its performers. The sex scenes also tend to be more extreme, with frequent use of anal sex and various forms of multiple penetration.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Publication of pornography is illegal in Iceland, and is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 6 months. Publication of child pornography is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 2 years. In 2013 the Icelandic government proposed banning violent Internet pornography and Iceland's parliament began debating a ban on online pornography.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Other than regulations regarding pornographic movies, no laws against pornography, other than child pornography (a child is defined as someone under 18), exist.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Although Italy had accumulated a lot of softcore pornography in the 1970s, hardcore pornography was not a usual trend until the 1980s. The first pornographic film in Italy was "Il Telefono rosso" (The red telephone) in 1983 by Riccardo Schicchi with Ilona Staller (aka "Cicciolina"). The film caused much controversy and it was restrained from legal release until 1986 with an alternate revision of Italian censorship laws.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Latvia, the distribution of pornographic material is allowed under very similar legal conditions as in Poland. Pornographic or erotic material is rarely to never sold in places accessible to general public.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Lithuania, commercial distribution of pornographic material is prohibited by the Article 309 of the country's Criminal Code which states that "A person who, for the purpose of distribution, produces or acquires pornographic material or distributes such material shall be punished by community service or by a fine or by restriction of liberty or by imprisonment for a term of up to one year".


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Malta, pornography and obscene material was outlawed until later 2016, regardless of whether it has a commercial interest or whether it is directed to an adult audience. The relevant law in this respect was Article 208 (1) of the Criminal Code of Malta which prohibited the manufacture, print, importation, circulation and exportation of pornographic or obscene print, painting, photograph, film, book, card or writing, or any other obscene article whatsoever, whether for gain, or for distribution, or for display in a public place. In a decision given on 21 February 2011, the Maltese Court of Criminal Appeal upheld the criminal conviction of Mr. Alexander Baldacchino who was found guilty of exhibiting soft and hardcore pornographic films at the City Lights Theatre in Valletta. In another judgement, student editor Mark Camilleri and author Alex Vella Gera were found not guilty under Article 208 (1) of the Criminal Code and Article 7 of the Press Act (obscene libel) for the publication of an obscene story entitled "Li Tkisser Sewwi" (translated in English to 'Repair that which you break') in student newspaper "Realtà" (distributed for free on campus at the University of Malta) by the Court of Magistrates (Malta). The decision was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In 2015, the Minister of Social Justice Owen Bonnici started to work on legislation to allow both services or art to create pornographic material while also giving official right to access pornographic material. By late 2016 the parliament of Malta gave the green light for most pornographic material. Pornography involving minors, disabled and extreme forms of expression, including threats with the use of such material, remain illegal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Norway, hardcore material was illegal until 2006 "de jure" to distribute, or sell, but legal to possess. Production, however, was not explicitly illegal, thus both photo and movie shoots occurred. One could acquire pornography abroad, on the Internet, or via satellite TV. Illegal porn shops also existed, especially in larger cities. To satisfy legal requirements, editors of erotic magazines, domestic TV channels, and cable TV obscured "sexual organs in activity" using black rectangles and the like. After the Supreme Court of Norway unanimously acquitted a former magazine editor on 7 December 2005 for publishing unobscured hardcore pornography in 2002, it became understood that printed hardcore pornography was no longer illegal. Pornography became legal on March 14, 2006. Regular and cable TV tend to abide by the old standards, seeing that edited TV is regulated by a separate law and thus is not affected by the Supreme Court decision. Video-on-demand, however, is not regulated by the TV laws, and, thus, pornography is legal to order.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The depiction of illegal sexual activities, including those involving children, animals, necrophilia, rape, violence, or the use of force, remains illegal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Poland, as of September 1998, Article 202 of the national Penal Code makes pornography legal except for the production or possession of pornographic materials containing minors, bestiality (zoophilia), and "scenes of violence/rape". Also illegal is presenting or showing pornographic materials to people who do not want to have any contact with them, and to persons under 15 years of age.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: In Portugal, hardcore pornographic movies can only be shown in adult cinemas. Videos and magazines are openly sold in newsstands but are forbidden by law to be supplied to minors under the age of 18 years. Additionally, hardcore pornographic movies are banned from open-channel TV and can only be broadcast through encrypted/pay-per-view channels.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Child pornography (i.e., pornography depicting children or juveniles below the age of 18) is illegal. Although the national age of consent is 14, the age of legal responsibility (i.e., the age a person can sign contracts consenting to appear in pornography) is 18.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Most Russian pornography is produced in Moscow and in St. Petersburg where the largest adult film producer, "SP-Company", is based. The types of Russian adult films may range from gonzo pornography to adaptations of Russian classics ("Eugene Onegin" (by Tatiana Taneyeva (2003)), "The Master and Margarita" (by Armen Oganezov & Sergei Pryanishnikov (2002)) etc.) and these productions basically aim the domestic market. Much of the pornography is produced for the international internet market.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: According to Russian law, consumption of pornography is allowed though the production of it is not. The illegal production, distribution, and "public demonstration" of pornography is punishable by a 2- to 6-year prison term. Roskomnadzor, the Russian government's media overseer, has the power to order the blocking of pornographic websites. In 2015 the agency required the blocking of the Russian-language version of Pornhub and 10 other pornographic sites on the basis of a court ruling.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography was illegal in Francoist Spain, although some people travelled to France to see films such as "Last Tango in Paris" and some group tours to French X-rated cinemas were organised. For climate reasons, a number of Private movies were shot though not released in Spain.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The censorship of that period ended with Franco's death in 1975. For less than a year there was no censorship at all, and hardcore porn was sometimes shown in main cinemas. Subsequently the S-rating for films was introduced, allowing softcore pornography to be shown in mainstream cinemas. The film genre that arose was known as "destape" (undressing) and included popular films such as "Las eróticas vacaciones de Stela" (Stela's Erotic Vacations), "El mundo maravilloso del sexo" (The Marvellous World of Sex), "Trampa sexual" (Sexual Trap) and "La orgía" (The Orgy). The magazine "Interviú", founded in 1976, had revealing covers of famous actresses and included nude photographs inside. In 1983 the S-rating was replaced by the more permissive X-rating.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Like Denmark and the Netherlands, Sweden does not regulate pornography and the country has no age laws for the possession or viewing of pornography. Some shops follow a voluntary limit and do not sell to minors. Material that involves animals is legal, though it is subject to animal-welfare laws. BDSM is classified as an "illegal depiction of violence" ("olaga våldsskildring").


title: Pornography in Europe

text: It is illegal for people under the age of 18 to act or pose for pornography in Sweden. Recording, downloading, distributing or watching pornographic photographs and films depicting children is a crime. Swedish child pornography laws outlaw actual photographic material as well as drawn images. The Supreme Court argued, however, that because a conviction would mean a restraint in the defendant’s freedom of expression, the court must present a serious case as to when pornographic manga-styled cartoon images like hentai or lolicon can have any potential to harm a child in any way. Since the images are usually not made in any child’s likeness and because e.g. manga was deemed an expression of Japanese culture, the Supreme Court ruled that the restraint on the defendant’s freedom of expression would be too great if it was punishable due to the images being held to constitute child pornography.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography in Switzerland is defined by the Article 197 of the Swiss criminal code. The first alinea states that «"Any person who offers, shows, passes on or makes accessible to a person who is under the age of 16 pornographic documents, sound or visual recordings, depictions or other articles of a similar nature or pornographic representations, or broadcasts any of the same on radio or television is liable to a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or to a monetary penalty."» Furthermore, it is illegal to produce, import, store, market, advertise, exhibit, offer, show, pass on or make accessible pornography that depicts sexual acts involving children (under 16 years old) or animals, human excrement, or acts of violence, called "hard pornography".


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Since July 2014, human excrement and urine are not considered being "hard pornography" anymore. Until June 2014, actors aged 16 and above could participate in a pornography production; however, since July 2014, if a person "looks" or is under 18 years of age, the material is considered as pedo-pornography. This is due to the Swiss ratification of the Lanzarote Convention.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The age of viewing pornography stays fixed at 16 years old (Art. 197 al. 1 of the Swiss criminal code).


title: Pornography in Europe

text: The same materials cited above are nevertheless not regarded as pornographic if they have a cultural or scientific value that justifies their protection by law.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Turkey, which is a formally secular state with a Muslim majority, was the first country to legally produce pornographic materials in the Muslim world. After a long period of producing Italian-inspired softcore comedies in the 1970s, the hardcore film "Öyle Bir Kadın Ki" was distributed in 1979.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Pornography was outlawed in Ukraine in 2009 when the then president Victor Yushchenko signed new legislation. The law has been overwhelmingly approved by the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament). The possession, distribution, sale and manufacture of pornographic materials are illegal, with laws strictly enforced. Possession of pornographic material can carry a fine or up to three years imprisonment. Pornography is defined by the law as "vulgar, candid, cynical, obscene depiction of sexual acts, pursuing no other goal, the explicit demonstration of genitals, unethical elements of the sexual act, sexual perversions, realistic sketches that do not meet moral criteria and offend honor and dignity of the human by inciting low instincts". Pornography for "medical purposes" remains legal.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Wiska, one of Ukraine's internationally known pornstars, alleges continuous and unconstitutional persecution for her work abroad, and has unsuccessfully applied for political asylum in the European Union.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: "In Britain, where pornography is already more restricted than it is anywhere else in the English-speaking world or in Western Europe", wrote Avedon Carol in 1995, "sexual media is easily smeared for an audience that is seldom given an opportunity to see what really is sold under the name of 'pornography'". However the current British legislative framework including the Obscene Publications Act 1959 (in England and Wales), the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and the Video Recordings Act 1984 leads to a confusing situation in which there is a theoretical ban on the publication, distribution, and possession of pornographic material in any form including nudity and arguably bathing costumes, which is in practice unenforcable due to the vagueness of the legal test of material that "depraves and corrupts". In practice, hardcore material on video and DVD was until recently banned by the requirement under the Video Recordings Act to be certified by the BBFC, while mainstream hardcore material in other forms such as magazines and websites is essentially unrestricted. Continental European, American and British hardcore pornographic magazines are now openly sold in many British newsagents, for instance. Due to liberalisation in BBFC policy, mainstream hardcore DVDs now receive R18 certificates, legalising them but restricting their sale to licensed sex shops such as those in Soho.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: British-made pornography tends to focus on a rough-and-ready semi-amateur look rather than the more stylized glamorous look of Continental European pornography.


title: Pornography in Europe

text: Until it left the European Union on 1 January 2021, the UK was the only Member State of the EU to prohibit private imports of adult pornography by consumers coming from other Member States. In the 2004–2005 fiscal year, the agents of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs seized 96,783 items of pornographic media carried by people travelling into the UK.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh (, ), commonly abbreviated to Sharm, is an Egyptian city on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, in South Sinai Governorate, on the coastal strip along the Red Sea. Its population is approximately 53,670 . Sharm El Sheikh is the administrative hub of Egypt's South Sinai Governorate, which includes the smaller coastal towns of Dahab and Nuweiba as well as the mountainous interior, St. Catherine and Mount Sinai. The city and holiday resort is a significant centre for tourism in Egypt, while also attracting many international conferences and diplomatic meetings.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh ("bay of the wise") is also known as the ""City of Peace""; Egyptian Arabic: ""Madinet Es-Salam"", referring to the large number of International Peace Conferences that have been held there. Amongst Egyptians and also many visitors, the name of the city is commonly shortened to "Sharm" (), which is its common name in Egyptian Arabic. The name is also sometimes written as "Sharm el-Cheikh" or "Sharm el-Sheik" in English.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh is on a promontory overlooking the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba. Its strategic importance led to its transformation from a fishing village into a major port and naval base for the Egyptian Navy. It was conquered by Israel during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and returned to Egypt in 1957. A United Nations peacekeeping force was stationed there until the 1967 Six-Day War when it was reoccupied by Israel. Sharm El Sheikh remained under Israeli control until the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1982 after the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979. Egypt's then-president Hosni Mubarak designated Sharm El Sheikh as "The City of Peace" in 1982 and the Egyptian government began a policy of encouraging the development of the city. Egyptian businessmen and investors, along with global investors contributed to building several mega projects, including mosques and churches. The city is now an international tourist destination, and environmental zoning laws limit the height of buildings to avoid obscuring the natural beauty of the surroundings.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: A hierarchical planning approach was adopted for the Gulf of Aqaba, whereby the area's components were evaluated and subdivided into zones, cities and centers. In accordance with this approach, the Gulf of Aqaba zone was subdivided into four cities: Taba, Nuweiba, Dahab and Sharm El Sheikh. Sharm El Sheikh city has been subdivided into five homogeneous centers, namely Nabq, Ras Nusrani, Naama Bay, Umm Sid and Sharm El Maya.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh city, with Naama Bay, Hay el Nour, Hadaba, Rowaysat, Montazah and form a metropolitan area.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: In 2005, the resort was hit by the Sharm El Sheikh terrorist attacks, which were carried out by an extremist Islamist organisation targeting Egypt's tourist industry. Eighty-eight people were killed, the majority of them Egyptians, and over 200 were wounded by the attack, making it the second deadliest terrorist attack in the country's history.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: The city has played host to a number of important Middle Eastern peace conferences, including the 4 September 1999 agreement to restore Palestinian self-rule over the Gaza Strip. A second summit was held at Sharm on 17 October 2000 following the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, but it failed to end the violence. A summit was held in the city on 3 August 2005 on developments in the Arab world, such as the situation in the Arab–Israeli conflict. Again in 2007, an important ministerial meeting took place in Sharm, where dignitaries discussed Iraqi reconstruction. The World Economic Forum on the Middle East was hosted by Sharm el-Sheikh in 2006 and 2008.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Amidst the 2011 Egyptian protests, then-president Mubarak reportedly went to Sharm El Sheikh and resigned there on 11 February 2011.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: The city experiences a subtropical arid climate, classified by the Köppen–Geiger system as hot desert (BWh). Temperatures are just short of a tropical climate. Typical temperatures range from in January and in August. The temperature of the Red Sea in this region ranges from over the course of the year.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Marsa Alam, Kosseir and Sharm El Sheikh have the warmest winter night temperatures of cities and resorts in Egypt.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: The highest recorded temperature was on 3 June 2013, and the lowest recorded temperature was on 23 February 2000.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh was formerly a port, but commercial shipping has been greatly reduced as the result of strict environmental laws introduced in the 1990s. Until 1982, there was only a military port in Sharm El Sheikh, on the northern part of Marsa Bareka. The civilian port development started in the mid-1980s, when the Sharem-al-Maya Bay became the city's main yacht and service port.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm El Sheikh's major industry is foreign and domestic tourism, owing to its landscape, year-round dry climate with long hot summers and warm winters and its long beaches. Its waters are clear and calm for most of the year and have become popular for various watersports, particularly recreational scuba diving and snorkeling. There is scope for scientific tourism due to the diversity of marine life: 250 different coral reefs and 1000 species of fish.


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: These natural resources, together with its proximity to tourist markets in Europe, have stimulated rapid growth in tourism in the region. The number of resorts has increased from three in 1982 to ninety-one in 2000. Guest nights also increased in that period from sixteen thousand to 5.1 million. Companies that have invested in the city include Hyatt, Accor, Marriott International, Le Méridien, Four Seasons Hotels, and Ritz-Carlton, with categories of three to five stars. In 2007, the first aqua park hotel resort opened in the area. The four-star Aqua Blu Sharm Resort was built on the Ras Om El Seid, with an area of .


title: Sharm El Sheikh

text: Sharm is also home to a congress center, located along Peace Road, where international political and economic meetings have been held, including peace conferences, ministerial meetings, world bank meetings, and Arab League meetings. The Maritim Sharm El Sheikh International Congress Centre can host events and congresses for up to 4,700 participants.