History.

Panix, the third-oldest ISP in the world, was the target of what is thought to be the first DoS attack. On September 6, 1996, Panix was subject to a SYN flood attack which brought down its services for several days while hardware vendors, notably Cisco, figured out a proper defense.  Another early demonstration of DoS attack was made by Khan C. Smith in 1997 during a DEF CON event, disrupting Internet access to the Las Vegas Strip for over an hour. The release of sample code during the event led to the online attack of Sprint, EarthLink, E-Trade, and other major corporations in the year to follow.  On March 5, 2018, an unnamed customer of the US-based service provider Arbor Networks fell victim to the largest DDoS in history, reaching a peak of about 1.7 terabits per second. The previous record was set a few days earlier, on March 1, 2018, GitHub was hit by an attack of 1.35 terabits per second.

Hong Kong's Telegram.

During the Hong Kong anti-extradition protests in June 2019, the messaging app Telegram was subject to a DDoS attack, aimed at

Wikipedia down.

On September 6 and 7, 2019, Wikipedia was taken down by a DDoS attack in Germany and

Types.

Denial-of-service attacks are characterized by an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate use of a service. There are two general forms of DoS attacks: those that crash services and those that flood services. The most serious attacks are distributed. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) is a large-scale DoS attack where the perpetrator uses more than one unique IP address or machines, often from thousands of hosts infected with malware. A distributed denial of service attack typically involves more than around 3–5 nodes on different networks; fewer nodes may qualify as a DoS attack but is not a DDoS attack. Since the incoming traffic flooding the victim originates from different sources, it may be impossible to stop the attack simply by using ingress filtering. It also makes it difficult to distinguish legitimate user traffic from attack traffic when spread across multiple points of origin. As an alternative or augmentation of a DDoS, attacks may involve forging of IP sender addresses (IP address spoofing) further complicating identifying and defeating the attack.  The scale of DDoS attacks has continued to rise over recent years, by 2016 exceeding a terabit per second. Some common examples of DDoS attacks are UDP flooding, SYN flooding and DNS amplification.

Application layer attacks.

An application layer DDoS attack (sometimes referred to as layer 7 DDoS attack) is a form of DDoS attack where attackers target application-layer processes. The attack over-exercises specific functions or features of a website with the intention to disable those functions or features. This application-layer attack is different from an entire network attack, and is often used against financial institutions to distract IT and security personnel from security breaches. In 2013, application-layer DDoS attacks represented 20% of all DDoS attacks. According to research by Akamai Technologies, there have been "51 percent more application layer attacks" from Q4 2013 to Q4 2014 and "16 percent more" from Q3 2014 over Q4 2014. In November 2017; Junade Ali, a Computer Scientist at Cloudflare noted that whilst network-level attacks continue to be of high capacity, they are occurring less frequently. Ali further notes that although network-level attacks are becoming less frequent, data from Cloudflare demonstrates that application-layer attacks are still showing no sign of slowing down.

Application layer.

The OSI model (ISO/IEC 7498-1) is a conceptual model that characterizes and standardizes the internal functions of a communication system by partitioning it into abstraction layers. The model is a product of the Open Systems Interconnection project at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The model groups similar communication functions into one of seven logical layers. A layer serves the layer above it and is served by the layer below

Method of attack.

An application layer DDoS attack is done mainly for specific targeted purposes, including disrupting transactions and access to databases. It requires fewer resources than network layer attacks but often accompanies them. An attack may be disguised to look like legitimate traffic, except it targets specific application packets or functions. The attack on the application layer can disrupt services such as the retrieval of information or search functions on a website. It is very common for attackers to use pre-built applications and open-source projects to run the attack.

Advanced persistent DoS.

An advanced persistent DoS (APDoS) is associated with an advanced persistent threat and requires specialised DDoS mitigation. These attacks can persist for weeks; the longest continuous period noted so far lasted 38 days. This attack involved approximately 50+ petabits (50,000+ terabits) of malicious traffic.

Denial-of-service as a service.

Some vendors provide so-called "booter" or "stresser" services, which have simple web-based front ends, and accept payment over the web. Marketed and promoted as stress-testing tools, they can be used

Symptoms.

The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team

Attack techniques.

A wide array of tools and techniques are used to launch DoS-attacks.  The simplest DoS attack relies primarily on brute force, flooding the target with an overwhelming flux of packets, oversaturating its connection bandwidth or depleting the target's system resources. Bandwidth-saturating floods rely on the attacker's ability to generate the overwhelming flux of packets. A common way of achieving this today is via distributed denial-of-service, employing a botnet.

Attack tools.

In cases such as MyDoom and Slowloris the tools are embedded in malware and launch their attacks without the knowledge of the system owner. Stacheldraht is a classic example of a DDoS tool. It uses a layered structure where the attacker uses a client program to connect to handlers which are compromised systems that issue commands to the zombie agents which in turn facilitate the DDoS attack. Agents are compromised via the

Application-layer attacks.

Application-layer attacks employ DoS-causing exploits and can cause server-running software to fill the disk space or consume all available memory or CPU time. Attacks may use specific packet types or connection requests to saturate finite resources by, for example, occupying the maximum number of open connections or filling the victim's disk space with logs. An attacker with shell-level access to a victim's computer may slow it until it is unusable or crash it by using a fork bomb. Another kind of application-level DoS attack is XDoS (or XML DoS) which can be controlled by modern web application firewalls (WAFs).  Another target of DDoS

Degradation-of-service attacks.

Pulsing zombies are compromised computers that are directed to launch intermittent and short-lived floodings of victim websites with the intent of merely slowing it rather than crashing it. This type of attack, referred to as "degradation-of-service", can

Denial-of-service Level II.

The goal of DoS L2 (possibly DDoS) attack is to cause a launching of a defense mechanism which blocks the network segment from

Distributed DoS attack.

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack occurs when multiple systems flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system, usually one or more web servers. Such an attack is often the result of multiple compromised systems (for example, a botnet) flooding the targeted system with traffic. A botnet is a network of zombie computers programmed to receive commands without the owners' knowledge. When a server is overloaded with connections, new connections can no longer be accepted. The major advantages to an attacker of using a distributed denial-of-service attack are that multiple machines can generate more attack traffic than one machine, multiple attack machines are harder to turn off than one attack machine, and that the behavior of

DDoS extortion.

In 2015, DDoS botnets such as DD4BC grew in prominence, taking aim at financial institutions. Cyber-extortionists typically begin with a low-level attack and a warning that a larger

HTTP slow POST DoS attack.

First discovered in 2009, the HTTP slow POST attack sends a complete, legitimate HTTP POST header, which includes a 'Content-Length' field to specify the size of the message body to follow. However, the attacker then proceeds to send the actual message body at an extremely slow rate (e.g. 1 byte/110 seconds). Due to the entire message being correct and complete, the target server will attempt to obey the 'Content-Length' field in the header, and wait for the entire body of the message to be transmitted, which can take a very long time. The attacker establishes hundreds or

Challenge Collapsar (CC) attack.

A Challenge Collapsar (CC) attack is an attack that standard HTTP requests are sent to a targeted web server frequently, in which the Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) require complicated time-consuming algorithms or database operations, in order to exhaust

Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) flood.

A smurf attack relies on misconfigured network devices that allow packets to be sent to all computer hosts on a particular network via the broadcast address of the network, rather than a specific machine. The attacker will send large numbers of IP packets with the source address faked to appear to be the address of the victim. Most devices on a network will, by default, respond to this by sending a reply to the source IP address. If the number of machines on the network that receive and respond to these packets is

Nuke.

A Nuke is an old denial-of-service attack against computer networks consisting of fragmented or otherwise invalid ICMP packets sent to the target, achieved by using a modified ping utility to repeatedly send this corrupt data, thus slowing down the affected computer

Peer-to-peer attacks.

Attackers have found a way to exploit a number of bugs in peer-to-peer servers to initiate DDoS attacks. The most aggressive of these peer-to-peer-DDoS attacks exploits DC++. With peer-to-peer there

Permanent denial-of-service attacks.

Permanent denial-of-service (PDoS), also known loosely as phlashing, is an attack that damages a system so badly that it requires replacement or reinstallation of hardware. Unlike the distributed denial-of-service attack, a PDoS attack exploits security flaws which allow remote administration on the management interfaces of the victim's hardware, such as routers, printers, or other networking hardware. The attacker uses these vulnerabilities to replace a device's firmware with a modified, corrupt, or defective firmware image—a process which when done legitimately is known as "flashing." This

Reflected / spoofed attack.

A distributed denial-of-service attack may involve sending forged requests of some type to a very large number of computers that will reply to the requests. Using Internet Protocol address spoofing, the source address is set to that of the targeted victim, which means all the

Amplification.

Amplification attacks are used to magnify the bandwidth that is sent to a victim. This is typically done through publicly accessible DNS servers that are used to cause congestion on the target system using DNS response traffic. Many services can be exploited to act as reflectors, some harder to block than others. US-CERT have observed that different services may result in different amplification factors, as tabulated below:  DNS amplification attacks involve a new mechanism that increased the amplification effect, using a much larger list of DNS servers than seen earlier. The process typically involves an attacker sending a DNS name look up request to a public DNS server, spoofing the source IP address of the targeted victim. The attacker tries to request as much information as possible, thus amplifying the DNS response that is sent to the targeted victim. Since the size of the request is significantly smaller than the

Mirai botnet.

This attack works by using a worm to infect hundreds of thousands of IoT devices across the internet. The worm propagates through networks and systems taking control of poorly protected IoT devices such as thermostats, Wi-Fi enabled clocks and washing machines. When the device becomes enslaved usually the owner or user will have no immediate indication. The IoT device itself is not the direct

R-U-Dead-Yet? (RUDY).

RUDY attack targets web applications by starvation of available sessions on the web server.

SACK Panic.

Manipulating maximum segment size and selective acknowledgement (SACK) it may be used by a remote peer to

Shrew attack.

The shrew attack is a denial-of-service attack on the Transmission Control Protocol where the attacker employs man-in-the-middle

Slow Read attack.

A slow read attack sends legitimate application layer requests, but reads responses very slowly, thus trying to exhaust the server's connection pool.

Sophisticated low-bandwidth Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack.

A sophisticated low-bandwidth DDoS attack is a form of DoS that uses less traffic and increases their effectiveness by aiming at a weak point in the victim's system design, i.e., the attacker sends

(S)SYN flood.

A SYN flood occurs when a host sends a flood of TCP/SYN packets, often with a forged sender address. Each of these packets are handled like a connection request, causing the server to spawn a half-open connection, by

Teardrop attacks.

A teardrop attack involves sending mangled IP fragments with overlapping, oversized payloads to the target machine. This can crash various operating systems because of a bug in their TCP/IP fragmentation re-assembly code. Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and Windows NT operating systems, as well as versions of Linux prior to versions 2.0.32 and 2.1.63 are vulnerable to this attack.  (Although in September 2009, a vulnerability in Windows Vista

Telephony denial-of-service (TDoS).

Voice over IP has made abusive origination of large numbers of telephone voice calls inexpensive and readily automated while permitting call origins to be misrepresented through caller ID spoofing.  According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, telephony denial-of-service (TDoS) has appeared as part of various fraudulent schemes:  Telephony denial-of-service can exist even without Internet telephony. In the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, telemarketers were used to flood

TTL expiry attack.

It takes more router resources to drop a packet with a TTL value of 1 or less than it does to forward a packet

UPnP attack.

This attack uses an existing vulnerability in Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) protocol to get around a considerable amount of the present defense methods and flood a target's network and servers. The attack is based on a DNS amplification technique, but the attack mechanism is

Defense techniques.

Defensive responses to denial-of-service attacks typically involve the use of a combination of attack detection, traffic classification and response tools, aiming to block traffic that they identify as illegitimate and allow traffic that they identify as legitimate. A list of prevention and response tools is provided below:

Application front end hardware.

Application front-end hardware is intelligent hardware placed on the network before traffic reaches the servers. It can be used on networks in

Application level Key Completion Indicators.

Approaches to DDoS attacks against cloud-based applications may be based on an application layer analysis, indicating whether incoming bulk traffic is legitimate and thus triggering elasticity decisions without the economical implications of a DDoS attack. These approaches mainly rely on an identified path of value inside the application and monitor the progress of requests on this path, through markers called Key Completion Indicators.  In essence, these technique are statistical methods of assessing the behavior of incoming requests to detect if something unusual or abnormal is going on.  An analogy is to a bricks-and-mortar department store where customers spend, on average, a known percentage of their time on different activities such as picking up items and examining them, putting them back, filling a basket, waiting to pay, paying, and leaving. These high-level activities

Blackholing and sinkholing.

With blackhole routing, all the traffic to the attacked DNS or IP address is sent to a "black hole" (null interface or a non-existent server). To be

IPS based prevention.

Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are effective if the attacks have signatures associated with them. However, the trend among the attacks is to have legitimate content but bad intent. Intrusion-prevention systems which work on content recognition cannot block behavior-based DoS attacks.  An ASIC based

DDS based defense.

More focused on the problem than IPS, a DoS defense system (DDS) can block connection-based DoS attacks and those with

Firewalls.

In the case of a simple attack, a firewall could have a simple rule added to deny all incoming traffic from the attackers, based on protocols, ports or the originating IP addresses.  More complex attacks will however be hard to block with simple rules: for example, if there is an

Routers.

Similar to switches, routers have some rate-limiting and ACL capability. They, too, are manually set.

Switches.

Most switches have some rate-limiting and ACL capability. Some switches provide automatic and/or system-wide rate limiting, traffic shaping, delayed binding (TCP splicing), deep packet inspection and Bogon filtering (bogus IP filtering) to detect and remediate DoS attacks through automatic rate filtering and WAN Link failover and balancing.  These schemes will work

Upstream filtering.

All traffic is passed through a "cleaning center" or a "scrubbing center" via various methods such as proxies, tunnels, digital cross connects, or even direct circuits, which separates "bad" traffic (DDoS and also other common internet attacks) and only sends good traffic

Unintentional denial-of-service.

An unintentional denial-of-service can occur when a system ends up denied, not due to a deliberate attack by a single individual or group of individuals, but simply due to a sudden enormous spike in popularity. This can happen when an extremely popular website posts a prominent link to a second, less well-prepared site, for example, as part of a news story. The result is that a significant proportion of the primary site's regular userspotentially hundreds of thousands of peopleclick that link in the space of a few hours, having the same effect on the target website as a DDoS attack. A VIPDoS is the same, but specifically when the link was posted by a celebrity.  When Michael Jackson died in 2009, websites such as Google and Twitter slowed down or even crashed. Many sites' servers thought the requests were from a virus or spyware trying to cause a denial-of-service attack, warning users that their queries looked like "automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".  News sites and link sitessites whose primary function is to provide links to interesting content elsewhere on the Internetare most likely to cause this phenomenon. The

Side effects of attacks.

Backscatter.

In computer network security, backscatter is a side-effect of a spoofed denial-of-service attack. In this kind of attack, the attacker spoofs (or forges) the source address in IP packets sent to the victim. In general, the victim machine cannot distinguish between the spoofed packets and legitimate packets, so the victim responds to the

Legality.

Many jurisdictions have laws under which denial-of-service attacks are illegal.  On January 7, 2013, Anonymous posted a petition on the whitehouse.gov site asking that DDoS be recognized as a legal form of protest similar to the Occupy protests, the claim being that the similarity in purpose of both are same.

In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.

Denial of service (DoS) (česky odepření služby) je typ útoku na internetové služby nebo stránky, jehož cílem je cílovou službu znefunkčnit a znepřístupnit ostatním uživatelům; může k tomu dojít přehlcením požadavky či využitím nějaké chyby, která sice útočníkovi neumožní službu ovládnout, ale umožní ji rozbít. Podtypem útoku DoS je tzv. distributed denial of service (DDoS), při kterém je pro přehlcení cílové služby požadavky využito velké množství rozptýlených počítačů.


Biography.

Born to a bookseller in Naples, Italy, Giovan Battista Vico attended several schools, but ill health and dissatisfaction with the scholasticism of the Jesuits led to his being educated at home by tutors. Evidence from his autobiographical work indicates that Vico likely was an autodidact educated under paternal influence, during a three-year absence from school, consequence of an accidental fall when the boy was seven years old. Giovan Battista's formal education was at the University of Naples from which he graduated in 1694, as Doctor of Civil and Canon Law.  In 1686, after surviving a bout of typhus, he accepted a job as a tutor, in Vatolla, south of Salerno, which became a nine-year professional engagement that lasted till 1695. Four years later, in 1699, Vico married Teresa Caterina Destito, a childhood friend, and accepted a chair in rhetoric at the University of Naples, which he held until ill-health retirement, in 1741. Throughout his academic career, Vico would aspire to, but never attain, the more respectable chair of jurisprudence; however, in 1734, he was appointed historiographer royal, by Charles III, King of Naples, at a salary greater than he had earned as a university professor.

The rhetoric and humanism of Vico.

Vico's version of rhetoric is product of his humanistic and pedagogic concerns. In the 1708 commencement speech "De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione" ("On the Order of the Scholarly Disciplines of Our Times"), Vico said that whoever "intends a career in public life, whether in the courts, the senate, or the pulpit" should be taught to "master the art of topics and [to] defend both sides of a controversy, be it on Nature, Man, or politics, in a freer and brighter style of expression, so he can learn to draw on those arguments which are most probable and have the greatest degree of verisimilitude"; yet, in "Scienza Nuova", Vico denounced defending both sides in controversies as "false eloquence".  As Royal Professor of Latin Eloquence, Vico prepared students for higher studies in the fields of Law and of Jurisprudence; thus, his lessons were about the formal aspects of the canon of rhetoric, including the arrangement and the delivery of an argument. Yet he chose to emphasize the Aristotelian connection of rhetoric with logic and dialectic, thereby placing ends (rhetoric) at their center. Vico's objection to modern rhetoric is that it is disconnected from common sense ("sensus communis"), defined as the "worldly sense" that is common to all men.  In lectures and throughout the body of his work, Vico's rhetoric begins from a central argument ("medius terminus"), which is to be clarified by following the order of things as they arise in our experience. Probability and circumstance retain their proportionate importance, and discovery—reliant upon topics ("loci")—supersedes axioms derived through reflective, abstract thought. In the tradition of classical Roman rhetoric, Vico sets out to educate the orator (rhetorician) as the transmitter of the "oratio", a speech with "ratio" (reason) at the centre. What is essential to the oratorical art (Gr. ῥητορική, "rhētorikē") is the orderly link between common sense and an end commensurate with oratory; an end that is not imposed upon the imagination from above (in the manner of the moderns and dogmatic Christianity), but that is drawn from common sense, itself. In the tradition of Socrates and Cicero, Vico's true orator will be midwife to the birth of "the true" (as an idea) from "the certain", the ignorance in the mind of the student.  Rediscovery of "the most ancient wisdom" of the senses, a wisdom that is "humana stultitia" ("human foolishness"), Vico's emphases on the importance of civic life and of professional obligations are in the humanist tradition. He would call for a maieutic (jurisprudential) oratory art against the grain of the modern privilege of the dogmatic form of reason, in what he called the "geometrical method" of René Descartes and the logicians at the Port-Royal-des-Champs abbey.

Response to the Cartesian method.

As he relates in his autobiography, Vico returned to Naples from Vatolla to find "the physics of Descartes at the height of its renown among the established men of letters." Developments in both metaphysics and the natural sciences abounded as the result of Cartesianism. Widely disseminated by the Port Royal Logic of Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, Descartes's method was rooted in verification: the only path to truth, and thus knowledge, was through axioms derived from observation. Descartes's insistence that the "sure and indubitable" (or, "clear and distinct") should form the basis of reasoning had an obvious impact on the prevailing views of logic and discourse. Studies in rhetoric—indeed all studies concerned with civic discourse and the realm of probable truths—met with increasing disdain.  Vico's humanism and professional concerns prompted an obvious response that he would develop throughout the course of his writings: the realms of verifiable truth and human concern share only a slight overlap, yet reasoning is required in equal measure in both spheres. One of the clearest and earliest forms of this argument is available in the "De Italorum Sapientia", where Vico argues that  Vico's position here and in later works is not that the Cartesian method is irrelevant, but that its application cannot be extended to the civic sphere. Instead of confining reason to a string of verifiable axioms, Vico suggests (along with the ancients) that appeals to "phronēsis" (φρόνησις or practical wisdom) must also be made, and likewise appeals to the various components of persuasion that comprise rhetoric. Vico would reproduce this argument consistently throughout his works, and would use it as a central tenet of the "Scienza Nuova".

The principle of "Verum factum".

Vico is best known for his "verum factum" principle, first formulated in 1710 as part of his "De antiquissima Italorum sapientia, ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda" (1710) ("On the most ancient wisdom of the Italians, unearthed from the origins of the Latin language"). The principle states that truth is verified through creation or invention and not, as per Descartes, through observation: "The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself." This criterion for truth would later shape the history of civilization in Vico's opus, the "Scienza Nuova" ("The New Science", 1725), because he would argue that civil life—like mathematics—is wholly constructed.

The "Scienza Nuova".

"The New Science" (1725, "Scienza Nuova") is his major work and has been highly influential in the philosophy of history, and for historicists such as Isaiah Berlin and Hayden White.

Influence.

Samuel Beckett's first published work, in the selection of critical essays on James Joyce entitled "Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress", is "Dante... Bruno. Vico.. Joyce". In it, Beckett sees a profound influence of Vico's philosophy and poetics—as well the cyclical form of the "Scienza Nuova"—on the avant-garde compositions of Joyce, and especially the titular Work in Progress, viz. "Finnegans Wake".  In "Knowledge and Social Structure" (1974), Peter Hamilton identified Vico as the "sleeping partner" of the Age of Enlightenment. Despite having been relatively unknown in his 17th-century time, and read only in his native Naples, the ideas of Vico are predecessors to the ideas of the intellectuals of the Enlightenment. Moreover, recognition of Vico's intellectual influence began in the 19th century, when the French Romantic historians used his works as methodological models and guides.  In "Capital: Critique of Political Economy" (1867), Karl Marx's mention of Vico indicates their parallel perspectives about history, the role of historical actors, and an historical method of narrative. Marx and Vico saw social-class warfare as the means by which men achieve the end of equal rights; Vico called that time the "Age of Men". Marx concluded that such a state of affairs is the optimal end of social change in a society, but Vico thought that such complete equality would lead to socio-political chaos and the consequent collapse of society. In that vein, Vico proposed a social need for religion, for a supernatural divine providence to keep order in human society.  In "Orientalism" (1978), Edward Said acknowledged his scholar's debt to Vico, whose "ideas anticipate and later infiltrate the line of German thinkers I am about to cite. They belong to the era of Herder and Wolf, later to be followed by Goethe, Humboldt, Dilthey, Nietzsche, Gadamer, and finally the great twentieth century Romance philologists Erich Auerbach, Leo Spitzer, and Ernst Robert Curtius." As a humanist and early philologist, Vico represented "a different, alternative model that has been extremely important to me in my work", which differed from mainstream Western prejudice against the Orient and the dominating "standardization" that came with modernity and culminated in National Socialism. That the interdependence of human history and culture facilitates the scholars' task to "take seriously Vico's great observation that men make their own history, that what they can know is what they have made, and extend it to geography. As geographical and cultural entities—to say nothing of historical entities—such locales, regions, and geographical sectors as 'Orient' and 'Occident' are man-made."

Giambattista Vico (born Giovan Battista Vico ; ; 23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian political philosopher and rhetorician, historian and jurist, of the Age of Enlightenment. He criticized the expansion and development of modern rationalism, was an apologist for Classical Antiquity, a precursor of systematic and complex thought, in opposition to Cartesian analysis and other types of reductionism, and was the first expositor of the fundamentals of social science and of semiotics.

Giambattista Vico nebo Giovanni Battista Vico (vysl. "džambatista víko", 23. června 1668, Neapol – 23. ledna 1744, Neapol) byl italský filosof, historik a právník, zakladatel filosofie dějin a jeden z prvních myslitelů kulturního vývoje národů a společnosti.


Development.

By the mid-1950s, it became obvious that subsonic cannon-armed fighters such as the Yakovlev Yak-25 would be unable to intercept fast high-altitude targets like the upcoming generation of strategic jet bombers. As a result, in 1953 Lavochkin OKB proposed addition of an air-to-air missile system to the "Berkut" air-defense system. Tasked with defense of Moscow, the "Berkut" system consisted of a large network of radars and surface-to-air missile sites as well as ground-controlled interceptor aircraft. Lavochkin's proposed missile, the G-300 utilized a guidance system based on vacuum tubes and was so heavy (about 1,000 kg (2,200 lb)) that no fighter in the Soviet arsenal could carry it. Instead, a Tupolev Tu-4 bomber (Soviet version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress) was modified to carry four G-300s under the wings, with the whole system receiving designation G-310. For all this trouble, G-300 was expected to have a range of only and a ceiling of. Although G-310 made ten flights in 1952, the system was abandoned as impractical.  In November 1952, the Soviet government ordered development of Kompleks K-15 (Complex K-15, a notion analogous to USAF's "weapon system" concept). K-15 was to consist of an "interceptor 250" (later designated La-250) carrying "Type 275" guided missiles. La-250 had to be able to intercept targets flying at, Mach 1.18) at up to from the airbase. Initial guidance was to be from "Vozdukh-1" ground control with terminal onboard radar guidance for the last and automatic missile firing by the fire control system when in range. Missile "275" was projected to weigh and, powered by a liquid fuel rocket motor, its top speed was to exceed. With a conventional warhead, it had a projected lethal radius of. La-250 was to carry two "275" missiles semi-recessed into the underside of the fuselage in a tandem arrangement.  The first flight took place on 16 July 1956 by Andrei G. Kochetkov. Problems with the K-15U radar and Klimov VK-9 engines forced a radical redesign of the aircraft to use the K-15M radar and, more importantly, much less powerful Lyulka AL-7F engines. This, in turn, led to the need to change "275" missiles to the lighter "275A" (although total missile weight decreased to, the warhead actually grew to ). The new airframe with a smaller fuselage and a delta wing instead of the earlier swept wing was designated La-250A. The "275" missiles were now carried on underwing pylons. The lighter airframe was not enough to overcome the weaker engines, and projected performance suffered compared to La-250. While busy redesigning the aircraft, Lavochkin OKB also had to develop new variants of the "275" missile - the semi-active radar homing "277," the nuclear-armed "279," and solid fuel rocket-powered "280." The first La-250A prototype was finally rolled out on 16 June 1956.  Test flights of the five prototypes were plagued by crashes caused by failures of the hydraulic boost system and landing gear as well as poor forward visibility (the latter was corrected with fitting of a new slightly "drooped" nose). La-250A made a single test flight in 1956, only 6 flights in 1957, and a mere 14 flights in 1958. Frustrated by the lack of progress, Soviet Air Force stopped all work on the K-15 system in 1959. Lessons learned with K-15 were used to develop new interceptor system requirements which led to the Tupolev Tu-28 interceptor.  The abortive, trouble-filled development of La-250 was mirrored in the West by the similarly complicated creation of Convair's delta-winged F-102 Delta Dagger and F-106 Delta Dart interceptors, which however eventually resulted in operational weapon systems.

Survivors.

One of Lavochkin La-250A prototypes is on display at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino, outside of Moscow, Russia.

The Lavochkin La-250 "Anakonda" was a high-altitude interceptor aircraft prototype developed in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Its nickname "Anaconda" was invented during the flight test and referred to both the elongated body shape as well as the relatively critical flight characteristics of the machine.

Lavočkin La-250 „Anakonda“ byl sovětský dálkový stíhací letoun pro každé počasí s deltakřídlem. První prototyp stroje vzlétl 16. června 1956. Letoun byl úspěšně zalétán, postupně vznikly čtyři prototypy, ovšem ze sériové výroby bylo upuštěno. Jako perspektivnější se ukázal letoun Tupolev Tu-128. La-250 je poslední dokončenou konstrukcí S. A. Lavočkina.


Development.

Origins.

During 1945, the Second World War came to a close and a new postwar Labour government, headed by Clement Attlee, came to power in Britain. The incoming Attlee government's initial stance on defence was that no major conflict would occur for at least a decade, and thus there would be no need to develop or to procure any new aircraft until 1957. In accordance with this policy, aside from a small number of exceptions such as what would become the Hawker Sea Hawk for the Royal Navy, the majority of Specifications issued by the Air Ministry for fighter-sized aircraft during the late 1940s were restricted to research purposes. Aviation author Derek Wood refers to this policy as being: "a fatal error of judgement which was to cost Britain a complete generation of fighters and heavy bomber aircraft".  As the Cold War arose in the late 1940s, the RAF came to recognise that it would urgently require the development and

P.1067.

In 1946, the British Air Ministry issued Specification F.43/46, which sought a daytime jet-powered interceptor aircraft. Camm promptly prepared a new design for a swept-winged fighter that would be powered by the upcoming Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet. The Avon's major advantage over the earlier Nene engine, as used in the earlier Sea Hawk, was adoption of the axial compressor, which allowed for a much smaller engine diameter and provided greater thrust; this single engine gave roughly the same power as the two Rolls-Royce Derwents of the Gloster Meteors, a fighter aircraft

Design.

Overview.

The Hunter entered service with the Royal Air Force as an interceptor aircraft. It was the first jet aircraft produced by Hawker for the RAF. From the outset it was clear that the type had exceptional performance, being the first RAF aircraft capable of effectively matching the English Electric Canberra bomber. The Hunter also set numerous aviation records, including absolute speed records. The type was also lauded for its quick turnaround timeenabled by features such as its removable gun pack and pressurised fuelling systemand for its easy handling in flight.  The definitive version of the Hunter was the FGA.9, on which

Armament and equipment.

The single-seat fighter versions of the Hunter were armed with four ADEN cannon, with 150 rounds of ammunition per gun. The cannon and ammunition boxes were contained in a single pack that could be removed from the aircraft for rapid re-arming and maintenance. Unusually, the barrels of the cannon remained in the aircraft while the pack was removed and changed. In the two-seat version, either a single 30 mm ADEN cannon was carried or, in some export versions, two, with

Layout and structure.

The Hunter is a conventional swept wing all-metal monoplane. The fuselage is of monocoque construction, with a removable rear section for engine maintenance. The engine is fed through triangular air intakes in the wing roots and has a single jetpipe in the rear of the fuselage. The mid-mounted wings have a leading edge sweep of 35° and slight anhedral, the tailplanes and fin are also swept. The Hunter's aerodynamic qualities were increasingly infringed upon by modifications in later production models, such as

Engine.

The P.1067 first flew from RAF Boscombe Down on 20 July 1951, powered by a 6,500 lbf (28.91 kN) Rolls-Royce Avon 103 engine from an English Electric Canberra bomber. The second prototype was fitted with a 7,550 lbf (33.58 kN) Avon 107 turbojet. Hawker's third prototype was powered by an 8,000 lbf (35.59 kN) Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire 101. Production Hunters were fitted with either the Avon or the Sapphire engine.  Early on in the Hunter's service the Avon engines proved to have poor surge margins, and worryingly suffered compressor stalls when the cannon

Operational history.

Royal Air Force.

The Hunter F.1 entered service with the Royal Air Force in July 1954. It was the first high-speed jet aircraft equipped with radar and fully powered flight controls to go into widespread service with the RAF. The Hunter replaced the Gloster Meteor, the Canadair Sabre, and the de Havilland Venom jet fighters in service. Initially, low internal fuel capacity restricted the Hunter's performance, giving it only a maximum flight endurance of about an hour. A fatal accident occurred on 8 February 1956, when a flight of eight Hunters was redirected to another airfield owing to adverse weather conditions. Six of the eight aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, killing one pilot.  Another difficulty encountered during the aircraft's introduction was the occurrence of surging and stalling with the Avon engines. The F.2, which used the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire

Royal Danish Air Force.

As early as 1953 the first Hunter flew over Denmark, when test pilot Neville Duke demonstrated the F.1 over Copenhagen Airport. During this demonstration, the pilot broke the sound barrier in a shallow dive.  Air Force officials were very impressed with the demonstration and since the Royal Danish Air Force (RDAF) were looking for a replacement for the Gloster Meteors in service at the time, the Hunter was a natural choice. Consequently, a contract for delivery of 30 F. Mk. 51 was signed on 3 July 1954. RDAF took delivery of the first two of these on 31 January 1956 and nine months later, all 30 Hunters had been delivered to 724 Squadron.  Since the Hunter was a significantly different aircraft

Indian Air Force.

In 1954, India arranged to purchase Hunters as a part of a wider arms deal with Britain, ordering 140 Hunter single-seat fighters at the same time that Pakistan announced its purchase of several North American F-86 Sabre jet fighters. The Indian Air Force (IAF) was the first to operate the Hunter T.66 trainers, placing an initial order in 1957. The more powerful engine was considered beneficial in a hot environment, allowing for greater takeoff weights. During the 1960s, Pakistan investigated the possibility of buying as many as 40 English Electric Lightnings, but Britain was unenthusiastic about the

Swedish Air Force.

In the early 1950s, the Swedish Air Force saw the need for an interceptor that could reach enemy bombers at a higher altitude than the J 29 Tunnan that formed the backbone of the fighter force. A contract for 120 Hawker Hunter Mk 50s (equivalent to the Mk 4) was therefore signed on 29 June 1954 and the first aircraft was delivered on 26 August 1955. The model was designated J 34 and was assigned to the F 8 and

Swiss Air Force.

In 1957, the Swiss Air Force performed an extensive evaluation of several aircraft for a prospective purchase; competitors included the North American F-86 Sabre, the Folland Gnat, and the Hawker Hunter; a pair of Hunters were loaned to the Swiss for further trials and testing. In January 1958, the government of Switzerland chose to terminate their independent fighter aircraft project, the in-development FFA P-16, instead choosing to order 100 Hunters to replace their existing fleet of de Havilland Vampire fighters. Further development of the indigenous P-16 was discontinued. This initial

Republic of Singapore Air Force.

Singapore was an enthusiastic operator of the Hunter, first ordering the aircraft in 1968 during a massive expansion of the city-state's armed forces; deliveries began in 1971 and were completed by 1973. At the time, considerable international controversy was generated as Britain (and, as was later revealed, the U.S.) had refused to sell Hunters to neighbouring Malaysia, sparking fears of a regional arms race and accusations of favouritism. The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) eventually received 46 refurbished Hunters to equip two squadrons.  In the late 1970s, the Singaporean Hunter fleet was upgraded and

Lebanese Air Force.

The Lebanese Air Force operated Hawker Hunters from 1958 to 2014. A Lebanese Hunter shot down an Israeli jet over Kfirmishki in the early 1960s; its pilot was captured by the Lebanese Armed Forces. One Hunter was shot down on the first day of the Six-Day War by the Israeli Air Force. They were used infrequently during the Lebanese Civil War, and eventually fell out of usage and went into storage during the 1980s.

Others.

Africa.

During the 1950s, the Royal Rhodesian Air Force was an important export customer of Britain, purchasing not only Hunters but also De Havilland Vampires and Canberra bombers. Rhodesia later deployed its Hunter FGA.9s extensively against ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas during the Rhodesian Bush War in the late

Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Belgian Air Force received 112 Hunter F.4s between 1956 and 1957 to replace the Gloster Meteor F.8. The aircraft were built under licence in both Belgium and the Netherlands in a joint programme, some using US offshore funding. SABCA and Avions Fairey built 64 aircraft in Belgium and a further 48 were built in the Netherlands by Fokker. The Hunters were used by Nos. 1, 3 and 9 Wings but did not serve for long; the aircraft with 1 Wing were

Middle East.

Between 1964 and 1975, both Britain and France delivered significant quantities of arms, including Hunters, to Iraq. The Hunters were far more effective in fighting guerrilla activity than the Russian MiG-17s then operated by Iraq. In 1967, Hunters of the Iraqi Air Force saw action after the Six-Day War between Israel and several neighbouring Arab nations. During the War of Attrition Iraqi Hunters usually operated from bases in

South America.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Chile completed the acquisition of Hunters from Britain for service in the Chilean Air Force. In June 1973, the Liberian oil tanker "Napier" ran aground on Guamblin Island, accidentally releasing 30,000 tons of oil. After the rescue of the crew, the vessel was fired upon and set on fire by Chilean Hunters in an effort to burn the oil to avoid further environmental contamination.  During the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, some of the Hunters were used by military officers as part of the effort to successfully overthrow the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende, on 11 September 1973. On 10 September 1973, coup leaders ordered the Hunters to relocate to Talcahuano in preparation. The following morning, the aircraft were used to conduct bombing missions against Palacio de La Moneda, Allende's official residence in Santiago, and several radio stations loyal to the government. The

Operators.

Civil.

A number of civil organisations operate or have operated Hunters for use as aerial

The Hawker Hunter is a transonic British jet-powered fighter aircraft that was developed by Hawker Aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It was designed to take advantage of the newly developed Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engine and the swept wing, and was the first jet-powered aircraft produced by Hawker to be procured by the RAF. On 7 September 1953, the modified first prototype broke the world air speed record for aircraft, achieving a speed of.

Hawker Hunter je britský transonický proudový stíhací letoun 2. generace z přelomu 40. a 50 let vyvinutý společností Hawker Aircraft pro Royal Air Force. Navržen byl tak, aby využil výhody nově vyvinutého proudového motoru Rolls-Royce Avon a šípového křídla. Dále byl prvním letadlem poháněným proudovým letounem vyrobeným firmou Hawker, které byl zavedeno do služby u RAF. 7. září 1953 prolomil upravený první prototyp světový rychlostní rekord a dosáhl rychlosti 1 171,01 km/h.


Early life.

Cruise was born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV in Syracuse, New York, on July 3, 1962, the son of special education teacher Mary Lee (née Pfeiffer; 1936–2017) and electrical engineer Thomas Cruise Mapother III (1934–1984). His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and had English, German, and Irish ancestry. Cruise has three sisters named Lee Anne, Marian, and Cass. One of his cousins, William Mapother, is also an actor who has appeared alongside Cruise in five films. Cruise grew up in near poverty and had a Catholic upbringing. He later described his father as "a merchant of chaos", a "bully", and a "coward" who beat his children. He elaborated, "[My father] was the kind of person where, if something goes wrong, they kick you. It was a great lesson in my life—how he'd lull you in, make you feel safe and then, bang! For me, it was like, 'There's something wrong with this guy. Don't trust him. Be careful around him.'"  Cruise spent part of his childhood in Canada. When his father took a job as a defense consultant with the Canadian Armed Forces, his family moved in late 1971 to Beacon Hill, Ottawa. He attended the new Robert Hopkins Public School for his fourth and fifth grade education. He first became involved in drama in fourth grade, under the tutelage of George Steinburg. He and six other boys put on an improvised play to music called "IT" at the Carleton Elementary School drama festival. Drama organizer Val Wright, who was in the audience, later said that "the movement and improvisation were excellent [...] it was a classic ensemble piece". In sixth grade, Cruise went to Henry Munro Middle School in Ottawa. That year, his mother left his father, taking Cruise and his sisters back to the United States. In 1978, she married Jack South. Cruise's father died of cancer in 1984. Cruise briefly took a church scholarship and attended a Franciscan seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio; he aspired to become a priest before he became interested in acting. In total, he attended 15 schools in 14 years. In his senior year of high school, he played football for the varsity team as a linebacker, but was cut from the squad after getting caught drinking beer before a game. He went on to star in the school's production of "Guys and Dolls". In 1980, he graduated from Glen Ridge High School in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.

Career.

Acting.

At age 18, with the blessing of his mother and stepfather, Cruise moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. After working as a busboy in New York, he went to Los Angeles to try out for television roles. He signed with CAA and began acting in films. He first appeared in a bit part in the 1981 film "Endless Love", followed by a major supporting role as a crazed military academy student in "Taps" later that year. In 1983, Cruise was part of the ensemble cast of "The Outsiders". That same year he appeared in "All the Right Moves" and "Risky Business", which has been described as "A Generation X classic, and a career-maker for Tom Cruise", and which, along with 1986's "Top Gun", cemented his status as a superstar. Cruise also played the male lead in the Ridley Scott film "Legend", released in 1985.  Cruise followed up "Top Gun" with "The Color of Money", which came out the same year, and which paired him with Paul Newman. 1988 saw him star in "Cocktail", which earned him a nomination for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor. Later that year he starred with Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man", which won the Academy Award for Best Film and Cruise the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. Cruise portrayed real-life paralyzed Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic in 1989's "Born on the Fourth of July", which earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Actor, a nomination for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Cruise's first Best Actor Academy Award nomination.  Cruise's next films were "Days of Thunder" (1990) and "Far and Away" (1992), both of which co-starred then-wife Nicole Kidman as his love interest, followed by the legal thriller "The Firm", which was a critical and commercial success. In 1994, Cruise starred along with Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater in Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire", a gothic drama/horror film that was based on Anne Rice's best-selling novel. The film was well-received, although Rice was initially quite outspoken in her criticism of Cruise having been cast in the film, as Julian Sands was her first choice. Upon seeing the film however, she paid $7,740 for a two-page ad in "Daily Variety" praising his performance and apologizing for her previous doubts about him.  In 1996, Cruise appeared as superspy Ethan Hunt in the reboot of "", which he produced. It was a box office success, although it received criticism regarding the Jim Phelps character being a villain despite being a protagonist of the original television series.  In 1996, he took on the title role in "Jerry Maguire", for which he earned a Golden Globe and his second nomination for an Academy Award. In 1999, Cruise costarred with Kidman in the erotic Stanley Kubrick film "Eyes Wide Shut", and took a rare supporting role, as a motivational speaker, Frank T.J. Mackey, in "Magnolia", for which he received another Golden Globe and nomination for an Academy Award.  In 2000, Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the second installment of the "Mission Impossible" films, "". The film was helmed by Hong Kong director John Woo and branded with his gun fu style, and continued the series' blockbuster success at the box office, taking in almost $547M in worldwide figures. Like its predecessor, it was the highest-grossing film of the year, and had a mixed critical reception. Cruise received an MTV Movie Award for Best Male Performance for this film.  His next five films were major critical and commercial successes. The following year Cruise starred in the romantic thriller "Vanilla Sky" (2001) with Cameron Diaz and Penélope Cruz. In 2002, Cruise starred in the dystopian science fiction action film "Minority Report" which was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick.  In 2003, he starred in Edward Zwick's period action drama "The Last Samurai", for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for best actor. In 2004, Cruise received critical acclaim for his performance as Vincent in "Collateral" - directed by Michael Mann. In 2005, Cruise worked again with Steven Spielberg in "War of the Worlds", a loose adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel of the same name, which became the fourth highest-grossing film of the year with US$591.4 million worldwide. Also in 2005, he won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Movie Star, and the MTV Generation Award. Cruise was nominated for seven Saturn Awards between 2002 and 2009, winning once. Nine of the ten films he starred in during the decade made over $100 million at the box office.  In 2006, he returned to his role as Ethan Hunt in the third installment of the "Mission Impossible" film series, "". The film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed nearly $400 million at the box office. In 2007, Cruise took a rare supporting role for the second time in "Lions for Lambs", which was a commercial disappointment. This was followed by an unrecognizable appearance as "Les Grossman" in the 2008 comedy "Tropic Thunder" with Ben Stiller, Jack Black, and Robert Downey Jr. This performance earned Cruise a Golden Globe nomination. Cruise played the central role in the historical thriller "Valkyrie" released on December 25, 2008 to box office success.  In March 2010, Cruise completed filming the action-comedy "Knight and Day", in which he re-teamed with former costar Cameron Diaz; the film was released on June 23, 2010. On February 9, 2010, Cruise confirmed that he would star in "", the fourth installment in the "" series. The film was released in December 2011 to high critical acclaim and box office success. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, it was Cruise's biggest commercial success to that date.  On May 6, 2011, Cruise was awarded a humanitarian award from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and Museum of Tolerance for his work as a dedicated philanthropist. In mid-2011, Cruise started shooting the movie "Rock of Ages", in which he played the character Stacee Jaxx. The film was released in June 2012.  Cruise starred as Jack Reacher in the film adaptation of British author Lee Child's 2005 novel "One Shot." The film was released on December 21, 2012. It met with positive reviews from critics and was a box office success grossing $216,568,266 worldwide. In 2013, he starred in the science fiction film "Oblivion" based on director Joseph Kosinski's graphic novel of the same name. The film met with mixed reviews and grossed $285,600,588 worldwide. It also starred Morgan Freeman and Olga Kurylenko.  As of mid-2015 Cruise's films have grossed about $8.2 billion worldwide.  Cruise returned as Ethan Hunt in the fifth installment of the "Mission: Impossible" series, "", which he also produced. Returning cast members included Simon Pegg as Benji and Jeremy Renner as William Brandt, with Christopher McQuarrie as director. The film earned high critical acclaim and was a commercial success.  Cruise starred in the 2017 reboot of Boris Karloff's 1932 horror movie "The Mummy". The new film, also titled "The Mummy", was produced by Alex Kurtzman, Chris Morgan, and Sean Daniel, written by Jon Spaihts and directed by Kurtzman which received negative reviews and become flop at the box office. In 2018, Cruise again reprised Ethan Hunt, in the sixth film in his franchise, "". The film was more positively received by critics than the previous films in the series, and grossed over $791 million at the box office. Unadjusted for ticket price inflation, it is Cruise's biggest commercial success to date.

Producing.

Cruise partnered with his former talent agent Paula Wagner to form Cruise/Wagner Productions in 1993, and the company has since co-produced several of Cruise's films, the first being "" in 1996 which was also Cruise's first project as a producer.  Cruise is noted as having negotiated some of the most lucrative film deals in Hollywood, and was described in 2005 by Hollywood economist Edward Jay Epstein as "one of the most powerful – and richest – forces in Hollywood." Epstein argues that Cruise is one of the few producers (the others being George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Jerry Bruckheimer) who are regarded as able to guarantee the success of a billion-dollar film franchise. Epstein also contends that the public obsession with Cruise's tabloid controversies obscures full appreciation of Cruise's exceptional commercial prowess.  Cruise/Wagner Productions, Cruise's film production company, is said to be developing a screenplay based on Erik Larson's "New York Times" bestseller, "The Devil in the White City" about a real-life serial killer, H. H. Holmes, at Chicago's World's Columbian Exposition. Kathryn Bigelow is attached to the project to produce and helm. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, is also developing a film about Holmes and the World's Fair, in which DiCaprio will star.  Cruise has produced several films in which he appeared. He produced "", "Without Limits", "", "The Others", "Vanilla Sky" and many others.

Break with Paramount.

On August 22, 2006, Paramount Pictures announced it was ending its 14-year relationship with Cruise. In the "Wall Street Journal", chairman of Viacom (Paramount's parent company) Sumner Redstone cited the economic damage to Cruise's value as an actor and producer from his controversial public behavior and views. Cruise/Wagner Productions responded that Paramount's announcement was a face-saving move after the production company had successfully sought alternative financing from private equity firms.  Industry analysts such as Edward Jay Epstein commented that the real reason for the split was most likely Paramount's discontent over Cruise/Wagner's exceptionally large share of DVD sales from the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

Management of United Artists.

In November 2006, Cruise and Paula Wagner announced that they had taken over the film studio United Artists. Cruise acts as a producer and star in films for United Artists, while Wagner serves as UA's chief executive.  Production began in 2007 of "Valkyrie", a thriller based on the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. The film was acquired in March 2007 by United Artists. On March 21, 2007, Cruise signed to play Claus von Stauffenberg, the protagonist. This project marked the second production to be greenlighted since Cruise and Wagner took control of United Artists. The first was its inaugural film, "Lions for Lambs", directed by Robert Redford and starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Cruise. "Lambs" was released on November 9, 2007, opening to unimpressive box office revenue and critical reception.  In August 2008, Wagner stepped down from her position at United Artists; she retains her stake in UA, which combined with Cruise's share amounts to 30 percent of the studio.

Personal life.

Relationships and wealth.

Cruise splits his time between homes in Beverly Hills, California; Telluride, Colorado; Clearwater, Florida; Dulwich, London; and East Grinstead, West Sussex. He had several relationships with older women in the early-to-mid-1980s, including Rebecca De Mornay (three years his senior), Patti Scialfa (nine years his senior), and Cher (16 years his senior).  Cruise married actress Mimi Rogers on May 9, 1987. They divorced on February 4, 1990. Rogers introduced Cruise to Scientology.  Cruise met his second wife, actress Nicole Kidman, on the set of their film "Days of Thunder" (1990). The couple married on December 24, 1990. They adopted two children: Isabella Jane (born 1992) and Connor Antony (born 1995). In February 2001, Cruise filed for divorce from Kidman while she was unknowingly pregnant. The pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. In 2007, Kidman clarified rumors of a miscarriage early in her marriage to Cruise, saying that it was wrongly reported and explaining that she had actually had an ectopic pregnancy.  Cruise was next romantically linked with Penélope Cruz, his co-star in "Vanilla Sky" (2001). Their relationship ended in 2004. An article in the October 2012 issue of "Vanity Fair" stated that several sources have said that after the breakup with Cruz, Scientologist leaders launched a secret project to find Cruise a new girlfriend. According to those sources, a series of "auditions" of Scientologist actresses resulted in a short-lived relationship with British-Iranian actress Nazanin Boniadi, who subsequently left Scientology. Scientology and Cruise's lawyers issued strongly worded denials and threatened to sue, accusing "Vanity Fair" of "shoddy journalism" and "religious bigotry". Journalist Roger Friedman later reported that he received an email from director and ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis confirming the story.  In April 2005, Cruise began dating actress Katie Holmes. On April 27 that year, Cruise and Holmes—dubbed "TomKat" by the media—made their first public appearance together in Rome. A month later, Cruise publicly declared his love for Holmes on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", famously jumping up and down on Winfrey's couch during the show. On October 6, 2005, Cruise and Holmes announced they were expecting a child. In April 2006, their daughter Suri was born. On November 18, Holmes and Cruise were married at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, in a Scientologist ceremony attended by many Hollywood stars. Their publicists said the couple had "officialized" their marriage in Los Angeles the day before the Italian ceremony. There has been widespread speculation that their marriage was arranged by the Church of Scientology. David Miscavige, the head of Scientology, served as Cruise's best man. On June 29, 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise. On July 9, the couple signed a divorce settlement worked out by their lawyers. New York law requires all divorce documents remain sealed, so the exact terms of the settlement are not publicly available.

Scientology.

Cruise is an outspoken advocate for the Church of Scientology and its associated social programs. He became involved with Scientology in 1990 through his first wife, Mimi Rogers. Cruise struggled with dyslexia at an early age and has said that Scientology, specifically the L. Ron Hubbard Study Tech, helped him overcome dyslexia.

Advocacy of Scientology.

In addition to promoting various programs that introduce people to Scientology, Cruise has campaigned for Scientology to be recognized as a religion in Europe. In 2005, the Paris city council revealed that Cruise had lobbied officials Nicolas Sarkozy and Jean-Claude Gaudin. They described him as a militant spokesman for Scientology, and barred any further dealings with him.  Cruise co-founded and raised donations for Downtown Medical to offer New York City 9/11 rescue workers detoxification therapy based on the works of L. Ron Hubbard. This drew criticism from the medical profession and from firefighters.  For such activities, Scientology leader David Miscavige created the Scientology Freedom Medal of Valor and awarded it to Cruise in late 2004.

Criticism of psychiatry.

In January 2004, Cruise made the controversial statement "I think psychiatry should be outlawed." Further controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an anti-depressant to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. Shields responded that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them". This led to a heated argument between Matt Lauer and Cruise on NBC's "Today" on June 24, 2005.  Medical authorities view Cruise's comments as furthering the social stigma of mental illness. Shields herself called Cruise's comments "a disservice to mothers everywhere." In late August 2006, Cruise apologized in person to Shields for his comments.  Scientology is well known for its opposition to mainstream psychiatry and the psychoactive drugs which are routinely prescribed for treatment. It was reported that Cruise's anti-psychiatry actions led to a rift with director Steven Spielberg. Spielberg had reportedly mentioned in Cruise's presence the name of a doctor friend who prescribed psychiatric medication. Shortly thereafter, the doctor's office was picketed by Scientologists, reportedly angering Spielberg.

YouTube video removal.

On January 15, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with Cruise was posted on YouTube, showing Cruise discussing what being a Scientologist means to him. The Church of Scientology said the video had been "pirated and edited," and was taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology. YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.  After YouTube investigated this claim, they found that the video did not breach copyright law, as it is covered by the fair use clause. It was subsequently reinstated on the site, and as of April 2019, the video has achieved over 13 million views. YouTube has declined to remove it again, due to the popularity of the video, and subsequent changes to copyright policy of the Web site.

Scientology's purported influence on Cruise.

In 2013, Cruise stated that ex-wife Katie Holmes divorced him in part to protect the couple's daughter Suri from Scientology. He also said that Suri is no longer a practicing member of the church.  In March 2004, his publicist of 14 years, Pat Kingsley, resigned. Cruise's next publicist was Lee Anne DeVette, Cruise's sister, who was herself a Scientologist. She served in that role until November 2005. DeVette was replaced with Paul Bloch from the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan. Such restructuring was seen as a move to curtail publicity of his views on Scientology, as well as the controversy surrounding his relationship with Katie Holmes.  The 2015 documentary "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" cast a spotlight on Cruise's role in Scientology. The film alleges that Cruise used Sea Org workers as a source of free labor. In the film, Cruise's former auditor Marty Rathbun claims that wife Nicole Kidman was wiretapped on Tom Cruise's suggestion (which Cruise's lawyer denies).

Legacy.

In 2006, "Premiere" ranked Cruise as Hollywood's most powerful actor, as Cruise came in at number 13 on the magazine's 2006 Power List, being the highest ranked actor. The same year, "Forbes" magazine ranked him as the world's most powerful celebrity. The founder of CinemaScore in 2016 cited Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio as the "two stars, it doesn't matter how bad the film is, they can pull [the box office] up".  October 10, 2006, was declared "Tom Cruise Day" in Japan; the Japan Memorial Day Association said that he was awarded with a special day because he has made more trips to Japan than any other Hollywood star.

"Tom Cruise Picture".

While reviewing "Days of Thunder", film critic Roger Ebert noted the similarities between several of Cruise's 1980s films and nicknamed the formula the Tom Cruise Picture. Some of Cruise's later films like "A Few Good Men" and "The Last Samurai" can also be considered to be part of this formula.  "Widescreenings" noted that for Tom Cruise's character Daniel Kaffee in "A Few Good Men",  [screenwriter] Aaron Sorkin interestingly takes the opposite approach of "Top Gun", where Cruise also starred as the protagonist. In "Top Gun", Cruise plays Mitchell who is a 'hot shot' military underachiever who makes mistakes because he is trying to outperform his late father. Where Maverick Mitchell needs to rein in the discipline, Daniel Kaffee needs to let it go, finally see what he can do.  Sorkin and director Rob Reiner are praised in gradually unveiling Kaffee's potential in the film.

Litigation.

In 1998, Tom Cruise successfully sued the "Daily Express", a British tabloid which alleged that his marriage to Kidman was a sham designed to cover up his homosexuality. Cruise won the libel case.  In May 2001, he filed a lawsuit against gay porn actor Chad Slater. Slater had told the celebrity magazine "Actustar" that he had been involved in an affair with Cruise. This claim was strongly denied by Cruise, and Slater was later ordered to pay $10 million to Cruise in damages after Slater declared he could not afford to defend himself against the suit and would therefore default. Cruise requested a default judgment and, in January 2003, a Los Angeles judge decided against Slater after the porn actor said that his story was false.  Cruise also sued "Bold Magazine" publisher Michael Davis for $100 million, because Davis had alleged (though never confirmed) that he had video that would prove Cruise was gay. The suit was dropped in exchange for a public statement by Davis that the video was not of Cruise, and that Cruise was heterosexual.  In 2006, Cruise sued cybersquatter Jeff Burgar to obtain control of the TomCruise.com domain name. When owned by Burgar, the domain redirected to information about Cruise on Celebrity1000.com. The decision to turn TomCruise.com over to Cruise was handed down by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on July 5, 2006.  In 2009, Michael Davis Sapir filed a suit charging that his phone had been wiretapped at Cruise's behest. That suit was dismissed by a Central Civil West court judge in Los Angeles on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired on Sapir's claim.  In October 2012, Cruise filed a lawsuit against "In Touch" and "Life & Style" magazines for defamation after they claimed Cruise had "abandoned" his six-year-old daughter. During deposition, Cruise testified that due to his work load 110 days had passed without him seeing her. The suit was ultimately settled between the two parties.

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV (born July 3, 1962) is an American actor and producer. He has received various accolades for his work, including three Golden Globe Awards and three nominations for Academy Awards. With a net worth of $570 million as of 2020, he is one of the highest-paid actors in the world. In addition, his films have grossed over in North America and over worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing box office stars of all time.

Tom Cruise vlastním jménem Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. (* 3. července 1962, New York, USA) je americký herec, scenárista, producent a režisér.


Origin.

This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher Denis Diderot's description of such a situation in his "Paradoxe sur le comédien" ("Paradox on the Comedian"). During a dinner at the home of statesman Jacques Necker, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "" ("the sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and [can only think clearly again when he] finds himself at the bottom of the stairs").  In this case, "the bottom of the stairs" refers to the architecture of the kind of or mansion to which Diderot had been invited. In such houses, the reception rooms were on the, one floor above the ground floor. To have reached the bottom of the stairs means to have definitively left the gathering.

Similar English terms.

English speakers sometimes call this "escalator wit", or "staircase wit". Afterwit is a synonym, with forewit as its antonym.

In other languages.

The Yiddish ("staircase words") and the German loan translation (when used in an English language context) express the same idea as. However, in contemporary German has an additional meaning: It refers to events or facts that seem to contradict their own background or context. The frequently used phrase "Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte" ("staircase joke of world history") derives from the title of a book by that name by (1882; much expanded 1895) and means "a paradox of history".

L'esprit de l'escalier or (,, ; ) is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.

L'esprit de l'escalier (výslovnost [lɛspʁi də lɛskalje], doslovně přeloženo: "„Nápad na schodech“" či "„Schodová moudrost“") je francouzský výraz pro myšlenku nebo reakci, která přijde příliš pozdě a již je zbytečná. V původním významu si host vzpomene na trefnou repliku až ve chvíli, kdy už po schodišti opouští dům hostitele. Volně přeloženo: "„S křížkem po funuse“"


Biography.

Birth and education.

He was born in the Hanseatic city Deventer in the Bishopric of Utrecht, where his father held a good civic position. He studied at Aachen, then went to the University of Paris when only fifteen. Here he studied scholastic philosophy and theology at the Sorbonne under a pupil of William of Occam's, from whom he imbibed the nominalist conception of philosophy; in addition he studied Canon law, medicine, astronomy and even magic, and apparently some Hebrew. After a brilliant course he graduated in 1358. In 1362 he was appointed teacher at the Deventer chapter school. In 1366 his admiring countrymen sent him to Avignon on a secret mission to Pope Urban V.

Religious life.

Soon after Groote settled in Cologne, teaching philosophy and theology, and was granted a prebend in Utrecht and another in Aachen. The life of the brilliant young scholar was rapidly becoming luxurious, secular and selfish, when a great spiritual change passed over him which resulted in a final renunciation of every worldly enjoyment. This conversion, which took place in 1374, appears to have been due partly to the effects of a dangerous illness and partly to the influence of a fellow student, Henry de Calcar, the learned and pious prior of the Charterhouse at Munnikhuizen (Monnikenhuizen) near Arnhem, who had remonstrated with him on the vanity of his life.  In 1374 Groote turned his family home in Deventer into a shelter for poor women and lived for several years as a guest of a Carthusian monastery. In 1379, having received ordination as a deacon, he became a missionary preacher throughout the diocese of Utrecht. The success which followed his labors not only in the city of Utrecht, but also in Zwolle, Deventer, Kampen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Gouda, Leiden, Delft, Zutphen and elsewhere, was immense; according to Thomas à Kempis the people left their business and their meals to hear his sermons, so that the churches could not hold the crowds that flocked together wherever he came.  The bishop of Utrecht supported him warmly, and got him to preach against concubinage in the presence of the clergy assembled in synod. The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him. It was in vain that Groote emitted a "Publica Protestatio", in which he declared that Jesus was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of them he believed himself to be in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Roman Church.  The bishop was induced to issue an edict which prohibited from preaching all who were not in priestly orders, and an appeal to Pope Urban VI was without effect. There is a difficulty as to the date of this prohibition; either it was only a few months before Groote's death, or else it must have been removed by the bishop, for Groote seems to have preached in public in the last year of his life.  At some period (perhaps 1381, perhaps earlier) he paid a visit of some days' duration to the famous mystic John Ruysbroeck, prior of the Augustinian canons at Groenendaal near Brussels; during this visit was formed Groote's attraction for the rule and life of the Augustinian canons which was destined to bear notable fruit. At the close of his life he was asked by some of the clerics who attached themselves to him to form them into a religious order and Groote resolved that they should be Canons Regular of St. Augustine. No time was lost in the effort to carry out the project, but Groote died before a foundation could be made.  The initiation of this movement was the great achievement of Groote's life; he lived to preside over the birth and first days of his other creation, the society of Brethren of the Common Life. He died of the plague at Deventer, which he had contracted while nursing the sick, in 1384 at the age of 44.

The Brethren of the Common Life.

Young men especially flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these he sent to his schools, others he occupied at transcribing good books, to all he taught thorough Christian piety. Groote and Florence Radewyns, his favourite disciple, founded at Zwolle the Brethren of the Common Life. In 1387 a site was secured at Windesheim, some north of Deventer, and here was established the monastery that became the cradle of the Windesheim Congregation of canons regular embracing in course of time nearly one hundred houses, and leading the way in the series of reforms undertaken during the 15th century by all the religious orders in Germany. Henceforth his communities, which were spreading rapidly through the Netherlands, Lower Germany, and Westphalia, claimed and received all his attention. He contemplated organizing his clerics into a community of canons regular, but it was left to Radewyns, his successor, to realize this plan at Windesheim two years later.

Devotio Moderna.

A movement known as the Modern Devotion (Devotio Moderna) was founded in the Netherlands by Groote and Florens Radewyns, in the late fourteenth century. For Grote the pivotal point is the search for inner peace, which results from the denial of one's own self and is to be achieved by "ardour" and "silence". This is the heart of the "New Devotion", the "Devotio moderna". Solitary meditation on Christ’s Passion and redemption, on one’s own death, the Last Judgment, heaven, and hell was essential.  In the course of the 15th century, the Modern Devotion found adherents throughout the Netherlands and Germany. Its precepts were further disseminated in texts such as "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis, which reached an increasingly literate public. In this context small works of art such as diptychs that provided a focus for private worship enjoyed wide popularity.

Legacy.

Geert Groote College is located in Amsterdam.

Sources.

An account, based on the "Britannica" sources, is in S. Kettlewell, "Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life" (1882), i. c. 5; and a shorter account in F. R. Cruise, "Thomas à Kempis", 1887, pt. ii. A sketch, with an account of Groote's writings, is given by L. Schulze in Herzog-Hauck, "Realencyklopädie" (ed. 3); he insists on the fact that Groote's theological and ecclesiastical ideas were those commonly current in his day, and that the attempts to make him a reformer before the Reformation are unhistorical.

Gerard Groote (October 1340 – 20 August 1384), otherwise "Gerrit" or "Gerhard Groet", in Latin "Gerardus Magnus", was a Dutch Roman Catholic deacon, who was a popular preacher and the founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. He was a key figure in the Devotio Moderna movement.

Geert Groote, také Geert de Groot, latinsky Gerhardus magnus (1340, Deventer – 20. srpna 1384 tamtéž) byl holandský kazatel, mystik a náboženský reformátor, zakladatel sdružení Bratří společného života a inspirátor hnutí "Devotio moderna". Hnutí mělo veliký úspěch v Nizozemí, v Německu a ve Francii hlavně v 15. století a ovlivnilo i náboženské postoje reformátorů.


Extent.

The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Greenland Sea as follows:  "On the North." A line joining the Northernmost point of Spitzbergen <nowiki>[</nowiki>Svalbard] to the Northernmost point of Greenland.  "On the East." The West coast of West Spitzbergen [island of Spitsbergen<nowiki>]</nowiki>.  "On the Southeast." A line joining the Southernmost point of West Spitzbergen to the Northern point of Jan Mayen Island, down the West coast of that island to its Southern extreme, thence a Line to the Eastern extreme of Gerpir (67°05′N, 13°30′W) ["sic", actually at ] in Iceland.  "On the Southwest." A line joining Straumnes (NW extreme of Iceland) to Cape Nansen () in Greenland.  "On the West." The East and Northeast coast of Greenland between Cape Nansen and the northernmost point.

History.

While the sea has been known for millennia, the first scientific investigations were carried out in 1876–1878 as part of the Norwegian North-Atlantic Expedition. Since then, many countries, mostly Norway, Iceland and Russia have sent scientific expeditions to the area. The complex water current system in the Greenland Sea was described in 1909 by Fridtjof Nansen.  The Greenland Sea was a popular hunting ground for the whaling industry for 300 years, until 1911, primarily based in Spitsbergen. At that point, the formerly rich whale population here, was so depleted that the industry was no longer profitable. The remaining whales of the Greenland Sea has been protected ever since, but the populations have not shown any proof of significant regeneration. Since the late 1990s, polar biologists reports an increase in the local bowhead whale population and in 2015, arctic scientists discovered a surprising abundance of them in a small area. These results may be interpreted as an early sign of a beginning recovery for this particular species, that once formed the largest bowhead population in the world, at an estimated 52,000 whales.  The Inuit hunted whales on a non-industrial scale in the Greenland Sea since the 15th century, as evidenced by archaeology.  The first complete man-powered crossing of the Greenland Sea was achieved in 2017 by rowing expedition, Polar Row led by Fiann Paul.

Geography and geology.

The Greenland Sea is bounded to the west by the island of Greenland, and to the south by the Denmark Strait and Iceland. To the southeast, behind the Jan Mayen island (Norway) lies the vast expanse of the Norwegian Sea, of which Greenland Sea may be considered an extension. Across the Fram Strait to the northeast, the sea is delimited by the Svalbard archipelago (Norway).  The bottom of the Greenland Sea is a depression bounded to the south by the underwater and to the east by the Mohns Ridge and Knipovich Ridge (parts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge). To the west, the bottom rises first slowly, but then rapidly toward the wide Greenland coastal strip. Silts fill the submarine hollows and gorges; silty sands, gravel, boulders, and other products of erosion coat the shelves and ridges.  Although the deepest point inside of the sea is, depths down to have been measured in the Molloy Deep of the Fram Strait which connects the sea to the Arctic Ocean on the north. The Greenland ice sheet reaches down to the sea at Jokel Bay.  Major islands of the Greenland Sea include the Svalbard archipelago, Jan Mayen as well as coastal islands off the NE Greenland shores, such as Hovgaard, Ella, Godfred Hansen, Île-de-France, Lynn, Norske, Gamma and Schnauder islands. Of those, only the Svalbard islands are inhabited, and Jan Mayen has only temporal military staff. After the League of Nations gave Norway jurisdiction over the island, in 1921 Norway opened the first meteorological station there, which was a subject of contention between Germany and United Kingdom during World War II. Several radio and meteorological stations operate on the island nowadays.

Hydrology, climate, and ice.

The climate is Arctic and varies significantly across the vast sea area. Air temperatures fluctuate between near Spitsbergen in winter and off Greenland in summer. Averages are in the south and in the north in February, which is the coldest month. The corresponding values for the warmest month, August, are in the south and in the north. The summer is very short: The number of days per year when the temperature rises above varies between 225 in the north to 334 in the south. The annual precipitation is in the north, but in the south.  Northern winds continue through the whole year, cooling the surface water and bringing ice to the south. The average surface water temperature is about or lower in the north and in the south; the corresponding summer temperatures are about respectively. The bottom water temperatures are below. The surface water salinity is 3.30–3.45% in the eastern and below 3.20% in the western parts, increasing to 3.49% toward the bottom. The water is green. Tides are semidiurnal with the average height of. Together with the water currents, they break up the floating ice sheets and mix various water layers both laterally and along the depth.  The progressively colder waters of North Atlantic Current sink in the Arctic Ocean, returning south in the form of cold East Greenland Current, an important part of the Atlantic conveyor belt, which flows along the western part of the sea. Along the eastern part flows the warm Spitsbergen Current, a part of Gulf Stream. Mixtures of cold, freshwater ice melt and the warm, salty Spitsbergen Current may experience cabbeling, which might contribute to thermohaline circulation. The combination of those currents creates a counter-clockwise water flow in the central part of the sea.  Because of frequent fogs, winds, and currents, which continuously transport ice and icebergs through the Greenland Sea to the south, the Greenland Sea has a narrow window for commercial navigation: The ice season starts in October and ends in August. Three types of floating ice are distinguished: Arctic pack ice (several meters thick), sea ice (about a meter thick), and freshwater icebergs.

West Ice.

In winter, a large area north of Iceland between Greenland and Jan Mayen, called West Ice, is covered by continuous ice. It is a major breeding ground for seals, including harp seal, hooded seal, and gray seal. It was discovered in the early 18th century by British whalers and since late 1750s was used for seal hunting. The hunting was especially intensive in the 19th century, but declined in the 20th century because of hunting restrictions and lower market demand. Around 5 April 1952, a major storm resulted in disappearance of ships with 79 Norwegian seal hunters on board. Seven other Norwegian seal hunting vessels shipwrecked the same month.

Odden ice tongue.

The Odden ice tongue or simply the Odden (Odden is Norwegian word for "headland") was a key winter ice formation area in the Arctic. It was known for a long time and was encountered by Fridtjof Nansen but was only fully understood with the advent of satellite imagery.  The Odden had a length of about and covered an area of up to in most years. It extended eastward from the main East Greenland ice edge in the vicinity of 72–74°N during the winter because of the presence of very cold polar surface water in the Jan Mayen Current, which diverts some water eastward from the East Greenland Current at that latitude. Most of the already formed ice continued floating south, driven by the wind, so a cold open water surface was exposed on which new ice formed as frazil ice and pancake ice in the rough seas, producing a giant tongue shape. The salt rejected back into the ocean from this ice formation caused the surface water to become denser and sink, sometimes to great depths ( or more), making this one of the few regions of the ocean where winter convection occurred, which helped drive the entire worldwide system of surface and deep currents known as the thermohaline circulation. Since the 1990s, the Odden ice tongue rarely develops.

Fauna.

The Greenland Sea is densely inhabited by the organisms that form the base of the oceanic food chain. Large invertebrates, fish (such as cod, herring, redfish, halibut, and plaice), birds, and mammals (including various species of seals, whales, and dolphins) all feed on the smaller invertebrates and small organisms. Mosses, lichens, and scanty bushes around the coasts serve as food to the deer and musk oxen, which in turn are hunted by the polar bear.  The Greenland Sea was formerly home to a large population of various whale species, especially bowhead whales, but the whaling industry decimated them greatly from the beginning of the 1600s till 1911. In the last few decades there have been a few signs indicating a beginning recovery.

Oil and gas.

US Geological Survey has estimated that at least 13% of the world's undiscovered oil deposits and 30% of the world's undiscovered gas pockets are located in the Arctic, with the Greenland Sea potentially holding large amounts of natural gas and lesser amounts of natural gas liquids and crude oil. This has led the Greenland's minister and provincial council to offer a large number of off-shore concessions to potential hydrocarbon (oil and gas) extraction. The majority of the concessions are located in seas west of Greenland (primarily the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay), but with 19 concessions in the Greenland Sea.  In late 2013, a total of three consortia obtained hydrocarbon extraction rights to four large areas of the Greenland Sea from the Greenland Bureau of Mineral and Petroleum. The consortia are led by the oil companies of Statoil, Chevron, and Eni, but includes several other smaller companies such as Shell, British Petroleum, Dong Energy and Nunaoil. Since then, a fifth hydrocarbon concession has been sold. Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world and with a lot of experience in the Arctic, was also applying for oil extraction rights in the Greenland Sea initially, but pulled out in December 2013 for unexplained reasons, concentrating efforts on shale gas and the American market instead.  Drilling for oil in deep waters in an ice-filled Arctic environment is a potential new undertaking for the oil industry, and poses many risks and dangers. Because of these difficulties, the Greenland Minister Council expects the first exploratory drills to take place no sooner than the mid 2020s. They estimate that a full preliminary program with seismic surveys, exploratory drills, and proper safety measures will take about 16 years and an investment of about US$500 million in each concession.

The Greenland Sea is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the Atlantic Ocean. However, definitions of the Arctic Ocean and its seas tend to be imprecise or arbitrary. In general usage the term "Arctic Ocean" would exclude the Greenland Sea. In oceanographic studies the Greenland Sea is considered part of the Nordic Seas, along with the Norwegian Sea. The Nordic Seas are the main connection between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and, as such, could be of great significance in a possible shutdown of thermohaline circulation. In oceanography the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas are often referred to collectively as the "Arctic Mediterranean Sea", a marginal sea of the Atlantic.

Grónské moře (anglicky "Greenland Sea"; dánsky "Grønlandshavet") je okrajové moře Severního ledového oceánu. Rozprostírá se východně od Grónska, severně od Islandu, západně od ostrova Jan Mayen a jižně od souostroví Špicberky. Sousedí s Norským mořem, Severním ledovým oceánem a Atlantským oceánem. S Atlantským oceánem je spojeno Dánským průlivem mezi Grónskem a Islandem. Do Grónského moře vyúsťuje Scoresbyho záliv ("Kangertittivaq"), nejdelší fjord světa.