View allAll Photos Tagged modifications
The Lake Placid Tower in Lake Placid, Florida, formerly named Placid Tower, Tower of Peace or Happiness Tower, is a closed observation tower 240 feet (73.2 m) tall according to early sources (before 1982) or 270 feet (82.3 m) tall according to late sources (after 1986). However, no physical modification of the tower occurred in the interim that would explain a 30-foot increase in height. It rests on ground 142 feet (43 m) above sea level (NAVD 88). As a warning to aircraft, the top of the tower, including antennae, is stated to be 392 feet (119.5 m) above sea level by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Thus, the height of the tower above ground, including antennae, is 250 feet (76.2 m) (392–142=250), which excludes a 270-foot architectural height, allowing only a 240-foot architectural height. Counting the tower's 8-inch (20.3 cm) courses yields a height above ground of 235–236 feet (71.6–71.9 m), so the lowest few feet of the 240-foot height, those resting on the foundation, are underground, providing space for an elevator pit.
According to early sources the tower has three observation levels, at 192 feet (58.5 m) behind windows, at 200 feet (61.0 m) on an open air balcony, and at 225 feet (68.6 m) in the open air crow's nest, Eagle's Nest, or Birds eye vantage point on top of the elevator shaft but below roof tracery. The apex of the tower is a flashing red aircraft warning light. The tower is 360 feet (110 m) above sea level according to two late sources, the latter stating that that elevation applies to the eagle's nest, which is consistent with the crow's nest elevation of early sources (142+225=367≈360). The tower offered a 40-mile (65 km) panoramic view.
Earnest Oakley Hunt dreamed of building an observation tower when he moved to Orlando in 1938, then moved to Sebring in 1947 and found the perfect location in nearby Lake Placid. He and Robert Gray formed Air View Corporation to build the tower. The tower was designed by architect A. Wynn Howell of Lakeland, built by Ridge Builders of Sebring in 1960 for $350,000 (equivalent to $2,300,000 in 2018), and opened January 1, 1961. Most sources state that it was the tallest concrete block structure in the world when it opened, with 90,000 concrete blocks, but the magazine Florida Architect states that it was built of reinforced concrete. One source states that the tower included 100,000 limestone blocks from Ocala while another states that it was faced with ceramic tile, implying that the tower has a facade of limestone tile.
The tower below the balcony is 25 feet 4 inches (7.72 m) square, with its four vertical corners replaced by grooves (each 8 inches (20 cm) per side). The section above the balcony is 21 feet (6.40 m) square, also with corner grooves. Each wall is divided into vertical thirds. The outer thirds are composed of reinforced concrete blocks with a facade of limestone tile.
The middle thirds are composed of decorative breeze or fence concrete blocks. The tower has a foundation made from 520 cubic yards (400 m3) of concrete reinforced with 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg) of steel. The tracery atop the tower is made of gold anodized aluminum.
Because of low ticket sales, the tower closed in 1982 when the owner would not pay their Internal Revenue Service taxes, but it was re-opened in 1986. The small group of owners still faced sluggish sales, and the tower and its restaurant continued to struggle, despite features such as a petting zoo in its plaza, and a pay phone at the top billed as the "highest pay phone in Florida."The last owner who operated the tower as a tourist attraction was Lake Placid Tower Group owned by Mark Cambell since 1992. He sold it to CHL Tower Group on November 6, 2003 which has operated it as a cell phone tower ever since. Even though the tower closed about 2003, it still has two red "OPEN" signs at its top, facing north and south
Originally, the tower above the balcony had the same basic design scheme as that below it. But after the tower closed, the portion of the tower from the balcony up was redesigned with a white and cyan (blue-green) color scheme. The limestone tile of the outer thirds of the walls was covered with white stucco, and the middle thirds were covered with thin cyan-colored panels which blocked the bird's eye view. These panels covered the two opposing triangular openings in the middle third of each wall and the breeze or fence blocks between them. The roof tracery above and the balcony below them were also painted cyan.
The Tower View restaurant at the base of the tower closed in 2015. The tower is among 35 designated Lake Placid historic structures. It is one of three towers in Central Florida, including the Citrus Tower, built in 1956, 100 miles (160 km) to the north in Clermont, and Bok Tower, built in 1929, 50 miles (80 km) to the north in Lake Wales.
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
Please take a note all my pictures are exclusively taken by me and copyright protected and should have my consent before using them.
*****
*****
Any reproduction, publication, modification, of any work contained herein for any use, personal and commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.
Back to Stagecoach Highlands on this side of the upload schedule and the first photo is of none other than one of the Yutong E10 buses, specifically SG72 NDL (Fleet Number 30122 - now renumbered to 63122) pictured here on Queensgate in Inverness while working a service on route 8 towards the Raigmore Estate.
This vehicle wears the 2020 Stagecoach Local livery and is one of 25 of this type in operation with Stagecoach Highlands. As previously highlighted, the fleet numbers were all changed recently from starting with 30 to starting with 63 as Stagecoach have chosen to renumber all their electrics to clearly distinguish them from their diesels by using previously unused fleet number sets.
Date Taken: February 19th, 2023
Device Used: Motorola Moto G100
Date Uploaded: June 20th, 2023
Upload Number: 255
Interested in seeing some bus videos? You'll find buses both real and virtual on my YouTube channel, as well as other cool bus-themed stuff too! - www.youtube.com/@ZZ9sTransport
© ZZ9's Transport Photography (ZZ9 Productions). All Rights Reserved. Modification, redistribution, reuploading and the like is prohibited without prior written permission from myself.
These are images of a Hybrid Red and Yellow Rose.
These images are from Day 5 and the bud is now fully open and starting to show age with the outer petal beginning to peal away.
I used a 3rd lighting technique on these images and were OCF/OCS.
All of the images were taken with my 5D3 with no software modifications except for crop and watermark. Just RAW conversion by Aperture. All images were take with an EF 24-105mm F/4.0L IS USM.
A simple modification of the square twist, so it may well have been invented by others before. Since it’s hard to fold the creases exactly, each square is a little bit off the ideal angle, giving the group a shaky, or dancing, appearance. You can also view the squares as little figures with legs and hands… but where are their heads then?
Any Ideas to make it look any more Russian (other than "loose the rails").
It's the German-made MP5 modified to fire the 7.62x25 round and fire slightly faster at 900 RPM. It has an 80 round drum magazine.
Of all the railways that ever existed in Britain, the Cromford &
High Peak Railway (C&HPR) is by far the most interesting. While the line was in full use by 1831, the line saw plenty of changes during it's lifetime.
I have already covered Hurdlow incline being bypassed and closed in 1869 on my page and have recently turned my attention to Dowlow.
At the bottom of the image we see the current line going up to Dowlow quarry. The embankment higher up was the original alignment of the line.
The C&HPR was predominantly constructed by Canal engineers and featured long flat straights and sharp turns with steep inclines in lieu of Locks with winching engines. By the 1890's, the Ashbourne line was under construction by the LNWR, one of the later lines to be added to Britain's vast network of railways.
The late construction of this line meant more advanced construction techniques from experienced railway engineers were used; long sweeping turns and long shallow gradients (relatively!) that steam locos of the era could easily climb.
The line was envisaged to carry passengers so speed was an important factor on the line. By 1887, the LNWR had also taken over the operation of the C&HPR. The old alignment of C&HPR, which was serving the quarries near Dowlow, were inadequate for running passenger trains on and the LNWR had constructed a new line climbing out of Buxton from their terminus station, which would bypass the old alignment. This is what is seen in this image.
My assumptions is that the old alignment would have closed completely as the Ashbourne line opened in 1899.
I will next cover a tri-junction off to right of this image on my side of the line where this picture was taken. It has incredibly sharp turns and amazingly stone sleepers still in the place they were when presumably put down nearly 200 years ago!
PHILIP
® Eyemech Modification by Sheryl Designs +
Lips Carving by Sheryl Designs to Tataynarata
Hilo en el Foro de Pullips: Pullip. es
See more photos at: Philip's Album at Tataynarata's Flickr
China Motor Bus was the first of four Hong Kong bus operators to purchase former London Transport Leyland Fleetlines, acquiring 206 examples for passenger service plus a dedicated driver trainer between 1980 and 1984. Two of the passenger vehicles later joined the training fleet. This digital representation portrays the original driver trainer T19 with the first example XF1 for passenger use. Note the additional lower deck window and instructor's mirror on the forme, and also the removal of the upper deck fittings from this vehicle. The windscreen modifications are incorrect on both vehicles (only noticed once the image had been posted). The real T19 also had a Park Royal body but the base image appears to be an MCW example - the principle difference being in the height of the emergency door window (30-Dec-16).
All rights reserved. Not to be posted on Facebook or anywhere else without my prior written permission. Please follow the link below for additional information about my Flickr images:
www.flickr.com/photos/northernblue109/6046035749/in/set-7...
Work in progress:
modifications of 'Taiga' face mold, sculpting on the cast porcelain part - progressing.
Рабочий процесс:
модификации модели лица "Тайга", изменение скульптуры на фарфоровой отливке - продолжение.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
With the rumored development of space-equipped VCS by hostile organizations, the URE commissioned a variant of the Aardwolf to replace the heavily outdated Grouse I units that made up the majority of their orbital corps.
The new Aardwolf (dubbed "Spacewolf" by some pilots) features heavy modifications to grant it high amounts of speed and mobility in space. The backpack contains the extra power needed for the base Aardwolf, in addition to the fuel for the various vernier thrusters on the backpack, shoulders, and legs. The backpack also has two manipulator arms which can hold any of the unit's equipment if needed. The amount of fuel the system can hold is still rather limited, however, so they cannot operate far from a station. For new armament, the Spacewolf has a 120mm repeating flak cannon, which can be used against enemy units or to destroy smaller chunks of debris.
I had quite a bit of fun building this guy! Of course, it's heavily influenced by the Gundam Thunderbolt GM, but I threw in some of my own ideas as well. Throughout the build, I tried to keep in mind the practicality of everything, and what systems the mech would need for space operation, which was an interesting challenge. My favorite part is fiddling with the arms & thrusters on the backpack, they're really satisfying to mess around with! :P
Recently had a shoot with this gorgeous flush Audi A3. The car is on bags with a few modifications. This wagon definitely has a very mean stance!
Info: 3x wescotts strobelite plus (camera right, camera left, 1 behind car) triggered by RPS, shot with 18-105mm
Car Mods:Audi A3 2006 2.0T 6sp Silver
Exterior:
Votex body kit, professionally molded Lip by Driven Creations, side skirt tab delete
FK Blackout Grill
Sonar headlights
LED fog lights
Euro LED taillights
Carbon wrapped b pillar
Rear wiper delete
Black out side markers
20% tint
VMR VB3 19" wheels 8.5 et 45, 225 x 35 exclaim UHP
Engine:
Forge diverter valve
Forge BOV spacer
ECS dogbone mount
BSH catch can stage 2
Neuspeed intake
Evoms engine cover
O.CT chip tuning
Custom milltek turbo back exhaust from Stratmosphere.
Interior:
LED interior bulbs
Carbon wrapped interior
Suspension:
Airlift XL front struts
Airlift XL rear bags on stock struts
5 gallon tank
2 Easy street valve blocks
Air zenith compressor
ACS 7-way switch box
Easy street gauges in osir gauge pod
Hardlined with copper tubing to blocks.
The car is also featured on StanceNation's site! Go check it out now!
I have attended a photography workshop today. We have been shooting with two models down in a secret passage towards the Nymphenburg Castle in Munich. Outside it was 35°C, in this cellar, it was probably around 20°C, so it was a pretty good way to spend this day. Great location, great models, great crew, big time fun.
You might want to check out the whole set: www.flickr.com/photos/svenpetersen1965/sets/7215763482278...
I have published my novel.
It is already available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese. Currently, the Simplified Chinese version is under translation.I
僕は僕の小説を発表しました。
英語、スペイン語、フランス語、ドイツ語、日本語は以下で発表済みです。
現在は、中国語（簡体字）を翻訳中です。
Ich habe meinen Roman veröffentlicht. Die englische, spanische, französische und deutsche Fassung sind unten bereits veröffentlicht.
Zurzeit arbeite ich an der Übersetzung ins Chinesische, in vereinfachten Schriftzeichen.
Da ich ein Apple-Fan bin, kommen auch Apple-Produkte vor. :)
Der Roman befindet sich im folgenden Drive-Ordner.
Drive folder for novel publication: (öffentlicher Drive-Ordner speziell für meinen Roman)
drive.google.com/drive/folders/13PJuSA8Q2AdvVd7JGl-Q4AVTA...
B♭
Mitsushiro Nakagawa, with ChatGPT 5.5
Das Kryptowährungssystem Nordkoreas wird gehackt, und mehrere hundert Millionen Dollar werden entwendet.
Am Ende dieses Geldflusses infiltriert eine Gruppe palästinensischer Männer und Frauen aus Gaza heimlich die Vereinigten Staaten.
Ihr Ziel ist es, die verlorene Heimat Gaza auf amerikanischem Boden zu „rekonstruieren“.
Die harte Einwanderungspolitik der Republikaner.
Die im Inneren des Landes schwelende Fremdenfeindlichkeit.
Eine Gesellschaft, die sich immer weiter spaltet.
All das nutzen sie aus, und im Stillen schreitet ein Plan voran, Amerika von innen heraus zum Einsturz zu bringen.
Der republikanische Präsidentschaftskandidat Justin Bradford wird während einer Rede angeschossen. Beinahe zur selben Zeit wird in Los Angeles auch der frühere Präsident Owen Reed Opfer eines Attentats.
Zwei Schüsse, die eine Nation entzweien.
Doch Justin überlebt wie durch ein Wunder.
Was sein Leben rettet, ist eine selbst weltweit äußerst seltene Blutgruppe ― Bombay-Blut.
Diejenige, die dieses Blut spenden kann, ist Anaya Patel, eine Community-Art-Facilitatorin aus Brooklyn.
Das Blut einer einzelnen Frau berührt das Schicksal einer Nation.
Dieser Zufall zieht sie, als wäre er vielleicht nie ein Zufall gewesen, nach und nach in das Zentrum eines gewaltigen Ereignisses.
Terrorismus, Wahlkampf, Einwanderung, Blut, Erinnerung, Gebet.
Menschen, die an Zerstörung glauben, und Menschen, die am Ende der Zerstörung die Leere sehen.
Ein Plan, der als Rache beginnt, lässt irgendwann die Grenze zwischen Erlösung und Nichts verschwimmen.
Die Nacht Manhattans.
Das Licht Brooklyns.
Erinnerungen, die am Flussufer zurückgeblieben sind.
Die Stadt leuchtet weiter, als wäre nichts geschehen.
Doch unter ihren Füßen erklingt ein tiefer Ton, den niemand hört.
Was raubt Rache?
Wen rettet ein Gebet?
Und wohin geht der Mensch, während er das Verlorene weiter in sich trägt?
Trailer
Soundtrack
B♭ ― My Novel Playlist
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
B♭ ― My Novel Playlist for Japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
© 2026 Mitsushiro Nakagawa. All rights reserved.
Das Urheberrecht an diesem Werk liegt bei Mitsushiro Nakagawa. Die Vervielfältigung, Weiterverbreitung oder Bearbeitung des gesamten Inhalts oder einzelner Teile ist ohne Genehmigung des Autors untersagt.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
My novel, B♭, is now available
I’m an Apple fan, so Apple products appear in the story. :)
.
The Japanese and English editions have already been published.
It can be found in the following Drive folder:
Drive folder for novel publication:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/13PJuSA8Q2AdvVd7JGl-Q4AVTA...
B♭
Mitsushiro Nakagawa, with ChatGPT 5.5
North Korea’s cryptocurrency system is hacked, and hundreds of millions of dollars are stolen.
At the end of that hidden flow of money, a group of Palestinian men and women from Gaza secretly infiltrates the United States.
Their purpose is to “restore” their lost homeland, Gaza, on American soil.
A hard-line immigration policy led by the Republican Party.
A smoldering current of xenophobia within the country.
A society breaking further apart.
Using all of it, a plan to collapse America from within begins to move forward in silence.
Republican presidential candidate Justin Bradford is shot during a speech. Almost at the same time, in Los Angeles, former President Owen Reed is also gunned down.
Two gunshots split the nation in two.
Yet Justin miraculously survives.
What keeps him alive is one of the rarest blood types in the world: Bombay blood.
The person able to provide that blood is Anaya Patel, a community art facilitator working in Brooklyn.
The blood of one woman touches the fate of a nation.
That coincidence, as if it had never truly been coincidence, begins to draw her toward the center of an enormous event.
Terrorism, elections, immigration, blood, memory, and prayer.
Those who believe in destruction, and those who have seen the emptiness left beyond it.
A plan that began as revenge gradually blurs the boundary between salvation and nothingness.
The night of Manhattan.
The light of Brooklyn.
Memories left behind by the river.
The city continues to shine as if nothing has happened.
Yet beneath its feet, a low sound no one can hear is still ringing.
What does revenge take away?
Whom does prayer save?
And where do human beings go, carrying what they have lost?
Trailer
Soundtrack
B♭ — My Novel Playlist
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
B♭ — My Novel Playlist for Japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
© 2026 Mitsushiro Nakagawa. All rights reserved.
The copyright of this work belongs to Mitsushiro Nakagawa.
No part of this work may be reproduced, reprinted, or modified without the author’s permission.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
J’ai publié la version française de mon roman.
Mon roman, B♭ (Si bémol), est désormais disponible.
Les versions japonaise, anglaise et espagnole ont déjà été publiées.
Comme je suis un fan d’Apple, des produits Apple apparaissent dans l’histoire. :)
Il est disponible dans le dossier Drive ci-dessous.
Drive folder for novel publication:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/13PJuSA8Q2AdvVd7JGl-Q4AVTA...
B♭
Mitsushiro Nakagawa, avec ChatGPT 5.5
Le système de cryptomonnaie de la Corée du Nord est piraté, et plusieurs centaines de millions de dollars sont dérobés.
Au bout du flux de cet argent, un groupe d’hommes et de femmes palestiniens originaires de Gaza s’infiltre secrètement aux États-Unis.
Leur objectif est de « reconstituer », sur le sol américain, la patrie perdue qu’est Gaza.
Une politique migratoire dure menée par les Républicains.
Un sentiment xénophobe qui couve au sein du pays.
Une société qui se divise peu à peu.
En exploitant tout cela, un plan destiné à faire s’effondrer l’Amérique de l’intérieur avance en silence.
Le candidat républicain à la présidence, Justin Bradford, est abattu en plein discours ; presque au même moment, à Los Angeles, l’ancien président Owen Reed est lui aussi victime d’une fusillade.
Deux coups de feu qui fendent la nation en deux.
Mais Justin survit miraculeusement.
Ce qui lui sauve la vie est un groupe sanguin extrêmement rare dans le monde : le sang Bombay.
La seule personne capable de lui donner ce sang est Anaya Patel, facilitatrice d’art communautaire active à Brooklyn.
Le sang d’une femme touche soudain au destin d’une nation.
Ce hasard, comme s’il n’avait finalement jamais été un hasard, attire peu à peu Anaya elle-même au centre d’un événement immense.
Terrorisme, élections, immigration, sang, mémoire, prière.
Ceux qui croient en la destruction, et ceux qui finissent par voir le vide laissé au-delà de la destruction.
Un plan né comme une vengeance brouille peu à peu la frontière entre salut et néant.
La nuit de Manhattan.
La lumière de Brooklyn.
Les souvenirs laissés au bord du fleuve.
La ville continue de briller comme si rien ne s’était passé.
Mais sous ses pieds, un son grave, que personne n’entend, continue de résonner.
Que prend la vengeance ?
Qui la prière sauve-t-elle ?
Et vers où les êtres humains se dirigent-ils, en portant avec eux ce qu’ils ont perdu ?
Trailer
Soundtrack
B♭ — My Novel Playlist
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
B♭ — My Novel Playlist for Japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
© 2026 Mitsushiro Nakagawa. Tous droits réservés.
Les droits d’auteur de cette œuvre appartiennent à Mitsushiro Nakagawa. Toute reproduction, republication ou modification, totale ou partielle, du contenu de cette œuvre sans l’autorisation de l’auteur est interdite.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
He publicado la edición en español de mi novela.
Mi novela, B♭, ya está disponible.
Soy fan de Apple, así que en la historia aparecen productos de Apple. :)
Las ediciones en japonés y en inglés ya han sido publicadas.
Puede encontrarse en la siguiente carpeta de Drive:
Carpeta de Drive para la publicación de la novela:
drive.google.com/drive/folders/13PJuSA8Q2AdvVd7JGl-Q4AVTA...
B♭
Mitsushiro Nakagawa, with ChatGPT 5.5
El sistema de criptomonedas de Corea del Norte es hackeado, y cientos de millones de dólares son robados.
Al final de ese flujo oculto de dinero, un group de hombres y mujeres palestinos originarios de Gaza se infiltra secretamente en los Estados Unidos.
Su propósito es “restaurar” su patria perdida, Gaza, sobre suelo estadounidense.
Una política migratoria de línea dura impulsada por el Partido Republicano.
Una corriente latente de xenofobia dentro del país.
Una sociedad que se fractura cada vez más.
Aprovechándolo todo, un plan para derrumbar a Estados Unidos desde dentro empieza a avanzar en silencio.
El candidato presidencial republicano Justin Bradford recibe un disparo durante un discurso. Casi al mismo tiempo, en Los Ángeles, el expresidente Owen Reed también es baleado.
Dos disparos dividen a la nación en dos.
Sin embargo, Justin sobrevive milagrosamente.
Lo que mantiene su vida es uno de los tipos de sangre más raros del mundo: la sangre Bombay.
La única persona capaz de donar esa sangre es Anaya Patel, una facilitadora de arte comunitario que trabaja en Brooklyn.
La sangre de una sola mujer toca el destino de una nación.
Aquella coincidencia, como si nunca hubiera sido realmente una coincidencia, comienza a arrastrarla hacia el centro de un acontecimiento inmenso.
Terrorismo, elecciones, inmigración, sangre, memoria y plegaria.
Quienes creen en la destrucción, y quienes han visto el vacío que queda más allá de ella.
Un plan que comenzó como venganza va desdibujando, poco a poco, la frontera entre la salvación y la nada.
La noche de Manhattan.
La luz de Brooklyn.
Los recuerdos abandonados junto al río.
La ciudad sigue brillando como si nada hubiera ocurrido.
Pero bajo sus pies continúa resonando una nota grave que nadie puede oír.
¿Qué arrebata la venganza?
¿A quién salva la plegaria?
¿Y hacia dónde se dirigen los seres humanos, cargando con aquello que han perdido?
Tráiler
Banda sonora
B♭ — My Novel Playlist
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
B♭ — My Novel Playlist for Japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
© 2026 Mitsushiro Nakagawa. Todos los derechos reservados.
Los derechos de autor de esta obra pertenecen a Mitsushiro Nakagawa.
Ninguna parte de esta obra podrá ser reproducida, reimpresa ni modificada sin la autorización del autor.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
僕は僕の小説を発表しました。英語、スペイン語、フランス語、ドイツ語は以下で発表済みです。
現在は、中国語（簡体字）を翻訳中です。
僕はアップルファンなので、アップル製品が登場します。:)
それは以下のドライブにあります。
Drive folder for novel publication: (小説専門の公開用ドライブ)
drive.google.com/drive/folders/13PJuSA8Q2AdvVd7JGl-Q4AVTA...
B♭
Mitsushiro Nakagawa, with ChatGPT 5.5
北朝鮮の仮想通貨システムがハッキングされ、数億ドルが奪取された。
その資金の流れの先で、ガザ出身のパレスチナ男女のグループが、密かにアメリカ合衆国へ潜入する。
彼らの目的は、失われた祖国ガザを、アメリカの地に「復元」することだった。
共和党による強硬な移民政策。
国内にくすぶる排外感情。
分断されていく社会。
そのすべてを利用し、アメリカを内側から崩壊させる計画が、静かに進行していく。
共和党大統領候補ジャスティン・ブラッドフォードが演説中に撃たれ、ほぼ同じ時刻、ロサンゼルスでは前大統領オーウェン・リードもまた銃撃される。
国家を二分する、ふたつの銃声。
だが、ジャスティンは奇跡的に生還する。
彼の命をつないだのは、世界でも極めて希少な血液型――ボンベイブラッド。
その血を提供できたのは、ブルックリンで活動するコミュニティアート・ファシリテーター、アナヤ・パテルだった。
ひとりの女性の血が、国家の運命に触れてしまう。
その偶然は、やがて偶然ではなかったかのように、彼女自身を巨大な事件の中心へ引き寄せていく。
テロ、選挙、移民、血、記憶、祈り。
破壊を信じる者と、破壊の果てに残る空虚を見てしまう者。
復讐として始まった計画は、いつしか救済と虚無の境界を曖昧にしていく。
マンハッタンの夜。
ブルックリンの光。
川辺に残された記憶。
都市は何事もなかったかのように輝き続けている。
だがその足元では、誰にも聞こえない低い音が鳴っている。
復讐は、何を奪うのか。
祈りは、誰を救うのか。
そして人は、失われたものを抱えたまま、どこへ向かうのか。
Trailer
Soundtrack
B♭ — My Novel Playlist
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack/pl.u-47...
B♭ — My Novel Playlist for Japanese
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/b-my-novel-soundtrack-for-jap...
© 2026 Mitsushiro Nakagawa. All rights reserved.
本作品の著作権は Mitsushiro Nakagawa に帰属します。内容の全部または一部を、著者の許可なく複製・転載・改変することを禁じます。
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
【次の小説】( ２０２７年２月１４日予定 )
《４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー 偏差値３５からのマーチ ー》
"Check it out"
メインテーマ
MAKKURAGE - 目玉焼き、カフェオレ、透明。 [Lyric Video]
youtu.be/x_YvK14Cbck?si=L4mVwRmAyIOS1lvT
"Check it out"
Images:
【プレイリスト】
４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー 偏差値３５からのマーチ ー（勝手にサントラ:) プレイリスト編集中
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/pl.u-pZvGbCXv1Yq
1.二十一世紀少年 — MAKKURAGE
2.目玉焼き、カフェオレ、透明。 — MAKKURAGE
3.Five — 嵐
4.カリスマックス — Snow Man
5.未確認領域 — Number_i
6.LOOP — Number_i
7.カラクリカルカレ — UNISON SQUARE GARDEN
8.月曜日 / 無菌室 — People In The Box
9.ずっと～You are my Everything～ — Kis-My-Ft2
10.INZM (Hyper Band ver.) — Number_i
11.夜の向こうへ — Kis-My-Ft2
12.greenforest, umbrella — MAKKURAGE
13.カラクリナイト — MAKKURAGE
14.チェリッシュ — NEWS
15.3 minutes replay — UNISON SQUARE GARDEN
16.Your eyes have all the answer — the cabs
17.さようなら、こんにちは — People In The Box
18.freebird — SMAP
19.PIKA☆☆NCHI DOUBLE — 嵐
20.らいおんハート — SMAP
21.濁った水たまり — MAKKURAGE
22.Love so sweet : Reborn — 嵐
23.ダーリン — Mrs. GREEN APPLE
24.115万キロのフィルム — Official髭男dism
#MAKKURAGE #UNISONSQUAREGARDEN #thecabs #PeopleInTheBox #MrsGREENAPPLE #Official髭男dism
#Number_i #Snowman #kis-My-Ft2 #嵐 #SMAP #NEWS
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
仮題
４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー偏差値３５からのマーチー
勝手にキャスティング
主人公 神崎 ユウ 深澤 辰哉さん（スノーマン）
お父さん 神崎 完 二宮さん（嵐）
お母さん 神崎 沙織 上戸彩さん
以下、走り書きのメモ 第一弾 ／３
【４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー偏差値３５からのマーチー】
冒頭
２０２６年、１月下旬。千葉県千葉市市内。某施設。
大学入試、初日。
帝京大学（丸々学部）ー
時計のない、部屋ー
スーツを着た試験官が、テストの説明をしている。
やけに乾いたせつめーじゃねーか。
くそ、手の震えがおさまらねー
隣のやつに気づかれてねーだろーなー、ぶるってんの。
鉛筆のてっぺんがぶるってるよ。やべー、オレ。
「それでは、はじめてください」
一１年前ー
新田塾ー成田校
三者面談。
塾長。そして、主人公、神崎ユウ。
母、神崎 沙織。
塾長「どーしても、マーチですか。ちょっとどうかなー」
試しの試験で偏差値３５。
周囲の高校生。近所にある進学校の生徒たちが、聞こえるように、
「これから、マーチだって」（笑）
「もうみんな2年からやってるのにな」（聞こえるように言う）
母「あ、あのーまぁー本人がそう言ってまして～」
塾長「第二志望って、ちなみにー」
間髪入れず、
「東洋大学、経済学部」
塾長 「ーーーいいねー、うーん、いいよー。日東駒専ねー」
母、めいいっぱい俯く。
走り書き 第２弾
以下に 書いた、 第1弾に、お父さん役の、嵐、二宮さんが登場していなかったので、ちょっと走り書きしました。
仮題
４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー偏差値３５からのマーチー
勝手にキャスティング
主人公 神崎 ユウ 深澤 辰哉さん（スノーマン）
お父さん 神崎 完 二宮さん（嵐）
お母さん 神崎 沙織 上戸彩さん
千葉県八街市、ユウの2階の部屋。
父「ユウ、お母さんがユウはどこの大学に行きたいんだろうねって、ちょっと心配してたぞ」
ユウ「この前、言ったじゃん、マーチだよ、マーチ」
父、階下のお母さんへ声を張り上げる
「かーさーん、ユウは、マーチ受けるってよー」
母「マーチって、あのー、千葉商科大学のとなりにある東京マーチ大学？」
父「そうなのか？ ユウ？」
「たぶん、それじゃない」
父「違うってさー」
母「おかあさん、混乱しちゃうわー」
ユウ「ごめん、俺が言い方間違ったわ。明治大学。第一希望は」
父「かーさーんー」
母「はーいーー」
父「ユウは、明治大学受けるってさー」
母、それを聞いて、二階へ駆け上がってきて、
「おかあさん、その大学知ってるわー聞いたことあるー」
父、右手を胸の辺りで垂直に伸ばし、首を左右に振る。
「ジョーダンじゃないよー」
ユウ「は？」
父「ユウ、知らないのか？ お前、明治、遠ざかるぞ。たけちゃんマンは明治だ」
母「お父さん、なつかしー。サえてるー」
ユウ「。。。。。。。」
父「じゃ、これはどうだ？」
父、ギターのストロークを真似しながら、
「お、お、お、おー、ラーイドタイム！」
母「素敵ータツローねー」
ユウ「曲は知ってるけど、オンが抜けてるよ」
父「ユウ、そんな難しいことは考えるな」
ユウ「大事だろ、そこは」
母「おかあさん、うれしいわー、たけちゃんマンとタツローの後輩になるのね。ステキー」
父「お父さんも、うれしいぞー」窓をがらっと開けて、
「うちの子は、明治受けまーす！」
ユウ「やめろって。恥ずかしい。ちなみに受けるのは誰でもできるだろ」
父母、動きがストップ。
父「ユウ、大学って誰でも受けれるのか？ 母さん、そうなのか？」
母「そうみたいね」
父、また窓の外に向かって、
「明治大学は、だれでも受けれまーすっ！！」
ユウ「だからやめろって」
父「間違ったから訂正しとかないとな」
母「ユウ、おとうさんが正しいですよ」
ユウ「正しいとかの問題なん？ これ」
つづく。
走り書き第3弾
以下に 書いた、 第1弾、第２弾に、彼女役の、生見 愛瑠（ぬくみ める）さんを勝手にキャスティング。:)
仮題
４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー 偏差値３５からのマーチ ー
勝手にキャスティング
主人公 神崎 ユウ 深澤 辰哉さん（スノーマン）
お父さん 神崎 完 二宮さん（嵐）
お母さん 神崎 沙織 上戸彩さん
主人公ユウの彼女
恵比寿 可奈（えびす かな） 生見 愛瑠（ぬくみ める）さん
youtube.com/shorts/fH-4ZjV1uVc?si=hu8Ed73NblYKccAH
２０２５年１２月２４日 午後六寺
東京ディズニーランド前 イルミネーションの青が、夜の黒に重なって、深みを与えている。白い光の線が交錯している。
可奈、iPhoneの探す機能で、ユウの位置を確認。まだ自宅。自宅？？？
（アイフォン、ライン、まるで無反応。模擬だったから、ひょっとしたら、ひたすら眠ってるのかも）
ディズニーランド前、恋人同士だけでなく、家族などの笑顔が溢れている。
どっと落ち込む可奈。でも、開き直って、顔を上げる。
仕方ないよ、受験だし。帰るっ！
「ごめん、寝坊したわ」
可奈が振り返ると、ユウが立っている。
寝巻きのスウェットとジャージで参上。
それは可奈が2年前にプレゼントしたスウェットとジャージ。寝巻きだ。高校のジャージと大差なし。
「なんでそのカッコなの？」
「起きて、速攻で電車乗ってきた」
「スマホは？」
「財布持って、突っ走って、電車乗って、気づいたら忘れてた。ほら、八街ってさ、電車一本逃すと即死だから」
佳奈、呆然としている。ユウは辺りを見回して、
「しっかし、さみーな。スウェット一枚とか、やばいわ」
「もう」可奈、自分のコートを脱いで、ユウにかける。
「ありがと」
「この時期、風邪ひいたら、大学、落ちるかもよ？」
ユウ、口元に軽い笑みを浮かべ、
「可奈、オレは絶対に落ちない。絶対にオレはマーチへ行く。そもそも風邪をビビるぐらいならここに来ねーわ」
可奈、ゆっくり近づき頬をユウの胸に寄せる。ユウに聞こえるか聞こえないかぐらいで、小さく、バカ、と呟く。
ユウ、佳奈の耳元に囁く。
「もしも、マーチ、落ちたら、いっしょにずっと落ちてくれるか？」
佳奈、真剣な目でユウを見上げ、小さく頷き返し、目を閉じる。
ユウ、少し膝を落として、唇を重ねる。
== 翌日 12月25日 ==
可奈からLINE
ー ユウ、バスケ部のキャプテン、佐々木って知ってる？
ー 知ってるよ、どうした？
ー 昨日、彼女とわかれたんだって。クリスマスイブに。かなり真剣だよね。
ー それが？
ー わたしと付き合いたいって。
ー はぁ？ で、おまえ、なんて答えたの？
ー そこで相談。ユウ、どうしようか？
ー おーいっ！
【サウンドトラック】
４月にだって雪はフルっ！ ー 偏差値３５からのマーチ ー （勝手にサントラ:)編集中
music.apple.com/jp/playlist/pl.u-pZvGbCXv1Yq
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
#イタリア #ミラノ #Italy #Milan #German #Spanish #ドイツ語 #スペイン語 #フランス #フランス語 ##novel #B♭ #小説 #ビーフラット #ネットフリックスへの挑戦 #ChallengetoNetflix #Netflix #ネットフリックス #千葉 #やちまた #八街 #八街市 #yachimata #yachimatacity #cityofyachimata #NewYork #ニューヨーク #マンハッタン #Manhattan #アメリカ #USA #Chiba #apple #アップル #MrLonely #BobbyVinton #oneokrock #thepilot #ニコン #nikon #coolpix8700
EC-130E Rivet Rider
A version of the Commando Solo Modifications include: VHF and UHF Worldwide format color TV, vertical trailing wire antenna, infra-red countermeasures [chaff/flare dispensers plus infrared jammers], fire suppressant foam in fuel tank, radar warning receiver, self-contained navigation system. The modification added a pair of underwing pylon mounted 23X6 foot equipment pods, along with X-antennae mounted on both sides of the vertical fin
Boeing and Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance (AFI KLM E&M) have successfully completed the Mid-Life Upgrade modification on the first of four E-3F Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft for the French Air Force. The upgrade is part of a Foreign Military Sale in 2010 between France’s Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) and the U.S. government. The first aircraft modified under the program is given a water cannon salute at Le Bourget Airport in France Jan. 31 prior to departing for testing.
Boeing provides this photo for the public to share. Media interested in high-resolution images for publication should email boeingmedia@boeing.com or visit boeing.mediaroom.com. Users may not manipulate or use this photo in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products, or promotions without licensed permission from Boeing. If you are interested in using Boeing imagery for commercial purposes, email imagelicensing@boeing.com or visit www.boeingimages.com.
Wall Street Journal
Navy Day in New York, 1945
The biggest display of military might the nation had ever seen.
By Elliot Rosenberg
Oct. 26, 2015 6:48 pm ET
Seventy years ago, on Oct. 27, 1945, New York City was the site of the most spectacular homefront display of American military might the nation had ever seen. Navy Day was in effect a monumental victory lap, coming seven weeks after the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri.
Now the “Big Mo” and other stars and supporting players from the Pacific Fleet had come home. Along a six-mile stretch of the Hudson River, 47 warships gathered—battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and submarine chasers.
President Truman was there. So was I. About 3.5 million people crowded along Manhattan’s West Side, with another 1.5 million viewing from New Jersey, according to press reports. Joining the USS Missouri, with its 16-inch turret guns bristling from its 56,000-ton frame, were the USS New York (an older battle wagon) and the USS Enterprise, the only aircraft carrier that had been active from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day.
At midafternoon, President Truman boarded a destroyer for a two-hour review of the assembled firepower. Twenty-one-gun salutes boomed from many of the vessels. Overhead, 1,200 Hellcat and Corsair fighters, Avenger torpedo planes and Helldiver bombers circled in 12-mile ovals. For half-hour spells on two successive nights the ships turned on their 24-inch and 36-inch searchlights, sending brilliant blue-white beams, with millions in candle power, flashing across the sky and illuminating the city’s skyscrapers. No fireworks display could compare.
Many of the ships initially moored at piers along the river, welcoming visitors, and tens of thousands clambered aboard. The Missouri was the biggest celebrity; visitors especially wanted to see a small starboard-deck plaque that read: “Over this spot on 2 September 1945 the instrument of formal surrender of Japan to the Allied Powers was signed.”
By the time my father was off work and able to take me to see the naval display, the ships had left their piers and lined up in mid-river. Navy launches ferried civilians to visit them, and my father and I were among the lucky ones.
I would have preferred to see the Big Mo, but the Enterprise was a worthy consolation prize. I marveled at being aboard an aircraft carrier, previously known only through movies like “Wing and a Prayer” and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.” The rectangular expanse of the flight deck. The squadrons of planes bunched together, wings folded. The rows of antiaircraft guns lining its rim. A large poster provided some Enterprise statistics: 911 Japanese planes shot down, 71 ships sunk, 192 more ships damaged or sunk.
After Oct. 27, the Navy fleet gradually dispersed. Elsewhere that fall, the Soviet Union was scrambling to develop an atomic bomb, and the Korean peninsula was about to be sliced at something called the 38th Parallel. Vietnam was still a faraway French outpost in Indochina. And Afghanistan and Iraq barely registered in the mind of at least one New York schoolboy, who had witnessed Navy Day and come away certain that America could still lick any international bully on the planet.
Mr. Rosenberg is the author, with Louis Eisenstein, of “A Stripe of Tammany’s Tiger” (Cornell University, 2013 paperback).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
History
United States
Name:USS Midway
Namesake:Battle of Midway
Ordered:1 August 1942
Builder:Newport News Shipbuilding
Laid down:27 October 1943
Launched:20 March 1945
Commissioned:10 September 1945
Decommissioned:11 April 1992
In service:1945
Out of service:1992
Stricken:17 March 1997
Nickname(s):Midway Magic
Status:Museum ship at the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, California
Notes:Only carrier museum in the United States from WW2 that is not of the Essex class
General characteristics
Class and type:Midway-class aircraft carrier
Displacement:
45,000 tons at commissioning
64,000 tons at decommissioning
Length:1,001 ft (305 m)[1]
Beam:
121 ft (37 m)
136 ft (41 m), 238 ft (73 m) at flight deck after modernization
Draft:34.5 ft (10.5 m)
Propulsion:12 boilers, four Westinghouse geared Steam turbines[2]
Speed:33 kn (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Complement:4,104 officers and men
Armament:
As Built:
18 × 5"/54 caliber Mark 16 guns,
84 × Bofors 40 mm guns,
68 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons
After Refit:
2 8-cell Sea Sparrow launchers,
2 Phalanx CIWS
Aircraft carried:137 theoretical, 100 (1940s–50s), 70 (Vietnam–retirement)
USS Midway (CVB/CVA/CV-41) is an aircraft carrier, formerly of the United States Navy, the lead ship of her class. Commissioned a week after the end of World War II, Midway was the largest ship in the world until 1955, as well as the first U.S. aircraft carrier too big to transit the Panama Canal. She operated for 47 years, during which time she saw action in the Vietnam War and served as the Persian Gulf flagship in 1991's Operation Desert Storm. Decommissioned in 1992, she is now a museum ship at the USS Midway Museum, in San Diego, California, and is the only remaining inactive U.S. aircraft carrier that is not an Essex-class aircraft carrier.
Service history
Midway was laid down 27 October 1943 in Shipway 11 at Newport News Shipbuilding Co., Newport News, Virginia; launched 20 March 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Bradford William Ripley, Jr.; and commissioned on 10 September 1945 (eight days after the Surrender of Japan) with Captain Joseph F. Bolger in command.
After shakedown in the Caribbean, Midway joined the U.S. Atlantic Fleet training schedule, with Norfolk as her homeport. From 20 February 1946, she was the flagship for Carrier Division 1. In March, she participated in Operation Frostbite testing the Ryan FR Fireball and helicopter rescue techniques for cold-weather operations in the Labrador Sea. In September 1947, a captured German V-2 rocket was test-fired from the flight deck in Operation Sandy, the first large-rocket launch from a moving platform, and the only moving-platform launch for a V-2. While the rocket lifted off, she then tilted and broke up at 15,000 feet (4,600 m).[3]
On 29 October 1947, Midway sailed for the first of her annual deployments with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. Between deployments, Midway trained and received alterations to accommodate heavier aircraft as they were developed.
In June 1951, Midway operated in the Atlantic off the Virginia Capes during carrier suitability tests of the F9F-5 Panther. On 23 June, as Cdr. George Chamberlain Duncan attempted a landing in BuNo 125228, a downdraft just aft of the stern caused Duncan to crash. His plane's forward fuselage broke away and rolled down the deck, and he suffered burns. Footage of the crash has been used in several films, including Men of the Fighting Lady, Midway, and The Hunt for Red October.[4]
In 1952, the ship participated in Operation Mainbrace, North Sea maneuvers with NATO forces. Midway had an angled runway painted on the flight deck in May for touch-and-go landings following the pioneering trials of the technique aboard HMS Triumph. Successful demonstration of the possibilities caused widespread adoption of the angled flight deck in future aircraft carrier construction and modifications of existing carriers.[3] On 1 October, the ship was redesignated CVA-41.
Midway cleared Norfolk 27 December 1954 for a world cruise, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope for Taiwan, where she became the first large carrier in the 7th Fleet for operations in the Western Pacific until 28 June 1955.[3] During these operations, Midway pilots flew cover for the evacuation from the Quemoy-Matsu crisis[5] from the Tachen Islands of 15,000 Chinese nationalist troops and 20,000 Chinese civilians, along with their livestock.
Apartheid Incident
Controversy arose during the cruise when Midway docked in Cape Town, South Africa. Democratic senator Herbert Lehman sent a telegram to Secretary of the Navy Charles Thomas when he learned of a supposed United States Navy plan to segregate 400 non-European members of the crew of Midway while she was in Cape Town. Fellow Democrat senator Hubert Humphrey soon joined Lehman, additionally sending a letter to the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, asking that "immediate steps be taken to see that equal treatment is given to American service personnel allowed shore leave in South Africa, or eliminate Cape Town as a port of call", and that: "To me this is a shocking of discrimination that should not be tolerated by our Government. Every American soldier or sailor is an American regardless of race, colour or creed, and is entitled to be respected and treated as such anywhere in the world."[6]
An anonymous Navy official stated that the Department of the Navy did not know of the arrangements that were to be made between the officers of Midway and South African authorities, and that African-American members of the crew would not be segregated while still aboard Midway.[6]
Clarence Mitchell Jr. also urged Thomas not to allow Midway to dock at Cape Town. James H. Smith Jr., Acting Secretary of the Navy at the time, replied that the stop at Cape Town was merely to "satisfy an operational logistic requirement" and that it was customary to observe local laws and regulations while visiting foreign ports.[6]
Captain Reynold Delos Hogle of Midway stated that while in port, Midway would be United States territory and federal United States laws would apply. In the end, the crew of Midway were not made to abide by Apartheid, saying that "At Hartleyvale this afternoon and at the concert to-night, European and non-European members of the crew have been asked to attend. There will be no segregation whatsoever".[6]
Modernizations
On 28 June 1955, the ship sailed for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, where Midway underwent an extensive modernization program (SCB-110, similar to SCB-125 for the Essex-class carriers). Midway received an enclosed hurricane bow, an aft deck-edge elevator, an angled flight deck, and steam catapults, returning to service on 30 September 1957.[3]
Home ported at Alameda, California, Midway began annual deployments bringing McDonnell F3H Demons, North American FJ-4 Furys, Vought F-8 Crusaders, Douglas A-1 Skyraiders, and Douglas A-3 Skywarriors to the 7th Fleet in 1958, and into the South China Sea during the Laotian Crisis of spring 1961. During the 1962 deployment, Midway recorded her 100,000th arrested landing[3] as the ship's aircraft tested the air defense systems of Japan, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Taiwan. Midway again sailed for the Far East 6 March 1965, and from mid-April flew strikes against military and logistics installations in North and South Vietnam including the first combat use of AGM-12 Bullpup air-to-surface missiles. On 17 June 1965 two VF-21 McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs flying from Midway were credited with the first confirmed MiG kills of the Vietnam conflict using AIM-7 Sparrow missiles to down two MiG-17s. Three days later, four of Midway's A-1 Skyraiders used the Thach Weave to down an attacking MiG-17.[3]
Midway lost an F-4 Phantom and two A-4 Skyhawks to North Vietnamese S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missiles before returning to Alameda on 23 November to enter San Francisco Bay Naval Shipyard on 11 February 1966 for a massive modernization (SCB-101.66), which proved expensive and controversial. The flight deck was enlarged from 2.8 to 4 acres (11,300 to 16,200 square metres (122,000 to 174,000 sq ft)), and the angle of the flight deck landing area was increased to 13.5 degrees. The elevators were enlarged, moved, and given almost double the weight capacity. Midway also received new steam catapults, arresting gear, and a centralized air conditioning plant. Cost overruns raised the price of this program from $88 million to US$202 million, and precluded a similar modernization planned for Franklin D. Roosevelt. After Midway was finally recommissioned on 31 January 1970, it was found that the modifications had hurt the ship's seakeeping capabilities and ability to conduct air operations in rough seas, which made further modifications necessary to correct the problem.[3]
Return to Vietnam
Midway returned to Vietnam and on 18 May 1971, after relieving Hancock on Yankee Station, began single carrier operations. Midway departed Yankee Station on 5 June, completing the vessel's final line period on 31 October 1971, and returned to the ship's homeport on 6 November 1971.
Midway en route to South-East Asia in April 1972
Midway, with embarked Carrier Air Wing 5 (CVW 5), again departed Alameda for operations off Vietnam on 10 April 1972. On 11 May, aircraft from Midway, along with those from Coral Sea, Kitty Hawk, and Constellation, continued laying naval mines off North Vietnamese ports, including Thanh Hóa, Đồng Hới, Vinh, Hon Gai, Quang Khe, and Cam Pha as well as other approaches to Haiphong. Ships that were in port in Haiphong had been advised that the mining would take place and that the mines would be armed 72 hours later.
Midway continued Vietnam operations during Operation Linebacker throughout the summer of 1972. On 7 August 1972, an HC-7 Det 110 helicopter, flying from Midway, and aided by planes from the carrier and from Saratoga, searched for the pilot of an A-7 Corsair II aircraft from Saratoga, who had been downed the previous day by a surface-to-air missile about 20 mi (32 km) inland, northwest of Vinh. Flying over mountains, the HC-7 helicopter spotted the downed aviator with her searchlight and, under heavy ground fire, retrieved him and returned to an LPD off the coast. This was the deepest penetration of a rescue helicopter into North Vietnam since 1968. By the end of 1972, HC-7 Det 110 had rescued 48 pilots, 35 in combat conditions.
On 5 October 1973, Midway, with CVW 5, put into Yokosuka, Japan, marking the first forward-deployment of a complete carrier task group in a Japanese port, the result of an accord arrived at on 31 August 1972 between the U.S. and Japan. The move allowed sailors to live with their families when in port; more strategically, it allowed three carriers to stay in the Far East even as the economic situation demanded the reduction of carriers in the fleet. CVW 5 became based at the nearby Naval Air Facility Atsugi.[3]
For service in Vietnam from 30 April 1972, to 9 February 1973, Midway and CVW 5 received the Presidential Unit Citation from Richard Nixon. It read:
For extraordinary heroism and outstanding performance of duty in action against enemy forces in Southeast Asia from 30 April 1972 to 9 February 1973. During this crucial period of the Vietnam conflict, USS MIDWAY and embarked Attack Carrier Air Wing FIVE carried out devastating aerial attacks against enemy installations, transportation, and lines of communications in the face of extremely heavy opposition including multi-calibre antiaircraft artillery fire and surface-to-air missiles. Displaying superb airmanship and unwavering courage, MIDWAY/CVW-5 pilots played a significant role in lifting the prolonged sieges at An Lộc, Kon Tum, and Quảng Trị and in carrying out the concentrated aerial strikes against the enemy's industrial heartland which eventually resulted in a cease-fire. By their excellent teamwork, dedication, and sustained superior performance, the officers and men of MIDWAY and Attack Carrier Air Wing FIVE reflected great credit upon themselves and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service."[7]
Aircraft from Midway made the first MIG kills in the Vietnam War, and the last air-to-air victory of the war. On 17 June 1965, aviators of Midway's Attack Carrier Wing 2, VF-21 downed the first two MiGs credited to U.S. forces in Southeast Asia.[8] On 12 January 1973 a combat aircraft from Midway made the last air-to-air victory of the Vietnam War.[8]
Operation Frequent Wind
On 19 April 1975, after North Vietnam had overrun two-thirds of South Vietnam, Midway, along with Coral Sea, Hancock, Enterprise and Okinawa, were sent to the waters off South Vietnam. Ten days later, U.S. 7th Fleet forces carried out the Operation Frequent Wind evacuation. Midway, which had offloaded half of the ship's regular combat air wing at NS Subic Bay, Philippines, steamed to Thailand and took aboard eight CH-53 from 21st Special Operations Squadron and two HH-53 helicopters from 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron.[9] As Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, these helicopters ferried hundreds of U.S. personnel and Vietnamese people to Midway and other U.S. ships in the South China Sea.
On 29 April 1975, Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) Major Buang-Ly (also spelled Buang Lee) loaded his wife and five children into a two-seat Cessna O-1 Bird Dog and took off from Con Son Island. After evading enemy ground fire, Buang headed out to the South China Sea, found Midway, and began to circle overhead with his landing lights turned on. Midway's crew unsuccessfully attempted to contact the aircraft on emergency frequencies. When a spotter reported that there were at least four people in the two-seater aircraft, all thoughts of forcing the pilot to ditch alongside were abandoned. After three tries, Major Buang managed to drop a note from a low pass over the deck: "Can you move the helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway, I can fly for one hour more, we have enough time to move. Please rescue me! Major Buang, wife and 5 child." Captain Larry Chambers, the ship's commanding officer, ordered that the arresting wires be removed and that any helicopters that could not be safely and quickly moved should be pushed over the side. He called for volunteers, and soon every available seaman was on deck to help. An estimated US$10 million worth of UH-1 Huey helicopters were pushed overboard. With a 500-foot (150 m) ceiling, 5-mile (8.0 km) visibility, light rain, and 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) of surface wind, Chambers ordered the ship to make 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) into the wind. Warnings about the dangerous downdrafts created behind a steaming carrier were transmitted blind in both Vietnamese and English. To make matters worse, five more UH-1s landed and cluttered up the deck. Without hesitation, Chambers ordered them scuttled as well. Captain Chambers recalled that the aircraft cleared the ramp and touched down on center line at the normal touchdown point. Had he been equipped with a tailhook he could have bagged a number 3 wire. He bounced once and came stop abeam of the island, amid a wildly cheering, arms-waving flight deck crew.[10]
Buang was escorted to the bridge where Chambers congratulated him on his outstanding airmanship and his bravery in risking everything on a gamble beyond the point of no return without knowing for certain a carrier would be where he needed it. The crew of Midway was so impressed that they established a fund to help him and his family get settled in the United States.[11] The O-1 that Major Buang landed is now on display at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.[12] Major Buang became the first Vietnamese pilot ever to land on an aircraft carrier deck.
Upon completion of ferrying people to other ships, Midway returned to Thailand and disembarked the Air Force helicopters at U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield. The CH-53s then airlifted over 50 RVNAF aircraft to the ship.[13] With almost 100 helicopters and aircraft of the former RVNAF aboard, the ship steamed to Guam where the aircraft and helicopters were offloaded in twenty-four hours. While transiting back to the Philippines to pick up the ship's air wing, Midway was rerouted to act as a floating airfield in support of special operation forces rescuing the SS Mayagüez. Midway picked up the ship's regular air wing again a month later when the aircraft carrier returned NAS Cubi Point, Philippines.
After Vietnam
On 21 August 1976, a Navy task force headed by Midway made a show of force off the coast of Korea in response to an unprovoked attack on two U.S. Army officers who were killed by North Korean guards on 18 August. (The U.S. response to this incident was Operation Paul Bunyan). Midway's response was in support of a U.S. demonstration of military concern vis-à-vis North Korea.
Midway relieved Constellation as the Indian Ocean contingency carrier on 16 April 1979. This unscheduled deployment was due to USS Ranger colliding with tanker Liberian Fortune near the Straits of Malacca, with Midway taking over Ranger's mission while she went in for repair. Midway and her escorts continued a significant American naval presence in the oil-producing region of the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. On 18 November, the aircraft carrier arrived in the northern part of the Arabian Sea in connection with the continuing hostage crisis in Iran. Militant followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had come to power following the overthrow of the Shah, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on 4 November and held 63 U.S. citizens hostage. Midway was joined 21 November by Kitty Hawk, and both carriers, along with their escort ships, were joined by Nimitz and her escorts on 22 January 1980. Midway was relieved by Coral Sea on 5 February.[3]
Missions in the 1980s
Following a period in Yokosuka, Midway relieved Coral Sea 30 May 1980 on standby south of the Cheju-Do Islands in the Sea of Japan following the potential of civil unrest in the Republic of Korea.
While transiting the passage between Palawan Island of the Philippines and the coast of Northern Borneo on 29 July, the Panamanian merchant ship Cactus collided with Midway. Cactus was 450 nautical miles (830 km) southwest of Subic Bay and headed to Singapore. The collision occurred near the liquid oxygen plant and two sailors working in the plant were killed and three were injured. Midway sustained light damage and three F-4 Phantom aircraft parked on the flight deck were also damaged.[8]
On 17 August, Midway relieved Constellation to begin another Indian Ocean deployment and to complement the Dwight D. Eisenhower task group still on contingency duty in the Arabian Sea. Midway spent a total of 118 consecutive days in the Indian Ocean during 1980.
On 16 March 1981, an A-6 Intruder from VA-115 aboard Midway sighted a downed civilian helicopter in the South China Sea. Midway immediately dispatched HC-1 Det 2 helicopters to the scene. All 17 people aboard the downed helicopter were rescued and brought aboard the carrier. The chartered civilian helicopter was also plucked out of the water and lifted to Midway's flight deck.
On 25 March 1986, the final carrier launching of a Navy fleet F-4S Phantom II took place off Midway during flight operations in the East China Sea. The Phantoms were replaced by the new F/A-18 Hornets.
Midway continued serving in the western Pacific throughout the 1980s. In order to alleviate persistent seakeeping issues, Midway received hull blisters in 1986. During her 1986 refit (named "Extended Incremental Selected Repair Availability"), blisters were added to improve the ship's stability. The modification proved unsuccessful, and actually increased the ship's instability in rough seas. She took water over the flight deck during excessive rolls in moderate seas, thereby hampering flight operations. Before another $138 million refit was approved to rectify the stability problems, it was even proposed to decommission Midway. Nevertheless, she had earned herself the nickname "Rock'n Roll carrier". During a typhoon while in the Sea of Japan during the Olympic Games in Korea, October 8, 1988, Midway, which was not supposed to be able to survive more than 24 degrees of roll, sustained a 26 degree roll and withstood it.
On 30 October 1989 an F/A-18 Hornet aircraft from Midway mistakenly dropped a 500 pounds (227 kilograms) general-purpose bomb on the deck of Reeves during training exercises in the Indian Ocean, creating a 5-foot (1.5 m) hole in the bow, sparking small fires, and injuring five sailors. Reeves was 32 miles (51 km) south of Diego Garcia at the time of the incident.[14]
Disaster struck Midway on 20 June 1990. While conducting routine flight operations approximately 125 nautical miles (232 km; 144 mi) northeast of Japan, the ship was badly damaged by two onboard explosions. These explosions led to a fire that raged more than ten hours. In addition to damage to the ship's hull, two crew members were killed and 9 others were wounded;[15] one of the injured later died of his injuries.[16] All 11 crewmen belonged to the at sea fire-fighting team known as the Flying Squad. When Midway entered Yokosuka Harbor the next day, 12 Japanese media helicopters flew in circles and hovered about 150 feet (46 m) above the flight deck. Three bus loads of reporters were waiting on the pier. About 30 minutes after Midway cast her first line, more than 100 international print and electronic journalists charged over the brow to cover the event. The news media made a major issue out of the incident, as it happened amid several other military accidents. It was thought that the accident would lead to the ship's immediate retirement due to her age, but instead Midway was retained to fight in one last major conflict.
Operation Desert Storm and the 1990s
On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait and U.S. forces moved into Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield to protect that country against invasion by Iraq. On 1 November 1990, Midway was again on station in the North Arabian Sea being the carrier of Battle Force Zulu (which included warships from the US, Australia, and other countries), relieving Independence. On 15 November, the aircraft carrier participated in Operation Imminent Thunder, an eight-day combined amphibious landing exercise in northeastern Saudi Arabia which involved about 1,000 U.S. Marines, 16 warships, and more than 1,100 aircraft. Meanwhile, the United Nations set an ultimatum deadline of 15 January 1991 for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.
Operation Desert Storm began the next day, and the Navy launched 228 sorties from Midway and Ranger in the Persian Gulf, from Theodore Roosevelt en route to the Gulf, and from John F. Kennedy, Saratoga, and America in the Red Sea. In addition, the Navy launched more than 100 Tomahawk missiles from nine ships in the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Desert Storm officially ended 27 February, and Midway departed the Persian Gulf on 11 March 1991 and returned to Yokosuka.
In June 1991, Midway left for her final deployment, this time to the Philippines to take part in Operation Fiery Vigil, which was the evacuation of 20,000 military members including their families from Clark Air Base, on the island of Luzon, after the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Midway, along with twenty other U.S. naval ships, ferried the evacuees to the island of Cebu, where they were taken off the ship by helicopter. After taking part in the evacuation, the aircraft carrier once again returned to Yokosuka.
Final cruise
In August 1991, Midway departed Yokosuka and returned to Pearl Harbor. There, she turned over with Independence, which was to replace Midway as the forward-deployed carrier in Yokosuka. Rear Admiral Joseph Prueher and the staff of Carrier Group ONE cross-decked from Independence. Pruher was the last admiral to break his flag on Midway. She then sailed to Seattle for a port visit. The ship then disembarked "tigers" (guests of crew members) before making her final voyage to San Diego.
Midway was decommissioned at Naval Air Station North Island on 11 April 1992 in a ceremony in which the main speaker was Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. The ship was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 17 March 1997. During decommissioning, Midway, her sailors, and their families were filmed for the movie At Sea, a documentary on carrier life shown only at the Navy Museum in Washington, D.C.
On 30 September 2003, ex-Midway began her journey from the Navy Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, Washington, to San Diego, California, in preparation for use as a museum and memorial. The aircraft carrier was docked in early October at the Charles P. Howard Terminal in Oakland, California, while work proceeded on the Broadway Pier in downtown San Diego. On 10 January 2004, the ship was moored at her final location, where she was opened to the public on 7 June 2004 as a museum. In the first year of operation, the museum had 879,281 visitors, double the expected attendance.
On 11 November 2012, a college basketball game between the Syracuse Orange and the San Diego State Aztecs was played on the flight deck. The Orange won, 62–49.[17]
On 15 July 2015, museum personnel were evacuated from ex-Midway due to smoke caused by an apparent fire. The San Diego fire department responded quickly, but no fire was found, and the museum was able to open for the day on schedule.[18]
Awards and decorations
Presidential Unit Citation Joint Meritorious Unit Award Navy Unit Commendation
with three stars Meritorious Unit Commendation
with two stars
Navy E Ribbon with
wreathed Battle "E" device Navy Expeditionary Medal
with three stars China Service Medal American Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal Navy Occupation Service Medal National Defense Service Medal
with two stars Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
with six stars
Vietnam Service Medal
with four stars Southwest Asia Service Medal
with two stars Humanitarian Service Medal Sea Service Deployment Ribbon
with sixteen stars
Republic of Vietnam Meritorious
Unit Citation (Gallantry Cross) Republic of Vietnam Campaign
Medal Kuwait Liberation Medal
(Saudi Arabia) Kuwait Liberation Medal
(Kuwait)
A minor modification I did for the LEGO Speed Champions 76895 Ferrari F8 Tributo. I decided to replace the sticker headlights to the transparent pieces. Looks even better, but not accurate as like the real model. This modification is just for the looks, nothing particularly follow the real replica model. For those of you who doesn't like stickers here's an option for you.
Feel free to spread the idea and don't forget to tag me 😉
A bit of modifications made to the Lego original design, First Order Treadspeeder: Shortened the length of the vehicle, updated the armor plates on the rear and the front, colour theme changed.
Alright, here is my second mod. I did not make this yesterday/today if that's what you're wondering. I actually created 3 mods together and finished them all roughly the same time. This was just one of the smaller modifications. It includes a red-dot, and an extra magazine. Not comparable to my RPK, i'd say.
I've really started to like modding, and i think that I will do a lot more of it. The only thing I don't like is cutting up my brickarms. :3 I need to buy extras! I actually have two more mods that I'll show the next two days.
The weapon was not inspired by anyone specifically, but those added have inspired me to mod in general. I love their modding, and I think that at some time, I may be able to mod as good as them!
On a totally different note, Bricks Cascade is in 8 days! :D Can't wait to see a lot of you guys there!
Feedback on all of my mods are appreciated more than you could imagine. I actually use the feedback on my future mods. Thanks again fellas!
Jake
The Colorado River (Spanish: Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river, the 5th longest in the United States, drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states. The name Colorado derives from the Spanish language for "colored reddish" due to its heavy silt load. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, it flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
Known for its dramatic canyons, whitewater rapids, and eleven U.S. National Parks, the Colorado River and its tributaries are a vital source of water for 40 million people. An extensive system of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts divert almost its entire flow for agricultural irrigation and urban water supply. Its large flow and steep gradient are used to generate hydroelectricity, meeting peaking power demands in much of the Intermountain West. Intensive water consumption has dried up the lower 100 miles (160 km) of the river, which has rarely reached the sea since the 1960s.
Native Americans have inhabited the Colorado River basin for at least 8,000 years. Starting around 1 CE, large agriculture-based societies were established, but a combination of drought and poor land use practices led to their collapse in the 1300s. Their descendants include tribes such as the Puebloans, while others including the Navajo settled in the Colorado Basin after the 1000s. In the 1500s, Spanish explorers began mapping and claiming the watershed, which became part of Mexico upon winning its independence from Spain in 1821. Even after most of the watershed became US territory in 1846, much of the river's course remained unknown. Several expeditions charted the Colorado in the mid-19th century—one of which, led by John Wesley Powell, was the first to run the rapids of the Grand Canyon. Large-scale settlement of the lower basin began in the mid- to late-1800s, with steamboats sailing from the Gulf of California to landings along the river that linked to wagon roads to the interior. Starting in the 1860s, gold and silver strikes drew prospectors to the upper Colorado River basin.
Large-scale river management began in the early 1900s, with major guidelines established in a series of international and US interstate treaties known as the "Law of the River". The US federal government constructed most of the major dams and aqueducts between 1910 and 1970; the largest, Hoover Dam, was completed in 1935. Numerous water projects have also involved state and local governments. With all of their waters fully allocated, both the Colorado and the neighboring Rio Grande are now considered among the most controlled and litigated river systems in the world. Since 2000, extended drought has conflicted with increasing demands for Colorado River water, and the level of human development and control of the river continues to generate controversy.
Marble Canyon is the section of the Colorado River canyon in northern Arizona from Lee's Ferry to the confluence with the Little Colorado River, which marks the beginning of the Grand Canyon.
Lee's Ferry is a common launching point for river runners starting their journey through Marble Canyon and then onward to the Grand Canyon. Marble Canyon is also well known for the Navajo Bridge, where US Highway 89A crosses the Colorado River.
Marble Canyon marks the western boundary of the Navajo Nation. In 1975, the former Marble Canyon National Monument, which followed the Colorado River northeast from the Grand Canyon to Lee's Ferry, was made part of Grand Canyon National Park.
The name Marble Canyon is a misnomer because there is no marble there. Although John Wesley Powell knew this when he named the canyon, he thought the polished limestone looked like marble. In his words, "The limestone of the canyon is often polished, and makes a beautiful marble. Sometimes the rocks are of many colors – white, gray, pink, and purple, with saffron tints."
Marble Canyon is the site of one of the last great proposed dam projects on the Colorado, the Marble Canyon Dam. Proposed and investigated in the early 1950s by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, the proposal met substantial opposition, notably from the Sierra Club, when a revived proposal was considered by the state of Arizona as part of the Central Arizona Project from 1965 to 1968. The proposed dam was finally abandoned in 1968. Exploratory holes, which were drilled in the Redwall Limestone of the canyon walls in an early phase of the abortive project, can still be seen at Mile 39.2.
Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often considered one of the Wonders of the World. The park, which covers 1,217,262 acres (1,901.972 sq mi; 4,926.08 km2) of unincorporated area in Coconino and Mohave counties, received more than six million recreational visitors in 2017, which is the second highest count of all American national parks after Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The Grand Canyon was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979. The park celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 26, 2019.
The Grand Canyon became well known to Americans in the 1880s after railroads were built and pioneers developed infrastructure and early tourism. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt visited the site and said,
The Grand Canyon fills me with awe. It is beyond comparison—beyond description; absolutely unparalleled through-out the wide world ... Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is. Do nothing to mar its grandeur, sublimity and loveliness. You cannot improve on it. But you can keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see.
Despite Roosevelt's enthusiasm and strong interest in preserving land for public use, the Grand Canyon was not immediately designated as a national park. The first bill to establish Grand Canyon National Park was introduced in 1882 by then-Senator Benjamin Harrison, which would have established Grand Canyon as the third national park in the United States, after Yellowstone and Mackinac. Harrison unsuccessfully reintroduced his bill in 1883 and 1886; after his election to the presidency, he established the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve in 1893. Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Game Preserve by proclamation on November 28, 1906, and the Grand Canyon National Monument on January 11, 1908. Further Senate bills to establish the site as a national park were introduced and defeated in 1910 and 1911, before the Grand Canyon National Park Act was finally signed by President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919. The National Park Service, established in 1916, assumed administration of the park.
The creation of the park was an early success of the conservation movement. Its national park status may have helped thwart proposals to dam the Colorado River within its boundaries. (Later, the Glen Canyon Dam would be built upriver.) A second Grand Canyon National Monument to the west was proclaimed in 1932. In 1975, that monument and Marble Canyon National Monument, which was established in 1969 and followed the Colorado River northeast from the Grand Canyon to Lees Ferry, were made part of Grand Canyon National Park. In 1979, UNESCO declared the park a World Heritage Site. The 1987 the National Parks Overflights Act found that "Noise associated with aircraft overflights at the Grand Canyon National Park is causing a significant adverse effect on the natural quiet and experience of the park and current aircraft operations at the Grand Canyon National Park have raised serious concerns regarding public safety, including concerns regarding the safety of park users."
In 2010, Grand Canyon National Park was honored with its own coin under the America the Beautiful Quarters program. On February 26, 2019, the Grand Canyon National Park commemorated 100 years since its designation as a national park.
The Grand Canyon had been part of the National Park Service's Intermountain Region until 2018.[citation needed] Today, the Grand Canyon is a part of Region 8, also known as the Lower Colorado Basin.
The Grand Canyon, including its extensive system of tributary canyons, is valued for its combination of size, depth, and exposed layers of colorful rocks dating back to Precambrian times. The canyon itself was created by the incision of the Colorado River and its tributaries after the Colorado Plateau was uplifted, causing the Colorado River system to develop along its present path.
The primary public areas of the park are the South and North Rims, and adjacent areas of the canyon itself. The rest of the park is extremely rugged and remote, although many places are accessible by pack trail and backcountry roads. The South Rim is more accessible than the North Rim and accounts for 90% of park visitation.
The park headquarters are at Grand Canyon Village, not far from the South Entrance to the park, near one of the most popular viewpoints.
Most visitors to the park come to the South Rim, arriving on Arizona State Route 64. The highway enters the park through the South Entrance, near Tusayan, Arizona, and heads eastward, leaving the park through the East Entrance. Interstate 40 provides access to the area from the south. From the north, U.S. Route 89 connects Utah, Colorado, and the North Rim to the South Rim. Overall, some 30 miles of the South Rim are accessible by road.
The North Rim area of the park is located on the Kaibab Plateau and Walhalla Plateau, directly across the Grand Canyon from the principal visitor areas on the South Rim. The North Rim's principal visitor areas are centered around Bright Angel Point. The North Rim is higher in elevation than the South Rim, at over 8,000 feet (2,400 m) of elevation. Because it is so much higher than the South Rim, it is closed from December 1 through May 15 each year, due to the enhanced snowfall at elevation. Visitor services are closed or limited in scope after October 15. Driving time from the South Rim to the North Rim is about 4.5 hours, over 220 miles (350 km).
There are few roads on the North Rim, but there are some notable vehicle-accessible lookout points, including Point Imperial, Roosevelt Point, and Cape Royal. Mule rides are also available to a variety of places, including several thousand feet down into the canyon.
Many visitors to the North Rim choose to make use of the variety of hiking trails including the Widforss Trail, Uncle Jim's Trail, the Transept Trail, and the North Kaibab Trail. The North Kaibab Trail can be followed all the way down to the Colorado River, connecting across the river to the South Kaibab Trail and the Bright Angel Trail, which continue up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
The Toroweap Overlook is located in the western part of the park on the North Rim. Access is via unpaved roads off Route 389 west of Fredonia, Arizona. The roads lead through Grand Canyon–Parashant National Monument and to the overlook.
A variety of activities at the South Rim cater to park visitors. A driving tour (35 miles (56 km)) along the South Rim is split into two segments. The western drive to Hermit's Point is eight miles (13 km) with several overlooks along the way, including Mohave Point, Hopi Point, and the Powell Memorial. From March to December, access to Hermit's Rest is restricted to the free shuttle provided by the Park Service. The eastern portion to Desert View is 25 miles (40 km), and is open to private vehicles year round.
Walking tours include the Rim Trail, which runs west from the Pipe Creek viewpoint for about eight miles (13 km) of paved road, followed by seven miles (11 km) unpaved to Hermit's Rest. Hikes can begin almost anywhere along this trail, and a shuttle can return hikers to their point of origin. Mather Point, the first view most people reach when entering from the south entrance, is a popular place to begin.
Private canyon flyovers are provided by helicopters and small airplanes out of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Grand Canyon National Park Airport. Due to a crash in the 1990s, scenic flights are no longer allowed to fly within 1,500 feet (460 m) of the rim within the Grand Canyon National Park. Flights within the canyon are still available outside of park boundaries.
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.
Les colonnes de Claude Nicolas Ledoux érigées en 1787. Les statues des rois capétiens Philippe Auguste et Saint Louis seront ajoutées en 1845. (Place de la Nation dans le 11ème arrondissement de Paris - IDF)
Website : www.fluidr.com/photos/pat21
"Copyright © – Patrick Bouchenard
The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained here in for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved."
I think I could marry this thing
Designed in 1945 and introduced to service in 1948, Saladin is a very capable rifle. Feeding from 20-rounder magazines, and using the Czech 7.62x45mm round, it was very loosely based on the AK-47's system, even though it barely resembles the rifle both internally and externally. It is able to mount a bayonet and a scope, the latter which fits the rifle very well, as it was surprisingly accurate for Altayi standards. It has a rate of fire of 750 rounds per minute.
Entering service just in the middle of a time of border conflicts, it was quickly baptized by fire, and proved to be very effective against Soviet troops. Essentially being able to beat the AK-47 in every category but capacity (which could be improved to a capacity of 35 rounds by a field modification!), and proved to be the favorite of soldiers. Even though it has recently started service, it has already gained a fanbase of sorts, and will likely stay in service for a long, long time.
----------------------
Wow I finally manged to not be a lazy faggot and actually PMG'd something. Hope you like it, there's going to be more of this stuff.
-------------------
Without accesories: i.imgur.com/BBJgoYa.png
Front axle set forward for one stud (looks more like a Caddy in my opinion), omitting the stud at the front door, 1x2 cheese at the bottom throughout.
MG MGB GT Mk.III (1972-80) Engine 1798cc S4 BMC B Series Production Total GT production all types 125,282.
Registration Number BOV 338 V (Birmingham)
MG ALBUM
www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623797586658...
The MGB GT arrived in 1965 three years after the Roadster with production continued in 1980 and modifications in line with the Roadster. Designed by Pininfarina and launching the sporty hatchback style. The new configuration was a 2+2 design most components were shared although the GT did receive different suspension springs and anti-roll bars and a different windscreen. Performance wise the GT had slightly slower acceleration due to its extra weight but a higher top speed due to improved aerodynamics.
The Mark II 1972-80 originally brought few changes. Mainly to the interior with the heater and fascia altered. Early in 1974 to meet US impact regulations the chrome bumper over riders were replaced by large rubber ones. Nicknamed Sabrina's after the actress who was the Jordan of her day. In the second half of 1974 these were replaced by by heavy steel reinforced black rubber bumpers which also incorporated the nose. The rear had matching bumpers. New US head lamp regulations also meant that the lights were to low a situation remedied by raising the suspension one inch, Complying with the new US emission regulations also meant a reduction in power
Diolch am 95,211,011 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr.
Thanks for 95,211,011 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated
Shot 03.07.2022, at Cars in the Park, Lichfield, Staffordshire REF 161-117