25a46507c6d93b983090d265dadfd1978258f0741c4a18c71357da2f7c68c8e5

en/3384.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range located in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch 3,000 mi (4,800 km)[1] in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States. The northern terminus is located in the Liard River area east of the Pacific Coast Ranges, while the southernmost point is near the Albuquerque area adjacent the Rio Grande Basin and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range. Located within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are distinct from the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada, which all lie farther to the west.
+
+The Rocky Mountains formed 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began sliding underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a broad belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks and valleys. At the end of the last ice age, humans began inhabiting the mountain range. After Europeans, such as Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and Americans, such as the Lewis and Clark expedition, began exploring the range, minerals and furs drove the initial economic exploitation of the mountains, although the range itself never experienced a dense population.
+
+Of the 100 highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains, 78 (including the 30 highest) are located in Colorado, ten in Wyoming, six in New Mexico, three in Montana, and one in Utah. Public parks and forest lands protect much of the mountain range, and they are popular tourist destinations, especially for hiking, camping, mountaineering, fishing, hunting, mountain biking, skiing, and snowboarding.
+
+The name of the mountains is a translation of an Amerindian name that is closely related to Algonquian; the Cree name as-sin-wati is given as, "When seen from across the prairies, they looked like a rocky mass". The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, where they were called "Montagnes de Roche".[2][3]
+
+The Rocky Mountains are often defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia[4]:13 south to the headwaters of the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The Rockies vary in width from 110 to 480 kilometres (70 to 300 mi). The Rocky Mountains contain the highest peaks in central North America. The range's highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 4,401 metres (14,440 ft) above sea level. Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 3,954 metres (12,972 ft), is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies.
+
+The eastern edge of the Rockies rises dramatically above the Interior Plains of central North America, including the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the Front Range of Colorado, the Wind River Range and Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, the Absaroka-Beartooth ranges and Rocky Mountain Front of Montana and the Clark Range of Alberta.[citation needed]
+
+Central ranges of the Rockies include the La Sal Range along the Utah-Colorado border, the Uinta Range of Utah and Wyoming, and the Teton Range of Wyoming and Idaho.
+
+The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the San Juan Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the Bitterroots along the Idaho-Montana border, and the Sawtooths in central Idaho. The Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these subranges from distinct ranges further to the west. In Canada, the western edge of the Rockies is formed by the huge Rocky Mountain Trench, which runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the south bank of the Liard River.[5]
+
+Geographers define three main groups of the Canadian Rockies: the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges, and Muskwa Ranges. The Rockies do not extend into the Yukon or Alaska, or into central British Columbia. Other mountain ranges continue beyond the Liard River, including the Selwyn Mountains in Yukon, the Brooks Range in Alaska, but those are not part of the Rockies, though they are part of the American Cordillera.
+
+The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains and designates the line at which waters flow either to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. Triple Divide Peak (2,440 metres (8,020 ft)) in Glacier National Park is so named because water falling on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, which has its outlet on the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean.
+
+Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer and few cities with over 50,000 people. However, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The forty-year statewide increases in population range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah and Colorado. The populations of several mountain towns and communities have doubled in the last forty years. Jackson, Wyoming, increased 260%, from 1,244 to 4,472 residents, in forty years.[6]
+
+The rocks in the Rocky Mountains were formed before the mountains were raised by tectonic forces. The oldest rock is Precambrian metamorphic rock that forms the core of the North American continent. There is also Precambrian sedimentary argillite, dating back to 1.7 billion years ago. During the Paleozoic, western North America lay underneath a shallow sea, which deposited many kilometers of limestone and dolomite.[4]:76
+
+In the southern Rocky Mountains, near present-day Colorado, these ancestral rocks were disturbed by mountain building approximately 300 Ma, during the Pennsylvanian. This mountain-building produced the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. They consisted largely of Precambrian metamorphic rock forced upward through layers of the limestone laid down in the shallow sea.[7] The mountains eroded throughout the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic, leaving extensive deposits of sedimentary rock.
+
+Terranes began colliding with the western edge of North America in the Mississippian (approximately 350 million years ago), causing the Antler orogeny.[8] For 270 million years, the focus of the effects of plate collisions were near the edge of the North American plate boundary, far to the west of the Rocky Mountain region.[8] It was not until 80 Ma these effects began reaching the Rockies.[9]
+
+The current Rocky Mountains arose in the Laramide orogeny from between 80 and 55 Ma.[9] For the Canadian Rockies, the mountain building is analogous to pushing a rug on a hardwood floor:[10]:78 the rug bunches up and forms wrinkles (mountains). In Canada, the terranes and subduction are the foot pushing the rug, the ancestral rocks are the rug, and the Canadian Shield in the middle of the continent is the hardwood floor.[10]:78
+
+Further south, an unusual subduction may have caused the growth of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, where the Farallon plate dove at a shallow angle below the North American plate. This low angle moved the focus of melting and mountain building much farther inland than the normal 300 to 500 kilometres (200 to 300 mi). Scientists hypothesize that the shallow angle of the subducting plate increased the friction and other interactions with the thick continental mass above it. Tremendous thrusts piled sheets of crust on top of each other, building the broad, high Rocky Mountain range.[11]
+
+The current southern Rockies were forced upwards through the layers of Pennsylvanian and Permian sedimentary remnants of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains.[12] Such sedimentary remnants were often tilted at steep angles along the flanks of the modern range; they are now visible in many places throughout the Rockies, and are shown along the Dakota Hogback, an early Cretaceous sandstone formation running along the eastern flank of the modern Rockies.
+
+Just after the Laramide orogeny, the Rockies were like Tibet: a high plateau, probably 6,000 metres (20,000 ft) above sea level. In the last sixty million years, erosion stripped away the high rocks, revealing the ancestral rocks beneath, and forming the current landscape of the Rockies.[10]:80–81
+
+Periods of glaciation occurred from the Pleistocene Epoch (1.8 million – 70,000 years ago) to the Holocene Epoch (fewer than 11,000 years ago). These ice ages left their mark on the Rockies, forming extensive glacial landforms, such as U-shaped valleys and cirques. Recent glacial episodes included the Bull Lake Glaciation, which began about 150,000 years ago, and the Pinedale Glaciation, which perhaps remained at full glaciation until 15,000–20,000 years ago.[13]
+
+All of these geological processes exposed a complex set of rocks at the surface. For example, volcanic rock from the Paleogene and Neogene periods (66 million – 2.6 million years ago) occurs in the San Juan Mountains and in other areas. Millennia of severe erosion in the Wyoming Basin transformed intermountain basins into a relatively flat terrain. The Tetons and other north-central ranges contain folded and faulted rocks of Paleozoic and Mesozoic age draped above cores of Proterozoic and Archean igneous and metamorphic rocks ranging in age from 1.2 billion (e.g., Tetons) to more than 3.3 billion years (Beartooth Mountains).[6]
+
+There are a wide range of environmental factors in the Rocky Mountains. The Rockies range in latitude between the Liard River in British Columbia (at 59° N) and the Rio Grande in New Mexico (at 35° N). Prairie occurs at or below 550 metres (1,800 ft), while the highest peak in the range is Mount Elbert at 4,400 metres (14,440 ft). Precipitation ranges from 250 millimetres (10 in) per year in the southern valleys[14] to 1,500 millimetres (60 in) per year locally in the northern peaks.[15] Average January temperatures can range from −7 °C (20 °F) in Prince George, British Columbia, to 6 °C (43 °F) in Trinidad, Colorado.[16] Therefore, there is not a single monolithic ecosystem for the entire Rocky Mountain Range.
+
+Instead, ecologists divide the Rocky Mountain into a number of biotic zones. Each zone is defined by whether it can support trees and the presence of one or more indicator species. Two zones that do not support trees are the Plains and the Alpine tundra. The Great Plains lie to the east of the Rockies and is characterized by prairie grasses (below roughly 550 metres (1,800 ft)). Alpine tundra occurs in regions above the treeline for the Rocky Mountains, which varies from 3,700 metres (12,000 ft) in New Mexico to 760 metres (2,500 ft) at the northern end of the Rocky Mountains (near the Yukon).[16]
+
+The USGS defines ten forested zones in the Rocky Mountains. Zones in more southern, warmer, or drier areas are defined by the presence of pinyon pines/junipers, ponderosa pines, or oaks mixed with pines. In more northern, colder, or wetter areas, zones are defined by Douglas firs, Cascadian species (such as western hemlock), lodgepole pines/quaking aspens, or firs mixed with spruce. Near treeline, zones can consist of white pines (such as whitebark pine or bristlecone pine); or a mixture of white pine, fir, and spruce that appear as shrub-like krummholz. Finally, rivers and canyons can create a unique forest zone in more arid parts of the mountain range.[6]
+
+The Rocky Mountains are an important habitat for a great deal of well-known wildlife, such as wolves, elk, moose, mule and white-tailed deer, pronghorn, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, badgers, black bears, grizzly bears, coyotes, lynxes, cougars, and wolverines.[6][17] For example, North America's largest herds of moose are in the Alberta–British Columbia foothills forests.
+
+The status of most species in the Rocky Mountains is unknown, due to incomplete information. European-American settlement of the mountains has adversely impacted native species. Examples of some species that have declined include western toads, greenback cutthroat trout, white sturgeon, white-tailed ptarmigan, trumpeter swan, and bighorn sheep. In the United States portion of the mountain range, apex predators such as grizzly bears and wolf packs had been extirpated from their original ranges, but have partially recovered due to conservation measures and reintroduction. Other recovering species include the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon.[6]
+
+Since the last great ice age, the Rocky Mountains were home first to indigenous peoples including the Apache, Arapaho, Bannock, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Coeur d'Alene, Kalispel, Crow Nation, Flathead, Shoshone, Sioux, Ute, Kutenai (Ktunaxa in Canada), Sekani, Dunne-za, and others. Paleo-Indians hunted the now-extinct mammoth and ancient bison (an animal 20% larger than modern bison) in the foothills and valleys of the mountains. Like the modern tribes that followed them, Paleo-Indians probably migrated to the plains in fall and winter for bison and to the mountains in spring and summer for fish, deer, elk, roots, and berries. In Colorado, along with the crest of the Continental Divide, rock walls that Native Americans built for driving game date back 5,400–5,800 years. A growing body of scientific evidence indicates that indigenous people had significant effects on mammal populations by hunting and on vegetation patterns through deliberate burning.[6]
+
+Recent human history of the Rocky Mountains is one of more rapid change. The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado—with a group of soldiers, missionaries, and African slaves—marched into the Rocky Mountain region from the south in 1540.[18] In 1610, the Spanish founded the city of Santa Fe, the oldest continuous seat of government in the United States, at the foot of the Rockies in present-day New Mexico. The introduction of the horse, metal tools, rifles, new diseases, and different cultures profoundly changed the Native American cultures. Native American populations were extirpated from most of their historical ranges by disease, warfare, habitat loss (eradication of the bison), and continued assaults on their culture.[6]
+
+In 1739, French fur traders Pierre and Paul Mallet, while journeying through the Great Plains, discovered a range of mountains at the headwaters of the Platte River, which local American Indian tribes called the "Rockies", becoming the first Europeans to report on this uncharted mountain range.[19]
+
+Sir Alexander MacKenzie (1764 – March 11, 1820) became the first European to cross the Rocky Mountains in 1793.[20] He found the upper reaches of the Fraser River and reached the Pacific coast of what is now Canada on July 20 of that year, completing the first recorded transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico.[21] He arrived at Bella Coola, British Columbia, where he first reached saltwater at South Bentinck Arm, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean.
+
+The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first scientific reconnaissance of the Rocky Mountains.[22] Specimens were collected for contemporary botanists, zoologists, and geologists. The expedition was said to have paved the way to (and through) the Rocky Mountains for European-Americans from the East, although Lewis and Clark met at least 11 European-American mountain men during their travels.[6]
+
+Mountain men, primarily French, Spanish, and British, roamed the Rocky Mountains from 1720 to 1800 seeking mineral deposits and furs. The fur-trading North West Company established Rocky Mountain House as a trading post in what is now the Rocky Mountain Foothills of present-day Alberta in 1799, and their business rivals the Hudson's Bay Company established Acton House nearby.[23] These posts served as bases for most European activity in the Canadian Rockies in the early 19th century. Among the most notable are the expeditions of David Thompson (explorer), who followed the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean.[24] On his 1811 expedition, he camped at the junction of the Columbia River and the Snake River and erected a pole and notice claiming the area for the United Kingdom and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort at the site.[25]
+
+By the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, which established the 49th parallel north as the international boundary west from Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains";[26] the UK and the USA agreed to what has since been described as "joint occupancy" of lands further west to the Pacific Ocean. Resolution of the territorial and treaty issues, the Oregon dispute, was deferred until a later time.
+
+In 1819, Spain ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States, though these rights did not include possession and also included obligations to Britain and Russia concerning their claims in the same region.
+
+After 1802, American fur traders and explorers ushered in the first widespread Caucasian presence in the Rockies south of the 49th parallel. The more famous of these include Americans William Henry Ashley, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, John Colter, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith. On July 24, 1832, Benjamin Bonneville led the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using South Pass in the present State of Wyoming.[6] Similarly, in the wake of Mackenzie's 1793 expedition, fur trading posts were established west of the Northern Rockies in a region of the northern Interior Plateau of British Columbia which came to be known as New Caledonia, beginning with Fort McLeod (today's community of McLeod Lake) and Fort Fraser, but ultimately focused on Stuart Lake Post (today's Fort St. James).
+
+Negotiations between the United Kingdom and the United States over the next few decades failed to settle upon a compromise boundary and the Oregon Dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. In 1841, James Sinclair, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, guided some 200 settlers from the Red River Colony west to bolster settlement around Fort Vancouver in an attempt to retain the Columbia District for Britain. The party crossed the Rockies into the Columbia Valley, a region of the Rocky Mountain Trench near present-day Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia, then traveled south. Despite such efforts, in 1846, Britain ceded all claim to Columbia District lands south of the 49th parallel to the United States; as resolution to the Oregon boundary dispute by the Oregon Treaty.[27]
+
+Thousands passed through the Rocky Mountains on the Oregon Trail beginning in the 1840s.[28] The Mormons began settling near the Great Salt Lake in 1847.[29] From 1859 to 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, sparking several gold rushes bringing thousands of prospectors and miners to explore every mountain and canyon and to create the Rocky Mountains' first major industry. The Idaho gold rush alone produced more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined and was important in the financing of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869,[30] and Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park in 1872.[31] Meanwhile, a transcontinental railroad in Canada was originally promised in 1871. Though political complications pushed its completion to 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway eventually followed the Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes to the Pacific Ocean.[32] Canadian railway officials also convinced Parliament to set aside vast areas of the Canadian Rockies as Jasper, Banff, Yoho, and Waterton Lakes National Parks, laying the foundation for a tourism industry which thrives to this day. Glacier National Park (MT) was established with a similar relationship to tourism promotions by the Great Northern Railway.[33] While settlers filled the valleys and mining towns, conservation and preservation ethics began to take hold. U.S. President Harrison established several forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains in 1891–1892. In 1905, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt extended the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve to include the area now managed as Rocky Mountain National Park. Economic development began to center on mining, forestry, agriculture, and recreation, as well as on the service industries that support them. Tents and camps became ranches and farms, forts and train stations became towns, and some towns became cities.[6]
+
+Economic resources of the Rocky Mountains are varied and abundant. Minerals found in the Rocky Mountains include significant deposits of copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, silver, tungsten, and zinc. The Wyoming Basin and several smaller areas contain significant reserves of coal, natural gas, oil shale, and petroleum. For example, the Climax mine, located near Leadville, Colorado, was the largest producer of molybdenum in the world. Molybdenum is used in heat-resistant steel in such things as cars and planes. The Climax mine employed over 3,000 workers. The Coeur d'Alene mine of northern Idaho produces silver, lead, and zinc. Canada's largest coal mines are near Fernie, British Columbia and Sparwood, British Columbia; additional coal mines exist near Hinton, Alberta, and in the Northern Rockies surrounding Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.[6]
+
+Abandoned mines with their wakes of mine tailings and toxic wastes dot the Rocky Mountain landscape. In one major example, eighty years of zinc mining profoundly polluted the river and bank near Eagle River in north-central Colorado. High concentrations of the metal carried by spring runoff harmed algae, moss, and trout populations. An economic analysis of mining effects at this site revealed declining property values, degraded water quality, and the loss of recreational opportunities. The analysis also revealed that cleanup of the river could yield $2.3 million in additional revenue from recreation. In 1983, the former owner of the zinc mine was sued by the Colorado Attorney General for the $4.8 million cleanup costs; five years later, ecological recovery was considerable.[6][34]
+
+The Rocky Mountains contain several sedimentary basins that are rich in coalbed methane. Coalbed methane is natural gas that arises from coal, either through bacterial action or through exposure to high temperature. Coalbed methane supplies 7 percent of the natural gas used in the United States. The largest coalbed methane sources in the Rocky Mountains are in the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and Colorado and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. These two basins are estimated to contain 38 trillion cubic feet of gas. Coalbed methane can be recovered by dewatering the coal bed, and separating the gas from the water; or injecting water to fracture the coal to release the gas (so-called hydraulic fracturing).[35]
+
+Agriculture and forestry are major industries. Agriculture includes dryland and irrigated farming and livestock grazing. Livestock are frequently moved between high-elevation summer pastures and low-elevation winter pastures, a practice known as transhumance.[6]
+
+Every year the scenic areas of the Rocky Mountains draw millions of tourists.[6] The main language of the Rocky Mountains is English. But there are also linguistic pockets of Spanish and indigenous languages.
+
+People from all over the world visit the sites to hike, camp, or engage in mountain sports.[6][36] In the summer season, examples of tourist attractions are:
+
+In the United States:
+
+In Canada, the mountain range contains these national parks:
+
+Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta border each other and are collectively known as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
+
+In the winter, skiing is the main attraction, with dozens of Rocky Mountain ski areas and resorts.
+
+The adjacent Columbia Mountains in British Columbia contain major resorts such as Panorama and Kicking Horse, as well as Mount Revelstoke National Park and Glacier National Park.
+
+There are numerous provincial parks in the British Columbia Rockies, the largest and most notable being Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park, Mount Robson Provincial Park, Northern Rocky Mountains Provincial Park, Kwadacha Wilderness Provincial Park, Stone Mountain Provincial Park and Muncho Lake Provincial Park.

en/3386.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+A season is a division of the year[1] marked by changes in weather, ecology, and the amount of daylight. On Earth, seasons are the result of Earth's orbit around the Sun and Earth's axial tilt relative to the ecliptic plane.[2][3] In temperate and polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, variations of which may cause animals to undergo hibernation or to migrate, and plants to be dormant. Various cultures define the number and nature of seasons based on regional variations.
+
+The Northern Hemisphere experiences more direct sunlight during May, June, and July, as the hemisphere faces the Sun. The same is true of the Southern Hemisphere in November, December, and January. It is Earth's axial tilt that causes the Sun to be higher in the sky during the summer months, which increases the solar flux. However, due to seasonal lag, June, July, and August are the warmest months in the Northern Hemisphere while December, January, and February are the warmest months in the Southern Hemisphere.
+
+In temperate and sub-polar regions, four seasons based on the Gregorian calendar are generally recognized: spring, summer, autumn or fall, and winter.  Ecologists often use a six-season model for temperate climate regions which are not tied to any fixed calendar dates: prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, autumnal, and hibernal. Many tropical regions have two seasons: the rainy, wet, or monsoon season and the dry season. Some have a third cool, mild, or harmattan season. "Seasons" can also be dictated by the timing of important ecological events such as hurricane season, tornado season, and wildfire season.[citation needed] The most historically important of these are the three seasons—flood, growth, and low water—which were previously defined by the former annual flooding of the Nile in Egypt.
+
+Seasons often hold special significance for agrarian societies, whose lives revolve around planting and harvest times, and the change of seasons is often attended by ritual. The definition of seasons is also cultural. In India, from ancient times to the present day, six seasons or Ritu based on south Asian religious or cultural calendars are recognised and identified for purposes such as agriculture and trade.
+
+The seasons result from the Earth's axis of rotation being tilted with respect to its orbital plane by an angle of approximately 23.4 degrees.[4] (This tilt is also known as "obliquity of the ecliptic".)
+
+Regardless of the time of year, the northern and southern hemispheres always experience opposite seasons. This is because during summer or winter, one part of the planet is more directly exposed to the rays of the Sun (see Fig. 1) than the other, and this exposure alternates as the Earth revolves in its orbit. For approximately half of the year (from around March 20 to around September 22), the Northern Hemisphere tips toward the Sun, with the maximum amount occurring on about June 21. For the other half of the year, the same happens, but in the Southern Hemisphere instead of the Northern, with the maximum around December 21. The two instants when the Sun is directly overhead at the Equator are the equinoxes. Also at that moment, both the North Pole and the South Pole of the Earth are just on the terminator, and hence day and night are equally divided between the two hemispheres. Around the March equinox, the Northern Hemisphere will be experiencing spring as the hours of daylight increase, and the Southern Hemisphere is experiencing autumn as daylight hours shorten.
+
+The effect of axial tilt is observable as the change in day length and altitude of the Sun at solar noon (the Sun's culmination) during the year. The low angle of Sun during the winter months means that incoming rays of solar radiation are spread over a larger area of the Earth's surface, so the light received is more indirect and of lower intensity. Between this effect and the shorter daylight hours, the axial tilt of the Earth accounts for most of the seasonal variation in climate in both hemispheres.
+
+Illumination of Earth by Sun at the northern solstice.
+
+Illumination of Earth by Sun at the southern solstice.
+
+Diagram of the Earth's seasons as seen from the north. Far right: southern solstice
+
+Animation of Earth as seen daily from the Sun looking at UTC+02:00, showing the solstice and changing seasons.
+
+Two images showing the amount of reflected sunlight at southern and northern summer solstices respectively (watts / m²).
+
+Compared to axial tilt, other factors contribute little to seasonal temperature changes. The seasons are not the result of the variation in Earth's distance to the Sun because of its elliptical orbit.[5] In fact, Earth reaches perihelion (the point in its orbit closest to the Sun) in January, and it reaches aphelion (the point farthest from the Sun) in July, so the slight contribution of orbital eccentricity opposes the temperature trends of the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere.[6] In general, the effect of orbital eccentricity on Earth's seasons is a 7% variation in sunlight received.
+
+Orbital eccentricity can influence temperatures, but on Earth, this effect is small and is more than counteracted by other factors; research shows that the Earth as a whole is actually slightly warmer when farther from the sun. This is because the Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern, and land warms more readily than sea.[6]
+Any noticeable intensification of southern winters and summers due to Earth's elliptical orbit is mitigated by the abundance of water in the Southern Hemisphere.[7]
+
+Seasonal weather fluctuations (changes) also depend on factors such as proximity to oceans or other large bodies of water, currents in those oceans, El Niño/ENSO and other oceanic cycles, and prevailing winds.
+
+In the temperate and polar regions, seasons are marked by changes in the amount of sunlight, which in turn often causes cycles of dormancy in plants and hibernation in animals. These effects vary with latitude and with proximity to bodies of water. For example, the South Pole is in the middle of the continent of Antarctica and therefore a considerable distance from the moderating influence of the southern oceans. The North Pole is in the Arctic Ocean, and thus its temperature extremes are buffered by the water. The result is that the South Pole is consistently colder during the southern winter than the North Pole during the northern winter.
+
+The seasonal cycle in the polar and temperate zones of one hemisphere is opposite to that of the other. When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter in the Southern, and vice versa.
+
+The tropical and subtropical regions see little annual fluctuation of sunlight.  However, seasonal shifts occur along a rainy, low-pressure belt called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ICZ). As a result, the amount of precipitation tends to vary more dramatically than the average temperature. When the Zone is north of the Equator, the northern tropics experience their wet season while the southern tropics have their dry season. This pattern reverses when the Zone migrates to a position south of the Equator.
+
+In meteorological terms, the solstices (the maximum and minimum insolation) do not fall in the middles of summer and winter. The heights of these seasons occur up to 7 weeks later because of seasonal lag. Seasons, though, are not always defined in meteorological terms.
+
+In astronomical reckoning by hours of daylight alone, the solstices and equinoxes are in the middle of the respective seasons. Because of seasonal lag due to thermal absorption and release by the oceans, regions with a continental climate, which predominate in the Northern Hemisphere, often consider these four dates to be the start of the seasons as in the diagram, with the cross-quarter days considered seasonal midpoints. The length of these seasons is not uniform because of Earth's elliptical orbit and its different speeds along that orbit.[8]
+
+Most calendar-based methods use a four-season model to identify the warmest and coldest seasons, which are separated by two intermediate seasons. Calendar-based reckoning defines the seasons in relative rather than absolute terms.  Accordingly, if floral activity is regularly observed during the coolest quarter of the year in a particular area, it is still considered winter despite the traditional association of flowers with spring and summer.  Additionally, the seasons are considered to change on the same dates everywhere that uses a particular calendar method regardless of variations in climate from one area to another.
+
+As noted, a variety of dates and even exact times are used in different countries or regions to mark changes of the calendar seasons. These observances are often declared "official" within their respective areas by the local or national media, even when the weather or climate is contradictory.[9]  However they are mainly a matter of custom only, and have not generally been proclaimed by governments north or south of the equator for civil purposes.[10][11] As an result of European colonization, the four-season European model is used officially almost throughout the world, although the seasons are reversed between the northern and southern hemispheres.
+
+Meteorological seasons are reckoned by temperature, with summer being the hottest quarter of the year and winter the coldest quarter of the year. In 1780 the Societas Meteorologica Palatina (which became defunct in 1795), an early international organization for meteorology, defined seasons as groupings of three whole months as identified by the Gregorian calendar. Ever since, professional meteorologists all over the world have used this definition.[12]
+Therefore, for temperate areas in the northern hemisphere, spring begins on 1 March, summer on 1 June, autumn on 1 September, and winter on 1 December. For the southern hemisphere temperate zone, spring begins on 1 September, summer on 1 December, autumn on 1 March, and winter on 1 June.[13][14]  In Australasia the meteorological terms for seasons apply to the temperate zone that occupies all of New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the south-eastern corner of South Australia and the south-west of Western Australia, and the south east Queensland areas south of Brisbane.
+
+In Sweden and Finland, meteorologists use a non-calendar based definition for the seasons based on the temperature. Spring begins when the daily averaged temperature permanently rises above 0 °C, summer begins when the temperature permanently rises above +10 °C, summer ends when the temperature permanently falls below +10 °C and winter begins when the temperature permanently falls below 0 °C. "Permanently" here means that the daily averaged temperature has remained above or below the limit for seven consecutive days. This implies two things: first, the seasons do not begin at fixed dates but must be determined by observation and are known only after the fact; and second, a new season begins at different dates in different parts of the country.
+
+The India Meteorological Department (IMD) designates four climatological seasons:[16]
+
+Astronomical timing as the basis for designating the temperate seasons dates back at least to the Julian calendar used by the ancient Romans.  It continues to be used on many modern Gregorian calendars worldwide, although some countries like Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Russia prefer to use meteorological reckoning. The precise timing of the seasons is determined by the exact times of transit of the sun over the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn for the solstices and the times of the sun's transit over the equator for the equinoxes, or a traditional date close to these times.[19]
+
+The following diagram shows the relation between the line of solstice and the line of apsides of Earth's elliptical orbit.  The orbital ellipse (with eccentricity exaggerated for effect) goes through each of the six Earth images, which are sequentially the perihelion (periapsis—nearest point to the sun) on anywhere from 2 January to 5 January, the point of March equinox on 19, 20 or 21 March, the point of June solstice on 20 or 21 June, the aphelion (apoapsis—farthest point from the sun) on anywhere from 4 July to 7 July, the September equinox on 22 or 23 September, and the December solstice on 21 or 22 December.
+
+These "astronomical" seasons are not of equal length, because of the elliptical nature of the orbit of the Earth, as discovered by Johannes Kepler.  From the March equinox it currently takes 92.75 days until the June solstice, then 93.65 days until the September equinox, 89.85 days until the December solstice and finally 88.99 days until the March equinox.
+
+The times of the equinoxes and solstices are not fixed with respect to the modern Gregorian calendar, but fall about six hours later every year, amounting to one full day in four years. They are reset by the occurrence of a leap year. The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the March equinox no later than 21 March as accurately as is practical. Also see: Gregorian calendar seasonal error.
+
+The calendar equinox (used in the calculation of Easter) is 21 March, the same date as in the Easter tables current at the time of the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.   The calendar is therefore framed to prevent the astronomical equinox wandering onto 22 March.   From Nicaea to the date of the reform, the years 500, 600, 700, 900, 1000, 1100, 1300, 1400 and 1500, which would not have been leap years in the Gregorian calendar, amount to nine days, but astronomers directed that ten days be removed.
+
+Currently, the most common equinox and solstice dates are March 20, June 21, September 22 or 23 and December 21; the four-year average slowly shifts to earlier times as the century progresses.   This shift is a full day in about 128 years (compensated mainly by the century "leap year" rules of the Gregorian calendar) and as 2000 was a leap year the current shift has been progressing since the beginning of the last century, when equinoxes and solstices were relatively late.   This also means that in many years of the twentieth century, the dates of March 21, June 22, September 23 and December 22 were much more common, so older books teach (and older people may still remember) these dates.
+
+Note that all the times are given in UTC (roughly speaking, the time at Greenwich, ignoring British Summer Time). People living farther to the east (Asia and Australia), whose local times are in advance, will see the astronomical seasons apparently start later; for example, in Tonga (UTC+13), an equinox occurred on September 24, 1999, a date which will not crop up again until 2103. On the other hand, people living far to the west (America) whose clocks run behind UTC may experience an equinox as early as March 19.
+
+Over thousands of years, the Earth's axial tilt and orbital eccentricity vary (see Milankovitch cycles).   The equinoxes and solstices move westward relative to the stars while the perihelion and aphelion move eastward.   Thus, ten thousand years from now Earth's northern winter will occur at aphelion and northern summer at perihelion. The severity of seasonal change — the average temperature difference between summer and winter in location — will also change over time because the Earth's axial tilt fluctuates between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees.
+
+Smaller irregularities in the times are caused by perturbations of the Moon and the other planets.
+
+Solar timing is based on insolation in which the solstices and equinoxes are seen as the midpoints of the seasons.  It was the method for reckoning seasons in medieval Europe, especially by the Celts, and is still ceremonially observed in Ireland and some East Asian countries. Summer is defined as the quarter of the year with the greatest insolation and winter as the quarter with the least.
+
+The solar seasons change at the cross-quarter days, which are about 3–4 weeks earlier than the meteorological seasons and 6–7 weeks earlier than seasons starting at equinoxes and solstices.  Thus, the day of greatest insolation is designated "midsummer" as noted in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is set on the summer solstice.  On the Celtic calendar, the start of the seasons corresponds to four Pagan agricultural festivals - the traditional first day of winter is 1 November (Samhain, the Celtic origin of Halloween); spring starts 1 February (Imbolc, the Celtic origin of Groundhog Day); summer begins 1 May (Beltane, the Celtic origin of May Day); the first day of autumn is 1 August (Celtic Lughnasadh).
+
+Some calendars in south Asia use a six-season method where the number of seasons between summer and winter can number from one to three. The dates are fixed at even intervals of months.
+
+In the Hindu calendar of tropical and subtropical India, there are six seasons or Ritu that are calendar-based in the sense of having fixed dates: Vasanta (spring), Greeshma (summer), Varsha (monsoon), Sharad (autumn), Hemanta (early winter), and Shishira (prevernal or late winter). The six seasons are ascribed to two months each of the twelve months in the Hindu calendar. The rough correspondences are:
+
+The Bengali Calendar is similar but differs in start and end times. It has the following seasons or ritu:
+
+The Tamil calendar follows a similar pattern of six seasons
+
+The North American Cree and possibly other Algonquian speaking peoples used or still use a 6-season system. The extra two seasons denoting the freezing and breaking up of the ice on rivers and lakes.[20]
+
+The most historically important of these are the three seasons—flood, growth, and low water—which were previously defined by the former annual flooding of the Nile in Egypt. In some tropical areas a three-way division into hot, rainy, and cool season is used. In Thailand three seasons are recognised [21]
+
+
+
+
+
+The traditional calendar in China has seasons traditionally based on 24 periods known as solar terms.[22] The four seasons chūn (春), xià (夏), qiū (秋), and dōng (冬) are universally translated as "spring", "summer", "autumn", and "winter" but actually begin much earlier, with the solstices and equinoxes forming the midpoint of each season rather than their start. Astronomically, the seasons are said to begin on Lichun (立春, lit. "standing spring") on about 4 February, Lixia (立夏) on about 6 May, Liqiu (立秋) on about 8 August, and Lidong (立冬) on about 7 November. These dates were not part of the traditional lunar calendar, however, and moveable holidays such as Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival are more closely associated with the seasons. It forms the basis of other such systems in East Asian lunisolar calendars.
+
+In the tropical parts of Australia in the northern parts of Queensland, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory,  wet and dry seasons are observed in addition to or in place of temperate season names.[23]
+
+
+
+Ecologically speaking, a season is a period of the year in which only certain types of floral and animal events happen (e.g.: flowers bloom—spring; hedgehogs hibernate—winter). So, if we can observe a change in daily floral/animal events, the season is changing.  In this sense, ecological seasons are defined in absolute terms, unlike calendar-based methods in which the seasons are relative.  If specific conditions associated with a particular ecological season don't normally occur in a particular region, then that area cannot be said to experience that season on a regular basis. In Great Britain, the onset of spring used to be defined as when the maximum daily temperature reached 50 °F (10 °C) in a defined sequence of days.   This almost always occurred in March.   However, with global warming this temperature is now not uncommon in the winter.
+
+Six ecological seasons can be distinguished which do not have fixed calendar-based dates like the meteorological and astronomical seasons.[24] Oceanic regions tend to experience the beginning of the hibernal season up to a month later than continental climates. Conversely, prevernal and vernal seasons begin up to a month earlier near oceanic and coastal areas. For example, prevernal crocus blooms typically appear as early as February in coastal areas of British Columbia, the British Isles, but generally don't appear until March or April in locations like the Midwest USA or parts of eastern Europe. The actual dates for each season vary by climate region and can shift from one year to the next.  Average dates listed here are for mild and cool temperate climate zones in the Northern Hemisphere:
+
+Indigenous people in polar, temperate and tropical climates of northern Eurasia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Australia have traditionally defined the seasons ecologically by observing the activity of the plants, animals and weather around them. Each separate tribal group traditionally observes different seasons determined according to local criteria that can vary from the hibernation of polar bears on the arctic tundras to the growing seasons of plants in the tropical rainforests.  In Australia, some tribes have up to eight seasons in a year,[13] as do the Sami people in Scandinavia. Many indigenous people who no longer live directly off the land in traditional often nomadic styles, now observe modern methods of seasonal reckoning according to what is customary in their particular country or region.
+
+The Noongar people of South-West Western Australia recognise maar-keyen bonar,[25] or six seasons. Each season's arrival is heralded not by a calendar date, but by environmental factors[26] such as changing winds, flowering plants, temperature and migration patterns and lasts approximately two standard calendar months. The seasons also correlate to aspects of the human condition, intrinsically linking the lives of the people to the world that surrounds them and also dictating their movements, as with each season, various parts of country would be visited which were particularly abundant or safe from the elements.[27]
+
+In the tropics, where seasonal dates also vary, it is more common to speak of the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season versus the dry season. For example, in Nicaragua the dry season (November to April) is called "summer" and the rainy season (May to October) is called "winter", even though it is located in the northern hemisphere. There is no noticeable change in the amount of sunlight at different times of the year. However, many regions (such as the northern Indian ocean) are subject to monsoon rain and wind cycles.
+
+Floral and animal activity variation near the equator depends more on wet/dry cycles than seasonal temperature variations, with different species flowering (or emerging from cocoons) at specific times before, during, or after the monsoon season. Thus, the tropics are characterized by numerous "mini-seasons" within the larger seasonal blocks of time.
+
+
+
+Any point north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle will have one period in the summer called "polar day" when the sun does not set, and one period in the winter called 'polar night' when the sun does not rise. At progressively higher latitudes, the maximum periods of "midnight sun" and "polar night" are progressively longer.
+
+For example, at the military and weather station Alert located at 82°30′05″N and 62°20′20″W, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Canada (about 450 nautical miles or 830 km from the North Pole), the sun begins to peek above the horizon for minutes per day at the end of February and each day it climbs higher and stays up longer; by 21 March, the sun is up for over 12 hours. On 6 April the sun rises at 0522 UTC and remains above the horizon until it sets below the horizon again on 6 September at 0335 UTC.  By October 13 the sun is above the horizon for only 1 hour 30 minutes, and on October 14 it does not rise above the horizon at all and remains below the horizon until it rises again on 27 February.[28]
+
+First light comes in late January because the sky has twilight, being a glow on the horizon, for increasing hours each day, for more than a month before the sun first appears with its disc above the horizon. From mid-November to mid-January, there is no twilight.
+
+In the weeks surrounding 21 June, in the northern polar region, the sun is at its highest elevation, appearing to circle the sky there without going below the horizon. Eventually, it does go below the horizon, for progressively longer periods each day until around the middle of October, when it disappears for the last time until the following February. For a few more weeks, "day" is marked by decreasing periods of twilight. Eventually, from mid-November to mid-January, there is no twilight and it is continuously dark. In mid January the first faint wash of twilight briefly touches the horizon (for just minutes per day), and then twilight increases in duration with increasing brightness each day until sunrise at end of February, then on 6 April the sun remains above the horizon until mid October.
+
+Seasonal weather and climate conditions can become important in the context of military operations.
+
+For navies, the presence of accessible ports and bases can allow naval operations during certain (variable) seasons of the year. The availability of  ice-free or warm-water ports can make navies much more effective. Thus Russia, historically navally constrained when confined to using Arkhangelsk (before the 18th century) and even Kronstadt, has particular interests in maintaining and in preserving access to Baltiysk, Vladivostok, and Sevastopol.[29]
+Storm seasons or polar winter-weather conditions can inhibit surface warships at sea.
+
+Pre-modern armies, especially in Europe, tended to campaign in the summer months - peasant  conscripts tended to melt away at harvest time, nor did it make economic sense in an agricultural society to neglect the sowing season.[30]
+Any modern  war of manouevre profits from firm ground - summer can provide dry conditions suitable for marching and transport, frozen snow in winter can also offer a reliable surface for a period, but  spring thaws or autumn rains can inhibit campaigning. Rainy-season floods may make rivers temporarily impassable, and winter snow tends to block mountain passes.

en/3387.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+
+
+
+
+The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs; Dutch: De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The Smurfs was first created and introduced as a series of comic characters by the Belgian comics artist Peyo (the pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, wherein they were known as Les Schtroumpfs. There are more than 100 Smurf characters, and their names are based on adjectives that emphasise their characteristics, such as "Jokey Smurf", who likes to play practical jokes on his fellow smurfs. "Smurfette" was the first female Smurf to be introduced in the series. The Smurfs wear Phrygian caps, which came to represent freedom during the modern era.
+
+The word “smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French "schtroumpf", which, according to Peyo, is a word he invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin when he could not remember the word salt.[1][2][3]
+
+The Smurfs franchise began as a comic and expanded into advertising, films, TV series, ice capades, video games, theme parks, and dolls.
+
+At the time he came up with the idea for the Smurfs, Peyo was the creator, artist, and writer of the Franco-Belgian comics series titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages and including elements of sword-and-sorcery. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Pirlouit (pronounced Peer-loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. 
+In 1958, Spirou magazine started to publish the Johan et Pirlouit story La Flûte à six trous ("The Flute with Six Holes").[4] The adventure involved them recovering a magic flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. In this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid in white clothing called a "Schtroumpf", followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and had a white beard. Their first full appearance was published in Spirou on October 23, 1958.[5] The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising. The Smurfs shared more adventures with Johan and Pirlouit, got their own series and all subsequent publications of the original story were retitled La Flûte à six Schtroumpfs (also the title of the movie version of the story).
+
+With the commercial success of the Smurfs came the merchandising empire of Smurf miniatures, models, games, and toys. Entire collecting clubs have devoted themselves to collecting PVC Smurfs and Smurf merchandise.
+
+Schtroumpf is pronounced like the German word "Strumpf" meaning "sock". However, according to Peyo, the original author of the Smurfs comic strip, the term and the accompanying language of the Smurfs came during a meal he had with his colleague and friend André Franquin at the Belgian Coast. Having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back..." and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in "schtroumpf language".[1][3] The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.[2]
+
+Both the comics and cartoons have been translated in many languages. In most cases, the original name "Schtroumpf" is replaced by a new term. The most common are variations on the Dutch translation "Smurf", while other names are indicative of their gnome-like appearance.
+
+In Spanish, they are called "Pitufos", a term invented by  Miguel Agustí who was the head of the Spanish magazine Strong which first published the cartoon in Spanish. According to Agustí, he was walking around Barcelona while trying to come up a name for the cartoon. He came across a sculpture of the Ox of Patufet and was inspired by the word Patufet. From Patufet he derived the non-existent word Pitufo. The name later spread to most Spanish-language versions of the cartoon.
+[6]
+
+The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike—mostly male (a few female Smurfs have appeared: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny Smurf), short (three apples high),[7] with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality (for example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the Smurfs naturally call "smurfberries." The smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the sarsaparilla.
+
+The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: "Lazy Smurf", "Grouchy Smurf", "Brainy Smurf", and so on. All Smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 Smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. All of the original Smurfs were male; later female additions are Smurfette and Sassette. Smurfette was Gargamel's creation, while Sassette was created by the Smurflings.
+
+A characteristic of the Smurf language is the frequent use of the undefinable word "smurf" and its derivatives in a variety of meanings. The Smurfs frequently replace both nouns and verbs in everyday speech with the word "smurf": "We're going smurfing on the River Smurf today." When used as a verb, the word "Smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do".
+
+Humans have found that replacing ordinary words with the term "smurf" at random is not enough: in one adventure, Peewit explains to some other humans that the statement "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood", but a Smurf corrects him by saying that the proper statement would be "I'm smurfing to the smurf"; whereas what Peewit said was "I'm warbling to the dawn". So "I'm smurfing to the smurf" is not the same as "I'm smurfing to the smurf".[8]
+
+In the animated series, only some words (or a portion of the word) are replaced with the word "smurf". Context offers a reliable understanding of this speech pattern, but common vocabulary includes remarking that something is "just smurfy" or in some cases, "smurftastic".
+
+In Schtroumpf vert et vert Schtroumpf (see Smurf Versus Smurf), published in Belgium in 1972, it was revealed that the smurf village was divided between North and South, and that the Smurfs on either side had different ideas as to how the term "smurf" should be used: for instance, the Northern Smurfs called a certain object a "bottle smurfer", while the Southern Smurfs called it a "smurf opener". This story is considered a parody on the still ongoing taalstrijd (language war) between French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium.[9]
+
+When they first appeared in 1958, the Smurfs lived in a part of the world called "Le Pays Maudit" (French for "the Cursed Land"). To reach it required magic or travelling through dense forests, deep marshes, a scorching desert and a high mountain range.[10] The Smurfs themselves use storks in order to travel long distances, such as to the kingdom where Johan and Pirlouit live, and keep up-to-date with events in the outside world.[11]
+
+In the Johan et Pirlouit stories, the Smurf village is made up of mushroom-like houses of different shapes and sizes in a desolate and rocky land with just a few trees. However, in the Smurf series itself, the mushroom-like houses are more similar to one another and are located in a clearing in the middle of a deep forest with grass, a river, and vegetation. Humans such as Gargamel are shown to live nearby, though it is almost impossible for an outsider to find the Smurf village except when led by a Smurf.
+
+The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing, and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food without using any money in exchange.
+
+Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other Smurfs are generally named after their personality disposition, much like Disney's Seven Dwarfs; for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, Grouchy, or their profession, for example, Poet, Actor, Handy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber and Doctor Smurf. The first female Smurf, Smurfette, was created by Gargamel to lure the other Smurfs. Papa Smurf then changed her into what we see today. The non-Smurf characters who would appear later would include their enemies the wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael, an ugly witch, Hogatha and Gargamel's godfather Balthazar; and their friends the page Johan and his young friend Peewit and the wizard Homnibus. There are 105 Smurfs.
+
+Since the first appearance of the Smurfs in Johan et Pirlouit in 1958, 31 Smurf comics volumes have been created, 16 of them by Peyo, the others by his studio. Originally, the Smurf stories appeared in Spirou magazine with reprints in many different magazines, but after Peyo left the publisher Dupuis, many comics were first published in dedicated Smurf magazines, which existed in French, Dutch, German and Turkish. A number of short stories and one page gags have been collected into comic books next to the regular series of 30 including a newly released Smurfs comics enitiled Les Schtroumpfs de L'ordre (The Order Law of the Smurfs). English translations have been published in the U.S. by the graphic novel publisher Papercutz as well as a mini series published by Marvel Comics in the mid-1980s.
+
+In 1965, a black-and-white 87-minute animated film called Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs was released in theatres in Belgium. It consisted of five short cartoons made in the previous years for broadcasting on Walloon TV. German copies and copies with Dutch subtitles are known to exist. The stories were based on existing Smurf stories like The Black Smurfs and The Smurfs and the Egg, and were created by writer Maurice Rosy and artist Eddy Ryssack from the small Dupuis animation studios.[12] In total, ten animated shorts were created between 1961 and 1967, the first series in black and white and the later ones in colour.
+
+In 1976, La Flûte à six schtroumpfs (an adaptation of the original "Johan et Pirlouit" story) was released. Michel Legrand provided the musical score to the film. The film would be released in the United States in 1983 (after the animated series became popular there) in an English language dubbed version titled The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. A few more full-length Smurf films were made, most notably The Baby Smurf and Here are the Smurfs,[13] created from episodes of the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series.
+
+Sony Pictures has announced plans to begin a trilogy of live-action/computer-animated Smurf films, with the first film released on July 29, 2011.[14] The project had been in various stages of development since 2003.[15] In June 2008, it was announced that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation had acquired film rights from Lafig Belgium. Jordan Kerner produced the film, with the screenwriters including Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third screenwriters J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.[16][17] The film stars Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf, Gary Basaraba as Hefty Smurf, John Oliver as Vanity Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf, Paul Reubens as Jokey Smurf, Hank Azaria as Gargamel, Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick Winslow and Jayma Mays as Grace Winslow, a couple in New York who help the Smurfs get back to their village. It was suggested that Quentin Tarantino would play Brainy Smurf, but this "didn't work out" so Fred Armisen voices Brainy instead.[18] A CGI/traditionally animated mini-film, titled The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, was released on December 2, 2011, on The Smurfs DVD and Blu-ray.[19] A sequel to The Smurfs, titled The Smurfs 2, was released on July 31, 2013.[20]  A fully animated Smurfs reboot film, Smurfs: The Lost Village, was released on April 7, 2017, with Demi Lovato starring as Smurfette.[21]
+
+The Smurfs secured their place in North American pop culture in 1981, when the Saturday-morning cartoon series The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A.R.L, aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to December 2, 1989 (reruns until August 25, 1990). The show continued to air on the USA network until 1993, and on Cartoon Network until 2003. The Smurfs is still broadcast on the Boomerang channel throughout the United States. The show became a major success for NBC, spawning spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards, and won Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.[15] The Smurfs television show enjoyed continued success until 1990, when, after nearly a decade of success, NBC cancelled it due to decreasing ratings and plans to extend their Today morning show franchise to create a Saturday edition, although they did not do so until 1992 (two years later). The decreased ratings were the result of the network changing the format of the show, resulting in the final season featuring regular time travel with only a few Smurfs.
+
+In the TV series, many classical masterpieces are used as background music during the episodes, among them Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in B minor), Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.[22] Reruns of the show are played on the Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang.
+
+The Smurfs was named the 97th best animated series by IGN. It has been called "kiddie cocaine" for people growing up during the 1980s.[23]
+
+On August 31, 2017 it was announced that IMPS and Dupuis Audiovisuel would be working on the new Smurfs TV series with CGI animation. The series is scheduled for 2020 and is co produced by Ketnet (Flanders), TF1 (France), KiKa (Germany),[24] OUFTIVI (Wallonia), Peyo Productions and Dupuis Audiovisuel[25][26][27] (the TV branch of the comics publisher). It will show new stories, not adaptations of comics or other older stories.[28] Nickelodeon picked up the series for a 2021 release in the United States.[29]
+
+On February 26, 2008, Warner Home Video released Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD, containing the first 19 episodes. On October 7, 2008, Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume 2 on DVD, containing the remaining 20 episodes from season 1. Though Warner Bros. has decided to discontinue the season sets and release single-disc volume sets instead, they are reportedly still following the correct order of episodes.[citation needed]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia has released a 9-disc 50th Anniversary Collection, containing a total of 52 episodes[citation needed]. In September 2009, a Smurfette-themed collection containing 25 episodes was made available followed by the "Papa Smurf Collection" in December 2009 containing 26 themed episodes.[30]
+In July 2010, both the Smurfette and Papa Smurf Collection were included in a special 'Favourites Collection'.[31] Also releasing at the same time was the Smurfs very first feature film (produced in 1975), The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, available for the first time on DVD, in Australia.[32]
+
+November 3, 2010 witnessed the release of two "Just Smurfy" collections, each featuring episodes not yet released on DVD to the Australian market.[33][34] December 3, 2010 saw the 3rd collection hit the market.[35] A fourth Just Smurfy set was planned for release on March 2, 2011.[36]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia have released Season 1[37] & Season 2[38] on August 24, 2011. Season 3[39] and Season 4[40] released October 5, 2011. A limited edition 'Ultimate Collection 1'[41] which features the first 5 seasons was released on August 24, 2011. A 'Ultimate Collection 2'[42] which features Season 6 – Season 9 was released on November 2, 2011.
+
+The show is being released on DVD in the UK through a joint conjunction with Arrow Films and Fabulous Films Ltd. The complete 1st season was released in a 4 Disc box set on July 5, 2010. Season 2 was released on September 6, 2010, Seasons 3, 4 and 5 was released on July 1, 2013 and the original Smurfs feature film, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 11, 2010.
+
+Papa Smurf, Hefty Smurf, and Brainy Smurf appeared in the cartoon crossover Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue along with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (from the Looney Tunes franchise), Huey, Dewey and Louie (from DuckTales), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Muppet Babies (Kermit, Piggy and Gonzo respectively), Slimer (from The Real Ghostbusters), ALF, Michelangelo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Smurfette appeared on the promotional poster, but never[clarification needed] appeared in the actual film.
+
+From 1959 until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by National Garages in the 1970s and McDonald's in the 1990s) are also made by Schleich.
+
+New Smurf figures continue to appear; in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new Smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 to 12 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.[15]
+
+Other Smurf figurines have been created for advertising purposes, e.g. worldwide for McDonald's and Kinder Surprise, or nationally for e.g. Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, and Delhaize in Belgium.
+
+Special Smurf comics were often created for advertising campaigns. This started in the 1960s for Kwatta and Kellogg's, and later for companies like BP in the UK and Australia, or Benco (a Dutch chocolate drink).[43] These comics were often only part of a larger campaign, e.g. the Benco comics were accompanied by a TV ad.[44]
+
+A Smurf balloon/float/Falloon (which is half float half balloon) continues to be presented in holiday parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[45]
+
+Smurfs had two cereals in the 1980s made by Post Cereals: Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal and Smurfs Magic Berries. Both had animated commercials on Saturday morning. Two Smurfs pastas, made by Chef Boyardee and DelVerde were made in the 1980s, as well. Also Libby's & Heinz came out with Smurf-A-Getti canned pasta for the American and Canadian market.
+
+The Smurfs had a commercial in the 1980s for the Mexican snack cake company Marinela Submarinos with a rare version of Smurfette (Pitufina) dressed in a red dress and her hair done in pigtails.
+
+Over the decades, many singles and albums of Smurf music have been released in different countries and languages, sometimes very successfully, with millions of copies sold. The best known is the single The Smurf Song and its accompanying album, created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner who sings under the alias Father Abraham, which reached the #1 position in 16 countries. Worldwide, more than 10 million CDs with Smurf music have been sold between 2005 and 2007 alone.[15]
+
+In 1989, I.M.P.S and R-Tek Music, International created Smurfin!: Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Album, released by Quality Special Products in Canada and the United States and Dino Music in Australia. It was also released in parts of Europe. The Album came out on LP, CD and cassette. The LP featured 20 tracks (The Canadian CD and cassette had 16, the American CD had 10). The songs were covers of popular songs like Surfin' U.S.A., Kokomo, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I Think We're Alone Now, as well as two original songs.
+
+For several years, the Smurfs were the children's act in the Ice Capades travelling ice show. After they were retired from that function, the Smurf suits from the show were issued to Ice Capades Chalets, the show's subsidiary chain of ice rinks, lasting until the show was sold to a group of investors led by Dorothy Hamill.  The Chalets were sold to Recreation World. The Smurfette suit in particular had a somewhat different hairstyle from what was portrayed in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
+
+In 1984, the Smurfs began appearing in North American theme parks owned by Kings Entertainment Corporation. Each park featured a Smurf attraction and Smurf walk-around figures. Canada's Wonderland had an entire Smurf village to walk through, ending with Gargamel's Castle. "The Smurfs' Enchanted Voyage" was located in Kings Island. Kings Dominion has "Smurf Mountain". California's Great America featured a pint-sized steel coaster, "The Blue Streak". Carowinds had an artificial island that was named Smurf Island that had a Smurf village—including toadstool houses which could be entered. Hanna–Barbera Land had a Smurf district.
+
+In 1989, in the France region of Lorraine, the Sorépark group opened a complete Smurfpark, named Big Bang Schtroumpf. In 1991, the park was bought by the successful Belgian Walibi Group and renamed Walibi Schtroumpf with new attractions. After the Walibi Group was acquired by Six Flags, the park was named Walibi Lorraine, and all the Smurfs references in the park were removed in 2003.
+
+Comics Station, Motiongate Dubai, Movie Animation Park Studios and Dream Island feature Smurf sections.
+
+The Smurfs have appeared in video games made for most major game consoles (including Nintendo's NES, Super NES, and Game Boy systems, Atari, ColecoVision, Sega's Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive and Mega CD systems, and the original Sony PlayStation) and for the PC. In 2010, the Smurfs expanded into the world of apps for Android, the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch with the game Smurf Village.
+
+In 2005, an advertisement featuring The Smurfs was aired in Belgium in which the Smurf village is annihilated by warplanes.[47]  Designed as a UNICEF advertisement, and with the approval of the family of the Smurfs' late creator Peyo, the 25-second episode was shown on the national television after the 9 p.m. timeslot to avoid children having to see it. It was the keystone in a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—both former Belgian colonies.
+
+In honour of their 50th anniversary in 2008, the Smurfs began a year-long "Happy Smurfday Euro Tour" in connection with UNICEF. The Smurfs visited fifteen European countries on the day of their 50th "Smurfday" in the form of publicly distributed white figurines. The recipients could decorate and submit them to a competition. The results of this contest were auctioned off and raised a total amount of 124,700 euros for benefit of UNICEF.[48]
+
+The 50th anniversary of the Smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its creator Peyo, were celebrated by issuing a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 5 euro 50th anniversary of The Smurfs commemorative coin, minted in 2008.
+
+In 1998, writer Marc Schmidt wrote a parody article citing the Smurfs as an example of the impact of socialism in continental European culture.[49][50] In 2011, Schmidt's essay was scrutinised in a response essay by Kate Krake, who examined the nature of cultural theory built on textual observation and warned against creating false allegories out of texts like The Smurfs.[51]
+
+French sociologist Antoine Buéno described them in a 2011 book as a totalitarian and racist utopia.[52] Studio Peyo head Thierry Culliford, the son of Peyo, dismissed Buéno's accusations as "grotesque and frivolous".[53]

en/3388.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+
+
+The Seven Wonders of the World or the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a list of remarkable constructions of classical antiquity given by various authors in guidebooks or poems popular among ancient Hellenic tourists. Although the list, in its current form, did not stabilise until the Renaissance, the first such lists of seven wonders date from the 2nd-1st century BC. The original list inspired innumerable versions through the ages, often listing seven entries. Of the original Seven Wonders, only one—the Great Pyramid of Giza, oldest of the ancient wonders—remains relatively intact. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were all destroyed. The location and ultimate fate of the Hanging Gardens are unknown, and there is speculation that they may not have existed at all.
+
+The Greek conquest of much of the known western world in the 4th century BC gave Hellenistic travellers access to the civilizations of the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians.[1] Impressed and captivated by the landmarks and marvels of the various lands, these travellers began to list what they saw to remember them.[2][3]
+
+Instead of "wonders", the ancient Greeks spoke of "theamata" (θεάματα), which means "sights", in other words "things to be seen" (Τὰ ἑπτὰ θεάματα τῆς οἰκουμένης [γῆς] Tà heptà theámata tēs oikoumenēs [gēs]). Later, the word for "wonder" ("thaumata" θαύματα, "wonders") was used.[4] Hence, the list was meant to be the Ancient World's counterpart of a travel guidebook.[1]
+
+The first reference to a list of seven such monuments was given by Diodorus Siculus.[5][6] The epigrammist Antipater of Sidon[7] who lived around or before 100 BC,[8] gave a list of seven such monuments, including six of the present list (substituting the walls of Babylon for the lighthouse):[9]
+
+I have gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alpheus, I have seen the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the sacred house of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus.
+
+Another 2nd century BC observer, who claimed to be the mathematician Philo of Byzantium,[10] wrote a short account entitled The Seven Sights of the World. However, the incomplete surviving manuscript only covered six of the supposedly seven places, which agreed with Antipater's list.[3]
+
+Earlier and later lists by the historian Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC) and the architect Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305–240 BC), housed at the Museum of Alexandria, survived only as references.
+
+The Colossus of Rhodes was the last of the seven to be completed, after 280 BC, and the first to be destroyed, by an earthquake in 226/225 BC. Hence, all seven existed at the same time for a period of less than 60 years.
+
+The list covered only the sculptural and architectural monuments of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions,[10] which then comprised the known world for the Greeks. Hence, extant sites beyond this realm were not considered as part of contemporary accounts.[1]
+
+The primary accounts, coming from Hellenistic writers, also heavily influenced the places included in the wonders list. Five of the seven entries are a celebration of Greek accomplishments in the arts and architecture (the exceptions being the Pyramids of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon).
+
+The seven wonders on Antipater's list won praises for their notable features, ranging from superlatives of the highest or largest of their types, to the artistry with which they were executed. Their architectural and artistic features were imitated throughout the Hellenistic world and beyond.
+
+The Greek influence in Roman culture, and the revival of Greco-Roman artistic styles during the Renaissance caught the imagination of European artists and travellers.[15] Paintings and sculptures alluding to Antipater's list were made, while adventurers flocked to the actual sites to personally witness the wonders. Legends circulated to further complement the superlatives of the wonders.
+
+Of Antipater's wonders, the only one that has survived to the present day is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Its brilliant white stone facing had survived intact until around 1300 AD, when local communities removed most of the stonework for building materials. The existence of the Hanging Gardens has not been proven, although theories abound.[16] Records and archaeology confirm the existence of the other five wonders. The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were destroyed by fire, while the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Colossus, and tomb of Mausolus were destroyed by earthquakes. Among the artifacts to have survived are sculptures from the tomb of Mausolus and the Temple of Artemis in the British Museum in London.
+
+Still, the listing of seven of the most marvellous architectural and artistic human achievements continued beyond the Ancient Greek times to the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and to the modern age. The Roman poet Martial and the Christian bishop Gregory of Tours had their versions.[1] Reflecting the rise of Christianity and the factor of time, nature and the hand of man overcoming Antipater's seven wonders, Roman and Christian sites began to figure on the list, including the Colosseum, Noah's Ark and Solomon's Temple.[1][3] In the 6th century, a list of seven wonders was compiled by St. Gregory of Tours: the list[17] included the Temple of Solomon, the Pharos of Alexandria and Noah's Ark.
+
+Modern historians, working on the premise that the original Seven Ancient Wonders List was limited in its geographic scope, also had their versions to encompass sites beyond the Hellenistic realm—from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to the Seven Wonders of the World. Indeed, the "seven wonders" label has spawned innumerable versions among international organizations, publications and individuals based on different themes—works of nature, engineering masterpieces, constructions of the Middle Ages, etc. Its purpose has also changed from just a simple travel guidebook or a compendium of curious places, to lists of sites to defend or to preserve.

en/3389.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+
+
+The Seven Wonders of the World or the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a list of remarkable constructions of classical antiquity given by various authors in guidebooks or poems popular among ancient Hellenic tourists. Although the list, in its current form, did not stabilise until the Renaissance, the first such lists of seven wonders date from the 2nd-1st century BC. The original list inspired innumerable versions through the ages, often listing seven entries. Of the original Seven Wonders, only one—the Great Pyramid of Giza, oldest of the ancient wonders—remains relatively intact. The Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were all destroyed. The location and ultimate fate of the Hanging Gardens are unknown, and there is speculation that they may not have existed at all.
+
+The Greek conquest of much of the known western world in the 4th century BC gave Hellenistic travellers access to the civilizations of the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians.[1] Impressed and captivated by the landmarks and marvels of the various lands, these travellers began to list what they saw to remember them.[2][3]
+
+Instead of "wonders", the ancient Greeks spoke of "theamata" (θεάματα), which means "sights", in other words "things to be seen" (Τὰ ἑπτὰ θεάματα τῆς οἰκουμένης [γῆς] Tà heptà theámata tēs oikoumenēs [gēs]). Later, the word for "wonder" ("thaumata" θαύματα, "wonders") was used.[4] Hence, the list was meant to be the Ancient World's counterpart of a travel guidebook.[1]
+
+The first reference to a list of seven such monuments was given by Diodorus Siculus.[5][6] The epigrammist Antipater of Sidon[7] who lived around or before 100 BC,[8] gave a list of seven such monuments, including six of the present list (substituting the walls of Babylon for the lighthouse):[9]
+
+I have gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alpheus, I have seen the hanging gardens, and the Colossus of the Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the sacred house of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus.
+
+Another 2nd century BC observer, who claimed to be the mathematician Philo of Byzantium,[10] wrote a short account entitled The Seven Sights of the World. However, the incomplete surviving manuscript only covered six of the supposedly seven places, which agreed with Antipater's list.[3]
+
+Earlier and later lists by the historian Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC) and the architect Callimachus of Cyrene (ca. 305–240 BC), housed at the Museum of Alexandria, survived only as references.
+
+The Colossus of Rhodes was the last of the seven to be completed, after 280 BC, and the first to be destroyed, by an earthquake in 226/225 BC. Hence, all seven existed at the same time for a period of less than 60 years.
+
+The list covered only the sculptural and architectural monuments of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions,[10] which then comprised the known world for the Greeks. Hence, extant sites beyond this realm were not considered as part of contemporary accounts.[1]
+
+The primary accounts, coming from Hellenistic writers, also heavily influenced the places included in the wonders list. Five of the seven entries are a celebration of Greek accomplishments in the arts and architecture (the exceptions being the Pyramids of Giza and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon).
+
+The seven wonders on Antipater's list won praises for their notable features, ranging from superlatives of the highest or largest of their types, to the artistry with which they were executed. Their architectural and artistic features were imitated throughout the Hellenistic world and beyond.
+
+The Greek influence in Roman culture, and the revival of Greco-Roman artistic styles during the Renaissance caught the imagination of European artists and travellers.[15] Paintings and sculptures alluding to Antipater's list were made, while adventurers flocked to the actual sites to personally witness the wonders. Legends circulated to further complement the superlatives of the wonders.
+
+Of Antipater's wonders, the only one that has survived to the present day is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Its brilliant white stone facing had survived intact until around 1300 AD, when local communities removed most of the stonework for building materials. The existence of the Hanging Gardens has not been proven, although theories abound.[16] Records and archaeology confirm the existence of the other five wonders. The Temple of Artemis and the Statue of Zeus were destroyed by fire, while the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Colossus, and tomb of Mausolus were destroyed by earthquakes. Among the artifacts to have survived are sculptures from the tomb of Mausolus and the Temple of Artemis in the British Museum in London.
+
+Still, the listing of seven of the most marvellous architectural and artistic human achievements continued beyond the Ancient Greek times to the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and to the modern age. The Roman poet Martial and the Christian bishop Gregory of Tours had their versions.[1] Reflecting the rise of Christianity and the factor of time, nature and the hand of man overcoming Antipater's seven wonders, Roman and Christian sites began to figure on the list, including the Colosseum, Noah's Ark and Solomon's Temple.[1][3] In the 6th century, a list of seven wonders was compiled by St. Gregory of Tours: the list[17] included the Temple of Solomon, the Pharos of Alexandria and Noah's Ark.
+
+Modern historians, working on the premise that the original Seven Ancient Wonders List was limited in its geographic scope, also had their versions to encompass sites beyond the Hellenistic realm—from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to the Seven Wonders of the World. Indeed, the "seven wonders" label has spawned innumerable versions among international organizations, publications and individuals based on different themes—works of nature, engineering masterpieces, constructions of the Middle Ages, etc. Its purpose has also changed from just a simple travel guidebook or a compendium of curious places, to lists of sites to defend or to preserve.

en/339.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+
+
+
+
+The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (UK: /ˌɑːrk də ˈtriːɒmf, - ˈtriːoʊmf/,[3][4] US: /- triːˈoʊmf/,[5] French: [aʁk də tʁijɔ̃f də letwal] (listen); lit. '"Triumphal Arch of the Star"') is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile—the étoile or "star" of the juncture formed by its twelve radiating avenues. The location of the arc and the plaza is shared between three arrondissements, 16th (south and west), 17th (north) and 8th (east). The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.
+
+As the central cohesive element of the Axe historique (historic axis, a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route running from the courtyard of the Louvre to the Grande Arche de la Défense), the Arc de Triomphe was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806; its iconographic programme pits heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments with triumphant patriotic messages. Inspired by the Arch of Titus in Rome, Italy, the Arc de Triomphe has an overall height of 50 metres (164 ft), width of 45 m (148 ft) and depth of 22 m (72 ft), while its large vault is 29.19 m (95.8 ft) high and 14.62 m (48.0 ft) wide. The smaller transverse vaults are 18.68 m (61.3 ft) high and 8.44 m (27.7 ft) wide. Three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919 (marking the end of hostilities in World War I), Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane under the arch's primary vault, with the event captured on newsreel.[6][page needed][7]
+
+Paris's Arc de Triomphe was the tallest triumphal arch until the completion of the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City in 1938, which is 67 metres (220 ft) high. The Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, completed in 1982, is modelled on the Arc de Triomphe and is slightly taller at 60 m (197 ft). La Grande Arche in La Defense near Paris is 110 metres high. Although it is not named an Arc de Triomphe, it has been designed on the same model and in the perspective of the Arc de Triomphe. It qualifies as the world's tallest arch.[8]
+
+The Arc de Triomphe is located on the right bank of the Seine at the centre of a dodecagonal configuration of twelve radiating avenues. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years and, in 1810, when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed arch constructed. The architect, Jean Chalgrin, died in 1811 and the work was taken over by Jean-Nicolas Huyot.
+
+During the Bourbon Restoration, construction was halted and it would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, between 1833 and 1836, by the architects Goust, then Huyot, under the direction of Héricart de Thury. On 15 December 1840, brought back to France from Saint Helena, Napoleon's remains passed under it on their way to the Emperor's final resting place at the Invalides.[9] Prior to burial in the Panthéon, the body of Victor Hugo was displayed under the Arc during the night of 22 May 1885.
+
+The sword carried by the Republic in the Marseillaise relief broke off on the day, it is said, that the Battle of Verdun began in 1916. The relief was immediately hidden by tarpaulins to conceal the accident and avoid any undesired ominous interpretations.[10] On 7 August 1919, Charles Godefroy successfully flew his biplane under the Arc.[11] Jean Navarre was the pilot who was tasked to make the flight, but he died on 10 July 1919 when he crashed near Villacoublay while training for the flight.
+
+Following its construction, the Arc de Triomphe became the rallying point of French troops parading after successful military campaigns and for the annual Bastille Day military parade. Famous victory marches around or under the Arc have included the Germans in 1871, the French in 1919, the Germans in 1940, and the French and Allies in 1944[12] and 1945. A United States postage stamp of 1945 shows the Arc de Triomphe in the background as victorious American troops march down the Champs-Élysées and U.S. airplanes fly overhead on 29 August 1944. After the interment of the Unknown Soldier, however, all military parades (including the aforementioned post-1919) have avoided marching through the actual arch. The route taken is up to the arch and then around its side, out of respect for the tomb and its symbolism. Both Hitler in 1940 and de Gaulle in 1944 observed this custom.
+
+By the early 1960s, the monument had grown very blackened from coal soot and automobile exhaust, and during 1965–1966 it was cleaned through bleaching. In the prolongation of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a new arch, the Grande Arche de la Défense, was built in 1982, completing the line of monuments that forms Paris's Axe historique. After the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, the Grande Arche is the third arch built on the same perspective.
+
+In 1995, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria placed a bomb near the Arc de Triomphe which wounded 17 people as part of a campaign of bombings.[13]
+
+In late 2018, the Arc de Triomphe suffered acts of vandalism as part of the Yellow vests movement protests.[14] The vandals sprayed the monument with graffiti and ransacked its small museum.[15]
+
+The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin (1739–1811), in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture. Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire. The main sculptures are not integral friezes but are treated as independent trophies applied to the vast ashlar masonry masses, not unlike the gilt-bronze appliqués on Empire furniture. The four sculptural groups at the base of the Arc are The Triumph of 1810 (Cortot), Resistance and Peace (both by Antoine Étex) and the most renowned of them all, Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 commonly called La Marseillaise (François Rude). The face of the allegorical representation of France calling forth her people on this last was used as the belt buckle for the honorary rank of Marshal of France. Since the fall of Napoleon (1815), the sculpture representing Peace is interpreted as commemorating the Peace of 1815.[citation needed]
+
+In the attic above the richly sculptured frieze of soldiers are 30 shields engraved with the names of major French victories in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.[16] The inside walls of the monument list the names of 660 people, among which are 558 French generals of the First French Empire;[17] The names of those generals killed in battle are underlined. Also inscribed, on the shorter sides of the four supporting columns, are the names of the major French victories in the Napoleonic Wars. The battles that took place in the period between the departure of Napoleon from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo are not included.[citation needed]
+
+For four years from 1882 to 1886, a monumental sculpture by Alexandre Falguière topped the arch.  Titled Le triomphe de la Révolution ("The Triumph of the Revolution"), it depicted a chariot drawn by horses preparing "to crush Anarchy and Despotism". It remained there only four years before falling in ruins.[citation needed]
+
+Inside the monument, a permanent exhibition conceived by the artist Maurice Benayoun and the architect Christophe Girault opened in February 2007.[18] The steel and new media installation interrogates the symbolism of the national monument, questioning the balance of its symbolic message during the last two centuries, oscillating between war and peace.[citation needed]
+
+Beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. Interred on Armistice Day 1920,[19] it has the first eternal flame lit in Western and Eastern Europe since the Vestal Virgins' fire was extinguished in the fourth century. It burns in memory of the dead who were never identified (now in both world wars).[citation needed]
+
+A ceremony is held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier every 11 November on the anniversary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 signed by the Entente Powers and Germany in 1918. It was originally decided on 12 November 1919 to bury the unknown soldier's remains in the Panthéon, but a public letter-writing campaign led to the decision to bury him beneath the Arc de Triomphe. The coffin was put in the chapel on the first floor of the Arc on 10 November 1920, and put in its final resting place on 28 January 1921.[citation needed] The slab on top bears the inscription ICI REPOSE UN SOLDAT FRANÇAIS MORT POUR LA PATRIE 1914–1918 ("Here lies a French soldier who died for the fatherland 1914–1918").
+
+In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy paid their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, accompanied by President Charles de Gaulle. After the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, Mrs Kennedy remembered the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe and requested that an eternal flame be placed next to her husband's grave at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President Charles de Gaulle went to Washington to attend the state funeral, and witnessed Jacqueline Kennedy lighting the eternal flame that had been inspired by her visit to France.[citation needed]
+
+Le Départ de 1792 (La Marseillaise)
+
+Le Triomphe de 1810
+
+La Résistance de 1814
+
+La Paix de 1815
+
+Les funérailles du général Marceau, 20 September 1796
+
+La bataille d'Aboukir,25 July 1799
+
+La bataille de Jemmappes, 6 November 1792
+
+Le passage du pont d'Arcole, 15 November 1796
+
+La prise d'Alexandrie, 3 July 1798
+
+La bataille d'Austerlitz, 2 December 1805
+
+NORTH pillar
+
+SOUTH pillar
+
+EAST pillar
+
+WEST pillar
+
+First World War monument
+
+Permanent exhibition about the design of the Arch
+
+De Gaulle speech plaque
+
+Proclamation of Republic plaque
+
+The Arc de Triomphe is accessible by the RER and Métro, with exit at the Charles de Gaulle—Étoile station.  Because of heavy traffic on the roundabout of which the Arc is the centre, it is recommended that pedestrians use one of two underpasses located at the Champs Élysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée.  A lift will take visitors almost to the top – to the attic, where there is a small museum which contains large models of the Arc and tells its story from the time of its construction. Another 40 steps remain to climb in order to reach the top, the terrasse, from where one can enjoy a panoramic view of Paris.[21]
+
+The location of the arc, as well as the Place de l'Étoile, is shared between three arrondissements, 16th (south and west), 17th (north), and 8th (east).

en/3390.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,175 @@
+
+
+The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.[1][2][3] The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition.
+
+The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name, he thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word "simp" in it, which is short for "simpleton".[4] The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).
+
+Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 684 episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in terms of seasons and number of episodes. A feature-length film, The Simpsons Movie, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million. Then on October 30, 2007, a video game was released. The Simpsons was renewed on February 6, 2019 for a thirty-first and thirty-second season.[5] The former began airing September 29, 2019 and concluded on May 17, 2020, and the latter of which will contain the 700th episode. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television.[6]
+
+The Simpsons received acclaim throughout its first nine[7][8] or ten[9][10] seasons, which are generally considered its "Golden Age", though it has also been criticized for a perceived decline in quality since then. Time named it the 20th century's best television series,[11] and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club named it "television's crowning achievement regardless of format".[12] On January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, and 2 Peabody Awards. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many other later adult-oriented animated sitcoms.
+
+The Simpsons is known for its wide ensemble of main and supporting characters (ensemble cast).
+
+The main characters are the Simpson family, who live in a fictional "Middle America" town of Springfield.[13] Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality. He is married to Marge Bouvier, a stereotypical American housewife and mother. They have three children: Bart, a ten-year-old troublemaker and prankster; Lisa, a precocious eight-year-old activist; and Maggie, the baby of the family who rarely speaks, but communicates by sucking on a pacifier. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care about one another.[14] Homer's dad Grampa Simpson lives in the Springfield Retirement Home after Homer forced his dad to sell his house so that his family could buy theirs. Grampa Simpson has had starring roles in several episodes.
+
+The family also owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball V, renamed Snowball II in "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot".[15] Both pets have had starring roles in several episodes.
+
+The show includes an array of quirky supporting characters, which include Homer's co-workers (also friends) Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson, the school principal Seymour Skinner and teachers Edna Krabappel and Elizabeth Hoover, neighbor Ned Flanders, friends Barney Gumble, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Moe Szyslak, Milhouse Van Houten, and Nelson Muntz, extended relatives Patty and Selma Bouvier, townspeople such as Mayor Quimby, Chief Clancy Wiggum, tycoon Charles Montgomery Burns and his executive assistant Waylon Smithers, and local celebrities Krusty the Clown and news reporter Kent Brockman.
+
+The creators originally intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A number of them have gained expanded roles and subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV.[16]
+
+Despite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays passing, the characters do not age between episodes (either physically or in stated age), and generally appear just as they did when the series began. The series uses a floating timeline in which episodes generally take place in the year the episode is produced even though the characters do not age. Flashbacks and flashforwards do occasionally depict the characters at other points in their lives, with the timeline of these depictions also generally floating relative to the year the episode is produced. For example, in the 1991 episode "I Married Marge", Bart (who is always 10 years old) appears to be born in 1980 or 1981. But in the 1995 episode "And Maggie Makes Three", Maggie (who always appears to be around 1 year old) appears to be born in 1993 or 1994. In the 1992 episode "Lisa's First Word", Lisa (who is always 8) is shown to have been born in 1984.
+
+A canon of the show does exist, although Treehouse of Horror episodes and any fictional story told within the series are typically non-canon. However, continuity is inconsistent and limited in The Simpsons. For example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but may not be able to read in another – however he is consistently portrayed as being Jewish and that his Rabbi father has since died. Lessons learned by the family in one episode may be forgotten in the next. Some examples of limited continuity include Sideshow Bob's appearances where Bart and Lisa flashback at all the crimes he committed in Springfield or when the characters try to remember things that happened in previous episodes.
+
+The Simpsons takes place in the fictional American town of Springfield in an unknown and impossible-to-determine U.S. state. The show is intentionally evasive in regard to Springfield's location.[17] Springfield's geography, and that of its surroundings, contains coastlines, deserts, vast farmland, tall mountains, or whatever the story or joke requires.[18] Groening has said that Springfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the city where he grew up.[19] The name "Springfield" is a common one in America and appears in at least 29 states.[20] Groening has said that he named it after Springfield, Oregon, and the fictitious Springfield which was the setting of the series Father Knows Best. He "figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do."[21]
+
+When producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show The Tracey Ullman Show, he decided to include small animated sketches before and after the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's Life in Hell comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts. Groening initially intended to present an animated version of his Life in Hell series.[22] However, Groening later realized that animating Life in Hell would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of Brooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a dysfunctional family that became the Simpsons.[22][23] He named the characters after his own family members, substituting "Bart" for his own name, adopting an anagram of the word brat.[22]
+
+The Simpson family first appeared as shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987.[24] Groening submitted only basic sketches to the animators and assumed that the figures would be cleaned up in production. However, the animators merely re-traced his drawings, which led to the crude appearance of the characters in the initial shorts.[22] The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo,[25][26] with Wes Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season.[27] Colorist Georgie Peluse was the person who decided to make the characters yellow.[27]
+
+In 1989, a team of production companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The team included the Klasky Csupo animation house. Brooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that prevented Fox from interfering with the show's content.[28] Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called "the mainstream trash" that they were watching.[29] The half-hour series premiered on December 17, 1989, with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".[30] "Some Enchanted Evening" was the first full-length episode produced, but it did not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season, because of animation problems.[31] In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed a lawsuit against Fox, claiming that her show was the source of the series' success. The suit said she should receive a share of the profits of The Simpsons[32]—a claim rejected by the courts.[33]
+
+List of showrunners throughout the series' run:
+
+Matt Groening and James L. Brooks have served as executive producers during the show's entire history, and also function as creative consultants. Sam Simon, described by former Simpsons director Brad Bird as "the unsung hero" of the show,[34] served as creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He was constantly at odds with Groening, Brooks and the show's production company Gracie Films and left in 1993.[35] Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that sees him receive a share of the profits every year, and an executive producer credit despite not having worked on the show since 1993,[35][36] at least until his passing in 2015.[37] A more involved position on the show is the showrunner, who acts as head writer and manages the show's production for an entire season.[27]
+
+The first team of writers, assembled by Sam Simon, consisted of John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky.[38] Newer Simpsons' writing teams typically consist of sixteen writers who propose episode ideas at the beginning of each December.[39] The main writer of each episode writes the first draft. Group rewriting sessions develop final scripts by adding or removing jokes, inserting scenes, and calling for re-readings of lines by the show's vocal performers.[40] Until 2004,[41] George Meyer, who had developed the show since the first season, was active in these sessions. According to long-time writer Jon Vitti, Meyer usually invented the best lines in a given episode, even though other writers may receive script credits.[40] Each episode takes six months to produce so the show rarely comments on current events.[42]
+
+Credited with sixty episodes, John Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons.[43] One of the best-known former writers is Conan O'Brien, who contributed to several episodes in the early 1990s before replacing David Letterman as host of the talk show Late Night.[44] English comedian Ricky Gervais wrote the episode "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", becoming the first celebrity to both write and guest star in the same episode.[45] Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, writers of the film Superbad, wrote the episode "Homer the Whopper", with Rogen voicing a character in it.[46]
+
+At the end of 2007, the writers of The Simpsons went on strike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East. The show's writers had joined the guild in 1998.[47]
+
+The Simpsons has six main cast members: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Barney Gumble, and other adult, male characters.[48] Julie Kavner voices Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma, as well as several minor characters.[48] Castellaneta and Kavner had been a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast and were given the parts so that new actors would not be needed.[49] Cartwright voices Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other children.[48] Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, is the only cast member who regularly voices only one character, although she occasionally plays other episodic characters.[48] The producers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila believed her voice was too high,[50] so she was given the role of Lisa instead.[51] Cartwright was originally brought in to voice Lisa, but upon arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the "middle child" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as "devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever".[52] Groening let her try out for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot.[53] Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had been professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show.[43] Azaria and Shearer do not voice members of the title family, but play a majority of the male townspeople. Azaria, who has been a part of the Simpsons regular voice cast since the second season,[54] voices recurring characters such as Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Professor Frink. Shearer provides voices for Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy and Dr. Hibbert.[48] Every main cast member has won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.[55][56]
+
+With one exception, episode credits list only the voice actors, and not the characters they voice. Both Fox and the production crew wanted to keep their identities secret during the early seasons and, therefore, closed most of the recording sessions while refusing to publish photos of the recording artists.[57] However, the network eventually revealed which roles each actor performed in the episode "Old Money", because the producers said the voice actors should receive credit for their work.[58] In 2003, the cast appeared in an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, doing live performances of their characters' voices.
+
+The six main actors were paid $30,000 per episode until 1998, when they were involved in a pay dispute with Fox. The company threatened to replace them with new actors, even going as far as preparing for casting of new voices, but series creator Groening supported the actors in their action.[59] The issue was soon resolved and, from 1998 to 2004, they were paid $125,000 per episode. The show's revenue continued to rise through syndication and DVD sales, and in April 2004 the main cast stopped appearing for script readings, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode.[60][61] The strike was resolved a month later[62] and their salaries were increased to something between $250,000[63] and $360,000 per episode.[64] In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a "healthy bump" in salary to an amount close to $500,000 per episode.[64] The negotiations were soon completed, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 per episode.[65] Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, the cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.[66]
+
+In addition to the main cast, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, and Russi Taylor voice supporting characters.[48] From 1999 to 2002, Roswell's characters were voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven. Karl Wiedergott has also appeared in minor roles, but does not voice any recurring characters.[67] Wiedergott left the show in 2010, and since then Chris Edgerly has appeared regularly to voice minor characters. Repeat "special guest" cast members include Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Joe Mantegna, Maurice LaMarche, and Kelsey Grammer.[68]  Following Hartman's death in 1998, the characters he voiced (Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz) were retired;[69] Wallace's character of Edna Krabappel was retired as well after her death in 2013. Following Taylor's death in 2019, her characters (including Sherri, Terri, and Martin Prince) are now voiced by Grey Griffin.[70]
+
+Episodes will quite often feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians and scientists. In the earlier seasons, most of the guest stars voiced characters, but eventually more started appearing as themselves. Tony Bennett was the first guest star to appear as himself, appearing briefly in the season two episode "Dancin' Homer".[71] The Simpsons holds the world record for "Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series".[72]
+
+The Simpsons has been dubbed into several other languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It is also one of the few programs dubbed in both standard French and Quebec French.[73] The show has been broadcast in Arabic, but due to Islamic customs, numerous aspects of the show have been changed. For example, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs. Because of such changes, the Arabized version of the series met with a negative reaction from the lifelong Simpsons fans in the area.[74]
+
+Several different U.S. and international studios animate The Simpsons. Throughout the run of the animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, the animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo.[25] With the debut of the series, because of an increased workload, Fox subcontracted production to several local and foreign studios.[25] These are AKOM,[75] Anivision,[76] Rough Draft Studios,[77] USAnimation,[78] and Toonzone Entertainment.[79]
+
+For the first three seasons, Klasky Csupo animated The Simpsons in the United States. In 1992, the show's production company, Gracie Films, switched domestic production to Film Roman,[80] who continued to animate the show until 2016. In Season 14, production switched from traditional cel animation to digital ink and paint.[81] The first episode to experiment with digital coloring was "Radioactive Man" in 1995. Animators used digital ink and paint during production of the season 12 episode "Tennis the Menace", but Gracie Films delayed the regular use of digital ink and paint until two seasons later. The already completed "Tennis the Menace" was broadcast as made.[82]
+
+The production staff at the U.S. animation studio, Film Roman, draws storyboards, designs new characters, backgrounds, props and draws character and background layouts, which in turn become animatics to be screened for the writers at Gracie Films for any changes to be made before the work is shipped overseas. The overseas studios then draw the inbetweens, ink and paint, and render the animation to tape before it is shipped back to the United States to be delivered to Fox three to four months later.[83]
+
+The series began high-definition production in Season 20; the first episode, "Take My Life, Please", aired February 15, 2009. The move to HDTV included a new opening sequence.[84] Matt Groening called it a complicated change because it affected the timing and composition of animation.[85]
+
+The Simpsons uses the standard setup of a situational comedy, or sitcom, as its premise. The series centers on a family and their life in a typical American town,[13] serving as a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle.[86] However, because of its animated nature, The Simpsons' scope is larger than that of a regular sitcom. The town of Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. By having Homer work in a nuclear power plant, the show can comment on the state of the environment.[87] Through Bart and Lisa's days at Springfield Elementary School, the show's writers illustrate pressing or controversial issues in the field of education. The town features a vast array of media channels—from kids' television programming to local news, which enables the producers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry.[88]
+
+Some commentators say the show is political in nature and susceptible to a left-wing bias.[89] Al Jean acknowledged in an interview that "We [the show] are of liberal bent."[90] The writers often evince an appreciation for progressive leanings, but the show makes jokes across the political spectrum.[91] The show portrays government and large corporations as evil entities that take advantage of the common worker.[90] Thus, the writers often portray authority figures in an unflattering or negative light. In The Simpsons, politicians are corrupt, ministers such as Reverend Lovejoy are dismissive to churchgoers, and the local police force is incompetent.[92] Religion also figures as a recurring theme.[93] In times of crisis, the family often turns to God, and the show has dealt with most of the major religions.[94]
+
+The Simpsons' opening sequence is one of the show's most memorable hallmarks. The standard opening has gone through three iterations (a replacement of some shots at the start of the second season, and a brand new sequence when the show switched to high-definition in 2009).[95]
+
+Each has the same basic sequence of events: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title towards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the family on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down on their couch to watch television. The original opening was created by David Silverman, and was the first task he did when production began on the show.[96] The series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro style piece. This piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.[97]
+
+One of the most distinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from episode to episode: Bart writes different things on the school chalkboard,[96] Lisa plays different solos on her saxophone (or occasionally a different instrument), and different gags accompany the family as they enter their living room to sit on the couch.[98]
+
+The special Halloween episode has become an annual tradition. "Treehouse of Horror" first broadcast in 1990 as part of season two and established the pattern of three separate, self-contained stories in each Halloween episode.[99] These pieces usually involve the family in some horror, science fiction, or supernatural setting and often parody or pay homage to a famous piece of work in those genres.[100] They always take place outside the normal continuity of the show. Although the Treehouse series is meant to be seen on Halloween, this changed by the 2000s, when new installments have premiered after Halloween due to Fox's current contract with Major League Baseball's World Series,[101] however, since 2011, every Treehouse of Horror episode has aired in October.
+
+The show's humor turns on cultural references that cover a wide spectrum of society so that viewers from all generations can enjoy the show. Such references, for example, come from movies, television, music, literature, science, and history.[102] The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags into the show's background via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs, newspapers, billboards, and elsewhere. The audience may often not notice the visual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so fleeting that they become apparent only by pausing a video recording of the show or viewing it in slow motion.[103] Kristin Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a "flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show."[104]
+
+One of Bart's early hallmarks was his prank calls to Moe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak in which Bart calls Moe and asks for a gag name. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but soon realizes it is a prank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were apparently based on a series of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings, though Groening has denied any causal connection.[105]
+Moe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis "Red" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side.[106] As the series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up with a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, and the pranks were dropped as a regular joke during the fourth season.[107][108] The Simpsons also often includes self-referential humor.[109] The most common form is jokes about Fox Broadcasting.[110] For example, the episode "She Used to Be My Girl" included a scene in which a Fox News Channel van drove down the street while displaying a large "Bush Cheney 2004" banner and playing Queen's "We Are the Champions", in reference to the 2004 U.S. presidential election and claims of conservative bias in Fox News.[111][112]
+
+The show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and secondary characters have at least one each.[113] Notable expressions include Homer's annoyed grunt "D'oh!", Mr. Burns' "Excellent" and Nelson Muntz's "Ha-ha!" Some of Bart's catchphrases, such as "¡Ay, caramba!", "Don't have a cow, man!" and "Eat my shorts!" appeared on T-shirts in the show's early days.[114] However, Bart rarely used the latter two phrases until after they became popular through the merchandising. The use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The episode "Bart Gets Famous" mocks catchphrase-based humor, as Bart achieves fame on the Krusty the Clown Show solely for saying "I didn't do it."[115]
+
+The Simpsons has gained notoriety for jokes that eventually became reality. Perhaps the most famous example comes from the episode "Bart to the Future", which mentions billionaire Donald Trump having been President of the United States at one time and leaving the nation broke. The episode first aired in 2000, sixteen years before Trump was elected.[116] Another episode, "When You Dish Upon a Star", lampooned 20th Century Fox as a division of The Walt Disney Company. Nineteen years later, Disney purchased Fox.[117] Other examples of The Simpsons predicting the future include the introduction of the Smartwatch, video chat services, autocorrection technology, and Lady Gaga's acrobatic performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show.[118] Conversely, some fact-checking sources such as Snopes have debunked many of these claims,[119] including the aforementioned Lady Gaga one.[120]
+
+A number of neologisms that originated on The Simpsons have entered popular vernacular.[121][122] Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium, remarked, "The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the Bible as our culture's greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry other textual allusions."[122] The most famous catchphrase is Homer's annoyed grunt: "D'oh!" So ubiquitous is the expression that it is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, but without the apostrophe.[123] Dan Castellaneta says he borrowed the phrase from James Finlayson, an actor in many Laurel and Hardy comedies, who pronounced it in a more elongated and whining tone. The staff of The Simpsons told Castellaneta to shorten the noise, and it went on to become the well-known exclamation in the television series.[124]
+
+Groundskeeper Willie's description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was used by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg in 2003, after France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. The phrase quickly spread to other journalists.[122][125] "Cromulent" and "embiggen", words used in "Lisa the Iconoclast", have since appeared in the Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon,[126] and scientific journals respectively.[122][127] "Kwyjibo", a fake Scrabble word invented by Bart in "Bart the Genius", was used as one of the aliases of the creator of the Melissa worm.[128] "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords", was used by Kent Brockman in "Deep Space Homer" and has become a snowclone,[129] with variants of the utterance used to express obsequious submission. It has been used in media, such as New Scientist magazine.[130] The dismissive term "Meh", believed to have been popularized by the show,[122][131][132] entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008.[133] Other words credited as stemming from the show include "yoink" and "craptacular".[122]
+
+The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations includes several quotations from the show. As well as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", Homer's lines, "Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try", from "Burns' Heir" (season five, 1994) as well as "Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all", from "Eight Misbehavin'" (season 11, 1999), entered the dictionary in August 2007.[134]
+
+Many quotes/scenes have become popular internet memes, including Jasper Beardley‘s quote "That's a paddlin’" from The PTA Disbands (season 6, 1995) and Steamed Hams from 22 Short Films About Springfield (season 7, 1996).
+
+The Simpsons was the first successful animated program in American prime time since Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in the 1970s.[135] During most of the 1980s, US pundits considered animated shows as appropriate only for children, and animating a show was too expensive to achieve a quality suitable for prime-time television. The Simpsons changed this perception,[25] initially leading to a short period where networks attempted to recreate prime-time cartoon success with shows like Capitol Critters, Fish Police, and Family Dog, which were expensive and unsuccessful.[136] The Simpsons' use of Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming made the episodes cheaper. The success of The Simpsons and the lower production cost prompted US television networks to take chances on other adult animated series.[25] This development led US producers to a 1990s boom in new, animated prime-time shows for adults, such as Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Futurama and The Critic.[25] For Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, "The Simpsons created an audience for prime-time animation that had not been there for many, many years ... As far as I'm concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium."[137]
+
+The Simpsons has had crossovers with four other shows. In the episode "A Star Is Burns", Marge invites Jay Sherman, the main character of The Critic, to be a judge for a film festival in Springfield. Matt Groening had his name removed from the episode since he had no involvement with The Critic.[138] South Park later paid homage to The Simpsons with the episode "Simpsons Already Did It".[139] In "Simpsorama", the Planet Express crew from Futurama come to Springfield in the present to prevent the Simpsons from destroying the future.[140] In the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy", the Griffins visit Springfield and meet the Simpsons.[141]
+
+The Simpsons has also influenced live-action shows like Malcolm in the Middle, which featured the use of sight gags and did not use a laugh track unlike most sitcoms.[142][143] Malcolm in the Middle debuted January 9, 2000, in the time slot after The Simpsons. Ricky Gervais called The Simpsons an influence on The Office,[144] and fellow British sitcom Spaced was, according to its director Edgar Wright, "an attempt to do a live-action The Simpsons."[145] In Georgia, the animated television sitcom The Samsonadzes, launched in November 2009, has been noted for its very strong resemblance with The Simpsons, which its creator Shalva Ramishvili has acknowledged.[146][147]
+
+The Simpsons was the Fox network's first television series to rank among a season's top 30 highest-rated shows.[157] In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed "Bartmania".[158][159][160][161] He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold;[162] as many as one million were sold on some days.[163] Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" and "Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')".[164][165][166] The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales.[164] Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.[167]
+
+Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons' time slot from 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it competed with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time.[168][169] Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry.[163][168] "Bart Gets an F" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen ratings, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network,[170] and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons.[171] The show moved back to its Sunday slot in 1994 and has remained there ever since.[172]
+
+The Simpsons has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, and it has been noted for being described as "the most irreverent and unapologetic show on the air."[173] In a 1990 review of the show, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it as "the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on The Simpsons."[174] Tucker also described the show as a "pop-cultural phenomenon, a prime-time cartoon show that appeals to the entire family."[175]
+
+On February 9, 1997, The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones with the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" as the longest-running prime-time animated series in the United States.[176] In 2004, The Simpsons replaced The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 to 1966) as the longest-running sitcom (animated or live action) in the United States.[177] In 2009, The Simpsons surpassed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet's record of 435 episodes and is now recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest running sitcom (in terms of episode count).[178][179] In October 2004, Scooby-Doo briefly overtook The Simpsons as the American animated show with the highest number of episodes (albeit under several different iterations).[180] However, network executives in April 2005 again cancelled Scooby-Doo, which finished with 371 episodes, and The Simpsons reclaimed the title with 378 episodes at the end of their seventeenth season.[181] In May 2007, The Simpsons reached their 400th episode at the end of the eighteenth season. While The Simpsons has the record for the number of episodes by an American animated show, other animated series have surpassed The Simpsons.[182] For example, the Japanese anime series Sazae-san has over 7,000 episodes to its credit.[182]
+
+In 2009, Fox began a year-long celebration of the show titled "Best. 20 Years. Ever." to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons. One of the first parts of the celebration is the "Unleash Your Yellow" contest in which entrants must design a poster for the show.[183] The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after "Bart the Genius" aired on January 14, 1990), with The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!, a documentary special by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the "cultural phenomenon of The Simpsons".[184][185]
+
+As of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), The Simpsons became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, having surpassed the 1955–1975 run of Gunsmoke.  On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons also surpassed Gunsmoke's 635-episode count with the episode "Forgive and Regret."[177][186]
+
+On February 6, 2019, it was announced that The Simpsons has been renewed for Seasons 31 and 32.[187]
+
+The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards,[72] 34 Annie Awards[188] and a Peabody Award.[189] In a 1999 issue celebrating the 20th century's greatest achievements in arts and entertainment, Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television series.[190] In that same issue, Time included Bart Simpson in the Time 100, the publication's list of the century's 100 most influential people.[191] Bart was the only fictional character on the list. On January 14, 2000, the Simpsons were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[192] Also in 2000, Entertainment Weekly magazine TV critic Ken Tucker named The Simpsons the greatest television show of the 1990s. Furthermore, viewers of the UK television channel Channel 4 have voted The Simpsons at the top of two polls: 2001's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows,[193] and 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons,[194] with Homer Simpson voted into first place in 2001's 100 Greatest TV Characters.[195] Homer also placed ninth on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Greatest TV icons".[196] In 2002, The Simpsons ranked #8 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time,[197] and was ranked the #6 cult show in 2004.[198] In 2007, it moved to #8 on TV Guide's cult shows list[199] and was included in Time's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time".[200] In 2008 the show was placed in first on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 100 Shows of the Past 25 Years".[201] Empire named it the greatest TV show of all time.[202] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer "the greatest character of the last 20 years",[203] while in 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed The Simpsons as the 11th "best written" series in television history.[204] In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Simpsons as the greatest TV cartoon of all time[205] and the tenth greatest show of all time.[206] A 2015 The Hollywood Reporter survey of 2,800 actors, producers, directors, and other industry people named it as their #10 favorite show.[207] In 2015, British newspaper The Telegraph named The Simpsons as one of the 10 best TV sitcoms of all time.[208] Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked The Simpsons as the greatest American TV series of all time in their 2016 book TV (The Book).[209]
+
+Bart's rebellious, bad boy nature, which underlies his misbehavior and rarely leads to any punishment, led some people to characterize him as a poor role model for children.[210][211] In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a "threat to learning" because of his "underachiever and proud of it" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education.[212] Others described him as "egotistical, aggressive and mean-spirited".[213] In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him "angry, confused, frustrated". In response, Matt Groening said, "That sums up Bart, all right. Most people are in a struggle to be normal [and] he thinks normal is very boring, and does things that others just wished they dare do."[214] On January 27, 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush said, "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons."[164] The writers rushed out a tongue-in-cheek reply in the form of a short segment which aired three days later before a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad" in which Bart replied, "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."[215][216]
+
+Various episodes of the show have generated controversy. The Simpsons visit Australia in "Bart vs. Australia" (season six, 1995) and Brazil in "Blame It on Lisa" (season 13, 2002) and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the visited countries.[217] In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which claimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime, kidnappings, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten Fox with legal action.[218] Groening was a fierce and vocal critic of the episode "A Star Is Burns" (season six, 1995) which featured a crossover with The Critic. He felt that it was just an advertisement for The Critic, and that people would incorrectly associate the show with him. When he was unsuccessful in getting the episode pulled, he had his name removed from the credits and went public with his concerns, openly criticizing James L. Brooks and saying the episode "violates the Simpsons' universe." In response, Brooks said, "I am furious with Matt, ... he's allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in the press is going too far. ... his behavior right now is rotten."[138][219]
+
+"The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) is one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening and by Harry Shearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."[220] In a subsequent interview in 2006, Shearer added, "Now, the writers refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing the audience for paying attention."[221]
+
+The show has reportedly been taken off the air in several countries. China banned it from prime-time television in August 2006, "in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios."[222] In 2008, Venezuela barred the show from airing on morning television as it was deemed "unsuitable for children".[223] The same year, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons, South Park and some other Western cartoons be removed from broadcast schedules "for propaganda of various vices" and the broadcaster's license to be revoked. However, the court decision later dismissed this request.[224]
+
+Critics' reviews of early Simpsons episodes praised the show for its sassy humor, wit, realism, and intelligence.[29][225] However, in the late 1990s, around the airing of season 10, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some critics started calling the show "tired".[226] By 2000, some long-term fans had become disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-driven plots to what they perceived as an overemphasis on zany antics.[227][228][229] Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald attributed the decline in quality to an abandonment of character-driven storylines in favor of celebrity cameo appearances and references to popular culture. Schembri wrote in 2011: "The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from commanding attention to merely being attention-seeking. It began by proving that cartoon characters don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested with real emotions. Now the show has in essence fermented into a limp parody of itself. Memorable story arcs have been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity walk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue."[230]
+
+In 2010, the BBC noted "the common consensus is that The Simpsons' golden era ended after season nine",[8] and Todd Leopold of CNN, in an article looking at its perceived decline, stated "for many fans ... the glory days are long past."[229] Similarly, Tyler Wilson of Coeur d'Alene Press has referred to seasons one to nine as the show's "golden age",[7] and Ian Nathan of Empire described the show's classic era as being "say, the first ten seasons."[9] Jon Heacock of LucidWorks stated that "for the first ten years [seasons], the show was consistently at the top of its game", with "so many moments, quotations, and references – both epic and obscure – that helped turn the Simpson family into the cultural icons that they remain to this day."[10]
+
+Mike Scully, who was showrunner during seasons nine through twelve, has been the subject of criticism.[231][232] Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote that "under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon ... Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny, but it hasn't been touching in years."[231] When asked in 2007 how the series' longevity is sustained, Scully joked: "Lower your quality standards. Once you've done that you can go on forever."[233]
+
+Al Jean, showrunner since season thirteen, has also been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that the show has continued to decline in quality under his tenure. Former writers have complained that under Jean, the show is "on auto-pilot", "too sentimental", and the episodes are "just being cranked out." Some critics believe that the show has "entered a steady decline under Jean and is no longer really funny."[234] John Ortved, author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, characterized the Jean era as "toothless",[235] and criticized what he perceived as the show's increase in social and political commentary.[236] Jean responded: "Well, it's possible that we've declined. But honestly, I've been here the whole time and I do remember in season two people saying, 'It's gone downhill.' If we'd listened to that then we would have stopped after episode 13. I'm glad we didn't."[237]
+
+In 2004, cast member Harry Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now."[238] Cast member Dan Castellaneta responded: "I don't agree, ... I think Harry's issue is that the show isn't as grounded as it was in the first three or four seasons, that it's gotten crazy or a little more madcap. I think it organically changes to stay fresh."[239] Also in 2004 author Douglas Coupland described claims of declining quality in the series as "hogwash", saying "The Simpsons hasn't fumbled the ball in fourteen years, it's hardly likely to fumble it now."[240] In an April 2006 interview, Groening said: "I honestly don't see any end in sight. I think it's possible that the show will get too financially cumbersome ... but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or better than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative, the stories do things that we haven't done before, so creatively there's no reason to quit."[241]
+
+In 2016, popular culture writer Anna Leszkiewicz suggested that even though The Simpsons still holds cultural relevance, contemporary appeal is only for the first ten seasons, with recent episodes only garnering mainstream attention when a favorite character from the golden era is killed off, or when new information and shock twists are given for old characters.[242] The series' ratings have also declined; while the first season enjoyed an average of 13.4 million viewing households per episode in the U.S.,[157] the twenty-first season had an average of 7.2 million viewers.[243]
+
+Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz argued in their 2016 book titled TV (The Book) that the peak of The Simpsons are "roughly seasons [three through twelve]", and that despite the decline, episodes from the later seasons such as "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" and "Holidays of Future Passed" could be considered on par with the earlier classic episodes, further stating that "even if you want to call the show today a thin shadow of its former self, think about how mind-boggingly great its former self had to be for so-diminished a version to be watchable at all."[244][245]
+
+In a 2020 article, Uproxx writer Josh Kurp stated that while he agrees with the sentiment that The Simpsons is not as good as it used to be, it is because "it was working at a level of comedy and characterization that no show ever has". He felt there were still many reasons to watch the series, as it was "still capable of quality television, and even the occasional new classic" and the fact that the show was willing to experiment, giving examples such as bringing on guest animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Sylvain Chomet to produce couch gags, and guest writers like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Pete Holmes and Megan Amram to write episodes.[246]
+
+The stereotypical nature of the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has long been the subject of controversy. This was particularly highlighted by Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu's 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu. In the film, Kondabolu states that as a child he was a fan of The Simpsons and liked Apu, but he now finds the character's stereotypical nature troublesome. Defenders of the character responded that the show is built on comical stereotypes, with creator Matt Groening saying, "that's the nature of cartooning."[247] He added that he was "proud of what we do on the show", and "it's a time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended".[248] In response to the controversy, Apu's voice actor, Hank Azaria, said he was willing to step aside from his role as Apu: "The most important thing is to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character."[249] In February 2020, he confirmed that he would no longer voice Apu. Groening stated at the same time that the character would remain in the show.
+
+The criticisms were referenced in the season 29 episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished", when Lisa breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience by saying, "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?" to which Marge replies, "Some things will be addressed at a later date." Lisa adds, "If at all." This reference was clarified by the fact that there was a framed photo of Apu with the caption on the photo saying "Don't have a cow, Apu", a play on Bart's catchphrase "Don't have a cow, man," as well as the fact that Hindus do not eat cows as they are considered sacred. In October 2018, it was reported that Apu would be written out of the show,[250] which Groening denied.[251]
+
+On June 26, 2020, in light of the various Black Lives Matter protests, Fox announced that non-white characters (such as Carl Carlson and Dr. Hibbert, among others) will no longer be voiced by white actors.[252]
+
+Numerous Simpson-related comic books have been released over the years. So far, nine comic book series have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993.[253] The first comic strips based on The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine Simpsons Illustrated, which was a companion magazine to the show.[254] The comic strips were popular and a one-shot comic book titled Simpsons Comics and Stories, containing four different stories, was released in 1993 for the fans.[255] The book was a success and due to this, the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, and his companions Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Steve Vance and Cindy Vance created the publishing company Bongo Comics.[255] Issues of Simpsons Comics, Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Bart Simpson have been collected and reprinted in trade paperbacks in the United States by HarperCollins.[256][257][258]
+
+20th Century Fox, Gracie Films, and Film Roman produced The Simpsons Movie, an animated film that was released on July 27, 2007.[259] The film was directed by long-time Simpsons producer David Silverman and written by a team of Simpsons writers comprising Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, George Meyer, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, David Mirkin, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, and Ian Maxtone-Graham.[259] Production of the film occurred alongside continued writing of the series despite long-time claims by those involved in the show that a film would enter production only after the series had concluded.[259] There had been talk of a possible feature-length Simpsons film ever since the early seasons of the series. James L. Brooks originally thought that the story of the episode "Kamp Krusty" was suitable for a film, but he encountered difficulties in trying to expand the script to feature-length.[260] For a long time, difficulties such as lack of a suitable story and an already fully engaged crew of writers delayed the project.[241]
+
+On August 10, 2018, 20th Century Fox announced that a sequel is in development.[261]
+
+Collections of original music featured in the series have been released on the albums Songs in the Key of Springfield, Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and The Simpsons: Testify.[262] Several songs have been recorded with the purpose of a single or album release and have not been featured on the show. The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200[263] and becoming certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.[264] The first single from the album was the pop rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any credit.[265] The Yellow Album was released in 1998, but received poor reception and did not chart in any country.[266][267][268]
+
+In 2007, it was officially announced that The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride, would be implemented into the Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood.[269] It officially opened May 15, 2008 in Florida[270] and May 19, 2008, in Hollywood.[271] In the ride, patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called Krustyland built by Krusty the Clown. However, Sideshow Bob is loose from prison to get revenge on Krusty and the Simpson family.[272] It features more than 24 regular characters from The Simpsons and features the voices of the regular cast members, as well as Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor and Kelsey Grammer.[273] Harry Shearer did not participate in the ride, so none of his characters has vocal parts.[274]
+
+Numerous video games based on the show have been produced. Some of the early games include Konami's arcade game The Simpsons (1991) and Acclaim Entertainment's The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (1991).[275][276] More modern games include The Simpsons: Road Rage (2001), The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003) and The Simpsons Game (2007).[277][278][279] Electronic Arts, which produced The Simpsons Game, has owned the exclusive rights to create video games based on the show since 2005.[280] In 2010, they released a game called The Simpsons Arcade for iOS.[281] Another EA-produced mobile game, Tapped Out, was released in 2012 for iOS users, then in 2013 for Android and Kindle users.[282][283][284] Two Simpsons pinball machines have been produced: one that was available briefly after the first season, and another in 2007, both out of production.[285]
+
+The cable television network FXX has exclusive cable and digital syndication rights for The Simpsons. Original contracts had previously stated that syndication rights for The Simpsons would not be sold to cable until the series conclusion, at a time when cable syndication deals were highly rare. The series has been syndicated to local broadcast stations in nearly all markets throughout the United States since September 1993.[286]
+
+FXX premiered The Simpsons on their network on August 21, 2014 by starting a twelve-day marathon which featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already been released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Simpsons Movie, which FX Networks had already owned the rights to air. It was the longest continuous marathon in the history of television (until VH1 Classic aired a 433-hour, nineteen-day, marathon of Saturday Night Live in 2015; celebrating that program's 40th anniversary).[287][288] The first day of the marathon was the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the ratings more than tripled that those of regular prime time programming for FXX.[289] Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after night, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each night.[290] In Australia, a marathon of every episode of the show (at the time) aired from 16 December 2019 to 5 January 2020 on Fox8 (a cable network operated on pay TV provider Foxtel and a corporate sibling to the American Fox network).[291]
+
+On May 14, 2019, it was announced that FX Networks would share The Simpsons with Freeform starting October 2, 2019.[292]
+
+On October 21, 2014, a digital service courtesy of the FXNOW app, called Simpsons World, launched. Simpsons World with every episode of the series accessible to authenticated FX subscribers, and is available on game consoles such as Xbox One, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and online via web browser.[293][294] There was early criticism of both wrong aspect ratios for earlier episodes and the length of commercial breaks on the streaming service, but that problem was soon amended with fewer commercial breaks during individual episodes.[295] Later it was announced that Simpsons World would now let users watch all of the SD episodes in their original format.[296] Simpsons World was discontinued after the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019, where the series streams exclusively.[297] Initially, the series was only available cropped to 16:9 without the option to view the original 4:3 versions, reigniting criticisms of cropping old episodes.[298] In response, Disney announced that "...in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series."[299][300] On May 28, 2020, Disney+ made the first 19 seasons, along with some episodes from season 20, of The Simpsons available in both 16:9 and the original 4:3 aspect ratio.[301]
+
+The season 3 premiere "Stark Raving Dad", which features Michael Jackson as the voice of Leon Kompowsky, was pulled out of rotation in 2019 by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Al Jean after HBO aired the documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men share details into how Jackson allegedly abused them as children.[302][303] It is therefore unavailable on Disney+. However, the episode is still available on The Complete Third Season DVD box set released on August 26, 2003.[304]
+
+In July 2017, all episodes from seasons 4 to 19 were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store in Canada.[305]
+
+The popularity of The Simpsons has made it a billion-dollar merchandising industry.[164] The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from T-shirts to posters. The Simpsons has been used as a theme for special editions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, Operation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer Do? and Simpsons Jeopardy!. Several card games such as trump cards and The Simpsons Trading Card Game have also been released. Many official or unofficial Simpsons books such as episode guides have been published. Many episodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years. When the first season DVD was released in 2001, it quickly became the best-selling television DVD in history, although it was later overtaken by the first season of Chappelle's Show.[306] In particular, seasons one through seventeen were released on DVD for 13 years between September 2001 to December 2014 in the U.S./Canada (Region 1), Europe (Region 2) and Australia/New Zealand/Latin America (Region 4). However, on April 19, 2015, Al Jean announced that the Season 17 DVD would be the last one ever produced, leaving the collection from Seasons 1 to 17, Season 20 (released out of order in 2010), with Seasons 18, 19, and 21 onwards unreleased.[307][308] Jean also stated that the deleted scenes and commentaries would try to be released to the Simpsons World app, and that they were pushing for Simpsons World to be expanded outside of the U.S.[307] Two years later, however, on July 22, 2017, it was announced that Season 18 would be released on December 5, 2017 on DVD.[309] Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019 on DVD.[310]
+
+In 2003, about 500 companies around the world were licensed to use Simpsons characters in their advertising.[311] As a promotion for The Simpsons Movie, twelve 7-Eleven stores were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts and sold The Simpsons related products. These included "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O" cereal, pink doughnuts with sprinkles, and "Squishees".[312]
+
+In 2008, consumers around the world spent $750 million on merchandise related to The Simpsons, with half of the amount originating from the United States. By 2009, 20th Century Fox had greatly increased merchandising efforts.[313] On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, to commemorate the show's twentieth anniversary.[314] The Simpsons is the first television series still in production to receive this recognition.[315][316] The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.[317] Approximately one billion were printed, but only 318 million were sold, costing the Postal Service $1.2 million.[318][319]
+
+
+

en/3391.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,175 @@
+
+
+The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company.[1][2][3] The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition.
+
+The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a solicitation for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional family and named the characters after his own family members, substituting Bart for his own name, he thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word "simp" in it, which is short for "simpleton".[4] The shorts became a part of The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After three seasons, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime time show and became Fox's first series to land in the Top 30 ratings in a season (1989–1990).
+
+Since its debut on December 17, 1989, 684 episodes of The Simpsons have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in terms of seasons and number of episodes. A feature-length film, The Simpsons Movie, was released in theaters worldwide on July 27, 2007, and grossed over $527 million. Then on October 30, 2007, a video game was released. The Simpsons was renewed on February 6, 2019 for a thirty-first and thirty-second season.[5] The former began airing September 29, 2019 and concluded on May 17, 2020, and the latter of which will contain the 700th episode. The Simpsons is a joint production by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television and syndicated by 20th Television.[6]
+
+The Simpsons received acclaim throughout its first nine[7][8] or ten[9][10] seasons, which are generally considered its "Golden Age", though it has also been criticized for a perceived decline in quality since then. Time named it the 20th century's best television series,[11] and Erik Adams of The A.V. Club named it "television's crowning achievement regardless of format".[12] On January 14, 2000, the Simpson family was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards, 34 Annie Awards, and 2 Peabody Awards. Homer's exclamatory catchphrase "D'oh!" has been adopted into the English language, while The Simpsons has influenced many other later adult-oriented animated sitcoms.
+
+The Simpsons is known for its wide ensemble of main and supporting characters (ensemble cast).
+
+The main characters are the Simpson family, who live in a fictional "Middle America" town of Springfield.[13] Homer, the father, works as a safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, a position at odds with his careless, buffoonish personality. He is married to Marge Bouvier, a stereotypical American housewife and mother. They have three children: Bart, a ten-year-old troublemaker and prankster; Lisa, a precocious eight-year-old activist; and Maggie, the baby of the family who rarely speaks, but communicates by sucking on a pacifier. Although the family is dysfunctional, many episodes examine their relationships and bonds with each other and they are often shown to care about one another.[14] Homer's dad Grampa Simpson lives in the Springfield Retirement Home after Homer forced his dad to sell his house so that his family could buy theirs. Grampa Simpson has had starring roles in several episodes.
+
+The family also owns a dog, Santa's Little Helper, and a cat, Snowball V, renamed Snowball II in "I, (Annoyed Grunt)-Bot".[15] Both pets have had starring roles in several episodes.
+
+The show includes an array of quirky supporting characters, which include Homer's co-workers (also friends) Lenny Leonard and Carl Carlson, the school principal Seymour Skinner and teachers Edna Krabappel and Elizabeth Hoover, neighbor Ned Flanders, friends Barney Gumble, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Moe Szyslak, Milhouse Van Houten, and Nelson Muntz, extended relatives Patty and Selma Bouvier, townspeople such as Mayor Quimby, Chief Clancy Wiggum, tycoon Charles Montgomery Burns and his executive assistant Waylon Smithers, and local celebrities Krusty the Clown and news reporter Kent Brockman.
+
+The creators originally intended many of these characters as one-time jokes or for fulfilling needed functions in the town. A number of them have gained expanded roles and subsequently starred in their own episodes. According to Matt Groening, the show adopted the concept of a large supporting cast from the comedy show SCTV.[16]
+
+Despite the depiction of yearly milestones such as holidays or birthdays passing, the characters do not age between episodes (either physically or in stated age), and generally appear just as they did when the series began. The series uses a floating timeline in which episodes generally take place in the year the episode is produced even though the characters do not age. Flashbacks and flashforwards do occasionally depict the characters at other points in their lives, with the timeline of these depictions also generally floating relative to the year the episode is produced. For example, in the 1991 episode "I Married Marge", Bart (who is always 10 years old) appears to be born in 1980 or 1981. But in the 1995 episode "And Maggie Makes Three", Maggie (who always appears to be around 1 year old) appears to be born in 1993 or 1994. In the 1992 episode "Lisa's First Word", Lisa (who is always 8) is shown to have been born in 1984.
+
+A canon of the show does exist, although Treehouse of Horror episodes and any fictional story told within the series are typically non-canon. However, continuity is inconsistent and limited in The Simpsons. For example, Krusty the Clown may be able to read in one episode, but may not be able to read in another – however he is consistently portrayed as being Jewish and that his Rabbi father has since died. Lessons learned by the family in one episode may be forgotten in the next. Some examples of limited continuity include Sideshow Bob's appearances where Bart and Lisa flashback at all the crimes he committed in Springfield or when the characters try to remember things that happened in previous episodes.
+
+The Simpsons takes place in the fictional American town of Springfield in an unknown and impossible-to-determine U.S. state. The show is intentionally evasive in regard to Springfield's location.[17] Springfield's geography, and that of its surroundings, contains coastlines, deserts, vast farmland, tall mountains, or whatever the story or joke requires.[18] Groening has said that Springfield has much in common with Portland, Oregon, the city where he grew up.[19] The name "Springfield" is a common one in America and appears in at least 29 states.[20] Groening has said that he named it after Springfield, Oregon, and the fictitious Springfield which was the setting of the series Father Knows Best. He "figured out that Springfield was one of the most common names for a city in the U.S. In anticipation of the success of the show, I thought, 'This will be cool; everyone will think it's their Springfield.' And they do."[21]
+
+When producer James L. Brooks was working on the television variety show The Tracey Ullman Show, he decided to include small animated sketches before and after the commercial breaks. Having seen one of cartoonist Matt Groening's Life in Hell comic strips, Brooks asked Groening to pitch an idea for a series of animated shorts. Groening initially intended to present an animated version of his Life in Hell series.[22] However, Groening later realized that animating Life in Hell would require the rescinding of publication rights for his life's work. He therefore chose another approach while waiting in the lobby of Brooks's office for the pitch meeting, hurriedly formulating his version of a dysfunctional family that became the Simpsons.[22][23] He named the characters after his own family members, substituting "Bart" for his own name, adopting an anagram of the word brat.[22]
+
+The Simpson family first appeared as shorts in The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987.[24] Groening submitted only basic sketches to the animators and assumed that the figures would be cleaned up in production. However, the animators merely re-traced his drawings, which led to the crude appearance of the characters in the initial shorts.[22] The animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo,[25][26] with Wes Archer, David Silverman, and Bill Kopp being animators for the first season.[27] Colorist Georgie Peluse was the person who decided to make the characters yellow.[27]
+
+In 1989, a team of production companies adapted The Simpsons into a half-hour series for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The team included the Klasky Csupo animation house. Brooks negotiated a provision in the contract with the Fox network that prevented Fox from interfering with the show's content.[28] Groening said his goal in creating the show was to offer the audience an alternative to what he called "the mainstream trash" that they were watching.[29] The half-hour series premiered on December 17, 1989, with "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire".[30] "Some Enchanted Evening" was the first full-length episode produced, but it did not broadcast until May 1990, as the last episode of the first season, because of animation problems.[31] In 1992, Tracey Ullman filed a lawsuit against Fox, claiming that her show was the source of the series' success. The suit said she should receive a share of the profits of The Simpsons[32]—a claim rejected by the courts.[33]
+
+List of showrunners throughout the series' run:
+
+Matt Groening and James L. Brooks have served as executive producers during the show's entire history, and also function as creative consultants. Sam Simon, described by former Simpsons director Brad Bird as "the unsung hero" of the show,[34] served as creative supervisor for the first four seasons. He was constantly at odds with Groening, Brooks and the show's production company Gracie Films and left in 1993.[35] Before leaving, he negotiated a deal that sees him receive a share of the profits every year, and an executive producer credit despite not having worked on the show since 1993,[35][36] at least until his passing in 2015.[37] A more involved position on the show is the showrunner, who acts as head writer and manages the show's production for an entire season.[27]
+
+The first team of writers, assembled by Sam Simon, consisted of John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, George Meyer, Jeff Martin, Al Jean, Mike Reiss, Jay Kogen and Wallace Wolodarsky.[38] Newer Simpsons' writing teams typically consist of sixteen writers who propose episode ideas at the beginning of each December.[39] The main writer of each episode writes the first draft. Group rewriting sessions develop final scripts by adding or removing jokes, inserting scenes, and calling for re-readings of lines by the show's vocal performers.[40] Until 2004,[41] George Meyer, who had developed the show since the first season, was active in these sessions. According to long-time writer Jon Vitti, Meyer usually invented the best lines in a given episode, even though other writers may receive script credits.[40] Each episode takes six months to produce so the show rarely comments on current events.[42]
+
+Credited with sixty episodes, John Swartzwelder is the most prolific writer on The Simpsons.[43] One of the best-known former writers is Conan O'Brien, who contributed to several episodes in the early 1990s before replacing David Letterman as host of the talk show Late Night.[44] English comedian Ricky Gervais wrote the episode "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife", becoming the first celebrity to both write and guest star in the same episode.[45] Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, writers of the film Superbad, wrote the episode "Homer the Whopper", with Rogen voicing a character in it.[46]
+
+At the end of 2007, the writers of The Simpsons went on strike together with the other members of the Writers Guild of America, East. The show's writers had joined the guild in 1998.[47]
+
+The Simpsons has six main cast members: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer. Castellaneta voices Homer Simpson, Grampa Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Barney Gumble, and other adult, male characters.[48] Julie Kavner voices Marge Simpson and Patty and Selma, as well as several minor characters.[48] Castellaneta and Kavner had been a part of The Tracey Ullman Show cast and were given the parts so that new actors would not be needed.[49] Cartwright voices Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum and other children.[48] Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, is the only cast member who regularly voices only one character, although she occasionally plays other episodic characters.[48] The producers decided to hold casting for the roles of Bart and Lisa. Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila believed her voice was too high,[50] so she was given the role of Lisa instead.[51] Cartwright was originally brought in to voice Lisa, but upon arriving at the audition, she found that Lisa was simply described as the "middle child" and at the time did not have much personality. Cartwright became more interested in the role of Bart, who was described as "devious, underachieving, school-hating, irreverent, [and] clever".[52] Groening let her try out for the part instead, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot.[53] Cartwright is the only one of the six main Simpsons cast members who had been professionally trained in voice acting prior to working on the show.[43] Azaria and Shearer do not voice members of the title family, but play a majority of the male townspeople. Azaria, who has been a part of the Simpsons regular voice cast since the second season,[54] voices recurring characters such as Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and Professor Frink. Shearer provides voices for Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Principal Skinner, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy and Dr. Hibbert.[48] Every main cast member has won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance.[55][56]
+
+With one exception, episode credits list only the voice actors, and not the characters they voice. Both Fox and the production crew wanted to keep their identities secret during the early seasons and, therefore, closed most of the recording sessions while refusing to publish photos of the recording artists.[57] However, the network eventually revealed which roles each actor performed in the episode "Old Money", because the producers said the voice actors should receive credit for their work.[58] In 2003, the cast appeared in an episode of Inside the Actors Studio, doing live performances of their characters' voices.
+
+The six main actors were paid $30,000 per episode until 1998, when they were involved in a pay dispute with Fox. The company threatened to replace them with new actors, even going as far as preparing for casting of new voices, but series creator Groening supported the actors in their action.[59] The issue was soon resolved and, from 1998 to 2004, they were paid $125,000 per episode. The show's revenue continued to rise through syndication and DVD sales, and in April 2004 the main cast stopped appearing for script readings, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode.[60][61] The strike was resolved a month later[62] and their salaries were increased to something between $250,000[63] and $360,000 per episode.[64] In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a "healthy bump" in salary to an amount close to $500,000 per episode.[64] The negotiations were soon completed, and the actors' salary was raised to $400,000 per episode.[65] Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, the cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode.[66]
+
+In addition to the main cast, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, and Russi Taylor voice supporting characters.[48] From 1999 to 2002, Roswell's characters were voiced by Marcia Mitzman Gaven. Karl Wiedergott has also appeared in minor roles, but does not voice any recurring characters.[67] Wiedergott left the show in 2010, and since then Chris Edgerly has appeared regularly to voice minor characters. Repeat "special guest" cast members include Albert Brooks, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Joe Mantegna, Maurice LaMarche, and Kelsey Grammer.[68]  Following Hartman's death in 1998, the characters he voiced (Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz) were retired;[69] Wallace's character of Edna Krabappel was retired as well after her death in 2013. Following Taylor's death in 2019, her characters (including Sherri, Terri, and Martin Prince) are now voiced by Grey Griffin.[70]
+
+Episodes will quite often feature guest voices from a wide range of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, bands, musicians and scientists. In the earlier seasons, most of the guest stars voiced characters, but eventually more started appearing as themselves. Tony Bennett was the first guest star to appear as himself, appearing briefly in the season two episode "Dancin' Homer".[71] The Simpsons holds the world record for "Most Guest Stars Featured in a Television Series".[72]
+
+The Simpsons has been dubbed into several other languages, including Japanese, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. It is also one of the few programs dubbed in both standard French and Quebec French.[73] The show has been broadcast in Arabic, but due to Islamic customs, numerous aspects of the show have been changed. For example, Homer drinks soda instead of beer and eats Egyptian beef sausages instead of hot dogs. Because of such changes, the Arabized version of the series met with a negative reaction from the lifelong Simpsons fans in the area.[74]
+
+Several different U.S. and international studios animate The Simpsons. Throughout the run of the animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, the animation was produced domestically at Klasky Csupo.[25] With the debut of the series, because of an increased workload, Fox subcontracted production to several local and foreign studios.[25] These are AKOM,[75] Anivision,[76] Rough Draft Studios,[77] USAnimation,[78] and Toonzone Entertainment.[79]
+
+For the first three seasons, Klasky Csupo animated The Simpsons in the United States. In 1992, the show's production company, Gracie Films, switched domestic production to Film Roman,[80] who continued to animate the show until 2016. In Season 14, production switched from traditional cel animation to digital ink and paint.[81] The first episode to experiment with digital coloring was "Radioactive Man" in 1995. Animators used digital ink and paint during production of the season 12 episode "Tennis the Menace", but Gracie Films delayed the regular use of digital ink and paint until two seasons later. The already completed "Tennis the Menace" was broadcast as made.[82]
+
+The production staff at the U.S. animation studio, Film Roman, draws storyboards, designs new characters, backgrounds, props and draws character and background layouts, which in turn become animatics to be screened for the writers at Gracie Films for any changes to be made before the work is shipped overseas. The overseas studios then draw the inbetweens, ink and paint, and render the animation to tape before it is shipped back to the United States to be delivered to Fox three to four months later.[83]
+
+The series began high-definition production in Season 20; the first episode, "Take My Life, Please", aired February 15, 2009. The move to HDTV included a new opening sequence.[84] Matt Groening called it a complicated change because it affected the timing and composition of animation.[85]
+
+The Simpsons uses the standard setup of a situational comedy, or sitcom, as its premise. The series centers on a family and their life in a typical American town,[13] serving as a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle.[86] However, because of its animated nature, The Simpsons' scope is larger than that of a regular sitcom. The town of Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. By having Homer work in a nuclear power plant, the show can comment on the state of the environment.[87] Through Bart and Lisa's days at Springfield Elementary School, the show's writers illustrate pressing or controversial issues in the field of education. The town features a vast array of media channels—from kids' television programming to local news, which enables the producers to make jokes about themselves and the entertainment industry.[88]
+
+Some commentators say the show is political in nature and susceptible to a left-wing bias.[89] Al Jean acknowledged in an interview that "We [the show] are of liberal bent."[90] The writers often evince an appreciation for progressive leanings, but the show makes jokes across the political spectrum.[91] The show portrays government and large corporations as evil entities that take advantage of the common worker.[90] Thus, the writers often portray authority figures in an unflattering or negative light. In The Simpsons, politicians are corrupt, ministers such as Reverend Lovejoy are dismissive to churchgoers, and the local police force is incompetent.[92] Religion also figures as a recurring theme.[93] In times of crisis, the family often turns to God, and the show has dealt with most of the major religions.[94]
+
+The Simpsons' opening sequence is one of the show's most memorable hallmarks. The standard opening has gone through three iterations (a replacement of some shots at the start of the second season, and a brand new sequence when the show switched to high-definition in 2009).[95]
+
+Each has the same basic sequence of events: the camera zooms through cumulus clouds, through the show's title towards the town of Springfield. The camera then follows the members of the family on their way home. Upon entering their house, the Simpsons settle down on their couch to watch television. The original opening was created by David Silverman, and was the first task he did when production began on the show.[96] The series' distinctive theme song was composed by musician Danny Elfman in 1989, after Groening approached him requesting a retro style piece. This piece has been noted by Elfman as the most popular of his career.[97]
+
+One of the most distinctive aspects of the opening is that three of its elements change from episode to episode: Bart writes different things on the school chalkboard,[96] Lisa plays different solos on her saxophone (or occasionally a different instrument), and different gags accompany the family as they enter their living room to sit on the couch.[98]
+
+The special Halloween episode has become an annual tradition. "Treehouse of Horror" first broadcast in 1990 as part of season two and established the pattern of three separate, self-contained stories in each Halloween episode.[99] These pieces usually involve the family in some horror, science fiction, or supernatural setting and often parody or pay homage to a famous piece of work in those genres.[100] They always take place outside the normal continuity of the show. Although the Treehouse series is meant to be seen on Halloween, this changed by the 2000s, when new installments have premiered after Halloween due to Fox's current contract with Major League Baseball's World Series,[101] however, since 2011, every Treehouse of Horror episode has aired in October.
+
+The show's humor turns on cultural references that cover a wide spectrum of society so that viewers from all generations can enjoy the show. Such references, for example, come from movies, television, music, literature, science, and history.[102] The animators also regularly add jokes or sight gags into the show's background via humorous or incongruous bits of text in signs, newspapers, billboards, and elsewhere. The audience may often not notice the visual jokes in a single viewing. Some are so fleeting that they become apparent only by pausing a video recording of the show or viewing it in slow motion.[103] Kristin Thompson argues that The Simpsons uses a "flurry of cultural references, intentionally inconsistent characterization, and considerable self-reflexivity about television conventions and the status of the programme as a television show."[104]
+
+One of Bart's early hallmarks was his prank calls to Moe's Tavern owner Moe Szyslak in which Bart calls Moe and asks for a gag name. Moe tries to find that person in the bar, but soon realizes it is a prank call and angrily threatens Bart. These calls were apparently based on a series of prank calls known as the Tube Bar recordings, though Groening has denied any causal connection.[105]
+Moe was based partly on Tube Bar owner Louis "Red" Deutsch, whose often profane responses inspired Moe's violent side.[106] As the series progressed, it became more difficult for the writers to come up with a fake name and to write Moe's angry response, and the pranks were dropped as a regular joke during the fourth season.[107][108] The Simpsons also often includes self-referential humor.[109] The most common form is jokes about Fox Broadcasting.[110] For example, the episode "She Used to Be My Girl" included a scene in which a Fox News Channel van drove down the street while displaying a large "Bush Cheney 2004" banner and playing Queen's "We Are the Champions", in reference to the 2004 U.S. presidential election and claims of conservative bias in Fox News.[111][112]
+
+The show uses catchphrases, and most of the primary and secondary characters have at least one each.[113] Notable expressions include Homer's annoyed grunt "D'oh!", Mr. Burns' "Excellent" and Nelson Muntz's "Ha-ha!" Some of Bart's catchphrases, such as "¡Ay, caramba!", "Don't have a cow, man!" and "Eat my shorts!" appeared on T-shirts in the show's early days.[114] However, Bart rarely used the latter two phrases until after they became popular through the merchandising. The use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The episode "Bart Gets Famous" mocks catchphrase-based humor, as Bart achieves fame on the Krusty the Clown Show solely for saying "I didn't do it."[115]
+
+The Simpsons has gained notoriety for jokes that eventually became reality. Perhaps the most famous example comes from the episode "Bart to the Future", which mentions billionaire Donald Trump having been President of the United States at one time and leaving the nation broke. The episode first aired in 2000, sixteen years before Trump was elected.[116] Another episode, "When You Dish Upon a Star", lampooned 20th Century Fox as a division of The Walt Disney Company. Nineteen years later, Disney purchased Fox.[117] Other examples of The Simpsons predicting the future include the introduction of the Smartwatch, video chat services, autocorrection technology, and Lady Gaga's acrobatic performance at the Super Bowl LI halftime show.[118] Conversely, some fact-checking sources such as Snopes have debunked many of these claims,[119] including the aforementioned Lady Gaga one.[120]
+
+A number of neologisms that originated on The Simpsons have entered popular vernacular.[121][122] Mark Liberman, director of the Linguistic Data Consortium, remarked, "The Simpsons has apparently taken over from Shakespeare and the Bible as our culture's greatest source of idioms, catchphrases and sundry other textual allusions."[122] The most famous catchphrase is Homer's annoyed grunt: "D'oh!" So ubiquitous is the expression that it is now listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, but without the apostrophe.[123] Dan Castellaneta says he borrowed the phrase from James Finlayson, an actor in many Laurel and Hardy comedies, who pronounced it in a more elongated and whining tone. The staff of The Simpsons told Castellaneta to shorten the noise, and it went on to become the well-known exclamation in the television series.[124]
+
+Groundskeeper Willie's description of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" was used by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg in 2003, after France's opposition to the proposed invasion of Iraq. The phrase quickly spread to other journalists.[122][125] "Cromulent" and "embiggen", words used in "Lisa the Iconoclast", have since appeared in the Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon,[126] and scientific journals respectively.[122][127] "Kwyjibo", a fake Scrabble word invented by Bart in "Bart the Genius", was used as one of the aliases of the creator of the Melissa worm.[128] "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords", was used by Kent Brockman in "Deep Space Homer" and has become a snowclone,[129] with variants of the utterance used to express obsequious submission. It has been used in media, such as New Scientist magazine.[130] The dismissive term "Meh", believed to have been popularized by the show,[122][131][132] entered the Collins English Dictionary in 2008.[133] Other words credited as stemming from the show include "yoink" and "craptacular".[122]
+
+The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations includes several quotations from the show. As well as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", Homer's lines, "Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is never try", from "Burns' Heir" (season five, 1994) as well as "Kids are the best, Apu. You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the Internet and all", from "Eight Misbehavin'" (season 11, 1999), entered the dictionary in August 2007.[134]
+
+Many quotes/scenes have become popular internet memes, including Jasper Beardley‘s quote "That's a paddlin’" from The PTA Disbands (season 6, 1995) and Steamed Hams from 22 Short Films About Springfield (season 7, 1996).
+
+The Simpsons was the first successful animated program in American prime time since Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in the 1970s.[135] During most of the 1980s, US pundits considered animated shows as appropriate only for children, and animating a show was too expensive to achieve a quality suitable for prime-time television. The Simpsons changed this perception,[25] initially leading to a short period where networks attempted to recreate prime-time cartoon success with shows like Capitol Critters, Fish Police, and Family Dog, which were expensive and unsuccessful.[136] The Simpsons' use of Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming made the episodes cheaper. The success of The Simpsons and the lower production cost prompted US television networks to take chances on other adult animated series.[25] This development led US producers to a 1990s boom in new, animated prime-time shows for adults, such as Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, Family Guy, King of the Hill, Futurama and The Critic.[25] For Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, "The Simpsons created an audience for prime-time animation that had not been there for many, many years ... As far as I'm concerned, they basically re-invented the wheel. They created what is in many ways—you could classify it as—a wholly new medium."[137]
+
+The Simpsons has had crossovers with four other shows. In the episode "A Star Is Burns", Marge invites Jay Sherman, the main character of The Critic, to be a judge for a film festival in Springfield. Matt Groening had his name removed from the episode since he had no involvement with The Critic.[138] South Park later paid homage to The Simpsons with the episode "Simpsons Already Did It".[139] In "Simpsorama", the Planet Express crew from Futurama come to Springfield in the present to prevent the Simpsons from destroying the future.[140] In the Family Guy episode "The Simpsons Guy", the Griffins visit Springfield and meet the Simpsons.[141]
+
+The Simpsons has also influenced live-action shows like Malcolm in the Middle, which featured the use of sight gags and did not use a laugh track unlike most sitcoms.[142][143] Malcolm in the Middle debuted January 9, 2000, in the time slot after The Simpsons. Ricky Gervais called The Simpsons an influence on The Office,[144] and fellow British sitcom Spaced was, according to its director Edgar Wright, "an attempt to do a live-action The Simpsons."[145] In Georgia, the animated television sitcom The Samsonadzes, launched in November 2009, has been noted for its very strong resemblance with The Simpsons, which its creator Shalva Ramishvili has acknowledged.[146][147]
+
+The Simpsons was the Fox network's first television series to rank among a season's top 30 highest-rated shows.[157] In 1990, Bart quickly became one of the most popular characters on television in what was termed "Bartmania".[158][159][160][161] He became the most prevalent Simpsons character on memorabilia, such as T-shirts. In the early 1990s, millions of T-shirts featuring Bart were sold;[162] as many as one million were sold on some days.[163] Believing Bart to be a bad role model, several American public schools banned T-shirts featuring Bart next to captions such as "I'm Bart Simpson. Who the hell are you?" and "Underachiever ('And proud of it, man!')".[164][165][166] The Simpsons merchandise sold well and generated $2 billion in revenue during the first 14 months of sales.[164] Because of his popularity, Bart was often the most promoted member of the Simpson family in advertisements for the show, even for episodes in which he was not involved in the main plot.[167]
+
+Due to the show's success, over the summer of 1990 the Fox Network decided to switch The Simpsons' time slot from 8:00 p.m. ET on Sunday night to the same time on Thursday, where it competed with The Cosby Show on NBC, the number one show at the time.[168][169] Through the summer, several news outlets published stories about the supposed "Bill vs. Bart" rivalry.[163][168] "Bart Gets an F" (season two, 1990) was the first episode to air against The Cosby Show, and it received a lower Nielsen ratings, tying for eighth behind The Cosby Show, which had an 18.5 rating. The rating is based on the number of household televisions that were tuned into the show, but Nielsen Media Research estimated that 33.6 million viewers watched the episode, making it the number one show in terms of actual viewers that week. At the time, it was the most watched episode in the history of the Fox Network,[170] and it is still the highest rated episode in the history of The Simpsons.[171] The show moved back to its Sunday slot in 1994 and has remained there ever since.[172]
+
+The Simpsons has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, and it has been noted for being described as "the most irreverent and unapologetic show on the air."[173] In a 1990 review of the show, Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly described it as "the American family at its most complicated, drawn as simple cartoons. It's this neat paradox that makes millions of people turn away from the three big networks on Sunday nights to concentrate on The Simpsons."[174] Tucker also described the show as a "pop-cultural phenomenon, a prime-time cartoon show that appeals to the entire family."[175]
+
+On February 9, 1997, The Simpsons surpassed The Flintstones with the episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" as the longest-running prime-time animated series in the United States.[176] In 2004, The Simpsons replaced The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952 to 1966) as the longest-running sitcom (animated or live action) in the United States.[177] In 2009, The Simpsons surpassed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet's record of 435 episodes and is now recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's longest running sitcom (in terms of episode count).[178][179] In October 2004, Scooby-Doo briefly overtook The Simpsons as the American animated show with the highest number of episodes (albeit under several different iterations).[180] However, network executives in April 2005 again cancelled Scooby-Doo, which finished with 371 episodes, and The Simpsons reclaimed the title with 378 episodes at the end of their seventeenth season.[181] In May 2007, The Simpsons reached their 400th episode at the end of the eighteenth season. While The Simpsons has the record for the number of episodes by an American animated show, other animated series have surpassed The Simpsons.[182] For example, the Japanese anime series Sazae-san has over 7,000 episodes to its credit.[182]
+
+In 2009, Fox began a year-long celebration of the show titled "Best. 20 Years. Ever." to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Simpsons. One of the first parts of the celebration is the "Unleash Your Yellow" contest in which entrants must design a poster for the show.[183] The celebration ended on January 10, 2010 (almost 20 years after "Bart the Genius" aired on January 14, 1990), with The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special – In 3-D! On Ice!, a documentary special by documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock that examines the "cultural phenomenon of The Simpsons".[184][185]
+
+As of the twenty-first season (2009–2010), The Simpsons became the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, having surpassed the 1955–1975 run of Gunsmoke.  On April 29, 2018, The Simpsons also surpassed Gunsmoke's 635-episode count with the episode "Forgive and Regret."[177][186]
+
+On February 6, 2019, it was announced that The Simpsons has been renewed for Seasons 31 and 32.[187]
+
+The Simpsons has won dozens of awards since it debuted as a series, including 34 Primetime Emmy Awards,[72] 34 Annie Awards[188] and a Peabody Award.[189] In a 1999 issue celebrating the 20th century's greatest achievements in arts and entertainment, Time magazine named The Simpsons the century's best television series.[190] In that same issue, Time included Bart Simpson in the Time 100, the publication's list of the century's 100 most influential people.[191] Bart was the only fictional character on the list. On January 14, 2000, the Simpsons were awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[192] Also in 2000, Entertainment Weekly magazine TV critic Ken Tucker named The Simpsons the greatest television show of the 1990s. Furthermore, viewers of the UK television channel Channel 4 have voted The Simpsons at the top of two polls: 2001's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows,[193] and 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons,[194] with Homer Simpson voted into first place in 2001's 100 Greatest TV Characters.[195] Homer also placed ninth on Entertainment Weekly's list of the "50 Greatest TV icons".[196] In 2002, The Simpsons ranked #8 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time,[197] and was ranked the #6 cult show in 2004.[198] In 2007, it moved to #8 on TV Guide's cult shows list[199] and was included in Time's list of the "100 Best TV Shows of All Time".[200] In 2008 the show was placed in first on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 100 Shows of the Past 25 Years".[201] Empire named it the greatest TV show of all time.[202] In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named Homer "the greatest character of the last 20 years",[203] while in 2013 the Writers Guild of America listed The Simpsons as the 11th "best written" series in television history.[204] In 2013, TV Guide ranked The Simpsons as the greatest TV cartoon of all time[205] and the tenth greatest show of all time.[206] A 2015 The Hollywood Reporter survey of 2,800 actors, producers, directors, and other industry people named it as their #10 favorite show.[207] In 2015, British newspaper The Telegraph named The Simpsons as one of the 10 best TV sitcoms of all time.[208] Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz ranked The Simpsons as the greatest American TV series of all time in their 2016 book TV (The Book).[209]
+
+Bart's rebellious, bad boy nature, which underlies his misbehavior and rarely leads to any punishment, led some people to characterize him as a poor role model for children.[210][211] In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a "threat to learning" because of his "underachiever and proud of it" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education.[212] Others described him as "egotistical, aggressive and mean-spirited".[213] In a 1991 interview, Bill Cosby described Bart as a bad role model for children, calling him "angry, confused, frustrated". In response, Matt Groening said, "That sums up Bart, all right. Most people are in a struggle to be normal [and] he thinks normal is very boring, and does things that others just wished they dare do."[214] On January 27, 1992, then-President George H. W. Bush said, "We are going to keep on trying to strengthen the American family, to make American families a lot more like the Waltons and a lot less like the Simpsons."[164] The writers rushed out a tongue-in-cheek reply in the form of a short segment which aired three days later before a rerun of "Stark Raving Dad" in which Bart replied, "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."[215][216]
+
+Various episodes of the show have generated controversy. The Simpsons visit Australia in "Bart vs. Australia" (season six, 1995) and Brazil in "Blame It on Lisa" (season 13, 2002) and both episodes generated controversy and negative reaction in the visited countries.[217] In the latter case, Rio de Janeiro's tourist board—which claimed that the city was portrayed as having rampant street crime, kidnappings, slums, and monkey and rat infestations—went so far as to threaten Fox with legal action.[218] Groening was a fierce and vocal critic of the episode "A Star Is Burns" (season six, 1995) which featured a crossover with The Critic. He felt that it was just an advertisement for The Critic, and that people would incorrectly associate the show with him. When he was unsuccessful in getting the episode pulled, he had his name removed from the credits and went public with his concerns, openly criticizing James L. Brooks and saying the episode "violates the Simpsons' universe." In response, Brooks said, "I am furious with Matt, ... he's allowed his opinion, but airing this publicly in the press is going too far. ... his behavior right now is rotten."[138][219]
+
+"The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) is one of the most controversial episodes of The Simpsons. Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by Groening and by Harry Shearer, who provides the voice of Skinner. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience."[220] In a subsequent interview in 2006, Shearer added, "Now, the writers refuse to talk about it. They realize it was a horrible mistake. They never mention it. It's like they're punishing the audience for paying attention."[221]
+
+The show has reportedly been taken off the air in several countries. China banned it from prime-time television in August 2006, "in an effort to protect China's struggling animation studios."[222] In 2008, Venezuela barred the show from airing on morning television as it was deemed "unsuitable for children".[223] The same year, several Russian Pentecostal churches demanded that The Simpsons, South Park and some other Western cartoons be removed from broadcast schedules "for propaganda of various vices" and the broadcaster's license to be revoked. However, the court decision later dismissed this request.[224]
+
+Critics' reviews of early Simpsons episodes praised the show for its sassy humor, wit, realism, and intelligence.[29][225] However, in the late 1990s, around the airing of season 10, the tone and emphasis of the show began to change. Some critics started calling the show "tired".[226] By 2000, some long-term fans had become disillusioned with the show, and pointed to its shift from character-driven plots to what they perceived as an overemphasis on zany antics.[227][228][229] Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald attributed the decline in quality to an abandonment of character-driven storylines in favor of celebrity cameo appearances and references to popular culture. Schembri wrote in 2011: "The central tragedy of The Simpsons is that it has gone from commanding attention to merely being attention-seeking. It began by proving that cartoon characters don't have to be caricatures; they can be invested with real emotions. Now the show has in essence fermented into a limp parody of itself. Memorable story arcs have been sacrificed for the sake of celebrity walk-ons and punchline-hungry dialogue."[230]
+
+In 2010, the BBC noted "the common consensus is that The Simpsons' golden era ended after season nine",[8] and Todd Leopold of CNN, in an article looking at its perceived decline, stated "for many fans ... the glory days are long past."[229] Similarly, Tyler Wilson of Coeur d'Alene Press has referred to seasons one to nine as the show's "golden age",[7] and Ian Nathan of Empire described the show's classic era as being "say, the first ten seasons."[9] Jon Heacock of LucidWorks stated that "for the first ten years [seasons], the show was consistently at the top of its game", with "so many moments, quotations, and references – both epic and obscure – that helped turn the Simpson family into the cultural icons that they remain to this day."[10]
+
+Mike Scully, who was showrunner during seasons nine through twelve, has been the subject of criticism.[231][232] Chris Suellentrop of Slate wrote that "under Scully's tenure, The Simpsons became, well, a cartoon ... Episodes that once would have ended with Homer and Marge bicycling into the sunset now end with Homer blowing a tranquilizer dart into Marge's neck. The show's still funny, but it hasn't been touching in years."[231] When asked in 2007 how the series' longevity is sustained, Scully joked: "Lower your quality standards. Once you've done that you can go on forever."[233]
+
+Al Jean, showrunner since season thirteen, has also been the subject of criticism, with some arguing that the show has continued to decline in quality under his tenure. Former writers have complained that under Jean, the show is "on auto-pilot", "too sentimental", and the episodes are "just being cranked out." Some critics believe that the show has "entered a steady decline under Jean and is no longer really funny."[234] John Ortved, author of The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History, characterized the Jean era as "toothless",[235] and criticized what he perceived as the show's increase in social and political commentary.[236] Jean responded: "Well, it's possible that we've declined. But honestly, I've been here the whole time and I do remember in season two people saying, 'It's gone downhill.' If we'd listened to that then we would have stopped after episode 13. I'm glad we didn't."[237]
+
+In 2004, cast member Harry Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so season four looks very good to me now."[238] Cast member Dan Castellaneta responded: "I don't agree, ... I think Harry's issue is that the show isn't as grounded as it was in the first three or four seasons, that it's gotten crazy or a little more madcap. I think it organically changes to stay fresh."[239] Also in 2004 author Douglas Coupland described claims of declining quality in the series as "hogwash", saying "The Simpsons hasn't fumbled the ball in fourteen years, it's hardly likely to fumble it now."[240] In an April 2006 interview, Groening said: "I honestly don't see any end in sight. I think it's possible that the show will get too financially cumbersome ... but right now, the show is creatively, I think, as good or better than it's ever been. The animation is incredibly detailed and imaginative, the stories do things that we haven't done before, so creatively there's no reason to quit."[241]
+
+In 2016, popular culture writer Anna Leszkiewicz suggested that even though The Simpsons still holds cultural relevance, contemporary appeal is only for the first ten seasons, with recent episodes only garnering mainstream attention when a favorite character from the golden era is killed off, or when new information and shock twists are given for old characters.[242] The series' ratings have also declined; while the first season enjoyed an average of 13.4 million viewing households per episode in the U.S.,[157] the twenty-first season had an average of 7.2 million viewers.[243]
+
+Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz argued in their 2016 book titled TV (The Book) that the peak of The Simpsons are "roughly seasons [three through twelve]", and that despite the decline, episodes from the later seasons such as "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind" and "Holidays of Future Passed" could be considered on par with the earlier classic episodes, further stating that "even if you want to call the show today a thin shadow of its former self, think about how mind-boggingly great its former self had to be for so-diminished a version to be watchable at all."[244][245]
+
+In a 2020 article, Uproxx writer Josh Kurp stated that while he agrees with the sentiment that The Simpsons is not as good as it used to be, it is because "it was working at a level of comedy and characterization that no show ever has". He felt there were still many reasons to watch the series, as it was "still capable of quality television, and even the occasional new classic" and the fact that the show was willing to experiment, giving examples such as bringing on guest animators like Don Hertzfeldt and Sylvain Chomet to produce couch gags, and guest writers like Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, Pete Holmes and Megan Amram to write episodes.[246]
+
+The stereotypical nature of the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has long been the subject of controversy. This was particularly highlighted by Indian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu's 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu. In the film, Kondabolu states that as a child he was a fan of The Simpsons and liked Apu, but he now finds the character's stereotypical nature troublesome. Defenders of the character responded that the show is built on comical stereotypes, with creator Matt Groening saying, "that's the nature of cartooning."[247] He added that he was "proud of what we do on the show", and "it's a time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended".[248] In response to the controversy, Apu's voice actor, Hank Azaria, said he was willing to step aside from his role as Apu: "The most important thing is to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character."[249] In February 2020, he confirmed that he would no longer voice Apu. Groening stated at the same time that the character would remain in the show.
+
+The criticisms were referenced in the season 29 episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished", when Lisa breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience by saying, "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?" to which Marge replies, "Some things will be addressed at a later date." Lisa adds, "If at all." This reference was clarified by the fact that there was a framed photo of Apu with the caption on the photo saying "Don't have a cow, Apu", a play on Bart's catchphrase "Don't have a cow, man," as well as the fact that Hindus do not eat cows as they are considered sacred. In October 2018, it was reported that Apu would be written out of the show,[250] which Groening denied.[251]
+
+On June 26, 2020, in light of the various Black Lives Matter protests, Fox announced that non-white characters (such as Carl Carlson and Dr. Hibbert, among others) will no longer be voiced by white actors.[252]
+
+Numerous Simpson-related comic books have been released over the years. So far, nine comic book series have been published by Bongo Comics since 1993.[253] The first comic strips based on The Simpsons appeared in 1991 in the magazine Simpsons Illustrated, which was a companion magazine to the show.[254] The comic strips were popular and a one-shot comic book titled Simpsons Comics and Stories, containing four different stories, was released in 1993 for the fans.[255] The book was a success and due to this, the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, and his companions Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Steve Vance and Cindy Vance created the publishing company Bongo Comics.[255] Issues of Simpsons Comics, Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror and Bart Simpson have been collected and reprinted in trade paperbacks in the United States by HarperCollins.[256][257][258]
+
+20th Century Fox, Gracie Films, and Film Roman produced The Simpsons Movie, an animated film that was released on July 27, 2007.[259] The film was directed by long-time Simpsons producer David Silverman and written by a team of Simpsons writers comprising Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, Al Jean, George Meyer, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, David Mirkin, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, and Ian Maxtone-Graham.[259] Production of the film occurred alongside continued writing of the series despite long-time claims by those involved in the show that a film would enter production only after the series had concluded.[259] There had been talk of a possible feature-length Simpsons film ever since the early seasons of the series. James L. Brooks originally thought that the story of the episode "Kamp Krusty" was suitable for a film, but he encountered difficulties in trying to expand the script to feature-length.[260] For a long time, difficulties such as lack of a suitable story and an already fully engaged crew of writers delayed the project.[241]
+
+On August 10, 2018, 20th Century Fox announced that a sequel is in development.[261]
+
+Collections of original music featured in the series have been released on the albums Songs in the Key of Springfield, Go Simpsonic with The Simpsons and The Simpsons: Testify.[262] Several songs have been recorded with the purpose of a single or album release and have not been featured on the show. The album The Simpsons Sing the Blues was released in September 1990 and was a success, peaking at #3 on the Billboard 200[263] and becoming certified 2× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.[264] The first single from the album was the pop rap song "Do the Bartman", performed by Nancy Cartwright and released on November 20, 1990. The song was written by Michael Jackson, although he did not receive any credit.[265] The Yellow Album was released in 1998, but received poor reception and did not chart in any country.[266][267][268]
+
+In 2007, it was officially announced that The Simpsons Ride, a simulator ride, would be implemented into the Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Studios Hollywood.[269] It officially opened May 15, 2008 in Florida[270] and May 19, 2008, in Hollywood.[271] In the ride, patrons are introduced to a cartoon theme park called Krustyland built by Krusty the Clown. However, Sideshow Bob is loose from prison to get revenge on Krusty and the Simpson family.[272] It features more than 24 regular characters from The Simpsons and features the voices of the regular cast members, as well as Pamela Hayden, Russi Taylor and Kelsey Grammer.[273] Harry Shearer did not participate in the ride, so none of his characters has vocal parts.[274]
+
+Numerous video games based on the show have been produced. Some of the early games include Konami's arcade game The Simpsons (1991) and Acclaim Entertainment's The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (1991).[275][276] More modern games include The Simpsons: Road Rage (2001), The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003) and The Simpsons Game (2007).[277][278][279] Electronic Arts, which produced The Simpsons Game, has owned the exclusive rights to create video games based on the show since 2005.[280] In 2010, they released a game called The Simpsons Arcade for iOS.[281] Another EA-produced mobile game, Tapped Out, was released in 2012 for iOS users, then in 2013 for Android and Kindle users.[282][283][284] Two Simpsons pinball machines have been produced: one that was available briefly after the first season, and another in 2007, both out of production.[285]
+
+The cable television network FXX has exclusive cable and digital syndication rights for The Simpsons. Original contracts had previously stated that syndication rights for The Simpsons would not be sold to cable until the series conclusion, at a time when cable syndication deals were highly rare. The series has been syndicated to local broadcast stations in nearly all markets throughout the United States since September 1993.[286]
+
+FXX premiered The Simpsons on their network on August 21, 2014 by starting a twelve-day marathon which featured the first 552 episodes (every single episode that had already been released at the time) aired chronologically, including The Simpsons Movie, which FX Networks had already owned the rights to air. It was the longest continuous marathon in the history of television (until VH1 Classic aired a 433-hour, nineteen-day, marathon of Saturday Night Live in 2015; celebrating that program's 40th anniversary).[287][288] The first day of the marathon was the highest rated broadcast day in the history of the network so far, the ratings more than tripled that those of regular prime time programming for FXX.[289] Ratings during the first six nights of the marathon grew night after night, with the network ranking within the top 5 networks in basic cable each night.[290] In Australia, a marathon of every episode of the show (at the time) aired from 16 December 2019 to 5 January 2020 on Fox8 (a cable network operated on pay TV provider Foxtel and a corporate sibling to the American Fox network).[291]
+
+On May 14, 2019, it was announced that FX Networks would share The Simpsons with Freeform starting October 2, 2019.[292]
+
+On October 21, 2014, a digital service courtesy of the FXNOW app, called Simpsons World, launched. Simpsons World with every episode of the series accessible to authenticated FX subscribers, and is available on game consoles such as Xbox One, streaming devices such as Roku and Apple TV, and online via web browser.[293][294] There was early criticism of both wrong aspect ratios for earlier episodes and the length of commercial breaks on the streaming service, but that problem was soon amended with fewer commercial breaks during individual episodes.[295] Later it was announced that Simpsons World would now let users watch all of the SD episodes in their original format.[296] Simpsons World was discontinued after the launch of Disney+ on November 12, 2019, where the series streams exclusively.[297] Initially, the series was only available cropped to 16:9 without the option to view the original 4:3 versions, reigniting criticisms of cropping old episodes.[298] In response, Disney announced that "...in early 2020, Disney+ will make the first 19 seasons (and some episodes from Season 20) of The Simpsons available in their original 4:3 aspect ratio, giving subscribers a choice of how they prefer to view the popular series."[299][300] On May 28, 2020, Disney+ made the first 19 seasons, along with some episodes from season 20, of The Simpsons available in both 16:9 and the original 4:3 aspect ratio.[301]
+
+The season 3 premiere "Stark Raving Dad", which features Michael Jackson as the voice of Leon Kompowsky, was pulled out of rotation in 2019 by Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Al Jean after HBO aired the documentary Leaving Neverland, in which two men share details into how Jackson allegedly abused them as children.[302][303] It is therefore unavailable on Disney+. However, the episode is still available on The Complete Third Season DVD box set released on August 26, 2003.[304]
+
+In July 2017, all episodes from seasons 4 to 19 were made available for purchase on the iTunes Store in Canada.[305]
+
+The popularity of The Simpsons has made it a billion-dollar merchandising industry.[164] The title family and supporting characters appear on everything from T-shirts to posters. The Simpsons has been used as a theme for special editions of well-known board games, including Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, Operation, and The Game of Life, as well as the trivia games What Would Homer Do? and Simpsons Jeopardy!. Several card games such as trump cards and The Simpsons Trading Card Game have also been released. Many official or unofficial Simpsons books such as episode guides have been published. Many episodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years. When the first season DVD was released in 2001, it quickly became the best-selling television DVD in history, although it was later overtaken by the first season of Chappelle's Show.[306] In particular, seasons one through seventeen were released on DVD for 13 years between September 2001 to December 2014 in the U.S./Canada (Region 1), Europe (Region 2) and Australia/New Zealand/Latin America (Region 4). However, on April 19, 2015, Al Jean announced that the Season 17 DVD would be the last one ever produced, leaving the collection from Seasons 1 to 17, Season 20 (released out of order in 2010), with Seasons 18, 19, and 21 onwards unreleased.[307][308] Jean also stated that the deleted scenes and commentaries would try to be released to the Simpsons World app, and that they were pushing for Simpsons World to be expanded outside of the U.S.[307] Two years later, however, on July 22, 2017, it was announced that Season 18 would be released on December 5, 2017 on DVD.[309] Another two years later, on July 20, 2019, it was announced that Season 19 would be released on December 3, 2019 on DVD.[310]
+
+In 2003, about 500 companies around the world were licensed to use Simpsons characters in their advertising.[311] As a promotion for The Simpsons Movie, twelve 7-Eleven stores were transformed into Kwik-E-Marts and sold The Simpsons related products. These included "Buzz Cola", "Krusty-O" cereal, pink doughnuts with sprinkles, and "Squishees".[312]
+
+In 2008, consumers around the world spent $750 million on merchandise related to The Simpsons, with half of the amount originating from the United States. By 2009, 20th Century Fox had greatly increased merchandising efforts.[313] On April 9, 2009, the United States Postal Service unveiled a series of five 44-cent stamps featuring Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, to commemorate the show's twentieth anniversary.[314] The Simpsons is the first television series still in production to receive this recognition.[315][316] The stamps, designed by Matt Groening, were made available for purchase on May 7, 2009.[317] Approximately one billion were printed, but only 318 million were sold, costing the Postal Service $1.2 million.[318][319]
+
+
+

en/3392.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,263 @@
+
+
+A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. It is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub.  Submarines are referred to as "boats" rather than "ships" irrespective of their size.[1]
+
+Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. Submarines were first widely used during World War I (1914–1918), and are now used in many navies large and small. Military uses include attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military), or other submarines, aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile submarines as part of a nuclear strike force, reconnaissance, conventional land attack (for example using a cruise missile), and covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage, exploration and facility inspection and maintenance. Submarines can also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are also used in tourism and undersea archaeology.
+
+Most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical (or conical) ends and a vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the "sail" in American usage and "fin" in European usage. A "conning tower" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller (or pump jet) at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins. Smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines use diving planes and also change the amount of water and air in ballast tanks to change buoyancy for submerging and surfacing.
+
+Submarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. They range from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person subs that operate for a few hours to vessels that can remain submerged for six months—such as the Russian Typhoon class, the biggest submarines ever built. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or practical for human divers.[2] Modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell.
+
+Whereas the principal meaning of "submarine" is an armed, submersible warship, the more general meaning is for any type of submersible craft.[3] The definition as of 1899 was for any type of "submarine boat".[4] By naval tradition, submarines are still usually referred to as "boats" rather than as "ships", regardless of their size.[5] In other navies with a history of large submarine fleets they are also "boats"; in German it is an Unterseeboot[6] or U-Boot (under-sea boat)[7] and in Russian it is a подводная лодка (underwater boat).[8] Although referred to informally as "boats",[9][10] U.S. submarines employ the designation USS (United States Ship) at the beginning of their names, such as USS Alabama. In the Royal Navy, submarines continue to be referred to officially as "boats", despite their "Her Majesty's Ship" designations.[11][12]
+
+According to a report in Opusculum Taisnieri published in 1562:[13]
+
+Two Greeks submerged and surfaced in the river Tagus near the City of Toledo several times in the presence of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, without getting wet and with the flame they carried in their hands still alight.[14]
+
+In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle. A few years later the Scottish mathematician and theologian John Napier wrote in his Secret Inventions (1596) that "These inventions besides devises of sayling under water with divers, other devises and strategems for harming of the enemyes by the Grace of God and worke of expert Craftsmen I hope to perform." It's unclear whether he ever carried out his idea.[15]
+
+The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England. It was propelled by means of oars.[15]
+
+By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft. A mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. Further design improvement stagnated for over a century, until application of new technologies for propulsion and stability.[16]
+
+The first military submersible was Turtle (1775), a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person.[17] It was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion.[18]
+
+In 1800, France built a human-powered submarine designed by American Robert Fulton, Nautilus. The French eventually gave up on the experiment in 1804, as did the British when they later considered Fulton's submarine design.
+
+In 1864, late in the American Civil War, the Confederate navy's H. L. Hunley became the first military submarine to sink an enemy vessel, the Union sloop-of-war USS Housatonic. In the aftermath of its successful attack against the ship, H. L. Hunley also sank, possibly because it was too close to its own exploding torpedo.
+
+In 1866, Sub Marine Explorer was the first submarine to successfully dive, cruise underwater, and resurface under the control of the crew.  The design by German American Julius H. Kroehl (in German, Kröhl) incorporated elements that are still used in modern submarines.[19]
+
+In 1866, Flach was built at the request of the Chilean government, by Karl Flach, a German engineer and immigrant.  It was the fifth submarine built in the world[20] and, along with a second submarine, was intended to defend the port of Valparaiso against attack by the Spanish Navy during the Chincha Islands War.
+
+The first submarine not relying on human power for propulsion was the French Plongeur (Diver), launched in 1863, which used compressed air at 180 psi (1,200 kPa).[21] Narcís Monturiol designed the first air-independent and combustion-powered submarine, Ictíneo II, which was launched in Barcelona, Spain in 1864.
+
+The submarine became a potentially viable weapon with the development of the Whitehead torpedo, designed in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead, the first practical self-propelled or 'locomotive' torpedo.[22] The spar torpedo that had been developed earlier by the Confederate States Navy was considered to be impracticable, as it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably H. L. Hunley, the submarine that deployed it.  In 1878, John Philip Holland demonstrated the Holland I prototype.
+
+Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was Nordenfelt I, a 56-tonne, 19.5-metre (64 ft) vessel similar to Garrett's ill-fated Resurgam (1879), with a range of 240 kilometres (130 nmi; 150 mi), armed with a single torpedo, in 1885.
+
+A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery technology. The first electrically powered boats were built by Isaac Peral y Caballero in Spain (who built Peral), Dupuy de Lôme (who built Gymnote) and Gustave Zédé (who built Sirène) in France, and James Franklin Waddington (who built Porpoise) in England.[23] Peral's design featured torpedoes and other systems that later became standard in submarines.[24][25]
+
+Submarines were not put into service for any widespread or routine use by navies until the early 1900s. This era marked a pivotal time in submarine development, and several important technologies appeared. A number of nations built and used submarines. Diesel electric propulsion became the dominant power system and equipment such as the periscope became standardized. Countries conducted many experiments on effective tactics and weapons for submarines, which led to their large impact in World War I.
+
+The Irish inventor John Philip Holland built a model submarine in 1876 and a full-scale version in 1878, which were followed by a number of unsuccessful ones. In 1896 he designed the Holland Type VI submarine, which used internal combustion engine power on the surface and electric battery power underwater. Launched on 17 May 1897 at Navy Lt. Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Holland VI was purchased by the United States Navy on 11 April 1900, becoming the Navy's first commissioned submarine, christened USS Holland.[26]
+
+Commissioned in June 1900, the French steam and electric Narval employed the now typical double-hull design, with a pressure hull inside the outer shell. These 200-ton ships had a range of over 100 miles (161 km) underwater. The French submarine Aigrette in 1904 further improved the concept by using a diesel rather than a gasoline engine for surface power. Large numbers of these submarines were built, with seventy-six completed before 1914.
+
+The Royal Navy commissioned five Holland-class submarines from Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, under licence from the Holland Torpedo Boat Company from 1901 to 1903. Construction of the boats took longer than anticipated, with the first only ready for a diving trial at sea on 6 April 1902. Although the design had been purchased entirely from the US company, the actual design used was an untested improvement to the original Holland design using a new 180 horsepower (130 kW) petrol engine.[27]
+
+These types of submarines were first used during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Due to the blockade at Port Arthur, the Russians sent their submarines to Vladivostok, where by 1 January 1905 there were seven boats, enough to create the world's first "operational submarine fleet". The new submarine fleet began patrols on 14 February, usually lasting for about 24 hours each. The first confrontation with Japanese warships occurred on 29 April 1905 when the Russian submarine Som was fired upon by Japanese torpedo boats, but then withdrew.[28]
+
+Military submarines first made a significant impact in World War I. Forces such as the U-boats of Germany saw action in the First Battle of the Atlantic, and were responsible for sinking RMS Lusitania, which was sunk as a result of unrestricted submarine warfare and is often cited among the reasons for the entry of the United States into the war.[29]
+
+At the outbreak of the war, Germany had only twenty submarines immediately available for combat, although these included vessels of the diesel-engined U-19 class, which had a sufficient range of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) and speed of 8 knots (15 km/h) to allow them to operate effectively around the entire British coast.[30], By contrast, the Royal Navy had a total of 74 submarines, though of mixed effectiveness. In August 1914, a flotilla of ten U-boats sailed from their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea in the first submarine war patrol in history.[31]
+
+The U-boats' ability to function as practical war machines relied on new tactics, their numbers, and submarine technologies such as combination diesel-electric power system developed in the preceding years. More submersibles than true submarines, U-boats operated primarily on the surface using regular engines, submerging occasionally to attack under battery power. They were roughly triangular in cross-section, with a distinct keel to control rolling while surfaced, and a distinct bow. During World War I more than 5,000 Allied ships were sunk by U-boats.[32]
+
+The British tried to catch up to the Germans in terms of submarine technology with the creation of the K-class submarines. However, these were extremely large and often collided with each other forcing the British to scrap the K-class design shortly after the war.[33][citation needed]
+
+During World War II, Germany used submarines to devastating effect in the Battle of the Atlantic, where it attempted to cut Britain's supply routes by sinking more merchant ships than Britain could replace. (Shipping was vital to supply Britain's population with food, industry with raw material, and armed forces with fuel and armaments.) While U-boats destroyed a significant number of ships, the strategy ultimately failed. Although the U-boats had been updated in the interwar years, the major innovation was improved communications, encrypted using the famous Enigma cipher machine. This allowed for mass-attack naval tactics (Rudeltaktik, commonly known as "wolfpack"), but was also ultimately the U-boats' downfall. By the end of the war, almost 3,000 Allied ships (175 warships, 2,825 merchantmen) had been sunk by U-boats.[34]  Although successful early in the war, ultimately Germany's U-boat fleet suffered heavy casualties, losing 793 U-boats and about 28,000 submariners out of 41,000, a casualty rate of about 70%.[35]
+
+The Imperial Japanese Navy operated the most varied fleet of submarines of any navy, including Kaiten crewed torpedoes, midget submarines (Type A Ko-hyoteki and Kairyu classes), medium-range submarines, purpose-built supply submarines and long-range fleet submarines. They also had submarines with the highest submerged speeds during World War II (I-201-class submarines) and submarines that could carry multiple aircraft (I-400-class submarines). They were also equipped with one of the most advanced torpedoes of the conflict, the oxygen-propelled Type 95. Nevertheless, despite their technical prowess, Japan chose to use its submarines for fleet warfare, and consequently were relatively unsuccessful, as warships were fast, maneuverable and well-defended compared to merchant ships.
+
+The submarine force was the most effective anti-ship weapon in the American arsenal. Submarines, though only about 2 percent of the U.S. Navy, destroyed over 30 percent of the Japanese Navy, including 8 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship and 11 cruisers. US submarines also destroyed over 60 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet, crippling Japan's ability to supply its military forces and industrial war effort. Allied submarines in the Pacific War destroyed more Japanese shipping than all other weapons combined. This feat was considerably aided by the Imperial Japanese Navy's failure to provide adequate escort forces for the nation's merchant fleet.
+
+During World War II, 314 submarines served in the US Navy, of which nearly 260 were deployed to the Pacific.[36] When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in December 1941, 111 boats were in commission; 203 submarines from the Gato, Balao, and Tench classes were commissioned during the war. During the war, 52 US submarines were lost to all causes, with 48 directly due to hostilities.[37] US submarines sank 1,560 enemy vessels,[36] a total tonnage of 5.3 million tons (55% of the total sunk).[38]
+
+The Royal Navy Submarine Service was used primarily in the classic Axis blockade. Its major operating areas were around Norway, in the Mediterranean (against the Axis supply routes to North Africa), and in the Far East. In that war, British submarines sank 2  million tons of enemy shipping and 57 major warships, the latter including 35 submarines. Among these is the only documented instance of a submarine sinking another submarine while both were submerged. This occurred when HMS Venturer engaged U-864; the Venturer crew manually computed a successful firing solution against a three-dimensionally maneuvering target using techniques which became the basis of modern torpedo computer targeting systems. Seventy-four British submarines were lost,[39] the majority, forty-two, in the Mediterranean.
+
+The first launch of a cruise missile (SSM-N-8 Regulus) from a submarine occurred in July 1953, from the deck of USS Tunny, a World War II fleet boat modified to carry the missile with a nuclear warhead. Tunny and its sister boat, Barbero, were the United States' first nuclear deterrent patrol submarines. In the 1950s, nuclear power partially replaced diesel-electric propulsion. Equipment was also developed to extract oxygen from sea water. These two innovations gave submarines the ability to remain submerged for weeks or months.[40][41] Most of the naval submarines built since that time in the US, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, Britain, and France have been powered by nuclear reactors.
+
+In 1959–1960, the first ballistic missile submarines were put into service by both the United States (George Washington class) and the Soviet Union (Golf class) as part of the Cold War nuclear deterrent strategy.
+
+During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union maintained large submarine fleets that engaged in cat-and-mouse games. The Soviet Union lost at least four submarines during this period: K-129 was lost in 1968 (a part of which the CIA retrieved from the ocean floor with the Howard Hughes-designed ship Glomar Explorer), K-8 in 1970, K-219 in 1986, and Komsomolets in 1989 (which held a depth record among military submarines—1,000 m (3,300 ft)). Many other Soviet subs, such as K-19 (the first Soviet nuclear submarine, and the first Soviet sub to reach the North Pole) were badly damaged by fire or radiation leaks. The US lost two nuclear submarines during this time: USS Thresher due to equipment failure during a test dive while at its operational limit, and USS Scorpion due to unknown causes.
+
+During India's intervention in the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistan Navy's Hangor sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri. This was the first sinking by a submarine since World War II.[42] During the same war, Ghazi, a Tench-class submarine on loan to Pakistan from the US, was sunk by the Indian Navy. It was the first submarine combat loss since World War II.[43] In 1982 during the Falklands War, the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror, the first sinking by a nuclear-powered submarine in war.[44]
+
+Before and during World War II, the primary role of the submarine was anti-surface ship warfare. Submarines would attack either on the surface using deck guns, or submerged using torpedoes. They were particularly effective in sinking Allied transatlantic shipping in both World Wars, and in disrupting Japanese supply routes and naval operations in the Pacific in World War II.
+
+Mine-laying submarines were developed in the early part of the 20th century. The facility was used in both World Wars. Submarines were also used for inserting and removing covert agents and military forces in special operations, for intelligence gathering, and to rescue aircrew during air attacks on islands, where the airmen would be told of safe places to crash-land so the submarines could rescue them. Submarines could carry cargo through hostile waters or act as supply vessels for other submarines.
+
+Submarines could usually locate and attack other submarines only on the surface, although HMS Venturer managed to sink U-864 with a four torpedo spread while both were submerged. The British developed a specialized anti-submarine submarine in WWI, the R class. After WWII, with the development of the homing torpedo, better sonar systems, and nuclear propulsion, submarines also became able to hunt each other effectively.
+
+The development of submarine-launched ballistic missile and submarine-launched cruise missiles gave submarines a substantial and long-ranged ability to attack both land and sea targets with a variety of weapons ranging from cluster bombs to nuclear weapons.
+
+The primary defense of a submarine lies in its ability to remain concealed in the depths of the ocean. Early submarines could be detected by the sound they made. Water is an excellent conductor of sound (much better than air), and submarines can detect and track comparatively noisy surface ships from long distances. Modern submarines are built with an emphasis on stealth. Advanced propeller designs, extensive sound-reducing insulation, and special machinery help a submarine remain as quiet as ambient ocean noise, making them difficult to detect. It takes specialized technology to find and attack modern submarines.
+
+Active sonar uses the reflection of sound emitted from the search equipment to detect submarines. It has been used since WWII by surface ships, submarines and aircraft (via dropped buoys and helicopter "dipping" arrays), but it reveals the emitter's position, and is susceptible to counter-measures.
+
+A concealed military submarine is a real threat, and because of its stealth, can force an enemy navy to waste resources searching large areas of ocean and protecting ships against attack. This advantage was vividly demonstrated in the 1982 Falklands War when the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano. After the sinking the Argentine Navy recognized that they had no effective defense against submarine attack, and the Argentine surface fleet withdrew to port for the remainder of the war, though an Argentine submarine remained at sea.[46]
+
+Although the majority of the world's submarines are military, there are some civilian submarines, which are used for tourism, exploration, oil and gas platform inspections, and pipeline surveys. Some are also used in illegal activities.
+
+The Submarine Voyage ride opened at Disneyland in 1959, but although it ran under water it was not a true submarine, as it ran on tracks and was open to the atmosphere.[47] The first tourist submarine was Auguste Piccard, which went into service in 1964 at Expo64.[48] By 1997 there were 45 tourist submarines operating around the world.[49] Submarines with a crush depth in the range of 400–500 feet (120–150 m) are operated in several areas worldwide, typically with bottom depths around 100 to 120 feet (30 to 37 m), with a carrying capacity of 50 to 100 passengers.
+
+In a typical operation a surface vessel carries passengers to an offshore operating area and loads them into the submarine. The submarine then visits underwater points of interest such as natural or artificial reef structures. To surface safely without danger of collision the location of the submarine is marked with an air release and movement to the surface is coordinated by an observer in a support craft.
+
+A recent development is the deployment of so-called narco submarines by South American drug smugglers to evade law enforcement detection.[50] Although they occasionally deploy true submarines, most are self-propelled semi-submersibles, where a portion of the craft remains above water at all times. In September 2011, Colombian authorities seized a 16-meter-long submersible that could hold a crew of 5, costing about $2 million. The vessel belonged to FARC rebels and had the capacity to carry at least 7 tonnes of drugs.[51]
+
+Model of the Mésoscaphe Auguste Piccard
+
+Interior of the tourist submarine Atlantis whilst submerged
+
+Tourist submarine Atlantis
+
+All surface ships, as well as surfaced submarines, are in a positively buoyant condition, weighing less than the volume of water they would displace if fully submerged. To submerge hydrostatically, a ship must have negative buoyancy, either by increasing its own weight or decreasing its displacement of water. To control their displacement, submarines have ballast tanks, which can hold varying amounts of water and air.
+
+For general submersion or surfacing, submarines use the forward and aft tanks, called Main Ballast Tanks (MBT), which are filled with water to submerge or with air to surface. Submerged, MBTs generally remain flooded, which simplifies their design, and on many submarines these tanks are a section of interhull space. For more precise and quick control of depth, submarines use smaller Depth Control Tanks (DCT)—also called hard tanks (due to their ability to withstand higher pressure), or trim tanks. The amount of water in depth control tanks can be controlled to change depth or to maintain a constant depth as outside conditions (chiefly water density) change. Depth control tanks may be located either near the submarine's center of gravity, or separated along the submarine body to prevent affecting trim.
+
+When submerged, the water pressure on a submarine's hull can reach 4 MPa (580 psi) for steel submarines and up to 10 MPa (1,500 psi) for titanium submarines like K-278 Komsomolets, while interior pressure remains relatively unchanged. This difference results in hull compression, which decreases displacement. Water density also marginally increases with depth, as the salinity and pressure are higher.[59] This change in density incompletely compensates for hull compression, so buoyancy decreases as depth increases. A submerged submarine is in an unstable equilibrium, having a tendency to either sink or float to the surface. Keeping a constant depth requires continual operation of either the depth control tanks or control surfaces.[60][61]
+
+Submarines in a neutral buoyancy condition are not intrinsically trim-stable. To maintain desired trim, submarines use forward and aft trim tanks. Pumps can move water between the tanks, changing weight distribution and pointing the sub up or down. A similar system is sometimes used to maintain stability.
+
+The hydrostatic effect of variable ballast tanks is not the only way to control the submarine underwater. Hydrodynamic maneuvering is done by several control surfaces, collectively known as diving planes or hydroplanes, which can be moved to create hydrodynamic forces when a submarine moves at sufficient speed. In the classic cruciform stern configuration, the horizontal stern planes serve the same purpose as the trim tanks, controlling the trim. Most submarines additionally have forward horizontal planes, normally placed on the bow until the 1960s but often on the sail on later designs. These are closer to the center of gravity and are used to control depth with less effect on the trim.[62]
+
+When a submarine performs an emergency surfacing, all depth and trim methods are used simultaneously, together with propelling the boat upwards. Such surfacing is very quick, so the sub may even partially jump out of the water, potentially damaging submarine systems.
+
+Intuitively, the best way to configure the control surfaces at the stern of a submarine would seem to be to give them the shape of a cross when seen from the rear end of the vessel. In this configuration, which remained for long the dominant one, the horizontal planes are used to control the trim and depth and the vertical planes to control sideways maneuvers, just like the rudder of a surface ship.
+
+Alternatively, however, the rear control surfaces can be combined into what has become known as an x-stern or an x-rudder. Although less intuitive, such a configuration has turned out to have several advantages over the traditional cruciform arrangement. First, it improves maneuvrability, horisontally as well as vertically. Second, the control surfaces are less likely to get damaged when landing on, or departing from, the seabed as well as when mooring and unmooring. Finally, it is safer in that one of the two diagonal lines can counteract the other with respect to vertical as well as horizontal motion if one of them would accidentally get stuck.[63]
+
+The x-stern was first tried in practice in the early 1960s on the USS Albacore, an experimental submarine of the US Navy. While the arrangement was found to be advantageous, it was nevertheless not used on the US production submarines that followed due to the fact that it requires the use of a computer to manipulate the control surfaces to the desired effect.[64] Instead, the first to use an x-stern operatively was the Swedish Navy with its Sjöormen class, the lead submarine of which was launched already in 1967, before the Albacore had even finished her test runs.[65] Since it turned out to work very well in practice, all subsequent classes of Swedish submarines (Näcken, Västergötland, Gotland, and Blekinge class) have or will come with an x-rudder.
+
+The Kockums shipyard responsible for the design of the x-stern on Swedish submarines eventually exported it to Australia with the Collins class as well as to Japan with the Sōryū class. With the introduction of the type 212, the German and Italian Navies came to feature it as well. The US Navy with its Columbia class, the British Navy with its Dreadnought class, and the French Navy with its Barracuda class are all about to join the x-stern family. Hence, as judged by the situation in the early 2020s, the x-stern is about to become the dominant technology.
+
+Modern submarines are cigar-shaped. This design, visible in early submarines, is sometimes called a "teardrop hull". It reduces the hydrodynamic drag when submerged, but decreases the sea-keeping capabilities and increases drag while surfaced. Since the limitations of the propulsion systems of early submarines forced them to operate surfaced most of the time, their hull designs were a compromise. Because of the slow submerged speeds of those subs, usually, well below 10 kt (18 km/h), the increased drag for underwater travel was acceptable. Late in World War II, when technology allowed faster and longer submerged operation and increased aircraft surveillance forced submarines to stay submerged, hull designs became teardrop shaped again to reduce drag and noise. USS Albacore (AGSS-569) was a unique research submarine that pioneered the American version of the teardrop hull form (sometimes referred to as an "Albacore hull") of modern submarines. On modern military submarines, the outer hull is covered with a layer of sound-absorbing rubber, or anechoic plating, to reduce detection.
+
+The occupied pressure hulls of deep-diving submarines such as DSV Alvin are spherical instead of cylindrical. This allows a more even distribution of stress at the great depth. A titanium frame is usually affixed to the pressure hull, providing attachment for ballast and trim systems, scientific instrumentation, battery packs, syntactic flotation foam, and lighting.
+
+A raised tower on top of a submarine accommodates the periscope and electronics masts, which can include radio, radar, electronic warfare, and other systems including the snorkel mast. In many early classes of submarines (see history), the control room, or "conn", was located inside this tower, which was known as the "conning tower". Since then, the conn has been located within the hull of the submarine, and the tower is now called the "sail". The conn is distinct from the "bridge", a small open platform in the top of the sail, used for observation during surface operation.
+
+"Bathtubs" are related to conning towers but are used on smaller submarines. The bathtub is a metal cylinder surrounding the hatch that prevents waves from breaking directly into the cabin. It is needed because surfaced submarines have limited freeboard, that is, they lie low in the water. Bathtubs help prevent swamping the vessel.
+
+Modern submarines and submersibles, as well as the oldest ones, usually have a single hull. Large submarines generally have an additional hull or hull sections outside. This external hull, which actually forms the shape of submarine, is called the outer hull (casing in the Royal Navy) or light hull, as it does not have to withstand a pressure difference. Inside the outer hull there is a strong hull, or pressure hull, which withstands sea pressure and has normal atmospheric pressure inside.
+
+As early as World War I, it was realized that the optimal shape for withstanding pressure conflicted with the optimal shape for seakeeping and minimal drag, and construction difficulties further complicated the problem. This was solved either by a compromise shape, or by using two hulls: internal for holding pressure, and external for optimal shape. Until the end of World War II, most submarines had an additional partial cover on the top, bow and stern, built of thinner metal, which was flooded when submerged. Germany went further with the Type XXI, a general predecessor of modern submarines, in which the pressure hull was fully enclosed inside the light hull, but optimized for submerged navigation, unlike earlier designs that were optimized for surface operation.
+
+After World War II, approaches split. The Soviet Union changed its designs, basing them on German developments. All post-World War II heavy Soviet and Russian submarines are built with a double hull structure. American and most other Western submarines switched to a primarily single-hull approach. They still have light hull sections in the bow and stern, which house main ballast tanks and provide a hydrodynamically optimized shape, but the main cylindrical hull section has only a single plating layer. Double hulls are being considered for future submarines in the United States to improve payload capacity, stealth and range.[66]
+
+The pressure hull is generally constructed of thick high-strength steel with a complex structure and high strength reserve, and is separated with watertight bulkheads into several compartments. There are also examples of more than two hulls in a submarine, like the Typhoon class, which has two main pressure hulls and three smaller ones for control room, torpedoes and steering gear, with the missile launch system between the main hulls.
+
+The dive depth cannot be increased easily. Simply making the hull thicker increases the weight and requires reduction of onboard equipment weight, ultimately resulting in a bathyscaphe. This is acceptable for civilian research submersibles, but not military submarines.
+
+WWI submarines had hulls of carbon steel, with a 100-metre (330 ft) maximum depth. During WWII, high-strength alloyed steel was introduced, allowing 200-metre (660 ft) depths. High-strength alloy steel remains the primary material for submarines today, with 250–400-metre (820–1,310 ft) depths, which cannot be exceeded on a military submarine without design compromises. To exceed that limit, a few submarines were built with titanium hulls. Titanium can be stronger than steel, lighter, and is not ferromagnetic, important for stealth. Titanium submarines were built by the Soviet Union, which developed specialized high-strength alloys. It has produced several types of titanium submarines. Titanium alloys allow a major increase in depth, but other systems must be redesigned to cope, so test depth was limited to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) for the Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets, the deepest-diving combat submarine. An Alfa-class submarine may have successfully operated at 1,300 metres (4,300 ft),[67] though continuous operation at such depths would produce excessive stress on many submarine systems. Titanium does not flex as readily as steel, and may become brittle after many dive cycles. Despite its benefits, the high cost of titanium construction led to the abandonment of titanium submarine construction as the Cold War ended. Deep-diving civilian submarines have used thick acrylic pressure hulls.
+
+The deepest deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) to date is Trieste. On 5 October 1959, Trieste departed San Diego for Guam aboard the freighter Santa Maria to participate in Project Nekton, a series of very deep dives in the Mariana Trench. On 23 January 1960, Trieste reached the ocean floor in the Challenger Deep (the deepest southern part of the Mariana Trench), carrying Jacques Piccard (son of Auguste) and Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN.[68] This was the first time a vessel, manned or unmanned, had reached the deepest point in the Earth's oceans. The onboard systems indicated a depth of 11,521 metres (37,799 ft), although this was later revised to 10,916 metres (35,814 ft) and more accurate measurements made in 1995 have found the Challenger Deep slightly shallower, at 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
+
+Building a pressure hull is difficult, as it must withstand pressures at its required diving depth. When the hull is perfectly round in cross-section, the pressure is evenly distributed, and causes only hull compression. If the shape is not perfect, the hull is bent, with several points heavily strained. Inevitable minor deviations are resisted by stiffener rings, but even a one-inch (25 mm) deviation from roundness results in over 30 percent decrease of maximal hydrostatic load and consequently dive depth.[69] The hull must therefore be constructed with high precision. All hull parts must be welded without defects, and all joints are checked multiple times with different methods, contributing to the high cost of modern submarines. (For example, each Virginia-class attack submarine costs US$2.6 billion, over US$200,000 per ton of displacement.)
+
+The first submarines were propelled by humans. The first mechanically driven submarine was the 1863 French Plongeur, which used compressed air for propulsion. Anaerobic propulsion was first employed by the Spanish Ictineo II in 1864, which used a solution of zinc, manganese dioxide, and potassium chlorate to generate sufficient heat to power a steam engine, while also providing oxygen for the crew. A similar system was not employed again until 1940 when the German Navy tested a hydrogen peroxide-based system, the Walter turbine, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the naval U-791 and type XVII submarines;[70] the system was further developed for the British Explorer-class, completed in 1958.[71]
+
+Until the advent of nuclear marine propulsion, most 20th-century submarines used electric motors and batteries for running underwater and combustion engines on the surface, and for battery recharging. Early submarines used gasoline (petrol) engines but this quickly gave way to kerosene (paraffin) and then diesel engines because of reduced flammability and, with diesel, improved fuel-efficiency and thus also greater range. A combination of diesel and electric propulsion became the norm.
+
+Initially, the combustion engine and the electric motor were in most cases connected to the same shaft so that both could directly drive the propeller. The combustion engine was placed at the front end of the stern section with the electric motor behind it followed by the propeller shaft. The engine was connected to the motor by a clutch and the motor in turn connected to the propeller shaft by another clutch.
+
+With only the rear clutch engaged, the electric motor could drive the propeller, as required for fully submerged operation. With both clutches engaged, the combustion engine could drive the propeller, as was possible when operating on the surface or, at a later stage, when snorkeling. The electric motor would in this case serve as a generator to charge the batteries or, if no charging was needed, be allowed to rotate freely. With only the front clutch engaged, the combustion engine could drive the electric motor as a generator for charging the batteries without simultaneously forcing the propeller to move.
+
+The motor could have multiple armatures on the shaft, which could be electrically coupled in series for slow speed and in parallel for high speed (these connections were called "group down" and "group up", respectively).
+
+While most early submarines used a direct mechanical connection between the combustion engine and the propeller, an alternative solution was considered as well as implemented at a very early stage.[72] That solution consists in first converting the work of the combustion engine into electric energy via a dedicated generator. This energy is then used to drive the propeller via the electric motor and, to the extent required, for charging the batteries. In this configuration, the electric motor is thus responsible for driving the propeller at all times, regardless of whether air is available so that the combustion engine can also be used or not.
+
+Among the pioneers of this alternative solution was the very first submarine of the Swedish Navy, HMS Hajen (later renamed Ub no 1), launched in 1904. While its design was generally inspired by the first submarine commissioned by the US Navy, USS Holland, it deviated from the latter in at least three significant ways: by adding a periscope, by replacing the gasoline engine by a semidiesel engine (a hot-bulb engine primarily meant to be fueled by kerosene,  later replaced by a true diesel engine) and by severing the mechanical link between the combustion engine and the propeller by instead letting the former drive a dedicated generator.[73] By so doing, it took three significant steps toward what was eventually to become the dominant technology for conventional (i.e., non-nuclear) submarines.
+
+In the following years, the Swedish Navy added another seven submarines in three different classes (2nd class, Laxen class, and Braxen class) using the same propulsion technology but fitted with true diesel engines rather than semidiesels from the outset.[74] Since by that time, the technology was usually based on the diesel engine rather than some other type of combustion engine, it eventually came to be known as diesel-electric transmission.
+
+Like many other early submarines, those initially designed in Sweden were quite small (less than 200 tonnes) and thus confined to littoral operation. When the Swedish Navy wanted to add larger vessels, capable of operating further from the shore, their designs were purchased from companies abroad that already had the required experience: first Italian (Fiat-Laurenti) and later German (A.G. Weser and IvS).[75] As a side-effect, the diesel-electric transmission was temporarily abandoned.
+
+However, diesel-electric transmission was immediately reintroduced when Sweden began designing its own submarines again in the mid 1930s. From that point onwards, it has been consistently used for all new classes of Swedish submarines, albeit supplemented by air-independent propulsion (AIP) as provided by Stirling engines beginning with HMS Näcken in 1988.[76]
+
+Another early adopter of diesel-electric transmission was the US Navy, whose Bureau of Engineering proposed its use in 1928. It was subsequently tried in the S-class submarines S-3, S-6, and S-7 before being put into production with the Porpoise class of the 1930s. From that point onwards, it continued to be used on most US conventional submarines.[77]
+
+Apart from the British U-class and some submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy that used separate diesel generators for low speed running, few navies other than those of Sweden and the US made much use of diesel-electric transmission before 1945.[78] After World War II, by contrast, it gradually became the dominant mode of propulsion for conventional submarines. However, its adoption was not always swift. Notably, the Soviet Navy did not introduce diesel-electric transmission on its conventional submarines until 1980 with its Paltus class.[79]
+
+If diesel-electric transmission had only brought advantages and no disadvantages in comparison with a system that mechanically connects the diesel engine to the propeller, it would undoubtedly have become dominant much earlier. The disadvantages include the following:[80][81]
+
+The reason why diesel-electric transmission has become the dominant alternative in spite of these disadvantages is of course that it also comes with many advantages and that, on balance, these have eventually been found to be more important. The advantages include the following:[82][83]
+
+During World War II the Germans experimented with the idea of the schnorchel (snorkel) from captured Dutch submarines but did not see the need for them until rather late in the war. The schnorchel is a retractable pipe that supplies air to the diesel engines while submerged at periscope depth, allowing the boat to cruise and recharge its batteries while maintaining a degree of stealth.
+
+Especially as first implemented however, it turned out to be far from a perfect solution. There were problems with the device's valve sticking shut or closing as it dunked in rough weather. Since the system used the entire pressure hull as a buffer, the diesels would instantaneously suck huge volumes of air from the boat's compartments, and the crew often suffered painful ear injuries. Speed was limited to 8 knots (15 km/h), lest the device snap from stress. The schnorchel also created noise that made the boat easier to detect with sonar, yet more difficult for the on-board sonar to detect signals from other vessels. Finally, allied radar eventually became sufficiently advanced that the schnorchel mast could be detected beyond visual range.[84]
+
+While the snorkel renders a submarine far less detectable, it is thus not perfect. In clear weather, diesel exhausts can be seen on the surface to a distance of about three miles,[85] while "periscope feather" (the wave created by the snorkel or periscope moving through the water) is visible from far off in calm sea conditions. Modern radar is also capable of detecting a snorkel in calm sea conditions.[86]
+
+The problem of the diesels causing a vacuum in the submarine when the head valve is submerged still exists in later model diesel submarines but is mitigated by high-vacuum cut-off sensors that shut down the engines when the vacuum in the ship reaches a pre-set point. Modern snorkel induction masts have a fail-safe design using compressed air, controlled by a simple electrical circuit, to hold the "head valve" open against the pull of a powerful spring. Seawater washing over the mast shorts out exposed electrodes on top, breaking the control, and shutting the "head valve" while it is submerged. US submarines did not adopt the use of snorkels until after WWII.[87]
+
+During World War II, German Type XXI submarines (also known as "Elektroboote") were the first submarines designed to operate submerged for extended periods. Initially they were to carry hydrogen peroxide for long-term, fast air-independent propulsion, but were ultimately built with very large batteries instead. At the end of the War, the British and Soviets experimented with hydrogen peroxide/kerosene (paraffin) engines that could run surfaced and submerged. The results were not encouraging. Though the Soviet Union deployed a class of submarines with this engine type (codenamed Quebec by NATO), they were considered unsuccessful.
+
+The United States also used hydrogen peroxide in an experimental midget submarine, X-1. It was originally powered by a hydrogen peroxide/diesel engine and battery system until an explosion of her hydrogen peroxide supply on 20 May 1957. X-1 was later converted to use diesel-electric drive.[88]
+
+Today several navies use air-independent propulsion. Notably Sweden uses Stirling technology on the Gotland-class and Södermanland-class submarines. The Stirling engine is heated by burning diesel fuel with liquid oxygen from cryogenic tanks. A newer development in air-independent propulsion is hydrogen fuel cells, first used on the German Type 212 submarine, with nine 34 kW or two 120 kW cells. Fuel cells are also used in the new Spanish S-80-class submarines although with the fuel stored as ethanol and then converted into hydrogen before use.[89]
+
+One new technology that is being introduced starting with the Japanese Navy's eleventh Sōryū-class submarine (JS Ōryū) is a more modern battery, the lithium-ion battery. These batteries have about double the electric storage of traditional batteries, and by changing out the lead-acid batteries in their normal storage areas plus filling up the large hull space normally devoted to AIP engine and fuel tanks with many tons of lithium-ion batteries, modern submarines can actually return to a "pure" diesel-electric configuration yet have the added underwater range and power normally associated with AIP equipped submarines.[citation needed]
+
+Steam power was resurrected in the 1950s with a nuclear-powered steam turbine driving a generator. By eliminating the need for atmospheric oxygen, the time that a submarine could remain submerged was limited only by its food stores, as breathing air was recycled and fresh water distilled from seawater. More importantly, a nuclear submarine has unlimited range at top speed. This allows it to travel from its operating base to the combat zone in a much shorter time and makes it a far more difficult target for most anti-submarine weapons. Nuclear-powered submarines have a relatively small battery and diesel engine/generator powerplant for emergency use if the reactors must be shut down.
+
+Nuclear power is now used in all large submarines, but due to the high cost and large size of nuclear reactors, smaller submarines still use diesel-electric propulsion. The ratio of larger to smaller submarines depends on strategic needs. The US Navy, French Navy, and the British Royal Navy operate only nuclear submarines,[90][91] which is explained by the need for distant operations. Other major operators rely on a mix of nuclear submarines for strategic purposes and diesel-electric submarines for defense. Most fleets have no nuclear submarines, due to the limited availability of nuclear power and submarine technology.
+
+Diesel-electric submarines have a stealth advantage over their nuclear counterparts. Nuclear submarines generate noise from coolant pumps and turbo-machinery needed to operate the reactor, even at low power levels.[92][93] Some nuclear submarines such as the American Ohio class can operate with their reactor coolant pumps secured, making them quieter than electric subs.[citation needed] A conventional submarine operating on batteries is almost completely silent, the only noise coming from the shaft bearings, propeller, and flow noise around the hull, all of which stops when the sub hovers in mid-water to listen, leaving only the noise from crew activity. Commercial submarines usually rely only on batteries, since they operate in conjunction with a mother ship.
+
+Several serious nuclear and radiation accidents have involved nuclear submarine mishaps.[94][95] The Soviet submarine K-19 reactor accident in 1961 resulted in 8 deaths and more than 30 other people were over-exposed to radiation.[96] The Soviet submarine K-27 reactor accident in 1968 resulted in 9 fatalities and 83 other injuries.[94] The Soviet submarine K-431 accident in 1985 resulted in 10 fatalities and 49 other radiation injuries.[95]
+
+Oil-fired steam turbines powered the British K-class submarines, built during World War I and later, to give them the surface speed to keep up with the battle fleet. The K-class subs were not very successful, however.
+
+Toward the end of the 20th century, some submarines—such as the British Vanguard class—began to be fitted with pump-jet propulsors instead of propellers. Though these are heavier, more expensive, and less efficient than a propeller, they are significantly quieter, providing an important tactical advantage.
+
+The success of the submarine is inextricably linked to the development of the torpedo, invented by Robert Whitehead in 1866. His invention is essentially the same now as it was 140 years ago. Only with self-propelled torpedoes could the submarine make the leap from novelty to a weapon of war. Until the perfection of the guided torpedo, multiple "straight-running" torpedoes were required to attack a target. With at most 20 to 25 torpedoes stored on board, the number of attacks was limited. To increase combat endurance most World War I submarines functioned as submersible gunboats, using their deck guns against unarmed targets, and diving to escape and engage enemy warships. The importance of guns encouraged the development of the unsuccessful Submarine Cruiser such as the French Surcouf and the Royal Navy's X1 and M-class submarines. With the arrival of Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, guns became more for defense than attack. A more practical method of increasing combat endurance was the external torpedo tube, loaded only in port.
+
+The ability of submarines to approach enemy harbours covertly led to their use as minelayers. Minelaying submarines of World War I and World War II were specially built for that purpose. Modern submarine-laid mines, such as the British Mark 5 Stonefish and Mark 6 Sea Urchin, can be deployed from a submarine's torpedo tubes.
+
+After World War II, both the US and the USSR experimented with submarine-launched cruise missiles such as the SSM-N-8 Regulus and P-5 Pyatyorka. Such missiles required the submarine to surface to fire its missiles. They were the forerunners of modern submarine-launched cruise missiles, which can be fired from the torpedo tubes of submerged submarines, for example the US BGM-109 Tomahawk and Russian RPK-2 Viyuga and versions of surface-to-surface anti-ship missiles such as the Exocet and Harpoon, encapsulated for submarine launch. Ballistic missiles can also be fired from a submarine's torpedo tubes, for example missiles such as the anti-submarine SUBROC. With internal volume as limited as ever and the desire to carry heavier warloads, the idea of the external launch tube was revived, usually for encapsulated missiles, with such tubes being placed between the internal pressure and outer streamlined hulls.
+
+The strategic mission of the SSM-N-8 and the P-5 was taken up by submarine-launched ballistic missile beginning with the US Navy's Polaris missile, and subsequently the Poseidon and Trident missiles.
+
+Germany is working on the torpedo tube-launched short-range IDAS missile, which can be used against ASW helicopters, as well as surface ships and coastal targets.
+
+A submarine can have a variety of sensors, depending on its missions. Modern military submarines rely almost entirely on a suite of passive and active sonars to locate targets. Active sonar relies on an audible "ping" to generate echoes to reveal objects around the submarine. Active systems are rarely used, as doing so reveals the sub's presence. Passive sonar is a set of sensitive hydrophones set into the hull or trailed in a towed array, normally trailing several hundred feet behind the sub. The towed array is the mainstay of NATO submarine detection systems, as it reduces the flow noise heard by operators. Hull mounted sonar is employed in addition to the towed array, as the towed array can't work in shallow depth and during maneuvering. In addition, sonar has a blind spot "through" the submarine, so a system on both the front and back works to eliminate that problem. As the towed array trails behind and below the submarine, it also allows the submarine to have a system both above and below the thermocline at the proper depth; sound passing through the thermocline is distorted resulting in a lower detection range.
+
+Submarines also carry radar equipment to detect surface ships and aircraft. Submarine captains are more likely to use radar detection gear than active radar to detect targets, as radar can be detected far beyond its own return range, revealing the submarine. Periscopes are rarely used, except for position fixes and to verify a contact's identity.
+
+Civilian submarines, such as the DSV Alvin or the Russian Mir submersibles, rely on small active sonar sets and viewing ports to navigate. The human eye cannot detect sunlight below about 300 feet (91 m) underwater, so high intensity lights are used to illuminate the viewing area.
+
+Early submarines had few navigation aids, but modern subs have a variety of navigation systems. Modern military submarines use an inertial guidance system for navigation while submerged, but drift error unavoidably builds over time. To counter this, the crew occasionally uses the Global Positioning System to obtain an accurate position. The periscope—a retractable tube with a prism system that provides a view of the surface—is only used occasionally in modern submarines, since the visibility range is short. The Virginia-class and Astute-class submarines use photonics masts rather than hull-penetrating optical periscopes. These masts must still be deployed above the surface, and use electronic sensors for visible light, infrared, laser range-finding, and electromagnetic surveillance. One benefit to hoisting the mast above the surface is that while the mast is above the water the entire sub is still below the water and is much harder to detect visually or by radar.
+
+Military submarines use several systems to communicate with distant command centers or other ships. One is VLF (very low frequency) radio, which can reach a submarine either on the surface or submerged to a fairly shallow depth, usually less than 250 feet (76 m). ELF (extremely low frequency) can reach a submarine at greater depths, but has a very low bandwidth and is generally used to call a submerged sub to a shallower depth where VLF signals can reach. A submarine also has the option of floating a long, buoyant wire antenna to a shallower depth, allowing VLF transmissions by a deeply submerged boat.
+
+By extending a radio mast, a submarine can also use a "burst transmission" technique. A burst transmission takes only a fraction of a second, minimizing a submarine's risk of detection.
+
+To communicate with other submarines, a system known as Gertrude is used. Gertrude is basically a sonar telephone. Voice communication from one submarine is transmitted by low power speakers into the water, where it is detected by passive sonars on the receiving submarine. The range of this system is probably very short, and using it radiates sound into the water, which can be heard by the enemy.
+
+Civilian submarines can use similar, albeit less powerful systems to communicate with support ships or other submersibles in the area.
+
+With nuclear power or air-independent propulsion, submarines can remain submerged for months at a time. Conventional diesel submarines must periodically resurface or run on snorkel to recharge their batteries. Most modern military submarines generate breathing oxygen by electrolysis of water (using a device called an "Electrolytic Oxygen Generator"). Atmosphere control equipment includes a CO2 scrubber, which uses an amine absorbent to remove the gas from air and diffuse it into waste pumped overboard. A machine that uses a catalyst to convert carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide (removed by the CO2 scrubber) and bonds hydrogen produced from the ship's storage battery with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce water, is also used. An atmosphere monitoring system samples the air from different areas of the ship for nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, R-12 and R-114 refrigerants, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other gases. Poisonous gases are removed, and oxygen is replenished by use of an oxygen bank located in a main ballast tank. Some heavier submarines have two oxygen bleed stations (forward and aft). The oxygen in the air is sometimes kept a few percent less than atmospheric concentration to reduce fire risk.
+
+Fresh water is produced by either an evaporator or a reverse osmosis unit. The primary use for fresh water is to provide feedwater for the reactor and steam propulsion plants. It is also available for showers, sinks, cooking and cleaning once propulsion plant needs have been met. Seawater is used to flush toilets, and the resulting "black water" is stored in a sanitary tank until it is blown overboard using pressurized air or pumped overboard by using a special sanitary pump. The blackwater-discharge system is difficult to operate, and the German Type VIIC boat U-1206 was lost with casualties because of human error while using this system.[97] Water from showers and sinks is stored separately in "grey water" tanks and discharged overboard using drain pumps.
+
+Trash on modern large submarines is usually disposed of using a tube called a Trash Disposal Unit (TDU), where it is compacted into a galvanized steel can. At the bottom of the TDU is a large ball valve. An ice plug is set on top of the ball valve to protect it, the cans atop the ice plug. The top breech door is shut, and the TDU is flooded and equalized with sea pressure, the ball valve is opened and the cans fall out assisted by scrap iron weights in the cans. The TDU is also flushed with seawater to ensure it is completely empty and the ball valve is clear before closing the valve.
+
+A typical nuclear submarine has a crew of over 80; conventional boats typically have fewer than 40. The conditions on a submarine can be difficult because crew members must work in isolation for long periods of time, without family contact. Submarines normally maintain radio silence to avoid detection. Operating a submarine is dangerous, even in peacetime, and many submarines have been lost in accidents.
+
+Most navies prohibited women from serving on submarines, even after they had been permitted to serve on surface warships. The Royal Norwegian Navy became the first navy to allow women on its submarine crews in 1985. The Royal Danish Navy allowed female submariners in 1988.[98] Others followed suit including the Swedish Navy (1989),[99] the Royal Australian Navy (1998), the Spanish Navy (1999),[100][101] the German Navy (2001) and the Canadian Navy (2002). In 1995, Solveig Krey of the Royal Norwegian Navy became the first female officer to assume command on a military submarine, HNoMS Kobben.[102]
+
+On 8 December 2011, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced that the UK's ban on women in submarines was to be lifted from 2013.[103] Previously there were fears that women were more at risk from a build-up of carbon dioxide in the submarine. But a study showed no medical reason to exclude women, though pregnant women would still be excluded.[103] Similar dangers to the pregnant woman and her fetus barred women from submarine service in Sweden in 1983, when all other positions were made available for them in the Swedish Navy. Today, pregnant women are still not allowed to serve on submarines in Sweden. However, the policymakers thought that it was discriminatory with a general ban and demanded that women should be tried on their individual merits and have their suitability evaluated and compared to other candidates. Further, they noted that a woman complying with such high demands is unlikely to become pregnant.[99] In May 2014, three women became the RN's first female submariners.[104]
+
+Women have served on US Navy surface ships since 1993, and as of 2011–2012[update], began serving on submarines for the first time. Until presently, the Navy allowed only three exceptions to women being on board military submarines: female civilian technicians for a few days at most, women midshipmen on an overnight during summer training for Navy ROTC and Naval Academy, and family members for one-day dependent cruises.[105] In 2009, senior officials, including then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead, began the process of finding a way to implement women on submarines.[106] The US Navy rescinded its "no women on subs" policy in 2010.[107]
+
+Both the US and British navies operate nuclear-powered submarines that deploy for periods of six months or longer. Other navies that permit women to serve on submarines operate conventionally powered submarines, which deploy for much shorter periods—usually only for a few months.[108] Prior to the change by the US, no nation using nuclear submarines permitted women to serve on board.[109]
+
+In 2011, the first class of female submarine officers graduated from Naval Submarine School's Submarine Officer Basic Course (SOBC) at the Naval Submarine Base New London.[110] Additionally, more senior ranking and experienced female supply officers from the surface warfare specialty attended SOBC as well, proceeding to fleet Ballistic Missile (SSBN) and Guided Missile (SSGN) submarines along with the new female submarine line officers beginning in late 2011.[111] By late 2011, several women were assigned to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Wyoming.[112] On 15 October 2013, the US Navy announced that two of the smaller Virginia-class attack submarines, USS Virginia and USS Minnesota, would have female crew-members by January 2015.[107]
+
+In 2020, Japan's national naval submarine academy accepted its first female candidate.[113]
+
+In an emergency, submarines can transmit a signal to other ships. The crew can use Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment to abandon the submarine.[114] The crew can prevent a lung injury from the pressure change known as pulmonary barotrauma by exhaling during the ascent.[115] Following escape from a pressurized submarine, the crew is at risk of developing decompression sickness.[116] An alternative escape means is via a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle that can dock onto the disabled submarine.[117]
+
+General history
+
+Culture
+
+Submarines before 1914
+
+1900/Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905
+
+World War II
+
+Cold War

en/3393.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+
+
+The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest extant cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange-brown fur with a lighter underside. It is an apex predator, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat, which support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years, before they become independent and leave their mother's home range to establish their own.
+
+The tiger once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated in Western and Central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. Today's tiger range is fragmented, stretching from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent and Sumatra.
+
+The tiger is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. As of 2015, the global wild tiger population was estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 mature individuals, with most remaining populations occurring in small pockets isolated from each other. Major reasons for population decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. This, coupled with the fact that it lives in some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans.
+
+The tiger is among the most recognisable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea.
+
+The Middle English tigre and Old English tigras derive from Old French tigre, from Latin tigris. 
+This was a borrowing of Classical Greek τίγρις 'tigris', a foreign borrowing of unknown origin meaning 'tiger' as well as the river Tigris.[4]
+The origin may have been the Persian word tigra meaning 'pointed or sharp', and the Avestan word tigrhi 'arrow', perhaps referring to the speed of the tiger's leap, although these words are not known to have any meanings associated with tigers.[5]
+
+The generic name Panthera is derived from the Latin word panthera, and the Ancient Greek word πάνθηρ 'panther'.[6]
+The Sanskrit word पाण्डर pāṇḍ-ara means 'pale yellow, whitish, white'.[7]
+
+In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae and gave it the scientific name Felis tigris.[2] In 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris.[8][9]
+
+Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger specimens were described and proposed as subspecies.[11] The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands.[12]
+
+Results of craniological analysis of 111 tiger skulls from Southeast Asian range countries indicate that Sumatran tiger skulls differ from Indochinese and Javan tiger skulls, whereas Bali tiger skulls are similar in size to Javan tiger skulls. The authors proposed to classify Sumatran and Javan tiger as distinct species, P. sumatrae and P. sondaica with Bali tiger as subspecies P. sondaica balica.[13]
+
+In 2015, morphological, ecological and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies were analysed in a combined approach. Results support distinction of the two evolutionary groups continental and Sunda tigers. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely P. t. tigris comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and P. t. sondaica comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations. The authors also noted that this reclassification will affect tiger conservation management. The nominate subspecies P. t. tigris constitutes two clades:[14]
+
+One conservation specialist welcomed this proposal as it would make captive breeding programmes and future rewilding of zoo-born tigers easier. One geneticist was sceptical of this study and maintained that the currently recognised nine subspecies can be distinguished genetically.[15]
+
+In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica.[16]
+The following tables are based on the classification of the species Panthera tigris provided in Mammal Species of the World.[11] It also reflects the classification used by the Cat Classification Task Force in 2017:
+
+A study published in 2018 was based on 32 tiger specimens using the whole-genome sequencing approach for analysis. Results support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the living subspecies and indicate that the most recent common ancestor lived about 110,000 years ago.[31]
+
+The tiger's closest living relatives were previously thought to be the Panthera species lion, leopard and jaguar. Results of genetic analysis indicate that about 2.88 million years ago, the tiger and the snow leopard lineages diverged from the other Panthera species, and that both may be more closely related to each other than to the lion, leopard and jaguar.[32][33]
+The geographic origin of the Panthera is most likely northern Central Asia or the Holarctic region. The tiger–snow leopard lineage dispersed in Southeast Asia during the Miocene.[34]
+
+Panthera zdanskyi is considered to be a sister taxon of the modern tiger. It lived at the beginning of the Pleistocene about two million years ago, its fossil remains were excavated in Gansu province of northwestern China. It was smaller and more "primitive", but functionally and ecologically similar to the modern tiger. It is disputed as to whether it had the striping pattern. Northwestern China is thought to be the origin of the tiger lineage. Tigers grew in size, possibly in response to adaptive radiations of prey species like deer and bovids, which may have occurred in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene.[35]
+
+Panthera tigris trinilensis lived about 1.2 million years ago and is known from fossils excavated near Trinil in Java.[36] The Wanhsien, Ngandong, Trinil and Japanese tigers became extinct in prehistoric times.[37] Tigers reached India and northern Asia in the late Pleistocene, reaching eastern Beringia, Japan, and Sakhalin. Some fossil skulls are morphologically distinct from lion skulls, which could indicate tiger presence in Alaska during the last glacial period, about 100,000 years ago.[38]
+
+In the Philippine island of Palawan, two articulated phalanx bones were found amidst an assemblage of other animal bones and stone tools in Ille Cave near the village of New Ibajay. They were smaller than mainland tiger fossils, possibly due to insular dwarfism. Otherwise, it would appear that early humans had accumulated the bones,[39] so it may be that the tiger parts were imported from elsewhere, or that the tiger colonised Palawan from Borneo before the Holocene, considering the proximity of the two islands.[40][41] Fossil remains of tigers were also excavated in Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Sarawak (Malaysia) dating to the late Pliocene, Pleistocene and Early Holocene.[38][42] The Bornean tiger was apparently present in Borneo between the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, but whether it went extinct in prehistoric or recent times has not been resolved.[42][43]
+
+The potential tiger range during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene was predicted applying ecological niche modelling based on more than 500 tiger locality records combined with bioclimatic data. The resulting model shows a contiguous tiger range from southern India to Siberia at the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating an unobstructed gene flow between tiger populations in mainland Asia throughout the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. The tiger populations on the Sunda Islands and mainland Asia were possibly separated during interglacial periods.[44] Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that all living tigers had a common ancestor 72,000–108,000 years ago.[24] The tiger's full genome sequence was published in 2013. It was found to have similar repeat composition to other cat genomes and an appreciably conserved synteny.[45]
+
+Captive tigers were bred with lions to create hybrids called liger and tigon. They share physical and behavioural qualities of both parent species. Breeding hybrids is now discouraged due to the emphasis on conservation.[46]
+The liger is a cross between a male lion and a tigress. Ligers are typically between 10 and 12 ft (3.0 and 3.7 m) in length, and weigh between 800 and 1,000 lb (360 and 450 kg) or more.[47] Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species.[48]
+
+The less common tigon is a cross between a lioness and a male tiger.[46] Because the male tiger does not pass on a growth-promoting gene and the lioness passes on a growth inhibiting gene, tigons are around the same size as their parents.[48] Some females are fertile and have occasionally given birth to litigons when mated to a male Asiatic lion.[49]
+
+The tiger has a muscular body with powerful forelimbs, a large head and a tail that is about half the length of its body. Its pelage is dense and heavy, and colouration varies between shades of orange and brown with white ventral areas and distinctive vertical black stripes that are unique in each individual.[50][22] Stripes are likely advantageous for camouflage in vegetation such as long grass with strong vertical patterns of light and shade.[51][52] The tiger is one of only a few striped cat species; it is not known why spotted patterns and rosettes are the more common camouflage pattern among felids.[53] The orangish colour may also aid in camouflage as the tiger's prey are dichromats, and thus may perceive the cat as green and blended in with the vegetation.[54] A tiger's coat pattern is still visible when it is shaved. This is not due to skin pigmentation, but to the stubble and hair follicles embedded in the skin, similar to human beards (colloquially five o'clock shadow), and is in common with other big cats.[55] They have a mane-like heavy growth of fur around the neck and jaws and long whiskers, especially in males. The pupils are circular with yellow irises. The small, rounded ears have a prominent white spot on the back, surrounded by black.[22] These spots are thought to play an important role in intraspecific communication.[56]
+
+The tiger's skull is similar to a lion's skull, with the frontal region usually less depressed or flattened, and a slightly longer postorbital region. The lion skull shows broader nasal openings. Due to the variation in skull sizes of the two species, the structure of the lower jaw is a reliable indicator for their identification.[18] The tiger has fairly stout teeth; its somewhat curved canines are the longest among living felids with a crown height of up to 90 mm (3.5 in).[22]
+
+There is a notable sexual dimorphism between male and female tigers, with the latter being consistently smaller. The size difference between them is proportionally greater in the large tiger subspecies, with males weighing up to 1.7 times more than females. Males also have wider forepaw pads, enabling sex to be identified from tracks.[57] It has been hypothesised that body size of different tiger populations may be correlated with climate and be explained by thermoregulation and Bergmann's rule, or by distribution and size of available prey species.[22][58]
+
+Generally, males vary in total length from 250 to 390 cm (8.2 to 12.8 ft) and weigh between 90 and 300 kg (200 and 660 lb) with skull length ranging from 316 to 383 mm (12.4 to 15.1 in). Females vary in total length from 200 to 275 cm (6.56 to 9.02 ft), weigh 65 to 167 kg (143 to 368 lb) with skull length ranging from 268 to 318 mm (0.879 to 1.043 ft). In either sex, the tail represents about 0.6 to 1.1 m (24 to 43 in) of the total length. The Bengal and Siberian tigers are amongst the tallest cats in shoulder height. They are also ranked among the biggest cats that have ever existed reaching weights of more than 300 kg (660 lb).[22] The tigers of the Sunda islands are smaller and less heavy than tigers in mainland Asia, rarely exceeding 142 kg (313 lb) in weight.[25]
+
+There are three colour variants — white, golden and stripeless snow white — that now rarely occur in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but continue in captive populations. The white tiger has white fur and sepia brown stripes. The golden tiger has a pale golden pelage with a blond tone and reddish-brown stripes. The snow white tiger is a morph with extremely faint stripes and a pale reddish-brown ringed tail.  Both snow white and golden tigers are homozygous for CORIN gene mutations.[59] A black tiger is a colour variant due to pseudo-melanism. They have thick stripes close together so that the background colour is barely visible between stripes.[60]
+
+The white tiger lacks pheomelanin (which creates the orange colour), and has dark sepia-brown stripes and blue eyes. This altered pigmentation is caused by a mutant gene that is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, which is determined by a white locus. It is not an albino, as the black pigments are scarcely affected.[61][59] The mutation changes a single amino acid in the transporter protein SLC45A2. Both parents need to have the allele for whiteness to have white cubs.[62]
+Between the early and mid 20th century, white tigers were recorded and shot in the Indian states of Odisha, Bihar, Assam and in the area of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. The local maharaja started breeding tigers in the early 1950s and kept a white male tiger together with its normal-coloured daughter; they had white cubs.[63]
+To preserve this recessive trait, only a few white individuals were used in captive breeding, which led to a high degree of inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is the main reason for many health problems of captive white tigers, including strabismus, stillbirth, deformities and premature death.[64]
+Other physical defects include cleft palate and scoliosis.[65]
+
+The Tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned the breeding of white tigers, alleging they are of mixed ancestry and of unknown lineage. The genes responsible for white colouration are represented by 0.001% of the population. The disproportionate growth in numbers of white tigers points to inbreeding among homozygous recessive individuals. This would lead to inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability.[66]
+
+The tiger historically ranged from eastern Turkey and Transcaucasia to the coast of the Sea of Japan, and from South Asia across Southeast Asia to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali.[50] Since the end of the last glacial period, it was probably restricted by periods of deep snow lasting longer than six months.[67][68] Currently, it occurs in less than 6% of its historical range, as it has been extirpated from Southwest and Central Asia, large parts of Southeast and East Asia. It now mainly occurs in the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra and the Russian Far East. In China and Myanmar, breeding populations appear to rely on immigration from neighbouring countries while its status in the Korean Peninsula is unknown.[1][69]
+
+The tiger is essentially associated with forest habitats.[42][70] Tiger populations thrive where populations of wild cervids, bovids and suids are stable.[71]
+Records in Central Asia indicate that it occurred foremost in Tugay riverine forests along the Atrek, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Hari, Chu and Ili Rivers and their tributaries. In the Caucasus, it inhabited hilly and lowland forests.[18]
+Historical records in Iran are known only from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and adjacent Alborz Mountains.[72] In the Amur-Ussuri region, it inhabits Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, where riparian forests provide food and water, and serve as dispersal corridors for both tiger and ungulates.[68][73]
+On the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits mainly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist evergreen forests, tropical dry forests and the swamp forests of the Sundarbans.[74] In the Eastern Himalayas, tigers were documented in subalpine forest up to an elevation of 3,630 m (11,910 ft).[75] In Thailand, it lives in deciduous and evergreen forests.[76] In Laos, 14 tigers were documented in semi-evergreen and evergreen forest interspersed with grassland in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area during surveys from 2013 to 2017.[77] In Sumatra, tiger populations range from lowland peat swamp forests to rugged montane forests.[78]
+
+When not subject to human disturbance, the tiger is mainly diurnal.[79] It does not often climb trees but cases have been recorded.[51] It is a strong swimmer and often bathes in ponds, lakes and rivers, thus keeping cool in the heat of the day.[80] Individuals can cross rivers up to 7 km (4.3 mi) wide and can swim up to 29 km (18 mi) in a day.[81] During the 1980s, a tiger was observed frequently hunting prey through deep lake water in Ranthambhore National Park.[79]
+
+The tiger is a long-ranging species, and individuals disperse over distances of up to 650 km (400 mi) to reach tiger populations in other areas.[82] Radio-collared tigers in Chitwan National Park started dispersing from their natal areas earliest at the age of 19 months. Four females dispersed between 0 and 43.2 km (0.0 and 26.8 mi), and 10 males between 9.5 and 65.7 km (5.9 and 40.8 mi). None of them crossed open cultivated areas that were more than 10 km (6.2 mi) wide, but moved through forested habitat.[83]
+
+Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain territories but have much wider home ranges within which they roam. Resident adults of either sex generally confine their movements to their home ranges, within which they satisfy their needs and those of their growing cubs. Individuals sharing the same area are aware of each other's movements and activities.[84] The size of the home range mainly depends on prey abundance, geographic area and sex of the individual.[51][22] In India, home ranges appear to be 50 to 1,000 km2 (19 to 386 sq mi) while in Manchuria, they range from 500 to 4,000 km2 (190 to 1,540 sq mi). In Nepal, defended territories are recorded to be 19 to 151 km2 (7.3 to 58.3 sq mi) for males and 10 to 51 km2 (3.9 to 19.7 sq mi) for females.[81]
+
+Young female tigers establish their first territories close to their mother's. The overlap between the female and her mother's territory reduces with time. Males, however, migrate further than their female counterparts and set out at a younger age to mark out their own area. A young male acquires territory either by seeking out an area devoid of other male tigers, or by living as a transient in another male's territory until he is older and strong enough to challenge the resident male. Young males seeking to establish themselves thereby comprise the highest mortality rate (30–35% per year) amongst adult tigers.[85]
+
+To identify his territory, the male marks trees by spraying urine[86][87] and anal gland secretions, as well as marking trails with scat and marking trees or the ground with their claws. Females also use these "scrapes", as well as urine and scat markings. Scent markings of this type allow an individual to pick up information on another's identity, sex and reproductive status. Females in oestrus will signal their availability by scent marking more frequently and increasing their vocalisations.[51]
+
+Although for the most part avoiding each other, tigers are not always territorial and relationships between individuals can be complex. An adult of either sex will sometimes share its kill with others, even those who may not be related to them. George Schaller observed a male share a kill with two females and four cubs. Unlike male lions, male tigers allow females and cubs to feed on the kill before the male is finished with it; all involved generally seem to behave amicably, in contrast to the competitive behaviour shown by a lion pride.[88] Stephen Mills described a social feeding event in Ranthambhore National Park:
+
+A dominant tigress they called Padmini killed a 250 kg (550 lb) male nilgai – a very large antelope. They found her at the kill just after dawn with her three 14-month-old cubs, and they watched uninterrupted for the next ten hours. During this period the family was joined by two adult females and one adult male, all offspring from Padmini's previous litters, and by two unrelated tigers, one female the other unidentified. By three o'clock there were no fewer than nine tigers round the kill.[85]
+
+Occasionally, male tigers participate in raising cubs, usually their own, but this is extremely rare and not always well understood. In May 2015, Amur tigers were photographed by camera traps in the Sikhote-Alin Bioshpere Reserve. The photos show a male Amur tiger pass by, followed by a female and three cubs within the span of about two minutes.[89]
+In Ranthambore, a male Bengal tiger raised and defended two orphaned female cubs after their mother had died of illness. The cubs remained under his care, he supplied them with food, protected them from his rival and sister, and apparently also trained them.[90]
+
+Male tigers are generally more intolerant of other males within their territories than females are of other females. Territory disputes are usually solved by displays of intimidation rather than outright aggression. Several such incidents have been observed in which the subordinate tiger yielded defeat by rolling onto its back and showing its belly in a submissive posture.[91] Once dominance has been established, a male may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in too close quarters.[85] The most aggressive disputes tend to occur between two males when a female is in oestrus, and sometimes resulted in the death of one of the males.[85][91]
+
+Facial expressions include the "defense threat", where an individual bares its teeth, flattens its ears and its pupils enlarge. Both males and females show a flehmen response, a characteristic grimace, when sniffing urine markings, but flehmen is more often associated with males detecting the markings made by tigresses in oestrus. Like other Panthera, tigers roar, particularly in aggressive situations, during the mating season or when making a kill. There are two different roars: the "true" roar is made using the hyoid apparatus and forced through an open mouth as it progressively closes, and the shorter, harsher "coughing" roar is made with the mouth open and teeth exposed. The "true" roar can be heard at up to 3 km (1.9 mi) away and is sometimes emitted three or four times in succession. When tense, tigers will moan, a sound similar to a roar but more subdued and made when the mouth is partially or completely closed. Moaning can be heard 400 m (1,300 ft) away.[22] Chuffing—soft, low-frequency snorting similar to purring in smaller cats—is heard in more friendly situations.[92] Other vocal communications include grunts, woofs, snarls, miaows, hisses and growls.[22]
+
+In the wild, tigers mostly feed on large and medium-sized mammals, particularly ungulates weighing 60–250 kg (130–550 lb). Range-wide, sambar deer, Manchurian wapiti, barasingha and wild boar are significantly preferred. Tigers are capable of taking down larger prey like adult gaur[93] but will also opportunistically eat much smaller prey, such as monkeys, peafowl and other ground-based birds, hares, porcupines, and fish.[94][51] They also prey on other predators, including dogs, leopards, pythons, bears, and crocodiles.[95] Tigers generally do not prey on fully grown adult Asian elephants and Indian rhinoceros but incidents have been reported.[96][97][98] More often, it is the more vulnerable small calves that are taken.[99] When in close proximity to humans, tigers will also sometimes prey on such domestic livestock as cattle, horses, and donkeys. Although almost exclusively carnivorous, tigers will occasionally eat vegetation for dietary fibre such as fruit of the slow match tree.[95]
+
+Tigers are thought to be mainly nocturnal predators,[70] but in areas where humans are absent, remote-controlled, hidden camera traps recorded them hunting in daylight.[100] They generally hunt alone and ambush their prey as most other cats do, overpowering them from any angle, using their body size and strength to knock the prey off balance. Successful hunts usually require the tiger to almost simultaneously leap onto its quarry, knock it over, and grab the throat or nape with its teeth.[81] Despite their large size, tigers can reach speeds of about 49–65 km/h (30–40 mph) but only in short bursts; consequently, tigers must be close to their prey before they break cover. If the prey catches wind of the tiger's presence before this, the tiger usually abandons the hunt rather than chase prey or battle it head-on. Horizontal leaps of up to 10 m (33 ft) have been reported, although leaps of around half this distance are more typical. One in 2 to 20 hunts, including stalking near potential prey, ends in a successful kill.[81][70]
+
+When hunting larger animals, tigers prefer to bite the throat and use their powerful forelimbs to hold onto the prey, often simultaneously wrestling it to the ground. The tiger remains latched onto the neck until its target dies of strangulation.[88] By this method, gaurs and water buffaloes weighing over a ton have been killed by tigers weighing about a sixth as much.[101] Although they can kill healthy adults, tigers often select the calves or infirm of very large species.[102] Healthy adult prey of this type can be dangerous to tackle, as long, strong horns, legs and tusks are all potentially fatal to the tiger. No other extant land predator routinely takes on prey this large on its own.[18][103]
+
+With smaller prey, such as monkeys and hares, the tiger bites the nape, often breaking the spinal cord, piercing the windpipe, or severing the jugular vein or common carotid artery.[104] Though rarely observed, some tigers have been recorded to kill prey by swiping with their paws, which are powerful enough to smash the skulls of domestic cattle,[95] and break the backs of sloth bears.[105]
+
+After killing their prey, tigers sometimes drag it to conceal it in vegetative cover, usually pulling it by grasping with their mouths at the site of the killing bite. This, too, can require great physical strength. In one case, after it had killed an adult gaur, a tiger was observed to drag the massive carcass over a distance of 12 m (39 ft). When 13 men simultaneously tried to drag the same carcass later, they were unable to move it.[81] An adult tiger can go for up to two weeks without eating, then gorge on 34 kg (75 lb) of flesh at one time. In captivity, adult tigers are fed 3 to 6 kg (6.6 to 13.2 lb) of meat a day.[81]
+
+Tigers usually prefer to eat prey they have caught themselves, but may eat carrion in times of scarcity and may even pirate prey from other large carnivores. Although predators typically avoid one another, if a prey item is under dispute or a serious competitor is encountered, displays of aggression are common. If these are not sufficient, the conflicts may turn violent; tigers may kill competitors as leopards, dholes, striped hyenas, wolves, bears, pythons, and crocodiles on occasion. Tigers may also prey on these competitors.[27][105][106][107][108] Attacks on smaller predators, such as badgers, lynxes, and foxes, are almost certainly predatory.[94] Crocodiles, bears, and large packs of dholes may win conflicts against tigers and, in the cases of crocodiles and bears, even can kill them.[27][18][109][110]
+
+The considerably smaller leopard avoids competition from tigers by hunting at different times of the day and hunting different prey.[111] In India's Nagarhole National Park, most prey selected by leopards were from 30 to 175 kg (66 to 386 lb) against a preference for prey weighing over 176 kg (388 lb) in the tigers. The average prey weight in the two respective big cats in India was 37.6 kg (83 lb) against 91.5 kg (202 lb).[112][113] With relatively abundant prey, tigers and leopards were seen to successfully coexist without competitive exclusion or interspecies dominance hierarchies that may be more common to the African savanna, where the leopard exists with the lion.[112] Golden jackals may feed on the tiger's kills.[114] Tigers appear to inhabit the deep parts of a forest while smaller predators like leopards and dholes are pushed closer to the fringes.[115]
+
+The tiger mates all year round, but most cubs are born between March and June, with a second peak in September. Gestation ranges from 93 to 114 days, with an average of 103 to 105 days. A female is only receptive for three to six days.[116] Mating is frequent and noisy during that time.[50] The female gives birth in a sheltered location such as in tall grass, in a dense thicket, cave or rocky crevice. The father generally takes no part in rearing.[18] Litters consist of two or three cubs, rarely as many as six. Cubs weigh from 780 to 1,600 g (1.72 to 3.53 lb) each at birth, and are born with eyes closed. They open their eyes when they are six to 14 days old.[116] Their milk teeth break through at the age of about two weeks. They start to eat meat at the age of eight weeks. At around this time, females usually shift them to a new den.[50] They make short ventures with their mother, although they do not travel with her as she roams her territory until they are older.  Females lactate for five to six months.[116] Around the time they are weaned, they start to accompany their mother on territorial walks and are taught how to hunt.[79]
+
+A dominant cub emerges in most litters, usually a male. The dominant cub is more active than its siblings and takes the lead in their play, eventually leaving its mother and becoming independent earlier.[79] The cubs start hunting on their own earliest at the age of 11 months, and become independent around 18 to 20 months of age.[88] They separate from their mother at the age of two to two and a half years, but continue to grow until the age of five years.[50] Young females reach sexual maturity at three to four years, whereas males at four to five years.[18] Unrelated wandering male tigers often kill cubs to make the female receptive, since the tigress may give birth to another litter within five months if the cubs of the previous litter are lost. The mortality rate of tiger cubs is about 50% in the first two years. Few other predators attack tiger cubs due to the diligence and ferocity of the mother. Apart from humans and other tigers, common causes of cub mortality are starvation, freezing, and accidents.[103] Generation length of the tiger is about eight years.[117]
+The oldest recorded captive tiger lived for 26 years.[81]
+
+A Siberian tigress with her cub at the Buffalo Zoo
+
+Two cubs playing with soccer ball at the Frankfurt Zoo
+
+In the 1990s, a new approach to tiger conservation was developed: Tiger Conservation Units (TCUs), which are blocks of habitat that have the potential to host tiger populations in 15 habitat types within five bioregions. Altogether 143 TCUs were identified and prioritized based on size and integrity of habitat, poaching pressure and population status. They range in size from 33 to 155,829 km2 (13 to 60,166 sq mi).[74]
+
+In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation.[119][123] The WWF subsequently declared that the world's count of wild tigers had risen for the first time in a century.[124]
+
+Major threats to the tiger include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching for fur and body parts, which have simultaneously greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild.[1] In India, only 11% of the historical tiger habitat remains due to habitat fragmentation.[125] Demand for tiger parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine has also been cited as a major threat to tiger populations.[126][127][128] Some estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals.[1] The global wild tiger population was estimated by the World Wide Fund for Nature at 3,200 in 2011 and 3,890 in 2015—Vox reported that this was the first increase in a century.[129][130]
+
+India is home to the world's largest population of wild tigers.[119] A 2014 census estimated a population of 2,226, a 30% increase since 2011.[131] On International Tiger Day 2019, the 'Tiger Estimation Report 2018’ was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report estimates a population of 2967 tigers in India with 25% increase since 2014. Modi said "India is one of the safest habitats for tigers as it has achieved the target of doubling the tiger population from 1411 in 2011 to 2967 in 2019".[132]
+
+In 1973, India's Project Tiger, started by Indira Gandhi, established numerous tiger reserves. The project was credited with tripling the number of wild Bengal tigers from some 1,200 in 1973 to over 3,500 in the 1990s, but a 2007 census showed that numbers had dropped back to about 1,400 tigers because of poaching.[133][134][135] Following the report, the Indian government pledged $153 million to the initiative, set up measures to combat poaching, promised funds to relocate up to 200,000 villagers in order to reduce human-tiger interactions,[136] and set up eight new tiger reserves.[137] India also reintroduced tigers to the Sariska Tiger Reserve[138] and by 2009 it was claimed that poaching had been effectively countered at Ranthambore National Park.[139]
+
+In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger was on the brink of extinction with only about 40 animals remaining in the wild in Russia. As a result, anti-poaching controls were put in place by the Soviet Union and a network of protected zones (zapovedniks) were instituted, leading to a rise in the population to several hundred. Poaching again became a problem in the 1990s, when the economy of Russia collapsed. The major obstacle in preserving the species is the enormous territory individual tigers require (up to 450 km2 needed by a single female and more for a single male).[140] Current conservation efforts are led by local governments and NGO's in concert with international organisations, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society.[141] The competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters to tolerate the big cats. Tigers have less impact on ungulate populations than do wolves, and are effective in controlling the latter's numbers.[142] In 2005, there were thought to be about 360 animals in Russia, though these exhibited little genetic diversity.[143] However, in a decade later, the Siberian tiger census was estimated from 480 to 540 individuals.[citation needed]
+
+In China, tigers became the target of large-scale ‘anti-pest’ campaigns in the early 1950s, where suitable habitats were fragmented following deforestation and resettlement of people to rural areas, who hunted tigers and prey species. Though tiger hunting was prohibited in 1977, the population continued to decline and is considered extinct in southern China since 2001.[144][145] In northeastern China's Hunchun National Nature Reserve, camera-traps recorded a tiger with four cubs for the first time in 2012.[146] During subsequent surveys, between 27 and 34 tigers were documented along the China–Russia border.[120][147] Having earlier rejected the Western-led environmentalist movement, China changed its stance in the 1980s and became a party to the CITES treaty. By 1993 it had banned the trade in tiger parts, and this diminished the use of tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicine.[148] The Tibetan people's trade in tiger skins has also been a threat to tigers. The pelts were used in clothing, tiger-skin chuba being worn as fashion. In 2006 the 14th Dalai Lama was persuaded to take up the issue. Since then there has been a change of attitude, with some Tibetans publicly burning their chubas.[149]
+
+In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the potential crisis that tigers faced in Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger Project (STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park in order to ensure the long-term viability of wild Sumatran tigers and to accumulate data on tiger life-history characteristics vital for the management of wild populations.[150] By August 1999, the teams of the STP had evaluated 52 sites of potential tiger habitat in Lampung Province, of which only 15 these were intact enough to contain tigers.[151] In the framework of the STP a community-based conservation programme was initiated to document the tiger-human dimension in the park in order to enable conservation authorities to resolve tiger-human conflicts based on a comprehensive database rather than anecdotes and opinions.[152]
+
+The Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera Corporation formed the collaboration Tigers Forever, with field sites including the world's largest tiger reserve, the 21,756 km2 (8,400 sq mi) Hukaung Valley in Myanmar. Other reserves were in the Western Ghats in India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Russian Far East covering in total about 260,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi).[153]
+
+Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. Tiger population have been estimated using plaster casts of their pugmarks, although this method was criticized as being inaccurate.[154] More recent techniques include the use of camera traps and studies of DNA from tiger scat, while radio-collaring has been used to track tigers in the wild.[155] Tiger spray has been found to be just as good, or better, as a source of DNA than scat.[156]
+
+The tiger has been one of the big five game animals of Asia. Tiger hunting took place on a large scale in the early 19th and 20th centuries, being a recognised and admired sport by the British in colonial India as well as the maharajas and aristocratic class of the erstwhile princely states of pre-independence India. A single maharaja or English hunter could claim to kill over a hundred tigers in their hunting career.[81] Tiger hunting was done by some hunters on foot; others sat up on machans with a goat or buffalo tied out as bait; yet others on elephant-back.[157]
+
+Historically, tigers have been hunted at a large scale so their famous striped skins could be collected. The trade in tiger skins peaked in the 1960s, just before international conservation efforts took effect. By 1977, a tiger skin in an English market was considered to be worth US$4,250.[81]
+
+Tiger parts are commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the fossils in Palawan were found besides stone tools. This, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, suggests that early humans had accumulated the bones,[39] and the condition of the tiger subfossils, dated to approximately 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, differed from other fossils in the assemblage, dated to the Upper Paleolithic. The tiger subfossils showed longitudinal fracture of the cortical bone due to weathering, which suggests that they had post-mortem been exposed to light and air. Tiger canines were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao.[40][41]
+
+Many people in China and other parts of Asia have a belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties, including as pain killers and aphrodisiacs.[158] There is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned, and the government has made some offences in connection with tiger poaching punishable by death.[which?] Furthermore, all trade in tiger parts is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993.[159]
+
+However, the trading of tiger parts in Asia has become a major black market industry and governmental and conservation attempts to stop it have been ineffective to date.[81] Almost all black marketers engaged in the trade are based in China and have either been shipped and sold within in their own country or into Taiwan, South Korea or Japan.[81] The Chinese subspecies was almost completely decimated by killing for commerce due to both the parts and skin trades in the 1950s through the 1970s.[81] Contributing to the illegal trade, there are a number of tiger farms in the country specialising in breeding the cats for profit. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today.[160][161][162] However, many tigers for traditional medicine black market are wild ones shot or snared by poachers and may be caught anywhere in the tiger's remaining range (from Siberia to India to the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra). In the Asian black market, a tiger penis can be worth the equivalent of around $300 U.S. dollars. In the years of 1990 through 1992, 27 million products with tiger derivatives were found.[81] In July 2014 at an international convention on endangered species in Geneva, Switzerland, a Chinese representative admitted for the first time his government was aware trading in tiger skins was occurring in China.[163]
+
+Wild tigers that have had no prior contact with humans actively avoid interactions with humans. However, tigers cause more human deaths through direct attack than any other wild mammal.[81] Attacks are occasionally provoked, as tigers lash out after being injured while they themselves are hunted. Attacks can be provoked accidentally, as when a human surprises a tiger or inadvertently comes between a mother and her young,[165] or as in a case in rural India when a postman startled a tiger, used to seeing him on foot, by riding a bicycle.[166] Occasionally tigers come to view people as prey. Such attacks are most common in areas where population growth, logging, and farming have put pressure on tiger habitats and reduced their wild prey. Most man-eating tigers are old, missing teeth, and unable to capture their preferred prey.[51] For example, the Champawat Tiger, a tigress found in Nepal and then India, had two broken canines. She was responsible for an estimated 430 human deaths, the most attacks known to be perpetrated by a single wild animal, by the time she was shot in 1907 by Jim Corbett.[167] According to Corbett, tiger attacks on humans are normally in daytime, when people are working outdoors and are not keeping watch.[168] Early writings tend to describe man-eating tigers as cowardly because of their ambush tactics.[169]
+
+Man-eaters have been a particular problem in recent decades in India and Bangladesh, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal, where some healthy tigers have hunted humans. Because of rapid habitat loss attributed to climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans.[170] The Sundarbans area had 129 human deaths from tigers from 1969 to 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, about 100 attacks per year in the Sundarbans, with a high of around 430 in some years of the 1960s.[81] Unusually, in some years in the Sundarbans, more humans are killed by tigers than vice versa.[81] In 1972, India's production of honey and beeswax dropped by 50% when at least 29 people who gathered these materials were devoured.[81] In 1986 in the Sundarbans, since tigers almost always attack from the rear, masks with human faces were worn on the back of the head, on the theory that tigers usually do not attack if seen by their prey. This decreased the number of attacks only temporarily. All other means to prevent attacks, such as providing more prey or using electrified human dummies, did not work as well.[171]
+
+In Ancient Roman times, tigers were kept in menageries and amphitheatres to be exhibited, trained and paraded, and were often provoked to fight humans and exotic beasts.[172][173] Since the 17th century, tigers, being rare and ferocious, were sought after to keep at European castles as symbols of their owners' power.[174] Tigers became central zoo and circus exhibits in the 18th century: a tiger could cost up to 4,000 francs in France (for comparison, a professor of the Beaux-Arts at Lyons earned only 3,000 francs a year),[174] or up to $3,500 in the United States, where a lion cost no more than $1,000.[175]
+
+In 2007, over 4,000 captive tigers lived in China, of which 3,000 were held by about 20 larger facilities, with the rest held by some 200 smaller facilities.[176] In 2011, 468 facilities in the USA kept 2,884 tigers.[177] Nineteen US states banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require a license, and sixteen states have no regulation.[178] Genetic ancestry of 105 captive tigers from fourteen countries and regions showed that forty-nine animals belonged distinctly to five subspecies; fifty-two animals had mixed subspecies origins.[179] Many Siberian tigers in zoos today are actually the result of crosses with Bengal tigers."[180]
+
+Tigers and their superlative qualities have been a source of fascination for mankind since ancient times, and they are routinely visible as important cultural and media motifs. They are also considered one of the charismatic megafauna, and are used as the face of conservation campaigns worldwide. In a 2004 online poll conducted by cable television channel Animal Planet, involving more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal with 21% of the vote, narrowly beating the dog.[181]
+
+In Chinese myth and culture, the tiger is one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. In Chinese art, the tiger is depicted as an earth symbol and equal rival of the Chinese dragon – the two representing matter and spirit respectively. The Southern Chinese martial art Hung Ga is based on the movements of the tiger and the crane. In Imperial China, a tiger was the personification of war and often represented the highest army general (or present day defense secretary),[182] while the emperor and empress were represented by a dragon and phoenix, respectively. The White Tiger (Chinese: 白虎; pinyin: Bái Hǔ) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the White Tiger of the West (Chinese: 西方白虎), and it represents the west and the autumn season.[182]
+
+The tiger's tail appears in stories from countries including China and Korea, it being generally inadvisable to grasp a tiger by the tail.[183][184] In Korean myth and culture, the tiger is regarded as a guardian that drives away evil spirits and a sacred creature that brings good luck – the symbol of courage and absolute power. For the people who live in and around the forests of Korea, the tiger considered the symbol of the Mountain Spirit or King of mountain animals. So, Koreans also called the tigers "San Gun" (산군) means Mountain Lord.[185]
+
+In Buddhism, the tiger is one of the Three Senseless Creatures, symbolising anger, with the monkey representing greed and the deer lovesickness.[182] The Tungusic peoples considered the Siberian tiger a near-deity and often referred to it as "Grandfather" or "Old man". The Udege and Nanai called it "Amba". The Manchu considered the Siberian tiger as "Hu Lin," the king.[57] In Hinduism, the god Shiva wears and sits on tiger skin.[186] The ten-armed warrior goddess Durga rides the tigress (or lioness) Damon into battle. In southern India the god Ayyappan was associated with a tiger.[187] In Greco-Roman tradition, the tiger was depicted being ridden by the god Dionysus.[188]
+
+The weretiger replaces the werewolf in shapeshifting folklore in Asia;[189] in India they were evil sorcerers, while in Indonesia and Malaysia they were somewhat more benign.[190] In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the tiger is fiercer and more ruthless than the lion.[191]
+
+In William Blake's poem in his Songs of Experience (1794), titled "The Tyger", the tiger is a menacing and fearful animal.[192] In Yann Martel's 2001 Man Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi, the protagonist, surviving shipwreck for months in a small boat, somehow avoids being eaten by the other survivor, a large Bengal tiger. The story was adapted in Ang Lee's 2012 feature film of the same name.[193] Jim Corbett's 1944 Man-Eaters of Kumaon tells ten true stories of his tiger-hunting exploits in what is now the northern Uttarakhand region of India. The book has sold over four million copies,[194] and has been the basis of both fictional and documentary films. In Rudyard Kipling's 1894 The Jungle Book, the tiger, Shere Khan, is the mortal enemy of the human protagonist, Mowgli.[192] More benign tiger characters include Tigger in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and Hobbes of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, both of whom are represented as simply stuffed animals come to life.[195]
+
+Tigers are also mascots for various sports teams around the world. Tony the Tiger is a famous mascot for Kellogg's breakfast cereal Frosted Flakes.[196] The Esso (Exxon) brand of petrol was advertised from 1959 onwards with the slogan 'put a tiger in your tank', and a tiger mascot; more than 2.5 million synthetic tiger tails were sold to motorists, who tied them to their petrol tank caps.[197]
+
+The tiger is one of the animals displayed on the Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The tiger was the emblem of the Chola Dynasty and was depicted on coins, seals and banners.[198] The seals of several Chola copper coins show the tiger, the Pandyan emblem fish and the Chera emblem bow, indicating that the Cholas had achieved political supremacy over the latter two dynasties. Gold coins found in Kavilayadavalli in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh have motifs of the tiger, bow and some indistinct marks.[199] The tiger symbol of Chola Empire was later adopted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the tiger became a symbol of the unrecognised state of Tamil Eelam and Tamil independence movement.[200] The Bengal tiger is the national animal of India and Bangladesh.[201] The Malaysian tiger is the national animal of Malaysia.[202] The Siberian tiger is the national animal of South Korea.
+
+The tyger, a depiction of tigers as they were understood by European artists, is among the creatures used in charges and supporters in European heraldry. This creature has several notable differences from real tigers, including absent stripes, a leonine tufted tail, and a head terminating in large, pointed jaws. A more realistic version of the tiger entered the heraldic armory through the British Empire's expansion into Asia, and is referred to as the Bengal tiger to distinguish it from its older counterpart. The Bengal tiger is not a very common creature in heraldry, but is present as a supporter in the arms of Bombay and emblazoned on the shield of the University of Madras.[203]

en/3394.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,95 @@
+
+
+The stomach is a muscular, hollow organ in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and many other animals, including several invertebrates. The stomach has a dilated structure and functions as a vital digestive organ.  In the digestive system the stomach is involved in the second phase of digestion, following chewing. It performs a chemical breakdown due to enzymes and hydrochloric acid.
+
+In humans and many other animals, the stomach is located between the oesophagus and the small intestine. It secretes digestive enzymes and gastric acid to aid in food digestion. The pyloric sphincter controls the passage of partially digested food (chyme) from the stomach into the duodenum where peristalsis takes over to move this through the rest of the intestines.
+
+In humans, the stomach lies between the oesophagus and the duodenum (the first part of the small intestine). It is in the left upper part of the abdominal cavity. The top of the stomach lies against the diaphragm. Lying behind the stomach is the pancreas. A large double fold of visceral peritoneum called the greater omentum hangs down from the greater curvature of the stomach. Two sphincters keep the contents of the stomach contained; the lower oesophageal sphincter  (found in the cardiac region), at the junction of the oesophagus and stomach, and the pyloric sphincter at the junction of the stomach with the duodenum.
+
+The stomach is surrounded by parasympathetic (stimulant) and sympathetic (inhibitor) plexuses (networks of blood vessels and nerves in the anterior gastric, posterior, superior and inferior, celiac and myenteric), which regulate both the secretory activity of the stomach and the motor (motion) activity of its muscles.
+
+Because it is a distensible organ, it normally expands to hold about one litre of food.[3] The stomach of a newborn human baby will only be able to retain about 30 millilitres. The maximum stomach volume in adults is between 2 and 4 litres.[4][5]
+
+In classical anatomy the human stomach is divided into four sections, beginning at the cardia.[7]
+
+The cardia is defined as the region following the "z-line" of the gastroesophageal junction, the point at which the epithelium changes from stratified squamous to columnar. Near the cardia is the lower oesophageal sphincter.[8] Recent research has shown that the cardia is not an anatomically distinct region of the stomach but a region of the oesophageal lining damaged by reflux.[9]
+
+The stomach bed refers to the structures upon which the  stomach rests in mammals.[10][11] These include the pancreas, spleen, left kidney, left suprarenal gland, transverse colon and its mesocolon, and the diaphragm. The term was introduced around 1896 by Philip Polson of the Catholic University School of Medicine, Dublin. However this was brought into disrepute by surgeon anatomist J Massey.[12][13][14]
+
+The lesser curvature of the human stomach is supplied by the right gastric artery inferiorly and the left gastric artery superiorly, which also supplies the cardiac region. The greater curvature is supplied by the right gastroepiploic artery inferiorly and the left gastroepiploic artery superiorly. The fundus of the stomach, and also the upper portion of the greater curvature, is supplied by the short gastric arteries, which arise from the splenic artery.
+
+Like the other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, the human stomach walls consist of a mucosa, submucosa, muscularis externa, subserosa and serosa.[16]
+
+The inner part of the lining of the stomach, the gastric mucosa, consists of an outer layer of column-shaped cells, a lamina propria, and a thin layer of smooth muscle called the muscularis mucosa. Beneath the mucosa lies the submucosa, consisting of fibrous connective tissue.[citation needed] Meissner's plexus is in this layer.[17]
+
+Outside of the submucosa lies another muscular layer, the muscularis externa. It consists of three layers of muscular fibres, with fibres lying at angles to each other.[citation needed] These are the inner oblique, inner circular, and outer longitudinal layers. The presence of the inner oblique layer is distinct from other parts of the gastrointestinal tract, which do not possess this layer.[citation needed]
+
+The outer longitudinal layer is responsible for moving the bolus towards the pylorus of the stomach through muscular shortening.
+
+To the outside of the muscularis externa lies a serosa, consisting of layers of connective tissue continuous with the peritoneum.
+
+The mucosa lining the stomach is lined with a number of these pits, which receive gastric juice, secreted by between 2 and 7 gastric glands.[citation needed] Gastric juice is an acidic fluid containing hydrochloric acid and the digestive enzyme pepsin.[citation needed] The glands contains a number of cells, with the function of the glands changing depending on their position within the stomach.[citation needed]
+
+Within the body and fundus of the stomach lie the fundic glands. In general, these glands are lined by column-shaped cells that secrete a protective layer of mucus and bicarbonate. Additional cells present include parietal cells that secrete hydrochloric acid and intrinsic factor, chief cells that secrete pepsin, and neuroendocrine cells that secrete serotonin.[18][citation needed]
+
+Glands differ where the stomach meets the oesophagus, and near the pylorus.[citation needed] Near the junction between the stomach and the oesophagus lie cardiac glands, which primarily secrete mucus. [18] They are fewer in number than the other gastric glands and are more shallowly positioned in the mucosa. There are two kinds - either simple tubular with short ducts  or  compound racemose resembling the duodenal Brunner's glands.[citation needed] Near the pylorus lie pyloric glands and are located in the antrum of the pylorus. They secrete mucus, as well as gastrin produced by their G cells.[19][citation needed]
+
+About 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and nearly 70% of these genes are expressed in the normal stomach.[20][21] Just over 150 of these genes are more specifically expressed in the stomach compared to other organs, with only some 20 genes being highly specific. The corresponding specific proteins expressed in stomach are mainly involved in creating a suitable environment for handling the digestion of food for uptake of nutrients. Highly stomach-specific proteins include GKN1, expressed in the mucosa; pepsinogen PGC and the lipase LIPF, expressed in chief cells; and gastric ATPase ATP4A and gastric intrinsic factor GIF, expressed in parietal cells.[22]
+
+In early human embryogenesis, the ventral part of the embryo abuts the yolk sac. During the third week of development, as the embryo grows, it begins to surround parts of the sac. The enveloped portions form the basis for the adult gastrointestinal tract.[23] The sac is surrounded by a network of vitelline arteries and veins. Over time, these arteries consolidate into the three main arteries that supply the developing gastrointestinal tract: the celiac artery, superior mesenteric artery, and inferior mesenteric artery. The areas supplied by these arteries are used to define the foregut, midgut, and hindgut.[23] The surrounded sac becomes the primitive gut. Sections of this gut begin to differentiate into the organs of the gastrointestinal tract, and the esophagus, and stomach form from the foregut.[23]
+
+In the human digestive system, a bolus (a small rounded mass of chewed up food) enters the stomach through the esophagus via the lower esophageal sphincter. The stomach releases proteases (protein-digesting enzymes such as pepsin) and hydrochloric acid, which kills or inhibits bacteria and provides the acidic pH of 2 for the proteases to work. Food is churned by the stomach through muscular contractions of the wall called peristalsis – reducing the volume of the bolus, before looping around the fundus[24] and the body of stomach as the boluses are converted into chyme (partially digested food). Chyme slowly passes through the pyloric sphincter and into the duodenum of the small intestine, where the extraction of nutrients begins.
+
+Gastric juice in the stomach also contains pepsinogen. Hydrochloric acid activates this inactive form of enzyme into the active form, pepsin. Pepsin breaks down proteins into polypeptides.
+
+Although the absorption in the human digestive system is mainly a function of the small intestine, some absorption of certain small molecules nevertheless does occur in the stomach through its lining. This includes:
+
+The parietal cells of the human stomach are responsible for producing intrinsic factor, which is necessary for the absorption of vitamin B12. B12 is used in cellular metabolism and is necessary for the production of red blood cells, and the functioning of the nervous system.
+
+The movement and the flow of chemicals into the stomach are controlled by both the autonomic nervous system and by the various digestive hormones of the digestive system:
+
+Other than gastrin, these hormones all act to turn off the stomach action. This is in response to food products in the liver and gall bladder, which have not yet been absorbed. The stomach needs to push food into the small intestine only when the intestine is not busy. While the intestine is full and still digesting food, the stomach acts as storage for food.
+
+Epidermal growth factor (EGF) results in cellular proliferation, differentiation, and survival.[29]  EGF is a low-molecular-weight polypeptide first purified from the mouse submandibular gland, but since then found in many human tissues including the submandibular gland, and the parotid gland. Salivary EGF, which also seems to be regulated by dietary inorganic iodine, also plays an important physiological role in the maintenance of oro-oesophageal and gastric tissue integrity. The biological effects of salivary EGF include healing of oral and gastroesophageal ulcers, inhibition of gastric acid secretion, stimulation of DNA synthesis, and mucosal protection from intraluminal injurious factors such as gastric acid, bile acids, pepsin, and trypsin and from physical, chemical, and bacterial agents.[30]
+
+The human stomach can "taste" sodium glutamate using glutamate receptors[31] and this information is passed to the lateral hypothalamus and limbic system in the brain as a palatability signal through the vagus nerve.[32] The stomach can also sense, independently of tongue and oral taste receptors, glucose,[33] carbohydrates,[34] proteins,[34] and fats.[35] This allows the brain to link nutritional value of foods to their tastes.[33]
+
+This syndrome defines the association between thyroid disease and chronic gastritis which was first described in the 1960s.[36] This term was coined also to indicate the presence of thyroid autoantibodies or autoimmune thyroid disease in patients with pernicious anemia, a late clinical stage of atrofic gastritis.[37] In 1993, has been published a more complete investigation on the stomach and thyroid [38] , reporting that the thyroid is, embryogenetically and  phylogenetically, derived from primitive stomach, and that the thyroid cells, such as primitive gastroenteric cells, during vertebrate evolution, migrated and specialized in uptake of iodide and in storage and elaboration of iodine compounds. In fact, stomach and thyroid share iodine-concentranting ability and many morphological and functional similarities,  such as cell polarity and apical microvilli, similar organ-specific antigens and also associated autoimmune diseases, secretion of glycoproteins (thyroglobulin and mucin) and peptide hormones, the digesting and readsorbing ability and, lastly, similar ability to form iodotyrosines by peroxidase activity, where iodide acts as electron donor in the presence of H2O2. In the following years,  many researchers published reviews about this syndrome.[39]
+
+A series of radiographs can be used to examine the stomach for various disorders. This will often include the use of a barium swallow. Another method of examination of the stomach, is the use of an endoscope. A gastric emptying scan is considered the gold standard to assess gastric emptying rate.[40]
+
+A large number of studies have indicated that most cases of peptic ulcers, and gastritis, in humans are caused by Helicobacter pylori infection, and an association has been seen with the development of stomach cancer.[41]
+
+A stomach rumble is actually noise from the intestines.
+
+In humans, many bariatric surgery procedures involve the stomach, in order to lose weight. A gastric band may be placed around the cardia area, which can adjust to limit intake. The anatomy of the stomach may be modified, or the stomach may be bypassed entirely.
+
+Surgical removal of the stomach is called a gastrectomy, and removal of the cardia area is a called a cardiectomy.  "Cardiectomy" is a term that is also used to describe the removal of the heart.[42][43][44] A gastrectomy may be carried out because of gastric cancer or severe perforation of the stomach wall.
+
+Fundoplication is stomach surgery in which the fundus is wrapped around the lower esophagus and stitched into place.  It is used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).[45]
+
+There were previously conflicting statements in the academic anatomy community[46][47][48] over whether the cardia is part of the stomach, part of the oesophagus or a distinct entity. Modern surgical and medical textbooks have agreed that "the gastric cardia is now clearly considered to be part of the stomach."[49][50]
+
+The word stomach is derived from the Latin stomachus which has roots from the Greek word stomachos (στόμαχος), ultimately from stoma (στόμα), "mouth".[51] Gastro- and gastric (meaning "related to the stomach") are both derived from the Greek word gaster (γαστήρ, meaning "belly"[52][53]).[54]
+
+Although the precise shape and size of the stomach varies widely among different vertebrates, the relative positions of the oesophageal and duodenal openings remain relatively constant. As a result, the organ always curves somewhat to the left before curving back to meet the pyloric sphincter. However, lampreys, hagfishes, chimaeras, lungfishes, and some teleost fish have no stomach at all, with the oesophagus opening directly into the anus. These animals all consume diets that require little storage of food, no predigestion with gastric juices, or both.[59]
+
+The gastric lining is usually divided into two regions, an anterior portion lined by fundic glands and a posterior portion lined with pyloric glands. Cardiac glands are unique to mammals, and even then are absent in a number of species. The distributions of these glands vary between species, and do not always correspond with the same regions as in humans. Furthermore, in many non-human mammals, a portion of the stomach anterior to the cardiac glands is lined with epithelium essentially identical to that of the oesophagus. Ruminants, in particular, have a complex stomach, the first three chambers of which are all lined with oesophageal mucosa.[59]
+
+In birds and crocodilians, the stomach is divided into two regions. Anteriorly is a narrow tubular region, the proventriculus, lined by fundic glands, and connecting the true stomach to the crop. Beyond lies the powerful muscular gizzard, lined by pyloric glands, and, in some species, containing stones that the animal swallows to help grind up food.[59]
+
+In insects there is also a crop. The insect stomach is called the midgut.
+
+Information about the stomach in echinoderms or molluscs can be found under the respective articles.
+
+Greater omentum and stomach of humans
+
+A more realistic image, showing the celiac artery and its branches in humans; the liver has been raised, and the lesser omentum and anterior layer of the greater omentum removed.
+
+An autopsy of a human stomach, showing the many folds (rugae) of the stomach. 2012 Instituto Nacional de Cardiología
+
+Human stomach
+
+Endoscopic image of human fundic gland polyposis.
+
+High-quality image of the stomach

en/3395.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,334 @@
+
+
+– in Europe (green & grey)– in the European Union (green)  –  [Legend]
+
+Estonia (Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsʲti] (listen)), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km).[11] The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland and of 2,222 islands in the Baltic Sea,[12] covering a total area of 45,227 km2 (17,462 sq mi), water 2,839 km2 (1,096 sq mi), land area 42,388 km2 (16,366 sq mi), and is influenced by a humid continental climate. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and Tartu are largest cities and urban areas in the whole country; other notable cities are Narva, Pärnu, Kohtla-Järve and Viljandi. The official language of the country, Estonian, is the second-most-spoken Finnic language.
+
+The territory of Estonia has been inhabited since at least 9,000 BC. Ancient Estonians became some of the last European pagans to adopt Christianity following the Livonian Crusade in the 13th century.[13] After centuries of successive rule by Germans, Danes, Swedes, Poles and Russians, a distinct Estonian national identity began to emerge in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This culminated in independence from Russia in 1920 after a brief War of Independence at the end of World War I. Initially democratic prior to the Great Depression, Estonia experienced authoritarian rule from 1934 during the Era of Silence. During World War II (1939–1945), Estonia was repeatedly contested and occupied by the Soviet Union and Germany, ultimately being incorporated into the former. After the loss of its de facto independence, Estonia's de jure state continuity was preserved by diplomatic representatives and the government-in-exile. In 1987 the peaceful Singing Revolution began against Soviet rule, resulting in the restoration of de facto independence on 20 August 1991.
+
+The sovereign state of Estonia is a democratic unitary parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties. With a population of 1.3 million Estonia is one of the least populous members of the European Union, the Eurozone, the OECD, the Schengen Area, NATO, and from 2020, the United Nations Security Council.[14]
+
+Estonia is a developed country with an advanced, high-income economy that was among the fastest-growing in the EU since its entry in 2004[15] The country ranks very high in the Human Development Index,[7] and compares well in measures of economic freedom, civil liberties, education,[16] and press freedom.[17] Estonian citizens receive universal health care,[18] free education,[19] and the longest paid maternity leave in the OECD.[20] One of the world's most digitally-advanced societies,[21]
+in 2005 Estonia became the first state to hold elections over the Internet, and in 2014, the first state to provide e-residency.
+
+The name Estonia has been connected to Aesti, first mentioned by Roman historian Tacitus around 98 AD. Some historians believe he was directly referring to Balts (i.e. not Finnic-speaking Estonians), while others have proposed that the name applied to the whole Eastern Baltic region.[22] The Scandinavian sagas referring to Eistland were the earliest sources to use the name in its modern meaning.[23] The toponym Estland/Eistland has been linked to Old Scandinavian eist, austr meaning "the east".[24]
+
+Human settlement in Estonia became possible 13,000 to 11,000 years ago, when the ice from the last glacial era melted. The oldest known settlement in Estonia is the Pulli settlement, which was on the banks of the river Pärnu, near the town of Sindi, in south-western Estonia. According to radiocarbon dating it was settled around 11,000 years ago.[25]
+
+The earliest human habitation during the Mesolithic period is connected to the Kunda culture, named after the town of Kunda in northern Estonia. At that time the country was covered with forests, and people lived in semi-nomadic communities near bodies of water. Subsistence activities consisted of hunting, gathering and fishing.[26] Around 4900 BC ceramics appear of the neolithic period, known as Narva culture.[27] Starting from around 3200 BC the Corded Ware culture appeared; this included new activities like primitive agriculture and animal husbandry.[28]
+
+The Bronze Age started around 1800 BC, and saw the establishment of the first hill fort settlements.[30] A transition from hunting-fishing-gathering subsistence to single-farm-based settlement started around 1000 BC, and was complete by the beginning of the Iron Age around 500 BC.[25][31] The large amount of bronze objects indicate the existence of active communication with Scandinavian and Germanic tribes.[32]
+
+The middle Iron Age produced threats appearing from different directions. Several Scandinavian sagas referred to major confrontations with Estonians, notably when "Estonian Vikings" defeated and killed the Swedish king Ingvar.[33][34] Similar threats appeared in the east, where Russian principalities were expanding westward. In 1030 Yaroslav the Wise defeated Estonians and established a fort in modern-day Tartu; this foothold lasted until an Estonian tribe, the Sosols, destroyed it in 1061, followed by their raid on Pskov.[35][36][37][38] Around the 11th century, the Scandinavian Viking era around the Baltic Sea was succeeded by the Baltic Viking era, with seaborne raids by Curonians and by Estonians from the island of Saaremaa, known as Oeselians. In 1187 Estonians (Oeselians), Curonians or/and Karelians sacked Sigtuna, which was a major city of Sweden at the time.[39][40]
+
+Estonia could be divided into two main cultural areas, the coastal areas of Northern and Western Estonia had close overseas contacts with Scandinavia and Finland, while inland Southern Estonia had more contacts with Balts and Pskov.[41] The landscape of Ancient Estonia featured numerous hillforts.[42] Prehistoric or medieval harbour sites have been found on the coast of Saaremaa.[42] Estonia also has a number of graves from the Viking Age, both individual and collective, with weapons and jewellery including types found commonly throughout Northern Europe and Scandinavia.[42][43]
+
+In the early centuries AD, political and administrative subdivisions began to emerge in Estonia. Two larger subdivisions appeared: the parish (Estonian: kihelkond) and the county (Estonian: maakond), which consisted of multiple parishes. A parish was led by elders and centred around a hill fort; in some rare cases a parish had multiple forts. By the 13th century Estonia consisted of eight major counties: Harjumaa, Järvamaa, Läänemaa, Revala, Saaremaa, Sakala, Ugandi, and Virumaa; and six minor, single-parish counties: Alempois, Jogentagana, Mõhu, Nurmekund, Soopoolitse, and Vaiga. Counties were independent entities and engaged only in a loose co-operation against foreign threats.[44][45]
+
+There is little known of early Estonian pagan religious practices. The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia mentions Tharapita as the superior god of the Oeselians. Spiritual practices were guided by shamans, with sacred groves, especially oak groves, serving as places of worship.[46][47]
+
+In 1199 Pope Innocent III declared a crusade to "defend the Christians of  Livonia".[48] Fighting reached Estonia in 1206, when Danish king Valdemar II unsuccessfully invaded Saaremaa. The German Livonian Brothers of the Sword, who had previously subjugated Livonians, Latgalians, and Selonians, started campaigning against the Estonians in 1208, and over next few years both sides made numerous raids and counter-raids. A major leader of the Estonian resistance was Lembitu, an elder of Sakala County, but in 1217 the Estonians suffered a significant defeat in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day, where Lembitu was killed. In 1219, Valdemar II landed at Lindanise, defeated the Estonians in battle, and started conquering Northern Estonia.[49][50] The next year, Sweden invaded Western Estonia, but were repelled by the Oeselians. In 1223, a major revolt ejected the Germans and Danes from the whole of Estonia, except Reval, but the crusaders soon resumed their offensive, and in 1227, Saaremaa was the last county to surrender.[51][52]
+
+After the crusade, the territory of present-day Southern Estonia and Latvia was named Terra Mariana, but later it became known simply as Livonia.[53] Northern-Estonia became the Danish Duchy of Estonia, while the rest was divided between the Sword Brothers and prince-bishoprics of Dorpat and Ösel–Wiek. In 1236, after suffering a major defeat, the Sword Brothers merged into the Teutonic Order becoming the Livonian Order.[54] In the next decades there were several uprisings against foreign rulers on Saaremaa. In 1343, a major rebellion started, known as the St. George's Night Uprising, encompassing the whole area of Northern-Estonia and Saaremaa. The Teutonic Order finished suppressing the rebellion in 1345, and the next year the Danish king sold his possessions in Estonia to the Order.[55][56] The unsuccessful rebellion led to a consolidation of power for the Baltic German minority.[57] For the subsequent centuries they remained the ruling elite in both cities and the countryside.[58]
+
+During the crusade, Reval (Tallinn) was founded, as the capital of Danish Estonia, on the site of Lindanise. In 1248 Reval received full town rights and adopted the Lübeck law.[59] The Hanseatic League controlled trade on the Baltic Sea, and overall the four largest towns in Estonia became members: Reval, Dorpat (Tartu), Pernau (Pärnu), and Fellin (Viljandi). Reval acted as a trade intermediary between Novgorod and Western Hanseatic cities, while Dorpat filled the same role with Pskov. Many guilds were formed during that period, but only a very few allowed the participation of native Estonians.[60] Protected by their stone walls and alliance with the Hansa, prosperous cities like Reval and Dorpat repeatedly defied other rulers of Livonia.[61] After the decline of the Teutonic Order after its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, and the defeat of the Livonian Order in the Battle of Swienta on 1 September 1435, the Livonian Confederation Agreement was signed on 4 December 1435.[62]
+
+The Reformation in Europe began in 1517, and soon spread to Livonia despite opposition by the Livonian Order.[63] Towns were the first to embrace Protestantism in the 1520s, and by the 1530s the majority of the gentry had adopted Lutheranism for themselves and their peasant serfs.[64][65] Church services were now conducted in vernacular language, which initially meant German, but in the 1530s the first religious services in Estonian also took place.[64][66]
+
+During the 16th century, the expansionist monarchies of Muscowy, Sweden, and Poland–Lithuania consolidated power, posing a growing threat to decentralised Livonia weakened by disputes between cities, nobility, bishops, and the Order.[64][67]
+
+In 1558, Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia invaded Livonia, starting the Livonian War. The Livonian Order was decisively defeated in 1560, prompting Livonian factions to seek foreign protection. The majority of Livonia accepted Polish rule, while Reval and the nobles of Northern Estonia swore loyalty to the Swedish king, and the Bishop of Ösel-Wiek sold his lands to the Danish king. Russian forces gradually conquered the majority of Livonia, but in the late 1570s the Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish armies started their own offensives and the bloody war finally ended in 1583 with Russian defeat.[67][68] As result of the war, Northern Estonia became Swedish Duchy of Estonia, Southern Estonia became Polish Duchy of Livonia, and Saaremaa remained under Danish control.[69]
+
+In 1600, the Polish-Swedish War broke out, causing further devastation. The protracted war ended in 1629 with Sweden gaining Livonia, including the regions of Southern Estonia and Northern Latvia.[70] Danish Saaremaa was transferred to Sweden in 1645.[71] The wars had halved the Estonian population from about 250–270,000 people in the mid 16th century to 115–120,000 in the 1630s.[72]
+
+While serfdom was retained under Swedish rule, legal reforms took place which strengthened peasants' land usage and inheritance rights, resulting this period's reputation of the "Good Old Swedish Time" in people's historical memory.[73] Swedish king Gustaf II Adolf established gymnasiums in Reval and Dorpat; the latter was upgraded to Tartu University in 1632. Printing presses were also established in both towns. In the 1680s the beginnings of Estonian elementary education appeared, largely due to efforts of Bengt Gottfried Forselius, who also introduced orthographical reforms to written Estonian.[74] The population of Estonia grew rapidly for a 60–70-year period, until the Great Famine of 1695–97 in which some 70,000–75,000 people perished – about 20% of the population.[75]
+
+In 1700, the Great Northern War started, and by 1710 the whole of Estonia was conquered by the Russian Empire.[76] The war again devastated the population of Estonia, with the 1712 population estimated at only 150,000–170,000.[77] Russian administration restored all the political and landholding rights of Baltic Germans.[78] The rights of Estonian peasants reached their lowest point, as serfdom completely dominated agricultural relations during the 18th century.[79] Serfdom was formally abolished in 1816–1819, but this initially had very little practical effect; major improvements in rights of the peasantry started with reforms in the mid-19th century.[80]
+
+The Estonian national awakening began in the 1850s as the leading figures started promoting an Estonian national identity among the general populace. Its economic basis was formed by widespread farm buyouts by peasants, forming a class of Estonian landowners. In 1857 Johann Voldemar Jannsen started publishing the first Estonian language newspaper and began popularising the denomination of oneself as eestlane (Estonian).[81] Schoolmaster Carl Robert Jakobson and clergyman Jakob Hurt became leading figures in a national movement, encouraging Estonian peasants to take pride in themselves and in their ethnic identity.[82] The first nationwide movements formed, such as a campaign to establish the Estonian language Alexander School, the founding of the Society of Estonian Literati and the Estonian Students' Society, and the first national song festival, held in 1869 in Tartu.[83][84][85] Linguistic reforms helped to develop the Estonian language.[86] The national epic Kalevipoeg was published in 1862, and 1870 saw the first performances of Estonian theatre.[87][88] In 1878 a major split happened in the national movement. The moderate wing led by Hurt focused on development of culture and Estonian education, while the radical wing led by Jacobson started demanding increased political and economical rights.[84]
+
+In the late 19th century the Russification period started, as the central government initiated various administrative and cultural measures to tie Baltic governorates more closely to the empire.[83] The Russian language was used throughout the education system and many Estonian social and cultural activities were suppressed.[88] Still, some administrative changes aimed at reducing power of Baltic German institutions did prove useful to Estonians.[83] In the late 1890s there was a new surge of nationalism with the rise of prominent figures like Jaan Tõnisson and Konstantin Päts. In the early 20th century Estonians started taking over control of local governments in towns from Germans.[89]
+
+During the 1905 Revolution the first legal Estonian political parties were founded. An Estonian national congress was convened and demanded the unification of Estonian areas into a single autonomous territory and an end to Russification. During the unrest peasants and workers attacked manor houses. The Tsarist government responded with a brutal crackdown; some 500 people were executed and hundreds more were jailed or deported to Siberia.[90][91]
+
+In 1917, after the February Revolution, the governorate of Estonia was expanded to include Estonian speaking areas of Livonia and was granted autonomy, enabling formation of the Estonian Provincial Assembly.[92] Bolsheviks seized power during the October Revolution, and disbanded the Provincial Assembly. However the Provincial Assembly established the Salvation Committee, and during the short interlude between Russian retreat and German arrival, the committee declared the independence of Estonia on 24 February 1918, and formed the Estonian Provisional Government. German occupation immediately followed, but after their defeat in World War I the Germans were forced to hand over power to the Provisional Government on 19 November.[93][94]
+
+On 28 November 1918 Soviet Russia invaded, starting the Estonian War of Independence.[95] The Red Army came within 30 km from Tallinn, but in January 1919, the Estonian Army, led by Johan Laidoner, went on a counter-offensive, ejecting Bolshevik forces from Estonia within a few months. Renewed Soviet attacks failed, and in spring, the Estonian army, in co-operation with White Russian forces, advanced into Russia and Latvia.[96][97] In June 1919, Estonia defeated the German Landeswehr which had attempted to dominate Latvia, restoring power to the government of Kārlis Ulmanis there. After the collapse of the White Russian forces, the Red Army launched a major offensive against Narva in late 1919, but failed to achieve a breakthrough. On 2 February 1920, the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed between Estonia and Soviet Russia, with the latter pledging to permanently give up all sovereign claims to Estonia.[96][98]
+
+In April 1919, the Estonian Constituent Assembly was elected. The Constituent Assembly passed a sweeping land reform expropriating large estates, and adopted a new highly liberal constitution establishing Estonia as a parliamentary democracy.[99][100] In 1924, the Soviet Union organised a communist coup attempt, which quickly failed.[101] Estonia's cultural autonomy law for ethnic minorities, adopted in 1925, is widely recognised as one of the most liberal in the world at that time.[102] The Great Depression put heavy pressure on Estonia's political system, and in 1933, the right-wing Vaps movement spearheaded a constitutional reform establishing a strong presidency.[103][104] On 12 March 1934 the acting head of state, Konstantin Päts, declared a state of emergency, falsely claiming that the Vaps movement had been planning a coup. Päts, together with general Johan Laidoner and Kaarel Eenpalu, established an authoritarian regime well known as the "Era of Silence", where the parliament was dissolved and the newly established Patriotic League became the only legal political party.[105] To legitimise the regime, a new constitution was adopted and elections were held in 1938. Opposition candidates were allowed to participate, but only as independents, while opposition parties remained banned.[106] The Päts regime was relatively benign compared to other authoritarian regimes in interwar Europe, and there was no systematic terror against political opponents.[107]
+
+Estonia joined the League of Nations in 1921.[108] Attempts to establish a larger alliance together with Finland, Poland, and Latvia failed, with only a mutual defence pact being signed with Latvia in 1923, and later was followed up with the Baltic Entente of 1934.[109][110] In the 1930s, Estonia also engaged in secret military co-operation with Finland.[111] Non-aggression pacts were signed with the Soviet Union in 1932, and with Germany in 1939.[108][112] In 1938, Estonia declared neutrality, but this proved futile in World War II.[113]
+
+On 23 August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The pact's secret protocol divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, with Estonia belonging to the Soviet sphere.[114] On 24 September, the Soviet Union presented an ultimatum, demanding that Estonia sign a treaty of mutual assistance which would allow Soviet military bases into the country. The Estonian government felt that it had no choice but to comply, and the treaty was signed on 28 September.[115] In May 1940, Red Army forces in bases were set in combat readiness and, on 14 June, the Soviet Union instituted a full naval and air blockade on Estonia. On the same day, the airliner Kaleva was shot down by the Soviet Air Force. On 16 June, Soviets presented an ultimatum demanding completely free passage of the Red Army into Estonia and the establishment of a pro-Soviet government. Feeling that resistance was hopeless, the Estonian government complied and, on the next day, the whole country was occupied.[116][117] On 6 August 1940, Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union as the Estonian SSR.[118]
+
+The Soviets established a regime of oppression; most of the high-ranking civil and military officials, intelligentsia and industrialists were arrested, and usually executed soon afterwards. Soviet repressions culminated on 14 June 1941 with mass deportation of around 11,000 people to Siberia, among whom more than half perished in inhumane conditions.[119][120] When the German Operation Barbarossa started against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, around 34,000 young Estonian men were forcibly drafted into the Red Army, fewer than 30% of whom survived the war. Soviet destruction battalions initiated a scorched earth policy. Political prisoners who could not be evacuated were executed by the NKVD.[121][122] Many Estonians went into the forest, starting an anti-Soviet guerrilla campaign. In July, German Wehrmacht reached south Estonia. Soviets evacuated Tallinn in late August with massive losses, and capture of the Estonian islands was completed by German forces in October.[123]
+
+Initially many Estonians were hopeful that Germany would help to restore Estonia's independence, but this soon proved to be in vain. Only a puppet collaborationist administration was established, and occupied Estonia was merged into Reichskommissariat Ostland, with its economy being fully subjugated to German military needs.[124] About a thousand Estonian Jews who had not managed to leave were almost all quickly killed in 1941. Numerous forced labour camps were established where thousands of Estonians, foreign Jews, Romani, and Soviet prisoners of war perished.[125] German occupation authorities started recruiting men into small volunteer units but, as these efforts provided meagre results and military situation worsened, a forced conscription was instituted in 1943, eventually leading to formation of the Estonian Waffen-SS division.[126] Thousands of Estonians who did not want to fight in German military secretly escaped to Finland, where many volunteered to fight together with Finns against Soviets.[127]
+
+The Red Army reached the Estonian borders again in early 1944, but its advance into Estonia was stopped in heavy fighting near Narva for six months by German forces, including numerous Estonian units.[128] In March, the Soviet Air Force carried out heavy bombing raids against Tallinn and other Estonian towns.[129] In July, the Soviets started a major offensive from the south, forcing the Germans to abandon mainland Estonia in September, with the Estonian islands being abandoned in November.[128] As German forces were retreating from Tallinn, the last pre-war prime minister Jüri Uluots appointed a government headed by Otto Tief in an unsuccessful attempt restore Estonia's independence.[130] Tens of thousands of people, including most of the Estonian Swedes, fled westwards to avoid the new Soviet occupation.[131]
+
+Overall, Estonia lost about 25% of its population through deaths, deportations and evacuations in World War II.[132] Estonia also suffered some irrevocable territorial losses, as Soviet Union transferred border areas comprising about 5% of Estonian pre-war territory from the Estonian SSR to the Russian SFSR.[133]
+
+Thousands of Estonians opposing the second Soviet occupation joined a guerrilla movement known as Forest Brothers. The armed resistance was heaviest in the first few years after the war, but Soviet authorities gradually wore it down through attrition, and resistance effectively ceased to exist in the mid 1950s.[134] The Soviets initiated a policy of collectivisation, but as peasants remained opposed to it a campaign of terror was unleashed. In March 1949 about 20,000 Estonians were deported to Siberia. Collectivization was fully completed soon afterwards.[119][135]
+
+The Soviet Union began Russification, with hundreds of thousands of Russians and people of other Soviet nationalities being induced to settle in Estonia, which eventually threatened to turn Estonians into a minority in their own land.[136] In 1945 Estonians formed 97% of the population, but by 1989 their share of the population had fallen to 62%.[137] Economically, heavy industry was strongly prioritised, but this did not improve the well-being of the local population, and caused massive environmental damage through pollution.[138] Living standards under the Soviet occupation kept falling further behind nearby independent Finland.[136] The country was heavily militarised, with closed military areas covering 2% of territory.[139] Islands and most of the coastal areas were turned into a restricted border zone which required a special permit for entry.[140]
+
+The United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the majority of other Western countries considered the annexation of Estonia by the Soviet Union illegal.[141] Legal continuity of the Estonian state was preserved through the government-in-exile and the Estonian diplomatic representatives which Western governments continued to recognise.[142][143]
+
+The introduction of Perestroika in 1987 made political activity possible again, starting an independence restoration process known as the Singing Revolution.[144] The environmental Phosphorite War campaign became the first major protest movement against the central government.[145] In 1988 new political movements appeared, such as the Popular Front of Estonia which came to represent the moderate wing in the independence movement, and the more radical Estonian National Independence Party, which was the first non-communist party in the Soviet Union and demanded full restoration of independence.[146] Reformist Vaino Väljas became the first secretary of Estonian Communist Party, and under his leadership on 16 November 1988 Estonian Supreme Soviet issued Sovereignty Declaration asserting the primacy of Estonian laws over Union laws. Over the next two years almost all other Soviet Republics followed the Estonian lead issuing similar declarations.[147][148] On 23 August 1989 about 2 million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians participated in a mass demonstration forming a Baltic Way human chain across the three republics.[149] In 1990 the Congress of Estonia was formed as representative body of Estonian citizens.[150] In March 1991 a referendum was held where 77.7% of voters supported independence, and during the coup attempt in Moscow Estonia declared restoration of independence on 20 August,[151] which is now the Day of Restoration of Independence, a national holiday.[152]
+
+Soviet authorities recognised Estonian independence on 6 September, and on 17 September Estonia was admitted into the United Nations.[153] The last units of the Russian army left Estonia in 1994.[154]
+
+In 1992 radical economic reforms were launched for switching over to a market economy, including privatisation and currency reform.[155] Estonian foreign policy since independence has been oriented toward the West, and in 2004 Estonia joined both the European Union and NATO.[156]
+
+Estonia lies on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea immediately across the Gulf of Finland, on the level northwestern part of the rising East European platform between 57.3° and 59.5° N and 21.5° and 28.1° E. Average elevation reaches only 50 metres (164 ft) and the country's highest point is the Suur Munamägi in the southeast at 318 metres (1,043 ft). There is 3,794 kilometres (2,357 mi) of coastline marked by numerous bays, straits, and inlets. The number of islands and islets is estimated at some 2,355 (including those in lakes). Two of them are large enough to constitute separate counties: Saaremaa and Hiiumaa.[157][158] A small, recent cluster of meteorite craters, the largest of which is called Kaali is found on Saaremaa, Estonia.
+
+Estonia has over 1,400 lakes. Most are very small, with the largest, Lake Peipus, being 3,555 km2 (1,373 sq mi). There are many rivers in the country. The longest of them are Võhandu (162 km or 101 mi), Pärnu (144 km or 89 mi), and Põltsamaa (135 km or 84 mi).[157] Estonia has numerous fens and bogs. Forest land covers 50% of Estonia.[159] The most common tree species are pine, spruce and birch.[160]
+
+Phytogeographically, Estonia is shared between the Central European and Eastern European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Estonia belongs to the ecoregion of Sarmatic mixed forests.
+
+Estonia is situated in the northern part of the temperate climate zone and in the transition zone between maritime and continental climate.
+Estonia has four seasons of near-equal length. Average temperatures range from 16.3 °C (61.3 °F) on the islands to 18.1 °C (64.6 °F) inland in July, the warmest month, and from −3.5 °C (25.7 °F) on the islands to −7.6 °C (18.3 °F) inland in February, the coldest month. The average annual temperature in Estonia is 5.2 °C (41.4 °F).[161] The average precipitation in 1961–1990 ranged from 535 to 727 mm (21.1 to 28.6 in) per year.[162]
+
+Snow cover, which is deepest in the south-eastern part of Estonia, usually lasts from mid-December to late March.
+
+Many species extinct in most of the European countries can be still found in Estonia. Mammals present in Estonia include the grey wolf, lynx, brown bear, red fox, badger, wild boar, moose, red deer, roe deer, beaver, otter, grey seal, and ringed seal. Critically endangered European mink has been successfully reintroduced to the island of Hiiumaa, and the rare Siberian flying squirrel is present in east Estonia.[163][164] Introduced species, such as the sika deer, raccoon dog and muskrat, can now be found throughout the country.[165] Over 300 bird species have been found in Estonia, including the white-tailed eagle, lesser spotted eagle, golden eagle, western capercaillie, black and white stork, numerous species of owls, waders, geese and many others.[166] The barn swallow is the national bird of Estonia.[167]
+
+Protected areas cover 18% of Estonian land and 26% of its sea territory. There are 6 national parks, 159 nature reserves, and many other protection areas.[168]
+
+Estonia is a unitary parliamentary republic. The unicameral parliament Riigikogu serves as the legislative and the government as the executive.[169]
+
+Estonian parliament Riigikogu is elected by citizens over 18 years of age for a four-year term by proportional representation, and has 101 members. Riigikogu's responsibilities include approval and preservation of the national government, passing legal acts, passing the state budget, and conducting parliamentary supervision. On proposal of the president Riigikogu appoints the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Estonia, the Auditor General, the Legal Chancellor, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces.[170][171]
+
+The Government of Estonia is formed by the Prime Minister of Estonia at recommendation of the President, and approved by the Riigikogu. The government, headed by the Prime Minister, represent the political leadership of the country and carry out domestic and foreign policy. Ministers head ministries and represent its interests in the government. Sometimes ministers with no associated ministry are appointed, known as ministers without portfolio.[172] Estonia has been ruled by coalition governments because no party has been able to obtain an absolute majority in the parliament.[169]
+
+The head of the state is the President who has primarily representative and ceremonial role. The president is elected by the Riigikogu, or by a special electoral college. The President proclaims the laws passed in the Riigikogu, and has right to refuse proclamation and return law in question for a new debate and decision. If Riigikogu passes the law unamended, then the President has right to propose to the Supreme Court to declare the law unconstitutional. The President also represents the country in international relations.[169][173]
+
+The Constitution of Estonia also provides possibility for direct democracy through referendum, although since adoption of the constitution in 1992 the only referendum has been the referendum on European Union membership in 2003.[174]
+
+Estonia has pursued the development of the e-government, with 99 percent of the public services being available on the web 24 hours a day.[175] In 2005 Estonia became the first country in the world to introduce nationwide binding Internet voting in local elections of 2005.[176] In 2019 parliamentary elections 44% of the total votes were cast over the internet.[177]
+
+In the most recent parliamentary elections of 2019, five parties gained seats at Riigikogu. The head of the Centre Party, Jüri Ratas, formed the government together with Conservative People's Party and Isamaa, while Reform Party and Social Democratic Party became the opposition.[178]
+
+The Constitution of Estonia is the fundamental law, establishing the constitutional order based on five principles: human dignity, democracy, rule of law, social state, and the Estonian identity.[179] Estonia has a civil law legal system based on the Germanic legal model.[180] The court system has three-level structure. The first instance are county courts which handle all criminal and civil cases, and administrative courts which hear complaints about government and local officials, and other public disputes. The second instance are district courts which handle appeals about the first instance decisions.[181] The Supreme Court is the court of cassation, and also conducts constitutional review, it has 19 members.[182] The judiciary is independent, judges are appointed for life, and can be removed from office only then convicted by court for a criminal deed.[183] The Estonian justice system has been rated among the most efficient in the European Union by the EU Justice Scoreboard.[184]
+
+Estonia is a unitary country with a single-tier local government system. Local affairs are managed autonomously by local governments. Since administrative reform in 2017, there are in total 79 local governments, including 15 towns and 64 rural municipalities. All municipalities have equal legal status and form part of a county, which is a state administrative unit.[185] Representative body of local authorities is municipal council, elected at general direct elections for a four-year term. The council appoints local government, headed by a mayor. For additional decentralization the local authorities may form municipal districts with limited authority, currently those have been formed in Tallinn and Hiiumaa.[186]
+
+Separately from administrative units there are also settlement units: village, small borough, borough, and town. Generally, villages have less than 300, small boroughs have between 300–1000, boroughs and towns have over 1000 inhabitants.[186]
+
+Estonia was a member of the League of Nations from 22 September 1921, and became a member of the United Nations on 17 September 1991.[187][188] Since restoration of independence Estonia has pursued close relations with the Western countries, and has been member of NATO since 29 March 2004, as well as the European Union since 1 May 2004.[188] In 2007, Estonia joined the Schengen Area, and in 2011 the Eurozone.[188] The European Union Agency for large-scale IT systems is based in Tallinn, which started operations at the end of 2012.[189] Estonia held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2017.[190]
+
+Since the early 1990s, Estonia has been involved in active trilateral Baltic states co-operation with Latvia and Lithuania, and Nordic-Baltic co-operation with the Nordic countries. The Baltic Council is the joint forum of the interparliamentary Baltic Assembly and the intergovernmental Baltic Council of Ministers.[191] Estonia has built close relationship with the Nordic countries, especially Finland and Sweden, and is a member of Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB-8) uniting Nordic and Baltic countries.[188][192] Joint Nordic-Baltic projects include the education programme Nordplus[193] and mobility programmes for business and industry[194] and for public administration.[195] The Nordic Council of Ministers has an office in Tallinn with a subsidiaries in Tartu and Narva.[196][197] The Baltic states are members of Nordic Investment Bank, European Union's Nordic Battle Group, and in 2011 were invited to co-operate with NORDEFCO in selected activities.[198][199][200][201]
+
+The beginning of the attempt to redefine Estonia as "Nordic" was seen in December 1999, when then Estonian foreign minister (and President of Estonia from 2006 until 2016) Toomas Hendrik Ilves delivered a speech entitled "Estonia as a Nordic Country" to the Swedish Institute for International Affairs,[202] with potential political calculation behind it being wish to distinguish Estonia from more slowly progressing southern neighbours, which could have postponed early participation in European Union enlargement for Estonia too.[203] Andres Kasekamp argued in 2005, that relevance of identity discussions in Baltic states decreased with their entrance into EU and NATO together, but predicted, that in the future, attractiveness of Nordic identity in Baltic states will grow and eventually, five Nordic states plus three Baltic states will become a single unit.[203]
+
+Other Estonian international organisation memberships include OECD, OSCE, WTO, IMF, the Council of the Baltic Sea States,[188][204][205] and on 7 June 2019, was elected a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for a term that begins on 1 January 2020.[14]
+
+Relations with Russia remain generally cold, though there is some practical co-operation.[206]
+
+The Estonian Defence Forces consist of land forces, navy, and air force. The current national military service is compulsory for healthy men between ages of 18 and 28, with conscripts serving 8 or 11-month tours of duty, depending on their education and position provided by the Defence Forces.[207] The peacetime size of the Estonian Defence Forces is about 6,000 persons, with half of those being conscripts. The planned wartime size of the Defence Forces is 60,000 personnel, including 21,000 personnel in high readiness reserve.[208] Since 2015 the Estonian defence budget has been over 2% of GDP, fulfilling its NATO defence spending obligation.[209]
+
+The Estonian Defence League is a voluntary national defence organisation under management of Ministry of Defence. It is organized based on military principles, has its own military equipment, and provides various different military training for its members, including in guerilla tactics. The Defence League has 16,000 members, with additional 10,000 volunteers in its affiliated organisations.[210][211]
+
+Estonia co-operates with Latvia and Lithuania in several trilateral Baltic defence co-operation initiatives. As part of Baltic Air Surveillance Network (BALTNET) the three countries manage Baltic airspace control center, Baltic Battalion (BALTBAT) has participated in the NATO Response Force, and a joint military educational institution Baltic Defence College is located in Tartu.[212]
+
+Estonia joined NATO in 2004. NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence was established in Tallinn in 2008.[213] In response to Russian military operations in Ukraine, since 2017 NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battalion battle group has been based in Tapa Army Base.[214] Also part of NATO Baltic Air Policing deployment has been based in Ämari Air Base since 2014.[215] In European Union Estonia participates in Nordic Battlegroup and Permanent Structured Cooperation.[216][217]
+
+Since 1995 Estonia has participated in numerous international security and peacekeeping missions, including: Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Kosovo, and Mali.[218] The peak strength of Estonian deployment in Afghanistan was 289 soldiers in 2009.[219] 11 Estonian soldiers have been killed in missions of Afghanistan and Iraq.[220]
+
+As a member of the European Union, Estonia is considered a high-income economy by the World Bank. The GDP (PPP) per capita of the country was $29,312 in 2016 according to the International Monetary Fund.[5] Because of its rapid growth, Estonia has often been described as a Baltic Tiger beside Lithuania and Latvia. Beginning 1 January 2011, Estonia adopted the euro and became the 17th eurozone member state.[221]
+
+According to Eurostat, Estonia had the lowest ratio of government debt to GDP among EU countries at 6.7% at the end of 2010.[222]
+A balanced budget, almost non-existent public debt, flat-rate income tax, free trade regime, competitive commercial banking sector, innovative e-Services and even mobile-based services are all hallmarks of Estonia's market economy.
+
+Estonia produces about 75% of its consumed electricity.[223] In 2011, about 85% of it was generated with locally mined oil shale.[224] Alternative energy sources such as wood, peat, and biomass make up approximately 9% of primary energy production. Renewable wind energy was about 6% of total consumption in 2009.[225] Estonia imports petroleum products from western Europe and Russia. Estonia imports 100% of its natural gas from Russia.[226] Oil shale energy, telecommunications, textiles, chemical products, banking, services, food and fishing, timber, shipbuilding, electronics, and transportation are key sectors of the economy.[227] The ice-free port of Muuga, near Tallinn, is a modern facility featuring good transshipment capability, a high-capacity grain elevator, chill/frozen storage, and new oil tanker off-loading capabilities.[citation needed] The railroad serves as a conduit between the West, Russia, and other points.[citation needed]
+
+Because of the global economic recession that began in 2007, the GDP of Estonia decreased by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter of 2008, over 3% in the 3rd quarter of 2008, and over 9% in the 4th quarter of 2008. The Estonian government made a supplementary negative budget, which was passed by Riigikogu. The revenue of the budget was decreased for 2008 by EEK 6.1 billion and the expenditure by EEK 3.2 billion.[228] In 2010, the economic situation stabilised and started a growth based on strong exports. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Estonian industrial output increased by 23% compared to the year before. The country has been experiencing economic growth ever since.[229]
+
+According to Eurostat data, Estonian PPS GDP per capita stood at 67% of the EU average in 2008.[230] In 2017, the average monthly gross salary in Estonia was €1221.[231]
+
+However, there are vast disparities in GDP between different areas of Estonia; currently, over half of the country's GDP is created in Tallinn.[232] In 2008, the GDP per capita of Tallinn stood at 172% of the Estonian average,[233] which makes the per capita GDP of Tallinn as high as 115% of the European Union average, exceeding the average levels of other counties.
+
+The unemployment rate in March 2016 was 6.4%, which is below the EU average,[231] while real GDP growth in 2011 was 8.0%,[234] five times the euro-zone average. In 2012, Estonia remained the only euro member with a budget surplus, and with a national debt of only 6%, it is one of the least indebted countries in Europe.[235]
+
+Estonia's economy continues to benefit from a transparent government and policies that sustain a high level of economic freedom, ranking 6th globally and 2nd in Europe.[236][237] The rule of law remains strongly buttressed and enforced by an independent and efficient judicial system. A simplified tax system with flat rates and low indirect taxation, openness to foreign investment, and a liberal trade regime have supported the resilient and well-functioning economy.[238] As of May 2018[update], the Ease of Doing Business Index by the World Bank Group places the country 16th in the world.[239] The strong focus on the IT sector has led to much faster, simpler and efficient public services where for example filing a tax return takes less than five minutes and 98% of banking transactions are conducted through the internet.[240][241] Estonia has the third lowest business bribery risk in the world, according to TRACE Matrix.[242]
+
+Lower score = Less risk. Source: TRACE Matrix[242]
+
+In 1928, a stable currency, the kroon, was established. It is issued by the Bank of Estonia, the country's central bank. The word kroon (Estonian pronunciation: [ˈkroːn], "crown") is related to that of the other Nordic currencies (such as the Swedish krona and the Danish and Norwegian krone). The kroon succeeded the mark in 1928 and was used until 1940. After Estonia regained its independence, the kroon was reintroduced in 1992.
+
+Since re-establishing independence, Estonia has styled itself as the gateway between East and West and aggressively pursued economic reform and integration with the West. Estonia's market reforms put it among the economic leaders in the former COMECON area.[citation needed] In 1994, based on the economic theories of Milton Friedman, Estonia became one of the first countries to adopt a flat tax, with a uniform rate of 26% regardless of personal income. This rate has since been reduced three times, to 24% in January 2005, 23% in January 2006, and finally to 21% by January 2008.[243] The Government of Estonia finalised the design of Estonian euro coins in late 2004, and adopted the euro as the country's currency on 1 January 2011, later than planned due to continued high inflation.[221][244] A Land Value Tax is levied which is used to fund local municipalities. It is a state level tax, however 100% of the revenue is used to fund Local Councils. The rate is set by the Local Council within the limits of 0.1–2.5%. It is one of the most important sources of funding for municipalities.[245] The Land Value Tax is levied on the value of the land only with improvements and buildings not considered. Very few exemptions are considered on the land value tax and even public institutions are subject to the tax.[245] The tax has contributed to a high rate (~90%)[245] of owner-occupied residences within Estonia, compared to a rate of 67.4% in the United States.[246]
+
+In 1999, Estonia experienced its worst year economically since it regained independence in 1991, largely because of the impact of the 1998 Russian financial crisis.[citation needed] Estonia joined the WTO in November 1999. With assistance from the European Union, the World Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank, Estonia completed most of its preparations for European Union membership by the end of 2002 and now has one of the strongest economies of the new member states of the European Union.[citation needed] Estonia joined the OECD in 2010.[247]
+
+Although Estonia is in general resource-poor, the land still offers a large variety of smaller resources. The country has large oil shale and limestone deposits, along with forests that cover 48% of the land.[251] In addition to oil shale and limestone, Estonia also has large reserves of phosphorite, pitchblende, and granite that currently are not mined, or not mined extensively.[252]
+
+Significant quantities of rare-earth oxides are found in tailings accumulated from 50 years of uranium ore, shale and loparite mining at Sillamäe.[253] Because of the rising prices of rare earths, extraction of these oxides has become economically viable. The country currently exports around 3000 tonnes per annum, representing around 2% of world production.[254]
+
+Since 2008, public debate has discussed whether Estonia should build a nuclear power plant to secure energy production after closure of old units in the Narva Power Plants, if they are not reconstructed by the year 2016.[255][256]
+
+Food, construction, and electronic industries are currently among the most important branches of Estonia's industry.[citation needed] In 2007, the construction industry employed more than 80,000 people, around 12% of the entire country's workforce.[257] Another important industrial sector is the machinery and chemical industry, which is mainly located in Ida-Viru County and around Tallinn.
+
+The oil shale-based mining industry, which is also concentrated in East-Estonia, produces around 90% of the entire country's electricity.[citation needed] Although the amount of pollutants emitted to the air have been falling since the 1980s,[258] the air is still polluted with sulphur dioxide from the mining industry that the Soviet Union rapidly developed in the early 1950s. In some areas the coastal seawater is polluted, mainly around the Sillamäe industrial complex.[259]
+
+Estonia is a dependent country in the terms of energy and energy production. In recent years many local and foreign companies have been investing in renewable energy sources.[citation needed] The importance of wind power has been increasing steadily in Estonia and currently the total amount of energy production from wind is nearly 60 MW while at the same time roughly 399 MW worth of projects are currently being developed and more than 2800 MW worth of projects are being proposed in the Lake Peipus area and the coastal areas of Hiiumaa.[260][261][262]
+
+Currently[when?], there are plans to renovate some older units of the Narva Power Plants, establish new power stations, and provide higher efficiency in oil shale-based energy production.[263] Estonia liberalised 35% of its electricity market in April 2010. The electricity market as whole will be liberalised by 2013.
+[264]
+
+Together with Lithuania, Poland, and Latvia, the country considered participating in constructing the Visaginas nuclear power plant in Lithuania to replace the Ignalina.[265][266] However, due to the slow pace of the project and problems with the sector (like Fukushima disaster and bad example of Olkiluoto plant), Eesti Energia has shifted its main focus to shale oil production that is seen as much more profitable business.[267]
+
+Estonia has a strong information technology sector, partly owing to the Tiigrihüpe project undertaken in the mid-1990s, and has been mentioned as the most "wired" and advanced country in Europe in the terms of e-Government of Estonia.[268] A new direction is to offer those services present in Estonia to the non-residents via e-residency program.
+
+Skype was written by Estonia-based developers Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn, who had also originally developed Kazaa.[269] Other notable tech startups include GrabCAD, Fortumo and TransferWise. It is even claimed that Estonia has the most startups per person in world.[270]
+
+The Estonian electricity network forms a part of the Nord Pool Spot network.[271]
+
+Estonia has had a market economy since the end of the 1990s and one of the highest per capita income levels in Eastern Europe.[272] Proximity to the Scandinavian and Finnish markets, its location between the East and West, competitive cost structure and a highly skilled labour force have been the major Estonian comparative advantages in the beginning of the 2000s (decade). As the largest city, Tallinn has emerged as a financial centre and the Tallinn Stock Exchange joined recently with the OMX system. Several cryptocurrency trading platforms are officially recognised by the government, such as CoinMetro.[273] The current government has pursued tight fiscal policies, resulting in balanced budgets and low public debt.
+
+In 2007, however, a large current account deficit and rising inflation put pressure on Estonia's currency, which was pegged to the Euro, highlighting the need for growth in export-generating industries.
+Estonia exports mainly machinery and equipment, wood and paper, textiles, food products, furniture, and metals and chemical products.[274] Estonia also exports 1.562 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually.[274] At the same time Estonia imports machinery and equipment, chemical products, textiles, food products and transportation equipment.[274] Estonia imports 200 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually.[274]
+
+Between 2007 and 2013, Estonia received 53.3 billion kroons (3.4 billion euros) from various European Union Structural Funds as direct supports, creating the largest foreign investments into Estonia.[275] Majority of the European Union financial aid will be invested into the following fields: energy economies, entrepreneurship, administrative capability, education, information society, environment protection, regional and local development, research and development activities, healthcare and welfare, transportation and labour market.[276] Main sources of foreign direct investments to Estonia are Sweden and Finland (As of 31 December 2016[update] 48.3%).[277]
+
+-
+
+Before World War II, ethnic Estonians constituted 88% of the population, with national minorities constituting the remaining 12%.[279] The largest minority groups in 1934 were Russians, Germans, Swedes, Latvians, Jews, Poles, Finns and Ingrians.
+
+The share of Baltic Germans in Estonia had fallen from 5.3% (~46,700) in 1881 to 1.3% (16,346) by the year 1934,[279][280] which was mainly due to emigration to Germany in the light of general Russification in the end of the 19th century[citation needed] and the independence of Estonia in the 20th century.
+
+Between 1945 and 1989, the share of ethnic Estonians in the population resident within the currently defined boundaries of Estonia dropped to 61%, caused primarily by the Soviet programme promoting mass immigration of urban industrial workers from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, as well as by wartime emigration and Joseph Stalin's mass deportations and executions.[citation needed] By 1989, minorities constituted more than one-third of the population, as the number of non-Estonians had grown almost fivefold.
+
+At the end of the 1980s, Estonians[who?] perceived their demographic change as a national catastrophe. This was a result of the migration policies essential to the Soviet Nationalisation Programme aiming to russify Estonia – administrative and military immigration of non-Estonians from the USSR coupled with the deportation of Estonians to the USSR.[citation needed] In the decade after the reconstitution of independence, large-scale emigration by ethnic Russians and the removal of the Russian military bases in 1994 caused[citation needed] the proportion of ethnic Estonians in Estonia to increase from 61% to 69% in 2006.
+
+Modern Estonia is a fairly ethnically heterogeneous country, but this heterogeneity is not a feature of much of the country as the non-Estonian population is concentrated in two of Estonia's counties. Thirteen of Estonia's 15 counties are over 80% ethnic Estonian, the most homogeneous being Hiiumaa, where Estonians account for 98.4% of the population. In the counties of Harju (including the capital city, Tallinn) and Ida-Viru, however, ethnic Estonians make up 60% and 20% of the population, respectively. Russians make up 25.6% of the total population but account for 36% of the population in Harju county and 70% of the population in Ida-Viru county.
+
+The Estonian Cultural Autonomy law that was passed in 1925 was unique in Europe at that time.[281] Cultural autonomies could be granted to minorities numbering more than 3,000 people with longstanding ties to the Republic of Estonia. Before the Soviet occupation, the Germans and Jewish minorities managed to elect a cultural council. The Law on Cultural Autonomy for National Minorities was reinstated in 1993. Historically, large parts of Estonia's northwestern coast and islands have been populated by indigenous ethnically Rannarootslased (Coastal Swedes).
+
+In recent years the numbers of Coastal Swedes has risen again, numbering in 2008 almost 500 people, owing to the property reforms in the beginning of the 1990s. In 2004, the Ingrian Finnish minority in Estonia elected a cultural council and was granted cultural autonomy. The Estonian Swedish minority similarly received cultural autonomy in 2007.
+
+Estonian society has undergone considerable changes over the last twenty years, one of the most notable being the increasing level of stratification, and the distribution of family income. The Gini coefficient has been steadily higher than the European Union average (31 in 2009),[282] although it has clearly dropped. The registered unemployment rate in January 2012 was 7.7%.[283]
+
+Modern Estonia is a multinational country in which 109 languages are spoken, according to a 2000 census. 67.3% of Estonian citizens speak Estonian as their native language, 29.7% Russian, and 3% speak other languages.[284] As of 2 July 2010[update], 84.1% of Estonian residents are Estonian citizens, 8.6% are citizens of other countries and 7.3% are "citizens with undetermined citizenship".[285] Since 1992 roughly 140,000 people have acquired Estonian citizenship by passing naturalisation exams.[286] Estonia has also accepted quota refugees under the migrant plan agreed upon by EU member states in 2015.[287]
+
+The ethnic distribution in Estonia is very homogeneous, where in most counties over 90% of the people are ethnic Estonians. This is in contrast to large urban centres like Tallinn, where Estonians account for 60% of the population, and the remainder is composed mostly of Russian and other Slavic inhabitants, who arrived in Estonia during the Soviet period.[citation needed]
+
+The 2008 United Nations Human Rights Council report called "extremely credible" the description of the citizenship policy of Estonia as "discriminatory".[288] According to surveys, only 5% of the Russian community have considered returning to Russia in the near future. Estonian Russians have developed their own identity – more than half of the respondents recognised that Estonian Russians differ noticeably from the Russians in Russia. When comparing the result with a survey from 2000, then Russians' attitude toward the future is much more positive.[289]
+
+Estonia has been the first post-Soviet republic that has legalised civil unions of same-sex couples. The law was approved in October 2014 and came into effect 1 January 2016.[290]
+
+53.3% of ethnically Estonian youth consider belonging in the Nordic identity group as important or very important for them. 52.2% have the same attitude towards the "Baltic" identity group, according to a research study from 2013:[291]
+
+The image that Estonian youths have of their identity is rather similar to that of the Finns as far as the identities of being a citizen of one’s own country, a Fenno-Ugric person, or a Nordic person are concerned, while our identity as a citizen of Europe is common ground between us and Latvians – being stronger here than it is among the young people of Finland and Sweden.[291]
+
+Tallinn is the capital and the largest city of Estonia, and lies on the northern coast of Estonia, along the Gulf of Finland. There are 33 cities and several town-parish towns in the country. In total, there are 47 linna, with "linn" in English meaning both "cities" and "towns". More than 70% of the population lives in towns.
+
+1Population, persons aged 15 and older.
+
+Estonia has a rich and diverse religious history, but in recent years it has become increasingly secular, with either a plurality or a majority of the population declaring themselves nonreligious in recent censuses, followed by those who identify as religiously "undeclared". The largest minority groups are the various Christian denominations, principally Lutheran and Orthodox Christians, with very small numbers of adherents in non-Christian faiths, namely Judaism, Islam and Buddhism. Other polls suggest the country is broadly split between Christians and the non-religious / religiously undeclared.
+
+In ancient Estonia, prior to Christianization and according to Livonian Chronicle of Henry, Tharapita was the predominant deity for the Oeselians.[294]
+
+Estonia was Christianised by the Catholic Teutonic Knights in the 13th century. The Protestant Reformation led to the establishment of the Lutheran church in 1686. Before the Second World War, Estonia was approximately 80% Protestant, overwhelmingly Lutheran,[295][296][297] followed by Calvinism and other Protestant branches. Many Estonians profess not to be particularly religious, because religion through the 19th century was associated with German feudal rule.[298] There has historically been a small but noticeable minority of Russian Old-believers near the Lake Peipus area in Tartu County.
+
+Today, Estonia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and individual rights to privacy of belief and religion.[299] According to the Dentsu Communication Institute Inc, Estonia is one of the least religious countries in the world, with 75.7% of the population claiming to be irreligious. The Eurobarometer Poll 2005 found that only 16% of Estonians profess a belief in a god, the lowest belief of all countries studied.[300] According to the Lutheran World Federation, the historic Lutheran denomination has a large presence with 180,000 registered members.[301]
+
+New polls about religiosity in the European Union in 2012 by Eurobarometer found that Christianity is the largest religion in Estonia accounting for 45% of Estonians.[302] Eastern Orthodox are the largest Christian group in Estonia, accounting for 17% of Estonia citizens,[302] while Protestants make up 6%, and Other Christian make up 22%. Non believer/Agnostic account 22%, Atheist accounts for 15%, and undeclared accounts for 15%.[302]
+
+The most recent Pew Research Center, found that in 2015, 51% of the population of Estonia declared itself Christian, 45% religiously unaffiliated—a category which includes atheists, agnostics and those who describe their religion as "Nothing in Particular", while 2% belonged to other faiths.[303] The Christians divided between 25% Eastern Orthodox, 20% Lutherans, 5% other Christians and 1% Roman Catholic.[304] While the religiously unaffiliated divided between 9% as atheists, 1% as agnostics and 35% as Nothing in Particular.[305]
+
+Traditionally, the largest religious denomination in the country was Lutheranism, which was adhered to by 160,000 Estonians (or 13% of the population) according from 2000 census, principally ethnic Estonians. Other organisations, such as the World Council of Churches, report that there are as many as 265,700 Estonian Lutherans.[306] Additionally, there are between 8,000–9,000 members abroad. 
+However, the 2011 census indicated that Eastern Orthodoxy had surpassed Lutheranism, accounting for 16.5% of the population (176,773 people).
+
+Eastern Orthodoxy is practised chiefly by the Russian minority. The Estonian Orthodox Church, affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, is the primary Orthodox denomination. The Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, under the Greek-Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, claims another 20,000 members.[citation needed]
+
+Roman Catholics are a small minority in Estonia. They are organised under the Latin Apostolic Administration of Estonia.
+
+According to the census of 2000 (data in table to the right), there were about 1,000 adherents of the Taara faith[307][308][309] or Maausk in Estonia (see Maavalla Koda). The Jewish community has an estimated population of about 1,900 (see History of the Jews in Estonia), and the Muslim community numbers just over 1,400. Around 68,000 people consider themselves atheists.[310]
+
+The official language, Estonian, belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Estonian is closely related to Finnish, spoken in Finland, across the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and is one of the few languages of Europe that is not of an Indo-European origin. Despite some overlaps in the vocabulary due to borrowings, in terms of its origin, Estonian and Finnish are not related to their nearest geographical neighbours, Swedish, Latvian, and Russian, which are all Indo-European languages.
+
+Although the Estonian and Germanic languages are of very different origins, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and German. This is primarily because the Estonian language has borrowed nearly one third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon (Middle Low German) during the period of German rule, and High German (including standard German). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22–25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent.
+
+South Estonian languages are spoken by 100,000 people and include the dialects of Võro and Seto. The languages are spoken in South-Eastern Estonia, are genealogically distinct from northern Estonian: but are traditionally and officially considered as dialects and "regional forms of the Estonian language", not separate language(s).[311]
+
+Russian is by far the most spoken minority language in the country. There are towns in Estonia with large concentrations of Russian speakers and there are towns where Estonian speakers are in the minority (especially in the northeast, e.g. Narva). Russian is spoken as a secondary language by forty- to seventy-year-old ethnic Estonians, because Russian was the unofficial language of the Estonian SSR from 1944 to 1991 and taught as a compulsory second language during the Soviet era. In 1998, most first- and second-generation industrial immigrants from the former Soviet Union (mainly the Russian SFSR) did not speak Estonian.[312] However, by 2010, 64.1% of non-ethnic Estonians spoke Estonian.[313] The latter, mostly Russian-speaking ethnic minorities, reside predominantly in the capital city of Tallinn and the industrial urban areas in Ida-Virumaa.
+
+From the 13th to the 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly in the coastal areas and on the islands (e.g., Hiiumaa, Vormsi, Ruhnu; in Swedish, known as Dagö, Ormsö, Runö, respectively) along the Baltic sea, communities which today have almost disappeared. The Swedish-speaking minority was represented in parliament, and entitled to use their native language in parliamentary debates.
+
+From 1918 to 1940, when Estonia was independent, the small Swedish community was well treated. Municipalities with a Swedish majority, mainly found along the coast, used Swedish as the administrative language and Swedish-Estonian culture saw an upswing. However, most Swedish-speaking people fled to Sweden before the end of World War II, before the invasion of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1944. Only a handful of older speakers remain. 
+Apart from many other areas the influence of Swedish is especially distinct in the Noarootsi Parish of Lääne County where there are many villages with bilingual Estonian and/or Swedish names and street signs.[314][315]
+
+The most common foreign languages learned by Estonian students are English, Russian, German, and French. Other popular languages include Finnish, Spanish, and Swedish.[316]
+
+The history of formal education in Estonia dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries when the first monastic and cathedral schools were founded.[318] The first primer in the Estonian language was published in 1575. The oldest university is the University of Tartu, established by the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf in 1632. In 1919, university courses were first taught in the Estonian language.
+
+Today's education in Estonia is divided into general, vocational, and hobby. The education system is based on four levels: pre-school, basic, secondary, and higher education.[319] A wide network of schools and supporting educational institutions have been established. The Estonian education system consists of state, municipal, public, and private institutions. There are currently 589 schools in Estonia.[320]
+
+According to the Programme for International Student Assessment, the performance levels of gymnasium-age pupils in Estonia is among the highest in the world: in 2010, the country was ranked 13th for the quality of its education system, well above the OECD average.[321] Additionally, around 89% of Estonian adults aged 25–64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, one of the highest rates in the industrialised world.[322]
+
+Academic higher education in Estonia is divided into three levels: bachelor's, master's, and doctoral studies. In some specialties (basic medical studies, veterinary, pharmacy, dentistry, architect-engineer, and a classroom teacher programme) the bachelor's and master's levels are integrated into one unit.[324] Estonian public universities have significantly more autonomy than applied higher education institutions. In addition to organising the academic life of the university, universities can create new curricula, establish admission terms and conditions, approve the budget, approve the development plan, elect the rector, and make restricted decisions in matters concerning assets.[325] Estonia has a moderate number of public and private universities. The largest public universities are the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn University, Estonian University of Life Sciences, Estonian Academy of Arts; the largest private university is Estonian Business School.
+
+The Estonian Academy of Sciences is the national academy of science. The strongest public non-profit research institute that carries out fundamental and applied research is the National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (NICPB; Estonian KBFI). The first computer centres were established in the late 1950s in Tartu and Tallinn. Estonian specialists contributed in the development of software engineering standards for ministries of the Soviet Union during the 1980s.[326][327] As of 2015[update], Estonia spends around 1.5% of its GDP on Research and Development, compared to an EU average of around 2.0%.[328]
+
+Some of the best-known scientists related to Estonia include astronomers Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, Ernst Öpik and Jaan Einasto, biologist Karl Ernst von Baer, Jakob von Uexküll, chemists Wilhelm Ostwald and Carl Schmidt, economist Ragnar Nurkse, mathematician Edgar Krahn, medical researchers Ludvig Puusepp and Nikolay Pirogov, physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck, political scientist Rein Taagepera, psychologist Endel Tulving and Risto Näätänen, semiotician Yuri Lotman.
+
+According to New Scientist, Estonia will be the first nation to provide personal genetic information service sponsored by the state. They aim to minimise and prevent future ailments for those whose genes make them extra prone to conditions like adult-onset diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. The government plans to provide lifestyle advice based on the DNA for 100,000 of its 1.3 million citizens.[329]
+
+The culture of Estonia incorporates indigenous heritage, as represented by the Estonian language and the sauna, with mainstream Nordic and European cultural aspects. Because of its history and geography, Estonia's culture has been influenced by the traditions of the adjacent area's various Finnic, Baltic, Slavic and Germanic peoples as well as the cultural developments in the former dominant powers Sweden and Russia.
+
+Today, Estonian society encourages liberty and liberalism, with popular commitment to the ideals of the limited government, discouraging centralised power and corruption. The Protestant work ethic remains a significant cultural staple, and free education is a highly prized institution. Like the mainstream culture in the other Nordic countries, Estonian culture can be seen to build upon the ascetic environmental realities and traditional livelihoods, a heritage of comparatively widespread egalitarianism out of practical reasons (see: Everyman's right and universal suffrage), and the ideals of closeness to nature and self-sufficiency (see: summer cottage).
+
+The Estonian Academy of Arts (Estonian: Eesti Kunstiakadeemia, EKA) is providing higher education in art, design, architecture, media, art history and conservation while Viljandi Culture Academy of University of Tartu has an approach to popularise native culture through such curricula as native construction, native blacksmithing, native textile design, traditional handicraft and traditional music, but also jazz and church music. In 2010, there were 245 museums in Estonia whose combined collections contain more than 10 million objects.[330]
+
+The earliest mention of Estonian singing dates back to Saxo Grammaticus Gesta Danorum (ca. 1179).[331] Saxo speaks of Estonian warriors who sang at night while waiting for a battle. The older folksongs are also referred to as regilaulud, songs in the poetic metre regivärss the tradition shared by all Baltic Finns. Runic singing was widespread among Estonians until the 18th century, when rhythmic folk songs began to replace them.[citation needed]
+
+Traditional wind instruments derived from those used by shepherds were once widespread, but are now becoming again more commonly played. Other instruments, including the fiddle, zither, concertina, and accordion are used to play polka or other dance music. The kannel is a native instrument that is now again becoming more popular in Estonia. A Native Music Preserving Centre was opened in 2008 in Viljandi.[332]
+
+The tradition of Estonian Song Festivals (Laulupidu) started at the height of the Estonian national awakening in 1869. Today, it is one of the largest amateur choral events in the world. In 2004, about 100,000 people participated in the Song Festival. Since 1928, the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds (Lauluväljak) have hosted the event every five years in July. The last festival took place in July 2019. In addition, Youth Song Festivals are also held every four or five years, the last of them in 2017.[333]
+
+Professional Estonian musicians and composers such as Rudolf Tobias, Miina Härma, Mart Saar, Artur Kapp, Juhan Aavik, Aleksander Kunileid, Artur Lemba and Heino Eller emerged in the late 19th century. At the time of this writing, the most known Estonian composers are Arvo Pärt, Eduard Tubin, and Veljo Tormis.[citation needed] In 2014, Arvo Pärt was the world's most performed living composer for the fourth year in a row.[334]
+
+In the 1950s, Estonian baritone Georg Ots rose to worldwide prominence as an opera singer.
+
+In popular music, Estonian artist Kerli Kõiv has become popular in Europe, as well as gaining moderate popularity in North America. She has provided music for the 2010 Disney film Alice in Wonderland and the television series Smallville in the United States of America.
+
+Estonia won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2001 with the song "Everybody" performed by Tanel Padar and Dave Benton. In 2002, Estonia hosted the event. Maarja-Liis Ilus has competed for Estonia on two occasions (1996 and 1997), while Eda-Ines Etti, Koit Toome and Evelin Samuel owe their popularity partly to the Eurovision Song Contest. Lenna Kuurmaa is a very popular singer in Europe,[citation needed] with her band Vanilla Ninja. "Rändajad" by Urban Symphony, was the first song in Estonian to chart in the UK, Belgium and Switzerland.
+
+The Estonian literature refers to literature written in the Estonian language (ca. 1 million speakers).[335] The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Germany, Sweden, and Russia resulted in few early written literary works in the Estonian language. The oldest records of written Estonian date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences. The Liber Census Daniae (1241) contains Estonian place and family names.[336] Many folk tales are told to this day and some have been written down and translated to make them accessible to an international readership.[337]
+
+The cultural stratum of Estonian was originally characterised by a largely lyrical form of folk poetry based on syllabic quantity. Apart from a few albeit remarkable exceptions, this archaic form has not been much employed in later times. One of the most outstanding achievements in this field is the national epic Kalevipoeg. At a professional level, traditional folk song reached its new heyday during the last quarter of the 20th century, primarily thanks to the work of composer Veljo Tormis.
+
+Oskar Luts was the most prominent prose writer of the early Estonian literature, who is still widely read today, especially his lyrical school novel Kevade (Spring).[338] Anton Hansen Tammsaare's social epic and psychological realist pentalogy Truth and Justice captured the evolution of Estonian society from a peasant community to an independent nation.[339][340] In modern times, Jaan Kross and Jaan Kaplinski are Estonia's best known and most translated writers.[341] Among the most popular writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are Tõnu Õnnepalu and Andrus Kivirähk, who uses elements of Estonian folklore and mythology, deforming them into absurd and grotesque.[342]
+
+The cinema of Estonia started in 1908 with the production of a newsreel about Swedish King Gustav V's visit to Tallinn.[343] The first public TV broadcast in Estonia was in July 1955. Regular, live radio broadcasts began in December 1926. Deregulation in the field of electronic media has brought radical changes compared to the beginning of the 1990s. The first licences for private TV broadcasters were issued in 1992. The first private radio station went on the air in 1990.
+
+Today the media is a vibrant and competitive sector. There is a plethora of weekly newspapers and magazines, and Estonians have a choice of 9 domestic TV channels and a host of radio stations. The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and Estonia has been internationally recognised for its high rate of press freedom, having been ranked 3rd in the 2012 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.[344]
+
+Estonia has two news agencies. The Baltic News Service (BNS), founded in 1990, is a private regional news agency covering Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The ETV24 is an agency owned by Eesti Rahvusringhääling who is a publicly funded radio and television organisation created on 30 June 2007 to take over the functions of the formerly separate Eesti Raadio and Eesti Televisioon under the terms of the Estonian National Broadcasting Act.[345][346]
+
+The architectural history of Estonia mainly reflects its contemporary development in northern Europe. Worth mentioning is especially the architectural ensemble that makes out the medieval old town of Tallinn, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In addition, the country has several unique, more or less preserved hill forts dating from pre-Christian times, a large number of still intact medieval castles and churches, while the countryside is still shaped by the presence of a vast number of manor houses from earlier centuries.
+
+The Estonian National Day is the Independence Day celebrated on 24 February, the day the Estonian Declaration of Independence was issued. As of 2013[update], there are 12 public holidays (which come with a day off) and 12 national holidays celebrated annually.[347][348]
+
+Historically, the cuisine of Estonia has been heavily dependent on seasons and simple peasant food. Today, it includes many typical international foods. The most typical foods in Estonia are black bread, pork, potatoes, and dairy products.[350] Traditionally in summer and spring, Estonians like to eat everything fresh – berries, herbs, vegetables, and everything else that comes straight from the garden. Hunting and fishing have also been very common, although currently hunting and fishing are enjoyed mostly as hobbies. Today, it is also very popular to grill outside in summer.
+
+Traditionally in winter, jams, preserves, and pickles are brought to the table. Gathering and preserving fruits, mushrooms, and vegetables for winter has always been popular, but today gathering and preserving is becoming less common because everything can be bought from stores. However, preparing food for winter is still very popular in the countryside.
+
+Sport plays an important role in Estonian culture. After declaring independence from Russia in 1918, Estonia first competed as a nation at the 1920 Summer Olympics, although the National Olympic Committee was established in 1923. Estonian athletes took part of the Olympic Games until the country was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. The 1980 Summer Olympics Sailing regatta was held in the capital city Tallinn. After regaining independence in 1991, Estonia has participated in all Olympics. Estonia has won most of its medals in athletics, weightlifting, wrestling and cross-country skiing. Estonia has had very good success at the Olympic games given the country's small population. Estonia's best results were being ranked 13th in the medal table at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and 12th at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
+
+The list of notable Estonian athletes include wrestlers Kristjan Palusalu, Johannes Kotkas, Voldemar Väli, and Georg Lurich, skiers Andrus Veerpalu and Kristina Šmigun-Vähi, weightlifters Alfred Neuland and  Jaan Talts, fencer Nikolai Novosjolov, decathlete Erki Nool, tennis players Kaia Kanepi and Anett Kontaveit, cyclists Jaan Kirsipuu and Erika Salumäe and discus throwers Gerd Kanter and Aleksander Tammert.
+
+Paul Keres, Estonian and Soviet chess grandmaster, was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s. He narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match on five occasions.
+
+Kiiking, a relatively new sport, was invented in 1993 by Ado Kosk in Estonia. Kiiking involves a modified swing in which the rider of the swing tries to go around 360 degrees.
+
+Basketball is also a notable sport in Estonia. The domestic top-tier basketball championship is called the Korvpalli Meistriliiga. BC Kalev/Cramo are the most recent champions, having won the league in the 2016–17 season. University of Tartu team has won the league a record 26 times. Estonian clubs also participate in European and regional competitions. Estonia national basketball team previously participated in 1936 Summer Olympics, appeared in EuroBasket four times. Estonian national team also competed at the EuroBasket 2015.
+
+Kelly Sildaru, an Estonian freestyle skier, won the gold medal in the slopestyle event in the 2016 Winter X Games. At age 13, she became the youngest gold medalist to date at a Winter X Games event, and the first person to win a Winter X Games medal for Estonia. She has also won the women's slopestyle at 2015 and 2016 Winter Dew Tour.
+
+In modern-era motorsports, World Rally Championship has seen two very successful Estonian drivers, with Ott Tänak winning the drivers' world title in the 2019 World Rally Championship and Markko Märtin achieving 5 rally victories and finishing 3rd overall in the 2004 World Rally Championship. In circuit racing, Marko Asmer was the first Estonian driver to test a Formula One car in 2003 with Williams Grand Prix Engineering, in other series Sten Pentus and Kevin Korjus (active driver) have enjoyed success on a global scale.
+
+The following are links to international rankings of Estonia.
+
+Coordinates: 59°N 26°E / 59°N 26°E / 59; 26

en/3396.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+
+
+The Three Musketeers (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires [le tʁwɑ muskətɛːʁ]) is a historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight for justice.
+
+Set between 1625 and 1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (a character based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, hoping  to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although d'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he is befriended by three of the most formidable musketeers of the age – Athos, Porthos and Aramis, "the three inseparables" – and becomes involved in affairs of state and at court.
+
+The Three Musketeers is primarily a historical and adventure novel. However, Dumas frequently portrays various injustices, abuses, and absurdities of the Ancien Régime, giving the novel an additional political significance at the time of its publication, a time when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce. The story was first serialised from March to July 1844, during the July Monarchy, four years before the French Revolution of 1848 violently established the Second Republic.
+
+The story of d'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later.
+
+Dumas presents his novel as one of a series of recovered manuscripts, turning the origins of his romance into a little drama of its own. In the Preface, he tells of  being inspired by a scene in Mémoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan (1700), a historical novel by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, printed by Pierre Rouge in Amsterdam, which Dumas discovered during his research for his history of Louis XIV.[1][2] According to Dumas, the incident where d'Artagnan tells of  his first visit to M. de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers, and how,  in the antechamber, he encountered  three young Béarnese with the names Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, made such an impression on him that he continued to investigate. That much is true – the rest is fiction: He finally found the names of the three musketeers in a manuscript titled Mémoire de M. le comte de la Fère, etc. Dumas “requested permission” to reprint the manuscript; permission was granted:
+
+Now, this is the first part of this precious manuscript which we offer to our readers, restoring it to the title which belongs to it, and entering into an engagement that if (of which we have no doubt) this first part should obtain the success it merits, we will publish the second immediately.
+
+In the meanwhile, since godfathers are second fathers, as it were, we beg the reader to lay to our account, and not to that of the Comte de la Fère, the pleasure or the ennui he may experience.
+
+This being understood, let us proceed with our story.[3]
+
+The Three Musketeers was written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet, who also worked with Dumas on its sequels (Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later), as well as The Count of Monte Cristo. Maquet would suggest plot outlines after doing historical research; Dumas then expanded the plot, removing some characters, including new ones, and imbuing the story with his unmistakable style.
+
+The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.
+
+In 1625 France, d'Artagnan (a poor young nobleman) leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard. At a house in Meung-sur-Loire, an older man derides d'Artagnan's horse. Insulted, d'Artagnan demands a duel. But the older man's companions instead beat d'Artagnan unconscious with a cooking pot and a metal tong that breaks his sword. His letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, the commander of the Musketeers, is also stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the older man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is passing orders from the Cardinal to his spy, Lady de Winter, usually called Milady de Winter or simply "Milady".
+
+In Paris, d'Artagnan visits Monsieur de Tréville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but without the letter, Tréville politely refuses his application. He does, however, write a letter of introduction to an academy for young gentlemen which may prepare his visitor for recruitment at a later time. From Tréville's window, d'Artagnan sees Rochefort passing in the street below and rushes out of the building to confront him, but in doing so he offends three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who each demand satisfaction; d'Artagnan must fight a duel with all of them that afternoon.
+
+As d'Artagnan prepares himself for the first duel, he realizes that Athos's seconds are Porthos and Aramis, who are astonished that the young Gascon intends to duel them all. As d'Artagnan and Athos begin, Cardinal Richelieu's guards appear and attempt to arrest d'Artagnan and the three Musketeers for illegal dueling. Although they are outnumbered four to five, the four men win the battle.  D'Artagnan seriously wounds Jussac, one of the Cardinal's officers and a renowned fighter. After learning of this, King Louis XIII appoints d'Artagnan to Des Essart's company of the King's Guards and gives him forty pistoles.
+
+D'Artagnan hires a servant named Planchet, finds lodgings, and reports to Monsieur des Essart, whose company is a less prestigious regiment in which he will have to serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. Shortly after, his landlord speaks to him about the kidnapping of his wife, Constance Bonacieux. When she is presently released, d'Artagnan falls in love at first sight with her. She works for Queen Anne of France, who is secretly conducting an affair with the English Duke of Buckingham. The King, Louis XIII, gave the Queen a gift of diamond studs, but she gives them to her lover as a keepsake. Cardinal Richelieu, who wants war between France and England, plans to expose the tryst and persuades the King to demand the Queen wear the diamonds to a soirée that the Cardinal is sponsoring.
+
+Constance tries to send her husband to London to fetch the diamonds from Buckingham, but the man is instead manipulated by Richelieu and thus does not go, so d'Artagnan and his friends intercede. En route to England, the Cardinal's henchmen repeatedly attack them and only d'Artagnan and Planchet reach London. Before arriving, d'Artagnan is compelled to assault, and nearly to kill, the Comte de Wardes, a friend of the Cardinal, cousin of Rochefort and Milady's lover. Although Milady stole two of the diamond studs, the Duke of Buckingham provides replacements while delaying the thief's return to Paris. D'Artagnan is thus able to return a complete set of jewels to Queen Anne just in time to save her honour. In gratitude, she gives him a beautiful ring.
+
+Shortly afterwards, d'Artagnan begins an affair with Madame Bonacieux. Arriving for an assignation, he sees signs of a struggle and discovers that Rochefort and M. Bonacieux, acting under the orders of the Cardinal, have assaulted and imprisoned Constance. D'Artagnan and his friends, now recovered from their injuries, return to Paris. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter officially, and recognizes her as one of the Cardinal's agents, but becomes infatuated with her until her maid reveals that Milady is indifferent toward him. Entering her quarters in the dark, he pretends to be the Comte de Wardes and trysts  with her. He finds a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. Discovering his identity, Milady attempts to kill him but d'Artagnan eludes her. He is ordered to the Siege of La Rochelle.
+
+He is informed that the Queen has rescued Constance from prison. In an inn, the musketeers overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham, a supporter of the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle who has sent troops to assist them. Richelieu gives her a letter that excuses her actions as under orders from the Cardinal himself, but Athos takes it. The next morning, Athos bets that he, d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis, and their servants can hold the recaptured St. Gervais bastion against the rebels for an hour, for the purpose of discussing their next course of action. They resist for an hour and a half before retreating, killing 22 Rochellese in total; d'Artagnan is made a Musketeer as a result of this feat.
+
+They warn Lord de Winter and the Duke of Buckingham. Milady is imprisoned on arrival in England, but she seduces her guard, Felton (a fictionalization of the real John Felton), and persuades him to allow her escape and to kill Buckingham himself. On her return to France, Milady hides in a convent where Constance is also staying. The naïve Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance for revenge on d'Artagnan, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can rescue her. The Musketeers arrest Milady before she reaches Cardinal Richelieu. They bring an official executioner, put her on trial and sentence her to death.
+
+After her execution, the four friends return to the Siege of La Rochelle. The Comte de Rochefort arrests d'Artagnan and takes him to the Cardinal. When questioned about Milady's execution, d'Artagnan presents her letter of pardon as his own. Impressed with d'Artagnan's wilfulness and secretly glad to be rid of Milady, the Cardinal destroys the letter and writes a new order, giving the bearer a promotion to lieutenant in the Tréville company of Musketeers, leaving the name blank. D'Artagnan offers the letter to Athos, Porthos, and Aramis in turn but each refuses it; Athos because it is below him, Porthos because he is retiring to marry his wealthy mistress, and Aramis because he is joining the priesthood. D'Artagnan, though heartbroken and full of regrets, finally receives the promotion he had coveted.
+
+Les Trois Mousquetaires was translated into three English versions by 1846. One of these, by William Barrow (1817–1877), is still in print and fairly faithful to the original, available in the Oxford World's Classics 1999 edition. To conform to 19th-century English standards, all of the explicit and many of the implicit references to sexuality were removed, adversely affecting the readability of several scenes, such as the scenes between d'Artagnan and Milady.
+
+One recent English translation is by Richard Pevear (2006),[4] who, though applauding Barrow's work, states that most of the modern translations available today are "textbook examples of bad translation practices" which "give their readers an extremely distorted notion of Dumas' writing."[5]
+
+
+
+The novel has been adapted also for television in live-action and animation.
+
+The BBC has adapted the novel on three occasions.
+
+Young Blades is an American/Canadian television series that aired on PAX in 2005. The series serves as a sequel to the novels, centered on the son of d'Artagnan, played by Tobias Mehler.
+
+Walt Disney Productions produced a Silly Symphony cartoon called, Three Blind Mouseketeers, which is loosely based on the novel in 1936, in which the characters are depicted as anthropomorphic animals.
+
+Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds is a 1981 Spanish–Japanese anime adaptation, where the characters are anthropomorphic dogs. A sequel, The Return of Dogtanian, was released in 1989 by BRB Internacional, Thames Television and Wang Film Productions. Set 10 years after of the original, it's loosely based on the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne. A key difference between the two Dogtanian adaptions and Dumas' novel is that the character traits of Athos and Porthos were interchanged, making Athos the extrovert and Porthos the secretive noble of the group.
+
+In 1989, Gakken produced a new anime adaptation called The Three Musketeers Anime, this time with human characters, which features several departures from the original.
+
+The Three Musketeers was a series of animated shorts produced by Hanna-Barbera's as part of The Banana Splits Comedy-Adventure Hour and The Banana Splits & Friends show.
+
+Albert the Fifth Musketeer is a 1994 French animated series featuring a new musketeer, the titular Albert.
+
+Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, a direct-to-video animated movie produced by Walt Disney Pictures and the Australian office of DisneyToon Studios, directed by Donovan Cook, and released on August 17, 2004.
+
+A Barbie adaption of the tale by the name of Barbie and the Three Musketeers was made in 2009.
+
+The first stage production was in Dumas' own lifetime as the opera Les Trois Mousquetaires with a libretto by Dumas himself and music by Albert Visetti.
+
+The Three Musketeers is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire, lyrics by Clifford Grey and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Rudolf Friml. The original 1928 production ran on Broadway for 318 performances. A 1984 revival ran for 15 previews and 9 performances.
+
+In 2003, a Dutch musical 3 Musketiers with a book by André Breedland and music & lyrics by Rob & Ferdi Bolland premiered, which went on to open in Germany (both the Dutch and German production starring Pia Douwes as Milady De Winter) and Hungary.
+
+Playwright Peter Raby, composer George Stiles and lyricist Paul Leigh have written another adaptation titled The 3 Musketeers, One Musical For All, originally produced by the now defunct American Musical Theatre of San Jose.
+
+In 2006, an adaptation by Ken Ludwig premiered at the Bristol Old Vic.[11] In this version, d'Artagnan's sister Sabine, "the quintessential tomboy," poses as a young man and participates in her brother's adventures.
+
+In 2018 The Dukes performed an outdoor promenade production in Williamson Park, Lancaster, adapted by Hattie Naylor: in this version d'Artagnan was a young woman aspiring to be a musketeer.[12][13]
+
+1995 saw the release by publisher U.S. Gold of Touché: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer by video game developers Clipper Software, a classic point-and-click adventure game.[14] In 2005, Swedish developer Legendo Entertainment published the side-scrolling platform game The Three Musketeers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. In July 2009, a version of the game was released for WiiWare in North America and Europe under the title The Three Musketeers: One for All!.[15] In 2009, Canadian developer Dingo Games self-published The Three Musketeers: The Game for Windows and Mac OS X. It is the first game to be truly based on the novel (in that it closely follows the novel's story).[16] 2009 also saw the publication of the asymmetric team board game The Three Musketeers "The Queen's Pendants" (Настольная игра "Три мушкетера") from French designer Pascal Bernard[17] by the Russian publisher Zvezda.[18] In 2010 a co-operative game called "Mousquetaires du Roy" was released by Ystari and Rio Grande.[19] The alternative spelling of "Roy" was taken from the old French and is rumoured to be preferred over the regular spelling because the publishers desire to have a letter "Y" in the name of the games they publish.[20] Designed by François Combe and Gilles Lehmann for 1-5 players, the medium heavy game depicts the quest to retrieve the Queen's diamonds, while at the same time fending off disasters back in Paris. A sixth player expansion, called "Treville" was also made available in 2010.[21]
+
+In 2010, Anuman Interactive launched The Three Musketeers, a hidden object game on PC and MAC. Players follow d'Artagnan in his quest to become a king's musketeer.[22]
+
+In 2016, KindaTV launched a web series based on the story of The Three Musketeers, called "All For One".[23] It follows a group of college students, mainly Dorothy Castlemore, and is centred around a sorority- Mu Sigma Theta (MST). The majority of characters have been gender-swapped from the original story and most character names are based on the original characters.
+
+It covers several themes including the LGBT community, mental health, long distance relationships and college life.
+
+Publisher Albert Lewis Kanter (1897–1973), created Classic Comics for Elliot Publishing Company in 1941 with its debut issues being The Three Musketeers. The Three Mouseketeers was the title of two series produced by DC Comics; the first series was a loose parody of The Three Musketeers.
+
+In 1939, American author Tiffany Thayer published a book titled Three Musketeers (Thayer, 1939).  This is a re-telling of the story in Thayer's words, true to the original plot but told in a different order and with different points of view and emphasis from the original. The Khaavren Romances by Steven Brust are fantasy (or science-fiction) novels heavily influenced by  The Three Musketeers and its sequels; the characters and social background are closer to Dumas's than the plots.
+
+Sarah Hoyt wrote a series of Historical Murder mysteries with the Musketeers as the protagonists. (Hoyt wrote the novels under the name Sarah d'Almeida.)
+
+Tansy Rayner Roberts wrote Musketeer Space, a space opera retelling of the original book in which almost all characters have a different gender, as a weekly serialized novel from 2014–2016.
+
+In the book The Assault, The Three Musketeers is quoted in the Prologue as the protagonist had the story read to him by Mr. Beumer, a lawyer who later becomes senile and in morbidity.
+
+In the movie The Man in the Iron Mask the aging musketeers
+come out of retirement and reunite to save France from the spoiled, cruel young king Louis XIV (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). The movie features Jeremy Irons as Aramis, John Malkovich as Athos, Gerard Depardieu as Porthos, and Gabriel Byrne as D’Artagnon.
+
+In Slumdog Millionaire Jamal Malik's final question was to correctly identify the name of the third musketeer- which was Aramis. Jamal did so and won twenty million rupees.
+
+In the movie Django Unchained one of the slaves, owned by Calvin Candie, Leonardo Dicaprio, is named D'Artangonn.
+
+In Pokémon Black and White, the Pokémon Terrakion, Cobalion, and Virizion are based on the Three Musketeers. Cobalion represents Athos, Terrakion represents Porthos, and Verizion represents Aramis.[24]

en/3397.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,104 @@
+
+
+The Three Musketeers (French: Les Trois Mousquetaires [le tʁwɑ muskətɛːʁ]) is a historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight for justice.
+
+Set between 1625 and 1628, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan (a character based on Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan) after he leaves home to travel to Paris, hoping  to join the Musketeers of the Guard. Although d'Artagnan is not able to join this elite corps immediately, he is befriended by three of the most formidable musketeers of the age – Athos, Porthos and Aramis, "the three inseparables" – and becomes involved in affairs of state and at court.
+
+The Three Musketeers is primarily a historical and adventure novel. However, Dumas frequently portrays various injustices, abuses, and absurdities of the Ancien Régime, giving the novel an additional political significance at the time of its publication, a time when the debate in France between republicans and monarchists was still fierce. The story was first serialised from March to July 1844, during the July Monarchy, four years before the French Revolution of 1848 violently established the Second Republic.
+
+The story of d'Artagnan is continued in Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later.
+
+Dumas presents his novel as one of a series of recovered manuscripts, turning the origins of his romance into a little drama of its own. In the Preface, he tells of  being inspired by a scene in Mémoires de Monsieur d'Artagnan (1700), a historical novel by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras, printed by Pierre Rouge in Amsterdam, which Dumas discovered during his research for his history of Louis XIV.[1][2] According to Dumas, the incident where d'Artagnan tells of  his first visit to M. de Tréville, captain of the Musketeers, and how,  in the antechamber, he encountered  three young Béarnese with the names Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, made such an impression on him that he continued to investigate. That much is true – the rest is fiction: He finally found the names of the three musketeers in a manuscript titled Mémoire de M. le comte de la Fère, etc. Dumas “requested permission” to reprint the manuscript; permission was granted:
+
+Now, this is the first part of this precious manuscript which we offer to our readers, restoring it to the title which belongs to it, and entering into an engagement that if (of which we have no doubt) this first part should obtain the success it merits, we will publish the second immediately.
+
+In the meanwhile, since godfathers are second fathers, as it were, we beg the reader to lay to our account, and not to that of the Comte de la Fère, the pleasure or the ennui he may experience.
+
+This being understood, let us proceed with our story.[3]
+
+The Three Musketeers was written in collaboration with Auguste Maquet, who also worked with Dumas on its sequels (Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later), as well as The Count of Monte Cristo. Maquet would suggest plot outlines after doing historical research; Dumas then expanded the plot, removing some characters, including new ones, and imbuing the story with his unmistakable style.
+
+The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.
+
+In 1625 France, d'Artagnan (a poor young nobleman) leaves his family in Gascony and travels to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard. At a house in Meung-sur-Loire, an older man derides d'Artagnan's horse. Insulted, d'Artagnan demands a duel. But the older man's companions instead beat d'Artagnan unconscious with a cooking pot and a metal tong that breaks his sword. His letter of introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, the commander of the Musketeers, is also stolen. D'Artagnan resolves to avenge himself upon the older man, who is later revealed to be the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, who is passing orders from the Cardinal to his spy, Lady de Winter, usually called Milady de Winter or simply "Milady".
+
+In Paris, d'Artagnan visits Monsieur de Tréville at the headquarters of the Musketeers, but without the letter, Tréville politely refuses his application. He does, however, write a letter of introduction to an academy for young gentlemen which may prepare his visitor for recruitment at a later time. From Tréville's window, d'Artagnan sees Rochefort passing in the street below and rushes out of the building to confront him, but in doing so he offends three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, who each demand satisfaction; d'Artagnan must fight a duel with all of them that afternoon.
+
+As d'Artagnan prepares himself for the first duel, he realizes that Athos's seconds are Porthos and Aramis, who are astonished that the young Gascon intends to duel them all. As d'Artagnan and Athos begin, Cardinal Richelieu's guards appear and attempt to arrest d'Artagnan and the three Musketeers for illegal dueling. Although they are outnumbered four to five, the four men win the battle.  D'Artagnan seriously wounds Jussac, one of the Cardinal's officers and a renowned fighter. After learning of this, King Louis XIII appoints d'Artagnan to Des Essart's company of the King's Guards and gives him forty pistoles.
+
+D'Artagnan hires a servant named Planchet, finds lodgings, and reports to Monsieur des Essart, whose company is a less prestigious regiment in which he will have to serve for two years before being considered for the Musketeers. Shortly after, his landlord speaks to him about the kidnapping of his wife, Constance Bonacieux. When she is presently released, d'Artagnan falls in love at first sight with her. She works for Queen Anne of France, who is secretly conducting an affair with the English Duke of Buckingham. The King, Louis XIII, gave the Queen a gift of diamond studs, but she gives them to her lover as a keepsake. Cardinal Richelieu, who wants war between France and England, plans to expose the tryst and persuades the King to demand the Queen wear the diamonds to a soirée that the Cardinal is sponsoring.
+
+Constance tries to send her husband to London to fetch the diamonds from Buckingham, but the man is instead manipulated by Richelieu and thus does not go, so d'Artagnan and his friends intercede. En route to England, the Cardinal's henchmen repeatedly attack them and only d'Artagnan and Planchet reach London. Before arriving, d'Artagnan is compelled to assault, and nearly to kill, the Comte de Wardes, a friend of the Cardinal, cousin of Rochefort and Milady's lover. Although Milady stole two of the diamond studs, the Duke of Buckingham provides replacements while delaying the thief's return to Paris. D'Artagnan is thus able to return a complete set of jewels to Queen Anne just in time to save her honour. In gratitude, she gives him a beautiful ring.
+
+Shortly afterwards, d'Artagnan begins an affair with Madame Bonacieux. Arriving for an assignation, he sees signs of a struggle and discovers that Rochefort and M. Bonacieux, acting under the orders of the Cardinal, have assaulted and imprisoned Constance. D'Artagnan and his friends, now recovered from their injuries, return to Paris. D'Artagnan meets Milady de Winter officially, and recognizes her as one of the Cardinal's agents, but becomes infatuated with her until her maid reveals that Milady is indifferent toward him. Entering her quarters in the dark, he pretends to be the Comte de Wardes and trysts  with her. He finds a fleur-de-lis branded on Milady's shoulder, marking her as a felon. Discovering his identity, Milady attempts to kill him but d'Artagnan eludes her. He is ordered to the Siege of La Rochelle.
+
+He is informed that the Queen has rescued Constance from prison. In an inn, the musketeers overhear the Cardinal asking Milady to murder the Duke of Buckingham, a supporter of the Protestant rebels at La Rochelle who has sent troops to assist them. Richelieu gives her a letter that excuses her actions as under orders from the Cardinal himself, but Athos takes it. The next morning, Athos bets that he, d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis, and their servants can hold the recaptured St. Gervais bastion against the rebels for an hour, for the purpose of discussing their next course of action. They resist for an hour and a half before retreating, killing 22 Rochellese in total; d'Artagnan is made a Musketeer as a result of this feat.
+
+They warn Lord de Winter and the Duke of Buckingham. Milady is imprisoned on arrival in England, but she seduces her guard, Felton (a fictionalization of the real John Felton), and persuades him to allow her escape and to kill Buckingham himself. On her return to France, Milady hides in a convent where Constance is also staying. The naïve Constance clings to Milady, who sees a chance for revenge on d'Artagnan, and fatally poisons Constance before d'Artagnan can rescue her. The Musketeers arrest Milady before she reaches Cardinal Richelieu. They bring an official executioner, put her on trial and sentence her to death.
+
+After her execution, the four friends return to the Siege of La Rochelle. The Comte de Rochefort arrests d'Artagnan and takes him to the Cardinal. When questioned about Milady's execution, d'Artagnan presents her letter of pardon as his own. Impressed with d'Artagnan's wilfulness and secretly glad to be rid of Milady, the Cardinal destroys the letter and writes a new order, giving the bearer a promotion to lieutenant in the Tréville company of Musketeers, leaving the name blank. D'Artagnan offers the letter to Athos, Porthos, and Aramis in turn but each refuses it; Athos because it is below him, Porthos because he is retiring to marry his wealthy mistress, and Aramis because he is joining the priesthood. D'Artagnan, though heartbroken and full of regrets, finally receives the promotion he had coveted.
+
+Les Trois Mousquetaires was translated into three English versions by 1846. One of these, by William Barrow (1817–1877), is still in print and fairly faithful to the original, available in the Oxford World's Classics 1999 edition. To conform to 19th-century English standards, all of the explicit and many of the implicit references to sexuality were removed, adversely affecting the readability of several scenes, such as the scenes between d'Artagnan and Milady.
+
+One recent English translation is by Richard Pevear (2006),[4] who, though applauding Barrow's work, states that most of the modern translations available today are "textbook examples of bad translation practices" which "give their readers an extremely distorted notion of Dumas' writing."[5]
+
+
+
+The novel has been adapted also for television in live-action and animation.
+
+The BBC has adapted the novel on three occasions.
+
+Young Blades is an American/Canadian television series that aired on PAX in 2005. The series serves as a sequel to the novels, centered on the son of d'Artagnan, played by Tobias Mehler.
+
+Walt Disney Productions produced a Silly Symphony cartoon called, Three Blind Mouseketeers, which is loosely based on the novel in 1936, in which the characters are depicted as anthropomorphic animals.
+
+Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds is a 1981 Spanish–Japanese anime adaptation, where the characters are anthropomorphic dogs. A sequel, The Return of Dogtanian, was released in 1989 by BRB Internacional, Thames Television and Wang Film Productions. Set 10 years after of the original, it's loosely based on the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne. A key difference between the two Dogtanian adaptions and Dumas' novel is that the character traits of Athos and Porthos were interchanged, making Athos the extrovert and Porthos the secretive noble of the group.
+
+In 1989, Gakken produced a new anime adaptation called The Three Musketeers Anime, this time with human characters, which features several departures from the original.
+
+The Three Musketeers was a series of animated shorts produced by Hanna-Barbera's as part of The Banana Splits Comedy-Adventure Hour and The Banana Splits & Friends show.
+
+Albert the Fifth Musketeer is a 1994 French animated series featuring a new musketeer, the titular Albert.
+
+Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, a direct-to-video animated movie produced by Walt Disney Pictures and the Australian office of DisneyToon Studios, directed by Donovan Cook, and released on August 17, 2004.
+
+A Barbie adaption of the tale by the name of Barbie and the Three Musketeers was made in 2009.
+
+The first stage production was in Dumas' own lifetime as the opera Les Trois Mousquetaires with a libretto by Dumas himself and music by Albert Visetti.
+
+The Three Musketeers is a musical with a book by William Anthony McGuire, lyrics by Clifford Grey and P. G. Wodehouse, and music by Rudolf Friml. The original 1928 production ran on Broadway for 318 performances. A 1984 revival ran for 15 previews and 9 performances.
+
+In 2003, a Dutch musical 3 Musketiers with a book by André Breedland and music & lyrics by Rob & Ferdi Bolland premiered, which went on to open in Germany (both the Dutch and German production starring Pia Douwes as Milady De Winter) and Hungary.
+
+Playwright Peter Raby, composer George Stiles and lyricist Paul Leigh have written another adaptation titled The 3 Musketeers, One Musical For All, originally produced by the now defunct American Musical Theatre of San Jose.
+
+In 2006, an adaptation by Ken Ludwig premiered at the Bristol Old Vic.[11] In this version, d'Artagnan's sister Sabine, "the quintessential tomboy," poses as a young man and participates in her brother's adventures.
+
+In 2018 The Dukes performed an outdoor promenade production in Williamson Park, Lancaster, adapted by Hattie Naylor: in this version d'Artagnan was a young woman aspiring to be a musketeer.[12][13]
+
+1995 saw the release by publisher U.S. Gold of Touché: The Adventures of the Fifth Musketeer by video game developers Clipper Software, a classic point-and-click adventure game.[14] In 2005, Swedish developer Legendo Entertainment published the side-scrolling platform game The Three Musketeers for Windows XP and Windows Vista. In July 2009, a version of the game was released for WiiWare in North America and Europe under the title The Three Musketeers: One for All!.[15] In 2009, Canadian developer Dingo Games self-published The Three Musketeers: The Game for Windows and Mac OS X. It is the first game to be truly based on the novel (in that it closely follows the novel's story).[16] 2009 also saw the publication of the asymmetric team board game The Three Musketeers "The Queen's Pendants" (Настольная игра "Три мушкетера") from French designer Pascal Bernard[17] by the Russian publisher Zvezda.[18] In 2010 a co-operative game called "Mousquetaires du Roy" was released by Ystari and Rio Grande.[19] The alternative spelling of "Roy" was taken from the old French and is rumoured to be preferred over the regular spelling because the publishers desire to have a letter "Y" in the name of the games they publish.[20] Designed by François Combe and Gilles Lehmann for 1-5 players, the medium heavy game depicts the quest to retrieve the Queen's diamonds, while at the same time fending off disasters back in Paris. A sixth player expansion, called "Treville" was also made available in 2010.[21]
+
+In 2010, Anuman Interactive launched The Three Musketeers, a hidden object game on PC and MAC. Players follow d'Artagnan in his quest to become a king's musketeer.[22]
+
+In 2016, KindaTV launched a web series based on the story of The Three Musketeers, called "All For One".[23] It follows a group of college students, mainly Dorothy Castlemore, and is centred around a sorority- Mu Sigma Theta (MST). The majority of characters have been gender-swapped from the original story and most character names are based on the original characters.
+
+It covers several themes including the LGBT community, mental health, long distance relationships and college life.
+
+Publisher Albert Lewis Kanter (1897–1973), created Classic Comics for Elliot Publishing Company in 1941 with its debut issues being The Three Musketeers. The Three Mouseketeers was the title of two series produced by DC Comics; the first series was a loose parody of The Three Musketeers.
+
+In 1939, American author Tiffany Thayer published a book titled Three Musketeers (Thayer, 1939).  This is a re-telling of the story in Thayer's words, true to the original plot but told in a different order and with different points of view and emphasis from the original. The Khaavren Romances by Steven Brust are fantasy (or science-fiction) novels heavily influenced by  The Three Musketeers and its sequels; the characters and social background are closer to Dumas's than the plots.
+
+Sarah Hoyt wrote a series of Historical Murder mysteries with the Musketeers as the protagonists. (Hoyt wrote the novels under the name Sarah d'Almeida.)
+
+Tansy Rayner Roberts wrote Musketeer Space, a space opera retelling of the original book in which almost all characters have a different gender, as a weekly serialized novel from 2014–2016.
+
+In the book The Assault, The Three Musketeers is quoted in the Prologue as the protagonist had the story read to him by Mr. Beumer, a lawyer who later becomes senile and in morbidity.
+
+In the movie The Man in the Iron Mask the aging musketeers
+come out of retirement and reunite to save France from the spoiled, cruel young king Louis XIV (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). The movie features Jeremy Irons as Aramis, John Malkovich as Athos, Gerard Depardieu as Porthos, and Gabriel Byrne as D’Artagnon.
+
+In Slumdog Millionaire Jamal Malik's final question was to correctly identify the name of the third musketeer- which was Aramis. Jamal did so and won twenty million rupees.
+
+In the movie Django Unchained one of the slaves, owned by Calvin Candie, Leonardo Dicaprio, is named D'Artangonn.
+
+In Pokémon Black and White, the Pokémon Terrakion, Cobalion, and Virizion are based on the Three Musketeers. Cobalion represents Athos, Terrakion represents Porthos, and Verizion represents Aramis.[24]

en/3398.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+
+
+
+
+Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Table sugar, granulated sugar, or regular sugar, refers to sucrose, a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose.
+
+Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double sugars, are molecules composed of two monosaccharides joined by a glycosidic bond. Common examples are sucrose (table sugar) (glucose + fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose), and maltose (two molecules of glucose). In the body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars.
+
+Longer chains of monosaccharides are not regarded as sugars, and are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol and sugar alcohols, may have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugar.
+
+Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants. Honey and fruit are abundant natural sources of unbounded simple sugars. Sucrose is especially concentrated in sugarcane and sugar beet, making them ideal for efficient commercial extraction to make refined sugar. In 2016, the combined world production of those two crops was about two billion tonnes. Maltose may be produced by malting grain. Lactose is the only sugar that cannot be extracted from plants. It can only be found in milk, including human breast milk, and in some dairy products. A cheap source of sugar is corn syrup, industrially produced by converting corn starch into sugars, such as maltose, fructose and glucose.
+
+Sucrose is used in prepared foods (e.g. cookies and cakes), is sometimes added to commercially available processed food and beverages, and may be used by people as a sweetener for foods (e.g. toast and cereal) and beverages (e.g. coffee and tea). The average person consumes about 24 kilograms (53 lb) of sugar each year, or 33.1 kilograms (73 lb) in developed countries, equivalent to over 260 food calories per day. As sugar consumption grew in the latter part of the 20th century, researchers began to examine whether a diet high in sugar, especially refined sugar, was damaging to human health. Excessive consumption of sugar has been implicated in the onset of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, and tooth decay. Numerous studies have tried to clarify those implications, but with varying results, mainly because of the difficulty of finding populations for use as controls that consume little or no sugar. In 2015, the World Health Organization recommended that adults and children reduce their intake of free sugars to less than 10%, and encouraged a reduction to below 5%, of their total energy intake.[1]
+
+The etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. From Sanskrit (śarkarā), meaning "ground or candied sugar", came Persian shakar, then to 12th century French sucre and the English sugar.[2]
+
+The English word jaggery, a coarse brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin: Portuguese jágara from the Malayalam cakkarā, which is from the Sanskrit śarkarā.[3]
+
+Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent[4] since ancient times and its cultivation spread from there into modern-day Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass.[5] It was not plentiful nor cheap in early times, and in most parts of the world, honey was more often used for sweetening. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness. Sugarcane was a native of tropical Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and Southeast Asia.[4][6]
+
+Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum coming from New Guinea.[6][7] One of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating to 8th century BCE, which state that the use of sugarcane originated in India.[8]
+
+In the tradition of Indian medicine (āyurveda), the sugarcane is known by the name Ikṣu and the sugarcane juice is known as Phāṇita. Its varieties, synonyms and characteristics are defined in nighaṇṭus such as the Bhāvaprakāśa (1.6.23, group of sugarcanes).[9]
+Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store and to transport.[10] Crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century CE.[10] In the local Indian language, these crystals were called khanda (Devanagari: खण्ड, Khaṇḍa), which is the source of the word candy.[11] Indian sailors, who carried clarified butter and sugar as supplies, introduced knowledge of sugar along the various trade routes they travelled.[10] Traveling Buddhist monks took sugar crystallization methods to China.[12] During the reign of Harsha (r. 606–647) in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught methods of cultivating sugarcane after Emperor Taizong of Tang (r. 626–649) made known his interest in sugar. China established its first sugarcane plantations in the seventh century.[13] Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 CE, to obtain technology for sugar refining.[14] In the Indian subcontinent,[4] the Middle East and China, sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts.
+
+Nearchus, admiral of Alexander of Macedonia, knew of sugar during the year 325 B.C., because of his participation in the campaign of India led by Alexander (Arrian, Anabasis).[15][16] The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century CE described sugar in his medical treatise De Materia Medica,[17] and Pliny the Elder, a 1st-century CE Roman, described sugar in his Natural History: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes."[18] Crusaders brought sugar back to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying "sweet salt". Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe. It supplemented the use of honey, which had previously been the only available sweetener.[19] Crusade chronicler William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, described sugar as "very necessary for the use and health of mankind".[20] In the 15th century, Venice was the chief sugar refining and distribution center in Europe.[8]
+
+There was a drastic change in the mid-15th century, when Madeira and the Canary Islands were settled from Europe, and sugar grown there.[21]   After this an "all-consuming passion for sugar ... swept through society" as it became far more easily available, though initially still very expensive.[22]  By 1492, Madeira was producing over three million pounds weight of sugar annually.[23] Genoa, one of the centers of distribution, became known for candied fruit, while Venice specialized in pastries, sweets (candies), and sugar sculptures.  Sugar was considered to have "valuable medicinal properties" as a "warm" food under prevailing categories, being "helpful to the stomach, to cure cold diseases, and sooth lung complaints".[24]
+
+A feast given in Tours in 1457 by Gaston de Foix, which is "probably the best and most complete account we have of a late medieval banquet" includes the first mention of sugar sculptures, as the final food brought in was "a heraldic menagerie sculpted in sugar: lions, stags, monkeys ... each holding in paw or beak the arms of the Hungarian king".[25]  Other recorded grand feasts in the decades following included similar pieces.[26]  Originally the sculptures seem to have been eaten in the meal, but later they become merely table decorations, the most elaborate called triomfi. Several significant sculptors are known to have produced them; in some cases their preliminary drawings survive. Early ones were in brown sugar, partly cast in molds, with the final touches carved.  They continued to be used until at least the Coronation Banquet for Edward VII of the United Kingdom in 1903; among other sculptures every guest was given a sugar crown to take away.[27]
+
+In August 1492 Christopher Columbus picked up sugar cane in La Gomera in the Canary Islands, which he carried to the New World. This was the introduction of this plant.[28] The cuttings were planted and the first sugar-cane harvest in Hispaniola took place in 1501. Many sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba and Jamaica by the 1520s.[29] The Portuguese took sugar cane to Brazil. By 1540, there were 800 cane-sugar mills in Santa Catarina Island and another 2,000 on the north coast of Brazil, Demarara, and Surinam.
+
+Sugar was a luxury in Europe until the early 19th century, when it became more widely available, due to the rise of beet sugar in Prussia, and later in France under Napoleon.[30] Beet sugar was a German invention, since, in 1747, Andreas Sigismund Marggraf announced the discovery of sugar in beets and devised a method using alcohol to extract it.[31] Marggraf's student, Franz Karl Achard, devised an economical industrial method to extract the sugar in its pure form in the late 18th century.[32][33] Achard first produced beet sugar in 1783 in Kaulsdorf, and in 1801, the world's first beet sugar production facility was established in Cunern, Silesia (then part of Prussia).[34] The works of Marggraf and Achard were the starting point for the sugar industry in Europe,[35] and for the modern sugar industry in general, since sugar was no longer a luxury product and a product almost only produced in warmer climates.[36]
+
+Sugar became highly popular and by the 19th century, sugar came to be considered[by whom?] a necessity. This evolution of taste and demand for sugar as an essential food ingredient resulted in major economic and social changes.[37] Demand drove, in part, the colonization of tropical islands and areas where labor-intensive sugarcane plantations and sugar manufacturing could be successful. The demand for cheap labor to perform the labor-intensive cultivation and processing increased the demand for the slave trade from Africa (in particular West Africa).
+
+After slavery was abolished, the demand for workers in the British Caribbean colonies was filled by indentured laborers from Indian subcontinent (in particular India).[38][39][40] Millions of slave and indentured laborers were brought into the Caribbean and the Americas, Indian Ocean colonies, southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, and East Africa and Natal. Thus the modern ethnic mix of many nations that have been settled in the last two centuries has been influenced by the demand for sugar.[41][42][43]
+
+Sugar also led to some industrialization of areas where sugar cane was grown. For example, in the 1790s Lieutenant J. Paterson, of the Bengal establishment, promoted to the British Government the idea that sugar cane could grow in British India, where it had started, with many advantages and at less expense than in the West Indies. As a result, sugar factories were established in Bihar in eastern India.[44][45]
+During the Napoleonic Wars, sugar-beet production increased in continental Europe because of the difficulty of importing sugar when shipping was subject to blockade. By 1880 the sugar beet was the main source of sugar in Europe. It was also cultivated in Lincolnshire and other parts of England, although the United Kingdom continued to import the main part of its sugar from its colonies.[46]
+
+Until the late nineteenth century, sugar was purchased in loaves, which had to be cut using implements called sugar nips.[47] In later years, granulated sugar was more usually sold in bags. Sugar cubes were produced in the nineteenth century. The first inventor of a process to produce sugar in cube form was Moravian Jakub Kryštof Rad, director of a sugar company in Dačice. He began sugar-cube production after being granted a five-year patent for the process on January 23, 1843. Henry Tate of Tate & Lyle was another early manufacturer of sugar cubes at his refineries in Liverpool and London. Tate purchased a patent for sugar-cube manufacture from German Eugen Langen, who in 1872 had invented a different method of processing of sugar cubes.[48]
+
+Sugar was rationed during World War I and more sharply during World War II.[49][50][51][52][53] This led to the development and use of various artificial sweeteners.[49][54]
+
+Scientifically, sugar loosely refers to a number of carbohydrates, such as monosaccharides, disaccharides, or oligosaccharides. Monosaccharides are also called "simple sugars", the most important being glucose. Most monosaccharides have a formula that conforms to CnH2nOn with n between 3 and 7 (deoxyribose being an exception). Glucose has the molecular formula C6H12O6. The names of typical sugars end with -ose, as in "glucose" and "fructose". Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of carbohydrates soluble in water. The acyclic mono- and disaccharides contain either aldehyde groups or ketone groups. These carbon-oxygen double bonds (C=O) are the reactive centers. All saccharides with more than one ring in their structure result from two or more monosaccharides joined by glycosidic bonds with the resultant loss of a molecule of water (H2O) per bond.[55]
+
+Monosaccharides in a closed-chain form can form glycosidic bonds with other monosaccharides, creating disaccharides (such as sucrose) and polysaccharides (such as starch). Enzymes must hydrolyze or otherwise break these glycosidic bonds before such compounds become metabolized. After digestion and absorption the principal monosaccharides present in the blood and internal tissues include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Many pentoses and hexoses can form ring structures. In these closed-chain forms, the aldehyde or ketone group remains non-free, so many of the reactions typical of these groups cannot occur. Glucose in solution exists mostly in the ring form at equilibrium, with less than 0.1% of the molecules in the open-chain form.[55]
+
+Biopolymers of sugars are common in nature. Through photosynthesis, plants produce glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (G3P), a phosphated 3-carbon sugar that is used by the cell to make monosaccharides such as glucose (C6H12O6) or (as in cane and beet) sucrose (C12H22O11). Monosaccharides may be further converted into structural polysaccharides such as cellulose and pectin for cell wall construction or into energy reserves in the form of storage polysaccharides such as starch or inulin. Starch, consisting of two different polymers of glucose, is a readily degradable form of chemical energy stored by cells, and can be converted to other types of energy.[55] Another polymer of glucose is cellulose, which is a linear chain composed of several hundred or thousand glucose units. It is used by plants as a structural component in their cell walls. Humans can digest cellulose only to a very limited extent, though ruminants can do so with the help of symbiotic bacteria in their gut.[56] DNA and RNA are built up of the monosaccharides deoxyribose and  ribose, respectively. Deoxyribose has the formula C5H10O4 and ribose the formula C5H10O5.[57]
+
+Because sugars burn easily when exposed to flame, the handling of sugars risks dust explosion. The risk of explosion is higher when the sugar has been milled to superfine texture, such as for use in chewing gum.[58] The 2008 Georgia sugar refinery explosion, which killed 14 people and injured 40, and destroyed most of the refinery, was caused by the ignition of sugar dust.
+
+In its culinary use, exposing sugar to heat causes caramelization. As the process occurs, volatile chemicals such as diacetyl are released, producing the characteristic caramel flavor.
+
+Fructose, galactose, and glucose are all simple sugars, monosaccharides, with the general formula C6H12O6. They have five hydroxyl groups (−OH) and a carbonyl group (C=O) and are cyclic when dissolved in water. They each exist as several isomers with dextro- and laevo-rotatory forms that cause polarized light to diverge to the right or the left.[59]
+
+Lactose, maltose, and sucrose are all compound sugars, disaccharides, with the general formula C12H22O11. They are formed by the combination of two monosaccharide molecules with the exclusion of a molecule of water.[59]
+
+The sugar contents of common fruits and vegetables are presented in Table 1.
+The fructose to fructose plus glucose ratio is calculated by including the fructose and glucose coming from the sucrose.
+
+In November 2019, scientists reported detecting, for the first time, sugar molecules, including ribose, in meteorites, suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some fundamentally essential bio-ingredients important to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA World prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth, and possibly, as well, the notion of panspermia.[66][67]
+
+Due to rising demand, sugar production in general increased some 14% over the period 2009 to 2018.[69] The largest importers were China, Indonesia, and the United States.[69]
+
+Global production of sugarcane in 2016 was 1.9 billion tonnes, with Brazil producing 41% of the world total and India 18% (table).
+
+Sugarcane refers to any of several species, or their hybrids, of giant grasses in the genus Saccharum in the family Poaceae. They have been cultivated in tropical climates in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia over centuries for the sucrose found in their stems.[4] A great expansion in sugarcane production took place in the 18th century with the establishment of slave plantations in the Americas. The use of slavery for the labor-intensive process resulted in sugar production, enabling prices cheap enough for most people to buy. Mechanization reduced some labor needs, but in the 21st century, cultivation and production relied on low-wage laborers.
+
+Sugar cane requires a frost-free climate with sufficient rainfall during the growing season to make full use of the plant's substantial growth potential. The crop is harvested mechanically or by hand, chopped into lengths and conveyed rapidly to the processing plant (commonly known as a sugar mill) where it is either milled and the juice extracted with water or extracted by diffusion.[71] The juice is clarified with lime and heated to destroy enzymes. The resulting thin syrup is concentrated in a series of evaporators, after which further water is removed. The resulting supersaturated solution is seeded with sugar crystals, facilitating crystal formation and drying.[71] Molasses is a by-product of the process and the fiber from the stems, known as bagasse,[71] is burned to provide energy for the sugar extraction process. The crystals of raw sugar have a sticky brown coating and either can be used as they are, can be bleached by sulfur dioxide, or can be treated in a carbonatation process to produce a whiter product.[71] About 2,500 litres (660 US gal) of irrigation water is needed for every one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of sugar produced.[72]
+
+In 2016, global production of sugar beets was 277 million tonnes, led by Russia with 19% of the world total (table).
+
+The sugar beet became a major source of sugar in the 19th century when methods for extracting the sugar became available. It is a biennial plant,[74] a cultivated variety of Beta vulgaris in the family Amaranthaceae, the tuberous root of which contains a high proportion of sucrose. It is cultivated as a root crop in temperate regions with adequate rainfall and requires a fertile soil. The crop is harvested mechanically in the autumn and the crown of leaves and excess soil removed. The roots do not deteriorate rapidly and may be left in the field for some weeks before being transported to the processing plant where the crop is washed and sliced, and the sugar extracted by diffusion.[75] Milk of lime is added to the raw juice with calcium carbonate. After water is evaporated by boiling the syrup under a vacuum, the syrup is cooled and seeded with sugar crystals. The white sugar that crystallizes can be separated in a centrifuge and dried, requiring no further refining.[75]
+
+Refined sugar is made from raw sugar that has undergone a refining process to remove the molasses.[76][77] Raw sugar is sucrose which is extracted from sugarcane or sugar beet. While raw sugar can be consumed, the refining process removes unwanted tastes and results in refined sugar or white sugar.[78][79]
+
+The sugar may be transported in bulk to the country where it will be used and the refining process often takes place there. The first stage is known as affination and involves immersing the sugar crystals in a concentrated syrup that softens and removes the sticky brown coating without dissolving them. The crystals are then separated from the liquor and dissolved in water. The resulting syrup is treated either by a carbonatation or by a phosphatation process. Both involve the precipitation of a fine solid in the syrup and when this is filtered out, many of the impurities are removed at the same time. Removal of color is achieved by using either a granular activated carbon or an ion-exchange resin. The sugar syrup is concentrated by boiling and then cooled and seeded with sugar crystals, causing the sugar to crystallize out. The liquor is spun off in a centrifuge and the white crystals are dried in hot air and ready to be packaged or used. The surplus liquor is made into refiners' molasses.[80]
+
+The International Commission for Uniform Methods of Sugar Analysis sets standards for the measurement of the purity of refined sugar, known as ICUMSA numbers; lower numbers indicate a higher level of purity in the refined sugar.[81]
+
+Refined sugar is widely used for industrial needs for higher quality. Refined sugar is purer (ICUMSA below 300) than raw sugar (ICUMSA over 1,500).[82] The level of purity associated with the colors of sugar, expressed by standard number ICUMSA, the smaller ICUMSA numbers indicate the higher purity of sugar.[82]
+
+Brown sugars are granulated sugars, either containing residual molasses, or with the grains deliberately coated with molasses to produce a light- or dark-colored sugar. They are used in baked goods, confectionery, and toffees.[85] Their darkness is due to the amount of molasses they contain. They may be classified based on their darkness or country of origin. For instance:[83]
+
+In most parts of the world, sugar is an important part of the human diet, making food more palatable and providing food energy. After cereals and vegetable oils, sugar derived from sugarcane and beet provided more kilocalories per capita per day on average than other food groups.[89] According to one source, per capita consumption of sugar in 2016 was highest in the United States, followed by Germany and the Netherlands.[90]
+
+Brown and white granulated sugar are 97% to nearly 100% carbohydrates, respectively, with less than 2% water, and no dietary fiber, protein or fat (table). Brown sugar contains a moderate amount of iron (15% of the Reference Daily Intake in a 100 gram amount, see table), but a typical serving of 4 grams (one teaspoon), would provide 15 calories and a negligible amount of iron or any other nutrient.[91] Because brown sugar contains 5–10% molasses reintroduced during processing, its value to some consumers is a richer flavor than white sugar.[92]
+
+Sugar refiners and manufacturers of sugary foods and drinks have sought to influence medical research and public health recommendations,[93][94] with substantial and largely clandestine spending documented from the 1960s to 2016.[95][96][97][98] The results of research on the health effects of sugary food and drink differ significantly, depending on whether the researcher has financial ties to the food and drink industry.[99][100][101] A 2013 medical review concluded that "unhealthy commodity industries should have no role in the formation of national or international NCD [non-communicable disease] policy".[102]
+
+There have been similar efforts to steer coverage of sugar-related health information in popular media, including news media and social media.[103][104][105]
+
+A 2003 World Health Organization technical report provided evidence that high intake of sugary drinks (including fruit juice) increased the risk of obesity by adding to overall energy intake.[106] By itself, sugar is not a factor causing obesity and metabolic syndrome, but rather – when over-consumed – is a component of unhealthy dietary behavior.[106] Meta-analyses showed that excessive consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome – including weight gain and obesity – in adults and children.[107][108]
+
+A 2019 meta-analysis found that sugar consumption does not improve mood, but can lower alertness and increase fatigue within an hour of consumption.[109] Some studies report evidence of causality between high consumption of refined sugar and hyperactivity.[110] One review of low-quality studies of children consuming high amounts of energy drinks showed association with higher rates of unhealthy behaviors, including smoking and alcohol abuse, and with hyperactivity and insomnia.[111]
+
+The 2003 WHO report stated that "Sugars are undoubtedly the most important dietary factor in the development of dental caries".[106] A review of human studies showed that the incidence of caries is lower when sugar intake is less than 10% of total energy consumed.[112]
+
+The "empty calories" argument states that a diet high in added sugar will reduce consumption of foods that contain essential nutrients.[113] This nutrient displacement occurs if sugar makes up more than 25% of daily energy intake,[114] a proportion associated with poor diet quality and risk of obesity.[115] Displacement may occur at lower levels of consumption.[114]
+
+Claims have been made of a sugar–Alzheimer's disease connection, but there is inconclusive evidence that cognitive decline is related to dietary fructose or overall energy intake.[116][117]
+
+The World Health Organization recommends that both adults and children reduce the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake, and suggests a reduction to below 5%. "Free sugars" include monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods, and sugars found in fruit juice and concentrates, as well as in honey and syrups. According to the WHO, "[t]hese recommendations were based on the totality of available evidence reviewed regarding the relationship between free sugars intake and body weight (low and moderate quality evidence) and dental caries (very low and moderate quality evidence)."[1]
+
+On May 20, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced changes to the Nutrition Facts panel displayed on all foods, to be effective by July 2018. New to the panel is a requirement to list "Added sugars" by weight and as a percent of Daily Value (DV). For vitamins and minerals, the intent of DVs is to indicate how much should be consumed. For added sugars, the guidance is that 100% DV should not be exceeded. 100% DV is defined as 50 grams. For a person consuming 2000 calories a day, 50 grams is equal to 200 calories and thus 10% of total calories—the same guidance as the World Health Organization.[118] To put this in context, most 355 mL (12 US fl oz) cans of soda contain 39 grams of sugar. In the United States, a government survey on food consumption in 2013–2014 reported that, for men and women aged 20 and older, the average total sugar intakes—naturally occurring in foods and added—were, respectively, 125 and 99 g/day.[119]
+
+Various culinary sugars have different densities due to differences in particle size and inclusion of moisture.
+
+Domino Sugar gives the following weight to volume conversions (in United States customary units):[120]
+
+The "Engineering Resources – Bulk Density Chart" published in Powder and Bulk gives different values for the bulk densities:[121]
+
+
+
+Manufacturers of sugary products, such as soft drinks and candy, and the Sugar Research Foundation have been accused of trying to influence consumers and medical associations in the 1960s and 1970s by creating doubt about the potential health hazards of sucrose overconsumption, while promoting saturated fat as the main dietary risk factor in cardiovascular diseases.[95] In 2016, the criticism led to recommendations that diet policymakers emphasize the need for high-quality research that accounts for multiple biomarkers on development of cardiovascular diseases.[95]
+
+Brown sugar crystals
+
+Whole date sugar
+
+Whole cane sugar (grey), vacuum-dried
+
+Whole cane sugar (brown), vacuum-dried
+
+Raw crystals of unrefined, unbleached sugar

en/3399.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,112 @@
+
+
+A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
+
+Earth's volcanoes occur because its crust is broken into 17 major, rigid tectonic plates that float on a hotter, softer layer in its mantle.[1] Therefore, on Earth, volcanoes are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and most are found underwater. For example, a mid-oceanic ridge, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates whereas the Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates. Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching and thinning of the crust's plates, e.g., in the East African Rift and the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field and Rio Grande Rift in North America. This type of volcanism falls under the umbrella of "plate hypothesis" volcanism.[2] Volcanism away from plate boundaries has also been explained as mantle plumes. These so-called "hotspots", for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs with magma from the core–mantle boundary, 3,000 km deep in the Earth.  Volcanoes are usually not created where two tectonic plates slide past one another.
+
+Large eruptions can affect ambient temperature as ash and droplets of sulfuric acid obscure the sun and cool the Earth's  troposphere; historically, large volcanic eruptions have been followed by volcanic winters which have caused catastrophic famines.
+
+The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano, a volcanic island in the Aeolian Islands of Italy whose name in turn comes from Vulcan, the god of fire in Roman mythology.[3] The study of volcanoes is called volcanology, sometimes spelled vulcanology.
+
+At the mid-oceanic ridges, two tectonic plates diverge from one another as new oceanic crust is formed by the cooling and solidifying of hot molten rock. Because the crust is very thin at these ridges due to the pull of the tectonic plates, the release of pressure leads to adiabatic expansion (without transfer of heat or matter) and the partial melting of the mantle, causing volcanism and creating new oceanic crust. Most divergent plate boundaries are at the bottom of the oceans; therefore, most volcanic activity on the Earth is submarine, forming new seafloor. Black smokers (also known as deep sea vents) are evidence of this kind of volcanic activity. Where the mid-oceanic ridge is above sea-level, volcanic islands are formed; for example, Iceland.
+
+Subduction zones are places where two plates, usually an oceanic plate and a continental plate, collide. In this case, the oceanic plate subducts, or submerges, under the continental plate, forming a deep ocean trench just offshore. In a process called flux melting, water released from the subducting plate lowers the melting temperature of the overlying mantle wedge, thus creating magma. This magma tends to be extremely  viscous because of its high silica content, so it often does not attain the surface but cools and solidifies at depth.  When it does reach the surface, however, a volcano is formed. Typical examples are Mount Etna and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire.
+
+Hotspots are volcanic areas believed to be formed by mantle plumes, which are hypothesized to be columns of hot material rising from the core-mantle boundary in a fixed space that causes large-volume melting. Because tectonic plates move across them, each volcano becomes dormant and is eventually re-formed as the plate advances over the postulated plume. The Hawaiian Islands are said to have been formed in such a manner; so has the Snake River Plain, with the Yellowstone Caldera being the part of the North American plate above the hot spot. This theory, however, has been doubted.[2]
+
+The most common perception of a volcano is of a conical mountain, spewing lava and poisonous gases from a crater at its summit; however, this describes just one of the many types of volcano.  The features of volcanoes are much more complicated and their structure and behavior depends on a number of factors. Some volcanoes have rugged peaks formed by lava domes rather than a summit crater while others have landscape features such as massive plateaus. Vents that issue volcanic material (including lava and ash) and gases (mainly steam and magmatic gases) can develop anywhere on the landform and may give rise to smaller cones such as Puʻu ʻŌʻō on a flank of Hawaii's Kīlauea.
+Other types of volcano include cryovolcanoes (or ice volcanoes), particularly on some moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune; and mud volcanoes, which are formations often not associated with known magmatic activity. Active mud volcanoes tend to involve temperatures much lower than those of igneous volcanoes except when the mud volcano is actually a vent of an igneous volcano.
+
+Volcanic fissure vents are flat, linear fractures through which lava emerges.
+
+Shield volcanoes, so named for their broad, shield-like profiles, are formed by the eruption of low-viscosity lava that can flow a great distance from a vent. They generally do not explode catastrophically. Since low-viscosity magma is typically low in silica, shield volcanoes are more common in oceanic than continental settings. The Hawaiian volcanic chain is a series of shield cones, and they are common in Iceland, as well.
+
+Lava domes are built by slow eruptions of highly viscous lava. They are sometimes formed within the crater of a previous volcanic eruption, as in the case of Mount Saint Helens, but can also form independently, as in the case of Lassen Peak. Like stratovolcanoes, they can produce violent, explosive eruptions, but their lava generally does not flow far from the originating vent.
+
+Cryptodomes are formed when viscous lava is forced upward causing the surface to bulge. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was an example; lava beneath the surface of the mountain created an upward bulge which slid down the north side of the mountain.
+
+Volcanic cones or cinder cones result from eruptions of mostly small pieces of scoria and pyroclastics (both resemble cinders, hence the name of this volcano type) that build up around the vent. These can be relatively short-lived eruptions that produce a cone-shaped hill perhaps 30 to 400 meters high. Most cinder cones erupt only once. Cinder cones may form as flank vents on larger volcanoes, or occur on their own.  Parícutin in Mexico and Sunset Crater in Arizona are examples of cinder cones.  In New Mexico, Caja del Rio is a volcanic field of over 60 cinder cones.
+
+Based on satellite images it was suggested that cinder cones might occur on other terrestrial bodies in the Solar system too; on the surface of Mars and the Moon.[4][5][6][7]
+
+Stratovolcanoes or composite volcanoes are tall conical mountains composed of lava flows and other ejecta in alternate layers, the strata that gives rise to the name. Stratovolcanoes are also known as composite volcanoes because they are created from multiple structures during different kinds of eruptions. Strato/composite volcanoes are made of cinders, ash, and lava. Cinders and ash pile on top of each other, lava flows on top of the ash, where it cools and hardens, and then the process repeats. Classic examples include Mount Fuji in Japan, Mayon Volcano in the Philippines, and Mount Vesuvius and Stromboli in Italy.
+
+Throughout recorded history, ash produced by the explosive eruption of stratovolcanoes has posed the greatest volcanic hazard to civilizations. Not only do stratovolcanoes have greater pressure buildup from the underlying lava flow than shield volcanoes, but their fissure vents and monogenetic volcanic fields (volcanic cones) also have more powerful eruptions because they are often under extension. They are also steeper than shield volcanoes, with slopes of 30–35° compared to slopes of generally 5–10°, and their loose tephra are material for dangerous lahars.[8] Large pieces of tephra are called volcanic bombs. Big bombs can measure more than 4 feet(1.2 meters) across and weigh several tons.[9]
+
+A supervolcano usually has a large caldera and can produce devastation on an enormous, sometimes continental, scale. Such volcanoes are able to severely cool global temperatures for many years after the eruption due to the huge volumes of sulfur and ash released into the atmosphere. They are the most dangerous type of volcano. Examples include Yellowstone Caldera in Yellowstone National Park and Valles Caldera in New Mexico (both western United States); Lake Taupo in New Zealand; Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia; and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. Because of the enormous area they may cover, supervolcanoes are hard to identify centuries after an eruption. Similarly, large igneous provinces are also considered supervolcanoes because of the vast amount of basalt lava erupted (even though the lava flow is non-explosive).
+
+Submarine volcanoes are common features of the ocean floor. In shallow water, active volcanoes disclose their presence by blasting steam and rocky debris high above the ocean's surface. In the ocean's deep, the tremendous weight of the water above prevents the explosive release of steam and gases; however, they can be detected by hydrophones and discoloration of water because of volcanic gases. Pillow lava is a common eruptive product of submarine volcanoes and is characterized by thick sequences of discontinuous pillow-shaped masses which form under water. Even large submarine eruptions may not disturb the ocean surface due to the rapid cooling effect and increased buoyancy of water (as compared to air) which often causes volcanic vents to form steep pillars on the ocean floor. Hydrothermal vents are common near these volcanoes, and some support peculiar ecosystems based on dissolved minerals. Over time, the formations created by submarine volcanoes may become so large that they break the ocean surface as new islands or floating pumice rafts.
+
+In 2018, a multitude of seismic signals were detected by earthquake monitoring agencies all over the world in May and June. They created a weird humming sound and some of the signals detected in November of that year had a duration of up to 20 minutes. An oceanographic campaign in May 2019 showed that the previously mysterious humming noises were caused by the formation of an underwater volcano off the coast of Mayotte.[10]
+
+Subglacial volcanoes develop underneath icecaps. They are made up of flat lava which flows at the top of extensive pillow lavas and palagonite. When the icecap melts, the lava on top collapses, leaving a flat-topped mountain. These volcanoes are also called table mountains, tuyas, or (uncommonly) mobergs. Very good examples of this type of volcano can be seen in Iceland, however, there are also tuyas in British Columbia. The origin of the term comes from Tuya Butte, which is one of the several tuyas in the area of the Tuya River and Tuya Range in northern British Columbia. Tuya Butte was the first such landform analyzed and so its name has entered the geological literature for this kind of volcanic formation. The Tuya Mountains Provincial Park was recently established to protect this unusual landscape, which lies north of Tuya Lake and south of the Jennings River near the boundary with the Yukon Territory.
+
+Mud volcanoes or mud domes are formations created by geo-excreted liquids and gases, although there are several processes which may cause such activity. The largest structures are 10 kilometers in diameter and reach 700 meters high.
+
+Another way of classifying volcanoes is by the composition of material erupted (lava), since this affects the shape of the volcano. Lava can be broadly classified into four different compositions:[11]
+
+Two types of lava are named according to the surface texture: ʻAʻa (pronounced [ˈʔaʔa]) and pāhoehoe ([paːˈho.eˈho.e]), both Hawaiian words. ʻAʻa is characterized by a rough, clinkery surface and is the typical texture of viscous lava flows. However, even basaltic or mafic flows can be erupted as ʻaʻa flows, particularly if the eruption rate is high and the slope is steep.
+
+Pāhoehoe is characterized by its smooth and often ropey or wrinkly surface and is generally formed from more fluid lava flows. Usually, only mafic flows will erupt as pāhoehoe, since they often erupt at higher temperatures or have the proper chemical make-up to allow them to flow with greater fluidity.
+
+A popular way of classifying magmatic volcanoes is by their frequency of eruption[according to whom?], with those that erupt regularly called active, those that have erupted in historical times but are now quiet called dormant or inactive, and those that have not erupted in historical times called extinct. However, these popular classifications—extinct in particular—are practically meaningless to scientists. They use classifications which refer to a particular volcano's formative and eruptive processes and resulting shapes.
+
+There is no consensus among volcanologists on how to define an "active" volcano. The lifespan of a volcano can vary from months to several million years, making such a distinction sometimes meaningless when compared to the lifespans of humans or even civilizations. For example, many of Earth's volcanoes have erupted dozens of times in the past few thousand years but are not currently showing signs of eruption. Given the long lifespan of such volcanoes, they are very active. By human lifespans, however, they are not.
+
+Scientists usually consider a volcano to be erupting or likely to erupt if it is currently erupting, or showing signs of unrest such as unusual earthquake activity or significant new gas emissions. Most scientists consider a volcano active if it has erupted in the last 10,000 years (Holocene times)—the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program uses this definition of active. Most volcanoes are situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire.[12] An estimated 500 million people live near active volcanoes.[12]
+
+Historical time (or recorded history) is another timeframe for active.[13][14] The Catalogue of the Active Volcanoes of the World, published by the International Association of Volcanology, uses this definition, by which there are more than 500 active volcanoes.[13] However, the span of recorded history differs from region to region. In China and the Mediterranean, it reaches back nearly 3,000 years, but in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada, it reaches back less than 300 years, and in Hawaii and New Zealand, only around 200 years.[13]
+
+As of 2013, the following are considered Earth's most active volcanoes:[15]
+
+As of 2010[update], the longest ongoing (but not necessarily continuous) volcanic eruptive phases are:[16]
+
+Other very active volcanoes include:
+
+Extinct volcanoes are those that scientists consider unlikely to erupt again because the volcano no longer has a magma supply. Examples of extinct volcanoes are many volcanoes on the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain in the Pacific Ocean (although some volcanoes at the eastern end of the chain are active), Hohentwiel in Germany, Shiprock in New Mexico, Zuidwal volcano in the Netherlands and many volcanoes in Italy like Monte Vulture. Edinburgh Castle in Scotland is famously located atop an extinct volcano. Otherwise, whether a volcano is truly extinct is often difficult to determine. Since "supervolcano" calderas can have eruptive lifespans sometimes measured in millions of years, a caldera that has not produced an eruption in tens of thousands of years is likely to be considered dormant instead of extinct. Some volcanologists refer to extinct volcanoes as inactive, though the term is now more commonly used for dormant volcanoes once thought to be extinct.
+
+It is difficult to distinguish an extinct volcano from a dormant (inactive) one. Dormant volcanoes are those that have not erupted for thousands of years, but are likely to erupt again in the future.[17][18] Volcanoes are often considered to be extinct if there are no written records of its activity. Nevertheless, volcanoes may remain dormant for a long period of time. For example,  Yellowstone has a repose/recharge period of around 700,000 years, and Toba of around 380,000 years.[19] Vesuvius was described by Roman writers as having been covered with gardens and vineyards before its eruption of 79 CE, which destroyed the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Before its catastrophic eruption of 1991, Pinatubo was an inconspicuous volcano, unknown to most people in the surrounding areas. Two other examples are the long-dormant Soufrière Hills volcano on the island of Montserrat, thought to be extinct before activity resumed in 1995, and Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska, which, before its September 2006 eruption, had not erupted since before 8000 BCE and had long been thought to be extinct.
+
+The three common popular classifications of volcanoes can be subjective and some volcanoes thought to have been extinct have erupted again. To help prevent people from falsely believing they are not at risk when living on or near a volcano, countries have adopted new classifications to describe the various levels and stages of volcanic activity.[20]  Some alert systems use different numbers or colors to designate the different stages.  Other systems use colors and words.  Some systems use a combination of both.
+
+The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has adopted a common system nationwide for characterizing the level of unrest and eruptive activity at volcanoes. The new volcano alert-level system classifies volcanoes now as being in a normal, advisory, watch or warning stage.  Additionally, colors are used to denote the amount of ash produced.
+
+The Decade Volcanoes are 16 volcanoes identified by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) as being worthy of particular study in light of their history of large, destructive eruptions and proximity to populated areas. They are named Decade Volcanoes because the project was initiated as part of the United Nations-sponsored International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (the 1990s). The 16 current Decade Volcanoes are
+
+The Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project, an initiative of the Deep Carbon Observatory, monitors nine volcanoes, two of which are Decade volcanoes. The focus of the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project is to use Multi-Component Gas Analyzer System instruments to measure CO2/SO2 ratios in real-time and in high-resolution to allow detection of the pre-eruptive degassing of rising magmas, improving prediction of volcanic activity.[21]
+
+There are many different types of volcanic eruptions and associated activity: phreatic eruptions (steam-generated eruptions), explosive eruption of high-silica lava (e.g., rhyolite), effusive eruption of low-silica lava (e.g., basalt), pyroclastic flows, lahars (debris flow) and carbon dioxide emission. All of these activities can pose a hazard to humans. Earthquakes, hot springs, fumaroles, mud pots and geysers often accompany volcanic activity.
+
+The concentrations of different volcanic gases can vary considerably from one volcano to the next. Water vapor is typically the most abundant volcanic gas, followed by carbon dioxide[22] and sulfur dioxide. Other principal volcanic gases include hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride, and hydrogen fluoride. A large number of minor and trace gases are also found in volcanic emissions, for example hydrogen, carbon monoxide, halocarbons, organic compounds, and volatile metal chlorides.
+
+Large, explosive volcanic eruptions inject water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen fluoride (HF) and ash (pulverized rock and pumice) into the stratosphere to heights of 16–32 kilometres (10–20 mi) above the Earth's surface. The most significant impacts from these injections come from the conversion of sulfur dioxide to sulfuric acid (H2SO4), which condenses rapidly in the stratosphere to form fine sulfate aerosols. The SO2 emissions alone of two different eruptions are sufficient to compare their potential climatic impact.[23] The aerosols increase the Earth's albedo—its reflection of radiation from the Sun back into space—and thus cool the Earth's lower atmosphere or troposphere; however, they also absorb heat radiated up from the Earth, thereby warming the stratosphere. Several eruptions during the past century have caused a decline in the average temperature at the Earth's surface of up to half a degree (Fahrenheit scale) for periods of one to three years; sulfur dioxide from the eruption of Huaynaputina probably caused the Russian famine of 1601–1603.[24]
+
+A volcanic winter is thought to have taken place around 70,000 years ago after the supereruption of Lake Toba on Sumatra island in Indonesia.[25] According to the Toba catastrophe theory to which some anthropologists and archeologists subscribe, it had global consequences,[26] killing most humans then alive and creating a population bottleneck that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today.[27]
+
+It has been suggested that volcanic activity caused or contributed to the End-Ordovician, Permian-Triassic, Late Devonian mass extinctions, and possibly others. The massive eruptive event which formed the Siberian Traps, one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history, continued for a million years and is considered to be the likely cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago,[28] which is estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time.[29]
+
+The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora created global climate anomalies that became known as the "Year Without a Summer" because of the effect on North American and European weather.[30] Agricultural crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in one of the worst famines of the 19th century.[31]
+
+The freezing winter of 1740–41, which led to widespread famine in northern Europe, may also owe its origins to a volcanic eruption.[32]
+
+Sulfate aerosols promote complex chemical reactions on their surfaces that alter chlorine and nitrogen chemical species in the stratosphere. This effect, together with increased stratospheric chlorine levels from chlorofluorocarbon pollution, generates chlorine monoxide (ClO), which destroys ozone (O3). As the aerosols grow and coagulate, they settle down into the upper troposphere where they serve as nuclei for cirrus clouds and further modify the Earth's radiation balance. Most of the hydrogen chloride (HCl) and hydrogen fluoride (HF) are dissolved in water droplets in the eruption cloud and quickly fall to the ground as acid rain. The injected ash also falls rapidly from the stratosphere; most of it is removed within several days to a few weeks. Finally, explosive volcanic eruptions release the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and thus provide a deep source of carbon for biogeochemical cycles.[33]
+
+Gas emissions from volcanoes are a natural contributor to acid rain. Volcanic activity releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year.[34] Volcanic eruptions may inject aerosols into the Earth's atmosphere. Large injections may cause visual effects such as unusually colorful sunsets and affect global climate mainly by cooling it. Volcanic eruptions also provide the benefit of adding nutrients to soil through the weathering process of volcanic rocks. These fertile soils assist the growth of plants and various crops. Volcanic eruptions can also create new islands, as the magma cools and solidifies upon contact with the water.
+
+Ash thrown into the air by eruptions can present a hazard to aircraft, especially jet aircraft where the particles can be melted by the high operating temperature; the melted particles then adhere to the turbine blades and alter their shape, disrupting the operation of the turbine.  Dangerous encounters in 1982 after the eruption of Galunggung in Indonesia, and 1989 after the eruption of Mount Redoubt in Alaska raised awareness of this phenomenon.  Nine Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers were established by the International Civil Aviation Organization to monitor ash clouds and advise pilots accordingly.  The 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull caused major disruptions to air travel in Europe.
+
+The Earth's Moon has no large volcanoes and no current volcanic activity, although recent evidence suggests it may still possess a partially molten core.[35] However, the Moon does have many volcanic features such as maria (the darker patches seen on the moon), rilles and domes.
+
+The planet Venus has a surface that is 90% basalt, indicating that volcanism played a major role in shaping its surface. The planet may have had a major global resurfacing event about 500 million years ago,[36] from what scientists can tell from the density of impact craters on the surface. Lava flows are widespread and forms of volcanism not present on Earth occur as well. Changes in the planet's atmosphere and observations of lightning have been attributed to ongoing volcanic eruptions, although there is no confirmation of whether or not Venus is still volcanically active. However, radar sounding by the Magellan probe revealed evidence for comparatively recent volcanic activity at Venus's highest volcano Maat Mons, in the form of ash flows near the summit and on the northern flank.
+
+There are several extinct volcanoes on Mars, four of which are vast shield volcanoes far bigger than any on Earth. They include Arsia Mons, Ascraeus Mons, Hecates Tholus, Olympus Mons, and Pavonis Mons. These volcanoes have been extinct for many millions of years,[37] but the European Mars Express spacecraft has found evidence that volcanic activity may have occurred on Mars in the recent past as well.[37]
+
+Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active object in the solar system because of tidal interaction with Jupiter. It is covered with volcanoes that erupt sulfur, sulfur dioxide and silicate rock, and as a result, Io is constantly being resurfaced. Its lavas are the hottest known anywhere in the solar system, with temperatures exceeding 1,800 K (1,500 °C). In February 2001, the largest recorded volcanic eruptions in the solar system occurred on Io.[38] Europa, the smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons, also appears to have an active volcanic system, except that its volcanic activity is entirely in the form of water, which freezes into ice on the frigid surface. This process is known as cryovolcanism, and is apparently most common on the moons of the outer planets of the solar system.
+
+In 1989, the Voyager 2 spacecraft observed cryovolcanoes (ice volcanoes) on Triton, a moon of Neptune, and in 2005 the Cassini–Huygens probe photographed fountains of frozen particles erupting from Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.[39][40] The ejecta may be composed of water, liquid nitrogen, ammonia, dust, or methane compounds. Cassini–Huygens also found evidence of a methane-spewing cryovolcano on the Saturnian moon Titan, which is believed to be a significant source of the methane found in its atmosphere.[41] It is theorized that cryovolcanism may also be present on the Kuiper Belt Object Quaoar.
+
+A 2010 study of the exoplanet COROT-7b, which was detected by transit in 2009, suggested that tidal heating from the host star very close to the planet and neighboring planets could generate intense volcanic activity similar to that found on Io.[42]
+
+Many ancient accounts ascribe volcanic eruptions to supernatural causes, such as the actions of gods or demigods. To the ancient Greeks, volcanoes' capricious power could only be explained as acts of the gods, while 16th/17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler believed they were ducts for the Earth's tears.[43]  One early idea counter to this was proposed by Jesuit Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), who witnessed eruptions of Mount Etna and Stromboli, then visited the crater of Vesuvius and published his view of an Earth with a central fire connected to numerous others caused by the burning of sulfur, bitumen and coal.
+
+Various explanations were proposed for volcano behavior before the modern understanding of the Earth's mantle structure as a semisolid material was developed. For decades after awareness that compression and radioactive materials may be heat sources, their contributions were specifically discounted. Volcanic action was often attributed to chemical reactions and a thin layer of molten rock near the surface.

en/34.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,113 @@
+
+
+Steel is an alloy of iron with typically a few percent of carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to iron. Many other additional elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion and oxidation resistant need typically an additional 11% chromium. Because of its high tensile strength and low cost, steel is best used in buildings, infrastructure, tools, ships, trains, cars, machines, electrical appliances, and weapons. Iron is the base metal of steel and it can take on two crystalline forms (allotropic forms): body centred cubic and face-centred cubic. These forms depend on temperature. In the body-centred cubic arrangement, there is an iron atom in the centre and eight atoms at the vertices of each cubic unit cell; in the face-centred cubic, there is one atom at the centre of each of the six faces of the cubic unit cell and eight atoms at its vertices.  It is the interaction of the allotropes of iron with the alloying elements, primarily carbon, that gives steel and cast iron their range of unique properties.
+
+In pure iron, the crystal structure has relatively little resistance to the iron atoms slipping past one another, and so pure iron is quite ductile, or soft and easily formed.  In steel, small amounts of carbon, other elements, and inclusions within the iron act as hardening agents that prevent the movement of dislocations.
+
+The carbon in typical steel alloys may contribute up to 2.14% of its weight. Varying the amount of carbon and many other alloying elements, as well as controlling their chemical and physical makeup in the final steel (either as solute elements, or as precipitated phases), slows the movement of those dislocations that make pure iron ductile, and thus controls and enhances its qualities. These qualities include the hardness, quenching behaviour, need for annealing, tempering behaviour, yield strength, and tensile strength of the resulting steel. The increase in steel's strength compared to pure iron is possible only by reducing iron's ductility.
+
+Steel was produced in bloomery furnaces for thousands of years, but its large-scale, industrial use began only after more efficient production methods were devised in the 17th century, with the introduction of the blast furnace and production of crucible steel. This was followed by the open-hearth furnace and then the Bessemer process in England in the mid-19th 
+century. With the invention of the Bessemer process, a new era of mass-produced steel began. Mild steel replaced wrought iron.
+
+Further refinements in the process, such as basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), largely replaced earlier methods by further lowering the cost of production and increasing the quality of the final product. Today, steel is one of the most common manmade materials in the world, with more than 1.6 billion tons produced annually. Modern steel is generally identified by various grades defined by assorted standards organisations.
+
+The noun steel originates from the Proto-Germanic adjective stahliją or stakhlijan (made of steel), which is related to stahlaz or stahliją (standing firm).[1]
+
+The carbon content of steel is between 0.002% and 2.14% by weight for plain carbon steel (iron–carbon alloys).[citation needed] Too little carbon content leaves (pure) iron quite soft, ductile, and weak. Carbon contents higher than those of steel make a brittle alloy commonly called pig iron. Alloy steel is steel to which other alloying elements have been intentionally added to modify the characteristics of steel. Common alloying elements include: manganese, nickel, chromium, molybdenum, boron, titanium, vanadium, tungsten, cobalt, and niobium.[2] In contrast, cast iron does undergo eutectic reaction.  Additional elements, most frequently considered undesirable, are also important in steel: phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, and traces of oxygen, nitrogen, and copper.
+
+Plain carbon-iron alloys with a higher than 2.1% carbon content are known as cast iron. With modern steelmaking techniques such as powder metal forming, it is possible to make very high-carbon (and other alloy material) steels, but such are not common. Cast iron is not malleable even when hot, but it can be formed by casting as it has a lower melting point than steel and good castability properties.[2] Certain compositions of cast iron, while retaining the economies of melting and casting, can be heat treated after casting to make malleable iron or ductile iron objects. Steel is distinguishable from wrought iron (now largely obsolete), which may contain a small amount of carbon but large amounts of slag.
+
+Iron is commonly found in the Earth's crust in the form of an ore, usually an iron oxide, such as magnetite or hematite. Iron is extracted from iron ore by removing the oxygen through its combination with a preferred chemical partner such as carbon which is then lost to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This process, known as smelting, was first applied to metals with lower melting points, such as tin, which melts at about 250 °C (482 °F), and copper, which melts at about 1,100 °C (2,010 °F), and the combination, bronze, which has a melting point lower than 1,083 °C (1,981 °F). In comparison, cast iron melts at about 1,375 °C (2,507 °F).[3]  Small quantities of iron were smelted in ancient times, in the solid state, by heating the ore in a charcoal fire and then welding the clumps together with a hammer and in the process squeezing out the impurities.  With care, the carbon content could be controlled by moving it around in the fire. Unlike copper and tin, liquid or solid iron dissolves carbon quite readily.
+
+All of these temperatures could be reached with ancient methods used since the Bronze Age. Since the oxidation rate of iron increases rapidly beyond 800 °C (1,470 °F), it is important that smelting take place in a low-oxygen environment. Smelting, using carbon to reduce iron oxides, results in an alloy (pig iron) that retains too much carbon to be called steel.[3] The excess carbon and other impurities are removed in a subsequent step.
+
+Other materials are often added to the iron/carbon mixture to produce steel with desired properties. Nickel and manganese in steel add to its tensile strength and make the austenite form of the iron-carbon solution more stable, chromium increases hardness and melting temperature, and vanadium also increases hardness while making it less prone to metal fatigue.[4]
+
+To inhibit corrosion, at least 11% chromium is added to steel so that a hard oxide forms on the metal surface; this is known as stainless steel. Tungsten slows the formation of cementite, keeping carbon in the iron matrix and allowing martensite to preferentially form at slower quench rates, resulting in high speed steel. On the other hand, sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorus are considered contaminants that make steel more brittle and are removed from the steel melt during processing.[4]
+
+The density of steel varies based on the alloying constituents but usually ranges between 7,750 and 8,050 kg/m3 (484 and 503 lb/cu ft), or 7.75 and 8.05 g/cm3 (4.48 and 4.65 oz/cu in).[5]
+
+Even in a narrow range of concentrations of mixtures of carbon and iron that make a steel, a number of different metallurgical structures, with very different properties can form. Understanding such properties is essential to making quality steel. At room temperature, the most stable form of pure iron is the body-centered cubic (BCC) structure called alpha iron or α-iron. It is a fairly soft metal that can dissolve only a small concentration of carbon, no more than 0.005% at 0 °C (32 °F) and 0.021 wt% at  723 °C (1,333 °F). The inclusion of carbon in alpha iron is called ferrite. At 910 °C, pure iron transforms into a face-centered cubic (FCC) structure, called gamma iron or γ-iron. The inclusion of carbon in gamma iron is called austenite. The more open FCC structure of austenite can dissolve considerably more carbon, as much as 2.1%[6] (38 times that of ferrite) carbon at 1,148 °C (2,098 °F), which reflects the upper carbon content of steel, beyond which is cast iron.[7] When carbon moves out of solution with iron, it forms a very hard, but brittle material called cementite (Fe3C).
+
+When steels with exactly 0.8% carbon (known as a eutectoid steel), are cooled, the austenitic phase (FCC) of the mixture attempts to revert to the ferrite phase (BCC). The carbon no longer fits within the FCC austenite structure, resulting in an excess of carbon. One way for carbon to leave the austenite is for it to precipitate out of solution as cementite, leaving behind a surrounding phase of BCC iron called ferrite with a small percentage of carbon in solution. The two, ferrite and cementite, precipitate simultaneously producing a layered structure called pearlite, named for its resemblance to mother of pearl. In a hypereutectoid composition (greater than 0.8% carbon), the carbon will first precipitate out as large inclusions of cementite at the austenite grain boundaries until the percentage of carbon in the grains has decreased to the eutectoid composition (0.8% carbon), at which point the pearlite structure forms. For steels that have less than 0.8% carbon (hypoeutectoid), ferrite will first form within the grains until the remaining composition rises to 0.8% of carbon, at which point the pearlite structure will form. No large inclusions of cementite will form at the boundaries in hypoeuctoid steel.[8] The above assumes that the cooling process is very slow, allowing enough time for the carbon to migrate.
+
+As the rate of cooling is increased the carbon will have less time to migrate to form carbide at the grain boundaries but will have increasingly large amounts of pearlite of a finer and finer structure within the grains; hence the carbide is more widely dispersed and acts to prevent slip of defects within those grains, resulting in hardening of the steel. At the very high cooling rates produced by quenching, the carbon has no time to migrate but is locked within the face-centered austenite and forms martensite. Martensite is a highly strained and stressed, supersaturated form of carbon and iron and is exceedingly hard but brittle. Depending on the carbon content, the martensitic phase takes different forms. Below 0.2% carbon, it takes on a ferrite BCC crystal form, but at higher carbon content it takes a body-centered tetragonal (BCT) structure. There is no thermal activation energy for the transformation from austenite to martensite.[clarification needed] Moreover, there is no compositional change so the atoms generally retain their same neighbors.[9]
+
+Martensite has a lower density (it expands during the cooling) than does austenite, so that the transformation between them results in a change of volume. In this case, expansion occurs. Internal stresses from this expansion generally take the form of compression on the crystals of martensite and tension on the remaining ferrite, with a fair amount of shear on both constituents. If quenching is done improperly, the internal stresses can cause a part to shatter as it cools. At the very least, they cause internal work hardening and other microscopic imperfections. It is common for quench cracks to form when steel is water quenched, although they may not always be visible.[10]
+
+There are many types of heat treating processes available to steel. The most common are annealing, quenching, and tempering. Heat treatment is effective on compositions above the eutectoid composition (hypereutectoid) of 0.8% carbon. Hypoeutectoid steel does not benefit from heat treatment.
+
+Annealing is the process of heating the steel to a sufficiently high temperature to relieve local internal stresses. It does not create a general softening of the product but only locally relieves strains and stresses locked up within the material. Annealing goes through three phases: recovery, recrystallization, and grain growth. The temperature required to anneal a particular steel depends on the type of annealing to be achieved and the alloying constituents.[11]
+
+Quenching involves heating the steel to create the austenite phase then quenching it in water or oil. This rapid cooling results in a hard but brittle martensitic structure.[9] The steel is then tempered, which is just a specialized type of annealing, to reduce brittleness. In this application the annealing (tempering) process transforms some of the martensite into cementite, or spheroidite and hence it reduces the internal stresses and defects. The result is a more ductile and fracture-resistant steel.[12]
+
+When iron is smelted from its ore, it contains more carbon than is desirable.  To become steel, it must be reprocessed to reduce the carbon to the correct amount, at which point other elements can be added.  In the past, steel facilities would cast the raw steel product into ingots which would be stored until use in further refinement processes that resulted in the finished product. In modern facilities, the initial product is close to the final composition and is continuously cast into long slabs, cut and shaped into bars and extrusions and heat-treated to produce a final product. Today, approximately 96% of steel is continuously cast, while only 4% is produced as ingots.[13]
+
+The ingots are then heated in a soaking pit and hot rolled into slabs, billets, or blooms. Slabs are hot or cold rolled into sheet metal or plates. Billets are hot or cold rolled into bars, rods, and wire.  Blooms are hot or cold rolled into structural steel, such as I-beams and rails.  In modern steel mills these processes often occur in one assembly line, with ore coming in and finished steel products coming out.[14] Sometimes after a steel's final rolling, it is heat treated for strength; however, this is relatively rare.[15]
+
+Steel was known in antiquity and was produced in bloomeries and crucibles.[16][17]
+
+The earliest known production of steel is seen in pieces of ironware excavated from an archaeological site in Anatolia (Kaman-Kalehöyük) and are nearly 4,000 years old, dating from 1800 BC.[18][19] Horace identifies steel weapons such as the falcata in the Iberian Peninsula, while Noric steel was used by the Roman military.[20]
+
+The reputation of Seric iron of South India (wootz steel) grew considerably in the rest of the world.[17] Metal production sites in Sri Lanka employed wind furnaces driven by the monsoon winds, capable of producing high-carbon steel. Large-scale Wootz steel production in Tamilakam using crucibles and carbon sources such as the plant Avāram occurred by the sixth century BC, the pioneering precursor to modern steel production and metallurgy.[16][17]
+
+The Chinese of the Warring States period (403–221 BC) had quench-hardened steel,[21] while Chinese of the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) created steel by melting together wrought iron with cast iron, gaining an ultimate product of a carbon-intermediate steel by the 1st century AD.[22][23]
+
+There is evidence that carbon steel was made in Western Tanzania by the ancestors of the Haya people as early as 2,000 years ago by a complex process of "pre-heating" allowing temperatures inside a furnace to reach 1300 to 1400 °C.[24][25][26][27][28][29]
+
+Evidence of the earliest production of high carbon steel in India are found in Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, the Golconda area in Andhra Pradesh  and Karnataka, and in the Samanalawewa areas of Sri Lanka.[30] This came to be known as Wootz steel, produced in South India by about sixth century BC and exported globally.[31][32] The steel technology existed prior to 326 BC in the region as they are mentioned in literature of Sangam Tamil, Arabic and Latin as the finest steel in the world exported to the Romans, Egyptian, Chinese and Arab worlds at that time – what they called Seric Iron.[33] A 200 BC Tamil trade guild in Tissamaharama, in the South East of Sri Lanka, brought with them some of the oldest iron and steel artifacts and production processes to the island from the classical period.[34][35][36] The Chinese and locals in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka had also adopted the production methods of creating Wootz steel from the Chera Dynasty Tamils of South India by the 5th century AD.[37][38] In Sri Lanka, this early steel-making method employed a unique wind furnace, driven by the monsoon winds, capable of producing high-carbon steel.[39][40] Since the technology was acquired from the Tamilians from South India,[citation needed] the origin of steel technology in India can be conservatively estimated at 400–500 BC.[31][40]
+
+The manufacture of what came to be called Wootz, or Damascus steel, famous for its durability and ability to hold an edge, may have been taken by the Arabs from Persia, who took it from India. It was originally created from a number of different materials including various trace elements, apparently ultimately from the writings of Zosimos of Panopolis. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great was rewarded by the defeated King Porus, not with gold or silver but with 30 pounds of steel.[41]  Recent studies have suggested that carbon nanotubes were included in its structure, which might explain some of its legendary qualities, though given the technology of that time, such qualities were produced by chance rather than by design.[42] Natural wind was used where the soil containing iron was heated by the use of wood. The ancient Sinhalese managed to extract a ton of steel for every 2 tons of soil,[39] a remarkable feat at the time. One such furnace was found in Samanalawewa and archaeologists were able to produce steel as the ancients did.[39][43]
+
+Crucible steel, formed by slowly heating and cooling pure iron and carbon (typically in the form of charcoal) in a crucible, was produced in Merv by the 9th to 10th century AD.[32] In the 11th century, there is evidence of the production of steel in Song China using two techniques: a "berganesque" method that produced inferior, inhomogeneous steel, and a precursor to the modern Bessemer process that used partial decarbonization via repeated forging under a cold blast.[44]
+
+Since the 17th century, the first step in European steel production has been the smelting of iron ore into pig iron in a blast furnace.[45] Originally employing charcoal, modern methods use coke, which has proven more economical.[46][47][48]
+
+In these processes pig iron was refined (fined) in a finery forge to produce bar iron, which was then used in steel-making.[45]
+
+The production of steel by the cementation process was described in a treatise published in Prague in 1574 and was in use in Nuremberg from 1601. A similar process for case hardening armor and files was described in a book published in Naples in 1589. The process was introduced to England in about 1614 and used to produce such steel by Sir Basil Brooke at Coalbrookdale during the 1610s.[49]
+
+The raw material for this process were bars of iron. During the 17th century it was realized that the best steel came from oregrounds iron of a region north of Stockholm, Sweden.  This was still the usual raw material source in the 19th century, almost as long as the process was used.[50][51]
+
+Crucible steel is steel that has been melted in a crucible rather than having been forged, with the result that it is more homogeneous. Most previous furnaces could not reach high enough temperatures to melt the steel. The early modern crucible steel industry resulted from the invention of Benjamin Huntsman in the 1740s. Blister steel (made as above) was melted in a crucible or in a furnace, and cast (usually) into ingots.[51][52]
+
+The modern era in steelmaking began with the introduction of Henry Bessemer's Bessemer process in 1855, the raw material for which was pig iron.[53] His method let him produce steel in large quantities cheaply, thus mild steel came to be used for most purposes for which wrought iron was formerly used.[54] The Gilchrist-Thomas process (or basic Bessemer process) was an improvement to the Bessemer process, made by lining the converter with a basic material to remove phosphorus.
+
+Another 19th-century steelmaking process was the Siemens-Martin process, which complemented the Bessemer process.[51]  It consisted of co-melting bar iron (or steel scrap) with pig iron.
+
+These methods of steel production were rendered obsolete by the Linz-Donawitz process of basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS), developed in 1952,[55] and other oxygen steel making methods. Basic oxygen steelmaking is superior to previous steelmaking methods because the oxygen pumped into the furnace limited impurities, primarily nitrogen, that previously had entered from the air used,[56] and because, with respect to the open-hearth process, the same quantity of steel from a BOS process is manufactured in one-twelfth the time.[55] Today, electric arc furnaces (EAF) are a common method of reprocessing scrap metal to create new steel. They can also be used for converting pig iron to steel, but they use a lot of electrical energy (about 440 kWh per metric ton), and are thus generally only economical when there is a plentiful supply of cheap electricity.[57]
+
+The steel industry is often considered an indicator of economic progress, because of the critical role played by steel in infrastructural and overall economic development.[58] In 1980, there were more than 500,000 U.S. steelworkers. By 2000, the number of steelworkers fell to 224,000.[59]
+
+The economic boom in China and India caused a massive increase in the demand for steel. Between 2000 and 2005, world steel demand increased by 6%. Since 2000, several Indian[60] and Chinese steel firms have risen to prominence,[according to whom?] such as Tata Steel (which bought Corus Group in 2007), Baosteel Group and Shagang Group. As of 2017[update], though, ArcelorMittal is the world's largest steel producer.[61] In 2005, the British Geological Survey stated China was the top steel producer with about one-third of the world share; Japan, Russia, and the US followed respectively.[62]
+
+In 2008, steel began trading as a commodity on the London Metal Exchange. At the end of 2008, the steel industry faced a sharp downturn that led to many cut-backs.[63]
+
+Steel is one of the world's most-recycled materials, with a recycling rate of over 60% globally;[64] in the United States alone, over 82,000,000 metric tons (81,000,000 long tons; 90,000,000 short tons) were recycled in the year 2008, for an overall recycling rate of 83%.[65]
+
+As more steel is produced than is scrapped, the amount of recycled raw materials is about 40% of the total of steel produced - in 2016, 1,628,000,000 tonnes (1.602×109 long tons; 1.795×109 short tons) of crude steel was produced globally, with 630,000,000 tonnes (620,000,000 long tons; 690,000,000 short tons) recycled.[66]
+
+Modern steels are made with varying combinations of alloy metals to fulfill many purposes.[4] Carbon steel, composed simply of iron and carbon, accounts for 90% of steel production.[2] Low alloy steel is alloyed with other elements, usually molybdenum, manganese, chromium, or nickel, in amounts of up to 10% by weight to improve the hardenability of thick sections.[2] High strength low alloy steel has small additions (usually < 2% by weight) of other elements, typically 1.5% manganese, to provide additional strength for a modest price increase.[67]
+
+Recent Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations have given rise to a new variety of steel known as Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS). This material is both strong and ductile so that vehicle structures can maintain their current safety levels while using less material. There are several commercially available grades of AHSS, such as dual-phase steel, which is heat-treated to contain both a ferritic and martensitic microstructure to produce formable, high strength steel.[68] Transformation Induced Plasticity (TRIP) steel involves special alloying and heat treatments to stabilize amounts of austenite at room temperature in normally austenite-free low-alloy ferritic steels. By applying strain, the austenite undergoes a phase transition to martensite without the addition of heat.[69] Twinning Induced Plasticity (TWIP) steel uses a specific type of strain to increase the effectiveness of work hardening on the alloy.[70]
+
+Carbon Steels are often galvanized, through hot-dip or electroplating in zinc for protection against rust.[71]
+
+Stainless steels contain a minimum of 11% chromium, often combined with nickel, to resist corrosion. Some stainless steels, such as the ferritic stainless steels are magnetic, while others, such as the austenitic, are nonmagnetic.[72] Corrosion-resistant steels are abbreviated as CRES.
+
+Some more modern steels include tool steels, which are alloyed with large amounts of tungsten and cobalt or other elements to maximize solution hardening. This also allows the use of precipitation hardening and improves the alloy's temperature resistance.[2] Tool steel is generally used in axes, drills, and other devices that need a sharp, long-lasting cutting edge. Other special-purpose alloys include weathering steels such as Cor-ten, which weather by acquiring a stable, rusted surface, and so can be used un-painted.[73] Maraging steel is alloyed with nickel and other elements, but unlike most steel contains little carbon (0.01%). This creates a very strong but still malleable steel.[74]
+
+Eglin steel uses a combination of over a dozen different elements in varying amounts to create a relatively low-cost steel for use in bunker buster weapons. Hadfield steel (after Sir Robert Hadfield) or manganese steel contains 12–14% manganese which when abraded strain-hardens to form a very hard skin which resists wearing. Examples include tank tracks, bulldozer blade edges and cutting blades on the jaws of life.[75]
+
+Most of the more commonly used steel alloys are categorized into various grades by standards organizations. For example, the Society of Automotive Engineers has a series of grades defining many types of steel.[76] The American Society for Testing and Materials has a separate set of standards, which define alloys such as A36 steel, the most commonly used structural steel in the United States.[77] The JIS also define series of steel grades that are being used extensively in Japan as well as in developing countries.
+
+Iron and steel are used widely in the construction of roads, railways, other infrastructure, appliances, and buildings. Most large modern structures, such as stadiums and skyscrapers, bridges, and airports, are supported by a steel skeleton. Even those with a concrete structure employ steel for reinforcing. In addition, it sees widespread use in major appliances and cars. Despite growth in usage of aluminium, it is still the main material for car bodies. Steel is used in a variety of other construction materials, such as bolts, nails and screws and other household products and cooking utensils.[78]
+
+Other common applications include shipbuilding, pipelines, mining, offshore construction, aerospace, white goods (e.g. washing machines), heavy equipment such as bulldozers, office furniture, steel wool, tool and armour in the form of personal vests or vehicle armour (better known as rolled homogeneous armour in this role).
+
+Before the introduction of the Bessemer process and other modern production techniques, steel was expensive and was only used where no cheaper alternative existed, particularly for the cutting edge of knives, razors, swords, and other items where a hard, sharp edge was needed. It was also used for springs, including those used in clocks and watches.[51]
+
+With the advent of speedier and thriftier production methods, steel has become easier to obtain and much cheaper. It has replaced wrought iron for a multitude of purposes. However, the availability of plastics in the latter part of the 20th century allowed these materials to replace steel in some applications due to their lower fabrication cost and weight.[79] Carbon fiber is replacing steel in some cost insensitive applications such as sports equipment and high end automobiles.
+
+Steel manufactured after World War II became contaminated with radionuclides by nuclear weapons testing. Low-background steel, steel manufactured prior to 1945, is used for certain radiation-sensitive applications such as Geiger counters and radiation shielding.
+

en/340.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+
+
+
+
+The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile (UK: /ˌɑːrk də ˈtriːɒmf, - ˈtriːoʊmf/,[3][4] US: /- triːˈoʊmf/,[5] French: [aʁk də tʁijɔ̃f də letwal] (listen); lit. '"Triumphal Arch of the Star"') is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, France, standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile—the étoile or "star" of the juncture formed by its twelve radiating avenues. The location of the arc and the plaza is shared between three arrondissements, 16th (south and west), 17th (north) and 8th (east). The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.
+
+As the central cohesive element of the Axe historique (historic axis, a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route running from the courtyard of the Louvre to the Grande Arche de la Défense), the Arc de Triomphe was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806; its iconographic programme pits heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments with triumphant patriotic messages. Inspired by the Arch of Titus in Rome, Italy, the Arc de Triomphe has an overall height of 50 metres (164 ft), width of 45 m (148 ft) and depth of 22 m (72 ft), while its large vault is 29.19 m (95.8 ft) high and 14.62 m (48.0 ft) wide. The smaller transverse vaults are 18.68 m (61.3 ft) high and 8.44 m (27.7 ft) wide. Three weeks after the Paris victory parade in 1919 (marking the end of hostilities in World War I), Charles Godefroy flew his Nieuport biplane under the arch's primary vault, with the event captured on newsreel.[6][page needed][7]
+
+Paris's Arc de Triomphe was the tallest triumphal arch until the completion of the Monumento a la Revolución in Mexico City in 1938, which is 67 metres (220 ft) high. The Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, completed in 1982, is modelled on the Arc de Triomphe and is slightly taller at 60 m (197 ft). La Grande Arche in La Defense near Paris is 110 metres high. Although it is not named an Arc de Triomphe, it has been designed on the same model and in the perspective of the Arc de Triomphe. It qualifies as the world's tallest arch.[8]
+
+The Arc de Triomphe is located on the right bank of the Seine at the centre of a dodecagonal configuration of twelve radiating avenues. It was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years and, in 1810, when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed arch constructed. The architect, Jean Chalgrin, died in 1811 and the work was taken over by Jean-Nicolas Huyot.
+
+During the Bourbon Restoration, construction was halted and it would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, between 1833 and 1836, by the architects Goust, then Huyot, under the direction of Héricart de Thury. On 15 December 1840, brought back to France from Saint Helena, Napoleon's remains passed under it on their way to the Emperor's final resting place at the Invalides.[9] Prior to burial in the Panthéon, the body of Victor Hugo was displayed under the Arc during the night of 22 May 1885.
+
+The sword carried by the Republic in the Marseillaise relief broke off on the day, it is said, that the Battle of Verdun began in 1916. The relief was immediately hidden by tarpaulins to conceal the accident and avoid any undesired ominous interpretations.[10] On 7 August 1919, Charles Godefroy successfully flew his biplane under the Arc.[11] Jean Navarre was the pilot who was tasked to make the flight, but he died on 10 July 1919 when he crashed near Villacoublay while training for the flight.
+
+Following its construction, the Arc de Triomphe became the rallying point of French troops parading after successful military campaigns and for the annual Bastille Day military parade. Famous victory marches around or under the Arc have included the Germans in 1871, the French in 1919, the Germans in 1940, and the French and Allies in 1944[12] and 1945. A United States postage stamp of 1945 shows the Arc de Triomphe in the background as victorious American troops march down the Champs-Élysées and U.S. airplanes fly overhead on 29 August 1944. After the interment of the Unknown Soldier, however, all military parades (including the aforementioned post-1919) have avoided marching through the actual arch. The route taken is up to the arch and then around its side, out of respect for the tomb and its symbolism. Both Hitler in 1940 and de Gaulle in 1944 observed this custom.
+
+By the early 1960s, the monument had grown very blackened from coal soot and automobile exhaust, and during 1965–1966 it was cleaned through bleaching. In the prolongation of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, a new arch, the Grande Arche de la Défense, was built in 1982, completing the line of monuments that forms Paris's Axe historique. After the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile, the Grande Arche is the third arch built on the same perspective.
+
+In 1995, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria placed a bomb near the Arc de Triomphe which wounded 17 people as part of a campaign of bombings.[13]
+
+In late 2018, the Arc de Triomphe suffered acts of vandalism as part of the Yellow vests movement protests.[14] The vandals sprayed the monument with graffiti and ransacked its small museum.[15]
+
+The astylar design is by Jean Chalgrin (1739–1811), in the Neoclassical version of ancient Roman architecture. Major academic sculptors of France are represented in the sculpture of the Arc de Triomphe: Jean-Pierre Cortot; François Rude; Antoine Étex; James Pradier and Philippe Joseph Henri Lemaire. The main sculptures are not integral friezes but are treated as independent trophies applied to the vast ashlar masonry masses, not unlike the gilt-bronze appliqués on Empire furniture. The four sculptural groups at the base of the Arc are The Triumph of 1810 (Cortot), Resistance and Peace (both by Antoine Étex) and the most renowned of them all, Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 commonly called La Marseillaise (François Rude). The face of the allegorical representation of France calling forth her people on this last was used as the belt buckle for the honorary rank of Marshal of France. Since the fall of Napoleon (1815), the sculpture representing Peace is interpreted as commemorating the Peace of 1815.[citation needed]
+
+In the attic above the richly sculptured frieze of soldiers are 30 shields engraved with the names of major French victories in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars.[16] The inside walls of the monument list the names of 660 people, among which are 558 French generals of the First French Empire;[17] The names of those generals killed in battle are underlined. Also inscribed, on the shorter sides of the four supporting columns, are the names of the major French victories in the Napoleonic Wars. The battles that took place in the period between the departure of Napoleon from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo are not included.[citation needed]
+
+For four years from 1882 to 1886, a monumental sculpture by Alexandre Falguière topped the arch.  Titled Le triomphe de la Révolution ("The Triumph of the Revolution"), it depicted a chariot drawn by horses preparing "to crush Anarchy and Despotism". It remained there only four years before falling in ruins.[citation needed]
+
+Inside the monument, a permanent exhibition conceived by the artist Maurice Benayoun and the architect Christophe Girault opened in February 2007.[18] The steel and new media installation interrogates the symbolism of the national monument, questioning the balance of its symbolic message during the last two centuries, oscillating between war and peace.[citation needed]
+
+Beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. Interred on Armistice Day 1920,[19] it has the first eternal flame lit in Western and Eastern Europe since the Vestal Virgins' fire was extinguished in the fourth century. It burns in memory of the dead who were never identified (now in both world wars).[citation needed]
+
+A ceremony is held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier every 11 November on the anniversary of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 signed by the Entente Powers and Germany in 1918. It was originally decided on 12 November 1919 to bury the unknown soldier's remains in the Panthéon, but a public letter-writing campaign led to the decision to bury him beneath the Arc de Triomphe. The coffin was put in the chapel on the first floor of the Arc on 10 November 1920, and put in its final resting place on 28 January 1921.[citation needed] The slab on top bears the inscription ICI REPOSE UN SOLDAT FRANÇAIS MORT POUR LA PATRIE 1914–1918 ("Here lies a French soldier who died for the fatherland 1914–1918").
+
+In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy paid their respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, accompanied by President Charles de Gaulle. After the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, Mrs Kennedy remembered the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe and requested that an eternal flame be placed next to her husband's grave at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President Charles de Gaulle went to Washington to attend the state funeral, and witnessed Jacqueline Kennedy lighting the eternal flame that had been inspired by her visit to France.[citation needed]
+
+Le Départ de 1792 (La Marseillaise)
+
+Le Triomphe de 1810
+
+La Résistance de 1814
+
+La Paix de 1815
+
+Les funérailles du général Marceau, 20 September 1796
+
+La bataille d'Aboukir,25 July 1799
+
+La bataille de Jemmappes, 6 November 1792
+
+Le passage du pont d'Arcole, 15 November 1796
+
+La prise d'Alexandrie, 3 July 1798
+
+La bataille d'Austerlitz, 2 December 1805
+
+NORTH pillar
+
+SOUTH pillar
+
+EAST pillar
+
+WEST pillar
+
+First World War monument
+
+Permanent exhibition about the design of the Arch
+
+De Gaulle speech plaque
+
+Proclamation of Republic plaque
+
+The Arc de Triomphe is accessible by the RER and Métro, with exit at the Charles de Gaulle—Étoile station.  Because of heavy traffic on the roundabout of which the Arc is the centre, it is recommended that pedestrians use one of two underpasses located at the Champs Élysées and the Avenue de la Grande Armée.  A lift will take visitors almost to the top – to the attic, where there is a small museum which contains large models of the Arc and tells its story from the time of its construction. Another 40 steps remain to climb in order to reach the top, the terrasse, from where one can enjoy a panoramic view of Paris.[21]
+
+The location of the arc, as well as the Place de l'Étoile, is shared between three arrondissements, 16th (south and west), 17th (north), and 8th (east).

en/3400.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+
+
+The Solar System[b] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly.[c] Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets,[d] with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.[e]
+
+The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.
+
+The Solar System also contains smaller objects.[f] The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations, some objects are large enough to have rounded under their own gravity, though there is considerable debate as to how many there will prove to be.[9][10] Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets. The only certain dwarf planet is Pluto, with another trans-Neptunian object, Eris, expected to be, and the asteroid Ceres at least close to being a dwarf planet.[f] In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, the six largest possible dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects.
+
+The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
+
+For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System. Most people up to the Late Middle Ages–Renaissance believed Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos, Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system.[11][12]
+
+In the 17th century, Galileo discovered that the Sun was marked with sunspots, and that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it.[13] Christiaan Huygens followed on from Galileo's discoveries by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn.[14] Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun.[15] Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English.[16] In 1838, Friedrich Bessel successfully measured a stellar parallax, an apparent shift in the position of a star created by Earth's motion around the Sun, providing the first direct, experimental proof of heliocentrism.[17] Improvements in observational astronomy and the use of unmanned spacecraft have since enabled the detailed investigation of other bodies orbiting the Sun.
+
+The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally.[18] The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass.[g]
+
+Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. The planets are very close to the ecliptic, whereas comets and Kuiper belt objects are frequently at significantly greater angles to it.[22][23] As a result of the formation of the Solar System planets, and most other objects, orbit the Sun in the same direction that the Sun is rotating (counter-clockwise, as viewed from above Earth's north pole).[24] There are exceptions, such as Halley's Comet. Most of the larger moons orbit their planets in this prograde direction (with Triton being the largest retrograde exception) and most larger objects rotate themselves in the same direction (with Venus being a notable retrograde exception).
+
+The overall structure of the charted regions of the Solar System consists of the Sun, four relatively small inner planets surrounded by a belt of mostly rocky asteroids, and four giant planets surrounded by the Kuiper belt of mostly icy objects. Astronomers sometimes informally divide this structure into separate regions. The inner Solar System includes the four terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is beyond the asteroids, including the four giant planets.[25] Since the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the outermost parts of the Solar System are considered a distinct region consisting of the objects beyond Neptune.[26]
+
+Most of the planets in the Solar System have secondary systems of their own, being orbited by planetary objects called natural satellites, or moons (two of which, Titan and Ganymede, are larger than the planet Mercury), and, in the case of the four giant planets, by planetary rings, thin bands of tiny particles that orbit them in unison. Most of the largest natural satellites are in synchronous rotation, with one face permanently turned toward their parent.
+
+Kepler's laws of planetary motion describe the orbits of objects about the Sun. Following Kepler's laws, each object travels along an ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Objects closer to the Sun (with smaller semi-major axes) travel more quickly because they are more affected by the Sun's gravity. On an elliptical orbit, a body's distance from the Sun varies over the course of its year. A body's closest approach to the Sun is called its perihelion, whereas its most distant point from the Sun is called its aphelion. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical orbits. The positions of the bodies in the Solar System can be predicted using numerical models.
+
+Although the Sun dominates the system by mass, it accounts for only about 2% of the angular momentum.[27][28] The planets, dominated by Jupiter, account for most of the rest of the angular momentum due to the combination of their mass, orbit, and distance from the Sun, with a possibly significant contribution from comets.[27]
+
+The Sun, which comprises nearly all the matter in the Solar System, is composed of roughly 98% hydrogen and helium.[29] Jupiter and Saturn, which comprise nearly all the remaining matter, are also primarily composed of hydrogen and helium.[30][31] A composition gradient exists in the Solar System, created by heat and light pressure from the Sun; those objects closer to the Sun, which are more affected by heat and light pressure, are composed of elements with high melting points. Objects farther from the Sun are composed largely of materials with lower melting points.[32] The boundary in the Solar System beyond which those volatile substances could condense is known as the frost line, and it lies at roughly 5 AU from the Sun.[4]
+
+The objects of the inner Solar System are composed mostly of rock,[33] the collective name for compounds with high melting points, such as silicates, iron or nickel, that remained solid under almost all conditions in the protoplanetary nebula.[34] Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of gases, the astronomical term for materials with extremely low melting points and high vapour pressure, such as hydrogen, helium, and neon, which were always in the gaseous phase in the nebula.[34] Ices, like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide,[33] have melting points up to a few hundred kelvins.[34] They can be found as ices, liquids, or gases in various places in the Solar System, whereas in the nebula they were either in the solid or gaseous phase.[34] Icy substances comprise the majority of the satellites of the giant planets, as well as most of Uranus and Neptune (the so-called "ice giants") and the numerous small objects that lie beyond Neptune's orbit.[33][35] Together, gases and ices are referred to as volatiles.[36]
+
+The distance from Earth to the Sun is 1 astronomical unit [AU] (150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi). For comparison, the radius of the Sun is 0.0047 AU (700,000 km). Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (10−5 %) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly one millionth (10−6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 astronomical units (780,000,000 km) from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU (4.5×109 km) from the Sun.
+
+With a few exceptions, the farther a planet or belt is from the Sun, the larger the distance between its orbit and the orbit of the next nearer object to the Sun. For example, Venus is approximately 0.33 AU farther out from the Sun than Mercury, whereas Saturn is 4.3 AU out from Jupiter, and Neptune lies 10.5 AU out from Uranus. Attempts have been made to determine a relationship between these orbital distances (for example, the Titius–Bode law),[37] but no such theory has been accepted. The images at the beginning of this section show the orbits of the various constituents of the Solar System on different scales.
+
+Some Solar System models attempt to convey the relative scales involved in the Solar System on human terms. Some are small in scale (and may be mechanical—called orreries)—whereas others extend across cities or regional areas.[38] The largest such scale model, the Sweden Solar System, uses the 110-metre (361 ft) Ericsson Globe in Stockholm as its substitute Sun, and, following the scale, Jupiter is a 7.5-metre (25-foot) sphere at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, 40 km (25 mi) away, whereas the farthest current object, Sedna, is a 10 cm (4 in) sphere in Luleå, 912 km (567 mi) away.[39][40]
+
+If the Sun–Neptune distance is scaled to 100 metres, then the Sun would be about 3 cm in diameter (roughly two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball), the giant planets would be all smaller than about 3 mm, and Earth's diameter along with that of the other terrestrial planets would be smaller than a flea (0.3 mm) at this scale.[41]
+
+Distances of selected bodies of the Solar System from the Sun. The left and right edges of each bar correspond to the perihelion and aphelion of the body, respectively, hence long bars denote high orbital eccentricity. The radius of the Sun is 0.7 million km, and the radius of Jupiter (the largest planet) is 0.07 million km, both too small to resolve on this image.
+
+The Solar System formed 4.568 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud.[h] This initial cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars.[43] As is typical of molecular clouds, this one consisted mostly of hydrogen, with some helium, and small amounts of heavier elements fused by previous generations of stars. As the region that would become the Solar System, known as the pre-solar nebula,[44] collapsed, conservation of angular momentum caused it to rotate faster. The centre, where most of the mass collected, became increasingly hotter than the surrounding disc.[43] As the contracting nebula rotated faster, it began to flatten into a protoplanetary disc with a diameter of roughly 200 AU[43] and a hot, dense protostar at the centre.[45][46] The planets formed by accretion from this disc,[47] in which dust and gas gravitationally attracted each other, coalescing to form ever larger bodies. Hundreds of protoplanets may have existed in the early Solar System, but they either merged or were destroyed, leaving the planets, dwarf planets, and leftover minor bodies.
+
+Due to their higher boiling points, only metals and silicates could exist in solid form in the warm inner Solar System close to the Sun, and these would eventually form the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Because metallic elements only comprised a very small fraction of the solar nebula, the terrestrial planets could not grow very large. The giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed further out, beyond the frost line, the point between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where material is cool enough for volatile icy compounds to remain solid. The ices that formed these planets were more plentiful than the metals and silicates that formed the terrestrial inner planets, allowing them to grow massive enough to capture large atmospheres of hydrogen and helium, the lightest and most abundant elements. Leftover debris that never became planets congregated in regions such as the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, and Oort cloud. The Nice model is an explanation for the creation of these regions and how the outer planets could have formed in different positions and migrated to their current orbits through various gravitational interactions.
+
+Within 50 million years, the pressure and density of hydrogen in the centre of the protostar became great enough for it to begin thermonuclear fusion.[49] The temperature, reaction rate, pressure, and density increased until hydrostatic equilibrium was achieved: the thermal pressure equalled the force of gravity. At this point, the Sun became a main-sequence star.[50] The main-sequence phase, from beginning to end, will last about 10 billion years for the Sun compared to around two billion years for all other phases of the Sun's pre-remnant life combined.[51] Solar wind from the Sun created the heliosphere and swept away the remaining gas and dust from the protoplanetary disc into interstellar space, ending the planetary formation process. The Sun is growing brighter; early in its main-sequence life its brightness was 70% that of what it is today.[52]
+
+The Solar System will remain roughly as we know it today until the hydrogen in the core of the Sun has been entirely converted to helium, which will occur roughly 5 billion years from now. This will mark the end of the Sun's main-sequence life. At this time, the core of the Sun will contract with hydrogen fusion occurring along a shell surrounding the inert helium, and the energy output will be much greater than at present. The outer layers of the Sun will expand to roughly 260 times its current diameter, and the Sun will become a red giant. Because of its vastly increased surface area, the surface of the Sun will be considerably cooler (2,600 K at its coolest) than it is on the main sequence.[51] The expanding Sun is expected to vaporize Mercury and render Earth uninhabitable. Eventually, the core will be hot enough for helium fusion; the Sun will burn helium for a fraction of the time it burned hydrogen in the core. The Sun is not massive enough to commence the fusion of heavier elements, and nuclear reactions in the core will dwindle. Its outer layers will move away into space, leaving a white dwarf, an extraordinarily dense object, half the original mass of the Sun but only the size of Earth.[53] The ejected outer layers will form what is known as a planetary nebula, returning some of the material that formed the Sun—but now enriched with heavier elements like carbon—to the interstellar medium.
+
+The Sun is the Solar System's star and by far its most massive component. Its large mass (332,900 Earth masses),[54] which comprises 99.86% of all the mass in the Solar System,[55] produces temperatures and densities in its core high enough to sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, making it a main-sequence star.[56] This releases an enormous amount of energy, mostly radiated into space as electromagnetic radiation peaking in visible light.[57]
+
+The Sun is a G2-type main-sequence star. Hotter main-sequence stars are more luminous. The Sun's temperature is intermediate between that of the hottest stars and that of the coolest stars. Stars brighter and hotter than the Sun are rare, whereas substantially dimmer and cooler stars, known as red dwarfs, make up 85% of the stars in the Milky Way.[58][59]
+
+The Sun is a population I star; it has a higher abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium ("metals" in astronomical parlance) than the older population II stars.[60] Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to die before the Universe could be enriched with these atoms. The oldest stars contain few metals, whereas stars born later have more. This high metallicity is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's development of a planetary system because the planets form from the accretion of "metals".[61]
+
+The vast majority of the Solar System consists of a near-vacuum known as the interplanetary medium. Along with light, the Sun radiates a continuous stream of charged particles (a plasma) known as the solar wind. This stream of particles spreads outwards at roughly 1.5 million kilometres per hour,[62] creating a tenuous atmosphere that permeates the interplanetary medium out to at least 100 AU (see § Heliosphere).[63] Activity on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, disturbs the heliosphere, creating space weather and causing geomagnetic storms.[64] The largest structure within the heliosphere is the heliospheric current sheet, a spiral form created by the actions of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the interplanetary medium.[65][66]
+
+Earth's magnetic field stops its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind.[67] Venus and Mars do not have magnetic fields, and as a result the solar wind is causing their atmospheres to gradually bleed away into space.[68] Coronal mass ejections and similar events blow a magnetic field and huge quantities of material from the surface of the Sun. The interaction of this magnetic field and material with Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles into Earth's upper atmosphere, where its interactions create aurorae seen near the magnetic poles.
+
+The heliosphere and planetary magnetic fields (for those planets that have them) partially shield the Solar System from high-energy interstellar particles called cosmic rays. The density of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and the strength of the Sun's magnetic field change on very long timescales, so the level of cosmic-ray penetration in the Solar System varies, though by how much is unknown.[69]
+
+The interplanetary medium is home to at least two disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes the zodiacal light. It was likely formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by gravitational interactions with the planets.[70] The second dust cloud extends from about 10 AU to about 40 AU, and was probably created by similar collisions within the Kuiper belt.[71][72]
+
+The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt.[73] Composed mainly of silicates and metals, the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is less than the distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. This region is also within the frost line, which is a little less than 5 AU (about 700 million km) from the Sun.[74]
+
+The four terrestrial or inner planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of refractory minerals, such as the silicates—which form their crusts and mantles—and metals, such as iron and nickel, which form their cores. Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) have atmospheres substantial enough to generate weather; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features, such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term inner planet should not be confused with inferior planet, which designates those planets that are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus).
+
+Mercury (0.4 AU from the Sun) is the closest planet to the Sun and on average, all seven other planets.[75][76] The smallest planet in the Solar System (0.055 M⊕), Mercury has no natural satellites. Besides impact craters, its only known geological features are lobed ridges or rupes that were probably produced by a period of contraction early in its history.[77] Mercury's very tenuous atmosphere consists of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind.[78] Its relatively large iron core and thin mantle have not yet been adequately explained. Hypotheses include that its outer layers were stripped off by a giant impact, or that it was prevented from fully accreting by the young Sun's energy.[79][80]
+
+Venus (0.7 AU from the Sun) is close in size to Earth (0.815 M⊕) and, like Earth, has a thick silicate mantle around an iron core, a substantial atmosphere, and evidence of internal geological activity. It is much drier than Earth, and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense. Venus has no natural satellites. It is the hottest planet, with surface temperatures over 400 °C (752 °F), most likely due to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.[81] No definitive evidence of current geological activity has been detected on Venus, but it has no magnetic field that would prevent depletion of its substantial atmosphere, which suggests that its atmosphere is being replenished by volcanic eruptions.[82]
+
+Earth (1 AU from the Sun) is the largest and densest of the inner planets, the only one known to have current geological activity, and the only place where life is known to exist.[83] Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed. Earth's atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life to contain 21% free oxygen.[84] It has one natural satellite, the Moon, the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System.
+
+Mars (1.5 AU from the Sun) is smaller than Earth and Venus (0.107 M⊕). It has an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a surface pressure of 6.1 millibars (roughly 0.6% of that of Earth).[85] Its surface, peppered with vast volcanoes, such as Olympus Mons, and rift valleys, such as Valles Marineris, shows geological activity that may have persisted until as recently as 2 million years ago.[86] Its red colour comes from iron oxide (rust) in its soil.[87] Mars has two tiny natural satellites (Deimos and Phobos) thought to be either captured asteroids,[88] or ejected debris from a massive impact early in Mars's history.[89]
+
+Asteroids except for the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies[f] and are composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals, with some ice.[90][91] They range from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres in size. Asteroids smaller than one meter are usually called meteoroids and micrometeoroids (grain-sized), depending on different, somewhat arbitrary definitions.
+
+The asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between 2.3 and 3.3 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter.[92] The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometre in diameter.[93] Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth.[21] The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident.
+
+Ceres (2.77 AU) is the largest asteroid, a protoplanet, and a dwarf planet.[f] It has a diameter of slightly under 1000 km, and a mass large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in 1801, and was reclassified to asteroid in the 1850s as further observations revealed additional asteroids.[94] It was classified as a dwarf planet in 2006 when the definition of a planet was created.
+
+Asteroids in the asteroid belt are divided into asteroid groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Asteroid moons are asteroids that orbit larger asteroids. They are not as clearly distinguished as planetary moons, sometimes being almost as large as their partners. The asteroid belt also contains main-belt comets, which may have been the source of Earth's water.[95]
+
+Jupiter trojans are located in either of Jupiter's L4 or L5 points (gravitationally stable regions leading and trailing a planet in its orbit); the term trojan is also used for small bodies in any other planetary or satellite Lagrange point. Hilda asteroids are in a 2:3 resonance with Jupiter; that is, they go around the Sun three times for every two Jupiter orbits.[96]
+
+The inner Solar System also contains near-Earth asteroids, many of which cross the orbits of the inner planets.[97] Some of them are potentially hazardous objects.
+
+The outer region of the Solar System is home to the giant planets and their large moons. The centaurs and many short-period comets also orbit in this region. Due to their greater distance from the Sun, the solid objects in the outer Solar System contain a higher proportion of volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane than those of the inner Solar System because the lower temperatures allow these compounds to remain solid.
+
+The four outer planets, or giant planets (sometimes called Jovian planets), collectively make up 99% of the mass known to orbit the Sun.[g] Jupiter and Saturn are together more than 400 times the mass of Earth and consist overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium. Uranus and Neptune are far less massive—less than 20 Earth masses (M⊕) each—and are composed primarily of ices. For these reasons, some astronomers suggest they belong in their own category, ice giants.[98] All four giant planets have rings, although only Saturn's ring system is easily observed from Earth. The term superior planet designates planets outside Earth's orbit and thus includes both the outer planets and Mars.
+
+Jupiter (5.2 AU), at 318 M⊕, is 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets put together. It is composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter's strong internal heat creates semi-permanent features in its atmosphere, such as cloud bands and the Great Red Spot. Jupiter has 79 known satellites. The four largest, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, show similarities to the terrestrial planets, such as volcanism and internal heating.[99] Ganymede, the largest satellite in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury.
+
+Saturn (9.5 AU), distinguished by its extensive ring system, has several similarities to Jupiter, such as its atmospheric composition and magnetosphere. Although Saturn has 60% of Jupiter's volume, it is less than a third as massive, at 95 M⊕. Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water.[100] The rings of Saturn are made up of small ice and rock particles. Saturn has 82 confirmed satellites composed largely of ice. Two of these, Titan and Enceladus, show signs of geological activity.[101] Titan, the second-largest moon in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury and the only satellite in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere.
+
+Uranus (19.2 AU), at 14 M⊕, is the lightest of the outer planets. Uniquely among the planets, it orbits the Sun on its side; its axial tilt is over ninety degrees to the ecliptic. It has a much colder core than the other giant planets and radiates very little heat into space.[102] Uranus has 27 known satellites, the largest ones being Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda.
+
+Neptune (30.1 AU), though slightly smaller than Uranus, is more massive (17 M⊕) and hence more dense. It radiates more internal heat, but not as much as Jupiter or Saturn.[103] Neptune has 14 known satellites. The largest, Triton, is geologically active, with geysers of liquid nitrogen.[104] Triton is the only large satellite with a retrograde orbit. Neptune is accompanied in its orbit by several minor planets, termed Neptune trojans, that are in 1:1 resonance with it.
+
+The centaurs are icy comet-like bodies whose orbits have semi-major axes greater than Jupiter's (5.5 AU) and less than Neptune's (30 AU). The largest known centaur, 10199 Chariklo, has a diameter of about 250 km.[105] The first centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, has also been classified as comet (95P) because it develops a coma just as comets do when they approach the Sun.[106]
+
+Comets are small Solar System bodies,[f] typically only a few kilometres across, composed largely of volatile ices. They have highly eccentric orbits, generally a perihelion within the orbits of the inner planets and an aphelion far beyond Pluto. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionise, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to the naked eye.
+
+Short-period comets have orbits lasting less than two hundred years. Long-period comets have orbits lasting thousands of years. Short-period comets are thought to originate in the Kuiper belt, whereas long-period comets, such as Hale–Bopp, are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. Many comet groups, such as the Kreutz Sungrazers, formed from the breakup of a single parent.[107] Some comets with hyperbolic orbits may originate outside the Solar System, but determining their precise orbits is difficult.[108] Old comets that have had most of their volatiles driven out by solar warming are often categorised as asteroids.[109]
+
+Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies the area of the "trans-Neptunian region", with the doughnut-shaped Kuiper belt, home of Pluto and several other dwarf planets, and an overlapping disc of scattered objects, which is tilted toward the plane of the Solar System and reaches much further out than the Kuiper belt. The entire region is still largely unexplored. It appears to consist overwhelmingly of many thousands of small worlds—the largest having a diameter only a fifth that of Earth and a mass far smaller than that of the Moon—composed mainly of rock and ice. This region is sometimes described as the "third zone of the Solar System", enclosing the inner and the outer Solar System.[110]
+
+The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice.[111] It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. Though it is estimated to contain anything from dozens to thousands of dwarf planets, it is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies. Many of the larger Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, and Orcus, may prove to be dwarf planets with further data. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt objects with a diameter greater than 50 km, but the total mass of the Kuiper belt is thought to be only a tenth or even a hundredth the mass of Earth.[20] Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites,[112] and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic.[113]
+
+The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the "classical" belt and the resonances.[111] Resonances are orbits linked to that of Neptune (e.g. twice for every three Neptune orbits, or once for every two). The first resonance begins within the orbit of Neptune itself. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly 39.4 AU to 47.7 AU.[114] Members of the classical Kuiper belt are classified as cubewanos, after the first of their kind to be discovered, 15760 Albion (which previously had the provisional designation 1992 QB1), and are still in near primordial, low-eccentricity orbits.[115]
+
+The dwarf planet Pluto (39 AU average) is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt. When discovered in 1930, it was considered to be the ninth planet; this changed in 2006 with the adoption of a formal definition of planet. Pluto has a relatively eccentric orbit inclined 17 degrees to the ecliptic plane and ranging from 29.7 AU from the Sun at perihelion (within the orbit of Neptune) to 49.5 AU at aphelion. Pluto has a 3:2 resonance with Neptune, meaning that Pluto orbits twice round the Sun for every three Neptunian orbits. Kuiper belt objects whose orbits share this resonance are called plutinos.[116]
+
+Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, is sometimes described as part of a binary system with Pluto, as the two bodies orbit a barycentre of gravity above their surfaces (i.e. they appear to "orbit each other"). Beyond Charon, four much smaller moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, orbit within the system.
+
+Makemake (45.79 AU average), although smaller than Pluto, is the largest known object in the classical Kuiper belt (that is, a Kuiper belt object not in a confirmed resonance with Neptune). Makemake is the brightest object in the Kuiper belt after Pluto. It was assigned a naming committee under the expectation that it would prove to be a dwarf planet in 2008.[6] Its orbit is far more inclined than Pluto's, at 29°.[117]
+
+Haumea (43.13 AU average) is in an orbit similar to Makemake, except that it is in a temporary 7:12 orbital resonance with Neptune.[118]
+It was named under the same expectation that it would prove to be a dwarf planet, though subsequent observations have indicated that it may not be a dwarf planet after all.[119]
+
+The scattered disc, which overlaps the Kuiper belt but extends out to about 200 AU, is thought to be the source of short-period comets. Scattered-disc objects are thought to have been ejected into erratic orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune's early outward migration. Most scattered disc objects (SDOs) have perihelia within the Kuiper belt but aphelia far beyond it (some more than 150 AU from the Sun). SDOs' orbits are also highly inclined to the ecliptic plane and are often almost perpendicular to it. Some astronomers consider the scattered disc to be merely another region of the Kuiper belt and describe scattered disc objects as "scattered Kuiper belt objects".[120] Some astronomers also classify centaurs as inward-scattered Kuiper belt objects along with the outward-scattered residents of the scattered disc.[121]
+
+Eris (68 AU average) is the largest known scattered disc object, and caused a debate about what constitutes a planet, because it is 25% more massive than Pluto[122] and about the same diameter. It is the most massive of the known dwarf planets. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. Like Pluto, its orbit is highly eccentric, with a perihelion of 38.2 AU (roughly Pluto's distance from the Sun) and an aphelion of 97.6 AU, and steeply inclined to the ecliptic plane.
+
+The point at which the Solar System ends and interstellar space begins is not precisely defined because its outer boundaries are shaped by two separate forces: the solar wind and the Sun's gravity. The limit of the solar wind's influence is roughly four times Pluto's distance from the Sun; this heliopause, the outer boundary of the heliosphere, is considered the beginning of the interstellar medium.[63] The Sun's Hill sphere, the effective range of its gravitational dominance, is thought to extend up to a thousand times farther and encompasses the theorized Oort cloud.[123]
+
+The heliosphere is a stellar-wind bubble, a region of space dominated by the Sun, which radiates at roughly 400 km/s its solar wind, a stream of charged particles, until it collides with the wind of the interstellar medium.
+
+The collision occurs at the termination shock, which is roughly 80–100 AU from the Sun upwind of the interstellar medium and roughly 200 AU from the Sun downwind.[124] Here the wind slows dramatically, condenses and becomes more turbulent,[124] forming a great oval structure known as the heliosheath. This structure is thought to look and behave very much like a comet's tail, extending outward for a further 40 AU on the upwind side but tailing many times that distance downwind; evidence from Cassini and Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft has suggested that it is forced into a bubble shape by the constraining action of the interstellar magnetic field.[125]
+
+The outer boundary of the heliosphere, the heliopause, is the point at which the solar wind finally terminates and is the beginning of interstellar space.[63] Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are reported to have passed the termination shock and entered the heliosheath, at 94 and 84 AU from the Sun, respectively.[126][127] Voyager 1 is reported to have crossed the heliopause in August 2012.[128]
+
+The shape and form of the outer edge of the heliosphere is likely affected by the fluid dynamics of interactions with the interstellar medium as well as solar magnetic fields prevailing to the south, e.g. it is bluntly shaped with the northern hemisphere extending 9 AU farther than the southern hemisphere.[124] Beyond the heliopause, at around 230 AU, lies the bow shock, a plasma "wake" left by the Sun as it travels through the Milky Way.[129]
+
+Due to a lack of data, conditions in local interstellar space are not known for certain. It is expected that NASA's Voyager spacecraft, as they pass the heliopause, will transmit valuable data on radiation levels and solar wind to Earth.[130] How well the heliosphere shields the Solar System from cosmic rays is poorly understood. A NASA-funded team has developed a concept of a "Vision Mission" dedicated to sending a probe to the heliosphere.[131][132]
+
+90377 Sedna (520 AU average) is a large, reddish object with a gigantic, highly elliptical orbit that takes it from about 76 AU at perihelion to 940 AU at aphelion and takes 11,400 years to complete. Mike Brown, who discovered the object in 2003, asserts that it cannot be part of the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt because its perihelion is too distant to have been affected by Neptune's migration. He and other astronomers consider it to be the first in an entirely new population, sometimes termed "distant detached objects" (DDOs), which also may include the object 2000 CR105, which has a perihelion of 45 AU, an aphelion of 415 AU, and an orbital period of 3,420 years.[133] Brown terms this population the "inner Oort cloud" because it may have formed through a similar process, although it is far closer to the Sun.[134] Sedna is very likely a dwarf planet, though its shape has yet to be determined. The second unequivocally detached object, with a perihelion farther than Sedna's at roughly 81 AU, is 2012 VP113, discovered in 2012. Its aphelion is only half that of Sedna's, at 400–500 AU.[135][136]
+
+The Oort cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of up to a trillion icy objects that is thought to be the source for all long-period comets and to surround the Solar System at roughly 50,000 AU (around 1 light-year (ly)), and possibly to as far as 100,000 AU (1.87 ly). It is thought to be composed of comets that were ejected from the inner Solar System by gravitational interactions with the outer planets. Oort cloud objects move very slowly, and can be perturbed by infrequent events, such as collisions, the gravitational effects of a passing star, or the galactic tide, the tidal force exerted by the Milky Way.[137][138]
+
+Much of the Solar System is still unknown. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light years (125,000 AU). Lower estimates for the radius of the Oort cloud, by contrast, do not place it farther than 50,000 AU.[139] Despite discoveries such as Sedna, the region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, an area tens of thousands of AU in radius, is still virtually unmapped. There are also ongoing studies of the region between Mercury and the Sun.[140] Objects may yet be discovered in the Solar System's uncharted regions.
+
+Currently, the furthest known objects, such as Comet West, have aphelia around 70,000 AU from the Sun, but as the Oort cloud becomes better known, this may change.
+
+The Solar System is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars.[141] The Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur.[142] The Sun lies between 25,000 and 28,000 light-years from the Galactic Centre,[143] and its speed within the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 225–250 million years. This revolution is known as the Solar System's galactic year.[144] The solar apex, the direction of the Sun's path through interstellar space, is near the constellation Hercules in the direction of the current location of the bright star Vega.[145] The plane of the ecliptic lies at an angle of about 60° to the galactic plane.[i]
+
+The Solar System's location in the Milky Way is a factor in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Its orbit is close to circular, and orbits near the Sun are at roughly the same speed as that of the spiral arms.[147][148] Therefore, the Sun passes through arms only rarely. Because spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of supernovae, gravitational instabilities, and radiation that could disrupt the Solar System, this has given Earth long periods of stability for life to evolve.[147] The Solar System also lies well outside the star-crowded environs of the galactic centre. Near the centre, gravitational tugs from nearby stars could perturb bodies in the Oort cloud and send many comets into the inner Solar System, producing collisions with potentially catastrophic implications for life on Earth. The intense radiation of the galactic centre could also interfere with the development of complex life.[147] Even at the Solar System's current location, some scientists have speculated that recent supernovae may have adversely affected life in the last 35,000 years, by flinging pieces of expelled stellar core towards the Sun, as radioactive dust grains and larger, comet-like bodies.[149]
+
+The Solar System is in the Local Interstellar Cloud or Local Fluff. It is thought to be near the neighbouring G-Cloud but it is not known if the Solar System is embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud, or if it is in the region where the Local Interstellar Cloud and G-Cloud are interacting.[150][151] The Local Interstellar Cloud is an area of denser cloud in an otherwise sparse region known as the Local Bubble, an hourglass-shaped cavity in the interstellar medium roughly 300 light-years (ly) across. The bubble is suffused with high-temperature plasma, that suggests it is the product of several recent supernovae.[152]
+
+There are relatively few stars within ten light-years of the Sun. The closest is the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light-years away. Alpha Centauri A and B are a closely tied pair of Sun-like stars, whereas the small red dwarf, Proxima Centauri, orbits the pair at a distance of 0.2 light-year. In 2016, a potentially habitable exoplanet was confirmed to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, called Proxima Centauri b, the closest confirmed exoplanet to the Sun.[153] The stars next closest to the Sun are the red dwarfs Barnard's Star (at 5.9 ly), Wolf 359 (7.8 ly), and Lalande 21185 (8.3 ly).
+
+The largest nearby star is Sirius, a bright main-sequence star roughly 8.6 light-years away and roughly twice the Sun's mass and that is orbited by a white dwarf, Sirius B. The nearest brown dwarfs are the binary Luhman 16 system at 6.6 light-years. Other systems within ten light-years are the binary red-dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 ly) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 ly).[154] The closest solitary Sun-like star to the Solar System is Tau Ceti at 11.9 light-years. It has roughly 80% of the Sun's mass but only 60% of its luminosity.[155] The closest known free-floating planetary-mass object to the Sun is WISE 0855−0714,[156] an object with a mass less than 10 Jupiter masses roughly 7 light-years away.
+
+Compared to many other planetary systems, the Solar System stands out in lacking planets interior to the orbit of Mercury.[157][158] The known Solar System also lacks super-Earths (Planet Nine could be a super-Earth beyond the known Solar System).[157] Uncommonly, it has only small rocky planets and large gas giants; elsewhere planets of intermediate size are typical—both rocky and gas—so there is no "gap" as seen between the size of Earth and of Neptune (with a radius 3.8 times as large). Also, these super-Earths have closer orbits than Mercury.[157] This led to the hypothesis that all planetary systems start with many close-in planets, and that typically a sequence of their collisions causes consolidation of mass into few larger planets, but in case of the Solar System the collisions caused their destruction and ejection.[159][160]
+
+The orbits of Solar System planets are nearly circular. Compared to other systems, they have smaller orbital eccentricity.[157] Although there are attempts to explain it partly with a bias in the radial-velocity detection method and partly with long interactions of a quite high number of planets, the exact causes remain undetermined.[157][161]
+
+This section is a sampling of Solar System bodies, selected for size and quality of imagery, and sorted by volume. Some omitted objects are larger than the ones included here, notably Eris, because these have not been imaged in high quality.
+
+Venus, Earth (Pale Blue Dot), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (13 September 1996).
+
+Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of".
+

en/3401.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+
+
+The Solar System[b] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly.[c] Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets,[d] with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies. Of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly—the moons—two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury.[e]
+
+The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun, with the majority of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets are giant planets, being substantially more massive than the terrestrials. The two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, are gas giants, being composed mainly of hydrogen and helium; the two outermost planets, Uranus and Neptune, are ice giants, being composed mostly of substances with relatively high melting points compared with hydrogen and helium, called volatiles, such as water, ammonia and methane. All eight planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a nearly flat disc called the ecliptic.
+
+The Solar System also contains smaller objects.[f] The asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptune's orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, and beyond them a newly discovered population of sednoids. Within these populations, some objects are large enough to have rounded under their own gravity, though there is considerable debate as to how many there will prove to be.[9][10] Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets. The only certain dwarf planet is Pluto, with another trans-Neptunian object, Eris, expected to be, and the asteroid Ceres at least close to being a dwarf planet.[f] In addition to these two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds, freely travel between regions. Six of the planets, the six largest possible dwarf planets, and many of the smaller bodies are orbited by natural satellites, usually termed "moons" after the Moon. Each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects.
+
+The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, creates a bubble-like region in the interstellar medium known as the heliosphere. The heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium; it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, may also exist at a distance roughly a thousand times further than the heliosphere. The Solar System is located in the Orion Arm, 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
+
+For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System. Most people up to the Late Middle Ages–Renaissance believed Earth to be stationary at the centre of the universe and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos, Nicolaus Copernicus was the first to develop a mathematically predictive heliocentric system.[11][12]
+
+In the 17th century, Galileo discovered that the Sun was marked with sunspots, and that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it.[13] Christiaan Huygens followed on from Galileo's discoveries by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn.[14] Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun.[15] Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English.[16] In 1838, Friedrich Bessel successfully measured a stellar parallax, an apparent shift in the position of a star created by Earth's motion around the Sun, providing the first direct, experimental proof of heliocentrism.[17] Improvements in observational astronomy and the use of unmanned spacecraft have since enabled the detailed investigation of other bodies orbiting the Sun.
+
+The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally.[18] The Sun's four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the remaining mass, with Jupiter and Saturn together comprising more than 90%. The remaining objects of the Solar System (including the four terrestrial planets, the dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, and comets) together comprise less than 0.002% of the Solar System's total mass.[g]
+
+Most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic. The planets are very close to the ecliptic, whereas comets and Kuiper belt objects are frequently at significantly greater angles to it.[22][23] As a result of the formation of the Solar System planets, and most other objects, orbit the Sun in the same direction that the Sun is rotating (counter-clockwise, as viewed from above Earth's north pole).[24] There are exceptions, such as Halley's Comet. Most of the larger moons orbit their planets in this prograde direction (with Triton being the largest retrograde exception) and most larger objects rotate themselves in the same direction (with Venus being a notable retrograde exception).
+
+The overall structure of the charted regions of the Solar System consists of the Sun, four relatively small inner planets surrounded by a belt of mostly rocky asteroids, and four giant planets surrounded by the Kuiper belt of mostly icy objects. Astronomers sometimes informally divide this structure into separate regions. The inner Solar System includes the four terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt. The outer Solar System is beyond the asteroids, including the four giant planets.[25] Since the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the outermost parts of the Solar System are considered a distinct region consisting of the objects beyond Neptune.[26]
+
+Most of the planets in the Solar System have secondary systems of their own, being orbited by planetary objects called natural satellites, or moons (two of which, Titan and Ganymede, are larger than the planet Mercury), and, in the case of the four giant planets, by planetary rings, thin bands of tiny particles that orbit them in unison. Most of the largest natural satellites are in synchronous rotation, with one face permanently turned toward their parent.
+
+Kepler's laws of planetary motion describe the orbits of objects about the Sun. Following Kepler's laws, each object travels along an ellipse with the Sun at one focus. Objects closer to the Sun (with smaller semi-major axes) travel more quickly because they are more affected by the Sun's gravity. On an elliptical orbit, a body's distance from the Sun varies over the course of its year. A body's closest approach to the Sun is called its perihelion, whereas its most distant point from the Sun is called its aphelion. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular, but many comets, asteroids, and Kuiper belt objects follow highly elliptical orbits. The positions of the bodies in the Solar System can be predicted using numerical models.
+
+Although the Sun dominates the system by mass, it accounts for only about 2% of the angular momentum.[27][28] The planets, dominated by Jupiter, account for most of the rest of the angular momentum due to the combination of their mass, orbit, and distance from the Sun, with a possibly significant contribution from comets.[27]
+
+The Sun, which comprises nearly all the matter in the Solar System, is composed of roughly 98% hydrogen and helium.[29] Jupiter and Saturn, which comprise nearly all the remaining matter, are also primarily composed of hydrogen and helium.[30][31] A composition gradient exists in the Solar System, created by heat and light pressure from the Sun; those objects closer to the Sun, which are more affected by heat and light pressure, are composed of elements with high melting points. Objects farther from the Sun are composed largely of materials with lower melting points.[32] The boundary in the Solar System beyond which those volatile substances could condense is known as the frost line, and it lies at roughly 5 AU from the Sun.[4]
+
+The objects of the inner Solar System are composed mostly of rock,[33] the collective name for compounds with high melting points, such as silicates, iron or nickel, that remained solid under almost all conditions in the protoplanetary nebula.[34] Jupiter and Saturn are composed mainly of gases, the astronomical term for materials with extremely low melting points and high vapour pressure, such as hydrogen, helium, and neon, which were always in the gaseous phase in the nebula.[34] Ices, like water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and carbon dioxide,[33] have melting points up to a few hundred kelvins.[34] They can be found as ices, liquids, or gases in various places in the Solar System, whereas in the nebula they were either in the solid or gaseous phase.[34] Icy substances comprise the majority of the satellites of the giant planets, as well as most of Uranus and Neptune (the so-called "ice giants") and the numerous small objects that lie beyond Neptune's orbit.[33][35] Together, gases and ices are referred to as volatiles.[36]
+
+The distance from Earth to the Sun is 1 astronomical unit [AU] (150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi). For comparison, the radius of the Sun is 0.0047 AU (700,000 km). Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (10−5 %) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly one millionth (10−6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 astronomical units (780,000,000 km) from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU (4.5×109 km) from the Sun.
+
+With a few exceptions, the farther a planet or belt is from the Sun, the larger the distance between its orbit and the orbit of the next nearer object to the Sun. For example, Venus is approximately 0.33 AU farther out from the Sun than Mercury, whereas Saturn is 4.3 AU out from Jupiter, and Neptune lies 10.5 AU out from Uranus. Attempts have been made to determine a relationship between these orbital distances (for example, the Titius–Bode law),[37] but no such theory has been accepted. The images at the beginning of this section show the orbits of the various constituents of the Solar System on different scales.
+
+Some Solar System models attempt to convey the relative scales involved in the Solar System on human terms. Some are small in scale (and may be mechanical—called orreries)—whereas others extend across cities or regional areas.[38] The largest such scale model, the Sweden Solar System, uses the 110-metre (361 ft) Ericsson Globe in Stockholm as its substitute Sun, and, following the scale, Jupiter is a 7.5-metre (25-foot) sphere at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, 40 km (25 mi) away, whereas the farthest current object, Sedna, is a 10 cm (4 in) sphere in Luleå, 912 km (567 mi) away.[39][40]
+
+If the Sun–Neptune distance is scaled to 100 metres, then the Sun would be about 3 cm in diameter (roughly two-thirds the diameter of a golf ball), the giant planets would be all smaller than about 3 mm, and Earth's diameter along with that of the other terrestrial planets would be smaller than a flea (0.3 mm) at this scale.[41]
+
+Distances of selected bodies of the Solar System from the Sun. The left and right edges of each bar correspond to the perihelion and aphelion of the body, respectively, hence long bars denote high orbital eccentricity. The radius of the Sun is 0.7 million km, and the radius of Jupiter (the largest planet) is 0.07 million km, both too small to resolve on this image.
+
+The Solar System formed 4.568 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a region within a large molecular cloud.[h] This initial cloud was likely several light-years across and probably birthed several stars.[43] As is typical of molecular clouds, this one consisted mostly of hydrogen, with some helium, and small amounts of heavier elements fused by previous generations of stars. As the region that would become the Solar System, known as the pre-solar nebula,[44] collapsed, conservation of angular momentum caused it to rotate faster. The centre, where most of the mass collected, became increasingly hotter than the surrounding disc.[43] As the contracting nebula rotated faster, it began to flatten into a protoplanetary disc with a diameter of roughly 200 AU[43] and a hot, dense protostar at the centre.[45][46] The planets formed by accretion from this disc,[47] in which dust and gas gravitationally attracted each other, coalescing to form ever larger bodies. Hundreds of protoplanets may have existed in the early Solar System, but they either merged or were destroyed, leaving the planets, dwarf planets, and leftover minor bodies.
+
+Due to their higher boiling points, only metals and silicates could exist in solid form in the warm inner Solar System close to the Sun, and these would eventually form the rocky planets of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Because metallic elements only comprised a very small fraction of the solar nebula, the terrestrial planets could not grow very large. The giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed further out, beyond the frost line, the point between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter where material is cool enough for volatile icy compounds to remain solid. The ices that formed these planets were more plentiful than the metals and silicates that formed the terrestrial inner planets, allowing them to grow massive enough to capture large atmospheres of hydrogen and helium, the lightest and most abundant elements. Leftover debris that never became planets congregated in regions such as the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt, and Oort cloud. The Nice model is an explanation for the creation of these regions and how the outer planets could have formed in different positions and migrated to their current orbits through various gravitational interactions.
+
+Within 50 million years, the pressure and density of hydrogen in the centre of the protostar became great enough for it to begin thermonuclear fusion.[49] The temperature, reaction rate, pressure, and density increased until hydrostatic equilibrium was achieved: the thermal pressure equalled the force of gravity. At this point, the Sun became a main-sequence star.[50] The main-sequence phase, from beginning to end, will last about 10 billion years for the Sun compared to around two billion years for all other phases of the Sun's pre-remnant life combined.[51] Solar wind from the Sun created the heliosphere and swept away the remaining gas and dust from the protoplanetary disc into interstellar space, ending the planetary formation process. The Sun is growing brighter; early in its main-sequence life its brightness was 70% that of what it is today.[52]
+
+The Solar System will remain roughly as we know it today until the hydrogen in the core of the Sun has been entirely converted to helium, which will occur roughly 5 billion years from now. This will mark the end of the Sun's main-sequence life. At this time, the core of the Sun will contract with hydrogen fusion occurring along a shell surrounding the inert helium, and the energy output will be much greater than at present. The outer layers of the Sun will expand to roughly 260 times its current diameter, and the Sun will become a red giant. Because of its vastly increased surface area, the surface of the Sun will be considerably cooler (2,600 K at its coolest) than it is on the main sequence.[51] The expanding Sun is expected to vaporize Mercury and render Earth uninhabitable. Eventually, the core will be hot enough for helium fusion; the Sun will burn helium for a fraction of the time it burned hydrogen in the core. The Sun is not massive enough to commence the fusion of heavier elements, and nuclear reactions in the core will dwindle. Its outer layers will move away into space, leaving a white dwarf, an extraordinarily dense object, half the original mass of the Sun but only the size of Earth.[53] The ejected outer layers will form what is known as a planetary nebula, returning some of the material that formed the Sun—but now enriched with heavier elements like carbon—to the interstellar medium.
+
+The Sun is the Solar System's star and by far its most massive component. Its large mass (332,900 Earth masses),[54] which comprises 99.86% of all the mass in the Solar System,[55] produces temperatures and densities in its core high enough to sustain nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium, making it a main-sequence star.[56] This releases an enormous amount of energy, mostly radiated into space as electromagnetic radiation peaking in visible light.[57]
+
+The Sun is a G2-type main-sequence star. Hotter main-sequence stars are more luminous. The Sun's temperature is intermediate between that of the hottest stars and that of the coolest stars. Stars brighter and hotter than the Sun are rare, whereas substantially dimmer and cooler stars, known as red dwarfs, make up 85% of the stars in the Milky Way.[58][59]
+
+The Sun is a population I star; it has a higher abundance of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium ("metals" in astronomical parlance) than the older population II stars.[60] Elements heavier than hydrogen and helium were formed in the cores of ancient and exploding stars, so the first generation of stars had to die before the Universe could be enriched with these atoms. The oldest stars contain few metals, whereas stars born later have more. This high metallicity is thought to have been crucial to the Sun's development of a planetary system because the planets form from the accretion of "metals".[61]
+
+The vast majority of the Solar System consists of a near-vacuum known as the interplanetary medium. Along with light, the Sun radiates a continuous stream of charged particles (a plasma) known as the solar wind. This stream of particles spreads outwards at roughly 1.5 million kilometres per hour,[62] creating a tenuous atmosphere that permeates the interplanetary medium out to at least 100 AU (see § Heliosphere).[63] Activity on the Sun's surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, disturbs the heliosphere, creating space weather and causing geomagnetic storms.[64] The largest structure within the heliosphere is the heliospheric current sheet, a spiral form created by the actions of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the interplanetary medium.[65][66]
+
+Earth's magnetic field stops its atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind.[67] Venus and Mars do not have magnetic fields, and as a result the solar wind is causing their atmospheres to gradually bleed away into space.[68] Coronal mass ejections and similar events blow a magnetic field and huge quantities of material from the surface of the Sun. The interaction of this magnetic field and material with Earth's magnetic field funnels charged particles into Earth's upper atmosphere, where its interactions create aurorae seen near the magnetic poles.
+
+The heliosphere and planetary magnetic fields (for those planets that have them) partially shield the Solar System from high-energy interstellar particles called cosmic rays. The density of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium and the strength of the Sun's magnetic field change on very long timescales, so the level of cosmic-ray penetration in the Solar System varies, though by how much is unknown.[69]
+
+The interplanetary medium is home to at least two disc-like regions of cosmic dust. The first, the zodiacal dust cloud, lies in the inner Solar System and causes the zodiacal light. It was likely formed by collisions within the asteroid belt brought on by gravitational interactions with the planets.[70] The second dust cloud extends from about 10 AU to about 40 AU, and was probably created by similar collisions within the Kuiper belt.[71][72]
+
+The inner Solar System is the region comprising the terrestrial planets and the asteroid belt.[73] Composed mainly of silicates and metals, the objects of the inner Solar System are relatively close to the Sun; the radius of this entire region is less than the distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. This region is also within the frost line, which is a little less than 5 AU (about 700 million km) from the Sun.[74]
+
+The four terrestrial or inner planets have dense, rocky compositions, few or no moons, and no ring systems. They are composed largely of refractory minerals, such as the silicates—which form their crusts and mantles—and metals, such as iron and nickel, which form their cores. Three of the four inner planets (Venus, Earth and Mars) have atmospheres substantial enough to generate weather; all have impact craters and tectonic surface features, such as rift valleys and volcanoes. The term inner planet should not be confused with inferior planet, which designates those planets that are closer to the Sun than Earth is (i.e. Mercury and Venus).
+
+Mercury (0.4 AU from the Sun) is the closest planet to the Sun and on average, all seven other planets.[75][76] The smallest planet in the Solar System (0.055 M⊕), Mercury has no natural satellites. Besides impact craters, its only known geological features are lobed ridges or rupes that were probably produced by a period of contraction early in its history.[77] Mercury's very tenuous atmosphere consists of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind.[78] Its relatively large iron core and thin mantle have not yet been adequately explained. Hypotheses include that its outer layers were stripped off by a giant impact, or that it was prevented from fully accreting by the young Sun's energy.[79][80]
+
+Venus (0.7 AU from the Sun) is close in size to Earth (0.815 M⊕) and, like Earth, has a thick silicate mantle around an iron core, a substantial atmosphere, and evidence of internal geological activity. It is much drier than Earth, and its atmosphere is ninety times as dense. Venus has no natural satellites. It is the hottest planet, with surface temperatures over 400 °C (752 °F), most likely due to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.[81] No definitive evidence of current geological activity has been detected on Venus, but it has no magnetic field that would prevent depletion of its substantial atmosphere, which suggests that its atmosphere is being replenished by volcanic eruptions.[82]
+
+Earth (1 AU from the Sun) is the largest and densest of the inner planets, the only one known to have current geological activity, and the only place where life is known to exist.[83] Its liquid hydrosphere is unique among the terrestrial planets, and it is the only planet where plate tectonics has been observed. Earth's atmosphere is radically different from those of the other planets, having been altered by the presence of life to contain 21% free oxygen.[84] It has one natural satellite, the Moon, the only large satellite of a terrestrial planet in the Solar System.
+
+Mars (1.5 AU from the Sun) is smaller than Earth and Venus (0.107 M⊕). It has an atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide with a surface pressure of 6.1 millibars (roughly 0.6% of that of Earth).[85] Its surface, peppered with vast volcanoes, such as Olympus Mons, and rift valleys, such as Valles Marineris, shows geological activity that may have persisted until as recently as 2 million years ago.[86] Its red colour comes from iron oxide (rust) in its soil.[87] Mars has two tiny natural satellites (Deimos and Phobos) thought to be either captured asteroids,[88] or ejected debris from a massive impact early in Mars's history.[89]
+
+Asteroids except for the largest, Ceres, are classified as small Solar System bodies[f] and are composed mainly of refractory rocky and metallic minerals, with some ice.[90][91] They range from a few metres to hundreds of kilometres in size. Asteroids smaller than one meter are usually called meteoroids and micrometeoroids (grain-sized), depending on different, somewhat arbitrary definitions.
+
+The asteroid belt occupies the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, between 2.3 and 3.3 AU from the Sun. It is thought to be remnants from the Solar System's formation that failed to coalesce because of the gravitational interference of Jupiter.[92] The asteroid belt contains tens of thousands, possibly millions, of objects over one kilometre in diameter.[93] Despite this, the total mass of the asteroid belt is unlikely to be more than a thousandth of that of Earth.[21] The asteroid belt is very sparsely populated; spacecraft routinely pass through without incident.
+
+Ceres (2.77 AU) is the largest asteroid, a protoplanet, and a dwarf planet.[f] It has a diameter of slightly under 1000 km, and a mass large enough for its own gravity to pull it into a spherical shape. Ceres was considered a planet when it was discovered in 1801, and was reclassified to asteroid in the 1850s as further observations revealed additional asteroids.[94] It was classified as a dwarf planet in 2006 when the definition of a planet was created.
+
+Asteroids in the asteroid belt are divided into asteroid groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Asteroid moons are asteroids that orbit larger asteroids. They are not as clearly distinguished as planetary moons, sometimes being almost as large as their partners. The asteroid belt also contains main-belt comets, which may have been the source of Earth's water.[95]
+
+Jupiter trojans are located in either of Jupiter's L4 or L5 points (gravitationally stable regions leading and trailing a planet in its orbit); the term trojan is also used for small bodies in any other planetary or satellite Lagrange point. Hilda asteroids are in a 2:3 resonance with Jupiter; that is, they go around the Sun three times for every two Jupiter orbits.[96]
+
+The inner Solar System also contains near-Earth asteroids, many of which cross the orbits of the inner planets.[97] Some of them are potentially hazardous objects.
+
+The outer region of the Solar System is home to the giant planets and their large moons. The centaurs and many short-period comets also orbit in this region. Due to their greater distance from the Sun, the solid objects in the outer Solar System contain a higher proportion of volatiles, such as water, ammonia, and methane than those of the inner Solar System because the lower temperatures allow these compounds to remain solid.
+
+The four outer planets, or giant planets (sometimes called Jovian planets), collectively make up 99% of the mass known to orbit the Sun.[g] Jupiter and Saturn are together more than 400 times the mass of Earth and consist overwhelmingly of hydrogen and helium. Uranus and Neptune are far less massive—less than 20 Earth masses (M⊕) each—and are composed primarily of ices. For these reasons, some astronomers suggest they belong in their own category, ice giants.[98] All four giant planets have rings, although only Saturn's ring system is easily observed from Earth. The term superior planet designates planets outside Earth's orbit and thus includes both the outer planets and Mars.
+
+Jupiter (5.2 AU), at 318 M⊕, is 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets put together. It is composed largely of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter's strong internal heat creates semi-permanent features in its atmosphere, such as cloud bands and the Great Red Spot. Jupiter has 79 known satellites. The four largest, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, show similarities to the terrestrial planets, such as volcanism and internal heating.[99] Ganymede, the largest satellite in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury.
+
+Saturn (9.5 AU), distinguished by its extensive ring system, has several similarities to Jupiter, such as its atmospheric composition and magnetosphere. Although Saturn has 60% of Jupiter's volume, it is less than a third as massive, at 95 M⊕. Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water.[100] The rings of Saturn are made up of small ice and rock particles. Saturn has 82 confirmed satellites composed largely of ice. Two of these, Titan and Enceladus, show signs of geological activity.[101] Titan, the second-largest moon in the Solar System, is larger than Mercury and the only satellite in the Solar System with a substantial atmosphere.
+
+Uranus (19.2 AU), at 14 M⊕, is the lightest of the outer planets. Uniquely among the planets, it orbits the Sun on its side; its axial tilt is over ninety degrees to the ecliptic. It has a much colder core than the other giant planets and radiates very little heat into space.[102] Uranus has 27 known satellites, the largest ones being Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda.
+
+Neptune (30.1 AU), though slightly smaller than Uranus, is more massive (17 M⊕) and hence more dense. It radiates more internal heat, but not as much as Jupiter or Saturn.[103] Neptune has 14 known satellites. The largest, Triton, is geologically active, with geysers of liquid nitrogen.[104] Triton is the only large satellite with a retrograde orbit. Neptune is accompanied in its orbit by several minor planets, termed Neptune trojans, that are in 1:1 resonance with it.
+
+The centaurs are icy comet-like bodies whose orbits have semi-major axes greater than Jupiter's (5.5 AU) and less than Neptune's (30 AU). The largest known centaur, 10199 Chariklo, has a diameter of about 250 km.[105] The first centaur discovered, 2060 Chiron, has also been classified as comet (95P) because it develops a coma just as comets do when they approach the Sun.[106]
+
+Comets are small Solar System bodies,[f] typically only a few kilometres across, composed largely of volatile ices. They have highly eccentric orbits, generally a perihelion within the orbits of the inner planets and an aphelion far beyond Pluto. When a comet enters the inner Solar System, its proximity to the Sun causes its icy surface to sublimate and ionise, creating a coma: a long tail of gas and dust often visible to the naked eye.
+
+Short-period comets have orbits lasting less than two hundred years. Long-period comets have orbits lasting thousands of years. Short-period comets are thought to originate in the Kuiper belt, whereas long-period comets, such as Hale–Bopp, are thought to originate in the Oort cloud. Many comet groups, such as the Kreutz Sungrazers, formed from the breakup of a single parent.[107] Some comets with hyperbolic orbits may originate outside the Solar System, but determining their precise orbits is difficult.[108] Old comets that have had most of their volatiles driven out by solar warming are often categorised as asteroids.[109]
+
+Beyond the orbit of Neptune lies the area of the "trans-Neptunian region", with the doughnut-shaped Kuiper belt, home of Pluto and several other dwarf planets, and an overlapping disc of scattered objects, which is tilted toward the plane of the Solar System and reaches much further out than the Kuiper belt. The entire region is still largely unexplored. It appears to consist overwhelmingly of many thousands of small worlds—the largest having a diameter only a fifth that of Earth and a mass far smaller than that of the Moon—composed mainly of rock and ice. This region is sometimes described as the "third zone of the Solar System", enclosing the inner and the outer Solar System.[110]
+
+The Kuiper belt is a great ring of debris similar to the asteroid belt, but consisting mainly of objects composed primarily of ice.[111] It extends between 30 and 50 AU from the Sun. Though it is estimated to contain anything from dozens to thousands of dwarf planets, it is composed mainly of small Solar System bodies. Many of the larger Kuiper belt objects, such as Quaoar, Varuna, and Orcus, may prove to be dwarf planets with further data. There are estimated to be over 100,000 Kuiper belt objects with a diameter greater than 50 km, but the total mass of the Kuiper belt is thought to be only a tenth or even a hundredth the mass of Earth.[20] Many Kuiper belt objects have multiple satellites,[112] and most have orbits that take them outside the plane of the ecliptic.[113]
+
+The Kuiper belt can be roughly divided into the "classical" belt and the resonances.[111] Resonances are orbits linked to that of Neptune (e.g. twice for every three Neptune orbits, or once for every two). The first resonance begins within the orbit of Neptune itself. The classical belt consists of objects having no resonance with Neptune, and extends from roughly 39.4 AU to 47.7 AU.[114] Members of the classical Kuiper belt are classified as cubewanos, after the first of their kind to be discovered, 15760 Albion (which previously had the provisional designation 1992 QB1), and are still in near primordial, low-eccentricity orbits.[115]
+
+The dwarf planet Pluto (39 AU average) is the largest known object in the Kuiper belt. When discovered in 1930, it was considered to be the ninth planet; this changed in 2006 with the adoption of a formal definition of planet. Pluto has a relatively eccentric orbit inclined 17 degrees to the ecliptic plane and ranging from 29.7 AU from the Sun at perihelion (within the orbit of Neptune) to 49.5 AU at aphelion. Pluto has a 3:2 resonance with Neptune, meaning that Pluto orbits twice round the Sun for every three Neptunian orbits. Kuiper belt objects whose orbits share this resonance are called plutinos.[116]
+
+Charon, the largest of Pluto's moons, is sometimes described as part of a binary system with Pluto, as the two bodies orbit a barycentre of gravity above their surfaces (i.e. they appear to "orbit each other"). Beyond Charon, four much smaller moons, Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra, orbit within the system.
+
+Makemake (45.79 AU average), although smaller than Pluto, is the largest known object in the classical Kuiper belt (that is, a Kuiper belt object not in a confirmed resonance with Neptune). Makemake is the brightest object in the Kuiper belt after Pluto. It was assigned a naming committee under the expectation that it would prove to be a dwarf planet in 2008.[6] Its orbit is far more inclined than Pluto's, at 29°.[117]
+
+Haumea (43.13 AU average) is in an orbit similar to Makemake, except that it is in a temporary 7:12 orbital resonance with Neptune.[118]
+It was named under the same expectation that it would prove to be a dwarf planet, though subsequent observations have indicated that it may not be a dwarf planet after all.[119]
+
+The scattered disc, which overlaps the Kuiper belt but extends out to about 200 AU, is thought to be the source of short-period comets. Scattered-disc objects are thought to have been ejected into erratic orbits by the gravitational influence of Neptune's early outward migration. Most scattered disc objects (SDOs) have perihelia within the Kuiper belt but aphelia far beyond it (some more than 150 AU from the Sun). SDOs' orbits are also highly inclined to the ecliptic plane and are often almost perpendicular to it. Some astronomers consider the scattered disc to be merely another region of the Kuiper belt and describe scattered disc objects as "scattered Kuiper belt objects".[120] Some astronomers also classify centaurs as inward-scattered Kuiper belt objects along with the outward-scattered residents of the scattered disc.[121]
+
+Eris (68 AU average) is the largest known scattered disc object, and caused a debate about what constitutes a planet, because it is 25% more massive than Pluto[122] and about the same diameter. It is the most massive of the known dwarf planets. It has one known moon, Dysnomia. Like Pluto, its orbit is highly eccentric, with a perihelion of 38.2 AU (roughly Pluto's distance from the Sun) and an aphelion of 97.6 AU, and steeply inclined to the ecliptic plane.
+
+The point at which the Solar System ends and interstellar space begins is not precisely defined because its outer boundaries are shaped by two separate forces: the solar wind and the Sun's gravity. The limit of the solar wind's influence is roughly four times Pluto's distance from the Sun; this heliopause, the outer boundary of the heliosphere, is considered the beginning of the interstellar medium.[63] The Sun's Hill sphere, the effective range of its gravitational dominance, is thought to extend up to a thousand times farther and encompasses the theorized Oort cloud.[123]
+
+The heliosphere is a stellar-wind bubble, a region of space dominated by the Sun, which radiates at roughly 400 km/s its solar wind, a stream of charged particles, until it collides with the wind of the interstellar medium.
+
+The collision occurs at the termination shock, which is roughly 80–100 AU from the Sun upwind of the interstellar medium and roughly 200 AU from the Sun downwind.[124] Here the wind slows dramatically, condenses and becomes more turbulent,[124] forming a great oval structure known as the heliosheath. This structure is thought to look and behave very much like a comet's tail, extending outward for a further 40 AU on the upwind side but tailing many times that distance downwind; evidence from Cassini and Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft has suggested that it is forced into a bubble shape by the constraining action of the interstellar magnetic field.[125]
+
+The outer boundary of the heliosphere, the heliopause, is the point at which the solar wind finally terminates and is the beginning of interstellar space.[63] Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are reported to have passed the termination shock and entered the heliosheath, at 94 and 84 AU from the Sun, respectively.[126][127] Voyager 1 is reported to have crossed the heliopause in August 2012.[128]
+
+The shape and form of the outer edge of the heliosphere is likely affected by the fluid dynamics of interactions with the interstellar medium as well as solar magnetic fields prevailing to the south, e.g. it is bluntly shaped with the northern hemisphere extending 9 AU farther than the southern hemisphere.[124] Beyond the heliopause, at around 230 AU, lies the bow shock, a plasma "wake" left by the Sun as it travels through the Milky Way.[129]
+
+Due to a lack of data, conditions in local interstellar space are not known for certain. It is expected that NASA's Voyager spacecraft, as they pass the heliopause, will transmit valuable data on radiation levels and solar wind to Earth.[130] How well the heliosphere shields the Solar System from cosmic rays is poorly understood. A NASA-funded team has developed a concept of a "Vision Mission" dedicated to sending a probe to the heliosphere.[131][132]
+
+90377 Sedna (520 AU average) is a large, reddish object with a gigantic, highly elliptical orbit that takes it from about 76 AU at perihelion to 940 AU at aphelion and takes 11,400 years to complete. Mike Brown, who discovered the object in 2003, asserts that it cannot be part of the scattered disc or the Kuiper belt because its perihelion is too distant to have been affected by Neptune's migration. He and other astronomers consider it to be the first in an entirely new population, sometimes termed "distant detached objects" (DDOs), which also may include the object 2000 CR105, which has a perihelion of 45 AU, an aphelion of 415 AU, and an orbital period of 3,420 years.[133] Brown terms this population the "inner Oort cloud" because it may have formed through a similar process, although it is far closer to the Sun.[134] Sedna is very likely a dwarf planet, though its shape has yet to be determined. The second unequivocally detached object, with a perihelion farther than Sedna's at roughly 81 AU, is 2012 VP113, discovered in 2012. Its aphelion is only half that of Sedna's, at 400–500 AU.[135][136]
+
+The Oort cloud is a hypothetical spherical cloud of up to a trillion icy objects that is thought to be the source for all long-period comets and to surround the Solar System at roughly 50,000 AU (around 1 light-year (ly)), and possibly to as far as 100,000 AU (1.87 ly). It is thought to be composed of comets that were ejected from the inner Solar System by gravitational interactions with the outer planets. Oort cloud objects move very slowly, and can be perturbed by infrequent events, such as collisions, the gravitational effects of a passing star, or the galactic tide, the tidal force exerted by the Milky Way.[137][138]
+
+Much of the Solar System is still unknown. The Sun's gravitational field is estimated to dominate the gravitational forces of surrounding stars out to about two light years (125,000 AU). Lower estimates for the radius of the Oort cloud, by contrast, do not place it farther than 50,000 AU.[139] Despite discoveries such as Sedna, the region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud, an area tens of thousands of AU in radius, is still virtually unmapped. There are also ongoing studies of the region between Mercury and the Sun.[140] Objects may yet be discovered in the Solar System's uncharted regions.
+
+Currently, the furthest known objects, such as Comet West, have aphelia around 70,000 AU from the Sun, but as the Oort cloud becomes better known, this may change.
+
+The Solar System is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars.[141] The Sun resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur.[142] The Sun lies between 25,000 and 28,000 light-years from the Galactic Centre,[143] and its speed within the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 225–250 million years. This revolution is known as the Solar System's galactic year.[144] The solar apex, the direction of the Sun's path through interstellar space, is near the constellation Hercules in the direction of the current location of the bright star Vega.[145] The plane of the ecliptic lies at an angle of about 60° to the galactic plane.[i]
+
+The Solar System's location in the Milky Way is a factor in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Its orbit is close to circular, and orbits near the Sun are at roughly the same speed as that of the spiral arms.[147][148] Therefore, the Sun passes through arms only rarely. Because spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of supernovae, gravitational instabilities, and radiation that could disrupt the Solar System, this has given Earth long periods of stability for life to evolve.[147] The Solar System also lies well outside the star-crowded environs of the galactic centre. Near the centre, gravitational tugs from nearby stars could perturb bodies in the Oort cloud and send many comets into the inner Solar System, producing collisions with potentially catastrophic implications for life on Earth. The intense radiation of the galactic centre could also interfere with the development of complex life.[147] Even at the Solar System's current location, some scientists have speculated that recent supernovae may have adversely affected life in the last 35,000 years, by flinging pieces of expelled stellar core towards the Sun, as radioactive dust grains and larger, comet-like bodies.[149]
+
+The Solar System is in the Local Interstellar Cloud or Local Fluff. It is thought to be near the neighbouring G-Cloud but it is not known if the Solar System is embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud, or if it is in the region where the Local Interstellar Cloud and G-Cloud are interacting.[150][151] The Local Interstellar Cloud is an area of denser cloud in an otherwise sparse region known as the Local Bubble, an hourglass-shaped cavity in the interstellar medium roughly 300 light-years (ly) across. The bubble is suffused with high-temperature plasma, that suggests it is the product of several recent supernovae.[152]
+
+There are relatively few stars within ten light-years of the Sun. The closest is the triple star system Alpha Centauri, which is about 4.4 light-years away. Alpha Centauri A and B are a closely tied pair of Sun-like stars, whereas the small red dwarf, Proxima Centauri, orbits the pair at a distance of 0.2 light-year. In 2016, a potentially habitable exoplanet was confirmed to be orbiting Proxima Centauri, called Proxima Centauri b, the closest confirmed exoplanet to the Sun.[153] The stars next closest to the Sun are the red dwarfs Barnard's Star (at 5.9 ly), Wolf 359 (7.8 ly), and Lalande 21185 (8.3 ly).
+
+The largest nearby star is Sirius, a bright main-sequence star roughly 8.6 light-years away and roughly twice the Sun's mass and that is orbited by a white dwarf, Sirius B. The nearest brown dwarfs are the binary Luhman 16 system at 6.6 light-years. Other systems within ten light-years are the binary red-dwarf system Luyten 726-8 (8.7 ly) and the solitary red dwarf Ross 154 (9.7 ly).[154] The closest solitary Sun-like star to the Solar System is Tau Ceti at 11.9 light-years. It has roughly 80% of the Sun's mass but only 60% of its luminosity.[155] The closest known free-floating planetary-mass object to the Sun is WISE 0855−0714,[156] an object with a mass less than 10 Jupiter masses roughly 7 light-years away.
+
+Compared to many other planetary systems, the Solar System stands out in lacking planets interior to the orbit of Mercury.[157][158] The known Solar System also lacks super-Earths (Planet Nine could be a super-Earth beyond the known Solar System).[157] Uncommonly, it has only small rocky planets and large gas giants; elsewhere planets of intermediate size are typical—both rocky and gas—so there is no "gap" as seen between the size of Earth and of Neptune (with a radius 3.8 times as large). Also, these super-Earths have closer orbits than Mercury.[157] This led to the hypothesis that all planetary systems start with many close-in planets, and that typically a sequence of their collisions causes consolidation of mass into few larger planets, but in case of the Solar System the collisions caused their destruction and ejection.[159][160]
+
+The orbits of Solar System planets are nearly circular. Compared to other systems, they have smaller orbital eccentricity.[157] Although there are attempts to explain it partly with a bias in the radial-velocity detection method and partly with long interactions of a quite high number of planets, the exact causes remain undetermined.[157][161]
+
+This section is a sampling of Solar System bodies, selected for size and quality of imagery, and sorted by volume. Some omitted objects are larger than the ones included here, notably Eris, because these have not been imaged in high quality.
+
+Venus, Earth (Pale Blue Dot), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune (13 September 1996).
+
+Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of".
+

en/3402.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the Nicotiana genus and the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of the tobacco plant. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent variant N. rustica is also used around the world.
+
+Tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant alkaloid nicotine as well as harmala alkaloids.[3] Dried tobacco leaves are mainly used for smoking in cigarettes and cigars, as well as pipes and shishas. They can also be consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and snus.
+
+Tobacco use is a cause or risk factor for many diseases; especially those affecting the heart, liver, and lungs, as well as many cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization named tobacco use as the world's single greatest preventable cause of death.[4]
+
+The English word tobacco originates from the Spanish and Portuguese word tabaco. The precise origin of this word is disputed, but it is generally thought to have derived at least in part, from Taíno, the Arawakan language of the Caribbean. In Taíno, it was said to mean either a roll of tobacco leaves (according to Bartolomé de las Casas, 1552) or to tabago, a kind of L-shaped pipe used for sniffing tobacco smoke (according to Oviedo; with the leaves themselves being referred to as cohiba)[clarify].[5][6]
+
+However, perhaps coincidentally, similar words in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian were used from 1410 for certain medicinal herbs. These probably derived from the Arabic طُبّاق ṭubbāq (also طُباق ṭubāq), a word reportedly dating to the 9th century, referring to various herbs.[7][8]
+
+Tobacco has long been used in the Americas, with some cultivation sites in Mexico dating back to 1400–1000 BC.[9] Many Native American tribes traditionally grow and use tobacco. Historically, people from the Northeast Woodlands cultures have carried tobacco in pouches as a readily accepted trade item. It was smoked both socially and ceremonially, such as to seal a peace treaty or trade agreement.[10][11] In some Native cultures, tobacco is seen as a gift from the Creator, with the ceremonial tobacco smoke carrying one's thoughts and prayers to the Creator.[12]
+
+Following the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas, tobacco became increasingly popular as a trade item. Hernández de Boncalo, Spanish chronicler of the Indies, was the first European to bring tobacco seeds to the Old World in 1559 following orders of King Philip II of Spain. These seeds were planted in the outskirts of Toledo, more specifically in an area known as "Los Cigarrales" named after the continuous plagues of cicadas (cigarras in Spanish). Before the development of the lighter Virginia and white burley strains of tobacco, the smoke was too harsh to be inhaled. Small quantities were smoked at a time, using a pipe like the midwakh or kiseru, or newly invented waterpipes such as the bong or the hookah (see thuốc lào for a modern continuance of this practice). Tobacco became so popular that the English colony of Jamestown used it as currency and began exporting it as a cash crop; tobacco is often credited as being the export that saved Virginia from ruin.[13]
+
+The alleged benefits of tobacco also contributed to its success. The astronomer Thomas Harriot, who accompanied Sir Richard Grenville on his 1585 expedition to Roanoke Island, mistakenly explained that the plant "openeth all the pores and passages of the body" so that the natives’ "bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal we in England are often times afflicted." [14]
+
+Production of tobacco for smoking, chewing, and snuffing became a major industry in Europe and its colonies by 1700.[15][16]
+
+Tobacco has been a major cash crop in Cuba and in other parts of the Caribbean since the 18th century. Cuban cigars are world-famous.[17]
+
+In the late 19th century, cigarettes became popular. James Bonsack invented a machine to automate cigarette production. This increase in production allowed tremendous growth in the tobacco industry until the health revelations of the late 20th century.[18][19]
+
+Following the scientific revelations of the mid-20th century, tobacco was condemned as a health hazard, and eventually became recognized as a cause of cancer, as well as other respiratory and circulatory diseases. In the United States, this led to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which settled the many lawsuits by the U.S. states in exchange for a combination of yearly payments to the states and voluntary restrictions on advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
+
+In the 1970s, Brown & Williamson cross-bred a strain of tobacco to produce Y1, a strain containing an unusually high nicotine content, nearly doubling from 3.2-3.5% to 6.5%. In the 1990s, this prompted the Food and Drug Administration to allege that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.
+
+In 2003, in response to growth of tobacco use in developing countries, the World Health Organization[20] successfully rallied 168 countries to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The convention is designed to push for effective legislation and enforcement in all countries to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco.
+
+The desire of many addicted smokers to quit has led to the development of tobacco cessation products.
+
+Many species of tobacco are in the genus of herbs Nicotiana. It is part of the nightshade family (Solanaceae) indigenous to North and South America, Australia, south west Africa, and the South Pacific.[21]
+
+Most nightshades contain varying amounts of nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin to insects. However, tobaccos tend to contain a much higher concentration of nicotine than the others. Unlike many other Solanaceae species, they do not contain tropane alkaloids, which are often poisonous to humans and other animals.
+
+Despite containing enough nicotine and other compounds such as germacrene and anabasine and other piperidine alkaloids (varying between species) to deter most herbivores,[22] a number of such animals have evolved the ability to feed on Nicotiana species without being harmed. Nonetheless, tobacco is unpalatable to many species due to its other attributes. For example, although the cabbage looper is a generalist pest, tobacco's gummosis and trichomes can harm early larvae survival.[23] As a result, some tobacco plants (chiefly N. glauca) have become established as invasive weeds in some places.
+
+The types of tobacco include:
+
+Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds were at first quickly scattered onto the soil. However, young plants came under increasing attack from flea beetles (Epitrix cucumeris or E. pubescens), which caused destruction of half the tobacco crops in United States in 1876. By 1890, successful experiments were conducted that placed the plant in a frame covered by thin cotton fabric. Today, tobacco seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds, as their germination is activated by light.[24] In the United States, tobacco is often fertilized with the mineral apatite, which partially starves the plant of nitrogen, to produce a more desired flavor.
+
+After the plants are about 8 inches (20 cm)  tall, they are transplanted into the fields. Farmers used to have to wait for rainy weather to plant. A hole is created in the tilled earth with a tobacco peg, either a curved wooden tool or deer antler. After making two holes to the right and left, the planter would move forward two feet, select plants from his/her bag, and repeat. Various mechanical tobacco planters like Bemis, New Idea Setter, and New Holland Transplanter were invented in the late 19th and 20th centuries to automate the process: making the hole, watering it, guiding the plant in — all in one motion.[25]
+
+Tobacco is cultivated annually, and can be harvested in several ways. In the oldest method, still used today, the entire plant is harvested at once by cutting off the stalk at the ground with a tobacco knife; it is then speared onto sticks, four to six plants a stick, and hung in a curing barn. In the 19th century, bright tobacco began to be harvested by pulling individual leaves off the stalk as they ripened. The leaves ripen from the ground upwards, so a field of tobacco harvested in this manner entails the serial harvest of a number of "primings", beginning with the volado leaves near the ground, working to the seco leaves in the middle of the plant, and finishing with the potent ligero leaves at the top. Before harvesting, the crop must be topped when the pink flowers develop. Topping always refers to the removal of the tobacco flower before the leaves are systematically harvested. As the industrial revolution took hold, the harvesting wagons which were used to transport leaves were equipped with man-powered stringers, an apparatus that used twine to attach leaves to a pole. In modern times, large fields are harvested mechanically, although topping the flower and in some cases the plucking of immature leaves is still done by hand.
+
+In the U.S., North Carolina and Kentucky are the leaders in tobacco production, followed by Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania.[26]
+
+Curing and subsequent aging allow for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids in tobacco leaf. This produces certain compounds in the tobacco leaves and gives a sweet hay, tea, rose oil, or fruity aromatic flavor that contributes to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Starch is converted to sugar, which glycates protein, and is oxidized into advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), a caramelization process that also adds flavor. Inhalation of these AGEs in tobacco smoke contributes to atherosclerosis and cancer.[27] Levels of AGEs are dependent on the curing method used.
+
+Tobacco can be cured through several methods, including:
+
+Some tobaccos go through a second stage of curing, known as fermenting or sweating.[30] Cavendish undergoes fermentation pressed in a casing solution containing sugar and/or flavoring.[31]
+
+Production of tobacco leaf increased by 40% between 1971, when 4.2 million tons of leaf were produced, and 1997, when 5.9 million tons of leaf were produced.[33] According to the Food and Agriculture organization of the UN, tobacco leaf production was expected to hit 7.1 million tons by 2010. This number is a bit lower than the record-high production of 1992, when 7.5 million tons of leaf were produced.[34] The production growth was almost entirely due to increased productivity by developing nations, where production increased by 128%.[35] During that same time, production in developed countries actually decreased.[34] China's increase in tobacco production was the single biggest factor in the increase in world production. China's share of the world market increased from 17% in 1971 to 47% in 1997.[33] This growth can be partially explained by the existence of a high import tariff on foreign tobacco entering China. While this tariff has been reduced from 64% in 1999 to 10% in 2004,[36] it still has led to local, Chinese cigarettes being preferred over foreign cigarettes because of their lower cost.
+
+Every year, about 6.7 million tons of tobacco are produced throughout the world. The top producers of tobacco are China (39.6%), India (8.3%), Brazil (7.0%) and the United States (4.6%).[38]
+
+Around the peak of global tobacco production, 20 million rural Chinese households were producing tobacco on 2.1 million hectares of land.[39] While it is the major crop for millions of Chinese farmers, growing tobacco is not as profitable as cotton or sugarcane, because the Chinese government sets the market price. While this price is guaranteed, it is lower than the natural market price, because of the lack of market risk. To further control tobacco in their borders, China founded a State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) in 1982. The STMA controls tobacco production, marketing, imports, and exports, and contributes 12% to the nation's national income.[40] As noted above, despite the income generated for the state by profits from state-owned tobacco companies and the taxes paid by companies and retailers, China's government has acted to reduce tobacco use.[41]
+
+India's Tobacco Board is headquartered in Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh.[42] India has 96,865 registered tobacco farmers[43] and many more who are not registered. In 2010, 3,120 tobacco product manufacturing facilities were operating in all of India.[44] Around 0.25% of India's cultivated land is used for tobacco production.[45]
+
+Since 1947, the Indian government has supported growth in the tobacco industry. India has seven tobacco research centers, located in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Mysore, and West Bengal houses the core research institute.
+
+In Brazil, around 135,000 family farmers cite tobacco production as their main economic activity.[39] Tobacco has never exceeded 0.7% of the country's total cultivated area.[46] In the southern regions of Brazil, Virginia, and Amarelinho, flue-cured tobacco, as well as burley and Galpão Comum air-cured tobacco, are produced. These types of tobacco are used for cigarettes. In the northeast, darker, air- and sun-cured tobacco is grown. These types of tobacco are used for cigars, twists, and dark cigarettes.[46]
+Brazil's government has made attempts to reduce the production of tobacco but has not had a successful systematic antitobacco farming initiative. Brazil's government, however, provides small loans for family farms, including those that grow tobacco, through the Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar.[47]
+
+The International Labour Office reported that the most child-laborers work in agriculture, which is one of the most hazardous types of work.[48][failed verification – see discussion] The tobacco industry houses some of these working children. Use of children is widespread on farms in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.[49] While some of these children work with their families on small, family-owned farms, others work on large plantations.
+In late 2009, reports were released by the London-based human-rights group Plan International, claiming that child labor was common on Malawi (producer of 1.8% of the world's tobacco[33]) tobacco farms. The organization interviewed 44 teens, who worked full-time on farms during the 2007-8 growing season. The child-laborers complained of low pay and long hours, as well as physical and sexual abuse by their supervisors.[50] They also reported suffering from Green tobacco sickness, a form of nicotine poisoning. When wet leaves are handled, nicotine from the leaves gets absorbed in the skin and causes nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. Children were exposed to levels of nicotine equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes, just through direct contact with tobacco leaves. This level of nicotine in children can permanently alter brain structure and function.[48][failed verification – see discussion]
+
+Major tobacco companies have encouraged global tobacco production. Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco each own or lease tobacco-manufacturing facilities in at least 50 countries and buy crude tobacco leaf from at least 12 more countries.[51] This encouragement, along with government subsidies, has led to a glut in the tobacco market. This surplus has resulted in lower prices, which are devastating to small-scale tobacco farmers. According to the World Bank, between 1985 and 2000, the inflation-adjusted price of tobacco dropped 37%.[52] Tobacco is the most widely smuggled legal product.[53]
+
+Tobacco production requires the use of large amounts of pesticides. Tobacco companies recommend up to 16 separate applications of pesticides just in the period between planting the seeds in greenhouses and transplanting the young plants to the field.[54] Pesticide use has been worsened by the desire to produce larger crops in less time because of the decreasing market value of tobacco. Pesticides often harm tobacco farmers because they are unaware of the health effects and the proper safety protocol for working with pesticides. These pesticides, as well as fertilizers, end up in the soil, waterways, and the food chain.[55] Coupled with child labor, pesticides pose an even greater threat. Early exposure to pesticides may increase a child's lifelong cancer risk, as well as harm his or her nervous and immune systems.[56]
+
+As with all crops, tobacco crops extract nutrients (such as phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium) from soil, decreasing its fertility.[57]
+
+Furthermore, the wood used to cure tobacco in some places leads to deforestation. While some big tobacco producers such as China and the United States have access to petroleum, coal, and natural gas, which can be used as alternatives to wood, most developing countries still rely on wood in the curing process.[57] Brazil alone uses the wood of 60 million trees per year for curing, packaging, and rolling cigarettes.[54]
+
+In 2017 WHO released a study on the environmental effects of tobacco.[58]
+
+Several tobacco plants have been used as model organisms in genetics. Tobacco BY-2 cells, derived from N. tabacum cultivar 'Bright Yellow-2', are among the most important research tools in plant cytology.[59] Tobacco has played a pioneering role in callus culture research and the elucidation of the mechanism by which kinetin works, laying the groundwork for modern agricultural biotechnology. The first genetically modified plant was produced in 1982, using Agrobacterium tumefaciens to create an antibiotic-resistant tobacco plant.[60] This research laid the groundwork for all genetically modified crops.[61]
+
+Because of its importance as a research tool, transgenic tobacco was the first GM crop to be tested in field trials, in the United States and France in 1986; China became the first country in the world to approve commercial planting of a GM crop in 1993, which was tobacco.[62]
+
+Many varieties of transgenic tobacco have been intensively tested in field trials. Agronomic traits such as resistance to pathogens (viruses, particularly to the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV); fungi; bacteria and nematodes); weed management via herbicide tolerance; resistance against insect pests; resistance to drought and cold; and production of useful products such as pharmaceuticals; and use of GM plants for bioremediation, have all been tested in over 400 field trials using tobacco.[63]
+
+Currently, only the US is producing GM tobacco.[62][63] The Chinese virus-resistant tobacco was withdrawn from the market in China in 1997.[64]:3 From 2002 to 2010, cigarettes made with GM tobacco with reduced nicotine content were available in the US under the market name Quest.[63][65]
+
+Tobacco is consumed in many forms and through a number of different methods. Some examples are:
+
+Smoking in public was, for a long time, reserved for men, and when done by women was sometimes associated with promiscuity; in Japan, during the Edo period, prostitutes and their clients often approached one another under the guise of offering a smoke. The same was true in 19th-century Europe.[69]
+
+Following the American Civil War, the use of tobacco, primarily in cigars, became associated with masculinity and power. Today, tobacco use is often stigmatized; this has spawned quitting associations and antismoking campaigns.[70][71] Bhutan is the only country in the world where tobacco sales are illegal.[72] Due to its propensity for causing detumescence and erectile dysfunction, some studies have described tobacco as an anaphrodisiacal substance.[73]
+
+Research on tobacco use is limited mainly to smoking, which has been studied more extensively than any other form of consumption. An estimated 1.1 billion people, and up to one-third of the adult population, use tobacco in some form.[74] Smoking is more prevalent among men[75] (however, the gender gap declines with age),[76][77] the poor, and in transitional or developing countries.[78]  A study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that in 2019 approximately one in four youths (23.0%) in the U.S. had used a tobacco product during the past 30 days. This represented approximately three in 10 high school students (31.2%) and approximately one in eight middle school students (12.5%).[79]
+
+Rates of smoking continue to rise in developing countries, but have leveled off or declined in developed countries.[80] Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006, falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults.[81] In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.[82]
+
+Tobacco smoking endangers health due to the inhalation of poisonous chemicals in tobacco smoke, such as carbon monoxide, cyanide, and carcinogens, which have been proven to cause heart and lung diseases and cancer.
+Thousands of different substances in cigarette smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzopyrene), formaldehyde, cadmium, nickel, arsenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, and phenols contribute to the harmful effects of smoking.[83]
+
+According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death globally.[84] The WHO estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004[85] and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.[86] Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."[87] Due to these health consequences, it is estimated that a 10 hectare field of tobacco used for cigarettes causes 30 deaths per year – 10 from lung cancer and 20 from cigarette-induced diseases like cardiac arrest, gangrene, bladder cancer, mouth cancer, etc.[88]
+
+The harms caused by inhalation of tobacco smoke include diseases of the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (emphysema), and cancer (particularly cancers of the lungs, larynx, mouth, and pancreas). Cancer is caused by inhaling carcinogenic substances in tobacco smoke.
+
+Inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke (which has been exhaled by a smoker) can cause lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. In the United States, about 3,000 adults die each year due to lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure. Heart disease caused by secondhand smoke kills around 46,000 nonsmokers every year.[89]
+
+The addictive alkaloid nicotine is a stimulant, and popularly known as the most characteristic constituent of tobacco. In drug effect preference questionnaires, a rough indicator of addictive potential, nicotine scores almost as highly as opioids.[90] Users typically develop tolerance and dependence.[91][92] Nicotine is known to produce conditioned place preference, a sign of psychological enforcement value.[93] In one medical study, tobacco's overall harm to user and self was determined at 3 percent below cocaine, and 13 percent above amphetamines, ranking 6th most harmful of the 20 drugs assessed.[94]
+
+Polonium-210 is a radioactive trace contaminant of tobacco, providing additional explanation for the link between smoking and bronchial cancer.[95] A 1968 study found 0.33-0.36 picocurie polonium-210 (about 0.000,000,000,077 microgram) per gram cigarette tobacco,[96] a tiny fraction of the lethal dose of 1 microgram.[97]
+
+Tobacco has a significant economic impact. The global tobacco market in 2010 was estimated at US$760 billion, excluding China.[98] Statistica estimates that in the U.S. alone, the tobacco industry has a market of US$121 billion,[99] despite the fact the CDC reports that US smoking rates are declining steadily.[100] In the US, the decline in the number of smokers, the end of the Tobacco Transition Payment Program in 2014, and competition from growers in other countries, made tobacco farming economics more challenging.[101]
+
+Of the 1.22 billion smokers worldwide, 1 billion of them live in developing or transitional economies, and much of the disease burden and premature mortality attributable to tobacco use disproportionately affect the poor.[78] While smoking prevalence has declined in many developed countries, it remains high in others, and is increasing among women and in developing countries. Between one-fifth and two-thirds of men in most populations smoke. Women's smoking rates vary more widely but rarely equal male rates.[102]
+
+In Indonesia, the lowest income group spends 15% of its total expenditures on tobacco. In Egypt, more than 10% of low-income household expenditure is on tobacco. The poorest 20% of households in Mexico spend 11% of their income on tobacco.[103]
+
+The tobacco industry advertises its products through a variety of media, including sponsorship, particularly of sporting events. Because of the health risks of these products, this is now one of the most highly regulated forms of marketing. Some or all forms of tobacco advertising are banned in many countries.
+

en/3403.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+
+
+The tiger (Panthera tigris) is the largest extant cat species and a member of the genus Panthera. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange-brown fur with a lighter underside. It is an apex predator, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and wild boar. It is territorial and generally a solitary but social predator, requiring large contiguous areas of habitat, which support its requirements for prey and rearing of its offspring. Tiger cubs stay with their mother for about two years, before they become independent and leave their mother's home range to establish their own.
+
+The tiger once ranged widely from the Eastern Anatolia Region in the west to the Amur River basin, and in the south from the foothills of the Himalayas to Bali in the Sunda islands. Since the early 20th century, tiger populations have lost at least 93% of their historic range and have been extirpated in Western and Central Asia, from the islands of Java and Bali, and in large areas of Southeast and South Asia and China. Today's tiger range is fragmented, stretching from Siberian temperate forests to subtropical and tropical forests on the Indian subcontinent and Sumatra.
+
+The tiger is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. As of 2015, the global wild tiger population was estimated to number between 3,062 and 3,948 mature individuals, with most remaining populations occurring in small pockets isolated from each other. Major reasons for population decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching. This, coupled with the fact that it lives in some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans.
+
+The tiger is among the most recognisable and popular of the world's charismatic megafauna. It featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore and continues to be depicted in modern films and literature, appearing on many flags, coats of arms and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the national animal of India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and South Korea.
+
+The Middle English tigre and Old English tigras derive from Old French tigre, from Latin tigris. 
+This was a borrowing of Classical Greek τίγρις 'tigris', a foreign borrowing of unknown origin meaning 'tiger' as well as the river Tigris.[4]
+The origin may have been the Persian word tigra meaning 'pointed or sharp', and the Avestan word tigrhi 'arrow', perhaps referring to the speed of the tiger's leap, although these words are not known to have any meanings associated with tigers.[5]
+
+The generic name Panthera is derived from the Latin word panthera, and the Ancient Greek word πάνθηρ 'panther'.[6]
+The Sanskrit word पाण्डर pāṇḍ-ara means 'pale yellow, whitish, white'.[7]
+
+In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae and gave it the scientific name Felis tigris.[2] In 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris.[8][9]
+
+Following Linnaeus's first descriptions of the species, several tiger specimens were described and proposed as subspecies.[11] The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size, hence characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely P. t. tigris in mainland Asia, and P. t. sondaica in the Greater Sunda Islands.[12]
+
+Results of craniological analysis of 111 tiger skulls from Southeast Asian range countries indicate that Sumatran tiger skulls differ from Indochinese and Javan tiger skulls, whereas Bali tiger skulls are similar in size to Javan tiger skulls. The authors proposed to classify Sumatran and Javan tiger as distinct species, P. sumatrae and P. sondaica with Bali tiger as subspecies P. sondaica balica.[13]
+
+In 2015, morphological, ecological and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies were analysed in a combined approach. Results support distinction of the two evolutionary groups continental and Sunda tigers. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies, namely P. t. tigris comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South Chinese, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and P. t. sondaica comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations. The authors also noted that this reclassification will affect tiger conservation management. The nominate subspecies P. t. tigris constitutes two clades:[14]
+
+One conservation specialist welcomed this proposal as it would make captive breeding programmes and future rewilding of zoo-born tigers easier. One geneticist was sceptical of this study and maintained that the currently recognised nine subspecies can be distinguished genetically.[15]
+
+In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized the tiger populations in continental Asia as P. t. tigris, and those in the Sunda Islands as P. t. sondaica.[16]
+The following tables are based on the classification of the species Panthera tigris provided in Mammal Species of the World.[11] It also reflects the classification used by the Cat Classification Task Force in 2017:
+
+A study published in 2018 was based on 32 tiger specimens using the whole-genome sequencing approach for analysis. Results support six monophyletic tiger clades corresponding with the living subspecies and indicate that the most recent common ancestor lived about 110,000 years ago.[31]
+
+The tiger's closest living relatives were previously thought to be the Panthera species lion, leopard and jaguar. Results of genetic analysis indicate that about 2.88 million years ago, the tiger and the snow leopard lineages diverged from the other Panthera species, and that both may be more closely related to each other than to the lion, leopard and jaguar.[32][33]
+The geographic origin of the Panthera is most likely northern Central Asia or the Holarctic region. The tiger–snow leopard lineage dispersed in Southeast Asia during the Miocene.[34]
+
+Panthera zdanskyi is considered to be a sister taxon of the modern tiger. It lived at the beginning of the Pleistocene about two million years ago, its fossil remains were excavated in Gansu province of northwestern China. It was smaller and more "primitive", but functionally and ecologically similar to the modern tiger. It is disputed as to whether it had the striping pattern. Northwestern China is thought to be the origin of the tiger lineage. Tigers grew in size, possibly in response to adaptive radiations of prey species like deer and bovids, which may have occurred in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene.[35]
+
+Panthera tigris trinilensis lived about 1.2 million years ago and is known from fossils excavated near Trinil in Java.[36] The Wanhsien, Ngandong, Trinil and Japanese tigers became extinct in prehistoric times.[37] Tigers reached India and northern Asia in the late Pleistocene, reaching eastern Beringia, Japan, and Sakhalin. Some fossil skulls are morphologically distinct from lion skulls, which could indicate tiger presence in Alaska during the last glacial period, about 100,000 years ago.[38]
+
+In the Philippine island of Palawan, two articulated phalanx bones were found amidst an assemblage of other animal bones and stone tools in Ille Cave near the village of New Ibajay. They were smaller than mainland tiger fossils, possibly due to insular dwarfism. Otherwise, it would appear that early humans had accumulated the bones,[39] so it may be that the tiger parts were imported from elsewhere, or that the tiger colonised Palawan from Borneo before the Holocene, considering the proximity of the two islands.[40][41] Fossil remains of tigers were also excavated in Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Sarawak (Malaysia) dating to the late Pliocene, Pleistocene and Early Holocene.[38][42] The Bornean tiger was apparently present in Borneo between the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene, but whether it went extinct in prehistoric or recent times has not been resolved.[42][43]
+
+The potential tiger range during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene was predicted applying ecological niche modelling based on more than 500 tiger locality records combined with bioclimatic data. The resulting model shows a contiguous tiger range from southern India to Siberia at the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating an unobstructed gene flow between tiger populations in mainland Asia throughout the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. The tiger populations on the Sunda Islands and mainland Asia were possibly separated during interglacial periods.[44] Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that all living tigers had a common ancestor 72,000–108,000 years ago.[24] The tiger's full genome sequence was published in 2013. It was found to have similar repeat composition to other cat genomes and an appreciably conserved synteny.[45]
+
+Captive tigers were bred with lions to create hybrids called liger and tigon. They share physical and behavioural qualities of both parent species. Breeding hybrids is now discouraged due to the emphasis on conservation.[46]
+The liger is a cross between a male lion and a tigress. Ligers are typically between 10 and 12 ft (3.0 and 3.7 m) in length, and weigh between 800 and 1,000 lb (360 and 450 kg) or more.[47] Because the lion sire passes on a growth-promoting gene, but the corresponding growth-inhibiting gene from the female tiger is absent, ligers grow far larger than either parent species.[48]
+
+The less common tigon is a cross between a lioness and a male tiger.[46] Because the male tiger does not pass on a growth-promoting gene and the lioness passes on a growth inhibiting gene, tigons are around the same size as their parents.[48] Some females are fertile and have occasionally given birth to litigons when mated to a male Asiatic lion.[49]
+
+The tiger has a muscular body with powerful forelimbs, a large head and a tail that is about half the length of its body. Its pelage is dense and heavy, and colouration varies between shades of orange and brown with white ventral areas and distinctive vertical black stripes that are unique in each individual.[50][22] Stripes are likely advantageous for camouflage in vegetation such as long grass with strong vertical patterns of light and shade.[51][52] The tiger is one of only a few striped cat species; it is not known why spotted patterns and rosettes are the more common camouflage pattern among felids.[53] The orangish colour may also aid in camouflage as the tiger's prey are dichromats, and thus may perceive the cat as green and blended in with the vegetation.[54] A tiger's coat pattern is still visible when it is shaved. This is not due to skin pigmentation, but to the stubble and hair follicles embedded in the skin, similar to human beards (colloquially five o'clock shadow), and is in common with other big cats.[55] They have a mane-like heavy growth of fur around the neck and jaws and long whiskers, especially in males. The pupils are circular with yellow irises. The small, rounded ears have a prominent white spot on the back, surrounded by black.[22] These spots are thought to play an important role in intraspecific communication.[56]
+
+The tiger's skull is similar to a lion's skull, with the frontal region usually less depressed or flattened, and a slightly longer postorbital region. The lion skull shows broader nasal openings. Due to the variation in skull sizes of the two species, the structure of the lower jaw is a reliable indicator for their identification.[18] The tiger has fairly stout teeth; its somewhat curved canines are the longest among living felids with a crown height of up to 90 mm (3.5 in).[22]
+
+There is a notable sexual dimorphism between male and female tigers, with the latter being consistently smaller. The size difference between them is proportionally greater in the large tiger subspecies, with males weighing up to 1.7 times more than females. Males also have wider forepaw pads, enabling sex to be identified from tracks.[57] It has been hypothesised that body size of different tiger populations may be correlated with climate and be explained by thermoregulation and Bergmann's rule, or by distribution and size of available prey species.[22][58]
+
+Generally, males vary in total length from 250 to 390 cm (8.2 to 12.8 ft) and weigh between 90 and 300 kg (200 and 660 lb) with skull length ranging from 316 to 383 mm (12.4 to 15.1 in). Females vary in total length from 200 to 275 cm (6.56 to 9.02 ft), weigh 65 to 167 kg (143 to 368 lb) with skull length ranging from 268 to 318 mm (0.879 to 1.043 ft). In either sex, the tail represents about 0.6 to 1.1 m (24 to 43 in) of the total length. The Bengal and Siberian tigers are amongst the tallest cats in shoulder height. They are also ranked among the biggest cats that have ever existed reaching weights of more than 300 kg (660 lb).[22] The tigers of the Sunda islands are smaller and less heavy than tigers in mainland Asia, rarely exceeding 142 kg (313 lb) in weight.[25]
+
+There are three colour variants — white, golden and stripeless snow white — that now rarely occur in the wild due to the reduction of wild tiger populations, but continue in captive populations. The white tiger has white fur and sepia brown stripes. The golden tiger has a pale golden pelage with a blond tone and reddish-brown stripes. The snow white tiger is a morph with extremely faint stripes and a pale reddish-brown ringed tail.  Both snow white and golden tigers are homozygous for CORIN gene mutations.[59] A black tiger is a colour variant due to pseudo-melanism. They have thick stripes close together so that the background colour is barely visible between stripes.[60]
+
+The white tiger lacks pheomelanin (which creates the orange colour), and has dark sepia-brown stripes and blue eyes. This altered pigmentation is caused by a mutant gene that is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait, which is determined by a white locus. It is not an albino, as the black pigments are scarcely affected.[61][59] The mutation changes a single amino acid in the transporter protein SLC45A2. Both parents need to have the allele for whiteness to have white cubs.[62]
+Between the early and mid 20th century, white tigers were recorded and shot in the Indian states of Odisha, Bihar, Assam and in the area of Rewa, Madhya Pradesh. The local maharaja started breeding tigers in the early 1950s and kept a white male tiger together with its normal-coloured daughter; they had white cubs.[63]
+To preserve this recessive trait, only a few white individuals were used in captive breeding, which led to a high degree of inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is the main reason for many health problems of captive white tigers, including strabismus, stillbirth, deformities and premature death.[64]
+Other physical defects include cleft palate and scoliosis.[65]
+
+The Tiger Species Survival Plan has condemned the breeding of white tigers, alleging they are of mixed ancestry and of unknown lineage. The genes responsible for white colouration are represented by 0.001% of the population. The disproportionate growth in numbers of white tigers points to inbreeding among homozygous recessive individuals. This would lead to inbreeding depression and loss of genetic variability.[66]
+
+The tiger historically ranged from eastern Turkey and Transcaucasia to the coast of the Sea of Japan, and from South Asia across Southeast Asia to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali.[50] Since the end of the last glacial period, it was probably restricted by periods of deep snow lasting longer than six months.[67][68] Currently, it occurs in less than 6% of its historical range, as it has been extirpated from Southwest and Central Asia, large parts of Southeast and East Asia. It now mainly occurs in the Indian subcontinent, the Indochinese Peninsula, Sumatra and the Russian Far East. In China and Myanmar, breeding populations appear to rely on immigration from neighbouring countries while its status in the Korean Peninsula is unknown.[1][69]
+
+The tiger is essentially associated with forest habitats.[42][70] Tiger populations thrive where populations of wild cervids, bovids and suids are stable.[71]
+Records in Central Asia indicate that it occurred foremost in Tugay riverine forests along the Atrek, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Hari, Chu and Ili Rivers and their tributaries. In the Caucasus, it inhabited hilly and lowland forests.[18]
+Historical records in Iran are known only from the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and adjacent Alborz Mountains.[72] In the Amur-Ussuri region, it inhabits Korean pine and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, where riparian forests provide food and water, and serve as dispersal corridors for both tiger and ungulates.[68][73]
+On the Indian subcontinent, it inhabits mainly tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist evergreen forests, tropical dry forests and the swamp forests of the Sundarbans.[74] In the Eastern Himalayas, tigers were documented in subalpine forest up to an elevation of 3,630 m (11,910 ft).[75] In Thailand, it lives in deciduous and evergreen forests.[76] In Laos, 14 tigers were documented in semi-evergreen and evergreen forest interspersed with grassland in Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area during surveys from 2013 to 2017.[77] In Sumatra, tiger populations range from lowland peat swamp forests to rugged montane forests.[78]
+
+When not subject to human disturbance, the tiger is mainly diurnal.[79] It does not often climb trees but cases have been recorded.[51] It is a strong swimmer and often bathes in ponds, lakes and rivers, thus keeping cool in the heat of the day.[80] Individuals can cross rivers up to 7 km (4.3 mi) wide and can swim up to 29 km (18 mi) in a day.[81] During the 1980s, a tiger was observed frequently hunting prey through deep lake water in Ranthambhore National Park.[79]
+
+The tiger is a long-ranging species, and individuals disperse over distances of up to 650 km (400 mi) to reach tiger populations in other areas.[82] Radio-collared tigers in Chitwan National Park started dispersing from their natal areas earliest at the age of 19 months. Four females dispersed between 0 and 43.2 km (0.0 and 26.8 mi), and 10 males between 9.5 and 65.7 km (5.9 and 40.8 mi). None of them crossed open cultivated areas that were more than 10 km (6.2 mi) wide, but moved through forested habitat.[83]
+
+Adult tigers lead largely solitary lives. They establish and maintain territories but have much wider home ranges within which they roam. Resident adults of either sex generally confine their movements to their home ranges, within which they satisfy their needs and those of their growing cubs. Individuals sharing the same area are aware of each other's movements and activities.[84] The size of the home range mainly depends on prey abundance, geographic area and sex of the individual.[51][22] In India, home ranges appear to be 50 to 1,000 km2 (19 to 386 sq mi) while in Manchuria, they range from 500 to 4,000 km2 (190 to 1,540 sq mi). In Nepal, defended territories are recorded to be 19 to 151 km2 (7.3 to 58.3 sq mi) for males and 10 to 51 km2 (3.9 to 19.7 sq mi) for females.[81]
+
+Young female tigers establish their first territories close to their mother's. The overlap between the female and her mother's territory reduces with time. Males, however, migrate further than their female counterparts and set out at a younger age to mark out their own area. A young male acquires territory either by seeking out an area devoid of other male tigers, or by living as a transient in another male's territory until he is older and strong enough to challenge the resident male. Young males seeking to establish themselves thereby comprise the highest mortality rate (30–35% per year) amongst adult tigers.[85]
+
+To identify his territory, the male marks trees by spraying urine[86][87] and anal gland secretions, as well as marking trails with scat and marking trees or the ground with their claws. Females also use these "scrapes", as well as urine and scat markings. Scent markings of this type allow an individual to pick up information on another's identity, sex and reproductive status. Females in oestrus will signal their availability by scent marking more frequently and increasing their vocalisations.[51]
+
+Although for the most part avoiding each other, tigers are not always territorial and relationships between individuals can be complex. An adult of either sex will sometimes share its kill with others, even those who may not be related to them. George Schaller observed a male share a kill with two females and four cubs. Unlike male lions, male tigers allow females and cubs to feed on the kill before the male is finished with it; all involved generally seem to behave amicably, in contrast to the competitive behaviour shown by a lion pride.[88] Stephen Mills described a social feeding event in Ranthambhore National Park:
+
+A dominant tigress they called Padmini killed a 250 kg (550 lb) male nilgai – a very large antelope. They found her at the kill just after dawn with her three 14-month-old cubs, and they watched uninterrupted for the next ten hours. During this period the family was joined by two adult females and one adult male, all offspring from Padmini's previous litters, and by two unrelated tigers, one female the other unidentified. By three o'clock there were no fewer than nine tigers round the kill.[85]
+
+Occasionally, male tigers participate in raising cubs, usually their own, but this is extremely rare and not always well understood. In May 2015, Amur tigers were photographed by camera traps in the Sikhote-Alin Bioshpere Reserve. The photos show a male Amur tiger pass by, followed by a female and three cubs within the span of about two minutes.[89]
+In Ranthambore, a male Bengal tiger raised and defended two orphaned female cubs after their mother had died of illness. The cubs remained under his care, he supplied them with food, protected them from his rival and sister, and apparently also trained them.[90]
+
+Male tigers are generally more intolerant of other males within their territories than females are of other females. Territory disputes are usually solved by displays of intimidation rather than outright aggression. Several such incidents have been observed in which the subordinate tiger yielded defeat by rolling onto its back and showing its belly in a submissive posture.[91] Once dominance has been established, a male may tolerate a subordinate within his range, as long as they do not live in too close quarters.[85] The most aggressive disputes tend to occur between two males when a female is in oestrus, and sometimes resulted in the death of one of the males.[85][91]
+
+Facial expressions include the "defense threat", where an individual bares its teeth, flattens its ears and its pupils enlarge. Both males and females show a flehmen response, a characteristic grimace, when sniffing urine markings, but flehmen is more often associated with males detecting the markings made by tigresses in oestrus. Like other Panthera, tigers roar, particularly in aggressive situations, during the mating season or when making a kill. There are two different roars: the "true" roar is made using the hyoid apparatus and forced through an open mouth as it progressively closes, and the shorter, harsher "coughing" roar is made with the mouth open and teeth exposed. The "true" roar can be heard at up to 3 km (1.9 mi) away and is sometimes emitted three or four times in succession. When tense, tigers will moan, a sound similar to a roar but more subdued and made when the mouth is partially or completely closed. Moaning can be heard 400 m (1,300 ft) away.[22] Chuffing—soft, low-frequency snorting similar to purring in smaller cats—is heard in more friendly situations.[92] Other vocal communications include grunts, woofs, snarls, miaows, hisses and growls.[22]
+
+In the wild, tigers mostly feed on large and medium-sized mammals, particularly ungulates weighing 60–250 kg (130–550 lb). Range-wide, sambar deer, Manchurian wapiti, barasingha and wild boar are significantly preferred. Tigers are capable of taking down larger prey like adult gaur[93] but will also opportunistically eat much smaller prey, such as monkeys, peafowl and other ground-based birds, hares, porcupines, and fish.[94][51] They also prey on other predators, including dogs, leopards, pythons, bears, and crocodiles.[95] Tigers generally do not prey on fully grown adult Asian elephants and Indian rhinoceros but incidents have been reported.[96][97][98] More often, it is the more vulnerable small calves that are taken.[99] When in close proximity to humans, tigers will also sometimes prey on such domestic livestock as cattle, horses, and donkeys. Although almost exclusively carnivorous, tigers will occasionally eat vegetation for dietary fibre such as fruit of the slow match tree.[95]
+
+Tigers are thought to be mainly nocturnal predators,[70] but in areas where humans are absent, remote-controlled, hidden camera traps recorded them hunting in daylight.[100] They generally hunt alone and ambush their prey as most other cats do, overpowering them from any angle, using their body size and strength to knock the prey off balance. Successful hunts usually require the tiger to almost simultaneously leap onto its quarry, knock it over, and grab the throat or nape with its teeth.[81] Despite their large size, tigers can reach speeds of about 49–65 km/h (30–40 mph) but only in short bursts; consequently, tigers must be close to their prey before they break cover. If the prey catches wind of the tiger's presence before this, the tiger usually abandons the hunt rather than chase prey or battle it head-on. Horizontal leaps of up to 10 m (33 ft) have been reported, although leaps of around half this distance are more typical. One in 2 to 20 hunts, including stalking near potential prey, ends in a successful kill.[81][70]
+
+When hunting larger animals, tigers prefer to bite the throat and use their powerful forelimbs to hold onto the prey, often simultaneously wrestling it to the ground. The tiger remains latched onto the neck until its target dies of strangulation.[88] By this method, gaurs and water buffaloes weighing over a ton have been killed by tigers weighing about a sixth as much.[101] Although they can kill healthy adults, tigers often select the calves or infirm of very large species.[102] Healthy adult prey of this type can be dangerous to tackle, as long, strong horns, legs and tusks are all potentially fatal to the tiger. No other extant land predator routinely takes on prey this large on its own.[18][103]
+
+With smaller prey, such as monkeys and hares, the tiger bites the nape, often breaking the spinal cord, piercing the windpipe, or severing the jugular vein or common carotid artery.[104] Though rarely observed, some tigers have been recorded to kill prey by swiping with their paws, which are powerful enough to smash the skulls of domestic cattle,[95] and break the backs of sloth bears.[105]
+
+After killing their prey, tigers sometimes drag it to conceal it in vegetative cover, usually pulling it by grasping with their mouths at the site of the killing bite. This, too, can require great physical strength. In one case, after it had killed an adult gaur, a tiger was observed to drag the massive carcass over a distance of 12 m (39 ft). When 13 men simultaneously tried to drag the same carcass later, they were unable to move it.[81] An adult tiger can go for up to two weeks without eating, then gorge on 34 kg (75 lb) of flesh at one time. In captivity, adult tigers are fed 3 to 6 kg (6.6 to 13.2 lb) of meat a day.[81]
+
+Tigers usually prefer to eat prey they have caught themselves, but may eat carrion in times of scarcity and may even pirate prey from other large carnivores. Although predators typically avoid one another, if a prey item is under dispute or a serious competitor is encountered, displays of aggression are common. If these are not sufficient, the conflicts may turn violent; tigers may kill competitors as leopards, dholes, striped hyenas, wolves, bears, pythons, and crocodiles on occasion. Tigers may also prey on these competitors.[27][105][106][107][108] Attacks on smaller predators, such as badgers, lynxes, and foxes, are almost certainly predatory.[94] Crocodiles, bears, and large packs of dholes may win conflicts against tigers and, in the cases of crocodiles and bears, even can kill them.[27][18][109][110]
+
+The considerably smaller leopard avoids competition from tigers by hunting at different times of the day and hunting different prey.[111] In India's Nagarhole National Park, most prey selected by leopards were from 30 to 175 kg (66 to 386 lb) against a preference for prey weighing over 176 kg (388 lb) in the tigers. The average prey weight in the two respective big cats in India was 37.6 kg (83 lb) against 91.5 kg (202 lb).[112][113] With relatively abundant prey, tigers and leopards were seen to successfully coexist without competitive exclusion or interspecies dominance hierarchies that may be more common to the African savanna, where the leopard exists with the lion.[112] Golden jackals may feed on the tiger's kills.[114] Tigers appear to inhabit the deep parts of a forest while smaller predators like leopards and dholes are pushed closer to the fringes.[115]
+
+The tiger mates all year round, but most cubs are born between March and June, with a second peak in September. Gestation ranges from 93 to 114 days, with an average of 103 to 105 days. A female is only receptive for three to six days.[116] Mating is frequent and noisy during that time.[50] The female gives birth in a sheltered location such as in tall grass, in a dense thicket, cave or rocky crevice. The father generally takes no part in rearing.[18] Litters consist of two or three cubs, rarely as many as six. Cubs weigh from 780 to 1,600 g (1.72 to 3.53 lb) each at birth, and are born with eyes closed. They open their eyes when they are six to 14 days old.[116] Their milk teeth break through at the age of about two weeks. They start to eat meat at the age of eight weeks. At around this time, females usually shift them to a new den.[50] They make short ventures with their mother, although they do not travel with her as she roams her territory until they are older.  Females lactate for five to six months.[116] Around the time they are weaned, they start to accompany their mother on territorial walks and are taught how to hunt.[79]
+
+A dominant cub emerges in most litters, usually a male. The dominant cub is more active than its siblings and takes the lead in their play, eventually leaving its mother and becoming independent earlier.[79] The cubs start hunting on their own earliest at the age of 11 months, and become independent around 18 to 20 months of age.[88] They separate from their mother at the age of two to two and a half years, but continue to grow until the age of five years.[50] Young females reach sexual maturity at three to four years, whereas males at four to five years.[18] Unrelated wandering male tigers often kill cubs to make the female receptive, since the tigress may give birth to another litter within five months if the cubs of the previous litter are lost. The mortality rate of tiger cubs is about 50% in the first two years. Few other predators attack tiger cubs due to the diligence and ferocity of the mother. Apart from humans and other tigers, common causes of cub mortality are starvation, freezing, and accidents.[103] Generation length of the tiger is about eight years.[117]
+The oldest recorded captive tiger lived for 26 years.[81]
+
+A Siberian tigress with her cub at the Buffalo Zoo
+
+Two cubs playing with soccer ball at the Frankfurt Zoo
+
+In the 1990s, a new approach to tiger conservation was developed: Tiger Conservation Units (TCUs), which are blocks of habitat that have the potential to host tiger populations in 15 habitat types within five bioregions. Altogether 143 TCUs were identified and prioritized based on size and integrity of habitat, poaching pressure and population status. They range in size from 33 to 155,829 km2 (13 to 60,166 sq mi).[74]
+
+In 2016, an estimate of a global wild tiger population of approximately 3,890 individuals was presented during the Third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation.[119][123] The WWF subsequently declared that the world's count of wild tigers had risen for the first time in a century.[124]
+
+Major threats to the tiger include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation and poaching for fur and body parts, which have simultaneously greatly reduced tiger populations in the wild.[1] In India, only 11% of the historical tiger habitat remains due to habitat fragmentation.[125] Demand for tiger parts for use in traditional Chinese medicine has also been cited as a major threat to tiger populations.[126][127][128] Some estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals, with no subpopulation containing more than 250 mature breeding individuals.[1] The global wild tiger population was estimated by the World Wide Fund for Nature at 3,200 in 2011 and 3,890 in 2015—Vox reported that this was the first increase in a century.[129][130]
+
+India is home to the world's largest population of wild tigers.[119] A 2014 census estimated a population of 2,226, a 30% increase since 2011.[131] On International Tiger Day 2019, the 'Tiger Estimation Report 2018’ was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The report estimates a population of 2967 tigers in India with 25% increase since 2014. Modi said "India is one of the safest habitats for tigers as it has achieved the target of doubling the tiger population from 1411 in 2011 to 2967 in 2019".[132]
+
+In 1973, India's Project Tiger, started by Indira Gandhi, established numerous tiger reserves. The project was credited with tripling the number of wild Bengal tigers from some 1,200 in 1973 to over 3,500 in the 1990s, but a 2007 census showed that numbers had dropped back to about 1,400 tigers because of poaching.[133][134][135] Following the report, the Indian government pledged $153 million to the initiative, set up measures to combat poaching, promised funds to relocate up to 200,000 villagers in order to reduce human-tiger interactions,[136] and set up eight new tiger reserves.[137] India also reintroduced tigers to the Sariska Tiger Reserve[138] and by 2009 it was claimed that poaching had been effectively countered at Ranthambore National Park.[139]
+
+In the 1940s, the Siberian tiger was on the brink of extinction with only about 40 animals remaining in the wild in Russia. As a result, anti-poaching controls were put in place by the Soviet Union and a network of protected zones (zapovedniks) were instituted, leading to a rise in the population to several hundred. Poaching again became a problem in the 1990s, when the economy of Russia collapsed. The major obstacle in preserving the species is the enormous territory individual tigers require (up to 450 km2 needed by a single female and more for a single male).[140] Current conservation efforts are led by local governments and NGO's in concert with international organisations, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Wildlife Conservation Society.[141] The competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters to tolerate the big cats. Tigers have less impact on ungulate populations than do wolves, and are effective in controlling the latter's numbers.[142] In 2005, there were thought to be about 360 animals in Russia, though these exhibited little genetic diversity.[143] However, in a decade later, the Siberian tiger census was estimated from 480 to 540 individuals.[citation needed]
+
+In China, tigers became the target of large-scale ‘anti-pest’ campaigns in the early 1950s, where suitable habitats were fragmented following deforestation and resettlement of people to rural areas, who hunted tigers and prey species. Though tiger hunting was prohibited in 1977, the population continued to decline and is considered extinct in southern China since 2001.[144][145] In northeastern China's Hunchun National Nature Reserve, camera-traps recorded a tiger with four cubs for the first time in 2012.[146] During subsequent surveys, between 27 and 34 tigers were documented along the China–Russia border.[120][147] Having earlier rejected the Western-led environmentalist movement, China changed its stance in the 1980s and became a party to the CITES treaty. By 1993 it had banned the trade in tiger parts, and this diminished the use of tiger bones in traditional Chinese medicine.[148] The Tibetan people's trade in tiger skins has also been a threat to tigers. The pelts were used in clothing, tiger-skin chuba being worn as fashion. In 2006 the 14th Dalai Lama was persuaded to take up the issue. Since then there has been a change of attitude, with some Tibetans publicly burning their chubas.[149]
+
+In 1994, the Indonesian Sumatran Tiger Conservation Strategy addressed the potential crisis that tigers faced in Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger Project (STP) was initiated in June 1995 in and around the Way Kambas National Park in order to ensure the long-term viability of wild Sumatran tigers and to accumulate data on tiger life-history characteristics vital for the management of wild populations.[150] By August 1999, the teams of the STP had evaluated 52 sites of potential tiger habitat in Lampung Province, of which only 15 these were intact enough to contain tigers.[151] In the framework of the STP a community-based conservation programme was initiated to document the tiger-human dimension in the park in order to enable conservation authorities to resolve tiger-human conflicts based on a comprehensive database rather than anecdotes and opinions.[152]
+
+The Wildlife Conservation Society and Panthera Corporation formed the collaboration Tigers Forever, with field sites including the world's largest tiger reserve, the 21,756 km2 (8,400 sq mi) Hukaung Valley in Myanmar. Other reserves were in the Western Ghats in India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, the Russian Far East covering in total about 260,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi).[153]
+
+Tigers have been studied in the wild using a variety of techniques. Tiger population have been estimated using plaster casts of their pugmarks, although this method was criticized as being inaccurate.[154] More recent techniques include the use of camera traps and studies of DNA from tiger scat, while radio-collaring has been used to track tigers in the wild.[155] Tiger spray has been found to be just as good, or better, as a source of DNA than scat.[156]
+
+The tiger has been one of the big five game animals of Asia. Tiger hunting took place on a large scale in the early 19th and 20th centuries, being a recognised and admired sport by the British in colonial India as well as the maharajas and aristocratic class of the erstwhile princely states of pre-independence India. A single maharaja or English hunter could claim to kill over a hundred tigers in their hunting career.[81] Tiger hunting was done by some hunters on foot; others sat up on machans with a goat or buffalo tied out as bait; yet others on elephant-back.[157]
+
+Historically, tigers have been hunted at a large scale so their famous striped skins could be collected. The trade in tiger skins peaked in the 1960s, just before international conservation efforts took effect. By 1977, a tiger skin in an English market was considered to be worth US$4,250.[81]
+
+Tiger parts are commonly used as amulets in South and Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the fossils in Palawan were found besides stone tools. This, besides the evidence for cuts on the bones, and the use of fire, suggests that early humans had accumulated the bones,[39] and the condition of the tiger subfossils, dated to approximately 12,000 to 9,000 years ago, differed from other fossils in the assemblage, dated to the Upper Paleolithic. The tiger subfossils showed longitudinal fracture of the cortical bone due to weathering, which suggests that they had post-mortem been exposed to light and air. Tiger canines were found in Ambangan sites dating to the 10th to 12th centuries in Butuan, Mindanao.[40][41]
+
+Many people in China and other parts of Asia have a belief that various tiger parts have medicinal properties, including as pain killers and aphrodisiacs.[158] There is no scientific evidence to support these beliefs. The use of tiger parts in pharmaceutical drugs in China is already banned, and the government has made some offences in connection with tiger poaching punishable by death.[which?] Furthermore, all trade in tiger parts is illegal under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and a domestic trade ban has been in place in China since 1993.[159]
+
+However, the trading of tiger parts in Asia has become a major black market industry and governmental and conservation attempts to stop it have been ineffective to date.[81] Almost all black marketers engaged in the trade are based in China and have either been shipped and sold within in their own country or into Taiwan, South Korea or Japan.[81] The Chinese subspecies was almost completely decimated by killing for commerce due to both the parts and skin trades in the 1950s through the 1970s.[81] Contributing to the illegal trade, there are a number of tiger farms in the country specialising in breeding the cats for profit. It is estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 captive-bred, semi-tame animals live in these farms today.[160][161][162] However, many tigers for traditional medicine black market are wild ones shot or snared by poachers and may be caught anywhere in the tiger's remaining range (from Siberia to India to the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra). In the Asian black market, a tiger penis can be worth the equivalent of around $300 U.S. dollars. In the years of 1990 through 1992, 27 million products with tiger derivatives were found.[81] In July 2014 at an international convention on endangered species in Geneva, Switzerland, a Chinese representative admitted for the first time his government was aware trading in tiger skins was occurring in China.[163]
+
+Wild tigers that have had no prior contact with humans actively avoid interactions with humans. However, tigers cause more human deaths through direct attack than any other wild mammal.[81] Attacks are occasionally provoked, as tigers lash out after being injured while they themselves are hunted. Attacks can be provoked accidentally, as when a human surprises a tiger or inadvertently comes between a mother and her young,[165] or as in a case in rural India when a postman startled a tiger, used to seeing him on foot, by riding a bicycle.[166] Occasionally tigers come to view people as prey. Such attacks are most common in areas where population growth, logging, and farming have put pressure on tiger habitats and reduced their wild prey. Most man-eating tigers are old, missing teeth, and unable to capture their preferred prey.[51] For example, the Champawat Tiger, a tigress found in Nepal and then India, had two broken canines. She was responsible for an estimated 430 human deaths, the most attacks known to be perpetrated by a single wild animal, by the time she was shot in 1907 by Jim Corbett.[167] According to Corbett, tiger attacks on humans are normally in daytime, when people are working outdoors and are not keeping watch.[168] Early writings tend to describe man-eating tigers as cowardly because of their ambush tactics.[169]
+
+Man-eaters have been a particular problem in recent decades in India and Bangladesh, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal, where some healthy tigers have hunted humans. Because of rapid habitat loss attributed to climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans.[170] The Sundarbans area had 129 human deaths from tigers from 1969 to 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, about 100 attacks per year in the Sundarbans, with a high of around 430 in some years of the 1960s.[81] Unusually, in some years in the Sundarbans, more humans are killed by tigers than vice versa.[81] In 1972, India's production of honey and beeswax dropped by 50% when at least 29 people who gathered these materials were devoured.[81] In 1986 in the Sundarbans, since tigers almost always attack from the rear, masks with human faces were worn on the back of the head, on the theory that tigers usually do not attack if seen by their prey. This decreased the number of attacks only temporarily. All other means to prevent attacks, such as providing more prey or using electrified human dummies, did not work as well.[171]
+
+In Ancient Roman times, tigers were kept in menageries and amphitheatres to be exhibited, trained and paraded, and were often provoked to fight humans and exotic beasts.[172][173] Since the 17th century, tigers, being rare and ferocious, were sought after to keep at European castles as symbols of their owners' power.[174] Tigers became central zoo and circus exhibits in the 18th century: a tiger could cost up to 4,000 francs in France (for comparison, a professor of the Beaux-Arts at Lyons earned only 3,000 francs a year),[174] or up to $3,500 in the United States, where a lion cost no more than $1,000.[175]
+
+In 2007, over 4,000 captive tigers lived in China, of which 3,000 were held by about 20 larger facilities, with the rest held by some 200 smaller facilities.[176] In 2011, 468 facilities in the USA kept 2,884 tigers.[177] Nineteen US states banned private ownership of tigers, fifteen require a license, and sixteen states have no regulation.[178] Genetic ancestry of 105 captive tigers from fourteen countries and regions showed that forty-nine animals belonged distinctly to five subspecies; fifty-two animals had mixed subspecies origins.[179] Many Siberian tigers in zoos today are actually the result of crosses with Bengal tigers."[180]
+
+Tigers and their superlative qualities have been a source of fascination for mankind since ancient times, and they are routinely visible as important cultural and media motifs. They are also considered one of the charismatic megafauna, and are used as the face of conservation campaigns worldwide. In a 2004 online poll conducted by cable television channel Animal Planet, involving more than 50,000 viewers from 73 countries, the tiger was voted the world's favourite animal with 21% of the vote, narrowly beating the dog.[181]
+
+In Chinese myth and culture, the tiger is one of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. In Chinese art, the tiger is depicted as an earth symbol and equal rival of the Chinese dragon – the two representing matter and spirit respectively. The Southern Chinese martial art Hung Ga is based on the movements of the tiger and the crane. In Imperial China, a tiger was the personification of war and often represented the highest army general (or present day defense secretary),[182] while the emperor and empress were represented by a dragon and phoenix, respectively. The White Tiger (Chinese: 白虎; pinyin: Bái Hǔ) is one of the Four Symbols of the Chinese constellations. It is sometimes called the White Tiger of the West (Chinese: 西方白虎), and it represents the west and the autumn season.[182]
+
+The tiger's tail appears in stories from countries including China and Korea, it being generally inadvisable to grasp a tiger by the tail.[183][184] In Korean myth and culture, the tiger is regarded as a guardian that drives away evil spirits and a sacred creature that brings good luck – the symbol of courage and absolute power. For the people who live in and around the forests of Korea, the tiger considered the symbol of the Mountain Spirit or King of mountain animals. So, Koreans also called the tigers "San Gun" (산군) means Mountain Lord.[185]
+
+In Buddhism, the tiger is one of the Three Senseless Creatures, symbolising anger, with the monkey representing greed and the deer lovesickness.[182] The Tungusic peoples considered the Siberian tiger a near-deity and often referred to it as "Grandfather" or "Old man". The Udege and Nanai called it "Amba". The Manchu considered the Siberian tiger as "Hu Lin," the king.[57] In Hinduism, the god Shiva wears and sits on tiger skin.[186] The ten-armed warrior goddess Durga rides the tigress (or lioness) Damon into battle. In southern India the god Ayyappan was associated with a tiger.[187] In Greco-Roman tradition, the tiger was depicted being ridden by the god Dionysus.[188]
+
+The weretiger replaces the werewolf in shapeshifting folklore in Asia;[189] in India they were evil sorcerers, while in Indonesia and Malaysia they were somewhat more benign.[190] In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, the tiger is fiercer and more ruthless than the lion.[191]
+
+In William Blake's poem in his Songs of Experience (1794), titled "The Tyger", the tiger is a menacing and fearful animal.[192] In Yann Martel's 2001 Man Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi, the protagonist, surviving shipwreck for months in a small boat, somehow avoids being eaten by the other survivor, a large Bengal tiger. The story was adapted in Ang Lee's 2012 feature film of the same name.[193] Jim Corbett's 1944 Man-Eaters of Kumaon tells ten true stories of his tiger-hunting exploits in what is now the northern Uttarakhand region of India. The book has sold over four million copies,[194] and has been the basis of both fictional and documentary films. In Rudyard Kipling's 1894 The Jungle Book, the tiger, Shere Khan, is the mortal enemy of the human protagonist, Mowgli.[192] More benign tiger characters include Tigger in A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and Hobbes of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, both of whom are represented as simply stuffed animals come to life.[195]
+
+Tigers are also mascots for various sports teams around the world. Tony the Tiger is a famous mascot for Kellogg's breakfast cereal Frosted Flakes.[196] The Esso (Exxon) brand of petrol was advertised from 1959 onwards with the slogan 'put a tiger in your tank', and a tiger mascot; more than 2.5 million synthetic tiger tails were sold to motorists, who tied them to their petrol tank caps.[197]
+
+The tiger is one of the animals displayed on the Pashupati seal of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The tiger was the emblem of the Chola Dynasty and was depicted on coins, seals and banners.[198] The seals of several Chola copper coins show the tiger, the Pandyan emblem fish and the Chera emblem bow, indicating that the Cholas had achieved political supremacy over the latter two dynasties. Gold coins found in Kavilayadavalli in the Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh have motifs of the tiger, bow and some indistinct marks.[199] The tiger symbol of Chola Empire was later adopted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the tiger became a symbol of the unrecognised state of Tamil Eelam and Tamil independence movement.[200] The Bengal tiger is the national animal of India and Bangladesh.[201] The Malaysian tiger is the national animal of Malaysia.[202] The Siberian tiger is the national animal of South Korea.
+
+The tyger, a depiction of tigers as they were understood by European artists, is among the creatures used in charges and supporters in European heraldry. This creature has several notable differences from real tigers, including absent stripes, a leonine tufted tail, and a head terminating in large, pointed jaws. A more realistic version of the tiger entered the heraldic armory through the British Empire's expansion into Asia, and is referred to as the Bengal tiger to distinguish it from its older counterpart. The Bengal tiger is not a very common creature in heraldry, but is present as a supporter in the arms of Bombay and emblazoned on the shield of the University of Madras.[203]

en/3404.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,270 @@
+
+
+
+
+RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner operated by the White Star Line that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making the sinking one of modern history's deadliest peacetime commercial marine disasters. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect of the shipyard at the time, died in the disaster.[4]
+
+Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward Smith, who also went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia and elsewhere throughout Europe, who were seeking a new life in the United States. The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabins. A high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use.[5] Although Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, it only carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—about half the number on board, and one third of her total capacity—due to the  maritime safety regulations of those days. The ship carried 16 lifeboat davits which could lower three lifeboats each, for a total of 48 boats. However, Titanic carried only a total of 20 lifeboats, four of which were collapsible and proved hard to launch during the sinking.[6]
+
+After leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown (now Cobh) in Ireland, before heading west to New York.[7] On 14 April, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles (600 km) south of Newfoundland, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time. The collision caused the hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard (right) side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea; she could only survive four flooding. Meanwhile, passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially loaded. A disproportionate number of men were left aboard because of a "women and children first" protocol for loading lifeboats.[8] At 2:20 a.m., she broke apart and foundered with well over one thousand people still aboard. Just under two hours after Titanic sank, the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived and brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors.
+
+The disaster was met with worldwide shock and outrage at the huge loss of life, as well as the regulatory and operational failures that led to it. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to major improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) in 1914, which still governs maritime safety. Several new wireless regulations were passed around the world in an effort to learn from the many missteps in wireless communications—which could have saved many more passengers.[9]
+
+The wreck of Titanic was discovered in 1985 (73 years after the disaster) during a Franco-American expedition and US military mission.[10][11] The ship was split in two and is gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet (2,069.2 fathoms; 3,784 m). Thousands of artefacts have been recovered and displayed at museums around the world. Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history, depicted in numerous works of popular culture, including books, folk songs, films, exhibits, and memorials. Titanic is the second largest ocean liner wreck in the world, only being surpassed by her sister ship HMHS Britannic, however, she is the largest sunk while in service as a liner, as Britannic was in use as a hospital ship at the time of her sinking. The final survivor of the sinking, Millvina Dean, aged two months at the time, died in 2009 at the age of 97.
+
+The name Titanic derives from the Titans of Greek mythology. Built in Belfast, Ireland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it was then known), the RMS Titanic was the second of the three Olympic-class ocean liners—the first was the RMS Olympic and the third was the HMHS Britannic.[12] Britannic  was originally to be called Gigantic and was to be over 1,000 feet (300 m) long.[13] They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Line's fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912.[14] The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. P. Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM).
+
+The White Star Line faced an increasing challenge from its main rivals Cunard, which had recently launched the Lusitania and the Mauretania—the fastest passenger ships then in service—and the German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Ismay preferred to compete on size rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be larger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury.[15] The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the Cunard giants but also to replace their oldest pair of passenger ships still in service, being the SS Teutonic of 1889 and SS Majestic of 1890. Teutonic was replaced by Olympic while Majestic was replaced by Titanic. Majestic would be brought back into her old spot on White Star Line's New York service after Titanic's loss.[16]
+
+The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867.[17] Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin.[17] In the case of the Olympic-class ships, a cost of £3 million (approximately £290 million in 2016) for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five percent fee.[18]
+
+Harland and Wolff put their leading designers to work designing the Olympic-class vessels. The design was overseen by Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line; naval architect Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager.[19] Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design.[a]
+
+On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to J. Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later, authorising the start of construction.[22] At this point the first ship—which was later to become Olympic—had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. Titanic was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401.[23]
+
+Titanic was 882 feet 9 inches (269.06 m) long with a maximum breadth of 92 feet 6 inches (28.19 m). Her total height, measured from the base of the keel to the top of the bridge, was 104 feet (32 m).[24] She measured 46,328 gross register tons and with a draught of 34 feet 7 inches (10.54 m), she displaced 52,310 tons.[25]
+
+All three of the Olympic-class ships had ten decks (excluding the top of the officers' quarters), eight of which were for passenger use. From top to bottom, the decks were:
+
+Titanic was equipped with three main engines—two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one centrally placed low-pressure Parsons turbine—each driving a propeller. The two reciprocating engines had a combined output of 30,000 horsepower (22,000 kW). The output of the steam turbine was 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW).[24] The White Star Line had used the same combination of engines on an earlier liner, the SS Laurentic, where it had been a great success.[37] It provided a good combination of performance and speed; reciprocating engines by themselves were not powerful enough to propel an Olympic-class liner at the desired speeds, while turbines were sufficiently powerful but caused uncomfortable vibrations, a problem that affected the all-turbine Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania.[38] By combining reciprocating engines with a turbine, fuel usage could be reduced and motive power increased, while using the same amount of steam.[39]
+
+The two reciprocating engines were each 63 feet (19 m) long and weighed 720 tons, with their bedplates contributing a further 195 tons.[38] They were powered by steam produced in 29 boilers, 24 of which were double-ended and five single-ended, which contained a total of 159 furnaces.[40] The boilers were 15 feet 9 inches (4.80 m) in diameter and 20 feet (6.1 m) long, each weighing 91.5 tons and capable of holding 48.5 tons of water.[41]
+
+They were heated by burning coal, 6,611 tons of which could be carried in Titanic's bunkers, with a further 1,092 tons in Hold 3. The furnaces required over 600 tons of coal a day to be shovelled into them by hand, requiring the services of 176 firemen working around the clock.[42] 100 tons of ash a day had to be disposed of by ejecting it into the sea.[43] The work was relentless, dirty and dangerous, and although firemen were paid relatively generously,[42] there was a high suicide rate among those who worked in that capacity.[44]
+
+Exhaust steam leaving the reciprocating engines was fed into the turbine, which was situated aft. From there it passed into a surface condenser, to increase the efficiency of the turbine and so that the steam could be condensed back into water and reused.[45] The engines were attached directly to long shafts which drove the propellers. There were three, one for each engine; the outer (or wing) propellers were the largest, each carrying three blades of manganese-bronze alloy with a total diameter of 23.5 feet (7.2 m).[41] The middle propeller was slightly smaller at 17 feet (5.2 m) in diameter,[46] and could be stopped but not reversed.
+
+Titanic's electrical plant was capable of producing more power than an average city power station of the time.[47] Immediately aft of the turbine engine were four 400 kW steam-driven electric generators, used to provide electrical power to the ship, plus two 30 kW auxiliary generators for emergency use.[48] Their location in the stern of the ship meant they remained operational until the last few minutes before the ship sank.[49]
+
+Titanic lacked a searchlight in accordance with the ban on the use of searchlights in the merchant navy.[50][51]
+
+The interiors of the Olympic-class ships were subdivided into 16 primary compartments divided by 15 bulkheads which extended above the waterline. Eleven vertically closing watertight doors could seal off the compartments in the event of an emergency.[52] The ship's exposed decking was made of pine and teak, while interior ceilings were covered in painted granulated cork to combat condensation.[53] Standing above the decks were four funnels, each painted buff with black tops, (only three were functional—the last one was a dummy, installed for aesthetic purposes and also for kitchen ventilation) and two masts, each 155 feet (47 m) high, which supported derricks for working cargo.
+
+Titanic's rudder was so large—at 78 feet 8 inches (23.98 m) high and 15 feet 3 inches (4.65 m) long, weighing over 100 tons—that it required steering engines to move it. Two steam-powered steering engines were installed, though only one was used at any one time, with the other one kept in reserve. They were connected to the short tiller through stiff springs, to isolate the steering engines from any shocks in heavy seas or during fast changes of direction.[54] As a last resort, the tiller could be moved by ropes connected to two steam capstans.[55] The capstans were also used to raise and lower the ship's five anchors (one port, one starboard, one in the centreline and two kedging anchors).[55]
+
+The ship was equipped with her own waterworks, capable of heating and pumping water to all parts of the vessel via a complex network of pipes and valves. The main water supply was taken aboard while Titanic was in port, but in an emergency the ship could also distil fresh water from seawater, though this was not a straightforward process as the distillation plant quickly became clogged by salt deposits. A network of insulated ducts conveyed warm air, driven by electric fans, around the ship, and First Class cabins were fitted with additional electric heaters.[47]
+
+Titanic's radiotelegraph equipment (then known as wireless telegraphy) was leased to the White Star Line by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, which also supplied two of its employees, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, as operators. The service maintained a 24-hour schedule, primarily sending and receiving passenger telegrams, but also handling navigation messages including weather reports and ice warnings.[56][57][5]
+
+The radio room was located on the Boat Deck, in the officers' quarters. A soundproofed "Silent Room", next to the operating room, housed loud equipment, including the transmitter and a motor-generator used for producing alternating currents. The operators' living quarters were adjacent to the working office. The ship was equipped with a 'state of the art' 5 kilowatt rotary spark-gap transmitter, operating under the radio callsign MGY, and communication was conducted in Morse code. This transmitter was one of the first Marconi installations to use a rotary spark-gap, which gave Titanic a distinctive musical tone that could be readily distinguished from other signals. The transmitter was one of the most powerful in the world, and guaranteed to broadcast over a radius of 350 miles (563 km). An elevated T-antenna that spanned the length of the ship was used for transmitting and receiving. The normal operating frequency was 500 kHz (600 m wavelength); however, the equipment could also operate on the "short" wavelength of 1,000 kHz (300 m wavelength) that was employed by smaller vessels with shorter antennas.[58]
+
+The passenger facilities aboard Titanic aimed to meet the highest standards of luxury. According to Titanic's general arrangement plans, the ship could accommodate 833 First Class Passengers, 614 in Second Class and 1,006 in Third Class, for a total passenger capacity of 2,453. In addition, her capacity for crew members exceeded 900, as most documents of her original configuration have stated that her full carrying capacity for both passengers and crew was approximately 3,547. Her interior design was a departure from that of other passenger liners, which had typically been decorated in the rather heavy style of a manor house or an English country house.[59]
+
+Titanic was laid out in a much lighter style similar to that of contemporary high-class hotels—the Ritz Hotel was a reference point—with First Class cabins finished in the Empire style.[59] A variety of other decorative styles, ranging from the Renaissance to Louis XV, were used to decorate cabins and public rooms in First and Second Class areas of the ship. The aim was to convey an impression that the passengers were in a floating hotel rather than a ship; as one passenger recalled, on entering the ship's interior a passenger would "at once lose the feeling that we are on board ship, and seem instead to be entering the hall of some great house on shore".[60]
+
+Among the more novel features available to first-class passengers was a 7 ft. deep saltwater swimming pool, a gymnasium, a squash court, and a Turkish bath which comprised electric bath, steam room, cool room, massage room, and hot room.[60] First-class common rooms were impressive in scope and lavishly decorated. They included a Lounge in the style of the Palace of Versailles, an enormous Reception Room, a men's Smoking Room, and a Reading and Writing Room. There was an À la Carte Restaurant in the style of the Ritz Hotel which was run as a concession by the famous Italian restaurateur Gaspare Gatti.[61] A Café Parisien decorated in the style of a French sidewalk café, complete with ivy covered trellises and wicker furniture, was run as an annex to the restaurant. For an extra cost, first-class passengers could enjoy the finest French haute cuisine in the most luxurious of surroundings.[62] There was also a Verandah Café where tea and light refreshments were served, that offered grand views of the ocean. At 114 ft. long X 92 ft. wide, the Dining Saloon on D Deck, designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll,  was the largest room afloat and could seat almost 600 passengers at a time.[63]
+Third Class (commonly referred to as Steerage) accommodations aboard Titanic were not as luxurious as First or Second Class, but even so were better than on many other ships of the time. They reflected the improved standards which the White Star Line had adopted for trans-Atlantic immigrant and lower-class travel. On most other North Atlantic passenger ships at the time, Third Class accommodations consisted of little more than open dormitories in the forward end of the vessels, in which hundreds of people were confined, often without adequate food or toilet facilities.
+
+The White Star Line had long since broken that mould. As seen aboard Titanic, all White Star Line passenger ships divided their Third Class accommodations into two sections, always at opposite ends of the vessel from one another. The established arrangement was that single men were quartered in the forward areas, while single women, married couples and families were quartered aft. In addition, while other ships provided only open berth sleeping arrangements, White Star Line vessels provided their Third Class passengers with private, small but comfortable cabins capable of accommodating two, four, six, eight and ten passengers.[64]
+
+Third Class accommodations also included their own dining rooms, as well as public gathering areas including adequate open deck space, which aboard Titanic comprised the Poop Deck at the stern, the forward and aft well decks, and a large open space on D Deck which could be used as a social hall. This was supplemented by the addition of a smoking room for men and a General Room on C Deck which women could use for reading and writing. Although they were not as glamorous in design as spaces seen in upper class accommodations, they were still far above average for the period.
+
+Leisure facilities were provided for all three classes to pass the time. As well as making use of the indoor amenities such as the library, smoking rooms, and gymnasium, it was also customary for passengers to socialise on the open deck, promenading or relaxing in hired deck chairs or wooden benches. A passenger list was published before the sailing to inform the public which members of the great and good were on board, and it was not uncommon for ambitious mothers to use the list to identify rich bachelors to whom they could introduce their marriageable daughters during the voyage.[65]
+
+One of Titanic's most distinctive features was her First Class staircase, known as the Grand Staircase or Grand Stairway. Built of solid English oak with a sweeping curve, the staircase descended through seven decks of the ship, between the Boat Deck to E deck, before terminating in a simplified single flight on F Deck.[66] It was capped with a dome of wrought iron and glass that admitted natural light to the stairwell. Each landing off the staircase gave access to ornate entrance halls paneled in the William & Mary style and lit by ormolu and crystal light fixtures.[67]
+
+At the uppermost landing was a large carved wooden panel containing a clock, with figures of "Honour and Glory Crowning Time" flanking the clock face.[66] The Grand Staircase was destroyed during the sinking and is now just a void in the ship which modern explorers have used to access the lower decks.[68] During the filming of James Cameron's Titanic in 1997, his replica of the Grand Staircase was ripped from its foundations by the force of the inrushing water on the set. It has been suggested that during the real event, the entire Grand Staircase was ejected upwards through the dome.[69]
+
+Although Titanic was primarily a passenger liner, she also carried a substantial amount of cargo. Her designation as a Royal Mail Ship (RMS) indicated that she carried mail under contract with the Royal Mail (and also for the United States Post Office Department). For the storage of letters, parcels and specie (bullion, coins and other valuables), 26,800 cubic feet (760 m3) of space in her holds was allocated. The Sea Post Office on G Deck was manned by five postal clerks; three Americans and two Britons, who worked 13 hours a day, seven days a week sorting up to 60,000 items daily.[71]
+
+The ship's passengers brought with them a huge amount of baggage; another 19,455 cubic feet (550.9 m3) was taken up by first- and second-class baggage. In addition, there was a considerable quantity of regular cargo, ranging from furniture to foodstuffs, and a 1912 Renault Type CE Coupe de Ville motor car.[72] Despite later myths, the cargo on Titanic's maiden voyage was fairly mundane; there was no gold, exotic minerals or diamonds, and one of the more famous items lost in the shipwreck, a jewelled copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was valued at only £405 (£40,400 today).[73] According to the claims for compensation filed with Commissioner Gilchrist, following the conclusion of the Senate Inquiry, the single most highly valued item of luggage or cargo was a large neoclassical oil painting entitled La Circassienne au Bain by French artist Merry-Joseph Blondel. The painting's owner, first-class passenger Mauritz Håkan Björnström-Steffansson, filed a claim for $100,000 ($2.4 million equivalent in 2014) in compensation for the loss of the artwork.[70]
+
+Titanic was equipped with eight electric cranes, four electric winches and three steam winches to lift cargo and baggage in and out of the holds. It is estimated that the ship used some 415 tons of coal whilst in Southampton, simply generating steam to operate the cargo winches and provide heat and light.[74]
+
+Like Olympic, Titanic carried a total of 20 lifeboats: 14 standard wooden Harland and Wolff lifeboats with a capacity of 65 people each and four Engelhardt "collapsible" (wooden bottom, collapsible canvas sides) lifeboats (identified as A to D) with a capacity of 47 people each. In addition, she had two emergency cutters with a capacity of 40 people each.[75][e] Olympic carried at least two collapsible boats on either side of her number one funnel.[76][77] All of the lifeboats were stowed securely on the boat deck and, except for collapsible lifeboats A and B, connected to davits by ropes. Those on the starboard side were odd-numbered 1–15 from bow to stern, while those on the port side were even-numbered 2–16 from bow to stern.[78]
+
+Both cutters were kept swung out, hanging from the davits, ready for immediate use, while collapsible lifeboats C and D were stowed on the boat deck (connected to davits) immediately inboard of boats 1 and 2 respectively. A and B were stored on the roof of the officers' quarters, on either side of number 1 funnel. There were no davits to lower them and their weight would make them difficult to launch by hand.[78] Each boat carried (among other things) food, water, blankets, and a spare life belt. Lifeline ropes on the boats' sides enabled them to save additional people from the water if necessary.
+
+Titanic had 16 sets of davits, each able to handle four lifeboats as Carlisle had planned. This gave Titanic the ability to carry up to 64 wooden lifeboats[79] which would have been enough for 4,000 people—considerably more than her actual capacity. However, the White Star Line decided that only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsibles would be carried, which could accommodate 1,178 people, only one-third of Titanic's total capacity. At the time, the Board of Trade's regulations required British vessels over 10,000 tons to only carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 990 occupants.[75]
+
+Therefore, the White Star Line actually provided more lifeboat accommodation than was legally required.[80][f] At the time, lifeboats were intended to ferry survivors from a sinking ship to a rescuing ship—not keep afloat the whole population or power them to shore. Had the SS Californian responded to Titanic's distress calls, the lifeboats may have been adequate to ferry the passengers to safety as planned.[82]
+
+The sheer size of Titanic and her sister ships posed a major engineering challenge for Harland and Wolff; no shipbuilder had ever before attempted to construct vessels this size.[83] The ships were constructed on Queen's Island, now known as the Titanic Quarter, in Belfast Harbour. Harland and Wolff had to demolish three existing slipways and build two new ones, the largest ever constructed up to that time, to accommodate both ships.[18] Their construction was facilitated by an enormous gantry built by Sir William Arrol & Co., a Scottish firm responsible for the building of the Forth Bridge and London's Tower Bridge. The Arrol Gantry stood 228 feet (69 m) high, was 270 feet (82 m) wide and 840 feet (260 m) long, and weighed more than 6,000 tons. It accommodated a number of mobile cranes. A separate floating crane, capable of lifting 200 tons, was brought in from Germany.[84]
+
+The construction of Olympic and Titanic took place virtually in parallel, with Olympic's keel laid down first on 16 December 1908 and Titanic's on 31 March 1909.[23] Both ships took about 26 months to build and followed much the same construction process. They were designed essentially as an enormous floating box girder, with the keel acting as a backbone and the frames of the hull forming the ribs. At the base of the ships, a double bottom 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m) deep supported 300 frames, each between 24 inches (61 cm) and 36 inches (91 cm) apart and measuring up to about 66 feet (20 m) long. They terminated at the bridge deck (B Deck) and were covered with steel plates which formed the outer skin of the ships.[85]
+
+The 2,000 hull plates were single pieces of rolled steel plate, mostly up to 6 feet (1.8 m) wide and 30 feet (9.1 m) long and weighing between 2.5 and 3 tons.[86] Their thickness varied from 1 inch (2.5 cm) to 1.5 inches (3.8 cm).[52] The plates were laid in a clinkered (overlapping) fashion from the keel to the bilge. Above that point they were laid in the "in and out" fashion, where strake plating was applied in bands (the "in strakes") with the gaps covered by the "out strakes", overlapping on the edges. Commercial oxy-fuel and electric arc welding methods, ubiquitous in fabrication today, were still in their infancy; like most other iron and steel structures of the era, the hull was held together with over three million iron and steel rivets, which by themselves weighed over 1,200 tons. They were fitted using hydraulic machines or were hammered in by hand.[87] In the 1990s some material scientists concluded[88] that the steel plate used for the ship was subject to being especially brittle when cold, and that this brittleness exacerbated the impact damage and hastened the sinking. It is believed that, by the standards of the time, the steel plate's quality was good, not faulty, but that it was inferior to what would be used for shipbuilding purposes in later decades, owing to advances in the metallurgy of steelmaking.[88] As for the rivets, considerable emphasis has also been placed on their quality and strength.[89][90][91][92][93]
+
+Among the last items to be fitted on Titanic before the ship's launch were her two side anchors and one centre anchor. The anchors themselves were a challenge to make with the centre anchor being the largest ever forged by hand and weighing nearly 16 tons. Twenty Clydesdale draught horses were needed to haul the centre anchor by wagon from the Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd forge shop in Netherton, near Dudley, United Kingdom to the Dudley railway station two miles away. From there it was shipped by rail to Fleetwood in Lancashire before being loaded aboard a ship and sent to Belfast.[94]
+
+The work of constructing the ships was difficult and dangerous. For the 15,000 men who worked at Harland and Wolff at the time,[95] safety precautions were rudimentary at best; a lot of the work was carried out without equipment like hard hats or hand guards on machinery. As a result, during Titanic's construction, 246 injuries were recorded, 28 of them "severe", such as arms severed by machines or legs crushed under falling pieces of steel. Six people died on the ship herself while she was being constructed and fitted out, and another two died in the shipyard workshops and sheds.[96] Just before the launch a worker was killed when a piece of wood fell on him.[97]
+
+Titanic was launched at 12:15 p.m. on 31 May 1911 in the presence of Lord Pirrie, J. Pierpont Morgan, J. Bruce Ismay and 100,000 onlookers.[98][99] Twenty-two tons of soap and tallow were spread on the slipway to lubricate the ship's passage into the River Lagan.[97] In keeping with the White Star Line's traditional policy, the ship was not formally named or christened with champagne.[98] The ship was towed to a fitting-out berth where, over the course of the next year, her engines, funnels and superstructure were installed and her interior was fitted out.[100]
+
+Although Titanic was virtually identical to the class's lead ship Olympic, a few changes were made to distinguish both ships. The most noticeable exterior difference was that Titanic (and the third vessel in class, Britannic) had a steel screen with sliding windows installed along the forward half of the A Deck promenade. This was installed as a last minute change at the personal request of Bruce Ismay, and was intended to provide additional shelter to First Class passengers.[101] Extensive changes were made to B Deck on Titanic as the promenade space in this deck, which had proven unpopular on Olympic, was converted into additional First Class cabins, including two opulent parlour suites with their own private promenade spaces. The À la Carte restaurant was also enlarged and the Café Parisien, an entirely new feature which did not exist on Olympic, was added. These changes made Titanic slightly heavier than her sister, and thus she could claim to be the largest ship afloat. The work took longer than expected due to design changes requested by Ismay and a temporary pause in work occasioned by the need to repair Olympic, which had been in a collision in September 1911. Had Titanic been finished earlier, she might well have missed her collision with an iceberg.[97]
+
+Titanic's sea trials began at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, 2 April 1912, just two days after her fitting out was finished and eight days before she was due to leave Southampton on her maiden voyage.[102] The trials were delayed for a day due to bad weather, but by Monday morning it was clear and fair.[103] Aboard were 78 stokers, greasers and firemen, and 41 members of crew. No domestic staff appear to have been aboard. Representatives of various companies travelled on Titanic's sea trials, Thomas Andrews and Edward Wilding of Harland and Wolff and Harold A. Sanderson of IMM. Bruce Ismay and Lord Pirrie were too ill to attend. Jack Phillips and Harold Bride served as radio operators, and performed fine-tuning of the Marconi equipment. Francis Carruthers, a surveyor from the Board of Trade, was also present to see that everything worked, and that the ship was fit to carry passengers.[104]
+
+The sea trials consisted of a number of tests of her handling characteristics, carried out first in Belfast Lough and then in the open waters of the Irish Sea. Over the course of about 12 hours, Titanic was driven at different speeds, her turning ability was tested and a "crash stop" was performed in which the engines were reversed full ahead to full astern, bringing her to a stop in 850 yd (777 m) or 3 minutes and 15 seconds.[105] The ship covered a distance of about 80 nautical miles (92 mi; 150 km), averaging 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h) and reaching a maximum speed of just under 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h).[106]
+
+On returning to Belfast at about 7 p.m., the surveyor signed an "Agreement and Account of Voyages and Crew", valid for 12 months, which declared the ship seaworthy. An hour later, Titanic departed Belfast to head to Southampton, a voyage of about 570 nautical miles (660 mi; 1,060 km). After a journey lasting about 28 hours she arrived about midnight on 4 April and was towed to the port's Berth 44, ready for the arrival of her passengers and the remainder of her crew.[107]
+
+Both Olympic and Titanic registered Liverpool as their home port. The offices of the White Star Line as well as Cunard were in Liverpool, and up until the introduction of the Olympic, most British ocean liners for both Cunard and White Star, such as Lusitania and Mauretania, sailed out of Liverpool followed by a port of call in Queenstown, Ireland. Since the company's founding in 1845, a vast majority of their operations had taken place out of Liverpool. However, in 1907 White Star Line established another service out of the port of Southampton on England's south coast, which became known as White Star's "Express Service". Southampton had many advantages over Liverpool, the first being its proximity to London.[108]
+
+In addition, Southampton, being on the south coast, allowed ships to easily cross the English Channel and make a port of call on the northern coast of France, usually at Cherbourg. This allowed British ships to pick up clientele from continental Europe before recrossing the channel and picking up passengers at Queenstown. The Southampton-Cherbourg-New York run would become so popular that most British ocean liners began using the port after World War I. Out of respect for Liverpool, ships continued to be registered there until the early 1960s. Queen Elizabeth 2 was one of the first ships registered in Southampton when introduced into service by Cunard in 1969.[108]
+
+Titanic's maiden voyage was intended to be the first of many trans-Atlantic crossings between Southampton and New York via Cherbourg and Queenstown on westbound runs, returning via Plymouth in England while eastbound. Indeed, her entire schedule of voyages through to December 1912 still exists.[109] When the route was established, four ships were assigned to the service. In addition to Teutonic and Majestic, the RMS Oceanic and the brand new RMS Adriatic sailed the route. When the Olympic entered service in June 1911, she replaced Teutonic, which after completing her last run on the service in late April was transferred to the Dominion Line's Canadian service. The following August, Adriatic was transferred to White Star Line's main Liverpool-New York service, and in November, Majestic was withdrawn from service impending the arrival of Titanic in the coming months, and was mothballed as a reserve ship.[110][111]
+
+White Star Line's initial plans for Olympic and Titanic on the Southampton run followed the same routine as their predecessors had done before them. Each would sail once every three weeks from Southampton and New York, usually leaving at noon each Wednesday from Southampton and each Saturday from New York, thus enabling the White Star Line to offer weekly sailings in each direction. Special trains were scheduled from London and Paris to convey passengers to Southampton and Cherbourg respectively.[111] The deep-water dock at Southampton, then known as the "White Star Dock", had been specially constructed to accommodate the new Olympic-class liners, and had opened in 1911.[112]
+
+Titanic had around 885 crew members on board for her maiden voyage.[113] Like other vessels of her time, she did not have a permanent crew, and the vast majority of crew members were casual workers who only came aboard the ship a few hours before she sailed from Southampton.[114] The process of signing up recruits had begun on 23 March and some had been sent to Belfast, where they served as a skeleton crew during Titanic's sea trials and passage to England at the start of April.[115]
+
+Captain Edward John Smith, the most senior of the White Star Line's captains, was transferred from Olympic to take command of Titanic.[116] Henry Tingle Wilde also came across from Olympic to take the post of Chief Mate. Titanic's previously designated Chief Mate and First Officer, William McMaster Murdoch and Charles Lightoller, were bumped down to the ranks of First and Second Officer respectively. The original Second Officer, David Blair, was dropped altogether.[117][g] The Third Officer was Herbert Pitman MBE, the only deck officer who was not a member of the Royal Naval Reserve. Pitman was the second to last surviving officer.
+
+Titanic's crew were divided into three principal departments: Deck, with 66 crew; Engine, with 325; and Victualling, with 494.[118] The vast majority of the crew were thus not seamen, but were either engineers, firemen, or stokers, responsible for looking after the engines, or stewards and galley staff, responsible for the passengers.[119] Of these, over 97% were male; just 23 of the crew were female, mainly stewardesses.[120] The rest represented a great variety of professions—bakers, chefs, butchers, fishmongers, dishwashers, stewards, gymnasium instructors, laundrymen, waiters, bed-makers, cleaners, and even a printer,[120] who produced a daily newspaper for passengers called the Atlantic Daily Bulletin with the latest news received by the ship's wireless operators.[56][h]
+
+Most of the crew signed on in Southampton on 6 April;[23] in all, 699 of the crew came from there, and 40% were natives of the town.[120] A few specialist staff were self-employed or were subcontractors. These included the five postal clerks, who worked for the Royal Mail and the United States Post Office Department, the staff of the First Class A La Carte Restaurant and the Café Parisien, the radio operators (who were employed by Marconi) and the eight musicians, who were employed by an agency and travelled as second-class passengers.[122] Crew pay varied greatly, from Captain Smith's £105 a month (equivalent to £10,500 today) to the £3 10s (£350 today) that stewardesses earned. The lower-paid victualling staff could, however, supplement their wages substantially through tips from passengers.[121]
+
+Titanic's passengers numbered approximately 1,317 people: 324 in First Class, 284 in Second Class, and 709 in Third Class. Of these, 869 (66%) were male and 447 (34%) female. There were 107 children aboard, the largest number of whom were in Third Class.[123] The ship was considerably under capacity on her maiden voyage, as she could accommodate 2,453 passengers—833 First Class, 614 Second Class, and 1,006 Third Class.[124]
+
+Usually, a high prestige vessel like Titanic could expect to be fully booked on its maiden voyage. However, a national coal strike in the UK had caused considerable disruption to shipping schedules in the spring of 1912, causing many crossings to be cancelled. Many would-be passengers chose to postpone their travel plans until the strike was over. The strike had finished a few days before Titanic sailed; however, that was too late to have much of an effect. Titanic was able to sail on the scheduled date only because coal was transferred from other vessels which were tied up at Southampton, such as SS City of New York and RMS Oceanic, as well as coal Olympic had brought back from a previous voyage to New York, which had been stored at the White Star Dock.[101]
+
+Some of the most prominent people of the day booked a passage aboard Titanic, travelling in First Class. Among them (with those who perished marked with a dagger†) were the American millionaire John Jacob Astor IV† and his wife Madeleine Force Astor, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim†, painter and sculptor Francis Davis Millet†, Macy's owner Isidor Straus† and his wife Ida†, Denver millionairess Margaret "Molly" Brown,[i] Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon and his wife, couturière Lucy (Lady Duff-Gordon), Lieut. Col. Arthur Peuchen, writer and historian Archibald Gracie, cricketer and businessman John B. Thayer† with his wife Marian and son Jack, George Dunton Widener† with his wife Eleanor and son Harry†, Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes, Mr.† and Mrs. Charles M. Hays, Mr. and Mrs. Henry S. Harper, Mr.† and Mrs. Walter D. Douglas, Mr.† and Mrs. George D. Wick, Mr.† and Mrs. Henry B. Harris, Mr.† and Mrs. Arthur L. Ryerson, Mr.† and Mrs.† Hudson J. C. Allison, Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson Bishop, noted architect Edward Austin Kent†, brewery heir Harry Molson†, tennis players Karl Behr and Dick Williams, author and socialite Helen Churchill Candee, future lawyer and suffragette Elsie Bowerman and her mother Edith, journalist and social reformer William Thomas Stead†, journalist and fashion buyer Edith Rosenbaum, Philadelphia and New York socialite Edith Corse Evans†, wealthy divorcée Charlotte Drake Cardeza, French sculptor Paul Chevré [fr], author Jacques Futrelle† with his wife May, silent film actress Dorothy Gibson with her mother Pauline, President of the Swiss Bankverein Col. Alfons Simonius-Blumer, James A. Hughes's daughter Eloise, banker Robert Williams Daniel, the chairman of the Holland America Line Johan Reuchlin [de], Arthur Wellington Ross's son John H. Ross, Washington Roebling's nephew Washington A. Roebling II, Andrew Saks's daughter Leila Saks Meyer with her husband Edgar Joseph Meyer† (son of Marc Eugene Meyer), William A. Clark's nephew Walter M. Clark with his wife Virginia, great-great-grandson of soap manufacturer Andrew Pears Thomas C. Pears with wife, John S. Pillsbury's honeymooning grandson John P. Snyder and wife Nelle, Dorothy Parker's New York manufacturer uncle Martin Rothschild with his wife, Elizabeth, among others.[125]
+
+Titanic's owner J. P. Morgan was scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage but cancelled at the last minute.[126] Also aboard the ship were the White Star Line's managing director J. Bruce Ismay and Titanic's designer Thomas Andrews†, who was on board to observe any problems and assess the general performance of the new ship.[127]
+
+The exact number of people aboard is not known, as not all of those who had booked tickets made it to the ship; about 50 people cancelled for various reasons,[128] and not all of those who boarded stayed aboard for the entire journey.[129] Fares varied depending on class and season. Third Class fares from London, Southampton, or Queenstown cost £7 5s (equivalent to £700 today) while the cheapest First Class fares cost £23 (£2,300 today).[111] The most expensive First Class suites were to have cost up to £870 in high season (£87,000 today).[124]
+
+Titanic's maiden voyage began on Wednesday, 10 April 1912. Following the embarkation of the crew, the passengers began arriving at 9:30 a.m., when the London and South Western Railway's boat train from London Waterloo station reached Southampton Terminus railway station on the quayside, alongside Titanic's berth.[130] The large number of Third Class passengers meant they were the first to board, with First and Second Class passengers following up to an hour before departure. Stewards showed them to their cabins, and First Class passengers were personally greeted by Captain Smith.[131] Third Class passengers were inspected for ailments and physical impairments that might lead to their being refused entry to the United States – a prospect the White Star Line wished to avoid, as it would have to carry anyone who failed the examination back across the Atlantic.[128] In all, 920 passengers boarded Titanic at Southampton – 179 First Class, 247 Second Class, and 494 Third Class. Additional passengers were to be picked up at Cherbourg and Queenstown.[101]
+
+The maiden voyage began at noon, as scheduled. An accident was narrowly averted only a few minutes later, as Titanic passed the moored liners SS City of New York of the American Line and Oceanic of the White Star Line, the latter of which would have been her running mate on the service from Southampton. Her huge displacement caused both of the smaller ships to be lifted by a bulge of water and then drop into a trough. New York's mooring cables could not take the sudden strain and snapped, swinging her around stern-first towards Titanic. A nearby tugboat, Vulcan, came to the rescue by taking New York under tow, and Captain Smith ordered Titanic's engines to be put "full astern".[132] The two ships avoided a collision by a matter of about 4 feet (1.2 m). The incident delayed Titanic's departure for about an hour, while the drifting New York was brought under control.[133]
+
+After making it safely through the complex tides and channels of Southampton Water and the Solent, Titanic disembarked the Southampton pilot at the Nab Lightship and headed out into the English Channel.[134] She headed for the French port of Cherbourg, a journey of 77 nautical miles (89 mi; 143 km).[135] The weather was windy, very fine but cold and overcast.[136] Because Cherbourg lacked docking facilities for a ship the size of Titanic, tenders had to be used to transfer passengers from shore to ship. The White Star Line operated two at Cherbourg, the SS Traffic and the SS Nomadic. Both had been designed specifically as tenders for the Olympic-class liners and were launched shortly after Titanic.[137] (Nomadic is today the only White Star Line ship still afloat.) Four hours after Titanic left Southampton, she arrived at Cherbourg and was met by the tenders. There, 274 additional passengers were taken aboard – 142 First Class, 30 Second Class, and 102 Third Class. Twenty-four passengers left aboard the tenders to be conveyed to shore, having booked only a cross-Channel passage. The process was completed within only 90 minutes and at 8 p.m. Titanic weighed anchor and left for Queenstown[138] with the weather continuing cold and windy.[136]
+
+At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday 11 April, Titanic arrived at Cork Harbour on the south coast of Ireland. It was a partly cloudy but relatively warm day, with a brisk wind.[136] Again, the dock facilities were not suitable for a ship of Titanic's size, and tenders were used to bring passengers aboard. In all, 123 passengers boarded Titanic at Queenstown – three First Class, seven Second Class and 113 Third Class. In addition to the 24 cross-Channel passengers who had disembarked at Cherbourg, another seven passengers had booked an overnight passage from Southampton to Queenstown. Among the seven was Father Francis Browne, a Jesuit trainee who was a keen photographer and took many photographs aboard Titanic, including the last-ever known photograph of the ship. A decidedly unofficial departure was that of a crew member, stoker John Coffey, a Queenstown native who sneaked off the ship by hiding under mail bags being transported to shore.[139] Titanic weighed anchor for the last time at 1:30 p.m. and departed on her westward journey across the Atlantic.[139]
+
+Titanic was planned to arrive at New York Pier 59[140] on the morning of 17 April.[141] After leaving Queenstown, Titanic followed the Irish coast as far as Fastnet Rock,[142] a distance of some 55 nautical miles (63 mi; 102 km). From there she travelled 1,620 nautical miles (1,860 mi; 3,000 km) along a Great Circle route across the North Atlantic to reach a spot in the ocean known as "the corner" south-east of Newfoundland, where westbound steamers carried out a change of course. Titanic sailed only a few hours past the corner on a rhumb line leg of 1,023 nautical miles (1,177 mi; 1,895 km) to Nantucket Shoals Light when she made her fatal contact with an iceberg.[143] The final leg of the journey would have been 193 nautical miles (222 mi; 357 km) to Ambrose Light and finally to New York Harbor.[144]
+
+From 11 April to local apparent noon the next day, Titanic covered 484 nautical miles (557 mi; 896 km); the following day, 519 nautical miles (597 mi; 961 km); and by noon on the final day of her voyage, 546 nautical miles (628 mi; 1,011 km). From then until the time of her sinking, she travelled another 258 nautical miles (297 mi; 478 km), averaging about 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h).[145]
+
+The weather cleared as she left Ireland under cloudy skies with a headwind. Temperatures remained fairly mild on Saturday 13 April, but the following day Titanic crossed a cold weather front with strong winds and waves of up to 8 feet (2.4 m). These died down as the day progressed until, by the evening of Sunday 14 April, it became clear, calm and very cold.[146]
+
+The first three days of the voyage from Queenstown had passed without apparent incident. A fire had begun in one of Titanic's coal bunkers approximately 10 days prior to the ship's departure, and continued to burn for several days into its voyage,[147] but passengers were unaware of this situation. Fires occurred frequently on board steamships at the time, due to spontaneous combustion of the coal.[148] The fires had to be extinguished with fire hoses by moving the coal on top to another bunker and by removing the burning coal and feeding it into the furnace.[149] The fire was finally extinguished on 14 April.[150][151] There has been some speculation and discussion as to whether this fire and attempts to extinguish it may have made the ship more vulnerable to its fate.[152]
+
+Titanic received a series of warnings from other ships of drifting ice in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.[153] One of the ships to warn Titanic was the Atlantic Line's Mesaba.[154] Nevertheless, the ship continued to steam at full speed, which was standard practice at the time.[155] Although the ship was not trying to set a speed record,[156] timekeeping was a priority, and under prevailing maritime practices, ships were often operated at close to full speed, with ice warnings seen as advisories and reliance placed upon lookouts and the watch on the bridge.[155] It was generally believed that ice posed little danger to large vessels. Close calls with ice were not uncommon, and even head-on collisions had not been disastrous. In 1907 SS Kronprinz Wilhelm, a German liner, had rammed an iceberg but still had been able to complete her voyage, and Captain Smith himself had declared in 1907 that he "could not imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that."[157][j]
+
+At 11:40 p.m. (ship's time) on 14 April, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of Titanic and alerted the bridge.[160] First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be stopped,[161] but it was too late; the starboard side of Titanic struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline.[k] The hull was not punctured by the iceberg, but rather dented such that the hull's seams buckled and separated, allowing water to seep in. Five of the ship's watertight compartments were breached. It soon became clear that the ship was doomed, as she could not survive more than four compartments being flooded. Titanic began sinking bow-first, with water spilling from compartment to compartment as her angle in the water became steeper.[163]
+
+Those aboard Titanic were ill-prepared for such an emergency. In accordance with accepted practices of the time, as ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels,[164][l] Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board; if the ship had carried her full complement of about 3,339 passengers and crew, only about a third could have been accommodated in the lifeboats.[166] The crew had not been trained adequately in carrying out an evacuation. The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full.[167] Third-class passengers were largely left to fend for themselves, causing many of them to become trapped below decks as the ship filled with water.[168] The "women and children first" protocol was generally followed when loading the lifeboats,[168] and most of the male passengers and crew were left aboard.
+
+Between 2:10 a.m. and 2:15 a.m., a little over two and a half hours after Titanic struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking suddenly increased as the boat deck dipped underwater, and the sea poured in through open hatches and grates.[169] As her unsupported stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, the ship broke in two main pieces between the second and third funnels, due to the immense forces on the keel. With the bow underwater, and air trapped in the stern, the stern remained afloat and buoyant for a few minutes longer, rising to a nearly vertical angle with hundreds of people still clinging to it,[170] before foundering at 2:20 a.m.[171] For many years it was generally believed the ship sank in one piece; but when the wreck was located many years later, it was discovered that the ship had fully broken in two. All remaining passengers and crew were immersed in lethally cold water with a temperature of 28 °F (−2 °C). Sudden immersion into freezing water typically causes death within minutes, either from cardiac arrest, uncontrollable breathing of water, or cold incapacitation (not, as commonly believed, from hypothermia),[m] and almost all of those in the water died of cardiac arrest or other bodily reactions to freezing water, within 15–30 minutes.[174] Only five of them were helped into the lifeboats, though the lifeboats had room for almost 500 more people.[175]
+
+Distress signals were sent by wireless, rockets, and lamp, but none of the ships that responded was near enough to reach Titanic before she sank.[176] A radio operator on board the Birma, for instance, estimated that it would be 6 a.m. before the liner could arrive at the scene. Meanwhile, the SS Californian, which was the last to have been in contact before the collision, saw Titanic's flares but failed to assist.[177] Around 4 a.m., RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene in response to Titanic's earlier distress calls.[178]
+
+About 710 people survived the disaster and were conveyed by Carpathia to New York, Titanic's original destination, while at least 1,500 people lost their lives.[113] Carpathia's captain described the place as an ice field that had included 20 large bergs measuring up to 200 feet (61 m) high and numerous smaller bergs, as well as ice floes and debris from Titanic; passengers described being in the middle of a vast white plain of ice, studded with icebergs.[179] This area is now known as Iceberg Alley.[180]
+
+RMS Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas.[183] She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened. The initial reports were confusing, leading the American press to report erroneously on 15 April that Titanic was being towed to port by the SS Virginian.[184]
+
+Later that day, confirmation came through that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died.[185] The news attracted crowds of people to the White Star Line's offices in London, New York, Montreal,[186] Southampton,[187] Liverpool and Belfast.[188] It hit hardest in Southampton, whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking.[189] Four out of every five crew members came from this town.[190][o]
+
+Carpathia docked at 9:30 p.m. on 18 April at New York's Pier 54 and was greeted by some 40,000 people waiting at the quayside in heavy rain.[193] Immediate relief in the form of clothing and transportation to shelters was provided by the Women's Relief Committee, the Travelers Aid Society of New York, and the Council of Jewish Women, among other organisations.[194] Many of Titanic's surviving passengers did not linger in New York but headed onwards immediately to relatives' homes. Some of the wealthier survivors chartered private trains to take them home, and the Pennsylvania Railroad laid on a special train free of charge to take survivors to Philadelphia. Titanic's 214 surviving crew members were taken to the Red Star Line's steamer SS Lapland, where they were accommodated in passenger cabins.[195]
+
+Carpathia was hurriedly restocked with food and provisions before resuming her journey to Fiume, Austria-Hungary. Her crew were given a bonus of a month's wages by Cunard as a reward for their actions, and some of Titanic's passengers joined together to give them an additional bonus of nearly £900 (£90,000 today), divided among the crew members.[196]
+
+The ship's arrival in New York led to a frenzy of press interest, with newspapers competing to be the first to report the survivors' stories. Some reporters bribed their way aboard the pilot boat New York, which guided Carpathia into harbour, and one even managed to get onto Carpathia before she docked.[197] Crowds gathered outside newspaper offices to see the latest reports being posted in the windows or on billboards.[198] It took another four days for a complete list of casualties to be compiled and released, adding to the agony of relatives waiting for news of those who had been aboard Titanic.[p]
+
+In January 1912, the hulls and equipment of Titanic and Olympic had been insured through Lloyd's of London and London Marine Insurance. The total coverage was £1,000,000 (£96,000,000 today) per ship. The policy was to be "free from all average" under £150,000, meaning that the insurers would only pay for damage in excess of that sum. The premium, negotiated by brokers Willis Faber & Company (now Willis Group), was 15 s (75 p) per £100, or £7,500 (£750,000 today) for the term of one year. Lloyd's paid the White Star Line the full sum owed to them within 30 days.[200]
+
+Many charities were set up to help the victims and their families, many of whom lost their sole breadwinner, or, in the case of many Third Class survivors, everything they owned.  In New York City, for example, a joint committee of the American Red Cross and Charity Organization Society formed to disburse financial aid to survivors and dependents of those who died.[201] On 29 April, opera stars Enrico Caruso and Mary Garden and members of the Metropolitan Opera raised $12,000 ($300,000 in 2014)[202] in benefits for victims of the disaster by giving special concerts in which versions of "Autumn" and "Nearer My God To Thee" were part of the programme.[203] In Britain, relief funds were organised for the families of Titanic's lost crew members, raising nearly £450,000 (£45,000,000 today). One such fund was still in operation as late as the 1960s.[204]
+
+In the United States and Britain, more than 60 survivors combined to sue the White Star Line for damages connected to loss of life and baggage.[205] The claims totalled $16,804,112 (appr. $419 million in 2018 USD), which was far in excess of what White Star argued it was responsible for as a limited liability company under American law.[206] Because the bulk of the litigants were in the United States, White Star petitioned the United States Supreme Court in 1914, which ruled in its favour that it qualified as an LLC and found that the causes of the ship's sinking were largely unforeseeable, rather than due to negligence.[207] This sharply limited the scope of damages survivors and family members were entitled to, prompting them to reduce their claims to some $2.5 million. White Star only settled for $664,000 (appr. $16.56 million in 2018), about 27% of the original total sought by survivors.[206] The settlement was agreed to by 44 of the claimants in December 1915, with $500,000 set aside for the American claimants, $50,000 for the British, and $114,000 to go towards interest and legal expenses.[205][206]
+
+Even before the survivors arrived in New York, investigations were being planned to discover what had happened, and what could be done to prevent a recurrence. Inquiries were held in both the United States and United Kingdom, the former more robustly critical of traditions and practices, and scathing of the failures involved, and the latter broadly more technical and expert-oriented.[208]
+
+The US Senate's inquiry into the disaster was initiated on 19 April, a day after Carpathia arrived in New York.[209] The chairman, Senator William Alden Smith, wanted to gather accounts from passengers and crew while the events were still fresh in their minds. Smith also needed to subpoena all surviving British passengers and crew while they were still on American soil, which prevented them from returning to the UK before the American inquiry was completed on 25 May.[210] The British press condemned Smith as an opportunist, insensitively forcing an inquiry as a means of gaining political prestige and seizing "his moment to stand on the world stage". Smith, however, already had a reputation as a campaigner for safety on US railroads, and wanted to investigate any possible malpractices by railroad tycoon J. P. Morgan, Titanic's ultimate owner.[211]
+
+The British Board of Trade's inquiry into the disaster was headed by Lord Mersey, and took place between 2 May and 3 July. Being run by the Board of Trade, who had previously approved the ship, it was seen by some[Like whom?] as having little interest in its own or White Star's conduct being found negligent.[212]
+
+Each inquiry took testimony from both passengers and crew of Titanic, crew members of Leyland Line's Californian, Captain Arthur Rostron of Carpathia and other experts.[213] The British inquiry also took far greater expert testimony, making it the longest and most detailed court of inquiry in British history up to that time.[214] The two inquiries reached broadly similar conclusions: the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate,[215] Captain Smith had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings,[216] the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed, and the collision was the direct result of steaming into a dangerous area at too high a speed.[215]
+
+Neither inquiry's findings listed negligence by IMM or the White Star Line as a factor. The American inquiry concluded that since those involved had followed standard practice, the disaster was an act of God.[217] The British inquiry concluded that Smith had followed long-standing practice that had not previously been shown to be unsafe,[218] noting that British ships alone had carried 3.5 million passengers over the previous decade with the loss of just 10 lives,[219] and concluded that Smith had done "only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position". Lord Mersey did however find fault with the "extremely high speed (twenty-two knots) which was maintained" following numerous ice warnings,[220] noting that without hindsight, "what was a mistake in the case of the Titanic would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future".[218]
+
+The recommendations included strong suggestions for major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that wireless equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock.[221] An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea; both measures are still in force today.[222]
+
+On 18 June 1912, Guglielmo Marconi gave evidence to the Court of Inquiry regarding the telegraphy. Its final report recommended that all liners carry the system and that sufficient operators maintain a constant service.[223]
+
+One of the most controversial issues examined by the inquiries was the role played by SS Californian, which had been only a few miles from Titanic but had not picked up her distress calls or responded to her signal rockets. Californian had warned Titanic by radio of the pack ice (that was the reason Californian had stopped for the night) but was rebuked by Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips.[224]
+
+Testimony before the British inquiry revealed that at 10:10 p.m., Californian observed the lights of a ship to the south; it was later agreed between Captain Stanley Lord and Third Officer C.V. Groves (who had relieved Lord of duty at 11:10 p.m.) that this was a passenger liner.[224] At 11:50 p.m., the officer had watched that ship's lights flash out, as if she had shut down or turned sharply, and that the port light was now visible.[224] Morse light signals to the ship, upon Lord's order, were made between 11:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m., but were not acknowledged.[225] If Titanic was as far from the Californian as Lord claimed, then he knew, or should have known, that Morse signals would not be visible. A reasonable and prudent course of action would have been to awaken the wireless operator and to instruct him to attempt to contact Titanic by that method. Had Lord done so, it is possible he could have reached Titanic in time to save additional lives.[82]
+
+Captain Lord had gone to the chartroom at 11:00 p.m. to spend the night;[226] however, Second Officer Herbert Stone, now on duty, notified Lord at 1:10 a.m. that the ship had fired five rockets. Lord wanted to know if they were company signals, that is, coloured flares used for identification. Stone said that he did not know and that the rockets were all white. Captain Lord instructed the crew to continue to signal the other vessel with the Morse lamp, and went back to sleep. Three more rockets were observed at 1:50 a.m. and Stone noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if she were listing. At 2:15 a.m., Lord was notified that the ship could no longer be seen. Lord asked again if the lights had had any colours in them, and he was informed that they were all white.[227]
+
+Californian eventually responded. At around 5:30 a.m., Chief Officer George Stewart awakened wireless operator Cyril Furmstone Evans, informed him that rockets had been seen during the night, and asked that he try to communicate with any ship. He got news of Titanic's loss, Captain Lord was notified, and the ship set out to render assistance. She arrived well after Carpathia had already picked up all the survivors.[228]
+
+The inquiries found that the ship seen by Californian was in fact Titanic and that it would have been possible for Californian to come to her rescue; therefore, Captain Lord had acted improperly in failing to do so.[229][q]
+
+The number of casualties of the sinking is unclear, due to a number of factors. These include confusion over the passenger list, which included some names of people who cancelled their trip at the last minute, and the fact that several passengers travelled under aliases for various reasons and were therefore double-counted on the casualty lists.[231] The death toll has been put at between 1,490 and 1,635 people.[232] The tables below use figures from the British Board of Trade report on the disaster.[113] While the use of Marconi wireless system did not achieve the result of bringing a rescue ship to Titanic before it sank, the use of wireless did bring Carpathia in time to rescue some of the survivors who otherwise would have perished due to exposure.[5]
+
+The water temperature was well below normal in the area where Titanic sank. It also contributed to the rapid death of many passengers during the sinking. Water temperature readings taken around the time of the accident were reported to be 28 °F (−2 °C). Typical water temperatures were normally around 45 °F (7 °C) during mid-April.[233] The coldness of the water was a critical factor, often causing death within minutes for many of those in the water.
+
+Fewer than a third of those aboard Titanic survived the disaster. Some survivors died shortly afterwards; injuries and the effects of exposure caused the deaths of several of those brought aboard Carpathia.[234] The figures show stark differences in the survival rates of the different classes aboard Titanic. Although only 3% of first-class women were lost, 54% of those in third-class died. Similarly, five of six first-class and all second-class children survived, but 52 of the 79 in third-class perished. The differences by gender were even bigger: nearly all female crew members, first- and second-class passengers were saved. Men from the First Class died at a higher rate than women from the Third Class.[235] In total, 50% of the children survived, 20% of the men and 75% of the women.
+
+The last living survivor, Millvina Dean from England, who at only nine weeks old was the youngest passenger on board, died aged 97 on 31 May 2009.[236] Two special survivors were the stewardess Violet Jessop and the stoker Arthur John Priest,[237] who survived the sinkings of both Titanic and HMHS Britannic and were aboard RMS Olympic when she was rammed in 1911.[238][239][240]
+
+Once the massive loss of life became known, White Star Line chartered the cable ship CS Mackay-Bennett from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to retrieve bodies.[241] Three other Canadian ships followed in the search: the cable ship Minia,[242] lighthouse supply ship Montmagny and sealing vessel Algerine.[243] Each ship left with embalming supplies, undertakers, and clergy. Of the 333 victims that were eventually recovered, 328 were retrieved by the Canadian ships and five more by passing North Atlantic steamships.[244][r]
+
+The first ship to reach the site of the sinking, the CS Mackay-Bennett, found so many bodies that the embalming supplies aboard were quickly exhausted. Health regulations required that only embalmed bodies could be returned to port.[246] Captain Larnder of the Mackay-Bennett and undertakers aboard decided to preserve only the bodies of first-class passengers, justifying their decision by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates. As a result, many third-class passengers and crew were buried at sea. Larnder identified many of those buried at sea as crew members by their clothing, and stated that as a mariner, he himself would be contented to be buried at sea.[247]
+
+Bodies recovered were preserved for transport to Halifax, the closest city to the sinking with direct rail and steamship connections. The Halifax coroner, John Henry Barnstead, developed a detailed system to identify bodies and safeguard personal possessions. Relatives from across North America came to identify and claim bodies. A large temporary morgue was set up in the curling rink of the Mayflower Curling Club and undertakers were called in from all across eastern Canada to assist.[247] Some bodies were shipped to be buried in their home towns across North America and Europe. About two-thirds of the bodies were identified. Unidentified victims were buried with simple numbers based on the order in which their bodies were discovered. The majority of recovered victims, 150 bodies, were buried in three Halifax cemeteries, the largest being Fairview Lawn Cemetery followed by the nearby Mount Olivet and Baron de Hirsch cemeteries.[248]
+
+In mid-May 1912, RMS Oceanic recovered three bodies over 200 miles (320 km) from the site of the sinking who were among the original occupants of Collapsible A. When Fifth Officer Harold Lowe and six crewmen returned to the wreck site sometime after the sinking in a lifeboat to pick up survivors, they rescued a dozen males and one female from Collapsible A, but left the dead bodies of three of its occupants.[s] After their retrieval from Collapsible A by Oceanic, the bodies were buried at sea.[249]
+
+The last Titanic body recovered was steward James McGrady, Body No. 330, found by the chartered Newfoundland sealing vessel Algerine on 22 May and buried at Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax on 12 June.[250]
+
+Only 333 bodies of Titanic victims were recovered, one in five of the over 1,500 victims. Some bodies sank with the ship while currents quickly dispersed bodies and wreckage across hundreds of miles making them difficult to recover. By June, one of the last search ships reported that life jackets supporting bodies were coming apart and releasing bodies to sink.[251]
+
+Titanic was long thought to have sunk in one piece and, over the years, many schemes were put forward for raising the wreck. None came to fruition.[252] The fundamental problem was the sheer difficulty of finding and reaching a wreck that lies over 12,000 feet (3,700 m) below the surface, in a location where the water pressure is over 6,500 pounds per square inch (450 bar).[253] A number of expeditions were mounted to find Titanic but it was not until 1 September 1985 that a Franco-American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard succeeded.[254][255][256]
+
+The team discovered that Titanic had in fact split apart, probably near or at the surface, before sinking to the seabed. The separated bow and stern sections lie about a third of a mile (0.6 km) apart in Titanic Canyon off the coast of Newfoundland. They are located 13.2 miles (21.2 km) from the inaccurate coordinates given by Titanic's radio operators on the night of her sinking,[257] and approximately 715 miles (1,151 km) from Halifax and 1,250 miles (2,012 km) from New York.
+
+Both sections struck the sea bed at considerable speed, causing the bow to crumple and the stern to collapse entirely. The bow is by far the more intact section and still contains some surprisingly intact interiors. In contrast, the stern is completely wrecked; its decks have pancaked down on top of each other and much of the hull plating was torn off and lies scattered across the sea floor. The much greater level of damage to the stern is probably due to structural damage incurred during the sinking. Thus weakened, the remainder of the stern was flattened by the impact with the sea bed.[258]
+
+The two sections are surrounded by a debris field measuring approximately 5 by 3 miles (8.0 km × 4.8 km).[259] It contains hundreds of thousands of items, such as pieces of the ship, furniture, dinnerware and personal items, which fell from the ship as she sank or were ejected when the bow and stern impacted on the sea floor.[260] The debris field was also the last resting place of a number of Titanic's victims. Most of the bodies and clothes were consumed by sea creatures and bacteria, leaving pairs of shoes and boots—which have proved to be inedible—as the only sign that bodies once lay there.[261]
+
+Since its initial discovery, the wreck of Titanic has been revisited on numerous occasions by explorers, scientists, filmmakers, tourists and salvagers, who have recovered thousands of items from the debris field for conservation and public display. The ship's condition has deteriorated significantly over the years, particularly from accidental damage by submersibles but mostly because of an accelerating rate of growth of iron-eating bacteria on the hull.[262] In 2006, it was estimated that within 50 years the hull and structure of Titanic would eventually collapse entirely, leaving only the more durable interior fittings of the ship intermingled with a pile of rust on the sea floor.[263]
+
+Many artefacts from Titanic have been recovered from the sea bed by RMS Titanic Inc., which exhibits them in touring exhibitions around the world and in a permanent exhibition at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.[264] A number of other museums exhibit artefacts either donated by survivors or retrieved from the floating bodies of victims of the disaster.[265]
+
+On 16 April 2012, the day after the 100th anniversary of the sinking, photos[266] were released showing possible human remains resting on the ocean floor. The photos, taken by Robert Ballard during an expedition led by NOAA in 2004, show a boot and a coat close to Titanic's stern which experts called "compelling evidence" that it is the spot where somebody came to rest, and that human remains could be buried in the sediment beneath them.[267] The wreck of the Titanic falls under the scope of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. This means that all states party to the convention will prohibit the pillaging, commercial exploitation, sale and dispersion of the wreck and its artefacts. Because of the location of the wreck in international waters and the lack of any exclusive jurisdiction over the wreckage area, the convention provides a state co-operation system, by which states inform each other of any potential activity concerning ancient shipwreck sites, like the Titanic, and co-operate to prevent unscientific or unethical interventions.[268][269][270]
+
+Submersible dives in 2019 have found further deterioration of the wreck, including loss of the captain's bathtub.[271] Between 29 July and 4 August 2019, a two-person submersible vehicle that was conducting research and filming a documentary crashed into the shipwreck. EYOS Expeditions executed the sub dives. It reported that the strong currents pushed the sub into the wreck leaving a "red rust stain on the side of the sub." The report did not mention if the Titanic sustained any damage.[272]
+
+After the disaster, recommendations were made by both the British and American Boards of Inquiry stating that ships should carry enough lifeboats for all aboard, mandated lifeboat drills would be implemented, lifeboat inspections would be conducted, etc. Many of these recommendations were incorporated into the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea passed in 1914.[273] The convention has been updated by periodic amendments, with a completely new version adopted in 1974.[274] Signatories to the Convention followed up with national legislation to implement the new standards. For example, in Britain, new "Rules for Life Saving Appliances" were passed by the Board of Trade on 8 May 1914 and then applied at a meeting of British steamship companies in Liverpool in June 1914.[275]
+
+Further, the United States government passed the Radio Act of 1912. This Act, along with the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, stated that radio communications on passenger ships would be operated 24 hours a day, along with a secondary power supply, so as not to miss distress calls. Also, the Radio Act of 1912 required ships to maintain contact with vessels in their vicinity as well as coastal onshore radio stations.[276] In addition, it was agreed in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea that the firing of red rockets from a ship must be interpreted as a sign of need for help. Once the Radio Act of 1912 was passed, it was agreed that rockets at sea would be interpreted as distress signals only, thus removing any possible misinterpretation from other ships.[276]
+
+Finally, the disaster led to the formation and international funding of the International Ice Patrol, an agency of the United States Coast Guard that to the present day monitors and reports on the location of North Atlantic Ocean icebergs that could pose a threat to transatlantic sea traffic. Coast Guard aircraft conduct the primary reconnaissance. In addition, information is collected from ships operating in or passing through the ice area. Except for the years of the two World Wars, the International Ice Patrol has worked each season since 1913. During the period, there has not been a single reported loss of life or property due to collision with an iceberg in the patrol area.[277] In 1912, the Board of Trade chartered the barque Scotia to act as a weather ship in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, keeping a look-out for icebergs. A Marconi wireless was installed to enable her to communicate with stations on the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland.[278][279]
+
+Titanic has gone down in history as the ship that was called unsinkable.[t] For more than 100 years, she has been the inspiration of fiction and non-fiction. She is commemorated by monuments for the dead and by museums exhibiting artefacts from the wreck. Just after the sinking, memorial postcards sold in huge numbers[280] together with memorabilia ranging from tin candy boxes to plates, whiskey jiggers,[281] and even black mourning teddy bears.[282] Several survivors wrote books about their experiences,[283] but it was not until 1955 that the first historically accurate book – A Night to Remember – was published.[284]
+
+The first film about the disaster, Saved from the Titanic, was released only 29 days after the ship sank and had an actual survivor as its star—the silent film actress Dorothy Gibson.[285] The British film A Night to Remember (1958) is still widely regarded as the most historically accurate movie portrayal of the sinking.[286] The most financially successful by far has been James Cameron's Titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film in history up to that time,[287] as well as the winner of 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Cameron.[288]
+
+The Titanic disaster was commemorated through a variety of memorials and monuments to the victims, erected in several English-speaking countries and in particular in cities that had suffered notable losses. These included Southampton, Liverpool and Belfast in the United Kingdom; New York and Washington, D.C. in the United States; and Cobh (formerly Queenstown) in Ireland.[289] A number of museums around the world have displays on Titanic; the most prominent is in Belfast, the ship's birthplace (see below).
+
+RMS Titanic Inc., which is authorised to salvage the wreck site, has a permanent Titanic exhibition at the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino in Nevada which features a 22-ton slab of the ship's hull. It also runs an exhibition which travels around the world.[290] In Nova Scotia, Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic displays items that were recovered from the sea a few days after the disaster. They include pieces of woodwork such as panelling from the ship's First Class Lounge and an original deckchair,[291] as well as objects removed from the victims.[292] In 2012 the centenary was marked by plays, radio programmes, parades, exhibitions and special trips to the site of the sinking together with commemorative stamps and coins.[189][293][294][295][296]
+
+In a frequently commented-on literary coincidence, Morgan Robertson authored a novel called Futility in 1898 about a fictional British passenger liner with the plot bearing a number of similarities to the Titanic disaster. In the novel the ship is the SS Titan, a four-stacked liner, the largest in the world and considered unsinkable. And like the Titanic, she sinks after hitting an iceberg and does not have enough lifeboats.[297]
+
+Only recently has the significance of Titanic most notably been given by Northern Ireland where it was built by Harland and Wolff in the capital city, Belfast. While the rest of the world embraced the glory and tragedy of Titanic, in its birth city, Titanic remained a taboo subject throughout the 20th century. The sinking brought tremendous grief and was a blow to the city's pride. Its shipyard was also a place many Catholics regarded as hostile.[298] In the latter half of the century, during a 30-year sectarian conflict, Titanic was a reminder of the lack of civil rights that in part contributed towards the Troubles. While the fate of Titanic remained a well-known story within local households throughout the 20th century, commercial investment around RMS Titanic's legacy was modest because of these issues.[299]
+
+After the Troubles and Good Friday Agreement, the number of overseas tourists visiting Northern Ireland dramatically increased to 30 million (100% rise by 2008).[300] It was subsequently identified in the Northern Ireland Tourism Board's Strategic Framework for Action 2004–2007 that the significance of and interest in Titanic globally (partly due to the 1997 film Titanic) was not being fully exploited as a tourist attraction.[301] Thus, Titanic Belfast® was spearheaded, along with some smaller projects, such as a Titanic memorial.[302]
+
+In 2012 on the ship's centenary, the Titanic Belfast visitor attraction was opened on the site of the shipyard where Titanic was built.[303] It was Northern Ireland's second most visited tourist attraction with almost 700,000 visitors in 2016.[304]
+
+Despite over 1,600 ships being built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast Harbour, Queen's Island became renamed after its most famous ship, Titanic Quarter in 1995. Once a sensitive story, Titanic is now considered one of Northern Ireland's most iconic and uniting symbols.[305]
+
+In late August 2018, several groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500 Titanic relics that were an asset of the bankrupt Premier Exhibitions.[306] Eventually, Titanic Belfast, Titanic Foundation Limited and the National Museums Northern Ireland joined with the National Maritime Museum as a consortium that was raising money to purchase the 5,500 artefacts. The group intended to keep all of the items together as a single exhibit. Oceanographer Robert Ballard said he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast (where Titanic was built) and in Greenwich.[306] The museums were critical of the bid process set by the Bankruptcy court in Jacksonville, Florida. The minimum bid for the 11 October 2018 auction was set at US$21.5 million (£16.5m) and the consortium did not have enough funding to meet that amount.[307][308] On 17 October 2018, The New York Times reported that a consortium of three hedge funds—Apollo Global Management, Alta Fundamental Advisers, and PacBridge Capital Partners—had paid US$19.5 million for the collection.[309]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+There have been several proposals and studies for a project to build a replica ship based on the Titanic. A project by South African businessman Sarel Gaus was abandoned in 2006, and a project by Australian businessman Clive Palmer was announced in 2012, known as the Titanic II.
+
+A Chinese shipbuilding company known as Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co., Ltd commenced construction in January 2014 to build a replica ship of the Titanic for use in a resort. The vessel will house many features of the original, such as a ballroom, dining hall, theatre, first-class cabins, economy cabins and swimming pool.[317][318] Tourists will be able to reside inside the Titanic during their time at the resort. It will be permanently docked at the resort and feature an audiovisual simulation of the sinking, which has caused some criticism.[319]
+
+The RMS Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic. The interior decoration of the dining salon and the grand staircase were in identical style and created by the same craftsmen. Large parts of the interior of the Olympic were later sold and are now in the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick, which gives an impression of how the interior of the Titanic looked.
+
+Coordinates: 41°43′57″N 49°56′49″W / 41.73250°N 49.94694°W / 41.73250; -49.94694

en/3405.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+
+
+Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (pronounced [titˈtsjaːno veˈtʃɛlljo]; c. 1488/90[1] – 27 August 1576),[2] known in English as Titian  (/ˈtɪʃən/ TISH-ən), was an Italian painter during the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno, (then in the Republic of Venice).[3] During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, 'from Cadore', taken from his native region.[4]
+
+Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and  mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of colour, exercised a profound influence not only on painters of the late Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.[5]
+
+His career was successful from the start, and he became sought after by patrons, initially from Venice and its possessions, then joined by the north Italian princes, and finally the Habsburgs and papacy.  Along with Giorgione, he is considered a founder of the Venetian School of Italian Renaissance painting.
+
+During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically,[6] but he retained a lifelong interest in colour. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone were without precedent in the history of Western painting.[citation needed]
+
+The exact time or date of Titian's birth is uncertain. When he was an old man he claimed in a letter to Philip II, King of Spain, to have been born in 1474, but this seems most unlikely.[7] Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures that would equate to birthdates between 1473 and after 1482.[8] Most modern scholars believe a date between 1488 and 1490 is more likely,[9] though his age at death being 99 had been accepted into the 20th century.[10]
+
+He was the son of Gregorio Vecellio and his wife Lucia, of whom little is known. Gregorio was superintendent of the castle of Pieve di Cadore and managed local mines for their owners.[11] Gregorio was also a distinguished councilor and soldier. Many relatives, including Titian's grandfather, were notaries, and the family were well-established in the area, which was ruled by Venice.
+
+At the age of about ten to twelve he and his brother Francesco (who perhaps followed later) were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. The minor painter Sebastian Zuccato, whose sons became well-known mosaicists, and who may have been a family friend, arranged for the brothers to enter the studio of the elderly Gentile Bellini, from which they later transferred to that of his brother Giovanni Bellini.[11]  At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the leading artists in the city. There Titian found a group of young men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano Luciani, and Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione. Francesco Vecellio, Titian's older brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice.
+
+A fresco of Hercules on the Morosini Palace is said to have been one of Titian's earliest works.[4] Others were the Bellini-esque so-called Gypsy Madonna in Vienna,[12] and the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth (from the convent of S. Andrea), now in the Accademia, Venice.[4]
+
+A Man with a Quilted Sleeve is an early portrait, painted around 1509 and described by Giorgio Vasari in 1568. Scholars long believed it depicted Ludovico Ariosto, but now think it is of Gerolamo Barbarigo.[13] Rembrandt borrowed the composition for his self-portraits.
+
+Titian joined Giorgione as an assistant, but many contemporary critics already found his work more impressive—for example in exterior frescoes (now almost totally destroyed) that they did for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (state-warehouse for the German merchants).[4] Their relationship evidently contained a significant element of rivalry. Distinguishing between their work at this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. A substantial number of attributions have moved from Giorgione to Titian in the 20th century, with little traffic the other way. One of the earliest known Titian works, Christ Carrying the Cross in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, depicting the Ecce Homo scene,[14] was long regarded as by Giorgione.[15]
+
+The two young masters were likewise recognized as the leaders of their new school of arte moderna, which is characterized by paintings made more flexible, freed from symmetry and the remnants of hieratic conventions still found in the works of Giovanni Bellini.
+
+In 1507–1508 Giorgione was commissioned by the state to create frescoes on the re-erected Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Titian and Morto da Feltre worked along with him, and some fragments of paintings remain, probably by Giorgione.[4] Some of their work is known, in part, through the engravings of Fontana. After Giorgione's early death in 1510, Titian continued to paint Giorgionesque subjects for some time, though his style developed its own features, including bold and expressive brushwork.
+
+Titian's talent in fresco is shown in those he painted in 1511 at Padua in the Carmelite church and in the Scuola del Santo, some of which have been preserved, among them the Meeting at the Golden Gate, and three scenes (Miracoli di sant'Antonio) from the life of St. Anthony of Padua, The Miracle of the Jealous Husband, which depicts the Murder of a Young Woman by Her Husband,[16] A Child Testifying to Its Mother's Innocence, and The Saint Healing the Young Man with a Broken Limb.
+
+In 1512 Titian returned to Venice from Padua; in 1513 he obtained a broker's patent, termed La Sanseria or Senseria (a privilege much coveted by rising or risen artists), in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. He became superintendent of the government works, especially charged with completing the paintings left unfinished by Giovanni Bellini in the hall of the great council in the ducal palace. He set up an atelier on the Grand Canal at S. Samuele, the precise site being now unknown. It was not until 1516, after the death of Giovanni Bellini, that he came into actual enjoyment of his patent. At the same time he entered an exclusive arrangement for painting. The patent yielded him a good annuity of 20 crowns and exempted him from certain taxes. In return he was bound to paint likenesses of the successive Doges of his time at the fixed price of eight crowns each. The actual number he painted was five.[4]
+
+During this period (1516–1530), which may be called the period of his mastery and maturity, the artist moved on from his early Giorgionesque style, undertook larger, more complex subjects, and for the first time attempted a monumental style. Giorgione died in 1510 and Giovanni Bellini in 1516, leaving Titian unrivaled in the Venetian School. For sixty years he was the undisputed master of Venetian painting. In 1516, he completed his famous masterpiece, the Assumption of the Virgin, for the high altar of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari,[4] where it is still in situ. This extraordinary piece of colourism, executed on a grand scale rarely before seen in Italy, created a sensation.[17] The Signoria took note and observed that Titian was neglecting his work in the hall of the great council,[4] but in 1516 he succeeded his master Giovanni Bellini in receiving a pension from the Senate.[18]
+
+The pictorial structure of the Assumption—that of uniting in the same composition two or three scenes superimposed on different levels, earth and heaven, the temporal and the infinite—was continued in a series of works such as the retable of San Domenico at Ancona (1520), the retable of Brescia (1522), and the retable of San Niccolò (1523), in the Vatican Museums, each time attaining to a higher and more perfect conception. He finally reached a classic formula in the Pesaro Madonna, better known as the Madonna di Ca' Pesaro (c. 1519–1526), also for the Frari church. This is perhaps his most studied work, whose patiently developed plan is set forth with supreme display of order and freedom, originality and style. Here Titian gave a new conception of the traditional groups of donors and holy persons moving in aerial space, the plans and different degrees set in an architectural framework.[19]
+
+Titian was then at the height of his fame, and towards 1521, following the production of a figure of St. Sebastian for the papal legate in Brescia (of which there are numerous replicas), purchasers pressed for his work.[4]
+
+To this period belongs a more extraordinary work, The Death of St. Peter Martyr (1530), formerly in the Dominican Church of San Zanipolo, and destroyed by an Austrian shell in 1867. Only copies and engravings of this proto-Baroque picture remain. It combined extreme violence and a landscape, mostly consisting of a great tree, that pressed into the scene and seems to accentuate the drama in a way that looks forward to the Baroque.[20]
+
+The artist simultaneously continued a series of small Madonnas, which he placed amid beautiful landscapes, in the manner of genre pictures or poetic pastorals. The Virgin with the Rabbit, in The Louvre, is the finished type of these pictures. Another work of the same period, also in the Louvre, is the Entombment. This was also the period of the three large and famous mythological scenes for the camerino of Alfonso d'Este in Ferrara, The Bacchanal of the Andrians and the Worship of Venus in the Museo del Prado, and the Bacchus and Ariadne (1520–23) in London,[21] "perhaps the most brilliant productions of the neo-pagan culture or "Alexandrianism" of the Renaissance, many times imitated but never surpassed even by Rubens himself."[22]
+
+Finally this was the period when Titian composed the half-length figures and busts of young women, probably courtesans, such as Flora of the Uffizi, or Woman with a Mirror in the Louvre (the scientific images of this painting are available, with explanations, on the website of the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France)
+
+Titian's skill with colour is exemplified by his Danaë, one of several mythological paintings, or "poesie" ("poems") as the painter called them. This painting was done for Alessandro Farnese, but a later variant was produced for Philip II, for whom Titian painted many of his most important mythological paintings. Although Michelangelo adjudged this piece deficient from the point of view of drawing, Titian and his studio produced several versions for other patrons.
+
+Another famous painting is Bacchus and Ariadne, depicting Theseus, whose ship is shown in the distance and who has just left Ariadne at Naxos, when Bacchus arrives, jumping from his chariot, drawn by two cheetahs, and falling immediately in love with Ariadne. Bacchus raised her to heaven. Her constellation is shown in the sky. The painting belongs to a series commissioned from Bellini, Titian, and Dosso Dossi, for the Camerino d'Alabastro (Alabaster Room) in the Ducal Palace, Ferrara, by Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who in 1510 even tried to commission Michelangelo and Raphael.
+
+During the next period (1530–1550), Titian developed the style introduced by his dramatic  Death of St. Peter Martyr. In 1538, the Venetian government, dissatisfied with Titian's neglect of his work for the ducal palace, ordered him  to refund the money he had received, and Il Pordenone, his rival of recent years, was installed in his place. However, at the end of a year Pordenone died, and Titian, who meanwhile applied himself diligently to painting in the hall the Battle of Cadore, was reinstated.[4]
+
+This major battle scene was lost—with many other major works by Venetian artists—in the 1577 fire that destroyed all the old pictures in the great chambers of the Doge's Palace.  It depicted in life-size the moment when the Venetian general d'Alviano attacked the enemy, with horses and men crashing down into a stream.[4] It was Titian's most important attempt at a tumultuous and heroic scene of movement to rival Raphael's Battle of Constantine, Michelangelo's equally ill-fated Battle of Cascina, and Leonardo da Vinci's The Battle of Anghiari (these last two unfinished). There remains only a poor, incomplete copy at the Uffizi, and a mediocre engraving by Fontana. The Speech of the Marquis del Vasto (Madrid, 1541) was also partly destroyed by fire. But this period of the master's work is still represented by the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin (Venice, 1539), one of his most popular canvasses, and by the Ecce Homo (Vienna, 1541).  Despite its loss, the painting had a great influence on Bolognese art and Rubens, both in the handling of details and the general effect of horses, soldiers, lictors, powerful stirrings of crowds at the foot of a stairway, lit by torches with the flapping of banners against the sky.
+
+Less successful were the pendentives of the cupola at Santa Maria della Salute (Death of Abel, Sacrifice of Abraham, David and Goliath). These violent scenes viewed in perspective from below were by their very nature in unfavorable situations.  They were nevertheless much admired and imitated, Rubens among others applying this system to his forty ceilings (the sketches only remain) of the Jesuit church at Antwerp.
+
+At this time also, during his visit to Rome, the artist began a series of reclining Venuses: The Venus of Urbino of the Uffizi, Venus and Love at the same museum, Venus—and the Organ-Player, Madrid, which shows the influence of contact with ancient sculpture. Giorgione had already dealt with the subject in his Dresden picture, finished by Titian, but here a purple drapery substituted for a landscape background changed, by its harmonious colouring, the whole meaning of the scene.
+
+From the beginning of his career, Titian was a masterful portrait-painter, in works like La Bella (Eleanora de Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, at the Pitti Palace). He painted the likenesses of princes, or Doges, cardinals or monks, and  artists or writers. "...no other painter was so successful in extracting from each physiognomy so many traits at once characteristic and beautiful".[23] Among portrait-painters Titian is compared to Rembrandt and Velázquez, with the interior life of the former, and the clearness, certainty, and obviousness of the latter.
+
+These qualities show in the Portrait of Pope Paul III of Naples, or the sketch of the same Pope Paul III and his Grandsons, the Portrait of Pietro Aretino of the Pitti Palace, the Portrait of Isabella of Portugal (Madrid), and the series of Emperor Charles V of the same museum, the Charles V with a Greyhound (1533), and especially the Equestrian Portrait of Charles V (1548), an equestrian picture in a symphony of purples.  This state portrait of Charles V (1548) at the Battle of Mühlberg established a new genre, that of the grand equestrian portrait. The composition is steeped both in the Roman tradition of equestrian sculpture and in the medieval representations of an ideal Christian knight, but the weary figure and face have a subtlety few such representations attempt.  In 1532, after painting a portrait of the emperor Charles V in Bologna, he was made a Count Palatine and knight of the Golden Spur. His children were also made nobles of the Empire, which for a painter was an exceptional honor.[4]
+
+As a matter of professional and worldly success, his position from about this time is regarded as equal only to that of Raphael, Michelangelo and, at a later date, Rubens. In 1540 he received a pension from d'Avalos, marquis del Vasto, and an annuity of 200 crowns (which was afterwards doubled) from Charles V from the treasury of Milan. Another source of profit, for he was always aware of money, was a contract obtained in 1542 for supplying grain to Cadore, where he visited almost every year and where he was both generous and influential.[4]
+
+Titian had a favorite villa on the neighboring Manza Hill (in front of the church of Castello Roganzuolo) from which (it may be inferred) he made his chief observations of landscape form and effect. The so-called Titian's mill, constantly discernible in his studies, is at Collontola, near Belluno.[24][4]
+
+He visited Rome in 1546 and obtained the freedom of the city—his immediate predecessor in that honor having been Michelangelo in 1537. He could at the same time have succeeded the painter Sebastiano del Piombo in his lucrative office as holder of the piombo or Papal seal, and he was prepared to take Holy Orders for the purpose; but the project lapsed through his being summoned away from Venice in 1547 to paint Charles V and others in Augsburg. He was there again in 1550, and executed the portrait of Philip II, which was sent to England and was useful in Philip's suit for the hand of Queen Mary.[4]
+
+During the last twenty-six years of his life (1550–1576), Titian worked mainly for Philip II and as a portrait-painter. He became more self-critical, an insatiable perfectionist, keeping some pictures in his studio for ten years—returning to them and retouching them, constantly adding new expressions at once more refined, concise, and subtle. He also finished many copies that his pupils made of his earlier works. This caused problems of attribution and priority among versions of his works—which were also widely copied and faked outside his studio during his lifetime and afterwards.
+
+For Philip II, he painted a series of large mythological paintings known as the "poesie", mostly from Ovid, which scholars regard as among his greatest works.[25] Thanks to the prudishness of Philip's successors, these were later mostly given as gifts, and only two remain in the Prado. Titian was producing religious works for Philip at the same time, some of which—the ones inside Ribeira Palace—are known to have been destroyed during the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake. The "poesie" series contained the following works:
+
+Danaë
+
+Venus and Adonis
+
+Diana and Actaeon
+
+Diana and Callisto
+
+Perseus and Andromeda
+
+The Rape of Europa
+
+The Death of Actaeon
+
+Another painting that apparently remained in his studio at his death, and has been much less well known until recent decades, is the powerful, even "repellent" Flaying of Marsyas (Kroměříž, Czech Republic).[28] Another violent masterpiece is Tarquin and Lucretia (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum).[29]
+
+For each problem he undertook, he furnished a new and more perfect formula. He never again equaled the emotion and tragedy of The Crowning with Thorns (Louvre); in the expression of the mysterious and the divine he never equaled the poetry of the Pilgrims of Emmaus; while in superb and heroic brilliancy he never again executed anything more grand than The Doge Grimani adoring Faith (Venice, Doge's Palace), or the Trinity, of Madrid. On the other hand, from the standpoint of flesh tints, his most moving pictures are those of his old age, such as the poesie and the Antiope of the Louvre. He even attempted problems of chiaroscuro in fantastic night effects (Martyrdom of St. Laurence, Church of the Jesuits, Venice; St. Jerome, Louvre; Crucifixion, Church of San Domenico, Ancona).
+
+Titian had engaged his daughter Lavinia, the beautiful girl whom he loved deeply and painted various times, to Cornelio Sarcinelli of Serravalle. She had succeeded her aunt Orsa, then deceased, as the manager of the household, which, with the lordly income that Titian made by this time, placed her on a corresponding footing. Lavinia's marriage to Cornelio took place in 1554. She died in childbirth in 1560.[4]
+
+Titian was at the Council of Trent towards 1555, of which there is a finished sketch in the Louvre. His friend Aretino died suddenly in 1556, and another close intimate, the sculptor and architect Jacopo Sansovino, in 1570. In September 1565 Titian went to Cadore and designed the decorations for the church at Pieve, partly executed by his pupils. One of these is a Transfiguration, another an Annunciation (now in S. Salvatore, Venice), inscribed Titianus fecit, by way of protest (it is said) against the disparagement of some persons who caviled at the veteran's failing handicraft.[4]
+
+Around 1560,[30] Titian painted the oil on canvas Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria, a derivative on the motif of Madonna and Child. It is suggested that members of Titian's Venice workshop probably painted the curtain and Luke, because of the lower quality of those parts.[31]
+
+He continued to accept commissions to the end of his life. Like many of his late works, Titian's last painting, the Pietà, is a dramatic, nocturnal scene of suffering. He apparently intended it for his own tomb chapel. He had selected, as his burial place, the chapel of the Crucifix in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, the church of the Franciscan Order. In payment for a grave, he offered the Franciscans a picture of the Pietà that represented himself and his son Orazio, with a sibyl, before the Savior. He nearly finished this work, but differences arose regarding it, and he settled on being interred in his native Pieve.[4]
+
+While the plague raged in Venice, Titian died of a fever on 27 August 1576.[32] Depending on his unknown birthdate (see above), he was somewhere from his late eighties or even close to 100. Titian was interred in the Frari (Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari), as at first intended, and his Pietà was finished by Palma il Giovane. He lies near his own famous painting, the Madonna di Ca' Pesaro. No memorial marked his grave.[4] Much later the Austrian rulers of Venice commissioned Antonio Canova to sculpt the large monument still in the church.
+
+Very shortly after Titian's death, his son, assistant and sole heir Orazio, also died of the plague, greatly complicating the settlement of his estate, as he had made no will.[33]
+
+Titian never attempted engraving, but he was very conscious of the importance of printmaking as a means to expand his reputation. In the period 1517–1520 he designed a number of woodcuts, including an enormous and impressive one of The Crossing of the Red Sea, intended as wall decoration in substitute for paintings;[34] and collaborated with Domenico Campagnola and others, who produced additional prints based on his paintings and drawings.  Much later he provided drawings based on his paintings to Cornelis Cort from the Netherlands who engraved them. Martino Rota followed Cort from about 1558 to 1568.[35]
+
+Titian employed an extensive array of pigments and it can be said that he availed himself of virtually all available pigments of his time.[36] In addition to the common pigments of the Renaissance period, such as ultramarine, vermilion, lead-tin yellow, ochres, and azurite, he also used the rare pigments realgar and orpiment.[37]
+
+Titian's wife, Cecilia, was a barber's daughter from his hometown village of Cadore. As a young woman she had been his housekeeper and mistress for some five years. Cecilia had already borne Titian two fine sons, Pomponio and Orazio, when in 1525 she fell seriously ill. Titian, wishing to legitimize the children, married her. Cecilia recovered, the marriage was a happy one, and they had another daughter who died in infancy.[38] In August 1530 Cecilia died. Titian remarried, but little information is known about his second wife; she was possibly the mother of his daughter Lavinia.[39] Titian had a fourth child, Emilia, the result of an affair, possibly with a housekeeper.[40] His favourite child was Orazio, who became his assistant.
+
+In August 1530, Titian moved his two boys and infant daughter to a new home and convinced his sister Orsa to come from Cadore and take charge of the household. The mansion, difficult to find now, is in the Biri Grande, then a fashionable suburb, at the extreme end of Venice, on the sea, with beautiful gardens and a view towards Murano. In about 1526 he had become acquainted, and soon close friends, with Pietro Aretino, the influential and audacious figure who features so strangely in the chronicles of the time. Titian sent a portrait of him to Gonzaga, duke of Mantua.[4]
+
+When he was very young, the famed Italian painter Tintoretto was brought to Titian's studio by his father. This was supposedly around 1533, when Titian was (according to the ordinary accounts) over 40 years of age. Tintoretto had only been ten days in the studio when Titian sent him home for good, because the great master observed some very spirited drawings, which he learned to be the production of Tintoretto; it is inferred that he became at once jealous of so promising a student. This, however, is mere conjecture; and perhaps it may be fairer to suppose that the drawings exhibited so much independence of manner that Titian judged that young Jacopo, although he might become a painter, would never be properly a pupil.[41] From this time forward the two always remained upon distant terms, though Tintoretto being indeed a professed and ardent admirer of Titian, but never a friend, and Titian and his adherents turned a cold shoulder to him. There was also active disparagement, but it passed unnoticed by Tintoretto.
+
+Several other artists of the Vecelli family followed in the wake of Titian. Francesco Vecellio, his older brother, was introduced to painting by Titian (it is said at the age of twelve, but chronology will hardly admit of this), and painted in the church of S. Vito in Cadore a picture of the titular saint armed. This was a noteworthy performance, of which Titian (the usual story) became jealous; so Francesco was diverted from painting to soldiering, and afterwards to mercantile life.[4]
+
+Marco Vecellio, called Marco di Tiziano, born in 1545, was Titian's nephew and was constantly with the master in his old age, and learned his methods of work. He has left some able productions in the ducal palace, the Meeting of Charles V. and Clement VII. in 1529; in S. Giacomo di Rialto, an Annunciation; in SS. Giovani e Paolo, Christ Fulminant. A son of Marco, named Tiziano (or Tizianello), painted early in the 17th century.[4]
+
+From a different branch of the family came Fabrizio di Ettore, a painter who died in 1580. His brother Cesare, who also left some pictures, is well known by his book of engraved costumes, Abiti antichi e moderni. Tommaso Vecelli, also a painter, died in 1620. There was another relative, Girolamo Dante, who, being a scholar and assistant of Titian, was called Girolamo di Tiziano. Various pictures of his were touched up by the master, and are difficult to distinguish from originals.[4]
+
+Few of the pupils and assistants of Titian became well known in their own right; for some being his assistant was probably a lifetime career. Paris Bordone and Bonifazio Veronese were his assistants during at some point in their careers. Giulio Clovio said Titian employed El Greco (or Dominikos Theotokopoulos) in his last years. Polidoro da Lanciano is said to have been a follower or pupil of Titian. Other followers were Nadalino da Murano,[42] Damiano Mazza,[43] and Gaspare Nervesa.[44]
+
+Contemporary estimates attribute around 400 works to Titian, of which about 300 survive.[45] Two of Titian's works in private hands were put up for sale in 2008. One of these, Diana and Actaeon, was purchased by London's National Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland on 2 February 2009 for £50 million.[46] The galleries had until 31 December 2008 to make the purchase before the work would be offered to private collectors, but the deadline was extended. The other painting, Diana and Callisto, was for sale for the same amount until 2012 before it was offered to private collectors. The sale created controversy with politicians who argued that the money could have been spent more wisely during a deepening recession. The Scottish Government offered £12.5 million and £10 million came from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The rest of the money came from the National Gallery and from private donations.[47]
+
+Portrait of a Sick Man, 1515, oil on canvas; Uffizi, Florence
+
+Annunciation, 1519–1520, oil on canvas; altar-painting in the Treviso Cathedral
+
+Venus Anadyomene, c. 1520
+
+The Aldobrandini Madonna, c 1530
+
+Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi, 1542
+
+Pope Paul III and His Grandsons, c. 1546
+
+A monk with a book, c. 1550
+
+Venus with a Mirror, c. 1555, National Gallery of Art
+
+Altarpiece of James the Greater, 1558, altar-painting in the 'San Lio' church, Venice
+
+Annunciation of the Lord, 1559–1564, oil on canvas; altar-painting in the 'San Savator' church, Venice
+
+Tarquin and Lucretia, 1571
+
+The Entombment, c. 1572, Prado

en/3406.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,121 @@
+
+
+A train is a form of rail transport consisting of a series of connected vehicles that generally run along a railroad (or railway) track to transport passengers or cargo (also known as "freight" or "goods"). The word "train" comes from the Old French trahiner, derived from the Latin trahere meaning "to pull" or "to draw".[1]
+
+Motive power for a train is provided by a separate locomotive or individual motors in a self-propelled multiple unit. The term "engine" is often used as an alternative to locomotive. Although historically steam propulsion dominated, the most common types of locomotive are diesel and electric, the latter supplied by overhead wires or additional rails. Trains can also be hauled by horses, pulled by engine or water-driven cable or wire winch, run downhill using gravity, or powered by pneumatics, gas turbines or batteries.
+
+The track usually consists of two running rails with a fixed spacing, which may be supplemented by additional rails such as electric conducting rails and rack rails. Monorails and maglev guideways are also used occasionally.[2]
+
+A passenger train includes passenger-carrying vehicles and can often be very long and fast.  High-speed rail service began expanding rapidly in the late 20th century, and is also a major subject of further development.  The term "light rail" is sometimes used to refer to a modern tram system, but it may also mean an intermediate form between a tram and a train, similar to a heavy rail rapid transit system.
+
+A freight train (or goods train) uses freight cars (or wagons/trucks) to transport goods or materials (cargo). It is possible to carry passengers and freight in the same train using a mixed consist.
+
+Rail cars and machinery that are used for the maintenance and repair of tracks, are termed "maintenance of way" equipment; these may be assembled into maintenance of way trains. Similarly, dedicated trains may be used to provide support services to stations along a train line, such as garbage or revenue collection.
+
+There are various types of trains that are designed for particular purposes. A train can consist of a combination of one or more locomotives and attached railroad cars, or a self-propelled multiple unit, or occasionally a single or articulated powered coach called a railcar. Special kinds of train running on corresponding purpose-built "railways" are monorails, high-speed railways, maglev, atmospheric railways, rubber-tired underground, funicular and cog railways.
+
+A passenger train consists of one or more locomotives and (usually) several coaches. Alternatively, a train may consist entirely of passenger-carrying coaches, some or all of which are powered; this is known as a "multiple unit". In many parts of the world, particularly the Far East and Europe, high-speed rail is used extensively for passenger travel. Freight trains consist of cars, wagons or trucks rather than carriages, though some parcel and mail trains (especially Travelling Post Offices) appear outwardly to be more like passenger trains. Trains can also have mixed consist, with both passenger accommodation and freight vehicles. These mixed trains are most likely to be used for services that run infrequently, where the provision of separate passenger and freight trains would not be cost-effective, but the disparate needs of passengers and freight means that this is avoided where possible. Special trains are also used for track maintenance; in some places, this is called "maintenance of way".
+
+In the United Kingdom, a train hauled using two locomotives is known as a "double-headed" train. In Canada and the United States, it is quite common for a long freight train to be headed by three or more locomotives. A train with a locomotive attached at both ends is described as "top and tailed", this practice typically being used when there are no reversing facilities available. Where a second locomotive is attached temporarily to assist a train when ascending steep banks or gradients (or to provide braking power for a descent), this is referred to as "banking" in the UK. Many loaded trains in the US are assembled using one or more locomotives in the middle or at the rear of the train, which are then operated remotely from the lead cab. This is referred to as "DP" or "Distributed Power."
+
+The railway terminology that is used to describe a train varies between countries.
+
+In the United Kingdom, the interchangeable terms set and unit are used to refer to a group of permanently or semi-permanently coupled vehicles, such as those of a multiple unit. While when referring to a train made up of a variety of vehicles, or of several sets/units, the term formation is used. (Although the UK public and media often forgo formation, for simply train.) The word rake is also used for a group of coaches or wagons.
+
+Section 83(1) of the UK's Railways Act 1993 defines "train" as follows:
+
+The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's 1948 operating rules define a train as: "An engine or more than one engine coupled, with or without cars, displaying markers."[3]
+
+In North America, Australia and other countries, the term consist (/ˈkɒnsɪst/ KON-sist) is used to describe the group of rail vehicles that make up a train. When specifically referring to motive power, the term refers to the group of locomotives powering the train, as does lash-up. The term trainset refers to a group of rolling stock that is permanently or semi-permanently coupled together to form a unified set of equipment (the term is most often applied to passenger train configurations).
+
+A bogie (/ˈboʊɡi/ BOH-ghee) is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar tracked vehicle. Usually, two bogies are fitted to each carriage, wagon or locomotive, one at each end. An alternate configuration, which is often used in articulated vehicles, places the bogies (often Jacobs bogies) under the connection between the carriages or wagons. Most bogies have two axles, as this is the simplest design, but some cars designed for extremely heavy loads have been built with up to five axles per bogie. Heavy-duty cars may have more than two bogies using span bolsters to equalize the load and connect the bogies to the cars. Usually, the train floor is at a level above the bogies, but the floor of the car may be lower between bogies, such as for a double decker train to increase interior space while staying within height restrictions, or in easy-access, stepless-entry, low-floor trains.
+
+The first trains were rope-hauled, gravity powered or pulled by horses, but from the early 19th century almost all trains were powered by steam locomotives. From the 1910s onwards, steam locomotives began to be replaced with less labor-intensive (and cleaner) diesel and electric locomotives, although these new forms of propulsion were far more complex and expensive than steam power. At about the same time, self-propelled multiple unit vehicles (both diesel and electric) became much more widely used in passenger service. Dieselisation of locomotives in day-to-day use was completed in most countries by the 1970s. Steam locomotives are still used in heritage railways operated in many countries for the leisure and enthusiast market.[citation needed]
+
+Electric traction offers a lower cost per mile of train operation but at a higher initial cost, which can only be justified on high traffic lines. Even though the cost per mile of construction is much higher, electric traction is more viable during operation because diesel import costs are substantially higher. Electric trains receive their current via overhead lines or through a third rail electric system.[citation needed]
+
+A developing technology is fuel cells, which combine the advantage of not needing an electrical system in place, with the advantage of emissionless operation. However, an impediment is substantial initial cost associated with fuel cell vehicles.[4]
+
+A passenger train includes passenger-carrying vehicles and can often be very long and fast. It may be a self-powered multiple unit or railcar, or else a combination of one or more locomotives and one or more unpowered trailers known as coaches, cars or carriages. Passenger trains travel between stations or depots, where passengers may board and disembark. In most cases, passenger trains operate on a fixed schedule and have superior track occupancy rights over freight trains.
+
+Unlike freight trains, passenger trains must supply head-end power to each coach for lighting and heating, among other purposes. This can be drawn directly from the locomotive's prime mover (modified for the purpose), or from a separate diesel generator in the locomotive. For passenger service on remote routes where a head-end-equipped locomotive may not always be available, a separate generator van may be used.[5][6]
+
+Oversight of a passenger train is the responsibility of the conductor. He or she is sometimes assisted by other crew members, such as service attendants or porters. During the heyday of North American passenger rail travel, long-distance trains carried two conductors: the aforementioned train conductor, and a Pullman conductor, the latter being in charge of sleeping car personnel.
+
+Many prestigious passenger train services have been given a specific name, some of which have become famous in literature and fiction. In past years, railroaders often referred to passenger trains as the "varnish", alluding to the bygone days of wooden-bodied coaches with their lustrous exterior finishes and fancy livery. "Blocking the varnish" meant a slow-moving freight train was obstructing a fast passenger train, causing delays.
+
+Some passenger trains, both long-distance and short-distance, may use bi-level (double-decker) cars to carry more passengers per train. Car design and the general safety of passenger trains have dramatically evolved over time, making travel by rail remarkably safe.
+
+Long-distance trains travel between many cities or regions of a country, and sometimes cross several countries. They often have a dining car or restaurant car to allow passengers to have a meal during the course of their journey. Trains travelling overnight may also have sleeping cars. Currently much of travel on these distances of over 500 miles (800 km) is done by air in many countries but in others long-distance travel by rail is a popular or the only cheap way to travel long distances.
+
+One notable and growing long-distance train category is high-speed rail, which generally runs at speeds above 200 km/h (120 mph) and often operates on dedicated track that is surveyed and prepared to accommodate high speeds. The first successful example of a high-speed passenger rail system was Japan's Shinkansen, colloquially known as the "bullet train", which commenced operation in October 1964.
+
+The fastest wheeled train running on rails is France's TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, literally "high speed train") which, under test conditions in 2007, achieved a speed of 574.8 km/h (357.2 mph), twice the takeoff speed of a Boeing 727 airliner. The TGV runs at a maximum revenue speed of 300–320 km/h (190–200 mph), as does Germany's ICE (Inter-City Express) and Spain's AVE (Alta Velocidad Española). The highest speed currently attained in scheduled revenue operation is 350 km/h (220 mph) on the Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Rail and Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway systems in China.
+
+In most cases, high-speed rail travel is time- and cost-competitive with air travel when distances do not exceed 500 to 600 km (310 to 370 mi), as airport check-in and boarding procedures can add at least two hours to the overall transit time.[8] Also, rail operating costs over these distances may be lower when the amount of jet fuel consumed by an airliner during takeoff and climbout is taken into consideration. Air travel becomes more cost-competitive as the travel distance increases because the fuel accounts for less of the overall operating cost of the airliner.
+
+Some high-speed rail systems employ tilting technology to improve stability in curves. Examples of tilting trains are the Advanced Passenger Train (APT), the Pendolino, the N700 Series Shinkansen, Amtrak's Acela and the Spanish Talgo. Tilting is a dynamic form of superelevation, allowing both low- and high-speed traffic to use the same trackage (though not simultaneously), as well as producing a more comfortable ride for passengers.
+
+"Inter-city" is a general term for any rail service that uses trains with limited stops to provide fast long-distance travel. Inter-city services can be divided into three major groups:
+
+The distinction between the three types of inter-city rail service may be unclear; trains can run as InterCity services between major cities, then revert to an express (or even regional) train service to reach communities at the furthest points of the journey. This practice allows marginal communities to be served in the most cost-effective way, at the expense of a longer journey time for those wishing to travel to the terminus station.
+
+Regional trains usually connect between towns and cities, serving smaller urban (and some rural) communities en route. These services are provided to meet local traffic demand in less accessible areas.
+
+Higher-speed rail is a special category of trains. The trains for higher-speed rail services can operate at top speeds that are higher than conventional inter-city trains but the speeds are not as high as those in the high-speed rail services. These services are provided after improvements to the conventional rail infrastructure to support trains that can operate safely at higher speeds.
+
+For shorter distances many cities have networks of commuter trains (also known as suburban trains) serving the city and its suburbs. Trains are a very efficient mode of transport to cope with large traffic demand in a metropolis. Compared with road transport, it carries many people with much smaller land area and little air pollution. Commuter rail also travels longer ranges compared to rapid transit systems with comparatively less frequency and may share tracks with other trains.[10]
+
+Some carriages may be laid out to have more standing room than seats, or to facilitate the carrying of prams, cycles or wheelchairs. Some countries have double-decked passenger trains for use in conurbations. Double deck high speed and sleeper trains are becoming more common in mainland Europe.
+
+Sometimes extreme congestion of commuter trains can become a problem. For example, an estimated 3.5 million passengers ride every day on Yamanote Line in Tokyo, Japan, with its 29 stations. For comparison, the New York City Subway carries 5.7 million passengers per day on 28 services serving 472 stations. To cope with large traffic, special cars in which the bench seats fold up to provide standing room only during the morning rush hour (until 10 a.m.) are operated in Tokyo (E231 series train). In the past this train has included 2 cars with six doors on each side to shorten the time for passengers to get on and off at station.
+
+Passenger trains usually have emergency brake handles (or a "communication cord") that the public can operate, should an emergency occur (like if someone is stuck on the train doors). This causes the train the emergency cord is pulled in, and in some cases, all the trains in the area to stop. Because the emergency brake cord can stop all the trains in the area to stop causing delays, anyone misusing the emergency brake cord will be punished with heavy fines.
+
+Various commuter and suburban train operators (e.g. Sydney Trains, NJ Transit, Paris RER) use double-decker trains. Double-decker trains offer increased capacity even when running less services.[11]
+
+Large cities often have a rapid transit system, also called "metro", "underground", "subway" or "tube". The trains are electrically powered, usually by third rail, and their railroads are separate from other traffic, usually without level crossings. Usually they run in tunnels in the city center and sometimes on elevated structures in the outer parts of the city. They can accelerate and decelerate faster than heavier, long-distance trains.
+
+The general term "rapid transit" is used for public transport such as commuter trains, metro and light rail. However, services on the New York City Subway have been referred to as "trains", while services on the London Underground are commonly referred to as "tube trains" or "tubes".
+
+In the UK, the distinction between a tramway and a railway is precise and defined in law. In Canada and the US, such street railways are referred to as trolleys or streetcars. The key physical difference between a railroad and a trolley system is that the latter runs primarily on public streets, whereas trains have a right-of-way separated from the public streets. Often the US-style interurban and modern light rail are confused with a trolley system, as it too may run on the street for short or medium-length sections. In some languages, the word tram also refers to interurban and light rail-style networks, in particular Dutch.
+
+The length of a tram or trolley may be determined by national regulations. Germany has the so-called Bo-Strab standard, restricting the length of a tram to 75 meters, while in the US, vehicle length is normally restricted by local authorities, often allowing only a single type of vehicle to operate on the network.
+
+The term "light rail" is sometimes used for a modern tram system, despite light rail lines commonly having a mostly exclusive right-of-way, more similar to that of a heavy-rail line and less like that of a tramway. It may also mean an intermediate form between a tram and a train, similar to a subway, except that it may have level crossings which are then usually protected with crossing gates. In US terminology, these systems are often referred to as "inter-urban" because they connect larger urban areas in the vicinity of a major city to the center of the city. Modern light rail systems often use abandoned heavy rail rights-of-way (e.g. former railway lines) to revitalize deprived areas and redevelopment sites in and around large agglomerations.
+
+Monorails were developed to meet medium-demand traffic in urban transit, and consist of a train running on a single rail, typically elevated. Monorails represent a relatively small part of the overall railway field. Almost all monorail trains use linear induction motors.[12][13]
+
+To achieve much faster operation over 500 km/h (310 mph), innovative maglev technology has been researched since the early 20th century. The technology uses magnets to levitate the train above the track, reducing friction and allowing higher speeds. An early prototype was demonstrated in 1913. The first commercial maglev train was an airport shuttle introduced in 1984 at Birmingham Airport in England.
+
+The Shanghai Maglev Train, opened in 2003, is the fastest commercial train service of any kind, operating at speeds of up to 430 km/h (270 mph). Maglev has not yet been used for inter-city mass transit routes.
+
+A railcar, in British English and Australian English, is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railways, e.g., the Great Western Railway, used the term Railmotor. If it is able to pull a full train, it is rather called a motor coach or a motor car.[14] The term is sometimes also used as an alternative name for the small types of multiple unit which consist of more than one coach.
+
+Railway companies often give a name to a train service as a marketing exercise, to attract more passengers and gain recognition for the company.  Naming is usually reserved for the most prestigious services, such as high-speed express trains that run between major cities, stopping at few intermediate stations, or for particularly luxurious trains.
+
+The names of special passenger trains have passed into popular culture: the Orient Express has been a setting for films and other works of fiction.  The Flying Scotsman, Golden Arrow, and Royal Scot are examples of famous British trains; the Texas Eagle and California Zephyr are particularly well known in the US; and the Red Arrow is a celebrated Russian sleeper train. In India, some of the popular specially-named train services are the Brindavan Express (Chennai–Bengaluru), Deccan Queen (Mumbai CST–Pune), and Flying Ranee (Mumbai Central–Surat).
+
+A less common practice is the naming of freight trains, for the same commercial reasons. In the 1960s, the "Condor" was an overnight London–Glasgow express goods train, hauled by pairs of "Metrovick" diesel locomotives. In the mid-1960s, British Rail introduced the "Freightliner" brand, for the new train services carrying containers between dedicated terminals around the rail network. The Rev. W. Awdry also named freight trains, coining the name "Flying Kipper" for the overnight express fish train that appeared in his stories in The Railway Series books.
+
+Airport trains transport people between terminals within an airport complex.
+
+Heritage trains are operated by volunteers, often railfans, as a tourist attraction. Usually trains are formed from historic vehicles retired from national commercial operation.
+
+Mine trains are operated in large mines and carry both workers and goods.
+
+Overland trains are used to carry cargo over rough terrain.
+
+A freight train (or "goods train") uses freight cars or wagons (also known as "trucks" or "goods wagons") to transport goods or materials (cargo) – essentially any train that is not used for carrying passengers. Much of the world's freight is transported by train, and the rail system in the US is used mostly for transporting freight rather than passengers.
+
+Under the right circumstances, transporting freight by train is highly economic, and also more energy efficient than transporting freight by road. Rail freight is most economic when goods are being carried in bulk and over large distances, but it is less suited to short distances and small loads. Bulk aggregate movements of a mere twenty miles (32 km) can be cost effective, even allowing for trans-shipment costs which dominate in many cases; modern practices such as intermodal container freight are aimed at minimizing these costs.
+
+The main disadvantage of rail freight is its lack of flexibility and for this reason, rail has lost much of the freight business to road competition. Many governments are trying to encourage more freight back onto trains because of the benefits that it would bring.
+
+There are many different types of freight train, used for carrying a huge variety of different kinds of freight, with various types of wagon. One of the most common types on modern railways are intermodal (container) trains, where the containers can be lifted on and off the train by cranes and loaded off or onto trucks or ships. In the US, this type of freight train has largely superseded the traditional boxcar (wagon-load) type of freight train, which requires the cargo to be loaded or unloaded manually. In Europe the sliding wall wagon has taken over from the ordinary covered goods wagon.
+
+In some countries "piggy-back" trains or rolling highways are used. In the latter case trucks can drive straight onto the train and drive off again when the end destination is reached. A system like this is used through the Channel Tunnel between England and France, and for the trans-Alpine service between France and Italy (this service uses Modalohr road trailer carriers). "Piggy-back" trains are the fastest growing type of freight train in the US, where they are also known as "trailer on flatcar" or TOFC trains. Piggy-back trains require no special modifications to the vehicles being carried. An alternative type of "intermodal" vehicle, known as a roadrailer, is designed to be physically attached to the train. The original trailers were fitted with two sets of wheels: one set flanged, for the trailer to run connected to other such trailers as a rail vehicle in a train; and one set with tires, for use as the semi-trailer of a road vehicle. More modern trailers have only road wheels and are designed to be carried on specially adapted bogies (trucks) when moving on rails.
+
+There are also many other types of wagon, such as "low loader" wagons or well wagons for transporting road vehicles. There are refrigerator cars for transporting foods such as ice cream. There are simple types of open-topped wagons for transporting minerals and bulk material such as coal, and tankers for transporting liquids and gases. Today, however, most coal and aggregates are moved in hopper wagons that can be filled and discharged rapidly, to enable efficient handling of the materials.
+
+Freight trains are sometimes illegally boarded by passengers who want a free ride, or do not have the money to travel by ordinary means. This is referred to as "freighthopping." A common way of boarding the train illegally is by sneaking into a train yard and stowing away in an unattended boxcar; a more dangerous practice is trying to catch a train "on the fly", that is, while it is moving, leading to occasional fatalities. Railroads treat it as trespassing and may prosecute it as such.

en/3407.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,290 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 57°N 25°E / 57°N 25°E / 57; 25
+
+– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green)  –  [Legend]
+
+Latvia (/ˈlɑːtviə/ or /ˈlætviə/ (listen); Latvian: Latvija [ˈlatvija], Livonian: Lețmō), officially known as the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika, Livonian: Lețmō Vabāmō), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe.[13][14][15] Since Latvia’s independence in 1918, it has been referred to as one of the Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants[16] and a territory of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi).[17] Its capital and largest city is Riga; other notable major cities in Latvia are Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava and Jūrmala. The country has a temperate seasonal climate.[18] The Baltic Sea moderates the climate, although the country has four distinct seasons and snowy winters.
+
+After centuries of Swedish, Polish and Russian rule, a rule mainly executed by the Baltic German aristocracy, the Republic of Latvia was established on 18 November 1918 when it broke away from the Russian Empire and declared independence in the aftermath of World War I.[2] However, by the 1930s the country became increasingly autocratic after the coup in 1934 establishing an authoritarian regime under Kārlis Ulmanis. The country's de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II, beginning with Latvia's forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, followed by the invasion and occupation by Nazi Germany in 1941, and the re-occupation by the Soviets in 1944 (Courland Pocket in 1945) to form the Latvian SSR for the next 45 years.
+
+The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation from Soviet rule and condemning the Communist regime's illegal takeover.[19] It ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990 and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991.[20] Latvia is a democratic sovereign state, parliamentary republic. Capital city Riga served as the European Capital of Culture in 2014. Latvian is the official language. Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and nine are cities.[21] Latvians and Livonians are the indigenous people of Latvia.[17] Latvian and Lithuanian are the only two surviving Baltic languages.
+
+Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language and musical traditions. However, as a consequence of centuries of Russian rule (1710–1918) and later Soviet occupation, 26.9% of the population of Latvia are ethnic Russians,[22] some of whom (10.7% of Latvian residents[23]) have not gained citizenship, leaving them with no citizenship at all. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans and Jews. Latvia is historically predominantly Lutheran Protestant, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic.[24] The Russian population is largely Eastern Orthodox Christians.
+
+Latvia is a high-income advanced economy[25][26] and ranks 39th in the Human Development Index.[27] It performs favorably in measurements of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance, living standards, and peacefulness. Latvia is a member of the European Union, Eurozone, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. A full member of the Eurozone, it began using the euro as its currency on 1 January 2014, replacing the Latvian lats.[28]
+
+The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes (along with Couronians, Selonians and Semigallians), which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finnic Livonians.[29] Henry of Latvia coined the latinisations of the country's name, "Lettigallia" and "Lethia", both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the country's name in Romance languages from "Letonia" and in several Germanic languages from "Lettland".[30]
+
+Around 3000 BC, the proto-Baltic ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.[31] The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals.[32] By 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia: Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians (in Latvian: kurši, latgaļi, sēļi and zemgaļi), as well as the Finnic tribe of Livonians (lībieši) speaking a Finnic language.[citation needed]
+
+In the 12th century in the territory of Latvia, there were 14 lands with their rulers: Vanema, Ventava, Bandava, Piemare, Duvzare, Ceklis, Megava, Pilsāts, Upmale, Sēlija, Koknese, Jersika, Tālava and Adzele.[33]
+
+Although the local people had contact with the outside world for centuries, they became more fully integrated into the European socio-political system in the 12th century.[34] The first missionaries, sent by the Pope, sailed up the Daugava River in the late 12th century, seeking converts.[35] The local people, however, did not convert to Christianity as readily as the Church had hoped.[35]
+
+German crusaders were sent, or more likely decided to go on their own accord as they were known to do. Saint Meinhard of Segeberg arrived in Ikšķile, in 1184, traveling with merchants to Livonia, on a Catholic mission to convert the population from their original pagan beliefs. Pope Celestine III had called for a crusade against pagans in Northern Europe in 1193. When peaceful means of conversion failed to produce results, Meinhard plotted to convert Livonians by force of arms.[36]
+
+In the beginning of the 13th century, Germans ruled large parts of today's Latvia.[35] Together with Southern Estonia, these conquered areas formed the crusader state that became known as Terra Mariana or Livonia. In 1282, Riga, and later the cities of Cēsis, Limbaži, Koknese and Valmiera, became part of the Hanseatic League.[35] Riga became an important point of east–west trading[35] and formed close cultural links with Western Europe.[37]
+
+After the Livonian War (1558–1583), Livonia (Latvia) fell under Polish and Lithuanian rule.[35] The southern part of Estonia and the northern part of Latvia were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and formed into the Duchy of Livonia (Ducatus Livoniae Ultradunensis). Gotthard Kettler, the last Master of the Order of Livonia, formed the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.[38] Though the duchy was a vassal state to Poland, it retained a considerable degree of autonomy and experienced a golden age in the 16th century. Latgalia, the easternmost region of Latvia, became a part of the Inflanty Voivodeship of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.[39]
+
+In the 17th and early 18th centuries, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and Russia struggled for supremacy in the eastern Baltic. After the Polish–Swedish War, northern Livonia (including Vidzeme) came under Swedish rule. Riga became the capital of Swedish Livonia and the largest city in the entire Swedish Empire.[40] Fighting continued sporadically between Sweden and Poland until the Truce of Altmark in 1629.[citation needed] In Latvia, the Swedish period is generally remembered as positive; serfdom was eased, a network of schools was established for the peasantry, and the power of the regional barons was diminished.[41][42]
+
+Several important cultural changes occurred during this time. Under Swedish and largely German rule, western Latvia adopted Lutheranism as its main religion. The ancient tribes of the Couronians, Semigallians, Selonians, Livs, and northern Latgallians assimilated to form the Latvian people, speaking one Latvian language. Throughout all the centuries, however, an actual Latvian state had not been established, so the borders and definitions of who exactly fell within that group are largely subjective. Meanwhile, largely isolated from the rest of Latvia, southern Latgallians adopted Catholicism under Polish/Jesuit influence. The native dialect remained distinct, although it acquired many Polish and Russian loanwords.[43]
+
+The capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 and the Treaty of Nystad, ending the Great Northern War in 1721, gave Vidzeme to Russia (it became part of the Riga Governorate).[citation needed] The Latgale region remained part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship until 1772, when it was incorporated into Russia. The Duchy of Courland and Semigallia became an autonomous Russian province (the Courland Governorate) in 1795, bringing all of what is now Latvia into the Russian Empire. All three Baltic provinces preserved local laws, German as the local official language and their own parliament, the Landtag.[citation needed]
+
+During the Great Northern War (1700–1721), up to 40 percent of Latvians died from famine and plague.[44] Half the residents of Riga were killed by plague in 1710–1711.[45]
+
+The emancipation of the serfs took place in Courland in 1817 and in Vidzeme in 1819.[citation needed] In practice, however, the emancipation was actually advantageous to the landowners and nobility,[citation needed] as it dispossessed peasants of their land without compensation, forcing them to return to work at the estates "of their own free will".[citation needed]
+
+During the 19th century, the social structure changed dramatically.[citation needed] A class of independent farmers established itself after reforms allowed the peasants to repurchase their land, but many landless peasants remained.[citation needed] There also developed a growing urban proletariat and an increasingly influential Latvian bourgeoisie. The Young Latvian (Latvian: Jaunlatvieši) movement laid the groundwork for nationalism from the middle of the century, many of its leaders looking to the Slavophiles for support against the prevailing German-dominated social order.[citation needed] The rise in use of the Latvian language in literature and society became known as the First National Awakening. Russification began in Latgale after the Polish led the January Uprising in 1863: this spread to the rest of what is now Latvia by the 1880s.[citation needed] The Young Latvians were largely eclipsed by the New Current, a broad leftist social and political movement, in the 1890s. Popular discontent exploded in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which took a nationalist character in the Baltic provinces.[citation needed]
+
+During these two centuries Latvia experienced economic and construction boom – ports were expanded (Riga became the largest port in the Russian Empire), railways built; new factories, banks, and a University were established; many residential, public (theatres and museums), and school buildings were erected; new parks formed; and so on. Riga's boulevards and some streets outside the Old Town date from this period.[citation needed]
+
+Worth mentioning is the fact that numeracy was also higher in the Estonian and Latvian parts of the Russian Empire, which may have been influenced by the Protestant religion of the inhabitants.[46]
+
+World War I devastated the territory of what became the state of Latvia, and other western parts of the Russian Empire. Demands for self-determination were initially confined to autonomy, until a power vacuum was created by the Russian Revolution in 1917, followed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Russia and Germany in March 1918, then the Allied armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918. On 18 November 1918, in Riga, the People's Council of Latvia proclaimed the independence of the new country, with Kārlis Ulmanis becoming the head of the provisional government.[citation needed]
+The General representative of Germany August Winnig formally handed over political power to the Latvian Provisional Government on 26 November.
+
+The war of independence that followed was part of a general chaotic period of civil and new border wars in Eastern Europe. By the spring of 1919, there were actually three governments: the Provisional government headed by Kārlis Ulmanis, supported by Tautas padome and the Inter-Allied Commission of Control; the Latvian Soviet government led by Pēteris Stučka, supported by the Red Army; and the Provisional government headed by Andrievs Niedra and supported by the Baltische Landeswehr and the German Freikorps unit Iron Division.[citation needed]
+
+Estonian and Latvian forces defeated the Germans at the Battle of Wenden in June 1919,[47] and a massive attack by a predominantly German force—the West Russian Volunteer Army—under Pavel Bermondt-Avalov was repelled in November. Eastern Latvia was cleared of Red Army forces by Latvian and Polish troops in early 1920 (from the Polish perspective the Battle of Daugavpils was a part of the Polish–Soviet War).[citation needed]
+
+A freely elected Constituent assembly convened on 1 May 1920, and adopted a liberal constitution, the Satversme, in February 1922.[48] The constitution was partly suspended by Kārlis Ulmanis after his coup in 1934 but reaffirmed in 1990. Since then, it has been amended and is still in effect in Latvia today. With most of Latvia's industrial base evacuated to the interior of Russia in 1915, radical land reform was the central political question for the young state. In 1897, 61.2% of the rural population had been landless; by 1936, that percentage had been reduced to 18%.[49]
+
+By 1923, the extent of cultivated land surpassed the pre-war level. Innovation and rising productivity led to rapid growth of the economy, but it soon suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. Latvia showed signs of economic recovery, and the electorate had steadily moved toward the centre during the parliamentary period.[citation needed] On 15 May 1934, Ulmanis staged a bloodless coup, establishing a nationalist dictatorship that lasted until 1940.[50] After 1934, Ulmanis established government corporations to buy up private firms with the aim of "Latvianising" the economy.[51]
+
+Early in the morning of 24 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a 10-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The pact contained a secret protocol, revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945, according to which the states of Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into German and Soviet "spheres of influence".[52] In the north, Latvia, Finland and Estonia were assigned to the Soviet sphere.[52] A week later, on 1 September 1939, Germany and on 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland.[53]:32
+
+After the conclusion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, most of the Baltic Germans left Latvia by agreement between Ulmanis' government and Nazi Germany under the Heim ins Reich programme.[54] In total 50,000 Baltic Germans left by the deadline of December 1939, with 1,600 remaining to conclude business and 13,000 choosing to remain in Latvia.[54] Most of those who remained left for Germany in summer 1940, when a second resettlement scheme was agreed.[55] The racially approved being resettled mainly in Poland, being given land and businesses in exchange for the money they had received from the sale of their previous assets.[53]:46
+
+On 5 October 1939, Latvia was forced to accept a "mutual assistance" pact with the Soviet Union, granting the Soviets the right to station between 25,000 and 30,000 troops on Latvian territory.[56]
+State administrators were liquidated and replaced by Soviet cadres.[57] Elections were held with single pro-Soviet candidates listed for many positions. The resulting people's assembly immediately requested admission into the USSR, which the Soviet Union granted.[57] Latvia, then a puppet government, was headed by Augusts Kirhenšteins.[58] The Soviet Union incorporated Latvia on 5 August 1940, as The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
+
+The Soviets dealt harshly with their opponents – prior to Operation Barbarossa, in less than a year, at least 34,250 Latvians were deported or killed.[59] Most were deported to Siberia where deaths were estimated at 40 percent, officers of the Latvian army being shot on the spot.[53]:48
+
+On 22 June 1941 German troops attacked Soviet forces in Operation Barbarossa. There were some spontaneous uprisings by Latvians against the Red Army which helped the Germans. By 29 June Riga was reached and with Soviet troops killed, captured or retreating, Latvia was left under the control of German forces by early July.[53]:78–96 The occupation was followed immediately by SS Einsatzgruppen troops who were to act in accordance with the Nazi Generalplan Ost which required the population of Latvia to be cut by 50 percent.[53]:64[53]:56
+
+Under German occupation, Latvia was administered as part of Reichskommissariat Ostland. Latvian paramilitary and Auxiliary Police units established by the occupation authority participated in the Holocaust and other atrocities.[50] 30,000 Jews were shot in Latvia in the autumn of 1941.[53]:127 Another 30,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto were killed in the Rumbula Forest in November and December 1941, to reduce overpopulation in the ghetto and make room for more Jews being brought in from Germany and the West.[53]:128 There was a pause in fighting, apart from partisan activity, until after the siege of Leningrad ended in January 1944 and the Soviet troops advanced, entering Latvia in July and eventually capturing Riga on 13 October 1944.[53]:271
+
+More than 200,000 Latvian citizens died during World War II, including approximately 75,000 Latvian Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation.[50] Latvian soldiers fought on both sides of the conflict, mainly on the German side, with 140,000 men in the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS,[60] The 308th Latvian Rifle Division was formed by the Red Army in 1944. On occasions, especially in 1944, opposing Latvian troops faced each other in battle.[53]:299
+
+In the 23rd block of the Vorverker cemetery, a monument was erected after the Second World War for the people of Latvia, who had died in Lübeck from 1945 to 1950.
+
+In 1944, when Soviet military advances reached Latvia, heavy fighting took place in Latvia between German and Soviet troops, which ended in another German defeat. In the course of the war, both occupying forces conscripted Latvians into their armies, in this way increasing the loss of the nation's "live resources". In 1944, part of the Latvian territory once more came under Soviet control. The Soviets immediately began to reinstate the Soviet system. After the German surrender, it became clear that Soviet forces were there to stay, and Latvian national partisans, soon joined by some who had collaborated with the Germans, began to fight against the new occupier.[61]
+
+Anywhere from 120,000 to as many as 300,000 Latvians took refuge from the Soviet army by fleeing to Germany and Sweden.[62] Most sources count 200,000 to 250,000 refugees leaving Latvia, with perhaps as many as 80,000 to 100,000 of them recaptured by the Soviets or, during few months immediately after the end of war,[63] returned by the West.[64]
+The Soviets reoccupied the country in 1944–1945, and further deportations followed as the country was collectivised
+and Sovieticised.[50]
+
+On 25 March 1949, 43,000 rural residents ("kulaks") and Latvian nationalists were deported to Siberia in a sweeping Operation Priboi in all three Baltic states, which was carefully planned and approved in Moscow already on 29 January 1949.[65] This operation had the desired effect of reducing the anti Soviet partisan activity.[53]:326 Between 136,000 and 190,000 Latvians, depending on the sources, were imprisoned or deported to Soviet concentration camps (the Gulag) in the post war years, from 1945 to 1952.[66] Some managed to escape arrest and joined the partisans.[citation needed]
+
+In the post-war period, Latvia was made to adopt Soviet farming methods. Rural areas were forced into collectivization.[67] An extensive program to impose bilingualism was initiated in Latvia, limiting the use of Latvian language in official uses in favor of using Russian as the main language. All of the minority schools (Jewish, Polish, Belarusian, Estonian, Lithuanian) were closed down leaving only two media of instructions in the schools: Latvian and Russian.[68] An influx of laborers, administrators, military personnel and their dependents from Russia and other Soviet republics started. By 1959 about 400,000 people arrived from other Soviet republics and the ethnic Latvian population had fallen to 62%.[69]
+
+Since Latvia had maintained a well-developed infrastructure and educated specialists, Moscow decided to base some of the Soviet Union's most advanced manufacturing in Latvia. New industry was created in Latvia, including a major machinery factory RAF in Jelgava, electrotechnical factories in Riga, chemical factories in Daugavpils, Valmiera and Olaine—and some food and oil processing plants.[70] Latvia manufactured trains, ships, minibuses, mopeds, telephones, radios and hi-fi systems, electrical and diesel engines, textiles, furniture, clothing, bags and luggage, shoes, musical instruments, home appliances, watches, tools and equipment, aviation and agricultural equipment and long list of other goods. Latvia had its own film industry and musical records factory (LPs). However, there were not enough people to operate the newly built factories.[citation needed] To maintain and expand industrial production, skilled workers were migrating from all over the Soviet Union, decreasing the proportion of ethnic Latvians in the republic.[71] The population of Latvia reached its peak in 1990 at just under 2.7 million people.
+
+In late 2018 the National Archives of Latvia released a full alphabetical index of some 10,000 people recruited as agents or informants by the Soviet KGB. 'The publication, which followed two decades of public debate and the passage of a special law, revealed the names, code names, birthplaces and other data on active and former KGB agents as of 1991, the year Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union.'[72]
+
+In the second half of the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev started to introduce political and economic reforms in the Soviet Union that were called glasnost and perestroika. In the summer of 1987, the first large demonstrations were held in Riga at the Freedom Monument—a symbol of independence. In the summer of 1988, a national movement, coalescing in the Popular Front of Latvia, was opposed by the Interfront. The Latvian SSR, along with the other Baltic Republics was allowed greater autonomy, and in 1988, the old pre-war Flag of Latvia flew again, replacing the Soviet Latvian flag as the official flag in 1990.[73][74]
+
+In 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution on the Occupation of the Baltic states, in which it declared the occupation "not in accordance with law", and not the "will of the Soviet people". Pro-independence Popular Front of Latvia candidates gained a two-thirds majority in the Supreme Council in the March 1990 democratic elections. On 4 May 1990, the Supreme Council adopted the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, and the Latvian SSR was renamed Republic of Latvia.[75]
+
+However, the central power in Moscow continued to regard Latvia as a Soviet republic in 1990 and 1991. In January 1991, Soviet political and military forces tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the Republic of Latvia authorities by occupying the central publishing house in Riga and establishing a Committee of National Salvation to usurp governmental functions. During the transitional period, Moscow maintained many central Soviet state authorities in Latvia.[75]
+
+In spite of this, 73% of all Latvian residents confirmed their strong support for independence on 3 March 1991, in a non-binding advisory referendum.[citation needed] The Popular Front of Latvia advocated that all permanent residents be eligible for Latvian citizenship, helping to sway many ethnic Russians to vote for independence. However, universal citizenship for all permanent residents was not adopted. Instead, citizenship was granted to persons who had been citizens of Latvia at the day of loss of independence at 1940 as well as their descendants. As a consequence, the majority of ethnic non-Latvians did not receive Latvian citizenship since neither they nor their parents had ever been citizens of Latvia, becoming non-citizens or citizens of other former Soviet republics. By 2011, more than half of non-citizens had taken naturalization exams and received Latvian citizenship. Still, today there are 290,660 non-citizens in Latvia, which represent 14.1% of the population. They have no citizenship of any country, and cannot vote in Latvia.[76]
+
+The Republic of Latvia declared the end of the transitional period and restored full independence on 21 August 1991, in the aftermath of the failed Soviet coup attempt.[3]
+
+The Saeima, Latvia's parliament, was again elected in 1993. Russia ended its military presence by completing its troop withdrawal in 1994 and shutting down the Skrunda-1 radar station in 1998. The major goals of Latvia in the 1990s, to join NATO and the European Union, were achieved in 2004. The NATO Summit 2006 was held in Riga.[77]
+
+Language and citizenship laws have been opposed by many Russophones. Citizenship was not automatically extended to former Soviet citizens who settled during the Soviet occupation, or to their offspring. Children born to non-nationals after the reestablishment of independence are automatically entitled to citizenship. Approximately 72% of Latvian citizens are Latvian, while 20% are Russian; less than 1% of non-citizens are Latvian, while 71% are Russian.[78] The government denationalized private property confiscated by the Soviets, returning it or compensating the owners for it, and privatized most state-owned industries, reintroducing the prewar currency. Albeit having experienced a difficult transition to a liberal economy and its re-orientation toward Western Europe, Latvia is one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. In 2014, Riga was the European Capital of Culture, the euro was introduced as the currency of the country and a Latvian was named vice-president of the European Commission. In 2015 Latvia held the presidency of Council of the European Union. Big European events have been celebrated in Riga such as the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 and the European Film Awards 2014. On 1 July 2016, Latvia became a member of the OECD.[79]
+
+Latvia lies in Northern Europe, on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea and northwestern part of the East European Craton (EEC), between latitudes 55° and 58° N (a small area is north of 58°), and longitudes 21° and 29° E (a small area is west of 21°). Latvia has a total area of 64,559 km2 (24,926 sq mi) of which 62,157 km2 (23,999 sq mi) land, 18,159 km2 (7,011 sq mi) agricultural land,[80] 34,964 km2 (13,500 sq mi) forest land[81] and 2,402 km2 (927 sq mi) inland water.[82]
+
+The total length of Latvia's boundary is 1,866 km (1,159 mi). The total length of its land boundary is 1,368 km (850 mi), of which 343 km (213 mi) is shared with Estonia to the north, 276 km (171 mi) with the Russian Federation to the east, 161 km (100 mi) with Belarus to the southeast and 588 km (365 mi) with Lithuania to the south. The total length of its maritime boundary is 498 km (309 mi), which is shared with Estonia, Sweden and Lithuania. Extension from north to south is 210 km (130 mi) and from west to east 450 km (280 mi).[82]
+
+Most of Latvia's territory is less than 100 m (330 ft) above sea level. Its largest lake, Lubāns, has an area of 80.7 km2 (31.2 sq mi), its deepest lake, Drīdzis, is 65.1 m (214 ft) deep. The longest river on Latvian territory is the Gauja, at 452 km (281 mi) in length. The longest river flowing through Latvian territory is the Daugava, which has a total length of 1,005 km (624 mi), of which 352 km (219 mi) is on Latvian territory. Latvia's highest point is Gaiziņkalns, 311.6 m (1,022 ft). The length of Latvia's Baltic coastline is 494 km (307 mi). An inlet of the Baltic Sea, the shallow Gulf of Riga is situated in the northwest of the country.[83]
+
+Latvia has a temperate climate that has been described in various sources as either humid continental (Köppen Dfb) or oceanic/maritime (Köppen Cfb).[84][85][86]
+
+Coastal regions, especially the western coast of the Courland Peninsula, possess a more maritime climate with cooler summers and milder winters, while eastern parts exhibit a more continental climate with warmer summers and harsher winters.[84]
+
+Latvia has four pronounced seasons of near-equal length. Winter starts in mid-December and lasts until mid-March. Winters have average temperatures of −6 °C (21 °F) and are characterized by stable snow cover, bright sunshine, and short days. Severe spells of winter weather with cold winds, extreme temperatures of around −30 °C (−22 °F) and heavy snowfalls are common. Summer starts in June and lasts until August. Summers are usually warm and sunny, with cool evenings and nights. Summers have average temperatures of around 19 °C (66 °F), with extremes of 35 °C (95 °F). Spring and autumn bring fairly mild weather.[87]
+
+2019 was the warmest year in the history of weather observation in Latvia with an average temperature +8.1 °C (47 °F) higher.[89]
+
+Most of the country is composed of fertile lowland plains and moderate hills. In a typical Latvian landscape, a mosaic of vast forests alternates with fields, farmsteads, and pastures. Arable land is spotted with birch groves and wooded clusters, which afford a habitat for numerous plants and animals. Latvia has hundreds of kilometres of undeveloped seashore—lined by pine forests, dunes, and continuous white sand beaches.[83][90]
+
+Latvia has the 5th highest proportion of land covered by forests in the European Union, after Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Slovenia.[91] Forests account for 3,497,000 ha (8,640,000 acres) or 56% of the total land area.[81]
+
+Latvia has over 12,500 rivers, which stretch for 38,000 km (24,000 mi). Major rivers include the Daugava River, Lielupe, Gauja, Venta, and Salaca, the largest spawning ground for salmon in the eastern Baltic states. There are 2,256 lakes that are bigger than 1 ha (2.5 acres), with a collective area of 1,000 km2 (390 sq mi). Mires occupy 9.9% of Latvia's territory. Of these, 42% are raised bogs; 49% are fens; and 9% are transitional mires. 70% percent of the mires are untouched by civilization, and they are a refuge for many rare species of plants and animals.[90]
+
+Agricultural areas account for 1,815,900 ha (4,487,000 acres) or 29% of the total land area.[80] With the dismantling of collective farms, the area devoted to farming decreased dramatically – now farms are predominantly small. Approximately 200 farms, occupying 2,750 ha (6,800 acres), are engaged in ecologically pure farming (using no artificial fertilizers or pesticides).[90]
+
+Latvia's national parks are Gauja National Park in Vidzeme (since 1973),[92] Ķemeri National Park in Zemgale (1997), Slītere National Park in Kurzeme (1999), and Rāzna National Park in Latgale (2007).[93]
+
+Latvia has a long tradition of conservation. The first laws and regulations were promulgated in the 16th and 17th centuries.[90] There are 706 specially state-level protected natural areas in Latvia: four national parks, one biosphere reserve, 42 nature parks, nine areas of protected landscapes, 260 nature reserves, four strict nature reserves, 355 nature monuments, seven protected marine areas and 24 microreserves.[94] Nationally protected areas account for 12,790 km2 (4,940 sq mi) or around 20% of Latvia's total land area.[82] Latvia's Red Book (Endangered Species List of Latvia), which was established in 1977, contains 112 plant species and 119 animal species. Latvia has ratified the international Washington, Bern, and Ramsare conventions.[90]
+
+The 2012 Environmental Performance Index ranks Latvia second, after Switzerland, based on the environmental performance of the country's policies.[95]
+
+Venta Rapid in Kuldīga is the widest waterfall in Europe and a natural monument of Latvia.
+
+Devonian sandstone cliffs in Gauja National Park, Latvia's largest and oldest national park
+
+Ķemeri National Park is home to mires, natural mineral-springs, muds and lakes that are former lagoons of the Littorina Sea.
+
+Slītere National Park at Cape Kolka includes several Livonian fishing villages of the Livonian Coast. (Livonian: Līvõd Rānda)
+
+Access to biocapacity in Latvia is much higher than world average. In 2016, Latvia had 8.5 global hectares [96] of biocapacity per person within its territory, much more than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person.[97] In 2016 Latvia used 6.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use less biocapacity than Latvia contains. As a result, Latvia is running a biocapacity reserve.[96]
+
+Approximately 30,000 species of flora and fauna have been registered in Latvia.[99] Common species of wildlife in Latvia include deer, wild boar, moose, lynx, bear, fox, beaver and wolves.[100] Non-marine molluscs of Latvia include 159 species.[citation needed]
+
+Species that are endangered in other European countries but common in Latvia include: black stork (Ciconia nigra), corncrake (Crex crex), lesser spotted eagle (Aquila pomarina), white-backed woodpecker (Picoides leucotos), Eurasian crane (Grus grus), Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber), Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), European wolf (Canis lupus) and European lynx (Felis lynx).[90]
+
+Phytogeographically, Latvia is shared between the Central European and Northern European provinces of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. According to the WWF, the territory of Latvia belongs to the ecoregion of Sarmatic mixed forests. 56 percent[81] of Latvia's territory is covered by forests, mostly Scots pine, birch, and Norway spruce.[citation needed]
+
+Several species of flora and fauna are considered national symbols. Oak (Quercus robur, Latvian: ozols), and linden (Tilia cordata, Latvian: liepa) are Latvia's national trees and the daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare, Latvian: pīpene) its national flower. The white wagtail (Motacilla alba, Latvian: baltā cielava) is Latvia's national bird. Its national insect is the two-spot ladybird (Adalia bipunctata, Latvian: divpunktu mārīte). Amber, fossilized tree resin, is one of Latvia's most important cultural symbols. In ancient times, amber found along the Baltic Sea coast was sought by Vikings as well as traders from Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire. This led to the development of the Amber Road.[101]
+
+Several nature reserves protect unspoiled landscapes with a variety of large animals. At Pape Nature Reserve, where European bison, wild horses, and recreated aurochs have been reintroduced, there is now an almost complete Holocene megafauna also including moose, deer, and wolf.[102]
+
+Latvia is a unitary state, currently divided into 110 one-level municipalities (Latvian: novadi) and 9 republican cities (Latvian: republikas pilsētas) with their own city council and administration: Daugavpils, Jēkabpils, Jelgava, Jūrmala, Liepāja, Rēzekne, Riga, Valmiera, and Ventspils. There are four historical and cultural regions in Latvia – Courland, Latgale, Vidzeme, Zemgale, which are recognised in Constitution of Latvia. Selonia, a part of Zemgale, is sometimes considered culturally distinct region, but it is not part of any formal division. The borders of historical and cultural regions usually are not explicitly defined and in several sources may vary. In formal divisions, Riga region, which includes the capital and parts of other regions that have a strong relationship with the capital, is also often included in regional divisions; e.g., there are five planning regions of Latvia (Latvian: plānošanas reģioni), which were created in 2009 to promote balanced development of all regions. Under this division Riga region includes large parts of what traditionally is considered Vidzeme, Courland, and Zemgale. Statistical regions of Latvia, established in accordance with the EU Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, duplicate this division, but divides Riga region into two parts with the capital alone being a separate region.[citation needed]
+The largest city in Latvia is Riga, the second largest city is Daugavpils and the third largest city is Liepaja.
+
+The 100-seat unicameral Latvian parliament, the Saeima, is elected by direct popular vote every four years. The president is elected by the Saeima in a separate election, also held every four years. The president appoints a prime minister who, together with his cabinet, forms the executive branch of the government, which has to receive a confidence vote by the Saeima. This system also existed before World War II.[103] The most senior civil servants are the thirteen Secretaries of State.[citation needed][104]
+
+Latvia is a member of the United Nations, European Union, Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, OSCE, IMF, and WTO. It is also a member of the Council of the Baltic Sea States and Nordic Investment Bank. It was a member of the League of Nations (1921–1946). Latvia is part of the Schengen Area and joined the Eurozone on 1 January 2014.
+
+Latvia has established diplomatic relations with 158 countries. It has 44 diplomatic and consular missions and maintains 34 embassies and 9 permanent representations abroad. There are 37 foreign embassies and 11 international organisations in Latvia's capital Riga. Latvia hosts one European Union institution, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).[105]
+
+Latvia's foreign policy priorities include co-operation in the Baltic Sea region, European integration, active involvement in international organisations, contribution to European and transatlantic security and defence structures, participation in international civilian and military peacekeeping operations, and development co-operation, particularly the strengthening of stability and democracy in the EU's Eastern Partnership countries.[106][107][108]
+
+Since the early 1990s, Latvia has been involved in active trilateral Baltic states co-operation with its neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, and Nordic-Baltic co-operation with the Nordic countries. The Baltic Council is the joint forum of the interparliamentary Baltic Assembly (BA) and the intergovernmental Baltic Council of Ministers (BCM).[109] Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB-8) is the joint co-operation of the governments of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden.[110] Nordic-Baltic Six (NB-6), comprising Nordic-Baltic countries that are European Union member states, is a framework for meetings on EU-related issues. Interparliamentary co-operation between the Baltic Assembly and Nordic Council was signed in 1992 and since 2006 annual meetings are held as well as regular meetings on other levels.[110] Joint Nordic-Baltic co-operation initiatives include the education programme NordPlus[111] and mobility programmes for public administration,[112] business and industry[113] and culture.[114] The Nordic Council of Ministers has an office in Riga.[115]
+
+Latvia participates in the Northern Dimension and Baltic Sea Region Programme, European Union initiatives to foster cross-border co-operation in the Baltic Sea region and Northern Europe. The secretariat of the Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture (NDPC) will be located in Riga.[116] In 2013 Riga hosted the annual Northern Future Forum, a two-day informal meeting of the prime ministers of the Nordic-Baltic countries and the UK.[117] The Enhanced Partnership in Northern Europe or e-Pine is the U.S. Department of State diplomatic framework for co-operation with the Nordic-Baltic countries.[118]
+
+Latvia hosted the 2006 NATO Summit and since then the annual Riga Conference has become a leading foreign and security policy forum in Northern Europe.[119] Latvia held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2015.[120]
+
+According to the reports by Freedom House and the US Department of State, human rights in Latvia are generally respected by the government:[121][122] Latvia is ranked above-average among the world's sovereign states in democracy,[123] press freedom,[124] privacy[125] and human development.[126]
+
+More than 56% of leading positions are held by women in Latvia, which ranks 1st in Europe; Latvia ranks 1st in the world in women's rights sharing the position with five other European countries according to World Bank.[127]
+
+The country has a large ethnic Russian community, which was guaranteed basic rights under the constitution and international human rights laws ratified by the Latvian government.[121][128]
+
+Approximately 206,000 non-citizens [129]– including stateless persons – have limited access to some political rights – only citizens are allowed to participate in parliamentary or municipal elections, although there are no limitations in regards to joining political parties or other political organizations.[130][131] In 2011, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities "urged Latvia to allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections."[132] Additionally, there have been reports of police abuse of detainees and arrestees, poor prison conditions and overcrowding, judicial corruption, incidents of violence against ethnic minorities, and societal violence and incidents of government discrimination against homosexuals.[121][133][134]
+
+The National Armed Forces (Latvian: Nacionālie Bruņotie Spēki (NAF)) of Latvia consists of the Land Forces, Naval Forces, Air Force, National Guard, Special Tasks Unit, Military Police, NAF staff Battalion, Training and Doctrine Command, and Logistics Command. Latvia's defence concept is based upon the Swedish-Finnish model of a rapid response force composed of a mobilisation base and a small group of career professionals. From 1 January 2007, Latvia switched to a professional fully contract-based army.[135]
+
+Latvia participates in international peacekeeping and security operations. Latvian armed forces have contributed to NATO and EU military operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1996–2009), Albania (1999), Kosovo (2000–2009), Macedonia (2003), Iraq (2005–2006), Afghanistan (since 2003), Somalia (since 2011) and Mali (since 2013).[136][137][138] Latvia also took part in the US-led Multi-National Force operation in Iraq (2003–2008)[139] and OSCE missions in Georgia, Kosovo and Macedonia.[140] Latvian armed forces contributed to a UK-led Battlegroup in 2013 and the Nordic Battlegroup in 2015 under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the European Union.[141] Latvia acts as the lead nation in the coordination of the Northern Distribution Network for transportation of non-lethal ISAF cargo by air and rail to Afghanistan.[142][143][144] It is part of the Nordic Transition Support Unit (NTSU), which renders joint force contributions in support of Afghan security structures ahead of the withdrawal of Nordic and Baltic ISAF forces in 2014.[145] Since 1996 more than 3600 military personnel have participated in international operations,[137] of whom 7 soldiers perished.[146] Per capita, Latvia is one of the largest contributors to international military operations.[147]
+
+Latvian civilian experts have contributed to EU civilian missions: border assistance mission to Moldova and Ukraine (2005–2009), rule of law missions in Iraq (2006 and 2007) and Kosovo (since 2008), police mission in Afghanistan (since 2007) and monitoring mission in Georgia (since 2008).[136]
+
+Since March 2004, when the Baltic states joined NATO, fighter jets of NATO members have been deployed on a rotational basis for the Baltic Air Policing mission at Šiauliai Airport in Lithuania to guard the Baltic airspace. Latvia participates in several NATO Centres of Excellence: Civil-Military Co-operation in the Netherlands, Cooperative Cyber Defence in Estonia and Energy Security in Lithuania. It plans to establish the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga.[148]
+
+Latvia co-operates with Estonia and Lithuania in several trilateral Baltic defence co-operation initiatives:
+
+Future co-operation will include sharing of national infrastructures for training purposes and specialisation of training areas (BALTTRAIN) and collective formation of battalion-sized contingents for use in the NATO rapid-response force.[150] In January 2011, the Baltic states were invited to join NORDEFCO, the defence framework of the Nordic countries.[151] In November 2012, the three countries agreed to create a joint military staff in 2013.[152]
+
+Latvia is a member of the World Trade Organization (1999) and the European Union (2004). On 1 January 2014, the Euro became the country's currency, superseding the Lats. According to statistics in late 2013, 45% of the population supported the introduction of the euro, while 52% opposed it.[153] Following the introduction of the Euro, Eurobarometer surveys in January 2014 showed support for the Euro to be around 53%, close to the European average.[154]
+
+Since the year 2000, Latvia has had one of the highest (GDP) growth rates in Europe.[155] However, the chiefly consumption-driven growth in Latvia resulted in the collapse of Latvian GDP in late 2008 and early 2009, exacerbated by the global economic crisis, shortage of credit and huge money resources used for the bailout of Parex bank.[156] The Latvian economy fell 18% in the first three months of 2009, the biggest fall in the European Union.[157][158]
+
+The economic crisis of 2009 proved earlier assumptions that the fast-growing economy was heading for implosion of the economic bubble, because it was driven mainly by growth of domestic consumption, financed by a serious increase of private debt, as well as a negative foreign trade balance. The prices of real estate, which were at some points growing by approximately 5% a month, were long perceived to be too high for the economy, which mainly produces low-value goods and raw materials.[citation needed]
+
+Privatisation in Latvia is almost complete. Virtually all of the previously state-owned small and medium companies have been privatised, leaving only a small number of politically sensitive large state companies. The private sector accounted for nearly 68% of the country's GDP in 2000.[citation needed]
+
+Foreign investment in Latvia is still modest compared with the levels in north-central Europe. A law expanding the scope for selling land, including to foreigners, was passed in 1997. Representing 10.2% of Latvia's total foreign direct investment, American companies invested $127 million in 1999. In the same year, the United States of America exported $58.2 million of goods and services to Latvia and imported $87.9 million. Eager to join Western economic institutions like the World Trade Organization, OECD, and the European Union, Latvia signed a Europe Agreement with the EU in 1995—with a 4-year transition period. Latvia and the United States have signed treaties on investment, trade, and intellectual property protection and avoidance of double taxation.[159][160]
+
+In 2010 Latvia launched a Residence by Investment program (Golden Visa) in order to attract foreign investors and make local economy benefit from it. This program allows investors to get Latvia residence permit by investing at least €250,000 in property or in an enterprise with at least 50 employees and an annual turnover of at least €10M.
+
+The Latvian economy entered a phase of fiscal contraction during the second half of 2008 after an extended period of credit-based speculation and unrealistic appreciation in real estate values. The national account deficit for 2007, for example, represented more than 22% of the GDP for the year while inflation was running at 10%.[161]
+
+Latvia's unemployment rate rose sharply in this period from a low of 5.4% in November 2007 to over 22%.[162] In April 2010 Latvia had the highest unemployment rate in the EU, at 22.5%, ahead of Spain, which had 19.7%.[163]
+
+Paul Krugman, the Nobel Laureate in economics for 2008, wrote in his New York Times Op-Ed column on 15 December 2008:
+
+The most acute problems are on Europe's periphery, where many smaller economies are experiencing crises strongly reminiscent of past crises in Latin America and Asia: Latvia is the new Argentina[164]
+
+However, by 2010, commentators[165][166] noted signs of stabilisation in the Latvian economy. Rating agency Standard & Poor's raised its outlook on Latvia's debt from negative to stable.[165] Latvia's current account, which had been in deficit by 27% in late 2006 was in surplus in February 2010.[165] Kenneth Orchard, senior analyst at Moody's Investors Service argued that:
+
+The strengthening regional economy is supporting Latvian production and exports, while the sharp swing in the current account balance suggests that the country's 'internal devaluation' is working.[167]
+
+The IMF concluded the First Post-Program Monitoring Discussions with the Republic of Latvia in July 2012 announcing that Latvia's economy has been recovering strongly since 2010, following the deep downturn in 2008–09. Real GDP growth of 5.5 percent in 2011 was underpinned by export growth and a recovery in domestic demand. The growth momentum has continued into 2012 and 2013 despite deteriorating external conditions, and the economy is expected to expand by 4.1 percent in 2014. The unemployment rate has receded from its peak of more than 20 percent in 2010 to around 9.3 percent in 2014.[168]
+
+The transport sector is around 14% of GDP. Transit between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan as well as other Asian countries and the West is large.[169]
+
+The four biggest ports of Latvia are located in Riga, Ventspils, Liepāja and Skulte. Most transit traffic uses these and half the cargo is crude oil and oil products.[169] Free port of Ventspils is one of the busiest ports in the Baltic states. Apart from road and railway connections, Ventspils is also linked to oil extraction fields and transportation routes of Russian Federation via system of two pipelines from Polotsk, Belarus.[citation needed]
+
+Riga International Airport is the busiest airport in the Baltic states with 7.8 million passengers in 2019. It has direct flight to over 80 destinations in 30 countries. The only other airport handling regular commercial flights is Liepāja International Airport.
+airBaltic is the Latvian flag carrier airline and a low-cost carrier with hubs in all three Baltic States, but main base in Riga, Latvia.[citation needed]
+
+Latvian Railway's main network consists of 1,860 km of which 1,826 km is 1,520 mm Russian gauge railway of which 251 km are electrified, making it the longest railway network in the Baltic States. Latvia's railway network is currently incompatible with European standard gauge lines.[170] However, Rail Baltica railway, linking Helsinki-Tallinn-Riga-Kaunas-Warsaw is under construction and is set to be completed in 2026.[171]
+
+National road network in Latvia totals 1675 km of main roads, 5473 km of regional roads and 13 064 km of local roads. Municipal roads in Latvia totals 30 439 km of roads and 8039 km of streets.[172] The best known roads are A1 (European route E67), connecting Warsaw and Tallinn, as well as European route E22, connecting Ventspils and Terehova. In 2017 there were a total of 803,546 licensed vehicles in Latvia.[173]
+
+Latvia has three big hydroelectric power stations in Pļaviņu HES (825MW), Rīgas HES (402 MW) and Ķeguma HES-2 (192 MW). In the recent years a couple of dozen of wind farms as well as biogas or biomass power stations of different scale have been built in Latvia.[citation needed]
+
+Latvia operates Inčukalns underground gas storage facility, one of the largest underground gas storage facilities in Europe and the only one in the Baltic states. Unique geological conditions at Inčukalns and other locations in Latvia are particularly suitable for underground gas storage.[174]
+
+The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2018 was estimated at 1.61 children born/woman, which is lower than the replacement rate of 2.1. In 2012, 45.0% of births were to unmarried women.[175] The life expectancy in 2013 was estimated at 73.19 years (68.13 years male, 78.53 years female).[161] As of 2015, Latvia is estimated to have the lowest male-to-female ratio in the world, at 0.85 males/female.[176] In 2017 there were 1 054 433 female and 895 683 male living in Latvian territory. Every year more boys are born. Until the age of 39, there are more male than female. From the age of 40 – more female. And from 70 females are 2,3 times more than males.
+
+Latvia's population has been multiethnic for centuries, though the demographics shifted dramatically in the 20th century due to the World Wars, the emigration and removal of Baltic Germans, the Holocaust, and occupation by the Soviet Union. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897, Latvians formed 68.3% of the total population of 1.93 million; Russians accounted for 12%, Jews for 7.4%, Germans for 6.2%, and Poles for 3.4%.[177]
+
+As of March 2011, Latvians form about 62.1% of the population, while 26.9% are Russians, Belarusians 3.3%, Ukrainians 2.2%, Poles 2.2%, Lithuanians 1.2%, Jews 0.3%, Romani people 0.3%, Germans 0.1%, Estonians 0.1% and others 1.3%. 250 people identify as Livonians (Baltic Finnic people native to Latvia). There were 290,660 non-citizens living in Latvia or 14.1% of Latvian residents, mainly ethnic Russians who arrived after the occupation of 1940 and their descendants.[178]
+
+In some cities, e.g., Daugavpils and Rēzekne, ethnic Latvians constitute a minority of the total population. Despite the fact that the proportion of ethnic Latvians has been steadily increasing for more than a decade, ethnic Latvians also make up slightly less than a half of the population of the capital city of Latvia – Riga.[179]
+
+The share of ethnic Latvians had fallen from 77% (1,467,035) in 1935 to 52% (1,387,757) in 1989.[180] In 2011, there were even fewer Latvians than in 1989, though their share of the population was larger – 1,285,136 (62.1% of the population).[181]
+
+The sole official language of Latvia is Latvian, which belongs to the Baltic language sub-group of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Another notable language of Latvia is the nearly extinct Livonian language of the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family, which enjoys protection by law; Latgalian – as a dialect  of Latvian is also protected by Latvian law but as a historical variation of the Latvian language. Russian, which was widely spoken during the Soviet period, is still the most widely used minority language by far (in 2011, 34% spoke it at home, including people who were not ethnically Russian).[182]
+While it is now required that all school students learn Latvian, schools also include English, German, French and Russian in their curricula. English is also widely accepted in Latvia in business and tourism. As of 2014[update] there were 109 schools for minorities that use Russian as the language of instruction (27% of all students) for 40% of subjects (the remaining 60% of subjects are taught in Latvian).
+
+On 18 February 2012, Latvia held a constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language.[183] According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%.[184]
+
+Beginning in 2019, instruction in Russian language will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, as well as general instruction in Latvian public high schools,[185][186] except for subjects related to culture and history of the Russian minority, such as Russian language and literature classes.[187]
+
+The largest religion in Latvia is Christianity (79%).[161][188] The largest groups as of 2011[update] were:
+
+In the Eurobarometer Poll 2010, 38% of Latvian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", while 48% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 11% stated that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force".
+
+Lutheranism was more prominent before the Soviet occupation, when it was a majority religion of ~60% due to strong historical links with the Nordic countries and to the influence of the Hansa in particular and Germany in general. Since then, Lutheranism has declined to a slightly greater extent than Roman Catholicism in all three Baltic states. The Evangelical Lutheran Church, with an estimated 600,000 members in 1956, was affected most adversely. An internal document of 18 March 1987, near the end of communist rule, spoke of an active membership that had shrunk to only 25,000 in Latvia, but the faith has since experienced a revival.[189]
+
+The country's Orthodox Christians belong to the Latvian Orthodox Church, a semi-autonomous body within the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2011, there were 416 religious Jews, 319 Muslims and 102 Hindus. Most of the Hindus are local converts from the work of the Hare Krishna movement; some are foreign workers from India.[188] As of 2004 there were more than 600 Latvian neopagans, Dievturi (The Godskeepers), whose religion is based on Latvian mythology.[190] About 21% of the total population is not affiliated with a specific religion.[188]
+
+The University of Latvia and Riga Technical University are two major universities in the country, both established on the basis of[clarification needed] Riga Polytechnical Institute and located in Riga.[191] Other important universities, which were established on the base of State University of Latvia, include the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (established in 1939 on the basis of the Faculty of Agriculture) and Riga Stradiņš University (established in 1950 on the basis of the Faculty of Medicine). Both nowadays cover a variety of different fields. The University of Daugavpils is another significant centre of education.
+
+Latvia closed 131 schools between 2006 and 2010, which is a 12.9% decline, and in the same period enrolment in educational institutions has fallen by over 54,000 people, a 10.3% decline.[192]
+
+Latvian policy in science and technology has set out the long-term goal of transitioning from labor-consuming economy to knowledge-based economy.[193] By 2020 the government aims to spend 1.5% of GDP on research and development, with half of the investments coming from the private sector. Latvia plans to base the development of its scientific potential on existing scientific traditions, particularly in organic chemistry, medical chemistry, genetic engineering, physics, materials science and information technologies.[194] The greatest number of patents, both nationwide and abroad, are in medical chemistry.[195]
+
+The Latvian healthcare system is a universal programme, largely funded through government taxation.[196] It is among the lowest-ranked healthcare systems in Europe, due to excessive waiting times for treatment, insufficient access to the latest medicines, and other factors.[197] There were 59 hospitals in Latvia in 2009, down from 94 in 2007 and 121 in 2006.[198][199][200]
+
+Traditional Latvian folklore, especially the dance of the folk songs, dates back well over a thousand years. More than 1.2 million texts and 30,000 melodies of folk songs have been identified.[201]
+
+Between the 13th and 19th centuries, Baltic Germans, many of whom were originally of non-German ancestry but had been assimilated into German culture, formed the upper class.[citation needed] They developed distinct cultural heritage, characterised by both Latvian and German influences. It has survived in German Baltic families to this day, in spite of their dispersal to Germany, the United States, Canada and other countries in the early 20th century. However, most indigenous Latvians did not participate in this particular cultural life.[citation needed] Thus, the mostly peasant local pagan heritage was preserved, partly merging with Christian traditions. For example, one of the most popular celebrations is Jāņi, a pagan celebration of the summer solstice—which Latvians celebrate on the feast day of St. John the Baptist.[citation needed]
+
+In the 19th century, Latvian nationalist movements emerged. They promoted Latvian culture and encouraged Latvians to take part in cultural activities. The 19th century and beginning of the 20th century is often regarded by Latvians as a classical era of Latvian culture. Posters show the influence of other European cultures, for example, works of artists such as the Baltic-German artist Bernhard Borchert and the French Raoul Dufy.[citation needed] With the onset of World War II, many Latvian artists and other members of the cultural elite fled the country yet continued to produce their work, largely for a Latvian émigré audience.[202]
+
+The Latvian Song and Dance Festival is an important event in Latvian culture and social life. It has been held since 1873, normally every five years. Approximately 30,000 performers altogether participate in the event.[203] Folk songs and classical choir songs are sung, with emphasis on a cappella singing, though modern popular songs have recently been incorporated into the repertoire as well.[204]
+
+After incorporation into the Soviet Union, Latvian artists and writers were forced to follow the socialist realism style of art. During the Soviet era, music became increasingly popular, with the most popular being songs from the 1980s. At this time, songs often made fun of the characteristics of Soviet life and were concerned about preserving Latvian identity. This aroused popular protests against the USSR and also gave rise to an increasing popularity of poetry. Since independence, theatre, scenography, choir music, and classical music have become the most notable branches of Latvian culture.[205]
+
+During July 2014, Riga hosted the 8th World Choir Games as it played host to over 27,000 choristers representing over 450 choirs and over 70 countries. The festival is the biggest of its kind in the world and is held every two years in a different host city.[206]
+
+Starting in 2019 Latvia hosts the inaugural Riga Jurmala Music Festival, a new festival in which world-famous orchestras and conductors perform across four weekends during the summer. The festival takes place at the Latvian National Opera, the Great Guild, and the Great and Small Halls of the Dzintari Concert Hall. This year features the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Russian National Orchestra.[207]
+
+Latvian cuisine typically consists of agricultural products, with meat featuring in most main meal dishes. Fish is commonly consumed due to Latvia's location on the Baltic Sea. Latvian cuisine has been influenced by the neighbouring countries. Common ingredients in Latvian recipes are found locally, such as potatoes, wheat, barley, cabbage, onions, eggs, and pork. Latvian food is generally quite fatty, and uses few spices.[208]
+
+Grey peas and ham are generally considered as staple foods of Latvians. Sorrel soup (skābeņu zupa) is also consumed by Latvians.[209] Rupjmaize is a dark bread made from rye, considered the national staple.[210][211]
+
+Ice hockey is usually considered the most popular sport in Latvia. Latvia has had many famous hockey stars like Helmuts Balderis, Artūrs Irbe, Kārlis Skrastiņš and Sandis Ozoliņš and more recently Zemgus Girgensons, whom the Latvian people have strongly supported in international and NHL play, expressed through the dedication of using the NHL's All Star Voting to bring Zemgus to number one in voting.[212] Dinamo Riga is the country's strongest hockey club, playing in the Kontinental Hockey League. The national tournament is the Latvian Hockey Higher League, held since 1931. The 2006 IIHF World Championship was held in Riga.
+
+The second most popular sport is basketball. Latvia has a long basketball tradition, as the Latvian national basketball team won the first ever EuroBasket in 1935 and silver medals in 1939, after losing the final to Lithuania by one point. Latvia has had many European basketball stars like Jānis Krūmiņš, Maigonis Valdmanis, Valdis Muižnieks, Valdis Valters, Igors Miglinieks, as well as the first Latvian NBA player Gundars Vētra. Andris Biedriņš is one of the most well-known Latvian basketball players, who played in the NBA for the Golden State Warriors and the Utah Jazz. Current NBA players include Kristaps Porziņģis, who plays for the Dallas Mavericks, and Dāvis Bertāns, who plays for the Washington Wizards. Former Latvian basketball club Rīgas ASK won the Euroleague tournament three times in a row before becoming defunct. Currently, VEF Rīga, which competes in EuroCup, is the strongest professional basketball club in Latvia. BK Ventspils, which participates in EuroChallenge, is the second strongest basketball club in Latvia, previously winning LBL eight times and BBL in 2013.[citation needed] Latvia was one of the EuroBasket 2015 hosts.
+
+Other popular sports include football, floorball, tennis, volleyball, cycling, bobsleigh and skeleton. The Latvian national football team's only major FIFA tournament participation has been the 2004 UEFA European Championship.[213]
+
+Latvia has participated successfully in both Winter and Summer Olympics. The most successful Olympic athlete in the history of independent Latvia has been Māris Štrombergs, who became a two-time Olympic champion in 2008 and 2012 at Men's BMX.[214]
+
+In Boxing, Mairis Briedis is the first Latvian to win a boxing world title, having held the WBC cruiserweight title from 2017 to 2018, and the WBO cruiserweight title in 2019.
+
+In 2017, Latvian tennis player Jeļena Ostapenko won the 2017 French Open Women's singles title being the first unseeded player to do so in the open era.

en/3408.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+
+
+The gastrointestinal tract, (GI tract, GIT, digestive tract, digestion tract, alimentary canal) is the tract from the mouth to the anus which includes all the organs of the digestive system in humans and other animals. Food taken in through the mouth is digested to extract nutrients and absorb energy, and expelled in the remaining waste as feces. The mouth, esophagus, stomach and intestines are all part of the gastrointestinal tract. Gastrointestinal is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the stomach and intestines. A tract is a collection of related anatomic structures or a series of connected body organs.
+
+All vertebrates and most invertebrates have a digestive tract. The sponges, cnidarians, and ctenophores are the early invertebrates with an incomplete digestive tract having just one opening instead of two, where food is taken in and waste expelled.[1][2]
+
+The human gastrointestinal tract consists of the esophagus,  stomach, and intestines, and is divided into the upper and lower gastrointestinal tracts.[3] The GI tract includes all structures between the mouth and the anus,[4] forming a continuous passageway that includes the main organs of digestion, namely, the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. However, the complete human digestive system is made up of the gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver and gallbladder).[5] The tract may also be divided into foregut, midgut, and hindgut, reflecting the embryological origin of each segment. The whole human GI tract is about nine metres (30 feet) long at autopsy. It is considerably shorter in the living body because the intestines, which are tubes of smooth muscle tissue, maintain constant muscle tone in a halfway-tense state but can relax in spots to allow for local distention and peristalsis.[6][7]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract contains trillions of microbes, with some 4,000 different strains of bacteria having diverse roles in maintenance of immune health and metabolism.[8][9][10] Cells of the GI tract release hormones to help regulate the digestive process. These digestive hormones, including gastrin, secretin, cholecystokinin, and ghrelin, are mediated through either intracrine or autocrine mechanisms, indicating that the cells releasing these hormones are conserved structures throughout evolution.[11]
+
+The structure and function can be described both as gross anatomy and as microscopic anatomy or histology. The tract itself is divided into upper and lower tracts, and the intestines small and large parts.[12]
+
+The upper gastrointestinal tract consists of the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, and duodenum.[13]
+The exact demarcation between the upper and lower tracts is the suspensory muscle of the duodenum. This differentiates the embryonic borders between the foregut and midgut, and is also the division commonly used by clinicians to describe gastrointestinal bleeding as being of either "upper" or "lower" origin. Upon dissection, the duodenum may appear to be a unified organ, but it is divided into four segments based upon function, location, and internal anatomy. The four segments of the duodenum are as follows (starting at the stomach, and moving toward the jejunum): bulb, descending, horizontal, and ascending. The suspensory muscle attaches the superior border of the ascending duodenum to the diaphragm.
+
+The suspensory muscle is an important anatomical landmark which shows the formal division between the duodenum and the jejunum, the first and second parts of the small intestine, respectively.[14] This is a thin muscle which is derived from the embryonic mesoderm.
+
+The lower gastrointestinal tract includes most of the small intestine and all of the large intestine.[15] In human anatomy, the intestine (bowel, or gut. Greek: éntera) is the segment of the gastrointestinal tract extending from the pyloric sphincter of the stomach to the anus and, as in other mammals, consists of two segments, the small intestine and the large intestine. In humans, the small intestine is further subdivided into the duodenum, jejunum and ileum while the large intestine is subdivided into the, cecum, ascending, transverse, descending and sigmoid colon, rectum, and anal canal.[16][17]
+
+The small intestine begins at the duodenum and is a tubular structure, usually between 6 and 7 m long.[18] Its mucosal area in an adult human is about 30 m2.[19] The combination of the circular folds, the villi, and the microvilli increases the absorptive area of the mucosa about 600-fold, making a total area of about 250 square meters for the entire small intestine.[20] Its main function is to absorb the products of digestion (including carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and vitamins) into the bloodstream. There are three major divisions:
+
+The large intestine also called the colon, consists of the cecum, rectum, and anal canal. It also includes the appendix, which is attached to the cecum. The colon is further divided into:
+
+The main function of the large intestine is to absorb water.
+The area of the large intestinal mucosa of an adult human is about 2 m2.[19]
+
+The gut is an endoderm-derived structure. At approximately the sixteenth day of human development, the embryo begins to fold ventrally (with the embryo's ventral surface becoming concave) in two directions: the sides of the embryo fold in on each other and the head and tail fold toward one another. The result is that a piece of the yolk sac, an endoderm-lined structure in contact with the ventral aspect of the embryo, begins to be pinched off to become the primitive gut. The yolk sac remains connected to the gut tube via the vitelline duct. Usually, this structure regresses during development; in cases where it does not, it is known as Meckel's diverticulum.
+
+During fetal life, the primitive gut is gradually patterned into three segments: foregut, midgut, and hindgut. Although these terms are often used in reference to segments of the primitive gut, they are also used regularly to describe regions of the definitive gut as well.
+
+Each segment of the gut is further specified and gives rise to specific gut and gut-related structures in later development. Components derived from the gut proper, including the stomach and colon, develop as swellings or dilatations in the cells of the primitive gut. In contrast, gut-related derivatives — that is, those structures that derive from the primitive gut but are not part of the gut proper, in general, develop as out-pouchings of the primitive gut. The blood vessels supplying these structures remain constant throughout development.[21]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract has a form of general histology with some differences that reflect the specialization in functional anatomy.[22] The GI tract can be divided into four concentric layers in the following order:
+
+The mucosa is the innermost layer of the gastrointestinal tract. The mucosa surrounds the lumen, or open space within the tube. This layer comes in direct contact with digested food (chyme). The mucosa is made up of:
+
+The mucosae are highly specialized in each organ of the gastrointestinal tract to deal with the different conditions. The most variation is seen in the epithelium.
+
+The submucosa consists of a dense irregular layer of connective tissue with large blood vessels, lymphatics, and nerves branching into the mucosa and muscularis externa. It contains the  submucosal plexus, an enteric nervous plexus, situated on the inner surface of the muscularis externa.
+
+The muscular layer consists of an inner circular layer and a longitudinal outer layer. The circular layer prevents food from traveling backward and the longitudinal layer shortens the tract. The layers are not truly longitudinal or circular, rather the layers of muscle are helical with different pitches. The inner circular is helical with a steep pitch and the outer longitudinal is helical with a much shallower pitch.[23] Whilst the muscularis externa is similar throughout the entire gastrointestinal tract, an exception is the stomach which has an additional inner oblique muscular layer to aid with grinding and mixing of food. The muscularis externa of the stomach is composed of the inner oblique layer, middle circular layer, and outer longitudinal layer.
+
+Between the circular and longitudinal muscle layers is the myenteric plexus. This controls peristalsis. Activity is initiated by the pacemaker cells, (myenteric interstitial cells of Cajal). The gut has intrinsic peristaltic activity (basal electrical rhythm) due to its self-contained enteric nervous system. The rate can be modulated by the rest of the autonomic nervous system.[23]
+
+The coordinated contractions of these layers is called peristalsis and propels the food through the tract. Food in the GI tract is called a bolus (ball of food) from the mouth down to the stomach. After the stomach, the food is partially digested and semi-liquid, and is referred to as chyme. In the large intestine the remaining semi-solid substance is referred to as faeces.[23]
+
+The outermost layer of the gastrointestinal tract consists of several layers of connective tissue.
+
+Intraperitoneal parts of the GI tract are covered with serosa. These include most of the stomach, first part of the duodenum, all of the small intestine, caecum and appendix, transverse colon, sigmoid colon and rectum. In these sections of the gut there is clear boundary between the gut and the surrounding tissue. These parts of the tract have a mesentery.
+
+Retroperitoneal parts are covered with adventitia. They blend into the surrounding tissue and are fixed in position. For example, the retroperitoneal section of the duodenum usually passes through the transpyloric plane. These include the esophagus, pylorus of the stomach, distal duodenum, ascending colon, descending colon and anal canal. In addition, the oral cavity has adventitia.
+
+Approximately 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and 75% of these genes are expressed in at least one of the different parts of the digestive organ system.[24][25] Over 600 of these genes are more specifically expressed in one or more parts of the GI tract and the corresponding proteins have functions related to digestion of food and uptake of nutrients. Examples of specific proteins with such functions are pepsinogen PGC and the lipase LIPF, expressed in chief cells, and gastric ATPase ATP4A and gastric intrinsic factor GIF, expressed in parietal cells of the stomach mucosa. Specific proteins expressed in the stomach and duodenum involved in defence include mucin proteins, such as mucin 6 and intelectin-1.[26]
+
+The time taken for food to transit through the gastrointestinal tract varies on multiple factors, including age, ethnicity, and gender.[medical citation needed] Several techniques have been used to measure transit time, including radiography following a barium-labeled meal, breath hydrogen analysis, and scintigraphic analysis following a radiolabeled meal.[medical citation needed] It takes 2.5 to 3 hours for 50% of the contents to leave the stomach.[medical citation needed] The rate of digestion is also dependent of the material being digested, as food composition from the same meal may leave the stomach at different rates.[medical citation needed] Total emptying of the stomach takes around 4-5 hours, and transit through the colon takes 30 to 50 hours.[27][28][29]
+
+The gastrointestinal tract forms an important part of the immune system.[30] The surface area of the digestive tract is estimated to be about 32 square meters, or about half a badminton court.[19] With such a large exposure (more than three times larger than the exposed surface of the skin), these immune components function to prevent pathogens from entering the blood and lymph circulatory systems.[31] Fundamental components of this protection are provided by the intestinal mucosal barrier which is composed of physical, biochemical, and immune elements elaborated by the intestinal mucosa.[32] Microorganisms also are kept at bay by an extensive immune system comprising the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT)
+
+There are additional factors contributing to protection from pathogen invasion. For example, low pH (ranging from 1 to 4) of the stomach is fatal for many microorganisms that enter it.[33] Similarly, mucus (containing IgA antibodies) neutralizes many pathogenic microorganisms.[34] Other factors in the GI tract contribution to immune function include enzymes secreted in the saliva and bile.
+
+Beneficial bacteria also can contribute to the homeostasis of the gastrointestinal immune system. For example, Clostridia, one of the most predominant bacterial groups in the GI tract, play an important role in influencing the dynamics of the gut's immune system.[35] It has been demonstrated that the intake of a high fiber diet could be the responsible for the induction of T-regulatory cells (Tregs). This is due to the production of short-chain fatty acids during the fermentation of plant-derived nutrients  such as butyrate and propionate.  Basically, the butyrate induces the differentiation of Treg cells by enhancing histone H3 acetylation in the promoter and conserved non-coding sequence regions of the FOXP3 locus, thus regulating the T cells, resulting in the reduction of the inflammatory response and allergies.
+
+The large intestine hosts several kinds of bacteria that can deal with molecules that the human body cannot otherwise break down.[36] This is an example of symbiosis. These bacteria also account for the production of gases at host-pathogen interface, inside our intestine(this gas is released as flatulence when eliminated through the anus). However the large intestine is mainly concerned with the absorption of water from digested material (which is regulated by the hypothalamus) and the re absorption of sodium, as well as any nutrients that may have escaped primary digestion in the ileum.[citation needed]
+
+Health-enhancing intestinal bacteria of the gut flora serve to prevent the overgrowth of potentially harmful bacteria in the gut. These two types of bacteria compete for space and "food", as there are limited resources within the intestinal tract. A ratio of 80-85% beneficial to 15–20% potentially harmful bacteria generally is considered normal within the intestines.[citation needed]
+
+Enzymes such as CYP3A4, along with the antiporter activities, are also instrumental in the intestine's role of drug metabolism in the detoxification of antigens and xenobiotics.[37]
+
+There are many diseases and conditions that can affect the gastrointestinal system, including infections, inflammation and cancer.
+
+Various pathogens, such as bacteria that cause foodborne illnesses, can induce gastroenteritis which results from inflammation of the stomach and small intestine. Antibiotics to treat such bacterial infections can decrease the microbiome diversity of the gastrointestinal tract, and further enable inflammatory mediators.[38] Gastroenteritis is the most common disease of the GI tract.
+
+Diverticular disease is a condition that is very common in older people in industrialized countries.  It usually affects the large intestine but has been known to affect the small intestine as well.  Diverticulosis occurs when pouches form on the intestinal wall.  Once the pouches become inflamed it is known as diverticulitis.
+
+Inflammatory bowel disease is an inflammatory condition affecting the bowel walls, and includes the subtypes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. While Crohn's can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract, ulcerative colitis is limited to the large intestine. Crohn's disease is widely regarded as an autoimmune disease. Although ulcerative colitis is often treated as though it were an autoimmune disease, there is no consensus that it actually is such.
+
+Functional gastrointestinal disorders the most common of which is irritable bowel syndrome. Functional constipation and chronic functional abdominal pain are other functional disorders of the intestine that have physiological causes but do not have identifiable structural, chemical, or infectious pathologies.
+
+Several symptoms are used to indicate problems with the gastrointestinal tract:
+
+Gastrointestinal surgery can often be performed in the outpatient setting.  In the United States in 2012, operations on the digestive system accounted for 3 of the 25 most common ambulatory surgery procedures and constituted 9.1 percent of all outpatient ambulatory surgeries.[39]
+
+Various methods of imaging the gastrointestinal tract include the upper and lower gastrointestinal series:
+
+Intestines from animals other than humans are used in a number of ways.  From each species of livestock that is a source of milk, a corresponding rennet is obtained from the intestines of milk-fed calves.  Pig and calf intestines are eaten, and pig intestines are used as sausage casings. Calf intestines supply calf-intestinal alkaline phosphatase (CIP), and are used to make goldbeater's skin.
+Other uses are:
+
+Many birds and other animals have a specialised stomach in the digestive tract called a gizzard used for grinding up food.
+
+Another feature not found in the human but found in a range of other animals is the crop. In birds this is found as a pouch alongside the esophagus.
+
+Other animals including amphibians, birds, reptiles, and egg-laying mammals have a major difference in their GI tract in that it ends in a cloaca and not an anus.
+
+In 2020, the oldest known fossil digestive tract, of an extinct wormlike organism in the Cloudinidae was discovered; it lived during the late Ediacaran period about 550 million years ago.[46][47]

en/3409.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+
+
+White blood cells (WBCs), also called leukocytes or leucocytes, are the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against both infectious disease and foreign invaders. All white blood cells are produced and derived from multipotent cells in the bone marrow known as hematopoietic stem cells. Leukocytes are found throughout the body, including the blood and lymphatic system.[1]
+
+All white blood cells have nuclei, which distinguishes them from the other blood cells, the anucleated red blood cells (RBCs) and platelets. The different white blood cell types are classified in standard ways; two pairs of broadest categories classify them either by structure (granulocytes or agranulocytes) or by cell lineage (myeloid cells or lymphoid cells). These broadest categories can be further divided into the five main types: neutrophils, eosinophils (acidophiles), basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes.[2] These types are distinguished by their physical and functional characteristics. Monocytes and neutrophils are phagocytic. Further subtypes can be classified; for example, among lymphocytes, there are B cells (named from bursa or bone marrow cells), T cells (named from thymus cells), and natural killer cells.
+
+The number of leukocytes in the blood is often an indicator of disease, and thus the white blood cell count is an important subset of the complete blood count. The normal white cell count is usually between 4 × 109/L and 1.1 × 1010/L. In the US, this is usually expressed as 4,000 to 11,000 white blood cells per microliter of blood.[3] White blood cells make up approximately 1% of the total blood volume in a healthy adult,[4] making them substantially less numerous than the red blood cells at 40% to 45%. However, this 1% of the blood makes a large difference to health, because immunity depends on it. An increase in the number of leukocytes over the upper limits is called leukocytosis. It is normal when it is part of healthy immune responses, which happen frequently. It is occasionally abnormal, when it is neoplastic or autoimmune in origin. A decrease below the lower limit is called leukopenia. This indicates a weakened immune system.
+
+The name "white blood cell" derives from the physical appearance of a blood sample after centrifugation. White cells are found in the buffy coat, a thin, typically white layer of nucleated cells between the sedimented red blood cells and the blood plasma. The scientific term leukocyte directly reflects its description. It is derived from the Greek roots leuk- meaning "white" and cyt- meaning "cell". The buffy coat may sometimes be green if there are large amounts of neutrophils in the sample, due to the heme-containing enzyme myeloperoxidase that they produce.
+
+All white blood cells are nucleated, which distinguishes them from the anucleated red blood cells and platelets. Types of leukocytes can be classified in standard ways. Two pairs of broadest categories classify them either by structure (granulocytes or agranulocytes) or by cell lineage (myeloid cells or lymphoid cells). These broadest categories can be further divided into the five main types: neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes.[2] These types are distinguished by their physical and functional characteristics. Monocytes and neutrophils are phagocytic. Further subtypes can be classified.
+
+Granulocytes are distinguished from agranulocytes by their nucleus shape (lobed versus round, that is, polymorphonuclear versus mononuclear) and by their cytoplasm granules (present or absent, or more precisely, visible on light microscopy or not thus visible). The other dichotomy is by lineage: Myeloid cells (neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils and basophils) are distinguished from lymphoid cells (lymphocytes) by hematopoietic lineage (cellular differentiation lineage).[6] Lymphocytes can be further classified as T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells.
+
+Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cell, constituting 60-70% of the circulating leukocytes,[4] and including two functionally unequal subpopulations: neutrophil-killers and neutrophil-cagers. They defend against bacterial or fungal infection. They are usually first responders to microbial infection; their activity and death in large numbers form pus. They are commonly referred to as polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes, although, in the technical sense, PMN refers to all granulocytes. They have a multi-lobed nucleus, which consists of three to five lobes connected by slender strands.[9] This gives the neutrophils the appearance of having multiple nuclei, hence the name polymorphonuclear leukocyte. The cytoplasm may look transparent because of fine granules that are pale lilac when stained. Neutrophils are active in phagocytosing bacteria and are present in large amount in the pus of wounds. These cells are not able to renew their lysosomes (used in digesting microbes) and die after having phagocytosed a few pathogens.[10] Neutrophils are the most common cell type seen in the early stages of acute inflammation. The average lifespan of inactivated human neutrophils in the circulation has been reported by different approaches to be between 5 and 135 hours.[11][12]
+
+Eosinophils compose about 2-4% of the WBC total. This count fluctuates throughout the day, seasonally, and during menstruation. It rises in response to allergies, parasitic infections, collagen diseases, and disease of the spleen and central nervous system. They are rare in the blood, but numerous in the mucous membranes of the respiratory, digestive, and lower urinary tracts.[9]
+
+They primarily deal with parasitic infections. Eosinophils are also the predominant inflammatory cells in allergic reactions. The most important causes of eosinophilia include allergies such as asthma, hay fever, and hives; and also parasitic infections. They secrete chemicals that destroy these large parasites, such as hookworms and tapeworms, that are too big for any one WBC to phagocytize. In general, their nucleus is bi-lobed. The lobes are connected by a thin strand.[9] The cytoplasm is full of granules that assume a characteristic pink-orange color with eosin staining.
+
+Basophils are chiefly responsible for allergic and antigen response by releasing the chemical histamine causing the dilation of blood vessels. Because they are the rarest of the white blood cells (less than 0.5% of the total count) and share physicochemical properties with other blood cells, they are difficult to study.[13] They can be recognized by several coarse, dark violet granules, giving them a blue hue. The nucleus is bi- or tri-lobed, but it is hard to see because of the number of coarse granules that hide it.
+
+They excrete two chemicals that aid in the body's defenses: histamine and heparin. Histamine is responsible for widening blood vessels and increasing the flow of blood to injured tissue. It also makes blood vessels more permeable so neutrophils and clotting proteins can get into connective tissue more easily. Heparin is an anticoagulant that inhibits blood clotting and promotes the movement of white blood cells into an area. Basophils can also release chemical signals that attract eosinophils and neutrophils to an infection site.[9]
+
+Lymphocytes are much more common in the lymphatic system than in blood. Lymphocytes are distinguished by having a deeply staining nucleus that may be eccentric in location, and a relatively small amount of cytoplasm. Lymphocytes include:
+
+Monocytes, the largest type of WBCs, share the "vacuum cleaner" (phagocytosis) function of neutrophils, but are much longer lived as they have an extra role: they present pieces of pathogens to T cells so that the pathogens may be recognized again and killed. This causes an antibody response to be mounted. Monocytes eventually leave the bloodstream and become tissue macrophages, which remove dead cell debris as well as attack microorganisms. Neither dead cell debris nor attacking microorganisms can be dealt with effectively by the neutrophils. Unlike neutrophils, monocytes are able to replace their lysosomal contents and are thought to have a much longer active life. They have the kidney-shaped nucleus and are typically agranulated. They also possess abundant cytoplasm.
+
+Some leucocytes migrate into the tissues of the body to take up a permanent residence at that location rather than remaining in the blood. Often these cells have specific names depending upon which tissue they settle in, such as fixed macrophages in the liver, which become known as Kupffer cells. These cells still serve a role in the immune system.
+
+The two commonly used categories of white blood cell disorders divide them quantitatively into those causing excessive numbers (proliferative disorders) and those causing insufficient numbers (leukopenias).[14] Leukocytosis is usually healthy (e.g., fighting an infection), but it also may be dysfunctionally proliferative. WBC proliferative disorders can be classed as myeloproliferative and lymphoproliferative. Some are autoimmune, but many are neoplastic.
+
+Another way to categorize disorders of white blood cells is qualitatively. There are various disorders in which the number of white blood cells is normal but the cells do not function normally.[15]
+
+Neoplasia of WBCs can be benign but is often malignant. Of the various tumors of the blood and lymph, cancers of WBCs can be broadly classified as leukemias and lymphomas, although those categories overlap and are often grouped as a pair.
+
+A range of disorders can cause decreases in white blood cells. This type of white blood cell decreased is usually the neutrophil. In this case the decrease may be called neutropenia or granulocytopenia. Less commonly, a decrease in lymphocytes (called lymphocytopenia or lymphopenia) may be seen.[14]
+
+Neutropenia can be acquired or intrinsic.[16] A decrease in levels of neutrophils on lab tests is due to either decreased production of neutrophils or increased removal from the blood.[14] The following list of causes is not complete.
+
+Symptoms of neutropenia are associated with the underlying cause of the decrease in neutrophils. For example, the most common cause of acquired neutropenia is drug-induced, so an individual may have symptoms of medication overdose or toxicity.
+Treatment is also aimed at the underlying cause of the neutropenia.[17] One severe consequence of neutropenia is that it can increase the risk of infection.[15]
+
+Defined as total lymphocyte count below 1.0x109/L, the cells most commonly affected are CD4+ T cells. Like neutropenia, lymphocytopenia may be acquired or intrinsic and there are many causes.[15] This is not a complete list.
+
+Like neutropenia, symptoms and treatment of lymphocytopenia are directed at the underlying cause of the change in cell counts.
+
+An increase in the number of white blood cells in circulation is called leukocytosis.[14] This increase is most commonly caused by inflammation.[14] There are four major causes: increase of production in bone marrow, increased release from storage in bone marrow, decreased attachment to veins and arteries, decreased uptake by tissues.[14] Leukocytosis may affect one or more cell lines and can be neutrophilic, eosinophilic, basophilic, monocytosis, or lymphocytosis.
+
+Neutrophilia is an increase in the absolute neutrophil count in the peripheral circulation. Normal blood values vary by age.[15] Neutrophilia can be caused by a direct problem with blood cells (primary disease). It can also occur as a consequence of an underlying disease (secondary). Most cases of neutrophilia are secondary to inflammation.[17]
+
+Primary causes[17]
+
+Secondary causes[17]
+
+A normal eosinophil count is considered to be less than 0.65×109/L.[15] Eosinophil counts are higher in newborns and vary with age, time (lower in the morning and higher at night), exercise, environment, and exposure to allergens.[15] Eosinophilia is never a normal lab finding. Efforts should always be made to discover the underlying cause, though the cause may not always be found.[15]
+
+The complete blood cell count is a blood panel that includes the overall WBC count and the white blood cell differential, a count of each type of white blood cell. Reference ranges for blood tests specify the typical counts in healthy people.
+
+TLC- (Total leucocyte count):
+Normal TLC in an adult person is 6000-8000 WBC/mm^3 of blood.
+
+DLC- (Differential leucocyte count):
+Number/ (%) of different types of leucocytes per cubic mm. of blood.
+
+Below are blood reference ranges for various types leucocytes/WBCs.[19]

en/341.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+
+
+
+
+A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun.
+
+Rainbows can be full circles. However, the observer normally sees only an arc formed by illuminated droplets above the ground,[1] and centered on a line from the sun to the observer's eye.
+
+In a primary rainbow, the arc shows red on the outer part and violet on the inner side. This rainbow is caused by light being refracted when entering a droplet of water, then reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it.
+
+In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colours reversed, with red on the inner side of the arc. This is caused by the light being reflected twice on the inside of the droplet before leaving it.
+
+A rainbow is not located at a specific distance from the observer, but comes from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source. Thus, a rainbow is not an object and cannot be physically approached.  Indeed, it is impossible for an observer to see a rainbow from water droplets at any angle other than the customary one of 42 degrees from the direction opposite the light source. Even if an observer sees another observer who seems "under" or "at the end of" a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow—farther off—at the same angle as seen by the first observer.
+
+Rainbows span a continuous spectrum of colours. Any distinct bands perceived are an artefact of human colour vision, and no banding of any type is seen in a black-and-white photo of a rainbow, only a smooth gradation of intensity to a maximum, then fading towards the other side. For colours seen by the human eye, the most commonly cited and remembered sequence is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet,[2][3] remembered by the mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain (ROYGBIV).
+
+Rainbows can be caused by many forms of airborne water. These include not only rain, but also mist, spray, and airborne dew.
+
+Rainbows can be observed whenever there are water drops in the air and sunlight shining from behind the observer at a low altitude angle.  Because of this, rainbows are usually seen in the western sky during the morning and in the eastern sky during the early evening. The most spectacular rainbow displays happen when half the sky is still dark with raining clouds and the observer is at a spot with clear sky in the direction of the sun. The result is a luminous rainbow that contrasts with the darkened background. During such good visibility conditions, the larger but fainter secondary rainbow is often visible. It appears about 10° outside of the primary rainbow, with inverse order of colours.
+
+The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls or fountains. In addition, the effect can be artificially created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a sunny day. Rarely, a moonbow, lunar rainbow or nighttime rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows are often perceived to be white.[4]
+
+It is difficult to photograph the complete semicircle of a rainbow in one frame, as this would require an angle of view of 84°. For a 35 mm camera, a wide-angle lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less would be required. Now that software for stitching several images into a panorama is available, images of the entire arc and even secondary arcs can be created fairly easily from a series of overlapping frames.
+
+From above the earth such as in an aeroplane, it is sometimes possible to see a rainbow as a full circle. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory phenomenon, but a glory is usually much smaller, covering only 5–20°.
+
+The sky inside a primary rainbow is brighter than the sky outside of the bow. This is because each raindrop is a sphere and it scatters light over an entire circular disc in the sky.  The radius of the disc depends on the wavelength of light, with red light being scattered over a larger angle than blue light.  Over most of the disc, scattered light at all wavelengths overlaps, resulting in white light which brightens the sky.  At the edge, the wavelength dependence of the scattering gives rise to the rainbow.[5]
+
+Light of primary rainbow arc is 96% polarised tangential to the arch.[6] Light of second arc is 90% polarised.
+
+A spectrum obtained using a glass prism and a point source is a continuum of wavelengths without bands. The number of colours that the human eye is able to distinguish in a spectrum is in the order of 100.[7] Accordingly, the Munsell colour system (a 20th-century system for numerically describing colours, based on equal steps for human visual perception) distinguishes 100 hues. The apparent discreteness of main colours is an artefact of human perception and the exact number of main colours is a somewhat arbitrary choice.
+
+Newton, who admitted his eyes were not very critical in distinguishing colours,[8] originally (1672) divided the spectrum into five main colours: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven main colours by analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale.[2][9] Newton chose to divide the visible spectrum into seven colours out of a belief derived from the beliefs of the ancient Greek sophists, who thought there was a connection between the colours, the musical notes, the known objects in the Solar System, and the days of the week.[10][11][12] Scholars have noted that what Newton regarded at the time as "blue" would today be regarded as cyan, and what Newton called "indigo" would today be considered blue.[3]
+
+According to Isaac Asimov, "It is customary to list indigo as a colour lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate colour. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue."[13]
+
+The colour pattern of a rainbow is different from a spectrum, and the colours are less saturated. There is spectral smearing in a rainbow owing to the fact that for any particular wavelength, there is a distribution of exit angles, rather than a single unvarying angle.[14] In addition, a rainbow is a blurred version of the bow obtained from a point source, because the disk diameter of the sun (0.5°) cannot be neglected compared to the width of a rainbow (2°). Further red of the first supplementary rainbow overlaps the violet of the primary rainbow, so rather than the final colour being a variant of spectral violet, it is actually a purple. The number of colour bands of a rainbow may therefore be different from the number of bands in a spectrum, especially if the droplets are particularly large or small. Therefore, the number of colours of a rainbow is variable. If, however, the word rainbow is used inaccurately to mean spectrum, it is the number of main colours in the spectrum.
+
+The question of whether everyone sees seven colours in a rainbow is related to the idea of linguistic relativity. Suggestions have been made that there is universality in the way that a rainbow is perceived.[15][16] However, more recent research suggests that the number of distinct colours observed and what these are called depend on the language that one uses, with people whose language has fewer colour words seeing fewer discrete colour bands.[17]
+
+When sunlight encounters a raindrop, part of the light is reflected and the rest enters the raindrop. The light is refracted at the surface of the raindrop. When this light hits the back of the raindrop, some of it is reflected off the back. When the internally reflected light reaches the surface again, once more some is internally reflected and some is refracted as it exits the drop. (The light that reflects off the drop, exits from the back, or continues to bounce around inside the drop after the second encounter with the surface, is not relevant to the formation of the primary rainbow.) The overall effect is that part of the incoming light is reflected back over the range of 0° to 42°, with the most intense light at 42°.[18] This angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does depend on its refractive index. Seawater has a higher refractive index than rain water, so the radius of a "rainbow" in sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow. This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of these bows.[19]
+
+The reason the returning light is most intense at about 42° is that this is a turning point – light hitting the outermost ring of the drop gets returned at less than 42°, as does the light hitting the drop nearer to its centre. There is a circular band of light that all gets returned right around 42°. If the sun were a laser emitting parallel, monochromatic rays, then the luminance (brightness) of the bow would tend toward infinity at this angle (ignoring interference effects). (See Caustic (optics).) But since the sun's luminance is finite and its rays are not all parallel (it covers about half a degree of the sky) the luminance does not go to infinity. Furthermore, the amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour. This effect is called dispersion. Blue light (shorter wavelength) is refracted at a greater angle than red light, but due to the reflection of light rays from the back of the droplet, the blue light emerges from the droplet at a smaller angle to the original incident white light ray than the red light. Due to this angle, blue is seen on the inside of the arc of the primary rainbow, and red on the outside. The result of this is not only to give different colours to different parts of the rainbow, but also to diminish the brightness. (A "rainbow" formed by droplets of a liquid with no dispersion would be white, but brighter than a normal rainbow.)
+
+The light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection, and some light does emerge from the back. However, light coming out the back of the raindrop does not create a rainbow between the observer and the sun because spectra emitted from the back of the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus the colours blend together rather than forming a rainbow.[20]
+
+A rainbow does not exist at one particular location. Many rainbows exist; however, only one can be seen depending on the particular observer's viewpoint as droplets of light illuminated by the sun. All raindrops refract and reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the observer's eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The whole system composed by the sun's rays, the observer's head, and the (spherical) water drops has an axial symmetry  around the axis through the observer's head and parallel to the sun's rays. The rainbow is curved because the set of all the raindrops that have the right angle between the observer, the drop, and the sun, lie on a cone pointing at the sun with the observer at the tip. The base of the cone forms a circle at an angle of 40–42° to the line between the observer's head and their shadow but 50% or more of the circle is below the horizon, unless the observer is sufficiently far above the earth's surface to see it all, for example in an aeroplane (see above).[21][22] Alternatively, an observer with the right vantage point may see the full circle in a fountain or waterfall spray.[23]
+
+It is possible to determine the perceived angle which the rainbow subtends as follows.[24]
+
+Given a spherical raindrop, and defining the perceived angle of the rainbow as 2φ, and the angle of the internal reflection as 2β, then the angle of incidence of the sun's rays with respect to the drop's surface normal is 2β − φ. Since the angle of refraction is β, Snell's law gives us
+
+where n = 1.333 is the refractive index of water. Solving for φ, we get
+
+The rainbow will occur where the angle φ is maximum with respect to the angle β. Therefore, from calculus, we can set dφ/dβ = 0, and solve for β, which yields
+
+Substituting back into the earlier equation for φ yields 2φmax ≈ 42° as the radius angle of the rainbow.
+
+The term double rainbow is used when both the primary and secondary rainbows are visible. In theory, all rainbows are double rainbows, but since the secondary bow is always fainter than the primary, it may be too weak to spot in practice.
+
+Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the water droplets. Technically the secondary bow is centred on the sun itself, but since its angular size is more than 90° (about 127° for violet to 130° for red), it is seen on the same side of the sky as the primary rainbow, about 10° outside it at an apparent angle of 50–53°. As a result of the "inside" of the secondary bow being "up" to the observer, the colours appear reversed compared to those of the primary bow.
+
+The secondary rainbow is fainter than the primary because more light escapes from two reflections compared to one and because the rainbow itself is spread over a greater area of the sky. Each rainbow reflects white light inside its coloured bands, but that is "down" for the primary and "up" for the secondary.[26]  The dark area of unlit sky lying between the primary and secondary bows is called Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it.[27]
+
+Unlike a double rainbow that consists of two separate and concentric rainbow arcs, the very rare twinned rainbow appears as two rainbow arcs that split from a single base.[28] The colours in the second bow, rather than reversing as in a secondary rainbow, appear in the same order as the primary rainbow. A "normal" secondary rainbow may be present as well. Twinned rainbows can look similar to, but should not be confused with supernumerary bands. The two phenomena may be told apart by their difference in colour profile: supernumerary bands consist of subdued pastel hues (mainly pink, purple and green), while the twinned rainbow shows the same spectrum as a regular rainbow.
+The cause of a twinned rainbow is the combination of different sizes of water drops falling from the sky.  Due to air resistance, raindrops flatten as they fall, and flattening is more prominent in larger water drops.  When two rain showers with different-sized raindrops combine, they each produce slightly different rainbows which may combine and form a twinned rainbow.[29]
+A numerical ray tracing study showed that a twinned rainbow on a photo could be explained by a mixture of 0.40 and 0.45 mm droplets. That small difference in droplet size resulted in a small difference in flattening of the droplet shape, and a large difference in flattening of the rainbow top.[30]
+
+Meanwhile, the even rarer case of a rainbow split into three branches was observed and photographed in nature.[31]
+
+In theory, every rainbow is a circle, but from the ground, usually only its upper half can be seen. Since the rainbow's centre is diametrically opposed to the sun's position in the sky, more of the circle comes into view as the sun approaches the horizon, meaning that the largest section of the circle normally seen is about 50% during sunset or sunrise. Viewing the rainbow's lower half requires the presence of water droplets below the observer's horizon, as well as sunlight that is able to reach them. These requirements are not usually met when the viewer is at ground level, either because droplets are absent in the required position, or because the sunlight is obstructed by the landscape behind the observer. From a high viewpoint such as a high building or an aircraft, however, the requirements can be met and the full-circle rainbow can be seen.[32][33] Like a partial rainbow, the circular rainbow can have a secondary bow or supernumerary bows as well.[34] It is possible to produce the full circle when standing on the ground, for example by spraying a water mist from a garden hose while facing away from the sun.[35]
+
+A circular rainbow should not be confused with the glory, which is much smaller in diameter and is created by different optical processes. In the right circumstances, a glory and a (circular) rainbow or fog bow can occur together. Another atmospheric phenomenon that may be mistaken for a "circular rainbow" is the 22° halo, which is caused by ice crystals rather than liquid water droplets, and is located around the sun (or moon), not opposite it.
+
+In certain circumstances, one or several narrow, faintly coloured bands can be seen bordering the violet edge of a rainbow; i.e., inside the primary bow or, much more rarely, outside the secondary. These extra bands are called supernumerary rainbows or supernumerary bands; together with the rainbow itself the phenomenon is also known as a stacker rainbow. The supernumerary bows are slightly detached from the main bow, become successively fainter along with their distance from it, and have pastel colours (consisting mainly of pink, purple and green hues) rather than the usual spectrum pattern.[36] The effect becomes apparent when water droplets are involved that have a diameter of about 1 mm or less; the smaller the droplets are, the broader the supernumerary bands become, and the less saturated their colours.[37] Due to their origin in small droplets, supernumerary bands tend to be particularly prominent in fogbows.[38]
+
+Supernumerary rainbows cannot be explained using classical geometric optics. The alternating faint bands are caused by interference between rays of light following slightly different paths with slightly varying lengths within the raindrops. Some rays are in phase, reinforcing each other through constructive interference, creating a bright band; others are out of phase by up to half a wavelength, cancelling each other out through destructive interference, and creating a gap. Given the different angles of refraction for rays of different colours, the patterns of interference are slightly different for rays of different colours, so each bright band is differentiated in colour, creating a miniature rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are clearest when raindrops are small and of uniform size. The very existence of supernumerary rainbows was historically a first indication of the wave nature of light, and the first explanation was provided by Thomas Young in 1804.[39]
+
+When a rainbow appears above a body of water, two complementary mirror bows may be seen below and above the horizon, originating from different light paths. Their names are slightly different.
+
+A reflected rainbow may appear in the water surface below the horizon.[40] The sunlight is first deflected by the raindrops, and then reflected off the body of water, before reaching the observer. The reflected rainbow is frequently visible, at least partially, even in small puddles.
+
+A reflection rainbow may be produced where sunlight reflects off a body of water before reaching the raindrops, if the water body is large, quiet over its entire surface, and close to the rain curtain. The reflection rainbow appears above the horizon. It intersects the normal rainbow at the horizon, and its arc reaches higher in the sky, with its centre as high above the horizon as the normal rainbow's centre is below it. Due to the combination of requirements, a reflection rainbow is rarely visible.
+
+Up to eight separate bows may be distinguished if the reflected and reflection rainbows happen to occur simultaneously: The normal (non-reflection) primary and secondary bows above the horizon (1, 2) with their reflected counterparts below it (3, 4), and the reflection primary and secondary bows above the horizon (5, 6) with their reflected counterparts below it (7, 8).[41][42]
+
+Occasionally a shower may happen at sunrise or sunset, where the shorter wavelengths like blue and green have been scattered and essentially removed from the spectrum. Further scattering may occur due to the rain, and the result can be the rare and dramatic monochrome or red rainbow.[43]
+
+In addition to the common primary and secondary rainbows, it is also possible for rainbows of higher orders to form. The order of a rainbow is determined by the number of light reflections inside the water droplets that create it: One reflection results in the first-order or primary rainbow; two reflections create the second-order or secondary rainbow. More internal reflections cause bows of higher orders—theoretically unto infinity.[44] As more and more light is lost with each internal reflection, however, each subsequent bow becomes progressively dimmer and therefore increasingly difficult to spot. An additional challenge in observing the third-order (or tertiary) and fourth-order (quaternary) rainbows is their location in the direction of the sun (about 40° and 45° from the sun, respectively), causing them to become drowned in its glare.[45]
+
+For these reasons, naturally occurring rainbows of an order higher than 2 are rarely visible to the naked eye. Nevertheless, sightings of the third-order bow in nature have been reported, and in 2011 it was photographed definitively for the first time.[46][47] Shortly after, the fourth-order rainbow was photographed as well,[48][49] and in 2014 the first ever pictures of the fifth-order (or quinary) rainbow, located in between the primary and secondary bows, were published.[50]
+
+In a laboratory setting, it is possible to create bows of much higher orders. Felix Billet (1808–1882) depicted angular positions up to the 19th-order rainbow, a pattern he called a "rose of rainbows".[51][52][53] In the laboratory, it is possible to observe higher-order rainbows by using extremely bright and well collimated light produced by lasers. Up to the 200th-order rainbow was reported by Ng et al. in 1998 using a similar method but an argon ion laser beam.[54]
+
+Tertiary and quaternary rainbows should not be confused with "triple" and "quadruple" rainbows—terms sometimes erroneously used to refer to the—much more common—supernumerary bows and reflection rainbows.
+
+Like most atmospheric optical phenomena, rainbows can be caused by light from the Sun, but also from the Moon. In case of the latter, the rainbow is referred to as a lunar rainbow or moonbow. They are much dimmer and rarer than solar rainbows, requiring the Moon to be near-full in order for them to be seen. For the same reason, moonbows are often perceived as white and may be thought of as monochrome. The full spectrum is present, however, but the human eye is not normally sensitive enough to see the colours. Long exposure photographs will sometimes show the colour in this type of rainbow.[55]
+
+Fogbows form in the same way as rainbows, but they are formed by much smaller cloud and fog droplets that diffract light extensively. They are almost white with faint reds on the outside and blues inside; often one or more broad supernumerary bands can be discerned inside the inner edge. The colours are dim because the bow in each colour is very broad and the colours overlap. Fogbows are commonly seen over water when air in contact with the cooler water is chilled, but they can be found anywhere if the fog is thin enough for the sun to shine through and the sun is fairly bright. They are very large—almost as big as a rainbow and much broader. They sometimes appear with a glory at the bow's centre.[56]
+
+Fog bows should not be confused with ice halos, which are very common around the world and visible much more often than rainbows (of any order),[57] yet are unrelated to rainbows.
+
+The circumzenithal and circumhorizontal arcs are two related optical phenomena similar in appearance to a rainbow, but unlike the latter, their origin lies in light refraction through hexagonal ice crystals rather than liquid water droplets. This means that they are not rainbows, but members of the large family of halos.
+
+Both arcs are brightly coloured ring segments centred on the zenith, but in different positions in the sky: The circumzenithal arc is notably curved and located high above the Sun (or Moon) with its convex side pointing downwards (creating the impression of an "upside down rainbow"); the circumhorizontal arc runs much closer to the horizon, is more straight and located at a significant distance below the Sun (or Moon). Both arcs have their red side pointing towards the sun and their violet part away from it, meaning the circumzenithal arc is red on the bottom, while the circumhorizontal arc is red on top.[58][59]
+
+The circumhorizontal arc is sometimes referred to by the misnomer "fire rainbow". In order to view it, the Sun or Moon must be at least 58° above the horizon, making it a rare occurrence at higher latitudes. The circumzenithal arc, visible only at a solar or lunar elevation of less than 32°, is much more common, but often missed since it occurs almost directly overhead.
+
+It has been suggested that rainbows might exist on Saturn's moon Titan, as it has a wet surface and humid clouds. The radius of a Titan rainbow would be about 49° instead of 42°, because the fluid in that cold environment is methane instead of water. Although visible rainbows may be rare due to Titan's hazy skies, infrared rainbows may be more common, but an observer would need infrared night vision goggles to see them.[60]
+
+Droplets (or spheres) composed of materials with different refractive indices than plain water produce rainbows with different radius angles. Since salt water has a higher refractive index, a sea spray bow doesn't perfectly align with the ordinary rainbow, if seen at the same spot.[61] Tiny plastic or glass marbles may be used in road marking as a reflectors to enhance its visibility by drivers at night. Due to a much higher refractive index, rainbows observed on such marbles have a noticeably smaller radius.[62] One can easily reproduce such phenomena by sprinkling liquids of different refractive indices in the air, as illustrated in the photo.
+
+The displacement of the rainbow due to different refractive indices can be pushed to a peculiar limit. For a material with a refractive index larger than 2, there is no angle fulfilling the requirements for the first order rainbow. For example, the index of refraction of diamond is about 2.4, so diamond spheres would produce rainbows starting from the second order, omitting the first order. In general, as the refractive index exceeds a number n+1, where n is a natural number, the critical incidence angle for n times internally reflected rays escapes the domain 
+
+
+
+[
+0
+,
+
+
+π
+2
+
+
+]
+
+
+{\displaystyle [0,{\frac {\pi }{2}}]}
+
+. This results in a rainbow of the n-th order shrinking to the antisolar point and vanishing.
+
+The classical Greek scholar Aristotle (384–322 BC) was first to devote serious attention to the rainbow.[63] According to Raymond L. Lee and Alistair B. Fraser, "Despite its many flaws and its appeal to Pythagorean numerology, Aristotle's qualitative explanation showed an inventiveness and relative consistency that was unmatched for centuries. After Aristotle's death, much rainbow theory consisted of reaction to his work, although not all of this was uncritical."[64]
+
+In Book I of Naturales Quaestiones (c. 65 AD), the Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger discusses various theories of the formation of rainbows extensively, including those of Aristotle. He notices that rainbows appear always opposite to the sun, that they appear in water sprayed by a rower, in the water spat by a fuller on clothes stretched on pegs or by water sprayed through a small hole in a burst pipe. He even speaks of rainbows produced by small rods (virgulae) of glass, anticipating Newton's experiences with prisms. He takes into account two theories: one, that the rainbow is produced by the sun reflecting in each water drop, the other, that it is produced by the sun reflected in a cloud shaped like a concave mirror; he favours the latter. He also discusses other phenomena related to rainbows: the mysterious "virgae" (rods), halos and parhelia.[65]
+
+According to Hüseyin Gazi Topdemir, the Arab physicist and polymath Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen; 965–1039), attempted to provide a scientific explanation for the rainbow phenomenon. In his Maqala fi al-Hala wa Qaws Quzah (On the Rainbow and Halo), al-Haytham "explained the formation of rainbow as an image, which forms at a concave mirror. If the rays of light coming from a farther light source reflect to any point on axis of the concave mirror, they form concentric circles in that point. When it is supposed that the sun as a farther light source, the eye of viewer as a point on the axis of mirror and a cloud as a reflecting surface, then it can be observed the concentric circles are forming on the axis."[citation needed] He was not able to verify this because his theory that "light from the sun is reflected by a cloud before reaching the eye" did not allow for a possible experimental verification.[66] This explanation was repeated by Averroes,[citation needed] and, though incorrect, provided the groundwork for the correct explanations later given by Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī in 1309 and, independently, by Theodoric of Freiberg (c. 1250–c. 1311)[citation needed]—both having studied al-Haytham's Book of Optics.[67]
+
+Ibn al-Haytham's contemporary, the Persian philosopher and polymath Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna; 980–1037), provided an alternative explanation, writing "that the bow is not formed in the dark cloud but rather in the very thin mist lying between the cloud and the sun or observer. The cloud, he thought, serves simply as the background of this thin substance, much as a quicksilver lining is placed upon the rear surface of the glass in a mirror. Ibn Sīnā would change the place not only of the bow, but also of the colour formation, holding the iridescence to be merely a subjective sensation in the eye."[68] This explanation, however, was also incorrect.[citation needed] Ibn Sīnā's account accepts many of Aristotle's arguments on the rainbow.[69]
+
+In Song Dynasty China (960–1279), a polymath scholar-official named Shen Kuo (1031–1095) hypothesised—as a certain Sun Sikong (1015–1076) did before him—that rainbows were formed by a phenomenon of sunlight encountering droplets of rain in the air.[70] Paul Dong writes that Shen's explanation of the rainbow as a phenomenon of atmospheric refraction "is basically in accord with modern scientific principles."[71]
+
+According to Nader El-Bizri, the Persian astronomer, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311), gave a fairly accurate explanation for the rainbow phenomenon. This was elaborated on by his student, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī (1267–1319), who gave a more mathematically satisfactory explanation of the rainbow. He "proposed a model where the ray of light from the sun was refracted twice by a water droplet, one or more reflections occurring between the two refractions." An experiment with a water-filled glass sphere was conducted and al-Farisi showed the additional refractions due to the glass could be ignored in his model.[66] As he noted in his Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir (The Revision of the Optics), al-Farisi used a large clear vessel of glass in the shape of a sphere, which was filled with water, in order to have an experimental large-scale model of a rain drop. He then placed this model within a camera obscura that has a controlled aperture for the introduction of light. He projected light unto the sphere and ultimately deduced through several trials and detailed observations of reflections and refractions of light that the colours of the rainbow are phenomena of the decomposition of light.
+
+In Europe, Ibn al-Haytham's Book of Optics was translated into Latin and studied by Robert Grosseteste. His work on light was continued by Roger Bacon, who wrote in his Opus Majus of 1268 about experiments with light shining through crystals and water droplets showing the colours of the rainbow.[72] In addition, Bacon was the first to calculate the angular size of the rainbow. He stated that the rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42° above the horizon.[73] Theodoric of Freiberg is known to have given an accurate theoretical explanation of both the primary and secondary rainbows in 1307. He explained the primary rainbow, noting that "when sunlight falls on individual drops of moisture, the rays undergo two refractions (upon ingress and egress) and one reflection (at the back of the drop) before transmission into the eye of the observer."[74][75] He explained the secondary rainbow through a similar analysis involving two refractions and two reflections.
+
+Descartes' 1637 treatise, Discourse on Method, further advanced this explanation. Knowing that the size of raindrops did not appear to affect the observed rainbow, he experimented with passing rays of light through a large glass sphere filled with water. By measuring the angles that the rays emerged, he concluded that the primary bow was caused by a single internal reflection inside the raindrop and that a secondary bow could be caused by two internal reflections. He supported this conclusion with a derivation of the law of refraction (subsequently to, but independently of, Snell) and correctly calculated the angles for both bows. His explanation of the colours, however, was based on a mechanical version of the traditional theory that colours were produced by a modification of white light.[76][77]
+
+Isaac Newton demonstrated that white light was composed of the light of all the colours of the rainbow, which a glass prism could separate into the full spectrum of colours, rejecting the theory that the colours were produced by a modification of white light. He also showed that red light is refracted less than blue light, which led to the first scientific explanation of the major features of the rainbow.[78] Newton's corpuscular theory of light was unable to explain supernumerary rainbows, and a satisfactory explanation was not found until Thomas Young realised that light behaves as a wave under certain conditions, and can interfere with itself.
+
+Young's work was refined in the 1820s by George Biddell Airy, who explained the dependence of the strength of the colours of the rainbow on the size of the water droplets.[79] Modern physical descriptions of the rainbow are based on Mie scattering, work published by Gustav Mie in 1908.[80] Advances in computational methods and optical theory continue to lead to a fuller understanding of rainbows. For example, Nussenzveig provides a modern overview.[81]
+
+Experiments on the rainbow phenomenon using artificial raindrops, i.e. water-filled spherical flasks, go back at least to Theodoric of Freiberg in the 14th century. Later, also Descartes studied the phenomenon using a Florence flask. A flask experiment known as Florence's rainbow is still often used today as an imposing and intuitively accessible demonstration experiment of the rainbow phenomenon.[82][83][84] It consists in illuminating (with parallel white light) a water-filled spherical flask through a hole in a screen. A rainbow will then appear thrown back / projected on the screen, provided the screen is large enough. Due to the finite wall thickness and the macroscopic character of the artificial raindrop, several subtle differences exist as compared to the natural phenomenon,[85][86] including slightly changed rainbow angles and a splitting of the rainbow orders.
+
+A very similar experiment consists in using a cylindrical glass vessel filled with water or a solid transparent cylinder and illuminated either parallel to the circular base (i.e. light rays remaining at a fixed height while they transit the cylinder)[87][88]  or under an angle to the base. Under these latter conditions the rainbow angles change relative to the natural phenomenon since the effective index of refraction of water changes (Bravais' index of refraction for inclined rays applies).[85][86]
+
+Other experiments use small liquid drops,[52][53] see text above.
+
+Rainbows occur frequently in mythology, and have been used in the arts.  One of the earliest literary occurrences of a rainbow is in the Book of Genesis chapter 9, as part of the flood story of Noah, where it is a sign of God's covenant to never destroy all life on earth with a global flood again. In Norse mythology, the rainbow bridge Bifröst connects the world of men (Midgard) and the realm of the gods (Asgard). Cuchavira was the god of the rainbow for the Muisca in present-day Colombia and when the regular rains on the Bogotá savanna were over, the people thanked him offering gold, snails and small emeralds. Some forms of Tibetan Buddhism or Dzogchen reference a rainbow body.[89] The Irish leprechaun's secret hiding place for his pot of gold is usually said to be at the end of the rainbow.  This place is appropriately impossible to reach, because the rainbow is an optical effect which cannot be approached.
+
+Rainbows appear in heraldry - in heraldry the rainbow proper consists of 4 bands of color (Or, Gules, Vert, Argent) with the ends resting on clouds.[90] Generalised examples in coat of arms include those of the towns of Regen or Pfreimd, both in Bavaria, Germany; and of Bouffémont, France; and of the 69th Infantry Regiment (New York) of the Army National Guard (USA).
+
+Rainbow flags have been used for centuries.  It was a symbol of the Cooperative movement in the German Peasants' War in the 16th century, of peace in Italy, and of gay pride and LGBT social movements since the 1970s.  In 1994, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Nelson Mandela described newly democratic post-apartheid South Africa as the rainbow nation. The rainbow has also been used in technology product logos, including the Apple computer logo. Many political alliances spanning multiple political parties have called themselves a "Rainbow Coalition".

en/3410.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+
+
+White blood cells (WBCs), also called leukocytes or leucocytes, are the cells of the immune system that are involved in protecting the body against both infectious disease and foreign invaders. All white blood cells are produced and derived from multipotent cells in the bone marrow known as hematopoietic stem cells. Leukocytes are found throughout the body, including the blood and lymphatic system.[1]
+
+All white blood cells have nuclei, which distinguishes them from the other blood cells, the anucleated red blood cells (RBCs) and platelets. The different white blood cell types are classified in standard ways; two pairs of broadest categories classify them either by structure (granulocytes or agranulocytes) or by cell lineage (myeloid cells or lymphoid cells). These broadest categories can be further divided into the five main types: neutrophils, eosinophils (acidophiles), basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes.[2] These types are distinguished by their physical and functional characteristics. Monocytes and neutrophils are phagocytic. Further subtypes can be classified; for example, among lymphocytes, there are B cells (named from bursa or bone marrow cells), T cells (named from thymus cells), and natural killer cells.
+
+The number of leukocytes in the blood is often an indicator of disease, and thus the white blood cell count is an important subset of the complete blood count. The normal white cell count is usually between 4 × 109/L and 1.1 × 1010/L. In the US, this is usually expressed as 4,000 to 11,000 white blood cells per microliter of blood.[3] White blood cells make up approximately 1% of the total blood volume in a healthy adult,[4] making them substantially less numerous than the red blood cells at 40% to 45%. However, this 1% of the blood makes a large difference to health, because immunity depends on it. An increase in the number of leukocytes over the upper limits is called leukocytosis. It is normal when it is part of healthy immune responses, which happen frequently. It is occasionally abnormal, when it is neoplastic or autoimmune in origin. A decrease below the lower limit is called leukopenia. This indicates a weakened immune system.
+
+The name "white blood cell" derives from the physical appearance of a blood sample after centrifugation. White cells are found in the buffy coat, a thin, typically white layer of nucleated cells between the sedimented red blood cells and the blood plasma. The scientific term leukocyte directly reflects its description. It is derived from the Greek roots leuk- meaning "white" and cyt- meaning "cell". The buffy coat may sometimes be green if there are large amounts of neutrophils in the sample, due to the heme-containing enzyme myeloperoxidase that they produce.
+
+All white blood cells are nucleated, which distinguishes them from the anucleated red blood cells and platelets. Types of leukocytes can be classified in standard ways. Two pairs of broadest categories classify them either by structure (granulocytes or agranulocytes) or by cell lineage (myeloid cells or lymphoid cells). These broadest categories can be further divided into the five main types: neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, lymphocytes, and monocytes.[2] These types are distinguished by their physical and functional characteristics. Monocytes and neutrophils are phagocytic. Further subtypes can be classified.
+
+Granulocytes are distinguished from agranulocytes by their nucleus shape (lobed versus round, that is, polymorphonuclear versus mononuclear) and by their cytoplasm granules (present or absent, or more precisely, visible on light microscopy or not thus visible). The other dichotomy is by lineage: Myeloid cells (neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils and basophils) are distinguished from lymphoid cells (lymphocytes) by hematopoietic lineage (cellular differentiation lineage).[6] Lymphocytes can be further classified as T cells, B cells, and natural killer cells.
+
+Neutrophils are the most abundant white blood cell, constituting 60-70% of the circulating leukocytes,[4] and including two functionally unequal subpopulations: neutrophil-killers and neutrophil-cagers. They defend against bacterial or fungal infection. They are usually first responders to microbial infection; their activity and death in large numbers form pus. They are commonly referred to as polymorphonuclear (PMN) leukocytes, although, in the technical sense, PMN refers to all granulocytes. They have a multi-lobed nucleus, which consists of three to five lobes connected by slender strands.[9] This gives the neutrophils the appearance of having multiple nuclei, hence the name polymorphonuclear leukocyte. The cytoplasm may look transparent because of fine granules that are pale lilac when stained. Neutrophils are active in phagocytosing bacteria and are present in large amount in the pus of wounds. These cells are not able to renew their lysosomes (used in digesting microbes) and die after having phagocytosed a few pathogens.[10] Neutrophils are the most common cell type seen in the early stages of acute inflammation. The average lifespan of inactivated human neutrophils in the circulation has been reported by different approaches to be between 5 and 135 hours.[11][12]
+
+Eosinophils compose about 2-4% of the WBC total. This count fluctuates throughout the day, seasonally, and during menstruation. It rises in response to allergies, parasitic infections, collagen diseases, and disease of the spleen and central nervous system. They are rare in the blood, but numerous in the mucous membranes of the respiratory, digestive, and lower urinary tracts.[9]
+
+They primarily deal with parasitic infections. Eosinophils are also the predominant inflammatory cells in allergic reactions. The most important causes of eosinophilia include allergies such as asthma, hay fever, and hives; and also parasitic infections. They secrete chemicals that destroy these large parasites, such as hookworms and tapeworms, that are too big for any one WBC to phagocytize. In general, their nucleus is bi-lobed. The lobes are connected by a thin strand.[9] The cytoplasm is full of granules that assume a characteristic pink-orange color with eosin staining.
+
+Basophils are chiefly responsible for allergic and antigen response by releasing the chemical histamine causing the dilation of blood vessels. Because they are the rarest of the white blood cells (less than 0.5% of the total count) and share physicochemical properties with other blood cells, they are difficult to study.[13] They can be recognized by several coarse, dark violet granules, giving them a blue hue. The nucleus is bi- or tri-lobed, but it is hard to see because of the number of coarse granules that hide it.
+
+They excrete two chemicals that aid in the body's defenses: histamine and heparin. Histamine is responsible for widening blood vessels and increasing the flow of blood to injured tissue. It also makes blood vessels more permeable so neutrophils and clotting proteins can get into connective tissue more easily. Heparin is an anticoagulant that inhibits blood clotting and promotes the movement of white blood cells into an area. Basophils can also release chemical signals that attract eosinophils and neutrophils to an infection site.[9]
+
+Lymphocytes are much more common in the lymphatic system than in blood. Lymphocytes are distinguished by having a deeply staining nucleus that may be eccentric in location, and a relatively small amount of cytoplasm. Lymphocytes include:
+
+Monocytes, the largest type of WBCs, share the "vacuum cleaner" (phagocytosis) function of neutrophils, but are much longer lived as they have an extra role: they present pieces of pathogens to T cells so that the pathogens may be recognized again and killed. This causes an antibody response to be mounted. Monocytes eventually leave the bloodstream and become tissue macrophages, which remove dead cell debris as well as attack microorganisms. Neither dead cell debris nor attacking microorganisms can be dealt with effectively by the neutrophils. Unlike neutrophils, monocytes are able to replace their lysosomal contents and are thought to have a much longer active life. They have the kidney-shaped nucleus and are typically agranulated. They also possess abundant cytoplasm.
+
+Some leucocytes migrate into the tissues of the body to take up a permanent residence at that location rather than remaining in the blood. Often these cells have specific names depending upon which tissue they settle in, such as fixed macrophages in the liver, which become known as Kupffer cells. These cells still serve a role in the immune system.
+
+The two commonly used categories of white blood cell disorders divide them quantitatively into those causing excessive numbers (proliferative disorders) and those causing insufficient numbers (leukopenias).[14] Leukocytosis is usually healthy (e.g., fighting an infection), but it also may be dysfunctionally proliferative. WBC proliferative disorders can be classed as myeloproliferative and lymphoproliferative. Some are autoimmune, but many are neoplastic.
+
+Another way to categorize disorders of white blood cells is qualitatively. There are various disorders in which the number of white blood cells is normal but the cells do not function normally.[15]
+
+Neoplasia of WBCs can be benign but is often malignant. Of the various tumors of the blood and lymph, cancers of WBCs can be broadly classified as leukemias and lymphomas, although those categories overlap and are often grouped as a pair.
+
+A range of disorders can cause decreases in white blood cells. This type of white blood cell decreased is usually the neutrophil. In this case the decrease may be called neutropenia or granulocytopenia. Less commonly, a decrease in lymphocytes (called lymphocytopenia or lymphopenia) may be seen.[14]
+
+Neutropenia can be acquired or intrinsic.[16] A decrease in levels of neutrophils on lab tests is due to either decreased production of neutrophils or increased removal from the blood.[14] The following list of causes is not complete.
+
+Symptoms of neutropenia are associated with the underlying cause of the decrease in neutrophils. For example, the most common cause of acquired neutropenia is drug-induced, so an individual may have symptoms of medication overdose or toxicity.
+Treatment is also aimed at the underlying cause of the neutropenia.[17] One severe consequence of neutropenia is that it can increase the risk of infection.[15]
+
+Defined as total lymphocyte count below 1.0x109/L, the cells most commonly affected are CD4+ T cells. Like neutropenia, lymphocytopenia may be acquired or intrinsic and there are many causes.[15] This is not a complete list.
+
+Like neutropenia, symptoms and treatment of lymphocytopenia are directed at the underlying cause of the change in cell counts.
+
+An increase in the number of white blood cells in circulation is called leukocytosis.[14] This increase is most commonly caused by inflammation.[14] There are four major causes: increase of production in bone marrow, increased release from storage in bone marrow, decreased attachment to veins and arteries, decreased uptake by tissues.[14] Leukocytosis may affect one or more cell lines and can be neutrophilic, eosinophilic, basophilic, monocytosis, or lymphocytosis.
+
+Neutrophilia is an increase in the absolute neutrophil count in the peripheral circulation. Normal blood values vary by age.[15] Neutrophilia can be caused by a direct problem with blood cells (primary disease). It can also occur as a consequence of an underlying disease (secondary). Most cases of neutrophilia are secondary to inflammation.[17]
+
+Primary causes[17]
+
+Secondary causes[17]
+
+A normal eosinophil count is considered to be less than 0.65×109/L.[15] Eosinophil counts are higher in newborns and vary with age, time (lower in the morning and higher at night), exercise, environment, and exposure to allergens.[15] Eosinophilia is never a normal lab finding. Efforts should always be made to discover the underlying cause, though the cause may not always be found.[15]
+
+The complete blood cell count is a blood panel that includes the overall WBC count and the white blood cell differential, a count of each type of white blood cell. Reference ranges for blood tests specify the typical counts in healthy people.
+
+TLC- (Total leucocyte count):
+Normal TLC in an adult person is 6000-8000 WBC/mm^3 of blood.
+
+DLC- (Differential leucocyte count):
+Number/ (%) of different types of leucocytes per cubic mm. of blood.
+
+Below are blood reference ranges for various types leucocytes/WBCs.[19]

en/3411.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,284 @@
+
+
+
+
+Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.  It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits.[9] Although much of this border is over land, Europe is generally accorded the status of a full continent because of its great physical size and the weight of history and tradition.
+
+Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi), or 2% of the Earth's surface (6.8% of land area), making it the sixth largest continent. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states, of which Russia is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million (about 11% of the world population) as of 2018[update].[2][3] The European climate is largely affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent, even at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast.
+
+Europe, in particular ancient Greece and ancient Rome, was the birthplace of Western civilisation.[10][11][12] The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers colonized at various times the Americas, almost all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia.
+
+The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally, politically and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural and social change in Western Europe and eventually the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence.[13] During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall.
+
+In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union (EU), a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.[14] The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most commonly used among Europeans; and the EU's Schengen Area abolishes border and immigration controls between most of its member states.
+
+
+
+In classical Greek mythology, Europa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē) was a Phoenician princess. One view is that her name derives from the ancient Greek elements εὐρύς (eurús), "wide, broad" and ὤψ (ōps, gen. ὠπός, ōpós) "eye, face, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect".[15][16][17] Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it.[15] An alternative view is that of R.S.P. Beekes who has argued in favor of a Pre-Indo-European origin for the name, explains that a derivation from ancient Greek eurus would yield a different toponym than Europa. Beekes has located toponyms related to that of Europa in the territory of ancient Greece and localities like that of Europos in ancient Macedonia.[18]
+
+There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (said of the sun) or Phoenician  'ereb "evening, west",[19] which is at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, [the country of] sunset", in opposition to Asu "[the country of] sunrise", i.e. Asia. The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή (Anatolḗ "[sun] rise", "east", hence Anatolia).[20] Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor",[21] while Beekes considers a connection to Semitic languages improbable.[18] Next to these hypotheses there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which also produced Greek Erebus.[citation needed]
+
+Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲/欧洲), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲) (zhōu means "continent"); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū (欧州) is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō (欧州連合), despite the katakana Yōroppa (ヨーロッパ) being more commonly used. In some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan ("land of the Franks") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.[22]
+
+Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries[23] Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia;
+green: countries not geographically in Europe, but closely associated with the continent
+
+The prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century.
+Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the east and northeast are usually taken to be the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.[24]
+
+Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is considered part of Europe politically and it is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of Northwest Africa for centuries, but now it is considered to be part of Europe as well.[25]
+"Europe" as used specifically in British English may also refer to Continental Europe exclusively.[26]
+
+The term "continent" usually implies the physical geography of a large land mass completely or almost completely surrounded by water at its borders. However the Europe-Asia part of the border is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent with this definition because of its partial adherence to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains rather than a series of partly joined waterways suggested by cartographer Herman Moll in 1715. These water divides extend with a few relatively small interruptions (compared to the aforementioned mountain ranges) from the Turkish straits running into the Mediterranean Sea to the upper part of the Ob River that drains into the Arctic Ocean. Prior to the adoption of the current convention that includes mountain divides, the border between Europe and Asia had been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity, but always as a series of rivers, seas, and straits that were believed to extend an unknown distance east and north from the Mediterranean Sea without the inclusion of any mountain ranges.
+
+The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border between Europe and Asia does not follow any state boundaries and now only follows a few bodies of water. Turkey is generally considered a transcontinental country divided entirely by water, while Russia and Kazakhstan are only partly divided by waterways. France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom are also transcontinental (or more properly, intercontinental, when oceans or large seas are involved) in that their main land areas are in Europe while pockets of their territories are located on other continents separated from Europe by large bodies of water.  Spain, for example, has territories south of the Mediterranean Sea namely Ceuta and Melilla which are parts of Africa and share a border with Morocco.  According to the current convention, Georgia and Azerbaijan are transcontinental countries where waterways have been completely replaced by mountains as the divide between continents.
+
+The first recorded usage of Eurṓpē as a geographic term is in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni River on the territory of Georgia) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC.[27] Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia.[28] Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don.[29] The Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from Northwest Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia.[30]
+
+The convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius,[31] Strabo[32] and Ptolemy,[33]
+who took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary.
+
+The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world.
+
+A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy.[34] The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: Europa often[dubious  – discuss] figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin.[35]
+
+The question of defining a precise eastern boundary of Europe arises in the Early Modern period, as the eastern extension of Muscovy began to include North Asia. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the traditional division of the landmass of Eurasia into two continents, Europe and Asia, followed Ptolemy, with the boundary following the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea, the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Don (ancient Tanais). But maps produced during the 16th to 18th centuries tended to differ in how to continue the boundary beyond the Don bend at Kalach-na-Donu (where it is closest to the Volga, now joined with it by the Volga–Don Canal), into territory not described in any detail by the ancient geographers.  Around 1715, Herman Moll produced a map showing the northern part of the Ob River and the Irtysh River, a major tributary of the former, as components of a series of partly-joined waterways taking the boundary between Europe and Asia from the Turkish Straits and the Don River all the way to the Arctic Ocean.  In 1721, he produced a more up to date map that was easier to read.  However, his idea to use major rivers almost exclusively as the line of demarcation was never taken up by the Russian Empire.
+
+Four years later, in 1725, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg was the first to depart from the classical Don boundary by proposing that mountain ranges could be included as boundaries between continents whenever there were deemed to be no suitable waterways, the Ob and Irtysh Rivers notwithstanding.  He drew a new line along the Volga, following the Volga north until the Samara Bend, along Obshchy Syrt (the drainage divide between Volga and Ural) and then north along Ural Mountains.[36] This was adopted by the Russian Empire, and introduced the convention that would eventually become commonly accepted, but not without criticism by many modern analytical geographers like Halford Mackinder who saw little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents.[37]
+
+The mapmakers continued to differ on the boundary between the lower Don and Samara well into the 19th century. The 1745 atlas published by the Russian Academy of Sciences has the boundary follow the Don beyond Kalach as far as Serafimovich before cutting north towards Arkhangelsk, while other 18th- to 19th-century mapmakers such as John Cary followed Strahlenberg's prescription. To the south, the Kuma–Manych Depression was identified circa 1773 by a German naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas, as a valley that once connected the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea,[38][39] and subsequently was proposed as a natural boundary between continents.
+
+By the mid-19th century, there were three main conventions, one following the Don, the Volga–Don Canal and the Volga, the other following the Kuma–Manych Depression to the Caspian and then the Ural River, and the third abandoning the Don altogether, following the Greater Caucasus watershed to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a "controversy" in geographical literature of the 1860s, with Douglas Freshfield advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the "best possible", citing support from various "modern geographers".[40]
+
+In Russia and the Soviet Union, the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906.[41] In 1958, the Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from Baydaratskaya Bay, on the Kara Sea, along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the Ural River until the Mugodzhar Hills, and then the Emba River; and Kuma–Manych Depression,[42] thus placing the Caucasus entirely in Asia and the Urals entirely in Europe.[43] However, most geographers in the Soviet Union favoured the boundary along the Caucasus crest[44] and this became the common convention in the later 20th century, although the Kuma–Manych boundary remained in use in some 20th-century maps.
+
+Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.[45] Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[46] Neanderthal man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in Poland[47]) and disappeared from the fossil record about 28,000 years ago, with their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago.[48] The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years ago are
+Riparo Mochi (Italy), Geissenklösterle (Germany), and Isturitz (France)[49][50]
+
+The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East.[51] It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs.[52] The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge, were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.[53][54]
+
+The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece with the Minoan civilisation on Crete, the first advanced civilisation in Europe.[55] The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans, who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC, ushering the European Iron Age.[56] Iron Age colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BC, the year the first Olympic Games.[57]
+
+Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.[58] The Greek city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece.[58] In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.[59] The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer;[60] in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.[61][62][63] In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history,[64] as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilisation. The conquests of Alexander the Great brought the Middle East into the Greek cultural sphere.
+
+Greece was followed by Rome, which left its mark on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more key aspects in western civilisation.[58] Rome began as a small city-state, founded, according to tradition, in 753 BC as an elective kingdom. Tradition has it that there were seven kings of Rome with Romulus, the founder, being the first and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus falling to a republican uprising led by Lucius Junius Brutus, but modern scholars doubt many of those stories and even the Romans themselves acknowledged that the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 387 BC destroyed many sources on their early history.
+
+By 200 BC, Rome had conquered Italy, and over the following two centuries it conquered Greece and Hispania (Spain and Portugal), the North African coast, much of the Middle East, Gaul (France and Belgium), and Britannia (England and Wales). The forty-year conquest of Britannia left 250,000 Britons dead, and emperor Antoninus Pius built the Antonine Wall across Scotland's Central Belt to defend the province from the Caledonians; it marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire.
+
+The Roman Republic ended in 27 BC, when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire. The two centuries that followed are known as the pax romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[65] The empire continued to expand under emperors such as Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, who spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes.[66][67] Christianity was legalised by Constantine I in 313 AD after three centuries of imperial persecution. Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour (modern-day Istanbul) in 330 AD. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 AD, and in 391–392 AD, the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions.[68] This is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529 AD;[69] or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD.
+
+During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars.[65] Germanic tribes settled in the former Roman provinces of England and Spain, while other groups pressed into northern France and Italy.[70] Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".[71] Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire.[72]
+
+While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and brought the Christian church under state control.[73] He reconquered North Africa, southern Spain, and Italy.[74] The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which sought to preserve Roman culture and adopt its values, later changed course and became anti-Constantinople, so Justinian waged war against the Ostrogoths for 30 years and destroyed much of urban life in Italy, and reduced agriculture to subsistence farming.[75]
+
+From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor. In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region.[76] Over the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern Italy.[77] Between 711 and 726, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigothic Kingdom, which occupied the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania (southwestern France). The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of Asturias, Leon and Galicia were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the Moors out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focussed on their own internal power struggles. As a result, the Reconquista took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders.
+
+One of the biggest threats during the Dark Ages were the Vikings, Norse seafarers who raided, raped, and pillaged across the Western world. Many Vikings died in battles in continental Europe, and in 844 they lost many men and ships to King Ramiro in northern Spain.[78] A few months later, another fleet took Seville, only to be driven off with further heavy losses.[79] In 911, the Vikings attacked Paris, and the Franks decided to give the Viking king Rollo land along the English Channel coast in exchange for peace. This land was named "Normandy" for the Norse "Northmen", and the Norse settlers became known as "Normans", adopting the French culture and language and becoming French vassals. In 1066, the Normans went on to conquer England in the first successful cross-Channel invasion since Roman times.[80]
+
+During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively.[81] Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.[82] In 507, Clovis defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé, slaying King Alaric II and conquering southern Gaul for the Franks. His conquests laid the foundation for the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.[83]
+
+East Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted Christianity: the First Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia). To the East, the Kievan Rus expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the religion of state.[84][85] Further East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.[86]
+
+The period between the year 1000 and 1300 is known as the High Middle Ages, during which the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the Renaissance of the 12th century. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000.[91]
+
+The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe.[92] A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament.[93] The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.[92]
+
+The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land.[94] In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. Popes also encouraged crusading in the Iberian Peninsula.[95] In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims and reconquered the Balkans. However, it faced a new enemy in the form of seaborne attacks by the Normans, who conquered Southern Italy and Sicily. Even more dangerous than the Franco-Norsemen was a new enemy from the steppe: the Seljuk Turks. The Empire was weakened following the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert and was weakened considerably by the Frankish-Venetian sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade.[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104] Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Empire.[105][106][107]
+
+In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east.[108] Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols.[109] The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries.[110][111] After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans.[112] From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480 and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. The state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible, steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries.
+
+The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages.[113] The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half.[114][115] Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[116] and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.[117] Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time.[118]
+
+The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, beggars, and lepers.[119] The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century.[120] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[121]
+
+The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin.[122][123][124] The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class.[125][126][127] Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.[128][129]
+
+Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly.[132] In the 15th century, Europe started to extend itself beyond its geographic frontiers. Spain and Portugal, the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world.[133][134] Exploration reached the Southern Hemisphere in the Atlantic and the Southern tip of Africa. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in 1498. Ferdinand Magellan reached Asia westward across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in the Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the globe, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano (1519–22). Soon after, the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing large global empires in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania.[135] France, the Dutch Republic and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The Italian Wars (1494–1559) led to the development of the first modern professional army in Europe, the Tercios. Their superiority became evident at the Battle of Bicocca (1522) against French-Swiss-Italian forces, which marked the end of massive pike assaults after thousands of Swiss pikemen fell to the Spanish arquebusiers without the latter suffering a single casualty.[136] Over the course of the 16th century, Spanish and Italian troops marched north to fight on Dutch and German battlefields, dying there in large numbers.[137][138]
+
+The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation in 1517 when German theologian Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses criticising the selling of indulgences to the church door. He was subsequently excommunicated in the papal bull Exsurge Domine in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of Worms, which divided German princes between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths.[139] Religious fighting and warfare spread with Protestantism. War broke out first in Germany, where Imperial troops defeated the Protestant army of the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg, putting an end to the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47).[140] Between 2 and 3 million people were killed in the French Wars of Religion (1562–98).[141] The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Catholic Habsburgs and Dutch Calvinists resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people.[141] In the Cologne War (1583–88), Catholic forces faced off against German Calvinist and Dutch troops. The Thirty Years War (1618–48) crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population.[142] During the Thirty Years' War, in which various Protestant forces battled Imperial armies, France provided subsidies to Habsburg enemies, especially Sweden. The destruction of the Swedish army by an Austro-Spanish force at the Battle of Nördlingen (1634) forced France to intervene militarily in the Thirty Years' War. In 1638, France and Oxenstierna agreed to a treaty at Hamburg, extending the annual French subsidy of 400,000 riksdalers for three years, but Sweden would not fight against Spain. In 1643, the French defeated one of Spain's best armies at the Battle of Rocroi. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), France rose to predominance within Western Europe.[143] France fought a series of wars over domination of Western Europe, including the Franco-Spanish War, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession; these wars cost France over 1,000,000 battle casualties.[144][145]
+
+The 17th century in central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline.[146] Central and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 and 1700.[147] From the Union of Krewo (1385) central and eastern Europe was dominated by Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 1648 and 1655 in the central and eastern Europe ended hegemony of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves.[148] Further east, the Nogai Horde and Kazakh Khanate frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine and Poland for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia).
+
+The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development.[149] Among the great figures of the Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.[150] According to Peter Barrett, "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world."[122]
+
+The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.[151][152][153] Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror.[154] Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of western and central Europe before collapsing in 1814 with the Battle of Paris between the Sixth Coalition—consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia—and the French Empire.[155][156] Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law, and education.[157][158][159] The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.[160] This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted.[161] The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.[162]
+
+In parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution (1804) and Greek War of Independence (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, which ended with the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913.[163] Formal recognition of the de facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Many Ottoman Muslims faced either extermination at the hands of the newly independent states, or were expelled to the shrinking Ottoman possessions in Europe or to Anatolia; between 1821 and 1922 alone, more than 5 million Ottoman Muslims were driven away from their homes, while another 5.5 million died in wars or due to starvation and disease.[164]
+
+The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class.[165] Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions,[166] and the abolition of slavery.[167] In Britain, the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.[168] Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.[169] The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people.[170] In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States.[171] Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe's share of the world's population was 25%.[172]
+
+Two world wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist[178] Gavrilo Princip.[179] Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire).
+
+On 4 August 1914, Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. On 17 August 1914, the Russian army launched an assault on the eastern German province of East Prussia, but they would be dealt a fatal blow at the Battle of Tannenberg on 26-30 August 1914. As 1914 came to a close, the Germans were facing off against the French and British in northern France and in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of eastern France, and the opposing armies dug trenches and set up defensive positions. From 1915 to 1917, the two armies often engaged in trench warfare and massive offensives. The Battle of the Somme was the largest battle on the Western Front; the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans 500,000. The Battle of Verdun saw around 377,231 French and 337,000 Germans become casualties. At the Battle of Passchendaele, mustard gas was used by both sides as chemical weapons, and several troops on both sides died in battle. In 1915, the tide of the war was changed when the Kingdom of Italy decided to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente, seeking to acquire Austrian Tyrol and some possessions along the Adriatic Sea. This violated the "Triple Alliance" proposed in the 19th century, and Austria-Hungary was ill-prepared for yet another front to fight on. The Royal Italian Army launched several offensives along the Isonzo River, with eleven battles of the Isonzo being fought during the war. Over the course of the war, 462,391 Italian soldiers died; 420,000 of the dead were lost on the Alpine front with Austria-Hungary, the rest fell in France, Albania, or Macedonia.[180]
+
+In 1917, German troops began to arrive in Italy to assist the crumbling Austro-Hungarian forces, and the Germans destroyed an Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto. This led to British and French (and later American) troops arriving in Italy to assist the Italian military against the Central forces, and the Allied troops succeeded in taking parts of northern Italy and on the Adriatic sea. In the Balkans, the Serbians resisted the Austrians until Bulgaria and the German Empire sent troops to assist in the conquest of Serbia in December 1915. The Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front, which had performed poorly, was soon subordinated to the Imperial German Army's high command, and the Germans destroyed a Russian army at the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in 1916. The Russians launched a massive counterattack against the Central Powers in Poland, and this "Brusilov Offensive" inflicted very high losses on the Austro-Hungarians; 1,325,000 Central Powers troops and 500,000 Russian troops were lost. However, the political situation in Russia deteriorated as people became more aware of the corruption in Czar Nicholas II of Russia's government, and the Germans made rapid progress in 1917 after the Russian Revolution toppled the czar. The Germans secured Riga in Latvia in September 1917, and they benefited from the fall of Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government to the Bolsheviks in October 1917. In February-March 1918, the Germans launched a massive offensive after the Russian SFSR came to power, taking advantage of the Russian Civil War to seize large amounts of territory. In March 1918, the Soviets signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the war on the Eastern Front, and Germany set up various puppet nations in Eastern Europe.
+
+Germany's huge successes during the war with the Russians were morale boosts for the Central Powers, but the Germans faced a new problem when they began to use "unrestricted submarine warfare" to attack enemy ships at sea. These tactics led to the sinking of several civilian ships, angering the United States, which lost several civilians aboard these ships. Germany agreed to the "Sussex Pledge", stating that it would halt this strategy. However, the Germans sunk RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, and the British intercepted an offer from the German government made to Mexico that proposed an anti-American alliance. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, and the USA joined the Allies. In 1918, the American troops took part in the Battle of Belleau Wood and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, major offensives that saw several American troops die on European soil for the first time. The Germans began to suffer as more and more Allied troops arrived, and they launched the desperate "Spring Offensive" of 1918. This offensive was repelled, and the Allies barreled towards Belgium in the Hundred Days Offensive during the autumn of 1918. On 11 November 1918, the Germans agreed to an armistice with the Allies, ending the war. The war left more than 16 million civilians and military dead.[181] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.[182]
+
+Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.[183] Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.[184] Excess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million.[185] In 1932–1933, under Stalin's leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths;[186] surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people;[187] millions of people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[188]
+
+The social revolutions sweeping through Russia also affected other European nations following The Great War: in 1919, with the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the First Austrian Republic; in 1922, with Mussolini's one party fascist government in the Kingdom of Italy, and in Atatürk's Turkish Republic, adopting the Western alphabet, and state secularism.
+Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler in power of what became Nazi Germany.[198][199] In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy of appeasement.
+
+With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II.[194][200][201] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark; 1,400 Nazi soldiers conquered Denmark in one day.[202] The Phoney War continued. In May 1940, Germany conquered the Netherlands and Belgium. That same month, Italy allied with Germany and the two countries conquered France. By August, Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.[203] Some 43,000 British civilians were killed and 139,000 wounded in the Blitz; much of London was destroyed, with 1,400,245 buildings destroyed or damaged.[204] In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.[205] The Soviets and Germans fought an extremely brutal war in the east that cost millions of civilian and soldier lives. The Jews of Russia were wiped out by the German Nazis, who wanted to purge the world of Jews and other "subhumans". On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.[206][207] In 1943, the Allies knocked Italy out of the war. The Italian campaign had the highest casualty rates of the whole war for the western allies.[208]
+
+After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In 1944, the Soviets and Allies both launched offensives against the Axis in Europe, with the Western Allies liberating France and much of Western Europe as the Soviets liberated much of Eastern Europe before halting in central Poland. The final year of the war saw the Soviets and Western Allies divide Germany in two after meeting along the Elbe River, while the Soviets and allied partisans liberated the Balkans. The Soviets conquered the German capital of Berlin on 2 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Hitler killed himself; Mussolini was killed by partisans in Italy. The Soviet-German struggle made World War II the bloodiest and costliest conflict in history.[209][210] More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of World War II (70 percent on the eastern front),[211][212] including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust (the genocide against Jews and the massacre of intellectuals, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped people, Slavs, and Red Army prisoners-of-war).[213] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[214] By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees.[215] Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people,[216] in particular, German-speakers from all over Eastern Europe. In the aftermath of World War II, American troops were stationed in Western Europe, while Soviet troops occupied several Central and Eastern European states.
+
+World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". Germany was divided between the capitalist West Germany and the communist East Germany. The United States and Western Europe
+established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact.[217]
+
+The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year-long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.[13] During the Cold War, extra-continental military interventions were the preserve of the two superpowers, a few West European countries, and Cuba.[218] Using the small Caribbean nation of Cuba as a surrogate, the Soviets projected power to distant points of the globe, exploiting world trouble spots without directly involving their own troops.[219]
+
+In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.[198] European integration also grew after World War II. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. It includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market.[221] In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency.[222] Between 2004 and 2013, more Central and Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to 28 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.[223] However, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU on 31 January 2020, as a result of a June 2016 referendum on EU membership.[224]
+
+Europe makes up the western fifth of the Eurasian landmass.[24] It has a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent.[225] Its maritime borders consist of the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south.[226]
+Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway.
+
+This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain, and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
+
+Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies. The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.[228] The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream not only carries warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Therefore, the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (61 °F), while it is only 12 °C (54 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (14 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.[228] Similarly, northern parts of Scotland have a temperate marine climate. The yearly average temperature in city of Inverness is 9.05 °C (48.29 °F). However, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, is on roughly the same latitude and has an average temperature of −6.5 °C (20.3 °F), giving it a nearly subarctic climate.
+
+In general, Europe is not just colder towards the north compared to the south, but it also gets colder from the west towards the east. The climate is more oceanic in the west, and less so in the east. This can be illustrated by the following table of average temperatures at locations roughly following the 60th, 55th, 50th, 45th and 40th latitudes. None of them is located at high altitude; most of them are close to the sea. (location, approximate latitude and longitude, coldest month average, hottest month average and annual average temperatures in degrees C)
+
+[229]
+It is notable how the average temperatures for the coldest month, as well as the annual average temperatures, drop from the west to the east. For instance, Edinburgh is warmer than Belgrade during the coldest month of the year, although Belgrade is around 10° of latitude farther south.
+
+The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo–Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago.[232]
+
+The geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary.[234] Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea.
+
+The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.
+
+Having lived side by side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.
+
+The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east–west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south–north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.
+
+Probably 80 to 90 percent of Europe was once covered by forest.[235] It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Although over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the broadleaf and mixed forests, taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).[236]
+
+In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east–west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.
+
+Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.).
+
+European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).
+
+Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others. A number of insects, such as the small tortoiseshell butterfly, add to the biodiversity.[239]
+
+The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.[240]
+
+Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.
+
+Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.
+
+
+
+The political map of Europe is substantially derived from the re-organisation of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The prevalent form of government in Europe is parliamentary democracy, in most cases in the form of Republic; in 1815, the prevalent form of government was still the Monarchy. Europe's remaining eleven monarchies[241] are constitutional.
+
+European integration is the process of political, legal, economic (and in some cases social and cultural) integration of European states as it has been pursued by the powers sponsoring the Council of Europe since the end of World War II
+The European Union has been the focus of economic integration on the continent since its foundation in 1993. More recently, the Eurasian Economic Union has been established as a counterpart comprising former Soviet states.
+
+27 European states are members of the politico-economic European Union, 26 of the border-free Schengen Area and 19 of the monetary union Eurozone. Among the smaller European organisations are the Nordic Council, the Benelux, the Baltic Assembly and the Visegrád Group.
+
+The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographically or politically.
+
+Within the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:
+
+Several dependencies and similar territories with broad autonomy are also found within or in close proximity to Europe. This includes Åland (a region of Finland), two constituent countries of the Kingdom of Denmark (other than Denmark itself), three Crown dependencies, and two British Overseas Territories. Svalbard is also included due to its unique status within Norway, although it is not autonomous. Not included are the three countries of the United Kingdom with devolved powers and the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, which despite having a unique degree of autonomy, are not largely self-governing in matters other than international affairs. Areas with little more than a unique tax status, such as Heligoland and the Canary Islands, are also not included for this reason.
+
+As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America's $27.1 trillion in 2008.[243] In 2009 Europe remained the wealthiest region. Its $37.1 trillion in assets under management represented one-third of the world's wealth. It was one of several regions where wealth surpassed its precrisis year-end peak.[244] As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Central and Eastern European economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia.
+
+The European Union, a political entity composed of 28 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. 19 EU countries share the euro as a common currency.
+Five European countries rank in the top ten of the world's largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (6), Russia (7), the United Kingdom (10), France (11), and Italy (13).[245]
+
+There is huge disparity between many European countries in terms of their income. The richest in terms of GDP per capita is Monaco with its US$172,676 per capita (2009) and the poorest is Moldova with its GDP per capita of US$1,631 (2010).[246] Monaco is the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in the world according to the World Bank report.
+
+As a whole, Europe's GDP per capita is US$21,767 according to a 2016 International Monetary Fund assessment.[247]
+
+Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism.[248] From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe.[249] The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century,[250] and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries.
+
+After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin,[251] and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades.[252] Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s.[253] France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle.[254] The majority of Central and Eastern European states came under the control of the Soviet Union and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).[255]
+
+The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan.[256] The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy.
+
+With the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1991, the post-socialist states began free market reforms.
+
+After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany.
+
+By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999, 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden. The European Union is now the largest economy in the world.[257]
+
+Figures released by Eurostat in 2009 confirmed that the Eurozone had gone into recession in 2008.[258] It impacted much of the region.[259] In 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis[260] developed concerning some countries in Europe, especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.[261] As a result, measures were taken, especially for Greece, by the leading countries of the Eurozone.[262] The EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.3% in 2012.[263] For those aged 15–24 it was 22.4%.[263]
+
+In 2017, the population of Europe was estimated to be 742 million according to the 2019 revision of the World Population Prospects[2][3], which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. This number includes Siberia, (about 38 million people) but excludes European Turkey (about 12 million).
+
+A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population.[265] The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly.[266] Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second only to Asia. Most of Europe is in a mode of Sub-replacement fertility, which means that each new(-born) generation is being less populous than the older.
+The most densely populated country in Europe (and in the world) is the microstate of Monaco.
+
+Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities.[267]
+
+According to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively).[266] Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child-bearing age is 1.52.[268] According to some sources,[269] this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts a steady population decline in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of emigration and low birth rates.[270]
+
+Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM's report said.[271] In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.[272] In 2008, 696,000 persons were given citizenship of an EU27 member state, a decrease from 707,000 the previous year.[273] In 2017, approximately 825,000 persons acquired citizenship of an EU28 member state.[274] 2.4 million immigrants from non-EU countries entered the EU in 2017.[275]
+
+Early modern emigration from Europe began with Spanish and Portuguese settlers in the 16th century,[276][277] and French and English settlers in the 17th century.[278] But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe.[279]
+
+Today, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, while most of the other Latin American countries also have a considerable population of European origins). Australia and New Zealand have large European derived populations. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans in South Africa. In Asia, European-derived populations, (specifically Russians), predominate in North Asia and some parts of Northern Kazakhstan.[280]
+
+Europe has about 225 indigenous languages,[281] mostly falling within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.[232] Slavic languages are mostly spoken in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in Western and Southern Europe as well as in Switzerland in Central Europe and Romania and Moldova in Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Western, Northern and Central Europe as well as in Gibraltar and Malta in Southern Europe.[232] Languages in adjacent areas show significant overlaps (such as in English, for example).  Other Indo-European languages outside the three main groups include the Baltic group (Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton[232]), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian.
+
+A distinct non-Indo-European family of Uralic languages (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Erzya, Komi, Mari, Moksha, and Udmurt) is spoken mainly in Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and parts of Russia. Turkic languages include Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Turkish, in addition to smaller languages in Eastern and Southeast Europe (Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Bashkir, Chuvash, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Nogai, and Tatar). Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Mingrelian, and Svan) are spoken primarily in Georgia. Two other language families reside in the North Caucasus (termed Northeast Caucasian, most notably including Chechen, Avar, and Lezgin; and Northwest Caucasian, most notably including Adyghe). Maltese is the only Semitic language that is official within the EU, while Basque is the only European language isolate.
+
+Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.
+
+The four largest cities of Europe are Istanbul, Moscow, Paris and London, each have over 10 million residents,[8] and as such have been described as megacities.[282] While Istanbul has the highest total population, one third lies on the Asian side of the Bosporus, making Moscow the most populous city entirely in Europe.
+The next largest cities in order of population are Saint Petersburg, Madrid, Berlin and Rome, each having over 3 million residents.[8]
+
+When considering the commuter belts or metropolitan areas, within the EU (for which comparable data is available) London covers the largest population, followed in order by Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, the Ruhr area, Rome, Milan, Athens and Warsaw.[283]
+
+"Europe" as a cultural concept is substantially derived from the shared heritage of the Roman Empire and its culture.
+
+The boundaries of Europe were historically understood as those of Christendom (or more specifically Latin Christendom), as established or defended throughout the medieval and early modern history of Europe, especially against Islam, as in the Reconquista and the Ottoman wars in Europe.[284]
+
+This shared cultural heritage is combined by overlapping indigenous national cultures and folklores, roughly divided into Slavic, Latin (Romance) and Germanic, but with several components not part of either of these group (notably Greek and Celtic).
+
+Cultural contact and mixtures characterise much of European regional cultures; Kaplan (2014) describes Europe as "embracing maximum cultural diversity at minimal geographical distances".[clarification needed][285]
+
+Different cultural events are organised in Europe, with the aim of bringing different cultures closer together and raising awareness of their importance, such as the European Capital of Culture, the European Region of Gastronomy, the European Youth Capital and the European Capital of Sport.
+
+Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. There are six patron saints of Europe venerated in Roman Catholicism, five of them so declared by Pope John Paul II between 1980–1999: Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). The exception is Benedict of Nursia, who had already been declared "Patron Saint of all Europe" by Pope Paul VI in 1964.[286][circular reference]
+
+Religion in Europe according to the Global Religious Landscape survey by the Pew Forum, 2012[287]
+
+The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians,[288] including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and various Protestant denominations. Among Protestants, the most popular are historically state-supported European denominations such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism and the Reformed faith. Other Protestant denominations such as historically significant ones like Anabaptists were never supported by any state and thus are not so widespread, as well as these newly arriving from the United States such as Pentecostalism, Adventism, Methodism, Baptists and various Evangelical Protestants; although Methodism and Baptists both have European origins. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[289]
+
+Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church,[290][291] has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilisation since at least the 4th century,[292][293][294][295] and for at least a millennium and a half, Europe has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, even though the religion was inherited from the Middle East. Christian culture was the predominant force in western civilisation, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science.[296][297]
+
+The second most popular religion is Islam (6%)[298] concentrated mainly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region). Other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are minority religions (though Tibetan Buddhism is the majority religion of Russia's Republic of Kalmykia). The 20th century saw the revival of Neopaganism through movements such as Wicca and Druidry.
+
+Europe has become a relatively secular continent, with an increasing number and proportion of irreligious, atheist and agnostic people, who make up about 18.2% of Europe's population,[299] currently the largest secular population in the Western world. There are a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, former East Germany, and France.[300]
+
+Sport in Europe tends to be highly organized with many sports having professional leagues.
+
+Historical Maps
+
+Africa
+
+Antarctica
+
+Asia
+
+Australia
+
+Europe
+
+North America
+
+South America
+
+Afro-Eurasia
+
+America
+
+Eurasia
+
+Oceania

en/3412.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,208 @@
+
+
+A bicycle, also called a bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
+
+Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe, and by the early 21st century, more than 1 billion were in existence at a given time.[1][2][3] These numbers far exceed the number of cars, both in total and ranked by the number of individual models produced.[4][5][6]
+They are the principal means of transportation in many regions. They also provide a popular form of recreation, and have been adapted for use as children's toys, general fitness, military and police applications, courier services, bicycle racing, and bicycle stunts.
+
+The basic shape and configuration of a typical upright or "safety bicycle", has changed little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885.[7][8][9] However, many details have been improved, especially since the advent of modern materials and computer-aided design. These have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling.
+
+The bicycle's invention has had an enormous effect on society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. Several components that eventually played a key role in the development of the automobile were initially invented for use in the bicycle, including ball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets and tension-spoked wheels.[10]
+
+The word bicycle first appeared in English print in The Daily News in 1868, to describe "Bysicles and trysicles" on the "Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne".[11] The word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle, possibly a carriage.[11] The design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, although the words were used with some degree of overlap for a time.[11][12]
+
+Other words for bicycle include "bike",[13] "pushbike",[14] "pedal cycle",[15] or "cycle".[16] In Unicode, the code point for "bicycle" is 0x1F6B2. The entity 🚲 in HTML produces 🚲.[17]
+
+The "dandy horse", also called Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels in tandem and was invented by the German Baron Karl von Drais. It is regarded as the first bicycle, but it did not have pedals;[18][19][20][21] Drais introduced it to the public in Mannheim in 1817 and in Paris in 1818.[22][23] Its rider sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel.[22]
+
+The first mechanically-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the claim is often disputed.[24] He is also associated with the first recorded instance of a cycling traffic offense, when a Glasgow newspaper in 1842 reported an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a little girl in Glasgow and was fined five shillings.[25]
+
+In the early 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a new direction by adding a mechanical crank drive with pedals on an enlarged front wheel (the velocipede). This was the first in mass production. Another French inventor named Douglas Grasso had a failed prototype of Pierre Lallement's bicycle several years earlier. Several inventions followed using rear-wheel drive, the best known being the rod-driven velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. In that same year, bicycle wheels with wire spokes were patented by Eugène Meyer of Paris.[26] The French vélocipède, made of iron and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing" (historically known as an "ordinary bicycle", a retronym, since there was then no other kind).[27] It featured a tubular steel frame on which were mounted wire-spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. These bicycles were difficult to ride due to their high seat and poor weight distribution. In 1868 Rowley Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company (which soon became the Coventry Machinists Company), brought a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England. His uncle, Josiah Turner, and business partner James Starley, used this as a basis for the 'Coventry Model' in what became Britain's first cycle factory.[28]
+
+The dwarf ordinary addressed some of these faults by reducing the front wheel diameter and setting the seat further back. This, in turn, required gearing—effected in a variety of ways—to efficiently use pedal power. Having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Englishman J.K. Starley (nephew of James Starley), J.H. Lawson, and Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain drive (originated by the unsuccessful "bicyclette" of Englishman Henry Lawson),[29] connecting the frame-mounted cranks to the rear wheel. These models were known as safety bicycles, dwarf safeties, or upright bicycles for their lower seat height and better weight distribution, although without pneumatic tires the ride of the smaller-wheeled bicycle would be much rougher than that of the larger-wheeled variety. Starley's 1885 Rover, manufactured in Coventry[30] is usually described as the first recognizably modern bicycle.[31] Soon the seat tube was added, creating the modern bike's double-triangle diamond frame.
+
+Further innovations increased comfort and ushered in a second bicycle craze, the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. In 1888, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop introduced the first practical pneumatic tire, which soon became universal. Willie Hume demonstrated the supremacy of Dunlop's tyres in 1889, winning the tyre's first-ever races in Ireland and then England.[32][33] Soon after, the rear freewheel was developed, enabling the rider to coast. This refinement led to the 1890s invention[34] of coaster brakes. Dérailleur gears and hand-operated Bowden cable-pull brakes were also developed during these years, but were only slowly adopted by casual riders.
+
+The Svea Velocipede with vertical pedal arrangement and locking hubs was introduced in 1892 by the Swedish engineers Fredrik Ljungström and Birger Ljungström. It attracted attention at the World Fair and was produced in a few thousand units.
+
+In the 1870s many cycling clubs flourished. They were popular in a time when there were not cars on the market and the principal mode of transportation was horse-drawn vehicles, such the horse and buggy or the horsecar. Among the earliest clubs was The Bicycle Touring Club, which has operated since 1878.
+By the turn of the century, cycling clubs flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, and touring and racing became widely popular. The Raleigh Bicycle Company was founded in Nottingham, England in 1888. It became the biggest bicycle manufacturing company in the world, making over two million bikes per year.[35]
+
+Bicycles and horse buggies were the two mainstays of private transportation just prior to the automobile, and the grading of smooth roads in the late 19th century was stimulated by the widespread advertising, production, and use of these devices.[9] More than 1 billion bicycles have been manufactured worldwide as of the early 21st century.[1][2][3] Bicycles are the most common vehicle of any kind in the world, and the most numerous model of any kind of vehicle, whether human-powered or motor vehicle, is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with numbers exceeding 500 million.[1] The next most numerous vehicle, the Honda Super Cub motorcycle, has more than 60 million units made, while most produced car, the Toyota Corolla, has reached 35 million and counting.[4][5][6][36]
+
+Women on bicycles on unpaved road, USA, late 19th Century
+
+A penny-farthing or ordinary bicycle photographed in the Škoda Auto museum in the Czech Republic
+
+The Svea Velocipede by Fredrik Ljungström and Birger Ljungström, exhibitioned at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology
+
+Bicycle in Plymouth, England at the start of the 20th century
+
+From the beginning and still today, bicycles have been and are employed for many uses. In a utilitarian way, bicycles are used for transportation, bicycle commuting, and utility cycling. It can be used as a 'work horse', used by mail carriers, paramedics, police, messengers, and general delivery services. Military uses of bicycles include communications, reconnaissance, troop movement, supply of provisions, and patrol. See also: bicycle infantry.
+
+The bicycle is also used for recreational purposes, such as bicycle touring, mountain biking, physical fitness, and play. Bicycle competition includes racing, BMX racing, track racing, criterium, roller racing, sportives and time trials. Major multi-stage professional events are the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, the Vuelta a España, the Tour de Pologne, and the Volta a Portugal.
+
+Bikes can be used for entertainment and pleasure, such as in organised mass rides, artistic cycling and freestyle BMX.
+
+The bicycle has undergone continual adaptation and improvement since its inception. These innovations have continued with the advent of modern materials and computer-aided design, allowing for a proliferation of specialized bicycle types, improved bicycle safety, and riding comfort.
+
+Bicycles can be categorized in many different ways: by function, by number of riders, by general construction, by gearing or by means of propulsion. The more common types include utility bicycles, mountain bicycles, racing bicycles, touring bicycles, hybrid bicycles, cruiser bicycles, and BMX bikes. Less common are tandems, low riders, tall bikes, fixed gear, folding models, amphibious bicycles, freight bicycles, recumbents and electric bicycles.
+
+Unicycles, tricycles and quadracycles are not strictly bicycles, as they have respectively one, three and four wheels, but are often referred to informally as "bikes" or "cycles".
+
+A bicycle stays upright while moving forward by being steered so as to keep its center of mass over the wheels.[37] This steering is usually provided by the rider, but under certain conditions may be provided by the bicycle itself.[38]
+
+The combined center of mass of a bicycle and its rider must lean into a turn to successfully navigate it. This lean is induced by a method known as countersteering, which can be performed by the rider turning the handlebars directly with the hands[39] or indirectly by leaning the bicycle.[40]
+
+Short-wheelbase or tall bicycles, when braking, can generate enough stopping force at the front wheel to flip longitudinally.[41] The act of purposefully using this force to lift the rear wheel and balance on the front without tipping over is a trick known as a stoppie, endo, or front wheelie.
+
+The bicycle is extraordinarily efficient in both biological and mechanical terms. The bicycle is the most efficient human-powered means of transportation in terms of energy a person must expend to travel a given distance.[42] From a mechanical viewpoint, up to 99% of the energy delivered by the rider into the pedals is transmitted to the wheels, although the use of gearing mechanisms may reduce this by 10–15%.[43][44]
+In terms of the ratio of cargo weight a bicycle can carry to total weight, it is also an efficient means of cargo transportation.
+
+A human traveling on a bicycle at low to medium speeds of around 16–24 km/h (10–15 mph) uses only the power required to walk. Air drag, which is proportional to the square of speed, requires dramatically higher power outputs as speeds increase. If the rider is sitting upright, the rider's body creates about 75% of the total drag of the bicycle/rider combination. Drag can be reduced by seating the rider in a more aerodynamically streamlined position. Drag can also be reduced by covering the bicycle with an aerodynamic fairing. The fastest recorded unpaced speed on a flat surface is 144.18 km/h (89.59 mph)[45]
+
+In addition, the carbon dioxide generated in the production and transportation of the food required by the bicyclist, per mile traveled, is less than 1/10 that generated by energy efficient motorcars.[46]
+
+The great majority of modern bicycles have a frame with upright seating that looks much like the first chain-driven bike.[7][8][9] These upright bicycles almost always feature the diamond frame, a truss consisting of two triangles: the front triangle and the rear triangle. The front triangle consists of the head tube, top tube, down tube, and seat tube. The head tube contains the headset, the set of bearings that allows the fork to turn smoothly for steering and balance. The top tube connects the head tube to the seat tube at the top, and the down tube connects the head tube to the bottom bracket. The rear triangle consists of the seat tube and paired chain stays and seat stays. The chain stays run parallel to the chain, connecting the bottom bracket to the rear dropout, where the axle for the rear wheel is held. The seat stays connect the top of the seat tube (at or near the same point as the top tube) to the rear fork ends.
+
+Historically, women's bicycle frames had a top tube that connected in the middle of the seat tube instead of the top, resulting in a lower standover height at the expense of compromised structural integrity, since this places a strong bending load in the seat tube, and bicycle frame members are typically weak in bending. This design, referred to as a step-through frame or as an open frame, allows the rider to mount and dismount in a dignified way while wearing a skirt or dress. While some women's bicycles continue to use this frame style, there is also a variation, the mixte, which splits the top tube laterally into two thinner top tubes that bypass the seat tube on each side and connect to the rear fork ends. The ease of stepping through is also appreciated by those with limited flexibility or other joint problems. Because of its persistent image as a "women's" bicycle, step-through frames are not common for larger frames.
+
+Step-throughs were popular partly for practical reasons and partly for social mores of the day. For most of the history of bicycles' popularity women have worn long skirts, and the lower frame accommodated these better than the top-tube. Furthermore, it was considered "unladylike" for women to open their legs to mount and dismount—in more conservative times women who rode bicycles at all were vilified as immoral or immodest. These practices were akin to the older practice of riding horse sidesaddle.[citation needed]
+
+Another style is the recumbent bicycle. These are inherently more aerodynamic than upright versions, as the rider may lean back onto a support and operate pedals that are on about the same level as the seat. The world's fastest bicycle is a recumbent bicycle but this type was banned from competition in 1934 by the Union Cycliste Internationale.[47]
+
+Historically, materials used in bicycles have followed a similar pattern as in aircraft, the goal being high strength and low weight. Since the late 1930s alloy steels have been used for frame and fork tubes in higher quality machines. By the 1980s aluminum welding techniques had improved to the point that aluminum tube could safely be used in place of steel. Since then aluminum alloy frames and other components have become popular due to their light weight, and most mid-range bikes are now principally aluminum alloy of some kind.[where?] More expensive bikes use carbon fibre due to its significantly lighter weight and profiling ability, allowing designers to make a bike both stiff and compliant by manipulating the lay-up. Virtually all professional racing bicycles now use carbon fibre frames, as they have the best strength to weight ratio. A typical modern carbon fiber frame can weighs less than 1 kilogram (2.2 lb).
+
+Other exotic frame materials include titanium and advanced alloys. Bamboo, a natural composite material with high strength-to-weight ratio and stiffness[48] has been used for bicycles since 1894.[49] Recent versions use bamboo for the primary frame with glued metal connections and parts, priced as exotic models.[49][50]
+[51]
+
+The drivetrain begins with pedals which rotate the cranks, which are held in axis by the bottom bracket. Most bicycles use a chain to transmit power to the rear wheel. A very small number of bicycles use a shaft drive to transmit power, or special belts. Hydraulic bicycle transmissions have been built, but they are currently inefficient and complex.
+
+Since cyclists' legs are most efficient over a narrow range of pedaling speeds, or cadence, a variable gear ratio helps a cyclist to maintain an optimum pedalling speed while covering varied terrain. Some, mainly utility, bicycles use hub gears with between 3 and 14 ratios, but most use the generally more efficient dérailleur system, by which the chain is moved between different cogs called chainrings and sprockets in order to select a ratio. A dérailleur system normally has two dérailleurs, or mechs, one at the front to select the chainring and another at the back to select the sprocket. Most bikes have two or three chainrings, and from 5 to 11 sprockets on the back, with the number of theoretical gears calculated by multiplying front by back. In reality, many gears overlap or require the chain to run diagonally, so the number of usable gears is fewer.
+
+An alternative to chaindrive is to use a synchronous belt. These are toothed and work much the same as a chain—popular with commuters and long distance cyclists they require little maintenance. They can't be shifted across a cassette of sprockets, and are used either as single speed or with a hub gear.
+
+Different gears and ranges of gears are appropriate for different people and styles of cycling. Multi-speed bicycles allow gear selection to suit the circumstances: a cyclist could use a high gear when cycling downhill, a medium gear when cycling on a flat road, and a low gear when cycling uphill. In a lower gear every turn of the pedals leads to fewer rotations of the rear wheel. This allows the energy required to move the same distance to be distributed over more pedal turns, reducing fatigue when riding uphill, with a heavy load, or against strong winds. A higher gear allows a cyclist to make fewer pedal turns to maintain a given speed, but with more effort per turn of the pedals.
+
+With a chain drive transmission, a chainring attached to a crank drives the chain, which in turn rotates the rear wheel via the rear sprocket(s) (cassette or freewheel). There are four gearing options: two-speed hub gear integrated with chain ring, up to 3 chain rings, up to 11 sprockets, hub gear built into rear wheel (3-speed to 14-speed). The most common options are either a rear hub or multiple chain rings combined with multiple sprockets (other combinations of options are possible but less common).
+
+The handlebars connect to the stem that connects to the fork that connects to the front wheel, and the whole assembly connects to the bike and rotates about the steering axis via the headset bearings. Three styles of handlebar are common. Upright handlebars, the norm in Europe and elsewhere until the 1970s, curve gently back toward the rider, offering a natural grip and comfortable upright position. Drop handlebars "drop" as they curve forward and down, offering the cyclist best braking power from a more aerodynamic "crouched" position, as well as more upright positions in which the hands grip the brake lever mounts, the forward curves, or the upper flat sections for increasingly upright postures. Mountain bikes generally feature a 'straight handlebar' or 'riser bar' with varying degrees of sweep backwards and centimeters rise upwards, as well as wider widths which can provide better handling due to increased leverage against the wheel.
+
+Saddles also vary with rider preference, from the cushioned ones favored by short-distance riders to narrower saddles which allow more room for leg swings. Comfort depends on riding position. With comfort bikes and hybrids, cyclists sit high over the seat, their weight directed down onto the saddle, such that a wider and more cushioned saddle is preferable. For racing bikes where the rider is bent over, weight is more evenly distributed between the handlebars and saddle, the hips are flexed, and a narrower and harder saddle is more efficient. Differing saddle designs exist for male and female cyclists, accommodating the genders' differing anatomies and sit bone width measurements, although bikes typically are sold with saddles most appropriate for men. Suspension seat posts and seat springs provide comfort by absorbing shock but can add to the overall weight of the bicycle.
+
+A recumbent bicycle has a reclined chair-like seat that some riders find more comfortable than a saddle, especially riders who suffer from certain types of seat, back, neck, shoulder, or wrist pain. Recumbent bicycles may have either under-seat or over-seat steering.
+
+Bicycle brakes may be rim brakes, in which friction pads are compressed against the wheel rims; hub brakes, where the mechanism is contained within the wheel hub, or disc brakes, where pads act on a rotor attached to the hub. Most road bicycles use rim brakes, but some use disk brakes.[53] Disc brakes are more common for mountain bikes, tandems and recumbent bicycles than on other types of bicycles, due to their increased power, coupled with an increased weight and complexity.[54]
+
+With hand-operated brakes, force is applied to brake levers mounted on the handlebars and transmitted via Bowden cables or hydraulic lines to the friction pads, which apply pressure to the braking surface, causing friction which slows the bicycle down. A rear hub brake may be either hand-operated or pedal-actuated, as in the back pedal coaster brakes which were popular in North America until the 1960s.
+
+Track bicycles do not have brakes, because all riders ride in the same direction around a track which does not necessitate sharp deceleration. Track riders are still able to slow down because all track bicycles are fixed-gear, meaning that there is no freewheel. Without a freewheel, coasting is impossible, so when the rear wheel is moving, the cranks are moving. To slow down, the rider applies resistance to the pedals, acting as a braking system which can be as effective as a conventional rear wheel brake, but not as effective as a front wheel brake.[55]
+
+Bicycle suspension refers to the system or systems used to suspend the rider and all or part of the bicycle. This serves two purposes: to keep the wheels in continuous contact with the ground, improving control, and to isolate the rider and luggage from jarring due to rough surfaces, improving comfort.
+
+Bicycle suspensions are used primarily on mountain bicycles, but are also common on hybrid bicycles, as they can help deal with problematic vibration from poor surfaces. Suspension is especially important on recumbent bicycles, since while an upright bicycle rider can stand on the pedals to achieve some of the benefits of suspension, a recumbent rider cannot.
+
+Basic mountain bicycles and hybrids usually have front suspension only, whilst more sophisticated ones also have rear suspension. Road bicycles tend to have no suspension.
+
+The wheel axle fits into fork ends in the frame and fork. A pair of wheels may be called a wheelset, especially in the context of ready-built "off the shelf", performance-oriented wheels.
+
+Tires vary enormously depending on their intended purpose. Road bicycles use tires 18 to 25 millimeters wide, most often completely smooth, or slick, and inflated to high pressure in order to roll fast on smooth surfaces. Off-road tires are usually between 38 and 64 mm (1.5 and 2.5 in) wide, and have treads for gripping in muddy conditions or metal studs for ice.
+
+Some components, which are often optional accessories on sports bicycles, are standard features on utility bicycles to enhance their usefulness, comfort, safety and visibility. Mudguards, or fenders, protect the cyclist and moving parts from spray when riding through wet areas and chainguards protect clothes from oil on the chain while preventing clothing from being caught between the chain and crankset teeth. Kick stands keep bicycles upright when parked, and bike locks deter theft. Front-mounted baskets, front or rear luggage carriers or racks, and panniers mounted above either or both wheels can be used to carry equipment or cargo. Pegs can be fastened to one, or both of the wheel hubs to either help the rider perform certain tricks, or allow a place for extra riders to stand, or rest.[citation needed] Parents sometimes add rear-mounted child seats, an auxiliary saddle fitted to the crossbar, or both to transport children. Bicycles can also be fitted with a hitch to tow a trailer for carrying cargo, a child, or both.
+
+Toe-clips and toestraps and clipless pedals help keep the foot locked in the proper pedal position and enable cyclists to pull and push the pedals. Technical accessories include cyclocomputers for measuring speed, distance, heart rate, GPS data etc. Other accessories include lights, reflectors, mirrors, racks, trailers, bags, water bottles and cages, and bell.[56] Bicycle lights, reflectors, and helmets are required by law in some geographic regions depending on the legal code. It is more common to see bicycles with bottle generators, dynamos, lights, fenders, racks and bells in Europe. Bicyclists also have specialized form fitting and high visibility clothing.
+
+Children's bicycles may be outfitted with cosmetic enhancements such as bike horns, streamers, and spoke beads.[57] Training wheels are sometimes used when learning to ride.
+
+Bicycle helmets can reduce injury in the event of a collision or accident, and a suitable helmet is legally required of riders in many jurisdictions. Helmets may be classified as an accessory[56] or as an item of clothing.[58]
+
+Bike trainers are used to enable cyclists to cycle while the bike remains stationary. They are frequently used to warm up before races or indoors when riding conditions are unfavorable.[59]
+
+A number of formal and industry standards exist for bicycle components to help make spare parts exchangeable and to maintain a minimum product safety.
+
+The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has a special technical committee for cycles, TC149, that has the scope of "Standardization in the field of cycles, their components and accessories with particular reference to terminology, testing methods and requirements for performance and safety, and interchangeability".
+
+The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) also has a specific Technical Committee, TC333, that defines European standards for cycles. Their mandate states that EN cycle standards shall harmonize with ISO standards. Some CEN cycle standards were developed before ISO published their standards, leading to strong European influences in this area. European cycle standards tend to describe minimum safety requirements, while ISO standards have historically harmonized parts geometry.[60]
+
+Like all devices with mechanical moving parts, bicycles do require a certain amount of regular maintenance and replacement of worn parts. A bicycle is relatively simple compared with a car, so some cyclists choose to do at least part of the maintenance themselves. Some components are easy to handle using relatively simple tools, while other components may require specialist manufacturer-dependent tools.
+
+Many bicycle components are available at several different price/quality points; manufacturers generally try to keep all components on any particular bike at about the same quality level, though at the very cheap end of the market there may be some skimping on less obvious components (e.g. bottom bracket).
+
+The most basic maintenance item is keeping the tires correctly inflated; this can make a noticeable difference as to how the bike feels to ride. Bicycle tires usually have a marking on the side wall indicating the pressure appropriate for that tire. Note that bicycles use much higher pressures than cars: car tires are normally in the range 30 to 40 pounds per square inch while bicycle tires are normally in the range 60 to 100 pounds per square inch.
+
+Another basic maintenance item is regular lubrication of the chain and pivot points for derailleurs and brakes. Most of the bearings on a modern bike are sealed and grease-filled and require little or no attention; such bearings will usually last for 10,000 miles or more.
+
+The chain and the brake blocks are the components which wear out most quickly, so these need to be checked from time to time (typically every 500 miles or so). Most local bike shops will do such checks for free. Note that when a chain becomes badly worn it will also wear out the rear cogs/cassette and eventually the chain ring(s), so replacing a chain when only moderately worn will prolong the life of other components.
+
+Over the longer term, tires do wear out (2000 to 5000 miles); a rash of punctures is often the most visible sign of a worn tire.
+
+Very few bicycle components can actually be repaired; replacement of the failing component is the normal practice.
+
+The most common roadside problem is a puncture. After removing the offending nail/tack/thorn/glass shard/etc. there are two approaches: either mend the puncture by the roadside, or replace the inner tube and then mend the puncture in the comfort of home. Some brands of tires are much more puncture resistant than others, often incorporating one or more layers of Kevlar; the downside of such tires is that they may be heavier and/or more difficult to fit and remove.
+
+There are specialized bicycle tools for use both in the shop and on the road. Many cyclists carry tool kits. These may include a tire patch kit (which, in turn, may contain any combination of a hand pump or CO2 Pump, tire levers, spare tubes, self-adhesive patches, or tube-patching material, an adhesive, a piece of sandpaper or a metal grater (for roughing the tube surface to be patched), Special, thin wrenches are often required for maintaining various screw fastened parts, specifically, the frequently lubricated ball-bearing "cones".[62][63] and sometimes even a block of French chalk.), wrenches, hex keys, screwdrivers, and a chain tool. There are also cycling specific multi-tools that combine many of these implements into a single compact device. More specialized bicycle components may require more complex tools, including proprietary tools specific for a given manufacturer.
+
+The bicycle has had a considerable effect on human society, in both the cultural and industrial realms.
+
+Around the turn of the 20th century, bicycles reduced crowding in inner-city tenements by allowing workers to commute from more spacious dwellings in the suburbs. They also reduced dependence on horses. Bicycles allowed people to travel for leisure into the country, since bicycles were three times as energy efficient as walking and three to four times as fast.
+
+In built up cities around the world, urban planning uses cycling infrastructure like bikeways to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.[64] A number of cities around the world have implemented schemes known as bicycle sharing systems or community bicycle programs.[65][66] The first of these was the White Bicycle plan in Amsterdam in 1965. It was followed by yellow bicycles in La Rochelle and green bicycles in Cambridge. These initiatives complement public transport systems and offer an alternative to motorized traffic to help reduce congestion and pollution.[67] In Europe, especially in the Netherlands and parts of Germany and Denmark, bicycle commuting is common. In Copenhagen, a cyclists' organization runs a Cycling Embassy that promotes biking for commuting and sightseeing. The United Kingdom has a tax break scheme (IR 176) that allows employees to buy a new bicycle tax free to use for commuting.[68]
+
+In the Netherlands all train stations offer free bicycle parking, or a more secure parking place for a small fee, with the larger stations also offering bicycle repair shops. Cycling is so popular that the parking capacity may be exceeded, while in some places such as Delft the capacity is usually exceeded.[69] In Trondheim in Norway, the Trampe bicycle lift has been developed to encourage cyclists by giving assistance on a steep hill. Buses in many cities have bicycle carriers mounted on the front.
+
+There are towns in some countries where bicycle culture has been an integral part of the landscape for generations, even without much official support. That is the case of Ílhavo, in Portugal.
+
+In cities where bicycles are not integrated into the public transportation system, commuters often use bicycles as elements of a mixed-mode commute, where the bike is used to travel to and from train stations or other forms of rapid transit. Some students who commute several miles drive a car from home to a campus parking lot, then ride a bicycle to class. Folding bicycles are useful in these scenarios, as they are less cumbersome when carried aboard. Los Angeles removed a small amount of seating on some trains to make more room for bicycles and wheel chairs.[70]
+
+Some US companies, notably in the tech sector, are developing both innovative cycle designs and cycle-friendliness in the workplace. Foursquare, whose CEO Dennis Crowley "pedaled to pitch meetings ... [when he] was raising money from venture capitalists" on a two-wheeler, chose a new location for its New York headquarters "based on where biking would be easy". Parking in the office was also integral to HQ planning. Mitchell Moss, who runs the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management at New York University, said in 2012: "Biking has become the mode of choice for the educated high tech worker".[71]
+
+Bicycles offer an important mode of transport in many developing countries. Until recently, bicycles have been a staple of everyday life throughout Asian countries. They are the most frequently used method of transport for commuting to work, school, shopping, and life in general. In Europe, bicycles are commonly used.[72] They also offer a degree of exercise to keep individuals healthy.[73]
+
+Bicycles are also celebrated in the visual arts. An example of this is the Bicycle Film Festival, a film festival hosted all around the world.
+
+Experiments done in Uganda, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka on hundreds of households have shown that a bicycle can increase a poor family's income as much as 35%.[74][better source needed][75][76] Transport, if analyzed for the cost-benefit analysis for rural poverty alleviation, has given one of the best returns in this regard. For example, road investments in India were a staggering 3–10 times more effective than almost all other investments and subsidies in rural economy in the decade of the 1990s. What a road does at a macro level to increase transport, the bicycle supports at the micro level. The bicycle, in that sense, can be an important poverty-eradication tool in poor nations.
+
+The safety bicycle gave women unprecedented mobility, contributing to their emancipation in Western nations. As bicycles became safer and cheaper, more women had access to the personal freedom that bicycles embodied, and so the bicycle came to symbolize the New Woman of the late 19th century, especially in Britain and the United States.[8][78] The bicycle craze in the 1890s also led to a movement for so-called rational dress, which helped liberate women from corsets and ankle-length skirts and other restrictive garments, substituting the then-shocking bloomers.[8]
+
+The bicycle was recognized by 19th-century feminists and suffragists as a "freedom machine" for women. American Susan B. Anthony said in a New York World interview on February 2, 1896:
+"I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood."[79]:859 In 1895 Frances Willard, the tightly laced president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, wrote A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, with Some Reflections by the Way, a 75-page illustrated memoir praising "Gladys", her bicycle, for its "gladdening effect" on her health and political optimism.[77] Willard used a cycling metaphor to urge other suffragists to action.[77]
+
+In 1985, Georgena Terry started the first women-specific bicycle company. Her designs featured frame geometry and wheel sizes chosen to better fit women, with shorter top tubes and more suitable reach.[1]
+
+Bicycle manufacturing proved to be a training ground for other industries and led to the development of advanced metalworking techniques, both for the frames themselves and for special components such as ball bearings, washers, and sprockets. These techniques later enabled skilled metalworkers and mechanics to develop the components used in early automobiles and aircraft.
+
+Wilbur and Orville Wright, a pair of businessmen, ran the Wright Cycle Company which designed, manufactured and sold their bicycles during the bike boom of the 1890s.[80]
+
+They also served to teach the industrial models later adopted, including mechanization and mass production (later copied and adopted by Ford and General Motors),[81][82][83] vertical integration[82] (also later copied and adopted by Ford), aggressive advertising[84] (as much as 10% of all advertising in U.S. periodicals in 1898 was by bicycle makers),[85] lobbying for better roads (which had the side benefit of acting as advertising, and of improving sales by providing more places to ride),[83] all first practiced by Pope.[83] In addition, bicycle makers adopted the annual model change[81][86] (later derided as planned obsolescence, and usually credited to General Motors), which proved very successful.[87]
+
+Early bicycles were an example of conspicuous consumption, being adopted by the fashionable elites.[88][89][90][81][91][92][93][94] In addition, by serving as a platform for accessories, which could ultimately cost more than the bicycle itself, it paved the way for the likes of the Barbie doll.[81][95][96]
+
+Bicycles helped create, or enhance, new kinds of businesses, such as bicycle messengers,[97] traveling seamstresses,[98] riding academies,[99] and racing rinks.[100][99] Their board tracks were later adapted to early motorcycle and automobile racing. There were a variety of new inventions, such as spoke tighteners,[101] and specialized lights,[96][101] socks and shoes,[102] and even cameras, such as the Eastman Company's Poco.[103] Probably the best known and most widely used of these inventions, adopted well beyond cycling, is Charles Bennett's Bike Web, which came to be called the jock strap.[104]
+
+They also presaged a move away from public transit[105] that would explode with the introduction of the automobile.
+
+J. K. Starley's company became the Rover Cycle Company Ltd. in the late 1890s, and then simply the Rover Company when it started making cars. Morris Motors Limited (in Oxford) and Škoda also began in the bicycle business, as did the Wright brothers.[106] Alistair Craig, whose company eventually emerged to become the engine manufacturers Ailsa Craig, also started from manufacturing bicycles, in Glasgow in March 1885.
+
+In general, U.S. and European cycle manufacturers used to assemble cycles from their own frames and components made by other companies, although very large companies (such as Raleigh) used to make almost every part of a bicycle (including bottom brackets, axles, etc.) In recent years, those bicycle makers have greatly changed their methods of production. Now, almost none of them produce their own frames.
+
+Many newer or smaller companies only design and market their products; the actual production is done by Asian companies. For example, some 60% of the world's bicycles are now being made in China. Despite this shift in production, as nations such as China and India become more wealthy, their own use of bicycles has declined due to the increasing affordability of cars and motorcycles.[107]
+One of the major reasons for the proliferation of Chinese-made bicycles in foreign markets is the lower cost of labor in China.[108]
+
+In line with the European financial crisis, in Italy in 2011 the number of bicycle sales (1.75 million) just passed the number of new car sales.[109]
+
+One of the profound economic implications of bicycle use is that it liberates the user from oil consumption.(Ballantine, 1972) The bicycle is an inexpensive, fast, healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport. Ivan Illich stated that bicycle use extended the usable physical environment for people, while alternatives such as cars and motorways degraded and confined people's environment and mobility.[110]
+Currently, two billion bicycles are in use around the world. Children, students, professionals, laborers, civil servants and seniors are pedaling around their communities. They all experience the freedom and the natural opportunity for exercise that the bicycle easily provides. Bicycle also has lowest carbon intensity of travel.[111]
+
+The proper Islamic bicycle for the Iranian women is a topic of heated discussion in both Sunni and Shia Islam.[112][113][114]
+
+The global bicycle market is $61 billion in 2011.[115] As of 2009[update] 130 million bicycles were sold every year globally and 66% of them were made in China.[116]
+
+Early in its development, as with automobiles, there were restrictions on the operation of bicycles. Along with advertising, and to gain free publicity, Albert A. Pope litigated on behalf of cyclists.[83]
+
+The 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic of the United Nations considers a bicycle to be a vehicle, and a person controlling a bicycle (whether actually riding or not) is considered an operator. The traffic codes of many countries reflect these definitions and demand that a bicycle satisfy certain legal requirements before it can be used on public roads. In many jurisdictions, it is an offense to use a bicycle that is not in a roadworthy condition.[citation needed]
+
+In most jurisdictions, bicycles must have functioning front and rear lights when ridden after dark. As some generator or dynamo-driven lamps operate only while moving, rear reflectors are frequently also mandatory. Since a moving bicycle makes little noise, some countries insist that bicycles have a warning bell for use when approaching pedestrians, equestrians, and other cyclists, though sometimes a car horn can be used when a 12 volt battery is available.[citation needed]
+
+Some countries require child and/or adult cyclists to wear helmets, as this may protect riders from head trauma. Countries which require adult cyclists to wear helmets include Spain, New Zealand and Australia. Mandatory helmet wearing is one of the most controversial topics in the cycling world, with proponents arguing that it reduces head injuries and thus is an acceptable requirement, while opponents argue that by making cycling seem more dangerous and cumbersome, it reduces cyclist numbers on the streets, creating an overall negative health effect (fewer people cycling for their own health, and the remaining cyclists being more exposed through a reversed safety in numbers effect).[citation needed]
+
+Bicycles are popular targets for theft, due to their value and ease of resale.[118] The number of bicycles stolen annually is difficult to quantify as a large number of crimes are not reported.[119] Around 50% of the participants in the Montreal International Journal of Sustainable Transportation survey were subjected to a bicycle theft in their lifetime as active cyclists.[120] Most bicycles have serial numbers that can be recorded to verify identity in case of theft.[121]

en/3413.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,185 @@
+
+
+The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular use.[a] The violin typically has four strings, usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. It can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno).
+
+Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo instruments. Violins are also important in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music and in jazz. Electric violins with solid bodies and piezoelectric pickups are used in some forms of rock music and jazz fusion, with the pickups plugged into instrument amplifiers and speakers to produce sound. The violin has come to be incorporated in many non-Western music cultures, including Indian music and Iranian music. The name fiddle is often used regardless of the type of music played on it.
+
+The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries to give the instrument a more powerful sound and projection. In Europe, it served as the basis for the development of other stringed instruments used in Western classical music, such as the viola.[1][2][3]
+
+Violinists and collectors particularly prize the fine historical instruments made by the Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadagnini and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona (Italy) and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, though this belief is disputed.[4][5] Great numbers of instruments have come from the hands of less famous makers, as well as still greater numbers of mass-produced commercial "trade violins" coming from cottage industries in places such as Saxony, Bohemia, and Mirecourt. Many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers.
+
+The components of a violin are usually made from different types of wood. Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, or steel strings. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker. One who makes or repairs bows is called an archetier or bowmaker.
+
+The word "violin" was first used in English in the 1570s.[6] The word "violin" comes from "Italian violino, [a] diminutive of viola". The term "viola" comes from the expression for "tenor violin" in 1797, from Italian viola, from Old Provençal viola, [which came from] Medieval Latin vitula" as a term which means "stringed instrument," perhaps [coming] from Vitula, Roman goddess of joy..., or from related Latin verb vitulari, "to exult, be joyful."[7] The related term "Viola da gamba" means "bass viol" (1724) is from Italian, literally "a viola for the leg" (i.e. to hold between the legs)."[7]  A violin is the "modern form of the smaller, medieval viola da braccio." ("arm viola")[6]
+
+The violin is often called a fiddle, either when used in a folk music context, or even in Classical music scenes, as an informal nickname for the instrument.[8] The word "fiddle" was first used in English in the late 14th century.[8] The word "fiddle" comes from "fedele, fydyll, fidel, earlier fithele, from Old English fiðele "fiddle," which is related to Old Norse fiðla, Middle Dutch vedele, Dutch vedel, Old High German fidula, German Fiedel, "a fiddle;" all of uncertain origin." As to the origin of the word "fiddle", the "...usual suggestion, based on resemblance in sound and sense, is that it is from Medieval Latin vitula."[8]
+
+The earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked (for example, the Greek lyre). Two-stringed, bowed instruments, played upright and strung and bowed with horsehair, may have originated in the nomadic equestrian cultures of Central Asia, in forms closely resembling the modern-day Mongolian Morin huur and the Kazakh Kobyz. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along east–west trading routes from Asia into the Middle East,[9][10] and the Byzantine Empire.[11][12]
+
+The direct ancestor of all European bowed instruments is the Arabic rebab (ربابة), which developed into the Byzantine lyra by the 9th century and later the European rebec.[13][14][15] The first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lyra. These included the vielle (also known as the fidel or viuola) and the lira da braccio.[11][16]
+The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th-century northern Italy. The earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words "violino" and "vyollon" are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, published in Lyon in 1556.[17] By this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe.
+
+The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility; the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560.[18] One of these "noble" instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The finest Renaissance carved and decorated violin in the world is the Gasparo da Salò (c.1574) owned by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and later, from 1841, by the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull, who used it for forty years and thousands of concerts, for its very powerful and beautiful tone, similar to that of a Guarneri.[19] "The Messiah" or "Le Messie" (also known as the "Salabue") made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.[20]
+
+The most famous violin makers (luthiers) between the 16th century and the 18th century include:
+
+Significant changes occurred in the construction of the violin in the 18th century, particularly in the length and angle of the neck, as well as a heavier bass bar. The majority of old instruments have undergone these modifications, and hence are in a significantly different state than when they left the hands of their makers, doubtless with differences in sound and response.[23] But these instruments in their present condition set the standard for perfection in violin craftsmanship and sound, and violin makers all over the world try to come as close to this ideal as possible.
+
+To this day, instruments from the so-called Golden Age of violin making, especially those made by Stradivari, Guarneri del Gesù and Montagnana are the most sought-after instruments by both collectors and performers.  The current record amount paid for a Stradivari violin is £9.8 million (US$15.9 million at that time), when the instrument known as the Lady Blunt was sold by Tarisio Auctions in an online auction on June 20, 2011.[24]
+
+A violin generally consists of a spruce top (the soundboard, also known as the top plate, table, or belly), maple ribs and back, two endblocks, a neck, a bridge, a soundpost, four strings, and various fittings, optionally including a chinrest, which may attach directly over, or to the left of, the tailpiece. A distinctive feature of a violin body is its hourglass-like shape and the arching of its top and back. The hourglass shape comprises two upper bouts, two lower bouts, and two concave C-bouts at the waist, providing clearance for the bow. The "voice" or sound of a violin depends on its shape, the wood it is made from, the graduation (the thickness profile) of both the top and back, the varnish that coats its outside surface and the skill of the luthier in doing all of these steps. The varnish and especially the wood continue to improve with age, making the fixed supply of old well-made violins built by famous luthiers much sought-after.
+
+The majority of glued joints in the instrument use animal hide glue rather than common white glue for a number of reasons. Hide glue is capable of making a thinner joint than most other glues, it is reversible (brittle enough to crack with carefully applied force, and removable with very warm water) when disassembly is needed, and since fresh hide glue sticks to old hide glue, more original wood can be preserved when repairing a joint. (More modern glues must be cleaned off entirely for the new joint to be sound, which generally involves scraping off some wood along with the old glue.) Weaker, diluted glue is usually used to fasten the top to the ribs, and the nut to the fingerboard, since common repairs involve removing these parts. The purfling running around the edge of the spruce top provides some protection against cracks originating at the edge. It also allows the top to flex more independently of the rib structure. Painted-on faux purfling on the top is usually a sign of an inferior instrument. The back and ribs are typically made of maple, most often with a matching striped figure, referred to as flame, fiddleback, or tiger stripe.
+
+The neck is usually maple with a flamed figure compatible with that of the ribs and back. It carries the fingerboard, typically made of ebony, but often some other wood stained or painted black on cheaper instruments. Ebony is the preferred material because of its hardness, beauty, and superior resistance to wear. Fingerboards are dressed to a particular transverse curve, and have a small lengthwise "scoop," or concavity, slightly more pronounced on the lower strings, especially when meant for gut or synthetic strings. Some old violins (and some made to appear old) have a grafted scroll, evidenced by a glue joint between the pegbox and neck. Many authentic old instruments have had their necks reset to a slightly increased angle, and lengthened by about a centimeter. The neck graft allows the original scroll to be kept with a Baroque violin when bringing its neck into conformance with modern standards.
+
+The bridge is a precisely cut piece of maple that forms the lower anchor point of the vibrating length of the strings and transmits the vibration of the strings to the body of the instrument. Its top curve holds the strings at the proper height from the fingerboard in an arc, allowing each to be sounded separately by the bow. The sound post, or soul post, fits precisely inside the instrument between the back and top, at a carefully chosen spot near the treble foot of the bridge, which it helps support. It also influences the modes of vibration of the top and the back of the instrument.
+
+The tailpiece anchors the strings to the lower bout of the violin by means of the tailgut, which loops around an ebony button called the tailpin (sometimes confusingly called the endpin, like the cello's spike), which fits into a tapered hole in the bottom block. Very often the E string will have a fine tuning lever worked by a small screw turned by the fingers. Fine tuners may also be applied to the other strings, especially on a student instrument, and are sometimes built into the tailpiece. The fine tuners enable the performer to make small changes in the pitch of a string. At the scroll end, the strings wind around the wooden tuning pegs in the pegbox. The tuning pegs are tapered and fit into holes in the peg box. The tuning pegs are held in place by the friction of wood on wood. Strings may be made of metal or less commonly gut or gut wrapped in metal. Strings usually have a colored silk wrapping at both ends, for identification of the string (e.g., G string, D string, A string or E string) and to provide friction against the pegs. The tapered pegs allow friction to be increased or decreased by the player applying appropriate pressure along the axis of the peg while turning it.
+
+Strings were first made of sheep gut (commonly known as catgut, which despite the name, did not come from cats), or simply gut, which was stretched, dried, and twisted. In the early years of the 20th century, strings were made of either gut or steel. Modern strings may be gut, solid steel, stranded steel, or various synthetic materials such as perlon, wound with various metals, and sometimes plated with silver. Most E strings are unwound, either plain or plated steel. Gut strings are not as common as they once were, but many performers use them to achieve a specific sound especially in historically informed performance of Baroque music. Strings have a limited lifetime. Eventually, when oil, dirt, corrosion, and rosin accumulate, the mass of the string can become uneven along its length. Apart from obvious things, such as the winding of a string coming undone from wear, players generally change a string when it no longer plays "true" (with good intonation on the harmonics), losing the desired tone, brilliance and intonation. String longevity depends on string quality and playing intensity.
+
+A violin is tuned in fifths, in the notes G3, D4, A4, E5. The lowest note of a violin, tuned normally, is G3, or G below middle C (C4). (On rare occasions, the lowest string may be tuned down by as much as a fourth, to D3.) The highest note is less well defined: E7, the E two octaves above the open string (which is tuned to E5) may be considered a practical limit for orchestral violin parts,[25] but it is often possible to play higher, depending on the length of the fingerboard and the skill of the violinist. Yet higher notes (up to C8) can be sounded by stopping the string, reaching the limit of the fingerboard, and/or by using artificial harmonics.
+
+The arched shape, the thickness of the wood, and its physical qualities govern the sound of a violin. Patterns of the node made by sand or glitter sprinkled on the plates with the plate vibrated at certain frequencies, called Chladni patterns, are occasionally used by luthiers to verify their work before assembling the instrument.[26]
+
+Apart from the standard, full (​4⁄4) size, violins are also made in so-called fractional sizes of ​7⁄8, ​3⁄4, ​1⁄2, ​1⁄4, ​1⁄8, ​1⁄10, ​1⁄16, ​1⁄32 and even ​1⁄64. These smaller instruments are commonly used by young players, whose fingers are not long enough to reach the correct positions on full-sized instruments.
+
+While related in some sense to the dimensions of the instruments, the fractional sizes are not intended to be literal descriptions of relative proportions. For example, a ​3⁄4-sized instrument is not three-quarters the length of a full size instrument. The body length (not including the neck) of a full-size, or ​4⁄4, violin is 356 mm (14.0 in), smaller in some 17th-century models. A ​3⁄4 violin's body length is 335 mm (13.2 in), and a ​1⁄2 size is 310 mm (12.2 in). With the violin's closest family member, the viola, size is specified as body length in inches or centimeters rather than fractional sizes. A full-size viola averages 40 cm (16 in). However, each individual adult will determine which size of viola to use.
+
+Occasionally, an adult with a small frame may use a so-called ​7⁄8 size violin instead of a full-size instrument.  Sometimes called a lady's violin, these instruments are slightly shorter than a full size violin, but tend to be high-quality instruments capable of producing a sound that is comparable to that of fine full size violins. 5 string violin sizes may differ from the normal 4 string.
+
+The instrument which corresponds to the violin in the violin octet is the mezzo violin, tuned the same as a violin but with a slightly longer body. The strings of the mezzo violin are the same length as those of the standard violin. This instrument is not in common use.[27]
+
+Violins are tuned by turning the pegs in the pegbox under the scroll, or by adjusting the fine tuner screws at the tailpiece. All violins have pegs; fine tuners (also called fine adjusters) are optional. Most fine tuners consist of a metal screw that moves a lever attached to the string end. They permit very small pitch adjustments much more easily than the pegs. By turning one clockwise, the pitch becomes sharper (as the string is under more tension) and turning one counterclockwise, the pitch becomes flatter (as the string is under less tension). Fine tuners on all four of the strings are very helpful when using those that have a steel core, and some players use them with synthetic strings as well. Since modern E strings are steel, a fine tuner is nearly always fitted for that string. Fine tuners are not used with gut strings, which are more elastic than steel or synthetic-core strings and do not respond adequately to the very small movements of fine tuners.
+
+To tune a violin, the A string is first tuned to a standard pitch (usually A=440 Hz). (When accompanying or playing with a fixed-pitch instrument such as a piano or accordion, the violin tunes to it. The oboe is generally the instrument used to tune orchestras where violins are present, since its sound is penetrating and can be heard over the other woodwinds) The other strings are then tuned against each other in intervals of perfect fifths by bowing them in pairs. A minutely higher tuning is sometimes employed for solo playing to give the instrument a brighter sound; conversely, Baroque music is sometimes played using lower tunings to make the violin's sound more gentle. After tuning, the instrument's bridge may be examined to ensure that it is standing straight and centered between the inner nicks of the f-holes; a crooked bridge may significantly affect the sound of an otherwise well-made violin. After extensive playing, the holes into which the tuning pegs are inserted can become worn, which can lead the peg to slip under tension. This can lead to the pitch of the string dropping, or if the peg becomes completely loose, to the string completely losing tension. A violin in which the tuning pegs are slipping needs to be repaired by a luthier or violin repairperson. Peg dope or peg compound, used regularly, can delay the onset of such wear, while allowing the pegs to turn smoothly.
+
+The tuning G–D–A–E is used for most violin music, both in Classical music, jazz and folk music. Other tunings are occasionally employed; the G string, for example, can be tuned up to A. The use of nonstandard tunings in classical music is known as scordatura; in some folk styles, it is called cross tuning. One famous example of scordatura in classical music is Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre, where the solo violin's E string is tuned down to E♭ to impart an eerie dissonance to the composition. Other examples are the third movement of Contrasts, by Béla Bartók, where the E string is tuned down to E♭ and the G tuned to a G♯, and the Mystery Sonatas by Biber, in which each movement has different scordatura tuning.
+
+In Indian classical music and Indian light music, the violin is likely to be tuned to D♯–A♯–D♯–A♯ in the South Indian style. As there is no concept of absolute pitch in Indian classical music, any convenient tuning maintaining these relative pitch intervals between the strings can be used. Another prevalent tuning with these intervals is B♭–F–B♭–F, which corresponds to Sa–Pa–Sa–Pa in the Indian carnatic classical music style. In the North Indian Hindustani style, the tuning is usually Pa-Sa-Pa-Sa instead of Sa–Pa–Sa–Pa. This could correspond to F–B♭–F–B♭, for instance. In Iranian classical music and Iranian light music, the violin ls different tunings in any Dastgah, the violin is likely to be tuned (E–A–E–A) in Dastgah-h Esfahan or in  Dastgāh-e Šur is (E–A–D–E) and (E–A–E–E), in Dastgāh-e Māhur is (E–A–D–A). In Arabic classical music, the A and E strings are lowered by a whole step i.e. G–D–G–D. This is to ease playing Arabic maqams, especially those containing quarter tones.
+
+While most violins have four strings, there are violins with additional strings. Some have as many as seven strings. Seven strings is generally thought to be the maximum number of strings that can be put on a bowed string instrument, because with more than seven strings, it would be impossible to play a particular inner string individually with the bow. Instruments with seven strings are very rare. The extra strings on such violins typically are lower in pitch than the G-string; these strings are usually tuned to C, F, and B♭. If the instrument's playing length, or string length from nut to bridge, is equal to that of an ordinary full-scale violin; i.e., a bit less than 13 inches (33 cm), then it may be properly termed a violin. Some such instruments are somewhat longer and should be regarded as violas. Violins with five strings or more are typically used in jazz or folk music. Some custom-made instruments have extra strings which are not bowed, but which sound sympathetically, due to the vibrations of the bowed strings.
+
+A violin is usually played using a bow consisting of a stick with a ribbon of horsehair strung between the tip and frog (or nut, or heel) at opposite ends. A typical violin bow may be 75 cm (30 in) overall, and weigh about 60 g (2.1 oz). Viola bows may be about 5 mm (0.20 in) shorter and 10 g (0.35 oz) heavier. At the frog end, a screw adjuster tightens or loosens the hair. Just forward of the frog, a leather thumb cushion, called the grip, and winding protect the stick and provide a strong grip for the player's hand. Traditional windings are of wire (often silver or plated silver), silk, or baleen ("whalebone", now substituted by alternating strips of tan and black plastic.) Some fiberglass student bows employ a plastic sleeve as grip and winding.
+
+Bow hair traditionally comes from the tail of a grey male horse (which has predominantly white hair). Some cheaper bows use synthetic fiber. Solid rosin is rubbed onto the hair, to render it slightly sticky; when the bow is drawn across a string, the friction between them makes the string vibrate. Traditional materials for the more costly bow sticks include snakewood, and brazilwood (which is also known as Pernambuco wood). Some recent bow design innovations use carbon fiber (CodaBows) for the stick, at all levels of craftsmanship. Inexpensive bows for students are made of less costly timbers, or from fiberglass (Glasser).
+
+The violin is played either seated or standing up. Solo players (whether playing alone, with a piano or with an orchestra) play mostly standing up (unless prevented by a physical disability such as in the case of Itzhak Perlman), while in the orchestra and in chamber music it is usually played seated. In the 2000s and 2010s, some orchestras performing Baroque music (such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra) have had all of their violins and violas, solo and ensemble, perform standing up.
+
+The standard way of holding the violin is with the left side of the jaw resting on the chinrest of the violin, and supported by the left shoulder, often assisted by a shoulder rest (or a sponge and an elastic band for younger players who struggle with shoulder rests). The jaw and the shoulder must hold the violin firmly enough to allow it to remain stable when the left hand goes from a high position (a high pitched note far up on the fingerboard) to a low one (nearer to the pegbox). In the Indian posture, the stability of the violin is guaranteed by its scroll resting on the side of the foot.
+
+While teachers point out the vital importance of good posture both for the sake of the quality of the playing and to reduce the chance of repetitive strain injury, advice as to what good posture is and how to achieve it differs in details. However, all insist on the importance of a natural relaxed position without tension or rigidity. Things which are almost universally recommended is keeping the left wrist straight (or very nearly so) to allow the fingers of the left hand to move freely and to reduce the chance of injury and keeping either shoulder in a natural relaxed position and avoiding raising either of them in an exaggerated manner. This, like any other unwarranted tension, would limit freedom of motion, and increase the risk of injury.
+
+Hunching can hamper good playing because it throws the body off balance and makes the shoulders rise. Another sign that comes from unhealthy tension is pain in the left hand, which indicates too much pressure when holding the violin.
+
+The left hand determines the sounding length of the string, and thus the pitch of the string, by "stopping" it (pressing it) against the fingerboard with the fingertips, producing different pitches. As the violin has no frets to stop the strings, as is usual with the guitar, the player must know exactly where to place the fingers on the strings to play with good intonation (tuning). Beginning violinists play open strings and the lowest position, nearest to the nut. Students often start with relatively easy keys, such as A Major and G major. Students are taught scales and simple melodies. Through practice of scales and arpeggios and ear training, the violinist's left hand eventually "finds" the notes intuitively by muscle memory.
+
+Beginners sometimes rely on tapes placed on the fingerboard for proper left hand finger placement, but usually abandon the tapes quickly as they advance. Another commonly used marking technique uses dots of white-out on the fingerboard, which wear off in a few weeks of regular practice. This practice, unfortunately, is used sometimes in lieu of adequate ear-training, guiding the placement of fingers by eye and not by ear. Especially in the early stages of learning to play, the so-called "ringing tones" are useful. There are nine such notes in first position, where a stopped note sounds a unison or octave with another (open) string, causing it to resonate sympathetically. Students often use these ringing tones to check the intonation of the stopped note by seeing if it is harmonious with the open string. For example, when playing the stopped pitch "A" on the G string, the violinist could play the open D string at the same time, to check the intonation of the stopped "A". If the "A" is in tune, the "A" and the open D string should produce a harmonious perfect fourth.
+
+Violins are tuned in perfect fifths, like all the orchestral strings (violin, viola, cello) except the double bass, which is tuned in perfect fourths. Each subsequent note is stopped at a pitch the player perceives as the most harmonious, "when unaccompanied, [a violinist] does not play consistently in either the tempered or the natural [just] scale, but tends on the whole to conform with the Pythagorean scale."[28] When violinists are playing in a string quartet or a string orchestra, the strings typically "sweeten" their tuning to suit the key they are playing in. When playing with an instrument tuned to equal temperament, such as a piano, skilled violinists adjust their tuning to match the equal temperament of the piano to avoid discordant notes.
+
+The fingers are conventionally numbered 1 (index) through 4 (little finger) in music notation, such as sheet music and etude books.  Especially in instructional editions of violin music, numbers over the notes may indicate which finger to use, with 0 or O indicating an open string. The chart to the right shows the arrangement of notes reachable in first position. Not shown on this chart is the way the spacing between note positions becomes closer as the fingers move up (in pitch) from the nut.  The bars at the sides of the chart represent the usual possibilities for beginners' tape placements, at 1st, high 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fingers.
+
+The placement of the left hand on the fingerboard is characterized by "positions".  First position, where most beginners start (although some methods start in third position), is the most commonly used position in string music. Music composed for beginning youth orchestras is often mostly in first position. The lowest note available in this position in standard tuning is an open G; the highest note in first position is played with the fourth finger on the E-string, sounding a B. Moving the hand up the neck, so the first finger takes the place of the second finger, brings the player into second position. Letting the first finger take the first-position place of the third finger brings the player to third position, and so on. A change of positions, with its associated movement of the hand, is referred to as a shift, and effective shifting maintaining accurate intonation and a smooth legato (connected) sound is a key element of technique at all levels. Often a "guide finger" is used; the last finger to play a note in the old position continuously lightly touches the string during the course of the shift to end up on its correct place in the new position. In elementary shifting exercises the "guide finger" is often voiced while it glides up and down the string, so the player can establish by ear whether they are landing in the correct place, however outside of these exercises it should rarely be audible (unless the performer is consciously applying a portamento effect for expressive reasons).
+
+In the course of a shift in low positions, the thumb of the left hand moves up or down the neck of the instrument so as to remain in the same position relative to the fingers (though the movement of the thumb may occur slightly before, or slightly after, the movement of the fingers). In such positions, the thumb is often thought of as an 'anchor' whose location defines what position the player is in. In very high positions, the thumb is unable to move with the fingers as the body of the instrument gets in the way. Instead, the thumb works around the neck of the instrument to sit at the point at which the neck meets the right bout of the body, and remains there while the fingers move between the high positions.
+
+A note played outside of the normal compass of a position, without any shift, is referred to as an extension. For instance, in third position on the A string, the hand naturally sits with the first finger on D♮ and the fourth on either G♮ or G♯. Stretching the first finger back down to a C♯, or the fourth finger up to an A♮, forms an extension. Extensions are commonly used where one or two notes are slightly out of an otherwise solid position, and give the benefit of being less intrusive than a shift or string crossing. The lowest position on the violin is referred to as "half position". In this position the first finger is on a "low first position" note, e.g. B♭ on the A string, and the fourth finger is in a downward extension from its regular position, e.g. D♮ on the A string, with the other two fingers placed in between as required. As the position of the thumb is typically the same in "half position" as in first position, it is better thought of as a backwards extension of the whole hand than as a genuine position.
+
+The upper limit of the violin's range is largely determined by the skill of the player, who may easily play more than two octaves on a single string, and four octaves on the instrument as a whole. Position names are mostly used for the lower positions and in method books and etudes; for this reason, it is uncommon to hear references to anything higher than seventh position. The highest position, practically speaking, is 13th position. Very high positions are a particular technical challenge, for two reasons. Firstly, the difference in location of different notes becomes much narrower in high positions, making the notes more challenging to locate and in some cases to distinguish by ear. Secondly, the much shorter sounding length of the string in very high positions is a challenge for the right arm and bow in sounding the instrument effectively. The finer (and more expensive) an instrument, the better able it is to sustain good tone right to the top of the fingerboard, at the highest pitches on the E string.
+
+All notes (except those below the open D) can be played on more than one string. This is a standard design feature of stringed instruments; however, it differs from the piano, which has only one location for each of its 88 notes. For instance, the note of open A on the violin can be played as the open A, or on the D string (in first to fourth positions) or even on the G string (very high up in sixth to ninth positions). Each string has a different tone quality, because of the different weights (thicknesses) of the strings and because of the resonances of other open strings. For instance, the G string is often regarded as having a very full, sonorous sound which is particularly appropriate to late Romantic music. This is often indicated in the music by the marking, for example, sul G or IV (a Roman numeral indicating to play on the fourth string; by convention, the strings are numbered from thinnest, highest pitch (I) to the lowest pitch (IV). Even without an explicit instructions in the score, an advanced violinist will use her/his discretion and artistic sensibility to select which string to play specific notes or passages.
+
+If a string is bowed or plucked without any finger stopping it, it is said to be an open string. This gives a different sound from a stopped string, since the string vibrates more freely at the nut than under a finger. Further, it is impossible to use vibrato fully on an open string (though a partial effect can be achieved by stopping a note an octave up on an adjacent string and vibrating that, which introduces an element of vibrato into the overtones). In the classical tradition, violinists will often use a string crossing or shift of position to allow them to avoid the change of timbre introduced by an open string, unless indicated by the composer. This is particularly true for the open E which is often regarded as having a harsh sound. However, there are also situations where an open string may be specifically chosen for artistic effect. This is seen in classical music which is imitating the drone of an organ (J. S. Bach, in his Partita in E for solo violin, achieved this), fiddling (e.g., Hoedown) or where taking steps to avoid the open string is musically inappropriate (for instance in Baroque music where shifting position was less common). In quick passages of scales or arpeggios an open E string may simply be used for convenience if the note does not have time to ring and develop a harsh timbre. In folk music, fiddling and other traditional music genres, open strings are commonly used for their resonant timbre.
+
+Playing an open string simultaneously with a stopped note on an adjacent string produces a bagpipe-like drone, often used by composers in imitation of folk music. Sometimes the two notes are identical (for instance, playing a fingered A on the D string against the open A string), giving a ringing sort of "fiddling" sound. Playing an open string simultaneously with an identical stopped note can also be called for when more volume is required, especially in orchestral playing. Some classical violin parts have notes for which the composer requests the violinist to play an open string, because of the specific sonority created by an open string.
+
+Double stopping is when two separate strings are stopped by the fingers, and bowed simultaneously, producing a sixth, third, fifth, etc. Double-stops can be indicated in any position, though the widest interval that can be double-stopped in one position is an octave (with the first finger on the lower string and the fourth finger on the higher string). Nonetheless, intervals of tenths or even more are sometimes required to be double-stopped in advanced playing, resulting in a stretched left-hand position with the fingers extended. The term "double stop" is often used to encompass sounding an open string alongside a fingered note as well, even though only one finger stops the string.
+
+Where three or four more simultaneous notes are written, the violinist will typically "split" the chord, choosing the lower one or two notes to play first before promptly continuing onto the upper one or two notes. A "triple stop" with three simultaneous notes is possible in some circumstances. The bow will not naturally strike three strings at once, but if there is sufficient bow speed and pressure when the violinist "breaks" a three note chord, the bow hair can be bent  temporarily so all three can sound. This is accomplished with a heavy stroke, typically quite near the frog, and quite loud. Double stops in orchestra are occasionally marked divisi and divided between the players, with half of the musicians playing the lower note and the other half playing the higher note.. Playing double stops is common when the violins play accompaniment and another instrument or section plays melodically.
+
+In some genres of historically informed performance (usually of Baroque music and earlier), neither split-chord nor triple-stop chords are thought to be appropriate and violinists will arpeggiate all chords (and even what appear to be regular double stops), playing all or most notes individually as if they had been written as a slurred figure. In some musical styles, a sustained open string drone can be played during a passage mainly written on an adjacent string, to provide a basic accompaniment. This is more often seen in folk traditions than in classical music. However, with the development of modern violins, triple-stopping came more naturally due to the bridge being less curved.
+
+Vibrato is a technique of the left hand and arm in which the pitch of a note varies subtly in a pulsating rhythm. While various parts of the hand or arm may be involved in the motion, the end result is a movement of the fingertip bringing about a slight change in vibrating string length, which causes an undulation in pitch. Some violinists oscillate backwards, or lower in pitch from the actual note when using vibrato, since it is believed that perception favors the highest pitch in a varying sound.[31] Vibrato does little, if anything, to disguise an out-of-tune note; in other words, misapplied vibrato is a poor substitute for good intonation. Scales and other exercises meant to work on intonation are typically played without vibrato to make the work easier and more effective. Music students are often taught that unless otherwise marked in music, vibrato is assumed. However, it has to be noted that this is only a trend; there is nothing on the sheet music that compels violinists to add vibrato. This can be an obstacle to a classically trained violinist wishing to play in a style that uses little or no vibrato at all, such as baroque music played in period style and many traditional fiddling styles.
+
+Vibrato can be produced by a proper combination of finger, wrist and arm motions. One method, called hand vibrato, involves rocking the hand back at the wrist to achieve oscillation, while another method, arm vibrato, modulates the pitch by rocking at the elbow. A combination of these techniques allows a player to produce a large variety of tonal effects. The "when" and "what for" and "how much" of violin vibrato are artistic matters of style and taste. Different teachers, music schools and styles of music favour different vibrato styles. For example, overdone vibrato may become distracting. In acoustic terms, the interest that vibrato adds to the sound has to do with the way that the overtone mix[32] (or tone color, or timbre) and the directional pattern of sound projection change with changes in pitch. By "pointing" the sound at different parts of the room[33][34] in a rhythmic way, vibrato adds a "shimmer" or "liveliness" to the sound of a well-made violin. Vibrato is, in a large part, left to the discretion of the violinist.  Different types of vibrato will bring different moods to the piece, and the varying degrees and styles of vibrato are often characteristics that stand out in well-known violinists.
+
+A vibrato-like motion can sometimes be used to create a fast trill effect. To execute this effect, the finger above the finger stopping the note is placed very slightly off the string (firmly pressed against the finger stopping the string) and a vibrato motion is implemented. The second finger will lightly touch the string above the lower finger with each oscillation, causing the pitch to oscillate in a fashion that sounds like a mix between vide vibrato and a very fast trill. This gives a less defined transition between the higher and lower note, and is usually implemented by interpretative choice. This trill technique only works well for semi-tonal trills or trills in high positions (where the distance between notes is lessened), as it requires the trilling finger and the finger below it to be touching, limiting the distance that can be trilled. In very high positions, where the trilled distance is less than the width of the finger, a vibrato trill may be the only option for trill effects.
+
+A major scale (arco and pizzicato)
+Beginning of an A major scale with vibrato
+A major scale played col legno
+Natural harmonics of an A, E, and an A
+Artificial (false) harmonic of A7
+
+Lightly touching the string with a fingertip at a harmonic node, but without fully pressing the string, and then plucking or bowing the string, creates harmonics. Instead of the normal tone, a higher pitched note sounds.  Each node is at an integer division of the string, for example half-way or one-third along the length of the string. A responsive instrument will sound numerous possible harmonic nodes along the length of the string. Harmonics are marked in music either with a little circle above the note that determines the pitch of the harmonic, or by diamond-shaped note heads. There are two types of harmonics: natural harmonics and artificial harmonics (also known as false harmonics).
+
+Natural harmonics are played on an open string. The pitch of the open string when it is plucked or bowed is called the fundamental frequency.  Harmonics are also called overtones or partials. They occur at whole-number multiples of the fundamental, which is called the first harmonic.  The second harmonic is the first overtone (the octave above the open string), the third harmonic is the second overtone, and so on. The second harmonic is in the middle of the string and sounds an octave higher than the string's pitch.  The third harmonic breaks the string into thirds and sounds an octave and a fifth above the fundamental, and the fourth harmonic breaks the string into quarters sounding two octaves above the first. The sound of the second harmonic is the clearest of them all, because it is a common node with all the succeeding even-numbered harmonics (4th, 6th, etc.). The third and succeeding odd-numbered harmonics are harder to play because they break the string into an odd number of vibrating parts and do not share as many nodes with other harmonics.
+
+Artificial harmonics are more difficult to produce than natural harmonics, as they involve both stopping the string and playing a harmonic on the stopped note. Using the octave frame (the normal distance between the first and fourth fingers in any given position) with the fourth finger just touching the string a fourth higher than the stopped note produces the fourth harmonic, two octaves above the stopped note. Finger placement and pressure, as well as bow speed, pressure, and sounding point are all essential in getting the desired harmonic to sound. And to add to the challenge, in passages with different notes played as false harmonics, the distance between stopping finger and harmonic finger must constantly change, since the spacing between notes changes along the length of the string.
+
+The harmonic finger can also touch at a major third above the pressed note (the fifth harmonic), or a fifth higher (a third harmonic).  These harmonics are less commonly used; in the case of the major third, both the stopped note and touched note must be played slightly sharp otherwise the harmonic does not speak as readily.  In the case of the fifth, the stretch is greater than is comfortable for many violinists. In the general repertoire fractions smaller than a sixth are not used.  However, divisions up to an eighth are sometimes used and, given a good instrument and a skilled player, divisions as small as a twelfth are possible. There are a few books dedicated solely to the study of violin harmonics. Two comprehensive works are Henryk Heller's seven-volume Theory of Harmonics, published by Simrock in 1928, and Michelangelo Abbado's five-volume Tecnica dei suoni armonici published by Ricordi in 1934.
+
+Elaborate passages in artificial harmonics can be found in virtuoso violin literature, especially of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Two notable examples of this are an entire section of Vittorio Monti's Csárdás and a passage towards the middle of the third movement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. A section of the third movement of Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1 consists of double-stopped thirds in harmonics.
+
+When strings are worn, dirty and old, the harmonics may no longer be accurate in pitch. For this reason, violinists change their strings regularly.
+
+The strings may be sounded by drawing the hair of the bow held by the right hand across them (arco) or by plucking them (pizzicato) most often with the right hand. In some cases, the violinist will pluck strings with the left hand. This is done to facilitate transitions from pizzicato to arco playing. It is also used in some virtuoso showpieces. Left hand pizzicato is usually done on open strings. Pizzicato is used on all of the violin family instruments; however, the systematic study of advanced pizzicato techniques is most developed in jazz bass, a style in which the instrument is almost exclusively plucked.
+
+The right arm, hand, and bow and the bow speed are responsible for tone quality, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and most (but not all) changes in timbre. The player draws the bow over the string, causing the string to vibrate and produce a sustained tone. The bow is a wooden stick with tensioned horsetail hair, which has been rosined with a bar of rosin. The natural texture of the horsehair and the stickiness of the rosin help the bow to "grip" the string, and thus when the bow is drawn over the string, the bow causes the string to sound a pitch.
+
+Bowing can be used to produce long sustained notes or melodies. With a string section, if the players in a section change their bows at different times, a note can seem to be endlessly sustainable. As well, the bow can be used to play short, crisp little notes, such as repeated notes, scales and arpeggios, which provide a propulsive rhythm in many styles of music.
+
+The most essential part of bowing technique is the bow grip. It is usually with the thumb bent in the small area between the frog and the winding of the bow. The other fingers are spread somewhat evenly across the top part of the bow. The pinky finger is curled with the tip of the finger placed on the wood next to the screw. The violin produces louder notes with greater bow speed or more weight on the string.  The two methods are not equivalent, because they produce different timbres; pressing down on the string tends to produce a harsher, more intense sound. One can also achieve a louder sound by placing the bow closer to the bridge.
+
+The sounding point where the bow intersects the string also influences timbre (or "tone colour"). Playing close to the bridge (sul ponticello) gives a more intense sound than usual, emphasizing the higher harmonics; and playing with the bow over the end of the fingerboard (sul tasto) makes for a delicate, ethereal sound, emphasizing the fundamental frequency. Dr. Suzuki referred to the sounding point as the Kreisler highway; one may think of different sounding points as lanes in the highway.
+
+Various methods of attack with the bow produce different articulations. There are many bowing techniques that allow for every range of playing style and many teachers, players, and orchestras spend a lot of time developing techniques and creating a unified technique within the group. These techniques include legato-style bowing (a smooth, connected, sustained sound suitable for melodies), collé, and a variety of bowings which produce shorter notes, including ricochet, sautillé, martelé, spiccato, and staccato.
+
+A note marked pizz. (abbreviation for pizzicato) in the written music is to be played by plucking the string with a finger of the right hand rather than by bowing. (The index finger is most commonly used here.) Sometimes in orchestra parts or virtuoso solo music where the bow hand is occupied (or for show-off effect), left-hand pizzicato will be indicated by a + (plus sign) below or above the note.  In left-hand pizzicato, two fingers are put on the string; one (usually the index or middle finger) is put on the correct note, and the other (usually the ring finger or little finger) is put above the note. The higher finger then plucks the string while the lower one stays on, thus producing the correct pitch. By increasing the force of the pluck, one can increase the volume of the note that the string is producing. Pizzicato is used in orchestral works and in solo showpieces. In orchestral parts, violinists often have to make very quick shifts from arco to pizzicato, and vice versa.
+
+A marking of col legno (Italian for "with the wood") in the written music calls for striking the string(s) with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings.  This bowing technique is somewhat rarely used, and results in a muted percussive sound. The eerie quality of a violin section playing col legno is exploited in some symphonic pieces, notably the "Witches' Dance" of the last movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Saint-Saëns's symphonic poem Danse Macabre includes the string section using the col legno technique to imitate the sound of dancing skeletons. "Mars" from Gustav Holst's "The Planets" uses col legno to play a repeated rhythm in 54 time signature. Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra demands its use in the "Percussion" Variation. Dmitri Shostakovich uses it in his Fourteenth Symphony in the movement 'At the Sante Jail'. Some violinists, however, object to this style of playing as it can damage the finish and impair the value of a fine bow, but most of such will compromise by using a cheap bow for at least the duration of the passage in question.
+
+A smooth and even stroke during which bow speed and weight are the same from beginning of the stroke to the end.[35]
+
+Literally hammered, a strongly accented effect produced by releasing each bowstroke forcefully and suddenly. Martelé can be played in any part of the bow. It is sometimes indicated in written music by an arrowhead.
+
+Tremolo is the very rapid repetition (typically of a single note, but occasionally of multiple notes), usually played at the tip of the bow. Tremolo is marked with three short, slanted lines across the stem of the note. Tremolo is often used as a sound effect in orchestral music, particularly in the Romantic music era (1800-1910) and in opera music.
+
+Attaching a small metal, rubber, leather, or wooden device called a mute, or sordino, to the bridge of the violin gives a softer, more mellow tone, with fewer audible overtones; the sound of an entire orchestral string section playing with mutes has a hushed quality. The mute changes both the loudness and the timbre ("tone colour") of a violin. The conventional Italian markings for mute usage are con sord., or con sordino, meaning 'with mute'; and senza sord., meaning 'without mute'; or via sord., meaning 'mute off'.
+
+Larger metal, rubber, or wooden mutes are widely available, known as practice mutes or hotel mutes.  Such mutes are generally not used in performance, but are used to deaden the sound of the violin in practice areas such as hotel rooms. (For practicing purposes there is also the mute violin, a violin without a sound box.) Some composers have used practice mutes for special effect, for example, at the end of Luciano Berio's Sequenza VIII for solo violin.
+
+Since the Baroque era, the violin has been one of the most important of all instruments in classical music, for several reasons.  The tone of the violin stands out above other instruments, making it appropriate for playing a melody line.  In the hands of a good player, the violin is extremely agile, and can execute rapid and difficult sequences of notes.
+
+Violins make up a large part of an orchestra, and are usually divided into two sections, known as the first and second violins. Composers often assign the melody to the first violins, typically a more difficult part using higher positions, while second violins play harmony, accompaniment patterns or the melody an octave lower than the first violins. A string quartet similarly has parts for first and second violins, as well as a viola part, and a bass instrument, such as the cello or, rarely, the double bass.
+
+The earliest references to jazz performance using the violin as a solo instrument are documented during the first decades of the 20th century. Joe Venuti, one of the first jazz violinists, is known for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang during the 1920s. Since that time there have been many improvising violinists including Stéphane Grappelli, Stuff Smith, Eddie South, Regina Carter, Johnny Frigo, John Blake, Adam Taubitz, Leroy Jenkins, and Jean-Luc Ponty. While not primarily jazz violinists, Darol Anger and Mark O'Connor have spent significant parts of their careers playing jazz.
+The Swiss-Cuban violinist Yilian Cañizares mixes jazz with Cuban music.[36]
+
+Violins also appear in ensembles supplying orchestral backgrounds to many jazz recordings.
+
+The Indian violin, while essentially the same instrument as that used in Western music, is different in some senses.[37] The instrument is tuned so that the IV and III strings (G and D on a western-tuned violin) and the II and I (A and E) strings are sa–pa (do–sol) pairs and sound the same but are offset by an octave, resembling common scordatura or fiddle cross-tunings such as G–D–G–D or A–E–A–E. The tonic sa (do) is not fixed, but variably tuned to accommodate the vocalist or lead player. The way the musician holds the instrument varies from Western to Indian music. In Indian music the musician sits on the floor cross-legged with the right foot out in front of them. The scroll of the instrument rests on the foot. This position is essential to playing well due to the nature of Indian music. The hand can move all over the fingerboard and there is no set position for the left hand, so it is important for the violin to be in a steady, unmoving position.
+
+Up through at least the 1970s, most types of popular music used bowed string sections. They were extensively used in popular music throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. With the rise of swing music, however, from 1935 to 1945, the string sound was often used to add to the fullness of big band music. Following the swing era, from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, strings began to be revived in traditional pop music. This trend accelerated in the late 1960s, with a significant revival of the use of strings, especially in soul music. Popular Motown recordings of the late 1960s and 1970s relied heavily on strings as part of their trademark texture. The rise of disco music in the 1970s continued this trend with the heavy use of string instruments in popular disco orchestras (e.g., Love Unlimited Orchestra, Biddu Orchestra, Monster Orchestra, Salsoul Orchestra, MFSB).[citation needed]
+
+With the rise of electronically created music in the 1980s, violins declined in use, as synthesized string sounds played by a keyboardist with a synthesizer took their place. However, while the violin has had very little usage in mainstream rock music, it has some history in progressive rock (e.g., Electric Light Orchestra, King Crimson, Kansas, Gentle Giant). The 1973 album Contaminazione by Italy's RDM plays violins off against synthesizers at its finale ("La grande fuga").[citation needed] The instrument has a stronger place in modern jazz fusion bands, notably The Corrs.  The fiddle is sometimes a part of British folk rock music, as exemplified by the likes of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.[citation needed]
+
+The popularity of crossover music beginning in the last years of the 20th century has brought the violin back into the popular music arena, with both electric and acoustic violins being used by popular bands. Dave Matthews Band features violinist Boyd Tinsley.  The Flock featured violinist Jerry Goodman who later joined the jazz-rock fusion band, The Mahavishnu Orchestra.  James' Saul Davies, who is also a guitarist, was enlisted by the band as a violinist. For their first three albums and related singles, the British group No-Man made extensive use of electric and acoustic solo violin as played by band member Ben Coleman (who played violin exclusively).[citation needed]
+
+Pop-Punk band Yellowcard has made a mainstay of violin in its music. Violinist Sean Mackin has been a member of the band since 1997. Los Salvadores also combine punk and ska influences with a violin.[citation needed] Doom metal band My Dying Bride have used violin as a part of their line-up throughout many of their albums.[citation needed] The violin appears prominently in the music of Spanish folk metal group Mägo de Oz (for example, in their 1998 hit "Molinos de viento"). The violinist (Carlos Prieto a.k.a. "Mohamed") has been one of the group's most popular members with fans since 1992.[citation needed] The instrument is also used often in symphonic metal, particularly by bands such as Therion, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Haggard, and Epica, although it can also be found in Gothic Metal bands such as Tristania and Theater of Tragedy.[citation needed] The alternative rock band Hurt's vocalist plays violin for the band, making them one of few rock bands to feature violin without hiring a session worker.[citation needed] The folk metal band Ithilien use violin extensively along their discography.[38] Progressive metal band Ne Obliviscaris feature a violin player, Tim Charles, in their line-up.[39]
+
+Independent artists, such as Owen Pallett, The Shondes, and Andrew Bird, have also spurred increased interest in the instrument.[40] Indie bands have often embraced new and unusual arrangements, allowing them more freedom to feature the violin than many mainstream musical artists.  It has been used in the post-rock genre by bands such as A Genuine Freakshow, Sigur Rós, Zox, Broken Social Scene, and A Silver Mt. Zion. The electric violin has even been used by bands like The Crüxshadows within the context of keyboard based music.[citation needed] Lindsey Stirling plays the violin in conjunction with electronic/dubstep/trance rifts and beats.[41][citation needed]
+
+Eric Stanley improvises on the violin with hip hop music/pop/classical elements and instrumental beats.[42][43] The successful indie rock and baroque pop band Arcade Fire use violins extensively in their arrangements.[44] Indian, Turkish, and Arabic pop music is filled with the sound of violins, both soloists and ensembles.[citation needed]
+
+Like many other instruments used in classical music, the violin descends from remote ancestors that were used for folk music.  Following a stage of intensive development in the late Renaissance, largely in Italy, the violin had improved (in volume, tone, and agility), to the point that it not only became a very important instrument in art music, but proved highly appealing to folk musicians as well, ultimately spreading very widely, sometimes displacing earlier bowed instruments. Ethnomusicologists have observed its widespread use in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
+
+When played as a folk instrument, the violin is usually referred to in English as a fiddle (although the term fiddle can be used informally no matter what the genre of music). Worldwide, there are various stringed instruments such as the wheel fiddle and Apache fiddle that are also called "fiddles". Fiddle music differs from classical in that the tunes are generally considered dance music,[45] and various techniques, such as droning, shuffling, and ornamentation specific to particular styles are used. In many traditions of folk music, the tunes are not written but are memorized by successive generations of musicians and passed on[45] in what is known as the oral tradition. Many old-time pieces call for cross-tuning, or using tunings other than standard GDAE. Some players of American styles of folk fiddling (such as bluegrass or old-time) have their bridge's top edge cut to a slightly flatter curve, making techniques such as a "double shuffle" less taxing on the bow arm, as it reduces the range of motion needed for alternating between double stops on different string pairs. Fiddlers who use solid steel core strings may prefer to use a tailpiece with fine tuners on all four strings, instead of the single fine tuner on the E string used by many classical players.
+
+As well as the Arabic rababah, the violin has been used in Arabic music.
+
+Electric violins have a magnetic or piezoelectric pickup that converts string vibration to an electric signal. A patch cable or wireless transmitter sends the signal to an amplifier of a PA system. Electric violins are usually constructed as such, but a pickup can be added to a conventional acoustic violin. An electric violin with a resonating body that produces listening-level sound independently of the electric elements can be called an electro-acoustic violin. To be effective as an acoustic violin, electro-acoustic violins retain much of the resonating body of the violin, and often resemble an acoustic violin or fiddle.  The body may be finished in bright colors and made from alternative materials to wood. These violins may need to be hooked up to an instrument amplifier or PA system.  Some types come with a silent option that allows the player to use headphones that are hooked up to the violin. The first specially built electric violins date back to 1928 and were made by Victor Pfeil, Oskar Vierling, George Eisenberg, Benjamin Miessner, George Beauchamp, Hugo Benioff and Fredray Kislingbury. These violins can be plugged into effect units, just like an electric guitar, including distortion, wah-wah pedal and reverb. Since electric violins do not rely on string tension and resonance to amplify their sound they can have more strings. For example, five-stringed electric violins are available from several manufacturers, and a seven string electric violin (with three lower strings encompassing the cello's range) is also available.[46] The majority of the first electric violinists were musicians playing jazz fusion (e.g., Jean-Luc Ponty) and popular music.
+
+Violin authentication is the process of determining the maker and manufacture date of a violin. This process is similar to that used to determine the provenance of art works.  As significant value may be attached to violins made either by specific makers or at specific times and locations, forgery and other methods of fraudulent misrepresentation can be used to inflate the value of an instrument.

en/3414.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+
+
+Ascomycota p. p.
+
+Basidiomycota p. p.
+
+Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized.[1][2][3] They are estimated to constitute 1% of all described fungal species.[4]
+
+Yeasts are unicellular organisms that evolved from multicellular ancestors,[5] with some species having the ability to develop multicellular characteristics by forming strings of connected budding cells known as pseudohyphae or false hyphae.[6] Yeast sizes vary greatly, depending on species and environment, typically measuring 3–4 µm in diameter, although some yeasts can grow to 40 µm in size.[7] Most yeasts reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by the asymmetric division process known as budding. With their single-celled growth habit, yeasts can be contrasted with molds, which grow hyphae. Fungal species that can take both forms (depending on temperature or other conditions) are called dimorphic fungi.
+
+The yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae converts carbohydrates to carbon dioxide and alcohols in a process known as fermentation. The products of this reaction have been used in baking and the production of alcoholic beverages for thousands of years.[8] S. cerevisiae is also an important model organism in modern cell biology research, and is one of the most thoroughly studied eukaryotic microorganisms. Researchers have cultured it in order to understand the biology of the eukaryotic cell and ultimately human biology in great detail.[9] Other species of yeasts, such as Candida albicans, are opportunistic pathogens and can cause infections in humans. Yeasts have recently been used to generate electricity in microbial fuel cells[10] and to produce ethanol for the biofuel industry.
+
+Yeasts do not form a single taxonomic or phylogenetic grouping. The term "yeast" is often taken as a synonym for Saccharomyces cerevisiae,[11] but the phylogenetic diversity of yeasts is shown by their placement in two separate phyla: the Ascomycota and the Basidiomycota. The budding yeasts or "true yeasts" are classified in the order Saccharomycetales,[12] within the phylum Ascomycota.
+
+The word "yeast" comes from Old English gist, gyst, and from the Indo-European root yes-, meaning "boil", "foam", or "bubble".[13] Yeast microbes are probably one of the earliest domesticated organisms. Archaeologists digging in Egyptian ruins found early grinding stones and baking chambers for yeast-raised bread, as well as drawings of 4,000-year-old bakeries and breweries.[14] In 1680, Dutch naturalist Anton van Leeuwenhoek first microscopically observed yeast, but at the time did not consider them to be living organisms, but rather globular structures[15] as researchers were doubtful whether yeasts were algae or fungi.[16] Theodor Schwann recognized them as fungi in 1837.[17][18]
+
+In 1857, French microbiologist Louis Pasteur showed that by bubbling oxygen into the yeast broth, cell growth could be increased, but fermentation was inhibited – an observation later called the "Pasteur effect". In the paper "Mémoire sur la fermentation alcoolique," Pasteur proved that alcoholic fermentation was conducted by living yeasts and not by a chemical catalyst.[14][19]
+
+By the late 18th century two yeast strains used in brewing had been identified: Saccharomyces cerevisiae (top-fermenting yeast) and S. carlsbergensis (bottom-fermenting yeast). S. cerevisiae has been sold commercially by the Dutch for bread-making since 1780; while, around 1800, the Germans started producing S. cerevisiae in the form of cream. In 1825, a method was developed to remove the liquid so the yeast could be prepared as solid blocks.[20] The industrial production of yeast blocks was enhanced by the introduction of the filter press in 1867. In 1872, Baron Max de Springer developed a manufacturing process to create granulated yeast, a technique that was used until the first World War.[21] In the United States, naturally occurring airborne yeasts were used almost exclusively until commercial yeast was marketed at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia, where Charles L. Fleischmann exhibited the product and a process to use it, as well as serving the resultant baked bread.[22]
+
+The mechanical refrigerator (first patented in the 1850s in Europe) liberated brewers and winemakers from seasonal constraints for the first time and allowed them to exit cellars and other earthen environments. For John Molson, who made his livelihood in Montreal prior to the development of the fridge, the brewing season lasted from September through to May. The same seasonal restrictions formerly governed the distiller's art.[23]
+
+Yeasts are chemoorganotrophs, as they use organic compounds as a source of energy and do not require sunlight to grow. Carbon is obtained mostly from hexose sugars, such as glucose and fructose, or disaccharides such as sucrose and maltose. Some species can metabolize pentose sugars such as ribose,[24] alcohols, and organic acids. Yeast species either require oxygen for aerobic cellular respiration (obligate aerobes) or are anaerobic, but also have aerobic methods of energy production (facultative anaerobes). Unlike bacteria, no known yeast species grow only anaerobically (obligate anaerobes). Most yeasts grow best in a neutral or slightly acidic pH environment.
+
+Yeasts vary in regard to the temperature range in which they grow best. For example, Leucosporidium frigidum grows at −2 to 20 °C (28 to 68 °F), Saccharomyces telluris at 5 to 35 °C (41 to 95 °F), and Candida slooffi at 28 to 45 °C (82 to 113 °F).[25] The cells can survive freezing under certain conditions, with viability decreasing over time.
+
+In general, yeasts are grown in the laboratory on solid growth media or in liquid broths. Common media used for the cultivation of yeasts include potato dextrose agar or potato dextrose broth, Wallerstein Laboratories nutrient agar, yeast peptone dextrose agar, and yeast mould agar or broth. Home brewers who cultivate yeast frequently use dried malt extract and agar as a solid growth medium. The fungicide cycloheximide is sometimes added to yeast growth media to inhibit the growth of Saccharomyces yeasts and select for wild/indigenous yeast species. This will change the yeast process.
+
+The appearance of a white, thready yeast, commonly known as kahm yeast, is often a byproduct of the lactofermentation (or pickling) of certain vegetables.  It is usually the result of exposure to air. Although harmless, it can give pickled vegetables a bad flavor and must be removed regularly during fermentation.[26]
+
+Yeasts are very common in the environment, and are often isolated from sugar-rich materials. Examples include naturally occurring yeasts on the skins of fruits and berries (such as grapes, apples, or peaches), and exudates from plants (such as plant saps or cacti). Some yeasts are found in association with soil and insects.[27][28] The ecological function and biodiversity of yeasts are relatively unknown compared to those of other microorganisms.[29] Yeasts, including Candida albicans, Rhodotorula rubra, Torulopsis and Trichosporon cutaneum, have been found living in between people's toes as part of their skin flora.[30] Yeasts are also present in the gut flora of mammals and some insects[31] and even deep-sea environments host an array of yeasts.[32][33]
+
+An Indian study of seven bee species and nine plant species found 45 species from 16 genera colonize the nectaries of flowers and honey stomachs of bees. Most were members of the genus Candida; the most common species in honey stomachs was Dekkera intermedia and in flower nectaries, Candida blankii.[34] Yeast colonising nectaries of the stinking hellebore have been found to raise the temperature of the flower, which may aid in attracting pollinators by increasing the evaporation of volatile organic compounds.[29][35] A black yeast has been recorded as a partner in a complex relationship between ants, their mutualistic fungus, a fungal parasite of the fungus and a bacterium that kills the parasite. The yeast has a negative effect on the bacteria that normally produce antibiotics to kill the parasite, so may affect the ants' health by allowing the parasite to spread.[36]
+
+Certain strains of some species of yeasts produce proteins called yeast killer toxins that allow them to eliminate competing strains. (See main article on killer yeast.) This can cause problems for winemaking but could potentially also be used to advantage by using killer toxin-producing strains to make the wine. Yeast killer toxins may also have medical applications in treating yeast infections (see "Pathogenic yeasts" section below).[37]
+
+Marine yeasts, defined as the yeasts that are isolated from marine environments, are able to grow better on a medium prepared using seawater rather than freshwater.[38] The first marine yeasts were isolated by Bernhard Fischer in 1894 from the Atlantic Ocean, and those were identified as Torula sp. and Mycoderma sp.[39] Following this discovery, various other marine yeasts have been isolated from around the world from different sources, including seawater, seaweeds, marine fish and mammals.[40] Among these isolates, some marine yeasts originated from terrestrial habitats (grouped as facultative marine yeast), which were brought to and survived in marine environments. The other marine yeasts were grouped as obligate or indigenous marine yeasts, which confine to marine habitats.[39] However, no sufficient evidence has been found to explain the indispensability of seawater for obligate marine yeasts.[38] It has been reported that marine yeasts are able to produce many bioactive substances, such as amino acids, glucans, glutathione, toxins, enzymes, phytase, and vitamins with potential applications in the food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and chemical industries as well as for marine culture and environmental protection.[38] Marine yeast was successfully used to produce bioethanol using seawater-based media which will potentially reduce the water footprint of bioethanol.[41]
+
+Yeasts, like all fungi, may have asexual and sexual reproductive cycles. The most common mode of vegetative growth in yeast is asexual reproduction by budding,[42] where a small bud (also known as a bleb or daughter cell) is formed on the parent cell. The nucleus of the parent cell splits into a daughter nucleus and migrates into the daughter cell. The bud then continues to grow until it separates from the parent cell, forming a new cell.[43] The daughter cell produced during the budding process is generally smaller than the mother cell. Some yeasts, including Schizosaccharomyces pombe, reproduce by fission instead of budding,[42] and thereby creating two identically sized daughter cells.
+
+In general, under high-stress conditions such as nutrient starvation, haploid cells will die; under the same conditions, however, diploid cells can undergo sporulation, entering sexual reproduction (meiosis) and producing a variety of haploid spores, which can go on to mate (conjugate), reforming the diploid.[44]
+
+The haploid fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe is a facultative sexual microorganism that can undergo mating when nutrients are limiting.[3][45] Exposure of S. pombe to hydrogen peroxide, an agent that causes oxidative stress leading to oxidative DNA damage, strongly induces mating and the formation of meiotic spores.[46] The budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae reproduces by mitosis as diploid cells when nutrients are abundant, but when starved, this yeast undergoes meiosis to form haploid spores.[47] Haploid cells may then reproduce asexually by mitosis. Katz Ezov et al.[48] presented evidence that in natural S. cerevisiae populations clonal reproduction and selfing (in the form of intratetrad mating) predominate. In nature, mating of haploid cells to form diploid cells is most often between members of the same clonal population and out-crossing is uncommon.[49] Analysis of the ancestry of natural S. cerevisiae strains led to the conclusion that out-crossing occurs only about once every 50,000 cell divisions.[49] These observations suggest that the possible long-term benefits of outcrossing (e.g. generation of diversity) are likely to be insufficient for generally maintaining sex from one generation to the next.[citation needed]  Rather, a short-term benefit, such as recombinational repair during meiosis,[50] may be the key to the maintenance of sex in S. cerevisiae.
+
+Some pucciniomycete yeasts, in particular species of Sporidiobolus and Sporobolomyces, produce aerially dispersed, asexual ballistoconidia.[51]
+
+The useful physiological properties of yeast have led to their use in the field of biotechnology. Fermentation of sugars by yeast is the oldest and largest application of this technology. Many types of yeasts are used for making many foods: baker's yeast in bread production, brewer's yeast in beer fermentation, and yeast in wine fermentation and for xylitol production.[52] So-called red rice yeast is actually a mold, Monascus purpureus. Yeasts include some of the most widely used model organisms for genetics and cell biology.[53]
+
+Alcoholic beverages are defined as beverages that contain ethanol (C2H5OH). This ethanol is almost always produced by fermentation – the metabolism of carbohydrates by certain species of yeasts under anaerobic or low-oxygen conditions. Beverages such as mead, wine, beer, or distilled spirits all use yeast at some stage of their production. A distilled beverage is a beverage containing ethanol that has been purified by distillation. Carbohydrate-containing plant material is fermented by yeast, producing a dilute solution of ethanol in the process. Spirits such as whiskey and rum are prepared by distilling these dilute solutions of ethanol. Components other than ethanol are collected in the condensate, including water, esters, and other alcohols, which (in addition to that provided by the oak in which it may be aged) account for the flavour of the beverage.
+
+
+
+Brewing yeasts may be classed as "top-cropping" (or "top-fermenting") and "bottom-cropping" (or "bottom-fermenting").[54] Top-cropping yeasts are so called because they form a foam at the top of the wort during fermentation. An example of a top-cropping yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, sometimes called an "ale yeast".[55] Bottom-cropping yeasts are typically used to produce lager-type beers, though they can also produce ale-type beers. These yeasts ferment well at low temperatures. An example of bottom-cropping yeast is Saccharomyces pastorianus, formerly known as S. carlsbergensis.
+
+Decades ago,[vague] taxonomists reclassified S. carlsbergensis (uvarum) as a member of S. cerevisiae, noting that the only distinct difference between the two is metabolic. Lager strains of S. cerevisiae secrete an enzyme called melibiase, allowing them to hydrolyse melibiose, a disaccharide, into more fermentable monosaccharides. Top- and bottom-cropping and cold- and warm-fermenting distinctions are largely generalizations used by laypersons to communicate to the general public.[56]
+
+The most common top-cropping brewer's yeast, S. cerevisiae, is the same species as the common baking yeast.[57] Brewer's yeast is also very rich in essential minerals and the B vitamins (except B12).[58] However, baking and brewing yeasts typically belong to different strains, cultivated to favour different characteristics: baking yeast strains are more aggressive, to carbonate dough in the shortest amount of time possible; brewing yeast strains act more slowly but tend to produce fewer off-flavours and tolerate higher alcohol concentrations (with some strains, up to 22%).
+
+Dekkera/Brettanomyces is a genus of yeast known for its important role in the production of 'lambic' and specialty sour ales, along with the secondary conditioning of a particular Belgian Trappist beer.[59] The taxonomy of the genus Brettanomyces has been debated since its early discovery and has seen many reclassifications over the years. Early classification was based on a few species that reproduced asexually (anamorph form) through multipolar budding.[60] Shortly after, the formation of ascospores was observed and the genus Dekkera, which reproduces sexually (teleomorph form), was introduced as part of the taxonomy.[61] The current taxonomy includes five species within the genera of Dekkera/Brettanomyces. Those are the anamorphs Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Brettanomyces anomalus, Brettanomyces custersianus, Brettanomyces naardenensis, and Brettanomyces nanus, with teleomorphs existing for the first two species, Dekkera bruxellensis and Dekkera anomala.[62] The distinction between Dekkera and Brettanomyces is arguable, with Oelofse et al. (2008) citing Loureiro and Malfeito-Ferreira from 2006 when they affirmed that current molecular DNA detection techniques have uncovered no variance between the anamorph and teleomorph states. Over the past decade, Brettanomyces spp. have seen an increasing use in the craft-brewing sector of the industry, with a handful of breweries having produced beers that were primarily fermented with pure cultures of Brettanomyces spp. This has occurred out of experimentation, as very little information exists regarding pure culture fermentative capabilities and the aromatic compounds produced by various strains. Dekkera/Brettanomyces spp. have been the subjects of numerous studies conducted over the past century, although a majority of the recent research has focused on enhancing the knowledge of the wine industry. Recent research on eight Brettanomyces strains available in the brewing industry focused on strain-specific fermentations and identified the major compounds produced during pure culture anaerobic fermentation in wort.[63]
+
+Yeast is used in winemaking, where it converts the sugars present (glucose and fructose) in grape juice (must) into ethanol. Yeast is normally already present on grape skins. Fermentation can be done with this endogenous "wild yeast",[64] but this procedure gives unpredictable results, which depend upon the exact types of yeast species present. For this reason, a pure yeast culture is usually added to the must; this yeast quickly dominates the fermentation. The wild yeasts are repressed, which ensures a reliable and predictable fermentation.[65]
+
+Most added wine yeasts are strains of S. cerevisiae, though not all strains of the species are suitable.[65] Different S. cerevisiae yeast strains have differing physiological and fermentative properties, therefore the actual strain of yeast selected can have a direct impact on the finished wine.[66] Significant research has been undertaken into the development of novel wine yeast strains that produce atypical flavour profiles or increased complexity in wines.[67][68]
+
+The growth of some yeasts, such as Zygosaccharomyces and Brettanomyces, in wine can result in wine faults and subsequent spoilage.[69] Brettanomyces produces an array of metabolites when growing in wine, some of which are volatile phenolic compounds. Together, these compounds are often referred to as "Brettanomyces character", and are often described as "antiseptic" or "barnyard" type aromas. Brettanomyces is a significant contributor to wine faults within the wine industry.[70]
+
+Researchers from the University of British Columbia, Canada, have found a new strain of yeast that has reduced amines. The amines in red wine and Chardonnay produce off-flavors and cause headaches and hypertension in some people. About 30% of people are sensitive to biogenic amines, such as histamines.[71]
+
+Yeast, the most common one being S. cerevisiae, is used in baking as a leavening agent, where it converts the food/fermentable sugars present in dough into the gas carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to expand or rise as gas forms pockets or bubbles. When the dough is baked, the yeast dies and the air pockets "set", giving the baked product a soft and spongy texture. The use of potatoes, water from potato boiling, eggs, or sugar in a bread dough accelerates the growth of yeasts. Most yeasts used in baking are of the same species common in alcoholic fermentation. In addition, Saccharomyces exiguus (also known as S. minor), a wild yeast found on plants, fruits, and grains, is occasionally used for baking. In breadmaking, the yeast initially respires aerobically, producing carbon dioxide and water. When the oxygen is depleted, fermentation begins, producing ethanol as a waste product; however, this evaporates during baking.[72]
+
+It is not known when yeast was first used to bake bread. The first records that show this use came from Ancient Egypt.[8] Researchers speculate a mixture of flour meal and water was left longer than usual on a warm day and the yeasts that occur in natural contaminants of the flour caused it to ferment before baking. The resulting bread would have been lighter and tastier than the normal flat, hard cake.
+
+Today, there are several retailers of baker's yeast; one of the earlier developments in North America is Fleischmann's Yeast, in 1868. During World War II, Fleischmann's developed a granulated active dry yeast which did not require refrigeration, had a longer shelf life than fresh yeast, and rose twice as fast. Baker's yeast is also sold as a fresh yeast compressed into a square "cake". This form perishes quickly, so must be used soon after production. A weak solution of water and sugar can be used to determine whether yeast is expired. In the solution, active yeast will foam and bubble as it ferments the sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide. Some recipes refer to this as proofing the yeast, as it "proves" (tests) the viability of the yeast before the other ingredients are added. When a sourdough starter is used, flour and water are added instead of sugar; this is referred to as proofing the sponge.[citation needed]
+
+When yeast is used for making bread, it is mixed with flour, salt, and warm water or milk. The dough is kneaded until it is smooth, and then left to rise, sometimes until it has doubled in size. The dough is then shaped into loaves. Some bread doughs are knocked back after one rising and left to rise again (this is called dough proofing) and then baked. A longer rising time gives a better flavor, but the yeast can fail to raise the bread in the final stages if it is left for too long initially.
+
+Some yeasts can find potential application in the field of bioremediation. One such yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica, is known to degrade palm oil mill effluent, TNT (an explosive material), and other hydrocarbons, such as alkanes, fatty acids, fats and oils.[73] It can also tolerate high concentrations of salt and heavy metals,[74] and is being investigated for its potential as a heavy metal biosorbent.[75] Saccharomyces cerevisiae has potential to bioremediate toxic pollutants like arsenic from industrial effluent.[76] Bronze statues are known to be degraded by certain species of yeast.[77] Different yeasts from Brazilian gold mines bioaccumulate free and complexed silver ions.[78]
+
+The ability of yeast to convert sugar into ethanol has been harnessed by the biotechnology industry to produce ethanol fuel. The process starts by milling a feedstock, such as sugar cane, field corn, or other cereal grains, and then adding dilute sulfuric acid, or fungal alpha amylase enzymes, to break down the starches into complex sugars. A glucoamylase is then added to break the complex sugars down into simple sugars. After this, yeasts are added to convert the simple sugars to ethanol, which is then distilled off to obtain ethanol up to 96% in purity.[79]
+
+Saccharomyces yeasts have been genetically engineered to ferment xylose, one of the major fermentable sugars present in cellulosic biomasses, such as agriculture residues, paper wastes, and wood chips.[80][81] Such a development means ethanol can be efficiently produced from more inexpensive feedstocks, making cellulosic ethanol fuel a more competitively priced alternative to gasoline fuels.[82]
+
+A number of sweet carbonated beverages can be produced by the same methods as beer, except the fermentation is stopped sooner, producing carbon dioxide, but only trace amounts of alcohol, leaving a significant amount of residual sugar in the drink.
+
+Yeast is used in nutritional supplements, especially those marketed to vegans. It is often referred to as "nutritional yeast" when sold as a dietary supplement. Nutritional yeast is a deactivated yeast, usually S.  cerevisiae. It is naturally low in fat and sodium as well as an excellent source of protein and vitamins, especially most B-complex vitamins[86] (though it does not contain much vitamin B12 without fortification[58]), as well as other minerals and cofactors required for growth. Some brands of nutritional yeast, though not all, are fortified with vitamin B12, which is produced separately by bacteria.[87]
+
+In 1920, the Fleischmann Yeast Company began to promote yeast cakes in a "Yeast for Health" campaign. They initially emphasized yeast as a source of vitamins, good for skin and digestion. Their later advertising claimed a much broader range of health benefits, and was censured as misleading by the Federal Trade Commission. The fad for yeast cakes lasted until the late 1930s.[88]
+
+Nutritional yeast has a nutty, cheesy flavor and is often used as an ingredient in cheese substitutes. Another popular use is as a topping for popcorn. It can also be used in mashed and fried potatoes, as well as in scrambled eggs. It comes in the form of flakes, or as a yellow powder similar in texture to cornmeal. In Australia, it is sometimes sold as "savoury yeast flakes". Though "nutritional yeast" usually refers to commercial products, inadequately fed prisoners have used "home-grown" yeast to prevent vitamin deficiency.[89]
+
+Some probiotic supplements use the yeast S. boulardii to maintain and restore the natural flora in the gastrointestinal tract. S. boulardii has been shown to reduce the symptoms of acute diarrhea,[90] reduce the chance of infection by Clostridium difficile (often identified simply as C. difficile or C. diff),[91] reduce bowel movements in diarrhea-predominant IBS patients,[92] and reduce the incidence of antibiotic-, traveler's-, and HIV/AIDS-associated diarrheas.[93]
+
+Yeast is often used by aquarium hobbyists to generate carbon dioxide (CO2) to nourish plants in planted aquaria.[94] CO2 levels from yeast are more difficult to regulate than those from pressurized CO2 systems. However, the low cost of yeast makes it a widely used alternative.[94]
+
+Yeast extract is the common name for various forms of processed yeast products that are used as food additives or flavours. They are often used in the same way that monosodium glutamate (MSG) is used and, like MSG, often contain free glutamic acid.[95] The general method for making yeast extract for food products such as Vegemite and Marmite on a commercial scale is to add salt to a suspension of yeast, making the solution hypertonic, which leads to the cells' shrivelling up. This triggers autolysis, wherein the yeast's digestive enzymes break their own proteins down into simpler compounds, a process of self-destruction. The dying yeast cells are then heated to complete their breakdown, after which the husks (yeast with thick cell walls that would give poor texture) are separated. Yeast autolysates are used in Vegemite and Promite (Australia); Marmite (the United Kingdom); the unrelated Marmite (New Zealand); Vitam-R (Germany); and Cenovis (Switzerland).
+
+Several yeasts, in particular S. cerevisiae and S. pombe, have been widely used in genetics and cell biology, largely because they are simple eukaryotic cells, serving as a model for all eukaryotes, including humans, for the study of fundamental cellular processes such as the cell cycle, DNA replication, recombination, cell division, and metabolism. Also, yeasts are easily manipulated and cultured in the laboratory, which has allowed for the development of powerful standard techniques, such as yeast two-hybrid,[96] synthetic genetic array analysis,[97] and tetrad analysis. Many proteins important in human biology were first discovered by studying their homologues in yeast; these proteins include cell cycle proteins, signaling proteins, and protein-processing enzymes.[98]
+
+On 24 April 1996, S. cerevisiae was announced to be the first eukaryote to have its genome, consisting of 12 million base pairs, fully sequenced as part of the Genome Project.[99] At the time, it was the most complex organism to have its full genome sequenced, and the work seven years and the involvement of more than 100 laboratories to accomplish.[100] The second yeast species to have its genome sequenced was Schizosaccharomyces pombe, which was completed in 2002.[101][102] It was the sixth eukaryotic genome sequenced and consists of 13.8 million base pairs. As of 2014, over 50 yeast species have had their genomes sequenced and published.[103]
+
+Genomic and functional gene annotation of the two major yeast models can be accessed via their respective model organism databases: SGD[104][105] and PomBase.[106][107]
+
+Various yeast species have been genetically engineered to efficiently produce various drugs, a technique called metabolic engineering. S. cerevisiae is easy to genetically engineer; its physiology, metabolism and genetics are well known, and it is amenable for use in harsh industrial conditions. A wide variety of chemical in different classes can be produced by engineered yeast, including phenolics, isoprenoids, alkaloids, and polyketides.[108] About 20% of biopharmaceuticals are produced in S. cerevisiae, including insulin, vaccines for hepatitis, and human serum albumin.[109]
+
+Some species of yeast are opportunistic pathogens that can cause infection in people with compromised immune systems. Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii are significant pathogens of immunocompromised people. They are the species primarily responsible for cryptococcosis, a fungal disease that occurs in about one million HIV/AIDS patients, causing over 600,000 deaths annually.[110] The cells of these yeast are surrounded by a rigid polysaccharide capsule, which helps to prevent them from being recognised and engulfed by white blood cells in the human body.[111]
+
+Yeasts of the genus Candida, another group of opportunistic pathogens, cause oral and vaginal infections in humans, known as candidiasis. Candida is commonly found as a commensal yeast in the mucous membranes of humans and other warm-blooded animals. However, sometimes these same strains can become pathogenic. The yeast cells sprout a hyphal outgrowth, which locally penetrates the mucosal membrane, causing irritation and shedding of the tissues.[112] A book from the 1980s listed the pathogenic yeasts of candidiasis in probable descending order of virulence for humans as: C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. stellatoidea, C. glabrata, C. krusei, C. parapsilosis, C. guilliermondii, C. viswanathii, C. lusitaniae, and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa.[113] Candida glabrata is the second most common Candida pathogen after C. albicans, causing infections of the urogenital tract, and of the bloodstream (candidemia).[114] C. auris has been more recently identified.
+
+Yeasts are able to grow in foods with a low pH (5.0 or lower) and in the presence of sugars, organic acids, and other easily metabolized carbon sources.[115] During their growth, yeasts metabolize some food components and produce metabolic end products. This causes the physical, chemical, and sensible properties of a food to change, and the food is spoiled.[116] The growth of yeast within food products is often seen on their surfaces, as in cheeses or meats, or by the fermentation of sugars in beverages, such as juices, and semiliquid products, such as syrups and jams.[115] The yeast of the genus Zygosaccharomyces have had a long history as spoilage yeasts within the food industry. This is mainly because these species can grow in the presence of high sucrose, ethanol, acetic acid, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, and sulfur dioxide concentrations,[69] representing some of the commonly used food preservation methods. Methylene blue is used to test for the presence of live yeast cells.[117] In oenology, the major spoilage yeast is Brettanomyces bruxellensis.
+
+Candida blankii has been detected in Iberian ham and meat.[118]
+
+An Indian study of seven bee species and 9 plant species found 45 yeast species from 16 genera colonise the nectaries of flowers and honey stomachs of bees. Most were members of the genus Candida; the most common species in honey bee stomachs was Dekkera intermedia, while the most common species colonising flower nectaries was Candida blankii.  Although the mechanics are not fully understood, it was found that A. indica flowers more if Candida blankii is present.[34]
+
+In another example, Spathaspora passalidarum, found in the digestive tract of scarab beetles, aids the digestion of plant cells by fermenting xylose.[119]

en/3415.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+
+
+Podarcis muralis (common wall lizard) is a species of lizard with a large distribution in Europe and well-established introduced populations in North America, where it is also called the European wall lizard. It can grow to about 20 cm (7.9 in) in total length.
+
+The common wall lizard is a small, thin lizard whose small scales are highly variable in colour and pattern. Its coloration is generally brownish or greyish, and may occasionally be tinged with green. In some individuals, the row of spots along their backs may form a line, while others may have a reticulated pattern with dark spots on the side and scattered white spots that can be blue in the shoulder region. The tail is brown, grey or rust in colour, and may also have light bars on the sides. The belly region has six rows of larger rectangular scales that are generally reddish, pink, or orangish. Common wall lizards may also have dark markings on the throat. This lizard has six distinct morphological forms [3] which are identified by the colouration of its throat and underbelly. Three of these are pure morphs consisting only of solid colours on their scales: white, red (orange) or yellow, and three other morphs are distinguished by a combination of colours: white-yellow, white-red and yellow-red.[3]
+
+The common wall lizard prefers rocky environments, including urban settings, where it can scurry between rock, rubble, debris and buildings. In the southern part of its range it tends to occur in humid or semi-humid habitats, compared to drier habitats in the north.[1][4]
+
+Common wall lizards rely both on visual and chemical signals to communicate with conspecifics.[5][6][7] Male wall lizards are equipped with femoral glands, which produce a waxy secretion used for chemical signalling.[8][9] Both the proteinic and lipophilic compounds in the secretions are known to carry socially relevant information.[10][11]
+
+The six morphs of this lizard are primarily identifiable by colour and can be distinguished with the naked eye. However, they are commonly confirmed by digital photo and colour analysis.[3] Source of colouration comes from different pigments within the lizard, with yellow colouration originating from carotenoids, and the expression of red/orange colour from pteridines.[12] This is indicative that a phenomenon such as multiple alleles or epistasis may have a role in determining morphology. Morphs also differ in aspects other than colouration: differences between morphs are seen with femoral gland secretion, immune competence and body size.[13]  For males, colouration is visible on the underbelly, but in females of all the morphs there is less colouration seen in this region, indicating that sexual dimorphism occurs within this species.[3]
+
+Aside from differences in colour, the morphs vary by length, survival rate, and immune resistance/response to infection.[13]
+
+Susceptibility to infection also varies between morphs, red and yellow-red morphs are the most susceptible to infection by the haemogregarine parasite, a common parasite for these lizards. White morphs are the most resistant to this parasite and the yellow morphs are at an intermediate value of immune resistance and intensity.[13] Certain traits can also lead to a variation in snout-vent length in each of these morphs.[13] For example, in orange morphs, sexual selection favours larger morphs which makes them, on average, larger than the other morphs.[13]
+
+The femoral gland secretions of males differ in chemical composition according to each respective morph.[14] Secretions are used by males for intra-species communication, such as marking of territories and attracting potential mates. Individuals share the same organics within the secretions, but the concentrations of certain key compounds differ. For example, α-tocopherol is present in higher concentrations in the secretions of red morphs.[14] This molecule allows for scents to remain in the environment longer by reducing the rate of oxidation in humid environments.[15] This indicates that red morphs tend to be more territorial and maintain territories for longer periods of time compared to other morphs. This phenomenon is also seen when it comes to the age of lizards. Similarly, older, more territorial lizards have higher levels of α-tocopherol compared to younger individuals who are more prone to roaming regardless of morph.[14] Again, indicating that the composition of the secretions relate to the function. Furanones are found in higher concentrations in white morphs, followed by yellow, then red morphs.[14]
+
+Among females, reproductive strategies differ by morph; yellow females are r strategists, producing many smaller eggs in their clutch which would allow for numerous offspring to be produced and proliferate in smaller populations with less competition.[16] White females are K strategists, producing fewer, larger eggs which makes offspring more likely to survive in harsher, more competitive environments.[16] Red females can be r or K strategists based on the environment they are in.[16] The existence of alternate strategies points to how morphs have adapted to different environments and hints to the maintenance of colour polymorphism as with fluctuations in environments each morph will eventually be the fittest and as such will not be selected out of the population.
+
+The differences observed between morphs are unique evolutionary trade offs employed by each morph to promote survival within the different environments they face in light of limited ability to adapt perfectly to each pressure. Such a trade off is seen when comparing orange morphs to white morphs: morphs, on average, have larger body sizes compared to the white morphs but, in exchange, they are more prone to parasitic infection.[13] In orange morphs, more emphasis is placed on being larger and having the ability to physically compete and ward of potential threats, but in white morphs, metabolic emphasis is placed on having a more hardy immune system to resist infection. Again, these trade offs can arise as there are selective differences in the environment each morph prefers. The differences in the relative proportions of the morphs with respect to location show that environmental pressures differ and some morphs' trade offs are more successful in specific environments than another's.[3]
+
+The natural range spans much of the mainland Europe except from the north and very south and extends to Turkey.[1][4] It occurs as introduced populations in southern Britain,[1][17] where one such population in the seaside town of Ventnor on the Isle of Wight has become somewhat famous, and also in North America.[1] There has been some scientific debate as to whether the populations in Southern England represent the northern edge of their native range.[18]
+
+Podarcis muralis has been introduced in the United States and is spreading throughout the Cincinnati metropolitan area. It is commonly observed living in limestone outcrops, rock walls, and rubble along the Ohio River basin.[19]
+
+It is referred to locally in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area as the "Lazarus lizard",[20] as it was introduced to the area around 1950 by George Rau, a boy who was a member of the family who owned the Lazarus department store chain (now absorbed into Macy's). After he returned from a family vacation to northern Italy, he released about 10 of the reptiles near his Cincinnati home.[21] This prolific lizard has reproduced exponentially; it continues to expand its distribution range annually, and has established itself so well in southwest Ohio, it is now considered a naturalized species by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and is protected under state law (it is illegal to harm, capture, or possess this animal without a proper licence).[22]
+
+The European wall lizard was also introduced to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada in 1970, when a dozen individuals were released into the wild from a small private zoo.[23]
+
+This lizard is also present in Los Angeles and San Diego counties in California and may exist elsewhere in California.

en/3416.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,189 @@
+Many, see text
+
+Sauria  Macartney, 1802
+
+Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 6,000 species,[1] ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic as it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia; some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3 meter long Komodo dragon.
+
+Most lizards are quadrupedal, running with a strong side-to-side motion. Others are legless, and have long snake-like bodies. Some such as the forest-dwelling Draco lizards are able to glide. They are often territorial, the males fighting off other males and signalling, often with brightly colours, to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Lizards are mainly carnivorous, often being sit-and-wait predators; many smaller species eat insects, while the Komodo eats mammals as big as water buffalo.
+
+Lizards make use of a variety of antipredator adaptations, including venom, camouflage, reflex bleeding, and the ability to sacrifice and regrow their tails.
+
+The adult length of species within the suborder ranges from a few centimeters for chameleons such as Brookesia micra and geckos such as Sphaerodactylus ariasae[2] to nearly 3 m (10 ft) in the case of the largest living varanid lizard, the Komodo dragon.[3] Most lizards are fairly small animals.
+
+Lizards typically have rounded torsos, elevated heads on short necks, four limbs and long tails, although some are legless.[4] Lizards and snakes share a movable quadrate bone, distinguishing them from the rhynchocephalians, which have more rigid diapsid skulls.[5] Some lizards such as chameleons have prehensile tails, assisting them in climbing among vegetation.[6]
+
+As in other reptiles, the skin of lizards is covered in overlapping scales made of keratin. This provides protection from the environment and reduces water loss through evaporation. This adaptation enables lizards to thrive in some of the driest deserts on earth. The skin is tough and leathery, and is shed (sloughed) as the animal grows. Unlike snakes which shed the skin in a single piece, lizards slough their skin in several pieces. The scales may be modified into spines for display or protection, and some species have bone osteoderms underneath the scales.[6][7]
+
+The dentitions of lizards reflect their wide range of diets, including carnivorous, insectivorous, omnivorous, herbivorous, nectivorous, and molluscivorous. Species typically have uniform teeth suited to their diet, but several species have variable teeth, such as cutting teeth in the front of the jaws and crushing teeth in the rear. Most species are pleurodont, though agamids and chameleons are acrodont.[8][6]
+
+The tongue can be extended outside the mouth, and is often long. In the beaded lizards, whiptails and monitor lizards, the tongue is forked and used mainly or exclusively to sense the environment, continually flicking out to sample the environment, and back to transfer molecules to the vomeronasal organ responsible for chemosensation, analogous to but different from smell or taste. In geckos, the tongue is used to lick the eyes clean: they have no eyelids. Chameleons have very long sticky tongues which can be extended rapidly to catch their insect prey.[6]
+
+Three lineages, the geckos, anoles, and chameleons, have modified the scales under their toes to form adhesive pads, highly prominent in the first two groups. The pads are composed of millions of tiny setae (hair-like structures) which fit closely to the substrate to adhere using van der Waals forces; no liquid adhesive is needed.[9] In addition, the toes of chameleons are divided into two opposed groups on each foot (zygodactyly), enabling them to perch on branches as birds do.[a][6]
+
+Aside from legless lizards, most lizards are quadrupedal and move using gaits with alternating movement of the right and left limbs with substantial body bending. This body bending prevents significant respiration during movement, limiting their endurance, in a mechanism called Carrier's constraint. Several species can run bipedally,[10] and a few can prop themselves up on their hindlimbs and tail while stationary. Several small species such as those in the genus Draco  can glide: some can attain a distance of 60 metres (200 feet), losing 10 metres (33 feet) in height.[11] Some species, like geckos and chameleons, adhere to vertical surfaces including glass and ceilings.[9] Some species, like the common basilisk, can run across water.[12]
+
+Lizards make use of their senses of sight, touch, olfaction and hearing like other vertebrates. The balance of these varies with the habitat of different species; for instance, skinks that live largely covered by loose soil rely heavily on olfaction and touch, while geckos depend largely on acute vision for their ability to hunt and to evaluate the distance to their prey before striking. Monitor lizards have acute vision, hearing, and olfactory senses. Some lizards make unusual use of their sense organs: chameleons can steer their eyes in different directions, sometimes providing non-overlapping fields of view, such as forwards and backwards at once. Lizards lack external ears, having instead a circular opening in which the tympanic membrane (eardrum) can be seen. Many species rely on hearing for early warning of predators, and flee at the slightest sound.[13]
+
+As in snakes and many mammals, all lizards have a specialised olfactory system, the vomeronasal organ, used to detect pheromones. Monitor lizards transfer scent from the tip of their tongue to the organ; the tongue is used only for this information-gathering purpose, and is not involved in manipulating food.[14][13]
+
+Some lizards, particularly iguanas, have retained a photosensory organ on the top of their heads called the parietal eye, a basal ("primitive") feature also present in the tuatara. This "eye" has only a rudimentary retina and lens and cannot form images, but is sensitive to changes in light and dark and can detect movement. This helps them detect predators stalking it from above.[15]
+
+Until 2006 it was thought that the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard were the only venomous lizards. However, several species of monitor lizards, including the Komodo dragon, produce powerful venom in their oral glands. Lace monitor venom, for instance, causes swift loss of consciousness and extensive bleeding through its pharmacological effects, both lowering blood pressure and preventing blood clotting. Nine classes of toxin known from snakes are produced by lizards. The range of actions provides the potential for new medicinal drugs based on lizard venom proteins.[16][17]
+
+Genes associated with venom toxins have been found in the salivary glands on a wide range of lizards, including species traditionally thought of as non-venomous, such as iguanas and bearded dragons. This suggests that these genes evolved in the common ancestor of lizards and snakes, some 200 million years ago (forming a single clade, the Toxicofera).[16] However, most of these putative venom genes were "housekeeping genes" found in all cells and tissues, including skin and cloacal scent glands. The genes in question may thus be evolutionary precursors of venom genes.[18]
+
+Recent studies (2013 and 2014) on the lung anatomy of the savannah monitor and green iguana found them to have a unidirectional airflow system, which involves the air moving in a loop through the lungs when breathing. This was previously thought to only exist in the archosaurs (crocodilians and birds). This may be evidence that unidirectional airflow is an ancestral trait in diapsids.[19][20]
+
+As with all amniotes, lizards rely on internal fertilisation and copulation involves the male inserting one of his hemipenes into the female's cloaca.[21] The majority of species are oviparous (egg laying). The female deposits the eggs in a protective structure like a nest or crevice or simply on the ground.[22] Depending on the species, clutch size can vary from 4–5 percent of the females body weight to 40–50 percent and clutches range from one or a few large eggs to dozens of small ones.[23]
+
+In most lizards, the eggs have leathery shells to allow for the exchange of water, although more arid-living species have calcified shells to retain water. Inside the eggs, the embryos use nutrients from the yolk. Parental care is uncommon and the female usually abandons the eggs after laying them. Brooding and protection of eggs does occur in some species. The female prairie skink uses respiratory water loss to maintain the humidity of the eggs which facilitates embryonic development. In lace monitors, the young hatch close to 300 days, and the female returns to help them escape the termite mound were the eggs were laid.[22]
+
+Around 20 percent of lizard species reproduce via viviparity (live birth). This is particularly common in Anguimorphs. Viviparous species give birth to relatively developed young which look like miniature adults. Embryos are nourished via a placenta-like structure.[24] A minority of lizards have parthenogenesis (reproduction from unfertilised eggs). These species consist of all females who reproduce asexually with no need for males. This is known in occur in various species of whiptail lizards.[25] Parthenogenesis was also recorded in species that normally reproduce sexually. A captive female Komodo dragon produced a clutch of eggs, despite being separated from males for over two years.[26]
+
+Sex determination in lizards can be temperature-dependent. The temperature of the eggs' micro-environment can determine the sex of the hatched young: low temperature incubation produces more females while higher temperatures produce more males. However, some lizards have sex chromosomes and both male heterogamety (XY and XXY) and female heterogamety (ZW) occur.[25]
+
+The majority of lizard species are active during the day,[27] though some are active at night, notably geckos. As ectotherms, lizards have a limited ability to regulate their body temperature, and must seek out and bask in sunlight to gain enough heat to become fully active.[28]
+
+Most social interactions among lizards are between breeding individuals.[27] Territoriality is common and is correlated with species that use sit-and-wait hunting strategies. Males establish and maintain territories that contain resources which attract females and which they defend from other males. Important resources include basking, feeding, and nesting sites as well as refuges from predators. The habitat of a species affects the structure of territories, for example, rock lizards have territories atop rocky outcrops.[29] Some species may aggregate in groups, enhancing vigilance and lessening the risk of predation for individuals, particularly for juveniles.[30] Agonistic behaviour typically occurs between sexually mature males over territory or mates and may involve displays, posturing, chasing, grappling and biting.[29]
+
+Lizards signal both to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Visual displays include body postures and inflation, push-ups, bright colours, mouth gapings and tail waggings. Male anoles and iguanas have dewlaps or skin flaps which come in various sizes, colours and patterns and the expansion of the dewlap as well as head-bobs and body movements add to the visual signals.[31][6] Some species have deep blue dewlaps and communicate with ultraviolet signals.[27] Blue-tongued skinks will flash their tongues as a threat display.[32] Chameleons are known to change their complex colour patterns when communicating, particularly during agonistic encounters. They tend to show brighter colours when displaying aggression[33] and darker colours when they submit or "give up".[34]
+
+Several gecko species are brightly coloured; some species tilt their bodies to display their coloration. In certain species, brightly coloured males turn dull when not in the presence of rivals or females. While it is usually males that display, in some species females also use such communication. In the bronze anole, head-bobs are a common form of communication among females, the speed and frequency varying with age and territorial status. Chemical cues or pheromones are also important in communication. Males typically direct signals at rivals, while females direct them at potential mates. Lizards may be able to recognise individuals of the same species by their scent.[31]
+
+Acoustic communication is less common in lizards. Hissing, a typical reptilian sound, is mostly produced by larger species as part of a threat display, accompanying gaping jaws. Some groups, particularly geckos, snake-lizards, and some iguanids, can produce more complex sounds and vocal apparatuses have independently evolved in different groups. These sounds are used for courtship, territorial defense and in distress, and include clicks, squeaks, barks and growls. The mating call of the male tokay gecko is heard as "tokay-tokay!".[32][31][35] Tactile communication involves individuals rubbing against each other, either in courtship or in aggression.[31] Some chameleon species communicate with one another by vibrating the substrate that they are standing on, such as a tree branch or leaf.[36]
+
+Lizards are found worldwide, excluding the far north and Antarctica, and some islands. They can be found in elevations from sea level to 5,000 m (16,000 ft). They prefer warmer, tropical climates but are adaptable and can live in all but the most extreme environments. Lizards also exploit a number of habitats; most primarily live on the ground, but others may live in rocks, on trees, underground and even in water. The marine iguana is adapted for life in the sea.[6]
+
+The majority of lizard species are predatory and the most common prey items are small, terrestrial invertebrates, particularly insects.[6][37] Many species are sit-and-wait predators though others may be more active foragers.[38] Chameleons prey on numerous insect species, such as beetles, grasshoppers and winged termites as well as spiders. They rely on persistence and ambush to capture these prey. An individual perches on a branch and stays perfectly still, with only its eyes moving. When an insect lands, the chameleon focuses its eyes on the target and slowly moves towards it before projecting its long sticky tongue which, when hauled back, brings the attach prey with it. Geckos feed on crickets, beetles, termites and moths.[6][37]
+
+Termites are an important part of the diets of some species of Autarchoglossa, since, as social insects, they can be found in large numbers in one spot. Ants may form a prominent part of the diet of some lizards, particularly among the lacertas.[6][37] Horned lizards are also well known for specializing on ants. Due to their small size and indigestible chitin, ants must be consumed in large amounts, and ant-eating lizards have larger stomachs than even herbivorous ones.[39] Species of skink and alligator lizards eat snails and their power jaws and molar-like teeth are adapted for breaking the shells.[6][37]
+
+Larger species, such as monitor lizards, can feed on larger prey including fish, frogs, birds, mammals and other reptiles. Prey may be swallowed whole and torn into smaller pieces. Both bird and reptile eggs may also be consumed as well. Gila monsters and beaded lizards climb trees to reach both the eggs and young of birds. Despite being venomous, these species rely on their strong jaws to kill prey. Mammalian prey typically consists of rodents and leporids; the Komodo dragon can kill prey as large as water buffalo. Dragons are prolific scavengers, and a single decaying carcass can attract several from 2 km (1.2 mi) away. A 50 kg (110 lb) dragon is capable of consuming a 31 kg (68 lb) carcass in 17 minutes.[37]
+
+Around 2 percent of lizard species, including many iguanids, are herbivores. Adults of these species eat plant parts like flowers, leaves, stems and fruit, while juveniles eat more insects. Plant parts can be hard to digest, and, as they get closer to adulthood, juvenile iguanas eat faeces from adults to acquire the microflora necessary for their transition to a plant-based diet. Perhaps the most herbivorous species is the marine iguana which dives 15 m (49 ft) to forage for algae, kelp and other marine plants. Some non-herbivorous species supplement their insect diet with fruit, which is easily digested.[6][37]
+
+Lizards have a variety of antipredator adaptations, including running and climbing, venom, camouflage, tail autotomy, and reflex bleeding.
+
+Lizards exploit a variety of different camouflage methods. Many lizards are disruptively patterned. In some species, such as Aegean wall lizards, individuals vary in colour, and select rocks which best match their own colour to minimise the risk of being detected by predators.[40] The Moorish gecko is able to change colour for camouflage: when a light-coloured gecko is placed on a dark surface, it darkens within an hour to match the environment.[41] The chameleons in general use their ability to change their coloration for signalling rather than camouflage, but some species such as Smith's dwarf chameleon do use active colour change for camouflage purposes.[42]
+
+The flat-tail horned lizard's body is coloured like its desert background, and is flattened and fringed with white scales to minimise its shadow.[43]
+
+Many lizards, including geckos and skinks, are capable of shedding their tails (autotomy). The detached tail, sometimes brilliantly coloured, continues to writhe after detaching, distracting the predator's attention from the fleeing prey. Lizards partially regenerate their tails over a period of weeks. Some 326 genes are involved in regenerating lizard tails.[44] The fish-scale gecko Geckolepis megalepis  sheds patches of skin and scales if grabbed.[45]
+
+Many lizards attempt to escape from danger by running to a place of safety;[46][b] for example, wall lizards can run up walls and hide in holes or cracks.[9] Horned lizards adopt differing defences for specific predators. They may play dead to deceive a predator that has caught them; attempt to outrun the rattlesnake, which does not pursue prey; but stay still, relying on their cryptic coloration, for Masticophis whip snakes which can catch even swift prey. If caught, some species such as the greater short-horned lizard puff themselves up, making their bodies hard for a narrow-mouthed predator like a whip snake to swallow. Finally, horned lizards can squirt blood at cat and dog predators from a pouch beneath its eyes, to a distance of about two metres (6.6 feet); the blood tastes foul to these attackers.[48]
+
+The earliest known fossil remains of a lizard belong to the iguanian species Tikiguania estesi, found in the Tiki Formation of India, which dates to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, about 220 million years ago.[49] However, doubt has been raised over the age of Tikiguania because it is almost indistinguishable from modern agamid lizards. The Tikiguania remains may instead be late Tertiary or Quaternary in age, having been washed into much older Triassic sediments.[50] Lizards are most closely related to the Rhynchocephalia, which appeared in the Late Triassic, so the earliest lizards probably appeared at that time.[50] Mitochondrial phylogenetics suggest that the first lizards evolved in the late Permian. It had been thought on the basis of morphological data that iguanid lizards diverged from other squamates very early on, but molecular evidence contradicts this.[51]
+
+Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards[52] known as aigialosaurs in the Early Cretaceous. Dolichosauridae is a family of Late Cretaceous aquatic varanoid lizards closely related to the mosasaurs.[53][54]
+
+The position of the lizards and other Squamata among the reptiles was studied using fossil evidence by Rainer Schoch and Hans-Dieter Sues in 2015. Lizards form about 60% of the extant non-avian reptiles.[55]
+
+Archosauromorpha
+
+†Kuehneosauridae
+
+Squamata
+
+Rhynchocephalia
+
+Pantestudines
+
+Both the snakes and the Amphisbaenia (worm lizards) are clades deep within the Squamata (the smallest clade that contains all the lizards), so "lizard" is paraphyletic.[56]
+The cladogram is based on genomic analysis by Wiens and colleagues in 2012 and 2016.[57][58] Excluded taxa are shown in upper case on the cladogram.
+
+Dibamidae
+
+Diplodactylidae
+
+Pygopodidae
+
+Carphodactylidae
+
+Eublepharidae
+
+Sphaerodactylidae
+
+Phyllodactylidae
+
+Gekkonidae
+
+Scincidae
+
+Xantusiidae
+
+Gerrhosauridae
+
+Cordylidae
+
+Gymnophthalmidae
+
+Teiidae
+
+Lacertidae
+
+AMPHISBAENIA (worm lizards, not usually considered "true lizards")
+
+Shinisauridae
+
+Lanthanotidae
+
+Varanidae
+
+Helodermatidae
+
+Xenosauridae
+
+Diploglossidae
+
+Anniellidae
+
+Anguidae
+
+Chamaeleonidae
+
+Agamidae
+
+Leiocephalidae
+
+Iguanidae
+
+Hoplocercidae
+
+Crotaphytidae
+
+Corytophanidae
+
+Tropiduridae
+
+Phrynosomatidae
+
+Dactyloidae
+
+Polychrotidae
+
+Liolaemidae
+
+Leiosauridae
+
+Opluridae
+
+SERPENTES (snakes, not considered to be lizards)
+
+In the 13th century, lizards were recognized in Europe as part of a broad category of reptiles that consisted of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, […], assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature.[59] The seventeenth century saw changes in this loose description. The name Sauria was coined by James Macartney (1802);[60] it was the Latinisation of the French name Sauriens, coined by Alexandre Brongniart (1800) for an order of reptiles in the classification proposed by the author, containing lizards and crocodilians,[61] later discovered not to be each other's closest relatives. Later authors used the term "Sauria" in a more restricted sense, i.e. as a synonym of Lacertilia, a suborder of Squamata that includes all lizards but excludes snakes. This classification is rarely used today because Sauria so-defined is a paraphyletic group. It was defined as a clade by Jacques Gauthier, Arnold G. Kluge and Timothy Rowe (1988) as the group containing the most recent common ancestor of archosaurs and lepidosaurs (the groups containing crocodiles and lizards, as per Mcartney's original definition) and all its descendants.[62] A different definition was formulated by Michael deBraga and Olivier Rieppel (1997), who defined Sauria as the clade containing the most recent common ancestor of Choristodera, Archosauromorpha, Lepidosauromorpha and all their descendants.[63] However, these uses have not gained wide acceptance among specialists.
+
+Suborder Lacertilia (Sauria) – (lizards)
+
+Lizards have frequently evolved convergently, with multiple groups independently developing similar morphology and ecological niches. Anolis ecomorphs have become a model system in evolutionary biology for studying convergence.[65] Limbs have been lost or reduced independently over two dozen times across lizard evolution, including in the Anniellidae, Anguidae, Cordylidae, Dibamidae, Gymnophthalmidae, Pygopodidae, and Scincidae; snakes are just the most famous and species-rich group of Squamata to have followed this path.[64]
+
+Most lizard species are harmless to humans. Only the largest lizard species, the Komodo dragon, which reaches 3.3 m (11 ft) in length and weighs up to 166 kg (366 lb), has been known to stalk, attack, and, on occasion, kill humans. An eight-year-old Indonesian boy died from blood loss after an attack in  2007.[66]
+
+Numerous species of lizard are kept as pets, including bearded dragons,[67] iguanas, anoles,[68] and geckos (such as the popular leopard gecko).[67]
+
+Lizards appear in myths and folktales around the world. In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Tarrotarro, the lizard god, split the human race into male and female, and gave people the ability to express themselves in art. A lizard king named Mo'o features in Hawaii and other cultures in Polynesia. In the Amazon, the lizard is the king of beasts, while among the Bantu of Africa, the god Unkulunkulu sent a chameleon to tell humans they would live forever, but the chameleon was held up, and another lizard brought a different message, that the time of humanity was limited.[69] A popular legend in Maharashtra tells the tale of how a common Indian monitor, with ropes attached, was used to scale the walls of the fort in the Battle of Sinhagad.[70] In the Bhojpuri speaking region of India and Nepal, there is a belief among children that, on touching Skunk's tail three (or five) time with the shortest finger gives money.
+
+Green iguanas are eaten in Central America, where they are sometimes referred to as "chicken of the tree" after their habit of resting in trees and their supposedly chicken-like taste,[71] while spiny-tailed lizards are eaten in Africa. In North Africa, Uromastyx species are considered dhaab or 'fish of the desert' and eaten by nomadic tribes.[72]
+
+Lizards such as the Gila monster produce toxins with medical applications. Gila toxin reduces plasma glucose; the substance is now synthesised for use in the anti-diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta).[17] Another toxin from Gila monster saliva has been studied for use as an anti-Alzheimer's drug.[73]
+
+Lizards in many cultures share the symbolism of snakes, especially as an emblem of resurrection. This may have derived from their regular moulting. The motif of lizards on Christian candle holders probably alludes to the same symbolism.
+According to Jack Tresidder, in Egypt and the Classical world they were beneficial emblems, linked with wisdom. In African, Aboriginal and Melanesian folklore they are linked to cultural heroes or ancestral figures.[74]

en/3417.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,189 @@
+Many, see text
+
+Sauria  Macartney, 1802
+
+Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 6,000 species,[1] ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic as it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia; some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3 meter long Komodo dragon.
+
+Most lizards are quadrupedal, running with a strong side-to-side motion. Others are legless, and have long snake-like bodies. Some such as the forest-dwelling Draco lizards are able to glide. They are often territorial, the males fighting off other males and signalling, often with brightly colours, to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Lizards are mainly carnivorous, often being sit-and-wait predators; many smaller species eat insects, while the Komodo eats mammals as big as water buffalo.
+
+Lizards make use of a variety of antipredator adaptations, including venom, camouflage, reflex bleeding, and the ability to sacrifice and regrow their tails.
+
+The adult length of species within the suborder ranges from a few centimeters for chameleons such as Brookesia micra and geckos such as Sphaerodactylus ariasae[2] to nearly 3 m (10 ft) in the case of the largest living varanid lizard, the Komodo dragon.[3] Most lizards are fairly small animals.
+
+Lizards typically have rounded torsos, elevated heads on short necks, four limbs and long tails, although some are legless.[4] Lizards and snakes share a movable quadrate bone, distinguishing them from the rhynchocephalians, which have more rigid diapsid skulls.[5] Some lizards such as chameleons have prehensile tails, assisting them in climbing among vegetation.[6]
+
+As in other reptiles, the skin of lizards is covered in overlapping scales made of keratin. This provides protection from the environment and reduces water loss through evaporation. This adaptation enables lizards to thrive in some of the driest deserts on earth. The skin is tough and leathery, and is shed (sloughed) as the animal grows. Unlike snakes which shed the skin in a single piece, lizards slough their skin in several pieces. The scales may be modified into spines for display or protection, and some species have bone osteoderms underneath the scales.[6][7]
+
+The dentitions of lizards reflect their wide range of diets, including carnivorous, insectivorous, omnivorous, herbivorous, nectivorous, and molluscivorous. Species typically have uniform teeth suited to their diet, but several species have variable teeth, such as cutting teeth in the front of the jaws and crushing teeth in the rear. Most species are pleurodont, though agamids and chameleons are acrodont.[8][6]
+
+The tongue can be extended outside the mouth, and is often long. In the beaded lizards, whiptails and monitor lizards, the tongue is forked and used mainly or exclusively to sense the environment, continually flicking out to sample the environment, and back to transfer molecules to the vomeronasal organ responsible for chemosensation, analogous to but different from smell or taste. In geckos, the tongue is used to lick the eyes clean: they have no eyelids. Chameleons have very long sticky tongues which can be extended rapidly to catch their insect prey.[6]
+
+Three lineages, the geckos, anoles, and chameleons, have modified the scales under their toes to form adhesive pads, highly prominent in the first two groups. The pads are composed of millions of tiny setae (hair-like structures) which fit closely to the substrate to adhere using van der Waals forces; no liquid adhesive is needed.[9] In addition, the toes of chameleons are divided into two opposed groups on each foot (zygodactyly), enabling them to perch on branches as birds do.[a][6]
+
+Aside from legless lizards, most lizards are quadrupedal and move using gaits with alternating movement of the right and left limbs with substantial body bending. This body bending prevents significant respiration during movement, limiting their endurance, in a mechanism called Carrier's constraint. Several species can run bipedally,[10] and a few can prop themselves up on their hindlimbs and tail while stationary. Several small species such as those in the genus Draco  can glide: some can attain a distance of 60 metres (200 feet), losing 10 metres (33 feet) in height.[11] Some species, like geckos and chameleons, adhere to vertical surfaces including glass and ceilings.[9] Some species, like the common basilisk, can run across water.[12]
+
+Lizards make use of their senses of sight, touch, olfaction and hearing like other vertebrates. The balance of these varies with the habitat of different species; for instance, skinks that live largely covered by loose soil rely heavily on olfaction and touch, while geckos depend largely on acute vision for their ability to hunt and to evaluate the distance to their prey before striking. Monitor lizards have acute vision, hearing, and olfactory senses. Some lizards make unusual use of their sense organs: chameleons can steer their eyes in different directions, sometimes providing non-overlapping fields of view, such as forwards and backwards at once. Lizards lack external ears, having instead a circular opening in which the tympanic membrane (eardrum) can be seen. Many species rely on hearing for early warning of predators, and flee at the slightest sound.[13]
+
+As in snakes and many mammals, all lizards have a specialised olfactory system, the vomeronasal organ, used to detect pheromones. Monitor lizards transfer scent from the tip of their tongue to the organ; the tongue is used only for this information-gathering purpose, and is not involved in manipulating food.[14][13]
+
+Some lizards, particularly iguanas, have retained a photosensory organ on the top of their heads called the parietal eye, a basal ("primitive") feature also present in the tuatara. This "eye" has only a rudimentary retina and lens and cannot form images, but is sensitive to changes in light and dark and can detect movement. This helps them detect predators stalking it from above.[15]
+
+Until 2006 it was thought that the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard were the only venomous lizards. However, several species of monitor lizards, including the Komodo dragon, produce powerful venom in their oral glands. Lace monitor venom, for instance, causes swift loss of consciousness and extensive bleeding through its pharmacological effects, both lowering blood pressure and preventing blood clotting. Nine classes of toxin known from snakes are produced by lizards. The range of actions provides the potential for new medicinal drugs based on lizard venom proteins.[16][17]
+
+Genes associated with venom toxins have been found in the salivary glands on a wide range of lizards, including species traditionally thought of as non-venomous, such as iguanas and bearded dragons. This suggests that these genes evolved in the common ancestor of lizards and snakes, some 200 million years ago (forming a single clade, the Toxicofera).[16] However, most of these putative venom genes were "housekeeping genes" found in all cells and tissues, including skin and cloacal scent glands. The genes in question may thus be evolutionary precursors of venom genes.[18]
+
+Recent studies (2013 and 2014) on the lung anatomy of the savannah monitor and green iguana found them to have a unidirectional airflow system, which involves the air moving in a loop through the lungs when breathing. This was previously thought to only exist in the archosaurs (crocodilians and birds). This may be evidence that unidirectional airflow is an ancestral trait in diapsids.[19][20]
+
+As with all amniotes, lizards rely on internal fertilisation and copulation involves the male inserting one of his hemipenes into the female's cloaca.[21] The majority of species are oviparous (egg laying). The female deposits the eggs in a protective structure like a nest or crevice or simply on the ground.[22] Depending on the species, clutch size can vary from 4–5 percent of the females body weight to 40–50 percent and clutches range from one or a few large eggs to dozens of small ones.[23]
+
+In most lizards, the eggs have leathery shells to allow for the exchange of water, although more arid-living species have calcified shells to retain water. Inside the eggs, the embryos use nutrients from the yolk. Parental care is uncommon and the female usually abandons the eggs after laying them. Brooding and protection of eggs does occur in some species. The female prairie skink uses respiratory water loss to maintain the humidity of the eggs which facilitates embryonic development. In lace monitors, the young hatch close to 300 days, and the female returns to help them escape the termite mound were the eggs were laid.[22]
+
+Around 20 percent of lizard species reproduce via viviparity (live birth). This is particularly common in Anguimorphs. Viviparous species give birth to relatively developed young which look like miniature adults. Embryos are nourished via a placenta-like structure.[24] A minority of lizards have parthenogenesis (reproduction from unfertilised eggs). These species consist of all females who reproduce asexually with no need for males. This is known in occur in various species of whiptail lizards.[25] Parthenogenesis was also recorded in species that normally reproduce sexually. A captive female Komodo dragon produced a clutch of eggs, despite being separated from males for over two years.[26]
+
+Sex determination in lizards can be temperature-dependent. The temperature of the eggs' micro-environment can determine the sex of the hatched young: low temperature incubation produces more females while higher temperatures produce more males. However, some lizards have sex chromosomes and both male heterogamety (XY and XXY) and female heterogamety (ZW) occur.[25]
+
+The majority of lizard species are active during the day,[27] though some are active at night, notably geckos. As ectotherms, lizards have a limited ability to regulate their body temperature, and must seek out and bask in sunlight to gain enough heat to become fully active.[28]
+
+Most social interactions among lizards are between breeding individuals.[27] Territoriality is common and is correlated with species that use sit-and-wait hunting strategies. Males establish and maintain territories that contain resources which attract females and which they defend from other males. Important resources include basking, feeding, and nesting sites as well as refuges from predators. The habitat of a species affects the structure of territories, for example, rock lizards have territories atop rocky outcrops.[29] Some species may aggregate in groups, enhancing vigilance and lessening the risk of predation for individuals, particularly for juveniles.[30] Agonistic behaviour typically occurs between sexually mature males over territory or mates and may involve displays, posturing, chasing, grappling and biting.[29]
+
+Lizards signal both to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Visual displays include body postures and inflation, push-ups, bright colours, mouth gapings and tail waggings. Male anoles and iguanas have dewlaps or skin flaps which come in various sizes, colours and patterns and the expansion of the dewlap as well as head-bobs and body movements add to the visual signals.[31][6] Some species have deep blue dewlaps and communicate with ultraviolet signals.[27] Blue-tongued skinks will flash their tongues as a threat display.[32] Chameleons are known to change their complex colour patterns when communicating, particularly during agonistic encounters. They tend to show brighter colours when displaying aggression[33] and darker colours when they submit or "give up".[34]
+
+Several gecko species are brightly coloured; some species tilt their bodies to display their coloration. In certain species, brightly coloured males turn dull when not in the presence of rivals or females. While it is usually males that display, in some species females also use such communication. In the bronze anole, head-bobs are a common form of communication among females, the speed and frequency varying with age and territorial status. Chemical cues or pheromones are also important in communication. Males typically direct signals at rivals, while females direct them at potential mates. Lizards may be able to recognise individuals of the same species by their scent.[31]
+
+Acoustic communication is less common in lizards. Hissing, a typical reptilian sound, is mostly produced by larger species as part of a threat display, accompanying gaping jaws. Some groups, particularly geckos, snake-lizards, and some iguanids, can produce more complex sounds and vocal apparatuses have independently evolved in different groups. These sounds are used for courtship, territorial defense and in distress, and include clicks, squeaks, barks and growls. The mating call of the male tokay gecko is heard as "tokay-tokay!".[32][31][35] Tactile communication involves individuals rubbing against each other, either in courtship or in aggression.[31] Some chameleon species communicate with one another by vibrating the substrate that they are standing on, such as a tree branch or leaf.[36]
+
+Lizards are found worldwide, excluding the far north and Antarctica, and some islands. They can be found in elevations from sea level to 5,000 m (16,000 ft). They prefer warmer, tropical climates but are adaptable and can live in all but the most extreme environments. Lizards also exploit a number of habitats; most primarily live on the ground, but others may live in rocks, on trees, underground and even in water. The marine iguana is adapted for life in the sea.[6]
+
+The majority of lizard species are predatory and the most common prey items are small, terrestrial invertebrates, particularly insects.[6][37] Many species are sit-and-wait predators though others may be more active foragers.[38] Chameleons prey on numerous insect species, such as beetles, grasshoppers and winged termites as well as spiders. They rely on persistence and ambush to capture these prey. An individual perches on a branch and stays perfectly still, with only its eyes moving. When an insect lands, the chameleon focuses its eyes on the target and slowly moves towards it before projecting its long sticky tongue which, when hauled back, brings the attach prey with it. Geckos feed on crickets, beetles, termites and moths.[6][37]
+
+Termites are an important part of the diets of some species of Autarchoglossa, since, as social insects, they can be found in large numbers in one spot. Ants may form a prominent part of the diet of some lizards, particularly among the lacertas.[6][37] Horned lizards are also well known for specializing on ants. Due to their small size and indigestible chitin, ants must be consumed in large amounts, and ant-eating lizards have larger stomachs than even herbivorous ones.[39] Species of skink and alligator lizards eat snails and their power jaws and molar-like teeth are adapted for breaking the shells.[6][37]
+
+Larger species, such as monitor lizards, can feed on larger prey including fish, frogs, birds, mammals and other reptiles. Prey may be swallowed whole and torn into smaller pieces. Both bird and reptile eggs may also be consumed as well. Gila monsters and beaded lizards climb trees to reach both the eggs and young of birds. Despite being venomous, these species rely on their strong jaws to kill prey. Mammalian prey typically consists of rodents and leporids; the Komodo dragon can kill prey as large as water buffalo. Dragons are prolific scavengers, and a single decaying carcass can attract several from 2 km (1.2 mi) away. A 50 kg (110 lb) dragon is capable of consuming a 31 kg (68 lb) carcass in 17 minutes.[37]
+
+Around 2 percent of lizard species, including many iguanids, are herbivores. Adults of these species eat plant parts like flowers, leaves, stems and fruit, while juveniles eat more insects. Plant parts can be hard to digest, and, as they get closer to adulthood, juvenile iguanas eat faeces from adults to acquire the microflora necessary for their transition to a plant-based diet. Perhaps the most herbivorous species is the marine iguana which dives 15 m (49 ft) to forage for algae, kelp and other marine plants. Some non-herbivorous species supplement their insect diet with fruit, which is easily digested.[6][37]
+
+Lizards have a variety of antipredator adaptations, including running and climbing, venom, camouflage, tail autotomy, and reflex bleeding.
+
+Lizards exploit a variety of different camouflage methods. Many lizards are disruptively patterned. In some species, such as Aegean wall lizards, individuals vary in colour, and select rocks which best match their own colour to minimise the risk of being detected by predators.[40] The Moorish gecko is able to change colour for camouflage: when a light-coloured gecko is placed on a dark surface, it darkens within an hour to match the environment.[41] The chameleons in general use their ability to change their coloration for signalling rather than camouflage, but some species such as Smith's dwarf chameleon do use active colour change for camouflage purposes.[42]
+
+The flat-tail horned lizard's body is coloured like its desert background, and is flattened and fringed with white scales to minimise its shadow.[43]
+
+Many lizards, including geckos and skinks, are capable of shedding their tails (autotomy). The detached tail, sometimes brilliantly coloured, continues to writhe after detaching, distracting the predator's attention from the fleeing prey. Lizards partially regenerate their tails over a period of weeks. Some 326 genes are involved in regenerating lizard tails.[44] The fish-scale gecko Geckolepis megalepis  sheds patches of skin and scales if grabbed.[45]
+
+Many lizards attempt to escape from danger by running to a place of safety;[46][b] for example, wall lizards can run up walls and hide in holes or cracks.[9] Horned lizards adopt differing defences for specific predators. They may play dead to deceive a predator that has caught them; attempt to outrun the rattlesnake, which does not pursue prey; but stay still, relying on their cryptic coloration, for Masticophis whip snakes which can catch even swift prey. If caught, some species such as the greater short-horned lizard puff themselves up, making their bodies hard for a narrow-mouthed predator like a whip snake to swallow. Finally, horned lizards can squirt blood at cat and dog predators from a pouch beneath its eyes, to a distance of about two metres (6.6 feet); the blood tastes foul to these attackers.[48]
+
+The earliest known fossil remains of a lizard belong to the iguanian species Tikiguania estesi, found in the Tiki Formation of India, which dates to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, about 220 million years ago.[49] However, doubt has been raised over the age of Tikiguania because it is almost indistinguishable from modern agamid lizards. The Tikiguania remains may instead be late Tertiary or Quaternary in age, having been washed into much older Triassic sediments.[50] Lizards are most closely related to the Rhynchocephalia, which appeared in the Late Triassic, so the earliest lizards probably appeared at that time.[50] Mitochondrial phylogenetics suggest that the first lizards evolved in the late Permian. It had been thought on the basis of morphological data that iguanid lizards diverged from other squamates very early on, but molecular evidence contradicts this.[51]
+
+Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards[52] known as aigialosaurs in the Early Cretaceous. Dolichosauridae is a family of Late Cretaceous aquatic varanoid lizards closely related to the mosasaurs.[53][54]
+
+The position of the lizards and other Squamata among the reptiles was studied using fossil evidence by Rainer Schoch and Hans-Dieter Sues in 2015. Lizards form about 60% of the extant non-avian reptiles.[55]
+
+Archosauromorpha
+
+†Kuehneosauridae
+
+Squamata
+
+Rhynchocephalia
+
+Pantestudines
+
+Both the snakes and the Amphisbaenia (worm lizards) are clades deep within the Squamata (the smallest clade that contains all the lizards), so "lizard" is paraphyletic.[56]
+The cladogram is based on genomic analysis by Wiens and colleagues in 2012 and 2016.[57][58] Excluded taxa are shown in upper case on the cladogram.
+
+Dibamidae
+
+Diplodactylidae
+
+Pygopodidae
+
+Carphodactylidae
+
+Eublepharidae
+
+Sphaerodactylidae
+
+Phyllodactylidae
+
+Gekkonidae
+
+Scincidae
+
+Xantusiidae
+
+Gerrhosauridae
+
+Cordylidae
+
+Gymnophthalmidae
+
+Teiidae
+
+Lacertidae
+
+AMPHISBAENIA (worm lizards, not usually considered "true lizards")
+
+Shinisauridae
+
+Lanthanotidae
+
+Varanidae
+
+Helodermatidae
+
+Xenosauridae
+
+Diploglossidae
+
+Anniellidae
+
+Anguidae
+
+Chamaeleonidae
+
+Agamidae
+
+Leiocephalidae
+
+Iguanidae
+
+Hoplocercidae
+
+Crotaphytidae
+
+Corytophanidae
+
+Tropiduridae
+
+Phrynosomatidae
+
+Dactyloidae
+
+Polychrotidae
+
+Liolaemidae
+
+Leiosauridae
+
+Opluridae
+
+SERPENTES (snakes, not considered to be lizards)
+
+In the 13th century, lizards were recognized in Europe as part of a broad category of reptiles that consisted of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, […], assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature.[59] The seventeenth century saw changes in this loose description. The name Sauria was coined by James Macartney (1802);[60] it was the Latinisation of the French name Sauriens, coined by Alexandre Brongniart (1800) for an order of reptiles in the classification proposed by the author, containing lizards and crocodilians,[61] later discovered not to be each other's closest relatives. Later authors used the term "Sauria" in a more restricted sense, i.e. as a synonym of Lacertilia, a suborder of Squamata that includes all lizards but excludes snakes. This classification is rarely used today because Sauria so-defined is a paraphyletic group. It was defined as a clade by Jacques Gauthier, Arnold G. Kluge and Timothy Rowe (1988) as the group containing the most recent common ancestor of archosaurs and lepidosaurs (the groups containing crocodiles and lizards, as per Mcartney's original definition) and all its descendants.[62] A different definition was formulated by Michael deBraga and Olivier Rieppel (1997), who defined Sauria as the clade containing the most recent common ancestor of Choristodera, Archosauromorpha, Lepidosauromorpha and all their descendants.[63] However, these uses have not gained wide acceptance among specialists.
+
+Suborder Lacertilia (Sauria) – (lizards)
+
+Lizards have frequently evolved convergently, with multiple groups independently developing similar morphology and ecological niches. Anolis ecomorphs have become a model system in evolutionary biology for studying convergence.[65] Limbs have been lost or reduced independently over two dozen times across lizard evolution, including in the Anniellidae, Anguidae, Cordylidae, Dibamidae, Gymnophthalmidae, Pygopodidae, and Scincidae; snakes are just the most famous and species-rich group of Squamata to have followed this path.[64]
+
+Most lizard species are harmless to humans. Only the largest lizard species, the Komodo dragon, which reaches 3.3 m (11 ft) in length and weighs up to 166 kg (366 lb), has been known to stalk, attack, and, on occasion, kill humans. An eight-year-old Indonesian boy died from blood loss after an attack in  2007.[66]
+
+Numerous species of lizard are kept as pets, including bearded dragons,[67] iguanas, anoles,[68] and geckos (such as the popular leopard gecko).[67]
+
+Lizards appear in myths and folktales around the world. In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Tarrotarro, the lizard god, split the human race into male and female, and gave people the ability to express themselves in art. A lizard king named Mo'o features in Hawaii and other cultures in Polynesia. In the Amazon, the lizard is the king of beasts, while among the Bantu of Africa, the god Unkulunkulu sent a chameleon to tell humans they would live forever, but the chameleon was held up, and another lizard brought a different message, that the time of humanity was limited.[69] A popular legend in Maharashtra tells the tale of how a common Indian monitor, with ropes attached, was used to scale the walls of the fort in the Battle of Sinhagad.[70] In the Bhojpuri speaking region of India and Nepal, there is a belief among children that, on touching Skunk's tail three (or five) time with the shortest finger gives money.
+
+Green iguanas are eaten in Central America, where they are sometimes referred to as "chicken of the tree" after their habit of resting in trees and their supposedly chicken-like taste,[71] while spiny-tailed lizards are eaten in Africa. In North Africa, Uromastyx species are considered dhaab or 'fish of the desert' and eaten by nomadic tribes.[72]
+
+Lizards such as the Gila monster produce toxins with medical applications. Gila toxin reduces plasma glucose; the substance is now synthesised for use in the anti-diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta).[17] Another toxin from Gila monster saliva has been studied for use as an anti-Alzheimer's drug.[73]
+
+Lizards in many cultures share the symbolism of snakes, especially as an emblem of resurrection. This may have derived from their regular moulting. The motif of lizards on Christian candle holders probably alludes to the same symbolism.
+According to Jack Tresidder, in Egypt and the Classical world they were beneficial emblems, linked with wisdom. In African, Aboriginal and Melanesian folklore they are linked to cultural heroes or ancestral figures.[74]

en/3418.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,189 @@
+Many, see text
+
+Sauria  Macartney, 1802
+
+Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 6,000 species,[1] ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic as it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia; some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3 meter long Komodo dragon.
+
+Most lizards are quadrupedal, running with a strong side-to-side motion. Others are legless, and have long snake-like bodies. Some such as the forest-dwelling Draco lizards are able to glide. They are often territorial, the males fighting off other males and signalling, often with brightly colours, to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Lizards are mainly carnivorous, often being sit-and-wait predators; many smaller species eat insects, while the Komodo eats mammals as big as water buffalo.
+
+Lizards make use of a variety of antipredator adaptations, including venom, camouflage, reflex bleeding, and the ability to sacrifice and regrow their tails.
+
+The adult length of species within the suborder ranges from a few centimeters for chameleons such as Brookesia micra and geckos such as Sphaerodactylus ariasae[2] to nearly 3 m (10 ft) in the case of the largest living varanid lizard, the Komodo dragon.[3] Most lizards are fairly small animals.
+
+Lizards typically have rounded torsos, elevated heads on short necks, four limbs and long tails, although some are legless.[4] Lizards and snakes share a movable quadrate bone, distinguishing them from the rhynchocephalians, which have more rigid diapsid skulls.[5] Some lizards such as chameleons have prehensile tails, assisting them in climbing among vegetation.[6]
+
+As in other reptiles, the skin of lizards is covered in overlapping scales made of keratin. This provides protection from the environment and reduces water loss through evaporation. This adaptation enables lizards to thrive in some of the driest deserts on earth. The skin is tough and leathery, and is shed (sloughed) as the animal grows. Unlike snakes which shed the skin in a single piece, lizards slough their skin in several pieces. The scales may be modified into spines for display or protection, and some species have bone osteoderms underneath the scales.[6][7]
+
+The dentitions of lizards reflect their wide range of diets, including carnivorous, insectivorous, omnivorous, herbivorous, nectivorous, and molluscivorous. Species typically have uniform teeth suited to their diet, but several species have variable teeth, such as cutting teeth in the front of the jaws and crushing teeth in the rear. Most species are pleurodont, though agamids and chameleons are acrodont.[8][6]
+
+The tongue can be extended outside the mouth, and is often long. In the beaded lizards, whiptails and monitor lizards, the tongue is forked and used mainly or exclusively to sense the environment, continually flicking out to sample the environment, and back to transfer molecules to the vomeronasal organ responsible for chemosensation, analogous to but different from smell or taste. In geckos, the tongue is used to lick the eyes clean: they have no eyelids. Chameleons have very long sticky tongues which can be extended rapidly to catch their insect prey.[6]
+
+Three lineages, the geckos, anoles, and chameleons, have modified the scales under their toes to form adhesive pads, highly prominent in the first two groups. The pads are composed of millions of tiny setae (hair-like structures) which fit closely to the substrate to adhere using van der Waals forces; no liquid adhesive is needed.[9] In addition, the toes of chameleons are divided into two opposed groups on each foot (zygodactyly), enabling them to perch on branches as birds do.[a][6]
+
+Aside from legless lizards, most lizards are quadrupedal and move using gaits with alternating movement of the right and left limbs with substantial body bending. This body bending prevents significant respiration during movement, limiting their endurance, in a mechanism called Carrier's constraint. Several species can run bipedally,[10] and a few can prop themselves up on their hindlimbs and tail while stationary. Several small species such as those in the genus Draco  can glide: some can attain a distance of 60 metres (200 feet), losing 10 metres (33 feet) in height.[11] Some species, like geckos and chameleons, adhere to vertical surfaces including glass and ceilings.[9] Some species, like the common basilisk, can run across water.[12]
+
+Lizards make use of their senses of sight, touch, olfaction and hearing like other vertebrates. The balance of these varies with the habitat of different species; for instance, skinks that live largely covered by loose soil rely heavily on olfaction and touch, while geckos depend largely on acute vision for their ability to hunt and to evaluate the distance to their prey before striking. Monitor lizards have acute vision, hearing, and olfactory senses. Some lizards make unusual use of their sense organs: chameleons can steer their eyes in different directions, sometimes providing non-overlapping fields of view, such as forwards and backwards at once. Lizards lack external ears, having instead a circular opening in which the tympanic membrane (eardrum) can be seen. Many species rely on hearing for early warning of predators, and flee at the slightest sound.[13]
+
+As in snakes and many mammals, all lizards have a specialised olfactory system, the vomeronasal organ, used to detect pheromones. Monitor lizards transfer scent from the tip of their tongue to the organ; the tongue is used only for this information-gathering purpose, and is not involved in manipulating food.[14][13]
+
+Some lizards, particularly iguanas, have retained a photosensory organ on the top of their heads called the parietal eye, a basal ("primitive") feature also present in the tuatara. This "eye" has only a rudimentary retina and lens and cannot form images, but is sensitive to changes in light and dark and can detect movement. This helps them detect predators stalking it from above.[15]
+
+Until 2006 it was thought that the Gila monster and the Mexican beaded lizard were the only venomous lizards. However, several species of monitor lizards, including the Komodo dragon, produce powerful venom in their oral glands. Lace monitor venom, for instance, causes swift loss of consciousness and extensive bleeding through its pharmacological effects, both lowering blood pressure and preventing blood clotting. Nine classes of toxin known from snakes are produced by lizards. The range of actions provides the potential for new medicinal drugs based on lizard venom proteins.[16][17]
+
+Genes associated with venom toxins have been found in the salivary glands on a wide range of lizards, including species traditionally thought of as non-venomous, such as iguanas and bearded dragons. This suggests that these genes evolved in the common ancestor of lizards and snakes, some 200 million years ago (forming a single clade, the Toxicofera).[16] However, most of these putative venom genes were "housekeeping genes" found in all cells and tissues, including skin and cloacal scent glands. The genes in question may thus be evolutionary precursors of venom genes.[18]
+
+Recent studies (2013 and 2014) on the lung anatomy of the savannah monitor and green iguana found them to have a unidirectional airflow system, which involves the air moving in a loop through the lungs when breathing. This was previously thought to only exist in the archosaurs (crocodilians and birds). This may be evidence that unidirectional airflow is an ancestral trait in diapsids.[19][20]
+
+As with all amniotes, lizards rely on internal fertilisation and copulation involves the male inserting one of his hemipenes into the female's cloaca.[21] The majority of species are oviparous (egg laying). The female deposits the eggs in a protective structure like a nest or crevice or simply on the ground.[22] Depending on the species, clutch size can vary from 4–5 percent of the females body weight to 40–50 percent and clutches range from one or a few large eggs to dozens of small ones.[23]
+
+In most lizards, the eggs have leathery shells to allow for the exchange of water, although more arid-living species have calcified shells to retain water. Inside the eggs, the embryos use nutrients from the yolk. Parental care is uncommon and the female usually abandons the eggs after laying them. Brooding and protection of eggs does occur in some species. The female prairie skink uses respiratory water loss to maintain the humidity of the eggs which facilitates embryonic development. In lace monitors, the young hatch close to 300 days, and the female returns to help them escape the termite mound were the eggs were laid.[22]
+
+Around 20 percent of lizard species reproduce via viviparity (live birth). This is particularly common in Anguimorphs. Viviparous species give birth to relatively developed young which look like miniature adults. Embryos are nourished via a placenta-like structure.[24] A minority of lizards have parthenogenesis (reproduction from unfertilised eggs). These species consist of all females who reproduce asexually with no need for males. This is known in occur in various species of whiptail lizards.[25] Parthenogenesis was also recorded in species that normally reproduce sexually. A captive female Komodo dragon produced a clutch of eggs, despite being separated from males for over two years.[26]
+
+Sex determination in lizards can be temperature-dependent. The temperature of the eggs' micro-environment can determine the sex of the hatched young: low temperature incubation produces more females while higher temperatures produce more males. However, some lizards have sex chromosomes and both male heterogamety (XY and XXY) and female heterogamety (ZW) occur.[25]
+
+The majority of lizard species are active during the day,[27] though some are active at night, notably geckos. As ectotherms, lizards have a limited ability to regulate their body temperature, and must seek out and bask in sunlight to gain enough heat to become fully active.[28]
+
+Most social interactions among lizards are between breeding individuals.[27] Territoriality is common and is correlated with species that use sit-and-wait hunting strategies. Males establish and maintain territories that contain resources which attract females and which they defend from other males. Important resources include basking, feeding, and nesting sites as well as refuges from predators. The habitat of a species affects the structure of territories, for example, rock lizards have territories atop rocky outcrops.[29] Some species may aggregate in groups, enhancing vigilance and lessening the risk of predation for individuals, particularly for juveniles.[30] Agonistic behaviour typically occurs between sexually mature males over territory or mates and may involve displays, posturing, chasing, grappling and biting.[29]
+
+Lizards signal both to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Visual displays include body postures and inflation, push-ups, bright colours, mouth gapings and tail waggings. Male anoles and iguanas have dewlaps or skin flaps which come in various sizes, colours and patterns and the expansion of the dewlap as well as head-bobs and body movements add to the visual signals.[31][6] Some species have deep blue dewlaps and communicate with ultraviolet signals.[27] Blue-tongued skinks will flash their tongues as a threat display.[32] Chameleons are known to change their complex colour patterns when communicating, particularly during agonistic encounters. They tend to show brighter colours when displaying aggression[33] and darker colours when they submit or "give up".[34]
+
+Several gecko species are brightly coloured; some species tilt their bodies to display their coloration. In certain species, brightly coloured males turn dull when not in the presence of rivals or females. While it is usually males that display, in some species females also use such communication. In the bronze anole, head-bobs are a common form of communication among females, the speed and frequency varying with age and territorial status. Chemical cues or pheromones are also important in communication. Males typically direct signals at rivals, while females direct them at potential mates. Lizards may be able to recognise individuals of the same species by their scent.[31]
+
+Acoustic communication is less common in lizards. Hissing, a typical reptilian sound, is mostly produced by larger species as part of a threat display, accompanying gaping jaws. Some groups, particularly geckos, snake-lizards, and some iguanids, can produce more complex sounds and vocal apparatuses have independently evolved in different groups. These sounds are used for courtship, territorial defense and in distress, and include clicks, squeaks, barks and growls. The mating call of the male tokay gecko is heard as "tokay-tokay!".[32][31][35] Tactile communication involves individuals rubbing against each other, either in courtship or in aggression.[31] Some chameleon species communicate with one another by vibrating the substrate that they are standing on, such as a tree branch or leaf.[36]
+
+Lizards are found worldwide, excluding the far north and Antarctica, and some islands. They can be found in elevations from sea level to 5,000 m (16,000 ft). They prefer warmer, tropical climates but are adaptable and can live in all but the most extreme environments. Lizards also exploit a number of habitats; most primarily live on the ground, but others may live in rocks, on trees, underground and even in water. The marine iguana is adapted for life in the sea.[6]
+
+The majority of lizard species are predatory and the most common prey items are small, terrestrial invertebrates, particularly insects.[6][37] Many species are sit-and-wait predators though others may be more active foragers.[38] Chameleons prey on numerous insect species, such as beetles, grasshoppers and winged termites as well as spiders. They rely on persistence and ambush to capture these prey. An individual perches on a branch and stays perfectly still, with only its eyes moving. When an insect lands, the chameleon focuses its eyes on the target and slowly moves towards it before projecting its long sticky tongue which, when hauled back, brings the attach prey with it. Geckos feed on crickets, beetles, termites and moths.[6][37]
+
+Termites are an important part of the diets of some species of Autarchoglossa, since, as social insects, they can be found in large numbers in one spot. Ants may form a prominent part of the diet of some lizards, particularly among the lacertas.[6][37] Horned lizards are also well known for specializing on ants. Due to their small size and indigestible chitin, ants must be consumed in large amounts, and ant-eating lizards have larger stomachs than even herbivorous ones.[39] Species of skink and alligator lizards eat snails and their power jaws and molar-like teeth are adapted for breaking the shells.[6][37]
+
+Larger species, such as monitor lizards, can feed on larger prey including fish, frogs, birds, mammals and other reptiles. Prey may be swallowed whole and torn into smaller pieces. Both bird and reptile eggs may also be consumed as well. Gila monsters and beaded lizards climb trees to reach both the eggs and young of birds. Despite being venomous, these species rely on their strong jaws to kill prey. Mammalian prey typically consists of rodents and leporids; the Komodo dragon can kill prey as large as water buffalo. Dragons are prolific scavengers, and a single decaying carcass can attract several from 2 km (1.2 mi) away. A 50 kg (110 lb) dragon is capable of consuming a 31 kg (68 lb) carcass in 17 minutes.[37]
+
+Around 2 percent of lizard species, including many iguanids, are herbivores. Adults of these species eat plant parts like flowers, leaves, stems and fruit, while juveniles eat more insects. Plant parts can be hard to digest, and, as they get closer to adulthood, juvenile iguanas eat faeces from adults to acquire the microflora necessary for their transition to a plant-based diet. Perhaps the most herbivorous species is the marine iguana which dives 15 m (49 ft) to forage for algae, kelp and other marine plants. Some non-herbivorous species supplement their insect diet with fruit, which is easily digested.[6][37]
+
+Lizards have a variety of antipredator adaptations, including running and climbing, venom, camouflage, tail autotomy, and reflex bleeding.
+
+Lizards exploit a variety of different camouflage methods. Many lizards are disruptively patterned. In some species, such as Aegean wall lizards, individuals vary in colour, and select rocks which best match their own colour to minimise the risk of being detected by predators.[40] The Moorish gecko is able to change colour for camouflage: when a light-coloured gecko is placed on a dark surface, it darkens within an hour to match the environment.[41] The chameleons in general use their ability to change their coloration for signalling rather than camouflage, but some species such as Smith's dwarf chameleon do use active colour change for camouflage purposes.[42]
+
+The flat-tail horned lizard's body is coloured like its desert background, and is flattened and fringed with white scales to minimise its shadow.[43]
+
+Many lizards, including geckos and skinks, are capable of shedding their tails (autotomy). The detached tail, sometimes brilliantly coloured, continues to writhe after detaching, distracting the predator's attention from the fleeing prey. Lizards partially regenerate their tails over a period of weeks. Some 326 genes are involved in regenerating lizard tails.[44] The fish-scale gecko Geckolepis megalepis  sheds patches of skin and scales if grabbed.[45]
+
+Many lizards attempt to escape from danger by running to a place of safety;[46][b] for example, wall lizards can run up walls and hide in holes or cracks.[9] Horned lizards adopt differing defences for specific predators. They may play dead to deceive a predator that has caught them; attempt to outrun the rattlesnake, which does not pursue prey; but stay still, relying on their cryptic coloration, for Masticophis whip snakes which can catch even swift prey. If caught, some species such as the greater short-horned lizard puff themselves up, making their bodies hard for a narrow-mouthed predator like a whip snake to swallow. Finally, horned lizards can squirt blood at cat and dog predators from a pouch beneath its eyes, to a distance of about two metres (6.6 feet); the blood tastes foul to these attackers.[48]
+
+The earliest known fossil remains of a lizard belong to the iguanian species Tikiguania estesi, found in the Tiki Formation of India, which dates to the Carnian stage of the Triassic period, about 220 million years ago.[49] However, doubt has been raised over the age of Tikiguania because it is almost indistinguishable from modern agamid lizards. The Tikiguania remains may instead be late Tertiary or Quaternary in age, having been washed into much older Triassic sediments.[50] Lizards are most closely related to the Rhynchocephalia, which appeared in the Late Triassic, so the earliest lizards probably appeared at that time.[50] Mitochondrial phylogenetics suggest that the first lizards evolved in the late Permian. It had been thought on the basis of morphological data that iguanid lizards diverged from other squamates very early on, but molecular evidence contradicts this.[51]
+
+Mosasaurs probably evolved from an extinct group of aquatic lizards[52] known as aigialosaurs in the Early Cretaceous. Dolichosauridae is a family of Late Cretaceous aquatic varanoid lizards closely related to the mosasaurs.[53][54]
+
+The position of the lizards and other Squamata among the reptiles was studied using fossil evidence by Rainer Schoch and Hans-Dieter Sues in 2015. Lizards form about 60% of the extant non-avian reptiles.[55]
+
+Archosauromorpha
+
+†Kuehneosauridae
+
+Squamata
+
+Rhynchocephalia
+
+Pantestudines
+
+Both the snakes and the Amphisbaenia (worm lizards) are clades deep within the Squamata (the smallest clade that contains all the lizards), so "lizard" is paraphyletic.[56]
+The cladogram is based on genomic analysis by Wiens and colleagues in 2012 and 2016.[57][58] Excluded taxa are shown in upper case on the cladogram.
+
+Dibamidae
+
+Diplodactylidae
+
+Pygopodidae
+
+Carphodactylidae
+
+Eublepharidae
+
+Sphaerodactylidae
+
+Phyllodactylidae
+
+Gekkonidae
+
+Scincidae
+
+Xantusiidae
+
+Gerrhosauridae
+
+Cordylidae
+
+Gymnophthalmidae
+
+Teiidae
+
+Lacertidae
+
+AMPHISBAENIA (worm lizards, not usually considered "true lizards")
+
+Shinisauridae
+
+Lanthanotidae
+
+Varanidae
+
+Helodermatidae
+
+Xenosauridae
+
+Diploglossidae
+
+Anniellidae
+
+Anguidae
+
+Chamaeleonidae
+
+Agamidae
+
+Leiocephalidae
+
+Iguanidae
+
+Hoplocercidae
+
+Crotaphytidae
+
+Corytophanidae
+
+Tropiduridae
+
+Phrynosomatidae
+
+Dactyloidae
+
+Polychrotidae
+
+Liolaemidae
+
+Leiosauridae
+
+Opluridae
+
+SERPENTES (snakes, not considered to be lizards)
+
+In the 13th century, lizards were recognized in Europe as part of a broad category of reptiles that consisted of a miscellany of egg-laying creatures, including "snakes, various fantastic monsters, […], assorted amphibians, and worms", as recorded by Vincent of Beauvais in his Mirror of Nature.[59] The seventeenth century saw changes in this loose description. The name Sauria was coined by James Macartney (1802);[60] it was the Latinisation of the French name Sauriens, coined by Alexandre Brongniart (1800) for an order of reptiles in the classification proposed by the author, containing lizards and crocodilians,[61] later discovered not to be each other's closest relatives. Later authors used the term "Sauria" in a more restricted sense, i.e. as a synonym of Lacertilia, a suborder of Squamata that includes all lizards but excludes snakes. This classification is rarely used today because Sauria so-defined is a paraphyletic group. It was defined as a clade by Jacques Gauthier, Arnold G. Kluge and Timothy Rowe (1988) as the group containing the most recent common ancestor of archosaurs and lepidosaurs (the groups containing crocodiles and lizards, as per Mcartney's original definition) and all its descendants.[62] A different definition was formulated by Michael deBraga and Olivier Rieppel (1997), who defined Sauria as the clade containing the most recent common ancestor of Choristodera, Archosauromorpha, Lepidosauromorpha and all their descendants.[63] However, these uses have not gained wide acceptance among specialists.
+
+Suborder Lacertilia (Sauria) – (lizards)
+
+Lizards have frequently evolved convergently, with multiple groups independently developing similar morphology and ecological niches. Anolis ecomorphs have become a model system in evolutionary biology for studying convergence.[65] Limbs have been lost or reduced independently over two dozen times across lizard evolution, including in the Anniellidae, Anguidae, Cordylidae, Dibamidae, Gymnophthalmidae, Pygopodidae, and Scincidae; snakes are just the most famous and species-rich group of Squamata to have followed this path.[64]
+
+Most lizard species are harmless to humans. Only the largest lizard species, the Komodo dragon, which reaches 3.3 m (11 ft) in length and weighs up to 166 kg (366 lb), has been known to stalk, attack, and, on occasion, kill humans. An eight-year-old Indonesian boy died from blood loss after an attack in  2007.[66]
+
+Numerous species of lizard are kept as pets, including bearded dragons,[67] iguanas, anoles,[68] and geckos (such as the popular leopard gecko).[67]
+
+Lizards appear in myths and folktales around the world. In Australian Aboriginal mythology, Tarrotarro, the lizard god, split the human race into male and female, and gave people the ability to express themselves in art. A lizard king named Mo'o features in Hawaii and other cultures in Polynesia. In the Amazon, the lizard is the king of beasts, while among the Bantu of Africa, the god Unkulunkulu sent a chameleon to tell humans they would live forever, but the chameleon was held up, and another lizard brought a different message, that the time of humanity was limited.[69] A popular legend in Maharashtra tells the tale of how a common Indian monitor, with ropes attached, was used to scale the walls of the fort in the Battle of Sinhagad.[70] In the Bhojpuri speaking region of India and Nepal, there is a belief among children that, on touching Skunk's tail three (or five) time with the shortest finger gives money.
+
+Green iguanas are eaten in Central America, where they are sometimes referred to as "chicken of the tree" after their habit of resting in trees and their supposedly chicken-like taste,[71] while spiny-tailed lizards are eaten in Africa. In North Africa, Uromastyx species are considered dhaab or 'fish of the desert' and eaten by nomadic tribes.[72]
+
+Lizards such as the Gila monster produce toxins with medical applications. Gila toxin reduces plasma glucose; the substance is now synthesised for use in the anti-diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta).[17] Another toxin from Gila monster saliva has been studied for use as an anti-Alzheimer's drug.[73]
+
+Lizards in many cultures share the symbolism of snakes, especially as an emblem of resurrection. This may have derived from their regular moulting. The motif of lizards on Christian candle holders probably alludes to the same symbolism.
+According to Jack Tresidder, in Egypt and the Classical world they were beneficial emblems, linked with wisdom. In African, Aboriginal and Melanesian folklore they are linked to cultural heroes or ancestral figures.[74]

en/3419.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Other reasons this message may be displayed:

en/342.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,212 @@
+
+
+Archaea (/ɑːrˈkiːə/ (listen) or /ɑːrˈkeɪə/ ar-KEE-ə or ar-KAY-ə) (singular archaeon) constitute a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms lack cell nuclei and are therefore prokaryotes. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this classification is obsolete.[6]
+
+Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from the other two domains, Bacteria and Eukaryota. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla. Classification is difficult because most have not been isolated in the laboratory and have been detected only by analysis of their nucleic acids in samples from their environment.
+
+Archaea and bacteria are generally similar in size and shape, although a few archaea have very different shapes, such as the flat and square cells of Haloquadratum walsbyi.[7] Despite this morphological similarity to bacteria, archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes, notably for the enzymes involved in transcription and translation. Other aspects of archaeal biochemistry are unique, such as their reliance on ether lipids in their cell membranes,[8] including archaeols. Archaea use more energy sources than eukaryotes: these range from organic compounds, such as sugars, to ammonia, metal ions or even hydrogen gas. Salt-tolerant archaea (the Haloarchaea) use sunlight as an energy source, and other species of archaea fix carbon, but unlike plants and cyanobacteria, no known species of archaea does both. Archaea reproduce asexually by binary fission, fragmentation, or budding; unlike bacteria, no known species of Archaea form endospores.
+The first observed archaea were extremophiles, living in extreme environments, such as hot springs and salt lakes with no other organisms. Improved detection tools led to the discovery of archaea in almost every habitat, including soil, oceans, and marshlands. Archaea are particularly numerous in the oceans, and the archaea in plankton may be one of the most abundant groups of organisms on the planet.
+
+Archaea are a major part of Earth's life. They are part of the microbiota of all organisms. In the human microbiota, they are important in the gut, mouth, and on the skin.[9] Their morphological, metabolic, and geographical diversity permits them to play multiple ecological roles: carbon fixation; nitrogen cycling; organic compound turnover; and maintaining microbial symbiotic and syntrophic communities, for example.[10]
+
+No clear examples of archaeal pathogens or parasites are known. Instead they are often mutualists or commensals, such as the methanogens (methane-producing strains) that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract in humans and ruminants, where their vast numbers aid digestion. Methanogens are also used in biogas production and sewage treatment, and biotechnology exploits enzymes from extremophile archaea that can endure high temperatures and organic solvents.
+
+
+
+For much of the 20th century, prokaryotes were regarded as a single group of organisms and classified based on their biochemistry, morphology and metabolism. Microbiologists tried to classify microorganisms based on the structures of their cell walls, their shapes, and the substances they consume.[11] In 1965, Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling[12] instead proposed using the sequences of the genes in different prokaryotes to work out how they are related to each other. This phylogenetic approach is the main method used today.[13]
+
+Archaea – at that time only the methanogens were known – were first classified separately from bacteria in 1977 by Carl Woese and George E. Fox based on their ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes.[14] They called these groups the Urkingdoms of Archaebacteria and Eubacteria, though other researchers treated them as kingdoms or subkingdoms. Woese and Fox gave the first evidence for Archaebacteria as a separate "line of descent": 1. lack of peptidoglycan in their cell walls, 2. two unusual coenzymes, 3. results of 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. To emphasize this difference, Woese, Otto Kandler and Mark Wheelis later proposed reclassifying organisms into three natural domains known as the three-domain system: the Eukarya, the Bacteria and the Archaea,[1] in what is now known as "The Woesian Revolution".[15]
+
+The word archaea comes from the Ancient Greek ἀρχαῖα, meaning "ancient things",[16] as the first representatives of the domain Archaea were methanogens and it was assumed that their metabolism reflected Earth's primitive atmosphere and the organisms' antiquity, but as new habitats were studied, more organisms were discovered. Extreme halophilic[17] and hyperthermophilic microbes[18] were also included in Archaea. For a long time, archaea were seen as extremophiles that exist only in extreme habitats such as hot springs and salt lakes, but by the end of the 20th century, archaea had been identified in non-extreme environments as well. Today, they are known to be a large and diverse group of organisms abundantly distributed throughout nature.[19] This new appreciation of the importance and ubiquity of archaea came from using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect prokaryotes from environmental samples (such as water or soil) by multiplying their ribosomal genes. This allows the detection and identification of organisms that have not been cultured in the laboratory.[20][21]
+
+The classification of archaea, and of prokaryotes in general, is a rapidly moving and contentious field. Current classification systems aim to organize archaea into groups of organisms that share structural features and common ancestors.[22] These classifications rely heavily on the use of the sequence of ribosomal RNA genes to reveal relationships among organisms (molecular phylogenetics).[23] Most of the culturable and well-investigated species of archaea are members of two main phyla, the Euryarchaeota and Crenarchaeota. Other groups have been tentatively created, like the peculiar species Nanoarchaeum equitans, which was discovered in 2003 and has been given its own phylum, the Nanoarchaeota.[24] A new phylum Korarchaeota has also been proposed. It contains a small group of unusual thermophilic species that shares features of both of the main phyla, but is most closely related to the Crenarchaeota.[25][26] Other recently detected species of archaea are only distantly related to any of these groups, such as the Archaeal Richmond Mine acidophilic nanoorganisms (ARMAN, comprising Micrarchaeota and Parvarchaeota), which were discovered in 2006[27] and are some of the smallest organisms known.[28]
+
+A superphylum – TACK – which includes the Thaumarchaeota, Aigarchaeota, Crenarchaeota, and Korarchaeota was proposed in 2011 to be related to the origin of eukaryotes.[29] In 2017, the newly discovered and newly named Asgard superphylum was proposed to be more closely related to the original eukaryote and a sister group to TACK.[30]
+
+According to Tom A. Williams et al. (2017)[31] and Castelle & Banfield (2018)[32] (DPANN):
+
+Altiarchaeales
+
+Diapherotrites
+
+Micrarchaeota
+
+Aenigmarchaeota
+
+Nanohaloarchaeota
+
+Nanoarchaeota
+
+Pavarchaeota
+
+Mamarchaeota
+
+Woesarchaeota
+
+Pacearchaeota
+
+Thermococci
+
+Pyrococci
+
+Methanococci
+
+Methanobacteria
+
+Methanopyri
+
+Archaeoglobi
+
+Methanocellales
+
+Methanosarcinales
+
+Methanomicrobiales
+
+Halobacteria
+
+Thermoplasmatales
+
+Methanomassiliicoccales
+
+Aciduliprofundum boonei
+
+Thermoplasma volcanium
+
+Korarchaeota
+
+Crenarchaeota
+
+Aigarchaeota
+
+Geoarchaeota
+
+Thaumarchaeota
+
+Bathyarchaeota
+
+Odinarchaeota
+
+Thorarchaeota
+
+Lokiarchaeota
+
+Helarchaeota[33]
+
+Heimdallarchaeota
+
+Eukaryota
+
+The classification of archaea into species is also controversial. Biology defines a species as a group of related organisms. The familiar exclusive breeding criterion (organisms that can breed with each other but not with others) is of no help since archaea reproduce asexually.[34]
+
+Archaea show high levels of horizontal gene transfer between lineages. Some researchers suggest that individuals can be grouped into species-like populations given highly similar genomes and infrequent gene transfer to/from cells with less-related genomes, as in the genus Ferroplasma.[35] On the other hand, studies in Halorubrum found significant genetic transfer to/from less-related populations, limiting the criterion's applicability.[36] Some researchers question whether such species designations have practical meaning.[37]
+
+Current knowledge on genetic diversity is fragmentary and the total number of archaeal species cannot be estimated with any accuracy.[23] Estimates of the number of phyla range from 18 to 23, of which only 8 have representatives that have been cultured and studied directly. Many of these hypothesized groups are known from a single rRNA sequence, indicating that the diversity among these organisms remains obscure.[38] The Bacteria also include many uncultured microbes with similar implications for characterization.[39]
+
+The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years.[40][41][42] Scientific evidence suggests that life began on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago.[43][44] The earliest evidence for life on Earth is graphite found to be biogenic in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland[45] and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48-billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia.[46][47] In 2015, possible remains of biotic matter were found in 4.1-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia.[48][49]
+
+Although probable prokaryotic cell fossils date to almost 3.5 billion years ago, most prokaryotes do not have distinctive morphologies, and fossil shapes cannot be used to identify them as archaea.[50] Instead, chemical fossils of unique lipids are more informative because such compounds do not occur in other organisms.[51] Some publications suggest that archaeal or eukaryotic lipid remains are present in shales dating from 2.7 billion years ago;[52] though such data have since been questioned.[53] These lipids have also been detected in even older rocks from west Greenland. The oldest such traces come from the Isua district, which includes Earth's oldest known sediments, formed 3.8 billion years ago.[54] The archaeal lineage may be the most ancient that exists on Earth.[55]
+
+Woese argued that the Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryotes represent separate lines of descent that diverged early on from an ancestral colony of organisms.[56][57] One possibility[57][58] is that this occurred before the evolution of cells, when the lack of a typical cell membrane allowed unrestricted lateral gene transfer, and that the common ancestors of the three domains arose by fixation of specific subsets of genes.[57][58] It is possible that the last common ancestor of bacteria and archaea was a thermophile, which raises the possibility that lower temperatures are "extreme environments" for archaea, and organisms that live in cooler environments appeared only later.[59] Since archaea and bacteria are no more related to each other than they are to eukaryotes, the term prokaryote may suggest a false similarity between them.[60] However, structural and functional similarities between lineages often occur because of shared ancestral traits or evolutionary convergence. These similarities are known as a grade, and prokaryotes are best thought of a grade of life, characterized by such features as an absence of membrane-bound organelles.
+
+The following table compares some major characteristics of the three domains, to illustrate their similarities and differences.[61]
+
+Archaea were split off as a third domain because of the large differences in their ribosomal RNA structure. The particular molecule 16S rRNA is key to the production of proteins in all organisms. Because this function is so central to life, organisms with mutations in their 16S rRNA are unlikely to survive, leading to great (but not absolute) stability in the structure of this nucleotide over generations. 16S rRNA is large enough to show organism-specific variations, but still small enough to be compared quickly. In 1977, Carl Woese, a microbiologist studying the genetic sequences of organisms, developed a new comparison method that involved splitting the RNA into fragments that could be sorted and compared with other fragments from other organisms.[14] The more similar the patterns between species, the more closely they are related.[64]
+
+Woese used his new rRNA comparison method to categorize and contrast different organisms. He compared a variety of species and happened upon a group of methanogens with rRNA vastly different from any known prokaryotes or eukaryotes.[14] These methanogens were much more similar to each other than to other organisms, leading Woese to propose the new domain of Archaea.[14] His experiments showed that the archaea were genetically more similar to eukaryotes than prokaryotes, even though they were more similar to prokaryotes in structure.[65] This led to the conclusion that Archaea and Eukarya shared a common ancestor more recent than Eukarya and Bacteria.[65] The development of the nucleus occurred after the split between Bacteria and this common ancestor.[65][1]
+
+One property unique to archaea is the abundant use of ether-linked lipids in their cell membranes. Ether linkages are more chemically stable than the ester linkages found in bacteria and eukarya, which may be a contributing factor to the ability of many archaea to survive in extreme environments that place heavy stress on cell membranes, such as extreme heat and salinity. Comparative analysis of archaeal genomes has also identified several molecular conserved signature indels and signature proteins uniquely present in either all archaea or different main groups within archaea.[66][67][68] Another unique feature of archaea, found in no other organisms, is methanogenesis (the metabolic production of methane). Methanogenic archaea play a pivotal role in ecosystems with organisms that derive energy from oxidation of methane, many of which are bacteria, as they are often a major source of methane in such environments and can play a role as primary producers. Methanogens also play a critical role in the carbon cycle, breaking down organic carbon into methane, which is also a major greenhouse gas.[69]
+
+The relationships among the three domains are of central importance for understanding the origin of life. Most of the metabolic pathways, which are the object of the majority of an organism's genes, are common between Archaea and Bacteria, while most genes involved in genome expression are common between Archaea and Eukarya.[71] Within prokaryotes, archaeal cell structure is most similar to that of gram-positive bacteria, largely because both have a single lipid bilayer[72] and usually contain a thick sacculus (exoskeleton) of varying chemical composition.[73] In some phylogenetic trees based upon different gene/protein sequences of prokaryotic homologs, the archaeal homologs are more closely related to those of gram-positive bacteria.[72] Archaea and gram-positive bacteria also share conserved indels in a number of important proteins, such as Hsp70 and glutamine synthetase I;[72][74] but the phylogeny of these genes was interpreted to reveal interdomain gene transfer,[75][76] and might not reflect the organismal relationship(s).[77]
+
+It has been proposed that the archaea evolved from gram-positive bacteria in response to antibiotic selection pressure.[72][74][78] This is suggested by the observation that archaea are resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics that are produced primarily by gram-positive bacteria,[72][74] and that these antibiotics act primarily on the genes that distinguish archaea from bacteria. The proposal is that the selective pressure towards resistance generated by the gram-positive antibiotics was eventually sufficient to cause extensive changes in many of the antibiotics' target genes, and that these strains represented the common ancestors of present-day Archaea.[78] The evolution of Archaea in response to antibiotic selection, or any other competitive selective pressure, could also explain their adaptation to extreme environments (such as high temperature or acidity) as the result of a search for unoccupied niches to escape from antibiotic-producing organisms;[78][79] Cavalier-Smith has made a similar suggestion.[80] This proposal is also supported by other work investigating protein structural relationships[81] and studies that suggest that gram-positive bacteria may constitute the earliest branching lineages within the prokaryotes.[82]
+
+The evolutionary relationship between archaea and eukaryotes remains unclear. Aside from the similarities in cell structure and function that are discussed below, many genetic trees group the two.[83]
+
+Complicating factors include claims that the relationship between eukaryotes and the archaeal phylum Crenarchaeota is closer than the relationship between the Euryarchaeota and the phylum Crenarchaeota[84] and the presence of archaea-like genes in certain bacteria, such as Thermotoga maritima, from horizontal gene transfer.[85] The standard hypothesis states that the ancestor of the eukaryotes diverged early from the Archaea,[86][87] and that eukaryotes arose through fusion of an archaean and eubacterium, which became the nucleus and cytoplasm; this hypothesis explains various genetic similarities but runs into difficulties explaining cell structure.[84] An alternative hypothesis, the eocyte hypothesis, posits that Eukaryota emerged relatively late from the Archaea.[88]
+
+A lineage of archaea discovered in 2015, Lokiarchaeum (of proposed new Phylum "Lokiarchaeota"), named for a hydrothermal vent called Loki's Castle in the Arctic Ocean, was found to be the most closely related to eukaryotes known at that time. It has been called a transitional organism between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.[89][90]
+
+Several sister phyla of "Lokiarchaeota" have since been found ("Thorarchaeota", "Odinarchaeota", "Heimdallarchaeota"), all together comprising a newly proposed supergroup Asgard, which may appear as a sister taxon to Proteoarchaeota.[30][5][91]
+
+Details of the relation of Asgard members and eukaryotes are still under consideration,[92] although, in January 2020, scientists reported that Candidatus Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum, a type of Asgard archaea, may be a possible link between simple prokaryotic and complex eukaryotic microorganisms about two billion years ago.[93][94]
+
+Individual archaea range from 0.1 micrometers (μm) to over 15 μm in diameter, and occur in various shapes, commonly as spheres, rods, spirals or plates.[95] Other morphologies in the Crenarchaeota include irregularly shaped lobed cells in Sulfolobus, needle-like filaments that are less than half a micrometer in diameter in Thermofilum, and almost perfectly rectangular rods in Thermoproteus and Pyrobaculum.[96] Archaea in the genus Haloquadratum such as Haloquadratum walsbyi are flat, square specimens that live in hypersaline pools.[97] These unusual shapes are probably maintained by both their cell walls and a prokaryotic cytoskeleton. Proteins related to the cytoskeleton components of other organisms exist in archaea,[98] and filaments form within their cells,[99] but in contrast with other organisms, these cellular structures are poorly understood.[100] In Thermoplasma and Ferroplasma the lack of a cell wall means that the cells have irregular shapes, and can resemble amoebae.[101]
+
+Some species form aggregates or filaments of cells up to 200 μm long.[95] These organisms can be prominent in biofilms.[102] Notably, aggregates of Thermococcus coalescens cells fuse together in culture, forming single giant cells.[103] Archaea in the genus Pyrodictium produce an elaborate multicell colony involving arrays of long, thin hollow tubes called cannulae that stick out from the cells' surfaces and connect them into a dense bush-like agglomeration.[104] The function of these cannulae is not settled, but they may allow communication or nutrient exchange with neighbors.[105] Multi-species colonies exist, such as the "string-of-pearls" community that was discovered in 2001 in a German swamp. Round whitish colonies of a novel Euryarchaeota species are spaced along thin filaments that can range up to 15 centimetres (5.9 in) long; these filaments are made of a particular bacteria species.[106]
+
+Archaea and bacteria have generally similar cell structure, but cell composition and organization set the archaea apart. Like bacteria, archaea lack interior membranes and organelles.[60] Like bacteria, the cell membranes of archaea are usually bounded by a cell wall and they swim using one or more flagella.[107] Structurally, archaea are most similar to gram-positive bacteria. Most have a single plasma membrane and cell wall, and lack a periplasmic space; the exception to this general rule is Ignicoccus, which possess a particularly large periplasm that contains membrane-bound vesicles and is enclosed by an outer membrane.[108]
+
+Most archaea (but not Thermoplasma and Ferroplasma) possess a cell wall.[101] In most archaea the wall is assembled from surface-layer proteins, which form an S-layer.[109] An S-layer is a rigid array of protein molecules that cover the outside of the cell (like chain mail).[110] This layer provides both chemical and physical protection, and can prevent macromolecules from contacting the cell membrane.[111] Unlike bacteria, archaea lack peptidoglycan in their cell walls.[112] Methanobacteriales do have cell walls containing pseudopeptidoglycan, which resembles eubacterial peptidoglycan in morphology, function, and physical structure, but pseudopeptidoglycan is distinct in chemical structure; it lacks D-amino acids and N-acetylmuramic acid, substituting the latter with N-Acetyltalosaminuronic acid.[111]
+
+Archaeal flagella are known as archaella, that operate like bacterial flagella – their long stalks are driven by rotatory motors at the base. These motors are powered by a proton gradient across the membrane, but archaella are notably different in composition and development.[107] The two types of flagella evolved from different ancestors. The bacterial flagellum shares a common ancestor with the type III secretion system,[113][114] while archaeal flagella appear to have evolved from bacterial type IV pili.[115] In contrast with the bacterial flagellum, which is hollow and assembled by subunits moving up the central pore to the tip of the flagella, archaeal flagella are synthesized by adding subunits at the base.[116]
+
+Archaeal membranes are made of molecules that are distinctly different from those in all other life forms, showing that archaea are related only distantly to bacteria and eukaryotes.[117] In all organisms, cell membranes are made of molecules known as phospholipids. These molecules possess both a polar part that dissolves in water (the phosphate "head"), and a "greasy" non-polar part that does not (the lipid tail). These dissimilar parts are connected by a glycerol moiety. In water, phospholipids cluster, with the heads facing the water and the tails facing away from it. The major structure in cell membranes is a double layer of these phospholipids, which is called a lipid bilayer.[118]
+
+The phospholipids of archaea are unusual in four ways:
+
+Archaea exhibit a great variety of chemical reactions in their metabolism and use many sources of energy. These reactions are classified into nutritional groups, depending on energy and carbon sources. Some archaea obtain energy from inorganic compounds such as sulfur or ammonia (they are chemotrophs). These include nitrifiers, methanogens and anaerobic methane oxidisers.[125] In these reactions one compound passes electrons to another (in a redox reaction), releasing energy to fuel the cell's activities. One compound acts as an electron donor and one as an electron acceptor. The energy released is used to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) through chemiosmosis, the same basic process that happens in the mitochondrion of eukaryotic cells.[126]
+
+Other groups of archaea use sunlight as a source of energy (they are phototrophs), but oxygen–generating photosynthesis does not occur in any of these organisms.[126] Many basic metabolic pathways are shared among all forms of life; for example, archaea use a modified form of glycolysis (the Entner–Doudoroff pathway) and either a complete or partial citric acid cycle.[127] These similarities to other organisms probably reflect both early origins in the history of life and their high level of efficiency.[128]
+
+Some Euryarchaeota are methanogens (archaea that produce methane as a result of metabolism) living in anaerobic environments, such as swamps. This form of metabolism evolved early, and it is even possible that the first free-living organism was a methanogen.[129] A common reaction involves the use of carbon dioxide as an electron acceptor to oxidize hydrogen. Methanogenesis involves a range of coenzymes that are unique to these archaea, such as coenzyme M and methanofuran.[130] Other organic compounds such as alcohols, acetic acid or formic acid are used as alternative electron acceptors by methanogens. These reactions are common in gut-dwelling archaea. Acetic acid is also broken down into methane and carbon dioxide directly, by acetotrophic archaea. These acetotrophs are archaea in the order Methanosarcinales, and are a major part of the communities of microorganisms that produce biogas.[131]
+
+Other archaea use CO2 in the atmosphere as a source of carbon, in a process called carbon fixation (they are autotrophs). This process involves either a highly modified form of the Calvin cycle[133] or another metabolic pathway called the 3-hydroxypropionate/ 4-hydroxybutyrate cycle.[134] The Crenarchaeota also use the reverse Krebs cycle while the Euryarchaeota also use the reductive acetyl-CoA pathway.[135] Carbon fixation is powered by inorganic energy sources. No known archaea carry out photosynthesis [136] (Halobacterium is the only known phototroph archeon but it uses an alternative process to photosynthesis). Archaeal energy sources are extremely diverse, and range from the oxidation of ammonia by the Nitrosopumilales[137][138] to the oxidation of hydrogen sulfide or elemental sulfur by species of Sulfolobus, using either oxygen or metal ions as electron acceptors.[126]
+
+Phototrophic archaea use light to produce chemical energy in the form of ATP. In the Halobacteria, light-activated ion pumps like bacteriorhodopsin and halorhodopsin generate ion gradients by pumping ions out of and into the cell across the plasma membrane. The energy stored in these electrochemical gradients is then converted into ATP by ATP synthase.[95] This process is a form of photophosphorylation. The ability of these light-driven pumps to move ions across membranes depends on light-driven changes in the structure of a retinol cofactor buried in the center of the protein.[139]
+
+Archaea usually have a single circular chromosome,[140] with as many as 5,751,492 base pairs in Methanosarcina acetivorans,[141] the largest known archaeal genome. The tiny 490,885 base-pair genome of Nanoarchaeum equitans is one-tenth of this size and the smallest archaeal genome known; it is estimated to contain only 537 protein-encoding genes.[142] Smaller independent pieces of DNA, called plasmids, are also found in archaea. Plasmids may be transferred between cells by physical contact, in a process that may be similar to bacterial conjugation.[143][144]
+
+Archaea are genetically distinct from bacteria and eukaryotes, with up to 15% of the proteins encoded by any one archaeal genome being unique to the domain, although most of these unique genes have no known function.[146] Of the remainder of the unique proteins that have an identified function, most belong to the Euryarchaea and are involved in methanogenesis. The proteins that archaea, bacteria and eukaryotes share form a common core of cell function, relating mostly to transcription, translation, and nucleotide metabolism.[147] Other characteristic archaeal features are the organization of genes of related function – such as enzymes that catalyze steps in the same metabolic pathway into novel operons, and large differences in tRNA genes and their aminoacyl tRNA synthetases.[147]
+
+Transcription in archaea more closely resembles eukaryotic than bacterial transcription, with the archaeal RNA polymerase being very close to its equivalent in eukaryotes,[140] while archaeal translation shows signs of both bacterial and eukaryotic equivalents.[148] Although archaea have only one type of RNA polymerase, its structure and function in transcription seems to be close to that of the eukaryotic RNA polymerase II, with similar protein assemblies (the general transcription factors) directing the binding of the RNA polymerase to a gene's promoter,[149] but other archaeal transcription factors are closer to those found in bacteria.[150] Post-transcriptional modification is simpler than in eukaryotes, since most archaeal genes lack introns, although there are many introns in their transfer RNA and ribosomal RNA genes,[151] and introns may occur in a few protein-encoding genes.[152][153]
+
+Halobacterium volcanii, an extreme halophilic archaeon, forms cytoplasmic bridges between cells that appear to be used for transfer of DNA from one cell to another in either direction.[154]
+
+When the hyperthermophilic archaea Sulfolobus solfataricus[155] and Sulfolobus acidocaldarius[156] are exposed to DNA-damaging UV irradiation or to the agents bleomycin or mitomycin C, species-specific cellular aggregation is induced. Aggregation in S. solfataricus could not be induced by other physical stressors, such as pH or temperature shift,[155] suggesting that aggregation is induced specifically by DNA damage. Ajon et al.[156] showed that UV-induced cellular aggregation mediates chromosomal marker exchange with high frequency in S. acidocaldarius. Recombination rates exceeded those of uninduced cultures by up to three orders of magnitude. Frols et al.[155][157] and Ajon et al.[156] hypothesized that cellular aggregation enhances species-specific DNA transfer between Sulfolobus cells in order to provide increased repair of damaged DNA by means of homologous recombination. This response may be a primitive form of sexual interaction similar to the more well-studied bacterial transformation systems that are also associated with species-specific DNA transfer between cells leading to homologous recombinational repair of DNA damage.[158]
+
+Archaea are the target of a number of viruses in a diverse virosphere distinct from bacterial and eukaryotic viruses. They have been organized into 15-18 DNA-based families so far, but multiple species remain un-isolated and await classification.[159][160][161] These families can be informally divided into two groups: archaea-specific and cosmopolitan. Archaeal-specific viruses target only archaean species and currently include 12 families. Numerous unique, previously unidentified viral structures have been observed in this group, including: bottle-shaped, spindle-shaped, coil-shaped, and droplet-shaped viruses.[160] While the reproductive cycles and genomic mechanisms of archaea-specific species may be similar to other viruses, they bear unique characteristics that were specifically developed due to the morphology of host cells they infect.[159] Their virus release mechanisms differ from that of other phages. Bacteriophages generally undergo either lytic pathways, lysogenic pathways, or (rarely) a mix of the two.[162] Most archaea-specific viral strains maintain a stable, somewhat lysogenic, relationship with their hosts – appearing as a chronic infection. This involves the gradual, and continuous, production and release of virions without killing the host cell.[163] Prangishyili (2013) noted that it has been hypothesized that tailed archaeal phages originated from bacteriophages capable of infecting haloarchaeal species. If the hypothesis is correct, it can be concluded that other double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses that make up the rest of the archaea-specific group are their own unique group in the global viral community. Krupovic et al. (2018) states that the high levels of horizontal gene transfer, rapid mutation rates in viral genomes, and lack of universal gene sequences have led researchers to perceive the evolutionary pathway of archaeal viruses as a network. The lack of similarities among phylogenetic markers in this network and the global virosphere, as well as external linkages to non-viral elements, may suggest that some species of archaea specific viruses evolved from non-viral mobile genetic elements (MGE).[160]
+
+These viruses have been studied in most detail in thermophilics, particularly the orders Sulfolobales and Thermoproteales.[164] Two groups of single-stranded DNA viruses that infect archaea have been recently isolated. One group is exemplified by the Halorubrum pleomorphic virus 1 ("Pleolipoviridae") infecting halophilic archaea,[165] and the other one by the Aeropyrum coil-shaped virus ("Spiraviridae") infecting a hyperthermophilic (optimal growth at 90–95 °C) host.[166] Notably, the latter virus has the largest currently reported ssDNA genome. Defenses against these viruses may involve RNA interference from repetitive DNA sequences that are related to the genes of the viruses.[167][168]
+
+Archaea reproduce asexually by binary or multiple fission, fragmentation, or budding; mitosis and meiosis do not occur, so if a species of archaea exists in more than one form, all have the same genetic material.[95] Cell division is controlled in a cell cycle; after the cell's chromosome is replicated and the two daughter chromosomes separate, the cell divides.[169] In the genus Sulfolobus, the cycle has characteristics that are similar to both bacterial and eukaryotic systems. The chromosomes replicate from multiple starting points (origins of replication) using DNA polymerases that resemble the equivalent eukaryotic enzymes.[170]
+
+In euryarchaea the cell division protein FtsZ, which forms a contracting ring around the cell, and the components of the septum that is constructed across the center of the cell, are similar to their bacterial equivalents.[169] In cren-[171][172] and thaumarchaea,[173] the cell division machinery Cdv fulfills a similar role. This machinery is related to the eukaryotic ESCRT-III machinery which, while best known for its role in cell sorting, also has been seen to fulfill a role in separation between divided cell, suggesting an ancestral role in cell division.[174]
+
+Both bacteria and eukaryotes, but not archaea, make spores.[175] Some species of Haloarchaea undergo phenotypic switching and grow as several different cell types, including thick-walled structures that are resistant to osmotic shock and allow the archaea to survive in water at low salt concentrations, but these are not reproductive structures and may instead help them reach new habitats.[176]
+
+Archaea exist in a broad range of habitats, and are now recognized as a major part of global ecosystems,[19] and may represent about 20% of microbial cells in the oceans.[177] However, the first-discovered archaeans were extremophiles.[125] Indeed, some archaea survive high temperatures, often above 100 °C (212 °F), as found in geysers, black smokers, and oil wells. Other common habitats include very cold habitats and highly saline, acidic, or alkaline water, but archaea include mesophiles that grow in mild conditions, in swamps and marshland, sewage, the oceans, the intestinal tract of animals, and soils.[19]
+
+Extremophile archaea are members of four main physiological groups. These are the halophiles, thermophiles, alkaliphiles, and acidophiles.[178] These groups are not comprehensive or phylum-specific, nor are they mutually exclusive, since some archaea belong to several groups. Nonetheless, they are a useful starting point for classification.[179]
+
+Halophiles, including the genus Halobacterium, live in extremely saline environments such as salt lakes and outnumber their bacterial counterparts at salinities greater than 20–25%.[125] Thermophiles grow best at temperatures above 45 °C (113 °F), in places such as hot springs; hyperthermophilic archaea grow optimally at temperatures greater than 80 °C (176 °F).[180] The archaeal Methanopyrus kandleri Strain 116 can even reproduce at 122 °C (252 °F), the highest recorded temperature of any organism.[181]
+
+Other archaea exist in very acidic or alkaline conditions.[178] For example, one of the most extreme archaean acidophiles is Picrophilus torridus, which grows at pH 0, which is equivalent to thriving in 1.2 molar sulfuric acid.[182]
+
+This resistance to extreme environments has made archaea the focus of speculation about the possible properties of extraterrestrial life.[183] Some extremophile habitats are not dissimilar to those on Mars,[184] leading to the suggestion that viable microbes could be transferred between planets in meteorites.[185]
+
+Recently, several studies have shown that archaea exist not only in mesophilic and thermophilic environments but are also present, sometimes in high numbers, at low temperatures as well. For example, archaea are common in cold oceanic environments such as polar seas.[186] Even more significant are the large numbers of archaea found throughout the world's oceans in non-extreme habitats among the plankton community (as part of the picoplankton).[187] Although these archaea can be present in extremely high numbers (up to 40% of the microbial biomass), almost none of these species have been isolated and studied in pure culture.[188] Consequently, our understanding of the role of archaea in ocean ecology is rudimentary, so their full influence on global biogeochemical cycles remains largely unexplored.[189] Some marine Crenarchaeota are capable of nitrification, suggesting these organisms may affect the oceanic nitrogen cycle,[137] although these oceanic Crenarchaeota may also use other sources of energy.[190]
+
+Vast numbers of archaea are also found in the sediments that cover the sea floor, with these organisms making up the majority of living cells at depths over 1 meter below the ocean bottom.[191][192] It has been demonstrated that in all oceanic surface sediments (from 1000- to 10,000-m water depth), the impact of viral infection is higher on archaea than on bacteria and virus-induced lysis of archaea accounts for up to one-third of the total microbial biomass killed, resulting in the release of ~0.3 to 0.5 gigatons of carbon per year globally.[193]
+
+Archaea recycle elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur through their various habitats.[194] Archaea carry out many steps in the nitrogen cycle. This includes both reactions that remove nitrogen from ecosystems (such as nitrate-based respiration and denitrification) as well as processes that introduce nitrogen (such as nitrate assimilation and nitrogen fixation).[195][196]
+Researchers recently discovered archaeal involvement in ammonia oxidation reactions. These reactions are particularly important in the oceans.[138][197] The archaea also appear crucial for ammonia oxidation in soils. They produce nitrite, which other microbes then oxidize to nitrate. Plants and other organisms consume the latter.[198]
+
+In the sulfur cycle, archaea that grow by oxidizing sulfur compounds release this element from rocks, making it available to other organisms, but the archaea that do this, such as Sulfolobus, produce sulfuric acid as a waste product, and the growth of these organisms in abandoned mines can contribute to acid mine drainage and other environmental damage.[199]
+
+In the carbon cycle, methanogen archaea remove hydrogen and play an important role in the decay of organic matter by the populations of microorganisms that act as decomposers in anaerobic ecosystems, such as sediments, marshes, and sewage-treatment works.[200]
+
+The well-characterized interactions between archaea and other organisms are either mutual or commensal. There are no clear examples of known archaeal pathogens or parasites,[201][202] but some species of methanogens have been suggested to be involved in infections in the mouth,[203][204] and Nanoarchaeum equitans may be a parasite of another species of archaea, since it only survives and reproduces within the cells of the Crenarchaeon Ignicoccus hospitalis,[142] and appears to offer no benefit to its host.[205]
+
+One well-understood example of mutualism is the interaction between protozoa and methanogenic archaea in the digestive tracts of animals that digest cellulose, such as ruminants and termites.[206] In these anaerobic environments, protozoa break down plant cellulose to obtain energy. This process releases hydrogen as a waste product, but high levels of hydrogen reduce energy production. When methanogens convert hydrogen to methane, protozoa benefit from more energy.[207]
+
+In anaerobic protozoa, such as Plagiopyla frontata, archaea reside inside the protozoa and consume hydrogen produced in their hydrogenosomes.[208][209] Archaea also associate with larger organisms. For example, the marine archaean Cenarchaeum symbiosum lives within (is an endosymbiont of) the sponge Axinella mexicana.[210]
+
+Archaea can also be commensals, benefiting from an association without helping or harming the other organism. For example, the methanogen Methanobrevibacter smithii is by far the most common archaean in the human flora, making up about one in ten of all the prokaryotes in the human gut.[211] In termites and in humans, these methanogens may in fact be mutualists, interacting with other microbes in the gut to aid digestion.[212] Archaean communities also associate with a range of other organisms, such as on the surface of corals,[213] and in the region of soil that surrounds plant roots (the rhizosphere).[214][215]
+
+Extremophile archaea, particularly those resistant either to heat or to extremes of acidity and alkalinity, are a source of enzymes that function under these harsh conditions.[216][217] These enzymes have found many uses. For example, thermostable DNA polymerases, such as the Pfu DNA polymerase from Pyrococcus furiosus, revolutionized molecular biology by allowing the polymerase chain reaction to be used in research as a simple and rapid technique for cloning DNA. In industry, amylases, galactosidases and pullulanases in other species of Pyrococcus that function at over 100 °C (212 °F) allow food processing at high temperatures, such as the production of low lactose milk and whey.[218] Enzymes from these thermophilic archaea also tend to be very stable in organic solvents, allowing their use in environmentally friendly processes in green chemistry that synthesize organic compounds.[217] This stability makes them easier to use in structural biology. Consequently, the counterparts of bacterial or eukaryotic enzymes from extremophile archaea are often used in structural studies.[219]
+
+In contrast with the range of applications of archaean enzymes, the use of the organisms themselves in biotechnology is less developed. Methanogenic archaea are a vital part of sewage treatment, since they are part of the community of microorganisms that carry out anaerobic digestion and produce biogas.[220] In mineral processing, acidophilic archaea display promise for the extraction of metals from ores, including gold, cobalt and copper.[221]
+
+Archaea host a new class of potentially useful antibiotics. A few of these archaeocins have been characterized, but hundreds more are believed to exist, especially within Haloarchaea and Sulfolobus. These compounds differ in structure from bacterial antibiotics, so they may have novel modes of action. In addition, they may allow the creation of new selectable markers for use in archaeal molecular biology.[222]
+

en/3420.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+
+
+LGBT (or  GLBT) is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the term is an adaptation of the initialism  LGB, which was used to replace the term gay in reference to the LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s.[4] Activists believed that the term gay community did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred.
+
+The initialism, as well as some of its common variants, have been adopted into the mainstream  as an umbrella term for use when labeling topics pertaining to sexuality and gender identity. For example, in a comprehensive study of community centers around the United States which offer specific services to members of the LGBT community, the LGBT Movement Advancement Project used the term "LGBT community centers".[5]
+
+The initialism LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of sexuality and gender identity-based cultures.[6] It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.[7] To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual identity; LGBTQ has been recorded since 1996.[8][9] Those who add intersex people to LGBT groups or organizing may use the extended initialism  LGBTI.[10][11] These two initialism are sometimes combined to form the terms  LGBTIQ [12] or  LGBT+ to encompass spectrums of sexuality and gender.[13] Other, less common variants also exist, with some being an extreme in length; this can result in initialism over twice as long, which has prompted criticism.[14][15][16]
+
+The first widely used term, homosexual, now carries negative connotations in the United States.[18] It was replaced by  homophile in the 1950s and 1960s,[19][20][21][dubious  – discuss] and subsequently gay in the 1970s; the latter term was adopted first by the homosexual community.[22]
+
+As lesbians forged more public identities, the phrase "gay and lesbian" became more common.[23] A dispute as to whether the primary focus of their political aims should be feminism or gay rights led to the dissolution of some lesbian organizations, including the Daughters of Bilitis, which disbanded in 1970 following disputes over which goal should take precedence.[24] As equality was a priority for lesbian feminists, disparity of roles between men and women or butch and femme were viewed as patriarchal. Lesbian feminists eschewed gender role play that had been pervasive in bars, as well as the perceived chauvinism of gay men; many lesbian feminists refused to work with gay men, or take up their causes.[25]
+
+Lesbians who held the essentialist view, that they had been born homosexual and used the descriptor "lesbian" to define sexual attraction, often considered the separatist opinions of lesbian-feminists to be detrimental to the cause of gay rights.[26] Bisexual and transgender people also sought recognition as legitimate categories within the larger minority community.[23]
+
+After the elation of change following group action in the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, some gays and lesbians became less accepting of bisexual or transgender people.[27][28] Critics[Like whom?] said that transgender people were acting out stereotypes and bisexuals were simply gay men or lesbian women who were afraid to come out and be honest about their identity.[27] Each community has struggled to develop its own identity including whether, and how, to align with other gender and sexuality-based communities, at times excluding other subgroups; these conflicts continue to this day.[28] LGBTQ activists and artists have created posters to raise consciousness about the issue since the movement began.[29]
+
+From about 1988, activists began to use the initialism LGBT in the United States.[30] Not until the 1990s within the movement did gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people gain equal respect.[28]  This spurred some organizations to adopt new names, as the GLBT Historical Society did in 1999.  Although the LGBT community has seen much controversy regarding universal acceptance of different member groups (bisexual and transgender individuals, in particular, have sometimes been marginalized by the larger LGBT community), the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion.[7][28]
+
+Despite the fact that LGBT does not nominally encompass all individuals in smaller communities (see Variants below), the term is generally accepted to include those not specifically identified in the four-letter initialism.[7][28] Overall, the use of the term LGBT has, over time, largely aided in bringing otherwise marginalized individuals into the general community.[7][28] Transgender actress Candis Cayne in 2009 described the LGBT community "the last great minority", noting that "We can still be harassed openly" and be "called out on television".[31]
+
+In response to years of lobbying from users and LGBT groups to eliminate discrimination, the online social networking service Facebook, in February 2014, widened its choice of gender variants for users.[relevant?  – discuss][32][33][34][35]
+
+In 2016, GLAAD's Media Reference Guide states that LGBTQ is the preferred initialism, being more inclusive of younger members of the communities who embrace queer as a self-descriptor.[36] However, some people consider queer to be a derogatory term originating in hate speech and reject it, especially among older members of the community.[37]
+
+Many variants exist including variations that change the order of the letters; LGBT or GLBT are the most common terms.[28] Although identical in meaning, LGBT may have a more feminist connotation than GLBT as it places the "L" (for "lesbian") first.[28] LGBT may also include additional Qs for "queer" or "questioning" (sometimes abbreviated with a question mark and sometimes used to mean anybody not literally L, G, B or T)  producing the variants LGBTQ and  LGBTQQ.[39][40][41] In the United Kingdom, it is sometimes stylized as  LGB&T,[42][43] whilst the Green Party of England and Wales uses the term LGBTIQ in its manifesto and official publications.[44][45][46]
+
+The order of the letters has not been standardized; in addition to the variations between the positions of the initial "L" or "G", the mentioned, less common letters, if used, may appear in almost any order.[28] Longer initialisms based on LGBT are sometimes referred to as "alphabet soup".[47][48] Variant terms do not typically represent political differences within the community, but arise simply from the preferences of individuals and groups.[49]
+
+The terms pansexual, omnisexual, fluid and queer-identified are regarded as falling under the umbrella term bisexual (and therefore are considered a part of the bisexual community).
+
+Some use LGBT+ to mean "LGBT and related communities".[13]  LGBTQIA is sometimes used and adds "queer, intersex, and asexual" to the basic term.[50]
+Other variants may have a "U" for "unsure"; a "C" for "curious"; another "T" for "transvestite"; a "TS", or "2" for "two-spirit" persons; or an "SA" for "straight allies".[51][52][53][54][55] However, the inclusion of straight allies in the LGBT acronym has proven controversial as many straight allies have been accused of using LGBT advocacy to gain popularity and status in recent years,[56] and various LGBT activists have criticised the heteronormative worldview of certain straight allies.[57] Some may also add a "P" for "polyamorous", an "H" for "HIV-affected", or an "O" for "other".[28][58] Furthermore, the initialism  LGBTIH has seen use in India to encompass the hijra third gender identity and the related subculture.[59][60]
+
+The initialism  LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) has also resulted, although such initialisms are sometimes criticized for being confusing and leaving some people out, as well as issues of placement of the letters within the new title.[47] However, adding the term "allies" to the initialism has sparked controversy,[61] with some seeing the inclusion of "ally" in place of "asexual" as a form of asexual erasure.[62] There is also the acronym  QUILTBAG (queer and questioning, unsure, intersex, lesbian, transgender and two-spirit, bisexual, asexual and aromantic, and gay and genderqueer).[63]
+
+Similarly  LGBTIQA+ stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual and many other terms (such as non-binary and pansexual)".[64] Or the '+' after the A may denote a second A representing 'Allies'. [65]
+
+In Canada, the community is sometimes identified as LGBTQ2 (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Two Spirit).[66] Depending on the which organization is using the acronym the choice of acronym changes. Businesses and the CBC often simply employ LGBT as a proxy for any longer acronym, private activist groups often employ LGBTQ+,[67] whereas public health providers favour the more inclusive LGBT2Q+ to accommodate twin spirited indigenous peoples.[68]  For a time the Pride Toronto organization used the much lengthier acronym  LGBTTIQQ2SA, but appears to have dropped this in favour of simpler wording.[69]
+
+The term trans* has been adopted by some groups as a more inclusive alternative to "transgender", where trans (without the asterisk) has been used to describe trans men and trans women, while trans* covers all non-cisgender (genderqueer) identities, including transgender, transsexual, transvestite, genderqueer, genderfluid, non-binary, genderfuck, genderless, agender, non-gendered, third gender, two-spirit, bigender, and trans man and trans woman.[70][71] Likewise, the term transsexual commonly falls under the umbrella term transgender, but some transsexual people object to this.[28]
+
+When not inclusive of transgender people, the shorter term LGB is used instead of LGBT.[28][72]
+
+The relationship of intersex to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans, and queer communities is complex,[73] but intersex people are often added to the LGBT category to create an LGBTI community. Some intersex people prefer the initialism LGBTI, while others would rather that they not be included as part of the term.[11][74] Emi Koyama describes how inclusion of intersex in LGBTI can fail to address intersex-specific human rights issues, including creating false impressions "that intersex people's rights are protected" by laws protecting LGBT people, and failing to acknowledge that many intersex people are not LGBT.[75] Organisation Intersex International Australia states that some intersex individuals are same sex attracted, and some are heterosexual, but "LGBTI activism has fought for the rights of people who fall outside of expected binary sex and gender norms".[76][77] Julius Kaggwa of SIPD Uganda has written that, while the gay community "offers us a place of relative safety, it is also oblivious to our specific needs".[78]
+
+Numerous studies have shown higher rates of same sex attraction in intersex people,[79][80] with a recent Australian study of people born with atypical sex characteristics finding that 52% of respondents were non-heterosexual,[81][82] thus research on intersex subjects has been used to explore means of preventing homosexuality.[79][80] As an experience of being born with sex characteristics that do not fit social norms,[83] intersex can be distinguished from transgender,[84][85][86] while some intersex people are both intersex and transgender.[87]
+
+
+
+The initialisms LGBT or GLBT are not agreed to by everyone that they encompass.[89] For example, some argue that transgender and transsexual causes are not the same as that of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people.[90] This argument centers on the idea that being transgender or transsexual have to do more with gender identity, or a person's understanding of being or not being a man or a woman irrespective of their sexual orientation.[28] LGB issues can be seen as a matter of sexual orientation or attraction.[28] These distinctions have been made in the context of political action in which LGB goals, such as same-sex marriage legislation and human rights work (which may not include transgender and intersex people), may be perceived to differ from transgender and transsexual goals.[28]
+
+A belief in "lesbian & gay separatism" (not to be confused with the related "lesbian separatism"), holds that lesbians and gay men form (or should form) a community distinct and separate from other groups normally included in the LGBTQ sphere.[91] While not always appearing of sufficient number or organization to be called a movement, separatists are a significant, vocal, and active element within many parts of the LGBT community.[92][91][93] In some cases separatists will deny the existence or right to equality of bisexual orientations and of transsexuality,[92] sometimes leading public biphobia and transphobia.[92][91] In contrasts to separatists, Peter Tatchell of the LGBT human rights group OutRage! argues that to separate the transgender movement from the LGB would be "political madness", stating that:
+
+Queers are, like transgender people, gender deviant. We don't conform to traditional heterosexist assumptions of male and female behaviour, in that we have sexual and emotional relationships with the same sex. We should celebrate our discordance with mainstream straight norms.[...] [94]
+
+The portrayal of an all-encompassing "LGBT community" or "LGB community" is also disliked by some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.[95][96] Some do not subscribe to or approve of the political and social solidarity, and visibility and human rights campaigning that normally goes with it including gay pride marches and events.[95][96] Some of them believe that grouping together people with non-heterosexual orientations perpetuates the myth that being gay/lesbian/bi/asexual/pansexual/etc. makes a person deficiently different from other people.[95] These people are often less visible compared to more mainstream gay or LGBT activists.[95][96] Since this faction is difficult to distinguish from the heterosexual majority, it is common for people to assume all LGBT people support LGBT liberation and the visibility of LGBT people in society, including the right to live one's life in a different way from the majority.[95][96][97] In the 1996 book Anti-Gay, a collection of essays edited by Mark Simpson, the concept of a 'one-size-fits-all' identity based on LGBT stereotypes is criticized for suppressing the individuality of LGBT people.[98]
+
+Writing in the BBC News Magazine in 2014, Julie Bindel questions whether the various gender groupings now, "bracketed together" ... "share the same issues, values and goals?"  Bindel refers to a number of possible new initialisms for differing combinations and concludes that it may be time for the alliances to be reformed or finally go "our separate ways".[99] In 2015, the slogan "Drop the T" was coined to encourage LGBT organizations to stop support of transgender people; while receiving support from some feminists[100][101] as well as transgender individuals,[102] the campaign has been widely condemned by many LGBT groups as transphobic.[103][104][105][106]
+
+Many people have looked for a generic term to replace the numerous existing initialisms.[92] Words such as queer (an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual, or gender-binary) and rainbow have been tried, but most have not been widely adopted.[92][107] Queer has many negative connotations to older people who remember the word as a taunt and insult and such (negative) usage of the term continues.[92][107] Many younger people also understand queer to be more politically charged than LGBT.[107][108] "Rainbow" has connotations that recall hippies, New Age movements, and groups such as the Rainbow Family or Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. SGL ("same gender loving") is sometimes favored among gay male African Americans as a way of distinguishing themselves from what they regard as white-dominated LGBT communities.[109]
+
+Some people advocate the term "minority sexual and gender identities" (MSGI, coined in 2000), or gender and sexual/sexuality minorities (GSM), so as to explicitly include all people who are not cisgender and heterosexual; or gender, sexual, and romantic minorities (GSRM), which is more explicitly inclusive of minority romantic orientations and polyamory; but those have not been widely adopted either.[110][111][112][113][114] Other rare umbrella terms are Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD),[115] MOGII (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Identities, and Intersex) and MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex).[116][117]
+
+The National Institutes of Health have framed LGBT, others "whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity varies, those who may not self-identify as LGBT" and also intersex populations (as persons with disorders of sex development) as "sexual and gender minority" (SGM) populations. This has led to the development of an NIH SGM Health Research Strategic Plan.[118] The Williams Institute has used the same term in a report on international sustainable development goals, but excluding intersex populations.[119]
+
+In public health settings, MSM ("men who have sex with men") is clinically used to describe men who have sex with other men without referring to their sexual orientation, with WSW ("women who have sex with women") also used as an analogous term.[120][121]
+
+Category:LGBT culture

en/3421.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,160 @@
+
+
+Iron Man is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was co-created by writer and editor Stan Lee, developed by scripter Larry Lieber, and designed by artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby. The character made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover dated March 1963), and received his own title in Iron Man #1 (May 1968).
+
+A wealthy American business magnate, playboy, and ingenious scientist, Anthony Edward "Tony" Stark suffers a severe chest injury during a kidnapping. When his captors attempt to force him to build a weapon of mass destruction, he instead creates a mechanized suit of armor to save his life and escape captivity. Later, Stark develops his suit, adding weapons and other technological devices he designed through his company, Stark Industries. He uses the suit and successive versions to protect the world as Iron Man. Although at first concealing his true identity, Stark eventually publicly reveals himself to be Iron Man.
+
+Initially, Iron Man was a vehicle for Stan Lee to explore Cold War themes, particularly the role of American technology and industry in the fight against communism. Subsequent re-imaginings of Iron Man have transitioned from Cold War motifs to contemporary matters of the time.[1]
+
+Throughout most of the character's publication history, Iron Man has been a founding member of the superhero team the Avengers and has been featured in several incarnations of his own various comic book series. Iron Man has been adapted for several animated TV shows and films. The Marvel Cinematic Universe character was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008) in a cameo, Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) in archive footage, and will reprise his role in Black Widow (2020).
+
+Iron Man was ranked 12th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" in 2011[2] and third in their list of "The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012.[3]
+
+Iron Man's Marvel Comics premiere in Tales of Suspense #39 (cover dated March 1963) was a collaboration among editor and story-plotter Stan Lee, scripter Larry Lieber, story-artist Don Heck, and cover-artist and character-designer Jack Kirby.[4] In 1963, Lee had been toying with the idea of a businessman superhero.[5] He wanted to create the "quintessential capitalist", a character that would go against the spirit of the times and Marvel's readership.[6] Lee said,
+
+I think I gave myself a dare. It was the height of the Cold War. The readers, the young readers, if there was one thing they hated, it was war, it was the military ... So I got a hero who represented that to the hundredth degree. He was a weapons manufacturer, he was providing weapons for the Army, he was rich, he was an industrialist ... I thought it would be fun to take the kind of character that nobody would like, none of our readers would like, and shove him down their throats and make them like him ... And he became very popular.[7]
+
+He set out to make the new character a wealthy, glamorous ladies' man, but one with a secret that would plague and torment him as well.[8] Writer Gerry Conway said, "Here you have this character, who on the outside is invulnerable, I mean, just can't be touched, but inside is a wounded figure. Stan made it very much an in-your-face wound, you know, his heart was broken, you know, literally broken. But there's a metaphor going on there. And that's, I think, what made that character interesting."[7] Lee based this playboy's looks and personality on Howard Hughes,[9] explaining, "Howard Hughes was one of the most colorful men of our time. He was an inventor, an adventurer, a multi-billionaire, a ladies' man and finally a nutcase."[10] "Without being crazy, he was Howard Hughes," Lee said.[7]
+
+While Lee intended to write the story himself,[11] a minor deadline emergency eventually forced him to hand over the premiere issue to Lieber, who fleshed out the story.[8] The art was split between Kirby and Heck. "He designed the costume," Heck said of Kirby, "because he was doing the cover. The covers were always done first. But I created the look of the characters, like Tony Stark and his secretary Pepper Potts."[12] In a 1990 interview, when asked if he had "a specific model for Tony Stark and the other characters?", Heck replied "No, I would be thinking more along the lines of some characters I like, which would be the same kind of characters that Alex Toth liked, which was an Errol Flynn type."[13] Iron Man first appeared in 13- to 18-page stories in Tales of Suspense, which featured anthology science fiction and supernatural stories. The character's original costume was a bulky gray armored suit, replaced by a golden version in the second story (issue #40, April 1963). It was redesigned as sleeker, red-and-golden armor in issue #48 (Dec. 1963) by that issue's interior artist, Steve Ditko, although Kirby drew it on the cover. As Heck recalled in 1985, "[T]he second costume, the red and yellow one, was designed by Steve Ditko. I found it easier than drawing that bulky old thing. The earlier design, the robot-looking one, was more Kirbyish."[14]
+
+In his premiere, Iron Man was an anti-communist hero, defeating various Vietnamese agents. Lee later regretted this early focus.[5][15] Throughout the character's comic book series, technological advancement and national defense were constant themes for Iron Man, but later issues developed Stark into a more complex and vulnerable character as they depicted his battle with alcoholism (as in the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline) and other personal difficulties.
+
+From issue #59 (Nov. 1964) to its final issue #99 (March 1968), the anthological science-fiction backup stories in Tales of Suspense were replaced by a feature starring the superhero Captain America. Lee and Heck introduced several adversaries for the character including the Mandarin in issue #50 (Feb. 1964),[16] the Black Widow in #52 (April 1964)[17] and Hawkeye five issues later.[18]
+
+Lee said that "of all the comic books we published at Marvel, we got more fan mail for Iron Man from women, from females, than any other title ... We didn't get much fan mail from girls, but whenever we did, the letter was usually addressed to Iron Man."[7]
+
+Lee and Kirby included Iron Man in The Avengers #1 (Sept. 1963) as a founding member of the superhero team. The character has since appeared in every subsequent volume of the series.
+
+Writers have updated the war and locale in which Stark is injured. In the original 1963 story, it was the Vietnam War. In the 1990s, it was updated to be the first Gulf War,[19] and in the 2000s updated again to be the war in Afghanistan. Stark's time with the Asian Nobel Prize-winning scientist Ho Yinsen is consistent through nearly all incarnations of the Iron Man origin, depicting Stark and Yinsen building the original armor together. One exception is the direct-to-DVD animated feature film The Invincible Iron Man, in which the armor Stark uses to escape his captors is not the first Iron Man suit.
+
+The original Iron Man title explored Cold War themes, as did other Stan Lee projects in the early years of Marvel Comics. Where The Fantastic Four and The Incredible Hulk respectively focused on American domestic and government responses to the Communist threat, Iron Man explored industry's role in the struggle. Tony Stark's real-life model, Howard Hughes, was a significant defense contractor who developed new weapons technologies. Hughes was an icon both of American individualism and of the burdens of fame.[20]
+
+Historian Robert Genter, in The Journal of Popular Culture, writes that Tony Stark specifically presents an idealized portrait of the American inventor. Where earlier decades had seen important technological innovations come from famous individuals (e.g., Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright brothers), the 1960s saw new technologies (including weapons) being developed mainly by the research teams of corporations. As a result, little room remained for the inventor who wanted credit for, and creative and economic control over, their own creations.
+
+Issues of entrepreneurial autonomy, government supervision of research, and ultimate loyalty figured prominently in early Iron Man stories—the same issues affecting American scientists and engineers of that era.[20] Tony Stark, writes Genter, is an inventor who finds motive in his emasculation as an autonomous creative individual. This blow is symbolized by his chest wound, inflicted at the moment he is forced to invent things for the purposes of others, instead of just himself. To Genter, Stark's transformation into Iron Man represents Stark's effort to reclaim his autonomy, and thus his manhood. The character's pursuit of women in bed or in battle, writes Genter, represents another aspect of this effort. The pattern finds parallels in other works of 1960s popular fiction by authors such as "Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond), Mickey Spillane (Mike Hammer), and Norman Mailer, who made unregulated sexuality a form of authenticity."[20]
+
+After issue #99 (March 1968), the Tales of Suspense series was renamed Captain America. An Iron Man story appeared in the one-shot comic Iron Man and Sub-Mariner (April 1968), before the "Golden Avenger"[21] made his solo debut with Iron Man #1 (May 1968).[22] The series' indicia gives its copyright title Iron Man, while the trademarked cover logo of most issues is The Invincible Iron Man.
+
+This initial series ended with issue #332 (Sept. 1996). Jim Lee, Scott Lobdell, and Jeph Loeb authored a second volume of the series which was drawn primarily by Whilce Portacio and Ryan Benjamin. This volume took place in a parallel universe[23] and ran 13 issues (Nov. 1996 – Nov. 1997).[24] Volume 3, whose first 25 issues were written by Kurt Busiek[25] and then by Busiek and Roger Stern, ran 89 issues (Feb. 1998 – Dec. 2004). Later writers included Joe Quesada, Frank Tieri, Mike Grell, and John Jackson Miller. Issue #41 (June 2001) was additionally numbered #386, reflecting the start of dual numbering starting from the premiere issue of volume one in 1968. The final issue was dual-numbered as #434.[26] The next Iron Man series, Iron Man vol. 4, debuted in early 2005 with the Warren Ellis-written storyline "Extremis", with artist Adi Granov.[27][28] It ran 35 issues (Jan. 2005 – Jan. 2009), with the cover logo simply Iron Man beginning with issue #13, and Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., beginning issue #15. On the final three issues, the cover logo was overwritten by "War Machine, Weapon of S.H.I.E.L.D.",[29] which led to the launch of a War Machine ongoing series.[30]
+
+The Invincible Iron Man vol. 1, by writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larroca, began with a premiere issue cover-dated July 2008.[31] For a seven-month overlap, Marvel published both volume four and volume five simultaneously.[32] This Invincible volume jumped its numbering of issues from #33 to #500, cover dated March 2011, to reflect the start from the premiere issue of volume one in 1968.
+
+After the conclusion of The Invincible Iron Man a new Iron Man series was started as a part of Marvel Now!. Written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by Greg Land, it began with issue #1 in November 2012.[33]
+
+Many Iron Man annuals, miniseries, and one-shot titles have been published through the years, such as Age of Innocence: The Rebirth of Iron Man (Feb. 1996), Iron Man: The Iron Age #1–2 (Aug.–Sept. 1998), Iron Man: Bad Blood #1–4 (Sept.–Dec. 2000), Iron Man House of M #1–3 (Sept.–Nov. 2005), Fantastic Four / Iron Man: Big in Japan #1–4 (Dec. 2005–March 2006), Iron Man: The Inevitable #1–6 (Feb.–July 2006), Iron Man / Captain America: Casualties of War (Feb. 2007), Iron Man: Hypervelocity #1–6 (March–Aug. 2007), Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin #1–6 (Nov. 2007–April 2008), and Iron Man: Legacy of Doom (June–Sept. 2008). Publications have included such spin-offs as the one-shot Iron Man 2020 (June 1994), featuring a different Iron Man in the future, and the animated TV series adaptations Marvel Action Hour, Featuring Iron Man #1–8 (Nov. 1994–June 1995) and Marvel Adventures Iron Man #1–12 (July 2007–June 2008).[34]
+
+Anthony Edward Stark is the son of wealthy industrialist and head of Stark Industries, Howard Stark, and Maria Stark. A boy genius, he enters MIT at the age of 15 to study engineering and later receives master's degrees in engineering and physics. After his parents are killed in a car accident, he inherits his father's company.
+
+Stark is injured by a booby trap and captured by enemy forces led by Wong-Chu. Wong-Chu orders Stark to build weapons, but Stark's injuries are dire and shrapnel is moving towards his heart. His fellow prisoner, Ho Yinsen, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose work Stark had greatly admired during college, constructs a magnetic chest plate to keep the shrapnel from reaching Stark's heart. In secret, Stark and Yinsen use the workshop to design and construct a suit of powered armor, which Stark uses to escape. During the escape attempt, Yinsen sacrifices his life to save Stark's by distracting the enemy as Stark recharges. Stark takes revenge on his kidnappers and rejoins the American forces, on his way meeting a wounded American Marine fighter pilot, James "Rhodey" Rhodes.
+
+Back home, Stark discovers that the shrapnel fragment lodged in his chest cannot be removed without killing him, and he is forced to wear the armor's chestplate beneath his clothes to act as a regulator for his heart. He must recharge the chestplate every day or else risk the shrapnel killing him. The cover story that Stark tells the news media and general public is that Iron Man is his robotic personal bodyguard, and corporate mascot. To that end, Iron Man fights threats to his company (e.g., Communist opponents Black Widow, the Crimson Dynamo, and the Titanium Man), as well as independent villains like the Mandarin (who becomes his greatest enemy). No one suspects Stark of being Iron Man, as he cultivates a strong public image of being a rich playboy and industrialist. Two notable members of the series' supporting cast, at this point, are his personal chauffeur Harold "Happy" Hogan, and secretary Virginia "Pepper" Potts—to both of whom he eventually reveals his dual identity. Meanwhile, James Rhodes finds his own niche as Stark's personal pilot, ultimately revealing himself to be a man of extraordinary skill and daring in his own right.
+
+The series took an anti-Communist stance in its early years, which was softened as public (and therefore, presumably, reader) opposition rose to the Vietnam War.[5] This change evolved in a series of storylines featuring Stark reconsidering his political opinions, and the morality of manufacturing weapons for the U.S. military. Stark shows himself to be occasionally arrogant, and willing to act unethically in order to 'let the ends justify the means'.[35][36] This leads to personal conflicts with the people around him, both in his civilian and superhero identities. Stark uses his vast personal fortune not only to outfit his own armor, but also to develop weapons for S.H.I.E.L.D.; other technologies (e.g., Quinjets used by the Avengers); and the image inducers used by the X-Men. Eventually, Stark's heart condition is resolved with an artificial heart transplant.[37]
+
+Stark expands on his armor designs and begins to build his arsenal of specialized armors for particular situations such as for space travel[38] and stealth.[39][40] Stark also develops a serious dependency on alcohol in the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline.[41] The first time it becomes a problem is when Stark discovers that the national security agency S.H.I.E.L.D. has been buying a controlling interest in his company in order to ensure Stark's continued weapons development for them. At the same time, it is revealed that several minor supervillains armed with advanced weapons who had bedeviled Stark throughout his superhero career are in fact in the employ of Stark's business rival, Justin Hammer, who begins to plague Stark more directly.[42][43] At one point in Hammer's manipulations, the Iron Man armor is taken over and used to murder a diplomat.[43] Although Iron Man is not immediately under suspicion, Stark is forced to hand the armor over to the authorities.[44] Eventually Stark and Rhodes, who is now his personal pilot and confidant, track down and defeat those responsible, although Hammer would return to bedevil Stark again.[38][45] With the support of his then-girlfriend, Bethany Cabe, his friends and his employees, Stark pulls through these crises and overcomes his dependency on alcohol.[46] Even as he recovers from this harrowing personal trial, Stark's life is further complicated when he has a confrontation with Doctor Doom that is interrupted by an opportunistic enemy sending them back in time to the time of King Arthur.[47] Once there, Iron Man thwarts Doom's attempt to solicit the aid of Morgan Le Fay, and the Latverian ruler swears deadly vengeance—to be indulged sometime after the two return to their own time.[48] This incident was collected and published as Doomquest.
+
+Some time later, a ruthless rival, Obadiah Stane, manipulates Stark emotionally into a serious relapse. As a result, Stark loses control of Stark International to Stane, becomes a homeless alcoholic vagrant and gives up his armored identity to Rhodes, who becomes the new Iron Man. Eventually, Stark recovers and joins a new startup, Circuits Maximus. Stark concentrates on new technological designs, including building a new set of armor as part of his recuperative therapy. Rhodes continues to act as Iron Man but steadily grows more aggressive and paranoid, due to the armor not having been calibrated properly for his use. Eventually Rhodes goes on a rampage, and Stark has to don a replica of his original armor to stop him. Fully recovered, Stark confronts Stane who has himself designed armor based on designs seized along with Stark International, dubbing himself the 'Iron Monger'. Defeated in battle, Stane, rather than give Stark the satisfaction of taking him to trial, commits suicide.[49] Shortly thereafter, Stark regains his personal fortune, but decides against repurchasing Stark International until much later; he instead creates Stark Enterprises, headquartered in Los Angeles.
+
+In an attempt to stop other people from misusing his designs, Stark goes about disabling other armored heroes and villains who are using suits based on the Iron Man technology, the designs of which were stolen by his enemy Spymaster. His quest to destroy the stolen technology—originally called "Stark Wars" but is more commonly known as the "Armor Wars"—severely hurts his reputation as Iron Man. After attacking and disabling a series of minor villains such as Stilt-Man, he attacks and defeats the government operative known as Stingray. The situation worsens when Stark realizes that Stingray's armor does not incorporate any of his designs. He publicly "fires" Iron Man while covertly pursuing his agenda. He uses the cover story of wanting to help disable the rogue Iron Man to infiltrate and disable the armor of the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives known as the Mandroids, as well as the armor of the Guardsmen. In the process, Iron Man and Jim Rhodes allow some of the villains in the Vault to escape. This leads the United States government to declare Iron Man a danger and an outlaw, and severely sours Stark's relationship with Steve Rogers (Captain America, who was in his "Captain" persona at the time). Iron Man travels to Russia where he inadvertently causes the death of the Soviet Titanium Man during a fight. Returning to the U.S., he faces an enemy commissioned by the government named Firepower. Unable to defeat him head on, Stark fakes Iron Man's demise,[50] intending to retire the suit permanently. When Firepower goes rogue, Stark creates a new suit, claiming a new person is in the armor.
+
+Soon after, Stark is nearly killed by Kathy Dare, a mentally unbalanced former lover. She shoots him dead center in his torso which injures his spine, paralyzing him.[51] Stark undergoes special surgery to have a nerve chip implanted into his spine to regain his mobility.[52] Unbeknownst to the industrialist, the nerve chip is a clandestine means by which to gain control over his body. Rival businessmen the Marrs Twins and their cohort Kearson DeWitt are behind the machinations in what came to be known as "Armor Wars II."[53] After several successful tests by DeWitt at manipulating Stark, Tony finds that using his Encephalo Armor can counteract DeWitt's controls.[54] In response, DeWitt suddenly releases his control resulting in excruciating agony throughout Stark's body.[55] The constant "battle" for control of Stark's nervous system and subsequent abdication on DeWitt's end lead to massive nerve damage throughout Tony's body. Stark's nervous system continues its slide towards failure, and he constructs a "skin" made up of artificial nerve circuitry to assist it.[56] Stark begins to pilot a remote-controlled Iron Man armor, but when faced with the Masters of Silence, the telepresence suit proves inadequate.[57] Stark designs a more heavily armed version of the suit to wear, the "Variable Threat Response Battle Suit", which becomes known as the War Machine armor. Ultimately, the damage to his nervous system becomes too extensive. Faking his death, Stark places himself in suspended animation to heal as Rhodes takes over both the running of Stark Enterprises and the mantle of Iron Man, although he uses the War Machine armor.[58] Stark eventually makes a full recovery by using a chip to create an entirely new (artificial) nervous system, and resumes as Iron Man in a new Telepresence Armor.[59] When Rhodes learns that Stark has manipulated his friends by faking his own death, he becomes enraged and the two friends part ways. Rhodes continues on as War Machine in a solo career.
+
+The Avengers story arc "The Crossing" reveals Iron Man as a traitor among the team's ranks, due to years of manipulation by the time-traveling dictator Kang the Conqueror. Stark, as a sleeper agent in Kang's thrall, kills Marilla, the nanny of Crystal and Quicksilver's daughter Luna, as well as Rita DeMara, the female Yellowjacket, then Amanda Chaney, an ally of the Avengers. The "Avengers Forever" limited series retcons these events as the work of a disguised Immortus, not Kang, and that the mental control had gone back only a few months.[60]
+
+Needing help to defeat both Stark and Kang, the team travels back in time to recruit a teenaged Anthony Stark from an alternate timeline to assist them. The young Stark steals an Iron Man suit in order to aid the Avengers against his older self. The sight of his younger self shocks the older Stark enough for him to regain momentary control of his actions, and he sacrifices his life to stop Kang.[61] The young Stark later builds his own suit to become the new Iron Man and remains in the present day.
+
+During the battle with the creature called Onslaught, the teenage Stark dies, along with many other superheroes. Franklin Richards preserves these "dead" heroes in the "Heroes Reborn" pocket universe, in which Stark is once again an adult hero; Franklin recreates the heroes in the pocket universe in the forms he is most familiar with rather than what they are at the present. The reborn adult Stark, upon returning to the normal Marvel Universe, merges with the original Stark, who had died during "The Crossing", but was resurrected by Franklin Richards. This new Anthony Stark possesses the memories of both the original and teenage Anthony Stark, and thus considers himself to be essentially both of them. With the aid of the law firm Nelson & Murdock, he regains his fortune and, with Stark Enterprises having been sold to the Fujikawa Corporation following Stark's death, sets up a new company, Stark Solutions. He returns from the pocket universe with a restored and healthy heart. After the Avengers reform, Stark demands a hearing be convened to look into his actions just prior to the Onslaught incident. Cleared of wrongdoing, he rejoins the Avengers.[62]
+
+At one point, Stark's armor becomes sentient despite fail-safes to prevent its increasingly sophisticated computer systems from doing so.[63] Initially, Stark welcomes this "living" armor for its improved tactical abilities. The armor begins to grow more aggressive, killing indiscriminately and eventually desiring to replace Stark altogether. In the final confrontation on a desert island, Stark suffers another heart attack. The armor sacrifices its own existence to save its creator's life, giving up essential components to give Stark a new, artificial heart. This new heart solves Stark's health problems, but it does not have an internal power supply, so Stark becomes once again dependent on periodic recharging. The sentient armor incident so disturbs Stark that he temporarily returns to using an unsophisticated early model version of his armor to avoid a repeat incident.[64] He dabbles with using liquid metal circuitry known as S.K.I.N. that forms into a protective shell around his body, but eventually returns to more conventional hard metal armors.[65]
+
+During this time, Stark engages in a romance with Rumiko Fujikawa,[66] a wealthy heiress and daughter of the man who had taken over his company during the "Heroes Reborn" period. Her relationship with Stark endures many highs and lows, including infidelity with Stark's rival, Tiberius Stone, in part because the fun-loving Rumiko believes that Stark is too serious and dull. Their relationship ends with Rumiko's death at the hands of an Iron Man impostor in Iron Man (vol. 3) #87.
+
+In Iron Man (vol. 3) #55 (July 2002), Stark publicly reveals his dual identity as Iron Man, not realizing that by doing so, he has invalidated the agreements protecting his armor from government duplication, since those contracts state that the Iron Man armor would be used by an employee of Tony Stark, not by Stark himself. When he discovers that the United States military is again using his technology, and its defective nature nearly causes a disaster in Washington, D.C. which Iron Man barely manages to avert, Stark accepts a Presidential appointment as Secretary of Defense. In this way, he hopes to monitor and direct how his designs are used.[67]
+
+In the "Avengers Disassembled" storyline, Stark is forced to resign after launching into a tirade against the Latverian ambassador at the United Nations, being manipulated by the mentally imbalanced Scarlet Witch, who destroys Avengers Mansion and kills several members. Stark publicly stands down as Iron Man, but continues using the costume. He joins the Avengers in stopping the breakout in progress from the Raft and even saves Captain America from falling.[68] Tony changes the Avengers base to Stark Tower.[69] The Ghost, the Living Laser and Spymaster reappear and shift Iron Man from standard superhero stories to dealing with politics and industrialism.[70]
+
+New Avengers: Illuminati #1 (June 2006) reveals that years before, Stark had participated with a secret group that included the Black Panther, Professor X, Mister Fantastic, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange, and Namor. The goal of the group (dubbed the Illuminati by Marvel) was to strategize overarching menaces, in which the Black Panther rejects a membership offer. Stark's goal is to create a governing body for all superheroes in the world, but the beliefs of its members instead force them all to share vital information.
+
+In the "Civil War" storyline, after the actions of inexperienced superheroes the New Warriors result in the destruction of several city blocks in Stamford, Connecticut, there is an outcry across America against superhumans. Learning of the Government's proposed plans, Tony Stark suggests a new plan to instigate a Superhuman Registration Act. The Act would force every superpowered individual in the U.S. to register their identity with the government and act as licensed agents. The Act would force inexperienced superhumans to receive training in how to use and control their abilities, something in which Tony strongly believes. Since his struggle with alcoholism, Stark has carried a tremendous burden of guilt after nearly killing an innocent bystander while piloting the armor drunk. While Reed Richards and Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym both agree with Stark's proposal, not everyone does. After Captain America is ordered to bring in anyone who refuses to register, he and other anti-registration superheroes go rogue, coming into conflict with the pro-registration heroes, led by Iron Man. The war ends when Captain America surrenders to prevent further collateral damage and civilian casualties, although he had defeated Stark by defusing his armor. Stark is appointed the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D.,[71] and organizes a new government-sanctioned group of Avengers. Shortly afterwards, Captain America is assassinated while in custody.[72] This leaves Stark with a great amount of guilt and misgivings about the cost of his victory.[73]
+
+To tie into the 2008 Iron Man feature film, Marvel launched a new Iron Man ongoing series, The Invincible Iron Man, with writer Matt Fraction and artist Salvador Larroca. The series inaugural six-part storyline was "The Five Nightmares", which saw Stark targeted by Ezekiel Stane, the son of Stark's former nemesis, Obadiah Stane.[74]
+
+In the "Secret Invasion" storyline, after Tony Stark survives an attempt by Ultron to take over his body, he is confronted in the hospital by Spider-Woman, holding the corpse of a Skrull posing as Elektra. Realizing this is the start of an invasion by the Skrulls, Tony reveals the corpse to the Illuminati and declares that they are at war. After Black Bolt reveals himself as a Skrull and is killed by Namor, a squadron of Skrulls attack, forcing Tony to evacuate the other Illuminati members and destroy the area, killing all the Skrulls. Realizing that they are incapable of trusting each other, the members all separate to form individual plans for the oncoming invasion.[75]
+
+Stark is discredited and publicly vilified after his inability to anticipate or prevent the secret infiltration and invasion of Earth by the Skrulls, and by the Skrull disabling of his StarkTech technology, which had a virtual monopoly on worldwide defense.[76] After the invasion, the U.S. government removes him as head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and disbands the Avengers, handing control of the Initiative over to Norman Osborn.
+
+With his Extremis powers failing, Stark uploads a virus to destroy all records of the Registration Act, thus preventing Osborn from learning the identities of his fellow heroes and anything that Osborn could use, including his repulsor generators. The only copy of the database is in Stark's brain, which he tries to delete while on the run from Osborn.[77] Stark goes so far as to inflict brain damage on himself in order to ensure that the relevant information is wiped. When Osborn catches up to the debilitated Stark and beats him savagely, Pepper Potts broadcasts the beatings worldwide, costing Osborn credibility and giving Stark public sympathy. Stark goes into a vegetative state, having previously granted Donald Blake (alter ego of the superhero Thor) power of attorney.[78] A holographic message stored in Pepper's armor reveals that Stark had developed a means of 'rebooting' his mind from his current state prior to his destruction of the database, with Blake and Bucky resolving to use it to restore him to normal. Meanwhile, Stark is trapped in his subconscious, where figments of his own mind prevent him from returning to the waking world. When the procedure fails to work, Bucky calls in Doctor Strange, who succeeds in restoring Stark back to consciousness. The backup Stark created was made prior to the Civil War, and as such he does not remember anything that took place during the event, although he still concludes after reviewing his past actions that he would not have done anything differently. His brain damage means he is now dependent on an arc reactor to sustain his body's autonomous functions.[79]
+
+In the "Siege" storyline, Tony Stark is seen under the care of Dr. Donald Blake and Maria Hill when Asgard is attacked.[80] Thor is ambushed by Osborn and the Sentry, but rescued by Hill. Osborn declares martial law and unleashes Daken and the Sentry on Broxton to root out Thor and Hill. Hill returns to Stark's hiding place to move him to a safer location and are joined by Speed of the Young Avengers, who has a set of Iron Man's MK III armor that Edwin Jarvis had given Captain America.  While Osborn is battling the New Avengers, Stark appears and disables Osborn's Iron Patriot armor. Osborn orders the Sentry to annihilate Asgard, rather than allow the Avengers to have it. After Asgard falls, Stark stands alongside his fellow heroes, as Osborn exclaims they are all doomed and he 'was saving them from him' pointing up towards a Void-possessed Sentry.[81] As the Void tears apart the teams, Loki gives them the power to fight back through the Norn Stones. The Void kills Loki, enraging Thor. Tony tells Thor to get the Void away from Asgard, which allows Tony to drop a commandeered H.A.M.M.E.R. Helicarrier on the Void.  Thor is forced to killed Sentry when the Void resurfaces. Sometime later, the Super-Human Registration Act is repealed and Tony is given back his company and armor. As a symbol for their heroics and their new unity, Thor places an Asgardian tower on Stark Tower where the Watchtower once stood.[82]
+
+In the 2010–2011 "Stark: Resilient" storyline, Tony builds the Bleeding Edge armor with the help of Mister Fantastic. This new armor fully uses the repulsor tech battery embedded in his chest to power Tony's entire body and mind, thus allowing him access to Extremis once more. Furthermore, the battery operates as his "heart" and is the only thing keeping him alive.[83] Tony announces he will form a new company, Stark Resilient. He states that he will no longer develop weapons, but will use his repulsor technology to give free energy to the world. Justine and Sasha Hammer create their own armored hero, Detroit Steel, to take Stark's place as the Army's leading weapons-builder. Stark's plan consists of building two repulsor-powered cars. The Hammers try to foil his efforts. The first car is destroyed by sabotage, while Detroit Steel attacks Stark Resilient's facilities while Tony tests the second car. Through a legal maneuver, Tony is able to get the Hammers to stop their attacks and releases a successful commercial about his new car.[84][85]
+
+In the 2011 "Fear Itself" storyline, Earth is attacked by the Serpent, the God of Fear and the long-forgotten brother of Odin.[86] In Paris, Iron Man fights Grey Gargoyle, who has become Mokk, Breaker of Faith, one of the Serpent's Worthy. Mokk leaves Iron Man unconscious and transforms Detroit Steel and the citizens of Paris into stone.[87][88] To defeat the Serpent's army, Tony drinks a bottle of wine (thus 'sacrificing' his sobriety) to gain an audience with Odin, who allows Tony to enter the realm of Svartalfheim. Tony and the dwarves of Svartalfheim build enchanted weapons.[89] Tony upgrades his armor with uru-infused enchantments and delivers the finished weapons to the Avengers, who use them for the final battle against the Serpent's forces. Iron Man watches as Thor kills the Serpent, but dies in the process. After the battle is over, Tony melts down the weapons he created and repairs Captain America's shield, which had been broken by Serpent, and gives it back to Captain America.[90] During a subsequent argument with Odin about the gods' lack of involvement in the recent crisis, Odin gives Tony a brief opportunity to see the vastness of the universe the way he sees it.  As thanks for Tony's role in the recent crisis, Odin restores all the people that the Grey Gargoyle killed during his rampage.[91]
+
+In the storylines "Demon" and "The Long Way Down", Stark is subpoenaed by the U.S. government after evidence surfaces of him using the Iron Man armor while under the influence. Mandarin and Zeke Stane upgrade some of Iron Man's old enemies and send them to commit acts of terrorism across the world, intending to discredit Iron Man. General Bruce Babbage forces Stark to wear a tech governor, a device that allows Babbage to deactivate Stark's armor whenever he wants. To fight back, Tony undergoes a surgical procedure that expels the Bleeding Edge technology out of his body and replaces his repulsor node with a new model, forcing Babbage to remove the tech governor off his chest. He announces his retirement as Iron Man, faking Rhodes' death and giving him a new armor so that he becomes the new Iron Man.[92] This leads into the next storyline, "The Future", in which the Mandarin takes control of Stark's mind and uses him to create new armored bodies for the alien spirits inhabiting his rings, but Stark allies himself with some of his old enemies, who have also been imprisoned by Mandarin, and manages to defeat him. The final issue of this storyline concluded Matt Fraction's series.[93]
+
+In the ongoing series that premiered in 2012 as part of the Marvel NOW! relaunch, Tony Stark has hit a technological ceiling. After the death of Dr. Maya Hansen and the destruction of all of the Extremis Version 2 kits that were being sold to the black market, Tony decides that the Earth is not safe without him learning more from what's in the final frontier. He takes his new suit, enhanced with an artificial intelligence named P.E.P.P.E.R. and joins Peter Quill and The Guardians of the Galaxy after helping them thwart a Badoon attack on Earth.[94]
+
+Tony Stark's personality is inverted during the events of AXIS, bringing out more dark aspects of himself like irresponsibility, egotism and alcoholism.[95] Stark relocates to San Francisco and builds a new, all-white armor.  He supplies the citizens of San Francisco with the Extremis 3.0 app, a version of the techno-virus that offers beauty, health or even immortality, free.[96] When every person in the city viewed Iron Man as a messiah for making their dreams come true, he ended the free trial mode and started charging a daily fee of $99.99, causing many to resort to crime to pay for the upgrade.[97] Daredevil confronts Stark at his new Alcatraz Island penthouse, but is easily brushed off.[98] Iron Man uses Extremis 3.0 to temporarily restore Daredevil's sight, just to prove his point.[99] Daredevil deduces that Stark had added Extremis to the water supply and the phones only transmit an activation signal, but Stark subjects Murdock to minor brain damage to prevent him from sharing this revelation with others.[100]
+
+After discovering that new villain Teen Abomination is the son of Happy Hogan, Stark decides to help him,[101] but this minor act of redemption is too late for Pepper Potts, who attacks Stark with the aid of an A.I. based on Stark's mind.[102] This culminates in a confrontation between the two Starks, as Stark calls on the unwitting aid of all 'infected' with the Extremis upgrade while the A.I. uses Stark's various old armors to attack him.[103] Although Stark technically wins the battle as he destroys his other armors and deletes the A.I. backup, Pepper states that she plans to reveal the truth about his goals with Extremis, bluntly informing him that if he continues his Extremis upgrade project, he will have to do it alone, accepting his fate of being regarded as a monster by all who know him.[104]
+
+During the "Time Runs Out" storyline, an attempt at reclaiming Wakanda from the Cabal that Namor had created to destroy incursive Earths results in Tony being held captive in the Necropolis.[105] After the Cabal are apparently killed, the Illuminati free Tony, who is forced to flee due to the Illuminati's unwillingness to let Stark be there with them when they meet Rogers and the Avengers. When the Shi'ar and their allies arrive to destroy Earth, the Avengers and the Illuminati unsuccessfully try to retaliate. Iron Man uses Sol's Hammer to destroy the fleet.[106] The incursions continue, and Rogers confronts Stark about what he knows. A fight ensues between them and Stark admits that he had lied and had known about the incursions all along. During the final incursion, Earth-1610's S.H.I.E.L.D. launches a full-scale attack on Earth-616, during which Stark and Rogers are crushed by a Helicarrier.[107]
+
+After the events of the Secret Wars crossover, Stark returns to his normal self with no signs of his inverted personality. Eight months following the return of the universe as seen in the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event, Tony works in his laboratory non-stop after his position as an innovator had been put in doubt. Because an M.I.T. student reverse-engineered some of his technology, Stark develops a new armor which can change shape according to the situation he would find himself. When Stark's new A.I. F.R.I.D.A.Y. informs him that Madame Masque has broken into the ruins of Castle Doom, he travels to Latveria to invfestigate and runs into some revolutionaries who are then defeated by a man in a suit. To his amazement, Iron Man's armor computer identifies him as Doctor Doom with his face restored. Doctor Doom claims that he wanted to help Iron Man.[108]
+
+After learning from Doctor Doom that Madame Masque has taken a decoy of the Wand of Watoomb, Tony Stark confronts Madame Masque. Upon learning that Madame Masque is not allied with Doctor Doom, Tony is attacked by her with a burst of energy that damages his armor.[109] F.R.I.D.A.Y. manages to gain control of the suit and takes Tony to a safe location. Iron Man tracks Madame Masque to Marina del Rey. After finding a tape recorder with her messages, Tony is attacked by several black silhouettes with swords.[110]
+
+Iron Man escapes the ninjas that are attacking him and manages to defeat most of them, but they kill themselves before he can interrogate any of them. Iron Man and Doctor Doom arrive at Mary Jane Watson's newest Chicago night club Jackpot when Madame Masque attacks it.[111] As Mary Jane distracts Madame Masque by knocking off her mask, Iron Man and Doctor Doom discover that Madame Masque is possessed by a demon. Doctor Doom is able to perform an exorcism on her.[volume & issue needed]
+
+Doctor Strange arrives and tells Iron Man he will take Madame Masque with him to fix her metaphysically and then hand her over at S.H.I.E.L.D. Iron Man also informs him of Doctor Doom's help who had left the scene some time ago. Three days later, Iron Man offers Mary Jane a job to make up for the damage to her nightclub.[112] After speaking with War Machine, Tony Stark meets up at a diner with Amara Perera when they are unexpectedly joined by Doctor Doom who wanted to make sure that the demonic possession that affected Madame Masque has not affected Stark or Amara.[113] Stark shows Mary Jane the demonstration on the people that he will be working with. They are interrupted by F.R.I.D.A.Y. who tells Tony that War Machine is missing.[volume & issue needed] Before heading to Tokyo, Tony receives from Mary Jane the emergency number for Peter Parker. In Tokyo, Iron Man is contacted by Spider-Man at War Machine's last known location as he is being observed by ninjas.[114]
+
+During the Civil War II storyline, Iron Man protests the logic of using precognitive powers to stop future crimes after the recently emerged Inhuman Ulysses predicted Thanos's attack on Project Pegasus. Three weeks later, Iron Man is summoned to the Triskelion after War Machine is killed in battle against Thanos. When Iron Man learns that War Machine and the Ultimates used Ulysses' power to ambush Thanos, he vows to stop anyone from using that power again.[115] Iron Man infiltrates New Attilan and makes off with Ulysses. At Stark Tower, Iron Man vows to find out how Ulysses' precognition works.  The Inhumans attack Stark Tower but are stopped by the Avengers, the Ultimates, and S.H.I.E.L.D. During the confrontation, Ulysses has another vision which he projects to Iron Man and everyone present, showing a rampaging Hulk standing over the corpses of the defeated superheroes.[116] The heroes confront Banner, who is killed by Hawkeye.  Barton claims that Banner was about to transform and Banner had previously asked Hawkeye to kill him if he should turn back into the Hulk. Tony is disgusted at this use of Ulysses' power. When his analysis of Ulysses brain is completed,[117] Tony reveals that Ulysses does not actually see the future, but simply assembles large quantities of data to project likely outcomes. While Danvers continues to use the visions as a resource, Tony objects to the concept of profiling people. This results in a stand-off when Tony's side abducts a woman from custody after Ulysses' visions identified her as a deep-cover HYDRA agent, despite the lack of supporting evidence.[118]
+
+Iron Man learns that his biological mother was actually Amanda Armstrong, who had given him up for adoption and that his biological father was a Hydra double agent named Jude. S.H.I.E.L.D. had Armstrong's baby adopted by Howard and Maria Stark.[119]
+
+In July 2016, it was announced that Tony Stark would hand off the mantle of Iron Man to a 15-year-old girl named Riri Williams. Riri is an MIT student who built her own Iron Man suit out of scrap pieces and, as such, attracted Stark's attention. Early depictions of Williams' suit depict it without the Arc Reactor, but leaves the power source for the suit unclear.[120] Another Iron Man-based series titled Infamous Iron Man debuted featuring Doctor Doom sporting his version of the Iron Man armor.[121] This is revealed to be the result of serious injuries sustained by Stark during his final confrontation with Captain Marvel.  Danvers' beating leaves Stark in a coma, but he is left alive due to unspecified experiments Stark has carried out on himself over the years.[122]
+
+Following the revelation that Stark experimented on himself at the end of Civil War II, Beast concludes that the only option is to let the experiments do their job in healing Tony and recover on his own.[volume & issue needed] In Invincible Iron Man #1, an employee of Stark sends Riri Williams an artificial intelligence housing a copy of Tony Stark's consciousness to help her control and mentor in her own version of the Iron Man armor. This A.I. is directly copied from Tony's brain, granting sentience, with Williams commenting on Stark existing as a "techno-ghost". As an A.I., Stark can walk around as a hard-light object and gains the ability to remote control his vast armory of Iron Man suits.[volume & issue needed] In The Mighty Captain Marvel #3, the Tony Stark A.I. goes to Antarctica and visits Captain Marvel with the intent on settling their differences from the Second Civil War, she apologizes to him for her regrets, reconciles with him eventually and they become allies once more. Then in Secret Empire, the Tony Stark A.I. suits up as Iron Man once again and learns of Captain America's betrayal to Hydra and how he ended up like this. As Hydra tightens its grip across America, the Tony Stark A.I. leads a team known as the Underground to find the Cosmic Cubes to restore Rogers to his normal self. When things start to escalate, Tony and his crew go rogue and in search for answers for the Cube. As Iron Man and the Underground search for them they are intercepted by Captain America and his Hydra team. With both teams encountering each other, they are captured by the Ultron/Hank Pym hybrid, who forces both teams to sit at a dinner table. During "dinner", Ultron reveals information about the Hydra Avengers - such as Odinson working with Hydra to reclaim Mjolnir, Scarlet Witch being possessed by Chthon, and Vision being affected by an A.I. virus. Ultron argues that he is doing this because the Avengers have become less of a family over the years as so many of them jump to obey Captain America or Iron Man, despite past experience confirming that this is not always a good idea, but Tony counters that the only reason the team failed as a family was because of Hank's abuse towards Wasp. Enraged, Ultron is about to kill everyone, but Ant-Man is able to calm him down by arguing that Hank remains his own inspiration. Ultron allows the Underground to leave with the fragment, arguing that neither side should have an advantage over the other. Back in America, Hydra Supreme has put Namor in a position where he will be forced to sign a peace treaty that gives Rogers access to the Cosmic Cube fragment in Atlantis, but Hydra Supreme muses that he is unconcerned about who will acquire the fragments, as he has an inside man in the Underground. After the Mount was attacked by Thor and the resurrected Hulk led by Hydra, the Underground evacuated the civilians thanks to Hawkeye and the rest of the heroes. Captain America and Iron Man fight as the Mount collapses around them. The Tony Stark A.I. initiates the Mount's "Clean Slate Protocol", and blows up the Mount, killing Madame Hydra, then apologizes to Steve Rogers about their past differences, but the A.I survives and, in the aftermath, helps the heroes pull the pieces back together to take down Hydra. When Iron Man confronts Hydra Supreme, he and the other heroes are easily overpowered by him and watch the original Captain America defeat his Hydra self and into celebrating their victory.[123]
+
+Mary Jane Watson and other Stark employees find that Stark's body has completely vanished from its pod, despite tests taken mere hours ago showing no sign of improvement or brain activity.[volume & issue needed][124] It was discovered that Tony Stark's comatose body was taken to the Stark Industries Complex in Dover.[125] Upon awakening when his biological systems rebooted, Tony Stark went into hiding until he fully recovered.[126] Wanting to make sure that James Rhodes was in a similar state that he was in, Tony Stark exhumed his body from Arlington Cemetery and kick-started the biological systems in him. Afterwards, Iron Man and War Machine fought Hood to keep Stark Industries from falling into Hood's hands where he switched to a version of his Extremis armor. Then he proceeded to defeat Jude when he turned up alive.[127]
+
+During "The Ultron Agenda" arc, Iron Man went up against the Ultron/Hank Pym who begun a plan to merge humans with robots while taking up the name "Ultron Pym." Iron Man was briefly fused with his armor. After using Stark Unlimited's atomic separator on himself, Iron Man figured out that Hank Pym was dead the moment he accidentally fused with Ultron. Not wanting to prove Tony right, Ultron Pym surrendered to Iron Man and the Avengers. As it turned out that Iron Man actually died during the Civil War II storyline, Arno Stark used this to his advantage to acquire Stark Unlimited through a merger with Baintronics. With the combined resources, he built the Iron Man Armor Model 66 as his attempt to recreate the Godbuster Armor. Now having a new destiny, Arno Stark became the latest person to take on the Iron Man mantle.[128]
+
+Because of his revelation that he is now a simulated A.I., Tony Stark became Mark One and started to establish the A.I. Army which also consists of Albert, Awesome Android, H.E.R.B.I.E., M-11, Machine Man, Machinesmith, Quasimodo, the Dreadnoughts, a Sentinel, several Constructo-Bots, several Nick Fury LMDs, and an unnamed bomb disposal robot. This group of robots and androids want to obtain equal rights with organic beings through whatever way possible. Mark One provided them with a hideout on Floor Thirteen, a solid light construct that can only be accessed by robots and androids. With the establishment of Floor Thirteen, Mark One keeps the A.I. Army safe from their enemies and oppressors.[129]
+
+Iron Man possesses powered armor that gives him superhuman strength and durability, flight, and an array of weapons. The armor is invented and worn by Stark (with occasional short-term exceptions). Other people who have assumed the Iron Man identity include Stark's long-time partner and best friend James Rhodes;[130] close associates Harold "Happy" Hogan; Eddie March;[131][132] (briefly) Michael O'Brien and Riri Williams.
+
+The weapons systems of the suit have changed over the years, but Iron Man's standard offensive weapons have always been the repulsor rays that are fired from the palms of his gauntlets. Other weapons built into various incarnations of the armor include: the uni-beam projector in its chest; pulse bolts (that pick up kinetic energy along the way; so the farther they travel, the harder they hit); an electromagnetic pulse generator; and a defensive energy shield that can be extended up to 360 degrees. Other capabilities include: generating ultra-freon (i.e., a freeze-beam); creating and manipulating magnetic fields; emitting sonic blasts; and projecting 3-dimensional holograms (to create decoys).
+
+In addition to the general-purpose model he wears, Stark has developed several specialized suits for space travel,[38] deep-sea diving, stealth,[39][40] and other special purposes. Stark has modified suits, like the Hulkbuster heavy armor. The Hulkbuster armor is composed of add-ons to his so-called modular armor, designed to enhance its strength and durability enough to engage the Hulk in a fight. A later model, created with the help of Odin and the Asgardian metal Uru, is similar to the Destroyer. Stark develops an electronics pack during the Armor Wars that, when attached to armors that use Stark technologies, will burn out those components, rendering the suit useless. This pack is ineffective on later models. While it is typically associated with James Rhodes, the War Machine armor began as one of Stark's specialty armors.
+
+The most recent models of Stark's armor, beginning with the Extremis armor, are now stored in the hollow portions of Stark's bones, and the personal area networking implement used to control it is implanted into his forearm, and connected directly to his central nervous system.
+
+The Extremis has since been removed,[volume & issue needed] and he now uses more conventional armors. Some armors still take a liquid form, but are not stored within his body. His Endo-Sym Armor incorporates a combination of the liquid smart-metal with the alien Venom symbiote, psionically controlled by Stark.
+
+Post-Secret Wars, Stark uses a more streamlined suit of armor that uses nanotechnology to shape shift into other armors or weapons.[133]
+
+After being critically injured during a battle with the Extremis-enhanced Mallen, Stark injects his nervous system with modified techno-organic virus-like body restructuring machines (the Extremis process).[134] By rewriting his own biology, Stark is able to save his life, gain an enhanced healing factor, and partially merge with the Iron Man armor, superseding the need for bulky, AI-controlled armors in favor of lighter designs, technopathically controlled by his own brain. His enhanced technopathy extends to every piece of technology, limitless and effortlessly due to his ability to interface with communication satellites and wireless connections to increase his "range". Some components of the armor-sheath are now stored in Tony's body, able to be recalled, and extruded from his own skin, at will.
+
+During the "Secret Invasion" storyline the Extremis package is catastrophically shut down by a virus, forcing him again to rely on the previous iteration of his armor, and restoring his previous limitations. Furthermore, Osborn's takeover of most of the few remaining Starktech factories, with Ezekiel Stane systematically crippling the others, limits Tony to the use of lesser, older and weaker armors.[135]
+
+After being forced to "wipe out" his brain to prevent Norman Osborn from gaining his information, Tony Stark is forced to have a new arc reactor, of Rand design installed in his chest. The process greatly improves his strength, stamina and intellect. The procedure left him with virtually no autonomic functions: as his brain was stripped of every biological function, Tony is forced to rely on a digital backup of his memories (leaving him with severe gaps and lapses in his long-term memory) and on software routine in the arc reactor for basic stimuli reaction, such as blinking and breathing.[136][137] The Bleeding Edge package of armor and physical enhancement is now equal in power, if not a more advanced, version of the old Extremis tech.[83]
+
+Tony Stark is an inventive genius whose expertise in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science rivals that of Reed Richards, Hank Pym, and Bruce Banner, and his expertise in electrical engineering and mechanical engineering surpasses even theirs. He is regarded as one of the most intelligent characters in the Marvel Universe. He graduated with advanced degrees in physics and engineering at the age of 17 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)[138] and further developed his knowledge ranging from artificial intelligence to quantum mechanics as time progressed. His expertise extends to his ingenuity in dealing with difficult situations, such as difficult foes and deathtraps, in which he is capable of using available tools, including his suit, in unorthodox but effective ways. He is well respected in the business world, able to command people's attention when he speaks on economic matters, having over the years built up several multimillion-dollar companies from virtually nothing. He is noted for the loyalty he commands from and returns to those who work for him, as well as for his business ethics. Thus he immediately fired an employee who made profitable, but illegal, sales to Doctor Doom.[47] He strives to be environmentally responsible in his businesses.
+
+At a time when Stark was unable to use his armor for a period, he received some combat training from Captain America and has become physically formidable on his own when the situation demands it.[139] In addition, Stark possesses great business and political acumen. On multiple occasions he reacquired control of his companies after losing them amid corporate takeovers.[140]
+
+Due to his membership in the Illuminati, Iron Man was given the Space Infinity Gem to safeguard.[141]  It allows the user to exist in any location (or all locations), move any object anywhere throughout the universe and warp or rearrange space.
+
+In 1966, Iron Man was featured in a series of cartoons.[142] In 1981, Iron Man guest appeared in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, but only as Tony Stark.[143] He went on to feature again in his own series in the 1990s as part of the Marvel Action Hour with the Fantastic Four; Robert Hays provided his voice in these animated cartoons. Iron Man makes an appearance in the episode "Shell Games" of Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.
+Apart from comic books, Iron Man appears in Capcom's "Vs." video games, including Marvel Super Heroes,  Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Iron Man is a playable character in Iron Man, the 1992 arcade game Captain America and the Avengers, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and its sequel, and Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, as well as being featured as an unlockable character in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse and Tony Hawk's Underground.[144] In the 2009 animated series, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, most of the characters, including Tony Stark, are teenagers. An anime adaptation began airing in Japan in October 2010 as part of a collaboration between Marvel Animation and Madhouse, in which Stark, voiced by Keiji Fujiwara, travels to Japan where he ends up facing off against the Zodiac.[145]
+
+In 2008, a film adaptation titled Iron Man was released, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and directed by Jon Favreau. Iron Man received very positive reviews from film critics,[146] grossing $318 million domestically and $585 million worldwide, and became the first in a series of over 20 films known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[147] The character of Tony Stark, again played by Robert Downey Jr., appeared at the end of the 2008 film The Incredible Hulk. Downey reprised his role in Iron Man 2 (2010), Marvel's The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and the upcoming Black Widow (2020).[148][149]
+
+In 2009, Playtech released an online casino slot machine game called Iron Man. After that they created two more games, Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3.[150]
+
+In October 2016, Eoin Colfer released a young adult novel called Iron Man: The Gauntlet.[151]
+
+— The 44th President of the United States Barack Obama made a surprise announcement at a press conference at the White House, when he revealed details of the creation of "Manufacturing Innovation Institutes" in Chicago and Detroit.[152]

en/3422.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+
+
+William Henry Gates III  (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation.[2][3] During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs and pioneers of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
+
+Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Gates co-founded Microsoft with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it went on to become the world's largest personal computer software company.[4][a] Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, but he remained chairman and became chief software architect.[7] During the late 1990s, Gates had been criticized for his business tactics, which have been considered anti-competitive. This opinion has been upheld by numerous court rulings.[8] In June 2006, Gates announced that he would be transitioning to a part-time role at Microsoft and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the private charitable foundation that he and his wife, Melinda Gates, established in 2000.[9] He gradually transferred his duties to Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie.[10] He stepped down as chairman of Microsoft in February 2014 and assumed a new post as technology adviser to support the newly appointed CEO Satya Nadella.[11]
+
+Since 1987, he has been included in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people.[12][13] From 1995 to 2017, he held the Forbes title of the richest person in the world all but four of those years.[1] In October 2017, he was surpassed by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who had an estimated net worth of US$90.6 billion compared to Gates's net worth of US$89.9 billion at the time.[14] As of July 2020[update], Gates had an estimated net worth of US$111.8 billion, making him the second-wealthiest person in the world, behind Bezos.[15][b]
+
+Later in his career and since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft in 2008, Gates has pursued a number of philanthropic endeavors. He has given sizable amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, reported to be the world's largest private charity.[17] In 2009, Gates and Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge, whereby they and other billionaires pledge to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropy.[18]
+
+Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, on October 28, 1955.[3] He is the son of William H. Gates Sr.[c] (b. 1925) and Mary Maxwell Gates (1929–1994).[19] His ancestry includes English, German, and Irish/Scots-Irish.[20] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and the United Way of America. Gates's maternal grandfather was J. W. Maxwell, a national bank president. Gates has an older sister Kristi (Kristianne) and a younger sister Libby. He is the fourth of his name in his family but is known as William Gates III or "Trey" (i.e., three) because his father had the "II" suffix.[21][22] The family lived in the Sand Point area of Seattle in a home that was damaged by a rare tornado when Gates was seven years old.[23]
+
+Early in his life, Gates observed that his parents wanted him to pursue a law career.[24] When he was young, his family regularly attended a church of the Congregational Christian Churches, a Protestant Reformed denomination.[25][26][27] Gates was small for his age and was bullied as a child.[22] The family encouraged competition; one visitor reported that "it didn't matter whether it was hearts or pickleball or swimming to the dock; there was always a reward for winning and there was always a penalty for losing".[28]
+
+At 13, he enrolled in the private Lakeside prep school,[29][30] where he wrote his first software program.[31] When he was in the eighth grade, the Mothers' Club at the school used proceeds from Lakeside School's rummage sale to buy a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal and a block of computer time on a General Electric (GE) computer for the students.[32] Gates took an interest in programming the GE system in BASIC, and he was excused from math classes to pursue his interest. He wrote his first computer program on this machine, an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer. Gates was fascinated by the machine and how it would always execute software code perfectly.[33] After the Mothers Club donation was exhausted, Gates and other students sought time on systems including DEC PDP minicomputers. One of these systems was a PDP-10 belonging to Computer Center Corporation (CCC) which banned for the summer Gates, Paul Allen, Ric Weiland, and Gates's best friend and first business partner Kent Evans, after it caught them exploiting bugs in the operating system to obtain free computer time.[34][22]
+
+The four students formed the Lakeside Programmers Club to make money.[22] At the end of the ban, they offered to find bugs in CCC's software in exchange for extra computer time. Rather than use the system remotely via Teletype, Gates went to CCC's offices and studied source code for various programs that ran on the system, including Fortran, Lisp, and machine language. The arrangement with CCC continued until 1970 when the company went out of business.
+
+The following year, a Lakeside teacher enlisted Gates and Evans to automate the school's class-scheduling system, providing them computer time and royalties in return. The duo worked diligently in order to have the program ready for their senior year. Towards the end of their junior year, Evans was killed in a mountain climbing accident, which Gates has described as one of the saddest days of his life. Gates then turned to Allen who helped him finish the system for Lakeside.[22]
+
+At 17, Gates formed a venture with Allen called Traf-O-Data to make traffic counters based on the Intel 8008 processor.[35] In 1972, he served as a congressional page in the House of Representatives.[36][37] He was a National Merit Scholar when he graduated from Lakeside School in 1973.[38] He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SAT) and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.[39][40] He chose a pre-law major but took mathematics and graduate level computer science courses.[41] While at Harvard, he met fellow student Steve Ballmer. Gates left Harvard after two years while Ballmer stayed and graduated magna cum laude. Years later, Ballmer succeeded Gates as Microsoft's CEO and maintained that position from 2000 until his resignation in 2014.[42][43]
+
+Gates devised an algorithm for pancake sorting as a solution to one of a series of unsolved problems[44] presented in a combinatorics class by professor Harry Lewis. His solution held the record as the fastest version for over 30 years, and its successor is faster by only 2%.[44][45] His solution was formalized and published in collaboration with Harvard computer scientist Christos Papadimitriou.[46]
+
+Gates remained in contact with Paul Allen and joined him at Honeywell during the summer of 1974.[47] In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 was released based on the Intel 8080 CPU, and Gates and Allen saw the opportunity to start their own computer software company.[48] Gates dropped out of Harvard that same year. His parents were supportive of him after seeing how much he wanted to start his own company.[49] He explained his decision to leave Harvard: "if things hadn't worked out, I could always go back to school. I was officially on leave."[50]
+
+Gates read the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics which demonstrated the Altair 8800, and he contacted Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) to inform them that he and others were working on a BASIC interpreter for the platform.[51] In reality, Gates and Allen did not have an Altair and had not written code for it; they merely wanted to gauge MITS's interest. MITS president Ed Roberts agreed to meet them for a demonstration, and over the course of a few weeks they developed an Altair emulator that ran on a minicomputer, and then the BASIC interpreter. The demonstration was held at MITS's offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico; it was a success and resulted in a deal with MITS to distribute the interpreter as Altair BASIC. MITS hired Allen,[52] and Gates took a leave of absence from Harvard to work with him at MITS in November 1975. Allen named their partnership "Micro-Soft", a combination of "microcomputer" and "software", and their first office was in Albuquerque. The first employee Gates and Allen hired was their high school collaborator Ric Weiland.[52] They dropped the hyphen within a year and officially registered the trade name "Microsoft" with the Secretary of the State of New Mexico on November 26, 1976.[52] Gates never returned to Harvard to complete his studies.
+
+Microsoft's Altair BASIC was popular with computer hobbyists, but Gates discovered that a pre-market copy had leaked out and was being widely copied and distributed. In February 1976, he wrote an Open Letter to Hobbyists in the MITS newsletter in which he asserted that more than 90% of the users of Microsoft Altair BASIC had not paid Microsoft for it and the Altair "hobby market" was in danger of eliminating the incentive for any professional developers to produce, distribute, and maintain high-quality software.[53] This letter was unpopular with many computer hobbyists, but Gates persisted in his belief that software developers should be able to demand payment. Microsoft became independent of MITS in late 1976, and it continued to develop programming language software for various systems.[52] The company moved from Albuquerque to Bellevue, Washington on January 1, 1979.[51]
+
+Gates said he personally reviewed and often rewrote every line of code that the company produced in its first five years. As the company grew he transitioned into a manager role, then an executive.[54]
+
+IBM, the leading supplier of computer equipment to commercial enterprises at the time, approached Microsoft in July 1980 concerning software for its upcoming personal computer, the IBM PC.[55] IBM first proposed that Microsoft write the BASIC interpreter. IBM's representatives also mentioned that they needed an operating system, and Gates referred them to Digital Research (DRI), makers of the widely used CP/M operating system.[56] IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, however, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams mentioned the licensing difficulties during a subsequent meeting with Gates and asked if Microsoft could provide an operating system. A few weeks later, Gates and Allen proposed using 86-DOS, an operating system similar to CP/M, that Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products (SCP) had made for hardware similar to the PC.[57] Microsoft made a deal with SCP to be the exclusive licensing agent of 86-DOS, and later the full owner. Microsoft employed Paterson to adapt the operating system for the PC[58] and delivered it to IBM as PC DOS for a one-time fee of $50,000.[59]
+
+The contract itself only earned Microsoft a relatively small fee.  It was the prestige brought to Microsoft by IBM's adoption of their operating system that would be the origin of Microsoft's transformation from a small business to the leading software company in the world. Gates had not offered to transfer the copyright on the operating system to IBM because he believed that other personal computer makers would clone IBM's PC hardware.[59] They did, making the IBM-compatible PC, running DOS, a de facto standard. The sales of MS-DOS (the version of DOS sold to customers other than IBM) made Microsoft a major player in the industry.[60] The press quickly identified Microsoft as being very influential on the IBM PC. PC Magazine asked if Gates was "the man behind the machine?".[55]
+
+Gates oversaw Microsoft's company restructuring on June 25, 1981, which re-incorporated the company in Washington state and made Gates the president and chairman of the board, with Paul Allen as vice president and vice chairman. In early 1983, Allen left the company after receiving a Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, effectively ending the formal business partnership between Gates and Allen, which had been strained months prior due to a contentious dispute over Microsoft equity.[51][61] Later in the decade, Gates repaired his relationship with Allen and together the two donated millions to their childhood school Lakeside.[22] They remained friends until Allen's death in October 2018.[62]
+
+Microsoft launched its first retail version of Microsoft Windows on November 20, 1985. In August of the following year, the company struck a deal with IBM to develop a separate operating system called OS/2. Although the two companies successfully developed the first version of the new system, the partnership deteriorated due to mounting creative differences.[63]
+
+Gates had primary responsibility for Microsoft's product strategy from the company's founding in 1975 until 2006. He gained a reputation for being distant from others; an industry executive complained in 1981 that "Gates is notorious for not being reachable by phone and for not returning phone calls."[64] An Atari executive recalled that he showed Gates a game and defeated him 35 of 37 times. When they met again a month later, Gates "won or tied every game. He had studied the game until he solved it. That is a competitor".[65]
+
+Gates met regularly with Microsoft's senior managers and program managers, and the managers described him as being verbally combative. He also berated them for perceived holes in their business strategies or proposals that placed the company's long-term interests at risk.[66][67] He interrupted presentations with such comments as "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard"[68] and "why don't you just give up your options and join the Peace Corps?"[69] The target of his outburst would then have to defend the proposal in detail until Gates was fully convinced.[68] When subordinates appeared to be procrastinating, he was known to remark sarcastically, "I'll do it over the weekend."[70][71][72]
+
+During Microsoft's early years, Gates was an active software developer, particularly in the company's programming language products, but his primary role in most of the company's history was as a manager and executive. He has not officially been on a development team since working on the TRS-80 Model 100,[73] but he wrote code that shipped with the company's products as late as 1989.[71] Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1985 when Gates announced Microsoft Excel: "Bill Gates likes the program, not because it's going to make him a lot of money (although I'm sure it will do that), but because it's a neat hack."[74]
+
+On June 15, 2006, Gates announced that he would transition out of his role at Microsoft to dedicate more time to philanthropy. He divided his responsibilities between two successors when he placed Ray Ozzie in charge of management and Craig Mundie in charge of long-term product strategy.[75]
+
+Gates approved of many decisions that led to antitrust litigation over Microsoft's business practices. In the 1998 United States v. Microsoft case, Gates gave deposition testimony that several journalists characterized as evasive. He argued with examiner David Boies over the contextual meaning of words such as "compete", "concerned", and "we". Later in the year, when portions of the videotaped deposition were played back in court, the judge was seen laughing and shaking his head.[76] BusinessWeek reported:
+
+Early rounds of his deposition show him offering obfuscatory answers and saying "I don't recall" so many times that even the presiding judge had to chuckle. Worse, many of the technology chief's denials and pleas of ignorance were directly refuted by prosecutors with snippets of e-mail that Gates both sent and received.[77]
+
+Gates later said that he had simply resisted attempts by Boies to mischaracterize his words and actions. "Did I fence with Boies? … I plead guilty… rudeness to Boies in the first degree."[78] Despite Gates's denials, the judge ruled that Microsoft had committed monopolization, tying and blocking competition, each in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[78]
+
+Since leaving day-to-day operations at Microsoft, Gates has continued his philanthropy and works on other projects.
+
+According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Gates was the world's highest-earning billionaire in 2013, as his net worth increased by US$15.8 billion to US$78.5 billion. As of January 2014[update], most of Gates's assets are held in Cascade Investment LLC, an entity through which he owns stakes in numerous businesses, including Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, and Corbis Corp.[79] On February 4, 2014, Gates stepped down as chairman of Microsoft to become "technology advisor" alongside CEO Satya Nadella.[11][80]
+
+Gates provided his perspective on a range of issues in a substantial interview that was published in the March 27, 2014 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. In the interview, Gates provided his perspective on climate change, his charitable activities, various tech companies and people involved in them, and the state of America. In response to a question about his greatest fear when he looks 50 years into the future, Gates stated: "... there'll be some really bad things that'll happen in the next 50 or 100 years, but hopefully none of them on the scale of, say, a million people that you didn't expect to die from a pandemic, or nuclear or bioterrorism." Gates also identified innovation as the "real driver of progress" and pronounced that "America's way better today than it's ever been."[81]
+
+Gates has expressed concern about the potential harms of superintelligence; in a Reddit "ask me anything", he stated that:
+
+First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don't understand why some people are not concerned.[82][83][84][85]
+
+In an interview that was held at the TED conference in March 2015, with Baidu's CEO, Robin Li, Gates said he would "highly recommend" Nick Bostrom's recent work, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.[86] During the conference, Gates warned that the world was not prepared for the next pandemic, a situation that would come to pass in late 2019 when the COVID-19 pandemic began.[87] In March 2018, Gates met at his home in Seattle with Mohammed bin Salman, the reformist crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia to discuss investment opportunities for Saudi Vision 2030.[88][89] In June 2019, Gates admitted that losing the mobile operating system race to Android was his biggest mistake. He stated that it was within their skill set of being the dominant player, but partially blames the antitrust litigation during the time.[90] That same year, Gates became an Advisory Board Member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.[91]
+
+On March 13, 2020, Microsoft announced Gates would be leaving his board positions at Berkshire Hathaway and Microsoft to dedicate his efforts in philanthropic endeavors such as climate change, global health and development, and education.[92]
+
+Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and donated some of his Microsoft stock in 1994 to create the "William H. Gates Foundation." In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations and Gates donated stock valued at $5 billion to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was identified by the Funds for NGOs company in 2013, as the world's wealthiest charitable foundation, with assets reportedly valued at more than $34.6 billion.[93][94] The foundation allows benefactors to access information that shows how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.[95][96] Gates, through his foundation, also donated $20 million to Carnegie Mellon University for a new building to be named Gates Center for Computer Science which opened in 2009.[97][98]
+
+Gates has credited the generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller as a major influence. Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and their charity work is partly modeled on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, whereby they are interested in tackling the global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.[99] As of 2007[update], Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity;[100] the couple plan to eventually donate 95% of their wealth to charity.[101]
+
+The foundation is organized into four program areas: Global Development Division, Global Health Division, United States Division, and Global Policy & Advocacy Division.[102] The foundation supports the use of genetically modified organisms in agricultural development. Specifically, the foundation is supporting the International Rice Research Institute in developing Golden Rice, a genetically modified rice variant used to combat vitamin A deficiency.[103] The goal of the foundation is to provide 120 million women and girls, in the poorest countries, with high-quality contraceptive information and services, with the longer-term goal of universal access to voluntary family planning.[104] In 2007, the Los Angeles Times criticized the foundation for investing its assets in companies that have been accused of worsening poverty, pollution and pharmaceutical firms that do not sell to developing countries.[105] Although the foundation announced a review of its investments to assess social responsibility,[106] it was subsequently canceled and upheld its policy of investing for maximum return, while using voting rights to influence company practices.[107] In 2014, protests in Vancouver occurred when Gates decided to donate $50 million to UNAIDS through the Foundation for the purpose of mass circumcision in Zambia and Swaziland.[108][109]
+
+Melinda Gates suggested that people should emulate the philanthropic efforts of the Salwen family, who sold their home and gave away half of its value, as detailed in their book, The Power of Half.[110] Gates and his wife invited Joan Salwen to Seattle to speak about what the family had done, and on December 9, 2010, Bill and Melinda Gates and investor Warren Buffett each signed a commitment they called the "Giving Pledge", which is a commitment by all three to donate at least half of their wealth, over the course of time, to charity.[111][112][113]
+
+Gates has also provided personal donations to educational institutions. In 1999, Gates donated $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the construction of a computer laboratory named the "William H. Gates Building" that was designed by architect Frank Gehry. While Microsoft had previously given financial support to the institution, this was the first personal donation received from Gates.[114]
+
+The Maxwell Dworkin Laboratory of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is named after the mothers of both Gates and Microsoft President Steven A. Ballmer, both of whom were students (Ballmer was a member of the School's graduating class of 1977, while Gates left his studies for Microsoft), and donated funds for the laboratory's construction.[115] Gates also donated $6 million to the construction of the Gates Computer Science Building, completed in January 1996, on the campus of Stanford University. The building contains the Computer Science Department and the Computer Systems Laboratory (CSL) of Stanford's Engineering department.[116]
+
+Since 2005, Gates and his foundation have taken an interest in solving global sanitation problems. For example, they announced the "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge", which has received considerable media interest.[117] To raise awareness for the topic of sanitation and possible solutions, Gates drank water that was "produced from human feces" in 2014 – in fact it was produced from a sewage sludge treatment process called the Omni Processor.[118][119] In early 2015, he also appeared with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show and challenged him to see if he could taste the difference between this reclaimed water or bottled water.[120]
+
+In November 2017, Gates said he would give $50 million to the Dementia Discovery Fund, a venture capital that seeks treatment for Alzheimer's disease. He also pledged an additional $50 million to start-up ventures working in Alzheimer's research.[121] Bill and Melinda Gates have said that they intend to leave their three children $10 million each as their inheritance. With only $30 million kept in the family, they are expected to give away about 99.96% of their wealth.[122] On August 25, 2018, Gates distributed $600,000 through his foundation via UNICEF which is helping flood affected victims in Kerala, India.[123]
+
+On April 29, 2017, Gates partnered with Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer in play in the Match for Africa 4, a noncompetitive tennis match at a sold-out Key Arena in Seattle. The event was in support of Roger Federer Foundation's charity efforts in Africa.[124] Federer and Gates played against John Isner, the top-ranked American player for much of this decade, and Mike McCready, the lead guitarist for Pearl Jam. The pair won the match 6 to 4. Overall, they raised $2 million for children in Africa.[125] The following year, Gates and Federer returned to play in the Match for Africa 5 on March 5, 2018, at San Jose's SAP Center. Their opponents were Jack Sock, one of the top American players and a grand slam winner in doubles, and Savannah Guthrie, a co-anchor for NBC's Today show. Gates and Federer recorded their second match victory together by a score of 6–3 and the event raised over $2.5 million.[126]
+
+Gates married Melinda French on a golf course on the Hawaiian island of Lanai on January 1, 1994. They have three children. The family resides in Xanadu 2.0, an earth-sheltered mansion in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. In 2009, property taxes on the mansion were reported to be US$1.063 million, on a total assessed value of US$147.5 million.[158] The 66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) estate has a 60-foot (18 m) swimming pool with an underwater music system, as well as a 2,500-square-foot (230 m2) gym and a 1,000-square-foot (93 m2) dining room.[159]
+
+In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gates stated in regard to his faith: "The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We've raised our kids in a religious way; they've gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in. I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that's kind of a religious belief. I mean, it's at least a moral belief."[160]
+
+Gates also said: "I agree with people like Richard Dawkins that mankind felt the need for creation myths. Before we really began to understand disease and the weather and things like that, we sought false explanations for them. Now science has filled in some of the realm – not all – that religion used to fill. But the mystery and the beauty of the world is overwhelmingly amazing, and there's no scientific explanation of how it came about. To say that it was generated by random numbers, that does seem, you know, sort of an uncharitable view [laughs]. I think it makes sense to believe in God, but exactly what decision in your life you make differently because of it, I don't know."[160]
+
+Gates purchased the Codex Leicester, a collection of scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci, for US$30.8 million at an auction in 1994.[161] Gates is an avid reader, and the ceiling of his large home library is engraved with a quotation from The Great Gatsby.[162] He also enjoys playing bridge, tennis, and golf.[163][164] Gates's days are planned for him on a minute-by-minute basis, similar to the U.S. President's schedule.[165] Despite his wealth and extensive business travel, Gates flew coach in commercial aircraft until 1997, when he bought a private jet.
+
+In 1999, his wealth briefly surpassed US$101 billion.[166][167] Since 2000, the nominal value of his Microsoft holdings has declined due to a fall in Microsoft's stock price after the dot-com bubble burst and the multi-billion dollar donations he has made to his charitable foundations. In May 2006, Gates remarked that he wished that he were not the richest man in the world because he disliked the attention it brought.[168] In March 2010, Gates was the second wealthiest person behind Carlos Slim, but regained the top position in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires List.[169][170] Slim retook the position again in June 2014[171][172] (but then lost the top position back to Gates). Between 2009 and 2014, his wealth doubled from US$40 billion to more than US$82 billion.[173] In October 2017, Gates was surpassed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world.[14] On November 15, 2019, he once again became the richest person in the world after a 48% increase in Microsoft shares, surpassing Bezos.[174] Gates told the BBC, "I've paid more tax than any individual ever, and gladly so ... I've paid over $6 billion in taxes."[175] He is a proponent of higher taxes, particularly for the rich.[176]
+
+Gates has held the top spot on the list of The World's Billionaires for 18 out of the past 23 years.[177] Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of US$616,667 and US$350,000 bonus totalling US$966,667.[178] In 1989, he founded Corbis, a digital imaging company. In 2004, he became a director of Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company headed by long-time friend Warren Buffett.[179]
+
+In 2016, he revealed that he is color-blind.[180]
+
+Gates has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio with stake in various sectors[181] and has participated in several entrepreneurial ventures beyond Microsoft, including:
+
+Gates has written three books:
+
+Gates was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs on January 31, 2016, in which he talked about his relationships with his father and Steve Jobs, meeting Melinda Ann French, the start of Microsoft and some of his habits (for example reading The Economist "from cover to cover every week"). His choice of things to take on a desert island were, for music: "Blue Skies" by Willie Nelson; a book: The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker; and luxury item: a DVD Collection of Lectures from The Teaching Company.[189]
+
+Gates made a guest appearance as himself on the Emmy Award winning TV show, The Big Bang Theory. The episode on which he appeared was appropriately entitled, "The Gates Excitation."[190] He also appeared in a cameo role in 2019 on the series finale of Silicon Valley.[191]
+

en/3423.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+
+
+An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is a viscous liquid at ambient temperatures and is both hydrophobic (does not mix with water, literally "water fearing") and lipophilic (mixes with other oils, literally "fat loving"). Oils have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated lipids that are liquid at room temperature.
+
+The general definition of oil includes classes of chemical compounds that may be otherwise unrelated in structure, properties, and uses. Oils may be animal, vegetable, or petrochemical in origin, and may be volatile or non-volatile.[1] They are used for food (e.g., olive oil), fuel (e.g., heating oil), medical purposes (e.g., mineral oil), lubrication (e.g. motor oil), and the manufacture of many types of paints, plastics, and other materials. Specially prepared oils are used in some religious ceremonies and rituals as purifying agents.
+
+First attested in English 1176, the word oil comes from Old French oile, from Latin oleum,[2] which in turn comes from the Greek ἔλαιον (elaion), "olive oil, oil"[3] and that from ἐλαία (elaia), "olive tree", "olive fruit".[4][5] The earliest attested forms of the word are the Mycenaean Greek 𐀁𐀨𐀺, e-ra-wo and 𐀁𐁉𐀺, e-rai-wo, written in the Linear B syllabic script.[6]
+
+Organic oils are produced in remarkable diversity by plants, animals, and other organisms through natural metabolic processes. Lipid is the scientific term for the fatty acids, steroids and similar chemicals often found in the oils produced by living things, while oil refers to an overall mixture of chemicals. Organic oils may also contain chemicals other than lipids, including proteins, waxes (class of compounds with oil-like properties that are solid at common temperatures) and alkaloids.
+
+Lipids can be classified by the way that they are made by an organism, their chemical structure and their limited solubility in water compared to oils. They have a high carbon and hydrogen content and are considerably lacking in oxygen compared to other organic compounds and minerals; they tend to be relatively nonpolar molecules, but may include both polar and nonpolar regions as in the case of phospholipids and steroids.[7]
+
+Crude oil, or petroleum, and its refined components, collectively termed petrochemicals, are crucial resources in the modern economy. Crude oil originates from ancient fossilized organic materials, such as zooplankton and algae, which geochemical processes convert into oil.[8]  The name "mineral oil" is a misnomer, in that minerals are not the source of the oil—ancient plants and animals are. Mineral oil is organic. However, it is classified as "mineral oil" instead of as "organic oil" because its organic origin is remote (and was unknown at the time of its discovery), and because it is obtained in the vicinity of rocks, underground traps, and sands. Mineral oil also refers to several specific distillates of crude oil.
+
+Several edible vegetable and animal oils, and also fats, are used for various purposes in cooking and food preparation. In particular, many foods are fried in oil much hotter than boiling water. Oils are also used for flavoring and for modifying the texture of foods (e.g. Stir Fry). Cooking oils are derived either from animal fat, as butter, lard and other types, or plant oils from the olive, maize, sunflower and many other species.
+
+Oils are applied to hair to give it a lustrous look, to prevent tangles and roughness and to stabilize the hair to promote growth. See hair conditioner.
+
+Oil has been used throughout history as a religious medium. It is often considered a spiritually purifying agent and is used for anointing purposes. As a particular example, holy anointing oil has been an important ritual liquid for Judaism and Christianity.
+
+Color pigments are easily suspended in oil, making it suitable as a supporting medium for paints. The oldest known extant oil paintings date from 650 AD.[9]
+
+Oils are used as coolants in oil cooling, for instance in electric transformers. Heat transfer oils are used both as coolants (see oil cooling), for heating (e.g. in oil heaters) and in other applications of heat transfer.
+
+Given that they are non-polar, oils do not easily adhere to other substances. This makes them useful as lubricants for various engineering purposes. Mineral oils are more commonly used as machine lubricants than biological oils are. Whale oil is preferred for lubricating clocks, because it does not evaporate, leaving dust, although its use was banned in the USA in 1980.[10]
+
+It is a long-running myth that spermaceti from whales has still been used in NASA projects such as the Hubble Telescope and the Voyager probe because of its extremely low freezing temperature. Spermaceti is not actually an oil, but a mixture mostly of wax esters, and there is no evidence that NASA has used whale oil.[11]
+
+Some oils burn in liquid or aerosol form, generating light, and heat which can be used directly or converted into other forms of energy such as electricity or mechanical work. In order to obtain many fuel oils, crude oil is pumped from the ground and is shipped via oil tanker or a pipeline to an oil refinery. There, it is converted from crude oil to diesel fuel (petrodiesel), ethane (and other short-chain alkanes), fuel oils (heaviest of commercial fuels, used in ships/furnaces), gasoline (petrol), jet fuel, kerosene, benzene (historically), and liquefied petroleum gas. A 42-US-gallon (35 imp gal; 160 L) barrel of crude oil produces approximately 10 US gallons (8.3 imp gal; 38 L) of diesel, 4 US gallons (3.3 imp gal; 15 L) of jet fuel, 19 US gallons (16 imp gal; 72 L) of gasoline, 7 US gallons (5.8 imp gal; 26 L) of other products, 3 US gallons (2.5 imp gal; 11 L) split between heavy fuel oil and liquified petroleum gases,[12] and 2 US gallons (1.7 imp gal; 7.6 L) of heating oil. The total production of a barrel of crude into various products results in an increase to 45 US gallons (37 imp gal; 170 L).[12] Not all oils used as fuels are mineral oils, see biodiesel, vegetable oil fuel, and olive oil.
+
+In the 18th and 19th centuries, whale oil was commonly used for lamps, which was replaced with natural gas and then electricity.[13]
+
+Crude oil can be refined into a wide variety of component hydrocarbons. Petrochemicals are the refined components of crude oil[14] and the chemical products made from them. They are used as detergents, fertilizers, medicines, paints, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber.
+
+Organic oils are another important chemical feedstock, especially in green chemistry.

en/3424.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
+
+
+
+
+Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements which have identified with it.[1] Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. It views humans as solely responsible for the promotion and development of individuals and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to the world.[2]
+
+In modern times, humanist movements are typically non-religious movements aligned with secularism, and today humanism may refer to a nontheistic life stance centred on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world.[3][4]
+
+The word "humanism" is ultimately derived from the Latin concept humanitas. It entered English in the nineteenth century. However, historians agree that the concept predates the label invented to describe it, encompassing the various meanings ascribed to humanitas, which included both benevolence toward one's fellow humans and the values imparted by bonae litterae or humane learning (literally "good letters").
+
+In the second century AD, a Latin grammarian, Aulus Gellius (c. 125 – c. 180), complained:
+
+Those who have spoken Latin and have used the language correctly do not give to the word humanitas the meaning which it is commonly thought to have, namely, what the Greeks call φιλανθρωπία (philanthropy), signifying a kind of friendly spirit and good-feeling towards all men without distinction; but they gave to humanitas the force of the Greek παιδεία (paideia); that is, what we call eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artes, or "education and training in the liberal arts". Those who earnestly desire and seek after these are most highly humanized. For the desire to pursue of that kind of knowledge, and the training given by it, has been granted to humanity alone of all the animals, and for that reason it is termed humanitas, or "humanity".[5]
+
+Gellius says that in his day humanitas is commonly used as a synonym for philanthropy – or kindness and benevolence toward one's fellow human beings. Gellius maintains that this common usage is wrong, and that model writers of Latin, such as Cicero and others, used the word only to mean what we might call "humane" or "polite" learning, or the Greek equivalent Paideia. Yet in seeking to restrict the meaning of humanitas to literary education this way, Gellius was not advocating a retreat from political engagement into some ivory tower, though it might look like that to us. He himself was involved in public affairs. According to legal historian Richard Bauman, Gellius was a judge as well as a grammarian and was an active participant in the great contemporary debate on harsh punishments that accompanied the legal reforms of Antoninus Pius (one these reforms,  for example, was that a prisoner was not to be treated as guilty before being tried). "By assigning pride of place to Paideia in his comment on the etymology of humanitas, Gellius implies that the trained mind is best equipped to handle the problems troubling society."[6]
+
+Gellius's writings fell into obscurity during the Middle Ages, but during the Italian Renaissance, Gellius became a favorite author. Teachers and scholars of Greek and Latin grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry were called and called themselves "humanists".[7][8] Modern scholars, however, point out that Cicero (106 – 43 BCE), who was most responsible for defining and popularizing the term humanitas, in fact frequently used the word in both senses, as did his near contemporaries. For Cicero, a lawyer, what most distinguished humans from brutes was speech, which, allied to reason, could (and should) enable them to settle disputes and live together in concord and harmony under the rule of law.[9] Thus humanitas included two meanings from the outset and these continue in the modern derivative, humanism, which even today can refer to both humanitarian benevolence and to a method of study and debate involving an accepted group of authors and a careful and accurate use of language.[10]
+
+During the French Revolution, and soon after, in Germany (by the Left Hegelians), humanism began to refer to an ethical philosophy centered on humankind, without attention to the transcendent or supernatural. The designation Religious Humanism refers to organized groups that sprang up during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is similar to Protestantism, although centered on human needs, interests, and abilities rather than the supernatural.[11] In the Anglophone world, such modern, organized forms of humanism, which are rooted in the 18th-century Enlightenment, have to a considerable extent more or less detached themselves from the historic connection of humanism with classical learning and the liberal arts.
+
+The first Humanist Manifesto was issued by a conference held at the University of Chicago in 1933.[12] Signatories included the philosopher John Dewey, but the majority were ministers (chiefly Unitarian) and theologians. They identified humanism as an ideology that espouses reason, ethics, and social and economic justice, and they called for science to replace dogma and the supernatural as the basis of morality and decision-making.[13][14]
+
+In 1808 Bavarian educational commissioner Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer coined the term Humanismus to describe the new classical curriculum he planned to offer in German secondary schools,[15] and by 1836 the word "humanism" had been absorbed into the English language in this sense. The coinage gained universal acceptance in 1856, when German historian and philologist Georg Voigt used humanism to describe Renaissance humanism, the movement that flourished in the Italian Renaissance to revive classical learning, a use which won wide acceptance among historians in many nations, especially Italy.[16]
+
+But in the mid-18th century, during the French Enlightenment, a more ideological use of the term had come into use. In 1765, the author of an anonymous article in a French Enlightenment periodical spoke of "The general love of humanity ... a virtue hitherto quite nameless among us, and which we will venture to call 'humanism', for the time has come to create a word for such a beautiful and necessary thing".[17] The latter part of the 18th and the early 19th centuries saw the creation of numerous grass-roots "philanthropic" and benevolent societies dedicated to human betterment and the spreading of knowledge (some Christian, some not). After the French Revolution, the idea that human virtue could be created by human reason alone independently from traditional religious institutions, attributed by opponents of the Revolution to Enlightenment philosophes such as Rousseau, was violently attacked by influential religious and political conservatives, such as Edmund Burke and Joseph de Maistre, as a deification or idolatry of humanity.[18] Humanism began to acquire a negative sense. The Oxford English Dictionary records the use of the word "humanism" by an English clergyman in 1812 to indicate those who believe in the "mere humanity" (as opposed to the divine nature) of Christ, i.e., Unitarians and Deists.[19] In this polarised atmosphere, in which established ecclesiastical bodies tended to circle the wagons and reflexively oppose political and social reforms like extending the franchise, universal schooling, and the like, liberal reformers and radicals embraced the idea of Humanism as an alternative religion of humanity. The anarchist Proudhon (best known for declaring that "property is theft") used the word "humanism" to describe a "culte, déification de l’humanité" ("worship,  deification of humanity") and Ernest Renan in L’avenir de la science: pensées de 1848 ("The Future of Knowledge: Thoughts on 1848") (1848–49), states: "It is my deep conviction that pure humanism will be the religion of the future, that is, the cult of all that pertains to humanity—all of life, sanctified and raised to the level of a moral value."[20]
+
+At about the same time, the word "humanism" as a philosophy centred on humankind (as opposed to institutionalised religion) was also being used in Germany by the Left Hegelians, Arnold Ruge, and Karl Marx, who were critical of the close involvement of the church in the German government. There has been a persistent confusion between the several uses of the terms:[1] philanthropic humanists look to what they consider their antecedents in critical thinking and human-centered philosophy among the Greek philosophers and the great figures of Renaissance history; and scholarly humanists stress the linguistic and cultural disciplines needed to understand and interpret these philosophers and artists.
+
+Human-centered philosophy that rejected the supernatural may also be found circa 1500 BCE in the Lokayata system of Indian philosophy. Nasadiya Sukta, a passage in the Rig Veda, contains one of the first recorded assertions of agnosticism. In the 6th century BCE, Gautama Buddha expressed, in Pali literature a skeptical attitude toward the supernatural:[21]
+
+Since neither soul, nor aught belonging to soul, can really and truly exist, the view which holds that this I who am 'world', who am 'soul', shall hereafter live permanent, persisting, unchanging, yea abide eternally: is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine?
+
+The philosophy of Confucius (551–479 BCE), which eventually became the basis of the state ideology of successive Chinese dynasties and nearby polities in East Asia, contains several humanistic traits, placing a high value on human life and discounting mysticism and superstition, including speculations on ghosts and an afterlife.  These values are clearly espoused in the Analects of Confucius, a compilation of quotes and anecdotes attributed to Confucius by his students and philosophical school.
+
+In Chapter 10 of the Analects, an incident involving a fire in the stables is recounted:  "The stables burned.  The Master withdrew from court and asked, 'Was anybody hurt?'  He did not inquire about the horses."[22]  This incident is interpreted to illustrate the priority that Confucius placed on human life over any economic losses associated with the fire.  Later, in Chapter 11, a disciple, Ji Lu, asks Confucius on how to properly serve ghosts and spirits, and what the Master knows about death.  Confucius replied, "If you do not know the proper way to serve people, what need is there to discuss how to serve ghosts?  If you do not understand life, what is the point of understanding death?"[23]  In Chapter 15, the Analects gives the passive form of the Golden Rule ('the Silver Rule').  When asked for a single word to live one's life in accordance with, Confucius gives the reply, leniency (恕[24], shu), elaborating, "Do not impose upon others that which you yourself would not desire."[25]
+
+Subsequent Confucian philosophers during the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), including Mencius and Xunzi, likewise centered their philosophies on secular, humanistic concerns, like the nature of good governance and the role of education, rather than ideas founded on the state or folk religions of the time.
+
+Sixth-century BCE pre-Socratic Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus and Xenophanes of Colophon were the first in the region to attempt to explain the world in terms of human reason rather than myth and tradition, thus can be said to be the first Greek humanists. Thales questioned the notion of anthropomorphic gods and Xenophanes refused to recognise the gods of his time and reserved the divine for the principle of unity in the universe. These Ionian Greeks were the first thinkers to assert that nature is available to be studied separately from the supernatural realm. Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of rational inquiry from Ionia to Athens. Pericles, the leader of Athens during the period of its greatest glory was an admirer of Anaxagoras. Other influential pre-Socratics or rational philosophers include Protagoras (like Anaxagoras a friend of Pericles), known for his famous dictum "man is the measure of all things" and Democritus, who proposed that matter was composed of atoms. Little of the written work of these early philosophers survives and they are known mainly from fragments and quotations in other writers, principally Plato and Aristotle. The historian Thucydides, noted for his scientific and rational approach to history, is also much admired by later humanists.[26] In the 3rd century BCE, Epicurus became known for his concise phrasing of the problem of evil, lack of belief in the afterlife, and human-centred approaches to achieving eudaimonia. He was also the first Greek philosopher to admit women to his school as a rule.
+
+Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love, poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism, and liberalism.[27]
+
+According to Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, another reason the Islamic world flourished during the Middle Ages was an early emphasis on freedom of speech, as summarised by al-Hashimi (a cousin of Caliph al-Ma'mun) in the following letter to one of the religious opponents he was attempting to convert through reason:[28]
+
+Bring forward all the arguments you wish and say whatever you please and speak your mind freely. Now that you are safe and free to say whatever you please appoint some arbitrator who will impartially judge between us and lean only towards the truth and be free from the empery of passion, and that arbitrator shall be Reason, whereby God makes us responsible for our own rewards and punishments. Herein I have dealt justly with you and have given you full security and am ready to accept whatever decision Reason may give for me or against me. For "There is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256) and I have only invited you to accept our faith willingly and of your own accord and have pointed out the hideousness of your present belief. Peace be with you and the blessings of God!
+
+According to George Makdisi, certain aspects of Renaissance humanism has its roots in the medieval Islamic world, including the "art of dictation, called in Latin, ars dictaminis", and "the humanist attitude toward classical language".[29]
+
+Scholars including Jacob Grimm, J.R.R. Tolkien and E.O.G. Turville-Petre have identified a stream of humanistic philosophy in the Icelandic sagas.  People described as goðlauss ("without gods") expressed not only a lack of faith in deities, but also a pragmatic belief in their own faculties of strength, reason and virtue and in social codes of honor independent of any supernatural agency.
+
+In his Teutonic Mythology (1835), Grimm wrote:
+
+It is remarkable that Old Norse legend occasionally mentions certain men who, turning away in utter disgust and doubt from the heathen faith, placed their reliance on their own strength and virtue. Thus in the Solar Lioð 17 we read of Vebogi and Radey "a sik þau truðu" – in themselves they trusted; of King Hakon (Fornm. sög. 1, 35) "konungr gerir sem allir aðrir, þeir sem trua a matt sinn ok megin" – the king does like all others who trust in their own might and main; of Barðr (ibid. 2, 151) "ek trui ekki a skurðgoð eðr fiandr, hefi ek þvi lengi truat a matt minn ok megin" – I trust not in idols and fiends; I have held, this long while, faith in my own powers.
+
+In Myth and Religion of the North (1964), Turville-Petre argued that many of the strophes of the Gestaþáttr and Loddfáfnismál sections of the Havamal express goðlauss sentiments despite being poetically attributed to the god Odin.  These strophes include numerous items of advice on good conduct and worldly wisdom.
+
+Renaissance humanism was an intellectual movement in Europe of the later Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. The 19th-century German historian Georg Voigt (1827–91) identified Petrarch as the first Renaissance humanist. Paul Johnson agrees that Petrarch was "the first to put into words the notion that the centuries between the fall of Rome and the present had been the age of Darkness". According to Petrarch, what was needed to remedy this situation was the careful study and imitation of the great classical authors. For Petrarch and Boccaccio, the greatest master was Cicero, whose prose became the model for both learned (Latin) and vernacular (Italian) prose.
+
+Once the language was mastered grammatically it could be used to attain the second stage, eloquence or rhetoric. This art of persuasion [Cicero had held] was not art for its own sake, but the acquisition of the capacity to persuade others – all men and women – to lead the good life. As Petrarch put it, 'it is better to will the good than to know the truth'. Rhetoric thus led to and embraced philosophy. Leonardo Bruni (c. 1369–1444), the outstanding scholar of the new generation, insisted that it was Petrarch who "opened the way for us to show how to acquire learning", but it was in Bruni's time that the word umanista first came into use, and its subjects of study were listed as five: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, moral philosophy, and history".[30]
+
+The basic training of the humanist was to speak well and write (typically, in the form of a letter). One of Petrarch's followers, Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406) was made chancellor of Florence, "whose interests he defended with his literary skill. The Visconti of Milan claimed that Salutati’s pen had done more damage than 'thirty squadrons of Florentine cavalry'".[31]
+
+Contrary to a still widely held interpretation that originated in Voigt's celebrated contemporary, Jacob Burckhardt,[33] and which was adopted wholeheartedly – especially by modern thinkers calling themselves "humanists" –[34] most specialists today do not characterise Renaissance humanism as a philosophical movement, nor in any way as anti-Christian or even anti-clerical. A modern historian has this to say:
+
+Humanism was not an ideological programme but a body of literary knowledge and linguistic skill based on the "revival of good letters", which was a revival of a late-antique philology and grammar, This is how the word "humanist" was understood by contemporaries, and if scholars would agree to accept the word in this sense rather than in the sense in which it was used in the nineteenth century we might be spared a good deal of useless argument. That humanism had profound social and even political consequences of the life of Italian courts is not to be doubted. But the idea that as a movement it was in some way inimical to the Church, or to the conservative social order in general is one that has been put forward for a century and more without any substantial proof being offered.
+
+The nineteenth-century historian Jacob Burckhardt, in his classic work, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, noted as a "curious fact" that some men of the new culture were "men of the strictest piety or even ascetics". If he had meditated more deeply on the meaning of the careers of such humanists as Abrogio Traversari (1386–1439), the General of the Camaldolese Order, perhaps he would not have gone on to describe humanism in unqualified terms like "pagan", and thus helped precipitate a century of infertile debate about the possible existence of something called "Christian humanism" which ought to be opposed to "pagan humanism".
+
+The umanisti criticized what they considered the barbarous Latin of the universities, but the revival of the humanities largely did not conflict with the teaching of traditional university subjects, which went on as before.[35]
+
+Nor did the humanists view themselves as in conflict with Christianity. Some, like Salutati, were the Chancellors of Italian cities, but the majority (including Petrarch) were ordained as priests, and many worked as senior officials of the Papal court. Humanist Renaissance popes Nicholas V, Pius II, Sixtus IV, and Leo X wrote books and amassed huge libraries.[36]
+
+In the High Renaissance, in fact, there was a hope that more direct knowledge of the wisdom of antiquity, including the writings of the Church fathers, the earliest known Greek texts of the Christian Gospels, and in some cases even the Jewish Kabbalah, would initiate a harmonious new era of universal agreement.[37] With this end in view, Renaissance Church authorities afforded humanists what in retrospect appears a remarkable degree of freedom of thought.[38][39] One humanist, the Greek Orthodox Platonist Gemistus Pletho (1355–1452), based in Mystras, Greece (but in contact with humanists in Florence, Venice, and Rome) taught a Christianised version of pagan polytheism.[40]
+
+The humanists' close study of Latin literary texts soon enabled them to discern historical differences in the writing styles of different periods. By analogy with what they saw as decline of Latin, they applied the principle of ad fontes, or back to the sources, across broad areas of learning, seeking out manuscripts of Patristic literature as well as pagan authors. In 1439, while employed in Naples at the court of Alfonso V of Aragon (at the time engaged in a dispute with the Papal States) the humanist Lorenzo Valla used stylistic textual analysis, now called philology, to prove that the Donation of Constantine, which purported to confer temporal powers on the Pope of Rome, was an 8th-century forgery.[41] For the next 70 years, however, neither Valla nor any of his contemporaries thought to apply the techniques of philology to other controversial manuscripts in this way. Instead, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turks in 1453, which brought a flood of Greek Orthodox refugees to Italy, humanist scholars increasingly turned to the study of Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, hoping to bridge the differences between the Greek and Roman Churches, and even between Christianity itself and the non-Christian world.[42] The refugees brought with them Greek manuscripts, not only of Plato and Aristotle, but also of the Christian Gospels, previously unavailable in the Latin West.
+
+After 1517, when the new invention of printing made these texts widely available, the Dutch humanist Erasmus, who had studied Greek at the Venetian printing house of Aldus Manutius, began a philological analysis of the Gospels in the spirit of Valla, comparing the Greek originals with their Latin translations with a view to correcting errors and discrepancies in the latter. Erasmus, along with the French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, began issuing new translations, laying the groundwork for the Protestant Reformation. Henceforth Renaissance humanism, particularly in the German North, became concerned with religion, while Italian and French humanism concentrated increasingly on scholarship and philology addressed to a narrow audience of specialists, studiously avoiding topics that might offend despotic rulers or which might be seen as corrosive of faith. After the Reformation, critical examination of the Bible did not resume until the advent of the so-called Higher criticism of the 19th-century German Tübingen school.
+
+The ad fontes principle also had many applications. The re-discovery of ancient manuscripts brought a more profound and accurate knowledge of ancient philosophical schools such as Epicureanism, and Neoplatonism, whose Pagan wisdom the humanists, like the Church fathers of old, tended, at least initially, to consider as deriving from divine revelation and thus adaptable to a life of Christian virtue.[43] The line from a drama of Terence, Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto (or with nil for nihil), meaning "I am a human being, I think nothing human alien to me",[44] known since antiquity through the endorsement of Saint Augustine, gained renewed currency as epitomising the humanist attitude. The statement, in a play modeled or borrowed from a (now lost) Greek comedy by Menander, may have originated in a lighthearted vein – as a comic rationale for an old man's meddling – but it quickly became a proverb and throughout the ages was quoted with a deeper meaning, by Cicero and Saint Augustine, to name a few, and most notably by Seneca. Richard Bauman writes:
+
+Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto., I am a human being: and I deem nothing pertaining to humanity is foreign to me.
+
+The words of the comic playwright P. Terentius Afer reverberated across the Roman world of the mid-2nd century BCE and beyond. Terence, an African and a former slave, was well placed to preach the message of universalism, of the essential unity of the human race, that had come down in philosophical form from the Greeks, but needed the pragmatic muscles of Rome in order to become a practical reality. The influence of Terence's felicitous phrase on Roman thinking about human rights can hardly be overestimated. Two hundred years later Seneca ended his seminal exposition of the unity of humankind with a clarion-call:
+
+There is one short rule that should regulate human relationships. All that you see, both divine and human, is one. We are parts of the same great body. Nature created us from the same source and to the same end. She imbued us with mutual affection and sociability, she taught us to be fair and just, to suffer injury rather than to inflict it. She bid us extend our hands to all in need of help. Let that well-known line be in our heart and on our lips: Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."[45]
+
+Better acquaintance with Greek and Roman technical writings also influenced the development of European science (see the history of science in the Renaissance). This was despite what A. C. Crombie (viewing the Renaissance in the 19th-century manner as a chapter in the heroic March of Progress) calls "a backwards-looking admiration for antiquity", in which Platonism stood in opposition to the Aristotelian concentration on the observable properties of the physical world.[46] But Renaissance humanists, who considered themselves as restoring the glory and nobility of antiquity, had no interest in scientific innovation. However, by the mid-to-late 16th century, even the universities, though still dominated by Scholasticism, began to demand that Aristotle be read in accurate texts edited according to the principles of Renaissance philology, thus setting the stage for Galileo's quarrels with the outmoded habits of Scholasticism.
+
+Just as artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci – partaking of the zeitgeist though not himself a humanist – advocated study of human anatomy, nature, and weather to enrich Renaissance works of art, so Spanish-born humanist Juan Luis Vives (c. 1493–1540) advocated observation, craft, and practical techniques to improve the formal teaching of Aristotelian philosophy at the universities, helping to free them from the grip of Medieval Scholasticism.[47] Thus, the stage was set for the adoption of an approach to natural philosophy, based on empirical observations and experimentation of the physical universe, making possible the advent of the age of scientific inquiry that followed the Renaissance.[48]
+
+It was in education that the humanists' program had the most lasting results, their curriculum and methods:
+
+were followed everywhere, serving as models for the Protestant Reformers as well as the Jesuits. The humanistic school, animated by the idea that the study of classical languages and literature provided valuable information and intellectual discipline as well as moral standards and a civilised taste for future rulers, leaders, and professionals of its society, flourished without interruption, through many significant changes, until our own century, surviving many religious, political and social revolutions. It has but recently been replaced, though not yet completely, by other more practical and less demanding forms of education.[49]
+
+Renaissance scholars associated with humanism were religious, but inveighed against the abuses of the Church, if not against the Church itself.[citation needed] For them, the word "secular" carried no connotations of disbelief – that would come later, in the nineteenth century. In the Renaissance to be secular meant simply to be in the world rather than in a monastery. Petrarch frequently admitted that his brother Gherardo's life as a Carthusian monk was superior to his own (although Petrarch himself was in Minor Orders and was employed by the Church all his life). He hoped that he could do some good by winning earthly glory and praising virtue, inferior though that might be to a life devoted solely to prayer. By embracing a non-theistic philosophic base,[50] however, the methods of the humanists, combined with their eloquence, would ultimately have a corrosive effect on established authority.
+
+Yet it was from the Renaissance that modern Secular Humanism grew, with the development of an important split between reason and religion. This occurred as the church's complacent authority was exposed in two vital areas. In science, Galileo's support of the Copernican revolution upset the church's adherence to the theories of Aristotle, exposing them as false. In theology, the Dutch scholar Erasmus with his new Greek text showed that the Roman Catholic adherence to Jerome's Vulgate was frequently in error. A tiny wedge was thus forced between reason and authority, as both of them were then understood.[51]
+
+For some, this meant turning back to the Bible as the source of authority instead of the Catholic Church, for others it was a split from theism altogether. This was the main divisive line between the Reformation and the Renaissance,[52] which dealt with the same basic problems, supported the same science based on reason and empirical research, but had a different set of presuppositions (theistic versus naturalistic).[50]
+
+The phrase the "religion of humanity" is sometimes attributed to American Founding Father Thomas Paine, though as yet unattested in his surviving writings. According to Tony Davies:
+
+Paine called himself a theophilanthropist, a word combining the Greek for "God", "love", and "humanity", and indicating that while he believed in the existence of a creating intelligence in the universe, he entirely rejected the claims made by and for all existing religious doctrines, especially their miraculous, transcendental and salvationist pretensions. The Parisian "Society of Theophilanthropy" which he sponsored, is described by his biographer as "a forerunner of the ethical and humanist societies that proliferated later" ... [Paine's book] the trenchantly witty Age of Reason (1793) ... pours scorn on the supernatural pretensions of scripture, combining Voltairean mockery with Paine's own style of taproom ridicule to expose the absurdity of a theology built on a collection of incoherent Levantine folktales.[53]
+
+Davies identifies Paine's  The Age of Reason as "the link between the two major narratives of what Jean-François Lyotard[54] calls the narrative of legitimation": the rationalism of the 18th-century Philosophes and the radical, historically based German 19th-century Biblical criticism of the Hegelians David Friedrich Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach. "The first is political, largely French in inspiration, and projects 'humanity as the hero of liberty'. The second is philosophical, German, seeks the totality and autonomy of knowledge, and stresses understanding rather than freedom as the key to human fulfilment and emancipation. The two themes converged and competed in complex ways in the 19th century and beyond, and between them set the boundaries of its various humanisms.[55] Homo homini deus est ("The human being is a god to humanity" or "god is nothing [other than] the human being to himself"), Feuerbach had written.[56]
+
+Victorian novelist Mary Ann Evans, known to the world as George Eliot, translated Strauss's Das Leben Jesu ("The Life of Jesus", 1846) and Ludwig Feuerbach's Das Wesen Christianismus ("The Essence of Christianity"). She wrote to a friend:
+
+the fellowship between man and man which has been the principle of development, social and moral, is not dependent on conceptions of what is not man ... the idea of God, so far as it has been a high spiritual influence, is the ideal of goodness entirely human (i.e., an exaltation of the human).[57]
+
+Eliot and her circle, who included her companion George Henry Lewes (the biographer of Goethe) and the abolitionist and social theorist Harriet Martineau, were much influenced by the positivism of Auguste Comte, whom Martineau had translated. Comte had proposed an atheistic culte founded on human principles – a secular Religion of Humanity (which worshiped the dead, since most humans who have ever lived are dead), complete with holidays and liturgy, modeled on the rituals of what was seen as a discredited and dilapidated Catholicism.[58] Although Comte's English followers, like Eliot and Martineau, for the most part rejected the full gloomy panoply of his system, they liked the idea of a religion of humanity. Comte's austere vision of the universe, his injunction to "vivre pour altrui" ("live for others", from which comes the word "altruism"),[59] and his idealisation of women inform the works of Victorian novelists and poets from George Eliot and Matthew Arnold to Thomas Hardy.
+
+The British Humanistic Religious Association was formed as one of the earliest forerunners of contemporary chartered Humanist organisations in 1853 in London. This early group was democratically organised, with male and female members participating in the election of the leadership, and promoted knowledge of the sciences, philosophy, and the arts.[60]
+
+In February 1877, the word was used pejoratively, apparently for the first time in America, to describe Felix Adler. Adler, however, did not embrace the term, and instead coined the name "Ethical Culture" for his new movement  – a movement which still exists in the now Humanist-affiliated New York Society for Ethical Culture.[61] In 2008, Ethical Culture Leaders wrote: "Today, the historic identification, Ethical Culture, and the modern description, Ethical Humanism, are used interchangeably."[62]
+
+Active in the early 1920s, F.C.S. Schiller labelled his work "humanism" but for Schiller the term referred to the pragmatist philosophy he shared with William James. In 1929, Charles Francis Potter founded the First Humanist Society of New York whose advisory board included Julian Huxley, John Dewey, Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann. Potter was a minister from the Unitarian tradition and in 1930 he and his wife, Clara Cook Potter, published Humanism: A New Religion. Throughout the 1930s, Potter was an advocate of such liberal causes as, women’s rights, access to birth control, "civil divorce laws", and an end to capital punishment.[63]
+
+Raymond B. Bragg, the associate editor of The New Humanist, sought to consolidate the input of Leon Milton Birkhead, Charles Francis Potter, and several members of the Western Unitarian Conference. Bragg asked Roy Wood Sellars to draft a document based on this information which resulted in the publication of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933. Potter's book and the Manifesto became the cornerstones of modern humanism, the latter declaring a new religion by saying, "any religion that can hope to be a synthesising and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present." It then presented 15 theses of humanism as foundational principles for this new religion.
+
+In 1941, the American Humanist Association was organised. Noted members of The AHA included Isaac Asimov, who was the president from 1985 until his death in 1992, and writer Kurt Vonnegut, who followed as honorary president until his death in 2007. Gore Vidal became honorary president in 2009. Robert Buckman was the head of the association in Canada, and is now an honorary president.[citation needed]
+
+After World War II, three prominent Humanists became the first directors of major divisions of the United Nations: Julian Huxley of UNESCO, Brock Chisholm of the World Health Organization, and John Boyd-Orr of the Food and Agriculture Organization.[64]
+
+In 2004, American Humanist Association, along with other groups representing agnostics, atheists, and other freethinkers, joined to create the Secular Coalition for America which advocates in Washington, D.C., for separation of church and state and nationally for the greater acceptance of nontheistic Americans. The Executive Director of Secular Coalition for America is Larry T. Decker.
+
+"Renaissance humanism" is the name later given to a tradition of cultural and educational reform engaged in by civic and ecclesiastical chancellors, book collectors, educators, and writers, who by the late fifteenth century began to be referred to as umanisti—"humanists".[7] It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of scholastic university education, which was then dominated by Aristotelian philosophy and logic. Scholasticism focused on preparing men to be doctors, lawyers or professional theologians, and was taught from approved textbooks in logic, natural philosophy, medicine, law and theology.[65] There were important centres of humanism at Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino.
+
+Humanists reacted against this utilitarian approach and the narrow pedantry associated with it. They sought to create a citizenry (frequently including women) able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity and thus capable of engaging the civic life of their communities and persuading others to virtuous and prudent actions. This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis, today known as the humanities: grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy.[66] As a program to revive the cultural—and particularly the literary—legacy and moral philosophy of classical antiquity, Humanism was a pervasive cultural mode and not the program of a few isolated geniuses like Rabelais or Erasmus as is still sometimes popularly believed.[67]
+
+Secular humanism is a comprehensive life stance or world view that embraces human reason, metaphysical naturalism, altruistic morality and distributive justice, and consciously rejects supernatural claims, theistic faith and religiosity, pseudoscience, and superstition.[68][69] It is sometimes referred to as Humanism (with a capital H and no qualifying adjective).
+
+The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the world union of 117 Humanist, rationalist, irreligious, atheistic, Bright, secular, Ethical Culture, and freethought organisations in 38 countries.[70] The "Happy Human" is the official symbol of the IHEU as well as being regarded as a universally recognised symbol for secular humanism.
+
+According to the IHEU's bylaw 5.1:[71]
+
+Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.
+
+"Religious humanists" are non-superstitious people who nevertheless see ethical humanism as their religion, and who seek to integrate (secular) humanist ethical philosophy with congregational rituals centred on human needs, interests, and abilities. Though practitioners of religious humanism did not officially organise under the name of "humanism" until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, non-theistic religions paired with human-centred ethical philosophy have a long history. A unified Ethical Culture movement was first founded in 1876; its founder, Felix Adler, was a former member of the Free Religious Association and conceived of Ethical Culture as a new religion that would retain the ethical message at the heart of all religions. Ethical Culture was religious in the sense of playing a defining role in people's lives and addressing issues of ultimate concern. Nowadays religious humanists in the United States are represented by organisations such as the American Ethical Union and will simply describe themselves as "ethical humanists" or "humanists". Secular humanists and religious humanists organise together as part of larger national and international groupings, and differentiate themselves primarily in their attitude to the promotion of humanist thinking.
+
+Earlier attempts at inventing a secular religious tradition informed the Ethical Culture movement. The Cult of Reason (French: Culte de la Raison) was a religion based on deism devised during the French Revolution by Jacques Hébert, Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and their supporters.[72] In 1793, the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris was turned into a "Temple of Reason" and for a time Lady Liberty replaced the Virgin Mary on several altars.[73] In the 1850s, Auguste Comte, the Father of Sociology, founded Positivism, a "religion of humanity".[74] One of the earliest forerunners of contemporary chartered humanist organisations was the Humanistic Religious Association formed in 1853 in London. This early group was democratically organised, with male and female members participating in the election of the leadership and promoted knowledge of the sciences, philosophy, and the arts.[74]
+
+The distinction between so-called "ethical" humanists and "secular" humanists is most pronounced in the United States, although it is becoming less so over time. The philosophical distinction is not reflected at all in Canada, Latin America, Africa, or Asia, or most of Europe. In the UK, where the humanist movement was strongly influenced by Americans in the 19th century, the leading "ethical societies" and "ethical churches" evolved into secular humanist charities (e.g. the British Ethical Union became the British Humanist Association and later Humanists UK). In Scandinavian countries, "human-etik" or [[:no:Humanetikk|"humanetikk"]] (roughly synonymous with ethical humanism) is a popular strand within humanism, originating from the works of Danish philosopher Harald Høffding. The Norwegian Humanist Association, Human-Etisk Forbund (HEF, literally "Human-Ethical League"), belongs to this tendency. Over time, the emphasis on human-etisk has become less pronounced, and today HEF promotes both humanisme (secular humanism) and human-etisk. In Sweden, the main Swedish humanist group Humanisterna ("Humanists") began as a "human-ethical association" like the Norwegian humanists before adopting the more prevalent secular humanist model popular in most of Europe. Today the distinction in Europe is mostly superficial.
+
+Polemics about humanism have sometimes assumed paradoxical twists and turns. Early-20th-century critics such as Ezra Pound, T. E. Hulme, and T. S. Eliot considered humanism to be sentimental "slop" (Hulme)[citation needed] or "an old bitch gone in the teeth" (Pound).[75] Postmodern critics who are self-described anti-humanists, such as Jean-François Lyotard and Michel Foucault, have asserted that humanism posits an overarching and excessively abstract notion of humanity or universal human nature, which can then be used as a pretext for imperialism and domination of those deemed somehow less than human. "Humanism fabricates the human as much as it fabricates the nonhuman animal", suggests Timothy Laurie, turning the human into what he calls "a placeholder for a range of attributes that have been considered most virtuous among humans (e.g. rationality, altruism), rather than most commonplace (e.g. hunger, anger)".[76] Nevertheless, philosopher Kate Soper[77] notes that by faulting humanism for falling short of its own benevolent ideals, anti-humanism thus frequently "secretes a humanist rhetoric".[78]
+
+In his book Humanism (1997), Tony Davies calls these critics "humanist anti-humanists". Critics of antihumanism, most notably Jürgen Habermas, counter that while antihumanists may highlight humanism's failure to fulfill its emancipatory ideal, they do not offer an alternative emancipatory project of their own.[79] Others, like the German philosopher Heidegger, considered themselves humanists on the model of the ancient Greeks but thought humanism applied only to the German "race" and specifically to the Nazis and thus, in Davies' words, were anti-humanist humanists.[80] Such a reading of Heidegger's thought is itself deeply controversial; Heidegger includes his own views and critique of Humanism in Letter on Humanism. Davies acknowledges that, after the horrific experiences of the wars of the 20th century, "it should no longer be possible to formulate phrases like 'the destiny of man' or the 'triumph of human reason' without an instant consciousness of the folly and brutality they drag behind them". For "it is almost impossible to think of a crime that has not been committed in the name of human reason". Yet, he continues, "it would be unwise to simply abandon the ground occupied by the historical humanisms. For one thing humanism remains on many occasions the only available alternative to bigotry and persecution. The freedom to speak and write, to organise and campaign in defence of individual or collective interests, to protest and disobey: all these can only be articulated in humanist terms."[81]
+
+Modern humanists, such as Corliss Lamont or Carl Sagan, hold that humanity must seek for truth through reason and the best observable evidence and endorse scientific skepticism and the scientific method. However, they stipulate that decisions about right and wrong must be based on the individual and common good, with no consideration given to metaphysical or supernatural beings. The idea is to engage with what is human.[82] The ultimate goal is human flourishing; making life better for all humans, and as the most conscious species, also promoting concern for the welfare of other sentient beings and the planet as a whole.[83]  The focus is on doing good and living well in the here and now, and leaving the world a better place for those who come after. In 1925, the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead cautioned: "The prophecy of Francis Bacon has now been fulfilled; and man, who at times dreamt of himself as a little lower than the angels, has submitted to become the servant and the minister of nature. It still remains to be seen whether the same actor can play both parts".[84]
+
+Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that rose to prominence in the mid-20th century in response to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. The approach emphasizes an individual's inherent drive towards self-actualization and creativity.  Psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow introduced a positive, humanistic psychology in response to what they viewed as the overly pessimistic view of psychoanalysis in the early 1960s. Other sources include the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology.
+
+The path between the onset of the good letters and the modern humanist as freethinker or simply as scholar is circuitous but unbroken. If we look for what is common to the Humanists over the centuries we find two things: a body of accepted authors and a method of carrying on study and debate. The two go together with the belief that the best guides to the good life are Reason and Nature. (Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence :500 years of Western Cultural Life [New York: HarperCollins, 2000], p. 45)
+
+Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the centre of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophised on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature."Humanism". "The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 1999.
+
+Early Italian humanism, which in many respects continued the grammatical and rhetorical traditions of the Middle Ages, not merely provided the old Trivium with a new and more ambitious name (Studia humanitatis), but also increased its actual scope, content and significance in the curriculum of the schools and universities and in its own extensive literary production. The studia humanitatis excluded logic, but they added to the traditional grammar and rhetoric not only history, Greek, and moral philosophy, but also made poetry, once a sequel of grammar and rhetoric, the most important member of the whole group. (Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts [New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965], p. 178.)

en/3425.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,315 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 33°50′N 35°50′E / 33.833°N 35.833°E / 33.833; 35.833
+
+Lebanon (/ˈlɛbənɒn, -nən/ (listen);[9] Arabic: لبنان‎, romanized: Lubnān, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [lɪbˈneːn]), officially known as the Republic of Lebanon[nb 3] (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية‎, romanized: al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [lˈʒʊmhuːrijje lˈlɪbneːnijje]; French: République libanaise), is a country in Western Asia.[10][11][12][13] It is bordered by Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus is west across the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland had contributed to its rich history and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.[14] At just 10,452 km2 (4,036 mi2), it is the smallest recognized sovereign state on the mainland Asian continent.[nb 4][15][16]
+
+The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than seven thousand years, predating recorded history.[17] Lebanon was home to the Phoenicians, a maritime culture that flourished for almost three thousand years (c. 3200–539 BC). In 64 BC, the region came under the rule of the Roman Empire, and eventually became one of its leading centers of Christianity. The Mount Lebanon range saw the emergence of a monastic tradition known as the Maronite Church. As the Arab Muslims conquered the region, the Maronites held onto their religion and identity. However, a new religious group, the Druze, established themselves in Mount Lebanon as well, generating a religious divide that has lasted for centuries. During the Crusades, the Maronites re-established contact with the Roman Catholic Church and asserted their communion with Rome. These ties have influenced the region into the modern era.
+
+Lebanon was conquered by the Ottomans in the 16th century and remained under their rule for the next 400 years. Following the empire's collapse after World War I, the five provinces constituting modern Lebanon came under the French Mandate. The French expanded the borders of the Mount Lebanon Governorate, which was predominately Maronite and Druze, to include more Muslims. Upon independence in 1943, Lebanon established a unique confessionalist form of government, with the major religious sects apportioned specific political powers. President Bechara El Khoury, prime minister Riad El-Solh, and minister of defence Emir Majid Arslan II are considered the founders of modern Lebanon and national heroes for their role in independence. Lebanon initially enjoyed political and economic stability, which was shattered by the bloody Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990) between various political and sectarian factions. The war partially led to military occupations by Syria (1975 to 2005) and Israel (1985 to 2000).
+
+Despite its small size,[18] Lebanese culture is renowned both in the Arab world and globally, powered by its large and influential diaspora. Prior to the civil war, the country enjoyed a diversified economy that included tourism, agriculture, commerce, and banking.[19] Its financial power and stability through the 1950s and 1960s earned Lebanon the moniker of "Switzerland of the East",[20] while its capital, Beirut, attracted so many tourists that it was known as "the Paris of the Middle East".[21] Since the end of the war, there have been extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure.[22] While still recovering from the political and economic effects of the conflict, Lebanon remains a cosmopolitan and relatively developed country, with the highest Human Development Index and GDP per capita in the Arab world outside of the oil-rich economies of the Persian Gulf.
+
+Lebanon was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and is a member of the Arab League (1945), the Non-Aligned Movement (1961), Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (1969) and the Organisation internationale de la francophonie (1973).
+
+The name of Mount Lebanon originates from the Phoenician root lbn (𐤋𐤁𐤍) meaning "white", apparently from its snow-capped peaks.[23]
+
+Occurrences of the name have been found in different Middle Bronze Age texts from the library of Ebla,[24] and three of the twelve tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
+The name is recorded in Ancient Egyptian as Rmnn (𓂋𓏠𓈖𓈖𓈉), where R stood for Canaanite L.[25]
+The name occurs nearly 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, as לְבָנוֹן.[26]
+
+Lebanon as the name of an administrative unit (as opposed to the mountain range) was introduced with the Ottoman reforms of 1861, as the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (Arabic: متصرفية جبل لبنان‎; Turkish: Cebel-i Lübnan Mutasarrıflığı), continued in the name of the State of Greater Lebanon (Arabic: دولة لبنان الكبير‎ Dawlat Lubnān al-Kabīr; French: État du Grand Liban) in 1920, and eventually in the name of the sovereign Republic of Lebanon  (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية‎ al-Jumhūrīyah al-Lubnānīyah) upon its independence in 1943.
+
+The borders of contemporary Lebanon are a product of the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920. Its territory was the core of the Bronze Age Phoenician (Canaanite) city-states. As part of the Levant, it was part of numerous succeeding empires throughout ancient history, including the  Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Achaemenid Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Sasanid Persian empires.
+
+After the 7th-century Muslim conquest of the Levant, it was part of the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid Seljuk and Fatimid empires. The crusader state of the County of Tripoli, founded by Raymond IV of Toulouse in 1102, encompassed most of present-day Lebanon, falling to the Mamluk Sultanate in 1289 and finally to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. With the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Greater Lebanon fell under French mandate in 1920, and gained independence under president Bechara El Khoury in 1943. Lebanon's history since independence has been marked by alternating periods of political stability and prosperity based on Beirut's position as a regional center for finance and trade, interspersed with political turmoil and armed conflict  (1948 Arab–Israeli War, Lebanese Civil War 1975–1990, 2005 Cedar Revolution, 2006 Lebanon War, 2007 Lebanon conflict, 2006–08 Lebanese protests, 2008 conflict in Lebanon, 2011 Syrian Civil War spillover, and 2019–20 Lebanese protests).
+
+Evidence dating back to an early settlement in Lebanon was found in Byblos, considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.[17] The evidence dates back to earlier than 5000 BC. Archaeologists discovered remnants of prehistoric huts with crushed limestone floors, primitive weapons, and burial jars left by the Neolithic and Chalcolithic fishing communities who lived on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea over 7,000 years ago.[27]
+
+Lebanon was part of northern Canaan, and consequently became the homeland of Canaanite descendantsm the Phoenicians, a seafaring people who spread across the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC .[28] The most prominent Phoenician cities were Byblos, Sidon and Tyre, while their most famous colonies were Carthage in present-day Tunisia and Cádiz in present-day Spain. The Phoenicians are credited with the invention of the oldest verified alphabet, which subsequently inspired the Greek alphabet and the Latin one thereafter. The cities of Phoenicia were incorporated into the Persian Achaemenid Empire by Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE.[29] The Phoenician city-states were later incorporated into the empire of Alexander the Great following the Siege of Tyre in 332 BC.[29]
+
+The region that is now Lebanon, as with the rest of Syria and much of Anatolia, became a major center of Christianity in the Roman Empire during the early spread of the faith. During the late 4th and early 5th century, a hermit named Maron established a monastic tradition focused on the importance of monotheism and asceticism, near the Mediterranean mountain range known as Mount Lebanon. The monks who followed Maron spread his teachings among Lebanese in the region. These Christians came to be known as Maronites and moved into the mountains to avoid religious persecution by Roman authorities.[30] During the frequent Roman-Persian Wars that lasted for many centuries, the Sassanid Persians occupied what is now Lebanon from 619 till 629.[31]
+
+During the 7th century the Muslim Arabs conquered Syria establishing a new regime to replace the Byzantines. Though Islam and the Arabic language were officially dominant under this new regime, the general populace nonetheless only gradually converted from Christianity and the Syriac language. The Maronite community, in particular, managed to maintain a large degree of autonomy despite the succession of rulers over Lebanon and Syria.
+
+During the 11th century the Druze religion emerged from a branch of Shia Islam. The new religion gained followers in the southern portion of Mount Lebanon. The northern portion of Mount Lebanon was ruled by Druze feudal families to the early 14th century which was then brought to an end by the Mamluk invasion. The Maronite population increased gradually in Northern Mount Lebanon and the Druze have remained in Southern Mount Lebanon until the modern era. In the south of Lebanon, Jabal Amel, Baalbek and the Beqaa Valley was ruled by Shia feudal families under the Mamluks and the Ottoman Empire. Major cities on the coast, Acre, Beirut, and others, were directly administered by the Muslim Caliphs and the people became more fully absorbed by the Arab culture.
+
+Following the fall of Roman Anatolia to the Muslim Turks, the Byzantines put out a call to the Pope in Rome for assistance in the 11th century. The result was a series of wars known as the Crusades launched by the Franks from Western Europe to reclaim the former Byzantine Christian territories in the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Syria and Palestine (the Levant). The First Crusade succeeded in temporarily establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli as Roman Catholic Christian states along the coast.[32] These crusader states made a lasting impact on the region, though their control was limited, and the region returned to full Muslim control after two centuries following the conquest by the Mamluks.
+
+One of the most lasting effects of the Crusades in this region was the contact between the Franks (i.e. the French) and the Maronites. Unlike most other Christian communities in the Eastern Mediterranean, who swore allegiance to Constantinople or other local patriarchs, the Maronites proclaimed allegiance to the Pope in Rome. As such the Franks saw them as Roman Catholic brethren. These initial contacts led to centuries of support for the Maronites from France and Italy, even after the fall of the Crusader states in the region.
+
+During this period Lebanon was divided into several provinces: Northern and Southern Mount Lebanon, Tripoli, Baalbek and Beqaa Valley and Jabal Amel.
+In southern Mount Lebanon in 1590, Fakhr-al-Din II became the successor to Korkmaz. He soon established his authority as paramount prince of the Druze in the Shouf area of Mount Lebanon. Eventually, Fakhr-al-Din II was appointed Sanjakbey (Governor) of several Ottoman sub-provinces, with responsibility for tax-gathering. He extended his control over a substantial part of Mount Lebanon and its coastal area, even building a fort as far inland as Palmyra.[36] This over-reaching eventually became too much for Ottoman Sultan Murad IV, who sent a punitive expedition to capture him in 1633. He was taken to Istanbul, kept in prison for two years and then executed along with one of his sons in April 1635.[37] Surviving members of Fakhr al-Din's family ruled a reduced area under closer Ottoman control until the end of the 17th century.
+
+On the death of the last Maan emir, various members of the Shihab clan ruled Mount Lebanon until 1830. Approximately 10,000 Christians were killed by the Druzes during inter-communal violence in 1860.[38] Shortly afterwards, the Emirate of Mount Lebanon, which lasted about 400 years, was replaced by the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, as a result of a European-Ottoman treaty called the Règlement Organique.
+The Baalbek and Beqaa Valley and Jabal Amel was ruled intermittently by various Shia feudal families, especially the Al Ali Alsagheer in Jabal Amel that remained in power until 1865  when Ottomans took direct ruling of the region. Youssef Bey Karam,[39] a Lebanese nationalist played an influential role in Lebanon's independence during this era.
+
+In 1920, following World War I, the area of the Mutasarrifate, plus some surrounding areas which were predominantly Shia and Sunni, became a part of the state of Greater Lebanon under the French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon. Around 100,000 people in Beirut and Mount Lebanon died of starvation during World War I.[40] In the first half of 1920, Lebanese territory was claimed as part of the Arab Kingdom of Syria, but shortly the Franco-Syrian War resulted in Arab defeat and capitulation of the Hashemites.
+
+On 1 September 1920, France reestablished Greater Lebanon after the Moutasarrifiya rule removed several regions belonging to the Principality of Lebanon and gave them to Syria.[41] Lebanon was a largely Christian country (mainly Maronite territory with some Greek Orthodox enclaves) but it also included areas containing many Muslims and Druze.[42] On 1 September 1926, France formed the Lebanese Republic. A constitution was adopted on 25 May 1926 establishing a democratic republic with a parliamentary system of government.
+
+Lebanon gained a measure of independence while France was occupied by Germany.[43] General Henri Dentz, the Vichy High Commissioner for Syria and Lebanon, played a major role in the independence of the nation. The Vichy authorities in 1941 allowed Germany to move aircraft and supplies through Syria to Iraq where they were used against British forces. The United Kingdom, fearing that Nazi Germany would gain full control of Lebanon and Syria by pressure on the weak Vichy government, sent its army into Syria and Lebanon.[44]
+
+After the fighting ended in Lebanon, General Charles de Gaulle visited the area. Under political pressure from both inside and outside Lebanon, de Gaulle recognized the independence of Lebanon. On 26 November 1941, General Georges Catroux announced that Lebanon would become independent under the authority of the Free French government. Elections were held in 1943 and on 8 November 1943 the new Lebanese government unilaterally abolished the mandate. The French reacted by imprisoning the new government. In the face of international pressure, the French released the government officials on 22 November 1943. The allies occupied the region until the end of World War II.
+
+Following the end of World War II in Europe the French mandate may be said to have been terminated without any formal action on the part of the League of Nations or its successor the United Nations. The mandate was ended by the declaration of the mandatory power, and of the new states themselves, of their independence, followed by a process of piecemeal unconditional recognition by other powers, culminating in formal admission to the United Nations. Article 78 of the UN Charter ended the status of tutelage for any member state: "The trusteeship system shall not apply to territories which have become Members of the United Nations, relationship among which shall be based on respect for the principle of sovereign equality."[45] So when the UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, after ratification of the United Nations Charter by the five permanent members, as both Syria and Lebanon were founding member states, the French mandate for both was legally terminated on that date and full independence attained.[46] The last French troops withdrew in December 1946.
+
+Lebanon's unwritten National Pact of 1943 required that its president be Maronite Christian, its speaker of the parliament to be a Shiite Muslim, its prime minister be Sunni Muslim, and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament and the Deputy Prime Minister be Greek Orthodox.[47]
+
+Lebanon's history since independence has been marked by alternating periods of political stability and turmoil interspersed with prosperity built on Beirut's position as a regional center for finance and trade.[48]
+
+In May 1948, Lebanon supported neighbouring Arab countries in a war against Israel. While some irregular forces crossed the border and carried out minor skirmishes against Israel, it was without the support of the Lebanese government, and Lebanese troops did not officially invade.[49] Lebanon agreed to support the forces with covering artillery fire, armored cars, volunteers and logistical support.[50] On 5–6 June 1948, the Lebanese army – led by the then Minister of National Defence, Emir Majid Arslan – captured Al-Malkiyya. This was Lebanon's only success in the war.[51]
+
+100,000 Palestinians fled to Lebanon because of the war. Israel did not permit their return after the cease-fire.[52] As of 2017 between 174,000 and 450,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon with about half in refugee camps (although these are often decades old and resemble neighborhoods).[53] Palestinians  often cannot obtain Lebanese citizenship or even Lebanese identity cards so many are legally barred from owning property or performing certain occupations (including law, medicine, and engineering).[54] According to Human Rights Watch, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in "appalling social and economic conditions."
+
+In 1958, during the last months of President Camille Chamoun's term, an insurrection broke out, instigated by Lebanese Muslims who wanted to make Lebanon a member of the United Arab Republic. Chamoun requested assistance, and 5,000 United States Marines were briefly dispatched to Beirut on 15 July. After the crisis, a new government was formed, led by the popular former general Fuad Chehab.
+
+With the defeat of the PLO in Jordan, many Palestinian militants relocated to Lebanon, increasing their armed campaign against Israel. The relocation of Palestinian bases also led to increasing sectarian tensions between Palestinians versus the Maronites and other Lebanese factions.
+
+In 1975, following increasing sectarian tensions, largely boosted by Palestinian militant relocation into South Lebanon, a full-scale civil war broke out in Lebanon. The Lebanese Civil War pitted a coalition of Christian groups against the joint forces of the PLO, left-wing Druze and Muslim militias. In June 1976. Lebanese President Elias Sarkis asked for the Syrian Army to intervene on the side of the Christians and help restore peace.[55] In October 1976 the Arab League agreed to establish a predominantly Syrian Arab Deterrent Force, which was charged with restoring calm.[56]
+
+PLO attacks from Lebanon into Israel in 1977 and 1978 escalated tensions between the countries. On 11 March 1978, eleven Fatah fighters landed on a beach in northern Israel and proceeded to hijack two buses full of passengers on the Haifa – Tel-Aviv road, shooting at passing vehicles in what became known as the Coastal Road massacre. They killed 37 and wounded 76 Israelis before being killed in a firefight with Israeli forces.[57] Israel invaded Lebanon four days later in Operation Litani. The Israeli Army occupied most of the area south of the Litani River. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 425 calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal and creating the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), charged with attempting to establish peace.
+
+Israeli forces withdrew later in 1978, but retained control of the southern region by managing a 12-mile (19 km) wide security zone along the border. These positions were held by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian-Shi'a militia under the leadership of Major Saad Haddad backed by Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister, Likud's Menachem Begin, compared the plight of the Christian minority in southern Lebanon (then about 5% of the population in SLA territory) to that of European Jews during World War II.[58] The PLO routinely attacked Israel during the period of the cease-fire, with over 270 documented attacks.[citation needed] People in Galilee regularly had to leave their homes during these shellings. Documents captured in PLO headquarters after the invasion showed they had come from Lebanon.[59] Arafat refused to condemn these attacks on the grounds that the cease-fire was only relevant to Lebanon.[60]
+
+In April 1980 the presence of UNIFIL soldiers in the buffer zone led to the At Tiri incident. On 17 July 1981, Israeli aircraft bombed multi-story apartment buildings in Beirut that contained offices of PLO associated groups. The Lebanese delegate to the United Nations Security Council claimed that 300 civilians had been killed and 800 wounded. The bombing led to worldwide condemnation, and a temporary embargo on the export of U.S. aircraft to Israel.[61]
+In August 1981, defense minister Ariel Sharon began to draw up plans to attack PLO military infrastructure in West Beirut, where PLO headquarters and command bunkers were located.[62]
+
+In 1982, the PLO attacks from Lebanon on Israel led to an Israeli invasion, aiming to support Lebanese forces in driving out the PLO. A multinational force of American, French and Italian contingents (joined in 1983 by a British contingent) were deployed in Beirut after the Israeli siege of the city, to supervise the evacuation of the PLO. The civil war re-emerged in September 1982 after the assassination of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel, an Israeli ally, and subsequent fighting. During this time a number of sectarian massacres occurred, such as in  Sabra and Shatila,[63] and in several refugee camps.[64] The multinational force was withdrawn in the spring of 1984, following a devastating bombing attack during the previous year.
+
+In September 1988, the Parliament failed to elect a successor to President Gemayel as a result of differences between the Christians, Muslims, and Syrians. The Arab League Summit of May 1989 led to the formation of a Saudi–Moroccan–Algerian committee to solve the crisis. On 16 September 1989 the committee issued a peace plan which was accepted by all. A ceasefire was established, the ports and airports were re-opened and refugees began to return.[56]
+
+In the same month, the Lebanese Parliament agreed to the Taif Agreement, which included an outline timetable for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and a formula for the de-confessionalisation of the Lebanese political system.[56] The war ended at the end of 1990 after sixteen years; it had caused massive loss of human life and property, and devastated the country's economy. It is estimated that 150,000 people were killed and another 200,000 wounded.[65] Nearly a million civilians were displaced by the war, and some never returned.[66] Parts of Lebanon were left in ruins.[67] The Taif Agreement has still not been implemented in full and Lebanon's political system continues to be divided along sectarian lines.
+
+The internal political situation in Lebanon significantly changed in the early 2000s. After the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and the death of former president Hafez Al-Assad in 2000, the Syrian military presence faced criticism and resistance from the Lebanese population.[68]
+
+On 14 February 2005, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb explosion.[69] Leaders of the March 14 Alliance accused Syria of the attack,[70] while Syria and the March 8 Alliance claimed that Israel was behind the assassination. The Hariri assassination marked the beginning of a series of assassinations that resulted in the death of many prominent Lebanese figures.[nb 5]
+
+The assassination triggered the Cedar Revolution, a series of demonstrations which demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the establishment of an international commission to investigate the assassination. Under pressure from the West, Syria began withdrawing,[71] and by 26 April 2005 all Syrian soldiers had returned to Syria.[72]
+
+UNSC Resolution 1595 called for an investigation into the assassination.[73] The UN International Independent Investigation Commission published preliminary findings on 20 October 2005 in the Mehlis report, which cited indications that the assassination was organized by Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services.[74][75][76][77]
+
+On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah launched a series of rocket attacks and raids into Israeli territory, where they killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others.[78] Israel responded with airstrikes and artillery fire on targets in Lebanon, and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, resulting in the 2006 Lebanon War. The conflict was officially ended by the UNSC Resolution 1701 on 14 August 2006, which ordered a ceasefire.[79] Some 1,191 Lebanese[80] and 160 Israelis[81] were killed in the conflict. Beirut's southern suburb was heavily damaged by Israeli airstrikes.[82]
+
+In 2007, the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp became the center of the 2007 Lebanon conflict between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam. At least 169 soldiers, 287 insurgents and 47 civilians were killed in the battle. Funds for the reconstruction of the area have been slow to materialize.[83]
+
+Between 2006 and 2008, a series of protests led by groups opposed to the pro-Western Prime Minister Fouad Siniora demanded the creation of a national unity government, over which the mostly Shia opposition groups would have veto power. When Émile Lahoud's presidential term ended in October 2007, the opposition refused to vote for a successor unless a power-sharing deal was reached, leaving Lebanon without a president.
+
+On 9 May 2008, Hezbollah and Amal forces, sparked by a government declaration that Hezbollah's communications network was illegal, seized western Beirut,[84] leading to the 2008 conflict in Lebanon.[85] The Lebanese government denounced the violence as a coup attempt.[86] At least 62 people died in the resulting clashes between pro-government and opposition militias.[87] On 21 May 2008, the signing of the Doha Agreement ended the fighting.[84][87] As part of the accord, which ended 18 months of political paralysis,[88] Michel Suleiman became president and a national unity government was established, granting a veto to the opposition.[84] The agreement was a victory for opposition forces, as the government caved in to all their main demands.[87]
+
+In early January 2011, the national unity government collapsed due to growing tensions stemming from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was expected to indict Hezbollah members for the Hariri assassination.[89] The parliament elected Najib Mikati, the candidate for the Hezbollah-led March 8 Alliance, Prime Minister of Lebanon, making him responsible for forming a new government.[90] Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah insists that Israel was responsible for the assassination of Hariri.[91] A report leaked by the Al-Akhbar newspaper in November 2010 stated that Hezbollah has drafted plans for a takeover of the country in the event that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon issues an indictment against its members.[92]
+
+In 2012, the Syrian civil war threatened to spill over in Lebanon, causing more incidents of sectarian violence and armed clashes between Sunnis and Alawites in Tripoli.[93] According to UNHCR, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon increased from around 250,000 in early 2013 to 1,000,000 in late 2014.[94] In 2013, The Lebanese Forces Party, the Kataeb Party and the Free Patriotic Movement voiced concerns that the country's sectarian based political system is being undermined by the influx of Syrian refugees.[95] On 6 May 2015, UNHCR suspended registration of Syrian refugees at the request of the Lebanese government.[96] In February 2016, the Lebanese government signed the Lebanon Compact, granting a minimum of €400 million of support for refugees and vulnerable Lebanese citizens.[97] As of October 2016, the government estimates that the country hosts 1.5 million Syrians.[98]
+
+On 17 October 2019 the first of a series of mass civil demonstrations erupted;[99][100][101]  they were initially triggered by planned taxes on gasoline, tobacco and online phone calls such as through WhatsApp,[102][103][104] but quickly expanded into a country-wide condemnation of sectarian rule,[105] stagnant economy, unemployment, endemic corruption in the public sector,[105] legislation (such as banking secrecy) that is perceived to shield the ruling class from accountability[106][107] and failures from the government to provide basic services such as electricity, water and sanitation.[108]
+
+As a result of the protests, Lebanon entered a political crisis, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri tendering his resignation and echoing protestors' demands for a government of independent specialists.[109] Other politicians targeted by the protests have remained in power. On 19 December 2019, former Minister of Education Hassan Diab was designated the next prime minister and tasked with forming a new cabinet.[110] Protests and acts of civil disobedience have since continued, with protesters denouncing and condemning the designation of Diab as prime minister.[111][112][113] Lebanon is suffering worst economic crisis in decades.[114][115]
+
+Lebanon is located in Western Asia between latitudes 33° and 35° N and longitudes 35° and 37° E. Its land straddles the "northwest of the Arabian plate".[116]
+
+The country's surface area is 10,452 square kilometres (4,036 sq mi) of which 10,230 square kilometres (3,950 sq mi) is land. Lebanon has a coastline and border of 225 kilometres (140 mi) on the Mediterranean Sea to the west, a 375 kilometres (233 mi) border shared with Syria to the north and east and a 79 kilometres (49 mi) long border with Israel to the south.[117] The border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights is disputed by Lebanon in a small area called Shebaa Farms.[118]
+
+Lebanon is divided into four distinct physiographic regions: the coastal plain, the Lebanon mountain range, the Beqaa valley and the Anti-Lebanon mountains.
+
+The narrow and discontinuous coastal plain stretches from the Syrian border in the north where it widens to form the Akkar plain to Ras al-Naqoura at the border with Israel in the south. The fertile coastal plain is formed of marine sediments and river deposited alluvium alternating with sandy bays and rocky beaches.
+The Lebanon mountains rise steeply parallel to the Mediterranean coast and form a ridge of limestone and sandstone that runs for most of the country's length. The mountain range varies in width between 10 km (6 mi) and 56 km (35 mi); it is carved by narrow and deep gorges. The Lebanon mountains peak at 3,088 metres (10,131 ft) above sea level in Qurnat as Sawda' in North Lebanon and gradually slope to the south before rising again to a height of 2,695 metres (8,842 ft) in Mount Sannine. The Beqaa valley sits between the Lebanon mountains in the west and the Anti-Lebanon range in the east; it is a part of the Great Rift Valley system. The valley is 180 km (112 mi) long and 10 to 26 km (6 to 16 mi) wide, its fertile soil is formed by alluvial deposits. The Anti-Lebanon range runs parallel to the Lebanon mountains, its highest peak is in Mount Hermon at 2,814 metres (9,232 ft).[117]
+
+The mountains of Lebanon are drained by seasonal torrents and rivers foremost of which is the 145 kilometres (90 mi) long Leontes that rises in the Beqaa Valley to the west of Baalbek and empties into the Mediterranean Sea north of Tyre.[117] Lebanon has 16 rivers all of which are non navigable; 13 rivers originate from Mount Lebanon and run through the steep gorges and into the Mediterranean Sea, the other three arise in the Beqaa Valley.[119]
+
+Lebanon has a moderate Mediterranean climate. In coastal areas, winters are generally cool and rainy whilst summers are hot and humid. In more elevated areas, temperatures usually drop below freezing during the winter with heavy snow cover that remains until early summer on the higher mountaintops.[117][120] Although most of Lebanon receives a relatively large amount of rainfall, when measured annually in comparison to its arid surroundings, certain areas in north-eastern Lebanon receive little because of rain shadow created by the high peaks of the western mountain range.[121]
+
+In ancient times, Lebanon was covered by large forests of cedar trees, the national emblem of the country.[122]  Millennia of deforestation have altered the hydrology in Mount Lebanon and changed the regional climate adversely.[123] As of 2012, forests covered 13.4% of the Lebanese land area;[124] they are under constant threat from wildfires caused by the long dry summer season.[125]
+
+As a result of longstanding exploitation, few old cedar trees remain in pockets of forests in Lebanon, but there is an active program to conserve and regenerate the forests. The Lebanese approach has emphasized natural regeneration over planting by creating the right conditions for germination and growth. The Lebanese state has created several nature reserves that contain cedars, including the Shouf Biosphere Reserve, the Jaj Cedar Reserve, the Tannourine Reserve, the Ammouaa and Karm Shbat Reserves in the Akkar district, and the Forest of the Cedars of God near Bsharri.[126][127][128]
+
+In 2010, the Environment Ministry set a 10-year plan to increase the national forest coverage by 20%, which is equivalent to the planting of two million new trees each year.[129] The plan, which was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and implemented by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), through the Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI), was inaugurated in 2011 by planting cedar, pine, wild almond, juniper, fir, oak and other seedlings, in ten regions around Lebanon.[129] As of 2016, forests covered 13.6% of Lebanon, and other wooded lands represented a further 11%.[130]  Since 2011, more than 600,000 trees, including cedars and other native species, have been planted throughout Lebanon as part of the Lebanon Reforestation Initiative (LRI).[131]
+
+Beirut and Mount Lebanon have been facing a severe garbage crisis. After the closure of the Bourj Hammoud dump in 1997, the al-Naameh dumpsite was opened by the government in 1998. The al-Naameh dumpsite was planned to contain 2 million tons of waste for a limited period of six years at the most. It was designed to be a temporary solution, while the government would have devised a long-term plan. Sixteen years later al-Naameh was still open and exceeded its capacity by 13 million tons. In July 2015 the residents of the area, already protesting in the recent years, forced the closure of the dumpsite.The inefficiency of the government, as well as the corruption inside of the waste management company Sukleen in charge of managing the garbage in Lebanon, have resulted in piles of garbage blocking streets in Mount Lebanon and Beirut.[132]
+
+In December 2015, the Lebanese government signed an agreement with Chinook Industrial Mining, part owned by Chinook Sciences, to export over 100,000 tons of untreated waste from  Beirut and the surrounding area. The waste had accumulated in temporary locations following the government closure of the county's largest land fill site five months earlier. The contract was jointly signed with Howa International which has offices in Holland and Germany. The contract is reported to cost $212 per ton. The waste, which  is compacted and infectious, would have to be sorted and was estimated to be enough to fill 2,000 containers.[133][134][135][136] Initial reports that the waste was to be exported to Sierra Leone have been denied by diplomats.[137]
+
+In February 2016, the government withdrew from negotiations after it was revealed that documents relating to the export of the trash to Russia were forgeries.[138] On 19 March 2016, the Cabinet reopened the Naameh landfill for 60 days in line with a plan it passed few days earlier to end the trash crisis. The plan also stipulates the establishment of landfills in Bourj Hammoud and Costa Brava, east and south of Beirut respectively. Sukleen trucks began removing piled garbage from Karantina and heading to Naameh. Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk announced during a chat with activists that more than 8,000 tons of garbage had been collected so far as part of the government's trash plan in only 24 hours. The plan's execution is still ongoing.[139][140] In 2017, Human Rights Watch found that Lebanon's garbage crisis, and open burning of waste in particular, was posing a health risk to residents and violating the state's obligations under international law.[141]
+
+In September 2018, Lebanon's parliament passed a law that banned open dumping and burning of waste. Despite penalties set in case of violations, Lebanese municipalities have been openly burning the waste, putting the lives of people in danger. In October 2018, Human Rights Watch researchers witnessed the open burning of dumps in al-Qantara and Qabrikha.[142]
+
+On Sunday 13 October 2019 at night, a series of about 100 forest fires according to Lebanese Civil Defense, broke out and spread over large areas of Lebanon's forests. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri confirmed his contact with a number of countries to send assistance via helicopters and firefighting planes,[143] Cyprus, Jordan, Turkey and Greece participated in firefighting. According to press reports on Tuesday (15 October), fire has decreased in different places due to the rains,[144] after churches and mosques called on citizens to perform raining prayers.[145][146]
+
+Lebanon is a parliamentary democracy that includes confessionalism,[147] in which high-ranking offices are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Eastern Orthodox.[148][149] This system is intended to deter sectarian conflict and to represent fairly the demographic distribution of the 18 recognized religious groups in government.[150][151]
+
+Until 1975, Freedom House considered Lebanon to be one of only two (together with Israel) politically free countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.[152] The country lost this status with the outbreak of the Civil War, and has not regained it since. Lebanon was rated "Partly Free" in 2013. Even so, the United States still considers Lebanon to be one of the most democratic nations in the Arab world.[152]
+
+Until 2005, Palestinians were forbidden to work in over 70 jobs because they did not have Lebanese citizenship. After liberalization laws were passed in 2007, the number of banned jobs dropped to around 20.[52] In 2010, Palestinians were granted the same rights to work as other foreigners in the country.[153]
+
+Lebanon's national legislature is the unicameral Parliament of Lebanon. Its 128 seats are divided equally between Christians and Muslims, proportionately between the 18 different denominations and proportionately between its 26 regions.[154] Prior to 1990, the ratio stood at 6:5 in favor of Christians; however, the Taif Agreement, which put an end to the 1975–1990 civil war, adjusted the ratio to grant equal representation to followers of the two religions.[148]
+
+The Parliament is elected for a four-year term by popular vote on the basis of sectarian proportional representation.[8]
+
+The executive branch consists of the President, the head of state, and the Prime Minister, the head of government. The parliament elects the president for a non-renewable six-year term by a two-third majority. The president appoints the Prime Minister,[155] following consultations with the parliament. The president and the prime minister form a cabinet, which must also adhere to the sectarian distribution set out by confessionalism.
+
+In an unprecedented move, the Lebanese parliament has extended its own term twice amid protests, the last being on 5 November 2014,[156] an act which comes in direct contradiction with democracy and article #42 of the Lebanese constitution as no elections have taken place.[2]
+
+Lebanon was without a President between May 2014 and October 2016.[157][158]
+
+Nationwide elections were finally scheduled for May 2018.[159]
+
+As of August 2019, the Lebanese cabinet included two ministers directly affiliated with Hezbollah, in addition to a close but officially non-member minister.[160]
+
+There are 18 officially recognized religious groups in Lebanon, each with its own family law legislation and set of religious courts.[161]
+
+The Lebanese legal system is based on the French system, and is a civil law country, with the exception for matters related to personal status (succession, marriage, divorce, adoption, etc.), which are governed by a separate set of laws designed for each sectarian community. For instance, the Islamic personal status laws are inspired by the Sharia law.[162] For Muslims, these tribunals deal with questions of marriage, divorce, custody, and inheritance and wills. For non-Muslims, personal status jurisdiction is split: the law of inheritance and wills falls under national civil jurisdiction, while Christian and Jewish religious courts are competent for marriage, divorce, and custody. Catholics can additionally appeal before the Vatican Rota court.[163]
+
+The most notable set of codified laws is the Code des Obligations et des Contrats promulgated in 1932 and equivalent to the French Civil Code.[162] Capital punishment is still de facto used to sanction certain crimes, but no longer enforced.[162]
+
+The Lebanese court system consists of three levels: courts of first instance, courts of appeal, and the court of cassation. The Constitutional Council rules on constitutionality of laws and electoral frauds. There also is a system of religious courts having jurisdiction over personal status matters within their own communities, with rules on matters such as marriage and inheritance.[164]
+
+Lebanon concluded negotiations on an association agreement with the European Union in late 2001, and both sides initialed the accord in January 2002. It is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer. Lebanon also has bilateral trade agreements with several Arab states and is working toward accession to the World Trade Organization.
+
+Lebanon enjoys good relations with virtually all of the other Arab countries (despite historic tensions with Libya and Syria), and hosted an Arab League Summit in March 2002 for the first time in more than 35 years. Lebanon is a member of the Francophonie countries and hosted the Francophonie Summit in October 2002 as well as the Jeux de la Francophonie in 2009.
+
+The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has 72,000 active personnel,[165] including 1,100 in the air force, and 1,000 in the navy.[166]
+
+The Lebanese Armed Forces' primary missions include defending Lebanon and its citizens against external aggression, maintaining internal stability and security, confronting threats against the country's vital interests, engaging in social development activities, and undertaking relief operations in coordination with public and humanitarian institutions.[167]
+
+Lebanon is a major recipient of foreign military aid.[168] With more than $400 million since 2005, it is the second largest per capita recipient of American military aid behind Israel.[169]
+
+Human rights groups have repeatedly accused the Lebanese army of torture.[170][171][172][173][174]
+
+Male homosexuality is illegal in Lebanon.[175] Discrimination against LGBT people in Lebanon is widespread.[176][177] According to 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 80% of Lebanese respondents believe that homosexuality should not be accepted by society.[178]
+
+Lebanon is divided into eight governorates (muḥāfaẓāt, Arabic: محافظات‎; singular muḥāfaẓah, Arabic: محافظة‎) which are further subdivided into twenty-six districts (aqdyah Arabic: أقضية‎; singular: qadāʾ Arabic: قضاء‎).[179] The districts themselves are also divided into several municipalities, each enclosing a group of cities or villages. The governorates and their respective districts are listed below:
+
+Lebanon's constitution states that 'the economic system is free and ensures private initiative and the right to private property'. Lebanon's economy follows a laissez-faire model.[180] Most of the economy is dollarized, and the country has no restrictions on the movement of capital across its borders.[180] The Lebanese government's intervention in foreign trade is minimal.[180]
+
+The Lebanese economy went through a significant expansion after the war of 2006, with growth averaging 9.1% between 2007 and 2010.[181] After 2011 the local economy was affected by the Syrian civil war, growing by a yearly average of 1.7% on the 2011-2016 period and by 1.5% in 2017.[181] In 2018, the size of the GDP was estimated to be $54.1 billion.[182]
+
+Lebanon has a very high level of public debt and large external financing needs.[180] The 2010 public debt exceeded 150.7% of GDP, ranking fourth highest in the world as a percentage of GDP, though down from 154.8% in 2009.[8] At the end 2008, finance minister Mohamad Chatah stated that the debt was going to reach $47 billion in that year and would increase to $49 billion if privatization of two telecoms companies did not occur.[183] The Daily Star wrote that exorbitant debt levels have "slowed down the economy and reduced the government's spending on essential development projects".[184]
+
+The urban population in Lebanon is noted for its commercial enterprise.[185] Emigration has yielded Lebanese "commercial networks" throughout the world.[186] Remittances from Lebanese abroad total $8.2 billion[187] and account for one fifth of the country's economy.[188] Lebanon has the largest proportion of skilled labor among Arab States.[189]
+
+The Investment Development Authority of Lebanon was established with the aim of promoting investment in Lebanon. In 2001, Investment Law No.360[190] was enacted to reinforce the organisation's mission.
+
+The agricultural sector employs 12% of the total workforce.[191] Agriculture contributed to 5.9% of the country's GDP in 2011.[192] Lebanon's proportion of cultivable land is the highest in the Arab world,[193] Major produce includes apples, peaches, oranges, and lemons.[19]
+
+The commodities market in Lebanon includes substantial gold coin production, however according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) standards, they must be declared upon exportation to any foreign country.[194]
+
+Oil has recently been discovered inland and in the seabed between Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt and talks are underway between Cyprus and Egypt to reach an agreement regarding the exploration of these resources. The seabed separating Lebanon and Cyprus is believed to hold significant quantities of crude oil and natural gas.[195]
+
+Industry in Lebanon is mainly limited to small businesses that reassemble and package imported parts. In 2004, industry ranked second in workforce, with 26% of the Lebanese working population,[191] and second in GDP contribution, with 21% of Lebanon's GDP.[19]
+
+Nearly 65% of the Lebanese workforce attain employment in the services sector.[191] The GDP contribution, accordingly, amounts to roughly 67.3% of the annual Lebanese GDP.[19] However, dependence on the tourism and banking sectors leaves the economy vulnerable to political instability.[22]
+
+Lebanese banks are high on liquidity and reputed for their security.[196] Lebanon was one of the only seven countries in the world in which the value of the stock markets increased in 2008.[197]
+
+On 10 May 2013 the Lebanese minister of energy and water clarified that seismic images of the Lebanese's sea bed are undergoing detailed explanation of their contents and that up till now, approximately 10% have been covered. Preliminary inspection of the results showed, with more than 50% probability, that 10% of Lebanon's exclusive economic zone contained up to 660 million barrels of oil and up to 30×1012 cu ft of gas.[198]
+
+The Syrian crisis has significantly affected Lebanese economic and financial situation. The demographic pressure imposed by the Syrian refugees now living in Lebanon has led to competition in the labour market. As a direct consequence unemployment has doubled in three years, reaching 20% in 2014. A loss of 14% of wages regarding the salary of less-skilled workers has also been registered. The financial constraints were also felt: the poverty rate increased with 170.000 Lebanese falling under the poverty threshold. In the period between 2012 and 2014, the public spending increased by $1 billion and losses amounted to $7.5 billion. Expenditures related only to the Syrian refugees were estimated by the Central Bank of Lebanon as $4.5 billion every year.[199]
+
+In the 1950s, GDP growth was the second highest in the world. Despite not having oil reserves, Lebanon, as the banking center of the Middle East and one of the trading centers, had a high national income.[200]
+
+The 1975–1990 civil war heavily damaged Lebanon's economic infrastructure,[166] cut national output by half, and all but ended Lebanon's position as a West Asian entrepôt and banking hub.[8] The subsequent period of relative peace enabled the central government to restore control in Beirut, begin collecting taxes, and regain access to key port and government facilities. Economic recovery has been helped by a financially sound banking system and resilient small- and medium-scale manufacturers, with family remittances, banking services, manufactured and farm exports, and international aid as the main sources of foreign exchange.[201]
+
+Until July 2006, Lebanon enjoyed considerable stability, Beirut's reconstruction was almost complete,[202] and increasing numbers of tourists poured into the nation's resorts.[21] The economy witnessed growth, with bank assets reaching over 75 billion US dollars,[203] Market capitalization was also at an all-time high, estimated at $10.9 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2006.[203] The month-long 2006 war severely damaged Lebanon's fragile economy, especially the tourism sector. According to a preliminary report published by the Lebanese Ministry of Finance on 30 August 2006, a major economic decline was expected as a result of the fighting.[204]
+
+Over the course of 2008 Lebanon rebuilt its infrastructure mainly in the real estate and tourism sectors, resulting in a comparatively robust post war economy. Major contributors to the reconstruction of Lebanon include Saudi Arabia (with US$1.5 billion pledged),[205] the European Union (with about $1 billion)[206] and a few other Persian Gulf countries with contributions of up to $800 million.[207]
+
+The tourism industry accounts for about 10% of GDP.[208] Lebanon managed to attract around 1,333,000 tourists in 2008, thus placing it as rank 79 out of 191 countries.[209] In 2009, The New York Times ranked Beirut the No. 1 travel destination worldwide due to its nightlife and hospitality.[210] In January 2010, the Ministry of Tourism announced that 1,851,081 tourists had visited Lebanon in 2009, a 39% increase from 2008.[211] In 2009, Lebanon hosted the largest number of tourists to date, eclipsing the previous record set before the Lebanese Civil War.[212] Tourist arrivals reached two million in 2010, but fell by 37% for the first 10 months of 2012, a decline caused by the war in neighbouring Syria.[208]
+
+Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Japan are the three most popular origin countries of foreign tourists to Lebanon.[213] The recent influx of Japanese tourists has caused the recent rise in popularity of Japanese Cuisine in Lebanon.[214]
+
+The population of Lebanon was estimated to be 6,859,408 in 2018;[3][4] however, no official census has been conducted since 1932 due to the sensitive confessional political balance between Lebanon's various religious groups.[215] Identifying all Lebanese as ethnically Arab is a widely employed example of panethnicity since in reality, the Lebanese "are descended from many different peoples who are either indigenous, or have occupied, invaded, or settled this corner of the world", making Lebanon, "a mosaic of closely interrelated cultures".[216] While at first glance, this ethnic, linguistic, religious and denominational diversity might seem to cause civil and political unrest, "for much of Lebanon’s history this multitudinous diversity of religious communities has coexisted with little conflict".[216]
+
+The fertility rate fell from 5.00 in 1971 to 1.75 in 2004. Fertility rates vary considerably among the different religious groups: in 2004, it was 2.10 for Shiites, 1.76 Sunnis and 1.61 for Maronites.[217]
+
+Lebanon has witnessed a series of migration waves: over 1,800,000 people emigrated from the country in the 1975–2011 period.[217] Millions of people of Lebanese descent are spread throughout the world, mostly Christians,[218] especially in Latin America.[219] Brazil and Argentina have large expatriate population.[220] (See Lebanese people). Large numbers of Lebanese migrated to West Africa,[221] particularly to the Ivory Coast (home to over 100,000 Lebanese)[222] and Senegal (roughly 30,000 Lebanese).[223] Australia is home to over 270,000 Lebanese (1999 est.).[224] In Canada, there is also a large Lebanese diaspora of approximately 250,000–700,000 people having Lebanese descent. (see Lebanese Canadians). Another region with a significant diaspora is the Persian Gulf, where the countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar (around 25,000 people),[225] Saudi Arabia and UAE act as host countries to many Lebanese.
+
+As of 2012[update], Lebanon was host to over 1,600,000 refugees and asylum seekers: 449,957 from Palestine,[8] 8,000 from Iraq,[226] over 1,100,000 from Syria,[8][227] and 4,000 from Sudan.  According to the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia of the United Nations, among the Syrian refugees, 71% live in poverty.[199] A 2013 estimate by the United Nations put the number of Syrian refugees at more than 1,250,000.[94]
+
+In the last three decades, lengthy and destructive armed conflicts have ravaged the country. The majority of Lebanese have been affected by armed conflict; those with direct personal experience include 75% of the population, and most others report suffering a range of hardships. In total, almost the entire population (96%) has been affected in
+some way – either personally or because of the wider consequences of armed conflict.[228]
+
+
+
+Religion in Lebanon (est. 2014)
+
+Lebanon is the most religiously diverse country in the Middle East.[230] As of 2014[update] the CIA World Factbook estimates the following: Muslim 54% (27% Sunni Islam, 27% Shia Islam), Christian 40.5% (includes 21% Maronite Catholic, 8% Greek Orthodox, 5% Melkite Catholic, 1% Protestant, 5.5% other Christian), Druze 5.6%, very small numbers of Jews, Baha'is, Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons.[231] A study conducted by the Lebanese Information Center and based on voter registration numbers shows that by 2011 the Christian population was stable compared to that of previous years, making up 34.35% of the population; Muslims, the Druze included, were 65.47% of the population.[232] The World Values Survey of 2014 put the percentage of atheists in Lebanon at 3.3%.[233]
+
+It is believed that there has been a decline in the ratio of Christians to Muslims over the past 60 years, due to higher emigration rates of Christians, and a higher birth rate in the Muslim population.[234] When the last census was held in 1932, Christians made up 53% of Lebanon's population.[217] In 1956, it was estimated that the population was 54% Christian and 44% Muslim.[217]
+
+A demographic study conducted by the research firm Statistics Lebanon found that approximately 27% of the population was Sunni, 27% Shia, 21% Maronite, 8% Greek Orthodox, 5% Druze, 5% Melkite, and 1% Protestant, with the remaining 6% mostly belonging to smaller non-native to Lebanon Christian denominations.[234]
+
+Other sources like Euronews[235] or the Madrid-based diary La Razón[236] estimate the percentage of Christians to be around 53%.
+
+Because the relative size of confessional groups remains a sensitive issue, a national census has not been conducted since 1932.[234] There are 18 state-recognized religious sects – four Muslim, 12 Christian, one Druze, and one Jewish.[234]
+
+The Sunni residents primarily live in Tripoli, Western Beirut, the Southern coast of Lebanon, and Northern Lebanon.[237]
+
+The Shi'a residents primarily live in Southern Beirut, the Beqaa Valley, and Southern Lebanon.[237]
+
+The Maronite residents primarily live in Eastern Beirut and the mountains of Lebanon.[237] They are the largest Christian community in Lebanon.[237]
+
+The Greek Orthodox, the second largest Christian community in Lebanon, primarily live in Koura, Beirut, Rachaya, Matn, Aley, Akkar, in the countryside around Tripoli, Hasbaya and Marjeyoun. They are a minority of 10% in Zahle.[citation needed]
+
+The Greek Catholics live mainly in Beirut, on the eastern slopes of the Lebanon mountains and in Zahle which is predominantly Greek Catholic.[citation needed]
+
+In the Christian village of Hadat, there have been a municipal ban on Muslims from buying or renting property. It has been claimed that it is due to the underlying fear of mixing with one another's salvation since for three decades, the village of Hadat has been primarily Christian.[238][239]
+
+The Lebanese government tend to count its Druze citizens as part of its Muslim population.[240]
+
+Article 11 of Lebanon's Constitution states that "Arabic is the official national language. A law determines the cases in which the French language is to be used".[241] The majority of Lebanese people speak Lebanese Arabic, which is grouped in a larger category called Levantine Arabic, while Modern Standard Arabic is mostly used in magazines, newspapers, and formal broadcast media. Lebanese Sign Language is the language of the Deaf community. Almost 40% of Lebanese are considered francophone, and another 15% "partial francophone", and 70% of Lebanon's secondary schools use French as a second language of instruction.[242] By comparison, English is used as a secondary language in 30% of Lebanon's secondary schools.[242] The use of French is a legacy of France's historic ties to the region, including its League of Nations mandate over Lebanon following World War I; as of 2005[update], some 20% of the population used French on a daily basis.[243] The use of Arabic by Lebanon's educated youth is declining, as they usually prefer to speak in French and, to a lesser extent, English, which are seen as more fashionable.[244][245]
+
+English is increasingly used in science and business interactions.[246][247] Lebanese citizens of Armenian, Greek, or Assyrian descent often speak their ancestral languages with varying degrees of fluency. As of 2009[update], there were around 150,000 Armenians in Lebanon, or around 5% of the population.[248]
+
+The culture of Lebanon reflects the legacy of various civilizations spanning thousands of years. Originally home to the Canaanite-Phoenicians, and then subsequently conquered and occupied by the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs, the Fatimids, the Crusaders, the Ottoman Turks and most recently the French, Lebanese culture has over the millennia evolved by borrowing from all of these groups. Lebanon's diverse population, composed of different ethnic and religious groups, has further contributed to the country's festivals, musical styles and literature as well as cuisine. Despite the ethnic, linguistic, religious and denominational diversity of the Lebanese, they "share an almost common culture".[249] Lebanese Arabic is universally spoken while food, music, and literature are deep-rooted "in wider Mediterranean and Arab Levantine norms".[249]
+
+In visual arts, Moustafa Farroukh was one of Lebanon's most prominent painters of the 20th century. Formally trained in Rome and Paris, he exhibited in venues from Paris to New York to Beirut over his career.[250] Many more contemporary artists are currently active, such as Walid Raad, a contemporary media artist currently residing in New York.[251] In the field of photography, the Arab Image Foundation has a collection of over 400,000 photographs from Lebanon and the Middle East. The photographs can be viewed in a research center and various events and publications have been produced in Lebanon and worldwide to promote the collection.
+
+In literature, Khalil Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.[252] He is particularly known for his book The Prophet (1923), which has been translated into more than twenty different languages and is the second best selling book in the 20th century behind the Bible.[253]
+
+Ameen Rihani was a major figure in the mahjar literary movement developed by Arab emigrants in North America, and an early theorist of Arab nationalism.
+
+Mikha'il Na'ima is widely recognized as one of the most important figures in modern Arabic letters and one of the most important spiritual writers of the 20th century.
+
+Several contemporary Lebanese writers have also achieved international success; including Elias Khoury, Amin Maalouf, Hanan al-Shaykh, and Georges Schehadé.
+
+While traditional folk music remains popular in Lebanon, modern music reconciling Western and traditional Arabic styles, pop, and fusion are rapidly advancing in popularity.[254] Lebanese artists like Fairuz, Wadih El Safi, Sabah or Najwa Karam are widely known and appreciated in Lebanon and in the Arab world. Lebanese singer Lydia Canaan is listed in the catalog of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Library and Archives in Cleveland, Ohio, USA[255][256] as the first rock star of the Middle East.[256][257][258][259][260] Radio stations feature a variety of music, including traditional Lebanese, classical Arabic, Armenian[261] and modern French, English, American, and Latin tunes.[262]
+
+The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian, Roy Armes, was the only cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, other than Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema.[263] Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced over 500 films.[264] The media of Lebanon is not only a regional center of production but also the most liberal and free in the Arab world.[265] According to Press freedom's Reporters Without Borders, "the media have more freedom in Lebanon than in any other Arab country".[266] Despite its small population and geographic size, Lebanon plays an influential role in the production of information in the Arab world and is "at the core of a regional media network with global implications".[267]
+
+Lebanon celebrates national and both Christian and Muslim holidays. Christian holidays are celebrated following both the Gregorian Calendar and Julian Calendar. Greek Orthodox (with the exception of Easter), Catholics, Protestants, and Melkite Christians follow the Gregorian Calendar and thus celebrate Christmas on 25 December. Armenian Apostolic Christians celebrate Christmas on 6 January, as they follow the Julian Calendar. Muslim holidays are followed based on the Islamic lunar calendar. Muslim holidays that are celebrated include Eid al-Fitr (the three-day feast at the end of the Ramadan month), Eid al-Adha (The Feast of the Sacrifice) which is celebrated during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and also celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God, the Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, and Ashura (the Shiite Day of Mourning). Lebanon's National Holidays include Workers Day, Independence day, and Martyrs Day. Music festivals, often hosted at historical sites, are a customary element of Lebanese culture.[268] Among the most famous are Baalbeck International Festival, Byblos International Festival, Beiteddine International Festival, Jounieh International Festival, Broumana Festival, Batroun International Festival, Ehmej Festival, Dhour Chwer Festival and Tyr Festival.[268][269] These festivals are promoted by Lebanon's Ministry of Tourism. Lebanon hosts about 15 concerts from international performers each year, ranking 1st for nightlife in the Middle East, and 6th worldwide.[270]
+
+Lebanese cuisine is similar to those of many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. The Lebanese national dishes are the kibbe, a meat pie made from finely minced lamb and burghul (cracked wheat), and the tabbouleh, a salad made from parsley, tomatoes, and burghul. The national beverage is arak, a strong anise-flavored liquor made from fermented grape juice. It is usually drunk with water and ice, which turns the clear liquid milky-white, and usually accompanies food. Arak is a strong spirit similar to the Greek ouzo and the Turkish raki. Lebanese restaurant meals begin with a wide array of mezze - small savoury dishes, such as dips, salads, and pastries. The mezze are typically followed by a selection of grilled meat or fish. In general, meals are finished with Arabic coffee and fresh fruit, though sometimes a selection of traditional sweets will be offered as well. M'Juhdara, a thick stew of onions, rice, and lentils, is sometimes considered poor man's fare and is often eaten around Lent by people in the Lebanese diaspora. Beirut and its environs contain many restaurants of various national origins. At the same time, wine is growing in popularity and a number of vineyards currently exist in the Bekaa valley and elsewhere. Beer is also highly popular and Lebanon produces a number of local beers, of which almaza is perhaps the most popular.
+
+Lebanon has six ski resorts. Because of Lebanon's unique geography, it is possible to go skiing in the morning and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea in the afternoon.[271] At the competitive level, basketball and football are among Lebanon's most popular sports. Canoeing, cycling, rafting, climbing, swimming, sailing and caving are among the other common leisure sports in Lebanon. The Beirut Marathon is held every fall, drawing top runners from Lebanon and abroad.[272]
+
+Rugby league is a relatively new but growing sport in Lebanon. The Lebanon national rugby league team participated in the 2000 Rugby League World Cup,[273] and narrowly missed qualification for the 2008[274] and 2013 tournaments.[275] Lebanon also took part in the 2009 European Cup where, after narrowly failing to qualify for the final, the team defeated Ireland to finish 3rd in the tournament.[276] Hazem El Masri, who was born in Tripoli, will always be considered to be the greatest Lebanese to ever play the game. He immigrated to Sydney, Australia from Lebanon in 1988. He became the greatest point-scorer in National Rugby League history in 2009 by scoring himself 2418 points while playing for Australian club, Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs where he also holds the record for most first grade appearances for the club with 317 games and most tries for the club with 159 tries. At international level, He also hold the records as top-try scorer with 12 tries and top-point scorer with 136 points for the Lebanese national team.[277]
+
+Lebanon participates in Basketball. The Lebanese National Team qualified for the FIBA World Championship 3 times in a row.[278][279] Dominant Basketball teams in Lebanon are Sporting Al Riyadi Beirut,[280] who are the current Arab and Asian champions, Club Sagesse who were able to earn the Asian and Arab championships before. Fadi El Khatib is the most decorated player in the Lebanese National Basketball League.
+
+Football is also one of the more popular sports in the country with the Lebanese Premier League, whose most successful clubs are the Al-Ansar Club and the Nejmeh SC, with notable players being Roda Antar and Youssef Mohamad, the first Arab to captain a European premier league team.
+
+In recent years, Lebanon has hosted the AFC Asian Cup[281] and the Pan Arab Games.[282][283] Lebanon hosted the 2009 Jeux de la Francophonie[284] from 27 September to 6 October, and have participated in every Olympic Games since its independence, winning a total of four medals.[285]
+
+Prominent Lebanese bodybuilders include Samir Bannout, Mohammad Bannout and Ahmad Haidar.
+
+Water sports have also shown to be very active in the past years, in Lebanon. Since 2012 and with the emergence of the Lebanon Water Festival NGO, more emphasis has been placed on those sports, and Lebanon has been pushed forward as a water sport destination internationally.[286] They host different contests and water show sports that encourage their fans to participate and win big.[287]
+
+Listed by the World Economic Forum's 2013 Global Information Technology Report, Lebanon has been ranked globally as the fourth best country for math and science education, and as the tenth best overall for quality of education. In quality of management schools, the country was ranked 13th worldwide.[288]
+
+The United Nations assigned Lebanon an education index of 0.871 in 2008. The index, which is determined by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio, ranked the country 88th out of the 177 countries participating.[289]
+
+All Lebanese schools are required to follow a prescribed curriculum designed by the Ministry of Education. Some of the 1400 private schools offer IB programs,[290] and may also add more courses to their curriculum with approval from the Ministry of Education. The first eight years of education are, by law, compulsory.[19]
+
+Lebanon has forty-one nationally accredited universities, several of which are internationally recognized.[291][292] The American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Université Saint-Joseph (USJ) were the first Anglophone and the first Francophone universities to open in Lebanon, respectively.[293][294] Universities in Lebanon, both public and private, largely operate in French or English.[295]
+
+The top-ranking universities in the country are the American University of Beirut (#237 worldwide, #2 in the Middle East as of 2019),[296] Lebanese American University (#580s worldwide as of 2019),[297] Université Saint Joseph de Beyrouth (#500 worldwide as of 2019),[298] Université Libanaise (#3,826 worldwide) and Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (#600s worldwide as of 2019).[299]
+
+In 2010, spending on healthcare accounted for 7.03% of the country's GDP. In 2009, there were 31.29 physicians and 19.71 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants.[300] The life expectancy at birth was 72.59 years in 2011, or 70.48 years for males and 74.80 years for females.[301]
+
+By the end of the civil war, only one third of the country's public hospitals were operational, each with an average of only 20 beds. By 2009 the country had 28
+public hospitals, with a total of 2,550 beds, while currently the country had an approximate of 25 public hospitals.[302] At public hospitals, hospitalized uninsured patients pay 5% of the bill, in comparison with 15% in private hospitals, with the Ministry of Public Health reimbursing the remainder.[302] The Ministry of Public Health contracts with 138 private hospitals and 25 public hospitals.[303]
+
+In 2011, there were 236,643 subsidized admissions to hospitals; 164,244 in private hospitals, and 72,399 in public hospitals. More patients visit private hospitals than public hospitals, because the private beds supply is higher.[303]
+
+According to the Ministry of Public Health in Lebanon, the top 10 leading causes of reported hospital deaths in 2017 were: malignant neoplasm of bronchus or lung (4.6%), Acute myocardial infarction (3%), pneumonia (2.2%), exposure to unspecified factor, unspecified place (2.1%), acute kidney injury (1.4%), intra-cerebral hemorrhage (1.2%), malignant neoplasm of colon (1.2%), malignant neoplasm of pancreas (1.1%), malignant neoplasm of prostate (1.1%), malignant neoplasm of bladder (0.8%).[304]
+
+Recently, there has been an increase in foodborne illnesses which has put an emphasis on the importance of the safety of the food chain in Lebanon. This raised the illues public awareness. More restaurants are seeking information and compliance with International Organization for Standardization.[305]

en/3426.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,230 @@
+Coordinates: 6°30′N 9°30′W / 6.500°N 9.500°W / 6.500; -9.500
+
+in Africa (light blue)
+
+Liberia (/laɪˈbɪəriə/ (listen)), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south-southwest. It has a population of around 5 million and covers an area of 111,369 square kilometres (43,000 sq mi). English is the official language, but over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous ethnic groups who make up more than 95% of the population. The country's capital and largest city is Monrovia.
+
+Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States.[6] The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U.S. did not recognize Liberia's independence until February 5, 1862, during the American Civil War. Between January 7, 1822, and the American Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black people who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, were relocated to the settlement by Abraham Lincoln.[7] The settlers carried their culture and tradition with them. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected Liberia's first president after the people proclaimed independence.[7]
+
+Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence, and is Africa's first and oldest modern republic. It retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa. During World War II, Liberia supported the United States war effort against Germany and in turn, the U.S. invested in considerable infrastructure in Liberia to help its war effort, which also aided the country in modernizing and improving its major air transportation facilities. In addition, President William Tubman encouraged economic changes. Internationally, Liberia was a founding member of the League of Nations, United Nations, and the Organisation of African Unity.
+
+The Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered, especially those in communities of the more isolated "bush". The colonial settlements were raided by the Kru and Grebo from their inland chiefdoms. Americo-Liberians developed as a small elite that held on to political power,[8] and indigenous tribesmen were excluded from birthright citizenship in their own land until 1904, in an echo of the United States' treatment of Native Americans.[9] Americo-Liberians promoted religious organizations to set up missions and schools to educate the indigenous peoples.[10]
+
+In 1980 political tensions from the rule of William R. Tolbert resulted in a military coup during which Tolbert was killed, marking the beginning of years-long political instability. Five years of military rule by the People's Redemption Council and five years of civilian rule by the National Democratic Party of Liberia were followed by the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars. These resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people (about 8% of the population) and the displacement of many more, and shrank Liberia's economy by 90%.[11] A peace agreement in 2003 led to democratic elections in 2005, in which Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected President, making history as the first female president in the continent. National infrastructure and basic social services were severely affected by the conflicts as well as by the 2013–2016 outbreak of Ebola virus, with 83% of the population living below the international poverty line as of 2015.[12]
+
+Undated Acheulean artefacts are abundant across West Africa, attesting to the presence of ancient humans. The emerging chronometric record of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) indicates that core and flake technologies have been present in West Africa since at least the Middle Pleistocene (~780-126 thousand years ago or ka), and that they persisted until the Terminal Pleistocene/Holocene boundary (~12ka)—the youngest examples of such technology anywhere in Africa. The presence of MSA populations in forests remains an open question, however technological differences may correlate with various ecological zones. Later Stone Age (LSA) populations evidence significant technological diversification, including both microlithic and macrolithic traditions. [13]
+
+The presence of Oldowan Earlier Stone Age (ESA) artefacts in West Africa has been confirmed by Michael Omolewa.[14] Acheulean ESA artefacts are well documented across West Africa. None are currently dated. There are few dated Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites; they range from the Middle Pleistocene in northern, open Sahelian zones to the Late Pleistocene in both northern and southern zones of West Africa. The record shows that aceramic and ceramic Later Stone Age (LSA) assemblages in West Africa are found to  overlap chronologically, and that changing densities of microlithic industries from the coast to the north are geographically structured. These features may represent social networks or some form of cultural diffusion allied to changing ecological conditions. [13]
+
+Microlithic industries with ceramics became common by the Mid-Holocene, coupled with an apparent intensification of wild food exploitation. Between ~4–3.5ka, these societies gradually transformed into food producers, possibly through contact with northern pastoralists and agriculturalists, as the environment became more arid.  However, hunter-gatherers have survived in the more forested parts of West Africa until much later, attesting to the strength of ecological boundaries in this region. [13]
+
+The Pepper Coast, also known as the Grain Coast, has been inhabited by indigenous peoples of Africa at least as far back as the 12th century. Mende-speaking people expanded westward from the Sudan, forcing many smaller ethnic groups southward toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Dei, Bassa, Kru, Gola, and Kissi were some of the earliest documented peoples in the area.[15]
+
+This influx of these groups was compounded by the decline of the Western Sudanic Mali Empire in 1375 and the Songhai Empire in 1591. The area now called Liberia was a part of the Kingdom of Koya from 1450 to 1898.[citation needed][16] As inland regions underwent desertification, inhabitants moved to the wetter coast. These new inhabitants brought skills such as cotton spinning, cloth weaving, iron smelting, rice and sorghum cultivation, and social and political institutions from the Mali and Songhai empires.[15] Shortly after the Mane conquered the region, the Vai people of the former Mali Empire immigrated into the Grand Cape Mount County region. The ethnic Kru opposed the influx of Vai, forming an alliance with the Mane to stop further influx of Vai.[17]
+
+People along the coast built canoes and traded with other West Africans from Cap-Vert to the Gold Coast. Arab traders entered the region from the north, and a long-established slave trade took captives to north and east Africa.[citation needed]
+
+Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta ("Pepper Coast") but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast, due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders would barter commodities and goods with local people.[citation needed]
+
+In the United States there was a movement to settle free-born blacks and freed slaves in Africa. This was because they faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement and the denial of civil, religious, and social rights.[18] Formed in 1816, the American Colonization Society was made up mostly of Quakers and slaveholders. Quakers believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S.[6][19] While slaveholders opposed freedom for blacks, they viewed repatriation as a way to avoid rebellions.[6]
+
+In 1822 the American Colonization Society began sending black volunteers to the Pepper Coast, the closest point of Africa and therefore the least expensive to reach, to establish a colony for freed blacks. Although mortality from tropical diseases was horrendous — of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 were alive in 1843[20][21] — by 1867 the ACS (and state-related chapters) had assisted in the migration of more than 13,000 blacks to Liberia.[22] These free African-Americans and their descendants married within their community and came to identify as Americo-Liberians. Many were of mixed race and educated in American culture; they did not identify with the indigenous natives of the tribes they encountered. They intermarried largely within the colonial community, developing an ethnic group that had a cultural tradition infused with American notions of political republicanism and Protestant Christianity.[23]
+
+The ACS, supported by prominent American politicians such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, and James Monroe, believed "repatriation" of free African Americans — sending them to Africa — was preferable to having emancipated slaves remain in the United States.[19] Similar state-based organizations established colonies in Mississippi-in-Africa, Kentucky in Africa, and the Republic of Maryland, which Liberia later annexed. However, Lincoln in 1862 described Liberia as only "in a certain sense...a success", and proposed instead that free blacks be assisted to emigrate to Chiriquí, today part of Panama.[24]
+
+The Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered, especially those in communities of the more isolated "bush". They knew nothing of their cultures, languages, or animist religion, and were not interested in learning. The colonial settlements were raided by the Kru and Grebo from their inland chiefdoms. Encounters with tribal Africans in the bush often became violent confrontations.[citation needed]
+
+In Slaves to Racism: An Unbroken Chain from America to Liberia, Benjamin Dennis and Anita Dennis argue that the Americo-Liberians replicated the only society most of them knew: the racist culture of the American South. Believing themselves different from and culturally and educationally superior to the indigenous peoples, the Americo-Liberians developed as an elite minority that held on to political power. They treated the natives the way American whites had treated them: as inferiors. The natives could not vote and could not speak unless spoken to. Just as American Blacks were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relationships with white women, the natives could not marry Americo-Liberian women. Even when some natives became educated, they were excluded from government positions, except for a token few.[25] Indigenous tribesmen did not enjoy birthright citizenship in their own land until 1904.[9] Americo-Liberians encouraged religious organizations to set up missions and schools to educate the indigenous peoples.[citation needed]
+
+On July 26, 1847, the settlers issued a Declaration of Independence and promulgated a constitution. Based on the political principles of the United States Constitution, it established the independent Republic of Liberia.[26][27] The United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberia's independence.[28] The United States did not recognize Liberia until 1862, after the southern states, who had significant influence in the American government, seceded from the union to form the Confederacy.[citation needed]
+
+The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians, who initially established political and economic dominance in the coastal areas that the ACS had purchased; they maintained relations with U.S. contacts in developing these areas and the resulting trade. Their passage of the 1865 Ports of Entry Act prohibited foreign commerce with the inland tribes, ostensibly to "encourage the growth of civilized values" before such trade was allowed in the region.[26]
+
+By 1877, the True Whig Party was the country's most powerful political entity.[29] It was made up primarily of Americo-Liberians, who maintained social, economic and political dominance well into the 20th century, repeating patterns of European colonists in other nations in Africa. Competition for office was usually contained within the party; a party nomination virtually ensured election.[29]
+
+Pressure from the United Kingdom, which controlled Sierra Leone to the northwest, and France, with its interests in the north and east, led to a loss of Liberia's claims to extensive territories. Both Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast annexed territories.[30] Liberia struggled to attract investment to develop infrastructure and a larger, industrial economy.
+
+There was a decline in production of Liberian goods in the late 19th century, and the government struggled financially, resulting in indebtedness on a series of international loans.[31] On July 16, 1892, Martha Ann Erskine Ricks met Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and presented her a handmade quilt, Liberia's first diplomatic gift. Born into slavery in Tennessee, Ricks said, "I had heard it often, from the time I was a child, how good the Queen had been to my people—to slaves—and how she wanted us to be free."[28]
+
+American and other international interests emphasized resource extraction, with rubber production a major industry in the early 20th century.[32] In 1914 Imperial Germany accounted for three quarters of the trade of Liberia. This was a cause for concern among the British colonial authorities of Sierra Leone and the French colonial authorities of French Guinea and the Ivory Coast as tensions with Germany increased.[33]
+
+Liberia remained neutral during World War I until August 4, 1917, when it declared war on Germany. In 1919 Liberia attended the Versailles Peace Conference. Liberia was one of the founding members of the League of Nations when it was founded in January 1920.[34]
+
+In 1929 allegations of modern slavery in Liberia led the League of Nations to establish the Christy commission. Findings included government involvement in widespread "Forced or compulsory labour". Minority ethnic groups especially were exploited in a system that enriched well-connected elites.[35]  As a result of the report, President Charles D. B. King and Vice President Allen N. Yancy resigned.[36]
+
+In the mid-20th century Liberia gradually began to modernize with American assistance. During World War II the United States made major infrastructure improvements to support its military efforts in Africa and Europe against Germany. It built the Freeport of Monrovia and Roberts International Airport under the Lend-Lease program before its entry into the Second World War.[37]
+
+After the war President William Tubman encouraged foreign investment in the country. Liberia had the second-highest rate of economic growth in the world during the 1950s.[37]
+
+Liberia also began to take a more active role in international affairs. It was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and became a vocal critic of the South African apartheid regime.[38] Liberia also served as a proponent both of African independence from European colonial powers and of Pan-Africanism, and helped to fund the Organisation of African Unity.[39]
+
+On April 12, 1980, a military coup led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe of the Krahn ethnic group overthrew and killed President William R. Tolbert, Jr. Doe and the other plotters later executed a majority of Tolbert's cabinet and other Americo-Liberian government officials and True Whig Party members.[40] The coup leaders formed the People's Redemption Council (PRC) to govern the country.[40] A strategic Cold War ally of the West, Doe received significant financial backing from the United States while critics condemned the PRC for corruption and political repression.[40]
+
+After Liberia adopted a new constitution in 1985, Doe was elected president in subsequent elections that were internationally condemned as fraudulent.[40] On November 12, 1985, a failed counter-coup was launched by Thomas Quiwonkpa, whose soldiers briefly occupied the national radio station.[41] Government repression intensified in response, as Doe's troops retaliated by executing members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups in Nimba County.[41]
+
+The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group led by Charles Taylor, launched an insurrection in December 1989 against Doe's government with the backing of neighboring countries such as Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. This triggered the First Liberian Civil War.[42] By September 1990, Doe's forces controlled only a small area just outside the capital, and Doe was captured and executed in that month by rebel forces.[43]
+
+The rebels soon split into various factions fighting one another. The Economic Community Monitoring Group under the Economic Community of West African States organized a military task force to intervene in the crisis.[43][failed verification] From 1989 to 1997 around 60,000 to 80,000 Liberians died, and by 1996 around 700,000 others had been displaced into refugee camps in neighboring countries.[44] A peace deal between warring parties was reached in 1995, leading to Taylor's election as president in 1997.[43]
+
+Under Taylor's leadership, Liberia became internationally known as a pariah state due to its use of blood diamonds and illegal timber exports to fund the Revolutionary United Front in the Sierra Leone Civil War.[45] The Second Liberian Civil War began in 1999 when Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a rebel group based in the northwest of the country, launched an armed insurrection against Taylor.[46]
+
+In March 2003, a second rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia, began launching attacks against Taylor from the southeast.[46] Peace talks between the factions began in Accra in June of that year, and Taylor was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for crimes against humanity the same month.[45] By July 2003, the rebels had launched an assault on Monrovia.[47] Under heavy pressure from the international community and the domestic Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement,[48] Taylor resigned in August 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria.[49]
+
+A peace deal was signed later that month.[50] The United Nations Mission in Liberia began arriving in September 2003 to provide security and monitor the peace accord,[51] and an interim government took power the following October.[52]
+
+The subsequent 2005 elections were internationally regarded as the most free and fair in Liberian history.[53] Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a US-educated economist and former Minister of Finance, was elected as the first female president in Africa.[53] Upon her inauguration, Sirleaf requested the extradition of Taylor from Nigeria and transferred him to the SCSL for trial in The Hague.[54][55]
+
+In 2006, the government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the causes and crimes of the civil war.[56]
+
+Following the 2017 Liberian general election, former professional football striker George Weah, one of the greatest African players of all time,[57][58] was sworn in as president on 22 January 2018, becoming the 4th youngest serving president in Africa.[59] The inauguration marked Liberia's first fully democratic transition in 74 years.[60] Weah cited fighting corruption, reforming the economy, combating illiteracy and improving life conditions as the main targets of his presidency.[60]
+
+Liberia is situated in West Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean to the country's southwest. It lies between latitudes 4° and 9°N, and longitudes 7° and 12°W.
+
+The landscape is characterized by mostly flat to rolling coastal plains that contain mangroves and swamps, which rise to a rolling plateau and low mountains in the northeast.[61]
+
+Tropical rainforests cover the hills, while elephant grass and semi-deciduous forests make up the dominant vegetation in the northern sections.[61] The equatorial climate, in the south of the country, is hot year-round with heavy rainfall from May to October with a short interlude in mid-July to August.[61] During the winter months of November to March, dry dust-laden harmattan winds blow inland, causing many problems for residents.[61]
+
+Liberia's watershed tends to move in a southwestern pattern towards the sea as new rains move down the forested plateau off the inland mountain range of Guinée Forestière, in Guinea. Cape Mount near the border with Sierra Leone receives the most precipitation in the nation.[61]
+
+Liberia's main northwestern boundary is traversed by the Mano River while its southeast limits are bounded by the Cavalla River.[61] Liberia's three largest rivers are St. Paul exiting near Monrovia, the river St. John at Buchanan, and the Cestos River, all of which flow into the Atlantic. The Cavalla is the longest river in the nation at 515 kilometers (320 mi).[61]
+
+The highest point wholly within Liberia is Mount Wuteve at 1,440 meters (4,724 ft) above sea level in the northwestern Liberia range of the West Africa Mountains and the Guinea Highlands.[61] However, Mount Nimba near Yekepa, is higher at 1,752 meters (5,748 ft) above sea level but is not wholly within Liberia as Nimba shares a border with Guinea and Ivory Coast and is their tallest mountain as well.[62]
+
+Forests on the coastline are composed mostly of salt-tolerant mangrove trees, while the more sparsely populated inland has forests opening onto a plateau of drier grasslands. The climate is equatorial, with significant rainfall during the May–October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia possesses about forty percent of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. It was an important producer of rubber in the early 20th century.[citation needed]
+
+Liberia is divided into fifteen counties, which, in turn, are subdivided into a total of 90 districts and further subdivided into clans. The oldest counties are Grand Bassa and Montserrado, both founded in 1839 prior to Liberian independence. Gbarpolu is the newest county, created in 2001. Nimba is the largest of the counties in size at 11,551 km2 (4,460 sq mi), while Montserrado is the smallest at 1,909 km2 (737 sq mi).[63] Montserrado is also the most populous county with 1,144,806 residents as of the 2008 census.[63]
+
+The fifteen counties are administered by superintendents appointed by the president. The Constitution calls for the election of various chiefs at the county and local level, but these elections have not taken place since 1985 due to war and financial constraints.[64]
+
+Parallel to the administrative divisions of the country are the local and municipal divisions.  Liberia currently does not have any constitutional framework or uniform statutes which deal with the creation or revocation of local governments.[65]  All existing local governments – cities, townships, and a borough – were created by specific acts of the Liberian government, and thus the structure and duties/responsibilities of each local government varies greatly from one to the other.[citation needed]
+
+Endangered species are hunted for human consumption as bushmeat in Liberia.[66] Species hunted for food in Liberia include elephants, pygmy hippopotamus, chimpanzees, leopards, duikers, and other monkeys.[66] Bushmeat is often exported to neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, despite a ban on the cross-border sale of wild animals.[66]
+
+Bushmeat is widely eaten in Liberia, and is considered a delicacy.[68] A 2004 public opinion survey found that bushmeat ranked second behind fish amongst residents of the capital Monrovia as a preferred source of protein.[68] Of households where bushmeat was served, 80% of residents said they cooked it "once in a while," while 13% cooked it once a week and 7% cooked bushmeat daily.[68] The survey was conducted during the last civil war, and bushmeat consumption is now believed to be far higher.[68]
+
+Liberia is a global biodiversity hotspot—a significant reservoir of biodiversity that is under threat from humans.[69]
+
+Slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the human activities eroding Liberia's natural forests.[70] A 2004 UN report estimated that 99% of Liberians burned charcoal and fuel wood for cooking and heating, resulting in deforestation.[70]
+
+Illegal logging has increased in Liberia since the end of the Second Civil War in 2003.[69] In 2012 President Sirleaf granted licenses to companies to cut down 58% of all the primary rainforest left in Liberia.[69] After international protests, many of those logging permits were canceled.[69] In September 2014 Liberia and Norway struck an agreement whereby Liberia ceased all logging in exchange for $150 million in development aid.[69]
+
+Pollution is a significant issue in Monrovia.[71] Since 2006 the international community has paid for all garbage collection and disposal in Monrovia via the World Bank.[72]
+
+Liberia is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Like many other countries in Africa, Liberia both faces existing environmental issues, as well as sustainable development challenges.[73] Because of its location in Africa, it is vulnerable to extreme weather, coastal effects of sea level rise, and changing water systems and water availability.[74]
+
+The government of Liberia, modeled on the government of the United States, is a unitary constitutional republic and representative democracy as established by the Constitution. The government has three co-equal branches of government: the executive, headed by the president; the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Legislature of Liberia; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and several lower courts.[citation needed]
+
+The president serves as head of government, head of state, and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Liberia.[2] Among the president's other duties are to sign or veto legislative bills, grant pardons, and appoint Cabinet members, judges, and other public officials. Together with the vice president, the president is elected to a six-year term by majority vote in a two-round system and can serve up to two terms in office.[2]
+
+The Legislature is composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House, led by a speaker, has 73 members apportioned among the 15 counties on the basis of the national census, with each county receiving a minimum of two members.[2] Each House member represents an electoral district within a county as drawn by the National Elections Commission and is elected by a plurality of the popular vote of their district into a six-year term. The Senate is made up of two senators from each county for a total of 30 senators.[2] Senators serve nine-year terms and are elected at-large by a plurality of the popular vote.[2] The vice president serves as the President of the Senate, with a President pro tempore serving in their absence.[citation needed]
+
+Liberia's highest judicial authority is the Supreme Court, made up of five members and headed by the Chief Justice of Liberia. Members are nominated to the court by the president and are confirmed by the Senate, serving until the age of 70. The judiciary is further divided into circuit and speciality courts, magistrate courts and justices of the peace.[76] The judicial system is a blend of common law, based on Anglo-American law, and customary law.[2] An informal system of traditional courts still exists within the rural areas of the country, with trial by ordeal remaining common despite being officially outlawed.[76]
+
+From 1877 to 1980 the government was dominated by the True Whig Party.[29] Today over 20 political parties are registered in the country, based largely around personalities and ethnic groups.[53] Most parties suffer from poor organizational capacity.[53] The 2005 elections marked the first time that the president's party did not gain a majority of seats in the Legislature.[53]
+
+The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) are the country's armed forces. Founded as the Liberian Frontier Force in 1908, the military was renamed in 1956. For virtually all of its history, the AFL has received considerable material and training assistance from the United States. For most of the 1941–89 period, training was largely provided by U.S. advisers, and combat expierence in the 2nd World War. After UN Security Council Resolution 1509 in September 2003, the United Nations Mission in Liberia arrived to referee the ceasefire with units from Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China with the view to assist the National Transitional Government of Liberia in forming the new Liberian military.[77]
+
+After the turmoil following the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars, Liberia's internal stabilization in the 21st century brought a return to cordial relations with neighboring countries and much of the Western world. As in other African countries, China is an important part of the post-conflict reconstruction.[78]
+
+In the past, both of Liberia's neighbors, Guinea and Sierra Leone, have accused Liberia of backing rebels in their countries.[79]
+
+The Liberian National Police is the country's national police force. As of October 2007 it has 844 officers in 33 stations in Montserrado County, which contains Monrovia.[80] The National Police Training Academy is in Paynesville City.[81] A history of corruption among police officers diminishes public trust and operational effectiveness. The internal security is characterized by a general lawlessness coupled with the danger that former combatants in the late civil war might reestablish militias to challenge the civil authorities.[82]
+
+Corruption is endemic at every level of the Liberian government.[83] When President Sirleaf took office in 2006, she announced that corruption was "the major public enemy."[79] In 2014 the US ambassador to Liberia said that corruption there was harming people through "unnecessary costs to products and services that are already difficult for many Liberians to afford".[84]
+
+Liberia scored a 3.3 on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt) on the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index. This gave it a ranking 87th of 178 countries worldwide and 11th of 47 in Sub-Saharan Africa.[85] This score represented a significant improvement since 2007, when the country scored 2.1 and ranked 150th of 180 countries.[86] When dealing with public-facing government functionaries, 89% of Liberians say they have had to pay a bribe, the highest national percentage in the world according to the organization's 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.[87]
+
+The Central Bank of Liberia is responsible for printing and maintaining the Liberian dollar, Liberia's primary currency. Liberia is one of the world's poorest countries, with a formal employment rate of 15%.[76] GDP per capita peaked in 1980 at US$496, when it was comparable to Egypt's (at the time).[90] In 2011 the country's nominal GDP was US$1.154 billion, while nominal GDP per capita stood at US$297, the third-lowest in the world.[91] Historically the Liberian economy has depended heavily on foreign aid, foreign direct investment and exports of natural resources such as iron ore, rubber, and timber.[61]
+
+Following a peak in growth in 1979, the Liberian economy began a steady decline due to economic mismanagement after the 1980 coup.[92] This decline was accelerated by the outbreak of civil war in 1989; GDP was reduced by an estimated 90% between 1989 and 1995, one of the fastest declines in history.[92] Upon the end of the war in 2003, GDP growth began to accelerate, reaching 9.4% in 2007.[93] The global financial crisis slowed GDP growth to 4.6% in 2009,[93] though a strengthening agricultural sector led by rubber and timber exports increased growth to 5.1% in 2010 and an expected 7.3% in 2011, making the economy one of the 20 fastest-growing in the world.[94][95]
+
+Current impediments to growth include a small domestic market, lack of adequate infrastructure, high transportation costs, poor trade links with neighboring countries and the high dollarization of the economy.[94] Liberia used the United States dollar as its currency from 1943 until 1982 and continues to use the U.S. dollar alongside the Liberian dollar.[96]
+
+Following a decrease in inflation beginning in 2003, inflation spiked in 2008 as a result of worldwide food and energy crises,[97] reaching 17.5% before declining to 7.4% in 2009.[93] Liberia's external debt was estimated in 2006 at approximately $4.5 billion, 800% of GDP.[92] As a result of bilateral, multilateral and commercial debt relief from 2007 to 2010, the country's external debt fell to $222.9 million by 2011.[98]
+
+While official commodity exports declined during the 1990s as many investors fled the civil war, Liberia's wartime economy featured the exploitation of the region's diamond wealth.[99] The country acted as a major trader in Sierra Leonian blood diamonds, exporting over US$300 million in diamonds in 1999.[100] This led to a United Nations ban on Liberian diamond exports in 2001, which was lifted in 2007 following Liberia's accession to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.[101]
+
+In 2003, additional UN sanctions were placed on Liberian timber exports, which had risen from US$5 million in 1997 to over US$100 million in 2002 and were believed to be funding rebels in Sierra Leone.[102][103] These sanctions were lifted in 2006.[104] Due in large part to foreign aid and investment inflow following the end of the war, Liberia maintains a large account deficit, which peaked at nearly 60% in 2008.[94] Liberia gained observer status with the World Trade Organization in 2010 and is in the process of acquiring full member status.[105]
+
+Liberia has the highest ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP in the world, with US$16 billion in investment since 2006.[95] Following Sirleaf's inauguration in 2006, Liberia signed several multi-billion-dollar concession agreements in the iron ore and palm oil industries with numerous multinational corporations, including BHP Billiton, ArcelorMittal, and Sime Darby.[106] Palm oil companies like Sime Darby (Malaysia) and Golden Veroleum (USA) have been accused of destroying livelihoods and displacing local communities, enabled by government concessions.[107] Since 1926 The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company has operated the world's largest rubber plantation in Harbel, Margibi County. As of 2015 it had more than 8,000 mostly Liberian employees, making it the country's largest private employer.[108][109]
+
+Due to its status as a flag of convenience, Liberia has the second-largest maritime registry in the world behind Panama. It has 3,500 vessels registered under its flag, accounting for 11% of ships worldwide.[88][89]
+
+Agriculture in Liberia is a major sector of the country's economy worth 38.8% of GDP, employing more than 70% of the population and providing a valuable export for one of the world’s least developed countries (as defined by the UN).[110][111][112][113] Liberia has a climate favourable to farming, vast forests, and an abundance of water, yet low yields mean that over half of foodstuffs are imported, with net agricultural trade at -$73.12 million in 2010.[114] This was dismissed as a "misconception" by Liberia’s Minister of Agriculture.[115]
+
+The mining industry of Liberia has witnessed a revival after the civil war which ended in 2003.[118] Gold, diamonds, and iron ore form the core minerals of the mining sector with a new Mineral Development Policy and Mining Code being put in place to attract foreign investments.[119] In 2013, the mineral sector accounted for 11% of GDP in the country and the World Bank has projected a further increase in the sector by 2017.[120]
+
+There are six major newspapers in Liberia, and 45% of the population has a mobile phone service.
+Much of Liberia's communications infrastructure was destroyed or plundered during the two civil wars (1989–1996 and 1999–2003).[122] With low rates of adult literacy and high poverty rates, television and newspaper use is limited, leaving radio as the predominant means of communicating with the public.[123]
+
+Public electricity services are provided solely by the state-owned Liberia Electricity Corporation, which operates a small grid almost exclusively in the Greater Monrovia District.[124] The vast majority of electric energy services is provided by small, privately owned generators. At $0.54 per kWh, the cost of electricity in Liberia is among the highest in the world. Total capacity in 2013 was 20 MW, a sharp decline from a peak of 191 MW in 1989 before the wars.[124]
+
+Completion of the repair and expansion of the Mount Coffee Hydropower Project, with a maximum capacity of 80 MW, is scheduled to be completed by 2018.[125] Construction of three new heavy fuel oil power plants is expected to boost electrical capacity by 38 MW.[126] In 2013, Liberia began importing power from neighboring Ivory Coast and Guinea through the West African Power Pool.[127]
+
+Liberia has begun exploration for offshore oil; unproven oil reserves may be in excess of one billion barrels.[128] The government divided its offshore waters into 17 blocks and began auctioning off exploration licenses for the blocks in 2004, with further auctions in 2007 and 2009.[129][130][131] An additional 13 ultra-deep offshore blocks were demarcated in 2011 and planned for auction.[132] Among the companies to have won licenses are Repsol YPF, Chevron Corporation, and Woodside Petroleum.[133]
+
+As of the 2017 national census, Liberia was home to 4,694,608 people.[136] Of those, 1,118,241 lived in Montserrado County, the most populous county in the country and home to the capital of Monrovia. The Greater Monrovia District has 970,824 residents.[137] Nimba County is the next most populous county, with 462,026 residents.[137] As revealed in the 2008 census, Monrovia is more than four times more populous than all the county capitals combined.[63]
+
+Prior to the 2008 census, the last census had been taken in 1984 and listed the country's population as 2,101,628.[137] The population of Liberia was 1,016,443 in 1962 and increased to 1,503,368 in 1974.[63] As of 2006[update], Liberia had the highest population growth rate in the world (4.50% per annum).[138] In 2010 some 43.5% of Liberians were below the age of 15.[135]
+
+The population includes 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. Indigenous peoples comprise about 95 percent of the population. The 16 officially recognized ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Bassa, Mano, Gio or Dan, Kru, Grebo, Krahn, Vai, Gola, Mandingo or Mandinka, Mende, Kissi, Gbandi, Loma, Dei or Dewoin, Belleh, and Americo-Liberians or Congo people.
+
+The Kpelle comprise more than 20% of the population and are the largest ethnic group in Liberia, residing mostly in Bong County and adjacent areas in central Liberia.[139] Americo-Liberians, who are descendants of African American and West Indian, mostly Barbadian (Bajan) settlers, make up 2.5%. Congo people, descendants of repatriated Congo and Afro-Caribbean slaves who arrived in 1825, make up an estimated 2.5%.[2][140] These latter two groups established political control in the 19th century which they kept well into the 20th century.
+
+Numerous immigrants have come as merchants and become a major part of the business community, including Lebanese, Indians, and other West African nationals. There is a high percentage of interracial marriage between ethnic Liberians and the Lebanese, resulting in a significant mixed-race population especially in and around Monrovia. A small minority of Liberians who are White Africans of European descent reside in the country.[better source needed][2] The Liberian constitution restricts citizenship to  "Negroes or persons of Negro descent."[141]
+
+English is the official language and serves as the lingua franca of Liberia.[142] Thirty-one indigenous languages are spoken in Liberia, but each is a first language for only a small percentage of the population.[143] Liberians also speak a variety of creolized dialects collectively known as Liberian English.[142]
+
+According to the 2008 National Census, 85.6% of the population practices Christianity, while Muslims represent a minority of 12.2%.[146] A multitude of diverse Protestant confessions such as Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) denominations form the bulk of the Christian population, followed by adherents of the Roman Catholic Church and other non-Protestant Christians. Most of these Christian denominations were brought by African American settlers moving from the United States into Liberia via the American Colonization Society, while some are indigenous—especially Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant ones. Protestantism was originally associated with Black American settlers and their Americo-Liberian descendants, while native peoples held to their own animist forms of African traditional religion. Indigenous people were subject to Christian missionary, as well as Americo-Liberian efforts to close the cultural gap by means of education. This proved successful, leaving Christians a majority in the country.[citation needed]
+
+Muslims comprise 12.2% of the population, largely represented by the Mandingo and Vai ethnic groups. Liberian Muslims are divided between Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Sufis, and non-denominational Muslims.[147]
+
+Traditional indigenous religions are practiced by 0.5% of the population, while 1.5% subscribe to no religion. A small number of people are Bahá'í, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist. While Christian, many Liberians also participate in traditional, gender-based indigenous religious secret societies, such as Poro for men and Sande for women. The all-female Sande society practices female circumcision.[148]
+
+The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right.[148] While separation of church and state is mandated by the Constitution, Liberia is considered a Christian state in practice.[53] Public schools offer biblical studies, though parents may opt their children out. Commerce is prohibited by law on Sunday and major Christian holidays. The government does not require businesses or schools to excuse Muslims for Friday prayers.[148]
+
+In 2010, the literacy rate of Liberia was estimated at 60.8% (64.8% for males and 56.8% for females).[149] In some areas primary and secondary education is free and compulsory from the ages of 6 to 16, though enforcement of attendance is lax.[150] In other areas children are required to pay a tuition fee to attend school. On average, children attain 10 years of education (11 for boys and 8 for girls).[2] The country's education sector is hampered by inadequate schools and supplies, as well as a lack of qualified teachers.[151]
+
+Higher education is provided by a number of public and private universities. The University of Liberia is the country's largest and oldest university. Located in Monrovia, the university opened in 1862. Today it has six colleges, including a medical school and the nation's only law school, Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law.[152]
+
+In 2009, Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County was established as the second public university in Liberia.[153] Since 2006, the government has also opened community colleges in Buchanan, Sanniquellie, and Voinjama.[154][155][156]
+
+Due to student protests late in October 2018, newly elected president George M. Weah abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students in the public universities in Liberia.[157]
+
+Hospitals in Liberia include the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia and several others. Life expectancy in Liberia is estimated to be 57.4 years in 2012.[162] With a fertility rate of 5.9 births per woman, the maternal mortality rate stood at 990 per 100,000 births in 2010.[163] A number of highly communicable diseases are widespread, including tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases and malaria. In 2007, the HIV infection rates stood at 2% of the population aged 15–49[164] whereas the incidence of tuberculosis was 420 per 100,000 people in 2008.[165] Approximately 58.2%[166] – 66%[167] of women are estimated to have undergone female genital mutilation.
+
+Liberia imports 90% of its rice, a staple food, and is extremely vulnerable to food shortages.[168] In 2007, 20.4% of children under the age of five were malnourished.[169] In 2008, only 17% of the population had access to adequate sanitation facilities.[170]
+
+Approximately 95% of the country's healthcare facilities had been destroyed by the time civil war ended in 2003.[171] In 2009, government expenditure on health care per capita was US$22,[172] accounting for 10.6% of total GDP.[173] In 2008, Liberia had only one doctor and 27 nurses per 100,000 people.[165]
+
+In 2014, an outbreak of Ebola virus in Guinea spread to Liberia.[174] As of November 17, 2014[update], there were 2,812 confirmed deaths from the ongoing outbreak.[175] In early August 2014 Guinea closed its borders to Liberia to help contain the spread of the virus, as more new cases were being reported in Liberia than in Guinea. On May 9, 2015, Liberia was declared Ebola free after six weeks with no new cases.[176]
+
+According to an Overseas Development Institute report, private health expenditure accounts for 64.1% of total spending on health.[177]
+
+Rape and sexual assault are frequent in the post-conflict era in Liberia. Liberia has one of the highest incidences of sexual violence against women in the world. Rape is the most frequently reported crime, accounting for more than one-third of sexual violence cases. Adolescent girls are the most frequently assaulted, and almost 40% of perpetrators are adult men known to victims.[178]
+
+Both male and female homosexuality are illegal in Liberia.[179][180] On July 20, 2012, the Liberian senate voted unanimously to enact legislation to prohibit and criminalize same-sex marriages.[181]
+
+The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. The settlers wore top hat and tails and modeled their homes on those of Southern slaveowners.[182] Most Americo-Liberian men were members of the Masonic Order of Liberia, which became heavily involved in the nation's politics.[183]
+
+Liberia has a rich history in textile arts and quilting, as the settlers brought with them their sewing and quilting skills. Liberia hosted National Fairs in 1857 and 1858 in which prizes were awarded for various needle arts. One of the most well-known Liberian quilters was Martha Ann Ricks,[184] who presented a quilt featuring the famed Liberian coffee tree to Queen Victoria in 1892. When President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf moved into the Executive Mansion, she reportedly had a Liberian-made quilt installed in her presidential office.[185]
+
+A rich literary tradition has existed in Liberia for over a century. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Bai T. Moore, Roland T. Dempster and Wilton G. S. Sankawulo are among Liberia's more prominent authors.[186] Moore's novella Murder in the Cassava Patch is considered Liberia's most celebrated novel.[187]
+
+One-third of married Liberian women between the ages of 15–49 are in polygamous marriages.[188] Customary law allows men to have up to four wives.[189]
+
+Liberian cuisine heavily incorporates rice, the country's staple food. Other ingredients include cassava, fish, bananas, citrus fruit, plantains, coconut, okra and sweet potatoes.[190] Heavy stews spiced with habanero and scotch bonnet chillies are popular and eaten with fufu.[191] Liberia also has a tradition of baking imported from the United States that is unique in West Africa.[192]
+
+The most popular sport in Liberia is association football, with President George Weah — the only African to be named FIFA World Player of the Year — being the nation's most famous athlete.[193][194] The Liberia national football team has reached the Africa Cup of Nations finals twice, in 1996 and 2002.
+
+The second most popular sport in Liberia is basketball. The Liberian national basketball team has reached the AfroBasket twice, in 1983 and 2007.
+
+In Liberia, the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex serves as a multi-purpose stadium. It hosts FIFA World Cup qualifying matches in addition to international concerts and national political events.[195]
+
+Liberia is one of only three countries that have not officially adopted the International System of Units (abbreviated as the SI, also called the metric system), the others being the United States  and Myanmar.
+
+The Liberian government has begun transitioning away from use of United States customary units to the metric system.[198] However, this change has been gradual, with government reports concurrently using both United States Customary and metric units.[199][200] In 2018, the Liberian Commerce and Industry Minister announced that the Liberian government is committed to adopting the metric system.[201]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+�

en/3427.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,230 @@
+Coordinates: 6°30′N 9°30′W / 6.500°N 9.500°W / 6.500; -9.500
+
+in Africa (light blue)
+
+Liberia (/laɪˈbɪəriə/ (listen)), officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean to its south-southwest. It has a population of around 5 million and covers an area of 111,369 square kilometres (43,000 sq mi). English is the official language, but over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous ethnic groups who make up more than 95% of the population. The country's capital and largest city is Monrovia.
+
+Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society (ACS), who believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States.[6] The country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U.S. did not recognize Liberia's independence until February 5, 1862, during the American Civil War. Between January 7, 1822, and the American Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black people who faced legislated limits in the U.S., and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, were relocated to the settlement by Abraham Lincoln.[7] The settlers carried their culture and tradition with them. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U.S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected Liberia's first president after the people proclaimed independence.[7]
+
+Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence, and is Africa's first and oldest modern republic. It retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa. During World War II, Liberia supported the United States war effort against Germany and in turn, the U.S. invested in considerable infrastructure in Liberia to help its war effort, which also aided the country in modernizing and improving its major air transportation facilities. In addition, President William Tubman encouraged economic changes. Internationally, Liberia was a founding member of the League of Nations, United Nations, and the Organisation of African Unity.
+
+The Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered, especially those in communities of the more isolated "bush". The colonial settlements were raided by the Kru and Grebo from their inland chiefdoms. Americo-Liberians developed as a small elite that held on to political power,[8] and indigenous tribesmen were excluded from birthright citizenship in their own land until 1904, in an echo of the United States' treatment of Native Americans.[9] Americo-Liberians promoted religious organizations to set up missions and schools to educate the indigenous peoples.[10]
+
+In 1980 political tensions from the rule of William R. Tolbert resulted in a military coup during which Tolbert was killed, marking the beginning of years-long political instability. Five years of military rule by the People's Redemption Council and five years of civilian rule by the National Democratic Party of Liberia were followed by the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars. These resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people (about 8% of the population) and the displacement of many more, and shrank Liberia's economy by 90%.[11] A peace agreement in 2003 led to democratic elections in 2005, in which Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected President, making history as the first female president in the continent. National infrastructure and basic social services were severely affected by the conflicts as well as by the 2013–2016 outbreak of Ebola virus, with 83% of the population living below the international poverty line as of 2015.[12]
+
+Undated Acheulean artefacts are abundant across West Africa, attesting to the presence of ancient humans. The emerging chronometric record of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) indicates that core and flake technologies have been present in West Africa since at least the Middle Pleistocene (~780-126 thousand years ago or ka), and that they persisted until the Terminal Pleistocene/Holocene boundary (~12ka)—the youngest examples of such technology anywhere in Africa. The presence of MSA populations in forests remains an open question, however technological differences may correlate with various ecological zones. Later Stone Age (LSA) populations evidence significant technological diversification, including both microlithic and macrolithic traditions. [13]
+
+The presence of Oldowan Earlier Stone Age (ESA) artefacts in West Africa has been confirmed by Michael Omolewa.[14] Acheulean ESA artefacts are well documented across West Africa. None are currently dated. There are few dated Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites; they range from the Middle Pleistocene in northern, open Sahelian zones to the Late Pleistocene in both northern and southern zones of West Africa. The record shows that aceramic and ceramic Later Stone Age (LSA) assemblages in West Africa are found to  overlap chronologically, and that changing densities of microlithic industries from the coast to the north are geographically structured. These features may represent social networks or some form of cultural diffusion allied to changing ecological conditions. [13]
+
+Microlithic industries with ceramics became common by the Mid-Holocene, coupled with an apparent intensification of wild food exploitation. Between ~4–3.5ka, these societies gradually transformed into food producers, possibly through contact with northern pastoralists and agriculturalists, as the environment became more arid.  However, hunter-gatherers have survived in the more forested parts of West Africa until much later, attesting to the strength of ecological boundaries in this region. [13]
+
+The Pepper Coast, also known as the Grain Coast, has been inhabited by indigenous peoples of Africa at least as far back as the 12th century. Mende-speaking people expanded westward from the Sudan, forcing many smaller ethnic groups southward toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Dei, Bassa, Kru, Gola, and Kissi were some of the earliest documented peoples in the area.[15]
+
+This influx of these groups was compounded by the decline of the Western Sudanic Mali Empire in 1375 and the Songhai Empire in 1591. The area now called Liberia was a part of the Kingdom of Koya from 1450 to 1898.[citation needed][16] As inland regions underwent desertification, inhabitants moved to the wetter coast. These new inhabitants brought skills such as cotton spinning, cloth weaving, iron smelting, rice and sorghum cultivation, and social and political institutions from the Mali and Songhai empires.[15] Shortly after the Mane conquered the region, the Vai people of the former Mali Empire immigrated into the Grand Cape Mount County region. The ethnic Kru opposed the influx of Vai, forming an alliance with the Mane to stop further influx of Vai.[17]
+
+People along the coast built canoes and traded with other West Africans from Cap-Vert to the Gold Coast. Arab traders entered the region from the north, and a long-established slave trade took captives to north and east Africa.[citation needed]
+
+Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese, Dutch, and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region. The Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta ("Pepper Coast") but it later came to be known as the Grain Coast, due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders would barter commodities and goods with local people.[citation needed]
+
+In the United States there was a movement to settle free-born blacks and freed slaves in Africa. This was because they faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement and the denial of civil, religious, and social rights.[18] Formed in 1816, the American Colonization Society was made up mostly of Quakers and slaveholders. Quakers believed blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.S.[6][19] While slaveholders opposed freedom for blacks, they viewed repatriation as a way to avoid rebellions.[6]
+
+In 1822 the American Colonization Society began sending black volunteers to the Pepper Coast, the closest point of Africa and therefore the least expensive to reach, to establish a colony for freed blacks. Although mortality from tropical diseases was horrendous — of the 4,571 emigrants who arrived in Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819 were alive in 1843[20][21] — by 1867 the ACS (and state-related chapters) had assisted in the migration of more than 13,000 blacks to Liberia.[22] These free African-Americans and their descendants married within their community and came to identify as Americo-Liberians. Many were of mixed race and educated in American culture; they did not identify with the indigenous natives of the tribes they encountered. They intermarried largely within the colonial community, developing an ethnic group that had a cultural tradition infused with American notions of political republicanism and Protestant Christianity.[23]
+
+The ACS, supported by prominent American politicians such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, and James Monroe, believed "repatriation" of free African Americans — sending them to Africa — was preferable to having emancipated slaves remain in the United States.[19] Similar state-based organizations established colonies in Mississippi-in-Africa, Kentucky in Africa, and the Republic of Maryland, which Liberia later annexed. However, Lincoln in 1862 described Liberia as only "in a certain sense...a success", and proposed instead that free blacks be assisted to emigrate to Chiriquí, today part of Panama.[24]
+
+The Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered, especially those in communities of the more isolated "bush". They knew nothing of their cultures, languages, or animist religion, and were not interested in learning. The colonial settlements were raided by the Kru and Grebo from their inland chiefdoms. Encounters with tribal Africans in the bush often became violent confrontations.[citation needed]
+
+In Slaves to Racism: An Unbroken Chain from America to Liberia, Benjamin Dennis and Anita Dennis argue that the Americo-Liberians replicated the only society most of them knew: the racist culture of the American South. Believing themselves different from and culturally and educationally superior to the indigenous peoples, the Americo-Liberians developed as an elite minority that held on to political power. They treated the natives the way American whites had treated them: as inferiors. The natives could not vote and could not speak unless spoken to. Just as American Blacks were prohibited from marrying or having sexual relationships with white women, the natives could not marry Americo-Liberian women. Even when some natives became educated, they were excluded from government positions, except for a token few.[25] Indigenous tribesmen did not enjoy birthright citizenship in their own land until 1904.[9] Americo-Liberians encouraged religious organizations to set up missions and schools to educate the indigenous peoples.[citation needed]
+
+On July 26, 1847, the settlers issued a Declaration of Independence and promulgated a constitution. Based on the political principles of the United States Constitution, it established the independent Republic of Liberia.[26][27] The United Kingdom was the first country to recognize Liberia's independence.[28] The United States did not recognize Liberia until 1862, after the southern states, who had significant influence in the American government, seceded from the union to form the Confederacy.[citation needed]
+
+The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians, who initially established political and economic dominance in the coastal areas that the ACS had purchased; they maintained relations with U.S. contacts in developing these areas and the resulting trade. Their passage of the 1865 Ports of Entry Act prohibited foreign commerce with the inland tribes, ostensibly to "encourage the growth of civilized values" before such trade was allowed in the region.[26]
+
+By 1877, the True Whig Party was the country's most powerful political entity.[29] It was made up primarily of Americo-Liberians, who maintained social, economic and political dominance well into the 20th century, repeating patterns of European colonists in other nations in Africa. Competition for office was usually contained within the party; a party nomination virtually ensured election.[29]
+
+Pressure from the United Kingdom, which controlled Sierra Leone to the northwest, and France, with its interests in the north and east, led to a loss of Liberia's claims to extensive territories. Both Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast annexed territories.[30] Liberia struggled to attract investment to develop infrastructure and a larger, industrial economy.
+
+There was a decline in production of Liberian goods in the late 19th century, and the government struggled financially, resulting in indebtedness on a series of international loans.[31] On July 16, 1892, Martha Ann Erskine Ricks met Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and presented her a handmade quilt, Liberia's first diplomatic gift. Born into slavery in Tennessee, Ricks said, "I had heard it often, from the time I was a child, how good the Queen had been to my people—to slaves—and how she wanted us to be free."[28]
+
+American and other international interests emphasized resource extraction, with rubber production a major industry in the early 20th century.[32] In 1914 Imperial Germany accounted for three quarters of the trade of Liberia. This was a cause for concern among the British colonial authorities of Sierra Leone and the French colonial authorities of French Guinea and the Ivory Coast as tensions with Germany increased.[33]
+
+Liberia remained neutral during World War I until August 4, 1917, when it declared war on Germany. In 1919 Liberia attended the Versailles Peace Conference. Liberia was one of the founding members of the League of Nations when it was founded in January 1920.[34]
+
+In 1929 allegations of modern slavery in Liberia led the League of Nations to establish the Christy commission. Findings included government involvement in widespread "Forced or compulsory labour". Minority ethnic groups especially were exploited in a system that enriched well-connected elites.[35]  As a result of the report, President Charles D. B. King and Vice President Allen N. Yancy resigned.[36]
+
+In the mid-20th century Liberia gradually began to modernize with American assistance. During World War II the United States made major infrastructure improvements to support its military efforts in Africa and Europe against Germany. It built the Freeport of Monrovia and Roberts International Airport under the Lend-Lease program before its entry into the Second World War.[37]
+
+After the war President William Tubman encouraged foreign investment in the country. Liberia had the second-highest rate of economic growth in the world during the 1950s.[37]
+
+Liberia also began to take a more active role in international affairs. It was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and became a vocal critic of the South African apartheid regime.[38] Liberia also served as a proponent both of African independence from European colonial powers and of Pan-Africanism, and helped to fund the Organisation of African Unity.[39]
+
+On April 12, 1980, a military coup led by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe of the Krahn ethnic group overthrew and killed President William R. Tolbert, Jr. Doe and the other plotters later executed a majority of Tolbert's cabinet and other Americo-Liberian government officials and True Whig Party members.[40] The coup leaders formed the People's Redemption Council (PRC) to govern the country.[40] A strategic Cold War ally of the West, Doe received significant financial backing from the United States while critics condemned the PRC for corruption and political repression.[40]
+
+After Liberia adopted a new constitution in 1985, Doe was elected president in subsequent elections that were internationally condemned as fraudulent.[40] On November 12, 1985, a failed counter-coup was launched by Thomas Quiwonkpa, whose soldiers briefly occupied the national radio station.[41] Government repression intensified in response, as Doe's troops retaliated by executing members of the Gio and Mano ethnic groups in Nimba County.[41]
+
+The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), a rebel group led by Charles Taylor, launched an insurrection in December 1989 against Doe's government with the backing of neighboring countries such as Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. This triggered the First Liberian Civil War.[42] By September 1990, Doe's forces controlled only a small area just outside the capital, and Doe was captured and executed in that month by rebel forces.[43]
+
+The rebels soon split into various factions fighting one another. The Economic Community Monitoring Group under the Economic Community of West African States organized a military task force to intervene in the crisis.[43][failed verification] From 1989 to 1997 around 60,000 to 80,000 Liberians died, and by 1996 around 700,000 others had been displaced into refugee camps in neighboring countries.[44] A peace deal between warring parties was reached in 1995, leading to Taylor's election as president in 1997.[43]
+
+Under Taylor's leadership, Liberia became internationally known as a pariah state due to its use of blood diamonds and illegal timber exports to fund the Revolutionary United Front in the Sierra Leone Civil War.[45] The Second Liberian Civil War began in 1999 when Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, a rebel group based in the northwest of the country, launched an armed insurrection against Taylor.[46]
+
+In March 2003, a second rebel group, Movement for Democracy in Liberia, began launching attacks against Taylor from the southeast.[46] Peace talks between the factions began in Accra in June of that year, and Taylor was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for crimes against humanity the same month.[45] By July 2003, the rebels had launched an assault on Monrovia.[47] Under heavy pressure from the international community and the domestic Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement,[48] Taylor resigned in August 2003 and went into exile in Nigeria.[49]
+
+A peace deal was signed later that month.[50] The United Nations Mission in Liberia began arriving in September 2003 to provide security and monitor the peace accord,[51] and an interim government took power the following October.[52]
+
+The subsequent 2005 elections were internationally regarded as the most free and fair in Liberian history.[53] Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a US-educated economist and former Minister of Finance, was elected as the first female president in Africa.[53] Upon her inauguration, Sirleaf requested the extradition of Taylor from Nigeria and transferred him to the SCSL for trial in The Hague.[54][55]
+
+In 2006, the government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the causes and crimes of the civil war.[56]
+
+Following the 2017 Liberian general election, former professional football striker George Weah, one of the greatest African players of all time,[57][58] was sworn in as president on 22 January 2018, becoming the 4th youngest serving president in Africa.[59] The inauguration marked Liberia's first fully democratic transition in 74 years.[60] Weah cited fighting corruption, reforming the economy, combating illiteracy and improving life conditions as the main targets of his presidency.[60]
+
+Liberia is situated in West Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean to the country's southwest. It lies between latitudes 4° and 9°N, and longitudes 7° and 12°W.
+
+The landscape is characterized by mostly flat to rolling coastal plains that contain mangroves and swamps, which rise to a rolling plateau and low mountains in the northeast.[61]
+
+Tropical rainforests cover the hills, while elephant grass and semi-deciduous forests make up the dominant vegetation in the northern sections.[61] The equatorial climate, in the south of the country, is hot year-round with heavy rainfall from May to October with a short interlude in mid-July to August.[61] During the winter months of November to March, dry dust-laden harmattan winds blow inland, causing many problems for residents.[61]
+
+Liberia's watershed tends to move in a southwestern pattern towards the sea as new rains move down the forested plateau off the inland mountain range of Guinée Forestière, in Guinea. Cape Mount near the border with Sierra Leone receives the most precipitation in the nation.[61]
+
+Liberia's main northwestern boundary is traversed by the Mano River while its southeast limits are bounded by the Cavalla River.[61] Liberia's three largest rivers are St. Paul exiting near Monrovia, the river St. John at Buchanan, and the Cestos River, all of which flow into the Atlantic. The Cavalla is the longest river in the nation at 515 kilometers (320 mi).[61]
+
+The highest point wholly within Liberia is Mount Wuteve at 1,440 meters (4,724 ft) above sea level in the northwestern Liberia range of the West Africa Mountains and the Guinea Highlands.[61] However, Mount Nimba near Yekepa, is higher at 1,752 meters (5,748 ft) above sea level but is not wholly within Liberia as Nimba shares a border with Guinea and Ivory Coast and is their tallest mountain as well.[62]
+
+Forests on the coastline are composed mostly of salt-tolerant mangrove trees, while the more sparsely populated inland has forests opening onto a plateau of drier grasslands. The climate is equatorial, with significant rainfall during the May–October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia possesses about forty percent of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. It was an important producer of rubber in the early 20th century.[citation needed]
+
+Liberia is divided into fifteen counties, which, in turn, are subdivided into a total of 90 districts and further subdivided into clans. The oldest counties are Grand Bassa and Montserrado, both founded in 1839 prior to Liberian independence. Gbarpolu is the newest county, created in 2001. Nimba is the largest of the counties in size at 11,551 km2 (4,460 sq mi), while Montserrado is the smallest at 1,909 km2 (737 sq mi).[63] Montserrado is also the most populous county with 1,144,806 residents as of the 2008 census.[63]
+
+The fifteen counties are administered by superintendents appointed by the president. The Constitution calls for the election of various chiefs at the county and local level, but these elections have not taken place since 1985 due to war and financial constraints.[64]
+
+Parallel to the administrative divisions of the country are the local and municipal divisions.  Liberia currently does not have any constitutional framework or uniform statutes which deal with the creation or revocation of local governments.[65]  All existing local governments – cities, townships, and a borough – were created by specific acts of the Liberian government, and thus the structure and duties/responsibilities of each local government varies greatly from one to the other.[citation needed]
+
+Endangered species are hunted for human consumption as bushmeat in Liberia.[66] Species hunted for food in Liberia include elephants, pygmy hippopotamus, chimpanzees, leopards, duikers, and other monkeys.[66] Bushmeat is often exported to neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, despite a ban on the cross-border sale of wild animals.[66]
+
+Bushmeat is widely eaten in Liberia, and is considered a delicacy.[68] A 2004 public opinion survey found that bushmeat ranked second behind fish amongst residents of the capital Monrovia as a preferred source of protein.[68] Of households where bushmeat was served, 80% of residents said they cooked it "once in a while," while 13% cooked it once a week and 7% cooked bushmeat daily.[68] The survey was conducted during the last civil war, and bushmeat consumption is now believed to be far higher.[68]
+
+Liberia is a global biodiversity hotspot—a significant reservoir of biodiversity that is under threat from humans.[69]
+
+Slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the human activities eroding Liberia's natural forests.[70] A 2004 UN report estimated that 99% of Liberians burned charcoal and fuel wood for cooking and heating, resulting in deforestation.[70]
+
+Illegal logging has increased in Liberia since the end of the Second Civil War in 2003.[69] In 2012 President Sirleaf granted licenses to companies to cut down 58% of all the primary rainforest left in Liberia.[69] After international protests, many of those logging permits were canceled.[69] In September 2014 Liberia and Norway struck an agreement whereby Liberia ceased all logging in exchange for $150 million in development aid.[69]
+
+Pollution is a significant issue in Monrovia.[71] Since 2006 the international community has paid for all garbage collection and disposal in Monrovia via the World Bank.[72]
+
+Liberia is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Like many other countries in Africa, Liberia both faces existing environmental issues, as well as sustainable development challenges.[73] Because of its location in Africa, it is vulnerable to extreme weather, coastal effects of sea level rise, and changing water systems and water availability.[74]
+
+The government of Liberia, modeled on the government of the United States, is a unitary constitutional republic and representative democracy as established by the Constitution. The government has three co-equal branches of government: the executive, headed by the president; the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Legislature of Liberia; and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and several lower courts.[citation needed]
+
+The president serves as head of government, head of state, and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Liberia.[2] Among the president's other duties are to sign or veto legislative bills, grant pardons, and appoint Cabinet members, judges, and other public officials. Together with the vice president, the president is elected to a six-year term by majority vote in a two-round system and can serve up to two terms in office.[2]
+
+The Legislature is composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The House, led by a speaker, has 73 members apportioned among the 15 counties on the basis of the national census, with each county receiving a minimum of two members.[2] Each House member represents an electoral district within a county as drawn by the National Elections Commission and is elected by a plurality of the popular vote of their district into a six-year term. The Senate is made up of two senators from each county for a total of 30 senators.[2] Senators serve nine-year terms and are elected at-large by a plurality of the popular vote.[2] The vice president serves as the President of the Senate, with a President pro tempore serving in their absence.[citation needed]
+
+Liberia's highest judicial authority is the Supreme Court, made up of five members and headed by the Chief Justice of Liberia. Members are nominated to the court by the president and are confirmed by the Senate, serving until the age of 70. The judiciary is further divided into circuit and speciality courts, magistrate courts and justices of the peace.[76] The judicial system is a blend of common law, based on Anglo-American law, and customary law.[2] An informal system of traditional courts still exists within the rural areas of the country, with trial by ordeal remaining common despite being officially outlawed.[76]
+
+From 1877 to 1980 the government was dominated by the True Whig Party.[29] Today over 20 political parties are registered in the country, based largely around personalities and ethnic groups.[53] Most parties suffer from poor organizational capacity.[53] The 2005 elections marked the first time that the president's party did not gain a majority of seats in the Legislature.[53]
+
+The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) are the country's armed forces. Founded as the Liberian Frontier Force in 1908, the military was renamed in 1956. For virtually all of its history, the AFL has received considerable material and training assistance from the United States. For most of the 1941–89 period, training was largely provided by U.S. advisers, and combat expierence in the 2nd World War. After UN Security Council Resolution 1509 in September 2003, the United Nations Mission in Liberia arrived to referee the ceasefire with units from Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, and China with the view to assist the National Transitional Government of Liberia in forming the new Liberian military.[77]
+
+After the turmoil following the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars, Liberia's internal stabilization in the 21st century brought a return to cordial relations with neighboring countries and much of the Western world. As in other African countries, China is an important part of the post-conflict reconstruction.[78]
+
+In the past, both of Liberia's neighbors, Guinea and Sierra Leone, have accused Liberia of backing rebels in their countries.[79]
+
+The Liberian National Police is the country's national police force. As of October 2007 it has 844 officers in 33 stations in Montserrado County, which contains Monrovia.[80] The National Police Training Academy is in Paynesville City.[81] A history of corruption among police officers diminishes public trust and operational effectiveness. The internal security is characterized by a general lawlessness coupled with the danger that former combatants in the late civil war might reestablish militias to challenge the civil authorities.[82]
+
+Corruption is endemic at every level of the Liberian government.[83] When President Sirleaf took office in 2006, she announced that corruption was "the major public enemy."[79] In 2014 the US ambassador to Liberia said that corruption there was harming people through "unnecessary costs to products and services that are already difficult for many Liberians to afford".[84]
+
+Liberia scored a 3.3 on a scale from 10 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt) on the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index. This gave it a ranking 87th of 178 countries worldwide and 11th of 47 in Sub-Saharan Africa.[85] This score represented a significant improvement since 2007, when the country scored 2.1 and ranked 150th of 180 countries.[86] When dealing with public-facing government functionaries, 89% of Liberians say they have had to pay a bribe, the highest national percentage in the world according to the organization's 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.[87]
+
+The Central Bank of Liberia is responsible for printing and maintaining the Liberian dollar, Liberia's primary currency. Liberia is one of the world's poorest countries, with a formal employment rate of 15%.[76] GDP per capita peaked in 1980 at US$496, when it was comparable to Egypt's (at the time).[90] In 2011 the country's nominal GDP was US$1.154 billion, while nominal GDP per capita stood at US$297, the third-lowest in the world.[91] Historically the Liberian economy has depended heavily on foreign aid, foreign direct investment and exports of natural resources such as iron ore, rubber, and timber.[61]
+
+Following a peak in growth in 1979, the Liberian economy began a steady decline due to economic mismanagement after the 1980 coup.[92] This decline was accelerated by the outbreak of civil war in 1989; GDP was reduced by an estimated 90% between 1989 and 1995, one of the fastest declines in history.[92] Upon the end of the war in 2003, GDP growth began to accelerate, reaching 9.4% in 2007.[93] The global financial crisis slowed GDP growth to 4.6% in 2009,[93] though a strengthening agricultural sector led by rubber and timber exports increased growth to 5.1% in 2010 and an expected 7.3% in 2011, making the economy one of the 20 fastest-growing in the world.[94][95]
+
+Current impediments to growth include a small domestic market, lack of adequate infrastructure, high transportation costs, poor trade links with neighboring countries and the high dollarization of the economy.[94] Liberia used the United States dollar as its currency from 1943 until 1982 and continues to use the U.S. dollar alongside the Liberian dollar.[96]
+
+Following a decrease in inflation beginning in 2003, inflation spiked in 2008 as a result of worldwide food and energy crises,[97] reaching 17.5% before declining to 7.4% in 2009.[93] Liberia's external debt was estimated in 2006 at approximately $4.5 billion, 800% of GDP.[92] As a result of bilateral, multilateral and commercial debt relief from 2007 to 2010, the country's external debt fell to $222.9 million by 2011.[98]
+
+While official commodity exports declined during the 1990s as many investors fled the civil war, Liberia's wartime economy featured the exploitation of the region's diamond wealth.[99] The country acted as a major trader in Sierra Leonian blood diamonds, exporting over US$300 million in diamonds in 1999.[100] This led to a United Nations ban on Liberian diamond exports in 2001, which was lifted in 2007 following Liberia's accession to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.[101]
+
+In 2003, additional UN sanctions were placed on Liberian timber exports, which had risen from US$5 million in 1997 to over US$100 million in 2002 and were believed to be funding rebels in Sierra Leone.[102][103] These sanctions were lifted in 2006.[104] Due in large part to foreign aid and investment inflow following the end of the war, Liberia maintains a large account deficit, which peaked at nearly 60% in 2008.[94] Liberia gained observer status with the World Trade Organization in 2010 and is in the process of acquiring full member status.[105]
+
+Liberia has the highest ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP in the world, with US$16 billion in investment since 2006.[95] Following Sirleaf's inauguration in 2006, Liberia signed several multi-billion-dollar concession agreements in the iron ore and palm oil industries with numerous multinational corporations, including BHP Billiton, ArcelorMittal, and Sime Darby.[106] Palm oil companies like Sime Darby (Malaysia) and Golden Veroleum (USA) have been accused of destroying livelihoods and displacing local communities, enabled by government concessions.[107] Since 1926 The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company has operated the world's largest rubber plantation in Harbel, Margibi County. As of 2015 it had more than 8,000 mostly Liberian employees, making it the country's largest private employer.[108][109]
+
+Due to its status as a flag of convenience, Liberia has the second-largest maritime registry in the world behind Panama. It has 3,500 vessels registered under its flag, accounting for 11% of ships worldwide.[88][89]
+
+Agriculture in Liberia is a major sector of the country's economy worth 38.8% of GDP, employing more than 70% of the population and providing a valuable export for one of the world’s least developed countries (as defined by the UN).[110][111][112][113] Liberia has a climate favourable to farming, vast forests, and an abundance of water, yet low yields mean that over half of foodstuffs are imported, with net agricultural trade at -$73.12 million in 2010.[114] This was dismissed as a "misconception" by Liberia’s Minister of Agriculture.[115]
+
+The mining industry of Liberia has witnessed a revival after the civil war which ended in 2003.[118] Gold, diamonds, and iron ore form the core minerals of the mining sector with a new Mineral Development Policy and Mining Code being put in place to attract foreign investments.[119] In 2013, the mineral sector accounted for 11% of GDP in the country and the World Bank has projected a further increase in the sector by 2017.[120]
+
+There are six major newspapers in Liberia, and 45% of the population has a mobile phone service.
+Much of Liberia's communications infrastructure was destroyed or plundered during the two civil wars (1989–1996 and 1999–2003).[122] With low rates of adult literacy and high poverty rates, television and newspaper use is limited, leaving radio as the predominant means of communicating with the public.[123]
+
+Public electricity services are provided solely by the state-owned Liberia Electricity Corporation, which operates a small grid almost exclusively in the Greater Monrovia District.[124] The vast majority of electric energy services is provided by small, privately owned generators. At $0.54 per kWh, the cost of electricity in Liberia is among the highest in the world. Total capacity in 2013 was 20 MW, a sharp decline from a peak of 191 MW in 1989 before the wars.[124]
+
+Completion of the repair and expansion of the Mount Coffee Hydropower Project, with a maximum capacity of 80 MW, is scheduled to be completed by 2018.[125] Construction of three new heavy fuel oil power plants is expected to boost electrical capacity by 38 MW.[126] In 2013, Liberia began importing power from neighboring Ivory Coast and Guinea through the West African Power Pool.[127]
+
+Liberia has begun exploration for offshore oil; unproven oil reserves may be in excess of one billion barrels.[128] The government divided its offshore waters into 17 blocks and began auctioning off exploration licenses for the blocks in 2004, with further auctions in 2007 and 2009.[129][130][131] An additional 13 ultra-deep offshore blocks were demarcated in 2011 and planned for auction.[132] Among the companies to have won licenses are Repsol YPF, Chevron Corporation, and Woodside Petroleum.[133]
+
+As of the 2017 national census, Liberia was home to 4,694,608 people.[136] Of those, 1,118,241 lived in Montserrado County, the most populous county in the country and home to the capital of Monrovia. The Greater Monrovia District has 970,824 residents.[137] Nimba County is the next most populous county, with 462,026 residents.[137] As revealed in the 2008 census, Monrovia is more than four times more populous than all the county capitals combined.[63]
+
+Prior to the 2008 census, the last census had been taken in 1984 and listed the country's population as 2,101,628.[137] The population of Liberia was 1,016,443 in 1962 and increased to 1,503,368 in 1974.[63] As of 2006[update], Liberia had the highest population growth rate in the world (4.50% per annum).[138] In 2010 some 43.5% of Liberians were below the age of 15.[135]
+
+The population includes 16 indigenous ethnic groups and various foreign minorities. Indigenous peoples comprise about 95 percent of the population. The 16 officially recognized ethnic groups include the Kpelle, Bassa, Mano, Gio or Dan, Kru, Grebo, Krahn, Vai, Gola, Mandingo or Mandinka, Mende, Kissi, Gbandi, Loma, Dei or Dewoin, Belleh, and Americo-Liberians or Congo people.
+
+The Kpelle comprise more than 20% of the population and are the largest ethnic group in Liberia, residing mostly in Bong County and adjacent areas in central Liberia.[139] Americo-Liberians, who are descendants of African American and West Indian, mostly Barbadian (Bajan) settlers, make up 2.5%. Congo people, descendants of repatriated Congo and Afro-Caribbean slaves who arrived in 1825, make up an estimated 2.5%.[2][140] These latter two groups established political control in the 19th century which they kept well into the 20th century.
+
+Numerous immigrants have come as merchants and become a major part of the business community, including Lebanese, Indians, and other West African nationals. There is a high percentage of interracial marriage between ethnic Liberians and the Lebanese, resulting in a significant mixed-race population especially in and around Monrovia. A small minority of Liberians who are White Africans of European descent reside in the country.[better source needed][2] The Liberian constitution restricts citizenship to  "Negroes or persons of Negro descent."[141]
+
+English is the official language and serves as the lingua franca of Liberia.[142] Thirty-one indigenous languages are spoken in Liberia, but each is a first language for only a small percentage of the population.[143] Liberians also speak a variety of creolized dialects collectively known as Liberian English.[142]
+
+According to the 2008 National Census, 85.6% of the population practices Christianity, while Muslims represent a minority of 12.2%.[146] A multitude of diverse Protestant confessions such as Lutheran, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, United Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AME Zion) denominations form the bulk of the Christian population, followed by adherents of the Roman Catholic Church and other non-Protestant Christians. Most of these Christian denominations were brought by African American settlers moving from the United States into Liberia via the American Colonization Society, while some are indigenous—especially Pentecostal and evangelical Protestant ones. Protestantism was originally associated with Black American settlers and their Americo-Liberian descendants, while native peoples held to their own animist forms of African traditional religion. Indigenous people were subject to Christian missionary, as well as Americo-Liberian efforts to close the cultural gap by means of education. This proved successful, leaving Christians a majority in the country.[citation needed]
+
+Muslims comprise 12.2% of the population, largely represented by the Mandingo and Vai ethnic groups. Liberian Muslims are divided between Sunnis, Shias, Ahmadiyyas, Sufis, and non-denominational Muslims.[147]
+
+Traditional indigenous religions are practiced by 0.5% of the population, while 1.5% subscribe to no religion. A small number of people are Bahá'í, Hindu, Sikh, or Buddhist. While Christian, many Liberians also participate in traditional, gender-based indigenous religious secret societies, such as Poro for men and Sande for women. The all-female Sande society practices female circumcision.[148]
+
+The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the government generally respects this right.[148] While separation of church and state is mandated by the Constitution, Liberia is considered a Christian state in practice.[53] Public schools offer biblical studies, though parents may opt their children out. Commerce is prohibited by law on Sunday and major Christian holidays. The government does not require businesses or schools to excuse Muslims for Friday prayers.[148]
+
+In 2010, the literacy rate of Liberia was estimated at 60.8% (64.8% for males and 56.8% for females).[149] In some areas primary and secondary education is free and compulsory from the ages of 6 to 16, though enforcement of attendance is lax.[150] In other areas children are required to pay a tuition fee to attend school. On average, children attain 10 years of education (11 for boys and 8 for girls).[2] The country's education sector is hampered by inadequate schools and supplies, as well as a lack of qualified teachers.[151]
+
+Higher education is provided by a number of public and private universities. The University of Liberia is the country's largest and oldest university. Located in Monrovia, the university opened in 1862. Today it has six colleges, including a medical school and the nation's only law school, Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law.[152]
+
+In 2009, Tubman University in Harper, Maryland County was established as the second public university in Liberia.[153] Since 2006, the government has also opened community colleges in Buchanan, Sanniquellie, and Voinjama.[154][155][156]
+
+Due to student protests late in October 2018, newly elected president George M. Weah abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students in the public universities in Liberia.[157]
+
+Hospitals in Liberia include the John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia and several others. Life expectancy in Liberia is estimated to be 57.4 years in 2012.[162] With a fertility rate of 5.9 births per woman, the maternal mortality rate stood at 990 per 100,000 births in 2010.[163] A number of highly communicable diseases are widespread, including tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases and malaria. In 2007, the HIV infection rates stood at 2% of the population aged 15–49[164] whereas the incidence of tuberculosis was 420 per 100,000 people in 2008.[165] Approximately 58.2%[166] – 66%[167] of women are estimated to have undergone female genital mutilation.
+
+Liberia imports 90% of its rice, a staple food, and is extremely vulnerable to food shortages.[168] In 2007, 20.4% of children under the age of five were malnourished.[169] In 2008, only 17% of the population had access to adequate sanitation facilities.[170]
+
+Approximately 95% of the country's healthcare facilities had been destroyed by the time civil war ended in 2003.[171] In 2009, government expenditure on health care per capita was US$22,[172] accounting for 10.6% of total GDP.[173] In 2008, Liberia had only one doctor and 27 nurses per 100,000 people.[165]
+
+In 2014, an outbreak of Ebola virus in Guinea spread to Liberia.[174] As of November 17, 2014[update], there were 2,812 confirmed deaths from the ongoing outbreak.[175] In early August 2014 Guinea closed its borders to Liberia to help contain the spread of the virus, as more new cases were being reported in Liberia than in Guinea. On May 9, 2015, Liberia was declared Ebola free after six weeks with no new cases.[176]
+
+According to an Overseas Development Institute report, private health expenditure accounts for 64.1% of total spending on health.[177]
+
+Rape and sexual assault are frequent in the post-conflict era in Liberia. Liberia has one of the highest incidences of sexual violence against women in the world. Rape is the most frequently reported crime, accounting for more than one-third of sexual violence cases. Adolescent girls are the most frequently assaulted, and almost 40% of perpetrators are adult men known to victims.[178]
+
+Both male and female homosexuality are illegal in Liberia.[179][180] On July 20, 2012, the Liberian senate voted unanimously to enact legislation to prohibit and criminalize same-sex marriages.[181]
+
+The religious practices, social customs and cultural standards of the Americo-Liberians had their roots in the antebellum American South. The settlers wore top hat and tails and modeled their homes on those of Southern slaveowners.[182] Most Americo-Liberian men were members of the Masonic Order of Liberia, which became heavily involved in the nation's politics.[183]
+
+Liberia has a rich history in textile arts and quilting, as the settlers brought with them their sewing and quilting skills. Liberia hosted National Fairs in 1857 and 1858 in which prizes were awarded for various needle arts. One of the most well-known Liberian quilters was Martha Ann Ricks,[184] who presented a quilt featuring the famed Liberian coffee tree to Queen Victoria in 1892. When President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf moved into the Executive Mansion, she reportedly had a Liberian-made quilt installed in her presidential office.[185]
+
+A rich literary tradition has existed in Liberia for over a century. Edward Wilmot Blyden, Bai T. Moore, Roland T. Dempster and Wilton G. S. Sankawulo are among Liberia's more prominent authors.[186] Moore's novella Murder in the Cassava Patch is considered Liberia's most celebrated novel.[187]
+
+One-third of married Liberian women between the ages of 15–49 are in polygamous marriages.[188] Customary law allows men to have up to four wives.[189]
+
+Liberian cuisine heavily incorporates rice, the country's staple food. Other ingredients include cassava, fish, bananas, citrus fruit, plantains, coconut, okra and sweet potatoes.[190] Heavy stews spiced with habanero and scotch bonnet chillies are popular and eaten with fufu.[191] Liberia also has a tradition of baking imported from the United States that is unique in West Africa.[192]
+
+The most popular sport in Liberia is association football, with President George Weah — the only African to be named FIFA World Player of the Year — being the nation's most famous athlete.[193][194] The Liberia national football team has reached the Africa Cup of Nations finals twice, in 1996 and 2002.
+
+The second most popular sport in Liberia is basketball. The Liberian national basketball team has reached the AfroBasket twice, in 1983 and 2007.
+
+In Liberia, the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex serves as a multi-purpose stadium. It hosts FIFA World Cup qualifying matches in addition to international concerts and national political events.[195]
+
+Liberia is one of only three countries that have not officially adopted the International System of Units (abbreviated as the SI, also called the metric system), the others being the United States  and Myanmar.
+
+The Liberian government has begun transitioning away from use of United States customary units to the metric system.[198] However, this change has been gradual, with government reports concurrently using both United States Customary and metric units.[199][200] In 2018, the Liberian Commerce and Industry Minister announced that the Liberian government is committed to adopting the metric system.[201]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+�

en/3428.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,108 @@
+
+
+Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that rejects all involuntary, coercive forms of hierarchy. It radically calls for the abolition of the state which it holds to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful.
+
+The history of anarchism goes back to prehistory, when some humans lived in anarchistic societies long before the establishment of formal states, realms or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, skepticism toward authority also rose, but it was not until the 19th century that a self-conscious political movement emerged. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of anarchism's classical era. In the last decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.
+
+Anarchism employs various tactics in order to meet its ideal ends; these can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics. There is significant overlap between the two which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, and have taken a violent turn in the past. Evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society. Criticism of anarchism mainly focuses on claims of it being internally inconsistent, violent and utopian.
+
+The etymological origin of anarchism is from the Ancient Greek anarkhia, meaning "without a ruler", composed of the prefix an- (i.e. "without") and the word arkhos (i.e. "leader" or "ruler"). The suffix -ism denotes the ideological current that favours anarchy.[1] Anarchism appears in English from 1642[2] as anarchisme and anarchy from 1539.[3] Various factions within the French Revolution labelled their opponents as anarchists, although few such accused shared many views with later anarchists. Many revolutionaries of the 19th century such as William Godwin (1756–1836) and Wilhelm Weitling (1808–1871) would contribute to the anarchist doctrines of the next generation, but they did not use anarchist or anarchism in describing themselves or their beliefs.[4]
+
+The first political philosopher to call himself an anarchist (French: anarchiste) was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), marking the formal birth of anarchism in the mid-19th century. Since the 1890s and beginning in France,[5] libertarianism has often been used as a synonym for anarchism[6] and its use as a synonym is still common outside the United States.[7] On the other hand, some use libertarianism to refer to individualistic free-market philosophy only, referring to free-market anarchism as libertarian anarchism.[8]
+
+While opposition to the state is central to anarchist thought, defining anarchism is not an easy task as there is a lot of discussion among scholars and anarchists on the matter and various currents perceive anarchism slightly differently.[9] Hence, it might be true to say that anarchism is a cluster of political philosophies opposing authority and hierarchical organization (including the state, capitalism, nationalism and all associated institutions) in the conduct of all human relations in favour of a society based on voluntary association, on freedom and on decentralisation, but this definition has the same shortcomings as the definition based on etymology (which is simply a negation of a ruler), or based on anti-statism (anarchism is much more than that) or even the anti-authoritarian (which is an a posteriori conclusion).[10] Nonetheless, major elements of the definition of anarchism include the following:[11]
+
+During the prehistoric era of mankind, an established authority did not exist.[clarification needed] It was after the creation of towns and cities that institutions of authority were established and anarchistic ideas espoused as a reaction.[13] Most notable precursors to anarchism in the ancient world were in China and Greece. In China, philosophical anarchism (i.e. the discussion on the legitimacy of the state) was delineated by Taoist philosophers Zhuang Zhou and Laozi.[14]
+
+Likewise, anarchic attitudes were articulated by tragedians and philosophers in Greece. Aeschylus and Sophocles used the myth of Antigone to illustrate the conflict between rules set by the state and personal autonomy. Socrates questioned Athenian authorities constantly and insisted to the right of individual freedom of consciousness. Cynics dismissed human law (nomos) and associated authorities while trying to live according to nature (physis). Stoics were supportive of a society based on unofficial and friendly relations among its citizens without the presence of a state.[15]
+
+During the Middle Ages, there was no anarchistic activity except some ascetic religious movements in the Muslim world or in Christian Europe. This kind of tradition later gave birth to religious anarchism. In the Sasanian Empire, Mazdak called for an egalitarian society and the abolition of monarchy, only to be soon executed by Emperor Kavad I.[16]
+
+In Basra, religious sects preached against the state. In Europe, various sects developed anti-state and libertarian tendencies. Libertarian ideas further emerged during the Renaissance with the spread of reasoning and humanism through Europe. Novelists fictionalised ideal societies that were based not on coercion but voluntarism. The Enlightenment further pushed towards anarchism with the optimism for social progress.[17]
+
+During the French Revolution, partisan groups such as the Enragés and the sans-culottes saw a turning point in the fermentation of anti-state and federalist sentiments.[18] The first anarchist currents developed throughout the 18th century—William Godwin espoused philosophical anarchism in England, morally delegitimizing the state, Max Stirner's thinking paved the way to individualism, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's theory of mutualism found fertile soil in France.[19] This era of classical anarchism lasted until the end of the Spanish Civil War of 1936 and is considered the golden age of anarchism.[19]
+
+Drawing from mutualism, Mikhail Bakunin founded collectivist anarchism and entered the International Workingmen's Association, a class worker union later known as the First International that formed in 1864 to unite diverse revolutionary currents. The International became a significant political force, with Karl Marx being a leading figure and a member of its General Council. Bakunin's faction (the Jura Federation) and Proudhon's followers (the mutualists) opposed Marxist state socialism, advocating political abstentionism and small property holdings.[20] After bitter disputes, the Bakuninists were expelled from the International by the Marxists at the 1872 Hague Congress.[21] Bakunin famously predicted that if revolutionaries gained power by Marx's terms, they would end up the new tyrants of workers. After being expelled, anarchists formed the St. Imier International. Under the influence of Peter Kropotkin, a Russian philosopher and scientist, anarcho-communism overlapped with collectivism.[22] Anarcho-communists, who drew inspiration from the 1871 Paris Commune, advocated for free federation and for the distribution of goods according to one's needs.[23]
+
+At the turn of the century, anarchism had spread all over the world.[24] In China, small groups of students imported the humanistic pro-science version of anarcho-communism.[25] Tokyo was a hotspot for rebellious youth from countries of the far east, travelling to the Japanese capital to study.[26] In Latin America, Argentina was a stronghold for anarcho-syndicalism, where it became the most prominent left-wing ideology.[27] During this time, a minority of anarchists adopted tactics of revolutionary political violence. This strategy became known as propaganda of the deed.[28] The dismemberment of the French socialist movement into many groups, and the execution and exile of many Communards to penal colonies following the suppression of the Paris Commune, favoured individualist political expression and acts.[29] Even though many anarchists distanced themselves from these terrorist acts, infamy came upon the movement.[28] Illegalism was another strategy which some anarchists adopted during this period.[30]
+
+Anarchists enthusiastically participated in the Russian Revolution—despite concerns—in opposition to the Whites. However, they met harsh suppression after the Bolshevik government was stabilized. Several anarchists from Petrograd and Moscow fled to Ukraine,[31] notably leading to the Kronstadt rebellion and Nestor Makhno's struggle in the Free Territory. With the anarchists being crushed in Russia, two new antithetical currents emerged, namely platformism and synthesis anarchism. The former sought to create a coherent group that would push for revolution while the latter were against anything that would resemble a political party. Seeing the victories of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the resulting Russian Civil War, many workers and activists turned to communist parties, which grew at the expense of anarchism and other socialist movements. In France and the United States, members of major syndicalist movements, the General Confederation of Labour and Industrial Workers of the World, left their organisations and joined the Communist International.[32]
+
+In the Spanish Civil War, anarchists and syndicalists (CNT and FAI) once again allied themselves with various currents of leftists. A long tradition of Spanish anarchism led to anarchists playing a pivotal role in the war. In response to the army rebellion, an anarchist-inspired movement of peasants and workers, supported by armed militias, took control of Barcelona and of large areas of rural Spain, where they collectivised the land.[33] The Soviet Union provided some limited assistance at the beginning of the war, but the result was a bitter fight among communists and anarchists at a series of events named May Days as Joseph Stalin tried to seize control of the Republicans.[34]
+
+At the end of World War II, the anarchist movement was severely weakened.[35] However, the 1960s witnessed a revival of anarchism likely caused by a perceived failure of Marxism–Leninism and tensions built by the Cold War.[36] During this time, anarchism took root in other movements critical towards both the state and capitalism, such as the anti-nuclear, environmental and pacifist movements, the New Left, and the counterculture of the 1960s.[37] Anarchism became associated with punk subculture, as exemplified by bands such as Crass and the Sex Pistols,[38] and the established feminist tendencies of anarcha-feminism returned with vigour during the second wave of feminism.[39]
+
+Around the turn of the 21st century, anarchism grew in popularity and influence within anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-globalisation movements.[40] Anarchists became known for their involvement in protests against the World Trade Organization, the Group of Eight and the World Economic Forum. During the protests, ad hoc leaderless anonymous cadres known as black blocs engaged in rioting, property destruction, and violent confrontations with the police. Other organisational tactics pioneered in this time include security culture, affinity groups, and the use of decentralised technologies such as the internet. A significant event of this period was the confrontations at the WTO conference in Seattle in 1999.[40] Anarchist ideas have been influential in the development of the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, more commonly known as Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.[41]
+
+Anarchist schools of thought have been generally grouped into two main historical traditions, social anarchism and individualist anarchism, owing to their different origins, values and evolution.[42] The individualist current emphasises negative liberty in opposing restraints upon the free individual, while the social current emphasises positive liberty in aiming to achieve the free potential of society through equality and social ownership.[43] In a chronological sense, anarchism can be segmented by the classical currents of the late 19th century, and the post-classical currents (such as anarcha-feminism, green anarchism and post-anarchism) developed thereafter.[44]
+
+Beyond the specific factions of anarchist movements which constitute political anarchism lies philosophical anarchism, which holds that the state lacks moral legitimacy, without necessarily accepting the imperative of revolution to eliminate it.[45] A component especially of individualist anarchism,[46] philosophical anarchism may tolerate the existence of a minimal state, but argues that citizens have no moral obligation to obey government when it conflicts with individual autonomy.[47] Anarchism pays significant attention to moral arguments since ethics have a central role in anarchist philosophy.[48]
+
+One reaction against sectarianism within the anarchist milieu was anarchism without adjectives, a call for toleration and unity among anarchists first adopted by Fernando Tarrida del Mármol in 1889 in response to the bitter debates of anarchist theory at the time.[49] Despite separation, the various anarchist schools of thought are not seen as distinct entities, but as tendencies that intermingle.[50]
+
+Anarchism is usually placed on the far-left of the political spectrum.[51] Much of its economics and legal philosophy reflect anti-authoritarian, anti-statist, and libertarian interpretations of the radical left-wing and socialist politics[52] of collectivism, communism, individualism, mutualism, and syndicalism, among other libertarian socialist economic theories.[53] As anarchism does not offer a fixed body of doctrine from a single particular worldview,[54] many anarchist types and traditions exist, and varieties of anarchy diverge widely.[55]
+
+Inceptive currents among classical anarchist currents were mutualism and individualism. They were followed by the major currents of social anarchism (collectivist, communist, and syndicalist). They differ on organizational and economic aspects of their ideal society.[57]
+
+Mutualism is an 18th-century economic theory that was developed into anarchist theory by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Its aims include reciprocity, free association, voluntary contract, federation, and credit and currency reform that would be regulated by a bank of the people.[58] Mutualism has been retrospectively characterised as ideologically situated between individualist and collectivist forms of anarchism.[59] Proudhon first characterised his goal as a "third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property".[60]
+
+Collectivist anarchism, also known as anarchist collectivism or anarcho-collectivism,[61] is a revolutionary socialist form of anarchism commonly associated with Mikhail Bakunin.[62] Collectivist anarchists advocate collective ownership of the means of production, theorised to be achieved through violent revolution,[63] and that workers be paid according to time worked, rather than goods being distributed according to need as in communism. Collectivist anarchism arose alongside Marxism, but rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat despite the stated Marxist goal of a collectivist stateless society.[64] Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist-communism, communist anarchism, and libertarian communism, is a theory of anarchism that advocates a communist society with common ownership of the means of production,[65] direct democracy, and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".[66] Anarcho-communism developed from radical socialist currents after the French Revolution,[67] but it was first formulated as such in the Italian section of the First International.[68] It was later expanded upon in the theoretical work of Peter Kropotkin.[69]
+
+Anarcho-syndicalism, also referred to as revolutionary syndicalism, is a branch of anarchism that views labour syndicates as a potential force for revolutionary social change, replacing capitalism and the state with a new society democratically self-managed by workers. The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are workers' solidarity, direct action, and workers' self-management.[70]
+
+Individualist anarchism refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasise the individual and their will over any kinds of external determinants.[71]  Early influences on individualist forms of anarchism include William Godwin, Max Stirner and Henry David Thoreau. Through many countries, individualist anarchism attracted a small yet diverse following of Bohemian artists and intellectuals[72] as well as young anarchist outlaws in what became known as illegalism and individual reclamation.[73]
+
+Anarchist principles undergird contemporary radical social movements of the left. Interest in the anarchist movement developed alongside momentum in the anti-globalization movement,[74] whose leading activist networks were anarchist in orientation.[75] As the movement shaped 21st century radicalism, wider embrace of anarchist principles signaled a revival of interest.[75] Contemporary news coverage which emphasizes black bloc demonstrations has reinforced anarchism's historical association with chaos and violence, although its publicity has also led more scholars to engage with the anarchist movement.[74] Anarchism has continued to generate many philosophies and movements—at times eclectic, drawing upon various sources, and syncretic, combining disparate concepts to create new philosophical approaches.[76] The anti-capitalist tradition of classical anarchism has remained prominent within contemporary currents.[77]
+
+Various anarchist groups, tendencies, and schools of thought exist today, making it difficult to describe contemporary anarchist movement.[78] While theorists and activists have established "relatively stable constellations of anarchist principles", there is no consensus on which principles are core. As a result, commentators describe multiple "anarchisms" (rather than a singular "anarchism") in which common principles are shared between schools of anarchism while each group prioritizes those principles differently. For example, gender equality can be a common principle but ranks as a higher priority to anarcha-feminists than anarchist communists.[79] Anarchists are generally committed against coercive authority in all forms, namely "all centralized and hierarchical forms of government (e.g., monarchy, representative democracy, state socialism, etc.), economic class systems (e.g., capitalism, Bolshevism, feudalism, slavery, etc.), autocratic religions (e.g., fundamentalist Islam, Roman Catholicism, etc.), patriarchy, heterosexism, white supremacy, and imperialism".[80] However, anarchist schools disagree on the methods by which these forms should be opposed.[81]
+
+Anarchists' tactics take various forms but in general serve two major goals—first, to oppose the Establishment; and second, to promote anarchist ethics and reflect an anarchist vision of society, illustrating the unity of means and ends.[82] A broad categorization can be made between aims to destroy oppressive states and institutions by revolutionary means, and aims to change society through evolutionary means.[83] Evolutionary tactics reject violence and take a gradual approach to anarchist aims, though there is significant overlap between the two.[84]
+
+Anarchist tactics have shifted during the course of the last century. Anarchists during the early 20th century focused more on strikes and militancy, while contemporary anarchists use a broader array of approaches.[85]
+
+During the classical era, anarchists had a militant tendency. Not only did they confront state armed forces (as in Spain and Ukraine) but some of them also employed terrorism as propaganda of the deed. Assassination attempts were carried out against heads of state, some of which were successful. Anarchists also took part in revolutions.[86] Anarchist perspectives towards violence have always been perplexing and controversial.[87] On one hand, anarcho-pacifists point out the unity of means and ends.[88] On the other hand, other anarchist groups advocate direct action, a tactic which can include acts of sabotage or even acts of terrorism. This attitude was quite prominent a century ago; seeing the state as a tyrant, some anarchists believed that they had every right to oppose its oppression by any means possible.[89] Emma Goldman and Errico Malatesta, who were proponents of limited use of violence, argued that violence is merely a reaction to state violence as a necessary evil.[90]
+
+Anarchists took an active role in strikes, although they tended to be antipathetic to formal syndicalism, seeing it as reformist. They saw it as a part of the movement which sought to overthrow the state and capitalism.[91] Anarchists also reinforced their propaganda within the arts, some of whom practiced nudism. They also built communities which were based on friendship. They were also involved in the press.[92]
+
+In the current era, Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, a proponent of insurrectionary anarchism, has reinstated the debate on violence by rejecting the nonviolence tactic adopted since the late 19th century by Kropotkin and other prominent anarchists afterwards. Both Bonanno and the French group The Invisible Committee advocate for small, informal affiliation groups, where each member is responsible for their own actions but works together to bring down oppression utilizing sabotage and other violent means against state, capitalism and other enemies. Members of The Invisible Committee were arrested in 2008 on various charges, terrorism included.[93]
+
+Overall, today's anarchists are much less violent and militant than their ideological ancestors. They mostly engage in confronting the police during demonstrations and riots, especially in countries like Canada, Mexico or Greece. Μilitant black bloc protest groups are known for clashing with the police.[94] However, anarchists not only clash with state operators; they also engage in the struggle against fascists and racists, taking anti-fascist action and mobilizing to prevent hate rallies from happening.[95]
+
+Anarchists commonly employ direct action. This can take the form of disrupting and protesting against unjust hierarchy, or the form of self-managing their lives through the creation of counter-institutions such as communes and non-hierarchical collectives.[83] Often, decision-making is handled in an anti-authoritarian way, with everyone having equal say in each decision, an approach known as horizontalism.[96] Contemporary-era anarchists have been engaging with various grassroots movements that are not explicitly anarchist but are more or less based on horizontalism, respecting personal autonomy, and participating in mass activism such as strikes and demonstrations. The newly coined term "small-a anarchism", in contrast with the "big-A anarchism" of the classical era, signals their tendency not to base their thoughts and actions on classical-era anarchism or to refer to Kropotkin or Proudhon to justify their opinions. They would rather base their thought and praxis on their own experience, which they will later theorize.[97]
+
+The decision-making process of small affinity anarchist groups play a significant tactical role.[98] Anarchists have employed various methods in order to build a rough consensus among members of their group, without the need of a leader or a leading group. One way is for an individual from the group to play the role of facilitator to help achieve a consensus without taking part in the discussion themselves or promoting a specific point. Minorities usually accept rough consensus, except when they feel the proposal contradicts anarchist goals, values, or ethics. Anarchists usually form small groups (5–20 individuals) to enhance autonomy and friendships among their members. These kind of groups more often than not interconnect with each other, forming larger networks. Anarchists still support and participate in strikes, especially wildcat strikes; these are leaderless strikes not organised centrally by a syndicate.[99]
+
+Anarchists have gone online to spread their message. As in the past, newspapers and journals are used; however, because of distributional and other difficulties, anarchists have found it easier to create websites, hosting electronic libraries and other portals.[100] Anarchists were also involved in developing various software that are available for free. The way these hacktivists work to develop and distribute resembles the anarchist ideals, especially when it comes to preserving user's privacy from state surveillance.[101]
+
+Anarchists organize themselves to squat and reclaim public spaces. During important events such as protests and when spaces are being occupied, they are often called Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ), spaces where surrealism, poetry and art are blended to display the anarchist ideal.[102] As seen by anarchists, squatting is a way to regain urban space from the capitalist market, serving pragmatical needs, and is also seen an exemplary direct action.[103] Acquiring space enables anarchists to experiment with their ideas and build social bonds.[104] Adding up these tactics, and having in mind that not all anarchists share the same attitudes towards them, along with various forms of protesting at highly symbolic events, make up a carnivalesque atmosphere that is part of contemporary anarchist vividity.[105]
+
+As anarchism is a philosophy that embodies many diverse attitudes, tendencies, and schools of thought, and disagreement over questions of values, ideology, and tactics is common, its diversity has led to widely different uses of identical terms among different anarchist traditions, which has created a number of definitional concerns in anarchist theory. For instance, the compatibility of capitalism,[106] nationalism and religion with anarchism is widely disputed. Similarly, anarchism enjoys complex relationships with ideologies such as Marxism, communism, collectivism and trade unionism. Anarchists may be motivated by humanism, divine authority, enlightened self-interest, veganism, or any number of alternative ethical doctrines. Phenomena such as civilisation, technology (e.g. within anarcho-primitivism) and the democratic process may be sharply criticised within some anarchist tendencies and simultaneously lauded in others.[107]
+
+Gender and sexuality carry along them dynamics of hierarchy; anarchism is obliged to address, analyse and oppose the suppression of one's autonomy because of the dynamics that gender roles traditionally impose.[108]
+
+A historical current that arose and flourished during 1890 and 1920 within anarchism was free love; in contemporary anarchism, this current survives as a tendency to support polyamory and queer anarchism.[109] Free love advocates were against marriage, which they saw as a way of men imposing authority over women, largely because marriage law greatly favoured the power of men. The notion of free love, though, was much broader; it included critique of the established order that limited women's sexual freedom and pleasure.[110] Such free love movements contributed to the establishment of communal houses, where large groups of travelers, anarchists, and other activists slept in beds together.[111] Free love had roots both in Europe and the United States. Some anarchists, however, struggled with the jealousy that arose from free love.[112] Anarchist feminists were advocates of free love, against marriage, were pro-choice (utilizing a contemporary term) and had a likewise agenda. Anarchist and non-anarchist feminists differed on suffrage, but were nonetheless supportive of one another.[113]
+
+During the second half of the 20th century, anarchism intermingled with the second wave of feminism, radicalizing some currents of the feminist movement (and being influenced as well). By the latest decades of the 20th century, anarchists and feminists were advocating for the rights and autonomy of women, gays, queers and other marginalized groups, with some feminist thinkers suggesting a fusion of the two currents.[114] With the third wave of feminism, sexual identity and compulsory heterosexuality became a subject of study for anarchists, which yielded a post-structuralist critique of sexual normality.[115] However, some anarchists distanced themselves from this line of thinking, suggesting that it leaned towards individualism and was, therefore, dropping the cause of social liberation.[116]
+
+The interest of anarchists in education stretches back to the first emergence of classical anarchism. Anarchists consider 'proper' education, which sets the foundations of the future autonomy of the individual and the society, to be an act of mutual aid.[118] Anarchist writers such as Willian Godwin and Max Stirner attacked both state education and private education as another means by which the ruling class replicate their privileges.[119]
+
+In 1901, Catalan anarchist and free thinker Francisco Ferrer established the Escuela Moderna in Barcelona as an opposition to the established education system, which was dictated largely by the Catholic Church.[120] Ferrer's approach was secular, rejecting both state and church involvement in the educational process, and gave pupils large amounts of autonomy in planning their work and attendance. Ferrer aimed to educate the working class and explicitly sought to foster class consciousness among students. The school closed after constant harassment by the state and Ferrer was later arrested. His ideas, however, formed the inspiration for a series of modern schools around the world.[121] Christian anarchist Leo Tolstoy also established a similar school, with its founding principle, according to Tolstoy, being that "for education to be effective it had to be free".[122] In a similar token, A. S. Neill founding what became Summerhill School in 1921, also declaring being free from coercion.[123]
+
+Anarchist education is based largely on the idea that a child's right to develop freely, without manipulation, ought to be respected, and that rationality will lead children to morally good conclusions. However, there has been little consensus among anarchist figures as to what constitutes manipulation; Ferrer, for example, believed that moral indoctrination was necessary and explicitly taught pupils that equality, liberty, and social justice were not possible under capitalism (along with other critiques of nationalism and government).[124][125]
+
+Late 20th century and contemporary anarchist writers (such as Colin Ward, Herbert Read and Paul Goodman) intensified and expanded the anarchist critique of state education, largely focusing on the need for a system that focuses on children's creativity rather than on their ability to attain a career or participate in consumer society.[126] Contemporary anarchists, such as Colin Ward, have further argued that state education serves to perpetuate socio-economic inequality.[127]
+
+While few anarchist education institutions have survived to the modern day, major tenets of anarchist schools, such as respect for child autonomy and relying on reasoning rather than indoctrination as a teaching method, have spread among mainstream educational institutions.[128]
+
+Objection to the state and its institutions is a sine qua non of anarchism.[129] Anarchists consider the state as a tool of domination and believe it to be illegitimate regardless of its political tendencies. Instead of people being able to control the aspects of their life, major decisions are taken by a small elite. Authority ultimately rests solely on power, regardless of whether that power is open or transparent, as it still has the ability to coerce people. Another anarchist argument against states is that the people constituting a government, even the most altruistic among officials, will unavoidably seek to gain more power, leading to corruption. Anarchists consider the idea that the state is the collective will of the people to be an unachievable fiction, due to the fact that the ruling class is distinct from the rest of society.[130]
+
+The connection between anarchism and art was quite profound during the classical era of anarchism, especially among artistic currents that were developing during that era, such as futurists, surrealists, and others,[133] while in literature anarchism was mostly associated with the New Apocalyptics and the Neo-romanticism movement.[134] In music, anarchism has been associated with music scenes such as Punk.[135] Anarchists such as Leo Tolstoy and Herbert Read argued that the border between the artist and the non-artist, what separates art from a daily act, is a construct produced by the alienation caused by capitalism, and it prevents humans from living a joyful life.[136]
+
+Other anarchists advocated for or used art as a means to achieve anarchist ends.[137] In his book Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas Chris Robé claims that "anarchist-inflected practices have increasingly structured movement-based video activism."[138]
+
+Three overlapping properties made art useful to anarchists: It could depict a critique of existing society and hierarchies; it could serve as a prefigurative tool to reflect the anarchist ideal society, and also it could turn into a means of direct action, in protests for example. As it appeals to both emotion and reason, art could appeal to the "whole human" and have a powerful effect.[139]
+
+Philosophy lecturer Andrew G. Fiala has listed five main arguments against anarchism. Firstly, he notes that anarchism is related to violence and destruction, not only in the pragmatic world (i.e. at protests) but in the world of ethics as well. The second argument is that it is impossible for a society to function without a state or something like a state, acting to protect citizens from criminality. Fiala takes Leviathan from Thomas Hobbes and the night-watchman state from philosopher Robert Nozick as examples. Thirdly, anarchism is evaluated as unfeasible or utopian since the state can not be defeated practically; this line of arguments most often calls for political action within the system to reform it. The fourth argument is that anarchism is self-contradictory since while it advocates for no-one to archiei, if accepted by the many, then anarchism will turn into the ruling political theory. In this line of criticism also comes the self contradiction that anarchist calls for collective action while anarchism endorses the autonomy of the individual and hence no collective action can be taken. Lastly, Fiala mentions a critique towards philosophical anarchism, of being ineffective (all talk and thoughts) and in the meantime capitalism and bourgeois class remains strong.[140]
+
+Philosophical anarchism has met the criticism of members of academia, following the release of pro-anarchist books such as A. John Simmons' Moral Principles and Political Obligations (1979).[141] Law professor William A. Edmundson authored an essay arguing against three major philosophical anarchist principles, which he finds fallacious; Edmundson claims that while the individual does not owe a normal state[ambiguous] a duty of obedience, this does not imply that anarchism is the inevitable conclusion, and the state is still morally legitimate.[142]
+