Background.

After growing rapidly in the 19th century during the Railway Mania, the British railway system reached its height in the years immediately before the First World War, with a network of. The network had opened up major travel opportunities for the entire country that had never been possible before. However, lines were sometimes uneconomic and several Members of Parliament had direct involvement with railways, creating a conflict of interest. In 1909, Winston Churchill, then President of the Board of Trade, argued that the country's railways did not have a future without rationalisation and amalgamation. By 1914, the railways had some significant issues, such as a lack of standard rolling stock and too many duplicated routes.  After the war, the railways faced increasing competition from a growing road transport network, which had increased to 8 million tons of freight annually by 1921. Around of passenger railways closed between 1923 and 1939. These closures included the Charnwood Forest Railway, previously closed to passengers in 1931; the Harborne Line in Birmingham, closed to passengers in 1934. Some lines had never been profitable and were not subject to loss of traffic in that period. The railways were busy during the Second World War, but at the end of the war they were in a poor state of repair and were soon nationalised as British Railways.  The Branch Lines Committee of the British Transport Commission (BTC) was formed in 1949 with a brief to close the least-used branch lines; of railway were closed between 1948 and 1962. The most significant of these was the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, closed in 1959. This period saw the beginning of a closures protest movement led by the Railway Development Association, whose most famous member was the poet John Betjeman. They went on to be a significant force resisting the Beeching proposals.  Economic recovery and the end of petrol rationing led to rapid growth in car ownership and use. Vehicle mileage grew at a sustained annual rate of 10% between 1948 and 1964. In contrast, railway traffic remained steady during the 1950s but the economics steadily deteriorated, with labour costs rising faster than income and fares and freight charges repeatedly frozen by the government to try to control inflation. By 1955, the share of the transport market from railways had dropped from 16% to 5%.  The 1955 Modernisation Plan promised expenditure of over £1,240 million; steam locomotives would be replaced with diesel and electric locomotives, traffic levels would increase, and the system was predicted to be back in profit by 1962. Instead losses mounted, from £68 million in 1960 to £87 million in 1961, and £104 million in 1962 (£ billion in terms). The BTC could no longer pay the interest on its loans. The government lost patience and looked for radical solutions.  By 1961 losses were running at £300,000 a day; since nationalisation in 1948, of line had been closed, railway staff numbers had fallen 26% from 648,000 to 474,000 and the number of railway wagons had fallen 29% from 1,200,000 to 848,000.

The Beeching reports.

"The Reshaping of British Railways" (The Beeching report).

The report The Reshaping of British Railways (or Beeching I report) was published on 27 March 1963.

The problem.

The report starts by quoting the brief provided by the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, from 1960: "First, the industry must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be modelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape" and with the premise that the railways should be run as a profitable business.  Beeching first studied traffic flows on all lines to identify "the good, the bad, and the indifferent". His analysis showed that the least-used 1,762 stations had annual passenger receipts of less than £2,500 each (£ as of ), that over half of the 4,300 stations open to passengers in 1960 had receipts of less than £10,000, that the least-used 50% of stations contributed only 2% of passenger revenue, and that one third of route miles carried just 1% of passengers.  By way of example, he noted that the line from Thetford to Swaffham carried five trains each weekday in each direction, carrying an average of nine passengers with only 10% of the costs of operating the line covered by fares; another example was the Gleneagles-Crieff-Comrie line which had ten trains a day and five passengers on average earning only 25% of costs. Finally there was the service from Hull to York via Beverley (using part of the Yorkshire Coast Line, which was not closed, and the York to Beverley Line, which was). The line covered 80% of its operating costs, but he calculated that it could be closed because there was an alternative, but less direct, route.

The recommendations.

Out of of railway, Beeching recommended that —mostly rural and industrial lines—should be closed entirely, and that some of the remaining lines should be kept open only for freight. A total of 2,363 stations were to close, including 435 already under threat, both on lines that were to close and on lines that were to remain open.  He recommended that freight services should mainly be for minerals and coal, and that the freight system made use of new containerised handling systems rather than less efficient and slower wagon-load traffic.

"The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes" (Beeching II).

On 16 February 1965, Beeching announced the second stage of his reorganisation of the railways. In his report, The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes, he set out his conclusion that of the of trunk railway only "should be selected for future development" and invested in.  This policy would result in traffic being routed along nine lines. Traffic to Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Scotland would be routed through the West Coast Main Line to Carlisle and Glasgow; traffic to the north-east would be concentrated through the East Coast Main Line, which was to be closed north of Newcastle; and traffic to Wales and the West Country would go on the Great Western Main Line to Swansea and Plymouth.  Underpinning Beeching's proposals was his belief that there was too much duplication in the railway network: "The real choice is between an excessive and increasingly un-economic system, with a corresponding tendency for the railways as a whole to fall into disrepute and decay, or the selective development and intensive utilisation of a more limited trunk route system". Of the of trunk route, involves a choice between two routes, a choice of three, and over a further a choice of four. In Scotland only the Central Belt routes and the lines via Fife and Perth to Aberdeen were selected for development, and none were selected in Wales, apart from the Great Western Main Line as far as Swansea.  Beeching's secondment from ICI ended early in June 1965 after Harold Wilson's attempt to get him to produce a transport plan failed. It is a matter of debate whether Beeching left by mutual arrangement with the government or if he was sacked. Frank Cousins, the Labour Minister of Technology, told the House of Commons in November 1965 that Beeching had been dismissed by Tom Fraser. Beeching denied this, pointing out that he had returned early to ICI as he would not have had enough time to undertake an in-depth transport study before the formal end of his secondment.

The closures.

The first report was accepted by the Government, but many of the closures it recommended sparked protests from communities that would lose their trains, many of which (especially rural communities) had no other public transport. The government argued that many services could be provided more effectively by buses.  Line closures, which had been running at about 150–300 miles per year between 1950 and 1961, peaked at in 1964 and had come to a virtual halt by the early 1970s. One of the last major closures was the 98-mile long (158 km) Waverley Route between Carlisle, Hawick and Edinburgh in 1969; the reopening of a 35-mile section of this line was approved in 2006 and passenger services resumed in September 2015.  Holiday and coastal resorts were severely affected by the closures. The report recommended closing almost all services along the coasts of north Devon, Cornwall and East Anglia aside from Norwich to Great Yarmouth. All services on the Isle of Wight were recommended for closure, as were all branch lines in the Lake District. One of the most significant closures was the Great Central Main Line from London Marylebone to Leicester and Sheffield.  Not all the recommended closures were implemented. Reprieved lines include:  The Beeching Report was intended to be the first stage in the rail network's contraction. As a result, some lines it had not recommended for closure were subsequently shut down, such as the Woodhead Line between Manchester and Sheffield in 1981, after the freight traffic (mostly coal) on which it had relied declined. Many surviving lines were rationalised, including reduction to single track and consolidation of signals. Most of the Oxford–Cambridge Varsity Line closed despite its strategic location serving Milton Keynes, Britain's largest "new town". Kinross-shire, and Fife especially, suffered closures not included in the Report, including the main line from Edinburgh to Perth. King's Lynn was to have remained at the centre of routes towards Norwich, Hunstanton and Wisbech, all of which closed.  With a few exceptions, after the early 1970s proposals to close other lines were met with vociferous public opposition and were quietly shelved. This opposition likely stemmed from the public experience of the many line closures during the cuts in the mid- and late 1960s.

Critical analysis.

Disposals of land and structures.

Beeching's reports made no recommendations about the handling of land after closures. British Rail operated a policy of disposing of land that was surplus to requirements. Many bridges, cuttings and embankments have been removed and the land sold for development. Closed station buildings on remaining lines have often been demolished or sold for housing or other purposes. Increasing pressure on land use meant that protection of closed trackbeds, as in other countries (such as the US Rail Bank scheme, which holds former railway land for possible future use) was not seen to be practical. Many redundant structures from closed lines remain, such as bridges over other lines and drainage culverts. They often require maintenance as part of the rail infrastructure while providing no benefit. Critics of Beeching argue that the lack of recommendations on the handling of closed railway property demonstrates that the report was short-sighted. On the other hand, retaining a railway on these routes, which would obviously have increased maintenance costs, might not have earned enough to justify that greater cost. As demand for rail has grown since the 1990s, the failure to preserve the routes of closed lines (such as the one between Bedford and Cambridge, which was closed despite Beeching recommending its retention) has been criticised.

Acceptance of rail subsidies.

By 1968 the railways had not been restored to profitability and Beeching's approach appeared to many to have failed. It has been suggested that by closing almost a third of the network Beeching achieved a saving of just £30 million, whilst overall losses were running in excess of £100 million per year. However, the precise savings from closures are impossible to calculate. The Ministry of Transport subsequently estimated that rail operating costs had been cut by over £100 million in the wake of the Beeching Report but that much of this had been swallowed up by increased wages. Some of the branches closed acted as feeders to the main lines, and that feeder traffic was lost when the branches closed; the financial significance of this is debatable, for over 90% of the railways' 1960 traffic was carried on lines which remained open ten years later.  Whatever the figures, towards the end of the 1960s it became increasingly clear that rail closures were not bringing the rail system out of deficit and were unlikely ever to do so. Transport minister Barbara Castle decided that some rail services, which could not pay their way but had a valuable social role, should be subsidised. Legislation allowing this was introduced in the Transport Act 1968 (section 39 made provision for a subsidy to be paid by the Treasury for a three-year period) but this was later repealed in the Railways Act 1974. Whether these subsidies affected the size of the network is questionable: the criteria for reprieving loss-making lines had not altered, merely the way their costs appeared in the railways accounts—previously their contribution to the railways' overall loss was hidden in the total deficit.

Replacement buses and proposed alternatives.

The "bustitution" policy that replaced rail services with buses also failed. In many cases the replacement bus services were slower and less convenient than the trains they were meant to replace, and so were unpopular. Replacement bus services were often run between the (now disused) station sites (some of which were some distance from the population centres they served), thus losing any potential advantage over the closed rail service. Most replacement bus services lasted less than two years before they were removed due to a lack of patronage, leaving large parts of the country with no public transport.  The assumption at the time was that car owners would drive to the nearest railhead (which was usually the junction where the closed branch line would otherwise have taken them) and continue their journey onwards by train. In practice, having left home in their cars, people used them for the whole journey. Similarly for freight: without branch lines, the railways' ability to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically reduced. As in the passenger model, it was assumed that lorries would pick up goods and transport them to the nearest railhead, where they would be taken across the country by train, unloaded onto another lorry and taken to their destination. The development of the motorway network, the advent of containerisation, improvements in lorries and the economic costs of having two break-bulk points combined to make long-distance road transport a more viable alternative.  Many of the closed lines had run at only a small deficit. Some lines such as the Sunderland-to-West Hartlepool line cost only £291 per mile to operate. Closures of such small-scale loss-making lines made little difference to the overall deficit.  Possible changes to light railway-type operations were attacked by Beeching, who wrote: "The third suggestion, that rail buses should be substituted for trains, ignores the high cost of providing the route itself, and also ignores the fact that rail buses are more expensive vehicles than road buses." There is little in the Beeching report recommending general economies (in administration costs, working practices and so on). For example, a number of the stations that were closed were fully staffed 18 hours a day, on lines controlled by multiple Victorian era-signalboxes (again fully staffed, often throughout the day). Operating costs could have been reduced by reducing staff and removing redundant services on these lines while keeping the stations open. This has since been successfully achieved by British Rail and its successors on lesser-used lines that survived the cuts, such as the East Suffolk Line from Ipswich to Lowestoft, which survives as a "basic railway".  The Marshlink line between and, threatened with closure in the Beeching Report, is now seen as important due to the opening of the Channel Tunnel and High Speed 1. Traffic on the single-track Golden Valley Line between Kemble and Swindon and the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester has increased significantly, and double track has now been reinstated on the Golden Valley Line, partly to facilitate a diversionary route during electrification and other works on the Severn tunnel line.

The people and the politics.

The Conservatives increased their Commons majority in the general election of 8 October 1959, their first with Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister, who famously said that most people "had never had it so good". Ernest Marples, previously the Postmaster General, was made Transport Minister two weeks later in a cabinet reshuffle; Marples was described by some as "cocky", "flash", "slick" and as a "construction tycoon", and Macmillan noted that the Northern working-class boy who had won a scholarship to a grammar school was one of only two "self-made men" in his cabinet.  Marples had a background with a successful road construction company. When opening the M1 motorway, he said: "This motorway starts a new era in road travel. It is in keeping with the bold scientific age in which we live. It is a powerful weapon to add to our transport system." His association with the high-profile construction company Marples Ridgway became a matter of concern to both the public and politicians. As is customary, he resigned as a director of the company in 1951 on becoming a junior minister, but he only sold his shares in the company in 1960 after the company won a contract to build the Hammersmith Flyover, when questions were asked both in the media and also in the Commons on 28 January 1960; he made a statement to the House later that day confirming that the sale of shares was in hand and would be completed "very soon", noting that as part of the agreement he could be required to buy the shares from the purchaser at the original price after he ceased to hold office, if so desired by the purchaser. He sold the shares to his wife. In July 1964, Marples Ridgway and partners were awarded a £4.1 million contract for the "Hendon Urban Motorway" extension of the M1, in the same year that the company was taken over by the Bath and Portland Group. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing on anyone's part in this or any of the other contracts awarded to the company during his term of office, it did however lead to a sense of unease, not least within the railway sector.  In April 1960, Sir Ivan Stedeford established an advisory group known as the Stedeford Committee at the request of Harold Macmillan to report on the state of the British Transport Commission and to make recommendations. Sir Frank Smith, a retired former Chief Engineer at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), was asked by the Conservative Minister of Transport, Ernest Marples, to become a member of an advisory group; Smith declined but recommended Richard Beeching in his place, a suggestion that Marples accepted. Beeching, with a PhD in Physics, had been appointed to the main board of ICI at the age of 43. The board consisted of senior figures in British businesses, and none of the board had previous knowledge or experience of the railway industry. Stedeford and Beeching clashed on a number of issues, but the future size of the railway system was not one of them. For all the suspicion it aroused, the committee had little to say on this and the government was already convinced of the need to reduce the size of the rail network. In spite of questions being asked in Parliament, Sir Ivan's report was not published at the time. In December 1960 questions were asked in the Lords about this "secret" and "under-the-counter" study group. It was later suggested that Stedeford had recommended that the government should set up another body "to consider the size and pattern of the railway system required to meet current and foreseeable needs, in the light of developments and trends in other forms of transport... and other relevant considerations".  Marples then appointed Beeching as Chairman of the British Transport Commission in March 1961. He would receive the same yearly salary that he was earning at ICI, the controversial sum of £24,000 (£,000 in terms), £10,000 more than Sir Brian Robertson, the previous chairman of the BTC, £14,000 more than Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and two-and-a-half times higher than the salary of any head of a nationalised industry at the time. At that time the government was seeking outside talent to sort out the huge problems of the railway network, and he was confident that he could make the railways pay for themselves, but his salary, at 35 times that of many railway workers, has been described as a "political disaster".  The Transport Act 1962 dissolved the British Transport Commission (BTC), which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established the British Railways Board, which took over on 1 January 1963, with Dr Beeching as its first chairman. The Act put in place measures that simplified the process of closing railways by removing the need for the pros and cons of each case to be heard in detail. It was described as the "most momentous piece of legislation in the field of railway law to have been enacted since the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854".  The Beeching report was published in March 1963, and was adopted by the government; it resulted in the closure of a third of the rail network and the scrapping of a third of a million freight wagons.  The general election in October 1964 returned a Labour government under Prime Minister Harold Wilson after 13 years of Conservative government. During the election campaign Labour had promised to halt rail closures if elected, but it quickly backtracked, and later oversaw some of the most controversial closures. Tom Fraser was appointed Minister of Transport, but was replaced by Barbara Castle in December 1965. Castle published a map in 1967, "Network for Development", showing the railway system "stabilised" at around 11,000 route miles (17,700 km).  Section 39 of the Transport Act 1968 made provision for grants to be paid in relation to loss-making lines and services, but many of the services and railway lines that would have qualified had already been closed. A number of branch lines and local services were saved by this legislation.  After 1970, when the Conservatives were returned to power, serious thought was given to a further programme of closures, but this proved politically impossible. In 1983, under the government of Margaret Thatcher, Sir David Serpell, a civil servant who had worked with Beeching, compiled the Serpell Report which said that a profitable railway could be achieved only by closing much of what remained. The infamous "Option A" in this report was illustrated by a map of a vestigial system with, for example, no railways west of Bristol or Cardiff and none in Scotland apart from the central belt. Serpell was shown to have some serious weaknesses, such as the closure of the Midland Main Line (a busy route for coal to power stations), and the East Coast Main Line between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh, part of the key London/Edinburgh link. The report met fierce resistance from many quarters and was quickly abandoned.  Ian Hislop comments that history has been somewhat unkind to "Britain's most hated civil servant", by forgetting that he proposed a much better bus service that ministers never delivered, and that in some ways he was used to do their "dirty work for them". Hislop describes Beeching as "a technocrat [who] wasn't open to argument to romantic notions of rural England or the warp and weft of the train in our national identity. He didn't buy any of that. He went for a straightforward profit and loss approach and some claim we are still reeling from that today". Beeching was unrepentant about his role in the closures: "I suppose I'll always be looked upon as the axe man, but it was surgery, not mad chopping".  On 7 June 2019, former Minister for Transport Andrew Adonis delivered a speech on "Reversing Beeching".

Reopenings.

Since the Beeching cuts, road traffic levels have grown significantly and since privatisation in the mid-1990s there have been record levels of passengers on the railways owing to a preference to living in smaller towns and rural areas, and in turn commuting longer distances (although the impact of this is disputed). A few of the railway closures have been reversed. However, despite the considerable increase in railway journeys since the mid-1990s, rail transport's share of the total passenger transport market remains below that of the early 1960s, with road overwhelmingly the dominant mode: rail's market share was 13% in 1961, 6% in 1991 and 2001, and 10% in 2014.  A few closed stations have reopened, and passenger services been restored on a few lines where they had been removed.

Heritage railways.

Some lines closed under the Beeching cuts have reopened as private heritage railways. Some examples are East Lancs Railway, Mid Hants Railway, North Yorkshire Moors Railway, North Norfolk Railway and West Somerset Railway.

In popular culture.

The BBC TV comedy series "Oh, Doctor Beeching!", broadcast from 1995 to 1997, was set at a small fictional branch-line railway station threatened with closure under the Beeching cuts.  Flanders and Swann, writers and performers of satirical songs, wrote a lament for lines closed by the Beeching cuts entitled "Slow Train". Michael Williams' book "On the slow train" takes its name from the Flanders and Swann song. It celebrates 12 of the most beautiful and historic journeys in Britain, some of which were saved from the Beeching cuts. It perpetuated the myth that the Beeching cuts were concerned solely with sleepy rural branch lines, but they actually also concerned well-used "industrial" and commuter lines.  In the satirical magazine "Private Eye", the "Signal Failures" column on railway issues is written under the pseudonym "Dr. B. Ching".  The lyrics of the I Like Trains song "The Beeching Report" are a criticism of Dr Beeching and the Beeching cuts.

Closures by year.

The list below shows 7000 miles of closures:  After this period, "residual" Beeching closures did occur: Bridport to Maiden Newton (in 1975), Alston to Haltwhistle (in 1976), Woodside to Selsdon (in 1983).

References.

Citations Sources

The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to reduce the route network and restructuring of the railways in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board.

Beechingova reforma (: Beeching Axe) je vžitou přezdívkou pokusu Britské vlády z šedesátých let o snížení provozních nákladů Britských drah. Název je odvozen od autora zprávy "Reforma Britských železnic (The Re-shaping of British Railways)", doktora Richarda Beechinga, axe = sekera, osekávat. Ačkoli zpráva navrhovala nové způsoby nákladní dopravy a modernizaci kmenových osobních tratí, je známa hlavně coby doporučené hromadné uzavírání tratí uvažovaného pro málo zatížené a ztrátové dráhy a zrušení zastávkových vlaků na mnoha dalších tratích.


Water sources.

The chotts of the Sahara are fed intermittently during periods of infrequent rainfall. They are subject to a high evaporation rate, hence salts eventually accumulate in the surface of the sediment. In fact, annual evaporation rates per year in chotts often exceed 20 times the annual precipitation rate. This salt accumulation can lead chotts to have particularly high albedo, albeit with comparable variability as well. While evaporite deposition predominates on chotts, in more humid climatic periods, layers of mud can be deposited on the chott surface. When near a source of loose sand, aeolian deposition can also play a role in the sedimentary deposition on the chott surface.

Sahara Sea.

As many lie below sea level, the chotts of the Sahara were viewed by some European colonialists and engineers as an opportunity to create an inland sea in the Sahara Desert (known by many as the "Sahara Sea") by cutting a canal to the Mediterranean Sea (or in some cases, the Atlantic Ocean). Such a channel would allow water from the sea to flow inland. The hope was that this would facilitate trade and naval warfare, as well as change the climatic conditions of the Sahara.

Analogue to Martian landforms.

Chotts have also been studied because they are believed to be an Earth analogue to similar features on the planet Mars. Although there are considerable differences between terrestrial and Martian geology, some features on Mars are also believed to be evaporite basins, and consequently share at least some features of chotts. One example of a suspected Martian evaporite basin is Holden Crater.

In geology, a chott or shott (; ) is a salt lake in Africa's Maghreb that stays dry for much of the year but receives some water in the winter. The elevation of a chott surface is controlled by the position of the water table and capillary fringe, with sediment deflation occurring when the water table falls and sediment accumulation occurring when the water table rises. They are formed—within variable shores—by the spring thaw from the Atlas mountain range, along with occasional rainwater or groundwater sources in the Sahara, such as the Bas Saharan Basin.

Šot (arabsky šott) je solná pláň, bezodtoká pánev z větší části roku vyschlá. Nachází se zejména v jižním Tunisku, Alžírsku a jihovýchodním Maroku. Její obdobou ve Střední Asii je tzv. takyr.


Biography.

Born in Provins, France, Vernant at first studied philosophy, receiving his agrégation in this field in 1937.  A member of the Young Communists ("Jeunes Communistes"), Vernant joined the French Resistance during World War II and was a member of "Libération-sud" (founded by Emmanuel d'Astier). He later commanded the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) in Haute-Garonne under the pseudonym of "Colonel Berthier." He was a Companion of the Liberation. After the war, he remained a member of the French Communist Party until 1969.  He entered the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in 1948 and, under the influence of Louis Gernet, turned to the study of ancient Greek anthropology. Ten years later, he became director of studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). In 1971 he was professor in the University of São Paulo. This visit was also an act of protest that he made with François Châtelet against the brazilian military government (dictatorship).  He was a member of the French sponsorship committee for the Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. He supported the funding organisation "Non-Violence XXI."  He was awarded the CNRS gold medal in 1984. In 2002, he received an honorary doctorate at the University of Crete.  Vernant died a few days after his 93rd birthday in Sèvres.  After his death, his name was given to a French highschool in Sèvres, le "Lycée Jean-Pierre Vernant".

Influence.

The structuralist approach pioneered by Vernant has been influential on a wide range of classical scholars. More specifically, Vernant's reading of the myth of Prometheus was an important influence on philosopher Bernard Stiegler's book, "".

Criticism.

Vernant's approach has been heavily criticized, particularly among Italian philologists, even by those of Marxist tendencies. He has been accused of a fundamentally ahistorical approach, allegedly going as far as to manipulate his sources by describing them in categories which do not apply (polysemy and ambiguity).

Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and society which would itself be influential among classical scholars. He was an honorary professor at the Collège de France.

Jean-Pierre Vernant (4. ledna 1914 Provins – 9. ledna 2007 Sèvres) byl francouzský historik, antropolog a specialista na starověké Řecko. Pod vlivem díla Claude Lévi-Strausse rozvinul strukturalistický přístup ke studiu starověké řecké mytologie, tragédie a společnosti, který ovlivnil mnohé badatele zabývající se antikou.


Geology.

The geology of the Dachstein massif is dominated by the "Dachstein-Kalk" Formation ("Dachstein limestone"), dating from Triassic times. In common with other karstic areas, the Dachstein is permeated by a rich cave system, including some of the largest caves in Austria, such as the "Mammuthhöhle" and the "Hirlatzhöhle". Another significant tourist destination is the Eisriesenhöhle. The Dachstein is famous for its fossils, including Megalodonts; the "Linzer Weg" leads over many such fossils, which are referred to as "Kuhtritte" ("cattle footprints").  Glaciers are uncommon in the Northern Limestone Alps, and those on the Dachstein — the "Hallstätter Gletscher" ("Hallstatt glacier"), the "Großer Gosaugletscher" ("great Gosau glacier") and the "Schladminger Gletscher" ("Schladming glacier") — are the largest, as well as being the northernmost and the easternmost in the whole of the Alps. Several smaller ice-fields also exist, such as the "Kleine Gosaugletscher" ("lesser Gosau glacier") and the "Schneelochgletscher" ("snow-hole glacier"). The glaciers are retreating rapidly, and may disappear entirely within 80 years. The Hallstatt glacier withdrew by 20 m in the year 2003 alone. By 2018, it is estimated that the glacier has retreated more than 1 km since 1908.

Climbing.

The summit was first reached on July 18, 1834 by Peter Karl Thurwieser, guided by the brothers Adam and Peter Gappmayr, via the Gosau glacier, after an earlier attempt by Erzherzog Karl via the Hallstätter glacier had failed. A wooden cross was erected at the summit during this ascent. The question of the first successful ascent has been a matter of controversial discussion even in contemporary newspaper articles. Two potential summit successes occurred in 1819 and 1823 by Jakob Buchsteiner, the latter of which is today thought to be the first ascent of neighbouring Torstein. The first person to reach the summit in winter was Friedrich Simony, on 14 January 1847. The sheer southern face was first climbed on 22 September 1909 by the brothers Irg and Franz Steiner.  Being the highest point of two different "Bundesländer", the summit is a popular goal in both summer and winter. In fine weather as many as 100 climbers may be attempting the ascent, leading to congestion at key sections of the climb.

Routes.

The best-known routes are These routes require basic alpine equipment for crossing the glaciers and knowledge of climbing. The more interesting climbing routes are concentrated on the south face, the most famous among them being the "Steinerweg" (graded V) and the "Pichlweg" (graded IV).

Hoher Dachstein () is a strongly karstic Austrian mountain, and the second highest mountain in the Northern Limestone Alps. It is situated at the border of Upper Austria and Styria in central Austria, and is the highest point in each of those states. Parts of the massif also lie in the state of Salzburg, leading to the mountain being referred to as the "Drei-Länder-Berg" ("three-state mountain"). The Dachstein massif covers an area of around 20×30 km with dozens of peaks above 2,500 m, the highest of which are in the southern and south-western areas. Seen from the north, the Dachstein massif is dominated by the glaciers with the rocky summits rising beyond them. By contrast, to the south, the mountain drops almost vertically to the valley floor.

Hoher Dachstein je nejvyšší vrchol horského masivu Dachstein a zároveň druhá nejvyšší hora Severních vápencových Alp, jakož i nejvyšší hora Štýrska a Horních Rakous, protože přes vrchol probíhá hranice mezi těmito spolkovými zeměmi.


The endocrine system.

Endocrinology is the study of the endocrine system in the human body. This is a system of glands which secrete hormones. Hormones are chemicals which affect the actions of different organ systems in the body. Examples include thyroid hormone, growth hormone, and insulin. The endocrine system involves a number of feedback mechanisms, so that often one hormone (such as thyroid stimulating hormone) will control the action or release of another secondary hormone (such as thyroid hormone). If there is too much of the secondary hormone, it may provide negative feedback to the primary hormone, maintaining homeostasis.  In the original 1902 definition by Bayliss and Starling (see below), they specified that, to be classified as a hormone, a chemical must be produced by an organ, be released (in small amounts) into the blood, and be transported by the blood to a distant organ to exert its specific function. This definition holds for most "classical" hormones, but there are also paracrine mechanisms (chemical communication between cells within a tissue or organ), autocrine signals (a chemical that acts on the same cell), and intracrine signals (a chemical that acts within the same cell). A neuroendocrine signal is a "classical" hormone that is released into the blood by a neurosecretory neuron (see article on neuroendocrinology).

Hormones.

Griffin and Ojeda identify three different classes of hormones based on their chemical composition:

Amines.

Amines, such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine (catecholamines), are derived from single amino acids, in this case tyrosine. Thyroid hormones such as 3,5,3’-triiodothyronine (T3) and 3,5,3’,5’-tetraiodothyronine (thyroxine, T4) make up a subset of this class because they derive from the combination of two iodinated tyrosine amino acid residues.

Peptide and protein.

Peptide hormones and protein hormones consist of three (in the case of thyrotropin-releasing hormone) to more than 200 (in the case of follicle-stimulating hormone) amino acid residues and can have a molecular mass as large as 31,000 grams per mole. All hormones secreted by the pituitary gland are peptide hormones, as are leptin from adipocytes, ghrelin from the stomach, and insulin from the pancreas.

Steroid.

Steroid hormones are converted from their parent compound, cholesterol. Mammalian steroid hormones can be grouped into five groups by the receptors to which they bind: glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, estrogens, and progestogens. Some forms of vitamin D, such as calcitriol, are steroid-like and bind to homologous receptors, but lack the characteristic fused ring structure of true steroids.

As a profession.

Although every organ system secretes and responds to hormones (including the brain, lungs, heart, intestine, skin, and the kidney), the clinical specialty of endocrinology focuses primarily on the "endocrine organs", meaning the organs whose primary function is hormone secretion. These organs include the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, testes, and pancreas.  An "endocrinologist" is a physician who specializes in treating disorders of the endocrine system, such as diabetes, hyperthyroidism, and many others (see list of diseases).

Work.

The medical specialty of endocrinology involves the diagnostic evaluation of a wide variety of symptoms and variations and the long-term management of disorders of deficiency or excess of one or more hormones.  The diagnosis and treatment of endocrine diseases are guided by laboratory tests to a greater extent than for most specialties. Many diseases are investigated through "excitation/stimulation" or "inhibition/suppression" testing. This might involve injection with a stimulating agent to test the function of an endocrine organ. Blood is then sampled to assess the changes of the relevant hormones or metabolites. An endocrinologist needs extensive knowledge of clinical chemistry and biochemistry to understand the uses and limitations of the investigations.  A second important aspect of the practice of endocrinology is distinguishing human variation from disease. Atypical patterns of physical development and abnormal test results must be assessed as indicative of disease or not. Diagnostic imaging of endocrine organs may reveal incidental findings called incidentalomas, which may or may not represent disease.  Endocrinology involves caring for the person as well as the disease. Most endocrine disorders are chronic diseases that need lifelong care. Some of the most common endocrine diseases include diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism and the metabolic syndrome. Care of diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases necessitates understanding the patient at the personal and social level as well as the molecular, and the physician–patient relationship can be an important therapeutic process.  Apart from treating patients, many endocrinologists are involved in clinical science and medical research, teaching, and hospital management.

Training.

Endocrinologists are specialists of internal medicine or pediatrics. Reproductive endocrinologists deal primarily with problems of fertility and menstrual function—often training first in obstetrics. Most qualify as an internist, pediatrician, or gynecologist for a few years before specializing, depending on the local training system. In the U.S. and Canada, training for board certification in internal medicine, pediatrics, or gynecology after medical school is called residency. Further formal training to subspecialize in adult, pediatric, or reproductive endocrinology is called a fellowship. Typical training for a North American endocrinologist involves 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and 2 years of fellowship. In the US, adult endocrinologists are board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) or the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine (AOBIM) in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism.

Diseases and medicine.

Diseases.

Endocrinology also involves study of the diseases of the endocrine system. These diseases may relate to too little or too much secretion of a hormone, too little or too much action of a hormone, or problems with receiving the hormone.

Societies and organisations.

Because endocrinology encompasses so many conditions and diseases, there are many organizations that provide education to patients and the public. The Hormone Foundation is the public education affiliate of The Endocrine Society and provides information on all endocrine-related conditions. Other educational organizations that focus on one or more endocrine-related conditions include the American Diabetes Association, Human Growth Foundation, American Menopause Foundation, Inc., and Thyroid Foundation of America.  In North America the principal professional organizations of endocrinologists include The Endocrine Society, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Diabetes Association, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the American Thyroid Association.  In Europe, the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) are the main organisations representing professionals in the fields of adult and paediatric endocrinology, respectively.  In the United Kingdom, the Society for Endocrinology and the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes are the main professional organisations.  The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology is the largest international professional association dedicated solely to paediatric endocrinology. There are numerous similar associations around the world.

History.

The earliest study of endocrinology began in China. The Chinese were isolating sex and pituitary hormones from human urine and using them for medicinal purposes by 200 BC. They used many complex methods, such as sublimation of steroid hormones. Another method specified by Chinese texts—the earliest dating to 1110—specified the use of saponin (from the beans of "Gleditsia sinensis") to extract hormones, but gypsum (containing calcium sulfate) was also known to have been used.  Although most of the relevant tissues and endocrine glands had been identified by early anatomists, a more humoral approach to understanding biological function and disease was favoured by the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers such as Aristotle, Hippocrates, Lucretius, Celsus, and Galen, according to Freeman et al., and these theories held sway until the advent of germ theory, physiology, and organ basis of pathology in the 19th century.  In 1849, Arnold Berthold noted that castrated cockerels did not develop combs and wattles or exhibit overtly male behaviour. He found that replacement of testes back into the abdominal cavity of the same bird or another castrated bird resulted in normal behavioural and morphological development, and he concluded (erroneously) that the testes secreted a substance that "conditioned" the blood that, in turn, acted on the body of the cockerel. In fact, one of two other things could have been true: that the testes modified or activated a constituent of the blood or that the testes removed an inhibitory factor from the blood. It was not proven that the testes released a substance that engenders male characteristics until it was shown that the extract of testes could replace their function in castrated animals. Pure, crystalline testosterone was isolated in 1935.  The Graves' disease was named after Irish doctor Robert James Graves, who described a case of goiter with exophthalmos in 1835. The German Karl Adolph von Basedow also independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840, while earlier reports of the disease were also published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810 respectively, and by the English physician Caleb Hillier Parry (a friend of Edward Jenner) in the late 18th century. Thomas Addison was first to describe Addison's disease in 1849.  In 1902 William Bayliss and Ernest Starling performed an experiment in which they observed that acid instilled into the duodenum caused the pancreas to begin secretion, even after they had removed all nervous connections between the two. The same response could be produced by injecting extract of jejunum mucosa into the jugular vein, showing that some factor in the mucosa was responsible. They named this substance "secretin" and coined the term "hormone" for chemicals that act in this way.  Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski made the observation in 1889 that removing the pancreas surgically led to an increase in blood sugar, followed by a coma and eventual death—symptoms of diabetes mellitus. In 1922, Banting and Best realized that homogenizing the pancreas and injecting the derived extract reversed this condition.  Neurohormones were first identified by Otto Loewi in 1921. He incubated a frog's heart (innervated with its vagus nerve attached) in a saline bath, and left in the solution for some time. The solution was then used to bathe a non-innervated second heart. If the vagus nerve on the first heart was stimulated, negative inotropic (beat amplitude) and chronotropic (beat rate) activity were seen in both hearts. This did not occur in either heart if the vagus nerve was not stimulated. The vagus nerve was adding something to the saline solution. The effect could be blocked using atropine, a known inhibitor to heart vagal nerve stimulation. Clearly, something was being secreted by the vagus nerve and affecting the heart. The "vagusstuff" (as Loewi called it) causing the myotropic (muscle enhancing) effects was later identified to be acetylcholine and norepinephrine. Loewi won the Nobel Prize for his discovery.  Recent work in endocrinology focuses on the molecular mechanisms responsible for triggering the effects of hormones. The first example of such work being done was in 1962 by Earl Sutherland. Sutherland investigated whether hormones enter cells to evoke action, or stayed outside of cells. He studied norepinephrine, which acts on the liver to convert glycogen into glucose via the activation of the phosphorylase enzyme. He homogenized the liver into a membrane fraction and soluble fraction (phosphorylase is soluble), added norepinephrine to the membrane fraction, extracted its soluble products, and added them to the first soluble fraction. Phosphorylase activated, indicating that norepinephrine's target receptor was on the cell membrane, not located intracellularly. He later identified the compound as cyclic AMP (cAMP) and with his discovery created the concept of second-messenger-mediated pathways. He, like Loewi, won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in endocrinology.

Endocrinology (from "endocrine" + "-ology") is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology.

Endokrinologie je odvětví medicíny zabývající se diagnózou a léčbou hormonálních poruch. Hormony jsou fyziologicky vzniklé sloučeniny, produkované určitými typy buněk. Pokud jsou tyto buňky seskupeny do větších útvarů, celků, označujeme je za endokrinní žlázy, česky žlázy s vnitřní sekrecí. Endokrinní žláza je žláza s vnitřní sekrecí, která nemá vývod a své výměšky (hormony) vylučuje přímo do krve. Mezi tyto žlázy patří například nadledviny, pohlavní žlázy, podvěsek mozkový (hypofýza), štítná žláza, příštítná tělíska a Langerhansovy ostrůvky slinivky břišní a řada dalších. Jde o složitou soustavu navzájem funkčně propojených orgánů, která výraznou měrou ovlivňuje většinu dějů v lidském organismu. V současném pojetí se do endokrinního systému zahrnují i další orgány, např. mozek a ukazuje se, že je výrazně svázán i s dalšími systémy – zejména nervovým a imunitním. Významnou hormonální žlázou je také tuková tkáň (vylučuje hormony adiponektin, leptin, resistin). Endokrinní žlázy tvoří hormony, kterých v důsledku poruchy mohou tvořit buď málo nebo naopak nadbytek. Podle toho pak vznikají příznaky ze zvýšené či snížené funkce, označované jako hyperfunkce či hypofunkce.


Olympic sports definitions.

The term "sport" in Olympic terminology refers to all events sanctioned by an international sport federation, a definition that may differ from the common meaning of the word "sport". One sport, by Olympic definition, may comprise several disciplines, which would often be regarded as separate sports in common usage.  For example, aquatics is a summer Olympic sport that includes six disciplines: swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, water polo, open water swimming, and high diving (the last of which is a non-Olympic discipline), since all these disciplines are governed at international level by the International Swimming Federation. Skating is a winter Olympic sport represented by the International Skating Union, and includes four disciplines: figure skating, speed skating (on a traditional long track), short track speed skating, and synchronized skating (the latter is a non-Olympic discipline). The sport with the largest number of Olympic disciplines is skiing, with six: alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, nordic combined, snowboarding, and freestyle skiing.  Other notable multi-discipline sports are gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic, and trampoline), cycling (road, track, mountain, and BMX), volleyball (indoors and beach), wrestling (freestyle and Greco-Roman), canoeing (flatwater and slalom), and bobsleigh (includes skeleton). The disciplines listed here are only those contested in the Olympics—gymnastics has two non-Olympic disciplines, while cycling and wrestling have three each.  The IOC definition of a "discipline" may differ from that used by an international federation. For example, the IOC considers artistic gymnastics a single discipline, but the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) classifies men's and women's artistic gymnastics as separate disciplines. Similarly, the IOC considers freestyle wrestling to be a single discipline, but United World Wrestling uses "freestyle wrestling" strictly for the men's version, classifying women's freestyle wrestling as the separate discipline of "female wrestling".  On some occasions, notably in the case of snowboarding, the IOC agreed to add a sport that previously had a separate international federation to the Olympics on condition that they dissolve their governing body and instead affiliate with an existing Olympic sport federation, therefore not increasing the number of Olympic sports.  An event, by IOC definition, is a competition that leads to the award of medals. Therefore, the sport of aquatics includes a total of 46 Olympic events, of which 32 are in the discipline of swimming, eight in diving, and two each in synchronized swimming, water polo, and open water swimming. The number of events per sport ranges from a minimum of two (until 2008, there were sports with only one event) to a maximum of 47 in athletics, which despite its large number of events and its diversity is not divided into disciplines except on an informal basis - the division between, for example, swimming and diving in aquatics is not replicated within athletics by divisions between track and field events, or stadium and road events.

Changes in Olympic sports.

The list of Olympic sports has changed considerably during the course of Olympic history, and has gradually increased until the early 2000s, when the IOC decided to cap the number of sports in the Summer Olympics at 28.  The only summer sports that have never been absent from the Olympic program are athletics, aquatics (the discipline of swimming has been in every Olympics), cycling, fencing, and gymnastics (the discipline of artistic gymnastics has been in every Olympics).  The only winter sports that were included in all Winter Olympic Games are skiing (only nordic skiing), skating (figure skating and speed skating), and ice hockey. Figure skating and ice hockey were also included in the Summer Olympics before the Winter Olympics were introduced in 1924.  For most of the 20th century, demonstration sports were included in many Olympic Games, usually to promote a non-Olympic sport popular in the host country, or to gauge interest and support for the sport. The competitions and ceremonies in these sports were identical to official Olympic sports, except that the medals were not counted in the official record. Some demonstration sports, like baseball and curling, were later added to the official Olympic program. This changed when the International Olympic Committee decided in 1989 to eliminate demonstration sports from Olympics Games after 1992. An exception was made in 2008, when the Beijing Organizing Committee received permission to organize a wushu tournament.  A sport or discipline may be included in the Olympic program if the IOC determines that it is widely practiced around the world, that is, the number of countries and continents that regularly compete in a given sport is the indicator of the sport's prevalence. The requirements for winter sports are considerably lower than for summer sports since many fewer nations compete in winter sports. The IOC also has lower requirements for inclusion of sports and disciplines for women for the same reason. Women are still barred from several disciplines; but on the other hand, there are women-only disciplines, such as rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming.  Sports that depend primarily on mechanical propulsion, such as motor sports, may not be considered for recognition as Olympic sports, though there were power-boating events in the early days of the Olympics before this rule was enacted by the IOC. Part of the story of the founding of aviation sports' international governing body, the FAI, originated from an IOC meeting in Brussels, Belgium on June 10, 1905.  These criteria are only a threshold for consideration as Olympic sport. In order to be admitted to the Olympic program, the IOC Session has to approve its inclusion. There are many sports that easily make the required numbers but are not recognized as Olympic sports, mainly because the IOC has decided to put a limit on the number of sports, as well as events and athletes, in the Summer Olympics in order not to increase them from the 28 sports, 300 events, and 10,000 athletes of the 2000 Summer Olympics.  No such limits exist in the Winter Olympics and the number of events and athletes continue to increase, but no sport has been added since 1998. The latest winter sport added to the Winter Olympics was curling in 1998.  Previous Olympic Games included sports which are no longer present on the current program, like polo and tug of war. In the early days of the modern Olympics, the organizers were able to decide which sports or disciplines were included on the program, until the IOC took control of the program in 1924. As a result, a number of sports were on the Olympic program for relatively brief periods before 1924. These sports, known as discontinued sports, were removed because of lack of interest or absence of an appropriate governing body, or because they became fully professional at the time that the Olympic Games were strictly for amateurs, as in the case of tennis. Several discontinued sports, such as archery and tennis, were later readmitted to the Olympic program (in 1972 and 1984, respectively). Curling, which was an official sport in 1924 and then discontinued, was reinstated as Olympic sport in 1998.  The Olympic Charter decrees that Olympic sports for each edition of the Olympic Games should be decided at an IOC Session no later than seven years prior to the Games.

Changes since 2000.

The only sports that have been dropped from the Olympics since 1936 are baseball and softball, which were both voted out by the IOC Session in Singapore on July 11, 2005, a decision that was reaffirmed on February 9, 2006, and reversed on August 3, 2016. These sports were last included in 2008, although officially they remain recognized in the Olympic Charter as a single sport, since both are now governed internationally by the World Baseball Softball Confederation. Therefore, the number of sports in the 2012 Summer Olympics was dropped from 28 to 26.  Following the addition of women's boxing in 2012, and women's ski jumping in 2014, there are only Greco-Roman wrestling and nordic combined, respectively, that are only for men in those games.  Two previously discontinued sports, golf and rugby, returned for the 2016 Summer Olympics. On August 13, 2009, the IOC Executive Board proposed that golf and rugby sevens be added to the Olympic program for the 2016 Games. On 9 October 2009, during the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, the IOC voted to admit both sports as official Olympic sports and to include them in the 2016 Summer Olympics. The IOC voted 81–8 in favor of including rugby sevens and 63–27 in favor of reinstating golf, thus bringing the number of sports back to 28.  In February 2013, the IOC considered dropping a sport from the 2020 Summer Olympics to make way for a new sport. Modern pentathlon and taekwondo were thought to be vulnerable, but instead the IOC recommended dismissing wrestling. On September 8, 2013, the IOC added wrestling to the 2020 and 2024 Summer Games.  On August 3, 2016, the IOC voted to add baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Summer Olympics.

At the first Olympic Games, nine sports were contested. Since then, the number of sports contested at the Summer Olympic Games has gradually risen to twenty-eight on the program for 2000–2008. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, however, the number of sports fell back to twenty-six following an IOC decision in 2005 to remove baseball and softball from the Olympic program. These sports retain their status as Olympic sports with the possibility of a return to the Olympic program in future games. At the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen on 9 October 2009, the IOC voted to reinstate both golf and rugby to the Olympic program, meaning that the number of sports to be contested in 2016 was once again 28.  In order for a sport or discipline to be considered for inclusion in the list of Summer Olympics sports, it must be widely practiced in at least 75 countries, spread over four continents.

Current and discontinued summer program.

The following sports (or disciplines of a sport) make up the current and discontinued Summer Olympic Games official program and are listed alphabetically according to the name used by the IOC. The discontinued sports were previously part of the Summer Olympic Games program as official sports, but are no longer on the current program. The figures in each cell indicate the number of events for each sport contested at the respective Games; a bullet () denotes that the sport was contested as a demonstration sport.  Eight of the 34 sports consist of multiple disciplines. Disciplines from the same sport are grouped under the same color:

Demonstration summer sports.

The following sports or disciplines have been demonstrated at the Summer Olympic Games for the years shown, but have never been included on the official Olympic program:  Gliding was promoted from demonstration sport to an official Olympic sport in 1936 in time for the 1940 Summer Olympics, but the Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II.  Tenpin bowling, demonstrated separately from the Olympics in 1936 in Germany (alongside forms of ninepin bowling), but part of the demonstration sports at Seoul in 1988, has been a regular medal sport of the Pan American Games since 1991.

Classification of Olympic sports for revenue share.

Summer Olympic sports are divided into categories based on popularity, gauged by: television viewing figures (40%), Internet popularity (20%), public surveys (15%), ticket requests (10%), press coverage (10%), and number of national federations (5%). The category determines the share the sport's International Federation receives of Olympic revenue.  The current categories, as of 2013, are as follows, with the pre-2013 categorizations also being available. Category A represents the most popular sports; category E lists either the sports that are the least popular or that are new to the Olympics (golf and rugby).

Winter Olympics.

Before 1924, when the first Winter Olympic Games were celebrated, sports held on ice, like figure skating and ice hockey, were held at the Summer Olympics. These two sports made their debuts at the 1908 and the 1920 Summer Olympics, respectively, but were permanently integrated in the Winter Olympics program as of the first edition. The "International Winter Sports Week", later dubbed the I Olympic Winter Games and retroactively recognized as such by the IOC, consisted of nine sports. The number of sports contested at the Winter Olympics has since been decreased to seven, comprising a total of fifteen disciplines.  A sport or discipline must be widely practiced in at least 25 countries on three continents in order to be included on the Winter Olympics program.

Current winter program.

The following sports (or disciplines of a sport) make up the current Winter Olympic Games official program and are listed alphabetically, according to the name used by the IOC. The figures in each cell indicate the number of events for each sport that were contested at the respective Games (the red cells indicate that those sports were held at the Summer Games); a bullet denotes that the sport was contested as a demonstration sport. On some occasions, both official medal events and demonstration events were contested in the same sport at the same Games.  Three out of the seven sports consist of multiple disciplines. Disciplines from the same sport are grouped under the same color:  Military patrol was an official skiing event in 1924 but the IOC currently considers it an event of biathlon in those games, and not as a separate sport.

Demonstration winter sports.

The following sports have been demonstrated at the Winter Olympic Games for the years shown, but have never been included on the official Olympic program:  Ice climbing was showcased in 2014, and will be demonstrated at the 2018 Winter Olympics, with a plan to be included official competition sport for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Ski ballet, similarly to Military Patrol, was simply a demonstration event falling under the scope of freestyle skiing. Disabled sports are now part of the Winter Paralympic Games.

Recognized international federations.

Many sports are not recognized as Olympic sports although their governing bodies are recognized by the IOC. Such sports, if eligible under the terms of the Olympic Charter, may apply for inclusion in the program of future Games, through a recommendation by the IOC Olympic Programme Commission, followed by a decision of the IOC Executive Board and a vote of the IOC Session. When Olympic demonstration sports were allowed, a sport usually appeared as such before being officially admitted. An International Sport Federation (IF) is responsible for ensuring that the sport's activities follow the Olympic Charter. When a sport is recognized the IF become an official Olympic sport federation and can assemble with other Olympic IFs in the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF, for summer sports contested in the Olympic Games), Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWS, for winter sports contested in the Olympic Games) or Association of IOC Recognised International Sports Federations (ARISF, for sports not contested in the Olympic Games). A number of recognized sports are included itan the program of the World Games, a multi-sport event run by the International World Games Association, an organization that operates under the patronage of the IOC. Since the start of the World Games in 1981, a number of sports, including badminton, taekwondo, and triathlon have all subsequently been incorporated into the Olympic program.  In 2020, the IOC altered the way it plans the Olympic Games from one based around a maximum number of sports, to taking total events into account, opening the schedule up for the inclusion on a Games by Games basis of additional sports to the 25 "core" sports. For the 2020 Summer Olympics, the local organizing committee was thus permitted to add a total of five sports to the programme in addition to the existing 28, taking the total to 33.  The governing bodies of the following sports, though not contested in the Olympic Games, are recognized by the IOC:

Olympic sports are contested in the Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games. The 2016 Summer Olympics included 28 sports, with five additional sports due to be added to the 2020 Summer Olympics program; the 2014 Winter Olympics included seven sports. The number and types of events may change slightly from one Olympiad to another. Each Olympic sport is represented by an international governing body, namely an International Federation (IF). The International Olympic Committee (IOC) establishes a hierarchy of sports, disciplines, and events. According to this hierarchy, each Olympic sport can be subdivided into multiple disciplines, which are often mistaken as distinct sports. Examples include swimming and water polo, which are in fact disciplines of the sport of aquatics (represented by the International Swimming Federation), and figure skating and speed skating, which are both disciplines of the sport of ice skating (represented by the International Skating Union). In turn, disciplines are subdivided into events, for which Olympic medals are awarded. A sport or discipline is included in the Olympic program if the IOC determines it to be widely practiced around the world, that is, the popularity of a given sport or discipline is indicated by the number of countries that compete in it. The IOC's requirements also reflect participation in the Olympic Games – more stringent conditions are applied to men's sports/disciplines (as men are represented at the Games in higher numbers than women) and to summer sports/disciplines (as more nations compete in the Summer Olympics than in the Winter Olympics).

Olympijské sporty jsou součástí letních a zimních Olympijských her. Letní olympijské hry 2016 měly na programu 28 sportů a Zimní olympijské hry 2018 měly na programu 7 sportů. Pro LOH v Tokiu 2020 je plánováno přidání dalších 5 sportů. Seznam olympijských sportů se v průběhu let vyvíjí, sporty jsou jak přidávány, tak vyškrtnuty. Každý olympijský sport je zastřešen svou vlastní mezinárodní organizací. O seznamu sportů, sportovních soutěží a disciplín rozhoduje Mezinárodní olympijský výbor (MOV). Některé olympijské sporty obsahují více sportovních soutěží, které jsou často chybně považovány za samostatné sporty. Například sport nazvaný plavecké sporty obsahuje sportovní soutěže plavání, dálkové plavání, synchronizované plavání, skoky do vody a vodní pólo. Sportovní soutěže pak dále obsahují více disciplín, ve kterých se bojuje o olympijské medaile. Sporty či sportovní soutěže jsou zařazeny na olympijský program, jestliže MOV usoudí, že jsou praktikovány v dostatečném počtu zemí světa. Přísnější kritéria jsou uplatňovány na sporty/soutěže s vysokou účastí - mužské (účastní se více mužů než žen) a letní (letních her se účastní více zemí než zimních her).


Early life and family.

Lomonosov was born in the village of Mishaninskaya (later renamed Lomonosovo in his honor) in Archangelgorod Governorate, on an island not far from Kholmogory, in the far north of Russia. His father, Vasily Dorofeyevich Lomonosov, was a prosperous peasant fisherman turned ship owner, who amassed a small fortune transporting goods from Arkhangelsk to Pustozyorsk, Solovki, Kola, and Lapland. Lomonosov's mother was Vasily's first wife, a deacon's daughter, Elena Ivanovna Sivkova.  He remained at Denisovka until he was ten, when his father decided that he was old enough to participate in his business ventures, and Lomonosov began accompanying Vasily on trading missions.  Learning was young Lomonosov's passion, however, not business. The boy's thirst for knowledge was insatiable. Lomonosov had been taught to read as a boy by his neighbor Ivan Shubny, and he spent every spare moment with his books. He continued his studies with the village deacon, S.N. Sabelnikov, but for many years the only books he had access to were religious texts. When he was fourteen, Lomonosov was given copies of Meletius Smotrytsky's "Modern Church Slavonic" (a grammar book) and Leonty Magnitsky's "Arithmetic". Lomonosov was a Russian orthodox all his life, but had close encounters with Old Believers schism in early youth and later in life he became a deist.  In 1724, his father married for the third and final time. Lomonosov and his stepmother Irina had an acrimonious relationship. Unhappy at home and intent on obtaining a higher education, which Lomonosov could not receive in Mishaninskaya, he was determined to leave the village.

Education in Moscow and Kiev.

In 1730, at nineteen, Lomonosov went to Moscow on foot, because he was determined to "study sciences". Shortly after arrival, he admitted into the Slavic Greek Latin Academy by falsely claiming to be a son of a Kholmogory nobleman. In 1734 that initial falsehood as well as another lie for him to be son of a priest nearly got him expelled from the academy but the investigation ended without severe consequences.  Lomonosov lived on three kopecks a day, eating only black bread and kvass, but he made rapid progress scholastically. It is believed that in 1735, after three years in Moscow he was sent to Kiev to study for short period at the Kiev-Mohila Academy. He quickly became dissatisfied with the education he was receiving there, and returned to Moscow to resume his studies there. In five years Lomonosov completed a twelve-year study course and in 1736, among 12 best graduates, was awarded a scholarship at the St. Petersburg Academy. He plunged into his studies and was rewarded with a four-year grant to study abroad, in Germany, first at the University of Marburg and then in Freiberg.

Education abroad.

The University of Marburg was among Europe's most important universities in the mid-18th century due to the presence of the philosopher Christian Wolff, a prominent figure of the German Enlightenment. Lomonosov became one of Wolff's students while at Marburg from November 1736 to July 1739. Both philosophically and as a science administrator, this connection would be the most influential of Lomonosov's life. In 1739–1740 he studied mineralogy, metallurgy, and mining at Bergrat laboratory in Freiberg, Saxony; there he intensified his studies of German literature.  Lomonosov quickly mastered the German language, and in addition to philosophy, seriously studied chemistry, discovered the works of 17th century Irish theologian and natural philosopher, Robert Boyle, and even began writing poetry. He also developed an interest in German literature. He is said to have especially admired Günther. His "Ode on the Taking of Khotin from the Turks", composed in 1739, attracted a great deal of attention in Saint Petersburg. Contrary to his adoration for Wolff, Lomonosov went into fierce disputes with Henckel over the training and education courses he and his two compatriot students were getting in Freiberg as well as over very limited financial support which Henckel was instructed to provide to the Russians after numerous debts they made in Marburg. As the result, Lomonosov left Freiberg without permission and wandered for quite a while over Germany and Holland unsuccessfully trying to get a permission from Russian envoys to return to the St.Petersburg Academy.  During his residence in Marburg, Lomonosov boarded with Catharina Zilch, a brewer's widow. He fell in love with Catharina's daughter Elizabeth Christine Zilch. They were married in June 1740. Lomonosov found it extremely difficult to maintain his growing family on the scanty and irregular allowance granted him by the Russian Academy of Sciences. As his circumstances became desperate, he resolved and got permission to return to Saint Petersburg.

Return to Russia.

Lomonosov returned to Russia in June 1741, after being abroad 4 years and 8 months. A year later he was named an Adjunct of the Russian Academy of Science in the physics department. In May 1743, Lomonosov was accused, arrested, and held under house arrest for eight months, after he supposedly insulted various people associated with the Academy. He was released and pardoned in January 1744 after apologising to all involved.  Lomonosov was made a full member of the Academy, and named Professor of chemistry, in 1745. He established the Academy's first chemistry laboratory. Eager to improve Russia's educational system, in 1755, Lomonosov joined his patron Count Ivan Shuvalov in founding Moscow University.  In 1760, he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1764, he was elected Foreign Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna In 1764, Lomonosov was appointed to the position of the State Councillor which was of Rank V in the Russian Empire's Table of Ranks. He died on 4 April (o.s.), 1765 in Saint Petersburg. He is widely and deservingly regarded as the "Father of Russian Science", though many of his scientific accomplishments were relatively unknown outside Russia until long after his death and gained proper appreciation only in late 19th and, especially, in 20th centuries.

Physicist.

In 1756, Lomonosov tried to replicate Robert Boyle's experiment of 1673. He concluded that the commonly accepted phlogiston theory was false. Anticipating the discoveries of Antoine Lavoisier, he wrote in his diary: "Today I made an experiment in hermetic glass vessels in order to determine whether the mass of metals increases from the action of pure heat. The experiments – of which I append the record in 13 pages – demonstrated that the famous Robert Boyle was deluded, for without access of air from outside the mass of the burnt metal remains the same".  That is the Law of Mass Conservation in chemical reaction, which was well-known today as "in a chemical reaction, the mass of reactants is equal to the mass of the products." Lomonosov, together with Lavoisier, is regarded as the one who discovered the law of mass conservation.  He stated that all matter is composed of corpuscles – molecules that are "collections" of elements – atoms. In his dissertation "Elements of Mathematical Chemistry" (1741, unfinished), the scientist gives the following definition: "An element is a part of a body that does not consist of any other smaller and different bodies... corpuscle is a collection of elements forming one small mass." In a later study (1748), he uses term "atom" instead of "element", and "particula" (particle) or "molecule" instead of "corpuscle".  He regarded heat as a form of motion, suggested the wave theory of light, contributed to the formulation of the kinetic theory of gases, and stated the idea of conservation of matter in the following words: "All changes in nature are such that inasmuch is taken from one object insomuch is added to another. So, if the amount of matter decreases in one place, it increases elsewhere. This universal law of nature embraces laws of motion as well, for an object moving others by its own force in fact imparts to another object the force it loses" (first articulated in a letter to Leonhard Euler dated 5 July 1748, rephrased and published in Lomonosov's dissertation "Reflexion on the solidity and fluidity of bodies", 1760).

Astronomer.

Lomonosov was the first to discover and appreciate the atmosphere of Venus during his observation of the transit of Venus of 1761 in a small observatory near his house in St Petersburg.  In June 2012 a group of astronomers carried out experimental reconstruction of Lomonosov's discovery of Venusian atmosphere with antique refractors during the transit of Venus (5–6 June 2012). They concluded that Lomonosov's telescope was fully adequate to the task of detecting the arc of light around Venus off the Sun's disc during ingress or egress if proper experimental techniques as described by Lomonosov in his 1761 paper are employed.  In 1762, Lomonosov presented an improved design of a reflecting telescope to the Russian Academy of Sciences forum. His telescope had its primary mirror adjusted at an angle of four degrees to the telescope's axis. This made the image focus at the side of the telescope tube, where the observer could view the image with an eyepiece without blocking the image. However, this invention was not published until 1827, so this type of telescope has become associated with a similar design by William Herschel, the Herschelian telescope.

Chemist and geologist.

In 1759, with his collaborator, academician Joseph Adam Braun, Lomonosov was the first person to record the freezing of mercury and to carry out initial experiments with it. Believing that nature is subject to regular and continuous evolution, he demonstrated the organic origin of soil, peat, coal, petroleum and amber. In 1745, he published a catalogue of over 3,000 minerals, and in 1760, he explained the formation of icebergs.  In 1763, he published "On The Strata of the Earth" – his most significant geological work.

Geographer.

Lomonosov's observation of iceberg formation led into his pioneering work in geography. Lomonosov got close to the theory of continental drift, theoretically predicted the existence of Antarctica (he argued that icebergs of the South Ocean could be formed only on a dry land covered with ice), and invented sea tools which made writing and calculating directions and distances easier. In 1764, he organized an expedition (led by Admiral Vasili Chichagov) to find the Northeast Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by sailing along the northern coast of Siberia.

Mosaicist.

Lomonosov was proud to restore the ancient art of mosaics. In 1754, in his letter to Leonhard Euler, he wrote that his three years of experiments on the effects of chemistry of minerals on their colour led to his deep involvement in the mosaic art. In 1763, he set up a glass factory that produced the first stained glass mosaics outside of Italy. There were forty mosaics attributed to Lomonosov, with only twenty-four surviving to the present day. Among the best is the portrait of Peter the Great and the "Battle of Poltava", measuring.

Grammarian, poet, historian.

In 1755 Lomonosov wrote a grammar that reformed the Russian literary language by combining Old Church Slavonic with the vernacular tongue. To further his literary theories, he wrote more than 20 solemn ceremonial odes, notably the "Evening Meditation on God's Grandeur". He applied an idiosyncratic theory to his later poems – tender subjects needed words containing the front vowel sounds E, I, Y and U, whereas things that may cause fear (like "anger", "envy", "pain" and "sorrow") needed words with back vowel sounds O, U and Y. That was a version of what is now called sound symbolism.  In 1760 Lomonosov published a History of Russia. In addition, he attempted to write a grand epic about Peter the Great, to be based on the "Aeneid" by Vergil, but he died before he could finish it.

Legacy.

His granddaughter Sophia Konstantinova (1769–1844) married Russian military hero and statesman General Nikolay Raevsky. His great-granddaughter was Princess Maria (Raevskaya) Volkonskaya, the wife of the Decembrist Prince Sergei Volkonsky.  The city of Lomonosov, Russia (former Oranienbaum, Russia from 1710–1948), and a lunar crater bear his name, as does a crater on Mars and the asteroid 1379 Lomonosowa. A Russian satellite launched in 2016 was named Mikhailo Lomonosov (satellite) after him. The Imperial Porcelain Factory, Saint Petersburg was renamed after him from 1925 to 2005. In 1948, the underwater Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Ocean was named in his honor.  Moscow's Domodedovo airport is officially named after Lomonosov.  The Lomonosov Gold Medal was established in 1959 and is awarded annually by the Russian Academy of Sciences to a Russian and a foreign scientist..  Lomonosovskaya Station on the Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro is named after him. It was opened in 1970.  The street "Lomonosova iela" in the Maskavas Forštate district of Riga is named in honor of Lomonosov. During the Soviet era a main street in Tallinn, Estonia, was named in his honor as "Lomonossovi M.", but from 1991 it was renamed Gonsiori after Jakob Johann Gonsior, a 19th-century alderman and lawyer.  On November 19, 2011, Google celebrated his 300th birthday with a Google Doodle.  A great number of different stamps was issued in honor of Lomonosov throughout the years: Mikhail Lomonosov and building of the Academy in Leningrad stamp of 1925, stamps depicting Lomonosov issued in 1949, in 1956 and in 1961, a 275th Birth Anniversary of M.V.Lomonosov stamp of 1986, a History of Russia (Ekaterina II) stamp depicting Lomonosov and his study room talking to the queen that was issued in 2004, three 300th Anniversary of the Birth of M.V.Lomonosov stamps were issued in 2011.  The "Akademik Lomonosov", the first of a series of Russian floating nuclear power stations, is named for him. It is expected to be operational at Pevek, Chukotka in September 2019.  Moscow State University, founded by him in 1755, was renamed "M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University " in 1940, while celebrating its 185th anniversary. There are also Moscow Institute of Mechanics and Electrical Engineering M.V. Lomonosov (Lomonosov Institute), Lomonosov Institute of Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Petrography, USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University, Odessa Technological Institute of Food Industry n.a. M.V. Lomonosov, Moscow State University of Fine Chemical Technologies n.a. M.V. Lomonosov, and several other school in Russia and Kazakhstan.  On November 19, 1986, on the 275th anniversary of the birth of M.V. Lomonosov, the USSR State Bank issued a 1 ruble commemorative coin from a copper-nickel alloy.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (; ; – ) was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. Lomonosov was also a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language.

Michail Vasilijevič Lomonosov (, Mišaninská (dnes Lomonosovo) – Petrohrad) byl ruský polyhistor - chemik, fyzik, kromě toho také filozof a básník, historik, teoretik a experimentátor v mnoha dalších oborech. Byl iniciátorem založení univerzity v Moskvě, která na jeho počest byla později nazvána Lomonosovova univerzita. Mezi jeho vědecké úspěchy lze zařadit formulaci obecného zákona zachování hmotnosti a pohybu z roku 1748, o rok dříve přišel s myšlenkou, že podstatou tepla je pohyb malých částeček. Jeho všestrannost dokazuje také vydání 15 svazků básní, ale i překlady Homéra, Horatia a Senecy.