title: George Shapiro

text: Shapiro left William Morris to become a personal manager and producer along with his partner and friend, Howard West. They formed Shapiro/West Productions and executive produced the Emmy-, Peabody-, and Golden Globe award-winning series, "Seinfeld". Shapiro was Andy Kaufman's personal manager for many years, executive producing the Showtime special, "Andy Kaufman at Carnegie Hall", and "The Andy Kaufman Show" on ABC. He was executive producer with West on the 1999 Universal biopic "Man on the Moon", starring Jim Carrey in the role of Andy Kaufman and Danny DeVito as Shapiro, and had a cameo in the movie as Mr. Besserman. He played a prominent role in the documentary "Comedian".


title: George Shapiro

text: On June 30, 2012, people from the world of comedy gathered at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills to honor Shapiro. The David Lynch Foundation presented him with the first Lifetime of Bliss Award. He said he had been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 28 years.


title: George Shapiro

text: Shapiro was married to Melody until his death. Together, they had three children: Danny, Carrie, and Stefanie.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages are often awarded if compensatory damages are deemed an inadequate remedy. The court may impose them to prevent undercompensation of plaintiffs and to allow redress for undetectable torts and taking some strain away from the criminal justice system. Punitive damages are most important for violations of the law that are hard to detect.


title: Punitive damages

text: However, punitive damages awarded under court systems that recognize them may be difficult to enforce in jurisdictions that do not recognize them. For example, punitive damages awarded to one party in a US case would be difficult to get recognition for in a European court in which punitive damages are most likely to be considered to violate ordre public.


title: Punitive damages

text: Because they are usually paid in excess of the plaintiff's provable injuries, punitive damages are awarded only in special cases, usually under tort law, if the defendant's conduct was egregiously insidious. Punitive damages cannot generally be awarded in contract disputes. The main exception is in insurance bad faith cases in the US if the insurer's breach of contract is alleged to be so egregious as to amount to a breach of the "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing", and is therefore considered to be a "tort" cause of action eligible for punitive damages (in excess of the value of the insurance policy).


title: Punitive damages

text: In Australia, punitive damages are not available for breach of contract, but are possible for tort cases.


title: Punitive damages

text: The law is less settled regarding equitable wrongs. In "Harris v Digital Pulse Pty Ltd", the defendant employees knowingly breached contractual and fiduciary duties to their employer by diverting business to themselves and misusing its confidential information. The New South Wales Court of Appeal held that punitive damages are not available both for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Heydon JA (as he then was) said there is no power to give punitive damages in respect of a claim in equity, although he was content to decide the case on the narrower ground that there is no power to award punitive damages for the specific equitable wrong in issue. Spigelman CJ concurred, although he emphasized that the contractual character of the fiduciary relationship in question, and refrained from deciding on whether punitive damages would be available in respect of equitable wrongs more analogous to torts. Mason P dissented and opined that there was no principled reason to award punitive damages in respect of common law torts but not analogous equitable wrongs.


title: Punitive damages

text: In England and Wales, exemplary damages are limited to cases in which at least one of the circumstances set out by Lord Devlin in the leading case of "Rookes v Barnard" has been met:


title: Punitive damages

text: "Rookes v Barnard" has been much criticised and has not been followed in Canada, Australia or New Zealand, despite English cases often being influential in other Commonwealth countries. or by the Privy Council. It was strongly criticised by the Court of Appeal in "Broome v Cassell", but on appeal the House of Lords upheld "Rookes v Barnard".


title: Punitive damages

text: Exemplary damages go beyond the philosophical aims of a contractual remedy and are not available as damages for breach of contract. Lord Atkinson said, in "Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd":


title: Punitive damages

text: In 1997 the Law Commission recommended that punitive damages should never be available for breach of contract.


title: Punitive damages

text: German courts do not award punitive damages and consider foreign punitive damages unenforceable to the extent that the payment would exceed the damages plus an allowance for reasonable defence costs big enough so that the plaintiff would get a full reimbursement of its loss but not more.


title: Punitive damages

text: Japanese courts do not award punitive damages as a matter of public policy, and Japanese law prohibits the enforcement of punitive damage awards obtained overseas.


title: Punitive damages

text: In Japan, medical negligence and other species of negligence are governed by the criminal code, which may impose much harsher penalties than civil law. For instance, many causes of action which would subject a defendant to a potential punitive damage award in the U.S. would subject the same individual to prison time in Japan.


title: Punitive damages

text: In New Zealand it was held in "Donselaar v. Donselaar" and confirmed in "Auckland City Council v. Blundell" that the existence of the Accident Compensation Corporation did not bar the availability of exemplary damages. In "Paper Reclaim Ltd v Aotearoa International" it was held that exemplary damages are not to be awarded in actions for breach of contract but the court left open the possibility that exemplary damages might be available where the breach of contract is a tort.


title: Punitive damages

text: In 2010, in "Couch v Attorney-General" the New Zealand Supreme Court barred exemplary damages for cases of negligence unless the defendant acts intentionally or with subjective recklessness.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages can also be awarded for equitable wrongs. In "Acquaculture Corporation v New Zealand Green Mussel Co Ltd", the majority of the New Zealand Court of Appeal held that in addition to compensation, punitive damages could be awarded for breach of confidence, albeit that, on the facts, they were not merited. Similarly, in "Cook v Evatt (No.2)", Fisher J in the New Zealand High Court added exemplary damages of NZ$5,000 to an account of profits of over NZ$20,000 for breach of fiduciary duty.


title: Punitive damages

text: In very few industries, punitive damages could be awarded in either contractual or tort case, except a tort relevant to product defraud or defect. Article 49 of the PRC Law on Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests enacted on October 31, 1993, provides the rule that any consumer is entitled to a recovery of double the purchase price of products or service from the seller or service provider against their defraud. Successful cases have been widely reported in this regard.


title: Punitive damages

text: Article 96 of the PRC Law on Food Safety adopted on February 28, 2009, raises the punitive damages to ten times the purchase price added to the compensatory damages that the victim has already claimed from the producer or seller for food with poor quality not compliant to food safety standards. Such a substantial statutory amount considered by the legislative organ is based on several extremely serious food quality incidents in the past two years, such as the notorious Sanlu tainted milk powder case.


title: Punitive damages

text: Application of the punitive damage rule is further expanded with the enactment of the PRC Law on Tort Liability effective as of July 1, 2010. This new law sets forth that a victim is entitled to claim punitive damages from any manufacturer or seller expressly aware of the defects in products but still produces or sells them if it results in death or heavy injuries. Since this is a somewhat new law so far, no further explanatory regulation regarding a detailed amount and applicable scope is promulgated guiding the application of this rule, so a court judge may have discretional power to decide punitive damages case by case under this new law.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages are a settled principle of common law in the United States. They are generally a matter of state law (although they can also be awarded under federal maritime law), and thus differ in application from state to state. In many states, including California and Texas, punitive damages are determined based on statute; elsewhere, they may be determined solely based on case law. Many state statutes are the result of insurance industry lobbying to impose "caps" on punitive damages; however, several state courts have struck down these statutory caps as unconstitutional. They are rare, occurring in only 6% of civil cases that result in a monetary award. Punitive damages are entirely unavailable under any circumstances in a few jurisdictions, including Nebraska, Puerto Rico, and Washington.


title: Punitive damages

text: The general rule is that punitive damages cannot be awarded for breach of contract, but if an independent tort is committed in a contractual setting, punitive damages can be awarded for the tort. Although state laws vary, punitive damages are usually allowed only when the defendant has displayed actual "intent" to cause harm (such as purposefully rear-ending someone else's car), rather than in cases of mere negligence, or causes an injury through action taken in reckless disregard for the lives and safety of others.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages are a focal point of the tort reform debate in the United States, where numerous highly publicized multimillion-dollar verdicts have led to a fairly common perception that punitive damage awards tend to be excessive. However, statistical studies by law professors and the Department of Justice have found that punitive damages are only awarded in two percent of civil cases which go to trial, and that the median punitive damage award is between $38,000 and $50,000.


title: Punitive damages

text: There is no maximum dollar amount of punitive damages that a defendant can be ordered to pay. In response to judges and juries which award high punitive damages verdicts, the Supreme Court of the United States has made several decisions which limit awards of punitive damages through the due process of law clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In a number of cases, the Court has indicated that a 4:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages is high enough to lead to a finding of constitutional impropriety and that any ratio of 10:1 or higher is almost certainly unconstitutional. However, the Supreme Court carved out a notable exception to this rule of proportionality in the case of "TXO Production Corp. v. Alliance Resources Corp.", where it affirmed an award of $10 million in punitive damages, despite the compensatory damages being only $19,000, a punitive-to-compensatory ratio of more than 526-to-1. In this case, the Supreme Court affirmed that disproportionate punitive damages were allowed for especially egregious conduct.


title: Punitive damages

text: In the case of "Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants" (1994), 79-year-old Stella Liebeck spilled McDonald's coffee in her lap which resulted in second and third-degree burns on her thighs, buttocks, groin and genitals. The burns were severe enough to require skin grafts. Liebeck attempted to have McDonald's pay her $20,000 medical bills as indemnity for the incident. McDonald's refused, and Liebeck sued. During the case's discovery process, internal documents from McDonald's revealed the company had received hundreds of similar complaints from customers claiming McDonald's coffee caused severe burns. At trial, this led the jury to find McDonald's knew their product was dangerous and injuring their customers, and that the company had done nothing to correct the problem. The jury decided on $200,000 in compensatory damages, but attributed 20 percent of the fault to Liebeck, reducing her compensation to $160,000. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which was at the time two days of McDonald's coffee sales revenue. The judge later reduced the punitive damages to $480,000. The case is often criticized for the very high amount of damages the jury awarded. Nevertheless, many legal scholars and documentary film makers like "Hot Coffee" argued that corporate lobbyists seized the opportunity to create public misinformation and distrust of the legal system by leaving out important facts in their television advertisements, such as, that the verdict was roughly equivalent to two days of coffee sales for McDonald's, that Liebeck received permanent injury to her genitals and groin requiring surgery, and that McDonald's had already received numerous complaints about the temperature of the coffee.


title: Punitive damages

text: In "BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore" (1996), the Supreme Court ruled that an excessive punitive award can amount to an arbitrary deprivation of property in violation of due process. The court held that punitive damages must be reasonable, as determined by the degree of reprehensibility of the conduct that caused the plaintiff's injury, the ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages, and any comparable criminal or civil penalties applicable to the conduct. In "State Farm Auto. Ins. v. Campbell" (2003), the Supreme Court held that punitive damages might only be based on the acts of the defendants which harmed the plaintiffs. The court also elaborated on the factors courts must apply when reviewing a punitive award under due process principles.


title: Punitive damages

text: Most recently, in "Philip Morris USA v. Williams" (2007), the Supreme Court ruled that punitive damage awards cannot be imposed for the direct harm that the misconduct caused others, but may consider harm to others as a function of determining how reprehensible it was. More reprehensible misconduct justifies a larger punitive damage award, just as a repeat offender in criminal law may be punished with a tougher sentence. Dissenting in the "Williams" case, Justice John Paul Stevens found that the "nuance eludes me", suggesting that the majority had resolved the case on a distinction that makes no difference.


title: Punitive damages

text: Punitive damages are subjective by their very nature. Since their purpose is to punish—as opposed to compensate—opinions on how to accomplish this will vary widely among jurors. Regardless, research into punitive damages has revealed some common principles. Wealth of the defendant is positively correlated with large punitive damage awards, jurors either downplay or ignore jury instructions regarding punitive damages determinations, and jurors tend to punish defendants who have conducted a cost-benefit analysis.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The tributary system of China (), or Cefeng system () was a network of loose international relations focused on China which facilitated trade and foreign relations by acknowledging China's predominant role in East Asia. It involved multiple relationships of trade, military force, diplomacy and ritual. The other states had to send a tributary envoy to China on schedule, who would kowtow to the Chinese emperor as a form of tribute, and acknowledge his superiority and precedence. The other countries followed China's formal ritual in order to keep the peace with the more powerful neighbor and be eligible for diplomatic or military help under certain conditions. Political actors within the tributary system were largely autonomous and in almost all cases virtually independent.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The term "tribute system", strictly speaking, is a Western invention. There was no equivalent term in the Chinese lexicon to describe what would be considered the "tribute system" today, nor was it envisioned as an institution or system. John King Fairbank and Teng Ssu-yu created the "tribute system" theory in a series of articles in the early 1940s to describe "a set of ideas and practices developed and perpetuated by the rulers of China over many centuries." The Fairbank model presents the tribute system as an extension of the hierarchic and nonegalitarian Confucian social order. The more Confucian the actors, the more likely they were to participate in the tributary system.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The "tribute system" is often associated with a "Confucian world order", under which neighboring states complied and participated in the "tribute system" to secure guarantees of peace, investiture, and trading opportunities. One member acknowledged another's position as superior, and the superior would bestow investiture upon them in the form of a crown, official seal, and formal robes, to confirm them as king. The practice of investing non-Chinese neighbors had been practiced since ancient times as a concrete expression of the loose reign policy. The rulers of Joseon, in particular, sought to legitimize their rule through reference to Chinese symbolic authority. On the opposite side of the tributary relationship spectrum was Japan, whose leaders could hurt their own legitimacy by identifying with Chinese authority. In these politically tricky situations, sometimes a false king was set up to receive investiture for the purposes of tribute trade.


title: Tributary system of China

text: In practice, the tribute system only became formalized during the early years of the Ming dynasty. The "tribute" entailed a foreign court sending envoys and exotic products to the Chinese emperor. The emperor then gave the envoys gifts in return and permitted them to trade in China. Presenting tribute involved theatrical subordination but usually not political subordination. The political sacrifice of participating actors was simply "symbolic obeisance". Actors within the "tribute system" were virtually autonomous and carried out their own agendas despite sending tribute; as was the case with Japan, Korea, Ryukyu, and Vietnam. Chinese influence on tributary states was almost always non-interventionist in nature and tributary states "normally could expect no military assistance from Chinese armies should they be invaded". For example, when the Hongwu Emperor learned that the Vietnamese attacked Champa, he only rebuked them, and did not intervene in the 1471 Vietnamese invasion of Champa, which resulted in the destruction of that country. Both Vietnam and Champa were tributary states. When the Malacca sultanate sent envoys to China in 1481 to inform them that while returning to Malacca in 1469 from a trip to China, the Vietnamese had attacked them, castrating the young and enslaving them, China still did not interfere with affairs in Vietnam. The Malaccans reported that Vietnam was in control of Champa and also that the Vietnamese sought to conquer Malacca, but the Malaccans did not fight back because of a lack of permission from the Chinese to engage in war. The Ming emperor scolded them, ordering the Malaccans to strike back with violent force if the Vietnamese attacked.


title: Tributary system of China

text: According to a 2018 study in the "Journal of Conflict Resolution" covering Vietnam-China relations from 1365 to 1841, "the Vietnamese court explicitly recognized its unequal status in its relations with China through a number of institutions and norms." Due to their participation in the tributary system, Vietnamese rulers behaved as though China was not a threat and paid very little military attention to it. Rather, Vietnamese leaders were clearly more concerned with quelling chronic domestic instability and managing relations with kingdoms to their south and west."


title: Tributary system of China

text: Nor were states that sent tribute forced to mimic Chinese institutions, for example in cases such as the Inner Asians, who basically ignored the trappings of Chinese government. Instead they manipulated Chinese tribute practices for their own financial benefit. The gifts doled out by the Ming emperor and the trade permits granted were of greater value than the tribute itself, so tribute states sent as many tribute missions as they could. In 1372, the Hongwu Emperor restricted tribute missions from Joseon and six other countries to just one every three years. The Ryukyu Kingdom was not included in this list, and sent 57 tribute missions from 1372 to 1398, an average of two tribute missions per year. Since geographical density and proximity was not an issue, regions with multiple kings such as the Sultanate of Sulu benefited immensely from this exchange. This also caused odd situations such as the Turpan Khanate simultaneously raiding Ming territory and offering tribute at the same time because they were eager to obtain the emperor's gifts, which were given in the hope that it might stop the raiding.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Participation in a tributary relationship with a Chinese dynasty could also be predicated on cultural or civilizational motivations rather than material and monetary benefits. The Korean kingdom of Joseon did not treat the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, which invaded Joseon and forced it to become a tributary in 1636, in the same way as the Han-led Ming dynasty. Joseon had continued to support the Ming in their wars against the Qing despite incurring military retaliation from the latter. The Manchus were viewed as barbarians by the Korean court, which, regarding itself as the new "Confucian ideological center" in place of the Ming, continued to use the Ming calendar and era names in defiance of the Qing, despite sending tribute missions. Meanwhile, Japan avoided direct contact with Qing China and instead manipulated embassies from neighboring Joseon and Ryukyu to make it falsely appear as though they came to pay tribute. Joseon Korea remained a tributary of Qing China until 1895, when the First Sino-Japanese War ended this relationship.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The Chinese tributary system required a set of rituals from the tributary states whenever they sought relations with China as a way of regulating diplomatic relations. The main rituals generally included:


title: Tributary system of China

text: After the completion of the rituals, the tributary states engaged in their desired business, such as trade.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Tributary relations emerged during the Tang dynasty as Chinese rulers started perceiving foreign envoys bearing tribute as a "token of conformity to the Chinese world order".


title: Tributary system of China

text: The Ming founder Hongwu Emperor adopted a maritime prohibition policy and issued tallies to "tribute-bearing" embassies for missions. Missions were subject to limits on the number of persons and items allowed.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Jinhan and Mahan were recorded paying tribute to Jin dynasty of China from 280 AD repeatedly in the Book of Jin.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Goguryeo was a tribe located in the Amnok/Yalu river basin, first mentioned with the Xuantu commandery being set up in its territory after the fall of Gojoseon. It destroyed the Han commanderies and later formed a state called Goryeo together with Buyeo migrants from the north. Colloquially it is still called Goguryeo to distinguish it from the later Goryeo. It expanded into the Lelang commandery until its final destruction and unified the surrounding tribes, later on subjugating Silla and Baekje and briefly unifying Korea. The Records of the Three Kingdoms recorded Goguryeo sent envoys to Han dynasty with tributes to Emperor Guangwu of Han as a principality state in 30 AD. Goguryeo continued to pay tribute to the proceeding Chinese dynasties: Jin dynasty, Northern Wei, Northern Zhou and Sui dynasty, Tang dynasty.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Baekje was first recorded to sent tribute to Northern Wei in the "Book of Wei". Baekje sent tribute to Jin Dynasty in 372 AD, recorded in the Book of Jin. It is recorded in the Book of Sui that after Sui dynasty's founding, Wideok of Baekje sent envoys and tributes to Emperor Wen of Sui. Later, when Sui dynasty was conquering Chen dynasty, a warship floated to Tamna; on its way back, the ship passed by Baekje, and the King Wideok sent sufficient supplies to the crew along with an envoy to send congratulation of defeating Chen dynasty to Emperor Wen. Emperor Wen was touched and issued an imperial edict to exempt Baekje's yearly tribute. However, Baekje still sent tributes to Sui dynasty to plea for war against Goguryeo in 598 AD and 607 AD. In 614 AD, Baekje sent last tribute to Sui dynasty before Sui's fall in 619 AD. Baekje started to send tribute to Tang dynasty in 622 AD.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Silla was recorded sending tribute to Sui dynasty in 594 AD by the order of Jinpyeong of Silla, and then Silla started to send tribute yearly from 605 AD. The "Old Book of Tang" and "New Book of Tang" recorded Silla sent women (4 in total; all rejected), gold, silver among other things as tribute to Tang dynasty.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The 10th - 13th centuries were marked by a power vacuum in the region, where the Song/Southern Song struggled with northern invaders, who established their own Empires of Liao and Jin.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Goryeos rulers called themselves "Great King" viewing themselves as the sovereigns of the Goryeo-centered world of Northeast Asia. They maintained their own Imperial style, in their setup of government institutions, administrative divisions and own tributary system. The capital of Goryeo was called "Hwando", meaning Imperial capital and emulated the Three Departments and Six Ministries administrative system of the Tang.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Unlike in previous voluntary tribute relationships, Goryeo was forced to submit to the Mongols in the 13th century and paid tribute until the collapse of latter in the 14th century.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Goryeo broke free from it in 1356, when it amidst the chaos of the last years of the collapsing Yuan Empire launched a surprise attack against the Mongol garrisons south of the Amnok river.


title: Tributary system of China

text: As the struggle between the Northern Yuan and the Red Turban Rebellion and the Ming remained indecisive, Goryeo retained neutrality despite both sides pleading for their assistance in order to break this stalemate. As the Ming eventually gained the upper hand Goryeo paid a enormous tribute to Ming in February 1385 consisting of five thousand horses, five hundred jin of gold, fifty thousand jin of silver and fifty thousand bolts of cotton fabric order to maintain their neutrality.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Early Joseon struggled with the Ming over the tributary overlordship over the Jurchen tribes. The last remaining Jurchen vassal of Joseon, the Udege switched allegiance to Ming in the 1400s..


title: Tributary system of China

text: The Later Jin asked Joseon to pay tribute to them instead of Ming, which they refused on several grounds such as Joseon not wanting to hurt its relations to Ming and distaste of Joseons elites for these "barbarians".


title: Tributary system of China

text: This resulted in the invasion by the Later Jin as well as the Qing, who forced Joseon to pay tribute to them.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Qing tributary suzerainity ended on April 17, 1895 with the Treaty of Shimonoseki between Qing and Japan. The newly emergent Empire of Japan started interfering in Korean affairs.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Early kings of Japan had formal diplomatic inquiries with the Jin dynasty and its subsequent successors and were appointed as "King of Wa". The Emperors of China commonly referred to the ruler of Japan as 倭寇王 "wōkouwang" ("wakuō") meaning "King of Wa", while they themselves styled themselves as "ōkimi", meaning "Great King" in relation to the Chinese emperor. Internally 天皇 "tennō" meaning "heavenly king" also used to put the ruler of Japan on the same level as the one of China.


title: Tributary system of China

text: In 1404, Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, who held most of the defacto power in Japan, accepted the title "King of Japan", despite the nominal sovereign of Japan still residing in Kyōto. Yoshimitsu was the first and only Japanese ruler in the early modern period to accept a Chinese title. During the Muromachi period Japan accepted the Ming led worldview, but this relationship ended in 1549 when Japan chose to end its recognition of China's regional hegemony and cancel any further tribute missions. Membership in the tributary system was a prerequisite for any economic exchange with China; in exiting the system, Japan relinquished its trade relationship with China. Under the rule of the Wanli Emperor, Ming China quickly interpreted the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) as a challenge to the Ming centered predominant worldview and order.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Thailand was subordinate to China as a vassal or tributary state from the Sui dynasty until the Taiping Rebellion of the late Qing dynasty in the mid-19th century. The Sukhothai Kingdom, the first unified Thai state, established official tributary relations with the Yuan dynasty during the reign of King Ram Khamhaeng, and Thailand remained a tributary of China until 1853. Wei Yuan, the 19th century Chinese scholar, considered Thailand to be the strongest and most loyal of China's Southeast Asian tributaries, citing the time when Thailand offered to directly attack Japan to divert the Japanese in their planned invasions of Korea and the Asian mainland, as well as other acts of loyalty to the Ming dynasty. Thailand was welcoming and open to Chinese immigrants, who dominated commerce and trade, and achieved high positions in the government.


title: Tributary system of China

text: Vietnam was ruled by China for 1050 years. When Vietnam gained independence in 938, it became a tributary of China until 1885 when it became a protectorate of France with the Treaty of Huế (1884). The Lê dynasty (1428–1527) and Nguyễn Dynasty (18021945) adopted the imperial Chinese system, with rulers declaring themselves emperors on the Confucian model and attempting to create a Vietnamese imperial tributary system while still remaining a tributary state of China.


title: Tributary system of China

text: The Sultanate of Malacca and the Sultanate of Brunei sent tribute to the Ming dynasty, with their first rulers personally traveling to China with the Imperial fleets.


title: University of Evansville

text: The University of Evansville (UE) is a private university in Evansville, Indiana. It was founded in 1854 as Moores Hill College. The university operates a satellite center, Harlaxton College, in Grantham, England.


title: University of Evansville

text: UE offers more than 80 different majors and areas of study, each housed within three colleges and one school within the university: the Schroeder School of Business, the College of Education and Health Sciences, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the William L. Ridgway College of Arts and Sciences. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.


title: University of Evansville

text: Total enrollment (including full and part-time, undergraduate, adult, graduate, and UE students at Harlaxton) is 2,443 students, although full-time undergraduate and Doctor of Physical Therapy enrollment is 1,976 students. The student body represents 55 countries and 44 states with international students comprising 16% of the undergraduate student population. The university also hosts more than 155 student organizations and an active Greek community. UE athletic teams participate in Division I of the NCAA and are known as the Purple Aces. Evansville is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.


title: University of Evansville

text: Notable alumni include prominent entertainers, writers, and sports stars such as actors Rami Malek and Kelli Giddish, producer/writer Matt Williams, and basketball coach Jerry Sloan, as well scientists, business people, and others.


title: University of Evansville

text: The University of Evansville began in 1854 when Moores Hill Male and Female Collegiate Institute was founded by John Moore in the small town of Moores Hill in southeastern Indiana. The first college building at Moores Hill, Moore Hall, was completed on December 1, 1856, although the opening day of classes for the new college was held in the unfinished building on September 9. The institution struggled financially during its time in Moores Hill, and a fire destroyed Moore Hall in 1915. The institution continued to operate in a second building, Carnegie Hall, until the move to Evansville. The former campus in Moores Hill continued operation as an elementary and high school. Carnegie Hall is now maintained as a museum.


title: University of Evansville

text: On March 21, 1917, George S. Clifford made a presentation at a special session of the Indiana Conference of the Methodist Church, suggesting that the college be moved to Evansville, Indiana. Clifford produced a map that highlighted a lack of colleges in the Evansville area. After some deliberation and the city of Evansville raising $514,000 for the college, it was relocated to Evansville in 1919 and renamed Evansville College. It operated in temporary quarters in downtown Evansville until Administration Hall (now Olmsted Hall) was completed in 1922. This is the only building remaining on campus from before World War II.


title: University of Evansville

text: In the period from World War II to 1960, Evansville College grew significantly. Enrollment grew from about 400 during the Great Depression to 1,500 in 1946. Also following the war, the Science and Engineering Building and Alumni Memorial Union were commissioned. The Clifford Memorial Library was completed in 1957. Five residence halls were built between 1958 and 1967, along with a fitness center, dining hall, and an art building. In 1967, due to the institution's growth and organizational changes, the name was changed to the University of Evansville with the approval of the Indiana State General Assembly. Also in 1967, a new theater building, Hyde Hall, housing Shanklin Theater was finished.


title: University of Evansville

text: In 2010 The University of Evansville completed early its Endowment Campaign to raise $80 million after having raised an additional $60 million five years previous to the new campaign. On July 1, 2018, Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz became the University of Evansville's 24th president.


title: University of Evansville

text: The electrical and mechanical engineering programs have been continuously accredited by ABET (the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) since 1970, and the civil engineering and computer engineering programs since 1997. The School of Business Administration is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and provides a variety of professional programs in accounting, economics, finance, global business, management or marketing. The Department of Music is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM). The Exercise Science major is endorsed by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). The Dunigan Family Department of Nursing is accredited by the Indiana State Board of Nursing and the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. UE Nursing offers direct entry and study abroad experiences in England and China.


title: University of Evansville

text: In 2022, "U.S. News & World Report" ranked the University of Evansville against other regional Midwest universities, awarding it #7 overall, #3 for veterans, and #12 for value. It called the school's admissions policy "more selective."


title: University of Evansville

text: In addition to studying in the city of Evansville, the university's students can choose to study abroad in England at Harlaxton College, "The British Campus of the University of Evansville". The college was formed and controlled by Stanford University prior to its passing to The University of Evansville. The college is located at Harlaxton Manor, about 115 miles north of London in Lincolnshire, a few miles away from the town of Grantham, England (home of Sir Isaac Newton and Margaret Thatcher and Thomas Paine). The study abroad program at the University of Evansville has consistently been rated as one of the best study abroad programs in the nation, ranked #1 in Europe and #7 globally.


title: University of Evansville

text: The UE theatre department features four mainstage and two studio productions a year, many taking place at Shanklin Theatre, which features a 482-seat thrust stage design extending into the audience on three sides. UE students have been invited to perform at The Kennedy Center more often than any other school in the nation, and the department has participated in the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival program since its inception in 1968. It also leads the nation in the top awards for its students as awarded by The Broadway Theatre Wing and other governing bodies of serious theatre. UE's alumni frequently star in television and film roles. Among the successful and famous alumni are: Ron Glass, Jack McBrayer, Kwame James, Rutina Wesley,


title: University of Evansville

text: Crista Flanagan, Kelli Giddish, Carrie Preston, Rami Malek (winner of the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, and British Academy Film Award for Best Actor), and Deirdre Lovejoy.


title: University of Evansville

text: The University of Evansville athletic teams have the nickname the Purple Aces (originally the "Pioneers"). Both men's and women's varsity sports play at the NCAA Division I level and compete in the Missouri Valley Conference, except for the men's swimming and diving teams which compete in the Mid-American Conference


title: University of Evansville

text: The university campus is characterized by its grassy open spaces and tree cover. The university landscape is well maintained, and many students take advantage of the spacious lawns and large shade trees. The campus is bounded on the north by the Lloyd Expressway, the south by Lincoln Avenue, west by Rotherwood Avenue, and on the east by Weinbach Avenue. Walnut Street bisects the campus. Sesquicentennial Oval, the ceremonial entrance to campus, opens off of Lincoln Avenue. The oval was named in 2004 in commemoration of the university's 150th anniversary. The Schroeder Family School of Business, McCurdy Alumni Memorial Union, Sampson Hall / Mann Health Center, Hyde Hall, Olmsted Administration Hall, Clifford Memorial Library, and Koch (pronounced Cook) Center for Science and Engineering (all sectors of the original and later additional science/engineering buildings) surround Sesquicentennial Oval. Most of the buildings follow an old limestone motif, and renovations generally emulate the rest of the building.


title: University of Evansville

text: The Administration Hall and the President's House and Circle were named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.


title: University of Evansville

text: Koch Center was originally named the Engineering and Science Building when it was built in 1947. The motivation for the new building stemmed from WWII, after which UE expected a greater number of students to enroll with the intent of getting industrial degrees. After renovations in the late 1970s, the building was renamed in November 1984 in honor of Robert Louis Koch who had been a member of the UE Board of Trustees since 1968; Koch had recently given a donation to the university's New Century Capital Campaign that was being used to build a new library. (Not to be confused with the Kochs, Robert L. Koch was the chairman of the board of George Koch Sons, Inc.—an industrial company in Evansville—and son of Louis J. Koch, founder of the Holiday World amusement park.) Koch Center experienced another renovation, including a large new addition on its south side, in 2001.


title: University of Evansville

text: In 2016, the Peters-Margedant House museum was moved to campus and then opened for tours in 2017. The 552 square foot house was built by Evansville native William Wesley Peters who was the son-in-law of, and right-hand man to, Frank Lloyd Wright.


title: University of Evansville

text: "WUEV" started in 1951, was a noncommercial, 6100-watt FM Radio station located at 91.5 MHz, owned and operated by the University of Evansville. WUEV also streamed online and became the first internet radio station in Indiana in 1996. The station was operated entirely by a student staff. In May 2019, the university announced plans to sell the station to WAY-FM, a nonprofit nationwide network that plays contemporary Christian music. This decision had been protested by students who had objected that the plan has not been discussed with them despite being studied for two years by the university administration. The sale to WAY-FM was consummated on November 25, 2019.


title: University of Evansville

text: Alumni include numerous prominent entertainers, sports stars, writers, and scientists. Among them are:


title: Proper noun

text: A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity ("Africa", "Jupiter", "Sarah", "Microsoft)" as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities ("continent, planet, person, corporation") and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a "continent", another "planet", these "persons", our "corporation"). Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to "groups" of entities considered as unique (the "Hendersons", the "Everglades", "the Azores", the "Pleiades"). Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns (the "Mozart" experience; his "Azores" adventure), or in the role of common nouns (he's no "Pavarotti"; a few would-be "Napoleons"). The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.


title: Proper noun

text: A distinction is normally made in current linguistics between "proper nouns" and "proper names". By this strict distinction, because the term "noun" is used for a class of single words ("tree", "beauty"), only single-word proper names are proper nouns: "Peter" and "Africa" are both proper names and proper nouns; but "Peter the Great" and "South Africa", while they are proper names, are not proper nouns (though they could be said to function as proper noun phrases). The term "common name" is not much used to contrast with "proper name", but some linguists have used the term for that purpose. Sometimes proper names are called simply "names", but that term is often used more broadly. Words derived from proper names are sometimes called "proper adjectives" (or "proper adverbs", and so on), but not in mainstream linguistic theory. Not every noun or a noun phrase that refers to a unique entity is a proper name. "Chastity," for instance, is a common noun, even if chastity is considered a unique abstract entity.


title: Proper noun

text: Few proper names have only one possible referent: there are many places named "New Haven"; "Jupiter" may refer to a planet, a god, a ship, a city in Florida, or a symphony; at least one person has been named "Mata Hari", but so have a horse, a song, and three films; there are towns and people named "Toyota", as well as the company. In English, proper names in their primary application cannot normally be modified by articles or another determiner, although some may be taken to include the article "the", as in "the Netherlands", "the Roaring Forties", or "the Rolling Stones". A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not (the Rolling Stones are not stones and do not roll; a woman named "Rose" is not a flower). If it had once been, it may no longer be so, for example, a location previously referred to as "the new town" may now have the proper name "Newtown", though it is no longer new and is now a city rather than a town.


title: Proper noun

text: In English and many other languages, proper names and words derived from them are associated with capitalization; but the details are complex, and vary from language to language (French "lundi", "Canada", "un homme canadien", "un Canadien"; English "Monday", "Canada", "a Canadian man", "a Canadian"; Italian "lunedì", "Canada", "un uomo canadese", "un canadese"). The study of proper names is sometimes called "onomastics" or "onomatology", while a rigorous analysis of the semantics of proper names is a matter for philosophy of language.


title: Proper noun

text: Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. "Hebrides"). Typically, English proper nouns are not preceded by an article (such as "the" or "a") or other determiner (such as "that" or "those").


title: Proper noun

text: Occasionally, what would otherwise be regarded as a proper noun is used as a common noun, in which case a plural form and a determiner are possible. Examples are in cases of ellipsis (for instance, "the three Kennedys" = "the three members of the Kennedy family") and metaphor (for instance, "the new Gandhi", likening a person to Mahatma Gandhi).


title: Proper noun

text: Current linguistics makes a distinction between "proper nouns" and "proper names" but this distinction is not universally observed and sometimes it is observed but not rigorously. When the distinction is made, proper nouns are limited to single words only (possibly with "the"), while proper names include all proper nouns (in their primary applications) as well as noun phrases such as "the United Kingdom", "North Carolina", "Royal Air Force", and "the White House". Proper names can have a common noun or a proper noun as their head; "the United Kingdom", for example, is a proper name with the common noun "kingdom" as its head, and "North Carolina" is headed by the proper noun "Carolina". Especially as titles of works, but also as nicknames and the like, some proper names contain no noun and are not formed as noun phrases (the film "Being There"; "Hi De Ho" as a nickname for Cab Calloway and as the title of a film about him).


title: Proper noun

text: Proper names are also referred to (by linguists) as "naming expressions". Sometimes they are called simply "names"; but that term is also used more broadly (as in ""chair" is the name for something we sit on"); the latter type of name is called a "common name" to distinguish it from a "proper name".


title: Proper noun

text: Common nouns are frequently used as components of proper names. Some examples are "agency", "boulevard", "city", "day," and "edition". In such cases the common noun may determine the kind of entity, and a modifier determines the unique entity itself. For example:


title: Proper noun

text: Proper nouns, and all proper names, differ from common nouns grammatically in English. They may take titles, such as "Mr Harris" or "Senator Harris". Otherwise, they normally only take modifiers that add emotive coloring, such as "old Mrs Fletcher, poor Charles", or "historic York"; in a formal style, this may include "the", as in "the inimitable Henry Higgins". They may also take "the" in the manner of common nouns in order to establish the context in which they are unique: "the young Mr Hamilton" (not the old one), "the Dr Brown I know"; or as proper nouns to define an aspect of the referent: "the young Einstein" (Einstein when he was young). The indefinite article "a" may similarly be used to establish a new referent: "the column was written by a ["or" one] Mary Price". Proper names based on noun phrases differ grammatically from common noun phrases. They are fixed expressions, and cannot be modified internally: "beautiful King's College" is acceptable, but not "King's famous College".


title: Proper noun

text: As with proper nouns, so with proper names more generally: they may only be unique within the appropriate context. For instance, India has a ministry of home affairs (a common-noun phrase) called the Ministry of Home Affairs (its proper name). Within the context of India, this identifies a unique organization. However, other countries may also have ministries of home affairs called "the Ministry of Home Affairs", but each refers to a unique object, so each is a proper name. Similarly, "Beach Road" is a unique road, though other towns may have their own roads named "Beach Road" as well. This is simply a matter of the pragmatics of naming, and of whether a naming convention provides identifiers that are unique; and this depends on the scope given by context.


title: Proper noun

text: Because they are used to refer to an individual entity, proper names are, by their nature, definite; so a definite article would be redundant, and personal names (like "John") are used without an article or other determiner. However, some proper names (especially certain geographical names) are usually used with the definite article. These have been termed "weak proper names", in contrast with the more typical "strong proper names", which are normally used without an article. Entities with weak proper names include geographical features (e.g., "the Mediterranean", "the Thames"), buildings (e.g., "the Parthenon"), institutions (e.g., "the House of Commons"), cities and districts (e.g., "The Hague", "the Bronx"), works of literature (e.g., " the Bible"), and newspapers and magazines (e.g., "The Times", "The Economist", "the New Statesman"). Plural proper names are weak. Such plural proper names include mountain ranges (e.g., "the Himalayas"), and collections of islands (e.g., "the Hebrides").


title: Proper noun

text: The definite article is omitted when a weak proper noun is used attributively (e.g. "Hague residents are concerned ...", "... eight pints of Thames water ...").


title: Proper noun

text: Proper names often have a number of variants, for instance a formal variant ("David", "the United States of America") and an informal variant ("Dave", "the United States").


title: Proper noun

text: In languages that use alphabetic scripts and that distinguish lower and upper case, there is usually an association between proper names and capitalization. In German, all nouns are capitalized, but other words are also capitalized in proper names (not including composition titles), for instance: "der Große Bär" (the Great Bear, Ursa Major). For proper names, as for several other kinds of words and phrases, the details are complex, and vary sharply from language to language. For example, expressions for days of the week and months of the year are capitalized in English, but not in Spanish, French, Swedish, or Finnish, though they may be understood as proper names in all of these. Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper names are capitalized (American English has "House of Representatives", in which lexical words are capitalized) or only the initial element (as in Slovenian "Državni zbor", "National Assembly"). In Czech, multiword settlement names are capitalized throughout, but non-settlement names are only capitalized in the initial element, though with many exceptions.


title: Proper noun

text: European alphabetic scripts only developed a distinction between upper case and lower case in medieval times so in the alphabetic scripts of ancient Greek and Latin proper names were not systematically marked. They are marked with modern capitalization, however, in many modern editions of ancient texts.


title: Proper noun

text: In past centuries, orthographic practices in English varied widely. Capitalization was much less standardized than today. Documents from the 18th century show some writers capitalizing all nouns, and others capitalizing certain nouns based on varying ideas of their importance in the discussion. Historical documents from the early United States show some examples of this process: the end (but not the beginning) of the Declaration of Independence (1776) and all of the Constitution (1787) show nearly all nouns capitalized; the Bill of Rights (1789) capitalizes a few common nouns but not most of them; and the Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment (1865) capitalizes only proper nouns.


title: Proper noun

text: In modern English orthography, it is the norm for recognized proper names to be capitalized. The few clear exceptions include "summer" and "winter" (contrast "July" and "Christmas"). It is also standard that most capitalizing of common nouns is considered incorrect, except of course when the capitalization is simply a matter of text styling, as at the start of a sentence or in titles and other headings. See Letter case § Title case.


title: Proper noun

text: Although these rules have been standardized, there are enough gray areas that it can often be unclear both whether an item qualifies as a proper name and whether it should be capitalized: "the Cuban missile crisis" is often capitalized ("Cuban Missile Crisis") and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Most style guides give decisive recommendations on capitalization, but not all of them go into detail on how to decide in these gray areas if words are proper nouns or not and should be capitalized or not.


title: Proper noun

text: Words or phrases that are neither proper nouns nor derived from proper nouns are often capitalized in present-day English: "Dr", "Baptist", "Congregationalism", "His" and "He" in reference to the Abrahamic deity (God). For some such words, capitalization is optional or dependent on context: "northerner" or "Northerner"; "aboriginal trees" but "Aboriginal land rights in Australia". When "the" comes at the start of a proper name, as in "the White House", it is not normally capitalized unless it is a formal part of a title (of a book, film, or other artistic creation, as in "The Keys to the Kingdom").


title: Proper noun

text: Nouns and noun phrases that are not proper may be uniformly capitalized to indicate that they are definitive and regimented in their application (compare brand names, discussed below). For example, "Mountain Bluebird" does not identify a unique individual, and it is not a proper name but a so-called common name (somewhat misleadingly, because this is not intended as a contrast with the term "proper name"). Such capitalization indicates that the term is a conventional designation for exactly that species ("Sialia currucoides"), not for just any bluebird that happens to live in the mountains.


title: Proper noun

text: Words or phrases derived from proper names are generally capitalized, even when they are not themselves proper names. For example, "Londoner" is capitalized because it derives from the proper name "London", but it is not itself a proper name (it can be limited: "the Londoner", "some Londoners"). Similarly, "African", "Africanize", and "Africanism" are not proper names, but are capitalized because "Africa" is a proper name. Adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and derived common nouns that are capitalized ("Swiss" in "Swiss cheese"; "Anglicize"; "Calvinistically"; "Petrarchism") are sometimes loosely called "proper adjectives" (and so on), but not in mainstream linguistics. Which of these items are capitalized may be merely conventional. "Abrahamic", "Buddhist", "Hollywoodize", "Freudianism", and "Reagonomics" are capitalized; "quixotic", "bowdlerize", "mesmerism", and "pasteurization" are not; "aeolian" and "alpinism" may be capitalized or not.


title: Proper noun

text: Some words or some homonyms (depending on how a body of study defines "word") have one meaning when capitalized and another when not. Sometimes the capitalized variant is a proper noun (the "Moon"; dedicated to "God"; "Smith"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s apprentice) and the other variant is not (the third "moon" of Saturn; a Greek "god"; the "smith"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s apprentice). Sometimes neither is a proper noun (a "swede" in the soup; a "Swede" who came to see me). Such words that vary according to case are sometimes called capitonyms (although only rarely: this term is scarcely used in linguistic theory and does not appear in the "Oxford English Dictionary").


title: Proper noun

text: In most alphabetic languages, brand names and other commercial terms that are nouns or noun phrases are capitalized whether or not they count as proper names. Not all brand names are proper names, and not all proper names are brand names.


title: Proper noun

text: In Egyptian hieroglyphs, parts of a royal name were enclosed in a cartouche: an oval with a line at one end.


title: Proper noun

text: In Chinese script, a proper name mark (a kind of underline) has sometimes been used to indicate a proper name. In the standard Pinyin system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese, capitalization is used to mark proper names, with some complexities because of different Chinese classifications of nominal types, and even different notions of such broad categories as "word" and "phrase".


title: Proper noun

text: Sanskrit and other languages written in the Devanagari script, along with many other languages using alphabetic or syllabic scripts, do not distinguish upper and lower case and do not mark proper names systematically.


title: Proper noun

text: There is evidence from brain disorders such as aphasia that proper names and common names are processed differently by the brain.


title: Proper noun

text: Although Japanese does not distinguish overtly between common and proper nouns, two-year-old children learning Japanese distinguished between names for categories of object (equivalent to common names) and names of individuals (equivalent to proper names): When a previously unknown label was applied to an unfamiliar object, the children assumed that the label designated the class of object (i.e. they treated the label as the common name of that object), regardless of whether the object was inanimate or not. However, "if the object already had an established name", there was a difference between inanimate objects and animals:


title: Proper noun

text: In English, children employ different strategies depending on the type of referent but also rely on syntactic cues, such as the presence or absence of the determiner "the" to differentiate between common and proper nouns when first learned.


title: Caron Keating

text: Keating was born on 5 October 1962 in Fulham, west London, to an English father with southern Irish roots and a Northern Irish mother. When she was three months old her family relocated to Northern Ireland where she was raised. Her parents were the television presenter Gloria Hunniford and the BBC producer Donald Keating. Keating attended Harmony Hill Primary School, Lisburn and Methodist College, Belfast, where she gained 8 'O' levels and 3 'A' levels. She was accepted to study at the University of Bristol where she graduated three years later aged 21 with a BA Honours Degree in English and Drama.


title: Caron Keating

text: Keating's television career began in Northern Ireland where she presented "The Video Picture Show", "Channel One" and the music programme "Greenrock", but her big break came when she was selected to join the team of "Blue Peter" from 13 November 1986.


title: Caron Keating

text: Keating appeared on the programme with Peter Duncan, Janet Ellis, Mark Curry, Yvette Fielding, and John Leslie. Her "Blue Peter" career included a trip to Moscow in 1987 during the perestroika period, swimming with sharks, abseiling down skyscrapers and standing strapped to the top of a light aircraft whilst it performed aerial acrobatics. She also interviewed serving prime minister Margaret Thatcher on the programme in 1988.


title: Caron Keating

text: After four years, Keating left "Blue Peter" on 22 January 1990. Keating joined BBC Radio 5 where amongst other programmes she co-hosted an early 90s afternoon show with film critic Mark Kermode titled "A Game of Two Halves". In his autobiography Kermode described Keating as "The very dictionary definition of Lovely". She presented several other TV programmes including "This Morning", before breast cancer was diagnosed in 1997. Keating was the face of Sainsbury's Reward Card from 1996 to 1999 and also appeared in a TV commercial for So Good soya drink in 1999. In 1999 she presented "We Can Work It Out".


title: Caron Keating

text: Keating was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997. After undergoing conventional and alternative treatments, and spending a period away from her family on the Gold Coast, Australia, and at a hospice care in Switzerland, she died at the age of 41, on 13 April 2004, at her mother's house in Sevenoaks, Kent.


title: Caron Keating

text: Keating married Russ Lindsay in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in 1991. Their two sons were born in Hammersmith, London: Charles Jackson Lindsay (born 1994) and Gabriel Don Lindsay (born 1997). Her second son, Gabriel, has the middle name of his maternal grandfather, who died just a few days before he was born. The family settled in Cornwall for a few years at the turn of the century. Russ Lindsay later married television presenter Sally Meen on 4 September 2006.


title: Caron Keating

text: Set up in Keating's memory, The Caron Keating Foundation is a fund-raising partnership set up to raise money to offer financial support to professional carers, complementary healing practitioners, and support groups dealing with cancer patients, as well as individuals and families who are affected by the disease. It will also financially help a number of cancer charities with their ongoing quest for prevention, early detection and hopefully an ultimate cure. It was set up by her mother, TV presenter Gloria Hunniford, and her two brothers Michael and Paul Keating.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Dark Is Rising Sequence is a series of five contemporary fantasy novels for older children and young adults that were written by the British author Susan Cooper and published from 1965 to 1977. The first book in the series, "Over Sea, Under Stone", was originally conceived as a stand-alone novel, and the sequence gets its name from the second novel in the series, "The Dark Is Rising". "The Dark Is Rising Sequence" is used as an over-arching title in several omnibus, boxed-set, and coordinated editions; but the title of "The Dark is Rising" is also used for the whole series.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The books depict a struggle between forces of good and evil called "The Light" and "The Dark", and draw upon Arthurian legends, Celtic mythology, Norse mythology and English folklore. Both magical and ordinary children are prominent throughout the series. It was inaugurated in 1965 with the U.K. publication by Jonathan Cape of "Over Sea, Under Stone". The sequels were published 1973 to 1977, almost simultaneously in the U.K. and the U.S. Volume four, "The Grey King" (1975), won both the Newbery Medal, recognizing the year's "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children", and the inaugural Welsh Tir na n-Og Award for English-language books with Welsh background. The concluding "Silver on the Tree" (1977) also won the annual Tir na n-Og Award.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The novel "The Dark Is Rising" features Will Stanton, age 11, who learns on that birthday that he is one of an ancient magical people called "Old Ones", and is destined to wield the powers of The Light in the ancient struggle with The Dark. In the U.S. it was a Newbery Honor Book (runner up for the medal). Its 2007 film adaptation, titled "The Seeker" in America and "The Dark Is Rising" in Britain, made significant plot and character divergences from the book.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Simon, Jane, and Barnabas Drew: The main characters of the first novel, the Drew family, are human children who have known Merriman Lyon as their "Great Uncle Merry" for years. While on a holiday in Cornwall, they get caught up in the battle between the Light and the Dark and join the search for the Things of Power. In the first novel, "Over Sea, Under Stone", they search for the legendary Grail of King Arthur. They also appear in the third book, "Greenwitch", and the last book in the series, "Silver on the Tree". In the poem featured prominently throughout "The Dark Is Rising", they are the ones referred to as "three from the track". Their last name is linked with Will Stanton's in British paleohistory; see Stanton Drew stone circles.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Old Ones: Ancient and immortal, the Old Ones are mystical beings who possess great magical power. They are found in all parts of the world and are of many races and cultures. Capable of performing many seemingly impossible feats, including freezing time and controlling the elements, they serve the Light in the war against the Dark. The Great Lords of the Dark have many similar characteristics and abilities but are not Old Ones. The two factions struggle to determine the destiny of mankind; while the Light fights for freedom and free will, the Dark fights for chaos, confusion and the subversion of man's agency.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Will Stanton: The main character of the second novel, and a major character in the remaining novels of the series, he is the seventh son of a seventh son, in a large, close human family. His eleventh birthday marks the beginning of his magical awakening and rise to power as the last of the Old Ones. "The Dark Is Rising" tells how he came to power, met Merriman Lyon, and accumulated the six "signs" to help fight the Dark. Will is the last of the Old Ones; no others will be born after him. In "Greenwitch", he is invited to come to Cornwall by Merriman in order to help recover the Grail and cypher that reveals how to read the runes on the Grail. He later gives Jane a bracelet of gold engraved with the words "power from the Greenwitch", which she throws into the sea as an offering to the Greenwitch in appreciation for its help. In "The Grey King", Will goes to Wales to recover from sickness, where he meets Bran and awakens the Sleepers. In "Silver on the Tree", Will travels with Bran to the Lost Land to recover the crystal sword Eirias, and helps to vanquish the Dark. Will is the only Old One to remain on Earth afterward, and the only one of the Light's allies who remembers the struggle against the Dark; in this, he is referred to as "the watchman", staying behind to keep watch for any attempt by the Dark to return.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Merriman Lyon: The first Old One, Lyon shares a special bond with Will Stanton, last of the line. A friend of the Drew family for over a generation, he helps and protects Barney, Jane, and Simon as they quest for the Grail. They occasionally refer to him as "Great Uncle Merry" or "Gumerry". Throughout the series, Merriman is portrayed in numerous historical periods, but particularly as King Arthur's chief adviser, the mythical Merlin; in "Silver on the Tree," Arthur calls him "Mer Lion", old English for "my lion".


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Lady: The Lady is the most powerful of the Light, an Old One of seemingly greater strength than Merriman. Gentle, wise and enigmatic, she is a pivotal figure throughout the series, appearing usually at important moments to turn the tide in the Light's favor. She is an especial friend and mentor to Will and Jane. At one point in "The Dark Is Rising", Will Stanton makes a critical mistake during a battle with the Dark and is saved by the Lady. Merriman tells Will that the Lady on her own is the only one of the Light able to overcome the full power of the Dark, although at a great cost. The sacrifice by the Lady is a critical point in the Story because she is a key element of the battle. At a later high ceremony of Old Ones, the Lady is missing and Merriman tells Will that her depleted power prevents her arrival, and she is beyond their magic to rescue but will return. She represents the Lady of the Lake, or the Lady of Avalon, King Arthur's sister, as they both embark on Arthur's boat "Pridwen" in "Silver on the Tree". The Lady, like King Arthur, is affiliated with The Light and the High Magic. In "Silver on the Tree", she initially can only communicate with Jane Drew, the one girl among the Six, telling Jane they share a special bond in being female, and calls her "Jane, Jana, Juno", referring to Jana (in Roman mythology, a variant form of "Diana") or "Juno", the queen of the gods.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Black Rider: One of the great Lords of the Dark, comparable to Merriman in power and influence. The Rider is the major nemesis of Will during his many trials. He patronises John Wayland Smith's establishment, where he meets Will for the first time and attempts to bring him over to the Dark. He is given one name by the humans in the story: Mitothin (a name connected with the jötunn Loki, who helps bring about Ragnarok).


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The White Rider: Another servant and Lord of the Dark, introduced in "Silver on the Tree". The White Rider is almost equal in power to the Black Rider, and despite being feminine in her true form, often affects a masculine guise while attacking agents of the Light. She is revealed as disguising herself as Blodwen Rowlands, an "aunt" figure to Bran Davies. She acts kind and caring, to keep an eye on Bran while developing emotional bonds, while controlling events around Cader Idris, which means "chair of Arthur", and the Sleepers. Will Stanton hypothesized that the monochromatic 'colour' of the White Rider's robes, like those of the Black Rider, reflected the "extremism" of their evil—either darkened by their ignorance, or blinded by the brightness of their ideas.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Walker: A human who betrayed the Light and was cursed to carry the Sign of Bronze, one of six Things of Power that repel the Dark, through the centuries until the last Old One claimed it from him. The Walker was once Hawkin, a liege man and foster son of Merriman during the 13th century. His betrayal of the Light stemmed largely from Merriman's acceptance of Hawkin's willingness to sacrifice his life to protect the Book of Gramarye, the secrets of which the human Hawkin can neither possess nor partake of. In "The Dark Is Rising," his appearance in Will Stanton's town precipitates Will's "awakening" and rise to power. He presents Will with his second sign.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Sleepers: Ancient knights who served during the time of King Arthur. In "The Grey King," they are awakened from a mystic slumber by the Harp of the Light, to ride against the Dark during the final battle in "Silver on the Tree".


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Pendragon: This is a reference to two characters. First, it is the figurative title referring to status as a leader, of several traditional Kings of the Britons, notably King Arthur. It is also his son in this series, Bran Davies, who is predestined to wield the Crystal Sword of Light that is vital to the final conflict with the Dark. Bran Davies is brought forward in time by Merriman at the request of his mother, Guinevere, who feared that Arthur would reject Bran as a true son because of Guinevere's affair with Lancelot. Bran is an albino, meaning he has very pale skin and white hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes, but his eyes are an unusual tawny colour. Will meets him in Wales during "The Grey King", where they wake the Sleepers using the Harp. In "Silver on the Tree", Bran and Will travel to the Lost Land and recover the sword Eirias.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The rooks: The majority of these birds are servants of the Dark and attract their forces wherever they are seen.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: John Wayland Smith: Another Old One who lives near Will Stanton; he is also a skilled smith. Though he is affiliated with the Light, he aids all who pass in his smithy. It is suggested that he might be the legendary Saxon smith, Weyland, the Saxon equivalent of the legendary elf smith Volund.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Things of Power: The Old Ones have four Things of Power that will be used in the final battle which will allow them to defeat the Dark: the circle of Signs, the Grail, the Harp, and the Sword. They are obtained in "The Dark Is Rising", "Over Sea, Under Stone", "The Grey King", and "Silver on the Tree", respectively. "Greenwitch" is the story of the recovery of the stolen Grail.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Book of Gramarye: The ancient "Book of the Old Ones", it is an Old One's rite of passage, while also teaching everything about their powers, and through it, they experience the magical spells. Gramarye, or grimoire, from the Old French word "grammaire" and the Old English word "grammar", initially referred to all books, most written in Latin, which almost no one could read, and perceived by the masses as "magical". The Book of Gramarye is protected by an enchanted device of a pendulum in a longcase clock, that if touched, will detonate and destroy any human that attempts to gain access to the book. This powerful book is further protected in that it is written in the Old Speech, which only an Old One can read and understand. It is blasted out of existence by Merriman after Will has read it.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The Doors: A set of carved oak doors that lead through Time. Old Ones can summon these doors to appear at will to transport themselves through time and space. The doors disappear when the Old Ones pass through them, accompanied by the haunting bell chime music of the Light. Their origin is not explained in the books.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Midsummer's Tree: In Chiltern, England, The Tree produces a silver flower, which blooms once every 700 years, and is the final challenge for the Six of the Light. The person who obtains the silver flower gains control of the High Magic, to put out of Time the Dark or the Light forever. Bran Davies, the Pendragon and heir of King Arthur, wields the Crystal Sword to cut the fully blossomed silver flower on the Midsummer's Tree, which is caught by Merriman, making the Light victorious.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Old Magic: A powerful elemental magic, of which the Light and the Dark are the two opposite extremes.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Wild Magic: The magic of nature, first used in "The Dark Is Rising" to provide strength to the forces of the Light in the book's final battle. In "Greenwitch", we learn that the Wild Magic is equal in strength to both the Dark and the Light, but that it stands apart and is unaffected by either.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: High Magic: The most powerful magic, being of the Cosmos. A spell of this type is used by the Old Ones in "Greenwitch" to be able to communicate with Tethys, the Queen of the Sea, and plead for her help in obtaining the scroll that will help translate the writing on the Grail. In "The Grey King", Will Stanton and Bran Davies obtain the Harp of Gold from a place guarded by the High Magic after being tested by a Lord of the Dark, a Lord of the Light, and a Lord of the High Magic.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Old Speech is the spoken form of the ancient language of the Old Ones. When an Old One comes to power, this language is used instinctively by the Old One when speaking to members of the Light or the Dark. Will Stanton begins to do this without even realizing it. When an Old One speaks the Old Speech in front of a normal human, it will sound like gibberish.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Some agents of the Dark, such as the Rider, can also speak Old Speech, but with a distinctive accent which gives them away to the Old Ones.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Small rhyming prophecies serve to guide the protagonists throughout the series. Science fiction author and filker Julia Ecklar has set these rhyming prophecies to music, and the resulting song, also called "The Dark Is Rising", won the 1997 Pegasus Award for Best Sorcery Song.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The characters in this book, which was published several years before the others, are younger than those in the rest of the series, and the issues are presented as less cosmic. Overall the book is aimed at younger readers more than the other four books in the series.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: In this tale, Susan Cooper introduces the audience to Merriman, a pivotal character for the forces of the Light and also ties him with Simon, Jane and Barney Drew, three young mortal children, in a quest by the sea which will lead them over sea and under stone to find a grail of legend to help the Light in its struggle against the Dark.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: The second book is set not on the Cornish coast but in rural Buckinghamshire, near the River Thames, and features a new group of characters. Will Stanton, the protagonist, begins to have strange experiences on his 11th birthday, just before Christmas. He learns he is one of the Old Ones, a guardian and warrior for the Light, and that he must help find the four Things of Power in order that the Light may battle the forces of the Dark. The first of these is the Circle of Six Signs, and the novel follows Will's adventures as he finds each one of these mandalas, which are then joined into a competed circle and used to ward off the forces of the Dark. The book features elements of English folklore that are especially associated with the Thames Valley, with Herne the Hunter and Wayland the Smith making an appearance. Merriman/Merlin also makes an appearance, linking this book to the previous one.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: "The Dark Is Rising" was an American Library Association Newbery Honor Book in 1974. Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed it as one of "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children". In 2012 it was ranked number 22 among all-time children's novels in a survey published by "School Library Journal", a monthly with primarily U.S. audience.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: This story returns to the Cornish village, and unites the characters from the first two books. The chalice has been stolen from the museum, and the children must recover it.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Jane Drew witnesses the creation of a ritualistic offering known as the 'Greenwitch', and senses both great power and great sadness in it. She wishes that the Greenwitch could be happy, and that wish has important consequences later when it turns out that the Greenwitch possesses something that will unlock the secrets of the Grail.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: In this book, Will is sent to the farm of some distant childless relatives to recuperate after an illness. Here in the Welsh hills he meets Bran, the Pendragon, son of King Arthur, and befriends him. He must also awaken the Sleepers to fight the Dark.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: All of the main characters from the other books in the sequence come together in this book, some meeting for the first time, and the struggle between the Light and the Dark is resolved. After the Light wins the battle, Bran is offered a chance to rejoin his father, but chooses to give up his immortality to stay with his friends and his mortal adoptive father. All immortal characters except Will Stanton leave the Earth forever. All the mortal characters lose all memory of any dealings with magic and the Old Ones, though the Drews and Bran have snatches of something come back to them in dreams. Will is the Watchman, who will watch out for any attempts of the dark to return.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Nearly all the locations mentioned in the books are based on real places. "Over Sea, Under Stone" and "Greenwitch" are set in Trewissick, which is based on a village in southern Cornwall called Mevagissey which Susan Cooper used to visit as a child. "The Dark Is Rising" is set in the part of Buckinghamshire where Cooper grew up: Huntercombe is based on the small village of Dorney, and the Manor is Dorney Court. The Welsh setting in "The Grey King" and "Silver on the Tree" is the area around Aberdyfi, the village where Cooper's grandmother was born and where her parents lived.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: John Clute wrote in "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy" "The overall tale evolves – not without occasional narrative confusion when time paradoxes and puzzles must be confronted – towards a guardedly affirmative climax in which it seems that the various young protagonists plus Bran Davies (King Arthur's son) may succeed in staving off entropy and totalitarianism."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Karen Patricia Smith wrote "Susan Cooper has come to be recognized as a major author of books for children and young adults. Her first work for children, "Over Sea, Under Stone" came as a response to a contest designed to honor the memory of E. Nesbit. Cooper's major contribution to date has been "The Dark Is Rising" series, which greatly expands the mythical theme suggested in "Over Sea, Under Stone" and reveals Cooper's extraordinary prowess as an author of fantasy... The shadowy aspect of the conflict and the inability to 'read' clearly the motivations of some of the characters are areas in which Cooper has been criticized. However, I feel that the ambiguity of protagonists and antagonists is a deliberate literary device. Rather than succumbing to artistic flaw, Cooper goes beyond the conventional expectations of her readers by inviting them to glimpse the complex, the unexplainable, and often the threatening aspects of mankind's nature. By offering the thesis that the human psyche may manifest itself in explicit actions or present itself in a mysterious and often frustrating manner, Cooper exceeds the traditional presentations of good versus evil often found in fantasy literature."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Mary Corran has written "Cooper's scholarly knowledge of legend, and skill in drawing together all the complexities of the five books into a triumphant finale, produce an epic of great power. There are differences in quality in the novels--"Greenwitch"...is perhaps the weakest, and "The Dark Is Rising" and "The Grey King" the strongest; "Silver on the Tree", while suitably life-affirming in its conclusion, is slightly preachy, but that is a natural hazard of the subject matter. Cooper deals with the innate antagonism between mortals and immortals impressively, and in "The Grey King" reaches great heights as she mingles the worlds and peoples of legend and the present day. The sequence is a remarkable achievement, and Cooper's gifts for description and characterization provide additional pleasure to novels already replete with intellectual enjoyment."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Joel Chaston writes "Among Cooper's books for children, the "Dark Is Rising" series is her masterwork. The five novels in it are rich with symbolism and poetic passages. "The Dark Is Rising", perhaps the best single book of the series, certainly rivals and sometimes surpasses the work of the major fantasy writers--with whose work it is frequently compared."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Amelia A. Rutledge says that the series "integrates the traditional lore of the British Isles with modern concerns. Her work, although commercially designated for a younger audience, exemplifies sophisticated mythopoeic writing not limited to that age group and is one of the major contributions to Arthurian fantasy of the 1970s."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Professor Michael D. C. Drout argues that Cooper makes greater "use of Anglo-Saxon source materials" than other critics have identified: "Cooper's uses of Anglo-Saxon sources are allusions that fit into a schema of history rather than (in the words of one reviewer) being merely tossed "pell-mell" into the mythical pot... It is Cooper's Anglo-Saxonism, I argue, which generates the notions of British national identity explicated in the novels, notions that contradict the author's overt political stance. In addition, Cooper's particular version of Anglo-Saxonism, with its strong focus on teaching and learning, is isomorphic to the ideology of adult/child power relations represented in the novels, an ideology that puts great weight on the value of obedience to authority. Adult/child power relations are both replicated and reinforced by two other sets of opposed terms: British/non-British and supernatural/mundane, and all of these terms are finally subsumed in Cooper's Manichaean binary, Light/Dark, leading to a closed symbolic economy which exalts personal obedience to authority and views Anglo-Saxons and their ideologies—as they were for the Venerable Bede in A.D. 771—as clearly on the side of the angels."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: "The New York Times Book Review" wrote of the novel "The Dark Is Rising" "This is a muscular fantasy... The writing is robust, but noticeably better out of human time than at the Stanton hearth: as if the author's style, too, had experienced a salutary, magical translation... The fantastic style is virile and, for all its paraphernalia, spare. Susan Cooper's vocabulary is athletic; the complications are dense. Her book seems to have been prepared for a special small age group: those who can read with fluency and attention, but who haven't yet been afflicted by adolescent cynicism."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Following the successful film adaptations of other fantasy classics, it was announced in 2005 that the novel "The Dark Is Rising" was being developed as a major motion picture. Called "The Seeker" in the US, the film was a joint venture between 20th Century Fox and Walden Media. John Hodge wrote the screenplay and the film was directed by David L. Cunningham and produced by Marc E. Platt. Ian McShane played the role of Merriman Lyon while Alexander Ludwig played the young Will Stanton as an American. Frances Conroy and Christopher Eccleston (as The Rider) also star. Filming began in February 2007 in Bucharest, Romania. The film was released on 5 October 2007, in the United States and the U.K. It was not successful.


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Screenwriter Hodge made substantial changes to the novel's plot, tone, and characters. For example, to differentiate him from Harry Potter, the film version of Will Stanton is a 13- to 14-year-old American living in Britain. Hodge also felt that the "lyrical, poetic, kaleidoscopic fashion" of the book could not be filmed and felt compelled to add action for Will where "he doesn't actually do very much."


title: The Dark Is Rising Sequence

text: Cooper was disappointed by changes in the screenplay from the book and requested that some be undone. For example, she considers it crucial that Will is only 11 because that is before puberty. The film portrays, and one of its trailers featured, Will as an adolescent teased for and preoccupied with his shyness and inexperience with girls.


title: Black January

text: Black January (), also known as Black Saturday or the January Massacre, was a violent crackdown on the civilian population of Baku on 19–20 January 1990, as part of a state of emergency during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.


title: Black January

text: General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev and Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov asserted that military law was necessary to thwart efforts by the Azerbaijani independence movement to overthrow the Soviet Azerbaijani government. According to official estimates of Azerbaijan, 147 civilians were killed, 800 people were injured, and five people went missing.


title: Black January

text: In a resolution of 22 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR declared that the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 19 January, used to impose emergency rule in Baku and military deployment, constituted an act of aggression.


title: Black January

text: In December 1989, Azerbaijanis living in regions bordering Iran ripped down border fences, demanding closer ties with ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Iran. The local authorities in Jalilabad surrendered to rioters, turning over administration to the Popular Front of Azerbaijan. This was followed by a non-violent turnover of the Lankaran administration to the Popular Front two weeks later.


title: Black January

text: On 9 January 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR voted to include Nagorno-Karabakh in its budget and allowed its inhabitants to vote in Armenian elections, thus disregarding Soviet authority and Azerbaijani SSR jurisdiction, and causing outrage throughout the republic. This led to demonstrations which demanded the ousting of Azerbaijani communist officials and called for independence from the Soviet Union. Their rhetoric was, according to a Human Rights Watch report, "heavily anti-Armenian". On 12 January, the Popular Front organized a national defence committee with branches in factories and offices in Baku. The aim was to mobilize the population for battle with local Armenians.


title: Black January

text: Local Azerbaijani authorities were unable to restore order because of internal quarrelling and divisions that paralyzed their ability to act. Azerbaijani authorities also ordered the 12,000-strong Interior Ministry troops to abstain from intervening in the Baku riots and numerous Soviet army and fleet units of the Baku garrison and Caspian Flotilla did not intervene to stop the riots, claiming that they had no orders from Moscow authorities. On 13 January, anti-Armenian pogrom began in Baku which resulted in 48 deaths, while thousands fled or were evacuated by the Soviet military.


title: Black January

text: On 15 January, the authorities declared a state of emergency in several parts of Azerbaijan, except Baku. At the same time, fearing an intervention of the central Soviet authorities, Popular Front activists began a blockade of military barracks. They had already taken "de facto" control in a number of Azerbaijani regions.


title: Black January

text: On 18 January, the Popular Front ordered supporters to barricade the main access routes into Baku using hundreds of cars, trucks, and buses. The next day, Soviet authorities evacuated its representatives and local officials, moving them to military command posts in the outskirts of the city where Soviet Minister of Defence Dmitry Yazov and Interior Minister Vadim Bakatin were positioned.


title: Black January

text: On 19 January, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR approved the decree signed by M. Gorbachev, introducing a state of emergency in Baku and some other places in the Azerbaijani SSR. The decree stated:


title: Black January

text: ″In connection with a dramatic escalation of the situation in the city of Baku, attempts of criminal extremist forces to remove from power by organizing mass unrest legally acting state authorities and in the interests of the protection and security of citizens, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, guided by point 14 of the article 119 of the Constitution of the USSR, decrees: To declare since 20 January 1990 state of emergency in the city of Baku, by extending to its territory the effect of the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR from 15 January 1990.″


title: Black January

text: The decree contravened legal acts in force at the time, which provided that the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the AzSSR would have to turn to the central government with the relevant plea.


title: Black January

text: Late at night on 19 January 1990, after the demolition of the central television station and termination of phone and radio lines by Soviet special forces, 26,000 Soviet troops entered Baku, smashing through the barricades in order to crush the Popular Front. As claimed by Mikhail Gorbachev, gunmen of the Azerbaijani National Front opened fire on the soldiers; however, findings of the Moscow-based non-governmental organization "Shield" found no evidence of "armed combatants of Azerbaijani Popular Front", which was used as a motive to crush the civilian population on 20 January.


title: Black January

text: The independent "Shield" organization which consists of a group of lawyers and officers in reserve, observed human rights violations in the army and its military operations, and concluded that the army waged a war on its civilians and demanded to start a criminal investigation against the Minister of Defence, Dmitry Yazov, who had personally led the operation. The Azerbaijani Interior Ministry officials helped Popular Front activists in stirring disorder by providing them with weapons, technical facilities, and informing them about the movement of army units.


title: Black January

text: The troops attacked the protesters, firing into the crowds. The shooting continued for three days. They acted pursuant to a state of emergency, which continued for more than four months afterward, declared by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed by Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev. The state of emergency was, however, disclosed to the Azerbaijani public only several hours after the beginning of the offensive, when many citizens already lay dead or wounded in the streets, hospitals and morgues of Baku.


title: Black January

text: Almost the whole population of Baku turned out to bury the dead on the third day, 22 January. For another 40 days, the country stayed away from work as a sign of mourning and mass protest.


title: Black January

text: According to several sources, between 133 and 137 civilians died with unofficial number reaching 300. Up to 800 were injured and 5 went missing. An additional 26 people were killed in Neftchala and Lankaran regions of the country.


title: Black January

text: According to one report, 93 Azerbaijanis and 29 Soviet soldiers were killed in the street skirmishes. Other reports state that 21 soldiers were killed and 90 wounded in the fighting. However, how the soldiers died is still disputed. The soldiers' death toll was claimed by Soviet authorities to have resulted from armed resistance, although some of the soldiers could have been victims of friendly fire.


title: Black January

text: General Secretary Gorbachev and other officials asserted that it was necessary to stop pogroms and violence against the Armenian population and to thwart efforts by extremists to overthrow the Azerbaijani government. The government's decree said: "Extremist groups are organizing mass disorders fanning national enmity. They are committing bold criminal acts, mining roads, and bridges, shelling settlements, taking hostages."


title: Black January

text: Defence Minister Yazov also said that nationalists were plotting a coup d'état in Azerbaijan: "A meeting was planned at which it was proposed to declare the transfer of power into the hands of the People's Front." He noted how the "Popular Front" declared its own state of emergency in Baku before the action was taken and how Soviet state organs "ceased to control the situation."


title: Black January

text: During the Black January crackdown, Soviet authorities managed to suppress all efforts to disseminate news from Azerbaijan to the local population and the international community. On the eve of the military intervention, one of the leaders of Popular Front, Ekhtibar Mamedov, proposed to Kremlin officials that he appear on Azerbaijani TV at 8 PM to announce that the First Secretary of Azerbaijani Communist Party, Abdurrahman Vazirov, would be leaving, and no troops would invade Baku, thus restoring order.


title: Black January

text: Instead, an energy supply source to Azerbaijani TV and State Radio was blown up by intelligence officers at 7:15 PM in order to cut off the population from any source of information. TV and radio were silent and all print media was banned. But Mirza Khazar and his staff at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty succeeded in broadcasting daily reports from Baku, making it the only source of news to Azerbaijanis within and outside of the country for several days. The Kremlin leadership tried hard to keep the outside world and the population inside Azerbaijan unaware of the intervention, but Mirza Khazar and his staff foiled this attempt. Because of the actions of Mirza Khazar and his staff at Radio Liberty, Azerbaijanis in and outside Azerbaijan, as well as the international community, learned about the actions of the Soviet Army and were able to organize a protest.


title: Black January

text: Shocked by this "surprising" development, the government of the USSR complained officially to the United States about Radio Liberty's coverage of the military's intervention in Azerbaijan. The 20 January 1990 broadcasts turned Mirza Khazar into a popular figure among Azerbaijanis in and outside Azerbaijan. Malahat Aghajanqizi, a well-known Azerbaijani poet and writer, described Mirza Khazar's appearance on radio at the time of the Soviet military action as follows: "On January 20, Mirza Khazar with his God-given divine voice gave hope to the dying Azerbaijani people."


title: Black January

text: A special session of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR was held on 22 January 1990 at the request of the public and by the initiative of a group of MPs. It tried to initially assess the 20 January events and adopted some documents condemning the crackdown operation by the Soviet army.