In the northern reaches of its range, the Great Kiskadee spills over into southern Texas. Despite a limited range in North America, this large flycatcher is one of the most widespread flycatchers in the Western Hemisphere. It is a boisterous, flamboyant bird that is bright to boot. It goes way beyond the rules of the average flycatcher, and in addition to catching insects in mid-air, will grab lizards from trees, dive into ponds for fish, and consume berries and fruits. It is also bright, bold, and brazen and stopping at nothing to protect its nest, even going so far as to attack an intruding hawk. Despite being placed in a category with flycatchers these birds seem to have much more in common in size, character, and activity, with the Blue Jay. Like Jays, they are smarter and more brazen than the average bird and that, together with their omnivorous diet, has made then extremely successful birds. #GreatKiskadee

 

Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (97 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (9.7 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres (377.98 sq mi; 97,895.08 ha; 978.95 km2) of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.

 

Partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a national monument on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area's colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths; however, it was not until 1950 that the area officially opened to the public. Road access was improved in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.

 

The majority of the nearly 100 mi (160 km) long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. Locally, reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, just as ocean reefs are barriers to sea travel.

 

Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.

 

The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.

 

The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.

 

The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert. A scenic drive shows park visitors some highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead into the equally scenic backcountry.

 

Fremont-culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of maize and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area). In the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned.

 

Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic-speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.

 

In 1872 Almon H. Thompson, a geographer attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology. None of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent.

 

Following the American Civil War, officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City sought to establish missions in the remotest niches of the Intermountain West. In 1866, a quasi-military expedition of Mormons in pursuit of natives penetrated the high valleys to the west. In the 1870s, settlers moved into these valleys, eventually establishing Loa, Fremont, Lyman, Bicknell, and Torrey.

 

Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and established Junction (later renamed Fruita), Caineville, and Aldridge. Fruita prospered, Caineville barely survived, and Aldridge died. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone, and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.

 

By 1920 no more than ten families at one time were sustained by the fertile flood plain of the Fremont River and the land changed ownership over the years. The area remained isolated. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime are still in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.

 

Local Ephraim Portman Pectol organized a "booster club" in Torrey in 1921. Pectol pressed a promotional campaign, furnishing stories to be sent to periodicals and newspapers. In his efforts, he was increasingly aided by his brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman, who was the Wayne County High School principal. In 1924, Hickman extended community involvement in the promotional effort by organizing a Wayne County-wide Wayne Wonderland Club. That same year, Hickman was elected to the Utah State Legislature.

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the presidency of the Associated Civics Club of Southern Utah, successor to the Wayne Wonderland Club. The club raised U.S. $150 (equivalent to $3,391 in 2022) to interest a Salt Lake City photographer in taking a series of promotional photographs. For several years, the photographer, J. E. Broaddus, traveled and lectured on "Wayne Wonderland".

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the legislature and almost immediately contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked for the creation of "Wayne Wonderland National Monument" out of the federal lands comprising the bulk of the Capitol Reef area. Federal agencies began a feasibility study and boundary assessment. Meanwhile, Pectol guided the government investigators on numerous trips and escorted an increasing number of visitors. The lectures of Broaddus were having an effect.

 

Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating Capitol Reef National Monument on August 2, 1937. In Proclamation 2246, President Roosevelt set aside 37,711 acres (15,261 ha) of the Capitol Reef area. This comprised an area extending about two miles (3 km) north of present State Route 24 and about 10 mi (16 km) south, just past Capitol Gorge. The Great Depression years were lean ones for the National Park Service (NPS), the new administering agency. Funds for the administration of Capitol Reef were nonexistent; it would be a long time before the first rangers would arrive.

 

Administration of the new monument was placed under the control of Zion National Park. A stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge were built and some road work was performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Historian and printer Charles Kelly came to know NPS officials at Zion well and volunteered to watchdog the park for the NPS. Kelly was officially appointed custodian-without-pay in 1943. He worked as a volunteer until 1950, when the NPS offered him a civil-service appointment as the first superintendent.

 

During the 1950s Kelly was deeply troubled by NPS management acceding to demands of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that Capitol Reef National Monument be opened to uranium prospecting. He felt that the decision had been a mistake and destructive of the long-term national interest. It turned out that there was not enough ore in the monument to be worth mining.

 

In 1958 Kelly got additional permanent help in protecting the monument and enforcing regulations; Park Ranger Grant Clark transferred from Zion. The year Clark arrived, fifty-six thousand visitors came to the park, and Charlie Kelly retired for the last time.

 

During the 1960s (under the program name Mission 66), NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to meet the demand of mushrooming park visitation. At Capitol Reef, a 53-site campground at Fruita, staff rental housing, and a new visitor center were built, the latter opening in 1966.

 

Visitation climbed dramatically after the paved, all-weather State Route 24 was built in 1962 through the Fremont River canyon near Fruita. State Route 24 replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road about 10 mi (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since been open only to foot traffic. In 1967, 146,598 persons visited the park. The staff was also growing.

 

During the 1960s, the NPS purchased private land parcels at Fruita and Pleasant Creek. Almost all private property passed into public ownership on a "willing buyer-willing seller" basis.

 

Preservationists convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson to set aside an enormous area of public lands in 1968, just before he left office. In Presidential Proclamation 3888 an additional 215,056 acres (87,030 ha) were placed under NPS control. By 1970, Capitol Reef National Monument comprised 254,251 acres (102,892 ha) and sprawled southeast from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River. The action was controversial locally, and NPS staffing at the monument was inadequate to properly manage the additional land.

 

The vast enlargement of the monument and diversification of the scenic resources soon raised another issue: whether Capitol Reef should be a national park, rather than a monument. Two bills were introduced into the United States Congress.

 

A House bill (H.R. 17152) introduced by Utah Congressman Laurence J. Burton called for a 180,000-acre (72,800 ha) national park and an adjunct 48,000-acre (19,400 ha) national recreation area where multiple use (including grazing) could continue indefinitely. In the United States Senate, meanwhile, Senate bill S. 531 had already passed on July 1, 1970, and provided for a 230,000-acre (93,100 ha) national park alone. The bill called for a 25-year phase-out of grazing.

 

In September 1970, United States Department of Interior officials told a house subcommittee session that they preferred about 254,000 acres (103,000 ha) be set aside as a national park. They also recommended that the grazing phase-out period be 10 years, rather than 25. They did not favor the adjunct recreation area.

 

It was not until late 1971 that Congressional action was completed. By then, the 92nd United States Congress was in session and S. 531 had languished. A new bill, S. 29, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah and was essentially the same as the defunct S. 531 except that it called for an additional 10,834 acres (4,384 ha) of public lands for a Capitol Reef National Park. In the House, Utah Representative K. Gunn McKay (with Representative Lloyd) had introduced H.R. 9053 to replace the dead H.R. 17152. This time, the House bill dropped the concept of an adjunct Capitol Reef National Recreation Area and adopted the Senate concept of a 25-year limit on continued grazing. The Department of Interior was still recommending a national park of 254,368 acres (102,939 ha) and a 10-year limit for grazing phase-out.

 

S. 29 passed the Senate in June and was sent to the House, which dropped its own bill and passed the Senate version with an amendment. Because the Senate was not in agreement with the House amendment, differences were worked out in Conference Committee. The Conference Committee issued its report on November 30, 1971, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. The legislation—'An Act to Establish The Capitol Reef National Park in the State of Utah'—became Public Law 92-207 when it was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.

 

The area including the park was once the edge of a shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Limestone, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.

 

During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt that later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.

 

The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle- to late-Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:

 

Wingate Sandstone: sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea

Kayenta Formation: thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains

Navajo Sandstone: huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.

 

The Golden Throne. Though Capitol Reef is famous for white domes of Navajo Sandstone, this dome's color is a result of a lingering section of yellow Carmel Formation carbonate, which has stained the underlying rock.

The San Rafael Group consists of four Jurassic-period formations, from oldest to youngest:

 

Carmel Formation: gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water

Entrada Sandstone: sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment

Curtis Formation: made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale

Summerville Formation: reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.

Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.

 

Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section.

 

Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateau. This uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.

 

The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.

 

There are more than 840 species of plants that are found in the park and over 40 of those species are classified as rare and endemic.

 

The closest town to Capitol Reef is Torrey, about 11 mi (18 km) west of the visitor center on Highway 24, slightly west of its intersection with Highway 12. Its 2020 population is less than 300. Torrey has a few motels and restaurants and functions as a gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park. Highway 12, as well as a partially unpaved scenic backway named the Burr Trail, provide access from the west through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and the town of Boulder.

 

A variety of activities are available to tourists, both ranger-led and self-guided, including auto touring, hiking, backpacking, camping, bicycling (on paved and unpaved roads only; no trails), horseback riding, canyoneering, and rock climbing. The orchards planted by Mormon pioneers are maintained by the National Park Service. From early March to mid-October, various fruit—cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, or apples—can be harvested by visitors for a fee.

 

A hiking trail guide is available at the visitor center for both day hikes and backcountry hiking. Backcountry access requires a free permit.

 

Numerous trails are available for hiking and backpacking in the park, with fifteen in the Fruita District alone. The following trails are some of the most popular in the park:

 

Cassidy Arch Trail: a very steep, strenuous 3.5 mi (5.6 km) round trip that leads into the Grand Wash to an overlook of the Cassidy Arch.

Hickman Bridge Trail: a 2 mi (3.2 km) round trip leading to the natural bridge.

Frying Pan Trail: an 8.8 mi (14.2 km) round trip that passes the Cassidy Arch, Grand Wash, and Cohab Canyon.

Brimhall Natural Bridge: a popular, though strenuous, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) round trip with views of Brimhall Canyon, the Waterpocket Fold, and Brimhall Natural Bridge.

Halls Creek Narrows: 22 mi (35 km) long and considered strenuous, with many side canyons and creeks; typically hiked as a 2-3 day camping trip.

 

Visitors may explore several of the main areas of the park by private vehicle:

 

Scenic Drive: winds through the middle of the park, passing the major points of interest; the road is accessible from the visitor center to approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) into the Capitol Gorge.

Notom-Bullfrog Road: traverses the eastern side of the Waterpocket Fold, along 10 mi (16 km) of paved road, with the remainder unpaved.

Cathedral Road: an unpaved road through the northern areas of the park, that traverses Cathedral Valley, passing the Temples of the Sun and Moon.

 

The primary camping location is the Fruita campground, with 71 campsites (no water, electrical, or sewer hookups), and restrooms without bathing facilities. The campground also has group sites with picnic areas and restrooms. Two primitive free camping areas are also available.

 

Canyoneering is growing in popularity in the park. It is a recreational sport that takes one through slot canyons. It involves rappelling and may require swimming and other technical rope work. Day-pass permits are required for canyoneering in the park, and can be obtained for free from the visitor's center or through email. It's key to know that each route requires its own permit. If one is planning on canyoneering for multiple days, passes are required for each day. Overnight camping as part of the canyoneering trip is permitted, but one must request a free backcountry pass from the visitor center.

 

It is imperative to plan canyoneering trips around the weather. The Colorado Plateau is susceptible to flash flooding during prime rainy months. Because canyoneering takes place through slot canyons, getting caught in a flash flood could be lethal. Take care to consult reliable weather sources. The Weather Atlas shows charts with the monthly average rainfall in inches.

 

Another risk to be aware of during the summer months is extreme heat. Visitors can find weather warnings on the National Weather Service website. The heat levels are detailed by a color and numerical scale (0-4).

 

One of the most popular canyoneering routes in Capitol Reef National Park is Cassidy Arch Canyon. A paper by George Huddart, details the park's commitment to working with citizens to maintain the route as well as the vegetation and rocks. The canyon route is approximately 2.3 miles long (0.4 miles of technical work), consisting of 8 different rappels, and takes between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete. The first rappel is 140 ft and descends below the famous Cassidy Arch.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

Average Night with the Akatsuki

The ferret (Mustela furo) is a small, domesticated species belonging to the family Mustelidae. The ferret is most likely a domesticated form of the wild European polecat (Mustela putorius), evidenced by their interfertility. Physically, ferrets resemble other mustelids because of their long, slender bodies. Including their tail, the average length of a ferret is about 50 cm (20 in); they weigh between 0.7 and 2.0 kg (1.5 and 4.4 lb); and their fur can be black, brown, white, or a mixture of those colours. The species is sexually dimorphic, with males being considerably larger than females.

 

Ferrets may have been domesticated since ancient times, but there is widespread disagreement because of the sparseness of written accounts and the inconsistency of those which survive. Contemporary scholarship agrees that ferrets were bred for sport, hunting rabbits in a practice known as rabbiting. In North America, the ferret has become an increasingly prominent choice of household pet, with over five million in the United States alone. The legality of ferret ownership varies by location. In New Zealand and some other countries, restrictions apply due to the damage done to native fauna by feral colonies of polecat–ferret hybrids. The ferret has also served as a fruitful research animal, contributing to research in neuroscience and infectious disease, especially influenza.

 

The domestic ferret is often confused with the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), a species native to North America.[1]

 

Etymology

The name "ferret" is derived from the Latin furittus, meaning "little thief", a likely reference to the common ferret penchant for secreting away small items.[2] In Old English (Anglo-Saxon), the animal was called mearþ. The word fyret seems to appear in Middle English in the 14th century from the Latin, with the modern spelling of "ferret" by the 16th century.[3]

 

The Greek word ἴκτις íktis, Latinized as ictis occurs in a play written by Aristophanes, The Acharnians, in 425 BC. Whether this was a reference to ferrets, polecats, or the similar Egyptian mongoose is uncertain.[3]

 

A male ferret is called a hob; a female ferret is a jill. A spayed female is a sprite, a neutered male is a gib, and a vasectomised male is known as a hoblet. Ferrets under one year old are known as kits. A group of ferrets is known as a "business",[4] or historically as a "busyness". Other purported collective nouns, including "besyness", "fesynes", "fesnyng" and "feamyng", appear in some dictionaries, but are almost certainly ghost words.[5]

 

Biology

 

Skull of a ferret

Characteristics

 

Ferret profile

Ferrets have a typical mustelid body-shape, being long and slender. Their average length is about 50 cm (20 in) including a 13 cm (5.1 in) tail. Their pelage has various colorations including brown, black, white or mixed. They weigh between 0.7 and 2.0 kg (1.5 and 4.4 lb) and are sexually dimorphic as the males are substantially larger than females. The average gestation period is 42 days and females may have two or three litters each year. The litter size is usually between three and seven kits which are weaned after three to six weeks and become independent at three months. They become sexually mature at approximately 6 months and the average life span is 7 to 10 years.[6][7] Ferrets are induced ovulators.[8]

 

Behavior

Ferrets spend 14–18 hours a day asleep and are most active around the hours of dawn and dusk, meaning they are crepuscular.[9] If they are caged, they should be taken out daily to exercise and satisfy their curiosity; they need at least an hour and a place to play.[10] Unlike their polecat ancestors, which are solitary animals, most ferrets will live happily in social groups. They are territorial, like to burrow, and prefer to sleep in an enclosed area.[11]

 

Like many other mustelids, ferrets have scent glands near their anus, the secretions from which are used in scent marking. Ferrets can recognize individuals from these anal gland secretions, as well as the sex of unfamiliar individuals.[12] Ferrets may also use urine marking for sex and individual recognition.[13]

 

As with skunks, ferrets can release their anal gland secretions when startled or scared, but the smell is much less potent and dissipates rapidly. Most pet ferrets in the US are sold descented (with the anal glands removed).[14] In many other parts of the world, including the UK and other European countries, de-scenting is considered an unnecessary mutilation.

 

If excited, they may perform a behavior called the "weasel war dance", characterized by frenzied sideways hops, leaps and bumping into nearby objects. Despite its common name, it is not aggressive but is a joyful invitation to play. It is often accompanied by a unique soft clucking noise, commonly referred to as "dooking".[15] When scared, ferrets will hiss; when upset, they squeak softly.[16]

 

Diet

Ferrets are obligate carnivores.[17] The natural diet of their wild ancestors consisted of whole small prey, including meat, organs, bones, skin, feathers and fur.[18] Ferrets have short digestive systems and a quick metabolism, so they need to eat frequently. Prepared dry foods consisting almost entirely of meat (including high-grade cat food, although specialized ferret food is increasingly available and preferable)[19] provide the most nutritional value. Some ferret owners feed pre-killed or live prey (such as mice and rabbits) to their ferrets to more closely mimic their natural diet.[20][21] Ferret digestive tracts lack a cecum and the animal is largely unable to digest plant matter.[22] Before much was known about ferret physiology, many breeders and pet stores recommended food like fruit in the ferret diet, but it is now known that such foods are inappropriate, and may in fact have negative consequences for ferret health. Ferrets imprint on their food at around six months old. This can make introducing new foods to an older ferret a challenge, and even simply changing brands of kibble may meet with resistance from a ferret that has never eaten the food as a kit. It is therefore advisable to expose young ferrets to as many different types and flavors of appropriate food as possible.[23]

 

Dentition

 

Ferret dentition

Ferrets have four types of teeth (the number includes maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower) teeth) with a dental formula of

3.1.4.1

3.1.4.2

:

 

Twelve small incisor teeth (only 2–3 mm [3⁄32–1⁄8 in] long) located between the canines in the front of the mouth. These are used for grooming.

Four canines used for killing prey.

Twelve premolar teeth that the ferret uses to chew food—located at the sides of the mouth, directly behind the canines. The ferret uses these teeth to cut through flesh, using them in a scissors action to cut the meat into digestible chunks.

Six molars (two on top and four on the bottom) at the far back of the mouth are used to crush food.

Health

 

Male ferret

Ferrets are known to suffer from several distinct health problems. Among the most common are cancers affecting the adrenal glands, pancreas and lymphatic system.

 

Adrenal disease, a growth of the adrenal glands that can be either hyperplasia or cancer, is most often diagnosed by signs like unusual hair loss, increased aggression, and difficulty urinating or defecating. Treatment options include surgery to excise the affected glands, melatonin or deslorelin implants, and hormone therapy. The causes of adrenal disease speculated to include unnatural light cycles, diets based around processed ferret foods, and prepubescent neutering. It has also been suggested that there may be a hereditary component to adrenal disease.[24]

 

Insulinoma, a type of cancer of the islet cells of the pancreas, is the most common form of cancer in ferrets. It is most common in ferrets between the ages of 4 and 5 years old.[25]

 

Lymphoma is the most common malignancy in ferrets. Ferret lymphosarcoma occurs in two forms—juvenile lymphosarcoma, a fast-growing type that affects ferrets younger than two years, and adult lymphosarcoma, a slower-growing form that affects ferrets four to seven years old.[26]

 

Viral diseases include canine distemper, influenza and ferret systemic coronavirus.[27][28][29]

 

A high proportion of ferrets with white markings which form coat patterns known as a blaze, badger, or panda coat, such as a stripe extending from their face down the back of their head to their shoulder blades, or a fully white head, have a congenital deafness (partial or total) which is similar to Waardenburg syndrome in humans.[30] Ferrets without white markings, but with premature graying of the coat, are also more likely to have some deafness than ferrets with solid coat colors which do not show this trait.[31] Most albino ferrets are not deaf; if deafness does occur in an albino ferret, this may be due to an underlying white coat pattern which is obscured by the albinism.[30]

 

Health problems can occur in unspayed females when not being used for breeding.[32] Similar to domestic cats, ferrets can also suffer from hairballs and dental problems. Ferrets will also often chew on and swallow foreign objects which can lead to bowel obstruction.[33]

 

History of domestication

 

Women hunting rabbits with a ferret in the 14th-century Queen Mary Psalter

In common with most domestic animals, the original reason for ferrets being domesticated by human beings is uncertain, but it may have involved hunting. According to phylogenetic studies, the ferret was domesticated from the European polecat (Mustela putorius), and likely descends from a North African lineage of the species.[34] Analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggests that ferrets were domesticated around 2,500 years ago. It has been claimed that the ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate ferrets, but as no mummified remains of a ferret have yet been found, nor any hieroglyph of a ferret, and no polecat now occurs wild in the area, that idea seems unlikely.[35] The American Society of Mammalogists classifies M. furo as a distinct species.[36]

 

Ferrets were probably used by the Romans for hunting.[37][38] Genghis Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire, is recorded as using ferrets in a gigantic hunt in 1221 that aimed to purge an entire region of wild animals.[3]

 

Colonies of feral ferrets have established themselves in areas where there is no competition from similarly sized predators, such as in the Shetland Islands and in remote regions in New Zealand. Where ferrets coexist with polecats, hybridization is common. It has been claimed that New Zealand has the world's largest feral population of ferret–polecat hybrids.[39] In 1877, farmers in New Zealand demanded that ferrets be introduced into the country to control the rabbit population, which was also introduced by humans. Five ferrets were imported in 1879, and in 1882–1883, 32 shipments of ferrets were made from London, totaling 1,217 animals. Only 678 landed, and 198 were sent from Melbourne, Australia. On the voyage, the ferrets were mated with the European polecat, creating a number of hybrids that were capable of surviving in the wild. In 1884 and 1886, close to 4,000 ferrets and ferret hybrids, 3,099 weasels and 137 stoats were turned loose.[40] Concern was raised that these animals would eventually prey on indigenous wildlife once rabbit populations dropped, and this is exactly what happened to New Zealand's bird species which previously had had no mammalian predators.

 

Ferreting

Main article: Rabbiting

 

Muzzled ferret flushing a rat, as illustrated in Harding's Ferret Facts and Fancies (1915)

For millennia, the main use of ferrets was for hunting, or "ferreting". With their long, lean build and inquisitive nature, ferrets are very well equipped for getting down holes and chasing rodents, rabbits and moles out of their burrows. The Roman historians Pliny and Strabo record that Caesar Augustus sent "viverrae" from Libya to the Balearic Islands to control rabbit plagues there in 6 BC; it is speculated that "viverrae" could refer to ferrets, mongooses, or polecats.[3][41][42] In England, in 1390, a law was enacted restricting the use of ferrets for hunting to the relatively wealthy:

 

it is ordained that no manner of layman which hath not lands to the value of forty shillings a year shall from henceforth keep any greyhound or other dog to hunt, nor shall he use ferrets, nets, heys, harepipes nor cords, nor other engines for to take or destroy deer, hares, nor conies, nor other gentlemen's game, under pain of twelve months' imprisonment.[43]

 

Ferrets were first introduced into the American continents in the 17th century, and were used extensively from 1860 until the start of World War II to protect grain stores in the American West from rodents. They are still used for hunting in some countries, including the United Kingdom, where rabbits are considered a pest by farmers.[44] The practice is illegal in several countries where it is feared that ferrets could unbalance the ecology. In 2009 in Finland, where ferreting was previously unknown, the city of Helsinki began to use ferrets to restrict the city's rabbit population to a manageable level. Ferreting was chosen because in populated areas it is considered to be safer and less ecologically damaging than shooting the rabbits.

 

As pets

 

A ferret in a war dance jump

In the United States, ferrets were relatively rare pets until the 1980s. A government study by the California State Bird and Mammal Conservation Program estimated that by 1996 about 800,000 domestic ferrets were being kept as pets in the United States.[45]

 

Regulation

Australia: It is illegal to keep ferrets as pets in Queensland and the Northern Territory;[46] in the Australian Capital Territory a licence is required.[47]

Brazil: Ferrets are allowed only if they are given a microchip identification tag and sterilized.

New Zealand: It has been illegal to sell, distribute or breed ferrets in New Zealand since 2002 unless certain conditions are met.[48]

United States: Ferrets were once banned in many US states, but most of these laws were rescinded in the 1980s and 1990s as they became popular pets.

Illegal: Ferrets are illegal in California under Fish and Game Code Section 2118;[49] and the California Code of Regulations,[50] although it is not illegal for veterinarians in the state to treat ferrets kept as pets. "Ferrets are strictly prohibited as pets under Hawaii law because they are potential carriers of the rabies virus";[51] the territory of Puerto Rico has a similar law.[52] Ferrets are restricted by some municipalities, such as New York City,[52] which renewed its ban in 2015.[53][54] They are also prohibited on many military bases.[52] A permit to own a ferret is needed in other areas, including Rhode Island.[55] Illinois and Georgia do not require a permit to merely possess a ferret, but a permit is required to breed ferrets.[56][57] It was once illegal to own ferrets in Dallas, Texas,[58] but the current Dallas City Code for Animals includes regulations for the vaccination of ferrets.[59] Pet ferrets are legal in Wisconsin, however legality varies by municipality. The city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for example, classifies ferrets as a wild animal and subsequently prohibits them from being kept within the city limits. Also, an import permit from the state department of agriculture is required to bring one into the state.[60] Under common law, ferrets are deemed "wild animals" subject to strict liability for injuries they cause, but in several states statutory law has overruled the common law, deeming ferrets "domestic".[61]

Japan: In Hokkaido prefecture, ferrets must be registered with the local government.[62] In other prefectures, no restrictions apply.

Other uses

Ferrets are an important experimental animal model for human influenza,[63][64] and have been used to study the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) virus.[65] Smith, Andrews, Laidlaw (1933) inoculated ferrets intra-nasally with human naso-pharyngeal washes, which produced a form of influenza that spread to other cage mates. The human influenza virus (Influenza type A) was transmitted from an infected ferret to a junior investigator, from whom it was subsequently re-isolated.

 

Ferrets have been used in many broad areas of research, such as the study of pathogenesis and treatment in a variety of human disease, these including studies into cardiovascular disease, nutrition, respiratory diseases such as SARS and human influenza, airway physiology,[66] cystic fibrosis and gastrointestinal disease.

Because they share many anatomical and physiological features with humans, ferrets are extensively used as experimental subjects in biomedical research, in fields such as virology, reproductive physiology, anatomy, endocrinology and neuroscience.[67]

In the UK, ferret racing is often a feature of rural fairs or festivals, with people placing small bets on ferrets that run set routes through pipes and wire mesh. Although financial bets are placed, the event is primarily for entertainment purposes as opposed to 'serious' betting sports such as horse or greyhound racing.[68][69]

A very small experimental study of ferrets found that a nasal spray effectively blocked the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.[70]

Terminology and coloring

 

Typical ferret coloration, known as a sable or polecat-colored ferret

Most ferrets are either albinos, with white fur and pink eyes, or display the typical dark masked sable coloration of their wild polecat ancestors. In recent years fancy breeders have produced a wide variety of colors and patterns. Color refers to the color of the ferret's guard hairs, undercoat, eyes and nose; pattern refers to the concentration and distribution of color on the body, mask and nose, as well as white markings on the head or feet when present. Some national organizations, such as the American Ferret Association, have attempted to classify these variations in their showing standards.[71]

 

There are four basic colors. The sable (including chocolate and dark brown), albino, dark-eyed white (DEW, also known as black-eyed white or BEW) and silver. All the other colors of a ferret are variations on one of these four categories.

 

Waardenburg-like coloring

 

White or albino ferret

Ferrets with a white stripe on their face or a fully white head, primarily blazes, badgers and pandas, almost certainly carry a congenital defect which shares some similarities to Waardenburg syndrome. This causes, among other things, a cranial deformation in the womb which broadens the skull, white face markings, and also partial or total deafness. It is estimated as many as 75 percent of ferrets with these Waardenburg-like colorings are deaf.

 

White ferrets were favored in the Middle Ages for the ease in seeing them in thick undergrowth. Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with an Ermine is likely mislabelled; the animal is probably a ferret, not a stoat (for which "ermine" is an alternative name for the animal in its white winter coat). Similarly, the ermine portrait of Queen Elizabeth I shows her with her pet ferret, which has been decorated with painted-on heraldic ermine spots.

 

The Ferreter's Tapestry is a 15th-century tapestry from Burgundy, France, now part of the Burrell Collection housed in the Glasgow Museum and Art Galleries. It shows a group of peasants hunting rabbits with nets and white ferrets. This image was reproduced in Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400–1500, by Jacqueline Herald, Bell & Hyman.[72]

 

Gaston Phoebus' Book of the Hunt was written in approximately 1389 to explain how to hunt different kinds of animals, including how to use ferrets to hunt rabbits. Illustrations show how multicolored ferrets that were fitted with muzzles were used to chase rabbits out of their warrens and into waiting nets.

 

Import restrictions

Australia – Ferrets cannot be imported into Australia. A report drafted in August 2000 seems to be the only effort made to date to change the situation.[73]

Canada – Ferrets brought from anywhere except the US require a Permit to Import from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Animal Health Office. Ferrets from the US require only a vaccination certificate signed by a veterinarian. Ferrets under three months old are not subject to any import restrictions.[74]

European Union – As of July 2004, dogs, cats and ferrets can travel freely within the European Union under the pet passport scheme. To cross a border within the EU, ferrets require at minimum an EU PETS passport and an identification microchip (though some countries will accept a tattoo instead). Vaccinations are required; most countries require a rabies vaccine, and some require a distemper vaccine and treatment for ticks and fleas 24 to 48 hours before entry. Ferrets occasionally need to be quarantined before entering the country. PETS travel information is available from any EU veterinarian or on government websites.

New Zealand – New Zealand has banned the import of ferrets into the country.[75]

United Kingdom – The UK accepts ferrets under the EU's PETS travel scheme. Ferrets must be microchipped, vaccinated against rabies, and documented. They must be treated for ticks and tapeworms 24 to 48 hours before entry. They must also arrive via an authorized route. Ferrets arriving from outside the EU may be subject to a six-month quarantine

I also like jeans sagging! It's a "Nudie Average Joe - Dry Organic"

What is a koala?

 

The koala is a small bear-like, tree-dwelling, herbivorous marsupial which averages about 9kg (20lb) in weight. Its fur is thick and usually ash grey with a tinge of brown in places.

 

The koala gets its name from an ancient Aboriginal word meaning "no drink" because it receives over 90% of its hydration from the Eucalyptus leaves (also known as gum leaves) it eats, and only drinks when ill or times when there is not enough moisture in the leaves. ie during droughts etc.

 

The koala is the only mammal, other than the Greater Glider and Ringtail Possum, which can survive on a diet of eucalyptus leaves.

 

Habitat & Diet

 

'Habitat' refers to the types of bushland that koalas like to live in. They are found in a range of habitats, from coastal islands and tall eucalypt forests to low woodlands inland.

 

Koalas today are found in Queensland , New South Wales , Victoria and South Australia . Their range extends from the Atherton Tableland west of Cairns in Qld to islands off the coast of Victoria and South Australia in the south, and west to central and western Qld, NSW and Victoria.

 

Koalas live in societies, just like humans, so they need to be able to come into contact with other koalas. It is because of this they need to have areas of suitable eucalypt forest which are large enough to support a healthy koala population and to allow for expansion by maturing young koalas. Koalas are highly territorial and in stable breeding groups, individual members of koala society maintain their own "home range" areas.

The Koala is well suited to life in the trees. The koala has an excellent sense of balance and its body is lean and muscular and its quite long, strong limbs support its weight when climbing. The arms and legs are nearly equal in length and the koala's climbing strength comes from the thigh muscle joining the shin much lower than in other animals.

 

Its paws are especially adapted for gripping and climbing with rough pads on the palms and soles helping it to grip tree trunks and branches. Both front and hind paws have long sharp claws and each paw has five digits. On the front paw, two fingers are opposed to the other three, rather like a human's thumb, so they are able to be moved in opposition to the fingers. This allows the koala to grip more securely. On the hind paw, there is no claw on the big toe, and the second and third toes are fused together to form a 'grooming claw'.

 

Koalas have a thick woolly fur which protects them from both high and low temperatures.It also acts like a 'raincoat' to repel moisture when it rains. The fur varies in colour from light grey to brown, with patches of white on the chest and neck, inside arms and legs and inside the ears. Mature males are recognisable by the brown 'scent gland' in the centre of their white chest.

 

The fur on the koala's bottom is densely packed to provide a 'cushion' for the hard branches it sits on, and has a 'speckled' appearance which makes koalas hard to spot from the ground.

 

An adult male koala can weigh between 8 and 14 kilograms and a female between 6 and 11 kilograms, with the heavier animals coming from the southern areas where they have adapted to the colder climate by an increase in body weight and thicker fur. If you see Koalas in Queensland, they look noticably smaller than Koalas from Victoria.

 

Koalas are mostly nocturnal animals and they are most active during the night and at dawn and dusk. This is because in the cooler hours they are less likely to lose precious moisture and energy than they would during the hotter daylight hours. An average of eighteen to twenty hours each day are spent resting and sleeping, and the remainder for feeding, moving around, grooming and social interaction.

 

The Koala's nose is one of its most important features, and it has a very highly developed sense of smell. This is necessary to differentiate between types of gum leaves and to detect whether the leaves are poisonous or not.

Some students in one of my graduate classes had problems understanding a printed evaluation scale. Well, the Word document did mangle the formatting. Effortlessly uploaded by Eye-Fi

The Transfăgărăşan (trans (over, across) + Făgăraş) or DN7C is the most dramatic and second-highest paved road in Romania. Built as a strategic military route, the 90 km of twists and turns run north to south across the tallest sections of the Southern Carpathians, between the highest peak in the country, Moldoveanu, and the second highest, Negoiu. The road connects the historic regions of Transylvania and Wallachia, and the cities of Sibiu and Piteşti.

The road was constructed between 1970 and 1974, during the rule of Nicolae Ceauşescu. It came as a response to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. Ceauşescu wanted to ensure quick military access across the mountains in the event the Soviets attempted a similar move into Romania. Consequently, the road was built mainly with military forces, at a high cost both financially and from a human standpoint—roughly 6 million kilograms of dynamite were used on the northern face, and the official records mention that about 40 soldiers lost their lives in building accidents

The road climbs to 2,034 metres altitude. The most spectacular route is from the North. It is a winding road, dotted with steep hairpin turns, long S-curves, and sharp descents. The Transfăgărăşan is both an attraction and a challenge for hikers, cyclists, drivers and motorcycle enthusiasts alike. Due to the topography, the average speed is around 40 km/h. The road also provides access to Bâlea Lake and Bâlea Waterfall.

 Eduard Wichner's most interesting photos on Flickriver

Centaurea cyanus, commonly known as cornflower or bachelor's button, is an annual flowering plant in the family Asteraceae native to Europe. In the past, it often grew as a weed in cornfields (in the broad sense of "corn", referring to grains, such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats), hence its name. It is now endangered in its native habitat by agricultural intensification, particularly by over-use of herbicides. However, Centaurea cyanus is now also naturalised in many other parts of the world, including North America and parts of Australia through introduction as an ornamental plant in gardens and as a seed contaminant in crop seeds.

 

Description

Centaurea cyanus is an annual plant growing to 40–90 cm tall, with grey-green branched stems. The leaves are lanceolate and 1–4 cm long. The flowers are most commonly an intense blue colour and arranged in flowerheads (capitula) of 1.5–3 cm diameter, with a ring of a few large, spreading ray florets surrounding a central cluster of disc florets. The blue pigment is protocyanin, which in roses is red. Fruits are approx. 3.5 mm long with 2–3 mm long pappus bristles. It flowers all summer.

 

Distribution

Centaurea cyanus is native to temperate Europe, but is widely naturalized outside its native range.

 

It has been present in Britain and Ireland as an archaeophyte (ancient introduction) since the Iron Age. In the United Kingdom, it has declined from 264 sites to just 3 sites in the last 50 years.

 

In reaction to this, the conservation charity Plantlife named it as one of 101 species it would actively work to bring 'back from the brink'.

 

In the County Clare (VC H9) in Ireland, Centaurea cyanus is recorded in arable fields as very rare and almost extinct, while in the North-East of Ireland, it was abundant before the 1930s.

 

Genetics and breeding

Centaurea cyanus is a diploid flower (2n = 24). The genetic diversity within populations is high, although there could be a future decline in diversity due to population fragmentation and intensive agriculture. In general, Centaurea cyanus is a self-incompatible species. However, selfing still occurs occasionally, but results in inbreeding depression.

 

Cultivars

Several cultivars of Centaurea cyanus with varying pastel colours, including pink and purple, have been selected for ornamental purposes. The species is also grown for the cut flower industry in Canada for use by florists. Doubled blue cultivars (such as 'Blue Boy' or 'Blue Diadem') are most commonly used for this purpose, but white, pink, lavender and black (actually a very dark maroon) cultivars are also used, albeit to a lesser extent.

 

Breeding goals

As for all ornamental plants, important goals of Centaurea cyanus breeding include the induction of phenotypic variation (e.g. in flower coloration, size and shape, foliage characteristics or plant height), higher flower yield, resistance to pests and diseases as well as tolerance to abiotic stress (e.g., extreme temperatures, drought or salinity).

 

Ecology

Weed in arable crops

Centaurea cyanus is considered a noxious weed in arable crops, especially cereals and rapeseed. In winter wheat, one plant per m2 can cause a yield loss of up to 30 kg / ha. Centaurea cyanus produces around 800 seed per plant, which are either shed shortly before the harvest of cereals, or they are threshed together with the cereal grains, contributing to the further spread of the species by the harvesting machinery and contaminated seed. The occurrence of Centaurea cyanus strongly decreased during the last decades due to improved seed cleaning, more intensive nitrogen fertilization and herbicide use. However, Centaurea cyanus has become more common in cropland due to an increase in crop rotations dominated by winter cereals and rapeseed and the use of more selective herbicides with a low effectiveness against Centaurea cyanus. In addition, the emergence of resistance against the herbicide class of sulfonylureas has been reported recently. Due to its strong roots, Centaurea cyanus is difficult to control mechanically in spring.

 

Fodder for insects and birds

The pollen of Centaurea cyanus is used by several different insect species. Insects of the orders Hymenoptera and Diptera are particularly attracted by the flower. As Centaurea cyanus is a self-incompatible species, it needs external pollination. The nectar of Centaurea cyanus is very sweet with a sugar content of 34%. Due to its high sugar production of up to 0.2 mg sugar per day and flower, the species is highly appreciated by beekeepers.

 

The seeds of Centaurea cyanus are one of the favourite foods of the European goldfinch.

 

Control of insect pests

Centaurea cyanus was found to produce volatiles attracting Microplitis mediator, which is a major parasitoid of the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae), which is the most important pest of cabbage (Brassica oleracea) in central Europe. Planting Centaurea cyanus in cabbage fields as a companion plant was thus suggested as an alternative to the widespread use of insecticides to control Mamestra brassicae. Field experiments showed that planting Centaurea cyanus in cabbage fields at a density of 1 plant / m2 can result in a significant increase in parasitation of Mamestra brassicae larvae, predation of Mamestra brassicae eggs (e.g. by carabid beetles or spiders) and ultimately cabbage yield.

 

Cultivation

Soil and climate requirements

Centaurea cyanus requires full sun and neutral (pH 6.6–7.5) to mildly alkaline (pH 7.6–7.8), moist and well-drained soil. However, Centaurea cyanus is quite tolerant to drought once established.

 

Sowing

For summer-blooming plants, sowing should be executed in late spring. In moderate climates, however, it is also possible to sow Centaurea cyanus in early fall. In this case, plants will already start to flower in the following spring. Recommended spacing between plants is approx. 20 to 30 cm. Centaurea cyanus can germinate from up to 10 cm depth, but the best result is obtained at 1 cm sowing depth. Germination occurs quickly after sowing.

 

Fertilization and cultural practices

High phosphorus fertilization in mid-summer will increase flower production. Mulching is recommended to prevent drying out of the soil and exposure of the root system to the sun.

 

Pests and diseases

In general, Centaurea cyanus is not very susceptible to pests and plant diseases. However, it may be affected by stem rot and stem rust if grown too tightly or by powdery mildew. Furthermore, aphids and leafhoppers can cause relevant damage to Centaurea cyanus.

 

Seed harvesting

Seeds are harvested either by hand or, in an agricultural setting, with a seed harvesting machine. On average there are 97,000 seeds in a pound of cornflower seeds.

 

Hand collecting can be time-consuming and yields are rather low.

 

A seed harvesting machine is more efficient than collecting the seeds by hand, but it is costly. The main principle of such a machine is that it brushes the ripe seeds off the plant and creates a cross flow fan action that generates sufficient air velocity to hold and gather the seeds into the seed bunker.

 

Pruning

Deadheading will encourage the plant to produce more blooms. Cornflowers are often used for ornamental purposes and by cutting them, up to their third leaves, they will produce more blooms and grow a bigger stem.

 

Uses

The flowers of Centaurea cyanus can be eaten raw, dried or cooked. Dried petals are used in foods, including in spices. Their main purpose is to add colour to food. There are cheeses or oils that contain raw petals. Petals can also be added to salads, drinks, or desserts for garnishing purposes in raw or dried form.

 

Beverages

Dried petals are also used in teas and other beverages. Blue cornflower petals are sometimes one of the ingredients in Lady Grey tea.

 

Ornamental use

Centaurea cyanus is used as an ornamental plant. There are varieties with blue, white, purple, pink or even black petals.

 

Pigment

The blue color of Centaurea cyanus is due to protocyanin, an anthocyanin pigment that is also found in roses. Different anthocyanins derived from Centaurea cyanus are used as natural additives in food products, such as yoghurts.

 

Medicinal purpose

Centaurea cyanus contains a wide range of pharmacologically active compounds, such as flavonoids, anthocyanins and aromatic acids. Especially the flower head finds application in herbal medicine, but leaves and seeds are also used for pharmacological purposes, albeit to a lesser extent.

 

In particular, extracts from the flower heads have anti-inflammatory properties used in the treatment of minor ocular inflammations. Antioxidant properties are high due to ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds. Furthermore, extracts of the flower head and vegetative parts of the plant were shown to have gastroprotective effects due to their content of quercetin, apigenin and caffeic acid derivates.

 

Phytoremediation

Centaurea cyanus has been evaluated for phytoremediation of soils contaminated with lead. Inoculation of the contaminated soil with Glomus spp. (fungus) and Pseudomonas spp. (bacterium) would significantly enhance the biomass production and lead uptake of Centaurea cyanus.

 

Folklore and symbolism

In folklore, cornflowers were worn by young men in love; if the flower faded too quickly, it was taken as a sign that the man's love was not returned. 

 

The blue cornflower was one of the national symbols of Germany. This is partly due to the story that when Queen Louise of Prussia was fleeing Berlin and pursued by Napoleon's forces, she hid her children in a field of cornflowers and kept them quiet by weaving wreaths for them from the flowers. The flower thus became identified with Prussia, not least because it was the same color as the Prussian military uniform. After the unification of Germany in 1871, it went on to become a symbol of the country as a whole. For this reason, in Austria the blue cornflower is a political symbol for pan-German and rightist ideas. It was worn as a secret symbol identifying members of the then-illegal NSDAP in Austria in the 1930s. Members of the Freedom Party wore it at the openings of the Austrian parliament since 2006. After the last general election 2017 they replaced it with the edelweiss.

 

It was also the favourite flower of Louise's son Kaiser Wilhelm I. Because of its ties to royalty, authors such as Theodor Fontane have used it symbolically, often sarcastically, to comment on the social and political climate of the time.

 

The cornflower is also often seen as an inspiration for the German Romantic symbol of the Blue Flower.

 

Due to its traditional association with Germany, the cornflower has been made the official symbol of the annual German-American Steuben Parade.

 

The blue cornflower has been the national flower of Estonia since 1969 and symbolizes daily bread to Estonians. It is also the symbol of the Estonian Conservative People's Party.

 

It is also the symbol of the Finnish National Coalition Party, and the Liberal People's Party of Sweden, where it has since the dawn of the 20th century been a symbol for social liberalism.

 

It is the official flower of the Swedish province of Östergötland and the school flower of Winchester College and also of Dulwich College, where it is said to have been the favourite flower of the founder, Edward Alleyn.

 

In France the bleuet de France is the symbol of the 11 November 1918 armistice and, as such, a common symbol for veterans (especially the now defunct poilus of World War I), similar to the Remembrance poppies worn in the United Kingdom and in Canada.

 

The cornflower is also the symbol for motor neurone disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

 

Cornflowers are sometimes worn by Old Harrovians, former pupils of the British Harrow School.

 

A blue cornflower was used by Corning Glass Works for the initial release of Corning Ware Pyroceram cookware. Its popularity in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia was so high that it became the symbol of Corning Glass Works.

Seoul – officially the Seoul Special City – is the capital and largest metropolis of the Republic of Korea (commonly known as South Korea), forming the heart of the Seoul Capital Area, which includes the surrounding Incheon metropolis and Gyeonggi province, the world's 16th largest city. It is home to over half of all South Koreans along with 678,102 international residents.

 

Situated on the Han River, Seoul's history stretches back more than two thousand years when it was founded in 18 BCE by Baekje, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. It continued as the capital of Korea under the Joseon Dynasty. The Seoul Capital Area contains five UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Changdeok Palace, Hwaseong Fortress, Jongmyo Shrine, Namhansanseong and the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty. Seoul is surrounded by mountains, the tallest being Mt. Bukhan, the world's most visited national park per square foot. Modern landmarks include the iconic N Seoul Tower, the gold-clad 63 Building, the neofuturistic Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Lotte World, the world's second largest indoor theme park, Moonlight Rainbow Fountain, the world's longest bridge fountain and the Sevit Floating Islands. The birthplace of K-pop and the Korean Wave, Seoul received over 10 million international visitors in 2014, making it the world's 9th most visited city and 4th largest earner in tourism.

 

Today, Seoul is considered a leading and rising global city, resulting from an economic boom called the Miracle on the Han River which transformed it to the world's 4th largest metropolitan economy with a GDP of US$845.9 billion in 2014 after Tokyo, New York City and Los Angeles. In 2015, it was rated Asia's most livable city with the second highest quality of life globally by Arcadis. A world leading technology hub centered on Gangnam and Digital Media City, the Seoul Capital Area boasts 15 Fortune Global 500 companies such as Samsung, the world's largest technology company, as well as LG and Hyundai-Kia. In 2014, the city's GDP per capita (PPP) of $39,786 was comparable to that of France and Finland. Ranked sixth in the Global Power City Index and Global Financial Centres Index, the metropolis exerts a major influence in global affairs as one of the five leading hosts of global conferences.

 

Seoul is the world's most wired city and ranked first in technology readiness by PwC's Cities of Opportunity report. It is served by the KTX high-speed rail and the Seoul Subway, providing 4G LTE, WiFi and DMB inside subway cars. Seoul is connected via AREX to Incheon International Airport, rated the world's best airport nine years in a row (2005–2013) by Airports Council International. Lotte World Tower, a 556-metre supertall skyscraper with 123 floors, has been built in Seoul and become the OECD's tallest in 2016, with the world's tallest art gallery. Its Lotte Cinema houses the world's largest cinema screen. Seoul's COEX Mall is the world's largest underground shopping mall.

 

Seoul hosted the 1986 Asian Games, 1988 Summer Olympics, 2002 FIFA World Cup, the Miss Universe 1980 pageant, and the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. A UNESCO City of Design, Seoul was named the 2010 World Design Capital.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The city has been known in the past by the names Wirye-seong (Hangul: 위례성; Hanja: 慰禮城, during the Baekje era), Hanju (Hangul: 한주; Hanja: 漢州, during the Silla era), Namgyeong (Hangul: 남경; Hanja: 南京, during the Goryeo era), Hanseong (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城, during both the Baekje and Joseon eras), Hanyang (Hangul: 한양; Hanja: 漢陽, during the Joseon era), Gyeongseong (京城, during the colonial era).

 

During Japan's annexation in Korea, "Hanseong" (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城) was renamed to "Keijō" (京城, or Template:Korean 한국, Gyeongseong) by the Imperial authorities to prevent confusion with the hanja '漢', as it also refers to the Han Chinese. In reality, the ancient name of Seoul, Hanseong (Hangul: 한성; Hanja: 漢城), originally had the meaning of "big" or "vast".

 

Its current name originated from the Korean word meaning "capital city," which is believed to be derived from the word Seorabeol (Hangul: 서라벌; Hanja: 徐羅伐), which originally referred to Gyeongju, the capital of Silla.

 

Unlike most place names in Korea, "Seoul" has no corresponding hanja (Chinese characters used in the Korean language). On January 18, 2005, Seoul government officially changed its official Chinese language name to Shou'er (simplified Chinese: 首尔; traditional Chinese: 首爾; pinyin: Shǒu'ěr) from the historic Hancheng (simplified Chinese: 汉城; traditional Chinese: 漢城; pinyin: Hànchéng), of which use is becoming less common.

 

HISTOY

Settlement of the Han River area, where present-day Seoul is located, began around 4000 BC.

 

Seoul is first recorded as Wiryeseong, the capital of Baekje (founded in 18 BC) in the northeastern Seoul area. There are several city walls remaining in the area that date from this time. Pungnaptoseong, an earthen wall just outside Seoul, is widely believed to have been at the main Wiryeseong site. As the Three Kingdoms competed for this strategic region, control passed from Baekje to Goguryeo in the 5th century, and from Goguryeo to Silla in the 6th century.

 

In the 11th century Goryeo, which succeeded Unified Silla, built a summer palace in Seoul, which was referred to as the "Southern Capital". It was only from this period that Seoul became a larger settlement. When Joseon replaced Goryeo, the capital was moved to Seoul (also known as Hanyang and later as Hanseong), where it remained until the fall of the dynasty. The Gyeongbok Palace, built in the 14th century, served as the royal residence until 1592. The other large palace, Changdeokgung, constructed in 1405, served as the main royal palace from 1611 to 1872.

 

Originally, the city was entirely surrounded by a massive circular stone wall to provide its citizens security from wild animals, thieves and attacks. The city has grown beyond those walls and although the wall no longer stands (except along Bugaksan Mountain (Hangul: 북악산; Hanja: 北岳山), north of the downtown area), the gates remain near the downtown district of Seoul, including most notably Sungnyemun (commonly known as Namdaemun) and Heunginjimun (commonly known as Dongdaemun). During the Joseon dynasty, the gates were opened and closed each day, accompanied by the ringing of large bells at the Bosingak belfry. In the late 19th century, after hundreds of years of isolation, Seoul opened its gates to foreigners and began to modernize. Seoul became the first city in East Asia to introduce electricity in the royal palace, built by the Edison Illuminating Company and a decade later Seoul also implemented electrical street lights.

 

Much of the development was due to trade with foreign countries like France and United States. For example, the Seoul Electric Company, Seoul Electric Trolley Company, and Seoul Fresh Spring Water Company were all joint Korean–American owned enterprises. In 1904, an American by the name of Angus Hamilton visited the city and said, "The streets of Seoul are magnificent, spacious, clean, admirably made and well-drained. The narrow, dirty lanes have been widened, gutters have been covered, roadways broadened. Seoul is within measurable distance of becoming the highest, most interesting and cleanest city in the East.

"After the annexation treaty in 1910, the Empire of Japan annexed Korea and renamed the city Gyeongseong ("Kyongsong" in Korean and "Keijo" in Japanese). Japanese technology was imported, the city walls were removed, some of the gates demolished. Roads became paved and Western-style buildings were constructed. The city was liberated at the end of World War II.

 

In 1945, the city was officially named Seoul, and was designated as a special city in 1949.

 

During the Korean War, Seoul changed hands between the Russian/Chinese-backed North Korean forces and the American-backed South Korean forces several times, leaving the city heavily damaged after the war. The capital was temporarily relocated to Busan. One estimate of the extensive damage states that after the war, at least 191,000 buildings, 55,000 houses, and 1,000 factories lay in ruins. In addition, a flood of refugees had entered Seoul during the war, swelling the population of the city and its metropolitan area to an estimated 1.5 million by 1955.

 

Following the war, Seoul began to focus on reconstruction and modernization. As Korea's economy started to grow rapidly from the 1960s, urbanization also accelerated and workers began to move to Seoul and other larger cities. From the 1970s, the size of Seoul administrative area greatly expanded as it annexed a number of towns and villages from several surrounding counties.

 

According to 2012 census data, the population of the Seoul area makes up around 20% of the total population of South Korea, Seoul has become the economic, political and cultural hub of the country, with several Fortune Global 500 companies, including Samsung, SK Holdings, Hyundai, POSCO and LG Group headquartered there.

 

Seoul was the host city of the 1986 Asian Games and 1988 Summer Olympics as well as one of the venues of the Football World Cup 2002.

 

GEOGRAPHY

Seoul is in the northwest of South Korea. Seoul proper comprises 605.25 km2, with a radius of approximately 15 km, roughly bisected into northern and southern halves by the Han River. The Han River and its surrounding area played an important role in Korean history. The Three Kingdoms of Korea strove to take control of this land, where the river was used as a trade route to China (via the Yellow Sea). The river is no longer actively used for navigation, because its estuary is located at the borders of the two Koreas, with civilian entry barred. Historically, the city was during the Joseon Dynasty bounded by the Seoul Fortress Wall, which stretched between the four main mountains in central Seoul: Namsan, Naksan, Bukaksan and Inwangsan. The city is bordered by eight mountains, as well as the more level lands of the Han River plain and western areas. Due to its geography and to economic development policies, Seoul is a very polycentric city. The area that was the old capital in the Joseon Dynasty, and mostly comprises Jongno District and Jung District, constitutes the historical and political center of the city. However, for example, the city's financial capital is widely considered to be in Yeouido, while its economic capital is Gangnam District.

 

CLIMATE

Seoul is either classified as a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), using the −3 °C isotherm of the original Köppen scheme, or a humid continental climate (Köppen Dwa), using the 0 °C isotherm preferred by some climatologists. Summers are generally hot and humid, with the East Asian monsoon taking place from June until September. August, the warmest month, has average high and low temperatures of 29.6 and 22.4 °C with higher temperatures possible. Winters are often cold to freezing with average January high and low temperatures of 1.5 and −5.9 °C and are generally much drier than summers, with an average of 28 days of snow annually. Sometimes, temperatures do drop dramatically to below −10.0 °C, in odd occasions rarely as low as −15.0 °C in the mid winter period between January and February.

  

ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS

Seoul is divided into 25 gu (Hangul: 구; Hanja: 區) (district). The gu vary greatly in area (from 10 to 47 km2) and population (from fewer than 140,000 to 630,000). Songpa has the most people, while Seocho has the largest area. The government of each gu handles many of the functions that are handled by city governments in other jurisdictions. Each gu is divided into "dong" (Hangul: 동; Hanja: 洞) or neighbourhoods. Some gu have only a few dong while others like Jongno District have a very large number of distinct neighbourhoods. Gu of Seoul consist of 423 administrative dongs (Hangul: 행정동) in total. Dong are also sub-divided into 13,787 tong (Hangul: 통; Hanja: 統), which are further divided into 102,796 ban in total.

 

DEMOGRAPHICS

Seoul proper is noted for its population density, which is almost twice that of New York and eight times greater than Rome. Its metropolitan area was the most densely populated in the OECD in Asia in 2012, and second worldwide after that of Paris. As of December 2013, the population was 10.14 million, in 2012, it was 10,442,426. As of the end of June 2011, 10.29 million Republic of Korea citizens lived in the city. This was a 24% decrease from the end of 2010. The population of Seoul has been dropping since the early 1990s, the reasons being the high costs of living and an aging population.

 

The number of foreigners living in Seoul is 255,501 in 2010 according to Seoul officials. As of June 2011, 281,780 foreigners were located in Seoul. Of them, 186,631 foreigners (66%) were Chinese citizens of Korean ancestry. This was an 8.84% increase from the end of 2010 and a 12.85% increase from June 2010. The next largest group was Chinese citizens who are not of Korean ethnicity; 29,901 of them resided in Seoul. The next highest group consisted of the 9,999 United States citizens who were not of Korean ancestry. The next highest group were the Republic of China (Taiwan) citizens, at 8,717.

 

The two major religions in Seoul are Christianity and Buddhism. Other religions include Muism (indigenous religion) and Confucianism. Seoul is home to one of the world's largest Christians congregations, Yoido Full Gospel Church , which has around 830,000 members. Seoul is home to the world's largest modern university founded by a Buddhist Order, Dongguk University. Other Christian faiths like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) maintains a presence in the city.

 

ECONOMY

Seoul is the business and financial hub of South Korea. Although it accounts for only 0.6 percent of the nation's land area, 48.3 percent of South Korea's bank deposits were held in Seoul in 2003, and the city generated 23 percent of the country's GDP overall in 2012. In 2008 the Worldwide Centers of Commerce Index ranked Seoul No.9. The Global Financial Centres Index in 2015 listed Seoul as the 6th financially most competitive city in the world. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Seoul 15th in the list of "Overall 2025 City Competitiveness" regarding future competitiveness of cities.

 

MANUFACTURING

The traditional, labour-intensive manufacturing industries have been continuously replaced by information technology, electronics and assembly-type of industries; however, food and beverage production, as well as printing and publishing remained among the core industries. Major manufacturers are headquartered in the city, including Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia and SK. Notable food and beverage companies include Jinro, whose soju is the most sold alcoholic drink in the world, beating out Smirnoff vodka; top selling beer producers Hite (merged with Jinro) and Oriental Brewery. It also hosts food giants like Seoul Dairy Cooperative, Nongshim Group, Ottogi, CJ, Orion, Maeil Dairy, Namyang dairy and Lotte.

 

FINANCE

Seoul hosts large concentration of headquarters of International companies and banks, including 15 companies on fortune 500 list such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai. Most bank headquarters and the Korea Exchange are located in Yeouido (Yeoui island), which is often called "Korea's Wall Street" and has been serving as the financial center of the city since the 1980s. The Seoul international finance center & SIFC MALL, Hanhwa 63 building, the Hanhwa insurance company head office. Hanhwa is one of the three largest Korean insurance companies, along with Samsung Life and Gangnam & Kyob life insurance group.

 

COMMERCE

The largest wholesale and retail market in South Korea, the Dongdaemun Market, is located in Seoul. Myeongdong is a shopping and entertainment area in downtown Seoul with mid- to high-end stores, fashion boutiques and international brand outlets. The nearby Namdaemun Market, named after the Namdaemun Gate, is the oldest continually running market in Seoul.

 

Insadong is the cultural art market of Seoul, where traditional and modern Korean artworks, such as paintings, sculptures and calligraphy are sold. Hwanghak-dong Flea Market and Janganpyeong Antique Market also offer antique products. Some shops for local designers have opened in Samcheong-dong, where numerous small art galleries are located. Itaewon caters mainly to foreign tourists and American soldiers based in the city. The Gangnam district is one of the most affluent areas in Seoul and is noted for the fashionable and upscale Apgujeong-dong and Cheongdam-dong areas and the COEX Mall. Wholesale markets include Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market and Garak Market.

 

The Yongsan Electronics Market is the largest electronics market in Asia. Electronics markets are Gangbyeon station metro line 2 Techno mart, ENTER6 MALL & Shindorim station Technomart mall complex.

 

Times Square is one of Seoul's largest shopping malls featuring the CGV Starium, the world's largest permanent 35 mm cinema screen.

 

KOREA WORLD TRADE CENTER COMPLEX which comprises COEX mall, congress center, 3 Inter-continental hotels, Business tower (Asem tower), Residence hotel,Casino and City airport terminal was established in 1988 Seoul Olympic . 2nd World trade trade center is planning at Seoul Olympic stadium complex as MICE HUB by Seoul city. Ex-Kepco head office building was purchased by Hyundai motor group with 9billion USD to build 115-storey Hyundai GBC & hotel complex until 2021. Now ex-kepco 25-storey building is under demolition.

 

ARCHITECTURE

The traditional heart of Seoul is the old Joseon Dynasty city, now the downtown area, where most palaces, government offices, corporate headquarters, hotels, and traditional markets are located. Cheonggyecheon, a stream that runs from west to east through the valley before emptying into the Han River, was for many years covered with concrete, but was recently restored by an urban revival project in 2005. Jongno street, meaning "Bell Street," has been a principal street and one of the earliest commercial steets of the city, on which one can find Bosingak, a pavilion containing a large bell. The bell signaled the different times of the day and controlled the four major gates to the city. North of downtown is Bukhan Mountain, and to the south is the smaller Namsan. Further south are the old suburbs, Yongsan District and Mapo District. Across the Han River are the newer and wealthier areas of Gangnam District, Seocho District and surrounding neighborhoods.

 

HISTORICAL ARCHITECTURE

Seoul has many historical and cultural landmarks. In Amsa-dong Prehistoric Settlement Site, Gangdong District, neolithic remains were excavated and accidentally discovered by a flood in 1925.

 

Urban and civil planning was a key concept when Seoul was first designed to serve as a capital in the late 14th century. The Joseon Dynasty built the "Five Grand Palaces" in Seoul – Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung, Gyeongbokgung and Gyeonghuigung – all of which are located in the district of Jongno District and Jung District. Among them, Changdeokgung was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1997 as an "outstanding example of Far Eastern palace architecture and garden design". The main palace, Gyeongbokgung, underwent a large-scale restoration project. The palaces are considered exemplary architecture of the Joseon period. Beside the palaces, Unhyeongung is known for being the royal residence of Regent Daewongun, the father of Emperor Gojong at the end of the Joseon Dynasty.

 

Seoul has been surrounded by walls that were built to regulate visitors from other regions and protect the city in case of an invasion. Pungnap Toseong is a flat earthen wall built at the edge of the Han River which is widely believed to be the site of Wiryeseong. Mongchon Toseong (Hangul: 몽촌토성; Hanja: 蒙村土城) is another earthen wall built during the Baekje period which is now located inside the Olympic Park. The Fortress Wall of Seoul was built early in the Joseon Dynasty for protection of the city. After many centuries of destruction and rebuilding, approximately ⅔ of the wall remains, as well as six of the original eight gates. These gates include Sungnyemun and Heunginjimun, commonly known as Namdaemun (South Great Gate) and Dongdaemun (East Great Gate). Namdaemun was the oldest wooden gate until a 2008 arson attack, and was re-opened after complete restoration in 2013. Situated near the gates are the traditional markets and largest shopping center, Namdaemun Market and Dongdaemun Market.

 

There are also many buildings constructed with international styles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Independence Gate was built in 1897 to inspire an independent spirit. Seoul Station was opened in 1900 as Gyeongseong Station.

 

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Various high-rise office buildings and residential buildings, like the Gangnam Finance Center, the Tower Palace, N Seoul Tower and Jongno Tower, dominate the city's skyline. A series of new high rises are under construction, including the Lotte World Tower, scheduled to be completed by 2016. As of July 2016, and excluding the still unopened Lotte World Tower, the tallest building in the city is the 279-metre-high Three International Finance Center.

 

The World Trade Center Seoul, located in Gangnam District, hosts various expositions and conferences. Also in Gangnam District is the COEX Mall, a large indoor shopping and entertainment complex. Downstream from Gangnam District is Yeouido, an island that is home to the National Assembly, major broadcasting studios, and a number of large office buildings, as well as the Korea Finance Building and the Yoido Full Gospel Church. The Olympic Stadium, Olympic Park, and Lotte World are located in Songpa District, on the south side of the Han River, upstream from Gangnam District. Two new modern landmarks of Seoul are Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park, designed by Zaha Hadid, and the new wave-shaped Seoul City Hall, by Yoo Kerl of iArc.

 

In 2010 Seoul was designated the World Design Capital for the year.

 

CULTURE

TECHNOLOGY

Seoul has a very technologically advanced infrastructure. It has the world's highest fibre-optic broadband penetration, resulting in the world's fastest internet connections with speeds up to 1 Gbps. Seoul provides free Wi-Fi access in outdoor spaces. This 47.7 billion won ($44 million) project will give residents and visitors Internet access at 10,430 parks, streets and other public places by 2015.

 

MUSEUMS

Seoul is home to 115 museums, including four national and nine official municipal museums. Amongst the city's national museum, The National Museum of Korea is the most representative of museums in not only Seoul but all of South Korea. Since its establishment in 1945, the museum has built a collection of 220,000 artifacts. In October 2005, the museum moved to a new building in Yongsan Family Park. The National Folk Museum is situated on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace in the district of Jongno District and uses replicas of historical objects to illustrate the folk history of the Korean people. The National Palace Museum of Korea is also located on the grounds of the Gyeongbokgung Palace. Finally, the Seoul branch of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, whose main museum is located in Gwacheon, opened in 2013, in Sogyeok-dong.

 

Bukchon Hanok Village and Namsangol Hanok Village are old residential districts consisting of hanok Korean traditional houses, parks, and museums that allows visitors to experience traditional Korean culture.

 

The War Memorial, one of nine municipal museums in Seoul, offers visitors an educational and emotional experience of various wars in which Korea was involved, including Korean War themes. The Seodaemun Prison is a former prison built during the Japanese occupation, and is currently used as a historic museum.The Seoul Museum of Art and Ilmin Museum of Art have preserved the appearance of the old building that is visually unique from the neighboring tall, modern buildings. The former is operated by Seoul City Council and sits adjacent to Gyeonghuigung Palace, a Joseon dynasty royal palace. Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, is widely regarded as one of Seoul's largest private museum. For many Korean film lovers from all over the world, the Korean Film Archive is running the Korean Film Museum and Cinematheque KOFA in its main center located in Digital Media City (DMC), Sangam-dong. The Tteok & Kitchen Utensil Museum and Kimchi Field Museum provide information regarding Korean culinary history.

 

RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS

There are also religious buildings that take important roles in Korean society and politics. The Wongudan altar was a sacrificial place where Korean rulers held heavenly rituals since the Three Kingdoms period. Since the Joseon Dynasty adopted Confucianism as its national ideology in the 14th century, the state built many Confucian shrines. The descendants of the Joseon royal family still continue to hold ceremonies to commemorate ancestors at Jongmyo. It is the oldest royal Confucian shrine preserved and the ritual ceremonies continue a tradition established in the 14th century. Munmyo and Dongmyo were built during the same period. Although Buddhism was suppressed by the Joseon state, it has continued its existence. Jogyesa is the headquarters of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism. Hwagyesa and Bongeunsa are also major Buddhist temples in Seoul.

 

The Myeongdong Cathedral is a landmark of the Myeongdong, Jung District and the biggest Catholic church established in 1883. It is a symbol of Catholicism in Korea. It was also a focus for political dissent in the 1980s. In this way the Roman Catholic Church has a very strong influence in Korean society.

 

There are many Protestant churches in Seoul. The most numerous are Presbyterian, but there are also many Methodist, Baptist, and Lutheran churches. Yoido Full Gospel Church is a Pentecostal church affiliated with the Assemblies of God on Yeouido in Seoul. With approximately 830,000 members (2007), it is the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in the world, which has been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records.

 

FESTIVALS

In October 2012 KBS Hall in Seoul hosted major international music festivals – First ABU TV and Radio Song Festivals within frameworks of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union 49th General Assembly. Hi! Seoul Festival is a seasonal cultural festival held four times a year every spring, summer, autumn, and winter in Seoul, South Korea since 2003. It is based on the "Seoul Citizens' Day" held on every October since 1994 to commemorate the 600 years history of Seoul as the capital of the country. The festival is arranged under the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As of 2012, Seoul has hosted Ultra Music Festival Korea, an annual dance music festival that takes place on the 2nd weekend of June.

 

TRANSPORTATION

Seoul features one of the world's most advanced transportation infrastructures that is constantly under expansion. Its system dates back to the era of the Korean Empire, when the first streetcar lines were laid and a railroad linking Seoul and Incheon was completed. Seoul's most important streetcar line ran along Jongno until it was replaced by Line 1 of the subway system in the early 1970s. Other notable streets in downtown Seoul include Euljiro, Teheranno, Sejongno, Chungmuro, Yulgongno, and Toegyero. There are nine major subway lines stretching for more than 250 km, with one additional line planned. As of 2010, 25% of the population has a commute time of an hour or more.

 

BUS

Seoul's bus system is operated by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (S.M.G.), with four primary bus configurations available servicing most of the city. Seoul has many large intercity/express bus terminals. These buses connect Seoul with cities throughout South Korea. The Seoul Express Bus Terminal, Central City Terminal and Seoul Nambu Terminal are located in the district of Seocho District. In addition, East Seoul Bus Terminal in Gwangjin District and Sangbong Terminal in Jungnang District operate in the east of the city.

 

SUBWAY

Seoul has a comprehensive urban railway network that interconnects every district of the city and the surrounding areas. With more than 8 million passengers per day, Seoul has one of the busiest subway systems in the world. The Seoul Metropolitan Subway has 19 total lines which serve Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi province, western Gangwon province, and northern Chungnam province. In addition, in order to cope with the various modes of transport, Seoul's metropolitan government employs several mathematicians to coordinate the subway, bus, and traffic schedules into one timetable. The various lines are run by Korail, Seoul Metro, Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation, NeoTrans Co. Ltd., AREX, and Seoul Metro Line 9 Corporation.

 

TRAIN

Seoul is connected to every major city in South Korea by rail. Seoul is also linked to most major South Korean cities by the KTX high-speed train, which has a normal operation speed of more than 300 km/h. Major railroad stations include:

 

Seoul Station, Yongsan District: Gyeongbu line (KTX/Saemaul/Mugunghwa-ho), Gyeongui line (Saemaul/Commuter)

Yongsan Station, Yongsan District: Honam line (KTX/Saemaul/Mugunghwa), Jeolla/Janghang lines (Saemaul/Mugunghwa)

Yeongdeungpo Station, Yeongdeungpo District: Gyeongbu/Honam/Janghang lines (Saemaul/Mugunghwa)

Cheongnyangni Station, Dongdaemun District: Gyeongchun/Jungang/Yeongdong/Taebaek lines (Mugunghwa)

 

In addition, Suseo Station,in Gangnam District, is scheduled to open in late 2016, and offer KTX service on the newly built Suseo High Speed Railway.

 

AIRPORTS

Two international airports serve Seoul. Gimpo International Airport, formerly in Gimpo but annexed to Seoul in 1963, was for many years (since its original construction during the Korean War) the only international airport serving Seoul. Other domestic airports were also built around the time of the war, including Yeouido.

 

When it opened in March 2001, Incheon International Airport on Yeongjong island in Incheon changed the role of Gimpo Airport significantly. Incheon is now responsible for almost all international flights and some domestic flights, while Gimpo serves only domestic flights with the exception of flights to Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Osaka Kansai International Airport, Taipei Songshan Airport in Taipei, Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai, and Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing. This has led to a significant drop in flights from Gimpo Airport, though it remains one of South Korea's busiest airports.

 

Meanwhile, Incheon International Airport has become, along with Hong Kong, a major transportation center for East Asia.

 

Incheon and Gimpo are linked to Seoul by highways, and to each other by the Incheon International Airport Railroad, which is also linked to Incheon line #1. Gimpo is also linked by subway (line No. 5 and #9). The Incheon International Airport Railroad, connecting the airport directly to Seoul Station in central Seoul, was recently opened. Shuttle buses also transfer passengers between Incheon and Gimpo airports.

 

CYCLING

Cycling is becoming increasingly popular in Seoul and in the entire country. Both banks of the Han River have cycling paths that run all the way across the city along the river. In addition, Seoul introduced in 2015 a bicycle-sharing system named Ddareungi.

 

EDUCATION

UNICERSITIES

Seoul is home to the majority of South Korea's most prestigious universities, including Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, Sogang University, Hanyang University, Chung-Ang University, Ewha Womans University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Hongik University, Kyung Hee University, Soongsil University, Sookmyung Women's University, Korea Military Academy, and the University of Seoul.

 

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Education from grades 1–12 is compulsory. Students spend six years in elementary school, three years in middle school, and three years in high school. Secondary schools generally require that the students wear uniforms. There is an exit exam for graduating from high school and many students proceeding to the university level are required to take the College Scholastic Ability Test that is held every November. Although there is a test for non-high school graduates, called school qualification exam, most of Koreans take the test

 

Seoul is home to various specialized schools, including three science high schools (Hansung Science High School, Sejong Science High School and Seoul Science High School), and six foreign language High Schools (Daewon Foreign Language High School, Daeil Foreign Language High School, Ewha Girls' Foreign Language High School, Hanyoung Foreign Language High School, Myungduk Foreign Language High School and Seoul Foreign Language High School). Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education comprises 235 College-Preparatory High Schools, 80 Vocational Schools, 377 Middle Schools, and 33 Special Education Schools as of 2009.

 

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Seoul is a member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

 

WIKIPEDIA

So I wanted some extra batteries for the Sony A7II and found a seller that had two Exc condition original Sony batteries for $25 each. Original Sony NP-FW50 batteries still sell new for $60, so I thought $25 was fair.

Then two days later I see MPB has two of the same Sony batteries listed, one is Ex for $3, and the other is Like New for $4

How could I pass them up? When you dollar cost average them, the four batteries cost me $14.25 each, still not too bad.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rencontres d'Arles

The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles) is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette.

 

The Rencontres d’Arles has an international impact by showing material that has never been seen by the public before. In 2015, the festival welcomed 93,000 visitors.

 

The specially designed exhibitions, often organised in collaboration with French and foreign museums and institutions, take place in various historic sites. Some venues, such as 12th-century chapels or 19th-century industrial buildings, are open to the public throughout the festival.

 

The Rencontres d’Arles has revealed many photographers, confirming its significance as a springboard for photography and contemporary creativity.

 

In recent years the Rencontres d’Arles has invited many guest curators and entrusted some of its programming to such figures as Martin Parr in 2004, Raymond Depardon in 2006 and the Arles-born fashion designer Christian Lacroix.

Contents

 

1 Art directors

2 The festival

3 The Rencontres d'Arles award winners

4 Exhibitions

5 References

6 External links

 

Art directors

A photographer, Jean-Pierre Sudre, discussing his work, Rencontres d'Arles, 1975

 

1970 - 1972: Lucien Clergue, Michel Tournier, Jean-Maurice Rouquette

1973 - 1976: Lucien Clergue

1977: Bernard Perrine

1978: Jacques Manachem

1979 - 1982: Alain Desvergnes (fr)

1983 - 1985: Lucien Clergue

1986 - 1987: François Hébel

1988 - 1989: Claude Hudelot (fr)

1990: Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr

1991 - 1993: Louis Mesplé (fr)

1994: Lucien Clergue

1995 - 1998, délégué général: Bernard Millet (fr)

1995, artistic director: Michel Nuridsany (fr)

1996, artistic director: Joan Fontcuberta

1997, artistic director: Christian Caujolle (fr)

1998, artistic director: Giovanna Calvenzi

1999 - 2001: Gilles Mora (fr)

2002 - 2014: François Hébel

Since 2015: Sam Stourdzé (fr)

 

The festival

A photography exhibition, Rencontres d'Arles, 2010

Events

 

Opening week at the Rencontres d’Arles features photography-focused events (projections at night, exhibition tours, panel discussions, symposia, parties, book signings, etc.) in the town’s historic venues, some of which are only open to the public during the festival. Memorable events in recent years include Europe Night (2008), an overview of European photography; Christian Lacroix’s fashion show for the festival’s closing (2008); and Patti Smith’s concert for the Vu agency’s 20th anniversary (2006).

Nights at the Roman Theatre

 

At night, work by a photographer or a photography expert is projected in the town’s open-air Roman theatre accompanied by concerts and performances. Each event is a one-off creation. In 2009, 8,500 people attended evenings at the Roman theatre, an average of 2,000 a night, and 2,500 were there on closing night, when the Tiger Lilies played during a projection of Nan Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency”. In 2013 over 6,000 people attended the nighttime photography projections, an average of approximately 1,000 each night.

The Night of the Year

 

The Night of the Year, which was created in 2006, allows visitors to walk around and see the festival’s favourite works by artists and photographers as well as carte blanche exhibitions by institutions.

Cosmos-Arles Books

 

Cosmos-Arles Books is a Rencontres d’Arles satellite event dedicated to new publishing practices.

 

Over the past 15 years large-scale photographic publications, self-published books, and ebooks have become essential media for experimentation by photographers and artists. They allow photography to be rediscovered as a means of expression and distribution, providing a rich terrain of expression for the art’s fundamentally hybrid forms.

Symposia and panel discussions

 

Photographers and professionals participating in symposia and panel discussions during opening week discuss their work or issues raised by the images on display. In recent years the themes included whether a black-and-white aesthetic is still conceivable in photography (2013); the impact of social networks on creativity and information (2011); breaking with past, a key idea for photography today (2009); photography commissions: freedom or constraint (2008); challenges and changes in the photography market (2007).

The Rencontres d’Arles awards

 

Since 2002 the Rencontres d’Arles awards have been an opportunity to discover new talents. In 2007 the number of annual awards was reduced to three, presented at the closing ceremony of the festival’s professional week: the Discovery Award (€25,000), Author’s Book Award (€8,000) and History Book Award (€8,000).

Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award

 

In 2015 the Rencontres d’Arles offered an award to assist with the publication of a dummy book. Endowed with a €25,000 budget production budget, this new prize is open to all photographers and artists using photography who submit a dummy book that has never been published.

 

The winner’s book will be produced in autumn 2015 and be presented at the 2016 Rencontres d’Arles.

Photo Folio Review & Gallery

 

Since 2006 aspiring photographers have been able to submit their portfolios to international photography experts in various fields, including publishers, exhibition curators, heads of institutions, agency directors, gallery owners, collectors, critics and photo editors, for appraisal during the festival’s opening week. Photo Folio Review & Gallery offers them an opportunity to show their work throughout the festival.

Photography classes

 

The Rencontres d’Arles has always been a place where professional photographers and practitioners on every level have been able to meet each other and exchange ideas. Each year, photography class participants undertake a personal journey of creation through photography’s aesthetic, ethical and technological issues. Leading photographers such as Guy le Querrec, Antoine d’Agata, Martin Parr, René Burri and Joan Fontcuberta regularly teach at the Rencontres d’Arles.

Rentrée en Images

 

“Rentrée en Images” has been a key part of the festival’s educational activities since 2004. During the first two weeks in September, special mediators take students from the primary to graduate school level on guided tours of the exhibitions. Based on the festival’s programming, the event aims to introduce young people to the visual arts and fits in with a wider policy of cultural democratisation. “Rentrée en Images” reaches thousands of students, and for many of them it is their first exposure to contemporary art.

Budget

 

Public funding accounted for 40% of the 2015 festival’s €6.3-million budget, sales (mainly of tickets and derivative products), 40% and private partnerships, 20%[clarification needed][citation needed].

Executive Committee

 

Hubert Védrine, president

Hervé Schiavetti, vice-president

Jean-François Dubos, vice-president

Marin Karmitz, treasurer

Françoise Nyssen, secretary

Lucien Clergue, Jean-Maurice Rouquette, Michel Tournier, founding members

 

The Rencontres d'Arles award winners

2002

 

Jury: Denis Curti, Alberto Anault, Alice Rose George, Manfred Heiting, Erik Kessels, Claudine Maugendre, Val Williams

Discovery Award: Peter Granser

No Limit award: Jacqueline Hassink

Dialogue of the humanity award: Tom Wood

Photographer of the year award: Roger Ballen

Help to the project: Pascal Aimar, Chris Shaw

Author’s Book Award: Sibusiso Mbhele and His Fish Helicopter by Koto Bolofo (powerHouse Books, 2002)

Help to publishing: Une histoire sans nom by Anne-Lise Broyer

 

2003

 

Jury: Giovanna Calvenzi, Hou Hanru, Christine Macel, Anna Lisa Milella, Urs Stahel

Discovery Award: Zijah Gafic

No Limit award: Thomas Demand

Dialogue of the humanity award: Fazal Sheikh

Photographer of the year award: Anders Petersen

Help to the project: Jitka Hanzlova

Author’s Book Award: Hide That Can by Deirdre O’Callaghan (Trolley Books, 2002)

Help to publishing: A Personal Diary of Chinese Avant-Garde in the 1990s, China (1993-1998) by Xing Danwen

 

2004

 

Jury: Eikoh Hosoe, Joan Fontcuberta, Tod Papageorge, Elaine Constantine, Antoine d’Agata

Discovery Award: Yasu Suzuka

No Limit award: Jonathan de Villiers

Dialogue of the humanity award: Edward Burtynsky

Help to the project: John Stathatos

Author’s Book Award: Particulars by David Goldblatt (Goodman Gallery, 2003)

 

2005

 

Jury: Ute Eskildsen, Jean-Louis Froment, Michel Mallard, Kathy Ryan, Marta Gili

Discovery Award: Miroslav Tichy

No Limit award: Mathieu Bernard-Reymond

Dialogue of the humanity award: Simon Norfolk

Help to the project: Anna Malagrida

Author’s Book Award: Temporary Discomfort (Chapter I-V) by Jules Spinatsch (Lars Müller Publishers, 2005)

 

2006

 

Jury: Vincent Lavoie, Abdoulaye Konaté, Yto Barrada, Marc-Olivier Wahler, Alain d’Hooghe

Discovery Award: Alessandra Sanguinetti

No Limit award: Randa Mirza

Dialogue of the humanity award: Wang Qingsong

Help to the project: Walid Raad

Author’s Book Award: Form aus Licht und Schatten by Heinz Hajek-Halke (Steidl, 2005)

 

2007

 

[1]

 

Jury: Bice Curiger, Alain Fleischer, Johan Sjöström, Thomas Weski, Anne Wilkes Tucker

Discovery Award: Laura Henno

Author’s Book Award: Empty Bottles by WassinkLundgren (Thijs groot Wassink and Ruben Lundgren) (Veenman Publishers, 2007)

Historical Book Award: László Moholy-Nagy: Color in Transparency: Photographic Experiments in Color, 1934–1946 by Jeannine Fiedler (Steidl & Bauhaus-Archiv, 2006)

 

2008

 

[2]

 

Jury: Elisabeth Biondi, Luis Venegas, Nathalie Ours, Caroline Issa and Massoud Golsorkhi, Carla Sozzani

Discovery Award: Pieter Hugo

Author’s Book Award: Strange and Singular by Michael Abrams (Loosestrife, 2007)

Historical Book Award: Nein, Onkel: Snapshots from Another Front 1938–1945 by Ed Jones and Timothy Prus (Archive of Modern Conflict, 2007)

 

2009

 

[3]

 

Jury: Lucien Clergue, Bernard Perrine, Alain Desvergnes, Claude Hudelot, Agnès de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Louis Mesplé, Bernard Millet, Michel Nuridsany, Joan Fontcuberta, Christian Caujolle, Giovanna Calvenzi, Martin Parr, Christian Lacroix, Arnaud Claass, Christian Milovanoff

Discovery Award: Rimaldas Viksraitis

Author’s Book Award: From Back Home by Anders Petersen and JH Engström (Bokförlaget Max Ström, 2009)

Historical Book Award: In History by Susan Meiselas (Steidl and International Center of Photography, 2008)

 

2010

 

[4] [5]

 

Discovery Award: Taryn Simon

LUMA award: Trisha Donnelly

Author’s Book Award: Photography 1965–74 by Yutaka Takanashi (Only Photograph, 2010)

Historical Book Award: Les livres de photographies japonais des années 1960 et 1970 by Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian (Seuil, 2009)

 

2011

 

[6] [7]

 

Discovery Award: Mikhael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse[8]

Author’s Book Award: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters by Taryn Simon (Mack, 2011)[8]

Historical Book Award: Works by Lewis Baltz (Steidl, 2010)[8]

 

2012

 

[9] [10] [11]

 

Discovery Award: Jonathan Torgovnik

Author’s Book Award: Redheaded Peckerwood by Christian Patterson (Mack, 2011)

Historical Book Award: Les livres de photographie d’Amérique latine by Horacio Fernández (Images en Manœuvres Éditions, 2011)

 

2013

 

Discovery Award: Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh and Rozenn Quéré

Author’s Book Award: Anticorps by Antoine d’Agata (Xavier Barral & Le Bal[disambiguation needed], 2013)[12]

Historical Book Award: AOI [COD.19.1.1.43] – A27 [S | COD.23 by Rosângela Rennó (Self-published, 2013)

 

2014

 

Discovery Award: Zhang Kechun

Author’s Book Award: Hidden Islam by Nicolo Degiorgis (Rorhof, 2014)

Historical Book Award: Paris mortel retouché by Johan van der Keuken (Van Zoetendaal Publishers, 2013)

 

2015

 

Discovery Award: Pauline Fargue

Author’s Book Award: H. said he loved us by Tommaso Tanini (Discipula Editions, 2014)

Historical Book Award: Monograph Vitas Luckus. Works & Biography by Margarita Matulytė and Tatjana Luckiene-Aldag (Kaunas Photography Gallery and Lithuanian Art Museum, 2014)

Dummy Book Award: The Jungle Book by Yann Gross

Photo Folio Review: Piero Martinelo (winner); Charlotte Abramow, Martin Essi, Elin Høyland, Laurent Kronenthal (special mentions)

 

2016

 

Discovery Award: Sarah Waiswa

Author’s Book Award: Taking Off. Henry My Neighbor by Mariken Wessels (Art Paper Editions, 2015)

Historical Book Award: (in matters of) Karl by Annette Behrens (Fw: Books, 2015)

Photo-Text Award: Negative Publicity: Artefacts of Extraordinary Rendition by Edmund Clark and Crofton Black (Aperture, 2015)

Dummy Book Award: You and Me: A project between Bosnia, Germany and the US by Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber

Photo Folio Review: David Fathi (winner); Sonja Hamad, Eric Leleu, Karolina Paatos, Maija Tammi (special mentions)

 

2017

 

[13]

 

Discovery Award: Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression

Author's Book Award: Ville de Calais by Henk Wildschut (self-published, 2017)

Special Mention for Author's Book Award: Gaza Works by Kent Klich (Koenig, 2017)

Historical Book Award: Latif Al Ani by Latif Al Ani (Hannibal Publishing, 2017)

Photo-Text Award: The Movement of Clouds around Mount Fuji by Masanao Abe and Helmut Völter (Spector Books, 2016)

Dummy Book Award: Grozny: Nine Cities by Olga Kravets, Maria Morina, and Oksana Yushko

Photo Folio Review: Aurore Valade (winner); Haley Morris Cafiero, Alexandra Lethbridge, Charlotte Abramow, Catherine Leutenegger (special mentions)

 

Exhibitions

1970

 

Gjon Mili, Edward Weston, ...

1971

 

Pedro Luis Raota, Charles Vaucher, Olivier Gagliani, Steve Soltar, Judy Dater, Jack Welpott, Gordon Bennett, John Weir, Linda Connor, Neal White, Jean-Claude Gautrand, Jean Rouet, Pierre Riehl, Roger Doloy, Georges Guilpin, Alain Perceval, Jean-Louis Viel, Jean-Luc Tartarin, Frédéric Barzilay, Jean-Claude Bernath, André Recoules, Etienne-Bertrand Weill, Rodolphe Proverbio, Jean Dieuzaide, Paul Caponigro, Jerry Uelsmann, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Rinaldo Prieri, Jean-Pierre Sudre, Denis Brihat, …

1972

 

Hiro, Lucien Clergue, Eugène Atget, Bruce Davidson, …

1973

 

Imogen Cunningham, Linda Connor, Judy Dater, Allan Porter, Paul Strand, Edward S. Curtis, …

1974

 

Brassaï, Ansel Adams, Georges A. Tice, …

1975

 

Agence Viva, André Kertész, Yousuf Karsh, Robert Doisneau, Lucien Clergue, Jean Dieuzaide, Ralph Gibson, Charles Harbutt, Tania Kaleya, Eva Rubinstein, Michel Saint Jean, Kishin Shinoyama, Hélène Théret, Georges Tourdjman, …

1976

 

Ernst Haas, Bill Brandt, Man Ray, Marc Riboud, Agence Magnum, Eikō Hosoe, Judy Dater, Jack Welpott, Doug Stewart, Duane Michals, Leslie Krims, Bob Mazzer, Horner, S. Sykes, David Hurn, Mary Ellen Mark, René Groebli, Guy Le Querrec, …

1977

 

Will Mac Bride, Paul Caponigro, Neal Slavin, Max Waldman, Dennis Stock, Josef Sudek, Harry Callahan, R. Benvenisti, P. Carroll, William Christenberry, S. Ciccone, W. Eggleston, R. Embrey, B. Evans, R. Gibson, D. Grégory, F. Horvat, W. Krupsan, W. Larson, U. Mark, J. Meyerowitz, S. Shore, N. Slavin, L. Sloan-Théodore, J. Sternfeld, R. Wol, …

1978

 

Lisette Model, Izis, William Klein, Hervé Gloaguen, Yan Le Goff, Serge Gal, Marc Tulane, Lionel Jullian, Alain Gualina, …

1979

 

David Burnett, Mary Ellen Mark, Jean-Pierre Laffont, Abbas, Pedro Meyer, Yves Jeanmougin, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, …

1980

 

Willy Ronis, Arnold Newman, Jay Maisel, Christian Vogt, Ben Fernandez, Julia Pirotte, …

1981

 

Guy Bourdin, Steve Hiett, Sarah Moon and Dan Weeks, Art Kane, Cheyco Leidman, André Martin, François Kollar, …

1982

 

Willy Zielke, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alexey Brodovitch, Robert Frank, William Klein, Max Pam, Bernard Plossu, …

1983

 

Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Davidson, …

1984

 

Jean Dieuzaide, Marilyn Bridges, Mario Giacomelli, Augusto De Luca, Joyce Tenneson, Luigi Ghirri, Albato Guatti, Mario Samarughi, Arman, Raoul Ubac, …

1985

 

David Hockney, Fritz Gruber, Franco Fontana, Milton Rogovin, Gilles Peress, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Eugene Richards, Sebastião Salgado, Robert Capa, Lucien Hervé, …

1986

 

Collection Graham Nash, Annie Leibovitz, Sebastião Salgado, Martin Parr, Robert Doisneau, Paulo Nozolino, Ugo Mulas, Bruce Gilden, Georges Rousse, Peter Knapp, Max Pam, Miguel Rio Branco, Michelle Debat, Andy Summers, Baron Wolman. …

1987

 

Brian Griffin, Dominique Issermann, Nan Goldin, Max Vadukul, Gabriele Basilico, Paul Graham, Thomas Florschuetz, Gianni Berengo Gardin, … Autres invités des Rencontres 88: Hans Namuth, Jean-Marc Tingaud, Mary Ellen Mark, Charles Camberoque, Martine Voyeux, Marie-Paule Nègre, Xavier Lambours, Patrick Zachmann, Jean-Marie Del Moral, Nittin Vadukul, Jean Larivière, Bruce Weber, Germaine Krull, Jean-Paul Goude, Jean-Louis Boissier, Sandra Petrillo, Daniel Schwartz, Laurent Septier, Jean-Marc Zaorski, Bernard Descamps, Marc Garanger, Yan Layma, Michel Delaborde, Michel Semeniako, Françoise Huguier, Paolo Calia, Deborah Turbeville, Gundunla Schulze. Ainsi que Henri Alekan, Arielle Dombasle, Jacques Séguéla, Roland Topor, Serge July, Lucinda Childs, invited to comment on their private screening at parties in Roman Theatre, where Christian Lacroix organised a show.

1988

 

La danse, la Chine, la pub. Chinese photography is presented for the first time abroad as a major exhibition with 40 Chinese photographers, including Wu Yinxian, Zhang Hai-er, Chen Baosheng, Ling Fei, Xia Yonglie, curated by Karl Kugel, co-director of the film China: Inner views / Chine: vues intérieures, released at the opening of the festival. Most major photographers who have covered this country are also present either in the exhibition of Magnum Photos, curated by François Hébel, either in solo exhibitions, such as Marc Riboud ou de Jeanloup Sieff.

1989

 

Arles fête ses vingt ans (1969-1989); with Lucien Clergue, Lee Friedlander, Cristina García Rodero, John Demos, Philippe Bazin, George Hashigushi, Eduardo Masférré, Hervé Gloaguen, Elizabeth Sunday, Pierre de Vallombreuse, Robert Frank's The lines of My Hand (commissioned by Charles-Henri Favrod); in honour of Pierre de Fenoÿl; Julio Mitchel, Roland Schneider, Rafael Vargas, John Phillips, Annette Messager, Christian Boltanski, la collection Bonnemaison, Javier Vallhonrat, Thierry Girard, Dennis Hopper. Exhibition Ils annoncent la couleur with Stéphane Sednaoui, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Max Vadukul, Nick Night, Nigel Shafran, Tony Viramontes, Cindy Palmano; commissioned by Marc Vascoli. Exposition et soirée Deep South with Robert Frank, Bruce Davidson, Duane Michals, Gordon Parks, Alain Desvergnes, Gilles Mora, Paul Kwilecki, William Christenberry, William Eggleston, Marylin Futtermann, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Fern Koch, Jay Leviton, Eudora Welty; commissioned by Gilles Mora.

1990

 

Volker Hinz, Erasmus Schröter, Stéphane Duroy, Raymond Depardon, Frédéric Brenner, Drtikol, Saudek, …

1991

 

Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Graciela Iturbide, Martín Chambi, Sergio Larrain, Sebastião Salgado, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Rio Branco, Eric Poitevin, Alberto Schommer, …

1992

 

Don McCullin, Dieter Appelt, Béatrix Von Conta, Denise Colomb, José Ortiz-Echagüe, Wout Berger, Thibaut Cuisset, Knut W. Maron, John Statathos, …

1993

 

Richard Avedon, Larry Fink, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Cecil Beaton, Raymonde April, Koji Inove, Louis Jammes, Eiichiro Sakata, …

1994

 

Andres Serrano, Roger Pic, Marc Riboud, Bogdan Konopka, Sarah Moon, Pierre et Gilles, Marie-Paule Nègre, Edward Steichen and Josef Sudek, Robert Doisneau, André Kertész, …

 

1995

 

Alain Fleischer, Roger Ballen, Noda, Toyoura, Slocombe, Nam June Paik, France Bourély. …

1996

 

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, William Wegman, Grete Stern, Paolo Gioli, Nancy Burson, John Stathatos, Sophie Calle, Luigi Ghirri, Pierre Cordier, …

1997

 

Collection Marion Lambert, Eugene Richards, Mathieu Pernot, Aziz + Cucher, Jochen Gerz, Antoni Muntadas, Ricard Terré, …

1998

 

David LaChapelle, Herbert Spring, Mike Disfarmer, Francesca Woodman, Federico Patellani, Massimo Vitali, Dieter Appelt, Samuel Fosso, Urs Lu.thi, Pierre Molinier, Yasumasa Morimura, Roman Opalka, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Weibel, …

1999

 

Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, …

2000

 

Tina Modotti, Jakob Tuggener, Peter Sakaer, Masahisa Fukase, Herbert Matter, Robert Heinecken, Jean-Michel Alberola, Tom Drahaos, Willy Ronis, Frederick Sommer, Lucien Clergue, Sophie Calle, …

2001

 

Luc Delahaye, Patrick Tosani, Stéphane Couturier, David Rosenfeld, James Casebere, Peter Lindbergh, …

2002

 

Guillaume Herbaut, Baader Meinhof, Astrid Proll, Josef Koudelka, Gabriele Basilico, Rineke Dijkstra, Lise Sarfati, Jochen Gerz, Collection Ordoñez Falcon, Larry Sultan, Alex Mac Lean, Alastair Thain, Raeda Saadeh, Zineb Sedira, Serguei Tchilikov, Jem Southam, Alexey Titarenko, Andreas Magdanz, Sophie Ristelhueber, …

2003

 

Collection Claude Berri, Lin Tianmiao & Wang Gongxin, Xin Danwen, Gao Bo, Shao Yinong & Mu Chen, Hong Li, Hai Bo, Chen Lingyang, Ma Liuming, Hong Hao, Naoya Hatakeyama, Roman Opalka, Jean-Pierre Sudre, Suzanne Lafont, Corinne Mercadier, Adam Bartos, Marie Le Mounier, Yves Chaudouët, Galerie VU, Harry Gruyaert, Vincenzo Castella, Alain Willaume, François Halard, Donovan Wylie, Jérôme Brézillon & Nicolas Guiraud, Jean-Daniel Berclaz, Monique Deregibus, Youssef Nabil, Tina Barney, …

2004

 

Dayanita Singh, Les archives du ghetto de Lodz, Stephen Gill, Oleg Kulik, Arsen Savadov, Keith Arnatt, Raphaël Dallaporta, Taiji Matsue, Tony Ray-Jones, Osamu Kanemura, Kawauchi Rinko, Chris Killip, Chris Shaw, Kimura Ihei, Neeta Madahar, Frank Breuer, Hans van der Meer, James Mollison, Chris Killip, Mathieu Pernot, Paul Shambroom, Katy Grannan, Lucien Clergue, AES + F, György Lörinczy, …

2005

 

Collection William M. Hunt, Miguel Rio Branco, Thomas Dworzak, Alex Majoli, Paolo Pellegrin, Ilkka Uimonen, Barry Frydlender, David Tartakover, Michal Heiman, Denis Rouvre, Denis Darzacq, David Balicki, Joan Fontcuberta, Christer Strömholm, Keld Helmer-Petersen, …

2006

 

La photographie américaine à travers les collections françaises, Robert Adams, Cornell Capa, Gilles Caron, Don McCullin, Guy Le Querrec, Susan Meiselas, Julien Chapsal, Michael Ackerman, David Burnett, Lise Sarfati, Sophie Ristelhueber, Dominique Issermann, Jean Gaumy, Daniel Angeli, Paul Graham, Claudine Doury, Jean-Christophe Bechet, David Goldblatt, Anders Petersen, Philippe Chancel, Meyer, Olivier Culmann, Gilles Coulon, …

2007

 

The 60th year of Magnum Photos, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, Le Studio Zuber, Collections d’Albums Indiens de la Collection Alkazi, Alberto Garcia-Alix, Raghu Rai, Dayanita Singh, Nony Singh, Sunil Gupta, Anay Mann, Pablo Bartholomew Bharat Sikka, Jeetin Sharma, Siya Singh, Huang Rui, Gao Brothers, RongRong & inri, Liu Bolin, JR, …

2008

 

Richard Avedon, Grégoire Alexandre, Joël Bartoloméo, Achinto Bhadra, Jean-Christian Bourcart, Samuel Fosso, Charles Fréger, Pierre Gonnord, Françoise Huguier, Grégoire Korganow, Peter Lindbergh, Guido Mocafico, Henri Roger, Paolo Roversi, Joachim Schmid, Nigel Shafran,[14] Georges Tony Stoll, Patrick Swirc, Tim Walker, Vanessa Winship, …

2009

 

Robert Delpire, Willy Ronis, Jean-Claude Lemagny, Lucien Clergue, Elger Esser, Roni Horn, Duane Michals, Nan Goldin (invitée d'honneur), Brian Griffin, Naoya Hatakeyama, JH Engström, David Armstrong, Eugene Richards[15] (The Blue Room), Martin Parr, Paolo Nozolino, …[16]

2010

 

Robert Mapplethorpe[17] Lea Golda Holterman[18]

2011

 

Chris Marker, photos du New York Times, Robert Capa, Wang Qingsong, Dulce Pinzon, JR, ...

2012

 

Les 30 ans de l'ENSP, Josef Koudelka, Amos Gitai, Klavdij Sluban & Laurent Tixador, Arnaud Claass,[19] Grégoire Alexandre, Édouard Beau, Jean-Christophe Béchet, Olivier Cablat, Sébastien Calvet, Monique Deregibus & Arno Gisinger, Vincent Fournier, Marina Gadonneix, Valérie Jouve, Sunghee Lee, Isabelle Le Minh, Mireille Loup, Alexandre Maubert, Mehdi Meddaci, Collection Jan Mulder, Alain Desvergnes,[20] Olivier Metzger, Joséphine Michel, Erwan Morère, Tadashi Ono, Bruno Serralongue, Dorothée Smith, Bertrand Stofleth & Geoffroy Mathieu, Pétur Thomsen, Jean-Louis Tornato, Aurore Valade, Christian Milovanoff,[21]

2013

 

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Sergio Larrain, Guy Bourdin, Alfredo Jaar,[22] John Stezaker,[23] Wolfgang Tillmans,[24] Viviane Sassen,[25] Jean-Michel Fauquet, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Miguel Angel Rojas, Pieter Hugo,[26] Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, Xavier Barral,[27] John Davis, Antoine Gonin,[28] Thabiso Sekgala, Philippe Chancel, Raphaël Dallaporta, Alain Willaume, Cedric Nunn, Santu Mofokeng, Harry Gruyaert, Jo Ractliffe, Zanele Muholi, Patrick Tourneboeuf, Thibaut Cuisset, Antoine Cairns, Jean-Louis Courtinat, Christina de Middel, Stéphane Couturier, Frédéric Nauczyciel, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Pierre Jamet, Raynal Pellicer, Studio Fouad, Erik Kessels.

2014

 

Lucien Clergue, Christian Lacroix, Raymond Depardon, Léon Gimpel, David Bailey, Vik Muniz, Patrick Swirc, Denis Rouvre, Vincent Pérez, Chema Madoz, Élise Mazac, Robert Drowilal, Anouck Durand, Refik Vesei, Pleurat Sulo, Katjusha Kumi,Ilit Azoulay, Katharina Gaenssler, Miguel Mitlag, Victor Robledo, Youngsoo Han, Kechun Zhang, Pieter Ten Hoopen, Will Steacy, Kudzanai Chiurai, Patrick Willocq, Ciril Jazbec, Milou Abel, Sema Bekirovic, Melanie Bonajo, Hans de Vries, Hans Eijkelboom, Erik Fens, Jos Houweling, Hans van der Meer, Maurice van Es, Benoît Aquin, Luc Delahaye, Mitch Epstein, Nadav Kander.

2015

 

Walker Evans, Stephen Shore, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Toon Michiels, Olivier Cablat, Markus Brunetti, Paul Ronald, Sandro Miller, Eikoh Hosoe, Masahisa Fukase, Daido Moriyama, Masatoshi Naito, Issei Suda, Kou Inose, Sakiko Nomura, Daisuke Yokota, Martin Gusinde, Paolo Woods, Gabriele Galimberti, Natasha Caruana, Alex Majoli, Paolo Pellegrin, Ambroise Tézenas, Thierry Bouët, Anna Orlowska, Vlad Krasnoshchok, Sergiy Lebedynskyy, Vadym Trykoz, Lisa Barnard, Robert Zhao Renhui, Pauline Fargue, Julián Barón, Delphine Chanet, Omar Victor Diop, Paola Pasquaretta, Niccolò Benetton, Simone Santilli, Dorothée Smith, Rebecca Topakian, Denis Darzacq, Swen Renault, Paolo Woods, Elsa Leydier, Alice Wielinga, Cloé Vignaud, Louis Matton, Swen Renault et Pablo Mendez.

References

 

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_214_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_213_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_212_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_211_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_211_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_3_VFo...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_3_VFo...

O'Hagan, Sean (11 July 2011). "Tower blocks and tomes dominate the Rencontres d'Arles". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 November 2014.

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_709_V...

www.rencontres-arles.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=ARL_709_V...

O'Hagan, Sean (9 July 2012). "Torgovnik's powerful portraits from Rwanda take top prize at Arles". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2 February 2015.

O'Hagan, Sean (8 July 2013). "Lost and found: Discovery award winners at Recontres d'Arles 2013". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 October 2015.

"2017 Book Awards". Rencontres d'Arles. 4 July 2017. Retrieved 7 July 2017.

"Exhibitions". Rencontres d'Arles. Retrieved 26 August 2016.

"Exhibitions: Eugene Richards: The Blue Room". Rencontres d'Arles. Retrieved 26 June 2015.

"Rencontres d’Arles 2009 Photography", Rencontres d'Arles. Accessed 3 December 2014.

Présentation de Robert Mapplethorpe sur le site rencontres-arles.com

"Lea Golda Holterman, Orthodox Eros". Retrieved 24 August 2016.

Arles 2012: Arnaud Claass sur La Lettre de la Photographie.com

Arles 2012: Alain Desvergnes sur La Lettre de la Photographie.com

Signe des temps: Arles 2012, un festival courageux (Photographie.com)

Fiche d'Alfredo Jaar sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de John Stezaker sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de Wolfgang Tillmans sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de Viviane Sassen sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de Pieter Hugo sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de Xavier Barral sur rencontres-arles.com

Fiche de Antoine Gonin sur rencontres-arles.com

London band Average Sex supporting The Hungry Ghosts at Centrala Birmingham.

#5_MobilePhone_ICM_GeneralPostProcessing_AverageCameraPro

May 27, 2022: Butterfly Bush after eight exposures with Average Camera Pro. Photo was taken at Kimber Park in Newbury Park, California.

So turns out I had a lot more bigger-than-Barbie’s-body type dolls than I remembered in my collection that seem to have bigger thighs, feet, necks, limbs, etc than Barbie and yeah.

 

Standing up: Pedigree Sindy, Mattel Happy Family Grandma, Mattel Snow White head on Rosie O’Donnell body, Tammy’s friend Misty, Hasbro Stormer, Kenner Princess Leia, Horsman Mary Poppins, Palitoy Action Girl

 

Sitting: BBi Alaqua, Kenner Jaime Sommers, Kenner Dusty with Mattel Ken hips and legs

 

August is West-coast flower month!

 

After a better-than-average Winter rainfall, the flowers are looking quite spectacular at the moment! I decided to spend this past weekend trying to find some nice flower photos for my portfolio, not close-ups of individual flowers, but huge colourful wide-angled flower-carpets.

 

Flowers are inherently pretty and it is quite easy to take a nice photo of a flower. Getting outstanding photos of flowers is quite a different story though, and you have to find creative ways to elevate your photos above the level of a snapshot.

 

Here are some of my ideas and tips on the when, where and how to get the best photos of the West-coast flowers.

 

The best time of the year to shoot the West-coast flowers is right now! Every single piece of open and undeveloped land along the R27 route from Cape Town to Langebaan is filled with multi-coloured blooms at the moment. And as most of you already know, there is plenty of undeveloped land along that route, so you don't have to drive far to find the first flower-carpets!

 

The most impressive displays of flowers can currently (and usually) be found in the Postberg Nature Reserve in the West Coast National Park (approximately 120 km from Cape Town), but if this is your destination, then I would strongly recommend that you visit there on a weekday and not on a weekend (there were easily 5,000 cars driving around the park when I was there this weekend)!

 

If the thought of sharing a field of flowers with thousands of other people is not appealing to you, then there are plenty of other more remote places where you can find excellent flower displays. I would however recommend that you consult the West Coast Flower Report for an update shortly before you go.

 

www.capewestcoast.org/news/news_article.php?news_id=132

 

Landscape photographers all know that the best light is during the two "magic" hours of the day, the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Unfortunately the flowers of the West coast don’t know about magic hour, and they are all still closed up and fast asleep at that time of the day! They are only fully open about 90 minutes after sunrise and they start closing again a couple of hours before sunset. Most of these flower species also turn to face the sun, so if you want to shoot them in the mornings then your compositions will all be West-facing, and similarly you will need to find East-facing comps if you want to shoot them in the afternoon.

 

Here are some suggestions on how to get the best flower-carpet photos.

 

1. Composition is everything - As with all forms of photography, finding a strong composition should be your most important consideration. You will probably be very disappointed if you simply point your camera at a field of flowers. Your photos might be bright and colourful, but there will be no obvious point of interest and the photo will more than likely end up looking quite cluttered. For the best compositions you will have to use all the usual techniques, you have to look for ways to lead the viewer's eyes through your compositions, and you have to include enough interesting things along the way for their eyes to rest and appreciate the beauty of the scene.

 

2. The more colours the better - Although you will literally find dozens of different species of flowers growing in the fields along the West coast, unfortunately these different species don't always grow in the same field. For the most interesting photos, you should try to find fields with as many different coloured flowers as possible.

 

3. Always use a tripod - Using a tripod is the best way to ensure that you slow down and think carefully about what you're trying to achieve. Don't simply extend the tripod legs fully so that your camera is at eye-level, you should always try to get the camera as low as possible to get as close to the flowers as possible.

 

4. Mind the gaps - Another good reason to get your camera as low as possible is the fact that the flowers are not growing as closely together as you might imagine. A carpet of flowers might look dense from a distance, but as you get closer you will realise that there are plenty of open gaps between the flowers. Since most flowers are growing at the same height, getting down low closes up these gaps and makes the carpet seem denser than it actually is.

 

5. Maximise your depth of field - While it is perfectly acceptable to take a photo of a single flower with your aperture wide open (to blur out the background), you should always aim for a maximum depth of field (small aperture) when you want to shoot a field full of flowers.

 

6. Shoot wide - This one is pretty obvious, the wider-angle your lens, the more flowers you can fit into your frame. Wide (and ultra-wide) angle lenses also have a greater depth of field than long zoom lenses, so it is easier the keep everything from the foreground all the way to the background sharply in focus.

 

7. Use the histogram - Since you will probably be shooting in bright sunlight and directly facing the open flowers (away from the sun), you should definitely not rely on what you see in your camera's LCD screen. The only way to ensure that the delicate details in the white flowers are not blown out is to use the camera's histogram.

 

Most of these suggestions are pretty obvious when you think about it, but it is quite easy to forget these things when you are faced with a stunning display of millions upon millions of beautiful flowers.

 

Don't just rush in snapping... stand back... appreciate the beauty... and don't forget to smell the flowers!

 

Nikon D800, Nikkor 14-24 at 14mm, aperture of f13, with a 1/320th second exposure.

 

This image is the intellectual property of Paul Bruins. It may not be used in any way without my written consent.

 

The bee tongue is called a proboscis. A long straw like structure used to drink nectar and other liquids. The average length is about a quarter inch.

average,boring,complete

Only the second 4.0 I've ever seen.

Lee, Russell,, 1903-1986,, photographer.

 

Butter in churn of the Dairymen's Cooperative Creamery. Caldwell, Canyon County, Idaho. Average price paid to members in 1940 was 32.43 cents (including cash dividend) per pound for butter fat. Average price for U.S. was twenty-eight cents

 

1941 June.

 

1 negative : safety ; 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches or smaller.

 

Notes:

Title and other information from caption card.

Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.

 

Subjects:

United States--Idaho--Canyon County--Caldwell.

 

Format: Safety film negatives.

 

Rights Info: No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html

 

Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

 

Part Of: Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) (DLC) 2002708960

 

More information about the FSA/OWI Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsaowi

 

Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c01714

 

Call Number: LC-USF34- 039652-D

 

Great Gray Owl, St. Joseph Township, St. Joseph Island, Ontario as the sun begins to set- - -from the 2013 archives. The Great Gray-Owl (strix nebulosa) is North America’s largest owl; however, it is outweighed by as much as fifteen percent by the Snowy Owl and the Great Horned Owl. The average length of the owl is 61-84 cm, the average wingspan is 1.4-1.5m; females are slightly larger then males. Great Grays prey upon voles, mice, shrews, lemmings, squirrels, and hares. The owl will listen and watch from a perch, and swoop and catch its prey.

Day 235. A very average photo but I'm not going to push for better because it documents my day. My husband dragged me out for a mountain bike ride and I seem to be the only one who has mastered ending up over a bank while riding uphill. I now have a nice graze on my leg as a memento.

Grind: Extra Fine (Average Circles & Effect: Auto Adjust), Brew: Treble (3/4 Pic & Darkest Blended Circles), Serve: Stirred (Rise-n-Shine Tone & Brown Bag Texture)

Aarhus, Denmark.

October 2015.

A team of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has measured the universe's expansion rate using a technique that is completely independent of any previous method.

 

Knowing the precise value for how fast the universe expands is important for determining the age, size and fate of the cosmos. Unraveling this mystery has been one of the greatest challenges in astrophysics in recent years. The new study adds evidence to the idea that new theories may be needed to explain what scientists are finding.

 

The researchers' result further strengthens a troubling discrepancy between the expansion rate, called the Hubble constant, calculated from measurements of the local universe and the rate as predicted from background radiation in the early universe, a time before galaxies and stars even existed.

 

This latest value represents the most precise measurement yet using the gravitational lensing method, where the gravity of a foreground galaxy acts like a giant magnifying lens, amplifying and distorting light from background objects. This latest study did not rely on the traditional "cosmic distance ladder" technique to measure accurate distances to galaxies by using various types of stars as "milepost markers." Instead, the researchers employed the exotic physics of gravitational lensing to calculate the universe's expansion rate.

 

The astronomy team that made the new Hubble constant measurements is dubbed H0LiCOW (H0 Lenses in COSMOGRAIL's Wellspring). COSMOGRAIL is the acronym for Cosmological Monitoring of Gravitational Lenses, a large international project whose goal is monitoring gravitational lenses. "Wellspring" refers to the abundant supply of quasar lensing systems.

 

The research team derived the H0LiCOW value for the Hubble constant through observing and analysis techniques that have been greatly refined over the past two decades.

 

H0LiCOW and other recent measurements suggest a faster expansion rate in the local universe than was expected based on observations by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite of how the cosmos behaved more than 13 billion years ago.

 

The gulf between the two values has important implications for understanding the universe's underlying physical parameters and may require new physics to account for the mismatch.

 

"If these results do not agree, it may be a hint that we do not yet fully understand how matter and energy evolved over time, particularly at early times," said H0LiCOW team leader Sherry Suyu of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, the Technical University of Munich, and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taipei, Taiwan.

 

How They Did It

 

The H0LiCOW team used Hubble to observe the light from six faraway quasars, the brilliant searchlights from gas orbiting supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. Quasars are ideal background objects for many reasons; for example, they are bright, extremely distant and scattered all over the sky. The telescope observed how the light from each quasar was multiplied into four images by the gravity of a massive foreground galaxy. The galaxies studied are 3 billion to 6.5 billion light-years away. The quasars' average distance is 5.5 billion light-years from Earth.

 

The light rays from each lensed quasar image take a slightly different path through space to reach Earth. The pathway's length depends on the amount of matter that is distorting space along the line of sight to the quasar. To trace each pathway, the astronomers monitor the flickering of the quasar's light as its black hole gobbles up material. When the light flickers, each lensed image brightens at a different time.

 

This flickering sequence allows researchers to measure the time delays between each image as the lensed light travels along its path to Earth. To fully understand these delays, the team first used Hubble to make accurate maps of the distribution of matter in each lensing galaxy. Astronomers could then reliably deduce the distances from the galaxy to the quasar, and from Earth to the galaxy and to the background quasar. By comparing these distance values, the researchers measured the universe's expansion rate.

 

"The length of each time delay indicates how fast the universe is expanding," said team member Kenneth Wong of the University of Tokyo's Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, lead author of the H0LiCOW collaboration's most recent paper. "If the time delays are shorter, then the universe is expanding at a faster rate. If they are longer, then the expansion rate is slower."

 

The time-delay process is analogous to four trains leaving the same station at exactly the same time and traveling at the same speed to reach the same destination. However, each of the trains arrives at the destination at a different time. That’s because each train takes a different route, and the distance for each route is not the same. Some trains travel over hills. Others go through valleys, and still others chug around mountains. From the varied arrival times, one can infer that each train traveled a different distance to reach the same stop. Similarly, the quasar flickering pattern does not appear at the same time because some of the light is delayed by traveling around bends created by the gravity of dense matter in the intervening galaxy.

 

How it Compares

 

The researchers calculated a Hubble constant value of 73 kilometers per second per megaparsec (with 2.4% uncertainty). This means that for every additional 3.3 million light-years away a galaxy is from Earth, it appears to be moving 73 kilometers per second faster, because of the universe's expansion.

 

The team's measurement also is close to the Hubble constant value of 74 calculated by the Supernova H0 for the Equation of State (SH0ES) team, which used the cosmic distance ladder technique. The SH0ES measurement is based on gauging the distances to galaxies near and far from Earth by using Cepheid variable stars and supernovas as measuring sticks to the galaxies.

 

The SH0ES and H0LiCOW values significantly differ from the Planck number of 67, strengthening the tension between Hubble constant measurements of the modern universe and the predicted value based on observations of the early universe.

 

"One of the challenges we overcame was having dedicated monitoring programs through COSMOGRAIL to get the time delays for several of these quasar lensing systems," said Frédéric Courbin of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, leader of the COSMOGRAIL project.

 

Suyu added: "At the same time, new mass modeling techniques were developed to measure a galaxy's matter distribution, including models we designed to make use of the high-resolution Hubble imaging. The images enabled us to reconstruct, for example, the quasars' host galaxies. These images, along with additional wider-field images taken from ground-based telescopes, also allow us to characterize the environment of the lens system, which affects the bending of light rays. The new mass modeling techniques, in combination with the time delays, help us to measure precise distances to the galaxies."

 

Begun in 2012, the H0LiCOW team now has Hubble images and time-delay information for 10 lensed quasars and intervening lensing galaxies. The team will continue to search for and follow up on new lensed quasars in collaboration with researchers from two new programs. One program, called STRIDES (STRong-lensing Insights into Dark Energy Survey), is searching for new lensed quasar systems. The second, called SHARP (Strong-lensing at High Angular Resolution Program), uses adaptive optics with the W.M. Keck telescopes to image the lensed systems. The team's goal is to observe 30 more lensed quasar systems to reduce their 2.4% percent uncertainty to 1%.

 

NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope, expected to launch in 2021, may help them achieve their goal of 1% uncertainty much faster through Webb's ability to map the velocities of stars in a lensing galaxy, which will allow astronomers to develop more precise models of the galaxy's distribution of dark matter.

 

The H0LiCOW team's work also paves the way for studying hundreds of lensed quasars that astronomers are discovering through surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey and PanSTARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System), and the upcoming National Science Foundation's Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which is expected to uncover thousands of additional sources.

 

In addition, NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will help astronomers address the disagreement in the Hubble constant value by tracing the expansion history of the universe. The mission will also use multiple techniques, such as sampling thousands of supernovae and other objects at various distances, to help determine whether the discrepancy is a result of measurement errors, observational technique, or whether astronomers need to adjust the theory from which they derive their predictions.

 

The team will present its results at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

 

For more information: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/cosmic-magnifying-glass...

 

Credits: NASA, ESA, S.H. Suyu (Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Technical University of Munich, and Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics) and K.C. Wong (University of Tokyo’s Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe)

If you know Caroline, you can guess that the ceremony was a bit more comical than your average wedding.

Photo courtesy of Noe Todovorich Photography

Petrified Forest National Park is an American national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 346 square miles (900 square kilometers), encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The park's headquarters is about 26 miles (42 km) east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 (I-40), which parallels the BNSF Railway's Southern Transcon, the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. The site, the northern part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962. The park received 644,922 recreational visitors in 2018.

 

Averaging about 5,400 feet (1,600 m) in elevation, the park has a dry windy climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 °F (38 °C) to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by grasses such as bunchgrass, blue grama, and sacaton, are found in the park. Fauna include larger animals such as pronghorns, coyotes, and bobcats; many smaller animals, such as deer mice, snakes, lizards, and seven kinds of amphibians; and more than 200 species of birds, some of which are permanent residents and many of which are migratory. About one third of the park is designated wilderness—50,260 acres (79 sq mi; 203 km2).

 

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the park's rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind and water. In addition to petrified logs, fossils found in the park have included Late Triassic ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and many other plants as well as fauna including giant reptiles called phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the park's fossils since the early 20th century.

 

The park's earliest human inhabitants arrived 13,000 years ago. These Clovis-era people are the ancestors of Native Americans. By about 2,500 years ago Ancestral Pueblo farmers were growing corn and living in subterranean pit houses in what would become the park. By one-thousand years ago Ancestral Pueblo farmers lived in above-ground, masonry dwellings called pueblos and gathered in large communal buildings called great kivas. By AD 1450 Ancestral Pueblo farmers in the Petrified Forest migrated to join rapidly growing communities on the Hopi Mesas to the northwest and the Pueblo of Zuni to the east–these locations are still home to thousands of descendant community members today. More than 1000 archeological sites, including petroglyphs, have been discovered in the park. These ancestral places remain important to descendant communities. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers visited the area, and by the mid-19th century a U.S. team had surveyed an east–west route through the area where the park is now located and noted the petrified wood. Later, roads and a railway followed similar routes and gave rise to tourism and, before the park was protected, to large-scale removal of fossils. Theft of petrified wood remains a problem in the 21st century.

 

Petrified Forest National Park straddles the border between Apache County and Navajo County in northeastern Arizona. The park is about 30 miles (50 km) long from north to south, and its width varies from a maximum of about 12 miles (20 km) in the north to a minimum of about 1 mile (1.6 km) along a narrow corridor between the north and south, where the park widens again to about 4 to 5 miles (6 to 8 km).

 

I-40, former U.S. Route 66, the BNSF Railway, and the Puerco River bisect the park generally east–west along a similar route. Adamana, a ghost town, is about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the park along the BNSF tracks. Holbrook, about 26 miles (40 km) west of park headquarters along I-40, is the nearest city. Bisecting the park north–south is Park Road, which runs between I-40 near park headquarters on the north and U.S. Route 180 on the south. Historic Highway 180, an earlier alignment of the modern route, crosses the southern edge of the park. Like Route 66, it has deteriorated and is closed. Many unpaved maintenance roads, closed to the public, intersect Park Road at various points.

 

The fee area of the park owned by NPS covers about 230 square miles (600 km2). The Navajo Nation borders the park on the north and northeast. State-owned land, federal land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, and private land, much of it used for cattle ranching, adjoin the other borders. The park's elevation above sea level varies from a low of 5,340 feet (1,630 m) along the Puerco River to a high of 6,230 feet (1,900 m) at Pilot Rock; the average elevation is about 5,400 feet (1,650 m). The terrain varies from gentle hills and major petrified wood deposits in the south to eroded badlands in the north. Most of the park's intermittent streams—including Lithodendron Wash, Dead Wash, Ninemile Wash, and Dry Wash—empty into the Puerco River. In the southern part of the park, Cottonwood Wash and Jim Camp Wash flow into the Little Colorado River.[18]

 

Petrified Forest National Park is known for its fossils, especially of fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch of the Mesozoic era, about 225-207 million years ago. During this period, the region that is now the park was near the equator on the southwestern edge of the supercontinent Pangaea, and its climate was humid and sub-tropical. What later became northeastern Arizona was a low plain flanked by mountains to the south and southeast and a sea to the west. Streams flowing across the plain from the highlands deposited inorganic sediment and organic matter, including trees as well as other plants and animals that had entered or fallen into the water. Although most organic matter decays rapidly or is eaten by other organisms, some is buried so quickly that it remains intact and may become fossilized. Within the park, the sediments containing the fossil logs for which the park is named are part of the Chinle Formation.

 

An eroded multi-colored landscape of rounded buttes and small arroyos stretches into the distance under a blank sky.

Painted Desert badlands as seen from the rim at Tawa Point

The colorful Chinle, which appears on the surface in many parts of the southwestern United States and from which the Painted Desert gets its name, is up to 800 feet (240 m) thick in the park. It consists of a variety of sedimentary rocks including beds of soft, fine-grained mudstone, siltstone, and claystone—much of which is bentonite—as well as harder sandstone and conglomerate, and limestone. Exposed to wind and water, the Chinle usually erodes differentially into badlands made up of cliffs, gullies, mesas, buttes, and rounded hills. Its bentonite clay, which swells when wet and shrinks while drying, causes surface movement and cracking that discourages plant growth. Lack of plant cover makes the Chinle especially susceptible to weathering.

 

About 60 million years ago, tectonic movements of the Earth's crust began to uplift the Colorado Plateau, of which the Painted Desert is part. Eventually parts of the plateau rose to 10,000 feet (3,000 m) above sea level. This warping of the Earth's surface led to the gradual and continuing destruction of the plateau by erosion. An unconformity (break in the rock record) of about 200 million years occurs within the park, where erosion has removed all the rock layers above the Chinle except geologically recent ones. The Bidahochi Formation, laid down only 4 to 8 million years ago, rests directly atop the Chinle, and rocks laid down in the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and much of the Tertiary are absent.

 

During the period of the Bidahochi deposition, a large lake basin covered much of northeastern Arizona. The older (lower) layers of the formation consist of fluvial and lacustrine (lake-related) deposits of silt, sand, and clay. The younger (upper) Bidahochi contains ash and lava from volcanoes that erupted nearby and as far away as southwestern Nevada. Although much of the Bidahochi has since eroded, a small part of it outcrops in the northern part of the park—on Pilot Rock in the park's wilderness section and along the rim of the Painted Desert between Pintado and Tawa points. Exposed by erosion of the Bidahochi are volcanic landforms called maars (flat-bottomed, roughly circular volcanic craters of explosive origin). A maar vent can be seen from the Pintado Point lookout.

 

During the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago up to today), deposits of windblown sand and alluvium covered much of the Chinle and Bidahochi. Older dunes range in age from 500,000 years at higher elevations in the northern part of the park to about 10,000 years in sandy drainage areas such as Lithodendron Wash. Stabilized by grasses and other vegetation, young dunes of about 1,000 years old are found throughout the park.

 

During the Late Triassic, downed trees accumulating in river channels in what became the park were buried periodically by sediment containing volcanic ash. Groundwater dissolved silica (silicon dioxide) from the ash and carried it into the logs, where it formed quartz crystals that gradually replaced the organic matter. Traces of iron oxide and other substances combined with the silica to create varied colors in the petrified wood.

 

In Petrified Forest National Park, most of the logs in the park retained their original external form during petrification but lost their internal structure. However, a small fraction of the logs and most of the park's petrified animal bones have cells and other spaces that are mineral-filled but still retain much of their original organic structure. With these permineralized fossils, it is possible to study the cellular make-up of the original organisms with the aid of a microscope. Other organic matter—typically leaves, seeds, pine-cones, pollen grains, spores, small stems, and fish, insect, and animal remains—have been preserved in the park as compression fossils, flattened by the weight of the sediments above until only a thin film remains in the rock.

 

Much of the park's petrified wood is from Araucarioxylon arizonicum, an extinct conifer tree, while some found in the northern part of the park is from Woodworthia arizonica and Schilderia adamanica trees. At least nine species of fossil trees from the park have been identified; all are extinct. The park has many other kinds of fossils besides trees. The Chinle, considered to be one of the richest Late Triassic fossil-plant deposits in the world, contains more than 200 fossil plant taxa. Plant groups represented in the park include lycophytes, ferns, cycads, conifers, ginkgoes, as well as unclassified forms. The park has also produced one of the most diverse assemblages of fossil vertebrates from the Late Triassic. Among the groups represented are early theropod dinosaurs, crocodile-line archosaurs, temnospondyl amphibians, lissamphibians, non-archosauromorph diapsids, and other dinosauromorphs and archosauromorphs. Dicynodonts are extremely rare despite being abundantly represented at the Placerias Quarry near St. Johns. Fossil invertebrates include freshwater snails and clams. The oldest fossil crayfish, Enoploclytia porteri, was also described from the park, although it is not considered a crayfish proper (instead placed in Erymidae).

 

More than 1200 archeological sites have been found inside the boundaries of Petrified Forest National Park. Evidence suggests that the earliest inhabitants of the park arrived over 12,000 years ago. Clovis and Folsom-type spear points made from petrified wood are among the earliest artifacts of Paleoindians found in the park. Between 8,000 and 1,000 BCE, the Archaic Period, nomadic groups established seasonal camps in the Petrified Forest from which they hunted game such as rabbits, pronghorn antelope, and deer and harvested seeds from Indian ricegrass and other wild plants. By at least 1000 BCE and through the Basketmaker II period (400 BCE–500 CE)Ancestral Puebloan farmers began to grow corn. Between 200–500 CE population size grew rapidly. Many families built houses in the Petrified Forest and for the first time began to stay there year-round.

 

During the Basketmaker III period, 500–700 CE, families occupied shallow subterranean pit structures, at first on mesas or other vantage points and later at the base of bluffs and in lowlands, where the soil was better. Settlement patterns shifted and population size grew during the Pueblo I era between 700 and 900 CE and for the first time large groups of families aggregated together and formed large villages. During this period, each household built large well-insulated subterranean residential pit structures to keep warm during the cold winter months and several adjacent above ground rooms made from stone and jacal similar to adobe—used for food storage and daily activities during the warmer months. During the early Pueblo II period (900–1050 CE) Ancestral Pueblo farmers began constructing above-ground masonry architecture (for example Agate House, a small masonry structure built from petrified wood that is open to the public) signaling a greater degree of residential permanence. During the Late Pueblo II and Early Pueblo III periods 1050–1225 local population size grew rapidly. Similar to much of the Ancestral Pueblo world, population density increased rapidly at this time and nearly 1,000 sites dating to this period have been identified in the park at a wide variety of locations—at the mouths of washes, near seeps, and on moisture-holding sand dunes.

 

Between 1250 and 1450 CE Ancestral Pueblo families gathered into large apartment building-like masonry structures (also known as pueblos) with several hundred people living together in close quarters These large villages were often located near important water sources. Ancestral Pueblo people constructed more than two of these large pueblos, one called Stone Axe, about 0.5 miles (0.8 km) east of the park, and the other at Puerco Pueblo, which overlooks the Puerco River near the middle of the park. There they built roughly 200 rooms around an open plaza. Some rooms had no windows or doors and could be entered by climbing a ladder and descending through a hole in the roof. At its peak, perhaps 200 people lived in this pueblo. Over time, however, Ancestral Pueblo families undertook migrations and joined rapidly growing towns on the Hopi Mesas in Northern Arizona and at the Pueblo of Zuni in northern New Mexico, where the descendants of the ancient Petrified Forest farmers still live today. Some researchers have argued that a persistently dry climate led to out-migration, and the last residents left Puerco Pueblo in about 1380 CE.

 

At Puerco Pueblo and many other sites within the park, petroglyphs—images, symbols, or designs—have been scratched, pecked, carved, or incised on rock surfaces, often on a patina known as desert varnish. Most of the petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park are thought to be between 650 and 2,000 years old.

 

From the 16th through the 18th centuries, explorers looking for routes between Spanish colonies along the Rio Grande to the southeast and other Spanish colonies on the Pacific coast to the west passed near or through the area, which they called El Desierto Pintado, the Painted Desert. However, the park's oldest Spanish inscriptions, left by descendants of the region's early Spanish colonists, date only to the late 19th century.

 

After the Southwest became part of the U.S., explorers continued to look for good east–west routes along the 35th parallel. In 1853, a crew led by U.S. Army Lieutenant Amiel Whipple surveyed along a sandy wash in the northern part of the Petrified Forest. So impressed was Whipple by the petrified wood along the banks of the arroyo that he named it Lithodendron Creek (Stone Tree Creek). Geologist Jules Marcou, a member of the Whipple expedition, observed that the petrified trees were from the Triassic.

 

A slightly later route along the parallel was a wagon road, built between 1857 and 1860, that involved experimental use of camels as transport. In the late 19th century, settlers and private stagecoach companies followed similar east–west routes. Homesteaders who stayed in the area developed cattle ranches on the grasslands, and cattle grazed in the Petrified Forest until the mid-20th century.

 

Also close to the 35th parallel was the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Its opening in the early 1880s led to the founding of towns like Holbrook and Adamana. Visitors could stop at the Adamana train station, book a hotel room, and take a tour of what was then called the Chalcedony Forest. Over the years, the line changed hands, becoming the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and then the BNSF. More than 60 BNSF trains, mostly carrying freight, pass through the park every day. U.S. Route 66, a former transcontinental auto highway developed in 1926 from part of the National Old Trails Road, ran parallel to the railroad tracks until it was decommissioned in 1985. The park has preserved within its boundaries a small grassy section of the road. Interstate 40, which crosses the park, replaced the older highway.

 

Increasing tourist and commercial interest in petrified wood during the late 19th century began to alarm residents of the region. In 1895, the Arizona Territorial Legislature asked the U.S. Congress to create a petrified forest national park. Although this first attempt failed, in 1906 the Antiquities Act signed by President Theodore Roosevelt was used to create the Petrified Forest National Monument as the second national monument. Between 1934 and 1942, the federal Civilian Conservation Corps built road, trails, and structures in the monument, and the government acquired additional land in the Painted Desert section. The monument became a national park in 1962. Six years after the signing of the Wilderness Act in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, wilderness areas (where human activity is limited), were designated in the park. In 2004, President George W. Bush signed a bill authorizing the eventual expansion of the park from 93,353 acres (about 146 mi2 or 378 km2) to 218,533 acres (about 341 mi2 or 884 km2). Theft of petrified wood is still a problem. Despite a guard force of seven National Park Service rangers, fences, warning signs, and the threat of a $325 fine, an estimated 12 short tons (11,000 kg) of the fossil wood is stolen from the Petrified Forest every year.

 

Jessee Walter Fewkes, the first archeologist to visit Puerco Ruin, predicted in the late 19th century that it would yield many artifacts. Conservationist John Muir conducted the first excavations of the ruin in 1905–06. Although he did not publish his findings, he urged the federal government to preserve Petrified Forest. Professional archeological work in the park began in the early 20th century when Walter Hough conducted excavations at Puerco Ruin and other sites. In the 1930s, the Civil Works Administration funded research in the park by archeologists H.P. Mera and C.B. Cosgrove. A National Park Service resurvey of the Petrified Forest in the early 1940s identified most of the large sites with stone ruins, and subsequent surveys since 1978 have identified a total of more than 600 artifact sites, many of them small.

 

The earliest paleontological exploration of the region that is now the park was made in 1899 by paleobotanist Lester Ward, material of which is now deposited in the Smithsonian Institution. Muir also collected some fossil material, which is now deposited at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. In 1919, a phytosaur skull was discovered near Blue Mesa in the Petrified Forest by Ynez Mexia and sent to the Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley. In 1921, Annie Alexander, founder of the museum, visited Blue Mesa to collect more of the phytosaur and other specimens; this led to further excavations by paleontologist Charles Camp. Camp was the most prolific collector in the early 20th century, but collections were also made by Maurice Mehl (University of Missouri), Edwin Colbert (American Museum of Natural History), and park naturalists like Myrl Walker. In the latter half of the 20th century, the park was inventoried by staff at the Museum of Northern Arizona (Richard Cifelli, Will Downs), with renewed collection made by researchers from Berkeley (Robert Long, Kevin Padian), the University of Chicago (Michael Parrish), the Field Museum of Natural History (John Bolt), and Yale University (Paul Olsen). Since then, more than 300 fossil sites have been documented in the park. Research in paleontology and archeology continues at the park in the 21st century.[

 

Arizona is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. It is the 6th-largest and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix.

 

Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the territory of New Mexico. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.

 

Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the world's seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments.

 

Arizona's population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K, have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state since the 1990s.

 

Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the United States, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics in the state's population has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

The history of Arizona encompasses the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Spanish, Mexican, and American periods. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians settled in what is now Arizona. A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can be found in Arizona. Arizona was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822, but the settled population was small. In 1848, under the terms of the Mexican Cession the United States took possession of Arizona above the Gila River after the Mexican War, and became part of the Territory of New Mexico. By means of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States secured the northern part of the state of Sonora, which is now Arizona south of the Gila River in 1854.

 

In 1863, Arizona was split off from the Territory of New Mexico to form the Arizona Territory. The remoteness of the region was eased by the arrival of railroads in 1880. Arizona became a state in 1912 but was primarily rural with an economy based on cattle, cotton, citrus, and copper. Dramatic growth came after 1945, as retirees and young families who appreciated the warm weather and low costs emigrated from the Northeast and Midwest.

 

In the Mexican–American War, the garrison commander avoided conflict with Lieutenant Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, withdrawing while the Americans marched through the town on their way to California. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. the northern 70% of modern-day Arizona above the Sonora border along the Gila River. During the California Gold Rush, an upwards of 50,000 people traveled through on the Southern Emigrant Trail pioneered by Cooke, to reach the gold fields in 1849. The Pima Villages often sold fresh food and provided relief to distressed travelers among this throng and to others in subsequent years.

 

Paleo-Indians settled what is now Arizona around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. According to most archaeologists, the Paleo-Indians initially followed herds of big game—megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison—into North America. The traveling groups also collected and utilized a wide variety of smaller game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants. These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of approximately 20 or 50 members of an extended family, moving from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed. Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. These paleolithic people utilized the environment that they lived in near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope and other small mammals.

 

As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of bison, mule deer and antelope. Nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring months when plant foods were scarce.

 

The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago. During this time the people of the southwest developed a variety of subsistence strategies, all using their own specific techniques. The nutritive value of weed and grass seeds was discovered and flat rocks were used to grind flour to produce gruels and breads. This use of grinding slabs in about 7500 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic tradition. Small bands of people traveled throughout the area, gathering plants such as cactus fruits, mesquite beans, acorns, and pine nuts and annually establishing camps at collection points.

 

Late in the Archaic Period, corn, probably introduced into the region from central Mexico, was planted near camps with permanent water access. Distinct types of corn have been identified in the more well-watered highlands and the desert areas, which may imply local mutation or successive introduction of differing species. Emerging domesticated crops also included beans and squash.

 

About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to a dramatically decreased population. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semisedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of Arizona.

 

In the Post-Archaic period, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and Sinagua cultures inhabited what is now Arizona. These cultures built structures made out of stone. Some of the structures that these cultures built are called pueblos. Pueblos are monumental structures that housed dozens to thousands of people. In some Ancestral Puebloan towns and villages, Hohokam towns and villages, Mogollon towns and villages, and Sinagua towns and villages, the pueblo housed the entire town. Surrounding the pueblos were often farms where farmers would plant and harvest crops to feed the community. Sometimes, pueblos and other buildings were built in caves in cliffs.

 

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Pre-Columbian Native American civilization that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.

 

They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. Some of their most impressive structures were built in what is now Arizona.

 

Hohokam was a Pre-Columbian culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. Hohokam practiced a specific culture, sometimes referred to as Hohokam culture, which has been distinguished by archeologists. People who practiced the culture can be called Hohokam as well, but more often, they are distinguished as Hohokam people to avoid confusion.

 

Most archaeologists agree that the Hohokam culture existed between c. 300 and c. 1450 CE, but cultural precursors may have been in the area as early as 300 BC. Whether Hohokam culture was unified politically remains under controversy. Hohokam culture may have just given unrelated neighboring communities common ground to help them to work together to survive their harsh desert environment.

 

The Mogollon culture was an ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.

 

The Mogollon culture was one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from c. 200 CE, to c. 1450 CE or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.

 

The Sinagua culture was a Pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around San Francisco Mountain, and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Besides ceremonial kivas, their pueblos had large "community rooms" and some featured ballcourts and walled courtyards, similar to those of the Hohokam culture. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 500 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.

 

The history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began in 1539 with the first documented exploration of the area by Marcos de Niza, early work expanded the following year when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado entered the area as well.

 

The Spanish established a few missions in southern Arizona in the 1680s by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino along the Santa Cruz River, in what was then the Pimería Alta region of Sonora. The Spanish also established presidios in Tubac and Tucson in 1752 and 1775. The area north of the Gila River was governed by the Province of Las California under the Spanish until 1804, when the Californian portion of Arizona became part of Alta California under the Spanish and Mexican governments.

 

In 1849, the California Gold Rush led as many as 50,000 miners to travel across the region, leading to a boom in Arizona's population. In 1850, Arizona and New Mexico formed the New Mexico Territory.

 

In 1853, President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden to Mexico City to negotiate with Santa Anna, and the United States bought the remaining southern strip area of Arizona and New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. A treaty was signed in Mexico in December 1853, and then, with modifications, approved by the US Senate in June 1854, setting the southern boundary of Arizona and of New Mexico.

 

Before 1846 the Apache raiders expelled most Mexican ranchers. One result was that large herds of wild cattle roamed southeastern Arizona. By 1850, the herds were gone, killed by Apaches, American sportsmen, contract hunting for the towns of Fronteras and Santa Cruz, and roundups to sell to hungry Mexican War soldiers, and forty-niners en route to California.

 

During the Civil War, on March 16, 1861, citizens in southern New Mexico Territory around Mesilla (now in New Mexico) and Tucson invited take-over by the Confederacy. They especially wanted restoration of mail service. These secessionists hoped that a Confederate Territory of Arizona (CSA) would take control, but in March 1862, Union troops from California captured the Confederate Territory of Arizona and returned it to the New Mexico Territory.

 

The Battle of Picacho Pass, April 15, 1862, was a battle of the Civil War fought in the CSA and one of many battles to occur in Arizona during the war among three sides—Apaches, Confederates and Union forces. In 1863, the U.S. split up New Mexico along a north–south line to create the Arizona Territory. The first government officials to arrive established the territory capital in Prescott in 1864. The capital was later moved to Tucson, back to Prescott, and then to its final location in Phoenix in a series of controversial moves as different regions of the territory gained and lost political influence with the growth and development of the territory.

 

In the late 19th century the Army built a series of forts to encourage the Natives to stay in their territory and to act as a buffer from the settlers. The first was Fort Defiance. It was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. Edwin V. Sumner to create a military presence in Diné bikéyah (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at Santa Fe for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now Arizona. He left Major Electus Backus in charge. Small skirmishes were common between raiding Navajo and counter raiding citizens. In April 1860 one thousand Navajo warriors under Manuelito attacked the fort and were beaten off.

 

The fort was abandoned at the start of the Civil War but was reoccupied in 1863 by Colonel Kit Carson and the 1st New Mexico Infantry. Carson was tasked by Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, to kill Navajo men, destroy crops, wells, houses and livestock. These tactics forced 9000 Navajos to take the Long Walk to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The Bosque was a complete failure. In 1868 the Navajo signed another treaty and were allowed to go back to part of their former territory. The returning Navajo were restocked with sheep and other livestock. Fort Defiance was the agency for the new Navajo reservation until 1936; today it provides medical services to the region.

 

Fort Apache was built on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation by soldiers from the 1st Cavalry and 21st Infantry in 1870. Only one small battle took place, in September 1881, with three soldiers wounded. When the reservation Indians were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, the fort was permanently closed down. Fort Huachuca, east of Tucson, was founded in 1877 as the base for operations against Apaches and raiders from Mexico. From 1913 to 1933 the fort was the base for the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. During World War II, the fort expanded to 25,000 soldiers, mostly in segregated all-black units. Today the fort remains in operation and houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network.

 

The Pueblos in Arizona were relatively peaceful through the Navajo and Apache Wars. However, in June 1891, the army had to bring in troops to stop Oraibi from preventing a school from being built on their mesa.

 

After the Civil War, Texans brought large-scale ranching to southern Arizona. They introduced their proven range methods to the new grass country. Texas rustlers also came, and brought lawlessness. Inexperienced ranchers brought poor management, resulting in overstocking, and introduced destructive diseases. Local cattleman organizations were formed to handle these problems. The Territory experienced a cattle boom in 1873–91, as the herds were expanded from 40,000 to 1.5 million head. However, the drought of 1891–93 killed off over half the cattle and produced severe overgrazing. Efforts to restore the rangeland between 1905 and 1934 had limited success, but ranching continued on a smaller scale.

 

Arizona's last major drought occurred during Dust Bowl years of 1933–34. This time Washington stepped in as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spent $100 million to buy up the starving cattle. The Taylor Grazing Act placed federal and state agencies in control of livestock numbers on public lands. Most of the land in Arizona is owned by the federal government which leased grazing land to ranchers at low cost. Ranchers invested heavily in blooded stock and equipment. James Wilson states that after 1950, higher fees and restrictions in the name of land conservation caused a sizable reduction in available grazing land. The ranchers had installed three-fifths of the fences, dikes, diversion dams, cattleguards, and other improvements, but the new rules reduced the value of that investment. In the end, Wilson believes, sportsmen and environmentalists maintained a political advantage by denouncing the ranchers as political corrupted land-grabbers who exploited the publicly owned natural resources.

 

On February 23, 1883, United Verde Copper Company was incorporated under New York law. The small mining camp next to the mine was given a proper name, 'Jerome.' The town was named after the family which had invested a large amount of capital. In 1885 Lewis Williams opened a copper smelter in Bisbee and the copper boom began, as the nation turned to copper wires for electricity. The arrival of railroads in the 1880s made mining even more profitable, and national corporations bought control of the mines and invested in new equipment. Mining operations flourished in numerous boom towns, such as Bisbee, Jerome, Douglas, Ajo and Miami.

 

Arizona's "wild west" reputation was well deserved. Tombstone was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. Western story tellers and Hollywood film makers made as much money in Tombstone as anyone, thanks to the arrival of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in 1879. They bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt were soon appointed as federal and local marshals. They killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West.

 

In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.

 

Jennie Bauters (1862–1905) operated brothels in the Territory from 1896 to 1905. She was an astute businesswoman with an eye for real estate appreciation, and a way with the town fathers of Jerome regarding taxes and restrictive ordinances. She was not always sitting pretty; her brothels were burned in a series of major fires that swept the business district; her girls were often drug addicts. As respectability closed in on her, in 1903 she relocated to the mining camp of Acme. In 1905, she was murdered by a man who had posed as her husband.

 

By 1869 Americans were reading John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached Grand Canyon's South Rim. With railroad, restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey leading the way, large-scale tourism began that has never abated. The Grand Canyon has become an iconic symbol of the West and the nation as a whole.

 

The Chinese came to Arizona with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880. Tucson was the main railroad center and soon had a Chinatown with laundries for the general population and a rich mix of restaurants, groceries, and services for the residents. Chinese and Mexican merchants and farmers transcended racial differences to form 'guanxi,' which were relations of friendship and trust. Chinese leased land from Mexicans, operated grocery stores, and aided compatriots attempting to enter the United States from Mexico after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Chinese merchants helped supply General John Pershing's army in its expedition against Pancho Villa. Successful Chinese in Tucson led a viable community based on social integration, friendship, and kinship.

 

In February 1903, U.S. Senator Hamilton Kean spoke against Arizona's statehood. He said Mormons who fled from Idaho to Mexico would return to the U.S. and mix in the politics of Arizona.

 

In 1912, Arizona almost entered the Union as part of New Mexico in a Republican plan to keep control of the U.S. Senate. The plan, while accepted by most in New Mexico, was rejected by most Arizonans. Progressives in Arizona favored inclusion in the state constitution of the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators, woman suffrage, and other reforms. Most of these proposals were included in the constitution that was rejected by Congress.

 

A new constitution was offered with the problematic provisions removed. Congress then voted to approve statehood, and President Taft signed the statehood bill on February 14, 1912. State residents promptly put the provisions back in. Hispanics had little voice or power. Only one of the 53 delegates at the constitutional convention was Hispanic, and he refused to sign. In 1912 women gained suffrage in the state, eight years before the country as a whole.

 

Arizona's first Congressman was Carl Hayden (1877–1972). He was the son of a Yankee merchant who had moved to Tempe because he needed dry heat for his bad lungs. Carl attended Stanford University and moved up the political ladder as town councilman, county treasurer, and Maricopa County sheriff, where he nabbed Arizona's last train robbers. He also started building a coalition to develop the state's water resources, a lifelong interest. A liberal Democrat his entire career, Hayden was elected to Congress in 1912 and moved to the Senate in 1926.

 

Reelection followed every six years as he advanced toward the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which he reached in 1955. His only difficult campaign came in 1962, at age 85, when he defeated a young conservative. He retired in 1968 after a record 56 years in Congress. His great achievement was his 41-year battle to enact the Central Arizona Project that would provide water for future growth.

 

The Great Depression of 1929–39 hit Arizona hard. At first local, state and private relief efforts focused on charity, especially by the Community Chest and Organized Charities programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933.

 

Construction programs were important, especially the Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized a schedule of water use set by the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that gave Arizona 19% of the river's water, with 25% to Nevada and the rest to California.

 

Construction of military bases in Arizona was a national priority because of the state's excellent flying weather and clear skies, large amounts of unoccupied land, good railroads, cheap labor, low taxes, and its proximity to California's aviation industry. Arizona was attractive to both the military and private firms and they stayed after the war.

 

Fort Huachuca became one of the largest nearly-all-black Army forts, with quarters for 1,300 officers and 24,000 enlisted soldiers. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, composed of African-American troops, trained there.

 

During the war, Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the American servicemen fighting the war, especially the Mexican-American servicemen from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community.

 

Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.

 

Heavy government spending during World War II revitalized the Arizona economy, which was still based on copper mining, citrus and cotton crops and cattle ranching, with a growing tourist business.

 

Military installations peppered the state, such as Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson, the main training center for air force bomber pilots. Two relocation camps opened for Japanese and Japanese Americans brought in from the West Coast.

 

After World War II the population grew rapidly, increasing sevenfold between 1950 and 2000, from 700,000 to over 5 million. Most of the growth was in the Phoenix area, with Tucson a distant second. Urban growth doomed the state's citrus industry, as the groves were turned into housing developments.

 

The cost of water made growing cotton less profitable, and Arizona's production steadily declined. Manufacturing employment jumped from 49,000 in 1960 to 183,000 by 1985, with half the workers in well-paid positions. High-tech firms such as Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft, Honeywell, and IBM had offices in the Phoenix area. By 1959, Hughes Aircraft had built advanced missiles with 5,000 workers in Tucson.

 

Despite being a small state, Arizona produced several national leaders for both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two Republican Senators were presidential nominees: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008; both carried Arizona but lost the national election. Senator Ernest McFarland, a Democrat, was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1952, and Congressman John Rhodes was the Republican Minority Leader in the House from 1973 to 1981. Democrats Bruce Babbitt (Governor 1978–87) and Morris Udall (Congressman 1961–90) were contenders for their party's presidential nominations. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; she served until 2006.

 

Retirement communities

Warm winters and low cost of living attracted retirees from the so-called snowbelt, who moved permanently to Arizona after 1945, bringing their pensions, Social Security, and savings with them. Real estate entrepreneurs catered to them with new communities with amenities pitched to older people, and with few facilities for children. Typically they were gated communities with controlled access and had pools, recreation centers, and golf courses.

 

In 1954, two developers bought 320 acres (1.3 km2) of farmland near Phoenix and opened the nation's first planned community dedicated exclusively to retirees at Youngtown. In 1960, developer Del Webb, inspired by the amenities in Florida's trailer parks, added facilities for "active adults" in his new Sun City planned community near Phoenix. In 1962 Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. Other developers copied the popular model, and by 2000 18% of the retirees in the state lived in such "lifestyle" communities.

 

The issues of the fragile natural environment, compounded by questions of water shortage and distribution, led to numerous debates. The debate crossed traditional lines, so that the leading conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater, was also keenly concerned. For example, Goldwater supported the controversial Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). He wrote:

 

I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water. While I am a great believer in the free competitive enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government action against important segments of our national economy.

 

Water issues were central. Agriculture consumed 89% of the state's strictly limited water supply while generating only 3% of the state's income. The Groundwater Management Act of 1980, sponsored by Governor Bruce Babbitt, raised the price of water to farmers, while cities had to reach a "safe yield" so that the groundwater usage did not exceed natural replenishment. New housing developments had to prove they had enough water for the next hundred years. Desert foliage suitable for a dry region soon replaced grass.

 

Cotton acreage declined dramatically, freeing up land for suburban sprawl as well as releasing large amounts of water and ending the need for expensive specialized machinery. Cotton acreage plunged from 120,000 acres in 1997 to only 40,000 acres in 2005, even as the federal treasury gave the state's farmers over $678 million in cotton subsidies. Many farmers collect the subsidies but no longer grow cotton. About 80% of the state's cotton is exported to textile factories in China and (since the passage of NAFTA) to Mexico.

 

Super Bowl XXX was played in Tempe in 1996 and Super Bowl XLII was held in Glendale in 2008. Super Bowl XLIX was also held in Glendale in 2015.

 

Illegal immigration continued to be a prime concern within the state, and in April 2010, Arizona SB1070 was passed and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The measure attracted national attention as the most thorough anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States.

 

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a political event in Tucson on January 8, 2011. The shooting resulted in six deaths and several injuries. Giffords survived the attack and became an advocate for gun control.

 

On June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Prescott Fire Department were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a hotshot crew, of whom only one survived as he was working in another location.

 

Border crisis: by 2019 Arizona was one of the states most affected by the border crisis, with a high number of migrant crossings and detentions.

Bennett Spring State Park, located approximately 12 miles west of Lebanon, Missouri, is one of America’s premier trout destinations. The spring, which flows into the Niangua River, has a daily average flow of more than 100 million gallons. Osage Indians credit a large earthquake for the creation of the spring. Their belief was that the Creator caused this quake when he became angry with the tribe. The spring provided an ideal location for grain and saw mills in the 1800s, the most successful of which was operated by Peter Bennett. The spring valley became a popular camping, fishing and hunting ground for farmers while waiting for their grain to be ground at the Bennett mill. Peter Bennett died in 1882, and although his son William continued its operation, the Bennett Mill burned in 1895.

  

In 1900 the Missouri Fish Commissioner introduced 40,000 mountain trout into the spring, and a privately owned fish hatchery was built in 1923. In 1924, the state purchased the spring and part of the surrounding area to create one of Missouri’s first state parks. The park is now owned and operated by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and the Missouri Department of Conservation operates the trout hatchery. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created by the federal government in the 1930s, contributed much to the present-day character of the park. Their projects included cabins, shelter houses, roads and trails, and the beautiful arched bridge across the spring branch. The CCC also constructed the concrete dam just upstream of the stone bridge to make the spring more habitable to the non-native trout and to maintain a constant water level at Bennett Spring.

  

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Both males and females have an 'armoured' body with a muscular, flat tail. The skin on their back is armoured with embedded bony plates called osteoderms or scutes. They have four short legs, the front legs have five toes while the back legs have only four. Alligators have a long, rounded snout that has upward facing nostrils at the end, this allows breathing to occur while the rest of the body is underwater. The young have bright yellow stripes on the tail, adults have dark stripes on the tail. Alligators have between 74 and 80 teeth in their mouth at a time, as they wear down they are replaced. An alligator can go through 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.

Male alligators are larger than females. The average adult size for a female is 8.2 ft. (2.6 m) and the average size for a male is 11.2 ft. (3.4 m). Exceptionally large males can reach a weight of nearly half a ton or 1,000 lb.(454 kg).

The American alligator is found in the US from North Carolina to the Rio Grande in Texas. Alligators are usually found in freshwater, slow moving rivers but they also live in swamps, marshes and lakes. They can only tolerate salt water for brief periods because they do not have salt glands.

Alligators are carnivorous. They have very strong jaws that can crack a turtle shell. They eat fish, snails and other invertebrates, birds, frogs and mammals that come to the water's edge. They use their sharp teeth to seize and hold prey. They swallow small prey whole. If the prey is large, they shake it apart into smaller, manageable pieces. If it is very large, they will bite it, then spin on the long axis of their bodies to tear off easily swallowed pieces.

Female alligators usually remain in a small area. Males can occupy areas greater than two square miles. Both males and females extend their ranges during the breeding season. Young alligators remain in the area where they are hatched and where their mother protects them. After two to three years, they leave that area in search of food or when driven out by larger alligators.

In late June and early July, the female lays 35 to 50 eggs. The eggs are then covered with vegetation in a nest and hatch after a 65 day incubation period. The sex of the juveniles is determined by the temperature of the nest. Temperatures of 31 C (87.8 F) or below produce females. A temperature of 32 C (89.6 F) produces 75% males and 32.5 C (90.5 F) and above are mostly females. Toward the end of August, the young alligators begin to make high pitched noises from inside of the egg. This lets the mother know that it is time to remove the nesting material. When the baby alligator hatches it measures about 6 to 8 in. (15 to 20 cm). Newly hatched alligators live in small groups, called 'pods'. Some 80% of young alligators fall victim to predators such as birds, raccoons, bobcats, otters, snakes, large bass and larger alligators. Females aggressively defend their young during these first few years. The juveniles grow about a foot a year.

American alligators live about 50 years in the wild. After they are 4 ft. long, alligators are safe from predators except humans and occasionally other alligators.

The conservation status of the American alligator is LC (Least Concern).

Bennett Spring State Park, located approximately 12 miles west of Lebanon, Missouri, is one of America’s premier trout destinations. The spring, which flows into the Niangua River, has a daily average flow of more than 100 million gallons. Osage Indians credit a large earthquake for the creation of the spring. Their belief was that the Creator caused this quake when he became angry with the tribe. The spring provided an ideal location for grain and saw mills in the 1800s, the most successful of which was operated by Peter Bennett. The spring valley became a popular camping, fishing and hunting ground for farmers while waiting for their grain to be ground at the Bennett mill. Peter Bennett died in 1882, and although his son William continued its operation, the Bennett Mill burned in 1895.

  

In 1900 the Missouri Fish Commissioner introduced 40,000 mountain trout into the spring, and a privately owned fish hatchery was built in 1923. In 1924, the state purchased the spring and part of the surrounding area to create one of Missouri’s first state parks. The park is now owned and operated by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and the Missouri Department of Conservation operates the trout hatchery. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), created by the federal government in the 1930s, contributed much to the present-day character of the park. Their projects included cabins, shelter houses, roads and trails, and the beautiful arched bridge across the spring branch. The CCC also constructed the concrete dam just upstream of the stone bridge to make the spring more habitable to the non-native trout and to maintain a constant water level at Bennett Spring.

  

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We are still breaking records with unseasonably hot weather here in Europe. Paris at this time of year is usually chilly and damp with an average daytime temperature of 11C / 52F.

Yesterday, October 1st, we hit 30C / 86F for the third day in a row.

 

Sorry for the cosmos overdose over the last few days ... I seem to be addicted to them. Just making the most of them while they last. Soon the frost will be here and they will be gone ....

A Ferrari F430 outside the Ferrari dealership in Geneva.

Our Fiat hire car was not quite this good.

Schweiz / Tessin - Verzascatal

 

Sonogno

 

The Valle Verzasca is a valley in the Locarno district of the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It comprises the municipalities of Mergoscia, Vogorno, Corippo, Lavertezzo, Brione, Gerra, Frasco, and Sonogno. As of 2004, the total population is 3,200. It is the most central valley of Ticino, and none of the passes out of the valley cross cantonal or national borders. The valley is formed by the river Verzasca and is situated between the Leventina and the Maggia and culminates at Pizzo Barone.

 

Geography

 

Located between the Leventina and the Valle Maggia valleys, Valle Verzasca extends over a length of 25 kilometres (16 mi) in north–south direction and is situated in the north of the Lago Maggiore. The valley floor is at about 500 metres (1,640 ft) to 900 metres (2,953 ft) above sea level. The surrounding mountain passes respectively have an average altitude of 2,400 metres (7,874 ft). The valley is crossed by the Verzasca which is dammed at the southernly outlet of the valley, forming the Lago di Vogorno, before it flows in the Magadino plain in the vicinity of the Ticino in the Lago Maggiore.

 

The Valle Verzasca includes the geographical centre of Ticino, which is located at Mergoscia, near the lower end of the valley.

 

Climate

 

Due to the different altitudes, all climate zones are combined in the Valle Verzasca. Tenero-contra and Gordola include the insubric climate region thanks to the deep-sea level, close to the Lago Maggiore and protected by the mountains from the north winds. Vineyards and Mediterranean vegetation benefit from the mildest climate area of Switzerland, nebulae are rare and rainfall of short duration. With increasing altitude, the hills and mountain climate goes over to regions dominated by the Alpine climate (over 2,000 metres (6,562 ft)).

 

Flora and fauna

 

The diversity benefits among other things, the cultivation of vines, and it flourish chestnut forests and palm trees thrive. Due to differences in soil type and amounts, almost all flora occurring in the Ticino and fauna of the various environmental zones are found in the Verzasca Valley.

 

The Romans introduced and comparable to the tropical wood species, Castanea sativa is in the southern part of the valley, below 1,000 metres (3,281 ft), the dominant species. It is no longer actively cultivated, but favors the further diffusion, and studies suggest taking advantage of the valuable wood of chestnut as a valuable wood.

 

In the Valle Verzasca the endemic Nera Verzasca goat has been preserved, which looks very much like the ancient Roman goat. This medieval durable goat has short hair, because it's not stuck in the snow.

 

Culture

 

Due to its isolated location, the Verzasca Valley is claimed as one of the valleys that could best keep its originality. The secluded geographical location made it unattractive for conquerors since the Roman period, and even before. The first traces of settlement in the area are from the early 2nd millennium BC, in its southern part. In Berzona, a locality (frazione) of Vogorno, a carved rock known as a Sass di Striöi (literally: witches stone) is situated on a hiking trail. The shell rock most likely dates from around 600–700 BC; there are about 90 such carved rocks in the Verzasca Valley. Although initially free farmers, the valley was alternately ruled by the Swiss Confederacy, Savoy, Leventia and the Rusca family from about 1410 onwards. In the European Middle Ages, the population were mainly farmers, and since the early 17th century, many residents had to leave for seasonal labour outside their home valley. Often unemployed young men were recruited as mercenaries for foreign armies. In two quarries granite is mined by local workers.

 

The so-called Rustici (Italian for farm house) in grey stone, with white borders on the windows and heavy stone roofs, are typical houses in the valley. Wood rafters are used to support the heavy stone roof, Castanea sativa wood. Many chapels along the way bear witness to the deep faith of the inhabitants of the valley. Valle Vercasza was the origin of many of the region's so-called Spazzacamini (literally: chimney sweep children).

 

Tourism

 

With the connection to the public transport, tourism developed from the end of the 19th century, but the majority of young people from the Valley still look for income opportunities in wealthier regions of Switzerland or northern Italy. Currently the majority of locals are active in the tourism trade. The conversion of the old Rustici houses into holiday houses created jobs, increased tourism revenues and ensured that the old houses and the characteristic image of the Verzasca Valley are preserved.

 

The mountaintop with views of the Valais, Bernese, Glarus and Grisons Alps, as well as the many transitions in the side and neighbouring valleys are popular to mountain hikers, and around a dozen mountain huts provide accommodation and meals. The Verzasca is popular to canoeists and divers, but considered to be dangerous and difficult. The Verzasca Dam is also well known for its 220 m height jump, which is one of the highest jumps in the world and also the most famous bungy jump, as it was used in the James Bond film GoldenEye.

 

Transportation

 

The only valley access for road traffic and the Postauto buses are bounded from Tenero or Gordola. The starting on the left side of the valley road (built from 1866 to 1871) crosses Vogorno, Corippo, Lavertezzo, Brione (Verzasca), Gerra (Verzasca), Frasco and ends in Sonogno; a short road leads to Corippo. On the right side of the valley, the road and post road trips from Locarno ends in Mergoscia.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Sonogno is a village and former municipality in the district of Locarno in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. It is located in Valle Verzasca. On 17 October 2020 the former municipalities of Vogorno, Sonogno, Corippo, Brione (Verzasca) and Frasco merged to form the new municipality of Verzasca.

 

History

 

Sonogno is first mentioned in 1200 as Sornono. In 1417 it was mentioned as Senognio. During the Middle Ages, Sonogno was part of the Vicinanza of Verzasca and shared the fate of the valley. From 1395 to 1843, it formed a single community with Frasco.

 

It was part of the parish of Vogorno until 1519, when it formed a parish with Frasco. It formed an independent parish in 1734. The parish church of St. Maria Loreto, is first documented in 1519. It was rebuilt in 1854 and decorated with paintings by Cherubino Patà.

 

The local economy was based mostly on grazing. During the summer, the cattle grazed in the high alpine pastures, in the winter the cows were moved to their winter pastures in the Magadino. Due to limited jobs, many of the residents emigrated and after about 1850, many went overseas. Decedents of residents of Sonogno can be found in nearly 40 different countries. The more recent exodus to urban centers, combined with emigration have caused a steady decline of population since the mid-nineteenth century. The Museum of Verzasca was built in Sonogno in 1974. In 2005 the agricultural sector still offered 47% of jobs in the municipality.

 

Geography

 

Sonogno had an area, as of 1997, of 37.52 square kilometers (14.49 sq mi). Of this area, 0.42 km2 (0.16 sq mi) or 1.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 10.29 km2 (3.97 sq mi) or 27.4% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 0.13 km2 (32 acres) or 0.3% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.74 km2 (0.29 sq mi) or 2.0% is either rivers or lakes and 19.7 km2 (7.6 sq mi) or 52.5% is unproductive land.

 

Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 0.3% and transportation infrastructure made up 0.0%. Out of the forested land, 11.7% of the total land area is heavily forested, while 12.2% is covered in small trees and shrubbery and 3.5% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.8% is used for growing crops. Of the water in the municipality, 0.2% is in lakes and 1.8% is in rivers and streams. Of the unproductive areas, 24.6% is unproductive vegetation and 27.9% is too rocky for vegetation.

 

The village is located in the Locarno district, Sonogno is the last village on the paved road through the Valley Verzasca. All motor vehicles are required to park at the entrance to the village. It is located at an elevation of 918 m (3,012 ft) about 30 km (19 mi) from Locarno.

 

Sights

 

The entire village of Sonogno is designated as part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.

 

In popular culture

 

In Pedro Almodóvar's movie Julieta, Julieta's daughter Antía lives in Sonogno.

 

The events of the German novel, The Black Brothers, and the anime based on it (Romeo's Blue Skies), follow a young boy from Sonogno village who sold himself to work as a chimney sweep in Milan, Italy. It was inspired by a real event where a ferry carrying chimney sweeps sunk in a storm.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Das Verzascatal (italienisch Valle Verzasca) ist ein Tal im Schweizer Kanton Tessin, das zum Bezirk Locarno gehört. Im Verzascatal liegen die Ortschaften Mergoscia, Vogorno, Corippo, Lavertezzo, Brione (Verzasca), Gerra (Verzasca), Frasco und Sonogno. Ausser Mergoscia, das als eigene Gemeinde zum Kreis Navegna gehört, sind heute alle zur Gemeinde Verzasca zusammengeschlossen, die identisch mit dem Kreis Verzasca ist.

 

Lage

 

Das Verzascatal ist ein wildes Tal mit steilen Hängen und unzähligen Wasserfällen. Die Verzascahäuser (Rustici) aus grauem Stein mit weissen Umrandungen an den Fenstern und schweren Steinplattendächern sind typisch für das Tal. Die Kapellen entlang der Wege zeugen vom religiösen Glauben der Talbewohner.

 

Das Verzascatal ist mit Mergoscia das geometrische Zentrum des Tessins. Es ist das einzige Tal, das nur an Tessiner Täler grenzt. Es liegt zwischen der Leventina und dem Maggiatal und erstreckt sich über eine Länge von 25 km in Süd-Nord-Richtung nördlich des Lago Maggiore. Der Talboden liegt auf 500 bis 900 m ü. M. Die Berge, die das ganze Tal umrahmen, haben eine durchschnittliche Höhe von 2400 m ü. M. Das Tal wird vom Fluss Verzasca durchflossen, der am Talausgang gestaut wird und den Lago di Vogorno bildet, bevor er in der Magadinoebene in der Nähe des Ticino in den Lago Maggiore fliesst.

 

Die Seitentäler des Valle Verzasca sind von folgenden Dörfern aus erreichbar: Auf der rechten Talseite: das Val Resa und Valle di Mergoscia von Mergoscia; das Val di Corippo von Corippo; das Val d’Orgnana und Valle del Cansgell von Lavertezzo; das Val d’Osura von Brione; das Val Redòrta und Val Vegornèss von Sonogno. Auf der linken Talseite: das Val della Porta von Vogorno; das Val Carecchio, Val Pincascia und Val d’Agro von Lavertezzo; das Val Mött von Gerra; das Val d’Efra von Frasco.

 

Klima, Flora und Fauna

 

Aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Höhenlagen sind in der Valle Verzasca viele Klimazonen vereint. Tenero-Contra und Gordola gehören dank tiefer Meereshöhe, Seenähe und dem Schutz der Berge des Verzascatales vor den Nordwinden zur insubrischen Klimaregion. Weinberge und mediterrane Vegetation profitieren hier vom mildesten Klima der Schweiz, Nebel sind selten und Regenfälle von kurzer Dauer. Dieses Klima zieht sich weit in das Tal hinein, in dem Reben, Kastanienwälder und Palmen gedeihen. Es geht dann mit zunehmender Höhe über das Hügel- und Bergklima bis in die Regionen mit alpinem Klima (über 2000 m ü. M.). Wegen der Unterschiede in der Bodenbeschaffenheit und der Höhe können im Verzascatal fast alle im Tessin vorkommenden Pflanzen- und Tierarten der verschiedenen Umweltzonen angetroffen werden.

 

Die von den Römern eingeführte Edelkastanie (Castanea sativa) ist im südlichen Teil des Tales, unterhalb 1000 m, die dominierende Baumart. Ihr Holz hat ähnliche Eigenschaften wie die Tropenhölzer. Die Kastanienwälder werden seit den 1950er-Jahren nicht mehr bewirtschaftet, da es sich meist um Niederwälder handelt. Im Verzasca können in der Nähe von Dörfern und Maiensässen (monti) «auf den Stock gesetzte» Kastanienbäume, etwa auf Mannshöhe abgesägte Baumstümpfe, gefunden werden. Da die Kastanie die Fähigkeit hat, aus dem abgesägten Baumstumpf wieder auszutreiben (Stockausschlag), musste solange gewartet werden (etwa zehn Jahre), bis die Triebe den gewünschten Umfang erreichten, um zum Beispiel als Balken für die tonnenschweren Steindächer eingesetzt werden zu können. Im Jahre 2005 publizierte Studien über Versuchsanlagen schlagen vor, das wertvolle Kastanienholz wieder als Wertholz – zum Beispiel für Parkettböden – zu nutzen.

 

Im Verzascatal hat sich die alte Ziegenrasse Nera-Verzasca-Ziege erhalten, die der römischen Ziege sehr ähnlich sieht, wie aufgrund von Hornfunden in Augusta Raurica nachgewiesen werden konnte. Diese mittelalterliche Robustziege hat kurzes Haar, an dem Schnee nicht haftet.

 

Wirtschaft

 

Früher betrieb die Bevölkerung hauptsächlich Landwirtschaft, das heisst vor allem Weidewirtschaft. Ab dem 14. Jahrhundert überwinterten Einwohner mit ihrem Vieh in der Magadinoebene. Seit dem 17. Jahrhundert fand eine saisonale Auswanderung zur Erwerbstätigkeit statt. Arbeitslose und abenteuerlustige Männer liessen sich als Söldner für fremde Kriegsdienste anwerben. Piccoli spazzacamini (italienisch für kleine Schornsteinfeger) nannte man im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert in Italien und im Tessin die Buben, die vor allem in den Städten Norditaliens als Kaminfegerkinder arbeiten mussten.

 

Seit 1873 wird in zwei Steinbrüchen von einheimischen Arbeitern Granit abgebaut. Mit dem Anschluss an den öffentlichen Verkehr entwickelte sich ab Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts der Tourismus. Im späteren 19. Jahrhundert, nach dem kalifornischen Goldrausch, begann auch im Verzascatal die Tradition der Kalifornienwanderung, die teilweise als Ersatz für die abgebrochene ältere europäische Auswanderungstradition angesehen werden kann.

 

Während der Krise der 1930er-Jahre breitete sich die Arbeitslosigkeit auch im Verzasca aus, und da auch Amerika die Grenzen geschlossen hatte, war auch die Auswanderung nicht mehr möglich.

 

Um der arbeitslosen Bevölkerung zu helfen, wurde das «Komitee für die Tätigkeiten in Heimarbeit» («Comitato per i lavori casalinghi a domicilio») gegründet. Die Talbewohner wurden mit typischen handwerklichen Tätigkeiten beschäftigt: Wollfärbung mit natürlichen Farben (Blättern, Wurzeln und Früchten, die vor Ort vorhanden sind), Handspinnerei, Strickerei und Holzarbeiten, um ihre finanzielle Not zu lindern. Daraus entwickelte sich 1933 die «Pro Verzasca», eine örtliche Vereinigung zur Wahrung der moralischen und materiellen Interessen der Region und ihrer besten Eigenschaften.

 

Der Umbau der alten Verzascahäuser (Rustici) in Ferienhäuser schafft Arbeitsplätze, erhöht die Tourismuseinnahmen und sorgt dafür, dass die alten Häuser und das charakteristische Ortsbild erhalten bleiben.

 

Im Jahre 1990 waren nur noch 20 Prozent der Beschäftigten im Landwirtschaftssektor tätig.

 

Verkehr

 

Der einzige Talzugang für den Autoverkehr und das Postauto ist im Süden ab Tenero oder Gordola. Die auf der linken Talseite beginnende Kantonsstrasse führt über Vogorno, Corippo, Lavertezzo, Brione (Verzasca), Gerra (Verzasca), Frasco und endet in Sonogno. Sie wurde erst in den Jahren 1866 bis 1871 gebaut. Eine kurze Stichstrasse führt nach Corippo.

 

Auf der rechten Talseite endet die Strasse und Postautostrecke ab Locarno bereits in Mergoscia.

 

Tourismus

 

Die vielen Gipfel mit Sicht auf die Walliser-, Berner und Glarner- und Bündneralpen sowie die zahlreichen Übergänge in die Seiten- und Nachbartäler machen das Valle Verzasca zu einem Anziehungspunkt für Bergwanderer. Die Berghütten Cornavosa, Barone, Cognora, Efra, Osola, Fümegna und Borgna bieten Unterkunft.

 

Der Sentierone Valle Verzasca ist ein rot-weiss markierter Wanderweg (Bergweg), der von Tenero aus oberhalb des Lago di Vogorno oder via Mergoscia und später entlang der Verzasca in mehreren Etappen bis nach Sonogno führt.

 

Die Via Alta della Verzasca (VAV) gilt als eine der wildesten Bergwanderungen der Schweiz (SAC-Wanderskala = T6). Sie führt über verlassene Alpen, schroffe Gräben und schwer zugängliche Seitentäler und verbindet fünf Hütten miteinander. Die Route ist blau-weiss markiert und die schwierigsten Stellen sind mit Sicherungen (Drahtseile, Metallbügel) versehen. Die VAV führt oft durch sehr ausgesetztes Gelände mit Kletterstellen, so dass sie nur für erfahrene Berggänger zu empfehlen ist.

 

Die Bergwanderung Trekking 700 von Mesocco (GR) nach Formazza (I) führt durch das Valle Verzasca: die 4. Etappe: Biasca – Capanna Efra, die 5. Etappe: Capanna Efra – Sonogno und die 6. Etappe: Sonogno – Prato-Sornico.

 

Der Verzasca-Fluss ist unter Kanuten und Tauchern beliebt, gilt aber als schwierig bis gefährlich.

 

Über Geschichte und Gegenwart des Tales informiert das Museo di Val Verzasca in Sonogno.

 

Geschichte

 

Wegen seiner schweren Erreichbarkeit gilt das Verzascatal als eines der Täler, das am besten seine Ursprünglichkeit bewahren konnte. Die abgelegene geographische Lage machte es für die Eroberer uninteressant.

 

Zeugen einer sehr frühen Besiedlung der Verzasca-Region fanden sich an der Mündung der Verzasca. Dort wurden Steinarten aus der jüngeren Steinzeit (1800 v. Chr.) gefunden. In Berzona, einem Ortsteil (frazione) von Vogorno, liegt am Wanderweg ein grosser Schalenstein, der Sass di Striöi (Hexenstein), der vermutlich um 600 bis 700 v. Chr. bearbeitet wurde. Insgesamt gibt es im Verzascatal rund neunzig derartig eingemeisselte Felsen. In Tenero wurde 1880 eine bedeutende römische Nekropole aus dem 1. und 2. Jahr. n. Chr. entdeckt. Die Funde (Bronzen, Amphoren, Münzen) befinden sich im archäologischen Museum des Castello dei Visconti in Locarno.

 

Vermutlich um 1000 n. Chr. gründeten die Talbewohner eine Gemeinschaft (comunità) bestehend aus den vier Dorfgenossenschaften (vicinie): Vogorno (mit Corippo), Lavertezzo, Brione (mit Gerra) und Frasco (mit Sonogno). Die Gemeinschaft gehörte zum Pieve von Locarno, gegen den sie sich 1398 auflehnte. Zwischen 1410 und 1500 geriet das Tal abwechselnd unter die Herrschaft der Eidgenossen, Savoyer, Leventiner und der Rusca. Nach 1686 konnte sich die Gemeinschaft von den Marcacci Vögten befreien. 1803 wurde das Verzascatal ein Kreis (circolo) mit dem Hauptort Lavertezzo. In religiöser Hinsicht gehörte das Verzascatal bis zum 13. Jahrhundert zur Pfarrei San Vittore di Locarno.

 

Geologie

 

Einzigartig für die Region ist der spektakulär gefärbte Gneis. Es handelt sich um einen Oligoklasgneis, der unter dem Handelsnamen Serizzo bekannt ist. Die Farben verlaufen zwischen Braun, Schwarz, Grau und Weiss. Die Gesteine des benachbarten Valle Maggia sind dagegen meist rein grau.

 

(Wikipedia)

 

Sonogno ist eine Ortschaft in der Gemeinde Verzasca im Schweizer Kanton Tessin. Bis 2020 bildete sie eine eigene Gemeinde.

 

Geographie

 

Sonogno ist die hinterste Ortschaft im Verzascatal und liegt in einer Mulde beim Zusammenfluss der Gebirgsbäche aus dem Redorta- und Vegornesstal. Westlich des Ortes liegt der Monte Zucchero (2735 m ü. M.).

 

Nachbargemeinden im Verzascatal waren Frasco, Cugnasco-Gerra und Brione (Verzasca). Nördlich grenzen die Bezirke Vallemaggia und Leventina an.

 

Sonogno ist Ausgangspunkt für viele Wanderungen. Im Winter kann man hier Schlittschuh laufen und Skilanglauf betreiben.

 

Geschichte

 

Sonogno findet sich um 1200 als Sornono und 1417 als Senognio bezeugt und gehörte im Mittelalter zur Nachbarschaft Verzasca. Von 1395 bis 1843 bildete das Dorf mit dem Nachbarort Frasco eine Gemeinde. Ab 1850 setzte eine Auswanderungswelle nach Übersee und später in die städtischen Zentren ein, die zu einer spürbaren Abnahme der Bevölkerung führte.

 

1974 wurde in Sonogno das Museum des Verzascatals eröffnet, das Zeugnis gibt vom bäuerlichen Leben des Tales in der Vergangenheit. Es ist auch der Geschichte der Kaminfegerkinder gewidmet, den Buben, die im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert in den Städten Norditaliens als Schornsteinfeger (italienisch spazzacamini) arbeiten mussten.

 

Am 18. Oktober 2020 fusionierte die damalige Gemeinde Sonogno mit den Gemeinden Brione (Verzasca), Corippo, Cugnasco-Gerra (Gerra Valle), Frasco, Lavertezzo (Lavertezzo Valle) und Vogorno zur neugebildeten Gemeinde Verzasca. Sonogno bildet aber nach wie vor eine eigenständige Bürgergemeinde.

 

Sehenswürdigkeiten

 

Das Dorfbild ist im Inventar der schützenswerten Ortsbilder der Schweiz (ISOS) als schützenswertes Ortsbild der Schweiz von nationaler Bedeutung eingestuft.

 

Das Museo di Val Verzasca, das Zentrum der Wollverarbeitung sowie die Kunsthandwerkgeschäfte

 

Kirche Santa Maria Lauretana von 1854 mit Schwarzer Madonna

 

Schalenstein im Ortsteil Al Pianche

 

Schalensteingruppe im Ortsteil Alpe Cansgel. Ein Stein wird Sass der Stria genannt.

 

Trivia

 

In Sonogno beginnt und endet die Handlung des bekannten Kinder- und Jugendbuches Die schwarzen Brüder von Kurt Held und Lisa Tetzner.

 

(Wikipedia)

Joe, as seen on Fillmore St, San Francisco (thanks Joe for being a good sport).

  

Also worth looking at for a slice of colourful San Francisco: SF Pride 2011, Bay to Breakers 2011, Carnaval SF 2011, the How Weird Street Faire 2011 and other San Francisco Madness.

 

Explored 25/07/11 #215 :)

\_|_/ Average Holiday Moors and Christians Elda 2012 * Mitja Festa Moros i Cristians Elda 2012 \_|_/

 

Art Digital

 

♪♫♫♪

“Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.”

~ Satchel Paige

 

p.s. This is a real fetus and i took this picture at the science museum in LA. This is the negative with orange hue.

January 2025.Joe’s Junk on Fair Park Boulevard Little Rock, Arkansas.KodakTX400.Pentax KX-silver.Pentax120mm.OrangeFilter.CaffenolCH@20minutes.Scanned:FujifilmXH1

Item Notes: This dam is on the North Santiam River. Average flow 1,764 second-feet. Maximum flow 65,000 second-feet. Drainage area at dam is 438 square miles.

 

Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection, 1855-2007

 

Item Number: WilliamsG: SVdam2

 

You can find this image by searching for the item number by clicking here.

 

Want more? You can find more digital resources online.

 

We're happy for you to share this digital image within the spirit of The Commons; however, certain restrictions on high quality reproductions of the original physical version may apply. To read more about what “no known restrictions” means, please visit the Special Collections & Archives website, or contact staff at the OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center for details.

 

The average mass for an adult male giraffe is 1,191 kilograms while the average mass for an adult female is 828 kilograms. It is approximately 4.3 metres to 5.2 metres tall, although the tallest male recorded stood almost 6 metres. The giraffe has one of the shortest sleep requirements of any mammal, which is between ten minutes and two hours in a 24-hour period, averaging 1.9 hours per day.

 

Males often engage in necking, which has been described as having various functions. One of these is combat. Battles can be fatal, but are more often less severe. The longer the neck, and the heavier the head at the end of the neck, the greater the force a giraffe is able to deliver in a blow. It has also been observed that males that are successful in necking have greater access to estrous females, so the length of the neck may be a product of sexual selection.

After a necking duel, a giraffe can land a powerful blow with his head — occasionally knocking a male opponent to the ground. These fights rarely last more than a few minutes or end in physical harm.

Another function of necking is sexual, in which two males caress and court each other, leading up to mounting and climax. Such interactions between males are more frequent than heterosexual coupling. In one study, up to 94% of observed mounting incidents took place between two males. The proportion of same sex activities varied between 30 and 75%, and at any given time one in twenty males were engaged in non-combative necking behaviour with another male. Only 1% of same-sex mounting incidents occurred between females.

 

Vintage Italian postcard. 1920s. Ed. A. Traldi, Milano, No. 61.

 

Gennaro Righelli (12 December 1886 – 6 January 1949) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, who directed over 110 films in Italy and Germany between 1910 and 1947. In 1930, he directed the first Italian sound film, La canzone dell'amore (The Song of Love). He was married to the film star Maria Jacobini, whom he frequently cast in his films.

 

Salvatore Gennaro Righelli, born in Salerno, was the son of the Neapolitan dialect actor Angelo and the Bolognese Maria Galassi. He took up the theatrical activity in 1902 in a dialect company following the footsteps of his father. His daughter Lea was the mother of directors Luciano and Sergio Martino.

 

Righelli started to work in cinema in 1910, when he made his acting debut for the Roman company Cines in a handful of short films such as Amore di schiava (Enrique Santos, 1910) and Anore di torero (Santos, 1910), often acting together with his first wife, Maria Righelli, née Maria Mauro. IMDB and Aldo Bernardini give contrasting information about Righelli's film directions. IMDb claims it was for Andreuccio da Perugia, after Boccaccio, in 1910, but Bernardini doesn't list a director for this film. IMDb lists the film Sperduta with Righelli first playing opposite Maria Jacobini but Bernardini indicates the films as 1911 and with Maria Righelli instead. Indeed, it seems that IMDb erroneously conflates Maria Righelli with Maria Jacobini (Gennaro Righelli and Maria Jacobini would only work professionally from the late 1910s onward and would marry eventually in 1925).

 

In 1911 Gennaro and Maria Righelli continued at Cines, alternating historical and modern dramas. While it seems that Righelli co-directed with Mario Caserini La fidanzata di Messina and Giovanna la pallida, his first independent directing must have been that of La vita di una chanteuse/ Povera Dora!. In May 1911 Righelli and his wife moved to Vesuvio Films in Naples, where he was actor-director of some 9 films until early 1913, and also manager of the studio. He made his first feature films there, including an adaptation of Boccaccio's Decamerone (1912), the Napoleonic Der Tugenbund (1912), and L'eroica fanciulla di Derna (1912), set during the Italo-Turkish war. In 1913 work at Vesuvio halted and Maria Righelli stopped acting for several years, probably due to a marital crisis, Bernardini suggests. In 1914 Gennaro Righelli encountered misfortune with the companies Victoria Film and Parioli Film, so he returned to Cines in 1915, where he shot the short propaganda comedy Il sogno patriottico di Cinessino and launched Diomira Jacobini, Maria Jacobini's younger sister, in the comedy Diomira si diverte (1915). For Milano Films he did the heavy drama La macchia nel blasone (1915).

 

Yet, more substantial was Righelli's career at the Roman company Tiber Film, between 1916 and 1920. In 1916 Righelli directed Primo e ultimo bacio, Alla capitale, Febbre di gloria, and Nella città eterna, often with the couple André Habay and Matilde Di Marzio in the lead. In 1917 Righelli continued at Tiber Film with the Giacosa adaptation Come le foglie, with Maria Jacobini in the lead - probably their first professional collaboration on the film sets. Until 1920, Righelli turned out several films per year at Tiber Film, again with the couple Habay-Di Marzio but in particular 9 films with Diomira Jacobini: L'ombra che passa (1917), Demonietto (1917), Quando il sole tramonta (1917), Camere separate (1917), Duecento all'ora (1918), L'autunno dell'amore (1918), Il veleno del piacere (1918), Mademoiselle Pas-Chic (1918), and Le avventure di Doloretta (1919). Righelli also directed Polidor (Il nipote di America, 1917, Venti giorni all'ombra, 1918, also with Diomira Jacobini); Vittoria Lepanto, Diana Karenne (La peccatrice casta, 1919), Italia Almirante Manzini (L'innamorata, 1919); and last but not least, Diomira's sister Maria Jacobini (L'articolo IV, 1918, La regina del carbone, 1919, La vergine folle, 1921). In 1918-19 he co-directed with Polidor also shot a long serial, La canaglia di Parigi, which had trouble with the censor.

 

From 1920, Righelli worked for the Turinese company Fert, where he was a prolific author varying between literary inspiration (Il viaggio, 1921, after PIrandello) and melodrama with an evocative setting (Cainà, l'isola e il continente, 1922). It was here that he did various acclaimed dramas with Maria Jacobini, who became his girlfriend and finally, in 1925, his wife. Together they did, in addition to Il viaggio and Cainà, also La casa di vetro (1920) with Amleto Novelli, Amore rosso (1921) set in Spain, Il richiamo (1921) with Lido Manetti, and L'incognita (1922). Single collaborations at Fert Righelli had once more with Diomira Jacobini and Italia Almirante Manzini. For the small company EDA, Righelli and Jacobini did the fascinating film La casa sotto la neve (1922), with a thrilling Kammerspiel-like climax when Jacobini's character and her daughter are menaced by the mother's evil suitor (Alberto Capozzi), within a house that is snowed-in.

 

In 1923, following the crisis that hit Italian cinema, Righelli joined the ranks of Italian directors, from Mario Almirante to Mario Bonnard, from Guido Brignone to Amleto Palermi, who decided to move to Germany. Once in Berlin, the director was hired by producer Jakob Karol and, together with Maria Jacobini, they founded the film company Maria Jacobini-Film GmbH, from which the film entitled Bohème - Künstlerliebe was released. Afterward, they collaborated with several companies such as Trianon and Phoebus. In 1925 Righelli married Jacobini, who starred in his German films Steuerlos (1924), the exotic film Orient - Die Tochter der Wüste (1924) also with the German heartthrob Harry Liedtke, Die Puppenkönigin (1925), and Der Bastard/ Il transatlantico (1925) which includes a spectacular shipwreck scene and of which a nicely tinted & toned version has been found and restored.

 

In the later 1920s, Righelli maintained his productivity of three to four films a year in Germany, but with other stars in the lead such as Fred Solm (Der Meister der Welt, 1927), Paul Wegener (Svengali, 1927), Mady Christians (Heimweh, 1927), Claire Rommer (Frauenraub in Marokko, 1928), Ivan Mozzhukhin (Der Präsident, 1928; Der geheime Kurier, 1928), Paul Richter (Sensation im Wintergarten, 1928), and Fritz Kortner (Die Nacht des Schreckens, 1929), while Jacobini still starred in Righelli's Fünf bange Tage (1928).

 

In 1930, when sound film had set in, Righelli returned to Italy to shoot the first Italian sound film, La canzone dell'amore. It starred Dria Paola as young woman who takes care of her mother's baby, causing a break with fiancé (Elio Steiner), a singer who is about to have his breakthrough. Isa Pola is the girlfriend who tries to drive a wedge between the couple. Righelli also directed the French alternative version of the film, La dernière berceuse, with Dolly Davis in the lead. The film, produced by Cines-Pittaluga, was the start of Righelli's new, prolific career in sound film.

 

During the 1930s, Righelli directed several comedies, some of which starred Sicilian actor Angelo Musco, in titles such as L'aria del continente (1935), Pensaci, Giacomino! (1936), Lo smemorato (1936), and Gatta ci cova (1937). He also directed Jacobini once more opposite Armando Falconi in the comedy Patatrac (1931). Although Righelli directed several Italian sound films in the 1930s and early 1940s, many were average fare comedies and dramas that didn't make history, and none were die-hard propaganda films. They starred the stars of those years, such as Gino Cervi, Germana Paolieri, and Nino Besozzi, although he often directed former stars of the silent era too, in supporting parts. In the immediate post-war period, Righelli directed Anna Magnani in two films that were a great success with the public: Abbasso la miseria! (1945) and Abbasso la ricchezza! (1946), the latter starring the great Roman actress alongside Vittorio De Sica.

 

Sources: Aldo Bernardini, Cinema muto italiano protagonisti, Aldo Bernardini/ Vittorio Martinelli, il cinema muto italiano, Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.

Esteiro de Maria Nova

Ludo, Faro, Algarve, Portugal

 

[order] Falconiformes | [family] Accipitridae | [latin] Pandion haliaetus | [UK] Osprey | [FR] Balbuzard pêcheur | [DE] Fischadler | [ES] Águila Pescadora | [IT] Falco pescatore | [NL] Visarend

 

Measurements

spanwidth min.: 152 cm

spanwidth max.: 167 cm

size min.: 52 cm

size max.: 60 cm

Breeding

incubation min.: 37 days

incubation max.: 41 days

fledging min.: 49 days

fledging max.: 56 days

broods 1

eggs min.: 1

eggs max.: 4

 

Physical characteristics

 

The osprey is the only member of its family, the Pandionidae, and is a large bird of prey, 55-60 cm. in length and with a wingspan of 145-170 cm. Females are usually 5-10% larger than males, and weigh on average 1.6 kg as against 1.4 kg. for males. Both sexes have similar coloration, with the plumage being dark brown on the back, tail and upper wings. The head and body are white, with a dark eye stripe, a speckled crown and mottled light brown feathers on the upper breast. The flight feathers are grayish-brown and barred on the underside, and the primary feathers have long dark brown tips to them. The tail is similarly barred, and is darker brown at the tips. Other features include eyes with bright yellow irises, a black, sharply-curved beak and pale blue-grey feet. Vocalizations consist mainly of whistled notes that vary in pitch and intensity, depending on whether they are display calls or alarm calls etc.

The osprey has a number of specialized morphological adaptations for its fish-eating lifestyle, including nasal valves which close when it dives underwater. It has relatively long legs for a raptor and equal-lengthed toes, the outer of which is reversible, so that slippery fish can be grasped tightly with two toes in front and two behind. The talons are long and deeply-curved, and the undersides of the feet are covered in spiny bumps called spicules that help to hold the prey.

 

Habitat

 

Ospreys are typically associated with permanent water habitats, especially sea coasts, impoundments, lakes, rivers, and swamps. Breeding habitat requirements include open expanses of water that support abundant slow-moving fish, water clarity sufficient to allow visual detection of fish, and elevated or inaccessible sites for nest-building. Osprey nest sites are highly variable, but most, if available, prefer either dead trees or living trees with broken or dead tops. The nest tree is usually taller than surrounding trees and as close to suitable foraging areas as possible. Where natural sites are limited or missing, Ospreys readily nest on human-made structures, such as power poles, radio towers, channel markers, television antennas, or bridges. The nest is a large, bulky structure that is regularly reused and enlarged for several successive years.

 

Other details

 

This species has a nearly world-wide distribution, being only absent from South America. Its European populations are wintering mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, but some birds remain in the Mediterranean region. Currently the total population of the European Union (12 Member States) can be estimated at 270-282 breeding pairs. It has undergone a dramatic decrease at the end of last century and beginning of this century. The species had been extirpated from several countries, including continental France, the British Isles, the Netherlands and Italy. Between 1930 and 1950 its population remained stable, and since 1970 the migratory populations of north-western Europe have increased. The species is consequently back in the British Isles and continental France. The Mediterranean populations, however, are still decreasing. Formerly direct persecution was the main threat to this species, but currently habitat destruction and pollution are more important

 

Feeding

 

The diet consists almost entirely of fish, and the osprey is unusual amongst raptors in being so exclusively piscivorous. Both freshwater and marine fish are taken, and in the Highlands the main prey includes trout , pike and flounder. Hunting usually begins with a hovering flight over water, or occasionally from a perch overlooking water. When a fish is targeted, the osprey dives down with its wings swept back and just before impact it brings its talons forward to plunge feet-first into the water and grasp the fish under the surface.

Success rates in catching fish vary from about 20% to over 50% of attempts, depending on the ability of the individual osprey, and a bird can sometimes be completely submerged as it takes a fish. Flapping its wings strongly, the osprey rises out of the water and once airborne it carries the fish with one foot in front of the other, so that the head is facing forward - this is presumed to be a more aerodynamic position, which makes it easier for the osprey to fly with its prey. The fish is taken to a perch, often near the nest, where it is generally eaten headfirst.

 

Conservation

 

This species has a large global range; the total size has not yet been quantified, but the Extent of Occurrence in Africa and the Americas combined is estimated to be 9,670,000 km². It has a large global population estimated to be 460,000 individuals (Rich et al. 2003). Global population trends have not been quantified, but the species is not believed to approach the thresholds for the population decline criterion of the IUCN Red List (i.e. declining more than 30% in ten years or three generations). For these reasons, the species is evaluated as Least Concern. [conservation status from birdlife.org]

 

Breeding

 

Breeding begins when ospreys are three to five years old, and in Scotland, birds return at the end of March or early April. Courtship consists of aerial displays by the male bird near a nest site, which serve to attract potential mates and discourage rivals. Nests are known as eyries and are constructed out of sticks in the top of a tall tree, most often a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Elsewhere in their range ospreys occasionally nest on cliffs. Ospreys pair for life and nests are used year after year, with large ones being up to a meter in width and height.

Mating takes place at the nest, and in late April or early May the female lays her clutch of eggs - usually three, but sometimes two or four. The eggs are a pale color with brown blotches, and are 62 x 46 mm. in size. Incubation is carried out by both birds, but only the male hunts at this time, sharing the fish with the female when she is sitting on the eggs. The chicks hatch after 35 days and the female broods them continuously, with the male bringing fish for her and the young. Unlike some other raptors, aggression amongst the chicks is rare and usually they all survive. As the chicks grow, their down is replaced by feathers, and they fledge at 53 days of age. For about two weeks they return to the nest to be fed by the male, while they strengthen their wings and learn to fish for themselves.

 

Migration

 

Migratory; mainly summer visitor to west Palearctic. Rare winter records known from north and central Europe. Less rare in winter around Mediterranean, and often seen then in North Africa, Iraq, and Persian Gulf, but main winter quarters of European and west Siberian birds in sub-Saharan Africa, where occur on river systems almost throughout, though evidently rare south of equator. Migrates on broad fronts over seas and deserts, and shows less inclination to concentrate at narrow sea-crossings than any other broad-winged raptor. Individuals often remain off-passage at suitable river, Lake, or reservoir sites for several days, or even weeks in cases of immature birds. Begin arriving African winter quarters late September to early October. Many young birds remain in wintering areas for their 1st summer or stop in Mediterranean basin; some 2nd-summer birds also stay south, and have given rise to persistent rumours of breeding in African interior. Adults start return towards breeding areas in March, mainly crossing Mediterranean second half March; early arrivals on breeding grounds late March, most during April. Returning 2nd-summer birds follow on average a month later than experienced breeders.

Its in average condition although its still very presentable in my opinion i never really found these that often thats not the case anymore! On the rear its all complete