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Radical 9 or radical man (人部) meaning "person" is a Kangxi radical. Of the 214 radicals, Radical 9 is one of 23 which are composed of 2 strokes. When appearing at the left side of a Chinese character, it usually transforms into ⺅. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 794 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 人 is also the 12th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Two associated indexing components, 亻 and 入 (formerly Radical 11), are affiliated to the principle indexing component 人. Evolution Derived characters Sinogram As an independent sinogram 人 is a Chinese character. It is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan. It is a first grade kanji Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2 Unihan Database - U+4EBA

Hainan is a province of the People's Republic of China. Hainan may also refer to: Places in China Other places in China Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Hainan District, Wuhai, Inner Mongolia Hainan, Jiangsu, a town in Xinghua, Jiangsu Townships Hainan Township, Hailun, Heilongjiang Hainan Korean Ethnic Township, Xi'an District, Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Hainan Township, Sichuan, in Xichang, Sichuan Other uses Hainan Airlines, an airline based in Haikou, Hainan Hainan people, the indigenous people of Hainan province Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan Chinese landing helicopter dock Hainan, Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy ship See also Henan, a province in China and Hunan, a province in China

Guangxi (, gwang-SHEE; [kwàŋ.ɕí] ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; Chinese: 广西; Zhuang: Gvangjsih), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang, Cao Bằng, Lạng Sơn, and Quảng Ninh Provinces) and the Gulf of Tonkin. Formerly a province, Guangxi became an autonomous region in 1958. Its current capital is Nanning.Guangxi's location, in mountainous terrain in the far south of China, has placed it on the frontier of Chinese civilization throughout much of Chinese history. The current name "Guang" means "expanse" and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in 226 AD. It was given provincial level status during the Yuan dynasty, but even into the 20th century, it was considered an open, wild territory. The abbreviation of the region is "桂" (Hanyu pinyin: Guì; Zhuang: Gvei), which comes from the name of the city of Guilin, the provincial capital during both the Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty. Guangxi contains the largest population of China's ethnic minorities after Yunnan, in particular, the Zhuang people, who make up 32% of the population. Various regional languages and dialects such as Pinghua, Zhuang, Kam, Cantonese, Hakka, and Min are spoken alongside Mandarin Chinese. Name "Guǎng" (simplified Chinese: 广; traditional Chinese: 廣) means 'expanse' or 'vast', and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. Guangxi and neighboring Guangdong literally mean 'expanse west' and 'expanse east'. Together, Guangxi and Guangdong are called Liangguang (Liangkwang; traditional Chinese: 兩廣; simplified Chinese: 两广; pinyin: liǎng guǎng; Cantonese Yale: léuhng gwóng; lit. 'Two Expanses', Vietnamese: Lưỡng Quảng). During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Xīlù (廣南西路; 广南西路; 'vast south west region') and Guǎngnán Dōnglù (廣南東路; 广南东路; 'vast south east region'), which became abbreviated as Guǎngxī Lù (廣西路; 广西路) and Guǎngdōng Lù (廣東路; 广东路). History Originally inhabited by a mixture of tribal groups known to the Chinese as the Baiyue ("Hundred Yue", Vietnamese: Bách Việt), the region first became part of China during the Qin dynasty. In 214 BC, the Han Chinese general Zhao Tuo (Vietnamese: Triệu Đà) claimed most of southern China for Qin Shi Huang before the emperor's death. The ensuing civil war permitted Zhao to establish a separate kingdom at Panyu known as Nanyue ("Southern Yue"). Alternatively submissive to and independent of Han dynasty control, Southern Yue expanded colonization and sinicization under its policy of "Harmonizing and Gathering the Hundred Yue" (和集百越) until its collapse in 111 BC during the southward expansion of the Han dynasty.The name "Guangxi" can be traced to the "Expansive" or "Wide" province (廣州) of the Eastern Wu, which controlled southeastern China during the Three Kingdoms period. Guilin formed one of its commanderies.Under the Tang dynasty, the Zhuang moved to support Piluoge's kingdom of Nanzhao in Yunnan, which successfully repulsed imperial armies in 751 and 754. Guangxi was then divided into an area of Zhuang ascendancy west of Nanning and an area of Han ascendancy east of Nanning.After the collapse of the Southern Zhao, Liu Yan established the Southern Han (Nanhan) in Xingwangfu (modern Guangdong). Although this state gained minimal control over Guangxi, it was plagued by instability and annexed by the Song dynasty in 971. The name "Guangxi" itself can be traced to the Song, who administered the area as the Guangnanxi ("West Southern Expanse") Circuit. Harassed by both Song and the Jiaozhi in modern Vietnam, the Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao led a revolt in 1052 for which he is still remembered by the Zhuang people. His independent kingdom was short-lived, however, and the tattooed Song general Di Qing returned Guangxi to China.The Yuan dynasty established control over Yunnan during its conquest of the Dali Kingdom in 1253 and eliminated the Southern Song following the Battle of Yamen in 1279. Rather than ruling Lingnan as a subject territory or military district, the Mongolians then established Guangxi ("Western Expanse") as a proper province. The area nonetheless continued to be unruly, leading the Ming dynasty to employ the different local groups against one another. At the Battle of Big Rattan Gorge between the Zhuang and the Yao in 1465, 20,000 deaths were reported.During the Ming and Qing dynasties, parts of Guangxi were ruled by the powerful Cen (岑) clan. The Cen were of Zhuang ethnicity and were recognized as tusi or local rulers by the Chinese emperors. The Qing dynasty left the region alone until the imposition of direct rule in 1726, but the 19th century was one of constant unrest. A Yao revolt in 1831 was followed by the Jintian Uprising, the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion, in January 1851 and the Da Cheng Rebellion in April 1854. The execution of St. Auguste Chapdelaine by local officials in Guangxi provoked the Second Opium War in 1858 and the legalization of foreign interference in the interior. Although Louis Brière de l'Isle was unable to invade its depot at Longzhou, the Guangxi Army saw a great deal of action in the 1884 Sino-French War. Largely ineffective within Vietnam, it was still able to repulse the French from China itself at the Battle of Zhennan Pass (modern Friendship Pass) on 23 March 1885.Following the Wuchang Uprising, Guangxi seceded from the Qing Empire on 6 November 1911. The Qing governor, Shen Bingdan, initially remained in place but was subsequently removed by a mutiny commanded by General Lu Rongting. General Lu's Old Guangxi clique overran Hunan and Guangdong as well and helped lead the National Protection War against Yuan Shikai's attempt to re-establish an imperial government. Zhuang's loyalty made his Self-Government Army cohesive but reluctant to move far beyond its own provinces. Subsequent feuding with Sun Yat-sen led to defeat in the 1920 and 1921 Guangdong–Guangxi War. After a brief occupation by Chen Jiongming's Cantonese forces, Guangxi fell into disunity and profound banditry for several years until Li Zongren's Guangxi Pacification Army established the New Guangxi clique dominated by Li, Huang Shaohong, and Bai Chongxi.Successful action in Hunan against Wu Peifu led to the Zhuang GPA becoming known as the "Flying Army" and the "Army of Steel". After the death of Sun Yat-sen, Li also repulsed Tang Jiyao's revolt and joined the Northern Expedition establishing control over other warlords by the Republic of China. His was one of the few Kuomintang units free from serious Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence and was therefore employed by Chiang Kai-shek for the Shanghai massacre of 1927. Within the People's Republic of China, Guangxi is also noted for the Baise Uprising, a failed CCP revolt led by Chen Zhaoli and Deng Xiaoping in 1929.In 1937, the Guangxi Women's Battalion was founded as a response to Soong Mei-ling's appeal for women to support the Sino-Japanese War. Reports on the size of the battalion vary from 130 students, to 500, to 800.Being in the far south, Guangxi did not fall during the Chinese Civil War, but joined the People's Republic in December 1949, two months after its founding.In 1952, a small section of Guangdong's coastline (Qinzhou, Lianzhou (now Hepu County), Fangchenggang and Beihai) was given to Guangxi, giving it access to the sea. This was reversed in 1955, and then restored in 1965.The Guangxi Massacre, during the Cultural Revolution, involved the killing of 100,000 to 150,000 in the province in 1967 and 1968.While some development of heavy industry occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, the province remained largely a scenic tourist destination. Even the economic growth of the 1990s seemed to leave Guangxi behind. However, in recent years, there has been a growing amount of industrialization and increasing concentration on cash crops. Per capita GDP has risen as industries in Guangdong transfer production to comparatively lower-wage areas in Guangxi. Geography Located in the southern part of the country, Guangxi is bordered by Yunnan to the west, Guizhou to the north, Hunan to the northeast, and Guangdong to the east and southeast. It is also bordered by Vietnam in the southwest and the Gulf of Tonkin in the south. Its proximity to Guangdong is reflected in its name, with "Guang" (simplified Chinese: 广; traditional Chinese: 廣; pinyin: Guǎng) being used in both names.Large portions of Guangxi are hilly and mountainous. The northwest portion of Guangxi includes part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the Jiuwan Mountains and the Fenghuang Mountains both run through the north, the Nanling Mountains form the region's north-east border, and the Yuecheng and Haiyang Mountains both branch from the Nanling Mountains. Also in the north are the Duyao Mountains. The Duyang Mountains run through the west of Guangxi. Near the center of the region are the Da Yao and Da Ming Mountains. On the southeastern border are the Yunkai Mountains. Guangxi's highest point is Kitten Mountain, in the Yuecheng Mountains, at 2,141 metres (7,024 ft).Karst landforms, characterized by steep mountains and large caverns, are common in Guangxi, accounting for 37.8 percent of its total land area.Guangxi is also home to several river systems, which flow into several different bodies of water: the Qin River and the Nanliu River both flow into the Gulf of Tonkin, several tributary rivers flow into the larger Xiang River in neighbouring Hunan province, and the Xi River system flows southeast through the autonomous region into the South China Sea. Along the border with Vietnam there is the Ban Gioc–Detian waterfall (pinyin: Dé Tiān Pùbù), which separates the two countries. About one-quarter of Guangxi's area is forested. Human geography Major cities in Guangxi include Nanning, Liuzhou, Guilin, and Beihai. Notable towns include Longmen, Sanjiang, and Yangshuo. The Xi River system provides waterways which connect to the Pearl River Delta. Important seaports along Guangxi's short coastline on the Gulf of Tonkin include Beihai, Qinzhou, and Fangchenggang. To connect Xi River system and coastal Guangxi, Chinese government started to construct Pinglu Canal. Climate Guangxi has a subtropical climate. Summers are generally long, hot, and humid, lasting from April to October. Winters are mild, and snow is rare. The autonomous region's average annual temperature ranges from 17.5 °C (63.5 °F) to 23.5 °C (74.3 °F), with January temperatures typically ranging from 4 °C (39 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F), and July temperatures typically ranging from 27 °C (81 °F) to 32 °C (90 °F).Due to frequent rain-bearing monsoon winds, average annual precipitation is quite high in Guangxi, ranging from 1,080 millimetres (43 in) in drier zones to 1,730 millimetres (68 in) in wetter zones. The region also experiences monsoons, blowing from south-southwest from late April to the beginning of October. Most of the precipitation occurs between May and August. Microbursts can also occasionally occur in the extreme south of the region, from July to September. This is caused by typhoons blowing from the South China Sea. Image gallery Administrative divisions Guangxi is divided into fourteen prefecture-level divisions: all prefecture-level cities: These 14 prefecture-level cities are in turn subdivided into 111 county-level divisions (41 districts, 10 county-level cities, 48 counties, and 12 autonomous counties). At the year-end of 2021, the total population is 48.85 million.[1] Urban areas Demographics Ethnic groups The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group in Guangxi. Han Chinese populations in Guangxi largely live along the autonomous region's southern coast and eastern portions. Of these, the main subgroups are those that speak Yue and Southwestern Mandarin varieties of Chinese. Qinzhou and Goulou Yue are spoken in the southern and eastern regions, respectively. Pinghua is spoken in Nanning and Guilin. There are Hakka-speaking regions in Luchuan County, Bobai County and in some areas bordering Vietnam. Guangxi has over 14 million Zhuangs, the largest minority ethnicity in China. Over 90 percent of Zhuang in China live in Guangxi, especially in the central and western regions. High concentrations of Zhuang people can be found in Nanning, Liuzhou, Chongzuo, Baise, Hechi, and Laibin. The highest concentration of ethnic Zhuang people is found in the county-level city of Jingxi, with a 2021 publication by the People's Government of Guangxi stating that Jingxi's population is 99.7% Zhuang.The autonomous region also has sizable populations of indigenous Yao, Miao, Kam, Mulam, Maonan, Hui, Gin, Yi, Sui and Gelao peoples. Other ethnic minorities in Guangxi include the Manchu, Mongol, Korean, Tibetan, Hlai, and Tujia people. Religion The predominant religions in Guangxi among the Han Chinese are Chinese folk religions, Taoist traditions and Chinese Buddhism. The large Zhuang population mostly practices the Zhuang folk religion centered around the worship of their ancestral god Buluotuo (布洛陀). According to surveys conducted in 2007 and 2009, 40.48% of the population believes and is involved in ancestor veneration, while 0.26% of the population identifies as Christian.The reports did not give figures for other types of religion; 59.26% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in worship of nature deities, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, folk religious sects. The Yao, another numerous ethnic group inhabiting the province, mostly practices a form of indigenised and conservative Taoism. Today, there are 21 mosques in Guangxi This may include: Nanning Mosque Guilin Chongshan Mosque Guilin Ancient Mosque Liuzhou Mosque Baise Mosque Politics Economy Important crops in Guangxi include rice, maize and sweet potatoes. Cash crops include sugar cane, peanuts, tobacco, and kenaf. 85 percent of the world's star anise is grown in Guangxi. It is a major ingredient in the antiviral oseltamivir.Guangxi is one of China's key production centers for nonferrous metals. The province holds approximately 1/3 of all tin and manganese deposits in China.Liuzhou is the main industrial center and a major motor vehicle manufacturing center. General Motors have a manufacturing base here in a joint venture as SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile. The city also has a large steel factory and several related industries. The local government of Guangxi hopes to expand the province's manufacturing sector, and during the drafting of China's Five Year Plan in 2011, earmarked 2.6 trillion RMB for investment in the province's Beibu Gulf Economic Zone(See Below).In recent years Guangxi's economy has languished behind that of its wealthy neighbor and twin, Guangdong. Guangxi's 2017 nominal GDP was about 2039.63 billion yuan (US$302.09 billion) and ranked 17th in China. Its per capita GDP was 38,102 yuan (US$5,770).Due to its lack of a major manufacturing industry in comparison to other provinces, Guangxi is the fourth most energy efficient province in China, helping to further boost its green image. Economic and technological development zones Beihai Silver Beach National Tourist Holiday Resort Beihai Export Processing ZoneApproved by the State Council, Beihai Export Processing Zone (BHEPZ) was established in March 2003. Total planned area is 1.454 square kilometres (0.561 sq mi). The first phase of the developed area is 1.135 square kilometres (0.438 sq mi). It was verified and accepted by the Customs General Administration and eight ministries of the state, on 26 December 2003. It is the Export Processing Zone nearest to ASEAN in China and also the only one bordering the sea in western China. It is situated next to Beihai Port. Dongxing Border Economic Cooperation Area Guilin National New & Hi-Tech Industrial Development ZoneGuilin Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone was established in May 1988. In 1991, it was approved as a national-level industrial zone. It has an area of 12.07 square kilometres (4.66 sq mi). Encouraged industries include electronic information, biomedical, new materials, and environmental protection. Nanning Economic & Technological Development AreaEstablished in 1992, Nanning Economic and Technological Development Zone was approved to be a national-level zone in May 2001. Its total planned area of 10.796 square kilometres (4.168 sq mi). It is located in the south of Nanning. It has become the new developing zone with fine chemical engineering, auto parts, aluminum processing, biological medicine and other industries. Nanning National Hi-Tech Industrial Development ZoneNanning Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone was established in 1988 and was approved as a national-level industrial zone in 1992. The zone has a planned area of 43.7 square kilometres (16.9 sq mi), and it encourages industries that do electronic information, bioengineering and pharmaceutical, mechanical and electrical integration, and the new materials industry. Pingxiang Border Economic Cooperation ZoneIn 1992, Pinxiang Border Economic Cooperation Zone was established. It has a total area of 7.2 square kilometres (2.8 sq mi). It focuses on the development of hardware mechanical and electrical products, daily-use chemical processing, services, and the international logistics-based storage and information industry. Yongning Economic Development Zone Investment Seventy-one Taiwanese ventures started up in Guangxi in 2007, with contracts bringing up to US$149 million of investment, while gross exports surpassed US$1 billion. There are a total of 1182 Taiwan ventures in Guangxi, and by the end of 2006, they have brought a total of US$4.27 billion of investment into the autonomous region. During the first half of 2007, 43 projects worthy of RMB2.6 billion (US$342 million) have already been contracted between Guangxi and Taiwan investors. Cooperation between Guangxi and Taiwan companies mainly relates to manufacturing, high-tech electronic industries, agriculture, energy resources, and tourism. Power Guangxi Power Grid invested 180 million yuan in 2007 in projects to bring power to areas that still lacked access to electricity. The areas affected include Nanning, Hechi, Bose and Guigang. Around 125,000 people have gained access to electricity. The money has been used to build or alter 738 10-kilovolt distribution units with a total length of wire reaching 1,831.8 kilometers.Due to a lack of investment in construction in the power grid net in rural areas, more than 400 villages in Guangxi Province were not included in the projects. Around 500,000 cannot participate in the policy known as "The Same Grid, the Same Price". Guangxi Power Grid will invest 4.6 billion yuan in improving the power grid during the 11th Five Year Plan.Guangxi Power Grid invested 2.5 billion yuan in building an electric power system in the first half of 2007. Of the total investment, 2.3 billion yuan has been put into the project of the main power grid. So far, four new transformer substations in Guangxi are in various stages of completion. Wenfu substation went into operation in the city of Hechi in January 2007, and since then it has become a major hub of the electrical power system of the surrounding three counties. When the Cangwu substation was completed, it doubled the local transformer capacity. In June 2007, the new substation in Chongzuo passed its operation tests. And in the same month, Qiulong commenced production too. This shall support the power supply system of Qiulong City, as well as the northern part of Guangxi province, and facilitate the nationwide project to transmit power from west to east. Beibu Gulf Economic Zone In late February 2008, the central government approved China's first international and regional economic cooperation zone in Guangxi. The construction of the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone began in 2006. With the approval, the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone will be formally incorporated into national development strategies.The Beibu Gulf Economic Zone covers six coastal cities along the Beibu Gulf. It integrates the cities of Nanning, the region's capital, Beihai, Qinzhou, Fangchenggang, Chongzuo and Yulin. The state will adopt policies and measures to support mechanism innovation, rational industry layout, and infrastructure construction in the Beibu Gulf Economic Zone.Guangxi has pledged a 100 billion yuan (US$14 billion) investment over the next five years for building and repairing 2,500 km (1,600 mi) railways to form a network hub in the area. Beibu Gulf Zone will serve as the logistics base, business base, processing and manufacturing base, and information exchange center for China-ASEAN cooperation. Beibu Gulf Zone promises broad prospects for further development and its growth potential is rapidly released. But the shortage of talent and professionals in petrochemicals, iron and steel, electricity, finance, tourism, port planning, logistics and marine industries are bottlenecks.The regional government is also working on speeding up key cooperation projects including transportation, the marine industry, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy development, cross-border tourism, and environmental protection. Beibu Gulf has already attracted several major projects such as Qinzhou oil refinery projects and Stora Enso, a Fortune 500 forest products company based in Finland. In January 2008 trade import and export in the Beibu Gulf zone exceeded US$1.3 billion, a record high. Bauxite reserves In September 2007, China's Ministry of Commerce said that it has found 120 million tons of new bauxite reserves in Guangxi. The ministry said that the new reserves, which are located in Chongzhou in the southern region of Youjiang, have very high-quality bauxite, a raw material for making aluminum. Currently, the proven reserves of bauxite in Guangxi are about 1 billion tons, making the province one of the country's biggest bauxite sources. Transport Rail The Hunan–Guangxi Railway (Xianggui Line), which bisects the autonomous region diagonally from Quanzhou in the northeast on the border with Hunan to Pingxiang in the southwest on the border with Vietnam, passes through Guangxi's three principal cities, Nanning, Liuzhou and Guilin. Most other railways in Guangxi are connected to the Xianggui Line. From Nanning, the Nanning–Kunming Railway heads west through Baise to Kunming, Yunnan and the Nanning–Fangchenggang Railway runs south to Qinzhou, Fangchenggang and Beihai on the coast. From Liuzhou, the Guizhou–Guangxi Railway extends northwestward through Hechi to Guizhou and the Jiaozuo–Liuzhou Railway runs due north to Hunan, and eventually Hubei and Henan in central China. From Litang Township on the Xianggui Line between Nanning and Liuzhou, the Litang–Qinzhou Railway runs south to Qinzhou on the coast and the Litang–Zhanjiang Railway (Lizhan Line) extends southeastward through Guigang and Yulin to Zhanjiang, Guangdong. The Luoyang–Zhanjiang Railway (Luozhan Line), which intersects with the Xianggui Line on the Hunan side of the border at Yongzhou, runs south through Hezhou and Wuzhou in eastern Guangxi and joins the Lizhan Line at Yulin. At Cenxi, a branch of the Luozhan Line heads east to Maoming, Guangdong, forming a second rail outlet from Guangxi to Guangdong. Roads Aviation Guangxi has 7 airports in different cities: Nanning, Guilin, Beihai, Liuzhou, Wuzhou, Baise, and Hechi. Culture "Guangxi" and neighbouring Guangdong literally mean "Western Expanse" and "Eastern Expanse". Together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called the "Two Expanses" (simplified Chinese: 两广; traditional Chinese: 兩廣; pinyin: Liǎngguǎng). Its culture and language are reflected in this. Though now associated with the Zhuang ethnic minority, Guangxi's culture traditionally has had a close connection with Cantonese. Cantonese culture and language followed the Xi River valley from Guangdong and are still predominant in the eastern half of Guangxi today. Outside of this area, there is a huge variety of ethnicities and language groups represented. Guangxi is known for its ethnolinguistic diversity. In the capital of Nanning, for example, three varieties of Chinese are spoken locally: Southwestern Mandarin, Yue (specifically Cantonese), and Pinghua, in addition to various Zhuang languages and others. Tourism The major tourist attraction of Guangxi is Guilin, a city famed across China and the world for its spectacular setting by the Li Jiang (Li River) among karst peaks. It also used to be the capital of Guangxi and Jingjiang Princes' City, the old princes' residence, is open to the public. South of Guilin down the river is the town of Yangshuo, which has become a favourite destination for foreign tourists. The variety of visible cultures in Guangxi, such as the Zhuang and Dong, are also a draw for tourists. The northern part of the province, bordering Guizhou, is home to the Longsheng Rice Terraces, some of the steepest in the world. Nearby is Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County. Many Chinese tourists visiting Nanning also visit Ban Gioc–Detian Falls on the China-Vietnam border. Education Guilin University of Technology Guangxi Arts University Guangxi University Guangxi Medical University Guangxi Normal University Guilin University of Electronic Technology Guangxi University for Nationalities Guangxi Chinese Medical University Hengxian Middle School Sister regions – Kumamoto Prefecture (1982) – Carinthia (1987) – Rio Grande do Norte (1995) – Newport (formerly) (1996–2019) – Voronezh Oblast (1997) – Montana (1999) – Poitou-Charentes (2002) – Surat Thani Province (2004) – Podkarpackie (2015) See also Major national historical and cultural sites in Guangxi List of twin towns and sister cities in China 2017 Guangxi floods Guangxi Government website Archived 25 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine Guangxi travel guide from Wikivoyage

The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü-Tsang and Kham. It was formally established in 1965 to replace the Tibet Area, the former administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC) established after the annexation of Tibet. The establishment was about five years after the 1959 Tibetan uprising and the dismissal of the Kashag, and about 13 years after the original annexation. The current borders of the Tibet Autonomous Region were generally established in the 18th century and include about half of historic Tibet, or the ethno-cultural Tibet. The Tibet Autonomous Region spans over 1,200,000 km2 (460,000 sq mi) and is the second-largest province-level division of China by area, after Xinjiang. Due to its harsh and rugged terrain, it is sparsely populated at just over 3.6 million people with a population density of 3 inhabitants per square kilometre (7.8/sq mi). History Yarlung kings founded the Tibetan Empire in 618. By the end of the 8th century, the empire reached its greatest extent. After a civil war, the empire broke up in 842. The royal lineage fragmented and ruled over small kingdoms such as Guge, Maryul and Nyingma. The Mongol Empire conquered Tibet in 1244 but granted the region a degree of political autonomy. Kublai Khan later incorporated Tibetans into his Yuan empire (1271–1368). The Sakya lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa became religious teacher to Kublai in the 1250s, and was made the head of the Tibetan region administration c. 1264. From 1354 to 1642, Central Tibet (Ü-Tsang) was ruled by a succession of dynasties from Nêdong, Shigatse and Lhasa. In 1642, the Ganden Phodrang court of the 5th Dalai Lama was established by Güshi Khan of the Khoshut Khanate, who was enthroned as King (chogyal) of Tibet. The Khoshuts ruled until 1717, when they were overthrown by the Dzungar Khanate. The Dzungar forces were in turn expelled by the 1720 Manchu expedition to Tibet during the Dzungar–Qing Wars. This began Qing rule over Tibet: Tibet came under the direct control of the central Chinese government.Despite some politically-charged historical debate on the exact nature of Sino-Tibetan relations, most historians agree that Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang (1642 to c. 1951) was an independent state, albeit the country had been under different foreign suzerainties for much of its history – including during the Ming dynasty period (1368–1644). From 1912 to 1950, the State of Tibet became de facto independent after the fall of the Qing dynasty, like many other regions of the successor Republic of China. The Republic of China régime, preoccupied with fractious warlordism (1916–1928), civil war (1927–1949) and Japanese invasion (1937–1945), failed to assert its authority in Tibet. Other smaller kingdoms of ethno-cultural Tibet in eastern Kham and Amdo had been under de jure administration of the Chinese dynastic government since the mid-18th century; as of 2022 they variously form parts of the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. (See also: Xikang Province) In 1950, after the 1949 establishment of the People's Republic of China, the People's Liberation Army entered Tibet and defeated the Tibetan local army in a battle fought near the city of Chamdo. In 1951, Tibetan representatives signed a 17-point agreement with the Central People's Government affirming China's sovereignty over Tibet and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. The 14th Dalai Lama ratified the agreement in October 1951. After a failed violent uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 and renounced the 17-point agreement. The establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965 made Tibet a provincial-level division of China. Geography The Tibet Autonomous Region is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on Earth. In northern Tibet elevations reach an average of over 4,572 metres (15,000 ft). Mount Everest is located on Tibet's border with Nepal. China's provincial-level areas of Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan lie to the north, northeast and east, respectively, of the Tibet AR. There is also a short border with Yunnan Province to the southeast. The countries to the south and southwest are Myanmar, India, Bhutan, and Nepal. China claims Arunachal Pradesh administered by India as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It also claims some areas adjoining the Chumbi Valley that are recognised as Bhutan's territory, and some areas of eastern Ladakh claimed by India. India and China agreed to respect the Line of Actual Control in a bilateral agreement signed on 7 September 1993. Physically, the Tibet AR may be divided into two parts: the lakes region in the west and north-west and the river region, which spreads out on three sides of the former on the east, south and west. Both regions receive limited amounts of rainfall as they lie in the rain shadow of the Himalayas; however, the region names are useful in contrasting their hydrological structures, and also in contrasting their different cultural uses: nomadic in the lake region and agricultural in the river region. On the south the Tibet AR is bounded by the Himalayas, and on the north by a broad mountain system. The system at no point narrows to a single range; generally there are three or four across its breadth. As a whole the system forms the watershed between rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean — the Indus, Brahmaputra and Salween and its tributaries — and the streams flowing into the undrained salt lakes to the north. The lake region extends from the Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh, Lake Rakshastal, Yamdrok Lake and Lake Manasarovar near the source of the Indus River, to the sources of the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangtze. Other lakes include Dagze Co, Namtso, and Pagsum Co. The lake region is a wind-swept Alpine grassland. This region is called the Chang Tang (Byang sang) or 'Northern Plateau' by the people of Tibet. It is 1,100 km (680 mi) broad and covers an area about equal to that of France. Due to its great distance from the ocean it is extremely arid and possesses no river outlet. The mountain ranges are spread out, rounded, disconnected, and separated by relatively flat valleys. The Tibet AR is dotted over with large and small lakes, generally salt or alkaline, and intersected by streams. Due to the presence of discontinuous permafrost over the Chang Tang, the soil is boggy and covered with tussocks of grass, thus resembling the Siberian tundra. Salt and fresh-water lakes are intermingled. The lakes are generally without outlet, or have only a small effluent. The deposits consist of soda, potash, borax and common salt. The lake region is noted for a vast number of hot springs, which are widely distributed between the Himalaya and 34° N, but are most numerous to the west of Tengri Nor (north-west of Lhasa). So intense is the cold in this part of Tibet that these springs are sometimes represented by columns of ice, the nearly boiling water having frozen in the act of ejection. The river region is characterized by fertile mountain valleys and includes the Yarlung Tsangpo River (the upper courses of the Brahmaputra) and its major tributary, the Nyang River, the Salween, the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Yellow River. The Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon, formed by a horseshoe bend in the river where it flows around Namcha Barwa, is the deepest and possibly longest canyon in the world. Among the mountains there are many narrow valleys. The valleys of Lhasa, Xigazê, Gyantse and the Brahmaputra are free from permafrost, covered with good soil and groves of trees, well irrigated, and richly cultivated. The South Tibet Valley is formed by the Yarlung Tsangpo River during its middle reaches, where it travels from west to east. The valley is approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) long and 300 km (190 mi) wide. The valley descends from 4,500 m (14,760 ft) above sea level to 2,800 m (9,190 ft). The mountains on either side of the valley are usually around 5,000 m (16,400 ft) high. Lakes here include Lake Paiku and Lake Puma Yumco. Government The Tibet Autonomous Region is a province-level entity of the People's Republic of China. Chinese law nominally guarantees some autonomy in the areas of education and language policy. Like other subdivisions of China, routine administration is carried out by a People's Government, headed by a chairman, who has been an ethnic Tibetan except for an interregnum during the Cultural Revolution. As with other Chinese provinces, the Chairman carries out work under the direction of the regional secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. The regional standing committee of the Communist Party serves as the top rung of political power in the region. The current Chairman is Yan Jinhai and the current party secretary is Wang Junzheng. Administrative divisions The Autonomous Region is divided into seven prefecture-level divisions: six prefecture-level cities and one prefecture. These in turn are subdivided into a total of 66 counties and 8 districts (Chengguan, Doilungdêqên, Dagzê, Samzhubzê, Karub, Bayi, Nêdong, and Seni). Urban areas Demographics With an average of only two people per square kilometer, Tibet has the lowest population density among any of the Chinese province-level administrative regions, mostly due to its harsh and rugged terrain. In 2021, only 36.6 percent of Tibet's population was urban, with 63.4 being rural, amongst the lowest in China, though this is significantly up from 22.6 percent in 2011.In 2020 the Tibetan population was three million. The ethnic Tibetans, comprising 86.0% of the population, mainly adhere to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön, although there is an ethnic Tibetan Muslim community. Other Muslim ethnic groups such as the Hui and the Salar have inhabited the region. There is also a tiny Tibetan Christian community in eastern Tibet. Smaller tribal groups such as the Monpa and Lhoba, who follow a combination of Tibetan Buddhism and spirit worship, are found mainly in the southeastern parts of the region. Historically, the population of Tibet consisted of primarily ethnic Tibetans. According to tradition the original ancestors of the Tibetan people, as represented by the six red bands in the Tibetan flag, are: the Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Dru and Ra. Other traditional ethnic groups with significant population or with the majority of the ethnic group reside in Tibet include Bai people, Blang, Bonan, Dongxiang, Han, Hui people, Lhoba, Lisu people, Miao, Mongols, Monguor (Tu people), Menba (Monpa), Mosuo, Nakhi, Qiang, Nu people, Pumi, Salar, and Yi people. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition published between 1910 and 1911, the total population of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, including the lamas in the city and vicinity, was about 30,000, and the permanent population also included Chinese families (about 2,000).Most Han people in the Tibet Autonomous Region (12.2% of the total population) are recent migrants, because all of the Han were expelled from "Outer Tibet" (Central Tibet) following the British invasion until the establishment of the PRC. Only 8% of Han people have household registration in TAR, others keep their household registration in place of origin.Tibetan scholars and exiles claim that, with the 2006 completion of the Qingzang Railway connecting the Tibet Autonomous Region to Qinghai Province, there has been an "acceleration" of Han migration into the region. The Tibetan government-in-exile based in northern India asserts that the PRC is promoting the migration of Han workers and soldiers to Tibet to marginalize and assimilate the locals. Religion The main religion in Tibet has been Buddhism since its outspread in the 8th century AD. Before the arrival of Buddhism, the main religion among Tibetans was an indigenous shamanic and animistic religion, Bon, which now comprises a sizeable minority and influenced the formation of Tibetan Buddhism. According to estimates from the International Religious Freedom Report of 2012, most Tibetans (who comprise 91% of the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region) are adherents of Tibetan Buddhism, while a minority of 400,000 people are followers the native Bon or folk religions which share the image of Confucius (Tibetan: Kongtse Trulgyi Gyalpo) with Chinese folk religion, though in a different light. According to some reports, the government of China has been promoting the Bon religion, linking it with Confucianism.Most of the Han Chinese who reside in Tibet practice their native Chinese folk religion (神道; shén dào; 'Way of the Gods'). There is a Guandi Temple of Lhasa (拉萨关帝庙) where the Chinese god of war Guandi is identified with the cross-ethnic Chinese, Tibetan, Mongol and Manchu deity Gesar. The temple is built according to both Chinese and Tibetan architecture. It was first erected in 1792 under the Qing dynasty and renovated around 2013 after decades of disrepair.Built or rebuilt between 2014 and 2015 is the Guandi Temple of Qomolangma (Mount Everest), on Ganggar Mount, in Tingri County.There are four mosques in the Tibet Autonomous Region with approximately 4,000 to 5,000 Muslim adherents, although a 2010 Chinese survey found a higher proportion of 0.4%. There is a Catholic church with 700 parishioners, which is located in the traditionally Catholic community of Yanjing in the east of the region. Human rights Before the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in 1951, Tibet was ruled by a theocracy and had a caste-like social hierarchy. Human rights in Tibet prior to its incorporation into the People's Republic of China differed considerably from those in the modern era. Due to tight control of press in mainland China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region, it is difficult to accurately determine the scope of human rights abuses.Critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) say the CCP's official aim to eliminate "the three evils of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism" is used as a pretext for human rights abuses. A 1992 Amnesty International report stated that judicial standards in the Tibet Autonomous Region were not up to "international standards". The report charged the CCP government with keeping political prisoners and prisoners of conscience; ill-treatment of detainees, including torture, and inaction in the face of ill-treatment; the use of the death penalty; extrajudicial executions; and forced abortion and sterilization. Towns and villages in Tibet Comfortable Housing Program Beginning in 2006, 280,000 Tibetans who lived in traditional villages and as nomadic herdsmen have been forcefully relocated into villages and towns. In those areas, new housing was built and existing houses were remodelled to serve a total of 2 million people. Those living in substandard housing were required to dismantle their houses and remodel them to government standards. Much of the expense was borne by the residents themselves, often through bank loans. The population transfer program, which was first implemented in Qinghai where 300,000 nomads were resettled, is called "Comfortable Housing", which is part of the "Build a New Socialist Countryside" program. Its effect on Tibetan culture has been criticized by exiles and human rights groups. Finding employment is difficult for relocated persons who have only agrarian skills. Income shortfalls are offset by government support programs. It was announced that in 2011 that 20,000 Communist Party cadres will be placed in the new towns. Economy From the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement to 2003, life expectancy in Tibet increased from thirty-six years to sixty-seven years with infant mortality and absolute poverty declining steadily.The Tibetans traditionally depended upon agriculture for survival. Since the 1980s, however, other jobs such as taxi-driving and hotel retail work have become available in the wake of Chinese economic reform. In 2011, Tibet's GDP topped 60.5 billion yuan (US$9.60 billion), nearly more than seven times as big as the 11.78 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion) in 2000. Economic growth since the beginning of the 21st century has averaged over 10 percent a year.By 2022, the GDP of the region surpassed 213 billion yuan (US$31.7 billion in nominal), while GDP per capita reached CN¥58,438 (US$8,688 in nominal). In 2022, Tibet's GDP per capita ranked 25th highest in China, as well as higher than any South Asian country except Maldives. In 2008, Chinese news media reported that the per capita disposable incomes of urban and rural residents in Tibet averaged (CN¥12,482 (US$1,798) and CN¥3,176 (US$457) respectively.While traditional agriculture and animal husbandry continue to lead the area's economy, in 2005 the tertiary sector contributed more than half of its GDP growth, the first time it surpassed the area's primary industry. Rich reserves of natural resources and raw materials have yet to lead to the creation of a strong secondary sector, due in large part to the province's inhospitable terrain, low population density, an underdeveloped infrastructure and the high cost of extraction.The collection of caterpillar fungus (Cordyceps sinensis, known in Tibetan as Yartsa Gunbu) in late spring / early summer is in many areas the most important source of cash for rural households. It contributes an average of 40% to rural cash income and 8.5% to the Tibet Autonomous Region's GDP.The re-opening of the Nathu La pass (on southern Tibet's border with India) should facilitate Sino-Indian border trade and boost Tibet's economy.The China Western Development policy was adopted in 2000 by the central government to boost economic development in western China, including the Tibet Autonomous Region. Lhasa Economic and Technological Development Zone Education There are 4 universities and 3 special colleges in Tibet, including Tibet University, Tibet University for Nationalities, Tibet Tibetan Medical University, Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry College, Lhasa Teachers College, Tibet Police College and Tibet Vocational and Technical College. Tourism Foreign tourists were first permitted to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region in the 1980s. While the main attraction is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, there are many other popular tourist destinations including the Jokhang Temple, Namtso Lake, and Tashilhunpo Monastery. Nonetheless, tourism in Tibet is still restricted for non-Chinese passport holders (including citizens of the Republic of China from Taiwan), and foreigners must apply for a Tibet Entry Permit to enter the region. Transportation A 2019 white paper from The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China reported Tibet's road system has achieved a total of 118,800 km. Airports The civil airports in Tibet are Lhasa Gonggar Airport, Qamdo Bangda Airport, Nyingchi Airport, and the Gunsa Airport. Gunsa Airport in Ngari Prefecture began operations on 1 July 2010, to become the fourth civil airport in China's Tibet Autonomous Region.The Peace Airport for Xigazê was opened for civilian use on 30 October 2010.Announced in 2010, Nagqu Dagring Airport was expected to become the world's highest altitude airport, at 4,436 meters above sea level. However, in 2015 it was reported that construction of the airport has been delayed due to the necessity to develop higher technological standards. Railway The Qinghai–Tibet Railway from Golmud to Lhasa was completed on 12 October 2005. It opened to regular trial service on 1 July 2006. Five pairs of passenger trains run between Golmud and Lhasa, with connections onward to Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xining and Lanzhou. The line includes the Tanggula Pass, which, at 5,072 m (16,640 ft) above sea level, is the world's highest railway. The Lhasa–Xigazê Railway branch from Lhasa to Xigazê was completed in 2014. It opened to regular service on 15 August 2014. The planned China–Nepal railway will connect Xigazê to Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, and is expected to be completed around 2027.The construction of the Sichuan–Tibet Railway began in 2015. The line is expected to be completed around 2025. See also Further reading Dialogues Tibetan dialogues Han. [Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar]: Hannü. 2008. ISBN 978-988-97999-3-9., travelogue from Tibet – by a woman who's been travelling around Tibet for over a decade, Wilby, Sorrel (1988). Journey Across Tibet: A Young Woman's 1900-Mile Trek Across the Rooftop of the World. Chicago: Contemporary Books. ISBN 0-8092-4608-2., hardcover, 236 pages. Hillman, Ben (1 June 2010). "China's many Tibets: Diqing as a model for 'development with Tibetan characteristics?'". Asian Ethnicity. 11 (2): 269–277. doi:10.1080/14631361003779604. ISSN 1463-1369. S2CID 145011878. Retrieved 30 April 2021. Tibet Autonomous Region official website Archived 8 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine Economic profile for Tibet Autonomous Region at HKTDC Population Structure and Changes in the Tibet Autonomous Region

The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump regimes ruled by remnants of the Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662.The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. He also took great care breaking the power of the court eunuchs and unrelated magnates, enfeoffing his many sons throughout China and attempting to guide these princes through the Huang-Ming Zuxun, a set of published dynastic instructions. This failed when his teenage successor, the Jianwen Emperor, attempted to curtail his uncles' power, prompting the Jingnan campaign, an uprising that placed the Prince of Yan upon the throne as the Yongle Emperor in 1402. The Yongle Emperor established Yan as a secondary capital and renamed it Beijing, constructed the Forbidden City, and restored the Grand Canal and the primacy of the imperial examinations in official appointments. He rewarded his eunuch supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One eunuch, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia and the eastern coasts of Africa. The rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances; the capture of the Emperor Yingzong of Ming during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade and connected and fortified the Great Wall into its modern form. Wide-ranging censuses of the entire empire were conducted decennially, but the desire to avoid labor and taxes and the difficulty of storing and reviewing the enormous archives at Nanjing hampered accurate figures. Estimates for the late-Ming population vary from 160 to 200 million, but necessary revenues were squeezed out of smaller and smaller numbers of farmers as more disappeared from the official records or "donated" their lands to tax-exempt eunuchs or temples. Haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. By the 16th century, however, the expansion of European trade – albeit restricted to islands near Guangzhou such as Macau – spread the Columbian Exchange of crops, plants, and animals into China, introducing chili peppers to Sichuan cuisine and highly productive maize and potatoes, which diminished famines and spurred population growth. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced a massive influx of South American silver. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose paper money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, the heterodoxy introduced by Wang Yangming permitted a more accommodating attitude. Zhang Juzheng's initially successful reforms proved devastating when a slowdown in agriculture produced by the Little Ice Age. The value of silver rapidly increased because of a disruption in the supply of imported silver from Spainish and Portuguese sources, making it impossible for Chinese farmers to pay their taxes. Combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed in 1644 as Li Zicheng's forces entered Beijing. With the help of former Ming general Wu Sangui and his forces, Li's forces were defeated shortly afterward by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies of the Qing dynasty. History Founding Revolt and rebel rivalry The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty. Explanations for the demise of the Yuan include institutionalized ethnic discrimination against the Han people that stirred resentment and rebellion, overtaxation of areas hard-hit by inflation, and massive flooding of the Yellow River as a result of the abandonment of irrigation projects. Consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351. The Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a penniless peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352; he soon gained a reputation after marrying the foster daughter of a rebel commander. In 1356, Zhu's rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, which he would later establish as the capital of the Ming dynasty. With the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of fire ships, Zhu's force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650,000-strong. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley and cementing his power in the south. After the dynastic head of the Red Turbans suspiciously died in 1367 while a guest of Zhu, there was no one left who was remotely capable of contesting his march to the throne, and he made his imperial ambitions known by sending an army toward the Yuan capital Dadu (present-day Beijing) in 1368. The last Yuan emperor fled north to the upper capital Shangdu, and Zhu declared the founding of the Ming dynasty after razing the Yuan palaces in Dadu to the ground; the city was renamed Beiping in the same year. Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or "Vastly Martial", as his era name. Reign of the Hongwu Emperor Hongwu made an immediate effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km (30 mi) long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces and government halls. The History of Ming states that as early as 1364 Zhu Yuanzhang had begun drafting a new Confucian law code, the Da Ming Lü, which was completed by 1397 and repeated certain clauses found in the old Tang Code of 653. Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty (618–907). In 1380 Hongwu had the Chancellor Hu Weiyong executed upon suspicion of a conspiracy plot to overthrow him; after that Hongwu abolished the Chancellery and assumed this role as chief executive and emperor, a precedent mostly followed throughout the Ming period. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, a network of secret police drawn from his own palace guard. Some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule.The Hongwu emperor issued many edicts forbidding Mongol practices and proclaiming his intention to purify China of barbarian influence. However, he also sought to use the Yuan legacy to legitimize his authority in China and other areas ruled by the Yuan. He continued policies of the Yuan dynasty such as continued request for Korean concubines and eunuchs, Mongol-style hereditary military institutions, Mongol-style clothing and hats, promoting archery and horseback riding, and having large numbers of Mongols serve in the Ming military. Until the late 16th century Mongols still constituted one-in-three officers serving in capital forces like the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and other peoples such as Jurchens were also prominent. He frequently wrote to Mongol, Japanese, Korean, Jurchen, Tibetan, and Southwest frontier rulers offering advice on their governmental and dynastic policy, and insisted on leaders from these regions visiting the Ming capital for audiences. He resettled 100,000 Mongols into his territory, with many serving as guards in the capital. The emperor also strongly advertised the hospitality and role granted to Chinggisid nobles in his court.Zhu Yuanzhang insisted that he was not a rebel, and he attempted to justify his conquest of the other rebel warlords by claiming that he was a Yuan subject and had been divinely-appointed to restore order by crushing rebels. Most Chinese elites did not view the Yuan's Mongol ethnicity as grounds to resist or reject it. Zhu emphasised that he was not conquering territory from the Yuan dynasty but rather from the rebel warlords. He used this line of argument to attempt to persuade Yuan loyalists to join his cause. The Ming used the tribute they received from former Yuan vassals as proof that the Ming had taken over the Yuan's legitimacy. Tribute missions were regularly celebrated with music and dance in the Ming court. South-Western frontier Hui Muslim troops settled in Changde, Hunan, after serving the Ming in campaigns against aboriginal tribes. In 1381, the Ming dynasty annexed the areas of the southwest that had once been part of the Kingdom of Dali following the successful effort by Hui Muslim Ming armies to defeat Yuan-loyalist Mongol and Hui Muslim troops holding out in Yunnan province. The Hui troops under General Mu Ying, who was appointed Governor of Yunnan, were resettled in the region as part of a colonization effort. By the end of the 14th century, some 200,000 military colonists settled some 2,000,000 mu (350,000 acres) of land in what is now Yunnan and Guizhou. Roughly half a million more Chinese settlers came in later periods; these migrations caused a major shift in the ethnic make-up of the region, since formerly more than half of the population were non-Han peoples. Resentment over such massive changes in population and the resulting government presence and policies sparked more Miao and Yao revolts in 1464 to 1466, which were crushed by an army of 30,000 Ming troops (including 1,000 Mongols) joining the 160,000 local Guangxi. After the scholar and philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) suppressed another rebellion in the region, he advocated single, unitary administration of Chinese and indigenous ethnic groups in order to bring about sinification of the local peoples. Campaign in the North-East After the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan dynasty by the Ming dynasty in 1368, Manchuria remained under control of the Mongols of the Northern Yuan dynasty based in Mongolia. Naghachu, a former Yuan official and a Uriankhai general of the Northern Yuan dynasty, won hegemony over the Mongol tribes in Manchuria (Liaoyang province of the former Yuan dynasty). He grew strong in the northeast, with forces large enough (numbering hundreds of thousands) to threaten invasion of the newly founded Ming dynasty in order to restore the Mongols to power in China. The Ming decided to defeat him instead of waiting for the Mongols to attack. In 1387 the Ming sent a military campaign to attack Naghachu, which concluded with the surrender of Naghachu and Ming conquest of Manchuria. The early Ming court could not, and did not, aspire to the control imposed upon the Jurchens in Manchuria by the Mongols, yet it created a norm of organization that would ultimately serve as the main instrument for the relations with peoples along the northeast frontiers. By the end of the Hongwu reign, the essentials of a policy toward the Jurchens had taken shape. Most of the inhabitants of Manchuria, except for the Wild Jurchens, were at peace with China. In 1409, under the Yongle Emperor, the Ming Dynasty established the Nurgan Regional Military Commission on the banks of the Amur River, and Yishiha, a eunuch of Haixi Jurchen origin, was ordered to lead an expedition to the mouth of the Amur to pacify the Wild Jurchens. After the death of Yongle Emperor, the Nurgan Regional Military Commission was abolished in 1435, and the Ming court ceased to have substantial activities there, although the guards continued to exist in Manchuria. Throughout its existence, the Ming established a total of 384 guards (衛, wei) and 24 battalions (所, suo) in Manchuria, but these were probably only nominal offices and did not necessarily imply political control. By the late Ming period, Ming's political presence in Manchuria has declined significantly. Relations with Tibet The Mingshi – the official history of the Ming dynasty compiled by the Qing dynasty in 1739 – states that the Ming established itinerant commanderies overseeing Tibetan administration while also renewing titles of ex-Yuan dynasty officials from Tibet and conferring new princely titles on leaders of Tibetan Buddhist sects. However, Turrell V. Wylie states that censorship in the Mingshi in favor of bolstering the Ming emperor's prestige and reputation at all costs obfuscates the nuanced history of Sino-Tibetan relations during the Ming era.Modern scholars debate whether the Ming dynasty had sovereignty over Tibet. Some believe it was a relationship of loose suzerainty that was largely cut off when the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521–67) persecuted Buddhism in favor of Daoism at court. Others argue that the significant religious nature of the relationship with Tibetan lamas is underrepresented in modern scholarship. Others note the Ming need for Central Asian horses and the need to maintain the tea-horse trade.The Ming sporadically sent armed forays into Tibet during the 14th century, which the Tibetans successfully resisted. Several scholars point out that unlike the preceding Mongols, the Ming dynasty did not garrison permanent troops in Tibet. The Wanli Emperor (r. 1572–1620) attempted to reestablish Sino-Tibetan relations in the wake of a Mongol-Tibetan alliance initiated in 1578, an alliance which affected the foreign policy of the subsequent Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1912) in their support for the Dalai Lama of the Yellow Hat sect. By the late 16th century, the Mongols proved to be successful armed protectors of the Yellow Hat Dalai Lama after their increasing presence in the Amdo region, culminating in the conquest of Tibet by Güshi Khan (1582–1655) in 1642, establishing the Khoshut Khanate. Reign of the Yongle Emperor Rise to power The Hongwu Emperor specified his grandson Zhu Yunwen as his successor, and he assumed the throne as the Jianwen Emperor (r. 1398–1402) after Hongwu's death in 1398. The most powerful of Hongwu's sons, Zhu Di, then the militarily mighty disagreed with this, and soon a political showdown erupted between him and his nephew Jianwen. After Jianwen arrested many of Zhu Di's associates, Zhu Di plotted a rebellion that sparked a three-year civil war. Under the pretext of rescuing the young Jianwen from corrupting officials, Zhu Di personally led forces in the revolt; the palace in Nanjing was burned to the ground, along with Jianwen himself, his wife, mother, and courtiers. Zhu Di assumed the throne as the Yongle Emperor (r. 1402–24); his reign is universally viewed by scholars as a "second founding" of the Ming dynasty since he reversed many of his father's policies. New capital and foreign engagement Yongle demoted Nanjing to a secondary capital and in 1403 announced the new capital of China was to be at his power base in Beijing. Construction of a new city there lasted from 1407 to 1420, employing hundreds of thousands of workers daily. At the center was the political node of the Imperial City, and at the center of this was the Forbidden City, the palatial residence of the emperor and his family. By 1553, the Outer City was added to the south, which brought the overall size of Beijing to 6.5 by 7 kilometres (4 by 4+1⁄2 miles). Beginning in 1405, the Yongle Emperor entrusted his favored eunuch commander Zheng He (1371–1433) as the admiral for a gigantic new fleet of ships designated for international tributary missions. Among the kingdoms visited by Zheng He, Yongle proclaimed the Kingdom of Cochin to be its protectorate. The Chinese had sent diplomatic missions over land since the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) and engaged in private overseas trade, but these missions were unprecedented in grandeur and scale. To service seven different tributary voyages, the Nanjing shipyards constructed two thousand vessels from 1403 to 1419, including treasure ships measuring 112 to 134 m (367 to 440 ft) in length and 45 to 54 m (148 to 177 ft) in width.Yongle used woodblock printing to spread Chinese culture. He also used the military to expand China's borders. This included the brief occupation of Vietnam, from the initial invasion in 1406 until the Ming withdrawal in 1427 as a result of protracted guerrilla warfare led by Lê Lợi, the founder of the Vietnamese Lê dynasty. Tumu Crisis and the Ming Mongols The Oirat leader Esen Tayisi launched an invasion into Ming China in July 1449. The chief eunuch Wang Zhen encouraged the Zhengtong Emperor (r. 1435–49) to lead a force personally to face the Oirats after a recent Ming defeat; the emperor left the capital and put his half-brother Zhu Qiyu in charge of affairs as temporary regent. On 8 September, Esen routed Zhengtong's army, and Zhengtong was captured – an event known as the Tumu Crisis. The Oirats held the Zhengtong Emperor for ransom. However, this scheme was foiled once the emperor's younger brother assumed the throne under the era name Jingtai (r. 1449–57); the Oirats were also repelled once the Jingtai Emperor's confidant and defense minister Yu Qian (1398–1457) gained control of the Ming armed forces. Holding the Zhengtong Emperor in captivity was a useless bargaining chip for the Oirats as long as another sat on his throne, so they released him back into Ming China. The former emperor was placed under house arrest in the palace until the coup against the Jingtai Emperor in 1457 known as the "Wresting the Gate Incident". The former emperor retook the throne under the new era name Tianshun (r. 1457–64). Tianshun proved to be a troubled time and Mongol forces within the Ming military structure continued to be problematic. On 7 August 1461, the Chinese general Cao Qin and his Ming troops of Mongol descent staged a coup against the Tianshun Emperor out of fear of being next on his purge-list of those who aided him in the Wresting the Gate Incident. Cao's rebel force managed to set fire to the western and eastern gates of the Imperial City (doused by rain during the battle) and killed several leading ministers before his forces were finally cornered and he was forced to commit suicide.While the Yongle Emperor had staged five major offensives north of the Great Wall against the Mongols and the Oirats, the constant threat of Oirat incursions prompted the Ming authorities to fortify the Great Wall from the late 15th century to the 16th century; nevertheless, John Fairbank notes that "it proved to be a futile military gesture but vividly expressed China's siege mentality." Yet the Great Wall was not meant to be a purely defensive fortification; its towers functioned rather as a series of lit beacons and signalling stations to allow rapid warning to friendly units of advancing enemy troops. Decline Reign of the Wanli Emperor The financial drain of the Imjin War in Korea against the Japanese was one of the many problems – fiscal or other – facing Ming China during the reign of the Wanli Emperor (1572–1620). In the beginning of his reign, Wanli surrounded himself with able advisors and made a conscientious effort to handle state affairs. His Grand Secretary Zhang Juzheng (1572–82) built up an effective network of alliances with senior officials. However, there was no one after him skilled enough to maintain the stability of these alliances; officials soon banded together in opposing political factions. Over time Wanli grew tired of court affairs and frequent political quarreling amongst his ministers, preferring to stay behind the walls of the Forbidden City and out of his officials' sight. Scholar-officials lost prominence in administration as eunuchs became intermediaries between the aloof emperor and his officials; any senior official who wanted to discuss state matters had to persuade powerful eunuchs with a bribe simply to have his demands or message relayed to the emperor. The Bozhou rebellion by the Chiefdom of Bozhou was going on in southwestern China at the same time as the Imjin War. Role of eunuchs The Hongwu Emperor forbade eunuchs to learn how to read or engage in politics. Whether or not these restrictions were carried out with absolute success in his reign, eunuchs during the Yongle Emperor's reign (1402–1424) and afterwards managed huge imperial workshops, commanded armies, and participated in matters of appointment and promotion of officials. Yongle put 75 eunuchs in charge of foreign policy; they traveled frequently to vassal states including Annam, Mongolia, the Ryukyu Islands, and Tibet and less frequently to farther-flung places like Japan and Nepal. In the later 15th century, however, eunuch envoys generally only traveled to Korea.The eunuchs developed their own bureaucracy that was organized parallel to but was not subject to the civil service bureaucracy. Although there were several dictatorial eunuchs throughout the Ming, such as Wang Zhen, Wang Zhi, and Liu Jin, excessive tyrannical eunuch power did not become evident until the 1590s when the Wanli Emperor increased their rights over the civil bureaucracy and granted them power to collect provincial taxes.The eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627) dominated the court of the Tianqi Emperor (r. 1620–1627) and had his political rivals tortured to death, mostly the vocal critics from the faction of the Donglin Society. He ordered temples built in his honor throughout the Ming Empire, and built personal palaces created with funds allocated for building the previous emperor's tombs. His friends and family gained important positions without qualifications. Wei also published a historical work lambasting and belittling his political opponents. The instability at court came right as natural calamity, pestilence, rebellion, and foreign invasion came to a peak. The Chongzhen Emperor (r. 1627–44) had Wei dismissed from court, which led to Wei's suicide shortly after. The eunuchs built their own social structure, providing and gaining support to their birth clans. Instead of fathers promoting sons, it was a matter of uncles promoting nephews. The Heishanhui Society in Peking sponsored the temple that conducted rituals for worshiping the memory of Gang Tie, a powerful eunuch of the Yuan dynasty. The Temple became an influential base for highly placed eunuchs, and continued in a somewhat diminished role during the Qing dynasty. Economic breakdown and natural disasters During the last years of the Wanli era and those of his two successors, an economic crisis developed that was centered on a sudden widespread lack of the empire's chief medium of exchange: silver. The Portuguese first established trade with China in 1516. Following the Ming Emperor's decision to ban direct trade with Japan, Portuguese traders acted as an intermediary between China and Japan by buying Chinese silks from China and selling it to Japan for silver. After some initial hostilities gained consent from the Ming court in 1557 to settle Macau as their permanent trade base in China. Their role in providing silver was gradually surpassed by the Spanish, while even the Dutch challenged them for control of this trade. Philip IV of Spain (r. 1621–1665) began cracking down on illegal smuggling of silver from New Spain and Peru across the Pacific through the Philippines towards China, in favor of shipping American-mined silver through Spanish ports. People began hoarding precious silver as there was progressively less of it, forcing the ratio of the value of copper to silver into a steep decline. In the 1630s a string of one thousand copper coins equaled an ounce of silver; by 1640 that sum could fetch half an ounce; and, by 1643 only one-third of an ounce. For peasants this meant economic disaster, since they paid taxes in silver while conducting local trade and crop sales in copper. Historians have debated the validity of the theory that silver shortages caused the downfall of the Ming dynasty.Famines became common in northern China in the early 17th century because of unusually dry and cold weather that shortened the growing season – effects of a larger ecological event now known as the Little Ice Age. Famine, alongside tax increases, widespread military desertions, a declining relief system, and natural disasters such as flooding and inability of the government to properly manage irrigation and flood-control projects caused widespread loss of life and normal civility. The central government, starved of resources, could do very little to mitigate the effects of these calamities. Making matters worse, a widespread epidemic, the Great Plague of 1633–1644, spread across China from Zhejiang to Henan, killing an unknown but large number of people. The deadliest earthquake of all time, the Shaanxi earthquake of 1556, occurred during the Jiajing Emperor's reign, killing approximately 830,000 people. Fall of the Ming Rise of the Manchus Originally a Ming vassal who officially considered himself a guardian of the Ming border and a local representative of imperial Ming power, Nurhaci, leader of the Jianzhou Jurchens, unified other Jurchen clans to create a new Manchu ethnic identity. He offered to lead his armies to support Ming and Joseon armies against the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s. Ming officials declined the offer, but granted him honorific titles. Recognizing the weakness of Ming authority north of their border, he consolidated power by co-opting or conquering neighboring Chinese, Jurchen, and Mongol territories. In 1616 he declared himself Khan and established the Later Jin dynasty in reference to the previous Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty. In 1618 he openly renounced the Ming overlordship and demanded tribute from the Ming to redress "Seven Grievances."In 1636, Nurhaci's son Hong Taiji renamed his dynasty the "Great Qing" at Mukden (modern Shenyang), which had been made their capital in 1625. Hong Taiji also adopted the Chinese imperial title huangdi, declared the Chongde ("Revering Virtue") era, and changed the ethnic name of his people from "Jurchen" to "Manchu". In 1636, Banner Armies defeated Joseon during the Second Manchu invasion of Korea and forced Joseon to become a Qing tributary. Shortly after, the Koreans renounced their long-held loyalty to the Ming dynasty. Rebellion, invasion, collapse A peasant soldier named Li Zicheng mutinied with his fellow soldiers in western Shaanxi in the early 1630s after the Ming government failed to ship much-needed supplies there. In 1634 he was captured by a Ming general and released only on the terms that he return to service. The agreement soon broke down when a local magistrate had thirty-six of his fellow rebels executed; Li's troops retaliated by killing the officials and continued to lead a rebellion based in Rongyang, central Henan province by 1635. By the 1640s, an ex-soldier and rival to Li – Zhang Xianzhong (1606–1647) – had created a firm rebel base in Chengdu, Sichuan, with the establishment of the Xi dynasty, while Li's center of power was in Hubei with extended influence over Shaanxi and Henan.In 1640, masses of Chinese peasants who were starving, unable to pay their taxes, and no longer in fear of the frequently defeated Chinese army, began to form into huge bands of rebels. The Chinese military, caught between fruitless efforts to defeat the Manchu raiders from the north and huge peasant revolts in the provinces, essentially fell apart. Unpaid and unfed, the army was defeated by Li Zicheng – now self-styled as the Prince of Shun – and deserted the capital without much of a fight. On 25 April 1644, Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng when the city gates were opened by rebel allies from within. During the turmoil, Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor, accompanied only by a eunuch servant, hanged himself on a tree in the imperial garden right outside the Forbidden City. Seizing opportunity, the Eight Banners crossed the Great Wall after the Ming border general Wu Sangui (1612–1678) opened the gates at Shanhai Pass. This occurred shortly after he learned about the fate of the capital and an army of Li Zicheng marching towards him; weighing his options of alliance, he decided to side with the Manchus. The Eight Banners under the Manchu Prince Dorgon (1612–1650) and Wu Sangui approached Beijing after the army sent by Li was destroyed at Shanhaiguan; the Prince of Shun's army fled the capital on the fourth of June. On 6 June, the Manchus and Wu entered the capital and proclaimed the young Shunzhi Emperor ruler of China. After being forced out of Xi'an by the Qing, chased along the Han River to Wuchang, and finally along the northern border of Jiangxi province, Li Zicheng died there in the summer of 1645, thus ending the Shun dynasty. One report says his death was a suicide; another states that he was beaten to death by peasants after he was caught stealing their food.Despite the loss of Beijing and the death of the emperor, the Ming were not yet totally destroyed. Nanjing, Fujian, Guangdong, Shanxi, and Yunnan were all strongholds of Ming resistance. However, there were several pretenders for the Ming throne, and their forces were divided. These scattered Ming remnants in southern China after 1644 were collectively designated by 19th-century historians as the Southern Ming. Each bastion of resistance was individually defeated by the Qing until 1662, when the last Southern Ming emperor, Zhu Youlang, the Yongli Emperor, was captured and executed. Despite the Ming defeat, smaller loyalist movements continued until the proclamation of the Republic of China. Government Province, prefecture, subprefecture, county Described as "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history" by Edwin O. Reischauer, John K. Fairbank and Albert M. Craig, the Ming emperors took over the provincial administration system of the Yuan dynasty, and the thirteen Ming provinces are the precursors of the modern provinces. Throughout the Song dynasty, the largest political division was the circuit (lu 路). However, after the Jurchen invasion in 1127, the Song court established four semi-autonomous regional command systems based on territorial and military units, with a detached service secretariat that would become the provincial administrations of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Copied on the Yuan model, the Ming provincial bureaucracy contained three commissions: one civil, one military, and one for surveillance. Below the level of the province (sheng 省) were prefectures (fu 府) operating under a prefect (zhifu 知府), followed by subprefectures (zhou 州) under a subprefect. The lowest unit was the county (xian 縣), overseen by a magistrate. Besides the provinces, there were also two large areas that belonged to no province, but were metropolitan areas (jing 京) attached to Nanjing and Beijing. Institutions and bureaus Institutional trends Departing from the main central administrative system generally known as the Three Departments and Six Ministries system, which was instituted by various dynasties since late Han (202 BCE – 220 CE), the Ming administration had only one department, the Secretariat, that controlled the six ministries. Following the execution of the Chancellor Hu Weiyong in 1380, the Hongwu Emperor abolished the Secretariat, the Censorate, and the Chief Military Commission and personally took charge of the Six Ministries and the regional Five Military Commissions. Thus a whole level of administration was cut out and only partially rebuilt by subsequent rulers. The Grand Secretariat, at the beginning a secretarial institution that assisted the emperor with administrative paperwork, was instituted, but without employing grand counselors, or chancellors. The Hongwu Emperor sent his heir apparent to Shaanxi in 1391 to "tour and soothe" (xunfu) the region; in 1421 the Yongle Emperor commissioned 26 officials to travel the empire and uphold similar investigatory and patrimonial duties. By 1430 these xunfu assignments became institutionalized as "grand coordinators". Hence, the Censorate was reinstalled and first staffed with investigating censors, later with censors-in-chief. By 1453, the grand coordinators were granted the title vice censor-in-chief or assistant censor-in-chief and were allowed direct access to the emperor. As in prior dynasties, the provincial administrations were monitored by a travelling inspector from the Censorate. Censors had the power to impeach officials on an irregular basis, unlike the senior officials who were to do so only in triennial evaluations of junior officials.Although decentralization of state power within the provinces occurred in the early Ming, the trend of central government officials delegated to the provinces as virtual provincial governors began in the 1420s. By the late Ming dynasty, there were central government officials delegated to two or more provinces as supreme commanders and viceroys, a system which reined in the power and influence of the military by the civil establishment. Grand Secretariat and Six Ministries Governmental institutions in China conformed to a similar pattern for some two thousand years, but each dynasty installed special offices and bureaus, reflecting its own particular interests. The Ming administration utilized Grand Secretaries to assist the emperor, handling paperwork under the reign of the Yongle Emperor and later appointed as top officials of agencies and Grand Preceptor, a top-ranking, non-functional civil service post, under the Hongxi Emperor (r. 1424–25). The Grand Secretariat drew its members from the Hanlin Academy and were considered part of the imperial authority, not the ministerial one (hence being at odds with both the emperor and ministers at times). The Secretariat operated as a coordinating agency, whereas the Six Ministries – Personnel, Revenue, Rites, War, Justice, and Public Works – were direct administrative organs of the state:The Ministry of Personnel was in charge of appointments, merit ratings, promotions, and demotions of officials, as well as granting of honorific titles. The Ministry of Revenue was in charge of gathering census data, collecting taxes, and handling state revenues, while there were two offices of currency that were subordinate to it. The Ministry of Rites was in charge of state ceremonies, rituals, and sacrifices; it also oversaw registers for Buddhist and Daoist priesthoods and even the reception of envoys from tributary states. The Ministry of War was in charge of the appointments, promotions, and demotions of military officers, the maintenance of military installations, equipment, and weapons, as well as the courier system. The Ministry of Justice was in charge of judicial and penal processes, but had no supervisory role over the Censorate or the Grand Court of Revision. The Ministry of Public Works had charge of government construction projects, hiring of artisans and laborers for temporary service, manufacturing government equipment, the maintenance of roads and canals, standardization of weights and measures, and the gathering of resources from the countryside. Bureaus and offices for the imperial household The imperial household was staffed almost entirely by eunuchs and ladies with their own bureaus. Female servants were organized into the Bureau of Palace Attendance, Bureau of Ceremonies, Bureau of Apparel, Bureau of Foodstuffs, Bureau of the Bedchamber, Bureau of Handicrafts, and Office of Staff Surveillance. Starting in the 1420s, eunuchs began taking over these ladies' positions until only the Bureau of Apparel with its four subsidiary offices remained. Hongwu had his eunuchs organized into the Directorate of Palace Attendants, but as eunuch power at court increased, so did their administrative offices, with eventual twelve directorates, four offices, and eight bureaus. The dynasty had a vast imperial household, staffed with thousands of eunuchs, who were headed by the Directorate of Palace Attendants. The eunuchs were divided into different directorates in charge of staff surveillance, ceremonial rites, food, utensils, documents, stables, seals, apparel, and so on. The offices were in charge of providing fuel, music, paper, and baths. The bureaus were in charge of weapons, silverwork, laundering, headgear, bronze work, textile manufacture, wineries, and gardens. At times, the most influential eunuch in the Directorate of Ceremonial acted as a de facto dictator over the state.Although the imperial household was staffed mostly by eunuchs and palace ladies, there was a civil service office called the Seal Office, which cooperated with eunuch agencies in maintaining imperial seals, tallies, and stamps. There were also civil service offices to oversee the affairs of imperial princes. Personnel Scholar-officials The Hongwu emperor from 1373 to 1384 staffed his bureaus with officials gathered through recommendations only. After that the scholar-officials who populated the many ranks of bureaucracy were recruited through a rigorous examination system that was initially established by the Sui dynasty (581–618). Theoretically the system of exams allowed anyone to join the ranks of imperial officials (although it was frowned upon for merchants to join); in reality the time and funding needed to support the study in preparation for the exam generally limited participants to those already coming from the landholding class. However, the government did exact provincial quotas while drafting officials. This was an effort to curb monopolization of power by landholding gentry who came from the most prosperous regions, where education was the most advanced. The expansion of the printing industry since Song times enhanced the spread of knowledge and number of potential exam candidates throughout the provinces. For young schoolchildren there were printed multiplication tables and primers for elementary vocabulary; for adult examination candidates there were mass-produced, inexpensive volumes of Confucian classics and successful examination answers. As in earlier periods, the focus of the examination was classical Confucian texts, while the bulk of test material centered on the Four Books outlined by Zhu Xi in the 12th century. Ming era examinations were perhaps more difficult to pass since the 1487 requirement of completing the "eight-legged essay", a departure from basing essays off progressing literary trends. The exams increased in difficulty as the student progressed from the local level, and appropriate titles were accordingly awarded successful applicants. Officials were classified in nine hierarchic grades, each grade divided into two degrees, with ranging salaries (nominally paid in piculs of rice) according to their rank. While provincial graduates who were appointed to office were immediately assigned to low-ranking posts like the county graduates, those who passed the palace examination were awarded a jinshi ('presented scholar') degree and assured a high-level position. In 276 years of Ming rule and ninety palace examinations, the number of doctoral degrees granted by passing the palace examinations was 24,874. Ebrey states that "there were only two to four thousand of these jinshi at any given time, on the order of one out of 10,000 adult males." This was in comparison to the 100,000 shengyuan ('government students'), the lowest tier of graduates, by the 16th century.The maximum tenure in office was nine years, but every three years officials were graded on their performance by senior officials. If they were graded as superior then they were promoted, if graded adequate then they retained their ranks, and if graded inadequate they were demoted one rank. In extreme cases, officials would be dismissed or punished. Only capital officials of grade 4 and above were exempt from the scrutiny of recorded evaluation, although they were expected to confess any of their faults. There were over 4,000 school instructors in county and prefectural schools who were subject to evaluations every nine years. The Chief Instructor on the prefectural level was classified as equal to a second-grade county graduate. The Supervisorate of Imperial Instruction oversaw the education of the heir apparent to the throne; this office was headed by a Grand Supervisor of Instruction, who was ranked as first class of grade three.Historians debate whether the examination system expanded or contracted upward social mobility. On the one hand, the exams were graded without regard to a candidate's social background, and were theoretically open to everyone. In actual practice, the successful candidates had years of a very expensive, sophisticated tutoring of the sort that wealthy gentry families specialized in providing their talented sons. In practice, 90 percent of the population was ineligible due to lack of education, but the upper 10 percent had equal chances for moving to the top. To be successful young men had to have extensive, expensive training in classical Chinese, the use of Mandarin in spoken conversation, calligraphy, and had to master the intricate poetic requirements of the eight-legged essay. Not only did the traditional gentry dominated the system, they also learned that conservatism and resistance to new ideas was the path to success. For centuries critics had pointed out these problems, but the examination system only became more abstract and less relevant to the needs of China. The consensus of scholars is that the eight-legged essay can be blamed as a major cause of "China's cultural stagnation and economic backwardness." However Benjamin Ellman argues there were some positive features, since the essay form was capable of fostering "abstract thinking, persuasiveness, and prosodic form" and that its elaborate structure discouraged a wandering, unfocused narrative". Lesser functionaries Scholar-officials who entered civil service through examinations acted as executive officials to a much larger body of non-ranked personnel called lesser functionaries. They outnumbered officials by four to one; Charles Hucker estimates that they were perhaps as many as 100,000 throughout the empire. These lesser functionaries performed clerical and technical tasks for government agencies. Yet they should not be confused with lowly lictors, runners, and bearers; lesser functionaries were given periodic merit evaluations like officials and after nine years of service might be accepted into a low civil service rank. The one great advantage of the lesser functionaries over officials was that officials were periodically rotated and assigned to different regional posts and had to rely on the good service and cooperation of the local lesser functionaries. Eunuchs, princes, and generals Eunuchs gained unprecedented power over state affairs during the Ming dynasty. One of the most effective means of control was the secret service stationed in what was called the Eastern Depot at the beginning of the dynasty, later the Western Depot. This secret service was overseen by the Directorate of Ceremonial, hence this state organ's often totalitarian affiliation. Eunuchs had ranks that were equivalent to civil service ranks, only theirs had four grades instead of nine.Descendants of the first Ming emperor were made princes and given (typically nominal) military commands, annual stipends, and large estates. The title used was "king" (王, wáng) but – unlike the princes in the Han and Jin dynasties – these estates were not feudatories, the princes did not serve any administrative function, and they partook in military affairs only during the reigns of the first two emperors. The rebellion of the Prince of Yan was justified in part as upholding the rights of the princes, but once the Yongle Emperor was enthroned, he continued his nephew's policy of disarming his brothers and moved their fiefs away from the militarized northern border. Although princes served no organ of state administration, the princes, consorts of the imperial princesses, and ennobled relatives did staff the Imperial Clan Court, which supervised the imperial genealogy.Like scholar-officials, military generals were ranked in a hierarchic grading system and were given merit evaluations every five years (as opposed to three years for officials). However, military officers had less prestige than officials. This was due to their hereditary service (instead of solely merit-based) and Confucian values that dictated those who chose the profession of violence (wu) over the cultured pursuits of knowledge (wen). Although seen as less prestigious, military officers were not excluded from taking civil service examinations, and after 1478 the military even held their own examinations to test military skills. In addition to taking over the established bureaucratic structure from the Yuan period, the Ming emperors established the new post of the travelling military inspector. In the early half of the dynasty, men of noble lineage dominated the higher ranks of military office; this trend was reversed during the latter half of the dynasty as men from more humble origins eventually displaced them. Society and culture Literature and arts Literature, painting, poetry, music, and Chinese opera of various types flourished during the Ming dynasty, especially in the economically prosperous lower Yangzi valley. Although short fiction had been popular as far back as the Tang dynasty (618–907), and the works of contemporaneous authors such as Xu Guangqi, Xu Xiake, and Song Yingxing were often technical and encyclopedic, the most striking literary development was the vernacular novel. While the gentry elite were educated enough to fully comprehend the language of Classical Chinese, those with rudimentary education – such as women in educated families, merchants, and shop clerks – became a large potential audience for literature and performing arts that employed Vernacular Chinese. Literati scholars edited or developed major Chinese novels into mature form in this period, such as Water Margin and Journey to the West. Jin Ping Mei, published in 1610, although incorporating earlier material, marks the trend toward independent composition and concern with psychology. In the later years of the dynasty, Feng Menglong and Ling Mengchu innovated with vernacular short fiction. Theater scripts were equally imaginative. The most famous, The Peony Pavilion, was written by Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), with its first performance at the Pavilion of Prince Teng in 1598. Informal essay and travel writing was another highlight. Xu Xiake (1587–1641), a travel literature author, published his Travel Diaries in 404,000 written characters, with information on everything from local geography to mineralogy. The first reference to the publishing of private newspapers in Beijing was in 1582; by 1638 the Peking Gazette switched from using woodblock print to movable type printing. The new literary field of the moral guide to business ethics was developed during the late Ming period, for the readership of the merchant class. In contrast to Xu Xiake, who focused on technical aspects in his travel literature, the Chinese poet and official Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) used travel literature to express his desires for individualism as well as autonomy from and frustration with Confucian court politics. Yuan desired to free himself from the ethical compromises that were inseparable from the career of a scholar-official. This anti-official sentiment in Yuan's travel literature and poetry was actually following in the tradition of the Song dynasty poet and official Su Shi (1037–1101). Yuan Hongdao and his two brothers, Yuan Zongdao (1560–1600) and Yuan Zhongdao (1570–1623), were the founders of the Gong'an School of letters. This highly individualistic school of poetry and prose was criticized by the Confucian establishment for its association with intense sensual lyricism, which was also apparent in Ming vernacular novels such as the Jin Ping Mei. Yet even gentry and scholar-officials were affected by the new popular romantic literature, seeking courtesans as soulmates to re-enact the heroic love stories that arranged marriages often could not provide or accommodate. Famous painters included Ni Zan and Dong Qichang, as well as the Four Masters of the Ming dynasty, Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, and Qiu Ying. They drew upon the techniques, styles, and complexity in painting achieved by their Song and Yuan predecessors, but added techniques and styles. Well-known Ming artists could make a living simply by painting due to the high prices they demanded for their artworks and the great demand by the highly cultured community to collect precious works of art. The artist Qiu Ying was once paid 2.8 kg (100 oz) of silver to paint a long handscroll for the eightieth birthday celebration of the mother of a wealthy patron. Renowned artists often gathered an entourage of followers, some who were amateurs who painted while pursuing an official career and others who were full-time painters. The period was also renowned for ceramics and porcelains. The major production center for porcelain was the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province, most famous in the period for blue and white porcelain, but also producing other styles. The Dehua porcelain factories in Fujian catered to European tastes by creating Chinese export porcelain by the late 16th century. Individual potters also became known, such as He Chaozong, who became famous in the early 17th century for his style of white porcelain sculpture. In The Ceramic Trade in Asia, Chuimei Ho estimates that about 16% of late Ming era Chinese ceramic exports were sent to Europe, while the rest were destined for Japan and South East Asia.Carved designs in lacquerware and designs glazed onto porcelain wares displayed intricate scenes similar in complexity to those in painting. These items could be found in the homes of the wealthy, alongside embroidered silks and wares in jade, ivory, and cloisonné. The houses of the rich were also furnished with rosewood furniture and feathery latticework. The writing materials in a scholar's private study, including elaborately carved brush holders made of stone or wood, were designed and arranged ritually to give an aesthetic appeal.Connoisseurship in the late Ming period centered on these items of refined artistic taste, which provided work for art dealers and even underground scammers who themselves made imitations and false attributions. The Jesuit Matteo Ricci while staying in Nanjing wrote that Chinese scam artists were ingenious at making forgeries and huge profits. However, there were guides to help the wary new connoisseur; Liu Tong (died 1637) wrote a book printed in 1635 that told his readers how to spot fake and authentic pieces of art. He revealed that a Xuande era (1426–1435) bronze work could be authenticated by judging its sheen; porcelain wares from the Yongle era (1402–1424) could be judged authentic by their thickness. Religion The dominant religious beliefs during the Ming dynasty were the various forms of Chinese folk religion and the Three Teachings – Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The Yuan-supported Tibetan lamas fell from favor, and the early Ming emperors particularly favored Taoism, granting its practitioners many positions in the state's ritual offices. The Hongwu Emperor curtailed the cosmopolitan culture of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and the prolific Prince of Ning Zhu Quan even composed one encyclopedia attacking Buddhism as a foreign "mourning cult", deleterious to the state, and another encyclopedia that subsequently joined the Taoist canon.The Yongle emperor and later emperors strongly patronised Tibetan Buddhism by supporting construction, printing of sutras, ceremonies etc., to seek legitimacy among foreign audiences. Yongle tried to portray himself as a Buddhist ideal king, a cakravartin. There is evidence that this portrayal was successful in persuading foreign audiences.Islam was also well-established throughout China, with a history said to have begun with Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas during the Tang dynasty and strong official support during the Yuan. Although the Ming sharply curtailed this support, there were still several prominent Muslim figures early on, including the Yongle Emperor's powerful eunuch Zheng He. The Hongwu Emperor's generals Chang Yuqun, Lan Yu, Ding Dexing, and Mu Ying have also been identified as Muslim by Hui scholars, though this is doubted by non-Muslim sources. Regardless, the presence of Muslims in the armies that drove the Mongols northwards caused a gradual shift in the Chinese perception of Muslims, transitioning from "foreigners" to "familiar strangers". Mongol and Central Asian Semu Muslim women and men were required by Ming Code to marry Han Chinese after the first Ming Emperor Hongwu passed the law in Article 122. The Hongwu Emperor wrote a a 100 character praise of Islam and the prophet Muhammad. The Ming Emperors strongly sponsored the construction of mosques and granted generous liberties for the practice of Islam. The advent of the Ming was initially devastating to Christianity: in his first year, the Hongwu Emperor declared the eighty-year-old Franciscan missions among the Yuan heterodox and illegal. The centuries-old Church of the East in China also disappeared. During the later Ming a new wave of Christian missionaries arrived – particularly Jesuits – who employed new western science and technology in their arguments for conversion. They were educated in Chinese language and culture at St. Paul's College on Macau after its founding in 1579. The most influential was Matteo Ricci, whose "Map of the Myriad Countries of the World" upended traditional geography throughout East Asia, and whose work with the convert Xu Guangqi led to the first Chinese translation of Euclid's Elements in 1607. The discovery of a Xi'an Stele at Xi'an in 1625 also permitted Christianity to be treated as an old and established faith, rather than as a new and dangerous cult. However, there were strong disagreements about the extent to which converts could continue to perform rituals to the emperor, Confucius, or their ancestors: Ricci had been very accommodating and an attempt by his successors to backtrack from this policy led to the Nanjing Incident of 1616, which exiled four Jesuits to Macau and forced the others out of public life for six years. A series of spectacular failures by the Chinese astronomers – including missing an eclipse easily computed by Xu Guangqi and Sabatino de Ursis – and a return by the Jesuits to presenting themselves as educated scholars in the Confucian mold restored their fortunes. However, by the end of the Ming the Dominicans had begun the Chinese Rites controversy in Rome that would eventually lead to a full ban of Christianity under the Qing dynasty. During his mission, Ricci was also contacted in Beijing by one of the approximately 5,000 Kaifeng Jews and introduced them and their long history in China to Europe. However, the 1642 flood caused by Kaifeng's Ming governor devastated the community, which lost five of its twelve families, its synagogue, and most of its Torah. Philosophy Wang Yangming's Confucianism During the Ming dynasty, the Neo-Confucian doctrines of the Song scholar Zhu Xi were embraced by the court and the Chinese literati at large, although the direct line of his school was destroyed by the Yongle Emperor's extermination of the ten degrees of kinship of Fang Xiaoru in 1402. The Ming scholar most influential upon subsequent generations, however, was Wang Yangming (1472–1529), whose teachings were attacked in his own time for their similarity to Chan Buddhism. Building upon Zhu Xi's concept of the "extension of knowledge" (理學 or 格物致知), gaining understanding through careful and rational investigation of things and events, Wang argued that universal concepts would appear in the minds of anyone. Therefore, he claimed that anyone – no matter their pedigree or education – could become as wise as Confucius and Mencius had been and that their writings were not sources of truth but merely guides that might have flaws when carefully examined. A peasant with a great deal of experience and intelligence would then be wiser than an official who had memorized the Classics but not experienced the real world. Conservative reaction Other scholar-bureaucrats were wary of Wang's heterodoxy, the increasing number of his disciples while he was still in office, and his overall socially rebellious message. To curb his influence, he was often sent out to deal with military affairs and rebellions far away from the capital. Yet his ideas penetrated mainstream Chinese thought and spurred new interest in Taoism and Buddhism. Furthermore, people began to question the validity of the social hierarchy and the idea that the scholar should be above the farmer. Wang Yangming's disciple and salt-mine worker Wang Gen gave lectures to commoners about pursuing education to improve their lives, while his follower He Xinyin (何心隱) challenged the elevation and emphasis of the family in Chinese society. His contemporary Li Zhi even taught that women were the intellectual equals of men and should be given a better education; both Li and He eventually died in prison, jailed on charges of spreading "dangerous ideas". Yet these "dangerous ideas" of educating women had long been embraced by some mothers and by courtesans who were as literate and skillful in calligraphy, painting, and poetry as their male guests.The liberal views of Wang Yangming were opposed by the Censorate and by the Donglin Academy, re-established in 1604. These conservatives wanted a revival of orthodox Confucian ethics. Conservatives such as Gu Xiancheng (1550–1612) argued against Wang's idea of innate moral knowledge, stating that this was simply a legitimization for unscrupulous behavior such as greedy pursuits and personal gain. These two strands of Confucian thought, hardened by Chinese scholars' notions of obligation towards their mentors, developed into pervasive factionalism among the ministers of state, who used any opportunity to impeach members of the other faction from court. Urban and rural life Wang Gen was able to give philosophical lectures to many commoners from different regions because – following the trend already apparent in the Song dynasty – communities in Ming society were becoming less isolated as the distance between market towns was shrinking. Schools, descent groups, religious associations, and other local voluntary organizations were increasing in number and allowing more contact between educated men and local villagers. Jonathan Spence writes that the distinction between what was town and country was blurred in Ming China, since suburban areas with farms were located just outside and in some cases within the walls of a city. Not only was the blurring of town and country evident, but also of socioeconomic class in the traditional four occupations (Shì nóng gōng shāng, 士農工商), since artisans sometimes worked on farms in peak periods, and farmers often traveled into the city to find work during times of dearth.A variety of occupations could be chosen or inherited from a father's line of work. This would include – but was not limited to – coffin makers, ironworkers and blacksmiths, tailors, cooks and noodle-makers, retail merchants, tavern, teahouse, or winehouse managers, shoemakers, seal cutters, pawnshop owners, brothel heads, and merchant bankers engaging in a proto-banking system involving notes of exchange. Virtually every town had a brothel where female and male prostitutes could be had. Male catamites fetched a higher price than female concubines since pederasty with a teenage boy was seen as a mark of elite status, regardless of sodomy being repugnant to sexual norms. Public bathing became much more common than in earlier periods. Urban shops and retailers sold a variety of goods such as special paper money to burn at ancestral sacrifices, specialized luxury goods, headgear, fine cloth, teas, and others. Smaller communities and townships too poor or scattered to support shops and artisans obtained their goods from periodic market fairs and traveling peddlers. A small township also provided a place for simple schooling, news and gossip, matchmaking, religious festivals, traveling theater groups, tax collection, and bases of famine relief distribution.Farming villagers in the north spent their days harvesting crops like wheat and millet, while farmers south of the Huai River engaged in intensive rice cultivation and had lakes and ponds where ducks and fish could be raised. The cultivation of mulberry trees for silkworms and tea bushes could be found mostly south of the Yangzi River; even further south sugarcane and citrus were grown as basic crops. Some people in the mountainous southwest made a living by selling lumber from hard bamboo. Besides cutting down trees to sell wood, the poor also made a living by turning wood into charcoal, and by burning oyster shells to make lime and fired pots, and weaving mats and baskets. In the north traveling by horse and carriage was most common, while in the south the myriad of rivers, canals, and lakes provided cheap and easy water transport. Although the south had the characteristic of the wealthy landlord and tenant farmers, there were on average many more owner-cultivators north of the Huai River due to harsher climate, living not far above subsistence level.Early Ming dynasty saw the strictest sumptuary laws in Chinese history. It was illegal for commoners to wear fine silk or dress in bright red, dark green or yellow colors; nor could they wear boots or guan hats. Women could not use ornaments made from gold, jade, pearl or emerald. Merchants and their families were further banned from using silk. However, these laws were no longer enforced from the middle Ming period onwards. Science and technology After the flourishing of science and technology in the Song dynasty, the Ming dynasty perhaps saw fewer advancements in science and technology compared to the pace of discovery in the Western world. In fact, key advances in Chinese science in the late Ming were spurred by contact with Europe. In 1626 Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote the first Chinese treatise on the telescope, the Yuanjingshuo (Far Seeing Optic Glass); in 1634 the Chongzhen Emperor acquired the telescope of the late Johann Schreck (1576–1630). The heliocentric model of the solar system was rejected by the Catholic missionaries in China, but Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei's ideas slowly trickled into China starting with the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym (1612–1659) in 1627, Adam Schall von Bell's treatise in 1640, and finally Joseph Edkins, Alex Wylie, and John Fryer in the 19th century. Catholic Jesuits in China would promote Copernican theory at court, yet at the same time embrace the Ptolemaic system in their writing; it was not until 1865 that Catholic missionaries in China sponsored the heliocentric model as their Protestant peers did. Although Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Guo Shoujing (1231–1316) had laid the basis for trigonometry in China, another important work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607 with the efforts of Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci. Ironically, some inventions which had their origins in ancient China were reintroduced to China from Europe during the late Ming; for example, the field mill.The Chinese calendar was in need of reform since it inadequately measured the solar year at 365 ¼ days, giving an error of 10 min and 14 sec a year or roughly a full day every 128 years. Although the Ming had adopted Guo Shoujing's Shoushi calendar of 1281, which was just as accurate as the Gregorian Calendar, the Ming Directorate of Astronomy failed to periodically readjust it; this was perhaps due to their lack of expertise since their offices had become hereditary in the Ming and the Statutes of the Ming prohibited private involvement in astronomy. A sixth-generation descendant of the Hongxi Emperor, the "Prince" Zhu Zaiyu (1536–1611), submitted a proposal to fix the calendar in 1595, but the ultra-conservative astronomical commission rejected it. This was the same Zhu Zaiyu who discovered the system of tuning known as equal temperament, a discovery made simultaneously by Simon Stevin (1548–1620) in Europe. In addition to publishing his works on music, he was able to publish his findings on the calendar in 1597. A year earlier, the memorial of Xing Yunlu suggesting a calendar improvement was rejected by the Supervisor of the Astronomical Bureau due to the law banning private practice of astronomy; Xing would later serve with Xu Guangqi in reforming the calendar (Chinese: 崇禎暦書) in 1629 according to Western standards. When the Ming founder Hongwu came upon the mechanical devices housed in the Yuan dynasty's palace at Khanbaliq – such as fountains with balls dancing on their jets, self-operating tiger automata, dragon-headed devices that spouted mists of perfume, and mechanical clocks in the tradition of Yi Xing (683–727) and Su Song (1020–1101) – he associated all of them with the decadence of Mongol rule and had them destroyed. This was described in full length by the Divisional Director of the Ministry of Works, Xiao Xun, who also carefully preserved details on the architecture and layout of the Yuan dynasty palace. Later, European Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault would briefly mention indigenous Chinese clockworks that featured drive wheels. However, both Ricci and Trigault were quick to point out that 16th-century European clockworks were far more advanced than the common time keeping devices in China, which they listed as water clocks, incense clocks, and "other instruments ... with wheels rotated by sand as if by water" (Chinese: 沙漏). Chinese records – namely the Yuan Shi – describe the 'five-wheeled sand clock', a mechanism pioneered by Zhan Xiyuan (fl. 1360–80) which featured the scoop wheel of Su Song's earlier astronomical clock and a stationary dial face over which a pointer circulated, similar to European models of the time. This sand-driven wheel clock was improved upon by Zhou Shuxue (fl. 1530–58) who added a fourth large gear wheel, changed gear ratios, and widened the orifice for collecting sand grains since he criticized the earlier model for clogging up too often. The Chinese were intrigued with European technology, but so were visiting Europeans of Chinese technology. In 1584, Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) featured in his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum the peculiar Chinese innovation of mounting masts and sails onto carriages, just like Chinese ships. Gonzales de Mendoza also mentioned this a year later – noting even the designs of them on Chinese silken robes – while Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) featured them in his atlas, John Milton (1608–1674) in one of his famous poems, and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (1739–1801) in the writings of his travel diary in China. The encyclopedist Song Yingxing (1587–1666) documented a wide array of technologies, metallurgic and industrial processes in his Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia of 1637. This includes mechanical and hydraulic powered devices for agriculture and irrigation, nautical technology such as vessel types and snorkeling gear for pearl divers, the annual processes of sericulture and weaving with the loom, metallurgic processes such as the crucible technique and quenching, manufacturing processes such as for roasting iron pyrite in converting sulphide to oxide in sulfur used in gunpowder compositions – illustrating how ore was piled up with coal briquettes in an earthen furnace with a still-head that sent over sulfur as vapor that would solidify and crystallize – and the use of gunpowder weapons such as a naval mine ignited by use of a rip-cord and steel flint wheel. Focusing on agriculture in his Nongzheng Quanshu, the agronomist Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) took an interest in irrigation, fertilizers, famine relief, economic and textile crops, and empirical observation of the elements that gave insight into early understandings of chemistry.There were many advances and new designs in gunpowder weapons during the beginning of the dynasty, but by the mid to late Ming the Chinese began to frequently employ European-style artillery and firearms. The Huolongjing, compiled by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen sometime before the latter's death on 16 May 1375 (with a preface added by Jiao in 1412), featured many types of cutting-edge gunpowder weaponry for the time. This includes hollow, gunpowder-filled exploding cannonballs, land mines that used a complex trigger mechanism of falling weights, pins, and a steel wheellock to ignite the train of fuses, naval mines, fin-mounted winged rockets for aerodynamic control, multistage rockets propelled by booster rockets before igniting a swarm of smaller rockets issuing forth from the end of the missile (shaped like a dragon's head), and hand cannons that had up to ten barrels.Li Shizhen (1518–1593) – one of the most renowned pharmacologists and physicians in Chinese history – belonged to the late Ming period. His Bencao Gangmu is a medical text with 1,892 entries, each entry with its own name called a gang. The mu in the title refers to the synonyms of each name. Inoculation, although it can be traced to earlier Chinese folk medicine, was detailed in Chinese texts by the sixteenth century. Throughout the Ming dynasty, around fifty texts were published on the treatment of smallpox. In regards to oral hygiene, the ancient Egyptians had a primitive toothbrush of a twig frayed at the end, but the Chinese were the first to invent the modern bristle toothbrush in 1498, although it used stiff pig hair. Population Sinologist historians debate the population figures for each era in the Ming dynasty. The historian Timothy Brook notes that the Ming government census figures are dubious since fiscal obligations prompted many families to underreport the number of people in their households and many county officials to underreport the number of households in their jurisdiction. Children were often underreported, especially female children, as shown by skewed population statistics throughout the Ming. Even adult women were underreported; for example, the Daming Prefecture in North Zhili reported a population of 378,167 males and 226,982 females in 1502. The government attempted to revise the census figures using estimates of the expected average number of people in each household, but this did not solve the widespread problem of tax registration. Some part of the gender imbalance may be attributed to the practice of female infanticide. The practice is well documented in China, going back over two thousand years, and it was described as "rampant" and "practiced by almost every family" by contemporary authors. However, the dramatically skewed sex ratios, which many counties reported exceeding 2:1 by 1586, cannot likely be explained by infanticide alone. The number of people counted in the census of 1381 was 59,873,305; however, this number dropped significantly when the government found that some 3 million people were missing from the tax census of 1391. Even though underreporting figures was made a capital crime in 1381, the need for survival pushed many to abandon the tax registration and wander from their region, where Hongwu had attempted to impose rigid immobility on the populace. The government tried to mitigate this by creating their own conservative estimate of 60,545,812 people in 1393. In his Studies on the Population of China, Ho Ping-ti suggests revising the 1393 census to 65 million people, noting that large areas of North China and frontier areas were not counted in that census. Brook states that the population figures gathered in the official censuses after 1393 ranged between 51 and 62 million, while the population was in fact increasing. Even the Hongzhi Emperor (r. 1487–1505) remarked that the daily increase in subjects coincided with the daily dwindling amount of registered civilians and soldiers. William Atwell states that around 1400 the population of China was perhaps 90 million people, citing Heijdra and Mote.Historians are now turning to local gazetteers of Ming China for clues that would show consistent growth in population. Using the gazetteers, Brook estimates that the overall population under the Chenghua Emperor (r. 1464–87) was roughly 75 million, despite mid-Ming census figures hovering around 62 million. While prefectures across the empire in the mid-Ming period were reporting either a drop in or stagnant population size, local gazetteers reported massive amounts of incoming vagrant workers with not enough good cultivated land for them to till, so that many would become drifters, conmen, or wood-cutters that contributed to deforestation. The Hongzhi and Zhengde emperors lessened the penalties against those who had fled their home region, while the Jiajing Emperor (r. 1521–67) finally had officials register migrants wherever they had moved or fled in order to bring in more revenues.Even with the Jiajing reforms to document migrant workers and merchants, by the late Ming era the government census still did not accurately reflect the enormous growth in population. Gazetteers across the empire noted this and made their own estimations of the overall population in the Ming, some guessing that it had doubled, tripled, or even grown fivefold since 1368. Fairbank estimates that the population was perhaps 160 million in the late Ming dynasty, while Brook estimates 175 million, and Ebrey states perhaps as large as 200 million. However, a great epidemic that started in Shanxi Province in 1633, ravaged the densely populated areas along the Grand Canal; a gazetteer in northern Zhejiang noted more than half the population fell ill that year and that 90% of the local populace in one area was dead by 1642. See also Works cited Further reading Reference works and primary sources Farmer, Edward L. ed. Ming History: An Introductory Guide to Research (1994). Goodrich, Luther Carrington (1976). Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368–1644. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-03833-1. The Ming History English Translation Project, A collaborative project that makes available translations (from Chinese to English) of portions of the 明史 Mingshi (Official History of the Ming Dynasty). Lynn Struve, The Ming-Qing conflict, 1619–1683: A historiography and source guide, Online Indiana University. General studies Notable Ming dynasty painters and galleries at China Online Museum Ming dynasty art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Highlights from the British Museum exhibition Archived 20 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine

Taipei (臺北市 ), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of Taiwan. Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about 25 km (16 mi) southwest of the northern port city of Keelung. Most of the city rests on the Taipei Basin, an ancient lakebed. The basin is bounded by the relatively narrow valleys of the Keelung and Xindian rivers, which join to form the Tamsui River along the city's western border.The municipality of Taipei is home to an estimated population of 2,494,813 (March 2023), forming the core part of the Taipei–Keelung metropolitan area, also known as "Greater Taipei", which includes the nearby cities of New Taipei and Keelung with a population of 7,047,559, the 40th most-populous urban area in the world—roughly one-third of Taiwanese citizens live in the metro areas. The name "Taipei" can refer either to the whole metropolitan area or just the municipality alone. Taipei has been the political center of the island since 1887, when it first became the seat of Taiwan Province by the Qing dynasty until 1895 and again from 1945 to 1956 by the ROC government, with an interregnum from 1895 to 1945 as the seat of the Government-General of Taiwan during the Japanese rule. The city has been the national seat of the ROC central government since 1949, it became the nation's special municipality (then known as Yuan-controlled municipality) on 1 July 1967 from provincial city status. Taipei is the economic, political, educational and cultural center of Taiwan and one of the world's major global cities. Considered to be a global city and rated as an Alpha − City by GaWC, Taipei is part of a major high-tech industrial area. Railways, highways, airports and bus lines connect Taipei with all parts of the island. The city is served by two airports – Songshan and Taoyuan. The municipality is home to architectural and cultural landmarks, including Taipei 101 (formerly the tallest building in the world), Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Hsing Tian Kong, Lungshan Temple of Manka, National Palace Museum, Presidential Office Building, Taipei Guest House and Zhinan Temple. Shopping districts including Ximending and Zhongshan metro station as well as several night markets dispersed throughout the city. Natural features include Maokong, Yangmingshan and hot springs. In English-language news reports, the name Taipei often serves as a synecdoche referring to central government of Taiwan. Due to the ambiguous political status of Taiwan internationally, the term Chinese Taipei is also frequently used as a synonym for the entire country, as when Taiwan's governmental representatives participate in international organizations or Taiwan's athletes compete in international sporting events, including the Olympics. Names The spellings Taipei and Tʻai-pei derive from the Wade–Giles romanization Tʻai²-pei³ which means the North of Taiwan in Chinese. The name could be also romanized as Táiběi according to Hanyu Pinyin and Tongyong Pinyin.The city has also been known as Tai-pak (derived from Taiwanese Hokkien) and Taipeh.During the Japanese rule, Taipei was known as Taihoku, which is the pronounciation of the Chinese characters (Kanji) for Taipei in Japanese. History Prior to the significant influx of Han Chinese colonists, the region of Taipei Basin was mainly inhabited by the plains aborigines called Ketagalan. The number of Han colonists gradually increased in the early 18th century under Qing Dynasty rule after the government began permitting development in the area. In 1875, the northern part of the island was incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture. It was formerly established as Taipeh-fu and was the temporary capital of the island in 1887 when it was declared a province (Fukien-Taiwan Province). Taipeh was formally made the provincial capital in 1894. The romanized transcription of Taipeh was changed to Taihoku in 1895 when the Empire of Japan annexed Taiwan, based on the Japanese reading of the two characters. The writing in Chinese characters remained unaltered. Under Japanese rule, the city was administered under Taihoku Prefecture. Taiwan's Japanese rulers embarked on an extensive program of advanced urban planning that featured extensive railroad links. A number of Taipei landmarks and cultural institutions date from this period.Following the surrender of Japan to the Allies during 1945, effective control of Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China (ROC). After facing defeat from Communist forces, the ruling Kuomintang relocated the ROC government to Taiwan and declared Taipei the provisional capital of the ROC in December 1949. Taiwan's Kuomintang rulers regarded the city as the capital of Taiwan Province and their control as mandated by General Order No. 1. In 1990, Taipei provided the backdrop for the Wild Lily student rallies that moved Taiwanese society from one-party rule to multi-party democracy by 1996. The city has ever since served as the seat of Taiwan's democratically elected national government. Early settlers–Qing dynasty The region known as the Taipei Basin was home to Ketagalan tribes before the eighteenth century. Han Chinese colonists from Dabu County, Yongding County, Anxi and Tong'an of Southern Fujian began to settle in the Taipei Basin in 1709.In the late 19th century, the Taipei area, where the major Han Chinese settlements in northern Taiwan and one of the designated overseas trade ports, Tamsui, were located, gained economic importance due to the booming overseas trade, especially that of tea export. In 1875, the northern part of Taiwan was separated from Taiwan Prefecture and incorporated into the new Taipeh Prefecture as a new administrative entity of the Qing dynasty. Having been established adjoining the flourishing townships of Bangka, Dalongdong, and Twatutia, the new prefectural capital was known as Chengnei (Chinese: 城內; pinyin: chéngnèi; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: siâⁿ-lāi), "the inner city", and government buildings were erected there. From 1875 until the beginning of Japanese rule in 1895, Taipei was part of Tamsui County of Taipeh Prefecture and the prefectural capital.In 1885, as work commenced to govern the island as a province, Taipeh was thus temporarily designated as a provincial capital. The city officially became the capital in 1894. Nowadays, all that remains from the historical period is the north gate. The west gate and city walls were demolished by the Japanese while the south gate, little south gate, and east gate were extensively modified by the Kuomintang and have lost much of their original character. Empire of Japan As settlement for losing the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded the island of Taiwan to the Empire of Japan in 1895 as part of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the Japanese takeover, Taipei, romanized into English as Taihoku following the Japanese language pronunciation, was retained as the capital. It subsequently emerged as the political center of the Japanese Colonial Government. During that time the city acquired the characteristics of an administrative center, including many new public buildings and housing for civil servants. Much of the architecture of Taipei dates from the period of Japanese rule, including the Presidential Office Building which was the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan. During Japanese rule, Taihoku was incorporated in 1920 as part of Taihoku Prefecture. It included Bangka, Twatutia, and Jōnai (城內) among other small settlements. The eastern village of Matsuyama (松山庄, modern-day Songshan District, Taipei) was annexed into Taihoku City in 1938. Taihoku and surrounding areas were bombed by Allied forces on several occasions. The largest of these Allied air raids, the Taihoku Air Raid, took place on 31 May 1945. Post-WW2 under ROC Upon the Japanese defeat following the nuclear bomb destruction of Hiroshima and its consequent surrender in August 1945, the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) assumed control of Taiwan. Subsequently, Taipei was established as a provincial city and a temporary Office of the Taiwan Province Administrative Governor was established in it. In 1947 the Kuomintang (KMT) government under Chiang Kai-shek declared island-wide martial law in Taiwan as a result of the 28 February Incident, which began with incidents in Taipei but led to an island-wide crackdown on the local population by forces loyal to Chiang. Two years later, on 7 December 1949, Chiang and the Kuomintang forces were forced to flee mainland China by the after defeat by Communist revolutionaries. The KMT-led national government that fled to Taiwan declared Taipei to be the provisional capital of a continuing Republic of China.Taipei expanded greatly in the decades after 1949, and as approved on 30 December 1966, by the Executive Yuan, Taipei was declared a special municipality on 1 July 1967. In the following year, Taipei City expanded again by annexing Shilin, Beitou, Neihu, Nangang, Jingmei, and Muzha. At that time, the city's total area increased fourfold by absorbing several outlying towns and villages and the population increased to 1.56 million people.The city's population, which had reached one million in the early 1960s, also expanded rapidly after 1967, exceeding two million by the mid-1970s. Although growth within the city itself gradually slowed thereafter — its population had become relatively stable by the mid-1990s – Taipei remained one of the world's most densely populated urban areas, and the population continued to increase in the region surrounding the city, notably along the corridor between Taipei and Keelung.In 1990, Taipei's 16 districts were consolidated into the current 12 districts. Mass democracy rallies that year in the plaza around Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall led to an island-wide transition to multi-party democracy, where legislators are chosen via regularly scheduled popular elections, during the presidency of Lee Teng-Hui. Geography Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the Xindian River on the south and the Tamsui River on the west. The generally low-lying terrain of the central areas on the western side of the municipality slopes upward to the south and east and especially to the north, where it reaches the 1,120 m (3,670 ft)-tall Qixing Mountain, the highest (dormant) volcano in Taiwan in Yangmingshan National Park. The northern districts of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by Yangmingshan National Park. The Taipei city limits cover an area of 271.7997 km2 (104.9425 sq mi), ranking sixteenth of twenty-five among all counties and cities in Taiwan. Two peaks, Qixing Mountain and Mt. Datun, rise to the northeast of the city. Qixing Mountain is located on the Tatun Volcano Group; its 1,120 m (3,670 ft)-high main peak renders it the tallest mountain at the rim of the Taipei Basin; 1,092 m (3,583 ft)-high Mt. Datun is a close runner up. These former volcanoes make up the western section of Yangmingshan National Park, extending from Mt. Datun northward to Mt. Caigongkeng (菜公坑山). Located on a broad saddle between two mountains, the area also contains the marshy Datun Pond. To the southeast of the city lie the Songshan Hills and the Qingshui Ravine, which form a barrier of lush woods. Climate Taipei has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa). Summers are long-lasting, very hot and humid, and accompanied by occasional heavy rainstorms and typhoons; while winters are short, generally warm and generally very foggy due to the northeasterly winds from the vast Siberian High being intensified by the pooling of this cooler air in the Taipei Basin. As in the rest of Northern Taiwan, daytime temperatures of Taipei can often peak above 26 °C (79 °F) during a warm winter day, while they can dip below that same level during afternoon showers and thunderstorms in the summer. Occasional cold fronts during the winter months can drop the daily temperature by 3 to 5 °C (5.4 to 9.0 °F), though temperatures rarely drop below 10 °C (50 °F). Extreme temperatures ranged from −0.2 °C (31.6 °F) on 13 February 1901 to 39.7 °C (103.5 °F) on 24 July 2020, while snow has never been recorded in the city besides on mountains located within the city limit such as Yangmingshan. Due to Taiwan's location in the Pacific Ocean, it is affected by the Pacific typhoon season, which occurs between June and October. Air quality In comparison to other Asian cities, Taipei has "excellent" capabilities for managing air quality in the city. Its rainy climate, location near the coast, and strong environmental regulations have prevented air pollution from becoming a substantial health issue, at least compared to cities in southeast Asia and industrial China. However, smog is extremely common and there is poor visibility throughout the city after rainless days. Motor vehicle engine exhaust, particularly from motor scooters, is a source of air pollution in Taipei. There are higher levels of fine particulate matter and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the mornings because of less air movement; sunlight reduces some pollution. Cityscape Demographics While Taipei City is home to 2,524,393 people (2022), the greater metropolitan area has a population of 7,047,559 people. Even though the population of the city has been decreasing in recent years, the population of adjacent New Taipei has been increasing. The population loss, while rapid in its early years, was slowed by lower density development and campaigns designed to increase the birthrate in the city in the 2010s. As a result, the population rose 2010-2015.Due to Taipei's geography and location in the Taipei Basin as well as differing times of settlement and differing degrees of economic development of its districts, Taipei's population is not evenly distributed. The districts of Daan, Songshan, and Datong are the most densely populated. These districts, along with adjacent communities such as Yonghe and Zhonghe, contain some of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world.In 2008, the crude birth rate stood at 7.88%, while the mortality rate stood at 5.94%. A decreasing and rapidly aging population is an important issue for the city. By the end of 2009, one in ten people in Taipei was over 65 years of age. Residents who had obtained a college education or higher accounted for 43.48% of the population, and the literacy rate stood at 99.18%.Like the rest of Taiwan, Taipei is composed of four major ethnic subgroups: Hoklos, Waishengren, Hakkas, and aborigines. Although Hoklos and Waishengren form the majority of the population of the city, in recent decades many Hakkas have moved into the city. The aboriginal population in the city stands at 16,713 at the end of 2018 (<1%), concentrated mostly in the suburban districts. Foreigners (mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Japan) numbered 71,858 at the end of 2022. Economy As Taiwan's business, financial, and technology hub, Taipei has been at the center of rapid economic development in the country and has now become one of the global cities in technology and electronics. This development is part of the so-called Taiwan Miracle which has seen dramatic growth in the city following foreign direct investment in the 1960s. Taiwan is now a creditor economy, holding one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves of over US$403 billion as of December 2012.Despite the Asian financial crisis, the economy continues to expand at about 5% per year, with virtually full employment and low inflation. The city's GDP stand at US$327 billion in 2014. As of 2013, the nominal GDP per capita in Taipei city is 5th highest in East Asia, behind Tokyo, Singapore, Osaka, and Hong Kong, but ahead of Seoul, as well as London and Paris, according to The Economist. GDP per capita based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in Taipei in 2015 was US$44,173, behind that of Singapore (US$90,151 in 2016 from the IMF) and Hong Kong (US$58,322 in 2016 from the IMF; also based on PPP). The Financial Times ranked Taipei highly in economic potential (2nd, behind Tokyo) and business friendliness (4th) in 2015. The city is home to 30 billionaires, the 16th most in the world, ahead of many global cities such as Los Angeles and Sydney. Business Insider also ranks Taipei the 5th most high-tech city globally, the highest in Asia, in 2017. While the IESE Cities in Motion Index 2017 ranks Taipei as the smartest technology city globally.Taipei's main development fields include the information and communications technology (hardware and software), biotechnology, general merchandizing (wholesale/retail), financial services, and MICE industries. Most of the country's major firms are based there including Acer Computers, Asus, CTBC Bank, Fubon Financial Holding, Tatung Company, D-Link, and others. 5 Global Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in Taipei. The city also attracts many multi-national corporations, international financial institutions, foreign consulates, and business organizations to set up base there. Thus, Taipei has nearly 3,500 registered foreign businesses and attracts over 50% of the total foreign investment in Taiwan. Foreign companies with offices or regional headquarters in Taipei include Google, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, HSBC, Citibank, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, JP Morgan, PwC, and many others. Most financial and foreign firms like to reside in the central business district of Taipei, the Xinyi Special District. With Citi, JP Morgan, DBS Bank, Cathay Life Insurance, Shin Kong Commercial Bank, Hua Nan Bank, and soon Fubon Financial and Nan Shan Life Insurance all establishing skyscrapers in the area. Meanwhile, technology and electronics companies are often co-located in the Neihu Technology Park or the Nankang Software Park. The startup and innovation scene in Taipei is also very vibrant. In 2018 alone, Microsoft announced plans to invest US$34 million to create an artificial intelligence R&D center in Taipei, while Google announced it will hire 300 people and train 5,000 more in artificial intelligence for machines. Taipei is Google's biggest engineering site in Asia. IBM also announced in 2018 that it will develop a cloud research lab and expand its R&D center in Taipei with eyes on artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and cloud computing. According to the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Development Index, Taipei's entrepreneurial spirit ranks 6th worldwide and 1st in Asia. Taipei has more than 400 startups and numerous incubation centers, accelerators, venture capitals, and angel investors. The city's startup ecosystem is valued at US$580 million by Startup Genome in 2018.Tourism is a small but significant component of the local economy with international visitors totaling almost 3 million in 2008. Taipei has many top tourist attractions and contributes a significant amount to the US$6.8 billion tourism industry in Taiwan. Culture Tourism Tourism is a major part of Taipei's economy. In 2013, over 6.3 million overseas visitors visited Taipei, making the city the 15th most visited globally. The influx of visitors contributed US$10.8 billion to the city's economy in 2013, the 9th highest in the world and the most of any city in the Chinese-speaking world. Commemorative sites and museums The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a monument and tourist attraction that was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of Taiwan. The structure stands at the east end of Memorial Hall Square, site of the National Concert Hall and National Theater and their adjacent parks as well as the memorial. The landmarks of Liberty Square stand within sight of Taiwan's Presidential Office Building in Taipei's Zhongzheng District. The National Taiwan Museum sits nearby in what is now 228 Peace Memorial Park and has worn its present name since 1999. The museum is Taiwan's oldest, founded on 24 October 1908 by Taiwan's Japanese colonial government (1895–1945) as the Taiwan Governor's Museum. It was launched with a collection of 10,000 items to celebrate the opening of the island's North-South Railway. In 1915 a new museum building opened its doors in what is now 228 Peace Memorial Park. This structure and the adjacent governor's office (now Presidential Office Building), served as the two most recognizable public buildings in Taiwan during its period of Japanese rule. The National Palace Museum is a vast art gallery and museum built around a permanent collection centered on ancient Chinese artifacts. It should not be confused with the Palace Museum in Beijing (which it is named after); both institutions trace their origins to the same institution. The collections were divided in the 1940s as a result of the Chinese Civil War. The National Palace Museum in Taipei now boasts a truly international collection while housing one of the world's largest collections of artifacts from ancient China.The Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines stands just 200 m (660 ft) across the road from the National Palace Museum. The museum offers displays of art and historical items by Taiwanese aborigines along with a range of multimedia displays. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum was established in 1983 as the first museum in Taiwan dedicated to modern art. The museum is housed in a building designed for the purpose that takes inspiration from Japanese designs. Most art in the collection is by Taiwanese artists since 1940. Over 3,000 art works are organized into 13 groups. The National Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101 in Xinyi District is named in honor of a founding father of the Republic of China, Sun Yat-sen. The hall, completed on 16 May 1972, originally featured exhibits that depicted revolutionary events in the Republican period of China. Today it functions as multi-purpose social, educational, concert and cultural center for Taiwan's citizens. In 2001 a new museum opened as Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei. The museum is housed in a building that formerly housed Taipei City government offices. Taipei 101 Taipei 101 is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper that claimed the title of world's tallest building when it opened in 2004, a title it held for six years before the Burj Khalifa in Dubai was completed. Designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and constructed by KTRT Joint Venture, Taipei 101 measures 509.2 m (1,671 ft) from ground to top, making it the first skyscraper in the world to break the half-kilometer mark in height. Built to withstand typhoon winds and earthquake tremors, its design incorporates many engineering innovations and has won numerous international awards. Today, the Taipei 101 remains one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world and holds LEED's certification as the world's largest "green" building. Its shopping mall and its indoor and outdoor observatories draws visitors from all over the world. Taipei 101's New Year's Eve fireworks display is a regular feature of international broadcasts. Performing arts The National Theater and Concert Hall stand at Taipei's Liberty Square and host events by foreign and domestic performers. Other leading concert venues include Zhongshan Hall at Ximending and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall near Taipei 101. A new venue, the Taipei Performing Arts Center, is under construction and slated to open in 2015. The venue will stand near the Shilin Night Market and will house three theaters for events with multi-week runs. The architectural design, by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, was determined in 2009 in an international competition. The same design process is also in place for a new Taipei Center for Popular Music and Taipei City Museum. Shopping and recreation Taipei is known for its many night markets, the most famous of which is the Shilin Night Market in the Shilin District. The surrounding streets by Shilin Night Market are extremely crowded during the evening, usually opening late afternoon and operating well past midnight. Most night markets feature individual stalls selling a mixture of food, clothing, and consumer goods. Ximending has been a famous area for shopping and entertainment since the 1930s. Historic structures include a concert hall, a historic cinema, and the Red House Theater. Modern structures house karaoke businesses, art film cinemas, wide-release movie cinemas, electronic stores, and a wide variety of restaurants and fashion clothing stores. The pedestrian area is especially popular with teens and has been called the "Harajuku" of Taipei.The newly developed Xinyi District is popular with tourists and locals alike for its many entertainment and shopping venues, as well as being the home of Taipei 101, a prime tourist attraction. Malls in the area include the sprawling Shin Kong Mitsukoshi complex, Breeze Center, Bellavita, Taipei 101 mall, Eslite Bookstore's flagship store (which includes a boutique mall), The Living Mall, ATT shopping mall, and the Vieshow Cinemas (formerly known as Warner Village). The Xinyi district also serves as the center of Taipei's active nightlife, with several popular lounge bars and nightclubs concentrated in a relatively small area around the Neo19, ATT 4 FUN and Taipei 101 buildings. Lounge bars such as Barcode and nightclubs such as Spark and Myst are among the most-visited places here. The thriving shopping area around Taipei Main Station includes the Taipei Underground Market and the original Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store at Shin Kong Life Tower. Other popular shopping destinations include the Zhongshan Metro Mall, Dihua Street and the Guang Hua Digital Plaza. The Miramar Entertainment Park is known for its large Ferris wheel and IMAX theater. Taipei maintains an extensive system of parks, green spaces, and nature preserves. Parks and forestry areas of note in and around the city include Yangmingshan National Park, Taipei Zoo and Da-an Forest Park. Located 10 km (6.2 mi) north of the city center, Yangmingshan National Park is famous for its cherry blossoms, hot springs, and sulfur deposits. It is the home of famous writer Lin Yutang, the summer residence of Chiang Kai-shek, residences of foreign diplomats, the Chinese Culture University, the meeting place of the now defunct National Assembly of the Republic of China, and the Kuomintang Party Archives. The Taipei Zoo was founded in 1914 and covers an area of 165 hectares for animal sanctuary. Bitan is known for boating and water sports. Tamsui is a popular sea-side resort town. Ocean beaches are accessible in several directions from Taipei. Temples Taipei has a variety of temples dedicating to Deities from Chinese folk religion, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism. The Bangka Lungshan Temple (艋舺龍山寺), built in 1738 and located in the Wanhua District, demonstrates an example of architecture with southern Chinese influences commonly seen on older buildings in Taiwan. Qingshui Temple (艋舺清水巖) built in 1787 and Qingshan Temple (艋舺青山宮) together with Lungshan Temple are the three most prominent landmark temples in Bangka or Wanhua District. There are other famous temples include Baoan Temple (大龍峒保安宮) located in historic Dalongdong, a national historical site, and Xia Hai City God Temple (大稻埕霞海城隍廟), located in the old Dadaocheng community, constructed with architecture similar to temples in southern Fujian. The Taipei Confucius Temple (臺北孔子廟) traces its history back to 1879 during the Qing Dynasty and also incorporates southern Fujian-style architecture. Ciyou Temple (松山慈祐宮) in Songshan District, Guandu Temple (關渡宮) in Beitou District, Hsing Tian Kong (行天宮) in Zhongshan District and Zhinan Temple (指南宮) in Wenshan District are also popular temples for locals and tourists. Xinsheng South Road is known as the "Road to Heaven" due to its high concentration of temples, churches, and other houses of worship.The Shandao Temple (善導寺) built in 1929 and located in Zhongzheng District, is the largest Buddhist temple in Taipei. Fo Guang Shan has a modern temple known as Fo Guang Shan Taipei Vihara (佛光山臺北道場) in Xinyi District, while Dharma Drum Mountain owns the Degui Academy (德貴學苑), an education center in Zhongzheng District and the Nung Chan Monastery (農禪寺) in Beitou District. Linji Huguo Chan Temple (臨濟護國禪寺) in Zhongshan District was commenced in 1900 and completed in 1911, it is one of the very few Japanese style Buddhist Temples that was well-preserved in Taiwan. Besides large temples, small outdoor shrines to local deities are very common and are commonly found next to roads as well as in parks and neighborhoods. Many homes and businesses may also set up small shrines of candles, figurines, and offerings. Some restaurants, for example, may set up a small shrine to the Kitchen God for success in a restaurant business. Festivals and events Many yearly festivals are held in Taipei. In recent years some festivals, such as the Double Ten Day fireworks and concerts, are increasingly hosted on a rotating basis by a number of cities around Taiwan. When New Year's Eve arrives on the solar calendar, thousands of people converge on Taipei's Xinyi District for parades, outdoor concerts by popular artists, street shows, round-the clock nightlife. The high point is the countdown to midnight, when Taipei 101 assumes the role of the world's largest fireworks platform.The Taipei Lantern Festival concludes the Lunar New Year holiday. The timing of the city's lantern exhibit coincides with the national festival in Pingxi, when thousands of fire lanterns are released into the sky. The city's lantern exhibit rotates among different downtown locales from year to year, including Liberty Square, Taipei 101, and Zhongshan Hall in Ximending. On Double Ten Day, patriotic celebrations are held in front of the Presidential Office Building. Other annual festivals include Ancestors Day (Tomb-Sweeping Day), the Dragon Boat Festival, the Zhong Yuan Festival, and the Mid-Autumn Festival (Mooncake Festival). Qing Shan King Sacrificial Ceremony (青山王祭) is a century-old grand festival that is held annually in Wanhua District. Taipei regularly hosts its share of international events. The city recently hosted the 2009 Summer Deaflympics. This event was followed by the Taipei International Flora Exposition, a garden festival hosted from November 2010 to April 2011. The Floral Expo was the first of its kind to take place in Taiwan and only the seventh hosted in Asia; the expo admitted 110,000 visitors on 27 February 2011. Taipei in films Note: The list below is not a complete list, they are examples of more notable movies filmed in the city. Government Taipei City is a special municipality which is directly under the Executive Yuan (Central Government). The mayor of Taipei City was an appointed position since Taipei's conversion to a centrally administered municipality in 1967 until the first public election was held in 1994. The position has a four-year term and is elected by direct popular vote. The first elected mayor was Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party. Ma Ying-jeou took office in 1998 for two terms, before handing it over to Hau Lung-pin who won the 2006 mayoral election on 9 December 2006. Both Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-Jeou went on to become President of the Republic of China. The incumbent mayor, Chiang Wan-an of Kuomintang, took office on 25 December 2022. Based on the outcomes of previous elections in the past decade, the vote of the overall constituency of Taipei City shows a slight inclination towards the pro-KMT camp (the Pan-Blue Coalition); however, the pro-DPP camp (the Pan-Green Coalition) also has considerable support.Ketagalan Boulevard, where the Presidential Office Building and other government structures are situated, is often the site of mass gatherings such as inauguration and national holiday parades, receptions for visiting dignitaries, political demonstrations, and public festivals. Garbage recycling Taipei City is also famous for its effort in garbage recycling, which has become such a good international precedent that other countries have sent teams to study the recycling system. After the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) established a program in 1998 combining the efforts of communities, a financial resource named the Recycling Fund was made available to recycling companies and waste collectors. The EPA also introduced garbage recycling trucks, in effort to raise community recycling awareness, that broadcast classical music (specifically Beethoven's "Für Elise" and Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska's "A Maiden's Prayer") to announce its arrival to the community. Manufacturers, vendors and importers of recyclable waste pay fees to the Fund, which uses the money to set firm prices for recyclables and subsidize local recycling efforts. Between 1998 and 2008, the recycling rate increased from 6 percent to 32 percent. This improvement enabled the government of Taipei to demonstrate its recycling system to the world at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. Administrative divisions Taipei City is divided up into 12 administrative districts (區; qū). Each district is further divided up into urban villages (里), which are further sub-divided up into neighborhoods (鄰). Xinyi District is the seat of the municipality where the Taipei City Government headquarters is located. City planning The city is characterized by straight roads and public buildings of grand Western architectural styles. The city is built on a square grid configuration; however, these blocks are huge by international standards with 500 m (1,640.42 ft) sides. The area in between these blocks is infilled with lanes and alleys, which provide access to quieter residential or mixed-use development. Other than a citywide 30 km/h (19 mph) speed limit, there is little uniform planning within this "hidden" area; therefore, lanes (perpendicular to streets) and alleys (parallel with streets, or, conceptually, perpendicular to lanes) spill out from the main controlled-access highways. These minor roads are not always perpendicular and sometimes cut through the block diagonally. Although development began in the western districts of the city (still considered the cultural heart of Taipei) due to trade, the eastern districts have become the focus of recent development projects. Many of the western districts have become targets of urban renewal initiatives. Transportation Public transport accounts for a substantial portion of different modes of transport in Taiwan, with Taipei residents having the highest utilization rate at 34.1%. Private transport consists of motor scooters, private cars, taxi cabs, and bicycles. Motor-scooters often weave between cars and occasionally through oncoming traffic. Respect for traffic laws, once scant, has improved with deployment of traffic cameras and increasing numbers of police roadblocks checking riders for alcohol consumption and other offenses. Taipei Main Station serves as the comprehensive hub for the subway, bus, conventional rail, and high-speed rail. A contactless smartcard, known as EasyCard, can be used for all modes of public transit as well as several retail outlets. It contains credits that are deducted each time a ride is taken. The EasyCard is read via MIFARE panels on buses and in MRT stations, and it does not need to be removed from one's wallet or purse. Metro Taipei's public transport system, the Taipei Metro (commonly referred to as the MRT), incorporates a metro and light rail system based on advanced VAL and Bombardier technology. There are currently six metro lines that are organized and labeled in three ways: by color, line number and depot station name. In addition to the rapid transit system itself, the Taipei Metro also includes several public facilities such as the Maokong Gondola, underground shopping malls, parks, and public squares. Modifications to existing railway lines to integrate them into the metro system are underway. In 2017 a rapid transit line was opened to connect Taipei with Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Zhongli District. The new line is part of the new Taoyuan Metro system. On 31 January 2020, Hitachi Rail Corporation officially commissioned Phase 1 of the Circular line which took place at Shisizhang station. The Circular line is a 15.4 km driverless rail system. The Circular line offered free rides beginning in February 2020 for passengers to test the route. Rail Beginning in 1983, surface rail lines in the city were moved underground as part of the Taipei Railway Underground Project. The Taiwan High Speed Rail system opened in 2007. The bullet trains connect Taipei with the west coast cities of New Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Chiayi, and Tainan before terminating at Zuoying (Kaohsiung) at speeds that cut travel times by 60% or more from what they normally are on a bus or conventional train. The Taiwan Railways Administration also runs passenger and freight services throughout the entire island. Bus An extensive city bus system serves metropolitan areas not covered by the metro, with exclusive bus lanes to facilitate transportation. Riders of the city metro system are able to use the EasyCard for discounted fares on buses, and vice versa. A unique feature of the Taipei bus system is the joint venture of private transportation companies that operate the system's routes while sharing the fare system. This route is in sharp contrast to bus systems in the U.S. which are mostly public entities. Several major intercity bus terminals are located throughout the city, including the Taipei Bus Station and Taipei City Hall Bus Station. Airports Most scheduled international flights are served by Taoyuan International Airport in nearby Taoyuan City. Taipei Songshan Airport, at the heart of the city in the Songshan District, serves domestic flights and scheduled flights to Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Gimpo International Airport in Seoul, and about 15 destinations in the People's Republic of China. Songshan Airport is accessible by the Taipei Metro Neihu Line; Taoyuan International Airport is accessible by the Taoyuan Airport MRT. Ticketing In 1994, following the rapid development of Taipei, a white paper for transport policies expressed the strong objective of creating a transport system for the people of Taipei to accommodate the burgeoning city's needs. In 1999, they chose Mitac consortium, which Thales-Transportation Systems is part of. Thales was then selected again in 2005 to deploy an upgrade of Taipei's public transport network with an end-to-end and fully contactless automatic fare collection solution that integrates 116 metro stations, 5,000 buses and 92 car parks. Education Taipei is home to the campuses of 24 universities and Academia Sinica, Taiwan's national academy which supports the Taiwan International Graduate Program: National Taiwan University (NTU or Tai-Da) was established in 1928 during the period of Japanese colonial rule. NTU has produced many political and social leaders in Taiwan. Both pan-blue and pan-green movements in Taiwan are rooted on the NTU campus. The university has six campuses in the greater Taipei region (including New Taipei) and two additional campuses in Nantou County. The university governs farms, forests, and hospitals for educational and research purposes. The main campus is in Taipei's Da-An district, where most department buildings and all the administrative buildings are located. The College of Law and the College of Medicine are located near the Presidential Office Building. The National Taiwan University Hospital is a leading international center of medical research.National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or Shi-Da) likewise traces its origins to the Japanese colonial period. Founded as Taihoku College in 1922 and organized as a teacher training institution by the Kuomintang in 1946, NTNU has since developed into a comprehensive international university. The university boasts especially strong programs in the humanities and international education. Worldwide it is perhaps best known as home of the Mandarin Training Center, a program that offers Mandarin language training each year to over a thousand students from scores of countries throughout the world. The main campus, in Taipei's Daan district near MRT Guting Station, is known for its historic architecture. The Shida market area surrounding this campus takes its name from the school's acronym. Sports Taiwan's Chinese Professional Baseball League has a professional baseball team, Wei Chuan Dragons, based in Taipei.Taipei also has two professional basketball teams, the TaiwanBeer HeroBears of the T1 League and the Taipei Fubon Braves of the P. League+. Major sporting events Below is a selected list of recent sporting events hosted by the city: 2004 FIFA Futsal World Championship 2006 Women's Baseball World Cup 2007 Baseball World Cup 2009 Asian Judo Championships 2009 Summer Deaflympics 2013 Badminton Asia Championships 2015 WBSC Premier12 2016 IIHF Women's Challenge Cup of Asia Division I 2017 Summer Universiade 2019 Asian Men's Club Volleyball Championship 2022 U-23 Baseball World Cup (co-hosted with Taichung and Yunlin) 2023 Asian Men's Volleyball Challenge Cup 2023 IKF World Korfball Championship 2023 U-18 Baseball World Cup (Co-hosted with Taichung) 2024 World Junior Figure Skating Championships 2025 Summer World Masters Games (co-host with New Taipei City) Taipei Marathon (annual): The marathon is one of the two World Athletics Label Road Races in Taiwan, being categorized as an Elite Label Road Race. The other race is the New Taipei City Wan Jin Shi Marathon, categorized as a Gold Label Road Race.The Taipei Arena is located at the site of the former Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium (demolished in 2000), with a capacity of over 15,000. It was opened on 1 December 2005 and has since held more art and cultural activities (such as live concerts) than sporting events, which it was originally designed for. The Chinese Taipei Ice Hockey League plays out of the auxiliary arena. Taipei Dome and Tianmu Baseball Stadium are the major baseball venues in Taipei. The Taipei Dome, which has the capacity to house 40,071 seats, is estimated to finish construction by the end of 2023.Taipei Municipal Stadium is a multipurpose stadium that hosts football and track and field events, as well as concerts, both live and prerecorded. Originally built in 1956, it was demolished and reconstructed in 2009. Youth baseball In 2010, a Taipei baseball team—Chung-Ching Junior Little League—won the Junior League World Series. The achievement came after winning the Asia-Pacific Region, then defeating the Mexico Region and Latin America Region champions to become the International champion, and finally defeating the U.S. champion (Southwest Region), Rose Capital East LL (Tyler, Texas), 9–1. Taiwan's Little League World Series international team has won 17 championships, the most wins in the league. Media As the capital, Taipei City is the headquarters for many television and radio stations in Taiwan and the center of some of the country's largest newspapers. Television Television stations located in Taipei include the CTS Education and Culture, CTS Recreation, CTV MyLife, CTV News Channel, China Television, Chinese Television System, Chung T'ien Television, Dimo TV, Eastern Television, Era Television, FTV News, Follow Me TV, Formosa TV, Gala Television, Public Television Service, SET Metro, SET News, SET Taiwan, Sanlih E-Television, Shuang Xing, TTV Family, TTV Finance, TTV World, TVBS, TVBS-G, TVBS-NEWS, Taiwan Broadcasting System, Videoland Television Network and Taiwan Television. Newspapers Newspapers include Apple Daily, Central Daily News, The China Post, China Times, DigiTimes, Kinmen Daily News, Liberty Times, Mandarin Daily News, Matsu Daily, Min Sheng Bao, Sharp Daily, Taipei Times, Taiwan Daily, Taiwan News, Taiwan Times and United Daily News. International relations Taipei is a member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21. Twin towns and sister cities Taipei is twinned with: United States Outside United States Partner cities Anchorage, AK, United States (1997) Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan (2006) Wellington, New Zealand (2015) Friendship cities Perth, Western Australia, Australia (1999) Gyeonggi-do, South Korea (2000) Orange County, CA, United States (2000) George Town, Penang, Malaysia (2009) Helsinki, Finland (2012) In popular culture Taipei's name is used in a professional wrestling match named the "Taipei Deathmatch" in which the wrestlers' fists are taped and dipped into glue and in broken and crushed glass, allowing shards to stick to their fists. This match can be won by pinfall, submission or escape. Writer Tao Lin's 2013 novel is titled Taipei and takes place in both New York City and Taipei, where the protagonist Paul's parents were born and live. In the novel, the character named Paul gets married and then visits Taipei with his new wife. They take MDMA and LSD and film a mock documentary on "Taiwan's first McDonald's." The novel was made into a movie titled High Resolution, starring Justin Chon and Ellie Bamber. Gallery See also Taipei-Keelung Metropolitan Area List of districts of Taipei by area List of districts of Taipei by population List of districts of Taipei by population density List of schools in Taipei Taipei Community Services Center (offers support services to the international community) Words in native languages Other Further reading Li, Jie; Xingjian Liu; Jianzheng Liu; Weifeng Li (June 2016). "City profile: Taipei". Cities. 55: 1–8. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2016.03.007. Official website Taipei City Council Geographic data related to Taipei at OpenStreetMap

金 is a Chinese character meaning gold or metal, it may refer to: Kangxi radical 167 Jin dynasty (1115–1234) Kim (Korean surname) Catty Jin (Chinese surname)

Unix (, YOO-niks; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others.Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors including University of California, Berkeley (BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), Sun Microsystems (SunOS/Solaris), HP/HPE (HP-UX), and IBM (AIX). In the early 1990s, AT&T sold its rights in Unix to Novell, which then sold the UNIX trademark to The Open Group, an industry consortium founded in 1996. The Open Group allows the use of the mark for certified operating systems that comply with the Single UNIX Specification (SUS). Unix systems are characterized by a modular design that is sometimes called the "Unix philosophy". According to this philosophy, the operating system should provide a set of simple tools, each of which performs a limited, well-defined function. A unified and inode-based filesystem (the Unix filesystem) and an inter-process communication mechanism known as "pipes" serve as the main means of communication, and a shell scripting and command language (the Unix shell) is used to combine the tools to perform complex workflows. Unix distinguishes itself from its predecessors as the first portable operating system: almost the entire operating system is written in the C programming language, which allows Unix to operate on numerous platforms. Overview Unix was originally meant to be a convenient platform for programmers developing software to be run on it and on other systems, rather than for non-programmers. The system grew larger as the operating system started spreading in academic circles, and as users added their own tools to the system and shared them with colleagues.At first, Unix was not designed to be portable or for multi-tasking. Later, Unix gradually gained portability, multi-tasking and multi-user capabilities in a time-sharing configuration. Unix systems are characterized by various concepts: the use of plain text for storing data; a hierarchical file system; treating devices and certain types of inter-process communication (IPC) as files; and the use of a large number of software tools, small programs that can be strung together through a command-line interpreter using pipes, as opposed to using a single monolithic program that includes all of the same functionality. These concepts are collectively known as the "Unix philosophy". Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike summarize this in The Unix Programming Environment as "the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves".By the early 1980s, users began seeing Unix as a potential universal operating system, suitable for computers of all sizes. The Unix environment and the client–server program model were essential elements in the development of the Internet and the reshaping of computing as centered in networks rather than in individual computers. Both Unix and the C programming language were developed by AT&T and distributed to government and academic institutions, which led to both being ported to a wider variety of machine families than any other operating system. The Unix operating system consists of many libraries and utilities along with the master control program, the kernel. The kernel provides services to start and stop programs, handles the file system and other common "low-level" tasks that most programs share, and schedules access to avoid conflicts when programs try to access the same resource or device simultaneously. To mediate such access, the kernel has special rights, reflected in the distinction of kernel space from user space, the latter being a lower priority realm where most application programs operate. History The origins of Unix date back to the mid-1960s when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bell Labs, and General Electric were developing Multics, a time-sharing operating system for the GE-645 mainframe computer. Multics featured several innovations, but also presented severe problems. Frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics, but not by its goals, individual researchers at Bell Labs started withdrawing from the project. The last to leave were Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna, who decided to reimplement their experiences in a new project of smaller scale. This new operating system was initially without organizational backing, and also without a name. The new operating system was a single-tasking system. In 1970, the group coined the name Unics for Uniplexed Information and Computing Service as a pun on Multics, which stood for Multiplexed Information and Computer Services. Brian Kernighan takes credit for the idea, but adds that "no one can remember" the origin of the final spelling Unix. Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and Peter G. Neumann also credit Kernighan. The operating system was originally written in assembly language, but in 1973, Version 4 Unix was rewritten in C. Version 4 Unix, however, still had many PDP-11 dependent codes, and was not suitable for porting. The first port to another platform was a port of Version 6, made four years later (1977) at the University of Wollongong for the Interdata 7/32, followed by a Bell Labs port of Version 7 to the Interdata 8/32 during 1977 and 1978.Bell Labs produced several versions of Unix that are collectively referred to as Research Unix. In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to Donald B. Gillies at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign Department of Computer Science (UIUC).During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to large-scale adoption of Unix (BSD and System V) by commercial startups, which in turn led to Unix fragmenting into multiple, similar — but often slightly and mutually incompatible — systems including DYNIX, HP-UX, SunOS/Solaris, AIX, and Xenix. In the late 1980s, AT&T Unix System Laboratories and Sun Microsystems developed System V Release 4 (SVR4), which was subsequently adopted by many commercial Unix vendors. In the 1990s, Unix and Unix-like systems grew in popularity and became the operating system of choice for over 90% of the world's top 500 fastest supercomputers, as BSD and Linux distributions were developed through collaboration by a worldwide network of programmers. In 2000, Apple released Darwin, also a Unix system, which became the core of the Mac OS X operating system, later renamed macOS.Unix-like operating systems are widely used in modern servers, workstations, and mobile devices. Standards In the late 1980s, an open operating system standardization effort now known as POSIX provided a common baseline for all operating systems; IEEE based POSIX around the common structure of the major competing variants of the Unix system, publishing the first POSIX standard in 1988. In the early 1990s, a separate but very similar effort was started by an industry consortium, the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative, which eventually became the Single UNIX Specification (SUS) administered by The Open Group. Starting in 1998, the Open Group and IEEE started the Austin Group, to provide a common definition of POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification, which, by 2008, had become the Open Group Base Specification. In 1999, in an effort towards compatibility, several Unix system vendors agreed on SVR4's Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) as the standard for binary and object code files. The common format allows substantial binary compatibility among different Unix systems operating on the same CPU architecture. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard was created to provide a reference directory layout for Unix-like operating systems; it has mainly been used in Linux. Components The Unix system is composed of several components that were originally packaged together. By including the development environment, libraries, documents and the portable, modifiable source code for all of these components, in addition to the kernel of an operating system, Unix was a self-contained software system. This was one of the key reasons it emerged as an important teaching and learning tool and has had such a broad influence.The inclusion of these components did not make the system large – the original V7 UNIX distribution, consisting of copies of all of the compiled binaries plus all of the source code and documentation occupied less than 10 MB and arrived on a single nine-track magnetic tape, earning its reputation as a portable system. The printed documentation, typeset from the online sources, was contained in two volumes. The names and filesystem locations of the Unix components have changed substantially across the history of the system. Nonetheless, the V7 implementation is considered by many to have the canonical early structure: Kernel – source code in /usr/sys, composed of several sub-components: conf – configuration and machine-dependent parts, including boot code dev – device drivers for control of hardware (and some pseudo-hardware) sys – operating system "kernel", handling memory management, process scheduling, system calls, etc. h – header files, defining key structures within the system and important system-specific invariables Development environment – early versions of Unix contained a development environment sufficient to recreate the entire system from source code: ed – text editor, for creating source code files cc – C language compiler (first appeared in V3 Unix) as – machine-language assembler for the machine ld – linker, for combining object files lib – object-code libraries (installed in /lib or /usr/lib). libc, the system library with C run-time support, was the primary library, but there have always been additional libraries for things such as mathematical functions (libm) or database access. V7 Unix introduced the first version of the modern "Standard I/O" library stdio as part of the system library. Later implementations increased the number of libraries significantly. make – build manager (introduced in PWB/UNIX), for effectively automating the build process include – header files for software development, defining standard interfaces and system invariants Other languages – V7 Unix contained a Fortran-77 compiler, a programmable arbitrary-precision calculator (bc, dc), and the awk scripting language; later versions and implementations contain many other language compilers and toolsets. Early BSD releases included Pascal tools, and many modern Unix systems also include the GNU Compiler Collection as well as or instead of a proprietary compiler system. Other tools – including an object-code archive manager (ar), symbol-table lister (nm), compiler-development tools (e.g. lex & yacc), and debugging tools. Commands – Unix makes little distinction between commands (user-level programs) for system operation and maintenance (e.g. cron), commands of general utility (e.g. grep), and more general-purpose applications such as the text formatting and typesetting package. Nonetheless, some major categories are: sh – the "shell" programmable command-line interpreter, the primary user interface on Unix before window systems appeared, and even afterward (within a "command window"). Utilities – the core toolkit of the Unix command set, including cp, ls, grep, find and many others. Subcategories include: System utilities – administrative tools such as mkfs, fsck, and many others. User utilities – environment management tools such as passwd, kill, and others. Document formatting – Unix systems were used from the outset for document preparation and typesetting systems, and included many related programs such as nroff, troff, tbl, eqn, refer, and pic. Some modern Unix systems also include packages such as TeX and Ghostscript. Graphics – the plot subsystem provided facilities for producing simple vector plots in a device-independent format, with device-specific interpreters to display such files. Modern Unix systems also generally include X11 as a standard windowing system and GUI, and many support OpenGL. Communications – early Unix systems contained no inter-system communication, but did include the inter-user communication programs mail and write. V7 introduced the early inter-system communication system UUCP, and systems beginning with BSD release 4.1c included TCP/IP utilities. Documentation – Unix was one of the first operating systems to include all of its documentation online in machine-readable form. The documentation included: man – manual pages for each command, library component, system call, header file, etc. doc – longer documents detailing major subsystems, such as the C language and troff Impact The Unix system had a significant impact on other operating systems. It achieved its reputation by its interactivity, by providing the software at a nominal fee for educational use, by running on inexpensive hardware, and by being easy to adapt and move to different machines. Unix was originally written in assembly language, but was soon rewritten in C, a high-level programming language. Although this followed the lead of CTSS, Multics and Burroughs MCP, it was Unix that popularized the idea. Unix had a drastically simplified file model compared to many contemporary operating systems: treating all kinds of files as simple byte arrays. The file system hierarchy contained machine services and devices (such as printers, terminals, or disk drives), providing a uniform interface, but at the expense of occasionally requiring additional mechanisms such as ioctl and mode flags to access features of the hardware that did not fit the simple "stream of bytes" model. The Plan 9 operating system pushed this model even further and eliminated the need for additional mechanisms. Unix also popularized the hierarchical file system with arbitrarily nested subdirectories, originally introduced by Multics. Other common operating systems of the era had ways to divide a storage device into multiple directories or sections, but they had a fixed number of levels, often only one level. Several major proprietary operating systems eventually added recursive subdirectory capabilities also patterned after Multics. DEC's RSX-11M's "group, user" hierarchy evolved into OpenVMS directories, CP/M's volumes evolved into MS-DOS 2.0+ subdirectories, and HP's MPE group.account hierarchy and IBM's SSP and OS/400 library systems were folded into broader POSIX file systems. Making the command interpreter an ordinary user-level program, with additional commands provided as separate programs, was another Multics innovation popularized by Unix. The Unix shell used the same language for interactive commands as for scripting (shell scripts – there was no separate job control language like IBM's JCL). Since the shell and OS commands were "just another program", the user could choose (or even write) their own shell. New commands could be added without changing the shell itself. Unix's innovative command-line syntax for creating modular chains of producer-consumer processes (pipelines) made a powerful programming paradigm (coroutines) widely available. Many later command-line interpreters have been inspired by the Unix shell. A fundamental simplifying assumption of Unix was its focus on newline-delimited text for nearly all file formats. There were no "binary" editors in the original version of Unix – the entire system was configured using textual shell command scripts. The common denominator in the I/O system was the byte – unlike "record-based" file systems. The focus on text for representing nearly everything made Unix pipes especially useful and encouraged the development of simple, general tools that could easily be combined to perform more complicated ad hoc tasks. The focus on text and bytes made the system far more scalable and portable than other systems. Over time, text-based applications have also proven popular in application areas, such as printing languages (PostScript, ODF), and at the application layer of the Internet protocols, e.g., FTP, SMTP, HTTP, SOAP, and SIP. Unix popularized a syntax for regular expressions that found widespread use. The Unix programming interface became the basis for a widely implemented operating system interface standard (POSIX, see above). The C programming language soon spread beyond Unix, and is now ubiquitous in systems and applications programming. Early Unix developers were important in bringing the concepts of modularity and reusability into software engineering practice, spawning a "software tools" movement. Over time, the leading developers of Unix (and programs that ran on it) established a set of cultural norms for developing software, norms which became as important and influential as the technology of Unix itself; this has been termed the Unix philosophy. The TCP/IP networking protocols were quickly implemented on the Unix versions widely used on relatively inexpensive computers, which contributed to the Internet explosion of worldwide, real-time connectivity and formed the basis for implementations on many other platforms. The Unix policy of extensive on-line documentation and (for many years) ready access to all system source code raised programmer expectations, and contributed to the launch of the free software movement in 1983. Free Unix and Unix-like variants In 1983, Richard Stallman announced the GNU (short for "GNU's Not Unix") project, an ambitious effort to create a free software Unix-like system—"free" in the sense that everyone who received a copy would be free to use, study, modify, and redistribute it. The GNU project's own kernel development project, GNU Hurd, had not yet produced a working kernel, but in 1991 Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel as free software under the GNU General Public License. In addition to their use in the GNU operating system, many GNU packages – such as the GNU Compiler Collection (and the rest of the GNU toolchain), the GNU C library and the GNU Core Utilities – have gone on to play central roles in other free Unix systems as well. Linux distributions, consisting of the Linux kernel and large collections of compatible software have become popular both with individual users and in business. Popular distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, OpenMandriva, Slackware Linux, Arch Linux and Gentoo.A free derivative of BSD Unix, 386BSD, was released in 1992 and led to the NetBSD and FreeBSD projects. With the 1994 settlement of a lawsuit brought against the University of California and Berkeley Software Design Inc. (USL v. BSDi) by Unix System Laboratories, it was clarified that Berkeley had the right to distribute BSD Unix for free if it so desired. Since then, BSD Unix has been developed in several different product branches, including OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD. Linux and BSD Unix are increasingly filling the market needs traditionally served by proprietary Unix operating systems, as well as expanding into new markets such as the consumer desktop and mobile and embedded devices. Because of the modular design of the Unix model, sharing components is relatively common: most or all Unix and Unix-like systems include at least some BSD code, while some include GNU utilities in their distributions. In a 1999 interview, Dennis Ritchie voiced his opinion that Linux and BSD Unix operating systems are a continuation of the basis of the Unix design and are derivatives of Unix: I think the Linux phenomenon is quite delightful, because it draws so strongly on the basis that Unix provided. Linux seems to be among the healthiest of the direct Unix derivatives, though there are also the various BSD systems as well as the more official offerings from the workstation and mainframe manufacturers. In the same interview, he states that he views both Unix and Linux as "the continuation of ideas that were started by Ken and me and many others, many years ago".OpenSolaris was the free software counterpart to Solaris developed by Sun Microsystems, which included a CDDL-licensed kernel and a primarily GNU userland. However, Oracle discontinued the project upon their acquisition of Sun, which prompted a group of former Sun employees and members of the OpenSolaris community to fork OpenSolaris into the illumos kernel. As of 2014, illumos remains the only active, open-source System V derivative. ARPANET In May 1975, RFC 681 described the development of Network Unix by the Center for Advanced Computation at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Unix system was said to "present several interesting capabilities as an ARPANET mini-host". At the time, Unix required a license from Bell Telephone Laboratories that cost US$20,000 for non-university institutions, while universities could obtain a license for a nominal fee of $150. It was noted that Bell was "open to suggestions" for an ARPANET-wide license. The RFC specifically mentions that Unix "offers powerful local processing facilities in terms of user programs, several compilers, an editor based on QED, a versatile document preparation system, and an efficient file system featuring sophisticated access control, mountable and de-mountable volumes, and a unified treatment of peripherals as special files." The latter permitted the Network Control Program (NCP) to be integrated within the Unix file system, treating network connections as special files that could be accessed through standard Unix I/O calls, which included the added benefit of closing all connections on program exit, should the user neglect to do so. In order "to minimize the amount of code added to the basic Unix kernel", much of the NCP code ran in a swappable user process, running only when needed. Branding In October 1993, Novell, the company that owned the rights to the Unix System V source at the time, transferred the trademarks of Unix to the X/Open Company (now The Open Group), and in 1995 sold the related business operations to Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). Whether Novell also sold the copyrights to the actual software was the subject of a federal lawsuit in 2006, SCO v. Novell, which Novell won. The case was appealed, but on August 30, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the trial decisions, closing the case. Unix vendor SCO Group Inc. accused Novell of slander of title. The present owner of the trademark UNIX is The Open Group, an industry standards consortium. Only systems fully compliant with and certified to the Single UNIX Specification qualify as "UNIX" (others are called "Unix-like"). By decree of The Open Group, the term "UNIX" refers more to a class of operating systems than to a specific implementation of an operating system; those operating systems which meet The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification should be able to bear the UNIX 98 or UNIX 03 trademarks today, after the operating system's vendor pays a substantial certification fee and annual trademark royalties to The Open Group. Systems that have been licensed to use the UNIX trademark include AIX, EulerOS, HP-UX, Inspur K-UX, IRIX, macOS, Solaris, Tru64 UNIX (formerly "Digital UNIX", or OSF/1), and z/OS. Notably, EulerOS and Inspur K-UX are Linux distributions certified as UNIX 03 compliant.Sometimes a representation like Un*x, *NIX, or *N?X is used to indicate all operating systems similar to Unix. This comes from the use of the asterisk (*) and the question mark characters as wildcard indicators in many utilities. This notation is also used to describe other Unix-like systems that have not met the requirements for UNIX branding from the Open Group. The Open Group requests that UNIX always be used as an adjective followed by a generic term such as system to help avoid the creation of a genericized trademark. Unix was the original formatting, but the usage of UNIX remains widespread because it was once typeset in small caps (Unix). According to Dennis Ritchie, when presenting the original Unix paper to the third Operating Systems Symposium of the American Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), "we had a new typesetter and troff had just been invented and we were intoxicated by being able to produce small caps". Many of the operating system's predecessors and contemporaries used all-uppercase lettering, so many people wrote the name in upper case due to force of habit. It is not an acronym.Trademark names can be registered by different entities in different countries and trademark laws in some countries allow the same trademark name to be controlled by two different entities if each entity uses the trademark in easily distinguishable categories. The result is that Unix has been used as a brand name for various products including bookshelves, ink pens, bottled glue, diapers, hair driers and food containers.Several plural forms of Unix are used casually to refer to multiple brands of Unix and Unix-like systems. Most common is the conventional Unixes, but Unices, treating Unix as a Latin noun of the third declension, is also popular. The pseudo-Anglo-Saxon plural form Unixen is not common, although occasionally seen. Sun Microsystems, developer of the Solaris variant, has asserted that the term Unix is itself plural, referencing its many implementations. See also Comparison of operating systems and free and proprietary software List of operating systems, Unix systems, and Unix commands Plan 9 from Bell Labs Timeline of operating systems Unix time Market share of operating systems Year 2038 problem Further reading GeneralRitchie, D.M.; Thompson, K. (July–August 1978). "The UNIX Time-Sharing System". Bell System Technical Journal. 57 (6). Archived from the original on November 3, 2010. "UNIX History". www.levenez.com. Retrieved March 17, 2005. "AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, Tru64". UNIXguide.net. Retrieved March 17, 2005. "Linux Weekly News, February 21, 2002". lwn.net. Retrieved April 7, 2006. Lions, John: Lions' "Commentary on the Sixth Edition UNIX Operating System". with Source Code, Peer-to-Peer Communications, 1996; ISBN 1-57398-013-7BooksSalus, Peter H.: A Quarter Century of UNIX, Addison Wesley, June 1, 1994; ISBN 0-201-54777-5TelevisionComputer Chronicles (1985). "UNIX". Computer Chronicles (1989). "Unix".TalksKen Thompson (2019). "VCF East 2019 -- Brian Kernighan interviews Ken Thompson" (Interview). Dr Marshall Kirk McKusick (2006). History of the Berkeley Software Distributions (three one-hour lectures). The UNIX Standard, at The Open Group. The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System at the Wayback Machine (archived April 8, 2015) The Creation of the UNIX Operating System at the Wayback Machine (archived April 2, 2014) The Unix Tree: files from historic releases Unix History Repository — a git repository representing a reconstructed version of the Unix history on GitHub Unix at Curlie The Unix 1st Edition Manual 1st Edition manual rendered to HTML AT&T Tech Channel Archive: The UNIX Operating System: Making Computers More Productive (1982) on YouTube (film about Unix featuring Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Alfred Aho, and more) AT&T Tech Channel Archive: The UNIX System: Making Computers Easier to Use (1982) on YouTube (complementary film to the preceding "Making Computers More Productive") audio bsdtalk170 - Marshall Kirk McKusick at DCBSDCon -- on history of tcp/ip (in BSD) -- abridgement of the three lectures on the history of BSD. A History of UNIX before Berkeley: UNIX Evolution: 1975-1984 BYTE Magazine, September 1986: UNIX and the MC68000 – a software perspective on the MC68000 CPU architecture and UNIX compatibility

"Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the Chinese Communist government of the People's Republic of China in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. The geopolitical sense of the term includes islands such as Hainan, Chongming, and Zhoushan, even though those islands are offshore of the Chinese mainland. By convention, the territories that fall outside of mainland China include: Special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which are regarded as subdivisions of the PRC but remained distinct governing authorities, juridical and capitalist systems from the mainland :Hong Kong, a quasi-dependent territory under PRC rule, formerly a British colony Macau, a quasi-dependent territory under PRC rule, formerly a Portuguese colonyTerritories ruled by the state Republic of China (ROC, commonly referred to as Taiwan), including Taiwan and Penghu (Pescadores) islands in the Taiwan Strait, along with the Kinmen, Matsu, and Wuqiu (Kinmen) islands off the Fujian coast.The term is widely used in all of the above territories as well as internationally, including by many Chinese diasporic communities. Background In 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang (KMT)'s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil War. This forced the Kuomintang to relocate the Government and institutions of the Republic of China to the relative safety of Taiwan, an island which was placed under its control after the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the CCP-controlled government saw itself as the sole legitimate government of China, competing with the claims of the Republic of China, whose authority is now limited to Taiwan and other islands. This resulted in a situation in which two co-existing governments competed for international legitimacy and recognition as the "government of China". With the democratisation of Taiwan in the 1990s and the rise of the Taiwanese independence movement, some people began simply using the term "China" instead.Due to their status as colonies of foreign states during the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the phrase "mainland China" excludes Hong Kong and Macau. Since the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and 1999, respectively, the two territories have retained their legal, political, and economic systems. The territories also have their distinct identities. Therefore, "mainland China" generally continues to exclude these territories, because of the "one country, two systems" policy adopted by the PRC central government towards the regions. The term is also used in economic indicators, such as the IMD Competitiveness Report. International news media often use "China" to refer only to mainland China or the People's Republic of China. Political use People's Republic of China The Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People's Republic of China (Chinese: 中华人民共和国出境入境管理法) defines two terms in Chinese that are translated to "mainland": Dàlù (大陆; 大陸), which means 'the continent'. Nèidì (内地; 內地), literally 'inland' or 'inner land'. It excludes Hong Kong and Macau.In the People's Republic of China, the usage of the two terms is strictly speaking not interchangeable. To emphasise the One-China principle and not give the Republic of China (ROC) "equal footing" in Cross-Strait relations, the term must be used in PRC's official contexts with reference to Taiwan (with the PRC referring to itself as the "mainland side" dealing with the "Taiwan side"). But in terms of Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as "the Central People's Government".In the People's Republic of China, the term 内地 ('inland') is often contrasted with the term 境外 ('outside the border') for things outside the mainland region. Examples include "Administration of Foreign-funded Banks" (中华人民共和国外资银行管理条例; 中華人民共和國外資銀行管理條例) or the "Measures on Administration of Representative Offices of Foreign Insurance Institutions" (外国保险机构驻华代表机构管理办法; 外國保險機構駐華代表機構管理辦法).Hainan is an offshore island, therefore geographically not part of the continental mainland. Nevertheless, politically it is common practice to consider it part of the mainland because its government, legal and political systems do not differ from the rest of the People's Republic within the geographical mainland. Nonetheless, Hainanese people still refer to the geographic mainland as "the mainland" and call its residents "mainlanders".Before 1949, Fujian Province (ROC), consisting of the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, was jointly governed alongside Fujian Province (PRC) as a unified Fujian Province under successive Chinese governments. The two territories are generally considered to belong to the same historical region, Fujian Province, which has been divided since 1949 as a result of the Chinese Civil War. However, because they are not controlled by the PRC, they are not included as part of "mainland China." Hong Kong and Macau Hong Kong and Macau are both sovereign territories of the People's Republic of China. However, due to the One Country, Two Systems policy, the two regions maintain a high degree of autonomy, hence they are not governed as part of mainland China. Geologically speaking, Hong Kong and Macau are both connected to mainland China in certain areas (e.g. the north of the New Territories). Additionally, the islands contained within Hong Kong (e.g. Hong Kong Island) and Macau are much closer to mainland China than Taiwan and Hainan, and are much smaller. In Hong Kong and Macau, the terms "mainland China" and "mainlander" are frequently used for people from PRC-governed areas (i.e. not Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). The Chinese term Neidi (內地), meaning the inland but still translated mainland in English, is commonly applied by SAR governments to represent non-SAR areas of PRC, including Hainan province and coastal regions of mainland China, such as "Constitutional and Mainland Affairs" (政制及內地事務局) and Immigration Departments. In the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (as well as the Mainland and Macau Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement) the CPG also uses the Chinese characters 内地 "inner land", with the note that they refer to the "customs territory of China". Taiwan (Republic of China) Other terms Other geography-related terms which are used to avoid mentioning the political status of the PRC and ROC. See also Mainlander Greater China Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China China proper Constitution of the People's Republic of China Free area of the Republic of China Free China Politics of China ==

Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In November 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name "Quantum" to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 10 or later versions, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. It is also available for Android and iOS. However, as with all other iOS web browsers, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements. An optimized version is also available on the Amazon Fire TV as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser.Firefox was created in 2002 under the code name "Phoenix" by members of the Mozilla community who desired a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. During its beta phase, it proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security, and add-ons compared to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. It was released on November 9, 2004, and challenged Internet Explorer's dominance with 60 million downloads within nine months. It is the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998, before its acquisition by AOL.Firefox usage share grew to a peak of 32.21% in November 2009, with Firefox 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole; its usage then declined in competition with Google Chrome. As of July 2023, according to StatCounter, it had a 5.96% usage share as a desktop web browser, making it the fourth-most popular desktop web browser after Google Chrome (63.32%), Safari (13.13%), and Microsoft Edge (10.75%). Across all platforms, it again places fourth with a usage share of 2.79%. History The project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt, and Blake Ross. They believed the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship and developer-driven feature creep compromised the utility of the Mozilla browser. To combat what they saw as the Mozilla Suite's software bloat, they created a standalone browser, with which they intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. Version 0.1 was released on September 23, 2002. On April 3, 2003, the Mozilla Organization announced that it planned to change its focus from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox and Thunderbird. The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. The nascent browser was originally named Phoenix, after the mythical bird that rose triumphantly from the ashes of its dead predecessor (in this case, from the "ashes" of Netscape Navigator, after it was sidelined by Microsoft Internet Explorer in the "First Browser War"). Phoenix was renamed in 2003 due to a trademark claim from Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird database software project. The Mozilla Foundation reassured them that the browser would always bear the name Mozilla Firebird to avoid confusion. After further pressure, Mozilla Firebird became Mozilla Firefox on February 9, 2004. The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda, which became the mascot for the newly named project. For the abbreviation of Firefox, Mozilla prefers Fx or fx, although it is often abbreviated as FF.The Firefox project went through many versions before version 1.0 and had already gained a great deal of acclaim from numerous media outlets, such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. Among Firefox's popular features were the integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Although these features have already been available for some time in other browsers such as the Mozilla Suite and Opera, Firefox was the first of these browsers to have achieved large-scale adoption. Firefox attracted attention as an alternative to Internet Explorer, which had come under fire for its alleged poor program design and insecurity—detractors cite IE's lack of support for certain Web standards, use of the potentially dangerous ActiveX component, and vulnerability to spyware and malware installation. Microsoft responded by releasing Windows XP Service Pack 2, which added several important security features to Internet Explorer 6.Version 1.0 of Firefox was released on November 9, 2004. This was followed by version 1.5 in November 2005, version 2.0 in October 2006, version 3.0 in June 2008, version 3.5 in June 2009, version 3.6 in January 2010, and version 4.0 in March 2011. From version 5 onwards, the development and release model changed into a "rapid" one; by the end of 2011 the stable release was version 9, and by the end of 2012 it reached version 17.Major redesigns of its graphical user interface occurred on versions 4.0 "Strata" in March 2011, 29.0 "Australis" in April 2014, 57.0 "Quantum" in November 2017, and 89.0 "Proton" in June 2021. In 2016, Mozilla announced a project known as Quantum, which sought to improve Firefox's Gecko engine and other components to improve the browser's performance, modernize its architecture, and transition the browser to a multi-process model. These improvements came in the wake of decreasing market share to Google Chrome, as well as concerns that its performance was lapsing in comparison. Despite its improvements, these changes required existing add-ons for Firefox to be made incompatible with newer versions, in favor of a new extension system that is designed to be similar to Chrome and other recent browsers. Firefox 57, which was released in November 2017, was the first version to contain enhancements from Quantum, and has thus been named Firefox Quantum. A Mozilla executive stated that Quantum was the "biggest update" to the browser since version 1.0. Unresponsive and crashing pages only affect other pages loaded within the same process. While Chrome uses separate processes for each loaded tab, Firefox distributes tabs over four processes by default (since Quantum), in order to balance memory consumption and performance. The process count can be adjusted, where more processes increase performance at the cost of memory, therefore suitable for computers with larger RAM capacity.On May 3, 2019, the expiration of an intermediate signing certificate on Mozilla servers caused Firefox to automatically disable and lock all browser extensions (add-ons). Mozilla began the roll-out of a fix shortly thereafter, using their Mozilla Studies component.On January 13, 2022, an issue with Firefox's HTTP/3 implementation resulted in a widespread outage for multiple hours. Features Features of the desktop edition include tabbed browsing, full-screen mode, spell checking, incremental search, smart bookmarks, bookmarking and downloading through drag and drop, a download manager, user profile management, private browsing, bookmark tags, bookmark exporting, offline mode, a screenshot tool, web development tools, a "page info" feature which shows a list of page metadata and multimedia items, a sophisticated configuration menu at about:config for power users, and more location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based on a Google service. Firefox has an integrated search system which uses Google by default in most markets but an update for American users in 2021 made it start including paid promotions by default in its suggestions. DNS over HTTPS is another feature whose default behaviour is determined geographically.Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the Error Console or the DOM Inspector, and extensions, such as Firebug and more recently there has been an integration feature with Pocket. Firefox Hello was an implementation of WebRTC, added in October 2014, which allows users of Firefox and other compatible systems to have a video call, with the extra feature of screen and file sharing by sending a link to each other. Firefox Hello was scheduled to be removed in September 2016.Former features include a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client for browsing file servers, the ability to block images from individual domains (until version 72), a 3D page inspector (versions 11 to 46), tab grouping (until version 44), and the ability to add customized extra toolbars (until version 28). Browser extensions Functions can be added through add-ons created by third-party developers. Add-ons are primarily coded using an HTML, CSS, JavaScript, with API known as WebExtensions, which is designed to be compatible with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extension systems. Firefox previously supported add-ons using the XUL and XPCOM APIs, which allowed them to directly access and manipulate much of the browser's internal functionality. As compatibility was not included in the multi-process architecture, XUL add-ons have been deemed Legacy add-ons and are no longer supported on Firefox 57 "Quantum" and newer.Mozilla has occasionally installed extensions for users without their permission. This happened in 2017 when an extension designed to promote the show Mr Robot was silently added in an update to Firefox. Themes Firefox can have themes added to it, which users can create or download from third parties to change the appearance of the browser. Guest session In 2013, Firefox for Android added a guest session mode, which wiped browsing data such as tabs, cookies, and history at the end of each guest session. Guest session data was kept even when restarting the browser or device, and deleted only upon a manual exit. The feature was removed in 2019, purportedly to "streamline the experience". Standards Firefox implements many web standards, including HTML4 (almost full HTML5), XML, XHTML, MathML, SVG 1.1 (full), SVG 2 (partial), CSS (with extensions), ECMAScript (JavaScript), DOM, XSLT, XPath, and APNG (Animated PNG) images with alpha transparency. Firefox also implements standards proposals created by the WHATWG such as client-side storage, and the canvas element. These standards are implemented through the Gecko layout engine, and SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine. Firefox 4 was the first release to introduce significant HTML5 and CSS3 support. Firefox has passed the Acid2 standards-compliance test since version 3.0. Mozilla had originally stated that they did not intend for Firefox to pass the Acid3 test fully because they believed that the SVG fonts part of the test had become outdated and irrelevant, due to WOFF being agreed upon as a standard by all major browser makers. Because the SVG font tests were removed from the Acid3 test in September 2011, Firefox 4 and greater scored 100/100.Firefox also implements "Safe Browsing," a proprietary protocol from Google used to exchange data related with phishing and malware protection. Since version 38 on Windows Vista and newer, Firefox supports the playback of video content protected by HTML5 Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). For security and privacy reasons, EME is implemented within a wrapper of open-source code that allows execution of a proprietary DRM module by Adobe Systems—Adobe Primetime Content Decryption Module (CDM). CDM runs within a "sandbox" environment to limit its access to the system and provide it a randomized device ID to prevent services from uniquely identifying the device for tracking purposes. The DRM module, once it has been downloaded, is enabled, and disabled in the same manner as other plug-ins. Since version 47, "Google's Widevine CDM on Windows and Mac OS X so streaming services like Amazon Video can switch from Silverlight to encrypted HTML5 video" is also supported. Mozilla justified its partnership with Adobe and Google by stating: Firefox downloads and enables the Adobe Primetime and Google Widevine CDMs by default to give users a smooth experience on sites that require DRM. Each CDM runs in a separate container called a sandbox and you will be notified when a CDM is in use. You can also disable each CDM and opt-out of future updates and that it is "an important step on Mozilla's roadmap to remove NPAPI plugin support." Upon the introduction of EME support, builds of Firefox on Windows were also introduced that exclude support for EME. The Free Software Foundation and Cory Doctorow condemned Mozilla's decision to support EME. Security Firefox allowed for a sandbox security model to manage privileges accorded to JavaScript code, but that feature has since been deprecated. It limits scripts from accessing data from other websites based on the same-origin policy. It also provides support for smart cards to web applications, for authentication purposes. It uses TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol. The freely available HTTPS Everywhere add-on enforces HTTPS, even if a regular HTTP URL is entered. Firefox now supports HTTP/2.The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" (US$3,000 to US$7,500 cash reward) to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox. Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.Because Firefox generally has fewer publicly known security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer (see Comparison of web browsers), improved security is often cited as a reason to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. The Washington Post reported that exploit code for known critical security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. In comparison, exploit code for known, critical security vulnerabilities in Firefox was available for nine days before Mozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem.A 2006 Symantec study showed that, although Firefox had surpassed other browsers in the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities that year through September, these vulnerabilities were patched far more quickly than those found in other browsers, with Firefox's vulnerabilities being fixed on average one day after the exploit code was made available, as compared to nine days for Internet Explorer. Symantec later clarified their statement, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security researchers.In October 2009, Microsoft's security engineers acknowledged that Firefox was vulnerable to a security issue found in the 'Windows Presentation Foundation' browser plug-in since February of that year. A .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Windows Update had silently installed the vulnerable plug-in into Firefox. This vulnerability has since been patched by Microsoft.In 2010, a study of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), based on data compiled from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), Firefox was listed as the fifth-most vulnerable desktop software, with Internet Explorer as the eighth, and Google Chrome as the first.InfoWorld has cited security experts saying that, as Firefox becomes more popular, more vulnerabilities will be found, a claim that Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation, has denied. "There is this idea that market share alone will make you have more vulnerabilities. It is not relational at all," she said.As of February 11, 2011, Firefox 3.6 had no known unpatched security vulnerabilities according to Secunia. Internet Explorer 8 had five unpatched security vulnerabilities; the worst being rated "Less Critical" by Secunia. Mozilla claims that all patched vulnerabilities of Mozilla products are publicly listed.Firefox 11, released in January 2012, introduced a 3D page inspector that visualizes web pages' document object model three-dimensionally through WebGL. The feature was accessible from the developer tools.On January 28, 2013, Mozilla was recognized as the most trusted internet company for privacy in 2012. This study was performed by the Ponemon Institute and was a result of a survey from more than 100,000 consumers in the United States. In February 2013, plans were announced for Firefox 22 to disable third-party cookies by default. However, the introduction of the feature was then delayed so Mozilla developers could "collect and analyze data on the effect of blocking some third-party cookies." Mozilla also collaborated with Stanford University's "Cookie Clearinghouse" project to develop a blacklist and whitelist of sites that will be used in the filter.Version 23, released in August 2013, followed the lead of its competitors by blocking iframe, stylesheet, and script resources served from non-HTTPS servers embedded on HTTPS pages by default. Additionally, JavaScript could also no longer be disabled through Firefox's preferences, and JavaScript was automatically re-enabled for users who upgraded to 23 or higher with it disabled. The change was made due to its use across the majority of websites, the potential repercussions on inexperienced users who are unaware of its impact, along with the availability of extensions such as NoScript, which can disable JavaScript in a more controlled fashion. The following release added the ability to disable JavaScript through the developer tools for testing purposes.In January 2015, TorrentFreak reported that using Firefox when connected to the internet using a VPN can be a serious security issue due to the browser's support for WebRTC.Beginning with Firefox 48, all extensions must be signed by Mozilla to be used in release and beta versions of Firefox. Firefox 43 blocked unsigned extensions but allowed enforcement of extension signing to be disabled. All extensions must be submitted to Mozilla Add-ons and be subject to code analysis in order to be signed, although extensions do not have to be listed on the service to be signed. On May 2, 2019, Mozilla announced that it would be strengthening the signature enforcement with methods that included the retroactive disabling of old extensions now deemed to be insecure. A Firefox update on May 3 led to bug reports about all extensions being disabled. This was found to be the result of an overlooked certificate and not the policy change set to go into effect on June 10.In Firefox versions prior to 7.0, an information bar appears on the browser's first start asking users whether they would like to send performance statistics, or "telemetry", to Mozilla. It is enabled by default in development versions of Firefox, but not in release versions. According to Mozilla's privacy policy, these statistics are stored only in aggregate format, and the only personally identifiable information transmitted is the user's IP address. In November 2018, Firefox began using a sandbox to isolate web tabs from each other and from the rest of the system. Its lack of such a feature had previously earned it negative comparisons with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.Since version 60 Firefox includes the option to use DNS over HTTPS (DoH), which causes DNS lookup requests to be sent encrypted over the HTTPS protocol. To use this feature the user must set certain preferences beginning with "network.trr" (Trusted Recursive Resolver) in about:config: if network.trr.mode is 0, DoH is disabled; 1 activates DoH in addition to unencrypted DNS; 2 causes DoH to be used before unencrypted DNS; to use only DoH, the value must be 3. By setting network.trr.uri to the URL, special Cloudflare servers will be activated. Mozilla has a privacy agreement with this server host that restricts their collection of information about incoming DNS requests.On May 21, 2019, Firefox was updated to include the ability to block scripts that used a computer's CPU to mine cryptocurrency without a user's permission, in Firefox version 67.0. The update also allowed users to block known fingerprinting scripts that track their activity across the web, however it does not resist fingerprinting on its own.On July 2, 2019, Mozilla introduced a mechanism to allow Firefox to automatically trust OS-installed certificates to prevent TLS errors.In October 2019, ZDNet reported Firefox version 68 ESR passed all minimum requirements for mandatory security features during an exam by the Federal Office for Information Security of Germany.In Mozilla Foundation Security Advisory 2020–03, the company reported that the CVE-2019-17026 vulnerability (type confusion vulnerability in IonMonkey) had been detected in the wild and was being actively exploited.In March 2021, Firefox launched SmartBlock in version 87 to offer protection against cross-site tracking, without breaking the websites users visit. Also known as state partitioning or "total cookie protection", works via a feature in the browser that isolates data from each site visited by the user to ensure that cross-site scripting is very difficult if not impossible. The feature also isolates local storage, service workers and other common ways for sites to store data. Localizations Firefox is a widely localized web browser. The first official release in November 2004 was available in 24 different languages and for 28 locales, including British English, American English, European Spanish, Argentine Spanish, Chinese in Traditional Chinese characters and Simplified Chinese characters and in Bangla. As of September 2023, currently supported versions 117.0.1, 115.2.1esr and 102.15.1esr are available in 97 locales (88 languages). Platform availability The desktop version of Firefox is available and supports Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux, while Firefox for Android is available for Android (formerly Firefox for mobile, it also ran on Maemo, MeeGo and Firefox OS) and Firefox for iOS is available for iOS. Smartphones that support Linux but do not support Android or iOS apps can also run Firefox in its desktop version, for example using postmarketOS. In March 2014, the Windows Store app version of Firefox was cancelled, although there is a beta release. SSE2 instruction set support is required for 49.0 or later for Windows and 53.0 or later for Linux, IA-32 support only applies to superscalar processors.Firefox source code may be compiled for various operating systems; however, officially distributed binaries are provided for the following: Microsoft Windows Firefox 1.0 was released for Windows 95, as well as Windows NT 4.0 or later. Some users reported the 1.x builds were operable (but not installable) on Windows NT 3.51.The version 42.0 release includes the first x64 build. It requires Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. Starting from version 49.0, Firefox for Windows requires and uses the SSE2 instruction set. In September 2013, Mozilla released a Metro-style version of Firefox, optimized for touchscreen use, on the "Aurora" release channel. However, on March 14, 2014, Mozilla cancelled the project because of a lack of user adoption.In April 2017, users of Firefox 52.0.2 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 who had automatic updates enabled were migrated to Firefox 52 ESR. Support for these operating systems ended in June 2018.Traditionally, installing the Windows version of Firefox entails visiting the Firefox website and downloading an installer package, depending on the desired localization and system architecture. In November 2021, Mozilla made Firefox available on Microsoft Store. The Store-distributed package does not interfere with the traditional installation.Most recently, Mozilla ended support for Windows 7 and 8 in Firefox 116, with those users being supported on the Firefox 115 ESR branch until late 2024. macOS The first official release (Firefox version 1.0) supported macOS (then called Mac OS X) on the PowerPC architecture. Mac OS X builds for the IA-32 architecture became available via a universal binary which debuted with Firefox 1.5.0.2 in 2006. Starting with version 4.0, Firefox was released for the x64 architecture to which macOS had migrated. Version 4.0 also dropped support for PowerPC architecture, although other projects continued development of a PowerPC version of Firefox.Firefox was originally released for Mac OS X 10.0 and higher. The minimum OS then increased to Mac OS X 10.2 in Firefox 1.5 and 10.4 in Firefox 3. Firefox 4 dropped support for Mac OS X 10.4 and PowerPC Macs, and Firefox 17 dropped support for Mac OS X 10.5 entirely. The system requirements were left unchanged until 2016, when Firefox 49 dropped support for Mac OS X 10.6–10.8. Mozilla ended support for OS X 10.9–10.11 in Firefox 79, with those users being supported on the Firefox 78 ESR branch until November 2021. Most recently, Mozilla ended support for macOS 10.12-10.14 in Firefox 116, with those users being supported on the Firefox 115 ESR branch until late 2024. Linux Since its inception, Firefox for Linux supported the 32-bit memory architecture of the IA-32 instruction set. 64-bit builds were introduced in the 4.0 release. The 46.0 release replaced GTK 2.18 with 3.4 as a system requirement on Linux and other systems running X.Org. Starting with 53.0, the 32-bit builds require the SSE2 instruction set. Firefox also can run on number of other architectures on Linux, including ARM, AArch64, POWER/PowerPC/Power ISA, SPARC, PA-RISC, MIPS, s390, and in the past Alpha, IA-64 (Intel Itanium) and m68k. Firefox for Android Firefox for mobile, codenamed "Fennec", was first released for Maemo in January 2010 with version 1.0 and for Android in March 2011 with version 4.0. Support for Maemo was discontinued after version 7, released in September 2011. Fennec had a user interface optimized for phones and tablets. It included the Awesome Bar, tabbed browsing, add-on support, a password manager, location-aware browsing, and the ability to synchronize with the user's other devices with Mozilla Firefox using Firefox Sync. It was criticized for being slow, however, in part due to its poor port of Gecko. At the end of its existence, it had a market share of 0.5% on Android.In August 2020, Mozilla launched a new version of its Firefox for Android app, named Firefox Daylight to the public and codenamed Fenix, after a little over a year of testing. It boasted higher speeds with its new GeckoView engine, which is described as being "the only independent web engine browser available on Android". It also added Enhanced Tracking Protection 2.0, a feature that blocks many known trackers on the Internet. It also added the ability to place the address bar on the bottom, and a new Collections feature. However, it was criticized for only having nine Add-ons at launch, and missing certain features. In response, Mozilla stated that they will allow more Add-ons with time. Firefox for iOS Mozilla initially refused to port Firefox to iOS, due to the restrictions Apple imposed on third-party iOS browsers. Instead of releasing a full version of the Firefox browser, Mozilla released Firefox Home, a companion app for the iPhone and iPod Touch based on the Firefox Sync technology, which allowed users to access their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks, and recent tabs. It also included Firefox's "Awesomebar" location bar. Firefox Home was not a web browser, the application launched web pages in either an embedded viewer for that one page, or by opening the page in the Safari app. Mozilla pulled Firefox Home from the App Store in September 2012, stating it would focus its resources on other projects. The company subsequently released the source code of Firefox Home's underlying synchronization software.In April 2013, then-Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs said that Firefox would not come to iOS if Apple required the use of the WebKit layout engine to do so. One reason given by Mozilla was that prior to iOS 8, Apple had supplied third-party browsers with an inferior version of their JavaScript engine which hobbled their performance, making it impossible to match Safari's JavaScript performance on the iOS platform. Apple later opened their "Nitro" JavaScript engine to third-party browsers. In 2015, Mozilla announced it was moving forward with Firefox for iOS, with a preview release made available in New Zealand in September of that year. It fully released in November later that year. It is the first Firefox-branded browser not to use the Gecko layout engine as is used in Firefox for desktop and mobile. Apple's policies require all iOS apps that browse the web to use the built-in WebKit rendering framework and WebKit JavaScript, so using Gecko is not possible. Unlike Firefox on Android, Firefox for iOS does not support browser add-ons. In November 2016, Firefox released a new iOS app titled Firefox Focus, a private web browser. Firefox Reality (AR/VR) Firefox Reality was released for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality headsets in September 2018. It supports traditional web-browsing through 2D windows and immersive VR pages through Web VR. Firefox Reality is available on HTC Vive, Oculus, Google Daydream and Microsoft Hololens headsets. In February 2022 Mozilla announced that Igalia took over stewardship of this project under the new name of Wolvic. Unofficial ports Firefox has also been ported to FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OpenIndiana, OS/2, ArcaOS, SkyOS, RISC OS and BeOS/Haiku, and an unofficial rebranded version called Timberwolf has been available for AmigaOS 4. An unofficial continuation of the Mac OS X PowerPC release was actively developed as TenFourFox until October 5, 2021.The Firefox port for OpenBSD is maintained by Landry Breuil since 2010. Firefox is regularly built for the current branch of the operating system, the latest versions are packaged for each release and remain frozen until the next release. In 2017, Landry began hosting packages of newer Firefox versions for OpenBSD releases from 6.0 onwards, making them available to installations without the ports system.The Solaris port of Firefox (including OpenSolaris) was maintained by the Oracle Solaris Desktop Beijing Team, until March 2017 when the team was disbanded. There was also an unofficial port of Firefox 3.6.x to IBM AIX and of v1.7.x to UnixWare. Channels and release schedule In March 2011, Mozilla presented plans to switch to a faster 16-week development cycle, similar to Google Chrome. Ars Technica noted that this new cycle entailed "significant technical and operational challenges" for Mozilla (notably preserving third-party add-on compatibility), but that it would help accelerate Firefox's adoption of new web standards, feature, and performance improvements. This plan was implemented in April 2011. The release process was split into four "channels", with major releases trickling down to the next channel every six to eight weeks. For example, the nightly channel would feature a preliminary unstable version of Firefox 6, which would move to the experimental "Aurora" channel after preliminary testing, then to the more stable "beta" channel, before finally reaching the public release channel, with each stage taking around six weeks. For corporations, Mozilla introduced an Extended Support Release channel, with new versions released every 30 weeks (and supported for 12 more weeks after a new ESR version is released), though Mozilla warned that it would be less secure than the release channel, since security patches would only be backported for high-impact vulnerabilities.In 2017, Mozilla abandoned the Aurora channel, which saw low uptake, and rebased Firefox Developer Edition onto the beta channel. Mozilla uses A/B testing and a staged rollout mechanism for the release channel, where updates are first presented to a small fraction of users, with Mozilla monitoring its telemetry for increased crashes or other issues before the update is made available to all users. In 2020, Firefox moved to a four-week release cycle, to catch up with Chrome in support for new web features. Chrome switched to a four-week cycle a year later. Licensing Firefox source code is free software, with most of it being released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 2.0. This license permits anyone to view, modify, or redistribute the source code. As a result, several publicly released applications have been built from it, such as Netscape, Flock, Miro, GNU IceCat, Iceweasel, Songbird, Pale Moon, Waterfox, and Comodo IceDragon.In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL, then version 1.1, which the Free Software Foundation criticized for being weak copyleft, as the license permitted, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Additionally, code only licensed under MPL 1.1 could not legally be linked with code under the GPL. To address these concerns, Mozilla re-licensed most of Firefox under the tri-license scheme of MPL 1.1, GPL 2.0, or LGPL 2.1. Since the re-licensing, developers were free to choose the license under which they received most of the code, to suit their intended use: GPL or LGPL linking and derivative works when one of those licenses is chosen, or MPL use (including the possibility of proprietary derivative works) if they chose the MPL. However, on January 3, 2012, Mozilla released the GPL-compatible MPL 2.0, and with the release of Firefox 13 on June 5, 2012, Mozilla used it to replace the tri-licensing scheme.The crash reporting service was initially closed-source but switched with version 3 from a program called Talkback to the open-source Breakpad (and Socorro server). Trademark and logo The name "Mozilla Firefox" is a registered trademark of Mozilla; along with the official Firefox logo, it may only be used under certain terms and conditions. Anyone may redistribute the official binaries in unmodified form and use the Firefox name and branding for such distribution, but restrictions are placed on distributions which modify the underlying source code. The name "Firefox" derives from a nickname of the red panda.Mozilla has placed the Firefox logo files under open-source licenses, but its trademark guidelines do not allow displaying altered or similar logos in contexts where trademark law applies. There has been some controversy over the Mozilla Foundation's intentions in stopping certain open-source distributions from using the "Firefox" trademark. Open-source browsers "enable greater choice and innovation in the market rather than aiming for mass-market domination." Mozilla Foundation Chairperson Mitchell Baker explained in an interview in 2007 that distributions could freely use the Firefox trademark if they did not modify source code, and that the Mozilla Foundation's only concern was with users getting a consistent experience when they used "Firefox".To allow distributions of the code without using the official branding, the Firefox build system contains a "branding switch". This switch, often used for alphas ("Auroras") of future Firefox versions, allows the code to be compiled without the official logo and name and can allow a derivative work unencumbered by restrictions on the Firefox trademark to be produced. In the unbranded build, the trademarked logo and name are replaced with a freely distributable generic globe logo and the name of the release series from which the modified version was derived.Distributing modified versions of Firefox under the "Firefox" name required explicit approval from Mozilla for the changes made to the underlying code, and required the use of all of the official branding. For example, it was not permissible to use the name "Firefox" without also using the official logo. When the Debian project decided to stop using the official Firefox logo in 2006 (because Mozilla's copyright restrictions at the time were incompatible with Debian's guidelines), they were told by a representative of the Mozilla Foundation that this was not acceptable and was asked either to comply with the published trademark guidelines or cease using the "Firefox" name in their distribution. Debian switched to branding their modified version of Firefox "Iceweasel" (but in 2016 switched back to Firefox), along with other Mozilla software. GNU IceCat is another derived version of Firefox distributed by the GNU Project, which maintains its separate branding. Branding and visual identity The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software and builds of official distribution partners. For this reason, software distributors who distribute modified versions of Firefox do not use the icon.Early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have reasonable visual designs but fell short when compared to many other professional software packages. In October 2003, professional interface designer Steven Garrity authored an article covering everything he considered to be wrong with Mozilla's visual identity.Shortly afterwards, the Mozilla Foundation invited Garrity to head up the new visual identity team. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of the new branding efforts. Included were new icon designs by silverorange, a group of web developers with a long-standing relationship with Mozilla. The final renderings are by Jon Hicks, who had worked on Camino. The logo was later revised and updated, fixing several flaws found when it was enlarged. The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is usually a common name for the red panda. The panda, according to Hicks, "didn't really conjure up the right imagery" and was not widely known.In June 2019, Mozilla unveiled a revised Firefox logo, which was officially implemented on version 70. The new logo is part of an effort to build a brand system around Firefox and its complementary apps and services, which are now being promoted as a suite under the Firefox brand. Logo history Other logos, used for nightly versions Other logos, used for developer/aurora versions Other logos Promotion Firefox was adopted rapidly, with 100 million downloads in its first year of availability. This was followed by a series of aggressive marketing campaigns starting in 2004 with a series of events Blake Ross and Asa Dotzler called "marketing weeks".Firefox continued to heavily market itself by releasing a marketing portal dubbed "Spread Firefox" (SFX) on September 12, 2004, It debuted along with the Firefox Preview Release, creating a centralized space for the discussion of various marketing techniques. The release of their manifesto stated that "the Mozilla project is a global community of people who believe that openness, innovation and opportunity are key to the continued health of the Internet." A two-page ad in the edition of December 16 of The New York Times, placed by Mozilla Foundation in coordination with Spread Firefox, featured the names of the thousands of people worldwide who contributed to the Mozilla Foundation's fundraising campaign to support the launch of the Firefox 1.0 web browser. SFX portal enhanced the "Get Firefox" button program, giving users "referrer points" as an incentive. The site lists the top 250 referrers. From time to time, the SFX team or SFX members launch marketing events organized at the Spread Firefox website. As a part of the Spread Firefox campaign, there was an attempt to break the world download record with the release of Firefox 3. This resulted in an official certified Guinness world record, with over eight million downloads. In February 2011, Mozilla announced that it would be retiring Spread Firefox (SFX). Three months later, in May 2011, Mozilla officially closed Spread Firefox. Mozilla wrote that "there are currently plans to create a new iteration of this website [Spread Firefox] at a later date."In celebration of the third anniversary of the founding of the Mozilla Foundation, the "World Firefox Day" campaign was established on July 15, 2006, and ran until September 15, 2006. Participants registered themselves and a friend on the website for nomination to have their names displayed on the Firefox Friends Wall, a digital wall that was displayed at the headquarters of the Mozilla Foundation. The Firefox community has also engaged in the promotion of their web browser. In 2006, some of Firefox's contributors from Oregon State University made a crop circle of the Firefox logo in an oat field near Amity, Oregon, near the intersection of Lafayette Highway and Walnut Hill Road. After Firefox reached 500 million downloads on February 21, 2008, the Firefox community celebrated by visiting Freerice to earn 500 million grains of rice.Other initiatives included Live Chat – a service Mozilla launched in 2007 that allowed users to seek technical support from volunteers. The service was later retired.To promote the launch of Firefox Quantum in November 2017, Mozilla partnered with Reggie Watts to produce a series of TV ads and social media content. Performance 2000s In December 2005, Internet Week ran an article in which many readers reported high memory usage in Firefox 1.5. Mozilla developers said that the higher memory use of Firefox 1.5 was at least partially due to the new fast backwards-and-forwards (FastBack) feature. Other known causes of memory problems were malfunctioning extensions such as Google Toolbar and some older versions of AdBlock, or plug-ins, such as older versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. When PC Magazine in 2006 compared memory usage of Firefox 2, Opera 9, and Internet Explorer 7, they found that Firefox used approximately as much memory as each of the other two browsers.In 2006, Softpedia noted that Firefox 1.5 took longer to start up than other browsers, which was confirmed by further speed tests.Internet Explorer 6 launched more swiftly than Firefox 1.5 on Windows XP since many of its components were built into the OS and loaded during system startup. As a workaround for the issue, a preloader application was created that loaded components of Firefox on startup, similar to Internet Explorer. A Windows Vista feature called SuperFetch performs a similar task of preloading Firefox if it is used often enough.Tests performed by PC World and Zimbra in 2006 indicated that Firefox 2 used less memory than Internet Explorer 7. Firefox 3 used less memory than Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.50 Beta, Safari 3.1 Beta, and Firefox 2 in tests performed by Mozilla, CyberNet, and The Browser World. In mid-2009, BetaNews benchmarked Firefox 3.5 and declared that it performed "nearly ten times better on XP than Microsoft Internet Explorer 7". 2010s In January 2010, Lifehacker compared the performance of Firefox 3.5, Firefox 3.6, Google Chrome 4 (stable and Dev versions), Safari 4, and Opera (10.1 stable and 10.5 pre-alpha versions). Lifehacker timed how long browsers took to start and reach a page (both right after boot-up and after running at least once already), timed how long browsers took to load nine tabs at once, tested JavaScript speeds using Mozilla's Dromaeo online suite (which implements Apple's SunSpider and Google's V8 tests) and measured memory usage using Windows 7's process manager. They concluded that Firefox 3.5 and 3.6 were the fifth- and sixth-fastest browsers, respectively, on startup, 3.5 was third- and 3.6 was sixth-fastest to load nine tabs at once, 3.5 was sixth- and 3.6 was fifth-fastest on the JavaScript tests. They also concluded that Firefox 3.6 was the most efficient with memory usage followed by Firefox 3.5.In February 2012, Tom's Hardware performance tested Chrome 17, Firefox 10, Internet Explorer 9, Opera 11.61, and Safari 5.1.2 on Windows 7. Tom's Hardware summarized their tests into four categories: Performance, Efficiency, Reliability, and Conformance. In the performance category they tested HTML5, Java, JavaScript, DOM, CSS 3, Flash, Silverlight, and WebGL (WebGL 2 is current as of version 51; and Java and Silverlight stop working as of version 52)—they also tested startup time and page load time. The performance tests showed that Firefox was either "acceptable" or "strong" in most categories, winning three categories (HTML5, HTML5 hardware acceleration, and Java) only finishing "weak" in CSS performance. In the efficiency tests, Tom's Hardware tested memory usage and management. In this category, it determined that Firefox was only "acceptable" at performing light memory usage, while it was "strong" at performing heavy memory usage. In the reliability category, Firefox performed a "strong" amount of proper page loads. In the final category, conformance, it was determined that Firefox had "strong" conformance for JavaScript and HTML5. In conclusion, Tom's Hardware determined that Firefox was the best browser for Windows 7 OS, but that it only narrowly beat Google Chrome.In June 2013, Tom's Hardware again performance tested Firefox 22, Chrome 27, Opera 12, and Internet Explorer 10. They found that Firefox slightly edged out the other browsers in their "performance" index, which examined wait times, JavaScript execution speed, HTML5/CSS3 rendering, and hardware acceleration performance. Firefox also scored the highest on the "non-performance" index, which measured memory efficiency, reliability, security, and standards conformance, finishing ahead of Chrome, the runner-up. Tom's Hardware concluded by declaring Firefox the "sound" winner of the performance benchmarks.In January 2014, a benchmark testing the memory usage of Firefox 29, Google Chrome 34, and Internet Explorer 11 indicated that Firefox used the least memory when a substantial number of tabs were open.In benchmark testing in early 2015 on a "high-end" Windows machine, comparing Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera, Firefox achieved the highest score on three of the seven tests. Four different JavaScript performance tests gave conflicting results. Firefox surpassed all other browsers on the Peacekeeper benchmark but was behind the Microsoft products when tested with SunSpider. Measured with Mozilla's Kraken, it came second place to Chrome, while on Google's Octane challenge it took third behind Chrome and Opera. Firefox took the lead with WebXPRT, which runs several typical HTML5 and JavaScript tasks. Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all achieved the highest possible score on the Oort Online test, measuring WebGL rendering speed (WebGL 2 is now current). In terms of HTML5 compatibility testing, Firefox was ranked in the middle of the group.A similar set of benchmark tests in 2016 showed Firefox's JavaScript performance on Kraken and the newer Jetstream tests trailing slightly behind all other tested browsers except Internet Explorer (IE), which performed relatively poorly. On Octane, Firefox came ahead of IE and Safari, but again slightly behind the rest, including Vivaldi and Microsoft Edge. Edge took overall first place on the Jetstream and Octane benchmarks. Firefox Quantum As of the adoption of Firefox 57 and Mozilla's Quantum project entering production browsers in November 2017, Firefox was tested to be faster than Chrome in independent JavaScript tests, and demonstrated to use less memory with many browser tabs opened. TechRadar rated it as the fastest web browser in a May 2019 report. Usage share Downloads have continued at an increasing rate since Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004, and as of 31 July 2009 Firefox had already been downloaded over one billion times. This number does not include downloads using software updates or those from third-party websites. They do not represent a user count, as one download may be installed on many machines, one person may download the software multiple times, or the software may be obtained from a third-party.In July 2010, IBM asked all employees (about 400,000) to use Firefox as their default browser.Firefox was the second-most used web browser until November 2011, when Google Chrome surpassed it. According to Mozilla, Firefox had more than 450 million users as of October 2012.Up to early 2023, Firefox was the fourth-most widely used desktop browser, and it was the fourth-most popular with 2.77% of worldwide usage share of web browsers across all platforms. According to the Firefox Public Data report by Mozilla, the active monthly count of Desktop clients has decreased from around 310 million in 2017 to 200 million in 2023. From Oct 2020, the desktop market share of Firefox started to decline in countries where it used to be the most popular. In Eritrea, it dropped from 50% in Oct 2020 to 9.32% in Sept 2021. In Cuba, it dropped from 54.36% in Sept 2020 to 38.42% in Sept 2021. Third-party forks In addition to versions of Firefox made internally and the email client Mozilla Thunderbird, there are several third-party web browsers based on Firefox, including: See also Firefox User Extension Library History of the web browser List of free and open-source software packages Mozilla Prism XULRunner Further reading Official website Firefox at Curlie Firefox at Microsoft Store

Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational holding company, video game production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing game franchises, such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, among numerous others. Outside of video game publishing and development, it is also in the business of merchandise, arcade facilities, and manga publication under its Gangan Comics brand. The original Square Enix Co., Ltd. was formed in April 2003 from a merger between Square and Enix, with the latter as the surviving company. Each share of Square's common stock was exchanged for 0.85 shares of Enix's common stock. At the time, 80% of Square Enix staff were made up of former Square employees. As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda was named vice president. Yasuhiro Fukushima, the largest shareholder of the combined corporation and founder of Enix, became chairman. In October 2008, Square Enix conducted a company split between its corporate business and video game operations, reorganizing itself as the holding company Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., while its internally domestic video game operations were formed under the subsidiary Square Enix Co., Ltd. The group operates American, Chinese, Indian, and European branches, based in Los Angeles, Beijing, Bangalore, and London respectively. Several of Square Enix's franchises have sold over 10 million copies worldwide after 2020, with Final Fantasy selling 173 million, Dragon Quest selling 85 million, and Kingdom Hearts shipping 36 million. In 2005, Square Enix acquired arcade corporation Taito. In 2009, Square Enix acquired Eidos plc, the parent company of British game publisher Eidos Interactive, which was then absorbed into its European branch. Square Enix is headquartered at the Shinjuku Eastside Square Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, and has over 5,000 employees worldwide through its base operations and subsidiaries. Corporate history Origins and pre-merger (1975–2003) Enix (1975–2003) Enix was founded on September 22, 1975, as Eidansha Boshu Service Center by Japanese architect-turned-entrepreneur Yasuhiro Fukushima. Enix focused on publishing games, often by companies who exclusively partnered with the company. In the 1980s, in a partnership with developers Chunsoft, the company began publishing the Dragon Quest series of console games. Key members of the developer's staff consisted of director Koichi Nakamura, writer Yuji Horii, artist Akira Toriyama, and composer Koichi Sugiyama, among others. The first game, Dragon Warrior, in the Famicom-based RPG series, was released in 1986 and would eventually sell 1.5 million copies in Japan, establishing Dragon Quest as the company's most profitable franchise. Despite the announcement that Enix's long-time competitor Square would develop exclusively for PlayStation, Enix announced in January 1997 that it would release games for both Nintendo and Sony consoles. This caused a significant rise in stock for both Enix and Sony. By November 1999, Enix was listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section, indicating it as a "large company". Square (1983–2003) Square was started in October 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto as a computer game software division of Den-Yu-Sha, a power line construction company owned by his father. While at the time, game development was usually conducted —by only one programmer, Miyamoto believed that it would be more efficient to have graphic designers, programmers and professional story writers working together.In September 1986, the division was spun off into an independent company led by Miyamoto, officially named Square Co., Ltd. After releasing several unsuccessful games for the Famicom, Square relocated to Ueno, Tokyo in 1987 and developed a role-playing video game titled Final Fantasy, which was inspired by Enix's success in the genre with the 1986 Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy was a success with over 400,000 copies sold, and it became Square's leading franchise, spawning dozens of games in a series that continues to the present.Buoyed by the success of their Final Fantasy franchise, Square developed notable games and franchises such as Chrono, Mana, Kingdom Hearts (in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company), and Super Mario RPG (under the guidance of Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto). By late 1994 they had developed a reputation as a producer of high-quality role-playing video games. Square was one of the many companies that had planned to develop and publish their games for the Nintendo 64, but with the cheaper costs associated with developing games on CD-based consoles such as the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, Square decided to develop titles for the latter system. Final Fantasy VII was one of these games, and it sold 9.8 million copies, making it the second-best-selling game for the PlayStation. Merger (2003) A merger between Square and Enix was considered since at least 2000; the financial failure in 2001 of Square's first movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, made Enix reluctant to proceed while Square was losing money. With the company facing its second year of financial losses, Square approached Sony for a capital injection, and on October 8, 2001, Sony Corp purchased an 18.6% stake in Square. Following the success of both Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts, the company's finances stabilized, and it recorded the highest operating margin in its history in the fiscal year 2002. It was announced on November 25, 2002, that Square and Enix's previous plans to merge were to officially proceed, intending to decrease development costs and to compete with foreign developers. As described by Square's president and CEO Yoichi Wada: "Square has also fully recovered, meaning this merger is occurring at a time when both companies are at their height."Some shareholders expressed concerns about the merger, notably Miyamoto (the founder and largest shareholder of Square), who would find himself holding a significantly smaller percentage of the combined companies. Other criticism came from Takashi Oya of Deutsche Securities, who expressed doubts about the benefits of such a merger: "Enix outsources game development and has few in-house creators, while Square does everything by itself. The combination of the two provides no negative factors but would bring little in the way of operational synergies." Miyamoto's concerns were eventually resolved by altering the exchange ratio of the merger so that each Square share would be exchanged for 0.85 Enix shares rather than 0.81 shares, and the merger was greenlit. The merger was set for April 1, 2003, on which date the newly merged entity Square Enix came into being. At the time of the merger, 80% of Square Enix staff were made up of former Square employees. As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda became its vice president. The founder of Enix and the largest shareholder of the newly combined corporation, Yasuhiro Fukushima, was made its honorary chairman.As a result of the merger, Enix was the surviving company and Square Co., Ltd. was dissolved. In July of that year, the Square Enix headquarters were moved to Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, to help combine the two companies. Post-merger and acquisitions (2003–2013) To strengthen its wireless market, Square Enix acquired mobile application developer UIEvolution in March 2004, which was sold in December 2007, and the company instead founded its own Square Enix MobileStudio in January 2008 to focus on mobile products. In January 2005, Square Enix founded Square Enix China, expanding their interests in the People's Republic of China.In September 2005, Square Enix bought the gaming developer and publisher Taito, renowned for their arcade hits such as Space Invaders and the Bubble Bobble series; Taito's home and portable console games divisions were merged into Square Enix itself by March 2010. In August 2008, Square Enix made plans for a similar expansion by way of a friendly takeover of video game developer Tecmo by purchasing shares at a 30 percent premium, but Tecmo rejected the proposed takeover. Tecmo would later merge with Koei in April 2009 to form Koei Tecmo. In April 2007, Square Enix Ltd. CEO John Yamamoto also became CEO of Square Enix, Inc. In 2008–2009, Square Enix was reportedly working with Grin on a Final Fantasy spin-off codenamed Fortress. The project was allegedly canceled by Square Enix after introducing seemingly impossible milestones and without payments made, resulting in Grin declaring bankruptcy and its co-founders blaming Square Enix for being "betrayed".In February 2009, Square Enix announced a takeover deal for Eidos plc (briefly renamed from SCi Entertainment), the holding company for Eidos Interactive. The UK-based publisher's assets include Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain franchises, along with subsidiary development studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and IO Interactive that developed the games. The acquisition of Eidos was completed in April 2009, and in November it was merged with Square Enix's European publishing organization, business unit Square Enix Europe. Eidos' US operations were merged with Square Enix Incorporated. In April 2010, a new Japanese label for Western games bearing CERO restrictions called Square Enix Extreme Edges was announced. In July 2010, Mike Fischer was appointed CEO of Square Enix, Inc. Square Enix founded the mobile development studio Hippos Lab in March 2011 and Square Enix Montréal in 2012. In June 2011, Stainless Games had purchased the rights to Carmageddon from Square Enix. In July 2011, it was reported that Square Enix closed their Los Angeles Studio. In January 2012, Square Enix North American office could pursue smaller niche, mobile and social media games due to its existing revenue streams. In October 2012, Square Enix was perceived as a "force in mobile" games by Kotaku. The price of Final Fantasy Dimensions and Demons' Score, $30 and $44 respectively, was criticized. Restructuring (2013) On March 26, 2013, citing sluggish sales of major Western games, Square Enix announced major restructuring, expected loss of ¥10 billion and resignation of President Yoichi Wada, whom Yosuke Matsuda replaced. Phil Rogers was elected as a new Director, among others. With the restructuring, Square Enix of America CEO Mike Fischer left the company in May, with former Square Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers becoming CEO of Americas and Europe. Further executive changes at Square Enix Western studios were mentioned in a statement. Square Enix Europe was hit with layoffs and Life President Ian Livingstone departed from the company in September 2013.It said with the fiscal year report in March 2013, sales of Tomb Raider (2013) and Hitman: Absolution were weak, despite critical acclaim. The North American sales force was said to be ineffective and price pressure was intense. Matsuda noted the long development time of their important games and said they need to shift to a business model with frequent customer interactions, noting Kickstarter as an example. Post-restructuring and RPG development (2013–present) In March 2013, Square Enix India opened in Mumbai; however the office was closed in April 2014 and reopened five years later. As well as Square Enix Latin America in Mexico, which was closed in 2015. A mobile studio called Smileworks was founded in Indonesia in June 2013; however it was closed in January 2015. In 2014, Square Enix Collective launched, an indie developer service provider headed by Phil Elliot. Also in 2014, Square Enix signed a strategic alliance and corporate agreement with Japanese and French video game companies, Bandai Namco Entertainment and Ubisoft; it has served as the Japanese publisher of video games and crossover productions since 2009. In March 2014, following the success of Bravely Default, Square Enix said it will "go back to their roots" and focus on creating content that will appeal to their core audience. In 2015, Square created a new studio known as Tokyo RPG Factory to develop what was then dubbed Project Setsuna. Around 2015, Square Enix's Western divisions began "officially working across LA and London".In January 2017, Norwegian studio Artplant purchased former Eidos franchise Project I.G.I. On February 21, 2017, the formation of a new studio Studio Istolia was announced. The studio, headed by Hideo Baba, would be working on the new RPG Project Prelude Rune. In November 2017, IO Interactive conducted a management buyout from Square Enix and the Hitman IP was transferred to the studio. In September 2018, COO Mike Sherlock died, with Square Enix's executive team assuming his immediate responsibilities. In 2018, Square Enix branded their third party publishing division Square Enix External Studios, which is headed by Jon Brooke and Lee Singleton. John Heinecke was appointed as CMO for Americas and Europe in October 2018. Baba departed the studio in early 2019, and shortly after this, Studio Istolia was closed, and Project Prelude Rune cancelled following an assessment of the project, with its staff being reassigned to different projects within the company. In 2019, Square Enix opened an Indian office again, now in Bangalore, which expanded into publishing mobile games for the Indian market in 2021. In June 2020, Square Enix donated $2.4 million to charities around their Western studios and offices, which were partially raised from sales of its discounted Square Enix Eidos Anthology bundle. In March 2021, Forever Entertainment, a Polish studio, was reported to be working to bring several of Square Enix's properties to modern systems. A new mobile studio called Square Enix London Mobile, working on Tomb Raider Reloaded and an unannounced title based on Avatar: The Last Airbender with Navigator Games, was announced on 20 October 2021.On May 1, 2022, Square Enix announced that it would sell several assets of subsidiary Square Enix Limited to Swedish games holding company Embracer Group for $300 million. This included studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montreal, IPs Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Thief, and Tomb Raider and rights to "over 50 games". Square Enix stated that the sale will further help it in investment into blockchain and other technologies, and to "assist the company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources". Square Enix also stated that it would retain the Life Is Strange, Outriders, and Just Cause franchises. However, during the Japanese publisher's full-year financial results briefing on May 13, president Yosuke Matsuda clarified the past statement and said the money from the sale will be used to strengthen the company's core games business. On July 25, 2022, Square Enix launched the English version of Manga Up!. The acquisition was closed by August 26, 2022, with the assets being held under CDE Entertainment which is headed from London by Phil Rogers, former CEO of Square Enix Americas and Europe. In the company's financial statement for the following quarter, released in September 2022, Matsuda said they were moving away from outright owning studios due to rising costs of development, but were looking at means to invest in studios such as joint ventures or investment opportunities. In 2022, Square Enix invested in seven business strategic cooperations in the blockchain and cloud services such as Zebedee (United States), Blocklords (Estonia), Cross The Ages (France), Blacknut (France), Animoca Brands-owned The Sandbox (Australia and Hong Kong), and Ubitus (Japan).On February 28, 2023, Square Enix Holdings announced that on May 1, 2023, Luminous Productions would reorganize and merge with Square Enix internally, citing the merging of the two would “enhanced the group’s abilities to develop HD games” for the 20th anniversary. On March 3, 2023, Square Enix issued a statement announcing a proposed change to the position of its president and representative director that, if implemented, would result in Yosuke Matsuda stepping down and being succeeded by Takeshi Kiryu, who is presently the company's director. The change will become effective upon approval at the company's 43rd annual shareholders' meeting, which is planned for June 2023, and the board meeting which will follow ahead on the 20th anniversary of the merger. Kiryu succeeded on May 18 and was seen as part of the Final Fantasy XVI launch event as one of his first appearances in public. Corporate structure On October 1, 2008, Square Enix transformed into a holding company and was renamed Square Enix Holdings. At the same time, the gaming and publishing businesses were transferred to a spin-off named Square Enix, sharing the same corporate leadership and offices with the holding company. The primary offices for Square Enix and Square Enix Holdings are in the Shinjuku Eastside Square Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Development organization After the merger in 2003, Square Enix's development department was organized into eight Square and two Enix Product Development Divisions (開発事業部, kaihatsu jigyōbu), each focused on different groupings of games. The divisions were spread around different offices; for example, Product Development Division 5 had offices both in Osaka and Tokyo.According to Yoichi Wada, the development department was reorganized away from the Product Development Division System by March 2007 into a project-based system. Until 2013, the teams in charge of the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series were still collectively referred to as the 1st Production Department (第1制作部, dai-ichi seisakubu). The 1st Production Department was formed from the fall 2010 combination of Square Enix's Tokyo and Osaka development studios, with Shinji Hashimoto as its corporate executive.In December 2013, Square Enix's development was restructured into 12 Business Divisions. In 2017, Business Division 9 was merged into Business Division 8, while Business Divisions 11 and 12 merged to become the new Business Division 9, while a new Business Division 11 was created with some staff from Business Division 6.In 2019, Square Enix announced that their eleven Business Divisions would be consolidated into four units by 2020 with a new title, Creative Business Unit. Naoki Yoshida, who was previously the head of Business Division 5, became the head of Creative Business Unit III. The current structure for the development and production division called Creative Business Unit is as follows: Creative Business Unit I is led by Yoshinori Kitase, who was the head of Business Division 1 and focuses on Final Fantasy single-player titles, spin-offs, SaGa and Kingdom Hearts. The department comprises the former Business Division 1 (Mainline single-player Final Fantasy such as Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy VII Remake), Business Division 3 (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy spin-offs, The World Ends with You, SaGa series), and Business Division 4 (Final Fantasy spin-offs produced with external companies, e.g., Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Record Keeper). Currently, the titles developed internally by the group are Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Kingdom Hearts IV, outside of titles overseen and produced by the division and developed by contracted studios. Creative Business Unit II is led by Yuu Miyake, who was the head of Business Division 6 and focuses on the Dragon Quest, Nier, Octopath Traveler and Bravely series, as well as arcade games. The department comprises the former Business Division 6 (Dragon Quest series, Nier series), Business Division 7 (Lord of Vermilion, Gunslinger Stratos) and Business Division 11 aka "Team Asano" (Bravely series, Octopath Traveler series); since 2023, it also comprises employees from the defunct Luminous Productions (Forspoken), a Square Enix subsidiary made of employees from the former Business Division 2 (Final Fantasy XV). Currently, the known title developed internally by the group is Dragon Quest XII, outside of titles overseen and produced by the division and developed by contracted studios. Creative Business Unit III is led by Naoki Yoshida, who was the head of Business Division 5 and focused primarily on MMORPGs, transitioning in 2020 to the single player Final Fantasy XVI. It mainly comprises the former Business Division 5 (Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XIV, Dragon Quest Builders series) Creative Business Unit IV is led by Hirokazu Nishikado and focuses on the Mana series, along with co-development and production of remasters and ports. It comprises the former Business Division 8 (Mana series, along with remasters and ports of different franchises), Business Division 9 (Schoolgirl Strikers, Grimms Business model The business model of post-merger Square Enix is centered on the idea of "polymorphic content", which consists of developing franchises on multiple potential media rather than being restricted by a single gaming platform. An early example of this strategy is Enix's Fullmetal Alchemist manga series, which has been adapted into two anime television series, two movies, and several novels and video games. Other polymorphic projects include the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Code Age, World of Mana, Ivalice Alliance, and Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy subseries. According to Yoichi Wada, "It's very difficult to hit the jackpot, as it were. Once we've hit it, we have to get all the juice possible out of it". Similar to Sony's Greatest Hits program, Square Enix also re-releases their best-selling games at a reduced price under a label designated "Ultimate Hits".The standard game design model Square Enix employs is to establish the plot, characters, and art of the game first. Battle systems, field maps, and cutscenes are created next. According to Taku Murata, this process became the company's model for development after the success of Square's Final Fantasy VII in 1997. The team size for Final Fantasy XIII peaked at 180 artists, 30 programmers, and 36 game designers, but analysis and restructuring were done to outsource large-scale development in the future. Business Video games and franchises Square Enix's primary concentration is on video gaming, and it is primarily known for its role-playing video game franchises. Of its properties, the Final Fantasy franchise, begun in 1987, is the best-selling, with a total worldwide sales of over 173 million units as of March 2022. The Dragon Quest franchise, begun in 1986, is also the best-selling; it is considered one of the most popular game series in Japan and new installments regularly outsell other games at the times of their release, with a total worldwide sale of over 85 million units. More recently, the Kingdom Hearts series (developed in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company beginning in 2002) has become popular, with 36 million units shipped as of March 2022. Other popular series developed by Square Enix include the SaGa series with nearly 10 million copies sold since 1989, the Mana series with over 6 million sales since 1991, and the Chrono series with over 5 million sold since 1995. In addition to their sales numbers, many Square Enix games have been highly reviewed; 27 Square Enix games were included in Famitsu magazine's 2006 "Top 100 Games Ever", with 7 in the top 10 and Final Fantasy X claiming the number 1 position. The company also won IGN's award for Best Developer of 2006 for the PlayStation 2.Square and Enix initially targeted Nintendo home consoles with their games, but Square Enix currently develops games for a wide variety of systems. In the seventh generation of video game consoles, Square Enix released new installments from its major series across all three major systems, including Final Fantasy XIII on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and Dragon Quest X on the Wii. Square Enix has also developed titles for handheld game consoles, including the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita. Also, they have published games for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and various models of mobile phones and modern smartphones. Square Enix mobile phone games became available in 2004 on the Vodafone network in some European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.Before its launch, Michihiro Sasaki, senior vice president of Square Enix, spoke about the PlayStation 3, saying, "We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them, but we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much." Square Enix continued to reiterate their devotion to multi-platform publishing in 2007, promising more support for the North American and European gaming markets where console pluralism is generally more prevalent than in Japan. Their interest in multi-platform development was made evident in 2008 when the previously PlayStation 3-exclusive game Final Fantasy XIII was announced for release on the Xbox 360.In 2008, Square Enix released their first game for the iPod, Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes. Square Enix made a new brand for younger children gaming that same year, known as Pure Dreams. Pure Dreams' first two games, Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends! and Pingu's Wonderful Carnival, were released that year. After acquiring Eidos in 2009, Square Enix combined it with its European publishing wing to create Square Enix Europe, which continues to publish Eidos franchises such as Tomb Raider (88 million sales), Deus Ex (4 million), Thief and Legacy of Kain (3.5 million). Square Enix has also served as the Japanese publisher for Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft games since 2009. In May 2022, Square Enix sold several assets of Square Enix Europe $300 million to Embracer Group, including former Eidos Interactive franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more than 50 others.Square Enix owned franchises and games include: former Square franchises, such as Seiken Densetsu (Mana); former Enix franchises, such as Star Ocean; Square Enix created franchises, such as Drakengard; Taito franchises, such as Space Invaders; Retained former Eidos Interactive franchise Just Cause; Square Enix America created games, such as Quantum Conundrum, Motley Blocks; Square Enix Europe created franchises, such as Life Is Strange. Game engines In 2004, Square Enix began to work on a "common 3D format" that would allow the entire company to develop titles without being restricted to a specific platform: this led to the creation of a game engine named Crystal Tools, which is compatible with the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Windows-based PCs, and to some extent the Wii. It was first shown off at a tech demo shown off at E3 2005 and was later used for Final Fantasy XIII based on the demo's reception. Crystal Tools was also used for Final Fantasy Versus XIII before its re-branding as Final Fantasy XV and its shift onto next-gen platforms. Refinement of the engine continued through the development of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and it underwent a major overhaul for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Since that release, no new titles have been announced using Crystal Tools, and it is believed that the development of the engine has halted permanently.Luminous Engine was originally intended for eighth-generation consoles and unveiled at E3 2012 through a tech demo titled Agni's Philosophy. The first major console title to be developed with Luminous Engine was Final Fantasy XV; the engine's development was done in tandem with the game, and the game's development helped the programming team optimize the engine.In addition to Luminous Engine and custom engines made for individual games and platforms before and since Square Enix often uses other companies' engines and programming languages for their video game properties. Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 was used for games such as The Last Remnant, and more recently, Unreal Engine 4 has been used for projects including Dragon Quest XI, Kingdom Hearts III, and the most recent Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unity has also been used internally for titles including I Am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, and SaGa: Scarlet Grace. The Squirrel language had also been used for the WiiWare title Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. Online gaming Before the merger, Enix published its first online game Cross Gate in Japan, mainland China, and Taiwan in 2001, and Square released Final Fantasy XI in Japan in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and later the personal computer. With the huge success of Final Fantasy XI, the game was ported to the Xbox 360 two years later and was the first MMORPG on the console. All versions of the game used PlayOnline, a cross-platform internet gaming platform and internet service developed by Square Enix. The platform was used as the online service for many games Square Enix developed and published throughout the decade. Due to the success of their MMORPG, Square Enix began a new project called Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion. GamePot, a Japanese game portal, received the license to publish Fantasy Earth in Japan, and it was released in Japan as "Fantasy Earth ZERO." In 2006, however, Square Enix dropped the Fantasy Earth Zero project and sold it to GamePot. Square Enix released Concerto Gate, the sequel to Cross Gate, in 2007.A next-gen MMORPG code named Rapture was developed by the Final Fantasy XI team using the company's Crystal Tools engine. It was unveiled at E3 2009 as Final Fantasy XIV for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows and would be released on September 30, 2010. Dragon Quest X was announced in September 2011 as an MMORPG being developed for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U consoles, which released on August 2, 2012, and March 30, 2013, respectively. Like XIV, it used Crystal Tools.Square Enix also made browser games and Facebook games, like Legend World, Chocobo's Crystal Tower and Knights of the Crystals, and online games for Yahoo! Japan, such as Monster x Dragon, Sengoku Ixa, Bravely Default: Praying Brage, Star Galaxy, and Crystal Conquest. Cloud gaming In 2013, Dragon Quest X was brought to iOS and Android in Japan using NTT DoCoMo as the release platform and Ubitus for the streaming technology. In 2014, it was also brought to 3DS in Japan using Ubitus.On May 8, 2012, Square Enix announced a collaboration with Bigpoint Games to create a free-to-play Cloud gaming platform that "throws players into 'limitless game worlds' directly through their web browser". The service was launched under the name CoreOnline in August 2012. Stating "limited commercial take-up", the service was cancelled on November 29, 2013.In September 2014, a cloud gaming company called Shinra Technologies (previously Project Flare) was created; however, it was closed in January 2016. On October 9, 2014, Square Enix launched another online game service in Japan called Dive In, which allowed players to stream console games to their iOS or Android devices. The service was monetized by the amount of time the players spent playing, with each game offered for free for thirty minutes. The service was cancelled on September 13, 2015. Some Square Enix games are available in Japan on the G-cluster streaming service. Arcade facilities With the merger of Taito businesses into Square Enix, the company gained possession of Taito's arcade infrastructure and facilities and entered the arcade market in 2005. In 2010 Taito revealed NESiCAxLive, a cloud-based system of storing games and changing them through the internet instead of acquiring physical copies. This system was added to its many arcade gaming locations. The company continues to cater to the arcade audience in Japan with arcade-only titles, with game producers in 2015 stating that Square Enix has a loyal fan base that values the arcade gaming experience. In November 2019, Square Enix announced a "Ninja Tower Tokyo" theme park by its newly established Live Interactive Works division. Film The company has made three forays into the film industry. The first, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), was produced by Square subsidiary Square Pictures before the Enix merger; Square Pictures is now a consolidated subsidiary of Square Enix. Its box-office failure caused Enix to delay the merger, which was already under consideration before the creation of the film until Square became profitable once again. In 2005, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, a CGI-animation film based on the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII, set two years after the events of the game. A Deus Ex film was in pre-production in 2012 and, as of 2014, was undergoing rewrites. In 2016 Square Enix revealed a film called Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV based in the world of Final Fantasy XV and a new web series released on YouTube and Crunchyroll entitled Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV. Manga The company has a manga publishing division in Japan (originally from Enix) called Gangan Comics, which publishes content for the Japanese market only. In 2010, however, Square Enix launched a digital manga store for North American audiences via its Members services, which contains several notable series published in Gangan anthologies. Titles published by Gangan Comics include Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, and many others. Other titles include manga adaptations of various Square Enix games, like Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts and Star Ocean. Some of these titles have also been adapted into anime series. Fullmetal Alchemist is the most successful title of Square Enix's manga branch, with more than 64 million volumes sold worldwide. It is licensed in North America by Viz Media, while its two anime adaptations were licensed by Funimation (now known as Crunchyroll) in North America. Starting in Q4 2019, Square Enix began publishing some of its manga series in English. Merchandise Square Enix has created merchandise for virtually all of their video game franchises, many items are available only in Japan. Starting in 2000, Square Enix's former online gaming portal PlayOnline sold merchandise from game franchises including Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story, Chocobo Racing, Front Mission, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy. Mascots from game franchises are a popular focus for merchandise, such as the Chocobo from Final Fantasy, which has been seen as a rubber duck, a plush baby Chocobo, and on coffee mugs. Square Enix also designed a Chocobo character costume for the release of Chocobo Tales. The Slime character from Dragon Quest has also been frequently used in Square Enix merchandise, especially in Japan. On the Japanese Square Enix shopping website, there is also a Slime-focused section called "Smile Slime". Slime merchandise includes plush toys, pencil cases, keychains, game controllers, a stylus, and several board games, including one titled Dragon Quest Slime Racing. In Japan, pork-filled steam buns shaped like slimes have been sold in 2010. For Dragon Quest's 25th anniversary, special items were sold, including business cards, tote bags, and crystal figurines. Rabites from the Mana series have appeared in several pieces of Square Enix merchandise, including plush dolls, cushions, lighters, mousepads, straps, telephone cards, and T-shirts. Square Enix has also made merchandise for third party series, including figures Mass Effect and Halo in 2012. Beginning in 2012, it operates shops called "Square Enix Cafe" in Tokyo, Osaka and Shanghai, which display and sell merchandise, as well as serve café food. Subsidiaries Former subsidiaries Official website Square Enix Western website

MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.The Microsoft Network was initially a subscription-based dial-up online service that later became an Internet service provider named MSN Dial-up. At the same time, the company launched a new web portal named Microsoft Internet Start and set it as the first default home page of Internet Explorer, its web browser. In 1998, Microsoft renamed and moved this web portal to the domain name www.msn.com, where it has remained.In addition to its original MSN Dial-up service, Microsoft has used the 'MSN' brand name for a wide variety of products and services over the years, notably Hotmail (later Outlook.com), Messenger (which was once synonymous with 'MSN' in Internet slang and has now been replaced by Skype), and its web search engine, which is now Bing, and several other rebranded and discontinued services. The current website and suite of apps offered by MSN was first introduced by Microsoft in 2014 as part of a complete redesign and relaunch. MSN is based in the United States and offers international versions of its portal for dozens of countries around the world. History Microsoft Internet Start From 1995 to 1998, the MSN.com domain was used by Microsoft primarily to promote MSN as an online service and Internet service provider. At the time, MSN.com also offered a custom start page and an Internet tutorial, but Microsoft's major web portal was known as "Microsoft Internet Start", and was located at home.microsoft.com. Internet Start served as the default home page for Internet Explorer and offered basic information such as news, weather, sports, stocks, entertainment reports, links to other websites on the Internet, articles by Microsoft staff members, and software updates for Windows. Microsoft's original news website, https://msnbc.com (now NBCNews.com), which launched in 1996, was also tied closely to the Internet Start portal. MSN.com In 1998, the largely underutilized 'MSN.com' domain name was combined with Microsoft Internet Start and reinvented as both a web portal and as the brand for a family of sites produced inside Microsoft's Interactive Media Group. The new website put MSN in direct competition with sites such as Yahoo!, Excite, and Go Network. Because the new format opened up MSN's content to the world for free, the Internet service provider and subscription service were renamed to MSN Internet Access at that time. (That service eventually became known as MSN Dial-up.)The relaunched MSN.com contained a whole family of sites, including original content, channels that were carried over from 'web shows' that were part of Microsoft's MSN 2.0 experiment with its Internet service provider in 1996–97, and new features that were rapidly added. MSN.com became the successor to the default Internet Explorer start page, as all of the previous 'Microsoft Internet Start' website was merged with MSN.com.Some of the original websites that Microsoft launched during that era remain active in some form today. Microsoft Investor, a business news and investments service that was once produced in conjunction with CNBC, is now MSN Money; CarPoint, an automobile comparison and shopping service, is now MSN Autos; and the Internet Gaming Zone, a website offering online casual games, is now MSN Games. Other websites since divested by Microsoft include the travel website Expedia, the online magazine Slate, and the local event and city search website Sidewalk.com. In the late 1990s, Microsoft collaborated with many other service providers, as well as other Microsoft departments, to expand the range of MSN's services. Some examples include MSN adCenter, MSN Shopping (affiliated with eBay, PriceGrabber and Shopping.com), and the Encarta encyclopedia with various levels of access to information. Since then, MSN.com has remained a popular destination, launching many new services and content sites. MSN's Hotmail and Messenger services were promoted from the MSN.com portal, which provided a central place for all of MSN's content. MSN Search (now Bing), a dedicated search engine, launched in 1999. The single sign-in service for Microsoft's online services, Microsoft Passport (now Microsoft account), also launched across all MSN services in 1999. The MSN.com portal and related group of services under the 'MSN' umbrella remained largely the same in the early 2000s. The sports section of the MSN portal was ESPN.com from 2001 to 2004, and FoxSports.com from 2004 to 2014. MSN had an exclusive partnership with MSNBC.com for news content from 1996 until 2012, when Microsoft sold its remaining stake in msnbc.com to NBCUniversal and the website was renamed NBCNews.com. Since then, MSN has launched 'MSN News', an in-house news operation.As of May 2005, MSN.com was the second most visited portal website in the United States with a share of 23.2 percent, behind Yahoo! which held a majority.MSN released a preview of an updated home page and logo on November 3, 2009. It was originally expected to be widely available to over 100 million U.S. customers by early 2010. MSN rolled out the newer logo, together with a redesign of the overall website, on December 25, 2009.In 2012, MSN announced on its blog that it would be unveiling a new version of the MSN.com home page on October 26, exclusively for Windows 8, saying that the new version would be "clean, simple, and built for touch". Microsoft said it would be more app-like due to the speed of Internet Explorer 10. More new features included 'Flip Ahead', which allowed users to swipe from one article to the next. MSN for Windows 8 also had new deals with the AP and Reuters. Rebranding of services Many of MSN's services were reorganized in 2005 and 2006 under a new brand name that Microsoft championed at the time, Windows Live. This move was part of Microsoft's strategy to improve its online offerings using the Windows brand name. The company also overhauled its online software and services due to increasing competition from rivals such as Yahoo! and Google. The new name was introduced one service at a time. The group of Windows Live services used Web 2.0 technology to offer features and functionality through a web browser that were traditionally only available through dedicated software programs. Some of the MSN services affected by the rebranding included MSN Hotmail, which became Windows Live Hotmail (now Outlook.com); MSN Messenger, which became Windows Live Messenger (now integrated into Skype); MSN Search, which became Live Search (now known as Bing); MSN Virtual Earth, which became Live Search Maps (now Bing Maps); MSN Spaces, which became Windows Live Spaces; MSN Alerts, which became Windows Live Alerts; and MSN Groups, which became Windows Live Groups. Some other services, such as MSN Direct, remained a part of the MSN family without transitioning to Windows Live. Following the launch of Windows Live, the MSN brand took on a different focus. MSN became primarily an online content provider of news, entertainment, and common interest topics through its web portal, MSN.com, while Windows Live provided most of Microsoft's online software and services. In 2012, Microsoft began to phase out the Windows Live brand, referring to each service separately by its individual brand name without any 'Windows' prefix or association. Subsequent redesign Microsoft launched a completely rewritten and redesigned MSN website, making use of the company's modern design language, on September 30, 2014. The new MSN portal features a new version of the logo that follows a style similar to other current Microsoft products. The website no longer offers original content, instead of employing editors to repurpose existing content from partners at popular and trusted organizations. Much of the existing content on MSN was eliminated as the website was simplified into a new home page and categories, some of which have corresponding apps: News: The latest news headlines and articles from a variety of hand-picked sources. Synced with the News app. Weather: Current weather conditions, forecasts, maps, news, and traffic. Synced with the Weather app. Entertainment: TV, movies, music, and celebrity news, as well as theater showtimes, tickets, and TV listings. Based on the former Bing Entertainment service. Also includes the MSN Games website for online casual games. Sports: Up-to-the-minute scores, standings, and headlines from leagues worldwide. Synced with the Sports app. Money: Stock market tickers and watchlists, personal finance, real estate, investments, currency converter, and more. Synced with the Money app. Lifestyle: Headlines, features, and other content related to style, home & garden, family, smart living, relationships, and horoscopes. Health & Fitness: Tools and information about weight loss, strength, exercise, nutrition, medicine, and more. Food & Drink: Recipes, cooking tips, news from chefs, cocktails, and shopping lists. Travel: Destinations, trip ideas, hotel search, flight search, flight status, and arrivals and departures. Previously based on Farecast. Autos: Research and buying advice, auto-related news, information for enthusiasts, and coverage of auto shows worldwide. Video: Trending and viral videos, comedy and pop culture, and videos from other MSN categories. Integrates with video search from Bing Videos.The top of the home page provides access to Microsoft services Bing, Outlook.com, Skype, Office Online, OneNote, OneDrive, Bing Maps, and Groove Music, as well as popular social media services Facebook and Twitter. Signing into MSN with a Microsoft account allows for personalized content to appear and to be synchronized across devices on the website and in the corresponding apps. The redesign of the website led to the closure of MSN's longtime personalized home page service 'My MSN', which was made up of customized RSS feeds, as the new website no longer supports user-specified RSS content. However, it added some customizability, allowing each category on the home page to be reordered or hidden. With the 2014 relaunch, MSN now supports responsive design and eliminates the need for a separate mobile website. The redesign of MSN proved positive and helped increase traffic with an additional 10 million daily visitors after two months.In 2022, Microsoft began phasing out MSN for Microsoft Start, with news pages being moved to Start, and ads for the website appearing on the homepage. The homepage is the only element of the site that is still intact. Apps The MSN web-based apps provides users information from sources that publish to MSN.Microsoft launched these apps along with the 2014 redesign of the MSN web portal, rebranding many of the Bing apps that originally shipped with Windows and Windows Phone. News, Weather, Sports, Money, and Travel first shipped with Windows 8, while Health & Fitness and Food & Drink first appeared in Windows 8.1. In December 2014, the apps became available across all the other major mobile device platforms as well: iOS, Android, and Fire OS.The apps allow users a reasonable amount of freedom to decide which sources provide information. Each app has its own color code that is used on the live tile and internally. Originally, each app brought a unified experience with the MSN website and synchronized preferences across devices. There are currently four apps in the suite: Start (previously News), Weather, Sports, and Money. In July 2015, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, and Travel apps on all platforms, and that they will not be bundled with Windows 10; those three apps are no longer offered.After Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone division, Microsoft also started bundling MSN services with its Nokia-branded feature phones, though the only supported model was the Nokia 215. In addition to these apps, Microsoft developed a separate set of mobile apps specifically for MSN China. Microsoft Start Microsoft Start (previously named Microsoft News) is a news aggregator and service that features news headlines and articles chosen by editors. The app includes sections for top stories, U.S., world, money, technology, entertainment, opinion, sports, and crime, along with other miscellaneous stories. It allows users to set their own personalized favorite topics and sources, receive notifications of breaking news through alerts, filter preferred news sources, and alter font sizes to make articles easier to read.Originally, Start included an RSS feed, but that capability was removed; Microsoft currently only allows users to subscribe to specified news sources, thereby curating news. Start uses the chaseable live tile feature introduced in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. If a user clicks on the Microsoft News Start menu tile when a particular story is shown, the user will see a link to that story at the top of the app when it launches. Weather MSN Weather (originally named Bing Weather) shows weather from a user's current location or any other location worldwide, and it allows users to define their favorite places, which will synchronize back to the Microsoft Start and across devices. Users can pin Weather tiles to the Start menu to see local weather conditions from multiple locations at a glance. It also offers satellite maps and has information regarding ski resorts. The app receives its weather conditions and forecasts from a variety of sources internationally. Weather uses weather conditions as the background, making it the only app that does not have a light/dark switch in Windows 10. Weather is not available for iOS; however, it comes preinstalled on the Nokia 215 phone from Microsoft Mobile that runs Series 30+; it is currently the only feature phone to have the app built-in. Money MSN Money (originally MoneyCentral, then MSN Moneycentral, before being rebranded as MSN Money in the mid-2000s - prior to being relaunched as a spin-off of Bing Finance) allows users to set up lists of stocks to watch, follow certain corporations and receive stock updates, get the latest headlines regarding stock markets, view real-time trading figures with a 30-minute delay, track their own personal finances, calculate mortgages, get information on commodities and bonds, and convert currency. E-sports Hub MSN Esports (often referred to as MSN Esports Hub) is a Bing intelligence AI curated webpage for the growing esports industry. Users can watch integrated streams from YouTube or Twitch. Microsoft's advanced AI called "Watch For", the algorithm originally made for Microsoft's Mixer is an artificial intelligence that uses computer vision algorithms on livestreams so that it can alert the viewer of significant moments. This algorithm is implemented in the MSN Esports Hub. Users can also check the calendar for dates of upcoming e-sport events and tournaments or the news for updates on games and their tournament. After the creation of the MSN Esports Hub, Microsoft acquired Smash.gg; an e-sport tournament platform. Discontinued apps Food & Drink MSN Food & Drink (originally named Bing Food & Drink) is a discontinued recipe app that offers news related to foods and drinks, a personal shopping list that synchronizes across devices and the web, and a wine encyclopedia that contains information on over 1.5 million bottles of wine, over 3.3 million tasting notes, and hundreds of cocktail recipes. Users can control the app hands-free, add their own recipes from physical cookbooks or personal recipes by snapping a photo, add notes to recipes, and sort the recipes into collections. The app also collects information from famous chefs and lists them according to their style of cuisine. Health & Fitness MSN Health & Fitness (originally named Bing Health & Fitness) allowed users to track their intake of calories, look up nutritional information for hundreds of thousands of different foods, use a built-in GPS tracker, view step-by-step workouts and exercises with images and videos, check symptoms for various health conditions, and synchronize their health data to third-party devices such as activity trackers. MSN Health & Fitness formerly connected data with the Microsoft HealthVault, but it started using a Microsoft account with MSN's own cloud service to synchronize data when it was rebranded from Bing to MSN. The app is not related in any way to Microsoft's Xbox Fitness or Microsoft Health (the companion app for the Microsoft Band), despite being similar in function. Sports MSN Sports (originally named Bing Sports) displayed various sports scores and standings from hundreds of leagues around the world, as well as aggregated sports-related articles and news headlines. Sports also allowed the user to view slideshows and photo galleries, look up information about individual players and fantasy leagues, and set and track their favorite teams by selecting various topics from the hamburger menu. It also powered various predictive features within Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant.It was discontinued on July 20, 2021, in favor of the web portal. Travel MSN Travel (originally named Bing Travel) was a travel search engine that allows users to book hotels and flights, aggregates travel-related headlines, and offers detailed information about thousands of travel destinations. Data in the app is powered by various travel websites, including Expedia, formerly owned by Microsoft. Other features include finding information on local restaurants, viewing pictures (including panoramas) and historical data about destinations, and reading reviews by previous travelers. If the user is signed in, Cortana can track flights and get hotel information through the app. MSN Travel was the only app in the suite that was exclusive to Windows. The app was discontinued in September 2015 but can still be accessed via the web.Previously, Microsoft had acquired Farecast in 2008, a website in the computer reservations system industry that offered predictions regarding the best time to purchase airline tickets. Farecast was founded in 2003 and collected over 175 billion airfare observations by 2007. Farecast's team of data miners used these airfare observations to build algorithms to predict future airfare price movements. Microsoft integrated it as part of its Live Search group of tools in May 2008 as Live Search Farecast; Microsoft rebranded it as Bing Travel on June 3, 2009, as part of its efforts to create a new search identity. In 2009, there were allegations that Bing Travel had copied its layouts from Kayak.com; Microsoft denied the allegations. By January 2013, Bing Travel results were powered by Kayak.com. As of January 2014, the fare prediction feature had been removed. As of May 2015, Microsoft rebranded the service to MSN Travel. In August 2015, MSN Travel flight search pages changed from being powered by Kayak.com to its competitor Skyscanner. Older mobile apps Microsoft first offered content from its MSN web portal on mobile devices in the early 2000s, through a service called Pocket MSN (in line with its Pocket PC products of the era) and later renamed MSN Mobile. The original MSN Mobile software was preloaded on many cell phones and PDAs, and usually provided access to legacy MSN services like blogs (MSN Spaces), email (Hotmail), instant messaging (MSN Messenger), and web search (now called Bing). Some wireless carriers charged a premium to access it. As many former MSN properties were spun off to Bing, Windows Live, and other successors in the late 2000s, the Microsoft Mobile Services division took over the development of mobile apps related to those services. In the meantime, Microsoft's MSN apps took on a more content-related focus, as did the web portal itself. Previous versions of MSN apps that were bundled with Windows Mobile and early versions of Windows Phone, as well as MSN apps for Android and iOS devices in the early 2010s, were primarily repositories for news articles found on MSN.com. Other earlier MSN mobile apps included versions of MSN Weather and MSN Money for Windows Mobile 6.5, MSN Money Stocks, and a men's magazine called 'MSN OnIt' for Windows Phone 7. International Microsoft's world headquarters is in the United States, so the main MSN website is based there. However, MSN has offered various international versions of its portal since its inception in 1995 for dozens of countries around the world. A list of international MSN affiliates is available at MSN Worldwide.Following the redesign and relaunch of the MSN web portal in 2014, most international MSN websites share the same layout as the U.S. version and are largely indistinguishable from it, aside from their content. There were two exceptions: ninemsn, a longtime partnership between Microsoft and the Nine Network in Australia that launched in 1997 (Microsoft sold its stake in the venture in 2013 and ended its co-branding with Nine in 2016); and MSN China, an entirely customized version of MSN for China (Microsoft discontinued the portal in 2016, replacing it with a page that links to a number of other Chinese websites). See also MSN Dial-up List of services by MSN Microsoft Official website MSN Worldwide

Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, online services such as the Xbox network and Xbox Game Pass, and the development arm Xbox Game Studios. The brand was first introduced in the United States in November 2001, with the launch of the original Xbox console. The original device was the first video game console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. It reached over 24 million units sold by May 2006. Microsoft's second console, the Xbox 360, was released in 2005 and has sold 86 million units as of October 2021. The third console, the Xbox One, was released in November 2013 and has sold 58 million units. The fourth line of Xbox consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, were released in November 2020. The head of Xbox is Phil Spencer, who succeeded former head Marc Whitten in late March 2014. History When Sony Computer Entertainment first announced the PlayStation 2 in 1999, the company had positioned the console as a centerpiece for home entertainment, as it not only would play video games, but also could play audio CDs and video DVDs. Microsoft, whose business had been primarily in supporting the personal computer (PC) business with its Windows operating system, software, and games, saw the PlayStation 2 as a threat to the personal computer.Four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team—Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley, Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes, began to envision what a Microsoft console to compete against the PlayStation 2 would be like. They designed a system that would use many hardware components in common with PCs, effectively running a version of Windows and DirectX to power the games on the console. This approach would make it easy for developers on Windows to build games for their new system, differentiating itself from the custom hardware solutions of most consoles. Numerous names were suggested for this console, including "Direct X Box", and the "Windows Entertainment Project". Microsoft's marketing team conducted consumer surveys of the name, using the name "Xbox" as a control believing this would be least desirable, but found that this had the highest preference from their tests, and was selected as the name of the console.While the original Xbox had modest sales, Microsoft took a large financial loss to support it. However, its performance was sufficient to convince the company to continue to produce the line. Since its release, there have been four generations of Xbox, with the most recent being the Xbox Series X and Series S units. The Xbox has become a direct competitor to Sony's PlayStation brand, both offering high performance gaming systems at roughly similar specifications. Future Microsoft has been recently working to leverage the branding of "Xbox" beyond the console hardware but as a general video game brand, reflected in the renaming of Microsoft Studios to Xbox Game Studios in 2019. Phil Spencer stated in June 2019 that for Microsoft, "The business isn't how many consoles you sell. The business is how many players are playing the games that they buy, how they play." which journalists have taken as a route to de-emphasize console hardware and prioritize games, subscriptions and services for players. Later in February 2020, Spencer said that moving forward, the company does not see "traditional gaming companies" like Nintendo and Sony as their competitors but instead those that offer cloud computing services such as Amazon and Google. Spencer identified that Microsoft Azure is a major component of their plans going forward, which powers its xCloud game streaming service. Spencer also cited mobile gaming as a potential area, and where Microsoft was trying to position itself with its services should this become the more preferred form for gaming. Spencer said "I don't think it's "hardware agnostic" as much as it's 'where you want to play'", in describing how Microsoft was strategizing the Xbox branding for the future. Consoles First generation: Xbox The original Xbox was released on November 15, 2001, in North America, February 22, 2002, in Japan, and March 14, 2002, in Australia and Europe. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market. As part of the sixth generation of video game consoles, the Xbox competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast (which stopped American sales before the Xbox went on sale), and Nintendo's GameCube. The Xbox was built around a 733 MHz 32-bit Intel Pentium III CPU and a 233 MHz Nvidia GeForce 3-based NV2A GPU with 64 MB of memory. The Xbox was the first console offered by an American company after the Atari Jaguar stopped sales in 1996. The name Xbox was derived from a contraction of DirectX Box, a reference to Microsoft's graphics API, DirectX.The integrated Xbox Live service launched in November 2002 allowed players to play games online with a broadband connection. It first competed with Dreamcast's online service but later primarily competed with PlayStation 2's online service. Although the two competing services were free, while Xbox Live required a subscription – as well as broadband-only connection, which was not completely adopted yet – Xbox Live was a success due to it having better servers, features such as a buddy list, and milestone titles such as Halo 2 (released in November 2004), which became the best-selling Xbox video game and was by far the most popular online game for the original Xbox system. Second generation: Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 was released as the successor of the original Xbox in November 2005, competing with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. It featured a custom triple-core 64-bit PowerPC-based processor design by IBM with 512 MB of RAM memory. As of June 2014, 84 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide. The Xbox 360 was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information divulged later that month at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). The console sold out completely upon release in all regions except in Japan. Several retail configurations of the core Xbox 360 model were offered over its lifetime, varying the amount of RAM and internal storage offered. The Xbox 360 showed an expanded Xbox Live service (which now included a limited "Free" tier called Silver), the ability to stream multimedia content from PCs, while later updates added the ability to purchase and stream music, television programs, and films through the Xbox Music and Xbox Video services, along with access to third-party content services through third-party media streaming applications. Microsoft also released Kinect, a motion control system for the Xbox 360 which uses an advanced sensor system. Two major revisions of the Xbox 360 were released following the initial launch. The Xbox 360 S (typically considered as "Slim"), launched in 2010, featured the same core hardware but with a redesigned, slimmer form factor with a smaller-sized 250 GB hard drive. It also added integrated 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, TOSLINK S/PDIF optical audio output, five USB 2.0 ports (compared to the three from older versions) and a special port designed for the Kinect peripheral. The Xbox 360 S replaced the base Xbox 360 unit, which was discontinued, and sold at the same price. A cheaper Xbox 360 S unit, removing the 250 GB drive while adding 4 GB of internal storage, was released later in 2010; the unit allowed users to hook up an external storage solution or purchase a 250 GB internal add-on. The second major revision of the Xbox 360 was the Xbox 360 E, released in 2013. It featured a case style similar to the upcoming Xbox One, and eliminated one USB port and the S/PDIF, YPbPr component and S-video connections, but otherwise shared the same specifications as the Xbox 360 S. Third generation: Xbox One The Xbox One was released on November 22, 2013, in North America, as the successor to the Xbox 360. The Xbox One competes with Sony's PlayStation 4 and Nintendo's Wii U and Switch as part of the eighth generation of video game consoles. It features an AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) built around the 64-bit x86-64 instruction set and can come with up to 12 GB of memory. Announced on May 21, 2013, the Xbox One has an emphasis on internet-based features, including the ability to record and stream gameplay, and the ability to integrate with a set-top box to watch cable or satellite TV through the console with an enhanced guide interface and Kinect-based voice control.Following its unveiling, the Xbox One proved controversial for its original digital rights management and privacy practices; while Microsoft touted the ability for users to access their library of games (regardless of whether they were purchased physically or digitally) on any Xbox One console without needing their discs, and the ability to share their entire library with 10 designated "family" members, all games would have to be tied to the user's Xbox Live account and their Xbox One console, and the console would be required to connect to the Internet on a periodic basis (at least once every 24 hours) to synchronize the library, or else the console would be unable to play any games at all. After an overwhelmingly negative response from critics and consumers (who also showed concerns that the system could prevent or hinder the resale of used games), Microsoft announced that these restrictions would be dropped. Microsoft was also criticized for requiring the Xbox One to have its updated Kinect peripheral plugged in to function, which critics and privacy advocates believed could be used as a surveillance device. As a gesture toward showing a commitment to user privacy, Microsoft decided to allow the console to function without Kinect.On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced the Xbox One S at E3 2016, which featured a smaller form factor, as well as support for 4K video (including streaming and Ultra HD Blu-ray) and HDR. At E3 2017, Microsoft unveiled Xbox One X, a high-end model with improved hardware designed to facilitate the playing of games at 4K resolution.Since November 2014, Microsoft has stated it will not release sales numbers for the Xbox One line. Xbox head Phil Spencer said that while they do internally track sales figures, they do not want their developers to be focused on these numbers as to affect their products, and thus have opted not to report further sales of Xbox hardware going forward. In July 2023, Microsoft revealed that the Xbox One line has sold over 58 million units. Fourth generation: Xbox Series X and Series S The fourth generation of Xbox models, simply named Xbox, includes the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S that launched on November 10, 2020. Both are considered members of the ninth generation of video game consoles alongside the PlayStation 5, also released that month. Like the Xbox One, the consoles use an AMD 64-bit x86-64 CPU and GPU with up to 16 GB of memory. The Xbox Series X and Series S are high- and low-end versions comparable to the Xbox One X and Xbox One S models, respectively, with all games designed for this model family playable on both systems. The Xbox Series X is estimated to be four times as powerful as Xbox One X, with support for 8K resolution and up to 120 frames-per-second rendering, with a nominal target of 4K resolution at 60 frames per second. The Xbox Series S is a digital-only unit with less graphic processing power, but can still render at a nominal 1440p resolution at 60 frames per second with support for 4K upscaling. Both consoles features support for new graphics rendering systems including real-time ray-tracing, and the new Xbox Velocity Architecture that works with the internal SSD drive to maximize the rate of texture streaming to the graphics processor, among other features. Besides games for this new console family, both consoles are fully compatible with all Xbox One games and most hardware, as well as all backward compatible games that were playable on the Xbox One from the Xbox 360 and original Xbox console.To help transition consumers, Microsoft introduced its Smart Delivery system which most of its first-party games and several third-party games will use to offer free updates to Xbox One versions of games to the Xbox Series X/S version over the first few years of the consoles' launch. Comparison The following table is a comparison of the four generations of Xbox hardware. Games Each console has a variety of games. Most games released on the original Xbox are backwards compatible and can be played directly on its successor, Xbox 360. Backward compatibility with Xbox 360 titles was added to Xbox One a year-and-a-half after its launch in June 2015, with specific titles requiring Kinect or USB peripherals not being supported. The Xbox Series X/S supports backward compatibility with all Xbox One titles (except for Kinect-required games), as well as all the Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles that were made available for Xbox One. Games using the Xbox and Xbox Live brands have also been released for Microsoft Windows, Windows Phone, Android, and iOS devices. Xbox games can also be played using the Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming service. Services Microsoft has used the razor and blades model to sell the family of Xbox consoles, selling the console at or below the price of its manufacturing costs, while earning revenue from licensing fees it collects from publishers and developers and from its services offered to players. Xbox network Xbox network (formerly known as Xbox Live) is an online service with over 65 million users worldwide (as of July 2019). It comprises an online virtual market, the Xbox Games Store, which allows the purchase and download of games and various forms of multimedia. Online gaming on the Xbox first started on November 15, 2002, worldwide. The service is still active and continues to be played by gamers. Microsoft Store Microsoft Store is an online marketplace made for Microsoft's Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles. The marketplace is where you can buy games, apps, movies, etc. through digital download. The Xbox 360 console uses the previous Xbox Games Store client. Xbox App The Xbox app is a companion application available for Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11, iOS, Android (version 4.0 and above), and Windows Server 2012. It was announced by Microsoft during E3 2012 and released on October 26, 2012, coinciding with the release of Windows 8. It can connect with the console and allows more interactive entertainment, allowing mobile devices to potentially serve as second screens and remote controller. Xbox Game Pass Cloud Gaming Xbox Game Pass Cloud Gaming (codenamed xCloud during development) is the Microsoft's Xbox cloud gaming streaming service. Content filter In 2019, Microsoft released a content filtering to stop swearing and toxicity in online gaming. The service enables players to report messages, Gamertags, photos, and any other toxic content on its platform. Xbox Game Pass Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service from Microsoft for use with the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Windows 10 and Windows 11. The Xbox Game Pass grants users access to a catalog of games from a range of publishers for a single monthly subscription price. The service was launched on June 1, 2017. Xbox Wire Xbox Wire is Xbox's news blog, launched by Microsoft in May 2013 in preparation for the announcement of the Xbox One. It was Microsoft's first Xbox-focused blog since it shut down Gamerscore in early 2009. In March 2022, a Japanese-language version of the site was published as part of Microsoft's focus on the Japanese gaming market. Software The main interface for all four generations of Xbox has been the Xbox Dashboard, which allows users to manage games stored on the console, play media, and access system settings. Since 2002, the Dashboard has been integrated with the Xbox network which provides online functionality and storefront options. The operating systems for all Xbox platforms are heavily modified versions of the Windows NT operating system; the original Xbox and the Xbox 360 system softwares are based on Windows 2000, and the latest system software for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S is based on Windows 11, with support for Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications. Xbox Family Settings App In May 2020, Xbox presented a preview version of an app that allows parents and guardians to set daily limits for their children's playing time, provides weekly activity reports, filters out age-restricted games, and places limits on online communication. This is the attempt of Microsoft, Xbox's owner, to promote a message of responsible gaming. Controllers Xbox controller Released in 2001, the Xbox control pad was the first controller made for the original Xbox. The Xbox controller features two analog sticks, a pressure-sensitive directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, and Black and White buttons). The original Xbox controller (nicknamed the "Fatty" and later the "Duke") was the controller initially bundled with Xbox systems for all territories except Japan, which received a more compact controller called the Controller S. The Controller S was later made the standard included controller in all territories. Xbox 360 controller Released in 2005, the Xbox 360 controller for the Xbox 360 succeeded its predecessor. A standard Xbox 360 controller features eleven digital buttons, two analog triggers, two analog sticks and a digital D-pad. The right face of the controller features four digital action buttons; a green "A" button, red "B" button, blue "X" button and yellow "Y" button. The lower right houses the right analog stick, in the lower left is a digital D-pad and on the left face is the left analog stick. Both analog sticks can also be "clicked in" to activate a digital button beneath. In the center of the controller face are digital "Start", "Back" and "Guide" buttons. The "Guide" button is labelled with the Xbox logo, and is used to turn on the console/controller and to access the guide menu. It is also surrounded by the "ring of light", which indicates the controller number, as well as flashing when connecting and to provide notifications. The left and right "shoulders" each feature a digital shoulder button, or "bumper", and an analog trigger. Xbox Wireless Controller (2013–present) Xbox One controller The Xbox One console has a revised controller with forty improvements over the 360's controller. This new controller is built to work with Kinect. The Start and Back buttons are replaced with Menu and View buttons. It has impulse triggers that replace the regular triggers. The Xbox button still brings up the mini-guide as of recent dashboard versions, though in earlier iterations it brought up the main dashboard menu while leaving the game uninterrupted. Xbox Series X/S Controller The fourth generation Xbox Controller doesn't change much from the Xbox One controller, but the new wireless Xbox Controller does add a capture and share button, a hybrid d-pad, and better gripping on the bumpers and triggers. The controller is also promised to be cross compatible with certain PC's and mobile devices. Xbox Adaptive Controller The Xbox Adaptive Controller is a special controller designed for accessibility features for players. Besides being physically larger than typical controllers, it includes additional ports to allow other devices to be connected and mapped to other controller functions. The controller is not limited to just Xbox and Windows platforms but also is compatible with the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Other accessories Kinect Kinect (stylized as KINECT) is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 video game console and Windows PCs. Based around a webcam-style add-on peripheral for the Xbox 360 console, it enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures and spoken commands. The project is aimed at broadening the Xbox 360's audience beyond its typical gamer base. Kinect competes with the Wii Remote Plus and PlayStation Move with PlayStation Eye motion controllers for the Wii and PlayStation 3 home consoles, respectively. A version for Windows was released on February 1, 2012.Kinect was launched in North America on November 4, 2010, in Europe on November 10, 2010, in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore on November 18, 2010, and in Japan on November 20, 2010. Purchase options for the sensor peripheral include a bundle with the game Kinect Adventures and console bundles with either a 4 GB or 250 GB Xbox 360 console and Kinect Adventures.The Kinect claimed the Guinness World Record of being the "fastest selling consumer electronics device" after selling a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days. 24 million units of the Kinect sensor had been shipped as of January 2012.Microsoft released Kinect software development kit for Windows 7 on June 16, 2011. This SDK was meant to allow developers to write Kinecting apps in C++/CLI, C#, or Visual Basic .NET.Additional information on the Xbox One Kinect was released on June 6, 2013, including information on how to turn off the "always on" feature. Although featuring improved performance over the original Xbox 360 Kinect, its successor the Xbox One Kinect was subject to mixed responses. It was praised for its wide-angle, its fast response time and high-quality camera. However, the Kinect's inability to understand some accents in English was criticized. Furthermore, controversies surround Microsoft's intentional tying of the sensor with the Xbox One console despite the initial requirements for the sensor being plugged in at all times having been revised since its initial announcement. There have also been a number of concerns regarding privacy. Headsets When the Xbox Live online service was launched in 2002, the Xbox Communicator headset was included with the Live Starter Kit. The Communicator, which enabled in-game voice chat, consisted of a wired headset and an interface module. The module plugged into the controller's top expansion slot, and the headset plugged into the module; the interface module was equipped with a dial to control volume and a button to mute the microphone. The headset socket on the module was a standard 2.5mm TRS audio jack with monaural input and output, compatible with cellular phone headsets. Xbox 360 controllers featured a built-in monaural 2.5mm TRS jack also compatible with standard cellular phone headsets, allowing players to reuse the Xbox Communicator headset and chat on Xbox Live without a separate interface module. The premium console bundle included a wired Xbox 360 Live Communicator headset with grey and white cosmetics matching the console, which also was available separately; the wired headset connected to the audio jack on the bottom of the controller through a wide plug that included mute and volume controls. An updated Xbox 360 Headset was released in 2010 with black cosmetics, bundled with the Xbox 360 S; for the revised wired headset, the mute/volume controls were moved to a position inline along the cable. Microsoft also announced the Xbox 360 Wireless Headset, a first-party single-ear headset accessory designed for and released with the Xbox 360 console in November 2005. Special editions of the wireless headset were released with colors themed for Halo 3 (green/orange, September 2007), the Xbox 360 S (black, 2010), and Halo: Reach (silver, September 2010). It was replaced by the Xbox 360 Wireless Headset with Bluetooth in 2011, which could be used with the console (using the Xbox wireless protocol) or a phone (using Bluetooth).The initial revision of the Xbox One Wireless Controller (Model 1537) also included a 2.5mm monaural jack compatible with standard cellular phone headsets. Microsoft bundled the Xbox One Chat Headset with each console starting from launch in 2013; the headset was permanently wired to an interface module that plugged into the controller's expansion port and provided microphone mute and volume controls. In addition, Microsoft released the Xbox One Stereo Headset in early March 2014, bundled with a Stereo Headset Adapter, which allowed players to listen to in-game audio blended with chat simultaneously. The Adapter connected to the controller's expansion port and headset jack, and the Headset connected to the Adapter through a 3.5mm plug. Prior headsets released with the Xbox and Xbox 360 were limited to voice chat only. A white-colored special edition was released in fall 2016. The next revision of the controller (Model 1697) replaced with 2.5mm jack with a 3.5mm jack.A new Xbox Wireless Headset was introduced in February 2021, targeted for use on the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows computers. The outer surface of each earcup is a rotary control; the right earcup controls overall volume, and the left earcup controls game/chat mix level. It is equipped with both proprietary Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth radios, and could be connected to both simultaneously. A corresponding Xbox Stereo Headset, which omits the wireless connections in favor of a standard 3.5mm plug and also omits the game/chat mix control dial, was introduced in August 2021 with a reduced price. Marketing In 2016, Microsoft announced that it would hold its own Xbox FanFest instead of a press conference at the Gamescom annual European video game convention. Microsoft held an Xbox FanFest in Sydney in September 2016.Microsoft held a 20th anniversary celebration stream for the Xbox on November 15, 2021. During it, they announced that a documentary behind the history of the Xbox, titled Power On: The Story of Xbox. The documentary was released in six parts starting on December 13, 2021. The documentary won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Camera Editing. Official website

The GameCube is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii (2006). In the sixth generation of video game consoles, the GameCube competed with Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Flagship games include Super Smash Bros. Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Pikmin, Pikmin 2, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Chibi-Robo!, and Animal Crossing. Development was enabled by the 1997 formation of computer graphics company ArtX, of former SGI employees who had created the Nintendo 64, and which was later acquired by ATI to produce the GameCube's GPU. In May 1999, Nintendo announced codename Dolphin, released in 2001 as the GameCube. It is Nintendo's first console to use optical discs instead of ROM cartridges, supplemented by writable memory cards for saved games. Unlike its competitors, it is solely focused on gaming and does not play mass media like DVD or CD. The console supports limited online gaming for a few games via a GameCube broadband or modem adapter and can connect to a Game Boy Advance with a link cable for exclusive in-game features using the handheld as a second screen and controller. The GameCube supports e-Reader cards to unlock special features in a few games. The Game Boy Player add-on runs Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridge games. Reception of the GameCube was mixed. It was praised for its controller and library of high-quality games, but was criticized for its lack of multimedia features. Nintendo sold 21.74 million GameCube units worldwide, much fewer than anticipated, and discontinued it in 2007. It was succeeded by the Wii; the first model launched in November 2006 has full backward compatibility with GameCube games and most accessories. History Background In 1997, a graphics hardware design company called ArtX was launched with twenty engineers who had previously worked at SGI. ArtX was led by Wei Yen, who had been SGI's head of Nintendo Operations and of Project Reality, which from 1993 to 1996 had scaled down SGI's supercomputer design to become the Nintendo 64. Development Partnering with Nintendo in May 1998, ArtX began the complete design of the system logic and graphics processor (codenamed Flipper) of Nintendo's sixth-generation video game console. The console's succession of codenames was N2000, Star Cube, and Nintendo Advance. On May 12, 1999, the console was first publicly announced at Nintendo's press conference with the codename Dolphin, as the successor to the Nintendo 64. This included strategic alliances with IBM to create Dolphin's PowerPC-based CPU, codenamed Gekko, and with Panasonic (Matsushita) to create its DVD drive and its own Dolphin-based devices. Nintendo then began providing development kits to game developers such as Rare and Retro Studios.In April 2000, ArtX was acquired by ATI, whereupon the Flipper graphics processor design had already been mostly completed by ArtX and was not overtly influenced by ATI. In total, ArtX cofounder Greg Buchner recalled that their portion of the console's hardware design timeline had arced from inception in 1998 to completion in 2000. Of the ArtX acquisition, an ATI spokesperson said, "ATI now becomes a major supplier to the game console market via Nintendo. The Dolphin platform is reputed to be king of the hill in terms of graphics and video performance with 128-bit architecture."The console was announced as the GameCube at a press conference in Japan on August 25, 2000, abbreviated as both "NGC" and "GC" in Japan and "GCN" in Europe and North America. Nintendo unveiled its software lineup for the sixth-generation console at E3 2001, focusing on fifteen launch games, including Luigi's Mansion and Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. Several games originally scheduled to launch with the console were delayed. It is also the first Nintendo home console since the Famicom not to have a Mario launch game.Long before the console's launch, Nintendo had developed and patented an early prototype of motion controls for the GameCube, with which developer Factor 5 had experimented for its launch games. Greg Thomas, Sega of America's VP of Development said, "What does worry me is Dolphin's sensory controllers [which are rumored to include microphones and headphone jacks] because there's an example of someone thinking about something different." These motion control concepts would not be deployed to consumers for several years, until the Wii Remote.Prior to the GameCube's release, Nintendo focused resources on the launch of the Game Boy Advance, a handheld game console and successor to the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color. As a result, several games originally destined for the Nintendo 64 console were postponed to become early releases on the GameCube. The last first-party game in 2001 for the Nintendo 64 was released in May, one month before the Game Boy Advance's launch and six months before the GameCube's, due to the company's shift in resources. Concurrently, Nintendo was developing GameCube software provisioning future connectivity with the Game Boy Advance. Certain games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, can use the handheld as a secondary screen and controller when connected to the console via a link cable.Nintendo began its marketing campaign with the catchphrase "The Nintendo Difference" at its E3 2001 reveal. The goal was to distinguish itself from the competition as an entertainment company. Later advertisements have the slogan, "Born to Play", and game ads feature a rotating cube animation that morphs into a GameCube logo and end with a voice whispering, "GameCube". On May 21, 2001, the console's launch price of US$199 was announced, $100 lower than that of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Nintendo spent $76 million marketing the GameCube.In September 2020, leaked documents included Nintendo's plans for a GameCube model that would be both portable with a built-in display and dockable to a TV, similar to its later console the Nintendo Switch. Other leaks suggest plans for a GameCube successor, codenamed Tako, with HD graphics and slots for SD and memory cards, apparently resulting from a partnership with ATI (now AMD) and scheduled for release in 2005. Release The GameCube was launched in Japan on September 14, 2001. Approximately 500,000 units were shipped in time to retailers. The console was scheduled to launch two months later in North America on November 5, 2001, but the date was pushed back in an effort to increase the number of available units. The console eventually launched in North America on November 18, 2001, with over 700,000 units shipped to the region. Other regions followed suit the following year beginning with Europe in the second quarter of 2002.On April 22, 2002, veteran third-party Nintendo console developer Factor 5 announced its 3D audio software development kit titled MusyX. In collaboration with Dolby Laboratories, MusyX provides motion-based surround sound encoded as Dolby Pro Logic II.The Triforce arcade board is a joint development between Nintendo, Namco, and Sega, based on the GameCube's design. Its games include Mario Kart Arcade GP and F-Zero AX. Discontinuation Nintendo launched the Wii, the home console successor to the GameCube, on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 in other regions. In February 2007, Nintendo announced that it had ceased first-party support for the GameCube and that the console had been discontinued, as it was shifting its manufacturing and development efforts towards the Wii and Nintendo DS. GameCube controllers, game discs, and certain accessories continued to be supported via the Wii's backward compatibility, although this feature was removed in later iterations of the Wii console. The final game officially released on the GameCube was Madden NFL 08, on August 14, 2007. Several games originally developed for the GameCube were either reworked for a Wii release, such as Super Paper Mario, or released on both consoles, such as the Wii launch game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. GameCube controllers continued to be supported via backward compatibility on Nintendo's next consoles, the Wii U, and Nintendo Switch, with the GameCube controller adapter in 2014's Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 2018's Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Hardware Howard Cheng, technical director of Nintendo technology development, said the company's goal was to select a "simple RISC architecture" to help speed the development of games by making it easier on software developers. IGN reported that the system was "designed from the get-go to attract third-party developers by offering more power at a cheaper price. Nintendo's design document for the console specifies that cost is of utmost importance, followed by space." Hardware partner ArtX's Vice President Greg Buchner stated that their guiding thought on the console's hardware design was to target the developers rather than the players, and to "look into a crystal ball" and discern "what's going to allow the Miyamoto-sans of the world to develop the best games". Initiating the GameCube's design in 1998, Nintendo partnered with ArtX (then acquired by ATI Technologies during development) for the system logic and the GPU, and with IBM for the CPU. IBM designed a 32-bit PowerPC-based processor with custom architectural extensions for the next-generation console, known as Gekko, which runs at 486 MHz and features a floating point unit (FPU) capable of a total throughput of 1.9 GFLOPS and a peak of 10.5 GFLOPS. Described as "an extension of the IBM PowerPC architecture", the Gekko CPU is based on the PowerPC 750CXe with IBM's 0.18 μm CMOS technology, which features copper interconnects. Codenamed Flipper, the GPU runs at 162 MHz, and in addition to graphics manages other tasks through its audio and input/output (I/O) processors.The GameCube is Nintendo's first console to not use primarily cartridge media, following the Famicom Data Recorder, Famicom Disk System, SNES-CD, and 64DD which represent past explorations of complementary storage technologies. The GameCube introduced a proprietary miniDVD optical disc format for up to 1.5 GB of data. It was designed by Matsushita Electric Industrial (now Panasonic Corporation) with a proprietary copy-protection scheme unlike the Content Scramble System (CSS) in standard DVDs. The size is sufficient for most games, although a few multi-platform games require an extra disc, higher video compression, or removal of content. By comparison, the PlayStation 2 and Xbox use CDs and DVDs up to 8.5 GB. Like its predecessor, the Nintendo 64, GameCube models were produced in several different color motifs. The system launched in "Indigo", the primary color shown in advertising and on the logo, and in "Jet Black". One year later, Nintendo released a "Platinum" limited-edition GameCube, which uses a silver color scheme for both the console and controller. A "Spice" orange-colored console was eventually released only in Japan, though that scheme is only on controllers released in other countries.Nintendo developed stereoscopic 3D technology for the GameCube, supported by one launch game, Luigi's Mansion. However, the feature never reached production. 3D televisions were not widespread, and it was deemed that compatible displays and crystals for the add-on accessories would be too cost-prohibitive for the consumer. Two audio Easter eggs can be invoked when the power is activated with the "Z" button on the Player 1 controller held down, or with four controllers connected and holding down the "Z" buttons. Storage The GameCube features two memory card ports for saving game data. Nintendo released three memory card options: Memory Card 59 in gray (512 KB), Memory Card 251 in black (2 MB), and Memory Card 1019 in white (8 MB). These are often advertised in megabits instead: 4 Mb, 16 Mb, and 64 Mb, respectively. Memory cards with larger capacities were released by third-party manufacturers. Controller Nintendo learned from its experiences—both positive and negative—with the Nintendo 64's three-handled controller design and chose a two-handled, "handlebar" design for the GameCube. The shape was popularized by Sony's PlayStation controller released in 1994 and its follow-up DualShock series in 1997 with vibration feedback and two analog sticks to improve the 3D experience. Nintendo and Microsoft designed similar features in the controllers for their sixth-generation consoles, but instead of having the analog sticks in parallel, they are staggered by swapping the positions of the directional pad (d-pad) and left analog stick. The GameCube controller features a total of eight buttons, two analog sticks, a d-pad, and a rumble motor. The primary analog stick is on the left with the d-pad located below and closer to the center. On the right are four buttons: a large, green "A" button in the center, a smaller red "B" button to the left, an "X" button to the right, and a "Y" button at the top. Below and to the inside is a yellow "C" analog stick, which often serves a variety of in-game functions, such as controlling the camera angle. The Start/Pause button is located in the middle, and the rumble motor is encased within the center of the controller.On the top are two "pressure-sensitive" trigger buttons marked "L" and "R". Each essentially provides two functions: one analog and one digital. As the trigger is depressed, it emits an increasing analog signal. Once fully depressed, the trigger "clicks" with a digital signal that a game can use for a separate function. There is also a purple, digital button on the right side marked "Z".The A button has a uniquely prominent size and placement, having been the primary action button in past Nintendo controller designs. The rubberized analog stick, within the overall button orientation, addresses "Nintendo thumb" pain.In 2002, Nintendo introduced the WaveBird Wireless Controller, the first wireless gamepad developed by a first-party console manufacturer. The RF-based wireless controller is similar in design to the standard controller. It communicates with the GameCube with a wireless receiver dongle. Powered by two AA batteries, it lacks vibration. Compatibility The GameCube uses GameCube Game Discs, and the Game Boy Player accessory runs Game Pak cartridges for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance. The original version of the GameCube's successor, the Wii, supports backward compatibility with GameCube controllers, memory cards, and games but not the Game Boy Player or other hardware attachments. However, later revisions of the Wii—including the "Family Edition" released in 2011 and the Wii Mini released in 2012—do not support any GameCube hardware or software. Panasonic Q The Panasonic Q is a hybrid version of the GameCube with a standard DVD player, developed by Panasonic in a strategic alliance with Nintendo to develop the optical drive for the original GameCube hardware. Its stainless steel case is completely revised with a DVD-sized front-loading tray, a backlit LCD screen with playback controls, and a carrying handle like the GameCube. Announced by Panasonic on October 19, 2001, it was released exclusively in Japan on December 14 at a suggested retail price of ¥39,800; however, low sales resulted in Panasonic announcing the discontinuation of the Q on December 18, 2003. The Q supports CDs, DVDs, and GameCube discs but there is virtually no integration between the GameCube and DVD player modes. Software The GameCube is Nintendo's first home console with a system menu, activated by powering on without a valid game disc or by holding down the A button while one is loaded. Games In its lifespan from 2001 to 2007, Nintendo licensed over 600 GameCube games. Nintendo bolstered the console's popularity by creating new franchises, such as Pikmin and Animal Crossing, and renewing some that had skipped the Nintendo 64, such as with Metroid Prime. Longer standing franchises include the critically acclaimed The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Super Mario Sunshine, and the GameCube's best-selling game, Super Smash Bros. Melee, at 7 million copies worldwide. Other Nintendo games are successors to Nintendo 64 games, such as F-Zero GX; Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour; Mario Kart: Double Dash; Mario Party 4, 5, 6, and 7; Mario Power Tennis; and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Though committed to its software library, Nintendo was still criticized for not releasing enough launch window games and by the release of Luigi's Mansion instead of a 3D Mario game. Nintendo had struggled with its family-friendly image during the late 1990s and most of the 2000s. However, during this period, it released more video games for a mature audience with mostly successful results. While the video game industry was focusing on more mature audiences and online connections, Nintendo regained older players who had gravitated to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox during the early 2000s. Some games aimed at older audiences were critically and financially successful—more than on Dreamcast, and less than on PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Such examples include The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, Killer7, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Resident Evil (2002), Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime II: Echoes, Soul Calibur II, Resident Evil Zero, F-Zero GX, Star Fox Adventures, and Star Fox Assault. One of the most well-known GameCube games for mature audiences is Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, which underperformed financially, but garnered critical acclaim and is now regarded as a cult classic. Third-party support Early in Nintendo's history, the company had achieved considerable success with third-party developer support on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES. Competition from the Sega Genesis and Sony PlayStation in the 1990s changed the market's landscape and reduced Nintendo's ability to obtain exclusive, third-party support on the Nintendo 64. The Nintendo 64 Game Pak cartridge format increased the cost to manufacture software, as opposed to the cheaper, higher-capacity optical discs on PlayStation.With the GameCube, Nintendo intended to reverse the trend as evidenced by the number of third-party games available at launch. The new optical disc format increased game storage capacity significantly and reduced production costs. Successful exclusives include Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader from Factor 5, Resident Evil 4 from Capcom, and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes from Konami. Sega discontinued its Dreamcast console to become a third-party developer, porting Dreamcast games such as Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure 2, and developing new franchises, such as Super Monkey Ball. Longtime Nintendo partner Rare, which had developed GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, and the Donkey Kong Country series, released Star Fox Adventures for GameCube, its final Nintendo game before acquisition by Microsoft in 2002. Several third-party developers were contracted to work on new games for Nintendo franchises, including Star Fox: Assault (which became a Player's Choice re-release), Donkey Konga by Namco, and Wario World from Treasure.Third-party GameCube support was some of the most extensive of any Nintendo console predating the Wii. Some third-party developers, such as Midway, Namco, Activision, Konami, Ubisoft, THQ, Disney Interactive Studios, Humongous Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and EA Sports, continued to release GameCube games into 2007. One of the biggest third-party GameCube developers was Sega, which had quit the console hardware market to become a third-party game developer after the failure of the Dreamcast. It partnered with long-time rival Nintendo, and with Microsoft and Sony, to recuperate profits lost from the Dreamcast. Sega was a successful third-party developer since the early 2000s, mostly those for the family market, such as Super Monkey Ball, Phantasy Star Online, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, and Sonic Heroes. Online gaming Nintendo's GameCube did not put heavy focus on online games earlier in the console's life. Only eight GameCube games support network connectivity, five with Internet support and three with local area network (LAN) support. The only Internet capable games released in western territories are three role-playing games (RPGs) in Sega's Phantasy Star series: Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II, Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus, and Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution. The official servers were decommissioned in 2007, but players can still connect to fan maintained private servers. Japan received two additional games with Internet capabilities, a cooperative RPG, Homeland and a baseball game with downloadable content, Jikkyō Powerful Pro Yakyū 10. Lastly, three racing games have LAN multiplayer modes: 1080° Avalanche, Kirby Air Ride, and Mario Kart: Double Dash. Those can be forced over the Internet with third-party PC software capable of tunneling the GameCube's network traffic.Online play requires an official broadband or modem adapter because the GameCube lacks out of the box network capabilities. Nintendo never commissioned any Internet services for GameCube, but allowed other publishers to manage custom online experiences. Reception The GameCube received mixed reviews following its launch. PC Magazine praised the overall hardware design and quality of games available at launch. CNET gave an average review rating, noting that though the console lacks a few features offered by its competition, it is relatively inexpensive, has a great controller design, and launched a decent lineup of games. In later reviews, criticism mounted against the console often centering on its overall look and feel, describing it as "toy-ish". With poor sales figures and the associated financial harm to Nintendo, a Time International article called the GameCube an "unmitigated disaster".Retrospectively, Joystiq compared the GameCube's launch window to its successor, the Wii, noting that the GameCube's "lack of games" resulted in a subpar launch, and the console's limited selection of online games damaged its market share in the long run. Time International concluded that the system had low sales figures, because it lacked "technical innovations". Sales In Japan, between 280,000 and 300,000 GameCube consoles were sold during the first three days of its sale, out of an initial shipment of 450,000 units. During its launch weekend, $100 million worth of GameCube products were sold in North America. The console was sold out in several stores, faster than initial sales of both of its competitors, the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. Nintendo reported that the most popular launch game is Luigi's Mansion, with more sales at its launch than Super Mario 64 had. Other popular games include Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader and Wave Race: Blue Storm. By early December 2001, 600,000 units had been sold in the US.Nintendo predicted 50 million GameCube units by 2005, but only sold 22 million GameCube units worldwide during its lifespan, placing it slightly behind the Xbox's 24 million, though it did manage to outsell the Xbox in Japan, and well behind the PlayStation 2's 155 million. Its sales exceeded that of the Xbox 360 in Japan. The GameCube's predecessor, the Nintendo 64, also outperformed it at nearly 33 million units. It also exceeded the short-lived Dreamcast, which yielded 9.13 million units. In September 2009, IGN ranked the GameCube 16th in its list of best gaming consoles of all time, placing it behind all three of its sixth-generation competitors: the PlayStation 2 (3rd), the Dreamcast (8th), and the Xbox (11th). As of March 31, 2003, 9.55 million GameCube units had been sold worldwide, behind Nintendo's initial goal of 10 million consoles. Two Ars Technica articles from 2006 showed that Nintendo had officially sold 24 million GameCube consoles worldwide. Many of Nintendo's own first-party games, such as Super Smash Bros. Melee, Pokémon Colosseum, and Mario Kart: Double Dash, had strong sales, though this did not typically benefit third-party developers or directly drive sales of their games. However, at the same time, these first-party games, and second-party and third-party games, elevated the GameCube.Sales of many cross-platform games—such as sports franchises released by Electronic Arts—were far below their PlayStation 2 and Xbox counterparts, eventually prompting some developers to scale back or completely cease support for the GameCube. Exceptions include Sega's family friendly Sonic Adventure 2 and Super Monkey Ball, which reportedly yielded more sales on GameCube than most of the company's games on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. In June 2003, Acclaim Entertainment CEO Rod Cousens said that the company would no longer support the GameCube, and criticized it as a system "that don't deliver profits". Acclaim would later rescind his claims, by saying the company would elevate support for the system. This decision was made unclear after the company filed for bankruptcy in August 2004. In September 2003, Eidos Interactive announced to end support for the GameCube, as the publisher was losing money from developing for Nintendo's console. This led to several games in development being canceled for the system. Eidos's CEO Mike McGravey would say that the GameCube was a "declining business". However, after the company's purchase by the SCi Entertainment Group in 2005, Eidos resumed development for the system and released Lego Star Wars: The Video Game and Tomb Raider: Legend. Several third-party games originally intended to be GameCube exclusives—most notably Capcom's Viewtiful Joe and Resident Evil 4—were eventually ported to other systems in an attempt to maximize profits following lackluster sales of the original GameCube versions. In March 2003, now-defunct UK retailer Dixons removed all GameCube consoles, accessories and games from its stores. That same month, another UK retailer Argos, cut the price of the GameCube in their stores to £78.99, which was more than £50 cheaper than Nintendo's SRP for the console at the time. However, in October of that year, they did eventually restock their supply of consoles after a price drop was ordered which caused the console sales to outpace the PlayStation 2 for a week.With sales sagging and millions of unsold consoles in stock, Nintendo halted GameCube production for the first nine months of 2003 to reduce surplus units. Sales rebounded slightly after a price drop to US$99.99 on September 24, 2003 and the release of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition bundle. A demo disc, the GameCube Preview Disc, was also released in a bundle in 2003. Beginning with this period, GameCube sales continued to be steady, particularly in Japan, but the GameCube remained in third place in worldwide sales during the sixth-generation era because of weaker sales performance elsewhere, though its fortunes would change for the better in America and Europe.Iwata forecasted to investors that the company would sell 50 million GameCube units worldwide by March 2005, but by the end of 2006, it had only sold 21.74 million—fewer than half. However, it had the highest attach rate of any Nintendo console at 9.59 and was profitable, even more than Xbox with higher sales rates. Market share With the GameCube, Nintendo failed to reclaim the market share lost by its predecessor, the Nintendo 64. Through its generation, GameCube hardware sales remained far behind its direct competitor the PlayStation 2, and slightly behind the Xbox, though there would be times when the GameCube would upstage its rival consoles. The console's family-friendly appeal and lack of support from certain third-party developers skewed the GameCube toward a younger market, which was a minority of the gaming population during the sixth generation. Many third-party games popular with teenagers or adults, such as the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto series and several key first-person shooters, skipped the GameCube entirely in favor of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. However, many gaming journalists and analysts from the 2000s noted that Nintendo's primary focus on younger audiences, and its family-friendly image, was the biggest advantage and disadvantage at a time when video games were aimed at more mature audiences. Nintendo was successful with games aimed at a more mature audience.As of June 2003, the GameCube had a 13% market share, tying with the Xbox in sales but far below the 60% of the PlayStation 2. However, with slow sales and tough competition, Nintendo's position improved. The American market share for the GameCube had gone up from 19% to 37% in one year alone due to price cuts and high-quality games. By Christmas of 2003, Nintendo of America's president George Harrison reported that the company's price cuts down to just under $100 quadrupled sales in the American market. GameCube's profitability never reached that of the PlayStation 2 or Game Boy Advance. However, it was more profitable than the Xbox.GameCube's first two years had slow sales and struggles, and by 2004 and 2005 vastly improved to a 32% share of the hardware market in Europe. Due to price drops, which saved it in the American markets, and high-quality games from various developers, such as Pokémon Colosseum and Resident Evil 4, the GameCube improved to put Xbox down to third place. The top three European countries for GameCube success included the UK, France, and Germany, and modestly in Spain and Italy. Though falling behind the PlayStation 2 in Europe, the GameCube was successful and profitable there. Legacy Many games that debuted on the GameCube, including the Pikmin series, Chibi-Robo!, Metroid Prime, and Luigi's Mansion became popular and profitable Nintendo franchises or subseries.GameCube controllers have limited support on Wii U and Switch, to play Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate respectively, via a USB adapter.Regarding concerns about the correlation between violence and video games, a 2009 study by Iowa State University found that certain games like Super Mario Sunshine and Chibi-Robo!, which were GameCube exclusives, would help players learn positive skills about helping others, empathy, and cooperation, as well as the game Super Monkey Ball, which was a GameCube exclusive, could help surgeons perform laparoscopic surgery better than surgeons who don't play video games. See also Dolphin (emulator) GameCube accessories Official website Nintendo GameCube at the Wayback Machine (archived May 1, 2008)

Adobe ( ə-DOH-bee; Spanish pronunciation: [aˈðoβe]) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world. Adobe architecture has been dated to before 5,100 B.C. Description Adobe bricks are rectangular prisms small enough that they can quickly air dry individually without cracking. They can be subsequently assembled, with the application of adobe mud to bond the individual bricks into a structure. There is no standard size, with substantial variations over the years and in different regions. In some areas a popular size measured 8 by 4 by 12 inches (20 cm × 10 cm × 30 cm) weighing about 25 pounds (11 kg); in other contexts the size is 10 by 4 by 14 inches (25 cm × 10 cm × 36 cm) weighing about 35 pounds (16 kg). The maximum sizes can reach up to 100 pounds (45 kg); above this weight it becomes difficult to move the pieces, and it is preferred to ram the mud in situ, resulting in a different typology known as rammed earth. Strength In dry climates, adobe structures are extremely durable, and account for some of the oldest existing buildings in the world. Adobe buildings offer significant advantages due to their greater thermal mass, but they are known to be particularly susceptible to earthquake damage if they are not reinforced. Cases where adobe structures were widely damaged during earthquakes include the 1976 Guatemala earthquake, the 2003 Bam earthquake, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. Distribution Buildings made of sun-dried earth are common throughout the world (Middle East, Western Asia, North Africa, West Africa, South America, southwestern North America, Southwestern and Eastern Europe.) Adobe had been in use by indigenous peoples of the Americas in the Southwestern United States, Mesoamerica, and the Andes for several thousand years. Puebloan peoples built their adobe structures with handsful or basketsful of adobe, until the Spanish introduced them to making bricks. Adobe bricks were used in Spain from the Late Bronze and Iron Ages (eighth century BCE onwards). Its wide use can be attributed to its simplicity of design and manufacture, and economics. Etymology The word adobe has existed for around 4,000 years with relatively little change in either pronunciation or meaning. The word can be traced from the Middle Egyptian (c. 2000 BC) word ḏbt "mud brick" (with vowels unwritten). Middle Egyptian evolved into Late Egyptian and finally to Coptic (c. 600 BC), where it appeared as ⲧⲱⲃⲉ tōbə. This was adopted into Arabic as الطوب aṭ-ṭawbu or aṭ-ṭūbu, with the definite article al- attached to the root tuba. This was assimilated into the Old Spanish language as adobe [aˈdobe], probably via Mozarabic. English borrowed the word from Spanish in the early 18th century, still referring to mudbrick construction. In more modern English usage, the term adobe has come to include a style of architecture popular in the desert climates of North America, especially in New Mexico, regardless of the construction method. Composition An adobe brick is a composite material made of earth mixed with water and an organic material such as straw or dung. The soil composition typically contains sand, silt and clay. Straw is useful in binding the brick together and allowing the brick to dry evenly, thereby preventing cracking due to uneven shrinkage rates through the brick. Dung offers the same advantage. The most desirable soil texture for producing the mud of adobe is 15% clay, 10–30% silt, and 55–75% fine sand. Another source quotes 15–25% clay and the remainder sand and coarser particles up to cobbles 50 to 250 mm (2 to 10 in), with no deleterious effect. Modern adobe is stabilized with either emulsified asphalt or Portland cement up to 10% by weight. No more than half the clay content should be expansive clays, with the remainder non-expansive illite or kaolinite. Too much expansive clay results in uneven drying through the brick, resulting in cracking, while too much kaolinite will make a weak brick. Typically the soils of the Southwest United States, where such construction has been widely used, are an adequate composition. Material properties Adobe walls are load bearing, i.e. they carry their own weight into the foundation rather than by another structure, hence the adobe must have sufficient compressive strength. In the United States, most building codes call for a minimum compressive strength of 300 lbf/in2 (2.07 newton/mm2) for the adobe block. Adobe construction should be designed so as to avoid lateral structural loads that would cause bending loads. The building codes require the building sustain a 1 g lateral acceleration earthquake load. Such an acceleration will cause lateral loads on the walls, resulting in shear and bending and inducing tensile stresses. To withstand such loads, the codes typically call for a tensile modulus of rupture strength of at least 50 lbf/in2 (0.345 newton/mm2) for the finished block. In addition to being an inexpensive material with a small resource cost, adobe can serve as a significant heat reservoir due to the thermal properties inherent in the massive walls typical in adobe construction. In climates typified by hot days and cool nights, the high thermal mass of adobe mediates the high and low temperatures of the day, moderating the temperature of the living space. The massive walls require a large and relatively long input of heat from the sun (radiation) and from the surrounding air (convection) before they warm through to the interior. After the sun sets and the temperature drops, the warm wall will continue to transfer heat to the interior for several hours due to the time-lag effect. Thus, a well-planned adobe wall of the appropriate thickness is very effective at controlling inside temperature through the wide daily fluctuations typical of desert climates, a factor which has contributed to its longevity as a building material. Thermodynamic material properties have significant variation in the literature. Some experiments suggest that the standard consideration of conductivity is not adequate for this material, as its main thermodynamic property is inertia, and conclude that experimental tests should be performed over a longer period of time than usual - preferably with changing thermal jumps. There is an effective R-value for a north facing 10-in wall of R0=10 hr ft2 °F/Btu, which corresponds to thermal conductivity k=10 in x 1 ft/12 in /R0=0.33 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.57 W/(m K) in agreement with the thermal conductivity reported from another source. To determine the total R-value of a wall, scale R0 by the thickness of the wall in inches. The thermal resistance of adobe is also stated as an R-value for a 10-inch wall R0=4.1 hr ft2 °F/Btu. Another source provides the following properties: conductivity=0.30 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.52 W/(m K); specific heat capacity=0.24 Btu/(lb °F) or 1 kJ/(kg K) and density=106 lb/ft3 or 1700 kg/m3, giving heat capacity=25.4 Btu/(ft3 °F) or 1700 kJ/(m3 K). Using the average value of the thermal conductivity as k = 32 Btu/(hr ft °F) or 0.55 W/(m K), the thermal diffusivity is calculated to be 0.013 ft2/h or 3.3x10−7 m2/s. Uses Poured and puddled adobe walls Poured and puddled adobe (puddled clay, piled earth), today called cob, is made by placing soft adobe in layers, rather than by making individual dried bricks or using a form. "Puddle" is a general term for a clay or clay and sand-based material worked into a dense, plastic state. These are the oldest methods of building with adobe in the Americas until holes in the ground were used as forms, and later wooden forms used to make individual bricks were introduced by the Spanish. Adobe bricks Bricks made from adobe are usually made by pressing the mud mixture into an open timber frame. In North America, the brick is typically about 25 by 36 cm (10 by 14 in) in size. The mixture is molded into the frame, which is removed after initial setting. After drying for a few hours, the bricks are turned on edge to finish drying. Slow drying in shade reduces cracking. The same mixture, without straw, is used to make mortar and often plaster on interior and exterior walls. Some cultures used lime-based cement for the plaster to protect against rain damage.Depending on the form into which the mixture is pressed, adobe can encompass nearly any shape or size, provided drying is even and the mixture includes reinforcement for larger bricks. Reinforcement can include manure, straw, cement, rebar, or wooden posts. Straw, cement, or manure added to a standard adobe mixture can produce a stronger, more crack-resistant brick. A test is done on the soil content first. To do so, a sample of the soil is mixed into a clear container with some water, creating an almost completely saturated liquid. The container is shaken vigorously for one minute. It is then allowed to settle for a day until the soil has settled into layers. Heavier particles settle out first, sand above, silt above that, and very fine clay and organic matter will stay in suspension for days. After the water has cleared, percentages of the various particles can be determined. Fifty to 60 percent sand and 35 to 40 percent clay will yield strong bricks. The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service at New Mexico State University recommends a mix of not more than 1⁄3 clay, not less than 1⁄2 sand, and never more than 1⁄3 silt.During the Great Depression, designer and builder Hugh W. Comstock used cheaper materials and made a specialized adobe brick called "Bitudobe." His first adobe house was built in 1936. In 1948, he published the book Post-Adobe; Simplified Adobe Construction Combining A Rugged Timber Frame And Modern Stabilized Adobe, which described his method of construction, including how to make "Bitudobe." In 1938, he served as an adviser to the architects Franklin & Kump Associates, who built the Carmel High School, which used his Post-adobe system. Adobe wall construction The ground supporting an adobe structure should be compressed, as the weight of adobe wall is significant and foundation settling may cause cracking of the wall. Footing depth is to be below the ground frost level. The footing and stem wall are commonly 24 and 14 inches thick, respectively. Modern construction codes call for the use of reinforcing steel in the footing and stem wall. Adobe bricks are laid by course. Adobe walls usually never rise above two stories as they are load bearing and adobe has low structural strength. When creating window and door openings, a lintel is placed on top of the opening to support the bricks above. Atop the last courses of brick, bond beams made of heavy wood beams or modern reinforced concrete are laid to provide a horizontal bearing plate for the roof beams and to redistribute lateral earthquake loads to shear walls more able to carry the forces. To protect the interior and exterior adobe walls, finishes such as mud plaster, whitewash or stucco can be applied. These protect the adobe wall from water damage, but need to be reapplied periodically. Alternatively, the walls can be finished with other nontraditional plasters that provide longer protection. Bricks made with stabilized adobe generally do not need protection of plasters. Adobe roof The traditional adobe roof has been constructed using a mixture of soil/clay, water, sand and organic materials. The mixture was then formed and pressed into wood forms, producing rows of dried earth bricks that would then be laid across a support structure of wood and plastered into place with more adobe. Depending on the materials available, a roof may be assembled using wood or metal beams to create a framework to begin layering adobe bricks. Depending on the thickness of the adobe bricks, the framework has been preformed using a steel framing and a layering of a metal fencing or wiring over the framework to allow an even load as masses of adobe are spread across the metal fencing like cob and allowed to air dry accordingly. This method was demonstrated with an adobe blend heavily impregnated with cement to allow even drying and prevent cracking. The more traditional flat adobe roofs are functional only in dry climates that are not exposed to snow loads. The heaviest wooden beams, called vigas, lie atop the wall. Across the vigas lie smaller members called latillas and upon those brush is then laid. Finally, the adobe layer is applied. To construct a flat adobe roof, beams of wood were laid to span the building, the ends of which were attached to the tops of the walls. Once the vigas, latillas and brush are laid, adobe bricks are placed. An adobe roof is often laid with bricks slightly larger in width to ensure a greater expanse is covered when placing the bricks onto the roof. Following each individual brick should be a layer of adobe mortar, recommended to be at least 25 mm (1 in) thick to make certain there is ample strength between the brick's edges and also to provide a relative moisture barrier during rain.Roof design evolved around 1850 in the American Southwest. Three inches of adobe mud was applied on top of the latillas, then 18 inches of dry adobe dirt applied to the roof. The dirt was contoured into a low slope to a downspout aka a 'canal'. When moisture was applied to the roof the clay particles expanded to create a waterproof membrane. Once a year it was necessary to pull the weeds from the roof and re-slope the dirt as needed.Depending on the materials, adobe roofs can be inherently fire-proof. The construction of a chimney can greatly influence the construction of the roof supports, creating an extra need for care in choosing the materials. The builders can make an adobe chimney by stacking simple adobe bricks in a similar fashion as the surrounding walls. In 1927, the Uniform Building Code (UBC) was adopted in the United States. Local ordinances, referencing the UBC added requirements to building with adobe. These included: restriction of building height of adobe structures to 1-story, requirements for adobe mix (compressive and shear strength) and new requirements which stated that every building shall be designed to withstand seismic activity, specifically lateral forces. By the 1980s however, seismic related changes in the California Building Code effectively ended solid wall adobe construction in California; however Post-and-Beam adobe and veneers are still being used. Adobe around the world The largest structure ever made from adobe is the Arg-é Bam built by the Achaemenid Empire. Other large adobe structures are the Huaca del Sol in Peru, with 100 million signed bricks and the ciudellas of Chan Chan and Tambo Colorado, both in Peru. See also Alker – Earth-based stabilized building material Cas di torto – Historic torto houses in Aruba Cob (building) – Building material made of soil and fiberPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets Compressed earth block – building materialPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback Earth structure – Building or other structure made largely from soil Hassan Fathy – Egyptian Architect Mission San Xavier del Bac – 17th-century Spanish mission in Arizona Monterey Colonial architecture used adobe walls Mudbrick – Earth blocks for construction Qadad – Old technique used in plastering walls and cisterns (waterproofing plaster) Qalat (fortress) – Type of castle Rammed earth – Construction material of damp subsoil Sod house – Turf house used in early colonial North America Superadobe – Form of earthbag construction Taq Kasra – Persian archeological site (also known as Ctesiphon Arch) in Iraq is the largest mud brick arch in the world, built beginning in 540 AD Wattle and daub – Building technique using woven wooden supports packed with clay or mud

Mong Kok (also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK) is an area in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The Prince Edward subarea occupies the northern part of Mong Kok. Mong Kok is one of the major shopping areas in Hong Kong. The area is characterised by a mixture of old and new multi-story buildings, with shops and restaurants at street level, and commercial or residential units above. Major industries in Mong Kok are retail, restaurants (including fast food) and entertainment. It has been described and portrayed in films as an area in which triads run bars, nightclubs, and massage parlours. With its extremely high population density of 130,000/km2 (340,000/sq mi), Mong Kok was described as the busiest district in the world by the Guinness World Records. Name Until 1930, the area was called Mong Kok Tsui (芒角嘴). The current English name is a transliteration of its older Chinese name 望角 (Jyutping: mong6 gok3; IPA: [mɔːŋ˨ kɔːk˧]), or 芒角 (Jyutping: mong4 gok3; IPA: [mɔːŋ˨˩ kɔːk˧]), which is named for its plentiful supply of ferns in the past when it was a coastal region. Its present Chinese name, "旺角" (Jyutping: wong6 gok3; IPA: [wɔːŋ˨ kɔːk˧]), means "prosperous corner" or "crowded corner"; however, the English name did not change. For a period, the area was also called Argyle, and this name was used for the MTR station when it opened in 1979. The office building 旺角中心; 'Mong Kok Centre', which was named after the area, is known in English as Argyle Centre rather than Mong Kok Centre. Administration Mong Kok is part of Yau Tsim Mong District. It was part of the Mong Kok District before the district was merged in 1994. The area belongs to the Kowloon West geographical constituency of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. History Displays at the Chinese University of Hong Kong include antique potteries indicating that there might have been settlements in the area as early as the western Han dynasty (206 BC to AD 8 ) to Jin Dynasty (266–420).The area used to be a Hakka settlement, with about 200 villagers according to Bao'an records in 1819.The heart of the present-day Mong Kok is along Argyle Street near Sai Yeung Choi Street whilst the proper Mong Kok used to be to the north, near the present-day Mong Kok East station. Mong Kok was an area of cultivated lands, bounded to the south by Argyle Street, to the west by Coronation Road (a section of present-day Nathan Road), and to the east by hills. To the southeast of Mong Kok is Ho Man Tin and to the west Tai Kok Tsui. On 10 August 2008, the Cornwall Court fire broke out. More than 200 firefighters were involved in the rescue operation. Four people died, including two firefighters.Mong Kok received a lot of negative media attention for many acid attacks on Sai Yeung Choi Street from December 2008 through January 2010. The area was the site of protracted demonstrations during the 2014 Hong Kong protests, including the gau wu campaign, and was also the site of the 2016 Mong Kok civil unrest. Streets and markets Mong Kok preserves its traditional characteristics with an array of markets, small shops, and food stalls that have disappeared from other areas during the past several decades of economic developments and urban transformation. As such, a few of these streets in Mong Kok have acquired nicknames reflecting their own characteristics. Some interesting sites are: Tung Choi Street (通菜街) (also known as 女人街, Ladies' Market) – This market specialises in women's clothing, accessories, and cosmetics, and is open daily from noon to midnight. Sai Yeung Choi Street South (西洋菜南街) – A street full of shops selling consumer electronic products, cosmetics, and discount books. The latter are usually located on the lower floors of buildings. Yuen Po Street Bird Garden (園圃街雀鳥花園) – Hundreds of songbirds in exquisitely crafted cages can be seen at this market. The garden is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and is located near Mong Kok Stadium, to the north of Mong Kok East station and east of Prince Edward station. The garden was completed in 1997 for the relocation of booths selling birds at Hong Lok Street (雀仔街), aka. "Bird Street", which was closed due to urban renewal in June 1998. Fa Yuen Street (花園街) (also known as 波鞋街; 'Sneakers Street') – This is a small neighbourhood of small retailers selling sports equipment and clothing. The shops stock a diversity of sports shoes, including many shoes of rare or special editions from different places. Flower Market Road (花墟道) – The street and the nearby side streets are packed with florists and street vendors selling flowers and plants. At the end of the street is Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. Goldfish Street (金魚街) or Goldfish Market – Centered on a section of Tung Choi Street, north of Bute Street. There are dozens of shops selling tropical freshwater and marine fish, aquariums and accessories. This market opens very early in the morning. Tile Street (瓷磚街) – This is a section of Portland Street near Argyle Street and Bute Street with more than 50 retailers selling materials for construction or renovation, such as tiles, wall paper, window frames and bath tubs. Photocopy Street (影印街) – A neighbourhood near Yim Po Fong Street and Soy Street is noted for its remarkable number of photocopying shops due to the number of schools in the vicinity. The shops also have ID photo taking service. Portland Street (砵蘭街) – A red-light district featuring numerous shops and restaurants. Kwong Wa Street (廣華街), between Dundas Street and Yim Po Fong Street, is famous for shops selling airsoft, RC racing, modelling and other hobbying equipment. Dundas Street (登打士街) marks the southern end of the shopping area in eastern Mong Kok, where Sai Yeung Choi Street South, Tung Choi Street and Fa Yuen Street terminate. It is named for Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, former British Home Secretary and Secretary of State for War. It is unclear why the street was bestowed in his honour although, as a former British colony, many of Hong Kong's streets and institutions were named in memory of prominent English historic and political figures. Ho King Shopping Centre and Trendy Zone are major shopping centres on the street. Various kinds of snack food shops concentrate on this street. Kwong Wah Hospital is also situated on the street. Across Nathan Road, the section in the western Mong Kok is relatively quiet and there are many cafés above street level in several buildings.Some popular shopping plazas located in this dense area include: T.O.P (This is Our Place) - Latest fashionable shopping centre for youngers. No high-end shops there but specially characteristic store. An overpass corridor connected to Argyle Centre (旺角中心). Sim City (星際城市) - There are shops selling first or second hand cameras and lens, photographic and videographic equipment, gadget, phone accessory, computer accessory. Sino Centre (信和中心) – Most shops sell Japanimation figures and merchandising. Other shops sell comic books, VCDs and DVDs related to Japanese cartoons, and regular CD albums. Ho King Shopping Centre (好景商場) – Visitors can find computer and video games sold for relatively low prices. The fourth floor of the plaza is infamous for being formerly the biggest base of pornographic CDs and DVDs, and activities have diminished due to police and customs operations. However, some shops have been driven to the office section of the building. Grand Century Place (新世紀廣場) – Situated next to Mong Kok East station, visitors can find famous-brand and popular shops. Mong Kok Computer Centre (旺角電腦中心) – This three-story computer mall has around 50 to 70 computer shops, selling laptops, software, hardware and computer accessories. Langham Place (朗豪坊) – This is a 59-storey complex with a huge shopping mall, a hotel, and offices. It opened in 2004 and was constructed based on the Hong Kong Government urban redevelopment scheme. It is the tallest building in Mong Kok. Argyle Centre (旺角中心) – This usually crowded centre, located next to Mong Kok Station, has three floors of shops selling female low-priced clothes and shoes. Also a lot of snack food and drinks shop there. Trendy Zone (潮流特區) W Plaza (W 商場) Hollywood Shopping Centre (荷李活購物中心) Sincere Podium (先達中心) Richmond Shopping Arcade (皆旺商場) Hollywood Plaza (荷李活商業中心) CTMA Centre (兆萬中心)Other streets in the area include: Bute Street (弼街), named after John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1762 and 1763. It may also have been named after the Scottish peerage of the same name, following the naming pattern of several other streets in the area. Fife Street (快富街) is a street that is north of Argyle Street, south of Mong Kok Road, and perpendicular to Nathan Road. The Chinese name means "fast wealth" in English, but the name is a loanword based on the English pronunciation of the fife instrument. Soy Street (豉油街) Food The Mong Kok area has many food-booths selling traditional snacks such as fish balls, fried beancurd (tofu) and various dim sum. These fingerfoods are very popular in Hong Kong, especially for folks on the run. In addition, there are restaurants serving different kinds of cuisine, ranging from Japanese to Thai to Italian. Built heritage Built heritage in Mong Kok includes: Several tong-lau, including Nos. 600–626 Shanghai Street and Lui Seng Chun on Lai Chi Kok Road. Both are listed as Grade I historic buildings. Old Kowloon Police Headquarters, built in 1925. Grade II historic building and one of the historic police station buildings in Hong Kong. Now part of the Mong Kok Police Station. Shui Yuet Temple (水月宮), located at No. 90 Shantung Street. Built in 1927, it is dedicated to Guanyin. Grade III. All Saints' Church, No. 2 Yim Po Fong Street Parts of Kowloon Hospital Sport venues Macpherson Stadium Macpherson Playground Mong Kok Stadium: home to Citizen AA and Sun Hei SC Boundary Street Sports Centre Education Educational institutions in Mong Kok include: Chinese University of Hong Kong campus in Shantung Street Diocesan Boys' School Hong Kong & Kowloon Chiu Chow Public Association Secondary School Hong Kong College of Engineering Queen Elizabeth School Sheng Kung Hui All Saints' Middle SchoolMong Kok is in Primary One Admission (POA) School Net 32. Within the school net are multiple aided schools (operated independently but funded with government money) and Tong Mei Road Government Primary School (塘尾道官立小學). Transport The main thoroughfares are: Argyle Street Canton Road Nathan Road Prince Edward Road Shanghai StreetThree rail lines serve the area: The MTR Tsuen Wan and Kwun Tong lines have two stations in this area: Prince Edward station to the north and Mong Kok station to the south. The MTR East Rail line has Mong Kok East station in the eastern part of the area. Popular culture Mong Kok was the setting for the 2004 hit film One Night in Mongkok directed by Derek Yee. The movie portrays Mong Kok, one of the most densely populated places on Earth, as a hotbed of illicit activity. Similarly, the district was also the setting of the 1996 film Mongkok Story (旺角風雲) directed by Wilson Yip, which depicts a young man who becomes involved in a triad gang. The 2009 film To Live and Die in Mongkok and the 2013 film Young and Dangerous: Reloaded are also set in Mong Kok. The literal Chinese title of the 1988 film As Tears Go By by Wong Kar-wai is "Mong Kok Carmen". Part of Robert Ludlum's 1986 novel The Bourne Supremacy was set in Mong Kok. The area is known locally for a youth subculture, the Mong Kok culture. 2014 protests Mong Kok was one of the main sites of the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Banks, jewellery stores and clothing stores were closed as a result of the pro-democracy protests. Flickr: Photos tagged with Mongkok Photo gallery featuring Flower Market Road over the Chinese New Year.

Radical 72 or radical sun (日部) meaning "sun" or "day" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 4 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 453 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 日 is also the 75th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, with 曰 (formerly Kangxi Radical 73 "say") and ⺜ being its associated indexing components. Evolution Derived characters Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Lunde, Ken (Jan 5, 2009). "Appendix J: Japanese Character Sets" (PDF). CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Second ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1. Unihan Database - U+65E5

The flag of Hong Kong, officially the regional flag of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, depicts a white stylised five-petal Hong Kong orchid tree (Bauhinia blakeana) flower in the centre of a Chinese red field. Its original design was unveiled on 4 April 1990 at the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress. The current design was approved on 10 August 1996 at the Fourth Plenum of the Preparatory Committee of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The precise use of the flag is regulated by laws passed by the 58th executive meeting of the State Council held in Beijing. The design of the flag is enshrined in Hong Kong's Basic Law, the territory's constitutional document, and regulations regarding the use, prohibition of use, desecration, and manufacture of the flag are stated in the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance. The flag of Hong Kong was officially adopted and hoisted on 1 July 1997, during the handover ceremony marking the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom back to China. Current design Symbolism The design of the flag comes with cultural, political, and regional meanings. The colour itself is significant; red is a festive colour for the Chinese people, used to convey a sense of celebration and nationalism. Moreover, the red colour is identical to that used in the national PRC flag, chosen to signify the link re-established between post-colonial Hong Kong and Mainland China. The position of red and white on the flag symbolises the "one country, two systems" political principle applied to the region. The stylised rendering of the Bauhinia blakeana flower, a flower discovered in Hong Kong, is meant to serve as a harmonising symbol for this dichotomy. The five stars of the Chinese national flag are replicated on the petals of the flower. The Chinese name of Bauhinia × blakeana is most commonly rendered as "洋紫荊", but is often shortened to 紫荊 / 紫荆 in official uses since "洋" (yáng) means "foreign" in Chinese, notwithstanding 紫荊 / 紫荆 refers to another genus called Cercis. A sculpture of the plant has been erected in Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong. Before the adoption of the flag, the Chairman of the Hong Kong Basic Law Drafting Committee explained the significance of the flag's design to the National People's Congress: The regional flag carries a design of five bauhinia petals, each with a star in the middle, on a red background. The red flag represents the motherland and the bauhinia represents Hong Kong. The design implies that Hong Kong is an inalienable part of China and prospers in the embrace of the motherland. The five stars on the flower symbolise the fact that all Hong Kong compatriots love their motherland, while the red and white colours embody the principle of "one country, two systems". Construction The Hong Kong government has specified sizes, colours, and manufacturing parameters in which the flag is to be made. The ratio of its length to breadth is 3:2. In its centre is a five-petal stylised rendering of a white Bauhinia blakeana flower. If a circle circumscribes the flower, it should have a diameter 0.6 times the entire height of the flag. The petals are uniformly spread around the centre point of the flag, radiating outward and pointing in a clockwise direction. Each of the flower's petals bears a five-pointed red star with a red trace, suggestive of a flower stamen. The heading that is used to allow a flag to be slid or raised onto a pole is white.A slightly different geometrical description of the flag is specified in the mandatory National Standard "GB 16689-2004: Regional flag of Hong Kong special administrative region". Size specifications This table lists all the official sizes for the flag. Sizes deviating from this list are considered non-standard. If a flag is not of official size, it must be a scaled-down or scaled-up version of one of the official sizes. Colour specifications The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance stipulates that "The regional flag is in red, the chrominance value of which is identical with that of the national flag of the People's Republic of China." Manufacture regulations The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance stipulates that the Hong Kong flag must be manufactured according to specifications laid out in the ordinance. If flags are not produced in design according to the ordinance, the Secretary for Justice may petition the District Court for an injunction to prohibit the person or company from manufacturing the flags. If the District Court agrees that the flags are not in compliance, it may issue an injunction and order that the flags and the materials that were used to make the flags to be seized by the government. Protocol The Hong Kong flag is flown daily from the chief executive's official residence, Government House, the Hong Kong International Airport, and at all border crossings and points of entry into Hong Kong. At major government offices and buildings, such as the Office of the Chief Executive, the Executive Council, the Court of Final Appeal, the High Court, the Legislative Council, and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices overseas, the flag is displayed during days when these offices are working. Other government offices and buildings, such as hospitals, schools, departmental headquarters, sports grounds, and cultural venues should fly the flag on occasions such as the National Day of the PRC (1 October), the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day (1 July), and New Year's Day. The flag should be raised at 8:00 a.m. and lowered at 6:00 p.m. The raising and lowering of the flag should be done slowly; it must reach the peak of the flag staff when it is raised, and it may not touch the ground when it is lowered. The flag may not be raised in severe weather conditions. A Hong Kong flag that is either damaged, defaced, faded or substandard must not be displayed or used. Display Whenever the PRC national flag is flown together with the regional Hong Kong flag, the national flag must be flown at the centre, above the regional flag, or otherwise in a more prominent position than that of the regional flag. The regional flag must be smaller in size than the national flag, and it must be displayed to the left of the national flag. When the flags are displayed inside a building, the left and right sides of a person looking at the flags, and with his or her back toward the wall, are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. When the flags are displayed outside a building, the left and right sides of a person standing in front of the building and looking towards the front entrance are used as reference points for the left and right sides of a flag. The national flag should be raised before the regional flag is raised, and it should be lowered after the regional flag is lowered.An exception to this rule occurs during medal presentation ceremonies at multi-sport events such as the Olympics and Asian Games. As Hong Kong competes separately from mainland China, should an athlete from Hong Kong win the gold medal, and an athlete from mainland China win the silver and/or bronze medal(s) in the same event, the regional flag of Hong Kong would be raised in the centre above the national flag(s) during the medal presentation ceremony. Half-mast The Hong Kong flag must be lowered to half-mast as a token of mourning when any of the following people die: President of the People's Republic of China Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Premier of the State Council Chairman of the Central Military Commission Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Persons who have made outstanding contributions to the People's Republic of China as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive. Persons who have made outstanding contributions to world peace or the cause of human progress as the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive. Persons whom the Chief Executive considers to have made outstanding contributions to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or for whom they consider it appropriate to fly the flag at half-mast.The flag may also be flown at half-mast when the Central People's Government advises the Chief Executive to do so, or when the Chief Executive considers it appropriate to do so, on occurrences of unfortunate events causing especially serious casualties, or when serious natural calamities have caused heavy casualties. When raising a flag to be flown at half-mast, it should first be raised to the top of the pole and then lowered to a point where the distance between the top of the flag and the top of the pole is one third of the length of the pole. When lowering the flag from half-mast, it should first be raised to the peak of the pole before it is lowered. Prohibition of use and desecration The Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance states what manner of use of the Hong Kong flag is prohibited and that desecration of the flag is prohibited; it also states that it is a punishable offence for a person to use the flag in a prohibited manner or desecrate the flag. According to the ordinance, a flag may not be used in advertisements or trademarks, and that "publicly and wilfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling" the flag is considered flag desecration. Similarly, the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance extends the same prohibition toward the national PRC flag. The ordinances also allow for the Chief Executive to make stipulations regarding the use of the flag. In stipulations made in 1997, the Chief Executive further specified that the use of the flag in "any trade, calling or profession, or the logo, seal or badge of any non-governmental organisation" is also prohibited unless prior permission was obtained.The first conviction of flag desecration occurred in 1999. Protesters Ng Kung Siu and Lee Kin Yun wrote the word "Shame" on both the national PRC flag and the Hong Kong flag, and were convicted of violating the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance and the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance. The Court of Appeal overturned the verdict, ruling that the ordinances were unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of expression and in violation of both the Basic Law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Upon further appeal, however, the Court of Final Appeal maintained the original guilty verdict, holding that this restriction on the freedom of expression was justifiable in that the protection of the flags played a role in national unity and territorial integrity and constituted a restriction on the mode of expressing one's message but did not interfere with one's freedom to express the same message in other ways.Leung Kwok-hung, a former member of the Legislative Council and a political activist in Hong Kong, was penalised in February 2001, before he became a member of the Legislative Council, for defiling the flag. He was convicted of three counts of desecrating the flag—for two incidents on 1 July 2000 during the third anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China and for one incident on 9 July of the same year during a protest against elections to choose the Election Committee, the electoral college which chooses the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Leung was placed on a good-behaviour bond for 12 months in the sum of HK$3,000.Zhu Rongchang, a mainland Chinese farmer has been jailed for three weeks after setting fire to a Chinese flag in Hong Kong. Zhu was charged for "publicly and wilfully" burning the Chinese flag at Golden Bauhinia Square in central Hong Kong. The 74-year-old man is reportedly the third person charged for desecrating the Chinese national flag, but he is first to be jailed under the law.In early 2013, protestors went to the streets flying the old colonial flag demanding more democracy and resignation of Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying. The use of the flag has created concerns from Chinese authorities and request from Leung to stop flying the flag. Despite the calls from Leung the old flags are not subject to use restrictions beyond not being allowed to be placed on flagpoles and are freely sold and manufactured in the territory. Previous flags of Hong Kong Pre-colonial period Qing dynasty (1862–1895) Prior to the secession of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom following the First Opium War via the Treaty of Nanking, Hong Kong fell under the jurisdiction of the government of China and flew the flag and ensign of the Chinese government of the time. Prior to the establishment of the crown colony of Hong Kong, the ruling dynasty in China was the Qing dynasty. Despite being established in 1644, the Qing Empire had no official flags until 1862. Prior to 1898, when the Second Convention of Peking was signed between the Qing Court and the government of the United Kingdom, the New Territories was still Qing land. The flag itself features the "Azure Dragon" on a plain yellow field with the red flaming pearl of the three-legged crow in the upper left corner. Colonial flags Prior to Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty, the flag of Hong Kong was a colonial Blue Ensign flag. The flag of colonial Hong Kong underwent several changes from then until 1997. Use of Union Flag (1843–1871) In 1843, a seal representing Hong Kong was instituted. The design was based on a local waterfront scene; three local merchants with their commercial goods are shown on the foreground, a square-rigged ship and a junk occupy the middle ground, while the background consists of conical hills and clouds. In 1868, a Hong Kong flag was produced, a Blue Ensign flag with a badge based on this "local scene", but the design was rejected by Hong Kong Governor Richard Graves MacDonnell. First colonial flag (1871–1876) On 3 July 1869, a new design for the Hong Kong flag was commissioned at a cost of £3, which featured a "gentleman in an evening coat who is purchasing tea on the beach at Kowloon". After a brief discussion in the executive council, it was determined that the new design was very problematic and it was not adopted.In 1870, a "white crown over HK" badge for the Blue Ensign flag was proposed by the Colonial Secretary. The letters "HK" were omitted and the crown became full-colour three years later. It is unclear exactly what the badge looked like during that period of time, but it was unlikely to be the "local scene". It should have been a crown of some sort, which may, or may not, have had the letters "HK" below it. In 1876, the "local scene" badge (Chinese: 阿群帶路圖 Picture of "Ar Kwan" Guiding the British soldier) was re-adopted to the Blue Ensign flag with the Admiralty's approval. Second colonial flag (1876–1955) During a government meeting, held in 1911, it was suggested that the name of the colony appear on the flag in both Latin and Chinese scripts. However, this was dismissed as it would "look absurd" to both Chinese and Europeans. The flag which was eventually adopted featured the Blue Ensign together with a "local scene" of traders in the foreground and both European-style and Chinese-style trading ships in the background. Japanese occupation period (1941–1945) During the Second World War, Hong Kong was seized and occupied by the Empire of Japan from 1941 to 1945. During the occupation, the Japanese military government used the flag of Japan in its official works in Hong Kong. Third colonial flag (1955–1959) The flag was similar in design to that previously used. It featured a British Blue Ensign with a local waterfront scene. Fourth colonial flag (1959–1997) A coat of arms for Hong Kong was granted on 21 January 1959 by the College of Arms in London. The Hong Kong flag was revised in the same year to feature the coat of arms in the Blue Ensign flag. This design was used officially from 1959 until Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty in 1997. Since then, the colonial flag has been appropriated by protestors, such as on the annual 1 July marches for universal suffrage, as a "symbol of antagonism towards the mainland", along with a blue flag featuring the coat of arms, used by those advocating independence. The flag features a British Blue Ensign with the coat of arms of Hong Kong (1959–1997). Flags used by government departments Flags of the governor of Hong Kong Council flags Hong Kong Regional Council The flag of the Regional Council represented the governmental body which oversaw matters related to the outlying areas of the territory during the colonial period. The flag itself featured a stylised dark green R at a 45-degree angle on white background. Hong Kong Urban Council The flag of the Urban Council represented the governmental body which was responsible for matters pertaining to the urban areas of the territory during the colonial period. The flag itself features a simplified white Bauhinia blakeana on a magenta background. Proposals before the handover Before Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty, between 20 May 1987 and 31 March 1988, a contest was held amongst Hong Kong residents to help choose a flag for post-colonial Hong Kong, with 7,147 design submissions, in which 4,489 submissions were about flag designs. Architect Tao Ho was chosen as one of the panel judges to pick Hong Kong's new flag. He recalled that some of the designs had been rather funny and with political twists: "One had a hammer and sickle on one side and a dollar sign on the other." Some designs were rejected because they contained copyrighted materials, for example, the emblem of Urban Council, Hong Kong Arts Festival and Hong Kong Tourism Board. Six designs were chosen as finalists by the judges, but were all later rejected by the PRC. Ho and two others were then asked by the PRC to submit new proposals.Looking for inspiration, Ho wandered into a garden and picked up a Bauhinia blakeana flower. He observed the symmetry of the five petals, and how their winding pattern conveyed to him a dynamic feeling. This led him to incorporate the flower into the flag to represent Hong Kong. The design was adopted on 4 April 1990 at the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress, and the flag was first officially hoisted seconds after midnight on 1 July 1997 in the handover ceremony marking the transfer of sovereignty. It was hoisted together with the national PRC flag, while the Chinese national anthem, "March of the Volunteers", was played. The Union Flag and the colonial Hong Kong flag were lowered seconds before midnight. See also Emblem of Hong Kong Black Bauhinia flag List of Hong Kong flags List of Chinese flags List of British flags Flag of Macau Hong Kong at Flags of the World About the National Flag Archived 7 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine – webpage hosted on the website of the Protocol Division Government Secretariat Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance at elegislation.gov.hk

Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of the Hong Kong Government that directly supported by annual government funding, RTHK's educational, entertainment, and public affairs programmes are broadcast on its eight radio channels and five television channels, as well as commercial television channels. History The British Hong Kong Government launched its first radio broadcasting station, known as "GOW", on 20 June 1928, with a starting staff of only six people. Several name changes occurred over the next few years, and it eventually became known as "Radio Hong Kong" (RHK) (香港廣播電台) in 1948.In 1949, broadcasting operations were taken over by the Government Information Services (GIS), but by 1954, RHK had managed to establish itself as an independent department. Up until 1966, the radio station was only on-air for three periods during the day; at morning, lunchtime, and evening. This was partly due to many of the presenters being part-time freelancers who had to fit their radio appearances in with their normal daily working schedule. In 1969, the station's medium wave AM transmitting station was moved from a waterfront site in Hung Hom to the summit of Golden Hill in the New Territories. Although the new transmitters were much more powerful, the mountain-top site proved unsuitable for medium wave transmissions and reception in some areas has remained problematic ever since. In March 1969, RHK moved its headquarters to new purpose-built studios located at Broadcasting House (廣播大廈) in Kowloon Tong. A Public Affairs Television Unit was established in 1970 to produce TV programmes for required broadcast by independent channels. At that time, RTHK did not have its own television broadcast transmitters. In 1973, RTHK set up its own radio newsroom. Prior to this, all news had been prepared by Government Information Services staff. Until 1969, headlines were sent to the studios every half-hour by teleprinter from the GIS headquarters in Central District, while the three daily full bulletins were hand-delivered by a messenger. This arrangement became impractical following the move to the new studios in 1969, so initially a GIS newsroom was set up in Broadcasting House. This arrangement also proved unsatisfactory and RTHK's own journalists, who until then had been confined to producing magazine programmes, took over the entire news operation. In 1976, the station's name was changed to "Radio Television Hong Kong" (RTHK) to reflect its new involvement in television programme production. In the same year, it began to produce educational television programmes for schools after absorbing the previously independent Educational Television Unit.In 1986, RTHK headquarters moved across the road to the former Commercial Television studios, which were renamed Television House. The station's first news and financial news channel, Radio 7, was established in November 1989. In December 1994, RTHK launched its website and made its television productions, as well as content from its seven radio channels, available online. The website provided live broadcasts as well as a twelve-month archive (with the exception of HKCEE and HKALE broadcasts in RTHK2 due to copyright issues with the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority). The website, presented in English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese, initially offered free news via email three times per day, as well as online content. In 2013, RTHK trialled and launched a new television channel. To support this new television operation, the government administration increased the station's funding by between HK$300 million and HK$400 million a year.In April 2016, RTHK took over the analogue channel frequencies of Asia Television (ATV) after the latter's free television licence expired.In March 2017, as the Hong Kong government decided to terminate DAB services in Hong Kong, RTHK said that it would integrate the existing DAB programmes into existing AM and FM radio channels. As the government claimed that RTHK would stop DAB service within six months, meaning DAB service would be terminated no later than 30 September 2017.With the termination of DAB+ in Hong Kong, RTHK announced in August 2017 that the broadcaster's relay of BBC World Service on Radio 6 would be reduced to 8 hours a day and move to an overnight slot on Radio 4; Radio 6 would instead relay China National Radio's programme 14 which targets Hong Kong. CNR's programme 14 was previously heard on RTHK DAB 2 until DAB services in Hong Kong were shut down.Since 2020, RTHK programmes are no longer broadcast on TVB channels. In February 2021 it announced it would cease entirely relaying BBC World Service radio broadcasts following Chinese government criticism of the BBC. Leung Ka-wing, Director of Broadcasting, said it was his decision to follow Beijing's lead in shutting off BBC, and that "Hong Kong is part of China and Radio Television Hong Kong is a department of the HKSAR Government. The decision has nothing to do with news operations." 2021 management change Following complaints from pro-Beijing politicians and groups for alleged bias against the police and the government, the government initiated a review of operations at the broadcaster. In February 2021, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau issued a report on RTHK's governance and management at a press briefing in which the broadcaster was criticised as having "weak editorial accountability". It was further alleged in the report that there were no clear records of its decision-making process on controversial and sensitive matters, while complaints handling was said to lack "sufficient transparency." The government announced the Director of Broadcasting Leung Ka-wing would leave his post six months prior to the expiry of his contract, and that he would be replaced by incumbent Deputy Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Li – a career civil servant without experience in broadcasting.In August 2021, RTHK partnered with the mainland China Media Group, in a move that RTHK said was intended to strengthen "patriotism" in its programs. Eddie Cheung Eddie Cheung took over as head of RTHK in October 2022. In November 2022, he said that "RTHK and other government departments, including the police, should cooperate seamlessly to serve citizens." Radio Stations RTHK operates eight radio stations: Radio programmes RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards Television Channels RTHK operates five television channels: The analogue television channels (TV31A and TV33A) ceased broadcasting on 30 November 2020. Television programmes Public affairs RTHK primarily produces public affairs programmes such as Hong Kong Connection (鏗鏘集), Headliner (頭條新聞), A Week in Politics (議事論事), Media Watch (傳媒春秋), Pentaprism (五稜鏡), Access (奉告), The Pulse and Police Report (警訊). These are also broadcast by Hong Kong's three commercial television channels, TVB, ViuTV and HKIBC, in addition to RTHK's own television network. The government has lifted the requirement since March 2020, therefore TVB no longer broadcasts them. Dramas It has also produced TV dramas, including the classic Below the Lion Rock (獅子山下). ETV RTHK and the Hong Kong Education Bureau jointly produce Educational Television (ETV, 教育電視), a series of educational programmes for primary and secondary students – airing during non-peak hours on RTHK stations. ETV was first broadcast in 1971 for Primary 3 students and was extended to Primary 6 students in 1974. In 1978, it was extended to cover junior secondary (Form 1-Form 3) students. RTHK formerly broadcast these programmes on their stations during non-peak daytime hours.While school programmes covering the topics of English, Chinese, Mathematics and Mandarin Chinese are provided to both primary and secondary students, Science and Humanities programmes are provided for secondary school students only and General Studies programmes are designed for primary students only.There has been confusion between ETV and the ETV division of RTHK. Besides school ETV programmes, the ETV division of RTHK produces public educational television programmes for general viewers, such as Road Back (鐵窗邊緣), Anti-Drug Special (毒海浮生), Sex Education (性本善), and Doctor and You (醫生與你).The nature documentary Biodiversity in Hong Kong (大自然大不同) follows the style of BBC Planet Earth but is narrated in Cantonese. It showcases the ecosystem and biodiversity of Hong Kong.The high production cost of school ETV programmes was criticised by the Audit Commission. In 2017–18, the production cost of school ETV programmes was a staggering HK$1.58 million per hour. Awards RTHK has received multiple awards for its reporting on the 2019 Hong Kong protests, such as from the 50th US International Film and Video Festival, the 2020 New York TV and Film Awards, and the 24th Human Rights Press Awards.RTHK won an award for an episode of Hong Kong Connection about the 2019 Yuen Long attack, but declined the award and said it would not accept any awards during its "transition period" under its new director. Controversies Misconduct In 2002, a former Chief Programme Officer was convicted of misconduct in public office. The charges related to approving salary increases for one RTHK employee without complying with procedures.On 8 June 2006, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong arrested four people on corruption-related charges, including a deputy head of RTHK 2 and a disc jockey, who were arrested for committing scams totalling about HK$70,000 from 1995 to 2001. They were alleged to have conspired and sold scripts for various programmes that they did not write. Another former disc jockey and her mother were alleged to have aided the conspiracy by using their bank accounts by receiving payments from the radio station. All four were arrested and were released on bail.RTHK was also criticised by the Audit Commission of the Hong Kong Government for its problems on complying with regulations on staff management. The report especially highlighted the misuse of public funds by the RTHK staff on entertainment expenses, overtime claims and the outsourcing of services.In July 2007, the head of RTHK and Director of Broadcasting was accidentally spotted by a group of journalists in Causeway Bay along with an unidentified female. The journalists were actually waiting for singer Kenny Bee, who was in a nearby restaurant. On seeing the gathered journalists, Chu ducked behind his companion. Photos became the main page headlines in some of the major Hong Kong newspapers the following day. Chu, who was one year due to his official retirement from the government, subsequently decided to seek early retirement in the aftermath. Nabela Qoser probation controversy Nabela Qoser, who became known to the public after she sharply and unremittingly questioned Hong Kong officials at press conferences following the 2019 Yuen Long attack, saw her three-year-long probation as a civil servant extended by 120 days following a management decision to reopen the investigations on her performance. She stood to be dismissed if she rejected the extension. Members of the RTHK Program Staff Union called the decision "unjustified suppression" and "baseless act derailing from established staff management regulations". Coconuts Media reported that pro-Beijing groups had vilified Qoser, calling her disrespectful and directing racial slurs at her. Qoser left the broadcaster at the end of May 2021. Censorship under Patrick Li Following the appointment of Patrick Li to the post of Director of Broadcasting on 1 March 2021, ten television episodes have been censored; YouTube content more than one-year-old have been removed from RTHK's channel. RTHK claimed that it was to align the YouTube channel with RTHK's policy of only making content available for one year since the date of broadcast on their own website. This move triggered a May 2021 online campaign among RTHK viewers to archive the channel on their own. In early August 2021, the broadcaster deleted its English-language Twitter archive, and announced on 5 August that it was disabling comments for all future tweets due to "resource constraints" that did not allow it to combat any misinformation contained in comments.In March 2021, it was reported that three executives had left the company within two weeks, two of whom left because they did not want to sign an oath declaring loyalty to the government. In March, Li said that he would review all programmes before they could be broadcast.Within a month since Li took over, at least nine episodes of various programmes, including two episodes of Hong Kong Connection – known for its investigative reporting, have been axed. Days before the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, RTHK journalists were informed that no political story would be allowed to air. Programming cut back or cancelled at least 10 programmes – including an segment about the Tiananmen anniversary already aired the week before. RTHK management said three episodes of Hong Kong Connection, Hong Kong Stories, and LegCo Review "were not impartial, unbiased and accurate".On 29 June 2021, RTHK let go of veteran Allan Au Ka-lun, ending 11 years of him hosting the Open Line Open View program.On 5 July, Reporters Without Borders published a report on world leaders who had "cracked down massively on press freedoms". As one reason for including Chief Executive Carrie Lam in the list, the report cited what it described as launching a "full-blown intimidation campaign" against RTHK, and said that Li had been "tasked with setting up an internal censorship system" at the broadcaster. Taiwan Legislative Council member Luk Chung-hung in July 2021 asked Edward Yau, Commerce Secretary, if RTHK's use of the word "president" when referring to Tsai Ing-wen breached the one-China principle. A week later, RTHK implemented new rules, which banned the use of words which would describe Taiwan (and the Republic of China) as an independent country in all television, radio, and online broadcasts. Tiananmen Square In June 2023, several days before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, RTHK removed a letter of gratitude from its office, which thanked its reporters for covering the event and was displayed in the office for 34 years. See also Cho Man Kit v Broadcasting Authority Government departments and agencies in Hong Kong List of Hong Kong companies Media in Hong Kong General references Man, Oi Kuen, Ivy (1998). Cantonese popular song in Hong Kong in the 1970s: an examination of musical content and social context in selected case studies (PDF) (M. Phil. thesis). Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong. doi:10.5353/th_b3122147.: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Official website (in English and Chinese)

Christianity in China has been present since the early medieval period and it has gained a significant amount of influence during the last 200 years. The Syro-Persian Church of the East (frequently mischaracterized as Nestorianism) appeared in China in the 7th century, during the Tang dynasty. Catholicism was one of the religions patronized by the emperors of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, but it did not take root in China until it was reintroduced by Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, Protestant missionaries attracted small but influential followings, and independent Chinese churches were also established. Accurate data on Chinese Christians is difficult to access. There are estimates that say Christianity is the fastest growing religion in China. There were some four million before 1949 (three million Catholics and one million Protestants).In the early 2000s, there were approximately 38 million Protestants and 10-12 million Catholics, with a smaller number of Orthodox Christians. The number of Chinese Christians had increased significantly since the easing of restrictions on religious activities during the economic reforms of the late 1970s. In 2018, the Chinese government declared that there are over 44 million Christians in China. On the other hand, some international Christian organizations estimate that there are tens of millions more, who choose not to publicly identify as such. These estimations are controversial because the organizations which make them are often accused of deliberately inflating them.The practice of religion was tightly controlled in dynastic times and it is also tightly controlled today. Chinese who are over the age of 18 are only permitted to join officially sanctioned Christian groups which are registered with the government-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Church, the China Christian Council and the Protestant Three-Self Church. On the other hand, many Christians who practice Christianity are members of informal networks and unregistered congregations; these congregations are frequently described as house churches or underground churches, the proliferation of which began in the 1950s when many Chinese Protestants and Catholics rejected the state-controlled structures which were purported to represent them. Members of such groups are said to represent the "silent majority" of Chinese Christians and they also represent many diverse theological traditions. Terminology There are various terms which are used for God in the Chinese language, the most prevalent of them is Shangdi (上帝, literally, the "Highest Emperor"), commonly used by both Protestants and non-Christians, and Tianzhu (天主, literally, the "Lord of Heaven"), which is most commonly used by Catholics. Shen (神), which is also widely used by Chinese Protestants, defines the gods or the generative powers of nature in Chinese traditional religions. Historically, Christians have also adopted a variety of terms from the Chinese classics as references to God, for example, the Ruler (主宰) and the Creator (造物主). Terms for Christianity in Chinese include: "Protestantism" (Chinese: 基督教新教; pinyin: Jīdū jiào xīn jiào; lit. 'Christ religion's new religion'); "Catholicism" (Chinese: 天主教; pinyin: Tiānzhǔ jiào; lit. 'Heavenly Lord religion'); and Eastern Orthodox Christians (Chinese: 東正教/东正教; pinyin: Dōng zhèng jiào; lit. 'Eastern Orthodox religion'). The whole of Orthodox Christianity is named Zhèng jiào (正教). Christians in China are referred to as "Christ followers/believers" (Chinese: 基督徒; pinyin: Jīdū tú) or "Christ religion followers/believers" (Chinese: 基督教徒; pinyin: Jīdū jiào tú). History Pre-modern history The significant lack of evidence of Christianity's existence in China between the 3rd century and the 7th century can likely be attributed to the barriers which were placed in Persia by the Sassanids and the closure of the trade route in Turkestan.Both events prevented Christians from staying in contact with their mother church, the Syriac Antiochian Church, thereby halting the spread of Christianity until the reign of emperor T'sai-tsung, or Taizong (627-649). Taizong, who had studied the Christian Scriptures which were given to him by the Assyrian missionary Alopen, realized "their propriety and truth and specifically ordered their preaching and transmission." His virtues have been made manifest to you, and that unheard-of power over things, whether that which was openly exercised by Him or that which was used over the whole world by those who proclaimed Him: it has subdued the fires of passion, and caused races, and peoples, and nations most diverse in character to hasten with one accord to accept the same faith. For the deeds can be reckoned up and numbered which have been done in India, among the Seres [China], Persians, and Medes; in Arabia, Egypt, in Asia, Syria; among the Galatians, Parthians, Phrygians; in Achaia, Macedonia, Epirus; in all islands and provinces on which the rising and setting sun shines. Earliest documented period The Christian apologist Arnobius (died c. AD 330) claimed in his work Against the Heathen: Book II, that Christianity had reached the land of Seres (an old Roman name for northern China). However, to date, there is little to no archaeological evidence or knowledge about the pre-Church of the East classical Chinese and/or Tocharian church. Two (possibly Church of the East) monks were preaching Christianity in India in the 6th century before they smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Byzantine Empire.The first documentation of Christianity entering China was written on an 8th-century stone tablet known as the Xi'an Stele. It records that Christians reached the Tang dynasty capital Xi'an in 635 and were allowed to establish places of worship and to propagate their faith. The leader of the Christian travelers was Alopen, and his meeting with Emperor Taizong was the most influential development in Chinese Christian history yet, leading to the spread of the religion to a much greater extent than ever before.Some modern scholars question whether Nestorianism is the proper term for the Christianity that was practiced in China, since it did not adhere to what was preached by Nestorius. They instead prefer to refer to it as "Church of the East", a term which encompasses the various forms of early Christianity in Asia.Despite Tang Dynasty historians typically getting some elements of Christian history and doctrine wrong in their writing, there was a significant community of scholars who translated the Old and New Testaments into Chinese and understood them fully.In 845, at the height of the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution, the Emperor Wuzong of Tang decreed that Buddhism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism be banned, and their very considerable assets forfeited to the state. In 986 a monk reported to the Patriarch of the East: Christianity is extinct in China; the native Christians have perished in one way or another; the church has been destroyed and there is only one Christian left in the land. Karel Pieters noted that some Christian gravestones are dated from the Song and Liao dynasties (ca. 900s to 1200s), implying that some Christians remained in China in these eras. Medieval period Christianity was a major influence in the Mongol Empire, as several Mongol tribes were primarily Church of the East Christian, and many of the wives of Genghis Khan's descendants were Christian. Contacts with Western Christianity also came in this time period, via envoys from the Papacy to the capital of the Yuan dynasty in Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing). Church of the East Christianity was well established in China, as is attested by the monks Rabban Bar Sauma and Rabban Marcos, both of whom made a famous pilgrimage to the West, visiting many Church of the East communities along the way. Marcos was elected as Patriarch of the Church of the East, and Bar Sauma went as far as visiting the courts of Europe in 1287–1288, where he told Western monarchs about Christianity among the Mongols. In 1294, Franciscan friars from Europe initiated mission work in China. For about a century they worked in parallel with the Church of the East Christians. The Franciscan mission disappeared from 1368, as the Ming dynasty set out to eject all foreign influences.The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians in ancient times by the same name, "Hui Hui" (Hwuy-hwuy). Christians were called "Hwuy who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "Hwuy who abstain from pork", Jews were called "Hwuy who extract the sinews". "Hwuy-tsze" (Hui zi) or "Hwuy-hwuy" (Hui Hui) is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called "Lan Maou Hwuy tsze" (Lan Mao Hui zi) which means "Blue-cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "Teaou-kin-keaou", "extract-sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si), "temple of purity and truth", the name dated to the thirteenth century. The synagogue and mosques were also known as "Le-pae sze" (Libai si). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou" (Israelitish religion) and synagogues known as "Yih-tsze lo née leen" (Israelitish temple), but it faded out of use.It was also reported that competition with the Roman Catholic Church and Islam were also factors in causing Church of the East Christianity to disappear in China; the Roman Catholics also considered the Church of the East as heretical, speaking of "controversies with the emissaries of … Rome, and the progress of Mohammedanism, sapped the foundations of their ancient churches."The Ming dynasty decreed that Manichaeism and Christianity were illegal and heterodox, to be wiped out from China, while Islam and Judaism were legal and fit Confucian ideology. Buddhist sects like the White Lotus were also banned by the Ming. Jesuit missions in China By the 16th century, there is no reliable information about any practicing Christians remaining in China. Fairly soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China (1513) and the creation of the Society of Jesus (1540), at least some Chinese become involved with the Jesuit effort. As early as 1546, two Chinese boys became enrolled into the Jesuits' St. Paul's College in Goa, the capital of Portuguese India. Antonio, one of these two Christian Chinese, accompanied St. Francis Xavier, co-founder of the Jesuits, when he decided to start missionary work in China. However, Xavier was not able to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland and died in 1552 on Shangchuan Island off the coast of Guangdong. With the Portuguese establishing an enclave on Zhongshan Island's Macau Peninsula, Jesuits established a base nearby on Green Island (now the SAR's "Ilha Verde" neighborhood). Alessandro Valignano, the new regional manager ("Visitor") of the order, came to Macau in 1578–1579 and established St. Paul's College to begin training the missionaries in the language and culture of the Chinese. He requested assistance from the orders' members in Goa in bringing over suitably talented linguists to staff the college and begin the mission in earnest. In 1582, Jesuits once again initiated mission work inside China, introducing Western science, mathematics, astronomy, and cartography. Missionaries such as Matteo Ricci and Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote Chinese catechisms and made influential converts like Xu Guangqi, establishing Christian settlements throughout the country and becoming close to the imperial court, particularly its Ministry of Rites, which oversaw official astronomy and astrology. Ricci and others including Michele Ruggieri, Philippe Couplet, and François Noël undertook a century-long effort in translating the Chinese classics into Latin and spreading knowledge of Chinese culture and history in Europe, influencing its developing Enlightenment. The Jesuits also promoted phenomena of artistic hybridization in China, such as Chinese Christian cloisonné productions.The introduction of the Franciscans (the first round of Catholic Church clergy to have come during this era) and other orders of missionaries, however, led to a long-running controversy over Chinese customs and names for God. The Jesuits, the secularized mandarins, and eventually the Kangxi Emperor himself maintained that Chinese veneration of ancestors and Confucius were respectful but nonreligious rituals compatible with Christian doctrine; other orders pointed to the beliefs of the common people of China to show that it was impermissible idolatry and that the common Chinese names for God confused the Creator with His creation. Acting on the complaint of the Bishop of Fujian, Pope Clement XI finally ended the dispute with a decisive ban in 1704; his legate Charles-Thomas Maillard De Tournon issued summary and automatic excommunication of any Christian permitting Confucian rituals as soon as word reached him in 1707. By that time, however, Tournon and Bishop Maigrot had displayed such extreme ignorance in questioning before the throne that the Kangxi Emperor mandated the expulsion of Christian missionaries unable to abide by the terms of Ricci's Chinese catechism. Tournon's policies, confirmed by Clement's 1715 bull Ex Illa Die..., led to the swift collapse of all of the missions across China, with the last Jesuits—obliged to maintain allegiance to the papal rulings—finally being expelled after 1721. It was not until 1939 that the Catholic Church revisited its stance, with Pope Pius XII permitting some forms of Chinese customs; Vatican II later confirmed the new policy. 17th to 18th centuries Further waves of missionaries came to China in the Qing (or Manchu) dynasty (1644–1911) as a result of contact with foreign powers. Russian Orthodoxy was introduced in 1715 and Protestants began entering China in 1807. The Qing dynasty's Yongzheng Emperor was firmly against Christian converts among his own Manchu people. He warned them that the Manchus must follow only the Manchu way of worshipping Heaven since different peoples worshipped Heaven differently. He stated: The Lord of Heaven is Heaven itself. . . . In the empire we have a temple for honoring Heaven and sacrificing to Him. We Manchus have Tiao Tchin. The first day of every year we burn incense and paper to honor Heaven. We Manchus have our own particular rites for honoring Heaven; the Mongols, Chinese, Russians, and Europeans also have their own particular rites for honoring Heaven. I have never said that he [Urcen, a son of Sun] could not honor heaven but that everyone has his way of doing it. As a Manchu, Urcen should do it like us. 19th to 20th centuries By the 1840s China became a major destination for Protestant missionaries from Europe and the United States. Catholic missionaries, who had been banned for a time, returned a few decades later. It is difficult to determine an exact number, but historian Kathleen Lodwick estimates that some 50,000 foreigners served in mission work in China between 1809 and 1949, including both Protestants and Catholics. They encountered significant opposition from local elites, who were committed to Confucianism and resented Western ethical systems. Missionaries were often seen as part of Western imperialism. The educated gentry were afraid for their own power. The mandarins claim to power lay in the knowledge of the Chinese classics—all government officials had to pass extremely difficult tests on Confucianism. The elite currently in power feared this might be replaced by the Bible, scientific training and Western education. Indeed, the examination system was abolished in the early 20th century by reformers who admired Western models of modernization.The main goal was conversions, but they made relatively few. They were much more successful in setting up schools, as well as hospitals and dispensaries. They avoided Chinese politics, but were committed opponents of opium. Western governments could protect them in the treaty ports, but outside those limited areas they were at the mercy of local government officials and threats were common. They were a prime target of attack and murder by Boxers in 1900. Protestant missions 140 years of Protestant missionary work began with Robert Morrison, arriving in Macau on 4 September 1807. Morrison produced a Chinese translation of the Bible. He also compiled a Chinese dictionary for the use of Westerners. The Bible translation took 12 years and the compilation of the dictionary, 16 years. Hostile laws The Qing government code included a prohibition of "Wizards, Witches, and all Superstitions". The Jiaqing Emperor, in 1814, added a sixth clause with reference to Christianity, modified in 1821 and printed in 1826 by the Daoguang Emperor prohibiting those who spread Christianity among Han Chinese and Manchus. Christians who would not renounce their conversion were to be sent to Muslim cities in Xinjiang, to be given as slaves to Muslim leaders and beys. Some hoped that the Chinese government would discriminate between Protestantism and the Catholic Church, since the law was directed at Rome, but after Protestant missionaries in 1835– 36 gave Christian books to Chinese, the Daoguang Emperor demanded to know who were the "traitorous natives in Canton who had supplied them with books". Rapid growth after 1842 The pace of missionary activity increased considerably after the First Opium War in 1842. Christian missionaries and their schools, under the protection of the Western powers, went on to play a major role in the Westernization of China in the 19th and 20th centuries. Liang Fa ("Leung Faat" in Cantonese) worked in a printing company in Guangzhou in 1810 and came to know Robert Morrison, who translated the Bible to Chinese and needed printing of the translation. When William Milne arrived at Guangzhou in 1813 and worked with Morrison on translation of the Bible, he also came to know Liang, whom he baptized in 1816. In 1827, Liang was ordained by Morrison, thus, he became a missionary for the London Missionary Society and the first Chinese Protestant minister and evangelist. During the 1840s, Western missionaries promulgated Christianity in officially designated coastal Treaty ports that were open to foreign trade. The Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) originated in the influence of missionaries on its leader Hong Xiuquan, who called himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, but he was denounced as a heretic by mainstream Christian groups. Hong's revolt against the Qing government lead to the establishment of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, and its capital was established at Nanjing. Hong attained control of significant parts of southern China, at its height, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ruled around 30 million people. Hong's theocratic and militaristic regime instituted social reforms which included the strict separation of the sexes, the abolition of foot binding, land socialization, the suppression of private trade, and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion with Hong's version of Christianity. The Taiping rebellion was eventually put down by the Qing army, which was aided by French and British forces. With an estimated death toll of between 20 and 30 million due to warfare and the resulting starvation, this civil war is considered one of history's deadliest conflicts. Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong viewed the Taiping as heroic revolutionaries who fought against a corrupt feudal system. Hospitals and schools Christians established clinics and hospitals, and provided training for nurses. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants founded educational institutions from the primary to the university level. Some prominent Chinese universities began as religious-founded institutions. Missionaries worked to abolish practices such as foot binding, and the unjust treatment of maidservants, as well as launching charitable work and distributing food to the poor. They also opposed the opium trade and brought treatment to many who were addicted.Some early leaders of the Chinese Republic, such as Sun Yat-sen were converts to Christianity and were influenced by its teachings. Expanding beyond the port cities By the early 1860s the Taiping movement was almost extinct, Protestant missions at the time were confined to five coastal cities. By the end of the century, however, the picture had vastly changed. Scores of new missionary societies had been organized, and several thousand missionaries were working in all parts of China. This transformation can be traced to the Unequal Treaties which forced the Chinese government to admit Western missionaries into the interior of the country, the excitement caused by the 1859 awakening of faith in Britain. A major role was played by J. Hudson Taylor (1832–1905). Taylor (Plymouth Brethren) arrived in China in 1854. Historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote that Hudson Taylor was "one of the greatest missionaries of all time, and ... one of the four or five most influential foreigners who came to China in the nineteenth century for any purpose."The China Inland Mission, based in London with a strong appeal to fundamentalist and evangelical Anglicans, was the largest mission agency in China and it is estimated that Taylor was responsible for more people being converted to Christianity than at any other time since The days of the apostles. Out of the 8,500 Protestant missionaries that were at one time at work in China, 1000 of them were from the China Inland Mission. Dixon Edward Hoste, the successor to Hudson Taylor, originally expressed the self-governing principles of the Three-Self Church, at the time he was articulating the goal of the China Inland Mission to establish an indigenous Chinese Church that was free from foreign control. Social services In imperial-times Chinese social and religious culture there were charitable organizations for virtually every social service: burial of the dead, care of orphans, provision of food for the hungry. The wealthiest in every community—typically, the merchants—were expected to give food, medicine, clothing, and even cash to those in need. According to Caroline Reeves, a historian at Emmanuel College in Boston, that began to change with the arrival of American missionaries in the late 19th century. One of the reasons they gave for being there was to help the poor Chinese. By 1865 when the China Inland Mission began, there were already thirty different Protestant groups at work in China, however the diversity of denominations represented did not equate to more missionaries on the field. In the seven provinces in which Protestant missionaries had already been working, there were an estimated 204 million people with only 91 workers, while there were eleven other provinces in inland China with a population estimated at 197 million, for whom absolutely nothing had been attempted. Besides the London Missionary Society, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, there were missionaries affiliated with Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, and Wesleyans. Most missionaries came from England, the United States, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland, or the Netherlands. Secular books In addition to the publication and distribution of Christian literature and Bibles, the Protestant missionary movement in China furthered the dispersion of knowledge with other printed works of history and science. As the missionaries went to work among the Chinese, they established and developed schools and introduced medical techniques from the West. The mission schools were viewed with some suspicion by the traditional Chinese teachers, but they differed from the norm by offering a basic education to poor Chinese, both boys and girls, who had no hope of learning at a school before the days of the Chinese Republic. Opposition Local affairs in China were under the control of local officials and the land-owning gentry. They led the opposition to missionary work. According to historian Paul Varg: The Chinese hostility to the missionary was based first of all on the fact that Western Christianity was utterly strange and incomprehensible to the Chinese. There was also the opposition based on what they did understand, namely the missionary's revolutionary program. The literati sensed from the very beginning that Christianization would deprive them of their power. So intense was their hostility that few missionaries considered it worthwhile to make any effort to win them over.In December 1897, Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, which triggered a "scramble for concessions" by which Britain, France, Russia and Japan also secured their own sphere of influence in China. After the German government took over Shandong, many Chinese feared that the foreign missionaries and possibly all Christian activities were imperialist attempts at "carving the melon", i.e., to colonize China piece by piece.Local gentry published hate literature against the foreign missionaries. One tract featured foreign missionaries praying to crucified pigs—the Catholic term for God was Tianzhu (Heavenly Lord), in which the Chinese character "zhu" had the same pronunciation as the word for "pig". The pamphlet also showed Christian clergy engaging in orgies following Sunday services and removing the placentas, breasts, and testicles from kidnapped Chinese. It concluded with repeated calls for their extermination by vigilantes and the government.The Boxer Uprising was in large part a reaction against Christianity in China. Missionaries were harassed and murdered, along with tens of thousands of converts. In 1895, the Manchu Yuxian, a magistrate in the province, acquired the help of the Big Swords Society in fighting against bandits. The Big Swords practiced heterodox practices, however, they were not bandits and were not seen as bandits by Chinese authorities. The Big Swords relentlessly crushed the bandits, but the bandits converted to the Catholic Church, because it made them legally immune to prosecution under the protection of the foreigners. The Big Swords proceeded to attack the bandits' Catholic churches and burn them. Yuxian only executed several Big Sword leaders, but did not punish anyone else. More secret societies started emerging after this.In Pingyuan, the site of another insurrection and major religious disputes, the county magistrate noted that Chinese converts to Christianity were taking advantage of their bishop's power to file false lawsuits which, upon investigation, were found groundless.French Catholic missionaries were active in China; they were funded by appeals in French churches for money. The Holy Childhood Association (L'Oeuvre de la Sainte Enfance) was a Catholic charity founded in 1843 to rescue Chinese children from infanticide. It was a target of Chinese anti-Christian protests notably in the Tianjin Massacre of 1870. Rioting sparked by false rumors of the killing of babies led to the death of a French consul and provoked a diplomatic crisis. Popularity and indigenous growth (1900–1925) Many scholars see the historical period between the Boxer Uprising and the Second Sino-Japanese War as a golden age of Chinese Christianity, as converts grew rapidly and churches were built in many regions of China. Paul Varg argues that American missionaries worked very hard on changing China: The growth of the missionary movement in the first decades of the [20th] century wove a tie between the American church-going public and China that did not exist between the United States and any other country. The number of missionaries increased from 513 in 1890 to more than 2,000 in 1914, and by 1920 there were 8,325 Protestant missionaries in China. In 1927 there were sixteen American universities and colleges, ten professional schools of collegiate rank, four schools of theology, and six schools of medicine. These institutions represented an investment of $19 million. By 1920, 265 Christian middle schools existed with an enrollment of 15,213. There were thousands of elementary schools; the Presbyterians alone had 383 primary schools with about 15,000 students. Extensive fund-raising and publicity campaigns were held across the U.S. The Catholics in the United States also supported large mission operations in China.Following the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Glasgow, Protestant missionaries energetically promoted what they called "indigenization", that is assigning the leadership of churches to local Christian leaders. The Chinese National YMCA was the first to do so. In the 1920s, a group of church leaders formed the National Christian Council to coordinate interdenominational activity. Among the leaders were Cheng Jingyi, who was influential at the Glasgow Conference with his call for a non-denominational church. The way was prepared for the creation of the Church of Christ in China, a unified non-denominational church.After World War I, the New Culture Movement fostered an intellectual atmosphere that promoted Science and Democracy. Although some of the movement's leaders, such as Chen Duxiu, initially expressed admiration for the role that Christianity played in building the strong nations of the West, as well as approving the emphasis on love and social service, Christianity became identified in the eyes of many young Chinese with foreign control of China. The 1923 Anti-Christian Movement attacked missionaries and their followers on the grounds that no religion was scientific and that the Christian church in China was a tool of the foreigners. Such Chinese Protestants as the liberals David Z. T. Yui, head of the Chinese National YMCA, and Y. T. Wu (Wu Yaozong), Wu Leichuan, T. C. Chao, and the theologically more conservative Chen Chonggui responded by developing social programs and theologies that devoted themselves to strengthening the Chinese nation. Y. C. James Yen, a graduate of Yale University, led a program of village reform.Several political leaders of the Republican period were Protestant Christians, including Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek, Feng Yuxiang, and Wang Zhengting. Leading writers include Lin Yutang, who renounced his Christianity for several decades. His journey of faith from Christianity to Taoism and Buddhism, and back to Christianity in his later life was recorded in his book From Pagan to Christian (1959). Lottie Moon (1840-1912), representing the Southern Baptist, was the most prominent woman missionary. Although an equality-oriented feminist who rejected male dominance, the Southern Baptists have memorialized her as a southern belle who followed traditional gender roles. Medical missions Medical missions in China by the late 19th century laid the foundations for modern medicine in China. Western medical missionaries established the first modern clinics and hospitals, provided the first training for nurses, and opened the first medical schools in China. By 1901, China was the most popular destination for medical missionaries. The 150 foreign physicians operated 128 hospitals and 245 dispensaries, treating 1.7 million patients. In 1894, male medical missionaries constituted 14 percent of all missionaries; women doctors were four percent. Modern medical education in China started in the early 20th century at hospitals run by international missionaries. They began establishing nurse training schools in China in the late 1880s, but nursing of sick men by female nurses was rejected by local traditions, so the number of Chinese students was small until the practice became accepted in the 1930s. There was also a level of distrust on the part of traditional evangelical missionaries who thought hospitals were diverting needed resources away from the primary goal of conversions.Of the 500 hospitals in China in 1931, 235 were run by Protestant missions and 10 by Catholic missions. The mission hospitals produce 61 percent of Western trained doctors, 32 percent nurses and 50 percent of medical schools. Already by 1923 China had half of the world's missionary hospital beds and half the world's missionary doctors.Due to the essential non-existence of Chinese doctors of Western medicine in China and Hong Kong, the founding of colleges of Western medicine was an important part of the medical mission. These colleges for the training of male and female doctors were separately founded. The training of female doctors was particularly necessary, due to the reluctance of Chinese women to see male doctors. The Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (香港華人西醫書院) was founded in Hong Kong by the London Missionary Society in 1887 for the training of male doctors. Sun Yat-Sen, the first graduate of this college and the founder of modern China, graduated in 1892. Hong Kui Wong (黄康衢) (1876-1961) graduated in 1900 and then moved to Singapore, where he supported the Chinese Revolution led by Sun Yat-Sen.The Hackett Medical College for Women (夏葛女子醫學院), the first medical college for women in China, and its affiliated hospital known as David Gregg Hospital for Women and Children (柔濟醫院), located together in Guangzhou, China, were founded by female medical missionary Mary H. Fulton (1854-1927). Fulton was sent by the Foreign Missions Board of the Presbyterian Church (USA), with the support of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, New York, of which David Gregg was pastor. The college was dedicated in 1902 and offered a four-year medical curriculum. Its graduates include Lee Sun Chau. Indigenous Christian leaders Indigenous Christian evangelism started in China in the late 1800s. Man-Kai Wan (1869–1927) was one of the first Chinese doctors of Western medicine in Hong Kong, the inaugural chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese Medical Association (1920–1922, forerunner of the Hong Kong Medical Association), and a secondary school classmate of Sun Yat-sen in the Government Central College (currently known as Queen's College) in Hong Kong. Wan and Sun graduated from secondary school around 1886. Doctor Wan was also the chairman of the board of a Christian newspaper called Great Light Newspaper (大光報) that was distributed in Hong Kong and China. Sun and Wan practiced Western Medicine together in a joint clinic. The father-in-law of Wan was Au Fung-Chi (1847–1914), the secretary of the Hong Kong Department of Chinese Affairs, manager of Kwong Wah Hospital for its 1911 opening, and an elder of To Tsai Church (renamed Hop Yat Church since 1926), which was founded by the London Missionary Society in 1888 and was the church of Sun Yat-sen. National and social change: the war against Japan and the Chinese Civil War (1925–1949) During World War II, China was devastated by the Second Sino-Japanese War which countered a Japanese invasion, and by the Chinese Civil War which resulted in the separation of Taiwan from mainland China. In this period the Chinese Christian churches and organizations had their first experience with autonomy from the Western structures of the missionary church organizations. Some scholars suggest this helped lay the foundation for the independent denominations and churches of the post-war period and the eventual development of the Three-Self Church and the Catholic Patriotic Church. At the same time the intense war period hampered the rebuilding and development of the churches. Since 1949: The People's Republic The People's Republic of China (PRC) was declared October 1, 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Mao Zedong, while the Republic of China led by the Kuomintang maintained its government on the island of Taiwan. The historian Daniel Bays comments that it was "not surprising that this new government, like the emperors of several dynasties of the last millennium, evinced an insistence on monitoring religious life and requiring all religions, for example, to register their venues and leadership personnel with a government office." Christian missionaries left in what was described by Phyllis Thompson of the China Inland Mission as a "reluctant exodus".The Chinese Protestant church entered the communist era having made significant progress toward self-support and self-government. While the Chinese Communist Party was hostile to religion in general, it did not seek to systematically destroy religion as long as the religious organizations were willing to submit to the direction of the Chinese state. Many Protestants were willing to accept such accommodation and were permitted to continue religious life in China under the name "Three-Self Patriotic Movement". Catholics, on the other hand, with their allegiance to the Holy See, could not submit to the Chinese state as their Protestant counterparts did, notwithstanding the willingness of the Vatican to compromise in order to remain on Chinese mainland—the papal nuncio in China did not withdraw to Taiwan like other western diplomats. Consequently, the Chinese state organized the Catholic Patriotic Church that operates without connection to the Vatican, and the Catholics who continued to acknowledge the authority of the Pope were subject to persecution. From 1966 to 1976 during the Cultural Revolution, the expression of religious life in China was effectively banned, including even the Three-Self Church. During the ten-year period the government began to crackdown and persecute all religions. This forced the Christians to be secretive and go underground to avoid getting executed by the communist government. Religions in China began to recover after the economic reforms of the 1970s. In 1979 the government officially restored the Three-Self Church after thirteen years of non-existence, and in 1980 the China Christian Council (CCC) was formed. Since then, persecution of Christians in China has been sporadic. During the Cultural Revolution believers were arrested and imprisoned and sometimes tortured for their faith. Bibles were destroyed, churches and homes were looted, and Christians were subjected to humiliation. Several thousand Christians were known to have been imprisoned between 1983 and 1993. In 1992 the government began a campaign to shut down all of the unregistered meetings. However, government implementation of restrictions since then has varied widely between regions of China and in many areas there is greater religious liberty.The members of the underground Roman Catholic Church in China, those who do not belong to the official Catholic Patriotic Church and are faithful to the Vatican and the Pope, remain theoretically subject to persecution today. In practice, however, the Vatican and the Chinese State have been, at least unofficially, accommodating each other for some time. While some bishops who joined the Catholic Patriotic Church in its early years have been condemned and even excommunicated, the entire organization has never been declared schismatic by the Vatican and, at present, its bishops are even invited to church synods like other Catholic leaders. Also, many underground clergy and laymen are active in the official Patriotic Church as well. Still, there are periods of discomfort between Vatican and the Patriotic Church: Pope Benedict XVI condemned the Patriotic Catholic leaders as "persons who are not ordained, and sometimes not even baptised", who "control and make decisions concerning important ecclesial questions, including the appointment of bishops". The Chinese state indeed continues to appoint bishops and intervene in the church's policy (most notably on abortion and artificial contraception) without consulting the Vatican and punishing outspoken dissenters. In one notable case that drew international attention, Thaddeus Ma Daqin, the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai whom both the Vatican and Chinese state agreed as the successor to the elderly Aloysius Jin Luxian, the Patriotic Catholic bishop of Shanghai (whom the Vatican also recognized as the coadjutor bishop), was arrested and imprisoned after publicly resigning from his positions in the Patriotic Church in 2012, an act which was considered a challenge to the state control over the Catholic Church in China. A Christian spiritual revival has grown in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The Communist Party remains officially atheist, and has remained intolerant of churches outside party control. Christianity has grown rapidly, reaching 67 million people. In recent years, however, the Communist Party has looked with distrust on organizations with international ties; it tends to associate Christianity with what it deems to be subversive Western values, and has closed churches and schools. In 2015, outspoken pastors in Hong Kong and their associates on the mainland came under close scrutiny from government officials. Contemporary People's Republic of China Subdivision of the Christian community Official organizations—the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church and the Chinese Protestant Church The Catholic Patriotic Church and the Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement are centralised and government-sanctioned Christian institutions which regulate all local Christian gatherings, all of which are required to be registered under their auspices. Unregistered churches Many Christians hold meetings outside of the jurisdiction of the government-approved organizations and avoid registration with the government and are often illegal. While there has been continuous persecution of Chinese Christians throughout the twentieth century, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, there has been increasing tolerance of unregistered churches since the late 1970s. Catholic groups are usually known as underground churches and Protestant groups are usually known as house churches. The Catholic underground churches are those congregations who remain fully faithful to the Pope in Rome and refuse to register as part of the Catholic Patriotic Church. Much of the Protestant house church movement dates back to the coerced unification of all Protestant denominations in the Three-Self Church in 1958. There is often significant overlap between the membership of registered and unregistered Christian bodies, as a large number of people attend both registered and unregistered churches.Local authorities continued to harass and detain bishops, including Guo Xijin and Cui Tai, who refused to join the state-affiliated Catholic association. Chinese authorities raided or closed down hundreds of Protestant house churches in 2019, including Rock Church in Henan Province and Shouwang Church and Zion Church in Beijing, with their pastor, Jin Tianming and Jin Mingri under house arrest. The government released some of the Early Rain Covenant Church congregants who had been arrested in December 2018, but in December 2019 a court charged Pastor Wang Yi with “subversion of state power” and sentenced him to nine years imprisonment. Several local governments, including Guangzho city, offered cash bounties for individuals who informed on underground churches. In addition, authorities across the country have removed crosses from churches, banned youth under the age of 18 from participating in religious services, and replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of Chinese Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping. Chinese Independent Churches The Chinese Independent Churches are a group of Christian institutions that are independent from Western denominations. They were established in China in the late 19th and early 20th century, including both the Little Flock or Church Assembly Hall and True Jesus Church. In the 1940s they gathered 200,000 adherents, which was 20% to 25% of the total Christian population of that time.Miller (2006) explains that a significant amount of the house churches or unregistered congregations and meeting points of the Protestant spectrum, that refuse to join the Three-Self Church—China Christian Council, belong to the Chinese Independent Churches. Congregations of the Little Flock or the True Jesus Church tend to be uncooperative towards the Three-Self Church as to their principle it represents not only a tool of the government but also a different Christian tradition. Chinese Orthodox Church There are a small number of adherents of Russian Orthodoxy in northern China, predominantly in Harbin. The first mission was undertaken by Russians in the 17th century. Orthodox Christianity is also practiced by the small Russian ethnic minority in China. The Church operates relatively freely in Hong Kong (where the Ecumenical Patriarch has sent a metropolitan, Bishop Nikitas and the Russian Orthodox parish of St Peter and St Paul resumed its operation) and Taiwan (where archimandrite Jonah George Mourtos leads a mission church). Korean Christianity Chinese scholars of religion have reported that a large portion of the members of the networks of house or unregistered churches, and of their pastors, belong to the Koreans of China. The pastors of the Shouwang Church and Zion Church, independent churches in Beijing noted for having been prosecuted by the government, are Chinese of Korean ethinicity. The Korean-Chinese pastors have a disproportional influence on the underground Christianity in China. Christianity has been an influential religion among the Korean people since the 19th century, and it has become the largest religion in South Korea after the division from the north in 1945. Christianity also has a strong presence in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, in the Jilin province of China.The Christianity of Yanbian Koreans has a patriarchal character; Korean churches are usually led by men, in contrast to Chinese churches which more often have female leadership. For instance, of the 28 registered churches of Yanji, only three of which are Chinese congregations, all the Korean churches have a male pastor while all the Chinese churches have a female pastor. Also, Yanbian Korean church buildings are stylistically very similar to South Korean churches, with big spires surmounted by large red crosses. Yanbian Korean churches and house churches in China have been a matter of controversy for the Chinese government because of their links to South Korean churches. Many of the Korean house churches in China receive financial support and pastoral ordinations from South Korean churches, and some of them are effectively branches of South Korean churches. South Korean missionaries have major influence not only on Korean-Chinese churches but also the Han Chinese churches in mainland China. Heterodox sects In China there are also a variety of Christian sects based on biblical teachings that are considered by the government as "heterodox teachings" (邪教; xiéjiào) or cults, including the Eastern Lightning and the Shouters. They primarily operate in a form similar to the "house churches", small worship groups, outside of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Church, that meet in members' homes. One feature that some Christian sects with this label have in common is particular emphasis on the authority of a single leader, sometimes including claims to be Jesus. In the mid-1990s, Chinese government started to monitor these new religious movements, and prohibited them officially, so their activities soon turned underground. Religious venues and practice As of 2012 in China Catholicism has 6,300 churches, 116 active dioceses of which 97 under the Catholic Patriotic Church, 74 Chinese Patriotic bishops and 40 Roman Catholic unofficial bishops, 2,150 Chinese Patriotic priests and 1,500 Roman Catholic priests, 22 major and minor Chinese Patriotic seminaries and 10 Roman Catholic unofficial seminaries. In the same year, there are 53,000 Three-Self churches and meeting places and 21 Three-Self theological seminaries.In 2010, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in China revealed its on-going efforts to negotiate with authorities to regularize its activities in the country. The church has had expatriate members worshiping in China for a few decades previous to this, but with restrictions. On March 31, 2020, during its general conference, the church announced its intent to build a temple in Shanghai as a "modest multipurpose meetinghouse." When it opens it will operate by appointment only for Chinese members, excluding tourists. Demographics and geography Mainland China Although a number of factors—the vast Chinese population and the characteristic Chinese approach to religion among others—contribute to a difficulty to obtain empirical data on the number of Christians in China, a series of surveys have been conducted and published by different agencies. Government figures only count adult baptized members of government sanctioned churches. Thus they generally do not include un-baptized persons attending Christian groups, non-adult children of Christian believers or other persons under age 18 and they generally do not take into account unregistered Christian groups. There is often significant overlap between the membership of registered and unregistered Christian bodies, as a large number of people attend both registered and unregistered churches. Official membershipAs of 2023, there are approximately 44 million Chinese Christians registered with government-approved Christian groups.: 51  The Three-Self Church had a membership of 20 million people as of 2012. The Catholic Patriotic Church had a membership of 6 million people as of 2012.Independent surveys 2005/2006/2007: three surveys of religions in China conducted in those years by the Horizon Research Consultancy Group on a disproportionately urban and suburban sampling, found that Christians constituted between 2% and 4% of the total population. 2007: two surveys were conducted that year to count the number of Christians in China. One of them was conducted by the Protestant missionary Werner Bürklin, founder of "China Partner", an international Christian organisation, and his team of 7,409 surveyors in every province and municipality of China. The other survey was conducted by professor Liu Zhongyu of the East China Normal University of Shanghai. The surveys were conducted independently and along different periods of time, but they reached the same results. According to the analyses, there were approximately 54 million Christians in China (≈4% of the total population), of whom 39 million were Protestants and 14 million were Catholics. 2008: a survey of religions conducted in that year by Yu Tao of the University of Oxford with a survey scheme led and supervised by the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP) and the Peking University, analysing the rural populations of the six provinces of Jiangsu, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Jilin, Hebei and Fujian, each representing different geographic and economic regions of China, found that Christians constituted approximately 4% of the population, of whom 3.54% were Protestants and 0.49% were Catholics. 2008–2009: a household survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) counted 23 million Protestants (independent and registered) in China. 2010: the "Chinese Spiritual Life Survey" counted 33 million Christians (≈2% of the total population), of whom 30 million Protestants and 3 million Catholics. 2011: a survey conducted by the Baylor's Empirical Study of Values in China (ESVC) found 2.5% (≈30 to 40 million) of the population of China self-identifying as Christian. 2012: a survey conducted by the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) institute, found Christians forming 2.4% of the population of Han China, or between 30 and 40 million people in absolute numbers. Of these, 1.9% were Protestants and 0.4% were Catholics. Surveys on religion in China conducted in the years 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2011 by the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) of the Renmin University found that people self-identifying as Christians were, respectively for each year, 2.1%, 2.2%, 2.1% and 2.6% of the total population.Estimates 2010: the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimated over 67 million Christians in China, of which 35 million "independent" Protestants, 23 million Three-Self Protestants, 9 million Catholics and 20,000 Orthodox Christians. 2014: scholars at a conference for the 60th anniversary of the Three-Self Church showed that China has about 23 million to 40 million Protestants, 1.7% to 2.9% of the total population. Each year, about 500,000 people are baptized as Protestants.Protestants concentrate mainly in three regions: Henan, Anhui and Zhejiang. In these provinces the Christian population is in the millions, yet small in percentage. For instance, in Zhejiang 2.8% of the population is officially Protestant as of 1999, higher than the national average. In Wenzhou, a city of Zhejiang, about one million people (approximately 11%) are Christians, the highest concentration in one city. The Protestant population consists predominantly of illiterate or semi-illiterate people, elderly people and women. These characteristics are confirmed by the findings of the Yu Tao survey of 2008, which also found that Protestantism has the lowest proportion of believers who are at the same time members of the CCP in comparison to other religions, and by the China Family Panel Studies' survey of 2012.The province of Hebei has a concentration of Catholics and is also home to the town of Donglu, site of an alleged Marian apparition and pilgrimage center. According to the Yu Tao survey of 2008, the Catholic population, though much smaller than that of the Protestants, is nevertheless younger, wealthier and better educated. The survey also found that Christianity overall has a higher proportion of ethnic minority believers than the other religions.Controversy exists regarding the veracity of estimates published by some sources. For example, Gerda Wielander (2013) has claimed that estimates of the number of Christians in China that have been spread by Western media may have been highly inflated. For instance, according to Asia Harvest, a US non-profit organization and "inter-denominational Christian ministry", there were 105 millions Christians in China in 2011. The compiler of these figures, Paul Hattaway, indicates that his figures are his own estimate, based on more than 2,000 published sources such as Internet reports, journals, and books, as well as interviews with house church leaders. The study points out that "owing to the difficulties of conducting such a [study] in China today – not the least of which is the sheer size of the country – there is [in the study's rough estimation] a margin of error of 20 percent." Citing one of the aforementioned surveys, Gerda Wielander says that the actual number of Christians is around 30 million. Similarly, missionary researcher Tony Lambert has highlighted that an estimate of "one hundred million Chinese Christians" was already being spread by American Christian media in 1983, and has been further exaggerated, through a chain of misquotations, in the 2000s. Christopher Marsh (2011) too has been critical of these overestimations. On 6 January 2015, David Ferguson published on the People's Daily the satirical news Merry Christmas, 100 million Chinese! criticising such type of journalism. Demographics by province Special administrations Hong Kong Christianity has been practiced in Hong Kong since 1841. As of 2010 there are 843,000 Christians in Hong Kong (11.8% of the total population). Macau As of 2010 approximately 5% of the population of Macau self-identifies as Christian, predominantly Catholic. Catholic missionaries were the first to arrive in Macau. In 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macau's harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. Around 1552–1553, they obtained temporary permission to erect storage sheds onshore, in order to dry out goods drenched by sea water; they soon built rudimentary stone houses around the area now called Nam Van. In 1576, Pope Gregory XIII established the Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau. In 1583, the Portuguese in Macau were permitted to form a Senate to handle various issues concerning their social and economic affairs under strict supervision of the Chinese authority, but there was no transfer of sovereignty. Macau prospered as a port but was the target of repeated failed attempts by the Dutch to conquer it in the 17th century. Cai Gao was the first mainland Chinese convert of the 19th-century Protestant missions. He was baptized by Robert Morrison at Macau in 1814. Autonomous regions Inner Mongolia Tibet The Qing government permitted Christian missionaries to enter and proselytize in Tibetan lands, in order to weaken the power of the Tibetan Buddhist lamas, who refused to give allegiance to the Chinese. The Tibetan lamas were alarmed by Catholic missionaries converting natives to Roman Catholicism. During the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion the Tibetan Buddhist Gelug Yellow Hat sect led a Tibetan revolt, with Tibetan men being led by lamas against Chinese officials, western Christian missionaries and native Christian converts. Wine making vineyards were left behind by them. Xinjiang Christianity is a minority religion in the Xinjiang region of the People's Republic of China. The dominant ethnic group, the Uygur, are predominantly Muslim and very few are known to be Christian. In 1904, George Hunter with the China Inland Mission opened the first mission station for CIM in Xinjiang. But already in 1892, the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden started missions in the area around Kashgar, and later built mission stations, churches, hospitals and schools in Yarkant and Yengisar. In the 1930s there were several hundreds of Christians among this people, but because of persecution the churches were destroyed and the believers were scattered. The missionaries were forced to leave because of ethnic and factional battles during the Kumul Rebellion in the late 1930s. Ningxia Though the Hui people live in nearly every part of China, they make up about 30% of the population of Ningxia. They are almost entirely Muslim and very few are Christian. Guangxi Rapid church growth is reported to have taken place among the Zhuang people in the early 1990s. Though still predominantly Buddhist and animistic, the region of Guangxi was first visited in 1877 by Protestant missionary Edward Fishe of the China Inland Mission. He died the same year. Art and media Christian art is an important part of expressing faith for Christians, archeological sites containing early Christian art and architecture can be found throughout China. And are protected by the government as Chinese antiquities.There is Christian media produced in China. The Christian magazine Tian Feng has a large reach, as do the academic journals Chinese Theological Review and Nanjing Theological Review. The Bible is translated into Chinese, such as the Chinese New Version, Chinese Union Version, Delegates' Version, Studium Biblicum Version, and Today's Chinese Version. Hymnals include Canaan Hymns and Chinese New Hymnal. Contemporary Christian music is available on streaming services like QQ Music.Foreign Christian media is handled differently than other forms of foreign media, as the China Film Administration and National Radio and Television Administration sees it as a distinctive expression of Christian faith. The Publicity Department of the Chinese Communist Party instead relegates the task of releasing and translation of foreign Christian films and Christian literature to the State Administration for Religious Affairs, and the various Catholic Patriotic Association, China Christian Council, and Three-Self Patriotic Movement denominations. Christian television series such as Superbook, The Chosen, and Duck Dynasty are widely available in China, and are oftentimes even dubbed into Chinese. Christian video games and interactive media are also accessible in Chinese, including the YouVersion Bible app and Superbook games. Restrictions and international interest In large cities with international links such as Beijing, foreign visitors have established Christian communities which meet in public establishments such as hotels and, sometimes, local churches. These fellowships, however, are typically restricted only to holders of non-Chinese passports. American evangelist Billy Graham visited China in 1988 with his wife Ruth; it was a homecoming for her since she had been born in China to missionary parents L. Nelson Bell and his wife Virginia.Since the 1980s, U.S. officials visiting China have on multiple occasions visited Chinese churches, including President George W. Bush, who attended one of Beijing's five officially recognized Protestant churches during a November 2005 Asia tour, and the Kuanjie Protestant Church in 2008. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attended Palm Sunday services in Beijing in 2005. The law does not define "proselytization", but the constitution states that nobody can force a citizen to believe or not believe in a religion; new laws in 2022 required anyone preaching online to apply for a permit for proselytizing. During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, three American Christian protesters were deported from China after a demonstration at Tiananmen Square.Pope Benedict XVI urged China to be open to Christianity, and said that he hoped the Olympic Games would offer an example of coexistence among people from different countries. Unregistered Roman Catholic clergy has faced political repression, in large part due to its avowed loyalty to the Vatican, which the Chinese government has claimed interferes in the country's internal affairs.The Associated Press reported in 2018 that "Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982." This has involved "destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith," actions taken against "so-called underground or house churches that defy government restrictions."In April 2020, Chinese authorities visited Christian homes in Linfen and informed welfare recipients that their benefits would be stopped unless they removed all crosses and replaced any displays of Jesus with portraits of Chairman Mao Zedong and General Secretary Xi Jinping.In June 2020, state officials oversaw the demolition of Sunzhuang Church in Henan province. Prior to the Church being demolished, one man was arrested and at least two women were injured.In reports of countries with the strongest anti-Christian persecution, China was ranked by the Open Doors organisation in 2023 as 16th most severe. See also Bibliography of Christianity in China Catholic Church in China Chinese Orthodox Church Chinese Rites Controversy Christianity in Sichuan Denunciation Movement Historical Bibliography of the China Inland Mission Holy Cross Church, Wanzhou Protestantism in China Timeline of Christian missions List of Protestant theological seminaries in the People's Republic of China Heterodox teachings (Chinese law) Religion in China Freedom of religion in China Human rights in China#Religious freedom Antireligious campaigns in China and further reading Cordier, Henri (1913). "The Church in China". Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Appleton. Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, "The Ricci 21st Century Roundtable on the History of Christianity in China." Includes Bibliographies (an unannotated listing); biographies of people who played a role in the history of Christianity in China, web links. Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity Timeline of Orthodoxy in China Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity 香港浸會大學圖書館 華人基督宗教文獻保存計劃 Archived 2019-10-17 at the Wayback Machine Documentation of Christianity in Hong Kong Database (香港基督教文獻數據庫) Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Christianity Rare Books Database 基督教古籍數據庫 Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Christianity in Contemporary China Clippings 當代中國基督教發展剪報數據庫 Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Preservation for the Documentation of Chinese Christianity 香港浸會大學圖書館 華人基督宗教文獻保存計劃 Archived 2019-10-17 at the Wayback Machine China Through the Eyes of CIM Missionaries Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Library Holdings on China Inland Mission Special Collections & Archives, Hong Kong Baptist University Library.

Qian (simplified Chinese: 钱; traditional Chinese: 錢; pinyin: Qián; Wade–Giles: Ch'ien²; Shanghainese: [ʑ̊i]), also spelt Chin, Chien, Tsien, or Zee in Wu Chinese, is a common Chinese family name. The name literally means "money". Qian is listed at the second place in the Song Dynasty text Hundred Family Surnames, in the line 趙錢孫李 (Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li). As the royal surname of the kingdom of Wuyue, Qian was regarded as second only to Zhao, the imperial surname of the Song. As of 2008, Qian is the 96th most common surname in China, shared by 2.2 million people, with the province with the most people sharing the name being Jiangsu, an area formerly within the Wuyue kingdom. Origins According to the Song dynasty book, Tongzhi, the Qian surname is descended from Zhuanxu, one of the legendary Five Emperors, via Pengzu, the founder of the Peng kingdom in modern-day Jiangsu during the Shang dynasty. A Zhou dynasty official, Fu, was a descendant of Pengzu and served in the royal Treasury, the Qianfu ("Money Office"). His descendants adopted the surname "Qian", literally "money", from his title. Being descendants of the Peng kingdom, the Qian family originally congregated around Xiapi, in modern-day Jiangsu. The surname spread from there, now has its highest concentration of it in the Jiangnan region. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907-960), Qian Liu and his descendants ruled the independent kingdom of Wuyue in south-eastern China. Qian Liu had many sons, who were posted to different parts of his kingdom, greatly increasing the density of the Qian surname within the former territory of Wuyue. This area comprises today's Zhejiang, Shanghai, southern Jiangsu and northern Fujian. After Wuyue submitted to the Song Dynasty in 978, the last king moved to Bianjing, the Song capital in modern-day Henan. The Qian family was thereafter prominent at the Song court, with Qian Chu's son, Qian Weiyan, serving as a prominent Chancellor. During this period, the Qian family also spread to northern China. Notable people Pre-modern Qian Chenqun (1686–1774), Qing dynasty minister Empress Qian (?–1468), wife of the Zhengtong Emperor of Ming Qian Qi (錢起) (710–782), Tang dynasty poet The royal family of Wuyue, especially: Qian Chu (錢俶) (929–988), last king Qian Liu (錢鏐) (852–932), founder Qian Qianyi (钱谦益) (1582–1664), Ming dynasty official and author Qian Taiji (1791–1863), Qing dynasty bibliophile, official Qian Weiyan (钱惟演) (962–1034), Song Chancellor, Duke Qian Yiji (1783–1850), Qing dynasty official, geographer Qian Yingpu (1824–1902), Qing dynasty official, Grand Councillor Modern Ch'ien Mu (錢穆) (1895–1990), historian Qian Baojun (钱宝钧) (1907–1996), polymer chemist and educator, co-founder of Donghua University Chin Kar-lok (錢嘉樂) (born 1965), actor and action choreographer Fredrick Chien (錢復) (born 1935), Republic of China politician, diplomat Qian Changzhao (1899–1988), industrialist and politician Qian Liren (錢李仁) (born 1924), People's Republic of China politician, diplomat Qian Nairong (born 1945), linguist Qian Nancy (钱楠筠) (born 1978), economist, Northwestern University Professor Qian Qichen (钱其琛) (1928–2017), Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Qian Sanqiang (钱三强) (1913–1992), nuclear physicist Chien Shih-Liang (錢思亮) (1908–1983), chemist and educator Qian Weichang (錢偉長) (1913–2010), physicist and mathematician Qian Wenzhong (born 1966), Tibetologist and Indologist, Fudan University professor Qian Xiuling (錢秀玲; 1912–2008), Chinese emigrant to Belgium who helped save hundreds of Belgians from execution by the Nazi Qian Xuantong (錢玄同) (1887–1939), linguist Qian Xuesen (Tsien Hsue-shen) (錢學森) (1911–2009), rocket scientist and physicist Qian Ying (politician, born 1903) (1903–1973), People's Republic of China politician Qian Ying (錢英) Chinese politician Qian Qihu (钱七虎) (born 1937), military engineer Qian Yunlu (钱运录) (born 1944), People's Republic of China politician Qian Zhengying (钱正英) (1923–2022), hydrologist, People's Republic of China politician Qian Zhiguang (1900–1994), Minister of Light Industry and Minister of Textile Industry Qian Zhijun (钱志君) (born 1987), actor and subject of the "Little Fatty" internet meme Qian Zhimin (born 1960), former President of China National Nuclear Corporation Qian Zhongshu (錢鍾書) (1910–1998), scholar and writer Qian Zhuangfei (1895–1935), Chinese intelligence agent Robert Tienwen Chien (錢天問) (1931-1983), American Computer Scientist, University of Illinois Professor, Director of Coordinated Science Laboratory Ronny Chieng (錢信伊), Malaysian Chinese standup comedian and actor Roger Y. Tsien (錢永健) (1952-2016), biologist, 2008 Nobel Prize winner Shu Chien (錢煦) (born 1931), biological scientist and engineer Tsien Tsuen-hsuin (錢存訓) (1909−2015), sinologist, University of Chicago professor Qian Min (钱敏) (1927–2019), mathematical physicist, winner of the 11th Hua Luogeng Prize in Mathematics Joe Z. Tsien (钱卓) (born 1962), Neuroscientist and geneticist, the pioneer of Cre/lox neurogenetics and the creator of smart mouse Doogie. He is also known for his Theory of Connectivity regarding the basic logic of brain computation and the origin of intelligence. Chang-Kan Chien (1904-1940) Engineer, builder of Hangzhou bridge, bridges on the Burma Road during WWII. Was killed by Japanese fighter planes during the war. Qian Kun (钱锟) (born 1996) Singer, member of South Korean group NCT and its Chinese sub-unit WayV (威神V) Meanings of Qian (钱/錢) A type of farm tool, especially an iron spade. Ancient Chinese coinage, especially copper coins. Cost, expense, fee, etc., derived from its meaning related to Chinese coinage. Meaning of property, derived from its meaning related to Chinese coinage. Small round objects similar to a coin, derived from its meaning related to Chinese coinage. Mace, a traditional mass unit of Chinese units of measurement, equaling to one tenth of one tael. A surname. See also All Wikipedia pages beginning with Qian

The Chinese Wikipedia (traditional Chinese: 中文維基百科; simplified Chinese: 中文维基百科; pinyin: Zhōngwén Wéijī Bǎikē) is the written vernacular Chinese (a form of Mandarin Chinese) edition of Wikipedia. It is run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Started on 11 May 2001, the Chinese Wikipedia currently has 1,377,022 articles and 3,397,784 registered users, of whom 65 have administrative privileges. The Chinese Wikipedia has been blocked in mainland China since May 2015. Despite the block, it is still one of the ten most active language versions of Wikipedia (and it has the eighth-highest number of active users as of August 2021) due to contributions from users from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, and the large Chinese diaspora. Taiwan and Hong Kong contribute most of the page views of the Chinese Wikipedia. History The Chinese Wikipedia was established along with 12 other Wikipedias in May 2001. At the beginning, however, the Chinese Wikipedia did not support Chinese characters, and had no encyclopedic content. In October 2002, the first Chinese-language page was written, the Main Page. A software update on 27 October 2002 allowed Chinese language input. The domain was set to be zh.wikipedia.org, with zh based on the ISO code for the Chinese language. On 17 November 2002, the user Mountain translated the Computer science article into zh:计算机科学, thus creating its first real encyclopedic article. In order to accommodate the orthographic differences between simplified Chinese characters and traditional Chinese characters (or Orthodox Chinese), from 2002 to 2003, the Chinese Wikipedia community gradually decided to combine the two originally separate versions of the Chinese Wikipedia. The first running automatic conversion between the two orthographic representations started on 23 December 2004, with the MediaWiki 1.4 release. The needs from Hong Kong and Singapore were taken into account in the MediaWiki 1.4.2 release, which made the conversion table for zh-sg default to zh-cn, and zh-hk default to zh-tw.In its early days, most articles on the Chinese Wikipedia were translated from the English version. The first five sysops, or administrators, were promoted on 14 June 2003. Wikipedia was first introduced by the mainland Chinese media in the newspaper China Computer Education on 20 October 2003, in the article, "I join to write an encyclopedia" (我也来写百科全书). On 16 May 2004, Wikipedia was first reported by Taiwanese media in the newspaper China Times. Since then, many newspapers have published articles about the Chinese Wikipedia, and several sysops have been interviewed by journalists. Ivan Zhai of the South China Morning Post wrote that the blocks from the mainland authorities in the 2000s stifled the growth of the Chinese Wikipedia, and that by 2013 there was a new generation of users originating from the Mainland who were taking efforts to make the Chinese Wikipedia grow. In 2013, there were 1.4 million registered users on the Chinese Wikipedia, and in July 2013 7,500 of these users were active, with most of them originating from Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are 715,000 entries for the Chinese Wikipedia, making it the 12th largest Wikipedia. Naming The Chinese name of Wikipedia was decided on 21 October 2003, following a vote. The name (Chinese: 維基百科; pinyin: Wéijī Bǎikē) means "Wiki Encyclopedia". The Chinese transcription of "Wiki" is composed of two characters: 維, whose ancient sense refers to 'ropes or webs connecting objects', and alludes to the 'Internet'; and 基, meaning the 'foundations of a building', or 'fundamental aspects of things in general'. The name can be interpreted as 'the encyclopedia that connects the fundamental knowledge of humanity'. The most common Chinese translation for wiki technology is 維基; however, it can be 維客 (literally "dimension visitor" or similar) or 圍紀 (literally "circle/enclose period/record" or similar), which are also transcriptions of the word "wiki". As a result, the term 維基 has become associated exclusively with Wikimedia projects.The Chinese Wikipedia also has a sub header: 海納百川，有容乃大, which means, "The sea encompasses hundreds of rivers/all rivers will eventually flow into the sea; it has capacity i.e. is willing to accept all and is thus great." The sub header originated from the first half of a couplet composed by the Qing Dynasty official Lin Zexu. Community According to Wikimedia Statistics, in January 2021, the majority of viewers and editors on the Chinese Wikipedia were from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Numerous viewers and users are from Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, United States and other countries with a high Chinese diaspora; but there are some viewers from China as well. In April 2016, the project had 2,127 active editors who made at least five edits in that month. The most discussed and debated topics on the Chinese Wikipedia are political issues in Chinese modern history. For example, the six most edited articles as of August 2007 were Taiwan, Chinese culture, China, Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek, and Hong Kong, in that order. In contrast, issues such as the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are much less contentious.Due to the audience base, Wikipedians from China, Taiwan, and other regions had engaged in editing conflicts over political topics related to Cross-Straits relations. Due to the censorship in mainland China, Chinese Wikipedia's audience comes primarily from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and the diasporas in Malaysia, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Korea (including Koreans from China), totaling approximately 60 million people. Chinese Wikipedia has more than 9,100 active users as of July 2021, and this number is increasing.Approximately half of Chinese Wikipedia's 610 million pageviews monthly come from Taiwan, with approximately one 20% coming from Hong Kong, one 8% from United States, one 4% from Malaysia and the rest from Singapore, Macau, Mainland China and the Chinese diaspora. In 2021, the monthly pageviews of Chinese Wikipedia underwent a spike in growth from around 380 million to 620 million pageviews in six months. Administrators As of June 2019, there are 78 administrators, or sysops. They are all elected by Chinese Wikipedians. Most of them come from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. There are also a few who come from the United States, Singapore, and Japan. Meetings The first Chinese Wikipedian meeting was held in Beijing on 25 July 2004. Since then, Chinese Wikipedians from different regions have held many gatherings in Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Shenyang, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Currently, a regular meetup is held once every two weeks in Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong, and once every month in Tainan City, Taiwan. In July 2006, Taiwanese Wikipedians also held a "travelling meetup", travelling by train through four Taiwanese cities over a period of two days. In August 2006, Hong Kong hosted the first annual Chinese Wikimedia Conference. Chinese Wikipedians advertise Wikipedia in different ways. Many of them use Weibo, a Chinese socializing website similar to Twitter. Several Chinese Wikipedians created the Wikipedia monthly magazine, or journal, called "The Wikipedians" in December 2012, which is currently published once a month. State persecution of volunteers Chinese Wikipedia volunteers who edit on topics considered controversial by the state authorities, such as about Hong Kong protests, can face harassment and persecution. Automatic conversion between traditional and simplified Chinese characters Original situation Originally, there were virtually two Chinese Wikipedias under the names of "zh" (or "zh-cn") and "zh-tw". Generally, users from regions that used Traditional Chinese characters (such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) wrote and edited articles using Traditional Chinese characters whereas those from regions that used Simplified Chinese characters (such as mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia) wrote using Simplified Chinese characters. Many articles had two uncoordinated versions; for example, there was both a Traditional (法國) and Simplified (法国) article on France. Further exacerbating the problem were differences in vocabulary (particularly nouns) and writing systems, between mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For example, a pineapple is called 菠萝 in mainland China and 菠蘿 in Hong Kong and Macau, but 黄梨 in Singapore and Malaysia and 鳳梨 in Taiwan. Solution To avoid this near-forking of the project, starting around January 2005, the Chinese Wikipedia began providing a server-side mechanism to automatically convert different characters and vocabulary items into the user's local ones, according to the user's preference settings, which may be set to one of two settings that convert the script only, or one of six settings that also take into account regional vocabulary differences: Conversion is done through a set of character conversion tables that may be edited by administrators. To provide an alternative means to harmonize the characters when the server-side converters fail to work properly, a special template was created to manually convert characters and article titles in one specific page. Furthermore, page title conversion is used for automatic page redirection. Those articles previously named in different characters or different translations have been merged, and can be reached by means of both Traditional and Simplified Chinese titles. Differences with other versions of Wikipedia According to a survey conducted between April 2010 and March 2011, edits to the Chinese Wikipedia were 37.8 per cent from Taiwan, 26.2 per cent from Hong Kong, 17.7 per cent from mainland China, 6.1 per cent from United States, and 2.3 per cent from Canada.Many editing controversies arise from current and historical political events in Chinese-speaking regions, such as the political status of Taiwan, independent movement and autonomy movement of Hong Kong, Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, issues of the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang. Wikipedia in other varieties of Chinese The Chinese Wikipedia is based on written vernacular Chinese, the official Chinese written language in all Chinese-speaking regions, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. This register is largely associated with the grammar and vocabulary of Standard Chinese, the official spoken language of mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore (but not exclusively of Hong Kong and Macau, which largely use Cantonese). The varieties of Chinese are a diverse group encompassing many regional topolects, most of which are mutually unintelligible and often divided up into several larger dialect groups, such as Wu (including Shanghainese and Suzhounese), Min Nan (of which Taiwanese is a notable dialect), and Cantonese. In regions that speak non-Mandarin languages or regional Mandarin dialects, the Vernacular Chinese standard largely corresponding to Standard Chinese is nevertheless used exclusively as the Chinese written standard; this written standard differs sharply from the local dialects in vocabulary and grammar, and is often read in local pronunciation but preserving the vocabulary and grammar of Standard Chinese. After the founding of Wikipedia, many users of non-Mandarin Chinese varieties began to ask for the right to have Wikipedia editions in non-Mandarin varieties as well. However, they also met with significant opposition, based on the fact that Mandarin-based Vernacular Chinese is the only form used in scholarly or academic contexts. Some also proposed the implementation of an automatic conversion program similar to that between Simplified and Traditional Chinese; however, others pointed out that although conversion between Simplified and Traditional Chinese consists mainly of glyph and sometimes vocabulary substitutions, different regional varieties of Chinese differ so sharply in grammar, syntax, and semantics that it was unrealistic to implement an automatic conversion program. Objections notwithstanding, it was determined that these Chinese varieties were sufficiently different from Standard Chinese and had a sufficiently large number of followers to justify the creation of six Wikipedias for different varieties. Finally, requests were also made, and granted, to create a Classical Chinese Wikipedia (zh-classical:), based on Classical Chinese, an archaic register of Chinese with grammar and vocabulary drawn from classical works and used in all official contexts until the early 20th century, when it was displaced by the Vernacular Chinese standard. All of the above Wikipedias have sidestepped the Traditional/Simplified Chinese issue. The Wu Wikipedia uses Simplified Chinese exclusively, and the Classical Chinese Wikipedia uses Traditional Chinese exclusively (The Gan and Cantonese Wikipedias default to Traditional, but have a conversion function similar to the Chinese Wikipedia). The Min Nan Wikipedia uses Pe̍h-ōe-jī. The Mindong Wikipedia and Hakka Wikipedias currently use Bàng-uâ-cê and Pha̍k-fa-sṳ respectively, which can be converted to Traditional Chinese characters, thus avoiding the issue completely. Blocking of Wikipedia The People's Republic of China and internet service providers in mainland China have adopted a practice of blocking contentious Internet sites in mainland China, and Wikimedia sites have been blocked at least three times in its history.On 19 May 2015, Chinese Wikipedia was blocked again within mainland China. Because all Wikipedias rely on HTTPS links, Chinese censors cannot see what page an individual is viewing; this also makes it more difficult to block a specific set of pages. First block The first block lasted from 2 to 21 June 2004. It began when access to the Chinese Wikipedia from Beijing was blocked on the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Possibly related to this, on 31 May an article from the IDG News Service was published, discussing the Chinese Wikipedia's treatment of the protests. The Chinese Wikipedia also has articles related to Taiwan independence, written by contributors from Taiwan and elsewhere. A few days after the initial block of the Chinese Wikipedia, all Wikimedia Foundation sites were blocked in mainland China. In response to the blocks, two moderators prepared an appeal to lift the block and asked their regional internet service provider to submit it. All Wikimedia sites were unblocked between 17 and 21 June 2004. One month later, the first Chinese Wikipedian moderators' meeting was held in Beijing on 25 July 2004. The first block had an effect on the vitality of the Chinese Wikipedia, which suffered sharp dips in various indicators, such as the number of new users, the number of new articles, and the number of edits. In some cases, it took anywhere from 6 to 12 months in order to regain the stats from May 2004. On the other hand, on today's site, some of the articles are put under protection which may last for a month or more without any actions. Second block The second and less serious outage lasted between 23 and 27 September 2004. During this four-day period, access to Wikipedia was erratic or unavailable to some users in mainland China – this block was not comprehensive and some users in mainland China were never affected. The exact reason for the block is a mystery. Chinese Wikipedians once again prepared a written appeal to regional ISPs, but the block was lifted before the appeal was actually sent, for an unknown reason. Third block and temporary unblocks The third block began on 19 October 2005, and there was no indication as to whether this block was temporary or permanent, or what the reasons or causes for this block were. According to the status page currently maintained on the Chinese Wikipedia, the Florida and Korea servers were blocked, whereas the Paris and Amsterdam servers were not. Dozens of editors from across mainland China reported that they could only access Wikipedia using proxy servers, although there were isolated reports that some users could access Wikipedia without using a proxy. Most Chinese people were not able to connect to the site at all. During October and November 2006, it first appeared that the site was unblocked again. Many conflicting reports came from news outlets, bloggers, and Wikipedians, reporting a possible partial or full unblocking of Wikipedia. Some reports indicated a complete unblock; others suggested that some sensitive topics remained blocked, and yet others suggested that the Chinese Wikipedia was blocked whereas other-language versions were not. From 17 November onwards, the complete block was once again in place. On 15 June 2007, China lifted the block for several articles, only to then block an increasing number of articles. On 30 August 2007, all blocks were lifted, but then a block was placed on Wikipedia for all languages on 31 August 2007. As of 26 January 2008, all languages of Wikipedia were blocked, and as of 2 April 2008, the block was lifted.By 5 April 2008, the Chinese Wikipedia became difficult to access from the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou. Connections to the Chinese Wikipedia were completely blocked as of 6 April 2008. Any attempt to access the Chinese Wikipedia resulted in a 60-second ban on all Wikimedia websites. However, users were able to log on to the Chinese Wikipedia using https. All other languages were accessible, but politically sensitive searches such as Tibet were still blocked. On 3 July 2008, the government lifted the ban on accessing the Chinese Wikipedia. However, some parts were still inaccessible. On 31 July 2008, BBC reported that the Chinese Wikipedia had been unblocked that day in China; it had still been blocked the previous day. This came within the context of foreign journalists arriving in Beijing to report on the upcoming Olympic Games, and websites like the Chinese edition of the BBC were being unblocked following talks between the International Olympic Committee and the Games' Chinese organizers. Fourth block On 19 May 2015, both the encrypted and unencrypted Chinese-language versions of Wikipedia were blocked. Fifth block On 23 April 2019, all versions of Wikipedia were blocked in China. Controversy and criticism 2006 allegations of self-censorship In December 2006, the International Herald Tribune Asia-Pacific published an article saying that sensitive topics received subdued treatment on the Chinese Wikipedia. But on sensitive questions of China's modern history or on hot-button issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the censors themselves. For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and thoroughness. On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by enthusiasts who practice self-censorship. On 1 December 2006, The New York Times published another report by Howard W. French, titled "Wikipedia lays bare two versions of China's past." Some say the object should be to spread reliable information as widely as possible, and that, in any case, self-censorship is pointless because the government still frequently blocks access to Wikipedia for most Chinese Internet users. 'There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,' said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the encyclopedia. 'To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to make it well known among Chinese, to get people to understand the principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked by the government. The report was subsequently repeated by CBS and by Chinese-language media outlets such as the Apple Daily in Taiwan. Some Chinese Wikipedians then tried to clarify the situation. One Chinese Wikipedian sent a comment that was subsequently published in the Apple Daily in Taiwan. The comment stated: ... control over our content does not stem from any political motive, and we try to the extent of our abilities (even if we cannot do it perfectly) to prevent the influence of ideology; the motive, goal, and standards of control are very clear: to create an encyclopedia with rich content, good quality, and open copyright. All of our editing and deletion policies stem from this. There is no doubt about this point, and this will not change under any political pressure or personal beliefs. Regarding the description of Mao Zedong on the Chinese Wikipedia, one can simply go online and see for oneself; in order to understand the operation of Wikipedia or to edit it oneself, just a few more mouse clicks would suffice. As Wikipedia continues to attract awareness, the number of users is increasing, and the media has increased interest in Wikipedia as well. Unfortunately, even a reputable international media source such as the New York Times was unable to find out the actual situation before passing biased judgment on Wikipedia. We can also see here that in quoting media overseas, even a notable one, one must still be cautious and check once again for oneself. (Translated) In another email addressed to the Wikimedia Foundation mailing list, a Chinese Wikipedian stated: 1) Chinese Wikipedia has and conforms to a high standard of neutral point of view, and Chinese Wikipedians take this policy seriously. 2) There is no such thing called "self-censorship" at Chinese Wikipedia; indeed any intention for such practice at Chinese Wikipedia will be denounced by most Chinese Wikipedians. 3) Chinese Wikipedia is written by people from various places of the world, including Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Asia, America, Europe, etc. Indeed, editors from Mainland China are disproportionally scarce because of the current block obviously imposed by the PRC government (though it never admitted that). Previous proposals to self-censor the Chinese Wikipedia in light of the P. R. Chinese government's censorship policies have been made before, but were overwhelmingly rejected by the community. 2010 Administrator Controversy In April 2010, Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao reported the large-scale censorship of contents about 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and Hong Kong related contents in which an administrator named "Shizhao" ("百無一用是書生" a.k.a. "時昭") was involved. The report also mentioned the failed recall of the administrator.In a follow-up, Ming Pao interviewed Shizhao and stated that he was not a member of the 50 Cent Party. He added that for controversial topics such as the 1989 protests, he should be a little more cautious. In the interview, he denied that he had attempted to delete an article about the Concert For Democracy in China (民主歌聲獻中華), and stated that he merely questioned the notability of the concert by adding a template to the article.However, he had started a vote to delete an article about a song criticizing the Hong Kong government (Chinese: 福佳始終有你; pinyin: Fú jiā shǐzhōng yǒu nǐ) in 2007, enraging many Hong Kong netizens. Shizhao added that, at the time, he had already edited more than 50,000 times, deleting several articles including Manual for Librarians. He joked about the incident, saying, "some may consider that is a kind of hate to libraries and hence is not suitable for monitoring Wikipedia." Allegations of bias against the Chinese Government Some Chinese officials and scholars have accused Chinese Wikipedia of having serious anti-Chinese government bias. Chinese academics Li-hao Gan and Bin-Ting Weng published a paper titled "Opportunities And Challenges Of China's Foreign Communication in the Wikipedia", in which they argue that "due to the influence by foreign media, Wikipedia entries have a large number of prejudiced words against the Chinese government". Jie Ding, an official from the China International Publishing Group, also published an article stated that " there is a lack of systematic ordering and maintenance of contents about China's major political discourse on Wikipedia". He also urged Wikipedia to reflect the voices and views of the Chinese government in an objective way. Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in an interview with the BBC that " there a lot of misunderstandings about China abroad "In October 2021, WMF's application to become an observer at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was blocked by the government of China over the existence of a Wikimedia Foundation affiliate in Taiwan and accusation of "Anti-China false information". VPN exemptions Despite being censored in mainland China, and as VPNs are normally not allowed to edit Wikipedia, Wikipedia administrators from China have permitted IP block exemption for a select number of mainland users. According to the Slate, "one former Chinese Wikipedia editor told me that over the past few years there has been a "defection" of volunteer editors leaving Baidu Baike to join Chinese Wikipedia because the contributors wanted the privilege of working on a higher-quality internet encyclopedia—one that also carries a great deal of international power." Wikimedia Foundation banned members from affiliated group The Wikimedians of Mainland China (WMC) has threatened to report Wikipedia editors to Hong Kong’s national security police hotline over the disputed article "2019–2020 Hong Kong protests" characterized by edit warring. A Hong Kong-based editor, who remains anonymous because of fears of intimidation, noted that users may remove content that is sympathetic to protests. Competitors On 20 April 2006, the online Chinese search engine company Baidu created Baidu Baike, an online encyclopedia that registered users can edit, pending administrator reviews. The content of the encyclopedia is self-censored in accordance with the regulations of the People's Republic of China government. Within weeks, the number of articles in Baidu Baike had surpassed that of the Chinese Wikipedia. However, Baidu Baike has long been accused of copying and reproducing articles from Chinese Wikipedia.As of October 2009, Hudong Wiki surpassed Baidu Baike as China's largest online encyclopedia in terms of number of articles it owns. Hudong has since been renamed to Baike, not to be confused with Baidu Baike. Baidu Baike and Hudong are both commercial products. Whereas the Chinese Wikipedia is released under the GNU Free Documentation License, Baidu Baike and Hudong are fully copyrighted by their ownership; contributors forfeit all rights upon submission. However, Baidu Baike has been accused of "widespread copyright infringement" by mass-copying Wikipedia pages and incorporating them into Baidu Baike pages since 2007. See also Censorship of Wikipedia § China Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China Politics of the People's Republic of China Golden Shield Project Chinese encyclopedias List of Wikipedias The Signpost, 26 September 2021 Zhemao hoaxes Chinese Wikipedia (in Chinese) (in Chinese) Wikipedia at Baidu Baike (in Chinese) 维基百科 at Baike.com Chinese Wikimedia Conference 2006 Liao, Tan-Heng. "Wikipedia in mainland China: the critical years of 2005-2008." Oxford Internet Suite. Oxford University. Woo, Eva. "China, Wikipedia, and Censorship's Perils." BusinessWeek. 20 October 2007.

A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is a (pronounced ), plural aes. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest known certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it from a true alphabet). In turn, the ancestor of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in proto-Sinaitic script influenced by Egyptian hieroglyphs, styled as a triangular head with two horns extended. When the ancient Greeks adopted the alphabet, they had no use for a letter to represent the glottal stop—the consonant sound that the letter denoted in Phoenician and other Semitic languages, and that was the first phoneme of the Phoenician pronunciation of the letter—so they used their version of the sign to represent the vowel /a/, and called it by the similar name of alpha. In the earliest Greek inscriptions after the Greek Dark Ages, dating to the eighth century BC, the letter rests upon its side, but in the Greek alphabet of later times it generally resembles the modern capital letter, although many local varieties can be distinguished by the shortening of one leg, or by the angle at which the cross line is set. The Etruscans brought the Greek alphabet to their civilization in the Italian Peninsula and left the letter unchanged. The Romans later adopted the Etruscan alphabet to write the Latin language, and the resulting letter was preserved in the Latin alphabet that would come to be used to write many languages, including English. Typographic variants During Roman times, there were many variant forms of the letter "A". First was the monumental or lapidary style, which was used when inscribing on stone or other "permanent" media. There was also a cursive style used for everyday or utilitarian writing, which was done on more perishable surfaces. Due to the "perishable" nature of these surfaces, there are not as many examples of this style as there are of the monumental, but there are still many surviving examples of different types of cursive, such as majuscule cursive, minuscule cursive, and semicursive minuscule. Variants also existed that were intermediate between the monumental and cursive styles. The known variants include the early semi-uncial, the uncial, and the later semi-uncial. At the end of the Roman Empire (5th century AD), several variants of the cursive minuscule developed through Western Europe. Among these were the semicursive minuscule of Italy, the Merovingian script in France, the Visigothic script in Spain, and the Insular or Anglo-Irish semi-uncial or Anglo-Saxon majuscule of Great Britain. By the ninth century, the Caroline script, which was very similar to the present-day form, was the principal form used in book-making, before the advent of the printing press. This form was derived through a combining of prior forms. 15th-century Italy saw the formation of the two main variants that are known today. These variants, the Italic and Roman forms, were derived from the Caroline Script version. The Italic form, also called script a, is used in most current handwriting; it consists of a circle and vertical stroke on the right ("ɑ"). This slowly developed from the fifth-century form resembling the Greek letter tau in the hands of medieval Irish and English writers. The Roman form is used in most printed material; it consists of a small loop with an arc over it ("a"). Both derive from the majuscule (capital) form. In Greek handwriting, it was common to join the left leg and horizontal stroke into a single loop, as demonstrated by the uncial version shown. Many fonts then made the right leg vertical. In some of these, the serif that began the right leg stroke developed into an arc, resulting in the printed form, while in others it was dropped, resulting in the modern handwritten form. Graphic designers refer to the Italic and Roman forms as "single decker a" and "double decker a" respectively. Italic type is commonly used to mark emphasis or more generally to distinguish one part of a text from the rest (set in Roman type). There are some other cases aside from italic type where script a ("ɑ"), also called Latin alpha, is used in contrast with Latin "a" (such as in the International Phonetic Alphabet). Use in writing systems English In modern English orthography, the letter ⟨a⟩ represents at least seven different vowel sounds: the near-open front unrounded vowel /æ/ as in pad; the open back unrounded vowel /ɑː/ as in father, which is closer to its original Latin and Greek sound; the diphthong /eɪ/ as in ace and major (usually when ⟨a⟩ is followed by one, or occasionally two, consonants and then another vowel letter) – this results from Middle English lengthening followed by the Great Vowel Shift; the modified form of the above sound that occurs before ⟨r⟩, as in square and Mary; the rounded vowel of water; the shorter rounded vowel (not present in General American) in was and what; a schwa, in many unstressed syllables, as in about, comma, solar.The double ⟨aa⟩ sequence does not occur in native English words, but is found in some words derived from foreign languages such as Aaron and aardvark. However, ⟨a⟩ occurs in many common digraphs, all with their own sound or sounds, particularly ⟨ai⟩, ⟨au⟩, ⟨aw⟩, ⟨ay⟩, ⟨ea⟩ and ⟨oa⟩. ⟨a⟩ is the third-most-commonly used letter in English (after ⟨e⟩ and ⟨t⟩) and French, the second most common in Spanish, and the most common in Portuguese. About 8.167% of letters used in English texts tend to be ⟨a⟩; the number is around 7.636% in French, 11.525% in Spanish, and 14.634% for Portuguese. Other languages In most languages that use the Latin alphabet, ⟨a⟩ denotes an open unrounded vowel, such as /a/, /ä/, or /ɑ/. An exception is Saanich, in which ⟨a⟩ (and the glyph Á) stands for a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. Other systems In phonetic and phonemic notation: in the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨a⟩ is used for the open front unrounded vowel, ⟨ä⟩ is used for the open central unrounded vowel, and ⟨ɑ⟩ is used for the open back unrounded vowel. in X-SAMPA, ⟨a⟩ is used for the open front unrounded vowel and ⟨A⟩ is used for the open back unrounded vowel. Other uses In algebra, the letter a along with various other letters of the alphabet is often used to denote a variable, with various conventional meanings in different areas of mathematics. Moreover, in 1637, René Descartes "invented the convention of representing unknowns in equations by x, y, and z, and knowns by a, b, and c", and this convention is still often followed, especially in elementary algebra. In geometry, capital A, B, C etc. are used to denote segments, lines, rays, etc. A capital A is also typically used as one of the letters to represent an angle in a triangle, the lowercase a representing the side opposite angle A."A" is often used to denote something or someone of a better or more prestigious quality or status: A−, A or A+, the best grade that can be assigned by teachers for students' schoolwork; "A grade" for clean restaurants; A-list celebrities, etc. Such associations can have a motivating effect, as exposure to the letter A has been found to improve performance, when compared with other letters."A" is used as a prefix on some words, such as asymmetry, to mean "not" or "without" (from Greek). In English grammar, "a", and its variant "an", is an indefinite article, used to introduce noun phrases. Finally, the letter A is used to denote size, as in a narrow size shoe, or a small cup size in a brassiere. Related characters Descendants and related characters in the Latin alphabet Æ æ : Latin AE ligature A with diacritics: Å å Ǻ ǻ Ḁ ḁ ẚ Ă ă Ặ ặ Ắ ắ Ằ ằ Ẳ ẳ Ẵ ẵ Ȃ ȃ Â â Ậ ậ Ấ ấ Ầ ầ Ẫ ẫ Ẩ ẩ Ả ả Ǎ ǎ Ⱥ ⱥ Ȧ ȧ Ǡ ǡ Ạ ạ Ä ä Ǟ ǟ À à Ȁ ȁ Á á Ā ā Ā̀ ā̀ Ã ã Ą ą Ą́ ą́ Ą̃ ą̃ A̲ a̲ ᶏ Phonetic alphabet symbols related to A (the International Phonetic Alphabet only uses lowercase, but uppercase forms are used in some other writing systems): Ɑ ɑ : Latin letter alpha / script A, which represents an open back unrounded vowel in the IPA ᶐ : Latin small letter alpha with retroflex hook Ɐ ɐ : Turned A, which represents a near-open central vowel in the IPA Λ ʌ : Turned V (also called a wedge, a caret, or a hat), which represents an open-mid back unrounded vowel in the IPA Ɒ ɒ : Turned alpha / script A, which represents an open back rounded vowel in the IPA ᶛ : Modifier letter small turned alpha ᴀ : Small capital A, an obsolete or non-standard symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to represent various sounds (mainly open vowels) A a ᵄ : Modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) (sometimes encoded with Unicode subscripts and superscripts) a : Subscript small a is used in Indo-European studies ꬱ : Small letter a reversed-schwa is used in the Teuthonista phonetic transcription system Ꞻ ꞻ : Glottal A, used in the transliteration of Ugaritic Derived signs, symbols and abbreviations ª : an ordinal indicator Å : Ångström sign ∀ : a turned capital letter A, used in predicate logic to specify universal quantification ("for all") @ : At sign ₳ : Argentine austral Ⓐ : anarchy symbol Ancestors and siblings in other alphabets 𐤀 : Semitic letter Aleph, from which the following symbols originally deriveΑ α : Greek letter Alpha, from which the following letters deriveА а : Cyrillic letter A Ⲁ ⲁ : Coptic letter Alpha 𐌀 : Old Italic A, which is the ancestor of modern Latin Aᚨ : Runic letter ansuz, which probably derives from old Italic A 𐌰 : Gothic letter aza/asks Ա ա : Armenian letter Ayb Code points These are the code points for the forms of the letter in various systems 1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings. Other representations Use as a number In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, A is a number that corresponds to the number 10 in decimal (base 10) counting. Footnotes History of the Alphabet Texts on Wikisource: "A" in A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson "A" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. I (9th ed.). 1878. p. 1. "A". The American Cyclopædia. 1879. "A". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. I (11th ed.). 1911. p. 1. "A". The New Student's Reference Work. 1914. "A". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.

Neopets is a virtual pet website. Users can own virtual pets ("Neopets") and buy virtual items for them using one of two virtual currencies. One currency, called Neopoints, can be earned within the site, and the other, Neocash, can either be purchased with real-world money, or won by chance in-game. Created in 1999, World of Neopia, Inc. entered into a management buyout deal with NetDragon and started to control Neopets, appointing Dominic Law as its CEO. History and development Creation and growth (1999–2005) Neopets was conceived in 1997 by Adam Powell, a British student at the University of Nottingham at the time. He shared this idea with Donna Williams and the two started work on the site in September 1999, with Powell responsible for the programming and the database and Williams the web design and art. Their original office was located in Guildford. With the help of two friends, the site launched on 15 November 1999. Powell stated that the original goal was to "keep university students entertained, and possibly make some cash from banner advertising". The site contained popular culture references, such as a Neopet that was simply a picture of entertainer Bruce Forsyth, and another that was a cartoon version of singer Macy Gray.The user base grew by word of mouth and by Christmas 1999, Neopets was logging 600,000 page views daily and sought investors to cover the high cost of running the site. Later in the month, American businessman Doug Dohring was introduced to the creators of the site and, along with other investors, bought a majority share in January of the following year. Neopets, Inc. was incorporated by Dohring in February 2000, and began business on 28 April. Dohring used Scientology's Org Board to manage the company. Adam and Donna were unaware of the Scientology connections until searching the employees at the newly formed company six months later but did not address this until the company hired a woman to introduce Scientology to Neopets. Adam and Donna stopped the addition of any Scientology education to Neopets and ensured such content never made it into anything site-related.With the new company, intellectual property that did not belong to Neopets was removed but the site kept the British spellings. The website made money from the first paying customers using an advertising method trademarked as "immersive advertising" and touted as "an evolutionary step forward in the traditional marketing practice of product placement" in television and film. In 2004, Neopets released a premium version and started showing advertisements on the basic site that were not shown to premium members. Viacom (2005–2014) Viacom, the American conglomerate that owns Nickelodeon, purchased Neopets, Inc. on 20 June 2005 for $160 million and announced plans to focus more on the use of banner ads over the site's existing immersive advertising. Adam Powell and Donna Williams left Neopets, Inc. shortly after the purchase due to creative differences. A gaming event called The Altador Cup was released to coincide with the 2006 FIFA World Cup and to improve interactivity between users; it had 10.4 million participants in its first year.The website was redesigned on 27 April 2007 and included changes to the user interface and the ability to customise Neopets. In June, Viacom promoted Neopets through minishows on its Nickelodeon channel. Promotions included the second Altador Cup and led to an increase in traffic through the site. On 17 July, the NC Mall was launched in a partnership with Korean gaming company Nexon Corporation. It allowed users to use real money to purchase Neocash to buy exclusive virtual items. On 17 June 2008, Viacom formed the Nickelodeon Kids & Family Virtual Worlds Group to "encompass all paid and subscription gaming initiatives across all relevant platforms", including Neopets. By June 2011, Neopets announced that the website had logged 1 trillion page views since its creation. JumpStart and NetDragon (2014–2023) JumpStart Games acquired Neopets from Viacom in March 2014. Server migration began in September. JumpStart-owned Neopets was immediately characterized by glitches and site lag. On 6 March 2015, much of the Neopets Team remaining from Viacom were laid off. Then-CEO of JumpStart David Lord assured the community that there were no plans to shut down Neopets, and instead resources were allocated to develop new "events and stories" and address site stability and overall performance on mobile platforms, with plans to expand to additional platforms including Facebook.During the weekend of 27–28 June 2015, the site's chat filters stopped working. The site's forums were flooded with age-inappropriate messages. In a statement on Facebook, JumpStart apologized, explaining that the issue was due to a "facility move," and that during that move, the moderation team was not able to access the Neopets community.On 3 July 2017, Chinese company NetDragon acquired JumpStart Games. The Neopets team started developing in-universe plots again in 2017 for the first time since the JumpStart acquisition, with the first such event going live in late 2017. With support for Adobe Flash ending in 2020, the Neopets Team announced in 2019 that it planned to transition Flash elements of the site to HTML5 by the end of 2020. The team prioritized converting popular features, and some parts of the site were left non-functional when Flash support ended. The Neopets Team also started development of a "mobile-friendly" browser version of the site via an open beta launched on June 9th 2020.On June 13, 2023, JumpStart announced it would be closing on June 30. Metaverse On September 22, 2021, the Neopets Metaverse NFT project was announced in collaboration with JumpStart, Cherrypicks, Raydium, and Moonvault. The Neopets Metaverse was to feature a "modernised 3D remake of the classic Neopets game" where players would be required to own Neopets NFTs to play. Users could purchase tokens on the Neopets Metaverse website for four days beginning on November 12, 2021. These tokens could then be exchanged for a randomly generated Neopet NFT for a limited period of four days beginning on November 15, 2021. 4225 total NFT pieces were minted. Shortly after the project was announced, a unique visual glitch revealed that at least one of images used for promotion on the Neopets Metaverse website was generated using the Neopets fan site Dress to Impress. The Neopets Metaverse team replaced the image in question shortly after it was noticed. The Neopets Metaverse project received a significant amount of criticism from within the Neopets community and the project was formally canceled in July 2023. World of Neopia (2023–present) On July 17, 2023, it was announced that Neopets had been purchased from NetDragon through a management buyout deal led by Neopets Chief Metaverse Officer Dominic Law, the former Director of New Markets at both NetDragon and Cherrypicks. The resulting independent company, World of Neopia Inc., is composed of team members from both Neopets and Neopets Metaverse, including Dominic Law as CEO. It was also announced that Neopets had received $4 million in investment funding in early 2023. Additional funding from the management buyout is said to equip World of Neopia, Inc. to make "meaningful changes in pursuit of a Neopian renaissance." The changes include a homepage revamp and plans to create a mobile app. Gameplay Neopets allows users to create and care for digital pets called "Neopets" and explore the virtual world of Neopia. There is no set objective for the users, but they are expected to feed and care for their Neopets when they grow hungry or ill. Neopets will not die if neglected, but their health can limit their gameplay.Neopets come in a variety of species and colors and users can create or adopt their own. Users can obtain items to interact with their Neopet, such as books to read and toys to play with them. Neopets can be customised with certain clothing items, paintbrushes, morphing potions, and accessories. Neopets themselves can have pets of their own called Petpets. Users can build a customisable Neohome for their Neopets and furnish it with furniture, wallpaper, and flooring. Neopets can battle against other Neopets or non-player characters in the Battledome but they cannot die there. Neopia is a virtual planet with fantasy lands inhabited by Neopets and other virtual creatures. Each land has a different theme, such as pirates or prehistory, and their own shops, games, and attractions. Neopia follows its own calendar and time zone, which runs concurrent with real-world Pacific Time, and has tie-ins with certain real-world holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. It has its own economy and stock market based on Neopoints. Users can earn Neopoints through various means including playing games and selling items, which can be invested or used to buy various virtual goods and services.The site is regularly updated with features like new games, items, and content. Occasionally, the Neopets team release interactive storylines to expand the in-universe lore. In addition to the site content updated by the Neopets team, users also contribute content to the site. User contributions come in the form of prescreened submissions and readily editable content that is automatically filtered, such as the site's weekly electronic newspaper The Neopian Times. There are different types of submissions that will be accepted. Games Users can earn Neopoints from playing games. Games used to come in many different genres, which included action, puzzles,luck & chance. Most games have set maximum earnings or playtime. Players may also earn trophies and other awards from games if their score high enough or perform better than other users. Many single-player and multiplayer browser games are available. Users can also participate in contests and spotlights judged by staff to showcase the users' talents. Quests to retrieve items may also be performed for specific NPCs. Challenges may be made against other players or random players in a "World Challenge" for a prize piece and Neopoints from the jackpot for certain web games. Monthly competitions also exist for multiplayer games with four week-long elimination rounds.There used to be over 100 games that all ran on Adobe Flash but in January of 2021 Adobe Flash was deleted, along with every single game on the website. The developers have been adding more games as well as restoring old games by using a ruffle flash emulator, this has restored many of the original flash games as of July 2023, however a few games are still not running content correctly. Economy The economy is based on Neopoints. Users can also exchange real money for Neocash, used exclusively for the NC Mall. Users can earn Neopoints through playing games, selling items, and other transactions. Once earned, they can be saved in the bank, used to buy items from other users or non-player character (NPC) shops, used to buy and sell stocks in the Neopian stock market called the NEODAQ (a parody of the NASDAQ), or used to buy various other things. Items can be bought from shops found throughout the world of Neopia that are run by NPCs who may allow bargaining. Users can open their own shops to sell items, sometimes after obtaining those items at a lower price from sources such as other shops or charities. Items may also be exchanged through trading or auctions. Community Neopets has a community for users to chat with and contact other users. Each user has their own profile they can edit with HTML and CSS and are represented by avatars provided by the website, as users cannot upload their own. Most avatars must be "unlocked" by completing certain in-game tasks, such as winning a contest or getting a high score on a game.Users may request other users to be "Neofriends" or block other users from contacting them. To comply with COPPA, users under 13 years of age cannot access any of the site's communication features without sending in parental consent via fax. The main features include: NeoMail, a personal in-game communication system like regular email. Users can write messages to other users and restrict who can contact them through NeoMail. Neoboards, public discussion boards for on-topic discussions. Users can enter their own "neoHTML", a restricted form of BBCode, to customise their posts and signatures. Guilds, groups of users with similar interests and their own message board.Discussions through these features are restricted and may not involve topics such as dating and romance or controversial topics like politics and religion. Continuous moderation is performed by paid Neopets staff members, and users can help moderate the site by reporting messages they believe are inappropriate or offensive. Messages are also automatically filtered to prevent users from posting messages with profanity or lewd content. Reception Described as an online cross of Pokémon and Tamagotchi, Neopets has received both praise and criticism. It has been praised for having educational content. Children can learn HTML to edit their own pages. They can also learn how to handle money by participating in the economy. Reviews from About.com and MMO Hut considered the multitude of possible activities a positive aspect. Most of the users are female, higher than in other massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) but equivalent to social-networking-driven communities. Lucy Bradshaw, a vice president of Electronic Arts, attributes the popularity among girls to the openness of the site and said, "Games that have a tendency to satisfy on more than one dimension have a tendency to have a broader appeal and attract girls".Luck & chance games draw criticism from parents as they introduce children to gambling. In Australia, a cross-promotion with McDonald's led to controversy with Neopets' luck/chance games in October 2004. Australian tabloid television show Today Tonight featured a nine-year-old boy who claimed the site requires one to gamble in order to earn enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet or else it would be sent to the pound. While gambling is not required, nor are pets sent to the pound if unfed, the website includes games of chance based on real games such as blackjack and lottery scratchcards. After this incident, Neopets prohibited users under the age of 13 from playing Neopets's casino-style games. Rise in popularity and decline In the 2000s, Neopets was consistently noted as one of the "stickiest" sites for children's entertainment. Stickiness is a measure of the average amount of time spent on a website. A press release from Neopets in 2001 stated that Neopets.com led in site "stickiness" in May and June, with the average user spending 117 minutes a week. Neopets also led in the average number of hours spent per user per month in December 2003 with an average of 4 hours and 47 minutes. A 2004 article stated that Nielsen//NetRatings reported that people were spending around three hours a month on Neopets, more than any other site in its Nielsen category. By May 2005, a Neopets-affiliated video game producer cited about 35 million unique users, 11 million unique IP addresses per month, and 4 billion web page views per month. This producer also described 20% of the users as 18 or older, with the median of the remaining 80% at about 14. Neopets was consistently ranked among the top ten "stickiest" sites by both Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore Media Metrix in 2005 and 2006. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, in 2007, Neopets lost about 15% of its audience over the previous year. In February 2008, comScore ranked it as the stickiest kids entertainment site with the average user spending 2 hours and 45 minutes per month.In January 2017, Neopets then-JumpStart CEO David Lord estimated 100,000 active daily users. In January 2020, Neopets only logged 3.4 million views per month, a significant decline from its peak. In June 2020, JumpStart CEO Jim Czulewicz estimated Neopets had 100,000 daily active users and 1.5 million monthly active players. Immersive advertising Immersive advertising is a trademarked term for the way Neopets displayed advertisements to generate profit after Doug Dohring bought the site. Unlike pop-up and banner ads, immersive ads integrate advertisements into the site's content in interactive forms, including games and items. Players could earn Neopoints from them by playing advergames and taking part in online marketing surveys. Prior to the arrival of the NC Mall, it contributed to 60% of the revenue from the site with paying Fortune 1000 companies including Disney, General Mills, and McDonald's.It was a contentious issue with the site with regard to the ethics of marketing to children. It drew criticism from parents, psychologists, and consumer advocates who argued that children may not know that they are being advertised to, as it blurred the line between site content and advertisement. Children under eight had difficulty recognizing ads and half a million of the 25 million users were under the age of eight in 2005. Dohring responded to such criticism stating that of the 40 percent of users twelve and younger, very few were seven or eight years old and that preschoolers were not their target audience.Others criticised the functionality of the site. Susan Linn, another psychologist and author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood considered the purpose of this site was to keep children in front of advertisements. Kalle Lasn, editor-in-chief and co-founder of Adbusters magazine, said the site encouraged kids to spend hours in front of a screen and recruited them to consumerism. Neopets executives stated that paid content consituted less than 1% of the site's total content. Children were not required to play or use sponsor games and items, and all ads were marked as such. Customer security In July 2009, the Neopets site was the target of an identity theft hacking scheme that attempted to trick users into clicking a link that would allow them to gain items or Neopoints. Upon doing so, malware was installed onto the user's computer. According to reports, the hack was aimed not at child players' Neopets accounts, but at using the malware to steal the financial data and identities of their parents. Viacom stated that it was investigating the issue, and that the hack was a version of social engineering rather than an "indictment of Neopets security practices". In an on-site newsletter for players, Neopets denied the report and claimed that the site's security measures prevented the posting of such links.In 2016, Motherboard reported that the account information of an alleged 70 million of Neopets accounts had been compromised. The hack contained usernames, passwords, email addresses, birth dates, gender, and country from 2012 (prior to JumpStart's acquisition), but did not contain credit card information or physical addresses. Neopets responded by sending emails to all affected players.On July 20, 2022, Neopets confirmed that it had suffered a data breach the day prior. The data breach exposed Neopets' entire database schema, including usernames, emails and passwords of its 69 million users. Neopets responded by forcing a password reset for all users on August 1, 2022, causing some players to be locked out as they no longer had access to the e-mail addresses linked to their accounts. On August 29, 2022 Neopets sent an e-mail to users detailing the results of their subsequent investigation. Merchandise The popularity of Neopets spawned real-world merchandise including clothing, jewelry, stickers, books, cereals, video games and more, sold at mainstream outlets and online retailers. The most common items were plushies (stuffed animals). Each piece of merchandise has a code which can be redeemed at the site for an in-game reward. Neopets, Inc. had always planned to "bring the online and offline worlds together in ways that have never been done before". An investment banker at Allen & Company in New York said that Neopets was the only online media he had seen "that might have the ability to capture market share in the offline world".Neopets, Inc. signed various licensing deals with companies such as Viacom Consumer Products, Thinkway Toys, and Jakks Pacific over the years. Wizards of the Coast released the Neopets Trading Card Game in September 2003, which was promoted in three of General Mills "Big G" cereals and ten Simon Property Group malls. It received two different nominations for "Toy of the Year" as well as other recognitions. Neopets: The Official Magazine was a bi-monthly magazine released the same month but it was replaced in 2008 by Beckett Plushie Pals, which featured Neopets news as well as other companies' products such as Webkinz. In 2005, Neopets expanded to film and video game deals. The first movie was to be written by Rob Lieber and produced by Dylan Sellers and John A. Davis for Warner Bros., but the project has since been cancelled with no other projects announced. Two video games were released by Sony Computer Entertainment, Neopets: The Darkest Faerie for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and Neopets: Petpet Adventures: The Wand of Wishing for the PlayStation Portable in 2006. 2006 also saw the release of Neopets mobile, which allowed users to visit the new land of Lutari Island, but it was discontinued on 30 June 2009, leaving the island completely inaccessible. In 2007, MumboJumbo developed a match-3 game Neopets: Codestone Quest. Neopets wouldn't attempt another mobile game until 2015, when they released a match-3 game called Ghoul Catchers for Android and iOS. However, they still released other games during those years, including Treasure Keepers for Facebook and Puzzle Adventure for Nintendo DS, Wii, and PC. In early 2019, Jumpstart announced that they were making a full mobile-friendly Neopets app, and it was scheduled to launch late in the summer of 2019.On 10 February 2020, Blue Ant Media's Beach House Pictures announced that a Neopets animated television series is in development and was set to air in 2021, though there have been no recent updates. Neopets plans to expand to the Nintendo Switch. See also Club Penguin JumpStart MMORPG Moshi Monsters Petpet Park Official website Neopets at Curlie

B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin-script alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is bee (pronounced ), plural bees. It represents the voiced bilabial stop in many languages, including English. In some other languages, it is used to represent other bilabial consonants. History The Roman ⟨B⟩ derived from the Greek capital beta ⟨Β⟩ via its Etruscan and Cumaean variants. The Greek letter was an adaptation of the Phoenician letter bēt ⟨𐤁⟩. The Egyptian hieroglyph for the consonant /b/ had been an image of a foot and calf ⟨ ⟩, but bēt (Phoenician for "house") was a modified form of a Proto-Sinaitic glyph ⟨ ⟩ adapted from the separate hieroglyph Pr ⟨ ⟩ meaning "house". The Hebrew letter bet ⟨ב⟩ is a separate development of the Phoenician letter.By Byzantine times, the Greek letter ⟨Β⟩ came to be pronounced /v/, so that it is known in modern Greek as víta (still written βήτα). The Cyrillic letter ve ⟨В⟩ represents the same sound, so a modified form known as be ⟨Б⟩ was developed to represent the Slavic languages' /b/. (Modern Greek continues to lack a letter for the voiced bilabial plosive and transliterates such sounds from other languages using the digraph/consonant cluster ⟨μπ⟩, mp.) Old English was originally written in runes, whose equivalent letter was beorc ⟨ᛒ⟩, meaning "birch". Beorc dates to at least the 2nd-century Elder Futhark, which is now thought to have derived from the Old Italic alphabets' ⟨ 𐌁 ⟩ either directly or via Latin ⟨⟩. The uncial ⟨⟩ and half-uncial ⟨⟩ introduced by the Gregorian and Irish missions gradually developed into the Insular scripts' ⟨⟩. These Old English Latin alphabets supplanted the earlier runes, whose use was fully banned under King Canute in the early 11th century. The Norman Conquest popularised the Carolingian half-uncial forms which latter developed into blackletter ⟨ ⟩. Around 1300, letter case was increasingly distinguished, with upper- and lower-case B taking separate meanings. Following the advent of printing in the 15th century, Holy Roman Empire (Germany) and Scandinavia continued to use forms of blackletter (particularly Fraktur), while England eventually adopted the humanist and antiqua scripts developed in Renaissance Italy from a combination of Roman inscriptions and Carolingian texts. The present forms of the English cursive B were developed by the 17th century. Use in writing systems English In English, ⟨b⟩ denotes the voiced bilabial stop /b/, as in bib. In English, it is sometimes silent. This occurs particularly in words ending in ⟨mb⟩, such as lamb and bomb, some of which originally had a /b/ sound, while some had the letter ⟨b⟩ added by analogy (see Phonological history of English consonant clusters). The ⟨b⟩ in debt, doubt, subtle, and related words was added in the 16th century as an etymological spelling, intended to make the words more like their Latin originals (debitum, dubito, subtilis). As /b/ is one of the sounds subject to Grimm's Law, words which have ⟨b⟩ in English and other Germanic languages may find their cognates in other Indo-European languages appearing with ⟨bh⟩, ⟨p⟩, ⟨f⟩ or ⟨φ⟩ instead. For example, compare the various cognates of the word brother. It is the seventh least frequently used letter in the English language (after V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 1.5% in words. Other languages Many other languages besides English use ⟨b⟩ to represent a voiced bilabial stop. In Estonian, Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic and Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, ⟨b⟩ does not denote a voiced consonant. Instead, it represents a voiceless /p/ that contrasts with either a geminated /p:/ (in Estonian) or an aspirated /ph/ (in Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Scottish Gaelic and Pinyin) represented by ⟨p⟩. In Fijian ⟨b⟩ represents a prenasalised /mb/, whereas in Zulu and Xhosa it represents an implosive /ɓ/, in contrast to the digraph ⟨bh⟩ which represents /b/. Finnish uses ⟨b⟩ only in loanwords. Phonetic transcription In the International Phonetic Alphabet, [b] is used to represent the voiced bilabial stop phone. In phonological transcription systems for specific languages, /b/ may be used to represent a lenis phoneme, not necessarily voiced, that contrasts with fortis /p/ (which may have greater aspiration, tenseness or duration). Other uses B is also a musical note. In English-speaking countries, it represents Si, the 12th note of a chromatic scale built on C. In Central Europe and Scandinavia, "B" is used to denote B-flat and the 12th note of the chromatic scale is denoted "H". Archaic forms of 'b', the b quadratum (square b, ♮) and b rotundum (round b, ♭) are used in musical notation as the symbols for natural and flat, respectively. In Contracted (grade 2) English braille, 'b' stands for "but" when in isolation. In computer science, B is the symbol for byte, a unit of information storage. In engineering, B is the symbol for bel, a unit of level. In chemistry, B is the symbol for boron, a chemical element. The blood-type B emoji (🅱️) was added in Unicode 6.0 in 2010, and became a popular internet meme in 2018 where letters would be replaced with the emoji. Related characters Ancestors, descendants and siblings 𐤁 : Semitic letter Bet, from which the following symbols originally derive Β β : Greek letter Beta, from which B derives Ⲃ ⲃ Coptic letter Bēta, which derives from Greek Beta В в : Cyrillic letter Ve, which also derives from Beta Б б : Cyrillic letter Be, which also derives from Beta ʙ : A small capital B, used as the lowercase B in a number of alphabets during romanization 𐌁 : Old Italic B, which derives from Greek Beta ᛒ : Runic letter Berkanan, which probably derives from Old Italic B 𐌱 : Gothic letter bercna, which derives from Greek Beta IPA-specific symbols related to B: ɓ ʙ β 𐞄 𐞅 B with diacritics: Ƀ ƀ Ḃ ḃ Ḅ ḅ Ḇ ḇ Ɓ ɓ ᵬ ᶀ Ꞗ ꞗ : B with flourish ᴃ ᴯ B b : Barred B and various modifier letters are used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. Ƃ ƃ : B with topbar Derived ligatures, abbreviations, signs and symbols ␢ : U+2422 ␢ BLANK SYMBOL ฿ : Thai baht ₿ : Bitcoin ♭: The flat in music, mentioned above, still closely resembles lowercase b. Code points These are the code points for the forms of the letter in various systems 1 Also for encodings based on ASCII, including the DOS, Windows, ISO-8859 and Macintosh families of encodings. Other representations Use as a number In the hexadecimal (base 16) numbering system, B is a number that corresponds to the number 11 in decimal (base 10) counting. Media related to B at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of B at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of b at Wiktionary Giles, Peter (1911), "B" , Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3 (11th ed.), p. 87

There are many widely varying names of Germany in different languages, more so than for any other European nation. For example, in the German language, the country is known as Deutschland from the Old High German diutisc, in French as Allemagne from the name of the Alamanni tribe, in Italian as Germania from the Latin Germania (although the German people are called tedeschi), in Polish as Niemcy from the Proto-Slavic nemets, and in Finnish as Saksa from the name of the Saxon tribe. Each of these names has further been adapted into other languages all over the world. List of area names In general, the names for Germany can be arranged in six main groups according to their origin: 1. From Old High German diutisc or similar 2. From the Latin Germania 3. From the name of the Alamanni tribe 4. From the name of the Saxon tribe 5. From the Protoslavic němьcь 6. From the name of Prussia*: Teutonisch Land, Teutschland used in many areas until the 19th century (see Walhalla opening song) 7. Unclear origin Other forms: Medieval Greek: Frángoi, frangikós (for Germans, German) – after the Franks. Medieval Hebrew: אַשְׁכְּנַז‎ (Ashkenaz) – from biblical Ashkenaz (אַשְׁכְּנַז‎) was the son of Japheth and grandson of Noah. Ashkenaz is thought to be the ancestor of the Germans. Lower Sorbian: bawory or bawery (in older or dialectal use) – from the name of Bavaria. Silesian: szwaby from Swabia, bambry used for German colonists from the area around Bamberg, krzyżacy (a derogative form of krzyżowcy – crusaders) referring to Teutonic Order, Rajch or Rajś resembling German pronunciation of Reich. Old Norse: Suðrvegr – literally south way (cf. Norway), describing Germanic tribes which invaded continental Europe. Kinyarwanda: Ubudage, Kirundi: Ubudagi – thought to derive from the greeting guten Tag used by Germans during the colonial times, or from deutsch. Navajo: Béésh Bich’ahii Bikéyah ("Metal Cap-wearer Land"), in reference to Stahlhelm-wearing German soldiers. Lakota: Iyášiča Makȟóčhe ("Bad Speaker Land"). Plains Cree: pîwâpiskwastotininâhk ("Among the Steel Helmets") or mâyakwêsinâhk ("Among the Speakers of a Foreign/Strange Language") Sudovian: miksiskai, Old Prussian miksiskāi (both for "German") – from miksît "to stammer". Polish (slang of the communist period): Erefen from R.F.N. = F.R.G. (Federal Republic of Germany), Polish (pre-Second World War slang): Rajch from German Reich Names from Diutisc The name Deutschland and the other similar-sounding names above are derived from the Old High German diutisc, or similar variants from Proto-Germanic *Þeudiskaz (Old English þeod), which originally meant "of the people". This in turn comes from a Germanic word meaning "folk" (leading to Old High German diot, Middle High German diet), and was used to differentiate between the speakers of Germanic languages and those who spoke Celtic or Romance languages. These words come from *teuta, the Proto-Indo-European word for "people" (Lithuanian and Latvian tauta, Old Irish tuath). Also the Italian for "German", tedesco (local or archaic variants: todesco, tudesco, todisco), comes from the same Old High German root, although not the name for "Germany" (Germania). Also in the standardised Romansh language Germania is the normal name for Germany but in Sursilvan, Sutsilvan and Surmiran it is commonly referred to as Tiaratudestga, Tearatudestga and Tera tudestga respectively, with tiara/teara/tera meaning land. French words thiois, tudesque, théotisque and Thiogne and Spanish tudesco share this etymology. The Germanic language which diutisc most likely comes from is West Frankish, a language which died out a long time ago and which there is hardly any written evidence for today. This was the Germanic dialect used in the early Middle Ages, spoken by the Franks in Western Francia, i.e. in the region which is now northern France. The word is only known from the Latin form theodiscus. Until the 8th century the Franks called their language frengisk; however, when the Franks moved their political and cultural centre to the area where France now is, the term frengisk became ambiguous, as in the West Francian territory some Franks spoke Latin, some vulgar Latin and some theodisc. For this reason a new word was needed to help differentiate between them. Thus the word theodisc evolved from the Germanic word theoda (the people) with the Latin suffix -iscus, to mean "belonging to the people", i.e. the people's language. In Eastern Francia, roughly the area where Germany now is, it seems that the new word was taken on by the people only slowly, over the centuries: in central Eastern Francia the word frengisk was used for a lot longer, as there was no need for people to distinguish themselves from the distant Franks. The word diutsch and other variants were only used by people to describe themselves, at first as an alternative term, from about the 10th century. It was used, for example, in the Sachsenspiegel, a legal code, written in Middle Low German in about 1220: Iewelk düdesch lant hevet sinen palenzgreven: sassen, beieren, vranken unde svaven (Every German land has its Graf: Saxony, Bavaria, Franken and Swabia). In the Carion's Chronicle, the German reformator Philip Melanchthon argued the Germans were descendants of the in the biblical Ashkenaz, the son of Japheth. They shall have called themselves the Ascenos, which with time derived into Tuiscones.The Teutoni, a tribe with a name which probably came from the same root, did, through Latin, ultimately give birth to the English words "Teuton" (first found in 1530) for the adjective German, (as in the Teutonic Knights, a military religious order, and the Teutonic Cross) and "Teuton" (noun), attested from 1833. "Teuton" was also used for Teutonisch Land (land of the Teutons), its abbreviation Teutschland used in some areas until the 19th century and its currently used official variation Deutschland. In the northern French language area (northern France, Belgium), the neighboring Germanic dialects, areas and inhabitants of Flanders to Alsace are sometimes referred to as Thiois, most likely still for the area between Maastricht and Aachen and for the traditional German speaking part of Lorraine (Lorraine Thioise), The term is obsolete and derives from theodisc (see above). Names from Germania The name Germany and the other similar-sounding names above are all derived from the Latin Germania, of the 3rd century BC, a word simply describing fertile land behind the limes (frontier). It was likely the Gauls who first called the people who crossed east of the Rhine Germani (which the Romans adopted) as the original Germanic tribes did not refer to themselves as Germanus (singular) or Germani (plural).Julius Caesar was the first to use Germanus in writing when describing tribes in north-eastern Gaul in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico: he records that four northern Belgic tribes, namely the Condrusi, Eburones, Caeraesi and Paemani, were collectively known as Germani. In AD 98, Tacitus wrote Germania (the Latin title was actually: De Origine et situ Germanorum), an ethnographic work on the diverse set of Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. Unlike Caesar, Tacitus claims that the name Germani was first applied to the Tungri tribe. The name Tungri is thought to be the endonym corresponding to the exonym Eburones. 19th-century and early 20th-century historians speculated on whether the northern Belgae were Celts or Germanic tribes. Caesar claims that most of the northern Belgae were descended from tribes who had long ago crossed the Rhine from Germania. However many tribal names and personal names or titles recorded are identifiably Celtic. It seems likely that the northern Belgae, due to their intense contact with the Gaulish south, were largely influenced by this southern culture. Tribal names were 'qualifications' and could have been translated or given by the Gauls and picked up by Caesar. Perhaps they were Germanic people who had adopted Gaulish titles or names. The Belgians were a political alliance of southern Celtic and northern Germanic tribes. In any case, the Romans were not precise in their ethnography of northern barbarians: by "German(ic)" Caesar meant "originating east of the Rhine". Tacitus wrote in his book Germania: "The Treveri and Nervii take pride in their German origin, stating that this noble blood separates them from all comparison (with the Gauls) and the Gaulish laziness".The OED2 records theories about the Celtic roots of the Latin word Germania: one is gair, neighbour (a theory of Johann Zeuss, a German historian and Celtic philologist) – in Old Irish gair is "neighbour". Another theory is gairm, battle-cry (put forward by Johann Wachter and Jacob Grimm, who was a philologist as well as collector and editor of fairy tales). Yet another theory is that the word comes from ger, "spear"; however, Eric Partridge suggests *gar / gavin, to shout (as Old Irish garim), describing the Germanic tribesmen as noisy. He describes the ger theory as "obsolete". In English, the word "German" is first attested in 1520, replacing earlier uses of Almain, Alman and Dutch. In German, the word Germanen today refers to Germanic tribes, just like the Italian noun "Germani" (adjective: "germanici"), and the French adjective "germanique". The English noun "german" (as in "cousin-german") and the adjective "germane" are not connected to the name for the country, but come from the Latin germanus, "siblings with the same parents or father", which has cognates in Catalan, germà, and Spanish, hermano, meaning "brother". Names from Alemanni The name Allemagne and the other similar-sounding names above are derived from the southern Germanic Alemanni, a Suebic tribe or confederation in today's Alsace, parts of Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland. In English, the name "Almain" or "Alman" was used for Germany and for the adjective German until the 16th century, with "German" first attested in 1520, used at first as an alternative then becoming a replacement, maybe inspired mainly by the need to differ them from the more and more independently acting Dutch. In Othello ii,3, (about 1603), for example, Shakespeare uses both "German" and "Almain" when Iago describes the drinking prowess of the English: I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander—Drink, ho!—are nothing to your English. [...] Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be filled.Andrew Boorde also mentions Germany in his Introduction to Knowledge, c. 1547: The people of High Almain, they be rude and rusticall, and very boisterous in their speech, and humbly in their apparel .... they do feed grossly, and they will eat maggots as fast as we will eat comfits.Through this name, the English language has also been given the Allemande (a dance), the Almain rivet and probably the almond furnace, which is probably not really connected to the word "almond" (of Greek origin) but is a corruption of "Almain furnace". In modern German, Alemannisch (Alemannic German) is a group of dialects of the Upper German branch of the Germanic language family, spoken by approximately ten million people in six countries. Among the indigenous peoples of North America of former French and British colonial areas, the word for "Germany" came primarily as a borrowing from either French or English. For example, in the Anishinaabe languages, three terms for "Germany" exist: ᐋᓂᒫ (Aanimaa, originally Aalimaanh, from the French Allemagne), ᑌᐦᒋᒪᓐ (Dechiman, from the English Dutchman) and ᒣᐦᔭᑴᑦ (Meyagwed, Ojibwe for "foreign speaker" analogous to Slavic Némcy "Mutes" and Arab (ajam) mute), of which Aanimaa is the most common of the terms to describe Germany. Names from Saxon The names Saksamaa and Saksa are derived from the name of the Germanic tribe of the Saxons. The word "Saxon", Proto-Germanic *sakhsan, is believed (a) to be derived from the word seax, meaning a variety of single-edged knives: a Saxon was perhaps literally a swordsman, or (b) to be derived from the word "axe", the region axed between the valleys of the Elbe and Weser. In Finnish and Estonian the words that historically applied to ancient Saxons changed their meaning over the centuries to denote the whole country of Germany and the Germans. In some Celtic languages the word for the English nationality is derived from Saxon, e.g., the Scottish term Sassenach, the Breton terms Saoz, Saozon, the Cornish terms Sows, Sowson and the Welsh terms Sais, Saeson. "Saxon" also led to the "-sex" ending in Wessex, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, etc., and of course to "Anglo-Saxon". The Transylvanian Saxons arrived to Transylvania mainly from the Rhineland, not Saxony. Names from Nemets The Slavic exonym nemets, nemtsy derives from Proto-Slavic němьcь, pl. němьci, 'the mutes, not able (to speak)' (from adjective němъ 'mute' and suffix -ьcь).Use of němьci was narrowed to just Germans. The plural form is used for the Germans instead of any specific country name, e.g. Niemcy in Polish and Ńymcy in Silesian dialect. In other languages, the country's name derives from the adjective němьcьska (zemja) meaning 'German (land)' (f.i. Czech Německo). Belarusian Нямеччына (Niamieččyna), and Ukrainian Німеччина (Nimecchyna) are also from němьcь but with the addition of the suffix -ina. According to another theory, Nemtsy may derive from the Rhine-based, Germanic tribe of Nemetes mentioned by Caesar and Tacitus. This etymology is dubious for phonological reasons, as nemetes could not become Slavic němьcь.In Russian, the adjective for "German", nemetskiy (немецкий) comes from the same Slavic root while the name for the country is Germaniya (Германия). Likewise, in Bulgarian the adjective is nemski (немски) and the country is Germaniya (Германия). Over time, the Slavic exonym was borrowed by some non-Slavic languages. The Hungarian name for Germany is Németország (from the stem Német-, lit. "Német land"). The popular Romanian name for German is neamț, used alongside the official term, german, which was borrowed from Latin. According to the Chinese History of Yuan, the Mongol commander Uriyangkhadai took part in the invasion of Poland and of the Holy Roman Empire, described as the land of the Nie-mi-sz'.The Arabic name for Austria النمسا an-Nimsā or an-Namsā appeared during the Crusades era, another possibility is that the term could have been known early by Arabs in Al Andalus, the reason behind calling Austria an-Nimsā, which should designate Germans is that Arabs considered Austria to be the nation of German people for a long time in the middle ages, on the other hand the Arabic name of "Germany", Germania or Allemania, took its origin from the Latin names Germania or Alemanni respectively. Ottoman Turkish and Persian word for Austria, Nemçe (نمچه), is borrowed from the anterior Arabic name of Austria known throughout the Islamic world who considered Austria to be home of the Germans. The Austrian Empire as well was the biggest German-speaking country in the 16th to 17th centuries bordering on the Ottoman Empire. Names from Baltic regions In Latvian and Lithuanian the names Vācija and Vokietija contain the root vāca or vākiā. Lithuanian linguist Kazimieras Būga associated this with a reference to a Swedish tribe named Vagoths in a 6th-century chronicle (cf. finn. Vuojola and eston. Oju-/Ojamaa, 'Gotland', both thought to be derived from the Baltic word; the ethnonym *vakja, used by the Votes (vadja) and the Sami, in older sources (vuowjos), may also be related). So the word for German possibly comes from a name originally given by West Baltic tribes to the Vikings. Latvian linguist Konstantīns Karulis proposes that the word may be based on the Indo-European word *wek ("speak"), from which derive Old Prussian wackis ("war cry") or Latvian vēkšķis. Such names could have been used to describe neighbouring people whose language was incomprehensible to Baltic peoples. Names in East Asia In East Asia, the names have generally been imported directly from German "deutsch" or Dutch "duits" in various ways. The Chinese name is a phonetic approximation of the German proper adjective. The Vietnamese name is based on the Chinese name. The Japanese name is a phonetic approximation of the Dutch proper adjective. The Korean name is based on the Japanese name. This is explained in detail below: The common Chinese name 德国 (德國, pinyin: Déguó) is a combination of the short form of 德意志 (pinyin: déyìzhì), which approximates the German pronunciation [ˈdɔʏtʃ] of Deutsch ‘German’, plus 國 guó ‘country’. The Vietnamese name Đức is the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation (đức [ɗɨ́k]) of the character 德 that appears in the Chinese name. Japanese language ドイツ (doitsu) is an approximation of the word Deutsch meaning ‘German’. It was earlier written with the Sino-Japanese character compound 獨逸 (whose 獨 has since been simplified to 独), but has been largely superseded by the aforementioned katakana spelling ドイツ. However, the character 独 is still used in compounds, for example 独文 (dokubun) meaning ‘German literature’, or as an abbreviation, such as in 独日関係 (Dokunichi kankei, German-Japanese relations). The (South) Korean name Dogil (독일) is the Korean pronunciation of the former Japanese name. The compound coined by the Japanese was adapted into Korean, so its characters 獨逸 are not pronounced do+itsu as in Japanese, but dok+il = Dogil. Until the 1980s, South Korean primary textbooks adopted Doichillanteu (도이칠란트) which approximates the German pronunciation [ˈdɔʏtʃlant] of Deutschland. The official North Korean name toich'willandŭ (도이췰란드) approximates the German pronunciation [ˈdɔʏtʃlant] of Deutschland. Traditionally Dogil (독일) had been used in North Korea until the 1990s. Use of the Chinese name (in its Korean pronunciation Deokguk, 덕국) is attested for the early 20th century. It is now uncommon. Etymological history The terminology for "Germany", the "German states" and "Germans" is complicated by the unusual history of Germany over the last 2000 years. This can cause confusion in German and English, as well in other languages. While the notion of Germans and Germany is older, it is only since 1871 that there has been a nation-state of Germany. Later political disagreements and the partition of Germany (1945–1990) have further made it difficult to use proper terminology. Starting with Charlemagne, the territory of modern Germany was within the realm of the Holy Roman Empire. It was a union of relatively independent rulers who each ruled their own territories. This empire was called in German Heiliges Römisches Reich, with the addition from the late Middle Ages of Deutscher Nation (of (the) German nation), showing that the former idea of a universal realm had given way to a concentration on the German territories. In 19th- and 20th-century historiography, the Holy Roman Empire was often referred to as Deutsches Reich, creating a link to the later nation state of 1871. Besides the official Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, common expressions are Altes Reich (the old Reich) and Römisch-Deutsches Kaiserreich (Roman-German Imperial Realm). Pre-modern Germany (pre-1800) Roman authors mentioned a number of tribes they called Germani—the tribes did not themselves use the term. After 1500 these tribes were identified by linguists as belonging to a group of Germanic language speakers (which include modern languages like German, English and Dutch). Germani (for the people) and Germania (for the area where they lived) became the common Latin words for Germans and Germany. Germans call themselves Deutsche (living in Deutschland). Deutsch is an adjective (Proto-Germanic *theudisk-) derived from Old High German thiota, diota (Proto-Germanic *theudō) meaning "people", "nation", "folk". The word *theudō is cognate with Proto-Celtic *teutā, whence the Celtic tribal name Teuton, later anachronistically applied to the Germans. The term was first used to designate the popular language as opposed to the language used by the religious and secular rulers who used Latin. In the Late Medieval and Early Modern period, Germany and Germans were known as Almany and Almains in English, via Old French alemaigne, alemans derived from the name of the Alamanni and Alemannia. These English terms were obsolete by the 19th century. At the time, the territory of modern Germany belonged to the realm of the Holy Roman Empire (the Roman Empire restored by the Christian king of Francony, Charlemagne). This feudal state became a union of relatively independent rulers who developed their own territories. Modernisation took place on the territorial level (such as Austria, Prussia, Saxony or Bremen), not on the level of the Empire. 1800–1871 The French emperor, Napoleon, forced the Emperor of Austria to step down as Holy Roman Emperor in 1806. Some of the German countries were then collected into the Confederation of the Rhine, which remained a military alliance under the "protection" of Napoleon, rather than consolidating into an actual confederation. After the fall of Napoleon in 1815, these states created a German Confederation. Some member states, such as Prussia and Austria, had only a part of their territories included within the confederation, while other member states brought territories to the alliance that included people, like Poles and the Czechs, who did not speak German as their native tongue. In addition, there were also substantial German speaking populations that remained outside the confederation. In 1841 Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote the song Das Lied der Deutschen, giving voice to the dreams of a unified Germany (Deutschland über Alles) to replace the alliance of independent states. In this era of emerging national movements, "Germany" was used only as a reference to a particular geographical area. In 1866/1867 Prussia and her allies left the German Confederation. After Austria was defeated in the German War of summer 1866, it acknowledged the dissolution of the confederation. Prussia was free to create a new alliance, called the North German Confederation. It became a federal state with its constitution of 1 July 1867. The remaining South German countries, with the exception of Austria and Liechtenstein, joined the country in 1870. German Federation The first nation state named "Germany" began in 1871; before that Germany referred to a geographical entity comprising many states, much as "the Balkans" is used today, or the term "America" was used by the founders of "the United States of America". In German constitutional history, the expressions Reich (reign, realm, empire) and Bund (federation, confederation) are somewhat interchangeable. Sometimes they even co-existed in the same constitution: for example in the German Empire (1871–1918) the parliament had the name Reichstag, the council of the representatives of the German states Bundesrat. When in 1870–71 the North German Confederation was transformed into the German Empire, the preamble said that the participating monarchs are creating einen ewigen Bund (an eternal confederation) which will have the name Deutsches Reich. Due to the history of Germany, the principle of federalism is strong. Only the state of Hitler (1933–1945) and the state of the communists (East Germany, 1949–1990) were centralist states. As a result, the words Reich and Bund were used more frequently than in other countries, to distinguish between imperial or federal institutions and those at a subnational level. For example, a modern federal German minister is called Bundesminister, in contrast to a Landesminister who holds office in a state such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Lower Saxony. As a result of the Hitler regime, and maybe also of Imperial Germany up to 1919, many Germans – especially those on the political left – have negative feelings about the word Reich.Bund is another word also used in contexts other than politics. Many associations in Germany are federations or have a federalised structure and differentiate between a Bundesebene (federal/national level) and a Landesebene (level of the regional states), in a similar way to the political bodies. An example is the German Football Association Deutscher Fußballbund. (The word Bundestrainer, referring to the national football coach, does not refer to the Federal Republic, but to the Fußballbund itself.) In other German speaking countries, the words Reich (Austria before 1918) and Bund (Austria since 1918, Switzerland) are used too. An organ named Bundesrat exists in all three of them: in Switzerland it is the government and in Germany and Austria the house of regional representatives. Greater Germany and "Großdeutsches Reich" In the 19th century before 1871, Germans, for example in the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848–49, argued about what should become of Austria. Including Austria (at least the German-speaking parts) in a future German state was referred to as the Greater German Solution, while a German state without Austria was the Smaller German Solution. In 1919, the Weimar Constitution postulated the inclusion of Deutsch-Österreich (the German-speaking parts of Austria), but the Western Allies objected to this. It was realised only in 1938 when Germany annexed Austria (Anschluss). National Socialist propaganda proclaimed the realisation of Großdeutschland and, in 1943, the German Reich was officially renamed Großdeutsches Reich. However, these expressions became neither common nor popular. In National Socialist propaganda, Austria was also called Ostmark. After the Anschluss, the previous territory of Germany was called Altreich (old Reich). German Empire and Weimar Republic of Germany, 1871–1945 The official name of the German state in 1871 became Deutsches Reich, linking itself to the former Reich before 1806 and the rudimentary Reich of 1848/1849. This expression was commonly used in official papers and also on maps, while in other contexts Deutschland was more frequently used. Those Germans living within its boundaries were called Reichsdeutsche, those outside were called Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The latter expression referred mainly to the German minorities in Eastern Europe. Germans living abroad (for example in America) were and are called Auslandsdeutsche. After the forced abdication of the Emperor in 1918, and the republic was declared, Germany was informally called the Deutsche Republik. The official name of the state remained the same. The term Weimar Republic, after the city where the National Assembly gathered, came up in the 1920s, but was not commonly used until the 1950s. It became necessary to find an appropriate term for the Germany between 1871 and 1919: Kaiserliches Deutschland (Imperial Germany) or (Deutsches) Kaiserreich. Nazi Germany After Adolf Hitler took power in 1933, the official name of the state was still the same. For a couple of years, Hitler used the expression Drittes Reich (Third Reich), which was introduced by writers in the last years of the republic. In fact, this was only a propaganda term and did not constitute a new state. Another propaganda term was Tausendjähriges Reich (Thousand years Reich). Later, Hitler renounced the term Drittes Reich (officially in June 1939), but it already had become popular among supporters and opponents and is still used in historiography (sometimes in quotation marks). It later led to the name Zweites Reich (Second Empire) being used to refer to Germany between the years 1871 and 1919. Germany under Hitler's rule is most commonly called in English Nazi Germany, Nazi being a colloquial abbreviation of Nationalsozialist. Germany divided 1945–1990 After the defeat in World War II, Germany was occupied by the troops of Britain, France, the United States and Soviet Union. Berlin was a case of its own, as it was situated on the territory of the Soviet zone but divided into four sectors. The western sectors were later called West Berlin, the other one East Berlin. The communists tended to consider the Soviet sector of Berlin as a part of GDR; West Berlin was, according to them, an independent political unit. In the GDR Westberlin was the preferred spelling to de-emphasize the relationship to Berlin, Hauptstadt der DDR (the GDR capital). After 1945, Deutsches Reich was still used for a couple of years (in 1947, for instance, when the Social Democrats gathered in Nuremberg they called their rally Reichsparteitag). In many contexts, the German people still called their country Germany, even after two German states were created in 1949. Federal Republic of Germany The Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, established in 1949, saw itself as the same state founded in 1867/71 but Reich gave place to Bund. For example, the Reichskanzler became the Bundeskanzler, reichsdeutsch became bundesdeutsch, Reichsbürger (citizen of the Reich) became Bundesbürger. Germany as a whole was called Deutschland als Ganzes or Gesamtdeutschland, referring to Germany in the international borders of 1937 (before Hitler started to annex other countries). This resulted in all German (or pan germanique—a chauvinist concept) aspirations. In 1969 the Federal Ministry for All German Affairs was renamed the Federal Ministry for Intra-German Relations. Until 1970, a number of expressions competed in the Federal Republic to designate the other German state (the communist German Democratic Republic). It was called Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Zone of Occupation), Sowjetzone, Ostzone, Mitteldeutschland or Pankow (many GDR politicians lived or worked in Berlin-Pankow). German Democratic Republic In 1949, the communists, protected by the Soviet Union, established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR, German Democratic Republic, GDR). This state was not considered to be a successor of the Reich, but, nevertheless, to represent all good Germans. Rulers and inhabitants of GDR called their state simply DDR or unsere Republik (our republic). The GDR still supported the idea of a German nation and the need for reunification. The Federal Republic was often called Westdeutschland or the BRD. After 1970 the GDR called itself a "socialist state of German nation". Westerners called the GDR Sowjetische Besatzungszone (SBZ, Soviet Zone of Occupation), Sowjetzone, Ostzone, Mitteldeutschland or Pankow (the GDR government was in the Pankow district of Berlin). Federal Republic of Germany 1990–present In 1990 the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist. Five new federal states ("Bundesländer") were established and joined the "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (Federal Republic of Germany). East Berlin joined through merger with West Berlin; technically this was the sixth new federal state since West Berlin, although considered a de facto federal state, had the legal status of a military occupation zone. The official name of the country is Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland). The terms "Westdeutschland" and "Ostdeutschland" are still used for the western and the eastern parts of the German territory, respectively. See also Various terms used for Germans German placename etymology List of country name etymologies Territorial evolution of Germany Further reading Bithell, Jethro, ed. Germany: A Companion to German Studies (5th edition 1955), 578pp; essays on German literature, music, philosophy, art and, especially, history. online edition Archived 11 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine Buse, Dieter K. ed. Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture 1871–1990 (2 vol 1998) Clark, Christopher. Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2006) Detwiler, Donald S. Germany: A Short History (3rd ed. 1999) 341pp; Germany A Short History Archived 31 December 2011 at the Wayback Machine; by Donald S. Detwiler; Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany (2004) Maehl, William Harvey. Germany in Western Civilization (1979), 833pp Ozment, Steven. A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (2005) Reinhardt, Kurt F. Germany: 2000 Years (2 vols., 1961), stress on cultural topics The dictionary definition of Germany at Wiktionary Why are there so many names for Germany, AKA Deutschland, Allemagne, etc.?

酒 is an East Asian word which means wine or alcoholic beverage. 酒 may refer to: Jiu or Chinese alcoholic beverages, any alcoholic beverage of China, huangjiu, baijiu, mijiu and so on. Sul (술) or any traditional alcoholic beverage of Korea, written with the suffix -ju (주; 酒). Sake (shu), a Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice. Omiki (お神酒), a Japanese ritual offering of Sake Miki (Okinawa), a non-alcoholic related beverage See also 燒酒 (disambiguation)

The etymology of the various words for tea reflects the history of transmission of tea drinking culture and trade from China to countries around the world. Nearly all of the words for tea worldwide fall into three broad groups: te, cha and chai, present in English as tea, cha or char, and chai. The earliest of the three to enter English is cha, which came in the 1590s via the Portuguese, who traded in Macao and picked up the Cantonese pronunciation of the word. The more common tea form arrived in the 17th century via the Dutch, who acquired it either indirectly from the Malay teh, or directly from the tê pronunciation in Min Chinese. The third form chai (meaning "spiced tea") originated from a northern Chinese pronunciation of cha, which travelled overland to Central Asia and Persia where it picked up a Persian ending yi, and entered English via Hindustani in the 20th century.The different regional pronunciations of the word in China are believed to have arisen from the same root, which diverged due to sound changes through the centuries. The written form of the word in Chinese 茶 was created in the mid-Tang dynasty by modifying the character 荼 (pronounced tu) that meant "bitter vegetable". Tu was used to refer to a variety of plants in ancient China, and acquired the additional meaning of "tea" by the Han dynasty. The Chinese word for tea was likely ultimately derived from the non-Sinitic languages of the botanical homeland of the tea plant in southwest China (or Burma), possibly from an archaic Austro-Asiatic root word *la, meaning "leaf". Pronunciation The Chinese character for tea is 茶, originally written with an extra horizontal stroke as 荼 (pronounced tu), and acquired its current form in the Tang dynasty first used in the eighth-century treatise on tea The Classic of Tea. The word tú 荼 appears in ancient Chinese texts such as Shijing signifying a kind of "bitter vegetable" (苦菜) and refers to various plants such as sow thistle, chicory, or smartweed, and also used to refer to tea during the Han dynasty. By the Northern Wei the word tu also appeared with a wood radical, meaning a tea tree. The word 茶 first introduced during the Tang dynasty refers exclusively to tea. It is pronounced differently in the different varieties of Chinese, such as chá in Mandarin, zo and dzo in Wu Chinese, and ta and te in Min Chinese. One suggestion is that the pronunciation of tu (荼) gave rise to tê; but historical phonologists believe that cha, te and dzo all arose from the same root with a reconstructed hypothetical pronunciation dra (dr- represents a single consonant for a retroflex d), which changed due to sound shift through the centuries. Other ancient words for tea include jia (檟, defined as "bitter tu" during the Han dynasty), she (蔎), ming (茗, meaning "fine, special tender tea") and chuan (荈), but ming is the only other word for tea still in common use.Most Chinese languages, such as Mandarin and Cantonese, pronounce it along the lines of cha, but Min varieties along the Southern coast of China pronounce it like teh. These two pronunciations have made their separate ways into other languages around the world: Te is from the Amoy tê of Hokkien dialect in southern Fujian. The ports of Xiamen (Amoy) and Quanzhou were once major points of contact with foreign traders. Western European traders such as the Dutch may have taken this pronunciation either directly from Fujian or Taiwan where they had established a port, or indirectly via Malay traders in Bantam, Java. The Dutch pronunciation of thee then spread to other countries in Western Europe. This pronunciation gives rise to English "tea" and similar words in other languages, and is the most common form worldwide. Cha originated from different parts of China. The "cha" pronunciation may come from the Cantonese pronunciation tsa around Guangzhou (Canton) and the ports of Hong Kong and Macau, also major points of contact, especially with the Portuguese, who spread it to India in the 16th century. The Korean and Japanese pronunciations of cha, however, came not from Cantonese; rather, they were borrowed into Korean and Japanese during earlier periods of Chinese history. Chai (Persian: چای chay) might have been derived from Northern Chinese pronunciation of chá, which passed overland to Central Asia and Persia, where it picked up the Persian ending -yi' before passing on to Russian, Arabic, Turkish, etc. The chai pronunciation first entered English either via Russian or Arabic in the early 20th century, and then as a word for "spiced tea" via Hindi-Urdu which acquired the word under the influence of the Mughals.English has all three forms: cha or char (both pronounced ), attested from the late 16th century; tea, from the 17th; and chai, from the 20th.Languages in more intense contact with Chinese, Sinospheric languages like Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese, may have borrowed their words for tea at an earlier time and from a different variety of Chinese, in the so-called Sino-Xenic pronunciations. Although normally pronounced as cha (commonly with an honorific prefix o- as ocha) or occasionally as sa (as in sadô or kissaten) Japanese also retains the early but now uncommon pronunciations of ta and da, similarly Korean also has ta in addition to cha, and Vietnamese trà in addition to chè. The different pronunciations for tea in Japanese arose from the different times the pronunciations were borrowed into the language: Sa is the Tō-on reading (唐音, literally Tang reading but in fact post Tang), 'ta' is the Kan-on (漢音) from the Middle Chinese spoken at the Tang dynasty court at Chang'an; which is still preserved in modern Min Dong da. Ja is the Go-on (呉音) reading from Wuyue region, and comes from the earlier Wu language centered at Nanjing, a place where the consonant was still voiced, as it is today in Hunanese za or Shanghainese zo. Zhuang language also features southern cha-type pronunciations.The few exceptions of words for tea that do not fall into the three broad groups of te, cha and chai are the local languages from the botanical homeland of the tea plant. Examples are la (meaning tea purchased elsewhere) and miiem (wild tea gathered in the hills) from the Wa people of northeast Burma and southwest Yunnan, letpet in Burmese and meng in Lamet meaning "fermented tea leaves", tshuaj yej in Hmong language as well as miang in Thai ("fermented tea"). These languages belong to the Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Tai families of languages now found in South East Asia and southwest of China. Scholars have suggested that the Austro-Asiatic languages may be the ultimate source of the word tea, including the various Chinese words for tea such as tu, cha and ming. Cha for example may have been derived from an archaic Austro-Asiatic root word *la (Proto-Austroasiatic: *slaʔ, cognate with Proto-Vietic *s-laːʔ), meaning "leaf", while ming may be from the Mon–Khmer meng (fermented tea leaves). The Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman and Tai speakers who came into contact with the Austro-Asiatic speakers then borrowed their words for tea. Etymological observations The different words for tea fall into two main groups: "te-derived" (Min) and "cha-derived" (Cantonese and Mandarin). Most notably through the Silk Road; global regions with a history of land trade with central regions of Imperial China (such as North Asia, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East) pronounce it along the lines of 'cha', whilst most global maritime regions with a history of sea trade with certain southeast regions of Imperial China (such as Europe), pronounce it like 'teh'.The words that various languages use for "tea" reveal where those nations first acquired their tea and tea culture: Portuguese traders were the first Europeans to import the herb in large amounts. The Portuguese borrowed their word for tea (chá) from Cantonese in the 1550s via their trading posts in the south of China, especially Macau. In Central Asia, Mandarin cha developed into Persian chay, and this form spread with Central Asian trade and cultural influence. Russia (чай, chai) encountered tea in Central Asia. The Dutch word for "tea" (thee) comes from Min Chinese. The Dutch may have borrowed their word for tea through trade directly from Fujian or Formosa, or from Malay traders in Java who had adopted the Min pronunciation as teh. The Dutch first imported tea around 1606 from Macao via Bantam, Java, and played a dominant role in the early European tea trade through the Dutch East India Company, influencing other European languages, including English, French (thé), Spanish (té), and German (Tee). The Dutch first introduced tea to England in 1644. By the 19th century, most British tea was purchased directly from merchants in Canton, whose population uses cha, the English however kept its Dutch-derived Min word for tea, although char is sometimes used colloquially to refer to the drink in British English (see below).At times, a te form will follow a cha form, or vice versa, giving rise to both in one language, at times one an imported variant of the other: In North America, the word chai is used to refer almost exclusively to the Indian masala chai (spiced tea) beverage, in contrast to tea itself. The inverse pattern is seen in Moroccan colloquial Arabic (Darijja), shay means "generic, or black Middle Eastern tea" whereas atay refers particularly to Zhejiang or Fujian green tea with fresh mint leaves. The Moroccans are said to have acquired this taste for green tea—unique in the Arab world—after the ruler Mulay Hassan exchanged some European hostages captured by the Barbary pirates for a whole ship of Chinese tea. See Moroccan tea culture. The colloquial Greek word for tea is tsáï, from Slavic chai. Its formal equivalent, used in earlier centuries, is téïon, from tê. The Polish word for a tea-kettle is czajnik, which comes from the Russian word Чай (pronounced chai). However, tea in Polish is herbata, which, as well as Lithuanian arbata, was derived from the Dutch herba thee, although a minority believes that it was derived Latin herba thea, meaning "tea herb." The normal word for tea in Finnish is tee, which is a Swedish loan. However, it is often colloquially referred to, especially in Eastern Finland and in Helsinki, as tsai, tsaiju, saiju or saikka, which is cognate to the Russian word chai. The latter word refers always to black tea, while green tea is always tee. In Ireland, or at least in Dublin, the term cha is sometimes used for "tea," as is pre-vowel-shift pronunciation "tay" (from which the Irish Gaelic word tae is derived). Char was a common slang term for tea throughout British Empire and Commonwealth military forces in the 19th and 20th centuries, crossing over into civilian usage. The British slang word "char" for "tea" arose from its Cantonese Chinese pronunciation "cha" with its spelling affected by the fact that ar is a more common way of representing the phoneme /ɑː/ in British English. In Myanmar, the word of normal tea is "laat-paat-ray","လက်ဖက်ရည်".Burma called "laat-paat" for Camellia sinensis and "ray" stand for solution or juice. Derivatives of te (1) from Latin herba thea, found in Polish, Western Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Belarusian and Kashubian (for Belarusian and Western Ukrainian the g- is pronounced as h-) (2) té or thé, but this term is considered archaic and is a literary expression; since roughly the beginning of the 20th century, čaj is used for 'tea' in Czech; see the following table (3) nīr means water; tēyilai means "tea leaf" (ilai "leaf") (4) nīru means water; ṭīyāku means "tea leaf" (āku = leaf in Telugu) Derivatives of cha (1) The main pronunciations of 茶 in Korea and Japan are 차 cha and ちゃ cha, respectively. (Japanese ocha (おちゃ) is honorific.) These are connected with the pronunciations at the capitals of the Song and Ming dynasties. (2) Trà and chè are variant pronunciations of 茶; the latter is used mainly in northern Vietnam and describes a tea made with freshly picked leaves. Derivatives of chai (1) Derived from the earlier pronunciation چا cha. Others (1) Note that cha is the common pronunciation of "tea" in Japanese and Korean. (2) Fermented tea leaves eaten as a meal (3) Fermented tea Bibliography Benn, James A. (2015). Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 978-988-8208-73-9. Mair, Victor H.; Hoh, Erling (2009). The True History of Tea. Thames & Hudson. pp. 262–264. ISBN 978-0-500-25146-1.

Tiān (天) is one of the oldest Chinese terms for heaven and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their supreme god as Shàngdì (上帝, "Lord on High") or Dì (帝, "Lord"). During the following Zhou dynasty, Tiān became synonymous with this figure. Before the 20th century, worship of Tiān was an orthodox state religion of China.In Taoism and Confucianism, Tiān (the celestial aspect of the cosmos, often translated as "Heaven") is mentioned in relationship to its complementary aspect of Dì (地, often translated as "Earth"). They are thought to maintain the two poles of the Three Realms (三界) of reality, with the middle realm occupied by Humanity (人, rén), and the lower world occupied by demons (魔, mó) and "ghosts", the damned, (鬼, guǐ). Tiān was variously thought as a "supreme power reigning over lesser gods and human beings" that brought "order and calm...or catastrophe and punishment", a god, destiny, an "impersonal" natural force that controlled various events, a holy world or afterlife containing other worlds or afterlives, or one or more of these. Characters The modern Chinese character 天 and early seal script both combine dà 大 "great; large" and yī 一 "one", but some of the original characters in Shāng oracle bone script and Zhōu bronzeware script anthropomorphically portray a large head on a great person. The ancient oracle and bronze ideograms for dà 大 depict a stick figure person with arms stretched out denoting "great; large". The oracle and bronze characters for tiān 天 emphasize the cranium of this "great (person)", either with a square or round head, or head marked with one or two lines. Schuessler notes the bronze graphs for tiān, showing a person with a round head, resemble those for dīng 丁 "4th Celestial stem", and suggests "The anthropomorphic graph may or may not indicate that the original meaning was 'deity', rather than 'sky'."Two variant Chinese characters for tiān 天 "heaven" are 二人 (written with 二 er "two" and 人 ren "human") and the Daoist coinage 靝 (with 青 qīng "blue" and 氣 "qì", i.e., "blue sky"). Pronunciation and etymology The Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation of 天 "sky, heaven; heavenly deity, god" is tiān [tʰi̯ɛn˥] in level first tone. The character is read as Cantonese tin1; Taiwanese thiN1 or thian1; Vietnamese thiên; Korean cheon or ch'ŏn (천); and Japanese ten in On'yomi (borrowed Chinese reading) and ama- (bound), ame (free), or sora in Kun'yomi (native Japanese reading).Tiān 天 reconstructions in Middle Chinese (c. 6th–10th centuries CE) include t'ien, t'iɛn, tʰɛn > tʰian, and then. Reconstructions in Old Chinese (c. 6th–3rd centuries BCE) include *t'ien, *t'en, *hlin, *thîn, and *l̥ˤin.For the etymology of tiān, Schuessler links it with the Mongolian word tengri "sky, heaven, heavenly deity" or the Tibeto-Burman words taleŋ (Adi) and tǎ-lyaŋ (Lepcha), both meaning "sky". He also suggests a likely connection between Chinese tiān 天, diān 巔 "summit, mountaintop", and diān 顛 "summit, top of the head, forehead", which have cognates such as Zemeic Naga tiŋ "sky". However, other reconstructions of 天's OC pronunciation *qʰl'iːn or *l̥ˤi[n] reconstructed a voiceless lateral onset, either a cluster or a single consonant, respectively. Baxter & Sagart pointed to attested dialectal differences in Eastern Han Chinese, the use of 天 as a phonetic component in phono-semantic compound Chinese characters, and the choice of 天 to transcribe foreign syllables, all of which prompted them to conclude that, around 200 CE, 天's onset had two pronunciations: coronal *tʰ & dorsal *x, both of which likely originated from an earlier voiceless lateral *l̥ˤ. Compounds Tiān is one of the components in hundreds of Chinese compounds. Some significant ones include: Tiānmìng (天命 "Mandate of Heaven") "divine mandate, God's will; fate, destiny; one's lifespan" Tiānwèn (simplified Chinese: 天问; traditional Chinese: 天問; pinyin: Tiānwèn), the Heavenly Questions section of the Chǔ Cí. Tiānzĭ (天子 "Son of Heaven"), an honorific designation for the "Emperor; Chinese sovereign" (Tiānzǐ accounts for 28 of the 140 tiān occurrences in the Shī Jīng above.) Tiānxià (天下, lit. "all under heaven") "the world, earth; China" Tiāndì (天地, lit "heaven and earth") "the world; the universe." Xíngtiān (刑天) An early mythological hero who fought against Heaven, despite being decapitated. Tiānfáng (天房, lit. "House of Heaven") A Chinese name for the Kaaba, from Bayt Allah (Arabic: بَيْت ٱللَّٰه, lit. 'House of God'). Chinese interpretations "Lord Heaven" and "Jade Emperor" were terms for a supreme deity in Confucianism and Taoism who was an anthropromorphized Tian, and some conceptions of it thought of the names as synonymous. Tiān was viewed as "the dwelling place of God, gods,...other superhuman beings and the...state of being of the saved". It was also viewed as "the guardian of both the moral laws of mankind and the physical laws of nature...and is synonymous with the divine will."In Chinese culture, heaven tends to be "synonymous with order", "containing the blueprints for creation", "the mandate by which earthly rulers govern, and the standards by which to measure beauty, goodness, and truth."Zhou dynasty nobles made the worship of heaven a major part of their political philosophy and viewed it as "many gods" who embodied order and kingship, as well as the mandate of heaven. Confucianism "Confucianism has a religious side with a deep reverence for Heaven and Earth (Di), whose powers regulate the flow of nature and influence human events." Yin and yang are also thought to be integral to this relationship and permeate both, as well as humans and man-made constructs. This "cosmos" and its "principles" is something that "[t]he ways of man should conform to, or else" frustration will result.Many Confucianists, both historically and in current times, use the I Ching to divine events through the changes of Tiān and other "natural forces". Historical and current Confucianists were/are often environmentalists out of their respect for Heaven and the other aspects of nature and the "Principle" that comes from their unity and, more generally, harmony as a whole, which is "the basis for a sincere mind."The Emperor of China as Tianzi was formerly vital to Confucianism. Confucius The concept of Heaven (Tiān, 天) is pervasive in Confucianism. Confucius had a deep trust in Heaven and believed that Heaven overruled human efforts. He also believed that he was carrying out the will of Heaven, and that Heaven would not allow its servant, Confucius, to be killed until his work was done. Many attributes of Heaven were delineated in his Analects. Confucius honored Heaven as the supreme source of goodness: The Master said, "Great indeed was Yao as a sovereign! How majestic was he! It is only Heaven that is grand, and only Yao corresponded to it. How vast was his virtue! The people could find no name for it. How majestic was he in the works which he accomplished! How glorious in the elegant regulations which he instituted!" Confucius felt himself personally dependent upon Heaven: "Wherein I have done improperly, may Heaven reject me! may Heaven reject me!"Confucius believed that Heaven cannot be deceived: The Master being very ill, Zi Lu wished the disciples to act as ministers to him. During a remission of his illness, he said, "Long has the conduct of You been deceitful! By pretending to have ministers when I have them not, whom should I impose upon? Should I impose upon Heaven? Moreover, than that I should die in the hands of ministers, is it not better that I should die in the hands of you, my disciples? And though I may not get a great burial, shall I die upon the road?" Confucius believed that Heaven gives people tasks to perform to teach them of virtues and morality: The Master said, "At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right." He believed that Heaven knew what he was doing and approved of him, even though none of the rulers on earth might want him as a guide: The Master said, "Alas! there is no one that knows me." Zi Gong said, "What do you mean by thus saying - that no one knows you?" The Master replied, "I do not murmur against Heaven. I do not grumble against men. My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high. But there is Heaven - that knows me!" Perhaps the most remarkable saying, recorded twice, is one in which Confucius expresses complete trust in the overruling providence of Heaven: The Master was put in fear in Kuang. He said, "After the death of King Wen, was not the cause of truth lodged here in me? If Heaven had wished to let this cause of truth perish, then I, a future mortal, should not have got such a relation to that cause. While Heaven does not let the cause of truth perish, what can the people of Kuang do to me?" Mozi For Mozi, Heaven is the divine ruler, just as the Son of Heaven is the earthly ruler. Mozi believed that spirits and minor demons exist or at least rituals should be performed as if they did for social reasons, but their function is to carry out the will of Heaven, watching for evil-doers and punishing them. Mozi taught that Heaven loves all people equally and that each person should similarly love all human beings without distinguishing between his own relatives and those of others. Mozi criticized the Confucians of his own time for not following the teachings of Confucius. In Mozi's Will of Heaven (天志), he writes: Moreover, I know Heaven loves men dearly not without reason. Heaven ordered the sun, the moon, and the stars to enlighten and guide them. Heaven ordained the four seasons, Spring, Autumn, Winter, and Summer, to regulate them. Heaven sent down snow, frost, rain, and dew to grow the five grains and flax and silk that so the people could use and enjoy them. Heaven established the hills and rivers, ravines and valleys, and arranged many things to minister to man's good or bring him evil. He appointed the dukes and lords to reward the virtuous and punish the wicked, and to gather metal and wood, birds and beasts, and to engage in cultivating the five grains and flax and silk to provide for the people's food and clothing. This has been so from antiquity to the present." Schools of cosmology There are three major schools on the structure of tian. Most other hypothesis were developed from them. Gaitian shuo (蓋天說) "Canopy-Heavens hypothesis" originated from the text Zhoubi Suanjing. The earth is covered by a material tian. Huntian shuo (渾天說) "Egg-like hypothesis". The earth surrounded by a tian sphere rotating over it. The celestial bodies are attached to the tian sphere. (See Zhang Heng § Astronomy and mathematics, Chinese creation myth.) Xuanye shuo (宣夜說) "Firmament hypothesis". The tian is an infinite space. The celestial bodies were light matters floating on it moved by Qi. A summary by Ji Meng (郗萌) is in the astronomical chapters of the Book of Jin.Tiān schools influenced popular conception of the universe and earth until the 17th century, when they were replaced by cosmological science imported from Europe.Sometimes the sky is divided into Jiutian (九天) "the nine sky divisions", the middle sky and the eight directions. Buddhism The Tian are the heaven worlds and pure lands in Buddhist cosmology. Some devas are also called Tian. Taoism The number of vertical heaven layers in Taoism is different. A common belief in Taoism is that there were 36 Tiān "arranged on six levels" that have "different deities". The highest heaven is the "Great Web" which was sometimes said to be where Yuanshi Tianzun lived.After death, some Taoists were thought to explore "heavenly realms" and/or become Taoist immortals. These immortals could be good or evil, and there were sometimes rivalries between them. Some heavens in Taoism were thought to be evil, as in Shangqing Daoism, although Tiān was mostly thought of as a force for good.Heaven is sometimes seen as synonymous with the Dao or a natural energy that can be accessed by living in accordance with the Dao.A Tao realm inconceivable and incomprehensible by normal humans and even Confucius and Confucianists was sometimes called "the Heavens". Higher, spiritual versions of Daoists such as Laozi were thought to exist in there when they were alive and absorb "the purest Yin and Yang", as well as xian who were reborn into it after their human selves' spirits were sent there. These spiritual versions were thought to be abstract beings that can manifest in that world as mythical beings such as xian dragons who eat yin and yang energy and ride clouds and their qi. Chinese folk religion Some tiān in Chinese folk religion were thought to be many different or a hierarchy of multiple, sphere-like realms that contained morally ambiguous creatures and spirits such as huli jing and fire-breathing dragons.The Tao realm was thought to exist by many ancient folk religion practitioners. Yiguandao In Yiguandao, Tian is divided into three vertical worlds. Li Tian (理天) "heaven of truth", Qi Tian (氣天) "heaven of spirit" and Xiang Tian (象天) "heaven of matter". Japanese interpretations In some cases, the heavens in Shinto were thought to be a hierarchy of multiple, sphere-like realms that contained kami such as fox spirits.Myths about the kami were told "of their doings on Earth and in heaven." Heaven was thought to be a clean and orderly place for nature gods in Shinto. Meanings The semantics of tian developed diachronically. The Hanyu dazidian, an historical dictionary of Chinese characters, lists 17 meanings of tian 天, translated below. Human forehead; head, cranium. 人的額部; 腦袋. Anciently, to tattoo/brand the forehead as a kind of punishment. 古代一種在額頭上刺字的刑罰. The heavens, the sky, the firmament. 天空. Celestial bodies; celestial phenomena, meteorological phenomena. 天體; 天象. Nature, natural. A general reference to objective inevitability beyond human will. 自然. 泛指不以人意志為轉移的客觀必然性. Natural, innate; instinctive, inborn. 自然的; 天性的. Natural character/quality of a person or thing; natural instinct, inborn nature, disposition. 人或物的自然形質; 天性. A reference to a particular sky/space. 特指某一空間. Season; seasons. Like: winter; the three hot 10-day periods [following the summer solstice]. 時令; 季節. 如: 冬天; 三伏天. Weather; climate. 天氣; 氣候. Day, time of one day and night, or especially the time from sunrise to sunset. Like: today; yesterday; busy all day; go fishing for three days and dry the nets for two [a xiehouyu simile for "unable to finish anything"]. 一晝夜的時間, 或專指日出到日落的時間. 如: 今天; 昨天; 忙了一天; 三天打魚, 兩天曬網. God, heaven, celestial spirit, of the natural world. 天神, 上帝, 自然界的主宰者. Heaven, heavenly, a superstitious person's reference to the gods, Buddhas, or immortals; or to the worlds where they live. Like: go to heaven ["die"]; heavenly troops and heavenly generals ["invincible army"]; heavenly goddesses scatter blossoms [a Vimalakirti Sutra reference to "Buddha's arrival"]. 迷信的人指神佛仙人或他們生活的那個世界. 如: 歸天; 天兵天將; 天女散花. Anciently, the king, monarch, sovereign; also referring to elders in human relationships. 古代指君王; 也指人倫中的尊者. Object upon which one depends or relies. 所依存或依靠的對象. Dialect. A measure of land [shang, about 15 acres]. 方言. 垧. A family name, surname. 姓. The Chinese philosopher Feng Youlan differentiates five different meanings of tian in early Chinese writings: (1) A material or physical T'ien or sky, that is, the T'ien often spoken of in apposition to earth, as in the common phrase which refers to the physical universe as 'Heaven and Earth' (T'ien Ti 天地). (2) A ruling or presiding T'ien, that is, one such as is meant in the phrase, 'Imperial Heaven Supreme Emperor' (Huang T'ien Shang Ti), in which anthropomorphic T'ien and Ti are signified. (3) A fatalistic T'ien, equivalent to the concept of Fate (ming 命), a term applied to all those events in human life over which man himself has no control. This is the T'ien Mencius refers to when he says: "As to the accomplishment of a great deed, that is with T'ien" ([Mencius], Ib, 14). (4) A naturalistic T'ien, that is, one equivalent to the English word Nature. This is the sort of T'ien described in the 'Discussion on T'ien' in the [Hsün Tzǔ] (ch. 17). (5) An ethical T'ien, that is, one having a moral principle and which is the highest primordial principle of the universe. This is the sort of T'ien which the [Chung Yung] (Doctrine of the Mean) refers to in its opening sentence when it says: "What T'ien confers (on man) is called his nature." The Oxford English Dictionary enters the English loanword t'ien (also tayn, tyen, tien, and tiān) "Chinese thought: Heaven; the Deity." The earliest recorded usages for these spelling variants are: 1613 Tayn, 1710 Tien, 1747 Tyen, and 1878 T'ien. In early Chinese writings, tiān was thought to be a subservient location that a higher deity owned, and Shangdi was thought by some to be this being. Interpretation by Western Sinologists The sinologist Herrlee Creel, who wrote a comprehensive study called "The Origin of the Deity T'ien", gives this overview. For three thousand years it has been believed that from time immemorial all Chinese revered T'ien 天, "Heaven," as the highest deity, and that this same deity was also known as Shangdi, Ti 帝, or Shang Ti 上帝. But the new materials that have become available in the present century, and especially the Shang inscriptions, make it evident that this was not the case. It appears rather that T'ien is not named at all in the Shang inscriptions, which instead refer with great frequency to Ti or Shang Ti. T'ien appears only with the Chou, and was apparently a Chou deity. After the conquest the Chou considered T'ien to be identical with the Shang deity Ti (or Shang Ti), much as the Romans identified the Greek Zeus with their Jupiter. Creel refers to the historical shift in ancient Chinese names for "god"; from Shang oracles that frequently used di and shangdi and rarely used tian to Zhou bronzes and texts that used tian more frequently than its synonym shangdi. First, Creel analyzes all the tian and di occurrences meaning "god; gods" in Western Zhou era Chinese classic texts and bronze inscriptions. The Yi Jing "Classic of Changes" has 2 tian and 1 di; the Shi Jing "Classic of Poetry" has 140 tian and 43 di or shangdi; and the authentic portions of the Shu Jing "Classic of Documents" have 116 tian and 25 di or shangdi. His corpus of authenticated Western Zhou bronzes mention tian 91 times and di or shangdi only 4 times. Second, Creel contrasts the disparity between 175 occurrences of di or shangdi on Shang era oracle inscriptions with "at least" 26 occurrences of tian. Upon examining these 26 oracle scripts that scholars (like Guo Moruo) have identified as tian 天 "heaven; god", he rules out 8 cases in fragments where the contextual meaning is unclear. Of the remaining 18, Creel interprets 11 cases as graphic variants for da "great; large; big" (e.g., tian i shang 天邑商 for da i shang 大邑商 "great settlement Shang"), 3 as a place name, and 4 cases of oracles recording sacrifices yu tian 于天 "to/at Tian" (which could mean "to Heaven/God" or "at a place called Tian".)The Shu Jing chapter "Tang Shi" (湯誓 "Tang's Speech") illustrates how early Zhou texts used tian "heaven; god" in contexts with shangdi "god". According to tradition, Tang of Shang assembled his subjects to overthrow King Jie of Xia, the infamous last ruler of the Xia Dynasty, but they were reluctant to attack. The king said, "Come, ye multitudes of the people, listen all to my words. It is not I, the little child [a humble name used by kings], who dare to undertake what may seem to be a rebellious enterprise; but for the many crimes of the sovereign of Hsiâ [Xia] Heaven has given the charge [...] to destroy him. Now, ye multitudes, you are saying, 'Our prince does not compassionate us, but (is calling us) away from our husbandry to attack and punish the ruler of Hsiâ.' I have indeed heard these words of you all; but the sovereign of Hsiâ is an offender, and, as I fear God [shangdi], I dare not but punish him. Now you are saying, 'What are the crimes of Hsiâ to us?' The king of Hsiâ does nothing but exhaust the strength of his people, and exercise oppression in the cities of Hsiâ. His people have all become idle in his service, and will not assist him. They are saying, 'When will this sun expire? We will all perish with thee.' Such is the course of the sovereign of Hsiâ, and now I must go and punish him. Assist, I pray you, me, the one man, to carry out the punishment appointed by Heaven [tian]. I will greatly reward you. On no account disbelieve me; — I will not eat my words. If you do not obey the words which I have spoken to you, I will put your children with you to death; — you shall find no forgiveness." Having established that Tiān was not a deity of the Shang people, Creel proposes a hypothesis for how it originated. Both the Shang and Zhou peoples pictographically represented da 大 as "a large or great man". The Zhou subsequently added a head on him to denote tian 天 meaning "king, kings" (cf. wang 王 "king; ruler", which had oracle graphs picturing a line under a "great person" and bronze graphs that added the top line). From "kings", tiān was semantically extended to mean "dead kings; ancestral kings", who controlled "fate; providence", and ultimately a single omnipotent deity Tian "Heaven". In addition, tiān named both "the heavens" (where ancestral kings and gods supposedly lived) and the visible "sky".Another possibility is that Tiān may be related to Tengri and there was possibly a loan word from a prehistoric Central Asian language that contributed to the creation of the word.Kelly James Clark argued that Confucius himself saw Tiān as an anthropomorphic god that Clark hypothetically refers to as "Heavenly Supreme Emperor", although most other scholars on Confucianism disagree with this view. See also Amenominakanushi (天御中主), the Japanese concept of God as the ultimate creator Haneullim, the Sky God of Cheondoism Hongjun Laozu Names of God in China Shangdi Shen Taiyi Tianzun Tengri, the Turkic-Mongolic sky God Tian related terms Tianxia (All under Heaven) Tian Chao (Dynasty of Heaven) Tian Kehan (Khan of Heaven) Tian Ming (Mandate of Heaven) Tian Zi (Son of Heaven) Tiandihui (Heaven and Earth Society) Tiandiism (Heavenly Deity religion) Tianzhu (Chinese Rites controversy) Oracle, Bronze, and Seal characters for 天, Richard Sears

Linux ( LIN-uuks) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the use and importance of GNU software in many distributions, causing some controversy.Popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, and Ubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether, or include a solution stack such as LAMP. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any purpose.Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system. Because of the dominance of the Linux-based Android on smartphones, Linux, including Android, has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems, as of May 2022. Although Linux is, as of November 2022, used by only around 2.6 percent of desktop computers, the Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based ChromeOS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. Linux is the leading operating system on servers (over 96.4% of the top 1 million web servers' operating systems are Linux), leads other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and is used on all of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers (as of November 2017, having gradually displaced all competitors).Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes routers, automation controls, smart home devices, video game consoles, televisions (Samsung and LG Smart TVs), automobiles (Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Toyota), and spacecraft (Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon crew capsule and the Perseverance rover). Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The source code may be used, modified and distributed commercially or non-commercially by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). The Linux kernel, for example, is licensed under the GPLv2, with an exception for system calls that allows code that calls the kernel via system calls not to be licensed under the GPL. History Precursors The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in 1969, at AT&T's Bell Labs, in the United States by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. First released in 1971, Unix was written entirely in assembly language, as was common practice at the time. In 1973, in a key pioneering approach, it was rewritten in the C programming language by Dennis Ritchie (with the exception of some hardware and I/O routines). The availability of a high-level language implementation of Unix made its porting to different computer platforms easier.Due to an earlier antitrust case forbidding it from entering the computer business, AT&T licensed the operating system's source code as a trade secret to anyone who asked. As a result, Unix grew quickly and became widely adopted by academic institutions and businesses. In 1984, AT&T divested itself of its regional operating companies, and was released from its obligation not to enter the computer business; freed of that obligation, Bell Labs began selling Unix as a proprietary product, where users were not legally allowed to modify it.Onyx Systems began selling early microcomputer-based Unix workstations in 1980. Later, Sun Microsystems, founded as a spin-off of a student project at Stanford University, also began selling Unix-based desktop workstations in 1982. While Sun workstations did not utilize commodity PC hardware, for which Linux was later originally developed, it represented the first successful commercial attempt at distributing a primarily single-user microcomputer that ran a Unix operating system.With Unix increasingly "locked in" as a proprietary product, the GNU Project, started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, had the goal of creating a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed entirely of free software. Work began in 1984. Later, in 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation and wrote the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989. By the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a command-line shell, and a windowing system) were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel, called GNU Hurd, were stalled and incomplete.MINIX was created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a computer science professor, and released in 1987 as a minimal Unix-like operating system targeted at students and others who wanted to learn operating system principles. Although the complete source code of MINIX was freely available, the licensing terms prevented it from being free software until the licensing changed in April 2000.Although not released until 1992, due to legal complications, development of 386BSD, from which NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD descended, predated that of Linux. Linus Torvalds has stated on separate occasions that if the GNU kernel or 386BSD had been available at the time (1991), he probably would not have created Linux. Creation While attending the University of Helsinki in the fall of 1990, Torvalds enrolled in a Unix course. The course utilized a MicroVAX minicomputer running Ultrix, and one of the required texts was Operating Systems: Design and Implementation by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. This textbook included a copy of Tanenbaum's MINIX operating system. It was with this course that Torvalds first became exposed to Unix. In 1991, he became curious about operating systems. Frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, which at the time limited it to educational use only, he began to work on his own operating system kernel, which eventually became the Linux kernel. On July 3, 1991, in an effort to implement Unix system calls, Linus Torvalds attempted unsuccessfully to obtain a digital copy of the POSIX standards documentation with a request to the comp.os.minix newsgroup. After not finding the POSIX documentation, Torvalds initially resorted to determining system calls from SunOS documentation owned by the university for use in operating its Sun Microsystems server. He also learned some system calls from Tanenbaum's MINIX text. Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux. Later, Linux matured and further Linux kernel development took place on Linux systems. GNU applications also replaced all MINIX components, because it was advantageous to use the freely available code from the GNU Project with the fledgling operating system; code licensed under the GNU GPL can be reused in other computer programs as long as they also are released under the same or a compatible license. Torvalds initiated a switch from his original license, which prohibited commercial redistribution, to the GNU GPL. Developers worked to integrate GNU components with the Linux kernel, creating a fully functional and free operating system. Naming Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention "Freax", a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, some of the project's makefiles included the name "Freax" for about half a year. Initially, Torvalds considered the name "Linux" but dismissed it as too egotistical.To facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke, Torvalds' coworker at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name, so he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux". According to a newsgroup post by Torvalds, the word "Linux" should be pronounced ( LIN-uuks) with a short 'i' as in 'print' and 'u' as in 'put'. To further demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced, he included an audio guide with the kernel source code. However, in this recording, he pronounces Linux as /ˈlinʊks/ (LEEN-uuks) with a short but close front unrounded vowel, instead of a near-close near-front unrounded vowel as in his newsgroup post. Commercial and popular uptake Adoption of Linux in production environments, rather than being used only by hobbyists, started to take off first in the mid-1990s in the supercomputing community, where organizations such as NASA started to replace their increasingly expensive machines with clusters of inexpensive commodity computers running Linux. Commercial use began when Dell and IBM, followed by Hewlett-Packard, started offering Linux support to escape Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop operating system market.Today, Linux systems are used throughout computing, from embedded systems to virtually all supercomputers, and have secured a place in server installations such as the popular LAMP application stack. Use of Linux distributions in home and enterprise desktops has been growing. Linux distributions have also become popular in the netbook market, with many devices shipping with customized Linux distributions installed, and Google releasing their own ChromeOS designed for netbooks. Linux's greatest success in the consumer market is perhaps the mobile device market, with Android being the dominant operating system on smartphones and very popular on tablets and, more recently, on wearables. Linux gaming is also on the rise with Valve showing its support for Linux and rolling out SteamOS, its own gaming-oriented Linux distribution, which was later implemented in their Steam Deck platform. Linux distributions have also gained popularity with various local and national governments, such as the federal government of Brazil. Current development Greg Kroah-Hartman is the lead maintainer for the Linux kernel and guides its development. William John Sullivan is the executive director of the Free Software Foundation, which in turn supports the GNU components. Finally, individuals and corporations develop third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries. Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions. Design Many open source developers agree that the Linux kernel was not designed but rather evolved through natural selection. Torvalds considers that although the design of Unix served as a scaffolding, "Linux grew with a lot of mutations – and because the mutations were less than random, they were faster and more directed than alpha-particles in DNA." Eric S. Raymond considers Linux's revolutionary aspects to be social, not technical: before Linux, complex software was designed carefully by small groups, but "Linux evolved in a completely different way. From nearly the beginning, it was rather casually hacked on by huge numbers of volunteers coordinating only through the Internet. Quality was maintained not by rigid standards or autocracy but by the naively simple strategy of releasing every week and getting feedback from hundreds of users within days, creating a sort of rapid Darwinian selection on the mutations introduced by developers." Bryan Cantrill, an engineer of a competing OS, agrees that "Linux wasn't designed, it evolved", but considers this to be a limitation, proposing that some features, especially those related to security, cannot be evolved into, "this is not a biological system at the end of the day, it's a software system."A Linux-based system is a modular Unix-like operating system, deriving much of its basic design from principles established in Unix during the 1970s and 1980s. Such a system uses a monolithic kernel, the Linux kernel, which handles process control, networking, access to the peripherals, and file systems. Device drivers are either integrated directly with the kernel, or added as modules that are loaded while the system is running.The GNU userland is a key part of most systems based on the Linux kernel, with Android being the notable exception. The GNU C library, an implementation of the C standard library, works as a wrapper for the system calls of the Linux kernel necessary to the kernel-userspace interface, the toolchain is a broad collection of programming tools vital to Linux development (including the compilers used to build the Linux kernel itself), and the coreutils implement many basic Unix tools. The GNU Project also develops Bash, a popular CLI shell. The graphical user interface (or GUI) used by most Linux systems is built on top of an implementation of the X Window System. More recently, the Linux community seeks to advance to Wayland as the new display server protocol in place of X11. Many other open-source software projects contribute to Linux systems. Installed components of a Linux system include the following: A bootloader, for example GNU GRUB, LILO, SYSLINUX or systemd-boot. This is a program that loads the Linux kernel into the computer's main memory, by being executed by the computer when it is turned on and after the firmware initialization is performed. An init program, such as the traditional sysvinit and the newer systemd, OpenRC and Upstart. This is the first process launched by the Linux kernel, and is at the root of the process tree. It starts processes such as system services and login prompts (whether graphical or in terminal mode). Software libraries, which contain code that can be used by running processes. On Linux systems using ELF-format executable files, the dynamic linker that manages the use of dynamic libraries is known as ld-linux.so. If the system is set up for the user to compile software themselves, header files will also be included to describe the programming interface of installed libraries. Besides the most commonly used software library on Linux systems, the GNU C Library (glibc), there are numerous other libraries, such as SDL and Mesa. The C standard library is the library necessary to run programs written in C on a computer system, with the GNU C Library being the standard. It provides an implementation of the POSIX API, as well as extensions to that API. For embedded systems, alternatives such as musl, EGLIBC (a glibc fork once used by Debian) and uClibc (which was designed for uClinux) have been developed, although the last two are no longer maintained. Android uses its own C library, Bionic. However, musl can additionally be used as a replacement for glibc on desktop and laptop systems, as seen on certain Linux distributions like Void Linux. Basic Unix commands, with GNU coreutils being the standard implementation. Alternatives exist for embedded systems, such as the copyleft BusyBox, and the BSD-licensed Toybox. Widget toolkits are the libraries used to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for software applications. Numerous widget toolkits are available, including GTK and Clutter developed by the GNOME Project, Qt developed by the Qt Project and led by The Qt Company, and Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) developed primarily by the Enlightenment team. A package management system, such as dpkg and RPM. Alternatively packages can be compiled from binary or source tarballs. User interface programs such as command shells or windowing environments. User interface The user interface, also known as the shell, is either a command-line interface (CLI), a graphical user interface (GUI), or controls attached to the associated hardware, which is common for embedded systems. For desktop systems, the default user interface is usually graphical, although the CLI is commonly available through terminal emulator windows or on a separate virtual console. CLI shells are text-based user interfaces, which use text for both input and output. The dominant shell used in Linux is the Bourne-Again Shell (bash), originally developed for the GNU Project. Most low-level Linux components, including various parts of the userland, use the CLI exclusively. The CLI is particularly suited for automation of repetitive or delayed tasks and provides very simple inter-process communication. On desktop systems, the most popular user interfaces are the GUI shells, packaged together with extensive desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma, GNOME, MATE, Cinnamon, LXDE, Pantheon and Xfce, though a variety of additional user interfaces exist. Most popular user interfaces are based on the X Window System, often simply called "X". It provides network transparency and permits a graphical application running on one system to be displayed on another where a user may interact with the application; however, certain extensions of the X Window System are not capable of working over the network. Several X display servers exist, with the reference implementation, X.Org Server, being the most popular. Server distributions might provide a command-line interface for developers and administrators, but provide a custom interface towards end-users, designed for the use-case of the system. This custom interface is accessed through a client that resides on another system, not necessarily Linux based. Several types of window managers exist for X11, including tiling, dynamic, stacking and compositing. Window managers provide means to control the placement and appearance of individual application windows, and interact with the X Window System. Simpler X window managers such as dwm, ratpoison, i3wm, or herbstluftwm provide a minimalist functionality, while more elaborate window managers such as FVWM, Enlightenment or Window Maker provide more features such as a built-in taskbar and themes, but are still lightweight when compared to desktop environments. Desktop environments include window managers as part of their standard installations, such as Mutter (GNOME), KWin (KDE) or Xfwm (xfce), although users may choose to use a different window manager if preferred. Wayland is a display server protocol intended as a replacement for the X11 protocol; as of 2022, it has received relatively wide adoption. Unlike X11, Wayland does not need an external window manager and compositing manager. Therefore, a Wayland compositor takes the role of the display server, window manager and compositing manager. Weston is the reference implementation of Wayland, while GNOME's Mutter and KDE's KWin are being ported to Wayland as standalone display servers. Enlightenment has already been successfully ported since version 19. Video input infrastructure Linux currently has two modern kernel-userspace APIs for handling video input devices: V4L2 API for video streams and radio, and DVB API for digital TV reception.Due to the complexity and diversity of different devices, and due to the large number of formats and standards handled by those APIs, this infrastructure needs to evolve to better fit other devices. Also, a good userspace device library is the key of the success for having userspace applications to be able to work with all formats supported by those devices. Development The primary difference between Linux and many other popular contemporary operating systems is that the Linux kernel and other components are free and open-source software. Linux is not the only such operating system, although it is by far the most widely used. Some free and open-source software licenses are based on the principle of copyleft, a kind of reciprocity: any work derived from a copyleft piece of software must also be copyleft itself. The most common free software license, the GNU General Public License (GPL), is a form of copyleft, and is used for the Linux kernel and many of the components from the GNU Project.Linux-based distributions are intended by developers for interoperability with other operating systems and established computing standards. Linux systems adhere to POSIX, SUS, LSB, ISO, and ANSI standards where possible, although to date only one Linux distribution has been POSIX.1 certified, Linux-FT.Free software projects, although developed through collaboration, are often produced independently of each other. The fact that the software licenses explicitly permit redistribution, however, provides a basis for larger-scale projects that collect the software produced by stand-alone projects and make it available all at once in the form of a Linux distribution. Many Linux distributions manage a remote collection of system software and application software packages available for download and installation through a network connection. This allows users to adapt the operating system to their specific needs. Distributions are maintained by individuals, loose-knit teams, volunteer organizations, and commercial entities. A distribution is responsible for the default configuration of the installed Linux kernel, general system security, and more generally integration of the different software packages into a coherent whole. Distributions typically use a package manager such as apt, yum, zypper, pacman or portage to install, remove, and update all of a system's software from one central location. Community A distribution is largely driven by its developer and user communities. Some vendors develop and fund their distributions on a volunteer basis, Debian being a well-known example. Others maintain a community version of their commercial distributions, as Red Hat does with Fedora, and SUSE does with openSUSE.In many cities and regions, local associations known as Linux User Groups (LUGs) seek to promote their preferred distribution and by extension free software. They hold meetings and provide free demonstrations, training, technical support, and operating system installation to new users. Many Internet communities also provide support to Linux users and developers. Most distributions and free software / open-source projects have IRC chatrooms or newsgroups. Online forums are another means for support, with notable examples being LinuxQuestions.org and the various distribution specific support and community forums, such as ones for Ubuntu, Fedora, and Gentoo. Linux distributions host mailing lists; commonly there will be a specific topic such as usage or development for a given list. There are several technology websites with a Linux focus. Print magazines on Linux often bundle cover disks that carry software or even complete Linux distributions.Although Linux distributions are generally available without charge, several large corporations sell, support, and contribute to the development of the components of the system and of free software. An analysis of the Linux kernel in 2017 showed that well over 85% of the code developed by programmers who are being paid for their work, leaving about 8.2% to unpaid developers and 4.1% unclassified. Some of the major corporations that provide contributions include Intel, Samsung, Google, AMD, Oracle and Facebook. A number of corporations, notably Red Hat, Canonical and SUSE, have built a significant business around Linux distributions. The free software licenses, on which the various software packages of a distribution built on the Linux kernel are based, explicitly accommodate and encourage commercialization; the relationship between a Linux distribution as a whole and individual vendors may be seen as symbiotic. One common business model of commercial suppliers is charging for support, especially for business users. A number of companies also offer a specialized business version of their distribution, which adds proprietary support packages and tools to administer higher numbers of installations or to simplify administrative tasks. Another business model is to give away the software to sell hardware. This used to be the norm in the computer industry, with operating systems such as CP/M, Apple DOS and versions of the classic Mac OS prior to 7.6 freely copyable (but not modifiable). As computer hardware standardized throughout the 1980s, it became more difficult for hardware manufacturers to profit from this tactic, as the OS would run on any manufacturer's computer that shared the same architecture. Programming on Linux Most programming languages support Linux either directly or through third-party community based ports. The original development tools used for building both Linux applications and operating system programs are found within the GNU toolchain, which includes the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) and the GNU Build System. Amongst others, GCC provides compilers for Ada, C, C++, Go and Fortran. Many programming languages have a cross-platform reference implementation that supports Linux, for example PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, Java, Go, Rust and Haskell. First released in 2003, the LLVM project provides an alternative cross-platform open-source compiler for many languages. Proprietary compilers for Linux include the Intel C++ Compiler, Sun Studio, and IBM XL C/C++ Compiler. BASIC in the form of Visual Basic is supported in such forms as Gambas, FreeBASIC, and XBasic, and in terms of terminal programming or QuickBASIC or Turbo BASIC programming in the form of QB64. A common feature of Unix-like systems, Linux includes traditional specific-purpose programming languages targeted at scripting, text processing and system configuration and management in general. Linux distributions support shell scripts, awk, sed and make. Many programs also have an embedded programming language to support configuring or programming themselves. For example, regular expressions are supported in programs like grep and locate, the traditional Unix MTA Sendmail contains its own Turing complete scripting system, and the advanced text editor GNU Emacs is built around a general purpose Lisp interpreter. Most distributions also include support for PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python and other dynamic languages. While not as common, Linux also supports C# (via Mono), Vala, and Scheme. Guile Scheme acts as an extension language targeting the GNU system utilities, seeking to make the conventionally small, static, compiled C programs of Unix design rapidly and dynamically extensible via an elegant, functional high-level scripting system; many GNU programs can be compiled with optional Guile bindings to this end. A number of Java virtual machines and development kits run on Linux, including the original Sun Microsystems JVM (HotSpot), and IBM's J2SE RE, as well as many open-source projects like Kaffe and Jikes RVM. GNOME and KDE are popular desktop environments and provide a framework for developing applications. These projects are based on the GTK and Qt widget toolkits, respectively, which can also be used independently of the larger framework. Both support a wide variety of languages. There are a number of Integrated development environments available including Anjuta, Code::Blocks, CodeLite, Eclipse, Geany, ActiveState Komodo, KDevelop, Lazarus, MonoDevelop, NetBeans, and Qt Creator, while the long-established editors Vim, nano and Emacs remain popular. Hardware support The Linux kernel is a widely ported operating system kernel, available for devices ranging from mobile phones to supercomputers; it runs on a highly diverse range of computer architectures, including ARM-based Android smartphones and the IBM Z mainframes. Specialized distributions and kernel forks exist for less mainstream architectures; for example, the ELKS kernel fork can run on Intel 8086 or Intel 80286 16-bit microprocessors, while the µClinux kernel fork may run on systems without a memory management unit. The kernel also runs on architectures that were only ever intended to use a manufacturer-created operating system, such as Macintosh computers (with PowerPC, Intel, and Apple silicon processors), PDAs, video game consoles, portable music players, and mobile phones. Linux has a reputation of supporting old hardware very well by maintaining standardized drivers for a long time. There are several industry associations and hardware conferences devoted to maintaining and improving support for diverse hardware under Linux, such as FreedomHEC. Over time, support for different hardware has improved in Linux, resulting in any off-the-shelf purchase having a "good chance" of being compatible.In 2014, a new initiative was launched to automatically collect a database of all tested hardware configurations. Uses Market share and uptake Many quantitative studies of free/open-source software focus on topics including market share and reliability, with numerous studies specifically examining Linux. The Linux market is growing, and the Linux operating system market size is expected to see a growth of 19.2% by 2027, reaching $15.64 billion, compared to $3.89 billion in 2019. Analysts and proponents attribute the relative success of Linux to its security, reliability, low cost, and freedom from vendor lock-in. Desktops and laptops According to web server statistics (that is, based on the numbers recorded from visits to websites by client devices), as of May 2022, the estimated market share of Linux on desktop computers is around 2.5%. In comparison, Microsoft Windows has a market share of around 75.5%, while macOS covers around 14.9%.Web serversW3Cook publishes stats that use the top 1,000,000 Alexa domains, which as of May 2015 estimate that 96.55% of web servers run Linux, 1.73% run Windows, and 1.72% run FreeBSD.W3Techs publishes stats that use the top 10,000,000 Alexa domains and the top 1,000,000 Tranco domains, updated monthly and as of November 2020 estimate that Linux is used by 39% of the web servers, versus 21.9% being used by Microsoft Windows. 40.1% used other types of Unix.IDC's Q1 2007 report indicated that Linux held 12.7% of the overall server market at that time; this estimate was based on the number of Linux servers sold by various companies, and did not include server hardware purchased separately that had Linux installed on it later.Mobile devices Android, which is based on the Linux kernel, has become the dominant operating system for smartphones. In April 2023, 68.61% of mobile devices accessing websites using StatCounter were from Android. Android is also a popular operating system for tablets, being responsible for more than 60% of tablet sales as of 2013. According to web server statistics, as of October 2021 Android has a market share of about 71%, with iOS holding 28%, and the remaining 1% attributed to various niche platforms.Film production For years Linux has been the platform of choice in the film industry. The first major film produced on Linux servers was 1997's Titanic. Since then major studios including DreamWorks Animation, Pixar, Weta Digital, and Industrial Light & Magic have migrated to Linux. According to the Linux Movies Group, more than 95% of the servers and desktops at large animation and visual effects companies use Linux.Use in government Linux distributions have also gained popularity with various local and national governments. News of the Russian military creating its own Linux distribution has also surfaced, and has come to fruition as the G.H.ost Project. The Indian state of Kerala has gone to the extent of mandating that all state high schools run Linux on their computers. China uses Linux exclusively as the operating system for its Loongson processor family to achieve technology independence. In Spain, some regions have developed their own Linux distributions, which are widely used in education and official institutions, like gnuLinEx in Extremadura and Guadalinex in Andalusia. France and Germany have also taken steps toward the adoption of Linux. North Korea's Red Star OS, developed as of 2002, is based on a version of Fedora Linux. Copyright, trademark, and naming The Linux kernel is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. The GPL requires that anyone who distributes software based on source code under this license must make the originating source code (and any modifications) available to the recipient under the same terms. Other key components of a typical Linux distribution are also mainly licensed under the GPL, but they may use other licenses; many libraries use the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a more permissive variant of the GPL, and the X.Org implementation of the X Window System uses the MIT License. Torvalds states that the Linux kernel will not move from version 2 of the GPL to version 3. He specifically dislikes some provisions in the new license which prohibit the use of the software in digital rights management. It would also be impractical to obtain permission from all the copyright holders, who number in the thousands.A 2001 study of Red Hat Linux 7.1 found that this distribution contained 30 million source lines of code. Using the Constructive Cost Model, the study estimated that this distribution required about eight thousand person-years of development time. According to the study, if all this software had been developed by conventional proprietary means, it would have cost about US$1.64 billion to develop in 2021 in the United States. Most of the source code (71%) was written in the C programming language, but many other languages were used, including C++, Lisp, assembly language, Perl, Python, Fortran, and various shell scripting languages. Slightly over half of all lines of code were licensed under the GPL. The Linux kernel itself was 2.4 million lines of code, or 8% of the total.In a later study, the same analysis was performed for Debian version 4.0 (etch, which was released in 2007). This distribution contained close to 283 million source lines of code, and the study estimated that it would have required about seventy three thousand man-years and cost US$9.16 billion (in 2021 dollars) to develop by conventional means. In the United States, the name Linux is a trademark registered to Linus Torvalds. Initially, nobody registered it, but on August 15, 1994, William R. Della Croce, Jr. filed for the trademark Linux, and then demanded royalties from Linux distributors. In 1996, Torvalds and some affected organizations sued him to have the trademark assigned to Torvalds, and, in 1997, the case was settled. The licensing of the trademark has since been handled by the Linux Mark Institute (LMI). Torvalds has stated that he trademarked the name only to prevent someone else from using it. LMI originally charged a nominal sublicensing fee for use of the Linux name as part of trademarks, but later changed this in favor of offering a free, perpetual worldwide sublicense.The Free Software Foundation (FSF) prefers GNU/Linux as the name when referring to the operating system as a whole, because it considers Linux distributions to be variants of the GNU operating system initiated in 1983 by Richard Stallman, president of the FSF. They explicitly take no issue over the name Android for the Android OS, which is also an operating system based on the Linux kernel, as GNU is not a part of it. A minority of public figures and software projects other than Stallman and the FSF, notably Debian (which had been sponsored by the FSF up to 1996), also use GNU/Linux when referring to the operating system as a whole. Most media and common usage, however, refers to this family of operating systems simply as Linux, as do many large Linux distributions (for example, SUSE Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux). By contrast, Linux distributions containing only free software use "GNU/Linux" or simply "GNU", such as Trisquel GNU/Linux, Parabola GNU/Linux-libre, BLAG Linux and GNU, and gNewSense. As of May 2011, about 8% to 13% of the lines of code of the Linux distribution Ubuntu (version "Natty") is made of GNU components (the range depending on whether GNOME is considered part of GNU); meanwhile, 6% is taken by the Linux kernel, increased to 9% when including its direct dependencies. See also Linux at Curlie Graphical map of Linux Internals (archived) Linux kernel website and archives The History of Linux in GIT Repository Format 1992–2010 (archived)

Radical 46 or radical mountain (山部) meaning "mountain" is one of the 31 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of three strokes. It is found in the names of mountains generally in east Asia. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 636 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 山 is also the 39th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. In Taoist cosmology, 山 (mountain) is the nature component of the bagua diagram 艮 gèn. This diagram corresponds to the I Ching trigram ☶. Evolution Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Lunde, Ken (Jan 5, 2009). "Appendix J: Japanese Character Sets" (PDF). CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Second ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1. See also 仙 List of mountains in China List of mountains in Japan List of mountains in Korea Unihan Database - U+5C71

Di (Chinese: 地; pinyin: dì; Wade–Giles: ti; lit. 'earth') is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the earth and a key concept or figure in Chinese philosophy and religion. It is widely considered to be one of three powers (sāncái, 三才) which are Heaven, Earth, and Humanity (tiān-dì-rén, 天地人).There is a significant belief in Taoism which focuses on tian, as well as the forces of di (earth) and water, which are held to be equally powerful, instead of earth and humanity. Etymology Dì is the modern Mandarin Chinese pronunciation. The Old Chinese pronunciation has been reconstructed as *lˤej-s.The Chinese character 地 is a phono-semantic compound, combining the 土 radical ("earth", "dirt") with the (former) sound marker 也 (Modern Chinese yě, Old Chinese *lajʔ). The relationship between tian and di is important to Taoist cosmology. They are among the "three realms" of the world (tian, earth, and water) presided over by the Three Great Emperor-Officials, and thought to maintain the two poles of the "three powers", with humanity occupying the pivotal position between them. See also Agriculture (Chinese mythology) Chinese gods and immortals Sheji Houji Unity of Heaven and humanity The dictionary definition of 地 at Wiktionary

Nguyễn Minh Triết (born 8 October 1942) is a Vietnamese politician who served as the seventh President of Vietnam from 2006 to 2011. He was elected by the National Assembly of Vietnam with 464 votes (94%) in June 2006. Nguyễn Minh Triết was previously the secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City. The presidency of Vietnam is a ceremonial position and the Politburo decides government policy. Triết was the fourth-ranking member of the Politburo from 2006 to 2011. His term as president expired in July 2011. Senior Politburo member Trương Tấn Sang succeeded him. At the 10th Party Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in April 2006, he was nominated President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and confirmed on 27 June 2006 by the National Assembly. On that day, he succeeded Trần Đức Lương. He subsequently proposed Nguyễn Tấn Dũng as the new Prime Minister. Life and career Nguyễn Minh Triết was born on 8 October 1942 in Bến Cát district in Bình Dương province, in a middle-class farming family. In 1957, he went to Saigon to study at Petrus Ky High School, the leading high school in the south. In 1960 Triết studied Mathematics at the University of Saigon under the South Vietnamese government. Here he began to participate in the student movement against Ngo Dinh Diem's government. Later in 1965, he became a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam in southern Vietnam during the Vietnam War that involving the United States. He is one of the top leaders of Vietnam who are southerners and one of the few that had not regrouped to the North following the division of the country in 1954 (he was only 12 at the time). In 1992, he became party chief of southern Sông Bé Province. He guided the largely agricultural province into an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. In November 1963, Nguyễn Minh Triết escaped to a war zone working in Sàigòn - Gia Định. He then worked as an accountant and researcher at the Central Committee of the Revolutionary People's Revolutionary Youth Union. On 30 March 1965, Triết was admitted to the Southern Revolutionary People's Party under alias Trần Phong also known as Sáu Phong, and was appointed secretary of the Youth Union Central Committee of the People's Revolutionary League in South Central Committee and went to the battlefield in Mỹ Tho Province until 1973. From 1974 to August 1979 he was Deputy Head of the Central Youth Union and Deputy Director of the young Volunteers of the Central Union. In September 1979, he was sent to study at the Nguyễn Ái Quốc Party School and graduated with a Bachelor of Political Science in July 1981. From July 1981 to December 1987, he held the posts of Head of the Youth Volunteer Youth Union; then the head of the Central Committee of the Union; Secretary of the Central Party Committee of the Union in Ho Chi Minh City; Member of the Central Executive Committee; Secretary of the Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union; Vice Chairman, General Secretary of Vietnam’s Youth Union.He ascended to the Politburo in 1997 and became Party head of Ho Chi Minh City in 2000. In that position, he oversaw a campaign against organized crime and corruption, including the arrest and execution of underworld kingpin Trương Văn Cam, known as Năm Cam. Leadership in provinces and cities in Southern Vietnam economic region From January 1988 to September 1989, Nguyễn Minh Triết was appointed as the Provincial Party Committee Member of Sông Bé Provincial Party Committee. From October 1989 to December 1991, Triết was appointed Deputy Secretary of Provincial Party Committee of, Bình dương and Bình Phước provinces. In the early years of economic renovation, Bình Dương and Ho Chi Minh City were fast growing places, attracting a lot of foreign investment capital. At the 7th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam in June 1991, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and served as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. At this conference, he formally renamed Nguyễn Minh Triết. In December 1991, he was elected Secretary of Sông Bé Provincial Party Committee and held the post until December 1996. In July 1992, he was elected Member of the 9th National Assembly as a representative of Sông Bé province. Then, in June 1996, he was re-elected as a member of the Central Committee of the Party at the 8th National Party Congress.In January 1997, Nguyễn Minh Triết was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee. At that time, the Party Secretary was Trương Tấn Sang, Member of the Politburo. In December of the same year, he joined with Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Phan Diễn, and Phạm Thanh Ngân in the Fourth Plenum of the Executive Committee, in addition to the Politburo. Triết was assigned to be the head of the Central Mobilization Committee. After he moved to another job, Trương Quang Được and Tòng Thị Phóng respectively, Hà Thị Khiết (after the 9th Congress) were assigned to hold the position. In January 2000, Nguyễn Minh Triết was promoted to the position of Party Secretary of Ho Chi Minh City. At the 9th National Party Congress, he was elected to the Central Party Committee and was elected to the Politburo by the Central Committee (April 2001). In May 2002, he was again elected to the 11th National Assembly, but as a delegate of Ho Chi Minh City. In April 2006, he was re-elected as Member of the Politburo 20th. Elected president and some activities On 27 June 2006, Nguyễn Minh Triết was elected by the 9th session of the 11th National Assembly as president of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam with the following votes: 464 votes. The result of the election was announced later: Triết officially became the new president with 94.12% of votes (464 delegates). In June 2007, as President, he made an official visit to the United States at the invitation of President George W. Bush. During this trip, Nguyễn Minh Triết met about 800 businessmen in Orange County, California, most of them were of Vietnamese descent. Here he talked about the Vietnamese people, national unity, as well as the fact that the Vietnamese government was not prejudiced by people with different views. There he met with opposition from about two thousand Vietnamese Americans living there, because they believed that the Vietnamese government violated human rights. Also on this trip, he was considered to have altered many of the long-held stereotypes of the US Congressmen with their calm, clever answer, releasing many complex issues. Especially answered the speeches of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Quotes "We fought hard for socialism in a devastating war of independence and reunification. To build an affluent and prosperous society, we chose the path of a Socialist-oriented market economy. We have achieved strong economic growth, and yet the sense of solidarity in our society has not been lost. This is very important to people"

Nguyễn Tấn Dũng (Vietnamese pronunciation: [ŋwiən˦ˀ˥ tən˧˦ zʊwŋ͡m˦ˀ˥]; born 17 November 1949) is a Vietnamese politician who served as the Prime Minister of Vietnam from 2006 to 2016. He was confirmed by the National Assembly on 27 June 2006, having been nominated by his predecessor, Phan Văn Khải, who retired from office. At a party congress held in January 2011, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was ranked 3rd in the hierarchy of the Communist Party of Vietnam, after State President Trương Tấn Sang. Following the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was not able to maintain his post in the party and stepped down from his position as Prime Minister on 7 April 2016. Early life Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was born on 17 November 1949 in Cà Mau in southern Vietnam. He purportedly volunteered on his 12th birthday to join the Vietcong, doing first-aid, and communication tasks; he also worked as a nurse, and a physician. He was wounded four times during the Vietnam War, and was later ranked as a level 2/4 wounded veteran. As a Senior Lieutenant he was Chief Political Commissar of Infantry Battalion 207; as a Captain, he was Political Chief of Infantry Regiment 152, defending the southwestern border. As Major, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng headed the Personnel Board of Kien Giang Province's Military Command.He attended the high-level Nguyen Ai Quoc Party School. He was admitted to the Communist Party of Vietnam on 10 June 1967. Military career Nguyễn Tấn Dũng reportedly joined the People's Army of Vietnam in 1961, serving until 1984. He fought in the south and in the west during the Vietnam War. He cited his desire for "national independence" as his reasons for fighting on the battlefield. During this time, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng served in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, which resulted in the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. During his service, he was wounded four times. Police career Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was appointed Deputy Minister of Public Security with the rank of Police Major General in January 1995, serving until 1996. Political career Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was admitted to the Communist Party of Vietnam on 10 June 1967. He was a protégé of conservative Lê Đức Anh and reformist Võ Văn Kiệt, leaders from both major factions in the party, which enabled him to become the youngest member of the Politburo in 1996. Nguyễn Tấn Dũng previously served as permanent deputy prime minister (first deputy prime minister) from 1997–2006. He was also the governor of the State Bank of Vietnam between 1998 and 1999.From October 1981 onwards, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was a member of the Communist Party of Vietnam and was active in political affairs and activities of the Communist Party of Vietnam in the following positions: Kiên Giang Provincial Party Committee, Deputy Chief of Staff Committee Provincial Party Committee; Member of Standing Committee of Kiên Giang Party Committee, Secretary of Hà Tiên District Party Committee; Standing Deputy Secretary and Secretary of Provincial Party Committee; Chairman of the People's Committees; Party Secretary of Kiên Giang Province Military Party Committee; Member of Party Committee of Military Region 9; Representative of the People's Council of Kiên Giang Province Prime Minister (2006-2016) First term Nguyễn Tấn Dũng is the first senior Vietnamese communist leader born after the August Revolution in 1945 and the youngest Vietnamese prime minister (57 years old when he assumed the office). He is also a native southerner and remained in the southern region throughout the Vietnam War (he was onrom government control of the media to personal career tips. One youth asked how he could be Prime Minister someday, to which Nguyễn Tấn Dũng replied: "Throughout my time following the Party and the Revolution, I always obeyed the assignments of the organization."It was reported that Vietnam's post-war generation "is increasingly wired, as the Communist Party attempts to foster economic growth and high-tech skills". The government blocks politically oriented sites. There has also been talk of censoring blogs; it was noted that there is a fake Nguyễn Tấn Dũng blog on which the language "mimics official jargon, but is subtly peppered with anti-communist barbs". Second term On 26 July 2011, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was officially re-elected prime minister by the 13th National Assembly, winning 470 out of 500 votes. He lost out to Trương Tấn Sang in the competition to lead the party's Politburo, or executive committee.In October 2011, it was reported that political dissidents in Vietnam were "facing a growing crackdown on their activities ... [s]ince the Communist party congress in January, the authorities have steadily ratcheted up the pressure on dissidents". Since 30 July, 15 religious activists had been imprisoned. One lawyer with deep family connections to the Communist party was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment "to the shock and outrage of large sections of the Vietnamese public". A Human Rights Watch report also detailed forced labour and torture throughout the country's drug rehabilitation centres. Australian Vietnam expert Carlyle Thayer said "Nguyễn Tấn Dũng ... is decidedly not a reformer." Although the U.S. and India are developing closer ties to Vietnam, neither "has seen fit to pressure Vietnam on its rights record with any conviction or consistency". In August 2012, the arrest of Nguyễn Đức Kiên, a local tycoon thought to be close to Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, sparked discussions about Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's ongoing political battle with President Trương Tấn Sang. Following these discussions, much of the anger about nepotism and poor economic management has been directed at Nguyễn Tấn Dũng.At Central Committee meeting in October 2012, general secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng, the head of the Communist Party announced Politburo agreed to propose the committee impose a form of discipline on it and consider discipline on a Politburo member (thought to beNguyễn Tấn Dũng), but the Central Committee decided to not take any discipline on the Politburo and one of its members – from the prime minister's mistakes in economic management issues, anti-corruption ... Dũng has been 'near-alleged' of "large-scale corruption" surrounding himself and his family. Earlier the Central Committee decided to take the Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption away from Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's control, and the committee is now controlled by the Politburo and the general secretary is chief of committee. On 14 November 2012 Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was told by a National Assembly member, Dương Trung Quốc, to resign for his mistakes in handling the economy. He said that it was time for the prime minister to take responsibility, not just apologise. The attack was unusual because it was made in front of TV cameras in parliament. Foreign relations In 2009, Dũng made a two-day visit to Russia, where he signed a multibillion-dollar arms deal. In 2010, one deputy called for a no confidence motion against Dũng in response to a major management and financial scandal at the state owned Vinashin shipbuilding group. At a party congress in January 2011, he was nominated for another term as prime minister. On 12 April 2010, Dũng attended a luncheon with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and other world leaders at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. On the same date he met Obama at the World Security Summit where he "spoke glowingly to American business leaders of Vietnam's economic growth – 7.2% per year over the last decade – and endorsed Obama's concerns about nuclear safety".In April 2012, Dũng met with Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Okada Katsuya. He expressed his approval with the growing level of cooperation between Vietnam and Japan and they discussed moving forward. They talked about ways accelerate visitation and simplifying both entry procedures and exchange programs. Dũng stated that Vietnam wants to cooperate further and learn from Japan's experience in social insurance and continue to increase Japanese official development assistance.One of his most remarkable moments was his visit to the Vatican to meet with the Pope, the first time any Vietnamese leader had done so since at least 1975 when Vietnam severed diplomatic ties with the Vatican following the Nation's reunification at the end of the Vietnam War. Personal life Nguyễn Tấn Dũng is married to Trần Thanh Kiệm and has three children: Nguyễn Thanh Nghị (born 1976) is a George Washington University alumnus. Nghị is currently the Minister of Construction. Nguyễn Thanh Phượng (born 1981) is the founder and Chairwoman of VietCapital Securities and VietCapital Asset Management. Phượng is married to Nguyễn Bảo Hoàng, who held American citizenship. Hoàng is the head of IDG Ventures, a leading tech, retail and media angel fund in Vietnam. He is also the Chairman of the Vietnam Basketball Association, the owner of Saigon Heat and of McDonald's franchises in Vietnam. Nguyễn Minh Triết is an officer of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union. He previously studied aeronautical engineering at Queen Mary University of London. Awards Peace, Security and Development Award, December 2015 Feat Order 3rd class Media related to Nguyễn Tấn Dũng at Wikimedia Commons

黑山, meaning "black mountain", may refer to: In the Mandarin Chinese reading Hēishān (Chinese: 黑山): Chinese name for the country of Montenegro Heishan bandits (黑山賊), an offshoot of the Yellow Turban Rebellion during the Eastern Han DynastyLocations in ChinaHeishan County, Jinzhou, LiaoningTownsHeishan, Heilongjiang, in Bayan County Heishan Town, Liaoning, in Heishan CountyTownshipsHeishan Township, Shaanxi, in Shangzhou District, Shangluo Heishan Township, Shandong, in Changdao County In the Korean reading Heuksan (also spelled Hǔksan; written in Hangul as 흑산): Heuksan Island in the Yellow Sea, administratively part of Sinan County, Jeollanam-do, South KoreaIn the Japanese kun-yomi Kuroyama (written in Shinjitai as 黒山): Kuroyama Station, Hakushin Line station in Niigata, Niigata Prefecture, Japan Black Mountain (disambiguation), for names with a similar meaning in other languages Heishan (disambiguation)

Radical 30 or radical mouth (口部) meaning "mouth" is one of 31 of the 214 Kangxi radicals that are composed of 3 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 1,146 characters (out of 40 000) to be found under this radical. 口 is also the 37th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Evolution Derived characters Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Leyi Li: "Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases". Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2 Unihan data for U+53E3

Radical 209 meaning "nose" is 1 of 2 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of 14 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary there are 49 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. Characters with Radical 209 Sinogram As an independent sinogram 鼻 is a Chinese character. It is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan. Specifically it is a third grade kanji. Further reading Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Unihan Database - U+9F3B

Radical 143 or radical blood (血部) meaning "blood" is one of the 29 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 6 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 60 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 血 is also the 138th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Evolution Derived characters Sinogram As an independent sinogram it is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan. Specifically it is a third grade kanji. Further reading Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Unihan Database - U+8840

Radical 19 or radical power (力部) meaning "power" or "force" is one of the 23 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of 2 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 163 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 力 is also the 23rd indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Evolution Derived characters Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2 Unihan Database - U+529B

Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy is a series of games within the Final Fantasy video game franchise. It was primarily developed by series creator and developer Square Enix, which also acted as publisher for all titles. While featuring various worlds and different characters, each Fabula Nova Crystallis game is ultimately based on and expands upon a common mythos focusing on important crystals tied to deities. The level of connection to the mythos varies between each title, with each development team given the freedom to adapt the mythos to fit the context of a game's story. The series, originally announced in 2006 as Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII, consists of seven games across multiple platforms. Final Fantasy XIII, designed as the series' flagship title, was released in 2009. The creative forces behind the series include many developers from previous Final Fantasy titles, including Shinji Hashimoto and Motomu Toriyama. The mythos was conceived and written by Kazushige Nojima. The first games announced for the series were Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XV (as Versus XIII), and Final Fantasy Type-0 (as Agito XIII). All three games went through delays. After Final Fantasy XIII and Type-0's releases, their respective teams used ideas and concepts from development to create additional games. For later games, other studios have been brought in to help with aspects of development. Final Fantasy XV was distanced from the series brand for marketing purposes, though it retains thematic connections. Seven titles, the original three projects and four additional titles, have been released as of 2016. The series is complemented by works in related media, including companion books, novelizations, and manga. Final Fantasy XV notably expanded into a multimedia project, spawning a feature film and an original animated webseries. Individual games have generally received a positive reception, although opinions have been more mixed over various aspects of the three Final Fantasy XIII games. Reception of the mythos' use in the released games has also been mixed: while some critics called it confusing or too similar to the lore of the main series, others were impressed by its scope and use. Retrospective opinions on the series have also been mixed. Titles Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy currently consists of seven titles across multiple platforms, including sequels and spin-offs of the original three entries. The entries in the Fabula Nova Crystallis series share the same mythology, interpreted differently and referred to in varying degrees for each of the game worlds. Final Fantasy XIII, the thirteenth core Final Fantasy game and the first title in the series. First released in Japan as a PlayStation 3 exclusive in December 2009, it was released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in North America and Europe in March 2010. A version of the game for the Xbox 360, Final Fantasy XIII Ultimate Hits International, was released in Japan in December 2010. XIII was released as a digital download for Windows in October 2014. The game was designed as a story-driven single-player role-playing game (RPG), with a battle system designed to emulate the cinematic battles seen in the film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.Final Fantasy XIII-2, a direct sequel to XIII, was released in December 2011 in Japan, and in January and February, 2012 in North America and Europe respectively for PS3 and 360. It received downloadable content (DLC) expansions during 2012, and a Windows port in 2014. In response to criticism the company received from critics and fans about XIII's linear structure, XIII-2 was designed to be a more traditional role-playing game, with explorable towns, a nonlinear story structure, mini-games, and other traditional features. Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, a sequel to XIII and XIII-2, was released in November 2013 in Japan, and February 2014 in North America and Europe for PS3 and 360. A Windows port was released in 2015. It concludes both the narrative of the main character Lightning and the Final Fantasy XIII story arc. Lightning Returns blends several traditional role-playing features, such as shops, quests and an explorable open world, with an action-oriented combat system. Final Fantasy Type-0 (originally titled Final Fantasy Agito XIII) was released in October 2011 in Japan for the PlayStation Portable. A high-definition remaster for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, was released worldwide in March 2015. The original game is a real-time action RPG, featuring combat similar to Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, and a multiplayer option where online players can take control of characters during the majority of the game. Type-0 HD features updated graphics and changes to the gameplay, such as lower difficulty and the removal of multiplayer.Final Fantasy Agito, a companion title set in Type-0's world, was released in May 2014 in Japan on Android and iOS devices. Service ended in November 2015. Ports for the PlayStation Vita and Microsoft Windows were also in development, but have since been canceled. Agito was an episodic game featuring single-player and multi-player modes, and a social system where the player's standing with non-playable characters advances their rank in-game. Final Fantasy Awakening, a replacement for Agito, was released in December 2016 in China, and in February 2018 in North America for Android and iOS. The gameplay features cooperative multiplayer similar to the original multiplayer elements of Type-0, along with hack-and-slash gameplay. All versions have closed down as of 2020. Final Fantasy XV (originally known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII), the fifteenth core Final Fantasy title, was released worldwide on November 29, 2016 for PS4 and Xbox One. It was later ported to Windows and the Google Stadia platform. The game is an action role-playing game with a battle system similar to those from the Kingdom Hearts series and Type-0. The game uses open world exploration using both a vehicle and chocobos, along with a camping mechanic linked to gaining experience levels. Its development cycle, beginning in 2006, lasted ten years. The game was supported by DLC between 2016 and 2019.Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels have a strong connection to the mythos, making extensive use of its terminology and involving many of its deities. The universe of Final Fantasy Type-0 used the terminology and made minor reference to the mythos while focusing on the human side of events, although these references were added during later story development. While the mythos is still present in Final Fantasy XV, it was "disconnected" from the core framework, with specific terminology being removed and its emphasis reduced to become a background element for the world and story. Themes The universes of Final Fantasy XIII, Type-0 and Final Fantasy XV are unrelated to each other, though common elements and themes are present. The first is a common narrative theme of harmful interference by the mythos' deities in the affairs of humans, and those humans' choice of whether to accept or challenge the predetermined fates given to them. Tetsuya Nomura defined this theme as "a battle of the gods that lies behind each tale and gives it inspiration in a different way". Hajime Tabata later defined the theme as a tale of humans placing their lives at risk after being chosen by the crystal. The second common element is the structure of the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe, which is divided in two: the mortal world, where humans live, and the afterlife or Unseen Realm (不可視世界, Fukashi sekai, lit. "Invisible World"). A recurring theme is subverting the series' traditional view of crystals, making them objects that brought both prosperity and tragedy by their influence.A common element not related to the mythos, themes or plots of the series is the use of Latin in the games' titles or worlds, often as key words to describing themes and story points. The series' title Fabula Nova Crystallis is translated by Square Enix as "The New Tale of the Crystal", Agito roughly translates as "to put into motion", while Versus translates as both "to turn around" and "against". All these Latin terms were described as representing key narrative concepts. The Agito term was kept in Final Fantasy Type-0 as both an in-universe concept and the title of its prequel. Versus was used in early trailers for Final Fantasy XV after its re-reveal in 2013, carrying the tagline A World of the Versus Epic. Commenting on the extensive use of Latin in Final Fantasy XV prior to its public name change, Nomura said he wanted a language that was no longer used on a daily basis and that people "won't be able to understand and yet appreciate", desiring a sense of general equality. Mythology In the mythology, the god Bhunivelze (ブーニベルゼ, Būniberuze) seizes control of the mortal world by killing his mother, the creator goddess Mwynn (ムイン, Muin), who vanishes into the Unseen Realm. Believing that the mortality of the world is Mwynn's curse, Bhunivelze creates three new deities to search for the gate to the Unseen Realm so he can control both worlds. The first deity, Pulse (パルス, Parusu), is tasked with terraforming the world; the second deity, Etro (エトロ, Etoro), is discarded because of her resemblance to Mwynn; the third deity, Lindzei (リンゼ, Rinze), acts as Bhunivelze's protector. Bhunivelze then enters a deep sleep, while Lindzei and Pulse carry out their missions. Distraught at being abandoned, Etro kills herself, and humans are born from her blood. Once in the Unseen Realm, Etro finds Mwynn being consumed by a force called chaos, which threatens to destroy reality. As Mwynn fades, she tasks Etro with protecting the balance between the worlds. Etro gives humans pieces of chaos that become their "hearts". Because humans held chaos within them, they maintained the balance through their death and reincarnation. Since then, humans have either worshiped or feared Pulse and Lindzei, and refer to Etro as the goddess of death. The mythos' deities hold similar roles in each game's setting, but are not the same characters in a narrative sense.A recurring race in the games are god-like beings created by Pulse and Lindzei to act as their servants in the mortal world. In the original mythos and the XIII games, the demigods are called fal'Cie . They take the form of crystal-powered mechanical beings in the XIII games. In the universe of Type-0, they are both semi-sentient crystals and humanoid beings living among the people. The fal'Cie have the ability to imbue chosen humans with magical powers and assign them a task to complete either willingly or unwillingly. Final Fantasy XIII and Type-0 refer to these people as l'Cie and the task given to them as a Focus. In XIII, there are two possible outcomes for l'Cie: once their Focus is fulfilled, they can go into 'crystal stasis', transforming into a crystal statue, and gain eternal life, but if they fail they become mindless crystalline monsters called Cie'th (シ骸, Shi-gai). In Type-0, l'Cie are chosen by the crystal of their country, and given great power to fulfill their assigned Focus, but lose their memories if emotionally unstable. While not referred to as such using the original terminology, humans imbued with magic and burdened with a task exist in Final Fantasy XV, one of them being the main protagonist Noctis. Production Creation The concept for the Fabula Nova Crystallis series originated during late development on Final Fantasy X-2 and the original Kingdom Hearts. Discussing what to do once Final Fantasy XII was completed, Nomura, Shinji Hashimoto and Yoshinori Kitase decided to build upon the idea of multiple games connected by a single "central theme". Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima started writing the original mythology for the Fabula Nova Crystallis series in 2003, finishing it by February 2004. Nojima described his creation as the result of a wish to create something entirely new; a universe with its own mythos and legends. When he introduced the concept to other team members, they liked it and helped it grow. As with some of his other projects, Nojima incorporated themes of mythology due to his liking for and extensive research of Greek and Norse mythology. During his work, he received creative input from Kitase and Hashimoto, as well as Nomura, Tabata and Motomu Toriyama. Nojima wrote a series bible about the mythology, explaining concepts such as the fal'Cie and l'Cie and the feelings of the deities who created them. This bible became the basis for a video animated by Yusuke Naora's art team to showcase the mythos in 2011. None of the deities were depicted in human form in the video, as this would have undermined the developers' wishes for open interpretation by developers and players.The central concept for Fabula Nova Crystallis came from the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a multimedia subseries featuring the world and characters of Final Fantasy VII. Whereas the common link in the Compilation was VII, the team chose to use "the tale of new crystals" for the new series, with the mythos connecting the games rather than an overarching narrative. Another key idea behind the mythos was to ease the production of future Final Fantasy games by providing an established universe. The individual directors are allowed to freely interpret the base mythology when they create their games. When referring to this freedom, Tabata has compared the mythos and the concept behind it to Greek mythology; a mythos with common themes and deities, but featuring many unrelated stories.Toriyama based the story of Final Fantasy XIII around the mythos' deities and their direct relations to the world. Tabata and Nomura both focused on the human side of the story. Tabata chose to portray the divine elements from a historical standpoint in Type-0. Nomura created a modern-day setting similar to contemporary Earth in Final Fantasy XV, referring far less to the mythos' terminology. Nomura was also appointed as the main character designer for all entries in the subseries. In a 2007 interview, Hashimoto compared the planning of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series to film franchises such as Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings: an expansive brand on which to build multiple Final Fantasy titles planned in advance. The development of all games connected to the mythos was handled by Square Enix 1st Production Department. A trademark for Final Fantasy Haeresis XIII hinted at another entry, but the trademark expired in 2011 and the company did not renew. Development Final Fantasy XIII began development in February 2004. It began as a title for the PlayStation 2 under the codename "Colors World", but was moved onto PlayStation 3 after the positively received Crystal Tools engine demo in 2005 and the delayed release of Final Fantasy XII. The original titles in the series were Final Fantasy XIII and Versus XIII. Agito XIII was created later, when Tabata was looking for a new project after finishing Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII. Originally titled Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy XIII, the project and original three titles were announced at E3 2006. Final Fantasy XIII and Versus XIII were intended to form the core of the series, with future games being a "facet" of XIII. Agito XIII and Versus XIII both began production in 2006. The subseries' title changed in 2011 when the "XIII" numeral was dropped as it "would have been an issue" following the rebranding of Agito XIII to Type-0.XIII was developed by team members who had worked on Final Fantasy VII, VIII, X and X-2. It was first announced as a PS3 exclusive. Late in its development, Final Fantasy XIII changed from being a console exclusive when an Xbox 360 version was announced, significantly delaying its release. After the release of Final Fantasy XIII, the creators wanted to expand on the game's setting and tell more stories about the characters, so XIII-2 and Lightning Returns were developed. For these games, Japanese developer tri-Ace was brought in to help with the games' design and graphics. The three games and their respective tie-in media were referred to as the "Lightning Saga" by Square Enix staff after the games' central character. A port for Microsoft Windows was considered, but not followed up due to platform-specific concerns and the company's view of the video game market. Later, Final Fantasy XIII and its sequels would receive PC ports through Steam. While there was speculation that Fabula Nova Crystallis would end with Lightning Returns, Kitase repeatedly said there was still room for further titles beyond the XIII universe.Agito XIII was handled by staff from Before Crisis. The game was originally being developed as an episodic mobile game. By 2008, Agito XIII had been moved onto the PlayStation Portable, then later renamed Final Fantasy Type-0. The stated reason for the change of title was that Final Fantasy XIII and Type-0 shared little besides the core mythos. Type-0's western release was delayed due to the flagging PSP market in western territories. A high-definition port to the same platforms as Final Fantasy XV was co-developed by Square Enix and HexaDrive, and was eventually announced for a western release. Tabata created Agito around his original ideas for Type-0 as a mobile title. Agito acted both as a prequel to Type-0 and as an alternate story set within its world. The game was co-developed by mobile game developer Tayutau K. K. Later, Chinese developer Perfect World were brought in to develop Awakening; it was the first Final Fantasy title licensed by Square Enix to an external company. The English version of Awakening closed in 2019 due to server changes, while the game as a whole was shut down in 2020 with the expiry of the licensing deal.Versus XIII's development was headed by the team behind the console Kingdom Hearts games. Like XIII, the game was a PS3 exclusive. As early as 2007, Square Enix considered re-branding Versus XIII as a numbered entry in the main series due to the rapidly growing scale of the project. The game was eventually re-branded in 2011 as Final Fantasy XV. As part of its later marketing, XV was deliberately distanced from the Fabula Nova Crystallis brand to remove the consequent limitation on their target audience, although lore and design elements were retained. The game was also moved fully onto eighth generation consoles and developed using the company's new Luminous Studio engine. The PS3 version was abandoned due to concerns about the console's continued viability. Final Fantasy XV eventually had help from multiple developers, including HexaDrive, XPEC Entertainment and Umbra. In contrast to Final Fantasy XIII, Tabata decided against creating any sequels to XV, instead expanding the base game through DLC. The first season of DLC was well received, so a second season was commissioned. All but one of these later DLC episodes were canceled in 2018 following the decision by the team to focus on a new intellectual property. Related media The games have been complemented and expanded upon through other media. For Final Fantasy XIII, a small book of short stories titled Final Fantasy XIII – Episode Zero was released, first through the game's website and then as a print release in December 2009. It shows events prior to the game's opening. A second novella, Episode i, was published via XIII-2's official website, bridging the narrative gap between XIII and XIII-2. Alongside XIII-2's Japanese release, a book detailing events not shown or described in the game titled Fragments Before was released in December 2011 including Episode i; this would be followed up by Fragments After, released in June 2012. Only Episode i has received an official English release. Lightning Returns was also set to receive a prequel novel by Benny Matsuyama alongside the game's Japanese release in November 2013, but was later canceled due to the author falling ill. A three-part novella exclusive to Famitsu Weekly magazine titled Final Fantasy XIII Reminiscence: tracer of memories was released across June and July 2014. It was written by Daisuke Watanabe, who handled the scripts for the XIII games, and takes place immediately after the ending of Lightning Returns. Reminiscence was later released online.Final Fantasy Type-0 received a manga adaptation illustrated by Takatoshi Shiozawa. It began publication in the November 2011 of Young Gangan and was collected into a single volume and released in April 2012. The manga was translated into English and released as part of the western collector's edition for Type-0 HD, available exclusively through Square Enix's online store. A second manga following one of the game's secondary characters, Final Fantasy Type-0 Side Story: Reaper of the Icy Blade, began serialization in May 2012. The latter manga was created by Shiozawa under Nomura's supervision. The manga ended in January 2014, with a bonus chapter released in February of the same year. It was released in the west in July 2015, licensed by Yen Press. Two novels detailing an alternate version of Type-0, titled Final Fantasy Type-0: Change the World, were released in April and June 2012. Agito received another Change the World novel adaptation focusing on two of the game's supporting characters. Ultimania guides and companion books have been released for the majority of released games.Final Fantasy XV similarly had additional media released around it, forming a dedicated multimedia expansion dubbed the "Final Fantasy XV Universe". The majority of its content fleshed out the background for XV's plot, which would have required multiple video games under normal circumstances. While comparing the XV Universe to the overall structure of Fabula Nova Crystallis, the game's director defined it as an attempt to make the narrative of XV work in current times rather than attempting to "reinvent" the original concept. An anime produced by Square Enix and A-1 Pictures, Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, details the backstories of the main cast and how they came to be journeying together. It was distributed online in the months leading up to the game's release. A CGI feature film produced by the same team as Advent Children, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, was released in July 2016 in Japan and in August in America; it focuses on the main character's father Regis Lucis Caelum, alongside original characters. The canceled DLC was turned into the novel Final Fantasy XV: The Dawn of the Future. Reception The Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos has received mixed reactions from gaming sites. Hardcore Gamer's Brady Hale called the series "anything but ordinary" in the variety of games it featured. In an article concerning the 25th Anniversary event for the Final Fantasy series, Joystiq's Ben Gilbert called the Fabula Nova Crystallis mythos "occasionally bizarre and often beautiful". In 2014, Jeremy Parish of USGamer said the series was "much ado about nothing", stating that since the games shared a large amount of themes and plot points with the main series, there seemed little reason for a distinction. TechnoBuffalo's Ron Duwell, in an article concerning a documentary video on Final Fantasy XV, called the series "overly ambitious", but felt that it was worth Fabula Nova Crystallis "[imploding] upon itself" if Final Fantasy XV fulfilled its promises. Kat Bailey, writing for USGamer as part of her review for Final Fantasy XV, said that series fans were ready for the subseries to come to an end with the game's release. RPG Site's Chelsi Laire called the subseries "a series of successes and failures, but mostly the latter" due to its troubled development, but hoped that the company would revisit the brand in the future.Speaking about the XIII games in particular, Parish suggested that their mixed reactions influenced the title changes of other games in the original series, giving the teams a chance to give those games more of their own identity. He also felt that the decision to expand the XIII storyline into multiple games "probably worked out just as well". The presentation of the mythos and its terms received mixed reactions in XIII, resulting in the production team toning down their use for XIII-2. Siliconera writer Spencer Yip, in his review of Lightning Returns, commented that the story and pace of the game was "muddled" by the mythos. In 2016, RPGFan writer Mike Salbato wrote a retrospective of the Final Fantasy XIII games and their version of Fabula Nova Crystallis: he felt that the lack of specific references to the mythos in XIII had harmed general comprehension, and that a reliance on foreknowledge made its sequels difficult to play as standalone titles. In contrast, the portrayal of the mythos in Type-0 was praised by RPG Site's Erren Van Duine in an import review of the title, with him saying that "elements such as l'Cie and fal'Cie are handled in much more interesting ways". When commenting on the lore of Final Fantasy XV, Andrew Reiner of Game Informer praised the story for sticking to basics and avoiding "[overwhelming] the player with lore or branching threads, something Final Fantasy XIII struggled with". Individual titles Final Fantasy XIII was positively received in Japanese magazines, garnering exceptionally high scores from both Famitsu and Dengeki PlayStation. In the west, the game was praised for its graphics, battle system, and music, but opinions were mixed about its story and it was criticized for its highly linear structure. XIII also won an award for best graphics in GamesRadar's 2012 Platinum Trophy Awards. XIII-2 received a positive reception overall, gaining perfect scores from Famitsu and Dengeki PlayStation, and high scores from most western sites. Common points of praise were its non-linear nature, improved battle system and graphics, while the main points of criticism were its story and characters, which were often called weak, confusing or both. Lightning Returns received mixed reviews, with its combat being highly praised, its graphics and time limit mechanic drawing mixed responses, and the story and characters being cited as poorly developed.Type-0 had a highly positive reception in Japan, with it garnering near-perfect scores in Famitsu and Dengeki PlayStation. Import reviews were also fairly positive, sharing many points of praise with the Japanese reviews. Type-0 HD also received a positive reception in the west, with main praise going to the story, characters and action-based gameplay. Other aspects came in for criticism, such as elements of the graphics upgrade, the real-time strategy segments, and the localization. Western previews of Agito have also been positive, with critics agreeing that it looked good on the platform and worked well from a gameplay standpoint. Final Fantasy XV was positively received by many journalists; praise went to aspects of the story, the main characters, battle system and graphics, while the overarching plot, supporting cast and other technical elements such as the camera and late-game changes in gameplay were criticized. Sales Final Fantasy XIII broke sales records for the Final Fantasy franchise, selling 1.5 million units in Japan on its release day, and a further million a month after its North American release. XIII-2 was the most purchased title of 2011 in Japan upon release, and reached second and first place in sales charts in the United States and United Kingdom respectively. Lightning Returns had lower first-week sales than its predecessors, but still topped the sales charts in Japan, selling over 277,000 units in its first week and over 404,000 copies by the end of 2013. It ranked as third and eighth in the UK and US February sales charts respectively. Approximately 800,000 copies were sold by as of November 2014. The three XIII games have collectively sold 11 million units worldwide. Speaking of the decreasing success of the XIII games and their effect on the Fabula Nova Crystallis series on USGamer, Parish felt that the initial backlash received by XIII had turned the "XIII" moniker into "box office poison".Type-0 sold over 472,000 units in its first week, and went on to sell over 740,000 units in Japan. The title was also added to the company's list of Ultimate Hits, re-releases of lucrative titles. Type-0 HD reached the top of the sales charts in its debut week, selling 93,000 units, though it ultimately performed poorly in Japan. It was among the ten top-selling games in March for the UK and US. By April, Type-0 HD had shipped over one million copies worldwide. Agito was highly successful in Japan, achieving 500,000 registered users within a week of release. By November of the year of release, the game had received one million downloads. Awakening met with commercial success in China, achieving two million downloads within its month of release. Upon its release, Final Fantasy XV sold five million copies worldwide through retail shipments and digital sales, breaking sales records for the Final Fantasy franchise. By May 2022, XV had sold ten million units worldwide across all versions, making it one of the bestselling Final Fantasy games of all time. Official response Speaking in a 2014 feature on the series, Kitase and Toriyama commented that the initial structure and goals of the project had worked against it, causing the mythos narrative to become unfocused and difficult for players to follow within a single game. In the aftermath, Square Enix decided to move away from the complex narrative style that had accompanied the mythos, instead focusing on telling more understandable standalone stories. Tabata described the decision to distance Final Fantasy XV from the mythos brand as a complicated but necessary one. Fabula Nova Crystallis official portal site

Radical 86 or radical fire (火部) meaning "fire" is one of the 34 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 4 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 639 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. In the Chinese wuxing ("Five Phases"), 火 represents the element Fire. In Taoist cosmology, 火 (Fire) is the nature component of the Ba gua diagram 離 Lí. 火 is also the 95th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, with 灬 being its associated indexing component. Evolution Derived characters Sinogram It also exists as an independent Chinese character. It is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan. It is taught in first grade and means fire. Further reading Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Lunde, Ken (Jan 5, 2009). "Appendix J: Japanese Character Sets" (PDF). CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Second ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1. Unihan Database - U+706B

Fa (Chinese: 法;Mandarin pronunciation: [fà]) is a concept in Chinese philosophy that covers ethics, logic, and law. It can be translated as "law" in some contexts, but more often as "model" or "standard." First gaining importance in the Mohist school of thought, the concept was principally elaborated in Legalism. In Han Fei's philosophy, the king is the sole source of fa (law), taught to the common people so that there would be a harmonious society free of chance occurrences, disorder, and "appeal to privilege". High officials were not to be held above fa (law or protocol), nor were they to be allowed to independently create their own fa, uniting both executive fiat and rule of law.Xunzi, a philosopher that would end up being foundational in Han dynasty Confucianism, also took up fa, suggesting that it could only be properly assessed by the Confucian sage (聖; shèng), and that the most important fa were the very rituals that Mozi had ridiculed for their ostentatious waste and lack of benefit for the people at large. Mohism and the School of Names The concept of fa first gained importance in the Mohist school of thought. To Mozi, a standard must stand "three tests" in order to determine its efficacy and morality. The first of these tests was its origin; if the standard had precedence in the actions or thought of the semi-mythological sage kings of the Xia dynasty whose examples are frequently cited in classical Chinese philosophy. The second test was one of validity; does the model stand up to evidence in the estimation of the people? The third and final test was one of applicability; this final one is a utilitarian estimation of the net good that, if implemented, the standard would have on both the people and the state.The third test speaks to the fact that to the Mohists, a fa was not simply an abstract model, but an active tool. The real-world use and practical application of fa were vital. Yet fa as models were also used in later Mohist logic as principles used in deductive reasoning. As classical Chinese philosophical logic was based on analogy rather than syllogism, fa were used as benchmarks to determine the validity of logical claims through comparison. There were three fa in particular that were used by these later Mohists (or "Logicians") to assess such claims, which were mentioned earlier. The first was considered a "root" standard, a concern for precedence and origin. The second, a "source", a concern for empiricism. The third, a "use", a concern for the consequence and pragmatic utility of a standard. These three fa were used by the Mohists to both promote social welfare and denounce ostentation or wasteful spending. See also Logic in China

Radical 173 or radical rain (雨部) meaning "rain" is one of the 9 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 8 strokes. This radical character transforms into ⻗ when used as an upper component. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 298 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 雨 is also the 170th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, with the component form ⻗ listed as its associated indexing component. Evolution Derived characters Variant forms This radical is printed and written differently in modern Traditional Chinese than in other languages. In Chinese as used in Mainland China (whether Simplified or Traditional) and Japanese, the four dots in the character are almost identical, while in modern standard Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the four dots point inwards to the center of the character, despite the former form is also widely used in Traditional Chinese publications. Handwritten forms Kanji This character is one of the Kyōiku kanji or Kanji taught in elementary school in Japan. It is a first grade kanji. Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Unihan Database - U+96E8

Radical 182 or radical wind (風部) meaning "wind" is one of the 11 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 9 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 182 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. In Taoist cosmology, 風 (wind) is the nature component of the Bagua diagram 巽 Xùn. 风, the simplified form of 風, is the 91st indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, while the traditional form 風 is listed as its associated indexing component. Evolution Derived characters Variant forms In the Kangxi Dictionary and modern standard Traditional Chinese as used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, the stroke above 虫 in the radical character 風 is horizontal, while it is a left-falling stroke in other languages. Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Lunde, Ken (Jan 5, 2009). "Appendix J: Japanese Character Sets" (PDF). CJKV Information Processing: Chinese, Japanese, Korean & Vietnamese Computing (Second ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1. Unihan Database - U+98A8

Kathy Chow Hoi-mei (Chinese: 周海媚; pinyin: Zhōu Hǎimèi; Jyutping: Zaau1 Hoi2 Mei6; born 6 December 1966 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong actress and singer who is widely known for her leading roles in Hong Kong TVB series during the late 1980s to 1990s such as The Breaking Point and Time Before Time. Her popularity peaked in Asia following her portrayal of Zhou Zhiruo in the 1994 Taiwanese adaptation of The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. She is an ethnic Manchu, being descended from the Gūwalgiya clan of the Bordered White Banner. Career She is a former Miss Hong Kong pageant participant. During the late 1980s and 1990s, she actively modeled and starred in Hong Kong TVB series. She switched work to ATV in 1998. During this time she would occasionally be featured in Hong Kong films and appear in award shows. Kathy was only with ATV up to 2001 and later left to Beijing for new prospects in her career. After a period of time, in March 2008, Chow returned to TVB and signed on to TVB's action E.U., the sequel to The Academy and On the First Beat. In recent years, she starred occasionally in a few TVB series, but her focus is still in mainland China's productions. Filmography Television series 2020 Count Your Lucky Stars 我好喜欢你 (Youku) 2019 Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre 倚天屠龙记 (Tencent) 2018 Ashes of Love 香蜜沉沉烬如霜 (JSTV) 2017 As Flowers Fade And Fly Across The Sky 花谢花飞花满天 (ZJTV) 2017 Xuan-Yuan Sword Legend: The Clouds of Han 轩辕剑之汉之云 (Dragon TV) 2015 The Cage of Love 抓住彩虹的男人 (ZJTV) 2014 The Empress of China 武媚娘传奇 (Hunan TV) 2013 Sniper Standoff 神枪狙击 (TVB) 2012 Wang Yang Ming 王阳明 (韩国CHING TV) 2009 In The Chamber Of Bliss 蔡鍔與小鳳仙 (TVB) 2009 E.U. (Emergency Unit) 學警狙擊 (TVB) 2008 The Legend of the Condor Heroes 射雕英雄传 (KMTV-1) 2007 Ao Jian Jiang Hu 傲剑江湖 (CTV) 2003 Asian Heroes 亚洲英雄 亞洲英雄 (ATV) 2001 To Where He Belongs 縱橫天下 / 纵横天下 (ATV) 2000 Showbiz Tycoon 影城大亨 (ATV) 1999 Flaming Brothers 縱橫四海 (ATV) 1998 Secret of the Heart 天地豪情 (TVB) 1997 Time Before Time 大鬧廣昌隆 (TVB) 1996 今生今世 (TVS－4"黄金剧场") 1995 Plain Love 情濃大地 (TVB) 1994 The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber 倚天屠龍記 (TTV) 1991 The Breaking Point 今生無悔 (TVB) 1991 The Sword Of Conquest 怒劍嘯狂沙 (TVB) 1990 Cherished Moments 回到未嫁時 (TVB) 1990 Rain in the Heart 成功路上 (TVB) 1990 Where I Belong 笑傲在明天 (TVB) 1989 Looking Back in Anger 義不容情 (TVB) 1989 The Legend of Master Chan 吉星報喜 (TVB) 1988 The Saga of the Lost Kingdom 贏單傳奇 (TVB) 1987 The Price of Growing Up 生命之旅 (TVB) 1987 Fate Takes A Hand 杜心五 (TVB) 1986 The Superlative Affections 赤腳紳士 (TVB) 1986 The Upheaval 小岛风云 (TVB) 1986 Heir to the Throne Is... 真命天子 (TVB) 1986 The Feud of Two Brothers 流氓大亨 (TVB) 1985 The Yang's Saga 楊家將 (TVB) Films 2020 Returning from Armor (卸甲归来) 2019 Bone China (骨瓷) 2019 The Rookies (素人特工) 2019 The Magic School (捉妖学院) 2019 The Incredible Monk 3 (济公之降龙有悔) 2017 Mr.Pride VS Miss Prejudice (傲娇与偏见) 2015 Hot Blood Band (熱血男人幫) 2013 The Legend of Dunhuang (敦煌傳奇) 2011 Legendary Amazons (楊門女將之軍令如山) 2011 To Love or Not (一夜未了情) 2007 Crazy Money & Funny Men (大話股神) 2004 A Decisive Move (同步凶間) 2004 City Crisis (中年危機) 2003 We're Not the Worst (五個墮落的男女) 2002 Memento (35米厘兇心人) 2001 Vampire Controller (趕屍先生) 2000 A Game of No Rule (無法無天) 2000 Sound from the Dark (陰風耳) 1998 Nude Fear (追兇20年) 1998 The Sleepless Town (不夜城) 1998 Beast Cops (野獸刑警) 1998 Cheap Killers (愈墮落愈英雄) 1998 The Love and Sex of the Eastern Hollywood (愛在娛樂圈的日子) 1997 Cause We Are So Young (求戀期) 1996 First Option (飛虎) 1995 Don't Give a Damn (冇面俾) 1994 Love Recipe (愛情色香味) 1994 The Private Eye Blues (非常偵探) 1993 Fight Back to School III (逃學威龍III之龍過雞年) 1993 Insanity (觸目驚心) 1992 James Wong in Japan & Korea (帶你嫖韓日) 1991 The Holy Virgin Versus the Evil Dead (魔唇劫) 1990 King of Gambler (賭王) 1990 The Wildgoose Chase (不文小丈夫) 1989 My Dear Son (我要富貴) 1989 Nobody's Hero (情義我心知) 1988 The Truth (法內情) 1988 How to Pick Girls Up! (求愛敢死隊) 1986 Cadets on the Beat (豬仔出更) Studio albums 1995 Sunrise Love (日出愛情) 1997 Loving You (迷戀你) Other appearances Kathy Chow Hoi-Mei also appeared in Jacky Cheung's music video for the song 吻別 in 1993. Kathy Chow at IMDb Kathy Chow at the Hong Kong Movie DataBase Kathy Chow at AllMovie Kathy Chow at Rotten Tomatoes hkcinemagic entry lovehkfilm entry

Throughout the history of Vietnam, many names were used in reference to Vietnam. History Throughout the history of Vietnam, official and unofficial names have been used in reference to the territory of Vietnam. Vietnam was called Văn Lang during the Hồng Bàng dynasty, Âu Lạc under Thục dynasty, Nam Việt during the Triệu dynasty, Vạn Xuân during the Early Lý dynasty, Đại Cồ Việt during the Đinh dynasty and Early Lê dynasty. Starting in 1054, Vietnam was called Đại Việt (Great Việt). During the Hồ dynasty, Vietnam was called Đại Ngu.Việt Nam ( in Vietnamese) is a variation of Nam Việt (Southern Việt), a name that can be traced back to the Triệu dynasty (2nd century BC, also known as Nanyue Kingdom). The word Việt originated as a shortened form of Bách Việt, a word used to refer to a people who lived in what is now southern China in ancient times. The name Việt Nam, with the syllables in the modern order, first appears in the 16th century in a poem attributed to Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm. Vietnam was mentioned in Josiah Conder's 1834 Dictionary of Geography, Ancient and Modern as the other name to refer to Annam. Annam, which originated as a Chinese name in the seventh century, was the common name of the country during the colonial period. Nationalist writer Phan Bội Châu revived the name "Vietnam" in the early 20th century. When rival communist and anti-communist governments were set up in 1945, both immediately adopted this as the country's official name. In English, the two syllables are usually combined into one word, Vietnam. However, Viet Nam was once common usage and is still used by the United Nations and by the Vietnamese government. Origin of Vietnam The term "Việt" (Yue) (Chinese: 越; pinyin: Yuè; Cantonese Yale: Yuht; Wade–Giles: Yüeh4; Vietnamese: Việt) in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 BC), and later as "越". At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang. In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south. Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC Yue/Việt referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.From the 3rd century BC the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of south and southwest China and northern Vietnam, with particular states or groups called Minyue, Ouyue (Vietnamese: Âu Việt), Luoyue (Vietnamese: Lạc Việt), etc., collectively called the Baiyue (Bách Việt, Chinese: 百越; pinyin: Bǎiyuè; Cantonese Yale: Baak Yuet; Vietnamese: Bách Việt; "Hundred Yue/Viet"; ). The term Baiyue/Bách Việt first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC.According to Ye Wenxian (1990), apud Wan (2013), the ethnonym of the Yuefang in northwestern China is not associated with that of the Baiyue in southeastern China.In 207 BC, former Qin dynasty general Zhao Tuo/Triệu Đà founded the kingdom of Nanyue/Nam Việt (Chinese: 南越; "Southern Yue/Việt") with its capital at Panyu (modern Guangzhou). This kingdom was "southern" in the sense that it was located south of other Baiyue kingdoms such as Minyue and Ouyue, located in modern Fujian and Zhejiang. Several later Vietnamese dynasties followed this nomenclature even after these more northern peoples were absorbed into China. In 968, the Vietnamese leader Đinh Bộ Lĩnh established the independent kingdom of Đại Cồ Việt (大瞿越) (possibly meaning "Great Gautama's Viet", as Gautama's Chữ Hán transcription 瞿曇 is pronounced Cồ Đàm in Sino-Vietnamese); however, 瞿's homophone cồ, 𡚝 in Chữ Nôm script, (means "great") over the former Jinghai state. In 1054, Emperor Lý Thánh Tông shortened the country's name to Đại Việt ("Great Viet"). However, the names Giao Chỉ and An Nam still were the widely known names that foreigners used to refer the state of Đại Việt during medieval and early modern periods,. For examples, Caugigu (Italian); Kafjih-Guh (Arabic: كوة ك); Koci (Malay); Cauchy (Portuguese); Cochinchina (English); Annam (Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and French). In 1787, US politician Thomas Jefferson referred to Vietnam as Cochinchina for the purpose of trading for rice."Sấm Trạng Trình" (The Prophecies of Principal Graduate Trình), which are attributed to Vietnamese official and poet Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (1491–1585), reversed the traditional order of the syllables and put the name in its modern form "Việt Nam" as in Việt Nam khởi tổ xây nền "Vietnam's founding ancestor lays its basis" or Việt Nam khởi tổ gây nên "Vietnam's founding ancestor builds it up". At this time, the country was divided between the Trịnh lords of Đông Kinh and the Nguyễn lords of Thừa Thiên. By combining several existing names, Nam Việt, Annam (Pacified South), Đại Việt (Great Việt), and "Nam quốc" (southern nation), the oracles' author[s] created a new name that referred to an aspirational unified state. The word "Nam" no longer implies Southern Việt, but rather that Vietnam is "the South" in contrast to China, "the North". This sentiment had already been in the poem "Nam quốc sơn hà" (1077)'s first line: 南國山河南帝居 Nam quốc sơn hà Nam đế cư "The Southern country's mountains and rivers the Southern Emperor inhabits". Researcher Nguyễn Phúc Giác Hải found the word 越南 "Việt Nam" on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bảo Lâm Pagoda, Haiphong (1558). Lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu (1675–1725), when describing Hải Vân Pass (then called Ải Lĩnh, lit. "Mountain-Pass's Saddle-Point"), apparently used "Việt Nam" as a national name in his poem's first line Việt Nam ải hiểm thử sơn điên, which was translated as Núi này ải hiểm đất Việt Nam "This mountain's pass is the most dangerous in Vietnam". Việt Nam was used as an official national name by Emperor Gia Long in 1804–1813. The Vietnamese asked permission from the Qing dynasty to change the name of their country. Originally, Gia Long had wanted the name Nam Việt and asked for his country to be recognized as such, but the Jiaqing Emperor refused since the ancient state of the same name had ruled territory that was part of the Qing dynasty. The Jiaqing Emperor refused Gia Long's request to change his country's name to Nam Việt, and changed the name instead to Việt Nam in 1804. Gia Long's Đại Nam thực lục contains the diplomatic correspondence over the naming.In his account about the meeting with Vietnamese officials in Hue on January 17, 1832, Edmund Roberts, American embassy in Vietnam, wrote : "...The country, they said, is not now called Annam, as formerly, but Wietnam (Vietnam), and it is ruled, not by a king, but by an emperor,..." "Trung Quốc" 中國, (literally "Middle Country" or "Central Country"), was also used as a name for Vietnam by Gia Long in 1805. Minh Mang used the name "Trung Quốc" 中國 to call Vietnam. Vietnamese Nguyen Emperor Minh Mạng sinicized ethnic minorities such as Cambodians, claimed the legacy of Confucianism and China's Han dynasty for Vietnam, and used the term Han people 漢人 to refer to the Vietnamese. Minh Mang declared that "We must hope that their barbarian habits will be subconsciously dissipated, and that they will daily become more infected by Han [Sino-Vietnamese] customs." This policies were directed at the Khmer and hill tribes. The Nguyen lord Nguyen Phuc Chu had referred to Vietnamese as "Han people" in 1712 when differentiating between Vietnamese and Chams; meanwhile, ethnic Chinese were referred to as Thanh nhân 清人 or Đường nhân 唐人.The use of "Vietnam" was revived in modern times by nationalists including Phan Bội Châu, whose book Việt Nam vong quốc sử (History of the Loss of Vietnam) was published in 1906. Chau also founded the Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (Vietnam Restoration League) in 1912. However, the general public continued to use Annam and the name "Vietnam" remained virtually unknown until the Yên Bái mutiny of 1930, organized by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (Vietnamese Nationalist Party). By the early 1940s, the use of "Việt Nam" was widespread. It appeared in the name of Ho Chi Minh's Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội (Viet Minh), founded 1941, and was even used by the governor of French Indochina in 1942. The name "Vietnam" has been official since 1945. It was adopted in June by Bảo Đại's imperial government in Huế, and in September by Ho's rival communist government in Hanoi. Other names 1. Legendary 2b. Official since 1945Đế quốc Việt Nam (帝國越南, Empire of Vietnam) : 11 March – 25 August 1945. Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa (越南民主共和, Democratic Republic of Vietnam) : 2 September 1945 – 18 February 1947, 10 October 1954 – 2 July 1976. Quốc gia Việt Nam (國家越南, State of Vietnam) : 27 May 1948 – 26 October 1955. Việt Nam Cộng hòa (越南共和, Republic of Vietnam) : 26 October 1955 – 30 April 1975. Cộng hòa Xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam (共和社會主義越南, Socialist Republic of Vietnam) : 2 July 1976 to now.3. Non-officialViệt Thường (越常, 越嘗, 越裳國, 越裳氏): Initially, the name of a people and/or nation to the south of Jiaozhi.Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư claimed that this was Vietnamese's endonym when first presenting gifts to King Cheng of Zhou Lĩnh Ngoại (嶺外) : lit. "Beyond the Ranges" (i.e. Nanling Mountains). Used interchangeably with Lĩnh Nam (嶺南; pinyin: Lǐngnán; lit. "South of the Ranges"). Included Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong, and Macau, as well as modern northern Vietnam. Giao Chỉ quận (交趾郡): Chinese name for Đại Cồ Việt & Đại Việt An Nam quốc (安南國): Chinese name for Đại Việt. The basis for various foreign exonyms for Vietnam. Nam Việt quốc (南越國) : Proposed by Nguyễn emperor Gia Long but rejected by Qing Emperor Jiaqing. Đại Nam đế quốc (大南帝國) (1839 – 1945) : Diplomatic name. Empire d'Annam : French exonoym. Union indochinoise (1887–1945), Fédération indochinoise (1947–1953) or Liên bang Đông Dương (東洋聯邦). Đại Hùng đế quốc (大雄帝國, 30 August 1917 – 11 January 1918) : Only during the Thái Nguyên uprising. Việt Nam dân quốc (越南民國, 1929? – 1930) : Only during the Yên Bái mutiny. Other spellings In English, the spellings Vietnam, Viet-Nam, Viet Nam and Việt Nam have all been used. Josiah Conder in his 1824 descriptive gazetteer The Modern Traveller: Birmah, Siam, and Anam (Burma, Siam, and Annam) spells Viet-nam with a hyphen placed between Viet and Nam. The 1954 edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary gave both the unspaced and hyphenated forms; in response to a letter from a reader, the editors indicated that the spaced form Viet Nam was also acceptable, though they stated that because Anglophones did not know the meaning of the two words making up the name Vietnam, "it is not surprising" that there was a tendency to drop the space. In 1966, the U.S. government was known to use all three renderings, with the State Department preferring the hyphenated version. By 1981, the hyphenated form was regarded as "dated", according to Scottish writer Gilbert Adair, and he titled his book about depictions of the country in film using the unhyphenated and unspaced form "Vietnam". Currently "Vietnam" is most commonly used as the official name in English, leading to the adjective Vietnamese (instead of Viet, Vietic or Viet Namese) and 3-letter code VIE in IOC and FIFA (instead of VNM). In all other languages mainly written in Latin script, the name of Vietnam is also commonly written without a space. Meanwhile, the spelling of "Viet Nam" is formally recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the United Nations (UN) and the Vietnamese Government itself as the official, stardardized and "accurate" country name, resulting in the systematic priotization in the usage of this spelling by the Vietnamese state-powered agencies and official documents such as the nationwide-issued citizen identity cards and the passports.Both Japanese and Korean formerly referred to Vietnam by their respective Sino-Xenic pronunciations of the Chinese characters for its names, but later switched to using direct phonetic transcriptions. In Japanese, following the independence of Vietnam, the names Annan (安南) and Etsunan (越南) were largely replaced by the phonetic transcription Betonamu (ベトナム), written in katakana script; however, the old form is still seen in compound words (e.g. 訪越, "a visit to Vietnam"). Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs sometimes used an alternative spelling Vietonamu (ヴィエトナム). Similarly, in the Korean language, in line with the trend towards decreasing usage of hanja, the Sino-Korean-derived name Wollam (월남, the Korean reading of 越南) has been replaced by Beteunam (베트남) in South Korea and Wennam (윁남) in North Korea. See also Tonkin, a historical exonym for north Vietnam Cochinchina, a historical exonym for south Vietnam French Indochina, a name for a grouping of three parts of Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam, & Cochinchine), Cambodia and Laos as French colonial territories, also known as Indochinese Union Place names of Vietnam Little China (ideology) Books Adair, Gilbert (1981). Vietnam on Film: From The Green Berets to Apocalypse Now. Proteus. Bridgman, Elijah Coleman; Willaims, Samuel Wells (1847). The Chinese Repository. proprietors. pp. 584–. Kang, David C. (2012). East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. Columbia University Press. pp. 101–102. Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: a history from earliest time to the present. Oxford University Press. Kyong-McClain, Jeff; Du, Yongtao (2013). Chinese History in Geographical Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 67–. ISBN 978-0-7391-7230-8. Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels: Integration of the Mainland Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, Vol 1. Cambridge University Press. Miksic, John (2019). Sandhtakalaning Majapahit: Learning the Dynamics of Majapahit as Nusantara's great strength. Universitas Airlangga. Miller, Robert (1990). United States and Vietnam 1787–1941. Washington DC: National Defense University Press. Moses, A. Dirk (2008). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books. p. 207. ISBN 978-1-845454524. Moses, A. Dirk (1 January 2008). Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History. Berghahn Books. pp. 209–. ISBN 978-1-84545-452-4. Ring, Trudy; Salkin, Robert M.; La Boda, Sharon (1994). International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania. Taylor & Francis. p. 399. ISBN 1884964044. Tarling, Nicholas (2000). The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: From Early Times C. 1500. Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN 0521663695. Taylor, Keith W. (2013). A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107244351. Tønnesson, Stein; Antlöv, Hans (1996). Asian Forms of the Nation. Psychology Press. Trần Quang Đức (2013). Thousand years of caps and robes (千古衣冠). Hanoi: Nhã Nam. Woods, L. Shelton (2002). Vietnam: a global studies handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 38. ISBN 1576074161. Woodside, Alexander (1971). Vietnam and the Chinese Model: A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Harvard Univ Asia Center. pp. 120–. ISBN 978-0-674-93721-5. Word Study. G&C Merriam Company. 1954. p. 401. Cites Meacham, William (1996). "Defining the Hundred Yue". Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association. 15: 93–100. doi:10.7152/bippa.v15i0.11537. Archived from the original on 2014-02-28. Spelling Lesson. 1968. p. 13. : |work= ignored (help)

Li Bai (Chinese: 李白; pinyin: Lǐ Bái, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (Chinese: 太白), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as one of the greatest and most important poets of the Tang dynasty and in Chinese history as a whole. He and his friend Du Fu (712–770) were two of the most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry under the Tang dynasty, which is often called the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". The expression "Three Wonders" denotes Li Bai's poetry, Pei Min's swordplay, and Zhang Xu's calligraphy.Around 1,000 poems attributed to Li are extant. His poems have been collected into the most important Tang dynasty collection, Heyaue yingling ji, compiled in 753 by Yin Fan. Thirty-four of Li Bai's poems are included in the anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, which was first published in the 18th century. Around the same time, translations of his poems began to appear in Europe. The poems became models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking. Among the most famous are "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day", "The Hard Road to Shu", and "Quiet Night Thought", which are still taught in schools in China. In the West, multilingual translations of Li's poems continue to be made. His life has even taken on a legendary aspect, including tales of drunkenness and chivalry, and the well-known tale that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon's reflection in the river while he was drunk. Much of Li's life is reflected in his poems, which are about places he visited; friends whom he saw off on journeys to distant locations, perhaps never to meet again; his own dream-like imaginings, embroidered with shamanic overtones; current events of which he had news; descriptions of nature, perceived as if in a timeless moment; and more. However, of particular importance are the changes in China during his lifetime. His early poems were written in a "golden age" of internal peace and prosperity, under an emperor who actively promoted and participated in the arts. This ended with the beginning of the rebellion of general An Lushan, which eventually left most of Northern China devastated by war and famine. Li's poems during this period take on new tones and qualities. Unlike his younger friend Du Fu, Li did not live to see the end of the chaos. Li Bai is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, Table of Peerless Heroes) by Jin Guliang. Names Li Bai's name has been romanized as Li Bai, Li Po, Li Bo (romanizations of Standard Chinese pronunciations), and Ri Haku (a romanization of the Japanese pronunciation). The varying Chinese romanizations are due to the facts that his given name (白) has two pronunciations in Standard Chinese: the literary reading bó (Wade–Giles: po2) and the colloquial reading bái; and that earlier authors used Wade–Giles while modern authors prefer pinyin. The reconstructed version of how he and others during the Tang dynasty would have pronounced this is Bhæk. His courtesy name was Taibai (太白), literally "Great White", as the planet Venus was called at the time. This has been romanized variously as Li Taibo, Li Taibai, Li Tai-po, among others. The Japanese pronunciation of his name and courtesy name may be romanized as "Ri Haku" and "Ri Taihaku" respectively. He is also known by his art name (hao) Qīnglián Jūshì (青蓮居士), meaning Householder of Azure Lotus, or by the nicknames "Immortal Poet" (Poet Transcendent; Wine Immortal (Chinese: 酒仙; pinyin: Jiuxiān; Wade–Giles: Chiu3-hsien1), Banished Transcendent (Chinese: 謫仙人; pinyin: Zhéxiānrén; Wade–Giles: Che2-hsien1-jen2), Poet-Knight-errant (traditional Chinese: 詩俠; simplified Chinese: 诗侠; pinyin: Shīxiá; Wade–Giles: Shih1-hsia2, or "Poet-Hero"). Life The two "Books of Tang", The Old Book of Tang and The New Book of Tang, remain the primary sources of bibliographical material on Li Bai. Other sources include internal evidence from poems by or about Li Bai, and certain other sources, such as the preface to his collected poems by his relative and literary executor, Li Yangbin. Background and birth Li Bai is generally considered to have been born in 701, in Suyab (碎葉) of ancient Chinese Central Asia (present-day Kyrgyzstan), where his family had prospered in business at the frontier. Afterwards, the family under the leadership of his father, Li Ke (李客), moved to Jiangyou (江油), near modern Chengdu, in Sichuan, when the youngster was about five years old. There is some mystery or uncertainty about the circumstances of the family's relocations, due to a lack of legal authorization which would have generally been required to move out of the border regions, especially if one's family had been assigned or exiled there. Background Two accounts given by contemporaries Li Yangbing (a family relative) and Fan Chuanzheng state that Li's family was originally from what is now southwestern Jingning County, Gansu. Li's ancestry is traditionally traced back to Li Gao, the noble founder of the state of Western Liang. This provides some support for Li's own claim to be related to the Li dynastic royal family of the Tang dynasty: the Tang emperors also claimed descent from the Li rulers of West Liang. This family was known as the Longxi Li lineage (隴西李氏). Evidence suggests that during the Sui dynasty, Li's own ancestors, at that time for some reason classified socially as commoners, were forced into a form of exile from their original home (in what is now Gansu) to some location or locations further west. During their exile in the far west, the Li family lived in the ancient Silk Road city of Suiye (Suyab, now an archeological site in present-day Kyrgyzstan), and perhaps also in Tiaozhi (simplified Chinese: 条枝; traditional Chinese: 條枝; pinyin: Tiáozhī), a state near modern Ghazni, Afghanistan. These areas were on the ancient Silk Road, and the Li family were likely merchants. Their business was quite prosperous. Birth In one hagiographic account, while Li Bai's mother was pregnant with him, she had a dream of a great white star falling from heaven. This seems to have contributed to the idea of his being a banished immortal (one of his nicknames). That the Great White Star was synonymous with Venus helps to explain his courtesy name: "Tai Bai", or "Venus". Marriage and family Li is known to have married four times. His first marriage, in 727, in Anlu, Hubei, was to the granddaughter of a former government minister. His wife was from the well-connected Wú (吳) family. Li Bai made this his home for about ten years, living in a home owned by his wife's family on Mt. Bishan (碧山). In 744, he married for the second time in what now is the Liangyuan District of Henan. This marriage was to another poet, surnamed Zong (宗), with whom he both had children and exchanges of poems, including many expressions of love for her and their children. His wife, Zong, was a granddaughter of Zong Chuke (宗楚客, died 710), an important government official during the Tang dynasty and the interregnal period of Wu Zetian. Early years In 705, when Li Bai was four years old, his father secretly moved his family to Sichuan, near Chengdu, where he spent his childhood. Currently, there is a monument commemorating this in Zhongba Town, Jiangyou, Sichuan province (the area of the modern province known then as Shu, after a former independent state which had been annexed by the Sui dynasty and later incorporated into the Tang dynasty lands). The young Li spent most of his growing years in Qinglian (青莲; lit. "Blue [also translated as 'green', 'azure', or 'nature-coloured'] Lotus"), a town in Chang-ming County, Sichuan, China. This now nominally corresponds with Qinglian Town (青蓮鎮) of Jiangyou County-level city, in Sichuan. The young Li read extensively, including Confucian classics such as The Classic of Poetry (Shijing) and the Classic of History (Shujing), as well as various astrological and metaphysical materials which Confucians tended to eschew, though he disdained to take the literacy exam. Reading the "Hundred Authors" was part of the family literary tradition, and he was also able to compose poetry before he was ten. The young Li also engaged in other activities, such as taming wild birds and fencing. His other activities included riding, hunting, traveling, and aiding the poor or oppressed by means of both money and arms. Eventually, the young Li seems to have become quite skilled in swordsmanship; as this autobiographical quote by Li himself both testifies to and also helps to illustrate the wild life that he led in the Sichuan of his youth: "When I was fifteen, I was fond of sword play, and with that art I challenged quite a few great men." Before he was twenty, Li had fought and killed several men, apparently for reasons of chivalry, in accordance with the knight-errant tradition (youxia).In 720, he was interviewed by Governor Su Ting, who considered him a genius. Though he expressed a wish to become an official, he never took the civil service examination. On the way to Chang'an Leaving Sichuan In his mid-twenties, about 725, Li Bai left Sichuan, sailing down the Yangzi River through Dongting Lake to Nanjing, beginning his days of wandering. He then went back up-river, to Yunmeng, in what is now Hubei, where his marriage to the granddaughter of a retired prime minister, Xu Yushi, seems to have formed but a brief interlude. During the first year of his trip, he met celebrities and gave away much of his wealth to needy friends. In 730, Li Bai stayed at Zhongnan Mountain near the capital Chang'an (Xi'an), and tried but failed to secure a position. He sailed down the Yellow River, stopped by Luoyang, and visited Taiyuan before going home. In 735, Li Bai was in Shanxi, where he intervened in a court martial against Guo Ziyi, who was later, after becoming one of the top Tang generals, to repay the favour during the An Shi disturbances. By perhaps 740, he had moved to Shandong. It was in Shandong at this time that he became one of the group known as the "Six Idlers of the Bamboo Brook", an informal group dedicated to literature and wine. He wandered about the area of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, eventually making friends with a famous Daoist priest, Wu Yun. In 742, Wu Yun was summoned by the Emperor to attend the imperial court, where his praise of Li Bai was great. At Chang'an Wu Yun's praise of Li Bai led Emperor Xuanzong (born Li Longji and also known as Emperor Minghuang) to summon Li to the court in Chang'an. Li's personality fascinated the aristocrats and common people alike, including another Taoist (and poet), He Zhizhang, who bestowed upon him the nickname the "Immortal Exiled from Heaven". Indeed, after an initial audience, where Li Bai was questioned about his political views, the Emperor was so impressed that he held a big banquet in his honor. At this banquet, the Emperor was said to show his favor, even to the extent of personally seasoning his soup for him.Emperor Xuanzong employed him as a translator, as Li Bai knew at least one non-Chinese language. Ming Huang eventually gave him a post at the Hanlin Academy, which served to provide scholarly expertise and poetry for the Emperor. When the emperor ordered Li Bai to the palace, he was often drunk, but quite capable of performing on the spot. Li Bai wrote several poems about the Emperor's beautiful and beloved Yang Guifei, the favorite royal consort. A story, probably apocryphal, circulates about Li Bai during this period. Once, while drunk, Li Bai had gotten his boots muddy, and Gao Lishi, the most politically powerful eunuch in the palace, was asked to assist in the removal of these, in front of the Emperor. Gao took offense at being asked to perform this menial service, and later managed to persuade Yang Guifei to take offense at Li's poems concerning her. At the persuasion of Yang Guifei and Gao Lishi, Xuanzong reluctantly, but politely, and with large gifts of gold and silver, sent Li Bai away from the royal court. After leaving the court, Li Bai formally became a Taoist, making a home in Shandong, but wandering far and wide for the next ten some years, writing poems. Li Bai lived and wrote poems at Bishan (or Bi Mountain (碧山), today Baizhao Mountain (白兆山)) in Yandian, Hubei. Bi Mountain (碧山) in the poem Question and Answer Amongst the Mountains (山中问答 Shanzhong Wenda) refers to this mountain. Meeting Du Fu He met Du Fu in the autumn of 744, when they shared a single room and various activities together, such as traveling, hunting, wine, and poetry, thus established a close and lasting friendship. They met again the following year. These were the only occasions on which they met, in person, although they continued to maintain a relationship through poetry. This is reflected in the dozen or so poems by Du Fu to or about Li Bai which survive, and the one from Li Bai directed toward Du Fu which remains. War and exile At the end of 755, the disorders instigated by the rebel general An Lushan burst across the land. The Emperor eventually fled to Sichuan and abdicated. During the confusion, the Crown Prince opportunely declared himself Emperor and head of the government. The An Shi disturbances continued (as they were later called, since they lasted beyond the death of their instigator, carried on by Shi Siming and others). Li Bai became a staff adviser to Prince Yong, one of Ming Huang's (Emperor Xuanzong's) sons, who was far from the top of the primogeniture list, yet named to share the imperial power as a general after Xuanzong had abdicated, in 756. However, even before the empire's external enemies were defeated, the two brothers fell to fighting each other with their armies. Upon the defeat of the Prince's forces by his brother the new emperor in 757, Li Bai escaped, but was later captured, imprisoned in Jiujiang, and sentenced to death. The famous and powerful army general Guo Ziyi and others intervened; Guo Ziyi was the very person whom Li Bai had saved from court martial a couple of decades before. His wife, the lady Zong, and others (such as Song Ruosi) wrote petitions for clemency. Upon General Guo Ziyi's offering to exchange his official rank for Li Bai's life, Li Bai's death sentence was commuted to exile: he was consigned to Yelang. Yelang (in what is now Guizhou) was in the remote extreme southwestern part of the empire, and was considered to be outside the main sphere of Chinese civilization and culture. Li Bai headed toward Yelang with little sign of hurry, stopping for prolonged social visits (sometimes for months), and writing poetry along the way, leaving detailed descriptions of his journey for posterity. Notice of an imperial pardon recalling Li Bai reached him before he even got near Yelang. He had only gotten as far as Wushan, when news of his pardon caught up with him in 759. Return and other travels When Li received the news of his imperial reprieve, he returned down the river to Jiangxi, passing on the way through Baidicheng, in Kuizhou Prefecture, still engaging in the pleasures of food, wine, good company, and writing poetry; his poem "Departing from Baidi in the Morning" records this stage of his travels, as well as poetically mocking his enemies and detractors, implied in his inclusion of imagery of monkeys. Although Li did not cease his wandering lifestyle, he then generally confined his travels to Nanjing and the two Anhui cities of Xuancheng and Li Yang (in modern Zhao County). His poems of this time include nature poems and poems of socio-political protest. Eventually, in 762, Li's relative Li Yangbing became magistrate of Dangtu, and Li Bai went to stay with him there. In the meantime, Suzong and Xuanzong both died within a short period of time, and China had a new emperor. Also, China was involved in renewed efforts to suppress further military disorders stemming from the Anshi rebellions, and Li volunteered to serve on the general staff of the Chinese commander Li Guangbi. However, at age 61, Li became critically ill, and his health would not allow him to fulfill this plan. Death The new Emperor Daizong named Li Bai the Registrar of the Left Commandant's office in 762. However, by the time that the imperial edict arrived in Dangtu, Anhui, Li Bai was already dead. There is a long and fanciful tradition regarding his death, from uncertain Chinese sources, that Li Bai drowned after falling from his boat one day while drunk, as he tried to embrace the reflection of the moon in the Yangtze River. However, the actual cause appears to have been natural enough, although perhaps related to his hard-living lifestyle. Nevertheless, the legend has a place in Chinese culture.A memorial of Li Bai lies just west of Ma'anshan. Calligraphy Li Bai was also a skilled calligrapher, though there is only one surviving piece of his calligraphy work in his own handwriting that exists today. The piece is titled Shàng yáng tái (Going Up To Sun Terrace), a 38.1 by 28.5 centimetres (15.0 in × 11.2 in) long scroll (with later addition of a title written by Emperor Huizong of Song and a postscript added by Qianlong Emperor himself); the calligraphy is housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing, China. Surviving texts and editing Even Li Bai and Du Fu, the two most famous and most comprehensively edited Tang poets, were affected by the destruction of the imperial Tang libraries and the loss of many private collections in the periods of turmoil (An Lushan Rebellion and Huang Chao Rebellion). Although many of Li Bai's poems have survived, even more were lost and there is difficulty regarding variant texts. One of the earliest endeavors at editing Li Bai's work was by his relative Li Yangbing, the magistrate of Dangtu, with whom he stayed in his final years and to whom he entrusted his manuscripts. However, the most reliable texts are not necessarily in the earliest editions. Song dynasty scholars produced various editions of his poetry, but it was not until the Qing dynasty that such collections as the Quan Tangshi (Complete Tang Poems) made the most comprehensive studies of the then surviving texts. Themes Critics have focused on Li Bai's strong sense of the continuity of poetic tradition, his glorification of alcoholic beverages (and, indeed, frank celebration of drunkenness), his use of persona, the fantastic extremes of some of his imagery, his mastery of formal poetic rules—and his ability to combine all of these with a seemingly effortless virtuosity to produce inimitable poetry. Other themes in Li's poetry, noted especially in the 20th century, are sympathy for the common folk and antipathy towards needless wars (even when conducted by the emperor himself). Poetic tradition Li Bai had a strong sense of himself as being part of a poetic tradition. The "genius" of Li Bai, says one recent account, "lies at once in his total command of the literary tradition before him and his ingenuity in bending (without breaking) it to discover a uniquely personal idiom..." Burton Watson, comparing him to Du Fu, says Li's poetry, "is essentially backward-looking, that it represents more a revival and fulfillment of past promises and glory than a foray into the future." Watson adds, as evidence, that of all the poems attributed to Li Bai, about one sixth are in the form of yuefu, or, in other words, reworked lyrics from traditional folk ballads. As further evidence, Watson cites the existence of a fifty-nine poem collection by Li Bai entitled Gu Feng, or In the Old Manner, which is, in part, tribute to the poetry of the Han and Wei dynasties. His admiration for certain particular poets is also shown through specific allusions, for example to Qu Yuan or Tao Yuanming, and occasionally by name, for example Du Fu. A more general appreciation for history is shown on the part of Li Bai in his poems of the huaigu genre, or meditations on the past, wherein following "one of the perennial themes of Chinese poetry", "the poet contemplates the ruins of past glory". Rapt with wine and moon John C. H. Wu observed that "while some may have drunk more wine than Li [Bai], no-one has written more poems about wine." Classical Chinese poets were often associated with drinking wine, and Li Bai was part of the group of Chinese scholars in Chang'an his fellow poet Du Fu called the "Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup." The Chinese generally did not find the moderate use of alcohol to be immoral or unhealthy. James J. Y Liu comments that zui in poetry "does not mean quite the same thing as 'drunk', 'intoxicated', or 'inebriated', but rather means being mentally carried away from one's normal preoccupations ..." Liu translates zui as "rapt with wine". The "Eight Immortals", however, drank to an unusual degree, though they still were viewed as pleasant eccentrics. Burton Watson concluded that "[n]early all Chinese poets celebrate the joys of wine, but none so tirelessly and with such a note of genuine conviction as Li [Bai]".The following two poems, "Rising Drunk on a Spring Day, Telling My Intent" and "Drinking Alone by Moonlight", are among Li Bai's most famous and demonstrate different aspects of his use of wine and drunkenness. Fantastic imagery An important characteristic of Li Bai's poetry "is the fantasy and note of childlike wonder and playfulness that pervade so much of it". Burton Watson attributes this to a fascination with the Taoist priest, Taoist recluses who practiced alchemy and austerities in the mountains, in the aim of becoming xian, or immortal beings. There is a strong element of Taoism in his works, both in the sentiments they express and in their spontaneous tone, and "many of his poems deal with mountains, often descriptions of ascents that midway modulate into journeys of the imagination, passing from actual mountain scenery to visions of nature deities, immortals, and 'jade maidens' of Taoist lore". Watson sees this as another affirmation of Li Bai's affinity with the past, and a continuity with the traditions of the Chuci and the early fu. Watson finds this "element of fantasy" to be behind Li Bai's use of hyperbole and the "playful personifications" of mountains and celestial objects. Nostalgia The critic James J.Y. Liu notes "Chinese poets seem to be perpetually bewailing their exile and longing to return home. This may seem sentimental to Western readers, but one should remember the vastness of China, the difficulties of communication... the sharp contrast between the highly cultured life in the main cities and the harsh conditions in the remoter regions of the country, and the importance of family..." It is hardly surprising, he concludes, that nostalgia should have become a "constant, and hence conventional, theme in Chinese poetry."Liu gives as a prime example Li's poem "A Quiet Night Thought" (also translated as "Contemplating Moonlight"), which is often learned by schoolchildren in China. In a mere 20 words, the poem uses the vivid moonlight and frost imagery to convey the feeling of homesickness. This translation is by Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie: Use of persona Li Bai also wrote a number of poems from various viewpoints, including the personae of women. For example, he wrote several poems in the Zi Ye, or "Lady Midnight" style, as well as Han folk-ballad style poems. Technical virtuosity Li Bai is well known for the technical virtuosity of his poetry and the mastery of his verses. In terms of poetic form, "critics generally agree that Li [Bai] produced no significant innovations ... In theme and content also, his poetry is notable less for the new elements it introduces than for the skill with which he brightens the old ones."Burton Watson comments on Li Bai's famous poem, which he translates "Bring the Wine": "like so much of Li [Bai]'s work, it has a grace and effortless dignity that somehow make it more compelling than earlier treatment of the same."Li Bai's yuefu poems have been called the greatest of all time by Ming-dynasty scholar and writer Hu Yinglin.Li Bai especially excelled in the Gushi form, or "old style" poems, a type of poetry allowing a great deal of freedom in terms of the form and content of the work. An example is his poem "蜀道難", translated by Witter Bynner as "Hard Roads in Shu". Shu is a poetic term for Sichuan, the destination of refuge that Emperor Xuanzong considered fleeing to escape the approaching forces of the rebel General An Lushan. Watson comments that, this poem, "employs lines that range in length from four to eleven characters, the form of the lines suggesting by their irregularity the jagged peaks and bumpy mountain roads of Sichuan depicted in the poem."Li Bai was also noted as a master of the jueju, or cut-verse. Ming-dynasty poet Li Pan Long thought Li Bai was the greatest jueju master of the Tang dynasty.Li Bai was noted for his mastery of the lüshi, or "regulated verse", the formally most demanding verse form of the times. Watson notes, however, that his poem "Seeing a Friend Off" was "unusual in that it violates the rule that the two middle couplets ... must observe verbal parallelism", adding that Chinese critics excused this kind of violation in the case of a genius like Li. Influence In the East Li Bai's poetry was immensely influential in his own time, as well as for subsequent generations in China. From early on, he was paired with Du Fu. The recent scholar Paula Varsano observes that "in the literary imagination they were, and remain, the two greatest poets of the Tang—or even of China". Yet she notes the persistence of "what we can rightly call the 'Li-Du debate', the terms of which became so deeply ingrained in the critical discourse surrounding these two poets that almost any characterization of the one implicitly critiqued the other". Li's influence has also been demonstrated in the immediate geographical area of Chinese cultural influence, being known as Ri Haku in Japan. This influence continues even today. Examples range from poetry to painting and to literature. In his own lifetime, during his many wanderings and while he was attending court in Chang'an, Li Bai met and parted from various contemporary poets. These meetings and separations were typical occasions for versification in the tradition of the literate Chinese of the time, a prime example being his relationship with Du Fu. After his lifetime, Li Bai's influence continued to grow. Some four centuries later, during the Song dynasty, for example, just in the case of his poem that is sometimes translated "Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon", the poet Yang Wanli wrote a whole poem alluding to it (and to two other Li Bai poems), in the same gushi, or old-style poetry form.In the 20th century, Li Bai even influenced the poetry of Mao Zedong. In China, his poem "Quiet Night Thoughts", reflecting a nostalgia of a traveller away from home, has been widely "memorized by school children and quoted by adults".He is sometimes worshipped as an immortal in Chinese folk religion and is also considered a divinity in Vietnam Cao Dai religion. In the West Austrian composer Gustav Mahler used German adaptations of four of Li's poems as texts for four of the songs in his song-symphony Das Lied von der Erde in 1908. American composer Harry Partch based his Seventeen Lyrics by Li Po (early 1930s, his earliest surviving acknowledged work) for intoning voice and Adapted Viola (an instrument of Partch's own invention) on texts in The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet translated by Shigeyoshi Obata. Around the same time (1931), Swiss composer Volkmar Andreae set eight poems as Li-Tai-Pe: Eight Chinese songs for tenor and orchestra, op. 37. In Brazil, the songwriter Beto Furquim included a musical setting of the poem "Jing Ye Si" in his album "Muito Prazer". Ezra Pound Li Bai is influential in the West partly due to Ezra Pound's versions of some of his poems in the collection Cathay, (Pound transliterating his name according to the Japanese manner as "Rihaku"). Li Bai's interactions with nature, friendship, his love of wine and his acute observations of life inform his more popular poems. Some, like Changgan xing (translated by Ezra Pound as "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"), record the hardships or emotions of common people. An example of the liberal, but poetically influential, translations, or adaptations, of Japanese versions of his poems made, largely based on the work of Ernest Fenollosa and professors Mori and Ariga. Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler integrated four of Li Bai's works into his symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde. These were derived from free German translations by Hans Bethge, published in an anthology called Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute), Bethge based his versions on the collection Chinesische Lyrik by Hans Heilmann (1905). Heilmann worked from pioneering 19th-century translations into French: three by the Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denys and one (only distantly related to the Chinese) by Judith Gautier. Mahler freely changed Bethge's text. Reference in Beat Generation Li Bai's poetry can be seen as having an influence on Beat Generation writer Gary Snyder during Snyder's years of studying Asian culture and Zen. Li Bai's style of descriptive writing contributed to the diversity within the Beat writing style. Translation Li Bai's poetry was introduced to Europe by Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, a Jesuit missionary in Beijing, in his Portraits des Célèbres Chinois, published in the series Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages, &c. des Chinois, par les missionnaires de Pekin. (1776–1797). Further translations into French were published by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys in his 1862 Poésies de l'Époque des Thang.Joseph Edkins read a paper, "On Li Tai-po", to the Peking Oriental Society in 1888, which was subsequently published in that society's journal. The early sinologist Herbert Allen Giles included translations of Li Bai in his 1898 publication Chinese Poetry in English Verse, and again in his History of Chinese Literature (1901). The third early translator into English was L. Cranmer-Byng (1872–1945). His Lute of Jade: Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China (1909) and A Feast of Lanterns (1916) both featured Li's poetry. Renditions of Li Bai's poetry into modernist English poetry were influential through Ezra Pound in Cathay (1915) and Amy Lowell in Fir-Flower Tablets (1921). Neither worked directly from the Chinese: Pound relied on more or less literal, word for word, though not terribly accurate, translations of Ernest Fenollosa and what Pound called the "decipherings" of professors Mori and Ariga; Lowell on those of Florence Ayscough. Witter Bynner with the help of Kiang Kang-hu included several of Li's poems in The Jade Mountain (1939). Although Li was not his preferred poet, Arthur Waley translated a few of his poems into English for the Asiatic Review, and included them in his More Translations from the Chinese. Shigeyoshi Obata, in his 1922 The Works of Li Po, claimed he had made "the first attempt ever made to deal with any single Chinese poet exclusively in one book for the purpose of introducing him to the English-speaking world. A translation of Li Bai's poem Green Moss by poet William Carlos Williams was sent as a letter to Chinese American poet David Rafael Wang where Williams was seen as having a similar tone as Pound.Li Bai became a favorite among translators for his straightforward and seemingly simple style. Later translations are too numerous to discuss here, but an extensive selection of Li's poems, translated by various translators, is included in John Minford and Joseph S. M. Lau, Classical Chinese Literature (2000) In popular culture Portrayed by Wong Wai-leung in the 2000 television series The Legend of Lady Yang An actor playing Li Bai narrates the Wonders of China and Reflections of China films at the China Pavilion at Epcot Li Bai's poem 'Hard Roads in Shu' is sung by a Chinese singer AnAn in a Liu Bei trailer for a game Total War: Three Kingdoms He appears as a "great writer" in the game Civilization VI See also Translations into English Cooper, Arthur (1973). Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems Selected and Translated with an Introduction and (Penguin Classics, 1973). ISBN 978-0-14-044272-4. Hinton, David (2008). Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-10536-7, 978-0-374-10536-5 Hinton, David (1998). The Selected Poems of Li Po (Anvil Press Poetry, 1998). ISBN 978-0-85646-291-7 Holyoak, Keith (translator) (2007). Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. (Durham, NH: Oyster River Press). ISBN 978-1-882291-04-5 Obata, Shigeyoshi (1922). The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet. (New York: Dutton). Reprinted: New York: Paragon, 1965. Free E-Book. Owen, Stephen (1996). An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-97106-6. Pound, Ezra (1915). Cathay (Elkin Mathews, London). ASIN B00085NWJI Smith, Kidder and Zhai, Mike (2021). Li Bo Unkempt. Punctum Press. ISBN 1953035418 Stimson, Hugh M. (1976). Fifty-five T'ang Poems. Far Eastern Publications: Yale University. ISBN 0-88710-026-0 Seth, Vikram (translator) (1992). Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu. (London: Faber & Faber). ISBN 0-571-16653-9 Weinberger, Eliot. The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry. (New York: New Directions, 2004). ISBN 0-8112-1605-5. Introduction, with translations by William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and David Hinton. Watson, Burton (1971). Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-03464-4 Mao, Xian (2013). Children's Version of 60 Classical Chinese Poems. eBook: Kindle Direct Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4685-5904-0. Sun, Yu [孫瑜], translation, introduction, and commentary (1982). Li Po-A New Translation 李白詩新譯. Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, ISBN 962-07-1025-8 Background and criticism Edkins, Joseph (1888). "Li Tai-po as a Poet", The China Review, Vol. 17 No. 1 (1888 Jul) [3]. Retrieved from [4], 19 January 2011. Eide, Elling (1973). "On Li Po", in Perspectives on the T'ang. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 367–403. Frankel, Hans H. (1978). The Flowering Plum and the Palace Lady. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) ISBN 0-300-02242-5. Kroll, Paul (2001). "Poetry of the T’ang Dynasty," in Victor H. Mair. ed., The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). ISBN 0-231-10984-9, pp. 274–313. Stephen Owen 'Li Po: a new concept of genius," in Stephen Owen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry : The High T'ang. (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981). ISBN 978-0-300-02367-1. Varsano, Paula M. (2003). Tracking the Banished Immortal: The Poetry of Li Bo and its Critical Reception (University of Hawai'i Press, 2003). ISBN 978-0-8248-2573-7, [5] —— (2014). "Li Bai and Du Fu". Oxford Bibliographies Online. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0106. ISBN 9780199920082.. Lists and evaluates scholarship and translations. Waley, Arthur (1950). The Poetry and Career of Li Po (New York: MacMillan, 1950). ASIN B0006ASTS4 Wu, John C.H. (1972). The Four Seasons of Tang Poetry. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle. ISBN 978-0-8048-0197-3 Further reading Hsieh, Chinghsuan Lily. "Chinese Poetry of Li Po Set by Four Twentieth Century British Composers: Bantock, Warlock, Bliss and Lambert" (Archive) (PhD thesis). Ohio State University, 2004. Li Bo Unkempt / Kidder Smith, Mike Zhai // Punctum Books, 2021. — ISBN 9781953035417, 9781953035424; doi:10.21983/P3.0322.1.00. Works by Li Bai at Project GutenbergOnline translations (some with original Chinese, pronunciation, and literal translation): Li Bai: Poems Extensive collection of Li Bai poems in English 20 Li Bai poems, in Chinese using simplified and traditional characters and pinyin, with literal and literary English translations by Mark Alexander. 34 Li Bai poems, in Chinese with English translation by Witter Bynner, from the Three Hundred Tang Poems anthology. Complete text of Cathay, the Ezra Pound/Ernest Fenollosa translations of poems principally by Li Po (J., Rihaku) Profile Variety of translations of Li Bai's poetry by a range of translators, along with photographs of geographical sites relevant to his life. At Project Gutenberg from More Translations From The Chinese by Arthur Waley, 1919 (includes six titles of poems by Li Po). The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet, translated by Shigeyoshi Obata, Obata's 1922 translation. Li Po's poems at PoemHunter.com site Works by Li Bai at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) John Thompson on Li Bai and the qin musical instrument

Murasaki Shikibu (紫式部, English: "Lady Murasaki"; c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoriko (藤原香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting. Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to-late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, she was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1025. Murasaki wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale of Genji. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. Early in the 20th century her work was translated; a six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak. Since the 13th century her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known ukiyo-e woodblock masters. Early life Murasaki Shikibu was born c. 973 in Heian-kyō, Japan, into the northern Fujiwara clan descending from Fujiwara no Yoshifusa, the first 9th century Fujiwara regent. The Fujiwara clan dominated court politics until the end of the 11th century through strategic marriages of their daughters into the imperial family and the use of regencies. In the late 10th century and early 11th century, Michinaga, the so-called Mido Kampaku, arranged his four daughters into marriages with emperors, giving him unprecedented power. Murasaki's great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had been in the top tier of the aristocracy, but her branch of the family gradually lost power and by the time of Murasaki's birth was at the middle to lower ranks of the Heian aristocracy—the level of provincial governors. The lower ranks of the nobility were typically posted away from court to undesirable positions in the provinces, exiled from the centralized power and court in Kyoto.Despite the loss of status, the family had a reputation among the literati through Murasaki's paternal great-grandfather and grandfather, both of whom were well-known poets. Her great-grandfather, Fujiwara no Kanesuke, had 56 poems included in 13 of the Twenty-one Imperial Anthologies, the Collections of Thirty-six Poets and the Yamato Monogatari (Tales of Yamato). Her great-grandfather and grandfather both had been friendly with Ki no Tsurayuki, who became notable for popularizing verse written in Japanese. Her father, Fujiwara no Tametoki, attended the State Academy (Daigaku-ryō) and became a well-respected scholar of Chinese classics and poetry; his own verse was anthologized. He entered public service around 968 as a minor official and was given a governorship in 996, staying in service until about 1018. Murasaki's mother was descended from the same branch of northern Fujiwara as Tametoki. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters. In the Heian era the use of names, insofar as they were recorded, did not follow a modern pattern. A court lady, as well as being known by the title of her own position, if any, took a name referring to the rank or title of a male relative. Thus "Shikibu" is not a modern surname, but refers to Shikibu-shō, the Ministry of Ceremonials where Murasaki's father was a functionary. "Murasaki", an additional name possibly derived from the color violet associated with wisteria, the meaning of the word fuji (an element of her clan name), may have been bestowed on her at court in reference to the name she herself had given to the main female character in "Genji". Michinaga mentions the names of several ladies-in-waiting in a 1007 diary entry; one, Fujiwara no Takako (Kyōshi), may be Murasaki's personal name.In Heian-era Japan, husbands and wives kept separate households; children were raised with their mothers, although the patrilineal system was still followed. Murasaki was unconventional because she lived in her father's household, most likely on Teramachi Street in Kyoto, with her younger brother Nobunori. Their mother died, perhaps in childbirth, when they were quite young. Murasaki had at least three half-siblings raised with their mothers; she was very close to one sister who died in her twenties.Murasaki was born at a period when Japan was becoming more isolated, after missions to China had ended and a stronger national culture was emerging. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Japanese gradually became a written language through the development of kana, a syllabary based on abbreviations of Chinese characters. In Murasaki's lifetime, men continued to write formally in Chinese, but kana became the written language of intimacy and of noblewomen, setting the foundation for unique forms of Japanese literature.Chinese was taught to Murasaki's brother as preparation for a career in government, and during her childhood, living in her father's household, she learned and became proficient in classical Chinese. In her diary she wrote, "When my brother ... was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening to him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to understand and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: 'Just my luck,' he would say, 'What a pity she was not born a man!'" With her brother she studied Chinese literature, and she probably also received instruction in more traditional subjects such as music, calligraphy and Japanese poetry. Murasaki's education was unorthodox. Louis Perez explains in The History of Japan that "Women ... were thought to be incapable of real intelligence and therefore were not educated in Chinese." Murasaki was aware that others saw her as "pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful". Asian literature scholar Thomas Inge believes she had "a forceful personality that seldom won her friends." Marriage Aristocratic Heian women lived restricted and secluded lives, allowed to speak to men only when they were close relatives or household members. Murasaki's autobiographical poetry shows that she socialized with women but had limited contact with men other than her father and brother; she often exchanged poetry with women but never with men. Unlike most noblewomen of her status, however, she did not marry on reaching puberty; instead she stayed in her father's household until her mid-twenties or perhaps even to her early thirties.In 996 when her father was posted to a four-year governorship in Echizen Province, Murasaki went with him, although it was uncommon for a noblewoman of the period to travel such a distance that could take as long as five days. She returned to Kyoto, probably in 998, to marry her father's friend Fujiwara no Nobutaka, a much older second cousin. Descended from the same branch of the Fujiwara clan, he was a court functionary and bureaucrat at the Ministry of Ceremonials, with a reputation for dressing extravagantly and as a talented dancer. In his late forties at the time of their marriage, he had multiple households with an unknown number of wives and offspring. Gregarious and well-known at court, he was involved in numerous romantic relationships that may have continued after his marriage to Murasaki. As was customary, she would have remained in her father's household where her husband would have visited her. Nobutaka had been granted more than one governorship, and by the time of his marriage to Murasaki he was probably quite wealthy. Accounts of their marriage vary: Richard Bowring writes that the marriage was happy, but Japanese literature scholar Haruo Shirane sees indications in Murasaki's poems that she resented her husband. The couple's daughter, Kenshi (Kataiko), was born in 999. Two years later Nobutaka died during a cholera epidemic. As a married woman Murasaki would have had servants to run the household and care for her daughter, giving her ample leisure time. She enjoyed reading and had access to romances (monogatari) such as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter and The Tales of Ise. Scholars believe she may have started writing The Tale of Genji before her husband's death; it is known she was writing after she was widowed, perhaps in a state of grief. In her diary she describes her feelings after her husband's death: "I felt depressed and confused. For some years I had existed from day to day in listless fashion ... doing little more than registering the passage of time ... The thought of my continuing loneliness was quite unbearable".According to legend, Murasaki retreated to Ishiyama-dera at Lake Biwa, where she was inspired to write The Tale of Genji on an August night while looking at the moon. Although scholars dismiss the factual basis of the story of her retreat, Japanese artists often depicted her at Ishiyama Temple staring at the moon for inspiration. She may have been commissioned to write the story and may have known an exiled courtier in a similar position to her hero Prince Genji. Murasaki would have distributed newly written chapters of Genji to friends who in turn would have re-copied them and passed them on. By this practice the story became known and she gained a reputation as an author.In her early to mid-thirties, she became a lady-in-waiting (nyōbō) at court, most likely because of her reputation as an author. Chieko Mulhern writes in Japanese Women Writers, a Biocritical Sourcebook that scholars have wondered why Murasaki made such a move at a comparatively late period in her life. Her diary evidences that she exchanged poetry with Michinaga after her husband's death, leading to speculation that the two may have been lovers. Bowring sees no evidence that she was brought to court as Michinaga's concubine, although he did bring her to court without following official channels. Mulhern thinks Michinaga wanted to have Murasaki at court to educate his daughter Shōshi. Court life Heian culture and court life reached a peak early in the 11th century. The population of Kyoto grew to around 100,000 as the nobility became increasingly isolated at the Heian Palace in government posts and court service. Courtiers became overly refined with little to do, insulated from reality, preoccupied with the minutiae of court life, turning to artistic endeavors. Emotions were commonly expressed through the artistic use of textiles, fragrances, calligraphy, colored paper, poetry, and layering of clothing in pleasing color combinations—according to mood and season. Those who showed an inability to follow conventional aesthetics quickly lost popularity, particularly at court. Popular pastimes for Heian noblewomen—who adhered to rigid fashions of floor-length hair, whitened skin and blackened teeth—included having love affairs, writing poetry and keeping diaries. The literature that Heian court women wrote is recognized as some of the earliest and among the best literature written in Japanese canon. Rival courts and women poets When in 995 Michinaga's two brothers Fujiwara no Michitaka and Fujiwara no Michikane died, leaving the regency vacant, Michinaga quickly won a power struggle against his nephew Fujiwara no Korechika (brother to Teishi, Emperor Ichijō's wife), and, aided by his sister Senshi, he assumed power. Teishi had supported her brother Korechika, who was discredited and banished from court in 996 following a scandal involving his shooting at the retired Emperor Kazan, causing her to lose power. Four years later Michinaga sent Shōshi, his eldest daughter, to Emperor Ichijō's harem when she was about 12. A year after placing Shōshi in the imperial harem, in an effort to undermine Teishi's influence and increase Shōshi's standing, Michinaga had her named Empress although Teishi already held the title. As historian Donald Shively explains, "Michinaga shocked even his admirers by arranging for the unprecedented appointment of Teishi (or Sadako) and Shōshi as concurrent empresses of the same emperor, Teishi holding the usual title of "Lustrous Heir-bearer" kōgō and Shōshi that of "Inner Palatine" (chūgū), a toponymically derived equivalent coined for the occasion". About five years later, Michinaga brought Murasaki to Shōshi's court, in a position that Bowring describes as a companion-tutor.Women of high status lived in seclusion at court and, through strategic marriages, were used to gain political power for their families. In the case of Shōshi and other such marriages to members of the imperial clan, it enabled the woman's clan to exercise influence over the emperor—this was how Michinaga, and other Fujiwara Regents, achieved their power. Despite their seclusion, some women wielded considerable influence, often achieved through competitive salons, dependent on the quality of those attending. Ichijō's mother and Michinaga's sister, Senshi, had an influential salon, and Michinaga probably wanted Shōshi to surround herself with skilled women such as Murasaki to build a rival salon. Shōshi was 16 to 19 when Murasaki joined her court. According to Arthur Waley, Shōshi was a serious-minded young lady, whose living arrangements were divided between her father's household and her court at the Imperial Palace. She gathered around her talented women writers such as Izumi Shikibu and Akazome Emon—the author of an early vernacular history, The Tale of Flowering Fortunes. The rivalry that existed among the women is evident in Murasaki's diary, where she wrote disparagingly of Izumi: "Izumi Shikibu is an amusing letter-writer; but there is something not very satisfactory about her. She has a gift for dashing off informal compositions in a careless running-hand; but in poetry she needs either an interesting subject or some classic model to imitate. Indeed it does not seem to me that in herself she is really a poet at all."Sei Shōnagon, author of The Pillow Book, had been in service as lady-in-waiting to Teishi when Shōshi came to court; it is possible that Murasaki was invited to Shōshi's court as a rival to Shōnagon. Teishi died in 1001, before Murasaki entered service with Shōshi, so the two writers were not there concurrently, but Murasaki, who wrote about Shōnagon in her diary, certainly knew of her, and to an extent was influenced by her. Shōnagon's The Pillow Book may have been commissioned as a type of propaganda to highlight Teishi's court, known for its educated ladies-in-waiting. Japanese literature scholar Joshua Mostow believes Michinaga provided Murasaki to Shōshi as an equally or better educated woman, so as to showcase Shōshi's court in a similar manner.The two writers had different temperaments: Shōnagon was witty, clever, and outspoken; Murasaki was withdrawn and sensitive. Entries in Murasaki's diary show that the two may not have been on good terms. Murasaki wrote, "Sei Shōnagon ... was dreadfully conceited. She thought herself so clever, littered her writing with Chinese characters, [which] left a great deal to be desired." Keene thinks that Murasaki's impression of Shōnagon could have been influenced by Shōshi and the women at her court, as Shōnagon served Shōshi's rival empress. Furthermore, he believes Murasaki was brought to court to write Genji in response to Shōnagon's popular Pillow Book. Murasaki contrasted herself to Shōnagon in a variety of ways. She denigrated the pillow book genre and, unlike Shōnagon, who flaunted her knowledge of Chinese, Murasaki pretended to not know the language, regarding it as pretentious and affected. "The Lady of the Chronicles" Although the popularity of the Chinese language diminished in the late Heian era, Chinese ballads continued to be popular, including those written by Bai Juyi. Murasaki taught Chinese to Shōshi who was interested in Chinese art and Juyi's ballads. Upon becoming Empress, Shōshi installed screens decorated with Chinese script, causing outrage because written Chinese was considered the language of men, far removed from the women's quarters. The study of Chinese was thought to be unladylike and went against the notion that only men should have access to the literature. Women were supposed to read and write only in Japanese, which separated them through language from government and the power structure. Murasaki, with her unconventional classical Chinese education, was one of the few women available to teach Shōshi classical Chinese. Bowring writes it was "almost subversive" that Murasaki knew Chinese and taught the language to Shōshi. Murasaki, who was reticent about her Chinese education, held the lessons between the two women in secret, writing in her diary, "Since last summer ... very secretly, in odd moments when there happened to be no one about, I have been reading with Her Majesty ... There has of course been no question of formal lessons ... I have thought it best to say nothing about the matter to anybody." Murasaki probably earned an ambiguous nickname, "The Lady of the Chronicles" (Nihongi no tsubone), for teaching Shōshi Chinese literature. A lady-in-waiting who disliked Murasaki accused her of flaunting her knowledge of Chinese and began calling her "The Lady of the Chronicles"—an allusion to the classic Chronicles of Japan—after an incident in which chapters from Genji were read aloud to the Emperor and his courtiers, one of whom remarked that the author showed a high level of education. Murasaki wrote in her diary, "How utterly ridiculous! Would I, who hesitate to reveal my learning to my women at home, ever think of doing so at court?" Although the nickname was apparently meant to be disparaging, Mulhern believes Murasaki was flattered by it.The attitude toward the Chinese language was contradictory. In Teishi's court, the Chinese language had been flaunted and considered a symbol of imperial rule and superiority. Yet, in Shōshi's salon there was a great deal of hostility towards the language—perhaps owing to political expedience during a period when Chinese began to be rejected in favor of Japanese—even though Shōshi herself was a student of the language. The hostility may have affected Murasaki and her opinion of the court, and forced her to hide her knowledge of Chinese. Unlike Shōnagon, who was both ostentatious and flirtatious, as well as outspoken about her knowledge of Chinese, Murasaki seems to have been humble, an attitude which possibly impressed Michinaga. Although Murasaki used Chinese and incorporated it in her writing, she publicly rejected the language, a commendable attitude during a period of burgeoning Japanese culture.Murasaki seems to have been unhappy with court life and was withdrawn and somber. No surviving records show that she entered poetry competitions; she appears to have exchanged few poems or letters with other women during her service. In general, unlike Shōnagon, Murasaki gives the impression in her diary that she disliked court life, the other ladies-in-waiting, and the drunken revelry. She did, however, become close friends with a lady-in-waiting named Lady Saishō, and she wrote of the winters that she enjoyed, "I love to see the snow here".According to Waley, Murasaki may not have been unhappy with court life in general but bored in Shōshi's court. He speculates she would have preferred to serve with the Lady Senshi, whose household seems to have been less strict and more light-hearted. In her diary, Murasaki wrote about Shōshi's court, "[she] has gathered round her a number of very worthy young ladies ... Her Majesty is beginning to acquire more experience of life, and no longer judges others by the same rigid standards as before; but meanwhile her Court has gained a reputation for extreme dullness". Murasaki disliked the men at court, whom she thought were drunken and stupid. However, some scholars, such as Waley, are certain she was involved romantically with Michinaga. At the least, Michinaga pursued her and pressured her strongly, and her flirtation with him is recorded in her diary as late as 1010. Yet, she wrote to him in a poem, "You have neither read my book, nor won my love." In her diary she records having to avoid advances from Michinaga—one night he sneaked into her room, stealing a newly written chapter of Genji. However, Michinaga's patronage was essential if she was to continue writing. Murasaki described her daughter's court activities: the lavish ceremonies, the complicated courtships, the "complexities of the marriage system", and in elaborate detail, the birth of Shōshi's two sons.It is likely that Murasaki enjoyed writing in solitude. She believed she did not fit well with the general atmosphere of the court, writing of herself: "I am wrapped up in the study of ancient stories ... living all the time in a poetical world of my own scarcely realizing the existence of other people .... But when they get to know me, they find to their extreme surprise that I am kind and gentle". Inge says that she was too outspoken to make friends at court, and Mulhern thinks Murasaki's court life was comparatively quiet compared to other court poets. Mulhern speculates that her remarks about Izumi were not so much directed at Izumi's poetry but at her behavior, lack of morality and her court liaisons, of which Murasaki disapproved.Rank was important in Heian court society and Murasaki would not have felt herself to have much, if anything, in common with the higher ranked and more powerful Fujiwaras. In her diary, she wrote of her life at court: "I realized that my branch of the family was a very humble one; but the thought seldom troubled me, and I was in those days far indeed from the painful consciousness of inferiority which makes life at Court a continual torment to me." A court position would have increased her social standing, but more importantly she gained a greater experience to write about. Court life, as she experienced it, is well reflected in the chapters of Genji written after she joined Shōshi. The name Murasaki was most probably given to her at a court dinner in an incident she recorded in her diary: in 1008 the well-known court poet Fujiwara no Kintō inquired after the "Young Murasaki"—an allusion to the character named Murasaki in Genji—which would have been considered a compliment from a male court poet to a female author. Later life and death When Emperor Ichijō died in 1011, Shōshi retired from the Imperial Palace to live in a Fujiwara mansion in Biwa, most likely accompanied by Murasaki, who is recorded as being there with Shōshi in 1013. George Aston explains that when Murasaki retired from court she was again associated with Ishiyama-dera: "To this beautiful spot, it is said, Murasaki no Shikibu [sic] retired from court life to devote the remainder of her days to literature and religion. There are sceptics, however, Motoori being one, who refuse to believe this story, pointing out ... that it is irreconcilable with known facts. On the other hand, the very chamber in the temple where the Genji was written is shown—with the ink-slab which the author used, and a Buddhist Sutra in her handwriting, which, if they do not satisfy the critic, still are sufficient to carry conviction to the minds of ordinary visitors to the temple."Murasaki may have died in 1014. Her father made a hasty return to Kyoto from his post at Echigo Province that year, possibly because of her death. Writing in A Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of "The Tale of Genji", Shirane mentions that 1014 is generally accepted as the date of Murasaki Shikibu's death and 973 as the date of her birth, making her 41 when she died. Bowring considers 1014 to be speculative, and believes she may have lived with Shōshi until as late as 1025. Waley agrees given that Murasaki may have attended ceremonies with Shōshi held for Shōshi's son, Emperor Go-Ichijō around 1025.Murasaki's brother Nobunori died in around 1011, which, combined with the death of his daughter, may have prompted her father to resign his post and take vows at Miidera temple where he died in 1029. Murasaki's daughter entered court service in 1025 as a wet nurse to the future Emperor Go-Reizei (1025–1068). She went on to become a well-known poet as Daini no Sanmi. Works Three works are attributed to Murasaki: The Tale of Genji, The Diary of Lady Murasaki and Poetic Memoirs, a collection of 128 poems. Her work is considered important for its reflection of the creation and development of Japanese writing, during a period when Japanese shifted from an unwritten vernacular to a written language. Until the 9th century, Japanese language texts were written in Chinese characters using the man'yōgana writing system. A revolutionary achievement was the development of kana, a true Japanese script, in the mid-to late 9th century. Japanese authors began to write prose in their own language, which led to genres such as tales (monogatari) and poetic journals (Nikki Bungaku). Historian Edwin Reischauer writes that genres such as the monogatari were distinctly Japanese and that Genji, written in kana, "was the outstanding work of the period". Diary and poetry Murasaki began her diary after she entered service at Shōshi's court. Much of what is known about her and her experiences at court comes from the diary, which covers the period from about 1008 to 1010. The long descriptive passages, some of which may have originated as letters, cover her relationships with the other ladies-in-waiting, Michinaga's temperament, the birth of Shōshi's sons—at Michinaga's mansion rather than at the Imperial Palace—and the process of writing Genji, including descriptions of passing newly written chapters to calligraphers for transcriptions. Typical of contemporary court diaries written to honor patrons, Murasaki devotes half to the birth of Shōshi's son Emperor Go-Ichijō, an event of enormous importance to Michinaga: he had planned for it with his daughter's marriage which made him grandfather and de facto regent to an emperor.Poetic Memoirs is a collection of 128 poems Mulhern describes as "arranged in a biographical sequence". The original set has been lost. According to custom, the verses would have been passed from person to person and often copied. Some appear written for a lover—possibly her husband before he died—but she may have merely followed tradition and written simple love poems. They contain biographical details: she mentions a sister who died, the visit to Echizen province with her father and that she wrote poetry for Shōshi. Murasaki's poems were published in 1206 by Fujiwara no Teika, in what Mulhern believes to be the collection that is closest to the original form; at around the same time Teika included a selection of Murasaki's works in an imperial anthology, New Collections of Ancient and Modern Times. The Tale of Genji Murasaki is best known for her The Tale of Genji, a three-part novel spanning 1100 pages and 54 chapters, which is thought to have taken a decade to complete. The earliest chapters were possibly written for a private patron either during her marriage or shortly after her husband's death. She continued writing while at court and probably finished while still in service to Shōshi. She would have needed patronage to produce a work of such length. Michinaga provided her with costly paper and ink, and with calligraphers. The first handwritten volumes were probably assembled and bound by ladies-in-waiting. In his The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, Keene claims Murasaki wrote the "supreme work of Japanese fiction" by drawing on traditions of waka court diaries, and earlier monogatari—written in a mixture of Chinese script and Japanese script—such as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter or The Tales of Ise. She drew on and blended styles from Chinese histories, narrative poetry and contemporary Japanese prose. Adolphson writes that the juxtaposition of formal Chinese style with mundane subjects resulted in a sense of parody or satire, giving her a distinctive voice. Genji follows the traditional format of monogatari—telling a tale—particularly evident in its use of a narrator, but Keene claims Murasaki developed the genre far beyond its bounds, and by doing so created a form that is utterly modern. The story of the "shining prince" Genji is set in the late 9th to early 10th centuries, and Murasaki eliminated from it the elements of fairy tales and fantasy frequently found in earlier monogatari.The themes in Genji are common to the period, and are defined by Shively as encapsulating "the tyranny of time and the inescapable sorrow of romantic love". The main theme is that of the fragility of life, "the sorrow of human existence" (mono no aware), a term used over a thousand times in Genji. Keene speculates that in her tale of the "shining prince", Murasaki may have created for herself an idealistic escape from court life, which she found less than savory. In Prince Genji she formed a gifted, comely, refined, yet human and sympathetic protagonist. Keene writes that Genji gives a view into the Heian period; for example love affairs flourished, although women typically remained unseen behind screens, curtains or fusuma.Helen McCullough describes Murasaki's writing as of universal appeal and believes The Tale of Genji "transcends both its genre and age. Its basic subject matter and setting—love at the Heian court—are those of the romance, and its cultural assumptions are those of the mid-Heian period, but Murasaki Shikibu's unique genius has made the work for many a powerful statement of human relationships, the impossibility of permanent happiness in love ... and the vital importance, in a world of sorrows, of sensitivity to the feelings of others." Prince Genji recognizes in each of his lovers the inner beauty of the woman and the fragility of life, which according to Keene, makes him heroic. The story was popular: Emperor Ichijō had it read to him, even though it was written in Japanese. By 1021 all the chapters were known to be complete and the work was sought after in the provinces where it was scarce. Legacy Murasaki's reputation and influence have not diminished since her lifetime when she, with other Heian women writers, was instrumental in developing Japanese into a written language. Her writing was required reading for court poets as early as the 12th century as her work began to be studied by scholars who generated authoritative versions and criticism. Within a century of her death she was highly regarded as a classical writer. In the 17th century, Murasaki's work became emblematic of Confucian philosophy and women were encouraged to read her books. In 1673, Kumazawa Banzan argued that her writing was valuable for its sensitivity and depiction of emotions. He wrote in his Discursive Commentary on Genji that when "human feelings are not understood the harmony of the Five Human Relationships is lost." The Tale of Genji was copied and illustrated in various forms as early as a century after Murasaki's death. The Genji Monogatari Emaki, is a late Heian era 12th century handscroll, consisting of four scrolls, 19 paintings, and 20 sheets of calligraphy. The illustrations, definitively dated to between 1110 and 1120, have been tentatively attributed to Fujiwara no Takachika and the calligraphy to various well-known contemporary calligraphers. The scroll is housed at the Gotoh Museum and the Tokugawa Art Museum.Female virtue was tied to literary knowledge in the 17th century, leading to a demand for Murasaki or Genji inspired artifacts, known as genji-e.Dowry sets decorated with scenes from Genji or illustrations of Murasaki became particularly popular for noblewomen: in the 17th century genji-e symbolically imbued a bride with an increased level of cultural status; by the 18th century they had come to symbolize marital success. In 1628, Tokugawa Iemitsu's daughter had a set of lacquer boxes made for her wedding; Prince Toshitada received a pair of silk genji-e screens, painted by Kanō Tan'yū as a wedding gift in 1649.Murasaki became a popular subject of paintings and illustrations highlighting her as a virtuous woman and poet. She is often shown at her desk in Ishimyama Temple, staring at the moon for inspiration. Tosa Mitsuoki made her the subject of hanging scrolls in the 17th century. The Tale of Genji became a favorite subject of Japanese ukiyo-e artists for centuries with artists such as Hiroshige, Kiyonaga, and Utamaro illustrating various editions of the novel. While early Genji art was considered symbolic of court culture, by the middle of the Edo period the mass-produced ukiyo-e prints made the illustrations accessible for the samurai classes and commoners.In Envisioning the "Tale of Genji" Shirane observes that "The Tale of Genji has become many things to many different audiences through many different media over a thousand years ... unmatched by any other Japanese text or artifact." The work and its author were popularized through its illustrations in various media: emaki (illustrated handscrolls); byōbu-e (screen paintings), ukiyo-e (woodblock prints); films, comics, and in the modern period, manga. In her fictionalized account of Murasaki's life, The Tale of Murasaki: A Novel, Liza Dalby has Murasaki involved in a romance during her travels with her father to Echizen Province. The Tale of the Genji is recognized as an enduring classic. McCullough writes that Murasaki "is both the quintessential representative of a unique society and a writer who speaks to universal human concerns with a timeless voice. Japan has not seen another such genius." Keene writes that The Tale of Genji continues to captivate, because, in the story, her characters and their concerns are universal. In the 1920s, when Waley's translation was published, reviewers compared Genji to Austen, Proust, and Shakespeare. Mulhern says of Murasaki that she is similar to Shakespeare, who represented his Elizabethan England, in that she captured the essence of the Heian court and as a novelist "succeeded perhaps even beyond her own expectations." Like Shakespeare, her work has been the subject of reams of criticism and many books. Kyoto held a year-long celebration commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Genji in 2008, with poetry competitions, visits to the Tale of Genji Museum in Uji and Ishiyama-dera (where a life size rendition of Murasaki at her desk was displayed), and women dressing in traditional 12-layer Heian court jūnihitoe and ankle-length wigs. The author and her work inspired museum exhibits and Genji manga spin-offs. The design on the reverse of the first 2000 yen note commemorated her and The Tale of Genji. A plant bearing purple berries has been named after her.A Genji Album, only in the 1970s dated to 1510, is housed at Harvard University. The album is considered the earliest of its kind and consists of 54 paintings by Tosa Mitsunobu and 54 sheets of calligraphy on shikishi paper in five colors, written by master calligraphers. The leaves are housed in a case dated to the Edo period, with a silk frontispiece painted by Tosa Mitsuoki, dated to around 1690. The album contains Mitsuoki's authentication slips for his ancestor's 16th century paintings. Gallery Rozan-ji Temple, Kyoto Works by Murasaki Shikibu at Open Library Works by Murasaki Shikibu at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by Murasaki Shikibu at Project Gutenberg Exhibition: The Tale of Genji, A Japanese Classic Illuminated at Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 5 – June 16, 2019

The Tale of Genji (源氏物語, Genji monogatari, pronounced [ɡeɲdʑi monoɡaꜜtaɾi]), also known as Genji Monogatari is a classic work of Japanese literature written in the early 11th century by the noblewoman, poet, and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu. The original manuscript, created around the peak of the Heian period, no longer exists. It was made in "concertina" or orihon style: several sheets of paper pasted together and folded alternately in one direction then the other. The work is a unique depiction of the lifestyles of high courtiers during the Heian period. It is written in archaic language and a poetic and complex style that make it unreadable without specialized study. It was not until the early 20th century that Genji was translated into modern Japanese by the poet Akiko Yosano. The first English translation was attempted in 1882 by Suematsu Kencho, but was of poor quality and incomplete. The work recounts the life of Hikaru Genji, or "Shining Genji", who is the son of an ancient Japanese emperor (known to readers as Emperor Kiritsubo) and a low-ranking concubine called Kiritsubo Consort. For political reasons, the emperor removes Genji from the line of succession, demoting him to a commoner by giving him the surname Minamoto, and he pursues a career as an imperial officer. The tale concentrates on Genji's romantic life and describes the customs of the aristocratic society of the time. It may be the world's first novel, the first psychological novel, and the first novel still to be considered a classic particularly in the context of Japanese literature. Historical context Murasaki was writing at the height of the Fujiwara clan's power—Fujiwara no Michinaga was the Regent in all but name, and the most significant political figure of his day. Consequently, Murasaki is believed to have partially informed the character of Genji through her experience of Michinaga. The Tale of Genji may have been written chapter by chapter in installments, as Murasaki delivered the tale to aristocratic women (ladies-in-waiting). It has many elements found in a modern novel: a central character and a very large number of major and minor characters, well-developed characterization of all the major players, a sequence of events covering the central character's lifetime and beyond. There is no specified plot, but events happen and characters simply grow older. Despite a dramatis personæ of some four hundred characters, it maintains internal consistency; for instance, all characters age in step, and both family and feudal relationships stay intact throughout. One complication for readers and translators of the Genji is that almost none of the characters in the original text is given an explicit name. The characters are instead referred to by their function or role (e.g. Minister of the Left), an honorific (e.g. His Excellency), or their relation to other characters (e.g. Heir Apparent), which changes as the novel progresses. This lack of names stems from Heian-era court manners that would have made it unacceptably familiar and blunt to freely mention a person's given name. Modern readers and translators have used various nicknames to keep track of the many characters. Authorship There is debate over how much of Genji was actually written by Murasaki Shikibu. Debates over the novel's authorship have gone on for centuries, and are unlikely to ever be settled unless some major archival discovery is made. It is generally accepted that the tale was finished in its present form by 1021, when the author of the Sarashina Nikki wrote a diary entry about her joy at acquiring a complete copy of the tale. She writes that there are over 50 chapters and mentions a character introduced at the end of the work, so if other authors besides Murasaki did work on the tale, the work was finished very near to the time of her writing. Murasaki's own diary includes a reference to the tale, and indeed the application to herself of the name 'Murasaki' in an allusion to the main female character. That entry confirms that some if not all of the diary was available in 1008 when internal evidence convincingly suggests that the entry was written.Murasaki is said to have written the character of Genji based on the Minister on the Left at the time she was at court. Other translators, such as Tyler, believe the character Murasaki no Ue, whom Genji marries, is based on Murasaki Shikibu herself. Yosano Akiko, the first author to make a modern Japanese translation of Genji, believed that Murasaki had written only chapters 1 to 33, and that chapters 35 to 54 were written by her daughter, Daini no Sanmi. Other scholars have also doubted the authorship of chapters 42 to 54 (particularly 44, which contains rare examples of continuity mistakes). According to Royall Tyler's introduction to his English translation of the work, recent computer analysis has turned up "statistically significant" discrepancies of style between chapters 45–54 and the rest, and also among the early chapters. Plot Genji's mother dies when he is three years old, and the Emperor cannot forget her. The Emperor Kiritsubo then hears of a woman (Lady Fujitsubo), formerly a princess of the preceding emperor, who resembles his deceased concubine, and later she becomes one of his wives. Genji loves her first as a stepmother, but later as a woman, and they fall in love with each other. Genji is frustrated by his forbidden love for the Lady Fujitsubo and is on bad terms with his own wife (Aoi no Ue, the Lady Aoi). He engages in a series of love affairs with many other women. These are however unfulfilling, as in most cases his advances are rebuffed, or his lover dies suddenly, or he becomes bored. Genji visits Kitayama, a rural hilly area north of Kyoto, where he finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl. He is fascinated by this little girl (Murasaki), and discovers that she is a niece of the Lady Fujitsubo. Finally he kidnaps her, brings her to his own palace and educates her to be like the Lady Fujitsubo, who is his womanly ideal. During this time Genji also meets Lady Fujitsubo secretly, and she bears his son, Reizei. Everyone except the two lovers believes the father of the child is the Emperor Kiritsubo. Later the boy becomes the Crown Prince and Lady Fujitsubo becomes the Empress, but Genji and Lady Fujitsubo swear to keep the child's true parentage secret. Genji and his wife, Lady Aoi, reconcile. She gives birth to a son but dies soon after. Genji is sorrowful but finds consolation in Murasaki, whom he marries. Genji's father, the Emperor Kiritsubo, dies. He is succeeded by his son Suzaku, whose mother (Kokiden), together with Kiritsubo's political enemies, take power in the court. Then another of Genji's secret love affairs is exposed: Genji and a concubine of the Emperor Suzaku are discovered while meeting in secret. The Emperor Suzaku confides his personal amusement at Genji's exploits with the woman (Oborozukiyo), but is duty-bound to punish Genji even though he is his half-brother. He exiles Genji to the town of Suma in rural Harima Province (now part of Kobe in Hyōgo Prefecture). There, a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice (because he is from Akashi in Settsu Province) entertains Genji, and Genji has an affair with Akashi's daughter. She gives birth to Genji's only daughter, who will later become the Empress. In the capital the Emperor Suzaku is troubled by dreams of his late father, Kiritsubo, and something begins to affect his eyes. Meanwhile, his mother, Kokiden, grows ill, which weakens her influence over the throne, and leads to the Emperor ordering Genji to be pardoned. Genji returns to Kyoto. His son by Lady Fujitsubo, Reizei, becomes the emperor. The new Emperor Reizei knows Genji is his real father, and raises Genji's rank to the highest possible. However, when Genji turns 40 years old, his life begins to decline. His political status does not change, but his love and emotional life begin to incrementally diminish as middle age takes hold. He marries another wife, the Third Princess (known as Onna san no miya in the Seidensticker version, or Nyōsan in Waley's). Genji's nephew, Kashiwagi, later forces himself on the Third Princess, and she bears Kaoru (who, in a similar situation to that of Reizei, is legally known as the son of Genji). Genji's new marriage changes his relationship with Murasaki, who had expressed her wish of becoming a nun (bikuni) though the wish was rejected by Genji. Genji's beloved Murasaki dies. In the following chapter, Maboroshi ("Illusion"), Genji contemplates how fleeting life is. Immediately after the chapter titled Maboroshi, there is a chapter titled Kumogakure ("Vanished into the Clouds"), which is left blank, but implies the death of Genji. Chapter 45–54 are known as the "Uji Chapters". These chapters follow Kaoru and his best friend, Niou. Niou is an imperial prince, the son of Genji's daughter, the current Empress now that Reizei has abdicated the throne, while Kaoru is known to the world as Genji's son but is in fact fathered by Genji's nephew. The chapters involve Kaoru and Niou's rivalry over several daughters of an imperial prince who lives in Uji, a place some distance away from the capital. The tale ends abruptly, with Kaoru wondering if Niou is hiding Kaoru's former lover away from him. Kaoru has sometimes been called the first anti-hero in literature. Completion The tale has an abrupt ending. Opinions vary on whether this was intended by the author. Arthur Waley, who made the first English translation of the whole of The Tale of Genji, believed that the work as we have it was finished. Ivan Morris, however, author of The World of the Shining Prince, believed that it was not complete and that later chapters were missing. Edward Seidensticker, who made the second translation of the Genji, believed that Murasaki Shikibu had not had a planned story structure with an ending as such but would simply have continued writing as long as she could. Literary context Because it was written to entertain the Japanese court of the 11th century, the work presents many difficulties to modern readers. First and foremost, Murasaki's language, Heian-period court Japanese, was highly inflected and had very complex grammar. Another problem is that naming people was considered rude in Heian court society, so none of the characters are named within the work. Instead, the narrator refers to men often by their rank or their station in life, and to women often by the color of their clothing, or by the words used at a meeting, or by the rank of a prominent male relative. This results in different appellations for the same character, depending on the chapter. Another aspect of the language is the importance of using poetry in conversations. Modifying or rephrasing a classic poem according to the current situation was expected behavior in Heian court life, and often served to communicate thinly veiled allusions. The poems in the Genji are often in the classic Japanese tanka form. Many of the poems were well known to the intended audience, so usually only the first few lines are given, and the reader is supposed to complete the thought themselves, leaving the rest – which the reader would be expected to know – unspoken. As with most Heian literature, Genji was written mostly in kana (Japanese phonetic script), specifically hiragana, and not in kanji. Writing in kanji was at the time a masculine pursuit. Women were generally discreet when using kanji, confining themselves mostly to native Japanese words (yamato kotoba). Outside of vocabulary related to politics and Buddhism, Genji contains remarkably few Chinese loan words (kango). This has the effect of giving the story a very even smooth flow. However it also introduces confusion: there are a number of homophones (words with the same pronunciation but different meanings); and for modern readers context is not always sufficient to determine which meaning was intended. Structure Outline The novel is traditionally divided into three parts, the first two dealing with the life of Genji and the last with the early years of two of Genji's prominent descendants, Niou and Kaoru. There are also several short transitional chapters which are usually grouped separately and whose authorships are sometimes questioned. Genji's rise and fall Youth, chapters 1–33: Love, romance, and exile Success and setbacks, chapters 34–41: A taste of power and the death of his beloved wife The transition (chapters 42–44): Very short episodes following Genji's death Uji, chapters 45–54: Genji's official and secret descendants, Niou and KaoruThe 54th and last chapter, "The Floating Bridge of Dreams", is sometimes argued by modern scholars to be a separate part from the Uji part. It seems to continue the story from the previous chapters but has an unusually abstract chapter title. It is the only chapter whose title has no clear reference within the text, although this may be due to the chapter being unfinished. This question is made more difficult by the fact that we do not know exactly when the chapters acquired their titles. List of chapters The English translations here are taken from the Arthur Waley, the Edward Seidensticker, the Royall Tyler, and the Dennis Washburn translations. It is not known for certain when the chapters acquired their titles. Early mentions of the Tale refer to chapter numbers, or contain alternate titles for some of the chapters. This may suggest that the titles were added later. The titles are largely derived from poetry that is quoted within the text, or allusions to various characters. The additional chapter between 41 and 42 in some manuscripts is called Kumogakure (雲隠) which means "Vanished into the Clouds"—the chapter is a title only, and is probably intended to evoke Genji's death. Some scholars have posited the earlier existence of a chapter between 1 and 2 which would have introduced some characters that seem to appear very abruptly in the book as it stands. The Waley translation completely omits the 38th chapter. Later authors have composed additional chapters, most often either between 41 and 42, or after the end. Manuscripts The original manuscript written by Murasaki Shikibu no longer exists. Numerous copies, totaling around 300 according to Ikeda Kikan, exist with differences between each. It is thought that Shikibu often went back and edited early manuscripts introducing discrepancies with earlier copies.The various manuscripts are classified into three categories: Kawachibon (河内本) Aobyōshibon (青表紙本) Beppon (別本)In the 13th century, two major attempts by Minamoto no Chikayuki and Fujiwara Teika were made to edit and revise the differing manuscripts. The Chikayuki manuscript is known as the Kawachibon; edits were many beginning in 1236 and completing in 1255. The Teika manuscript is known as the Aobyōshibon; its edits are more conservative and thought to better represent the original. These two manuscripts were used as the basis for many future copies. The Beppon category represents all other manuscripts not belonging to either Kawachibon or Aobyōshibon. This includes older but incomplete manuscripts, mixed manuscripts derived from both Kawachibon and Aobyōshibon, and commentaries. On March 10, 2008, it was announced that a late Kamakura period (1192–1333) manuscript had been found in Kyoto, containing the sixth chapter, Suetsumuhana; the manuscript was 65 pages in length. Most remaining manuscripts are based on copies of the Teika manuscript which introduced revisions in the original; this manuscript, however, belongs to a different lineage and was not influenced by Teika. Professor Yamamoto Tokurō, who examined the manuscript, said, "This is a precious discovery as Kamakura manuscripts are so rare." Professor Katō Yōsuke said, "This is an important discovery as it asserts that non-Teika manuscripts were being read during the Kamakura period." On October 29, 2008, Konan Women's University announced that a mid-Kamakura period manuscript had been found, containing the 32nd chapter, Umegae. The manuscript was recognized as the oldest extant copy of this chapter, dating to between 1240 and 1280. The manuscript, considered to be of the Beppon category, is 74 pages in length and differs from Aobyōshi manuscripts in at least four places, raising the "possibility that the contents may be closer to the undiscovered Murasaki Shikibu original manuscript".On October 9, 2019, it was announced that an original copy of Teika's Aobyōshibon had been found in Tokyo at the home of the current head of the Okochi-Matsudaira clan, who ran the Yoshida Domain. The manuscript is the 5th chapter, Wakamurasaki (若紫), and is the oldest version of the chapter. Blue ink common in Teika's manuscript and handwriting analysis confirmed that the manuscript was written by Teika, making it among the 5 original versions of the Aobyōshibon known to exist. Illustrated scrolls Numerous illustrations of scenes from Genji have been produced, most notably a 12th-century scroll, the Genji Monogatari Emaki, containing illustrated scenes from Genji together with handwritten sōgana text. This scroll is the earliest extant example of a Japanese "picture scroll": collected illustrations and calligraphy of a single work. The original scroll is believed to have comprised 10–20 rolls and covered all 54 chapters. The extant pieces include only 19 illustrations and 65 pages of text, plus nine pages of fragments. This is estimated at 15% of the envisioned original. The Tokugawa Art Museum in Nagoya has three of the scrolls handed down in the Owari branch of the Tokugawa clan and one scroll held by the Hachisuka family is now in the Gotoh Museum in Tokyo. The scrolls are designated National Treasures of Japan. The scrolls are so fragile that they normally are not shown in public. The original scrolls in the Tokugawa Museum were shown from November 21 to November 29 in 2009. Since 2001, they have been displayed in the Tokugawa Museum annually for around one week in November. An oversize English photoreproduction and translation was published in limited edition in 1971 by Kodansha International.Other notable illustrated scrolls of Genji are by Tosa Mitsuoki, who lived from 1617 to 1691. His paintings are closely based on Heian style from the existing scrolls from the 12th century and are fully complete. The tale was also a popular theme in ukiyo-e prints from the Edo period. Modern readership Japanese The Tale of Genji was written in an archaic court language, and a century after its completion it was difficult to read without specialized study. Annotated and illustrated versions existed as early as the 12th century. It was not until the early 20th century that Genji was translated into modern Japanese by the poet Akiko Yosano. Translations into modern Japanese have made it easier to read though changed some meaning, and has given names to the characters, usually the traditional names used by academics. This gives rise to anachronisms; for instance, Genji's first wife is named Aoi because she is known as the lady of the Aoi chapter, in which she dies. Other known translations were done by the novelists Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and Fumiko Enchi. Because of the cultural differences, reading an annotated version of the Genji is quite common, even among Japanese readers. There are several annotated versions by novelists, including Seiko Tanabe, Jakucho Setouchi and Osamu Hashimoto. Many works, including a manga series and different television dramas, are derived from The Tale of Genji. There have been at least five manga adaptations of Genji. A manga version was created by Waki Yamato, Asakiyumemishi (The Tale of Genji in English), and a current version by Sugimura Yoshimitsu is in progress. Another manga, Genji Monogatari, by Miyako Maki, won the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1989. Selected English translations The first partial translation of Genji into English was by Suematsu Kenchō, published in 1882. Arthur Waley published a six-volume translation of all but one chapter, with the first volume published in 1925 and the last in 1933. In 1976, Edward Seidensticker published the first complete translation into English, made using a self-consciously "stricter" approach with regards to content if not form. The English translation published in 2001 by Royall Tyler aims at fidelity in content and form to the original text.The major translations into English are each slightly different, mirroring the personal choices of the translator and the period in which the translation was made. Each version has its merits, its detractors and its advocates, and each is distinguished by the name of the translator. For example, the version translated by Arthur Waley would typically be referred to as "the Waley Genji". The Suematsu Genji (1882) – Suematsu's Genji was the first translation into English, but is considered of poor quality and is not often read today. It includes seventeen of the chapters. The Waley Genji (1925–1933) – Waley's Genji is considered a great achievement for his time, although some purists have criticized Waley's changes to the original. Others have criticized as overly-free the manner in which Waley translated the original text. Regardless, it continues to be well-appreciated and widely read today. When the Waley Genji was first published, it was eagerly received. For example, Time explained that "the reviewers' floundering tributes indicate something of its variegated appeal. In limpid prose The Tale combines curiously modern social satire with great charm of narrative. Translator Waley has done service to literature in salvaging to the Occident this masterpiece of the Orient." The translation omits the 38th chapter completely. The Seidensticker Genji (1976) – Seidensticker's Genji is an attempt to correct what were perceived to have been Waley's failings without necessarily making his translation obsolete. Seidensticker hews more closely to the original text, but in the interests of readability, he takes some liberties. For example, he identifies most of the characters by name so that the narrative can be more easily followed by a broad-based audience of Western readers. (In 2008, a 4,400-page Braille version of the Seidensticker Genji was completed. This Braille edition was the product of five Japanese housewives from Setagaya, Tokyo, working voluntarily for five years and was subsequently donated to the Japan Braille Library (日本点字図書館) and the Library of Congress. It is also available for download.) The McCullough Genji (1994) – A selection from ten chapters of The Tale of Genji along with selections from The Tale of the Heike, translated by Helen Craig McCullough for Stanford University Press. The Tyler Genji (2001) – Tyler's Genji contains more extensive explanatory footnotes and commentary than the previous translations, describing the numerous poetical allusions and cultural aspects of the tale. Tyler consciously attempted to mimic the original style in ways that the previous translations did not. For example, this version does not use names for most characters, identifying them instead by their titles in a manner which was conventional in the context of the 11th-century original text. Writing for The New York Times, reviewer Janice Nimura described it as "wonderfully evocative of the original, [but] can be difficult to follow". According to Michael Wood, Tyler's version "makes a special virtue of attending to a certain ceremonial indirectness in the way the characters address one another. The great temptation for a translator is to say the unsaid things, and Tyler never gives in to it." Machiko Midorikawa notes in a review of Genji translations that more recent translators from classical Japanese "have endeavoured to find ways of preserving more of what once seemed unfamiliar or strange to English readers". The Washburn Genji (2015) – Dennis Washburn's Genji separates the poems from the prose and puts interior thoughts in italics. The translation has been received slightly more controversially than Tyler's, with most criticism aimed at the perceived over-clarification of the text and addition of modern colloquialisms. Reception and legacy The Tale of Genji is an important work of Japanese literature, and modern authors have cited it as inspiration, such as Jorge Luis Borges who said of it, "The Tale of Genji, as translated by Arthur Waley, is written with an almost miraculous naturalness, and what interests us is not the exoticism—the horrible word—but rather the human passions of the novel. Such interest is just: Murasaki's work is what one would quite precisely call a psychological novel ... I dare to recommend this book to those who read me. The English translation that has inspired this brief insufficient note is called The Tale of Genji." It is noted for its internal consistency, psychological depiction, and characterization. The novelist Yasunari Kawabata said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "The Tale of Genji in particular is the highest pinnacle of Japanese literature. Even down to our day there has not been a piece of fiction to compare with it." The Genji is also often referred to as "the first novel", though there is considerable debate over this; other texts that predate Genji, such as the 7th-century Sanskrit Kādambari, or the Greek and Roman novels from classical antiquity, such as Daphnis and Chloe and the Satyricon, are considered to be novels, and there is debate around whether Genji can even be considered a "novel". Some consider the psychological insight, complexity and unity of the work to qualify it for "novel" status while simultaneously disqualifying earlier works of prose fiction. Others see these arguments as subjective and unconvincing. Related claims, perhaps in an attempt to sidestep these debates, are that Genji is the "first psychological novel" or "historical novel", "the first novel still considered to be a classic" or other more qualified terms. However, critics have almost consistently described The Tale of Genji as the oldest, first, and/or greatest novel in Japanese literature, though enthusiastic proponents may have later neglected the qualifying category of 'in Japanese literature', leading to the debates over the book's place in world literature. Even in Japan, the Tale of Genji is not universally embraced; the lesser-known Ochikubo Monogatari has been proposed as the "world's first full-length novel", even though its author is unknown. Despite these debates, The Tale of Genji enjoys solid respect among the works of literature, and its influence on Japanese literature has been compared to that of Philip Sidney's Arcadia on English literature.The novel and other works by Lady Murasaki are staple reading material in the curricula of Japanese schools. The Bank of Japan issued the 2000 yen banknote in her honor, featuring a scene from the novel based on the 12th-century illustrated handscroll. Since a 1 November 1008 entry in The Diary of Lady Murasaki is the oldest date on which a reference to The Tale of Genji has appeared, November 1 was designated as the official day to celebrate Japanese classics. According to Act on Classics Day, the "classics" that are honored not only include literature, but encompass a wide range of arts such as music, art, traditional performing arts, entertainment, lifestyle art including tea ceremony and flower arrangement and other cultural products.The names of the chapters became a central element in a incense-based game called Genjikō, part of the larger practice of Monkō popular among the nobility. In Genjikō, players must match the scents of a series of five incense samples without being told the names of said samples. Each possible combination was matched to a symbol, called a genji-mon, that represented a chapter from the story. Adaptations in other media 12th-century illustrated hand scroll, Genji Monogatari Emaki 1951 film The Tale of Genji by Kōzaburō Yoshimura 1966 film by Kon Ichikawa 1980 manga Asaki Yume Mishi by Waki Yamato 1981 theatre performance run by the Takarazuka Revue 1987 anime film The Tale of Genji by Gisaburō Sugii – covers only the first 12 chapters, while adding in some psychological motivation that is not explicit in the novel. 1987 film O Desejado 1989 theatre performance run by the Takarazuka Revue 1988 manga by Miyako Maki 2000 opera by Miki Minoru 2001 film Sennen no Koi Story of Genji 2009 anime series Genji Monogatari Sennenki by Osamu Dezaki 2011 film Genji Monogatari: Sennen no Nazo 2015 theatre performance run by the Takarazuka Revue; actress Asumi Rio received the Agency for Cultural Affairs Arts Festival award for her portrayal of Genji. See also The Pillow Book The Tale of Genji Museum Jūnihitoe, the layered, colour-coded robes worn by female members of the Imperial court Sudare Tales of Ise Ghost stories Hagiwara Hiromichi Yang Guifei You Xian Ku Bibliography Allen, James Sloan (2008). "How Beautiful, How Sad," in Worldly Wisdom: Great Books and the Meanings of Life. Savannah: Frederic C. Beil.Bargen, Doris G (June 1988). "Spirit Possession in the Context of Dramatic Expressions of Gender Conflict: The Aoi Episode of the Genji monogatari". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 48 (1): 95–130. doi:10.2307/2719274. JSTOR 2719274. Bargen, Doris G (June 1991). "The Search for Things Past in the Genji monogatari". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 51 (1): 199–232. doi:10.2307/2719245. JSTOR 2719245. Bargen, Doris G (1997). A Woman's Weapon : Spirit possession in the Tale of Genji. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. Bowring, Richard John (1988). Murasaki shikibu, The Tale of Genji. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Bryan, J. Ingram (1930). The Literature of Japan. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Childs, Margaret H (1999). "The value of vulnerability: Sexual coercion and the nature of love in japanese court of literature". Journal of Asian Studies. 58 (4): 1059–80. doi:10.2307/2658495. hdl:1808/16325. JSTOR 2658495. S2CID 161992068. Chisholm, Julianne Kaui (November 1994). "The Steel-belted Radial of Karma: The End of Genji". The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 28 (2): 183–93. doi:10.2307/489291. JSTOR 489291. De Wolf, Charles (2014). "Glimpses of Genji Through the Looking-Glass of Language". The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. fifth series, volume 6. D'Etcheverry, Charo B (2007). Love after The Tale of Genji : Rewriting the World of the Shining Prince. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Field, Norma (1987). The Splendor of Longing in the Tale of Genji. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Friday, Karl (Summer 1988). "Teeth and Claws. Provincial Warriors and the Heian Court". Monumenta Nipponica. 43 (2): 153–85. doi:10.2307/2384742. JSTOR 2384742. Gatten, Aileen (Spring 1977). "A Wisp of Smoke. Scent and Character in the Tale of Genji". Monumenta Nipponica. 32 (1): 35–48. doi:10.2307/2384070. JSTOR 2384070. Gatten, Aileen (June 1981). "The Order of the Early Chapters in the Genji monogatari". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 41 (1): 5–46. doi:10.2307/2718998. JSTOR 2718998. Gatten, Aileen (April 1986). "Weird Ladies: Narrative Strategy in the Genji monogatari". The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 21 (1): 29–48. doi:10.2307/489516. JSTOR 489516. Goff, Janet Emily (1991). Noh Drama and the Tale of Genji : The Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Henitiuk, Valerie (2008). "Going to Bed with Waley: How Murasaki Shikibu Does and Does Not Become World Literature". Comparative Literature Studies. 45 (1): 40–61. doi:10.1353/cls.0.0010. JSTOR 25659632. S2CID 161786027. Hirota, Akiko (Fall 1997). "The Tale of Genji: From Heian Classic to Heisei Comic". Journal of Popular Culture. 31 (2): 29–68. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1997.00029.x. Kamens, Edward B (1993). Approaches to Teaching Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. New York: Modern Language Association of America. Kato, Shuichi (1979). A History of Japanese Literature: The First Thousand Years. David Chibbett. New York: Kodansha International, Ltd. ISBN 0-87011-491-3. Knapp, Bettina L (Spring 1992). "Lady Murasaki Shikibu's the Tale of Genji: Search for the Mother". Symposium. 46 (1): 34–48. doi:10.1080/00397709.1992.10733759. Kornicki, P. F., "Unsuitable Books for Women? "Genji Monogatari" and "Ise Monogatari" in Late Seventeenth-Century Japan", Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer, 2005), pp. 147–93, Sophia University, JSTOR Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, ed. (1970). Introduction to Classic Japanese Literature. Greenwood Printing. ISBN 0-8371-3118-9. McCormick, Melissa (2003). "Genji Goes West: The 1510 "Genji Album" and the Visualization of Court and Capital". The Art Bulletin. 85 (1): 54–85. doi:10.2307/3177327. JSTOR 3177327. McCullough, William H (1967). "Japanese Marriage Institutions in the Heian Period". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 27: 103–67. doi:10.2307/2718385. JSTOR 2718385. Morris, Ivan I (1964). The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. New York: Kodansha International. Morris, Ivan I (1971). The Tale of Genji Scroll [Genji monogatari emaki]. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Mostow, Joshua S (Autumn 1992). "Painted Poems, Forgotten Words. Poem-Pictures and Classical Japanese Literature". Monumenta Nipponica. 47 (3): 323–46. doi:10.2307/2385102. JSTOR 2385102. Mostow, Joshua S (April 1999). ""Picturing" in The Tale of Genji". The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 33 (1): 1–25. doi:10.2307/489628. JSTOR 489628. Murase, Miyeko (1983). Iconography of the Tale of Genji : Genji monogatari ekotoba. New York: Weatherhill. Murase, Miyeko (2001). The Tale of Genji : Legends and Paintings. New York: G. Braziller. Nickerson, Peter (Winter 1993). "The Meaning of Matrilocality. Kinship, Property, and Politics in Mid-Heian". Monumenta Nipponica. 48 (4): 429–67. doi:10.2307/2385292. JSTOR 2385292. Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten: Kan'yakuban [A Comprehensive Dictionary of Classical Japanese Literature: Concise Edition]. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten. 1986. ISBN 4-00-080067-1. Okada, H. Richard (1991). Figures of Resistance : Language, Poetry, and Narrating in the Tale of Genji and Other Mid-Heian Texts. Durham: Duke University Press. Pekarik, Andrew (1982). Ukifune : Love in the tale of genji. New York: Columbia University Press. Puette, William J (1983). Guide to the Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle. ISBN 9780804814546. Rowley, Gillian Gaye (2000). Yosano Akiko and the Tale of Genji. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan. Seidensticker, Edward G. (1976). The Tale of Genji. Vol. 1. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-4-8053-0919-3. Seidensticker, Edward G. (1976). The Tale of Genji. Vol. 2. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-4-8053-0920-9. Sestili Daniele (1996). Musica e danza del principe Genji. Le arti dello spettacolo nell’antico Giappone. Lucca: LIM, Shirane, Haruo (December 1985). "The Aesthetics of Power: Politics in the Tale of Genji". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 45 (2): 615–47. doi:10.2307/2718974. JSTOR 2718974. Shirane, Haruo (1987). The Bridge of Dreams : A Poetics of the Tale of Genji. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Shirane, Haruo (2008). Envisioning the Tale of Genji: Media, Gender, and Cultural Production. New York: Columbia University Press. Stevenson and Ho, Barbara and Cynthia O (2000). Crossing the Bridge : Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers. New York: Palgrave. ISBN 9780312221676. Tyler, Royall (1999). "'I Am I': Genji and Murasaki". Monumenta Nipponica. 54 (4): 435–80. doi:10.2307/2668318. JSTOR 2668318. Tyler, Royall (2001). The Tale of Genji. New York: Viking. Tyler, Royall (March 2002). "Marriage, Rank and Rape in The Tale of Genji". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. 7. Tyler, Royall and Susan (2002). "The Possession of Ukifune". Asiatica Venetiana. 5: 177–209. Tyler, Royall (2003). "Rivalry, Triumph, Folly, Revenge: A Plot Line through the Tale of Genji". Journal of Japanese Studies. 29 (2): 251–87. Ury, Marian (1988). "A Heian Note on the Supernatural". The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese. 22 (2): 189–94. doi:10.2307/488941. JSTOR 488941. Lawrence, Hollendaisde (1958). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 14: Genji Monogatari 1 (in Japanese). Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-060014-1. Yoda, Tomiko (December 1999). "Fractured Dialogues: Mono no aware and Poetic Communication in the Tale of Genji". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. 59 (2): 523–57. doi:10.2307/2652721. JSTOR 2652721. The Tale of Genji – Oxford Text Archive A complete English translation of the work, free for non-commercial use, Edward G. Seidensticker's translation. The Tale of Genji, 1654 Library of Congress, Asian Division. The edition in the Library of Congress is a complete and well-preserved set including the complete main text (54 volumes) of Tale of Genji, also Meyasu (3 volumes, commentary on key words and phrases in the text, Keizu (genealogy), Yamaji no tsuyu (a sequel to the work by a later author), and Hikiuta (index). Japanese Literature – Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical Poetry and Drama of Japan Contains the 1882 Suematsu translation of the first 17 chapters of The Tale of Genji, with an introduction and notes. The Texts of Genji Monogatari Original text, romanized version, and modern Japanese translation of The Tale of Genji at the University of Virginia Library. Tale of the Genji woodcuts Woodcut illustrations and accompanying excerpts at the UNESCO Global Heritage Pavilion. The Picture Scroll of The Tale of Genji Some scans of the Genji Monogatari Emaki (Tale of Genji Scroll). Only about half of the images are from the twelfth-century scroll; they are the darker colored, more faded images. The Tale of Genji A photographic guide to The Tale of Genji. The Tale of Genji Audiobooks Japanese reading of 7 of 54 chapters from the original text, mp3 files. Japan Finance Minister Announces Kyoto Coin Design with The Tale of Genji Theme The Kyoto Prefecture commemorative coin set for release in October 2008 features a scene from The Tale of Genji. Carving of Picture Scroll of Genji monogatari Paper carvings by Noda Kazuko reproducing the 18 extant illustrations of the 13th-century Genji monogatari emaki. Ohmi Gallery A nice collection of Ukiyo-e and Shin-hanga, including illustrations of The Tale of Genji by such artists as Ebina Masao and Utagawa Kunisada. Tale of Genji Scroll 18th century anonymous artist Archived 19 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine Available at Dartmouth College, it covers the first 16 chapters of the tale. The Tale of Genji by Miyata Masayuki Paper cuts by renowned artist Miyata Masayuki. World Digital Library presentation of 源氏物語 Genji monogatari: Volume One, Kiritsubo. Library of Congress. Primary source moveable type book. 1596–1615, first printed edition of the world's first great novel. Genji Monogatari public domain audiobook at LibriVox Tale of Genji chapter summaries The Tale of Genji at Project Gutenberg

Du Fu (Chinese: 杜甫; Wade–Giles: Tu Fu; 712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. Along with his elder contemporary and friend Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest. Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire". Life Traditional Chinese literary criticism emphasised the life of the author when interpreting a work, a practice which the American scholar Burton Watson attributed to "the close links that traditional Chinese thought posits between art and morality". Since many of Du Fu's poems feature morality and history, this practice is particularly important. Another reason, identified by the Chinese historian William Hung, is that Chinese poems are typically concise, omitting context that might be relevant, but which an informed contemporary could be assumed to know. For modern Western readers, "The less accurately we know the time, the place and the circumstances in the background, the more liable we are to imagine it incorrectly, and the result will be that we either misunderstand the poem or fail to understand it altogether". Stephen Owen suggests a third factor particular to Du Fu, arguing that the variety of the poet's work required consideration of his whole life, rather than the "reductive" categorisations used for more limited poets. Early years Most of what is known of Du Fu's life comes from his poems. His paternal grandfather was Du Shenyan, a noted politician and poet during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian (r. 690–705). Du Fu was born in 712; the exact birthplace is unknown, except that it was near Luoyang, Henan province (Gong county is a favourite candidate). In later life, he considered himself to belong to the capital city of Chang'an, ancestral hometown of the Du family.Du Fu's mother died shortly after he was born, and he was partially raised by his aunt. He had an elder brother, who died young. He also had three half brothers and one half sister, to whom he frequently refers in his poems, although he never mentions his stepmother.The son of a minor scholar-official, his youth was spent on the standard education of a future civil servant: study and memorisation of the Confucian classics of philosophy, history and poetry. He later claimed to have produced creditable poems by his early teens, but these have been lost. In the early 730s, he travelled in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang area; his earliest surviving poem, describing a poetry contest, is thought to date from the end of this period, around 735. In that year, he took the Imperial examination, likely in Chang'an. He failed, to his surprise and that of centuries of later critics. Hung concludes that he probably failed because his prose style at the time was too dense and obscure, while Chou suggests his failure to cultivate connections in the capital may have been to blame. After this failure, he went back to travelling, this time around Shandong and Hebei.His father died around 740. Du Fu would have been allowed to enter the civil service because of his father's rank, but he is thought to have given up the privilege in favour of one of his half brothers. He spent the next four years living in the Luoyang area, fulfilling his duties in domestic affairs.In the autumn of 744, he met Li Bai (Li Po) for the first time, and the two poets formed a friendship. David Young describes this as "the most significant formative element in Du Fu's artistic development" because it gave him a living example of the reclusive poet-scholar life to which he was attracted after his failure in the civil service exam. The relationship was somewhat one-sided, however. Du Fu was by some years the younger, while Li Bai was already a poetic star. We have twelve poems to or about Li Bai from the younger poet, but only one in the other direction. They met again only once, in 745.In 746, he moved to the capital in an attempt to resurrect his official career. He took the civil service exam a second time during the following year, but all the candidates were failed by the prime minister (apparently in order to prevent the emergence of possible rivals). He never again attempted the examinations, instead petitioning the emperor directly in 751, 754 and probably again in 755. He married around 752, and by 757 the couple had had five children—three sons and two daughters—but one of the sons died in infancy in 755. From 754 he began to have lung problems (probably asthma), the first of a series of ailments which dogged him for the rest of his life. It was in that year that Du Fu was forced to move his family due to the turmoil of a famine brought about by massive floods in the region.In 755, he received an appointment as Registrar of the Right Commandant's office of the Crown Prince's Palace. Although this was a minor post, in normal times it would have been at least the start of an official career. Even before he had begun work, however, the position was swept away by events. War The An Lushan Rebellion began in December 755, and was not completely suppressed for almost eight years. It caused enormous disruption to Chinese society: the census of 754 recorded 52.9 million people, but ten years later, the census counted just 16.9 million, the remainder having been displaced or killed. During this time, Du Fu led a largely itinerant life unsettled by wars, associated famines and imperial displeasure. This period of unhappiness was the making of Du Fu as a poet: Eva Shan Chou has written that, "What he saw around him—the lives of his family, neighbors, and strangers– what he heard, and what he hoped for or feared from the progress of various campaigns—these became the enduring themes of his poetry". Even when he learned of the death of his youngest child, he turned to the suffering of others in his poetry instead of dwelling upon his own misfortunes. Du Fu wrote: Brooding on what I have lived through, if even I know such suffering, the common man must surely be rattled by the winds. In 756, Emperor Xuanzong was forced to flee the capital and abdicate. Du Fu, who had been away from the city, took his family to a place of safety and attempted to join the court of the new emperor (Suzong), but he was captured by the rebels and taken to Chang'an. In the autumn, his youngest son, Du Zongwu (Baby Bear), was born. Around this time Du Fu is thought to have contracted malaria.He escaped from Chang'an the following year, and was appointed Reminder when he rejoined the court in May 757. This post gave access to the emperor but was largely ceremonial. Du Fu's conscientiousness compelled him to try to make use of it: he caused trouble for himself by protesting the removal of his friend and patron Fang Guan on a petty charge. He was arrested but was pardoned in June. He was granted leave to visit his family in September, but he soon rejoined the court and on 8 December 757, he returned to Chang'an with the emperor following its recapture by government forces. However, his advice continued to be unappreciated, and in the summer of 758 he was demoted to a post as Commissioner of Education in Huazhou. The position was not to his taste: in one poem, he wrote: He moved on in the summer of 759; this has traditionally been ascribed to famine, but Hung believes that frustration is a more likely reason. He next spent around six weeks in Qinzhou (now Tianshui, Gansu province), where he wrote more than sixty poems. Chengdu In December 759, he briefly stayed in Tonggu (modern Gansu). He departed on 24 December for Chengdu (Sichuan province), where he was hosted by local Prefect and fellow poet Pei Di. Du subsequently based himself in Sichuan for most of the next five years. By the autumn of that year he was in financial trouble, and sent poems begging help to various acquaintances. He was relieved by Yan Wu, a friend and former colleague who was appointed governor general at Chengdu. Despite his financial problems, this was one of the happiest and most peaceful periods of his life. Many of Du's poems from this period are peaceful depictions of his life at Du Fu Thatched Cottage. In 762, he left the city to escape a rebellion, but he returned in summer 764 when he was appointed an advisor to Yan, who was involved in campaigns against the Tibetan Empire. Last years Luoyang, the region of his birthplace, was recovered by government forces in the winter of 762, and in the spring of 765 Du Fu and his family sailed down the Yangtze, apparently with the intention of making their way there. They travelled slowly, held up by his ill-health (by this time he was suffering from poor eyesight, deafness and general old age in addition to his previous ailments). They stayed in Kuizhou (in what is now Baidicheng, Chongqing) at the entrance to the Three Gorges for almost two years from late spring 766. This period was Du Fu's last great poetic flowering, and here he wrote 400 poems in his dense, late style. In autumn 766, Bo Maolin became governor of the region: he supported Du Fu financially and employed him as his unofficial secretary.In March 768, he resumed his journey and got as far as Hunan province, where he died in Tanzhou (now Changsha) in November or December 770, in his 58th year. He was survived by his wife and two sons, who remained in the area for some years at least. His last known descendant is a grandson who requested a grave inscription for the poet from Yuan Zhen in 813.Hung summarises his life by concluding that, "He appeared to be a filial son, an affectionate father, a generous brother, a faithful husband, a loyal friend, a dutiful official, and a patriotic subject."Below is an example of one of Du Fu's later works, "To My Retired Friend Wei" (Zēng Wèi Bā Chǔshì 贈衛八處士). Like many other poems in the Tang it featured the theme of a long parting between friends, which was often due to officials being frequently transferred to the provinces: Health Du Fu is the first person in the historical record identified as a diabetic patient. In his later years, he suffered from diabetes and pulmonary tuberculosis, and died on board a ship on the Yangtze River, aged 58 years old. Works Criticism of Du Fu's works has focused on his strong sense of history, his moral engagement, and his technical excellence. History Since the Song dynasty, critics have called Du Fu the "poet saint" (詩聖, shī shèng). The most directly historical of his poems are those commenting on military tactics or the successes and failures of the government, or the poems of advice which he wrote to the emperor. Indirectly, he wrote about the effect of the times in which he lived on himself, and on the ordinary people of China. As Watson notes, this is information "of a kind seldom found in the officially compiled histories of the era".Du Fu's political comments are based on emotion rather than calculation: his prescriptions have been paraphrased as, "Let us all be less selfish, let us all do what we are supposed to do". Since his views were impossible to disagree with, his forcefully expressed truisms enabled his installation as the central figure of Chinese poetic history. Moral engagement A second favourite epithet of Chinese critics is that of "poet sage" (詩聖, shī shèng), a counterpart to the philosophical sage, Confucius. One of the earliest surviving works, The Song of the Wagons (from around 750), gives voice to the sufferings of a conscript soldier in the imperial army and a clear-sighted consciousness of suffering. These concerns are continuously articulated in poems on the lives of both soldiers and civilians produced by Du Fu throughout his life.Although Du Fu's frequent references to his own difficulties can give the impression of an all-consuming solipsism, Hawkes argues that his "famous compassion in fact includes himself, viewed quite objectively and almost as an afterthought". He therefore "lends grandeur" to the wider picture by comparing it to "his own slightly comical triviality".Du Fu's compassion, for himself and for others, was part of his general broadening of the scope of poetry: he devoted many works to topics which had previously been considered unsuitable for poetic treatment. Zhang Jie wrote that for Du Fu, "everything in this world is poetry", Du wrote extensively on subjects such as domestic life, calligraphy, paintings, animals, and other poems. Technical excellence Du Fu's work is notable above all for its range. Chinese critics traditionally used the term 集大成 (jídàchéng, "complete symphony"), a reference to Mencius' description of Confucius. Yuan Zhen was the first to note the breadth of Du Fu's achievement, writing in 813 that his predecessor "united in his work traits which previous men had displayed only singly". He mastered all the forms of Chinese poetry: Chou says that in every form he "either made outstanding advances or contributed outstanding examples". Furthermore, his poems use a wide range of registers, from the direct and colloquial to the allusive and self-consciously literary. This variety is manifested even within individual works: Owen identifies the, "rapid stylistic and thematic shifts" in poems which enable the poet to represent different facets of a situation, while Chou uses the term "juxtaposition" as the major analytical tool in her work. Du Fu is noted for having written more on poetics and painting than any other writer of his time. He wrote eighteen poems on painting alone, more than any other Tang poet. Du Fu's seemingly negative commentary on the prized horse paintings of Han Gan ignited a controversy that has persisted to the present day.The tenor of his work changed as he developed his style and adapted to his surroundings ("chameleon-like" according to Watson): his earliest works are in a relatively derivative, courtly style, but he came into his own in the years of the rebellion. Owen comments on the "grim simplicity" of the Qinzhou poems, which mirrors the desert landscape; the works from his Chengdu period are "light, often finely observed"; while the poems from the late Kuizhou period have a "density and power of vision".Although he wrote in all poetic forms, Du Fu is best known for his lüshi, a type of poem with strict constraints on form and content, for example: About two-thirds of Du Fu's 1500 extant works are in this form, and he is generally considered to be its leading exponent. His best lǜshi use the parallelisms required by the form to add expressive content rather than as mere technical restrictions. Hawkes comments that "it is amazing that Tu Fu is able to use so immensely stylized a form in so natural a manner". Influence According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Du Fu's writings are considered by many literary critics to be among the greatest of all time, and it states "his dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation can ever reveal."In his lifetime and immediately following his death, Du Fu was not greatly appreciated. In part this can be attributed to his stylistic and formal innovations, some of which are still "considered extremely daring and bizarre by Chinese critics." There are few contemporary references to him—only eleven poems from six writers—and these describe him in terms of affection, but not as a paragon of poetic or moral ideals. Du Fu is also poorly represented in contemporary anthologies of poetry.However, as Hung notes, he "is the only Chinese poet whose influence grew with time", and his works began to increase in popularity in the ninth century. Early positive comments came from Bai Juyi, who praised the moral sentiments of some of Du Fu's works (although he found these in only a small fraction of the poems), and from Han Yu, who wrote a piece defending Du Fu and Li Bai on aesthetic grounds from attacks made against them. Both these writers showed the influence of Du Fu in their own poetic work. By the beginning of the 10th century, Wei Zhuang constructed the first replica of his thatched cottage in Sichuan.It was in the 11th century, during the Northern Song era that Du Fu's reputation reached its peak. In this period a comprehensive re-evaluation of earlier poets took place, in which Wang Wei, Li Bai and Du Fu came to be regarded as representing respectively the Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian strands of Chinese culture. At the same time, the development of Neo-Confucianism ensured that Du Fu, as its poetic exemplar, occupied the paramount position. Su Shi famously expressed this reasoning when he wrote that Du Fu was "preeminent ... because ... through all his vicissitudes, he never for the space of a meal forgot his sovereign". His influence was helped by his ability to reconcile apparent opposites: political conservatives were attracted by his loyalty to the established order, while political radicals embraced his concern for the poor. Literary conservatives could look to his technical mastery, while literary radicals were inspired by his innovations. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, Du Fu's loyalty to the state and concern for the poor have been interpreted as embryonic nationalism and socialism, and he has been praised for his use of simple, "people's language".Du Fu's popularity grew to such an extent that it is as hard to measure his influence as that of Shakespeare in England: it was hard for any Chinese poet not to be influenced by him. While there was never another Du Fu, individual poets followed in the traditions of specific aspects of his work: Bai Juyi's concern for the poor, Lu You's patriotism, and Mei Yaochen's reflections on the quotidian are a few examples. More broadly, Du Fu's work in transforming the lǜshi from mere word play into "a vehicle for serious poetic utterance" set the stage for every subsequent writer in the genre. In its publishing of Burton Watson's translation of Du Fu's poems, the Columbia University Press commented that Du Fu "has been called China's greatest poet, and some call him the greatest nonepic, nondramatic poet whose writings survive in any language." Influence on Japanese literature Du Fu's poetry has made a profound impact on Japanese literature, especially on the literature from the Muromachi period and on scholars and poets in the Edo period, including Matsuo Bashō, the very greatest of all haiku poets. Even in modern Japanese, the term Saint of Poetry (詩聖, shisei) is mostly synonymous with Du Fu.Until the 13th century, the Japanese preferred Bai Juyi above all poets and there were few references to Du Fu, although his influence can be seen in some kanshi ("Chinese poetry made by Japanese poets") anthologies such as Bunka Shūreishū in the 9th century. The first notable Japanese appreciator of Du Fu's poetry was Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), a Rinzai Zen patriarch and one of the most prominent authors of the literature of the Five Mountains; he highly praised Du Fu and made a commentary on some poems of Du Fu from the perspective of a Zen priest in Vol. 11 of Saihokushū. His student Chūgan Engetsu composed many kanshi which were clearly stated to be "influenced by Du Fu" in their prefaces. Chūgan's student Gidō Shūshin had close connection with the Court and Ashikaga Shogunate and propagated Du Fu's poetry in the mundane world; one day Nijō Yoshimoto, the Kampaku regent of the Court and the highest authority of renga poetry, asked Gidō, "Should I learn the poetry of Du Fu and Li Bai?" Gidō dared to reply, "Yes if you do have enough capability. No if do not." Since then, there had been many seminars on Du Fu's poetry both in Zen temples and in the aristocratic society, and as a result his poetry was often cited in Japanese literature in the Muromachi period, e.g., Taiheiki, a historical epic in the late 14th century, and some noh plays such as Hyakuman, Bashō, and Shunkan.During the Kan'ei era of the Edo period (1624–1643), Shào Chuán (邵傳) of the Ming Dynasty's Collective Commentary on Du Fu's Lǜshi (杜律集解, Toritsu Shikkai) was imported into Japan, and it gained explosive popularity in Confucian scholars and chōnin (townspeople) class. The commentary established Du Fu's fame as the highest of all poets; for instance, Hayashi Shunsai, a notable Confucian scholar, commented in Vol. 37 of Gahō Bunshū that Zǐměi [Du Fu] was the very best poet in history and praised Shào Chuán's commentary for its simplicity and readability, while he criticised old commentaries during the Yuan Dynasty as too unfathomable. Matsuo Bashō, the greatest haiku poet, was also strongly influenced by Du Fu; in Oku no Hosomichi, his masterpiece, he cites the first two lines of A Spring View (春望) before a haiku as its introduction and also many of his other haiku have similar wording and themes. It is said that when he died in Osaka during a long travel, a copy of Du Fu's poetry was found with him as one of a few precious items which he was able to carry around. Translation A variety of styles have been used in efforts to translate Du Fu's work into English. As Burton Watson remarks in The Selected Poems of Du Fu, "There are many different ways to approach the problems involved in translating Du Fu, which is why we need as many different translations as possible" (p. xxii). The translators have had to contend with bringing out the formal constraints of the original without sounding laboured to a Western ear (particularly when translating regulated verse, or lǜshi), and accommodating the complex allusions contained particularly in the later works (Hawkes writes that "his poems do not as a rule come through very well in translation"—p. ix). One extreme on each issue is represented by Kenneth Rexroth's One Hundred Poems From the Chinese. His are free translations, which seek to conceal the parallelisms through enjambement and expansion and contraction of the content; his responses to the allusions are firstly to omit most of these poems from his selection, and secondly to "translate out" the references in those works which he does select. Other translators have placed much greater weight on trying to convey a sense of the poetic forms used by Du Fu. Vikram Seth in Three Chinese Poets uses English-style rhyme schemes, whereas Keith Holyoak in Facing the Moon approximates the Chinese rhyme scheme; both use end-stopped lines and preserve some degree of parallelism. In The Selected Poems of Du Fu, Burton Watson follows the parallelisms quite strictly, persuading the western reader to adapt to the poems rather than vice versa. Similarly, he deals with the allusion of the later works by combining literal translation with extensive annotation. Arthur Cooper also translated selected poems of Du Fu and Li Bai, which were published under the Penguin Classics imprint. David Hinton has also published selected poems for New Directions, first in 1989 followed by an expanded and revised edition in 2020. In 2015, Stephen Owen published annotated translations, with facing Chinese texts, of the complete poetry of Du Fu in six volumes. See also "Autumn Day in Kui Prefecture" Classical Chinese poetry Simians (Chinese poetry) Tang Dynasty art Tang poetry Three perfections – integration of calligraphy, poetry and painting Du Fu Thatched Cottage Du Fu River Pavilion Bibliography Cai, Guoying; (1975). Chinese Poems with English Translation. 正中書局. Chang, H. C. (1977). Chinese Literature 2: Nature Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04288-4 Ch'en Wen-hua. T'ang Sung tzu-liao k'ao. Chou, Eva Shan; (1995). Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44039-4. Cooper, Arthur (translator); (1986). Li Po and Tu Fu: Poems. Viking Press. ISBN 0-14-044272-3. Davis, Albert Richard; (1971). Tu Fu. Twayne Publishers. Ebrey, Walthall, Palais, (2006). East Asia: A Cultural, Social, and Political History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1999). The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-66991-X (paperback). Hawkes, David; (2016). A Little Primer of Tu Fu. New York Review Books, revised ed., ISBN 978-9629966591. Hinton, David (translator); (2019). The selected poems of Tu Fu. New York : New Directions Publishing. ISBN 9780811228381 Holyoak, Keith (translator); (2007). Facing the Moon: Poems of Li Bai and Du Fu. Durham, NH: Oyster River Press. ISBN 978-1-882291-04-5 Hsieh, Daniel; (1994). "Du Fu's 'Gazing at the Mountain'". Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews. 1–18. Hung, William; (1952). Tu Fu: China's Greatest Poet. Harvard University Press. Kizer, Carolyn; (1964). "Versions from Tu Fu". The Hudson Review. Vol. 17, No. 2. 226–230. Lee, Joseph J; (1970). "Tu Fu's Art Criticism and Han Kan's Horse Painting". Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 90, No. 3. 449–461. McCraw, David; (1992). Du Fu's Laments from the South. University of Hawaii Press ISBN 0-8248-1422-3 Owen, Stephen; (1981). The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T'ang. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02367-7. Owen, Stephen (editor); (1997). An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-97106-6. Owen, Stephen (2015). The Poetry of Du Fu. Warsaw; Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 9781614517122. Complete English translation. Open Access Rexroth, Kenneth (translator); (1971). One Hundred Poems From the Chinese. New Directions Press. ISBN 0-8112-0180-5. Seth, Vikram (translator); (1992). Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, Li Bai, and Du Fu. Faber & Faber. ISBN 0-571-16653-9 Schmidt, Jerry Dean; (2003). Harmony Garden. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1525-1 Suzuki, Torao and Yoichi Kurokawa; (1966) (in Japanese) Poetry of Du Fu, Vol. 8 (杜詩 第八冊, Toshi Dai-hassatsu). Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 978-4-00-200305-4. Watson, Burton (editor); (1984). The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-05683-4. Watson, Burton (translator); (2002). The Selected Poems of Du Fu. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12829-0 Yao, Dan and Li, Ziliang (2006). Chinese Literature. 五洲传播出版社. ISBN 978-7-5085-0979-2. Young, David (translator); (2008). Du Fu: A Life in Poetry. Random House. ISBN 0-375-71160-0 Further reading Motsch, Monika. "Slow Poison or Magic Carpet: The Du Fu Translations by Erwin Ritter von Zach." (Archive) In: Alleton, Vivianne and Michael Lackner (editors). De l'un au multiple: traductions du chinois vers les langues européennes Translations from Chinese into European Languages. Éditions de la maison des sciences de l'homme (Les Editions de la MSH, FR), 1999, Paris. p. 100–111. ISBN 2-7351-0768-X, 9782735107681. McMullen, David L. "Recollection without Tranquility: Du Fu, the Imperial Gardens, and the State." (Archive) Asia Major (FR), vol. 14–2, 2001. p. 189–252. Owen, Stephen [translator & editor], Warner, Ding Xiang [editor], Kroll, Paul [editor] (2016). The Poetry of Du Fu . De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-1-5015-0189-0 Works by or about Du Fu at Wikisource Du Fu's poems included in 300 Selected Tang poems, translated by Witter Bynner Du Fu: Poems A collection of Du Fu's poetry by multiple translators. Du Fu in English at Poems Found in Translation Du Fu at Curlie Du Fu's poems organised roughly by date written; shows both simplified and traditional characters Works by or about Du Fu at Internet Archive Works by Du Fu at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Works by Du Fu at Open Library Books of the Quan Tangshi that include collected poems of Du Fu at the Chinese Text Project: Book 216, Book 217, Book 218, Book 219, Book 220, Book 221, Book 222, Book 223, Book 224, Book 225, Book 226, Book 227, Book 228, Book 229, Book 230, Book 231, Book 232, Book 233, Book 234

Zheng He (simplified Chinese: 郑和; traditional Chinese: 鄭和; pinyin: Zhènghé; Wade–Giles: Chêng-ho; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty, and often regarded as the greatest admiral in Chinese history. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by the Yongle Emperor. Commissioned by the Yongle Emperor and later the Xuande Emperor, Zheng commanded seven expeditionary treasure voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and East Africa from 1405 to 1433. According to legend, his larger ships carried hundreds of sailors on four decks and were almost twice as long as any wooden ship ever recorded. As a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whom Zheng assisted in the overthrow of the Jianwen Emperor, he rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing. Early life and family Zheng He was born Ma He (馬和) to a Muslim family of Kunyang, Kunming, Yunnan, then under the rule of the Principality of Liang loyal to the Northern Yuan dynasty. He had an older brother and four sisters.Zheng He's religious beliefs were eclectic in his adulthood. The Liujiagang and Changle inscriptions suggest that devotion to Tianfei, the patron goddess of sailors and seafarers, was the dominant faith to which he adhered, reflecting the goddess's central role to the treasure fleet. John Guy mentions, "When Zheng He, the Muslim eunuch leader of the great expeditions to the 'Western Ocean' (Indian Ocean) in the early fifteenth century, embarked on his voyages, it was from the Divine Woman that he sought protection, as well as at the tombs of the Muslim saints on Lingshan Hill, above the city of Quanzhou."Zheng He was a great-great-great-grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, who served in the administration of the Mongol Empire and was the governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan dynasty. His great-grandfather Bayan may have been stationed at a Mongol garrison in Yunnan. Zheng He's grandfather carried the title hajji, and his father had the sinicized surname Ma and the title hajji, which suggests that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.In the autumn of 1381, a Ming army invaded and conquered Yunnan, which was then ruled by the Mongol prince Basalawarmi, Prince of Liang. In 1381, Ma Hajji, Zheng He's father, died in the fighting between the Ming armies and Mongol forces. Dreyer states that Zheng He's father died at 39 while he resisted the Ming conquest, while Levathes states that Zheng He's father died at 37, but it is unclear if he was helping the Mongol Army or was just caught in the onslaught of battle. Wenming, the oldest son, buried their father outside Kunming. In his capacity as Admiral, Zheng He had an epitaph engraved in honour of his father, composed by the Minister of Rites Li Zhigang on the Duanwu Festival of the third year in the Yongle era (1 June 1405). Capture, castration and service Zheng He was captured by the Ming armies at Yunnan in 1381. General Fu Youde saw Ma He on a road and approached him to inquire about the location of the Mongol pretender. Ma He responded defiantly by saying that the Mongol pretender had jumped into a lake. Afterwards, the general took him prisoner. He was castrated at some point between the age of 10 and 14, and was placed in the service of the Prince of Yan.Ma He was sent to serve in the household of Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, who later became the Yongle Emperor. Zhu Di was eleven years older than Ma. Enslaved as a eunuch servant, Ma He eventually gained the confidence of Zhu Di, who, as his benefactor, would gain the allegiance and loyalty of the young eunuch. Since 1380, the prince had been governing Beiping (later Beijing), which was near the northern frontier, with hostile Mongol tribes. Ma would spend his early life as a soldier on the northern frontier. He often participated in Zhu Di's military campaigns against the Mongols. On 2 March 1390, Ma accompanied the Prince when he commanded his first expedition, which was a great victory, as the Mongol commander Naghachu surrendered as soon as he realized he had fallen for a deception. Eventually, he gained the confidence and trust of the prince. Ma was also known as "Sanbao" during his service in the household of the Prince of Yan. This name was a reference to the Buddhist Three Jewels (三寶; Sānbǎo, also known as triratna). This name could also be written 三保; Sānbǎo, literally "Three Protections." Ma received a proper education at Beiping, which he would not have had if he had been placed in the imperial capital, Nanjing, as the Hongwu Emperor did not trust eunuchs and believed that it was better to keep them illiterate. The Hongwu Emperor purged and exterminated many of the original Ming leadership and gave his enfeoffed sons more military authority, especially those in the north, like the Prince of Yan. Adulthood and military career Zheng He's appearance as an adult was recorded: he was seven chi tall, had a waist that was five chi in circumference, cheeks and a forehead that was high, a small nose, glaring eyes, teeth that were white and well-shaped as shells, and a voice that was as loud as a bell. It is also recorded that he had great knowledge about warfare and was well-accustomed to battle.The young eunuch eventually became a trusted adviser to the prince and assisted him when the Jianwen Emperor's hostility to his uncle's feudal bases prompted the 1399–1402 Jingnan Campaign, which ended with the emperor's apparent death and the ascension of Zhu Di, Prince of Yan, as the Yongle Emperor. In 1393, the Crown Prince had died, thus the deceased prince's son became the new heir apparent. By the time the emperor died (24 June 1398), the Prince of Qin and the Prince of Jin had perished, which left Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, as the eldest surviving son of the emperor. However, Zhu Di's nephew succeeded the imperial throne as the Jianwen Emperor. In 1398, he issued a policy known as xuēfān (削藩), or "reducing the feudatories", which entails eliminating all princes by stripping their power and military forces. In August 1399, Zhu Di openly rebelled against his nephew. In 1399, Ma He successfully defended Beiping's city reservoir Zhenglunba against the imperial armies. In January 1402, Zhu Di began with his military campaign to capture the imperial capital Nanjing. Zheng He would be one of his commanders during that campaign.In 1402, Zhu Di's armies defeated the imperial forces and marched into Nanjing on 13 July 1402. Zhu Di accepted the elevation to emperor four days later. After ascending the throne as the Yongle Emperor, Zhu Di promoted Ma He as the Grand Director (太監, tàijiān) of the Directorate of Palace Servants (内宫監). During the Chinese New Year on 11 February 1404, the Yongle Emperor conferred the surname "Zheng" to Ma He, because he had distinguished himself defending the city reservoir Zhenglunba against imperial forces in the Siege of Beiping of 1399. Another reason was that the eunuch commander also distinguished himself during the 1402 campaign to capture the capital, Nanjing.In the new administration, Zheng He served in the highest posts as Grand Director and later as Chief Envoy (正使; zhèngshǐ) during his sea voyages. Over the next three decades he conducted seven of the voyages on behalf of the emperor of trading and collecting tribute in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. In 1424, Zheng He traveled to Palembang in Sumatra to confer an official seal and letter of appointment upon Shi Jisun, who was placed in the office of Pacification Commissioner. The Taizong Shilu 27 February 1424 entry reports that Shi Jisun had sent Qiu Yancheng as envoy to petition the approval of the succession from his father Shi Jinqing, who was the Pacification Commissioner of Palembang, and was given permission from the Yongle Emperor. On 7 September 1424, Zhu Gaozhi had inherited the throne as the Hongxi Emperor after the death of the Yongle Emperor on 12 August 1424. When Zheng He returned from Palembang, he found that the Yongle Emperor had died during his absence.On 7 September 1424, the Hongxi Emperor terminated the undertaking of further treasure voyages. On 24 February 1425, he appointed Zheng He as the defender of Nanjing and ordered him to continue his command over the treasure fleet for the city's defense. On 25 March 1428, the Xuande Emperor ordered Zheng He and others to take over the supervision for the rebuilding and repair of the Great Bao'en Temple at Nanjing. He completed the construction of the temple in 1431.On 15 May 1426, the Xuande Emperor ordered the Directorate of Ceremonial to send a letter to Zheng He to reprimand him for a transgression. Earlier, an official petitioned the emperor to reward workmen who had built temples in Nanjing. The Xuande Emperor responded negatively to the official for placing the costs to the court instead of the monks themselves, but he realized that Zheng He and his associates had instigated the official. According to Dreyer (2007), the nature of the emperor's words indicated that Zheng He's behaviour in the situation was the last straw, but there is too little information about what had happened earlier. Nevertheless, the Xuande Emperor would eventually come to trust Zheng He.In 1430, the new Xuande Emperor appointed Zheng He to command over a seventh and final expedition into the "Western Ocean" (Indian Ocean). In 1431, Zheng He was bestowed with the title Sanbao Taijian (三寶太監), using his informal name Sanbao and the title of Grand Director. Expeditions The Yuan dynasty and the expanding Sino-Arab trade during the 14th century had gradually expanded Chinese knowledge of the world since "universal" maps previously displaying only China and its surrounding seas began to expand farther and farther southwest, with much more accurate depictions of the extent of Arabia and Africa. Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored seven naval expeditions. The Yongle Emperor, disregarding the Hongwu Emperor's expressed wishes, designed them to establish a Chinese presence and impose imperial control over the Indian Ocean trade, impress foreign peoples in the Indian Ocean basin, and extend the empire's tributary system. It has also been inferred from passages in the History of Ming that the initial voyages were launched as part of the emperor's attempt to capture his escaped predecessor, which would have made the first voyage the "largest-scale manhunt on water in the history of China."Zheng He was placed as the admiral in control of the huge fleet and armed forces that undertook the expeditions. Wang Jinghong was appointed as second in command. Preparations were thorough and wide-ranging, including the use of so many linguists that a foreign language institute was established at Nanjing. Zheng He's first voyage departed 11 July 1405, from Suzhou: 203  and consisted of a fleet of 317 ships holding almost 28,000 crewmen.Zheng He's fleets visited Brunei, Java, Siam (Thailand), Southeast Asia, India, the Horn of Africa, and Arabia, dispensing and receiving goods along the way. Zheng He presented gifts of gold, silver, porcelain, and silk, and in return, China received such novelties as ostriches, zebras, camels, and ivory from the Swahili Coast.: 206  The giraffe that he brought back from Malindi was considered to be a qilin and taken as proof of the Mandate of Heaven upon the administration. The Daxuexi Alley Mosque in Xi'an has a stele dating to January 1523, inscribed with Zheng He's the fourth maritime voyage to Tianfang, Arabian Peninsula. While Zheng He's fleet was unprecedented, the routes were not. His fleet followed long-established, well-mapped routes of trade between China and the Arabian Peninsula that had been used since at least the Han dynasty. That fact, along with the use of a more-than-abundant number of crew members who were regular military personnel, leads some to speculate that the expeditions may have been geared at least partially at spreading China's power through expansion. During the Three Kingdoms Period, the king of Wu sent a 20-year diplomatic mission led by Zhu Ying and Kang Tai along the coast of Asia, which reached as far as the Eastern Roman Empire. After centuries of disruption, the Song dynasty restored large-scale maritime trade from China in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans and reached as far as the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. When his fleet first arrived at Malacca, there was already a sizable Chinese community. The General Survey of the Ocean Shores (瀛涯勝覽, Yíngyá Shènglǎn), composed by the translator Ma Huan in 1416, gives very detailed accounts of his observations of people's customs and lives in the ports that they visited. He referred to the expatriate Chinese as "Tang" people (唐人; Tángrén). Zheng He generally sought to attain his goals through diplomacy, and his large army awed most would-be enemies into submission. However, a contemporary reported that Zheng He "walked like a tiger" and did not shrink from violence when he considered it necessary to impress foreign peoples with China's military might. He ruthlessly suppressed pirates, who had long plagued Chinese and Southeast Asian waters. For example, he defeated Chen Zuyi, one of the most feared and respected pirate captains, and returned him to China for execution. He also waged a land war against the Kingdom of Kotte on Ceylon, and he made displays of military force when local officials threatened his fleet in Arabia and East Africa. From his fourth voyage, he brought envoys from 30 states, who traveled to China and paid their respects at the Ming court.In 1424, the Yongle Emperor died. His successor, the Hongxi Emperor (r. 1424–1425), stopped the voyages during his short reign. Zheng He made one more voyage during the reign of Hongxi's son, the Xuande Emperor (r. 1426–1435) but, the voyages of the Chinese treasure ship fleets then ended. Xuande believed his father's decision to halt the voyages had been meritorious and thus "there would be no need to make a detailed description of his grandfather's sending Zheng He to the Western Ocean." The voyages "were contrary to the rules stipulated in the Huang Ming Zuxun" (皇明祖訓), the dynastic foundation documents laid down by the Hongwu Emperor: Some far-off countries pay their tribute to me at much expense and through great difficulties, all of which are by no means my own wish. Messages should be forwarded to them to reduce their tribute so as to avoid high and unnecessary expenses on both sides. They further violated longstanding Confucian principles. They were only made possible by (and therefore continued to represent) a triumph of the Ming's eunuch faction over the administration's scholar-bureaucrats. Upon Zheng He's death and his faction's fall from power, his successors sought to minimize him in official accounts, along with continuing attempts to destroy all records related to the Jianwen Emperor or the manhunt to find him.Although unmentioned in the official dynastic histories, Zheng He probably died during the treasure fleet's last voyage. Although he has a tomb in China, it is empty since he was buried at sea. Zheng He led seven expeditions to the "Western" or Indian Ocean. Zheng He brought back to China many trophies and envoys from more than thirty kingdoms, including King Vira Alakeshwara of Ceylon, who came to China as a captive to apologize to the Emperor for offenses against his mission. Zheng He wrote of his travels: We have traversed more than 100,000 li of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly] as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare.... Sailing charts Zheng He's sailing charts, the Mao Kun map, were published in a book entitled the Wubei Zhi (A Treatise on Armament Technology) written in 1621 and published in 1628 but traced back to Zheng He's and earlier voyages. It was originally a strip map 20.5 cm by 560 cm that could be rolled up, but was divided into 40 pages which vary in scale from 7 miles/inch in the Nanjing area to 215 miles/inch in parts of the African coast.Investigation into folios 19V to 20R of the Mao Kun Map which covers the Indian Ocean including South India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and East Africa suggests that it is a composite of four maps, one for Sri Lanka, one for South India one for the Maldives and one for around 400 km of the East African coast, no further south than 6 degrees south of the Equator. Each of these maps is positioned at a different orientation to fit with the ocean currents and winds required of a sailing chart, rather than a formal map. The analysis also suggests that Arabic-speaking pilots with a detailed knowledge of the African coast were involved in the cartography.There is little attempt to provide an accurate 2-D representation; instead, the sailing instructions are given using a 24-point compass system with a Chinese symbol for each point, together with a sailing time or distance, which takes account of the local currents and winds. Sometimes depth soundings are also provided. It also shows bays, estuaries, capes and islands, ports and mountains along the coast, important landmarks such as pagodas and temples, and shoal rocks. Of 300 named places outside China, more than 80% can be confidently located. There are also fifty observations of stellar altitude. Size of ships According to Luo Maodeng's novel Sanbao Taijian Xia Xiyang Ji Tongsu Yanyi (Eunuch Sanbao Western Records Popular Romance, published 1597), the first expedition had: "Treasure ships" (宝船, Bǎo Chuán) nine-masted, 44.4 by 18 zhang, about 127 metres (417 feet) long and 52 metres (171 feet) wide. Equine ships (馬船, Mǎ Chuán), carrying horses and tribute goods and repair material for the fleet, eight-masted, 37 by 15 zhang, about 103 m (338 ft) long and 42 m (138 ft) wide. Supply ships (粮船, Liáng Chuán), containing staple for the crew, seven-masted, 28 by 12 zhang, about 78 m (256 ft) long and 35 m (115 ft) wide. Transport ships (坐船, Zuò Chuán), six-masted, 24 by 9.4 zhang, about 67 m (220 ft) long and 25 m (82 ft) wide. Warships (战船, Zhàn Chuán), five-masted, 18 by 6.8 zhang, about 50 m (160 ft) long.On the ships were navigators, explorers, sailors, doctors, workers, and soldiers, along with the translator and diarist Gong Zhen. Six more expeditions took place from 1407 to 1433, with fleets thought to be of comparable size.Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta both described multi-masted ships carrying 500 to 1,000 passengers in their translated accounts. Niccolò de' Conti, a contemporary of Zheng He, was also an eyewitness of ships in Southeast Asia, claiming to have seen five-masted junks weighing about 2,000 vegetes, that is Venetian butt. Christopher Wake estimated a burthen of 1300 tons. The ship of Conti may have been a Burmese or Indonesian jong.The largest ships in the fleet, the Chinese treasure ships described in Chinese chronicles, would have been nearly twice as long as any other wooden ship recorded thereafter until the 20th century, surpassing Admiral Nelson's HMS Victory, 69.34 metres (227 ft 6 in) long, which was launched in 1765, and the 68.88-metre (226 ft) Vasa of 1627. The first ships to attain 126 m (413 ft) long were 19th century steamers with iron hulls. Many scholars consider it unlikely that any of Zheng He's ships were 135 m (450 ft) in length and have proposed much shorter lengths, as low as 60–75 m (200–250 ft). Zhao Zhigang claimed that he has solved the debate of the size difference, and stated that Zheng He's largest ship was about 70 m (230 ft) in length. Disputes of historical records of length Edward L. Dreyer claims that Luo Maodeng's novel is unsuitable as historical evidence. The novel contains a number of fantasy element; for example the ships were "constructed with divine help by the immortal Lu Ban".One explanation for the seemingly-inefficient size of the colossal ships was that the 44 zhang treasure ships were used only by the Emperor and imperial bureaucrats to travel along the Yangtze for court business, including reviewing Zheng He's expedition fleet. The Yangtze river, with its calmer waters, may have been navigable by these treasure ships. Zheng He, a court eunuch, would not have had the privilege in rank to command the largest of the ships, seaworthy or not. The main ships of Zheng He's fleet were instead six-masted 2000-liao ships. That would give burthen of 500 tons and a displacement tonnage of about 800 tons.Traditional and popular accounts of Zheng He's voyages have described a great fleet of gigantic ships far larger than any other wooden ships in history. The most grandiose claims for Zheng He's 1405 fleet are entirely based on a calculation derived from an account that was written three centuries later and was accepted as fact by one modern writer; rejected by numerous naval experts.: 128  There are even some sources that claim some of the treasure ships might have been as long as 183 m (600 ft). The claims that the Chinese treasure ships reached such size is disputed because other 17th century Ming records stated that European East Indiamen and galleons were 30, 40, 50, and 60 zhang (90, 120, 150, and 180 m) in length.It is also possible that the measure of zhang (丈) used in the conversions was mistaken. The length of a Dutch ship recorded in the History of Ming was 30 zhang. If the zhang is taken to be 3.2 m, the Dutch ship would be 96 m long. Also the Dutch Hongyi cannon is recorded to be more than 2 zhang (6.4 m) long. Comparative study by Hu Xiaowei (2018) concluded that 1 zhang would be equal to 1.5–1.6 m, this means the Dutch ship would be 45–48 m long and the cannon would be 3–3.2 m long. Taking 1.6 m for 1 zhang, Zheng He's 44 zhang treasure ship would be 70.4 m (230.97 ft) long and 28.8 m (94.49 ft) wide, or 22 zhang long and 9 zhang wide if the zhang is taken to be 3.2 m. It is known that the measure unit during the Ming era was not unified: A measurement of East and West Pagoda in Quanzhou resulted in a zhang unit of 2.5–2.56 m. According to Chen Cunren, one zhang in the Ming Dynasty is only half a zhang in modern times. Treasure Shipyard excavation From 2003 to 2004, the Treasure Shipyard was excavated in northwestern Nanjing (the former capital of the Ming Dynasty), near the Yangtze River. Despite the site being referred to as the "Longjiang Treasure Shipyard" (龍江寶船廠) in the official names, the site is distinct from the actual Longjiang Shipyard, which was located on a different site and produced different types of ships. The Treasure Shipyard, where Zheng He's fleet were believed to have been built in the Ming Dynasty, once consisted of thirteen basins (based on a 1944 map), most of which have now been covered by the construction of buildings in the 20th century. The basins are believed to have been connected to the Yangtze via a series of gates. Three long basins survive, each with wooden structures inside them that were interpreted to be frames for the ships to be built on. The largest basin extends for a length of 421 metres (1,381 ft). While they were long enough to accommodate the largest claimed Zheng He treasure ship, they were not wide enough to fit even a ship half the claimed size. The basin was only 41 metres (135 ft) wide at most, with only a 10 metres (33 ft) width area of it showing evidence of structures. They were also not deep enough, being only 4 metres (13 ft) deep. Other remains of ships in the site indicate that the ships were only slightly larger than the frames that supported them. Moreover, the basin structures were grouped into clusters with large gaps between them, if each cluster was interpreted as a ship framework, then the largest ship would not exceed 75 metres (246 ft) at most, probably less.The 2003–2004 excavation also recovered two complete wooden rudderposts from the Treasure Shipyard, in addition to another recovered in 1957. They are made of teak and measured around 10 to 11 metres (33 to 36 ft) in length. Zhou Shide (1962) claimed that the first rudderpost recovered was proof of the enormous dimensions of the ships based on his calculations on how big the rudderblade would be. However Church (2010) points out that Zhou was using calculations based on modern steel propeller-driven ships, not wooden ships; as well as the fact that Zhou's hypothetical rudder shape was based on the flat-bottomed shachuan (沙船) ship type, not the sea-going fuchuan (福船). The rudderposts cannot be used to infer the actual size of the rudder blades. Church notes that in traditional wooden Chinese ships, rudderposts were necessarily long in order for them to extend from the water level up unto the ship deck, where it was controlled by the tiller. Church compares it with modern wooden junks built in the traditional Lümeimao ("green eyebrow", 綠眉毛) style, which also have rudderposts that are 11 metres (36 ft) long, but are only 31 metres (102 ft) in overall length. Death One theory is that Admiral Zheng He died in 1433, during or shortly after the seventh voyage. Another is that Zheng He continued to serve as the defender of Nanjing, dying in 1435.A tomb was built for Zheng He at the southern slope of Cattle Head Hill, Nanjing. The original tomb was a horseshoe-shaped grave. It is a cenotaph believed to contain his clothes and headgear. In 1985, the tomb was rebuilt following a Muslim style. Legacy Zheng's voyages were long neglected in official Chinese histories but have become well known in China and abroad since the publication of Liang Qichao's Biography of Our Homeland's Great Navigator, Zheng He in 1904. Imperial China In the decades after the last voyage, Imperial officials minimized the importance of Zheng He and his expeditions throughout the many regnal and dynastic histories they compiled. The information in the Yongle and Xuande Emperors' official annals was incomplete and even erroneous, and other official publications omitted them completely. Although some have seen that as a conspiracy seeking to eliminate memories of the voyages, it is likely that the records were dispersed throughout several departments and the expeditions, unauthorized by and in fact counter to the injunctions of the dynastic founder, presented a kind of embarrassment to the dynasty.State-sponsored Ming naval efforts declined dramatically after Zheng's voyages. Starting in the early 15th century, China experienced increasing pressure from the surviving Yuan Mongols from the north. The relocation of the capital to Beijing in the north exacerbated this threat dramatically. At considerable expense, China launched annual military expeditions from Beijing to weaken the Mongolians. The expenditures necessary for the land campaigns directly competed with the funds necessary to continue naval expeditions. Further, in 1449, Mongolian cavalry ambushed a land expedition personally led by the Zhengtong Emperor at Tumu Fortress, less than a day's march from the walls of the capital. The Mongolians wiped out the Chinese army and captured the emperor. The battle had two salient effects. Firstly, it demonstrated the clear threat posed by the northern nomads. Secondly, the Mongols caused a political crisis in China when they released the emperor after his half-brother had already ascended and declared the new Jingtai era. Not until 1457 and the restoration of the former emperor would political stability return. Upon his return to power, China abandoned the strategy of annual land expeditions and instead embarked upon a massive and expensive expansion of the Great Wall of China. In that environment, funding for naval expeditions was simply absent. However, missions from Southeastern Asia continued to arrive for decades. Depending on local conditions, they could reach such frequency that the court found it necessary to restrict them. The History of Ming records imperial edicts forbade Java, Champa, and Siam from sending their envoys more often than once every three years. Southeast Asia Veneration Among the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, Zheng He became a figure of folk veneration. Even some of his crew members who happened to stay in some port sometimes did so as well, such as "Poontaokong" on Sulu. The temples of the cult, called after either of his names, Cheng Hoon or Sam Po, are peculiar to overseas Chinese except for a single temple in Hongjian originally constructed by a returned Filipino Chinese in the Ming dynasty and rebuilt by another Filipino Chinese after the original was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Malacca The oldest and most important Chinese temple in Malacca is the 17th-century Cheng Hoon Teng, dedicated to Guanyin. During Dutch colonial rule, the head of the Cheng Hoon Temple was appointed as chief over the community's Chinese inhabitants.Following Zheng He's arrival, the sultan and the sultana of Malacca visited China at the head of over 540 of their subjects, bearing ample tribute. Sultan Mansur Shah (r. 1459–1477) later dispatched Tun Perpatih Putih as his envoy to China, carrying a letter from the sultan to the Ming emperor. The letter requested the hand of an imperial daughter in marriage. Malay (but not Chinese) annals record that in 1459, a princess named Hang Li Po or Hang Liu was sent from China to marry the sultan. She came with 500 high-ranking young men and a few hundred handmaidens as her entourage. They eventually settled in Bukit Cina. It is believed that a significant number of them married into the local populace, creating the descendants now known as the Peranakan. Owing to this supposed lineage, the Peranakan still use special honorifics: Baba for the men and Nyonya for the women. Indonesia The Chinese Indonesian community have established temples dedicated to Zheng He in Jakarta, Cirebon, Surabaya, and Semarang.In 1961, the Indonesian Islamic leader and scholar Hamka credited Zheng He for playing an important role in the development of Islam in Indonesia. The Brunei Times credits Zheng He with building Chinese Muslim communities in Palembang and along the shores of Java, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippines. These Muslims allegedly followed the Hanafi school in the Chinese language. Modern scholarship In the 1950s, historians such as John Fairbank and Joseph Needham popularized the idea that after Zheng He's voyages China turned away from the seas due to the Haijin edict and was isolated from European technological advancements. Modern historians point out that Chinese maritime commerce did not totally stop after Zheng He, that Chinese ships continued to participate in Southeast Asian commerce until the 19th century, and that active Chinese trading with India and East Africa continued long after the time of Zheng. Moreover, revisionist historians such as Jack Goldstone argue that the Zheng He voyages ended for practical reasons that did not reflect the technological level of China. Although the Ming dynasty prohibited shipping with the Haijin edict, it was a policy of the Hongwu Emperor that long preceded Zheng He and the ban, so obviously disregarded by the Yongle Emperor, was eventually lifted entirely. However, the ban on maritime shipping forced countless numbers of people into smuggling and piracy. Neglect of the imperial navy and Nanjing dockyards after Zheng He's voyages left the coast highly vulnerable to Japanese wokou during the 16th century.Richard von Glahn, a UCLA professor of Chinese history, commented that most treatments of Zheng He present him wrongly, "offer counterfactual arguments," and "emphasize China's missed opportunity" by focusing on failures, instead of accomplishments. In contrast, Glahn asserts that "Zheng He reshaped Asia" because maritime history in the 15th century was essentially the Zheng He story and the effects of his voyages. Cultural influence Despite the official neglect, the adventures of the fleet captured the imagination of some Chinese with some writing novelizations of the voyages, such as the Romance of the Three-Jeweled Eunuch in 1597.On his travels, Zheng He built mosques and also spread the worship of Mazu. He apparently never found time for a pilgrimage to Mecca but sent sailors there on his last voyage. He played an important part in developing relations between China and Islamic countries. Zheng He also visited Muslim shrines of Islamic holy men in the Fujian.In modern times, interest in Zheng He has revived substantially. In Vernor Vinge's 1999 science fiction novel A Deepness in the Sky, an interstellar society of commercial traders in human space are named the Qeng Ho, after the admiral. The expeditions featured prominently in Heather Terrell's 2005 novel The Map Thief. For the 600th anniversary of Zheng He's voyages in 2005, China Central Television produced a special television series, Zheng He Xia Xiyang, starring Gallen Lo as Zheng He. He is also mentioned in part of the main storyline of the first-person shooter game Far Cry 3. The Star Trek series Picard further featured an advanced starship named USS Zheng He. There was even a US Navy boat that was acquired for picket duty during World War II that was named Cheng Ho by its previous owner. In Civilization VI, Zheng He is a 'great admiral' unit that grants bonuses to trade and naval combat. Relics Zheng He built the Tianfei Palace (天妃宫; Tiānfēigōng; 'Palace of the Celestial Wife'), a temple in honor of the goddess Mazu, in Nanjing after the fleet returned from its first western voyage in 1407. The "Deed of Foreign Connection and Exchange" (通番事跡) or "Tongfan Deed Stele" is located in the Tianfei Palace in Liuhe, Taicang, whence the expeditions first departed. The stele was submerged and lost but has been rebuilt. To thank the Celestial Wife for her blessings, Zheng He and his colleagues rebuilt the Tianfei Palace in Nanshan, Changle County, Fujian Province as well before they left on their last voyage. At the renovated temple, they raised a stele, "A Record of Tianfei Showing Her Presence and Power" (天妃靈應之記; Tiānfēi Líng Yīng zhī Jì), discussing their earlier voyages. The Galle Trilingual Inscription in Sri Lanka was discovered in the city of Galle in 1911 and is preserved at the National Museum of Colombo. The three languages used in the inscription were Chinese, Tamil, and Persian. The inscription praises Buddha and describes the fleet's donations to the famous Tenavarai Nayanar temple of Tondeswaram frequented by both Hindus and Buddhists. Zheng He's tomb in Nanjing has been repaired and a small museum built next to it, but his body was buried at sea off the Malabar Coast near Calicut, in western India. However, his sword and other personal possessions were interred in a Muslim tomb inscribed in Arabic. The tomb of Zheng He's assistant Hong Bao was recently unearthed in Nanjing as well. Seven large sunken ships were found in the sea near Dongsha Island, which were confirmed to belong to Zheng He's fleet. The types of the seven sunken ships were Shachuan (沙船), Fuchuan (福船), and Zhanzuochuan (戰座船). Commemoration In the People's Republic of China, 11 July is Maritime Day (中国航海日, Zhōngguó Hánghǎi Rì) and is devoted to the memory of Zheng He's first voyage. Initially Kunming Changshui International Airport was to be named Zheng He International Airport. In 2015, Emotion Media Factory dedicated a special multimedia show "Zheng He is coming" for amusement park Romon U-Park (Ningbo, China). The show became a finalist of the amusement industry prestigious Brass Rings Awards by IAAPA.Zheng He is the namesake of the ROCS Cheng Ho missile frigate in Taiwan. The People's Liberation Army Navy ship Zheng He (AX-81) is a Chinese training ship named for him. Like her namesake, she serves as a goodwill ambassador for China, becoming the first Chinese Navy ship to visit the United States in 1989 and completing a circumnavigation of the globe in 2012.The proposed sample-return spacecraft Tianwen-2 was originally named ZhengHe. Its mission to explore Near-Earth asteroid 2016 HO3 is scheduled to launch in 2024. Gallery See also Further reading Chan, Hok-lam (1998). "The Chien-wen, Yung-lo, Hung-hsi, and Hsüan-te reigns, 1399–1435". The Cambridge History of China, Volume 7: The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-24332-2. Su, Ming-Yang (2005). Seven epic voyages of Zheng He in Ming China, 1405–1433: facts, fiction and fabrication. Torrance, CA: self-published. OCLC 62515238. Shipping News: Zheng He's Sexcentenary – China Heritage Newsletter, June 2005, ISSN 1833-8461. Published by the China Heritage Project of The Australian National University. Viviano, Frank (July 2005). "China's Great Armada". National Geographic. Vol. 208, no. 1. pp. 28–53. World History Encyclopedia – The Seven Voyages of Zheng He Zheng He – The Chinese Muslim Admiral Zheng He 600th Anniversary BBC radio programme "Swimming Dragons". TIME magazine special feature on Zheng He (August 2001) Virtual exhibition from elibraryhub.com Ship imitates ancient vessel navigated by Zheng He at peopledaily.com (25 September 2006) Kahn, Joseph (2005). "China Has an Ancient Mariner to Tell You About". The New York Times. Newsletter, in Chinese, on academic research on the Zheng He voyages

Shirokane (白金) is a district of Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Currently it consists of six chōme. According to Minato, as of November 1, 2007, the population in the neighborhood is 14,840. The term Shirokane narrowly refers to Shirokane 1-chōme to Shirokane 6-chōme, but is sometimes used to include the larger neighborhood formerly known as Shiba-Shirokane (芝白金), which encompasses part of Shirokanedai and Takanawa as well as Shirokane. This article deals with the place in the narrow definition. Overview Shirokane is located in the southwestern part of Minato, Tokyo and one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Japan. It is a quiet residential area that is abundant in undeveloped green space. This area is known for having the most expensive real estate fees for living in Japan. Shirokane borders the neighborhoods of Minami-Azabu, Shirokanedai, Takanawa and Ebisu. The Prefectural Highway 305 (Ebisu-dori) divides Shirokane into odd-numbered (1, 3, 5-chōmes) and even-numbered (2, 4, 6-chōmes) subdistricts designated as industrial and high-rise residential areas, respectively. Small factories and shopping streets are developed along Furukawa river, and upon the southern hill a quiet residential area is developed with apartments and schools such as Seishin Joshi Gakuin. The recent opening of a subway allowed the area centered at Shirokane-Takanawa Station to undergo a large redevelopment. There are forest areas owned by academic institutions and private companies such as Seishin Joshi Gakuin and the Kitasato Institute. With the Institute for Nature Study and the Institute of Medical Science in Shirokanedai, these areas form one of the largest green districts in the special wards of Tokyo. This large green area dates back to daimyō's mansions which existed in Edo period; later, industrialists made their residences in this place, which gave rise to the well-known upper-class neighborhood. Etymology During the Ōei era (1394–1428), a government official of the Southern Dynasty who settled here became wealthy. His nickname was Shirokane Chōja (白金長者), which means "man who possesses much 'white gold' " (白金), a reference to silver. Thus the name of this location is the "Silver District". Education Minato City Board of Education operates public elementary and junior high schools. Shirokane 1 and 3-6 chōme and 2-chōme 1-5-ban are zoned to Shirogane-no-oka Gakuen (白金の丘学園) for elementary and junior high school. 2-chome 6-7 ban are zoned to Shirokane Elementary School (白金小学校) and Takamatsu Junior High School (高松中学校).Upper secondary schools: Meiji Gakuin Senior High SchoolColleges and universities: Meiji Gakuin University (明治学院大学) Places Slopes Shokkō-zaka (蜀江坂) Sanko-zaka (三光坂) Meiji-zaka (明治坂) Miscellaneous Famous economist Kazuhide Uekusa lives in Shirokanedai with his family.

葵涌 may refer to: Kwai Chung, an area in the New Territories, Hong Kong Kuichong Subdistrict, a subdistrict of Shenzhen, China

The I Ching or Yi Jing (Chinese: 易經, Mandarin: [î tɕíŋ] ), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings". After becoming part of the Five Classics in the 2nd century BC, the I Ching was the subject of scholarly commentary and the basis for divination practice for centuries across the Far East, and eventually took on an influential role in Western understanding of East Asian philosophical thought.As a divination text, the I Ching is used for a traditional Chinese form of cleromancy known as I Ching divination, in which bundles of yarrow stalks are manipulated to produce sets of six apparently random numbers ranging from 6 to 9. Each of the 64 possible sets corresponds to a hexagram, which can be looked up in the I Ching. The hexagrams are arranged in an order known as the King Wen sequence. The interpretation of the readings found in the I Ching has been discussed and debated over the centuries. Many commentators have used the book symbolically, often to provide guidance for moral decision-making, as informed by Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. The hexagrams themselves have often acquired cosmological significance and been paralleled with many other traditional names for the processes of change such as yin and yang and Wu Xing. The divination text: Zhou Yi History The core of the I Ching is a Western Zhou divination text called the Changes of Zhou (Chinese: 周易; pinyin: Zhōu yì). Various modern scholars suggest dates ranging between the 10th and 4th centuries BC for the assembly of the text in approximately its current form. Based on a comparison of the language of the Zhou yi with dated bronze inscriptions, the American sinologist Edward Shaughnessy dated its compilation in its current form to the last quarter of the 9th century BC, during the early decades of the reign of King Xuan of Zhou (r. c. 827 – 782 BC). A copy of the text in the Shanghai Museum corpus of bamboo and wooden slips (discovered in 1994) shows that the Zhou yi was used throughout all levels of Chinese society in its current form by 300 BC, but still contained small variations as late as the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC). It is possible that other divination systems existed at this time; the Rites of Zhou name two other such systems, the Lianshan and the Guicang. Name and authorship The name Zhou yi literally means the "changes" (易; Yì) of the Zhou dynasty. The "changes" involved have been interpreted as the transformations of hexagrams, of their lines, or of the numbers obtained from the divination. Feng Youlan proposed that the word for "changes" originally meant "easy", as in a form of divination easier than the oracle bones, but there is little evidence for this. There is also an ancient folk etymology that sees the character for "changes" as containing the sun and moon, the cycle of the day. Modern Sinologists believe the character to be derived either from an image of the sun emerging from clouds, or from the content of a vessel being changed into another.The Zhou yi was traditionally ascribed to the Zhou cultural heroes King Wen of Zhou and the Duke of Zhou, and was also associated with the legendary world ruler Fu Xi. According to the canonical Great Commentary, Fu Xi observed the patterns of the world and created the eight trigrams (八卦; bāguà), "in order to become thoroughly conversant with the numinous and bright and to classify the myriad things." The Zhou yi itself does not contain this legend and indeed says nothing about its own origins. The Rites of Zhou, however, also claims that the hexagrams of the Zhou yi were derived from an initial set of eight trigrams. During the Han dynasty there were various opinions about the historical relationship between the trigrams and the hexagrams. Eventually, a consensus formed around 2nd-century AD scholar Ma Rong's attribution of the text to the joint work of Fu Xi, King Wen of Zhou, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius, but this traditional attribution is no longer generally accepted.Another tradition about the I Ching was that most of it was written by Tang of Shang. Structure The basic unit of the Zhou yi is the hexagram (卦 guà), a figure composed of six stacked horizontal lines (爻 yáo). Each line is either broken or unbroken. The received text of the Zhou yi contains all 64 possible hexagrams, along with the hexagram's name (卦名 guàmíng), a short hexagram statement (彖 tuàn), and six line statements (爻辭 yáocí). The statements were used to determine the results of divination, but the reasons for having two different methods of reading the hexagram are not known, and it is not known why hexagram statements would be read over line statements or vice versa.The book opens with the first hexagram statement, yuán hēng lì zhēn (Chinese: 元亨利貞). These four words, translated traditionally by James Legge as "originating and penetrating, advantageous and firm," are often repeated in the hexagram statements and were already considered an important part of I Ching interpretation in the 6th century BC. Edward Shaughnessy describes this statement as affirming an "initial receipt" of an offering, "beneficial" for further "divining". The word zhēn (貞, ancient form ) was also used for the verb "divine" in the oracle bones of the late Shang dynasty, which preceded the Zhou. It also carried meanings of being or making upright or correct, and was defined by the Eastern Han scholar Zheng Xuan as "to enquire into the correctness" of a proposed activity.The names of the hexagrams are usually words that appear in their respective line statements, but in five cases (2, 9, 26, 61, and 63) an unrelated character of unclear purpose appears. The hexagram names could have been chosen arbitrarily from the line statements, but it is also possible that the line statements were derived from the hexagram names. The line statements, which make up most of the book, are exceedingly cryptic. Each line begins with a word indicating the line number, "base, 2, 3, 4, 5, top", and either the number 6 for a broken line, or the number 9 for a whole line. Hexagrams 1 and 2 have an extra line statement, named yong. Following the line number, the line statements may make oracular or prognostic statements. Some line statements also contain poetry or references to historical events. Usage Archaeological evidence shows that Zhou dynasty divination was grounded in cleromancy, the production of seemingly random numbers to determine divine intent. The Zhou yi provided a guide to cleromancy that used the stalks of the yarrow plant, but it is not known how the yarrow stalks became numbers, or how specific lines were chosen from the line readings. In the hexagrams, broken lines were used as shorthand for the numbers 6 (六) and 8 (八), and solid lines were shorthand for values of 7 (七) and 9 (九). The Great Commentary contains a late classic description of a process where various numerological operations are performed on a bundle of 50 stalks, leaving remainders of 6 to 9. Like the Zhou yi itself, yarrow stalk divination dates to the Western Zhou period, although its modern form is a reconstruction.The ancient narratives Zuo zhuan and Guoyu contain the oldest descriptions of divination using the Zhou yi. The two histories describe more than twenty successful divinations conducted by professional soothsayers for royal families between 671 BC and 487 BC. The method of divination is not explained, and none of the stories employ predetermined commentaries, patterns, or interpretations. Only the hexagrams and line statements are used. By the 4th century BC, the authority of the Zhou yi was also cited for rhetorical purposes, without relation to any stated divination. The Zuo zhuan does not contain records of private individuals, but Qin dynasty records found at Shuihudi show that the hexagrams were privately consulted to answer questions such as business, health, children, and determining lucky days.The most common form of divination with the I Ching in use today is a reconstruction of the method described in these histories, in the 300 BC Great Commentary, and later in the Huainanzi and the Lunheng. From the Great Commentary's description, the Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi reconstructed a method of yarrow stalk divination that is still used throughout the Far East. In the modern period, Gao Heng attempted his own reconstruction, which varies from Zhu Xi in places. Another divination method, employing coins, became widely used in the Tang dynasty and is still used today. In the modern period; alternative methods such as specialized dice and cartomancy have also appeared.In the Zuo zhuan stories, individual lines of hexagrams are denoted by using the genitive particle zhi (之), followed by the name of another hexagram where that specific line had another form. In later attempts to reconstruct ancient divination methods, the word zhi was interpreted as a verb meaning "moving to", an apparent indication that hexagrams could be transformed into other hexagrams. However, there are no instances of "changeable lines" in the Zuo zhuan. In all 12 out of 12 line statements quoted, the original hexagrams are used to produce the oracle. The classic: I Ching In 136 BC, Emperor Wu of Han named the Zhou yi "the first among the classics", dubbing it the Classic of Changes or I Ching. Emperor Wu's placement of the I Ching among the Five Classics was informed by a broad span of cultural influences that included Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, yin-yang cosmology, and Wu Xing physical theory. While the Zhou yi does not contain any cosmological analogies, the I Ching was read as a microcosm of the universe that offered complex, symbolic correspondences. The official edition of the text was literally set in stone, as one of the Xiping Stone Classics. The canonized I Ching became the standard text for over two thousand years, until alternate versions of the Zhou yi and related texts were discovered in the 20th century. Ten Wings Part of the canonization of the Zhou yi bound it to a set of ten commentaries called the Ten Wings. The Ten Wings are of a much later provenance than the Zhou yi, and are the production of a different society. The Zhou yi was written in Early Old Chinese, while the Ten Wings were written in a predecessor to Middle Chinese. The specific origins of the Ten Wings are still a complete mystery to academics. Regardless of their historical relation to the text, the philosophical depth of the Ten Wings made the I Ching a perfect fit to Han period Confucian scholarship. The inclusion of the Ten Wings reflects a widespread recognition in ancient China, found in the Zuo zhuan and other pre-Han texts, that the I Ching was a rich moral and symbolic document useful for more than professional divination.Arguably the most important of the Ten Wings is the Great Commentary (Dazhuan) or Xi ci, which dates to roughly 300 BC. The Great Commentary describes the I Ching as a microcosm of the universe and a symbolic description of the processes of change. By partaking in the spiritual experience of the I Ching, the Great Commentary states, the individual can understand the deeper patterns of the universe. Among other subjects, it explains how the eight trigrams proceeded from the eternal oneness of the universe through three bifurcations. The other Wings provide different perspectives on essentially the same viewpoint, giving ancient, cosmic authority to the I Ching. For example, the Wenyan provides a moral interpretation that parallels the first two hexagrams, 乾 (qián) and 坤 (kūn), with Heaven and Earth, and the Shuogua attributes to the symbolic function of the hexagrams the ability to understand self, world, and destiny. Throughout the Ten Wings, there are passages that seem to purposefully increase the ambiguity of the base text, pointing to a recognition of multiple layers of symbolism.The Great Commentary associates knowledge of the I Ching with the ability to "delight in Heaven and understand fate;" the sage who reads it will see cosmological patterns and not despair in mere material difficulties. The Japanese word for "metaphysics", keijijōgaku (形而上学; pinyin: xíng ér shàng xué) is derived from a statement found in the Great Commentary that "what is above form [xíng ér shàng] is called Dao; what is under form is called a tool". The word has also been borrowed into Korean and re-borrowed back into Chinese. The Ten Wings were traditionally attributed to Confucius, possibly based on a misreading of the Records of the Grand Historian. Although it rested on historically shaky grounds, the association of the I Ching with Confucius gave weight to the text and was taken as an article of faith throughout the Han and Tang dynasties. The I Ching was not included in the burning of the Confucian classics, and textual evidence strongly suggests that Confucius did not consider the Zhou yi a "classic". An ancient commentary on the Zhou yi found at Mawangdui portrays Confucius as endorsing it as a source of wisdom first and an imperfect divination text second. However, since the Ten Wings became canonized by Emperor Wu of Han together with the original I Ching as the Zhou Yi, it can be attributed to the positions of influence from the Confucians in the government. Furthermore, the Ten Wings tends to use diction and phrases such as "the master said", which was previously commonly seen in the Analects, thereby implying the heavy involvement of Confucians in its creation as well as institutionalization. Hexagrams In the canonical I Ching, the hexagrams are arranged in an order dubbed the King Wen sequence after King Wen of Zhou, who founded the Zhou dynasty and supposedly reformed the method of interpretation. The sequence generally pairs hexagrams with their upside-down equivalents, although in eight cases hexagrams are paired with their inversion. Another order, found at Mawangdui in 1973, arranges the hexagrams into eight groups sharing the same upper trigram. But the oldest known manuscript, found in 1987 and now held by the Shanghai Library, was almost certainly arranged in the King Wen sequence, and it has even been proposed that a pottery paddle from the Western Zhou period contains four hexagrams in the King Wen sequence. Whichever of these arrangements is older, it is not evident that the order of the hexagrams was of interest to the original authors of the Zhou yi. The assignment of numbers, binary or decimal, to specific hexagrams, is a modern invention.Yin and yang are represented by broken and solid lines: yin is broken (⚋) and yang is solid (⚊). Different constructions of three yin and yang lines lead to eight trigrams (八卦) namely, Qian (乾, ☰), Dui (兌, ☱), Li (離, ☲), Zhen (震, ☳), Xun (巽, ☴), Kan (坎, ☵), Gen (艮, ☶), and Kun (坤, ☷). The different combinations of the two trigrams lead to 64 hexagrams. The following table numbers the hexagrams in King Wen order. Interpretation and influence The sinologist Michael Nylan describes the I Ching as the best-known Chinese book in the world. Eliot Weinberger writes that it is the most "recognized" Chinese book. In East Asia, it is a foundational text for the Confucian and Daoist philosophical traditions, while in the West, it attracted the attention of Enlightenment intellectuals and prominent literary and cultural figures. Eastern Han and Six Dynasties During the Eastern Han, I Ching interpretation divided into two schools, originating in a dispute over minor differences between different editions of the received text. The first school, known as New Text criticism, was more egalitarian and eclectic, and sought to find symbolic and numerological parallels between the natural world and the hexagrams. Their commentaries provided the basis of the School of Images and Numbers. The other school, Old Text criticism, was more scholarly and hierarchical, and focused on the moral content of the text, providing the basis for the School of Meanings and Principles. The New Text scholars distributed alternate versions of the text and freely integrated non-canonical commentaries into their work, as well as propagating alternate systems of divination such as the Taixuanjing. Most of this early commentary, such as the image and number work of Jing Fang, Yu Fan and Xun Shuang, is no longer extant. Only short fragments survive, from a Tang dynasty text called Zhou yi jijie.With the fall of the Han, I Ching scholarship was no longer organized into systematic schools. The most influential writer of this period was Wang Bi, who discarded the numerology of Han commentators and integrated the philosophy of the Ten Wings directly into the central text of the I Ching, creating such a persuasive narrative that Han commentators were no longer considered significant. A century later Han Kangbo added commentaries on the Ten Wings to Wang Bi's book, creating a text called the Zhouyi zhu. The principal rival interpretation was a practical text on divination by the soothsayer Guan Lu. Tang and Song dynasties At the beginning of the Tang dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Kong Yingda to create a canonical edition of the I Ching. Choosing Wang Bi's 3rd-century "Annotated Zhou-dynasty (Book of) Changes" (Zhōuyì Zhù; 周易注) as the official commentary, he added to it further commentary drawing out the subtler details of Wang Bi's explanations. The resulting work, the "Right Meaning of the Zhou-dynasty (Book of) Changes" (Zhōuyì Zhèngyì; 周易正義), became the standard edition of the I Ching through the Song dynasty.By the 11th century, the I Ching was being read as a work of intricate philosophy, as a jumping-off point for examining great metaphysical questions and ethical issues. Cheng Yi, patriarch of the Neo-Confucian Cheng–Zhu school, read the I Ching as a guide to moral perfection. He described the text as a way to for ministers to form honest political factions, root out corruption, and solve problems in government.The contemporary scholar Shao Yong rearranged the hexagrams in a format that resembles modern binary numbers, although he did not intend his arrangement to be used mathematically. This arrangement, sometimes called the binary sequence, later inspired Leibniz. Neo-Confucianism The 12th century Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi, cofounder of the Cheng–Zhu school, criticized both of the Han dynasty lines of commentary on the I Ching, saying that they were one-sided. He developed a synthesis of the two, arguing that the text was primarily a work of divination that could be used in the process of moral self-cultivation, or what the ancients called "rectification of the mind" in the Great Learning. Zhu Xi's reconstruction of I Ching yarrow stalk divination, based in part on the Great Commentary account, became the standard form and is still in use today.As China entered the early modern period, the I Ching took on renewed relevance in both Confucian and Daoist studies. The Kangxi Emperor was especially fond of the I Ching and ordered new interpretations of it. Qing dynasty scholars focused more intently on understanding pre-classical grammar, assisting the development of new philological approaches in the modern period. East Asia Like the other Chinese classics, the I Ching was an influential text across East Asia. In 1557, the Korean Neo-Confucianist philosopher Yi Hwang produced one of the most influential I Ching studies of the early modern era, claiming that the spirit was a principle (li) and not a material force (qi). Hwang accused the Neo-Confucian school of having misread Zhu Xi. His critique proved influential not only in Korea but also in Japan. Other than this contribution, the I Ching—known in Korean as the Yeok Gyeong (역경)—was not central to the development of Korean Confucianism, and by the 19th century, I Ching studies were integrated into the silhak reform movement.In medieval Japan, secret teachings on the I Ching—known in Japanese as the Eki Kyō (易経)—were publicized by Rinzai Zen master Kokan Shiren and the Shintoist Yoshida Kanetomo during the Kamakura era. I Ching studies in Japan took on new importance during the Edo period, during which over 1,000 books were published on the subject by over 400 authors. The majority of these books were serious works of philology, reconstructing ancient usages and commentaries for practical purposes. A sizable minority focused on numerology, symbolism, and divination. During this time, over 150 editions of earlier Chinese commentaries were reprinted across Edo Japan, including several texts that had become lost in China. In the early Edo period, Japanese writers such as Itō Jinsai, Kumazawa Banzan, and Nakae Toju ranked the I Ching the greatest of the Confucian classics. Many writers attempted to use the I Ching to explain Western science in a Japanese framework. One writer, Shizuki Tadao, even attempted to employ Newtonian mechanics and the Copernican principle within an I Ching cosmology. This line of argument was later taken up in China by the Qing politician Zhang Zhidong. Enlightenment Europe Leibniz, who was corresponding with Jesuits in China, wrote the first European commentary on the I Ching in 1703. He argued that it proved the universality of binary numbers and theism, since the broken lines, the "0" or "nothingness", cannot become solid lines, the "1" or "oneness", without the intervention of God. This was criticized by Hegel, who proclaimed that binary system and Chinese characters were "empty forms" that could not articulate spoken words with the clarity of the Western alphabet. In their commentary, I Ching hexagrams and Chinese characters were conflated into a single foreign idea, sparking a dialogue on Western philosophical questions such as universality and the nature of communication. The usage of binary in relation to the I Ching was central to Leibniz's characteristica universalis, or universal language, which in turn inspired the standards of Boolean logic and for Gottlob Frege to develop predicate logic in the late 19th century. In the 20th century, Jacques Derrida identified Hegel's argument as logocentric, but accepted without question Hegel's premise that the Chinese language cannot express philosophical ideas. Modern After the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, the I Ching lost its significance in political philosophy, but it maintained cultural influence as one of China's most ancient texts. Chinese writers offered parallels between the I Ching and subjects such as linear algebra and logic in computer science, aiming to demonstrate that ancient Chinese cosmology had anticipated Western discoveries. The Sinologist Joseph Needham took the opposite opinion, arguing that the I Ching had actually impeded scientific development by incorporating all physical knowledge into its metaphysics. However with the advent of quantum mechanics, physicist Niels Bohr credited inspiration from the Yin and Yang symbolisms in using intuition to interpret the new field, which disproved principles from older Western classical mechanics. The principle of complementarity heavily used concepts from the I Ching as mentioned in his writings. The psychologist Carl Jung took interest in the possible universal nature of the imagery of the I Ching, and he introduced an influential German translation by Richard Wilhelm by discussing his theories of archetypes and synchronicity. Jung wrote, "Even to the most biased eye, it is obvious that this book represents one long admonition to careful scrutiny of one's own character, attitude, and motives." The book had a notable impact on the 1960s counterculture and on 20th century cultural figures such as Philip K. Dick, John Cage, Jorge Luis Borges, Terence McKenna and Hermann Hesse. Joni Mitchell references the six yang hexagram in her song "Amelia" from her "Hejira" album after she describes the image of "...six jet planes leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain...". It also inspired the 1968 song While My Guitar Gently Weeps by The Beatles. The modern period also brought a new level of skepticism and rigor to I Ching scholarship. Li Jingchi spent several decades producing a new interpretation of the text, which was published posthumously in 1978. Modern data scientists including Alex Liu proposed to represent and develop I Ching methods with data science 4E framework and latent variable approaches for a more rigorous representation and interpretation of I Ching. Gao Heng, an expert in pre-Qin China, reinvestigated its use as a Zhou dynasty oracle. Edward Shaughnessy proposed a new dating for the various strata of the text. New archaeological discoveries have enabled a deeper level of insight into how the text was used in the centuries before the Qin dynasty. Proponents of newly reconstructed Western Zhou readings, which often differ greatly from traditional readings of the text, are sometimes called the "modernist school". Translations The I Ching has been translated into Western languages dozens of times. The earliest published complete translation of the I Ching into a Western language was a Latin translation done in the 1730s by the French Jesuit missionary Jean-Baptiste Régis that was published in Germany in the 1830s. Historically, the most influential Western-language I Ching translation was Richard Wilhelm's 1923 German translation, which was translated into English in 1950 by Cary Baynes. Although Thomas McClatchie and James Legge had both translated the text in the 19th century, the text gained significant traction during the counterculture of the 1960s, with the translations of Wilhelm and John Blofeld attracting particular interest. Richard Rutt's 1996 translation incorporated much of the new archaeological and philological discoveries of the 20th century. Gregory Whincup's 1986 translation also attempts to reconstruct Zhou period readings.The most commonly used English translations of the I Ching are: Legge, James (1882). The Yî King. In Sacred Books of the East, vol. XVI. 2nd edition (1899), Oxford: Clarendon Press; reprinted numerous times. Wilhelm, Richard (1924, 1950). The I Ching or Book of Changes. Cary Baynes, trans. Bollingen Series 19. Introduction by Carl G. Jung. New York: Pantheon Books. 3rd edition (1967), Princeton: Princeton University Press; reprinted numerous times.Other notable English translations include: McClatchie, Thomas (1876). A Translation of the Confucian Yi-king. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Blofeld, John (1965). The Book of Changes: A New Translation of the Ancient Chinese I Ching. New York: E. P. Dutton. Cleary, Thomas (1992). I Ching: The Book of Change. Boston, MA: Shambhala. ISBN 0-877-73661-8. Lynn, Richard John (1994). The Classic of Changes. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08294-0. Rutt, Richard (1996). The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-0467-1. Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1996). I Ching: The Classic of Changes. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-36243-8. Huang, Alfred (1998). The Complete I Ching. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions Press. ISBN 0-89281-656-2. Hinton, David (2015). I Ching: The Book of Change. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-22090-7. Redmond, Geoffrey (2017). The I Ching (Book of Changes): A Critical Translation of the Ancient Text. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-4725-1413-4. Adler, Joseph A. (2020). The Original Meaning of the Yijing: Commentary on the Scripture of Change [by Zhu Xi]. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-19124-1. See also Lingqijing Taixuanjing Lo Shu Square Qi Men Dun Jia Works cited The texts of Confucianism, Part II: The Yî king (The Sacred books of China 16), translated by James Legge, 1882. Yi Jing at the Chinese Text Project: original text and Legge's translation

RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. RuneScape was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was largely replaced by a standalone C++ client in 2016. The game has had over 300 million accounts created and was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the largest and most-updated free MMORPG.RuneScape takes place in the world of Gielinor, a medieval fantasy realm divided into different kingdoms, regions, and cities. Players can travel throughout Gielinor via a number of methods including on foot, magical spells, or charter ships. Each region offers different types of monsters, resources, and quests to challenge players. The game's fictional universe has been explored through a tie-in video game on another of its maker's websites, FunOrb, Armies of Gielinor, and the novels Betrayal at Falador, Return to Canifis, and Legacy of Blood.Players are represented in the game with customisable avatars. RuneScape does not follow a linear storyline; rather, players set their own goals and objectives. Players can choose to fight non-player character (NPC) monsters, complete quests, or increase their experience in the available skills. Players interact with each other through trading, chatting, or by participating in mini-games and activities, some of which are competitive or combative in nature, while others require cooperative or collaborative play. The first public version of RuneScape was released in January 2001 in beta form, with Jagex as its copyright holder being formed later that year. As the game's popularity grew, the game engine was rewritten and released as RuneScape 2, with the original version of the game being renamed RuneScape Classic. The third iteration of the game, known as RuneScape 3, was released in July 2013. Old School RuneScape, a separate, older version of the game dating from August 2007 was released in February 2013, and is maintained alongside the original client. It was announced that mobile ports of both versions of RuneScape would be released for Android and iOS devices in 2018. RuneScape was released on Steam on 14 October 2020. Gameplay Players begin in a secluded area called Tutorial Island, where they are taken through a tutorial, a set path where they learn the most basic skills in RuneScape. After the tutorial, players have access to tutors and advisors located in the towns they explore, who can give players appropriate information about their respective skills.Players set their own goals and objectives as they play the game. They can train their in-game skills, engage non-player character (NPC) monsters and other players in combat and complete quests at their discretion. Players interact with each other through trading, chatting or by participating in mini-games. Skills There are 29 skills in RuneScape, 17 skills available to free-to-play players and an additional 12 for members, which enable players to perform various activities allowing for interaction with NPCs, the environment and other players. Players gain experience points in a skill when they use it. For example, mining an ore trains the mining skill, and when the player accumulates enough experience points in the skill, their character will "level up". As a skill level rises, the ability to retrieve better raw materials and produce better products increases, as does the experience awarded if the player uses new abilities. The total skill level of a player partly symbolises the player's status in the game and subscribers with a high total level can appear on the high scores. Upon reaching the highest available level in a skill, members may buy a special cape to symbolise their achievement.Some skills, such as woodcutting and fishing, enable the player to collect raw materials that can be processed into usable items for other skills, such as fletching and cooking respectively. The items created can be used by the player or sold to shops and other players. Other skills allow players to kill certain NPCs, build their own houses, move around the map with greater ease, steal from various NPCs, market stalls and chests located in-game, light fires, cook their own food, create their own potions, craft runestones and weapons, plant their own plants, hunt NPC animals, raid dungeons, and summon familiars to assist in combat and training skills. Combat RuneScape features a semi-real-time combat system. Combat is an important aspect of the game, allowing players to defeat monsters to obtain dropped items or to complete quests. A combat level is an indicator of how powerful a player or NPC is in combat. For players, it is determined by applying a mathematical formula to their combat skills. Players engage in combat by clicking on the enemy they want their character to attack and will automatically continue fighting until they kill their opponent, die, or retreat from the fight. Most of the game's weapons are medieval or fantastical in nature, and feature different strengths and weaknesses. Players may summon a familiar to assist with combat, use special attacks called "abilities" to deal additional damage, and use potions and the Prayer skill to boost their combat prowess. Combat is subdivided into four main categories: melee, magic, ranged and necromancy. Melee attacks are close range, magic attacks focus on using runestones to cast spells, ranged attacks use projectile weapons like arrows, darts or throwing knives, and necromancy combines direct attacks with the summoning of undead combatants to fight alongside the player. The first three combat types make up a "Combat Triangle", which governs effectiveness of styles in a rock-paper-scissors fashion; melee beats ranged, ranged beats magic, magic beats melee, and each style is neutral to itself. Necromancy is a standalone method of combat and is neutral to the other styles. The advantages and disadvantages of the combat triangle apply to both NPCs and player opponents. Players are not required to choose a character class nor are they bound to a specific category of combat. They may freely change between or combine the styles of combat by switching weapons and armour.Combat is governed by a life points system. Every combatant has a maximum capacity of life points, and dies when their health is depleted to 0. Lost life points can be recovered by consuming certain food or drinks, or casting abilities. Players who die reappear at a respawn point of their choice with their life and skill points restored; however, they drop all but three chosen items, as well as certain common items. Dying spawns a gravestone that will hold all of the player's items and will last for an allotted time; however, there are situations in which all items will be lost upon death. If the player does not return in time, the grave will collapse and their items will disappear.In June 2012 players were invited to beta-test a new combat system named "Evolution of Combat", which included fundamental changes such as re-balancing the Combat Triangle to avoid favouring melee attacks, and replacing special weapon attacks with abilities that produce a range of effects when activated. The system was released on the live game on 20 November 2012. Various polls were also added for players to vote on in game that would determine the result of future content development, some of which would dictate the development of the improved combat system. A beta for a separate combat system dubbed "Legacy Mode" was opened to players on 16 June 2014, before being introduced to the live game on 14 July. Legacy Mode allows players to switch to the combat system and interface from prior to June 2012 instead of the Evolution of Combat system. Player versus player combat Player versus player combat (PvP) can be performed in specific controlled mini-games and in an area known as the Wilderness. The Duel Arena allows players to stake money and items, while other PvP games offer their own rewards. In the Wilderness, players can engage in combat provided that their combat levels fall within a certain range of each other, and if a player kills their opponent they will be able to claim their opponent's items as a reward.Before December 2007, players went to the Wilderness to fight other players within a certain combat level range, hoping to kill them and gain their items. In December 2007, the Wilderness was altered to prevent players from transferring in-game items for real-world currency. PvP combat was removed from the Wilderness and temporarily restricted to new mini-games named Bounty Hunter and Clan Wars. Bounty Hunter was replaced by special Bounty Worlds on 6 May 2009 in which players were confined to the Wilderness and could be assigned specific targets to kill. "PvP Worlds" were introduced on 15 October 2008 where players could fight almost anywhere in Gielinor, but these and "Bounty Worlds" were removed when PvP combat in the Wilderness was restored on 1 February 2011. Non-player interaction Non-player characters (NPCs) populate the realm of Gielinor. Some NPCs, such as shopkeepers and some characters in quests, are unavailable for combat. However, most NPCs can be attacked and these are generally referred to as monsters. Monsters range from common, low-level creatures, such as chickens and goblins, to unique and often much more powerful monsters, such as the Queen Black Dragon, Telos, and Vorago.Most monsters have their own strengths and weaknesses, notable exceptions being certain bosses, which have no specific weaknesses. Demons, for example, have a weak defence against ranged attacks, while metal dragons have extremely high defence against ranged. The weakness of an individual monster is displayed in an interface above its model, along with its combat level and lifepoints.Monsters may either be aggressive or non-aggressive. Non-aggressive monsters ignore players unless attacked, while aggressive monsters may attack all players or may only attack players with combat levels below a specified level, depending on the circumstances or location. This can make certain areas throughout Gielinor dangerous or inconvenient to players with lower combat levels. Player interaction Players can interact with each other through trading, chatting, or by participating in mini-games and activities, some of which are competitive or combative in nature, while others require cooperative or collaborative play. Players can trade items and gold coins with each other, either through a face-to-face trade, or by using a large automated marketplace known as the Grand Exchange.The chat system enables players to communicate with each other. Public Chat broadcasts text to players in the local area on one server, both by text appearing above the speaker's head and in the message box. Friends Chat broadcasts text in the message box only to certain players tuned into a specific channel, who can be available on any RuneScape world. Each Friends Chat channel has an owner, who can assign different ranks to individual players; players' ranks dictate their ability to perform administrative tasks within the channel. Clan Chat allows members of a clan to communicate with each other through a separate channel. Quick Chat allows players to choose from a list of predetermined messages to send as Public Chat, Clan Chat, or Friends Chat.RuneScape features independent mini-games, although most are only available to paying members. Mini-games take place in certain areas and normally involve specific in-game skills, and usually require players to cooperate or to compete with each other. Examples of these mini-games include Castle Wars, which is similar to the real-life game Capture the Flag, Pest Control, a highly combat-focused mini-game, and Fist of Guthix, where one player (the hunter) tries to stop another player (the hunted) from collecting charges into a magical stone. Quests Quests are series of tasks with a storyline that players can choose to complete. These often have requirements including minimum levels in certain skills, combat levels, quest points and/or the completion of other quests. Players receive various rewards for completion of quests, including money, unique items, access to new areas, quest points and/or increases in skill experience. Some quests require players to work together, and many require players to engage in challenging combat. Quests are grouped into categories based on requirements and difficulty. Once a player completes all quests in the game, an achievement item known as the "Quest Point Cape" can be claimed. New quests are released periodically. Development Andrew Gower developed RuneScape with the assistance of his brother Paul Gower. It was originally conceived as a text-based MUD, but graphics were incorporated early in development, adding it to the ranks of what were then known as "graphical MUDs". The first public version of the game used a mixture of three-dimensional and two-dimensional sprites. It was released as a beta version on 4 January 2001, and originally operated out of their parents' house in Nottingham. In December 2001, the Gower brothers, along with Constant Tedder, formed Jagex to take over the business aspects of running RuneScape. Among its early innovations Jagex developed an interpreted domain-specific scripting language called RuneScript, which is used by RuneScape's server for event handling. In February 2002, a monthly membership service was introduced, allowing access to additional features including new areas, quests, and items not available to free users. As the game gained more users, Jagex began planning major changes. The developers rewrote the game engine, producing a new version of the game with entirely three-dimensional graphics called RuneScape 2. A beta version of RuneScape 2 was released to paying members for a testing period beginning on 1 December 2003, and ending in March 2004. Upon its official release, RuneScape 2 was renamed simply RuneScape, while the older version of the game was kept online under the name RuneScape Classic. On 12 January 2006, Jagex banned more than 5,000 Classic accounts for cheating. To prevent further cheating, Classic was closed to new accounts and access was restricted to accounts who had played it at least once between 3 August 2005 and 12 January 2006. Additional reopenings took place in November 2009, June 2010 and September 2011.To support RuneScape's free content, advertisements appear on a banner above the playing screen on the free-to-play servers. Since computer users may use advertisement blockers, which may discourage advertisers, Jagex introduced a rule that prohibits players from blocking these advertisements. On 13 July 2006, Jagex signed an exclusive marketing and distribution contract with WildTangent Games, which granted WildTangent the right to handle advertising in and around RuneScape in the United States, and to distribute RuneScape through the WildTangent Games Network, reaching over 20 million consumer PCs.On 16 May 2006, Jagex upgraded RuneScape's game engine, improving the game's loading times and reducing its memory requirements. On 1 July 2008, Jagex released a beta of their "High Detail" mode for members, which was extended to free players two weeks later. Before the launch, Jagex stated that it would be revealed at the 2008 E3 trade show.On 14 February 2007, a German translation of RuneScape was introduced, followed by a French translation on 11 December 2008, Brazilian Portuguese on 24 July 2009, and Latin American Spanish on 25 April 2013. In an interview in May 2008, former Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison stated that, "We do plan to go East with [RuneScape] to the Asian market and the Eastern European market too" [...] "RuneScape is not for Japan, but it could work well in Malaysia for example. And where's India in all this? I think RuneScape is a game that would be adopted in the English-speaking Indian world and the local-speaking Indian world. We're looking at all those markets individually." RuneScape later launched in India through the gaming portal Zapak on 8 October 2009, and in France and Germany through Bigpoint Games on 27 May 2010.On 28 February 2012, an in-game feature was introduced called the "Squeal of Fortune" that allowed players to win items on a daily basis by spinning the wheel. On 2 April 2012, it became possible for players to spend real-world currency in exchange for additional spins, introducing a form of microtransaction to the game. Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard had previously described microtransactions as "a stealth tax", and the update provoked complaints from players who believed they had been "betrayed" by the change. In July 2012, Jagex released Solomon's General Store, making it possible to spend real currency in exchange for "RuneCoins" that could be spent on cosmetic rewards in the game. On 29 August 2012, Gerhard released a response to this controversy, describing these microtransactions as "[having] a significant role in ensuring that we can continue to support, develop and grow the game for many more years to come." He states that while these decisions are "not necessarily popular", they are made with the future of RuneScape in mind. On 4 February 2014, the Squeal of Fortune was replaced with Treasure Hunter. Rather than spinning a wheel for prizes, players are given keys which are used to open a chest of their choosing. On 26 March 2014, Gerhard reiterated his stance on microtransactions and their importance in updating RuneScape, and announced a partnership with Supersonic ads, allowing players to earn RuneCoins by watching advertisements or sampling products.On 30 August 2012, Gerhard announced that an HTML5 version of RuneScape was in development that would allow the game to be played on "your favourite tablets, platforms and even smart TVs." A video released on 22 March 2013 stated that the new version would be called RuneScape 3 and would use WebGL, and would include a fully customisable user interface and improved audio. A closed beta of the HTML5 version went live on 17 April 2013, followed by a separate alpha version of the new interface on 24 April. RuneScape 3 was released on 22 July 2013.At RuneFest 2014, Jagex announced that they were developing a new client to replace the HTML5 version, which had never been released from beta due to performance issues. The new client, named NXT, would include improvements to loading times, new graphical effects and better performance. Closed betas took place on 19–22 February and 18–21 March 2016, followed by a public release on 18 April 2016.On 23 May 2018, it was announced that due to constantly accumulating bugs and a game engine that has become incompatible with modern support tools of the company, RuneScape Classic servers would be permanently closed on 6 August 2018. RuneScape was released on Steam on 14 October 2020. Graphics and audio RuneScape can be run with varying levels of graphical detail. High-detail graphics enhance texture and design, while low-detail graphics provide a cleaner look and can reduce lag on less powerful computers. RuneScape uses a graphics engine called "RuneTek 5", which provides support for multiple graphics platforms such as DirectX, OpenGL and video game consoles, as well as graphical effects such as sky boxes, bloom lighting and Z-buffering. The high-detail version incorporates hardware acceleration and can be rendered using either Java OpenGL or DirectX.RuneScape features a character-customisation system. Player characters are human; however, players may choose the gender, hairstyle, facial hair, skin colour, and clothing options. Appearance is further complemented by wearing or wielding items. Players can express emotions through the use of specialised animations called emotes, some of which are standard and others earned through gameplay or released during holiday events.RuneScape has original music and ambient soundscapes. The music was designed to define the underlying cultures of the various locations accessible, and ambient sounds, such as the cry of seagulls flying over the ocean, occur in logical places. The game also incorporates voice acting in certain areas and situations. The RuneScape 3 update included orchestral music recorded in Bratislava, Slovakia, and was scored by James Hannigan. Servers As of November 2011, there were 139 English RuneScape servers located throughout the world, which are numbered and referred to as "worlds" by players and by Jagex. They are located in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Mexico, France, Lithuania, and India. Servers are moved or added as the need arises.Each RuneScape server allows up to 2,000 players to log in simultaneously, allowing a maximum capacity of more than 278,000 players. The servers are divided into free servers which are available for all players, and servers which are reserved for paying members. Some servers are given activity labels, allowing players performing tasks that require or desire group participation to group together. Old School RuneScape In February 2013, a poll was opened allowing players to decide whether Jagex should open a separate incarnation of RuneScape from August 2007. Old School RuneScape was opened to paying subscribers on 22 February 2013 after the poll received 50,000 votes, and a free-to-play version was later released on 19 February 2015. It was originally created as an exact copy of RuneScape from August 2007 and receives regular content additions. Old School RuneScape is entirely community based; for any proposed update or idea to pass into the game, it needs at least 75% of the community to vote 'Yes' for it, and if it does not pass it will either be dropped or reconstructed and re-polled so that the players may find the update more acceptable. On 17 July 2017, Jagex announced a mobile port of Old School RuneScape, which was released in 2018. DarkScape On 16 September 2015 Jagex released DarkScape, a separate version of RuneScape which featured open-world player versus player combat. DarkScape was originally released with most of RuneScape's content, but received separate content updates. DarkScape was completely free to play, with some additional benefits reserved for paying subscribers. DarkScape closed on 28 March 2016 due to lack of interest. Community A set of forums are provided by Jagex on the RuneScape website. On the forums, players are able to participate in game discussions, arrange to buy or sell items, post suggestions for game improvements, vote in polls, and otherwise interact with the community. A user can set an avatar, have a separate display name and set an automatic signature. User profiles display the recent posts a user has made along with the option to disable smileys. The privilege of posting on the forums is limited to paying members, as well as free players with a total level exceeding 350.Between 24 September 2002 and 9 December 2004, players could submit questions via e-mail to the RuneScape gods, which were published in the form of letters. On 26 September 2005, a new feature known as Postbag from the Hedge was introduced, where players can submit questions via e-mail to a non-player character in the game. Players can also submit original RuneScape related artwork (such as sculptures, comics, drawings and paintings), some of which is displayed in a gallery on the RuneScape website.During various holidays, including Easter, Halloween and Christmas, Jagex hosts a holiday event in a specific location in Gielinor. Players who successfully complete the required tasks during the event receive a reward such as an item or an emote, allowing the player character to perform a gesture conveying an emotion. Holiday items released prior to 2002 are tradeable among players, and due to their rarity are worth significant amounts of money on the player market. Holiday items after Christmas 2002 are untradeable and limited to one per player and can be retrieved if lost.Various RuneScape fansites have been established by players, which are a source of information about the game. For account security reasons, Jagex discourages the discussion of fansites within the game or the forums – and a rule specifically prohibits sharing web addresses. A major fansite has criticised Jagex for not recognising fansites' contributions to the development of its game. However, as a result of announcements made in 2009, Jagex promised to increase communication with fansites.On 28 July 2014, Twitch functionality was integrated into the game, allowing players to stream their gameplay or view other streams from within the game. Rules and cheating Jagex has employed rules for player conduct, such as rules against offensive language, scamming, and bug abuse. To enforce the rules, an in-game feature exists that allows a player to send a report to Jagex if they notice another player breaking a rule. RuneScape also uses four types of moderators: Jagex Moderators, who are Jagex employees; Local Moderators, who are employees of Jagex's partners in certain territories; Player Moderators, who are trusted players that enforce the rules within the game; and Forum Moderators, who are trusted players who monitor the game forums. Players who repeatedly break the rules may be temporarily or permanently banned from playing the game.There are also rules prohibiting the use of third-party software to play the game, known as "macroing" or "botting", and the sale of game items for real money through real-world trading. In an attempt to stop cheating, Jagex made direct interaction with the client difficult, established rules against the practice, and introduced random events that required player input to complete. In response to continued gold farming, Jagex issued a statement condemning real-world trading, stating that they were seizing billions of gold and banning thousands of accounts every week for cheating, and promising to increase their efforts to prevent real-world trading in the game.From October 2007 to December 2007, Jagex began releasing a series of updates to restrict unbalanced trades. The updates limited the value of items staked in duels, removed player-versus-player combat from the Wilderness, made valuable player drops invisible to other players, introduced gravestones for the items of dead players, instituted systems for assisting players with skills and sharing loot among groups of players, and established the Grand Exchange, a sharemarket-like trade system for RuneScape goods. Collectively, these changes were designed to make it extremely difficult for real-world traders to distribute gold and items to players. These features were restored on 1 February 2011 following a referendum among players in December 2010 on whether or not to do so.On 25 October 2011, Jagex released an anti-bot system code-named the 'ClusterFlutterer', as part of a game update intended to permanently prevent "reflection" bots from working. The release of this was nicknamed the "Bot Nuke", and was estimated to have banned 98% of the accounts that were using bots, eventually resulting in 7.7 million account bans. From 26 September 2012 until its removal on 20 August 2018, accounts that were banned for using bots were sent to an isolated area named "Botany Bay" to be given an ultimate punishment as decided by players.On 25 September 2013, Jagex introduced bonds to the game, in-game items that can be purchased using real currency then traded with other players or exchanged for membership, RuneCoins or additional spins on the game's Squeal of Fortune. Bonds were introduced to allow players to exchange real currency for in-game benefits legitimately, a move described by CEO Mark Gerhard as "essential for the future of RuneScape". One week later, Jagex reported that the amount of in-game coins brought in by gold farmers was down by 81%; real-world trading was down by 61% and the wealth of those trades was down by 63%. Falador Massacre The Falador Massacre was a historic bug that occurred on 6 June 2006. The bug caused several players to retain the ability to attack other players after leaving a designated PvP location. Ordinarily, players are only allowed to attack other players in player-owned houses, minigames, or in the Wilderness. According to a statement made by a Jagex employee, the bug was caused by insufficient testing of an update that saw the release of a new game skill, Construction, wherein players could create their own houses in which PvP combat could take place. Although the bug was considered quite negative at the time of occurrence, Jagex has since recognized it as a historic event in the franchise, and has created in-game reenactments in both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape. On 6 June 2016, Jagex created two unique and isolated game servers (worlds 111 for RS3 and 666 for OSRS, commemorating 6/6/06) wherein PvP was enabled and players could attack an NPC named after "Durial321", one of the more well known players to have been affected by the bug. World 666 also played an in-game cover of the song "Planet Hell" by Nightwish, which was the song used in the original video of the event. The track was removed from the game when the event was over. The bug's reception has become part of internet culture. PC Gamer called the bug "One of the best all-time MMO bugs". Reception PC Gamer UK stated in December 2003, that while the "traditional [role-playing game] values of questing, slaying monsters and developing your character in a familiar medieval setting" will not "have the big boys trembling in their +2 Boots of Subscriber Gathering," this is offset by the game's accessibility through a web browser, "compounded by a version of the game that allows free adventuring player the opportunity to upgrade to a members' account", describing the game as "an unsurprising success".The Yahoo! 2006 Buzz Log stated that, "while it may not be as easy on the eyes as some other popular [MMORPGs], like World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, or EverQuest, RuneScape is still a lot better way to kill time than pushing around cells in a spreadsheet". A 2007 JustRPG review summarised RuneScape as "a fun, addictive game, and while the graphics may not be perfect, for a game written in Java, they aren't bad. The skills are varied, the community is alright, and it'll eat up your time if you aren't careful", giving it a score of 83%.In its 2008 intellectual property profile of the game, Developmag.com stated that whilst Jagex's changes to curtail real world trading resulted in "a wave of user criticism... growth is understood to have resumed since". Its analysis stated that "RuneScape's mass-market appeal lies in its simplicity and accessibility (both financial and technical). It has tapped into the vast market of games players unwilling or unable to spend premium prices on PCs capable of playing the latest, expensive, processor-intensive games. Its core gameplay concepts are very similar to its retail-distributed RPG and MMORPG analogues." In August 2008, RuneScape was recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's most popular free MMORPG. Jagex was presented with a certificate to commemorate the achievement at the 2008 Leipzig Games Convention. A 2009 Eurogamer article criticised RuneScape's in-game community for being unfriendly to newcomers, although they have stated that the fan-forum community is more approachable.An April 2011 review by MMORPG.com was complimentary of RuneScape, stating that "For anyone looking for that "old-school" experience but with also tons of progression, refinement, and unique ideas, RuneScape is easily recommendable", but criticised the game's combat system and emphasis on grinding. "...the genre feels slightly passed clicking an enemy and watching two swords clunk mercilessly into opposing body forms...RuneScape has grind in abundance and while this is not entirely a bad thing, it will put some players off looking for a slightly easier and more casual experience". The game received the "Role-Playing Game" award at The Independent Game Developers' Association Awards 2018.On 10 December 2007, updates by Jagex removed free player-versus-player combat and unbalanced trading in order to rid the game of activities involving real currency being traded for virtual goods. The updates also affected legitimate players, resulting in many of them actively complaining on the forums. Jagex issued a Customer Support News article admitting the updates may not have been an ideal replacement for what was removed, requesting patience and promising to remedy potential problems with updates in the future. During the changes, subscription numbers fell by 60,000. No figures were given as to how many of those subscriptions belonged to legitimate players and how many to gold farmers. In an interview in February 2008, Jagex's head of content stated that, "we were really afraid we were going to lose our members over this change, because other games had in the past. But we are very, very pleased to say that we have lost practically none of our members."In December 2010, a referendum was opened to decide whether to restore unbalanced trades and player-versus-player combat in the Wilderness, which closed with 1.2 million votes cast and 91% of voters in favour of the proposal, and these features were restored on 1 February 2011. A second referendum was announced in February 2013 to decide whether to run a separate version of the game dating from 2007, closing on 1 March 2013 with almost 450,000 votes. Servers for the 2007 version were opened on 22 February 2013 once 50,000 votes were collected. Revenue In 2018, it was reported that RuneScape had generated over US$1 billion in lifetime revenue since its original launch. RuneScape annually generates over £100 million in revenue and over £50 million in profit. Official website Official wiki

4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is a square number, the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. Evolution of the Hindu-Arabic digit Brahmic numerals represented 1, 2, and 3 with as many lines. 4 was simplified by joining its four lines into a cross that looks like the modern plus sign. The Shunga would add a horizontal line on top of the digit, and the Kshatrapa and Pallava evolved the digit to a point where the speed of writing was a secondary concern. The Arabs' 4 still had the early concept of the cross, but for the sake of efficiency, was made in one stroke by connecting the "western" end to the "northern" end; the "eastern" end was finished off with a curve. The Europeans dropped the finishing curve and gradually made the digit less cursive, ending up with a digit very close to the original Brahmin cross.While the shape of the character for the digit 4 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the glyph usually has a descender, as, for example, in . On the seven-segment displays of pocket calculators and digital watches, as well as certain optical character recognition fonts, 4 is seen with an open top: .Television stations that operate on channel 4 have occasionally made use of another variation of the "open 4", with the open portion being on the side, rather than the top. This version resembles the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics letter ᔦ. The magnetic ink character recognition "CMC-7" font also uses this variety of "4". Mathematics Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 2. Four is the sum and product of two with itself: 2 + 2 = 4 = 2 × 2 {\displaystyle 2+2=4=2\times 2} , the only number b {\displaystyle b} such that a + a = b = a × a {\displaystyle a+a=b=a\times a} , which also makes four the smallest and only even squared prime number 2 2 {\displaystyle 2^{2}} and hence the first squared prime of the form p 2 {\displaystyle p^{2}} , where p {\displaystyle p} is a prime. Four, as the first composite number, has a prime aliquot sum of 3; and as such it is part of the first aliquot sequence with a single composite member, expressly (4, 3, 1, 0). In Knuth's up-arrow notation, 2 + 2 = 2 × 2 = 2 2 = 2 ↑↑ 2 = 2 ↑↑↑ 2 = . . . = 4 {\displaystyle 2+2=2\times 2=2^{2}=2\uparrow \uparrow 2=2\uparrow \uparrow \uparrow 2=\;...\;=4} , and so forth, for any number of up arrows. By consequence, four is the only square one more than a prime number, specifically three. The sum of the first four prime numbers two + three + five + seven is the only sum of four consecutive prime numbers that yields an odd prime number, seventeen, which is the fourth super-prime. Four lies between the first proper pair of twin primes, three and five, which are the first two Fermat primes, like seventeen, which is the third. On the other hand, the square of four ( 4 2 {\displaystyle 4^{2}} ), equivalently the fourth power of two ( 2 4 {\displaystyle 2^{4}} ), is sixteen; the only number that has a b = b a {\displaystyle a^{b}=b^{a}} as a form of factorization.Holistically, there are four elementary arithmetic operations in mathematics: addition (+), subtraction (−), multiplication (×), and division (÷); and four basic number systems, the real numbers R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } , rational numbers Q {\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} } , integers Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } , and natural numbers N {\displaystyle \mathbb {N} } . Each natural number divisible by 4 is a difference of squares of two natural numbers, i.e. 4 x = y 2 − z 2 {\displaystyle 4x=y^{2}-z^{2}} . A number is a multiple of 4 if its last two digits are a multiple of 4 (for example, 1092 is a multiple of 4 because 92 = 4 × 23).Lagrange's four-square theorem states that every positive integer can be written as the sum of at most four square numbers. Three are not always sufficient; 7 for instance cannot be written as the sum of three squares.There are four all-Harshad numbers: 1, 2, 4, and 6. 12, which is divisible by four thrice over, is a Harshad number in all bases except octal. A four-sided plane figure is a quadrilateral or quadrangle, sometimes also called a tetragon. It can be further classified as a rectangle or oblong, kite, rhombus, and square. Four is the highest degree general polynomial equation for which there is a solution in radicals.The four-color theorem states that a planar graph (or, equivalently, a flat map of two-dimensional regions such as countries) can be colored using four colors, so that adjacent vertices (or regions) are always different colors. Three colors are not, in general, sufficient to guarantee this. The largest planar complete graph has four vertices.A solid figure with four faces as well as four vertices is a tetrahedron, which is the smallest possible number of faces and vertices a polyhedron can have. The regular tetrahedron, also called a 3-simplex, is the simplest Platonic solid. It has four regular triangles as faces that are themselves at dual positions with the vertices of another tetrahedron. Tetrahedra can be inscribed inside all other four Platonic solids, and tessellate space alongside the regular octahedron in the alternated cubic honeycomb. The third dimension holds a total of four Coxeter groups that generate convex uniform polyhedra: the tetrahedral group, the octahedral group, the icosahedral group, and a dihedral group (of orders 24, 48, 120, and 4 n {\displaystyle n} , respectively). There are also four general Coxeter groups of generalized uniform prisms, where two are hosoderal and dihedral groups that form spherical tilings, with another two general prismatic and antiprismatic groups that represent truncated hosohedra (or simply, prisms) and snub antiprisms, respectively. Four-dimensional space is the highest-dimensional space featuring more than three regular convex figures: Two-dimensional: infinitely many regular polygons. Three-dimensional: five regular polyhedra; the five Platonic solids which are the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. Four-dimensional: six regular polychora; the 5-cell, 8-cell or tesseract, 16-cell, 24-cell, 120-cell, and 600-cell. The 24-cell, made of regular octahedra, has no analogue in any other dimension; it is self-dual, with its 24-cell honeycomb dual to the 16-cell honeycomb. Five-dimensional and every higher dimension: three regular convex n {\displaystyle n} -polytopes, all within the infinite family of regular n {\displaystyle n} -simplexes, n {\displaystyle n} -hypercubes, and n {\displaystyle n} -orthoplexes.The fourth dimension is also the highest dimension where regular self-intersecting figures exist: Two-dimensional: infinitely many regular star polygons. Three-dimensional: four regular star polyhedra, the regular Kepler-Poinsot star polyhedra. Four-dimensional: ten regular star polychora, the Schläfli–Hess star polychora. They contain cells of Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra alongside regular tetrahedra, icosahedra and dodecahedra. Five-dimensional and every higher dimension: zero regular star-polytopes; uniform star polytopes in dimensions n {\displaystyle n} > 4 {\displaystyle 4} are the most symmetric, which mainly originate from stellations of regular n {\displaystyle n} -polytopes.Altogether, sixteen (or 16 = 42) regular convex and star polychora are generated from symmetries of four (4) Coxeter Weyl groups and point groups in the fourth dimension: the A 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{4}} simplex, B 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{4}} hypercube, F 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F} _{4}} icositetrachoric, and H 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{4}} hexacosichoric groups; with the D 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {D} _{4}} demihypercube group generating two alternative constructions. There are also sixty-four (or 64 = 43) four-dimensional Bravais lattices, alongside sixty-four uniform polychora in the fourth dimension based on the same A 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{4}} , B 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{4}} , F 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F} _{4}} and H 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{4}} Coxeter groups, and extending to prismatic groups of uniform polyhedra, including one special non-Wythoffian form, the grand antiprism. There are also two infinite families of duoprisms and antiprismatic prisms in the fourth dimension. There are only four polytopes with radial equilateral symmetry: the hexagon, the cuboctahedron, the tesseract, and the 24-cell. Four-dimensional differential manifolds have some unique properties. There is only one differential structure on R n {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{n}} except when n {\displaystyle n} = 4 {\displaystyle 4} , in which case there are uncountably many. The smallest non-cyclic group has four elements; it is the Klein four-group. An alternating groups are not simple for values n {\displaystyle n} ≤ 4 {\displaystyle 4} . There are four Hopf fibrations of hyperspheres: They are defined as locally trivial fibrations that map f : S 2 n − 1 → S n {\displaystyle f:S^{2n-1}\rightarrow S^{n}} for values of n = 2 , 4 , 8 {\displaystyle n=2,4,8} (aside from the trivial fibration mapping between two points and a circle).Further extensions of the real numbers under Hurwitz's theorem states that there are four normed division algebras: the real numbers R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } , the complex numbers C {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} } , the quaternions H {\displaystyle \mathbb {H} } , and the octonions O {\displaystyle \mathbb {O} } . Under Cayley–Dickson constructions, the sedenions S {\displaystyle \mathbb {S} } constitute a further fourth extension over R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } . The real numbers are ordered, commutative and associative algebras, as well as alternative algebras with power-associativity. The complex numbers C {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} } share all four multiplicative algebraic properties of the reals R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } , without being ordered. The quaternions loose a further commutative algebraic property, while holding associative, alternative, and power-associative properties. The octonions are alternative and power-associative, while the sedenions are only power-associative. The sedenions and all further extensions of these four normed division algebras are solely power-associative with non-trivial zero divisors, which makes them non-division algebras. R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } has a vector space of dimension 1, while C {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} } , H {\displaystyle \mathbb {H} } , O {\displaystyle \mathbb {O} } and S {\displaystyle \mathbb {S} } work in algebraic number fields of dimensions 2, 4, 8, and 16, respectively. List of basic calculations In religion Buddhism Four Noble Truths – Dukkha, Samudaya, Nirodha, Magga Four sights – observations which affected Prince Siddhartha deeply and made him realize the sufferings of all beings, and compelled him to begin his spiritual journey—an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and an ascetic Four Great Elements – earth, water, fire, and wind Four Heavenly Kings Four Foundations of Mindfulness – contemplation of the body, contemplation of feelings, contemplation of mind, contemplation of mental objects Four Right Exertions Four Bases of Power Four jhānas Four arūpajhānas Four Divine Abidings – loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity Four stages of enlightenment – stream-enterer, once-returner, non-returner, and arahant Four main pilgrimage sites – Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, and Kusinara Judeo-Christian symbolism The Tetragrammaton is the four-letter name of God. Ezekiel has a vision of four living creatures: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. The four Matriarchs (foremothers) of Judaism are Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel. The Four Species (lulav, hadass, aravah and etrog) are taken as one of the mitzvot on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. (Judaism) The Four Cups of Wine to drink on the Jewish holiday of Passover. (Judaism) The Four Questions to be asked on the Jewish holiday of Passover. (Judaism) The Four Sons to be dealt with on the Jewish holiday of Passover. (Judaism) The Four Expressions of Redemption to be said on the Jewish holiday of Passover. (Judaism) The four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. (Christianity) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride in the Book of Revelation. (Christianity) The four holy cities of Judaism: Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberius Hinduism There are four Vedas: Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. In Puruṣārtha, there are four aims of human life: Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Moksha. The four stages of life Brahmacharya (student life), Grihastha (household life), Vanaprastha (retired life) and Sannyasa (renunciation). The four primary castes or strata of society: Brahmana (priest/teacher), Kshatriya (warrior/politician), Vaishya (landowner/entrepreneur) and Shudra (servant/manual laborer). The swastika symbol is traditionally used in Hindu religions as a sign of good luck and signifies good from all four directions. The god Brahma has four faces. There are four yugas: Satya, Dvapara, Treta and Kali Islam Eid al-Adha lasts for four days, from the 10th to the 14th of Dhul Hijja. The four holy cities of Islam: Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and Damascus. The four tombs in the Green Dome: Muhammad, Abu Bakr, Umar ibn Khattab and Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus). There are four Rashidun or Rightly Guided Caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. The Four Arch Angels in Islam are: Jibraeel (Gabriel), Mikaeel (Michael), Izraeel (Azrael), and Israfil (Raphael) There are four months in which war is not permitted: Muharram, Rajab, Dhu al-Qi'dah and Dhu al-Hijjah. There are four Sunni schools of fiqh: Hanafi, Shafi`i, Maliki and Hanbali. There are four major Sunni Imams: Abū Ḥanīfa, Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi`i, Malik ibn Anas and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. There are four books in Islam: Taurāt, Zābūr, Injīl, Qur'ān. Waiting for four months is ordained for those who take an oath for abstention from their wives. The waiting period of the woman whose husband dies is four months and ten days. When Abraham said: "My Lord, show me how You give life to the dead," Allah said: "Why! Do you have no faith?" Abraham replied: "Yes, but in order that my heart be at rest." He said: "Then take four birds, and tame them to yourself, then put a part of them on every hill, and summon them; they will come to you flying. [Al-Baqara 2:260] The respite of four months was granted to give time to the mushriks in Surah At-Tawba so that they should consider their position carefully and decide whether to make preparation for war or to emigrate from the country or to accept Islam. Those who accuse honorable women (of unchastity) but do not produce four witnesses, flog them with eighty lashes, and do not admit their testimony ever after. They are indeed transgressors. [An-Noor 24:4] Taoism Four Symbols of I Ching Other In a more general sense, numerous mythological and cosmogonical systems consider Four corners of the world as essentially corresponding to the four points of the compass. Four is the sacred number of the Zia, an indigenous tribe located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The Chinese, the Koreans, and the Japanese are superstitious about the number four because it is a homonym for "death" in their languages. In Slavic mythology, the god Svetovid has four heads. In politics Four Freedoms: four fundamental freedoms that Franklin D. Roosevelt declared ought to be enjoyed by everyone in the world: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear. Gang of Four: Popular name for four Chinese Communist Party leaders who rose to prominence during China's Cultural Revolution, but were ousted in 1976 following the death of Chairman Mao Zedong. Among the four was Mao's widow, Jiang Qing. Since then, many other political factions headed by four people have been called "Gangs of Four". In computing Four bits (half a byte) are sometimes called a nibble. In science A tetramer is an oligomer formed out of four sub-units. In astronomy Four terrestrial (or rocky) planets in the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. Four giant gas/ice planets in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Four of Jupiter's moons (the Galilean moons) are readily visible from Earth with a hobby telescope. Messier object M4, a magnitude 7.5 globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius. The Roman numeral IV stands for subgiant in the Yerkes spectral classification scheme. In biology Four is the number of nucleobase types in DNA and RNA – adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine (uracil in RNA). Many chordates have four feet, legs or leglike appendages (tetrapods). The mammalian heart consists of four chambers. Many mammals (Carnivora, Ungulata) use four fingers for movement. All insects with wings except flies and some others have four wings. Insects of the superorder Endopterygota, also known as Holometabola, such as butterflies, ants, bees, beetles, fleas, flies, moths, and wasps, undergo holometabolism—complete metamorphism in four stages—from (1) embryo (ovum, egg), to (2) larva (such as grub, caterpillar), then (3) pupa (such as the chrysalis), and finally (4) the imago. In the common ABO blood group system, there are four blood types (A, B, O, AB). Humans have four canines and four wisdom teeth. The cow's stomach is divided in four digestive compartments: reticulum, rumen, omasum and abomasum. In chemistry Valency of carbon (that is basis of life on the Earth) is four. Also because of its tetrahedral crystal bond structure, diamond (one of the natural allotropes of carbon) is the hardest known naturally occurring material. It is also the valence of silicon, whose compounds form the majority of the mass of the Earth's crust. The atomic number of beryllium There are four basic states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. In physics Special relativity and general relativity treat nature as four-dimensional: 3D regular space and one-dimensional time are treated together and called spacetime. Also, any event E has a light cone composed of four zones of possible communication and cause and effect (outside the light cone is strictly incommunicado). There are four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravitation, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force). In statistical mechanics, the four functions inequality is an inequality for four functions on a finite distributive lattice. In logic and philosophy The symbolic meanings of the number four are linked to those of the cross and the square. "Almost from prehistoric times, the number four was employed to signify what was solid, what could be touched and felt. Its relationship to the cross (four points) made it an outstanding symbol of wholeness and universality, a symbol which drew all to itself". Where lines of latitude and longitude intersect, they divide the earth into four proportions. Throughout the world kings and chieftains have been called "lord of the four suns" or "lord of the four quarters of the earth", which is understood to refer to the extent of their powers both territorially and in terms of total control of their subjects' doings. The Square of Opposition, in both its Aristotelian version and its Boolean version, consists of four forms: A ("All S is R"), I ("Some S is R"), E ("No S is R"), and O ("Some S is not R"). In regard to whether two given propositions can have the same truth value, there are four separate logical possibilities: the propositions are subalterns (possibly both are true, and possibly both are false); subcontraries (both may be true, but not that both are false); contraries (both may be false, but not that both are true); or contradictories (it is not possible that both are true, and it is not possible that both are false). Aristotle held that there are basically four causes in nature: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. The Stoics held with four basic categories, all viewed as bodies (substantial and insubstantial): (1) substance in the sense of substrate, primary formless matter; (2) quality, matter's organization to differentiate and individualize something, and coming down to a physical ingredient such as pneuma, breath; (3) somehow holding (or disposed), as in a posture, state, shape, size, action, and (4) somehow holding (or disposed) toward something, as in relative location, familial relation, and so forth. Immanuel Kant expounded a table of judgments involving four three-way alternatives, in regard to (1) Quantity, (2) Quality, (3) Relation, (4) Modality, and, based thereupon, a table of four categories, named by the terms just listed, and each with three subcategories. Arthur Schopenhauer's doctoral thesis was On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Franz Brentano held that any major philosophical period has four phases: (1) Creative and rapidly progressing with scientific interest and results; then declining through the remaining phases, (2) practical, (3) increasingly skeptical, and (4) literary, mystical, and scientifically worthless—until philosophy is renewed through a new period's first phase. (See Brentano's essay "The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State" 1895, tr. by Mezei and Smith 1998.) C. S. Peirce, usually a trichotomist, discussed four methods for overcoming troublesome uncertainties and achieving secure beliefs: (1) the method of tenacity (policy of sticking to initial belief), (2) the method of authority, (3) the method of congruity (following a fashionable paradigm), and (4) the fallibilistic, self-correcting method of science (see "The Fixation of Belief", 1877); and four barriers to inquiry, barriers refused by the fallibilist: (1) assertion of absolute certainty; (2) maintaining that something is unknowable; (3) maintaining that something is inexplicable because absolutely basic or ultimate; (4) holding that perfect exactitude is possible, especially such as to quite preclude unusual and anomalous phenomena (see "F.R.L." [First Rule of Logic], 1899). Paul Weiss built a system involving four modes of being: Actualities (substances in the sense of substantial, spatiotemporally finite beings), Ideality or Possibility (pure normative form), Existence (the dynamic field), and God (unity). (See Weiss's Modes of Being, 1958). Karl Popper outlined a tetradic schema to describe the growth of theories and, via generalization, also the emergence of new behaviors and living organisms: (1) problem, (2) tentative theory, (3) (attempted) error-elimination (especially by way of critical discussion), and (4) new problem(s). (See Popper's Objective Knowledge, 1972, revised 1979.) John Boyd (military strategist) made his key concept the decision cycle or OODA loop, consisting of four stages: (1) observation (data intake through the senses), (2) orientation (analysis and synthesis of data), (3) decision, and (4) action. Boyd held that his decision cycle has philosophical generality, though for strategists the point remains that, through swift decisions, one can disrupt an opponent's decision cycle. Richard McKeon outlined four classes (each with four subclasses) of modes of philosophical inquiry: (1) Modes of Being (Being); (2) Modes of Thought (That which is); (3) Modes of Fact (Existence); (4) Modes of Simplicity (Experience)—and, corresponding to them, four classes (each with four subclasses) of philosophical semantics: Principles, Methods, Interpretations, and Selections. (See McKeon's "Philosophic Semantics and Philosophic Inquiry" in Freedom and History and Other Essays, 1989.) Jonathan Lowe (E.J. Lowe) argues in The Four-Category Ontology, 2006, for four categories: kinds (substantial universals), attributes (relational universals and property-universals), objects (substantial particulars), and modes (relational particulars and property-particulars, also known as "tropes"). (See Lowe's "Recent Advances in Metaphysics," 2001, Eprint) Four opposed camps of the morality and nature of evil: moral absolutism, amoralism, moral relativism, and moral universalism. In technology The resin identification code used in recycling to identify low-density polyethylene. Most furniture has four legs – tables, chairs, etc. The four color process (CMYK) is used for printing. Wide use of rectangles (with four angles and four sides) because they have effective form and capability for close adjacency to each other (houses, rooms, tables, bricks, sheets of paper, screens, film frames). In the Rich Text Format specification, language code 4 is for the Chinese language. Codes for regional variants of Chinese are congruent to 4 mod 256. Credit card machines have four-twelve function keys. On most phones, the 4 key is associated with the letters G, H, and I, but on the BlackBerry Pearl, it is the key for D and F. On many computer keyboards, the "4" key may also be used to type the dollar sign ($) if the shift key is held down. It is the number of bits in a nibble, equivalent to half a byte In internet slang, "4" can replace the word "for" (as "four" and "for" are pronounced similarly). For example, typing "4u" instead of "for you". In Leetspeak, "4" may be used to replace the letter "A". The TCP/IP stack consists of four layers. In transport Many internal combustion engines are called four-stroke engines because they complete one thermodynamic cycle in four distinct steps: Intake, compression, power, and exhaust. Most vehicles, including motor vehicles, and particularly cars/automobiles and light commercial vehicles have four road wheels. "Quattro", meaning four in the Italian language, is used by Audi as a trademark to indicate that all-wheel drive (AWD) technologies are used on Audi-branded cars. The word "Quattro" was initially used by Audi in 1980 in its original 4WD coupé, the Audi Quattro. Audi also has a privately held subsidiary company called quattro GmbH. List of highways numbered 4 In sports In the Australian Football League, the top level of Australian rules football, each team is allowed 4 "interchanges" (substitute players), who can be freely substituted at any time, subject to a limit on the total number of substitutions. In baseball: There are four bases in the game: first base, second base, third base, and home plate; to score a run, an offensive player must complete, in the sequence shown, a circuit of those four bases. When a batter receives four pitches that the umpire declares to be "balls" in a single at-bat, a base on balls, informally known as a "walk", is awarded, with the batter sent to first base. For scoring, number 4 is assigned to the second baseman. Four is the most runs that can be scored on any single at bat, whereby all three baserunners and the batter score (the most common being via a grand slam). The fourth batter in the batting lineup is called the cleanup hitter. In basketball, the number four is used to designate the power forward position, often referred to as "the four spot" or "the four". In cricket, a four is a specific type of scoring event, whereby the ball crosses the boundary after touching the ground at least one time, scoring four runs. Taking four wickets in four consecutive balls is typically referred to as a double hat trick (two consecutive, overlapping hat tricks). In American Football teams get four downs to reach the line of gain. In rowing, a four refers to a boat for four rowers, with or without coxswain. In rowing nomenclature, 4− represents a coxless four and 4+ represents a coxed four. In rugby league: A try is worth 4 points. One of the two starting centres wears the jersey number 4. (An exception to this rule is the Super League, which uses static squad numbering.) In rugby union: One of the two starting locks wears the jersey number 4. In the standard bonus points system, a point is awarded in the league standings to a team that scores at least 4 tries in a match, regardless of the match result. In other fields The phrase "four-letter word" is used to describe many swear words in the English language. Four is the only number whose name in English has the same number of letters as its value. Four (四, formal writing: 肆, pinyin sì) is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese cultures mostly in Eastern Asia because it sounds like the word "death" (死, pinyin sǐ). To avoid complaints from people with tetraphobia, many numbered product lines skip the "four": e.g. Nokia cell phones (there was no series beginning with a 4 until the Nokia 4.2), Palm PDAs, etc. Some buildings skip floor 4 or replace the number with the letter "F", particularly in heavily Asian areas. See tetraphobia and Numbers in Chinese culture. In Pythagorean numerology (a pseudocience) the number 4 represents security and stability. The number of characters in a canonical four-character idiom. In the NATO phonetic alphabet, the digit 4 is called "fower". In astrology, Cancer is the 4th astrological sign of the Zodiac.In Tarot, The Emperor is the fourth trump or Major Arcana card. In Tetris, a game named for the Greek word for 4, every shape in the game is formed of 4 blocks each. 4 represents the number of Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States necessary to grant a writ of certiorari (i.e., agree to hear a case; it is one less than the number necessary to render a majority decision) at the court's current size. Number Four is a character in the book series Lorien Legacies. In the performing arts, the fourth wall is an imaginary barrier which separates the audience from the performers, and is "broken" when performers communicate directly to the audience. In music In written music, common time is constructed of four beats per measure and a quarter note receives one beat. In popular or modern music, the most common time signature is also founded on four beats, i.e., 4/4 having four quarter note beats. The common major scale is built on two sets of four notes (e.g., CDEF, GABC), where the first and last notes create an octave interval (a pair-of-four relationship). The interval of a perfect fourth is a foundational element of many genres of music, represented in music theory as the tonic and subdominant relationship. Four is also embodied within the circle of fifths (also known as circle of fourths), which reveals the interval of four in more active harmonic contexts. The typical number of movements in a symphony. The number of completed, numbered symphonies by Johannes Brahms. The number of strings on a violin, a viola, a cello, double bass, a cuatro, a typical bass guitar, and a ukulele, and the number of string pairs on a mandolin. "Four calling birds" is the gift on the fourth day of Christmas in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Groups of four Big Four (disambiguation) Four basic operations of arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Greek classical elements (fire, air, water, earth). Four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter. The Four Seasons (disambiguation) A leap year generally occurs every four years. Approximately four weeks (4 times 7 days) to a lunar month (synodic month = 29.53 days). Thus the number four is universally an integral part of primitive sacred calendars. Four weeks of Advent (and four Advent candles on the Advent wreath). Four cardinal directions: north, south, east, west. Four Temperaments: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic. Four Humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, phlegm. Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. Four-corner method. Four Asian Tigers, referring to the economies of Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore Cardinal principles. Four cardinal virtues: justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude. Four suits of playing cards: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades. Four nations of the United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland. Four provinces of Ireland: Munster, Ulster, Leinster, Connacht. Four estates: politics, administration, judiciary, journalism. Especially in the expression "Fourth Estate", which means journalism. Four Corners is the only location in the United States where four states come together at a single point: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. Four Evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Four Doctors of Western Church – Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, and Saint Jerome Four Doctors of Eastern Church – Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus and Saint Athanasius Four Galilean moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto The Gang of Four was a Chinese communist political faction. The Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, The Thing. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael The Beatles were also known as the "Fab Four": John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr. Gang of Four is a British post-punk rock band formed in the late 1970s. Four rivers in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10–14): Pishon (perhaps the Jaxartes or Syr Darya), Gihon (perhaps the Oxus or Amu Darya), Hiddekel (Tigris), and P'rat (Euphrates). There are also four years in a single Olympiad (duration between the Olympic Games). Many major international sports competitions follow this cycle, among them the FIFA World Cup and its women's version, the FIBA World Championships for men and women, and the Rugby World Cup. There are four limbs on the human body. Four Houses of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. Four known continents of the world in the A Song of Ice and Fire series: Westeros, Essos, Sothoryos, Ulthos. Each Grand Prix in Nintendo's Mario Kart series is divided into four cups and each cup is divided into four courses. The Mushroom Cup, Flower Cup, Star Cup, and Special Cup make up the Nitro Grand Prix, while the Shell Cup, Banana Cup, Leaf Cup, and the Lightning Cup make up the Retro Grand Prix. See also List of highways numbered 4 Wells, D. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers London: Penguin Group. (1987): 55–58 Marijn.Org on Why is everything four? A few thoughts on the number four, by Penelope Merritt at samuel-beckett.net The Number 4 The Positive Integer 4 Prime curiosities: 4

5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has garnered attention throughout history in part because distal extremities in humans typically contain five digits. Evolution of the Arabic digit The evolution of the modern Western digit for the numeral 5 cannot be traced back to the Indian system, as for the digits 1 to 4. The Kushana and Gupta empires in what is now India had among themselves several forms that bear no resemblance to the modern digit. The Nagari and Punjabi took these digits and all came up with forms that were similar to a lowercase "h" rotated 180°. The Ghubar Arabs transformed the digit in several ways, producing from that were more similar to the digits 4 or 3 than to 5. It was from those digits that Europeans finally came up with the modern 5. While the shape of the character for the digit 5 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the glyph usually has a descender, as, for example, in . On the seven-segment display of a calculator and digital clock, it is represented by five segments at four successive turns from top to bottom, rotating counterclockwise first, then clockwise, and vice-versa. It is one of three numbers, along with 4 and 6, where the number of segments matches the number. Mathematics Five is the third smallest prime number, and the second super-prime. It is the first safe prime, the first good prime, the first balanced prime, and the first of three known Wilson primes. Five is the second Fermat prime, the second Proth prime, and the third Mersenne prime exponent, as well as the third Catalan number and the third Sophie Germain prime. Notably, 5 is equal to the sum of the only consecutive primes 2 + 3 and it is the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes, (3, 5) and (5, 7). It also forms the first pair of sexy primes with 11, which is the fifth prime number and Heegner number, as well as the first repunit prime in decimal; a base in-which five is also the first non-trivial 1-automorphic number. Five is the third factorial prime, and an alternating factorial. It is also an Eisenstein prime (like 11) with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3 p − 1 {\displaystyle 3p-1} . In particular, five is the first congruent number, since it is the length of the hypotenuse of the smallest integer-sided right triangle. Number theory 5 is the fifth Fibonacci number, being 2 plus 3. It is the only Fibonacci number that is equal to its position aside from 1, which is both the first and second Fibonacci numbers. Five is also a Pell number and a Markov number, appearing in solutions to the Markov Diophantine equation: (1, 2, 5), (1, 5, 13), (2, 5, 29), (5, 13, 194), (5, 29, 433), ... (OEIS: A030452 lists Markov numbers that appear in solutions where one of the other two terms is 5). Whereas 5 is unique in the Fibonacci sequence, in the Perrin sequence 5 is both the fifth and sixth Perrin numbers.5 is the second Fermat prime of the form 2 2 n + 1 {\displaystyle 2^{2^{n}}+1} , and more generally the second Sierpiński number of the first kind, n n + 1 {\displaystyle n^{n}+1} . There are a total of five known Fermat primes, which also include 3, 17, 257, and 65537. The sum of the first three Fermat primes, 3, 5 and 17, yields 25 or 52, while 257 is the 55th prime number. Combinations from these five Fermat primes generate thirty-one polygons with an odd number of sides that can be constructed purely with a compass and straight-edge, which includes the five-sided regular pentagon.: pp.137–142  Apropos, thirty-one is also equal to the sum of the maximum number of areas inside a circle that are formed from the sides and diagonals of the first five n {\displaystyle n} -sided polygons, which is equal to the maximum number of areas formed by a six-sided polygon; per Moser's circle problem.: pp.76-78 5 is also the third Mersenne prime exponent of the form 2 n − 1 {\displaystyle 2^{n}-1} , which yields 31 {\displaystyle 31} , the eleventh prime number and fifth super-prime. This is the prime index of the third Mersenne prime and second double Mersenne prime 127, as well as the third double Mersenne prime exponent for the number 2,147,483,647, which is the largest value that a signed 32-bit integer field can hold. There are only four known double Mersenne prime numbers, with a fifth candidate double Mersenne prime M M 61 {\displaystyle M_{M_{61}}} = 223058...93951 − 1 too large to compute with current computers. In a related sequence, the first five terms in the sequence of Catalan–Mersenne numbers M c n {\displaystyle M_{c_{n}}} are the only known prime terms, with a sixth possible candidate in the order of 101037.7094. These prime sequences are conjectured to be prime up to a certain limit. There are a total of five known unitary perfect numbers, which are numbers that are the sums of their positive proper unitary divisors. The smallest such number is 6, and the largest of these is equivalent to the sum of 4095 divisors, where 4095 is the largest of five Ramanujan–Nagell numbers that are both triangular numbers and Mersenne numbers of the general form. The sums of the first five non-primes greater than zero 1 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 9 and the first five prime numbers 2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 both equal 28; the seventh triangular number and like 6 a perfect number, which also includes 496, the thirty-first triangular number and perfect number of the form 2 p − 1 {\displaystyle 2^{p-1}} ( 2 p − 1 {\displaystyle 2^{p}-1} ) with a p {\displaystyle p} of 5 {\displaystyle 5} , by the Euclid–Euler theorem. Within the larger family of Ore numbers, 140 and 496, respectively the fourth and sixth indexed members, both contain a set of divisors that produce integer harmonic means equal to 5. The fifth Mersenne prime, 8191, splits into 4095 and 4096, with the latter being the fifth superperfect number and the sixth power of four, 46. Figurate numbers and magic figures In figurate numbers, 5 is a pentagonal number, with the sequence of pentagonal numbers starting: 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, ... 5 is a centered tetrahedral number: 1, 5, 15, 35, 69, ... Every centered tetrahedral number with an index of 2, 3 or 4 modulo 5 is divisible by 5. 5 is a square pyramidal number: 1, 5, 14, 30, 55, ... The first four members add to 50 while the fifth indexed member in the sequence is 55. 5 is a centered square number: 1, 5, 13, 25, 41, ... The fifth square number or 52 is 25, which features in the proportions of the two smallest (3, 4, 5) and (5, 12, 13) primitive Pythagorean triples.The factorial of five 5 ! = 120 {\displaystyle 5!=120} is multiply perfect like 28 and 496. It is the sum of the first fifteen non-zero positive integers and 15th triangular number, which in-turn is the sum of the first five non-zero positive integers and 5th triangular number. Furthermore, 120 + 5 = 125 = 5 3 {\displaystyle 120+5=125=5^{3}} , where 125 is the second number to have an aliquot sum of 31 (after the fifth power of two, 32). On its own, 31 is the first prime centered pentagonal number, and the fifth centered triangular number. Collectively, five and thirty-one generate a sum of 36 (the square of 6) and a difference of 26, which is the only number to lie between a square a 2 {\displaystyle a^{2}} and a cube b 3 {\displaystyle b^{3}} (respectively, 25 and 27). The fifth pentagonal and tetrahedral number is 35, which is equal to the sum of the first five triangular numbers: 1, 3, 6, 10, 15. In the sequence of pentatope numbers that start from the first (or fifth) cell of the fifth row of Pascal's triangle (left to right or from right to left), the first few terms are: 1, 5, 15, 35, 70, 126, 210, 330, 495, ... The first five members in this sequence add to 126, which is the fifth non-trivial pentagonal pyramidal number as well as the fifth S {\displaystyle {\mathcal {S}}} -perfect Granville number. This is the third Granville number not to be perfect, and the only known such number with three distinct prime factors.55 is the fifteenth discrete biprime, equal to the product between 5 and the fifth prime and third super-prime 11. These two numbers also form the second pair (5, 11) of Brown numbers ( n , m ) {\displaystyle (n,m)} such that n ! + 1 = m 2 {\displaystyle n!+1=m^{2}} where five is also the second number that belongs to the first pair (4, 5); altogether only five distinct numbers (4, 5, 7, 11, and 71) are needed to generate the set of known pairs of Brown numbers, where the third and largest pair is (7, 71). Fifty-five is also the tenth Fibonacci number, whose digit sum is also 10. It is the tenth triangular number and the fourth that is doubly triangular, the fifth heptagonal number and fourth centered nonagonal number, and as listed above, the fifth square pyramidal number. In decimal representation, the sequence of triangular n {\displaystyle n} that are powers of 10 is: 55, 5050, 500500, ... 55 in base ten is also the fourth Kaprekar number as are all triangular numbers that are powers of ten, which initially includes 1, 9 and 45, with forty-five itself the ninth triangular number where 5 lies midway between 1 and 9 in the sequence of natural numbers. 45 is also conjectured by Ramsey number R ( 5 , 5 ) {\displaystyle R(5,5)} , and is a Schröder–Hipparchus number; the next and fifth such number is 197, the forty-fifth prime number that represents the number of ways of dissecting a heptagon into smaller polygons by inserting diagonals. A five-sided convex pentagon, on the other hand, has eleven ways of being subdivided in such manner. 5 is the value of the central cell of the first non-trivial normal magic square, called the Luoshu square. Its 3 × 3 {\displaystyle 3\times 3} array has a magic constant M {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} } of 15 {\displaystyle 15} , where the sums of its rows, columns, and diagonals are all equal to fifteen. On the other hand, a 5 × 5 {\displaystyle 5\times 5} magic square has a magic constant M {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} } of 65 = 13 × 5 {\displaystyle 65=13\times 5} , where 5 and 13 are the first two Wilson primes. The fifth number to return 0 {\displaystyle 0} for the Mertens function is 65, with M ( x ) {\displaystyle M(x)} counting the number of square-free integers up to x {\displaystyle x} with an even number of prime factors, minus the count of numbers with an odd number of prime factors. 65 is the nineteenth biprime with distinct prime factors, with an aliquot sum of 19 as well and equivalent to 15 + 24 + 33 + 42 + 51. It is also the magic constant of the n − {\displaystyle n-} Queens Problem for n = 5 {\displaystyle n=5} , the fifth octagonal number, and the Stirling number of the second kind S ( 6 , 4 ) {\displaystyle S(6,4)} that represents sixty-five ways of dividing a set of six objects into four non-empty subsets. 13 and 5 are also the fourth and third Markov numbers, respectively, where the sixth member in this sequence (34) is the magic constant of a magic octagram and a 4 × 4 {\displaystyle 4\times 4} magic square. In between these three Markov numbers is the tenth prime number 29 that represents the number of pentacubes when reflections are considered distinct; this number is also the fifth Lucas prime after 11 and 7 (where the first prime that is not a Lucas prime is 5, followed by 13). A magic constant of 505 is generated by a 10 × 10 {\displaystyle 10\times 10} normal magic square.5 is also the value of the central cell the only non-trivial normal magic hexagon made of nineteen cells. Where the sum between the magic constants of this order-3 normal magic hexagon (38) and the order-5 normal magic square (65) is 103 — the prime index of the third Wilson prime 563 equal to the sum of all three pairs of Brown numbers — their difference is 27, itself the prime index of 103. In decimal, 15 and 27 are the only two-digit numbers that are equal to the sum between their digits (inclusive, i.e. 2 + 3 + ... + 7 = 27), with these two numbers consecutive perfect totient numbers after 3 and 9. 103 is the fifth irregular prime that divides the numerator (236364091) of the twenty-fourth Bernoulli number B 24 {\displaystyle B_{24}} , and as such it is part of the eighth irregular pair (103, 24). In a two-dimensional array, the number of planar partitions with a sum of four is equal to thirteen and the number of such partitions with a sum of five is twenty-four, a value equal to the sum-of-divisors of the ninth arithmetic number 15 whose divisors also produce an integer arithmetic mean of 6 (alongside an aliquot sum of 9). The smallest value that the magic constant of a five-pointed magic pentagram can have using distinct integers is 24. Collatz conjecture In the Collatz 3x + 1 problem, 5 requires five steps to reach one by multiplying terms by three and adding one if the term is odd (starting with five itself), and dividing by two if they are even: {5 ➙ 16 ➙ 8 ➙ 4 ➙ 2 ➙ 1}; the only other number to require five steps is 32 since 16 must be part of such path (see for a map of orbits for small odd numbers). When generalizing the Collatz conjecture to all positive or negative integers, −5 becomes one of only four known possible cycle starting points and endpoints, and in its case in five steps too: {−5 ➙ −14 ➙ −7 ➙ −20 ➙ −10 ➙ −5 ➙ ...}. The other possible cycles begin and end at −17 in eighteen steps, −1 in two steps, and 1 in three steps. This behavior is analogous to the path cycle of five in the 3x − 1 problem, where 5 takes five steps to return cyclically, in this instance by multiplying terms by three and subtracting 1 if the terms are odd, and also halving if even. It is also the first number to generate a cycle that is not trivial (i.e. 1 ➙ 2 ➙ 1 ➙ ...). Generalizations Five is conjectured to be the only odd untouchable number, and if this is the case then five will be the only odd prime number that is not the base of an aliquot tree. Meanwhile: Every odd number greater than 1 {\displaystyle 1} is the sum of at most five prime numbers, and Every odd number greater than 5 {\displaystyle 5} is conjectured to be expressible as the sum of three prime numbers. Helfgott has provided a proof of this, also known as the odd Goldbach conjecture, that is already widely acknowledged by mathematicians as it still undergoes peer-review.Polynomial equations of degree 4 and below can be solved with radicals, while quintic equations of degree 5 and higher cannot generally be so solved (see, Abel–Ruffini theorem). This is related to the fact that the symmetric group S n {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{n}} is a solvable group for n {\displaystyle n} ⩽ 4 {\displaystyle 4} , and not for n {\displaystyle n} ⩾ 5 {\displaystyle 5} . There are five countably infinite Ramsey classes of permutations, where the age of each countable homogeneous permutation forms an individual Ramsey class K {\displaystyle K} of objects such that, for each natural number r {\displaystyle r} and each choice of objects A , B ∈ K {\displaystyle A,B\in K} , there is no object C ∈ K {\displaystyle C\in K} where in any r {\displaystyle r} -coloring of all subobjects of C {\displaystyle C} isomorphic to A {\displaystyle A} there is a monochromatic subobject isomorphic to B {\displaystyle B} .: pp.1, 2  Aside from { 1 } {\displaystyle \{1\}} , the five classes of Ramsey permutations are the class of identity permutations, the class of reversals, the class of increasing sequences of decreasing sequences, the class of decreasing sequences of increasing sequences, and the class of all permutations.: p.4  In general, the Fraïssé limit of a class K {\displaystyle K} of finite relational structure is the age of a countable homogeneous relational structure U {\displaystyle U} if and only if five conditions hold for K {\displaystyle K} : it is closed under isomorphism, it has only countably many isomorphism classes, it is hereditary, it is joint-embedded, and it holds the amalgamation property.: p.3 Inside the classification of number systems, the real numbers R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } and its three subsequent Cayley-Dickson constructions of algebras over the field of the real numbers (i.e. the complex numbers C {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} } , the quaternions H {\displaystyle \mathbb {H} } , and the octonions O {\displaystyle \mathbb {O} } ) are normed division algebras that hold up to five different principal algebraic properties of interest: whether the algebras are ordered, and whether they hold commutative, associative, alternative, and power-associative properties. Whereas the real numbers contain all five properties, the octonions are only alternative and power-associative. On the other hand, the sedenions S {\displaystyle \mathbb {S} } , which represent a fifth algebra in this series, is not a composition algebra unlike H {\displaystyle \mathbb {H} } and O {\displaystyle \mathbb {O} } , is only power-associative, and is the first algebra to contain non-trivial zero divisors as with all further algebras over larger fields. Altogether, these five algebras operate, respectively, over fields of dimension 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. Geometry A pentagram, or five-pointed polygram, is the first proper star polygon constructed from the diagonals of a regular pentagon as self-intersecting edges that are proportioned in golden ratio, φ {\displaystyle \varphi } . Its internal geometry appears prominently in Penrose tilings, and is a facet inside Kepler-Poinsot star polyhedra and Schläfli–Hess star polychora, represented by its Schläfli symbol {5/2}. A similar figure to the pentagram is a five-pointed simple isotoxal star ☆ without self-intersecting edges. It is often found as a facet inside Islamic Girih tiles, of which there are five different rudimentary types. Generally, star polytopes that are regular only exist in dimensions 2 {\displaystyle 2} ⩽ n {\displaystyle n} < 5 {\displaystyle 5} , and can be constructed using five Miller rules for stellating polyhedra or higher-dimensional polytopes. Graphs theory, and planar geometry In graph theory, all graphs with four or fewer vertices are planar, however, there is a graph with five vertices that is not: K5, the complete graph with five vertices, where every pair of distinct vertices in a pentagon is joined by unique edges belonging to a pentagram. By Kuratowski's theorem, a finite graph is planar iff it does not contain a subgraph that is a subdivision of K5, or the complete bipartite utility graph K3,3. A similar graph is the Petersen graph, which is strongly connected and also nonplanar. It is most easily described as graph of a pentagram embedded inside a pentagon, with a total of 5 crossings, a girth of 5, and a Thue number of 5. The Petersen graph, which is also a distance-regular graph, is one of only 5 known connected vertex-transitive graphs with no Hamiltonian cycles. The automorphism group of the Petersen graph is the symmetric group S 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{5}} of order 120 = 5!. The chromatic number of the plane is at least five, depending on the choice of set-theoretical axioms: the minimum number of colors required to color the plane such that no pair of points at a distance of 1 has the same color. Whereas the hexagonal Golomb graph and the regular hexagonal tiling generate chromatic numbers of 4 and 7, respectively, a chromatic coloring of 5 can be attained under a more complicated graph where multiple four-coloring Moser spindles are linked so that no monochromatic triples exist in any coloring of the overall graph, as that would generate an equilateral arrangement that tends toward a purely hexagonal structure. The plane also contains a total of five Bravais lattices, or arrays of points defined by discrete translation operations: hexagonal, oblique, rectangular, centered rectangular, and square lattices. Uniform tilings of the plane, furthermore, are generated from combinations of only five regular polygons: the triangle, square, hexagon, octagon, and the dodecagon. The plane can also be tiled monohedrally with convex pentagons in fifteen different ways, three of which have Laves tilings as special cases. Polyhedra There are five Platonic solids in three-dimensional space: the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron. The dodecahedron in particular contains pentagonal faces, while the icosahedron, its dual polyhedron, has a vertex figure that is a regular pentagon. There are also five: Regular polyhedron compounds: the stella octangula, compound of five tetrahedra, compound of five cubes, compound of five octahedra, and compound of ten tetrahedra. Icosahedral symmetry I h {\displaystyle \mathrm {I} _{h}} is isomorphic to the alternating group on five letters A 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{5}} of order 120, realized by actions on these uniform polyhedron compounds.Space-filling convex polyhedra with regular faces: the triangular prism, hexagonal prism, cube, truncated octahedron, and gyrobifastigium. The cube is the only Platonic solid that can tessellate space on its own, and the truncated octahedron and gyrobifastigium are the only Archimedean and Johnson solids, respectively, that can tessellate space with their own copies.Cell-transitive parallelohedra: any parallelepiped, as well as the rhombic dodecahedron, the elongated dodecahedron, the hexagonal prism and the truncated octahedron. The cube is a special case of a parallelepiped, and the rhombic dodecahedron (with five stellations per Miller's rules) is the only Catalan solid to tessellate space on its own.Regular abstract polyhedra, which include the excavated dodecahedron and the dodecadodecahedron. They have combinatorial symmetries transitive on flags of their elements, with topologies equivalent to that of toroids and the ability to tile the hyperbolic plane.There are also five semiregular prisms that are facets inside non-prismatic uniform four-dimensional figures: the triangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, octagonal, and decagonal prisms. Five uniform prisms and antiprisms contain pentagons or pentagrams: the pentagonal prism and antiprism, and the pentagrammic prism, antiprism, and crossed-antirprism. Fourth dimension The pentatope, or 5-cell, is the self-dual fourth-dimensional analogue of the tetrahedron, with Coxeter group symmetry A 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{4}} of order 120 = 5! and S 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{5}} group structure. Made of five tetrahedra, its Petrie polygon is a regular pentagon and its orthographic projection is equivalent to the complete graph K5. It is one of six regular 4-polytopes, made of thirty-one elements: five vertices, ten edges, ten faces, five tetrahedral cells and one 4-face. A regular 120-cell, the dual polychoron to the regular 600-cell, can fit one hundred and twenty 5-cells. Also, five 24-cells fit inside a small stellated 120-cell, the first stellation of the 120-cell.A subset of the vertices of the small stellated 120-cell are matched by the great duoantiprism star, which is the only uniform nonconvex duoantiprismatic solution in the fourth dimension, constructed from the polytope cartesian product { 5 } ⊗ { 5 / 3 } {\displaystyle \{5\}\otimes \{5/3\}} and made of fifty tetrahedra, ten pentagrammic crossed antiprisms, ten pentagonal antiprisms, and fifty vertices.The grand antiprism, which is the only known non-Wythoffian construction of a uniform polychoron, is made of twenty pentagonal antiprisms and three hundred tetrahedra, with a total of one hundred vertices and five hundred edges.The abstract four-dimensional 57-cell is made of fifty-seven hemi-icosahedral cells, in-which five surround each edge. The 11-cell, another abstract 4-polytope with eleven vertices and fifty-five edges, is made of eleven hemi-dodecahedral cells each with fifteen edges. The skeleton of the hemi-dodecahedron is the Petersen graph.Overall, the fourth dimension contains five fundamental Weyl groups that form a finite number of uniform polychora: A 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{4}} , B 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{4}} , D 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {D} _{4}} , F 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F} _{4}} , and H 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{4}} , accompanied by a fifth or sixth general group of unique 4-prisms of Platonic and Archimedean solids. All of these uniform 4-polytopes are generated from twenty-five uniform polyhedra, which include the five Platonic solids, fifteen Archimedean solids counting two enantiomorphic forms, and five prisms. There are also a total of five Coxeter groups that generate non-prismatic Euclidean honeycombs in 4-space, alongside five compact hyperbolic Coxeter groups that generate five regular compact hyperbolic honeycombs with finite facets, as with the order-5 5-cell honeycomb and the order-5 120-cell honeycomb, both of which have five cells around each face. Compact hyperbolic honeycombs only exist through the fourth dimension, or rank 5, with paracompact hyperbolic solutions existing through rank 10. Likewise, analogues of four-dimensional H 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{4}} hexadecachoric or F 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F} _{4}} icositetrachoric symmetry do not exist in dimensions n {\displaystyle n} ⩾ 5 {\displaystyle 5} ; however, there are prismatic groups in the fifth dimension which contains prisms of regular and uniform 4-polytopes that have H 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{4}} and F 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F} _{4}} symmetry. There are also five regular projective 4-polytopes in the fourth dimension, all of which are hemi-polytopes of the regular 4-polytopes, with the exception of the 5-cell. Only two regular projective polytopes exist in each higher dimensional space. In particular, Bring's surface is the curve in the projective plane P 4 {\displaystyle \mathbb {P} ^{4}} that is represented by the homogeneous equations: v + w + x + y + z = v 2 + w 2 + x 2 + y 2 + z 2 = v 3 + w 3 + x 3 + y 3 + z 3 = 0. {\displaystyle v+w+x+y+z=v^{2}+w^{2}+x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=v^{3}+w^{3}+x^{3}+y^{3}+z^{3}=0.} It holds the largest possible automorphism group of a genus four complex curve, with group structure S 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{5}} . This is the Riemann surface associated with the small stellated dodecahedron, whose fundamental polygon is a regular hyperbolic icosagon, with an area of 12 π {\displaystyle 12\pi } (by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem). Including reflections, its full group of symmetries is S 5 × Z 2 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{5}\times \mathbb {Z} _{2}} , of order 240; which is also the number of (2,4,5) hyperbolic triangles that tessellate its fundamental polygon. Bring quintic x 5 + a x + b = 0 {\displaystyle x^{5}+ax+b=0} holds roots x i {\displaystyle x_{i}} that satisfy Bring's curve. Fifth dimension The 5-simplex or hexateron is the five-dimensional analogue of the 5-cell, or 4-simplex. It has Coxeter group A 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{5}} as its symmetry group, of order 720 = 6!, whose group structure is represented by the symmetric group S 6 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{6}} , the only finite symmetric group which has an outer automorphism. The 5-cube, made of ten tesseracts and the 5-cell as its vertex figure, is also regular and one of thirty-one uniform 5-polytopes under the Coxeter B 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{5}} hypercubic group. The demipenteract, with one hundred and twenty cells, is the only fifth-dimensional semiregular polytope, and has the rectified 5-cell as its vertex figure, which is one of only three semiregular 4-polytopes alongside the rectified 600-cell and the snub 24-cell. In the fifth dimension, there are five regular paracompact honeycombs, all with infinite facets and vertex figures; no other regular paracompact honeycombs exist in higher dimensions. There are also exclusively twelve complex aperiotopes in C n {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} ^{n}} complex spaces of dimensions n {\displaystyle n} ⩾ 5 {\displaystyle 5} ; alongside complex polytopes in C 5 {\displaystyle \mathbb {C} ^{5}} and higher under simplex, hypercubic and orthoplex groups (with van Oss polytopes).A Veronese surface in the projective plane P 5 {\displaystyle \mathbb {P} ^{5}} generalizes a linear condition ν : P 2 → P 5 {\displaystyle \nu :\mathbb {P} ^{2}\to \mathbb {P} ^{5}} for a point to be contained inside a conic, which requires five points in the same way that two points are needed to determine a line. Finite simple groups There are five exceptional Lie algebras: g 2 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {g}}_{2}} , f 4 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {f}}_{4}} , e 6 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {e}}_{6}} , e 7 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {e}}_{7}} , and e 8 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {e}}_{8}} . The smallest of these, g 2 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {g}}_{2}} , can be represented in five-dimensional complex space and projected as a ball rolling on top of another ball, whose motion is described in two-dimensional space. e 8 {\displaystyle {\mathfrak {e}}_{8}} is the largest of all five exceptional groups, with the other four as subgroups, and an associated lattice that is constructed with one hundred and twenty quaternionic unit icosians that make up the vertices of the 600-cell, whose Euclidean norms define a quadratic form on a lattice structure isomorphic to the optimal configuration of spheres in eight dimensions. This sphere packing E 8 {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{8}} lattice structure in 8-space is held by the vertex arrangement of the 521 honeycomb, one of five Euclidean honeycombs that admit Gosset's original definition of a semiregular honeycomb, which includes the three-dimensional alternated cubic honeycomb. While there are specifically five solvable groups that are excluded from finite simple groups of Lie type, the smallest duplicate found inside finite simple Lie groups is A 5 ≅ A 1 ( 4 ) ≅ A 1 ( 5 ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {A_{5}} \cong A_{1}(4)\cong A_{1}(5)} , where A n {\displaystyle \mathrm {A_{n}} } represents alternating groups and A n ( q ) {\displaystyle A_{n}(q)} classical Chevalley groups. The smallest alternating group that is simple is the alternating group on five letters. The five Mathieu groups constitute the first generation in the happy family of sporadic groups. These are also the first five sporadic groups to have been described, defined as M n {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{n}} multiply transitive permutation groups on n {\displaystyle n} objects, with n {\displaystyle n} ∈ {11, 12, 22, 23, 24}.: p.54  In particular, M 11 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{11}} , the smallest of all sporadic groups, has a rank 3 action on fifty-five points from an induced action on unordered pairs, as well as two five-dimensional faithful complex irreducible representations over the field with three elements, which is the lowest irreducible dimensional representation of all sporadic group over their respective fields with n {\displaystyle n} elements. Of precisely five different conjugacy classes of maximal subgroups of M 11 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{11}} , one is the almost simple symmetric group S 5 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S} _{5}} (of order 5!), and another is M 10 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{10}} , also almost simple, that functions as a point stabilizer which contains five as its largest prime factor in its group order: 24·32·5 = 2·3·4·5·6 = 8·9·10 = 720. On the other hand, whereas M 11 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{11}} is sharply 4-transitive, M 12 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{12}} is sharply 5-transitive and M 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{24}} is 5-transitive, and as such they are the only two 5-transitive groups that are not symmetric groups or alternating groups. M 22 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{22}} has the first five prime numbers as its distinct prime factors in its order of 27·32·5·7·11, and is the smallest of five sporadic groups with five distinct prime factors in their order.: p.17  All Mathieu groups are subgroups of M 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{24}} , which under the Witt design W 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {W} _{24}} of Steiner system S ( 5 , 8 , 24 ) {\displaystyle \operatorname {S(5,8,24)} } emerges a construction of the extended binary Golay code B 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{24}} that has M 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{24}} as its automorphism group.: pp.39, 47, 55  W 24 {\displaystyle \mathrm {W} _{24}} generates octads from code words of Hamming weight 8 from the extended binary Golay code, one of five different Hamming weights the extended binary Golay code uses: 0, 8, 12, 16, and 24.: p.38  The Witt design and the extended binary Golay code in turn can be used to generate a faithful construction of the 24-dimensional Leech lattice Λ24, which is the subject of the second generation of seven sporadic groups that are subquotients of the automorphism of the Leech lattice, Conway group C o 0 {\displaystyle \mathrm {Co} _{0}} .: pp.99, 125 There are five non-supersingular prime numbers — 37, 43, 53, 61, and 67 — less than 71, which is the largest of fifteen supersingular primes that divide the order of the friendly giant, itself the largest sporadic group. In particular, a centralizer of an element of order 5 inside this group arises from the product between Harada–Norton sporadic group H N {\displaystyle \mathrm {HN} } and a group of order 5. On its own, H N {\displaystyle \mathrm {HN} } can be represented using standard generators ( a , b , a b ) {\displaystyle (a,b,ab)} that further dictate a condition where o ( [ a , b ] ) = 5 {\displaystyle o([a,b])=5} . This condition is also held by other generators that belong to the Tits group T {\displaystyle \mathrm {T} } , the only finite simple group that is a non-strict group of Lie type that can also classify as sporadic. Furthermore, over the field with five elements, H N {\displaystyle \mathrm {HN} } holds a 133-dimensional representation where 5 acts on a commutative yet non-associative product as a 5-modular analogue of the Griess algebra V 2 {\displaystyle V_{2}} ♮, which holds the friendly giant as its automorphism group. Euler's identity Euler's identity, e i π {\displaystyle e^{i\pi }} + 1 {\displaystyle 1} = 0 {\displaystyle 0} , contains five essential numbers used widely in mathematics: Archimedes' constant π {\displaystyle \pi } , Euler's number e {\displaystyle e} , the imaginary number i {\displaystyle i} , unity 1 {\displaystyle 1} , and zero 0 {\displaystyle 0} . List of basic calculations In decimal All multiples of 5 will end in either 5 or 0, and vulgar fractions with 5 or 2 in the denominator do not yield infinite decimal expansions because they are prime factors of 10, the base. In the powers of 5, every power ends with the number five, and from 53 onward, if the exponent is odd, then the hundreds digit is 1, and if it is even, the hundreds digit is 6. A number n {\displaystyle n} raised to the fifth power always ends in the same digit as n {\displaystyle n} . Science The atomic number of boron. The number of appendages on most starfish, which exhibit pentamerism. The most destructive known hurricanes rate as Category 5 on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. The most destructive known tornadoes rate an F-5 on the Fujita scale or EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale. Astronomy There are five Lagrangian points in a two-body system. There are currently five dwarf planets in the Solar System: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. The New General Catalogue object NGC 5, a magnitude 13 spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda. Messier object M5, a magnitude 7.0 globular cluster in the constellation Serpens. Biology There are usually considered to be five senses (in general terms). The five basic tastes are sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami. Almost all amphibians, reptiles, and mammals which have fingers or toes have five of them on each extremity. Computing 5 is the ASCII code of the Enquiry character, which is abbreviated to ENQ. Religion and culture Hinduism The god Shiva has five faces and his mantra is also called panchakshari (five-worded) mantra. The goddess Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and intellectual is associated with panchami or the number 5. There are five elements in the universe according to Hindu cosmology: dharti, agni, jal, vayu evam akash (earth, fire, water, air and space respectively). The most sacred tree in Hinduism has 5 leaves in every leaf stunt. Most of the flowers have 5 petals in them. The epic Mahabharata revolves around the battle between Duryodhana and his 99 other brothers and the 5 pandava princes—Dharma, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula and Sahadeva. Christianity There are traditionally five wounds of Jesus Christ in Christianity: the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the wounds in Christ's hands, the wounds in Christ's feet, and the Side Wound of Christ. Gnosticism The number five was an important symbolic number in Manichaeism, with heavenly beings, concepts, and others often grouped in sets of five. Five Seals in Sethianism Five Trees in the Gospel of Thomas Islam The Five Pillars of Islam Muslims pray to Allah five times a day According to Shia Muslims, the Panjetan or the Five Holy Purified Ones are the members of Muhammad's family: Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah, Hasan, and Husayn and are often symbolically represented by an image of the Khamsa. Judaism The Torah contains five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—which are collectively called the Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch (Greek for "five containers", referring to the scroll cases in which the books were kept), or Humash (חומש, Hebrew for "fifth"). The book of Psalms is arranged into five books, paralleling the Five Books of Moses. The Khamsa, an ancient symbol shaped like a hand with four fingers and one thumb, is used as a protective amulet by Jews; that same symbol is also very popular in Arabic culture, known to protect from envy and the evil eye. Sikhism The five sacred Sikh symbols prescribed by Guru Gobind Singh are commonly known as panj kakars or the "Five Ks" because they start with letter K representing kakka (ਕ) in the Punjabi language's Gurmukhi script. They are: kesh (unshorn hair), kangha (the comb), kara (the steel bracelet), kachhehra (the soldier's shorts), and kirpan (the sword) (in Gurmukhi: ਕੇਸ, ਕੰਘਾ, ਕੜਾ, ਕਛਹਰਾ, ਕਿਰਪਾਨ). Also, there are five deadly evils: kam (lust), krodh (anger), moh (attachment), lobh (greed), and ankhar (ego). Daoism 5 Elements 5 Emperors Other religions and cultures According to ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, the universe is made up of five classical elements: water, earth, air, fire, and ether. This concept was later adopted by medieval alchemists and more recently by practitioners of Neo-Pagan religions such as Wicca. The pentagram, or five-pointed star, bears religious significance in various faiths including Baháʼí, Christianity, Freemasonry, Satanism, Taoism, Thelema, and Wicca. In Cantonese, "five" sounds like the word "not" (character: 唔). When five appears in front of a lucky number, e.g. "58", the result is considered unlucky. In East Asian tradition, there are five elements: (water, fire, earth, wood, and metal). The Japanese names for the days of the week, Tuesday through Saturday, come from these elements via the identification of the elements with the five planets visible with the naked eye. Also, the traditional Japanese calendar has a five-day weekly cycle that can be still observed in printed mixed calendars combining Western, Chinese-Buddhist, and Japanese names for each weekday. In numerology, 5 or a series of 555, is often associated with change, evolution, love and abundance. Members of The Nation of Gods and Earths, a primarily African American religious organization, call themselves the "Five-Percenters" because they believe that only 5% of mankind is truly enlightened. Art, entertainment, and media Fictional entities James the Red Engine, a fictional character numbered 5. Johnny 5 is the lead character in the film Short Circuit (1986) Number Five is a character in Lorien Legacies Numbuh 5, real name Abigail Lincoln, from Codename: Kids Next Door Sankara Stones, five magical rocks in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that are sought by the Thuggees for evil purposes The Mach Five Mahha-gō? (マッハ号), the racing car Speed Racer (Go Mifune in the Japanese version) drives in the anime series of the same name (known as "Mach Go! Go! Go!" in Japan) In the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, five wizards (Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast, Alatar and Pallando) are sent to Middle-earth to aid against the threat of the Dark Lord Sauron In the A Song of Ice and Fire series, the War of the Five Kings is fought between different claimants to the Iron Throne of Westeros, as well as to the thrones of the individual regions of Westeros (Joffrey Baratheon, Stannis Baratheon, Renly Baratheon, Robb Stark and Balon Greyjoy) In The Wheel of Time series, the "Emond's Field Five" are a group of five of the series' main characters who all come from the village of Emond's Field (Rand al'Thor, Matrim Cauthon, Perrin Aybara, Egwene al'Vere and Nynaeve al'Meara) Myst uses the number 5 as a unique base counting system. In The Myst Reader series, it is further explained that the number 5 is considered a holy number in the fictional D'ni society. Number Five is also a character in The Umbrella Academy comic book and TV series adaptation Films Towards the end of the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the character of King Arthur repeatedly confuses the number five with the number three. Five Go Mad in Dorset (1982) was the first of the long-running series of The Comic Strip Presents... television comedy films The Fifth Element (1997), a science fiction film Fast Five (2011), the fifth installment of the Fast and Furious film series. V for Vendetta (2005), produced by Warner Bros., directed by James McTeigue, and adapted from Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta prominently features number 5 and Roman Numeral V; the story is based on the historical event in which a group of men attempted to destroy Parliament on November 5, 1605 Music Modern musical notation uses a musical staff made of five horizontal lines. A scale with five notes per octave is called a pentatonic scale. A perfect fifth is the most consonant harmony, and is the basis for most western tuning systems. In harmonics, the fifth partial (or 4th overtone) of a fundamental has a frequency ratio of 5:1 to the frequency of that fundamental. This ratio corresponds to the interval of 2 octaves plus a pure major third. Thus, the interval of 5:4 is the interval of the pure third. A major triad chord when played in just intonation (most often the case in a cappella vocal ensemble singing), will contain such a pure major third. Using the Latin root, five musicians are called a quintet. Five is the lowest possible number that can be the top number of a time signature with an asymmetric meter. Groups Five (group), a UK Boy band The Five (composers), 19th-century Russian composers 5 Seconds of Summer, pop band that originated in Sydney, Australia Five Americans, American rock band active 1965–1969 Five Finger Death Punch, American heavy metal band from Las Vegas, Nevada. Active 2005–present Five Man Electrical Band, Canadian rock group billed (and active) as the Five Man Electrical Band, 1969–1975 Maroon 5, American pop rock band that originated in Los Angeles, California MC5, American punk rock band Pentatonix, a Grammy-winning a cappella group originated in Arlington, Texas The 5th Dimension, American pop vocal group, active 1977–present The Dave Clark Five, a.k.a. DC5, an English pop rock group comprising Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson, Rick Huxley, Denis Payton, and Mike Smith; active 1958–1970 The Jackson 5, American pop rock group featuring various members of the Jackson family; they were billed (and active) as The Jackson 5, 1966–1975 Hi-5, Australian pop kids group, where it has several international adaptations, and several members throughout the history of the band. It was also a TV show. We Five: American folk rock group active 1965–1967 and 1968–1977 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: American rap group, 1970–80's Fifth Harmony, an American girl group. Ben Folds Five, an American alternative rock trio, 1993–2000, 2008 and 2011–2013 R5 (band), an American pop and alternative rock group, 2009–2018 Other The number of completed, numbered piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven, Sergei Prokofiev, and Camille Saint-Saëns Television StationsChannel 5 (UK), a television channel that broadcasts in the United Kingdom TV5 (formerly known as ABC 5) (DWET-TV channel 5 In Metro Manila) a television network in the Philippines. SeriesBabylon 5, a science fiction television series The number 5 features in the television series Battlestar Galactica in regards to the Final Five cylons and the Temple of Five Hi-5 (Australian TV series), a television series from Australia Hi-5 (UK TV series), a television show from the United Kingdom Hi-5 Philippines a television show from the Philippines Odyssey 5, a 2002 science fiction television series Tillbaka till Vintergatan, a Swedish children's television series featuring a character named "Femman" (meaning five), who can only utter the word 'five'. The Five (talk show): Fox News Channel roundtable current events television show, premiered 2011, so-named for its panel of five commentators. Yes! PreCure 5 is a 2007 anime series which follows the adventures of Nozomi and her friends. It is also followed by the 2008 sequel Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo! The Quintessential Quintuplets is a 2019 slice of life romance anime series which follows the everyday life of five identical quintuplets and their interactions with their tutor. It has two seasons, and a final movie is scheduled in summer 2022. Hawaii Five-0, CBS American TV series. Literature The Famous Five is a series of children's books by British writer Enid Blyton The Power of Five is a series of children's books by British writer and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz The Fall of Five is a book written under the collective pseudonym Pittacus Lore in the series Lorien Legacies The Book of Five Rings is a text on kenjutsu and the martial arts in general, written by the swordsman Miyamoto Musashi circa 1645 Slaughterhouse-Five is a book by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II Sports The Olympic Games have five interlocked rings as their symbol, representing the number of inhabited continents represented by the Olympians (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania, and the Americas). In AFL Women's, the top level of women's Australian rules football, each team is allowed 5 "interchanges" (substitute players), who can be freely substituted at any time. In baseball scorekeeping, the number 5 represents the third baseman's position. In basketball: The number 5 is used to represent the position of center. Each team has five players on the court at a given time. Thus, the phrase "five on five" is commonly used to describe standard competitive basketball. The "5-second rule" refers to several related rules designed to promote continuous play. In all cases, violation of the rule results in a turnover. Under the FIBA (used for all international play, and most non-US leagues) and NCAA women's rule sets, a team begins shooting bonus free throws once its opponent has committed five personal fouls in a quarter. Under the FIBA rules, A player fouls out and must leave the game after committing five fouls Five-a-side football is a variation of association football in which each team fields five players. In ice hockey: A major penalty lasts five minutes. There are five different ways that a player can score a goal (teams at even strength, team on the power play, team playing shorthanded, penalty shot, and empty net). The area between the goaltender's legs is known as the five-hole. In most rugby league competitions, the starting left wing wears this number. An exception is the Super League, which uses static squad numbering. In rugby union: A try is worth 5 points. One of the two starting lock forwards wears number 5, and usually jumps at number 4 in the line-out. In the French variation of the bonus points system, a bonus point in the league standings is awarded to a team that loses by 5 or fewer points. Technology 5 is the most common number of gears for automobiles with manual transmission. In radio communication, the term "Five by five" is used to indicate perfect signal strength and clarity. On almost all devices with a numeric keypad such as telephones, computers, etc., the 5 key has a raised dot or raised bar to make dialing easier. Persons who are blind or have low vision find it useful to be able to feel the keys of a telephone. All other numbers can be found with their relative position around the 5 button (on computer keyboards, the 5 key of the numpad has the raised dot or bar, but the 5 key that shifts with % does not). On most telephones, the 5 key is associated with the letters J, K, and L, but on some of the BlackBerry phones, it is the key for G and H. The Pentium, coined by Intel Corporation, is a fifth-generation x86 architecture microprocessor. The resin identification code used in recycling to identify polypropylene. Miscellaneous fields Five can refer to: "Give me five" is a common phrase used preceding a high five. An informal term for the British Security Service, MI5. Five babies born at one time are quintuplets. The most famous set of quintuplets were the Dionne quintuplets born in the 1930s. In the United States legal system, the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution can be referred to in court as "pleading the fifth", absolving the defendant from self-incrimination. Pentameter is verse with five repeating feet per line; iambic pentameter was the most popular form in Shakespeare. Quintessence, meaning "fifth element", refers to the elusive fifth element that completes the basic four elements (water, fire, air, and earth) The designation of an Interstate Highway (Interstate 5) that runs from San Diego, California to Blaine, Washington. In addition, all major north-south Interstate Highways in the United States end in 5. In the computer game Riven, 5 is considered a holy number, and is a recurring theme throughout the game, appearing in hundreds of places, from the number of islands in the game to the number of bolts on pieces of machinery. The Garden of Cyrus (1658) by Sir Thomas Browne is a Pythagorean discourse based upon the number 5. The holy number of Discordianism, as dictated by the Law of Fives. The number of Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States necessary to render a majority decision. The number of dots in a quincunx. The number of permanent members with veto power on the United Nations Security Council. The number of Korotkoff sounds when measuring blood pressure The drink Five Alive is named for its five ingredients. The drink punch derives its name after the Sanskrit पञ्च (pañc) for having five ingredients. The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989. The Inferior Five: Merryman, Awkwardman, The Blimp, White Feather, and Dumb Bunny. DC Comics parody superhero team. No. 5 is the name of the iconic fragrance created by Coco Chanel. The Committee of Five was delegated to draft the United States Declaration of Independence. The five-second rule is a commonly used rule of thumb for dropped food. 555 95472, usually referred to simply as 5, is a minor male character in the comic strip Peanuts. See also List of highways numbered 5 Further reading Wells, D. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers. London, UK: Penguin Group. (1987): 58–67. Prime curiosities: 5 Media related to 5 (number) at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of five at Wiktionary

6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number. It is the second smallest composite number after four, equal to the sum and the product of its three proper divisors (1, 2 and 3). As such, 6 is the only number that is both the sum and product of three consecutive positive numbers. It is the smallest perfect number, which are numbers that are equal to their aliquot sum, or sum of their proper divisors. It is also the largest of the four all-Harshad numbers (1, 2, 4, and 6).6 is a pronic number and the only semiprime to be. It is the first discrete biprime (2 × 3) which makes it the first member of the (2 × q) discrete biprime family, where q is a higher prime. All primes above 3 are of the form 6n ± 1 for n ≥ 1. As a perfect number: 6 is related to the Mersenne prime 3, since 21(22 – 1) = 6. (The next perfect number is 28.) 6 is the only even perfect number that is not the sum of successive odd cubes. 6 is the root of the 6-aliquot tree, and is itself the aliquot sum of only one other number; the square number, 25.Six is the first unitary perfect number, since it is the sum of its positive proper unitary divisors, without including itself. Only five such numbers are known to exist; sixty (10 × 6) and ninety (15 × 6) are the next two.All integers n {\displaystyle n} that are multiples of 6 are pseudoperfect (all multiples of a pseudoperfect number are pseudoperfect). Six is also the smallest Granville number, or S {\displaystyle {\mathcal {S}}} -perfect number.Unrelated to 6's being a perfect number, a Golomb ruler of length 6 is a "perfect ruler". Six is a congruent number.6 is the second primary pseudoperfect number, and harmonic divisor number. It is also the second superior highly composite number, and the last to also be a primorial. There are 6 non-equivalent ways in which 100 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers: (3 + 97), (11 + 89), (17 + 83), (29 + 71), (41 + 59) and (47 + 53).There is not a prime p {\displaystyle p} such that the multiplicative order of 2 modulo p {\displaystyle p} is 6, that is, o r d p ( 2 ) = 6 {\displaystyle ord_{p}(2)=6} By Zsigmondy's theorem, if n {\displaystyle n} is a natural number that is not 1 or 6, then there is a prime p {\displaystyle p} such that o r d p ( 2 ) = n {\displaystyle ord_{p}(2)=n} . See A112927 for such p {\displaystyle p} . The ring of integer of the sixth cyclotomic field Q(ζ6) , which is called Eisenstein integer, has 6 units: ±1, ±ω, ±ω2, where ω = 1 2 ( − 1 + i 3 ) = e 2 π i / 3 {\displaystyle \omega ={\frac {1}{2}}(-1+i{\sqrt {3}})=e^{2\pi i/3}} . The six exponentials theorem guarantees (given the right conditions on the exponents) the transcendence of at least one of a set of exponentials.There are six basic trigonometric functions: sin, cos, sec, csc, tan, and cot.The smallest non-abelian group is the symmetric group S 3 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S_{3}} } which has 3! = 6 elements.Six is a triangular number and so is its square (36). It is the first octahedral number, preceding 19. A six-sided polygon is a hexagon, one of the three regular polygons capable of tiling the plane. Figurate numbers representing hexagons (including six) are called hexagonal numbers. Because 6 is the product of a power of 2 (namely 21) with nothing but distinct Fermat primes (specifically 3), a regular hexagon is a constructible polygon with a compass and straightedge alone. A hexagram is a six-pointed geometric star figure (with the Schläfli symbol {6/2}, 2{3}, or ). Six similar coins can be arranged around a central coin of the same radius so that each coin makes contact with the central one (and touches both its neighbors without a gap), but seven cannot be so arranged. This makes 6 the answer to the two-dimensional kissing number problem. The densest sphere packing of the plane is obtained by extending this pattern to the hexagonal lattice in which each circle touches just six others. There is only one non-trivial magic hexagon: it is of order-3 and made of nineteen cells, with a magic constant of 38. All rows and columns in a 6 × 6 magic square collectively generate a magic sum of 666 (which is doubly triangular). On the other hand, Graeco-Latin squares with order 6 do not exist; if n {\displaystyle n} is a natural number that is not 2 or 6, then there is a Graeco-Latin square of order n {\displaystyle n} .The cube is one of five Platonic solids, with a total of six squares as faces. It is the only regular polyhedron that can generate a uniform honeycomb on its own, which is also self-dual. The cuboctahedron, which is an Archimedean solid that is one of two quasiregular polyhedra, has eight triangles and six squares as faces. Inside, its vertex arrangement can be interpreted as three hexagons that intersect to form an equatorial hexagonal hemi-face, by-which the cuboctahedron is dissected into triangular cupolas. This solid is also the only polyhedron with radial equilateral symmetry, where its edges and long radii are of equal length; its one of only four polytopes with this property — the others are the hexagon, the tesseract (as the four-dimensional analogue of the cube), and the 24-cell. Only six polygons are faces of non-prismatic uniform polyhedra such as the Platonic solids or the Archimedean solids: the triangle, the square, the pentagon, the hexagon, the octagon, and the decagon. If self-dual images of the tetrahedron are considered distinct, then there are a total of six regular polyhedra that are formed by three different Weyl groups in the third dimension (based on tetrahedral, octahedral and icosahedral symmetries). How closely the shape of an object resembles that of a perfect sphere is called its sphericity, calculated by: where A s {\displaystyle A_{s}} is the surface area of the sphere, V p {\displaystyle V_{p}} the volume of the object, and A p {\displaystyle A_{p}} the surface area of the object. In four dimensions, there are a total of six convex regular polytopes: the 5-cell, 8-cell, 16-cell, 24-cell, 120-cell, and 600-cell. S 6 {\displaystyle \mathrm {S_{6}} } , with 720 = 6! elements, is the only finite symmetric group which has an outer automorphism. This automorphism allows us to construct a number of exceptional mathematical objects such as the S(5,6,12) Steiner system, the projective plane of order 4, the four-dimensional 5-cell, and the Hoffman-Singleton graph. A closely related result is the following theorem: 6 is the only natural number n {\displaystyle n} for which there is a construction of n {\displaystyle n} isomorphic objects on an n {\displaystyle n} -set A {\displaystyle A} , invariant under all permutations of A {\displaystyle A} , but not naturally in one-to-one correspondence with the elements of A {\displaystyle A} . This can also be expressed category theoretically: consider the category whose objects are the n {\displaystyle n} element sets and whose arrows are the bijections between the sets. This category has a non-trivial functor to itself only for n = 6 {\displaystyle n=6} . In the classification of finite simple groups, twenty of twenty-six sporadic groups in the happy family are part of three families of groups which divide the order of the friendly giant, the largest sporadic group: five first generation Mathieu groups, seven second generation subquotients of the Leech lattice, and eight third generation subgroups of the friendly giant. The remaining six sporadic groups do not divide the order of the friendly giant, which are termed the pariahs (Ly, O'N, Ru, J4, J3, and J1). List of basic calculations Greek and Latin word parts Hexa Hexa is classical Greek for "six". Thus: "Hexadecimal" combines hexa- with the Latinate decimal to name a number base of 16 A hexagon is a regular polygon with six sidesL'Hexagone is a French nickname for the continental part of Metropolitan France for its resemblance to a regular hexagon A hexahedron is a polyhedron with six faces, with a cube being a special case Hexameter is a poetic form consisting of six feet per line A "hex nut" is a nut with six sides, and a hex bolt has a six-sided head The prefix "hexa-" also occurs in the systematic name of many chemical compounds, such as hexane which has 6 carbon atoms (C6H14). The prefix sex- Sex- is a Latin prefix meaning "six". Thus: Senary is the ordinal adjective meaning "sixth" People with sexdactyly have six fingers on each hand The measuring instrument called a sextant got its name because its shape forms one-sixth of a whole circle A group of six musicians is called a sextet Six babies delivered in one birth are sextuplets Sexy prime pairs – Prime pairs differing by six are sexy, because sex is the Latin word for six.The SI prefix for 10006 is exa- (E), and for its reciprocal atto- (a). Evolution of the Hindu-Arabic digit The evolution of our modern digit 6 appears rather simple when compared with the other digits. The modern 6 can be traced back to the Brahmi numerals of India, which are first known from the Edicts of Ashoka c. 250 BCE. It was written in one stroke like a cursive lowercase e rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Gradually, the upper part of the stroke (above the central squiggle) became more curved, while the lower part of the stroke (below the central squiggle) became straighter. The Arabs dropped the part of the stroke below the squiggle. From there, the European evolution to our modern 6 was very straightforward, aside from a flirtation with a glyph that looked more like an uppercase G.On the seven-segment displays of calculators and watches, 6 is usually written with six segments. Some historical calculator models use just five segments for the 6, by omitting the top horizontal bar. This glyph variant has not caught on; for calculators that can display results in hexadecimal, a 6 that looks like a "b" is not practical. Just as in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character for the digit 6 usually has an ascender, as, for example, in .This digit resembles an inverted 9. To disambiguate the two on objects and documents that can be inverted, the 6 has often been underlined, both in handwriting and on printed labels. In music In artists Les Six ("The Six" in English) was a group consisting of the French composers Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre in the 1920s Bands with the number six in their name include Six Organs of Admittance, 6 O'Clock Saints, Electric Six, Eve 6, Los Xey (sei is Basque for "six"), Out On Blue Six, Six In Six, Sixpence None the Richer, Slant 6, Vanity 6, and You Me At Six 6 is the pseudonym of American musician Shawn Crahan, when performing with the band Slipknot In instruments A standard guitar has six strings Most woodwind instruments have six basic holes or keys (e.g., bassoon, clarinet, pennywhistle, saxophone); these holes or keys are usually not given numbers or letters in the fingering charts In music theory There are six whole tones in an octave. There are six semitones in a tritone. In works "Six geese a-laying" were given as a present on the sixth day in the popular Christmas carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas". Divided in six arias, Hexachordum Apollinis is generally regarded as one of the pinnacles of Johann Pachelbel's oeuvre. The theme of the sixth album by Dream Theater, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, was the number six: the album has six songs, and the sixth song — that is, the complete second disc — explores the stories of six individuals suffering from various mental illnesses. Aristotle gave six elements of tragedy, the first of which is Mythos. In religion Judaism Six points on a Star of David Six orders of the Mishnah Six symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate God took six days to create the world in the Old Testament Book of Genesis; humankind was created on day 6. In the City of God, Augustine of Hippo suggested (book 11, chapter 30) that God's creation of the world took six days because 6 is a perfect number. The Jewish holiday of Shavuot starts on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan Seraphs have six wings. Islam There are Six articles of faith Six points on a Seal of Solomon Fasting six days of Shawwal, together with the month of Ramadan, is equivalent to fasting the whole year The heavens and earth were created in six days according to the Quran:Indeed, We created the heavens and the earth and everything in between in six Days,1 and We were not ˹even˺ touched with fatigue.2 Note 1: The word day is not always used in the Quran to mean a 24-hour period. According to Surah Al-Hajj (The Pilgrimage):47, a heavenly Day is 1000 years of our time. The Day of Judgment will be 50,000 years of our time - Surah Al-Maarij (The Ascending Stairways):4. Hence, the six Days of creation refer to six eons of time, known only by Allah. Note 2: Some Islamic scholars believe this verse comes in response to Exodus 31:17, which says, “The Lord made the heavens and the earth in six days, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” Others In Hindu theology, a trasarenu is the combination of six celestial paramānus (atoms). In Taoism: Six Lines of a Hexagram Six Ministries of Huang Di In science Astronomy Messier object M6, a magnitude 4.5 open cluster in the constellation Scorpius, also known as the Butterfly Cluster The New General Catalogue object NGC 6, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda The Roman numeral VI: Stands for subdwarfs in the Yerkes spectral classification scheme (Usually) stands for the sixth-discovered satellite of a planet or minor planet (e.g. Jupiter VI) 6 Hebe Biology The cells of a beehive are six-sided. Insects have six legs (see Hexapoda). Six kingdoms in the taxonomic rank below domain (biology); Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Protista, Archaea/Archaeabacteria, and Bacteria/Eubacteria. See Kingdom (biology). The six elements most common in biomolecules are called the CHNOPS elements; the letters stand for the chemical abbreviations of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. See CHON. Chemistry A benzene molecule has a ring of six carbon atoms. 6 is the atomic number of carbon. The sixfold symmetry of snowflakes arises from the hexagonal crystal structure of ordinary ice. A hexamer is an oligomer made of six subunits. Medicine There are six tastes in traditional Indian medicine (Ayurveda): sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent. These tastes are used to suggest a diet based on the symptoms of the body. Phase 6 is one of six pandemic influenza phases. Physics In the Standard Model of particle physics, there are six types of quarks and six types of leptons. In statistical mechanics, the six-vertex model has six possible configurations of arrows at each vertex There are six colors in the RGB color wheel: (primary) red, blue, green, (secondary) cyan, magenta, and yellow. (See Tertiary color) In three-dimensional Euclidean space, there are six unknown support reactions for a statically determinate structure: one force in each of the three dimensions, and one moment through each of three possible orthogonal planes. In sports The Original Six teams in the National Hockey League are Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Boston, and Detroit. They are the oldest remaining teams in the league, though not necessarily the first six; they comprised the entire league from 1942 to 1967. Number of players: In association football (soccer), the number of substitutes combined by both teams, that are allowed in the game. In box lacrosse, the number of players per team, including the goaltender, that are on the floor at any one time, excluding penalty situations. In ice hockey, the number of players per team, including the goaltender, that are on the ice at any one time during regulation play, excluding penalty situations. (Some leagues reduce the number of players on the ice during overtime.) In volleyball: Six players from each team on each side play against each other. Standard rules only allow six total substitutions per team per set. (Substitutions involving the libero, a defensive specialist who can only play in the back row, are not counted against this limit.) Six-man football is a variant of American or Canadian football, played by smaller schools with insufficient enrollment to field the traditional 11-man (American) or 12-man (Canadian) squad. Scoring: In both American and Canadian football, 6 points are awarded for a touchdown. In Australian rules football, 6 points are awarded for a goal, scored when a kicked ball passes between the defending team's two inner goalposts without having been touched by another player. In cricket, six runs are scored for the batting team when the ball is hit to the boundary or the ground beyond it without having touched the ground in the field. In basketball, the ball used for women's full-court competitions is designated "size 6". In most rugby league competitions (but not the Super League, which uses static squad numbering), the jersey number 6 is worn by the starting five-eighth (Southern Hemisphere term) or stand-off (Northern Hemisphere term). In rugby union, the starting blindside flanker wears jersey number 6. (Some teams use "left" and "right" flankers instead of "openside" and "blindside", with 6 being worn by the starting left flanker.) In technology On most phones, the 6 key is associated with the letters M, N, and O, but on the BlackBerry Pearl it is the key for J and K, and on the BlackBerry 8700 series and Curve 8900 with full keyboard, it is the key for F The "6-meter band" in amateur radio includes the frequencies from 50 to 54 MHz 6 is the resin identification code used in recycling to identify polystyrene In calendars In the ancient Roman calendar, Sextilis was the sixth month. After the Julian reform, June became the sixth month and Sextilis was renamed August Sextidi was the sixth day of the décade in the French Revolutionary calendar In the arts and entertainment Games The number of sides on a cube, hence the highest number on a standard die The six-sided tiles on a hex grid are used in many tabletop and board games. The highest number on one end of a standard domino Comics and cartoons The Super 6, a 1966 animated cartoon series featuring six different super-powered heroes. Literature The Power of Six is a book written by Pittacus Lore, and the second in the Lorien Legacies series. Number 6 is a character in the book series Lorien Legacies TV Number Six (Tricia Helfer), is a family of fictional characters from the reimagined science fiction television series, Battlestar Galactica Number 6, the main protagonist in The Prisoner played by Patrick McGoohan, and portrayed by Jim Caviezel in the remake. Six is a character in the television series Blossom played by Jenna von Oÿ. Six is the nickname of Kal Varrik, a central character in the television series Dark Matter, played by Roger Cross. Six is a History channel series that chronicles the operations and daily lives of SEAL Team Six. Six Feet Under, an HBO series that ran from 2005 to 2011. Movies Number 6 (Teresa Palmer) is a character in the movie I Am Number Four (2011). The 6th Day (2000), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Sixth Sense (1999), written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Haley Joel Osment and Bruce Willis. Girl 6 (1996), directed by Spike Lee. Musicals Six is a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII presented as a pop concert. Anthropology The name of the smallest group of Cub Scouts and Guiding's equivalent Brownies, traditionally consisting of six people and is led by a "sixer". A coffin is traditionally buried six feet under the ground; thus, the phrase "six feet under" means that a person (or thing, or concept) is dead There are said to be no more than six degrees of separation between any two people on Earth. In Western astrology, Virgo is the 6th astrological sign of the Zodiac The Six Dynasties form part of Chinese history Six is a lucky number in Chinese culture. The Birmingham Six were a British miscarriage of justice, held in prison for 16 years. "Six" is used as an informal slang term for the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. In other fields Six pack is a common form of packaging for six bottles or cans of drink (especially beer), and by extension, other assemblages of six items. Also, six is half a dozen. In Pythagorean numerology (a pseudoscience), the number 6 is the digit of balance, harmony and organization of the home and family The fundamental flight instruments lumped together on a cockpit display are often called the Basic Six or six-pack. The number of dots in a braille cell.See also Six degrees (disambiguation). Extrasensory perception is sometimes called the "sixth sense". Six Flags is an American company running amusement parks and theme parks in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. In the U.S. Army "Six" as part of a radio call sign is used by the commanding officer of a unit, while subordinate platoon leaders usually go by "One". (For a similar example see also: Rainbow Six.) See also List of highways numbered 6 The Odd Number 6, JA Todd, Math. Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 41 (1945) 66–68 A Property of the Number Six, Chapter 6, P Cameron, JH v. Lint, Designs, Graphs, Codes and their Links ISBN 0-521-42385-6 Wells, D. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers London: Penguin Group. (1987): 67 - 69 The Number 6 The Positive Integer 6 Prime curiosities: 6

7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has greatly symbolic associations in religion, mythology, superstition and philosophy. The seven Classical planets resulted in seven being the number of days in a week. It is often considered lucky in Western culture and is often seen as highly symbolic. Unlike Western culture, in Vietnamese culture, the number seven is sometimes considered unlucky. Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, Indians wrote 7 more or less in one stroke as a curve that looks like an uppercase ⟨J⟩ vertically inverted (ᒉ). The western Ghubar Arabs' main contribution was to make the longer line diagonal rather than straight, though they showed some tendencies to making the digit more rectilinear. The eastern Arabs developed the digit from a form that looked something like 6 to one that looked like an uppercase V. Both modern Arab forms influenced the European form, a two-stroke form consisting of a horizontal upper stroke joined at its right to a stroke going down to the bottom left corner, a line that is slightly curved in some font variants. As is the case with the European digit, the Cham and Khmer digit for 7 also evolved to look like their digit 1, though in a different way, so they were also concerned with making their 7 more different. For the Khmer this often involved adding a horizontal line to the top of the digit. This is analogous to the horizontal stroke through the middle that is sometimes used in handwriting in the Western world but which is almost never used in computer fonts. This horizontal stroke is, however, important to distinguish the glyph for seven from the glyph for one in writing that uses a long upstroke in the glyph for 1. In some Greek dialects of the early 12th century the longer line diagonal was drawn in a rather semicircular transverse line. On the seven-segment displays of pocket calculators and digital watches, 7 is the digit with the most common graphic variation (1, 6 and 9 also have variant glyphs). Most calculators use three line segments, but on Sharp, Casio, and a few other brands of calculators, 7 is written with four line segments because in Japan, Korea and Taiwan 7 is written with a "hook" on the left, as ① in the following illustration. While the shape of the character for the digit 7 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender (⁊), as, for example, in . Most people in Continental Europe, Indonesia, and some in Britain, Ireland, and Canada, as well as Latin America, write 7 with a line in the middle ("7"), sometimes with the top line crooked. The line through the middle is useful to clearly differentiate the digit from the digit one, as the two can appear similar when written in certain styles of handwriting. This form is used in official handwriting rules for primary school in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, other Slavic countries, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Romania, Germany, Greece, and Hungary. Mathematics Seven, the fourth prime number, is not only a Mersenne prime (since 23 − 1 = 7) but also a double Mersenne prime since the exponent, 3, is itself a Mersenne prime. It is also a Newman–Shanks–Williams prime, a Woodall prime, a factorial prime, a Harshad number, a lucky prime, a happy number (happy prime), a safe prime (the only Mersenne safe prime), a Leyland prime of the second kind and the fourth Heegner number. Seven is the lowest natural number that cannot be represented as the sum of the squares of three integers. (See Lagrange's four-square theorem#Historical development.)Seven is the aliquot sum of one number, the cubic number 8 and is the base of the 7-aliquot tree.7 is the only number D for which the equation 2n − D = x2 has more than two solutions for n and x natural. In particular, the equation 2n − 7 = x2 is known as the Ramanujan–Nagell equation.There are 7 frieze groups in two dimensions, consisting of symmetries of the plane whose group of translations is isomorphic to the group of integers. These are related to the 17 wallpaper groups whose transformations and isometries repeat two-dimensional patterns in the plane. The seventh indexed prime number is seventeen.A seven-sided shape is a heptagon. The regular n-gons for n ⩽ 6 can be constructed by compass and straightedge alone, which makes the heptagon the first regular polygon that cannot be directly constructed with these simple tools. Figurate numbers representing heptagons are called heptagonal numbers. 7 is also a centered hexagonal number.A heptagon in Euclidean space is unable to generate uniform tilings alongside other polygons, like the regular pentagon. However, it is one of fourteen polygons that can fill a plane-vertex tiling, in its case only alongside a regular triangle and a 42-sided polygon (3.7.42). This is also one of twenty-one such configurations from seventeen combinations of polygons, that features the largest and smallest polygons possible.In Wythoff's kaleidoscopic constructions, seven distinct generator points that lie on mirror edges of a three-sided Schwarz triangle are used to create most uniform tilings and polyhedra; an eighth point lying on all three mirrors is technically degenerate, reserved to represent snub forms only.Seven of eight semiregular tilings are Wythoffian, the only exception is the elongated triangular tiling. Seven of nine uniform colorings of the square tiling are also Wythoffian, and between the triangular tiling and square tiling, there are seven non-Wythoffian uniform colorings of a total twenty-one that belong to regular tilings (all hexagonal tiling uniform colorings are Wythoffian). In two dimensions, there are precisely seven 7-uniform Krotenheerdt tilings, with no other such k-uniform tilings for k > 7, and it is also the only k for which the count of Krotenheerdt tilings agrees with k.The Fano plane is the smallest possible finite projective plane with 7 points and 7 lines such that every line contains 3 points and 3 lines cross every point. With group order 168 = 23·3·7, this plane holds 35 total triples of points where 7 are collinear and another 28 are non-collinear, whose incidence graph is the 3-regular bipartate Heawood graph with 14 vertices and 21 edges. This graph embeds in three dimensions as the Szilassi polyhedron, the simplest toroidal polyhedron alongside its dual with 7 vertices, the Császár polyhedron.In three-dimensional space there are seven crystal systems and fourteen Bravais lattices which classify under seven lattice systems, six of which are shared with the seven crystal systems. There are also collectively seventy-seven Wythoff symbols that represent all uniform figures in three dimensions.The seventh dimension is the only dimension aside from the familiar three where a vector cross product can be defined. This is related to the octonions over the imaginary subspace Im(O) in 7-space whose commutator between two octonions defines this vector product, wherein the Fano plane describes the multiplicative algebraic structure of the unit octonions {e0, e1, e2, ..., e7}, with e0 an identity element.Also, the lowest known dimension for an exotic sphere is the seventh dimension, with a total of 28 differentiable structures; there may exist exotic smooth structures on the four-dimensional sphere. In hyperbolic space, 7 is the highest dimension for non-simplex hypercompact Vinberg polytopes of rank n + 4 mirrors, where there is one unique figure with eleven facets. On the other hand, such figures with rank n + 3 mirrors exist in dimensions 4, 5, 6 and 8; not in 7. Hypercompact polytopes with lowest possible rank of n + 2 mirrors exist up through the 17th dimension, where there is a single solution as well.There are seven fundamental types of catastrophes.When rolling two standard six-sided dice, seven has a 6 in 62 (or 1/6) probability of being rolled (1–6, 6–1, 2–5, 5–2, 3–4, or 4–3), the greatest of any number. The opposite sides of a standard six-sided dice always add to 7.The Millennium Prize Problems are seven problems in mathematics that were stated by the Clay Mathematics Institute in 2000. Currently, six of the problems remain unsolved. Basic calculations In decimal 999,999 divided by 7 is exactly 142,857. Therefore, when a vulgar fraction with 7 in the denominator is converted to a decimal expansion, the result has the same six-digit repeating sequence after the decimal point, but the sequence can start with any of those six digits. For example, 1/7 = 0.142857 142857... and 2/7 = 0.285714 285714.... In fact, if one sorts the digits in the number 142,857 in ascending order, 124578, it is possible to know from which of the digits the decimal part of the number is going to begin with. The remainder of dividing any number by 7 will give the position in the sequence 124578 that the decimal part of the resulting number will start. For example, 628 ÷ 7 = 89+5/7; here 5 is the remainder, and would correspond to number 7 in the ranking of the ascending sequence. So in this case, 628 ÷ 7 = 89.714285. Another example, 5238 ÷ 7 = 748+2/7, hence the remainder is 2, and this corresponds to number 2 in the sequence. In this case, 5238 ÷ 7 = 748.285714. In science Seven colors in a rainbow: ROYGBIV Seven Continents Seven Seas Seven climes The neutral pH balance Number of music notes in a scale Number of spots most commonly found on ladybugs Atomic number for nitrogen In psychology Seven, plus or minus two as a model of working memory. Seven psychological types called the Seven Rays in the teachings of Alice A. Bailey In Western culture, Seven is consistently listed as people's favorite number. When guessing numbers 1–10, the number 7 is most likely to be picked. Seven-year itch: happiness in marriage said to decline after 7 years Classical antiquity The Pythagoreans invested particular numbers with unique spiritual properties. The number seven was considered to be particularly interesting because it consisted of the union of the physical (number 4) with the spiritual (number 3). In Pythagorean numerology the number 7 means spirituality. Seven Classical planets and the derivative Seven Heavens Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Seven metals of antiquity Seven days in the week Seven Seas Seven Sages Seven champions that fought Thebes Seven hills of Rome and Seven Kings of Rome Seven Sisters, the daughters of Atlas also known as the Pleiades Religion and mythology Judaism The number seven forms a widespread typological pattern within Hebrew scripture, including: Seven days (more precisely yom) of Creation, leading to the seventh day or Sabbath (Genesis 1) Seven-fold vengeance visited on upon Cain for the killing of Abel (Genesis 4:15) Seven pairs of every clean animal loaded onto the ark by Noah (Genesis 7:2) Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream (Genesis 41) Seventh son of Jacob, Gad, whose name means good luck (Genesis 46:16) Seven times bullock's blood is sprinkled before God (Leviticus 4:6) Seven nations God told the Israelites they would displace when they entered the land of Israel (Deuteronomy 7:1) Seven days (de jure, but de facto eight days) of the Passover feast (Exodus 13:3–10) Seven-branched candelabrum or Menorah (Exodus 25) Seven trumpets played by seven priests for seven days to bring down the walls of Jericho (Joshua 6:8) Seven things that are detestable to God (Proverbs 6:16–19) Seven Pillars of the House of Wisdom (Proverbs 9:1) Seven archangels in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit (12:15Seven divisions of the weekly readings or aliyah of the Torah Seven Jewish men (over the age of 13) called to read aliyahs in Shabbat morning services Seven blessings recited under the chuppah during a Jewish wedding ceremony Seven days of festive meals for a Jewish bride and groom after their wedding, known as Sheva Berachot or Seven Blessings Seven Ushpizzin prayers to the Jewish patriarchs during the holiday of Sukkot Christianity Following the tradition of the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament likewise uses the number seven as part of a typological pattern: Seven loaves multiplied into seven basketfuls of surplus (Matthew 15:32–37) Seven demons were driven out of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2) Seven last sayings of Jesus on the cross Seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom (Acts 6:3) Seven Spirits of God, Seven Churches and Seven Seals in the Book of RevelatioSeven Gifts of the Holy Spirit Seven Corporal Acts of Mercy and Seven Spiritual Acts of Mercy Seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, and seven terraces of Mount Purgatory Seven Virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary Seven Sleepers of Christian myth Seven Sacraments in the Catholic Church (though some traditions assign a different number) Islam Seven ayat in surat al-Fatiha, the first book of the holy Qur'an Seven circumambulations of Muslim pilgrims around the Kaaba in Mecca during the Hajj and the Umrah Seven walks between Al-Safa and Al-Marwah performed Muslim pilgrims during the Hajj and the Umrah Seven doors to hell (for heaven the number of doors is eight) Seven Earths and seven Heavens (plural of sky) mentioned in Qur'an (S. 65:12) Night Journey to the Seventh Heaven, (reported ascension to heaven to meet God) Isra' and Mi'raj of the Qur'an and surah Al-Isra'. Seventh day naming ceremony held for babies Seven enunciators of divine revelation (nāṭiqs) according to the celebrated Fatimid Ismaili dignitary Nasir Khusraw Circle Seven Koran, the holy scripture of the Moorish Science Temple of America Hinduism Seven worlds in the universe and seven seas in the world in Hindu cosmology Seven sages or Saptarishi and their seven wives or Sapta Matrka in Hindu mythology Seven Chakras in eastern philosophy Seven stars in a constellation called "Saptharishi Mandalam" in Indian astronomy Seven promises, or Saptapadi, and seven circumambulations around a fire at Hindu weddings Seven virgin goddesses or Saptha Kannimar worshipped in temples in Tamil Nadu, India Seven hills at Tirumala known as Yedu Kondalavadu in Telugu, or ezhu malaiyan in Tamil, meaning "Sevenhills God" Seven steps taken by the Buddha at birth Seven divine ancestresses of humankind in Khasi mythology Seven octets or Saptak Swaras in Indian Music as the basis for Ragas compositions Seven Social Sins listed by Mahatma Gandhi Eastern tradition Other references to the number seven in Eastern traditions include: Seven Lucky Gods or gods of good fortune in Japanese mythology Seven-Branched Sword in Japanese mythology Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove in China Seven minor symbols of yang in Taoist yin-yang Other references Other references to the number seven in traditions from around the world include: The number seven had mystical and religious significance in Mesopotamian culture by the 22nd century BCE at the latest. This was likely because in the Sumerian sexagesimal number system, dividing by seven was the first division which resulted in infinitely repeating fractions. Seven palms in an Egyptian Sacred Cubit Seven ranks in Mithraism Seven hills of Istanbul Seven islands of Atlantis Seven Cherokee clans Seven lives of cats in Iran and German and Romance language-speaking cultures Seven fingers on each hand, seven toes on each foot and seven pupils in each eye of the Irish epic hero Cúchulainn Seventh sons will be werewolves in Galician folklore, or the son of a woman and a werewolf in other European folklores Seventh sons of a seventh son will be magicians with special powers of healing and clairvoyance in some cultures, or vampires in others Seven prominent legendary monsters in Guaraní mythology Seven gateways traversed by Inanna during her descent into the underworld Seven Wise Masters, a cycle of medieval stories Seven sister goddesses or fates in Baltic mythology called the Deivės Valdytojos. Seven legendary Cities of Gold, such as Cibola, that the Spanish thought existed in South America Seven years spent by Thomas the Rhymer in the faerie kingdom in the eponymous British folk tale Seven-year cycle in which the Queen of the Fairies pays a tithe to Hell (or possibly Hel) in the tale of Tam Lin Seven Valleys, a text by the Prophet-Founder Bahá'u'lláh in the Bahá'í faith Seven superuniverses in the cosmology of Urantia Seven psychological types called the Seven Rays in the teachings of Alice A. Bailey Seven, the sacred number of Yemaya Seven holes representing eyes (سبع عيون) in an Assyrian evil eye bead – though occasionally two, and sometimes nine In culture In literature Seven Dwarfs The Seven Brothers, an 1870 novel by Aleksis Kivi Seven features prominently in A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, namely, the Seven Kingdoms and the Faith of the Seven In visual art The Group of Seven Canadian landscape painters In sports Sports with seven players per side Kabaddi Rugby sevens Water Polo Netball Handball Flag Football Ultimate Frisbee Seven is the least number of players a soccer team must have on the field in order for a match to start and continue. A touchdown plus an extra point is worth seven points. See also Diatonic scale (7 notes) Seven colors in the rainbow Seven continents Seven liberal arts Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Seven days of the Week Septenary (numeral system) Year Seven (School) Se7en (disambiguation) Sevens (disambiguation) One-seventh area triangle Z with stroke (Ƶ) List of highways numbered 7 Wells, D. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers London: Penguin Group (1987): 70–71

8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. Etymology English eight, from Old English eahta, æhta, Proto-Germanic *ahto is a direct continuation of Proto-Indo-European *oḱtṓ(w)-, and as such cognate with Greek ὀκτώ and Latin octo-, both of which stems are reflected by the English prefix oct(o)-, as in the ordinal adjective octaval or octavary, the distributive adjective is octonary. The adjective octuple (Latin octu-plus) may also be used as a noun, meaning "a set of eight items"; the diminutive octuplet is mostly used to refer to eight siblings delivered in one birth. The Semitic numeral is based on a root *θmn-, whence Akkadian smn-, Arabic ṯmn-, Hebrew šmn- etc. The Chinese numeral, written 八 (Mandarin: bā; Cantonese: baat), is from Old Chinese *priāt-, ultimately from Sino-Tibetan b-r-gyat or b-g-ryat which also yielded Tibetan brgyat. It has been argued that, as the cardinal number 7 is the highest number of items that can universally be cognitively processed as a single set, the etymology of the numeral eight might be the first to be considered composite, either as "twice four" or as "two short of ten", or similar. The Turkic words for "eight" are from a Proto-Turkic stem *sekiz, which has been suggested as originating as a negation of eki "two", as in "without two fingers" (i.e., "two short of ten; two fingers are not being held up"); this same principle is found in Finnic *kakte-ksa, which conveys a meaning of "two before (ten)". The Proto-Indo-European reconstruction *oḱtṓ(w)- itself has been argued as representing an old dual, which would correspond to an original meaning of "twice four". Proponents of this "quaternary hypothesis" adduce the numeral 9, which might be built on the stem new-, meaning "new" (indicating the beginning of a "new set of numerals" after having counted to eight). Evolution of the Arabic digit The modern digit 8, like all modern Arabic numerals other than zero, originates with the Brahmi numerals. The Brahmi digit for eight by the 1st century was written in one stroke as a curve └┐ looking like an uppercase H with the bottom half of the left line and the upper half of the right line removed. However, the digit for eight used in India in the early centuries of the Common Era developed considerable graphic variation, and in some cases took the shape of a single wedge, which was adopted into the Perso-Arabic tradition as ٨ (and also gave rise to the later Devanagari form ८); the alternative curved glyph also existed as a variant in Perso-Arabic tradition, where it came to look similar to our digit 5.The digits as used in Al-Andalus by the 10th century were a distinctive western variant of the glyphs used in the Arabic-speaking world, known as ghubār numerals (ghubār translating to "sand table"). In these digits, the line of the 5-like glyph used in Indian manuscripts for eight came to be formed in ghubār as a closed loop, which was the 8-shape that became adopted into European use in the 10th century.Just as in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character for the digit 8 usually has an ascender, as, for example, in . The infinity symbol ∞, described as a "sideways figure eight", is unrelated to the digit 8 in origin; it is first used (in the mathematical meaning "infinity") in the 17th century, and it may be derived from the Roman numeral for "one thousand" CIƆ, or alternatively from the final Greek letter, ω. In mathematics Eight is the third composite number, lying between the fourth prime number (7) and the fourth composite number (9). 8 is the first non-unitary cube prime of the form p3. With proper divisors 1, 2, and 4, it is the third power of two (23). 8 is the first number which is neither prime nor semiprime and the only nonzero perfect power that is one less than another perfect power, by Mihăilescu's Theorem. 8 is the first proper Leyland number of the form xy + yx, where in its case x and y both equal 2. 8 is the sum between the first pair of twin-primes (3, 5), and the only twin-prime sum that is not a multiple of 3 or 12. 8 is the sixth Fibonacci number and the first even, non-prime Fibonacci number. It is also the only positive Fibonacci number aside from 1 that is a perfect cube. 8 is the third refactorable number, as it has exactly four positive divisors, and 4 is one of them. 8 is the only composite number with a prime aliquot sum of 7 (1 + 2 + 4) that is part of the aliquot sequence (8, 7, 1, 0). 8 is the first number to be the aliquot sum of two numbers: the discrete semiprime 10, and the squared prime 49.Sphenic numbers always have exactly eight divisors.A polygon with eight sides is an octagon. The sides and span of a regular octagon, or truncated square, are in 1 : 1 + √2 silver ratio, and its circumscribing square has a side and diagonal length ratio of 1 : √2; with both the silver ratio and the square root of two intimately interconnected through Pell numbers, where in particular the quotient of successive Pell numbers generates rational approximations for coordinates of a regular octagon. With a central angle of 45 degrees and an internal angle of 135 degrees, a regular octagon can fill a plane-vertex with a regular triangle and a regular icositetragon, as well as tessellate two-dimensional space alongside squares in the truncated square tiling. This tiling is one of eight Archimedean tilings that are semi-regular, or made of more than one type of regular polygon, and the only tiling that can admit a regular octagon. The Ammann–Beenker tiling is a nonperiodic tesselation of prototiles that feature prominent octagonal silver eightfold symmetry, that is the two-dimensional orthographic projection of the four-dimensional 8-8 duoprism. In number theory, figurate numbers representing octagons are called octagonal numbers.A cube is a regular polyhedron with eight vertices that also forms the cubic honeycomb, the only regular honeycomb in three-dimensional space. Through various truncation operations, the cubic honeycomb generates eight other convex uniform honeycombs under the cubic group C ~ 3 {\displaystyle {\tilde {C}}_{3}} . The octahedron, with eight equilateral triangles as faces, is the dual polyhedron to the cube and one of eight convex deltahedra. The stella octangula, or eight-pointed star, is the only stellation with octahedral symmetry. It has eight triangular faces alongside eight vertices that forms a cubic faceting, composed of two self-dual tetrahedra that makes it the simplest of five regular compounds. The cuboctahedron, on the other hand, is a rectified cube or rectified octahedron, and one of only two convex quasiregular polyhedra. It contains eight equilateral triangular faces, whose first stellation is the cube-octahedron compound. There are also eight uniform polyhedron compounds made purely of octahedra, including the regular compound of five octahedra, and an infinite amount of polyhedron compounds made only of octahedra as triangular antiprisms (UC22 and UC23, with p = 3 and q = 1). The truncated tetrahedron is the simplest Archimedean solid, made of four triangles and four hexagons, the hexagonal prism, which classifies as an irregular octahedron and parallelohedron, is able to tessellate space as a three-dimensional analogue of the hexagon, and the gyrobifastigium, with four square faces and four triangular faces, is the only Johnson solid that is able to tessellate space. The truncated octahedron, also a parallelohedron, is the permutohedron of order four, with eight hexagonal faces alongside six squares is likewise the only Archimedean solid that can generate a honeycomb on its own. A tesseract or 8-cell is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube. It is one of six regular polychora, with a total of eight cubical cells, hence its name. Its dual figure is the analogue of the octahedron, with twice the amount of cells and simply termed the 16-cell, that is the orthonormal basis of vectors in four dimensions. Whereas a tesseractic honeycomb is self-dual, a 16-cell honeycomb is dual to a 24-cell honeycomb that is made of 24-cells. The 24-cell is also regular, and made purely of octahedra whose vertex arrangement represents the ring of Hurwitz integral quaternions. Both the tesseract and the 16-cell can fit inside a 24-cell, and in a 24-cell honeycomb, eight 24-cells meet at a vertex. Also, the Petrie polygon of the tesseract and the 16-cell is a regular octagon. Vertex-transitive semiregular polytopes whose facets are finite exist up through the 8th dimension. In the third dimension, they include the Archimedean solids and the infinite family of uniform prisms and antiprisms, while in the fourth dimension, only the rectified 5-cell, the rectified 600-cell, and the snub 24-cell are semiregular polytopes. For dimensions five through eight, the demipenteract and the k21 polytopes 221, 321, and 421 are the only semiregular (Gosset) polytopes. Collectively, the k21 family of polytopes contains eight figures that are rooted in the triangular prism, which is the simplest semiregular polytope that is made of three cubes and two equilateral triangles. It also includes one of only three semiregular Euclidean honeycombs: the affine 521 honeycomb that represents the arrangement of vertices of the eight-dimensional E 8 {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{8}} lattice, and made of 421 facets. The culminating figure is the ninth-dimensional 621 honeycomb, which is the only affine semiregular paracompact hyperbolic honeycomb with infinite facets and vertex figures in the k21 family. There are no other finite semiregular polytopes or honeycombs in dimensions n > 8. The octonions are a hypercomplex normed division algebra that are an extension of the complex numbers. They are realized in eight dimensions, where they have an isotopy group over the real numbers that is spin group Spin(8), the unique such group that exhibits a phenomenon of triality. As a double cover of special orthogonal group SO(8), Spin(8) contains the special orthogonal Lie algebra D4 as its Dynkin diagram, whose order-three outer automorphism is isomorphic to the symmetric group S3, giving rise to its triality. Over finite fields, the eight-dimensional Steinberg group 3D4(q3) is simple, and one of sixteen such groups in the classification of finite simple groups. As is Lie algebra E8, whose complex form in 248 dimensions is the largest of five exceptional Lie algebras that include E7 and E6, which are held inside E8. The smallest such algebra is G2, that is the automorphism group of the octonions. In mathematical physics, special unitary group SO(3) has an eight-dimensional adjoint representation whose colors are ascribed gauge symmetries that represent the vectors of the eight gluons in the Standard Model. The number 8 is involved with a number of interesting mathematical phenomena related to the notion of Bott periodicity. If O ( ∞ ) {\displaystyle O(\infty )} is the direct limit of the inclusions of real orthogonal groups O ( 1 ) ↪ O ( 2 ) ↪ … ↪ O ( k ) ↪ … {\displaystyle O(1)\hookrightarrow O(2)\hookrightarrow \ldots \hookrightarrow O(k)\hookrightarrow \ldots } , the following holds: π k + 8 ( O ( ∞ ) ) ≅ π k ( O ( ∞ ) ) {\displaystyle \pi _{k+8}(O(\infty ))\cong \pi _{k}(O(\infty ))} .Clifford algebras also display a periodicity of 8. For example, the algebra Cl(p + 8,q) is isomorphic to the algebra of 16 by 16 matrices with entries in Cl(p,q). We also see a period of 8 in the K-theory of spheres and in the representation theory of the rotation groups, the latter giving rise to the 8 by 8 spinorial chessboard. All of these properties are closely related to the properties of the octonions, which occupy the highest possible dimension for a normed division algebra. The E 8 {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{8}} lattice Γ8 is the smallest positive even unimodular lattice. As a lattice, it holds the optimal structure for the densest packing of 240 spheres in eight dimensions, whose lattice points also represent the root system of Lie group E8. This honeycomb arrangement is shared by a unique complex tessellation of Witting polytopes, also with 240 vertices. Each complex Witting polytope is made of Hessian polyhedral cells that have Möbius–Kantor polygons as faces, each with eight vertices and eight complex equilateral triangles as edges, whose Petrie polygons form regular octagons. In general, positive even unimodular lattices only exist in dimensions proportional to eight. In the 16th dimension, there are two such lattices : Γ8 ⊕ Γ8 and Γ16, while in the 24th dimension there are precisely twenty-four such lattices that are called the Niemeier lattices, the most important being the Leech lattice, which can be constructed using the octonions as well as with three copies of the ring of icosians that are isomorphic to the E 8 {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{8}} lattice. The order of the smallest non-abelian group all of whose subgroups are normal is 8. In the classification of sporadic groups, the third generation consists of eight groups, four of which are centralizers of F 1 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F_{1}} } (itself the largest group of this generation), with another three transpositions of Fischer group F 3 + {\displaystyle \mathrm {F_{3+}} } . 8 is the difference between 53 and 61, which are the two smallest prime numbers that do not divide the order of any sporadic group. The largest supersingular prime that divides the order of F 1 {\displaystyle \mathrm {F_{1}} } is 71, which is the eighth self-convolution of Fibonacci numbers (where 744, which is essential to Moonshine theory, is the twelfth). While only two sporadic groups have eight prime factors in their order (Lyons group L y {\displaystyle \mathrm {Ly} } and Fischer group F i 23 {\displaystyle \mathrm {Fi_{23}} } ), Mathieu group M 23 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M_{23}} } holds a semi-presentation whose order is equal to o ( ( a b ) 2 ( a b a b 2 ) 2 a b 2 ) = 8 {\displaystyle o{\bigl (}(ab)^{2}(abab^{2})^{2}ab^{2}{\bigr )}=8} . List of basic calculations In other bases A number is divisible by 8 if its last three digits, when written in decimal, are also divisible by 8, or its last three digits are 0 when written in binary. 8 is the base of the octal number system, which is mostly used with computers. In octal, one digit represents three bits. In modern computers, a byte is a grouping of eight bits, also called an octet. In science Physics In nuclear physics, the second magic number. In particle physics, the eightfold way is used to classify sub-atomic particles. In statistical mechanics, the eight-vertex model has 8 possible configurations of arrows at each vertex. Astronomy Messier object M8, a magnitude 5.0 nebula in the constellation of Sagittarius. The New General Catalogue object NGC 8, a double star in the constellation Pegasus. Since the demotion of Pluto to a dwarf planet on 24 August 2006, in our Solar System, eight of the bodies orbiting the Sun are considered to be planets. Chemistry The atomic number of oxygen. The most stable allotrope of a sulfur molecule is made of eight sulfur atoms arranged in a rhombic form. The maximum number of electrons that can occupy a valence shell (except for transitional elements), see the octet rule. The red pigment lycopene consists of eight isoprene units. Geology A disphenoid crystal is bounded by eight scalene triangles arranged in pairs. A ditetragonal prism in the tetragonal crystal system has eight similar faces whose alternate interfacial angles only are equal. Biology All spiders, and more generally all arachnids, have eight legs. Orb-weaver spiders of the cosmopolitan family Areneidae have eight similar eyes. The octopus and its cephalopod relatives in genus Argonauta have eight arms (tentacles). Compound coelenterates of the subclass or order Alcyonaria have polyps with eight-branched tentacles and eight septa. Sea anemones of genus Edwardsia have eight mesenteries. Animals of phylum Ctenophora swim by means of eight meridional bands of transverse ciliated plates, each plate representing a row of large modified cilia. The eight-spotted forester (genus Alypia, family Zygaenidae) is a diurnal moth having black wings with brilliant white spots. The ascus in fungi of the class Ascomycetes, following nuclear fusion, bears within it typically eight ascospores. Herbs of genus Coreopsis (tickseed) have showy flower heads with involucral bracts in two distinct series of eight each. In human adult dentition there are eight teeth in each quadrant. The eighth tooth is the so-called wisdom tooth. There are eight cervical nerves on each side in man and most mammals. Psychology There are eight Jungian cognitive functions, according to the MBTI models by John Beebe and Linda Berens. Timothy Leary identified a hierarchy of eight levels of consciousness. In technology A byte is eight bits. Many (mostly historic) computer architectures are eight-bit, among them the Nintendo Entertainment System. Standard-8 and Super-8 are 8 mm film formats. Video8, Hi8 and Digital8 are related 8 mm video formats. On most phones, the 8 key is associated with the letters T, U, and V, but on the BlackBerry Pearl it is the key for B and N. An eight may refer to an eight-cylinder engine or automobile. A V8 engine is an internal combustion engine with eight cylinders configured in two banks (rows) of four forming a "V" when seen from the end. A figure-eight knot (so named for its configuration) is a kind of stopper knot. The number eight written in parentheses is the code for the musical note in Windows Live Messenger. In a seven-segment display, when an 8 is illuminated, all the display bulbs are on. In measurement The SI prefix for 10008 is yotta (Y), and for its reciprocal, yocto (y). In liquid measurement (United States customary units), there are eight fluid ounces in a cup, eight pints in a gallon and eight tablespoonfuls in a gill. There are eight furlongs in a mile. The clove, an old English unit of weight, was equal to eight pounds when measuring cheese. An eight may be an article of clothing of the eighth size. Force eight is the first wind strength attributed to a gale on the Beaufort scale when announced on a Shipping Forecast. In culture Currency Sailors and civilians alike from the 1500s onward referred to evenly divided parts of the Spanish dollar as "pieces of eight", or "bits". Architecture Various types of buildings are usually eight-sided (octagonal), such as single-roomed gazebos and multi-roomed pagodas (descended from stupas; see religion section below). Eight caulicoles rise out of the leafage in a Corinthian capital, ending in leaves that support the volutes. In religion, folk belief and divination Hinduism Also known as Ashtha, Aṣṭa, or Ashta in Sanskrit, it is the number of wealth and abundance. The goddess of wealth and prosperity, Lakshmi, has eight forms known as Ashta Lakshmi and worshipped as: "Maha-lakshmi, Dhana-lakshmi, Dhanya-lakshmi, Gaja-lakshmi,Santana-lakshmi, Veera-lakshmi, Vijaya-lakshmi and Vidhya-lakshmi" There are eight nidhi, or seats of wealth, according to Hinduism. There are eight guardians of the directions known as Astha-dikpalas. There are eight Hindu monasteries established by the saint Madhvacharya in Udupi, India popularly known as the Ashta Mathas of Udupi. Buddhism The Dharmacakra, a Buddhist symbol, has eight spokes. The Buddha's principal teaching—the Four Noble Truths—ramifies as the Noble Eightfold Path and the Buddha emphasizes the importance of the eight attainments or jhanas. In Mahayana Buddhism, the branches of the Eightfold Path are embodied by the Eight Great Bodhisattvas: (Manjusri, Vajrapani, Avalokiteśvara, Maitreya, Ksitigarbha, Nivaranavishkambhi, Akasagarbha, and Samantabhadra). These are later (controversially) associated with the Eight Consciousnesses according to the Yogacara school of thought: consciousness in the five senses, thought-consciousness, self-consciousness, and unconsciousness-"consciousness" or "store-house consciousness" (alaya-vijñana). The "irreversible" state of enlightenment, at which point a Bodhisattva goes on "autopilot", is the Eight Ground or bhūmi. In general, "eight" seems to be an auspicious number for Buddhists, e.g., the "eight auspicious symbols" (the jewel-encrusted parasol; the goldfish (always shown as a pair, e.g., the glyph of Pisces); the self-replenishing amphora; the white kamala lotus-flower; the white conch; the eternal (Celtic-style, infinitely looping) knot; the banner of imperial victory; the eight-spoked wheel that guides the ship of state, or that symbolizes the Buddha's teaching). Similarly, Buddha's birthday falls on the 8th day of the 4th month of the Chinese calendar. Judaism The religious rite of brit milah (commonly known as circumcision) is held on a baby boy's eighth day of life. Hanukkah is an eight-day Jewish holiday that starts on the 25th day of Kislev. Shemini Atzeret (Hebrew: "Eighth Day of Assembly") is a one-day Jewish holiday immediately following the seven-day holiday of Sukkot. Christianity The spiritual Eighth Day, because the number 7 refers to the days of the week (which repeat themselves). The number of Beatitudes. 1 Peter 3:20 states that there were eight people on Noah's Ark. The Antichrist is the eighth king in the Book of Revelation. Islam In Islam, eight is the number of angels carrying the throne of Allah in heaven The number of gates of heaven The octagram Rub el Hizb is often used in Islamic symbology Taoism Ba Gua Ba Xian Ba Duan Jin Other In Wicca, there are eight Sabbats, festivals, seasons, or spokes in the Wheel of the Year. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad represents the eight primordial deities of creation. In Scientology there are eight dynamics of existence.: 39  There is also the Ogdoad in Gnosticism. As a lucky number The number eight is considered to be a lucky number in Chinese and other Asian cultures. Eight (八; accounting 捌; pinyin bā) is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture because it sounds like the word meaning to generate wealth (發(T) 发(S); Pinyin: fā). Property with the number 8 may be valued greatly by Chinese. For example, a Hong Kong number plate with the number 8 was sold for $640,000. The opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing started at 8 seconds and 8 minutes past 8 pm (local time) on 8 August 2008. In Pythagorean numerology (a pseudoscience) the number 8 represents victory, prosperity and overcoming. Eight (八, hachi, ya) is also considered a lucky number in Japan, but the reason is different from that in Chinese culture. Eight gives an idea of growing prosperous, because the letter (八) broadens gradually. The Japanese thought of eight (や, ya) as a holy number in the ancient times. The reason is less well-understood, but it is thought that it is related to the fact they used eight to express large numbers vaguely such as manyfold (やえはたえ, Yae Hatae) (literally, eightfold and twentyfold), many clouds (やくも, Yakumo) (literally, eight clouds), millions and millions of Gods (やおよろずのかみ, Yaoyorozu no Kami) (literally, eight millions of Gods), etc. It is also guessed that the ancient Japanese gave importance to pairs, so some researchers guess twice as four (よ, yo), which is also guessed to be a holy number in those times because it indicates the world (north, south, east, and west) might be considered a very holy number. In numerology, 8 is the number of building, and in some theories, also the number of destruction. In astrology In astrology, Scorpio is the 8th astrological sign of the Zodiac. In the Middle Ages, 8 was the number of "unmoving" stars in the sky, and symbolized the perfection of incoming planetary energy. In music and dance A note played for one-eighth the duration of a whole note is called an eighth note, or quaver. An octave, the interval between two musical notes with the same letter name (where one has double the frequency of the other), is so called because there are eight notes between the two on a standard major or minor diatonic scale, including the notes themselves and without chromatic deviation. The ecclesiastical modes are ascending diatonic musical scales of eight notes or tones comprising an octave. There are eight notes in the octatonic scale. There are eight musicians in a double quartet or an octet. Both terms may also refer to a musical composition for eight voices or instruments. Caledonians is a square dance for eight, resembling the quadrille. Albums with the number eight in their title include 8 by the Swedish band Arvingarna, 8 by the American rock band Incubus, The Meaning of 8 by Minnesota indie rock band Cloud Cult and 8ight by Anglo-American singer-songwriter Beatie Wolfe. Dream Theater's eighth album Octavarium contains many different references to the number 8, including the number of songs and various aspects of the music and cover artwork. "Eight maids a-milking" is the gift on the eighth day of Christmas in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The 8-track cartridge is a musical recording format. "#8" is the stage name of Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor. "Too Many Eights" is a song by Athens, Georgia's Supercluster. Eight Seconds, a Canadian musical group popular in the 1980s with their most notable song "Kiss You (When It's Dangerous)". "Eight Days a Week" is a #1 single for the music group the Beatles. Figure 8 is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, released in the year 2000, an album released by Julia Darling in 1999, and an album released by Outasight in 2011. Ming Hao from the k-pop group Seventeen goes by the name "The8". "8 (circle)" is the eighth song on the album 22, A Million by the American band Bon Iver. "8" is the eighth song on the album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? by Billie Eilish. In film and television 8 Guys is a 2003 short film written and directed by Dane Cook. 8 Man (or Eightman): 1963 Japanese manga and anime superhero. 8 Mile is a 2002 film directed by Curtis Hanson. 8 mm is a 1999 film directed by Joel Schumacher. 8 Women (Original French title: 8 femmes) is a 2001 film directed by François Ozon. Eight Below is a 2006 film directed by Frank Marshall. Eight Legged Freaks is a 2002 film directed by Ellory Elkayem. Eight Men Out is a 1988 film directed by John Sayles. Jennifer Eight, also known as Jennifer 8, is a 1992 film written and directed by Bruce Robinson. Eight Is Enough is an American television comedy-drama series. In Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, dialing an 8-chevron address will open a wormhole to another galaxy. The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American western mystery film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Kate Plus 8 is an American reality television show. Ocean's 8 is an American heist comedy film directed by Gary Ross. In sports and other games Eight-ball pool is played with a cue ball and 15 numbered balls, the black ball numbered 8 being the middle and most important one, as the winner is the player or side that legally pockets it after first pocketing its numerical group of 7 object balls (for other meanings see Eight ball (disambiguation)). In chess, each side has eight pawns and the board is made of 64 squares arranged in an eight by eight lattice. The eight queens puzzle is a challenge to arrange eight queens on the board so that none can capture any of the others. In the game of eights or Crazy Eights, each successive player must play a card either of the same suit or of the same rank as that played by the preceding player, or may play an eight and call for any suit. The object is to get rid of all one's cards first. In association football, the number 8 has historically been the number of the Central Midfielder. In Australian rules football, the top eight teams at the end of the Australian Football League regular season qualify for the finals series (i.e. playoffs). In baseball: The center fielder is designated as number 8 for scorekeeping purposes. The Men's College World Series, the final phase of the NCAA Division I tournament, features eight teams. In rugby union, the only position without a proper name is the Number 8, a forward position. In rugby league: Most competitions (though not the Super League, which uses static squad numbering) use a position-based player numbering system in which one of the two starting props wears the number 8. The Australia-based National Rugby League has its own 8-team finals series, similar but not identical in structure to that of the Australian Football League. In rowing, an "eight" refers to a sweep-oar racing boat with a crew of eight rowers plus a coxswain. In the 2008 Games of the XXIX Olympiad held in Beijing, the official opening was on 08/08/08 at 8:08:08 p.m. CST. In rock climbing, climbers frequently use the figure-eight knot to tie into their harnesses. The Women's College World Series, the final phase of the NCAA Division I softball tournament, like its men's counterpart in baseball, features eight teams. In curling an 8 point 'Eight Ender' is a perfect end. Each team delivers 8 Stones per end. In foods Nestlé sells a brand of chocolates filled with peppermint-flavoured cream called After Eight, referring to the time 8 p.m. There are eight vegetables in V8 juice. In literature Eights may refer to octosyllabic, usually iambic, lines of verse. The drott-kvaett, an Old Icelandic verse, consisted of a stanza of eight regular lines. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, eight is a magical number and is considered taboo. Eight is not safe to be said by wizards on the Discworld and is the number of Bel-Shamharoth. Also, there are eight days in a Disc week and eight colours in a Disc spectrum, the eighth one being octarine. Lewis Carroll's poem The Hunting of the Snark has 8 "fits" (cantos), which is noted in the full name "The Hunting of the Snark – An Agony, in Eight Fits". Eight apparitions appear to Macbeth in Act 4 scene 1 of Shakespeare's Macbeth as representations of the eight descendants of Banquo. In slang An "eighth" is a common measurement of marijuana, meaning an eighth of an ounce. It is also a common unit of sale for psilocybin mushrooms. Avril Lavigne's song "Sk8er Boi" uses this convention in the title. The Housing Choice Voucher Program, operated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, is commonly referred to as the Section 8 program, as this was the original section of the Act which instituted the program. In Colombia and Venezuela, "volverse un ocho" (meaning to tie oneself in a figure 8) refers to getting in trouble or contradicting oneself. In China, "8" is used in chat speak as a term for parting. This is due to the closeness in pronunciation of "8" (bā) and the English word "bye". Other uses A figure 8 is the common name of a geometric shape, often used in the context of sports, such as skating. Figure-eight turns of a rope or cable around a cleat, pin, or bitt are used to belay something. See also The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two List of highways numbered 8 The Octonions, John C. Baez

9 (nine) is the natural number following 8 and preceding 10. Evolution of the Hindu–Arabic digit Circa 300 BCE, as part of the Brahmi numerals, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a 3-look-alike. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase a. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender, as, for example, in . The modern digit resembles an inverted 6. To disambiguate the two on objects and documents that can be inverted, they are often underlined. Another distinction from the 6 is that it is sometimes handwritten with two strokes and a straight stem, resembling a raised lower-case letter q. In seven-segment display, the number 9 can be constructed either with a hook at the end of its stem or without one. Most LCD calculators use the former, but some VFD models use the latter. Mathematics Nine is the fourth composite number, and the first composite number that is odd. Nine is the third square number (32), and the second non-unitary square prime of the form p2, and, the first that is odd, with all subsequent squares of this form odd as well. Nine has the even aliquot sum of 4, and with a composite number sequence of two (9, 4, 3, 1, 0) within the 3-aliquot tree. There are nine Heegner numbers, or square-free positive integers n {\displaystyle n} that yield an imaginary quadratic field Q [ − n ] {\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} \left[{\sqrt {-n}}\right]} whose ring of integers has a unique factorization, or class number of 1. By Mihăilescu's theorem, 9 is the only positive perfect power that is one more than another positive perfect power, since the square of 3 is one more than the cube of 2.9 is the sum of the cubes of the first two non-zero positive integers 1 3 + 2 3 {\displaystyle 1^{3}+2^{3}} which makes it the first cube-sum number greater than one. It is also the sum of the first three nonzero factorials 1 ! + 2 ! + 3 ! {\displaystyle 1!+2!+3!} and equal to the third exponential factorial, since 9 = 3 2 1 . {\displaystyle 9=3^{2^{1}}.} Nine is the number of derangements of 4, or the number of permutations of four elements with no fixed points.9 is the fourth refactorable number, as it has exactly three positive divisors, and 3 is one of them.A number that is 4 or 5 modulo 9 cannot be represented as the sum of three cubes.If an odd perfect number exists, it will have at least nine distinct prime factors.9 is a Motzkin number, for the number of ways of drawing non-intersecting chords between four points on a circle. The first non-trivial magic square is a 3 {\displaystyle 3} x 3 {\displaystyle 3} magic square made of nine cells, with a magic constant of 15. Meanwhile, a 9 {\displaystyle 9} x 9 {\displaystyle 9} magic square has a magic constant of 369.A polygon with nine sides is called a nonagon. Since 9 can be written in the form 2 m 3 n p {\displaystyle 2^{m}3^{n}p} , for any nonnegative natural integers m {\displaystyle m} and n {\displaystyle n} with p {\displaystyle p} a product of Pierpont primes, a regular nonagon can be constructed with a regular compass, straightedge, and angle trisector.Also an enneagon, a regular nonagon is able to fill a plane-vertex alongside an equilateral triangle and a regular 18-sided octadecagon (3.9.18), and as such, it is one of only nine polygons that are able to fill a plane-vertex without uniformly tiling the plane.There are nine distinct uniform colorings of the triangular tiling and the square tiling, which are the two simplest regular tilings; the hexagonal tiling, on the other hand, has three distinct uniform colorings. There are a maximum of nine semiregular Archimedean tilings by convex regular polygons, when including chiral forms of the snub hexagonal tiling. There are nine uniform edge-transitive convex polyhedra in three dimensions: the five regular Platonic solids: the tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, dodecahedron and icosahedron; the two quasiregular Archimedean solids: the cuboctahedron and the icosidodecahedron; and two Catalan solids: the rhombic dodecahedron and the rhombic triacontahedron, which are duals to the only two quasiregular polyhedra.Nine distinct stellation's by Miller's rules are produced by the truncated tetrahedron. It is the simplest Archimedean solid, with a total of four equilateral triangular and four hexagonal faces. In four-dimensional space, there are nine paracompact hyperbolic honeycomb Coxeter groups, as well as nine regular compact hyperbolic honeycombs from regular convex and star polychora. There are also nine uniform demitesseractic ( D 4 {\displaystyle \mathrm {D} _{4}} ) Euclidean honeycombs in the fourth dimension. There are only three types of Coxeter groups of uniform figures in dimensions nine and thereafter, aside from the many families of prisms and proprisms: the A n {\displaystyle \mathrm {A} _{n}} simplex groups, the B n {\displaystyle \mathrm {B} _{n}} hypercube groups, and the D n {\displaystyle \mathrm {D} _{n}} demihypercube groups. The ninth dimension is also the final dimension that contains Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams as uniform solutions in hyperbolic space. Inclusive of compact hyperbolic solutions, there are a total of 238 compact and paracompact Coxeter-Dynkin diagrams between dimensions two and nine, or equivalently between ranks three and ten. The most important of the last E ~ 9 {\displaystyle {\tilde {E}}_{9}} paracompact groups is the group T ~ 9 {\displaystyle {\tilde {T}}_{9}} with 1023 total honeycombs, the simplest of which is 621 whose vertex figure is the 521 honeycomb: the vertex arrangement of the densest-possible packing of spheres in 8 dimensions which forms the E 8 {\displaystyle \mathbb {E} _{8}} lattice. The 621 honeycomb is made of 9-simplexes and 9-orthoplexes, with 1023 total polytope elements making up each 9-simplex. It is the final honeycomb figure with infinite facets and vertex figures in the k21 family of semiregular polytopes, first defined by Thorold Gosset in 1900. In decimal 9 is the highest single-digit number in the decimal system. A positive number is divisible by nine if and only if its digital root is nine: 9 × 2 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9) 9 × 3 = 27 (2 + 7 = 9) 9 × 9 = 81 (8 + 1 = 9) 9 × 121 = 1089 (1 + 0 + 8 + 9 = 18; 1 + 8 = 9) 9 × 234 = 2106 (2 + 1 + 0 + 6 = 9) 9 × 578329 = 5204961 (5 + 2 + 0 + 4 + 9 + 6 + 1 = 27; 2 + 7 = 9) 9 × 482729235601 = 4344563120409 (4 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 4 + 0 + 9 = 45; 4 + 5 = 9)That is, if any natural number is multiplied by 9, and the digits of the answer are repeatedly added until it is just one digit, the sum will be nine.In base- N {\displaystyle N} , the divisors of N − 1 {\displaystyle N-1} have such a property, which makes 3 the only other number aside from 9 in decimal that shares this property. Another consequence of 9 being 10 − 1 is that it is a Kaprekar number. There are other interesting patterns involving multiples of nine: 9 × 12345679 = 111111111 18 × 12345679 = 222222222 81 × 12345679 = 999999999The difference between a base-10 positive integer and the sum of its digits is a whole multiple of nine. Examples: The sum of the digits of 41 is 5, and 41 − 5 = 36. The digital root of 36 is 3 + 6 = 9. The sum of the digits of 35967930 is 3 + 5 + 9 + 6 + 7 + 9 + 3 + 0 = 42, and 35967930 − 42 = 35967888. The digital root of 35967888 is 3 + 5 + 9 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 54, 5 + 4 = 9.If dividing a number by the amount of 9s corresponding to its number of digits, the number is turned into a repeating decimal. (e.g. 274/999 = 0.274274274274...) Casting out nines is a quick way of testing the calculations of sums, differences, products, and quotients of integers known as long ago as the 12th century.Six recurring nines appear in the decimal places 762 through 767 of π. (See six nines in pi). List of basic calculations Alphabets and codes In the NATO phonetic alphabet, the digit 9 is called "Niner". Five-digit produce PLU codes that begin with 9 indicate organic foods. Culture and mythology Indian culture Nine is a number that appears often in Indian culture and mythology. Some instances are enumerated below. Nine influencers are attested in Indian astrology. In the Vaisheshika branch of Hindu philosophy, there are nine universal substances or elements: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Ether, Time, Space, Soul, and Mind. Navaratri is a nine-day festival dedicated to the nine forms of Durga. Navaratna, meaning "nine jewels" may also refer to Navaratnas – accomplished courtiers, Navratan – a kind of dish, or a form of architecture. In Indian aesthetics, there are nine kinds of Rasa. Chinese culture Nine (九; pinyin: jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word "long-lasting" (久; pinyin: jiǔ). Nine is strongly associated with the Chinese dragon, a symbol of magic and power. There are nine forms of the dragon, it is described in terms of nine attributes, and it has nine children. It has 117 scales – 81 yang (masculine, heavenly) and 36 yin (feminine, earthly). All three numbers are multiples of 9 (9 × 13 = 117, 9 × 9 = 81, 9 × 4 = 36) as well as having the same digital root of 9. The dragon often symbolizes the Emperor, and the number nine can be found in many ornaments in the Forbidden City. The circular altar platform (Earthly Mount) of the Temple of Heaven has one circular marble plate in the center, surrounded by a ring of nine plates, then by a ring of 18 plates, and so on, for a total of nine rings, with the outermost having 81 = 9 × 9 plates. The name of the area called Kowloon in Hong Kong literally means: nine dragons. The nine-dotted line (Chinese: 南海九段线; pinyin: nánhǎi jiǔduàn xiàn; lit. 'Nine-segment line of the South China Sea') delimits certain island claims by China in the South China Sea. The nine-rank system was a civil service nomination system used during certain Chinese dynasties. 9 Points of the Heart (Heal) / Heart Master (Immortality) Channels in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Ancient Egypt The nine bows is a term used in Ancient Egypt to represent the traditional enemies of Egypt. The Ennead is a group of nine Egyptian deities, who, in some versions of the Osiris myth, judged whether Horus or Set should inherit Egypt. European culture The Nine Worthies are nine historical, or semi-legendary figures who, in the Middle Ages, were believed to personify the ideals of chivalry. In Norse mythology, the universe is divided into nine worlds which are all connected by the world tree Yggdrasil In Norse mythology as well, the number nine is associated with Odin, as that is how many days he hung from the world tree Yggdrasil before attaining knowledge of the runes. Greek mythology The nine Muses in Greek mythology are Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Erato (erotic poetry), Euterpe (lyric poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Polyhymnia (song), Terpsichore (dance), Thalia (comedy), and Urania (astronomy). It takes nine days (for an anvil) to fall from heaven to earth, and nine more to fall from earth to Tartarus. Leto labored for nine days and nine nights for Apollo, according to the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo. Mesoamerican mythology The Lords of the Night, is a group of nine deities who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle Aztec mythology Mictlan the underworld in Aztec mythology, consists of nine levels. Mayan mythology The Mayan underworld Xibalba consists of nine levels. El Castillo, the Mayan step-pyramid in Chichén Itzá, consists of nine steps. It is said that this was done to represent the nine levels of Xibalba. Australian culture The Pintupi Nine, a group of 9 Aboriginal Australian women who remained unaware of European colonisation of Australia and lived a traditional desert-dwelling life in Australia's Gibson Desert until 1984. Anthropology Idioms "to go the whole nine yards-" "A cat-o'-nine-tails suggests perfect punishment and atonement." – Robert Ripley. "A cat has nine lives" "to be on cloud nine" "A stitch in time saves nine" "found true 9 out of 10 times" "possession is nine tenths of the law" The word "K-9" pronounces the same as canine and is used in many US police departments to denote the police dog unit. Despite not sounding like the translation of the word canine in other languages, many police and military units around the world use the same designation. Someone dressed "to the nines" is dressed up as much as they can be. In North American urban culture, "nine" is a slang word for a 9mm pistol or homicide, the latter from the Illinois Criminal Code for homicide. Society The 9 on Yahoo!, hosted by Maria Sansone, was a daily video compilation show, or vlog, on Yahoo! featuring the nine top "web finds" of the day. Nine justices sit on the United States Supreme Court. Nine justices sit on the Supreme Court of Canada. Technique Stanines, a method of scaling test scores, range from 1 to 9. There are 9 square feet in a square yard. Pseudoscience In Pythagorean numerology the number 9 symbolizes the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. The modern day's Enneagram model of human psyche defines nine interconnected personality types. Literature There are nine circles of Hell in Dante's Divine Comedy. The Nine Bright Shiners, characters in Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy. The Nine Bright Shiners was a 1930s book of poems by Anne Ridler and a 1988 fiction book by Anthea Fraser; the name derives from "a very curious old semi-pagan, semi-Christian" song. The Nine Tailors is a 1934 mystery novel by British writer Dorothy L. Sayers, her ninth featuring sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Nine Unknown Men are, in occult legend, the custodians of the sciences of the world since ancient times. In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, there are nine rings of power given to men, and consequently, nine ringwraiths. Additionally, The Fellowship of the Ring consists of nine companions. In Lorien Legacies there are nine Garde sent to Earth. Number Nine is a character in Lorien Legacies. In the series A Song of Ice and Fire, there are nine regions of Westeros (the Crownlands, the North, the Riverlands, the Westerlands, the Reach, the Stormlands, the Vale of Arryn, the Iron Islands and Dorne). Additionally, there is a group of nine city-states in western Essos known collectively as the Free Cities (Braavos, Lorath, Lys, Myr, Norvos, Pentos, Qohor, Tyrosh and Volantis). In The Wheel of Time series, Daughter of the Nine Moons is the title given to the heir to the throne of Seanchan, and the Court of the Nine Moons serves as the throne room of the Seanchan rulers themselves. Additionally, the nation of Illian is partially governed by a body known as the Council of Nine, and the flag of Illian displays nine golden bees on it. Furthermore, in the Age of Legends, the Nine Rods of Dominion were nine regional governors who administered individual areas of the world under the ruling world government. Organizations Divine Nine – The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) is a collaborative organization of nine historically African American, international Greek-lettered fraternities and sororities. Places and thoroughfares List of highways numbered 9 Ninth Avenue is a major avenue in Manhattan. South Africa has 9 provinces Negeri Sembilan, a Malaysian state located in Peninsular Malaysia, is named as such as it was historically a confederation of nine (Malay: sembilan) settlements (nagari) of the Minangkabau migrated from West Sumatra. Religion and philosophy Islam There are three verses that refer to nine in the Quran. We surely gave Moses nine clear signs.1 ˹You, O Prophet, can˺ ask the Children of Israel. When Moses came to them, Pharaoh said to him, “I really think that you, O Moses, are bewitched.” Note 1: The nine signs of Moses are: the staff, the hand (both mentioned in 20:17-22), famine, shortage of crops, floods, locusts, lice, frogs, and blood (all mentioned in 7:130-133). These signs came as proofs for Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Otherwise, Moses had some other signs such as water gushing out of the rock after he hit it with his staff, and splitting the sea. Now put your hand through ˹the opening of˺ your collar, it will come out ˹shining˺ white, unblemished.2 ˹These are two˺ of nine signs for Pharaoh and his people. They have truly been a rebellious people.” Note 2: Moses, who was dark-skinned, was asked to put his hand under his armpit. When he took it out it was shining white, but not out of a skin condition like melanoma. And there were in the city nine ˹elite˺ men who spread corruption in the land, never doing what is right. Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer, is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.Nine, as the highest single-digit number (in base ten), symbolizes completeness in the Baháʼí Faith. In addition, the word Baháʼ in the Abjad notation has a value of 9, and a 9-pointed star is used to symbolize the religion. The number 9 is revered in Hinduism and considered a complete, perfected and divine number because it represents the end of a cycle in the decimal system, which originated from the Indian subcontinent as early as 3000 BC. In Buddhism, Gautama Buddha was believed to have nine virtues, which he was (1) Accomplished, (2) Perfectly Enlightened, (3) Endowed with knowledge and Conduct or Practice, (4) Well-gone or Well-spoken, (5) the Knower of worlds, (6) the Guide Unsurpassed of men to be tamed, (7) the Teacher of gods and men, (8) Enlightened, and (9) Blessed. Important Buddhist rituals usually involve nine monks. The first nine days of the Hebrew month of Av are collectively known as "The Nine Days" (Tisha HaYamim), and are a period of semi-mourning leading up to Tisha B'Av, the ninth day of Av on which both Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed. Nine is a significant number in Norse Mythology. Odin hung himself on an ash tree for nine days to learn the runes. The Fourth Way Enneagram is one system of knowledge which shows the correspondence between the 9 integers and the circle. In the Christian angelic hierarchy there are 9 choirs of angels. Tian's Trigram Number, of Feng Shui, in Taoism. In Christianity there are nine Fruit of the Holy Spirit which followers are expected to have: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Bible recorded that Christ died at the 9th hour of the day (3 pm). Science Astronomy Before 2006 (when Pluto was officially designated as a non-planet), there were nine planets in the Solar System. Messier object M9 is a magnitude 9.0 globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. The New General Catalogue object NGC 9, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Pegasus. Chemistry The purity of chemicals (see Nine (purity)). Nine is the atomic number of fluorine. Physiology A human pregnancy normally lasts nine months, the basis of Naegele's rule. Psychology Common terminal digit in psychological pricing. Sports Nine-ball is the standard professional pocket billiards variant played in the United States. In association football (soccer), the centre-forward/striker traditionally (since at least the fifties) wears the number 9 shirt. In baseball: There are nine players on the field including the pitcher. There are nine innings in a standard game. 9 represents the right fielder's position. NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture, published by the University of Nebraska Press In rugby league, the jersey number assigned to the hooker in most competitions. (An exception is the Super League, which uses static squad numbering.) In rugby union, the number worn by the starting scrum-half. Technology ISO 9 is the ISO's standard for the transliteration of Cyrillic characters into Latin characters In the Rich Text Format specification, 9 is the language code for the English language. All codes for regional variants of English are congruent to 9 mod 256. The9 Limited (owner of the9.com) is a company in the video-game industry, including former ties to the extremely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft. Music "Revolution 9", a sound collage which appears on The Beatles' eponymous 1968 album The Beatles (aka The White Album), prominently features a loop of a man's voice repeating the phrase "Number nine". There are 9 semitones in a Major 6th interval in music. There was a superstition among some notable classical music composers that they would die after completing their ninth symphony. Some composers who died after composing their ninth symphony include Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, Antonin Dvorak and Gustav Mahler. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 is regarded as a masterpiece, and one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world. See also 9 (disambiguation) 0.999... Cloud Nine List of highways numbered 9 Further reading Cecil Balmond, "Number 9, the search for the sigma code" 1998, Prestel 2008, ISBN 3-7913-1933-7, ISBN 978-3-7913-1933-9

10 (ten) is the even natural number following 9 and preceding 11. It is the first double-digit number. Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. Anthropology Usage and terms A collection of ten items (most often ten years) is called a decade. The ordinal adjective is decimal; the distributive adjective is denary. Increasing a quantity by one order of magnitude is most widely understood to mean multiplying the quantity by ten. To reduce something by one tenth is to decimate. (In ancient Rome, the killing of one in ten soldiers in a cohort was the punishment for cowardice or mutiny; or, one-tenth of the able-bodied men in a village as a form of retribution, thus causing a labor shortage and threat of starvation in agrarian societies.) Other The number of kingdoms in Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The house number of 10 Downing Street. The number of Provinces in Canada. Number of dots in a tetractys. The number of the French department Aube. In mathematics Ten is the fifth composite number. It is also the smallest noncototient, a number that cannot be expressed as the difference between any integer and the total number of coprimes below it. It is the second discrete semiprime ( 2 × 5 {\displaystyle 2\times 5} ), as well as the second member of the 2 × q {\displaystyle 2\times q} discrete semiprime family. Ten is the only number whose sum and difference of its prime divisors yield prime numbers ( 2 + 5 = 7 {\displaystyle 2+5=7} and 5 − 2 = 3 {\displaystyle 5-2=3} ). In general, powers of 10 contain n 2 {\displaystyle n^{2}} divisors, where n {\displaystyle n} is the number of digits: 10 has 22 = 4 divisors, 100 has 32 = 9 divisors, 1,000 has 42 = 16 divisors, 10,000 has 52 = 25 divisors, and so forth. Ten is the smallest number whose status as a possible friendly number is unknown.As important sums, 10 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 {\displaystyle 10=1+2+3+4} the sum of the first four positive integers. 10 = 2 + 3 + 5 = 2 × 5 {\displaystyle 10=2+3+5=2\times 5} , the sum of the first three prime numbers, and the smallest semiprime that is the sum of all the distinct prime numbers from its lower factor through its higher factor. 10 = 3 + 7 = 5 + 5 {\displaystyle 10=3+7=5+5} , the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two prime numbers in two different ways. 10 = 1 2 + 3 2 {\displaystyle 10=1^{2}+3^{2}} , the sum of the squares of the first two odd numbers.The factorial of ten is equal to the product of the factorials of the first three odd primes, 10 ! = 3 ! ⋅ 5 ! ⋅ 7 ! {\displaystyle 10!=3!\cdot 5!\cdot 7!} . Ten is also the first number whose fourth power can be written as a sum of two squares in two different ways ( 80 2 + 60 2 {\displaystyle 80^{2}+60^{2}} and 96 2 + 28 2 {\displaystyle 96^{2}+28^{2}} ). Ten has an aliquot sum σ(10) of 8 and is accordingly the first discrete semiprime to be in deficit, with all subsequent discrete semiprimes in deficit. The aliquot sequence for 10 comprises five members (10, 8, 7, 1, 0) with this number being the second composite member of the 7-aliquot tree. 10 is also the eighth Perrin number, preceded in the sequence by (5, 5, 7). In the sequence of triangular numbers, indexed powers of 10 in this sequence generate the following sequence of triangular numbers in decimal: 55 (10th), 5,050 (100th), 500,500 (1,000th), ...While 55 is the tenth triangular number, it is also the tenth Fibonacci number, and the largest such number to also be a triangular number. Ten is also the first non-trivial decagonal number, the third centered triangular number and tetrahedral number, and the fifth semi-meandric number.10 is the fourth telephone number, and the number of Young tableaux with four cells. It is the number of n {\displaystyle n} -queens problem solutions for n = 5 {\displaystyle n=5} .A 10 × 10 {\displaystyle 10\times 10} magic square has a magic constant of 505.There are ten small Pisot numbers that do not exceed the golden ratio.According to conjecture, ten is the average sum of the proper divisors of the natural numbers N {\displaystyle \mathbb {N} } if the size of the numbers approaches infinity. In geometry A polygon with ten sides is called a decagon. As a constructible polygon with a compass and straight-edge, it has an internal angle of 12 2 = 144 {\displaystyle 12^{2}=144} degrees and a central angle of 6 2 = 36 {\displaystyle 6^{2}=36} degrees. All regular n {\displaystyle n} -sided polygons with up to ten sides are able to tile a plane-vertex alongside other regular polygons alone; the first regular polygon unable to do so is the eleven-sided hendecagon. A decagon can fill a plane-vertex alongside two regular pentagons, and alongside a fifteen-sided pentadecagon and triangle. Ten of the eleven regular and semiregular (or Archimedean) tilings of the plane are Wythoffian, the elongated triangular tiling is the only exception.The regular decagon is the Petrie polygon of the regular dodecahedron and icosahedron, and it is the largest face that an Archimedean solid can contain, as with the truncated dodecahedron and the truncated icosidodecahedron. The decagon is the hemi-face of the icosidodecahedron, such that a plane dissection yields two mirrored pentagonal rotundae. A regular ten-pointed {10/3} decagram is the hemi-face of the great icosidodecahedron, as well as the Petrie polygon of two regular Kepler–Poinsot polyhedra. Ten non-prismatic uniform polyhedra contain regular decagons as faces (U26, U28, U33, U37, U39, ...), and ten contain regular decagrams as faces (U42, U45, U58, U59, U63, ...). The decagonal prism is also the largest prism that is a facet inside four-dimensional uniform polychora. There are ten regular star polychora in the fourth dimension. All of these polychora have orthographic projections in the H 3 {\displaystyle \mathrm {H} _{3}} Coxeter plane that contain various decagrammic symmetries, which include the regular {10/3} form as well as its three alternate compound forms. M 10 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{10}} is a multiply transitive permutation group on 10 points. It is an almost simple group, of order 720 = 24·32·5 = 2·3·4·5·6 = 8·9·10. It functions as a point stabilizer of degree 11 inside the smallest sporadic group M 11 {\displaystyle \mathrm {M} _{11}} , a Mathieu group which has an irreducible faithful complex representation in 10 dimensions. E 10 {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{10}} is an infinite-dimensional Kac–Moody algebra which has the even Lorentzian unimodular lattice II9,1 of dimension 10 as its root lattice. It is the first E n {\displaystyle \mathrm {E} _{n}} Lie algebra with a negative Cartan matrix determinant, of −1. There are precisely ten affine Coxeter groups that admit a formal description of reflections across n {\displaystyle n} dimensions in Euclidean space. These contain infinite facets whose quotient group of their normal abelian subgroups is finite. They include the one-dimensional Coxeter group I ~ 1 {\displaystyle {\tilde {I}}_{1}} [∞], which represents the apeirogonal tiling, as well as the five affine Coxeter groups G ~ 2 {\displaystyle {\tilde {G}}_{2}} , F ~ 4 {\displaystyle {\tilde {F}}_{4}} , E ~ 6 {\displaystyle {\tilde {E}}_{6}} , E ~ 7 {\displaystyle {\tilde {E}}_{7}} , and E ~ 8 {\displaystyle {\tilde {E}}_{8}} that are associated with the five exceptional Lie algebras. They also include the four general affine Coxeter groups A ~ n {\displaystyle {\tilde {A}}_{n}} , B ~ n {\displaystyle {\tilde {B}}_{n}} , C ~ n {\displaystyle {\tilde {C}}_{n}} , and D ~ n {\displaystyle {\tilde {D}}_{n}} that are associated with simplex, cubic and demihypercubic honeycombs, or tessellations. Regarding Coxeter groups in hyperbolic space, there are infinitely many such groups; however, ten is the highest rank for paracompact hyperbolic solutions, with a representation in nine dimensions. There also exist hyperbolic Lorentzian cocompact groups where removing any permutation of two nodes in its Coxeter–Dynkin diagram leaves a finite or Euclidean graph. The tenth dimension is the highest dimensional representation for such solutions, which share a root symmetry in eleven dimensions. These are of particular interest in M-theory of string theory. List of basic calculations In science The SI prefix for 10 is "deca-". The meaning "10" is part of the following terms: decapoda, an order of crustaceans with ten feet. decane, a hydrocarbon with 10 carbon atoms.Also, the number 10 plays a role in the following: The atomic number of neon. The number of hydrogen atoms in butane, a hydrocarbon. The number of spacetime dimensions in some superstring theories.The metric system is based on the number 10, so converting units is done by adding or removing zeros (e.g. 1 centimeter = 10 millimeters, 1 decimeter = 10 centimeters, 1 meter = 100 centimeters, 1 dekameter = 10 meters, 1 kilometer = 1,000 meters). Astronomy The New General Catalogue object NGC 10, a magnitude 12.5 spiral galaxy in the constellation Sculptor. Messier object M10, a magnitude 6.4 globular cluster in the constellation Ophiuchus. In religion and philosophy in the Bible and the Quran, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: The Ten Commandments of Exodus and Deuteronomy are considered a cornerstone of Judaism and Christianity. People traditionally tithed one-tenth of their produce. The practice of tithing is still common in Christian churches today, though it is disputed in some circles as to whether or not it is required of Christians. In Deuteronomy 26:12, the Torah commands Jews to give one-tenth of their produce to the poor (Maaser Ani). From this verse and from an earlier verse (Deut. 14:22) there derives a practice for Jews to give one-tenth of all earnings to the poor. Ten Plagues were inflicted on Egypt in Exodus 7–12. Jews observe the annual Ten Days of Repentance beginning on Rosh Hashanah and ending on Yom Kippur. In Jewish liturgy, Ten Martyrs are singled out as a group. There are said to be Ten Lost Tribes of Israel (those other than Judah and Benjamin). There are Ten Sephirot in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. In Judaism, ten men are the required quorum, called a minyan, for prayer services. In Genesis 18:23-32, Abraham pleads on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking to save the cities if there are enough righteous people there. He starts at 10 per city, and ends with 10 total in all cities. Interpretations of Genesis in Talmudic and Midrashic teachings suggest that on the first day, God drew forth ten primal elements from the abyss in order to construct all of Creation: Heaven (or Fire), Earth, Chaos, Void, Light, Darkness, Wind (or Spirit), Water, Day, and Night. Bereshit (parsha). Jesus tells the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25:1–13. Complete the pilgrimage and minor pilgrimage for Allah.1 But if prevented ˹from proceeding˺, then ˹offer˺ whatever sacrificial animals you can afford. And do not shave your heads until the sacrificial animal reaches its destination. But if any of you is ill or has a scalp ailment ˹requiring shaving˺, then compensate either by fasting, charity, or a sacrificial offering. In times of peace, you may combine the pilgrimage and minor pilgrimage then make the sacrificial offering you can afford. Whoever cannot afford that ˹offering˺, let them fast three days during pilgrimage and seven after returning ˹home˺—completing ten. These offerings are for those who do not live near the Sacred House. And be mindful of Allah, and know that Allah is severe in punishment. Note 1: Ḥajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, is required at least once in a Muslim’s lifetime if they are physically and financially able to. Umrah, which is a short version of ḥajj, is recommended, but not obligatory. Allah will not call you to account for your thoughtless oaths, but He will hold you accountable for deliberate oaths. The penalty for a broken oath is to feed ten poor people from what you normally feed your own family, or to clothe them, or to free a bondsperson. But if none of this is affordable, then you must fast three days. This is the penalty for breaking your oaths. So be mindful of your oaths. This is how Allah makes things clear to you, so perhaps you will be grateful. In Pythagoreanism, the number 10 played an important role and was symbolized by the tetractys. In Hinduism, Lord Vishnu appeared on the earth in 10 incarnations, popularly known as Dashaavathar. In Sikhism, there are ten human Gurus. In money Most countries issue coins and bills with a denomination of 10 (See e.g. 10 dollar note). Of these, the U.S. dime, with the value of ten cents, or one tenth of a dollar, derives its name from the meaning "one-tenth" − see Dime (United States coin)#Denomination history and etymology. In music The interval of a major tenth is an octave plus a major third. The interval of a minor tenth is an octave plus a minor third. "Ten lords a-leaping" is the gift on the tenth day of Christmas in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas". In sports and games Decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. In association football, the number 10 is traditionally worn by the team's advanced playmaker. This use has led to "Number 10" becoming a synonym for the player in that particular role, even if they do not wear that number. In gridiron football, a team has a limited number of downs to advance the ball ten yards or more from where it was on its last first down; doing this is referred to as gaining another first down. In auto racing, driving a car at ten-tenths is driving as fast as possible, on the limit. In a regular basketball game, two teams playing against each other have 5 members each, for a total of 10 players on court. Under FIBA, WNBA, and NCAA women's rules, each quarter runs for 10 minutes. In blackjack, the Ten, Jack, Queen and King are all worth 10 points. In boxing, if the referee counts to 10 whether the boxer is unconscious or not, it will declare a winner by knockout. In men's field lacrosse, each team has 10 players on the field at any given time, except in penalty situations. Ten-ball is a pool game played with a cue ball and ten numbered balls. In most rugby league competitions, the number 10 is worn by one of the two starting props. One exception to this rule is the Super League, which uses static squad numbering. In rugby union, the starting fly-half wears the 10 shirt. In ten-pin bowling, 10 pins are arranged in a triangular pattern and there are 10 frames per game. In technology Ten-codes are commonly used on emergency service radio systems. Ten refers to the "meter band" on the radio spectrum between 28 and 29.7 MHz, used by amateur radio. ASCII and Unicode code point for line feed. In MIDI, Channel 10 is reserved for unpitched percussion instruments. In the Rich Text Format specification, all language codes for regional variants of the Spanish language are congruent to 10 mod 256. In macOS, the F10 function key tiles all the windows of the current application and grays the windows of other applications. The IP addresses in the range 10.0.0.0/8 (meaning the interval between 10.0.0.0 and 10.255.255.255) are reserved for use by private networks by RFC 1918. Age 10 This is generally the age when a child enters the preteen stage and also a denarian (someone within the age range of 10–19). The ESRB recommends video games with an E10+ rating to children aged 10 and up. In other fields Blake Edwards' 1979 movie 10. Series on HBO entitled 1st & Ten which aired between December 1984 and January 1991. Series on ESPN and ESPN2 entitled 1st and 10 which launched on ESPN in October 2003 to 2008 and moved to ESPN2 since 2008. In astrology, Capricorn is the 10th astrological sign of the Zodiac. In Chinese astrology, the 10 Heavenly Stems, refer to a cyclic number system that is used also for time reckoning. A 1977 short documentary film Powers of Ten depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten (orders of magnitude). CBS (parent company Paramount Global also owns another entity on this list, Network 10) has a game show called Power of 10, where the player's prize goes up and down by either the previous or next power of ten. "Ten Chances" is one of the pricing games on The Price is Right. There are ten official inkblots in the Rorschach inkblot test. The traditional Snellen chart uses 10 different letters. Network 10 is an Australian television network. The Sydney member of the network has the three-letter call-sign TEN and used to broadcast in analogue on VHF Channel 10. Paramount Global owns this network since December 4, 2019. Number Ten (also called Ella) is a character in the book series Lorien Legacies. The sixth book, The Fate of Ten, is named after her. A Cartoon Network franchise Ben 10, which has a number on its title. See also Mathematics portal List of highways numbered 10

Eleven or 11 may refer to: 11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature Eleven (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn Eleven, a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith Eleven, a 2004 children's novel in The Winnie Years by Lauren Myracle Eleven, a 2008 children's novel by Patricia Reilly Giff Eleven, a short story by Sandra Cisneros Music Eleven (band), an American rock band Eleven: A Music Company, an Australian record label Up to eleven, an idiom from popular culture, coined in the movie This Is Spinal Tap Albums 11 (The Smithereens album), 1989 11 (Ua album), 1996 11 (Bryan Adams album), 2008 11 (Sault album), 2022 Eleven (Harry Connick, Jr. album), 1992 Eleven (22-Pistepirkko album), 1998 Eleven (Sugarcult album), 1999 Eleven (B'z album), 2000 Eleven (Reamonn album), 2010 Eleven (Martina McBride album), 2011 Eleven (Mr Fogg album), 2012 Eleven (Tina Arena album), 2015 Eleven (single album), 2021 debut single album by Ive Songs "11" (song), a 2013 song by Cassadee Pope from Frame by Frame "Eleven" (Ive song), a 2021 debut single by Ive "Eleven" (Khalid song), a 2020 song by Khalid "Eleven", a 2006 song by ¡Forward, Russia! from Give Me a Wall "Eleven", a 2011 song by Chameleon Circuit on Still Got Legs "Eleven", a 2011 single by Fantine "Eleven", a 2018 song by Last Dinosaurs from Yumeno Garden "Eleven", a 1991 song by Primus from Sailing the Seas of Cheese "Eleven", a 2018 song by Todrick Hall from Forbidden "Eleven", a 2013 song by C418 from Minecraft – Volume Beta "The Eleven", a 1969 song by the Grateful Dead from Live/Dead Television Eleven, an Australian digital television multichannel, now renamed 10 Peach Eleven (Television Production Company), a British television production company based in London Eleven (Stranger Things), a character from the Netflix series Stranger Things PIX 11, an American television channel covering New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Its slogan is "New York's Very Own" KAN 11, an Israeli television channel Other uses 11Eleven Project, documentary film created by Danielle Lauren EleVen, a clothing range designed by tennis player Venus Williams A football team, cricket team, or a bandy team, so called because of the number of players on the team November, the eleventh month of the year Windows 11, an operating system by Microsoft iOS 11, an operating system by Apple 11 Parthenope, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Eleven, a main character featured in Dragon Quest XI See also 11:11 (disambiguation) Number 11 (disambiguation) xi (disambiguation) XI (disambiguation) List of highways numbered 11

Twelve or 12 may refer to: 12 (number) December, the twelfth and final month of the year Years 12 BC AD 12 1912 2012 Film Twelve (2010 film), based on the 2002 novel 12 (2007 film), by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov 12 (2003 film), by American filmmaker Lawrence Bridges Literature 12: The Elements of Great Managing, a 2006 business book by Rodd Wagner and James K. Hartjker Twelve (novel), 2002 novel by Nick McDonell Twelve, a 2007 novel by Lauren Myracle, part of The Winnie Years Twelve (publisher), an imprint of Grand Central Publishing Twelve, a 2009 novel by Jasper Kent Music 12 (The Notwist album), 1995 12 (Herbert Grönemeyer album), 2007 12 (Keller Williams album), 2007 12 (Fiskales Ad-Hok album), 2009 12 (ASAP Twelvyy album), 2017 12 (Sloan album), 2018 12 (American Song Book), Mina album, 2012 12 (Ryuichi Sakamoto album), 2023 12!, Sonny Stitt album, 1972 Twelve (Cobalt 60 album), 1998 Twelve (Patti Smith album), 2007 Twelve (Iz*One album), 2020 "12", a song by Insane Clown Posse from the album Riddle Box "12", a song by The 1975 from the album The 1975 "12", a song by Mirror, 2021 Other uses Twelve (company), a chemical technology company in Berkeley, California Twelve (Street Fighter), a video game character from the Street Fighter series iOS 12, an operating system by Apple 12 Victoria, an asteroid in the asteroid belt See also Twelves, Brazilian pet monkey Magnesium (atomic number), a chemical element The Twelve (disambiguation) XII (disambiguation) One-two (disambiguation) Onetwo (disambiguation) 12 rating (disambiguation) or 12+ List of highways numbered 12

Thirteen or 13 may refer to: 13 (number), the natural number following 12 and preceding 14 One of the years 13 BC, AD 13, 1913, 2013 Music 13AD (band), an Indian classic and hard rock band Albums 13 (Black Sabbath album), 2013 13 (Blur album), 1999 13 (Borgeous album), 2016 13 (Brian Setzer album), 2006 13 (Die Ärzte album), 1998 13 (The Doors album), 1970 13 (Havoc album), 2013 13 (HLAH album), 1993 13 (Indochine album), 2017 13 (Marta Savić album), 2011 13 (Norman Westberg album), 2015 13 (Ozark Mountain Daredevils album), 1997 13 (Six Feet Under album), 2005 13 (Suicidal Tendencies album), 2013 13 (Solace album), 2003 13 (Second Coming album), 2003 13 (Ces Cru EP), 2012 13 (Denzel Curry EP), 2017 Thirteen (CJ & The Satellites album), 2007 Thirteen (Emmylou Harris album), 1986 Thirteen (Harem Scarem album), 2014 Thirteen (James Reyne album), 2012 Thirteen (Megadeth album), 2011 Thirteen (October Noir album), 2019 Thirteen (Robert Miles album), 2011 Thirteen (Teenage Fanclub album), 1993 Thirteens (album), by Leona Naess, 2008 Songs "13", a song by Anthrax from State of Euphoria "13", a song by D'espairsRay from Monsters "13", a song by Megadeth from Thirteen "13", a song by Perspects from the Miss Kittin album A Bugged Out Mix "13", a song by Tally Hall on the album Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum Track 13, an untitled spoken-word track on the album Miscellaneous T by They Might Be Giants "Thirteen", one of the Number Pieces by John Cage "Thirteen" (song), 1972, by Big Star "Thirteen", a song by Danzig from 6:66 Satan's Child; first recorded by Johnny Cash "Thirteen", by C418 from Minecraft - Volume Alpha, 2011 "Thirteen", by The Antlers from Hospice "Thir13teen", by Type O Negative from Life Is Killing Me Fictional characters Thirteen (House) or Dr. Remy Hadley, in the television series House Thirteen (My Hero Academia), in the manga series My Hero Academia Doctor Thirteen, a DC Comics character Traci Thirteen, a DC Comics character 13, a character from the Japanese anime Dorohedoro 13, a cat in the animated series The Zimmer Twins Film, television, and theater The Thirteen, a 1937 Soviet action film Thirteen (1974 film), a Hong Kong film Thirteen (2003 film), an American film 13 (2006 film), a horror comedy released as Botched 13 (2010 film), an English-language remake of 13 Tzameti 13th (film), a 2016 American documentary 13 (manga), 2014, by Sorachi Hideaki 13 (musical), 2007, by Jason Robert Brown 13: The Musical, 2022, a film adaptation of the stage musical 13 (play), 2011 play 13: Fear Is Real, a 2009 reality TV show Thirteen (TV series), a 2016 British TV series Thirteen (television station), or WNET, a television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey Books 13 (Armstrong novel), a 2012 novel in the Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong 13 (Zeitoun novel), a 2002 novel by Canadian author Mary-Lou Zeitoun Thirteen (comics), a story in 2000 AD XIII ("Thirteen"), a Belgian graphic novel series Thirteen, the US title of Black Man, a 2007 science fiction novel Thirteen, a 2008 children's novel in the Winnie Years series by Lauren Myracle Games 13 (card game), a Vietnamese card game Thirteens, or Baroness, a solitaire card game XIII (game), a 2003 first-person shooter video game based on the Belgian comic series of the same name Other uses Thirteen (roller coaster), a steel roller coaster at Alton Towers in England List of highways numbered 13 Runway 13, see Kai_Tak_Airport#Runway_13_approach First Aberdeen bus route 13 See also XIII (disambiguation) Number 13 (disambiguation) Th1rt3en (disambiguation) Thirteenth (disambiguation)

Fourteen or 14 may refer to: 14 (number), the natural number following 13 and preceding 15 one of the years 14 BC, AD 14, 1914, 2014 Music 14th (band), a British electronic music duo 14 (David Garrett album), 2013 14, an unreleased album by Charli XCX "14" (song), 2007, from Courage by Paula Cole Other uses Fourteen (film), a 2019 American film directed by Dan Sallitt Fourteen (play), a 1919 play by Alice Gerstenberg Fourteen (manga), a 1990 manga series by Kazuo Umezu 14 (novel), a 2013 science fiction novel by Peter Clines The 14, a 1973 British drama film directed by David Hemmings Fourteen, West Virginia, United States, an unincorporated community Lot Fourteen, redevelopment site in Adelaide, South Australia, previously occupied by the Royal Adelaide Hospital "The Fourteen", a nickname for NASA Astronaut Group 3 Fourteen Words, a phrase used by white supremacists and Nazis 14 Irene, an asteroid in the asteroid belt See also 1/4 (disambiguation) Fourteener, a high peak in United States mountains Fourteener (poetry), a line of 14 syllables Fourteen 14, an Italian Eurodance project List of highways numbered 14

Fifteen or 15 may refer to: 15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums 15 (Buckcherry album), 2005 15 (Ani Lorak album), 2007 15 (Phatfish album), 2008 15 (mixtape), a 2018 mixtape by Bhad BhabieFifteen (Green River Ordinance album), 2016 Fifteen (The Wailin' Jennys album), 2017 Fifteen, a 2012 album by Colin James Songs "Fifteen" (song), a 2008 song by Taylor Swift "Fifteen", a song by Harry Belafonte from the album Love Is a Gentle Thing "15", a song by Rilo Kiley from the album Under the Blacklight "15", a song by Marilyn Manson from the album The High End of Low "The 15th", a 1979 song by Wire Other uses Fifteen, Ohio, a community in the United States 15 (film), a 2003 Singaporean film Fifteen (TV series), international release name of Hillside, a Canadian-American teen drama Fifteen puzzle, a sliding puzzle Fifteen (confection), a sweet traybake confection from Northern Ireland Fifteen (novel), a 1956 juvenile fiction novel by Beverly Cleary The Fifteen, the Jacobite rising of 1715 where the House of Stuart attempted to regain the throne of the United Kingdom. First Aberdeen bus route 15 15 Eunomia, an asteroid in the asteroid belt See also +15, a skyway system in Calgary 15 rating (disambiguation) Daimler Fifteen, a 1932 saloon car Daimler New Fifteen, a 1937 large saloon/sedan car 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, a British Army division List of highways numbered 15 15.ai, a real-time artificial intelligence text-to-speech tool

Sixteen or 16 may refer to: 16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films Pathinaaru or Sixteen, a 2010 Tamil film Sixteen (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen Sixteen (2013 Indian film), a 2013 Hindi film Sixteen (2013 British film), a 2013 British film by director Rob Brown Music The Sixteen, an English choir 16 (band), a sludge metal band Sixteen (Polish band), a Polish band Science Sulfur, a nonmetal in the periodic table 16 Psyche, a metal-rich asteroid in the asteroid belt Albums 16 (Robin album), a 2014 album by Robin 16 (Madhouse album), a 1987 album by Madhouse Sixteen (album), a 1983 album by Stacy Lattisaw Sixteen , a 2005 album by Shook Ones 16, a 2020 album by Wejdene Songs "16" (Sneaky Sound System song), 2009 "Sixteen" (Thomas Rhett song), 2017 "Sixteen" (Ellie Goulding song), 2019 "Six7een", by Hori7on, 2023 "16", by Craig David from Following My Intuition, 2016 "16", by Green Day from 39/Smooth, 1990 "16", by Highly Suspect from MCID, 2019 "Sixteen", by Buzzcocks from Another Music in a Different Kitchen, 1978 "Sixteen", by Demon Hunter from Storm the Gates of Hell, 2007 "Sixteen", by The Flaws from Achieving Vagueness, 2007 "Sixteen", by Funeral for a Friend from The Young and Defenceless and Welcome Home Armageddon, 2010 "Sixteen", by Iggy Pop from Lust for Life, 1977 "Sixteen", by The Indelicates, 2007 "Sixteen", by Le Tigre from This Island, 2004 "Sixteen", by No Doubt from Tragic Kingdom, 1995 "Christine Sixteen", by Kiss, 1977 People Earl Sixteen (born 1958), Jamaican reggae singer Places Sixteen, Kentucky, an American unincorporated community in Perry County Sixteen, Montana, an American unincorporated community in Meagher County Other uses 16 (magazine), a fan magazine marketed to adolescents 6teen, a television series distributed by Teletoon Number 16 (spider), world's longest-lived spider Sixteen (card game), a card game published by Alpine Games Sixteen (Moesha), a 1996 episode of the comedy-drama series Moesha Sixteen (restaurant), on the 16th floor of Trump International Hotel and Tower, Chicago Sixteen (TV series), a 2015 South Korean music competition reality show See also List of highways numbered 16

Seventeen or 17 may refer to: 17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18 one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017 Science Chlorine, a halogen in the periodic table 17 Thetis, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Literature Magazines Seventeen (American magazine), an American magazine Seventeen (Japanese magazine), a Japanese magazine Novels Seventeen (Tarkington novel), a 1916 novel by Booth Tarkington Seventeen (Sebuntiin), a 1961 novel by Kenzaburō Ōe Seventeen (Serafin novel), a 2004 novel by Shan Serafin Stage and screen Film Seventeen (1916 film), an American silent comedy film Number Seventeen, a 1932 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock Seventeen (1940 film), an American comedy film Eric Soya's '17' (Danish: Sytten), a 1965 Danish comedy film Seventeen (1985 film), a documentary film 17 Again (film), a 2009 film whose working title was 17 Seventeen (2019 film), a Spanish drama film Television Seventeen (TV drama), a 1994 UK dramatic short starring Christien Anholt "Seventeen" (The Killing), a 2013 episode of the American television drama series The Killing Theatre Number 17 (play), a 1925 work by the British writer Joseph Jefferson Farjeon Seventeen (musical), a 1951 Broadway musical based on Booth Tarkington's novel Music Albums Seventeen (Keisha White album), and the title song 2007 Seventeen (Iris album), 2012 17 (Motel album), and the title song 17 (Ricky Martin album), 2008 17 (Tokio album), 2012 17 (XXXTentacion album), 2017 17 (EP), by Zhavia Ward, 2019 Songs "17" (MK song), a 2017 song by Marc Kinchen "17" (Madame song), a 2019 song by Madame "17", a 2020 song by Pink Sweats "17", by Avril Lavigne from Avril Lavigne "17", by Cross Canadian Ragweed from Cross Canadian Ragweed "17", by Hedley from Cageless "17", by Kings of Leon from Only by the Night "17", by Mandy Moore from Mandy Moore "17", by Milburn from Well Well Well "17", by Rick James from Reflections "17", by Sky Ferreira "17", by The Smashing Pumpkins from Adore "17", by Yourcodenameis:Milo from Ignoto "17", by Youth Lagoon from The Year of Hibernation "At Seventeen", Janis Ian song "Seventeen" (Alessia Cara song), from Four Pink Walls "Seventeen" (Boyd Bennett song), a 1955 popular song "Seventeen" by Bobby Brown from King of Stage "Seventeen" (Jet song), 2010 "Seventeen" (Ladytron song), 2002 "Seventeen" (Marina and the Diamonds song) from Mermaid Vs. Sailor EP "Seventeen" (Simon Webbe song), from Grace "Seventeen" (Winger song), 1988 "Seventeen" (Yoasobi song), 2023 "Seventeen", by The Elders from American Wake "Seventeen", by ¡Forward, Russia! from Give Me a Wall "Seventeen", by Jimmy Eat World from Static Prevails "Seventeen", by Let Loose from Let Loose "Seventeen", by Machinae Supremacy from Redeemer "Seventeen", by Rich Brian "Seventeen", by Sex Pistols from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols "Seventeen", by Sharon Van Etten from Remind Me Tomorrow "Seventeen", by Troye Sivan from Bloom "Seventeen", by X Marks the Pedwalk from Inner Zone Journey "Seventeen", from Repo! The Genetic Opera "Seventeen", a song from Heathers: The Musical "Seventeen", a song by Tyler Braden which represented Tennessee in the American Song Contest Performers The17, a UK choir Seventeen (South Korean band), a South Korean boy group Seventeen (Indonesian band), a former Indonesian band group Seventeen, a UK band that later became The Alarm Vehicles and transportation USS Carnelian (PY-19), a 1930 converted yacht originally named Seventeen Lockheed X-17, an American experimental rocket Aircraft Beechcraft 17, an American light transport Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, an American WW2 bomber Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, an American cargo plane Bréguet 17, a French WW1 fighter Consolidated 17, an American light airliner Dornier 17, a German WW1 bomber FBA 17, a French 1920s flying boat Ki-17, a Japanese WW2 trainer Latécoère 17, a French 1920s airliner Mi-17, a Soviet helicopter MiG 17, a Soviet jet fighter Nieuport 17, a French WW1 fighter Northrop YF-17 Cobra, an American prototype fighter jet Potez 17, a French reconnaissance aircraft Saab 17, a Swedish WW2 light bomber SPAD XVII, a French WW1 fighter Yak-17, a Soviet jet fighter Other uses Seventeen, Ohio, an American unincorporated community in Tuscarawas County 17 (app), a photo and video app for Android and iOS List of highways numbered 17 All pages with titles beginning with 17 All pages with titles containing 17 117 (disambiguation) B17 (disambiguation) C17 (disambiguation) Class 17 (disambiguation) F17 (disambiguation) M17 (disambiguation) Model 17 (disambiguation) T17 (disambiguation) Type 17 (disambiguation)

Eighteen or 18 may refer to: 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment 18 (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the short story God's Dice Eighteen (film), a 2005 Canadian dramatic feature film 18 (British Board of Film Classification), a film rating in the United Kingdom, also used in Ireland by the Irish Film Classification Office 18 (Dragon Ball), a character in the Dragon Ball franchise "Eighteen", a 2006 episode of the animated television series 12 oz. Mouse Science Argon, a noble gas in the periodic table 18 Melpomene, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music Albums 18 (Moby album), 2002 18 (Nana Kitade album), 2005 18..., 2009 debut album by G.E.M. 18 (Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp album), 2022 Songs "18" (5 Seconds of Summer song), from their 2014 eponymous debut album "18" (One Direction song), from their 2014 studio album Four "18", by Anarbor from their 2013 studio album Burnout "I'm Eighteen", by Alice Cooper commonly referred to as simply "Eighteen", 1970 "Eighteen" (CLC song), 2015 "Eighteen" (Pale Waves song), 2018 "Eighteen", by Connie Francis, 1957 "Eighteen", by ¡Forward, Russia!, 2006 "Eighteen", by Patricia Cahill, B-side to "Colm Bán", 1971 All pages with titles containing 18 All pages with titles containing eighteen 18 rating (disambiguation) 018 (disambiguation) (zero-one-eight) o18 (disambiguation) (o-one-eight)

Nineteen or 19 may refer to: 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films 19 (film), a 2001 Japanese film Nineteen (film), a 1987 science fiction film Science Potassium, an alkali metal in the periodic table 19 Fortuna, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music 19 (band), a Japanese pop music duo Albums 19 (Adele album), 2008 19, a 2003 album by Alsou 19, a 2006 album by Evan Yo 19, a 2018 album by MHD 19, one half of the double album 63/19 by Kool A.D. Number Nineteen, a 1971 album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron XIX (EP), a 2019 EP by 1the9 Songs "19" (song), a 1985 song by British musician Paul Hardcastle. "Nineteen", a song by Bad4Good from the 1992 album Refugee "Nineteen", a song by Karma to Burn from the 2001 album Almost Heathen. "Nineteen" (song), a 2007 song by American singer Billy Ray Cyrus. "Nineteen", a song by Tegan and Sara from the 2007 album The Con. "XIX" (song), a 2014 song by Slipknot. 19, a song by Pencey Prep from the 2001 album Heartbreak in Stereo. Companies 19 Entertainment, an company owned by Sony Pictures Television See also COVID-19, an infectious disease Mecklenburg XIX, a class of German steam locomotives Renault 19, a French automobile List of highways numbered 19

Twenty or 20 may refer to: 20 (number), the natural number following 19 and preceding 21 one of the years 20 BC, AD 20, 1920, 2020 Science Calcium, an alkaline earth metal in the periodic table found in bones and teeth 20 Massalia, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music Albums 20 (2nd Chapter of Acts album), 1992 20 (Cunter album), 2011 20 (Dragana Mirković album), 2012 20 (Harry Connick, Jr. album), 1988 20 (Jan Smit album), 2016 20 (Kate Rusby album), 2012 20 (Terminaator album), 2007 20 (TLC album), 2013 20 (No Angels album), 2021 20 (Edmond Leung album), 2011 20th (album), by Casiopea, 2000 20 [Twenty], an album released in Japan by South Korean rock band F.T. Island, 2012 Twenty (Boyz II Men album), 2011 Twenty (Chicane album), 2016 Twenty (Jebediah album), 2015 Twenty (Lynyrd Skynyrd album), 1997 Twenty (Robert Cray album), 2005 Twenty (Taking Back Sunday album), 2019 Songs "Twenty" (The Rippingtons song) from 20th Anniversary, 2006 "Twenty", a song by Karma to Burn from the album Wild, Wonderful Purgatory, 1999 Tours The Twenty Tour, a 2019 music concert tour by Irish pop vocal band Westlife Twenty (concert), a 2006 music concert by Filipina singer Regine Velasquez Places Twenty, Lincolnshire, a hamlet in England Twenty railway station, a former railroad station in Lincolnshire, England The Twenty, Georgia or West Green, an American unincorporated community in Coffee County Twenty Lake, a lake in Minnesota Twenty Lakes Basin, in California's eastern Sierra Other uses 20 (TV channel), Italy Twenty (film), a 2015 South Korean film 20, the international dialing code for Egypt. See also Twenty dollar bill (disambiguation) Twenty pence (disambiguation) XX (disambiguation) XX Corps (disambiguation) List of highways numbered 20

Derek Kok Jing-hung (Chinese: 郭政鴻, born 18 November 1964) is a Hong Kong actor who had worked for TVB from 1986 to 2015. He filmed over 70 dramas. He is specialised in action and Chinese Kung Fu performance. Career His career started when he entered the New Talent Singing Awards in 1985. Even though he only made it through to the semi-finals, his stage performance, including the acrobatics he demonstrated throughout his performance impressed the folks at TVB. He then entered the TVB Artiste Training Class in 1985 and was signed with the station after completion of the program. The first notable role he played was Lee Yuen Ba in The Grand Canal. He left TVB in 2015 to sign a contract with a mainland Chinese company. In 2020, he also signed a contract with Shaw Brothers. Personal life Between 2007 and 2010, Kok was rumoured to be involved with actress Joyce Tang, but both have insisted to have only been good friends. He has been married with his current wife since 2011 and has two daughters. Filmography TV series TV films Killer's Code (1995) She Was Married To Mob (1996) Films TVB.com Derek Kok's Official Blog (in Chinese) Derek Kok at Hong Kong Cinemagic Derek Kok at the Hong Kong Movie Database

S.H.E is a Taiwanese girl group whose members are Selina Jen, Hebe Tien, and Ella Chen. They formed in 2001 and are managed by HIM International Music but decided not to renew their contract in 2019 due to having their own management company. Since releasing their debut album Girls Dorm (2001), S.H.E has recorded 13 albums with sales totaling more than 10 million, and set ticketing records in each of their two concert tours. Widely regarded as the most successful and enduring Mandopop group, S.H.E has also acted in seven drama series, hosted two variety shows, and contributed ten songs to six drama soundtracks. Career 2001–2003: Pre-debut, Girls Dorm, Youth Co., Ltd., Genesis, Together and Super Star Before releasing S.H.E's first album, HIM International focused on the group's chemistry, and assigned the three girls to live together in a dormitory room. Selina revealed in 2009 that their English names were also changed to fit the group name. Selina named herself Cola, while Hebe was called Anita, while Ella called herself Water pre-debut.On 11 September 2001, S.H.E released their debut album, Girls Dorm, in memory of their prior living quarters, selling an impressive 150,000 copies for a debut group. It also quashed the speculation of an unremarkable debut being on the fateful day and the total sale in Asia is over 750,000 copies. On 29 January 2002, S.H.E's second album, Youth Society, was released and went on to sell more than 250,000 copies and over 1.25 million in asia. With the release of this album, S.H.E Girl Friends underwent a name change and became simply S.H.E. The trio's third album, Genesis, was released on 5 August 2002, approximately six months after Youth Society. Continuing the successes of the group's previous albums, 20,000 copies of Genesis were ordered in advance of the release date. The album would go on to sell 180,000 copies and over 1.75 million in Asia. S.H.E later signed an endorsement deal with N-age, a South Korean online game company. Not only did N-age appear in a couple of music videos, but they also sponsored S.H.E's first major concert in Tainan City, the N-age Genesis Concert, which attracted over 20,000 fans. On 23 January 2003, S.H.E released Together, their first compilation album which sold over 2 million copies. S.H.E's fourth album was intended for release on 6 August, but due to an injury to Ella, Super Star arrived in stores on 22 August 2003. The album featured the group's first pop/rock song, "Super Star", which, for ten consecutive weeks, placed no lower than fourth on Singapore's YES 933 music charts selling more than 2.75 million copies. To date, Together and Super Star have combined to sell 580,000 copies; 250,000 copies of Super Star were sold in Taiwan alone. 2004–2005: Magical Journey, Fantasy Land World Tour and Once Upon a Time On 6 February 2004, S.H.E released their fifth album, Magical Journey, in two different versions: a Magical Version and a Journey Version. The two versions combined to sell 2.5 million copies in Asia, including 160,000 copies in Taiwan alone. On 2 June, S.H.E and HIM International agreed to extend the trio's contract, which would have expired in October 2005. Later that year, on 4 September 2004, S.H.E began their first major tour, the Fantasy Land Tour. The tour started in Taipei, where more than 25,000 attendees were present, and ended in Genting Highlands, Malaysia. During their concert at the Shanghai Stadium, the trio set an attendance record. The tour raked in NT$22.4 million in gate receipts. The release of S.H.E's sixth album, Encore, was pushed to 12 November 2004 to accommodate Selina's graduation from university in late November. Encore sold two million units in Asia within one week of its release; since then, that number has surpassed 2 million. By the time Encore was due for release, media outlets had already begun labelling S.H.E as "The Number One Girl Group" (Chinese: 女子第一天團).S.H.E had released albums every few months until the end of 2004. However, due to their busy concert schedule, it was over a year until their next album appeared. After releasing Encore, they contributed to the Reaching for the Stars soundtrack, which sold only 50,000 copies. That same year, the girl group Twins released their first Mandarin album, Trainee Cupid, in the Taiwanese market. That album would sell 800,000 copies in two months. The poor sales of the soundtrack and the success of the Twins album led to this period being described as one of the lowest times of S.H.E's career. On 25 November 2005, the trio finally released their seventh album, Once Upon a Time. The album not only set a record with 50,000 pre-orders, but it sold more than two million copies, overshadowing Trainee Cupid. Once Upon a Time debuted on the G-music Chinese language album charts at #1, retained that position for four consecutive weeks, and stayed on the charts for a total of 13 weeks. The album's title track, "Don't Wanna Grow Up" (Chinese: 不想長大), won Song of the Year at Hong Kong’s TVB8 Awards. 2006–2007: Forever, The Moving Castle World Tour and Play On 21 July 2006, S.H.E released a second compilation album, Forever, which sold over 150,000 copies within a week. The album featured five new songs, a compilation of older works, and three songs from older drama soundtracks. Forever included many collaborative works with other artists in the Taiwanese pop music industry. C-pop megastar Jay Chou composed "Electric Shock" (Chinese: 觸電) for the album. The song "Solo Madrigal" (Chinese: 獨唱情歌) was a duet between Selina and Tank, the latter of whom had originally recorded the song for his debut album. For the Tokyo Juliet soundtrack, Hebe and boyband Fahrenheit sang "Only Have Feelings for You" (Chinese: 只對你有感覺), which won several awards including Taiwan's Best Duet Song at the 2006 Sprite China Music Awards.S.H.E's second major concert tour, The Moving Castle world tour, commenced on 8 July 2006 in Shanghai. After their The Moving Castle world tour in Hong Kong, which was recorded and released as the group's second live album, S.H.E was commended for their perseverance, amount of dance preparation, and ability to hit their notes. Within the tour's first five months, the group attracted over 200,000 fans, and collected NT$200 million in gate receipts. On 18 April, S.H.E signed on with WOW Music to improve their presence in Hong Kong. Play, the trio's eighth album, was released on 11 May 2007, and was the first S.H.E album released under the new distribution label. Play went double gold within the first four days of the album's pre-order period; by 5 June, more than 150,000 copies were sold. A month after Play's release, S.H.E was nominated for the Most Popular Female Artist award at the 18th Golden Melody Awards but lost to pop diva Jolin Tsai. 2008–2009: FM S.H.E, Map of Love, S.H.E is the One concert and Shero On 23 September 2008, S.H.E released their ninth album, FM S.H.E. On this album, members of the band take on the role of radio hosts, and the album itself is interspersed with radio station-esque snippets. The album had a pre-order sale of 42,000 copies in Taiwan and over 1.2 million in asia. An online radio station, FM S.H.E, was also set up for a month in line with the album where there will be different programs being broadcast every day. The viewership of the online radio hit a record high of 100,000 views. In June 2009, S.H.E released their first digital album, Map of Love in China, where this album will only be digitally release on internet music stores. The album consist of 10 songs of which 8 songs are from their previous albums and 2 new songs, 鎖住時間 "(Lock Up the Time)" and 可愛萬歲 "(Long Live Adorableness)". On 16 October 2009, S.H.E commenced their third world tour, S.H.E is the One concert, with Hong Kong being their first stop. The tickets to the Hong Kong concert were sold out within a few days and this concert had received positive reviews. As of 2010, the concert is still ongoing with more stops to be made. On 26 March 2010, S.H.E released their tenth album, SHERO. The album received positive reviews, with 50,000 copies being pre-ordered in Taiwan before it was released. 2010–present: Selina's injury, Blossomy and second hiatus On 22 October 2010, Selina suffered third degree burns on 54% of her body, mostly her back and legs, during an indoor film shooting in Shanghai for musical movie "I have a date with Spring (我和春天有个约会)".On 19 January 2011, after Selina was hospitalized for two months and discharged, the trio held a press conference to formally address their fans about Selina's injury and her recovery. In May 2011, SHERO, nominated the 22nd Golden Melody Awards's "Top vocal group award".In June 2012, S.H.E performed on the 23rd Golden Melody Awards and declared regression. On October 11, 2012, S.H.E declared renewal and became one of the main shareholders of HIM International Music. Blossomy, their eleventh album, was released on 16 November 2012.Since 2014, the group entered their second hiatus. In 2016, they were immortalized with wax figures in Shanghai's Madame Tussands, and then on August 26, issued an extended play "Irreplaceable", and one of the songs "Irreplaceable" in the EP was commemorating for 15th anniversary of S.H.E's debut, after that held "S.H.E 15th Anniversary Exhibition" at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei from August 26 to September 19, 2016. In 2017, S.H.E. returned with a full 16-cassette set of all albums (including 12 full albums and 2 compilation mini-albums) called "S.H.E's in style" on their 16th anniversary. As of April 2018, Ella is the vocal instructor for Produce 101 China. Ella’s contract has ended with the record label and announced to be not re-contracting on 10 July 2018 with plans of creating her own management company with her husband, however, the group will not disband and continue doing projects as the management will still cooperate with Ella. On August 30, 2018, a digital single "Seventeen" was released by S.H.E, it was commemorating for 17th anniversary of S.H.E's debut, and the single was issued by form of digital music download, after that held "S.H.E 17th Anniversary Concert" to celebrate the 17th anniversary of S.H.E's debut at Liberty Square in Taipei on September 11, 2018 On September 30, 2018, HIM International Music officially announce that S.H.E will no longer be managed by them. After ending the 17 years collaboration with HIM International Music, three of them had come up with their management agencies individually. 2019-present: Various reunions In January 2019, they reunited for child philanthropic feast and made donations to the child poverty charity before Lunar New Year. On June 29, 2019, they reunited again for The 30th Golden Melody Awards as guests and presented awards for Best Group and Best Band. On September 28, 2020, they made a surprising reunion during the Taipei leg of Hebe's individual One After Another Tour. On August 11, 2023, Selina and Ella as Hebe's One After Another Tour guests. Musical style S.H.E has released eleven studio albums to date, including three compilation albums and one which is only digitally released. All of S.H.E's album covers display an oxalis, the symbol for the group. On some covers, the clover is easy to spot on the front (Girls Dorm, Together, Encore, Forever, Play) or on the back (FM S.H.E); on other covers, its appearance is more subtle (Super Star, Once Upon a Time). S.H.E's other contributions include songs in the soundtracks of Magical Love, The Rose, Reaching for the Stars, Tokyo Juliet, The Little Fairy, Hanazakarino Kimitachihe, and Bull Fighting. In 2008, they sang the ending theme for the film CJ7. The group is also known for harmonizing between each other, but has no designated lead singer and has no leader. All three members have different vocal ranges to complement each other. Ella sings within the alto to mezzo-soprano range, while Hebe and Selina sing within the mezzo-soprano to soprano range, with Ella having the widest vocal range of the three.Most S.H.E songs fall into the category of pop music. Songs from this genre consist of light melodies, simple drum beats, and the occasional piano or synthesizer accompaniment. In Girls Dorm and Youth Society, acoustic guitar melody lines were used as well. While some slower songs, particularly those in Genesis, fall into the genre of R&B, high-tempo songs, such as "Beauty Up My Life", focus more on techno. S.H.E has also sung a few pop/rock songs, including "Piquancy" (Chinese: 痛快), "Super Star", and "Star Light" (Chinese: 星光). As their career progressed, S.H.E began mixing light-hearted pop ballads with elements of hip hop and dance. Attempts to fuse these genres started with songs such as "If You're Happy, Then I'll Be Pleased" (Chinese: 你快樂我隨意), which contained a short rap segment, and evolved into songs such as "Listen to Yuan Wei Jen Play Guitar" (Chinese: 聽袁惟仁彈吉他), which is composed entirely of rap with the exception of the chorus. Lyrics Shi Rencheng (Chinese: 施人誠) serves as the group's main lyricist since the group's debut. Between the releases of Magical Journey and Forever, Daryl Yao (Chinese: 姚若龍; pinyin: Yáo Ruòlóng) was a regular contributor as well. The lyrics of Jay Chou's main lyricist, Vincent Fang, have also made numerous appearances. On some occasions, S.H.E members even contributed their own lyrics. Hebe wrote the words for "Say You Love Me" (Chinese: 說你愛我) and "Too Late" (Chinese: 來不及), and penned the rap portion of "So Long as You're Happy". Selina was responsible for the lyrics of "Silenced" (Chinese: 安靜了). Ella wrote the lyrics "Wife"(Chinese:老婆). They wrote the lyrics "Don't say goodbye"(Chinese:不说再见) Covers S.H.E's albums contain quite a number of cover songs. Among the group's 90 songs, 28 are covers. Earlier albums often included cover songs; however, since 2004, the group has recorded no more than two covers per album. In most covers, the songs' original titles were kept. Other songs, such as Westlife's "Soledad", were simply given new Chinese titles. The lyrics are usually rewritten, but some songs, such as Charlene's "I've Never Been To Me", are sung in their original English. While the musical style is usually maintained, some covers, such as "Only Lonely" and "I.O.I.O", have a lighter, bubblegum pop feel. Older pieces and nursery rhymes are occasionally parodied. "Don't Wanna Grow Up" is a parody of Mozart's 40th Symphony, and "London Bridge is Falling Down" (Chinese: 倫敦大橋垮下來) is based on the children's song of the same name. The verses of "Thanks for Your Gentleness" (Chinese: 謝謝你的溫柔) are original compositions, but the chorus is borrowed from Mayday's "Gentle and Soft". S.H.E's covers have received less critical acclaim than their original works. During the group's career, original compositions have combined for nearly 20 awards, whereas covers have been lauded only twice. Television and film career From late 2001 to early 2002, Hebe and Ella acted in the drama, Magical Love. Ella starred as Juliet, a recent high school graduate who is constantly looking for her Romeo. Hebe portrayed the secondary role of Sha Sha, Juliet's self-conscious and assertive friend. Selina was absent because she was studying at the National Taiwan Normal University. The songs "Remember" and "Belief" was used as the drama's opening and ending themes, respectively. In February, S.H.E signed on to be co-hosts on Jacky Wu's show, Guess Guess Guess. During S.H.E's tenure on the show, ratings averaged over 3.5, regularly putting the show in the top 10 for weekend shows. S.H.E stopped hosting Guess Guess Guess in July. In April 2003, the trio guest-hosted two episodes of the Taiwanese variety show, Happy Sunday, before signing on as co-hosts in May. However, during S.H.E's Happy Sunday tenure, at the height of the SARS epidemic, Hebe exhibited fever-like symptoms while coming home from Singapore. Since Ella was living with Hebe at the time, both were forced into quarantine for 10 days, leaving Selina as the only one in the group who could host the television show Happy Sunday.All three S.H.E members appeared in the drama, The Rose, where Ella starred as Zheng Bai He, a girl suffering from low self-esteem. Selina played two secondary roles: her first character, Zhuang Zhe Qin, was a beautiful yet frail girl with a heartwarming personality. Her second character, Di Ya Man, is Qin's doppelganger with an arrogant and domineering personality. Hebe portrayed Xiao Feng, a girl who quietly pursues Han Kui but Kui is infatuated with Bai He. In spite of the high costs, The Rose was the highest rated television drama in its time slot. At the 2004 Golden Bell Awards, which are presented by the GIO to honour the year's best television programs, The Rose was crowned Most Popular Drama. S.H.E sang "Flowers Have Blossomed" (Chinese: 花都開好了) for the drama's soundtrack. The song not only debuted at #1 on the UFO Music Charts, but it also stayed on the YES 93.3 charts for ten weeks, holding the #1 position for two consecutive weeks. On July 29, 2003, Ella performed a stunt as part of S.H.E's Happy Sunday segment. The stunt, which involved jumping off different floors of a building, was part of a public service video that explained proper fire escape procedures. On her first attempt, Ella followed protocol, jumped off the second floor of a building, and landed safely. On her second attempt, she was asked to jump off the third floor. However, as she jumped off, Ella became nervous and failed to follow the safety procedures correctly, leading to her falling on a fire escape from twenty feet and shattering her hip. Paramedics transported her to the Neihu Tri-Service General Hospital before being redirected to the National Taiwan University Hospital. Ella was released from the hospital after a 23-day stay, but she went home to Pingtung for five months in order to recuperate. In spite of this incident, the Japan National Tourist Organization, who had admired S.H.E's hosting abilities, asked Happy Sunday to promote Japanese tourism. As a result, Selina and Hebe hosted "Yokoso! Japan", a special Happy Sunday segment that explored numerous facets of Japanese culture. In January 2004, Ella appeared in the final two episodes of "Yokoso! Japan". However, during the segment's four-episode run, producers were already searching for S.H.E's replacements, and ultimately chose Taiwanese singer Phil Chang. S.H.E discontinued hosting Happy Sunday once they began promoting the album Magical Journey.Selina and Hebe, along with 28 other celebrities, were cast for the three-episode drama series Happy New Year 2004. In February, both S.H.E members co-starred in the movie, A Disguised Superstar (Chinese: 冒牌天皇), with Miriam Yeung; in April, Hebe acted as the female love interest in the first episode of Say Yes Enterprise (Chinese: 求婚事務所). The episode would earn a rating of 1.93, placing third behind My Secret Garden II (Chinese: 我的秘密花園II) and Snow Angel (Chinese: 雪天使). In October 2005, all three members of S.H.E starred in the drama, Reaching for the Stars, and sang its opening theme, "Star Light". The drama focused on the fate of an electronics company whose chairman had just died. Selina played the role of Zhou Xinlei, the chairman's spoiled but good-natured daughter. Ella starred as Ren Jie, a clever girl who assumed the identity of the company's heiress to save her brother. Hebe portrayed Shen Xiaorou, a strong-willed policewoman who lives with her ailing grandmother. Reaching for the Stars had the misfortune of airing its pilot episode during the final episode of The Prince Who Turns into a Frog. While the average rating for the pilot episode of Reaching for the Stars was 1.17, the final episode of The Prince Who Turns into a Frog set a 2005 record for highest average episode rating (6.93) and highest episode rating (11.35). In the end, despite heavy investment in the series' production, Reaching for the Stars had only achieved mediocre television ratings. Nevertheless, Ella was nominated for Best Actress at the 2006 Golden Bell Awards.In the spring of 2006, Ella pursued her own on-screen interests and was cast for the lead female role of a Taiwanese idol drama, which was scheduled to air later that year. In January 2007, Selina and Hebe signed half-year contracts to be the co-hosts of Guess Guess Guess, the show that they had hosted five years earlier. The drama starring Ella, Hanazakarino Kimitachihe, finally began airing in November, and continued until its finale on March 4, 2007. Ella was featured as Lu Ruixi, an American tomboy who transfers schools so she can see her high jump idol every day. During its 15-episode run, the drama never relinquished its ratings crown. S.H.E sang the song, "What to Do?" (Chinese: 怎麽辦) as the drama's opening theme. In June 2007, SET TV selected Hebe to star in Bull Fighting as the daughter of the man who owns 13th Street. S.H.E sang "How Have You Been Lately?" (Chinese: 你最近還好嗎) as the drama's ending theme. In the movie CJ7, S.H.E sang one of its OST entitled "Qi Zai". In May 2009, Ella was cast for the lead female role for the Taiwanese idol drama, Down With Love (就想賴著妳). The drama was aired on 31 January 2010. In the drama, Ella was featured as Yang Guo, kind-natured and innocent. When met with any kind of unlucky circumstances, she would always find a way to encourage and spur herself on, adopting a bright and optimistic outlook. S.H.E sang the song, "Loving You" (traditional Chinese: 愛上你) as the drama's ending theme. In May 2010, Selina was invited as a guest host for the 700th episode of 'Guess Guess Guess' special edition, along with Jacky Wu. From 24 July 2010 onwards, Selina would be co-hosting 'Guess Guess Guess' with Halem Yu, with changes made to the television programme. On 22 Oct 2010. Selina was seriously injured during an accident on the set of her new drama, I have a date with spring (我和春天有個約會) in Shanghai. She suffered from third-degree burns in 54% of her body. Her co-star Yu Haoming (俞灏明) was also seriously injured. On 19 Jan 2011, Selina had finally made her first appearance in the press conference at the hospital. Selina was thankful for the concern, care, and blessings from the public she was also grateful to the nurses who took care of her saying that they were like angels, and was happy that she finally got to leave the hospital and go back home. Influence and impact Musical By 2001, the vast majority of notable singing groups in Taiwan were male. When S.H.E was formed, other girl groups were only beginning to earn their fame in the Taiwanese music industry, but few would last more than two years. Formed in 2000, 4 in Love had similar success to S.H.E during their first year in the entertainment business, but broke up less than two years later. Among the former members of 4 in Love, Rainie Yang is the only member to have continued her singing career. Other groups, such as Walkie Talkie (Chinese: 錦繡二重唱), were formed as a result of talent competitions, but were less notable during the course of their careers. Over a year after S.H.E's formation, the state of girl groups in Taiwan had changed little. In January 2003, radio station UFM1003 released a list of its Top 10 Taiwanese Pop Groups for the year 2002. Although S.H.E was ranked first, they were the only all-female group on the list.During the course of S.H.E's career, a significant number of musical groups were introduced by their companies as "the next S.H.E" with hopes of emulating their success. When Warner Music Taiwan wanted to form a three-person boy band, they planned on marketing them as "the male version of S.H.E" before coming up with the name "G-Boys". Some groups were formed to topple S.H.E's standing as Taiwan's premier pop group. Jungiery Star manager Sun Derong stated that 7 Flowers was formed just to provide competition for S.H.E. Despite the increase in competition, S.H.E maintains a definitive stranglehold on the Mandopop group awards, suggesting that the formation of these new groups has done little to ruffle the trio's feathers. Endorsements In 2001, S.H.E began promoting the first of many products, including those of Digimaster and beverage chain Fuzion Smoothie. Since then, the group has endorsed numerous companies, including Bausch & Lomb (2002–present), Coca-Cola (2004–present), and China Mobile (2006–present). One of S.H.E's more notable commercials was for World of Warcraft, where the girls were put into the context of a fantasy gaming world.S.H.E regularly contributes songs for endorsement campaigns. The songs "Too Much" and "Beauty Up My Life", from their debut album Girls Dorm, were used in commercials for Sogo and Wacoal, respectively. "Genesis" (Chinese: 美麗新世界) and "Watch Me Shine", from the 2002 album Genesis, were used for N-age, a South Korean online game. "Piquancy", from 2004 album Encore, was used to promote the online game New Legendary Twins (Chinese: 新絕代雙嬌). In collaboration with Fahrenheit, S.H.E sang "Always Open" for 7-Eleven.Companies frequently use S.H.E's music videos as advertising tools. The videos for "Genesis" and "Watch Me Shine" featured gameplay in N-age; "Excuse" (Chinese: 藉口) showed flashes of Inventec's OKWAP phones. Daphne (Chinese: 達芙妮女鞋), a Chinese shoe company, used the songs "Super Model", "Laurel Tree Goddess" (Chinese: 月桂女神), "Good Mood Just Be Yourself" (Chinese: 好心情Just Be Yourself), and "Miss Universe" (Chinese: 宇宙小姐) for their promotional campaigns. Top Girl, a Taiwan clothing company, had also used the song, "Girls' Be Strong" (Chinese: 女孩當自強) from FM S.H.E for their promotional campaigns. Other According to Baidu's year-end Top Search Terms survey, the most-searched movie of 2004 was House of Flying Daggers (Chinese: 十面埋伏). The phrase logged more than 1.2 million searches, which was nearly twice as many as second place (Kung Fu Hustle). Baidu attributed this difference to the fact that S.H.E had released a song with the same name earlier that year. As a result, searches for the song were lumped together with the movie, thereby inflating the latter's search totals.S.H.E has also influenced television dramas, education systems, and even business operations. In the I Not Stupid Too television series, Chengcai, the wushu-practicing protagonist, was courted by three members of the school's chess society: Shirley, Helen, and Elaine, who were collectively known as S.H.E. On a 2005 secondary school English examination, S.H.E was the subject of a reading comprehension passage that mentioned their involvement with CCTV's annual Spring Festival Evening show. Cliff Wu, the president of Teradata's Greater China operations, was so amazed at how S.H.E affected his teenage daughters that he borrowed the group's name and transformed it into an acronym, summarizing the three main elements of Teradata's plan for entering the Chinese market. S represents "Strategy", while H and E represent "Human" and "Execution". Discography Girl's Dorm (2001) Youth Society (2002) Genesis (2002) Together (2003) Super Star (2003) Magical Journey (2004) Encore (2004) Once Upon a Time (2005) Forever (2006) Play (2007) FM S.H.E (2008) SHERO (2010) Blossomy (2012) Concerts Standalone concerts Fantasy Land world tour Moving Castle world tour S.H.E is the One world tour 2gether 4ever world tour Filmography Biography Awards and nominations Further reading S.H.E's channel on YouTube S.H.E on Facebook S.H.E at IMDb (in Chinese) Official website @ HIM International (in Chinese) Official website @ WOW Music (in Chinese) Official blog @ HIM International

Takeda Shingen (武田 信玄, December 1, 1521 – May 13, 1573) was daimyo of Kai Province during the Sengoku period of Japan. Known as the "Tiger of Kai", he was one of the most powerful daimyo of the late Sengoku period, and credited with exceptional military prestige. Shingen was based in a poor area with little arable land and no access to the sea, but he became one of Japan's leading daimyo. His skills are highly esteemed and on par with Mōri Motonari. Name Shingen was called "Tarō" (a commonly used pet name for the eldest son of a Japanese family) or Katsuchiyo (勝千代) during his childhood. After his genpuku (coming of age ceremony), he was given the formal name Harunobu (晴信), which included a character from the name of Ashikaga Yoshiharu, the 12th shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate. It was a common practice in feudal Japan for a higher-ranked samurai to bestow a character from his own name to his inferiors as a symbol of recognition. From the local lord's perspective, it was an honour to receive a character from the shogunate, although the authority of the latter had greatly degenerated in the mid-16th century. Both the Ashikaga and the Takeda clans descended from the Minamoto clan. Technically, Harunobu, as well as his forefathers, had borne the surname of Minamoto. Therefore, Harunobu would be referred to as "Minamoto no Harunobu" (源 晴信) in official records kept by the Imperial Court when he was conferred the official title of Daizen Daibu (大膳大夫, Master of the Palace Table). The Imperial Court had maintained a system of ritsuryō that was parallel to the shogunate apparatus. In February 1559 Harunobu chose to live a pabbajja life as a Buddhist novitiate and received a dharma name, Shingen (信玄), from his Buddhist master. The kanji of "Shingen" can also be pronounced as "Nobuharu", which is the inversion of his official name, Harunobu. In ancient times, such religious names of recognized Japanese aristocrats would be read in "on'yomi" (音読み), the Chinese-style pronunciation, instead of "kun'yomi" (訓読み), the indigenous Japanese pronunciation. Although widely known by the dharma name, Takeda Shingen's formal name remained Harunobu throughout the rest of his life. Shingen is sometimes referred to as "The Tiger of Kai" (甲斐の虎) for his martial prowess on the battlefield. His primary rival, Uesugi Kenshin (上杉謙信), was often called "The Dragon of Echigo" (越後の龍) or also "The Tiger of Echigo" (越後の虎). "These two seemed to have enjoyed meeting in battle." They fought several times at Kawanakajima. Early life and rise Takeda Shingen was the first-born son of Takeda Nobutora (武田信虎), leader of the Takeda clan, and daimyō of the province of Kai. He had been an accomplished poet in his youth. He assisted his father with the older relatives and vassals of the Takeda clan, and became quite a valuable addition to the clan at a fairly young age. In 1536, at the age of 15, he was instrumental in helping his father win the Battle of Un no Kuchi.At some point in his life after his "coming of age" ceremony, the young man decided to rebel against his father, Takeda Nobutora. He finally succeeded in 1540, successfully taking control of the clan. Events regarding this change of leadership are not entirely clear, but it is thought that Nobutora had planned to name the second son, Nobushige, as his heir instead of Shingen. The end result was a miserable retirement that was forced upon him by Shingen and his supporters: he was sent to Suruga Province, on the southern border of Kai, to be kept in custody under the scrutiny of the Imagawa clan, led by his son-in-law Imagawa Yoshimoto (今川義元), the daimyō of Suruga. For their help in this bloodless coup, an alliance was formed between the Imagawa and the Takeda clans. Takeda campaign Shinano campaign Shingen's first act was to gain a hold of the area around him. His goal was to conquer Shinano Province. A number of the major warlords in the Shinano region marched on the border of Kai Province, hoping to neutralize the power of the still-young Shingen before he had a chance to expand into their lands. However, planning to beat him down at Fuchu (where word had it Shingen was gathering his forces for a stand), they were unprepared when Takeda forces suddenly came down upon them at the Battle of Sezawa. Taking advantage of their confusion, Shingen was able to win a quick victory, which set the stage for his drive into Shinano lands that same year and his successful Siege of Uehara. The young warlord made considerable advances into the region, conquering the Suwa clan's headquarters in the Siege of Kuwabara, before moving into central Shinano with the defeat of both Tozawa Yorichika and Takato Yoritsugu in the Siege of Fukuyo and Battle of Ankokuji. In 1543, he captured Nagakubo Castle, Kojinyama Castle in 1544, and then Takatō Castle and Ryūgasaki Castle in 1545. In 1546 he took Uchiyama Castle and won the Battle of Odaihara. In 1547, he took Shika Castle. In 1548, Shingen defeated Ogasawara Nagatoki in the Battle of Shiojiritoge and then took Fukashi Castle in 1550. However, the warlord was checked at Uedahara by Murakami Yoshikiyo, losing two of his generals in a heated battle which Murakami won. Shingen managed to avenge this loss and the Murakami clan was eventually defeated in the sieges of Toishi. Murakami fled the region, eventually coming to plead for help from the Province of Echigo. In 1553, he captured Katsurao, Wada, Takashima and Fukuda castles. In 1554 he took Fukushima, Kannomine, Matsuo and Yoshioka castles.: 212–13 Conflict with Uesugi After conquering Shinano Province, Shingen faced another rival, Uesugi Kenshin of Echigo Province. The feud between them became legendary, and they faced each other on the battlefield five times in the Battles of Kawanakajima. These battles were generally confined to controlled skirmishes, neither daimyō willing to devote himself entirely to a single all-out attempt. The conflict between the two that had the fiercest fighting, and might have decided victory or defeat for one side or the other, was the fourth battle, during which the famous tale arose of Uesugi Kenshin's forces clearing a path through the Takeda troops and Kenshin engaging Shingen in single combat. The tale has Kenshin attacking Shingen with his sword while Shingen defends with his iron war fan or tessen. Both lords lost many men in this fight, and Shingen in particular lost two of his main generals, Yamamoto Kansuke and his younger brother Takeda Nobushige.: 269–72 After the fourth battle of Kawanakajima, the Takeda clan suffered two internal setbacks. Shingen uncovered two plots on his life, the first from his cousin Suwa Shigemasa (whom he ordered to commit seppuku), and the second, a few years later, from his own son Takeda Yoshinobu (武田義信). His son was confined to the Toko-ji temple, where he died two years later; it is not known whether his death was natural or ordered by his father. After this incident, Shingen designated his fourth son, Takeda Katsuyori (武田勝頼), as the acting leader of the clan after himself until Katsuyori's son came of age. Kōzuke campaign In 1563, Shingen allied with Hōjō Ujiyasu, and helped Ujiyasu capture Matsuyama Castle in Musashi Province. In 1565, Shingen then took Kuragano Castle and Minowa Castle in Kōzuke province. In 1571, Uesugi Kenshin had advanced to the province of Kozuke and attacked the satellite castle of Shingen's, Ishikura Castle. Both forces met each other in the Battle of Tonegawa, but eventually disengaged after a well-fought fight. Suruga campaign The death of Takeda Yoshinobu is believed to have much to do with the change in Shingen's policy towards the Imagawa clan. After Imagawa Yoshimoto's death in a Battle of Okehazama against Oda Nobunaga in 1560, Shingen made an alliance with the Oda and Tokugawa clan, and started to plan an invasion of Suruga Province, a territory now controlled by Yoshimoto's son, Ujizane. Yoshinobu, however, had strongly opposed such a plan because his wife was the daughter of Yoshimoto. By 1567, nonetheless, after Shingen had successfully kept the forces led by Uesugi Kenshin out of the northern boundaries of Shinano Province, taken over a strategically important castle in western Kōzuke, and suppressed internal objection to his plans to take advantage of the weakened Imagawa clan, he was ready to carry out his planned Suruga invasion. Shingen and Tokugawa Ieyasu "came to terms" and occupied the "former Imagawa territory.": 279  They both fought against Yoshimoto's heir, Imagawa Ujizane. During this time Shingen also ordered the damming project of the Fuji River, which was one of the major domestic activities of the time. Predicament The Suruga invasion angered Hojo Ujiyasu. After confirming that the Takeda and Hojo alliance had collapsed, Tokugawa Ieyasu gave up on Takeda, and approached Uesugi and Hojo. As a consequence, Shingen was in a difficult situation with enemies on three sides. In such a predicament, Shingen asked his ally Oda Nobunaga for help. Nobunaga soothed Ieyasu and mediated reconciliation between Takeda and Uesugi. Thanks to Nobunaga's efforts, Shingen was able to escape from the predicament. Conflict with Hojo In 1568, as a response to Hōjō clan intervention in his invasion of Suruga Province, Shingen broke the alliance with the Hōjō, and came into Musashi Province from his home province of Kai, attacking Takiyama Castle. He then moved against the Hojo by attacking Hachigata Castle, then engaged in the Siege of Odawara (1569). He burned Odawara Castle, then successfully withdrew after Hōjō Ujiteru and Hōjō Ujikuni failed to stop him in the Battle of Mimasetoge.: 216–18 After defeating the intervention forces commanded by Hōjō Ujimasa of Sagami Province, Shingen finally secured the Suruga Province, formerly base of the prestigious Imagawa clan, as a Takeda asset in 1569. At this point, Shingen now had Kai Province, Shinano Province, the western part of Kōzuke Province, Musashi Province and Suruga Province. Conflict with Oda–Tokugawa alliance By the time Takeda Shingen was 49 years old, he was the only daimyō with the necessary power and tactical skill to stop Oda Nobunaga's rush to rule Japan. In 1572, upon securing Takeda control over Suruga, northern Shinano, and western Kōzuke, Shingen took Iwamura Castle, which caused the Takeda–Oda relationship to decline. Shingen engaged Tokugawa Ieyasu's forces in 1572 and captured Futamata. In early 1573, Shingen decided to make a drive for Kyoto at the urgings of the shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiaki. While seeking a route from Kōfu to Kyoto, Shingen moved to challenge the Oda–Tokugawa alliance in the Battle of Mikatagahara, one of the most famous battles of Takeda Shingen's campaigns, and one of the best demonstrations of his cavalry-based tactics. It was also one of Tokugawa Ieyasu's worst defeats, and complete disaster was only narrowly averted. Shingen stopped his advance temporarily due to outside influences, which allowed the Tokugawa clan to prepare for battle again. In mid 1573, he led a formidable force of over 30,000 into Tokugawa territories in Tōtōmi, Mikawa, and Mino provinces. Death Once he entered Mikawa Province in February 1573, Shingen besieged Noda Castle, but then died in his siege camp. The exact circumstances surrounding his death are not known. Some accounts say he succumbed to an old war wound, some say a sniper had wounded him earlier, and others that he died of pneumonia. He was buried at Erin-ji temple in what is now Kōshū, Yamanashi.After Shingen's death, Takeda Katsuyori became the daimyō of the Takeda clan. Katsuyori was ambitious and wanted to continue his father's legacy. He moved to take Tokugawa forts. However, an allied force of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga dealt a crushing blow to the Takeda in the Battle of Nagashino, when Nobunaga's matchlock-armed infantry destroyed the Takeda cavalry. Ieyasu seized the opportunity to defeat the weakened Takeda led by Takeda Katsuyori in the Battle of Tenmokuzan. Katsuyori committed suicide after the battle and the Takeda clan never recovered. Legacy Upon Takeda Shingen's death, Uesugi Kenshin reportedly wept at the loss of one of his strongest and most deeply-respected rivals. One of the most lasting tributes to Shingen's prowess was that of Tokugawa Ieyasu himself, who is known to have borrowed heavily from the old Takeda leader's governmental and military innovations after he had taken leadership of Kai Province during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's rise to power. Many of these designs were put to use in the Tokugawa shogunate. While the Takeda were for the most part destroyed by the loss of Shingen's heir, Katsuyori, Shingen had a profound effect on the period in Japan. He influenced many lords with his law, tax, and administration systems, and many tales were told about him. Although aggressive towards military enemies he was probably not as cruel as other warlords. His war banner contained the famous phrase Fū-Rin-Ka-Zan (風林火山, "Wind, Forest, Fire, Mountain"), taken from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. This phrase refers to the idea of Swift as the Wind, Silent as a Forest, Fierce as Fire and Immovable as a Mountain. The motto applied to Shingen's policies and his military strategy. Retainers During the Edo period, 24 retainers who served under Shingen were chosen as a popular topic for ukiyo-e and bunraku. The names vary from work to work and the following list is the widely agreed version of retainers. They had not all worked together, as some had died before others served, but they were noted for their exceptional contributions to Shingen and the Takeda clan. Of his retainers, Kōsaka Masanobu stands out as being one of Shingen's better known beloveds, in the style of the Japanese shudō tradition. The two entered into the relationship when Shingen was 22 and Masanobu 16. The love pact signed by the two, in Tokyo University's Historical Archive, documents Shingen's pledge that he was not involved in, nor had any intentions of entering into, a sexual relationship with a certain other retainer, and asserts that "since I want to be intimate with you" he will in no way harm the boy, and calls upon the gods to be his guarantors. (Leupp, pp. 53–54) Twenty-Four Generals of Takeda Shingen Akiyama Nobutomo Amari Torayasu Anayama Nobutada Baba Nobuharu Hara Masatane Hara Toratane Ichijō Nobutatsu, younger brother of Shingen Itagaki Nobukata Kiso Yoshimasa Kōsaka Masanobu Naitō Masatoyo Obata Masamori Obata Toramori Obu Toramasa Oyamada Nobushige Saegusa Moritomo Sanada Nobutsuna Sanada Yukitaka Tada Mitsuyori Tsuchiya Masatsugu Takeda Nobukado Takeda Nobushige Yamagata Masakage Yamamoto Kansuke Yokota TakatoshiOther Generals Hoshina Masatoshi Morozumi Torasada Ohama Kagetaka Sanada Masayuki Shingen-ko Festival Lasting three days, the Shingen-ko Festival (信玄公祭り, Shingen-ko Matsuri) is held annually on the first or second weekend of April in Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture to celebrate the legacy of daimyō Takeda Shingen. In the lunar calendar, Shingen died on the 12th day of the 4th month, and so April 12th is celebrated as the anniversary of his death (despite it being May 13th in the Gregorian calendar). Usually, a famous Japanese celebrity plays the part of Takeda Shingen. There are several parades going between the Takeda Shrine and Kofu Castle reflecting the various comings and goings of Takeda Shingen during his life. The parades are very theatrical, involving serious re-enactors who practice all year for this one weekend. Family Father: Takeda Nobutora (1494–1574) Mother: Ōi no Kata Brothers: Takematsu (1517–1523) Inuchiyo (1523–1529) Takeda Nobushige (1525–1561) Takeda Nobumoto Takeda Nobukado (1529–1582) Matsuo Nobukore (c. 1530s – 1571) Takeda Souchi Takeda Nobuzane (c. 1530s – 1575) Ichijō Nobutatsu (c. 1539 – 1582) Sisters: Joukei-in (1519–1550), married Imagawa Yoshimoto Nanshou-in (born 1520) married Anayama Nobutomo Nene (1528–1543) married Suwa Yorishige Sons: Takeda Katsuyori by Suwa Goryōnin Takeda Yoshinobu by Lady Sanjō Takeda Nobuchika (also known as Unno Nobuchika) by Lady Sanjō Takeda Nobukiyo Nishina Morinobu Katsurayama Nobusada Daughters: Ōbai-in Kenshō-in Shinryu-in Matsuhime Kikuhime In popular culture Generations of farming peasants who become warriors to fight Takeda Shingen's battles are depicted in the 1960 movie The River Fuefuki, aka Fuefukigawa by director Keisuke Kinoshita. The film is based on a novel by Shichirō Fukazawa. Shingen's life is depicted in the 1969 film Samurai Banners, seen through the eyes of his general Yamamoto Kansuke. The film is based on a novel by Inoue Yasushi titled Furin Kazan. Takeda's battles with Uesugi Kenshin were dramatized in the movie Heaven and Earth. Takeda Shingen's death is fictionalized in Akira Kurosawa's film Kagemusha. He is mentioned on episode 31 of the Tokusatsu 1988 series Sekai Ninja Sen Jiraiya. The focus of this episode is the alleged missing Takeda Shingen's famous sword Nobutora, and its discovery in France. His life is the subject of a historical novel by Jirō Nitta, which was adapted for television in the 1988 NHK Taiga drama Takeda Shingen, starring Kiichi Nakai, distributed internationally under the title Shingen. Shingen the Ruler (Takeda Shingen 2 in Japan) is a turn-based strategy game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), produced by Hot B in 1989, and released in North America in 1990. The Takeda Clan is a faction in Creative Assembly's Shogun: Total War and Total War: Shogun 2 with Shingen himself appearing in the latter's opening cinematic. In the 2020 video game "Ghost of Tsushima", the player can obtain an armour set (Gosaku's armour) that is very heavily inspired by Takeda Shingen's actual famous armour set. Takeda Shingen has appeared in Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara video game franchises, and in the anime Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings. He is a character in all of the games of the Warriors Orochi series. He is a playable character in Pokémon Conquest (Pokémon + Nobunaga's Ambition in Japan), with his partner Pokémon being Rhyperior and Groudon. In Samurai Champloo, the character Jin has the Takeda mon on his keikogi. Video game music composer Ryu Umemoto (1974–2011) was a descendant of Takeda. Takeda Shingen was mentioned in episode 10 of The Tatami Galaxy when the protagonist noted that a 4.5 tatami room is perfect, and if a room were to be larger than that, it would end up being "as spacious as Takeda Shingen's lavatory, and one might even get lost". He is a main character in the anime Sengoku Basara: The Last Party and Sengoku Basara: Samurai Kings. He was shown with a superhuman strength, able to use a large ax with effortless precision, ride two horses in standing position, even riding up walls vertically. In Battle Girls: Time Paradox, he appeared as a hotheaded woman who committed nothing to obtain the power of the red armor. In the light novel The Ambition of Oda Nobuna, Shingen is portrayed as a cunning young woman who strongly opposes other daimyo. Takeda is a playable character in the Mobile/PC Game Rise of Kingdoms. "Legendary Takeda's 24 Generals" at Yamanashi-kankou.jp Samurai archives – Takeda Shingen Suwako Museum – (Japanese) – helmet of Suwa Hossyou (Shingen's Legendary Helmet) "Ten-Chi-Jin" General of Uesugi Clan Naoe Kanetsugu – (Japanese) – Kabuto (samurai helmet) Papercraft

Sai Kung is a non-administrative area of Hong Kong that does not have a legally defined boundary. Administratively, it is divided by Sai Kung District and Tai Po District. Sai Kung may refer to: Sai Kung Town, or just Sai Kung, a town and administrative area in the Sai Kung District, Hong Kong Sai Kung Peninsula, a peninsula in Hong Kong Sai Kung District, an administrative district in Hong Kong, which does not cover the northern half of Sai Kung Peninsula See also Sai Kung District Council Sai Kung Commons, a political grouping Sai Kung Hoi, a bay near Sai Kung Town, Hong Kong Sai Kung East Country Park Sai Kung West Country Park Sai Kung West Country Park (Wan Tsai Extension) Tseung Kwan O New Town, another town centre of Sai Kung District

The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton, referred to as the union and bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars (top and bottom) alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that declared independence from Great Britain, which they obtained in their victory in the American Revolutionary War.During the Revolutionary War era, the "Rebellious Stripes" were considered as the most important element of United States flag designs, and were always mentioned before the stars. The "Stripes and Stars" was a popular phrase into the 19th century. Credit for the term "Stars and Stripes" has been given to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French soldier who volunteered his aid to the Continental Army, led by George Washington, in the Revolutionary War against Britain.Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and The Star-Spangled Banner. History The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4, 1959. The 50-star flag was ordered by then president Eisenhower on August 21, 1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the longest-used version of the U.S. flag and has been in use for over 63 years. First flag The first flag resembling the modern stars and stripes was an unofficial flag sometimes called the Grand Union Flag, or "the Continental Colors". It consisted of 13 red-and-white stripes, with the Union Jack in the upper left-hand-corner. It first appeared on December 3, 1775, when Continental Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones flew it aboard Captain Esek Hopkin's flagship Alfred in the Delaware River. It remained the national flag until June 14, 1777. At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, there were no flags with any stars on them; the Second Continental Congress did not adopt flags with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year. The "Grand Union Flag" has historically been referred to as the first national flag of the United States.The Continental Navy raised the Colors as the ensign of the fledgling nation in the American War for Independence – likely by the expedient of transforming their previous British red ensign by adding white stripes. The name "Grand Union" was first applied to the Continental Colors by George Henry Preble in his 1872 book known as History of the American Flag.The flag very closely resembles the flag of the British East India Company in that era. Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design of the U.S. flag. Both flags could easily have been constructed by adding white stripes to a British Red Ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, the East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean. Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the company's flag by the United States as their national flag. He said to George Washington, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company." This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the United States' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company. Some colonists also felt that the company could be a powerful ally in the American War of Independence, as they shared similar aims and grievances against the British government's tax policies. Colonists, therefore, flew the company's flag to endorse the company.The theory that the Grand Union Flag was a direct descendant of the flag of the East India Company has been criticized as lacking written evidence; on the other hand, the resemblance is obvious, and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States were aware of the East India Company's activities and of their free administration of India under Company rule. Flag Resolution of 1777 On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag Resolution which stated: "Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Flag Day is now observed on June 14 of each year. While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army at the Middlebrook encampment.Both the stripes (barry) and the stars (mullets) have precedents in classical heraldry. Mullets were comparatively rare in early modern heraldry. However, an example of mullets representing territorial divisions predating the U.S. flag is the Valais 1618 coat of arms, where seven mullets stood for seven districts. Another widely repeated theory is that the design was inspired by the coat of arms of George Washington's family, which includes three red stars over two horizontal red bars on a white field. Despite the similar visual elements, there is "little evidence" or "no evidence whatsoever" to support the claimed connection with the flag design. The Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, published by the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon, calls it an "enduring myth" backed by "no discernible evidence." The story seems to have originated with the 1876 play Washington: A Drama in Five Acts, by the English poet Martin Farquhar Tupper, and was further popularized through repetition in the children's magazine St. Nicholas.The first official U.S. flag flown during battle was on August 3, 1777, at Fort Schuyler (Fort Stanwix) during the Siege of Fort Stanwix. Massachusetts reinforcements brought news of the adoption by Congress of the official flag to Fort Schuyler. Soldiers cut up their shirts to make the white stripes; scarlet material to form the red was secured from red flannel petticoats of officers' wives, while material for the blue union was secured from Capt. Abraham Swartwout's blue cloth coat. A voucher is extant that Congress paid Capt. Swartwout of Dutchess County for his coat for the flag.The 1777 resolution was probably meant to define a naval ensign. In the late 18th century, the notion of a national flag did not yet exist or was only nascent. The flag resolution appears between other resolutions from the Marine Committee. On May 10, 1779, Secretary of the Board of War Richard Peters expressed concern that "it is not yet settled what is the Standard of the United States." However, the term "Standard" referred to a national standard for the Army of the United States. Each regiment was to carry the national standard in addition to its regimental standard. The national standard was not a reference to the national or naval flag.The Flag Resolution did not specify any particular arrangement, number of points, nor orientation for the stars and the arrangement or whether the flag had to have seven red stripes and six white ones or vice versa. The appearance was up to the maker of the flag. Some flag makers arranged the stars into one big star, in a circle or in rows and some replaced a state's star with its initial. One arrangement features 13 five-pointed stars arranged in a circle, with the stars arranged pointing outwards from the circle (as opposed to up), the Betsy Ross flag. Experts have dated the earliest known example of this flag to be 1792 in a painting by John Trumbull.Despite the 1777 resolution, the early years of American independence featured many different flags. Most were individually crafted rather than mass-produced. While there are many examples of 13-star arrangements, some of those flags included blue stripes as well as red and white. Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, in an October 3, 1778, letter to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, described the American flag as consisting of "13 stripes, alternately red, white, and blue, a small square in the upper angle, next to the flagstaff, is a blue field, with 13 white stars, denoting a new Constellation." John Paul Jones used a variety of 13-star flags on his U.S. Navy ships including the well-documented 1779 flags of the Serapis and the Alliance. The Serapis flag had three rows of eight-pointed stars with red, white, and blue stripes. However, the flag for the Alliance had five rows of eight-pointed stars with 13 red and white stripes, and the white stripes were on the outer edges. Both flags were documented by the Dutch government in October 1779, making them two of the earliest known flags of 13 stars. Designer of the first stars and stripes Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a naval flag designer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed a flag in 1777 while he was the chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. The Navy Board was under the Continental Marine Committee. Not only did Hopkinson claim that he designed the U.S. flag, but he also claimed that he designed a flag for the U.S. Navy. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own life when he sent a letter and several bills to Congress for his work. These claims are documented in the Journals of the Continental Congress and George Hasting's biography of Hopkinson. Hopkinson initially wrote a letter to Congress, via the Continental Board of Admiralty, on May 25, 1780. In this letter, he asked for a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine" as payment for designing the U.S. flag, the seal for the Admiralty Board, the seal for the Treasury Board, Continental currency, the Great Seal of the United States, and other devices. However, in three subsequent bills to Congress, Hopkinson asked to be paid in cash, but he did not list his U.S. flag design. Instead, he asked to be paid for designing the "great Naval Flag of the United States" in the first bill; the "Naval Flag of the United States" in the second bill; and "the Naval Flag of the States" in the third, along with the other items. The flag references were generic terms for the naval ensign that Hopkinson had designed: a flag of seven red stripes and six white ones. The predominance of red stripes made the naval flag more visible against the sky on a ship at sea. By contrast, Hopkinson's flag for the United States had seven white stripes and six red ones – in reality, six red stripes laid on a white background. Hopkinson's sketches have not been found, but we can make these conclusions because Hopkinson incorporated different stripe arrangements in the Admiralty (naval) Seal that he designed in the Spring of 1780 and the Great Seal of the United States that he proposed at the same time. His Admiralty Seal had seven red stripes; whereas his second U.S. Seal proposal had seven white ones. Remnants of Hopkinson's U.S. flag of seven white stripes can be found in the Great Seal of the United States and the President's seal. When Hopkinson was chairman of the Navy Board, his position was like that of today's Secretary of the Navy. The payment was not made, most likely, because other people had contributed to designing the Great Seal of the United States, and because it was determined he already received a salary as a member of Congress. This contradicts the legend of the Betsy Ross flag, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag at the request of the government in the Spring of 1776.On 10 May 1779, a letter from the War Board to George Washington stated that there was still no design established for a national standard, on which to base regimental standards, but also referenced flag requirements given to the board by General von Steuben. On 3 September, Richard Peters submitted to Washington "Drafts of a Standard" and asked for his "Ideas of the Plan of the Standard," adding that the War Board preferred a design they viewed as "a variant for the Marine Flag." Washington agreed that he preferred "the standard, with the Union and Emblems in the center." The drafts are lost to history but are likely to be similar to the first Jack of the United States. The origin of the stars and stripes design has been muddled by a story disseminated by the descendants of Betsy Ross. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing one of the first flags from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No such evidence exists either in George Washington's diaries or the Continental Congress's records. Indeed, nearly a century passed before Ross's grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested the story in 1870. By her family's own admission, Ross ran an upholstery business, and she had never made a flag as of the supposed visit in June 1776. Furthermore, her grandson admitted that his own search through the Journals of Congress and other official records failed to find corroborating evidence for his grandmother's story.George Henry Preble states in his 1882 text that no combined stars and stripes flag was in common use prior to June 1777, and that no one knows who designed the 1777 flag. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that there was no "first flag" worth arguing over. Researchers accept that the United States flag evolved, and did not have one design. Marla Miller writes, "The flag, like the Revolution it represents, was the work of many hands."The family of Rebecca Young claimed that she sewed the first flag. Young's daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star-Spangled Banner Flag. She was assisted by Grace Wisher, a 13-year-old African American girl. Later flag acts In 1795, the number of stars and stripes was increased from 13 to 15 (to reflect the entry of Vermont and Kentucky as states of the Union). For a time the flag was not changed when subsequent states were admitted, probably because it was thought that this would cause too much clutter. It was the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write "Defence of Fort M'Henry", later known as "The Star-Spangled Banner", which is now the American national anthem. The flag is currently on display in the exhibition "The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem" at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History in a two-story display chamber that protects the flag while it is on view.On April 4, 1818, a plan was passed by Congress at the suggestion of U.S. Naval Captain Samuel C. Reid in which the flag was changed to have 20 stars, with a new star to be added when each new state was admitted, but the number of stripes would be reduced to 13 so as to honor the original colonies. The act specified that new flag designs should become official on the first July 4 (Independence Day) following the admission of one or more new states.In 1912, the 48-star flag was adopted. This was the first time that a flag act specified an official arrangement of the stars in the canton, namely six rows of eight stars each, where each star would point upward. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, however, has already been using standardized designs. Throughout the 19th century, different star patterns, both rectangular and circular, had been abundant in civilian use.In 1960, the current 50-star flag was adopted, incorporating the most recent change, from 49 stars to 50, when the present design was chosen, after Hawaii gained statehood in August 1959. Before that, the admission of Alaska in January 1959 had prompted the debut of a short-lived 49-star flag. 49- and 50-star unions When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood in the 1950s, more than 1,500 designs were submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Although some were 49-star versions, the vast majority were 50-star proposals. At least three of these designs were identical to the present design of the 50-star flag. At the time, credit was given by the executive department to the United States Army Institute of Heraldry for the design. The 49- and 50-star flags were each flown for the first time at Fort McHenry on Independence Day, in 1959 and 1960 respectively.On July 4, 2007, the 50-star flag became the version of the flag in the longest use, surpassing the 48-star flag that was used from 1912 to 1959. "Flower Flag" arrives in Asia The U.S. flag was brought to the city of Canton (Guǎngzhōu) in China in 1784 by the merchant ship Empress of China, which carried a cargo of ginseng. There it gained the designation "Flower Flag" (Chinese: 花旗; pinyin: huāqí; Cantonese Yale: fākeì). According to a pseudonymous account first published in the Boston Courier and later retold by author and U.S. naval officer George H. Preble: When the thirteen stripes and stars first appeared at Canton, much curiosity was excited among the people. News was circulated that a strange ship had arrived from the further end of the world, bearing a flag "as beautiful as a flower". Every body went to see the kwa kee chuen [花旗船; Fākeìsyùhn], or "flower flagship". This name at once established itself in the language, and America is now called the kwa kee kwoh [花旗國; Fākeìgwok], the "flower flag country"—and an American, kwa kee kwoh yin [花旗國人; Fākeìgwokyàhn]—"flower flag countryman"—a more complimentary designation than that of "red headed barbarian"—the name first bestowed upon the Dutch. In the above quote, the Chinese words are written phonetically based on spoken Cantonese. The names given were common usage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Chinese now refer to the United States as Měiguó from Mandarin (simplified Chinese: 美国; traditional Chinese: 美國). Měi is short for Měilìjiān (simplified Chinese: 美利坚; traditional Chinese: 美利堅, phono-semantic matching of "American") and "guó" means "country", so this name is unrelated to the flag. However, the "flower flag" terminology persists in some places today: for example, American ginseng is called flower flag ginseng (simplified Chinese: 花旗参; traditional Chinese: 花旗參) in Chinese, and Citibank, which opened a branch in China in 1902, is known as Flower Flag Bank (花旗银行).Similarly, Vietnamese also uses the borrowed term from Chinese with Sino-Vietnamese reading for the United States, as Hoa Kỳ from 花旗 ("Flower Flag"). Even though the United States is also called nước Mỹ (or simplier Mỹ) colloquially in Vietnamese before the name Měiguó was popular amongst Chinese, Hoa Kỳ is always recognized as the formal name for the United States with the Vietnamese state officially designates it as Hợp chúng quốc Hoa Kỳ (chữ Hán: 合眾國 花旗, lit. 'United states of the Flower Flag'). By that, in Vietnam, the U.S. is also nicknamed xứ Cờ Hoa ("land of Flower Flag") based on the Hoa Kỳ designation.Additionally, the seal of Shanghai Municipal Council in Shanghai International Settlement from 1869 included the U.S. flag as part of the top left-hand shield near the flag of the U.K., as the U.S. participated in the creation of this enclave in the Chinese city of Shanghai. It is also included in the badge of the Kulangsu Municipal Police in the International Settlement of Kulangsu, Amoy.President Richard Nixon presented a U.S. flag and Moon rocks to Mao Zedong during his visit to China in 1972. They are now on display at the National Museum of China.The U.S. flag took its first trip around the world in 1787–1790 on board the Columbia. William Driver, who coined the phrase "Old Glory", took the U.S. flag around the world in 1831–32. The flag attracted the notice of the Japanese when an oversized version was carried to Yokohama by the steamer Great Republic as part of a round-the-world journey in 1871. Civil War and the flag Prior to the Civil War, the American flag was rarely seen outside of military forts, government buildings and ships. This changed following the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861. The flag flying over the fort was allowed to leave with the Union troops as they surrendered. It was taken across Northern cities, which spurred a wave of "Flagmania". The Stars and Stripes, which had had no real place in the public conscious, suddenly became a part of the national identity. The flag became a symbol of the Union, and the sale of flags exploded at this time. Historian Adam Goodheart wrote: For the first time American flags were mass-produced rather than individually stitched and even so, manufacturers could not keep up with demand. As the long winter of 1861 turned into spring, that old flag meant something new. The abstraction of the Union cause was transfigured into a physical thing: strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and many thousands die for. In the Civil War, the flag was allowed to be carried into battle, reversing the 1847 regulation which prohibited this. (During the American War of Independence and War of 1812 the army was not officially sanctioned to carry the United States flag into battle. It was not until 1834 that the artillery was allowed to carry the American flag; the army would be granted to do the same in 1841. However, in 1847, in the middle of the war with Mexico, the flag was limited to camp use and not allowed to be brought into battle.) Some wanted to remove the stars of the states which had seceded but Abraham Lincoln was opposed, believing it would give legitimacy to the Confederate states. Historical progression of designs In the following table depicting the 28 various designs of the United States flag, the star patterns for the flags are merely the usual patterns, often associated with the United States Navy. Canton designs, prior to the proclamation of the 48-star flag, had no official arrangement of the stars. Furthermore, the exact colors of the flag were not standardized until 1934. Symbolism The flag of the United States is the nation's most widely recognized symbol. Within the United States, flags are frequently displayed not only on public buildings but on private residences. The flag is a common motif on decals for car windows, and on clothing ornamentation such as badges and lapel pins. Owing to the United States's emergence as a superpower in the 20th century, the flag is among the most widely recognized symbols in the world, and is used to represent the United States.The flag has become a powerful symbol of Americanism, and is flown on many occasions, with giant outdoor flags used by retail outlets to draw customers. Reverence for the flag has at times reached religion-like fervor: in 1919 William Norman Guthrie's book The Religion of Old Glory discussed "the cult of the flag" and formally proposed vexillolatry.Despite a number of attempts to ban the practice, desecration of the flag remains protected as free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Scholars have noted the irony that "[t]he flag is so revered because it represents the land of the free, and that freedom includes the ability to use or abuse that flag in protest". Comparing practice worldwide, Testi noted in 2010 that the United States was not unique in adoring its banner, for the flags of Scandinavian countries are also "beloved, domesticated, commercialized and sacralized objects". Color symbolism When the flag was officially adopted in 1777, the colors of red, white and blue were not given an official meaning. However, when Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, presented a proposed U.S. seal in 1782, he explained its center section in this way: The colours of the pales are those used in the flag of the United States of America; White signifies purity and innocence, Red, hardiness & valor, and Blue, the colour of the Chief signifies vigilance, perseverance & justice. These meanings have broadly been accepted as official, with some variation, but there are other extant interpretations as well: In 1986, president Ronald Reagan gave his own interpretation, saying, The colors of our flag signify the qualities of the human spirit we Americans cherish. Red for courage and readiness to sacrifice; white for pure intentions and high ideals; and blue for vigilance and justice." Additionally, an interpretation attributed to George Washington claims that We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty. Design Specifications The basic design of the current flag is specified by 4 U.S.C. § 1 (1947): "The flag of the United States shall be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; and the union of the flag shall be forty-eight stars, white in a blue field." 4 U.S.C. § 2 outlines the addition of new stars to represent new states, with no distinction made for the shape, size, or arrangement of the stars. Executive Order 10834 (1959) specifies a 50-star design for use after Hawaii was added as a state, and Federal Specification DDD-F-416F (2005) provides additional details about the production of physical flags for use by federal agencies. Hoist (height) of the flag: A = 1.0 Fly (width) of the flag: B = 1.9 Hoist (height) of the canton ("union"): C = 0.5385 (A × 7/13, spanning seven stripes) Fly (width) of the canton: D = 0.76 (B × 2/5, two-fifths of the flag width) E = F = 0.0538 (C/10, one-tenth of the height of the canton) G = H = 0.0633 (D/12, one twelfth of the width of the canton) Diameter of star: K = 0.0616 (approximately L × 4/5, four-fifths of the stripe width) Width of stripe: L = 0.0769 (A/13, one thirteenth of the flag height)Strictly speaking, the executive order establishing these specifications governs only flags made for or by the federal government. In practice, most U.S. national flags available for sale to the public follow the federal star arrangement, but have a different width-to-height ratio; common sizes are 2 × 3 ft. or 4 × 6 ft. (flag ratio 1.5), 2.5 × 4 ft. or 5 × 8 ft. (1.6), or 3 × 5 ft. or 6 × 10 ft. (1.667). Even flags flown over the U.S. Capitol for sale to the public through Representatives or Senators are provided in these sizes. Flags that are made to the prescribed 1.9 ratio are often referred to as "G-spec" (for "government specification") flags. Colors Federal Specification DDD-F-416F specifies the exact red, white, and blue colors to be used for physical flags procured by federal agencies with reference to the Standard Color Reference of America, 10th edition, a set of dyed silk fabric samples produced by The Color Association of the United States. The colors are "White", No. 70001; "Old Glory Red", No. 70180; and "Old Glory Blue", No. 70075. CIE coordinates for the colors of the 9th edition of the Standard Color Reference were carefully measured and cross-checked by color scientists from the National Bureau of Standards in 1946, with the resulting coordinates adopted as a formal specification. These colors form the standard for cloth, and there is no perfect way to convert them to RGB for display on screen or CMYK for printing. The "relative" coordinates in the following table were found by scaling the luminous reflectance relative to the flag's white. As with the design, the official colors are only officially required for flags produced for the U.S. federal government, and other colors are often used for mass-market flags, printed reproductions, and other products intended to evoke flag colors. The practice of using more saturated colors than the official cloth is not new. As Taylor, Knoche, and Granville wrote in 1950: "The color of the official wool bunting [of the blue field] is a very dark blue, but printed reproductions of the flag, as well as merchandise supposed to match the flag, present the color as a deep blue much brighter than the official wool."Sometimes, Pantone Matching System (PMS) alternatives to the dyed fabric colors are recommended by US government agencies for use in websites or printed documents. One set was given on the website of the U.S. embassy in London as early as 1996; the website of the U.S. embassy in Stockholm claimed in 2001 that those had been suggested by Pantone, and that the U.S. Government Printing Office preferred a different set. A third red was suggested by a California Military Department document in 2002. In 2001, the Texas legislature specified that the colors of the Texas flag should be "(1) the same colors used in the United States flag; and (2) defined as numbers 193 (red) and 281 (dark blue) of the Pantone Matching System." The current internal style guide of the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs specifies PMS 282C blue and PMS 193C red, and gives RGB and CMYK conversions generated by Adobe InDesign. Decoration Traditionally, the flag may be decorated with golden fringe surrounding the perimeter of the flag as long as it does not deface the flag proper. Ceremonial displays of the flag, such as those in parades or on indoor posts, often use fringe to enhance the flag's appearance. Traditionally, the Army and Air Force use a fringed flag for parades, color guard and indoor display, while the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard use a fringeless flag for all occasions.The first recorded use of fringe on a flag dates from 1835, and the Army used it officially in 1895. No specific law governs the legality of fringe. Still, a 1925 opinion of the attorney general addresses the use of fringe (and the number of stars) "... is at the discretion of the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy ..." as quoted from a footnote in previous volumes of Title 4 of the United States Code law books. This opinion is a source for claims that a flag with fringe is a military ensign rather than a civilian. However, according to the Army Institute of Heraldry, which has official custody of the flag designs and makes any change ordered, there are no implications of symbolism in using fringe.Individuals associated with the sovereign citizen movement and tax protester conspiracy arguments have claimed, based on the military usage, that the presence of a fringed flag in a civilian courtroom changes the nature or jurisdiction of the court. Federal and state courts have rejected this contention. Display and use The flag is customarily flown year-round at most public buildings, and it is not unusual to find private houses flying full-size (3 by 5 feet (0.91 by 1.52 m)) flags. Some private use is year-round, but becomes widespread on civic holidays like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Presidents' Day, Flag Day, and on Independence Day. On Memorial Day, it is common to place small flags by war memorials and next to the graves of U.S. war veterans. Also, on Memorial Day, it is common to fly the flag at half staff until noon to remember those who lost their lives fighting in U.S. wars. Flag etiquette The United States Flag Code outlines certain guidelines for the flag's use, display, and disposal. For example, the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing, unless it is the ensign responding to a salute from a ship of a foreign nation. This tradition may come from the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, where countries were asked to dip their flag to King Edward VII: the American flag bearer did not. Team captain Martin Sheridan is famously quoted as saying, "this flag dips to no earthly king", though the true provenance of this quotation is unclear.The flag should never be allowed to touch the ground and should be illuminated if flown at night. The flag should be repaired or replaced if the edges become tattered through wear. When a flag is so tattered that it can no longer serve as a symbol of the United States, it should be destroyed in a dignified manner, preferably by burning. The American Legion and other organizations regularly conduct flag retirement ceremonies, often on Flag Day, June 14. (The Boy Scouts of America recommends that modern nylon or polyester flags be recycled instead of burned due to hazardous gases produced when such materials are burned.)The Flag Code prohibits using the flag "for any advertising purpose" and also states that the flag "should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise impressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use". Both of these codes are generally ignored, almost always without comment. Section 8, entitled "Respect For Flag", states in part: "The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery", and "No part of the flag should ever be used as a costume or athletic uniform". Section 3 of the Flag Code defines "the flag" as anything "by which the average person seeing the same without deliberation may believe the same to represent the flag of the United States of America". An additional provision that is frequently violated at sporting events is part (c) "The flag should never be carried flat or horizontally, but always aloft and free."Although the Flag Code is U.S. federal law, there is no penalty for a private citizen or group failing to comply with the Flag Code, and it is not widely enforced—punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Passage of the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment would overrule the legal precedent that has been established. Display on vehicles When the flag is affixed to the right side of a vehicle of any kind (e.g., cars, boats, planes, any physical object that moves), it should be oriented so that the canton is towards the front of the vehicle, as if the flag were streaming backward from its hoist as the vehicle moves forward. Therefore, U.S. flag decals on the right sides of vehicles may appear to be reversed, with the union to the observer's right instead of left as more commonly seen.The flag has been displayed on every U.S. spacecraft designed for crewed flight starting from John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight in 1962, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Command/Service Module, Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. The flag also appeared on the S-IC first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle used for Apollo. Nevertheless, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were launched and landed vertically and could not horizontal atmospheric flight as the Space Shuttle did on its landing approach, so the streaming convention was not followed. These flags were oriented with the stripes running horizontally, perpendicular to the direction of flight. Display on uniforms On some U.S. military uniforms, flag patches are worn on the right shoulder, following the vehicle convention with the union toward the front. This rule dates back to the Army's early history when mounted cavalry and infantry units would designate a standard-bearer who carried the Colors into battle. As he charged, his forward motion caused the flag to stream back. Since the Stars and Stripes are mounted with the canton closest to the pole, that section stayed to the right, while the stripes flew to the left. Several U.S. military uniforms, such as flight suits worn by members of the United States Air Force and Navy, have the flag patch on the left shoulder.Other organizations that wear flag patches on their uniforms can have the flag facing in either direction. The congressional charter of the Boy Scouts of America stipulates that Boy Scout uniforms should not imitate U.S. military uniforms; consequently, the flags are displayed on the right shoulder with the stripes facing front, the reverse of the military style. Law enforcement officers often wear a small flag patch, either on a shoulder or above a shirt pocket. Every U.S. astronaut since the crew of Gemini 4 has worn the flag on the left shoulder of his or her space suit, except for the crew of Apollo 1, whose flags were worn on the right shoulder. In this case, the canton was on the left. Postage stamps The flag did not appear on U.S. postal stamp issues until the Battle of White Plains Issue was released in 1926, depicting the flag with a circle of 13 stars. The 48-star flag first appeared on the General Casimir Pulaski issue of 1931, though in a small monochrome depiction. The first U.S. postage stamp to feature the flag as the sole subject was issued July 4, 1957, Scott catalog number 1094. Since then, the flag has frequently appeared on U.S. stamps. Display in museums In 1907 Eben Appleton, New York stockbroker and grandson of Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead (the commander of Fort McHenry during the 1814 bombardment), loaned the Star-Spangled Banner Flag to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1912 he converted the loan into a gift. Appleton donated the flag with the wish that it would always be on view to the public. In 1994, the National Museum of American History determined that the Star-Spangled Banner Flag required further conservation treatment to remain on public display. In 1998 teams of museum conservators, curators, and other specialists helped move the flag from its home in the Museum's Flag Hall into a new conservation laboratory. Following the reopening of the National Museum of American History on November 21, 2008, the flag is now on display in a special exhibition, "The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag That Inspired the National Anthem," where it rests at a 10-degree angle in dim light for conservation purposes. Places of continuous display U.S. flags are displayed continuously at certain locations by presidential proclamation, acts of Congress, and custom. Replicas of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag (15 stars, 15 stripes) are flown at two sites in Baltimore, Maryland: Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine and Flag House Square. Marine Corps War Memorial (Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima), Arlington, Virginia. The Battle Green in Lexington, Massachusetts, site of the first shots fired in the Revolution The White House, Washington, D.C. Fifty U.S. flags are displayed continuously at the Washington Monument, Washington, D.C. At continuously open U.S. Customs and Border Protection Ports of Entry. A Civil War era flag (for the year 1863) flies above Pennsylvania Hall (Old Dorm) at Gettysburg College. This building, occupied by both sides at various points of the Battle of Gettysburg, served as a lookout and battlefield hospital. Grounds of the National Memorial Arch in Valley Forge NHP, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania By custom, at the Maryland home, birthplace, and grave of Francis Scott Key; at the Worcester, Massachusetts war memorial; at the plaza in Taos, New Mexico (since 1861); at the United States Capitol (since 1918); and at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota. Newark Liberty International Airport's Terminal A, Gate 17 (2001–2021) and Boston Logan Airport's Terminal B, Gate 32, and Terminal C, Gate 19 in memoriam of the events of September 11, 2001. Slover Mountain (Colton Liberty Flag), in Colton, California. July 4, 1917, to c. 1952 & 1997 to 2012. At the ceremonial South Pole as one of the 12 flags representing the signatory countries of the original Antarctic Treaty. On the Moon: six crewed missions successfully landed at various locations and each had a flag raised at the site. Exhaust gases when the Ascent Stage launched to return the astronauts to their Command Module Columbia for return to Earth blew over the flag the Apollo 11 mission had placed. Particular days for display The flag should especially be displayed at full staff on the following days: January: 1 (New Year's Day), third Monday of the month (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), and 20 (Inauguration Day, once every four years, which, by tradition, is postponed to the 21st if the 20th falls on a Sunday) February: 12 (Lincoln's birthday) and the third Monday (legally known as Washington's Birthday but more often called Presidents' Day) March–April: Easter Sunday (date varies) May: Second Sunday (Mothers Day), third Saturday (Armed Forces Day), and last Monday (Memorial Day; half-staff until noon) June: 14 (Flag Day), third Sunday (Father's Day) July: 4 (Independence Day) September: First Monday (Labor Day), 17 (Constitution Day), and last Sunday (Gold Star Mother's Day) October: Second Monday (Columbus Day) and 27 (Navy Day) November: 11 (Veterans Day) and fourth Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) December: 25 (Christmas Day) and such other days as may be proclaimed by the president of the United States; the birthdays of states (date of admission); and on state holidays. Display at half-staff The flag is displayed at half-staff (half-mast in naval usage) as a sign of respect or mourning. Nationwide, this action is proclaimed by the president; statewide or territory-wide, the proclamation is made by the governor. In addition, there is no prohibition against municipal governments, private businesses, or citizens flying the flag at half-staff as a local sign of respect and mourning. However, many flag enthusiasts feel this type of practice has somewhat diminished the meaning of the original intent of lowering the flag to honor those who held high positions in federal or state offices. President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first proclamation on March 1, 1954, standardizing the dates and periods for flying the flag at half-staff from all federal buildings, grounds, and naval vessels; other congressional resolutions and presidential proclamations ensued. However, they are only guidelines to all other entities: typically followed at state and local government facilities and encouraged of private businesses and citizens.To properly fly the flag at half-staff, one should first briefly hoist it top of the staff, then lower it to the half-staff position, halfway between the top and bottom of the staff. Similarly, when the flag is to be lowered from half-staff, it should be first briefly hoisted to the top of the staff.Federal statutes provide that the flag should be flown at half-staff on the following dates: May 15: Peace Officers Memorial Day (unless it is the third Saturday in May, Armed Forces Day, then full-staff) Last Monday in May: Memorial Day (until noon) September 11: Patriot Day First Sunday in October: Start of Fire Prevention Week, in honor of the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service. December 7: National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day For 30 days: Death of a president or former president For 10 days: Death of a vice president, Supreme Court chief justice/retired chief justice, or speaker of the House of Representatives. From death until the day of interment: Supreme Court associate justice, member of the Cabinet, former vice president, president pro tempore of the Senate, or the majority and minority leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives. Also, for federal facilities within a state or territory, for the governor. On the day after the death: Senators, members of Congress, territorial delegates, or the resident commissioner of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Desecration The flag of the United States is sometimes burned as a cultural or political statement, in protest of the policies of the U.S. government, or for other reasons, both within the U.S. and abroad. The United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989), and reaffirmed in U.S. v. Eichman, 496 U.S. 310 (1990), has ruled that due to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, it is unconstitutional for a government (whether federal, state, or municipal) to prohibit the desecration of a flag, due to its status as "symbolic speech." However, content-neutral restrictions may still be imposed to regulate the time, place, and manner of such expression. If the flag that was burned was someone else's property (as it was in the Johnson case, since Johnson had stolen the flag from a Texas bank's flagpole), the offender could be charged with petty larceny (a flag usually sells at retail for less than US$20), or with destruction of private property, or possibly both. Desecration of a flag representing a minority group may also be charged as a hate crime in some jurisdictions. Folding for storage Though not part of the official Flag Code, according to military custom, flags should be folded into a triangular shape when not in use. To properly fold the flag: Begin by holding it waist-high with another person so that its surface is parallel to the ground. Fold the lower half of the stripe section lengthwise over the field of stars, holding the bottom and top edges securely. Fold the flag again lengthwise with the blue field on the outside. Make a rectangular fold then a triangular fold by bringing the striped corner of the folded edge to meet the open top edge of the flag, starting the fold from the left side over to the right. Turn the outer end point inward, parallel to the open edge, to form a second triangle. The triangular folding is continued until the entire length of the flag is folded in this manner (usually thirteen triangular folds, as shown at right). On the final fold, any remnant that does not neatly fold into a triangle (or in the case of exactly even folds, the last triangle) is tucked into the previous fold. When the flag is completely folded, only a triangular blue field of stars should be visible.There is also no specific meaning for each fold of the flag. However, there are scripts read by non-government organizations and also by the Air Force that are used during the flag folding ceremony. These scripts range from historical timelines of the flag to religious themes. Use in funerals Traditionally, the flag of the United States plays a role in military funerals, and occasionally in funerals of other civil servants (such as law enforcement officers, fire fighters, and U.S. presidents). A burial flag is draped over the deceased's casket as a pall during services. Just prior to the casket being lowered into the ground, the flag is ceremonially folded and presented to the deceased's next of kin as a token of respect. Surviving historical flags Revolutionary War Forster Flag (1775) – Historians believe the Manchester Company of the First Essex County Militia Regiment carried this flag during the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The militia unit was activated but was not involved in the day's fighting. This flag is historic because it is the oldest surviving flag depicting the 13 colonies. This flag may have been a British ensign flag that had its Union Jack removed and replaced with 13 white stripes before or after the battles of Lexington and Concord. The slight variation in the canton area suggests something else might have been sewn into place before. The flag gets its name from Samuel Forster, a First Lieutenant in the Manchester Company. He took possession of the flag, and his descendants passed it down until donating it to the American Flag Heritage Foundation in 1975, two hundred years later. In April 2014, the foundation sold the flag at auction. Westmoreland Flag (1775?) – Flag used by the 1st Battalion of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. In 1774 the town of Hanna, the county seat of Westmoreland County, began preparations for a conflict with the mother country as tensions between the two sides began to heat up. The town decided in May 1775, following the battles of Lexington and Concord, to create two battalions. The town sheriff, John Proctor, would have command over the 1st, and the unit would see action at Trenton and Princeton. Due to the flag's remarkable condition, it is speculated that it never flew in many battles, if at all. The flag is said to have been made in the fall of 1775 from a standard British red ensign. This flag is one of two surviving revolutionary flags that feature a coiled rattlesnake, along with the flag of the United Company of the Train of Artillery. After the war in 1810, Alexander Craig, a captain in the 2nd battalion, was given the flag. It would stay with the Craig family until donated to the Pennsylvania State Library in 1914. Brandywine Flag (1777) – This flag is stated in most research as being the flag of the 7th Pennsylvania Regiment. However, the Independence National Historical Park, which currently owns the flag, states it is the flag of the Chester County Militia. The flags gets its name for being used at the Battle of Brandywine which took place on September 11, 1777, less than three months after the passage of the first flag act making it one of the earliest stars and stripes. Dansey Flag (1777) – Flag used by a Delaware militia early in the war. Before the Battle of Brandywine, a soldier with the British 33rd Regiment of foote named William Dansey captured the militia's flag during a skirmish in Newark, Delaware. Dansey would take the flag back to England as a war trophy. It would remain in his family until 1927, after being auctioned off to the Delaware Historical Society. This flag would have been one of the earliest to use 13 stripes to represent the united colonies. Another interesting note about this flag is that it was most likely a Division color instead of being used by one militia regiment. First Pennsylvania Rifles Flag (1776?) – Battle colors for the First Pennsylvania Regiment This regiment, also known as the First Pennsylvania Rifles, was formed in 1775 following an act passed by the Continental Congress calling for ten companies of marksmen. The regiment would participate in many significant battles during the Revolution, such as the siege of Boston, Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, and Monmouth. They would be dissolved in November 1783 following the treaty of Paris. The earliest mention of this flag was mentioned in a 1776 letter by one of its soldiers. The flag would be with the unit until the end of the war. Third New York Regiment Flag (1779) – The Third New York was formed in 1775 on five-month enlistments that expired later that year. In 1776 however, the regiment would be re-established twice, once in January and the other in December. During the war, the Third New York saw action in Canada, White Plains, and New York, during which it participated in the defense of Fort Stanwix. In 1780 the soldiers of the third were transferred over to the 1st New York Regiment. While not the most famous of regiments in turns of battles fought, it does leave behind a legacy that can be seen in the flag of New York. In 1778 New York adopted a coat of arms for the state. The following year, the regiment's colonel Peter Gansevoort gifted the unit a blue regimental flag bearing the newly adopted arms. This flag would serve as the basis of the current flag of New York. War of 1812 Star Spangled Banner Flag (1814) – Flag that flew over Fort McHenry during a British bombardment in the War of 1812. This flag is depicted by Francis Scott Key in the song "Star-Spangled Banner" which would later become the national anthem of the United States. Details : 30 x 34 ft. (Currently) 15 horizontal stripes alternating red and white stripes 14 stars (one missing) Stars arranged in a staggered 3-3-3-3-3 pattern Antebellum Period Fillmore Flag — A historic Bennington flag currently maintained by the Bennington Museum, held to be an heirloom from president Millard Fillmore's family. Though it is sometimes taken to be an authentic artifact of the Battle of Bennington, curators date it no earlier than the 19th century based on its construction. The Bennington Museum estimates it was made sometime between 1812 and 1820, though one estimate places it as late as 1876. Old Glory Flag – This flag was the first American Flag to be given the name "Old Glory". The flag was made in 1824 and was a gift to William Driver, a sea captain, by his mother. He named the flag 'Old Glory' and took it with him during his time at sea. In 1861 the flag's original stars were replaced with 34 new ones, and an anchor was added to the corner of the canton. During the Civil war, Driver hid his flag until Nashville became under union hands, to which he flew the flag above the Tennessee capitol building. Matthew Perry Expedition Flag (1853) – On July 14, 1853, this flag was raised over Uraga, Japan, during the Perry Expedition, in doing so it became the first American Flag to officially fly in mainland Japan. In 1855 it was presented to the US Naval Academy. In 1913 it received a linen backing during preservation treatments by Amelia Fowler, who would also work on restoring the Star-Spangled Banner. Nearly a century after its historic voyage to Japan, in 1945, the flag once again returned and was present at the formal surrender of Japan on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. Owing to its condition, it had to be presented on its reverse side. As of 2021, the U.S. Naval Academy possesses the flag. Civil War Fort Sumter Flag (1861) – During the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861, the flagpole was hit by artillery fire. The flag was raised again from a makeshift pole and was taken down after the Union garrison surrendered. The terms of surrender allowed the U.S. artillery to fire a salute for the flag. The flag was taken by the departing commander of the fort and was displayed to the public on a tour of the northern states. From this point, private citizens' display of the United States flag became much more common. Four years after the flag was lowered at Fort Sumter, it flew over the fort again on April 14, 1865, following the Confederate surrender. Later that day, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Abraham Lincoln Assassination Flag (1865) – Flag that was placed under the head of President Abraham Lincoln following his fatal shooting while he was still in the presidential box. Reconstruction Little Big Horn Guidon – Guidon used by the 7th U.S. Cavalry during the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. The battle is infamous, for all U.S. cavalry troops engaged in battle were killed, including Lt. Col George A. Custer. Sgt. Ferdinand Culbertson discovered this flag under the body of one of the slain soldiers. In 2010, this flag was sold for $2.2 million. World War II Iwo Jima Flag (1945) – American flag that was raised above Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in WW2. The photo of this flag being raised by U.S. Marines was captured in the 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Cold War Freedom 7 Flag (1961) – This American Flag flew on the Freedom 7 mission to space, becoming the first American flag to leave the Earth's atmosphere. The flag was a last-minute addition after a local student council president asked a reporter if this flag could be taken on board. The reporter took it to the head of the NASA space task group, to which he agreed. In 1995, the flag was again taken to space to commemorate the 100th American crewed space mission. Modern day 9/11 Flag (2001) – Flag is believed to have been from a yacht called the "Star of America" owned by Shirley Dreifus and her late husband Spiros E. Kopelakis. The Yacht and its flag were docked in the Hudson River on the morning of 9/11. The flag was later found by three members of the New York Fire Department, George Johnson, Billy Eisengrein, and Dan McWilliams, who raised it over the rubble on a tilted flag pole (thought to be from the grounds of the Marriot hotel). This was captured in a photograph taken by Thomas Franklin, who worked for the New Jersey-based newspaper The Record. The photograph soon made its way to the Associated Press, and from there, it became shown worldwide on many newspapers' front pages. The photo has been compared to Joe Rosenthal's WW2 "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima". Lori Ginker and Ricky Flores captured other photos of the same event from different angles. Shortly after the famous photograph was taken, the flag disappeared. Another flag, thought to be the real one, was toured around the country, but it was later found that the size of this flag was not the same as the one in the photograph. The one in the photo was 3x5, while the one the city possessed was larger. The flag would remain missing for nearly 15 years until a man named Brian turned an American flag into a fire station along with its halyard. Investigators determined that his flag was genuine after comparing dust samples and event photographs. Today the 9/11 Memorial Museum possesses the flag. Related flags The U.S. flag has inspired many other flags for regions, political movements, and cultural groups, resulting in a stars and stripes flag family. The other national flags belonging to this family are: Chile, Cuba, Greece, Liberia, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Togo, and Uruguay. The flag of Bikini Atoll is symbolic of the islanders' belief that a great debt is still owed to the people of Bikini because in 1954 the United States government detonated a thermonuclear bomb on the island as part of the Castle Bravo test. The Republic of the United States of Brazil briefly used a flag inspired by the U.S. flag between 15 and 19 November 1889, proposed by the lawyer Ruy Barbosa. The flag had 13 green and yellow stripes, as well as a blue square with 21 white stars for the canton. The flag was vetoed by the then provisional president Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca citing concerns that it looked too similar to the American flag. The flag of Liberia bears a close resemblance, showing the origin of the country in free people of color from North America and primarily the United States. The Liberian flag has 11 similar red and white stripes, which stand for the 11 signers of the Liberian Declaration of Independence, as well as a blue square with only a single large white star for the canton. The flag is the only current flag in the world modeled after and resembling the American flag, as Liberia is the only nation in the world that was founded, colonized, established, and controlled by settlers who were free people of color and formerly enslaved people from the United States and the Caribbean aided and supported by the American Colonization Society beginning in 1822. Despite Malaysia having no historical connections with the U.S., the flag of Malaysia greatly resembles the U.S. flag. Some theories posit that the flag of the British East India Company influenced both the Malaysian and U.S. flag. The flag of El Salvador from 1865 to 1912. El Salvador's flag at that time was based on the flag of the United States, with a field of alternating blue and white stripes and a red canton containing white stars. The flag of Brittany was inspired in part by the American flag. The flag of the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, an unrecognized state that existed from 1917 to 1922, during the Russian Civil War, was divided into seven horizontal stripes that altered between green and white. In the right top corner was placed a blue canton with seven five-pointed yellow stars. Six of those were placed in two horizontal rows, each containing three stars. Next to them, on the right, was placed another star, in the middle of the height of two rows. The stars were slightly sued to the left. The seven stars and seven stripes represented the seven regions of the country. Possible future design of the flag If a new U.S. state were to be admitted, it would require a new design of the flag to accommodate an additional star for a 51st state. 51-star flags have been designed and used as a symbol by supporters of statehood in various jurisdictions. Potential statehood candidates include U.S. territories, the national capital (Washington, D.C.), or a state created from the partition of an existing state. Residents of the District of Columbia (D.C.) and Puerto Rico have each voted for statehood in referendums (most recently in the 2016 statehood referendum in the District of Columbia and the 2020 Puerto Rican status referendum). Neither proposal has been approved by Congress. In 2019, District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser had dozens of 51-star flags installed on Pennsylvania Avenue, the street linking the U.S. Capitol building with the White House, in anticipation of a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives regarding potential District of Columbia statehood. On June 26, 2020, the House voted to establish D.C. as the 51st state; however, the bill was not expected to pass in the Senate, and the administration of President Donald Trump indicated he would veto the bill if passed by both chambers. It died in the Republican-controlled Senate at the end of the 116th Congress. On January 4, 2021, Delegate Norton reintroduced H.R. 51 early in the 117th Congress with a record 202 co-sponsors. Senator Carper likewise introduced a similar bill, S. 51, into the United States Senate. However, Democratic fellow senator Joe Manchin came out against both bills, effectively dooming their passage.According to the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry, the United States flag never becomes obsolete. Any approved American flag may continue to be used and displayed until no longer serviceable. See also Article sections Colors, standards and guidons § United States Flag desecration § United States Associated people Robert Anderson (1805–1871), lowered the Fort Sumter Flag, which became a national symbol, and he a hero Francis Bellamy (1855–1931), creator of the Pledge of Allegiance Thomas E. Franklin (1966–present), photographer of Ground Zero Spirit, better known as Raising the Flag at Ground Zero Christopher Gadsden (1724–1805), after whom the Gadsden flag is named Francis Hopkinson (1737–1791), designed the U.S. flag in 1777 Jasper Johns (born 1930), painter of Flag (1954–55), inspired by a dream of the flag Katha Pollitt (1949–present), author of a controversial essay on post-9/11 America and her refusal to fly a U.S. flag George Preble (1816–1885), author of History of the American Flag (1872) and photographer of the Fort McHenry flag Joe Rosenthal (1911–2006), photographer of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima Betsy Ross (1752–1836), said to have sewn the first U.S. flag in a popular legend, and after whom the Betsy Ross flag is named Bibliography Further reading "Identity and Marking Standards" (PDF). Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Washington, D.C.: United States Department of State. June 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 14, 2013. Retrieved February 14, 2013. United States at Flags of the World Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Facts About the United States Flag Text of the United States Flag Code (chap. 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code) Executive Order No. 10798, with specifications and regulations for the current flag July 1942: United We Stand – National Museum of American History online exhibition highlighting some 500 magazines featuring the American flag on their cover during World War II

Shiing-Shen Chern (; Chinese: 陳省身; pinyin: Chén Xǐngshēn, Mandarin: [tʂʰən.ɕiŋ.ʂən]; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geometry" and is widely regarded as a leader in geometry and one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, winning numerous awards and recognition including the Wolf Prize and the inaugural Shaw Prize. In memory of Shiing-Shen Chern, the International Mathematical Union established the Chern Medal in 2010 to recognize "an individual whose accomplishments warrant the highest level of recognition for outstanding achievements in the field of mathematics".Chern worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (1943–45), spent about a decade at the University of Chicago (1949-1960), and then moved to University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1982 and was the institute's founding director. Renowned co-authors with Chern include Jim Simons, an American mathematician and billionaire hedge fund manager. Chern's work, most notably the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, Chern–Simons theory, and Chern classes, are still highly influential in current research in mathematics, including geometry, topology, and knot theory; as well as many branches of physics, including string theory, condensed matter physics, general relativity, and quantum field theory. According to Taking the Long View: The Life of Shiing-shen Chern (2011):[His] formidable mathematical contributions were matched by an approach and vision that helped build bridges between China and the West. Name Spelling Chern's surname (陈) is a common Chinese surname which is now usually spelled Chen. The unusual spelling "Chern" is from the old Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) romanization for Mandarin Chinese used in early twentieth-century China. It uses special spelling rules to indicate different tones of Mandarin, which is a tonal language with four tones. The silent r in "Chern" indicates a second-tone syllable, written "Chén" in pinyin. In GR the spelling of his given name "Shiing-Shen" indicates a third tone for Shiing and a first tone for Shen, which are equivalent to the syllables "Xǐngshēn" in pinyin. In English, Chern pronounced his name "Churn" (), and this spelling pronunciation is now universally accepted among English-speaking mathematicians and physicists, despite being different from the original Chinese pronunciation. Biography Early years in China Chern was born in Xiushui, Jiaxing, China in 1911. He graduated from Xiushui Middle School (秀水中學) and subsequently moved to Tianjin in 1922 to accompany his father. In 1926, after spending four years in Tianjin, Chern graduated from Fulun High School.At age 15, Chern entered the Faculty of Sciences of the Nankai University in Tianjin and was interested in physics, but not so much the laboratory, so he studied mathematics instead. Chern graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1930. At Nankai, Chern's mentor was mathematician Jiang Lifu, and Chern was also heavily influenced by Chinese physicist Rao Yutai, considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern Chinese informatics. Chern went to Beijing to work at the Tsinghua University Department of Mathematics as a teaching assistant. At the same time he also registered at Tsinghua Graduate School as a student. He studied projective differential geometry under Sun Guangyuan, a University of Chicago-trained geometer and logician who was also from Zhejiang. Sun is another mentor of Chern who is considered a founder of modern Chinese mathematics. In 1932, Chern published his first research article in the Tsinghua University Journal. In the summer of 1934, Chern graduated from Tsinghua with a master's degree, the first ever master's degree in mathematics issued in China.Yang Chen-Ning's father, Yang Ko-Chuen, another Chicago-trained professor at Tsinghua, but specializing in algebra, also taught Chern. At the same time, Chern was Chen-Ning Yang's teacher of undergraduate maths at Tsinghua. At Tsinghua, Hua Luogeng, also a mathematician, was Chern's colleague and roommate. In 1932, Wilhelm Blaschke from the University of Hamburg visited Tsinghua and was impressed by Chern and his research. 1934–1937 in Europe In 1934, Chern received a scholarship to study in the United States at Princeton and Harvard, but at the time he wanted to study geometry and Europe was the center for the maths and sciences.He studied with the well-known Austrian geometer Wilhelm Blaschke. Co-funded by Tsinghua and the Chinese Foundation of Culture and Education, Chern went to continue his study in mathematics in Germany with a scholarship.Chern studied at the University of Hamburg and worked under Blaschke's guidance first on the geometry of webs then on the Cartan-Kähler theory and invariant theory. He would often eat lunch and chat in German with fellow colleague Erich Kähler.He had a three-year scholarship but finished his degree very quickly in two years. He obtained his Dr. rer.nat. (Doctor of Science, which is equivalent to PhD) degree in February, 1936. He wrote his thesis in German, and it was titled Eine Invariantentheorie der Dreigewebe aus r {\displaystyle r} -dimensionalen Mannigfaltigkeiten im R 2 r {\displaystyle R_{2r}} (English: An invariant theory of 3-webs of r {\displaystyle r} -dimensional manifolds in R 2 r {\displaystyle R_{2r}} ).For his third year, Blaschke recommended Chern to study at the University of Paris.It was at this time that he had to choose between the career of algebra in Germany under Emil Artin and the career of geometry in France under Élie-Joseph Cartan. Chern was tempted by what he called the "organizational beauty" of Artin's algebra, but in the end, he decided to go to France in September 1936. He spent one year at the Sorbonne in Paris. There he met Cartan once a fortnight. Chern said:Usually the day after [meeting with Cartan] I would get a letter from him. He would say, “After you left, I thought more about your questions...”—he had some results, and some more questions, and so on. He knew all these papers on simple Lie groups, Lie algebras, all by heart. When you saw him on the street, when a certain issue would come up, he would pull out some old envelope and write something and give you the answer. And sometimes it took me hours or even days to get the same answer... I had to work very hard.In August 1936, Chern watched the Summer Olympics in Berlin together with Chinese mathematician Hua Luogeng who paid Chern a brief visit. During that time, Hua was studying at the University of Cambridge in Britain. 1937-1943 WW2 In the summer of 1937, Chern accepted the invitation of Tsinghua University and returned to China. He was promoted to professor of mathematics at Tsinghua. In late 1937, however, the start of World War 2 forced Tsinghua and other academic institutions to move away from Beijing to west China. Three universities including Peking University, Tsinghua, and Nankai formed the temporary National Southwestern Associated University (NSAU), and relocated to Kunming, Yunnan province. Chern never reached Beijing. In 1939, Chern married Shih-Ning Cheng, and the couple had two children, Paul and May.The war prevented Chern from having regular contacts with the outside mathematical community. He wrote to Cartan about his situation, to which Cartan sent him a box of his reprints. Chern spent a considerable amount of time pondering over Cartan's papers and published despite relative isolation. In 1943, his papers gained international recognition, and Oswald Veblen invited him to the IAS. Because of the war, it took him a week to reach Princeton via US military aircraft. 1943-1945 visit to the IAS, the Chern theorem In July 1943, Chern went to the United States, and worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton on characteristic classes in differential geometry. There he worked with André Weil on the Chern–Weil homomorphism and theory of characteristic classes, later to be foundational to the Atiyah–Singer index theorem. Shortly afterwards, he was invited by Solomon Lefschetz to be an editor of Annals of Mathematics. Between 1943-1964 he was invited back to the IAS on several occasions. On Chern, Weil wrote:... we seemed to share a common attitude towards such subjects, or towards mathematics in general; we were both striving to strike at the root of each question while freeing our minds from preconceived notions about what others might have regarded as the right or the wrong way of dealing with it.It was at the IAS that his work culminated in his publication of the generalization of the famous Gauss–Bonnet theorem to higher dimensional manifolds, now known today as the Chern theorem. It is widely considered to be his magnum opus. This period at the IAS was a turning point in career, having a major impact on mathematics, while fundamentally altering the course of differential geometry and algebraic geometry. In a letter to the then director Frank Aydelotte, Chern wrote:“The years 1943–45 will undoubtedly be decisive in my career, and I have profited not only in the mathematical side. I am inclined to think that among the people who have stayed at the Institute, I was one who has profited the most, but the other people may think the same way.” 1945-48 first return to China Chern returned to Shanghai in 1945 to help found the Institute of Mathematics of the Academia Sinica. Chern was the acting president of the institute. Wu Wenjun was Chern's graduate student at the institute. In 1948, Chern was elected one of the first academicians of the Academia Sinica. He was the youngest academician elected (at age 37). In 1948, he accepted an invitation by Weyl and Veblen to return to Princeton as a professor. Before leaving to the United States, Chern was rejected a position by the Indians at the Tata Institute in Bombay, during the British Raj India. 1948-60 Back in the USA, University of Chicago By the end of 1948, Chern returned to the United States and IAS. He brought his family with him. In 1949, he was invited by Weil to become professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago and accepted the position as chair of geometry. Coincidentally, Ernest Preston Lane, former Chair at UChicago Department of Mathematics, was the doctoral advisor of Chern's undergraduate mentor at Tsinghua—Sun Guangyuan. In 1950 he was invited by the International Congress of Mathematicians in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He delivered his address on the Differential Geometry of Fiber Bundles. According to Hans Samelson, in the lecture Chern introduced the notion of a connection on a principal fiber bundle, a generalization of the Levi-Civita connection. Shii Berkeley and MSRI In 1960 Chern moved to the University of California, Berkeley. He worked and stayed there until he became an emeritus professor in 1979. In 1961, Chern became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In the same year, he was elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. My election to the US National Academy of Sciences was a prime factor for my US citizenship. In 1960 I was tipped about the possibility of an academy membership. Realizing that a citizenship was necessary, I applied for it. The process was slowed because of my association to Oppenheimer. As a consequence I became a US citizen about a month before my election to academy membership.In 1964, Chern was a vice-president of American Mathematical Society (AMS). Chern retired from UC Berkeley in 1979. In 1981, together with colleagues Calvin C. Moore and Isadore Singer, he founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at Berkeley, serving as the director until 1984. Afterward he became the honorary director of the institute. MSRI now is one of the largest and most prominent mathematical institutes in the world. Shing-Tung Yau was one of his PhD students during this period, and he later won the Fields Medal in 1982. During WW2, the US did not have much of a scene in geometry (which is why he chose to study in Germany). Chern was largely responsible in making the US a leading research hub in the field, but he remained modest about his achievements, preferring to say that he is a man of 'small problems' rather than 'big views.' Visits to China and bridging East and West The Shanghai Communiqué was issued by the United States and the People's Republic of China on February 27, 1972. The relationship between these two nations started to normalize, and American citizens were allowed to visit China. In September 1972, Chern visited Beijing with his wife. During this period of time, Chern visited China 25 times, of which 14 were to his home province Zhejiang. He was admired and respected by Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and Jiang Zemin. Because of foreign prestigious scientific support, Chern was able to revive mathematical research in China, producing a generation of influential Chinese mathematicians. Chern founded the Nankai Institute for Mathematics (NKIM) at his alma mater Nankai in Tianjin. The institute was formally established in 1984 and fully opened on October 17, 1985. NKIM was renamed the Chern Institute of Mathematics in 2004 after Chern's death. He was treated as a rock star and cultural icon in China. Regarding his influence in China and help raising a generation of new mathematicians, ZALA films says:Several world-renowned figures, such as Gang Tian and Shing-Tung Yau, consider Chern the mentor who helped them study in western countries following the bleak years of the Cultural Revolution, when Chinese universities were closed and academic pursuits suppressed. By the time Chern started returning to China regularly during the 1980s, he had become a celebrity; every school child knew his name, and TV cameras documented his every move whenever he ventured forth from the institute he established at Nankai University.He has said that back then the main obstruent to the growth of math in China is the low pay, which is important considering that after the cultural revolution many families were impoverished. But he has said that given China's size, it naturally has a large talent pool of budding mathematicians. Nobel Prize winner and former student CN Yang has said“Chern and I and many others felt that we have the responsibility to try to create more understanding between the American people and the Chinese people, and... all of us shared the desire to promote more exchanges.” Final years and death In 1999, Chern moved from Berkeley back to Tianjin, China permanently until his death.Based on Chern's advice, a mathematical research center was established in Taipei, Taiwan, whose co-operational partners are National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University and the Academia Sinica Institute of Mathematics. In 2002, he convinced the Chinese government (the PRC) for the first time to host the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing. In the speech at the opening ceremony he said:“The great Confucius guided China spiritually for over 2,000 years. The main doctrine is “仁” pronounced “ren”, meaning two people, i.e., human relationship. Modern science has been highly competitive. I think an injection of the human element will make our subject more healthy and enjoyable. Let us wish that this congress will open a new era in the future development of math.” Chern was also a director and advisor of the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Chern died of heart failure at Tianjin Medical University General Hospital in 2004 at age 93.In 2010 George Csicsery featured him in the documentary short Taking the Long View: The Life of Shiing-shen Chern.His former residence, Ningyuan (寧園), is still in campus of Nankai University, kept in the way when he was living there. Every year on December 3, Ningyuan is open for visitors for memorial of him. Research Physics Nobel Prize winner (and former student) C. N. Yang has said that Chern is on par with Euclid, Gauss, Riemann, Cartan. Two of Chern's most important contributions that have reshaped the fields of geometry and topology include Chern-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, the generalization of the famous Gauss–Bonnet theorem (100 years earlier) to higher dimensional manifolds. Chern considers this his greatest work. Chern proved it by developing his geometric theory of fiber bundles. Chern classes, the complexification of Pontryagin classes, which have found wide-reaching applications in modern physics, especially string theory, quantum field theory, condensed matter physics, in things like the magnetic monopole. His main idea was that one should do geometry and topology in the complex case. In 2007, Chern's disciple and IAS director Phillip Griffiths edited Inspired by S. S. Chern: A Memorial Volume in Honor of A Great Mathematician (World Scientific Press). Griffiths wrote:“More than any other mathematician, Shiing-Shen Chern defined the subject of global differential geometry, a central area in contemporary mathematics. In work that spanned almost seven decades, he helped to shape large areas of modern mathematics... I think that he, more than anyone, was the founder of one of the central areas of modern mathematics.”His work extended over all the classic fields of differential geometry as well as more modern ones including general relativity, invariant theory, characteristic classes, cohomology theory, Morse theory, Fiber bundles, Sheaf theory, Cartan's theory of differential forms, etc. His work included areas currently-fashionable, perennial, foundational, and nascent:Chern–Simons theory arising from a 1974 paper written jointly with Jim Simons; and also gauge theory, Chern–Simons form, Chern-Simons field theory. CS theory now has great importance in knot theory and modern string theory and condensed matter physics research, including Topological phases of matter and Topological quantum field theory. Chern–Weil theory linking curvature invariants to characteristic classes from 1944 class theory for Hermitian manifolds Chern-Bott theory, including the Chern-Bott theorem, a famous result on complex geometrizations of complex value distribution functions value distribution theory of holomorphic functions Chern-Lashof theory on tight immersions, compiled in a monograph over 30 years with Richard Lashof at Chicago Chern-Lashof theorem: a proof was announced in 1989 by Sharpe projective differential geometry webs integral geometry, including the 'moving theorem' (運動定理), in collaboration with Yan Zhida minimal surfaces, minimal submanifolds and harmonic mappings Exterior Differential Systems and Partial Differential EquationsHe was a follower of Élie Cartan, working on the 'theory of equivalence' in his time in China from 1937 to 1943, in relative isolation. In 1954 he published his own treatment of the pseudogroup problem that is in effect the touchstone of Cartan's geometric theory. He used the moving frame method with success only matched by its inventor; he preferred in complex manifold theory to stay with the geometry, rather than follow the potential theory. Indeed, one of his books is entitled "Complex Manifolds without Potential Theory". Differential forms Along with Cartan, Chern is one of the mathematicians known for popularizing the use of differential forms in math and physics. In his biography, Richard Palais and Chuu-Lian Terng have written ... we would like to point out a unifying theme that runs through all of it: his absolute mastery of the techniques of differential forms and his artful application of these techniques in solving geometric problems. This was a magic mantle, handed down to him by his great teacher, Élie Cartan. It permitted him to explore in depth new mathematical territory where others could not enter. What makes differential forms such an ideal tool for studying local and global geometric properties (and for relating them to each other) is their two complementary aspects. They admit, on the one hand, the local operation of exterior differentiation, and on the other the global operation of integration over cochains, and these are related via Stokes's Theorem. While at the IAS, there were two competing methods of geometry: the tensor calculus and the newer differential forms. Chern has written I usually like to say that vector fields is like a man, and differential forms is like a woman. Society must have two sexes. If you only have one, it’s not enough.In the last years of his life, he advocated the study of Finsler geometry, writing several books and articles on the subject. His research on Finsler geometry is continued through Tian Gang, Paul C. Yang, and Sun-Yung Alice Chang of Princeton University. He was known for unifying geometric and topological methods to prove stunning new results. Honors and awards Chern received numerous honors and awards in his life, including: 1970, Chauvenet Prize, of the Mathematical Association of America; 1975, National Medal of Science; 1982, Humboldt Prize, Germany; 1983, Leroy P. Steele Prize, of the American Mathematical Society; 1984, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, Israel; 2002, Lobachevsky Medal; 2004 May, Shaw Prize in mathematical sciences, Hong Kong; 1948, Academician, Academia Sinica; 1950, Honorary Member, Indian Mathematical Society; 1950, Honorary Fellow, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research 1961, Member, United States National Academy of Sciences; 1963, Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 1971, Corresponding Member, Brazilian Academy of Sciences; 1983, Associate Founding Fellow, TWAS; 1985, Foreign Fellow, Royal Society of London, UK; 1986, Honorary Fellow, London Mathematical Society, UK; 1986, Corresponding Member, Accademia Peloritana, Messina, Sicily; 1987, Honorary Life Member, New York Academy of Sciences; 1989, Foreign Member, Accademia dei Lincei, Italy; 1989, Foreign Member, Académie des sciences, France; 1989, Member, American Philosophical Society; 1994, Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of Sciences.Chern was given a number of honorary degrees, including from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (LL.D. 1969), University of Chicago (D.Sc. 1969), ETH Zurich (Dr.Math. 1982), Stony Brook University (D.Sc. 1985), TU Berlin (Dr.Math. 1986), his alma mater Hamburg (D.Sc. 1971) and Nankai (honorary doctorate, 1985), etc. Chern was also granted numerous honorary professorships, including at Peking University (Beijing, 1978), his alma mater Nankai (Tianjin, 1978), Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Systems Science (Beijing, 1980), Jinan University (Guangzhou, 1980), Chinese Academy of Sciences Graduate School (1984), Nanjing University (Nanjing, 1985), East China Normal University (Shanghai, 1985), USTC (Hefei, 1985), Beijing Normal University (1985), Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, 1985), Hangzhou University (1986, the university was merged into Zhejiang University in 1998), Fudan University (Shanghai, 1986), Shanghai University of Technology (1986, the university was merged to establish Shanghai University in 1994), Tianjin University (1987), Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan, 1987), etc. Publications Shiing Shen Chern, Topics in Differential Geometry, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 1951 Shiing Shen Chern, Differential Manifolds, University of Chicago 1953 Shiing Shen Chern, Complex Manifolds, University of Chicago, 1956 Shiing Shen Chern: Complex manifolds Without Potential Theory, Springer-Verlag, New York 1979 Shiing Shen Chern, Minimal Submanifolds in a Riemannian Manifold, University of Kansas 1968 Bao, David Dai-Wai; Chern, Shiing-Shen; Shen, Zhongmin, Editors, Finsler Geometry American Mathematical Society 1996 Shiing-Shen Chern, Zhongmin Shen, Riemann Finsler Geometry, World Scientific 2005 Shiing Shen Chern, Selected Papers, Vol I-IV, Springer Shiing-Shen Chern, A Simple Intrinsic Proof of the Gauss-Bonnet Formula for Closed Riemannian Manifolds, Annals of Mathematics, 1944 Shiing-Shen Chern, Characteristic Classes of Hermitian Manifolds, Annals of Mathematics, 1946 Shiing Shen Chern, Geometrical Interpretation of the sinh-Gordon Equation Shiing Shen Chern, Geometry of a Quadratic Differential Form, Journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 1962 Shiing Shen Chern, On the Euclidean Connections in a Finsler Space, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1943 Shiing Shen Chern, General Relativity and differential geometry Shiing Shen Chern, Geometry and physics Shiing Shen Chern, Web geometry Shiing Shen Chern, Deformation of surfaces preserving principle curvatures Shiing Shen Chern, Differential Geometry and Integral Geometry Shiing Shen Chern, Geometry of G-structures 《陈省身文集》 [Shiing-Shen Chern bibliography]. East China Normal University Press. Chern, Shiing-Shen. 陈维桓著 《微分几何讲义》. Shiing-Shen Chern, Wei-Huan Chen, K. S. Lam, Lectures on Differential Geometry, World Scientific, 1999 David Dai-Wai Bao, Shiing-Shen Chern, Zhongmin Shen, An Introduction to Riemann-Finsler Geometry, GTM 200, Springer 2000 David Bao, Robert L. Bryant, Shiing-Shen Chern, Zhongmin Shen, Editors, A Sampler of Riemann-Finsler Geometry, MSRI Publications 50, Cambridge University Press 2004 Namesake and persona The asteroid 29552 Chern is named after him; The Chern Medal, of the International Mathematical Union (IMU); The Shiing-Shen Chern Prize (陳省身獎), of the Association of Chinese Mathematicians; The Chern Institute of Mathematics at Nankai University, Tianjin, renamed in 2005 in honor of Chern; The Chern Lectures, and the Shiing-Shen Chern Chair in Mathematics, both at the Department of Mathematics, UC Berkeley.Chern liked to play contract bridge, Go (game), read Wuxia-literature of Jin Yong and had an interest in Chinese philosophy and history.In 1975, Chen Ning Yang and Chern found out that their research in non-abelian gauge theory and Fiber bundle describe the same theoretical structure, which showed a surprising connection between physics and mathematics. Therefore, Chern asked Fan Zeng to finish a chinese painting named Shiing-Shen Chern and Chen Ning Yang for that. The Painting was later donated to the Nankai University. A polyglot, he spoke German, French, English, Wu and Mandarin Chinese.“Whenever we had to go to the chancellor to make some special request, we always took Chern along, and it always worked,” says Berkeley mathematician Rob Kirby. “Somehow he had a presence, a gravitas. There was something about him that people just listened to him, and usually did things his way.” The Chern Song In 1979 a Chern Symposium offered him a honorary song in tribute:Hail to Chern! Mathematics Greatest! He made Gauss-Bonnet a household word, Intrinsic proofs he found, Throughout the World his truths abound, Chern classes he gave us, and Secondary Invariants, Fibre Bundles and Sheaves, Distributions and Foliated Leaves! All Hail All Hail to CHERN.It's called the Chern song. Chern professorships Allyn Jackson writesS. S. Chern is the recipient of many international honors, including six honorary doctorates, the U.S. National Medal of Science, Israel’s Wolf Prize, and membership in learned academies around the world. He has also received a more homegrown honor, the dream-turned-reality of an appreciative student of 30 years ago, who grew up in the Bay Area. When Robert Uomini would buy his 10 tickets for the California State Lottery, he had an unusual “what if I win?” fantasy: He wanted to endow a professorship to honor S. S. Chern. While an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley in the 1960s, Uomini was greatly inspired by a differential geometry course he took from Chern. With Chern’s support and encouragement, Uomini entered graduate school at Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1976. Twenty years later, while working as a consultant to Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto, Uomini won $22 million in the state lottery. He could then realize his dream of expressing his gratitude in a concrete way. Uomini and his wife set up the Robert G. Uomini and Louise B. Bidwell Foundation to support an extended visit of an outstanding mathematician to the U.C. Berkeley campus. There have been three Chern Visiting Professors so far: Sir Michael Atiyah of the University of Cambridge (1996), Richard Stanley of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1997), and Friedrich Hirzebruch of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn (1998). Jean-Pierre Serre of the Collège de France was the Chern Visiting Professor for 1999. [sic] The foundation also helps to support the Chern Symposium, a yearly one-day event held in Berkeley during the period when the Chern Visiting Professor is in residence. The March 1998 Symposium was co-sponsored by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and was expanded to run for three days, featuring a dozen speakers. The MSRI also set up a Chern Professorship, funded by Chern's children May and Paul as well as James Simons. Biographies on Chern and other memorabilia Abraham Pais wrote about Chern in his book Subtle is the Lord. To paraphrase one passage: the outstanding mathematician Chern has two things to say, 1) I feel very mysterious that in the fields I'm working on (general relativity and differential geometry) there is so much more that can be explored; and 2) when talking with Albert Einstein (his colleague at the IAS) about his problem of a Grand Unified Theory, I realized the difference between mathematics and physics is at the heart of the journey towards a theory of everything. Manfredo Do Carmo dedicated his book on Riemannian Geometry to Chern, his PhD advisor. In Yau's autobiography, he talks a lot about his advisor Chern. In 1982, while on sabbatical at the New York University Courant Institute, he visited Stony Brook to see his friends and former students CN Yang and Simons.In 2011 ZALA films published a documentary titled Taking the Long View: the Life of Shiing-shen Chern (山長水遠). In 2013 it was broadcast on US public television. It was compiled with the help of his friends including Alan Weinstein, Chuu-Lian Terng, Calvin C. Moore, Marty Shen, Robert Bryant, Robert Uomini, Robert Osserman, Hung-Hsi Wu, Rob Kirby, CN Yang, Paul Chu, Udo Simon, Phillip Griffiths, etc.Dozens of other biographies have been written on Chern. See the citations for more info. Poetry Chern was an expressive poet as well. On his 60th birthday he wrote a love letter re-affirming his gratitude towards his wife and celebrating their 'beautiful, long, happy, marriage':Thirty-six years together Through times of happiness And times of worry too. Time’s passage has no mercy. We fly the Skies and cross the Oceans To fulfill my destiny; Raising the children fell Entirely on your shoulders. How fortunate I am To have my works to look back upon, I feel regrets you still have chores. Growing old together in El Cerrito is a blessing. Time passes by, And we hardly notice. Students Chern has 43 students, including Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau, Nobel Prize winner Chen-Ning Yang; and over 1000 descendants.His student James Harris Simons at Stony Brook (co-author of the Chern–Simons theory) later founded the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies and became a billionaire. Simons talks about Chern in his TED talk.Two of his students Manfredo do Carmo and Katsumi Nomizu have written influential textbooks in geometry. Former director of the IAS Phillip Griffiths wrote[Chern] took great pleasure in getting to know and working with and helping to guide young mathematicians. I was one of them. Family His wife, Shih-ning Cheng (Chinese: 鄭士寧; pinyin: Zhèng Shìníng), whom he married in 1939, died in 2000. He also had a daughter, May Chu (陳璞; Chén Pú), wife of the physicist Chu Ching-wu, and a son named Paul (陳伯龍; Chén Bólóng). On his wife he writes (also see Selected Papers):I would not conclude this account without mentioning my wife's role in my life and work. Through war and peace and through bad and good times we have shared a life for forty years, which is both simple and rich. If there is credit for my mathematical works, it will be hers as well as mine.May Chu described her father as an easygoing parent. Paul added that he often saw what was best for you before you realized it. See also Chern classes Chern–Gauss–Bonnet theorem Chern–Simons theory Chern–Simons form Chern–Weil theory Chern–Weil homomorphism Chern-Lashof theory Chern-Bott theory UC Berkeley obituary 1998 interview in Notices of the American Mathematical Society Shiing-Shen Chern at the Mathematics Genealogy Project O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Shiing-Shen Chern", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews Shiing-shen Chern: 1911–2004 by H. Wu, biography and overview of mathematical work. "Shiing-Shen Chern (1911–2004)" (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Providence, Rhode Island: American Mathematical Society, 58 (9): 1226–1249, October 2011 Chern's Work in Geometry, by Shing-Tung Yau

The Records of the Three Kingdoms (traditional Chinese: 三國志; simplified Chinese: 三国志; pinyin: Sānguó zhì), is a Chinese imperial history that covers the end of the Han dynasty (c. 184–220 CE) and the following Three Kingdoms period (220–280 CE). It is widely regarded as the official and authoritative source text for these periods. Written by Chen Shou after the Jin dynasty reunited China in the third century, the work compiles the political, social, and military events within rival states Cao Wei, Shu Han and Eastern Wu into a single text organized by individual biography. The Records of the Three Kingdoms is the main source of information for the 14th century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, considered to be one of the four great novels written in Literary Chinese. While large subsections of the work have been selected and translated into English, the entire corpus has yet to receive an unabridged English translation. Origin and structure The Book of Han and Records of the Three Kingdoms join the original Han-era universal history Records of the Grand Historian to constitute the first three entries in the Twenty-Four Histories canon, with each work cementing the new genre's literary and historiographical qualities as established by Sima Qian. The Records of the Three Kingdoms consist of 65 volumes divided into three books—one per eponymous kingdom—totaling around 360,000 Chinese characters in length. The Book of Wei, Book of Shu, and Book of Wu receive 30 volumes, 15 volumes, and 20 volumes respectively. Each volume is organised in the form of one or more biographies. The author Chen Shou was born in present-day Nanchong, Sichuan, then in the state of Shu Han. After the Conquest of Shu by Wei in 263, he became an official historian under the government of the Jin dynasty, and created a history of the Three Kingdoms period. After the Conquest of Wu by Jin in 280, his work received the acclaim of senior minister Zhang Hua. Prior to the Jin dynasty, both the states of Cao Wei and Wu has already composed their own official histories: the Book of Wei by Wang Chen, Xun Yi, and Ruan Ji; and the Book of Wu by Wei Zhao, Hua He, Xue Ying, Zhou Zhao (周昭), and Liang Guang (梁廣). Additionally, Yu Huan had completed his privately compiled history of Wei, the Weilüe. Chen Shou used these texts as the foundation of the Records of the Three Kingdoms. However, since the state of Shu lacked an official history bureau, the Book of Shu in the Records was composed by Chen Shou himself based on his earlier personal notes about events in Shu and other primary sources he collected, such as his previously compiled writings of Zhuge Liang.The Records of the Three Kingdoms used the year 220 CE—when the last emperor of the Han dynasty was forced to abdicate to Cao Pi—as the year in which the Wei dynasty was established. The Records refer to the rulers of Wei as 'Emperors' and those of Shu and Wu as 'Lords' or by their personal names. Dates Due to the biographical rather than primarily annalistic arrangement of the work, assigning dates to the historical content is both imprecise and non-trivial. Certain volumes contain background information about their subjects' forebears which date back centuries before the main record. For example, the biography of Liu Yan begins with discussing his ancestor Liu Yu's enfeoffment at Jingling (present-day Tianmen, Hubei) in around 85 CE. The first event to receive detailed description throughout the work is the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184. Many biographies make passing mention of the event, but more concrete information such as correspondence and troop movements during the uprising can be found in fragmentary form in at least four volumes: the biographies of Cheng Yu, Yu Jin, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian.The three books in the Records of the Three Kingdoms end at different dates, with the main section of the Book of Wei ending with the abdication of Cao Huan in 265, the Book of Shu ending with the death of Liu Shan in 271, and the Book of Wu ending with the death of Sun Hao in 284. One abstract regarding the chronology is translated as follows: In the 24th year (of Jian'an), the Former Lord became the King of Hanzhong, and he appointed (Guan) Yu as the General of the Vanguard. In the same year, (Guan) Yu led his men to attack Cao Ren at Fan. Lord Cao sent Yu Jin to aid (Cao) Ren. In autumn, great rains caused the Han River to flood. (Yu) Jin and all seven armies he oversaw were inundated. Contents Book of Wei (魏書) Book of Shu (蜀書) Book of Wu (吳書) Annotations During the fifth century, the Liu Song dynasty historian Pei Songzhi (372–451) extensively annotated Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms using a variety of other sources, augmenting the text to twice the length of the original. This work, completed in 429, became one of the official histories of the Three Kingdoms period, under the title Sanguozhi zhu (三国志注 zhu meaning "notes"). Bibliographical records indicate that up until Pei's own Liu Song dynasty, Chen Shou's three books had circulated individually rather than as a single work.Pei collected other records to add information he felt should be added. He provided detailed explanations to some of the geography and other elements mentioned in the original. He also included multiple accounts of the same events. Sometimes, the accounts he added contradicted each other, but he included them anyway since he could not decide which version was the correct one. If Pei added something that sounded wrong, he would make a note or even offer a correction. In regard to historical events and figures, as well as Chen Shou's original text, he added his own commentary. Crucially, he cited his sources in almost every case. Legacy The Records of the Three Kingdoms was the main source of inspiration for the 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the four great Classic Chinese Novels. As such the records is considered one of the most influential historical and cultural texts in Chinese history. In addition, the records provide one of the earliest accounts of Korea and Japan. Chen's Records set the standard for how Korea and Japan would write their official histories as well. Influence on Asia Chen's Records is the chronologically final text of the "Four Histories" (四史), which together influenced and served as a model for Korean and Japanese official histories.The Records are important to the research of early Korean (삼국지 Samguk ji) and Japanese history (三国志 Sangokushi). It provides, among other things, the first detailed account of Korean and Japanese societies such as Goguryeo, Yemaek and Wa. The passages in Volume 30 about the Wa, where the Yamatai-koku and its ruler Queen Himiko are recorded, are referred to as the Wajinden in Japanese studies. The Japanese started writing their own records in the early 7th century and the earliest extant native record is the Kojiki of 712. Romance of the Three Kingdoms The text forms the foundation on which the 14th-century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms is based. In addition, Chen Shou's literary style and vivid portrayal of characters have been a source of influence for the novel.The Records include biographies of historical figures such as Cao Cao and Guan Yu who feature prominently in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Some characters in the Romance were also fictional. See List of fictional people of the Three Kingdoms and List of fictitious stories in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, most of the historical facts were drawn from Chen's Records. Translations The Records of the Three Kingdoms has not been fully translated into English. William Gordon Crowell alludes to a project to translate Chen Shou's work with Pei Songzhi's commentary in full, but it was apparently discontinued. Parts of that project are published by Robert Joe Cutter and William Gordon Crowell under the title Empresses and Consorts: Selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States With Pei Songzhi's Commentary (University of Hawaii Press, 1999), which includes the translations for volumes 5, 34, and 50.Other translations include Kenneth J. Dewoskin's Doctors Diviners and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of Fang-Shih (Columbia University Press, 1983), which includes a full translation of volume 29. Rafe de Crespigny, in addition to his translation of Sun Jian's biography (Volume 46), also translated excerpts of the Records of the Three Kingdoms in his translation of the Zizhi Tongjian that deals with the last years of the Han dynasty, as does Achilles Fang, who translated the Zizhi Tongjian volumes that deal with the Three Kingdoms period proper. The Zizhi Tongjian volumes in question draw heavily from Records of the Three Kingdoms. Further excerpts of the Records can be found in various sourcebooks dealing with East Asian history. Below is a table containing the known English translations of the Records of the Three Kingdoms that have been published in academia: See also Twenty-Four Histories Romance of the Three Kingdoms Lists of people of the Three Kingdoms Timeline of the Three Kingdoms period Military history of the Three Kingdoms Chen Shou, the author of the Records of the Three Kingdoms Luo Guanzhong, the attributed author of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and who was influenced by Chen's writing (in Chinese) Records of the Three Kingdoms on the Chinese Text Project page (in Chinese) Records of the Three Kingdoms 《三國志》 Chinese text with matching English vocabulary

The Tao Te Ching (UK: , US: ; simplified Chinese: 道德经; traditional Chinese: 道德經; pinyin: Dàodé Jīng [tâʊ tɤ̌ tɕíŋ] ) is a Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism written around 400 BC and traditionally credited to the sage Laozi, though the text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated. The oldest excavated portion dates back to the late 4th century BC, but modern scholarship dates other parts of the text as having been written—or at least compiled—later than the earliest portions of the Zhuangzi.The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism. It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Chinese Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China. Many artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely within the globe's artistic and academic spheres. It is one of the most translated texts in world literature. Title In English, the title is commonly rendered Tao Te Ching , following Wade–Giles romanisation, or Dao De Jing , following pinyin. The Tao Te Ching can be translated as The Classic of the Way and its Power, The Book of the Tao and Its Virtue, The Book of the Way and of Virtue, The Tao and its Characteristics, The Canon of Reason and Virtue, The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, or A Treatise on the Principle and Its Action.Ancient Chinese books were commonly referenced by the name of their real or supposed author, in this case the "Old Master", Laozi. As such, the Tao Te Ching is also sometimes referred to as the Laozi, especially in Chinese sources.The title "Daodejing", with its status as a classic, was only first applied from the reign of Emperor Jing of Han (157–141 BC) onward. Other titles of the work include the honorific "Sutra (or "Perfect Scripture") of the Way and Its Power" (Daode Zhenjing) and the descriptive "5,000-Character Classic" (Wuqian Wen). Text The Tao Te Ching has a long and complex textual history. Known versions and commentaries date back two millennia, including ancient bamboo, silk, and paper manuscripts discovered in the twentieth century. Internal structure The Tao Te Ching is a text of around 5,000 Chinese characters in 81 brief chapters or sections (章). There is some evidence that the chapter divisions were later additions—for commentary, or as aids to rote memorisation—and that the original text was more fluidly organised. It has two parts, the Tao Ching (道經; chapters 1–37) and the Te Ching (德經; chapters 38–81), which may have been edited together into the received text, possibly reversed from an original Te Tao Ching. The written style is laconic, has few grammatical particles, and encourages varied, contradictory interpretations. The ideas are singular; the style is poetic. The rhetorical style combines two major strategies: short, declarative statements and intentional contradictions. The first of these strategies creates memorable phrases, while the second forces the reader to reconcile supposed contradictions.The Chinese characters in the original versions were probably written in zhuànshū (篆書 seal script), while later versions were written in lìshū (隸書 clerical script) and kǎishū (楷書 regular script) styles. Victor H. Mair thought that Taoists in the early history of the faith had positive "cultural relations" with Hindu groups and that the Tao Te Ching was written in reaction to Indian philosophy and that the author(s) viewed Brahman as being the same as Tao. Historical authenticity of the author The Tao Te Ching is ascribed to Laozi, whose historical existence has been a matter of scholarly debate. His name, which means "Old Master", has only fuelled controversy on this issue. The first reliable reference to Laozi is his "biography" in the Records of the Grand Historian (63, tr. Chan 1963:35–37), by Chinese historian Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), which combines three stories. In the first, Laozi was a contemporary of Confucius (551–479 BC). His surname was Li (李), and his personal name was Er (耳) or Dan (聃). He was an official in the imperial archives, and wrote a book in two parts before departing to the West; at the request of the keeper of the Han-ku Pass, Yinxi, Laozi composed the Tao Te Ching. In the second story, Laozi, also a contemporary of Confucius, was Lao Laizi (老莱子), who wrote a book in 15 parts. Third, Laozi was the grand historian and astrologer Lao Dan (老聃), who lived during the reign (384–362 BC) of Duke Xian of Qin (秦獻公). Three-quarters of the Tao Te Ching rhymes, "according to...reconstructed phonetic values of Ancient Chinese."Generations of scholars have debated the historicity of Laozi and the dating of the Tao Te Ching. Linguistic studies of the text's vocabulary and rhyme scheme point to a date of composition after the Shijing yet before the Zhuangzi. Legends claim variously that Laozi was "born old" and that he lived for 996 years, with twelve previous incarnations starting around the time of the Three Sovereigns before the thirteenth as Laozi. Some scholars have expressed doubts over Laozi's historical existence.Many Taoists venerate Laozi as Daotsu, the founder of the school of Dao, the Daode Tianzun in the Three Pure Ones, and one of the eight elders transformed from Taiji in the Chinese creation myth. The predominant view among scholars today is that the text is a compilation or anthology representing multiple authors. The current text might have been compiled c. 250 BCE, drawn from a wide range of texts dating back a century or two. Principal versions Among the many transmitted editions of the Tao Te Ching text, the three primary ones are named after early commentaries. The "Yan Zun Version", which is only extant for the Te Ching, derives from a commentary attributed to Han dynasty scholar Yan Zun (巖尊, fl. 80 BC – 10 AD). The "Heshang Gong Version" is named after the legendary Heshang Gong (河上公 "Riverside Sage") who supposedly lived during the reign (180–157 BC) of Emperor Wen of Han. This commentary has a preface written by Ge Xuan (葛玄, 164–244 AD), granduncle of Ge Hong, and scholarship dates this version to around the 3rd century AD. The "Wang Bi Version" has more verifiable origins than either of the above. Wang Bi (王弼, 226–249 AD) was a Three Kingdoms period philosopher and commentator on the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. Tao Te Ching scholarship has advanced from archaeological discoveries of manuscripts, some of which are older than any of the received texts. Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, Marc Aurel Stein and others found thousands of scrolls in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang. They included more than 50 partial and complete "Tao Te Ching" manuscripts. One written by the scribe So/Su Dan (素統) is dated 270 AD and corresponds closely with the Heshang Gong version. Another partial manuscript has the Xiang'er (想爾) commentary, which had previously been lost. Mawangdui and Guodian texts In 1973, archaeologists discovered copies of early Chinese books, known as the Mawangdui Silk Texts, in a tomb dating from 168 BC. They included two nearly complete copies of the text, referred to as Text A (甲) and Text B (乙), both of which reverse the traditional ordering and put the Te Ching section before the Tao Ching, which is why the Henricks translation of them is named "Te-Tao Ching". Based on calligraphic styles and imperial naming taboo avoidances, scholars believe that Text A can be dated to about the first decade and Text B to about the third decade of the 2nd century BC.In 1993, the oldest known version of the text, written on bamboo slips, was found in a tomb near the town of Guodian (郭店) in Jingmen, Hubei, and dated prior to 300 BC. The Guodian Chu Slips comprise about 800 slips of bamboo with a total of over 13,000 characters, about 2,000 of which correspond with the Tao Te Ching. Both the Mawangdui and Guodian versions are generally consistent with the received texts, excepting differences in chapter sequence and graphic variants. Several recent Tao Te Ching translations utilise these two versions, sometimes with the verses reordered to synthesize the new finds. Themes The text concerns itself with the Dao (or "Way"), and how it is expressed by virtue (de). Specifically, the text emphasises the virtues of naturalness (ziran) and non-action (wuwei). Versions and translations The Tao Te Ching has been translated into Western languages over 250 times, mostly to English, German, and French. According to Holmes Welch, "It is a famous puzzle which everyone would like to feel he had solved." The first English translation of the Tao Te Ching was produced in 1868 by the Scottish Protestant missionary John Chalmers, entitled The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality of the "Old Philosopher" Lau-tsze. It was heavily indebted to Julien's French translation and dedicated to James Legge, who later produced his own translation for Oxford's Sacred Books of the East.Other notable English translations of the Tao Te Ching are those produced by Chinese scholars and teachers: a 1948 translation by linguist Lin Yutang, a 1961 translation by author John Ching Hsiung Wu, a 1963 translation by sinologist Din Cheuk Lau, another 1963 translation by professor Wing-tsit Chan, and a 1972 translation by Taoist teacher Gia-Fu Feng together with his wife Jane English. Many translations are written by people with a foundation in Chinese language and philosophy who are trying to render the original meaning of the text as faithfully as possible into English. Some of the more popular translations are written from a less scholarly perspective, giving an individual author's interpretation. Critics of these versions claim that their translators deviate from the text and are incompatible with the history of Chinese thought. Russell Kirkland goes further to argue that these versions are based on Western Orientalist fantasies and represent the colonial appropriation of Chinese culture. Other Taoism scholars, such as Michael LaFargue and Jonathan Herman, argue that while they do not pretend to scholarship, they meet a real spiritual need in the West. These Westernized versions aim to make the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching more accessible to modern English-speaking readers by, typically, employing more familiar cultural and temporal references. Translational difficulties The Tao Te Ching is written in Classical Chinese, which poses a number of challenges to complete comprehension. As Holmes Welch notes, the written language "has no active or passive, no singular or plural, no case, no person, no tense, no mood." Moreover, the received text lacks many grammatical particles which are preserved in the older Mawangdui and Beida texts, which permit the text to be more precise. Lastly, many passages of the Tao Te Ching are deliberately vague and ambiguous. Since there are no punctuation marks in Classical Chinese, it can be difficult to conclusively determine where one sentence ends and the next begins. Moving a full-stop a few words forward or back or inserting a comma can profoundly alter the meaning of many passages, and such divisions and meanings must be determined by the translator. Some editors and translators argue that the received text is so corrupted (from originally being written on one-line bamboo strips linked with silk threads) that it is impossible to understand some chapters without moving sequences of characters from one place to another. Notable translations Julien, Stanislas, ed. (1842), Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu (in French), Paris: Imprimerie Royale Chalmers, John, ed. (1868), The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality of the "Old Philosopher" Lau-tsze, London, England: Trübner & Co., ISBN 9780524077887 Legge, James; et al., eds. (1891), The Tao Teh King, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXXIX, Sacred Books of China, Vol. V, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Giles, Lionel; et al., eds. (1905), The Sayings of Lao Tzu, The Wisdom of the East, New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Suzuki, Daisetsu Teitaro; et al., eds. (1913), The Canon of Reason and Virtue: Lao-tze's Tao Teh King, La Salle: Open Court. Wieger, Léon, ed. (1913), Les Pères du Système Taoiste, Taoïsme, Vol. II (in French), Hien Hien Wilhelm, Richard (1923), Tao Te King: das Buch vom Sinn und Leben (in German), Jena: Diederichs Duyvendak, J.J.L. (1954), Tao Te Ching: The Book of the Way and Its Virtue, John Murray Waley, Arthur (1958) [1934], The Way and Its Power, New York: Grove Press Chan, Wing-tsit (1963), The Way of Lao Tzu: Tao-te ching, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Henricks, Robert G. (1989), Lao-tzu: Te-tao ching. A New Translation Based on the Recently Discovered Ma-wang-tui Texts, New York, NY: Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-34790-0 Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, translated by Mitchell, Stephen, New York: HarperCollins, 1988, ISBN 9780061807398. Lau, D. C. (1989), Tao Te Ching, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, ISBN 9789622014671 Mair, Victor H., ed. (1990), Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, New York, NY: Bantam Books, ISBN 9780307434630. Bryce, Derek; et al., eds. (1991), Tao-Te-Ching, York Beach: Samuel Weiser, ISBN 9781609254414. Addiss, Stephen and Lombardo, Stanley (1991) Tao Te Ching, Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Le Guin, Ursula K., ed. (1998), Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of Way, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, ISBN 9781611807240. Chad Hansen, Laozi: Tao Te Ching on The Art of Harmony, Duncan Baird Publications 2009 David Hinton, Tao Te Ching, Counterpoint, 2015 Sinedino, Giorgio (2015), Dao De Jing (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Unesp John Minford (2018), Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao, New York: Viking Press, ISBN 978-0-670-02498-8. See also James Legge's translation of the Tao Te Ching at Standard Ebooks Daodejing Wang Bi edition with English translation, Guodian text, and Mawangdui text – Chinese Text Project Tao Te Ching public domain audiobook at LibriVox Legge, Suzuki, and Goddard's translations side-by-side, along with the original text Dàodéjīng verbatim + analogous + poetic; Chinese + English + German by Hilmar Alquiros Chinese: 老子 Lǎozǐ Chinese: 道德經

Gundam (Japanese: ガンダムシリーズ, Hepburn: Gandamu Shirīzu, lit. Gundam Series) is a Japanese military science fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with Mobile Suit Gundam, a TV series that defined the "real robot" mecha anime genre by featuring giant robots called mobile suits (including the original titular mecha) in a militaristic setting. The popularity of the series and its merchandise spawned a franchise that includes 50 TV series, films and OVAs as well as manga, novels and video games, along with a whole industry of plastic model kits known as Gunpla which makes up 90 percent of the Japanese character plastic-model market.Academics in Japan have viewed the series as inspiration; in 2008, the virtual Gundam Academy was planned as the first academic institution based on an animated TV series.As of March 2020, the franchise is fully owned by Bandai Namco Holdings through subsidiaries Sotsu and Sunrise. The Gundam franchise had grossed over $5 billion in retail sales by 2000. By 2022, the annual revenue of the Gundam franchise reached ¥101.7 billion per year, ¥44.2 billion of which was retail sales of toys and hobby items. Overview Concept Mobile Suit Gundam was developed by animator Yoshiyuki Tomino and a changing group of Sunrise creators with the collective pseudonym of Hajime Yatate. The series was originally entitled Freedom Fighter Gunboy (or Gunboy) for the robot's gun, with teen boys the primary target demographic. Early production had a number of references to freedom: the White Base was originally "Freedom's Fortress", the Core Fighter was the "Freedom Wing" and the Gunperry was the "Freedom Cruiser". The Yatate team combined the English word "gun" with the last syllable of the word "freedom" to form the portmanteau Gundom. Tomino changed it to Gundam, suggesting a unit wielding a gun powerful enough to hold back enemies like a hydroelectric dam holding back water. In keeping with the concept, Gundams are depicted as prototypes or limited-production, with higher capabilities than mass-produced units. Most Gundams are large, bipedal, humanoid vehicles controlled from a cockpit by a human pilot. The cockpit is located in the torso, while the head serves as a camera to transmit images back to the cockpit. Most of the series protagonists are Newtypes, genetically advanced humans adapted for space. Newtypes have psychic abilities that enable them to sense each other across space and to utilize special mobile suits. The series itself has been described as a space opera. Innovation Mobile Suit Gundam reportedly pioneered the real robot subgenre of mecha anime. In contrast to its super robot cousins, Mobile Suit Gundam attempted realism in its robot design and weaponry by running out of energy and ammunition or malfunctioning. Its technology is derived from actual science (such as Lagrange points and the O'Neill cylinder in space, and the use of Helium-3 as an energy source) or feasible technology requiring only a few fictional elements to function (such as Minovsky Physics). Timelines Most of the Gundam animation (including the earliest series) is set in what is known as the Universal Century (UC) calendar era, with later series set in alternate calendars or timelines. Although many new Gundam stories are told in their parallel universe with independent timelines (giving them greater creative freedom), the original UC storyline continues to be popular. It established the series, setting the standard for hard science fiction in anime; the original Gundam marked the maturing of the giant-robot genre. Nostalgia for the oldest Gundam shows (and its status as a pop-culture icon in Japan) is a factor in its continuing success. Spinoffs SD Gundam, a spinoff of Gundam which began during the mid-1980s, features super deformed designs and emphasizes comedy and adventure. Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G, Gundam Build Fighters, and Gundam Build Divers feature contemporary settings and use Gunpla as plot elements. Media TV series, films, and video Except for Mobile Suit Gundam 00, which follows the current calendar era, all Gundam series are set in a fictional era, begin after a drastic event or chain of events, and typically involve a major conflict between Earth and space colonies (and in some cases the Moon and terraformed planets). An exception are Gundam Build timelines, which are set in an alternate present time where all other Gundam installments are fictional. Live-action film At the 2018 Anime Expo, Legendary Pictures and Sunrise announced a collaboration to develop a live-action Gundam film. Brian K. Vaughan was brought in to write and serve as an executive producer for the film. In April 2021, it was reported that the project had landed at Netflix and that Jordan Vogt-Roberts had been hired to direct. Manga and novels Manga adaptations of the Gundam series have been published in English in North America by a number of companies, such as Viz Media, Del Rey Manga and Tokyopop, and in Singapore by Chuang Yi. Video games Gundam has spawned over 80 video games for arcade, computer and console platforms, some with characters not found in other Gundam media. Some of the games, in turn inspired spinoff novels and manga. Gunpla Primarily made of plastic, but sometimes paired with resin and metal detail parts, hundreds of Gundam models, aka Gunpla, have been released. They range in quality from tooless-build children's toy kits (Entry Grades) to hobbyist and museum-grade models, and most are in 1:35, 1:48, 1:60, 1:100 or 1:144 scale. Various Grades exist to target hobbyists, ranging from smaller sized kits such as High Grade and Real Grade, to larger Master Grade and finally Perfect Grade model kits. The Real Grade (RG) Gundam series combined the Master Grade's detailed inner structure with additional colour separation, making the 1:144-scale series complex in design and compact in size, with the final goal of retooling a Gundam to what they might would look like in real life, similar to the real-life Gundam Front Tokyo RX-78-02. Promotional 1:6 or 1:12 scale models are supplied to retailers and are not commercially available. For Gundam's 30th anniversary, a full-size RX-78-2 Gundam model was constructed and displayed at Gundam Front Tokyo, in the Odaiba district; it was taken down on March 5, 2017. A new statue of the Unicorn Gundam was erected at the same location, now renamed The Gundam Base Tokyo. Other merchandise Bandai, Gundam's primary licensee, produces a variety of products. Other companies produce unofficial merchandise, such as toys, models and T-shirts. Products include Mobile Suit In Action (MSiA) action figures and Gundam model kits in several scales and design complexities. Each series generally has its own set of products, MSiA and model lines such as Master Grade and High Grade Universal Century may extend across series. The most popular action-figure line has been the Gundam Fix series, which includes the mecha in the animated series, manga and novels and accessories to create an updated version. In addition to Master Grade and High Grade Gundams, Bandai released a 30th-anniversary series of Gundam models in 2010. After the introduction of the RG Gunpla line, Bandai released the Metal Build series in March 2011 (beginning with the 00 Gundam). Internet Bandai maintains several websites to promote Gundam projects; Gundam Perfect Web is the official Japanese site. Its English-language counterpart is the US-maintained Gundam Official. In 2005, the website hosted the Gundam Official User Forum. The forum was based on the existing fan forum, Gundam Watch, using many of its staff. When the project was retired, Gundam Watch was reborn and became Gundam Evolution. A number of series-specific websites have been created, often available for a limited time (usually to promote a DVD release). Common content includes character and mecha listings, lists of related merchandise and pay-for-download content. Special pages are frequent, often presenting downloadable wallpaper or a small game. The Superior Defender Gundam Force website has a game in which players take the role of villain Commander Sazabi, attempting to blast his subordinate with weapons. Global spread Since 1980, Gundam has also appeared in the following countries and regions: Impact Gundam is a Japanese cultural icon; it is a ¥50-billion-annual business of Bandai Namco, reaching ¥54.5 billion annual revenue by 2006, and ¥80.2 billion annual revenue by 2014. Stamps have been issued, an Agriculture Ministry employee was reprimanded for contributing to the Japanese Wikipedia Gundam-related pages, and the Japan Self-Defense Forces has code-named its developing advance personal-combat system Gundam. The impact of Gundam in Japan has been compared to the impact of Star Wars in the United States. See also Bandai Museum Mobile Suit Gundam Gundam (fictional robot) Official Gundam website Gundam at Curlie Gundam (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia Gundam at the Mecha Anime Headquarters website' Gundam Perfect Games (in Japanese) Bandai Visual's Gundam minisite Archived December 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine (in Japanese)

Junior is a computer chess program written by the Israeli programmers Amir Ban and Shai Bushinsky. Grandmaster Boris Alterman assisted, in particular with the opening book. Junior can take advantage of multiple processors, taking the name Deep Junior when competing this way in tournaments. According to Bushinsky, one of the innovations of Junior over other chess programs is the way it counts moves. Junior counts orthodox, ordinary moves as two moves, while it counts interesting moves as only one move, or even less. In this way interesting variations are analyzed more meticulously than less promising lines. This seems to be a generalization of search extensions already used by other programs. Another approach its designers claim to use is 'opponent modeling'; Junior might play moves that are not objectively the strongest but that exploit the weaknesses of the opponent. According to Don Dailey ″It has some evaluation that can sting if it's in the right situation—that no other program has.″ Results In 2003 Deep Junior played a six-game match against Garry Kasparov, which resulted in a 3–3 tie. It won a 2006 rapid game against Teimour Radjabov. In June 2007, Deep Junior won the "ultimate computer chess challenge" organized by FIDE, defeating Deep Fritz 4–2. These programs opted out of the World Computer Chess Championship, which was held at the same time and won by Rybka with a score of 10/11. Junior won the World Microcomputer Chess Championship in 1997 and 2001 and the World Computer Chess Championship in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2013; both organized by the International Computer Games Association. Deep Junior's 2006 Computer Chess Championship games

Chessgames.com is an Internet chess community with over 224,000 members. The site maintains a large database of chess games, where each game has its own discussion page for comments and analysis. Limited primarily to games where at least one player is of master strength, the database begins with the earliest known recorded games and is updated with games from current top-level tournaments. Basic membership is free, and the site is open to players at all levels of ability, with additional features available for Premium members. While the primary purpose of Chessgames.com is to provide an outlet for chess discussion and analysis, consultation games are periodically organized with teams of members playing either other teams of members or very strong masters, including a former US champion and two former world correspondence champions.Members can maintain their own discussion pages, and there are features to assist study of openings, endgames and sacrifices. The front page also features a puzzle of the day, player of the day, and game of the day, the puzzle varying in difficulty throughout the week from "very easy" on Mondays to "insane" on Sundays. History Chessgames.com was founded in 2001 by Daniel Freeman and Alberto Artidiello in association with 20/20 Technologies. They developed software to integrate a chess database with a discussion forum, so that all games and players have a unique message board. The concept was immediately popular as users can kibitz (post comments) on many games and pages throughout the site. The Kramnik–Lékó World Championship 2004 match in Brissago was broadcast live on the site. This led to substantial growth in membership and interest, which has steadily increased since then due to other live events and many site enhancements.Co-founder Alberto Artidiello died on March 1, 2015, at the age of 56.Co-founder and longtime webmaster Daniel Freeman died on July 24, 2018, at the age of 50. The site is currently being administered on an interim basis by a user with the handle "Sargon", a longtime friend and business partner of Freeman's who had assisted him with management of the site at various times. Database The site's database of games was originally constructed by combining six large databases and weeding out duplicate games. The primary criterion for inclusion in the Chessgames.com database is that one of the players should be master strength (an Elo rating of 2200 or above) to reduce low quality games and erroneous fabrications. Their original goal was 750,000 games, which was their estimate of the total number of serious chess games that had been recorded up to and including 2005. As of 2020 the database contains close to a million games. Each game page lists a user feedback process to eliminate bad games, help correct errors, and remove any duplicates. Each game on Chessgames.com is hosted on a separate web page to allow internal and external weblinks to that particular game. Although other online databases may contain more games (which are not necessarily screened for quality), they typically do not permit external links to individual games or allow for kibitzing on each game. According to its webmaster, Chessgames strives for quality games without participating in the arms-race mentality that produces chess databases containing millions of questionable games. Membership As of 2020 the site has over 270,000 registered members (of whom about 7 percent have visited over the last three months), with 5,000 new members per month. At any time, several hundred people are actively using the site. A sample of Group demographics from a 2005 questionnaire: 98 percent male, 50 percent from North America, average rating 1600–1800 with one third unrated. Members post messages under a specific username, which may be their real identity or an anonymous handle. Prominent Chessgames.com members include former Women's World Champion Susan Polgar, former World Championship candidate Nigel Short, former U.S. Champion Gata Kamsky, chess authors Grandmaster Raymond Keene and FIDE Master Eric Schiller, FIDE Master Jonathan Sarfati, past USCF President Grandmaster Maxim Dlugy, International Master Lawrence Day, and Woman Grandmasters Natalia Pogonina and Yelena Dembo. Grandmasters who have posted on Chessgames.com include Varuzhan Akobian, Rogelio Antonio Jr., Keith Arkell, Oliver Barbosa, Jayson Gonzales, Danny Gormally, Jon Ludvig Hammer, Arno Nickel, David Norwood, James Plaskett, Alejandro Ramirez, Yury Shulman, Wesley So, Mihai Suba, Gert Jan Timmerman, Tansel Turgut, Mikhail Umansky, Simon Kim Williams and Patrick Wolff. The World The Internet Age created the potential for one grandmaster to play against a large group ("The World") in a consultation game, starting with former World Champion Anatoly Karpov defeating The World in 1996 followed by World Champion Garry Kasparov beating The World in 1999. Since then other collections of amateurs have represented The World versus one grandmaster ("GM") with varying degrees of success. Chessgames.com began team play as The World in 2006 and defeated noted computer expert GM Arno Nickel. The group duplicated that result by winning as Black against 2007 US Champion GM Yury Shulman, and won again against the former Correspondence World Champion Gert Jan Timmerman in 2007. The Chessgames World Team drew four matches in a row: a 2008 rematch with GM Nickel, as Black in 2009 against the former ICCF World Champion Mikhail Markovich Umansky, as White in 2010 against WGM Natalia Pogonina, and as Black in 2011 against GM Varuzhan Akobian. The Chessgames.com team won a rematch as White against GM Akobian in 2012, and won against GM Simon Kim Williams in 2013–14. The Team won their latest game in 2014 as white against GM Arkadij Naiditsch giving the team a current record of six wins, four draws, and no losses. Instruction Chessgames.com's stated goal for members is "to participate and learn from players stronger than [themselves], while guiding those who are weaker." The site is designed to be "a worldwide chess community where anybody from anywhere can come to discuss anything they want about chess." Many educational items are updated daily, including the Daily Puzzle, Game of the Day, Player of the Day, Opening of the Day, and Quote of the Day. Chessgames began as a chess learning site and now has a Playing Zone for real-time play. In 2005, enhanced software allowed members to embed chess diagrams in their messages, which can significantly help discuss a particular position or potential variation. The Chessgames.com database can be searched by player, year, opening, ECO code and result. Members can create Game Collections to store hundreds of database games by any desired category, such as opening, endgame, tactic, player, or tournament. The site's kibitzing may be searched by keyword for all messages to locate previous posts and find specific information. There are more than 4 million posts. Features Chessgames.com has created several educational tools available to Premium (paid) members: The Opening Explorer helps study openings move by move, to select and review games from that particular opening, while also viewing the success rate (percentage of White wins vs. draws vs. Black wins) from games in the database. The Endgame Explorer searches for games containing specific piece configurations (king and pawn, rook and pawn, queen versus rook, etc.) to review all historical games where that endgame occurred. The Sacrifice Explorer finds games based on sacrificed material (any pieces, exchange sacrifice, attacks on a given square, by opening, by player, etc.) to locate instructive games and puzzle examples, while helping to increase tactical skill. The Repertoire Explorer follows a particular player's opening preferences as White and Black, simultaneously displaying that player's database games and success rate. This enables a member who desires to do so to pattern his opening play after a famous player. Guess-the-Move is a chess training tool where members play through a database game and try to predict the following move, receiving points for correctly choosing those moves actually played. The ChessBookie Game is a free gambling simulation using play money ("chessbucks") to predict the outcomes of games in major tournaments. Real time leaderboards track the top predictors. Winners receive various prizes, such as site memberships, gift certificates, chess books and supplies. The Kibitzer's Café is an unrestricted, unregulated, and unmonitored forum for all registered members. It is almost entirely for non-chess discussion, and is generally devoted to American politics. It is the most used section of chessgames.com. The Ken Rogoff page is also largely political discussion with over 5700 pages of comments. Criticism In 2013, ChessCafe.com columnist and chess historian Olimpiu G. Urcan published an article criticising what he called the "phony scholarship" and lack of ethical standards of Chessgames.com and chess websites in general. He also criticised its close association with Raymond Keene.Tim Harding wrote: "I would never dream of using chessgames.com as a source for any kind of historical data." Chessgames.com has also been criticized for lack of precision, rigour and sourcing by Edward Winter. Chessbase & Chessgames/Susan Feeman's Favorite Player, wca world correspondence chess champion 1998–2003: The GM Level Games Of The Undefeated Ljupce!!! Official website

Radical 18 or radical knife (刀部) meaning "knife" is one of 23 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals total) composed of 2 strokes. When appearing at the right side of a Chinese character, it usually transforms into 刂. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 377 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 刀 is also the 22nd indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Two associated indexing components, 刂 and ⺈, are affiliated to the principal indexing component 刀. Evolution Derived characters Sinogram As an isolated character it is one of the Kyōiku kanji or a kanji taught in second grade. Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Leyi Li: “Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases”. Beijing 1993, ISBN 978-7-5619-0204-2 Unihan Database - U+5200

Marius Sophus Lie ( LEE; Norwegian: [liː]; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. Life and career Marius Sophus Lie was born on 17 December 1842 in the small town of Nordfjordeid. He was the youngest of six children born to Lutheran pastor Johann Herman Lie and his wife, who came from a well-known Trondheim family.He had his primary education in the south-eastern coast of Moss, before attending high school at Oslo (known then as Christiania). After graduating from high school, his ambition towards a military career was dashed when the army rejected him due to poor eyesight. Then he enrolled at the University of Christiania. Sophus Lie's first mathematical work, Repräsentation der Imaginären der Plangeometrie, was published in 1869 by the Academy of Sciences in Christiania and also by Crelle's Journal. That same year he received a scholarship and travelled to Berlin, where he stayed from September to February 1870. There, he met Felix Klein and they became close friends. When he left Berlin, Lie travelled to Paris, where he was joined by Klein two months later. There, they met Camille Jordan and Gaston Darboux. But on 19 July 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began and Klein (who was Prussian) had to leave France very quickly. Lie left for Fontainebleau where he was arrested, suspected of being a German spy, garnering him fame in Norway. He was released from prison after a month, thanks to the intervention of Darboux.Lie obtained his PhD at the University of Christiania (in present-day Oslo) in 1871 with a thesis entitled Over en Classe geometriske Transformationer (On a Class of Geometric Transformations). It would be described by Darboux as "one of the most handsome discoveries of modern Geometry". The next year, the Norwegian Parliament established an extraordinary professorship for him. That same year, Lie visited Klein, who was then at Erlangen and working on the Erlangen program. In 1872, Lie spent eight years together with Peter Ludwig Mejdell Sylow, editing and publishing the mathematical works of their countryman, Niels Henrik Abel. At the end of 1872, Sophus Lie proposed to Anna Birch, then eighteen years old, and they were married in 1874. The couple had three children: Marie (b. 1877), Dagny (b. 1880) and Herman (b. 1884). From 1876, he co-edited the journal Archiv for Mathematik og Naturvidenskab, together with the physician Jacob Worm-Müller, and the biologist Georg Ossian Sars. In 1884, Friedrich Engel arrived at Christiania to help him, with the support of Klein and Adolph Mayer (who were both professors at Leipzig by then). Engel would help Lie to write his most important treatise, Theorie der Transformationsgruppen, published in Leipzig in three volumes from 1888 to 1893. Decades later, Engel would also be one of the two editors of Lie's collected works. In 1886, Lie became a professor at Leipzig, replacing Klein, who had moved to Göttingen. In November 1889, Lie suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized until June 1890. Subsequently he returned to his post, but over the years his anaemia progressed to the point where he returned to his homeland. In 1898 he tendered his resignation in May, and left for home in September the same year. He died the following year in 1899 at the age of 56, due to pernicious anemia, a disease caused by impaired absorption of vitamin B12. He was made Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society in 1878, Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1892, Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1895 and foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 1895. Legacy Lie's principal tool, and one of his greatest achievements, was the discovery that continuous transformation groups (now called, after him, Lie groups) could be better understood by "linearizing" them, and studying the corresponding generating vector fields (the so-called infinitesimal generators). The generators are subject to a linearized version of the group law, now called the commutator bracket, and have the structure of what is today called a Lie algebra.Hermann Weyl used Lie's work on group theory in his papers from 1922 and 1923, and Lie groups today play a role in quantum mechanics. However, the subject of Lie groups as it is studied today is vastly different from what the research by Sophus Lie was about and "among the 19th century masters, Lie's work is in detail certainly the least known today".Sophus Lie was an eager proponent in the establishment of the Abel Prize. Inspired by the Nansen fund named after Fridtjof Nansen, and the lack of a prize for mathematics in the Nobel Prize. He gathered support for the establishment of an award for outstanding work in pure mathematics.Lie advised many doctoral students who went on to become successful mathematicians. Élie Cartan became widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. Kazimierz Żorawski's work was proved to be of importance to a variety of fields. Hans Frederick Blichfeldt made contributions to various fields of mathematics. Books Lie, Sophus (1888), Theorie der Transformationsgruppen I (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Friedrich Engel. English translation available: Edited and translated from the German and with a foreword by Joël Merker, see ISBN 978-3-662-46210-2 and arXiv:1003.3202 Lie, Sophus (1890), Theorie der Transformationsgruppen II (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Friedrich Engel. Lie, Sophus (1891), Vorlesungen über differentialgleichungen mit bekannten infinitesimalen transformationen (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Georg Scheffers. Lie, Sophus (1893), Vorlesungen über continuierliche Gruppen (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Georg Scheffers. Lie, Sophus (1893), Theorie der Transformationsgruppen III (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Friedrich Engel. Lie, Sophus (1896), Geometrie der Berührungstransformationen (in German), Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. Written with the help of Georg Scheffers. Lie, Sophus, Engel, Friedrich; Heegaard, Poul (eds.), Gesammelte Abhandlungen, Leipzig: Teubner; 7 vols., 1922–1960: CS1 maint: postscript (link) See also Lie derivative List of simple Lie groups List of things named after Sophus Lie Fritzsche, Bernd (1999), "Sophus Lie: A Sketch of his Life and Work", Journal of Lie Theory, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1–38, ISSN 0949-5932, MR 1680023, Zbl 0927.01029, retrieved 2 December 2010 Freudenthal, Hans (1970–1980), "Lie, Marius Sophus", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons Stubhaug, Arild (2002), The mathematician Sophus Lie: It was the audacity of my thinking, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-42137-8 Yaglom, Isaak Moiseevich (1988), Grant, Hardy; Shenitzer, Abe (eds.), Felix Klein and Sophus Lie: Evolution of the idea of symmetry in the nineteenth century, Birkhäuser, ISBN 3-7643-3316-2 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lie, Marius Sophus" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (February 2000), "Sophus Lie", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews Works by Sophus Lie at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Sophus Lie at Internet Archive "The foundations of the theory of infinite continuous transformation groups – I" An English translation of a key paper by Lie (Part I) "The foundations of the theory of infinite continuous transformation groups – II" An English translation of a key paper by Lie (Part II) "On complexes – in particular, line and sphere complexes – with applications to the theory of partial differential equations" An English translation of a key paper by Lie "Foundations of an invariant theory of contact transformations" An English translation of a key paper by Lie "The infinitesimal contact transformations of mechanics" An English translation of a key paper by Lie U. Amaldi, "On the principal results obtained in the theory of continuous groups since the death of Sophus Lie (1898–1907)" English translation of a survey paper that followed his death

Kurenai may refer to the following: Kurenai (紅), the Japanese word for "crimson", derived the Old Japanese kure no awi, meaning "dye from China", in reference to safflower dye, introduced to Japan from China "Kurenai" (song), a song by the metal band X Japan. "Kurenai" (くれなゐ), a song by Tsuki Amano. Kurenai Yuzuru, an actress in the all-female Takarazuka Revue. Characters Kurenai Yuhi, a fictional character from the manga series Naruto. Tsubasa Kurenai, a fictional character from the manga series Ranma ½. Kurenai, the main character of the video game Red Ninja: End Of Honor. Kurenai, a faction of Broken Draenei in the computer game World of Warcraft. Maria Kurenai, a character from the manga series Vampire Knight. Wataru Kurenai, the main character in Kamen Rider Kiva. Otoya Kurenai, the father of Wataru Kurenai, in "Kamen Rider Kiva" Shu Kurenai, a main character from the Beyblade Burst series. Series Kure-nai, a light novel series by Kentarou Katayama and the subsequent manga and anime of the same name. Kurenai no Buta (Porco Rosso), a film by Hayao Miyazaki produced by Studio Ghibli. Kurenai, the Japanese title of the manga Red Prowling Devil by Toshimitsu Shimizu.

Radical 155 or radical red (赤部) meaning "red" or "bare" is one of the 20 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 7 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 31 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. 赤 is also the 151st indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China. Evolution Derived characters Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1. Unihan Database - U+8D64

Zhu is the pinyin romanization of five Chinese surnames: 朱, 祝, 竺, 猪 and 諸. The most prominent of the five, Zhu (朱), is the 17th name in the Hundred Family Surnames poem and was the surname of the Ming dynasty emperors. It is alternatively spelled Chu (primarily in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), Gee in the United States & Canada, and Choo (mostly in Singapore and Malaysia). As of 2018, it is the 14th most common surname in the People's Republic of China, with a population of around 18 million. Name One interpretation is that 朱 refers to 朱雀 meaning vermillion. This is a completely different character from another Chu (楚), which is less common than Zhu. Origin and distribution The ancestral surname (姓) of the ruling family of the State of Zhu (邾) was Cao. (p. 144, Xueqin). The State of Zou, as it was later renamed, was conquered and annexed by the state of Chu during the reign of King Xuan of Chu (369–340 BC). (p. 43, Chao). The ruling family and its descendants adopted Zhu (朱) as their surname in memory of their former state of Zhu (邾). (p. 43, Chao & p. 239, Tan). During the Ming dynasty, some people of the Zhu clan moved to Taiwan, and others later migrated to Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas. During the Qing dynasty the House of Zhu was purged by the House of Aisin-Gioro and the Manchu people who led the Qing armies. Many royal family members of the House of Zhu were executed at Caishikou Execution Grounds during the Qing dynasty. The Zhu clan is also found in Korea and is known as 주 (朱; Ju, Joo); it is the 32nd most common name in Korea though it is combined with the Zhou (周) surname (see List of Korean surnames). Zhu (朱) is technically a branch of the Cao (曹) surname. Nowadays, Zhu is 14th most common, while Cao is 27th most common in terms of population size.A 2013 study found that it was the 14th most common surnames, shared by 17,000,000 people or 1.280% of the population, with the province with the most being Jiangsu. Notable people surnamed 朱 Historical figures Zhu Jun (Han dynasty), politician during the late Han dynasty; also a character in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms Zhu Ling, General of Cao Wei during the Three Kingdoms period Zhu Zhi, military general of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms era of China Zhu Huan, military general of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms era of China Zhu Ju, military general of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms era of China Zhu Ran, military general of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms era of China Zhu Can, an agrarian rebel leader during the disintegration of the Sui dynasty Zhu Jingze, official during the Tang dynasty and Wu Zetian's Zhou dynasty Zhu Mei, general during the Tang dynasty Zhu Pu, an official of the Tang dynasty, serving briefly as a chancellor during the reign of Emperor Zhaozong Zhu Jin, a warlord in the late Tang dynasty Zhu Ci, general and military governor under the Tang dynasty Zhu Tao, general under the Tang dynasty Zhu Kerong, grandson of Zhu Tao and military governor under the Tang dynasty Zhu Yansi, general of the Tang dynasty Zhu Xicai, general and military governor under the Tang dynasty Zhu Quanzhong, founder of the Later Liang Zhu Yougui, second emperor of the Later Liang Zhu Youzhen, third emperor of the Later Liang Zhu Bajie, character of the 16th century novel Journey to the West. Zhu Yuanzhang, Founding Emperor of the Ming dynasty Zhu Yunwen, Second Emperor of the Ming dynasty Zhu Biao, the Hongwu Emperor's first son and Crown Prince Zhu Quan, Prince of Ning, Seventeenth son of the Hongwu Emperor and younger half-brother to the Yongle Emperor; military commander, historian and playwright Zhu Zaiyu, Prince of Zheng, a sixth-generation descendant of the Hongxi Emperor, the fourth emperor of the Ming dynasty; a musician and one of the first people to describe equal temperament in music in 1584 Zhu Chenhao, Prince of Ning; 5th generation descendant of Zhu Quan, Prince of Ning; a rebel Prince Zhu Zhifan, Prince of Anhua; a rebel Prince Zhu Changqing, Prince of Huai, Ming pretender reigning as Emperor Dongwu of the Southern Ming dynasty Hongguang Emperor, born Zhu Yousong, Prince of Fu; Ming pretender and emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty which resisted the Qing dynasty Longwu Emperor, born Zhu Yujian, Prince of Tang; Ming pretender and emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty Yongli Emperor, born Zhu Youlang, Prince of Gui; Ming pretender and emperor of the Southern Ming dynasty Prince of Lu, born Zhu Yihai; a leader of the Southern Ming dynasty Prince of Ningjing, born Zhu Shugui; ninth-generation descendant of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming dynasty of China, via the line of his 15th son, Zhu Zhi, the Prince of Liao; a leader of the Southern Ming dynasty Koxinga whose title literally means Lord with the Imperial Surname; he was born Zheng Chenggong but given the right to bear the imperial surname, Zhu, by the Longwu Emperor, a pretender to the then collapsing Ming dynasty, for his noteworthy loyalist efforts; Koxinga founded the short-lived Kingdom of Taiwan Government, politics and military Zhu Guohua, grandson of Zhu De and sentenced to death for rape Zhu Fulin, former deputy mayor of Jinhua and sentenced to life imprisonment for bribery Cyrus Chu (born 1955), Minister of National Science Council of the Republic of China (2011–2014) Zhu Binhou, a military aviation pioneer and WWI veteran pilot who flown combat missions for the Armée de l'Air Zhu Maichen, an impoverished student working as woodcutter; his wife divorced him to remarry a richer man; subsequently he became a provincial governor under Emperor Wu of Han; he rejected his ex-wife's subsequent attempts at reconciliation and is credited with the Chinese proverb: "Poured water cannot be retrieved". His biography is recorded in Volume 64 of the Book of Han Zhu Youqian, a warlord in the late Tang dynasty, he was falsely accused of plotting a rebellion and Emperor Zhuangong put him and his entire family to death Ju Hala (Sinicized: 朱氏), a Manchu clan during the Qing dynasty, perhaps founded by and composed of assimilated Han Chinese of the Zhu surname. One example might be Zhu Guozhi (朱國治), a Chinese Bannerman in the Eight Banners during the Qing dynasty who was appointed the governor of Yunnan. He was captured by Wu Sangui in 1674 and died cursing the rebels. In 1742, he was included into the Temple of Patriots. Zhu Hongzhang could possibly be regarded as another example. The Marquis of Extended Grace and his heirs, who were the officially designated heirs of the Ming dynasty by the Qing dynasty, were inducted into the Plain White Banner of the Eight Banners system Zhu Hongzhang, a loyalist general during the Qing dynasty; he helped put down the Taiping Rebellion Zhu Zhixin, comrade of Sun Yat-sen who named Zhixin High School after his dead comrade Zhu Shaoliang, general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China Zhu Lühe, a politician and judicial officer in the Republic of China; he became an important politician during the Reformed Government of the Republic of China and the Wang Jingwei regime Zhu Shen, a politician and public prosecutor in the Republic of China; he became an important politician during the Provisional Government of the Republic of China and the Wang Jingwei regime Zhu Pei-De, General Zhu De, co-founder of the Chinese Red Army, forerunner of the People's Liberation Army Zhu Qi, general of the People's Liberation Army; currently commander of the Beijing Military Region Zhu Jiahua, famous politician of the Republic of China Sir Moilin Jean Ah-Chuen (朱梅麟), a Sino-Mauritian politician and business man from Mauritius. He became First Chinese Cabinet Minister from 1967 to 1976 and First Chinese Member, Legislative Council in 1949. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. Zhu Rongji, former PRC Premier; he is a direct descendant of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty David S. C. Chu, United States Under Secretary of Defense appointed by George W. Bush Jim Chu, Chief Constable of the Vancouver Police Department Zhu Qizhen, former Vice Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United States Steven Chu, the 12th United States Secretary of Energy Eric Chu, a former Vice Premier of the Republic of China; subsequently the first Mayor of New Taipei Choo Han Teck, a Judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore Susan Chu (朱俶賢), wife of former Taiwan (ROC) Vice President Vincent Siew Zhu Hailun, Deputy Party Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Carmen Chu, Assessor-Recorder of the City and County of San Francisco since 2013 Zhu Fenglian, deputy director and Spokesperson of the Information Bureau at the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council since 2019 Chu Yiu-ming, One of the founders of the Occupy Central Samuel Chu, Founder and President of The Campaign for Hong Kong Philosophy and religion Zhu Xi, Song-dynasty scholar and main proponent for Neo-Confucianism; he was elevated to a position of honor in the Temple of Confucius several decades after his death and recognized as the third sage of Confucianism after Confucius and Mencius during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing dynasty Zhu Qianzhi, Chinese intellectual and historian; influenced Mao Zedong Arts Zhu Da, renowned painter and calligrapher of the Qing dynasty; agnatic descendant of Zhu Quan, Prince of Ning Zhu Dake, Chinese scholar, cultural critic and essayist Zhu Ziqing, renowned writer and poet Zhu Jian'er, a prominent Chinese composer Zhu Xiao-Mei, Chinese classical pianist and teacher Chu Yibing, cellist Zhu Xiao Di, Chinese-American writer Zhu Wen, Chinese short story writer turned director Joyce Chu, Malaysian singer-songwriter and actress. Science and technology Zhu Angel, Owner of the cat Oliver Zhu Shijie, Chinese mathematician Steven Chu, one of three co-recipients of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics; 12th US Secretary of Energy Chu Ching-wu, renowned physicist; expert on superconductivity Gilbert Chu, professor of medicine and biochemistry at Stanford Medical School; older brother of Steven Chu, the 12th US Secretary of Energy Eric Inho Chu, former WHO Regional Director of Africa; Pioneer of South Korean Public Health Jun Zhu, statistician and entomologist Zhu Xiping, professor of mathematics at Sun Yat-sen University; winner of the 2004 Morningside Medal of Mathematics at the Third International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) Zhu Qingshi, famous chemist, member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was the former president of the University of Science and Technology of China. He was also a delegate of the 8th and 9th National People's Congress, and the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Business Zhu Chuanfeng, businessman sentenced to death for selling gutter oil Zhu Chuanqing, businessman sentenced to life in prison for selling gutter oil Zhu Chuanbo, businessman sentenced to life in prison for selling gutter oil David Chu, Taiwanese-American, founder of Nautica, men's designer outerwear company Zhu Baoguo, Chinese billionaire, founder of Joincare Pharmaceutical Group Industrial Zhu Gongshan, Chinese billionaire, founder of GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Limited, an energy supplier in China Zhu Huiming, Chinese billionaire, founder of Hangzhou Binjiang Real Estate Group Zhu Jun (businessman), Chinese industrialist and businessman; Chairman of Nasdaq listed company, the Nine City (NASDAQ: NCTY); also chairman of the Shanghai Shenhua football club. Chu Lam Yiu (朱林瑤), chairwoman and CEO, Huabao International Holdings Zhu Mengyi (朱孟依), Chairman of Guangdong Zhujiang Invest, Hopson Development Zhu Xingliang, Chinese billionaire, founder of Suzhou Gold Mantis Construction Decoration Zhu Xinli, Chinese multi-millionaire, founder and chairman of China Huiyuan Juice Group Zhu Yicai, Chinese billionaire, founder and chairman of China Yurun Group Zhu Yunlai, CEO of China International Capital Corp; he is the son of Zhu Rongji, former Premier of the People's Republic of China, and a direct descendant of the Hongwu Emperor of the Ming dynasty Abehymann Zhu, managing director of APX World Logistics Inc., a Shanghai-based 3PL provider formed in July 1993 Sports and entertainment Alex "Xpecial" Chu, American League of Legends player Choo Hoey, Singaporean musician and conductor; formerly music director of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra Choo Seng Quee, former national football coach of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Ken Chu, F4 member Dadawa, real name Zhu Zheqin; singer/songwriter/indie producer, who is well known for her vocalization Julie Chu, U.S. Olympic Team hockey player Jon M. Chu, American film director and screenwriter Loletta Chu, Ethnic Chinese from Myanmar; winner of the 1977 Miss Hong Kong Pageant Athena Chu (朱茵), Hong Kong Actress Zhu Jianhua, P.R.C. Olympic high jumper Zhu Lin, a Chinese badminton player Zhu Ling (volleyball), a Chinese volleyball player who competed in the 1984 Summer Olympics Chu Mu-yen 朱木炎, Hakka Chinese; Gold medalist, Taekwondo, 2004 Athens Olympics; Champion, World Taekwondo Championships, 2003 Zhu Xiaolin, a Chinese long-distance runner, who specialises in marathon running; won the Xiamen International Marathon and was third at the 2010 Rotterdam Marathon. She represented China at the 2008 Beijing Olympics Zhu Yilong, Chinese actor and singer Zhu Yunying, Chinese volleyball player Zhu Zhengting, Chinese singer, dancer and actor, former member of Nine Percent and member of NEXT Zhu Zhu, Chinese actress and singer who rose to fame as a host for MTV China Miscellaneous Zhu Haiyang, Virginia Tech murderer who decapitated Yang Xin Zhu Xianjian, North Korean defector and robber Morgan Chu, an intellectual property attorney and one of the first Asian Americans to lead a major U.S. law, Irell & Manella LLP; younger brother of Steven Chu, the 12th US Secretary of Energy Zhu Ling (poisoning victim), victim of an unsolved 1995 thallium poisoning case in Beijing, China Zhu Min (economist), Chinese economist and is Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Foreign Chu Văn An (朱文安), a Confucian, teacher, physician and high-ranking mandarin of the Trần dynasty in Đại Việt Châu Văn Tiếp (朱文接), an 18th-century Vietnamese military commander, best known for his role as a general of Nguyễn Ánh Sinan Joo clan, a Korean clan descended from Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi Ju Ji-hoon (朱智勳), model and actor from South Korea See also Zhu (state) House of Zhu Reading Chinese surname history: Zhu Hua Mulan Nobel Prize: Steven Chu

Twenty-one, XXI or 21 may refer to: 21 (number), the natural number following 20 and preceding 22 The years 21 BC, AD 21, 1921, 2021 Films 21 (2008 film), starring Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Jim Sturgess, and Kate Bosworth Twenty-One (1991 film), starring Patsy Kensit Twenty-One (1923 film), starring Richard Barthelmess Twenty-One (1918 film), starring Bryant Washburn Science Scandium, an transition metal in the periodic table 21 Lutetia, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music XXI (band), a band formerly known as A Feast for Kings Twenty One Pilots, American musical duo 21 Savage, an Atlanta-based rapper Albums 21 (EP), a 2015 EP by Hunter Hayes 21 (Omarion album), 2006 21 (Adele album), 2011 21 (Rage album), 2012Twenty One (Geri Allen album), 1994 Twenty One (Mystery Jets album), 2008 Twenty 1, a 1991 album by Chicago XXI, a 2015 box set by Rammstein Songs "21" (The Paddingtons song), 2004 "21" (Hunter Hayes song), 2015 "21" (Polo G song), 2020 "21", a song by Corey Hart on Young Man Running "21", a song by Craig Davis from 22 (2022) "21", a song by DaBaby from Blank Blank "21", a song by Dean from 130 mood: TRBL "21", a song by Gracie Abrams on Minor (EP) "21", a 2015 song by Cory Marks from This Man "21", a 2010 song by Flo Rida from Only One Flo (Part 1) "21", a 2018 song by Mitch James 21?!, a 2008 song and EP by Marya Roxx "Twenty One", a song by The Shirelles "Twenty One", a song by Khalid from Free Spirit "Twenty-One", a song by The Eagles from Desperado "Twenty One", a song by The Cranberries from No Need to Argue "Twenty One", a song by Corey Smith Games and sports Twenty-One (card game), forerunner of Blackjack and Pontoon 21 (drinking game), a counting game 21, also "Counting to 21 game" or "21 game", a Nim-style counting game Twenty-one (basketball), a basketball variation Twenty-One (game show), an American game show from 1956 to 1958 and in 2000 Catch 21, an American game show based on Blackjack Other uses 21 (novel) or The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey, by Patrick O'Brian, 2004 "21" (Boardwalk Empire), an episode of the Boardwalk Empire television series 21 Club, a former restaurant and nightclub in New York City Twentyone Lake, a lake in Minnesota See also 021 (disambiguation) Twenty to One, a 1935 British musical comedy List of highways numbered 21

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585; also Tallys or Talles) was an English composer of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. Tallis is considered one of England's greatest composers, and is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship. Life Youth As no records about the birth, family or childhood of Thomas Tallis exist, almost nothing is known about his early life or origins. Historians have calculated that he was born in the early part of the 16th century, towards the end of the reign of Henry VII of England, and estimates for the year of his birth range from 1500 to 1520. His only known relative was a cousin called John Sayer. As the surnames Sayer and Tallis both have strong connections with Kent, Thomas Tallis is usually thought to have been born somewhere in the county.There are suggestions that Tallis sang as a child of the chapel in the Chapel Royal, the same singing establishment which he joined as an adult. He was probably a chorister at the Benedictine Priory of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Martin of the New Work, in Dover, where he was employed at an early age, but it is impossible to know whether he was educated there. He may have sung at Canterbury Cathedral. Career Tallis served at court as a composer and performer for Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. He was first designated as an organist at the chapel after 1570, although he would have been employed as an organist throughout his career.He avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout his service to successive monarchs, though he remained, in the words of the historian Peter Ackroyd, an "unreformed Roman Catholic". Tallis was capable of switching the style of his compositions to suit each monarch's different demands. He stood out among other important composers of the time, including Christopher Tye and Robert White. The author and composer Ernest Walker wrote that "he had more versatility of style" than Tye and White, and "his general handling of his material was more consistently easy and certain." Tallis taught the composer William Byrd, as later associated with Lincoln Cathedral; as also Elway Bevin, an organist of Bristol Cathedral and Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. 1530s and 1540s No record of Tallis exists before 1531, when he is named in the accounts of the Kent Benedictine house Dover Priory. He was employed there as the organist, responsible for directing chants from the organ A "Thomas Tales" is named as the "joculator organorum" at the priory and received an annual payment of £2. The priory was dissolved in 1535, but there is no surviving record of Tallis's departure.Tallis's whereabouts are not known for the several months after this until mention is made of his being employed at St Mary-at-Hill in London's Billingsgate ward. Records show he was paid four half-yearly payments from 1536 to 1538, with the last payment being specified for services—as either a singer or an organist—for the year up to 25 March 1538. Towards the end of 1538 Tallis moved to a large Augustinian monastery, Waltham Abbey in Essex, after he had come into contact with the abbot, whose London home was near to St Mary-at-Hill. At Waltham, Tallis became a senior member. When the abbey, too, was dissolved in March 1540, Tallis left without receiving a pension (since he had only recently been employed there), and was instead given a one-off payment of 40 shillings. He took away a volume of musical treatises copied by John Wylde, once a preceptor at Waltham. Among its contents was a treatise by Leonel Power that prohibited consecutive unisons, fifths, and octaves; the last page is inscribed with his name.By the summer of 1540 Tallis had moved to the formerly monastic but recently secularised Canterbury Cathedral, where his name heads the list of singers in the newly expanded choir of 10 boys and 12 men. He remained there for two years. Employment at the Chapel Royal Tallis's employment in the Chapel Royal probably began in 1543. His name appears on a 1544 lay subsidy roll and is listed in a later document. It is possible that he was connected with the court when at St Mary-at-Hill, since in 1577 Tallis claimed to have "served yo[u]r Ma[jes]tie and yo[u]r Royall ancestors these fortie yeres". He may have been responsible for teaching the boys of the choir keyboard and composition.Around 1552, Tallis married, probably for the first time, his wife being Joan, the widow of a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Like many other members of the royal household choir, Tallis and his wife lived in Greenwich, although it is not known if he ever owned his house there. He probably rented a house, by tradition in Stockwell Street. There seem to have been no children of the marriage. Queen Mary I granted Tallis a lease on a manor in Kent which provided a comfortable annual income. He was present at her funeral on 13 December 1558 and at the coronation of Elizabeth I the following month. Tallis was an eminent figure in Elizabeth's household chapel, but as he aged he became gradually less prominent. In 1575, Elizabeth granted Tallis and Byrd a 21-year monopoly for polyphonic music and a patent to print and publish "set songe or songes in parts", one of the first arrangements of its kind in England. Tallis composed in English, Latin, French, Italian, and other languages. He had exclusive rights to print any music in any language, and he and Byrd had sole use of the paper used in printing music. Amongst the collection of works they produced using their monopoly was the 1575 Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, but it did not sell well and they were forced to appeal to Elizabeth for support. People were wary of the new publications, the sale of which was not helped by both men being Roman Catholics. As Catholics, Byrd and Tallis were forbidden to sell imported music, and were refused any rights to music fonts, or printing patents not under their command. They lacked their own printing press. A second petition in 1577 resulted in the grant of a joint lease of crown lands to the two composers. After the 1575 publication, Tallis is thought to have ceased active composition, as no works from these final years survive. Final years Late in his life, Tallis lived in Greenwich, possibly close to the royal Palace of Placentia; tradition holds that he lived on Stockwell Street. He was recorded as a member of Elizabeth I's household in June 1585, and wrote his will in August that year. He died in his house in Greenwich on 20 or 23 November; the different dates are from a register and the Chapel Royal.He was buried in the chancel of St Alfege Church, Greenwich. A brass memorial plate placed there after the death of his wife (but before the death of Elizabeth (ONDB)) is now lost. His remains may have been discarded by labourers during the 1710s, when the church was rebuilt.His epitaph on a brass plaque, lost in the subsequent rebuilding of the church, was recorded by the English clergyman John Strype in his 1720 edition of John Stow's Survey of London William Byrd wrote the musical elegy Ye Sacred Muses on Tallis's death. His widow Joan, whose will is dated 12 June 1587, survived him by nearly four years. Works Early works The earliest surviving works by Tallis are Ave Dei patris filia, Magnificat for four voices, and two devotional antiphons to the Virgin Mary, Salve intemerata virgo and Ave rosa sine spinis, which were sung in the evening after the last service of the day; they were cultivated in England at least until the early 1540s. Henry VIII's break from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 and the rise of Thomas Cranmer noticeably influenced the style of music being written. Cranmer recommended a syllabic style of music where each syllable is sung to one pitch, as his instructions make clear for the setting of the 1544 English Litany. As a result, the writing of Tallis and his contemporaries became less florid. Tallis' Mass for Four Voices is marked with a syllabic and chordal style emphasising chords, and a diminished use of melisma. He provides a rhythmic variety and differentiation of moods depending on the meaning of his texts. Tallis' early works also suggest the influence of John Taverner and Robert Fayrfax. Taverner in particular is quoted in Salve intemerata virgo, and his later work, Dum transisset sabbatum.The reformed Anglican liturgy was inaugurated during the short reign of Edward VI (1547–53), and Tallis was one of the first church musicians to write anthems set to English words, although Latin continued to be used alongside the vernacular. Queen Mary set about undoing some of the religious reforms of the preceding decades, following her accession in 1553. She restored the Sarum Rite, and compositional style reverted to the elaborate writing prevalent early in the century. Two of Tallis's major works were Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater and the Christmas Mass Puer natus est nobis, and both are believed to be from this period. Puer natus est nobis based on the introit for the third Mass for Christmas Day may have been sung at Christmas 1554 when Mary believed that she was pregnant with a male heir. These pieces were intended to exalt the image of the Queen, as well as to praise the Virgin Mary.Some of Tallis's works were compiled by Thomas Mulliner in a manuscript copybook called The Mulliner Book before Queen Elizabeth's reign, and may have been used by the queen herself when she was younger. Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister in 1558, and the Act of Uniformity abolished the Roman Liturgy and firmly established the Book of Common Prayer. Composers resumed writing English anthems, although the practice continued of setting Latin texts among composers employed by Elizabeth's Chapel Royal. The religious authorities at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, being Protestant, tended to discourage polyphony in church unless the words were clearly audible or, as the 1559 Injunctions stated, "playnelye understanded, as if it were read without singing". Tallis wrote nine psalm chant tunes for four voices for Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter published in 1567. One of the nine tunes was the "Third Mode Melody" which inspired the composition of Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1910. His setting of Psalm 67 became known as "Tallis's Canon", and the setting by Thomas Ravenscroft is an adaptation for the hymn "All praise to thee, my God, this night" (1709) by Thomas Ken, and it has become his best-known composition. The Injunctions, however, also allowed a more elaborate piece of music to be sung in church at certain times of the day, and many of Tallis's more complex Elizabethan anthems may have been sung in this context, or alternatively by the many families that sang sacred polyphony at home. Tallis's better-known works from the Elizabethan years include his settings of the Lamentations (of Jeremiah the Prophet) for the Holy Week services and the unique motet Spem in alium written for eight five-voice choirs, for which he is most remembered. He also produced compositions for other monarchs, and several of his anthems written in Edward's reign are judged to be on the same level as his Elizabethan works, such as "If Ye Love Me". Records are incomplete on his works from previous periods; 11 of his 18 Latin-texted pieces from Elizabeth's reign were published, "which ensured their survival in a way not available to the earlier material". Later works Toward the end of his life, Tallis resisted the musical development seen in his younger contemporaries such as Byrd, who embraced compositional complexity and adopted texts of disparate biblical extracts. Tallis was content to draw his texts from the Liturgy and wrote for the worship services in the Chapel Royal. He composed during the conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism, and his music often displays characteristics of the turmoil. Legacy Tallis is remembered as primarily a composer of sacred vocal music, in part because of his lack of extant instrumental or secular vocal music.No contemporaneous portrait of Tallis survives; the one painted by Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 years after the composer's death, and there is no reason to suppose that it is a fair likeness. In a rare existing copy of his blackletter signature, he spelled his name "Tallys".A fictionalised version of Thomas Tallis was portrayed by Joe Van Moyland in the 2007 Showtime television series The Tudors. Further reading Recordings of church music by Tallis in Latin and English from Umeå Akademiska Kör The Mutopia Project has compositions by Thomas Tallis List of compositions by Thomas Tallis at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (registration required to view the digitised images) Free scores by Thomas Tallis in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki) Free scores by Thomas Tallis at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) Image of Tallis's signature in a book from one of his early places of employment, Waltham Abbey. Works by Tallis listed at the EECM Primary Source Database

Spem in alium (Latin for "Hope in any other") is a 40-part Renaissance motet by Thomas Tallis, composed in c. 1570 for eight choirs of five voices each. It is considered by some critics to be the greatest piece of English early music. H. B. Collins described it in 1929 as Tallis's "crowning achievement", along with his Lamentations. History The work's early history is obscure, though there are some clues as to where it may have been first performed. It is listed in a catalogue of the library at Nonsuch Palace, a royal palace sold in the 1550s to the Earl of Arundel before returning to the crown in the 1590s. The listing, from 1596, describes it as "a song of fortie partes, made by Mr. Tallys". The earliest surviving manuscripts are those prepared in 1610 for the investiture as Prince of Wales of Henry Frederick, the son of James I. A 1611 commonplace book by the law student Thomas Wateridge contains the following anecdote: In Queen Elizabeths time þere was à songe sen[t] into England in 30 p[art]s (whence þe Italians obteyned þe name to be called þe Apices of þe world) wch beeinge Songe mad[e] a heavenly Harmony. The Duke of — bearinge à great love to Musicke asked whether none of our English men could sett as good à songe, and Tallice beeinge very skilfull was felt to try whether he would undertake þe matter, wch he did & made one of 40 p[ar]tes wch was songe in the longe gallery at Arundell house, wch so farre surpassed þe other that the Duke, hearinge þt songe, tooke his chayne of Gold fro[m] his necke & putt yt about Tallice his necke & gave yt him (wch songe was againe songe at þe Princes coronation). Supposing the "30" to be a mistake, the Italian song referred to has been argued to be either the 40-part motet Ecce beatam lucem or the 40–60-voice mass Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, both by Alessandro Striggio, who is known to have visited London in June 1567 after a trip through Europe during which he arranged other performances of Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno. This account is consistent with the catalogue entry at Nonsuch Palace: Arundel House was the London home of Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel; Nonsuch Palace was his country residence. Nonsuch had an octagonal banqueting hall, which in turn had four first-floor balconies above the ground floor; on this supposition it could have been the case that Tallis designed the music to be sung not only in the round, but with four of the eight five-part choirs singing from the balconies. Likewise, the only dukedom extant during Elizabeth I's reign was that of Norfolk, so the duke in the letter can only be Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and so (if the anecdote is trustworthy) his execution in 1572 gives a latest date for the work's composition. Some scholars consider that the Duke of Norfolk commissioned Tallis to write "Spem in alium" for performance at Nonsuch, and that its first performance took place there. Other historians, doubting the anecdote, suggest that the first performance was on the occasion of Elizabeth's 40th birthday in 1573.The above are the most widely held views, but both have difficulties. The text comes from a response in the Matins order in the Sarum rite, which had been superseded by the Book of Common Prayer. Indeed, the text used for a 1610 performance of the work, while set to the music, is entirely different, suggesting that the original text was not satisfactory. Wateridge's letter is dated 40 years after the Elizabethan date and does not mention either Striggio or the duke by name. It has been suggested that if the duke in question was a duke of Norfolk this could be the third duke, who was alive during Mary I's reign. Nonsuch Palace belonged to the Norfolks in the 1550s, having been sold to them by Mary. As for the original text, its context of Judith slaying Holofernes and regaining her position fits with Mary's execution of the Duke of Northumberland, who had attempted to supplant her on the throne with Lady Jane Grey, rather than Tallis using it for Elizabeth. The music itself is entirely different from Striggio's setting. His work was for ten four-part choirs; Tallis's is for eight five-part choirs. The '30' in Wateridge's letter may not be a misprint or an error; the work referred to may be simply unknown. On these arguments Tallis wrote the work for Mary, Elizabeth's predecessor. The possibility has been advanced that Striggio copied Tallis, though of this there is no evidence.An early score of the work resides at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it was part of an exhibition shown in 2008–09 detailing 1000 years of British choral music. Another early score of the work resides at the British Library, London in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures Gallery, where it was part of the 2014–15 exhibition "Treasures of the British Library". Qualities The motet is laid out for eight choirs of five voices (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass). It is most likely that Tallis intended his singers to stand in a horseshoe shape. Beginning with a single voice from the first choir, other voices join in imitation, each in turn falling silent as the music moves around the eight choirs. All forty voices enter simultaneously for a few bars, and then the pattern of the opening is reversed with the music passing from choir eight to choir one. There is another brief full section, after which the choirs sing in antiphonal pairs, throwing the sound across the space between them. Finally all voices join for the culmination of the work. Though composed in imitative style and occasionally homophonic, its individual vocal lines act quite freely within its elegant harmonic framework, allowing for a large number of individual musical ideas to be implemented during its ten- to twelve-minute performance time. The work is a study in contrasts: the individual voices sing and are silent in turns, sometimes alone, sometimes in choirs, sometimes calling and answering, sometimes all together, so that, far from being a monotonous mass, the work is continually changing and presenting new ideas. Text The original Latin text of the motet is from a responsory (at Matins, for the 3rd Lesson, during the V week of September), in the Sarum Rite, adapted from the Book of Judith (Judith 9). Today the response appears in the Divine Office of the Latin rite in the Office of Readings (formerly called Matins) following the first lesson on Tuesday of the 29th Week of the Year. There is no early manuscript source giving the underlay for the Latin text: the 1610 copies give the underlay for the English contrafactum, sung at the 1610 investiture of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, "Sing and glorify" (see below), with the Latin words given at the bottom. Renditions Recordings include those by the Choir of Winchester Cathedral; the Tallis Scholars, The Cardinall's Musick, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, the Oxford Camerata; the Choirs of King's and St John's Colleges, Cambridge; The Sixteen; The Clerkes of Oxenford; Huelgas Ensemble; Taverner Consort and Players; I Fagiolini have recorded it alongside a 40 part motet by Alessandro Striggio, with continuo, cornetts and sackbuts. Another version of this motet is featured in Janet Cardiff's Forty-Part Motet (2001), a sound installation which is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and of Inhotim in Brumadinho, Brazil. The Ottawa exhibit is set in the Rideau Street Chapel, which is the salvaged interior of a demolished convent chapel that is now in permanent display at the National Gallery. Forty speakers are set around the Chapel, each one featuring a single voice of the 40-part choir. The result is a highly enhanced polyphonic effect, as visitors may hear each individual voice through its corresponding speaker, or listen to the voices of the entire choir blending in together with varying intensities, as one moves around the Chapel.On 10 June 2006, the BBC asked for 1,000 singers to meet, rehearse and perform the piece in the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester for what was almost certainly the largest performance of the piece in history. On that day, over 700 singers attended, most of whom had never sung the piece before. A programme following the day's events was broadcast on BBC Four on 9 December 2006.Spem in alium features prominently in the Stephen Poliakoff TV drama Gideon's Daughter. It is also used in the film Touching the Void, reaching a climax when Yates and Simpson arrive at the summit of the mountain. It appears again in Francois Girard's Boychoir (2014), performed "in-the-round" at Stet's early-training in the fictional National Boychoir Academy.Spem in alium has inspired modern composers to write 40-part choral works; examples include Giles Swayne's The Silent Land (1998), Robert Hanson's And There Shall Be No Night There (2002), Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's Tentatio (2006), Peter McGarr's Love You Big as the Sky (2007) and Alec Roth's Earthrise (2009), which was commissioned by the UK choir Ex Cathedra for its 40th anniversary. A London-based choral festival, the Tallis Festival, which always includes a performance of Spem in alium, commissioned both Mäntyjärvi and McGarr.In 2021 the Self-Isolation Choir will perform the work, trained and conducted by Nigel Short and led by singers from Tenebrae, with all singers recording their parts individually at home. The edition used is that prepared by Hugh Keyte in 2020 and made available by the Thomas Tallis Society along with Keyte's 70-page introduction to the edition. The Society also makes available learning material whereby a singer may hear a recording of any chosen voice line, with metronome and/or organ accompaniment. Recordings Tallis—Latin Church Music—Taverner Consort and Players, Andrew Parrott (EMI Reflexe, 1989) Thomas Tallis—Spem in alium—The Tallis Scholars (Gimell, 1985) Davitt Moroney, "Alessandro Striggio's Mass in Forty and Sixty Parts". Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 1–69. ISSN 0003-0139. Complete performance by the Tallis Scholars, followed by 10-minute discussion on BBC Radio 3 (28 October 2007) [RTP stream metadata; requires compatible player] Choral Public Domain Library (with further discussion of the work, as well as complete score and singers' editions for each of the eight choirs, available for free legal download). by Peter Phillips for the Tallis Scholars recording by Jeremy Summerly for the Oxford Camerata recording The Early Music Show Brighton Consort's MIDI Set offers midi files of each choir and each part within each choir for practice. Straight into the charts... a hit from 1568.

Glenn Herbert Gould (; né Gold; 25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian classical pianist. He was among the most famous and celebrated pianists of the 20th century, renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach. His playing was distinguished by remarkable technical proficiency and a capacity to articulate the contrapuntal texture of Bach's music. Gould rejected most of the Romantic piano literature by Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others, in favour of Bach and Beethoven mainly, along with some late-Romantic and modernist composers. Gould also recorded works by Mozart, Haydn, Scriabin, and Brahms; pre-Baroque composers such as Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, William Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons; and 20th-century composers including Paul Hindemith, Arnold Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. Gould was also a writer and broadcaster, and dabbled in composing and conducting. He produced television programmes about classical music, in which he would speak and perform, or interact with an interviewer in a scripted manner. He made three musique concrète radio documentaries, collectively the Solitude Trilogy, about isolated areas of Canada. He was a prolific contributor to music journals, in which he discussed music theory. Gould was known for his eccentricities, from his unorthodox musical interpretations and mannerisms at the keyboard to aspects of his lifestyle and behaviour. He disliked public performance, and stopped giving concerts at age 31 to concentrate on studio recording and media. Life Early life Glenn Gould was born at home in Toronto, on 25 September 1932, the only child of Russell Herbert Gold (1901–1996) and Florence Emma Gold (née Greig; 1891–1975), Presbyterians of Scottish, English, and Norwegian ancestry. The family's surname was informally changed to Gould around 1939 to avoid being mistaken for Jewish, given the prevailing anti-Semitism of pre-war Toronto. Gould had no Jewish ancestry, though he sometimes joked about the subject, such as "When people ask me if I'm Jewish, I always tell them that I was Jewish during the war." His childhood home has been named a historic site.His interest in music and his talent as a pianist were evident very early. Both parents were musical; his mother, especially, encouraged his musical development from infancy. Hoping he would become a successful musician, she exposed him to music during her pregnancy. She taught him the piano and as a baby, he reportedly hummed instead of crying, and wiggled his fingers as if playing a keyboard instrument, leading his doctor to predict that he would "be either a physician or a pianist". He learned to read music before he could read words, and it was observed that he had perfect pitch at age three. When presented with a piano, the young Gould was reported to strike single notes and listen to their long decay, a practice his father Bert noted was different from typical children. Gould's interest in the piano was concomitant with an interest in composition. He played his pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings—including, in 1938, a performance at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould family home) of one of his compositions.Gould first heard a live musical performance by a celebrated soloist at age six. This profoundly affected him. He later described the experience: It was Hofmann. It was, I think, his last performance in Toronto, and it was a staggering impression. The only thing I can really remember is that, when I was being brought home in a car, I was in that wonderful state of half-awakeness in which you hear all sorts of incredible sounds going through your mind. They were all orchestral sounds, but I was playing them all, and suddenly I was Hofmann. I was enchanted. At age 10, he began attending the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (known until 1947 as the Toronto Conservatory of Music). He studied music theory with Leo Smith, organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero. Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe. This incident is apocryphally related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard. He used this chair for the rest of his life, taking it with him almost everywhere. The chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low and allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of Guerrero's.Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the "separateness" and clarity of each note. His extremely low position at the instrument permitted him more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.Gould passed his final Conservatory examination in piano at age 12, achieving the highest marks of any candidate, and thus attaining professional standing as a pianist. One year later he passed the written theory exams, qualifying for an Associate of the Toronto Conservatory of Music (ATCM) diploma. Piano Gould was a child prodigy and was described in adulthood as a musical phenomenon. He claimed to have almost never practiced on the piano itself, preferring to study repertoire by reading, another technique he had learned from Guerrero. He may have spoken ironically about his practising, though, as there is evidence that, on occasion, he did practise quite hard, sometimes using his own drills and techniques. He seemed able to practise mentally, once preparing for a recording of Brahms's piano works without playing them until a few weeks before the sessions. Gould could play a vast repertoire of piano music, as well as a wide range of orchestral and operatic transcriptions, from memory. He could "memorize at sight" and once challenged a friend to name any piece of music that he could not "instantly play from memory".The piano, Gould said, "is not an instrument for which I have any great love as such ... [but] I have played it all my life, and it is the best vehicle I have to express my ideas." In the case of Bach, Gould noted, "[I] fixed the action in some of the instruments I play on—and the piano I use for all recordings is now so fixed—so that it is a shallower and more responsive action than the standard. It tends to have a mechanism which is rather like an automobile without power steering: you are in control and not it; it doesn't drive you, you drive it. This is the secret of doing Bach on the piano at all. You must have that immediacy of response, that control over fine definitions of things."As a teenager, Gould was significantly influenced by Artur Schnabel and Rosalyn Tureck's recordings of Bach (which he called "upright, with a sense of repose and positiveness"), and the conductor Leopold Stokowski. Gould was known for his vivid imagination. Listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to outright eccentric. His pianism had great clarity and erudition, particularly in contrapuntal passages, and extraordinary control. Gould believed the piano to be "a contrapuntal instrument" and his whole approach to music was centered in the Baroque. Much of the homophony that followed he felt belongs to a less serious and less spiritual period of art. Gould had a pronounced aversion to what he termed "hedonistic" approaches to piano repertoire, performance, and music generally. For him, "hedonism" in this sense denoted a superficial theatricality, something to which he felt Mozart, for example, became increasingly susceptible later in his career. He associated this drift toward hedonism with the emergence of a cult of showmanship and gratuitous virtuosity on the concert platform in the 19th century and later. The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the "blood sport" with which he struggled, and which he ultimately rejected. Performances On 5 June 1938, at age five, Gould played in public for the first time, joining his family on stage to play piano at a church service at the Business Men's Bible Class in Uxbridge, Ontario, in front of a congregation of about 2,000. In 1945, at 13, he made his first appearance with an orchestra in a performance of the first movement of Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with the Toronto Symphony. His first solo recital followed in 1947, and his first recital on radio was with the CBC in 1950. This was the beginning of Gould's long association with radio and recording. He founded the Festival Trio chamber group in 1953 with cellist Isaac Mamott and violinist Albert Pratz. Gould made his American debut on 2 January 1955, in Washington, D.C. at The Phillips Collection. The music critic Paul Hume wrote in the Washington Post, "January 2 is early for predictions, but it is unlikely that the year 1955 will bring us a finer piano recital than that played yesterday afternoon in the Phillips Gallery. We shall be lucky if it brings us others of equal beauty and significance." A performance at The Town Hall in New York City followed on 11 January. Gould's reputation quickly grew. In 1957, he undertook a tour of the Soviet Union, becoming the first North American to play there since World War II. His concerts featured Bach, Beethoven, and the serial music of Schoenberg and Berg, which had been suppressed in the Soviet Union during the era of Socialist Realism. Gould debuted in Boston in 1958, playing for the Peabody Mason Concert Series. On 31 January 1960, Gould first appeared on American television on CBS's Ford Presents series, performing Bach's Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor (BWV 1052) with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.Gould believed that the institution of the public concert was an anachronism and a "force of evil", leading to his early retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or failing critical expectation; and that such performances produced unexceptional interpretations because of the limitations of live music. He set forth this doctrine, half in jest, in "GPAADAK", the Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds. On 10 April 1964, he gave his last public performance, at Los Angeles's Wilshire Ebell Theater. Among the pieces he performed were Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30, selections from Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Hindemith's Piano Sonata No. 3. Gould performed fewer than 200 concerts, of which fewer than 40 were outside Canada. For a pianist such as Van Cliburn, 200 concerts would have amounted to about two years' touring.One of Gould's reasons for abandoning live performance was his aesthetic preference for the recording studio, where, in his words, he developed a "love affair with the microphone". There, he could control every aspect of the final musical product by selecting parts of various takes. He felt that he could realize a musical score more fully this way. Gould felt strongly that there was little point in re-recording centuries-old pieces if the performer had no new perspective to bring. For the rest of his life, he eschewed live performance, focusing instead on recording, writing, and broadcasting. Eccentricities Gould was widely known for his unusual habits. He often hummed or sang while he played, and his audio engineers were not always able to exclude his voice from recordings. Gould claimed that his singing was unconscious and increased in proportion to his inability to produce his intended interpretation on a given piano. It is likely that the habit originated in his having been taught by his mother to "sing everything that he played", as his biographer Kevin Bazzana wrote. This became "an unbreakable (and notorious) habit". Some of Gould's recordings were severely criticised because of this background "vocalising". For example, a reviewer of his 1981 rerecording of the Goldberg Variations wrote that many listeners would "find the groans and croons intolerable". Gould was known for his peculiar, even theatrical, gesticulations while playing. Another oddity was his insistence on absolute control over every aspect of his environment. The temperature of the recording studio had to be precisely regulated; he invariably insisted that it be extremely warm. According to another of Gould's biographers, Otto Friedrich, the air-conditioning engineer had to work just as hard as the recording engineers.The piano had to be set at a certain height and would be raised on wooden blocks if necessary. A rug would sometimes be required for his feet. He had to sit exactly 14 inches (360 mm) above the floor, and would play concerts only with the chair his father had made. He used this chair even when the seat was completely worn. His chair is so closely identified with him that it is shown in a place of honour in a glass case at Library and Archives Canada. Conductors had mixed responses to Gould and his playing habits. George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius." Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him." Bernstein created a stir at the concert of April 6, 1962, when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the boss – the soloist or the conductor?", to which the audience laughed. "The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved." Specifically, Bernstein was referring to their rehearsals, with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo. The speech was interpreted by Harold C. Schonberg, music critic for The New York Times, as an abdication of responsibility and an attack on Gould. Plans for a studio recording of the performance came to nothing. The live radio broadcast was subsequently released on CD, Bernstein's disclaimer included. Gould was averse to cold and wore heavy clothing (including gloves) even in warm places. He was once arrested, possibly being mistaken for a vagrant, while sitting on a park bench in Sarasota, Florida, dressed in his standard all-climate attire of coat, hat and mittens. He also disliked social functions. He hated being touched, and in later life limited personal contact, relying on the telephone and letters for communication. On a visit to Steinway Hall in New York City in 1959, the chief piano technician at the time, William Hupfer, greeted Gould with a slap on the back. Gould was shocked by this, and complained of aching, lack of coordination, and fatigue because of it. He went on to explore the possibility of litigation against Steinway & Sons if his apparent injuries were permanent. He was known for cancelling performances at the last minute, which is why Bernstein's aforementioned public disclaimer opened with, "Don't be frightened, Mr. Gould is here ... [he] will appear in a moment." In his liner notes and broadcasts, Gould created more than two dozen alter egos for satirical, humorous, and didactic purposes, permitting him to write hostile reviews or incomprehensible commentaries on his own performances. Probably the best-known are the German musicologist Karlheinz Klopweisser, the English conductor Sir Nigel Twitt-Thornwaite, and the American critic Theodore Slutz. These facets of Gould, whether interpreted as neurosis or "play", have provided ample material for psychobiography. Gould was a teetotaller and did not smoke. He did not cook; instead he often ate at restaurants and relied on room service. He ate one meal a day, supplemented by arrowroot biscuits and coffee. In his later years he claimed to be vegetarian, though this is not certain. Fran's Restaurant in Toronto was a regular haunt; a CBC profile noted that "sometime between two and three every morning, Gould would go to Fran's, a 24-hour diner a block away from his Toronto apartment, sit in the same booth, and order the same meal of scrambled eggs." Personal life Gould lived a private life. The documentary filmmaker Bruno Monsaingeon said of him: "No supreme pianist has ever given of his heart and mind so overwhelmingly while showing himself so sparingly." He never married, and biographers have spent considerable time on his sexuality. Bazzana writes that "it is tempting to assume that Gould was asexual, an image that certainly fits his aesthetic and the persona he sought to convey, and one can read the whole Gould literature and be convinced that he died a virgin"—but he also mentions that evidence points to "a number of relationships with women that may or may not have been platonic and ultimately became complicated and were ended".One piece of evidence arrived in 2007. When Gould was in Los Angeles in 1956, he met Cornelia Foss, an art instructor, and her husband Lukas, a conductor. After several years, she and Gould became lovers. In 1967, she left her husband for Gould, taking her two children with her to Toronto. She purchased a house near Gould's apartment. In 2007, Foss confirmed that she and Gould had had a love affair for several years. According to her, "There were a lot of misconceptions about Glenn, and it was partly because he was so very private. But I assure you, he was an extremely heterosexual man. Our relationship was, among other things, quite sexual." Their affair lasted until 1972, when she returned to her husband. As early as two weeks after leaving her husband, Foss noticed disturbing signs in Gould, alluding to unusual behaviour that was more than "just neurotic". Specifically, he believed that "someone was spying on him", according to Foss's son. Health and death Though an admitted hypochondriac, Gould had many pains and ailments, but his autopsy revealed few underlying problems in areas that often troubled him. He worried about everything from high blood pressure (which in his later years he recorded in diary form) to the safety of his hands. (Gould rarely shook people's hands, and habitually wore gloves.) The spine injury he experienced as a child led physicians to prescribe, usually independently, an assortment of analgesics, anxiolytics, and other drugs. Bazzana has speculated that Gould's increasing use of a variety of prescription medications over his career may have had a deleterious effect on his health. It had reached the stage, Bazzana writes, that "he was taking pills to counteract the side effects of other pills, creating a cycle of dependency". In 1956, Gould told photojournalist Jock Carroll about "my hysteria about eating. It's getting worse all the time." In his biography, psychiatrist Peter F. Ostwald noted Gould's increasing neurosis about food in the mid-1950s, something Gould had spoken to him about. Ostwald later discussed the possibility that Gould had developed a "psychogenic eating disorder" around this time. In 1956, Gould was also taking Thorazine, an anti-psychotic medication, and reserpine, another anti-psychotic, which can also be used to lower blood pressure. Cornelia Foss has said that Gould took many antidepressants, which she blamed for his deteriorating mental state.Whether Gould's behaviour fell within the autism spectrum has been debated. The diagnosis was first suggested by psychiatrist Peter Ostwald, a friend of Gould's, in the 1997 book Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius. There has also been speculation that he may have had bipolar disorder, because he sometimes went several days without sleep, had extreme increases in energy, drove recklessly, and in later life endured severe depressive episodes.On 27 September 1982, two days after his 50th birthday, after experiencing a severe headache, Gould had a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He was admitted to Toronto General Hospital and his condition rapidly deteriorated. By 4 October, there was evidence of brain damage, and Gould's father decided that his son should be taken off life support. Gould's public funeral was held in St. Paul's Anglican Church on 15 October with singing by Lois Marshall and Maureen Forrester. The service was attended by over 3,000 people and was broadcast on the CBC. He is buried next to his parents in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery (section 38, lot 1050). The first few bars of the Goldberg Variations are carved on his grave marker. An animal lover, Gould left half his estate to the Toronto Humane Society; the other half went to the Salvation Army.In 2000, a movement disorder neurologist suggested in a paper that Gould had dystonia, "a problem little understood in his time." Perspectives Writings Gould periodically told interviewers he would have been a writer if he had not been a pianist. He expounded his criticism and philosophy of music and art in lectures, convocation speeches, periodicals, and CBC radio and television documentaries. Gould participated in many interviews, and had a predilection for scripting them to the extent that they may be seen to be as written work as much as off-the-cuff discussions. Gould's writing style was highly articulate, but sometimes florid, indulgent, and rhetorical. This is especially evident in his (frequent) attempts at humour and irony. Bazzana writes that although some of Gould's "conversational dazzle" found its way into his prolific written output, his writing was "at best uneven [and] at worst awful". While offering "brilliant insights" and "provocative theses", Gould's writing is often marred by "long, tortuous sentences" and a "false formality", Bazzana writes.In his writing, Gould praised certain composers and rejected what he deemed banal in music composition and its consumption by the public, and also gave analyses of the music of Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Despite a certain affection for Dixieland jazz, Gould was mostly averse to popular music. He enjoyed a jazz concert with his friends as a youth, mentioned jazz in his writings, and once criticized the Beatles for "bad voice leading"—while praising Petula Clark and Barbra Streisand. Gould and jazz pianist Bill Evans were mutual admirers, and Evans made his record Conversations with Myself using Gould's Steinway model CD 318 piano. On art Gould's perspective on art is often summed up by this 1962 quotation: "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."Gould repeatedly called himself "the last puritan", a reference to the philosopher George Santayana's 1935 novel of the same name. But he was progressive in many ways, promulgating the atonal composers of the early 20th century, and anticipating, through his deep involvement in the recording process, the vast changes technology had on the production and distribution of music. Mark Kingwell summarizes the paradox, never resolved by Gould nor his biographers, this way: He was progressive and anti-progressive at once, and likewise at once both a critic of the Zeitgeist and its most interesting expression. He was, in effect, stranded on a beachhead of his own thinking between past and future. That he was not able, by himself, to fashion a bridge between them is neither surprising, nor, in the end, disappointing. We should see this failure, rather, as an aspect of his genius. He both was and was not a man of his time. Technology The issue of "authenticity" in relation to an approach like Gould's has been greatly debated (although less so by the end of the 20th century): is a recording less authentic or "direct" for having been highly refined by technical means in the studio? Gould likened his process to that of a film director—one knows that a two-hour film was not made in two hours—and implicitly asked why the recording of music should be different. He went so far as to conduct an experiment with musicians, sound engineers, and laypeople in which they were to listen to a recording and determine where the splices occurred. Each group chose different points, but none was wholly successful. While the test was hardly scientific, Gould remarked, "The tape does lie, and nearly always gets away with it".In the lecture and essay "Forgery and Imitation in the Creative Process", one of his most significant texts, Gould makes explicit his views on authenticity and creativity. He asks why the epoch in which a work is received influences its reception as "art", postulating a sonata of his own composition that sounds so like one of Haydn's that it is received as such. If, instead, the sonata had been attributed to an earlier or later composer, it becomes more or less interesting as a piece of music. Yet it is not the work that has changed but its relation within the accepted narrative of music history. Similarly, Gould notes the "pathetic duplicity" in the reception of high-quality forgeries by Han van Meegeren of new paintings attributed to the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, before and after the forgery was known. Gould preferred an ahistorical, or at least pre-Renaissance, view of art, minimizing the identity of the artist and the attendant historical context in evaluating the artwork: "What gives us the right to assume that in the work of art we must receive a direct communication with the historical attitudes of another period? ... moreover, what makes us assume that the situation of the man who wrote it accurately or faithfully reflects the situation of his time? ... What if the composer, as historian, is faulty?" Recordings Studio In creating music, Gould much preferred the control and intimacy provided by the recording studio. He disliked the concert hall, which he compared to a competitive sporting arena. He gave his final public performance in 1964, and thereafter devoted his career to the studio, recording albums and several radio documentaries. He was attracted to the technical aspects of recording, and considered the manipulation of tape to be another part of the creative process. Although Gould's recording studio producers have testified that "he needed splicing less than most performers", Gould used the process to give himself total artistic control over the recording process. He recounted his recording of the A minor fugue from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier and how it was spliced together from two takes, with the fugue's expositions from one take and its episodes from another.Gould's first commercial recording (of Berg's Piano sonata, Op. 1) came in 1953 on the short-lived Canadian Hallmark label. He soon signed with Columbia Records' classical music division and, in 1955, recorded Bach: The Goldberg Variations, his breakthrough work. Although there was some controversy at Columbia about the appropriateness of this "debut" piece, the record received extraordinary praise and was among the best-selling classical music albums of its era. Gould became closely associated with the piece, playing it in full or in part at many recitals. A new recording of the Goldberg Variations, in 1981, was among his last albums; the piece was one of a few he recorded twice in the studio. The 1981 release was one of CBS Masterworks' first digital recordings. The 1955 interpretation is highly energetic and often frenetic; the later is slower and more deliberate—Gould wanted to treat the aria and its 30 variations as a cohesive whole.Gould said Bach was "first and last an architect, a constructor of sound, and what makes him so inestimably valuable to us is that he was beyond a doubt the greatest architect of sound who ever lived". He recorded most of Bach's other keyboard works, including both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the partitas, French Suites, English Suites, inventions and sinfonias, keyboard concertos, and a number of toccatas (which interested him least, being less polyphonic). For his only recording at the organ, he recorded some of The Art of Fugue, which was also released posthumously on piano. As for Beethoven, Gould preferred the composer's early and late periods. He recorded all five of the piano concertos, 23 of the piano sonatas, and numerous bagatelles and variations. Gould was the first pianist to record any of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies (beginning with the Fifth Symphony, in 1967, with the Sixth released in 1969). Gould also recorded works by Brahms, Mozart, and many other prominent piano composers, though he was outspoken in his criticism of the Romantic era as a whole. He was extremely critical of Chopin. When asked whether he found himself wanting to play Chopin, he replied: "No, I don't. I play it in a weak moment—maybe once a year or twice a year for myself. But it doesn't convince me." But in 1970, he played Chopin's B minor sonata for the CBC and said he liked some of the miniatures and "sort of liked the first movement of the B minor". Although he recorded all of Mozart's sonatas and admitted enjoying the "actual playing" of them, Gould said he disliked Mozart's later works. He was fond of a number of lesser-known composers such as Orlando Gibbons, whose Anthems he had heard as a teenager, and whose music he felt a "spiritual attachment" to. He recorded a number of Gibbons's keyboard works, and called him his favourite composer, despite his better-known admiration for Bach. He made recordings of piano music by Jean Sibelius (the Sonatines and Kyllikki), Georges Bizet (the Variations Chromatiques de Concert and the Premier nocturne), Richard Strauss (the Piano Sonata, the Five Pieces, and Enoch Arden with Claude Rains), and Hindemith (the three piano sonatas and the sonatas for brass and piano). He also made recordings of Schoenberg's complete piano works. In early September 1982, Gould made his final recording: Strauss's Piano Sonata in B minor. Collaborations The success of Gould's collaborations was to a degree dependent upon his collaborators' receptiveness to his sometimes unconventional readings of the music. Stegemann considered Gould's television collaboration with American violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1965, in which they played works by Bach, Beethoven and Schoenberg, a success because "Menuhin was ready to embrace the new perspectives opened up by an unorthodox view". His 1966 collaboration with soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, however, recording Strauss's Ophelia Lieder, was deemed an "outright fiasco". Schwarzkopf believed in "total fidelity" to the score, but objected to the temperature, which was to Gould's liking:The studio was incredibly overheated, which may be good for a pianist but not for a singer: a dry throat is the end as far as singing is concerned. But we persevered nonetheless. It wasn't easy for me. Gould began by improvising something Straussian—we thought he was simply warming up, but no, he continued to play like that throughout the actual recordings, as though Strauss's notes were just a pretext that allowed him to improvise freely.Gould recorded Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Ernst Krenek with numerous vocalists, including Donald Gramm and Ellen Faull. He also recorded Bach's six sonatas for violin and harpsichord (BWV 1014–1019) with Jaime Laredo, and the three sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard with Leonard Rose. Claude Rains narrated their recording of Strauss's Enoch Arden melodrama. Gould also collaborated with members of the New York Philharmonic, the flutist Julius Baker and the violinist Rafael Druian in a recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, and with Leopold Stokowski and the American Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in 1966.Gould collaborated extensively with Vladimir Golschmann and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra for the Columbia Masterworks label in his recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1958 and several works by Bach in the 1960s, including the Keyboard Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1054), the Keyboard Concerto No. 5 (BWV 1056) and the Keyboard Concerto No. 7 (BWV 1058) in 1967 and the Keyboard Concerto No. 2 in E major (BWV 1053) and the Keyboard Concerto No. 4 in A major (BWV 1055) in 1969. Documentaries Gould made numerous television and radio programs for CBC Television and CBC Radio. Notable productions include his musique concrète Solitude Trilogy, which consists of The Idea of North, a meditation on Northern Canada and its people; The Latecomers, about Newfoundland; and The Quiet in the Land, about Mennonites in Manitoba. All three use a radiophonic electronic-music technique that Gould called "contrapuntal radio", in which several people are heard speaking at once—much like the voices in a fugue—manipulated through overdubbing and editing. His experience of driving across northern Ontario while listening to Top 40 radio in 1967 inspired one of his most unusual radio pieces, The Search for Petula Clark, a witty and eloquent dissertation on Clark's recordings.Also among Gould's CBC programs was an educational lecture on the music of Bach, "Glenn Gould On Bach", which featured a collaborative performance with Julius Baker and Oscar Shumsky of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Transcriptions, compositions, and conducting Gould was also a prolific transcriber of orchestral repertoire for piano. He transcribed his own Wagner and Ravel recordings, as well as Strauss's operas and Schubert's and Bruckner's symphonies, which he played privately for pleasure.Gould dabbled in composition, with few finished works. As a teenager, he wrote chamber music and piano works in the style of the Second Viennese school. Significant works include a string quartet, which he finished in his 20s (published 1956, recorded 1960), and his cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. Later works include the Lieberson Madrigal (soprano, alto, tenor, bass [SATB] and piano), and So You Want to Write a Fugue? (SATB with piano or string-quartet accompaniment). His String Quartet (Op. 1) received a mixed reaction: the Christian Science Monitor and Saturday Review were quite laudatory, the Montreal Star less so. There is little critical commentary on Gould's compositions because there are few of them; he never succeeded beyond Opus 1, and left a number of works unfinished. He attributed his failure as a composer to his lack of a "personal voice". Most of his work is published by Schott Music. The recording Glenn Gould: The Composer contains his original works. Towards the end of his life, Gould began conducting. He had earlier directed Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and the cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde from the harpsipiano (a piano with metal hammers to simulate a harpsichord's sound), and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (the Urlicht section) in the 1960s. His first known public appearance conducting occurred in 1939 when he was six, while appearing as a pianist in a concert for the Business Men's Bible Class in Uxbridge. By 1957 he emerged as the conductor for the CBC Television program Chrysler Festival, in which he collaborated with Maureen Forrester. In the same year he also joined forces with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra as a conductor in a radio broadcast of Mozart's Symphony No. 1 and Schubert's Symphony No. 4 ("Tragic").In 1958, Gould wrote to Golschmann of his "temporary retirement" from conducting, apparently as a result of the unanticipated muscular strain it created. Gould found himself "practically crippled" after his conducting appearances and unable to perform properly at the piano. Yet even at the age of 26, Gould continued to contemplate retiring as a piano soloist and devoting himself entirely to conducting. Immediately before his death, he was finalizing plans to appear as a conductor of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1982 and in recordings of Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture and Beethoven's Coriolan Overture in 1983. His last recording as a conductor was of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll in its original chamber-music scoring. He intended to spend his later years conducting, writing about music, and composing while pursuing an idlyllic "neoThoreauvian way of life" in the countryside. Legacy and honours Gould is one of the most acclaimed musicians of the 20th century. His unique pianistic method, insight into the architecture of compositions, and relatively free interpretation of scores created performances and recordings that were revelatory to many listeners and highly objectionable to others. Philosopher Mark Kingwell wrote, "his influence is made inescapable. No performer after him can avoid the example he sets ... Now, everyone must perform through him: he can be emulated or rejected, but he cannot be ignored." Among the pianists who acknowledged Gould's influence are Andras Schiff, Zoltán Kocsis, Ivo Pogorelich, and Peter Serkin.One of Gould's performances of the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier was chosen for inclusion on the NASA Voyager Golden Record by a committee headed by Carl Sagan. The record was placed on the spacecraft Voyager 1. On 25 August 2012, the spacecraft became the first to cross the heliopause and enter the interstellar medium.Gould is a popular subject of biography and critical analysis. Philosophers such as Kingwell and Giorgio Agamben have interpreted his life and ideas. to Gould and his work are plentiful in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts. François Girard's Genie Award-winning 1993 film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould includes interviews with people who knew him, dramatizations of scenes from his life, and fanciful segments including an animation set to music. Thomas Bernhard's 1983 novel The Loser purports to be an extended first-person essay about Gould and his lifelong friendship with two fellow students from the Mozarteum school in Salzburg, both of whom have abandoned their careers as concert pianists due to the intimidating example of Gould's genius. Gould left an extensive body of work beyond the keyboard. After retiring from concertising, he was increasingly interested in other media, including audio and film documentary and writing, through which he mused on aesthetics, composition, music history, and the effect of the electronic age on media consumption. (Gould grew up in Toronto at the same time that Canadian theorists Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, and Harold Innis were making their mark on communications studies.) Anthologies of Gould's writing and letters have been published, and Library and Archives Canada holds a significant portion of his papers. In 1983, Gould was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. He was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 1998, and designated a National Historic Person in 2012. A federal plaque reflecting the designation was erected next to a sculpture of him in downtown Toronto. The Glenn Gould Studio at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto was named after him. To commemorate what would have been Gould's 75th birthday, the Canadian Museum of Civilization held an exhibition, Glenn Gould: The Sounds of Genius, in 2007. The multimedia exhibit was held in conjunction with Library and Archives Canada. Glenn Gould Foundation The Glenn Gould Foundation was established in Toronto in 1983 to honour Gould and keep alive his memory and life's work. The foundation's mission "is to extend awareness of the legacy of Glenn Gould as an extraordinary musician, communicator, and Canadian, and to advance his visionary and innovative ideas into the future", and its prime activity is the triennial awarding of the Glenn Gould Prize to "an individual who has earned international recognition as the result of a highly exceptional contribution to music and its communication, through the use of any communications technologies." The prize consists of CA$100,000 and the responsibility of awarding the CA$15,000 Glenn Gould Protégé Prize to a young musician of the winner's choice. Glenn Gould School The Royal Conservatory of Music Professional School in Toronto adopted the name The Glenn Gould School in 1997 after its most famous alumnus. Awards Gould received many honours both during his lifetime and posthumously. He was awarded the 1969 Molson Prize, then worth C$15,000. In 1970, the Canadian government offered him the Companion of the Order of Canada, but he declined, believing himself too young. Juno Awards The Juno Awards are presented annually by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won three, accepting one in person. Grammy Awards The Grammys are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Gould won four and, as with the Junos, accepted one in person. In 1983 he was inducted posthumously into the Grammy Hall of Fame for his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations. See also Gould Estate v Stoddart Publishing Co Ltd List of Canadian composers Footnotes Bibliography Books Bazzana, Kevin (1997). Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work: A Study in Performance Practice. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198166567. Bazzana, Kevin (2003). Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-1101-6. Friedrich, Otto (1990) [1989]. Glenn Gould: A Life and Variations. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-73207-5. Goddard, Peter (2017). The Great Gould. Toronto: Dundurn. ISBN 978-1-4597-3309-1. Gould, Glenn (1987). Page, Tim (ed.). The Glenn Gould Reader. Boston: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-571-14852-2. — (1999). Roberts, John Peter Lee (ed.). The Art of Glenn Gould: Reflections of a Musical Genius. Contributing author Roberts. Toronto: Malcolm Lester Books. ISBN 978-1-894121-28-6. Hafner, Katie (2009). A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. ISBN 978-0-7710-3762-7. Kingwell, Mark (2009). Glenn Gould. Extraordinary Canadians. Toronto: Penguin Canada. ISBN 978-0-670-06850-0. Ostwald, Peter F. (1997). Glenn Gould: The Ecstasy and Tragedy of Genius. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-04077-7. Payzant, Geoffrey (1978). Glenn Gould: Music & Mind. Toronto; London: Van Nostrand Reinhold. ISBN 0-442-29802-1. Multimedia sources Gould, Glenn (1992). The Glenn Gould Edition Richard Strauss: Ophelia-Lieder: Three Songs after Shakespeare, Op. 67; Enoch Arden: A Melodrama for Piano after Tennyson, Op.38; Piano Sonata, Op. 5; Five Piano Pieces, Op. 3 (Booklet). Glenn Gould & Claude Rains & Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. New York City: Sony Classical Records. ASIN B0000028O4. Kieser, Karen (1993). Glenn Gould Bach: original CBC broadcasts (Booklet). Glenn Gould. Toronto: CBC Records. OCLC 609984589. Koenig, Wolf & Kroitor, Roman (1959a). Glenn Gould: Off the Record (Documentary film. Originally produced in 1959 for the television program Documentary '60). Montreal: National Film Board of Canada; Image Entertainment (Distributor). OCLC 130741039. Retrieved 30 January 2013. Koenig, Wolf & Kroitor, Roman (1959b). Glenn Gould: On the Record (Documentary film. Originally produced in 1959 for the television program Documentary '60). Montreal: National Film Board of Canada; Image Entertainment (Distributor). OCLC 130741039. Retrieved 30 January 2013. Monsaingeon, Bruno (2002). Glenn Gould: the alchemist (DVD) (in English, French, German, and Spanish). ORTF; EMI Classics (Distributor). OCLC 52719241. Retrieved 23 December 2011. — (2006) [2005]. Glenn Gould: Au delà du temps [Glenn Gould: hereafter] (DVD. Original release 2005) (in English, Italian, Russian, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese). Paris: Idéale Audience and Rhombus Media. OCLC 612160794. Retrieved 23 December 2011. Stegemann, Michael (1993a). Bach: Partitas BWV 825–830; Preludes and Fugues (Booklet). Glenn Gould. Sony Classical Records. OCLC 222101706. — (1993b). Gould Meets Menuhin: Bach · Beethoven · Schoenberg (Front cover booklet). The Glenn Gould Edition. Glenn Gould & Yehudi Menuhin; English translation: Stewart Spencer. Sony Classical Records. OCLC 30923019. Till, Eric (Producer / Director / Narrator) & Tovell, Vincent (Producer / Director / Narrator) (1985) [First published as Documentary film in 1985]. Evans, Wayne (ed.). Glenn Gould: A Portrait (VHS Videotape released 22 October 1991). West Long Branch: CBC Enterprises; Kultur International Films (Distributor). OCLC 22897163. Retrieved 23 December 2011. Official website Glenn Gould at Sony Classical The Glenn Gould Foundation The Glenn Gould Archive at Library and Archives Canada

Lychee (US: LEE-chee, UK: LIE-chee; Litchi chinensis; Chinese: 荔枝; pinyin: lìzhī; Jyutping: lai6 zi1; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: nāi-chi) is a monotypic taxon and the sole member in the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae. It is a tropical tree native to South China, Malaysia, and northern Vietnam. The tree has been introduced throughout Southeast Asia and South Asia. Cultivation in China is documented from the 11th century. China is the main producer of lychees, followed by Vietnam, India, other countries in Southeast Asia, other countries in the Indian subcontinent, Madagascar, and South Africa. A tall evergreen tree, it bears small fleshy sweet fruits. The outside of the fruit is a pink-red, rough-textured soft shell. Lychee seeds contain methylene cyclopropyl glycine which has caused hypoglycemia associated with outbreaks of encephalopathy in undernourished Indian and Vietnamese children who consumed lychee fruit. Taxonomy Litchi chinensis is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae.It was described and named by French naturalist Pierre Sonnerat in his account "Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, fait depuis 1774 jusqu'à 1781" (translation: "Voyage to the East Indies and China, made between 1774 and 1781"), which was published in 1782. There are three subspecies, determined by flower arrangement, twig thickness, fruit, and a number of stamens. Litchi chinensis subsp. chinensis is the only commercialized lychee. It grows wild in southern China, northern Vietnam, and Cambodia. It has thin twigs, flowers typically have six stamens, fruit are smooth or with protuberances up to 2 mm (0.079 in). Litchi chinensis subsp. philippinensis (Radlk.) Leenh. It is common in the wild in the Philippines and rarely cultivated. It has thin twigs, six to seven stamens, long oval fruit with spiky protuberances up to 3 mm (0.12 in). Litchi chinensis subsp. javensis. It is only known in cultivation, in Malaysia and Indonesia. It has thick twigs, flowers with seven to eleven stamens in sessile clusters, smooth fruit with protuberances up to 1 mm (0.039 in). Description Tree Litchi chinensis is an evergreen tree that is frequently less than 15 m (49 ft) tall, sometimes reaching 28 m (92 ft). Its evergreen leaves, 12.5 to 20 cm (4.9 to 7.9 in) long, are pinnate, having 4 to 8 alternate, elliptic-oblong to lanceolate, abruptly pointed, leaflets, The bark is grey-black, the branches a brownish-red. Its evergreen leaves are 12.5 to 20 cm (4.9 to 7.9 in) long, with leaflets in two to four pairs. Lychee are similar in foliage to the family Lauraceae, likely due to convergent evolution. They are adapted by developing leaves that repel water, and are called laurophyll or lauroid leaves. Flowers grow on a terminal inflorescence with many panicles on the current season's growth. The panicles grow in clusters of ten or more, reaching 10 to 40 cm (3.9 to 15.7 in) or longer, holding hundreds of small white, yellow, or green flowers that are distinctively fragrant. Fruit The lychee bears fleshy fruits that mature in 80–112 days depending on climate, location, and cultivar. Fruits vary in shape from round to ovoid to heart-shaped, up to 5 cm long and 4 cm wide (2.0 in × 1.6 in), weighing approximately 20 g.The thin, tough skin is green when immature, ripening to red or pink-red, and is smooth or covered with small sharp protuberances roughly textured. The rind is inedible but easily removed to expose a layer of translucent white fleshy aril with a floral smell and a sweet flavor. The skin turns brown and dry when left out after harvesting. The fleshy, edible portion of the fruit is an aril, surrounding one dark brown inedible seed that is 1 to 3.3 cm long and 0.6 to 1.2 cm wide (0.39–1.30 by 0.24–0.47 in). Some cultivars produce a high percentage of fruits with shriveled aborted seeds known as 'chicken tongues'. These fruits typically have a higher price, due to having more edible flesh. Since the floral flavor is lost in the process of canning, the fruit is usually eaten fresh. History Cultivation of lychee began in the region of southern China, going back to 1059 AD, Malaysia, and northern Vietnam. Unofficial records in China refer to lychee as far back as 2000 BC. Wild trees still grow in parts of southern China and on Hainan Island. The fruit was used as a delicacy in the Chinese Imperial Court.In the 1st century during the Han dynasty, fresh lychees were a popular tribute item, and in such demand at the Imperial Court that a special courier service with fast horses would bring the fresh fruit from Guangdong. There was great demand for lychee in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), according to Cai Xiang, in his Li chi pu (Treatise on Lychees). It was also the favorite fruit of Emperor Li Longji (Xuanzong)'s favored concubine Yang Yuhuan (Yang Guifei). The emperor had the fruit delivered at great expense to the capital.The lychee attracted the attention of European travelers, such as the Spanish bishop, explorer, and sinologist Juan González de Mendoza in his History of the great and mighty kingdom of China (1585; English translation 1588), based on the reports of Spanish friars who had visited China in the 1570s gave the fruit high praise: [T]hey haue a kinde of plummes, that they doo call lechias, that are of an exceeding gallant tast, and neuer hurteth any body, although they shoulde eate a great number of them. Later the lychee was described and introduced to the West in 1656 by Michal Boym, a Polish Jesuit missionary (at that time Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth).Lychee was introduced in the Pakistani region (then British Raj) in 1932 and remained an exotic plant until the 1960s when commercial production began. The crop's production expanded from Begum Kot (Lahore District) in Punjab to Hazara, Haripur, Sialkot and Mirpur Khas. Double domestication Genomic studies indicate that the lychee resulted from double domestication by independent cultivation in two different regions of ancient China. Cultivation and uses Lychees are extensively grown in southern China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the rest of tropical Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and in tropical regions of many other countries. They require a tropical climate that is frost-free and is not below the temperature of −4 °C (25 °F). Lychees require a climate with high summer heat, rainfall, and humidity, growing optimally on well-drained, slightly acidic soils rich in organic matter and mulch.Some 200 cultivars exist, with early and late maturing forms suited to warmer and cooler climates, respectively, although mainly eight cultivars are used for commerce in China. They are also grown as an ornamental tree, as well as for their fruit. The most common way of propagating lychee is through a method called air layering or marcotting. Air-layers, or marcotts, are made by cutting a branch of a mature tree, covering the cut with a rooting medium, such as peat or sphagnum moss, then wrapping the medium with polyethylene film and allowing the cut to root. Once significant rooting has occurred, the marcott is cut from the branch and potted.According to folklore, a lychee tree that is not producing much fruit can be girdled, leading to more fruit production. When the central opening of trees is carried out as part of training and pruning, stereo fruiting can be achieved for higher orchard productivity.Lychees are commonly sold fresh in Asian markets. The red rind turns dark brown when the fruit is refrigerated, but the taste isn't affected. It is also sold canned year-round. The fruit can be dried with the rind intact, at which point the flesh shrinks and darkens. Cultivars There are numerous lychee cultivars, with considerable confusion regarding their naming and identification. The same cultivar grown in different climates can produce very different fruit. Cultivars can also have different synonyms in various parts of the world. Southeast Asian countries, along with Australia, use the original Chinese names for the main cultivars. India grows more than a dozen different cultivars. South Africa grows mainly the “Mauritius” cultivar. Most cultivars grown in the United States were imported from China, except for the “Groff”, which was developed in the state of Hawaii.Different cultivars of lychee are popular in various growing regions and countries. In China, popular cultivars include Sanyuehong, Baitangying, Baila, Shuidong, Feizixiao, Dazou, Heiye, Nuomici, Guiwei, Huaizhi, Lanzhu, and Chenzi. In Vietnam, the most popular cultivar is Vai Thieu Hai Duong. In the US, production is based on several cultivars, including Mauritius, Brewster, and Hak Ip. India grows more than a dozen named cultivars, including Shahi (Highest Pulp %), Dehradun, Early Large Red, Kalkattia and Rose Scented. Nutrients Raw lychee fruit is 82% water, 17% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a 100-gram (3.5 oz) reference amount, raw lychee fruit supplies 66 calories of food energy. The raw pulp is rich in vitamin C, having 72 mg per 100 grams – an amount representing 86% of the Daily Value – but contains no other micronutrients in significant content (table). Phytochemicals Lychees have moderate amounts of polyphenols, including flavan-3-ol monomers and dimers as major compounds representing about 87% of total polyphenols, which declined in content during storage or browning. Cyanidin-3-glucoside represented 92% of total anthocyanins. Poisoning In 1962, it was found that lychee seeds contained methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG), a homologue of hypoglycin A, which caused hypoglycemia in animal studies. Since the end of the 1990s, unexplained outbreaks of encephalopathy occurred, appearing to affect only children in India (where it is called chamki bukhar), and northern Vietnam (where it was called Ac Mong encephalitis after the Vietnamese word for nightmare) during the lychee harvest season from May to June.A 2013 investigation by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in India, showed that cases were linked to the consumption of lychee fruit, causing a noninflammatory encephalopathy that mimicked symptoms of Jamaican vomiting sickness. Because low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) of less than 70 mg/dL in the undernourished children on admission was common, and associated with a poorer outcome (44% of all cases were fatal) the CDC identified the illness as a hypoglycemic encephalopathy.The investigation linked the illness to hypoglycin A and MCPG toxicity, and to malnourished children eating lychees (particularly unripe ones) on an empty stomach.The CDC report recommended that parents ensure their children limit lychee consumption and have an evening meal, elevating blood glucose levels that may be sufficient to deter illness.Earlier studies had incorrectly concluded that transmission may occur from direct contact with lychees contaminated by bat saliva, urine, or guano or with other vectors, such as insects found in lychee trees or sand flies, as in the case of Chandipura virus. A 2017 study found that pesticides used in the plantations could be responsible for the encephalitis and deaths of young children in Bangladesh. Gallery See also Further reading Boning, Charles R. (2006). "Lychee". Florida's Best Fruiting Plants: Native and Exotic Trees, Shrubs, and Vines. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, Inc. pp. 130–133. Hui, Y. H. (2008). "Lychee". Handbook of Fruits and Fruit Processing. New Delhi: Wiley India. pp. 606–611. ISBN 978-81-265-1788-6. Kadam, S. S.; S. S. Deshpande (1995). "Lychee". In D. K. Salunkhe; S. S. Kadam (eds.). Handbook of fruit science and technology: production, composition, storage, and processing. New York: M. Dekker. pp. 435–443. ISBN 978-0-8247-9643-3. Rosengarten, Frederic (2004). "Litchi 'Nuts'". The book of edible nuts. New York: Dover Publications. pp. 299–300. ISBN 978-0-486-43499-5.

22 may refer to: 22 (number) 22 BC AD 22 1922 2022 Science Titanium, an transition metal in the periodic table 22 Kalliope, an asteroid in the asteroid belt (22) Kalliope I Linus, a large asteroid moon orbiting 22 Kalliope Music 22 (album), a 2003 album by Parva "22" (Lily Allen song), 2009 "22" (Taylor Swift song), 2013 "22" (Sarah McTernan song), 2019 song that represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 "22", a song by Gavin James from the album Bitter Pill, 2015 22 (also known as "Marsha Hunt's 22"), an early 1970s British rock band fronted by Marsha Hunt "Twenty Two" (Millencolin song), 1997 "Intentions (22)", a 2019 song by Ziggy Alberts Other uses "Twenty Two" (The Twilight Zone), a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone Revista 22 or 22 Magazine, a Romanian weekly 22, a fictional character in the 2020 animated film Soul 22, main character in the cartoon series Calling Cat-22 .22 caliber, a family of firearms and firearm cartridges See also 22, A Million, a 2016 album by Bon Iver Twenty Plus Two, a 1961 American film noir List of highways numbered 22

23 may refer to: 23 (number), the natural number following 22 and preceding 24 one of the years 23 BC, AD 23, 1923, 2023 Science Vanadium, a transition metal in the periodic table 23 Thalia, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Film and television 23 (film), a 1998 German film "23" (Will & Grace), a 2003 episode of the sitcom The Number 23, a 2007 film starring Jim Carrey "The Number 23" (Ugly Betty episode) or East Side Story, 2007 Music 23, a German rap duo composed of Bushido and Sido Albums 23 (23 album), 2011, by German rappers Bushido and Sido alias 23 23 (Blonde Redhead album), 2007 23 (Rythem album), the third album from the Japanese duo, Rythem 23 (Shadow Child EP), 2012, featuring Tymer 23 (The Silents EP), 2007 23 (mixtape), 2022, the second mixtape by Central Cee Untitled #23, a 2009 album by The Church Twentythree, a 2005 album by Tristan Prettyman Twentythree, by the band Carbon Based Lifeforms Songs "23" (Mike Will Made It song), featuring Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J "23" (Sam Hunt song) "Twenty-Three" (song), by IU "23", a song by German rap duo 23 (Bushido and Sido) from the album 23 "23", a song by Blonde Redhead from 23 "23", a song by Jimmy Eat World from their 2004 album Futures "23", a song by Maluma from F.A.M.E "23", a song by Saweetie from High Maintenance "23", a song by Shakira from Shakira "23", a song by Simon Neale as Shadow Child "23", a song by The Silents from 23 "23", a song by Chase Atlantic from Part Three "Twenty Three", a song by Big John "Twenty Three", a song by Duffy "Twentythree" by Yellowcard "Twenty-Three, for 13 violins, 5 violas & 5 cellos", a 1988 composition by John Cage "Twenty Three", a song by Karma to Burn from the album Arch Stanton, 2014 Other uses 23 (numerology) or 23 enigma, a superstitious belief in the significance of the number 23 23 Stirling–St Andrews, a withdrawn bus service in Scotland See also 23 skidoo (disambiguation) List of highways numbered 23 Line 23 (disambiguation)

24 may refer to: 24 (number), the natural number following 23 and preceding 25 one of the years 24 BC, AD 24, 1924, 2024 Science Chromium, an transition metal in the periodic table 24 Themis, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Film and television 24 frames per second, a common frame rate in film and television 24 (TV series), an American show depicting the events of a single day in 24 real-time episodes per season 24: Live Another Day, a 2014 continuation of the original television series 24: Redemption, a 2008 television movie related to the television series 24: The Game, a 2006 video game based on the television series 24 (Indian TV series), an Indian TV series based on the American show of the same name 24 (2001 film), a Czech thriller film 24 (2016 film), an Indian Tamil film 24 (soundtrack), the album of the 2016 Tamil film 24 (2021 film), a Singaporean art film 24 (Turkey), a Turkish television news channel Music 24 (album), a compilation album by Christian group Point of Grace "24" (Game Theory song), on the 1985 album Real Nighttime "24" (Jem song), on the 2004 album Finally Woken "Twenty Four", a song by Karma to Burn from the album Appalachian Incantation, 2010 "24" (Kanye West song), on the 2021 album Donda "24" (Money Man song), on the 2020 album Epidemic Deluxe "24", a song by Lana Del Rey on the 2015 album Honeymoon Other uses 24 (puzzle), a mathematical card game See also Channel 24 (disambiguation) 2/4 (disambiguation) 24/7 (disambiguation) List of highways numbered 24

Twenty-Five or 25 may refer to: 25 (number), the natural number following 24 and preceding 26 one of the years 25 BC, AD 25, 1925, 2025 Science Manganese, an transition metal in the periodic table 25 Phocaea, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music Albums Twenty Five (album), a 2006 greatest hits album by George Michael Twenty Five (DVD), released alongside the George Michael album 25 (A-ha album), 2010 25 (Adele album), 2015 25 (Blues Traveler album), 2012 25 (G Herbo album), 2021 25 (Harry Connick, Jr. album), 1992 25 (Oysterband album), 2003 25 (Patty Larkin album), 2010 25 (EP), a 2014 EP by Song Ji-eun Mina 25, a 1983 album by Mina Songs "25", a song by The Kooks from 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark (2022) "25", a song by The Pretty Reckless from Death by Rock and Roll, 2021 "25", a song by The Smith Street Band from More Scared of You Than You Are of Me, 2017 "Twenty Five", a song by Karma to Burn from the album Wild, Wonderful Purgatory, 1999 Other uses "Twenty-Five", an alternative name for the Irish card game Spoil Five "Twenty Five" (The West Wing), a 2003 episode of the television series The West Wing Renault 25 See also List of highways numbered 25

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (CPA), more widely known as Cathay Pacific (Chinese: 國泰航空), is the flag carrier of Hong Kong, with its head office and main hub located at Hong Kong International Airport. The airline's operations and subsidiaries have scheduled passenger and cargo services to over 190 destinations and present in more than 60 countries worldwide including codeshares and joint ventures. Cathay Pacific operates a fleet consisting of Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350, and Boeing 777 aircraft. Cathay Cargo operates two models of the Boeing 747. Defunct wholly-owned subsidiary airline Cathay Dragon, which ceased operations in 2020, previously flew to 44 destinations in the Asia-Pacific region from its Hong Kong base. In 2010, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Pacific Cargo (now Cathay Cargo), together with Cathay Dragon, carried nearly 27 million passengers and over 1.8 million tons of cargo and mail. The airline was founded on 24 September 1946 by Australian Sydney H. de Kantzow and American Roy C. Farrell, the airline celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2016. As of March 2021, its major shareholders are Swire Pacific with a 42.3% stake, Air China with a 28.2% and Qatar Airways with a 9.4% stake. Cathay Pacific group is one of the founding members of Oneworld alliance. In 2018, it was the 19th largest airline group in the world ranked by traffic. History 1946–1960: The early years Cathay Pacific Airways was founded on 24 September 1946 in Hong Kong. Sydney "Syd" de Kantzow, Roy Farrell, Neil Buchanan, Donald Brittan Evans and Robert "Bob" Stanley Russell were the initial shareholders. Buchanan and Russell had already worked for de Kantzow and Farrell at Roy Farrell Import-Export Company, the predecessor of Cathay Pacific, that was initially headquartered in Shanghai. Both de Kantzow and Farrell were Ex-Air Force pilots who had flown The Hump, a route over the Himalayan mountains. Farrell purchased the airline's first aircraft, a Douglas DC-3, nicknamed Betsy, at Bush Field, New York City in 1945.: 29  The company began freight services on 28 January 1950 from Sydney to Shanghai, after Farrell and Russell flew the plane to Australia and obtained a licence to carry freight (but not passengers) earlier that month.: 36–37  Its first commercial flight was a shipment of Australian goods.: 37  The profitable business soon attracted attention from the Republic of China Government Officials.: 44  After several instances where the company's planes were detained by authorities in Shanghai,: 44  on 11 May 1946 the company relocated, flying its two planes to Hong Kong. Farrell and de Kantzow re-registered their business in Hong Kong on 24 September 1946 as Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, while another sister company, The Roy Farrell Export Import Company (Hong Kong) Limited, was incorporated on 28 August 1946 and chartered some flights from Cathay.: 58  (According to International Directory of Company Histories, two companies were formed for tax purposes.) They named the airline Cathay, the ancient name given to China, and Pacific because Farrell speculated that they would one day fly across the Pacific: 56  (which happened in the 1970s). Moreover, to avoid the name "Air Cathay" as it had already been used in a comic.: 55  The Chinese name for the company ("國泰") was not settled on until the 1950s. It comes from a Chinese idiom meaning "Peace and Prosperity" and was at the time often used by other businesses called "Cathay" in English. According to legend, the airline's unique name was conceived by Farrell and some foreign correspondents at the bar of the Manila Hotel,: 55  while another narrative was the name was taken in the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai Bund, during drinking and brainstorming, and choosing Cathay was to avoid the word China in the airline name.: 53  On Cathay Pacific's maiden voyage, de Kantzow and Peter Hoskins flew from Sydney to Hong Kong via Manila.: 53  The airline initially flew routes between Hong Kong, Sydney, Manila, Singapore, Shanghai, Saigon, Bangkok,: 58  with additional chartered destinations.: 59  The airline grew quickly. By 1947, it had added another five DC-3s and two Vickers Catalina seaplanes to its fleet.: 234 In 1948, a new legal person of Cathay Pacific Airways was incorporated, with John Swire & Sons (now known as Swire Group), China Navigation Company, Australian National Airways being the new shareholders of the new entity, acquiring the assets from the old legal person; the old legal person, was renamed into Cathay Pacific Holdings, as well as retaining 10% shares of the new Cathay Pacific Airways. de Kantzow, Farrell and Russell were the shareholders of Cathay Pacific Holdings at that time. It was reported that the colonial British government of Hong Kong required the airline was majority-owned by the British. Despite de Kantzow being a British subject through his Australian roots, Farrell was an American, thus forcing them to sell their majority stake.: 79  Under Swire's management, de Kantzow remained in the airline until 1951,: 123  while Farrell had sold his minority stake in Cathay Pacific soon after Swire's takeover in 1948, due to his wife's health problems.: 115  He returned to Texas and became a successful businessman.: 115 Swire later acquired 52% of Cathay Pacific Airways. As of 31 December 2017, the airline is still owned by Swire Group to the extent of 45% through its subsidiary Swire Pacific Limited, as the largest shareholder. However, Swire Group also formed a shareholders' agreement with the second largest shareholder, Air China (which was controlled by state-owned China National Aviation Holding), which Cathay Pacific and Air China had a cross ownership.: 41, 104 In the late 1940s, the Hong Kong Government divided the local aviation market between Cathay Pacific and its only local competitor, the Jardine Matheson-owned Hong Kong Airways:: 117–118  Cathay Pacific was allocated routes to the south (including South-East Asia and Australia), while Hong Kong Airways was allocated routes to the north (including mainland China, Korea, and Japan). The situation changed with the establishment of the People's Republic of China and the Korean War, which reduced the viability of the northern routes. In 1959, Cathay Pacific acquired Hong Kong Airways, and became the dominant airline in Hong Kong. Under Swire, another important sister company, HAECO, was established in 1950.: 130  Nowadays, it's one of the major aeroplane repair service companies of Hong Kong with divisions in other cities of China. 1960–1990: Expansion The airline prospered in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, and it purchased Hong Kong Airways, on 1 July 1959. Between 1962 and 1967, the airline recorded double digit growth on average every year and became one of the world's first airlines to operate international services to Fukuoka, Nagoya and Osaka in Japan. In 1964, it carried its one millionth passenger and acquired its first jet engine aircraft, the Convair 880. In 1967, it became an all jet airline with the replacement of its last Lockheed L-188 Electra with a Convair 880. In the 1970s, Cathay Pacific installed a computerised reservation system and flight simulators. In 1971, Cathay Pacific Airways received the first Boeing aircraft 707-320B. By 1972 it had five 707s. The new aircraft colour was known as Brunswick green. In July 1976 it began operating a Boeing 707 freighter from Hong Kong to Seoul, Bangkok and Singapore.In 1974, Cathay Pacific almost purchased the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 to open a new flight route. During the flight route application process with the British government, due to the pressure from the British government, Cathay Pacific changed the application to apply for a route from Hong Kong to London using a Boeing 747. The application was ultimately rejected. In 1979, the airline acquired its first Boeing 747 and applied for traffic rights to fly to London in 1980, with the first flight taking place on 16 July. Expansion continued into the 1980s. In 1982, Cathay Pacific Airways introduced Cathay Pacific Cargo (now Cathay Cargo), which provided cargo service to initiate the trend of Hong Kong becoming one of the largest re-export trading ports of the world. The airline's long-haul dedicated cargo services started a twice a week with Hong Kong-Frankfurt-London service operated jointly with Lufthansa. Cathay Pacific kept its service to Vancouver in 1983, with service on to San Francisco in 1986, when an industry-wide boom encouraged route growth to many European and North American centres including London, Brisbane, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Rome, Paris, Zurich and Manchester.On 15 May 1986, the airline went public and was listed in the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. 1990–2000: Rebranding, renewal, and Oneworld In January 1990, Cathay Pacific and its parent company, Swire Pacific, acquired a significant shareholding in Dragonair, and a 75% stake in cargo airline Air Hong Kong in 1994. In 1994, the airline launched a program to upgrade its passenger service, including a HK$23 million program to update its image. Its logo was updated in 1994 and again in 2014.The airline began a fleet replacement program in the mid-1990s, which cost a total of US$9 billion. In 1996, CITIC Pacific increased its holdings in Cathay Pacific from 10% to 25%, and two other Chinese companies, CNAC(G) and CTS, also bought substantial holdings, while the Swire Group holding was reduced to 44%. According to the International Directory of Company Histories, the sale of a 12.5% stake of Cathay Pacific by Swire Pacific to a Chinese state-owned company was regarded "as evidence of China's sincerity in maintaining the prosperity of Hong Kong."In 1997, Cathay Pacific updated the registration numbers and flags on its fleet in conjunction with the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. On 21 May 1998, Cathay Pacific took the first delivery of the Boeing 777-300 at a ceremony in Everett. On 21 September 1998, Cathay Pacific, together with American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, and Qantas, co-founded Oneworld airline alliance. Cathay Pacific temporarily took over the domestic and international operations of Philippine Airlines during its two-week shutdown from 26 September to 7 October 1998. The airline was hurt by the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, but recorded a record HK$5 billion profit in 2000. Transfer to Chek Lap Kok and transpolar flights On 5 July 1998, Cathay Pacific operated its last flight from Kai Tak International Airport to London Heathrow Airport, with the former airport ceasing operations after over 73 years of operation. The next day, Cathay Pacific began flights from New York John F. Kennedy International Airport to the new Hong Kong-Chek Lap Kok International Airport. This flight was also the world's first nonstop transpolar flight from New York to Hong Kong. 2000–2010: Industrial troubles and acquisitions The year 2000 saw the Cathay Pacific, experience labour relations issues while completing the acquisition of Dragonair. The 49ers – employment dispute In 2001, the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association (HKAOA) launched a "work to rule" campaign to further its campaign for pay improvements and changes to roster scheduling practices. The action involved pilots refusing to work flights that were not scheduled on their roster. Although this alone did not cause extensive disruption, rostered pilots began to call in sick for their flights. Combined with the work to rule campaign, the airline was unable to cover all of its scheduled flights, and cancellations resulted. Cathay Pacific steadfastly refused to negotiate with the HKAOA under threat of industrial action. On 9 July 2001, reportedly following a comprehensive review of the employment histories of all its pilots, the company fired 49 of its 1,500 pilots. This group became known colloquially as "the 49ers". Nearly half of the fired pilots were captains, representing five percent of the total pilot group. Of the 21 officers of the HKAOA, nine were fired, including four of the seven union negotiators.Then-HKAOA president Captain Nigel Demery took the view that "the firing was pure intimidation, a union-bust straight up, designed to be random enough to put the fear in all pilots that they might be next, no reason given". The dismissals were challenged in a number of legal proceedings, but none were reinstated. The airline later offered the 49 pilots it terminated in 2001 the chance to reapply for pilot positions with its cargo division, guaranteeing such applicants first interviews, subject to passing psychometric testing. Nineteen former employees applied and twelve were offered jobs. On 11 November 2009, 18 of the 49ers succeeded in the Hong Kong Court of First Instance concerning their joint claims for breach of contract, breach of the Employment Ordinance, and defamation. Judge Anselmo Reyes ruled that the airline had contravened the Employment Ordinance by dismissing the pilots without a valid reason, adding that they had been sacked primarily because of union activities. He also held that remarks by then-chief operating officer Philip Chen Nanlok and current chief executive Tony Tyler after the sackings were defamatory. The judge handed the pilots a victory in their long-running legal battle, with individual awards of HK$3.3 million for defamation together with a month's pay and HK$150,000 for the sackings. On 24 December 2010, judges Frank Stock, Susan Kwan and Johnson Lam of the Court of Appeal overturned the judgment of the lower court to the extent that the claim for wrongful termination of the contract was dismissed. The finding that Cathay Pacific wrongly sacked the 18 pilots for their union activities was upheld. The court upheld the defamation claim but reduced the damages for the defamatory comments made by Cathay Pacific management. The judges also modified the judgment awarding payment of legal costs to the pilots and instead said that they should now pay some of Cathay's costs.The leader of the 49er Plaintiffs, Captain John Warham, launched a book titled The 49ers – The True Story on 25 March 2011.The pilots were awarded leave on 26 October 2011 to take their case to the Court of Final Appeal. The matter was heard before Hon. Mr. Justices Bokhary, Chan and Ribeiro who are all Permanent Judges of the Court of Final Appeal. The matters to be decided upon by the Court concerned wrongful termination of contract and the level of damages for defamation. The case was heard by the Court of Final Appeal on 27 August 2012. On 26 September 2012, 11 years after they were sacked, the 49ers were finally judged to have won the 3 prime issues of their legal case: breach of contract, breach of the Employment Ordinance, and defamation. The Court of Final Appeal agreed with the Court of Appeal's methodology for reducing the defamation damages. However, it reinstated one month's salary for each of the 49ers. Regarding breach of contract, the overall picture leading to dismissal and events immediately after were analysed by the courts, not just the dismissal letter. Regarding the Employment Ordinance, an important aspect was that the judge defined the scope of "union activities" and its protection for workers in Hong Kong. The Court concluded: "Accordingly, most (possibly all) union-sponsored action is potentially protected by s 21B(1)(b), but if the action is not carried out "at [an] appropriate time", it is excluded from the provision". There was no challenge by Cathay Pacific to the Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the original Judge's conclusion that the statements made by Cathay Executives were defamatory of the plaintiffs. John Warham, referring to the effect the fight has had on pilots' families, said: "In terms of human life, three people are dead because of what Cathay Pacific did to us. That's on their conscience, I hope they can live with that." Acquisition and downsizing of Dragonair On 28 September 2006, the airline underwent a shareholding realignment under which Dragonair became a wholly owned subsidiary but continued to operate under its brand. Acquiring Dragonair meant gaining more access to the restricted, yet rapidly growing, Mainland China market and more opportunities for sharing of resources. CNAC, and its subsidiary, Air China, acquired a 17.5 percent stake in Cathay Pacific, and the airline doubled its shareholding in Air China to 17.5 percent. CITIC Pacific reduced its shareholding to 17.5 percent and Swire Group reduced its shareholding to 40 percent. Dragonair had originally planned significant international expansion. It was already operating services to Bangkok and Tokyo, and was to have a dedicated cargo fleet of nine Boeing 747-400BCF aircraft by 2009 operating to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Columbus. It had also acquired three Airbus A330-300 aircraft to commence services to Sydney and Seoul.Following the acquisition by Cathay Pacific, Dragonair's proposed expansion plans underwent a comprehensive route compatibility analysis with the Cathay network to reduce duplication. Dragonair services to Bangkok and Tokyo were terminated, and new services launched to Sendai, Phuket, Manila, and Kathmandu. With the merging of similar departments at the two previously separate airlines, some Dragonair staff have had their employment contracts transferred to Cathay Pacific, except Dragonair Pilots and Cabin Crew and others made redundant due to the efficiencies gained in the merger. This resulted in an approximately 37 percent decrease in the amount of staff contractually employed by Dragonair.In January 2016, Cathay Pacific announced it was rebranding Dragonair as Cathay Dragon.On 21 October 2020, Cathay Pacific announced that it would shut down all operations of Cathay Dragon and merge it with its parent company due to the lack of customers and heavy economic problems brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. This merger marked the end for the subsidiary carrier after 35 years of operation. Cathay Pacific and its wholly owned subsidiary, HK Express, would take over Cathay Dragon's existing routes. Economic challenges To celebrate the airline's 60th anniversary in 2006, a year of roadshows named the "Cathay Pacific 60th Anniversary Skyshow" was held where the public could see the developments of the airline, play games, meet some of the airline staff, and view vintage uniforms. Cathay Pacific also introduced anniversary merchandise and in-flight meals served by restaurants in Hong Kong in collaboration with the celebrations.In June 2008, Cathay Pacific entered into a plea bargain with the United States Department of Justice in respect of antitrust investigations over air cargo price-fixing agreements. It was fined US$60 million. The airline has subsequently set up an internal Competition Compliance Office, reporting to chief operating officer John Slosar, to ensure that the Group complies with all relevant competition and antitrust laws in the jurisdiction in which it operates. The breaches for which Cathay Pacific Cargo were being investigated in the US were not illegal under Hong Kong competition law.In September 2008, three of Cathay Pacific's top ten global accounts, Lehmann Brothers, AIG and Merrill Lynch, hit financial trouble. In March 2009, the airline reported a record full-year loss of HK$8.56 billion for 2008, which was also the carrier's first since the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. The record loss included fuel-hedging losses of HK$7.6 billion and a HK$468 million charge for a price-fixing fine in the US It had to scrap its final dividend. The hedging losses were a result of locking in fuel prices at higher than the prevailing market price. As of the end of 2008, Cathay Pacific has hedged about half of its fuel needs until the end of 2011. The airline at the time estimated that it would face no further cash costs from the hedges if the average market price stood at US$75, enabling it to recoup provisions it made in 2008.The flattening out of fuel prices resulted in Cathay Pacific recording a paper fuel hedging gain for its half-year reports for 2009. However, as a result of the global economic situation, the Group reported an operating loss. Given the current economic climate, and in line with the steps being taken by other major airlines around the world, the airline has undertaken a comprehensive review of all its routes and operations. This has resulted in frequencies being reduced to certain destinations, ad hoc cancellations on other routes, deferred capital expenditure, parked aircraft and introduced a Special Leave Scheme for staff to conserve money. According to CEO Tony Tyler, the yield from passengers was "hugely down" and the airline had lost "a lot of premium traffic". He noted that it could take 20 passengers in economy to make up for the lost revenue of one fewer first class passenger flying to New York from Hong Kong. Current developments In 2010, the airline set another record high profit, amounting to HK$14.05 billion despite record losses set in the same decade. At the same time, Cathay Pacific had taken delivery of several new aircraft types, including the Airbus A330-300 and Boeing 777-300ER. Tony Tyler left his position as CEO at the airline on 31 March 2010 to pursue his new job at the IATA. Chief operating officer John Slosar had succeeded as the new CEO. In addition, New Zealand's Commerce Commission had dropped charges against Cathay Pacific concerning the air cargo price-fixing agreements. In 2014, the airline underwent the largest network expansion in recent years which included the addition of links to Manchester, Zurich and Boston. On 8 October 2016, Cathay Pacific retired their last passenger Boeing 747 (a 747–400 with reg B-HUJ) with a farewell scenic flight around Hong Kong after over 35 years of service of the type. Cathay operated the 747 since August 1979, when it was inaugurated on services to Australia.During the first half of 2016, Cathay Pacific's passenger yields fell 10 per cent, to the lowest in seven years as competing airlines from Mainland China increased direct service to the U.S. and Europe, hurting the company's revenue from its Hong Kong hub. In October, Cathay Pacific scrapped its profit forecast for the second half of the year, less than two months after its issuance.From 15 September 2016, Cathay Pacific decided to reintroduce fuel surcharge on many flights after its half-year net profits dropped over 80% and it suffered HK$4.5 billion loss from wrong bets on fuel prices. As of September 2016, Oil prices were halved from 2014 and stayed below US$50 a barrel. 2018 data breach In 2018, the airline discovered a data breach. Data of around 9.4 million passengers were compromised during the breach, with 860,000 passport numbers, 245,000 Hong Kong identity card numbers, 403 expired credit card numbers, and 27 credit card numbers without CVV being accessed. However, no passwords were stolen. The breach was suspected in March 2018 but was confirmed only in May 2018. In March 2020, the company was fined £500,000 (U.S. $639,600) by the British Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and avoided the heftier penalty of U.S. $564 million under the European Union's GDPR-derived data privacy laws, which were not in force during the discovery of the breach. 2017–2019 transformation Under new leadership, the airline started to transform its business after suffering from 2 years of consecutive loss. The strategy focuses on 5Ps – Places, Planes, Product, People, and Productivity to find new sources of revenue, deliver more value to its customers and improve efficiency and productivity.The airline restructured its organisation to be more agile and faster in decision making as well as responding to customers' needs. It has also launched 13 new routes since 2017, introduced a wide range of changes to its service, including bringing back hot meals on its most busy route between Hong Kong and Taipei, designed an inflight menu that features famous Hong Kong dishes served in all cabins, and revamped its Business Class service proposition to provide more choice, more personalisation, better presentation and improved quality in its food and beverages offerings. The airline has also invested significantly in other hard product and digital offerings such as an upgraded website, new or refurbished lounges across its network, including the first airline lounge yoga studio at The Pier – Business in Hong Kong. Wi-Fi was introduced in 2017 and will be retrofitted across its fleet by 2020.In February 2019, the airline issued a profit alert to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange indicating a profit of HK$2.3 billion for the 2018 financial year, signaling early signs of success of its transformation. Acquisition of HK Express On 27 March 2019, Cathay Pacific officially announced it would acquire HK Express, the only low-cost carrier in Hong Kong, citing to "expect synergies in generating a new business model and is a practical way to support long-term development and to enhance competitiveness". The transaction takes Cathay Pacific HK$4.93 billion total. The transaction is closed in July 2019 and HK Express has become Cathay Pacific's wholly owned subsidiary. Hong Kong protests During the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests, Cathay Pacific employees participated in protests at Hong Kong International Airport. The Beijing government, which is a shareholder in Cathay Pacific, ordered Cathay to suspend any employees who participated in the protest. Cathay chairman, John Slosar, responded saying, "We employ 27,000 staff in Hong Kong doing all sorts of different jobs... we certainly wouldn't dream of telling them what they have to think about something." Cathay Pacific later suspended a pilot who was arrested during a protest, and CEO Rupert Hogg declared his support of the government, and reiterated that employees who violated the company's code of conduct could be dismissed. On 16 August, Hogg resigned due to "intense criticism" from Chinese authorities as a result of Cathay staff participating in the protests. "Chief customer and commercial officer", Paul Loo, also resigned. By late September, Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon had terminated the employment of 31 aviation professionals, or forced their resignations, on the basis of their participation in protests or expressions of support for them. COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic led to travel bans and significantly reduced flight demands, which caused Cathay Pacific to cut international flights in response. In 2020, 96% of all flights from March to May were cancelled, while the group's subsidiary HKExpress suspended all flight operations from 23 March to 30 April 2020, due to reduced demand. At one point during the crisis, only 582 passengers flew with Cathay Pacific in an entire day.In December 2020, the company said that it expected losses in the second half higher than the losses of the first half due to low demand, restructuring charges and impairments on its fleet.In 2021, the company posted a record annual loss of $2.8 billion for 2020. It was also announced that the company would cut an additional 8,500 jobs.On April 22, 2021, the company began their job cuts by closing their Canada Pilot base, on the same day they began consultation with pilots on Australia and New Zealand Pilot bases regarding base closure in those jurisdictions. Pilots with the right to live and work in Hong Kong are offered employment, however those without the right to live and work in Hong Kong are to face redundancy. On the same day, they announced that they will review bases in Europe and USA later in the year.On May 12, 2021, the company announced the closing of their Frankfurt Pilot base. Around 50 pilots' jobs are at risk. As with the Canada base closed announced two and a half weeks earlier, pilots with the right to live and work in Hong Kong will be offered jobs while those without the right to live and work in Hong Kong will face redundancy.In June 2021, the company said that losses in 1H 2021 are expected to be lower than US$1.27 billion in 2020, due to cost-saving measures and strong demand for cargo flights. In 2023 and in conjunction with the Airport Authority Hong Kong's "World of Winners" campaign, which aimed to promote tourism within Hong Kong, the Airline provided some of the 500,000 tickets in the campaign. The Airline released the tickets in tranches for each region. Participants were required to register for its frequent flyer program and fill in a registration form on the date for the region the participant was in. Recapitalisation and government bailout On 9 June 2020, Cathay Pacific, Swire Pacific and Air China halted stock trade pending the announcement. On 10 June, Cathay Pacific and the Government of Hong Kong jointly announced a HK$39 billion recapitalisation plan and rescue package for Cathay Pacific. In the rescue package, the Government of Hong Kong will be issued HK$19.5 billion dividend-paying preference shares and HK$1.95 billion of warrants, giving it 6% stake. The stake of the three major stakeholders, Swire Pacific, Air China and Qatar Airways will fall to 42%, 28% and 9.4% due to the government stake. Also, Cathay Pacific will receive a HK$7.8 billion bridging loan and the Government would have the right to appoint two observers on Cathay's board. Finance Secretary of HKSAR Government, Paul Chan, said "It is not our intention to become a long-term shareholder of Cathay Pacific." Corporate affairs, identity and senior leadership Cathay Pacific's head office, Cathay City, is located at Hong Kong International Airport. Cathay City was scheduled to be built in increments between April and September 1998. The headquarters opened in 1998. Previously the airline's headquarters were at the Swire House, which was a complex in Central named after the airline's parent company. Major shareholders Swire Pacific 42% Air China 28% Qatar Airways 9.4% HKSAR government (Under the name "Aviation 2020 Limited") 6.08% Subsidiaries and associates Cathay Pacific has diversified into related industries and sectors, including ground handling, aviation engineering, inflight catering.Companies with Cathay Pacific Group stake include: Livery Before November 1994, all Cathay Pacific aircraft used a "green lettuce" livery and carried the British flag on the empennage. After the handover, aircraft carry the Brand Hong Kong logo and with HONG KONG or in Chinese 香港 under or beside the Brand Hong Kong logo instead of using the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) flag. The HKSAR flag has never appeared on any aircraft. All Cathay Pacific aircraft carry the following livery, logos and trademarks: the "Brushwing" livery on the body and on the vertical stabiliser, introduced in the early 1990s, and was first deployed on a Boeing 747–400 (VR-HOT, re-registered as B-HOT), ahead of the launch of Airbus A340 service for Cathay Pacific. It also features the "Asia's world city" brandline, the Brand Hong Kong logotype and the dragon symbol; the Oneworld logo and the Swire Group logo. For most aircraft, the fuselage were all-white livery with a light green cheatline under cabin windows, but for some Cathay Pacific Cargo aircraft, especially Boeing 747-200F, they were bare-metal livery instead. The brushwing logo consists of a calligraphic stroke against a green background; the stroke is intended to appear like the wing of a bird. The previous logo, consisting of green and white stripes, was in place from the early 1970s until 1994.In November 2015, the airline revealed a refreshed version of its previous livery, featuring a simpler paint scheme while maintaining their trademark brushwing on an all-green tail. It was first unveiled on a Boeing 777-300ER (B-KPM), in preparation for the delivery of the first Airbus A350 for Cathay Pacific. The aircraft was withdrawn from service in June 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to its lessor in September 2021 at the expiration of its lease. The second aircraft was a freighter aircraft, Boeing 747-400ERF (B-LIA). Senior leadership Chairman: Patrick Healy (since November 2019) Chief Executive: Ronald Lam (since January 2023) List of former chairmen E. McLaren (1948) E. G. Price (1948–1949) C. C. Roberts (1949–1950) E. G. Price (1950); second term C. C. Roberts (1950–1951); second term J.A. Blackwood (1951–1957) W. C. G. Knowles (1957–1964) H. J. C. Browne (1964–1973) Sir John Bremridge (1973–1980) Duncan Bluck (1981–1984) Michael Miles (1984–1988) David Gledhill (1988–1992) Peter Sutch (1992–1999) James Hughes-Hallett (1999–2004) David Turnbull (2005–2006) Christopher Pratt (2006–2014) John Slosar (2014–2019) List of former chief executives chief executive officers were referred to as Managing Directors before 1 July 1998. Sydney de Kantzow (1946–1948) M. S. Cumming (1948–1950) W. C. G. Knowles (1950–1957) H. J. C. Browne (1957–1958) W. B. Rae-Smith (1958–1960) H. J. C. Browne (1960–1961); second term Sir John Bremridge (1961–1971) Duncan Bluck (1971–1978) Michael Miles (1979–1984) Peter Sutch (1984–1992) Sir Rod Eddington (1992–1996) David Turnbull (1996–2005) Philip Chen (2005–2007) Tony Tyler (2007–2011) John Slosar (2011–2014) Ivan Chu (2014–2017) Rupert Hogg (2017–2019) Augustus Tang (2019–2022) Destinations Cathay Pacific serves 81 destinations (including cargo), but not including codeshare in 46 countries and territories on five continents, with a well-developed Asian network. The airline serves many gateway cities in North America and Europe, with easy connections with its Oneworld and codeshare partners, American Airlines and British Airways via Los Angeles and London, respectively. Also, the airline serves ten French cities via a codeshare partnership with French national rail operator, SNCF, from Paris. Codeshare agreements Cathay Pacific has codeshare agreements with the following airlines: The airline also has a codeshare agreement with French high speed trains (SNCF) from TGV station at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to ten French cities. as well as codeshare agreement with ferry operators – Cotai Water Jet and Chu Kong Passenger Transport Co., Ltd to connect passengers from Hong Kong to Macao, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Shekou and Guangzhou in the Greater Bay Area. In addition, there is a codeshare agreement with Bahrain Limo for bus services between Bahrain and Dammam. Fleet Cathay Pacific operates narrow-body, wide-body, twin-engine commercial fleet composed of Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777 aircraft and a Boeing 747 cargo fleet. The airline also has more Airbus A321neo, Airbus A350 and Boeing 777X aircraft on order. Loyalty programs In August 2022, the Airline decided to merge both the Asia Miles and Cathay Club programs. Members of either program received a single membership for both. Prior to this, the airline had two separate loyalty programs: The frequent flyer program called Cathay Club (formerly Marco Polo Club) and Asia Miles, the travel reward program. Members of Cathay are automatically enrolled as Asia Miles members. During 2020, Cathay Pacific abolished its previous Marco Polo Club & introduced its successor, the Cathay Club. The Cathay Club also abolished the Diamond Plus Tier which existed in the Marco Polo Club, the Diamond Tier is currently the highest tier in the Cathay Club. Membership Levels The program is divided into four tiers: Green (entry level), Silver, Gold, and Diamond. There is no joining fee.Members earn Asia Miles and 'Status Points' on eligible fare classes with Cathay Pacific and Oneworld member airlines. These are used to calculate the member's eligibility for membership renewal, upgrade or downgrade during the membership year. Higher-tiered members are provided with increased travel benefits such as guaranteed Economy Class seat, additional baggage allowance, priority flight booking and airport lounge access. Once members reach the required number of status points, they are granted the relevant tier for a year. At the end of the year, if the member does not hold enough status points to renew their tier, they will be downgraded. Irrespective of tier, at the end of each membership year, the member's status points counter is reset to zero. Green The Green Tier is the entry level to the program. Benefits include dedicated 24-hour club service line for flight reservations, extra baggage redemption and lounge access redemption. One Business Class lounge voucher will be issued for the member or their travelling companion at reaching 200 Status Points. Silver Silver Tier level is achieved or retained when the member earns 300 Status Points during the membership year. Additional benefits for Silver Card members include advanced seat reservations, priority waitlisting, Business Class check-in counters, 10 kg (22 lb) extra baggage allowance, priority baggage handling, and Business Class lounge access when flying Cathay Pacific operated flights. Additionally, members are eligible to use the Frequent Visitor e-Channels for seamless self-service immigration clearance at Hong Kong International Airport. At 450 Status Points, members will be issued two Business Class lounge vouchers for their travelling companions. Also, members are entitled to apply for at most three Membership Holidays in their lifetime, retaining their status for one year for each application.Cathay Silver tier status is equivalent to Oneworld Ruby tier status, which entitles members to Oneworld Ruby benefits when travelling on a Oneworld member airline. Gold Gold tier level is achieved or retained when the member earns 600 Status Points during the membership year. Additional benefits for Gold Card members include a guaranteed Economy Class seat on Cathay Pacific flights booked 72 hours before departure, 15 kg (33 lb) or one piece of extra baggage allowance, Business Class lounge access with one accompanying guest when flying Cathay Pacific and Oneworld-operated flights and arrival lounge access when flying Cathay Pacific-operated and marketed flights. Two Business Class lounge vouchers will be issued for their travelling companions or members on their Asia Miles Redemption List at reaching 800 Status Points. At reaching 1000 Status Points, four Cabin Upgrade vouchers (for Cathay Pacific-operated short-haul or medium-haul routes) will be issued to members and their travelling companions.Cathay Gold tier status is equivalent to Oneworld Sapphire tier status, which entitles members to Oneworld Sapphire benefits when travelling on a Oneworld member airline. Diamond The highest tier in the Cathay. Diamond tier level is achieved or retained when the member earns 1200 Status Points during the membership year. Additional benefits for Diamond Card members include top priority waitlisting, guaranteed Economy Class or Business Class seat on Cathay Pacific flights booked 24 hours before departure, First Class check-in counters, 20 kg (44 lb) or one piece of extra baggage allowance, First Priority baggage handling, First Class lounge access with two guests when flying Cathay Pacific-operated flights, one guest when flying Oneworld operated flights and Business Class lounge access with two guests when flying on any airline. At 1400 Status Points, members will be issued with two First or Business lounge vouchers for their travelling companions or members on their Asia Miles Redemption List. At 1600 Status Points, four Cabin Upgrade vouchers (for any Cathay Pacific-operated routes) will be issued to members, travelling companions and members on their Asia Miles Redemption List. At 1800 Status Points, members can nominate one member for Cathay Gold tier membership.Cathay Diamond tier status is equivalent to Oneworld Emerald tier status, which entitles members to Oneworld Emerald benefits when travelling on a Oneworld member airline. Asia Miles Asia Miles is the loyalty currency that is earned when spending through the program via Asia Miles partners. It can also be earned through flying Cathay Pacific and its Oneworld partners. Services Ground handling Beginning in 2007, Cathay Pacific launched more methods to check in for flights. Among them were self-check-in using a kiosk at Hong Kong International Airport and other select destinations and checking in via a mobile phone. Cathay Pacific also launched a mobile application on App Store and Google Play, formerly named CX Mobile. Passengers can use the application to check flight arrivals and departures, check in for their flights and read about the destinations they are flying to using City Guides. The app has become a hit with passengers, making Cathay Pacific one of the industry leaders in offering mobile services to users of smartphones.Cathay Pacific is also now following a trend among many airlines to improve its brand image to customers and shareholders with social media, and is ranked fourth worldwide. The airline now uses a range of social media tools including Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and blogging to share ideas with customers. In addition, it has launched a virtual tour to enable passengers to experience Cathay Pacific's new cabins and services without having to step aboard the aircraft.On 4 January 2011, the cargo division of the airline, Cathay Pacific Cargo, became the first airline operating out of Hong Kong to fully switch to e-air waybill. This eliminates the need for all paper documents when issuing air waybills. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) selected nine countries and territories and airlines in which to run the e-AWB pilot program, including Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific. Cabin First Class First Class is offered only on select Boeing 777-300ERs and features 6 seats in a 1-1-1 configuration. The first class seats can be converted into fully lie-flat beds measuring 36 in × 81 in (91 cm × 206 cm). The seats include a massage function, a personal closet, an ottoman for stowage or guest seating, and adjustable 18.5 in (47 cm), HD personal televisions (PTV). First class passengers are welcome to use Oneworld or Cathay Pacific first class lounges at their departure airport. Business Class Business Class is offered on all internationally configured aircraft. It is available on all Airbus A350s and Boeing 777-300ERs, as well as select Airbus A330-300s. Cathay Pacific introduced a new business class seat in 2011, featuring reverse herringbone seating in a 1-2-1 configuration. Each seat converts into a fully flat bed of length 82 inches (210 cm), with a width of up to 21 inches (53 cm). Each seat features a small, enclosed side cabinet, and an adjustable 18.5 in (47 cm) personal television. In 2016, upon delivery of brand new Airbus A350s, Cathay Pacific introduced a refreshed reverse herringbone seat designed by Porsche Design, with HD personal televisions and additional enclosed storage space on the side. Regional Business Class Business Class is offered on all regionally configured aircraft. It is available on all Airbus A320s, Airbus A321s, Airbus A321neos, and Boeing 777-300s, as well as selected Airbus A330-300s. Seats have 21 in (53 cm) width and recline to 47 in (120 cm) of pitch and feature electrical recline and leg rest. A 12 in (30 cm) PTV is located in the seat back offers AVOD. In 2021, the airline has updated the cabin with a new seat on the Airbus A321neo, featuring a new design with hard-shell recliner seats that incorporate divider screens and a 15.6-inch PTV.All Business Class passengers are allowed to use Oneworld or Cathay Pacific business class lounges prior to departure. Premium Economy Premium Economy is offered on all Airbus A350s and Boeing 777-300ERs, as well as selected Airbus A330-300s. Cathay Pacific introduced a premium economy class in March 2012. The seat pitch is 38 inches – six inches more than Economy Class – and the seat itself is wider and have a bigger recline. It has a large meal table, cocktail table, footrest, a 10.6-inch personal television, an in-seat power outlet, a multi-port connector for personal devices, and extra personal storage space. The Premium Economy Class seat offers a higher level of comfort with more living space in a separate cabin before the Economy Class zone. In 2016, on delivery of the Airbus A350-900 fleet, Cathay Pacific introduced a new Premium Economy seat, which features a 12.1 in (31 cm) HD PTV, and improved pitch of 40 inches (100 cm). The new seats are configured in a 2-4-2 configuration, with a width of 18.5 in (47 cm). Economy Class Cathay Pacific currently has 5 types of Economy Class, different on each aircraft. From the oldest 2012 type to the newest 2021 type, each has its own unique feature. 2007 Economy Class (333, ex. 340, 747, 777) The phased-out old Economy Class seats, previously offered on aircraft outfitted with the refurbished long-haul interiors, were designed by B/E Aerospace and introduced in July 2008. These seats include a fixed back design (shell) that allows passengers to recline without intruding on those seated behind, a 9 in (23 cm) PTV providing AVOD, AC power located behind a larger tray table, a coat hook and a literature pocket that has been relocated to below the seat cushion to create more legroom. The fixed shell of these seats has been criticised. The previous Economy Class seats each feature 6 in (15 cm) PTVs with a choice of 25 channels. These seats are 17 in (43 cm) in width and have 32 in (81 cm) of pitch. These seats were replaced with an updated Economy Class seat on aircraft receiving the Cathay Pacific's updated long-haul interior configuration. This is no longer available as it is replaced by the new 2018 Economy Class (it's gone). 2012 Economy Class (333, ex. 777) Cathay Pacific updated its economy class seats in March 2012, replacing the older fixed back design. They have a six-inch recline (two inches over the current long-haul economy seat). These seats are 17.5 in (44 cm) in width and have 32 in (81 cm) of pitch. 2016 Economy Class (359) Cathay Pacific released their new economy class on the A350-900, featuring dark green seats with a 11.1 inch touch screen, USB ports and a tablet tray. Also, seats have access to 110-volt AC power. With the new economy class design, new in-flight entertainment was also provided. The headrest size has been enlarged. 2017 Economy Class (777) Since 2017, all Boeing 777s are retrofitted with a new seat featuring a change in configuration from 9 abreast to 10 abreast. This increased the economy class seats on board the −300 series from 356 to 396 seats & the −300ER from 182/268 seats to 201/296 seats. All new seats feature new 11.6-inch touch screens, USB ports, & improved seat pitch. The seat width is 17.2 in (44 cm). 2018 Economy Class (351) The A350-1000 Economy Class' design is based on the 2017 Economy Class design. A separate drink holder and a bottle pouch are added. The seat padding is thicker than any other types of Economy Class. The headrest is also bigger. 2021 Economy Class (321) The 2021 Economy Class is identical to 2018 Economy Class design except for several upgrades- a 4k PTV. Catering Food and beverages are complimentary on all flights, with two hot meals generally served on each flight for long haul flights, along with free alcoholic beverages. Foods served on flights from Hong Kong are provided by Cathay Pacific Catering Services (CPCS) facilities in Hong Kong. CLS Catering Services Limited, a joint venture with LSG Sky Chefs, provides inflight catering from Toronto and Vancouver airports; while Vietnam Air Caterers, a joint venture between CPCS and Vietnam Airlines, provides the same for flights from Ho Chi Minh City. Meals on Manila–Hong Kong flights are typically served in snack bags as complimentary snacks and drinks. In-flight entertainment StudioCX (2012) The first type is the StudioCX system that was launched in 2012. Now, it can only be found in unrefurbished A330s. The old system features movies, TV, music, inflight map and some games. The system is identical to Cathay Dragon's Entertainment (StudioKA). StudioCX (2016) In 2016, following the new A350-900, Cathay Pacific launched the new entertainment system. Even though on the website, it still says it's StudioCX, but on the system, they seem to give up on the old name "StudioCX". The new system features a brand new, modern and lighter design. There are lots of new content from the old system, following a new moving map (rather than the stuck map from the StudioCX system), live TV, reading materials, magazines, news, shopping, Sports24 (only on A350) and more movies. Resolution is 4K on A321s. In 2017, the introduction for the StudioCX is updated.StudioCX, Cathay Pacific's in-flight entertainment system, equipped with personal televisions in every seat, offers movies, Asian and Western TV programs, music and games. The airline also provides a range of different newspapers and magazines from around the world, including the airline's in-flight magazine Discovery. Passengers with visual impairment can request for Hong Kong's South China Morning Post in Braille to be available on board. StudioCX provides Audio/Video on Demand (AVOD) for every passenger and offers up to 100 movies, 350 TV programs, about 1000 CD albums in 25 different genres, 25 radio channels and more than 70 interactive games. Accidents and incidents Cathay Pacific had ten incidents and accidents over its history, although none have resulted in a hull loss or loss of life since 1972. Cathay Pacific is generally regarded to have a good safety reputation and has been rated as one of the world's safest airlines. On 16 July 1948, Miss Macao, a Cathay Pacific-subsidiary-operated Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina (VR-HDT) from Macau to Hong Kong was hijacked by four men, who killed the pilot after take-off. The aircraft crashed in the Pearl River Delta near Zhuhai. Twenty-six people died, leaving only one survivor, a hijacker. This was the first hijacking of a commercial airliner in the world. On 24 February 1949, a Cathay Pacific Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registered VR-HDG) from Manila to Hong Kong, crashed near Braemar Reservoir after a go-around in poor weather. All 23 people on board died. On 13 September 1949, a Cathay Pacific Douglas C-47 Skytrain (registered VR-HDW) departing from Anisakan, Burma, crashed on take-off when the right-hand main gear leg collapsed. There were no reported fatalities. On 23 July 1954, a Cathay Pacific Douglas C-54 Skymaster (registered VR-HEU) from Bangkok to Hong Kong was shot down by aircraft of the People's Liberation Army Air Force in the South China Sea near Hainan Island. Ten people died, leaving nine survivors. After the incident, Cathay Pacific received an apology and compensation from the People's Liberation Army Air Force. It was apparently mistaken for a Nationalist Chinese military aircraft. On 5 November 1967, Cathay Pacific Flight 033, operated by a Convair 880 (registered VR-HFX) from Hong Kong to Saigon, overran the runway at Kai Tak Airport. One person was killed and the aircraft was written off. On 15 June 1972, Cathay Pacific Flight 700Z, operated by a Convair 880 (registered VR-HFZ) from Bangkok to Hong Kong, disintegrated and crashed while the aircraft was flying at 29,000 feet (8,800 m) over Pleiku, Vietnam after a bomb exploded in a suitcase placed under a seat in the cabin, killing all 81 people on board. This remains the last Cathay Pacific incident to involve a total hull-loss and passenger fatalities.On April 13, 2010, Cathay Pacific Flight 780, operated by an Airbus A330-342 (registered B-HLL) from Surabaya Juanda International Airport to Hong Kong, landed safely after both engines failed due to contaminated fuel. 57 passengers were injured in the ensuing slide evacuation. Its two pilots received the Polaris Award from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots' Associations for their heroism and airmanship. On 15 August 2018, Cathay Pacific Flight 292, operated by a Boeing 777-300ER (registered B-KPY) suffered serious damage to the edge of its right wing after colliding with a floodlight pole in Rome–Fiumicino Airport during pushback. No injuries were reported. On 23 May 2023, an audio recording was posted to the internet in which Cathay Pacific flight could allegedly be heard making fun of a passenger based on their lack of English proficiency. This led to the 2023 Cathay Pacific discrimination scandal and the company was forced to take action after severe criticism. On 24 June 2023, Cathay Pacific Flight 880, operated by a Boeing 777-300ER (registered B-KPQ) from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, had to abort its take-off roll after the plane experienced issues with a device indicating wind speed and direction. 11 passengers were injured during the evacuation. See also List of airlines of Hong Kong List of airports in Hong Kong List of companies of Hong Kong Macau Air Transport Company – subsidiary from 1948 to 1961 Transport in Hong Kong Official website Cathay Cargo

Radical 159 or radical cart (車部) meaning "cart" or "car" is one of the 20 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 7 strokes. In the Kangxi Dictionary, there are 361 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical.车, the simplified form of 車, is the 68th indexing component in the Table of Indexing Chinese Character Components predominantly adopted by Simplified Chinese dictionaries published in mainland China, while the traditional form 車 is listed as its associated indexing components. 车 is derived from the cursive form of 車. Evolution Derived characters Literature Fazzioli, Edoardo (1987). Chinese calligraphy : from pictograph to ideogram : the history of 214 essential Chinese/Japanese characters. calligraphy by Rebecca Hon Ko. New York: Abbeville Press. ISBN 0-89659-774-1.

26 may refer to: 26 (number), the natural number following 25 and preceding 27 one of the years 26 BC, AD 26, 1926, 2026 Bands and songs 26 (band), an Australian alternative rock group "26", a 2014 song by Catfish and the Bottlemen from The Balcony "26", a 2022 song by Lauv from All 4 Nothing "26", a 2017 song by Paramore from the album After Laughter "Twenty Six", a 1999 song by Karma to Burn from the album Wild, Wonderful Purgatory Science Iron, an transition metal in the periodic table 26 Proserpina, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Other uses Twenty-Six (novel), a 2003 novel by Leo McKay Jr. XXVI Holdings, a subsidiary company of Alphabet Inc.