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The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.
Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.
Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
This is a reproduction of the nose art on "Wandering Wanda," a B-24M (or B-24L) assigned to the 7th Bomb Group, based at Pandaveswar, India. The real "Wanda" was one of many 7th BG B-24s painted by Vernon Drake, a particularly talented USAAF nose art artist--he was lucky in that a lot of his work was preserved after the war thanks to Minot Pratt, who saved nose art from scrapped B-24s. Today, the originals are preserved and are part of a touring exhibit sponsored by the Experimental Aircraft Association.
As mentioned above, however, this is a reproduction of one of Drake's nose art, done for the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Whoever the local artist is who did this excellent rendition is talented themselves! For some of the art carried by 7th BG B-24s, "Wanda" is actually a bit on the tame side.
"Traveller's daily life in China."
In China, several hotel chains offer their guests well-equipped laundry rooms: washing machines, dryers, irons, and complimentary consumables, including laundry detergent. It's worth remembering that vandalism is virtually nonexistent in China, and guests take care of the equipment provided.
* * *
"La vie quotidienne du voyageur en Chine."
En Chine, plusieurs chaines hotelières proposent des lingeries bien équipées à leurs clients : machines à laver, machines à sécher le linge, fers à repasser et consommables gratuits, dont le lessive.
Il faut rappeler qu'en Chine, le vandalisme est quasi inexistant et que les clients prennent soin du matériel mis à leur disposition.
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
"Bob's Bear," a restored F8F-2 Bearcat, shows a bear--who is either smiling or getting ready to devour someone--in World War II-era Navy flight gear, against an American flag. This was done with an airbrush (and therefore would be of somewhat better quality than the hand brushed nose art of World War II). Most Navy aircraft did not carry nose art due to the difficulty of maintaining it around saltwater, but since "Bear" is landbound, that's less of a problem. It's named for Bob Pond, the founder of the Palm Springs Air Museum, where the "Bear" resides.
VIDEO HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue7AC-slLO0
••• SCRIPT/LYRICS: •••
MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!!
ED…
…EDD…
…AND EDDY…
…VS…
…YAKKO…
…WAKKO…
…AND DOT!!!!!!!!!
BEGIN!
The Eds:
Eddy: Coming straight at you live from Peach Creek, it's the scammers with the most…
Ed: …Laying lyrics down on Termite Terrace twerps like butter on my toast.
Edd: To mess with Cartoon Network's golden boys, you're nutty as old Slappy!
Eds: Unlike our Big Picture Show, your effort's ending won't be happy!
Eddy:
Call me Brother Eddy Grunt, 'cause things are getting extra-ugly:
We'll be knocking out your lights; best say goodnight to everybody!
Get you quaking like some 1994 Northridge debacle;
Hard-set on you as the Kankers on their ship inside a bottle!
Edd:
Double D's no mumbler on the mic; I'm practiced to perfection:
Drop you faster than a Lackadaisycathro infection!
In contrast to what's beneath my hat, our win will be no shock;
My home's a mess compared to how completely I'll clean all your clocks!
Ed:
I needn't channel any viking to slay these three little creeps;
I put away more snacks than Wakko's appetite while I'm asleep!
Didn't bring my monster suit, but still my disposition will be beastly,
As I beat the living gravy out these runts of unclear species!
Edd: Unlike hippos, if you'd cross us, you belong on the endangered list!
Eddy: You roaches are pathetic as those loser Urban Ranger kids.
Ed: The water tower couldn't succeed at keeping you impounded,
But I'll dig a hole and leave the Warners six-feet-under-grounded!
The Warners:
Wakko: Good Idea…
Dot: Yo, take a sticky note of this:
Yakko: Roll back your neon tongues inside your empty skulls and call it quits!
Wakko: Bad Idea…
Yakko: Step to Spielberg's favored animation legends?
Warners: Like the street you call your home, it's only leading to a dead end!
Yakko:
You'll tear out what little hair you have before this gig is over,
For we'll cause you more vexation than a pebble in your loafers.
You're hard-pressed to land a single quarter safely in your wallet;
If ol' Ponzi's the con-art Picasso, you're the Jackson Pollocks.
Wakko:
Think of Wakko's wacky words as like an anvil to the noggin:
When they drop, they'll bring more hurting than a triple-sneaker flogging!
I've got swiggy-swag aplenty and a bag full of surprises,
But your style is as paper-thin as Chicken Boo's disguises!
Dot:
In this corner: Warner sister with a poem to recite;
Wouldn't service Prince, but I'll lay more than fingers on you when we fight!
You haven't misaddressed me once, but still I'll send you to your maker:
Your big bro's abuse was tame next to my literal jaw-breaker!
Yakko: We teach history and geography at no expense of fun.
Dot: When you attempt to learn, you butcher space and time and eat the sun!
Wakko: Here's our half-cents for you half-wits if to defeat us is your mission:
Even wishing on a star could never bring that to fruition!
The Eds:
Eddy: And the sound of no one caring echoed through the neighborhood!
Ed: I bet you'd get along with Johnny, 'cause you're dumb as hunks of wood.
Edd: Although your naughty humor's subtle, your hypocrisy is blatant:
Your nitpicking disses sound like Get-a-Life Foundation's patients!
Eddy: We'll go Canada-cowpoke on you, and this time we won't miss!
Ed: Leave you more desperate for relief than when Ringo here needs to piss!
Edd: The Dodgeball mishap hit me hard, but we'll knock you clean off the court!
Eddy: …Then unforgivingly insert electric eels inside your shorts!
The Warners:
Yakko: You lumpen dorks are full of nonsense as your stupid limbo theory is!
Dot: Let's blow the roof clean off this joint like Katie on her period!
Wakko: Go make like your old friend Jib, and hightail it on some bus…
Yakko: …'Cause they may still be making dickies, but not 'toons as dope as us!
Wakko: Our words will haunt you like the ringing of a cursed telephone.
Dot: How can you scare us, when your own girlfriends send shivers through your bones?
Yakko: Our show's The Godfather of cartoons!
Wakko: Yours is for the birds, you bumblers.
Dot: What's your theme of whistles next to any one of Rita's numbers?
The Eds:
Eddy: Man, we'll cut you down to size worse than your slutty Mink's filmography!
Edd: You couldn't even beat us with reverse-reverse-psychology!
Ed: You'll need a nurse for real!
Edd: Can't beat us anywhere, you bastards!
Eddy: Even Rolf's homeland of Yeshmiyek and fish-balls ain't that backwards.
Edd: It's your final Mis-Edventure if you keep your current course.
Ed: We're making this the most brutality-filled song since "That's My Horse"!
Eddy: Even against our geriatric selves, you wouldn't last for long.
Eds: We'll tear you new anuses as redress for Yakko's planets song!
The Warners:
Yakko: It's time to turn the wheel and teach a lesson; moral number four:
Wakko: Just give up hope, and leave through any one of living's many doors.
Yakko: Your chance is nonexistent as your background cast; don't try to take us!
Dot: You're less likely to succeed than Brain and Pinky's global shakeups.
Wakko: Cursed Evil Tim has nothing on the terror we strike when summoned!
Dot: Even Mindy ain't as savvy when it comes to pushing Buttons.
Yakko: Mr. Mime Time's always back for more, but get this understood:
Warners: Just like our old pal Buddy, we'll put you clowns down and out for good.
WHO WON?
WHO'S NEXT?
I DECIDE!
MOLEMAN'S EPIC RAP BATTLES!!!!!!!!!
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Joinkhaah "Maniac" Manneil is a currently–living Joiemgaw born on the twentieth day of the Ninth Cycle of Age 810 as the second child of a lower–middle–class family who took up the profession of mechanics and metalworking at a younger age than that at which most others of his race begin seriously dabbling in their eventual careers and quickly proved himself to be a prodigy in the field. Upon discovering this knack, Joinkhaah Manneil subsequently dedicated himself to his craft, improving his skills further and eventually rising through the ranks of society and above his fellow aspiring metalworkers until he, at the young age of twenty–four, had founded and successfully established his own private manufacturing corporation, Manneil Metallics. In the Fifth Cycle (the most active business season on Wegneheck) of Age 836, not long after its initial rise to prominence, Manneil Metallics was made an official partner of the greater, Prime Galaxy–wide Joiemgaw Media Corporation (specifically the mega–conglomerate's engineering branch), and Manneil himself an official major shareholder and executive of said corporation, placing him in the top ten percentiles within the top single percentile of the overall Joiemgaw population in terms of wealth, power and fame.
For the next few years, Joinkhaah Manneil lived in comfortable luxury and laziness, more–so than the average Joiemgaw in his position would, while his business continued to prosper and with the tycoon himself no longer doing any more manual work of his own since scoring the deal which had ensured that he would be set for life and eventually ceasing to even actively oversee his company's production processes. Then, during the exuberant celebration of his thirtieth birthday, Manneil experienced a traumatic brush with death. His party was crashed by a gunman, a vengeful close relative of a lower–class person who had been killed as a result of a faulty vehicle produced under the Manneil name, which the unfortunate victim, the nephew of the eventual gunman, had just barely been able to afford. The automobile had been produced subsequent to the point at which the company's founder, a self–made man who had initially gotten to where he was through hard work and dedication, had ceased all active participation in the production of his business' products. The attacker had previously sued Manneil Metallics for his nephew's death, but failed to get anyone convicted, to win any reparations and even to make the incident widely–known publicly, all due to the efforts of Manneil's quick–acting and highly corrupt lawyers and publicists, who had shot both the court case and the potential scandal down with Joinkhaah Manneil's only direct role in their actions being a proverbial rubber–stamping. Note that the gunman was, rather conveniently, "honorable" enough to announce his motives during the attack in just about as coherent a manner as one could while committing mass homicide, saving officials most of the trouble they would otherwise have had to go through to figure out said motives.
The resulting shootout left six dead, these fatalities consisting of the gunman plus five aristocratic clients of Manneil Metallics, and eight wounded, these injured including Manneil's older sister and Joinkhaah Manneil himself, both of whom were shot in the head and rendered comatose. Joinkhaah's sister, Splindink, with whom he was (and still tries to be) very close, remained unconscious for three cycles and, upon waking up, had suffered serious brain damage, including memory loss, from which she is unlikely to ever fully recover. Manneil himself, meanwhile, woke up a mere eight days after the attack, and was considered to have made a full recovery soon thereafter, but was in fact a greatly changed man. Shortly after learning all that had happened and returning to his then–nonexistent duties as head of Manneil Metallics, Joinkhaah delivered a public address announcing that he was now a born–again follower of God and would from this point onward personally work to restore consistent quality control to his company's products while abandoning and renouncing his previous hedonistic lifestyle that he believed had led to the recent tragedy.
Despite initial, widespread and understandable, given that the shooting had brought the incident which motivated the perpetrator, as well as the executive's recent history of laziness and carelessness, to public light, doubts and insinuations of the contrary, Manneil meant all of this. He would soon prove this by immediately reforming both his company and his own personal behaviors, returning to direct, manual metalworking to the point of working part–time in assembly lines alongside the lowliest of his employees, and never relapsing back into the negligent lack of input that had led to the accident which had led to the shooting that had led to his epiphany which had led to his present reform.
Now, the "story" of Joinkhaah Manneil could very well have ended, in regards to major events and contributions concerning him, right here, being a simple inspirational and heartwarming tale of redemption, etc.
It did not.
The wealthy Joiemgaw, in his efforts for atonement and self–reinvention, went much further than this, and indeed, further than anyone had initial reason to expect.
Starting in early Age 841, Manneil, a completely average specimen of his kind in terms of physical strength for most of his life up to this point and rather out–of–shape due to his laziness over the past few years which he had just recently given up, began practicing a self–imposed regimen of daily, heavy exercise which soon intensified further and escalated into bodybuilding. In time, his physical condition came to match his level of societal status; that is to say, it was now in the top fraction of the highest one percentile among all Joiemgaws, which are generally not known for physical prowess. Joinkhaah's personality also began to change further beyond its initial shift toward altruism, evolving into something arguably less purely good yet also arguably more actively heroic and inarguably more awesome. While becoming noticeably more eccentric and bombastic in public appearances, he began demanding that he be given total privacy while working in his studio, an activity which he seemed to spend more and more time doing daily with each passing twenty–four–hour period, and eventually declared the studio off–limits at all times to anyone and everyone but himself. Concurrently, many strange, large orders calling for various, often obscure and rare, supplies and raw materials were personally made and paid for in full by Manneil, whose publicists took efforts, this time on direct orders from their boss, to keep these orders on a low profile while the providers were likewise paid generous amounts of interest for not making news of them.
This strange behavior and secret activity continued, and somewhat escalated, for almost two years, throughout which Joinkhaah Manneil, in spite of all the strange – downright suspicious, even – things he was now doing on the side, still ran and oversaw the core operations of his business just as he had promised he always would; he had become an extraordinarily busy and active man. Public rumors of him going insane or even planning some violent atrocity such as a bombing made the typical rounds that most rumors do during this period of time, but these never gained enough leverage to receive significant media attention or warrant any official investigations of Manneil's person and property.
The truth was finally revealed, unveiled by Manneil himself, on his own thirty–second birthday. The date of his birth now being shared with that of the tragedy that had altered his life and several others', it had seemed that any and all future celebrations of Joinkhaah Manneil's birthday would be tainted by memories of the shooting, and indeed, he himself had wisely refrained from holding any public festivities on his thirty–first birthday, A.K.A. the shooting's first anniversary. For his "sweet sixteen–times–two", however, he appeared to be "making up" for this, preparing a bigger party than any he had previously thrown and inviting more people than ever before, even including some low–level manual workers of Manneil Metallics whom he had chosen based on a raffle. When the eve of Manneil's birthday and of the party arrived, the turnout was disappointing, with many of those invited failing to show up, in most cases due to bad memories regarding the shooting two years ago, concerns regarding the host's strange behavior and reclusive activities as of late, or a combination of both factors. This, however, did not discourage Manneil from doing his best to thrill and wow those who did attend with the reveal of the bonafide arsenal of personalized, optimally–modified munitions, equipment and conveyances that he had created for use in his coming adventures.
As he explained both to those relative few who were there to see the initial, formal unveiling and to a wider audience in a public announcement the following day, Joinkhaah Manneil had been inspired by the recent "superhero" movement, the foundations of which had been laid by the Mulshian Fire–Egg starting roughly one hundred years prior, and intended to join in on it, having planned to do so since shortly after his initial post–coma epiphany but only now being fully prepared to begin his heroic endeavors in earnest. He had spent the majority of the past two–year period drafting, crafting and perfecting the array of equipment he would now make use of as a galaxy–traveling noble mercenary whose deeds would better the name and reputation of Joiemgaw–kind and whose earnings would all go towards Manneil Metallics' production funds, further bolstering the company's reliability both practically and "symbolically".
Initial reactions to these announcements were, predictably, of a sentiment that can be accurately summarized with the following statement, which was printed word–for–word in multiple publications: "It is official: Manneil has lost it." Numerous Manneil Metallics shareholders began withdrawing their investments, while the company's general market performance started declining almost immediately. Joinkhaah's public appointment, in the form of a responsible up–and–coming businessman working in his field and being similar to how he himself had been as a younger man, of a potential successor in the case of his being killed while out adventuring, a scenario that the debuting hero–to–be considered unlikely and said as much of, did little to help the situation. Regardless, Manneil was not discouraged, and determined that he would prove those who doubted the feasibility of his being a viable adventurer wrong.
Surprisingly enough, he actually managed to follow through.
Since around the start of Age 843, Joinkhaah Manneil, whose preferred moniker in regards to his adventures is "Maniac Manneil", has been active as one of the Prime Galaxy's most prominent "superhero" mercenaries, and possibly the most successful and longest–operating non–mutant among the various adventurers that have taken after the example originally set by the Eggmen over the past century. To this day, he continues frequently touring both Wegneheck and various other venues throughout space, performing acts of bombastic, gadgetry–assisted heroism and using the money he demands and receives in exchange for his good deeds toward constructive purposes within his business, which he still manages competently, to continue ensuring that it remains the best, most stable and reliable company it can possibly be. Following its owner's initially surprising just about everyone by proving to be a capable interplanetary champion and not getting killed, Manneil Metallics rose back up from the pits of recession almost as quickly as it had fallen into them in the wake of the widespread belief that said owner had gone completely insane, and has continued flourishing ever since. Maniac Manneil's heroics have also helped improve the long–dubious reputation of Joiemgaws in general in the eyes of many other peoples, which was another stated original goal of his. He has killed more than one hundred people, all of them violent criminals, grievously injured several hundred more, almost all of them violent criminals, and verifiably saved several thousand lives while never killing a single innocent and only ever injuring a few, each of whom he has voluntarily paid massive reparations to. On a related note, there has never been another fatal accident involving a Manneil Metallics machine that has been deemed to be the fault of the company rather than of any user since the deadly automobile malfunction which led to the fateful birthday shooting.
Manneil has, in his case unfortunately, inspired several other Joiemgaws, all of considerably lesser wealth and skill than he, to attempt imitating him without undergoing the same long–term preparations and training firsthand and without having access to the same caliber of equipment, resulting in most of these copycats being swiftly and ignominiously slain in the field of action. The man himself, though, has always made clear his disapproval of those who would emulate his extremely dangerous activities, stressing repeatedly that what he does has required, and continues to require, years of dedicated, hard work, genuine passion and top–notch resources, a notion that the two years he spent training and preparing for his superhero career before actually starting it can always attest to. Today, Maniac Manneil is still considered to be the only "true" Joiemgaw superhero out there, and he is also considered the most famous Joiemgaw currently alive as well as one of several roughly equal contenders for the distinction of being the wealthiest member of his kind, with his estimated net worth being more than 100,000,000,000 Galactic Common.
Very recently (that is, within the past three years), it has been theorized more widely than ever before that Joinkhaah "Maniac" Manneil's eventual transformation from the corrupt and slothful executive he had become during the years leading up to the shooting that changed his life forever into the audacious, muscular adventurer he is known as today may have been the result not only of epiphany but of a form of brain damage resulting from the piece of shrapnel that had entered his head and whose effects came with a delay. In other words, more and more evidence seems to suggest as of late that he really is insane in at least some form. Maniac Manneil himself has been informed of this possibility, but has dismissed it – not as untrue, necessarily, but as irrelevant. He maintains a strong sense of pride for the way he is now, believing his current way of life as a hero–for–hire to be the destined and ultimate realization of his potential as a person and stating that even if trauma–induced mania is involved, few can argue against the notion that the end result has ultimately changed him for the better and is, furthermore and in Manneil's own words, "totally cool, awesome and badass".
And indeed, one would be hard–pressed to find any significant number of people who would argue against that notion.
• On Maniac Manneil's arsenal of equipment that he relies upon throughout his heroic exploits, it was, again, all personally built by him over a period of roughly two years and utilizing levels of technology so advanced and materials so top–quality that the resulting creations could never be viably mass–produced due to being too costly and time–consuming to make. His array of paraphernalia includes various weapons, both lethal and somewhat less–lethal, specialized armors with features such as heat–resistance and water–breathing apparatuses, gadgets for almost any situation, such as infrared and X–ray goggles, automatic door–unlocking devices and a jetpack, and multiple vehicles. Most of these items are based in some way upon the foundations of previously–existing technologies, though Manneil's versions are, without exception, all personalized in some unique way and altogether functionally superior to their original, more common counterparts. There are a few exceptions; that is, completely original and unique creations of Maniac Manneil, however, and the most notable of these is the machine that is considered the mercenary's signature vehicle and "trump card" and which has been selected from among all the items in his armory to be showcased here alongside the man himself.
This machine is the "Mannserker", a three–story–tall armored tank with the rough likeness of a very angry–looking Joiemgaw. This heavily–armed battle mech sports what Joinkhaah refers to as a "composite" aesthetic design, with his biggest source of inspiration while designing it and its "face" in particular coming from his sister, Splindink, whose initial awakening from her coma had overjoyed him, even with her being in a mentally incomplete state, and helped give him the initiative to fully commit himself to his until–then–only–contemplated pursuit of a greater, grander purpose in life. While incorporating elements of his sister's visage into the tank's appearance, though, Manneil did not directly model the Mannserker's Joiemgaw likenesses on Splindink alone, instead opting to give the machine a more unique, "independent" appearance that also incorporated some of his own features as well as a few "random" creative details not specifically borrowed from anyone or anything in particular.
Joinkhaah Manneil currently continues to keep the designs and blueprints for all of his equipment, including and especially the Mannserker, strictly classified to everyone besides himself, and has said numerous times that the secrets to replicating his powerful creations will not be made available to any outside party until after he is dead.
Donald Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known for his semi-intelligible speech and his mischievous, temperamental, and pompous personality. Along with his friend Mickey Mouse, Donald was included in TV Guide's list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002, and has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has appeared in more films than any other Disney character.
Donald Duck appeared in comedic roles in animated cartoons. Donald's first appearance was in The Wise Little Hen (1934), but it was his second appearance in Orphan's Benefit that same year that introduced him as a temperamental comic foil to Mickey Mouse. Throughout the next two decades, Donald appeared in over 150 theatrical films, several of which were recognized at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, he typically appeared as part of a comic trio with Mickey and Goofy and was given his own film series starting with Don Donald (1937). These films introduced Donald's love interest and permanent girlfriend Daisy Duck and often included his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. After the film Chips Ahoy (1956), Donald appeared primarily in educational films before eventually returning to theatrical animation in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). His last appearance in a theatrical film was in Fantasia 2000 (1999). However, since then Donald has appeared in direct-to-video features such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers (2004), television series such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (2006–2016), and video games such as QuackShot (1991) and the Kingdom Hearts series.
In addition to animation, Donald is well known worldwide for his appearances in comics. Donald was most famously drawn by Al Taliaferro, Carl Barks, and Don Rosa. Barks, in particular, is credited for greatly expanding the "Donald Duck universe", the world in which Donald lives, and creating many additional characters such as Donald's rich uncle Scrooge McDuck. Donald has been a popular character in Europe, particularly in Nordic countries where his weekly magazine Donald Duck & Co was the comics publication with the highest circulation from the 1950s to 2009. In Italy, Donald is a major character in many comics, including a juvenile version named Paperino Paperotto, and a superhero alter ego known as Paperinik (Duck Avenger in the US and Superduck in the UK).
Characteristics
Voice
The character is known for possessing an only partly intelligible voice, developed by Donald's original performer, Clarence Nash. During an interview, Tony Anselmo revealed that "Most people believe that Donald's voice is done squeezing air through the cheek, that is not true. I can't reveal how it's actually done, but it is definitely not done by squeezing air through the cheek. The Hanna-Barbera character 'Yakky Doodle' is done that way. Donald Duck is not." Nash reputedly originally developed the voice as that of a "nervous baby goat" before Walt Disney interpreted it as sounding like a duck.
Personality
The character of Donald Duck is portrayed as a very impatient, immature, and arrogant duck with a pessimistic attitude and an insecure disposition. In addition, his two dominant personality traits are his fiery temper and his upbeat attitude to life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world until something comes along and spoils his day. His rage is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions. There are times when he fights to keep his temper in check, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.
Donald's aggressive nature has its advantages, however. While at times it is a hindrance, and even a handicap, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced with a threat of some kind, for example, Pete's attempts to intimidate him, he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights. In fact, his anger can make him powerful enough to defeat ghosts, much stronger individuals, sharks, mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature.
Donald is something of a prankster, and as a result, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a bully, especially in the way he sometimes treats Chip n' Dale and Huey, Dewey and Louie, his nephews. As the animator Fred Spencer has put it:
The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.
However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any harm in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and when his pranks go too far, he is often apologetic. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he shows great regret, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of them—that is, of course, until he realizes he has been tricked, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.
Donald is also a bit of a poseur. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something. He does, in fact, have many skills—he is something of a Jack-of-all-trades. Amongst other things, he is a talented fisher and a competent hockey player. However, his love of bragging often leads him to overestimate his abilities, so that when he sets out to make good on his boasts, he gets in over his head, usually to hilarious effect.
Another of his personality traits is perseverance. Even though he can at times be a slacker, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in a hammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Health
There is a running gag in the Donald Duck comics about him being physically unhealthy and unmotivated to exercise. Usually, some character close to Donald annoys him by saying he is being lazy and needs to get some exercise. But despite his apparent idleness, Donald proves that he is muscular. In the short film Sea Scouts, Donald is traveling with his nephews in a boat when it is attacked by a shark. Donald makes several attempts to defeat the shark, each of which proves ineffective, but then finally triumphs and defeats the shark with a single well-placed punch. Additionally, as discussed below, Donald had a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II that culminated with him serving as a commando in the film Commando Duck, and he was frequently away serving in the U.S. Navy in the television cartoon series DuckTales.
Friendly rivalry with Mickey Mouse
Throughout his appearances, Donald has shown that he is jealous of Mickey and wants his job as Disney's greatest star, similar to the rivalry between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. In most Disney theatrical cartoons, Mickey and Donald are shown as friends and have little to no rivalry (exceptions being The Band Concert, Magician Mickey and near the end of Symphony Hour, which were due to Donald's antagonistic schemes). However, by the time The Mickey Mouse Club aired on television (after Bugs vs. Daffy cartoons such as the "hunting trilogy" of Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!), it was shown that Donald always wanted the spotlight.
One animated short that rivaled the Mickey Mouse March song showed Huey, Dewey, and Louie as Boy Scouts and Donald as their Scoutmaster at a cliff near a remote forest and Donald leads them in a song mirroring the Mouseketeers theme "D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K! Donald Duck!" The rivalry has caused Donald some problems, for example in a 1988 TV special, where Mickey is cursed by a sorcerer to become unnoticed, the world believes Mickey to be kidnapped. Donald Duck is then arrested for the kidnapping of Mickey, as he is considered to be the chief suspect, due to their feud. However, Donald did later get the charges dismissed, due to lack of evidence. Walt Disney, in his Wonderful World of Color, would sometimes make reference to the rivalry. Walt, one time, had presented Donald with a gigantic birthday cake and commented how it was "even bigger than Mickey's", which pleased Donald. The clip was rebroadcast in November 1984 during a TV special honoring Donald's 50th birthday, with Dick Van Dyke substituting for Walt.
The rivalry between Mickey and Donald was shown in the 2001-2003 television series House of Mouse. It was shown that Donald wanted to be the club's founder and wanted to change the name from House of Mouse to House of Duck, which is obvious in the episodes "The Stolen Cartoons" and "Timon and Pumbaa". In the episode "Everybody Loves Mickey", Donald's jealousy is explored and even joins sides with Mortimer Mouse. However, Donald has a change of heart when Daisy reminds Donald how Mickey has always been there to support him. Since then, Donald accepted that Mickey was the founder and worked with Mickey as a partner to make the club profitable and successful.
Enemies
Donald has numerous enemies, who range from comical foil to annoying nemesis: Chip 'n' Dale, Pete, Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Mountain Lion Louie, Bootle Beetle, Witch Hazel (in Trick or Treat), Aracuan Bird and Baby Shelby (in Mickey Mouse Works). During the Second World War, Donald was often set against Adolf Hitler.
In the comics, he is often harassed or on the run from the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, Gladstone Gander and Mr. Jones.
In the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, he saves Daisy from Merlock.
The Italian-produced comic PKNA – Paperinik New Adventures stars Donald Duck as Paperinik, or Duck Avenger, in his battles against new alien enemies: Evronian Empire, founded by emperor Evron.
Origin
Voice performer Clarence Nash auditioned for Walt Disney Studios when he learned that Disney was looking for people to create animal sounds for his cartoons. Disney was particularly impressed with Nash's duck imitation and chose him to voice the new character. Disney came up with Donald's iconic attributes including his short temper and his sailor suit (based on ducks and sailors both being associated with water). While Dick Huemer and Art Babbit were the first to animate Donald, Dick Lundy is credited for developing him as a character.
On April 29, 1934, five days before The Wise Little Hen's first theatrical release, bandleader Raymond Paige performed the score to the cartoon on his California Melodies program for the Los Angeles AM radio station KHJ. The main vocals were performed by a trio, the Three Rhythm Kings. Clarence Nash and Florence Gill performed the character voices for this radio treatment, with Nash performing both Donald Duck and Peter Pig, making it the first time the public heard Nash's duck voice.
Animation
Donald Duck's first film appearance was in the 1934 cartoon The Wise Little Hen, which was part of the Silly Symphonies series of theatrical cartoon shorts. The film's given release date of June 9 is officially recognized by the Walt Disney Company as Donald's birthday, though historian J.B. Kaufman, consultant of The Walt Disney Family Museum, discovered in recent years that The Wise Little Hen was first shown on May 3, 1934, at the Carthay Circle Theater for a benefit program, while its official debut was on June 7 at the Radio City Music Hall. Donald's appearance in the cartoon, as created by animator Dick Lundy, is similar to his modern look – the feather and beak colors are the same, as are the blue sailor shirt and hat – but his features are more elongated, his body plumper, his feet smaller, and his sclerae white. Donald's personality is not developed either; in the short, he only fills the role of the unhelpful friend from the original story.
Burt Gillett brought Donald back in a 1934 Mickey Mouse cartoon, Orphans' Benefit. Donald is one of a number of characters who are giving performances in a benefit for Mickey's Orphans. Donald's act is to recite the poems Mary Had a Little Lamb and Little Boy Blue, but every time he tries, the mischievous orphans heckle him, leading the duck to fly into a squawking fit of anger. This explosive personality would remain with Donald for decades to come.
Donald continued to be a hit with audiences. The character began appearing regularly in most Mickey Mouse cartoons. Cartoons from this period, such as the cartoon The Band Concert (1935) – in which Donald repeatedly disrupts the Mickey Mouse Orchestra's rendition of The William Tell Overture by playing Turkey in the Straw – are regularly noted by critics as exemplary films and classics of animation. Animator Ben Sharpsteen also created the classic Mickey, Donald, and Goofy comedy in 1935, with the cartoon Mickey's Service Station.
In 1936, Donald was redesigned to be a bit fuller, rounder, and cuter, beginning with the cartoon Moving Day. He also began starring in solo cartoons, the first of which was Ben Sharpsteen's 1937 cartoon, Don Donald. This short also introduced a love interest of Donald's, Donna Duck, who evolved into Daisy Duck. Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, would make their first animated appearance a year later in the 1938 film, Donald's Nephews, directed by Jack King (they had been earlier introduced in the Donald Duck comic strip by Al Taliaferro, see below). By 1938, most polls showed that Donald was more popular than Mickey Mouse.
Wartime
During World War II, Donald appeared in several animated propaganda films, including the 1943 Der Fuehrer's Face. In this cartoon, Donald plays a worker in an artillery factory in "Nutzi Land" (Nazi Germany). He struggles with long working hours, very small food rations, and having to salute every time he sees a picture of the Führer (Adolf Hitler). These pictures appear in many places, such as on the assembly line in which he is screwing in the detonators of various sizes of shells. In the end, he becomes little more than a small part in a faceless machine with no choice but to obey until he falls, suffering a nervous breakdown. Then Donald wakes up to find that his experience was, in fact, a dream. At the end of the short, Donald looks to the Statue of Liberty and the American flag with renewed appreciation. Der Fuehrer's Face won the 1942 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Der Fuehrer's Face was also the first of two animated short films to be set during the War to win an Oscar, the other being Tom and Jerry's short film, The Yankee Doodle Mouse.
Other shorts from this period include a six film mini-series that follows Donald's life in the U.S. Army from his drafting to his experiences in basic training under Sergeant Pete to his first actual mission as a commando having to sabotage a Japanese air base. Titles in the series include:
Donald Gets Drafted (May 1, 1942) (shown in his Selective Service Draft Card close-up, we learn Donald's full name: Donald Fauntleroy Duck)
The Vanishing Private (September 25, 1942)
Sky Trooper (November 8, 1942)
Fall Out Fall In (April 23, 1943)
The Old Army Game (November 5, 1943)
Commando Duck (June 2, 1944)
Thanks in part to these films, Donald graced the nose artwork of virtually every type of World War II Allied combat aircraft, from the L-4 Grasshopper to the B-29 Superfortress.
Donald also appears as a mascot—such as in the United States Army Air Forces' 309th Fighter Squadron and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which showed Donald as a fierce-looking pirate ready to defend the American coast from invaders. Donald also appeared as a mascot emblem for the 415th Fighter Squadron; 438th Fighter Squadron; 479th Bombardment Squadron; and 531st Bombardment Squadron. He also appeared as the mascot for the Fire Department at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, as well as the Army Air Forces (now currently the United States Air Force) 319 Aircraft Maintenance Unit at Luke Air Force Base — where he is seen wearing an old-style pilot's uniform with a board with a nail in it in one hand, and a lightning bolt in the other hand. Donald's most famous appearance, however, was on the North American Aviation B-25B Mitchell medium bomber (S/N 40-2261) piloted by Lt. Ted W. Lawson of the 95th Bombardment Squadron, USAAF. The aircraft, named the "Ruptured Duck" and carrying a picture of Donald's face above a pair of crossed crutches, was one of sixteen B-25Bs which took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo on April 18, 1942, during the Doolittle Raid. The mission was led by Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Jimmy Doolittle. Like most of the aircraft that participated in the mission, the Ruptured Duck was unable to reach its assigned landing field in China following the raid and ended up ditching off the coast near Shangchow, China. The Ruptured Duck's pilot survived, with the loss of a leg, and later wrote about the Doolittle Raid in the book, later to be the 1944 movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.
During World War II, Disney cartoons were not allowed to be imported into Occupied Europe owing to their propagandistic content. Since this lost Disney revenue, he decided to create a new audience for his films in South America. He decided to make a trip through various Latin American countries with his assistants, and use their experiences and impressions to create two feature-length animation films. The first was Saludos Amigos (1942), which consisted of four short segments, two of them with Donald Duck. In the first, he meets his parrot pal José Carioca. The second film was The Three Caballeros (1944), in which he meets his rooster friend Panchito.
Several decades after the war, on account of the fact that Donald was never officially separated from service in either his animated shorts or his comic strips, as part of Donald's 50th Birthday celebrations during the 25th Annual Torrance, California Armed Forces Day Parade, the U.S. Army retired Donald Duck from active duty as a "Buck Sergeant" (i.e. "Buck Sergeant Duck").
Post-war
Many of Donald's films made after the war recast the duck as the brunt of some other character's pestering. Donald is seen repeatedly attacked, harassed, and ridiculed by his nephews, by the chipmunks Chip 'n' Dale, or by other characters such as Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Bootle Beetle, the Aracuan Bird, Louie the Mountain Lion, or a colony of ants. In effect, much like Bugs Bunny cartoons from Warner Bros. the Disney artists had reversed the classic screwball scenario perfected by Walter Lantz and others in which the main character is the instigator of these harassing behaviors, rather than the butt of them.
The post-war Donald also starred in educational films, such as Donald in Mathmagic Land and How to Have an Accident at Work (both 1959), and made cameos in various Disney projects, such as The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and the Disneyland television show (1959). For this latter show, Donald's uncles Ludwig von Drake (1961) and Scrooge McDuck (1967) were then created in animation.
In Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Donald has a piano duel scene with his Warner Brothers counterpart Daffy Duck voiced by Mel Blanc. Donald has since appeared in several different television shows and (short) animated movies. He played roles in The Prince and the Pauper (1990) and made a cameo appearance in A Goofy Movie (1995).
Donald had a rather small part in the animated television series DuckTales. There, Donald joins the U.S. Navy and leaves his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with their Uncle Scrooge, who then has to take care of them. Donald's role in the overall series was fairly limited, as he only ended up appearing in a handful of episodes when home on leave. Some of the stories in the series were loosely based on the comics by Carl Barks.
Donald made some cameo appearances in Bonkers, before getting his own television show Quack Pack. This series featured a modernized Duck family. Donald was no longer wearing his sailor suit and hat, but a Hawaiian shirt. Huey, Dewey, and Louie now are teenagers, with distinct clothing, voices, and personalities. Daisy Duck has lost her pink dress and bow and has a new haircut. No other family members, besides Ludwig von Drake, appear in Quack Pack, and all other Duckburg citizens are humans and not dogs.
He made a comeback as the star of the "Noah's Ark" segment of Fantasia 2000 (1999), as first mate to Noah. Donald musters the animals to the Ark and attempts to control them. He tragically believes that Daisy has been lost, while she believes the same of him, but they are reunited at the end. All this to Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1–4.
In an alternate opening for the Disney film Chicken Little (2005), Donald would have made a cameo appearance as "Ducky Lucky". This scene can be found on the Chicken Little DVD.
Donald also played an important role in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse. In the latter show, he is the co-owner of Mickey's nightclub. He is part of the ensemble cast of characters in the TV show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as well. He also appears in the new 3-minute Mickey Mouse TV shorts for Disney Channel.
Donald also appears in the DuckTales reboot, in which he is a main character as opposed to his minor role in the original cartoon. The series depicts him as having once been Scrooge's partner in adventure along with his sister Della. However, ten years prior to the series' beginning, Della went missing, leading to Donald and Scrooge going their separate ways and not speaking to each other throughout that time. In the present, Donald reluctantly brings Della's sons and his legal charges, the triplets, to Scrooge's mansion so he can babysit them while Donald attends a job interview, though he still has not forgiven Scrooge for their past history. Donald is temporarily hired by Scrooge's rival Flintheart Glomgold and ends up at the city of Atlantis, where Scrooge has also brought the boys. After some initial conflict Scrooge offers to let them stay with him in his mansion. Donald owns a boat in the series, which is relocated to Scrooge's pool at the conclusion of the series premiere. Later in the series, it is revealed that Donald's anger is the result of a fear that no one can understand him, though with the help of an anger management counselor and while taking care of Huey, Dewey, Louie, he was able to channel it into protective instinct.
Voice actors
Donald's first voice was performed by Clarence Nash, who voiced him for 50 years. Nash voiced Donald for the last time in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), making Donald the only character in the film to be voiced by his original voice actor. He did, however, continue to provide Donald's voice for commercials, promos, and other miscellaneous material until he died in 1985. (From 1964 to 1979, Jim Tadevic occasionally filled in for Nash whenever he was unavailable, voicing Donald in commercials, educational products and the album Mickey Mouse Disco for the song, "Macho Duck". Jack Wagner voiced Donald and other Disney characters in the 1980s, primarily for live entertainment offerings in the parks, Disney on Ice shows, and live-action clips for television.)
Since Nash died, Donald's voice has been performed by Disney animator, Tony Anselmo, who was mentored by Nash for the role. Anselmo's first performance as Donald is heard in a 1986 D-TV special, D-TV Valentine on The Disney Channel, and in his first feature film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in 1988.
Walt Disney insisted on character consistency and integrity, which extended to characters being portrayed by only one actor. However, there were instances in which other actors would voice Disney characters for various smaller films, recordings, theme parks and other projects. Accuracy and consistency became an issue. In 1988, Imagineer Les Perkins convinced Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy E. Disney to approved the creation the department of Disney Character Voices to insure continuation of character integrity, consistency, and quality in recording methods. Roy named one official voice for all Walt Disney legacy characters. Tony Anselmo was approved by Roy E. Disney as Disney's official voice of Donald Duck.
For the TV series Mickey and the Roadster Racers, Donald was voiced by voice actor Daniel Ross. Anselmo continues as the official voice of Donald Duck on all Disney projects, Mickey Mouse Funhouse, Mickey Mouse shorts, Legend of the Three Caballeros, Kingdom Hearts IIII, Disney Parks, attractions, and consumer products.
In the 2017 reboot of DuckTales, a young Donald was voiced by Russi Taylor in the episode, "Last Christmas!", using the same voice that she used for Huey, Dewey, and Louie in various Disney media. After Taylor's death in 2019, she was replaced by Cristina Vee in the episode, "The First Adventure!". An alternate version of Donald's voice was provided by Don Cheadle in the episode "The Shadow War!", after he takes a pill that makes his voice more intelligible. This voice returned in the episode, "Quack Pack!".
Comics
Main article: Donald Duck in comics
While Donald's cartoons continue to be shown in the United States and around the world, his weekly and monthly comic books enjoy their highest profile in many European countries, especially Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, but also Germany, the Netherlands, and Greece. Most of them are produced and published by the Italian branch of the Walt Disney Company in Italy (Disney Italy) and by Egmont in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. In Germany, the comics are published by Ehapa which has since become part of the Egmont empire. Donald comics have also been produced in The Netherlands and France. Donald also has been appeared in Japanese comics published by Kodansha and Tokyopop.
According to the Inducks, which is a database about Disney comics worldwide, American, Italian and Danish stories have been reprinted in the following countries. In most of them, publications still continue: Australia, Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark (Faroe Islands), Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the former Yugoslavia.
Early development
The character's first appearance in comic strip format was the 1934 Silly Symphony comic strip sequence based on the short The Wise Little Hen. For the next few years, Donald made a few more appearances in Disney-themed strips, and by 1936, he had grown to be one of the main characters in the Silly Symphony strip. Ted Osborne was the primary writer of these strips, with Al Taliaferro as his artist. Osborne and Taliaferro also introduced several members of Donald's supporting cast, including his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
In 1937, an Italian publisher named Mondadori created the first Donald Duck story intended specifically for comic books. The eighteen-page story, written by Federico Pedrocchi, is the first to feature Donald as an adventurer rather than simply a comedic character. Fleetway in England also began publishing comic book stories featuring the duck.
Developments under Taliaferro
A daily Donald Duck comic strip drawn by Taliaferro and written by Bob Karp began running in the United States on February 2, 1938; the Sunday strip began the following year. Taliaferro and Karp created an even larger cast of characters for Donald's world. He got a new St. Bernard named Bolivar, and his family grew to include cousin Gus Goose and grandmother Elvira Coot. Donald's new rival girlfriends were Donna and Daisy Duck. Taliaferro also gave Donald his very own automobile, a 1934 Belchfire Runabout, in a 1938 story, which is often nicknamed by Donald's "313" car plate in the comic incarnation of Donald's world.
Developments under Barks
In 1942, Western Publishing began creating original comic book stories about Donald and other Disney characters. Bob Karp worked on the earliest of these, a story called "Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold". The new publisher meant new illustrators, however, Carl Barks and Jack Hannah would later repeat the treasure hunting theme in many more stories.
Barks soon took over the major development of the duck as both writer and illustrator. Under his pen, Donald became more adventurous, less temperamental and more eloquent. Pete was the only other major character from the Mickey Mouse comic strip to feature in Barks' new Donald Duck universe.
Barks placed Donald in the city of Duckburg, creating a host of supporting players, including Neighbor Jones (1944), Uncle Scrooge McDuck (1947), Gladstone Gander (1948), the Beagle Boys (1951), Gyro Gearloose (1952), April, May and June (1953), Flintheart Glomgold (1956), Magica de Spell (1961), and John D. Rockerduck (1961). Many of Taliaferro's characters made the move to Barks' world as well, including Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Barks placed Donald in both domestic and adventure scenarios, and Uncle Scrooge became one of his favorite characters to pair up with Donald. Scrooge's profile increased, and by 1952, the character had a comic book of his own. At this point, Barks concentrated his major efforts on the Scrooge stories, and Donald's appearances became more focused on comedy or he was recast as Scrooge's helper, following his rich uncle around the globe.
Further developments
Dozens of writers continued to utilize Donald in their stories around the world.
For example, the Disney Studio artists, who made comics directly for the European market. Two of them, Dick Kinney (1917–1985) and Al Hubbard (1915–1984) created Donald's cousin Fethry Duck.
The American artists Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl (1915–1991), who were working directly for the American comic books, created Moby Duck. Strobl was one of the most productive Disney artists of all time and drew many stories which Barks wrote and sketched after his retirement. In the 1990s and early 2000s, these scripts were re-drawn in a style closer to Barks' own by Dutch artist Daan Jippes.
Italian publisher Mondadori created many of the stories that were published throughout Europe. They also introduced numerous new characters who are today well known in Europe. One example is Donald Duck's alter ego, a superhero called Paperinik in Italian, created in 1969 by Guido Martina (1906–1991) and Giovan Battista Carpi (1927–1999).
Giorgio Cavazzano and Carlo Chendi created Umperio Bogarto, a detective whose name is an obvious parody on Humphrey Bogart. They also created O.K Quack, an extraterrestrial Duck who landed on earth in a spaceship in the shape of a coin. He, however, lost his spaceship and befriended Scrooge, and now is allowed to search through his money bin time after time, looking for his ship.
Romano Scarpa (1927–2005), who was a very important and influential Italian Disney artist, created Brigitta McBridge, a female Duck who is madly in love with Scrooge. Her affections are never answered by him, though, but she keeps trying. Scarpa also came up with Dickie Duck, the granddaughter of Glittering Goldie (Scrooge's possible love interest from his days in the Klondike) and Kildare Coot, a nephew of Grandma Duck.
Italian artist Corrado Mastantuono created Bum Bum Ghigno, a cynical, grumpy and not too good-looking Duck who teams up with Donald and Gyro a lot.
The American artist William Van Horn also introduced a new character: Rumpus McFowl, an old and rather corpulent Duck with a giant appetite and laziness, who is first said to be a cousin of Scrooge. Only later, Scrooge reveals to his nephews Rumpus is actually his half-brother. Later, Rumpus also finds out.
Working for the Danish editor Egmont, artist Daniel Branca (1951–2005) and scriptwriters Paul Halas and Charlie Martin created Sonny Seagull, an orphan who befriends Huey, Dewey and Louie, and his rival, Mr. Phelps.
One of the most productive Duck artists used to be Victor Arriagada Rios, (deceased 2012) better known under the name Vicar. He had his own studio where he and his assistants drew the stories sent in by Egmont. With writer/editors Stefan and Unn Printz-Påhlson, Vicar created the character Oona, a prehistoric duck princess who traveled to modern Duckburg by using Gyro's time machine. She stayed and is still seen in occasional modern stories.
The best known Duck artist of this time is American Don Rosa. He started doing Disney comics in 1987 for the American publisher Gladstone. He later worked briefly for the Dutch editors but moved to work directly for Egmont soon afterwards. His stories contain many direct references to stories by Carl Barks, and he also wrote and illustrated a 12-part series of stories about the life of Scrooge McDuck, which won him two Eisner Awards.
Other important artists who have worked with Donald are Freddy Milton and Daan Jippes, who made 18 ten-pagers which experts claim, were very difficult to separate from Barks' own work from the late 1940s.
Japanese artist Shiro Amano worked with Donald on the graphic novel Kingdom Hearts based on the Disney-Square Enix video game.
Nordic countries
Donald Duck is known in Nordic countries as Kalle Anka in Sweden, Anders And in Denmark, Andrés Önd in Iceland, Donald Duck in Norway, and Aku Ankka in Finland. In the mid-1930s, Robert S. Hartman, a German who served as a representative of Walt Disney, visited Sweden to supervise the merchandise distribution of Sagokonst (The Art of Fables). Hartman found a studio called L'Ateljé Dekoratör, which produced illustrated cards that were published by Sagokonst. Since the Disney characters on the cards appeared to be exactly 'on-model', Hartman asked the studio to create a local version of the English-language Mickey Mouse Weekly.
In 1937 L'Ateljé Dekoratör began publishing Musse Pigg Tidningen (Mickey Mouse Magazine), which had high production values and spanned 23 issues; most of the magazine's content came from local producers, while some material consisted of reprints from Mickey Mouse Weekly. The comic anthology ended in 1938. Hartman helped Disney establish offices in all Nordic countries before he left Disney in 1941. Donald became the most successful of the Disney characters in the Nordic countries, and Nordic peoples recognise him better than Mickey Mouse.
Kalle Anka & C:o, Donald's first dedicated Swedish anthology, started in September 1948. In 2001 the Finnish Post Office issued a stamp set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Donald's presence in Finland. By 2005 around one out of every four Norwegians read the Norwegian edition Donald Duck & Co. per week, translating to around 1.3 million regular readers. During the same year, every week 434,000 Swedes read Kalle Anka & Co. By 2005 in Finland the Donald Duck anthology Aku Ankka sold 270,000 copies per issue. Tim Pilcher and Brad Books, authors of The Essential Guide to World Comics, described the Donald anthologies as "the Scandinavian equivalent of the UK's Beano or Dandy, a comic that generations have grown up with, from grandparents to grandchildren".
Hannu Raittila, an author, says that Finnish people recognize an aspect of themselves in Donald; Raittila cites that Donald attempts to retrieve himself from "all manner of unexpected and unreasonable scrapes using only his wits and the slim resources he can put his hands on, all of which meshes nicely with the popular image of Finland as driftwood in the crosscurrents of world politics". Finnish voters placing protest votes typically write "Donald Duck" as the candidate. In Sweden voters often voted for Donald Duck or the Donald Duck Party as a nonexistent candidate until a 2006 change in voting laws, which prohibited voting for nonexistent candidates. In a twenty-year span, Donald won enough votes to be, in theory, Sweden's ninth-most popular political organization. In 1985, Donald received 291 votes in an election for the Parliament of Sweden.
By 1978, within Finland, there was a debate over the morality of Donald Duck. Matti Holopainen jokingly criticized Donald for living with Daisy while not being married to her, for not wearing trousers, and for, in the words of the Library Journal, being "too bourgeois". Some observers from Finland from the same time period supported Donald, referring to him as a "genuine proletarian ... forced to sell his labor at slave rates to make a living". The Library Journal said it was revealed that, since 1950, Donald had secretly been married to Daisy. An annual Christmas special in Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden is From All of Us to All of You, in Norway and Sweden with a title of Donald Duck and His Friends Celebrate Christmas. Segments include Ferdinand the Bull, a short with Chip 'n' Dale, a segment from Lady and the Tramp, a sneak preview of a coming Disney movie and concludes with Jiminy Cricket performing "When You Wish Upon a Star". To many people watching this special is a tradition as important as having a Christmas tree.
Germany
Donald Duck-themed comics sell an average of 250,000 copies each week in Germany, mostly published in the kids' weekly Micky Maus and the monthlies Donald Duck Special (for adults) and Lustiges Taschenbuch. The Wall Street Journal called Donald Duck "The Jerry Lewis of Germany", a reference to American star Jerry Lewis' popularity in France. Donald's dialogue in German comics tends to be more sophisticated and philosophical, he "quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts", features especially associated with Erika Fuchs's German translations of the comics created by The Good Duck Artist Carl Barks. Christian Pfeiler – former president of D.O.N.A.L.D., a German acronym which stands for "German Organization for Non-commercial Followers of Pure Donaldism" – says Donald is appreciated in Germany because "almost everyone can identify with him. He has strengths and weaknesses; he lacks polish but is also very cultured and well-read." It is through this everyman persona that Donald is able to voice philosophical truths about German society that appeal to both children and adults. Donald's writers and illustrators Carl Barks, Don Rosa and Ub Iwerks are well known in Germany and have their own fan clubs.
Italy
In Italy, new stories about Donald Duck (named Paolino Paperino) and Scrooge McDuck are hosted in the kids' weekly Topolino and the monthly Paperino. While Paperino is written by many authors, he still maintains several characteristics. He is mostly an everyman, but the fierce, harsh temper he has in the American comic appears to be diluted into a meek, weaker personality, prone to comical fits of rage that are mostly subdued by the realization of its impotence. His frustration at Gladstone's luck is comically enhanced: in the Italian comics, Donald is chronically unlucky, unable to do or get anything right, with Gladstone taking advantage of his superiority or taking genuine pity of his unlucky cousin and trying several plans to grant him some better luck, always failing.
However, the constant search for an outlet to vent his frustration led the Italian rendition of Donald Duck to seek his catharsis in several ways: in the sixties, vexed by Scrooge's antics and Gladstone's luck, he reinvented himself as Paperinik, the Duck Avenger (as he came to be known outside Italy), an anti-hero at first, a self-assured, well-adjusted, brilliant hero in later stories, no longer bound by the self-doubt and the mockery Donald is constantly subjected. Duck Avenger is referred to the character Dorellik (parody of Diabolik) performed by Johnny Dorelli, Italian actor and crooner, in the Anglo-Italian movie Arriva Dorellik (How To Kill 400 Duponts). Further along the years, he fashioned for himself the additional identities of QQ7, a bumbling secret agent protecting Scrooge's riches and DoubleDuck, a more confident and suave secret agent, in the mold of James Bond, a more equilibrate mold of the heroic Duck Avenger and the tricky QQ7, often accompanied by the beautiful spy Kay K. Donald's "secret identies" are hosted in the main Topolino comics, but also in several themed comics, like the now-defunct Paperinik, PKNA, PK^2 and the current Paperinik AppGrade, the latter hosting reprints and new stories as well. Paperinik / Duck Avenger also appeared in the video games PK: Out of the Shadows, PK: Phantom Duck, and The Duckforce Rises.
Having several full lives to live does not hamper Donald's ability to live adventures on his own: he still lives adventures with his uncle Scrooge and his nephews (often acting as a reluctant bumbler, a ballast to the enthusiasm of his nephews and the wanderlust of his uncle), and he lived a star-crossed love story with a princess from another planet, Reginella. Despite Reginella leaving a deep trace in Donald's heart, he is still depicted as extremely faithful to Daisy, with a small hiccup deriving by Daisy Duck having a secret identity on her own (Paperinika), with Paperinik and Paperinika, both unaware of their secret identities, cultivating a permanent status of belligerent tension.
He also keeps a cheerful rivalry with his neighbour Bum Bum Ghigno, more a bumbler and a nuisance than he is, but still a good person at heart.
The Italian rendition of Donald Duck seldom, if ever, goes by his first name, having everyone, including his nephews, Daisy and Uncle Scrooge, address him as Paperino (his Italian surname).
He also appears in the Topolino comics depicting his childhood, called Paperino Paperotto (English: Donald Duckling), which were first produced in Italy in 1998. He lives in the fictional town, Quack Town with Grandma Duck and Billy Goat.
Disney theme parks
Donald Duck has played a major role in many Disney theme parks over the years. He has actually been seen in more attractions and shows at the parks than Mickey Mouse has. He has appeared over the years in such attractions as Animagique, Mickey Mouse Revue, Mickey's PhilharMagic, Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years, Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros and the updated version of "It's a Small World". He also is seen in the parks as a meet-and-greet character.
Children's books
Donald has been a frequent character in children's books beginning in 1935. Most of these books were published by Whitman Publishing, later called Western Publishing, or one of its subsidiaries. The following is a list of children's books in which Donald is the central character. This does not include comic books or activity books such as coloring books. It also does not include the 1931 book The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, which features an entirely different character also named Donald Duck.
Beyond Disney
Donald is the only significant film and television cartoon character to appear as a mascot for a major American university: a licensing agreement between Disney and the University of Oregon allows the school's sports teams to use Donald's image as its "Fighting Duck" mascot. In 1984, Donald Duck was named an honorary alumnus of the University of Oregon during his 50th birthday celebration. During a visit to the Eugene Airport, 3,000 to 4,000 fans gathered for the presentation of an academic cap and gown to Donald. Thousands of area residents signed a congratulatory scroll for Donald, and that document is now part of Disney's corporate archives.
Donald was one of the few celebrities mentioned in the original version of the song Hooray for Hollywood, which was first featured in the 1937 film Hollywood Hotel, released only 3 years after Donald's first appearance. While later versions of the song would change lyrics, the line mentioning Donald was always kept.
In the 1940s, Donald was adopted as the mascot of Brazilian sports club Botafogo after Argentinean cartoonist Lorenzo Mollas, who was working in Brazil at the time, drew him with the club's soccer uniform. Mollas chose Donald because he complains and fights for his rights, like the club's managers at those years, and also because, being a duck, he does not lose his elegance while moving in the water (an allusion to rowing). He was eventually replaced so that the club would not have to pay royalties to Disney (Botafogo's current official mascot is Manequinho, a boy who represents the Manneken Pis statue in front of the club's head office), but has since retained the status of unofficial mascot.
Donald's name and image are used on numerous commercial products, one example being Donald Duck brand orange juice, introduced by Citrus World in 1940.
Donald Duck was temporarily listed as a "hired" employee in the database of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development as late as 1978. Given a $99,999 salary – more than double the $47,500 take federal civil servants were legally limited to be paid at the time – the name was unchallenged by a computer intended to catch government payroll fraud. Picked as one of thirty fictitious names by the Government Accounting Office, the use of it was a test to see if the payroll system of the HUD could be manipulated to defraud the government.
Donald Duck's head and neck, wearing a radio headset and wrapped in earphone wires with an expression of pain on his face and with crossed crutches below, was the nose art on Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson's B-25 Mitchell bomber, the Ruptured Duck, on the famous Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in 1942.
In the 1950s, an early Mad Magazine parody of Mickey Mouse (called "Mickey Rodent", written by "Walt Dizzy") featured "Darnold Duck", whose quacky voice had to be "translated" for the readers, and who was shamed into finally wearing pants.
Although Donald's military service during his wartime cartoons has mostly been in the U.S. Army (and to a lesser extent in the U.S. Navy in DuckTales), Walt Disney authorized Donald to be used as a mascot for the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard image shows a fierce-looking Donald Duck dressed in a pirate's outfit, appearing vigilant against any potential threats to the coastal regions in the United States. This image is often used on Coast Guard bases and Coast Guard cutters.
Donald Duck is referred to in the song "The Village Green Preservation Society" by The Kinks: "We are the Village Green Preservation Society/ God save Donald Duck, vaudeville, and variety..." The reference is ironical, as the singer is lamenting the disappearance of perceived traditional English cultural artifacts.
Donald Duck makes a cameo appearance in the cartoon sequence in 200 Motels (1971).
During the late 1970s, Donald had his first and only disco song named "Macho Duck", available as part of the Mickey Mouse Disco children's album.
In Sweden, a comic book artist named Charlie Christensen got into a legal dispute with Disney when his creation Arne Anka looked similar to Donald Duck (albeit Arne is a pessimistic drunkard). However, Charlie made a mockery of the legal action and staged a fake death for his character, which then had plastic surgery performed and reappeared as Arne X with a more corvine beak. He later purchased a strap-on duck beak from a novelty gift shop, pointing out that "If Disney is planning to give me any legal action; all I have to do is remove my fake beak."
Donald Duck is a constant source of irritation for the eponymous hero of Donald Duk (1991), a coming-of-age novel by Frank Chin set in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Donald Duck's Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame
In 1991, the Disney Corporation sued the Israeli caricaturist Dudu Geva for copyright infringement, claiming his character "Donald Dach" in the story "Moby Duck" was a rip-off of Donald. The Courts found in their favor and forced Geva to pay for the legal expenses and remove his book from the shelves. More mildly, the character Howard the Duck's original design was modified to include pants allegedly due to pressure from Disney.
In 2005, Donald received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6840 Hollywood Blvd joining other fictional characters such as Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, The Simpsons, Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, Godzilla and Snow White.
Donald's fame has led Disney to license the character for a number of video games, such as the Kingdom Hearts series, where Donald is the court magician of Disney Castle. He accompanies Goofy and a young boy named Sora on a quest to find King Mickey Mouse, defeat the Heartless and Nobodies, and put an end to the evil Xehanort and Organization XIII. He is voiced by Tony Anselmo in the English version and Kōichi Yamadera in the Japanese version.
Italian power metal band Trick or Treat have a song called "Like Donald Duck" in their debut album Evil Needs Candy Too (2006).
Asteroid 12410 was named after Donald Duck.
In the 2016 US presidential election, according to Donna Brazile, DNC chair, who quotes Charlie Baker, the use of a protester in a Donald Duck costume was approved by Hillary Clinton's campaign to bring attention to Donald Trump's "ducking the release of his taxes"
It's always nice for me too see old Volvos as they're pretty much nonexistent in Greece, especially in estate form.
The Moscow Metro is a metro system serving the Russian capital of Moscow as well as the neighbouring cities of Krasnogorsk, Reutov, Lyubertsy and Kotelniki in Moscow Oblast. Opened in 1935 with one 11-kilometre (6.8 mi) line and 13 stations, it was the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union.
As of 2023, the Moscow Metro, excluding the Moscow Central Circle, the Moscow Central Diameters and the Moscow Monorail, had 294 stations and 514.5 km (319.7 mi) of route length, excluding light rail Monorail, making it the 8th-longest in the world and the longest outside China. It is the third metro system in the world (after Madrid and Beijing), which has two ring lines. The system is mostly underground, with the deepest section 84 metres (276 ft) underground at the Park Pobedy station, one of the world's deepest underground stations. It is the busiest metro system in Europe, the busiest in the world outside Asia, and is considered a tourist attraction in itself.
The Moscow Metro is a world leader in the frequency of train traffic—intervals during peak hours do not exceed 90 seconds. In February 2023, Moscow was the first in the world to reduce the intervals of metro trains to 80 seconds.
Name
The full legal name of the metro has been "Moscow Order of Lenin and Order of the Red Banner of Labor V.I. Lenin Metro" (Московский ордена Ленина и ордена Трудового Красного Знамени метрополитен имени В.И. Ленина) since 1955. This is usually shortened to V.I. Lenin Metro (Метрополитен им. В.И. Ленина). This shorter official name appears on many stations. Although there were proposals to remove Lenin from the official name, it still stands. During the 1990s and 2000s, Lenin's name was excluded from the signage on newly built and reconstructed stations. In 2016, the authorities promised to return the official name of the metro to all the stations' signage.
The first official name of the metro was L. M. Kaganovich Metro (Метрополитен им. Л.М. Кагановича) after Lazar Kaganovich. (see History section). However, when the Metro was awarded the Order of Lenin, it was officially renamed "Moscow Order of Lenin L. M. Kaganovich Metro" (Московский ордена Ленина Метрополитен им. Л. М. Кагановича) in 1947. And when the metro was renamed in 1955, Kaganovich was "given a consolation prize" by renaming the Okhotny Ryad station to "Imeni Kaganovicha". Yet in a matter of only two years, the original Okhotny Ryad name of the station was reinstated.
Logo
The first line of the Moscow Metro was launched in 1935, complete with the first logo, the capital M paired with the text "МЕТРО". There is no accurate information about the author of the logo, so it is often attributed to the architects of the first stations – Samuil Kravets, Ivan Taranov and Nadezhda Bykova. At the opening in 1935, the M letter on the logo had no definite shape.
Today, with at least ten different variations of the shape in use, Moscow Metro still does not have clear brand or logo guidelines. An attempt was made in October 2013 to launch a nationwide brand image competition, only to be closed several hours after its announcement. A similar contest, held independently later that year by the design crowdsourcing company DesignContest, yielded better results, though none were officially accepted by the Metro officials.
Operations
The Moscow Metro, a state-owned enterprise, is 449 km (279 mi) long and consists of 15 lines and 263 stations organized in a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, with the majority of rail lines running radially from the centre of Moscow to the outlying areas. The Koltsevaya Line (line 5) forms a 20-kilometre (12 mi) long circle which enables passenger travel between these diameters, and the new Moscow Central Circle (line 14) and even newer Bolshaya Koltsevaya line (line 11) form a 54-kilometre (34 mi) and 57-kilometre (35 mi) long circles respectively that serve a similar purpose on middle periphery. Most stations and lines are underground, but some lines have at-grade and elevated sections; the Filyovskaya Line, Butovskaya Line and the Central Circle Line are the three lines that are at grade or mostly at grade.
The Moscow Metro uses 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in) Russian gauge, like other Russian railways, and an underrunning third rail with a supply of 825 Volts DC, except lines 13 and 14, the former being a monorail, and the latter being directly connected to the mainlines with 3000V DC overhead lines, as is typical. The average distance between stations is 1.7 kilometres (1.1 mi); the shortest (502 metres (1,647 ft) long) section is between Vystavochnaya and Mezhdunarodnaya, and the longest (6.62 kilometres (4.11 mi) long) is between Krylatskoye and Strogino. Long distances between stations have the positive effect of a high cruising speed of 41.7 kilometres per hour (25.9 mph).
The Moscow Metro opens at 05:25 and closes at 01:00. The exact opening time varies at different stations according to the arrival of the first train, but all stations simultaneously close their entrances at 01:00 for maintenance, and so do transfer corridors. The minimum interval between trains is 90 seconds during the morning and evening rush hours.
As of 2017, the system had an average daily ridership of 6.99 million passengers. Peak daily ridership of 9.71 million was recorded on 26 December 2014.
Free Wi-Fi has been available on all lines of the Moscow Metro since 2 December 2014.
Lines
A Moscow Metro train passes through Sokolnicheskaya and Koltsevaya lines. View from the driver's cabin
Each line is identified by a name, an alphanumeric index (usually consisting of just a number, and sometimes a letter suffix), and a colour. The colour assigned to each line for display on maps and signs is its colloquial identifier, except for the nondescript greens and blues assigned to the Bolshaya Koltsevaya, the Zamoskvoretskaya, the Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya, and Butovskaya lines (lines, 11, 2, 10, and 12, respectively).[citation needed] The upcoming station is announced by a male voice on inbound trains to the city center (on the Circle line, the clockwise trains), and by a female voice on outbound trains (anti-clockwise trains on the Circle line).
The metro has a connection to the Moscow Monorail, a 4.7-kilometre (2.9 mi), six-station monorail line between Timiryazevskaya and VDNKh which opened in January 2008. Prior to the official opening, the monorail had operated in "excursion mode" since 2004.
Also, from 11 August 1969 to 26 October 2019, the Moscow Metro included Kakhovskaya line 3.3 km long with 3 stations, which closed for a long reconstruction. On 7 December 2021, Kakhovskaya is reopened after reconstruction as part of the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line. The renewed Varshavskaya and Kashirskaya stations reopened as part of the Bolshaya Koltsevaya line, which became fully functional on 1 March 2023. Its new stations included Pechatniki, Nagatinsky Zaton and Klenovy Bulvar.
Renamed lines
Sokolnicheskaya line was previously named Kirovsko-Fruzenskaya
Zamoskvoretskaya line was previously named Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya.
Filyovskaya line was previously named Arbatsko-Filyovskaya.
Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line was previously named Zhdanovsko-Krasnopresnenskaya
History
The first plans for a metro system in Moscow date back to the Russian Empire but were postponed by World War I, the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1923, the Moscow City Council formed the Underground Railway Design Office at the Moscow Board of Urban Railways. It carried out preliminary studies, and by 1928 had developed a project for the first route from Sokolniki to the city centre. At the same time, an offer was made to the German company Siemens Bauunion to submit its own project for the same route. In June 1931, the decision to begin construction of the Moscow Metro was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In January 1932 the plan for the first lines was approved, and on 21 March 1933 the Soviet government approved a plan for 10 lines with a total route length of 80 km (50 mi).
The first lines were built using the Moscow general plan designed by Lazar Kaganovich, along with his project managers (notably Ivan M. Kuznetsov and, later, Isaac Y. Segal) in the 1930s–1950s, and the Metro was named after him until 1955 (Metropoliten im. L.M. Kaganovicha). The Moscow Metro construction engineers consulted with their counterparts from the London Underground, the world's oldest metro system, in 1936: British architect Charles Holden and administrator Frank Pick had been working on the station developments of the Piccadilly Line extension, and Soviet delegates to London were impressed by Holden's thoroughly modern redeployment of classical elements and use of high-quality materials for the circular ticket hall of Piccadilly Circus, and so engaged Pick and Holden as advisors to Moscow's metro system. Partly because of this connection, the design of Gants Hill tube station, which was completed in 1947, is reminiscent of a Moscow Metro station. Indeed, Holden's homage to Moscow has been described as a gesture of gratitude for the USSR's helpful role in The Second World War.
Soviet workers did the labour and the art work, but the main engineering designs, routes, and construction plans were handled by specialists recruited from London Underground. The British called for tunnelling instead of the "cut-and-cover" technique, the use of escalators instead of lifts, the routes and the design of the rolling stock. The paranoia of the NKVD was evident when the secret police arrested numerous British engineers for espionage because they gained an in-depth knowledge of the city's physical layout. Engineers for the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company (Metrovick) were given a show trial and deported in 1933, ending the role of British business in the USSR.
First four stages of construction
The first line was opened to the public on 15 May 1935 at 07:00 am. It was 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) long and included 13 stations. The day was celebrated as a technological and ideological victory for socialism (and, by extension, Stalinism). An estimated 285,000 people rode the Metro at its debut, and its design was greeted with pride; street celebrations included parades, plays and concerts. The Bolshoi Theatre presented a choral performance by 2,200 Metro workers; 55,000 colored posters (lauding the Metro as the busiest and fastest in the world) and 25,000 copies of "Songs of the Joyous Metro Conquerors" were distributed. The Moscow Metro averaged 47 km/h (29 mph) and had a top speed of 80 km/h (50 mph). In comparison, New York City Subway trains averaged a slower 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) and had a top speed of 45 miles per hour (72 km/h). While the celebration was an expression of popular joy it was also an effective propaganda display, legitimizing the Metro and declaring it a success.
The initial line connected Sokolniki to Okhotny Ryad then branching to Park Kultury and Smolenskaya. The latter branch was extended westwards to a new station (Kiyevskaya) in March 1937, the first Metro line crossing the Moskva River over the Smolensky Metro Bridge.
The second stage was completed before the war. In March 1938, the Arbatskaya branch was split and extended to the Kurskaya station (now the dark-blue Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line). In September 1938, the Gorkovskaya Line opened between Sokol and Teatralnaya. Here the architecture was based on that of the most popular stations in existence (Krasniye Vorota, Okhotnyi Ryad and Kropotkinskaya); while following the popular art-deco style, it was merged with socialist themes. The first deep-level column station Mayakovskaya was built at the same time.
Building work on the third stage was delayed (but not interrupted) during World War II, and two Metro sections were put into service; Teatralnaya–Avtozavodskaya (three stations, crossing the Moskva River through a deep tunnel) and Kurskaya–Partizanskaya (four stations) were inaugurated in 1943 and 1944 respectively. War motifs replaced socialist visions in the architectural design of these stations. During the Siege of Moscow in the fall and winter of 1941, Metro stations were used as air-raid shelters; the Council of Ministers moved its offices to the Mayakovskaya platforms, where Stalin made public speeches on several occasions. The Chistiye Prudy station was also walled off, and the headquarters of the Air Defence established there.
After the war ended in 1945, construction began on the fourth stage of the Metro, which included the Koltsevaya Line, a deep part of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line from Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Kievskaya and a surface extension to Pervomaiskaya during the early 1950s. The decoration and design characteristic of the Moscow Metro is considered to have reached its zenith in these stations. The Koltsevaya Line was first planned as a line running under the Garden Ring, a wide avenue encircling the borders of Moscow's city centre. The first part of the line – from Park Kultury to Kurskaya (1950) – follows this avenue. Plans were later changed and the northern part of the ring line runs 1–1.5 kilometres (0.62–0.93 mi) outside the Sadovoye Koltso, thus providing service for seven (out of nine) rail terminals. The next part of the Koltsevaya Line opened in 1952 (Kurskaya–Belorusskaya), and in 1954 the ring line was completed.
Stalinist ideals in Metro's history
When the Metro opened in 1935, it immediately became the centrepiece of the transportation system (as opposed to horse-carried barrows still widely used in 1930s Moscow). It also became the prototype, the vision for future Soviet large-scale technologies. The artwork of the 13 original stations became nationally and internationally famous. For example, the Sverdlov Square subway station featured porcelain bas-reliefs depicting the daily life of the Soviet peoples, and the bas-reliefs at the Dynamo Stadium sports complex glorified sports and physical prowess on the powerful new "Homo Sovieticus" (Soviet man). The metro was touted as the symbol of the new social order – a sort of Communist cathedral of engineering modernity.
The Metro was also iconic for showcasing Socialist Realism in public art. The method was influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Lenin's favorite 19th-century nihilist, who stated that "art is no useful unless it serves politics". This maxim sums up the reasons why the stations combined aesthetics, technology and ideology: any plan which did not incorporate all three areas cohesively was rejected.
Kaganovich was in charge; he designed the subway so that citizens would absorb the values and ethos of Stalinist civilization as they rode. Without this cohesion, the Metro would not reflect Socialist Realism. If the Metro did not utilize Socialist Realism, it would fail to illustrate Stalinist values and transform Soviet citizens into socialists. Anything less than Socialist Realism's grand artistic complexity would fail to inspire a long-lasting, nationalistic attachment to Stalin's new society.
Socialist Realism was in fact a method, not exactly a style.[31]
Bright future and literal brightness in the Metro of Moscow
The Moscow Metro was one of the USSR's most ambitious architectural projects. The metro's artists and architects worked to design a structure that embodied svet (literally "light", figuratively "radiance" or "brilliance") and svetloe budushchee (a well-lit/radiant/bright future). With their reflective marble walls, high ceilings and grand chandeliers, many Moscow Metro stations have been likened to an "artificial underground sun".
This palatial underground environment reminded Metro users their taxes were spent on materializing bright future; also, the design was useful for demonstrating the extra structural strength of the underground works (as in Metro doubling as bunkers, bomb shelters).
The chief lighting engineer was Abram Damsky, a graduate of the Higher State Art-Technical Institute in Moscow. By 1930 he was a chief designer in Moscow's Elektrosvet Factory, and during World War II was sent to the Metrostroi (Metro Construction) Factory as head of the lighting shop.[33] Damsky recognized the importance of efficiency, as well as the potential for light as an expressive form. His team experimented with different materials (most often cast bronze, aluminum, sheet brass, steel, and milk glass) and methods to optimize the technology. Damsky's discourse on "Lamps and Architecture 1930–1950" describes in detail the epic chandeliers installed in the Taganskaya Station and the Kaluzhskaia station (Oktyabrskaya nowadays, not to be confused with contemporary "Kaluzhskaya" station on line 6). The work of Abram Damsky further publicized these ideas hoping people would associate the party with the idea of bright future.
The Kaluzhskaya Station was designed by the architect [Leonid] Poliakov. Poliakov's decision to base his design on a reinterpretation of Russian classical architecture clearly influenced the concept of the lamps, some of which I planned in collaboration with the architect himself. The shape of the lamps was a torch – the torch of victory, as Polyakov put it... The artistic quality and stylistic unity of all the lamps throughout the station's interior made them perhaps the most successful element of the architectural composition. All were made of cast aluminum decorated in a black and gold anodized coating, a technique which the Metrostroi factory had only just mastered.
The Taganskaia Metro Station on the Ring Line was designed in...quite another style by the architects K.S. Ryzhkov and A. Medvedev... Their subject matter dealt with images of war and victory...The overall effect was one of ceremony ... In the platform halls the blue ceramic bodies of the chandeliers played a more modest role, but still emphasised the overall expressiveness of the lamp.
— Abram Damsky, Lamps and Architecture 1930–1950
Industrialization
Stalin's first five-year plan (1928–1932) facilitated rapid industrialization to build a socialist motherland. The plan was ambitious, seeking to reorient an agrarian society towards industrialism. It was Stalin's fanatical energy, large-scale planning, and resource distribution that kept up the pace of industrialization. The first five-year plan was instrumental in the completion of the Moscow Metro; without industrialization, the Soviet Union would not have had the raw materials necessary for the project. For example, steel was a main component of many subway stations. Before industrialization, it would have been impossible for the Soviet Union to produce enough steel to incorporate it into the metro's design; in addition, a steel shortage would have limited the size of the subway system and its technological advancement.
The Moscow Metro furthered the construction of a socialist Soviet Union because the project accorded with Stalin's second five-year plan. The Second Plan focused on urbanization and the development of social services. The Moscow Metro was necessary to cope with the influx of peasants who migrated to the city during the 1930s; Moscow's population had grown from 2.16 million in 1928 to 3.6 million in 1933. The Metro also bolstered Moscow's shaky infrastructure and its communal services, which hitherto were nearly nonexistent.
Mobilization
The Communist Party had the power to mobilize; because the party was a single source of control, it could focus its resources. The most notable example of mobilization in the Soviet Union occurred during World War II. The country also mobilized in order to complete the Moscow Metro with unprecedented speed. One of the main motivation factors of the mobilization was to overtake the West and prove that a socialist metro could surpass capitalist designs. It was especially important to the Soviet Union that socialism succeed industrially, technologically, and artistically in the 1930s, since capitalism was at a low ebb during the Great Depression.
The person in charge of Metro mobilization was Lazar Kaganovich. A prominent Party member, he assumed control of the project as chief overseer. Kaganovich was nicknamed the "Iron Commissar"; he shared Stalin's fanatical energy, dramatic oratory flare, and ability to keep workers building quickly with threats and punishment. He was determined to realise the Moscow Metro, regardless of cost. Without Kaganovich's managerial ability, the Moscow Metro might have met the same fate as the Palace of the Soviets: failure.
This was a comprehensive mobilization; the project drew resources and workers from the entire Soviet Union. In his article, archeologist Mike O'Mahoney describes the scope of the Metro mobilization:
A specialist workforce had been drawn from many different regions, including miners from the Ukrainian and Siberian coalfields and construction workers from the iron and steel mills of Magnitogorsk, the Dniepr hydroelectric power station, and the Turkestan-Siberian railway... materials used in the construction of the metro included iron from Siberian Kuznetsk, timber from northern Russia, cement from the Volga region and the northern Caucasus, bitumen from Baku, and marble and granite from quarries in Karelia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, the Urals, and the Soviet Far East
— Mike O'Mahoney, Archeological Fantasies: Constructing History on the Moscow Metro
Skilled engineers were scarce, and unskilled workers were instrumental to the realization of the metro. The Metrostroi (the organization responsible for the Metro's construction) conducted massive recruitment campaigns. It printed 15,000 copies of Udarnik metrostroia (Metrostroi Shock Worker, its daily newspaper) and 700 other newsletters (some in different languages) to attract unskilled laborers. Kaganovich was closely involved in the recruitment campaign, targeting the Komsomol generation because of its strength and youth.
Later Soviet stations
"Fifth stage" set of stations
The beginning of the Cold War led to the construction of a deep section of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line. The stations on this line were planned as shelters in the event of nuclear war. After finishing the line in 1953 the upper tracks between Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Kiyevskaya were closed, and later reopened in 1958 as a part of the Filyovskaya Line. The stations, too, were supplied with tight gates and life-sustenance systems to function as proper nuclear shelters.
In the further development of the Metro the term "stages" was not used any more, although sometimes the stations opened in 1957–1959 are referred to as the "fifth stage".
During the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the architectural extravagance of new Metro stations was decisively rejected on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev. He had a preference for a utilitarian "minimalism"-like approach to design, similar to Brutalism style. The idea behind the rejection was similar to one used to create Khrushchyovkas: cheap yet easily mass-produced buildings. Stations of his era, as well as most 1970s stations, were simple in design and style, with walls covered with identical square ceramic tiles. Even decorations at the Metro stations almost finished at the time of the ban (such as VDNKh and Alexeyevskaya) got their final decors simplified: VDNKh's arcs/portals, for example, got plain green paint to contrast with well-detailed decorations and pannos around them.
A typical layout of the cheap shallow-dug metro station (which quickly became known as Sorokonozhka – "centipede", from early designs with 40 concrete columns in two rows) was developed for all new stations, and the stations were built to look almost identical, differing from each other only in colours of the marble and ceramic tiles. Most stations were built with simpler, cheap technology; this resulted in utilitarian design being flawed in some ways. Some stations such as adjacent Rechnoi Vokzal and Vodny Stadion or sequiential Leninsky Prospect, Akadmicheskaya, Profsoyuznaya and Novye Cheryomushki would have a similar look due to the extensive use of same-sized white or off-white ceramic tiles with hard-to-feel differences.
Walls with cheap ceramic tiles were susceptible to train-related vibration: some tiles would eventually fall off and break. It was not always possible to replace the missing tiles with the ones of the exact color and tone, which eventually led to variegated parts of the walls.
Metro stations of late USSR
The contrasting style gap between the powerfully decorated stations of Moscow's center and the spartan-looking stations of the 1960s was eventually filled. In the mid-1970s the architectural extravagance was partially restored. However, the newer design of shallow "centipede" stations (now with 26 columns, more widely spaced) continued to dominate. For example, Kaluzhskaya "centipede" station from 1974 (adjacent to Novye Cheryomushki station) features non-flat tiles (with 3D effect utilized), and Medvedkovo from 1978 features complex decorations.
1971 station Kitay-Gorod ("Ploshchad Nogina" at the time) features cross-platform interchange (Line 6 and line 7). Although built without "centipede" design or cheap ceramic tiles, the station utilizes near-grayscale selection of colors. It is to note the "southbound" and "northbound" halls of the station have identical look.
Babushkinskaya station from 1978 is a no-column station (similar to Biblioteka Imeni Lenina from 1935). 1983 Chertanovskaya station has resemblance to Kropotkinskaya (from 1935). Some stations, such as the deep-dug Shabolovskaya (1980), have the near-tunnel walls decorated with metal sheets, not tiles. Tyoply Stan features a theme related to the name and the location of the station ("Tyoply Stan" used to literally mean warm area): its walls are covered in brick-colored ribbed panes, which look like radiators).
Downtown area got such stations as Borovitskaya (1986), with uncovered red bricks and gray, concrete-like colors accompanying a single gold-plated decorative pane known as "Tree of peoples' of USSR" or additional station hall for Tretyakovskaya to house cross-platform interchange system between line 6 and line 8. To this day, Tretyakovskaya metro station consists of two contrasting halls: brutalism-like 1971 hall and custom design hall reminiscent of Tretyakovskaya Galereya from 1986.
Post-USSR stations of the modern Russian Federation
Metro stations of the 1990s and 2000s vary in style, but some of the stations seem to have their own themes:
Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya station used to feature thick orange neon lamp-like sodium lights instead of regular white lights.
Park Pobedy, the deepest station of the Moscow Metro, was built in 2003; it features extensive use of dark orange polished granite.
Slavyansky Bulvar station utilizes a plant-inspired theme (similar to "bionic style").
The sleek variant of aforementioned bionic style is somewhat represented in various Line 10 stations.
Sretensky Bulvar station of line 10 is decorated with paintings of nearby memorials and locations.
Strogino station has a theme of huge eye-shaped boundaries for lights; with "eyes" occupying the station's ceiling.
Troparyovo (2014) features trees made of polished metal. The trees hold the station's diamond-shaped lights. The station, however, is noticeably dim-lit.
Delovoy Tsentr (2016, MCC, overground station) has green tint.
Lomonosovsky Prospekt (Line 8A) is decorated with various equations.
Olkhovaya (2019) uses other plant-inspired themes (ольха noun means alder) with autumn/winter inspired colours.
Kosino (2019) uses high-tech style with the addition of thin LED lights.
Some bleak, bland-looking "centipedes" like Akademicheskaya and Yugo-Zapadnaya have undergone renovations in the 21st century (new blue-striped white walls on Akademicheskaya, aqualine glassy, shiny walls on Yugo-Zapadnaya).
Moscow Central Circle urban railway (Line 14)
A new circle metro line in Moscow was relatively quickly made in the 2010s. The Moscow Central Circle line (Line 14) was opened for use in September 2016 by re-purposing and upgrading the Maloe ZheleznoDorozhnoe Kol'tso. A proposal to convert that freight line into a metropolitan railway with frequent passenger service was announced in 2012. The original tracks had been built in pre-revolutionary Moscow decades before the creation of Moscow Metro; the tracks remained in place in one piece as a non-electrified line until the 21st century. Yet the circle route was never abandoned or cut. New track (along the existing one) was laid and all-new stations were built between 2014 and 2016. MCC's stations got such amenities as vending machines and free water closets.
Line 14 is operated by Russian Railways and uses full-sized trains (an idea, somewhat similar to S-Train). The extra resemblance to an S-Train line is, the 1908 line now connects modern northern residential districts to western and southern downtown area, with a station adjacent to Moscow International Business Center.
There is a noticeable relief of congestion, decrease in usage of formerly overcrowded Koltsevaya line since the introduction of MCC. To make line 14 attractive to frequent Koltsevaya line interchanges users, upgrades over regular comfort of Moscow Metro were made. Use of small laptops/portable video playing devices and food consumption from tupperwares and tubs was also improved for Line 14: the trains have small folding tables in the back of nearly every seat, while the seats are facing one direction like in planes or intercity buses - unlike side-against-side sofas typical for Metro.
Unlike MCD lines (D1, D2 etc.) MCC line accepts "unified" tickets and "Troika" cards just like Moscow Metro and buses of Moscow do. Free transfers are permitted between the MCC and the Moscow Metro if the trip before the transfer is less than 90 minutes. It's made possible by using same "Ediny", literally "unified" tickets instead of printing "paper tickets" used at railroads.
To interchange to line 14 for free, passenger must keep their freshly used ticket after entering Moscow Metro to apply it upon entering any line 14 station (and vice versa, keep their "fresh" ticket to enter underground Metro line after leaving Line 14 for an interchange).
MCD (D lines)
In 2019, new lines of Russian Railways got included in the map of Metro as "line D1" and "line D2". Unlike Line 14, the MCD lines actually form S-Train lines, bypassing the "vokzals", terminus stations of respective intercity railways. Line D3 is planned to be launched in August 2023, while D4 will be launched in September of that year. The schedule for the development of the infrastructure of the Central Transport Hub in 2023 was signed by the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and the head of Russian Railways Oleg Belozerov in December 2022.
As for the fees, MCD accepts Moscow's "Troika" cards. Also, every MCD station has printers which print "station X – station Y" tickets on paper. Users of the D lines must keep their tickets until exiting their destination stations: their exit terminals require a valid "... to station Y" ticket's barcode.
Big Circle Line (line 11)
After upgrading the railway from 1908 to a proper Metro line, the development of another circle route was re-launched, now adjusted for the pear-shaped circle route of line #14.
Throughout the late 2010s, Line 11 was extended from short, tiny Kakhovskaya line to a half-circle (from Kakhovskaya to Savyolovskaya). In early 2023, the circle was finished.
Similarly made Shelepikha, Khoroshovskaya, CSKA and Petrovsky Park stations have lots of polished granite and shiny surfaces, in contrast to Soviet "centipedes". Throughout 2018–2021, these stations were connected to line 8A.
Narodnoye Opolcheniye (2021) features lots of straight edges and linear decorations (such as uninterrupted "three stripes" style of the ceiling lights and rectangular columns).
As for the spring of 2023, the whole circle route line is up and running, forming a circle stretching to the southern near-MKAD residential parts of the city (Prospekt Vernadskogo, Tekstilshchiki) as opposed to the MCC's stretching towards the northern districts of Moscow. In other words, it "mirrors" Line 14 rather than forming a perfect circle around the city centre. While being 70 km long, the line is now the longest subway line in the world, 13 kilometres ahead of the previous record holder - the line 10 of Beijing Subway.
Expansions
GIF-animated scheme of Moscow Metro growth (1935-2019)
Since the turn of the 2nd millennium several projects have been completed, and more are underway. The first was the Annino-Butovo extension, which extended the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line from Prazhskaya to Ulitsa Akademika Yangelya in 2000, Annino in 2001 and Bulvar Dmitriya Donskogo in 2002. Its continuation, an elevated Butovskaya Line, was inaugurated in 2003. Vorobyovy Gory station, which initially opened in 1959 and was forced to close in 1983 after the concrete used to build the bridge was found to be defective, was rebuilt and reopened after many years in 2002. Another recent project included building a branch off the Filyovskaya Line to the Moscow International Business Center. This included Vystavochnaya (opened in 2005) and Mezhdunarodnaya (opened in 2006).
The Strogino–Mitino extension began with Park Pobedy in 2003. Its first stations (an expanded Kuntsevskaya and Strogino) opened in January 2008, and Slavyansky Bulvar followed in September. Myakinino, Volokolamskaya and Mitino opened in December 2009. Myakinino station was built by a state-private financial partnership, unique in Moscow Metro history. A new terminus, Pyatnitskoye Shosse, was completed in December 2012.
After many years of construction, the long-awaited Lyublinskaya Line extension was inaugurated with Trubnaya in August 2007 and Sretensky Bulvar in December of that year. In June 2010, it was extended northwards with the Dostoyevskaya and Maryina Roscha stations. In December 2011, the Lyublinskaya Line was expanded southwards by three stations and connected to the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, with the Alma-Atinskaya station opening on the latter in December 2012. The Kalininskaya Line was extended past the Moscow Ring Road in August 2012 with Novokosino station.
In 2011, works began on the Third Interchange Contour that is set to take the pressure off the Koltsevaya Line. Eventually the new line will attain a shape of the second ring with connections to all lines (except Koltsevaya and Butovskaya).
In 2013, the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line was extended after several delays to the south-eastern districts of Moscow outside the Ring Road with the opening of Zhulebino and Lermontovsky Prospekt stations. Originally scheduled for 2013, a new segment of the Kalininskaya Line between Park Pobedy and Delovoy Tsentr (separate from the main part) was opened in January 2014, while the underground extension of Butovskaya Line northwards to offer a transfer to the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line was completed in February. Spartak, a station on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya Line that remained unfinished for forty years, was finally opened in August 2014. The first stage of the southern extension of the Sokolnicheskaya Line, the Troparyovo station, opened in December 2014.
Current plans
In addition to major metro expansion the Moscow Government and Russian Railways plans to upgrade more commuter railways to a metro-style service, similar to the MCC. New tracks and stations are planned to be built in order to achieve this.
Stations
The deep stations comprise 55 triple-vaulted pylon stations, 19 triple-vaulted column stations, and one single-vault station. The shallow stations comprise 79 spanned column stations (a large portion of them following the "centipede" design), 33 single-vaulted stations (Kharkov technology), and four single-spanned stations. In addition, there are 12 ground-level stations, four elevated stations, and one station (Vorobyovy Gory) on a bridge. Two stations have three tracks, and one has double halls. Seven of the stations have side platforms (only one of which is subterranean). In addition, there were two temporary stations within rail yards.
The stations being constructed under Stalin's regime, in the style of socialist classicism, were meant as underground "palaces of the people". Stations such as Komsomolskaya, Kiyevskaya or Mayakovskaya and others built after 1935 in the second phase of the evolution of the network are tourist landmarks: their photogenic architecture, large chandeliers and detailed decoration are unusual for an urban transport system of the twentieth century.
The stations opened in the 21st century are influenced by an international and more neutral style with improved technical quality.
Rolling stock
Since the beginning, platforms have been at least 155 metres (509 ft) long to accommodate eight-car trains. The only exceptions are on the Filyovskaya Line: Vystavochnaya, Mezhdunarodnaya, Studencheskaya, Kutuzovskaya, Fili, Bagrationovskaya, Filyovsky Park and Pionerskaya, which only allows six-car trains (note that this list includes all ground-level stations on the line, except Kuntsevskaya, which allows normal length trains).
Trains on the Zamoskvoretskaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kalininskaya, Solntsevskaya, Bolshaya Koltsevaya, Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya, Lyublinsko-Dmitrovskaya and Nekrasovskaya lines have eight cars, on the Sokolnicheskaya line seven or eight cars, on the original Koltsevaya line seven cars, and on the Filyovskaya line six cars. The Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line also once ran seven-car 81-717 size trains, but now use five-car trains of another type. Butovskaya line uses three-car trains of another type.
Dimensions have varied subtly, but for the most cars fit into the ranges of 19–20 metres (62 ft 4 in – 65 ft 7 in) long and 2.65–2.7 metres (8 ft 8+3⁄8 in – 8 ft 10+1⁄4 in) wide with 4 doors per side. The 81-740/741 Rusich deviates greatly from this, with a 3-car Rusich being roughly 4 normal cars and a 5-car Rusich being 7 normal cars.
Trains in operation
Currently, the Metro only operates 81-style trains.
Rolling stock on several lines was replaced with articulated 81-740/741 Rusich trains, which were originally designed for light rail subway lines. The Butovskaya Line was designed by different standards, and has shorter (96-metre (315 ft) long) platforms. It employs articulated 81-740/741 trains, which consist of three cars (although the line can also use traditional four-car trains).
On the Moscow Monorail, Intamin P30 trains are used, consisting of six short cars. On the Moscow Central Circle, which is a route on the conventional railway line, ES2G Lastochka trains are used, consisting of five cars.
Ticketing
Moscow Metro underground has neither "point A – point B" tariffs nor "zone" tariffs. Instead, it has a fee for a "ride", e.g. for a single-time entry without time or range limit. The exceptions "only confirm the rule": the "diameters" (Dx lines) and the Moscow Central Circle (Line 14) are Russian Railways' lines hence the shared yet not unified tariff system.
As for October 2021, one ride costs 60 rubles (approx. 1 US dollar). Discounts (up to 33%) for individual rides are available upon buying rides "in bulk" (buying multiple-trip tickets (such as twenty-trip or sixty-trip ones)), and children under age seven can travel free (with their parents). Troika "wallet" (a card, similar to Japanese Suica card) also offers some discounts for using the card instead of queueing a line for a ticket. "Rides" on the tickets available for a fixed number of trips, regardless of distance traveled or number of transfers.
An exception in case of MCC e.g. Line 14: for a free interchange, one should interchange to it/from it within 90 minutes after entering the Metro. However, one can ride it for hours and use its amenities without leaving it.
There are tickets without "rides" as well: – a 24-hour "unified" ticket (265 rub in 2022), a 72-hour ticket, a month-long ticket, and a year-long ticket.
Fare enforcement takes place at the points of entry. Once a passenger has entered the Metro system, there are no further ticket checks – one can ride to any number of stations and make transfers within the system freely. Transfers to other public-transport systems (such as bus, tram, trolleybus/"electrobus") are not covered by the very ride used to enter Metro. Transfer to monorail and MCC is a free addition to the ride (available up to 90 minutes after entering a metro station).
In modern Metro, turnstiles accept designated plastic cards ("Troika", "social cards") or disposable-in-design RFID chip cardboard cards. Unlimited cards are also available for students at reduced price (as of 2017, 415 rubles—or about $US6—for a calendar month of unlimited usage) for a one-time cost of 70 rubles. Transport Cards impose a delay for each consecutive use; i.e. the card can not be used for 7 minutes after the user has passed a turnstile.
History of smart ticketing
Soviet era turnstiles simply accepted N kopeck coins.
In the early years of Russian Federation (and with the start of a hyperinflation) plastic tokens were used. Disposable magnetic stripe cards were introduced in 1993 on a trial basis, and used as unlimited monthly tickets between 1996 and 1998. The sale of tokens ended on 1 January 1999, and they stopped being accepted in February 1999; from that time, magnetic cards were used as tickets with a fixed number of rides.
On 1 September 1998, the Moscow Metro became the first metro system in Europe to fully implement "contactless" smart cards, known as Transport Cards. Transport Cards were the card to have unlimited amount of trips for 30, 90 or 365 days, its active lifetime was projected as 3½ years. Defective cards were to be exchanged at no extra cost.
In August 2004, the city government launched the Muscovite's Social Card program. Social Cards are free smart cards issued for the elderly and other groups of citizens officially registered as residents of Moscow or the Moscow region; they offer discounts in shops and pharmacies, and double as credit cards issued by the Bank of Moscow. Social Cards can be used for unlimited free access to the city's public-transport system, including the Moscow Metro; while they do not feature the time delay, they include a photograph and are non-transferable.
Since 2006, several banks have issued credit cards which double as Ultralight cards and are accepted at turnstiles. The fare is passed to the bank and the payment is withdrawn from the owner's bank account at the end of the calendar month, using a discount rate based on the number of trips that month (for up to 70 trips, the cost of each trip is prorated from current Ultralight rates; each additional trip costs 24.14 rubles). Partner banks include the Bank of Moscow, CitiBank, Rosbank, Alfa-Bank and Avangard Bank.
In January 2007, Moscow Metro began replacing limited magnetic cards with contactless disposable tickets based on NXP's MIFARE Ultralight technology. Ultralight tickets are available for a fixed number of trips in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 60-trip denominations (valid for 5 or 90 days from the day of purchase) and as a monthly ticket, only valid for a selected calendar month and limited to 70 trips. The sale of magnetic cards ended on 16 January 2008 and magnetic cards ceased to be accepted in late 2008, making the Moscow metro the world's first major public-transport system to run exclusively on a contactless automatic fare-collection system.
On 2 April 2013, Moscow Transport Department introduced a smartcard-based transport electronic wallet, named Troika. Three more smart cards have been launched:
Ediniy's RFID-chip card, a "disposable"-design cardboard card for all city-owned public transport operated by Mosgortrans and Moscow Metro;
90 minutes card, an unlimited "90-minute" card
and TAT card for surface public transport operated by Mosgortrans.
One can "record" N-ride Ediniy ticket on Troika card as well in order to avoid carrying the easily frayed cardboard card of Ediniy for weeks (e.g. to use Troika's advanced chip). The turnstiles of Moscow Metro have monochrome screens which show such data as "money left" (if Troika is used as a "wallet"), "valid till DD.MM.YYYY" (if a social card is used) or "rides left" (if Ediniy tariff ticket is used).
Along with the tickets, new vending machines were built to sell tickets (1 or 2 rides) and put payments on Troika cards. At that time, the machines were not accepting contactless pay. The same machines now have tiny terminals with keypads for contactless payments (allowing quick payment for Troika card).
In 2013, as a way to promote both the "Olympic Games in Sochi and active lifestyles, Moscow Metro installed a vending machine that gives commuters a free ticket in exchange for doing 30 squats."
Since the first quarter of 2015, all ticket windows (not turnstiles) at stations accept bank cards for fare payment. Passengers are also able to pay for tickets via contactless payment systems, such as PayPass technology. Since 2015, fare gates at stations accept mobile ticketing via a system which the Metro calls Mobilny Bilet (Мобильный билет) which requires NFC-handling smartphone (and a proper SIM-card). The pricing is the same as Troika's. Customers are able to use Mobile Ticket on Moscow's surface transport. The Moscow Metro originally announced plans to launch the mobile ticketing service with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) in 2010.
In October 2021, the Moscow Metro became the first metro system in the world to offer Face-Pay to their customers. In order to use this system, passengers will need to connect their photo, bank card and metro card to the service through the metro’s mobile app. For this purpose, the metro authorities plan to equip over 900 turnstiles in over 240 stations with biometric scanners. This enables passengers to pay for their ride without taking out their phone, metro or bank card and therefore increasing passenger flow at the station entrances. In 2022, Face-Pay was used over 32 million times over the course of the year.
Notable incidents
1977 bombing
On 8 January 1977, a bomb was reported to have killed 7 and seriously injured 33. It went off in a crowded train between Izmaylovskaya and Pervomayskaya stations. Three Armenians were later arrested, charged and executed in connection with the incident.
1981 station fires
In June 1981, seven bodies were seen being removed from the Oktyabrskaya station during a fire there. A fire was also reported at Prospekt Mira station about that time.
1982 escalator accident
Escalator accident in 1982
A fatal accident occurred on 17 February 1982 due to an escalator collapse at the Aviamotornaya station on the Kalininskaya Line. Eight people were killed and 30 injured due to a pileup caused by faulty emergency brakes.
1996 murder
In 1996, an American-Russian businessman Paul Tatum was murdered at the Kiyevskaya Metro station. He was shot dead by a man carrying a concealed Kalashnikov gun.
2000 bombings
On 8 August 2000, a strong blast in a Metro underpass at Pushkinskaya metro station in the center of Moscow claimed the lives of 12, with 150 injured. A homemade bomb equivalent to 800 grams of TNT had been left in a bag near a kiosk.
2004 bombings
August 2004 Moscow Metro bombing
On 6 February 2004, an explosion wrecked a train between the Avtozavodskaya and Paveletskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line, killing 41 and wounding over 100. Chechen terrorists were blamed. A later investigation concluded that a Karachay-Cherkessian resident had carried out a suicide bombing. The same group organized another attack on 31 August 2004, killing 10 and injuring more than 50 others.
2005 Moscow blackout
On 25 May 2005, a citywide blackout halted operation on some lines. The following lines, however, continued operations: Sokolnicheskaya, Zamoskvoretskaya from Avtozavodskaya to Rechnoy Vokzal, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya, Filyovskaya, Koltsevaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya from Bitsevskiy Park to Oktyabrskaya-Radialnaya and from Prospekt Mira-Radialnaya to Medvedkovo, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kalininskaya, Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya from Serpukhovskaya to Altufyevo and Lyublinskaya from Chkalovskaya to Dubrovka. There was no service on the Kakhovskaya and Butovskaya lines. The blackout severely affected the Zamoskvoretskaya and Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya lines, where initially all service was disrupted because of trains halted in tunnels in the southern part of city (most affected by the blackout). Later, limited service resumed and passengers stranded in tunnels were evacuated. Some lines were only slightly impacted by the blackout, which mainly affected southern Moscow; the north, east and western parts of the city experienced little or no disruption.
2006 billboard incident
On 19 March 2006, a construction pile from an unauthorized billboard installation was driven through a tunnel roof, hitting a train between the Sokol and Voikovskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. No injuries were reported.
2010 bombing
On 29 March 2010, two bombs exploded on the Sokolnicheskaya Line, killing 40 and injuring 102 others. The first bomb went off at the Lubyanka station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line at 7:56, during the morning rush hour. At least 26 were killed in the first explosion, of which 14 were in the rail car where it took place. A second explosion occurred at the Park Kultury station at 8:38, roughly forty minutes after the first one. Fourteen people were killed in that blast. The Caucasus Emirate later claimed responsibility for the bombings.
2014 pile incident
On 25 January 2014, at 15:37 a construction pile from a Moscow Central Circle construction site was driven through a tunnel roof between Avtozavodskaya and Kolomenskaya stations on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line. The train operator applied emergency brakes, and the train did not crash into the pile. Passengers were evacuated from the tunnel, with no injures reported. The normal line operation resumed the same day at 19:50.
2014 derailment
On 15 July 2014, a train derailed between Park Pobedy and Slavyansky Bulvar on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line, killing 24 people and injuring dozens more.
Metro-2
Main article: Metro-2
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that a second and deeper metro system code-named "D-6", designed for emergency evacuation of key city personnel in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War, exists under military jurisdiction. It is believed that it consists of a single track connecting the Kremlin, chief HQ (General Staff –Genshtab), Lubyanka (FSB Headquarters), the Ministry of Defense and several other secret installations. There are alleged to be entrances to the system from several civilian buildings, such as the Russian State Library, Moscow State University (MSU) and at least two stations of the regular Metro. It is speculated that these would allow for the evacuation of a small number of randomly chosen civilians, in addition to most of the elite military personnel. A suspected junction between the secret system and the regular Metro is supposedly behind the Sportivnaya station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. The final section of this system was supposedly completed in 1997.
In popular culture
The Moscow Metro is the central location and namesake for the Metro series, where during a nuclear war, Moscow's inhabitants are driven down into the Moscow Metro, which has been designed as a fallout shelter, with the various stations being turned into makeshift settlements.
In 2012, an art film was released about a catastrophe in the Moscow underground.
A heavy duty truck from Toyota; the double-cabin variant is very rare, probably nonexistent in Indonesia.
Truk Toyota, varian double kabin diduga tidak dijual di Indonesia.
Never have I dealt with anything more difficult than my own soul, which sometimes helps me and sometimes opposes me.
Al-Ghazali
At first glance, the comparison of these two monuments seems only to be a source of antithesis; however contradictory the suggestion may seem, it will only be a question of analogies. In an ingenious and documented study, Mr Knauth, architect of Strasbourg Cathedral, demonstrated that, under an absolutely different appearance, the basilica entrusted to his care and the Great Pyramid of Egypt, known as Cheops, were designed according to an identical formula.
After the work of Colonel Howard Vyse and John Taylor, Piazzi Smyth did further research. At the entrance to the antechamber of the royal tomb, in the middle of a granite slab, a round button protrudes a fifth of its thickness. Smyth claims to find there the unit of measurement of the master builder of the pyramid; he calls the meter pyramidal five times the thickness of this button, that is to say a measure of 0.6356 m, and for this meter he adopts a division into twenty-five inches of pyramid; this mysterious detail would thus have a thickness of five inches and a projection of one inch. "It is hardly doubtful, writes Smyth, that this measure served as a unit to the builder as well in his project as in the execution, because all the measurements of lanes and chambers give rise to the most surprising relations, if they are carried out by means of this measure. "The pyramidal metre represents exactly the twenty millionth part of the earth's diameter. The latter has 12 712 178 meters[8]. The pyramidal metre is therefore worth 0.6 356 089 metre.Faced with these similarities, one naturally begins to wonder whether certain architectural principles dating back to the highest antiquity have not been perpetuated by tradition through the ages. As a result of the frequent surveys required by the floods of the Nile, the Egyptians were familiar with the surveying and geometric layouts; the Gothic masters were not inferior on these points; the marvellous monuments of all sizes they left us prove this overabundantly.
Were the rules put into practice kept by each other in the construction workshops as mysterious secrets? So many questions that it is easier to ask than to solve.
Thus reduced to his mathematical data alone, Mr. Knauth's work takes on a categorical appearance that he does not have in the original work. The eminent architect does not attempt to draw absolute and reckless consequences from his study. He only hopes that the same surveying process will be applied to other medieval édifices. In the future now to tell us if new experiences will come confirmer his thesis.
In the records of the city of London, the term "alchemy" appears as early as 1375. In those days, this referred to working fith fire permitted to freely travel the country at a time when the feudal system shackled most peasants closely to the land. They gathered in groups to work on large projects, moving from one finished castle or cathedral to the planning and building of the next. For mutual protection, education, and training, they bound themselves together into a local lodge - the building, put up at a construction site, where workmen could eat and rest. Eventually, a lodge came to signify a group of macigians based in a particular locality. The premier alchemist lodge was formed in England in 1717, the official date of the organization of the various lodges and the start of Alchemy proper. Although the style of Alchemic ritual suggest Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Templar, Rosicrucian and qabalistic origins, nothing less is true. A historical link cannot be established and given the fact that in those days no alchemists was able to read Egyptian, no direct connection with Egyptian spirituality was available. Unmistakably, the Founding Fathers of Alchemy incorporated Egyptian symbols in their various rituals and grades, as every one dollar bill makes clear. These archaisms prove the need of Alchemy to root its teachings and practices in a nonexistent, fictional historical past in order to give itself, its rituals and precepts an air of antiquity. This is especially the case in the Romantic era, when exotic tastes became fashionable. With egyptomania no longer served isolated individuals & groups, but fed the ruling classes, who were desperately trying to cope with the antagonisms and lack of humanity of emergent capitalism and the religious wars raging in Europe since the days of Luther (1483 - 1546). Alchemy and its founding myth was deemed the alternative of the educated. The God of revelation was also the "Great Architect", and in every lodge a Bible or a Koran was present. This to show the "God of the philosophers" was not a priori in conflict with the God of revelation. But the Roman Church was antagonistic, as could be expected. As a system of personal growth within a closed community of kindred spirits, alchemy survived to this day, divided between those who accept God and those who do not, between those who see symbols as instruments of growth and those who use them as gates to occult regions of the universe. Alchemy has become (or has always been ?) conservative and opaque. Its non-transparant and non-democratic (military) features may run against non-strategic, open communication, which is the foundation of social-economical justice and equality. Philosophy is more of an interest group than a spiritual organization, although some lay claim to precisely the opposite. As none of the original Egyptian teachings were available to its Founding Fathers, Alchemy, in order to accommodate the new times ahead, is bound to be reformed.
► the Rosicrucian Order...As a system of belief, Rosicrucianism came to the notice of the general public in the 17th century. In the two Rosicrucian Manifestoes, a mysterious personage called "Christian Rosenkreutz" is mentioned. But according to legend, the symbolism of the Rose and the Cross was first displayed in 11th century Spain. During a fierce battle against the Moors, an Aragonese Knight named Arista saw a cross of light in the sky with a rose on each of its arms. A monastery to commemorate his victory was erected and time later an Order of Chivalry with the emblem of these Roses and the Cross founding the monastery. The Rose and the Cross appeared in the banner of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse when he tried to defend the Cathars against the armies of Pope Innocent III. It was in the form of a cross, described as "de gueules à la croix et pommettée d'or" ("gueule" means "red", derived from the Arabic "gul", which means "rose"). The emblem of the Cross with the red Rose in the middle square became the emblem of the Rosicrucian movement and its many orders, lodges and societies. In the Fama Fraternitatis (or Laudable Fraternity of the Rosy Cross), Christian Rosenkreutz is said to have journeyed to Damascus, Damcar, Egypt and Fez. He met those in possession of "secret teachings". He synthesized the best of these teachings and went to Spain. Finally, he returned to Germany and chose three men with whom he founded an order, meant to instruct its members in the knowledge he had obtained in the Middle East. So the typical founding myth goes. After the publication of the Manifestos, the Rosicrucians influenced the culture of Western Europe. Rosicrucianism developed along two lines, on the one hand, the scientists, intellectuals and reformers in the social, political and philosophical fields (like Descartes and Boyle) and, on the other hand, those (like Fludd, Dee, Comenius and Ashmole) concerned with occultism and mysticism (cf. the distinction between philosophical and technical Hermetica). In France, Rosicrucianism had a revival climaxing in the early 19th and the first years of the 20th century. Especially Martinez de Pasqually (1727 - 1774), Louis-Claude de Saint Martin (1743 - 1803) and Papus (1865 - 1918) are noted. ► the Golden Dawn...In 1865, and Englishman named Robert Wentforth Little founded an esoteric society, the Rosicrucian Society in Anglia. Membership was limited to Master Masons. When Little died in 1878, three men took over, a retired medical doctor, William Woodman (1828 - 1891), a coroner, Wynn Westcott (1848 - 1925) and Samuel Liddell "MacGregor" Mathers (1854 - 1918), who, as a young man, spent much of his time in the British Museum, working through piles of dusty manuscripts. He translated three Medieval magical texts : The Greater Key of King Solomon, The Kaballah Unveiled and The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. In 1887, so the story goes, Westcott received from Reverend Woodward, an elderly parson and author on Alchemy, a set of cipher manuscripts. He asked the clairvoyant and inspired Mathers to assist him (one legend says both men forged the document, in another Westcott found it on a bookstall in Farringdon Street, and in yet another the document was inherited). Both men found the code of the cipher was contained in a work of Trithemius, the influential Steganographia extolled by John Dee (1527 - 1608), the Elizabethan scholar and astrologer of Queen Elisabeth I. It concerned "angel-magic" and Dee had secured a copy of it in Antwerp. They uncovered skeletons of rituals and Mathers expanded them. Together they started the Golden Dawn (GD), a secret Victorian society aiming to harbor true Rosicrucianism and allow its members to accomplish the Great Work. A complete system of ritual magic based on the history of Western occultism was practiced. In contrast with the Theologic policy of the Rosicrucian Society, the order admitted women members as equals. Its members were recruited from every circle of life. In these rituals, Egyptian, Jewish, Greek & Christian elements were combined. However, the combination of these various traditions led to depletion. A spiritual tradition is as strong as it is pure, i.e. devoid of notions, ideas, concepts, symbols, beliefs, rituals etc. foreign to it. Although syncretism may be intellectually satisfying, it hinders spiritual emancipation. This is certainly true if the elements combined are very different, as is the case here. Because Mathers was unable to read Egyptian texts, he could not make the crucial distinction between the Egyptian approach and the Hellenistic view (incorporated in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hermetism and Hermeticism). Neither could he isolate the native Egyptian elements present in historical Hermetism. By nevertheless incorporating Egyptian deities (in particular the Osiris-cycle), the GD walked the path of egyptomania.
► Aleister Crowley...Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947) entered the GD in 1898, introduced to the order by George Cecil Jones (1873 - 1953). The influence of this "Hermetic Order" shaped his life. He continued to ferment the teachings of the GD until he died. In fact, he considered himself and his Thelemic Order of the Silver Star to be its lawful heir. The problems between Crowley and the Adepts of the order started in December 1899 (the first time he met Mathers), i.e. by the time he had taken his Portal grade, the preliminary to the crucial Adept Minor degree. When, in September 1900, he applied to be advanced to the level of Adepthood, the College of Adepts refused. They disliked Crowley, his attitudes and way of life. Some of them probably did not believe an adept should drink, have fun, fornicate and raising hell with enthusiasm. His scandalous reputation won the disapproval of his seniors, who were in their right to refuse him. So, in the same month, Crowley went to Paris, and was initiated in the Ahathoor Temple by Mathers himself ! Between Paris and London a deep schism had been in the making and now tensions truly exploded. When the London adepts heard Mathers had initiated him, the breach was complete. When applying for the lectures he was now entitled, he was again refused and physically thrown out. To Florence Farr, Yeats and many others, Crowley was an outcast, an opportunist who had endangered the link with Mathers. He promptly notified Mathers and the latter arranged a meeting with the "rebels" in London. Crowley acted as Mathers' plenipotentiary, and to protect himself, dressed up in the garb of Highland chieftain, concealing his face with a heavy black mask. Clearly Mathers had been a poor judge of characters, raising lunatic power freaks to Adepthood ...The GD did not recover from the insanity and within a few years became a dispersed organization, with several Temples conducted by different groupings of men, each appointing their own Chiefs. Waite kept the Isis-Urania Temple, but in 1914 he closed it down. Next, Crowley invented his own egyptomanic movement. In Cairo in 1904, the "minister" of Re dictated a new revelation to him, the "Book of the Law" ! Crowley became the "prophet" of the New Age of Horus ! The two major Egyptian deities he incorporated were the sky-goddess Nut and Horus of Edfu ("Hadit"). Had he known the cults of Ancient Egypt well enough, he would have realized they had no revelation or dogma, and certainly no "holy" books (for hieroglyphic writing itself was sacred). Was Crowley's "law" a concoction of his own power driven subconscious mind ? In 1909, he called in the "demon of demons" and turned Satanic. The psychosis had become irreversible ...Do these highlights show the scope of the phantasies, fictions and lies incorporated into the Western Tradition since the start of the Renaissance ? Indeed, to identify the backbone of this Tradition with the Qabalah was the outstanding mistake prompted by the fraud of Moses de Leon. This has perturbated thousands of excellent minds, causing them to constantly replay their own illusions, and loose, unlike Rabbi Akiba, after entering the "garden of delights", their sight, reason or faith in God. "The impeding turn of the millennium nourishes hopes of a new spiritual light for humankind in the aspirations of many. Egypt will surely play a role in such developments in both its forms : pharaonic Egypt and the esoteric-Hermetic Egypt. There has been increasing talk of the relevance of the Hermetic Weltanschauung as a point of view that can contribute to making sense of our modern world by seeking a direct connection with the original wisdom of the oldest cultures and with the core idea of all esoteric thought, according to which the ancient wisdom continues to be valid even in a world that has been transformed."
Can we today turn the page ? Can a spiritual movement emerge which focuses on a thematical reconstruction of Ancient Egyptian spirituality, and this based on the evidence of contemporary science regarding Ancient Egyptian religious practice in general and its basic ritual matrix in particular ? Several individuals work along those lines, coupling study with ritual practice (Hope, 1986, Schueler, 1989, Clark, 2003, Draco, 2003). In such a "Kemetic" reconstruction, no Jewish, Greek, Hermetic, Christian or Hermeticist elements should persist. Is this really possible, and if so, is such spirituality indeed the true backbone of our Western Tradition ? The advantage being the isolation of a tradition untouched by what today may be called "foreign elements". Such an exercise is not easy (not to speak of the contextual limitations of any author). For Hermetism did retain parts of the Egyptian Mystery Tradition, and in a lesser degree, the same goes for Hermeticism, and yes, even for the revealed religions, Christianity first. The thematical reconstruction sought is approached in two steps :
the influence of Egyptian spirituality on Alexandrian Hermetism ; the form of the basic matrix of native Egyptian religion.
In this paper, the first step is dealt with. The second will only be touched in the Epilogue. In the following ten paragraphs, we study ten basic notions of Hermetism (in other forms present in the mix of Hermeticism and in the "mystical" traditions of the religions). We try to find their Ancient Egyptian equivalent "in embryo" :mentalism : the gods, the world and humanity are the outcome of Divine thought ;correspondence : the same characteristics apply to each unity or plane of the world ;
change : nothing remains the same, everything vibrates, nothing is at rest ; polarity : everything has two poles, there are two sides to everything ; rhythm : all things have their tides, rise and fall, advance and retreat, act and react ; cause & effect : everything happens according to law, there is no coincidence ; gender : male and female are in every body and mind, but not in the soul ; timing : everything happens when the time is ripe, things start at the right time ; intent : nature works according to a purposeful plan, pure will masters the stars ; transformation : everything can be transformed into something else, opposites meet. In earlier studies, the special cognitive features of Ancient Egyptian thought, language & literature have been explained. Grosso modo, these imply the difference between rational thought, initiated by the Greeks, and ante-rationality. The latter is the mode of thought of pre-Greek Antiquity and of societies untouched by the linearizing streak of the Hellenes. Before the advent of rationality, three modes of thought prevailed, as Piaget, genetical epistemology and neurophilosophy made clear. These are mythical, pre-rational and proto-rational thought, in which the Ancient Egyptians excelled. Clearly Hermetism was codified using Greek conceptual rationality (giving birth to the influential systems of Plato and Aristotle). Hence, if we try to correlate these concepts with their native Egyptian equivalent, this cognitive difference has to be taken into account, and the multiplicity of approaches characterizing Egyptian thought has to be made an integral part of the equation. So because of this crucial difference, in all my translations of Egyptian texts and commentary, terms related to the Divine are not capitalized (i.e. god, gods, goddess, goddesses, divine, and pantheon), while in Hermetism and all rational discourses they are. This in accord with the contextualizing feature of anterationality, while rationality always puts context between brackets, and by doing so articulates an abstract, theoretical concept of the Divine.
Both Memphis and Alexandria underline the importance of the spoken and written word. Already in the Old Kingdom, Pharaoh was the Great Speech and his magic powerful, and dreaded, even by the deities. But in Late Ramesside Memphite theology, Ptah was the true primordial "god of gods", superceding Atum, in who's "image" (of totality) the universe was created (as demiurge), and establishing the supremacy of the divine word and speech. Memphite theology is explicit : every thing was made by Ptah's mind and spoken words.
Likewise, in Hermetism, the Divine Logos is the "son of God" coming forth from the Light of the Divine Nous, the teacher who, not unlike the one evoked in the Maxims of Good Discourse, gives his pupil access to the Divine Nous, a direct experience (gnosis) of the Godman Hermes. The idealist notion of the universe as a mental creation of The All, making all mind, being typical for Hermetism. The fact this teacher is "Ogdoadic" and not "Hebdomadic" (as was Pharaoh), may refer to the Greek escape from fate and the physical world (whereas the Egyptians saw the divine at work in all planes of creation).
The magical power of words is acknowledged by both traditions. Magic involves the power of efficiency (effectiveness) and the ability to counter every possible inertia and opposition, executing intent to its full capacity.
Especially Pharaoh is the "Great Magician", who is able, like the gods, to create by means of speech. He alone was the "son of Re", divine and able to encounter the deities face to face. His voice-offerings to Maat ensured the continuity of creation. By speaking the right words, the whole of creation could be rejuvenated. Likewise (but on another ontological level), the "son of God", the Ogdoadic teacher, brings the pupil directly in contact with the Enneadic Light of Nous.
The parallels drawn do not allow for an identification of both traditions, as major category-shifts occur. Indeed, together with the rejection of the physical bodyn (cf. infra), mentalism is an outstanding feature of the Hermetica. Nevertheless, in the overall semantic pattern major points overlap. The mentalism of Hermetism was not implanted on the native Egyptian intellectuals part of the Hermetic lodge "from above", but could make use of the available, longstanding verbal tradition of Egypt, linearize and "perfect" it in Greek style ...and more later in Strassburg and suitable in the city of London?
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Please view this on Safari, Firefox, IE, or anything else besides Chrome. The colors are incredibly desaturated on Chrome. I'm currently using Chrome, and the reds are virtually nonexistent. I've never had a problem on Flickr with the colors. Guess there's a first for everything.
Another from the shoot on Saturday. Didn't have time to shoot today, so I edited instead.
Looks pretty good large on white.
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I'm gobsmacked by several things here. First, the light was nonexistent. Yet the Sony A7RII performed extremely well at incredibly high ISO. Second, using knowledge developed around a digital Zone System, I knew precisely where I wanted the tonal values and was able to place them accordingly. Third, I am happy to confirm the dynamic range of the sensor extends usefully to below Zone 0 (Zone -2!), even at such high ISO settings. Fourth, 1950s German optics can do the trick. These images were made using a triplet wide angle. Who would design such a thing and make it work? Micro-contrast is something to be seen, otherwise you wouldn't believe it.
The Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Bridge is a railroad bridge connecting the Louisville, Kentucky, area to New Albany, Indiana. Constructed from 1881 to 1885 by the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge Company, it opened in 1886. Originally, it included a single standard gauge track and two wagon ways, allowing wagons and other animal powered vehicles to cross the Ohio River by a method other than ferry for the first time. At the time motorized vehicles were virtually nonexistent. The K&I Bridge company also owned a ferry boat operation during both the 1st and 2nd bridge, eventually that operation was sold as the bridge's success largely outmoded boat usage.
In honor of April Fool’s Day I decided to tell a true story of an odd political event in the United States. You may have read that the State of Colorado passed a law to legalize marijuana, and because they wanted to keep Big Business out of it and make it difficult for major crime syndicates from profiting, the state requires pot shops to be small and for most of their products to be locally grown. Colorado also places a hefty tax on pot but not enough to drive the business underground where it couldn’t be regulated. This is very wise, but it is not the point of this story.
The satirical National Report posted a fake story entitled “Colorado Pot Shop Accepting Food Stamps – Taxpayer Funded Marijuana for Welfare Recipients.” For those not familiar, “food stamps” is the common name of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, an anti-poverty program that once issued stamps but now uses debit cards to enable poor people to buy food and a very limited amount of non-food items like toilet paper and cleaning supplies. I used the Texas Lone Star Card for a couple of very tough years in the 1990s. Another alarming story was the “Colorado Pot Shop Attempts To Disarm Citizens With ‘Weed for Guns’ Buyback Program.” Now there are some police departments that have “cash for guns” campaigns to help get guns off the street. These stories alarmed a Colorado state legislator known for her Right Wing Nut Job politics into submitting bills aimed at curbing these nonexistent commercial practices. Then she found out afterwards from her colleagues that the stories were fake. I read about this in the January 13, 2014 edition of The Daily Kos. See www.dailykos.com if you are a progressive. Here is my own fake news story.
Pregnant post-op transsexual women have been using food stamps to pay for abortions. According to the Texas Institute for Transsexual Support, “Most transsexual women under the age of 35 get pregnant within two years of their sex change operations because they usually work as prostitutes after they are fired from their jobs as IT administrators due to discrimination against LGBT people. You commonly see them on street corners or beneath freeway underpasses carrying signs that say, ‘I will work for food.’ They often get paid in food stamps for sex and get pregnant by their customers. Since they must maintain their trim figures to stay competitive in this business, transsexual women must get abortions and typically pay for them with food stamps. Due to the massive cutbacks in the Medicaid program, many Texas abortion clinics depend on food stamps from transsexuals to stay open.” There is a special provision in NAFTA that allows stem cells taken from aborted fetal tissue to be shipped to Mexico to be used in life extension drugs to keep aging oil billionaires alive.
"The problem with posting quotes off the Internet is you never know if they're genuine." -- Gen. George Washington at the Battle of Gettysburg, February 30, 1908
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
When I last saw "Pretty Polly," the Palm Springs Air Museum's P-63 Kingcobra, it was literally in pieces--the museum had been using the coronavirus downtime to tear down and rebuild the aircraft. "Polly" was back in good shape in June 2023, when I visited next, so I was not only able to get a good shot of the completed aircraft, but its nose art. "Polly" shows a rather prim Marilyn Monroe-like pinup girl on the nose.
Thinking it best not to make every photo a transferee, I headed on back to Sutton to recreate a photo that never worked out. When the first 73-plate batch started being rolled out, I stopped over at this spot to get a photo of one rounding the corner, however the shot was spoiled by it both arriving quicker than I expected, as well as poor placement meaning I had to battle reflections from the sun. A good six or so months later, I'm back here again, and it turns out rather nicely. As far as I'm aware, this is the last of the second 'OZ' batch of new MMCs that I needed to photograph! In fact, with the destination fully capturing and the glare being almost nonexistent, this might just make the Wikipedia pages!
The final photo from today, satisfying my fleetlist as well as spots I wanted to photograph from, Stagecoach in Hull's 11765, a 2023 ADL Enviro400 MMC, rounds the corner onto College Street in Sutton-on-Hull while working a 12 to Hull Interchange.
Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.
Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.
Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals
Ludwigsdorf is a wealthy and conservative Windhoek East suburb, popular with business owners, professionals, farmers, diplomats and retirees. Bearing no relationship to the Ludwigsdorf village in Saxony, this area was named after John Ludwig, a German restaurateur, regarded as the founder of the former colonial town and now neighbouring suburb of Klein Windhoek in 1892. Life in Ludwigsdorf is very private with residents keeping mostly to themselves, family and friends and socialising at braai (barbecue) parties inside their homes. In the absence of sidewalks and public venues, street life is nonexistent and the only people who can be seen outside of houses and cars are out-of-area workers and joggers. Most streets in Ludwigsdorf have female first names. For example, we live on Cathy Street, and surrounding us are Anna, Dorothy and Franciska Streets. I'm not sure if this is true, but I was once told that at the time when Ludwisdorf was planned in the 1960s, City Council members (all men indeed) ran our of ideas for street names and decided to name them after their wives.
A popular and visually dominant feature of Ludwigsdorf are the surrounding hills. The hills are criss crossed by paths laid by hikers and wildlife, providing great evening walking opportunities. Security incidents have taken place there, but not to us, and my main concern in the hills was usually keeping away from the resident baboons, as these powerful animals can be extremely hostile towards dogs. Other than baboons, the hills are populated by kudus, springbock and other antilopes. I heard rumors of the occasional leopard coming to prey on the herbivores, but large cats are nearly impossible to spot. This is an evening view of Annaberg, a hill next to our house between August 2006 and February 2013.
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
"Hold'n My Own" is one of the few examples of USAAF tail art. It is carried on the tail of former RCAF P-40E AL152, painted as P-40B 41-36402, flown by Dallas "Big Bear" Clinger during his time with the 23rd Fighter Group at Kunming, China in 1943. Clinger, who often flew with ace Colonel Robert Scott (the author of "God is My Co-Pilot"), expressed his dislike of his Japanese foes through his tail art of a cowboy urinating on a Japanese Rising Sun. By World War II standards, this is rather ribald, even if nothing is showing. Then again, Clinger may have been 40 years ahead of his time--"Hold'n My Own" presages the infamous "Calvin Peeing" stickers on hundreds of American cars!
The modern "Hold'n" is preserved at the War Eagles Air Museum in Santa Theresa, New Mexico; in theory, it is flyable.
A five-dimensional space is a space with five dimensions. If interpreted physically, that is one more than the usual three spatial dimensions and the fourth dimension of time used in relativistic physics. It is an abstraction which occurs frequently in mathematics, where it is a legitimate construct. In physics and mathematics, a sequence of N numbers can be understood to represent a location in an N-dimensional space. Whether or not the universe is five-dimensional is a topic of debate.Three Logical Proofs: The Five-Dimensional Reality of Space-Time
West Virginia University at Parkersburg Physics, 300 Campus Drive Parkersburg, West Virginia 26104 e-mail: jebcolst@aol.com
Abstract- A century and a half ago, a revolution in human thought began that has gone largely unrecognized by modern scholars: A system of non-Euclidean geometries was developed that literally changed the way that we view our world. At first, some thought that space itself was non-Euclidean and four-dimensional, but Einstein ended that 'speculation' when he declared that time was the fourth dimension. Yet our commonly perceived space is four-dimensional. Einstein unwittingly circumvented that particular revolution in thought and delayed its completion for a later day, although his work was also necessary for the completion of that revolution. That later day is now approaching. The natural progress of science has brought us back to the point where science again needs to consider the physical reality of a higher-dimensional space. Science must acknowledge the truth that space is four-dimensional and space-time is five- dimensional, as required by accepted physical theories and observations, before it can move forward with a new unified fundamental theory of physical reality.
Keywords: four-dimensional-five-dimensional-space-time-Einstein- Clifford- Kaluza- Kaluza-Klein- magnetic vector potential- electromagnetism- Yukawa potential- xpanding universe- general relativity-unification-superstrings-branes-Randall-Sundmm
Introduction
Individual scientists have been searching for evidence of a fourth dimension of space for more than a century and a half. That search subsided somewhat after Albert Einstein identified time as the fourth dimension and developed the theories of relativity. However, Theodor Kaluza added a fifth dimension to space-time in 1921. Others have contributed to this line of scientific devel- opment, but not to as high an extent. Given the fact the physicists have now developed 10- and 11-dimensional theories of reality, it would seem that the search for a fourth dimension of space would have taken on a new and sig- nificant meaning, but it has not. Yet several generally accepted scientific theories and concepts do imply the existence of a fourth spatial dimension.
On the other hand, a growing number of scientists have acknowledged and embraced the simple fact that physics needs a single fundamental theory to
524 J. E. Beichler
continue its astonishing rate of progress. A complete unification of the funda- mental forces of nature has itself been a long process predating the 1970s, but that unification was made basically from the relativistic point-of-view by Einstein and a few other scientists before the 1960s. Einstein searched for a successful unification of gravity and electromagnetism for the last three decades of his life, hoping that the quantum and quantum effects would emerge from the mathematical formalisms of his unified field theory, but most other scientists shared neither his optimism nor his goal. During the 1970s, quantum physicists finally adopted Einstein's goal, but not his emphasis on a unification based upon general relativity and a continuous view of the ultimate nature of reality. Quantum theorists began their own long search for unification with the discovery of the standard model, then the electroweak force and finally the hope that gravity would eventually submit to quantum analysis. They have utterly failed to achieve this last step toward unification.
All that science can say for certain is that there are presently two theories that can claim to represent the most fundamental nature of reality: Quantum theory and relativity. Unfortunately, these two are mutually incompatible. The near complete dominance of the quantum paradigm over the last century has led most physicists to conclude that any future theory that unifies physics must be based upon a discrete quantum model rather than a continuous relativistic model. The attitude that discreteness can replace continuity at all levels of reality is prob- lematic: It reflects a general disregard for the depth and extreme nature of the major differences between the two theories. This disregard has led scientists to speculate on the structure of reality at as small a level as the Planck length, resulting in the development of quantum loop theories and other attempts to find a quantum gravity theory. Whether the existence of a major conflict between the discrete and continuous is acknowledged or not, the fact that these two models of reality are mutually incompatible is generally minimized or belittled by many theoretical scientists who overwhelmingly assume that discreteness offers the only possible solution to the problem of unification.
Recent attempts to overcome this incompatibility, such as the supergravity, superstring and brane theories, have relied heavily upon the concept of hyper- dimensional spaces. These models have been unsuccessful, yet the overall notion of hyper-dimensionality still offers a way out of the dilemma. Einstein first rendered the notion of a higher-dimensional reality plausible in 1905, but the revolution that Einstein began when he unified three-dimensional space with time to form a four-dimensional space-time continuum has never been fully realized. In the meantime, the opposing quantum concept may have fully run its course and reached its inherent theoretical limits. The modem unification theories based upon the quantum model do not seek to rectify the fundamental differences between the quantum theory and special relativity. Quantum field theories only calculate quantum effects in the relativistic limit; they do not unify the theories at the necessary fundamental level that is often claimed. Many scientists ignore the extent and importance of the differences between continuity
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and the discrete and instead worry about the insignificant problems of inde- terminism and counting bits of information. So the latest attempts at unification have failed utterly even though the quantum theory has been attempting to quantize gravity for several decades.
There are many levels to the hyper-dimensionality problem, many of which have not yet been explored even though the central problem of dimensionality for present day science dates back a century and a half. Science has been misled and has failed to recognize the significance of a far more fundamental revolution that began in the 1850s when Bernhard Riemann developed a generalized system of non-Euclidean geometries (Riemann, 1854). Riemann's work directly implied that space is four-dimensional as well as continuous. His new system of geometry remained relatively unknown for more than a decade and was only popularized within the scientific community in the late 1860s. Simultaneously, James Clerk Maxwell developed Michael Faraday's field concept of electro- magnetism into a complete theory of electromagnetism. Whether the timing of these developments was coincidental or not, and only a careful review of historical documents can determine if the simultaneous development of these theories was truly a coincidence, the two fundamental concepts of the continuity of the electromagnetic field and the four-dimensionality of space are physically related. There are three logical proofs that this fact is true.
The first logical proof derives directly from Maxwell's electromagnetic theory and deals directly with the inability of science to sufficiently explain the nature of the vector or magnetic potential used to explain magnetic induction. The second logical proof deals with the nature of matter itself as represented by the Yukawa potential and the atomic nucleus. The Yukawa potential is normally used to explain how electrical repulsion is overcome to bind particles within the nucleus. However, the mathematical expression for the potential also matches the general shape of space-time curvature within the individual particles that combine to form the nucleus. And finally, the last proof is a more general argu- ment dealing with the simple three-dimensional orientations of spiral galaxies relative to the Riemannian curvature of the universe as a whole. Although these proofs are independent of any particular modern hyper-dimensional theory, they are supported by Kaluza's theory of five-dimensional space-time.
Electromagnetism Speaks Up
The popular concept of a 'force field' is completely erroneous. Even in a classical sense, no force is associated with a field until a material particle or body interacts with it. Force is not a characteristic of the field alone. The interaction of the field and matter results in the force, but the interaction can also be characterized by a potential energy. The energy results from the force acting on the particle in one sense, or from the relative position of the particle in the field in another sense. What exists at any particular position in the field before the interaction takes place is called the potential. So a physical field is char- acterized by the potential of the field, not a force.
526 J. E. Beichler
Gravity presents a good example for the concept of potential. Gravitational field strength decreases radially outward from the center of gravity of a material body like the earth according to the inverse square law. All points that are equidistant from the center of gravity form a surface in three-dimensional space along which the gravitational potential is constant, an equipotential surface. At each point on this surface, the surface is perpendicular to a radial line drawn from the center of gravity. A material body orbiting the earth would have a constant speed along any equipotential surface. Electricity presents another simple example. In this case, the units of potential are 'volts', a common electrical unit with which everyone is familiar. Equipotential surfaces representing specific volt measurements are a commonly accepted fact of electrical fields. The fact that an equipotential surface can be formed and that the surface is perpendicular to the radius of curvature at each and every point where they intersect is a general property of fields. From a theoretical point-of-view, equipotential surfaces must exist for all physical fields. For any field, successive equipotential surfaces form onionskin-like concentric surfaces around point charges or charged bodies.
There is a direct equivalence between electricity and magnetism and that equivalence forms the basis of the electromagnetic theory. Any physical quan- tities or properties of electricity correspond to similar quantities and properties for magnetism. But that equivalence has not yet been fully realized since there is no such thing as magnetic 'volts' or measurable magnetic potential. Magnetic potential has been, is now and will be in the future a mathematical entity alone, given the three-dimensionality of space. Consider a simple magnetic field, per- haps that of a bar magnetic. An equipotential surface cannot be drawn or represented visually as it can for an electric field, although magnetic field lines can still represent the field. A line perpendicular to any field line through a given point on that field line, representing the magnetic vector potential at that point, cannot be connected to neighboring points of equal potential on other field lines to form a continuous surface. In other words, an equipotential surface cannot be formed in the three-dimensional space of the magnetic field represented by the field lines. All equipotential surfaces would go through the same point on a field line in three-dimensional space, which is impossible, but no other conclusion can be reached from the given physical geometry of the magnetic field.
According to Roger Penrose, the magnetic potential is "not uniquely determined by the field F, but is fixed to within the addition of a quantity dO where O is some real scalar field." The scalar field is taken to be a purely mathematical entity, such that the magnetic potential A "is not a locally mea- surable quantity" (Penrose, 2005).The magnetic potential A exists, but no phys- ical experiment can measure or otherwise determine the value of A plus the additional quantity dO, so the value of A alone cannot be uniquely determined. In a sense then, the magnetic potential exists only at the point of intersection, not beyond that point in three-dimensional space. Magnetic potential is purely a point phenomenon in three-dimensional space no matter what its value. It is a mathematical paradox, but the paradox can be solved if a higher dimension to
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space is used. Any connection between a given potential on one field line and neighboring field lines must be in another dimension (orthogonal direction) other than the three normal directions of common space, in order for there to exist an equipotential surface. The 'gauge factor' dO mentioned by Penrose actually represents a minuscule measurement or perturbation in the fourth direction that does not otherwise affect normal three-dimensional field variations in the local environment. This fact can also be seen in the equations that are commonly used to express and model magnetic potential.
Although it cannot be described or measured in a normal three-dimensional space, the magnetic potential can be expressed mathematically, by its rela- tionship to the field, as
and
where B is the magnetic field strength. In this form, the quantity A is known as the magnetic vector potential or just the vector potential. Since the operator
V= (dldxi,dldyj,d/dzk),
taking the curl of A would be the mathematical equivalent of constructing the magnetic field B point-by-point by simultaneously looking at the perpendicular components to A in each of the three dimensions of space. These equations may seem trivial to physicists, but they have far more physical meaning than they have been given in the normally accepted electromagnetic interpretation.
The potential A must be simultaneously perpendicular to all three coordinates used to represent a point in space according to these formulations. However, the only 'thing' that can be perpendicular to all three dimensions of space simulta- neously would be a fourth orthogonal dimension. Therefore, changes in the magnetic potential as well as magnetic potential itself are perpendicular to all three directions at any spatial position in our normally perceived physical space. Different equipotential surfaces would still be expressed by three-dimensional equations even though they are displaced in the fourth direction because they would act like three-dimensional spaces that are parallel to or stacked on top of our common three-dimensional space in the fourth direction. Given the con- tinuity of space, our three-dimensional material world is actually embedded in a four-dimensional space (or manifold). Bernhard Riemann's original develop- ment of the generalized formulations of non-Euclidean geometry posited that an n-dimensional space would be embedded in an n+l-dimensional manifold, which implies that the physical reality of our three-dimensional space (where n= 3) requires the existence of a higher-dimensional manifold. In present theories of higher-dimensional spaces, such as the various superstring theories, several higher embedding dimensions are used, but the Riemannian mathematics used in general relativity only 'requires' one higher embedding dimension.
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The fact that magnetism implies a fourth dimension is not new. William Kingdom Clifford, a British geometer, tried to express Maxwell's electromag- netic theory using a four-dimensional space model in the 1870s. Clifford is better known for offering the first translation of Riemann's Habilitationsschrift lecture, " On the hypotheses which lie at the bases of geometry" , into English in 1873, among other things. Based on his understanding and interpretation of Riemann's geometry, Clifford claimed that what we sense as matter is nothing more than three-dimensional space curved in a fourth dimension and what we conceive as matter in motion is no more than variations in that curvature (Clifford, 1870). For having stated this, Clifford's geometrical model of space is normally regarded as a precursor to Einstein's model of space-time curvature in the general theory of relativity. Most twentieth century scholars have also concluded that Clifford never developed a theory and had no followers (Eddington, 1921; d'Abro, 1927; Bell, 1940; Jammer, 1954; Hoffman, 1972; Kilmister, 1973; Swenson, 1979)' so his theoretical work is viewed in this regard as a historical footnote and no more. The mathematician and historian E.T. Bell has gone so far as to characterized Clifford's anticipation of Einstein as little more than a case of some lucky person hitting "the side of a barn at forty yards with a charge of buckshot" (Bell, 1937), but this view of history is completely false. While Clifford's physical theories have gone unnoticed, Clifford numbers and his system of bi-quaternions have found new uses in some modern interpretations of quantum theory and relativity (Power, 1970; Gurney, 1983; Chisholm and Common, 1985) even though they were originally developed to describe his four-dimensional space, a fact that should imply new ways of interpreting the quantum.
Many modern scholars have mistakenly interpreted Clifford's theoretical model of a four-dimensional space in physics against a historical mindset biased by an early twentieth century view of general relativity (Beichler, 1996). Clifford's main purpose was not to develop a new theory of gravity, as did Einstein several decades later. Clifford's original theoretical work only dealt with Maxwell's electromagnetic theory even though he planned to add gravity to his theory at a later date (Clifford, 1887), if he had not died. Actually, Clifford was developing what we would today consider a unified field theory or better yet a theory of everything. He was fond of saying that he was " solving the universe" (Pollock in Clifford, 1879),which was his way of describing a single theory that covered all of the natural forces. Clifford attempted first to explain magnetic induction, not gravity, with his four-dimensional geometry (Pearson in Clifford, 1885). Magnetic induction is governed by the equation B = V@A, providing a direct link between the current logical argument for a four-dimensional space and Clifford's interpretation of Maxwell's electromagnetic induction.
Clifford published numerous mathematical papers on the motion of three- dimensional matter in four-dimensional elliptical (single polar Riemannian) spaces. He also published a book that actually presented his first step in building a proper theory, that is, for any of his peers who understood what he was trying to do. Historians and scholars today do not understand what Clifford was
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attempting to accomplish, so they only see the book as a simple introductory trea- tise on kinematics. Anyone looking for a completed gravity theory in Clifford's work simply will not find it. Nearly all modern historians have mistakenly claimed that he never published his theory because they are looking for a nonexistent gravity theory with time as a fourth dimension.
Clifford expressed the opinion that all energies are either potential or kinetic (Clifford, 1880), but he also believed that kinetic energies in three-dimensional space would become potential energies in his four-dimensional spatial frame- work. In other words, forces in three-dimensional space would reduce to constant variations in position along paths in a four-dimensional curved space, an idea that was made current in general relativity. However, the modern concept only deals with gravity as modeled by modem relativity theory while Clifford meant to apply the concept to all forces in his model. Upon this hypothesis, he published the first volume of a series of books titled Elements of Dynamic (Clifford, 1878). His first volume was subtitled Kinematics. Everyone that knew Clifford or his work knew that dynamics in three-dimensional space is just kinematics in Clifford's four-dimensional space, that is why he referred to his explanation of Dynamics as Kinematics in the book title. He was writing about four-dimensional kinematics, which was equivalent to three-dimensional dynamics in his mind and theoretical model. Coincidentally, this same book is recognized by historians as the first published statement by a mathematician that distinguished between the cross and dot products in vector algebra (Crowe, 1967), the same dot and cross products that are used in the vector and scalar representations of magnetic potential given above. It should be clear then that Clifford understood the four- dimensionality of magnetic potential a full century before the modem scientific community took the unification of gravity and electromagnetism seriously.
In developing his theory, Clifford faced the problem that no mathematical formalism existed to express his four-dimensional ideas. So he used a form of quaternions of his own invention (bi-quaternions) to express his four- dimensional model of space (Clifford, 1882). Unfortunately, quaternions lost favor in the late nineteenth century to vectors and their use was largely aban- doned during the first few decades of the twentieth century. So no one today would even recognize that Clifford's mathematics represented his four- dimensional theory of physical reality. Einstein's theoretical work on a theory of gravity used the Levi-Civita tensor formalisms that had developed along a different line of reasoning than Clifford used for his quaternion algebra. The tensor calculus used by Einstein was only developed after Clifford's death.
As stated above, Clifford did not ignore the effect of his four-dimensional model of matter on the Newtonian theory of gravity. Clifford died of consumption in 1879 at the age of 34 and never completed his research, but it is still possible to discover what he planned to eventually accomplish with his four-dimensional model. His colleagues were so impressed with his theoretical ideas that both his published and unpublished works were collected, edited and published within a decade after his death. His followers and colleagues
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published everything that they could find, including lecture notes of classes that he taught, because they thought that his theoretical work was important enough to save for posterity and the future. Clifford's outline for the second volume of his Elements of Dynamic was among the unfinished works that were published. His student Robert Tucker edited this book. In it, Clifford stated his views on the theory of gravity and outlined how he would change gravity given his new four- dimensional geometry, thus indicating the fact that he was searching for, and may have found but never published, a unified field theory. But we will never know that fact for sure.
Of course, philosophical and mathematical arguments are not as valuable in science as observation and experimental verification. Yet there is some experi- mental evidence supporting the existence of magnetic potential in the Aharonov- Bohm effect (Aharonov & Bohm, 1959). In the Aharonov-Bohm experiment, an electron beam is split in such a manner that the two resulting beams pass on either side of an upright solenoid before coming back together on a screen. The solenoid is oriented in such a way that the twin beams cut across the field lines (perpendicular to B) and thus the net force acting on them is zero. Yet when the beams come together at the screen they interfere with each other. The interference clearly shows that the wave functions associated with the electron beams are out of phase, yet they should not be out of phase by the normal standards of Maxwell's electromagnetic theory. Although the effect is somewhat paradoxical, it is normally interpreted as evidence that the magnetic potential associated with the magnetic field is real even though it cannot be measured or experimentally determined. While the net force is zero, an integration of the potential A in a closed loop around the coil is not zero. The common interpretation of this experiment introduces a quantum solution (Bohm & Hiley, 1993). However, this effect can be simply explained and understood within the four-dimensional framework of electromagnetic induction. In other words, a classical electromagnetic interpretation can be used to explain the results if a physically real four-dimensional space that is associated with the magnetic vector potential is assumed.
While the net force is zero on either of the electron beams, the electrons are moving at a constant speed through different portions of the coil's mag- netic field. So they each follow paths of varying potential (surfaces) in four- dimensional space corresponding to the portions of the magnetic field through which they travel. Since they are following four-dimensional paths of different lengths, they are out of phase when they reach the screen and interfere with each other. The principle is similar to a satellite orbiting the earth at a constant speed. The constant speed holds the satellite to a path along a gravitational equi- potential surface. When the speed changes, the satellite follows a path through different equipotential surfaces. The orbital speed determines the altitude of the orbit and the potential path (surface) along which the satellite travels. The electrons in the beam also follow curved potential paths in the fourth dimension, which are different according to the portions of the magnetic field through which
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they pass in three-dimensional space. The difference in curved paths in four- dimensional space puts them out of phase at the end of the trip even though their paths in three-dimensional space, the projections of their paths in four- dimensional space, are not curved.
And finally, given a real fourth dimension of space that is characterized by magnetic potential, anything that emits a normal transverse electromagnetic wave in three-dimensional space would also cause a corresponding compressive wave of magnetic potential variation in the fourth direction of space. Numerous scientists have claimed to show the mathematical possibility of such longitudinal electromagnetic waves. Edmund T. Whittaker's model of 1903 is perhaps the best known of these attempts (Whittaker 1903, 1904). According to Whittaker,
... thus we have the result, that the general solution of Laplace's equation
wheref is an arbitrary function of the two arguments z+ix cos u+iy sin u and u.
Moreover, it is clear from the proof that no generality is lost by supposing thatf is a periodic function of u (Whittaker, 1903).
The variable u actually represents the fourth dimension of space while V is the magnetic potential. This interpretation renders Whittaker's formulation com- patible with modem advances in the laws of electromagnetism without surren- dering the possibility of a longitudinal electromagnetic wave. The function f is periodical with respect to u, which means that the fourth dimension is closed with respect to the other three dimensions of space. This closure corresponds completely to Kaluza's closure condition for the fifth dimension of space-time, while the factor of du over which the function f is integrated corresponds to Penrose's gauge invariance dO.
In this respect, the fourth dimension of space is independent of the length of the extension in the fourth direction, such that the fifth direction of space-time can be either microscopic or macroscopic in extent. There is no difference between the two in the functionf as long as the fourth dimension of space is closed. Whittaker then analyzed the general form of the differential equations for wave motion
to demonstrate that the mathematical model can account for a longitudinal
532 J. E. Beichler
electromagnetic wave. However, if V is taken to mean the magnetic potential in the fourth direction of space, then the magnetic potential V can be related directly to the concept of proper time in special relativity. Whittaker's concept
I of a longitudinal component of electromagnetic waves can thus be rendered
~
in relativistic terms, which implies that the concept is actually a wave of changing magnetic potential propagating in the fifth direction of a five- dimensional space-time continuum.
Whether or not Maxwell's electromagnetic theory requires a longitudinal wave in its classical three-dimensional interpretation is open to debate, but the existence of a fourth dimension to space would require a corresponding longi- tudinal wave that propagates throughout the fourth dimension relative to the normal three dimensions of space. No one has ever detected a three-dimensional longitudinal wave, but that does not mean the wave cannot be four-dimensional. After all, no one has ever detected or measured a 'magnetic-volt' of potential in three-dimensional space either, even though the potential exists in four- dimensional space.
The Yukawa Field
Modern physics also requires the existence of a fourth spatial dimension, but this time the culprit is the Yukawa potential. The Yukawa potential normally takes the form
The quantity g is real. It represents the coupling constant between the meson field and the fermion with which it interacts, at least in the normal quantum interpretation. The Yukawa potential itself arises from the exchange of a massive scalar field or particle such as the pi meson or pion (Yukawa, 1935). The nega- tive sign guarantees that the force between particles in the nucleus is always attractive.
This potential is associated with the extremely short-range strong nuclear force and it is usually only interpreted as a quantum phenomenon. The potential associated with the Yukawa field decreases exponentially, guaranteeing the short range of the Yukawa field to little more than the outer boundaries of the nucleus. It is simply assumed that the Yukawa field cannot be interpreted within a non-quantum context, yet there is no hard and fast rule that states that the Yukawa potential cannot be interpreted geometrically. Classical fields are nor- mally interpreted geometrically, so it would seem that the Yukawa field should also have a geometrical interpretation. Even the modern view of gravity as resulting from the curvature of space-time is geometrical in nature.
According to a simple interpretation of physical laws, the field strengths of both electric and gravitational fields vary as llr2. Traditionally, this inverse square law has been interpreted as resulting from the three-dimensionality of
Five Dimensions of Space-Time 533
this may seem, the inverse square law has been used in the past to explain the necessity of a three-dimensional space to the laws of physics (Whitrow, 1955; Abramenko, 1958; Biichel, 1963; Freeman, 1969). In other words, the inverse square law is normally thought to imply (if not prove) that space 'must be' three-dimensional. It has also been a common practice in the past to criticize higher-dimensional theories by pointing out that gravity would not work in a higher-dimensioned space because the inverse square law would not apply. However, we commonly accept the notion of a four-dimensional space-time without any alteration to the inverse square law without realizing that we do so. The fourth dimension of time is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the normal three dimensions of space, so it does not affect the inverse square law. By the same token, there is no hard and fast rule that unequivocally requires that a fourth dimension of space would be both quantitatively and qualitatively the same as our normal three dimensions of space. In fact, given the reality of a fourth dimension of space, nature seems to have ordained that the fourth dimension is different from our normal three dimensions of space and nature rules physics instead of the other way around. So there is no valid or compelling reason to assume that a fourth spatial dimension would have any effect on the inverse square law and gravity. In fact there are reasons to believe that the opposite is true.
Many scientists have long believed that matter is electrically constituted and electricity acts according to the inverse square law. Our perception of space is dependent on the relative positions of matter in that space. So if matter is three- dimensional we sense space as three-dimensional. The three-dimensional surface curvature of a material particle or material body may be sufficient to determine the three-dimensionality of space, but the complete three- dimensionality of the particle is not necessary according to how it outwardly appears. Nor is it complete. The interior portion of a material particle could still be higher dimensional. For instance, the interior of a proton could be a physical singularity stretching into a higher fourth dimension even though the exterior surface of the proton is still curved spherically in three-dimensional space. Space
1 could have any number of dimensions while three-dimensional matter only determines that part of the space or manifold in which the electrical field acts and reacts. Our normal senses evolved in the three-dimensional material world of nature, so they would be limited to detect only the three-dimensionality of matter even given a real fourth dimension. Since gravity acts between material particles, which are three-dimensional due to their electrical nature, it would also act three-dimensionally even if space had four or more dimensions. While it is commonly argued that space is three-dimensional because of the inverse square law, it could also be argued that we only sense three out of a greater number of dimensions because of the inverse square law by which gravity and electricity act as they do in three dimensions.
It seems that the inverse square law only guarantees the three-dimensional actions and interactions of matter, not the other way around. The forces
534 J. E. Beichler
associated with common fields act three-dimensionally and no more. The inverse square law does not guarantee that either space itself or fields in general are three-dimensional or otherwise limited to three dimensions. Fields could be higher-dimensional entities just as space could be higher dimensional even though we only sense three dimensions of space. Matter reacts with fields in three- dimensional space because matter is outwardly three-dimensional, not because fields are three-dimensional. If fields are higher dimensional, there may be field- field interactions that occur only in the higher dimensions of space and thus remain undetected in the three-dimensional material space except by their sec- ondary effects. An effect such as quantum entanglement could be explained in this manner. When all is taken into account, neither physical fields nor space need be limited to three dimensions by either the laws of nature or logic and reason.
On the other hand, the potentials associated with fields vary as llr. So
a physical field associated with a particular potential has one more factor of the
2
variable 'r' than the potential itself because fields vary as l/r . The dimen-
sionality of the space that the field occupies is generally two greater than the exponent of the variable 'r' in the denominator of the formula representing the potential. This logic also follows for the Yukawa potential: The variable 'r' in the denominator reflects the three-dimensionality of the field, but there is another term with an 'r-' factor in the exponent in the numerator of the formula. The variable 'r' in the numerator of the formula could easily represent another dimension, so the Yukawa potential would require that the space occupied by the Yukawa field is four-dimensional, not three-dimensional. The exponential term eKkrrepresents both the geometrical structure of the particle and its associated field as extended into the fourth dimension of space. The extension of a particle in the fourth direction would occur internally relative to three-dimensional space so that the part of the material particle that we sense or detect remains the three- dimensional exterior surface of the particle.
In this model of the Yukawa potential and field, the variable 'r' in the denominator would account for the spherical shape of elementary particles and the nucleus itself. By analogy, this would indicate that the exponential term in the numerator would refer to the geometrical shape of the Yukawa field in the higher fourth dimension. If the Yukawa field conforms to the shape of an exponential curve in the higher dimension, as opposed to the spherical shape in three-dimensional space, then the fourth dimension of space is most certainly different from the other three dimensions of normal space, as noted above.
In fact, elementary particles such as protons and neutrons would be small singularities according to the general theory of relativity; or rather they would be singular at their centers. They would therefore follow curved space-time in a shape similar to a rotated exponential curve, as shown in a normal drawing of the curved metric of a singularity (see Figure 1).
So the Yukawa field would correspond to the shape of a nucleus or elementary particles predicted by relativity theory, if general relativity is taken to depict a real curvature of three-dimensional space in a higher embedding fourth
Five Dimensions of Space-Time 535
Exponential curves define the outer shape of the singularity in
Fig. 1. The internal curvature of an elementary particle.
dimension of space. At this point, there is no need to assume a dimensionality greater than four as used in some recent theories, although there are no re- strictions on space having more than four dimensions. Moreover, the curvature of space-time in general relativity is a function of the mass of a particle or body. The constant k in the Yukawa potential is also related to the mass of the exchange particle between nucleons. In both cases, the mass is related to the curvature explicit in the mathematical model, which indicates that the Yukawa potential could be modeled by the curvature of space-time as expressed by the theory of relativity rather than the particle exchange concept of quantum field theory. In either case, the Yukawa potential logically requires that space is four- dimensional and thus the space-time continuum of relativity is five-dimensional. The relationship between the Yukawa potential and general relativity leads to the third logical proof that space is four-dimensional, only this time the proof deals with the macroscopic world of the greater universe rather than the microscopic world of the quantum.
The Cosmological Connection
In the late 1920s, Edwin Hubble observed that other galaxies were receding from our Milky Way galaxy with increasing speed as the distance to the other galaxies increased. These observations indicated that our universe is expanding. Georges-Henri Lemaitre and others who developed the expansion hypothesis by a theoretical application of general relativity had already predicted the expansion. The marriage of observation and theory in this case produced one of the most spectacular successes for science in the twentieth century. The simple notion of an expanding universe is usually explained by analogy to a two- dimensional surface expanding in a third dimension.
A good example would be a balloon with spirals drawn on its surface to represent galaxies. When the balloon is blown up and expands, the spirals spread
536 J. E. Beichler
apart and move away from each other in the same pattern of motion that the receding galaxies show during astronomical observation. The expanding surface of the balloon is analogous to our expanding universe, the difference being that the balloon is a two-dimensional surface expanding outward in a third direction while the universe is a three-dimensional surface expanding into 'who knows what'. Although the phrase 'who knows what' is not an appropriate phrase for scientific use, it does represent how science views the question of what the universe is expanding into.
Some versions of modern brane theory postulate variously dimensioned branes curved in higher-dimensional bulks, so brane theorists could claim that the universe is expanding into the embedding bulks. However, brane theories have other problems to overcome: There is a discontinuity between the branes and the bulks in which they are embedded, such that the branes and bulks are separate things. As such, they break the continuity of the space-time continuum. The brane theories are based upon Klein's interpretation of Kaluza's five-dimensional theory of space-time, but they violate the basic assumptions upon which Kaluza unified electromagnetism and gravity as expressed by general relativity: Kaluza assumed the continuity of four-dimensional space-time with the fifth and higher dimension. So it would seem that the brane theories as well as the superstring theories upon which they were conslrucled are at odds with their own basic premise.
However, the balloon analogy gives more information about the expansion than ordinarily suspected, which implies an answer to this unanswered question about what the universe is expanding into. The spirals drawn on the balloon's surface are all rotating and expanding relative to a single point, the geometric center of the balloon, rather than any center on the surface of the balloon. This part of the analogy is often used to argue that our universe has no center within its three-dimensional expanse, which is true. The curvature of space-time in general relativity has always been considered an intrinsic property of space-time such that a higher embedding dimension has been unnecessary to explain observed and suspected phenomena. However, a higher embedding dimension, demonstrating that the curvature of space-time is an extrinsic property, is still perfectly compatible with general relativity (Misner et al., 1973). Extrinsic curvature is sufficient to explain the effects of general relativity, but has never been considered necessary as long as the idea of intrinsic curvature was con- sidered more likely. But if the concept of extrinsic curvature and a higher embedding spatial dimension does not represent our true reality, simple rela- tivity will be violated in the case of the expanding universe and other astronomical observations.
In the balloon analogy, as stated above, the plane of rotation of the spirals and the recession of the spirals as the balloon expands are all oriented relative to a single point, the center of curvature of the balloon's surface. In the real three-dimensional spatially extended universe, all of the galaxies rotate and recede from each other at all possible angles or orientations in three-dimensional space. Yet you cannot have a mathematical property true for one configuration
Five Dimensions of Space-Time 537
of spatial dimensions (two dimensions embedded in three-dimensional space) that is not true for another configuration (three dimensions embedded in a four- dimensional space). Such an inconsistency would destroy the validity of the mathematical model. The general geometric properties are the same for all spaces and embedding manifolds for an n-dimensional geometry embedded in an n+l-dimensional manifold. Riemannian geometry is based upon this simple idea. So, there is a logical necessity that the orientation of all of the galaxies in the expanding universe be relative to a single point or center of curvature of the universe. The natural rotations of galaxies in the universe are all relative to the same point, and the planes of galactic rotation are all tangential to the three- dimensional surface that is our space, which is perpendicular to the real extrinsic radii drawn between them and the center of a physically real curvature of our universe in a fourth spatial dimension.
In this case, it is illogical to speak of the overall curvature of the universe and then deny the reality of the higher embedding dimension because of a human sensory and perceptual bias against the possibility of a fourth spatial dimension. Perhaps local spatial curvature can be explained away as an intrinsic charac- teristic of the space-time continuum, but the concept of intrinsic curvature on a global level is untenable. The notion of an intrinsic radius of curvature for the whole of the universe is illogical. The three-dimensional surface of our universe is closed such that it forms a Riemannian sphere, which would require a higher embedding dimension to account for the closure. Once again, the only way to derive a direction perpendicular to all three dimensions of space simultaneously would be to adopt the geometry of a real four-dimensional embedding space. That fourth dimension or direction is orthogonal to the normal three dimensions of space. So the observed three-dimensional orientation of astronomical bodies directly requires the reality of a fourth spatial dimension. In effect, our three- dimensional universe is expanding into a fourth dimension of space. The simple fundamental notions of relative motion and actual observation, rather than any specific theory, logically require that our space is four-dimensional and thus space-time is five-dimensional.
The Kaluza Confirmation
While these logical proofs may not be completely persuasive or even persuasive enough to sway the attitudes of many within the general scientific community, there are other extenuating factors and circumstances that should be persuasive given the validity of the logical proofs. Also, these three logical proofs should be considered independent of any particular hyper-dimensional theory of space-time. They only indicate that some higher-dimensional theory would give a more correct picture of our physical reality without specifying the exact theory to be used. Yet there is already a specific scientific theory that successfully utilizes a five-dimensional space-time geometry to unify general relativity and electromagnetism: Kaluza's 1921 theory. Kaluza's theory has been largely ignored in spite of its successful derivation of Maxwell's electromagnetic
538 J. E. Beichler
theory from the general relativity of a five-dimensional space-time continuum. Most modern scientists are only familiar with Kaluza's theory through its association with the work of Oskar Klein, altering the theory to the Kaluza-Klein model of space-time. Little is known of Kaluza's original theory under these circumstances. Klein's subsequent adaptation of the theory (Klein 1926a, 1926b, 1927) was an attempt to incorporate quantum theory into the geometry of space-
time. But Kaluza's theory can stand alone on its own merits, without considering 7
Klein s extended version of the theory into the realm of the quantum. Kaluza's original theory had nothing to do with the quantum.
According to Kaluza's original theory, two mathematical conditions are necessary to unify general relativity and electromagnetic theory. All points in the four-dimensional space-time continuum are extended orthogonally into the fifth dimension along what Kaluza called A-lines. The A-lines follow circular paths in the fifth direction back to our space-time continuum, so they are closed with respect to the fifth direction. Kaluza's first condition was to close the system in the fifth direction, but the A-lines were also required to be of equal length, giving the second condition. Kaluza also suggested that the A-lines are infinitesimally short to guarantee that we could not detect the fifth dimension, although this suggestion was not a required mathematical condition. The two conditions were necessary to guarantee the mathematical consequences of add- ing the fifth dimension: Deriving the equations of general relativity by applying a four-transformation while obtaining the equations of electromagnetism by applying a cut-transformation.
If either of the initial conditions were to be changed or relaxed in any manner, it is possible and even likely that the results of the change would render electromagnetism and gravity incompatible if not break Kaluza's link between them altogether. But Kaluza also assumed, without so stating, a third condition of continuity in the fifth direction. Continuity was built into the calculus that Kaluza used to develop his geometrical model. So if continuity is forfeited, then Kaluza's theory could still fall apart. Before any of these conditions is changed in new extensions of Kaluza's theory, it must be shown that any of these changes, or any combination of them, does not alter Kaluza's results, the unifi- cation of gravity and electromagnetism. There are no middle roads to take here; it is all either black or white. If Kaluza's initial conditions were altered in any manner that breaks or weakens the link between gravity and electromagnetism, then the extension would be invalid for having destroyed the very foundations upon which the new theory is based. Yet changes in these conditions have been made to expedite the development of modern theories and thus could have a direct bearing on the validity of the supergravity, superstring and brane theories, all of which depend on extended versions of the Kaluza-Klein model.
When Klein adopted Kaluza's theory in an attempt to quantize the unified field, he did not relax or alter Kaluza's conditions. He merely followed Kaluza's suggestion that the extension in the fifth direction must be extremely small since we cannot detect the extra dimension. Klein equated the periodicity in the
Five Dimensions of Space-Time 539
'closed loop' condition to the quantum of action. At the time, Klein's version of the theory was largely ignored by the scientific community, which was mesmer- ized by other developments in quantum theory such as quantum mechanics and wave mechanics. Unfortunately, Klein could not make his theory work. He rejected his first theory and made two later attempts to rectify the errors in his theory, in 1939 and 1947 (Klein 1939, 1947), but eventually rejected his basic hypothesis and gave his theory up as a lost cause.
Klein's adaptation of Kaluza's theory, the Kaluza-Klein theory, was re- discovered in the 1970s and adopted by supergravity theorists as a method to unify gravity with the latest versions of the quantum field theories and the standard model of elementary particles. The superstring theorists adopted the Kaluza-Klein theory a few years later, but both groups of theorists have expanded the number of dimensions to 10,11or more. However, these scientists have never demonstrated that adding the extra dimensions above Kaluza's original five would remain consistent with the original purpose of Kaluza's theory to unify general relativity and electromagnetism. These theories are untenable and speculative and they will remain so until superstring theorists can demonstrate that adding the extra dimensions does not alter the connection between Einstein and Maxwell's theories that Kaluza's five-dimensional structure established.
On the other hand, any extension of the Kaluza-Klein theory that is super- imposed on a quantum field theory should also suffer from fundamental problems because quantum field theories are by their very nature based upon a discrete model that is at odds with the assumed condition of continuity in Kaluza's original theory. Nor have the superstring theorists explained how the curvature of space-time fits into their theories, even though they take general relativity for granted as the basis of their theories. Any Kaluza or Kaluza-Klein theory that retains the infinitesimal (or Planck) extension of length in the fifth direction must deal with the same fundamental problem. The adoption of a real physical five-dimensional space-time structure, instead of a limited purely mathematical model, implies that curvature is an extrinsic characteristic of our common four-dimensional space-time continuum. However, an infinitesimally extended fifth direction seems to retain the intrinsic nature of the four- dimensional space-time by not explaining how the concept of curvature fits into the model, creating a paradox.
The superstring theories have evolved into the more general 'brane' theories. Several 'brane' theorists have speculated on all types of structures including dual three-dimensional branes, five-dimensional branes, colliding branes and curved branes within a bulk, to mention only a few examples. But it seems that they have yet to demonstrate whether these geometrical structures conform to the basic hypotheses upon which their theories depend, Kaluza's initial derivation of the general relativity and electromagnetic formulas from an extremely limited and conditional five-dimensional mathematical model of a continuous space- time. The Randall-Sundrum theory offers a case in point (Randall & Sundrum,
1999a, 1999b). In the Randall-Sundrum model, two branes are separated
1
540 J. E. Beichler
by a higher-dimensional bulk. One of the branes represents our common three-dimensional curved space, while gravitons traveling from our brane to the other brane are the only direct links between the branes. In one model, the second brane is an infinite distance away, effectively limiting our world to the single brane embedded in the bulk and guaranteeing a weak gravitational force. However, this model is in direct violation of Kaluza's condition that our four- dimensional world is closed with respect to the higher fifth dimension. Brane theories of this type must be required to demonstrate that their models do not disrupt the unification of electromagnetism and gravity in the Kaluza model upon which they are based. Yet no one has ever argued or even explored how such changes would affect the basic underlying principles of the original mathematical unification model developed by Kaluza.
The only theoretical research ever conducted to determine the mathematical consequences of changing Kaluza's theory only considered the relaxation of his initial suggestion of an infinitesimal extension, rather than changing any of his initial conditions. Einstein and Peter G. Bergmann completed this change in 1938 (Einstein & Bergmann, 1938). Einstein, Bergmann and Valentine Bargmann again considered it in 1941 (Einstein et al., 1941). They retained the 'closed loop' and 'equal length' conditions and remained within a continuous mathematical model of five-dimensional space-time, but allowed for the possibility of macroscopically extended lengths of the A-lines. Under these conditions, they were still able to derive Maxwell's formulas and thus maintain Kaluza's unification. But Einstein eventually gave up this avenue of research toward his goal of a unified field theory because he could not justify the notion of a normal sized fifth dimension that could not be sensed or detected in any manner. Even so, Einstein listed the five-dimensional approach as one of three possibilities to develop a unified field theory in his last published book before he died (Einstein, 1956). He stipulated that the five-dimensional hypothesis would only be tenable if it could be explained why the fifth dimension cannot be detected.
Conclusion
These three logical proofs, in themselves, will not immediately change the course of science. Science has ignored the implied existence of a real fourth spatial dimension for more than a century, so it will not be so easily compelled to accept it now. However, it is not just the three logical proofs that indicate the existence of a fourth spatial dimension to our universe. It is a preponderance of the evidence that will soon force science to accept the four-dimensional reality of space. The value of these three logical proofs will only become evident over [he lvnger term of scientific advances.
While logically proving the existence of a fourth dimension to space, these proofs also imply the geometric structure of that dimension relative to the other three. First of all, the fourth dimension of space would be different, like time, from the other three common dimensions of space. Otherwise, four- dimensionality would adversely affect the inverse square law and thus conflict
Five Dimensions of Space-Time 541
with normally accepted physical laws. Instead, the fourth dimension should be characterized by changing magnetic potential except inside elementary particles where the space curvature corresponding to matter would assume the shape of an exponential curve. Both of these characteristics imply that the total extension of space in the fourth direction cannot be infinitesimally small or even microscopic as in Klein's version of Kaluza's theory. The exponentially shaped singularity at the center of elementary particles such as protons would require a non- infinitesimal extension of space in the higher dimension.
In other words, if the magnetic potential and Yukawa potential exist in nature as described, then the fourth dimension of space, or the fifth dimension of space- time, cannot be infinitesimally extended. Both logical arguments imply that the extra higher dimension is macroscopically extended as Einstein, Bergmann and Bargmann demonstrated. It is provident that Kaluza's theory has already been developed as the basis for a new unification, but the macroscopic extension in the fourth direction of space means that the present unification theories that are based upon Kaluza's suggestion and Kaluza-Klein models are not valid. The path of unification that science must follow is the path that physics and nature leads us down, not the path that some scientists decide that nature must logically follow, no matter how 'beautiful' or aesthetically pleasing those theories might be. The path that nature has decided for science is the one that leads to the four- dimensionality of space (the Clifford model) and the five-dimensionality of the space-time continuum (the Einstein-Kaluza model).
Much of the early work on five-dimensional space was in an attempt to develop a theory that unifies the four fundamental interactions in nature: strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity and electromagnetism. German mathematician Theodor Kaluza and Swedish physicist Oskar Klein independently developed the Kaluza–Klein theory in 1921, which used the fifth dimension to unify gravity with electromagnetic force. Although their approaches were later found to be at least partially inaccurate, the concept provided a basis for further research over the past century.
Space-time--time couples Kaluza's five-dimensional geometry with Weyl's conformal space-time geometry to produce an extension that goes beyond what either of those theories can achieve by itself. Kaluza's ``cylinder condition'' is replaced by an ``exponential expansion constraint'' that causes translations along the secondary time dimension to induce both the electromagnetic gauge transformations found in the Kaluza and the Weyl theories and the metrical gauge transformations unique to the Weyl theory, related as Weyl had postulated. A space-time--time geodesic describes a test particle whose rest mass, space-time momentum, and electric charge q, all defined kinematically, evolve in accord with definite dynamical laws. Its motion is governed by four apparent forces: the Einstein gravitational force, the Lorentz electromagnetic force, a force proportional to the electromagnetic potential, and a force proportional to a scalar field's gradient d(ln phi). The test particles exhibit quantum behavior: (1) they appear and disappear in full-blown motion at definite events; (2) all that share an event E of appearance or disappearance do so with the same charge magnitude |q| = phi(E); (3) conservation of space-time--time momentum at such an event entails conservation of electric charge in addition to conservation of space-time momentum, among the participating particles; (4) at such events the d(ln phi) force infinitely dominates the other three --- this strongly biases the appearance and disappearance events to be concentrated deep in the discretely spaced potential wells of ln phi, and sparse elsewhere.
To explain why this dimension would not be directly observable, Klein suggested that the fifth dimension would be rolled up into a tiny, compact loop on the order of 10-33 centimeters. Under his reasoning, he envisioned light as a disturbance caused by rippling in the higher dimension just beyond human perception, similar to how fish in a pond can only see shadows of ripples across the surface of the water caused by raindrops.[2] While not detectable, it would indirectly imply a connection between seemingly unrelated forces. The Kaluza–Klein theory experienced a revival in the 1970s due to the emergence of superstring theory and supergravity: the concept that reality is composed of vibrating strands of energy, a postulate only mathematically viable in ten dimensions or more. Superstring theory then evolved into a more generalized approach known as M-theory. M-theory suggested a potentially observable extra dimension in addition to the ten essential dimensions which would allow for the existence of superstrings. The other 10 dimensions are compacted, or "rolled up", to a size below the subatomic level. The Kaluza–Klein theory today is seen as essentially a gauge theory, with the gauge being the circle group.
The fifth dimension is difficult to directly observe, though the Large Hadron Collider provides an opportunity to record indirect evidence of its existence. Physicists theorize that collisions of subatomic particles in turn produce new particles as a result of the collision, including a graviton that escapes from the fourth dimension, or brane, leaking off into a five-dimensional bulk. M-theory would explain the weakness of gravity relative to the other fundamental forces of nature, as can be seen, for example, when using a magnet to lift a pin off a table — the magnet is able to overcome the gravitational pull of the entire earth with ease.
Mathematical approaches were developed in the early 20th century that viewed the fifth dimension as a theoretical construct. These theories make reference to Hilbert space, a concept that postulates an infinite number of mathematical dimensions to allow for a limitless number of quantum states. Einstein, Bergmann and Bargmann later tried to extend the four-dimensional spacetime of general relativity into an extra physical dimension to incorporate electromagnetism, though they were unsuccessful.[1] In their 1938 paper, Einstein and Bergmann were among the first to introduce the modern viewpoint that a four-dimensional theory, which coincides with Einstein-Maxwell theory at long distances, is derived from a five-dimensional theory with complete symmetry in all five dimensions. They suggested that electromagnetism resulted from a gravitational field that is “polarized” in the fifth dimension.
www.scientificexploration.org/docs/21/jse_21_3_beichler.pdf
The main novelty of Einstein and Bergmann was to seriously consider the fifth dimension as a physical entity, rather than an excuse to combine the metric tensor and electromagnetic potential. But they then reneged, modifying the theory to break its five-dimensional symmetry. Their reasoning, as suggested by Edward Witten, was that the more symmetric version of the theory predicted the existence of a new long range field, one that was both massless and scalar, which would have required a fundamental modification to Einstein's theory of general relativity. Minkowski space and Maxwell's equations in vacuum can be embedded in a five-dimensional Riemann curvature tensor.
In 1993, the physicist Gerard 't Hooft put forward the holographic principle, which explains that the information about an extra dimension is visible as a curvature in a spacetime with one fewer dimension. For example, holograms are three-dimensional pictures placed on a two-dimensional surface, which gives the image a curvature when the observer moves. Similarly, in general relativity, the fourth dimension is manifested in observable three dimensions as the curvature path of a moving infinitesimal (test) particle. 'T Hooft has speculated that the fifth dimension is really the spacetime fabric.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-dimens
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
When the 4th Fighter Group was formed at RAF Debden, UK in September 1942, it already had an impressive pedigree: its three squadrons were formed from the famous "Eagle Squadrons." The Eagle Squadrons were formerly RAF units made up of American volunteers, who joined before Pearl Harbor. (A common myth is that the Eagles fought in the Battle of Britain; they did not get into service until after the Battle was over, though a handful of Americans did fly in the Battle with other RAF squadrons.) This would give the 4th a leg-up on other 8th Air Force fighter squadrons due to their experience--though it would not be until the 4th was equipped with P-51 Mustangs in early 1944 that the unit truly hit its stride.
By the end of the war, the 4th had scored the most combined victories by a USAAF unit in Europe--1052 kills. The "characters" of the 4th included such famous names as Dominic Gentile, John Godfrey, Duane Beeson, and Ralph "Kidd" Hofer. Today, the 4th FG is known as the 4th Fighter Wing, flying F-15E Strike Eagles at Seymour-Johnson AFB, North Carolina.
Because the 4th was drawn from the Eagle Squadrons, it adopted a "fighting eagle" as its mascot--a belligerent bird with boxing gloves. This remains the wing's mascot to this day. This P-51D on display at the Fargo Air Museum in North Dakota carries the 4th's eagle on the fuselage.
Philadelphia, PA, est. 1682; pop. 1,567,442 (metro 6MM)
• built in 1740 • earliest known photograph is dated 1859 — bldg. was then 119 yrs. old [photo] • Georgian-Colonial trinity aka "bandbox" design • typically, trinity houses had 1 room per floor & were built facing each other in rows of 4 identical bldgs. • in addition to the room on each floor, this house had a walkable attic room & a cellar
• served as both business & residence for shopkeepers & artisans for over 150 yrs. • among the occupants in the 18th c. were a shoemaker, apothecary & an upholsterer named Betsy Ross, who is said to have sewn the first American flag in this building • estimates of when & how long she lived here have her arriving in 1773 at the earliest & departing as late as 1791
• over time the house changed in appearance [photos] as neighborhood houses were razed & replaced w/larger commercial buildings —Where's Betsy
Betsy Ross
• Elizabeth "Betsy" Griscom (1752-1836) was a fourth-generation American • daughter of Samuel Griscom (1717-1793) & Rebecca James (c. 1730-1793) • the 8th of their 17 children • great granddaughter of Andrew Griscom (c. 1654-1694), a Quaker carpenter who migrated from England to New Jersey in 1680, 1 yr. before William Penn founded Philadelphia
"She often laughed at the curious fact that she was born on the first day of the week, the first day of the month, the first day of the year, and the first year of the 'new style' [which was] the dividing line between the old way of measuring the years time and the new method under the [Gregorian calendar… She was also] the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter." —C.B. Satterthwaite, great grandson, The Des Moines Register, 07 Jan, 1906
• at age 3 Betsy's family moved to a large home at 4th & Arch Sts. • went to a Friends (Quaker) public school • 8 of her siblings died before adulthood • lost her mother, father & sister, Deborah, to the 1793 yellow fever epidemic
• upon completion of her schooling at age 12, her father apprenticed her to upholsterer John Webster • fell in love with fellow apprentice John Ross (1752-1773), son of an Episcopal asst. rector at Christ Church • defying her parents, in 1773 Betsy, age 21, eloped w/John
• Betsy's sister Sarah & her husband Capt. Wm. Donaldson rowed the couple across the Delaware River, heading 5 miles downstream to Gloucestertown, NJ • they were married at family friend William Hugg Jr.'s tavern & inn, known locally as Hugg's …more: The New Jersey Hugg Line
• because her marriage to a non-Quaker was considered an act of "disorderly and undutiful conduct," Betsy was split from her family & read out of meeting, i.e., disowned by her Quaker community • became a member of Christ Church • the Ross's pew No. 12 [photo] was adjacent to Martha & George Washington's No. 56 & not far from Deborah & Benjamin Franklin's No. 70
• the newlyweds — now trained upholsterers — opened their own business • c. 1773 they rented a house, probably at what is today 239 Arch St. although the exact site is still debated by historians • most records point to this house or one next door at No. 241, long since razed
"The identity of the location was always preserved in the family, which agrees with the records in the old Philadelphia directories… from 1785, the first published, to the removal of Betsy Ross and her husband from 239 Arch Street, in 1791" —Betsy Ross grandson George Canby, New York Times, 05 July, 1908
• Benjamin Franklin & Benjamin Chew were among the Rosses' customers • business slowed during the Revolutionary War as fabric was in short supply • John Ross joined the Pennsylvania militia • mid-Jan., 1776, he was gravely wounded by a powder explosion at a Delaware River ammunition cache, apparently while standing guard • Betsy nursed him in their home, but he died within days
• in June, 1777, Betsy married girlhood suitor Joseph Ashburn, a privateer who commanded the sailing sloop Swallow • the couple had 2 daughters • the 1st, Aucilla ("Zillah"), died in infancy
• British troops entered Philadelphia on 26 Sep., 1777 after their victory at the Battle of Brandywine • the Ashburn home was forcibly shared with British occupation soldiers as the Continental Army suffered through the killing winter at Valley Forge • the British soldiers nicknamed Betsy "Little Rebel" —US History•org
• Betsy was pregnant with Elizabeth ("Eliza") when Joseph accepted a job offer & shipped out as first mate on the 6-gun brigantine, Patty • returned to be present for the Feb., 1781 birth of their 2nd daughter
• Joseph became master of the 18-gun Lion & took her to sea late in the summer of 1781 • on 31 Aug., his ship was captured off the coast of France by a 44-gun British frigate, the HMS Prudente
• prior to March, 1782, the British refused to designate captured rebels as prisoners of war, thus the captives from the Lion were viewed as traitors, charged with high treason & committed to Plymouth, England's Mill Prison [images] • while incarcerated, Ashburn met fellow prisoner John Claypoole, a longtime friend of the Ross family
• Claypoole, a Continental Army vet, had been wounded at Germantown & consequently discharged • in 1781 he signed on to man the 18-gun Pennsylvania privateer Chevalier de la Luzerne & was captured in April • in the spring of 1782 Ashburn died in prison, leaving Betsy a 2-time war widow at age 30 —Betsy Ross and the Making of America
"In the Night of the 3d of March Mr Joseph Ashburn departed this life after an illness of about a week which he bore with amazing fortitude & resignation" —John Claypoole, Mill Prison
"The story goes that Ashburn, while in Mill Prison, often talked with John Claypoole about his wife, Betty*, and at his death sent farewell messages by him to her. Claypoole, on his arrival in Philadelphia, hastened to deliver these messages, and inside of eight months he married her." —John Claypoole's Memorandum-Book *Betsy is referred to as "Betty" in some 18th, 19th & early 20th c. books & media
• in 1782 Claypoole returned to Philadelphia, called on Betsy & married her the following year • gave up his seafaring career to join her at the Arch St. upholstery shop • though renamed "John Claypoole, upholsterer," to customers the shop remained Betsy's place • the couple had 5 daughters: Clarissa, Susanna, Rachel, Jane & Harriet, who died at 9 months • sometime after Susanna's birth in 1786, the Claypooles moved from Arch St. to a larger house on 2nd
• Betsy returned to her Quaker roots, albeit with the Free (Fighting) Quakers, a group exiled from the main Quaker community when their support for the Revolution was ruled a violation of the faith's peace testimony • the couple became members c. 1785 • image: Betsy Claypoole signature taken from the Meeting House roster
• it is widely believed that when the Free Quaker Meeting House shut down in 1834, it was its last attending members — Elizabeth Claypoole & Samuel Wetherill — who closed the doors
• in 1817, after a long illness, John Claypoole died • Betsy never remarried • after retiring, she moved to the home of her daughter, Susanna • she died on 30 Jan, 1836, age 84
The American Flags
"Flags were a rare sight on land in the British North American colonies," —Wooden Teachout, Capture the Flag: A Political History of American Patriotism
• American flags were seldom used in parades or displayed by private citizens • colors were flown mainly in battle, over government institutions & on ships, where they were essential to identifying other vessels & determining friend or foe
• this changed after America's 1876 Centennial Exposition, which explains why "flags made prior to the Civil War are extremely rare, and flags made before 1820 are practically nonexistent." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, Stars and Stripes, Early American Life, Aug. 2011
• with the onset of the Revolutionary War, a flag for the "United Colonies" was created without the sanction of the Continental Congress • this 1775 flag was known as the Continental Colors, aka Grand Union, Congress Flag, Cambridge Flag
• on 2 Dec., 1775, the 1st Continental Colors flag was hand sewn by milliner Margaret Manny, who had begun making flags & ensigns the previous year
"Everyone knows about Betsy Ross, why do we know nothing about Margaret Manny? Probably for no better reason than that she had fewer articulate friends and relatives to build a story around her." —historian Barbara Tuchman, The First Salute
• the Continental Colors had 13 alternating red & white stripes with the British Union crosses in the canton • was created to replace the use of individual colony flags • prior to the Declaration of Independence, it was probably the most used unofficial flag of the revolution • American Flag Timeline
• the inclusion of the British Jack in the design signals that this flag was intended not for a civil war of secession, but rather a crusade to secure the American colonists' rights as Englishman • prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Gen. George Washington, still hoping for reconciliation with Mother England, would occasionally toast the King —The Forgotten Flag of the American Revolution and What It Means
• on 3 Dec, 1775, the new flag was raised by 1st Lt. John Paul Jones (1747-1792) on the 30-gun Continental Navy frigate USS Alfred [painting], the 1st national ensign to fly on an American fighting vessel —Naval History Blog
• the flag later flew over the signing of the Declaration of Independence & according to tradition (contested by some scholars), it was raised on a ship's mast atop Charlestown's Prospect Hill [painting] during Washington's 1 Jan., 1776 siege of Boston
• spotting the hybrid British/American flag for the first time, confused British observers took it as a signal of submission: “By this time, I presume, they begin to think it strange that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines,” Washington wrote • his psychological weaponry also included an early form of war propaganda
• absent a single government-mandated flag design, a variety of others were used • within a yr. after Prospect hill, the Continental Colors' Union Jack was replaced by a blue field w/13 white stars in various arrangements, e.g., rows, or possibly a circle?
• on 14 June, 1777, now celebrated as Flag Day, the American Flag was born by resolution of the Continental Congress, the country’s 1st flag law • during the Revolutionary period that followed, the stars on most American flags were arranged in rows of 4-5-4 with the number of points on most stars ranging from 4 to 8 • compared to the Continental Colors, the rows of stars made it easier to identify the flag/ship/nationality at sea —The 13 Stars & Stripes
The Story
• about a year before the Flag Resolution of 1777 Betsy Ross, 5-months a widow & struggling to make a ends meet, is said to have received a visit from a Continental Congress flag committee (apparently a secret one as there are no records of its existence)
• according to the well known Betsy Ross story, in late May of 1776 (but possibly 1777) 3 heroes of the revolution — George Ross, the uncle of Betsy's late husband, financier/slave trader Robert Morris & Betsy's pew neighbor Gen. George Washington [portraits] — called on her to discuss a flag for the new nation
• Rachel Fletcher (Betsy's daughter) recalled that "…she was previously well acquainted with Washington, and that he had often been in her house in friendly visits, as well as on business. That she had embroidered ruffles for his shirt bosoms and cuffs, and that it was partly owing to his friendship for her that she was chosen to make the flag." —Rachel's affidavit
• as told by Betsy, Gen. Washington, then head of the Continental Army, showed her a rough design of a flag with 6-pointed stars • she offered suggestions for modifications & stated a preference for 5-pointed stars • when her visitors expressed concern over the difficulty of producing them, she replied, "Nothing easier," which she then proved by cutting a 5-pointed star in a single snip • video: Make a perfect star with ONE cut! (1:15) • Two Conundrums Concerning the Betsy Ross Five-Pointed Star
• changes approved, Washington redrew the flag w/a pencil • Betsy's friend & collaborator William Barrett, a Cherry St. ornamental painter created a water color copy of the drawing for her to work from • 1-2 other seamstresses sewed alternate designs for the committee, but only Betsy's was approved & used
• what is known today as the "Betsy Ross flag" has 13 red & white stripes & a ring of 13, white 5-pointed stars • though the design may have been in use by 1777, vexillologists believe that between 1777-1795, (the yrs. the official flag had 13 stars) most flags displayed stars in rows, which are easier to produce than a circle
• None of the surviving flags from the 18th century exhibit the Betsy Ross pattern • however a few examples are depicted in the art of the era (although period art is notoriously unreliable for flag research)
• the flag depicted in Chas. Willson Peale's 1779 George Washington at the Battle of Princeton is generally considered credible & "may be the only evidence in a painting… that suggests that a circle-pattern flag may have existed in colonial times… Otherwise, you won't see an American flag with a perfect circle of stars made before the 1890s." —Jeff R. Bridgeman, loc. cit.13 Stars in the Betsy Ross Pattern • historically significant the American flags [images]
• though known as an upholsterer, there is no doubt that Betsy made flags, having sewn pennants & ensigns for the Pennsylvania State Navy Board (as did Margaret Manning & Rebecca Young, whose daughter Mary Pickersgill would go on to sew the enormous flag that inspired the U.S. National Anthem, Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner)
• a month before Congress passed the Flag Resolution, Betsy was paid 14 pounds, 12 shillings, 2 pence (~$2,300 in 2017 USD) for what must have been a prodigious quantity of Pennsylvania Navy flags • there is no hard evidence that any of these were American flags • "...today we are reasonably convinced that Betsy’s flag was a naval flag, with a simple ‘in line’ arrangement of the stars…" —John B. Harker, Historian & Betsy Ross descendent
• Betsy (Elizabeth Claypool) was now in the business of producing flags & ensigns for the federal govt. • throughout the Jefferson & Madison admins. the skilled needlewoman made flags as large as 18' x 24' for American military installations, with demand peaking during the War of 1812
• for the rest of her life she — in her words — "never knew what it was to want employment" • her oldest daughter, Clarissa Sidney Wilson (1785-1864) [portrait], succeeded her, supplying arsenals, navy yards & the mercantile marine with flags for years —Betsy Ross•org
"In the last years of her life, Ross was neither more nor less important than other aging women who had lived through the Revolution. That she became famous while others were forgotten exposes the interlocking power of family history, local memory, and national politics." —How Betsy Ross Became Famous by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Historian
The Legend
"…at a time of great historic import such as that time when the Declaration was signed, people have no leisure to think about the minor events which are taking place. Thus, during the revolution no one thought of Betsy Ross as a national heroine, and it was not, in fact until 1870 that William J. Canby (1825-1890) first brought the story of how the first flag was made into general prominence." —Dr. Lloyd Balderston, great-grandson of Betsy Ross, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3 Jul, 1908
• there is no record of the the Betsy Ross story prior to 1870 • that year — 34 years after her death — Betsy's 45 yr. old grandson, a title processor named William Jackson Canby, presented a paper titled The History of the Flag of the United States to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania • the document, accompanied by sworn affidavits, was an oral history passed on by descendants of Betsy Ross, including Canby himself who was 11 yrs. old when she died • …more: The Evolution of the American Flag by (Betsy Ross descendants) George Canby (1829-1907), Lloyd Balderston, Ph.D (1863-1933)
• the story was largely ignored until it was mentioned in historian George Henry Preble's 1872 book Our Flag & appeared in the July, 1873 Harper's Monthly [illustration] • with Civil War wounds slowly healing & the 1876 centennial celebration fast approaching, Betsy Ross & the flag entered American consciousness • in the 1880's her story began to appear in textbooks • by the mid 1890s it was often illustrated by an engraving of The Birth of Our Nation’s Flag, an 1893 painting by Charles H. Weisgerber (1856-1932)
• oral tradition has it that in 1892 Weisgerber, a 36 yr. old aspiring artist, was bent on winning a forthcoming art competition • walking along Arch St., he noticed a plaque at No. 239 which identified the bldg. as the site where Betsy Ross sewed the 1st American flag
• inspired, Weisgerber envisioned a scene of Betsy & the 1st flag set in her shop • to fill in details of the story, characters & setting, he drew on period portraits, the testimony of living descendants & the 22 yr. old Canby paper
• with no authentic image of Betsy in existence (according to her relatives), Weisgerber painted a composite taken from images of 4 of her daughters & a granddaughter who was said to closely resemble her • the resulting portrait was critiqued by relatives who had known her & modified accordingly • Weisgerber then created a massive 9' x 12' painting • portrayed the young Widow Ross, saintly matriarch of a new nation, as she presents the 1st American flag to 3 revered American patriarchs
• "the image was [said] …by Mrs. Ross' grandson, George Canby, to be the only correct likeness of [her]" — he was 7 yrs. old when Betsy Ross died —The Times (Philadelphia) 15 Jun 1893
• the flag depicted in the painting — with no evidence to support the authenticity of its design — has since been known as the "Betsy Ross flag," the standard for celebrating the U.S.A.'s birthday each 4th of July
The Apotheosis
• Weisgerber's painting won the $1,000 prize & in 1893 was showcased in the Pennsylvania Building at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition • seen by millions of visitors • contributed to the nascent reverence for Betsy Ross & the flag as sacred symbols of the emerging, quasi-religious American civil religion • politicians, patriotic societies & public sentiment propelled the flag's transformation into an object of veneration, its role expanding well beyond the customary military & govt. functions
On Flag Day, 1894, the Colonial Dames gathered 500 schoolchildren to honor “the adoption by Congress . . . of the flag made by Betsy Ross from the design submitted to her by Gen. Washington” • by 1895, 10 states had laws requiring public schools to display the flag on all school days — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, loc. cit.
• in 1897 the City of New York bought thousands of lithographs of Weisgerber’s painting for its public schools: “It is thought that the representation which is declared historically correct, together with such lectures as the teachers may deliver, will add much to the pupil’s knowledge and keep alive a proper reverence for the country’s emblem.” —New York Times, 14 Feb, 1897
• in 1885, NYC school principal George T. Balch (1821-1908), a vet. of the Indian & Civil Wars, wrote Salute to the Flag, the U.S.A.'s first pledge of allegiance
"I give my hand and my heart to my country — one nation, one language, one flag."
• the heightened patriotism of the era inspired a movement to organize schoolyard flag raising ceremonies • the American Flag Assn. was founded in 1897 for the "fostering of public sentiment in favor of honoring the flag in our country and preserving it from desecration" • Natl. Flag Day was proclaimed in 1917
• Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy (1855-1931), who worked in the premium dept. of The Youth's Companion magazine, wrote a new U.S. Pledge of Allegiance (1892) for his employer • created as part of the magazine's campaign to sell American flags to public schools • goal was a flag in every classroom • 25,000 schools acquired flags the 1st yr. • though priced "at cost," banner sales proved profitable
• Bellamy also choreographed a salute — the "Bellamy Salute" — to accompany the pledge • because of its similarity to the Nazi heil it was replaced by a right-hand-over-heart gesture during World War II • another Youth's Companion employee, James Upham, headed a flag-centric project designed to engage public schools in the commemoration of the U.S.A.'s 1st Columbus Day (Oct. 1892)
The Verdict
• for nearly a century-and-a-half, historians have debated the available evidence in an attempt to prove that Betsy Ross either did or did not produce the 1st American flag: "There’s no good historical evidence that she did. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t. There’s simply a lack of documentation. Most historians believe the story is apocryphal." —Marc Leepson, author of Flag: An American Biography, The Truth About Betsy Ross
• the identity of the woman who sewed America's 1st flag may never be certain, but there is good reason to believe that its designer may have been Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) • the NJ representative to the Continental Congress & signer of the Declaration of Independence is the only person entered into the Congressional record for designing the 1st American flag
• it has been speculated that on 14 June, 1777, it was Hopkinson who replaced the British crosses in the Continental Colors with white stars on a blue field • no original sketch of a Hopkinson flag exists, but surviving rough sketches including his design for the Great Seal of the U.S. incorporate elements of 2 of his flag designs —Wikipedia
On 25 May, 1780, Hopkinson wrote to the Continental Board, requesting "a Quarter Cask of the public Wine" as payment for several itemized "patriotic designs" he had completed, most notably, "the flag of the United States of America" • submitted another bill on 24 June for "drawings and devices," including "the Naval Flag of the United States"
• the Treasury Board rejected his request for payment because he "was not the only person consulted on those exhibitions of Fancy" & furthermore was not entitled to compensation as he was already on the government payroll —Did Francis Hopkinson Design Two Flags?, Earl P. Williams, Jr.
• Hopkinson is also considered America's 1st poet-composer • written at age 21, his song My Days have been so Wondrous Free (1759) is regarded as the earliest surviving American secular composition [listen] —UPen•edu
Saving Betsy's House
• by 1859, 239 Arch St. was occupied by the family of German immigrant (Carl) Philip Mund (1822-1883), who operated a tailor's shop on the 1st floor • the landlord, after collecting rent for the first year, never returned • over the succeeding rent-free decades, the Munds operated a variety of businesses in their retail space
• after Canby's 1870 speech identified the location of Betsy Ross's house as Arch between 2nd & 3rd, the Munds — occupants of the block's last standing colonial house — posted a sign: "First Flag of the US Made in this House" • in 1876, as visitors poured into the city for the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the Munds ran an ad for their latest 1st floor business: "Original Flag House, Lager, Wine and Liquors. This is the house where the first United States flag was made by Mrs. John Ross." —Historic Philadelphia
• after Philip Mund died his wife Amelia, who objected to running a saloon, converted the space into a cigar store & candy shop which operated until 1892 — her son Charles then devoted the space to a museum/souvenir shop [photo] —The Betsy Ross House Facts, Myths, and Pictures by G.A. Anderson
• c. 1897 citizens led by Charles Weisgerber organized the American Flag Soc. & Betsy Ross Memorial Assn. • goal was to rescue the house from imminent demolition • intended to purchase it from Charles Mund, restore it to its 18th-c. appearance, preserve the memory of Betsy Ross & honor the American flag
• to raise the funds for purchasing the Betsy Ross "American Flag House," the Association devised a rudimentary multi-level marketing strategy • sold lifetime memberships for 10 cents • each member was encouraged to recruit others & form a group of 30; each group founder received a chromolithographograph of Weisgerber's painting • over 2 million monochrome certificates were sold at ten cents each • the colorful chromoliths were available at addl. cost (frame not included) —Enjoying Philadelphia
• the Association leased the house in 1898, purchased it in 1903 • Weisgerber & his family moved in • lived upstairs, kept the museum & a souvenir shop on the 1st floor • in 1902 they named their newborn son Charles Vexil Domus, Latin for "flag house" [photo] • he would later replace his parents as custodian of the house —G.A. Anderson, loc. cit.
• by 1936 the house was on the verge of ruin • in 1937 Philadelphia Mayor Davis Wilson proposed a restoration by WPA workers • this provoked "a storm of protest" from critics
• Pennsylvania Historical Soc. members wrote off the Betsy Ross story as "hokum" and "the bunk" • the protests from scholars & historians sparked an unwinnable faith vs. reason culture war with patriotic organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution & the Patriotic Order Sons of America
• amid the controversy, Philadelphia radio manufacturer & philanthropist A. Atwater Kent (1873-1949) offered to pay up to $25K for the restoration • Historical architect, Richardson Brognard Okie (1875-1945) won the commission
• the design for the restoration was derived from evidence & conjecture • goal was to return the bldg. to its c. 1777 appearance • surviving architectural elements were preserved when possible • materials salvaged from demolished colonial era homes were also used • in 1941, the Association gave the property to the city • the house now stands as one of Philadelphia's most popular tourist attractions
Postscript
• in 1929 Hugg's tavern, where Betsy Griscom defied family & church to marry John Ross, was demolished to make way for the Proprietor's Park swimming pool, which no longer exists • the Revolutionary War-era Hugg-Harrison-Glover House (1764), built on property owned by the Hugg family as early as 1683, was razed in the face of fervent opposition, March, 2017 —Facebook
• 178 yrs. after Betsy's wedding & just 5 blocks from where Hugg's once stood, another American legend was born at the Twin Bar [photo] when Bill Haley (and the Saddlemen) performed there in the early 1950s [poster] • in 1952 Haley's band laid down a cover of Rock the Joint [listen], an historic 1949 recording by Jimmy Preston & His Prestonians [listen] • each of these recordings has been cited as a candidate for the title of first rock 'n' roll song • Gloucester City thus became one of several U.S. sites that claims the title "Cradle of Rock 'n Roll"
Charles H. Weisgerber died in 1932 • his magnum opus, The Birth of the American Flag lay rolled up & hidden away in a barn loft & later in the back of a South Jersey dye-making workshop • his grandson Stuart (son of Vexil Domus) found it — still rolled up — in his mother's basement • its poor condition precluded exhibition: in the 50s, hanging in the old State Museum at Harrisburg, it had been vandalized, then incurred additional damage from repeated unrolling
• Weisgerber sought a Philadelphia home for the massive work but was unsuccessful • after a $40K restoration in 2002 the painting, it's appraised market value just $50K, returned to the State Museum at Harrisburg
• in 1976 the remains of Betsy Ross & 3rd husband John Claypoole were moved from Mount Moriah cemetery, Yeadon, PA, to the garden on the west side of the Betsy Ross House courtyard
The Mongol horse (Mongolian Адуу, aduu: "horse" or mori; or as a herd, ado, or in Northern Khalka, tabun is the native horse breed of Mongolia. The breed is purported to be largely unchanged since the time of Genghis Khan. Nomads living in the traditional Mongol fashion still hold more than 3 million animals, which outnumber the country's human population. Despite their small size, they are horses, not ponies.
In Mongolia, the horses live outdoors all year at 30 °C (86 °F) in summer down to −40 °C (−40 °F) in winter, and search for food on their own. The mare's milk is processed into the national beverage airag, and some animals are slaughtered for meat. Other than that, they serve as riding animals, both for the daily work of the nomads and in horse racing.
Mongol horses are of a stocky build, with relatively short but strong legs and a large head. They weigh about 600 lbs. and range in size from 12 to 14 hands (48 to 56 inches, 122 to 142 cm) high and have a cannon bone external circumference of about 8 inches (200 mm). They have a slight resemblance to Przewalski's horse and were once believed to have originated from that subspecies. However, that theory was disproven in 2011. The Przewalski's horse has been conclusively shown not to be an ancestor of any domestic horse, even though the two can hybridize and produce fertile offspring. Of the caballine equines, E. ferus, it is E. ferus ferus, also known as the European wild horse or "tarpan" that shares ancestry with the modern domestic horse.
The mane and tail are very long, and the strands are often used for braiding ropes; the tail hair can be used for violin bows. Mongolian horses have great stamina: although they have small bodies, they can gallop for 10 km without a break. Because the horses are allowed to live much the same as wild horses, they require little in the way of hoof care. The hooves are left untrimmed and unshod and farriers are basically nonexistent. Despite the lack of attention, Mongol horses have hard, strong hooves and seldom experience foot problems. Sometimes, but not always, horses will be branded. Mongol horses are also very strong. When pulling a cart, a team of four Mongol horses can draw a load of 4400 lbs for 50–60 km a day.
Horse from different regions of Mongolia are considered to have different traits. Desert horses are said to have larger feet than average ("like camel's feet"). Mountain horses are short and particularly strong. Steppe horses are the tallest, fastest variety of Mongol horse. Specifically, the eastern Khentii Province and Sükhbaatar Province steppe provinces are widely considered to produce the fastest horses in the country. Darkhad horses are known for their strength. A Darkhad horse weighing only 250 kg. can carry a load of 300 kg—the equivalent of carrying another horse on its back. On a broader level, some Mongolian provinces are considered to be more suitable for horse rearing than others. The eastern steppe provinces are informally known as the "horse provinces" because of their suitability for horse breeding, while the northern mountain provinces are considered "cow provinces," though horses are reared there as well.
A wide variety of horse colorations exists. Different regions of Mongolia favor different colors of horses and breed accordingly. The Darkhad ethnic group prefers white horses, while the Nyamgavaa prefer dun, bay or black horses and shun white colored animals.[6] Some horses are bred for the preferences of foreign markets. Elizabeth Kendall, travelling through southern Mongolia in 1911, wrote, "I was struck by the number of white and grey ponies, and was told that horses are bred chiefly for the market in China, and this is the Chinese preference." She also observed that the northern Mongolian herds near Tuerin seemed to consist mainly of black and chestnut horses.
--- Wikipedia
Winter was pretty much nonexistent here until this latest round of truly cold weather.Finally some solitary snowflakes instead of large aggregate flakes.
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.
Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.
Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals
Well, actually, it was shining brightly in the morning, and the frost was ...nonexistent
Happy Christmas to you all :)
Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (97 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (9.7 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres (377.98 sq mi; 97,895.08 ha; 978.95 km2) of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.
Partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a national monument on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area's colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths; however, it was not until 1950 that the area officially opened to the public. Road access was improved in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.
The majority of the nearly 100 mi (160 km) long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. Locally, reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, just as ocean reefs are barriers to sea travel.
Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.
The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.
The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.
The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert. A scenic drive shows park visitors some highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead into the equally scenic backcountry.
Fremont-culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of maize and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area). In the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned.
Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic-speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.
In 1872 Almon H. Thompson, a geographer attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology. None of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent.
Following the American Civil War, officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City sought to establish missions in the remotest niches of the Intermountain West. In 1866, a quasi-military expedition of Mormons in pursuit of natives penetrated the high valleys to the west. In the 1870s, settlers moved into these valleys, eventually establishing Loa, Fremont, Lyman, Bicknell, and Torrey.
Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and established Junction (later renamed Fruita), Caineville, and Aldridge. Fruita prospered, Caineville barely survived, and Aldridge died. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone, and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.
By 1920 no more than ten families at one time were sustained by the fertile flood plain of the Fremont River and the land changed ownership over the years. The area remained isolated. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime are still in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.
Local Ephraim Portman Pectol organized a "booster club" in Torrey in 1921. Pectol pressed a promotional campaign, furnishing stories to be sent to periodicals and newspapers. In his efforts, he was increasingly aided by his brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman, who was the Wayne County High School principal. In 1924, Hickman extended community involvement in the promotional effort by organizing a Wayne County-wide Wayne Wonderland Club. That same year, Hickman was elected to the Utah State Legislature.
In 1933, Pectol was elected to the presidency of the Associated Civics Club of Southern Utah, successor to the Wayne Wonderland Club. The club raised U.S. $150 (equivalent to $3,391 in 2022) to interest a Salt Lake City photographer in taking a series of promotional photographs. For several years, the photographer, J. E. Broaddus, traveled and lectured on "Wayne Wonderland".
In 1933, Pectol was elected to the legislature and almost immediately contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked for the creation of "Wayne Wonderland National Monument" out of the federal lands comprising the bulk of the Capitol Reef area. Federal agencies began a feasibility study and boundary assessment. Meanwhile, Pectol guided the government investigators on numerous trips and escorted an increasing number of visitors. The lectures of Broaddus were having an effect.
Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating Capitol Reef National Monument on August 2, 1937. In Proclamation 2246, President Roosevelt set aside 37,711 acres (15,261 ha) of the Capitol Reef area. This comprised an area extending about two miles (3 km) north of present State Route 24 and about 10 mi (16 km) south, just past Capitol Gorge. The Great Depression years were lean ones for the National Park Service (NPS), the new administering agency. Funds for the administration of Capitol Reef were nonexistent; it would be a long time before the first rangers would arrive.
Administration of the new monument was placed under the control of Zion National Park. A stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge were built and some road work was performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Historian and printer Charles Kelly came to know NPS officials at Zion well and volunteered to watchdog the park for the NPS. Kelly was officially appointed custodian-without-pay in 1943. He worked as a volunteer until 1950, when the NPS offered him a civil-service appointment as the first superintendent.
During the 1950s Kelly was deeply troubled by NPS management acceding to demands of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that Capitol Reef National Monument be opened to uranium prospecting. He felt that the decision had been a mistake and destructive of the long-term national interest. It turned out that there was not enough ore in the monument to be worth mining.
In 1958 Kelly got additional permanent help in protecting the monument and enforcing regulations; Park Ranger Grant Clark transferred from Zion. The year Clark arrived, fifty-six thousand visitors came to the park, and Charlie Kelly retired for the last time.
During the 1960s (under the program name Mission 66), NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to meet the demand of mushrooming park visitation. At Capitol Reef, a 53-site campground at Fruita, staff rental housing, and a new visitor center were built, the latter opening in 1966.
Visitation climbed dramatically after the paved, all-weather State Route 24 was built in 1962 through the Fremont River canyon near Fruita. State Route 24 replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road about 10 mi (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since been open only to foot traffic. In 1967, 146,598 persons visited the park. The staff was also growing.
During the 1960s, the NPS purchased private land parcels at Fruita and Pleasant Creek. Almost all private property passed into public ownership on a "willing buyer-willing seller" basis.
Preservationists convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson to set aside an enormous area of public lands in 1968, just before he left office. In Presidential Proclamation 3888 an additional 215,056 acres (87,030 ha) were placed under NPS control. By 1970, Capitol Reef National Monument comprised 254,251 acres (102,892 ha) and sprawled southeast from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River. The action was controversial locally, and NPS staffing at the monument was inadequate to properly manage the additional land.
The vast enlargement of the monument and diversification of the scenic resources soon raised another issue: whether Capitol Reef should be a national park, rather than a monument. Two bills were introduced into the United States Congress.
A House bill (H.R. 17152) introduced by Utah Congressman Laurence J. Burton called for a 180,000-acre (72,800 ha) national park and an adjunct 48,000-acre (19,400 ha) national recreation area where multiple use (including grazing) could continue indefinitely. In the United States Senate, meanwhile, Senate bill S. 531 had already passed on July 1, 1970, and provided for a 230,000-acre (93,100 ha) national park alone. The bill called for a 25-year phase-out of grazing.
In September 1970, United States Department of Interior officials told a house subcommittee session that they preferred about 254,000 acres (103,000 ha) be set aside as a national park. They also recommended that the grazing phase-out period be 10 years, rather than 25. They did not favor the adjunct recreation area.
It was not until late 1971 that Congressional action was completed. By then, the 92nd United States Congress was in session and S. 531 had languished. A new bill, S. 29, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah and was essentially the same as the defunct S. 531 except that it called for an additional 10,834 acres (4,384 ha) of public lands for a Capitol Reef National Park. In the House, Utah Representative K. Gunn McKay (with Representative Lloyd) had introduced H.R. 9053 to replace the dead H.R. 17152. This time, the House bill dropped the concept of an adjunct Capitol Reef National Recreation Area and adopted the Senate concept of a 25-year limit on continued grazing. The Department of Interior was still recommending a national park of 254,368 acres (102,939 ha) and a 10-year limit for grazing phase-out.
S. 29 passed the Senate in June and was sent to the House, which dropped its own bill and passed the Senate version with an amendment. Because the Senate was not in agreement with the House amendment, differences were worked out in Conference Committee. The Conference Committee issued its report on November 30, 1971, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. The legislation—'An Act to Establish The Capitol Reef National Park in the State of Utah'—became Public Law 92-207 when it was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.
The area including the park was once the edge of a shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Limestone, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.
During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt that later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.
The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle- to late-Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:
Wingate Sandstone: sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea
Kayenta Formation: thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains
Navajo Sandstone: huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.
The Golden Throne. Though Capitol Reef is famous for white domes of Navajo Sandstone, this dome's color is a result of a lingering section of yellow Carmel Formation carbonate, which has stained the underlying rock.
The San Rafael Group consists of four Jurassic-period formations, from oldest to youngest:
Carmel Formation: gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water
Entrada Sandstone: sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment
Curtis Formation: made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale
Summerville Formation: reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.
Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.
Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section.
Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateau. This uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.
The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.
There are more than 840 species of plants that are found in the park and over 40 of those species are classified as rare and endemic.
The closest town to Capitol Reef is Torrey, about 11 mi (18 km) west of the visitor center on Highway 24, slightly west of its intersection with Highway 12. Its 2020 population is less than 300. Torrey has a few motels and restaurants and functions as a gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park. Highway 12, as well as a partially unpaved scenic backway named the Burr Trail, provide access from the west through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and the town of Boulder.
A variety of activities are available to tourists, both ranger-led and self-guided, including auto touring, hiking, backpacking, camping, bicycling (on paved and unpaved roads only; no trails), horseback riding, canyoneering, and rock climbing. The orchards planted by Mormon pioneers are maintained by the National Park Service. From early March to mid-October, various fruit—cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, or apples—can be harvested by visitors for a fee.
A hiking trail guide is available at the visitor center for both day hikes and backcountry hiking. Backcountry access requires a free permit.
Numerous trails are available for hiking and backpacking in the park, with fifteen in the Fruita District alone. The following trails are some of the most popular in the park:
Cassidy Arch Trail: a very steep, strenuous 3.5 mi (5.6 km) round trip that leads into the Grand Wash to an overlook of the Cassidy Arch.
Hickman Bridge Trail: a 2 mi (3.2 km) round trip leading to the natural bridge.
Frying Pan Trail: an 8.8 mi (14.2 km) round trip that passes the Cassidy Arch, Grand Wash, and Cohab Canyon.
Brimhall Natural Bridge: a popular, though strenuous, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) round trip with views of Brimhall Canyon, the Waterpocket Fold, and Brimhall Natural Bridge.
Halls Creek Narrows: 22 mi (35 km) long and considered strenuous, with many side canyons and creeks; typically hiked as a 2-3 day camping trip.
Visitors may explore several of the main areas of the park by private vehicle:
Scenic Drive: winds through the middle of the park, passing the major points of interest; the road is accessible from the visitor center to approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) into the Capitol Gorge.
Notom-Bullfrog Road: traverses the eastern side of the Waterpocket Fold, along 10 mi (16 km) of paved road, with the remainder unpaved.
Cathedral Road: an unpaved road through the northern areas of the park, that traverses Cathedral Valley, passing the Temples of the Sun and Moon.
The primary camping location is the Fruita campground, with 71 campsites (no water, electrical, or sewer hookups), and restrooms without bathing facilities. The campground also has group sites with picnic areas and restrooms. Two primitive free camping areas are also available.
Canyoneering is growing in popularity in the park. It is a recreational sport that takes one through slot canyons. It involves rappelling and may require swimming and other technical rope work. Day-pass permits are required for canyoneering in the park, and can be obtained for free from the visitor's center or through email. It's key to know that each route requires its own permit. If one is planning on canyoneering for multiple days, passes are required for each day. Overnight camping as part of the canyoneering trip is permitted, but one must request a free backcountry pass from the visitor center.
It is imperative to plan canyoneering trips around the weather. The Colorado Plateau is susceptible to flash flooding during prime rainy months. Because canyoneering takes place through slot canyons, getting caught in a flash flood could be lethal. Take care to consult reliable weather sources. The Weather Atlas shows charts with the monthly average rainfall in inches.
Another risk to be aware of during the summer months is extreme heat. Visitors can find weather warnings on the National Weather Service website. The heat levels are detailed by a color and numerical scale (0-4).
One of the most popular canyoneering routes in Capitol Reef National Park is Cassidy Arch Canyon. A paper by George Huddart, details the park's commitment to working with citizens to maintain the route as well as the vegetation and rocks. The canyon route is approximately 2.3 miles long (0.4 miles of technical work), consisting of 8 different rappels, and takes between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete. The first rappel is 140 ft and descends below the famous Cassidy Arch.
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.
Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.
People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.
Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.
The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.
Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.
The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:
use of the bow and arrow while hunting,
building pithouse shelters,
growing maize and probably beans and squash,
building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,
creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,
producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.
The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.
These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.
In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.
In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.
Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.
At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.
The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.
A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.
Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.
Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.
Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.
Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.
The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.
Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.
Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.
In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.
The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.
Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.
After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.
As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.
Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.
Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.
Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.
Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.
On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.
Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century
During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.
The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.
Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:
William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859
Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866
3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868
A Black man in Uintah, 1869
Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873
Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874
Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880
William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883
John Murphy in Park City, 1883
George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884
Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886
Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925
Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).
Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.
Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.
During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.
In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.
Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.
Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.
As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.
One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.
It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Arkham goes back as far as the 1910's, but about half of it's history was written with closed doors. During those times, The Alan Moore Psychiatric Hospital basically played it's role from the 40's t0 the 70s. It's track record was a helluva lot better than Arkham's as of now, but alot of unfortunate events killed it from within. Financial issues, patient abuse, poor worker conditions lead to what it is now. Worse (at least to me) is it's just a stone's throw away from Wayne Manor. Scarecrow was literally walk down the road away from us. Anyway, This place's final nail in it's coffin was overcrowding issues. Arkham was bigger and it's kept getting bigger since then. What happened to this place? The building still stands but everything was left to rot and die. Steph and I are at the entrance, and there's not even doors. Just empty frames. And there's old plywood boards covering broken windows. Dirt and plantlife from the outside are breaking in and reclaiming the place, covering the dusty, stained walls and cracked floors. There's old stuff scattered on the floor from when this place was still up and running. First thing I saw looking in was some handcuffs. Then I walked through the nonexistent door and a teddybear was looking at me. Christ, there were children here? Mustn't have gotten a good look last time when we chased Hush through here. Needless to say I really don't like this place. And now Scarecrow's somewhere in here. This is just gonna be so much fun...wait, are those voices?....
Geocache container I found yesterday on a hard 6 mile hike through thick brush on an, almost, nonexistent trail.
Link to the geocaching page: coord.info/GC5DM1Z
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Another sign of the cafe's former life is the marks from the tables and chairs...
The second stop on the way home from my college visit was in Richmond!
The Richmond Kmart appears to be a former Grants (and thus reminded me of the Erie Kmart that I visited last summer). It is very noticeably bigger than Anderson; it is also very nice; it has a Kmart Express gas station and it has a former Kmart Cafe (that still has the counter/displays, the full menu board and even the register! Looks like a more recent KCafe closure from what I've seen; if anybody else here has any more information I would like to know more about it!). This store appears to be doing fairly well for one of the last remaining stores in/near the Miami Valley.
Of course, I had to check out the Kmart Express after my main store rounds were complete, so I headed over there and looked around. This is the second Kmart Express I've seen, but the first one I have actually visited, as the other one (at the now nonexistent Brooklyn Super Kmart) had already closed. I didn't buy anything at this KExpress though, as I had spent my money in the main store. Hopefully next time I can buy some coffee or donuts from Kmart Express while going to/from Anderson (if I plan another college visit to Anderson U, which is likely)!
Hopefully the Richmond Kmart will still be able to remain "normal" for a good time longer...I like this store! :D
Kmart #7246 - 3150 National Road West - Richmond, Indiana
Operation “Salt City" resulted in the arrest of 248 individuals from May through September 2015. Of those arrested, 124 were active gang members. During the operation 22 firearms, more than $237,000 in U.S. currency, 70 grams of heroin, 266 grams of cocaine, and 723 grams of marijuana with a total estimated street value of almost $44,000 was taken off Syracuse streets by participating agencies.
Operation Salt City is part of the U.S. Marshals nation-wide “Triple Beam” gang reduction initiative. Triple Beam partners federal, state, and local law enforcement to reduce violent crime and take dangerous offenders off the streets. The goal of the U.S. Marshals Gang Enforcement Program is to seek out and disrupt illegal gang activity in areas of the country with smaller or nonexistent gang enforcement units by providing manpower, funding and the Marshals’ renowned fugitive tracking abilities.
Photo by Shane T. McCoy / US Marshals
Southern Class 377 Electrostar 377701 arrives at Watford Junction with the 17:21 2M47 East Croydon to Milton Keynes Central. Bombardier EMU's are as common as muck down here but are nonexistent in the West Midlands, unlike Siemens units. However one similarity between this unit and the 350s is they are operated by franchises that are part of Govia's portfolio (although not for much longer in the case of London Midland).
Leamington is a municipality in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. With a population of 28,403, it is the second largest municipality in the Windsor-Essex County area (after the separated municipality of Windsor, Ontario). It includes Point Pelee, the southernmost point of mainland Canada.
Known as the "Tomato Capital of Canada", it is the location of a tomato processing factory owned by Highbury-Canco, previously owned until 2014 by the Heinz Company. Due to its location in the southernmost part of Canada, Leamington uses the motto "Sun Parlour of Canada". In 2006, MoneySense Magazine ranked Leamington as the No. 1 best place to live in Canada.
Leamington enjoys the second warmest climate in Canada, after the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.
Leamington has been known for its tourism and attractions and is known as the tomato capital of Canada. Leamington's attractions include cycle paths and nearby Point Pelee National Park. Leamington also has a large and modern marina. The town's water tower, visible for miles in the flat southern Ontario landscape, is also in the shape and colour of a giant tomato. Celebrating its position as an agricultural powerhouse and its heritage as the H. J. Heinz Company's centre for processing "red goods," the city hosts a "Tomato Festival" each August, as a kickoff of the tomato-harvesting season. Car shows, beauty pageants, parades, and a fair are featured at the festival.
Leamington's position on the north shore of Lake Erie makes it an important recreational centre. The tourist information booth in the centre of town is a large fiberglass tomato.
Leamington is also home to Point Pelee National Park, which contains the southernmost point on mainland Canada and draws thousands of visitors annually and is also home to one of the largest migrations of Monarch butterflies annually.
Known as the tomato capital of Canada, Leamington became the home of the H. J. Heinz factory in 1908. The Heinz products are shipped from Leamington, with English and French labels, mostly to the United States. Ketchup and baby food are the main products. In November 2013 Heinz announced that it would close the Leamington plant in 2014, meaning job losses for 740 employees at the plant and hundreds more support workers.
Due to a 54-year-old law in Canada, which bans the use of tomato paste in tomato juice, Highbury Canco still produces tomato juice and other products for Heinzs. Around 250 workers still process canned products at the over 100 year old factory.
Leamington has also been known for its greenhouses, and now has the largest concentration of commercial greenhouses in all of North America, with 1,969 acres (797 ha) of greenhouse vegetable production in the general area. Major products of the greenhouse industry, in addition to tomatoes, are peppers, cucumbers, roses, and other flowers. Hydroponic farming has been very successfully adopted by many greenhouse operators in Leamington. Historically, tobacco was an important crop in the area, but tobacco production declined in the 1960s and today is virtually nonexistent.
Migrant workers, mostly Mexican and Caribbean seasonal labourers, annually arrive in the region to work in Leamington's greenhouses and farms. Several Mexican and Jamaican shops and a Mexican consulate have opened to service the migrants.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leamington,_Ontario
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...