HISTORY

The Man Who Sailed The World

2010-02-23T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Man Who Sailed The World

During the early times lands and countries were not yet discovered, there was one explorer who was able to achieve the almost impossible task. He was known to be the first person to cross the big world and the ocean called Pacific. In doing this, he was able to discover new countries and trade with the locals there. This person is none other than Ferdinand Magellan.

Historians said that Ferdinand was born at around 1480. Coming from a noble blood, he started out as a page that ran errands for his master. However, he knew that he was mean for more and dreamed big. When he became older, he joined the military and got shipped to the place called East Indies. While there, he requested the Portugal king to increase his allowance. He asked for this so that he would be able to fund his dream of finding a westward way that went to Moluccas. His majesty, however, rejected his requested. As such, he approached the Spanish king.

King Charles I gave him his request, so he was able to start his journey with five companion ships. While on his trip, he stayed at the country called Philippines. He also planned to invade the Mactan province there, but he got killed by a local by the name of Lapu-Lapu. Even though he was not able to return to the Spanish country alive, he became known as a great explorer who circumnavigated the big world.

History of Bratislava

2010-02-23T10:08:00.002-08:00

History of Bratislava

I was never really familiar with the city of Bratislava until I watched the movie, EuroTrip. After seeing the movie, I got interested in learning more about this fairly unknown place in Europe. I found out that Bratislava has one of the riches and most colorful histories in Europe.

Bratislava is one of the youngest cities in the European continent. However, its history can be traced back several thousand years ago. This small and thriving city used to be the place where a lot of diverse cultures where found. The reason for this was that the city was strategically located in near the Danube River. This was also the reason why it was used as a crossroad for merchants trading in various countries all over Europe.

During the second century BC, Bratislava was invaded by the Boyd Tribes of the Celtics. They used this city to establish power and even come up with a defensive territory. While under their rule, the locals learned how to mint coins. Their most popular work was marking the Blatec symbol to the staters. Due to the fact that Bratislava was under the rule of the Celtic for years, their teachings became the foundation of their new culture.

Land of the Vikings

2010-02-23T10:08:00.001-08:00

Land of the Vikings

Norway is a country situated on the northwest part of Europe, surrounded by Scandinavian nations. A country more popularly known as the land of the Vikings, Norway has undergone several unions with countries such as Denmark and Sweden. One of the most remarkable things about Norway is its efficient handling of the state when it adopted "neutrality" during the many wars that occurred during the past world wars.

Norway during World War II veered away from taking sides between the Allies and the Axis forces. But the Germans invaded some parts of Norway. This loss of trust on neutrality has prompted Norway to become one of the founders of the United Nations, as well as a NATO signatory in 1949.

Napoleon

2010-02-23T10:07:00.001-08:00

Napoleon

He was nicknamed the Little Corporal but his greatness was not determined by his height but by his military and administrative genius. Napoleon Bonaparte was not really very short as most of us are led to believe. He was average in height for a Frenchman of his time his height measurement was actually 5 feet and six inches (168 cm) in British standard measurement.

The purported 5 feet and 2 inches height of Napoleon was based on French standard of measurement. Napoleon dominated the whole European continent for more than a decade. He was the general who became the ruler of kings. Napoleon spread the ideals of the French Revolution of equality, fraternity and liberty.

The British Empire

2010-02-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

The British Empire

There was once a significant point in time in world history when Britain almost ruled a quarter of the surface of the Earth. This was the time of the mighty British Empire, an empire so vast that it stretched from the North to the South Pole, from the western to the eastern hemisphere.

At the height of its power, the empire covered North America (although failing to hold what is now the United States), to the islands of the Caribbean, to almost half of the African continent, to the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and ending in the Asia Pacific rim. The last cornerstone of what was the British Empire fell when Hong Kong was ceded back to China in 1997.

Holocaust Memorial Site

2010-02-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

Even after all these years, the memory of holocaust still haunts Germany. The nightmare seems to linger in all corners of the country. The descendants and survivors of the horrible historical event could be seen roaming around the cities. Their presence only adds up to the remembrance of the horrifying truth that Jews were once murdered because of their faith.

Respect. That is what I think the best we could give to the memory. Respect was also the driving force in the building of a memorial site in remembrance of the people who suffered in the dreaded annihilation. When I first saw the numerous tomb-like structures in the site, I could not help but join my hands and thank God that the Nazi era is all over. The columns with different elevations and sizes reminded of the individuals who had divers' views and attitudes toward their fate. It was then that I remembered of Anne Frank, whose diary served as one of the monuments of Holocaust.

On the other hand, the site became a tourism spot in Germany. Almost three million visitors come to see the columns annually. I pray that this monumental achievement of engineer Eiseman, will serve its purpose of keeping the memory alive. I just hope that I could go there some day, and pay tribute to the unsung heroes of Holocaust.

Another Page in Berlin History

2010-02-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

History has it that Germany is a focal point of humanity's history. Among its many cities and states, it's capital Berlin is the most popular for its rich historical value. The Berlin Wall is a world-known iconic symbol of the Cold War. For 28 years, it served as the symbol of a post-war divided Germany, a towering symbol of Communist tyranny sending a strong message of Germany's political and economic distinction from the rest of the world. Berlin Wall's fall in 1989 showed the world Germany's transformation and adaptability to modernist ideologies and philosophies, making the city a more celebrated place in Europe and the rest of the world. Recently, Berlin has made yet another historic event after hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

The 2006 World Cup

2010-02-19T10:51:00.000-08:00

Germany played host to the 2006 FIFA World Cup with Berlin as the venue for the Final match held last July 9th. Up to the few days post-final match, Berlin was home to thousands of World Cup fanatics. Supporters of the 32 participating countries trooped to the city to witness and experience the glory of one of the most anticipated sporting event in the world that only happens every four years. The 2006 FIFA World Cup is Germany's second hosting of the event, the first was in 1974. Well-planned security was the utmost concern of the city and national government for its multi-racial visitors.

Stadium of Pride

2010-02-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

Stadium of Pride

The final match won by team Italy against France was held at Berlin's historic Olympic stadium or more popularly known as the Olypmpiastadion. The Olympiastadion had been a venue for many great sporting event such as the 1936 Summer Olypmics Games, 1974 World Cup FIFA Finals, and many international football matches. For the 2006 World Cup, the Olympiastadion had to undergo renovations to meet the anticipated demands of the monumental event. The renovations were done to maximize Olympiastadion's functionality to provide optimum comfort for the 2006 World Cup spectators. From only 27,000 covered seats, it now boats of a 74,200 covered seats. After the 2006 World Cup's cloud has cleared, what's next for Olympiastadion is tremendously being anticipated.

United Nations Chickened Out

2010-02-16T13:13:00.002-08:00

United Nations Chickened Out

Some argue that if the United Nations had intervened far earlier, this mass murder wouldn't have happened. There were cries of possible amassing of weapons and Hutu militant preparations, but the UN had dismissed this. In fact, the US, then governed by Pres Bill Clinton had been a member of the First World countries who did not actively engage in the necessary peacekeeping process. It was only when the Tutsi-ruled Rwandan Patriotic Front, headed by Paul Kagame, took over the reigning Hutus did the Rwandan Genocide of '94 ended.

Motorcycle Diaries Journey to the Self

2010-02-16T13:13:00.001-08:00

When Ernesto "Che" Guevarra was twenty-three years old he decided to go on a trip with his friend, Alberto Granado to travel the vast region of Latin America. They lodged in only when there were people who would give them shelter and food. At that time, there were no convenient hotel reservations yet like today. Their trip led them to discover the poverties of each nation and Che became aware of the conditions of his fellowmen. This awakened his patriotism and a deep desire to help free his people. What began as a simple journey to visit and enjoy the country became a journey towards self-realization and awareness of the present social conditions. This rarely happens to rich kids like Che. Most heroes, as we know, came from the grassroots and the injustices experienced spurred them into action. The accounts and narration of the adventures of Che and his friend in their motorcycle, La Poderosa, was recorded in the book titled, "Motorcycle Diaries."

A Visit to the Leper Colony

2010-02-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

During the travels of Che Guevarra and his friend Alberto Granado, they came across a leper colony and helped their for awhile since they have medical expertise. I haven't actually read the novel but I've seen the movie which starred Gael Garcia Bernal. In the movie, there was a part there when Che swam all the way at the far end of the island towards the leprosy patients even though he had asthma. For him, crossing the river that separates the healthy doctors from the ill patients had conquered the division and marginalization that existed because of this setup. All throughout his stay in the leper colony, he wondered why these people had to be isolated from them. He had an awakening: the division exists not only in the leper colony but in Latin America as well. I hope rich people today are like Che.

The History of the Great Wall

2010-02-14T12:55:00.001-08:00

The Great Wall of China is one of the most famous building ever built in the world. It was built to protect China from the Mongol, Turkic, and other nomadic tribes trying to invade China. The wall measures 6,352 kilometers starting from Shanhai Pass on the Bohai Sea in the east, at the limit between "China proper" and Manchuria, to Lop Nur in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The wall roughly delineates the border between North China and Inner Mongolia. It was built during the reign of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huangdi between 220 BC and 200 BC.

Building the WallDuring the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the initial wall of the amazing Great Wall of China was built. It was mostly a product of

2010-02-14T12:53:00.002-08:00

During the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the initial wall of the amazing Great Wall of China was built. It was mostly a product of several regional walls built by warring states and not by single endeavors. It was the government who ordered its citizens to build the wall. While building the wall, there were many workers who died because of enemy's attack. It was referred to as the “longest cemetery on Earth” or “the long graveyard.” It was also said that there are almost one million workers who died building the wall. The succeeding walls were built by succeeding dynasties namely the Han, the Sui, and the Ten Kingdoms.

World History Bio: The Ups and Downs of Alexander the Great

2010-02-14T12:53:00.001-08:00

Alexander the Great is considered one of Greek's greatest leaders because of his contribution to the expansion of the Greek Empire during his reign as the king of Macedon. Read on to know more about the deeds of Alexander the Great.

Alexander the Great as the conqueror

During his reign, Alexander the Great lead his army to conquer several empires and nations, including the Persian Empire, Syria, Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia. His quests were fueled by his dream to expand the Greek empire and make a name for himself. Through force and by diplomatic means, Alexander the Great was able to spread Greek civilization into the East. He is also known for this tactical skills, which made him a renowned army leader. The siege of Tyre was probably one of Alexander's greatest achievements as he conquered Persia. Because of Tyre's unique geographical location, Alexander used his brilliant tactical skills and created a causeway to gain entrance to Tyre.

The defeats of Alexander the Great

However, his quests were defeated by plots and schemes against his life. Because of his achievements, several members of his own army tried to kill him. In the end, Alexander the Great died at the young age of 32.

Despite his short life, Alexander the Great had contributed greatly to the proliferation of Greek civilization. Because of this, he has been the subject of many movies. One of the most recent films that depicted the life of Alexander the Great was Alexander, which was directed by Oliver Stone and starred Colin Farrel as Alexander and Angelina Jolie as Alexander's mother, Queen Olympias.

Why build the Eiffel Tower

2010-02-14T12:51:00.000-08:00

Before I didn't know the reason why the French built the Eiffel Tower. But through the article I've read and printed from my new hp printer, I discovered that it was for the International Inquisition in 1889. A lot of people especially French artists were against Eiffel's design. They all said that the Eiffel Tower will destroy the beauty and grace of Paris. They all requested Gustave to change the design but Gustave Eiffel didn't listen to them. After the Eiffel Tower was finished, a lot of people admired Gustave's creation. In fact, after the Inquisition they planned to dismantle the tower but they decided to retain it. Today, Eiffel Tower is the symbol of French culture and pride.

Who is Mohandas Gandhi?

2010-02-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Learn about the real Mohandas Gandhi and find out what shaped his philosophy of non-violence.

He is revered by millions as the Mahatma, meaning Great Soul.. To over 730 million Indians he is Bapu – father. Those in the West know of him as the inspiration behind the civil rights movements of the 60s. He is Mohandas Karanchand Gandhi – a small, man with a gaunt face and large eyes. His nose was too large for his face and his mouth sported a toothless smile. His cheeks were sunken and were topped by large round spectacles. You may remember Gandhi for his wise sayings but there is far more to the man than that. Let’s take a brief overview of two key events that shaped the life of the Mahatma.

At the age of 18, Mohandas Gandhi – a young Hindu from a comfortable Gujarati family – travels to Bombay on his way to England to study law. Before boarding his ship to England, however, Gandhi is called before his caste elders and told that if he goes to England he will be expelled from his caste. In the 1880s, Hindus were not to mix with Europeans. Gandhi refuses to cooperate and leaves India as an outcast from his Vaisya caste.

Gandhi finds a difficult life in England, and is forced to live on the fringes of society. He is discriminated against by so-called Christians and this puzzles him. His verdict on Western religion: “I love Christ, but I despise Christians because they do not live as Christ lived.”

Leaving England with a law degree, Gandhi travels to South Africa, where he plans to set up practice. There he finds blatant racial discrimination. Despite having a first class train ticket, he is forcibly removed from a train. That incident brings to the decision to never again yield to force and never to use force to win a cause.

These two early incidents in the man's life were pivotal to his life course. In the one he is rejected by his own people for wanting to associate with the white man. In the other, he is thrown off a train by white men because of his skin color.

On retuning to India, Gandhi was disturbed that hateful divisions and scars were evident in Indian society caused by the caste system. Gandhi was particularly offended by the attitude to the Untouchables. Gandhi took up the torch for the Untouchables. Restoring them their name – Harijan – Gandhi attempted to shame those who deny them basic human rights. Regarding temples that prohibited Harijan worshippers, Gandhi would proclaim, “There is no God here!” At times, Gandhi even lived among the Harijan people.

Gandhi hoped for a better India. In 1938 he said, “I hope to the last breath that India will make non-violence her creed, preserving the dignity of man." Unfortunately, Gandhi’s creed has not become a reality – in India or anywhere else on this earth. The man himself fell to violence and his country erupted in violence after his death. How much the world could now benefit from his wisdom.

Che Guevara: revolution hero

2010-02-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

Che Guevara, leader of the Communist Revolution in Cuba, is still honored by the Castro government.

Ernesto Guevara was born on June 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, into an upper-middle class ranching family. Around the age of two, he developed asthma, a condition from which he suffered his entire life. His parents moved to the province of Cordoba, hoping that the drier air would improve their son’s condition. It didn’t, and Ernesto was a frail, sickly child. As he could not engage in the rough play of the other boys, he became quite the little intellectual, reading Marx and Engels before the onset of puberty. His family, the Guevara de la Sernas, were opposed to the dictatorship of Juan Peron, and his mother in particular was quite active in anti-Peronist demonstrations.

As a student at Buenos Aires University in the late 1940’s, Guevara surprisingly took no interest in the revolutionary students’ movement. He was a quiet young man who studied medicine, specializing in the study of leprosy. He went to Peru to observe the disease in a leper colony. He also visited Colombia, Venezuela, and Miami before returning home to Argentina. He had become a Marxist during his travels
, and now scoffed at the notion of becoming a middle-class doctor. In September of1954, he went to Mexico City, taking a residency in the General Hospital. Soon after he met Fidel Castro, who was in political exile from Cuba.

Guevara became a disciple of Castro’s, and pledged to help him overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba. On a farm in Mexico, Guevara and other revolutionaries were received training in guerrilla warfare by a Spanish Republican Army captain. It was here that he was nicknamed “Che,” which means “buddy” or “pal” in Italian
. Both Che and Castro were arrested by Mexican authorities during this time, but both were released. Castro knew that he could no longer bide his time in Mexico, and so the Cuban Revolution began.

Che served as both doctor and Commandante in the Revolution, and was a harsh taskmaster to the soldiers under him. He insisted that his soldiers not only give themselves physically to the war, but that they have the correct Marxist state of mind. He was cruel and ruthless when it came to prisoners or defectors, presiding over mass executions without blinking an eye. His single-mindedness was greatly prized by Castro, who made him his right hand man and the Minister for Industry when Batista’s government was overthrown. Shortly after the Revolution, Che married Aledia March, and they went on an extended honeymoon.

When Che returned to Cuba, he concentrated on moving Castro ever more to the left, and began to study the policies Mao Tse-tung was using China. While Castro wanted to be cautious in his economic reforms, Che was convinced that a quick and complete overhaul was necessary. Che’s ideas proved disastrous in practice, and in 1965, Fidel asked him to resign and direct his efforts elsewhere. Che took 120 Cubans with him to the African Congo in an attempt to foment Communist revolution that failed.

Che turned his attention to South America. He believed that Bolivia would be his best bet to start a revolt, because of its discontented peasant population and the United States’ relative lack of interest in it. He grossly misjudged the political climate, however, and found it difficult to recruit soldiers. He was captured by Bolivian Army troops on October 8, 1967. The army was in a quandary as to what to do with him; they feared a trial would only stir up support for the revolutionary. The next day they executed Che Guavera by shooting him in his cell. Che reportedly said, “Go ahead, you are only killing a man.”

Fidel Castro at first refused to believe the reports of his death, then turned it into a publicity bonanza for the Cuban government, which continues to this day.

Terry Bollea: A Hulk Hogan bio

2010-02-11T12:35:00.000-08:00

Terry Bollea, the legendary Hulk Hogan, learn about his life and accomplishments in this article.

In the late 1970’s, Terry Bollea was playing smoky, low-key bars as part of a rock band. Who would have predicted that twenty years later he would have become possibly the most successful wrestler of all time? Even if he isn’t, the man who became known as Hulk Hogan was instrumental in permanently changing the sports image.

It was Freddie Blassie who gave Hulk Hogan the break that he needed as a wrestler. In those early years as an amateur (he debuted in 1978), he was cast as one of the bad guys, something that would completely reverse in later years. Most would agree that his style was a little raw at that time, but the charismatic man obviously had what it took to succeed at the highest level.

Six years later in 1984, Hogan won his first WWF title, and had risen to prominence as a hero type, particularly popular with the kids. He defeated Iron Sheik at Madison Square Garden to capture the crown. Months earlier he had won his first major title in Japan. He was highly influential in making wrestling appeal to a mainstream audience. The catalyst for this was a fight against Roddy Piper in 1985, which ultimately became known as a prelude to the extremely popular Wrestlemania series.

Hulk Hogan was the star of the early Wrestlemanias. In its second year he routed King Kong Bundy, a match fought in a cage. A year later he beat the man many considered to be number one, and virtually indestructible, Andre the Giant. However, he was beaten in the event in 1990 by the Ultimate Warrior, and decided to take time off to concentrate on things other than wrestling.

For the next five years he threw himself into making movies such as Gremlins II, and appearing on TV. This, coupled with his flamboyant style, led him to be known as ‘Hollywood’ Hogan. A cartoon series was also produced in which he was the star. Wrestling fans who thought Hulk Hogan had retired for good were in for a shock though as he returned to the ring in 1994.

In that same year he became the WCW World Heavyweight Champion by beating Ric Flair. Still idolised by his adoring fans, Hogan soon re-established himself as an all round favourite. Things changed two years later though when he, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall ganged up on Randy Savage to give him a right mauling. Even Hogan’s most staunch supporters were disgusted with his behaviour. For the next two years he reverted to the bad boy image that had served him well as an amateur. His fortunes turned full circle again though, and around the turn of the century he was back to the heroic wrestler that everybody loved. Shortly afterwards he announced his retirement on the Jay Leno show.

All in all, Hulk Hogan won seven World Titles as a wrestler. The macho image he displayed at wrestling events with his 6’7”, 275lb frame has not always been there. He has worked hard for charity, especially for under privileged children, which shows there is a gentler, caring side to the man.

Commercialization And Internet

2010-02-09T07:41:00.002-08:00

The idea behind the marketing of the newest technological discovery in 1983-84 sprang from the notion that Internet is popular, thus there is a high possibility of making a lot of money out of it. But unknowingly, entrepreneurs during those times failed to understand the essence of Internet. Suffice to say, they lacked the necessary education about Internet.

This prompted the Internet Activities Board (IAB) and Dan Lynch to literally conduct workshops for the entrepreneurs. Basically, the lessons were about Internet Protocol and its functions. This gave way to a wider understanding the Internet, thus the inclusion of IP to commercial products reached the international market. Information Technology is undeniable that the education from IAB provided information technology professionals and computer wizards as well the confidence to compete with the growing Internet market.

Ever since this commercialization succeeded in reaching the highest level of sales, the manufacturing industries, for almost two decades now, is continuously improving their products to meet the standards. Indeed, they have become the basic commodities in our business world and provide wireless network solutions. If we try to assess the present condition of the market, it is definitely among the strongest in history.

A Phenomenon Called Globalization

2010-02-09T07:41:00.001-08:00

Today is the period of the globalization. The internet, perhaps is the single greatest contributing factor to this advancement. There's a lot of debates and different perspectives about this economic development. There are those who contest this development, claiming that it is simply an attempt to extend the control of multi-national companies to all the other parts of the world. Developing countries are crying out, claiming that what was proposed to be a fair and free trade among nations, is simply an ideal that is left out of reality. Other theorists claim, that this is an inevitable result of the development of imperialism, capitalism, and so on.

The problem with this is that the perspectives being taken are focused entirely on the economical aspect of the globalization phenomenon. Little do we see the benefits that are arising from the said social movement. Assistance to people who have been victims of natural disasters are coming from everywhere. Health and medical services are more far reaching than ever before. Communication, scientific researches, and understanding have all progressed substantially.

But regardless, it is simply undeniable that this has been the direction human civilization has moved towards. Globalization in its broadest term, is simply a social phenomena wherein all of the people in the world become united. With the advent of Wireless internet access, it becomes hopeless and self-defeating to resist this change.

The hardest part in any type of change sets in during the transition period from one point to the other. It wouldn't be far ahead before this event is accepted. Then, true progress will begin.

History of Chatting

2010-02-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

Most of my time (an approximate 12 hours a day, actually) is spent in front of my computer doing blogs like this one, checking my emails (and ridding it of annoying spam mails), surfing, and chatting with friends. Chatting is especially useful when I try to get updated on my friends' lives when we are all too busy to meet each other up. A self-professed chat addict, I would not know what my internet life would be without chatting.

There is a lot of chat applets that are readily downloadable from the world wide web. Yahoo Messenger is just one of the instantly available chat applications around. Through several years, what was basically just a form of real-time communication spawned a lot of developments. These days, aside from chatting, you can also share photos, see each other through webcam, and hear each other's voice while typing away. Isn't technology a blessing?

The modern chatting originated from Internet Relay Chat or IRC. A student from University of Oulu in Finland was the one who developed this system. Jarkko Oikarinen, the creator, improved an already existing chat program named MultiUser Talk or MUT. The result was IRC, which was launched in the year 1988.

IRISH POTATO FAMINE

2010-02-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Introduction

Beginning in 1845 and lasting for six years, the potato famine killed over a million men, women and children in Ireland and caused another million to flee the country.

Ireland in the mid-1800s was an agricultural nation, populated by eight million persons who were among the poorest people in the Western World. Only about a quarter of the population could read and write. Life expectancy was short, just 40 years for men. The Irish married quite young, girls at 16, boys at 17 or 18, and tended to have large families, although infant mortality was also quite high.

A British survey in 1835 found half of the rural families in Ireland living in single-room, windowless mud cabins that didn't have chimneys. The people lived in small communal clusters, known as clachans, spread out among the beautiful countryside. Up to a dozen persons lived inside a cabin, sleeping in straw on the bare ground, sharing the place with the family's pig and chickens. In some cases, mud cabin occupants were actually the dispossessed descendants of Irish estate owners. It was not uncommon for a beggar in Ireland to mention that he was in fact the descendant of an ancient Irish king.

Most of the Irish countryside was owned by an English and Anglo-Irish hereditary ruling class. Many were absentee landlords that set foot on their properties once or twice a year, if at all. Mainly Protestant, they held titles to enormous tracts of land long ago confiscated from native Irish Catholics by British conquerors such as Oliver Cromwell. The landlords often utilized local agents to actually manage their estates while living lavishly in London or in Europe off the rents paid by Catholics for land their ancestors had once owned.

Throughout Ireland, Protestants known as middlemen rented large amounts of land on the various estates then sub-divided the land into smaller holdings which they rented to poor Catholic farmers. The middleman system began in the 1700s and became a major source of misery as they kept sub-dividing estates into smaller and smaller parcels while increasing the rent every year in a practice known as rack-renting.

The average tenant farmer lived at a subsistence level on less than ten acres. These Catholic farmers were usually considered tenants-at-will and could be evicted on short notice at the whim of the landlord, his agent, or middleman. By law, any improvements they made, such as building a stone house, became the property of the landlord. Thus there was never any incentive to upgrade their living conditions.

The tenant farmers often allowed landless laborers, known as cottiers, to live on their farms. The cottiers performed daily chores and helped bring in the annual harvest as payment of rent. In return, they were allowed to build a small cabin and keep their own potato garden to feed their families. Other landless laborers rented small fertilized potato plots from farmers as conacre, with a portion of their potato harvest given up as payment of rent. Poor Irish laborers, more than anyone, became totally dependent on the potato for their existence. They also lived in a state of permanent insecurity with the possibility always looming they might be thrown off their plot.

The most fertile farmland was found in the north and east of Ireland. The more heavily populated south and west featured large wet areas (bog) and rocky soil. Mountains and bogs cover about a third of Ireland. By the mid-1800s, the density of Irish living on cultivated land was about 700 people per square mile, among the highest rate in Europe.

Potatoes are not native to Ireland but likely originated in the Andes Mountains of Peru, South America. In the early 1500s, Spanish conquerors found the Incas growing the vegetable, which the Spanish called patata. They were taken back to Europe and eventually reached England where the name changed to potato. About 1590, potatoes were introduced to Ireland where farmers quickly discovered they thrived in their country's cool moist soil with very little labor. An acre of fertilized potato field could yield up to 12 tons of potatoes, enough to feed a family of six for a year with leftovers going to the family's animals.

By the 1800s, the potato had become the staple crop in the poorest regions. More than three million Irish peasants subsisted solely on the vegetable which is rich in protein, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin and Vitamin C. It is possible to stay healthy on a diet of potatoes alone. The Irish often drank a little buttermilk with their meal and sometimes used salt, cabbage, and fish as seasoning. Irish peasants were actually healthier than peasants in England or Europe where bread, far less nutritious, was the staple food.

Irish farmers utilized an ancient 'lazy bed' planting technique. Using a simple spade, they first marked long parallel lines in the soil about four feet apart throughout the entire plot. In between the lines, they piled a mixture of manure and crushed seashells then turned over the surrounding sod onto this, leaving the grass turned upside down. Seed potatoes were inserted in-between the overturned grass and the layer of fertilizer then buried with dirt dug-up along the marked lines. The potato bed was thus raised about a foot off the surrounding ground, with good drainage provided via the newly dug parallel trenches.

Planting occurred in the spring beginning around St. Patrick's Day. Most of the poor Irish grew a variety known as Lumpers, a high yielding, but less nutritious potato that didn't mature until September or October. Every year for the poor, July and August were the hungry months as the previous year's crop became inedible and the current crop wasn't quite ready for harvest. This was the yearly 'summer hunger,' also called 'meal months,' referring to oat or barley meal bought from price gauging dealers out of necessity. During the summer hunger, women and children from the poorest families resorted to begging along the roadside while the men sought temporary work in the harvest fields of England.

By autumn, the potatoes were ready to be harvested, carefully stored in pits, and eaten during the long winter into the spring and early summer. The Irish consumed an estimated seven million tons in this way each year. The system worked year after year and the people were sustained as long as the potato crop didn't fail.

NEXT SECTION - Before the Famine

* Before the Famine
* The Blight Begins
* The Great Hunger
* Coffin Ships
* Financial Ruin
* Gone to America
* After the Famine
* Author/Bibliography

History Chart: The Death of Mozart (December 5, 1791)

2010-02-02T11:59:00.000-08:00

Born on January 27, 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the youngest of the seven children. He was also one of the only two who survived, as the rest of his siblings died during early childhood. People consider him to be a musical genius even at an early age. At age 3, he already learned to play the clavichord. He wrote musical compositions as early as four years old and his public performance was set at age 5. Mozart then became one of the most influential classical musicians of his time and even beyond his death on December 5, 1791.

Mozart's music

Mozart's musical compositions are known for their natural flow and charm. They express different emotions--humor, sorrow, or joy. He was also known for his operas, piano concertos, and symphonies, which exemplify musical mastery. As a versatile composer of his time, Mozart was also involved in chamber music and also wrote religious music. Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Ludwig van Beethoven were among the popular musicians who were deeply inspired by Mozart.

The final days of Mozart

Mozart was in Prague for the La clemenza di Tito opera premiere when he started to become ill. Though he still conducted for the The Magic Flute premiere, as days passed, his illness became more severe until he was bedridden. He suffered from pain, vomiting, and swelling. Mozart's death remains unknown, though some records claim that he suffered from "severe miliary fever." Others said it was trichinosis, influenza, a kidney ailment, or even mercury poisoning. But many believe that he died of acute rheumatic fever since he had attacks when he was a child.

Mozart is described thin and pale, which is a stark contrast to his powerful music and influential compositions. Though he died at a very young age of 35, he was able to contribute much to musical history, experimenting with different musical genre and evoking varied emotions every time.

Looking Back at Historical Events: The Vietnam War

2010-02-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

The Vietnam War was a difficult time for both the Americans and the Vietnamese. It occurred from 1959 to 1975, fought between the communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam’s government, which was supported by the United States.

Why the US had difficulty winning the Vietnam War

Vietnam has struggled for its independence for years, making them prepared for the fight against the Americans. A US ally, South Vietnam, was not an organized single command. The American military lacked the proper strategies to have an advantage. They also did not have a clear idea of the war’s end and goals, and surged into war without understanding Vietnam’s situation. They opted for the traditional form of fighting instead of using counterinsurgency strategies.

How the Vietnam War ended

President Nixon has stopped sending troops in 1973, suspending offensive action against North Vietnam. In 1973, direct US involvement ceased according to the Paris Peace Accords. South Vietnam’s Saigon fell under communist rule on April 29, 1975. The defeat of South Vietnam was the inevitable fall of America in the war as well.

Communist Vietnam’s victory wrapped up 116 years of the country’s fight with foreign occupation. Unfortunately, the win was at the cost of a million Vietnamese lives.

World History Bio: Adolf Hitler

2010-02-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

World History Bio: Adolf Hitler

Known as the leader of the Nazi Party during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler served as the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and as the country's head of state from 1934 to 1945. Throughout his political career, he promoted anti-capitalism, anti-semitism, anti-communism, and German nationalism.

Adolf Hitler bio

Adolf Hitler was born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl in Braunau am Inn, Austria on April 20, 1889. At age three, Hitler's family relocated to Kapuzinerstrasse 5, Germany. The family then moved again to Leonding in 1894. Adolf Hitler was primarily a happy-go-lucky child until the death of Edmund, his younger brother, due to measles. As an effect on Hitler's behavior, he became morose, contradictory, and detached. In 1905, Adolf Hitler moved to Vienna and spent his early adulthood there as a bohemian supported by his mother and an orphan's pension. In 1913, he moved to Munich and served at the Bavarian Army during WWI. During his stint in the army, he received certain awards such as the Iron Cross (2nd class) and another Iron Cross (1st class). It was this time when some of Hitler's beliefs that influenced his actions as the Nazi leader were formed. After WWI, he remained with the army, although he was discharged in 1920. Before he was discharged, he was asked to spy and infiltrate a political party, the German Workers' Party. Hitler was impressed with how this party promoted their ideas and beliefs. After his discharge from the army, his ardent German patriotism inspired him to actively join the party's activities, which was later renamed as the Nazi party.

Hitler as the Nazi leader

As the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler committed atrocious acts against his opponents, most especially against Jews during the Holocaust, a genocide that killed about 6 million Jews in Europe. His determination to create a unified Germany consisting purely of the Aryan race was Hitler's reason for such acts.

Adolf Hitler is probably one of human history's most memorable character because of his actions as the Nazi leader. Today, many museums and establishments commemorate the victims of Adolf Hitler's government-planned genocide or Holocaust.

World History Today: The Pearl Harbor Attack (December 7, 1941)

2010-02-01T00:25:00.000-08:00

World History Today: The Pearl Harbor Attack (December 7, 1941)
The Japanese Attacks the US Naval Base

December 7, 1941 marked the attack on the Pearl Harbor by the Japanese forces. Unprepared by the sudden strike on the US Naval Base, the attack resulted in the sinking of four battleships of the US Navy and four damaged navy ships. The casualty was greater on the US Naval Base with three damaged cruisers and destroyers and one minelayer. The surprise attack ravished a total of 188 aircraft and led to the death of more than 2,000 people. More than 1,000 were wounded.

US response to the attacks

The attack automatically engaged the US in the World War II. This happened prior to the
formal declaration of war by the US. Considering the nature of the attack and the number
of casualties, the then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared December 7, 1941 to be
a "date which will live in infamy."

Reflection on this world history event

The rest of the world was stunned with the Pearl Harbor attack that led to massive damages
on the US Naval Base. It was so carefully planned and executed that the US didn't see it
coming. Although a force to reckon with, there's no doubt that the US was weakened badly.
The purpose of the Japanese forces is to destroy the naval battleships to make way for
further south expansion, supporting Japan's advancement into the Dutch East Indies and Malaya for rubber, oil, and other natural resources.

It all started when the Western powers refused to trade with Japan. From then on, the growing tension could no longer be ignored. The Pacific war was said to be on its way with Japan wanting to seize the mineral-rich Southeast Asia.

Biography of Nelson Mandela

2010-02-01T00:19:00.000-08:00

Nelson Mandela is called Madiba in South Africa. The name “Madiba” is an honorary title adopted by older male members of the Mandela clan. For South Africans though, there is only one Madiba: Nelson Mandela.

On 10 May 1994, he was inaugurated as South Africa’s first democratically elected State President, and in June 1999 he stepped down from the political arena intending to lead a peaceful life in his birth place of Qunu in the Eastern Province of South Africa. It was not to be: too many countries relied on him to help them in their peace talks, and too many famous people needed to meet him. South Africa’s sports’ teams know that whenever he attends an international game, they are sure to win, because Madiba is South Africa’s very own lucky charm, the man with the “Madiba Magic”. He is South Africa’s very own super star.

He has a charismatic charm about him that has won over even his staunchest enemies. You just cannot resist this man with the shining eyes and loving and forgiving nature. It is remarkable that he is able to forgive so many, after spending almost thirty years in jail - not for committing a crime, but for standing up for his rights.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Qunu, a village near Umtata, in the Transkei (now part of Eastern Cape) on 18 July 1918. His father held an important post as the principal councillor to the Acting Paramount Chief of Thembuland. When his father died, Nelson was earmarked to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he had other ideas - he wanted to be a lawyer so that he could contribute to the freedom of his people.

He spent his early school years at a nearby mission school and completed his schooling at Headtown, a Wesleyan secondary school. After school he attended the University College of Fort Hare and studied for the Bachelor of Arts Degree. At that young age, he was already making a name for himself and was soon elected onto the Student’s Representative Council. He took part in a protest and was suspended from the college. He completed his Bachelor of Arts by means of a correspondence course, took articles of clerkship and started to study for his law degree. It was in 1942, while he was studying for his law degree, that he joined the ANC (African National Congress).

During the latter years of World War II, Nelson Mandela and a group of other prolific young men, all members of the ANC, started to devise plans to transform the previously staid and politically polite ANC movement into a rolling mass movement. Among the young men were Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo and the leader at the time, Anton Lembede. They spread the message of liberation to the people living in townships and in the rural areas. These young men formed the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1944 and three years later, Nelson was elected tot he Secretaryship of the league. He rose quickly and steadily in the ranks and spearheaded many active campaigns to peacefully bring about an end to racism and compulsory education for all children.

Nelson Mandela was arrested and brought to trial for his role in one of the campaigns, in 1952 and was given a suspended prison sentence and confined to Johannesburg for six months. He wrote the attorneys admission exams during this time of confinement and was admitted to the profession.

Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela opened a legal practice in Johannesburg. By the end of 1952, he became a deputy president of the ANC. The government at the time did everything in their power to disperse any “known troublemakers” and tried to enforce the unjust apartheid laws to ensure that Tambo and Mandela could not operate from the hustle and bustle of South Africa’s largest city. They were instructed to move to a deserted place, but the two refused and defied the order.

Nelson Mandela continued the struggle for his people during the fifties and was banned, arrested and imprisoned for his beliefs. After the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the ANC was outlawed and Mandela still on trial (the infamous Treason Trial), was detail. The Treason Trial collapsed in 1961 when South Africa became a republic constitution.

The ANC continued to operate, but secretly and Nelson Mandela emerged as the leading figure within the ANC hierarchy. He was forced to live apart from his family - his wife, Winnie and their children - and had to be constantly on the move to evade the police as they continued to track him. It was during this time that he earned the title of “The Black Pimpernel” as he adopted many disguises to escape the clutches of the police. In June 1961, the military wing of the ANC, Umkhonto we Sizwe (spearhead of the nation) was formed with Nelson Mandela as it’s commander-in-chief. The ANC had come to realise that time for peace talks and preaching non-violence was getting them nowhere.

IN 1962, Nelson Mandela travelled to Ethiopia (unlawfully, as he was not permitted to travel outside of certain areas within South Africa) and formed long lasting friendships with senior political leaders in several countries. He also arranged for guerrilla training for the members of Umkhonto we Sizwe. On his return to South Africa, he was arrested and charged will illegal exit from the country. He conducted his own defence. He was convicted and sentenced to five years of imprisonment. During this time he was charged, in the Rivonia Trial, with sabotage. He ended his statement from the docks of the Rivonia trial with the following words:

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and was sent to the then notorious Robben Island Prison, a maximum security prison on a small island near Cape Town. He was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in 1984 and in 1988, was transferred to the Victor Verster Prison. He was released on 11 February 1990 to the sheer delight of millions of people.

During his years in prison, he rejected offers made to him to reduce his prison sentence in return for his accepting the apartheid policy and agreeing to settle in the Transkei. He never gave up his ideals and remained an icon for those fighting against racial domination the world over. In South Africa any referenece to the ANC and Nelson Mandela was banned and if any South Africans were caught talking about him, they were jailed for treason. For years, many people did not even know about his existence. Newspapers were not allowed to print anything remotely connected to Nelson Mandela and many saw what he looked like for the first time when he was released from prison in 1990.

In 1991, he was elected President of the ANC and his friend, Oliver Tambo became the ANC’s National Chairperson. In 1993, he deservedly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all South Africans who had suffered in the struggle to bring peace to his country.

He continued to fight, peacefully, for his ideals and in 1994, the ANC won the first ever democratic election by a landslide.

This man, this Nelson Mandela is a hero to the people of South Africa - not only to the very people that he fought for, but also to the people whose eyes were blinded by the apartheid era. Nelson shocked them by adopting a reconciliatory air and forgaving many sins. He even took time to visit the widow of Hendriek Verwoerd, an ex-President of South Africa and one of the main perpetrators of apartheid.

On the downside, his marriage to Winnie Mandela resumed after his release, but could not survive the many years of separation. They divorced during his term of office as President of South Africa. He married the enigmatic Graca Machel, a widow of Samora Machel, on his birthday in 1998. Their marriage was a private affair- although there was much media speculation about the possibility of a wedding. That evening, at a public function to celebrate his birthday, Nelson Mandela, to the delight of the audience, introduced his new bride.

dangerous woman lady deborah moody

2010-02-01T00:16:00.000-08:00

Deborah Moody was a dangerous woman of the 1600s. She had founded Gravesend, which was the only early American colony that was founded by a woman.

Lady Deborah Moody was a widowed English immigrant in the seventh century. She is known for being a dangerous woman of the 1600s. She received the nickname because she was the only woman to have found one of the only permanent settlements in colonial America.

Deborah Dunch was christened this in 1586. She had come from a family of wealth that had a strong political and religious background. The family also believed strongly in civil liberties and religious non-conformity. Deborah married a well-connected landholder named Henry Moody. He was later given knighthood; therefore she became Lady Deborah or Dame Deborah. In 1629 Henry passed away, when she was approximately 33. At this time England
was in great religious turmoil, and she was very attracted to Anabaptism. Anabaptism was the Protestant sect that believed that baptism should be received by adult believers and not put onto a child or infant baptism. She could no longer live in the oppressed religious climate that England had been and therefore headed for Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639.

When Moody had arrived in New England she founded a Puritan community. This community was just as oppressive, because she had brought her Anabaptism view with her. Later in July of 1643 John Winthrop had been the governor at this time. He wrote in his journal: The Lady Moody, a wise and anciently religious woman, being taken with error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt withal by many of the elders and others, and admonished by the Church of Salem (where of she was a member), but persisting still, and to avoid further trouble, etc., she removed to the Dutch against the advice of her friends. Many others, infected with Anabaptism, removed thither also. She was after excommunicated.

Even though the Dutch Reformed Church in New Amsterdam was considered extremely rigid, the director general William Kieft would give permission to Moody to settle on unoccupied land. This land today is southern Brooklyn. There is an argument on where the town name had originated. Some believed the name came from Kieft’s birthplace Holland, Gravezande and others believed it had come from the English settled town of the Thames River. The name was Gravesend. The settlers had just moved into their quarters when they were attacked by Indians from somewhere up the Hudson River. The settlers were able to repell the Indians, yet they still temporarily relocated to Amersfoot. Today Amersfoot is actually the Flatlands. Even at this point Moody thought about going back to New England. After all of this, John Endecott, who was Winthrop’s deputy at the time wrote to his superior: I shall desire that she may not have advice to returned to this jurisdiction, unless she will acknowledge her ewill (evil) in opposing the churches, and leave her opinions behind her, for she is a dangerous woeman.

In 1645 she had returned to Gravesend, later on December 19 Kieft granted a patent that was memorable for all the freedoms it allowed. The patent had not only allowed freedom of conscience but the right to make this a self-governing town. The plan for the town as quit unique with Moody in charge.

The town was made up of two main roadways that bisected the town from the north-south and east-west side. Alongside the roads were four squares that were made up of four acres each. Inside each of the four sections were ten houses with a one-acre commons for the people. On the outside of the town there were triangle pieces that made up hundred acre farms. These farms where known as boweries that poked out from the center of town, making it look like the spokes from a wheel.

There had been a war that broke out in 1652 across the Atlantic Ocean between the Dutch and the English. This war made a great tension grow between the New Netherlands between the English towns and the Dutch rulers in the western part of Long Island. This became even more aggravated when the Quakers had come to The New Netherlands in 1657. They elected a new director general named Peter Stuyvent. Making a big step for the people Moody had invited them into the first Quaker meeting in the colonies, which was held at her very own home. Eventually the Dutch colony would be under the English rule, yet Moody had not lived to see this. She had died in 1659, when she was 73 years old. No one knows where Lady Deborah Moody is actually buried, but many believe that an appropriate epitaph would say, ”She is a dangerous woman.”

In the fall of 1993 Thomas J. Campanella wrote in the Landscape Journal about Lady Deborah Moody, “Gravesend was the only permanent settlement in America’s early colonization period to have been initiated, planned, and directed by a woman,” as well as “In its elegant and logical simplicity, the plan of Gravesend was almost without precedent in the English New World.”

Mesopotamia Edited By: Robert Guisepi

2010-01-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

Mesopotamia is a region, not a country.

Refer to the individual Peoples that made up Mesopotamia; the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and to some degree the Hittites, Phoenicians and Persians

In the narrow sense, Mesopotamia is the area between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, north or northwest of the bottleneck at Baghdad, in modern Iraq; it is Al-Jazirah ("The Island") of the Arabs. South of this lies Babylonia, named after the city of Babylon. However, in the broader sense, the name Mesopotamia has come to be used for the area bounded on the northeast by the Zagros Mountains and on the southwest by the edge of the Arabian Plateau and stretching from the Persian Gulf in the southeast to the spurs of the Anti-Taurus Mountains in the northwest. Only from the latitude of Baghdad do the Euphrates and Tigris truly become twin rivers, the rafidan of the Arabs, which have constantly changed their courses over the millennia. The low-lying plain of the Karun River in Persia has always been closely related to Mesopotamia, but it is not considered part of Mesopotamia as it forms its own river system. Mesopotamia, south of Ar-Ramadi (about 70 miles, or 110 kilometers, west of Baghdad) on the Euphrates and the bend of the Tigris below Samarra' (about 70 miles north-northwest of Baghdad), is flat alluvial land. Between Baghdad and the mouth of the Shatt al-'Arab (the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, where it empties into the Persian Gulf) there is a difference in height of only about 100 feet (30 meters). As a result of the slow flow of the water, there are heavy deposits of silt, and the riverbeds are raised. Consequently, the rivers often overflow their banks (and may even change their course) when they are not protected by high dikes. In recent times they have been regulated above Baghdad by the use of escape channels with overflow reservoirs. The extreme south is a region of extensive marshes and reed swamps, hawrs, which, probably since early times, have served as an area of refuge for oppressed and displaced peoples. The supply of water is not regular; as a result of the high average temperatures and a very low annual rainfall, the ground of the plain of latitude 35 N is hard and dry and unsuitable for plant cultivation for at least eight months in the year. Consequently, agriculture without risk of crop failure, which seems to have begun in the higher rainfall zones and in the hilly borders of Mesopotamia in the 10th millennium BC, began in Mesopotamia itself, the real heart of the civilization, only after artificial irrigation had been invented, bringing water to large stretches of territory through a widely branching network of canals. Since the ground is extremely fertile and, with irrigation and the necessary drainage, will produce in abundance, southern Mesopotamia became a land of plenty that could support a considerable population. The cultural superiority of north Mesopotamia, which may have lasted until about 4000 BC, was finally overtaken by the south when the people there had responded to the challenge of their situation. The present climatic conditions are fairly similar to those of 8,000 years ago. An English survey of ruined settlements in the area 30 miles around ancient Hatra (180 miles northwest of Baghdad) has shown that the southern limits of the zone in which agriculture is possible without artificial irrigation has remained unchanged since the first settlement of Al-Jazirah. The availability of raw materials is a historical factor of great importance, as is the dependence on those materials that had to be imported. In Mesopotamia, agricultural products and those from stock breeding, fisheries, date palm cultivation, and reed industries--in short, grain, vegetables, meat, leather, wool, horn, fish, dates, and reed and plant-fiber products--were available in plenty and could easily be produced in excess of home requirements to be exported. There are bitumen springs at Hit (90 miles northwest of Baghdad) on the Euphrates (the Is of Herodotus). On the other hand, wood, stone, and metal were rare or even entirely absent. The date palm--virtually the national tree of Iraq--yields a wood suitable only for rough beams and not for finer work. Stone is mostly lacking in southern Mesopotamia, although limestone is quarried in the desert about 35 miles to the west and "Mosul marble" is found not far from the Tigris in its middle reaches. Metal can only be obtained in the mountains, and the same is true of precious and semiprecious stones. Consequently, southern Mesopotamia in particular was destined to be a land of trade from the start. Only rarely could "empires" extending over a wider area guarantee themselves imports by plundering or by subjecting neighboring regions. The raw material that epitomizes Mesopotamian civilization is clay: in the almost exclusively mud-brick architecture and in the number and variety of clay figurines and pottery artifacts, Mesopotamia bears the stamp of clay as does no other civilization, and nowhere in the world but in Mesopotamia and the regions over which its influence was diffused was clay used as the vehicle for writing. Such phrases as cuneiform civilization, cuneiform literature, and cuneiform law can apply only where people had had the idea of using soft clay not only for bricks and jars and for the jar stoppers on which a seal could be impressed as a mark of ownership but also as the vehicle for impressed signs to which established meanings were assigned--an intellectual achievement that amounted to nothing less than the invention of writing.

Questions as to what ancient Mesopotamian civilization did and did not accomplish, how it influenced its neighbors and successors, and what its legacy has transmitted are posed from the standpoint of 20th-century civilization and are in part colored by ethical overtones, so that the answers can only be relative. Modern scholars assume the ability to assess the sum total of an "ancient Mesopotamian civilization"; but, since the publication of an article by the Assyriologist Benno Landsberger on "Die Eigenbegrifflichkeit der babylonischen Welt" (1926; "The Distinctive Conceptuality of the Babylonian World"), it has become almost a commonplace to call attention to the necessity of viewing ancient Mesopotamia and its civilization as an independent entity. Ancient Mesopotamia had many languages and cultures; its history is broken up into many periods and eras; it had no real geographic unity, and above all no permanent capital city, so that by its very variety it stands out from other civilizations with greater uniformity, particularly that of Egypt. The script and the pantheon constitute the unifying factors, but in these also Mesopotamia shows its predilection for multiplicity and variety. Written documents were turned out in quantities, and there are often many copies of a single text. The pantheon consisted of more than 1,000 deities, even though many divine names may apply to different manifestations of a single god. During 3,000 years of Mesopotamian civilization, each century gave birth to the next. Thus classical Sumerian civilization influenced that of the Akkadians, and the Ur III empire, which itself represented a Sumero-Akkadian synthesis, exercised its influence on the first quarter of the 2nd millennium BC. With the Hittites, large areas of Anatolia were infused with the culture of Mesopotamia from 1700 BC onward. Contacts, via Mari, with Ebla in Syria, some 30 miles south of Aleppo, go back to the 24th century BC, so that links between Syrian and Palestinian scribal schools and Babylonian civilization during the Amarna period (14th century BC) may have had much older predecessors. At any rate, the similarity of certain themes in cuneiform literature and the Old Testament, such as the story of the Flood or the motif of the righteous sufferer, is due to such early contacts and not to direct borrowing.

Mesopotamia and Education

As a civilization contemporary with Egyptian civilization, Mesopotamia developed education quite similar to that of its counterpart with respect to its purpose and training. Formal education was practical and aimed to train scribes and priests. It was extended from basic reading, writing, and religion to higher learning in law, medicine, and astrology. Generally, youth of the upper classes were prepared to become scribes, who ranged from copyists to librarians and teachers. The schools for priests were said to be as numerous as temples. This indicates not only the thoroughness but also the supremacy of priestly education. Very little is known about higher education, but the advancement of the priestly work sheds light upon the extensive nature of intellectual pursuit.

As in the case of Egypt, the priests in Mesopotamia dominated the intellectual and educational domain as well as the applied. The center of intellectual activity and training was the library, which was usually housed in a temple under the supervision of influential priests. Methods of teaching and learning were memorization, oral repetition, copying of models, and individual instruction. It is believed that the exact copying of scripts was the hardest and most strenuous and served as the test of excellence in learning. The period of education was long and rigorous, and discipline was harsh.

Washington DC, January 1925.

2010-01-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

Senate pages engaged in a snow ball battle. Washington DC, January 1925. (Photo credit: Courtesy Library of Congress)

Who is Muhammad Ali Jinnah?

2010-01-30T09:32:00.000-08:00

An article about Jinnah's life, the part he played in politics and as a leader to guide newly borned nation.

Jinnah first entered politics by participating in the 1906 Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress, the party that called for dominion status and later for independence for India. Four years later he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council--the beginning of a long and distinguished parliamentary career.

In Bombay he came to know, among other important Congress personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the eminent Maratha leader. Greatly influenced by these nationalist politicians, Jinnah aspired during the early part of his political life to become "a Muslim Gokhale." Admiration for British political institutions and an eagerness to raise the status of India in the international community and to develop a sense of Indian nationhood among the peoples of India were the chief elements of his politics. At that time, he still looked upon Muslim interests in the context of Indian nationalism.

But, by the beginning of the 20th century, the conviction had been growing among the Muslims that their interests demanded the preservation of their separate identity rather than amalgamation in the Indian nation that would for all practical purposes be Hindu. Largely to safeguard Muslim interests, the All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906. But Jinnah remained aloof from it. Only in 1913, when authoritatively assured that the league was as devoted as the Congress to the political emancipation of India, did Jinnah join the league. When the Indian Home Rule League was formed, he became its chief organizer in Bombay and was elected president of the Bombay branch.

"Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity." Jinnah's endeavours to bring about the political union of Hindus and Muslims earned him the title of "the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity," an epithet coined by Gokhale. It was largely through his efforts that the Congress and the Muslim League began to hold their annual sessions jointly, to facilitate mutual consultation and participation. In 1915 the two organizations held their meetings in Bombay and in 1916 in Lucknow, where the Lucknow Pact was concluded. Under the terms of the pact, the two organizations put their seal to a scheme of constitutional reform that became their joint demand vis-à-vis the British government. There was a good deal of give and take, but the Muslims obtained one important concession in the shape of separate electorates, already conceded to them by the government in 1909 but hitherto resisted by the Congress.

Meanwhile, a new force in Indian politics had appeared in the person of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Both the Home Rule League and the Indian National Congress had come under his sway. Opposed to Gandhi's Non-cooperation Movement and his essentially Hindu approach to politics, Jinnah left both the League and the Congress in 1920. For a few years he kept himself aloof from the main political movements. He continued to be a firm believer in Hindu-Muslim unity and constitutional methods for the achievement of political ends. After his withdrawal from the Congress, he used the Muslim League platform for the propagation of his views. But during the 1920s the Muslim League, and with it Jinnah, had been overshadowed by the Congress and the religiously oriented Muslim Khilafat committee.

When the failure of the Non-cooperation Movement and the emergence of Hindu revivalist movements led to antagonism and riots between the Hindus and Muslims, the league gradually began to come into its own. Jinnah's problem during the following years was to convert the league into an enlightened political body prepared to cooperate with other organizations working for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the Congress, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.

To bring about such a rapprochement was Jinnah's chief purpose during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He worked toward this end within the legislative assembly, at the Round Table Conferences in London (1930-32), and through his 14 points, which included proposals for a federal form of government, greater rights for minorities, one-third representation for Muslims in the central legislature, separation of the predominantly Muslim Sind region from the rest of the Bombay province, and the introduction of reforms in the North-West Frontier Province. But he failed. His failure to bring about even minor amendments in the Nehru Committee proposals (1928) over the question of separate electorates and reservation of seats for Muslims in the legislatures frustrated him. He found himself in a peculiar position at this time; many Muslims thought that he was too nationalistic in his policy and that Muslim interests were not safe in his hands, while the Indian National Congress would not even meet the moderate Muslim demands halfway. Indeed, the Muslim League was a house divided against itself. The Punjab Muslim League repudiated Jinnah's leadership and organized itself separately. In disgust, Jinnah decided to settle in England. From 1930 to 1935 he remained in London, devoting himself to practice before the Privy Council. But when constitutional changes were in the offing, he was persuaded to return home to head a reconstituted Muslim League.

Soon preparations started for the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935. Jinnah was still thinking in terms of cooperation between the Muslim League and the Hindu Congress and with coalition governments in the provinces. But the elections of 1937 proved to be a turning point in the relations between the two organizations. The Congress obtained an absolute majority in six provinces, and the league did not do particularly well. The Congress decided not to include the league in the formation of provincial governments, and exclusive all-Congress governments were the result. Relations between Hindus and Muslims started to deteriorate, and soon Muslim discontent became boundless.

Creator of Pakistan.

Jinnah had originally been dubious about the practicability of Pakistan, an idea that Sir Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to the Muslim League conference of 1930; but before long he became convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the Muslim way of life. It was not religious persecution that he feared so much as the future exclusion of Muslims from all prospects of advancement within India as soon as power became vested in the close-knit structure of Hindu social organization. To guard against this danger he carried on a nationwide campaign to warn his coreligionists of the perils of their position, and he converted the Muslim League into a powerful instrument for unifying the Muslims into a nation.

At this point, Jinnah emerged as the leader of a renascent Muslim nation. Events began to move fast. On March 22-23, 1940, in Lahore, the league adopted a resolution to form a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The Pakistan idea was first ridiculed and then tenaciously opposed by the Congress. But it captured the imagination of the Muslims. Pitted against Jinnah were men of the stature of Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And the British government seemed to be intent on maintaining the political unity of the Indian subcontinent. But Jinnah led his movement with such skill and tenacity that ultimately both the Congress and the British government had no option but to agree to the partitioning of India. Pakistan thus emerged as an independent state in 1947.

Jinnah became the first head of the new state. Faced with the serious problems of a young nation, he tackled Pakistan's problems with authority. He was not regarded as merely the governor-general; he was revered as the father of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and disease in Karachi, the place of his birth, in 1948.

History of computer science

2009-12-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century, and hinted at in the centuries prior. The progression, from mechanical inventions and mathematical theories towards the modern concepts and machines, formed a major academic field and the basis of a massive worldwide industry.
Early computation
The earliest known tool for use in computation was the abacus, and it was thought to have been invented in Babylon circa 2400 BCE. Its original style of usage was by lines drawn in sand with pebbles. This was the first known computer and most advanced system of calculation known to date - preceding Greek methods by 2,000 years. Abaci of a more modern design are still used as calculation tools today.

In 1115 BCE, the South Pointing Chariot was invented in ancient China. It was the first known geared mechanism to use a differential gear, which was later used in analog computers. The Chinese also invented a more sophisticated abacus from around the 2nd century BCE, known as the Chinese abacus.

In the 5th century BCE in ancient India, the grammarian Pāṇini formulated the grammar of Sanskrit in 3959 rules known as the Ashtadhyayi which was highly systematized and technical. Panini used metarules, transformations and recursions with such sophistication that his grammar had the computing power equivalent to a Turing machine. Between 200 BCE and 400 CE, Jaina mathematicians in India invented the logarithm. From the 13th century, logarithmic tables were produced by Muslim mathematicians.

The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest known mechanical analog computer. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to circa 100 BC.

Mechanical analog computer devices appeared again a thousand years later in the medieval Islamic world and were developed by Muslim astronomers, such as the equatorium by Arzachel, the mechanical geared astrolabe by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, and the torquetum by Jabir ibn Aflah.[5] The first programmable machines were also invented by Muslim engineers, such as the automatic flute player by the Banū Mūsā brothers[6] and the humanoid robots by Al-Jazari. Muslim mathematicians also made important advances in cryptography, such as the development of cryptanalysis and frequency analysis by Alkindus.

When John Napier discovered logarithms for computational purposes in the early 17th century, there followed a period of considerable progress by inventors and scientists in making calculating tools. Around 1640, Blaise Pascal, a leading French mathematician, constructed the first mechanical adding device based on a design described by Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria.

None of the early computational devices were really computers in the modern sense, and it took considerable advancement in mathematics and theory before the first modern computers could be designed.
Algorithms

In the 7th century, Indian mathematician Brahmagupta gave the first explanation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system and the use of zero as both a placeholder and a decimal digit.

Approximately around the year 825, Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi wrote a book, On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals, that was principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle East and then Europe. Around the 12th century, there was translation of this book written into Latin: Algoritmi de numero Indorum. These books presented newer concepts to perform a series of steps in order to accomplish a task such as the systematic application of arithmetic to algebra. By derivation from his name, we have the term algorithm.
[edit] Binary logic

Around the 3rd century BC, Indian mathematician Pingala discovered the binary numeral system. In this system, still used today in all modern computers, a sequence of ones and zeros can represent any number.

In 1703, Gottfried Leibnitz developed logic in a formal, mathematical sense with his writings on the binary numeral system. In his system, the ones and zeros also represent true and false values or on and off states. But it took more than a century before George Boole published his Boolean algebra in 1854 with a complete system that allowed computational processes to be mathematically modeled.

By this time, the first mechanical devices driven by a binary pattern had been invented. The industrial revolution had driven forward the mechanization of many tasks, and this included weaving. Punch cards controlled Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom in 1801, where a hole punched in the card indicated a binary one and an unpunched spot indicated a binary zero. Jacquard's loom was far from being a computer, but it did illustrate that machines could be driven by binary systems.
[edit] Birth of computer science

Before the 1920s, computers (sometimes computors) were human clerks that performed computations. They were usually under the lead of a physicist. Many thousands of computers were employed in commerce, government, and research establishments. Most of these computers were women, and they were known to have a degree in calculus. Some performed astronomical calculations for calendars.

After the 1920s, the expression computing machine referred to any machine that performed the work of a human computer, especially those in accordance with effective methods of the Church-Turing thesis. The thesis states that a mathematical method is effective if it could be set out as a list of instructions able to be followed by a human clerk with paper and pencil, for as long as necessary, and without ingenuity or insight.

Machines that computed with continuous values became known as the analog kind. They used machinery that represented continuous numeric quantities, like the angle of a shaft rotation or difference in electrical potential.

Digital machinery, in contrast to analog, were able to render a state of a numeric value and store each individual digit. Digital machinery used difference engines or relays before the invention of faster memory devices.

The phrase computing machine gradually gave away, after the late 1940s, to just computer as the onset of electronic digital machinery became common. These computers were able to perform the calculations that were performed by the previous human clerks.

Since the values stored by digital machines were not bound to physical properties like analog devices, a logical computer, based on digital equipment, was able to do anything that could be described "purely mechanical." Alan Turing, known as the Father of Computer Science, invented such a logical computer known as the Turing Machine, which later evolved into the modern computer. These new computers were also able to perform non-numeric computations, like music.

From the time when computational processes were performed by human clerks, the study of computability began a science by being able to make evident which was not explicit into ordinary sense more immediate.
See also: Numerical analysis, Mechanism (philosophy), Philosophy of mathematics, Philosophy of language, and Philosophy of mind
[edit] Emergence of a discipline
[edit] The theoretical groundwork

The mathematical foundations of modern computer science began to be laid by Kurt Gödel with his incompleteness theorem (1931). In this theorem, he showed that there were limits to what could be proved and disproved within a formal system. This led to work by Gödel and others to define and describe these formal systems, including concepts such as mu-recursive functions and lambda-definable functions.

1936 was a key year for computer science. Alan Turing and Alonzo Church independently, and also together, introduced the formalization of an algorithm, with limits on what can be computed, and a "purely mechanical" model for computing.

These topics are covered by what is now called the Church–Turing thesis, a hypothesis about the nature of mechanical calculation devices, such as electronic computers. The thesis claims that any calculation that is possible can be performed by an algorithm running on a computer, provided that sufficient time and storage space are available.

Turing also included with the thesis a description of the Turing machine. A Turing machine has an infinitely long tape and a read/write head that can move along the tape, changing the values along the way. Clearly such a machine could never be built, but nonetheless, the model can simulate the computation of any algorithm which can be performed on a modern computer.

Turing is so important to computer science that his name is also featured on the Turing Award and the Turing test. He contributed greatly to British code-breaking successes in the Second World War, and continued to design computers and software through the 1940s, but committed suicide in 1954.

At a symposium on large-scale digital machinery in Cambridge, Turing said, "We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus".

In 1948, the first practical computer that could run stored programs, based on the Turing machine model, had been built - the Manchester Baby.

In 1950, Britain's National Physical Laboratory completed Pilot ACE, a small scale programmable computer, based on Turing's philosophy.
[edit] Shannon and information theory

Up to and during the 1930s, electrical engineers were able to build electronic circuits to solve mathematical and logic problems, but most did so in an ad hoc manner, lacking any theoretical rigor. This changed with Claude Elwood Shannon's publication of his 1937 master's thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits. While taking an undergraduate philosophy class, Shannon had been exposed to Boole's work, and recognized that it could be used to arrange electromechanical relays (then used in telephone routing switches) to solve logic problems. This concept, of utilizing the properties of electrical switches to do logic, is the basic concept that underlies all electronic digital computers, and his thesis became the foundation of practical digital circuit design when it became widely known among the electrical engineering community during and after World War II.

Shannon went on to found the field of information theory with his 1948 paper titled A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which applied probability theory to the problem of how to best encode the information a sender wants to transmit. This work is one of the theoretical foundations for many areas of study, including data compression and cryptography.
[edit] Wiener and Cybernetics

From experiments with anti-aircraft systems that interpreted radar images to detect enemy planes, Norbert Wiener coined the term cybernetics from the Greek word for "steersman." He published "Cybernetics" in 1948, which influenced artificial intelligence. Wiener also compared computation, computing machinery, memory devices, and other cognitive similarities with his analysis of brain waves.
[edit] The first computer bug
Main article: Software bug

The first actual computer bug was a moth. It was stuck in between the relays on the Harvard Mark II.[1] While the invention of the term 'bug' is often but erroneously attributed to Grace Hopper, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, who supposedly logged the "bug" on September 9, 1945, most other accounts conflict at least with these details. According to these accounts, the actual date was September 9, 1947 when operators filed this 'incident' — along with the insect and the notation "First actual case of bug being found" (see software bug for details).

Microsoft Windows

2009-07-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).[1] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced previously. At the 2004 IDC Directions conference, it was stated that Windows had approximately 90% of the client operating system market.[2] The most recent client version of Windows is Windows Vista; the most recent server version is Windows Server 2008. Vista's successor, Windows 7 (currently at release to manufacturing), is scheduled to be released on October 22, 2009.
Versions
See also: List of Microsoft Windows versions

The term Windows collectively describes any or all of several generations of Microsoft operating system products. These products are generally categorized as follows:

Early versions
Main articles: Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, and Windows 2.1x

The history of Windows dates back to September 1981, when the project named "Interface Manager" was started. It was announced in November 1983 (after the Apple Lisa, but before the Macintosh) under the name "Windows", but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985.[3] The shell of Windows 1.0 was a program known as the MS-DOS Executive. Other supplied programs are Calculator, Calendar, Cardfile, Clipboard viewer, Clock, Control Panel, Notepad, Paint, Reversi, Terminal, and Write. Windows 1.0 does not allow overlapping windows, due to Apple Computer owning this feature. Instead all windows are tiled. Only dialog boxes can appear over other windows.

Windows 2.0 was released in October 1987 and featured several improvements to the user interface and memory management.[3] Windows 2.0 allowed application windows to overlap each other and also introduced more sophisticated keyboard-shortcuts. It could also make use of expanded memory.

Windows 2.1 was released in two different flavors: Windows/386 employed the 386 virtual 8086 mode to multitask several DOS programs, and the paged memory model to emulate expanded memory using available extended memory. Windows/286 (which, despite its name, would run on the 8086) still ran in real mode, but could make use of the high memory area.

The early versions of Windows were often thought of as simply graphical user interfaces, mostly because they ran on top of MS-DOS and used it for file system services.[4] However, even the earliest 16-bit Windows versions already assumed many typical operating system functions; notably, having their own executable file format and providing their own device drivers (timer, graphics, printer, mouse, keyboard and sound) for applications. Unlike MS-DOS, Windows allowed users to execute multiple graphical applications at the same time, through cooperative multitasking. Windows implemented an elaborate, segment-based, software virtual memory scheme, which allowed it to run applications larger than available memory: code segments and resources were swapped in and thrown away when memory became scarce, and data segments moved in memory when a given application had relinquished processor control, typically waiting for user input.[citation needed]

Windows 3.0 and 3.1
Main articles: Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.1x

Windows 3.0 (1990) and Windows 3.1 (1992) improved the design, mostly because of virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers (VxDs) which allowed them to share arbitrary devices between multitasked DOS windows.[citation needed] Also, Windows applications could now run in protected mode (when Windows was running in Standard or 386 Enhanced Mode), which gave them access to several megabytes of memory and removed the obligation to participate in the software virtual memory scheme. They still ran inside the same address space, where the segmented memory provided a degree of protection, and multi-tasked cooperatively. For Windows 3.0, Microsoft also rewrote critical operations from C into assembly, making this release faster and less memory-hungry than its predecessors.[citation needed] With the introduction of the Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows was able to bypass DOS for file management operations using 32-bit file access.[citation needed]

Windows 95, 98, and Me
Main articles: Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me

Windows 95 was released in 1995, featuring a new user interface, supported long file names, could automatically detect and configure installed hardware (plug and play), natively ran 32-bit applications, and featured several technological improvements that increased its stability over Windows 3.1. Windows 95 uses pre-emptive multitasking and runs each 32-bit application in a separate address space. This makes it harder for a single buggy application to crash the whole system. It was still not a secure multi-user operating system like Windows NT as a strict separation between applications was not enforced by the kernel. The API was a subset of the Win32 API supported by Windows NT, notably lacking support for Unicode and functions related to security. Windows 95 was now bundled together with MS-DOS 7.0, however its role was mostly delegated to that of a boot loader.

There were several releases of Windows 95; the first in 1995, with Service Pack 1 following in December which included Internet Explorer 2.0. Subsequent versions were only available with the purchase of a new computer and were called OEM Service Releases. OSR1 was equivalent to Windows 95 with SP1. OSR2 (also called Windows 95 B) included support for FAT32 and UDMA and shipped with Internet Explorer 3. OSR 2.1 included basic support for USB and OSR 2.5 (also called Windows 95C) shipped with Internet Explorer 4.0.

Microsoft's next release was Windows 98 in 1998. Microsoft released a second version of Windows 98 in 1999, named Windows 98 Second Edition (often shortened to Windows 98 SE).

In 2000, Microsoft released Windows Me (Me standing for Millennium Edition), which used the same core as Windows 98 but adopted some aspects of Windows 2000 and removed the "boot in DOS mode" option. It also added a new feature called System Restore, allowing the user to set the computer's settings back to an earlier date. Me is also the last DOS-based Windows release which does not include Microsoft Product Activation.

Windows NT family
Main article: Windows NT

The NT family of Windows systems was fashioned and marketed for higher reliability business use, and was unencumbered by any Microsoft DOS patrimony. The first release was MS Windows NT 3.1 (1993), numbered "3.1" to match the consumer Windows version, which was followed by NT 3.5 (1994), NT 3.51 (1995), NT 4.0 (1996), and Windows 2000 (2000). 2000 is the last NT-based Windows release which does not include Microsoft Product Activation. NT 4.0 was the first in this line to implement the "Windows 95" user interface (and the first to include Windows 95’s built-in 32-bit runtimes). Microsoft then moved to combine their consumer and business operating systems with Windows XP, coming in both home and professional versions (and later niche market versions for tablet PCs and media centers); they also diverged release schedules for server operating systems. Windows Server 2003, released a year and a half after Windows XP, brought Windows Server up to date with MS Windows XP. After a lengthy development process, Windows Vista was released toward the end of 2006, and its server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 was released in early 2008. On July 22, 2009, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 were released as RTM. Microsoft plans to release Windows 7 in late October 2009.

Windows CE, Microsoft’s offering in the mobile and embedded markets, is also a true 32-bit operating system that offers various services for all sub-operating workstations.

64-bit operating systems

Windows NT included support for several different platforms before the x86-based personal computer became dominant in the professional world. Versions of NT from 3.1 to 4.0 variously supported PowerPC, DEC Alpha and MIPS R4000, some of which were 64-bit processors, although the operating system treated them as 32-bit processors.

With the introduction of the Intel Itanium architecture, which is referred to as IA-64, Microsoft released new versions of Windows to support it. Itanium versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 were released at the same time as their mainstream x86 (32-bit) counterparts. On April 25, 2005, Microsoft released Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and x64 versions of Windows Server 2003 to support the AMD64/Intel64 (or x64 in Microsoft terminology) architecture. Microsoft dropped support for the Itanium version of Windows XP in 2005. Windows Vista is the first end-user version of Windows that Microsoft has released simultaneously in x86 and x64 editions. Windows Vista does not support the Itanium architecture. The modern 64-bit Windows family comprises AMD64/Intel64 versions of Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008, in both Itanium and x64 editions. Windows Server 2008 R2 drops the 32-bit version, although Windows 7 does not.

Windows CE
Main article: Windows CE

Windows CE (officially known as Windows Embedded), is an edition of Windows that runs on minimalistic computers, like satellite navigation systems, and uncommonly mobile phones. Windows Embedded runs as CE, rather than NT, which is why it should not be mistaken for Windows XP Embedded, which is NT. Windows CE was used in the Sega Dreamcast along with Sega's own proprietary OS for the console.

History

Microsoft has taken two parallel routes in its operating systems. One route has been for the home user and the other has been for the professional IT user. The dual routes have generally led to home versions having greater multimedia support and less functionality in networking and security, and professional versions having inferior multimedia support and better networking and security.[citation needed]

The first version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released in November 1985, lacked a degree of functionality and achieved little popularity, and was to compete with Apple’s own operating system.[citation needed] Windows 1.0 is not a complete operating system; rather, it extends MS-DOS. Microsoft Windows version 2.0 was released in November, 1987 and was slightly more popular than its predecessor. Windows 2.03 (release date January 1988) had changed the OS from tiled windows to overlapping windows. The result of this change led to Apple Computer filing a suit against Microsoft alleging infringement on Apple's copyrights.[10][11]

Microsoft Windows version 3.0, released in 1990, was the first Microsoft Windows version to achieve broad commercial success, selling 2 million copies in the first six months.[12][13] It featured improvements to the user interface and to multitasking capabilities. It received a facelift in Windows 3.1, made generally available on March 1, 1992. Windows 3.1 support ended on December 31, 2001.[14]

In July 1993, Microsoft released Windows NT based on a new kernel. NT was considered to be the professional OS and was the first Windows version to utilize preemptive multitasking.[citation needed]. Windows NT would later be retooled to also function as a home operating system, with Windows XP.

On August 24, 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, a new, and major, consumer version that made further changes to the user interface, and also used preemptive multitasking. Windows 95 was designed to replace not only Windows 3.1, but also Windows for Workgroups, and MS-DOS. It was also the first Windows operating system to use Plug and Play capabilities. The changes Windows 95 brought to the desktop were revolutionary, as opposed to evolutionary, such as those in Windows 98 and Windows Me. Mainstream support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2000 and extended support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2001.[15]

The next in the consumer line was Microsoft Windows 98 released on June 25, 1998. It was substantially criticized for its slowness and for its unreliability compared with Windows 95, but many of its basic problems were later rectified with the release of Windows 98 Second Edition in 1999.[citation needed] Mainstream support for Windows 98 ended on June 30, 2002 and extended support for Windows 98 ended on July 11, 2006.[16]

As part of its "professional" line, Microsoft released Windows 2000 in February 2000. The consumer version following Windows 98 was Windows Me (Windows Millennium Edition). Released in September 2000, Windows Me implemented a number of new technologies for Microsoft: most notably publicized was "Universal Plug and Play". During 2004 part of the Source Code for Windows 2000 was leaked onto the internet. This was bad for Microsoft as the same kernel used in Windows 2000 was used in Windows XP.

In October 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP, a version built on the Windows NT kernel that also retained the consumer-oriented usability of Windows 95 and its successors. This new version was widely praised in computer magazines.[17] It shipped in two distinct editions, "Home" and "Professional", the former lacking many of the superior security and networking features of the Professional edition. Additionally, the first "Media Center" edition was released in 2002,[18] with an emphasis on support for DVD and TV functionality including program recording and a remote control. Mainstream support for Windows XP ended on April 14, 2009. Extended support will continue until April 8, 2014.[19]

In April 2003, Windows Server 2003 was introduced, replacing the Windows 2000 line of server products with a number of new features and a strong focus on security; this was followed in December 2005 by Windows Server 2003 R2.

On January 30, 2007 Microsoft released Windows Vista. It contains a number of new features, from a redesigned shell and user interface to significant technical changes, with a particular focus on security features. It is available in a number of different editions, and has been subject to some criticism.[citation needed]

Windows Lifecycle Policy

Microsoft has stopped releasing updates and hotfixes for many old Windows operating systems, including all versions of Windows 9x,[34] and earlier versions of Windows NT. Windows versions prior to Windows 2000 are no longer supported. No new updates are created for unsupported versions of Windows.

MICHAEL JACKSON

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Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009), dubbed the King of Pop, was an American recording artist, entertainer and businessman. One of the most commercially successful artists of all time, his contributions to music and dance, along with a highly publicized personal life, made him a part of popular culture around the world for four decades.

A double-inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, his other achievements feature multiple Guinness World Records—including the "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time"—13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles, and the sale of over 750 million records. He was also a notable philanthropist, donating millions of dollars to the record 39 charities he supported, and raising more through his own Heal the World Foundation.

The seventh child of the Jackson family, he made his debut in 1964 as a member of The Jackson 5, beginning a solo career in 1971. His 1982 album Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time, with four others—Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995)—among the best selling. He popularized several physically complicated dance moves, such as the robot and the moonwalk, now iconic. His inventive music videos, including Thriller, "Beat It" and "Billie Jean", helped to transform the music video into an art form in addition to its original function as a promotional tool. He was the first African American artist to amass a strong crossover following on MTV, and his continually ground-breaking videos, such as "Black or White" and "Scream", ensured his popularity well into the 1990s.

Jackson's personal life generated significant controversy. His changing appearance was noticed from the early 1980s, his skin appearing paler and his facial features becoming almost androgynous.^[2] He was accused in 1993 of child sexual abuse, and though no charges were brought, his health suffered when he started using painkillers to cope with the stress.^[3] He married twice, first in 1994 and again in 1996, and brought up three children, one of them born to a surrogate mother, actions that triggered more speculation about his life. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of different child molestation allegations, which provoked a further decline in his health.^[3] Jackson died at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009, in Los Angeles, California after suffering from cardiac arrest. His memorial service was broadcast live around the world.

Life and career

1958–75: Early life and The Jackson 5

Jackson was born the seventh of nine children on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana, an industrial suburb of Chicago, to an African American family. His mother, Katherine Esther Scruse, was a devout Jehovah's Witness, and his father, Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson, a steel mill worker who performed with an R&B band called The Falcons. Jackson had three sisters, Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet, and five brothers, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, and Randy.^[4]

Jackson had a difficult relationship with his father. He stated that he was physically and emotionally abused during incessant rehearsals, whippings, and name-calling, though he credited his father's discipline for his success.^[5] In one altercation recalled by Marlon, Joseph held Michael upside down by one leg and "pummeled him over and over again with his hand, hitting him on his back and buttocks".^[6] Joseph would also trip or push the boys into walls. One night while Jackson was asleep, Joseph climbed into his room through the bedroom window, wearing a fright mask and screaming. He said he wanted to teach the children not to leave the window open when they went to sleep. For years afterward, Jackson said he suffered nightmares about being kidnapped from his room.^[6] Joseph acknowledged in 2003 that he had whipped Jackson as a child.^[7]

Jackson first spoke openly about his childhood abuse in an interview with Oprah Winfrey broadcast on February 10, 1993. He said that he had often cried from loneliness and would sometimes throw up when he saw his father. In an interview with Martin Bashir, aired on February 3, 2003 as Living with Michael Jackson, he covered his face with his hands and began crying when talking about his childhood abuse. He recalled that Joseph sat in a chair with a belt in his hand as he and his siblings rehearsed, and that "if you didn't do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you".^[8]^[9]

He showed talent early in his life, performing in front of classmates during a Christmas recital at the age of five. In 1964, he and Marlon joined the Jackson Brothers—a band formed by brothers Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine—as backup musicians playing congas and tambourine. Jackson later began performing backup vocals and dancing; at the age of eight, he and Jermaine assumed lead vocals, and the group's name was changed to The Jackson 5.^[4] The band toured the Midwest extensively from 1966 to 1968, frequently performing at a string of black clubs known as the "chitlin' circuit", where they often opened stripteases and other adult acts. In 1966, they won a major local talent show with renditions of Motown hits and James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)", led by Michael.^[10]

The Jackson 5 recorded several songs, including "Big Boy", for the local record label Steeltown in 1967, and signed with Motown Records in 1968.^[4] Rolling Stone magazine later described the young Michael as "a prodigy" with "overwhelming musical gifts," writing that he "quickly emerged as the main draw and lead singer."^[11] The group set a chart record when its first four singles ("I Want You Back", "ABC", "The Love You Save," and "I'll Be There") peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.^[4] During The Jackson 5's early years, Motown's public relations team claimed that Jackson was nine years old, two years younger than he was, to make him appear cuter and more accessible.^[12]

Starting in 1972, Jackson released a total of four solo studio albums with Motown, among them Got to Be There and Ben, released as part of the Jackson 5 franchise, and producing successful singles such as "Got to Be There", "Ben," and a remake of Bobby Day's "Rockin' Robin". The group's sales began declining in 1973, and the band members chafed under Motown's strict refusal to allow them creative control or input. Although they scored several top 40 hits, including the top 5 disco single "Dancing Machine" and the top 20 hit "I Am Love", the Jackson 5 left Motown in 1975.^[13]

1975–81: Move to Epic and Off the Wall

The Jackson 5 signed a new contract with CBS Records in June 1975, joining the Philadelphia International Records division, later Epic Records,^[13] and renaming themselves The Jacksons.^[14] They continued to tour internationally, releasing six more albums between 1976 and 1984, during which Jackson was the lead songwriter, writing hits such as "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", "This Place Hotel," and "Can You Feel It".^[10]

In 1978, he starred as the scarecrow in the musical, The Wiz,^[15] and it was here that he teamed up with Quincy Jones, who was arranging the film's musical score. Jones agreed to produce Jackson's next solo album, Off the Wall.^[16] In 1979, Jackson broke his nose during a complex dance routine. His subsequent rhinoplasty was not a complete success; he complained of breathing difficulties that would affect his career. He was referred to Dr. Steven Hoefflin, who performed Jackson's second rhinoplasty and subsequent operations.^[17]

Jones and Jackson produced Off the Wall together. Songwriters included Jackson, Heatwave's Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder, and Paul McCartney. Released in 1979, it was the first album to generate four U.S. top 10 hits, including the chart-topping singles "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You".^[18] It reached number three on the Billboard 200 and eventually sold over 20 million copies worldwide.^[19] In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Music Awards for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough".^[18] Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt Off the Wall should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release.^[20] In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.^[21]

1982–83: Thriller and Motown 25

In 1982, Jackson contributed the song "Someone In the Dark" to the storybook for the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; the record won a Grammy for Best Album for Children.^[22] That same year Jackson issued his second Epic album, Thriller, which became the most commercially successful album of all time. The album remained in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for 80 consecutive weeks and 37 of those weeks at the peak position. It was the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It," and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."^[23] Thriller was certified for 28 million shipments by the RIAA, giving it Double Diamond status in the United States.^[24] It is the best-selling album of all time, with 110 million copies worldwide.^[25] Jackson's attorney John Branca noted that Jackson had the highest royalty rate in the music industry at that point: approximately $2 for every album sold. He was also making record-breaking profits from sales of CDs and The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, a documentary produced by Jackson and John Landis. Funded by MTV, the documentary sold over 350,000 copies in a few months. The era saw the arrival of novelties like dolls modeled after Michael Jackson, which appeared in stores in May 1984 at a price of $12.^[26] Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli writes that, "Thriller stopped selling like a leisure item—like a magazine, a toy, tickets to a hit movie—and started selling like a household staple."^[27]

ime described Jackson's influence at that point as "Star of records, radio, rock video. A one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too".^[26] The New York Times wrote that, "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else".^[28] On March 25, 1983, he performed live on the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special, both with The Jackson 5 and on his own singing "Billie Jean". Debuting his signature dance move, the moonwalk, his performances during the event were seen by 47 million viewers, and drew comparisons to Elvis Presley's and the The Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.^[29] The New York Times said, "The moonwalk that he made famous is an apt metaphor for his dance style. How does he do it? As a technician, he is a great illusionist, a genuine mime. His ability to keep one leg straight as he glides while the other bends and seems to walk requires perfect timing."^[30]

1986–87: Appearance, tabloids, Bad, autobiography, and films

Jackson's skin had been a medium-brown color for the entire duration of his youth, but starting in the early 1980s, it gradually grew paler. The change gained widespread media coverage, including rumors that he was bleaching his skin.^[39] According to J. Randy Taraborrelli's biography, in 1986, Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus; the vitiligo partially lightened his skin, and the lupus was in remission; both illnesses made him sensitive to sunlight. The treatments he used for his condition further lightened his skin tone, and, with the application of pancake makeup to even out blotches, he could appear very pale.^[40] The structure of his face changed too: several surgeons speculated that he had undergone multiple nasal surgeries, a forehead lift, thinned lips, and cheekbone surgery.^[41]

He lost weight in the early 1980s because of a change in diet and a desire for "a dancer's body."^[42] Witnesses reported that he was often dizzy and speculated that he was suffering from anorexia nervosa; periods of weight loss would become a recurring problem later in life.^[43] Some medical professionals have said he was suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, a psychological condition whereby the sufferer dislikes his appearance and has no concept of how he is viewed by others.^[40] He had a fourth rhinoplasty in 1986, and had a cleft put in his chin.^[17]^[44]

He became the subject of increasingly sensational reports. In 1986, The National Enquirer published a series of photographs of him lying in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, claiming that he slept in the chamber to slow the aging process.^[45] When Jackson bought a chimpanzee called Bubbles from a laboratory, it was reported as an example of increasing detachment from reality.^[46] In 2003, the singer claimed that Bubbles had been trained to use the toilet and to clean his own bedroom.^[45] Later, it was reported that he had offered $1 million for the bones of Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man."^[47] The reports became embedded in the public consciousness, inspiring the nickname "Wacko Jacko," which was commonly shortened to "Jacko" in tabloid headlines. Despite Jackson's insistence that the reports were completely invented, a biographer said in 2004 that Jackson's publicists had leaked the rumors to the press for promotional reasons.^[48] Jackson remarked to a reporter:

Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."^[49]
Jackson starred in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed 3-D film Captain EO. It was the most expensive film produced on a per-minute basis at the time, and was later hosted in Disney theme parks. Disneyland featured the film in its Tomorrowland area for nearly 11 years, while Walt Disney World screened the film in its Epcot theme park from 1986 to 1994.^[50] With the industry expecting another major hit, Jackson's first album in five years, Bad (1987), was highly anticipated.^[51] It had lower sales than Thriller, but was still a substantial commercial success, spawning seven hit singles in the U.S., five of which ("I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "Bad", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Man in the Mirror" and "Dirty Diana") reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, more than any other album.^[52] As of 2008, the album had sold 30 million copies worldwide.^[53]

In 1987, Jackson disassociated himself from the Jehovah's Witnesses, in response to their disapproval of the Thriller video.^[54] The Bad World Tour began on September 12 that year, finishing on January 14, 1989.^[55] In Japan alone, the tour had 14 sellouts and drew 570,000 people, nearly tripling the previous record of 200,000 in a single tour.^[56] He broke a Guinness World Record when 504,000 people attended seven sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium. He performed a total of 123 concerts to an audience of 4.4 million people, and gained a further Guinness World Record when the tour grossed him $125 million. During the trip he invited underprivileged children to watch for free, and gave donations to hospitals, orphanages, and other charities.^[55]
1988–90: Autobiography, changing appearance, and Neverland

In 1988, Jackson released his first autobiography, Moon Walk, which took four years to complete and sold 200,000 copies.^[57] Jackson wrote about his childhood, The Jackson 5, and the abuse he had suffered.^[58] He also spoke of his plastic surgery, saying he had had two rhinoplastic surgeries and the surgical creation of a cleft in his chin.^[42] He attributed much of the change in the structure of his face to puberty, weight loss, a strict vegetarian diet, a change in hair style, and stage lighting.^[42] Moon Walk reached the top position on The New York Times best sellers' list.^[59] The musician then released a film called Moonwalker, which featured live footage and music videos that starred Jackson and Joe Pesci. Moonwalker debuted atop the Billboard Top Music Video Cassette chart, staying there for 22 weeks. It was eventually knocked off the top spot by Michael Jackson: The Legend Continues.^[60]

In March 1988, Jackson purchased land near Santa Ynez, California to build Neverland Ranch at a cost of $17 million. He installed Ferris wheels, a menagerie, and a movie theater on the 2,700-acre (11 km²) property. A security staff of 40 patrolled the grounds. In 2003, it was valued at approximately $100 million.^[11]^[61] In 1989, his annual earnings from album sales, endorsements, and concerts was estimated at $125 million for that year alone.^[62] Shortly afterwards, he became the first Westerner to appear in a television ad in the Soviet Union.^[60]

His success resulted in his being dubbed the "King of Pop". The honorific was popularized by Elizabeth Taylor when she presented him with an "Artist of the Decade" award in 1989, proclaiming him "the true king of pop, rock and soul."^[63] President George H. W. Bush presented him with The White House's special "Artist of the Decade."^[64] From 1985 to 1990, he donated $500,000 to the United Negro College Fund, and all of the profits from his single "Man in the Mirror" went to charity.^[65]^[66] Jackson's live rendition of "You Were There" at Sammy Davis Jr.'s 60th birthday celebration received an Emmy nomination.^[60]
1991–93: Dangerous, Heal the World Foundation and Super Bowl XXVII

In March 1991, Jackson renewed his contract with Sony for $65 million, a record-breaking deal at the time, displacing Neil Diamond's renewal contract with Columbia Records.^[61] Jackson released his eighth album Dangerous in 1991. As of 2008, Dangerous had shipped seven million copies in the U.S. and had sold 32 million copies worldwide; it is the most successful new jack swing album of all time.^[67]^[68]^[69] In the United States, the album's first single "Black or White" was its biggest hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and remaining there for seven weeks, with similar chart performances worldwide.^[70] The album's second single "Remember the Time" spent eight weeks in the top five in the United States, peaking at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.^[71] In 1993, Jackson performed the song at the Soul Train Awards in a chair, saying he had suffered an injury in rehearsals.^[72] In the UK and other parts of Europe, "Heal the World" was the biggest hit from the album; it sold 450,000 copies in the UK and spent five weeks at number two in 1992.^[71]

Jackson founded the "Heal the World Foundation" in 1992. The charity organization brought underprivileged children to Jackson's ranch to enjoy theme park rides that Jackson had built on the property. The foundation also sent millions of dollars around the globe to help children threatened by war and disease. The Dangerous World Tour began on June 27, 1992, and finished on November 11, 1993. Jackson performed to 3.5 million people in 67 concerts. All profits from the concerts went to the "Heal the World Foundation", raising millions of dollars in relief.^[71]^[73] He sold the broadcast rights to his Dangerous world tour to HBO for $20 million, a record-breaking deal that still stands.^[74] Following the illness and death of Ryan White, Jackson helped draw public attention to HIV/AIDS, something that was still controversial at the time. He publicly pleaded with the Clinton Administration at Bill Clinton's Inaugural Gala to give more money to HIV/AIDS charities and research.^[75]^[76]

In a high-profile visit to Africa, Jackson visited several countries, among them Gabon and Egypt.^[77] His first stop to Gabon was greeted with a sizable reception of more than 100,000 people in "spiritual bedlam", some of them carrying signs that read, "Welcome Home Michael".^[77] In his trip to the Ivory Coast, Jackson was crowned "King Sani" by a tribal chief.^[77] He then thanked the dignitaries in French and English, signed official documents formalizing his kingship and sat on a golden throne while presiding over ceremonial dances.^[77]

One of Jackson's most acclaimed performances came during the halftime show at Super Bowl XXVII. As the performances began, Jackson was catapulted onto the stage as fireworks went off behind him. As he landed on the canvas, he maintained a motionless "clenched fist, standing statue stance", dressed in a gold and black military outfit and sunglasses; he remained completely motionless for several minutes while the crowd cheered. He then slowly removed his sunglasses, threw them away and began to sing and dance. His routine included four songs: "Jam", "Billie Jean", "Black or White" and "Heal the World". It was the first Super Bowl where the audience figures increased during the half-time show, and was viewed by 135 million Americans alone; Jackson's Dangerous album rose 90 places up the album chart.^[39]
Jackson was given the "Living Legend Award" at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. "Black or White" was Grammy nominated for best vocal performance. "Jam" gained two nominations: Best R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B S
1994: First marriage

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley on May 26, 1994.

In May 1994, Jackson married singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley. They had first met in 1975 during one of Jackson's family engagements at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and were reconnected through a mutual friend in early 1993.^[86] They stayed in contact every day over the telephone. As child molestation accusations became public, Jackson became dependent on Lisa Marie for emotional support; she was concerned about his faltering health and addiction to drugs.^[83] Lisa Marie explained, "I believed he didn't do anything wrong and that he was wrongly accused and yes I started falling for him. I wanted to save him. I felt that I could do it."^[89] In a phone call he made to her, she described him as high, incoherent and delusional.^[83] Shortly afterwards, she tried to persuade Jackson to settle the allegations out of court and go into rehabilitation to recover—he subsequently did both.^[83] Jackson proposed to Lisa Marie over the telephone towards the fall of 1993, saying, "If I asked you to marry me, would you do it?".^[83] Presley and Jackson married in the Dominican Republic in secrecy; the parties denied they had been married for nearly two months.^[90] The marriage was, in her words, "a married couple's life ... that was sexually active".^[91] At the time, the tabloid media speculated that the wedding was a ploy to prop up Jackson's public image in light of prior sexual abuse allegations.^[90] Jackson and Presley divorced less than two years later, remaining friendly.[9
1995–97: HIStory

In 1995, Jackson merged his ATV Music catalog with Sony's publishing division creating Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Jackson retained half-ownership of the company, earned $95 million upfront as well as the rights to even more songs.^[37]^[93] He then released the double album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I. The first disc, HIStory Begins, was a 15-track greatest hits album, and was later reissued as Greatest Hits – HIStory Vol. I in 2001, while the second disc, HIStory Continues, contained 15 new songs. The album debuted at number one on the charts and has been certified for seven million shipments in the US.^[94] It is the best-selling multiple-disc album of all-time, with 20 million copies (40 million units) sold worldwide.^[70]^[95] HIStory received a Grammy nomination for best album.^[96]

One of many identical statues, positioned throughout Europe to promote HIStory. The statue illustrates the singer's flamboyant clothing and hair style, influenced by military imagery.

The first single released from the album was the double A-side "Scream/Childhood". "Scream" was a duet, performed with Jackson's youngest sister Janet. The single had the highest debut on the Billboard Hot 100 at number five, and received a Grammy nomination for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals".^[96] "You Are Not Alone" was the second single released from HIStory; it holds the Guinness World Record for the first song ever to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[62] It was seen as a major artistic and commercial success, receiving a Grammy nomination for "Best Pop Vocal Performance".^[96] In late 1995, Jackson was rushed to a hospital after collapsing during rehearsals for a televised performance; the incident was caused by a stress related panic attack.^[97] "Earth Song" was the third single released from HIStory, and topped the UK singles chart for six weeks over Christmas 1995; it sold a million copies, making it Jackson's most successful single in the UK.^[96] The HIStory World Tour began on September 7, 1996, and finished on October 15, 1997. Jackson performed 82 concerts in 58 cities to over 4.5 million fans. The show, which visited five continents and 35 countries, became Jackson's most successful in terms of audience figures.^[55]
1996–99: Second marriage and fatherhood

During the Australian leg of the HIStory World Tour, Jackson married dermatology nurse Deborah Jeanne Rowe on November 14, 1996 in an impromptu ceremony close to his Sydney hotel room. She bore him two children: a son, Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., and a daughter, Paris Katherine Michael Jackson.^[92]^[98] Rowe and Jackson first met in the mid-1980s, when Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo. She spent many years treating his illness as well as providing emotional support. They built a strong friendship, then became romantically involved.^[99] Originally there were no plans to marry, but following Rowe's first pregnancy, Jackson's mother intervened and persuaded them to do so.^[100] Jackson later claimed that he was in such a rush to leave the hospital with daughter Paris in 1998 because he was worried to hear any bad news like the time of Prince's birth when he was told that the baby isn't breathing correctly.^[101] The couple divorced in 1999, and remained friends, with Rowe giving full custody of the children to Jackson.^[102]

In 1997, Jackson released Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix, which contained remixes of hit singles from HIStory and five new songs. Worldwide sales stand at 6 million copies as of 2007, making it the best selling remix album ever released. It reached number one in the UK, as did the title track.^[103]^[104] In the US, the album was certified platinum, but only reached number 24.^[67]^[96] Forbes placed his annual income at $35 million in 1996 and $20 million in 1997.^[61]

Throughout June 1999, Jackson was involved in a number of charitable events. He joined Luciano Pavarotti for a benefit concert in Modena, Italy. The show was in support of the non-profit organization War Child, and raised a million dollars for the refugees of Kosovo, as well as additional funds for the children of Guatemala.^[105] Later that month, Jackson organized a set of "Michael Jackson & Friends" benefit concerts in Germany and Korea. Other artists involved included Slash, The Scorpions, Boyz II Men, Luther Vandross, Mariah Carey, A. R. Rahman, Prabhu Deva Sundaram, Shobana Chandrakumar, Andrea Bocelli and Luciano Pavarotti. The proceeds went to the "Nelson Mandela Children's Fund", the Red Cross and UNESCO.^[106]

2000–03: Label dispute, Invincible and third child

In 2000, Jackson was listed in the book of Guinness World Records for his support of 39 charities, more than any other entertainer or personality.^[107] At the time, Jackson was waiting for the licenses to the masters of his albums to revert to him; this allowed him to promote his old material how he liked and prevented Sony from getting a cut of the profit. Jackson expected this to occur early in the new millennium; however, due to various clauses in the contract, this revert date is still many years away. Jackson began an investigation, and it emerged that the attorney who represented the singer in the deal was also representing Sony, creating a conflict of interest.^[104] Jackson was also concerned about another conflict of interest. For a number of years, Sony had been pushing to buy all of Jackson's share in their music catalog venture. If Jackson's career or financial situation were to deteriorate, he would have to sell his catalog. Thus, Sony had something to gain from Jackson's career failing.^[108] Jackson was able to use these conflicts as leverage to exit his contract early.^[104] Just before the release of Invincible, Jackson informed the head of Sony Music Entertainment, Tommy Mottola, that he was leaving Sony.^[104] As a result, all singles releases, video shootings and promotions concerning the Invincible album were canceled. Jackson made allegations in July 2002 that Mottola was a "devil" and a "racist" who did not support his African-American artists, using them merely for his own personal gain.^[104] He charged that Mottola had called his colleague Irv Gotti a "fat nigger".^[109] Sony disputed claims that they had failed to promote Invincible with sufficient energy, maintaining that Jackson refused to tour in the US.^[110]

Six years after his last studio album and after spending much of the late 1990s out of the public eye, Jackson released Invincible in October 2001 to much anticipation. To help promote the album, a special 30th Anniversary celebration at Madison Square Garden occurred in September 2001 to mark the singer's 30th year as a solo artist. Jackson appeared onstage alongside his brothers for the first time since 1984.^[111] The show also featured performances by Mýa, Usher, Whitney Houston, 'N Sync, and Slash, among other artists.^[112] In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jackson helped organize the United We Stand: What More Can I Give benefit concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. The concert was aired on October 21, 2001, and included performances from dozens of major artists, including Jackson, who performed his song "What More Can I Give" as the finale.^[108] Invincible was a commercial success, debuting atop the charts in 13 countries and going on to sell approximately 10 million copies worldwide. It received double-platinum certification in the US.^[67]^[70]^[108] However, the sales for Invincible were notably low compared to his previous releases, due in part to a diminishing pop music industry, the lack of promotion, no supporting world tour and the label dispute.^[108] The album spawned three singles, "You Rock My World", "Cry" and "Butterflies", the latter without a music video.

Jackson's third child, Prince Michael Jackson II (nicknamed "Blanket") was born in 2002.^[113] The mother's identity is unknown, but Jackson has said the child was the result of artificial insemination from a surrogate mother and his own sperm cells.^[102] In November of that year, Jackson brought his newborn son onto the balcony of his room at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, as fans stood below. Holding him in his right arm, with a cloth loosely draped over the baby's face, Jackson briefly extended the baby over the railing of the balcony, four stories above ground level, causing widespread criticism in the media. Jackson later apologized for the incident, calling it "a terrible mistake".^[114] Sony released a compilation of Jackson's hits on CD and DVD. In the US, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA; in the UK it was certified for shipments of at least 1.2 million units.^[67]^[115]

2003–05: Second child sexual abuse allegations

Further information: Living with Michael Jackson and People v. Jackson

Fans show their support for Jackson after he is accused of child molestation in 2003.

In a series of interviews with Martin Bashir, broadcast in 2003 as Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson was seen holding hands and discussing sleeping arrangements with Gavin Arvizo, 13, who later accused him of sexual abuse.^[116] Shortly after the documentary aired, Jackson was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent in relation to Arvizo.^[116]

Jackson denied the allegations, saying the sleepovers were not sexual in nature. Elizabeth Taylor defended him, saying she had been there when they were in the bed. "There was nothing abnormal about it," she told Larry King. "There was no touchy-feely going on. We laughed like children and we watched a lot of Walt Disney. There was nothing odd about it."^[117] During the investigation, Jackson was examined by mental health professional Dr. Stan Katz; the doctor spent several hours with the accuser too. Katz said Jackson was a regressed 10-year-old, and did not fit the profile of a pedophile.^[118]

During the two years between the charges and the trial, Jackson reportedly became dependent on pethidine (Demerol), and lost a lot of weight. The People v. Jackson began on January 31, 2005, in Santa Maria, California, and lasted five months, until the end of May. Jackson was acquitted on all counts.^[119]^[120]^[121] After the trial, he relocated to the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain, as a guest of Sheikh Abdullah.^[122]

2006–09: Final years

Michael Jackson with his children in Disneyland Paris, 2006

Reports of financial problems for Jackson became frequent in 2006 after the closure of the main house on the Neverland Ranch as a cost-cutting measure.^[123] One prominent financial issue concerned a $270 million loan secured against his music publishing holdings. After delayed repayments on the loan, a refinancing package shifted the loans from Bank of America to debt specialists Fortress Investments. A new package proposed by Sony would have had Jackson borrow an additional $300 million and reduce the interest rate payable on the loan, while giving Sony the future option to buy half of Jackson's stake in their jointly owned publishing company (leaving Jackson with a 25% stake).^[93] Jackson agreed to a Sony-backed refinancing deal, although details were not made public.^[124] Despite these loans, according to Forbes, Jackson was still making as much as $75 million a year from his publishing partnership with Sony alone.^[125]

Jackson was awarded the Diamond Award on November 15, 2006, for selling over 100 million albums, at the World Music Awards.^[70] Following the death of James Brown, Jackson returned to the U.S. to pay tribute during Brown's public funeral on December 30, 2006.^[126] In late 2006, he agreed to share joint custody of his first two children with ex-wife Debbie Rowe.^[127] Jackson and Sony bought Famous Music LLC from Viacom in 2007. This deal gave him the rights to songs by Eminem, Shakira and Beck, among others.^[128]

I've been in the entertainment industry since I was six-years-old... As Charles Dickens says, "It's been the best of times, the worst of times." But I would not change my career... While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me.^[129]

—Michael Jackson

The 25th anniversary of Thriller was marked by the release of Thriller 25, which added the previously unreleased song "For All Time" and re-mixes. Two remixes were released as singles to moderate success: "The Girl Is Mine 2008" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008". Thriller 25 sold well as a re-issue, peaking at number one in eight countries and Europe.^[130]^[131]^[132] In 12 weeks Thriller 25 sold over three million copies worldwide.^[133] To celebrate Jackson's 50th birthday, Sony BMG released a series of compilation albums called King of Pop.^[134]^[135] King of Pop did reach the top 10 in most countries where it was issued, and also sold well as an import in other countries.^[136]^[137]

Fortress Investments threatened to foreclose on Neverland Ranch, which Jackson used as collateral for loans running into many tens of millions of dollars. However, Fortress opted to sell Jackson's debts to Colony Capital LLC. In November, Jackson transferred Neverland Ranch's title to Sycamore Valley Ranch Company LLC, which was a joint venture between Jackson and Colony Capital LLC. This deal cleared Jackson's debt, and he reportedly even gained an extra $35 million from the venture. At the time of his death, Jackson still owned a stake in Neverland/Sycamore Valley, but it is unknown how large that stake was.^[138]^[139]^[140]

Prior to his death, Jackson was scheduled to perform 50 sell out concerts to over one million people, at London's O₂ arena. The concerts would have commenced on July 13, 2009 and finished on March 6, 2010. According to Jackson's website, ticket sales for the concerts broke several records. During a prior press conference, Jackson made suggestions of possible retirement.^[141] Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live stated that the first 10 dates alone would earn the singer approximately £50 million.^[142]

Amanda Ghost, president of Epic Records (the label Jackson was signed to), has confirmed that new music from the ill-fated star will be released but it will not be a rushed process. Ghost recognises that there is an 'appetite' for the Jackson recordings to be released but also stated that the label "wants to be respectful to his memory, as well as making sure the music is fantastic so that it does not damage his legacy". ^[143] She revealed that the star had for several years before his death, been working on new material with Ne-Yo and Akon. will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas also worked with the late star on a dance album but revealed that he "would not leak the material" from his work with the King of Pop. ^[144]

Death and memorial

Main articles: Death of Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson memorial service

On June 25, 2009, Jackson collapsed at his rented mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. Attempts at resuscitating him by his personal physician were unsuccessful.^[145] Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics received a 911 call at 12:22 p.m. (PDT), arriving three minutes later at Jackson's location.^[146]^[147] He was reportedly not breathing and CPR was performed.^[148] Resuscitation efforts continued en route to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and for an hour after arriving there at 1:13 p.m. (20:13 UTC).^[145] He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. local time (21:26 UTC).^[149]^[150]

The memorial was held on July 7, 2009, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, preceded by a private family service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park's Hall of Liberty. Jackson's casket was present during the memorial, which was broadcast live around the world and watched by up to one billion people, but no information was released about the final disposition of the body.^[151] Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Jermaine Jackson, and Shaheen Jafargholi sang Jackson's songs. Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson gave eulogies, while Queen Latifah read, "We had him," a poem written for the occasion by Maya Angelou.^[152] The Reverend Al Sharpton received a standing ovation when he told Jackson's children, "There wasn't nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with."^[153] Jackson's 11-year-old daughter, Paris Katherine, cried as she told the crowd, "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine ... I just wanted to say I love him so much."^[154]

UFO

2009-06-23T13:06:00.001-07:00

Unidentified flying object (commonly abbreviated as UFO or U.F.O.) is the popular term for any aerial phenomenon whose cause cannot be easily or immediately determined.^[1] Both military and civilian research show that a significant majority of UFO sightings have been identified after further investigation, either explicitly or indirectly through the presence of clear and simple explanatory factors (see Occam's Razor).^[2] The United States Air Force, which coined the term in 1952, initially defined UFOs as those objects that remain unidentified after scrutiny by expert investigators,^[3] though the term UFO is often used more generally to describe any sighting unidentifiable to the reporting observer(s). Popular culture frequently takes the term UFO as a synonym for alien spacecraft. Cults have become associated with UFOs, and mythology and folklore have evolved around the phenomenon.^[4] Some investigators now prefer to use the broader term unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP), to avoid the confusion and speculative associations that have become attached to UFO.^[5]

Studies have established that only a small percentage of reported UFOs are actual hoaxes,^[6] while the majority are observations of some real but conventional object—most commonly aircraft, balloons, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets—that have been misidentified by the observer as anomalies. A small percentage of reported sightings (usually 5 %–20 %) are classified as unidentified flying objects in the strictest sense (see below for some studies).

Certain scientists have argued that all UFO sightings, in the strictest sense, are misidentifications of prosaic natural phenomena^[7] and historically, there was debate among some scientists about whether scientific investigation was warranted given available empirical data.^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12] Very little peer-reviewed literature has been published in which scientists have proposed, studied or supported non-prosaic explanations for UFOs.

UFO reports became frequent after the first widely publicized US sighting – reported by private pilot Kenneth Arnold in 1947 – that gave rise to the popular terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc". Since then, millions of people have reported that they have seen UFOs.^[13]

History

Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history. Some were undoubtedly astronomical in nature: comets, bright meteors, one or more of the five planets that can be seen with the naked eye, planetary conjunctions, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. An example is Halley's Comet, which was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 B.C. and possibly as early as 467 B.C.

Other historical reports seem to defy prosaic explanation, but assessing such accounts is difficult. Whatever their actual cause, such sightings throughout history were often treated as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens. Some objects in medieval paintings can seem strikingly similar to UFO reports.^[14] Art historians explain those objects as religious symbols, often represented in many other paintings of Middle-Age and Renaissance.^[15]

Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a Song Chinese government scholar-official and prolific polymath inventor and scholar, wrote a vivid passage in his Dream Pool Essays (1088) about an unidentified flying object. He recorded the testimony of eyewitnesses in 11th-century Anhui and Jiangsu (especially in the city of Yangzhou), who stated that a flying object with opening doors would shine a blinding light from its interior (from an object shaped like a pearl) that would cast shadows from trees for ten miles in radius, and was able to take off at tremendous speeds.^[16]

On January 25, 1878, The Denison Daily News wrote that local farmer John Martin had reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed." Martin also said it appeared to be about the size of a saucer, the first known use of the word "saucer" in association with a UFO.^[17]
On February 28, 1904, there was a sighting by three crew members on the USS Supply 300 miles west of San Francisco, reported by Lt. Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Battle Fleet. Schofield wrote of three bright red egg-shaped and circular objects flying in echelon formation that approached beneath the cloud layer, then changed course and "soared" above the clouds, departing directly away from the earth after two to three minutes. The largest had an apparent size of about six suns. ^[18]
1916 and 1926: The three oldest known pilot UFO sightings, of 1305 cataloged by NARCAP. On January 31, 1916, a UK pilot near Rochford reported a row of lights, like lighted windows on a railway carriage, that rose and disappeared. In January 1926, a pilot reported six "flying manhole covers" between Wichita, Kansas and Colorado Springs, Colorado. In late September 1926, an airmail pilot over Nevada was forced to land by a huge, wingless cylindrical object. ^[19]
On August 5, 1926, while traveling in the Humboldt Mountains of Tibet's Kokonor region, Nicholas Roerich reported that members of his expedition saw "something big and shiny reflecting the sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed. Crossing our camp the thing changed in its direction from south to southwest. And we saw how it disappeared in the intense blue sky. We even had time to take our field glasses and saw quite distinctly an oval form with shiny surface, one side of which was brilliant from the sun.” ^[20] Another description by Roerich was, "...A shiny body flying from north to south. Field glasses are at hand. It is a huge body. One side glows in the sun. It is oval in shape. Then it somehow turns in another direction and disappears in the southwest." ^[21]
In the Pacific and European theatres during World War II, "Foo-fighters" (metallic spheres, balls of light and other shapes that followed aircraft) were reported and on occasion photographed by Allied and Axis pilots. Some proposed Allied explanations at the time included St. Elmo's Fire, the planet Venus, hallucinations from oxygen deprivation, or German secret weapon. ^[22]^[23]
On February 25, 1942, U.S. Army observers reported unidentified aircraft both visually and on radar over the Los Angeles, California region. Antiaircraft artillery was fired at what was presumed to be Japanese planes. No readily apparent explanation was offered, though some officials dismissed the reports of aircraft as being triggered by anxieties over expected Japanese air attacks on California. However, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson insisted real aircraft were involved. The incident later became known as the Battle of Los Angeles, or the West coast air raid.
In 1946, there were over 2000 reports, collected primarily by the Swedish military, of unidentified aerial objects in the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Italy and Greece, then referred to as "Russian hail", and later as "ghost rockets", because it was thought that these mysterious objects were possibly Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets. Although most were thought to be natural phenomena like meteors, over 200 were tracked on radar and deemed to be "real physical objects" by the Swedish military. In a 1948 top secret document, the Swedish military told the USAF Europe in 1948 that some of their investigators believed them to be extraterrestrial in origin. (See Wiki ghost rockets article for details)

The Kenneth Arnold sightings

Main article: Kenneth Arnold#June 24, 1947 UFO sighting

This shows the report Kenneth Arnold filed in 1947 about his UFO sighting.

The post World War II UFO phase in the United States began with a famous sighting by American businessman Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947 while flying his private plane near Mount Rainier, Washington. He reported seeing nine brilliantly bright objects flying across the face of Rainier.

This shows Kenneth Arnold holding a picture of a drawing of the crescent shaped UFO he saw in 1947.

Although there were other 1947 U.S. sightings of similar objects that preceded this, it was Arnold's sighting that first received significant media attention and captured the public's imagination. Arnold described what he saw as being "flat like a pie pan", "shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them… ", "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. … they looked like a big flat disk" (see Arnold's drawing at right), and flew "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water". (One of the objects, however, he would describe later as crescent-shaped, as shown in illustration at left.) Arnold’s descriptions were widely reported and within a few days gave rise to the terms flying saucer and flying disk.^[24] Arnold’s sighting was followed in the next few weeks by hundreds of other reported sightings, mostly in the U.S., but in other countries as well.

After reports of the Arnold sighting hit the media, other cases began to be reported in increasing numbers. In one instance a United Airlines crew sighting of nine more disc-like objects over Idaho on the evening of July 4. At the time, this sighting was even more widely reported than Arnold’s and lent considerable credence to Arnold’s report.^[25]

American UFO researcher Ted Bloecher, in his comprehensive review of newspaper reports (including cases that preceded Arnold's), found a sudden surge upwards in sightings on July 4, peaking on July 6–8. Bloecher noted that for the next few days most American newspapers were filled with front-page stories of the new "flying saucers" or "flying discs". Reports began to rapidly tail off after July 8,^[26] when officials began issuing press statements on the Roswell UFO incident, in which they explained debris found on the ground by a rancher as being that of a weather balloon.^[27]

Over several years in the 1960s, Bloecher (aided by physicist James E. McDonald) discovered 853 flying disc sightings that year from 140 newspapers from Canada, Washington D.C, and every U.S. state except Montana.^[28]

Investigations

UFOs have been subject to investigations over the years that vary widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times.

Among the best known government studies are the ghost rockets investigation by the Swedish military (1946-1947), Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the United States Air Force from 1947 until 1969, the secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report #14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute, and Brazilian Air Force Operation Saucer (1977). France has had on ongoing investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA/GEIPAN) within its space agency CNES since 1977, as has Uruguay since 1989.

A public research effort conducted by the Condon Committee for the USAF, which arrived at a negative conclusion in 1968, marked the end of the US government's official investigation of UFOs, though documents indicate various government intelligence agencies continue unofficially to investigate or monitor the situation.^[29]

Jacques Vallée, a scientist and prominent UFO researcher, has argued that most UFO research is scientifically deficient, including many government studies such as Project Blue Book, and that mythology and cultism are frequently associated with the phenomenon. Vallée states that self-styled scientists often fill the vacuum left by the lack of attention paid to the UFO phenomenon by official science, but also notes that several hundred professional scientists continue to study UFOs in private, what he terms the "invisible college". He also argues that much could be learned from rigorous scientific study, but that little such work has been done. ^[30]

There has been little mainstream scientific study of UFOs, and the topic has received little serious attention or support in mainstream scientific literature. Official studies ended in the U.S. in December 1969, subsequent to the statement by Edward Condon that the study of UFOs probably could not be justified in the expectation that science would be advanced.^[10]The Condon report and these conclusions were endorsed by the National Academy of Scientists, of which Condon was a member. However, a scientific review by the UFO subcommittee of the AIAA disagreed with Condon's conclusion, noting that at least 30% of the cases studied remained unexplained, and that scientific benefit might be gained by continued study.

It has been claimed that all UFO cases are anecdotal^[31] and that all can be explained as prosaic natural phenomena. On the other hand, it has been argued that there is limited awareness among scientists of observational data, other than what is reported in the popular press.^[32]^[33]

Controversy has surrounded the Condon report, both before and after it was released. It has been claimed that the report was "harshly criticized by numerous scientists, particularly at the powerful AIAA … [who] recommended moderate, but continuous scientific work on UFOs".^[10]. In an address made to the AAAS, James E. McDonald stated that he believed science had failed to mount adequate studies of the problem, criticizing the Condon report and prior studies by the US Air Force for being scientifically deficient. He also questioned the basis for Condon's conclusions^[34] and argued that the reports of UFOs have been "laughed out of scientific court."^[9] Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer whose position as USAF consultant from 1948 made him perhaps the most knowledgable scientist connected with the subject, sharply criticized the report of the Condon Committee and later wrote two nontechnical books that set forth the case for investigating seemingly baffling UFO reports.

No official government investigation has ever concluded that UFOs are indisputably real, physical objects, extraterrestrial in origin, or of concern to national defense. These same negative conclusions have been found in studies that were highly classified for many years such as the UK's Flying Saucer Working Party, Project Condign, the US CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel, the US military investigation into the green fireballs from 1948-1951, and the Battelle Memorial Institute study for the USAF from 1952-1955 (Project Blue Book Special Report #14).

However, the initially classified USAF Regulation 200-2, first issued in 1953 after the Robertson Panel, which first defined UFOs and how information was to be collected, stated explicitly that the two reasons for studying the unexplained cases was for national security reasons and for possible technical aspects involved, implying physical reality, but without opinion as to origins. (For example, such information would also be considered important if UFOs had a foreign or domestic origin.) The first two known classified USAF studies in 1947 also concluded real physical aircraft were involved, but gave no opinion as to origins. (See American investigations immediately below) These early studies led to the creation of the USAF's Project Sign at the end of 1947, the first semi-public USAF study.

Project Sign in 1948 wrote a highly classified opinion (see Estimate of the Situation) that the best UFO reports probably had an extraterrestrial explanation, as did the the private but high-level French COMETA study of 1999. A top secret Swedish military opinion given to the USAF in 1948 stated that some of their analysts believed the 1946 ghost rockets and later flying saucers had extraterrestrial origins. (see Ghost rockets for document). In 1954, German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth revealed an internal West German government investigation, which he headed, that arrived at an extraterrestrial conclusion, but this study was never made public. Classified, internal reports by the Canadian Project Magnet in 1952 and 1953 also assigned high probability to extraterrestrial origins. Publicly, however, Project Magnet, nor later Canadian defense studies, ever stated such a conclusion.

Some public government conclusions have indicated physical reality but stopped short of concluding extraterrestrial origins, though not dismissing the possibility. Examples are the Belgian military investigation into large triangles over their airspace in 1989-1991 and the recent 2009 Uruguay Air Force study conclusion (see below).

Some private studies have been neutral in their conclusions, but argued the inexplicable core cases called for continued scientific study. Examples are the Sturrock Panel study of 1998 and the 1970 AIAA review of the Condon Report.

American investigations

Following the large U.S. surge in sightings in June and early July 1947, on July 9, 1947, Army Air Force (AAF) intelligence, in cooperation with the FBI, began a formal investigation into selected best sightings with characteristics that could not be immediately rationalized, which included Kenneth Arnold’s and that of the United Airlines crew. The AAF used "all of its scientists" to determine whether or not "such a phenomenon could, in fact, occur". The research was "being conducted with the thought that the flying objects might be a celestial phenomenon," or that "they might be a foreign body mechanically devised and controlled."^[35] Three weeks later in a preliminary defense estimate, the air force investigation decided that, "This ‘flying saucer’ situation is not all imaginary or seeing too much in some natural phenomenon. Something is really flying around."^[36]

A further review by the intelligence and technical divisions of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field reached the same conclusion, that "the phenomenon is something real and not visionary or fictitious," that there were objects in the shape of a disc, metallic in appearance, and as big as man-made aircraft. They were characterized by "extreme rates of climb [and] maneuverability," general lack of noise, absence of trail, occasional formation flying, and "evasive" behavior "when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar," suggesting a controlled craft. It was thus recommended in late September 1947 that an official Air Force investigation be set up to investigate the phenomenon. It was also recommended that other government agencies should assist in the investigation.^[37]

This led to the creation of the Air Force’s Project Sign at the end of 1947, one of the earliest government studies to come to a secret extraterrestrial conclusion. In August 1948, Sign investigators wrote a top-secret intelligence estimate to that effect. The Air Force Chief of Staff Hoyt Vandenberg ordered it destroyed. The existence of this suppressed report was revealed by several insiders who had read it, such as astronomer and USAF consultant Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt, the first head of the USAF's Project Blue Book.^[38]

Project Sign was dismantled and became Project Grudge at the end of 1948. Angered by the low quality of investigations by Grudge, the Air Force Director of Intelligence reorganized it as Project Blue Book in late 1951, placing Ruppelt in charge. Blue Book closed down in 1970, using the Condon Commission's negative conclusion as a rationale, ending the official Air Force UFO investigations. However, a 1969 USAF document, known as the Bolender memo, plus later government documents revealed that nonpublic U.S. government UFO investigations continued after 1970. The Bollender memo first stated that "reports of unidentified flying objects that could affect national security… are not part of the Blue Book system," indicating that more serious UFO incidents were already handled outside of the public Blue Book investigation. The memo then added, "reports of UFOs which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose." ^[39] In addition, in the late 1960s, there was a chapter on UFOs at the U.S. Air Force Academy in their Space Sciences course, giving serious consideration to possible extraterrestrial origins. When word of the curriculum became public, the Air Force in 1970 put out a statement the book was outdated and that cadets were now being informed of Condon's negative conclusion instead. ^[40]

Use of UFO instead of the popular flying saucer was first suggested in 1952 by Ruppelt, who felt that flying saucer did not reflect the diversity of the sightings. Ruppelt suggested that UFO should be pronounced as a word — you-foe. However it is generally pronounced by forming each letter: U.F.O. His term was quickly adopted by the Air Force, which also briefly used "UFOB" circa 1954, for Unidentified Flying Object. Ruppelt recounted his experiences with Project Blue Book in his memoir, The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), also the first book to use the term.^[41]

Air Force Regulation 200-2,^[42] issued in 1953 and 1954, defined an Unidentified Flying Object ("UFOB") as "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." The regulation also said UFOBs were to be investigated as a "possible threat to the security of the United States" and "to determine technical aspects involved." As to what the public was to be told, "it is permissible to inform news media representatives on UFOB's when the object is positively identified as a familiar object," but "For those objects which are not explainable, only the fact that ATIC [Air Technical Intelligence Center] will analyze the data is worthy of release, due to many unknowns involved." ^[43]^[44]

Well known American investigations include:

Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the United States Air Force from 1947 until 1969
The secret U.S. Army/Air Force Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951)
Ghost rockets investigations by the Swedish, U.K., U.S., and Greek militaries (1946–1947)
The secret CIA Robertson Panel (1953)
The secret USAF Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 by the Battelle Memorial Institute (1951–1954)
The Brookings Report (1960), commissioned by NASA
The public Condon Committee (1966–1968)
The private, internal RAND Corporation study (1968)^[45]
The private Sturrock Panel (1998)

Another early U.S. Army study, established sometime in the 1940s and of which little is known, was called the Interplanetary Phenomenon Unit (IPU). In 1987, British UFO researcher Timothy Good received a letter confirming the existence of the IPU from the Army Director of Counter-intelligence, in which it was stated, "… the aforementioned Army unit was disestablished during the late 1950s and never reactivated. All records pertaining to this unit were surrendered to the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations in conjunction with operation BLUEBOOK." The IPU records have never been released.^[46]

Thousands of documents released under FOIA also indicate that many U.S. intelligence agencies collected (and still collect) information on UFOs, including the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI, CIA, National Security Agency (NSA), as well as military intelligence agencies of the Army and Navy, in addition to the Air Force.^[47]

The investigation of UFOs has also attracted many civilians, who in the U.S formed research groups such as National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP, active 1956-1980), Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO, 1952-1988), Mutual UFO Network (MUFON, 1969-), and Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS, 1973-).

Reverse engineering

Attempts have been made to reverse engineer the possible physics behind UFOs through analysis of both eyewitness reports and the physical evidence, on the assumption that they are powered vehicles. Examples are former NASA and nuclear engineer James McCampbell in his book Ufology,^[90] NACA/NASA engineer Paul R. Hill in his book Unconventional Flying Objects, and German rocketry pioneer Hermann Oberth^[91]. Among subjects tackled by McCampbell, Hill, and Oberth was the question of how UFOs can fly at supersonic speeds without creating a sonic boom. McCampbell's proposed solution is microwave plasma parting the air in front of the craft. In contrast, Hill and Oberth believed UFOs utilize an as yet unknown anti-gravity field to accomplish the same thing as well as provide propulsion and protection of occupants from the effects of high acceleration.^[92]

UFO categorization

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Some ufologists recommend that observations be classified according to the features of the phenomenon or object that are reported or recorded. Typical categories include:

Saucer, toy-top, or disk-shaped "craft" without visible or audible propulsion. (day and night)
Large triangular "craft" or triangular light pattern, usually reported at night.
Cigar-shaped "craft" with lighted windows (Meteor fireballs are sometimes reported this way, but are very different phenomena).
Other: chevrons, (equilateral) triangles, crescent, boomerangs, spheres (usually reported to be shining, glowing at night), domes, diamonds, shapeless black masses, eggs, pyramids and cylinders, classic "lights".

Popular UFO classification systems include the Hynek system, created by J. Allen Hynek, and the Vallée system, created by Jacques Vallée.

Hynek's system involves dividing the sighted object by appearance, subdivided further into the type of "close encounter" (a term from which the film director Steven Spielberg derived the title of his UFO movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind").

Jacques Vallée's system classifies UFOs into five broad types, each with from three to five subtypes that vary according to type.

Conspiracy theories

UFOs are sometimes an element of elaborate conspiracy theories in which governments are said to be intentionally covering up the existence of aliens, or sometimes collaborating with them. There are many versions of this story; some are exclusive, while others overlap with various other conspiracy theories.

In the U.S., an opinion poll conducted in 1997 suggested that 80 % of Americans believed the U.S. government was withholding such information.^[93]^[94] Various notables have also expressed such views. Some examples are astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell, Senator Barry Goldwater, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter (the first CIA director), Lord Hill-Norton (former British Chief of Defense Staff and NATO head), the 1999 high-level French COMETA report by various French generals and aerospace experts, and Yves Sillard (former director of the French space agency CNES, new director of French UFO research organization GEIPAN).^[95]

It has also been suggested by a few paranormal authors that all or most human technology and culture is based on extraterrestrial contact. See also ancient astronauts.

Allegations of evidence suppression

Some^[who?] also contend regarding physical evidence that it exists abundantly but is swiftly and sometimes clumsily suppressed by governments, aiming to insulate a population they regard as unprepared for the social, theological, and security implications of such evidence^{[citation needed]}. See the Brookings Report.

There have been allegations of suppression of UFO related evidence for many decades. There are also conspiracy theories that claim that physical evidence might have been removed and/or destroyed/suppressed by some governments. (See also Men in Black)

Famous hoaxes

The Maury Island Incident
The Ummo affair, a decades-long series of detailed letters and documents allegedly from extraterrestrials. The total length of the documents is at least 1000 pages, and some estimate that further undiscovered documents may total nearly 4000 pages. A José Luis Jordan Pena came forward in the early nineties claiming responsibility for the phenomenon, and most^[who?] consider there to be little reason to challenge his claims.^[96]
George Adamski over the space of two decades made various claims about his meetings with telepathic aliens from nearby planets. He claimed that photographs of the far side of the moon taken by a Soviet orbital probe in 1959 were fake, and that there were cities, trees and snow-capped mountains on the far side of the moon. Among copycats was a shadowy British figure named Cedric Allingham.
In 1987/1988 Ed Walters allegedly perpetrated a hoax in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Walters claimed at first having seen a small UFO flying near his home, and then in a second incident seeing the same UFO and a small alien being standing by his back door after being alerted by his dog. Several photographs were taken of the craft, but none of the being. Three years later, in 1990, after the Walters family had moved, the new residents discovered a model of a UFO poorly hidden in the attic that bore an undeniable resemblance to the craft in Walters' photographs. Various witnesses and detractors came forward after the local Pensacola newspaper printed a story about the discovered model, and some investigators^[who?] now consider the sightings to be a hoax. In addition, a six-figure television miniseries and book deal were nearly struck with Walters.
Warren William (Billy) Smith, A popular writer and confessed hoaxster.^[97]

A Ufologists who disagrees that the Ed Walters Gulf Breeze photos are hoaxes is naval optical physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee. He investigated the incident, analyzed the various photos and deemed them authentic.^[98] Maccabee claimed he himself was among independent witnesses of some of the Gulf Breeze sightings.^[99]

UFOs in popular culture

Main article: UFOs in Fiction

UFOs constitute a widespread international cultural phenomenon of the last 60 years. Gallup polls rank UFOs near the top of lists for subjects of widespread recognition. In 1973, a survey found that 95 percent of the public reported having heard of UFOs, whereas only 92 percent had heard of US President Gerald Ford in a 1977 poll taken just nine months after he left the White House. (Bullard, 141) A 1996 Gallup poll reported that 71 percent of the United States population believed that the government was covering up information regarding UFOs. A 2002 Roper poll for the Sci Fi channel found similar results, but with more people believing UFOs were extraterrestrial craft. In that latest poll, 56 percent thought UFOs were real craft and 48 percent that aliens had visited the Earth. Again, about 70 percent felt the government was not sharing everything it knew about UFOs or extraterrestrial life.^[100]^[101]^[102] Another effect of the flying saucer type of UFO sightings has been Earth-made flying saucer craft in space fiction, for example the Earth spacecraft Starship C-57D in Forbidden Planet, and the saucer section of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek, and many others. For an excellent analysis of the interrelationship between popular culture and UFOs consult the research by psychologist Armando Simon, especially his contribution in Richard Haines' book, UFO Phenomena and the Behavioral Scientist.

Use in film and television

See List of major UFO film and television shows

COMPUTER HISTORY

2009-06-19T00:10:00.000-07:00

A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a set of instructions.

Although mechanical examples of computers have existed through much of recorded human history, the first resembling a modern computer were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). The first electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers (PC).[1] Modern computers based on tiny integrated circuits are millions to billions of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the space.[2] Simple computers are small enough to fit into a wristwatch, and can be powered by a watch battery. Personal computers in their various forms are icons of the Information Age, what most people think of as a "computer", but the embedded computers found in devices ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and toys are the most numerous.

The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile, distinguishing them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore computers ranging from a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks, given enough time and storage capacity.

NASA COLUMBIA SUPER COMPUTER

History of computing

The first use of the word "computer" was recorded in 1613, referring to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued to be used in that sense until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century onwards though, the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, describing a machine that carries out computations.[3]

The history of the modern computer begins with two separate technologies—automated calculation and programmability—but no single device can be identified as the earliest computer, partly because of the inconsistent application of that term. Examples of early mechanical calculating devices include the abacus, the slide rule and arguably the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism (which dates from about 150–100 BC). Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–70 AD) built a mechanical theater which performed a play lasting 10 minutes and was operated by a complex system of ropes and drums that might be considered to be a means of deciding which parts of the mechanism performed which actions and when.[4] This is the essence of programmability.

The "castle clock", an astronomical clock invented by Al-Jazari in 1206, is considered to be the earliest programmable analog computer.[5] It displayed the zodiac, the solar and lunar orbits, a crescent moon-shaped pointer travelling across a gateway causing automatic doors to open every hour,[6][7] and five robotic musicians who played music when struck by levers operated by a camshaft attached to a water wheel. The length of day and night could be re-programmed to compensate for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year.[5]

The end of the Middle Ages saw a re-invigoration of European mathematics and engineering. Wilhelm Schickard's 1623 device was the first of a number of mechanical calculators constructed by European engineers, but none fit the modern definition of a computer, because they could not be programmed.

In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the textile loom by introducing a series of punched paper cards as a template which allowed his loom to weave intricate patterns automatically. The resulting Jacquard loom was an important step in the development of computers because the use of punched cards to define woven patterns can be viewed as an early, albeit limited, form of programmability.

It was the fusion of automatic calculation with programmability that produced the first recognizable computers. In 1837, Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable mechanical computer, his analytical engine.[8] Limited finances and Babbage's inability to resist tinkering with the design meant that the device was never completed.

In the late 1880s Herman Hollerith invented the recording of data on a machine readable medium. Prior uses of machine readable media, above, had been for control, not data. "After some initial trials with paper tape, he settled on punched cards ..."[9] To process these punched cards he invented the tabulator, and the key punch machines. These three inventions were the foundation of the modern information processing industry. Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards was performed for the 1890 United States Census by Hollerith's company, which later became the core of IBM. By the end of the 19th century a number of technologies that would later prove useful in the realization of practical computers had begun to appear: the punched card, Boolean algebra, the vacuum tube (thermionic valve) and the teleprinter.

During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these were not programmable and generally lacked the versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers.

Alan Turing is widely regarded to be the father of modern computer science. In 1936 Turing provided an influential formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. Of his role in the modern computer, Time Magazine in naming Turing one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, states: "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine." [10]

George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November of 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation. Later models added greater sophistication including complex arithmetic and programmability.

A succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features that are seen in modern computers. The use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937) and more flexible programmability were vitally important steps, but defining one point along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is difficult (Shannon 1940). Notable achievements include:
EDSAC was one of the first computers to implement the stored program (von Neumann) architecture.

* Konrad Zuse's electromechanical "Z machines". The Z3 (1941) was the first working machine featuring binary arithmetic, including floating point arithmetic and a measure of programmability. In 1998 the Z3 was proved to be Turing complete, therefore being the world's first operational computer.
* The non-programmable Atanasoff–Berry Computer (1941) which used vacuum tube based computation, binary numbers, and regenerative capacitor memory. The use of regenerative memory allowed it to be much more compact then its peers (being approximately the size of a large desk or workbench), since intermediate results could be stored and then fed back into the same set of computation elements.
* The secret British Colossus computers (1943),[12] which had limited programmability but demonstrated that a device using thousands of tubes could be reasonably reliable and electronically reprogrammable. It was used for breaking German wartime codes.
* The Harvard Mark I (1944), a large-scale electromechanical computer with limited programmability.
* The U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory ENIAC (1946), which used decimal arithmetic and is sometimes called the first general purpose electronic computer (since Konrad Zuse's Z3 of 1941 used electromagnets instead of electronics). Initially, however, ENIAC had an inflexible architecture which essentially required rewiring to change its programming.

Several developers of ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible and elegant design, which came to be known as the "stored program architecture" or von Neumann architecture. This design was first formally described by John von Neumann in the paper First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, distributed in 1945. A number of projects to develop computers based on the stored-program architecture commenced around this time, the first of these being completed in Great Britain. The first to be demonstrated working was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM or "Baby"), while the EDSAC, completed a year after SSEM, was the first practical implementation of the stored program design. Shortly thereafter, the machine originally described by von Neumann's paper—EDVAC—was completed but did not see full-time use for an additional two years.

Nearly all modern computers implement some form of the stored-program architecture, making it the single trait by which the word "computer" is now defined. While the technologies used in computers have changed dramatically since the first electronic, general-purpose computers of the 1940s, most still use the von Neumann architecture.
Microprocessors are miniaturized devices that often implement stored program CPUs.

Computers using vacuum tubes as their electronic elements were in use throughout the 1950s, but by the 1960s had been largely replaced by transistor-based machines, which were smaller, faster, cheaper to produce, required less power, and were more reliable. The first transistorised computer was demonstrated at the University of Manchester in 1953.[13] In the 1970s, integrated circuit technology and the subsequent creation of microprocessors, such as the Intel 4004, further decreased size and cost and further increased speed and reliability of computers. By the late 1970s, many products such as video recorders contained dedicated computers called microcontrollers, and they started to appear as a replacement to mechanical controls in domestic appliances such as washing machines. The 1980s witnessed home computers and the now ubiquitous personal computer. With the evolution of the Internet, personal computers are becoming as common as the television and the telephone in the household.

Modern smartphones are fully-programmable computers in their own right, and as of 2009 may well be the most common form of such computers in existence.

Stored program architecture

The defining feature of modern computers which distinguishes them from all other machines is that they can be programmed. That is to say that a list of instructions (the program) can be given to the computer and it will store them and carry them out at some time in the future.

In most cases, computer instructions are simple: add one number to another, move some data from one location to another, send a message to some external device, etc. These instructions are read from the computer's memory and are generally carried out (executed) in the order they were given. However, there are usually specialized instructions to tell the computer to jump ahead or backwards to some other place in the program and to carry on executing from there. These are called "jump" instructions (or branches). Furthermore, jump instructions may be made to happen conditionally so that different sequences of instructions may be used depending on the result of some previous calculation or some external event. Many computers directly support subroutines by providing a type of jump that "remembers" the location it jumped from and another instruction to return to the instruction following that jump instruction.

Program execution might be likened to reading a book. While a person will normally read each word and line in sequence, they may at times jump back to an earlier place in the text or skip sections that are not of interest. Similarly, a computer may sometimes go back and repeat the instructions in some section of the program over and over again until some internal condition is met. This is called the flow of control within the program and it is what allows the computer to perform tasks repeatedly without human intervention.

Comparatively, a person using a pocket calculator can perform a basic arithmetic operation such as adding two numbers with just a few button presses. But to add together all of the numbers from 1 to 1,000 would take thousands of button presses and a lot of time—with a near certainty of making a mistake. On the other hand, a computer may be programmed to do this with just a few simple instructions. For example:

mov #0,sum ; set sum to 0
mov #1,num ; set num to 1
loop: add num,sum ; add num to sum
add #1,num ; add 1 to num
cmp num,#1000 ; compare num to 1000
ble loop ; if num <= 1000, go back to 'loop'
halt ; end of program. stop running

Once told to run this program, the computer will perform the repetitive addition task without further human intervention. It will almost never make a mistake and a modern PC can complete the task in about a millionth of a second.[14]

However, computers cannot "think" for themselves in the sense that they only solve problems in exactly the way they are programmed to. An intelligent human faced with the above addition task might soon realize that instead of actually adding up all the numbers one can simply use the equation

1+2+3+...+n = {{n(n+1)} \over 2}

and arrive at the correct answer (500,500) with little work.[15] In other words, a computer programmed to add up the numbers one by one as in the example above would do exactly that without regard to efficiency or alternative solutions.

Programs

In practical terms, a computer program may run from just a few instructions to many millions of instructions, as in a program for a word processor or a web browser. A typical modern computer can execute billions of instructions per second (gigahertz or GHz) and rarely make a mistake over many years of operation. Large computer programs consisting of several million instructions may take teams of programmers years to write, and due to the complexity of the task almost certainly contain errors.

Errors in computer programs are called "bugs". Bugs may be benign and not affect the usefulness of the program, or have only subtle effects. But in some cases they may cause the program to "hang"—become unresponsive to input such as mouse clicks or keystrokes, or to completely fail or "crash". Otherwise benign bugs may sometimes may be harnessed for malicious intent by an unscrupulous user writing an "exploit"—code designed to take advantage of a bug and disrupt a program's proper execution. Bugs are usually not the fault of the computer. Since computers merely execute the instructions they are given, bugs are nearly always the result of programmer error or an oversight made in the program's design.[16]

In most computers, individual instructions are stored as machine code with each instruction being given a unique number (its operation code or opcode for short). The command to add two numbers together would have one opcode, the command to multiply them would have a different opcode and so on. The simplest computers are able to perform any of a handful of different instructions; the more complex computers have several hundred to choose from—each with a unique numerical code. Since the computer's memory is able to store numbers, it can also store the instruction codes. This leads to the important fact that entire programs (which are just lists of instructions) can be represented as lists of numbers and can themselves be manipulated inside the computer just as if they were numeric data. The fundamental concept of storing programs in the computer's memory alongside the data they operate on is the crux of the von Neumann, or stored program, architecture. In some cases, a computer might store some or all of its program in memory that is kept separate from the data it operates on. This is called the Harvard architecture after the Harvard Mark I computer. Modern von Neumann computers display some traits of the Harvard architecture in their designs, such as in CPU caches.

While it is possible to write computer programs as long lists of numbers (machine language) and this technique was used with many early computers,[17] it is extremely tedious to do so in practice, especially for complicated programs. Instead, each basic instruction can be given a short name that is indicative of its function and easy to remember—a mnemonic such as ADD, SUB, MULT or JUMP. These mnemonics are collectively known as a computer's assembly language. Converting programs written in assembly language into something the computer can actually understand (machine language) is usually done by a computer program called an assembler. Machine languages and the assembly languages that represent them (collectively termed low-level programming languages) tend to be unique to a particular type of computer. For instance, an ARM architecture computer (such as may be found in a PDA or a hand-held videogame) cannot understand the machine language of an Intel Pentium or the AMD Athlon 64 computer that might be in a PC.[18]

Though considerably easier than in machine language, writing long programs in assembly language is often difficult and error prone. Therefore, most complicated programs are written in more abstract high-level programming languages that are able to express the needs of the computer programmer more conveniently (and thereby help reduce programmer error). High level languages are usually "compiled" into machine language (or sometimes into assembly language and then into machine language) using another computer program called a compiler.[19] Since high level languages are more abstract than assembly language, it is possible to use different compilers to translate the same high level language program into the machine language of many different types of computer. This is part of the means by which software like video games may be made available for different computer architectures such as personal computers and various video game consoles.

The task of developing large software systems presents a significant intellectual challenge. Producing software with an acceptably high reliability within a predictable schedule and budget has historically been difficult; the academic and professional discipline of software engineering concentrates specifically on this problem.

Manchester United F.C.

2009-06-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at Old Trafford in Trafford, Greater Manchester, and is one of the most popular football clubs in the world. The club was a founding member of the Premier League in 1992, and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974–75 season. Average attendances at the club have been higher than any other team in English football for all but six seasons since 1964–65.[3]

Manchester United are the reigning English champions and Club World Cup holders, having won the 2008–09 Premier League and the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup. The club is one of the most successful in the history of English football and has won 22 major honours since Alex Ferguson became manager in November 1986. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup, beating Benfica 4–1. They won a second European Cup as part of a Treble in 1999, before winning their third in 2008. The club holds the joint record for the most English league titles with 18 and also holds the record for the most FA Cup wins with 11.[4]

Since the late 1990s, the club has been one of the richest in the world with the highest revenue of any football club,[5] and is currently ranked as the richest and most valuable club in any sport, with an estimated value of £897 million (€1.333 billion / $1.8 billion) as of September 2008.[6] Manchester United was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs,[7] and its replacement, the European Club Association.[8]

Alex Ferguson has been manager of the club since 6 November 1986, joining from Aberdeen after the departure of Ron Atkinson.[9] The current club captain is Gary Neville, who succeeded Roy Keane in November 2005

History

Early years (1878–1945)
Main article: History of Manchester United F.C. (1878–1945)
The Manchester United team at the start of the 1905–06 season in which they were runners-up in the Second Division and promoted
Chart showing the progress of Manchester United F.C. through the English football league system since joining as Newton Heath in 1892–93 to 2007–08

The club was formed as Newton Heath L&YR F.C. in 1878 as the works team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. The club's shirts were green and gold halves. They played on a small, dilapidated field on North Road for fifteen years, before moving to Bank Street in the nearby town of Clayton in 1893. The club had entered The Football League the previous year and began to sever its links with the rail depot, becoming an independent company, appointing a club secretary and dropping the "L&YR" from their name to become simply Newton Heath F.C.. Not long afterwards, in 1902, the club neared bankruptcy, with debts of over £2,500. At one point, their Bank Street ground was even closed by the bailiffs.[11]

Just before having to be shut down for good, the club received a sizeable investment from J. H. Davies, the managing director of Manchester Breweries.[12] Legend goes that Harry Stafford, the club captain, was showing off his prized St. Bernard dog at a club fund-raiser, when Davies approached him to buy the dog. Stafford declined, but was able to persuade Davies to invest in the club and become club chairman.[13] It was decided at one of the early board meetings that the club required a change of name to reflect the fresh start they had been afforded. Manchester Central and Manchester Celtic were among the names suggested, before Louis Rocca, a young immigrant from Italy, said "Gentlemen, why don't we call ourselves Manchester United?"[14] The name stuck, and Manchester United officially came into existence on 26 April 1902. Davies also decided it would be appropriate to change the club's colours, abandoning the green and gold halves of Newton Heath, and picking red and white to be the colours of Manchester United.

Ernest Mangnall was appointed as club secretary after James West had resigned as manager on 28 September 1902. Mangnall was charged with trying to get the club into the First Division, and fell just short of that target at the first attempt, finishing in fifth in Division Two. Mangnall decided that it was necessary to bring in some fresh faces to the club, and signed players such as Harry Moger in goal, Dick Duckworth at half-back and Jack Picken up front, but it was another new half-back by the name of Charlie Roberts who made the biggest impact. He cost the club a then-record £750 from Grimsby Town in April 1904, and helped them to a third place finish in the 1903–04 season, just a point short of the second promotion place.

It was not long, however, before the club was at last promoted to the First Division for the first time under their new name, finishing in second place in the 1905–06 Second Division. A season of consolidation followed, with the club finishing in eighth, before they finally won their first league title in 1908. Manchester City had recently been under investigation for paying some of their players a salary over the amount allowed by FA regulations. They were fined £250 and eighteen of their players were banned from playing for them ever again. United were quick to pounce on the situation, picking up Billy Meredith (the Welsh Wizard) and Sandy Turnbull, amongst others. The new boys from across town were ineligible to play until New Year's Day 1907, due to their suspension, so it was left until the 1907–08 season for them to make a proper impact on United's bid for the title. And that they did, getting the campaign off to a storming start, with a 2–1 victory over Sheffield United, beginning a run of ten consecutive victories. Despite a shaky end to the season, United managed to hang on and finished the season nine points ahead of their closest rivals, Aston Villa.

The following season began with United picking up another piece of silverware, the first ever Charity Shield,[15] and ended with another, the club's first FA Cup title, sowing the seeds for what has become a record number of FA Cup titles. Just as they were in the club's first title-winning campaign, Turnbull and Meredith were instrumental in this season, Turnbull scoring the winner in the FA Cup Final. The club had to wait another two years before winning any more silverware, winning the First Division for the second time in the 1910–11 season. In the meantime, United moved to their new ground at Old Trafford. They played their first game there on 19 February 1910 against Liverpool, but lost 4–3 having thrown away a 3–0 lead. They then went trophyless again in the 1911–12 season, which not only proved to be the last with Mangnall in charge (he moved to Manchester City after ten years with United), but also the last time the club won the First Division for 41 years, the longest they have gone without winning the league in their history.

For the next ten years, the club went into a state of gradual decline before being relegated back down to Division Two in 1922. They were promoted again in 1925, but struggled to get into the top half of the table, and were relegated again in 1931. In the eight years leading up to the Second World War, the club became somewhat of a yo-yo club, reaching their all-time lowest position of 20th in Division Two in 1934. They were promoted and relegated once again before being promoted in the penultimate season before the Second World War. They guaranteed their place in the top flight for after the war by finishing in 14th in the 1938–39 season.

The Busby years (1945–1969)
Main article: History of Manchester United F.C. (1945–1969)

1945 saw the appointment of Matt Busby to the manager's post at Old Trafford. He took an uncommon approach to his job, insisting that he be allowed to pick his own team, choose which players to sign and direct the team's training sessions himself. He had already missed out on the manager's job at his former club, Liverpool, because the club saw those tasks as jobs for the directors, but United decided to take a chance on Busby's innovative ideas. Busby's first signing was not a player, but a new assistant manager by the name of Jimmy Murphy. The risk the club had taken in appointing Busby paid immediate dividends, with the club finishing second in the league in 1947, 1948 and 1949 and winning the FA Cup in 1948, thanks in part to the locally born trio of Stan Pearson, Jack Rowley and Charlie Mitten (Rowley and Pearson both scored in the 1948 Cup Final), as well as the centre-half from the North-East, Allenby Chilton.

Charlie Mitten had fled to Colombia in search of a better salary, but the remainder of United's old heads managed to win the First Division title back in 1952. Busby knew, however, that football teams required more than just experience in the side, and so he adopted a policy of bringing in players from the youth team whenever possible. At first, the young players such as Roger Byrne, Bill Foulkes, Mark Jones and Dennis Viollet, took time to bed themselves into the side, sliding to a low of eighth place in 1953, but the team won the league again in 1956 with an average age of only 22, scoring 103 goals in the process. The youth policy set in motion by Busby has now become a hallmark of the most successful periods in the club's history (the mid-1950s, mid-to-late-1960s and 1990s). Busby's original "crop" of youth players was referred to as the Busby Babes, the jewel in the crown of which was a wing-half named Duncan Edwards. The boy from Dudley in the West Midlands made his United début at the age of just 16 back in 1953. It was said that Edwards could play at any position on the field, and many who saw him play said that he was the greatest player ever. The following season, 1956–57, they won the league again and reached the FA Cup final, losing to Aston Villa. They also became the first English team to compete in the European Cup, at the behest of the FA, who had denied Chelsea the same opportunity the previous season, and reached the semi-final, only to be knocked out by Real Madrid. En route to the semi-final, United also recorded a win that still stands as their biggest win in all competitions, beating Belgian champions Anderlecht 10–0 at Maine Road.
A plaque at Old Trafford in honour of the players who died in the Munich air disaster.

Tragedy struck the following season, when the plane carrying the team home from a European Cup match crashed on take-off at a refuelling stop in Munich, Germany. The Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958 claimed the lives of eight players – Geoff Bent, Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Duncan Edwards, Mark Jones, David Pegg, Tommy Taylor and Liam "Billy" Whelan – and another fifteen passengers, including United staff members Walter Crickmer, Bert Whalley and Tom Curry.[16] There had already been two attempted take-offs before the fatal third, which was caused by a build-up of slush at the end of the runway slowing the plane down to a speed insufficient for take-off. The plane skidded off the end of the runway, through a fence and into an unoccupied house. United goalkeeper Harry Gregg managed to maintain consciousness after the crash, and through fear of the plane exploding at any second, he grabbed both Bobby Charlton – who had made his United début less than 18 months earlier – and Dennis Viollet by their waistbands and dragged them to safety. Seven United players died at the scene, while Duncan Edwards died a fortnight later in hospital. Right-winger Johnny Berry also survived the accident, but injuries sustained in the accident brought his football career to a premature end. Matt Busby was not given much hope of survival by the Munich doctors, and was even given the Last Rites at one point, but recovered miraculously and was finally let out of hospital after having spent over two months there.

There were rumours of the club folding and withdrawing from all competitions, but with Jimmy Murphy taking over as manager while Busby recovered from his injuries, the club continued playing with a makeshift side. Despite the accident, they reached the FA Cup final again, where they lost to Bolton Wanderers. At the end of the season, UEFA offered the FA the opportunity to submit both United and the eventual champions, Wolverhampton Wanderers, for the 1958–59 European Cup as a tribute to the victims, but the FA declined. United managed to push Wolves right to the wire the following season, finishing in a creditable second place; not bad for a team that had lost nine first-team players to the Munich air disaster.

Busby rebuilt the team throughout the early 1960s, signing players such as Denis Law and Pat Crerand, all the while nurturing his new generation of youngsters. Perhaps the most famous of this new batch was a young man from Belfast named George Best. Best had a natural athleticism rarely seen, but his most valuable asset was his close control of a football. His quick feet allowed him to pass through almost any gap in the opposition defence, no matter how small. The team won the FA Cup in 1963, albeit finishing in 19th place in the First Division. The FA Cup triumph seemed to reinvigorate the players, who helped the club to second place in 1964, and then went one better by winning the league in 1965 and 1967. United won the European Cup in 1968, beating Eusébio's SL Benfica 4–1 in the final, becoming the first English club to win the competition. This United team was notable for containing three European Footballers of the Year: Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best. Matt Busby resigned as manager in 1969 and was replaced by the reserve team coach and former United player, Wilf McGuinness.

1969–1986
Main article: History of Manchester United F.C. (1969–1986)
Manchester United badge in the 1960s and early 1970s
The coat of arms of Manchester City Council, upon which the crest of Manchester United was based. The arms are used by the club for prestigious occasions

United struggled to replace Busby, and the team struggled under Wilf McGuinness in the 1969–70 season, finishing a disappointing eighth, and following a poor start to the 1970–71 season, McGuinness was demoted back to the position of reserve team coach. Busby was coaxed back to the club, albeit only for six months. Results got better with Busby's guidance, but he finally left the club for the last time in the summer of 1971. In the meantime, United had lost a number of high-profile players such as Nobby Stiles and Pat Crerand.

Despite approaching Celtic's European Cup-winning manager, Jock Stein, for the manager's job – Stein had agreed a verbal contract to join United, but pulled out at the last minute – Frank O'Farrell was appointed as Busby's successor. However, like McGuinness, O'Farrell only lasted less than 18 months, the only difference between the two being that O'Farrell reacted to the team's poor form by bringing in some fresh talent, most specifically Martin Buchan from Aberdeen for £125,000. Tommy Docherty became manager at the end of 1972. Docherty, or "the Doc", saved United from relegation that season but United were relegated in 1974, by which time the golden trio of Best, Law and Charlton had left the club. Denis Law had moved to Manchester City in the summer of 1973, and ended up scoring the goal that many people say relegated United, and politely refused to celebrate the goal with his team mates. Players like Lou Macari, Stewart Houston and Brian Greenhoff were brought in to replace Best, Law and Charlton, but none could live up to the stature of the three that came before.

The team won promotion at the first attempt, with a young Steve Coppell making his début towards the end of that season, having joined from Tranmere Rovers, and reached the FA Cup final in 1976, but were beaten by Southampton. They reached the final again in 1977, beating Liverpool 2–1. In spite of this success and his popularity with the supporters, Docherty was sacked soon after the final when he was found to have had an affair with the physiotherapist's wife.

Dave Sexton replaced Docherty as manager in the summer of 1977, and made the team play in a more defensive formation. This style was unpopular with supporters, who were used to the attacking football preferred by Docherty and Busby. Major signings under Sexton included Joe Jordan, Gordon McQueen, Gary Bailey and Ray Wilkins, but Sexton's defensive United failed to break out of mid-table obscurity, only once finishing in the top two, and only reached the FA Cup final once, losing to Arsenal. Because of this lack of trophies, Sexton was sacked in 1981, even though he won his last seven games in charge.

He was replaced by the flamboyant Ron Atkinson, whose extrovert attitude was reflected in the clubs he managed. He immediately broke the British record transfer fee to sign Bryan Robson from his old club, West Brom. Robson would come to be touted in the future as United's best midfield player since Duncan Edwards. Atkinson's team featured new signings such as Jesper Olsen, Paul McGrath and Gordon Strachan playing alongside former youth team players Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes. United won the FA Cup twice in three years, in 1983 and 1985, and were overwhelming favourites to win the league in the 1985–86 season after winning their first ten league games, opening a ten-point gap over their rivals as early as October. The team's form collapsed, however, and United finished the season in fourth place. The poor form continued into the following season, and with United on the edge of the First Division's relegation zone by the beginning of November 1986, Atkinson was sacked.

Alex Ferguson era, pre-Treble (1986–1998)
Main article: History of Manchester United F.C. (1986–1998)
Alex Ferguson has been manager of Manchester United since November 1986.

Alex Ferguson arrived from Aberdeen to replace Atkinson on the very day that Atkinson was sacked, bringing with him his assistant manager, Archie Knox. Although his first match in charge, against Oxford United on 8 November 1986, resulted in a 2–0 defeat, Ferguson guided the club to an 11th place finish in the league. A second place finish in 1987–88, with Brian McClair becoming the first United player since George Best to score twenty league goals in a season, may have given fans a tiny glimpse of the future, but they soon returned to mediocrity with another 11th-place finish in 1989.

Many of Ferguson's signings did not reach the expectations of the fans, and the manager was reportedly on the verge of being sacked at the beginning of 1990, with many believing that defeat to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup Third Round would seal his fate. A 56th-minute goal from Mark Robins won the match for United and started them on a cup run that would take them all the way to the final at Wembley, where they beat Crystal Palace 1–0 in a replay after a 3–3 draw in the original match. The following year, United reached the final of the League Cup, but lost 1–0 to former manager Ron Atkinson's Sheffield Wednesday team. However, the season was capped by the club's first Cup Winners' Cup title, beating Barcelona 2–1 in the final in Rotterdam. The Cup Winners' Cup triumph allowed the team to play in the 1991 UEFA Super Cup, in which they beat European Cup holders Red Star Belgrade 1–0 at Old Trafford. The match should have been played over two legs, but, due to political unrest in Yugoslavia at the time, UEFA decided that only the Old Trafford leg would be played. A second consecutive League Cup final appearance followed in 1992, with United this time beating Nottingham Forest 1–0 at Wembley.

Meanwhile, events were taking place off the pitch around the turn of the decade, as chairman Martin Edwards attempted to offload the club to property tycoon Michael Knighton in 1989. The £20 million deal was all but confirmed, with Knighton even taking to the Old Trafford pitch in full Manchester United kit and performing a few keepie uppies before belting the ball into the goal at the Stretford End. Knighton was given access to the club's financial records, but, before the deal could be finalised, his financial backers pulled out and the deal was cancelled. However, since Knighton now had insider knowledge of the club, he was given a place on the club's board in exchange for his silence about the matter. In 1991, requiring some extra financial support in the wake of the Taylor Report, the club floated on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of £47 million,[17] bringing its finances into the public eye. Martin Edwards retained his position as chairman, but the club was now publicly owned.

The summer of 1991 also saw the arrival of Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, whose 17 league clean sheets gave United the best defensive record in the First Division in 1991–92, helping them to a second-place finish behind Leeds United, within whose ranks was a certain French maverick named Eric Cantona. Alex Ferguson recognised United's need for a striker as a foil for Mark Hughes and Brian McClair, and had tried – and failed – a number of times to sign Sheffield Wednesday striker David Hirst, but when Leeds manager Howard Wilkinson rang Martin Edwards in November 1992 to enquire about the availability of Denis Irwin, the conversation quickly turned to Cantona. To Edwards' and Ferguson's surprise, the two clubs were able to agree upon a fee of £1.2 million for the enigmatic Frenchman. Cantona's arrival provided the crucial spark for United, helping the team to their first league title since 1967. After the signing of Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest in July 1993, United won a second consecutive title for the first time since 1957 the following year, before winning the FA Cup to complete the first "Double" in the club's history. That same year, however, the club went into mourning following the death of former manager and club director Matt Busby, who died on 20 January 1994.

The 1994–95 season was to be the club's first trophyless season since 1988–89, although they managed to take the title race down to the final week of the season and reached the final of the FA Cup, where they lost to Everton. Andy Cole was signed from Newcastle United for a British record fee of £6 million plus Keith Gillespie. However, the game after Cole's United debut, Eric Cantona received an eight month suspension for jumping into the crowd and assaulting Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons, who had given Cantona racial abuse as he left the field, in United's game at Selhurst Park. Cantona's suspension has been cited by some as the reason why United were unable to complete a hat-trick of league titles that season. The season's relative failure prompted Ferguson into some major restructuring of the team, selling Paul Ince, Andrei Kanchelskis and Mark Hughes and replacing them with players from the club's youth team, including David Beckham, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Paul Scholes. After the club's 3–1 defeat to Aston Villa on the opening day of the 1995–96 season, television pundit Alan Hansen famously declared "you'll never win anything with kids."[18] The new players, several of whom quickly became regular internationals for England, responded well and, buoyed by Cantona's return in October 1995, United became the first English club to have won the double twice, a feat that would be nicknamed the "Double Double".[19]

Captain Steve Bruce left for Birmingham City in July 1996, and Alex Ferguson named Eric Cantona as the new club captain. He led the team to a fourth league title in five years in 1996–97, before retiring from football at the age of 30 at the end of the season. Teddy Sheringham was brought in to replace him, and his iconic number 7 shirt was handed to David Beckham. They started the 1997–98 season well, but they lost five matches after Christmas and finished in second place, one point behind double-winners Arsenal. After a period without a regular challenger for the league title, this marked Arsenal's arrival as genuine title contenders for the next few years.

The Treble (1998–99)
Main article: Manchester United F.C. season 1998–99
The Treble trophies – the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup (left to right)

The 1998–99 season for Manchester United was the most successful season in English club football history as they became the only English team to win The Treble – winning the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League in the same season.[20] After a very tense Premier League season, Manchester United won the title on the final day beating Tottenham Hotspur 2–1, whilst Arsenal won 1–0 against Aston Villa.[21] Winning the Premier League was the first part of the Treble in place, the one part that manager Alex Ferguson described as the hardest.[21] In the FA Cup Final United faced Newcastle United and won 2–0 with goals from Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes.[22] In the final match of that season, the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final they defeated Bayern Munich in what is considered one of the greatest comebacks ever witnessed, going into injury time a goal behind and then scoring twice to win 2–1.[20] Ferguson was subsequently knighted for his services to football.[23] Rounding out that record breaking year, Manchester United also won the Intercontinental Cup after beating Palmeiras 1–0 in Tokyo.[24]

After the Treble (1999–present)
Main article: History of Manchester United F.C. (1999–present)

United won the league in 2000 and 2001 but the press saw these seasons as failures as they failed to regain the European Cup. In 2000, Manchester United became one of 14 founder members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs.[25] The club also declined to take part in the 1999–2000 FA Cup, instead competing in the inaugural FIFA Club World Championship in Brazil, citing pressure from the FA, UEFA and the England 2006 World Cup bid committee. Ferguson adopted more defensive tactics to make United harder to beat in Europe but it was not a success and United finished the 2001–02 Premier League season in third place. They regained the league the following season (2002–03) and started the following season well, but their form dropped significantly when Rio Ferdinand received a controversial eight month suspension for missing a drugs test. They did win the 2004 FA Cup, however, knocking out Arsenal (that season's eventual league champions) on their way to the final in which they beat Millwall.

The 2004–05 season was characterised by a failure to score goals, mainly due to the injury of striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and United finished the season trophyless and in third place in the league. This time, even the FA Cup eluded them as Arsenal beat United on penalties after a goalless draw after 120 minutes. Off the pitch, the main story was the possibility of the club being taken over and on 12 May 2005, American businessman Malcolm Glazer acquired a controlling interest in the club through his investment vehicle Red Football Ltd. in a takeover valuing the club at approximately £800 million (then approx. $1.5 billion).[26][27] On 16 May, he increased his share to the 75% necessary to de-list the club from the Stock Exchange, making it private again, and announced his intention to do so within 20 days.[27] On 8 June, he appointed his sons to the Manchester United board as non-executive directors.[28]

United made a poor start to the 2005–06 season, with midfielder Roy Keane leaving the club to join Celtic after publicly criticising several of his team-mates, and the club failed to qualify for the knockout phase of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in over a decade after losing to Portuguese team Benfica. Their season was also dealt cruel blows with injuries to key players such as Gabriel Heinze, Alan Smith, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. However, they were prevented from being left empty-handed in successive seasons a disappointment not endured in the last 17 years – by winning the 2006 League Cup, beating newly promoted neighbours Wigan Athletic in the final 4–0. United also ensured a second-place finish and automatic Champions League qualification on the final day of the season by defeating Charlton Athletic 4–0. At the end of the 2005–06 season, one of United's key strikers, Ruud van Nistelrooy, left the club to join Real Madrid, due to a row with Alex Ferguson.[29]

In July 2006, the club announced a refinancing package. The total amount will be £660 million, on which interest payments will be £62 million a year.[30] This result of this new financing plan will be a 30% reduction of annual payments.[31] On the pitch, the 2006–07 season saw United return to the attacking style of football that was the cornerstone of their years of success in the late 1990s, scoring almost 20 more goals in 32 matches than second placed side Chelsea. In January 2007, United signed Henrik Larsson on a two-month loan from Swedish side Helsingborgs, and the striker played an important role in advancing United to the semi-finals of the Champions League,[32] with hopes for a second Treble; however, upon reaching the semi-finals, United lost to Milan 3–5 on aggregate.[33] Four years after their last title, United claimed back the Premier League title on 6 May 2007, after Chelsea drew away with Arsenal, leaving the Blues seven points behind with two games to go, following United's 1–0 victory in the Manchester derby the previous day, making it their ninth Premier League title in the 15 seasons of its existence. However, an unprecedented fourth Double was not to be, as Chelsea beat United 1–0 in extra time in the first FA Cup Final to be held at the new Wembley Stadium; the first to be held in England since the old stadium was demolished seven years earlier.

2007–08 saw United successfully complete the European double despite a poor start to the season, finding themselves in 17th place in the Premier League after three matches. However, on 11 May 2008, United retained the Premier League title with a win over Wigan Athletic. With title rivals Chelsea only able to draw with Bolton Wanderers, United finished the season two points clear. The club also reached the European Cup final for the third time in their history, having knocked out such clubs as Barcelona and Roma en-route to the final. They beat Chelsea 6–5 on penalties in the final in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, after a 1–1 draw in normal time on 21 May 2008. With this win, they earned their third European Cup title and kept up their record of never having lost a major European final. Coincidentally, this season marked the 100th year since Manchester United won their first League title, 50 years after the Munich air disaster and 40 years after Manchester United became the first ever English side to win the European Cup. The European Cup final also saw Ryan Giggs make his 759th appearance for the club, overtaking Bobby Charlton as the club's record appearance maker.

Before the start of the 2008–09 season, United competed in and won the 2008 FA Community Shield. United beat 2007-08 FA Cup winners Portsmouth 3-1 on penalties, after the match finished 0–0 after 90 minutes. On 21 December 2008, United added more silverware to their trophy cabinet with a win in the 2008 FIFA Club World Cup Final, defeating the Ecuadorian side LDU Quito 1–0 in Japan, Wayne Rooney scoring the winning goal. Two months later, they added the 2009 League Cup to their trophy cabinet, after defeating Tottenham Hotspur 4-1 on penalties.[34] On 16 May, United secured their 11th Premier League title – and 18th league title overall – following a 0–0 draw at home to Arsenal, winning three consecutive Premier League titles for a second time.[35] On 27 May 2009, Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0 in the Champions League final in Rome, falling to goals from Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi.[36]

Club crest and colours
Manchester United badge up to the most recent revision in 1998

During its days as Newton Heath, the club played in a number of different colours, the most recognisable being the yellow and green halved shirts worn from 1878 to 1892, and then again between 1894 and 1896; this strip was revived as an away kit in the early 1990s. Other kits worn by Newton Heath included a red and white quartered shirt (1892–1894) and a plain white shirt (1896–1902), both worn with blue shorts.[37] In 1902, in conjunction with the name change to Manchester United, the club changed their colours to red jerseys, white shorts and black socks, which has become the standard for most Man Utd home kits ever since. The most notable exception to this is the shirt that the team wore in the 1909 FA Cup Final against Bristol City, which was white with a red "V" sash.[38] This design was resurrected in the 1920s before United reverted back to the all-red shirts.

Away strips are usually white jerseys with black shorts and white socks, but other colours have been used, including a blue and white striped shirt used on-and-off from 1903 to 1916, an all-black kit in 1994 and 2003 and a navy blue shirt with silver horizontal pinstripes in 2000. One of the most famous, yet short-lived, United away kits, though, was the all grey kit from 1995–96. This kit was dropped after Manchester United failed to win a single game while wearing it. At half-time during a game against Southampton, when United were already 3–0 down, they switched to their blue and white third kit, but eventually lost 3–1. According to the players, the grey kit was not visible enough which led to the poor results.[39][40] Another famous Man Utd away kit included a reversible shirt that was white with black sleeves and gold trim on one side, and gold with black trim on the other side. This shirt was released as the last kit created by Umbro for the club before the change to Nike, and commemorated 100 years since the club had changed its name from Newton Heath to Manchester United.

The United third kit is traditionally all-blue in homage to the kit that the 1968 European Cup was won in. Exceptions to this rule have included a bright yellow kit worn in the early 1970s, the aforementioned blue and white striped shirt from 1996, which proved to be a firm favourite with the fans, and a white shirt with black and red horizontal pinstripes from 2004. United have also used what were originally used as training shirts as their third kit in the past, having adopted an all-black kit in the 1998–99 season and a dark blue shirt with maroon sides in 2001 for games against Southampton and PSV Eindhoven.

Currently, Manchester United's home jerseys are red with a vertical, white broken stripe with black trim on the reverse. The stripe is adorned with the letters MUFC at the top of the bottom portion, and a silhouette of the devil from the club badge at the top of the top portion. The AIG and Nike logos are also white. A patch with the words "The Red Devils" written in white, over an image of the club badge's devil, is attached to the bottom-left of the shirt. The club crest sits on a red shield of the same shape on the left breast. The away kit is white with blue piping around the side and back of the neck and down the sides of the body. The trim on the front of the neck is red. The letters "MUFC" are on the back of the collar and the club badge is located on a white shield over the left breast. The third shirt is royal blue, with sponsors' logos in white. Around the club badge, which sits on a blue shield, the words "May 29th 1968 40th Anniversary" are embroidered. Like the away shirt, the letters "MUFC" are on the back of the collar, while the inside of the collar is adorned with the coat of arms of the City of Manchester, in a design inspired by the tickets used for the 1968 European Cup Final.[41] The away and third shirts are worn with blue shorts.

The Manchester United crest has been altered on a few occasions, but the basic form remains similar. The badge is derived from the crest of the city of Manchester. The devil on the club badge stems from the club's nickname "The Red Devils", which was adopted in the early 1960s after Matt Busby heard it in reference to the red-shirted Salford rugby league side.[42] By the end of the 1960s, the devil had started to be included on club programmes and scarves, before it was finally incorporated into the club badge in 1970, holding its unmistakable trident. In 1998, the badge was once again redesigned, this time removing the words "Football Club

BALI ISLAND HISTORY

2009-06-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

Bali is an Indonesian island located at [show location on an interactive map] 8°25′23″S 115°14′55″E / 8.42306°S 115.24861°E / -8.42306; 115.24861Coordinates: [show location on an interactive map] 8°25′23″S 115°14′55″E / 8.42306°S 115.24861°E / -8.42306; 115.24861, the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country's 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island.

With a population recorded as 3,151,000 in 2005, the island is home to the vast majority of Indonesia's small Hindu minority. 93.18% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, while most of the remainder follow Islam. It is also the largest tourist destination in the country and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking and music

Bali was inhabited by Austronesian peoples by about 2000 BCE who migrated originally from Taiwan through Maritime Southeast Asia.[2] Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are thus closely related to the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago, the Philippines, and Oceania.[3] Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island's west.[4]

Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian and Chinese, and particularly Hindu culture, in a process beginning around the 1st century AD. The name Bali dwipa ("Bali island") has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong charter issued by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 913 AD and mentioning Walidwipa. It was during this time that the complex irrigation system subak was developed to grow rice. Some religious and cultural traditions still in existence today can be traced back to this period. The Hindu Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. When the empire declined, there was an exodus of intellectuals, artists, priests and musicians from Java to Bali in the 15th century.

The first European contact with Bali is thought to have been made by Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman who arrived in 1597, though a Portuguese ship had foundered off the Bukit Peninsula as early as 1585.[citation needed] Dutch colonial control was expanded across the Indonesian archipelago in the nineteenth century (see Dutch East Indies). Their political and economic control over Bali began in the 1840s on the island's north coast by playing various distrustful Balinese realms against each other.[5] In the late 1890s, struggles between Balinese kingdoms in the island's south were exploited by the Dutch to increase their control. The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults at the Sanur region in 1906 and were met by the thousands of members of the royal family and their followers who marched to certain death against superior Dutch force in a suicidal puputan defensive assault rather than face the humiliation of surrender.[5] Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 4,000 Balinese marched to their death against the invaders. In 1908, a similar massacre occurred in the face of a Dutch assault in Klungkung. Afterwards the Dutch governors were able to exercise little influence over the island, and local control over religion and culture generally remained intact.

Dutch rule over Bali had come later and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku. Imperial Japan occupied Bali during World War II during which time a Balinese military officer, Gusti Ngurah Rai, formed a Balinese 'freedom army'. In the 1930s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, and artists Miguel Covarrubias and Walter Spies, and musicologist Colin McPhee created a western image of Bali as "an enchanted land of aesthetes at peace with themselves and nature", and western tourism first developed on the island.[6] Following Japan's Pacific surrender in August 1945, the Dutch promptly returned to Indonesia, including Bali, immediately to reinstate their pre-war colonial administration. This was resisted by the Balinese rebels now using Japanese weapons. On 20 November 1946, the Battle of Marga was fought in Tabanan in central Bali. Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai, 29 years old, finally rallied his forces in east Bali at Marga Rana, where they made a suicide attack on the heavily armed Dutch. The Balinese battalion was entirely wiped out, breaking the last thread of Balinese military resistance. In 1946 the Dutch constituted Bali as one of the 13 administrative districts of the newly-proclaimed Republic of East Indonesia, a rival state to the Republic of Indonesia which was proclaimed and headed by Sukarno and Hatta. Bali was included in the "Republic of the United States of Indonesia" when the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence on 29 December 1949.

The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung killed thousands, created economic havoc and forced many displaced Balinese to be transmigrated to other parts of Indonesia. Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting these traditional values. Politically, this was represented by opposing supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), with tensions and ill-feeling further increased by the PKI's land reform programs.[5] An attempted coup in Jakarta was put down by forces led by General Suharto. The army became the dominant power as it instigated a violent anti-communist purge, in which the army blamed the PKI for the coup. Most estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people were killed across Indonesia, with an estimated 80,000 killed in Bali, equivalent to 5 per cent of the island's population.[7] With no Islamic forces involved as in Java and Sumatra, upper-caste PNI landlords led the extermination of PKI members.[8]
Bali blast monument.

As a result of the 1965/66 upheavals, Suharto was able to maneuver Sukarno out of the presidency, and his "New Order" government reestablished relations with western countries. The pre-War Bali as "paradise" was revised in a modern form, and the resulting large growth in tourism has led to a dramatic increase in Balinese standards of living and significant foreign exchange earned for the country.[5] A bombing in 2002 by militant Islamists in the tourist area of Kuta killed 202 people, mostly foreigners. This attack, and another in 2005, severely affected tourism, bringing much economic hardship to the island.

The island of Bali lies 3.2 km (2 mi) east of Java, and is approximately 8 degrees south of the equator. East to west, the island is approximately 153 km (95 mi) wide and is approximately 112 km (69 mi) north to south; its land area is 5,632 km².

The highest point is Mount Agung at 3,142 m (10,308 feet) high, an active volcano that last erupted in March 1963. Mountains cover centre to the eastern side, with Mount Agung the easternmost peak. Mount Batur (1,717 m) is also still active; an eruption 30,000 years ago was one of the largest known volcanic events on Earth.[citation needed] In the south the land descends to form an alluvial plain, watered by shallow, north-south flowing rivers, drier in the dry season and overflowing during periods of heavy rain. The longest of these rivers, Sungai Ayung, is also the longest on the island (approx. 75 km).

The island is surrounded by coral reefs. Beaches in the south tend to have white sand while those in the north and west have black sand. The beach town of Padangbai in the south east has both[citation needed]. Bali has no major waterways, although the Ho River is navigable by small sampan boats. Black sand beaches between Pasut and Klatingdukuh are being developed for tourism, but apart from the seaside temple of Tanah Lot, they are not yet used for significant tourism.

The principal city is the present provincial capital and largest city, Denpasar, near the southern coast. Its population is around 300,000. Bali's second-largest city is the old colonial capital, Singaraja, which is located on the north coast and is home to around 100,000 people. Other important cities include the beach resort, Kuta, which is practically part of Denpasar's urban area; and Ubud, which is north of Denpasar, and known as the island's cultural centre. There is a coastal road surrounding the island, as well as three major two-lane arteries that cross the central mountains at passes reaching to 1,750m in height (at Penelokan). Minor roads branch off of these major highways. The Ngurah Rai Bypass is a four-lane expressway that partly encircles Denpasar and enables cars to travel quickly in the heavily populated south. Bali has no railway lines.
Southern Bali in the foreground and Mount Agung behind

To the east, the Lombok Strait separates Bali from Lombok and marks the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia. The transition is known as the Wallace Line, named after Alfred Russel Wallace, who first proposed a transition zone between these two major biomes. When sea levels dropped during the Pleistocene ice age, Bali was connected to Java and Sumatra and to the mainland of Asia and shared the Asian fauna, but the deep water of the Lombok Strait continued to keep Lombok and the Lesser Sunda archipelago isolated.

Bali has around 280 species of birds, including the critically endangered Bali Starling. The only endemic high-level predator of the island, the Bali tiger, became extinct in the 1930s.

The Bali Barat National Park, located on the north western side of the island, is a refuge for wildlife such as the Sunda Pangolin, Indian Muntjac, Mouse-deer, Leopard Cat, Black Giant Squirrel, and several species of macaque and leaf monkey.

Transportation

Airports: Denpasar International Airport (south Bali), Lt.Col. Wisnu Airfield (north-west Bali)

Religion
Cremation procession

Unlike most of Muslim-majority Indonesia, about 93.18% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Minority religions include Islam (4.79%), Christianity (1.38%), and Buddhism (0.64%). These figures do not include immigrants from other parts of Indonesia.

Balinese Hinduism is a heterogeneous amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and also with places considered sacred. Religion as it is practiced in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life.

Balinese Hinduism has roots in Indian Hinduism and in Buddhism, and adopted the animistic traditions of the indigenous people, who inhabited the island around the first millennium BCE. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual, and is less closely preoccupied with scripture, law, and belief than Islam in Indonesia. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behavior.[12]

Apart from the majority of Balinese Hindus, there also exist Chinese immigrants whose traditions have melded with that of the locals. As a result, these Sino-Balinese not only embrace their original religion, which is a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, but also find a way to harmonise it with the local traditions. Hence, it is not uncommon to find local Sino-Balinese during the local temple's odalan. Moreover, Balinese Hindu priests are invited to perform rites alongside a Chinese priest in the event of the death of a Sino-Balinese.[13] Nevertheless, the Sino-Balinese claim to embrace Buddhism for administration purposes, such as their

Language

Balinese and Indonesian are the most widely spoken languages in Bali, and most Indonesians, the vast majority of Balinese people are bilingual or trilingual. There are several indigenous Balinese languages, but most Balinese can also use the most widely spoken option: modern common Balinese. The usage of different Balinese languages was traditionally determined by the Balinese caste system and by clan membership, but this tradition is diminishing.

English is a common third language (and the primary foreign language) of many Balinese, owing to the requirements of the tourism industry.

[edit] Culture
Main articles: Music of Bali and Balinese art
Ogoh-ogoh monster in Ubud

Bali is renowned for its diverse and sophisticated art forms, such as painting, sculpture, woodcarving, handcrafts, and performing arts. Balinese percussion orchestra music, known as gamelan, is highly developed and varied. Balinese performing arts often portray stories from Hindu epics such as the Ramayana but with heavy Balinese influence. Famous Balinese dances include pendet, legong, baris, topeng, barong, gong keybar, and kecak (the monkey dance). Bali boasts one of the most diverse and innovative performing arts cultures in the world, with paid performances at thousands of temple festivals, private ceremonies, or public shows.[15]

The Hindu New Year, Nyepi, is celebrated in the spring by a day of silence. On this day everyone stays at home and tourists are encouraged to remain in their hotels. But the day before that large, colourful sculptures of ogoh-ogoh monsters are paraded and finally burned in the evening to drive away evil spirits. Other festivals throughout the year are specified by the Balinese pawukon calendrical system.

Celebrations are held for many occasions such as a tooth-filing (coming-of-age ritual), cremation or odalan (temple festival). One of the most important concepts that Balinese ceremonies have in common is that of désa kala patra, which refers to how ritual performances must be appropriate in both the specific and general social context.[16] Many of the ceremonial art forms such as wayang kulit and topeng are highly improvisatory, providing flexibility for the performer to adapt the performance to the current situation.[17] Many celebrations call for a loud, boisterous atmosphere with lots of activity and the resulting aesthetic, ramé, is distinctively Balinese. Oftentimes two or more gamelan ensembles will be performing well within earshot, and sometimes compete with each other in order to be heard. Likewise, the audience members talk amongst themselves, get up and walk around, or even cheer on the performance, which adds to the many layers of activity and the liveliness typical of ramé.[18]

Kaja and kelod are the Balinese equivalents of North and South, which refer to ones orientation between the island’s largest mountain Gunung Agung (kaja), and the sea (kelod). In addition to spatial orientation, kaja and kelod have the connotation of good and evil; gods and ancestors are believed to live on the mountain whereas demons live in the sea. Buildings such as temples and residential homes are spatially oriented by having the most sacred spaces closest to the mountain and the unclean places nearest to the sea.[19]

Most temples have an inner courtyard and an outer courtyard which are arranged with the inner courtyard furthest kaja. These spaces serve as performance venues since most Balinese rituals are accompanied by any combination of music, dance and drama. The performances that take place in the inner courtyard are classified as wali, the most sacred rituals which are offerings exclusively for the gods, while the outer courtyard is where bebali ceremonies are held, which are intended for gods and people. Lastly, performances meant solely for the entertainment of humans take place outside the walls of the temple and are called bali-balihan. This three-tiered system of classification was standardized in 1971 by a committee of Balinese officials and artists in order to better protect the sanctity of the oldest and most sacred Balinese rituals from being performed for a paying audience.[20]

Tourism, Bali’s chief industry, has provided the island with a foreign audience that is eager to pay for entertainment, thus creating new performance opportunities and more demand for performers. The impact of tourism is controversial since before it became integrated into the economy, the Balinese performing arts did not exist as a capitalist venture, and were not performed for entertainment outside of their respective ritual context. Since the 1930’s sacred rituals such as the barong dance have been performed both in their original contexts, as well as exclusively for paying tourists. This has led to new versions of many of these performances which have developed according to the preferences of foreign audiences; some villages have a barong mask specifically for non-ritual performances as well as an older mask which is only used for sacred performances.[21]

The Balinese eat with their right hand, as the left is impure, a common belief throughout Indonesia. The Balinese do not hand or receive things with their left hand and would not wave at anyone with their left hand.

OSAMA BIN LADEN

2009-06-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

Osama bin Laden (Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎ Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin; with numerous variations) (born 10 March 1957) is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and the founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and is also the FBI's most wanted person in the world.[1] Al-Qaeda has also been associated with numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian targets.

Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' "War on Terrorism." Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal

Variations of bin Laden's name

Because there is no universally accepted standard in the West for transliterating Arabic words and names into English, bin Laden's name is spelled in many ways. The version often used by most English-language mass media is Osama bin Laden. Most American government agencies, including the FBI and CIA, use either "Usama bin Laden" or "Usama bin Ladin", both of which are often abbreviated to UBL. Less common renderings include "Ussamah Bin Ladin" and "Oussama Ben Laden" (French-language mass media). The latter part of the name can also be found as "Binladen" or (as used by his family in the West) "Binladin". The spelling with 'o' and 'e' comes from a Persian-influenced pronunciation used in Afghanistan where he was for a long time.

Strictly speaking, Arabic linguistic conventions dictate that he be referred to as "Osama" or "Osama bin Laden", not "bin Laden," as "Bin Laden" is not used as a surname in the Western manner, but simply as part of his name, which in its long form means "Osama, son of Mohammed, son of 'Awad, son of Laden". Still, "bin Laden" has become nearly universal in Western references to him.

Bin Laden's admirers commonly use several aliases and nicknames, including the Prince, the Sheikh, Al-Amir, Abu Abdallah, Sheikh Al-Mujahid, the Lion Sheik,[2] the Director, Imam Mehdi and Samaritan.[3]

Childhood, education and personal life
Main article: Childhood, education and personal life of Osama bin Laden
See also: Bin Laden family

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.[4] In a 1998 interview, he gave his birth date as 10 March 1957.[5] His father Muhammed Awad bin Laden was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family.[6] Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas.[7] Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born; Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister.[8]

Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim.[9] From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School.[10] Bin Laden studied economics and business administration[11] at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979,[12] or a degree in public administration in 1981.[13] Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year,[14] never completing a college degree, though "hard working."[15] At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both "interpreting the Quran and jihad" and charitable work.[16] He also writes poetry.[17]

In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia.[18][19] According to CNN national security correspondent David Ensore, as of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered roughly 25 or 26 children.[20] Other sources report that he has fathered anywhere from 12 to 24 children.[21]

Beliefs and ideology
Main article: Beliefs and ideology of Osama bin Laden

Bin Laden believes that the restoration of Sharia law will set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies—"pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy"—must be opposed.[22] These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism. [23] He believes Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was "the only Islamic country" in the Muslim world.[24] Bin Laden has consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believes are injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states,[25] the need to eliminate the state of Israel, and the necessity of forcing the US to withdraw from the Middle East. He has also called on Americans to "reject the immoral acts of fornication (and) homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury," in an October 2002 letter.[26]

Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology is that civilians, including women and children, are legitimate targets of jihad.[27][28] Bin Laden is antisemitic, and has delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies: "These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next."[29] Shia Muslims have been listed along with "Heretics, ... America and Israel," as the four principal "enemies of Islam" at ideology classes of bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization.[30]

In keeping with Wahhabi beliefs,[31] bin Laden opposes music on religious grounds,[32] and his attitude towards technology is mixed. He is interested in "earth-moving machinery and genetic engineering of plants", on the one hand, but rejects "chilled water" on the other.[33] His viewpoints and methods of achieving them have led to him been designated as a terrorist by scholars,[34][35] journalists from the New York Times,[36][37] the British Broadcasting Corporation,[38] and Qatari news station Al Jazeera,[39] analysts such as Peter Bergen,[40]Michael Scheuer,[41] Marc Sageman,[42] and Bruce Hoffman[43][44] and he was indicted on terrorism charges by law enforcement agencies in Madrid, New York City, and Tripoli.[45]

Militant activity
Main article: Militant activity of Osama bin Laden

Mujahideen in Afghanistan

After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan[46] and lived for a time in Peshawar.[47]

By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune[48] paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. He moved to Peshawar in 1994, and during this time met his future collaborator Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Azzam.[citation needed] Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.

It was during his time in Peshawar that he began to wear camouflage-print jackets and carrying a captured Soviet assault rifle, which urban legends claimed he had obtained by killing a Russian soldier with his bare hands.[49]

Formation and structuring of Al-Qaeda

By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat; while Azzam acted as support for Afghan fighters, Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main leading points to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated among the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their separate fighting force.[50] Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, "had brought down the mighty superpower" of the Soviet Union.[51] However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait and Laden met with Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed and after the American offer to help was accepted he publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the US military. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led that government to attempt to silence him.

Balkan wars

One of the former State Department officials has described Bosnia and Herzegovina of that time as a safe haven for terrorists, after it was revealed that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists include hard-core terrorists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden.[52] In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed, which was headquartered in Zenica[citation needed] in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. According to Middle East intelligence reports. Bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the USA.[53] He is a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials.[54][55] He was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court.[56] A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who are linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who have lived in this area 60 miles north of Sarajevo, the capital, in the past few years. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. In its 26 June 1997 Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslims forces. Further, the terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden. In 1999 it was revealed that Osama bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and Bosnian passport in 1993 by the Government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by Bosnian government following the 9/11 attacks but it was later found out that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation new explanation was given that bin Laden "did not personally collect his Bosnian passport" and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time.[57][58][59] The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed linked to be linked to Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.[60]

In 1998 it was reported that bin Laden is operating his terrorist network out of Albania. The Charleston Gazette quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network. He claimed he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo.[61] In 2000 bin Laden was operating from Kosovo planning the terrorist activities during the Insurgency in the Preševo Valley.[62]

Connections between bin Laden and National Liberation Army, an insurgent, terrorist, and guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 were also drawn. According to the Washington Times the NLA was fighting to keep control over the region’s drug trafficking, which had grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war and that in addition to drug money, the NLA also had another prominent venture capitalist, Osama Bin Laden. According to a documents written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, bin Laden was financing the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia. Osama Bin Laden, paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army through his representative. Osama Bin Laden was planning to gain control over Macedonia so that he could control the distribution of oil to the United States through the pipeline that was planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports.[63]

Sudan

Bin Laden moved to Sudan in 1992 and established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. Due to bin Laden's continuous verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, on 5 March 1994 Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend, the equivalent of $7 million a year.[64] By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995 the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.

The 9/11 Commission Report concludes,

"In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. US officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both."

The 9/11 Commission Report further states,

"In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. US Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship. Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Laden over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding."[65]

In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States on Sudan, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered jet and forged a close relationship with Mullah Mohammed Omar.[66][67] In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).[68] When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.[69]

Early attacks and aid for attacks

It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the 29 December 1992 bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed.[70]

It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find their proper reward in death, going to Paradise if they were good Muslims and to hell if they were bad or non-believers.[71] The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.

In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000-200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government. Another effort by bin Laden was the funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, [72][73][74] which killed sixty two civilians, but so revolted the Egyptian public that it turned against Islamist terror. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing Bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.[75]

A later effort that did succeed was an attack on the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.[76]

In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of the North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip".[77][78] At the public announcement of the fatwa bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets." He told the attending journalists, "You will see the results of this in a very short time."[79]

September 11, 2001 attacks
See also: September 11 attacks
Sister project Wikinews has related news: Wikileaks obtains 10 years of messages, interviews from Osama bin Laden translated by CIA

Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.[80][81][82] The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York; severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia;[83] and the deaths of 2,974 people excluding the nineteen hijackers.[84] In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terrorism to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable.[85] The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001, attacks.[86] Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks. On 16 September 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.[87]

In a videotape recovered by US forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge.[88] The tape was broadcast on various news networks on 13 December 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."[89]

In the 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers.[81][90] In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused U.S. President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.[81]

According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.[91]

In two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Osama bin Laden announces,

I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers … I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers … with the raids [5 minute audiotape broadcast 23 May 2006],[92]

and is seen with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast 7 September 2006).[93]
Criminal charges

On 16 March 1998, Libya issued the first official international Interpol arrest warrant against Bin Laden and three other people for killing two German citizens in Libya on 10 March 1994, one of which is thought to have been a German counter-intelligence officer. Bin Laden is still wanted by the Libyan government. [94][95] Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on 8 June 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the 14 November 1995 truck bombing of a US-operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh.[96] Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide.[96] Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of US Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder US Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death[97] for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records.[98]

Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on 7 June 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001.[99] In 1999, US President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him. Years later, on 10 October 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the attacks of 9/11, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.

Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradict Osama Bin Laden. It wasn't until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the US ending the bombing and providing evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable with Bush responding that "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."[100]

THE FBI

2009-06-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here you will find one-stop shopping to request information that may be found in the FBI’s Central Records System. What kind of information?

... Information about an organization, business, investigation, historical event, or incident.
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Instructions for making requests are described in the Request Instructions accessible on the right hand menu. If you wish to make a request on another person (living or deceased), a place, business and/or organization, or a specific event, please access the “FOIPA Request Instructions.” Requests for information about yourself, either directly or through an attorney, are described in the “Privacy Act Instructions.”

Here you will also find one-stop browsing of the FBI’s FOIA Reading Room Index of our most frequently requested documents available for reading at FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC…and a separate index of our ever expanding Electronic Reading Room, where you can read our most popular documents from the comfort of your own computer. Here you will find everything you wanted to know about spies, gangsters, famous people, history, and unusual case from our files.

Want to do research at The FBI Reading Room? It is located at FBIHQ, 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC; hours, 8:30 am to 2:30 pm. You are required to make appointments 48 hours in advance of arriving; please call 202-324-4682 to make your appointment. However, if you would rather review the material in the comfort of your own home, all Reading Room documents have been converted to CD-roms which are available at the price of $15 each.

The following are FOIA officers and contact numbers:

Section Chief, Record Information/Dissemination Section (RIDS)
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FOIPA Public Information Officer (PIO)
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Phone: (540) 868-4593
Fax: (540) 868-4995
Please call this number to talk with the PIO about the status of an existing FOI/PA request, or other FOIPA matters. Our PIO cannot answer questions about Name Check requests, all calls received for Name Check information will be referred to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
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(540) 868-4516 Please call the PLO number if you have concerns about information received about the FOIPA after contacting either the RSC or the PIO.

Information you need to know before making a FOI/PA request:

When reviewing the “Request Instructions” located on the right hand menu, please note our address has changed. Requests for information maintained by FBI Headquarters should now be addressed to 170 Marcel Drive, Winchester, VA 22602-4843. More specific information on how to make a request is described in the instructions accessible on the right hand menu.

Requests sent to this address will be searched for main file records in the FBI’s Central Records System for files that are maintained in Washington, D.C. A main file is defined as a file about a specific person, place or event. If you believe the records you seek are maintained at one of our many FBI Field Offices, you must also make a request to the specific Field Office where you believe the records are maintained. [See 28 C.F.R. §§ 16.3(a) and 16.41 (2007)]

To make a request for cross-references, defined as a mention of a subject in the main file of another person, place or event, please be advised that you need to provide information in your request that is sufficient to enable the FBI to ensure with certainty that the cross-references are identifiable to the subject of your request. This information may include the following:

1) the specific circumstances in which the subject of your request had contact with the FBI;
2) the date(s) of such contact;
3) the location(s) of such contact;
4) the full name (first, middle and last name) as well as any prior names or aliases used by the subject of your request;
5) Social Security #, date of birth, place of birth, home address of the subject of your request
6) names of associates of the subject of your request the mention of whom might aid in the identification of responsive records;
7) other references of the subject of your request in media, such as books, articles, websites, etc.

Please note that the FBI may not be able to identify responsive cross-references despite the additional information you provide.

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE CONFLICT

2009-05-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing dispute between Israelis and the Palestinians.[1] It forms part of the wider Arab–Israeli conflict. Though the State of Israel was established in 1948, the term is usually used also in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Zionist pioneers and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or British rule.

Many attempts have been made to broker a two-state solution, which would entail the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside an independent Jewish state (until 1948) or next to the State of Israel (after Israel's establishment in 1948). At present, a considerable majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a number of polls, prefer the two-state solution over any other solution as a means of resolving the conflict.[2][3][4] Most Palestinians view the West Bank and Gaza Strip as constituting the area of their future state, which is a view also accepted by most Israelis.[5] A handful of academics advocate a one-state solution, whereby all of Israel, the Gaza Strip, and West Bank would become a bi-national state with equal rights for all.[6][7] However, there are significant areas of disagreement over the shape of any final agreement and also regarding the level of credibility each side sees in the other in upholding basic commitments.[8]

Within Israeli and Palestinian society, the conflict generates a wide variety of views and opinions. This serves to highlight the deep divisions which exist not only between Israelis and Palestinians, but also amongst themselves.

A hallmark of the conflict has been the level of violence witnessed for virtually its entire duration. Fighting has been conducted by regular armies, paramilitary groups, terror cells and individuals. Casualties have not been restricted to the military, with a large number of fatalities in civilian population on both sides, who took no part in the fighting when they were killed.

There are various prominent and international actors involved in the conflict. The direct negotiating parties are the Israeli government, currently led by Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), currently headed by Mahmoud Abbas. The official negotiations are mediated by an international contingent known as the Quartet on the Middle East (the Quartet) represented by a special envoy that consists of the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. The Arab League is another important actor, which has proposed an alternative peace plan. Egypt, a founding member of the Arab League, has historically been a key participant.

Since 2003, the Palestinian side has been fractured by conflict between the two major factions: Fatah, the traditionally dominant party, and its more recent electoral challenger, Hamas. Following Hamas' seizure of power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the territory controlled by the Palestinian National Authority (the Palestinian interim government) is split between Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The division of governance between the parties has effectively resulted in the collapse of bipartisan governance of the Palestinian National Authority (PA).

The most recent round of peace negotiations began at Annapolis, Maryland, United States, in November 2007. These talks aimed at having a final resolution by the end of 2008.[9] The parties agree there are six core, or 'final status,' issues which need to be resolved.[10]

Periods of the conflict

On the historical timeline, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has had six distinct phases:

* The period of the Ottoman Empire rule in Palestine in which the Palestinians saw themselves as part of the overall Arab territories which were under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. During that period, the disputes were on the basis of religious background and not on national background.
* The period of the British Mandate of Palestine, in which both parties were under British rule and under a single political entity - called Palestine in English. During this period the term "The Israeli–Palestinian conflict" was not used and instead the conflict was referred to as "the Jewish-Arab conflict over the Land of Israel" (by the Jewish population), "the Jewish-Arab conflict over Palestine" (by the Arab population and the British population).
* The period of time between the declaration of the State of Israel and the Six-Day War in which the parties resided in three separate political entities: The State of Israel, the Gaza Strip (which was controlled by Egypt) and the West Bank (which was annexed to Jordan).
* The period of time between the Six-Day War and the Oslo Accords, in which the conflicted parties reside in the area of the western Palestine, which was under the control of the State of Israel.
* The period of time between the Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada, in which Israel exists alongside the semi-sovereign political entity - the Palestinian Authority.
* The period of time between the beginning of the Second Intifada up until today, in which Israel returned to perform arresting operations in Area A zones in the West Bank and Gaza and later on retreated from the Gaza Strip in 2005 which lead to the strengthening of the Hamas which in 2007 took control over the Gaza Strip.

Prominent events throughout the conflict
Map of Palestinian Authority (dark green) and Israeli (light green) administered areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip following the Oslo Accords. The agreement was that Israel would gradually cede control of territories over to the Palestinians in exchange for peace.

* King-Crane Commission (1919)
* 1920 Palestine riots
* 1921 in Jaffa
* 1929 Palestine riots
* 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine
* The approval of the UN Partition Plan according to which Palestine would be divided into two states - a Jewish state and an Arab state (1947)
* 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandate Palestine
* 1948 Arab-Israeli War, 1948 Palestinian exodus and the establishment of the state of Israel (1948)
* The creation of the Palestinian refugee problem (1948 - 1950)
* Suez Crisis (1956)
* War over Water (1964-1967)
* Six-Day War (1967) - Israel occupies the territories populated by Palestinians from Jordan and Egypt (1967)
* War of Attrition (1968–1970)
* Black September - the deportation of the PLO from Jordan to Lebanon (1970)
* Terror attacks carried out from Lebanon on Israeli targets worldwide (1972 - 1982)
* Yom Kippur War (1973)
* 1978 South Lebanon conflict
* Camp David Accords (1979)
* 1982 Lebanon War- the deportation of the PLO from Lebanon to Tunis
* 1982–2000 South Lebanon conflict
* First Intifada (1987–1991)
* Oslo Accords (1993, 1995)
* Second Intifada (began in 2000)
* Israel's unilateral disengagement plan (2005)
* 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
Peace process
Part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict
and Arab–Israeli conflict series
Israeli–Palestinian
Peace Process
Israel with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights
Israel
West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights a
Negotiating Parties
Palestinian flag
Palestinians Flag of Israel
Israel
History
Camp David Accords · Madrid Conference
Oslo Accords / Oslo II · Hebron Protocol
Wye River / Sharm el-Sheikh Memoranda
2000 Camp David Summit · Taba Summit
Road Map · Annapolis Conference
Primary Negotiation Concerns
Final borders · Israeli settlements
Palestinian refugees · Security concerns
Status of Jerusalem · Water
Secondary Negotiation Concerns
Antisemitic incitements
Israeli West Bank barrier · Jewish state
Palestinian political violence
Places of worship
Palestinian flag Current Leaders Flag of Israel
Mahmoud Abbas
Salam Fayyad Benjamin Netanyahu
Shimon Peres
International Brokers
Diplomatic Quartet · Arab League · Egypt
Flag of the United Nations Flag of Europe Flag of Russia Flag of the United States Flag of the Arab League Flag of Egypt
Other Proposals
Arab Peace Initiative · Elon Peace Plan
Lieberman Plan · Geneva Accord · Hudna
Israel's unilateral disengagement plan
Israel's realignment plan
Peace-orientated projects · Peace Valley · One-state solution
a The Golan Heights are not part of the Israeli-Palestinian process.
view • talk • edit
Main article: Peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[edit] Oslo Accords (1993)
A peace movement poster: Israeli and Palestinian flags and the words peace in Arabic and Hebrew.
Main article: Oslo Accords

In 1993, Israeli officials led by Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leaders from the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat strove to find a peaceful solution through what became known as the Oslo peace process. A crucial milestone in this process was Arafat's letter of recognition of Israel's right to exist. In 1993, the Oslo Accords were finalized as a framework for future Israeli-Palestinian relations. The crux of the Oslo agreement was that Israel would gradually cede control of the Palestinian territories over to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. The Oslo process was delicate and progressed in fits and starts, the process took a turning point at the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and finally came to a close when Arafat and Ehud Barak failed to reach agreement. Robert Malley, special assistant to United States President Bill Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs, has confirmed that Barak made no formal written offer to Arafat.[11][12] Consequently, there are different accounts of the proposals considered.[13][14][15] However, the main obstacle to agreement appears to have been the status of Jerusalem.

H1N1 VIRUS

2009-05-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, also known as A(H1N1), is a subtype of influenzavirus A and the most common cause of influenza (flu) in humans. Some strains of H1N1 are endemic in humans, including the strain(s) responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic which killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Less virulent H1N1 strains still exist in the wild today, worldwide, causing a small fraction of all influenza-like illness and a large fraction of all seasonal influenza. H1N1 strains caused roughly half of all flu infections in 2006.[1] Other strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs and in birds.

In March, April and May 2009, thousands of laboratory-confirmed infections and a number of deaths were caused by an outbreak of a new strain of H1N1.

Influenza A virus strains are categorized according to two proteins found on the surface of the virus: hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). All influenza A viruses contain hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, but the structure of these proteins differs from strain to strain due to rapid genetic mutation in the viral genome.

Influenza A virus strains are assigned an H number and an N number based on which forms of these two proteins the strain contains. There are 16 H and 9 N subtypes known in birds, but only H 1, 2 and 3, and N 1 and 2 are commonly found in humans.[4]

2009 Influenza A(H1N1) outbreak
Illustration of influenza antigenic shift.
Main article: 2009 swine flu outbreak

Minor outbreaks of swine influenza occurred in humans in 1976 and 1988, and in pigs in 1998 and 2007.

In the 2009 swine flu outbreak, the virus isolated from patients in the United States was found to be made up of genetic elements from four different flu viruses – North American Mexican influenza, North American avian influenza, human influenza, and swine influenza virus typically found in Asia and Europe – "an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences."[14] This new strain appears to be a result of reassortment of human influenza and swine influenza viruses, in all four different strains of subtype H1N1. However, as the virus has not yet been isolated in animals to date and also for historical naming reasons, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) suggests it be called "North-American influenza".[15] On April 30, 2009 the World Health Organization began referring to the outbreak as "Influenza A" instead of "swine flu".[16], and later began referring to it as "Influenza A(H1N1)". Several complete genome sequences for U.S. flu cases were rapidly made available through the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID).[17][18] Preliminary genetic characterization found that the hemagglutinin (HA) gene was similar to that of swine flu viruses present in U.S. pigs since 1999, but the neuraminidase (NA) and matrix protein (M) genes resembled versions present in European swine flu isolates. The six genes from American swine flu are themselves mixtures of swine flu, bird flu, and human flu viruses.[19][20] While viruses with this genetic makeup had not previously been found to be circulating in humans or pigs, there is no formal national surveillance system to determine what viruses are circulating in pigs in the U.S.[21]

YAHOO 2nd "DOMAIN"

2009-05-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yahoo will register your domains' names for under $10 a year, though as of
this writing, Yahoo is having a sale on domains for $2.99 per year. That's a
lot cheaper than some registrars I've seen that are still trying to charge
$20 or more just for domains.

Once you get your domain registered, you still need to host it somewhere.
Again, Yahoo has a simple answer, or several simple answers, in its
Geocities service. You can plunk down your domains for free at Yahoo
Geocities, but you'll have ads. For a nominal fee ($4.95 per month) you can
get 500 MB storage and 25 GB per month transfer -- that's more than enough
for most starter sites.

*Domains Yahoo - Domain Name
Yahoo

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HISTORY

The Man Who Sailed The World

History of Bratislava

Land of the Vikings

Napoleon

The British Empire

Holocaust Memorial Site

Another Page in Berlin History

The 2006 World Cup

Stadium of Pride

United Nations Chickened Out

Motorcycle Diaries Journey to the Self

A Visit to the Leper Colony

The History of the Great Wall

Building the WallDuring the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the initial wall of the amazing Great Wall of China was built. It was mostly a product of

World History Bio: The Ups and Downs of Alexander the Great

Why build the Eiffel Tower

Who is Mohandas Gandhi?

Che Guevara: revolution hero

Terry Bollea: A Hulk Hogan bio

Commercialization And Internet

A Phenomenon Called Globalization

History of Chatting

IRISH POTATO FAMINE

History Chart: The Death of Mozart (December 5, 1791)

Looking Back at Historical Events: The Vietnam War

World History Bio: Adolf Hitler

World History Today: The Pearl Harbor Attack (December 7, 1941)

Biography of Nelson Mandela

dangerous woman lady deborah moody

Mesopotamia Edited By: Robert Guisepi

Washington DC, January 1925.

Who is Muhammad Ali Jinnah?

History of computer science

Microsoft Windows

MICHAEL JACKSON

Life and career

1958–75: Early life and The Jackson 5

1975–81: Move to Epic and Off the Wall

1982–83: Thriller and Motown 25

1986–87: Appearance, tabloids, Bad, autobiography, and films

1988–90: Autobiography, changing appearance, and Neverland

1991–93: Dangerous, Heal the World Foundation and Super Bowl XXVII

1994: First marriage

1995–97: HIStory

1996–99: Second marriage and fatherhood

2000–03: Label dispute, Invincible and third child

2003–05: Second child sexual abuse allegations

2006–09: Final years

Death and memorial

UFO

History

The Kenneth Arnold sightings

Investigations

American investigations

Reverse engineering

UFO categorization

Conspiracy theories

Allegations of evidence suppression

Famous hoaxes

UFOs in popular culture

Use in film and television

COMPUTER HISTORY

Manchester United F.C.

BALI ISLAND HISTORY

OSAMA BIN LADEN

THE FBI

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE CONFLICT

H1N1 VIRUS

YAHOO 2nd "DOMAIN"