title: South Seas Mandate

text: After the end of World War I, the protectorate of German New Guinea was divided amongst the war's victors by the Treaty of Versailles. The southern part of the protectorate was mandated to come under Australian administration as the Territory of New Guinea, consisting of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland (the German territory on the island of New Guinea) and the German-controlled islands south of the equator. Meanwhile, Japanese occupation of the northern part of the protectorate, consisting of the Micronesian islands north of the equator, was formally recognised by the treaty. Japan was given a League of Nations Class C mandate to govern them, the C Class being assigned because the Mandates Commission regarded the islands as having "low cultural, economic and political development". The terms of the Mandate specified that the islands should be demilitarised and Japan should not extend its influence further into the Pacific. The Mandate was initially subject to yearly scrutiny by the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations in Geneva, though by the late 1920s Tokyo was rejecting requests for official visitation or international inspection. In 1933 Japan gave notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations, the withdrawal becoming effective two years later.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: Following the initial Japanese occupation of the islands, a policy of secrecy was adopted. Japan made it plain that it did not welcome the entry of foreign ships into Micronesian waters, even those of its wartime allies. During the first five years that Japan occupied the islands, it consolidated its presence and the islands became a virtual Japanese colony. The IJN divided the territory into five naval districts in Palau, Saipan, Truk, Ponape and Jaluit Atoll, all reporting to a rear admiral at the naval headquarters at Truk.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: A proposal at the Versailles Conference to allow trade and migration between those islands to be administered by Japan and those to be administered by Australia and New Zealand was rejected. Japan was able to continue administering the islands as if they were colonial possessions, keeping their waters off-limits to foreigners. When the islands became legally a League of Nations Mandate, their Class C status gave Japan direct control over their domestic legal system. Japan administered them as Japanese territory and as part of the Japanese Empire. This situation continued even after Japan withdrew from the League of Nations in 1935 and lost its legal claim to administer the islands.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: Militarily and economically, Saipan, in the Marianas archipelago, was the most important island in the South Seas Mandate and became the center of subsequent Japanese settlement. The towns of Garapan (on Saipan), Koror (on Palau) and Colony (on Ponape) were developed to resemble small towns in Japan, with cinemas, restaurants, beauty parlours and geisha houses. Another important island was Truk in the Carolines archipelago, which was fortified into a major navy base by the IJN.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: Between 1914 and 1920 the islands began the slow transition from naval to civilian administration. By 1920 all authority had been transferred from the Naval Defense Force to the Civil Affairs Bureau which was directly responsible to the Navy Ministry. Initially based in Truk, the Civil Affairs Bureau was moved to Koror in the Palau islands in 1921. The naval garrisons were disbanded to comply with the terms of the Mandate. In April 1922 a civilian government was established in each of the six administrative districts (Saipan, Palau, Yap, Truk, Ponape and Jaluit) in the form of a civil administration department which still reported to the local naval garrison commander. At the same time a post of Governor of the South Seas Mandate was created. Governors were mostly admirals or vice-admirals as the administration was initially still the responsibility of the IJN. The Governor reported directly to the Prime Minister of Japan. After the establishment of the Ministry of Colonial Affairs in June 1929, the Governor reported to the Minister of Colonial Affairs instead. The establishment of the "South Seas Government" or "Nan'yo-Cho" in March 1932 finally put the government of the islands under a purely civilian administration. When the Ministry of Colonial Affairs was absorbed into the Ministry of Greater East Asia in November 1942, the primacy of the IJN was again recognized by the appointment of an admiral as the Governor. Furthermore, the six administrative districts were reduced to three in November 1943: North, East, and West.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The population of the South Seas Mandate was too small to provide significant markets and the indigenous people had very limited financial resources for the purchase of imported goods. The major significance of the territory to the Empire of Japan was its strategic location, which dominated sea lanes across the Pacific Ocean and provided convenient provisioning locations for sailing vessels in need of water, fresh fruit, vegetables and meat.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: As a signatory of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, Japan agreed not to build new naval and air stations on the islands and it did not begin direct military preparations in the Mandate until the late 1930s. Nevertheless, the territory provided important coaling stations for steam-powered vessels and its possession gave an impetus to the Nanshin-ron doctrine of "southward advance".


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The population of the islands increased during the period of the mandate as a result of Japanese settlement in Micronesia. Settlers were initially drawn from Okinawa Island and the other Ryukyu Islands, but immigrants subsequently came from other parts of Japan, particularly the economically deprived Tōhoku region. Agricultural workers were followed by shopkeepers, restaurant, geisha house and brothel-keepers, expanding former German settlements into Japanese boom towns. The initial population figures (1919-1920) for the mandated territories included around 50,000 islanders, made up from the indigenous peoples of Oceania. Japanese immigration led to the population growing from under 4,000 in 1920 to 70,000 inhabitants in 1930, and more than 80,000 in 1933. By 1935 the Japanese population alone was more than 50,000. By 1937 almost 90 percent of the population on Saipan was Japanese (42,547 out of 46,748). In the census of December 1939, the total population was 129,104, of which 77,257 were Japanese (including ethnic Chinese and Koreans), 51,723 indigenous islanders and 124 foreigners. While the settler population was growing, the indigenous Micronesian population in some areas was declining. The rights and status of the indigenous population differed from those of Japanese imperial subjects. Employment prospects for Micronesians were more restricted, with unequal labor conditions and pay.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The government of the Mandate built and maintained hospitals and schools, and free education was provided for Micronesian children aged 8–15. However, Micronesian children attended separate schools from those used by Japanese children, and the schooling provided in them was more limited and of shorter duration. Micronesian children often attended boarding schools where compulsory schooling was used to promote Japanese state religion and Shinto rituals. A Shinto shrine known as the Nan'yō Shrine was established on Koror in 1940. Christian mission schools were prohibited from taking Micronesian pupils where government schools existed.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: Japanese economic involvement in Micronesia began in the late 19th century. Before the establishment of the Mandate, small groups of Japanese entrepreneurs established commercial ventures in German Micronesia and came to control a significant proportion of the trade. However, the economic development of the area was hampered by the distances separating the islands, their small land areas and their small market sizes. The mandate was initially a financial liability for the Japanese government, requiring an annual subsidy from Tokyo. The cash crop of the islands was copra, which was used in many commercial products at the time. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Japanese government pursued a policy of encouraging monopolies that paired private initiative with government capital. This strategy was intended to maximise the number of Japanese colonists. Until the late 1930s, the development of the islands was undertaken primarily to assist the Japanese civilian economy.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: Sugar cane had become increasingly sought-after in Japan, and Japanese trading companies led the development of the industry in the islands. The Japanese entrepreneur Haruji Matsue arrived on Saipan in 1920 and formed the South Seas Development Company, which became the largest commercial enterprise in Micronesia. He significantly expanded the quantities of sugar cane produced in the islands, with over under cultivation by 1925. By the early 1930s the sugar-related industries accounted for more than 60% of the mandate's revenues. At its peak the company maintained over of sugar plantations using tenant farmers, as well as operating sugar mills on Saipan, Tinian and Rota. Bananas, pineapples, taro, coconuts, manioc, coffee and other tropical farming products were also grown, putting the islands on a par with Taiwan. The islands also provided bases for the Japanese fishing fleet which was centred at Koror. Fishing formed one of the most profitable industries in the islands. Large fleets of boats were used and fish processing plants were set up on many islands. Harbour improvement works were undertaken at Tanaha (Japanese: 棚葉) in Saipan and Malakal Island in Palau in the late 1920s. By the end of the 1920s the mandate became self-sufficient, no longer needing subsidy and financially contributing to the Japanese Empire.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The phosphate resources of the islands were exploited by Japanese mining companies, which took over the German phosphate mines on Angaur island and expanded them. Smaller phosphate mines on neighbouring islands were also opened. Total exports to Japan eventually reached around 200,000 tonnes per year. Angaur island alone produced some 60,000 tonnes per year. The phosphates were used for farming. Bauxite was another mineral product of the colonial economic structure, although the mineral was only present in the Palau group. In 1937 the mother-of-pearl industry became lucrative and large quantities of pearls, both natural and cultured, were extracted from the islands.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The South Seas Trading Company had an exclusive contract from 1915 with the IJN to provide freight, passenger, and mail services to the Empire as well as between the islands. The route between the Empire and the islands was subsequently taken over by the Japanese Mail Steamship Company (Nippon Yusen Kaisha), the largest steamship line in the Empire. The luxurious amenities offered on board some of the company's vessels brought about the beginning of Japanese tourism to the islands.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The flying boat was the principal type of aircraft used for commercial aviation due to the shortage of flat land available for airfields. Imperial Japanese Airways began some commercial flights in 1935 using the long-range Kawanishi H6K2-L seaplane. Regular commercial flights were begun in 1940 and a regular service commenced in 1941. Commercial services ceased shortly after the start of Pacific War, but the widespread network of seaplane bases continued to be used during wartime.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The terms of the mandate required Japan not to fortify the islands. However, these terms were ambiguous and poorly-defined, specifying only that Japan should not build "fortifications" or construct "military or naval bases". From 1921 the Japanese military began making surveys and plans so that rapid military deployment to the islands would be possible in case of war.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: During the 1930s, the IJN began construction of airfields, fortifications, ports, and other military projects in the islands controlled under the mandate, viewing the islands as "unsinkable aircraft carriers" with a critical role to play in the defense of the Japanese home islands against potential US invasion. These became important staging grounds for Japanese air and naval offensives in the Pacific War.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: In order to capture the islands from Japan, the United States military employed a "leapfrogging" strategy which involved conducting amphibious assaults on selected Japanese island fortresses, subjecting some to air attack only and entirely skipping over others. This strategy caused the Japanese Empire to lose control of its Pacific possessions between 1943 and 1945.


title: South Seas Mandate

text: The League of Nations mandate was formally revoked by the United Nations on 18 July 1947 pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21, making the United States responsible for administration of the islands under the terms of a United Nations trusteeship agreement which established the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Most of the islands subsequently became part of independent states.


title: Diletta Leotta

text: Giulia Diletta Leotta (; born 16 August 1991) is an Italian television presenter from Catania, Sicily. Leotta currently presents the Serie A broadcasts for DAZN since the 2018–2019 season. Earlier, she had presented Serie B games on Sky Sport (Italy) with Gianluca Di Marzio and Luca Marchegiani. From April to August of 2018, Leotta worked alongside Aída Yéspica as the host of "105 Take Away", a program of Radio 105 Network. Leotta hosted with Francesco Facchinetti the of Miss Italia that was aired by La7 and won by Carlotta Maggiorana. In 2020, Leotta co-presented the 70th annual edition of the


title: Katty Kay

text: Katherine "Katty" Kay (born 14 November 1964) is a British-Swiss journalist, author and broadcaster. She presented BBC World News America and, with Christian Fraser, hosted "Beyond 100 Days" on BBC Four, BBC News and BBC World News. She has anchored BBC coverage of two Presidential elections. She also appears weekly on NBC News in "Morning Joe".


title: Katty Kay

text: Kay has co-written two books with ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman: "Womenomics" (2009) and "The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know" (2014). Kay is also the co-host of podcast "When Katty Met Carlos" with OZY Media CEO Carlos Watson. She resigned from Ozy Media in September 2021 after a New York Times report raised questions about its business practices.


title: Katty Kay

text: Kay was born in Wallingford in 1964 and grew up in Blewbury (then in Berkshire, now in Oxfordshire). She spent time in various Middle Eastern countries where her father was posted as a British diplomat. She studied modern languages at St Hilda's College, Oxford and speaks fluent French and Italian. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1988.


title: Katty Kay

text: After graduation, Kay briefly worked for the Bank of England. Deciding against a career in economics, she left to work for an aid agency in Zimbabwe.


title: Katty Kay

text: A short time later, a friend, Matt Frei, came to her with a tape recorder and persuaded her to become a journalist. Kay joined the BBC in 1990 as Zimbabwe correspondent for the African section of the BBC World Service. She then returned to London to work for BBC World Service radio, before being posted to Tokyo for BBC News television in 1992 and then Washington, D.C., in 1996. Soon afterwards, she joined "The Times" news bureau, but returned to the BBC as a freelance journalist in 2002, based in the United States.


title: Katty Kay

text: From June 2004, Kay co-presented the BBC World news bulletins with Mike Embley in London, shown on 230 public broadcast-television stations throughout the US and on BBC America. In October 2007, she became correspondent to presenter Matt Frei of BBC World's one-hour Washington-based news broadcast, BBC World News America. She anchored the show until June 2021.


title: Katty Kay

text: Kay also makes frequent appearances as a guest panelist on "Morning Joe" and "Meet the Press" on NBC, "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO, and in the past also appeared on "The Chris Matthews Show", and "Larry King Live" on CNN. She occasionally substituted for Diane Rehm on "The Diane Rehm Show" on National Public Radio (NPR).


title: Katty Kay

text: Kay anchored coverage of US Presidential Election nights across all BBC platforms in 2016 and 2020, on both occasions presenting with Andrew Neil. In 2021, she anchored the BBC's coverage of the Presidential inauguration of Joe Biden.


title: Katty Kay

text: On 24 June 2021, Kay announced that the night's broadcast would be her last for the BBC. However, in March 2022 it was announced that Kay would return to the BBC as US Special Correspondent for BBC Studios, working across documentaries, podcasts and news, as well as US Election Night anchor.


title: Katty Kay

text: On 24 May 2017, Kay attracted criticism for stating that Europeans should "get used to" terrorist attacks. Speaking on MSNBC two days after the Manchester Arena bombing, she also argued that "we are never going to be able to totally wipe this out." UKIP leader Nigel Farage strongly condemned Kay's comments, stating "Never. If we accept this as a way of life that is giving in, it is appeasement, it is surrendering."


title: Katty Kay

text: Kay has been married since 1989 to ex-BBC reporter and current Head of Global Communications at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Tom Carver. The couple have four children and live in Washington D.C. In 2021, she became a Swiss citizen. Her father, who died in January 2021, was Swiss.


title: George Stevens

text: George Cooper Stevens (December 18, 1904 – March 8, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Films he produced were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture six times while he had five nominations as Best Director, winning twice.


title: George Stevens

text: Among his most notable films are "Swing Time" (1936), "Gunga Din" (1939) and the five movies for which he was nominated for Best Director: "The More the Merrier" (1943); "A Place in the Sun" (1951), for which he won the Best Director Oscar; "Shane" (1953), "Giant" (1956), for which he won the Best Director Oscar, and "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959).


title: George Stevens

text: Stevens was born on December 18, 1904, in Oakland, California, the son of Landers Stevens and Georgie Cooper, both stage actors. Drama critic Ashton Stevens and film director James W. Horne were his uncles. He also had two brothers, Jack, a cinematographer, and writer Aston Stevens. He learned about the stage by watching his parents, and himself acted in plays in San Francisco. At the age of 10, his mother gave him a Brownie camera, and he began photographing the city and portraits of his mother. At the age of 17, Hal Roach Studios employed him as an assistant cameraman filming Rex the Wonder Horse in Utah. Stevens helped grant Stan Laurel a film career, as the studio had trouble getting the comedian's blue eyes to register on film, but Stevens made a successful test of him using panchromatic film. He worked as director of photography and a gag writer on 35 Laurel and Hardy short films, such as "Bacon Grabbers" (1929) and "Night Owls" (1930); according to Stevens he learned from this experience that comedy could be "graceful and human". In 1928, he met Yvonne Howell in Oliver Hardy's home; they were married on January 1, 1930. In the early 1930s, Stevens began to disagree with Roach's studio, wanting to flesh out characters rather than just make slapstick comedy. This led to a suspension and his departure from the studio. In 1933, he directed his first feature film, "The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble", for Universal Pictures.


title: George Stevens

text: In 1934, Stevens was hired by RKO Pictures, and he directed the slapstick film "Kentucky Kernels". His big break came when he directed Katharine Hepburn the next year in "Alice Adams"; according to Hepburn, Stevens felt that she got him the job. He would subsequently make seven films for the studio in five years. In the late 1930s, he directed Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers together in the musical "Swing Time" and separately in "A Damsel in Distress" and "Vivacious Lady", respectively. In 1939, Stevens directed Cary Grant in the large-scale "Gunga Din", costing over $1 million as RKO's most expensive film to date; though the studio feared its ballooning budget, it ended up a profitable success. In 1940, he directed Carole Lombard in "Vigil in the Night". In 1942, he reunited with Hepburn at her behest to film "Woman of the Year".


title: George Stevens

text: Stevens served as president of the Screen Directors Guild (SDG) from 1941 to 1943. After seeing the Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the Will" (1935), he was provoked to join the Allied forces in World War II. He joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps and headed a film unit from 1943 to 1946, under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. His unit shot footage—including the only color film of the war in Europe (which remained archived for decades)—documenting the Normandy landings (D-Day), the liberation of Paris, the meeting of American and Soviet forces at the Elbe River, and the Allied discovery of both the Duben labor camp and Dachau concentration camp. Stevens helped prepare the Duben and Dachau footage and other material for presentation during the Nuremberg Trials; this was released as the hour-long "Nazi Concentration" "and Prison" "Camps" (1945). In 2008, Stevens's footage was entered into the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as an "essential visual record" of the war.


title: George Stevens

text: In 1946, Stevens resumed his duties as president of the SDG, remaining so until 1948. As a result of his experiences during the war, his films became more dramatic. The drama "I Remember Mama" (1948) was only partly comedic. In 1950, during the McCarthyist scare and related Hollywood blacklist, Stevens defended Joseph L. Mankiewicz from Cecil B. DeMille's attempt to recall him as president of the SDG. Stevens went on to direct such classic films as the drama "A Place in the Sun" (1951), the Western "Shane" (1953), the epic Western drama "Giant" (1956), the biographical Holocaust drama "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959), and his biblical epic of Jesus, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965). He ended his directing career with the 1970 romantic comedy-drama "The Only Game in Town" with Warren Beatty and Elizabeth Taylor. That year, he was head of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival, which ended in scandal. In 1973, he was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.


title: George Stevens

text: During his time filming wild horses with Hal Roach Studios in Utah, Stevens bonded with the Comanche. A number of subsequent associates would speculate that he was part Native American.


title: George Stevens

text: Stevens was the father of television and film writer-producer-director George Stevens, Jr., the founder of the American Film Institute (AFI). George Jr. produced and directed the documentary about his father "George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey" in 1984 and is the father of Stevens's grandson Michael Stevens (1966–2015), who was also a television and film producer-director.


title: George Stevens

text: Stevens died following a heart attack on March 8, 1975, on his ranch in Lancaster, California, north of Los Angeles. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles.


title: George Stevens

text: As a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, Stevens headed the Signal Corps unit that filmed D-Day and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. For these contributions, he was awarded the Legion of Merit.


title: George Stevens

text: Stevens has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1701 Vine Street. He won the Academy Award for Best Director twice, in 1951 for "A Place in the Sun" and in 1956 for "Giant". He was also nominated in 1943 for "The More the Merrier", in 1954 for "Shane", and in 1959 for "The Diary of Anne Frank".


title: George Stevens

text: The moving image collection of George Stevens is held at the Academy Film Archive. The film material at AFI is complemented by material in the George Stevens papers at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.


title: Blade

text: A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. Historically, humans have made blades from flaking stones such as flint or obsidian, and from various metal such as copper, bronze and iron. Modern blades are often made of steel or ceramic. Blades are one of humanity's oldest tools, and continue to be used for combat, food preparation, and other purposes.


title: Blade

text: Blades work by concentrating force on the cutting edge. Certain blades, such as those used on bread knives or saws, are serrated, further concentrating force on the point of each tooth.


title: Blade

text: In combat, a blade may be used to slash or puncture, and may also be thrown or otherwise propelled. The function is to sever a nerve, muscle or tendon fibers, or blood vessel to disable or kill the adversary. Severing a major blood vessel typically leads to death due to exsanguination.


title: Blade

text: Blades may be used to scrape, moving the blade "sideways" across a surface, as in an ink eraser, rather than along or through a surface. For construction equipment such as a grader, the ground-working implement is also referred to as the blade, typically with a replaceable cutting edge.


title: Blade

text: A simple blade intended for cutting has two faces that meet at an edge. Ideally, this edge would have no roundness but in practice, all edges can be seen to be rounded to some degree under magnification either optically or with an electron microscope. Force is applied to the blade, either from the handle or pressing on the back of the blade. The handle or back of the blade has a large area compared to the fine edge. This concentration of applied force onto the small edge area increases the pressure exerted by the edge. It is this high pressure that allows a blade to cut through a material by breaking the bonds between the molecules/crystals/fibers/etc. in the material. This necessitates the blade being strong enough to resist breaking before the other material gives way.


title: Blade

text: The angle at which the faces meet is important as a larger angle will make for a duller blade while making the edge stronger. A stronger edge is less likely to dull from fracture or have the edge roll out of shape.


title: Blade

text: The shape of the blade is also important. A thicker blade will be heavier and stronger and stiffer than a thinner one of similar design while also making it experience more drag while slicing or piercing. A filleting knife will be thin enough to be very flexible while a carving knife will be thicker and stiffer; a dagger will be thin so it can pierce, while a camping knife will be thicker so it can be stronger and more durable. A strongly curved edge, like a talwar, will allow the user to draw the edge of the blade against an opponent even while close to the opponent where a straight sword would be more difficult to pull in the same fashion. The curved edge of an axe means that only a small length of the edge will initially strike the tree, concentrating force as does a thinner edge, whereas a straight edge could potentially land with the full length of its edge against a flat section of the tree. A splitting maul has a convex section to avoid getting stuck in the wood where chopping axes can be flat or even concave. A khopesh or falchion or kukri is angled and/or weighted at the distal end so that force is concentrated at the faster moving, heavier part of the blade maximizing cutting power and making it largely unsuitable for thrusting, whereas a rapier is thin and tapered allowing it to pierce and be moved with more agility while reducing its chopping power compared to a similarly sized sword.


title: Blade

text: A serrated edge, such as on a saw or a bread knife, concentrates force onto the tips of the serrations which increases pressure as well as allowing soft or fibrous material (like wood, rope, bread, vegetables) to expand into the spaces between serrations. Whereas pushing any knife, even a bread knife, down onto a bread loaf will just squash the loaf as bread has a low elastic modulus (is soft) but high yield strain (loosely, can be stretched or squashed by a large proportion without breaking), drawing serrations across the loaf with little downward force will allow each serration to simultaneously cut the bread with much less deformation of the loaf. Similarly, pushing on a rope tends to squash the rope while drawing serrations across it sheers the rope fibers. Drawing a smooth blade is less effective as the blade is parallel to the direction draw but the serrations of a serrated blade are at an angle to the fibers. Serrations on knives are often symmetric allowing the blade to cut on both the forward and reverse strokes of a cut, a notable exception being Veff serrations which are designed to maximize cutting power while moving the blade away from the user. Saw blade serrations, for both wood and metal, are typically asymmetrical so that they cut while moving in only one direction. (Saws act by abrading a material into dust along a narrow channel, the kerf, whereas knives and similar act by forcing the material apart. This means that saws result in a loss of material and the serrations of a saw also serve to carry metal swarf and sawdust out of the cut channel.)


title: Blade

text: Fullers are longitudinal channels either forged into the blade or later machined/milled out of the blade though the latter process is less desirable. This loss of material necessarily weakens the blade but serves to make the blade lighter without sacrificing stiffness. The same principle is applied in the manufacture of beams such as I-beams. Fullers are only of significant utility in swords. In most knives there is so little material removed by the fuller that it makes little difference to the weight of the blade and they are largely cosmetic.


title: Blade

text: Typically blades are made from a material that is about as hard, though usually harder, than the material to be cut. Insufficiently hard blades will be unable to cut a material or will wear away quickly as hardness is related to a material's ability to resist abrasion. However, blades must also be tough enough to resist the dynamic load of impact and as a general rule the harder a blade the less tough (the more brittle) a material. For example, a steel axehead is much harder than the wood it is intended to cut and is sufficiently tough to resist the impact resulting when swung against a tree while a ceramic kitchen knife, harder than steel, is very brittle (has low toughness) and can easily shatter if dropped onto the floor or twisted while inside the food it is cutting or carelessly stored under other kitchen utensils. This creates a tension between the intended use of the blade, the material it is to be made from, and any manufacturing processes (such as heat treatment in the case of steel blades that will affect a blade's hardness and toughness). A balance must be found between the sharpness and how well it can last. Methods that can circumvent this include differential hardening. This method yields an edge that can hold its sharpness as well as a body that is tough.


title: Blade

text: Prehistorically, and in less technologically advanced cultures even into modern times, tool and weapon blades have been made from wood, bone, and stone. Most woods are exceptionally poor at holding edges and bone and stone suffer from brittleness making them suffer from fracture when striking or struck. In modern times stone, in the form of obsidian, is used in some medical scalpels as it is capable of being formed into an exceedingly fine edge. Ceramic knives are non-metallic and non-magnetic. As non-metals do not corrode they remain rust and corrosion free but they suffer from similar faults as stone and bone, being rather brittle and almost entirely inflexible. They are harder than metal knives and so more difficult to sharpen, and some ceramic knives may be as hard or harder than some sharpening stones. For example, synthetic sapphire is harder than natural sharpening stones and is as hard as alumina sharpening stones. Zirconium dioxide is also harder than garnet sharpening stones and is nearly as hard as alumina. Both require diamond stones or silicon carbide stones to sharpen and care has to be taken to avoid chipping the blade. As such ceramic knives are seldom used outside of a kitchen and they are still quite uncommon. Plastic knives are difficult to make sharp and poorly retain an edge. They are largely used as low cost, disposable utensils or as children's utensils or in environments such as air travel where metal blades are prohibited. They are often serrated to compensate for their general lack of sharpness but, as evidenced by the fact they can cut food, they are still capable of inflicting injury. Plastic blades of designs other than disposable cutlery are prohibited or restricted in some jurisdictions as they are undetectable by metal detectors.


title: Blade

text: Native copper was used to make blades by ancient civilizations due to its availability. Copper's comparative softness causes it to deform easily; it does not hold an edge well and is poorly suited for working stone. Bronze is superior in this regard, and was taken up by later civilizations. Both bronze and copper can be work hardened by hitting the metal with a hammer. With technological advancement in smelting, iron came to be used in the manufacturing of blades. Steel, a range of alloys made from iron, has become the metal of choice for the modern age.


title: Blade

text: Various alloys of steel can be made which offer a wide range of physical and chemical properties desirable for blades. For example, surgical scalpels are often made of stainless steel so that they remain free of rust and largely chemically inert; tool steels are hard and impact resistant (and often expensive as retaining toughness and hardness requires expensive alloying materials, and, being hard, they are difficult to make into their finished shape) and some are designed to resist changes to their physical properties at high temperatures. Steels can be further heat treated to optimize their toughness, which is important for impact blades, or their hardness, which allows them to retain an edge well with use (although harder metals require more effort to sharpen).


title: Blade

text: It is possible to combine different materials, or different heat treatments, to produce desirable qualities in a blade. For example, the finest Japanese swords were routinely made of up to seven sections of metals and even poorer quality swords were often made of two. These would include soft irons that could absorb the energy of impact without fracturing but which would bend and poorly retain an edge, and hard steels more liable to shatter on impact but which retained an edge well. The combination provided a sword that would resist impact while remaining sharp, even though the edge could chip if abused. Pattern welding involved forging together twisted bars of soft (bendable) low carbon and hard (brittle) higher carbon iron. This was done because furnaces of the time were typically able to produce only one grade or the other, and neither was well suited for more than a very limited use blade. The ability of modern steelmakers to produce very high-quality steels of various compositions has largely relegated this technique to either historical recreations or to artistic works. Acid etching and polishing blades made of different grades of steel can be used to produce decorative or artistic effects.


title: Blade

text: Japanese sword makers developed the technique of differential hardening by covering their sword blades in different thicknesses of clay before quenching. Thinner clay allowed the heated metal to cool faster, particularly along the edge. Faster cooling resulted in a finer crystal structure, resulting in a blade with a hard edge but a more flexible body. European sword makers produced similar results using differential tempering.


title: Blade

text: Blades dull with use and abuse. This is particularly true of acute blades and those made of soft materials. Dulling usually occurs due to contact between the blade and a hard substance such as ceramic, stone, bone, glass, or metal.


title: Blade

text: The more acute the blade, the more easily it will dull. As the blade near the edge is thinner, there is little material to remove before the edge is worn away to a thicker section. Thin edges can also roll over when force is applied it them, forming a section like the bottom part of a letter "J". For this reason, straight edge razors are frequently stropped to straighten the edge.


title: Blade

text: Drawing a blade across any material tends to abrade both the blade, usually making it duller, and the cut material. Though softer than glass or many types of stone used in the kitchen, steel edges can still scratch these surfaces. The resulting scratch is full of very fine particles of ground glass or stone which will very quickly abrade the blade's edge and so dull it.


title: Blade

text: In times when swords were regularly used in warfare, they required frequent sharpening because of dulling from contact with rigid armor, mail, metal rimmed shields, or other swords, for example. Particularly, hitting the edge of another sword by accident or in an emergency could chip away metal and even cause cracks through the blade. Soft-cored blades are more resistant to fracturing on impact.


title: Blade

text: Folding pocket knives often have a groove cut in the side of the blade near the spine. This is called a nail pull and allows the fingernail to be inserted to swing the blade out of the holder.


title: Blade

text: (S1) A "straight back" blade, also called "standard" or "normal", has a curving edge and a straight back. A dull back lets the wielder use fingers to concentrate force; it also makes the knife heavy and strong for its size. The curve concentrates force on a smaller area, making cutting easier. This knife can chop as well as pick and slice. This is also the best single-edged blade shape for thrusting, as the edge cuts a swath that the entire width of the knife can pass through without the spine having to push aside any material on its path, as a sheepsfoot or drop-point knife would.


title: Blade

text: (S2) A "trailing-point" knife has a back edge that curves upward to end above the spine. This lets a lightweight knife have a larger curve on its edge and indeed the whole of the knife may be curved. Such a knife is optimized for slicing or slashing. Trailing point blades provide a larger cutting area, or belly, and are common on skinning knives.


title: Blade

text: (S3) A "drop point" blade has a convex curve of the back towards the point. It handles much like the "clip-point", though with a stronger point typically less suitable for piercing. Swiss army pocket knives often have drop-points on their larger blades.


title: Blade

text: (S4) A "clip-point" blade is like a normal blade with the back "clipped". This clip can be either straight or concave. The back edge of the clip may have a false edge that could be sharpened to make a second edge. The sharp tip is useful as a pick, or for cutting in tight places. If the false edge is sharpened it increases the knife's effectiveness in piercing. As well, having the tip closer to the center of the blade allows greater control in piercing. The Bowie knife has a clip point blade and clip-points are common on pocket knives and other folding knives.


title: Blade

text: (S5) A "" blade has a straight edge and a straight dull back that curves towards the edge at the end. It gives the most control because the dull back edge is made to be held by fingers. Sheepsfoot blades were originally made to trim the hooves of sheep; their shape bears no similarity to the foot of a sheep.


title: Blade

text: (S6) A "Wharncliffe" blade is similar in profile to a sheep's foot but the curve of the back edge starts closer to the handle and is more gradual. Its blade is much thicker than a knife of comparable size. Wharncliffes were used by sailors, as the shape of the tip prevented accidental penetration of the work or the user's hand with the sudden motion of a ship.


title: Blade

text: (S7) A "spey point" blade (once used for neutering livestock) has a single, sharp, straight edge that curves strongly upwards at the end to meet a short, dull, straight point from the dull back. With the curved end of the blade being closer to perpendicular to the blade's axis than other knives and lacking a point, making penetration unlikely, spey blades are common on Trapper style pocketknives for skinning fur-bearing animals.


title: Blade

text: (C1) "Leaf blade" with a distinctive recurved "waist" adding some curved "belly" to the knife facilitating slicing as well as shifting weight towards the tip meaning that it is commonly used for throwing knives as well as improving chopping ability.


title: Blade

text: (C2) A "spear point" blade is a symmetrically-shaped blade with a point aligned with the centerline of the blade's long axis. True spear-point blades are double-edged with a central spine, like a dagger or spear head. The spear point is one of the stronger blade point designs in terms of penetration stress, and is found on many thrusting knives such as the dagger. The term spear point is occasionally and confusingly used to describe small single-edged blades without a central spine, such as that of the "pen knife", a small folding-blade pocket knife formerly used in sharpening quills for writing. Pen-knife may also nowadays refer to a knifelike weapon blade pattern of some of larger pocket knife blades that would otherwise be termed drop-point designs.


title: Blade

text: (C3) A "needle point" blade has a sharply-tapered acuminated point. It is frequently found on daggers such as the stiletto (which had no sharpened edges) and the Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife. Its long, narrow point reduces friction and increases the blade's penetrative capabilities, but is liable to stick in bone and can break if abused. When the needle point is combined with a reinforced 'T' section running the length of the blade's spine, it is called a "reinforced tip". One example of a knife with a reinforced tip is the "pesh-kabz".


title: Blade

text: (C4) Kris or flame-bladed sword. These blades have a distinct recurved blade form and are sharpened on both sides, typically tapering to (or approximating) a symmetrical point.


title: Blade

text: (C5) Referred to in English speaking countries as a "tanto" or "tanto point" (a corruption of the Japanese word "tantō" though the tip bears no resemblance to a tantō) or a "chisel point". ("Chisel point" refers to the straightness of the edge that comprises the end of the blade, whereas "chisel grind" usually refers to a blade ground on only one side even though chisels can be ground on one or both sides.) It is similar to, but not the same as, some early Japanese swords that had "kamasu kissaki" ("barracuda tip"), a "nearly" straight edge at the tip whereas the typical "tanto point" as found in the west has a straight edge. The barracuda tip sword was sharp but also fragile whereas modern tanto points are often advertised as being stronger at the tip for having nearly the whole thickness of the blade present until quite close to the end of the knife. The geometry of the angle under the point gives tanto blades excellent penetration capabilities. For this reason, tanto blades are often found on knives designed for combat or fighting applications, where the user may need to pierce heavy clothing or low-level soft body armor.


title: Blade

text: The lower illustration is a "modified tanto" where the end is clipped and often sharpened. This brings the tip closer to the center of the blade increasing control of the blade and improves penetration potential by having a finer point and a sharpened back edge.


title: Blade

text: (C6) A "hawkbill" blade is sharpened on the inside edge and is similar to carpet and linoleum knives. The point will tear even if the rest of the knife is comparatively dull. The karambit from Far South-East Asia is a hawkbill knife which is held with the blade extending from the bottom of the fist and the tip facing forward. The outside edge of a karambit may be sharp and if so may also feature a backward-facing point.


title: Blade

text: (C7) An "ulu" (lit. 'woman's knife' in Inuktitut) knife is a sharpened segment of a circle. This blade type has no point, and has a handle in the middle. It is good for scraping and sometimes chopping. The semi-circular version appears elsewhere in the world and is called a "head knife". It is used in leatherworking both to scrape down leather (reducing thickness, i.e. skiving), and to make precise, rolling cuts for shapes other than straight lines. The circular version is a popular tool for slicing pizzas. One corner is placed at the edge of the pizza and the blade is rolled across in a diameter cut.


title: Blade

text: The sharp edges of a sword may be either curved or straight. Curved blades tend to glide more easily through soft materials, making these weapons more ideal for slicing. Techniques for such weapons feature drawing the blade across the opponent's body and back. For straight-edged weapons, many recorded techniques feature cleaving cuts, which deliver the power out to a point, striking directly in at the target's body, done to split flesh and bone rather than slice it. That being said, there also exist many historical slicing techniques for straight-edged weapons. Hacking cuts can be followed by a drawing action to maximize the cut's effectiveness. For more information see Western Martial Arts or kenjutsu.


title: Blade

text: Some weapons are made with only a single leading edge, such as the saber or dusack. The dusack has a "false edge" near the tip, which only extends down a portion of the blade's backside. Other weapons have a blade that's entirely dull except for a sharpened point, like the épée or foil, which prefer thrusts over cuts. A blade cannot perform a proper cut without an edge, and so in competitive fencing such attacks reward no points.


title: Blade

text: Blades are sometimes marked or inscribed, for decorative purposes, or with the mark of either the maker or the owner. Blade decorations are often realized in inlay in some precious metal (gold or silver).


title: Blade

text: Early blade inscriptions are known from the Bronze Age, a Hittite sword found at Hattusa bears an inscription chiseled into the bronze, stating that the blade was deposited as an offering to the storm-god by king Tuthaliya.


title: Blade

text: Blade inscriptions become particularly popular in the 12th century knightly sword, based on the earlier, 9th to 11th century, the tradition of the so-called Ulfberht swords.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Edward William Brooke III (October 26, 1919 – January 3, 2015) was an American politician of the Republican Party, who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1967 until 1979. Prior to serving in the Senate, he served as the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1963 until 1967. Following his election in 1966, he became the first African American popularly elected to the United States Senate. Born to a middle-class black family, Brooke was raised in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1948, after serving in the United States Army during World War II. Beginning in 1950, he became involved in politics, when he ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. After serving as chairman of the Finance Commission of Boston, Brooke was elected attorney general in 1962, becoming the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state.


title: Edward Brooke

text: He served as attorney general for four years, before running for Senate in 1966. In the election, he defeated Democratic Governor Endicott Peabody in a landslide, and was seated on January 3, 1967. In the Senate, Brooke aligned with the liberal faction in the Republican party. He co-wrote the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited housing discrimination. He was re-elected to a second term in 1972, after defeating attorney John Droney. Brooke became a prominent critic of Republican President Richard Nixon, and was the first Senate Republican to call for Nixon's resignation in light of the Watergate scandal. In 1978, he ran for a third term, but was defeated by Democrat Paul Tsongas. After leaving the Senate, Brooke practiced law in Washington, D.C., and was affiliated with various businesses and nonprofit organizations. Brooke died in 2015, at his home in Coral Gables, Florida, at the age of 95.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Edward William Brooke III was born on October 26, 1919, in Washington, D.C., to a middle-class black family. His father was Edward William Brooke Jr., a lawyer and graduate of Howard University who worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs. His mother was Helen (née Seldon) Brooke. He was the second of three children. Brooke was raised in a racially segregated environment that was "insulated from the harsh realities of the Deep South", with Brooke rarely interacting with the white community. He attended Dunbar High School – then one of the most prestigious academic high schools for African Americans – and graduated in 1936. After graduating, he enrolled in Howard University, where he first considered studying in medicine, before ending up studying social studies and political science. Brooke graduated from university in 1941, with a bachelor of science degree, and enlisted in the United States Army immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In the army, Brooke was commissioned as a second lieutenant, and saw combat in Italy as a member of the segregated 366th Infantry Regiment. Brooke spent 195 days with his unit in Italy. There, his fluent Italian and his light skin enabled him to cross enemy lines to communicate with Italian partisans. By the end of the war, Brooke had attained the rank of captain, a Bronze Star Medal, and a Distinguished Service Award. His time in the army exposed him to the inequality and racism which existed in the army system. This, combined with the signing of Executive Order 9066, led to him rethinking his support of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His time in the army also changed his perception of race, with him meeting his future-wife Remigia Ferrari-Scacco in Italy. He reasoned that "race had not mattered during our courtship in Italy, and therefore it should not have mattered in the United States". Following his discharge, Brooke graduated from the Boston University School of Law in 1948. "I never studied much at Howard," he reflected, "but at Boston University, I didn't do much else but study."


title: Edward Brooke

text: After graduating from Boston University, Brooke worked as a lawyer. He declined offers to join established law firms, instead opening his own law practice in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. Brooke began his foray in politics in 1950, when at the urging of friends from his former army unit, Brooke ran for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Brooke didn't affiliate with both of the major parties, choosing instead to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. He won the Republican nomination, and was endorsed by the party, but lost the general election in a landslide to his Democratic opponent. Two years later, he ran again for the same seat, but again lost the election to the same Democratic opponent. In 1960, Brooke ran for secretary of state. He won the Republican nomination, becoming the first black person to be nominated for statewide office in Massachusetts. He lost the election to future-mayor of Boston Kevin White, whose campaign issued a bumper sticker saying, "Vote White," a reference to Brooke's race.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Despite losing the secretary's race to White, the closeness of the results led to Republican leaders taking notice of Brooke's potential. Governor John Volpe sought to reward Brooke for his efforts, and offered him a number of jobs, most of them judicial in nature. Seeking a position with a higher political profile, Brooke eventually accepted the position of Finance Commission of Boston, where he investigated financial irregularities and uncovered evidence of corruption in city affairs. He was described in the press as having "the tenacity of a terrier", and it was reported that he "restore[d] to vigorous life an agency which many had thought moribund." He parlayed his achievements into a successful election as Attorney General of Massachusetts in 1962, becoming the first African-American to be elected attorney general of any state.


title: Edward Brooke

text: As attorney general, Brooke gained a reputation as a vigorous prosecutor of organized crime and corruption, securing convictions against a number of members of the administration of governor Foster Furcolo; an indictment against Furcolo was dismissed due to lack of evidence. He also coordinated with local police departments on the Boston Strangler case, although the press mocked him for permitting an alleged psychic to participate in the investigation. In 1964, following the nomination of Barry Goldwater as the Republican party's nominee for president, Brooke found Goldwater's nomination offensive. He publicly broke with the party, and implored Republicans "not to invest in the "pseudo-conservatism" of zealots". His public repudiation of Goldwater actually helped Brooke win re-election in 1964, as he won by a plurality of nearly 800,000. Encouraged by an outpour of positive support, Brooke continued to offer blunt criticisms of the Republicans, though he began softening his rhetoric by proposing strategies to rebuild the Republican party. This included an off-year national convention to "hammer out an agreement for the future of the party" and "draft a responsible platform to address bread-and-butter issues". By 1965, Brooke had emerged as the main Republican spokesman for racial equality, despite "never rallying his race to challenge segregation barriers with the inspirational fervor of a Martin Luther King."


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1966, Brooke defeated former Governor Endicott Peabody with 1,213,473 votes to 744,761, and served as a United States senator for two terms, from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1979. The black vote had, "Time" wrote, "no measurable bearing" on the election as less than 3% of the state's population was black, and Peabody also supported civil rights for blacks. Brooke said, "I do not intend to be a national leader of the Negro people", and the magazine said that he "condemned both Stokely Carmichael and Georgia's Lester Maddox" as extremists; his historic election nonetheless gave Brooke "a 50-state constituency", the magazine wrote, "a power base that no other Senator can claim".


title: Edward Brooke

text: A member of the moderate-to-liberal Northeastern wing of the Republican Party, Brooke organized the Senate's "Wednesday Club" of progressive Republicans who met for Wednesday lunches and strategy discussions. Brooke, who supported Michigan Governor George W. Romney and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller's bids for the 1968 GOP presidential nomination against Richard Nixon's, often differed with President Nixon on matters of social policy and civil rights. In 1967, Brooke was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1967, Brooke went to Vietnam on a three-week trip as a fact-finding mission. During his first formal speech in the Senate following the trip, he reversed his previous position on Vietnam War that increased negotiations with the North Vietnamese rather than an escalation of the fighting were needed. He began to favor President Johnson's "patient" approach to Vietnam as he had been convinced that "the enemy is not disposed to participate in any meaningful negotiations".


title: Edward Brooke

text: By his second year in the Senate, Brooke had taken his place as a leading advocate against discrimination in housing and on behalf of affordable housing. With Walter Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat and fellow member of the Senate Banking Committee, he co-authored the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing. The Act also created HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity as the primary enforcer of the law. President Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act into law on April 11, one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Dissatisfied with the weakened enforcement provisions that emerged from the legislative process, Brooke repeatedly proposed stronger provisions during his Senate career. In 1969, Congress enacted the "Brooke Amendment" to the federal publicly assisted housing program which limited the tenants' out-of-pocket rent expenditure to 25 percent of their income. Additionally, Brooke voted in favor of the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court.


title: Edward Brooke

text: During the Nixon presidency, Brooke opposed repeated Administration attempts to close down the Job Corps and the Office of Economic Opportunity and to weaken the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission—all foundational elements of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1969, Brooke spoke at Wellesley College's commencement against "coercive protest" and was understood by some students as calling protesters "elite ne'er-do-wells" Then student government president Hillary Rodham departed from her planned speech to rebut Brooke's words, affirming the "indispensable task of criticizing and constructive protest," for which she was featured in "Life" magazine.


title: Edward Brooke

text: On June 9, 1969, Brooke voted in favor of President Nixon's nomination of Warren E. Burger as Chief Justice of the United States following the retirement of Earl Warren. Brooke was a leader of the bipartisan coalition that defeated the Senate confirmation of Clement Haynsworth, President Nixon's nominee to the Supreme Court on November 21, 1969. A few months later, he again organized sufficient Republican support to defeat Nixon's third Supreme Court nominee Harrold Carswell on April 8, 1970. The following month, Nixon nominee Harry Blackmun (who later wrote the "Roe v. Wade" opinion) was confirmed on May 12, 1970, with Brooke voting in favor. On December 6, 1971, Brooke voted in favor of Nixon's nomination of Lewis F. Powell Jr., while on December 10, Brooke voted against Nixon's nomination of William Rehnquist as Associate Justice. On December 17, 1975, Brooke voted in favor of President Gerald Ford's nomination of John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Despite Brooke's disagreements with Nixon, the president reportedly respected the senator's abilities; after Nixon's election he had offered to make Brooke a member of his cabinet, or appoint him as ambassador to the UN. The press discussed Brooke as a possible replacement for Spiro Agnew as Nixon's running mate in the 1972 presidential election. While Nixon retained Agnew, Brooke was re-elected in 1972, defeating Democrat John J. Droney by a vote of 64%–35%.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Before the first year of his second term ended, Brooke became the first Republican to call on President Nixon to resign, on November 4, 1973, shortly after the Watergate-related "Saturday night massacre". He had risen to become the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee and on two powerful Appropriations subcommittees, Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Foreign Operations. From these positions, Brooke defended and strengthened the programs he supported; for example, he was a leader in enactment of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which ensured married women the right to establish credit in their own name.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1974, with Indiana senator Birch Bayh, Brooke led the fight to retain Title IX, a 1972 amendment to the Higher Education Act of 1965, which guarantees equal educational opportunity (including athletic participation) to girls and women.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1975, with the extension and expansion of the Voting Rights Act at stake, Brooke faced senator John C. Stennis (D-Mississippi) in "extended debate" and won the Senate's support for the extension. In 1976, he also took on the role of supporter of wide-scale, legalized abortion. The Appropriations bill for HHS became the battleground over this issue because it funds Medicaid. The Anti-abortion movement fought, eventually successfully, to prohibit funding for abortions of low-income women insured by Medicaid. Brooke led the fight against restrictions in the Senate Appropriations Committee and in the House–Senate Conference until his defeat. The press again speculated on his possible candidacy for the Vice Presidency as Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976, with "Time" calling him an "able legislator and a staunch party loyalist".


title: Edward Brooke

text: In Massachusetts, Brooke's support among Catholics weakened due to his stance on abortion. During the 1978 re-election campaign, the state's bishops spoke in opposition to his leading role.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Brooke had an affair with broadcast journalist Barbara Walters in the 1970s. Walters stated that the affair was ended to protect their careers from scandal.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Brooke went through a divorce late in his second term. His finances were investigated by the Senate, and John Kerry, then a prosecutor in Middlesex County, announced an investigation into statements Brooke made in the divorce case. Prosecutors eventually determined that Brooke had made false statements about his finances during the divorce, and that they were pertinent, but not material enough to have affected the outcome. Brooke was not charged with a crime, but the negative publicity cost him some support in his 1978 reelection campaign, and he lost to Paul Tsongas.


title: Edward Brooke

text: After leaving the Senate, Brooke practiced law in Washington, D.C., first as a partner at the Washington firm of O'Connor & Hannan; later of counsel to Csaplar & Bok in Boston. He also served as chairman of the board of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In 1984 he was selected as chairman of the Boston Bank of Commerce, and one year later he was named to the board of directors of Grumman.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1992, a Brooke assistant stated in a plea agreement as part of an investigation into corruption at the Department of Housing and Urban Development that Brooke had falsely answered questions about whether he or the assistant had tried to improperly influence HUD officials on behalf of housing and real estate developers who had paid large consulting fees to Brooke. The HUD investigation ended with no charges being brought against Brooke.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In 1996, Brooke became the first chairman of the World Policy Council, a think tank of Alpha Phi Alpha, an African-American fraternity. The Council's purpose is to expand the fraternity's involvement in politics, and social and current policy to encompass international concerns. In 2006 Brooke served as the council's chairman emeritus and was honorary chairman at the Centennial Convention of Alpha Phi Alpha held in Washington, D.C.


title: Edward Brooke

text: On June 20, 2000, a newly constructed Boston courthouse was dedicated in his honor. The Edward W. Brooke Courthouse is part of the Massachusetts Trial Court system, and houses the Central Division of the Boston Municipal Court, Boston Juvenile Court, Family Court, and Boston Housing Court, among others. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Edward Brooke on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.


title: Edward Brooke

text: In September 2002, he was diagnosed with breast cancer and assumed a national role in raising awareness of the disease among men. On June 23, 2004, President George W. Bush awarded Brooke the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That same year he received the Jeremy Nicholson Negro Achievement Award, acknowledging his outstanding contributions to the African-American community.


title: Edward Brooke

text: During the 2008 presidential election, Brooke indicated in a WBUR-FM interview that he favored Democratic nominee Barack Obama. On October 28, 2009, two days after his 90th birthday, Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal.


title: Edward Brooke

text: On January 3, 2015, Brooke died at his home in Coral Gables, Florida, at the age of 95. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Brooke was the oldest living U.S. senator until his death in January 2015, and the last living U.S. senator born in the 1910s.


title: Edward Brooke

text: Edward Brooke was a self-described moderate or liberal Republican, generally referred to as Rockefeller Republicans. On social issues he was a liberal who supported civil rights, women's rights, and civil liberties. On economic issues he was fiscally conservative, but was pragmatic about it; he still allowed that "There are things that people can't do for themselves and therefore government must do it for them". He was against huge government or bureaucracy.


title: River Trent

text: The Trent is the third-longest river in the United Kingdom. Its source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midlands. The river is known for dramatic flooding after storms and spring snowmelt, which in the past often caused the river to change course.


title: River Trent

text: The river passes through Stoke-on-Trent, Stone, Rugeley, Burton upon Trent and Nottingham before joining the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea between Hull in Yorkshire and Immingham in Lincolnshire. The wide Humber estuary has often been described as the boundary between the Midlands and the north of England.


title: River Trent

text: The name "Trent" is possibly from a Romano-British word meaning "strongly flooding". More specifically, the name may be a contraction of two Romano-British words, "tros" ("over") and "hynt" ("way"). This may indeed indicate a river that is prone to flooding. However, a more likely explanation may be that it was considered to be a river that could be crossed principally by means of fords, i.e. the river flowed over major road routes. This may explain the presence of the Romano-British element "rid" (cf. Welsh "rhyd", "ford") in various place names along the Trent, such as Hill Ridware, as well as the Old English‐derived "ford". Another translation is given as "the trespasser", referring to the waters flooding over the land. According to Koch at the University of Wales, the name "Trent" derives from the Romano-British "Trisantona", a Romano-British reflex of the combined elements *"tri-sent(o)-on-ā-" (through-path-augmentative-feminine-) ‘great thoroughfare’. A traditional but almost certainly wrong opinion is that of Izaak Walton, who states in The Compleat Angler (1653) that the Trent is "... so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers."


title: River Trent

text: The Trent rises within the Staffordshire Moorlands district, near the village of Biddulph Moor, from a number of sources including the Trent Head Well. It is then joined by other small streams to form the Head of Trent, which flows south, to the only reservoir along its course at Knypersley. Downstream of the reservoir it passes through Stoke-on-Trent and merges with the Lyme, Fowlea and other brooks that drain the six towns of the Staffordshire Potteries to become the River Trent. On the southern fringes of Stoke, it passes through the landscaped parkland of Trentham Gardens.


title: River Trent

text: The river then continues south through the market town of Stone, and after passing the village of Salt, it reaches Great Haywood, where it is spanned by the 16th-century Essex Bridge near Shugborough Hall. At this point the River Sow joins it from Stafford. The Trent now flows south-east past the town of Rugeley until it reaches Kings Bromley where it meets the Blithe. After the confluence with the Swarbourn, it passes Alrewas and reaches Wychnor, where it is crossed by the A38 dual carriageway, which follows the route of the Roman Ryknild Street. The river turns north-east where it is joined by its largest tributary, the Tame (which is at this point actually the larger, though its earlier length shorter) and immediately afterwards by the Mease, creating a larger river that now flows through a broad floodplain.


title: River Trent

text: The river continues north-east, passing the village of Walton-on-Trent until it reaches the large town of Burton upon Trent. The river in Burton is crossed by a number of bridges including the ornate 19th-century Ferry Bridge that links Stapenhill to the town. To the north-east of Burton the river is joined by the River Dove at Newton Solney and enters Derbyshire, before passing between the villages of Willington and Repton where it turns directly east to reach Swarkestone Bridge. Shortly afterwards, the river becomes the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border, passing the traditional crossing point of King's Mill, Castle Donington, Weston-on-Trent and Aston-on-Trent.


title: River Trent

text: At Shardlow, where the Trent and Mersey Canal begins, the river also meets the Derwent at Derwent Mouth. After this confluence, the river turns north-east and is joined by the Soar before reaching the outskirts of Nottingham, where it is joined by the Erewash near the Attenborough nature reserve and enters Nottinghamshire. As it enters the city, it passes the suburbs of Beeston, Clifton and Wilford; where it is joined by the Leen. On reaching West Bridgford it flows beneath Trent Bridge near the cricket ground of the same name, and beside The City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest, until it reaches Holme Sluices.


title: River Trent

text: Downstream of Nottingham it passes Radcliffe on Trent, Stoke Bardolph and Burton Joyce before reaching Gunthorpe with its bridge, lock and weir. The river now flows north-east below the Toot and Trent Hills before reaching Hazelford Ferry, Fiskerton and Farndon. To the north of Farndon, beside the Staythorpe Power Station the river splits, with one arm passing Averham and Kelham, and the other arm, which is navigable, being joined by the Devon before passing through the market town of Newark-on-Trent and beneath the town's castle walls. The two arms recombine at Crankley Point beyond the town, where the river turns due north to pass North Muskham and Holme to reach Cromwell Weir, below which the Trent becomes tidal.


title: River Trent

text: The now tidal river meanders across a wide floodplain, at the edge of which are located riverside villages such as Carlton and Sutton on Trent, Besthorpe and Girton. After passing the site of High Marnham power station, it becomes the approximate boundary between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and reaches the only toll bridge along its course at Dunham on Trent. Downstream of Dunham the river passes Church Laneham and reaches Torksey, where it meets the Foss Dyke navigation which connects the Trent to Lincoln and the River Witham. Further north at Littleborough is the site of the Roman town of Segelocum, where a Roman road once crossed the river.


title: River Trent

text: It then reaches the town of Gainsborough with its own Trent Bridge. The river frontage in the town is lined with warehouses, that were once used when the town was an inland port, many of which have been renovated for modern use. Downstream of the town the villages are often named in pairs, representing the fact that they were once linked by a river ferry between the two settlements. These villages include West Stockwith and East Stockwith, Owston Ferry and East Ferry, and West Butterwick and East Butterwick. At West Stockwith the Trent is joined by the Chesterfield Canal and the River Idle and soon after enters Lincolnshire fully, passing to the west of Scunthorpe. The last bridge over the river is at Keadby where it is joined by both the Stainforth and Keadby Canal and the River Torne.


title: River Trent

text: Downstream of Keadby the river progressively widens, passing Amcotts and Flixborough to reach Burton upon Stather and finally Trent Falls. At this point, between Alkborough and Faxfleet the river reaches the boundary with Yorkshire and joins the River Ouse to form the Humber which flows into the North Sea.


title: River Trent

text: Unusually for an English river, the channel altered significantly during historic times, and has been described as being similar to the Mississippi in this respect, especially in its middle reaches, where there are numerous old meanders and cut-off loops. An abandoned channel at Repton is described on an old map as 'Old Trent Water', records show that this was once the main navigable route, with the river having switched to a more northerly course in the 18th century. Farther downstream at Hemington, archaeologists have found the remains of a medieval bridge across another abandoned channel. Researchers using aerial photographs and historical maps have identified many of these palaeochannel features, a well-documented example being the meander cutoff at Sawley. The river's propensity to change course is referred to in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1:


title: River Trent

text: Henry Hotspur's speech complaining about the river has been linked to the meanders near West Burton, however, given the wider context of the scene, in which conspirators propose to divide England into three after a revolt, it is thought that Hotspur's intentions were of a grander design, diverting the river east towards the Wash such that he would benefit from a much larger share of the divided Kingdom. Downstream of Burton upon Trent, the river increasingly trends northwards, cutting off a portion of Nottinghamshire and nearly all of Lincolnshire from his share, north of the Trent. The idea for this scene, may have been based on the disagreement regarding a mill weir near Shelford Manor, between local landowners Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and Sir Thomas Stanhope which culminated with a long diversion channel being dug to bypass the mill. This took place in 1593 so would have been a contemporary topic in the Shakespearean period.


title: River Trent

text: During the Pleistocene epoch (1.7 million years ago), the River Trent rose in the Welsh hills and flowed almost east from Nottingham through the present Vale of Belvoir to cut a gap through the limestone ridge at Ancaster and thence to the North Sea. At the end of the Wolstonian Stage (c. 130,000 years ago) a mass of stagnant ice left in the Vale of Belvoir caused the river to divert north along the old Lincoln river, through the Lincoln gap, along what is now the course of the Witham. During a following glaciation (Devensian, 70,000 BC) the ice held back vast areas of water – called Glacial Lake Humber – in the current lower Trent basin. When this retreated, the Trent adopted its current course into the Humber.


title: River Trent

text: The Trent basin covers a large part of the Midlands, and includes the majority of the counties of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands; but also includes parts of Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire, Warwickshire and Rutland. The catchment is located between the drainage basins of the Severn and its tributary the Avon to the south and west, the Weaver to the north-west, the tributaries of the Yorkshire Ouse to the North and the basins of the Welland, Witham and Ancholme to the east.


title: River Trent

text: A distinctive feature of the catchment is the marked variation in the topography and character of the landscape, which varies from the upland moorland headwaters of the Dark Peak, where the highest point of the catchment is the Kinder Scout plateau at ; through to the intensively farmed and drained flat fenland areas that exist alongside the lower tidal reaches, where ground levels can equal sea level. These lower reaches are protected from tidal flooding by a series of floodbanks and defences.


title: River Trent

text: Elsewhere there is a distinct contrast between the open limestone areas of the White Peak in the Dove catchment, and the large woodland areas, including Sherwood Forest in the Dukeries area of the Idle catchment, the upland Charnwood Forest, and the National Forest in the Soar and Mease drainage basins respectively.


title: River Trent

text: Land use is predominantly rural, with some three-quarters of the Trent catchment given over to agriculture. This ranges from moorland grazing of sheep in the upland areas, through to improved pasture and mixed farms in the middle reaches, where dairy farming is important. Intensive arable farming of cereals and root vegetables, chiefly potatoes and sugar beet occurs in the lowland areas, such as the Vale of Belvoir and the lower reaches of the Trent, Torne and Idle.


title: River Trent

text: Water level management is important in these lowland areas, and the local watercourses are usually maintained by internal drainage boards and their successors, with improved drainage being assisted by the use of pumping stations to lift water into embanked carrier rivers, which subsequently discharge into the Trent.


title: River Trent

text: The less populous rural areas are offset by a number of large urbanised areas including the conurbations of Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham and the surrounding Black Country in the West Midlands; and in the East Midlands the major university cities and historical county seats of Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. Together these contain the majority of the 6 million people who live in the catchment.


title: River Trent

text: The majority of these urban areas are in the upper reaches of either the Trent itself, as is the case with Stoke, or its tributaries. For example, Birmingham lies at the upper end of the Tame, and Leicester is located towards the head of the Soar. Whilst this is not unique for an English river, it does mean that there is an ongoing legacy of issues relating to urban runoff, pollution incidents, and effluent dilution from sewage treatment, industry and coal mining. Historically, these issues resulted in a considerable deterioration in the water quality of both the Trent and its tributaries, especially the Tame. To bring clean water to the West Midlands, Birmingham Corporation created a large reservoir chain and aqueduct system to bring water from the Elan Valley.


title: River Trent

text: Underlying the upper reaches of the Trent, are formations of Millstone Grit and Carboniferous Coal Measures which include layers of sandstones, marls and coal seams. The river crosses a band of Triassic Sherwood sandstone at Sandon, and it meets the same sandstone again as it flows beside Cannock Chase, between Great Haywood and Armitage, there is also another outcrop between Weston-on-Trent and King's Mill.


title: River Trent

text: Downstream of Armitage the solid geology is primarily Mercia Mudstones, the course of the river following the arc of these mudstones as they pass through the Midlands all the way to the Humber. The mudstones are not exposed by the bed of the river, as there is a layer of gravels and then alluvium above the bedrock. In places, however the mudstones do form river cliffs, most notably at Gunthorpe and Stoke Lock near Radcliffe on Trent, the village being named after the distinctive red coloured strata.


title: River Trent

text: The low range of hills, which have been formed into a steep set of cliffs overlooking the Trent between Scunthorpe and Alkborough are also made up of mudstones, but are of the younger Rhaetic Penarth Group.


title: River Trent

text: In the wider catchment the geology is more varied, ranging from the Precambrian rocks of the Charnwood Forest, through to the Jurassic limestone that forms the Lincolnshire Edge and the eastern watershed of the Trent. The most important in terms of the river are the extensive sandstone and limestone aquifers that underlie many of the tributary catchments. These include the Sherwood sandstones that occur beneath much of eastern Nottinghamshire, the Permian Lower Magnesian limestone and the carboniferous limestone in Derbyshire. Not only do these provide baseflows to the major tributaries, the groundwater is an important source for public water supply.


title: River Trent

text: Sand, gravels and alluvium deposits that overlie the mudstone bedrock occur almost along the entire length of the river, and are an important feature of the middle and lower reaches, with the alluvial river silt producing fertile soils that are used for intensive agriculture in the Trent valley. Beneath the alluvium are widespread deposits of sand and gravel, which also occur as gravel terraces considerably above the height of the current river level. There is thought to be a complex succession of at least six separate gravel terrace systems along the river, deposited when a much larger Trent flowed through the existing valley, and along its ancestral routes through the water gaps at Lincoln and Ancaster.


title: River Trent

text: This ‘staircase’ of flat topped terraces was created as a result of successive periods of deposition and subsequent down cutting by the river, a product of the meltwater and glacially eroded material produced from ice sheets at the end of glacial periods through the Pleistocene epoch between 450,000 and 12,000 years BP. Contained within these terraces is evidence of the mega fauna that once lived along the river, the bones and teeth of animals such as the woolly mammoth, bison and wolves that existed during colder periods have all been identified. Another notable find in a related terrace system near Derby from a warmer interglacial period, was the Allenton hippopotamus.


title: River Trent

text: The lower sequences of these terraces have been widely quarried for sand and gravel, and the extraction of these minerals continues to be an important industry in the Trent Valley, with some three million tonnes of aggregates being produced each year. Once worked out, the remaining gravel pits which are usually flooded by the relatively high water table have been reused for a wide variety of purposes. These include recreational water activities, and once rehabilitated, as nature reserves and wetlands.


title: River Trent

text: During the end of the last Devensian glacial period the formation of Lake Humber in the lowest reaches of the river, meant that substantial lake bed clays and silts were laid down to create the flat landscape of the Humberhead Levels. These levels extend across the Trent valley, and include the lower reaches of the Eau, Torne and Idle. In some areas, successive layers of peat were built up above the lacustrine deposits during the Holocene period, which created lowland mires such as the Thorne and Hatfield Moors.


title: River Trent

text: The topography, geology and land use of the Trent catchment all have a direct influence on the hydrology of the river. The variation in these factors is also reflected in the contrasting runoff characteristics and subsequent inflows of the principal tributaries. The largest of these is the River Tame, which contributes nearly a quarter of the total flow for the Trent, with the other significant tributaries being the Derwent at 18%, Soar 17%, the Dove 13%, and the Sow 8%. Four of these main tributaries, including the Dove and Derwent which drain the upland Peak District, all join within the middle reaches, giving rise to a comparatively energetic river system for the UK.


title: River Trent

text: Rainfall in the catchment generally follows topography with the highest annual rainfall of and above occurring over the high moorland uplands of the Derwent headwaters to the north and west, with the lowest of , in the lowland areas to the north and east. Rainfall totals in the Tame are not as high as would be expected from the moderate relief, due to the rain shadow effect of the Welsh mountains to the west, reducing amounts to an average of for the tributary basin.


title: River Trent

text: The average for the whole Trent catchment is which is significantly lower than the average for United Kingdom at and lower than that for England at .


title: River Trent

text: Like other large lowland British rivers, the Trent is vulnerable to long periods of rainfall caused by sluggish low pressure weather systems repeatedly crossing the basin from the Atlantic, especially during the autumn and winter when evaporation is at its lowest. This combination can produce a water-logged catchment that can respond rapidly in terms of runoff, to any additional rainfall. Such conditions occurred in February 1977, with widespread flooding in the lower reaches of the Trent when heavy rain produced a peak flow of nearly at Nottingham. In 2000 similar conditions occurred again, with above average rainfall in the autumn being followed by further rainfall, producing flood conditions in November of that year.


title: River Trent

text: Another meteorological risk, although one that occurs less often, is that related to the rapid melting of snow lying in the catchment. This can be a result of a sudden rise in temperature after a prolonged cold period, or when combined with extensive rainfall. Many of the largest historical floods were caused by snowmelt, but the last such episode occurred when the bitter winter of 1946-7 was followed by a rapid thaw due to rain in March 1947 and caused severe flooding all along the Trent valley.


title: River Trent

text: At the other extreme, extended periods of low rainfall can also cause problems. The lowest flows for the river were recorded during the drought of 1976, following the dry winter of 1975/6. Flows measured at Nottingham were exceptionally low by the end of August, and were given a drought return period of greater than one hundred years.


title: River Trent

text: The river's flow is measured at several points along its course, at a number of gauging stations. At Stoke-on-Trent in the upper reaches, the average flow is only , which increases considerably to , at Great Haywood, as it includes the flow of the upper tributaries draining the Potteries conurbation. At Yoxall, the flow increases to due to the input of larger tributaries including the Sow and Blithe. At Drakelow upstream of Burton the flow increases nearly three-fold to , due to the additional inflow from the largest tributary the Tame. At Colwick near Nottingham, the average flow rises to , due to the combined inputs of the other major tributaries namely the Dove, Derwent and Soar. The last point of measurement is North Muskham here the average flow is , a relatively small increase due to the input of the Devon, and other smaller Nottinghamshire tributaries.


title: River Trent

text: The Trent has marked variations in discharge, with long term average monthly flows at Colwick fluctuating from in July during the summer, and increasing to in January.


title: River Trent

text: During lower flows the Trent and its tributaries are heavily influenced by effluent returns from sewage works, especially the Tame where summer flows can be made up of 90% effluent. For the Trent this proportion is lower, but with nearly half of low flows being made up of these effluent inflows, it is still significant. There are also baseflow contributions from the major aquifers in the catchment.


title: River Trent

text: In the lower tidal reaches the Trent has a high sediment load, this fine silt which is also known as ‘warp', was used to improve the soil by a process known as warping, whereby river water was allowed to flood into adjacent fields through a series of warping drains, enabling the silt to settle out across the land. Up to of deposition could occur in a single season, and depths of have been accumulated over time at some locations. A number of the smaller Trent tributaries are still named as warping drains, such as Morton warping drain, near Gainsborough.


title: River Trent

text: Warp was also used as a commercial product, after being collected from the river banks at low tide, it was transported along the Chesterfield Canal to Walkeringham where it was dried out and refined to be eventually sold as a silver polish for cutlery manufacturers.


title: River Trent

text: The Trent is widely known for its tendency to cause significant flooding along its course, and there is a well documented flood history extending back for some 900 years. In Nottingham the heights of significant historic floods from 1852 have been carved into a bridge abutment next to Trent Bridge, with flood marks being transferred from the medieval Hethbeth bridge that pre-dated the existing 19th-century crossing. Historic flood levels have also been recorded at Girton and on the churchyard wall at Collingham.


title: River Trent

text: One of the earliest recorded floods along the Trent was in 1141, and like many other large historical events was caused by the melting of snow following heavy rainfall, it also caused a breach in the outer floodbank at Spalford. Some of the earliest floods can be assessed by using Spalford bank as a substitute measure for the size of a particular flood, as it has been estimated that the bank only failed when flows were greater than , the bank was also breached in 1403 and 1795.


title: River Trent

text: Early bridges were vulnerable to floods, and in 1309 many bridges were washed away or damaged by severe winter floods, including Hethbeth Bridge. In 1683 the same bridge was partially destroyed by a flood that also meant the loss of the bridge at Newark. Historical archives often record details of the bridge repairs that followed floods, as the cost of these repairs or pontage had to be raised by borrowing money and charging a local toll.


title: River Trent

text: The largest known flood was the Candlemas flood of February 1795, which followed an eight-week period of harsh winter weather, rivers froze which that meant mills were unable to grind corn, and then followed a rapid thaw. Due to the size of the flood and the ice entrained in the flow, nearly every bridge along the Trent was badly damaged or washed away. The bridges at Wolseley, Wychnor and the main span at Swarkestone were all destroyed. In Nottingham, residents of Narrow Marsh were trapped by the floodwaters in their first floor rooms, boats were used to take supplies to those stranded. Livestock was badly affected, 72 sheep drowned in Wilford and ten cows were lost in Bridgford. The vulnerable flood bank at Spalford was breached again, floodwaters spreading out across the low-lying land, even reaching the River Witham and flooding Lincoln. Some were flooded for a period of over three weeks.


title: River Trent

text: The bank is formed upon a plain of sandy nature, and when it was broken in 1795, the water forced an immense breach, the size of which may be judged from the fact that eighty loads of faggots and upwards of four hundred tons of earth were required to fill up the hole, an operation which took several weeks to complete.


title: River Trent

text: The flood bank was subsequently strengthened and repaired, following further floods during 1824 and 1852.


title: River Trent

text: The principal flood of the 19th century and the second largest recorded, was in October 1875. In Nottingham a cart overturned in the floodwaters near the Wilford Road and six people drowned, dwellings nearby were flooded to a depth of . Although not quite as large as 1795 this flood devastated many places along the river, at Burton upon Trent much of the town was inundated, with flooded streets and houses, and dead animals floating past in the flood. Food was scarce, "in one day 10,000 loaves had to be sent into the town and distributed gratuitously to save people from famine". In Newark the water was deep enough to allow four grammar school boys to row across the countryside to Kelham. The flood marks at Girton show that this flood was only lower than that of 1795, when the village was flooded to a depth of .


title: River Trent

text: On 17–18 March 1947 the Trent overtopped its banks in Nottingham. Large parts of the city and surrounding areas were flooded with 9,000 properties and nearly a hundred industrial premises affected some to first floor height. The suburbs of Long Eaton, West Bridgford and Beeston all suffered particularly badly. Two days later, in the lower tidal reaches of the river, the peak of the flood combined with a high spring tide to flood villages and 2,000 properties in Gainsborough. River levels dropped when the floodbank at Morton breached, resulting in the flooding of some of farmland in the Trent valley.


title: River Trent

text: Flooding on the Trent can also be caused by the effects of storm surges independently of fluvial flows, a series of which occurred during October and November 1954, resulting in the worse tidal flooding experienced along the lower reaches. These floods revealed the need for a tidal protection scheme, which would cope with the flows experienced in 1947 and the tidal levels from 1954, and subsequently the floodbanks and defences along the lower river were improved to this standard with the works being completed in 1965. In December 2013, the largest storm surge since the 1950s occurred on the Trent, when a high spring tide combined with strong winds and a low pressure weather system, produced elevated tidal river levels in the lower reaches. The resulting surge overtopped the flood defences in the area near Keadby and Burringham, flooding 50 properties.


title: River Trent

text: The fifth largest flood recorded at Nottingham occurred in November 2000, with widespread flooding of low-lying land along the Trent valley, including many roads and railways. The flood defences around Nottingham and Burton constructed during the 1950s, following the 1947 event, stopped any major urban flooding, but problems did occur in undefended areas such as Willington and Gunthorpe, and again at Girton where 19 houses were flooded.


title: River Trent

text: The flood defences in Nottingham that protect 16,000 homes and those in Burton where they prevent 7,000 properties from flooding were reassessed after this flood, and were subsequently improved between 2006 and 2012.


title: River Trent

text: Nottingham seems to have been the ancient head of navigation until the Restoration, due partly to the difficult navigation of the Trent Bridge. Navigation was then extended to Wilden Ferry, near to the more recent Cavendish Bridge, as a result of the efforts of the Fosbrooke family of Shardlow.


title: River Trent

text: Later, in 1699, the baron William Paget (Lord Paget), who owned coal mines and land in the area, obtained an Act of Parliament to extend navigation up to Fleetstones Bridge, Burton, despite opposition from the people of Nottingham. Lord Paget seems to have funded the work privately, building locks at King's Mill and Burton Mills and several cuts and basins. The Act gave him absolute control over the building of any wharves and warehouses above Nottingham Bridge. Lord Paget leased the navigation and the wharf at Burton to George Hayne, while the wharf and warehouses at Wilden were leased by Leonard Fosbrooke, who held the ferry rights and was a business partner of Hayne. The two men refused to allow any cargo to be landed which was not carried in their own boats, and so created a monopoly.


title: River Trent

text: In 1748, merchants from Nottingham attempted to end this monopoly by landing goods on the banks and into carts, but Fosbrooke used his ferry rope to block the river, and then created a bridge by mooring boats across the channel, and employing men to defend them. Hayne subsequently scuppered a barge in King's Lock, and for the next eight years goods had to be transhipped around it. Despite a Chancery injunction against them, the two men continued with their action. Hayne's lease expired in 1762, and Lord Paget's son, the Earl of Uxbridge, gave the new lease to the Burton Boat Company.


title: River Trent

text: The Trent and Mersey Canal was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1766, and construction from Shardlow to Preston Brook, where it joined the Bridgewater Canal, was completed by 1777. The canal ran parallel to the upper river to Burton upon Trent, where new wharfs and warehouses at Horninglow served the town, and the Burton Boat Company were unable to repair the damaged reputation of the river created by their predecessors. Eventually in 1805, they reached an agreement with Henshall & Co., the leading canal carriers, for the closure of the river above Wilden Ferry. Though the river is no doubt legally still navigable above Shardlow, it is probable that the agreement marks the end of the use of that stretch of the river as a commercial navigation.


title: River Trent

text: The first improvement of the lower river was at Newark, where the channel splits into two. The residents of the town wanted to increase the use of the branch nearest to them, and so an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1772 to authorise the work. Newark Navigation Commissioners were created, with powers to borrow money to fund the construction of two locks, and to charge tolls for boats using them. The work was completed by October 1773, and the separate tolls remained in force until 1783, when they were replaced by a one-shilling (5p) toll whichever channel the boats used.