Early life.

Lethem was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith Frank Lethem, a political activist, and Richard Brown Lethem, an avant-garde painter. He was the eldest of three children. His father was Protestant (with Scottish and English ancestry) and his mother was Jewish, from a family with roots in Germany, Poland, and Russia. His brother Blake became an artist involved in the early New York hip hop scene, and his sister Mara became a photographer, writer, and translator. The family lived in a commune in the pre-gentrified Brooklyn in the northern section of the neighborhood of Gowanus (now called Boerum Hill). Lethem's fourth grade teacher at P.S. 29 in nearby Cobble Hill was future New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, whom he called the "perfect" teacher and dedicated his first novel, "Gun, with Occasional Music" to her. Despite the racial tensions and conflicts, he later described his bohemian childhood as "thrilling" and culturally wide-reaching. He gained an encyclopedic knowledge of the music of Bob Dylan, saw "Star Wars" twenty-one times during its original theatrical release, and read the complete works of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Lethem later said Dick's work was "as formative an influence as marijuana or punk rock—as equally responsible for beautifully fucking up my life, for bending it irreversibly along a course I still travel."  His parents divorced when Lethem was young. When he was thirteen, his mother Judith died from a malignant brain tumor, an event which he has said haunted him and has strongly affected his writing. (Lethem discusses the direct relation between his mother and the Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone" in the 2003 Canadian documentary "Complete Unknown".) In 2007, Lethem explained, "My books all have this giant, howling missing [center]—language has disappeared, or someone has vanished, or memory has gone."  Intending to become a visual artist like his father, Lethem attended the High School of Music & Art in New York, where he painted in a style he describes as "glib, show-offy, usually cartoonish". At Music & Art he produced his own zine, "The Literary Exchange," which featured artwork and writing. He also created animated films and wrote a 125-page novel, "Heroes", still unpublished.  After graduating from high school, Lethem entered Bennington College in Vermont in 1982 as a prospective art student. At Bennington, Lethem experienced an "overwhelming.... collision with the realities of class—my parents' bohemian milieu had kept me from understanding, even a little, that we were poor.... at Bennington that was all demolished by an encounter with the fact of real privilege." This, coupled with the realization that he was more interested in writing than art, led Lethem to drop out halfway through his sophomore year. He hitchhiked from Denver, Colorado to Berkeley, California in 1984, across "a thousand miles of desert and mountains through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, with about 40 dollars in my pocket," describing it as "one of the stupidest and most memorable things I've ever done."  Lethem lived in California for twelve years, working as a clerk in used bookstores, including Moe's and Pegasus & Pendragon Books, and writing on his own time. Lethem published his first short story in 1989 and published several more in the early 1990s.

Career.

First novels.

Lethem's first novel, "Gun, with Occasional Music", is a merging of science fiction and the Chandleresque detective story, which includes talking kangaroos, radical futuristic versions of the drug scene, and cryogenic prisons. The novel was published in 1994 by Harcourt Brace, in what Lethem later described as a "delirious" experience. "I'd pictured my first novels being published as paperback originals," he recalled, "and instead a prestigious house was doing the book in cloth.... I was in heaven." The novel was released to little initial fanfare, but an enthusiastic review in "Newsweek", which declared "Gun" an "audaciously assured first novel", catapulted the book to wider commercial success. "Gun, with Occasional Music" was a finalist for the 1994 Nebula Award, and placed first in the "Best First Novel" category of the 1995 "Locus Magazine" reader's poll. In the mid-1990s, film producer-director Alan J. Pakula optioned the novel's movie rights, which allowed Lethem to quit working in bookstores and devote his time to writing.  His next book was "Amnesia Moon" (1995). Partially inspired by Lethem's experiences hitchhiking cross-country, this second novel uses a road narrative to explore a multi-post-apocalyptic future landscape rife with perception tricks. After publishing many of his early stories in a 1996 collection, "The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye", Lethem published his third novel, "As She Climbed Across the Table" (1997). It starts with a physics researcher who falls in love with an artificially generated spatial anomaly called "Lack", for whom she spurns her previous partner. Her ex-partner's comic struggle with this rejection, and with the anomaly, constitute the majority of the narrative.  In 1996, Lethem moved from the San Francisco Bay Area back to Brooklyn. His next book, published after his return to Brooklyn, was "Girl in Landscape". In the novel, a young girl must endure puberty while also having to face a strange and new world populated by aliens known as Archbuilders. Lethem has said that "Girl in Landscape"'s plot and characters, including the figures of a young girl and a violently protective father figure, were "very strongly influenced" by the 1956 John Wayne Western "The Searchers", a movie with which he is "obsessed."

Mainstream success and "genre bending".

The first novel Lethem began after returning to New York City was "Motherless Brooklyn", a return to the detective theme. He maintained objective realism while exploring subjective alterity through Lionel Essrog. His protagonist has Tourette syndrome and is obsessed with language. Lethem later said that Essrog ... obviously [is] the character I've written with whom I most identify... [the novel] stands outside myself... It's the only one which doesn't need me, never did. It would have found someone to write it, by necessity.  Upon its publication in 1999, "Motherless Brooklyn" won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, The Macallan Gold Dagger for crime fiction, and the Salon Book Award; it was named book of the year by "Esquire". In 1999, actor Edward Norton announced that he was planning to write, direct and star in a film adaptation of the novel. Norton's film was released to critical acclaim in 2019.  According to "The New York Times", the mainstream success of "Motherless Brooklyn" made Lethem "something of a hipster celebrity", and he was referred to several times as a "genre bender". Critics cited the variety of Lethem's novels, which were alternately hard-boiled detective fiction, science fiction, and autobiographical. Lethem credited his comfort in genre-mixing to his father's art, which "always combined observed and imagined reality on the same canvas, very naturally, very un-self-consciously." In "Time" magazine, Lev Grossman classed Lethem with a movement of authors similarly eager to blend literary and popular writing, including Michael Chabon (with whom Lethem is friends), Margaret Atwood, and Susanna Clarke.  In 2003, Lethem commented on the concept of "genre bending":  The fact is, I used to get very involved, six or seven years ago, and before that, in questions of taxonomy of genre, and in the idea—which is ultimately a political idea—that a given writer, perhaps me, could in some objective way alter or reorganize the boundaries between genres.... Nowadays, I've come to feel that talking about categories, about "high" and "low", about genre and their boundaries and the blurring of those boundaries, all consists only of an elaborate way to avoid actually discussing what moves and interests me about books—my own, and others'. What I like are books in their homely actuality—the insides of the books, the mysterious movements of characters and situations and the emotions that accompany those movements. The play of sentences, their infinite variety.  In the early 2000s, Lethem published a story collection, edited two anthologies, wrote magazine pieces, and published the 55-page novella "This Shape We're In" (2000). "This Shape We're In" was one of the first offerings from McSweeney's Books, the publishing imprint that developed from Dave Eggers' "McSweeney's Quarterly Concern".  In November 2000, Lethem said that he was working on an uncharacteristically "big sprawling" novel, about a child who grows up to be a rock journalist. The novel was published in 2003 as "The Fortress of Solitude". The semi-autobiographical "bildungsroman" features dozens of characters in a variety of milieus, but features a tale of racial tensions and boyhood in Brooklyn during the late 1970s. The main characters are two friends of different backgrounds who grew up on the same block in Boerum Hill. It was named one of nine "Editor's Choice" books of the year by "The New York Times" and has been published in fifteen languages.  Lethem's second collection of short fiction, "Men and Cartoons", was published in late 2004. In March 2005, "The Disappointment Artist", his first collection of essays, was released. On September 20, 2005, Lethem received a MacArthur Fellowship. In an interview with "Armchair/Shotgun" in 2009, Lethem said of short fiction:  I'm writing short stories right now, that's what I do between novels, and I love them. I'm very devoted to it. You know, it's funny. There seems to be some sort of law that you only get to be celebrated for one or the other. And then a couple of people will break it. Updike did. They didn't review his story collections by saying, "Well, these are nice, but he's a novelist." Or review his novels by saying, "Well, too bad he can't do the longer stuff." Other people tend to get patronized on one end or the other—and I'll take it. I have a very happy life as a novelist. But the story collections I've published are tremendously important to me. And many of the uncollected stories—or yet-to-be-collected stories—are among my proudest writings. They're very closely allied, obviously, to novel writing. But also very distinct, and, you know, there's no need to choose.

2005–present.

In September 2006, Lethem wrote the article "The Genius of Bob Dylan", a lengthy interview with Bob Dylan, which was published in "Rolling Stone". The interview contained Lethem's reflections on Dylan's artistic achievements. It revealed Dylan's dissatisfaction with contemporary recording techniques and his thoughts on his own status.  After "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude", Lethem decided that "[i]t was time to leave Brooklyn in a literary sense anyway... I really needed to defy all that stuff about place and memory." In 2007, he returned as a novelist to California, where some of his earlier fiction had been set, with "You Don't Love Me Yet", a novel about an upstart rock band. The novel revolves around a woman in the band, Lucinda, who answers phones for her friend's complaint line and uses some of a caller's words as lyrics. According to Lethem, the book was inspired by the years he spent as the lead singer in an upstart California band in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during what he called "the unformed posturing phase of life". The novel received mixed reviews.  In 2005, Lethem had announced that he was planning to revive the Marvel Comics character Omega the Unknown in a ten-issue series to be published in 2006. After hearing of the project, Omega co-creator Steve Gerber expressed personal outrage over the use of the character without his participation, though he later discussed the project with Lethem and admitted that he had "misjudged" him. In May 2006, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada explained that the series had been delayed to 2007, saying that "winning the MacArthur Grant put additional and unexpected demands on [Lethem's] time." The revamped "Omega the Unknown" series was published in ten monthly issues from October 2007 to July 2008; the issues were published in a single volume in October 2008.  In early 2007, Lethem began work on "Chronic City", which was published on October 13, 2009. In July 2008, Lethem said that "Chronic City" is "set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it's strongly influenced by Saul Bellow, Philip K. Dick, Charles G. Finney and Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and it concerns a circle of friends including a faded child-star actor, a cultural critic, a hack ghost-writer of autobiographies, and a city official. And it's long and strange."  His essay, "The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism" (2007), is a passionate defense of plagiarism and a call for a return to a "gift economy" in the arts. He writes,  The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism... Don't pirate my editions; do plunder my visions. The name of the game is Give All. You, reader, are welcome to my stories. They were never mine in the first place, but I gave them to you.  The essay was included in his 2011 collection, "The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc."  In 2011, "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick", edited by Pamela Jackson and Lethem, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Among other projects, Lethem published short books about John Carpenter's film "They Live" (published in October, 2010 as "They Live") and the Talking Heads album "Fear of Music". Starting in 2011, he served as the Roy E. Disney Professor in Creative Writing at Pomona College, a position formerly held by the late David Foster Wallace.  Lethem's ninth novel, entitled "Dissident Gardens," was released on September 10, 2013. According to Lethem in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times", the novel concerns "American leftists", very specifically "a red-diaper baby generation trying to figure out what it all means, this legacy of American Communism." Regarding the novel's setting, Lethem said in the same interview that it is  set in Queens and Greenwich Village, another New York neighborhood book, very much about the life of the city... writing about Greenwich Village in 1958 was really a jump for me, it was as much of an imaginative leap as any of the more fantastical things I've done. But really exciting, too.  "Dissident Gardens" was quickly followed up in February 2015 with "Lucky Alan and Other Stories", Lethem's fifth short story collection. Lethem's tenth novel,"A Gambler's Anatomy" (or, alternatively, "The Blot" in the United Kingdom), published in October 2016, concerns "an international backgammon hustler who thinks he's psychic". After changing publishers from Doubleday to Ecco, Lethem followed "A Gambler's Anatomy"/"The Blot" with "The Feral Detective" in November 2018, Lethem's first foray back into the detective novel genre since the acclaimed "Motherless Brooklyn".  Lethem's twelfth novel, "The Arrest" - an "utterly original postapocalyptic yarn about two siblings, the man that came between them, and a nuclear-powered super car," according to the publishers - is due for publication in November 2020.  Lethem co-wrote six out of nine songs on the Lee Ranaldo album "Electric Trim", released in 2017. He wrote the introdution to David Bowman's 2019 novel, "Big Bang".

Personal life.

In 1987, Lethem married the writer and artist Shelley Jackson; they were divorced by 1997. In 2000, he married Julia Rosenberg, a Canadian film executive; they divorced two years later. As of 2007, Lethem lived in Brooklyn and Berwick, Maine, with his third wife, the filmmaker Amy Barrett. He has two sons, Everett Barrett Lethem (b. May 23, 2007) and Desmond Brown Lethem.

Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, "Gun, with Occasional Music", a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published "Motherless Brooklyn", a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published "The Fortress of Solitude", which became a "New York Times" Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2011, he is the Roy E. Disney Professor in Creative Writing at Pomona College.

Jonathan Allen Lethem (* 19. února 1964 New York) je americký spisovatel. Narodil se v Brooklynu do rodiny avantgardního malíře a politické aktivistky. V češtině mu vyšla kniha "Sirotci z Brooklynu" (Motherless Brooklyn), detektivní příběh, který v roce 1999 získal cenu National Book Critics Circle Award. Mezi jeho další knihy patří Gun, with Occasional Music, kniha která kombinuje prvky sci-fi a detektivního příběhu nebo The Fortress of Solitude. Lethem je znám také díky svým esejům a krátkým povídkám.


Cargo.

SSAF-UF-1 carried the Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM-2) 'Raffaello' (2nd flight) 4th MPLM flight overall. Also the Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker (MACH-1) MPESS Hitchhiker experiment bridge: with CAPL-3, Starshine-2, SEM-11 & 15, G-0761, Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector (PSRD) & COLLIDE-2. As well as the Lightweight MPESS Carrier #2 (LMC) carrying: SEM-12, G-0785, G-0064 and G-0730.

Launch highlights.

The launch of "Endeavour" on 29 November 2001 was rescheduled for 4 December 2001 to allow sufficient time for the Expedition Three crew on the space station to successfully complete a spacewalk to clear an obstruction on the latching mechanism on the Russian Progress supply vehicle.  The launch 4 December was postponed due to unsatisfactory weather conditions in the KSC area. Launch controllers counted down to the T-5 minute point and held until the remainder of the window expired. The scrub had to be called after Astronaut Office Chief Charles Precourt, flying the Shuttle Training Aircraft, detected precipitation in a cloud mass that moved into the Complex 39 area shortly before launch.  "Endeavour" lifted off 5 December 2001 at 17:12 EST on the final Space Shuttle mission of 2001 to deliver three tons of supplies and a fresh crew to the International Space Station, and return home a crew that spent four months in space.  In addition to a new station crew and supplies, "Endeavour" carried a host of scientific investigations, including experiments from space agencies, schools and universities across the United States, Europe and South America, as well as a small satellite that involved more than 25,000 students in 26 countries.

Mission highlights.

The hatches were opened between "Endeavour" and the ISS Destiny Laboratory at 22:42 UTC 7 December 2001, enabling the ten crew members to greet one another. The Expedition 3 crew officially ended their 117-day residency on board the International Space Station 8 Dec. as their custom Soyuz seat-liners were transferred to "Endeavour" for the return trip home. The transfer of the Expedition 4 seat-liners to the Soyuz return vehicle attached to the station marked the official exchange of crews.  "Endeavour" Pilot Mark Kelly and Mission Specialist Linda Godwin used the shuttle's robotic arm to lift the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module from the shuttle payload bay and attach it to a berth on the station's Unity node. The crews began unloading supplies the same day.

EVA.

EVA: 4 hours, 12 minutes – On 10 December 2001, "Endeavour" astronauts Linda Godwin and Daniel Tani completed a four-hour, 12-minute spacewalk to install insulation on mechanisms that rotate the International Space Station's main solar arrays. The two spacewalkers stopped at a stowage bin to retrieve a cover that had been removed from a station antenna during an earlier flight, and after its return to Earth, may be reused. Godwin and Tani also performed a "getahead;" task, positioning two switches on the station's exterior to be installed on a future shuttle mission, STS-110. The spacewalk completed a record year with 18 spacewalks conducted: 12 originating from the shuttle and six from the station.

Maintenance and re-supply.

Mission managers extended "Endeavour"'s flight to a duration of 12 days to allow Endeavour's crew to assist with additional maintenance tasks on the station, including work on a treadmill and replacing a failed compressor in one of the air conditioners in the Zvezda Service Module.  The astronauts and cosmonauts completed the transfer of more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and material from "Endeavour"'s mid-deck and the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the station. The transferred items included more than 850 pounds of food, 1,000 pounds of clothing and other crew provisions, 300 pounds of experiments and associated equipment, 800 pounds of spacewalking gear, and 600 pounds of medical equipment. In turn, the crew packed up the Raffaello module with items bound for a return trip to Earth.

IMU failure.

On 12 December 2001, the crew and Mission Control noted a transient problem with one of the shuttle's three inertial measurement units (IMUs), the primary navigation units for the shuttle. Only two of the three IMUs were on line at the time, with the third unit off line to save electricity. The IMU that experienced a problem, designated IMU 2, was immediately taken off line and the third IMU brought on line. IMU 2 operated well after that, but it remained off line and was considered failed by flight controllers. The loss of one IMU had no impact on "Endeavour"'s mission, and the other two units operated in excellent condition.  A formal change of command ceremony took place 13 December as Expedition 3 ended its residence and Expedition 4 began theirs.

Reboost and departure.

Flight controllers planned slight changes to "Endeavour"'s departure from the station 15 December 2001, allowing time for a small jet firing by the shuttle to boost the station's future path away from a piece of space debris that could pass near the complex. Mission Control was notified that a spent Russian rocket upper stage launched in the 1970s could pass within three miles of the station if "Endeavour" did not perform the engine firing. With the shuttle reboost, the station was predicted to pass more than 40 miles away from the debris.  Because the scheduled reboost used additional propellant, "Endeavour" did not perform a full-circle flyaround of the station after undocking. Instead, the shuttle undocked from the station, performing a quarter circle flyaround of the complex to a point about 400 feet directly above the station where it fired its engines in a final separation burn at 12:20 am EST, beginning its departure from the orbiting outpost.

Scientific experiments.

"Endeavour"'s middeck carried home the results of several experiments completed during Expedition 3's stay on the station. These included the Advanced Protein Crystallization Facility, the Dynamically Controlled Protein Crystal Growth experiment and cells from the Cellular Biotechnology Operations Support System (CBOSS).  The CBOSS equipment aboard the space station will remain active during Expedition 4, growing ovarian and colon cancer cells, as well as kidney cells in microgravity.  Experiments in "Endeavour"s payload bay were returned for investigators around the world. The Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1 (MACH-1) carried a wide array of experiments, including the Prototype Synchrotron Radiation Detector, the Collisions Into Dust Experiment-2, the Capillary Pump Loop, and the Space Experiment Module (SEM). The SEM carried experiments from Argentina, Portugal, Morocco and Australia, as well as experiments from U.S. schoolchildren. Several other canisters in "Endeavour"'s payload bay also carried student experiments.  On its return to Earth, "Endeavour"'s crew deployed a small satellite called STARSHINE 2 from a canister located in the payload bay. More than 30,000 students from 660 schools in 26 countries will be tracking STARSHINE 2 as it orbits the Earth for eight months. The students, who helped polish STARSHINE's 845 mirrors, will use the information they collect to calculate the density of the Earth's upper atmosphere.

Honoring victims of the September 11 attacks.

STS-108 was the first Space Shuttle launch following the September 11 attacks, and remembering it would become a focus of the flight. Security was increased at Kennedy Space Center for press and visitors for the launch, and press activity was more tightly controlled.  In the early morning hours of 12 September 2001, New York City Police Sergeant Gerald Kane and Detective Peter Friscia, assigned to the office of Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, retrieved a large American flag that was tattered and torn and wrapped around a flag pole near in corners of Church and Chambers Street amidst the devastation of the World Trade Center site. That American flag, a USMC flag recovered from the Pentagon, an American flag that flew over the State Capital in Harrisburg, PA on the day of 11 Sept., the 23 shields (badges) of the fallen NYPD officers; patches, posters and an emblem from the FDNY, patches from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and 6,000 small American flags to honor those lost and those that served in the response and recovery efforts for 9/11 were all flown aboard "Endeavour".  The 6,000 smaller flags were later given to families that lost loved ones on 9/11 and the flag retrieved from the World Trade Center site is maintained by the Office of the New York City Commissioner of Records.

STS-108 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle " Endeavour". Its primary objective was to deliver supplies to and help maintain the ISS.

STS-108 byla mise amerického raketoplánu Endeavour k Mezinárodní vesmírné stanici. Cílem letu byla doprava zásob na stanici a výměna Expedice 3 za novou posádku Expedice 4. Uskutečnil se jeden výstup do otevřeného vesmíru.


Early life.

Pontes was born in the town of Bauru, in the southeastern state of São Paulo. His father Vergílio was a civil servant of the Instituto Brasileiro do Café and his mother Zuleika was clerk of the Rede Ferroviária Federal (RFFSA).

Air Force and Space career.

Pontes is one of the most experienced jet pilots in the Brazilian Air Force (FAB), where he holds the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and has flown more than 2000 hours in 25 different aircraft. In June 1998, he was selected by the Brazilian Space Agency to train in the NASA space program after he acquired a space-related background in the Aeronautical Engineering division of the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (the Aeronautics Institute of Technology, or "ITA"). He began NASA training in August 1998 and qualified as Space Shuttle Mission Specialist in December 2000. He attended the Naval Postgraduate School of the US Navy in 1998. Initially, Pontes' maiden space flight was scheduled to be on a Space Shuttle, where he was to help transport the ExPRESS Pallet, which would have been the International Space Station's first Brazilian-made component, into orbit. Negotiations between NASA and AEB (the Brazilian Space Agency) fell through due to budgetary concerns. During the delay, Pontes ran a campaign to pressure the Brazilian government to complete the Express Pallet, and he worked on technical assignments in the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch at NASA. His flight was postponed indefinitely when AEB confirmed that it could not produce the Express Pallet and its components for NASA.  On September 2, 2005, an agreement between the governments of Brazil and Russia was reached which provided for Pontes to train at Star City, near Moscow, to learn about the Soyuz's operational and life-support systems, and to fly to the International Space Station in March 2006. The agreement, which cost about US$20 million was signed by the presidents of the Brazilian and Russian space agencies, Sérgio Gaudenzi and Anatoli Perminov, respectively.  Pontes' flight coincided with celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont's successful flight of a fixed-wing airplane in Paris in October 1906.  On March 30, 2006, Pontes became the first Brazilian and the first native Portuguese-speaking person to go into space, where he stayed on the International Space Station for a week. During his trip, Pontes carried out eight experiments selected by the Brazilian Space Agency. He landed in Kazakhstan on April 8, 2006, with the crew of Expedition 12.  Following the Soyuz mission, Pontes returned to his technical duties for the International Space Station Program at the Johnson Space Center, working with FIESP/SENAI-SP on the development and fabrication of the Brazilian parts for the ISS.  Pontes entered the reserve of the Brazilian Air Force and awaits a new space mission. He is also an Invited Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo at São Carlos. He is an ambassador of UNIDO and WorldSkills. Pontes opened an educational foundation and a tourism agency together with the future Brazilian space tourist Marcos Palhares, who will be traveling to space through the Virgin Galactic.  Pontes announced his intention to visit space a second time back in 2009.

Political career.

In his 2011 book "", he also declared that he is interested in a possible candidacy for an unspecified political post in Brazil and he tried to be elected as "Deputado Federal" during the 2014 São Paulo gubernatorial election. In the 2018 São Paulo gubernatorial election he was elected side with Major Olímpio as second alternate in the Senate.  In October 31, Jair Bolsonaro announced that he would be the next Minister of Science and Technology. This choice left the scientific community with polarized opinions, ranging from how the public sees the profession of astronaut in connection with science and the fact that the minister is not an active scientist and researcher, in addition to concern about his lack of political articulation.

Minister of Science.

After the disclosure of data on deforestation in the Amazon by INPE, discredited by Bolsonaro, Marcos Pontes called the then President of Inpe Ricardo Galvão to address the way he has been acting in the media and also declared to share "...the strangeness expressed by our President Bolsonaro...". no matter how much he doesn't believe the data to be false.  On August 7, 2019 the resignation of Ricardo Galvão was published after his resignation on August 2. He was exonerated at the request of Bolsonaro. Directors of research centres linked to the Ministry asked Pontes to intercede on behalf of Galvão, something that did not happen.  Military Darcton Policarpo Damião was chosen to take over Inpe on an interim basis.

Works.

Besides his work as an astronaut and Air Force commander, Marcos also authored four books:

Article.

He also writes articles on his website. The main themes are motivation and space travel.

Controversies.

Critics from National Congress.

In 2006, Marcos Pontes returned to Brazil after the Missão Centenário, deciding to enter the Aeronautics reserve. In this sense, the repercussion around the situation became very wide, due to the indignation that was demonstrated by the National Congress. At first, the Palácio do Planalto, AEB (Brazilian Space Agency) and Aeronautics expected that Pontes could offer a stimulus factor to the space program and to new adhesions to the Armed Forces, as well as mentoring and training to new astronauts, justifying an investment of 10 million dollars from the Federal Government, strongly defended by the Lula Government, who even talked to the astronaut in videoconference on the International Space Station: "In a few moments in the history of Brazil, we were proud of a Brazilian like we are having of you. You, when you left, reminded me of Ayrton Senna with the national flag," Lula said. After the decision for the inactivity of Marcos Pontes' functions, President Lula did not comment on the choice, which had several frustration pronouncements from other congressmen, such as Walter Pinheiro (PT), at the time member of the House Science and Technology Commission; Alberto Goldman (PSDB), congressman for São Paulo in 2006; Orlando Fantazzini (PSOL) and Sérgio Gaudenzi. In the view of politicians, who expected the return of astronaut learning to the Brazilian Space Program, the entity should create protection mechanisms for possible future investments in other astronauts, taking into account that the services funded by the government are not lost in the private sphere.

Investigation by the Military Prosecutor.

In 2006, Pontes was investigated by the Military Prosecutor to determine whether he had violated Article 204 of the Military Penal Code, which prohibits active military involvement in any commercial activity. In the investigation, the MPM inquired about the website Conexão Espacial, owned by the astronaut's press officer, Christiane Gonçalves Corrêa, then owner of the company Portally Eventos e Produções, about the sale of T-shirts and caps with the image of Marcos from 2002 until the date of his departure. In September 2017, documents were released by "The Intercept" newspaper, which showed Marcos' supposed status as a partner in the company, but which had always been denied by the politician. After the prescription of the investigation, Pontes became a majority partner of the company, with 80% of participation, while Christiane Corrêa kept 20% of participation. The mother of the advisor, who owned about 45% of the shares, left the firm after Pontes joined. In August 2018, after the investigation had already prescribed, the appeal was filed by the Minister Rosa Weber.

Awards.

Marcos received numerous awards through his career.

Marcos Cesar Pontes (born March 11, 1963) is a Brazilian Air Force pilot, engineer, AEB astronaut and author. He became the first South American and the first Lusophone to go into space when he docked onto the International Space Station aboard Soyuz TMA-8 on March 30, 2006. He is the only Brazilian to have completed the NASA astronaut training program, although he switched to training in Russia after NASA's Space Shuttle program encountered problems. After Jair Bolsonaro's victory as President of Brazil in 2018, Pontes was officially nominated to be Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, a post which he accepted days later.

Marcos Cesar Pontes (* 11. března 1963 v Baurů, São Paulo, Brazílie) je brazilský pilot společnosti Air Force. 30. března 2006 se stal prvním občanem Brazílie, který vzlétl do vesmíru. Jeho kosmický let, 10. návštěvní expedice na Mezinárodní vesmírnou stanici (ISS), trval necelých deset dní.


History.

Origins.

In 1907, Germany staged the first of the "Kaiserpreis" races at the 73-mile (118 km) Taunus public road circuit, just outside Frankfurt. The same circuit had been used three years earlier for the 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup race. Entries were limited to touring cars with engines of less than eight litres. The race itself was a tragedy; a driver and his co-driver were killed 19 miles into the lap and the Taunus circuit was never used again. There was a medical team there, but it took them two and a half hours to get to the site of the accident, of which driver Otto Göbel was badly injured and his co-driver Ludwig Faber, who was pinned under their "Adler" was already dead. Göbel died of his injuries in hospital later on. Italy's Felice Nazzaro won the race in a Fiat. The Prinz-Heinrich-Fahrt was the biggest German international race

Pre-war.

AVUS.

The first national event in German Grand Prix motor racing was held at the AVUS (Automobil Verkehrs und Übungs-Straße (Automobile Traffic and Practice Road)) race circuit in southwestern Berlin in 1926 as a sports car race. The AVUS circuit was made up of two 6-mile straights combined with two left-hand hairpins at each end. The first race at AVUS, in

Nürburgring.

The "Grand Prix" moved to the new, 28.3 km (17.6 mi) Nürburgring, located in the Eifel Mountain region in western Germany about 70 miles (112 km) from Frankfurt and Cologne. It was inaugurated on 18 June 1927 with the annual race, the ADAC "Eifelrennen". This was a huge, incredibly challenging racing circuit that sped and twisted through forests of the Eifel Mountains, and had over 1000 feet (300 m) of elevation change and many spots where the cars visibly left the ground, such as the Flugplatz, Brunnchen and Pflanzgarten sections. There were two more races on the "Gesamtstrecke" (Combined circuit) combined course, which were both sportscar races, where German pre-war great Rudolf Caracciola would win his second of six German Grands Prix.  The 1930 and 1933 races were cancelled due to economic reasons related to the Great Depression. In 1931, the event began to use only the 14.2-mile (22.8 km) "Nordschleife" (North Loop), and this would continue onwards throughout the century. Caracciola would win the 1931 and 1932 events in a Mercedes and an Alfa Romeo respectively. Starting in 1934, there were often several races each year with the so-called "Silver Arrows" "Grand Prix" cars in Germany, e.g. the "Eifelrennen", the AVUS race and several hillclimbs. Yet it was only the Grand Prix at the Nürburgring that was the national "Grande Epreuve", which counted toward the European Championship from 1935 to 1939. The 1935 event was considered to be one of the greatest motorsports victories of all time. Italian legend Tazio Nuvolari, driving a hopelessly

Post-war.

Nürburgring and the World Championship.

After World War II, Germany had been separated into Eastern and Western territories, and West Germany was banned from international sporting events until 1951. A non-championship Formula 2 race was won by Alberto Ascari in 1950 at the Nürburgring. The German Grand Prix was included as part of the new Formula One championship in its second season. The Nordschleife was to be the mainstay of West Germany's premier motor racing event for the next quarter of a century, and was to be known as the toughest and most technically challenging circuit on the F1 calendar. The expanse of the circuit allowed an average of 375,000 spectators each year to watch the very popular event. The 1951 race was one where Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio led for 14 laps; but he had to refuel his Alfa and he only had third and fourth gears left. While in the pits, he was overtaken by Ascari in a Ferrari and went on to finish second behind the Italian. Fangio won for the first time in 1954 in a Mercedes; the first time a factory Mercedes Grand Prix car had been taken part in 15 years. He won driving the new open-wheeled W196, built at Fangio's request. This event also saw the death of Argentine driver Onofre Marimón in a Maserati 250F during practice. Due to lack of knowledge of the circuit, crucial to doing well at the Nürburgring, he failed to negotiate a tricky bend near the Adenauer Bridge. He went off the road, ploughed through a hedge and down a steep slope, and the car sheared off a tree and tumbled down the slope. Once it came to a stop, Marimón was pinned underneath the 670 kg (1,480 lb) 250F; cars in those days had no roll-over bars to protect the driver from the car crushing its driver; which is what happened to Marimón. The hapless Argentine's injuries were bad enough to kill him a few minutes after the incident. His compatriot Fangio went to check the wreckage of the Maserati; he found it in fourth gear of four; this corner was normally taken in an F1 car in third gear. This proved the accident to be unfortunately of driver error. The 1955 event was cancelled in the aftermath of the Le Mans disaster; all auto racing in Germany (and much of Europe) was banned until the tracks could be upgraded. Fangio would win the next two events.  The 1957 event saw a number of changes. It included a Formula 2 race which was run concurrently alongside the Formula One cars. The track had been resurfaced and the concrete road surface (which was in very bad shape) which made up the pit straight, the Sudkurve and the straight behind the pits was taken

Hockenheim.

The fast, flat Hockenheim circuit near Heidelberg almost played sole host to the German Grand Prix for the next 30 years. The 1977 event was won by Lauda, but was also notable when local driver Hans Heyer competed in the race despite failing to qualify. The 1979 event was one where Swiss Clay Regazzoni in his Williams attempted to chase down his teammate, Australian Alan Jones, but to no avail. 1980 was won by Frenchman Jacques Laffite in a Ligier, but it was overshadowed by Patrick Depailler's fatal accident at the Ostkurve (which in those days, had no chicane and was flat-out) in testing for Alfa Romeo a few days before the race weekend. The 1981 event saw a tremendous battle between Jones and rising star Alain Prost in a Renault, with Jones passing Prost in the stadium due to interference by Prost's backmarker teammate Rene Arnoux. The race was won by Brazilian Nelson Piquet after Jones pitted with problems with his Williams. The 1982 race saw changes to the circuit; most notably

Alternating venues.

In 2006 it was announced that from 2007 until 2010, the German Grand Prix would be shared between the Nürburgring GP circuit (former home of the European and Luxembourg Grands Prix) and the Hockenheimring. The former would hold the races in 2007 and 2009 and the latter in 2008 and 2010. However, the name for the 2007 Grand Prix was later changed. While it was originally intended to be the German Grand Prix, owing to a dispute with Hockenheim over the naming rights of the race, the race was eventually held under the title "Großer Preis von Europa" (European Grand Prix). By 2009, the circuits appeared to have

Biennial race at Hockenheim.

The Nürburgring went through a change of ownership during 2014, but the new owners were unable to sign an agreement to continue hosting the race in

One more visit to Hockenheim.

The deal with Hockenheim to host the German Grand Prix concluded following the 2018 event. As a result, the future of the event was put in doubt. However, a deal was reached in August 2018 to hold one more event at Hockenheim in. The German Grand Prix is not on the Formula One calendar in 2020, but may return in the future, possibly at a different venue.

Winners of the German Grand Prix.

Repeat winners (drivers).

"Drivers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."<br> "A pink background

Repeat winners (constructors).

"Teams in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."<br> "A pink background

Repeat winners (engine manufacturers).

"Manufacturers in bold are competing in the Formula One championship in the current season."<br> "A pink background indicates an event which

By year.

"A pink background indicates an event that was not part of the Formula One World Championship."<br> "Both non-Formula

The German Grand Prix () was a motor race that was held most years since 1926, with 75 races having been held. The race has been held at only three venues throughout its history; the Nürburgring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Hockenheimring in Baden-Württemberg and occasionally AVUS in Berlin. The race continued to be known as the German Grand Prix, even through the era when the race was held in West Germany.

Grand Prix Německa () je automobilový závod převážně pro vozy formule 1, poprvé organizovaný v roce 1926 a v roce 1951 zařazený do kalendáře mistrovství světa vozů formule 1.


Taxonomy and evolutionary history.

The IUCN currently recognizes only one species of giraffe with nine subspecies. "Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi" was named after the Tring Museum's founder, Walter Rothschild, and is also known as the Baringo giraffe, after the Lake Baringo area of Kenya, or as the Ugandan giraffe. All of those living in the wild are in protected areas in Kenya and Uganda. In 2007, Rothschild's giraffe was proposed as a separate species from other giraffe. In 2016, Rothschild's giraffe was proposed as conspecific with the Nubian giraffe (elevated to full species), but that taxonomy has not been widely adopted.

Characteristics.

The Rothschild's giraffe is easily distinguishable from other subspecies. The most obvious sign is in the coloring of the coat or pelt. Whereas the reticulated giraffe has very clearly defined dark patches with bright-whitish channels between them, Rothschild's giraffe more closely resembles the Masai giraffe. However, when compared to the Masai giraffe, the Rothschild's ecotype is paler, the orange-brown patches are less jagged and sharp in shape, and the connective channel is of a creamier hue compared to that seen on the reticulated giraffe. In addition, Rothschild's giraffe displays no markings on the lower leg, giving it the impression of wearing white stockings.  Another distinguishing feature of Rothschild's giraffe, although harder to spot, is the number of ossicones on the head. This is the only "Giraffa" phenotype to be born with five ossicones. Two of these are the larger and more obvious ones at the top of the head, which are common to all giraffes. The third ossicone can often be seen in the center of the giraffe's forehead, and the other two are behind each ear. They are also taller than many other populations, measuring up to tall.  Males are larger than females and their two largest ossicones are usually bald from sparring. They usually tend to be darker in colour than the females, although this is not a guaranteed sexing indicator.

Habitat and distribution.

Isolated populations of Rothschild's giraffes live in savannahs, grasslands, and open woodlands of Uganda and Kenya. They are possibly regionally extinct from South Sudan and northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Ecology and behavior.

Rothschild's giraffes mate at any time of the year and have a gestation period of 14 to 16 months, typically giving birth to a single calf. They live in small herds, with males and females (and their calves) living separately, only mixing for mating.

Threats and conservation.

Giraffes in general are classified as vulnerable. Very few locations are left where Rothschild's giraffe can be seen in the wild, with notable spots being Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya and Murchison Falls National Park in northern Uganda.

In captivity.

Various captive breeding programmes are in place – notably at the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, Kenya – which aim to expand the gene pool in the wild population of Rothschild's giraffe., more than 450 are kept in ISIS (international species information system) registered zoos (which does not include the Nairobi Giraffe Centre), making both it and the reticulated giraffe the most commonly kept phenotypes of "Giraffa".

Rothschild's giraffe ("Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi") is a subspecies of the giraffe. It is one of the most endangered distinct populations of giraffe, with 1,669 individuals estimated in the wild in 2016.

Žirafa Rothschildova, psáno také jako žirafa Rotschildova, ("Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi" nebo "Giraffa camelopardalis rotschildi") je druhý nejvíce ohrožený poddruh žirafy jen s několika sty žijícími jedinci (podle jiných údajů žije v přírodě několik tisíc jedinců). Na základě nových molekulárních analýz z r. 2016 již není považována za samostatný poddruh, ale za ekotyp jiného poddruhu žirafy – žirafy núbijské ("Giraffa camelopardalis camelopardalis").


Early life.

Ambrose was born January 10, 1936, in Lovington, Illinois, to Rosepha Trippe Ambrose and Stephen Hedges Ambrose. His father was a physician who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Ambrose was raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in Lovington, Illinois, and vacation property in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he was a member of Chi Psi fraternity and played on the University of Wisconsin football team for three years.  Ambrose originally wanted to major in pre-medicine, but changed his major to history after hearing the first lecture in a U.S. history class entitled "Representative Americans" in his sophomore year. The course was taught by William B. Hesseltine, whom Ambrose credits with fundamentally shaping his writing and igniting his interest in history. While at Wisconsin, Ambrose was a member of the Navy and Army ROTC. He graduated with a B.A. in 1957. Ambrose received a master's degree in history from Louisiana State University in 1958, studying under T. Harry Williams. Ambrose then went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963, under William B. Hesseltine.

Career.

Academic positions.

Ambrose was a history professor from 1960 until his retirement in 1995. From 1971 onward, he was on the faculty of the University of New Orleans, where he was named the Boyd Professor of History in 1989, an honor given only to faculty who attain "national or international distinction for outstanding teaching, research, or other creative achievement". During the 1969–1970 academic year, he was the Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the Naval War College. While teaching at Kansas State University as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of War and Peace during the 1970–1971 academic year, Ambrose participated in heckling of Richard Nixon during a speech the president gave on the KSU campus. Given pressure from the KSU administration and having job offers elsewhere, upon finishing out the year Ambrose offered to leave and the offer was accepted. His opposition to the Vietnam War stood in contrast to his research on "presidents and the military at a time when such topics were increasingly regarded by his colleagues as old fashioned and conservative." Ambrose also taught at Louisiana State University (assistant professor of history; 1960–1964) and Johns Hopkins University (associate professor of history; 1964–1969). He held visiting posts at Rutgers University, the University of California, Berkeley, and a number of European schools, including University College Dublin, where he taught as the Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History.  He founded the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans in 1989 serving as its director until 1994. "The mission of the Eisenhower Center is the study of the causes, conduct, and consequences of American national security policy and the use of force as an instrument of policy in the twentieth century." The Center's first efforts, which Ambrose initiated, involved the collection of oral histories from World War II veterans about their experiences, particularly any participation in D-Day. By the time of publication of Ambrose's "D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II," in 1994, the Center had collected more than 1,200 oral histories. Ambrose donated $150,000 to the Center in 1998 to foster additional efforts to collect oral histories from World War II veterans.

Writings.

Ambrose's earliest works concerned the Civil War. He wrote biographies of the generals Emory Upton and Henry Halleck, the first of which was based on his dissertation.  Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by World War II historian Forrest Pogue. In 1964, Ambrose took a position at Johns Hopkins as the Associate Editor of the "Eisenhower Papers", a project aimed at organizing, cataloging and publishing Eisenhower's principal papers. From this work and discussions with Eisenhower emerged an article critical of Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle", which had depicted Eisenhower as politically naîve, when at the end of World War II he allowed Soviet forces to take Berlin, thus shaping the Cold War that followed. Ambrose expanded this into a book, "Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe" (1967). Ambrose was aided in the book's writing by comments and notes provided by Eisenhower, who read a draft of the book.  In 1964 Ambrose was commissioned to write the official biography of the former president and five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. This resulted in a book on Eisenhower's war years, "The Supreme Commander" (1970) and a two-volume full biography (published 1983 and 1984), which are considered "the standard" on the subject. Regarding the first volume, Gordon Harrison, writing for the "New York Times", proclaimed, "It is Mr. Ambrose's special triumph that he has been able to fight through the memoranda, the directives, plans, reports, and official self-serving pieties of the World War II establishment to uncover the idiosyncratic people at its center." Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of Richard Nixon. Although Ambrose was a strong critic of Nixon, the biography was considered fair and just regarding Nixon's presidency.  A visit to a reunion of Easy Company veterans in 1988 prompted Ambrose to collect their stories, turning them into "Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest" (1992). "D-Day" (1994), built upon additional oral histories, presented the battle from the view points of individual soldiers and became his first best seller. A reviewer for the "Journal of Military History" commended "D-Day" as the "most comprehensive discussion" of the sea, air, and land operations that coalesced on that day. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, writing for the "New York Times", proclaimed that "Reading this history, you can understand why for so many of its participants, despite all the death surrounding them, life revealed itself in that moment at that place." Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers", which describes battles fought in northwest Europe from D-Day through the end of the war, utilized, again, extensive oral histories. "Citizen Soldiers" became a best seller, appearing on the "New York Times" best sellers lists for both hardcover and paperback editions in the same week. During the same week, in September 1998, "D-Day" and "Undaunted Courage", Ambrose's 1996 book on Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery, appeared on the best seller list, also. He also wrote "The Victors" (1998), a distillation of material from other books detailing Eisenhower's wartime experiences and connections to the common soldier, and "The Wild Blue", that looks at World War II aviation largely through the experiences of George McGovern, who commanded a B-24 crew that flew numerous missions over Germany. His other major works include "Undaunted Courage" about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and "Nothing Like It in the World" about the construction of the Pacific Railroad. His final book, "This Vast Land", a historical novel about the Lewis & Clark expedition written for young readers, was published posthumously in 2003.  Ambrose's most popular single work was "Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West" (1996), which stayed on the "New York Times" best seller list for a combined, hardcover and paperback, 126 weeks. Ambrose consolidated research on the Corps of Discovery's expedition conducted in the previous thirty years and "synthesized it skillfully to enrich our understanding and appreciation of this grand epic," according to Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., who reviewed the book for the "New York Times". Ken Burns, who produced and directed a PBS documentary on Lewis & Clark declared that Ambrose "takes one of the great, but also one of the most superficially considered, stories in American history and breathes fresh life into it."  In addition to twenty-seven self-authored books, Ambrose co-authored, edited, and contributed to many more and was a frequent contributor to magazines such as "American Heritage". He, also, reviewed the works of other historians in the "Journal of Southern History", "Military Affairs", "American Historical Review", "Journal of American History", and "Foreign Affairs". He served as a contributing editor to "", also.

Television, film, and other activities.

Ambrose featured in the 1973-74 ITV television series, "The World at War", which detailed the history of World War II.  He served as the historical consultant for the movie "Saving Private Ryan". Tom Hanks, who starred in the movie, said he "pored over "D-Day"" and "Band of Brothers" in researching his role. Hanks also credited Ambrose's books with providing extensive detail, particularly regarding D-Day landings.  The HBO mini-series, "Band of Brothers" (2001), for which he was an executive producer, helped sustain the fresh interest in World War II that had been stimulated by the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 and the 60th anniversary in 2004. Ambrose served as executive producer for "Price for Peace", a documentary concerning the war in the Pacific theater during World War II, and for "Moments of Truth", a TV documentary containing interviews with World War II veterans.  In addition, Ambrose served as a commentator for "", a documentary by Ken Burns. He provided commentary in twenty made-for TV documentaries, covering diverse topics, such as World War II, Lewis & Clark, and America's prominence in the 20th century. He also appeared as a guest on numerous TV programs or stations, including "The Charlie Rose Show", C-Span programming, CNN programming, NBC's "Today Show", CNBC's "Hardball", and various programming on The History Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Ambrose's association with National Geographic stemmed, in part, from his designation as an Explorer-in-Residence by the Society.  In addition to his academic work and publishing, Ambrose operated a historical tour business, acting as a tour guide to European locales of World War II. Also, he served on the board of directors for American Rivers and was a member of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Council.

National World War II Museum.

Ambrose's work for the Eisenhower Center, specifically his work with D-Day veterans, inspired him to found the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. Ambrose initiated fundraising by donating $500,000. "He dreamt of a museum that reflected his deep regard for our nation's citizen soldiers, the workers on the Home Front and the sacrifices and hardships they endured to achieve victory." He secured large contributions from the federal government, state of Louisiana, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and many smaller donations from former students, who answered a plea made by Ambrose in the "New Orleans Times-Picayune". In 2003, Congress designated the museum as "America's National World War II Museum," acknowledging an expanded scope and mission for the museum. "The Stephen E. Ambrose Memorial Fund continues to support the development of the museum's Center for Study of the American Spirit, its educational programs and oral history and publication initiatives."

Awards.

In 1997, Ambrose received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1998, he received the National Humanities Medal. In 1998, he was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement given by the Society for Military History. In 2000, Ambrose received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest honorary award the Department of Defense offers to civilians. In 2001, he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Service from the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Ambrose won an Emmy as one of the producers for the mini-series "Band of Brothers". Ambrose also received the George Marshall Award, the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award, the Bob Hope Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and the Will Rogers Memorial Award.  Upon Ambrose's death, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana offered a resolution in the Senate, which received unanimous consent, saluting the "excellence of Stephen Ambrose at capturing the greatness of the American spirit in words."

Personal life, final years, and death.

He married his first wife, Judith Dorlester, in 1957, and they had two children, Stephenie and Barry. Judith died in 1965, when Ambrose was 29. Ambrose married his second wife, Moira Buckley (1939–2009), in 1967 and adopted her three children, Andrew, Grace, and Hugh. Moira was an active assistant in his writing and academic projects. After retiring, he maintained homes in Helena, Montana, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. A longtime smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in April 2002. His health deteriorated rapidly, and seven months after the diagnosis he died, at the age of 66. George McGovern, the primary focus of Ambrose's "Wild Blue" said, "He probably reached more readers than any other historian in our national history."

Legacy.

Ambrose donated $500,000, half the amount needed, to the University of Wisconsin, to endow a chair in the name of William B. Hesseltine, Ambrose's mentor. The chair's position would focus on the teaching of American military history. When the chair became fully endowed, after Ambrose's death, it was renamed the Ambrose-Hesseltine Chair.  The Ambrose Professor of History title was established at the University of New Orleans after his death. The position is reserved for a military historian.  Each year the Rutgers University Living History Society awards the Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award to "an author or artist who has made significant use of oral history." Past winners include Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Studs Terkel, Michael Beschloss, and Ken Burns.

Criticism.

Plagiarism.

In 2002, Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing several passages in his book "The Wild Blue". Fred Barnes reported in "The Weekly Standard" that Ambrose had taken passages from "Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II", by Thomas Childers, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ambrose had footnoted sources, but had not enclosed in quotation marks numerous passages from Childers's book.  Ambrose asserted that only a few sentences in all his numerous books were the work of other authors. He offered this defense: A "Forbes" investigation of his work found cases of plagiarism involving passages in at least six books, with a similar pattern going all the way back to his doctoral dissertation. The History News Network lists seven of Ambrose's more than 40 works—"The Wild Blue", "Undaunted Courage", "Nothing Like It In the World", "Nixon: Ruin and Recovery", "Citizen Soldiers", "The Supreme Commander", and "Crazy Horse and Custer"—contained content from twelve authors without appropriate attribution from Ambrose.

Factual errors and disputed characterizations.

Pacific Railroad.

A front-page article published in "The Sacramento Bee" on January 1, 2001, entitled "Area Historians Rail Against Inaccuracies in Book", listed more than sixty instances identified as "significant errors, misstatements, and made-up quotes" in "Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869," Ambrose's non-academic popular history about the construction of the Pacific Railroad between Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska, and the San Francisco Bay at Alameda/Oakland via Sacramento, California, which was published in August, 2000. The discrepancies were documented in a detailed "fact-checking" paper compiled in December, 2000 by three Western US railroad historians who are also experienced researchers, consultants, and collectors specializing in the Pacific Railroad and related topics.  On January 11, 2001, "Washington Post" columnist Lloyd Grove reported in his column "The Reliable Source", that a co-worker had found a "serious historical error" in the same book that "a chastened Ambrose" promised to correct in future editions. A number of journal reviews also sharply criticized the research and fact checking in the book. Reviewer Walter Nugent observed that it contained "annoying slips" such as mislabeled maps, inaccurate dates, geographical errors, and misidentified word origins, while railroad historian Don L. Hofsommer agreed that the book "confuses facts" and that "The research might best be characterized as 'once over lightly'."

The Eisenhower controversy.

In the introduction to Ambrose's biography of Eisenhower, he claims that the former president approached him after having read his previous biography of Henry Halleck, but Tim Rives, Deputy Director of the Eisenhower Presidential Center, says it was Ambrose who contacted Eisenhower and suggested the project, as shown by a letter from Ambrose found in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. In his response, Eisenhower stated that "the confidence I have derived from your work by reading your two books—especially the one on Halleck—give reasons why I should be ready to help out so far as I can." The Halleck biography "still sits on a shelf" at the Eisenhower National Historic site in Gettysburg.  After Eisenhower's death in 1969, Ambrose made repeated claims to have had a unique and extraordinarily close relationship with him over the final five years of the former President's life. In an extensive 1998 interview, before a group of high school students, Ambrose stated that he spent "a lot of time with Ike, really a lot, hundreds and hundreds of hours." Ambrose claimed he interviewed Eisenhower on a wide range of subjects, and that he had been with him "on a daily basis for a couple years" before his death "doing interviews and talking about his life." The former president's diary and telephone records show that the pair met only three times, for a total of less than five hours. Rives has stated that interview dates Ambrose cites in his 1970 book, "The Supreme Commander", cannot be reconciled with Eisenhower's personal schedule, but Rives discovered, upon further investigation, a "hidden" relationship between the two men. Eisenhower enlisted Ambrose in his efforts to preserve his legacy and counteract criticisms of his presidency, particularly those charging that Eisenhower's actions at the end of World War II produced the Cold War. Ambrose wrote a review and book supporting the former general, with Eisenhower providing direction and comments during the process. Rives could not square the questionable interview dates cited by Ambrose in later works, but uncovered a relationship with Eisenhower that was "too complicated" to be described by Ambrose's critics.

Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many bestselling volumes of American popular history.

Stephen Ambrose (10. ledna 1936, Lovington, Spojené státy americké – 13. října 2002, Bay St.Louis, Spojené státy americké) byl americký historik a spisovatel, autor bestsellerů "Citizen Soldiers", "Band of Brothers", "D-Day - June 6, 1944" a "Undaunted Courage".


History.

Ancient to medieval period.

Maharashtra people is dravid culture.  During the ancient period, around 230 BC, Maharashtra came under the rule of the Satavahana dynasty which ruled the region for 400 years. The greatest ruler of the Satavahana Dynasty was Gautami putra Satakarni. The Vakataka dynasty ruled Maharashtra from the 3rd century to the 5th century. The Chalukya dynasty ruled Maharashtra from the 6th century to the 8th century. The two prominent rulers were Pulakeshin II, who defeated the north Indian Emperor Harsh, and Vikramaditya II, who defeated Arab invaders in

Early Modern period (1650-1818).

Political history.

In the mid-17th century, Shivaji Maharaj (1630–1680) founded the Maratha Empire by conquering the Desh and the Konkan region from the Adilshahi, and established "Hindavi Swaraj" ('self-rule of Hindu people').) The Marathas are credited to a large extent with ending Mughal rule in India. After Shivaji's death, the Mughals, who had lost significant ground to the Maratha Empire under him, invaded Maharashtra in 1681. Shivaji's son Sambhaji, and successor as Chhatrapati, led the Maratha Empire valiantly against the much stronger Mughal opponent, but in 1689, after being betrayed, he was captured, tortured and killed by Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb. The war against the Mughals was then led by the Sambhaji's younger brother and successor Rajaram Chhatrapati. Upon Rajaram's death in 1700, his widow Tarabai took command of Maratha Empire forces and won many battles against the Mughals. In 1707, upon the death of Aurangzeb, the War of 27 years between the much weakened Mughal Empire and Maratha Empire came to an end. Shahu, the grandson of Shivaji, with the help of capable Maratha Empire administrators

Social history.

Before British rule, the Maharashtra region was divided into many revenue divisions. The medieval equivalent of a county or district was the Pargana. The chief of the Pargana was called Deshmukh and record keepers were called Deshpande. The lowest administrative unit was the village. Village society in Marathi areas included the Patil or the head of the village, collector of revenue, and Kulkarni, the village record keeper. These were hereditary positions. The Patil usually came from the Maratha caste. The Kulkarni was usually from Marathi Brahmin or CKP caste. The village also used to have

British colonial rule.

The British rule of more than a century in the present-day Maharashtra region saw huge changes for the Marathi people in every aspect of their lives. Areas that correspond to present day Maharashtra were under direct or indirect British rule, first under the East India Trading Company, and then under the British Raj from 1858. During this era Marathi people resided in the Bombay presidency, Berar, Central provinces, Hyderabad state and in various princely states that are currently part of present-day Maharashtra.The 1951 census of India had 4.5 million people in the erstwhile Hyderabad state who stated Marathi as their mother tongue. Significant Marathi populations also resided in Maratha princely states far from Maharashtra such as Baroda, Gwalior, Indore, and Tanjore.  The British

Modern period since Indian independence in 1947.

After India's independence in 1947, all princely states lying within the borders of the Bombay Presidency acceded to the Indian Union and were integrated into the newly created Bombay State in 1950.  The small community of Marathi Jews (Bene Israel - Sons of Insrael) started emigrating to the newly created country of Israel in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The number of Bene Israel remaining in India was estimated to be around 4,000-5,000 in 1988.  In 1956, the States Reorganisation Act reorganised the Indian states along linguistic lines, and Bombay Presidency State was enlarged by the addition of the predominantly Marathi-speaking regions of Marathwada (Aurangabad

Castes and communities.

The Marathi people form an ethnolinguistic group that is distinct from others in terms of its language, history, cultural and religious practices, social structure, literature, and art.  The traditional caste hierarchy was headed by the Brahmin castes-the Saraswats, Deshasthas, Chitpavans, Karhades, and the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus. In Mumbai during British rule, this included the Pathare Prabhu community. As per a census, the upper castes—Marathi Brahmins, Saraswat Brahmins, Prabhus (CKPs, Pathare Prabhus)—were only about 4% of the population. The Marathas were 32% in Western Maharashtra and the Kunbis were 7%, whereas the Other Backward Class population (other than the Kunbi) was 27%. The other castes in the intermediate category include: Lingayats who came from north Karnataka and settled in south Maharashtra, Gujjars and Rajputs who migrated centuries ago to Maharashtra from northern India - and settled in north Maharashtra. The population of the Mahars was 8%.

Hindu castes in Maharashtra.

Majority of Marathi Hindu belong either to the cultivator class (Maratha-Kunbi) or one of the former village servant (Bara Balutedar) castes which include Lohar (Iron-smith), Suthar (carpenters), Mali

Marathi Diaspora.

In other Indian states.

As the Maratha Empire expanded across India, the Marathi population started migrating out of Maharashtra alongside their rulers. Peshwa, Holkars, Scindia, and Gaekwad dynastic leaders took with them a considerable population of priests, clerks, army men, businessmen, and workers when they established new seats of power. Most of these migrants were from the literate classes such as various Brahmin sub-castes and CKP. These groups formed the backbone of administration in the new Maratha Empire

Population in India by state.

Outside India.

In the early 1800s, a large number of Indian people were taken to Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Eastern Africa, the Malay Peninsula, and the Caribbean as indentured laborers to work on sugarcane plantations. The majority of these migrants were from the Hindustani speaking areas or from Southern India, however, a significant number of immigrants were Marathis.  Since the state of Israel was established in 1948, around 25,000-30,000 Jews have emigrated there, of which around 20,000 were from the Marathi speaking Bene Israel community of Konkan.  Indians, including Marathi People, have migrated to Europe and particularly Great Britain for more than a century. The Maharashtra Mandal of London was founded in 1932. A small number of Marathi people also

Culture.

Religion.

The majority of Marathi people are Hindus.

Marathi Hindu Customs.

The main life ceremonies in Hindu culture include those related to birth, weddings, initiation ceremonies, as well as death rituals. Other ceremonies for different occasions in Hindu life include "Vastushanti" and "Satyanarayan" which is performed before a family formally establishes residence in a new house. Satyanarayana Puja is a ceremony performed before commencing any new endeavour or for no particular reason. Invoking the name of the family's gotra and the "kuladaivat" are important aspects of these ceremonies for many communities.  Like most other Hindu communities, the Marathi people have a household shrine called a "devaghar" with idols, symbols, and pictures of various deities for daily worship. Ritual reading of religious texts known as "pothi" is also popular in some communities.  In some traditional families, food is first offered to the preferred deity in the household shrine, as "naivedya", before being consumed by family members and guests. Meals or snacks are not taken before this religious offering. In present

Ceremonies and rituals.

At birth, a child is initiated into the family ritually. The child's naming ceremony may happen many weeks or even months later, and it is called the "bārsa". In many Indian Hindu communities, the naming is most often done by consulting the child's horoscope, which suggests various names depending on the child's Lunar sign (called "Rashi"). However, in Marathi Hindu families, the name that the child inevitably uses in secular functions is the one decided by their parents. If a name is chosen on the basis of the horoscope, then that is kept a secret to ward off the casting of a spell on the child during their life. During the naming ceremony, the child's paternal aunt has the honor of naming the infant. When the child is 11 months old, they get their first hair-cut. This is also an important ritual and is called "Jawal (जावळ)". In the Maratha community, the maternal uncle is given the honour of the first snip during the ceremony.  In Brahman, CKP and Gaud Saraswat Brahman communities when a male child reaches his eighth birthday, he undergoes the initiation thread ceremony variously known as Munja (in reference to the Munja grass that is of official ritual specification), "Vratabandha", or Upanayanam.  Marathi Hindu people are historically endogamous within their caste but exogamous with their clan.Cross-cousin alliances are allowed by most Marathi Hindu communities. Hindu marriages, more often than not, take place by negotiation. The Mangalsutra is the symbol of marriage for the woman. Studies show that most Indians' traditional views on caste, religion, and family background have remained unchanged when it came to marriage, that is, people marry within their own castes, and matrimonial advertisements in newspapers are still classified by caste and sub-caste.  While arranging a marriage, "gana",

Hindu calendar and festivals.

The Marathi, Kannada and Telugu people follow the Deccan Shalivahana Hindu calendar, which may have subtle differences with calendars followed by other communities in India. The calendar follows the Amanta tradition where the lunar month ends on no moon day. Marathi Hindus celebrate most of the Indian Hindu festivals such as Dasara, Diwali and Raksha Bandhan. These are, however, celebrated with certain Maharashtrian regional variations. Others festivals like Ganeshotsav have a more characteristic Marathi flavour. The festivals described below are in chronological order as they occur during a Shaka year, starting with Shaka new year festival of Gudhi Padwa.  During this Navavatri, girls and women perform 'Bhondla/Hadga' as the Sun moves to the thirteenth constellation of the zodiac called 'Hasta' (Elephant). During the nine days, Bhondla (also known as 'Bhulabai' in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra) is celebrated in the garden or on the terrace during evening hours by inviting female friends of the daughter in the house. An elephant is drawn either with Rangoli on the soil or with a chalk on a slate and kept in the middle. The girls go

Festivals and celebrations observed by other communities.

Dhamma Chakra Pravartan Din.

On 14 October 1956 at Nagpur, Maharashtra, India, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar embraced Buddhist religion publicly and gave Deeksha of Buddhist religion to his more than 380,000 followers. The day

Christmas.

Christmas is celebrated to mark the birthday of Jesus Christ. Like in other parts of India, Christmas is celebrated with zeal by the indigenous Marathi Catholics such as the East Indians.

Food.

The many communities in Marathi society result in a diverse cuisine. This diversity extends to the family level because each family uses its own unique combination of spices. The majority of Maharashtrians do eat meat and eggs, but the Brahmin community is mostly lacto-vegetarian. The traditional staple food on Desh (the Deccan plateau) is usually "bhakri", spiced cooked vegetables, "dal" and rice. Bhakri is an unleavened bread made using Indian millet ("jowar"), "bajra" or "bajri". However, the North Maharashtrians and urbanites prefer roti, which is a plain bread made with wheat flour. In the coastal Konkan region, rice is the traditional staple food. An aromatic variety of "ambemohar" rice is more popular amongst Marathi people than the internationally known basmati rice. Malvani dishes use more wet coconut and coconut milk in their preparation. In the Vidarbha region, little coconut is used in daily preparations but dry coconut, along with peanuts, is used in dishes such as spicy "savji"s or mutton and

Attire.

Traditionally, Marathi women commonly wore the sari, often distinctly designed according to local cultural customs. Most middle aged and young women in urban Maharashtra dress in western outfits such as skirts and trousers or salwar kameez with the traditionally "nauvari" or nine-yard sari, disappearing from the markets due to a lack of demand. Older women wear the five-yard sari. In urban areas, the

Names.

Marathi Hindu people follow a partially Patronymic naming system. For example, it is customary to associate the father's name with the given name. In the case of married women, the husband's name is associated with the given name. Therefore, the constituents of a Marathi name as given name /first name, father/husband, family name /surname. For example:

Personal names.

Marathi Hindus choose given names for their children from a variety of sources. They could be characters from Hindu mythological epics such as the Ramayana or Mahabharat, names of holy rivers such as Yamuna and Godavari, Hindu historical characters from Maratha or Indian history such as Shivaji and Ashoka, Marathi varkari saints such as Tukaram, Dnyaneshwar, Janabai,

Surnames.

A large number of Maharashtrian surnames are derived by adding the suffix "kar" to the village from which the family originally hailed. For example, Junnarkar came from town of Junnar, Waghulkar comes from the town of Waghul. Names like Kumbhar, Sutar, Kulkarni, Deshpande, Deshmukh, Patil, Pawar, Desai, and Joshi denote the family's ancestral trade or professions.  Families of the historical Maratha chiefs use their clan name as their surname. Some of these are Jaadhav, Bhosale, Chavan, Shinde, Shirke, More, Nimbalkar, Pawar, and Ghatge. Members of the numerically largest Maratha Kunbi cultivator class among Marathi people have also adopted some of the Maratha clan names, whether to indicate allegiance to the Maratha chief they served, or as an attempt at upward mobility.

Language and Literature.

It has been noted by scholars that there is Dravidian influence in the development of the Marathi language.

Ancient Marathi inscriptions.

Marathi, also known as Suena at that time, was the court language during the reign of the Yadava Kings. Yadava king Singhania was known for his magnanimous donations. Inscriptions recording these donations are found written in Marathion on stone slabs in the temple at Kolhapur in Maharashtra. Composition of noted works of scholars like

Classical literature.

Marathi people have a long literary tradition which started in the ancient era. It was the 13th-century saint, Dnyaneshwar who produced the first treatise in Marathi on the Geeta. The work called Dnyaneshwari is considered a masterpiece. Along with Dnyaneshwar, his contemporary, Namdev was also responsible for

Modern Marathi literature.

The first English book was translated into Marathi in 1817 while the first Marathi newspaper started in 1841. Many books on social reform were written by Baba Padamji ("Yamuna Paryatana", 1857), Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitawadi, Justice Ranade, and Hari Narayan Apte (1864–1919). Lokmanya Tilak's newspaper "Kesari" in Marathi was a strong voice in promoting Ganeshotsav or Shivaji festival. The newspaper also offered criticism of colonial government excesses. At this time, Marathi efficiently aided by Marathi Drama. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's newspaper, "Bahishkrut Bharat," set up in 1927, provided a platform for sharing literary views.  In the mid-1950s, the 'little magazine movement' gained momentum. It published writings which were non-conformist, radical, and experimental. The Dalit literature movement also gained strength due to the little magazine movement. This radical movement was influenced by the philosophy of non-conformity, and challenged the literary establishment, which was largely middle class, urban, and upper caste. The little magazine movement was responsible for many excellent writers including the well-known novelist, critic, and poet Bhalchandra Nemade. Dalit writer N. D. Mahanor is well known for his work, while Dr. Sharad Rane is a well-known children's writer.

Martial tradition.

Although ethnic Marathis have taken up military roles for many centuries, their martial qualities came to prominence in seventeenth century India, under the leadership of Chhatrapati Shivaji. He founded the Maratha Empire, which at the time of the mid 18th century controlled practically the entire Indian subcontinent. It was largely an ethnic Marathi polity, with its chiefs and nobles coming

Ghati people.

"Ghati people", literally means the "people of hills or ghats", is an exonym used especially for marathi people from the villages in Western Ghats (Sahyadri range) on western coast of Maharashtra. At times the word is used pejoratively to describe all Marathi people.

The Marathi people, also rendered as Marathis or Maharashtrian, are an ethnolinguistic group who speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language as their native language. They inhabit the state of Maharashtra as well as districts bordering the state, such as Belgaum and Karwar of Karnataka and the state of Goa in western India as well as districts of southern Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh. The term 'Maratha' is generally used by historians to refer to all Marathi-speaking peoples, irrespective of caste, although presently it refers to a set of Maharashtrian castes called Maratha. The Marathi community came into political prominence in the 17th century when the Marathas, under Shivaji, established the Maratha Empire, which is credited to a large extent for ending the Mughal rule.

Maráthové (maráthsky "मराठी माणसं" či "महाराष्ट्रीय") jsou indoárijský národ, žijící ve střední Indii. Jejich počet se odhaduje na přibližně 70 až 80 milionů osob. Hovoří maráthsky, indoárijským jazykem, zapisovaným písmem odvozeným od písma dévanágarí.


Etymology.

Arâk.

The term "Arâk" remains from a name given to the region since the medieval period. It derives from Arabic "al-ʿIrāq", meaning "root", itself derived possibly from Akkadian "Uruk" (, "Erech").  During the Seljuk era, a region comprising the whole territory of Media (northwestern Iran) and the lower part of Mesopotamia was referred to as "Iraq"; with the Median part called "ʿErâq-e ʿAjam" ("Iraq of the Ajam"), and the Mesopotamian part called "ʿErâq-e ʿArab" ("Iraq of the Arab").

Soltân Âbâd.

The term "Soltân Âbâd" is a Persian compound word.  "Soltân", deriving from Arabic "sulṭān" ("power", "authority"), is a Near Eastern noble title given to a powerful governor. Modern Persian "âbâd", meaning "settlement" or "abode", derives from Middle Persian "āpāt" ("populous"). However, according to linguist Sasha Lubotsky, the Persian term "ābād" might derive from Proto-Iranian "*āpāta" ("protected"), rooting from Proto-Indo-European "*peh2-" ("to protect").

History.

Originally named "Soltan Abad", the modern-day city of Arak was founded in 1808 by Yusef Khan-e Gorji, a pro-Iranian warlord of Georgian origin who was given refuge by Qajar ruler Agha Mohammad Khan following a territorial dispute with his cousins, who were supported by Russian empress Catherine the Great.  Between 1795 and 1797, Yusef Khan-e Gorji, renamed "Yusef Khan-e Sepahdar" by the Qajar ruler, settled his army in the fertile but poorly-controlled territory that would become the modern-day Arak. Hostile tribes in the region had operated autonomously from the Qajar rule. With the Shah's approval, Yusef Khan diverted the main river to drive out the hostiles and build the war fortress of Soltan Abad to act as a buffer.  According to early modern historians, Yusef Khan built the city with the aid of effluents. Until 1892, the town remained a military base and fortress. The fortress of Soltan Abad had a thick wall surrounded by 7-meter-deep moats. Eight towers were constructed around the town and the governmental building was established in its northern part.  In 1891, shops, gardens, and government buildings of Soltan Abad were repaired by the order of deputy governor Mirza Hasan ("Etemad os-Saltane"). Large parts of the city were formerly annexed as personal property to the pre-existing army commanders, and were then ultimately turned over to the state around 1918–1922.  Beginning by the last quarter of the 19th century, the city achieved major developments in carpet industry, and eventually became Iran's most important center of carpet production for export markets, continuing up until at least 1940. Under the reign of Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, the city was renamed "Arak". Modern factories for vegetable oil, soap, sugar beet, and wool industries were established within the city. Arak also became an important station for the Trans-Iranian Railway, a major railway project directed by Reza Shah which was completed in 1938.  In 1972, two major state-owned enterprises were established in the city, including an aluminum smelter and a heavy engineering plant. The aluminum smelter was built under the "Regional Cooperation for Development" project of the Central Treaty Organization, in cooperation with the company of Reynolds and Reynolds. The engineering plant was processed with equipment and technical advice from the Soviets, in return of gas sales to the Soviet Union.  The city officially became a metropolis on April 6, 2013, after the merger with Karahrud and Senjan.

Geography.

Arak is surrounded by mountains in the south, west, and east, and its average altitude is about 1750m above sea level. It is located 260 km from the city of Tehran, and is in the vicinity of the cities of Qom and Isfahan.

Climate.

Arak has a hot-summer mediterranean continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dsa") that is, in general, relatively cold and dry.  The weather of the city is hot and dry in summer, windy and cool in autumn, cold and snowy in winter, and mild in spring. Its maximum temperature may raise up to 35 degrees Celsius in summer and fall to below -25 degrees Celsius in winter. The average rainfall is around 350mm and the annual relative humidity is 46%.

Transport.

Airport.

Arak is served by the International Airport of Arak, which is located north of the city. The airport was opened in 1938, and is one of the oldest airports of Iran.

Rail.

The railway system of Arak was connected to the Iranian Railways in 1935. Destinations stretch directly from Bandar-e-Shapur in the southwestern Iran to Bandar-e-Torkman under the Caspian Sea.

Public transportation.

Buses provide the bulk of the local public transport in Arak.

Industry.

Arak is one of industrial cities of Iran, that in terms of diversity is the 1st, in terms of heavy industries is the 2nd and totally is one of four industrial hubs of Iran. This city because of the heavy industries, manufacturing 80% of Iran energy equipment, the largest Iranian Machinery company (MSA), the largest heavy equipment manufacturer in the Middle East, the largest locomotive and wagon manufacturer in the Middle East, the largest Aluminum company in Iran, the largest crane manufacturer in the Middle East, Iran's largest mineral company and the largest combine manufacturer in the Middle East; nicknamed the Industrial Capital of Iran.  Arak has chemical, construction, energy, food, machinery, metal, mining, textile, petroleum and petrochemical Industries that some of those are between basic industries of Iran.  The following are a number of important industrial factories based in Arak.

Agriculture and handicrafts.

The main agricultural products of the city are grain, barley, and fruits including grape, apple, walnut, and almond. Arak also exports hand-knotted carpets which are referred to as Sarouk rugs. Saruq is a small village outside Arak, and its name is used in order to prevent confusion with rug from the modern-day country of Iraq.

Notable people.

Statesmen and politicians:  Literary, painting, and photography figures:  Sportsmen:  Scientists:  Singers:  Cinema and television artists:

Arak (, "Arâk"; ) is the capital of Markazi Province, Iran. At the 2011 census, its population was 526,182, in 160,761 families. The city is nicknamed the "Industrial Capital of Iran".

Arák (persky: اراک) dříve znám pod jménem Sultán Ábád () je velké město v Íránu, centrum provincie Markazí. V roce 2005 zde žilo 511 127 obyvatel, podle jiného zdroje 410 000 obyvatel. Nachází se nedaleko solného jezera, v nadmořské výšce 1830 metrů. Městem prochází železnice, nachází se zde muzeum, několik fotbalových a atletických stadionů.