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MrDonn.org - Definitions & Examples of the 5 Themes of Geography - Geography Lesson Plans, Games, Activities

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If you refer to your school as a place, then that place would include walls, windows, gym, cafeteria, classrooms, people, clothing, books, maps, mops, brooms, hallways, mice (if you have them) and everything else in the school, including the languages spoken.

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Today we learned the difference between place and region. Region refers to an area while place is a specific point. Each place on Earth is unique and in other ways similar. The interplay between the uniqueness and similarities lies at the heart of geographic questioning about why things are found where they are. We had to copy a paragraph for notes and we went over the maps that we did for homework last night. For mine, Mr. Schick said that I was very detailed with America and for my second one I covered two pages but only on the left side. That grade actually surprised me because I thought my maps were very bad, but I'm happy with the grade I got so what I did was good. Mr. Schick almost gave us a test on the information we just copied down but I said that we needed to study but in the end he was just trying to inspire us to do our best. We were even allowed to do our blogs at the end of class so this was a very awesome human geography class.

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Today we learned the difference between place and region. Region refers to an area while place is a specific point. Each place on Earth is unique and in other ways similar. The interplay between the uniqueness and similarities lies at the heart of geographic questioning about why things are found where they are.

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Both relative location and absolute location are geographic terms used to describe the location of a place on the Earth's surface. They are each unique in their ability to pinpoint a location on Earth.

Relative Location

Relative location refers to locating a place relative to other landmarks. For example, you could give the relative location of St. Louis, Missouri as being in eastern Missouri, along the Mississippi River southwest of Springfield, Illinois.

As one drives along most major highways, there are mileage signs indicating the distance to the next town or city. This information expresses your current location relative to the upcoming place. So, if a highway sign states that St. Louis is 96 miles away from Springfield, you know your relative location from St. Louis.

Relative location is also a term that is used to indicate a place's location within a larger context. For example, one could state that Missouri is located in the Midwest of the United States and is bordered by Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. That is the relative location of Missouri based on its location within the United States.

Alternatively, you could state that Missouri is south of Iowa and north of Arkansas. This is yet another example of relative location.

Absolute Location

On the other hand, absolute location references a place on the Earth's surface based on specific geographic coordinates, such as latitude and longitude.

Based on the previous example of St. Louis, the absolute location of St. Louis is 38°43' North 90°14' West.

One can also give an address as an absolute location. For example, the absolute location of St. Louis City Hall is 1200 Market Street, St. Louis, Missouri 63103. By providing the full address you can pinpoint the location of St.

Louis City Hall on a map.

While you can give the geographic coordinates of a city or a building, it is difficult to provide the absolute location of an area such as a state or country because such places can't be pinpointed. With some difficulty, you could provide the absolute locations of the boundaries of the state or country but most of the time it's easier to just display a map or describe the relative location of a place like a state or country.

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What Is the Difference Between Relative Location and Absolute Location?

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Both relative location and absolute location are geographic terms used to describe the location of a place on the Earth's surface. They are each unique in their ability to pinpoint a location on Earth. Relative location refers to locating a place relative to other landmarks. For example, you could give the relative location of St.

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Now you know all about colour, typography and various things you should undertake before you start a design project, it's time to start getting down and dirty with some of the basics of working with grids in your designs.

Grids enable you to build solid structure and form into your designs. Much like we looked at typographic hierarchies and rhythm, we can effectuate the same feelings through using a grid structure. Just as with coding, there are recommended ways to organise modules and sections of code, and a grid system can help similarly when designing for the web.

The Grid System website

Grids aren't just useful for us as designers or developers - they're good for the user, too. All through this session I've emphasised the importance of creating a good user journey and a good user experience through your designs - after all, the user is there to consume your content and you want to make it as good an experience for them as you can. Having a solid grid system to use in your designs (and then carry through to the development phase) will allow you to do just that, by creating consistency and familiarity (and thus building trust) in your design.

If your website is well designed, a grid will help you to project that confidence further to your users - however consciously or sub-consciously that projection may be. Using a grid system doesn't mean that your designs need become boring or boxy, either. Just like it has been said with responsive web design, the responsibility is with you to create a design that is unique and has something different to it - and a grid system should be seen as something that will enable you to do that, rather than restrict you.

What is a Grid System?

..a structure comprising a series of horizontal and vertical lines, used to arrange content.

In its most basic terms, a grid system is a structure comprising a series of horizontal and vertical lines which intersect and are then used to arrange content. In even more basic terms (which make it easier to understand!) a grid system is a way of providing a system that designers can work with to structure and present content and imagery in a much more readable, manageable way.

Grid systems have long been used in print publications, but with their introduction into designing for the web and the many, many CSS grid frameworks which have since popped up, they're now being used almost as standard.

Using a grid system in your designs is one way to achieve a level of consistency that would be otherwise extremely difficult to master and to portray in your designs. Again, uniformity and consistency are key to creating a website that your users will find easy to navigate, read and understand. A good user experience is created by engaging with your user and building a sense of familiarity with them - and a grid system helps you to do that by providing a solid base that you can grow your design from.

An example grid, the Gerstner, on the Gridset App website.

Although your grid system is something that will eventually be invisible to your final user, you can use it to aid you in creating layouts for your designs. But, like all rules when designing (and sometimes when developing) rules are made to be broken. You might not necessarily always need to stick to your grid formation, but you do need to understand grid systems, before you can commit to breaking the rules.

On the web we have many CSS grid frameworks available to us, as well as many tools available to roll with our own grid systems that we can create ourselves. It's totally up to you which of these you would choose to use when designing - for example, a CSS framework may be familiar to you as a developer, so you may want to try your hand at designing with it, too - but let's examine why designing with a grid system is good practice, and also help to make your mind up with which grid system to pursue further.

Advantages of Using Grid Systems

There are many advantages to using grid systems - this can start when you're first designing the website but can also prove useful when you move on to the build and development stages, as well as when managing both the website's design and build in the future.

The good thing about grid systems is that they allow you to design in proportions, balancing between all of the different elements that you might have in your design. A grid system should always be very flexible, so that you can almost twist it to your needs when you're designing the different parts of your website.

A grid overlay, with guides in Photoshop.

Using a grid system in your design also allows for that sense of uniformity and familiarity - whilst it may work for some sites to have vastly different page designs, for many it will not be the case and you will want to have a uniform and more structured feel to the main layout. This also makes it a lot easier when you come to code the design up, as it will mean that you can pick out the uniform elements in your design and apply this modular effect to your code and CSS structure.

Disadvantages of Using Grid Systems

For the sake of balance, let's look at some cons..

First up, many people - particularly those who are new to design or designing with grids - may find that grid systems are quite stifling and restrict creativity. Unfortunately, this can sometimes happen and - pardoning the pun - you may sometimes feel like you're being prevented from thinking outside of the box and are instead creating very plain, clinical designs. In those sorts of instances, I would encourage you to try and step back from the grid - instead, play around with the elements on a page until they feel like they look like they're in the right place, and then switch to looking at your grid overlaying your design (we'll talk some more about that in a bit), and see how you can make your ideas work to the grid structure that you have. If it doesn't conform to that grid design, then it may be time to start working with another grid system or design instead.

Grid systems are also really, really hard. Not only do they take a lot of willpower to get your head around the first few times you use them (though you'll likely have an "aha!" moment not long after some good practising and playing with them) but they can also sometimes involve a lot of maths and calculations. I'm not someone that ever copes well with doing much maths - so that side of things I can personally find very difficult. It's also really hard just to simply get your head around the concept of grids and how they can help your design - but hopefully you'll start to see the effect soon after using them in your designs, just as you will have likely done with your development practices somewhere down the line. And while grids are damn hard work, they're most definitely worth it for the end result.

Using Grid Systems in Your Designs

Here are a few simple, practical tips for using grid systems in your designs:

Set an overlay of your grid onto your design. If you're comfortable designing in the browser using your CSS framework of choice (either a premade example, or one of your own) then that's fine - but otherwise, I would always recommend creating an overlay of your grid system for your design. Whether you're in Photoshop or another favourite graphics program, set a top layer that displays your grid and lock it in place. That way, it's always available for you to toggle on and off if you so please.

Create some guides to help you. If you have an overlay in place, the next thing to do is to create some guides to help me. Generally, I like to create a guide for every beginning and end to a column in my grid system. At this point, it is there purely as a little extra helper alongside my grid overlay - to help me define the edges at which my grid columns are.

Try to work with constraints and restrictions. Many may think that working with a grid system alone is a good recipe for working in a more constrained manner, but that's not the case. Working with grid systems - and particularly when creating your own - it's very easy to go creating a system that allows for 16 columns, when 6 may instead be a wiser solution. Learning to design with constraints - not just within your grid system - will only help you in the long run, as you will be able to focus your design on what is most important and relevant to your users.

Pay attention to your spacing. A lot of the focus in grid systems that we use is on the amount of columns there are - the width of the columns, the width of the gutter between columns (the amount of space between each column) and how much space should be given around those elements. However, in turn, don't forget the vertical space that is available to you and ensure that you also use your grid to help you with the spacing available there. For example, using the measurement of the gutter width, also as a vertical spacing value may work wonders for your design and how elements are each spaced out.

Assignments

By now you should have a pretty good idea about grid systems, what they are and useful ways that you can start to use them in your designs. The next article will talk about how to go about choosing your grid system - and whether you choose to create your own, or work with a pre-made framework instead.

In the meantime, I'd you to do some more planning. Quite a short little assignment really (you're getting off quite lightly here!) but sketch around in your notepads, playing with grids and layout. Think all about structure, using the columns as an idea to base your content around the grid. What you create might not be any good come the next morning, but it will at least help you to focus on thinking about grids and seeing what you can do with them in a throwaway format.

Further Reading

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Now you know all about colour, typography and various things you should undertake before you start a design project, it's time to start getting down and dirty with some of the basics of working with grids in your designs. Grids enable you to build solid structure and form into your designs.

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The area near the surface of the earth can be divided into four interconnected spheres: lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. Think of them as four interconnected parts that make up a complete system; in this case, of life on earth. Environmental scientists use this system to classify and study the organic and inorganic materials found on the planet.

The Lithosphere

The lithosphere, sometimes called the geosphere, refers to all of the rocks of the earth. It includes the planet's mantle and crust, the two outermost layers. The boulders of Mount Everest, the sands of Miami Beach, and the lava erupting from Hawaii's Mount Kilauea are all components of the lithosphere.

The actual thickness of the lithosphere varies considerably and can range from roughly 40 km to 280 km.﻿﻿ The lithosphere ends at the point when the minerals in the earth's crust begin to demonstrate viscous and fluid behaviors. The exact depth at which this happens depends on the chemical composition of the earth as well as the heat and pressure acting upon the material.

The lithosphere is divided into about 12 major tectonic plates and several minor plates that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. The main plates include the Eurasian, Indo-Australian, Philippine, Antarctic, Pacific, Cocos, Juan de Fuca, North American, Caribbean, South American, Scotia, and African plates.﻿﻿

These plates aren't fixed; they're slowly moving. The friction created when tectonic plates push against one another causes earthquakes, volcanoes, and the formation of mountains and ocean trenches.

The Hydrosphere

The hydrosphere is composed of all of the water on or near the planet's surface. This includes oceans, rivers, and lakes, as well as underground aquifers and the moisture in the atmosphere. Scientists estimate the total amount at about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers.

More than 97% of the earth's water is found in its oceans.﻿﻿ The remainder is freshwater, two-thirds of which is frozen within the earth's polar regions and mountain snowpacks. It's interesting to note that even though water covers the majority of the planet's surface, water accounts for a mere 0.023% of the earth's total mass.﻿﻿

The planet's water doesn't exist in a static environment, it changes form as it moves through the hydrological cycle. It falls to the earth in the form of rain, seeps into underground aquifers, rises to the surface from springs or seeps from porous rock, and flows from small streams into larger rivers that empty into lakes, seas, and oceans, where some of it evaporates into the atmosphere to begin the cycle anew.

The Biosphere

The biosphere is composed of all living organisms: plants, animals and one-celled organisms alike. Most of the planet's terrestrial life is found in a zone that stretches from 3 meters below ground to 30 meters above it. In the oceans and seas, most aquatic life inhabits a zone that stretches from the surface to about 200 meters below.﻿﻿

But some creatures can live far outside of these ranges: some birds are known to fly as high as 7,000 meters above the earth, under certain circumstances.﻿﻿ On the other side of the spectrum, the Mariana snailfish has been found living at a depth below 6,000 meters in the Marianas Trench.﻿﻿ Microorganisms are known to survive well beyond even these ranges.

The biosphere is made up of biomes, which are areas where plants and animals of a similar nature can be found together. A desert, with its cactus, sand, and lizards, is one example of a biome. A coral reef is another.

The Atmosphere

The atmosphere is the body of gasses that surrounds our planet, held in place by earth's gravity. Most of our atmosphere is located close to the earth's surface where it is most dense. The air of our planet is 79% nitrogen and just under 21% oxygen; the small amount remaining is composed of argon, carbon dioxide, and other trace gasses.﻿﻿

The atmosphere itself rises to about 10,000 kilometers in height and is divided into four zones. The troposphere, where about three-quarters of all atmospheric mass can be found, stretches from about 8 to 14.5 kilometers above the earth's surface. Beyond this lies the stratosphere, which rises to 50 kilometers above the planet. Next comes the mesosphere, which extends to about 85 kilometers above the earth's surface. The thermosphere rises to about 600 kilometers above the earth, then finally the exosphere, the outermost layer. Beyond the exosphere lies outer space.﻿﻿

Conclusion

All four spheres can be and often are present in a single location. For example, a piece of soil will contain minerals from the lithosphere. Additionally, there will be elements of the hydrosphere present as moisture within the soil, the biosphere as insects and plants, and even the atmosphere as pockets of air between soil pieces. The complete system is what makes up life as we know it on Earth.

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The area near the surface of the earth can be divided into four interconnected spheres: lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. Think of them as four interconnected parts that make up a complete system; in this case, of life on earth. Environmental scientists use this system to classify and study the organic and inorganic materials found on the planet.

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Rotation vs Revolution
People often get confused between the terms "rotation" and "revolution." Here we are about to discuss the concepts of rotation and revolution in relation to Earth.

Rotation can be defined as the spinning of an object on its own axis. An axis may be defined as an imaginary line around which the object spins. We can understand this with the example of the Earth's rotation. Earth rotates from west to east around an imaginary line which passes through the North and South poles and is perpendicular to the plane of the equator. This imaginary line is called the axis of Earth's rotation. Due to this motion, the celestial bodies appear to move from east to west.

Rotation of Earth results in the creation of time zones. Our Earth rotates around its axis at the rate of 15 degrees per hour. This rotation causes different noons at different locations on the planet. The rotation of Earth around its axis causes day and night. The total time taken by the Earth to complete its one rotation comes out to be around 24 hours. This movement of the Earth also brings about a flattening of the planet at the poles resulting in an oblate spheroid. The distance from poles to the center of Earth is a little bit less than that from the equator to the center.
Revolution
Revolution can be defined as movement of a body around another. Here, in this case, Earth revolves round the sun.

Earth revolves around the sun in an elliptical orbit with the sun as its focus. It completes its cycle in a period of approximately 365 days. Earth is also tilted from its axis by the angle of 23 and half degrees. Changes of seasons on Earth are the combined effects of the Earth's tilt on its axis and the Earth's revolution around the sun.

Rotation and revolution together cause day and night, changes of seasons, change in the length of day and night, circulation of air in the atmosphere, and many other geographical phenomenon.

Summary:

1.Rotation is the spinning of Earth on an axis while revolution is the spinning of the Earth around the sun.
2.Earth's rotation is completed in approximately 24 hrs while its revolution takes around 365 days.
3.Rotation causes day and night. Revolution causes different seasons.
4.Relative speed of rotation is maximum at the equator and slowest at the poles. Relative speed of revolution is fastest 5.when the sun is closest to the Earth and is slowest when it is at the farthest end.
6.Earth rotates on its axis while it revolves around the sun.

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Difference Between Rotation and Revolution

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Difference Between Rotation and Revolution Rotation vs Revolution People often get confused between the terms "rotation" and "revolution." Here we are about to discuss the concepts of rotation and revolution in relation to Earth. Rotation Rotation can be defined as the spinning of an object on its own axis.

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NASA.gov brings you the latest news, images and videos from America’s space agency, pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

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Sea surface temperatures indicate that we'll have a La Nina this winter, which could mean a season of weather extremes across parts of the United States.

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What is the difference between direct and indirect sunlight?

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Answer (1 of 6): The most common examples of indirect sunlight are light filtered through the canopy of trees, or through thin curtains. Light can shine through leaves of plants, but also dappled sunlight due to a thin canopy or small leaves can be called indirect sunlight. Direct sunlight hits...

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Elevation definition, the height to which something is elevated or to which it rises: The elevation of the tower is 80 feet. See more.

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These exhibits explore the ancestor/descendant relationships which connect all organisms, past and present.

The importance of biomes cannot be overestimated. Biomes have changed and moved many times during the history of life on Earth. More recently, human activities have drastically altered these communities. Thus, conservation and preservation of biomes should be a major concern to all.

Hopefully, this page will increase your general knowledge of biomes. For further information, please consult the references page.

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These exhibits explore the ancestor/descendant relationships which connect all organisms, past and present. The importance of biomes cannot be overestimated. Biomes have changed and moved many times during the history of life on Earth. More recently, human activities have drastically altered these communities. Thus, conservation and preservation of biomes should be a major concern to all.

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national oceanic and atmospheric administration

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What are the different types of plate tectonic boundaries?

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If one of the colliding plates is topped with oceanic crust, it is forced down into the mantle where it begins to melt. Magma rises into and through the other plate, solidifying into new crust. Magma formed from melting plates solidifies into granite, a light colored, low-density rock that makes up the continents.

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Posted on by Last updated on: February 24, 2015

Erosion vs Weathering

Distinguishing the difference between erosion and weathering becomes easy when you understand these two different processes. Erosion and weathering are natural geological forces of nature that cause the destruction of rocks and shape the surface of the earth. However, we can say that these processes are similar in nature in the sense that they take part in changing the topography of the surface of the earth, but there are differences that need to be highlighted. Weathering refers to breaking up of rocks into smaller fragments as a result of forces of nature while erosion is a set of processes that involve winds, flowing water, and movement of ice glaciers that take along the fragments created by weathering to newer locations.

What is Weathering?

In weathering, large rocks get broken because of the action of weather, but they do not move to a new location. They simply remain next to one another. Weathering is classified as biological, physical and chemical weathering. Physical weathering is all those processes that lead to breakage of rocks into smaller pieces such as collision, fracturing because of pressure, or release of pressure caused by erosion of top level rocks. Breaking that takes place because of inward growth of roots of plants and so on is known as biological weathering. Chemical weathering, on the other hand, is a result of water, either through rainfall or from high streams, oxygenation of minerals present in rocks, or when minerals in rocks dissolve completely in water. As a result of all these actions rocks break into smaller pieces.

Here, let us see how one process actually happens. Let us see how physical weathering takes place. You must have seen how there are crevices and cracks on huge stones. When it rains, water gathers in these cracks and crevices. Then, when night time comes, the temperature of the environment drops. As a result of that, the water that is in these small cracks and crevices begin to expand as it turns to ice. In doing so, the rock starts to split. This action repeats for some time, and finally, the rock piece separates itself from the huge rock.

What is Erosion?

When the broken up rock pieces remain where they are, the action of wind, water, and melting ice takes some of these small pieces of rocks to new locations. This process is called erosion. Erosion is a set of processes that result in shaping of the landscape as rock pieces are brought down to lower levels by blowing winds, flowing water, and the effects of gravity. The small pieces of rocks that we see around beaches and sides of rivers have origins high up in the mountains. Erosion is the beginning of a larger process. It has four other phases known in order as detachment, entrainment, transport and deposition. The pieces of rocks and sediments that start travelling with erosion have to settle somewhere. Once they do, that is known as deposition.

What is the difference between Erosion and Weathering?

* Though both weathering and erosion help in reshaping the surface of the earth, weathering is involved in breakage of rocks into smaller pieces while erosion is the movement of these smaller fragments to newer locations as a result of blowing winds, flowing water, and melting ice coupled with gravity.

* Weathering can be physical, organic, or chemical whereas erosion is plain movement of rock pieces from one place to another.

* It is because of both weathering and erosion that we get to see new geological features. We cannot stop weathering from happening. However, to stop erosion from happening people take different actions such as planting trees on hill tops.

Both weathering and erosion are a continuous process that keeps on acting, all the time,on the surface of the earth. In that, first weathering takes place and then the erosion takes the broken rock pieces to new locations. These are natural processes that continue unabated. Both weathering and erosion are constantly at work to reshape the surface of the earth into mountains, valleys, rivers, and plains that are known as physical features. These physical features keep on changing on the geological time scale as a result of both these natural geological processes.
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difference between erosion and weathering

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Difference Between Erosion and Weathering

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Posted on by Last updated on: February 24, 2015 Distinguishing the difference between erosion and weathering becomes easy when you understand these two different processes. Erosion and weathering are natural geological forces of nature that cause the destruction of rocks and shape the surface of the earth.

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The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. The majority of Earth's volcanoes and earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire.

Subjects

Earth Science, Geology, Oceanography, Geography

Image

Volcanoes Bromo Nat'l Park

Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park on the island of Java (Jawa), Indonesia, is home to several active volcanoes, which can be seen here smoking ominously against a blue sky.

Photograph by Manamana

The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Its length is approximately 40,000 kilometers (24,900 miles). It traces boundaries between several tectonic plates-including the Pacific, Juan de Fuca, Cocos, Indian-Australian, Nazca, North American, and Philippine Plates.

Seventy-five percent of Earth's volcanoes-more than 450 volcanoes-are located along the Ring of Fire. Ninety percent of Earth's earthquakes occur along its path, including the planet's most violent and dramatic seismic events.

The abundance of volcanoes and earthquakes along the Ring of Fire is caused by the amount of movement of tectonic plates in the area. Along much of the Ring of Fire, plates overlap at convergent boundaries called subduction zones. That is, the plate that is underneath is pushed down, or subducted, by the plate above. As rock is subducted, it melts and becomes magma. The abundance of magma so near to Earth's surface gives rise to conditions ripe for volcanic activity. A significant exception is the border between the Pacific and North American Plates. This stretch of the Ring of Fire is a transform boundary, where plates move sideways past one another. This type of boundary generates a large number of earthquakes as tension in Earth's crust builds up and is released.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Director

Tyson Brown, National Geographic Society

Author

National Geographic Society

Production Managers

Gina Borgia, National Geographic Society

Jeanna Sullivan, National Geographic Society

Program Specialists

Sarah Appleton, National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society

Margot Willis, National Geographic Society

other

Last Updated

October 19, 2023

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The Ring of Fire, also referred to as the Circum-Pacific Belt, is a path along the Pacific Ocean characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. The majority of Earth's volcanoes and earthquakes take place along the Ring of Fire.

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What is a tectonic plate? [This Dynamic Earth, USGS]

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Not every crack in the ground is a fault. What defines a fault is the movement of the rock on either side. When that movement is sudden, the released energy causes an earthquake. Some faults are tiny, but others are part of great fault systems along which rocks have slid past each other for hundreds of miles.

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A subduction zone is a collision between two of Earth's tectonic plates, where one plate sinks into the mantle underneath the other plate.

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U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

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Adaptations, accommodations, and modifications may seem like interchangeable terms, but when it comes to inclusion they carry significantly different meanings. Accommodations and modifications serve as two separate kinds of curricular adaptations. The State of Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction notes that while the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not specifically define accommodations and modifications, a general understanding of these terms exists.

Accepted Understandings

Before delving into the differences between accommodations and modifications, let's take a step back and focus on the concept of curricular adaptations. The California Positive Behavior Initiative Positive Environments, Networks of Trainers (PENT) defines curricular adaptations as "changes permissible in educational environments which allow the student equal opportunity to obtain access, results, benefits, and levels of achievement." Simply put, curricular adaptations allow students with disabilities to participate in inclusive environments by compensating for learners' weaknesses.

Accommodations accomplish this objective without modifying the curriculum. As PENT explains, "Some curricular adaptations do not fundamentally alter or lower standards or expectations in either the instructional or assessment phases of a course of study and can be designated as 'accommodations'." In other words, students receiving accommodations read the same material and take the same tests as their peers without disabilities.

In contrast, modifications refer to curricular adaptations which change or lower expectations or standards. For instance, say an English course requires reading "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Students who struggle with reading could instead read the simplified version published by Great Illustrated Classics. This allows for participation in classroom discussions but lowers reading level expectations.

Identifying Appropriate Curricular Adaptations

Teachers, does reading the above cause you a little anxiety? After all, how do you know which students need what curricular adaptations? If so, rest easy! Individualized education plans (IEP) list what accommodations or modifications a child should receive. Every student with documented special needs goes through the IEP process. (For a comprehensive look into the IEP process, see The IEP Process Explained.)

Parents, the IEP process offers you an ideal opportunity to voice your opinion regarding what you deem to be appropriate accommodations and modifications for your child. As noted in The Collaborative IEP: How Parents and Teachers Can Work Together, you play a vital role! Seek wisdom from the special education professionals on your kid's IEP team to pinpoint which adaptations could help your child excel academically. Go beyond this team as well: ask your doctor, outside therapists and any other relevant professionals for suggestions prior to the IEP meeting.

Application Inside the Classroom

Once the IEP team successfully identifies the proper curricular adaptations for a student, the challenge becomes implementing them into the classroom. While many general education teachers view this process with trepidation, they aren't alone in figuring out how to make these adaptations serve their students well. Special education teachers are there to help, and when general education teachers establish strong working relationships with them, the odds of student success increase.

For example, general education teachers can work with special education professionals to "front-load" a topic that may be difficult for students with disabilities; the special education teacher can pull aside the children who are likely to struggle and go over this topic with them before they encounter it in the general classroom. Once they've received this accommodation, these children are much more likely to grasp the concept at hand when it's covered again in a general education setting.

Points to Consider: Dispelling Stigma and Opening Possibilities

In addition to the educational aspects of an inclusive classroom is a social element. Bullying can become an issue for students who receive curricular adaptations as bullies tend to target those who are different in some way. For instance, students who need accommodations or modifications might be called "stupid," "dumb" or worse names.

Gretchen Walsh M.S. Ed., an education professional who works with students with special needs as director of the Academic Support Center at Notre Dame College, tries to eliminate any negative stigma connected to curricular adaptations. In an interview, she told Special Education Guide, "I want our students to understand that these pieces of software or adaptative equipment aren't relegated to the world of learning differences or disabilities. These pieces of software are used mainstream. Professionals all use them because of the time-saving factor involved with them." She cites the software program Dragon Dictate as an example. Doctors, nurses and lawyers are among the professionals who use this speech-to-text technology, a popular software program in the special education realm.

Finally, curricular adaptations lead to new educational possibilities. This rings true especially for students who receive accommodations as IDEA mandates that colleges must also provide accommodations for individuals with special education needs. Therefore, higher education is a realistic pursuit for many students.

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Adaptations, Accommodations, and Modifications in Inclusive Classrooms

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Adaptations, accommodations, and modifications may seem like interchangeable terms, but when it comes to inclusion they carry significantly different meanings. Accommodations and modifications serve as two separate kinds of curricular adaptations. The State of Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction notes that while the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) does not specifically define accommodations and modifications, a general understanding of these terms exists.

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What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. Learn more here.

Sustainability is a priority interest for many organizations, and this is especially true at EPA. Sustainability isn't part of our work - it's a guiding influence for all of our work. Learn more about what EPA is doing and what you can do.

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Sustainability is part of everyday life and essential for the future of environmental protection. This site addresses waste management, water and energy conservation, and corporate sustainability.

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Key Difference: A seismograph is any instrument that measures motions of the ground, including those of seismic waves generated by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other seismic sources. While, the Richter scale is a scale, ranging from 1 to 10, for indicating the intensity of an earthquake.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are as many as 1.3 million earthquakes in a year that humans can feel. This is without taking into consideration all the other small quakes that happen everyday, which humans don't even realize. Of these million earthquakes, the majority take place in remote areas far from people and are often so low in intensity that most people would not notice.

While there are many reasons for the earthquakes, ranging from meteor impacts and volcanic eruptions, to man-made events like mine collapses and underground nuclear tests, the most common reasons for earthquakes are the shifting of the Earth's tectonic plates. However, rather than what causes the earthquakes, more importance is on how strong the earthquake is, how much damage can it cause, and how to best plan for it.

In order to figure out when the next earthquake could be, there is a device known as the Seismograph. The seismograph or seismometer is an instrument that measures the motions of the ground, including those of seismic waves generated by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other seismic sources. The records of the seismic waves helps seismologists to map the interior of the Earth, and to locate and measure the different sources of earthquakes.

The first seismograph was designed by Zhang Heng of China's Han dynasty in the year 132 AD. It was called "Houfeng Didong Yi", which literally means an "instrument for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth" While, the device worked on the presumption that earthquakes were caused the direction, force, and timing of the winds, it still could predict the direction of an earthquake that occurred up to 500 km (310 mi) away.

The plans of the original Zhang Heng's seismometer were lost over time. However, historians and scientists have been able to recover enough information to be able to create a working model. Nonetheless, after 1880, most seismometers were descended from those developed by the team of John Milne, James Alfred Ewing and Thomas Gray, who worked in Japan from 1880 to 1895. After World War II, these were adapted into the widely used Press-Ewing seismometer.

A seismometer has a weight hanging on a spring. Hence, it is sensitive to up-down motions of the earth. The spring and weight are suspended from a frame that moves along with the earthʼs surface. As the earth moves, the relative motion between the weight and the earth can be recorded to create the history of the earth's motion. Changes in motion can be used to indicate the chances and intensity of an earthquake.

However, this creates another issue: how to adequately describe the intensity of the earthquake. To combat this problem, a scale was developed to assign a number depending on the intensity of the earthquake. This scale was known as the Richter magnitude scale. It assigns the earthquake a number from 1 to 10 in order of increasing intensity.

The scale was developed in 1935 by Charles Francis Richter in partnership with Beno Gutenberg. They both hailed from the California Institute of Technology. The scale was originally was to be used to only in a particular study area in California, and on seismograms recorded on only the Wood-Anderson torsion seismograph. However, eventually the scale was developed into a worldwide accepted standard.

The Richter scale assigns the number on the basis of how much energy is released during the earthquake. The scale is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which means that an earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0, and corresponds to a 31.6 times larger release of energy. While the scale is usually considered to label from 1 to 10, and 0 being the basis to which the energy is being compared, the truth is that the scale does not actually have a lower limit. Many sensitive modern seismographs now routinely record quakes with negative magnitudes.
The Richter magnitude scale: Comparison between Richter Scale and Seismograph:

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Difference between Richter Scale and Seismograph

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A seismograph is any instrument that measures motions of the ground, including those of seismic waves generated by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other seismic sources. While, the Richter scale is a scale, ranging from 1 to 10, for indicating the intensity of an earthquake.

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Types of Land forms  Ex. Archipelago, Isthmus, Strait

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Types of Land forms  Ex. Archipelago, Isthmus, Strait

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Study how = internal/external forces created different types of land forms.

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The security system for this website has been triggered. Completing the challenge below proves you are a human and gives you temporary access.

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Cultural diffusion dictionary definition | cultural diffusion defined

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cultural diffusion definition: The definition of cultural diffusion is the spread of the beliefs and social activities of one culture to different ethnicities, religions, nationalities, etc. (noun) An example of cultural diffusion is the tradition of the German...

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7 Different Types Of Government Flashcards | Quizlet

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Start studying 7 Different Types Of Government. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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The focal point of an idea, belief, or innovation.

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any place where certain related changes in land-use appeared due to human domestication of plants and animals. The term includes the predominant forms of labor used due to adoption of new tools, or surplus wealth accumulated due to natural, social or organizational advantages stemming from the taming of certain seeds, herd, or other animals.

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Language is used for communication. It can be written or spoken. Even when a culture uses the same basic language as another culture, differences in terminology and inflection create new meanings.

Values help define acceptable behavior within the society. Values can be different for each group to which a person belongs. For example, it may be acceptable in the family group to eat certain foods that are not accepted within the religious group a person chooses.

Beliefs fulfill the spiritual needs of a culture. A whole culture can be based on one set of beliefs, yet a larger cultural group may have many different sets of beliefs.

Norms are the rules, mores and traditions within a culture. As a group develops laws and regulations, norms change. A law that was necessary 100 years ago may not be needed in modern times.

Technological advances also change the way cultures behave. Traditions are norms that a culture holds onto once the norms are no longer common. Wearing certain clothing for a holiday is an example of a norm that has become a tradition.
Learn more about Cultures & Traditions

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What are the five components of culture?

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Language is used for communication. It can be written or spoken. Even when a culture uses the same basic language as another culture, differences in terminology and inflection create new meanings. Values help define acceptable behavior within the society. Values can be different for each group to which a person belongs.

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Developed vs. Developing Nation vs. Newly Industrialize 

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Developed vs. Developing Nation vs. Newly Industrialize 

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Countries are divided into two major categories by the United Nations, which are developed countries and developing countries. The classification of countries is based on the economic status such as GDP, GNP, per capita income, industrialization, the standard of living, etc. Developed Countries refers to the soverign state, whose economy has highly progressed and possesses great technological infrastructure, as compared to other nations.

The countries with low industrialization and low human development index are termed as developing countries. Developed Countries provides free, healthy and secured atmosphere to live whereas developing countries, lacks these things.

After a thorough research on the two, we have compiled the difference between developed countries and developing countries considering various parameters, in tabular form.

Content: Developed Countries Vs Developing Countries

Comparison Chart

Basis for Comparison

Developed Countries

Developing Countries

Definition of Developed Countries

Developed Countries are the countries which are developed in terms of economy and industrialization. The Developed countries are also known as Advanced countries or the first world countries, as they are self-sufficient nations.

Human Development Index (HDI) statistics rank the countries on the basis of their development. The country which is having a high standard of living, high GDP, high child welfare, health care, excellent medical, transportation, communication and educational facilities, better housing and living conditions, industrial, infrastructural and technological advancement, higher per capita income, increase in life expectancy etc. are known as Developed Country. These countries generate more revenue from the industrial sector as compared to service sector as they are having a post-industrial economy.

The following are the names of some developed countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United States.

Definition of Developing Countries

The countries who are going through the initial levels of industrial development along with low per capita income are known as Developing Countries. These countries come under the category of third world countries. They are also known as lower developed countries.

Developing Countries depend upon the Developed Countries, to support them in establishing industries across the country. The country has a low Human Development Index (HDI) i.e. the country does not enjoy healthy and safe environment to live, low Gross Domestic Product, high illiteracy rate, poor educational, transportation, communication and medical facilities, unsustainable government debt, unequal distribution of income, high death rate and birth rate, malnutrition both to mother and infant which case high infant mortality rate, poor living conditions, high level of unemployment and poverty.

The following are the names of some developing countries: China, Colombia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey.

Key Differences Between Developed and Developing Countries

The following are the major differences between developed countries and developing countries

1. The countries which are independent and prosperous are known as Developed Countries. The countries which are facing the beginning of industrialization are called Developing Countries.

2. Developed Countries have a high per capita income and GDP as compared to Developing Countries.

3. In Developed Countries the literacy rate is high, but in Developing Countries illiteracy rate is high.

4. Developed Countries have good infrastructure and a better environment in terms of health and safety, which are absent in Developing Countries.

5. Developed Countries generate revenue from the industrial sector. Conversely, Developing Countries generate revenue from the service sector.

6. In developed countries, the standard of living of people is high, which is moderate in developing countries.

7. Resources are effectively and efficiently utilized in developed countries. On the other hand, proper utilization of resources is not done in developing countries.

8. In developed countries, the birth rate and death rate are low, whereas in developing countries both the rates are high.

Conclusion

There is a big difference between Developed Countries and Developing Countries as the developed countries are self-contained flourished while the developing countries are emerging as a developed country. Developing Countries are the one who experience the phase of development for the first time. If we talk about developed countries, they are post-industrial economies and due to this reason, the maximum part of their revenue comes from the service sector.

Developed Countries have a high Human Development Index as compared to Developing Countries. The former has established itself in all fronts and made itself sovereign by its efforts while the latter is still struggling to achieve the same.

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Difference Between Developed Countries and Developing Countries (with Comparison Chart) - Key Differences

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Countries are divided into two major categories by the United Nations, which are developed countries and developing countries. The classification of countries is based on the economic status such as GDP, GNP, per capita income, industrialization, the standard of living, etc.

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Overview of BLS Demographic Data : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Population density is an often reported and commonly compared statistic for places around the world. Population density is the measure of the number people per unit area, commonly represented as people per square mile (or square kilometer).

Computing Population Density

To determine an area's population density, you just have to divide an area's total population by the land area in square miles (or square kilometers).

For example, Canada's population of 35.6 million (July 2017 estimated by the CIA World Factbook), divided by the land area of 3,855,103 square miles (9,984,670 sq km) yields a density of 9.24 people per square mile.

Although this number would seem to indicate that 9.24 people live on each square mile of Canadian land area, the density within the country varies dramatically; a vast majority lives in the southern part of the country. Density is only a raw gauge to measure a population's disbursement across the land.

Density can be computed for any area, as long as one knows the size of the land area and the population within that area. The population density of cities, states, entire continents, and even the world can be computed.

What Country Has the Highest?

The tiny country of Monaco has the world's highest population density. With an area of three-fourths of a square mile (2 sq km) and a total population of 30,645, Monaco has a density of almost 39,798 people per square mile.

However, because Monaco and other microstates have very high densities due to their extremely small size, Bangladesh (population 157,826,578)is often considered the most densely populated country, with more than 2,753 people per square mile.

What Country Is the Most Sparse?

Mongolia is the world's least densely populated country, with only five people per square mile (2 per sq km).

Australia and Namibia tie for a close second with 7.8 people per square mile (3 per sq km). These two countries are further examples of density being a limited statistic, as Australia may be huge, but the population resides mainly on its coasts. Namibia has the same density figure but a much smaller total land area.

What Is the Population Density of the United States?

The population density of the United States is approximately 87.4 people per square mile, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

What Is the Most Tightly Packed Continent?

Perhaps not surprisingly, the most densely populated continent is Asia. Here are the population densities of the continents:

North America-60.7 people per square mile

South America-61.3 people per square mile

Europe-187.7 people per square mile

Asia-257.8 people per square mile

Africa-103.7 people per square mile

Australia-7.8 people per square mile

Which Hemisphere Is the Most Densely Populated?

About 90 percent of the Earth's people live on 10 percent of the land. Additionally, about 90 percent of the people live north of the equator in the Northern Hemisphere.

What Is the Figure for All of Earth?

The population density of the planet (including all land area) is about 38 people per square mile (57 per sq km).

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What Is Population Density-And Where Is It Highest?

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Population density is an often reported and commonly compared statistic for places around the world. Population density is the measure of the number people per unit area, commonly represented as people per square mile (or square kilometer). To determine an area's population density, you just have to divide an area's total population by the land area in square miles (or square kilometers).

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Check our other visualizations

Other indicators visualized on maps:

(In English only, for now)

AIDS estimated deaths (UNAIDS estimates)

Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19)

Age at first marriage, female

Age at first marriage, male

Age dependency ratio (% of working-age population)

Antiretroviral therapy coverage (% of people living with HIV)

Antiretroviral therapy coverage for PMTCT (% of pregnant women living with HIV)

Birth rate, crude (per 1,000 people)

Births attended by skilled health staff (% of total)

Children (0-14) living with HIV

Children with fever receiving antimalarial drugs (% of children under age 5 with fever)

Completeness of birth registration (%)

Completeness of death registration with cause-of-death information (%)

Diabetes prevalence (% of population ages 20 to 79)

Diarrhea treatment (% of children under 5 receiving oral rehydration and continued feeding)

Fertility rate, total (births per woman)

GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$)

Health expenditure per capita (current US$)

Health expenditure per capita, PPP

Health expenditure, private (% of GDP)

Health expenditure, public (% of GDP)

Health expenditure, total (% of GDP)

Hospital beds (per 1,000 people)

Immunization, BCG (% of one-year-old children) - Turberculosis

Immunization, DPT (% of children ages 12-23 months) - Diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and Tetanus

Immunization, HepB3 (% of one-year-old children) - Hepatitis B

Immunization, Hib3 (% of children ages 12-23 months) - Meningitis, Pneumonia, and Epiglottitis

Immunization, Polio (% of one-year-old children)

Immunization, measles (% of children ages 12-23 months)

Incidence of HIV (% of uninfected population ages 15-49)

Incidence of malaria (per 1,000 population at risk)

Incidence of tuberculosis (per 100,000 people)

Labor force, female (% of total labor force)

Labor force, total

Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

Life expectancy at birth, male (years)

Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

Literacy rate, adult female (% of females ages 15 and above)

Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)

Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24)

Malaria cases reported

Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000)

People practicing open defecation, urban (% of urban population)

Physicians (per 1,000 people)

Population ages 65 and above (% of total)

Population growth (annual %)

Population, male (% of total)

Postnatal care coverage (% mothers)

Prevalence of HIV, female (% ages 15-24)

Prevalence of HIV, male (% ages 15-24)

Prevalence of HIV, total (% of population ages 15-49)

Prevalence of overweight (% of children under 5)

Prevalence of overweight, female (% of female adults)

Prevalence of overweight, male (% of male adults)

Prevalence of syphilis (% of women attending antenatal care)

Public spending on education, total (% of GDP)

Risk of impoverishing expenditure for surgical care (% of people at risk)

Rural population growth (annual %)

School enrollment, secondary (% gross)

School enrollment, secondary, male (% net)

Sex ratio at birth (male births per female births)

Smoking prevalence, females (% of adults)

Smoking prevalence, males (% of adults)

Suicide mortality rate (per 100,000 population)

Tuberculosis death rate (per 100,000 people)

Unemployment, total (% of total labor force)

Urban population growth (annual %)

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Population Pyramids of the World from 1950 to 2100

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What Is Standard of Living?

Standard of living refers to the quantity and quality of material goods and services available to a given population.

Key Takeaways

Understanding Standard of Living

Standard of living focuses on basic material factors such as income, gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, and economic opportunity. It is closely related to quality of life, which can also explore factors such as economic and political stability, political and religious freedom, environmental quality, climate, and safety.

Standard of living is often used to compare geographic areas, such as the standard of living in the United States versus Canada, or the standard of living in St. Louis versus New York. Standard of living can also be used to compare distinct points in time.

For example, compared with a century ago, the standard of living in the United States has improved greatly. The same amount of work buys an increased quantity of goods, and items that were once luxuries, such as refrigerators and automobiles, are now widely available. Moreover, life expectancy has increased, and annual hours worked have decreased.

In a narrow sense, economists frequently measure standard of living using GDP. Per capita GDP provides a quick, rough estimate of the total amount of goods and services available per person. While numerous, more complex, and nuanced metrics of standard of living have been devised, many of them correlate highly with per capita GDP.

Standards of living are usually higher in developed countries. In fact, basic measures of standard of living, such as per capita GDP, are often used to define the differences between more and less developed countries. Emerging market economies usually see rising standards of living over time as they grow and develop into modern, industrialized economies.

Standard of Living Example

One measure of standard of living is the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI), which scores 189 countries based on factors including life expectancy at birth, education, and income per capita. As of 2019, the countries with the five highest HDI scores are Norway (0.957), Ireland and Switzerland (0.955), Hong Kong and Iceland (0.949), and Germany (0.947).

Conversely, the countries with the five lowest 2019 HDI scores are Niger (0.394), Central African Republic (0.397), Chad (0.398), Burundi and South Sudan (0.433), and Mali (0.434). The United States came in at #17 while China was #85.

To exemplify the difference between the scores of 0.957 and 0.394, Norway has a life expectancy at birth of 82.4 years, 18.1 expected years of schooling per citizen, gross national income (GNI) per capita of $66,494 (purchasing power parity-adjusted currency units), and an internet usage rate of 96.5% of its population. Niger, meanwhile, has a life expectancy at birth of 62.4 years, 6.5 expected years of schooling, a GNI per capita of $1,201, and an internet usage rate of 5.3%.

The U.S. scored seventeenth on the list, with a combined score of 0.926, a life expectancy at birth of 78.9 years, 16.3 expected years of schooling, and GNI per capita of $63,826.

Standard of Living vs. Quality of Life

The terms standard of living and quality of life are often believed to mean the same. While they may overlap, there is a difference between the two.

Standard of living generally refers to wealth, comfort, material goods, and necessities of certain classes in certain areas-or more objective characteristics-whereas quality of life is more subjective and intangible, such as personal liberty or environmental quality. Characteristics that make up a good quality of life for one person may not necessarily be the same for someone else.

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Standard of Living Definition, How to Measure, Example

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Standard of living refers to the quantity and quality of material goods and services available to a given population. Standard of living focuses on basic material factors such as income, gross domestic product (GDP), life expectancy, and economic opportunity.

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Cottage Industry vs. Commercial Industry

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Cottage Industry vs. Commercial Industry

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What Is the Difference Between a Cottage & a Commercial Industry?

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While both produce items for consumption, commercial and cottage industries are two primary types of industries that are essentially the opposite of one another. The basic differences between cottage ...

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The four economic activities are resource maintenance, production, distribution and consumption. In order for an economy to function properly, a balance of all four activities must be maintained....

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Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanently move to a country). A migrant emigrates from their old country, and immigrates to their new country. Thus, both emigration and immigration describe migration, but from different countries' perspectives.

Japanese government poster promoting emigration to South America, with Brazil highlighted

Demographers examine push and pull factors for people to be pushed out of one place and attracted to another. There can be a desire to escape negative circumstances such as shortages of land or jobs, or unfair treatment. People can be pulled to the opportunities available elsewhere. Fleeing from oppressive conditions, being a refugee and seeking asylum to get refugee status in a foreign country, may lead to permanent emigration.

Forced displacement refers to groups that are forced to abandon their native country, such as by enforced population transfer or the threat of ethnic cleansing. Refugees and asylum seekers in this sense are the most marginalized extreme cases of migration, facing multiple hurdles in their journey and efforts to integrate into the new settings. Scholars in this sense have called for cross-sector engagement from businesses, non-governmental organizations, educational institutions, and other stakeholders within the receiving communities.

Patterns of emigration have been shaped by numerous economic, social, and political changes throughout the world in the last few hundred years. For instance, millions of individuals fled poverty, violence, and political turmoil in Europe to settle in the Americas and Oceania during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Likewise, millions left South China in the Chinese diaspora during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Poster showing a cross-section of the Cunard Line's emigrant liner RMS Aquitania, launched in 1913.

"Push" and "pull" factors

Demographers distinguish factors at the origin that push people out, versus those at the destination that pull them in. Motives to migrate can be either incentives attracting people away, known as pull factors, or circumstances encouraging a person to leave. Diversity of push and pull factors inform management scholarship in their efforts to understand migrant movement.

Push factors

Pull factors

Higher quality of life, economic growth or lower cost of living

Encouragement to join relatives or fellow countrymen; chain migration

Quick wealth (as in a gold rush)

More job opportunities or promise of higher pay

Prosperity or economic surplus

Educational opportunity (including university for adults or K-12 for children)

Prepaid travel (as from relatives)

Building a new nation (historically)

Building specific cultural or religious communities

Political freedom

Cultural opportunities

Greater opportunity to find a spouse

Favorable climate

Ease of crossing boundaries

Reduced tariff

Some scholars criticize the "push-pull" approach to understanding international migration. Regarding lists of positive or negative factors about a place, Jose C. Moya writes "one could easily compile similar lists for periods and places where no migration took place."

Search for "Emigration from" in titles

Unlike immigration, in many countries few if any records have been recorded or maintained in regard to persons leaving a country either on a temporary or permanent basis. Therefore, estimates on emigration must be derived from secondary sources such as immigration records of the receiving country or records from other administrative agencies.

The rate of emigration has continued to grow, reaching 280 million in 2017.

In Armenia, for example, the migration is calculated by counting people arriving or leaving the country via airplane, train, railway or other means of transportation. Here, the emigration index is high: 1.5% of population leaves the country annually. In fact, it is one of the countries, where emigration has become a part of culture since 20th century. For example, between 1990 and 2005 approximately 700,000-1,300,000 Armenians left the country. The highly rising numbers of emigration are a direct response to socio-political and economic areas of the country. The internal migration (migration in country) is big (28.7%), while international migration is 71.3% of the total migration by people aging 15 and above. It is important to understand the reasons for both types of migration and the availability of the options. For example, in Armenia, everything is localized in the capital city Yerevan, thus, internal migration is from the villages and small cities to the biggest city of the country. The reason for the migration can be work or study. International migration follows the same reasoning of migration: work or study. The main destinations for it are Russia, France and US.

East Germany erected the Berlin Wall to prevent emigration westward.

Some countries restrict the ability of their citizens to emigrate to other countries. After 1668, the Qing Emperor banned Han Chinese migration to Manchuria. In 1681, the emperor ordered construction of the Willow Palisade, a barrier beyond which the Chinese were prohibited from encroaching on Manchu and Mongol lands.

The Soviet Socialist Republics of the later Soviet Union began such restrictions in 1918, with laws and borders tightening until even illegal emigration was nearly impossible by 1928. To strengthen this, they set up internal passport controls and individual city Propiska ("place of residence") permits, along with internal freedom of movement restrictions often called the 101st kilometre, rules which greatly restricted mobility within even small areas.

At the end of World War II in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied several Central European countries, together called the Eastern Bloc, with the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas aspiring to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave. Before 1950, over 15 million people emigrated from the Soviet-occupied eastern European countries and immigrated into the west in the five years immediately following World War II. By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc. Restrictions implemented in the Eastern Bloc stopped most east-west migration, with only 13.3 million migrations westward between 1950 and 1990. However, hundreds of thousands of East Germans annually immigrated to West Germany through a "loophole" in the system that existed between East and West Berlin, where the four occupying World War II powers governed movement. The emigration resulted in massive "brain drain" from East Germany to West Germany of younger educated professionals, such that nearly 20% of East Germany's population had migrated to West Germany by 1961. In 1961, East Germany erected a barbed-wire barrier that would eventually be expanded through construction into the Berlin Wall, effectively closing the loophole. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, followed by German reunification and within two years the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling international movement was also emulated by China, Mongolia, and North Korea. North Korea still tightly restricts emigration, and maintains one of the strictest emigration bans in the world, although some North Koreans still manage to illegally emigrate to China. Other countries with tight emigration restrictions at one time or another included Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia from 1975 to 1979), Laos, North Vietnam, Iraq, South Yemen and Cuba.

Mynz, Rainer (1995), Where Did They All Come From? Typology and Geography of European Mass Migration In the Twentieth Century; European Population Conference Congress European De Demographie, United Nations Population Division

Labour market efficiency and emigration in Slovakia and EU neighbouring countries,

Thackeray, Frank W. (2004), Events that changed Germany, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-313-32814-5

Tsourapas, Gerasimos (2015), "Why Do States Develop Multi-tier Emigrant Policies? Evidence from Egypt" (PDF), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 41 (13): 2192-2214, doi:10.1080/1369183X.2015.1049940, S2CID 73675854, archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2016

Bello, Valeria (2017). International Migration and International Security: Why Prejudice is a Global Security Threat. Routledge. ISBN 9781138689473. OCLC 957742876.

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Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanently move to a country). A migrant emigrates from their old country, and immigrates to their new country.

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Nativism is the political policy of promoting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants. However, this is currently more commonly described as an anti-immigrant position. In scholarly studies nativism is a standard technical term. The term is typically not accepted by those who hold this political view, however.

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Urban vs. Suburban
What are urban and suburban areas? The cause of confusion lies in the definition attached to each term. Nevertheless, it is important to know that the meaning of an urbanized or suburban territory may be differently perceived among the various countries.

Generally, suburban areas (also known as suburbs), pertain to residential districts. A suburb can also mean the surrounding residential areas of a bigger city, and a group of these can collectively be regarded as the suburbs. They can actually form a part of a really big city, or they can be several aggregates of distant residential areas. Quite often, it is seen that suburbs have a lower population density when compared to urban territories.

As mentioned, suburban areas are defined differently in some countries. Take Canada and America for example; these countries both define suburban as a different municipality from the major city. In the Australian region, suburban can also refer to a residential area, which is more or less a subdivision of the city. This scheme is devised for better postal servicing. Lastly, other population and statistics experts commonly agree that suburban areas are places outside the inner, or main, city. The only mistake is these places are sometimes considered as urban areas, which adds even more confusion.

Conversely, urban territories are often synonymous to a bigger number of residents, or people. The more humans living in a certain city, the denser its overall population will be. Moreover, the term urban can encompass the main city and the nearby towns, without incorporating the smaller rural establishments, like villages. If ever the urban city happens to include the latter, it will eventually be called the bigger metropolitan area. Either way, urban and metropolitan territories are more congested. There usually are more buildings, and the houses are closer together, unlike the suburbs where you can enjoy more space and have a bigger area for a backyard or garden.

Like the term suburban, urban is also perceived differently in many countries around the world. Depending on the total land area, urban territories require a denser populace, like China, for it to be called a purely urban territory. In Australia, an area can be regarded as urban if its density is more than 200 individuals per km2, while in Canada, it must be more than 400 inhabitants per km2.

1. Urban areas have a bigger population density compared to suburban areas

2. Urban areas usually include the inner, or main city, whereas suburban areas are those that are just adjacent to the city, or surround the city.

3. Urban areas are more congested in terms of people and establishments compared to suburban territories.

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Urban vs. Suburban What are urban and suburban areas? The cause of confusion lies in the definition attached to each term. Nevertheless, it is important to know that the meaning of an urbanized or suburban territory may be differently perceived among the various countries. Generally, suburban areas (also known as suburbs), pertain to residential districts.

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Define refugee. refugee synonyms, refugee pronunciation, refugee translation, English dictionary definition of refugee. n. One who flees, especially to another country, seeking refuge from war, political oppression, religious persecution, or a natural disaster. n a.

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The Census Bureau's mission is to serve as the nation's leading provider of quality data about its people and economy.

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The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions.
WATCH: America: The Story of Us on HISTORY Vault
What Caused the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incentivizing farming in the Great Plains.

The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. These acts led to a massive influx of new and inexperienced farmers across the Great Plains.

Many of these late nineteenth and early twentieth century settlers lived by the superstition "rain follows the plow." Emigrants, land speculators, politicians and even some scientists believed that homesteading and agriculture would permanently affect the climate of the semi-arid Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming.

Manifest Destiny

This false belief was linked to Manifest Destiny -an attitude that Americans had a sacred duty to expand west. A series of wet years during the period created further misunderstanding of the region's ecology and led to the intensive cultivation of increasingly marginal lands that couldn't be reached by irrigation.

Rising wheat prices in the 1910s and 1920s and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I encouraged farmers to plow up millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, corn and other row crops. But as the United States entered the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. In desperation, farmers tore up even more grassland in an attempt to harvest a bumper crop and break even.

Crops began to fail with the onset of drought in 1931, exposing the bare, over-plowed farmland. Without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation-especially in the Southern Plains.

When Was the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl, also known as "the Dirty Thirties," started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer.

Severe drought hit the Midwest and southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further exacerbating the environmental disaster.

By 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land had been rendered useless for farming, while another 125 million acres-an area roughly three-quarters the size of Texas-was rapidly losing its topsoil.

Regular rainfall returned to the region by the end of 1939, bringing the Dust Bowl years to a close. The economic effects, however, persisted. Population declines in the worst-hit counties-where the agricultural value of the land failed to recover-continued well into the 1950s.

'Black Blizzards' Strike America

During the Dust Bowl period, severe dust storms, often called "black blizzards," swept the Great Plains. Some of these carried topsoil from Texas and Oklahoma as far east as Washington, D.C. and New York City, and coated ships in the Atlantic Ocean with dust.

Billowing clouds of dust would darken the sky, sometimes for days at a time. In many places, the dust drifted like snow and residents had to clear it with shovels. Dust worked its way through the cracks of even well-sealed homes, leaving a coating on food, skin and furniture.

Some people developed "dust pneumonia" and experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing. It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from the condition. Estimates range from hundreds to several thousand people.

On May 11, 1934, a massive dust storm two miles high traveled 2,000 miles to the East Coast, blotting out monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Capitol.

The worst dust storm occurred on April 14, 1935. News reports called the event Black Sunday. A wall of blowing sand and dust started in the Oklahoma Panhandle and spread east. As many as three million tons of topsoil are estimated to have blown off the Great Plains during Black Sunday.

An Associated Press news report coined the term "Dust Bowl" after the Black Sunday dust storm.

New Deal Programs

President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a number of measures to help alleviate the plight of poor and displaced farmers. He also addressed the environmental degradation that had led to the Dust Bowl in the first place.
WATCH: How Artists Helped End the Great Depression
As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress established the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project in 1935. These programs put local farmers to work planting trees as windbreaks on farms across the Great Plains. The Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) developed and promoted new farming techniques to combat the problem of soil erosion.

Okie Migration

Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma-during the 1930s. It was one of the largest migrations in American history.

Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. Many of them, poverty-stricken, traveled west looking for work. From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California. A third settled in the state's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.

These Dust Bowl refugees were called "Okies." Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California. Many of them lived in shantytowns and tents along irrigation ditches. "Okie" soon became a term of disdain used to refer to any poor Dust Bowl migrant, regardless of their state of origin.
READ MORE: How the Dust Bowl Made Americans Refugees in Their Own Country

Dust Bowl in Arts and Culture

The Dust Bowl, and the suffering endured by those who survived it, captured the hearts and imaginations of the nation's artists, musicians and writers.

John Steinbeck memorialized the plight of the Okies in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Photographer Dorothea Lange documented rural poverty with a series of photographs for FDR's Farm Securities Administration, and artist Alexandre Hogue achieved renown with his Dust Bowl landscapes.

Folk musician Woody Guthrie, and his semi-autobiographical first album Dust Bowl Ballads of 1940, told stories of economic hardship faced by Okies in California. Guthrie, an Oklahoma native, left his home state with thousands of others looking for work during the Dust Bowl.

Sources

FDR and the New Deal Response to an Environmental Catastrophe. Roosevelt Institute.
About The Dust Bowl. English Department; University of Illinois.
Dust Bowl Migration. University of California at Davis.
The Great Okie Migration. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Okie Migrations. Oklahoma Historical Society.
What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment.
The Dust Bowl. Library of Congress.
Dust Bowl Ballads: Woody Guthrie. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
The Dust Bowl. Ken Burns; PBS.

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The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.

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USGS Scientists Investigate New Orleans Levees Broken by Hurricane Katrina

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A monthly newsletter covering coastal and marine science in the U.S. Geological Survey.

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President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee. The Government granted more than 270 million acres of land while the law was in effect. Read more...

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Additional Background Information

On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman, a Union Army scout, was scheduled to leave Gage County, Nebraska Territory, to report for duty in St. Louis. At a New Year's Eve party the night before, Freeman met some local Land Office officials and convinced a clerk to open the office shortly after midnight in order to file a land claim. In doing so, Freeman became one of the first to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Homestead Act, a law signed by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862. At the time of the signing, 11 states had left the Union, and this piece of legislation would continue to have regional and political overtones.

The distribution of Government lands had been an issue since the Revolutionary War. At the time of the Articles of Confederation, the major controversy related to land measurement and pricing. Early methods for allocating unsettled land outside the original 13 colonies were arbitrary and chaotic. Boundaries were established by stepping off plots from geographical landmarks. As a result, overlapping claims and border disputes were common.

The Land Ordinance of 1785 finally implemented a standardized system of Federal land surveys that eased boundary conflicts. Using astronomical starting points, territory was divided into a 6-mile square called a township prior to settlement. The township was divided into 36 sections, each measuring 1 square mile or 640 acres each. Sale of public land was viewed as a means to generate revenue for the Government rather than as a way to encourage settlement. Initially, an individual was required to purchase a full section of land at the cost of $1 per acre for 640 acres. The investment needed to purchase these large plots and the massive amount of physical labor required to clear the land for agriculture were often insurmountable obstacles.

By 1800, the minimum lot was halved to 320 acres, and settlers were allowed to pay in 4 installments, but prices remained fixed at $1.25 an acre until 1854. That year, federal legislation was enacted establishing a graduated scale that adjusted land prices to reflect the desirability of the lot. Lots that had been on the market for 30 years, for example, were reduced to 12 ½ cents per acre. Soon after, extraordinary bonuses were extended to veterans and those interested in settling the Oregon Territory, making homesteading a viable option for some. But basically, national public-land-use policy made land ownership financially unattainable for most would-be homesteaders.

Before and after the Mexican-American war in the mid 1800s, popular pressure to change policy arose from the evolving economy, new demographics, and shifting social climate of early 19th-century America. In the 1830s and 1840s, rising prices for corn, wheat, and cotton enabled large, well-financed farms, particularly the plantations of the South, to force out smaller ventures. Displaced farmers then looked westward to unforested country that offered more affordable development.

Prior to the war with Mexico (1846-48), people settling in the West demanded "preemption," an individual's right to settle land first and pay later (essentially an early form of credit). Eastern economic interests opposed this policy as it was feared that the cheap labor base for the factories would be drained. After the war with Mexico, a number of developments supported the growth of the homestead movement. Economic prosperity drew unprecedented numbers of immigrants to America, many of whom also looked westward for a new life. New canals and roadways reduced western dependence on the harbor in New Orleans, and England's repeal of its corn laws opened new markets to American agriculture.

Despite these developments, legislative efforts to improve homesteading laws faced opposition on multiple fronts. As mentioned above, Northern factories owners feared a mass departure of their cheap labor force and Southern states worried that rapid settlement of western territories would give rise to new states populated by small farmers opposed to slavery. Preemption became national policy in spite of these sectional concerns, but supporting legislation was stymied. Three times-in 1852, 1854, and 1859-the House of Representatives passed homestead legislation, but on each occasion, the Senate defeated the measure. In 1860, a homestead bill providing Federal land grants to western settlers was passed by Congress only to be vetoed by President Buchanan.

The Civil War removed the slavery issue because the Southern states had seceded from the Union. So finally, in 1862, the Homestead Act was passed and signed into law. The new law established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: file an application, improve the land, and file for deed of title.

Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land. For the next 5 years, the General Land Office looked for a good faith effort by the homesteaders. This meant that the homestead was their primary residence and that they made improvements upon the land. After 5 years, the homesteader could file for his patent (or deed of title) by submitting proof of residency and the required improvements to a local land office.

Local land offices forwarded the paperwork to the General Land Office in Washington, DC, along with a final certificate of eligibility. The case file was examined, and valid claims were granted patent to the land free and clear, except for a small registration fee. Title could also be acquired after a 6-month residency and trivial improvements, provided the claimant paid the government $1.25 per acre. After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they served from the residency requirements.

Some land speculators took advantage of legislative loopholes. Others hired phony claimants or bought abandoned land. The General Land Office was underfunded and unable to hire a sufficient number investigators for its widely scattered local offices. As a result, overworked and underpaid investigators were often susceptible to bribery.

Physical conditions on the frontier presented even greater challenges. Wind, blizzards, and plagues of insects threatened crops. Open plains meant few trees for building, forcing many to build homes out of sod. Limited fuel and water supplies could turn simple cooking and heating chores into difficult trials. Ironically, even the smaller size of sections took its own toll. While 160 acres may have been sufficient for an eastern farmer, it was simply not enough to sustain agriculture on the dry plains, and scarce natural vegetation made raising livestock on the prairie difficult. As a result, in many areas, the original homesteader did not stay on the land long enough to fulfill the claim.

Homesteaders who persevered were rewarded with opportunities as rapid changes in transportation eased some of the hardships. Six months after the Homestead Act was passed, the Railroad Act was signed, and by May 1869, a transcontinental railroad stretched across the frontier. The new railroads provided relatively easy transportation for homesteaders, and new immigrants were lured westward by railroad companies eager to sell off excess land at inflated prices. The new rail lines provided ready access to manufactured goods and catalog houses like Montgomery Ward offered farm tools, barbed wire, linens, weapons, and even houses delivered via the rails.

The distribution of western land by the Federal Government cannot be extricated from Federal Indian policy. The period from 1870 to 1900 marked a departure from earlier policies that were dominated by removal, treaties, reservations, and even war. New policy in the late 1880s - after the amount of public lands available had rapidly diminished - focused specifically on breaking up reservations by granting land allotments to individual Native Americans. Seeking to satisfy the nation's hunger for land, Congress passed the Dawes Act in 1887, giving individual farms to reservation Indians and opening the remaining Indian lands to settlers.

On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman and 417 others had filed claims. Many more pioneers followed, populating the land, building towns and schools and creating new states from the territories. In many cases, the schools became the focal point for community life, serving as churches, polling places and social gathering locations.

In 1936, the Department of the Interior recognized Daniel Freeman as the first claimant and established the Homestead National Monument, near a school built in 1872, on his homestead near Beatrice, Nebraska. Today, the monument is administered by the National Park Service, and the site commemorates the changes to the land and the nation brought about by the Homestead Act of 1862.

By 1934, over 1.6 million homestead applications were processed and more than 270 million acres-10 percent of all U.S. lands-passed into the hands of individuals. The passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed the Homestead Act in the 48 contiguous states, but it did grant a ten-year extension on claims in Alaska.
This text was adapted from the article "The Homestead Act of 1862" by Lee Ann Potter and Wynell Schamel.
Citation: Potter, Lee Ann and Wynell Schamel. "The Homestead Act of 1862." Social Education 61, 6 (October 1997): 359-364.
Materials created by the National Archives and Records Administration are in the public domain.

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President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee.

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Contents

1. Dreams of a Transcontinental Railroad

2. Two Competing Companies: The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad

3. Danger Ahead: Building the Transcontinental Railroad

4. Driving Toward The Last Spike

5. Impact on The United States

6. Photo Galleries

In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, tasking them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies would race toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

Dreams of a Transcontinental Railroad

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America's first steam locomotive made its debut in 1830, and over the next two decades, railroad tracks linked many cities on the East Coast. By 1850, some 9,000 miles of track had been laid east of the Missouri River. During that same period, the first settlers began to move westward across the United States; this trend increased dramatically after the discovery of gold in California in 1849. The overland journey-across mountains, plains, rivers and deserts-was risky and difficult, and many westward migrants instead chose to travel by sea, taking the six-month route around Cape Horn at the tip of South America, or risking yellow fever and other diseases by crossing the Isthmus of Panama and traveling via ship to San Francisco.

Did you know? Before the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, it cost nearly $1,000 dollars to travel across the country. After the railroad was completed, the price dropped to $150 dollars.

In 1845, the New York entrepreneur Asa Whitney presented a resolution in Congress proposing the federal funding of a railroad that would stretch to the Pacific. Lobbying efforts over the next several years failed due to growing sectionalism in Congress, but the idea remained a potent one. In 1860, a young engineer named Theodore Judah identified the infamous Donner Pass in northern California (where a group of westward emigrants had become trapped in 1846) as an ideal location for constructing a railroad through the formidable Sierra Nevada mountains. By 1861, Judah had enlisted a group of investors in Sacramento to form the Central Pacific Railroad Company. He then headed to Washington, where he was able to convince congressional leaders as well as President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law the following year.

Two Competing Companies: The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad

The Pacific Railroad Act stipulated that the Central Pacific Railroad Company would start building in Sacramento and continue east across the Sierra Nevada, while a second company, the Union Pacific Railroad, would build westward from the Missouri River, near the Iowa- Nebraska border. The two lines of track would meet in the middle (the bill did not designate an exact location) and each company would receive 6,400 acres of land (later doubled to 12,800) and $48,000 in government bonds for every mile of track built. From the beginning, then, the building of the transcontinental railroad was set up in terms of a competition between the two companies.

In the West, the Central Pacific would be dominated by the "Big Four"-Charles Crocker, Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins. All were ambitious businessmen with no prior experience with railroads, engineering or construction. They borrowed heavily to finance the project, and exploited legal loopholes to get the most possible funds from the government for their planned track construction. Disillusioned with his partners, Judah planned to recruit new investors to buy them out, but he caught yellow fever while crossing the Isthmus of Panama on his way east and died in November 1863, soon after the Central Pacific had spiked its first rails to ties in Sacramento. Meanwhile, in Omaha, Dr. Thomas Durant had illegally achieved a controlling interest in the Union Pacific Railroad Company, giving him complete authority over the project. (Durant would also illegally set up a company called Crédit Mobilier, which guaranteed him and other investors risk-free profits from the railroad's construction.) Though the Union Pacific celebrated its own launch in early December 1863, little would be completed until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Danger Ahead: Building the Transcontinental Railroad

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

After General Grenville Dodge, a hero of the Union Army, took control as chief engineer, the Union Pacific finally began to move westward in May 1866. The company suffered bloody attacks on its workers by Native Americans-including members of the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes-who were understandably threatened by the progress of the white man and his "iron horse" across their native lands. Still, the Union Pacific moved relatively quickly across the plains, compared to the slow progress of their rival company through the Sierra. Ramshackle settlements popped up wherever the railroad went, turning into hotbeds of drinking, gambling, prostitution and violence and producing the enduring mythology of the "Wild West."

In 1865, after struggling with retaining workers due to the difficulty of the labor, Charles Crocker (who was in charge of construction for the Central Pacific) began hiring Chinese laborers. By that time, some 50,000 Chinese immigrants were living on the West Coast, many having arrived during the Gold Rush. This was controversial at the time, as the Chinese were considered an inferior race due to pervasive racism. The Chinese laborers proved to be tireless workers, and Crocker hired more of them; some 14,000 were toiling under brutal working conditions in the Sierra Nevada by early 1867. (By contrast, the work force of the Union Pacific was mainly Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans.) To blast through the mountains, the Central Pacific built huge wooden trestles on the western slopes and used gunpowder and nitroglycerine to blast tunnels through the granite.

Driving Toward The Last Spike

Buyenlarge/Getty Images

By the summer of 1867, the Union Pacific was in Wyoming, having covered nearly four times as much ground as the Central Pacific. The Central Pacific broke through the mountains in late June, however, and the hard part was finally behind them. Both companies then headed towards Salt Lake City, cutting many corners (including building shoddy bridges or sections of track that would have to be rebuilt later) in their race to get ahead.

By early 1869, the companies were working only miles from each other, and in March the newly inaugurated President Ulysses S. Grant announced he would withhold federal funds until the two railroad companies agreed on a meeting point. They decided on Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake; some 690 track-miles from Sacramento and 1,086 from Omaha. On May 10, after several delays, a crowd of workers and dignitaries watched as the final spike was driven linking the Central Pacific and Union Pacific in the "Golden Spike Ceremony."

The golden spike was made of 17.6-karat gold and was a gift of David Hewes, a San Francisco contractor and friend of "Big Four" member Leland Stanford. During the ceremony, Stanford took the first swing at the spike, but accidentally struck the tie instead. His attempt was followed by Union Pacific Thomas Durant's. Durant swung and missed - likely because of a hangover he was suffering from the previous evening's party in Ogden. A railroad worker ultimately drove the final spike at 12:47 p.m. on May 10, 1869. Telegraph cables immediately went out to President Grant and around the country with the news that the transcontinental railroad had been completed.

The golden spike was removed after the ceremony and replaced with traditional iron spikes. Three other ties-one of gold, one of silver and gold, and one of silver, were also presented at the ceremony. The original golden spike is now part of the collection of Stanford University, which was founded by Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane, in 1885 in memory of their only son.

Impact on The United States

The building of the transcontinental railroad opened up the American West to more rapid development. With the completion of the track, the travel time for making the 3,000-mile journey across the United States was cut from a matter of months to under a week. Connecting the two American coasts made the economic export of Western resources to Eastern markets easier than ever before. The railroad also facilitated westward expansion, escalating conflicts between Native American tribes and settlers who now had easier access to new territories.

Photo Galleries

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In 1862, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies began building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies raced toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

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Directions: Two popular places of immigration in America, your job will be to compare and contrast different facts of both Ellis and Angel Islands. Ellis Island was the gateway for millions of...

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Irish Potato Famine - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Irish Potato Famine, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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UnitedStatesHistoryLSA - Sunbelt and Rustbelt

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Many citizens of the Rust Belt moved to the Sun Belt for the changing job opportunities and the warmer climate. People were tired of harsh winters. The Sun Belt experienced growth in population and the Rust Belt saw a decline in population throughout the 20th century.

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For many Americans, the term "mixed race" brings to mind a biracial experience of having one parent black and another white, or perhaps one white and the other Asian.

But for many U.S. Latinos, mixed-race identity takes on a different meaning - one that is tied to Latin America's colonial history and commonly includes having a white and indigenous, or "mestizo," background somewhere in their ancestry.

When asked if they identify as "mestizo," "mulatto" or some other mixed-race combination, one-third of U.S. Hispanics say they do, according to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey of Hispanic adults.

The term mestizo means mixed in Spanish, and is generally used throughout Latin America to describe people of mixed ancestry with a white European and an indigenous background. Similarly, the term "mulatto" - mulato in Spanish - commonly refers to a mixed-race ancestry that includes white European and black African roots.

Across Latin America, these are the two terms most commonly used to describe people of mixed-race background. For example, mestizos represent a racial majority in Mexico, most of Central America and the Andean countries of South America.

Mulattos make up smaller shares of the populations in those countries - at most 4%, according to national censuses or other surveys. In Caribbean countries and Brazil, where populations with African ancestry are larger, mulattos make up a larger share of the population - 11% in the Dominican Republic and 47% in Brazil. (A 68% majority in the Dominican Republic identifies as "mestizo/indio.")

Concepts of multiracial identity have been present in Latin America since colonial times. The Spanish caste system outlined all the different ways the native peoples in New Spain had mixed with Africans and Europeans - and the names and rights associated with each combination. In the early to mid-20th century, a number of countries in Latin America adopted the concept of " mestizaje," or mixing and blending, and declared their populations mestizo in an effort to eliminate racial conflict and promote national identity.

According to the Pew Research survey of U.S. Hispanics, those who identify as mixed race, mestizo or mulatto are more likely to be U.S. born than those who do not (44% vs. 37%). They are also more likely than Latino adults who do not identify as mixed race to be non-Mexican (45% vs. 36%) and to have a higher educational attainment (45% have some college or more, versus 27%).

The use of these labels to describe mixed-race ancestry is an example of how racial identity among Hispanics often defies conventional classifications used in the U.S. For example, among Hispanic adults we surveyed who say they consider themselves mixed race, mestizo or mulatto, only 13% explicitly select two or more races or volunteer that they are "mixed race" when asked about their racial background in a standard race question (like those asked on U.S. census forms). Instead, about four-in-ten of Hispanic respondents identifying as mestizo/mulatto say their race is white, while one-in-five volunteered their race as Hispanic.

These findings reflect the challenges the U.S. Census Bureau faces when measuring Hispanic racial identity. When asked about their race in census forms, a significant number of Hispanics do not choose a standard census race category such as white, black or Asian. Instead, about four-in-ten select the " some other race" category. This is coupled with the fact that two-thirds of U.S. Hispanic adults consider being Hispanic as part of their racial background, not just an ethnicity.

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'Mestizo' and 'mulatto': Mixed-race identities among U.S. Hispanics

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For many Americans, the term "mixed race" brings to mind a biracial experience of having one parent black and another white, or perhaps one white and the other Asian. But for many U.S. Latinos, mixed-race identity takes on a different meaning - one that is tied to Latin America's colonial history and commonly includes having a white and indigenous, or "mestizo," background somewhere in their ancestry.

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Aztecs, Mayans, Incas - Oh My!!!

May 22, 2007

Greetings my fellow historians! History in Action has been out of commission for a little while. Things got real nasty at a little get together at the New York Historical Society. Let's just say yours truly isn't going to be getting any Christmas cards from Doris Kearns Goodwin! Now, let's get onto the pudding that fills your pot, today's entry!
The Aztecs
In grade school, many of us learn the history of the famous Native American tribes: the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. Reality check, not everything you learn in history class is "on the level." Grab those dusty history mitts, march out to left field, it's time to catch some "history flies!"
Mayans

The Aztec empire was located in what is today known as "Mexico." They were incredibly advanced agriculturally, having developed irrigation methods well before their European counterparts. Though the empire was vast and wealthy, many Aztecs would flee their country for the possibility of employment in the "new world."

Ritualistic sacrifice was known to have taken place in the Aztec empire. Some estimates suggest as many as 84,000 were once killed during a four day period. Puts the Iraq war numbers into perspective, huh? 😉

Games were especially important to the Aztecs. They played a sport akin to the Mesoamerican ballgame named tlachtli or ollamaliztli. It was a furious sport combining the athleticism of basketball, the brutality of football, and the strategy of baseball. However scoring was very low so it was really boring.

Aztecs used common items like cocoa beans and cotton for currency. When Europeans were handed the cocoa in exchange for goods they ate the cocoa thinking this was the custom. The Aztecs in turn would ingest European coins and paper money. The Europeans would laugh and the Aztecs would stare back embarrassed, sometimes crying out of shame. Eventually the Europeans, led by Hernando Cortés, would slaughter the Aztecs not ravaged by Smallpox.

Incas

The Mayans were incredibly advanced scientifically. They developed many concepts before their European counterparts. Such concepts and advancements included absolute zero, telepathy, "to be continued..." episodes, and post-rock, and irrigation.

Mayan art was especially skillful and renown in foreign lands. Of particular note was the attention made to the depiction of female breasts. Large, drooping bosoms were considered a sign of fertility in Maya. Lopsided, turned out breasts were even more attractive, as well as those bespectacled by acne and hair. Take that, Hefner!

Like the Aztecs, the Mayans sacrificed humans, including children who they believed to be pure. Too bad they didn't have Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" on the case!

The Incas dominated a large area of land in what is now modern day Peru. They lacked a written language, but were pioneers in early phonograph recordings, predating Thomas Edison by hundreds of years. Early Inca 45s are prized by music snobs for their raw production value. They can fetch up to twenty bucks on eBay.

Francisco Pizarro is believed to have conquered the Incas with 180 men, 1 cannon and only 27 horses. He often needed to talk his way out of potential confrontations that could have easily wiped out his party. Try that against a suicide bomber in Iraq!!! 😛

Unlike the Mayans and Aztecs, the Incas were quite agriculturally advanced, having developed a system of irrigation to rival their European counterparts.

The Aztecs. The Mayans. The Incas.

Important Societies? Maybe. Advanced? Sure. History? Definitely!

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Greetings my fellow historians! History in Action has been out of commission for a little while. Things got real nasty at a little get together at the New York Historical Society. Let's just say yours truly isn't going to be getting any Christmas cards from Doris Kearns Goodwin!

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AP World History wiki / Haciendas vs Plantations

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These are both agricultural institutions of America, but here are the main differences:

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Ordinarily, all of a maquiladora's products are exported, either directly, or indirectly, through sale to another maquiladora or exporter. The type of production may be the simple assembly of temporarily imported parts; the manufacture from start to finish of a product using materials from various countries, including Mexico; or any conceivable combination of the various phases involved in manufacturing, or even non-industrial operations, such as data-processing, packaging, and sorting coupons.

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Land reform - Mexico: The Mexican reform of 1915 followed a revolution and dealt mainly with lands of Indian villages that had been illegally absorbed by neighbouring haciendas (plantations). Legally there was no serfdom; but the Indian wage workers, or peons, were reduced to virtual serfdom through indebtedness.

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The Mexican political system is most famous for one thing and unfortunately that one thing is corruption. Mexico was ran consistently under the PRI political party from 1929-2000. This party is known for corrupt elections, hand selecting the next president, and making deals and calling truces with drug cartel members. This last issue escalated greatly and got beyond the government's control. The reason for escalation can be attributed to the United State's dismantling of the Colombian drug trade in the late 1980's. This caused disruption in the Colombian route of trafficking and made Mexican dealers more than just middle men (Rawlins). However with the PAN party taking over in 2000, the drug issue was starting to be seen by the government as an actual problem and not something that, according to the PAN party, can be quelled with deals and corrupt maneuvers.

In 2006, Felipe Calderon, member of the PAN party, took the office of the presidency. A large portion of his agenda was to stop the trafficking of drugs in the country and the exportation. Calderon sent more than 50, 000 troops onto the Mexican streets and invested billions for training and equipment to try to stop the trafficking (Rawlins). The issue of drug trafficking in Mexico had become militarized. During Calderon's reign, more than 57,000 lives have been taken (EFE). Lives that include soldiers, cartel leaders, and civilians. Seven of Mexico's 32 federal entities accounted for 72 percent of homicides in October 2012.

The war on drugs was in the media and was of obvious importance to President Calderon. Murders of cartel leaders were published in newspapers and seen across news stations throughout the country. Parades of new detainees with their arms and contraband were publicized for media attention (Castillo).

As of December 1, 2012, new Mexican president, Enrique Pena Nieto of the PRI party, has taken a different approach. With as many deaths as the previous leader has accumulated, he decided that he will not as openly address the issue. His plan, however, is much similar to Calderon's in that he will keep the military on the streets, but plans to add a gendarmarie to patrol the dangerous areas. Nieto will not be holding press-conferences to address the murders and will not allow the parading of arrested suspects. His administration will only deal with "hard data" of violence (Castillo).

Nieto has also announced that he will "work to restore peace, saying the government would change its security strategy to reducing murders, kidnappings and extortion more than going after cartel leaders" (Castillo). The reasoning for this, according to the article, is that it is an attempt to stop glorifying the violence of the cartels.

While I find this a valid point and I think the media does perpetuate violent-tendencies, I have difficulty believing that this is the only reason for making their government less transparent. With the PRI's long history of corruption, I believe that this is an reason for hiding more of the PRI's inter-workings. Their track-record for making deals and calling truces could return and the war will never end. Calderon was not in the right in how he vastly publicized the suspects, but hiding it from the public is going to lower the legitimacy of the government and create more distrust in the public of the government. With Mexican's distrust already low, the country should not have to deal with the danger that resides in their country and a government that is openly not disclosing details of such a life-altering problem.

Works Cited.

Castillo, E. Eduardo. "Mexico's New President Mostly Mum on Drug Violence." The Miami Herald. Miami Herald Media Co., 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.

EFE. "Mexican Daily: Nearly 60,000 Drug War Deaths under Calderon." Fox News Latino. Fox News Network, 01 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2013.

Rawlins, Aimee. "Mexico's Drug War." Jan 2013. Council on Foreign Relations. Feb 2013.

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Civic Issue: Foreign Policy on Human Rights

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The Mexican political system is most famous for one thing and unfortunately that one thing is corruption. Mexico was ran consistently under the PRI political party from 1929-2000. This party is known for corrupt elections, hand selecting the next president, and making deals and calling truces with drug cartel members.

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Tenochtitlan, located on an island near the western shore of Lake Texcoco in central Mexico, was the capital city and religious centre of the Aztec civilization. The traditional founding date of the city was 1345 CE and it remained the most important Aztec centre until its destruction at the hands of the conquering Spanish led by Hernán Cortés in 1521 CE, which led to the final collapse of the Aztec Empire. At the heart of the city was a large sacred precinct dominated by the huge pyramid, known as the Temple Mayor, which honoured the gods Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. The site, now Mexico City, continues to be excavated and has yielded some of the greatest treasures of Aztec art such as the celebrated Sun Stone as well as art objects the Aztecs themselves collected from the other great civilizations of Mesoamerica.

In Aztec mythology the founders of the city migrated from the legendary Aztlán cave in the northwest desert which involved a protracted journey that eventually led to Lake Texcoco. During this migration priests had carried a huge idol of the god Huitzilopochtli, who whispered directions, gave the Méxica their name and promised great wealth and prosperity if he was suitably worshipped. Along the way the Méxica settled at different spots, none of which really suited their purpose. A decisive event in the migration was the rebellion incited by Copil, son of Huitzilopochtli's sister Malinalxochitl. This was in revenge for the goddess' abandonment by the Méxica but with Huitzilopochtli's help Copil was killed. The great war god instructed that the rebel's heart be thrown as far as possible into Lake Texcoco and where it landed would indicate the place the Méxica should build their new home, the precise spot being marked by an eagle sitting on a prickly-pear cactus ( nopal) and devouring a snake. This is exactly what came to pass and the new capital of Tenochtitlan was built, the traditional date being 1345 CE.

The name of the city derives from tetl meaning rock, nochtli, the prickly-pear cactus and tlan, the locative suffix. Of similar origin is the term Tenocha which the Méxica sometimes called themselves and the name of their quasi-legendary priest-leader Tenoch.

TenochtitlAn was one of the greatest cities in Mesoamerica with over 200,000 residents.

The City

Although the city was destroyed and over the following centuries extensively built over, the chroniclers of the 16th century CE, fortunately, recorded in great detail the buildings and works of art that had once made Tenochtitlan one of the greatest cities in Mesoamerica and, with over 200,000 residents, certainly the most populous. These records and the extensive and continuing archaeology at the site mean that we know more about Tenochtitlan than any other city from the great Mesoamerican civilizations.

As Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of Cortés' men put it on first seeing the city:

It was like the enchantments in the book of Amadis, because of high towers, rues [ pyramids] and other buildings, all of masonry, which rose from the water. Some of the soldiers asked if what they saw was not a dream.
(Miller, 239)

Tenochtitlan covered, at its greatest extent, some 12-14 km² and was connected to the western shore of the lake and surrounding countryside by three causeways (running north, east and west) which included gaps traversed by removable bridges to allow boats to pass and which could be taken down in case of an attack on the city (something which never occurred until the Spanish arrived). There was also a stone aqueduct which brought fresh water to the city from springs near the Chapultepec Hill. The lake provided an important source of food but good agricultural land was scarce and this fact would necessitate re-claiming land from the lake and, eventually, military conquest to take land by force from neighbouring states. The surrounding chinampa or 'floating gardens' (mud rafts secured with willow trees) of their immediate neighbours were, therefore, seized and developed to meet the needs of the growing population in the city.

The city itself was laid out in a grid pattern with many canals permeating through the city. Besides the four main thoroughfares dissecting the city along the cardinal directions, most streets and canals were narrow, especially as there were no wheeled vehicles or beasts of burden so that goods were transported by porter or small boats and canoes. The canals, along with the many willow trees, flower gardens and white-plastered monuments gleaming in the sunlight, must have made for a picturesque city. As one Nahuatl poem describes:

The city is spread out in circles of jade,
radiating flashes of light like quetzal plumes,
Besides it the lords are borne in boats:
over them extends flowery mist.
(Coe, 192)

The heart of the city was the walled ceremonial precinct with its three entrances, impressive temples and pyramids from which the city spread out into four principal residential quarters. These had sometimes vast palaces such as Motecuhzoma I's old residence and the palace of Axayacatl, smaller flat-roofed stone residences for nobles and officials, huge market places (where all manner of basic and luxury goods could be purchased such as jade, chocolate and vanilla), judicial chambers, treasure houses, store-rooms, structures such as the Dance House and the Aviary, and closely packed areas of workshops (working especially metal and obsidian but also basketry using the local reeds) and small adobe brick and reed homes where the lower classes lived, although these too could be interspersed with small gardens.

The Sacred Precinct

The sacred precinct at the heart of Tenochtitlan contained, according to one eye-witness, 78 separate structures. Amongst the most important were the Temple Mayor of Tlaloc and Huitzilopochtli, which was flanked by the Eagle's House (named after its stone decoration) on one side and the pyramid of Tezcatlipoca on the other. In front of the Temple Mayor stood the gladiator stone (where sacrificial victims were bound and attacked by 'knights'), a stone tzompantli (skull rack) and an I-shaped ball court. In the south west corner stood the Sun Temple of Tonatiuh and a temple to Quetzalcoatl.

There was also a temple to the earth goddess Tonantzin and the Coateocalli building which housed, and in a sense spiritually captured, the statues of gods and various other artworks captured from conquered enemies. Finally, on the Tlaloc side of the Temple Mayor excavations have revealed a man-made mountain made of offerings and deposits which was designed to imitate Tlaloc's sacred mountain.

The Temple Mayor

The Great Temple or Temple Mayor (called Hueteocalli by the Aztecs) takes centre stage in the sacred precinct. On top of the 60 m high pyramid platform, reached by two flights of steps, were two twin temples. The north side shrine was dedicated to Tlaloc, the god of rain and the other, on the south side, was dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war. The temple to Tlaloc marked the summer solstice (symbolic of the wet season) whilst Huitzilopochtli's marked the winter solstice (symbolic of the dry season and a time for warfare). The monumental steps leading to Tlaloc's temple were painted blue and white, the former colour representing water, the element so strongly associated with the god. In contrast, the steps leading to Huitzilopochtli's temple were painted bright red to symbolise blood and war.

Sacrifices, including human ones, were carried out at both temples to feed and honour the gods. A typical sacrifice involved the victim having their heart ripped out, being skinned, decapitated and then dismembered. Following all that the corpse was flung down the steps of the pyramid to land at the base where a massive round stone depicted Coyolxauhqui, the goddess who was similarly treated by Huitzilopochtli in mythology.

Destruction

When the Spanish arrived at Tenochtitlan, their leader Cortés had only 500 men and fewer than 20 horses at his disposal. However, by recruiting allies such as the Tlaxcalans, he was able to lay siege to the city which would eventually fall on the 13th of August 1521 CE. The great monuments were sacked and looted, works of art and precious objects were melted down and the Aztec civilization collapsed. What was left of the city was made into the capital of New Spain, as the Spanish called their new colony.

Archaeology

Excavations within the temples and buildings of Tenochtitlan began in the 20th century CE and have revealed the true complexity of the site's history. There is evidence, for example, that the sacred precinct was built over much earlier structures, that the temples themselves were reconstructed and added to many times and within them were buried offerings, for example, the coral, shells and sea-life interred deep within the Temple Mayor.

The city was stripped of anything of value following its collapse but, nevertheless, several stunning works of art have been, almost miraculously, recovered from Tenochtitlan. These include the iconic Sun Stone (aka Calendar Stone), the great stone sculpture of Coatlicue, the Tizoc stone, the huge round stone depicting Coyolxauhqui which rested at the foot of the Temple Mayor, the Temple Stone - a stone throne probably used by Motecuhzoma II and decorated with gods and a sun disk, and finally, the blue ceramic anthropomorphic vessel depicting Tlaloc.

In addition to these magnificent works of Aztec art, excavation of the temples has revealed caches of art from many earlier Mesoamerican civilizations as far back as the Olmecs, illustrating that the Aztecs were appreciative and even reverent art collectors. Many richly decorated and finely made ceramic vessels have also been excavated which show that the Aztec artist was perhaps more skilled than had first been appreciated. The vast majority of these finds form part of the breathtaking collection of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, which has been, of course, constructed on top of the ancient site of Tenochtitlán.

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Tenochtitlan, located on an island near the western shore of Lake Texcoco in central Mexico, was the capital city and religious centre of the Aztec civilization. The traditional founding date of the city was 1345 CE and it remained the most important Aztec centre until its destruction at the hands of the conquering Spanish led by Hernán Cortés in 1521 CE, which led to the final collapse of the Aztec Empire.

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Comparison chart

Conservative

Liberal

current rating is 3.82/5

1

2

3

4

5

(2977 ratings)

current rating is 3.72/5

1

2

3

4

5

(2977 ratings)

Political Views

Right-wing, anti-federalist. Prefer smaller government, less regulation, most services to be provided by the private sector in a free market, and a literal interpretation of the Constitution.

Left-wing, federalist. Prefer more regulation and services like free universal health care to be provided by the government to all citizens.

Economic Views

Government should tax less and spend less. Cutting spending to balance the budget should be the priority. Higher income earners should have an incentive to invest (credits). Charity is the responsibility of the people.

Government should provide more services to the less fortunate (like health care) and increase taxes if necessary. High-income earners should pay a larger percentage of their income as taxes.

Social Views

Opposed to gay marriage, abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Support the right to bear arms, death penalty, and personal responsibility as an individual.

Gay couples to get equal rights like everyone else (e.g. marriage); abortion should be legal; support embryonic stem cell research. Support restrictions and regulation around the right to bear arms.

Personal Responsibility

Individuals should exercise personal responsibility and it is the governments role to hold them accountable even with severe penalties. Laws are enacted to reflect the best interest of the society as a whole.

The people should look to the government to provide a structure. Laws are enacted to protect every individual for an equal society sometimes at the expense of economic freedom if neccessary.

Social Issues

In terms of views on social issues, conservatives oppose gay marriage, abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Liberals on the other hand, are more left-leaning and generally supportive of the right of gay people to get married and women's right to choose to have an abortion, as ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in .

With regard to the right to bear arms, conservatives support this right as it applies to all US citizens, whereas liberals oppose civilian gun ownership - or at the very least, demand that restrictions be places such as background checks on people who want to buy guns, requiring guns to be registered etc.

Economic Issues

The different schools of economic thought found among conservatives and liberals are closely related to America's anti-federalist and federalist history, with conservatives desiring little to no government intervention in economic affairs and liberals desiring greater regulation.

Economic conservatives believe that the private sector can provide most services more efficiently than the government can. They also believe that government regulation is bad for businesses, usually has unintended consequences, and should be minimal. With many conservatives believing in "trickle-down" economics, they favor a small government that collects fewer taxes and spends less.

In contrast, liberals believe many citizens rely on government services for healthcare, unemployment insurance, health and safety regulations, and so on. As such, liberals often favor a larger government that taxes more and spends more to provide services to its citizens.

See Also: Comparing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's Tax Plans

Some good examples of this policy split are the Environmental Protection Agency, which liberals think is vital and some conservatives want to abolish or scale down, and the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which liberals want to expand and conservatives believe should be partially or completely privatized through a voucher system connected to private health insurers.

In the early part of the twentieth century, liberals - especially those in Britain - were those who stood for laissez fair capitalism. In more recent times, however, the nomenclature seems to have reversed. The exception to this is found in Australia, where the mainstream conservative party is called the Liberal Party and the mainstream non-conservative party is called the Labour Party.

Political views

Political liberals believe that parties motivated by self-interest are willing to behave in ways that are harmful to society unless government is prepared- and empowered to constrain them. They believe regulation is necessitated when individuals-, corporations-, and industries demonstrate a willingness to pursue financial gain at an intolerable cost to society--and grow too powerful to be constrained by other social institutions. Liberals believe in systematic protections against hazardous workplaces, unsafe consumer products, and environmental pollution. They remain wary of the corruption- and historic abuses--particularly the oppression of political minorities--that have taken place in the absence of oversight for state- and local authorities. Liberals value educators and put their trust in science. They believe the public welfare is promoted by cultivating a widely-tolerant and -permissive society.

Political conservatives believe commercial regulation does more harm than good--unnecessarily usurping political freedoms, potentially stifling transformative innovations, and typically leading to further regulatory interference. They endorse the contraction of governmental involvement in non-commercial aspects of society as well, calling upon the private sector to assume their activities. Conservatives call for the devolution of powers to the states, and believe locally-tailored solutions are more appropriate to local circumstances. They promulgate individual responsibility, and believe a strong society is made up of citizens who can stand on their own. Conservatives value the armed forces and place their emphasis on faith. Conservatives believe in the importance of stability, and promote law and order to protect the status quo.

Liberals believe in universal access to health care--they believe personal health should be in no way dependent upon one's financial resources, and support government intervention to sever that link. Political conservatives prefer no government sponsorship of health care; they prefer all industries to be private, favour deregulation of commerce, and advocate a reduced role for government in all aspects of society--they believe government should be in no way involved in one's healthcare purchasing decisions.

Psychological traits

Jonathan Haidt, a University of Virginia psychology professor, has examined the values of liberals and conservatives through paired moral attributes: harm/care, fairnesss/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity. He outlines the psychological differences in the following TED talk:

Haidt has also written a book, The Righteous Mind, based on his studies conducted over several years on liberal and conservative subjects. Nicholas Kristof, an avowed liberal, offered an unbiased review of the book and cited some interesting findings such as:

Morality for conservatives includes three attributes that are not as highly-valued by liberals: loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity.

Research suggests that conservatives are particularly attuned to threats, with a greater startle reflex in response to loud noises. Conservatives also secrete more skin moisture when they see disgusting images, such as a person eating worms--liberals respond less emphatically.

Liberals prefer dogs who are empathetic, not subservient; conservatives seek dogs who are loyal and obedient.

Libertarians

Liberals should not be confused with libertarians. Libertarians believe that the role of the government should be extremely limited, especially in the economic sphere. They believe that governments are prone to corruption and inefficiencies and that the private sector in a free market can achieve better outcomes than government bureaucracies, because they make better decisions on resource allocation. Liberals, on the other hand, favor more government involvement because they believe there are several areas where the private sector -- especially if left unregulated -- needs checks and balances to ensure consumer protection.

The primary focus of libertarians is the maximization of liberty for all citizens, regardless of race, class, or socio-economic position.

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Conservative vs Liberal comparison. The epithet conservative or liberal is used to describe political and economic views and affiliations. The meaning of 'conservative' or 'liberal' could be different in different contexts - social, economic and political. They also differ in usage in differ...

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a dark-colored relatively strong cigar... See the full definition

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The Humboldt Current System (HCS), also called the Peru Current, is a major Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystem that flows north along the western coast of South America. It is an eastern boundary current flowing in the direction of the equator, and extend 500-1,000 km (310-620 mi) offshore.

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FARC Warns of Paramilitary Threats in Disarmament Zones

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The FARC is complying with its part of the peace deal, while the government delays implementation of the peace accord.

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Vertical climate zones are tropical regions which indicate specific patterns of elevated growth in Latin America countries. Vertical climate zones come in three types: tierra...

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In real estate, "landlocked" refers to a property that has no direct access to a public street, so the only way on or off the property is to cross land owned by someone else. Usually, a landlocked property gains street access through a legal permission called an easement.

The geographic term "landlocked" describes a country with no coast that is surrounded by other countries. Such a country is somewhat vulnerable economically because to import or export anything, it must rely on the goodwill of its neighbors to allow goods to cross their territory.

Landlocked properties are frequently the product of subdividing larger parcels of land. Even if the original landowner built roads to the newly separate properties on the interior, those parcels will still be landlocked if the roads remain private -- that is, they aren't turned over to the local government.

Disadvantages

Problems can arise when trying to improve or sell landlocked properties. Michael Wolf, a property law professor at the University of Florida, tells "The Gainesville Sun" that lenders will often refuse to write loans to buy, build or improve homes on landlocked property. That's because a lack of public access can translate to a lack of public services -- notably police and fire protection. That lack of access can also make properties unattractive to buyers.

An easement is a legal provision giving the owner of a landlocked property the right to cross someone else's land. An informal agreement among neighbors does not constitute an easement because it lasts only as long as the neighbors remain on good terms. The most secure easements are written into the deeds of both the landlocked property and the property used for access.

There are essentially three ways to get an easement. An "easement by implication" arises when a landowner sells off a landlocked portion of his own property. When that happens, the law assumes the owner automatically grants the buyer the right to cross his property, regardless of whether such right is written into the new property's deed. Implied easements remain with the property and pass from owner to owner. An "easement by prescription" can result when the owner of the landlocked property openly uses someone else's land for access without explicit permission, and the landowner does nothing to stop it. If such use continues for a sufficient length of time, the landlocked owner gains a prescriptive easement, which then passes from owner to owner. The time frame varies by state. In California, it's five years. However, if the other property owner explicitly grants, or denies, permission for the use at any time during those five years, there can be no prescriptive easement. An "easement by necessity" is generally a last resort, when the landlocked owner can't gain access any other way. To obtain such an easement, the owner sues for access to a right-of-way on a neighboring property. Courts have high standards for granting necessity easements. Even if a property owner gets one, she has to pay fair market value for the land to which she has been granted use.

About the Author

Cam Merritt is a writer and editor specializing in business, personal finance and home design. He has contributed to USA Today, The Des Moines Register and Better Homes and Gardens"publications. Merritt has a journalism degree from Drake University and is pursuing an MBA from the University of Iowa.

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In real estate, "landlocked" refers to a property that has no direct access to a public street, so the only way on or off the property is to cross land owned by someone else. Usually, a landlocked property gains street access through a legal permission called an easement.

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Machu Picchu - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com

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Find out more about the history of Machu Picchu, including videos, interesting articles, pictures, historical features and more. Get all the facts on HISTORY.com

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The gaucho in some respects resembled members of other nineteenth century rural, horse-based cultures such as the North American cowboy (, in Spanish), the Chilean , the Peruvian and , the Venezuelan or Colombian , the Hawaiian , the Mexican or the Portuguese .

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Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Rioplatense Candombe celebrations, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Argentine Milonga. It was frequently practiced in the brothels and bars of ports, where business owners employed bands to entertain their patrons. It then spread to the rest of the world. Many variations of this dance currently exist around the world.

On August 31, 2009, UNESCO approved a joint proposal by Argentina and Uruguay to include the tango in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.

Tango is a dance that has influences from African and European culture. Dances from the candombe ceremonies of former African enslaved people helped shape the modern day tango. The dance originated in lower-class districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe. The words "tango" and "tambo" around the River Plate basin were initially used to refer to musical gatherings of slaves, with written records of colonial authorities attempting to ban such gatherings as early as 1789.

Initially, it was just one of the many dances, but it soon[when? ] became popular throughout society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants.

When the tango began to spread internationally around 1900, cultural norms were generally conservative, and so tango dancing was widely regarded as extremely sexual and inappropriate for public display. This led to a phenomenon of culture shock. Additionally, the combination of African, Native American and European cultural influences in tango was new and unusual to most of the Western world.

Many neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires have their particular tango histories: for example La Boca, San Telmo and Boedo. At Boedo Avenue, Cátulo Castillo, Homero Manzi and other singers and composers used to meet at the Japanese Cafe with the Boedo Group.[citation needed ]

In the early years of the 20th century, dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires travelled to Europe, and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals. Tango historian Nardo Zalko, a native of Buenos Aires who lived most of his life in Paris, investigated the mutual fertilization between the two cities in his work, Paris - Buenos Aires, Un Siècle de Tango ("A Century of Tango"). Towards the end of 1913, it hit New York City as well as Finland. In the U.S., around 1911, the word " tango" was often applied to dances in a or rhythm such as the one-step. The term was fashionable and did not indicate that tango steps would be used in the dance, although they might be. Tango music was sometimes played but at a rather fast tempo. Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American tango", versus the so-called "Argentine tango". The tango was controversial because of its perceived sexual overtones and, by the end of 1913, the dance teachers who had introduced the dance to Paris were banished from the city. By 1914, more authentic tango stylings were soon developed,[which? ] along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" tango.

In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930, caused a temporary decline in tango's popularity. Its fortunes were reversed later in the 1930s, and tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the first Perón government, which in turn had a major effect on Argentinian culture overall. Mariano Mores played a role in the resurgence of the tango in 1950s Argentina. Mores's Taquito Militar was premiered in 1952 during a governmental speech by President Juan D. Perón, which generated a strong political and cultural controversy between different views of the concepts of "cultured" music and "popular" music, as well as the links between both "cultures".[citation needed ]

Tango declined again in the late 1950s, as a result of economic depression and the banning of public gatherings by the military dictatorships; male-only tango practice-the custom at the time-was considered "public gathering". That, indirectly, boosted the popularity of rock and roll because, unlike tango, it did not require such gatherings. However, in the late 1980s the tango again experienced a resurgence in Argentina, partly due to the endeavors of Osvaldo Peredo.

In 2009, the tango was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.

There are several theories regarding the origin of the word tango, none of which has been proven. An African culture is often credited as the creator of this word; in particular, it is theorized that the word derives from the Yoruba word , which refers to Shango, the God of Thunder in traditional Yoruba religion. This theory suggests that the word "shangó" was morphed through the dilution of the Nigerian language once it reached South America via slave trade. According to an alternative theory, tango is derived from the Spanish word for " drum", . This word was then mispronounced by Buenos Aires' lower-class inhabitants to become tambo, ultimately resulting in the common tango. It is also sometimes theorized that the word is derived from the Portuguese word , which means "to play a musical instrument". Another Portuguese word, , a combination of the verb tanger ("to touch") with the noun mão ("hand") meaning "to play a musical instrument with one's hands", has been suggested as the etymon of tango.

According to some authors, tango is derived from the Kongo word ntangu which means "sun", "hour", "space-time".

The tango consists of a variety of styles that developed in different regions and eras of Argentina as well as in other locations around the world. The dance developed in response to many cultural elements, such as the crowding of the venue and even the fashions in clothing. The styles are mostly danced in either open embrace, where lead and follow have space between their bodies, or close embrace, where the lead and follow connect either chest-to-chest (Argentine tango) or in the upper thigh, hip area (American and International tango).

Different styles of tango are:

These are danced to several types of music:

Tango

Electronic tango-inspired music (Tango electronico)

"Alternative tango", i.e. music that is an alternative to tango, or non-tango music employed for use in tango-inspired dance

The milonguero style is characterized by a very close embrace, small steps, and syncopated rhythmic footwork. It is based on the petitero or caquero style of the crowded downtown clubs of the 1950s.

In contrast, the tango that originated in the family clubs of the suburban neighborhoods (Villa Urquiza/Devoto/Avellaneda etc.) emphasizes long elegant steps, and complex figures. In this case the embrace may be allowed to open briefly, to permit execution of the complex footwork.

The complex figures of this style became the basis for a theatrical performance style of tango seen in the touring stage shows. For stage purposes, the embrace is often open, and the complex footwork is augmented with gymnastic lifts, kicks, and drops.

A newer style sometimes called tango nuevo or 'new tango' has been popularized in recent years by a younger generation of dancers. The embrace is often quite open and very elastic, permitting the leader to lead a large variety of very complex figures. This style is often associated with those who enjoy dancing to jazz- and techno-tinged "alternative tango" music, in addition to traditional tango compositions.

Tango de salon (salon tango)

Tango canyengue is a rhythmic style of tango that originated in the early 1900s and is still popular today. It is one of the original roots styles of tango and contains all fundamental elements of traditional Tango from the River Plate region (Uruguay and Argentina). In tango canyengue the dancers share one axis, dance in a closed embrace, and with the legs relaxed and slightly bent. Tango canyengue uses body dissociation for the leading, walking with firm ground contact, and a permanent combination of on- and off-beat rhythm. Its main characteristics are its musicality and playfulness. Its rhythm is described as "incisive, exciting, provocative".

The complex figures of this style became the basis for a theatrical performance style of Tango seen in the touring stage shows. For stage purposes, the embrace is often very open, and the complex footwork is augmented with gymnastic lifts, kicks, and drops.

A newer style sometimes called tango nuevo or 'new tango' was popularized after 1980 by a younger generation of musicians and dancers. Ástor Piazzolla, composer and virtuoso of the bandoneón (so-called "tango accordion") played a major role in the innovation of traditional tango music. The embrace is often quite open and very elastic, permitting the leader to initiate a great variety of very complex figures. This style is often associated with those who enjoy dancing to jazz- and techno-tinged, electronic and alternative music inspired in old tangos, in addition to traditional Tango compositions.

Tango nuevo is largely fueled by a fusion between tango music and electronica ( electrotango), though the style can be adapted to traditional tango and even non-tango songs. Gotan Project released its first tango fusion album in 2000, quickly following with La Revancha del Tango in 2001. Bajofondo Tango Club, a Rioplatense music band consisting of seven musicians from Argentina and Uruguay, released their first album in 2002. Tanghetto's album Emigrante (electrotango) appeared in 2003 and was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2004. These and other electronic tango fusion songs bring an element of revitalization to the tango dance, serving to attract a younger group of dancers.

In the second half of the 1990s, a movement of new tango songs was born in Buenos Aires. It was mainly influenced by the old orchestra style rather than by Piazzolla's renewal and experiments with electronic music. The novelty lies in the new songs, with today's lyrics and language, which find inspiration in a wide variety of contemporary styles.

In the 2000s, the movement grew with prominent figures such as the Orquesta Típica Fernandez Fierro, whose creator, Julian Peralta, would later start Astillero and the Orquesta Típica Julián Peralta. Other bands also have become part of the movement such as the Orquesta Rascacielos, Altertango, Ciudad Baigón, as well as singer and songwriters Alfredo "Tape" Rubín, Victoria di Raimondo, Juan Serén, Natalí de Vicenzo and Pacha González.

Ballroom tango, divided in recent decades into the "International" and "American" styles, has descended from the tango styles that developed when the tango first went abroad to Europe and North America. The dance was simplified, adapted to the preferences of conventional ballroom dancers, and incorporated into the repertoire used in International Ballroom dance competitions. English tango was first codified in October 1922, when it was proposed that it should only be danced to modern tunes, ideally at 30 bars per minute (i.e. 120 beats per minute - assuming a measure).

Subsequently, the English tango evolved mainly as a highly competitive dance, while the American tango evolved as an unjudged social dance with an emphasis on leading and following skills. This has led to some principal distinctions in basic technique and style. Nevertheless, there are quite a few competitions held in the American style, and of course mutual borrowing of technique and dance patterns happens all the time.

Ballroom tangos use different music and styling from the tangos from the River Plata region (Uruguay and Argentina), with more staccato movements and the characteristic head snaps. The head snaps are totally foreign to Argentine and Uruguayan tango, and were introduced in 1934 under the influence of a similar movement in the legs and feet of the tango from the River Plate, and the theatrical movements of the pasodoble. This style became very popular in Germany and was soon introduced to England. The movements were very popular with spectators, but not with competition judges.

Tango arrived in Finland in 1913. The tango spread from the dominant urban dance form to become hugely popular across Finland in the 1950s after World War I and World War II. The melancholy tone of the music reflects the themes of Finnish folk poetry; Finnish tango is almost always in a minor key.

The tango is danced in very close full thigh, pelvis and upper body contact in a wide and strong frame, and features smooth horizontal movements that are very strong and determined. Dancers are very low, allowing long steps without any up and down movement, although rises and falls are optional in some styles. Forward steps land heel first except when descending from a rise, and in backward steps dancers push from the heel. In basic steps, the passing leg moves quickly to rest for a moment close to the grounded leg. Dips and rotations are typical. There is no open position, and typically feet stay close to the floor, except in dips the follower might slightly raise the left leg. Unlike in some Argentine-Uruguayan tango styles, in Finnish tango there is no kicking of any kind, and there are no aerials.

The annual Finnish tango festival Tangomarkkinat draws over 100,000 tango fans to the central Finnish town of Seinäjoki; the town also hosts the Tango Museum.

Argentine- Uruguayan and ballroom tango use very different techniques. In Argentine and Uruguayan tango, the body's center moves first, then the feet reach to support it. In ballroom tango, the body is initially set in motion across the floor through the flexing of the lower joints (hip, knee, ankle) while the feet are delayed, then the feet move quickly to catch the body, resulting in snatching or striking action that reflects the staccato nature of this style's preferred music.

In tango, the steps are typically more gliding, but can vary widely in timing, speed, and character, and follow no single specific rhythm. Because the dance is led and followed at the level of individual steps, these variations can occur from one step to the next. This allows the dancers to vary the dance from moment to moment to match the music (which often has both legato and/or staccato elements) and their mood.

The Tango's frame, called an abrazo or "embrace", is not rigid, but flexibly adjusts to different steps, and may vary from being quite close, to offset in a "V" frame, to open. The flexibility is as important as is all movement in dance. The American Ballroom Tango's frame is flexible too, but experienced dancers frequently dance in closed position: higher in the elbows, tone in the arms and constant connection through the body. When dancing socially with beginners, however, it may be better to use a more open position because the close position is too intimate for them. In American Tango open position may result in open breaks, pivots, and turns which are quite foreign in Argentine tango and International (English) tango.

There is a closed position as in other types of ballroom dance, but it differs significantly between types of tango. In Tango from the River Plata region, the "close embrace" involves continuous contact at the full upper body, but not the legs. In American Ballroom tango, the "close embrace" involves close contact in the pelvis or upper thighs, but not the upper body. Followers are instructed to thrust their hips forward, but pull their upper body away and shyly look over their left shoulder when they are led into a "corte".

In tango from the River Plate region, the open position, the legs may be intertwined and hooked together, in the style of Pulpo (the Octopus). In Pulpo's style, these hooks are not sharp, but smooth ganchos.

In Tango from the River Plata, Uruguay and Argentina, the ball or toe of the foot may be placed first. Alternatively, the dancer may take the floor with the entire foot in a cat-like manner. In the International style of Tango, " heel leads" (stepping first onto the heel, then the whole foot) are used for forward steps.

Ballroom tango steps stay close to the floor, while the River Plata Tango (Uruguayan and Argentine) includes moves such as the (allowing momentum to carry one's leg into the air) and (hooking one's leg around one's partner's leg or body) in which the feet travel off the ground. Both Uruguayan and Argentine tango features other vocabulary foreign to ballroom, such as the (in which the leader puts his foot against the follower's foot), the (in which the leader appears to drag or be dragged by the follower's foot), and several kinds of (in which the leader displaces the follower's leg by stepping into her space).

Music and dance elements of tango are popular in activities related to gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming, etc., because of its dramatic feeling and its cultural associations with romance.

For the 1978 FIFA World Cup in Argentina, Adidas designed a ball and named it Tango, likely a tribute to the host country of the event. This design was also used in 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain as Tango Málaga, and in 1984 and 1988 UEFA European Football Championships in France and West Germany.

Tango appears in different aspects of society: Regular milongas and special festivals. A very famous festival is the Tango Buenos Aires Festival y Mundial in Buenos Aires also known as World tango dance tournament. On a regional level there are also many festivals inside and outside of Argentina. One local festival outside Argentina is Buenos Aires in the Southern Highlands in Australia.

Typically the tango is performed between a man and a woman, however the two have very different aspirations within the tango. Women often looked to the tango to help them gain confidence and to help them find a potential relationship. Men however looked to the tango for intimate reasons, and were known to be flirty and sexually willing. Women, however, were primarily focused on the dance itself and became wealthy. As time went on and the tango culture changed, women and men often wanted to travel and compete and also teach tango classes and then both women and men are viewed as equals.

Gender roles also plays a big part in the mechanics of tango due to the tango needing a leader. But in more recent times this is being challenged due to woman not wanting to be dependent on the male for the dance. In the early 1900s, there were often more male dancers than female so the dance was performed between two men. This allowed for both men to learn the leading and following roles of tango and adapt to both lead equally in the dance. This changed the mechanics of the dance to be closer to two equally leading roles between men and women or same sex pairs.

Argentine tango is the main subject in these films:

A number of films show tango in several scenes, such as:

The Threepenny Opera (Die 3-Groschen-Oper) (1931), directed by G. W. Pabst, has number called Tango Ballade.

The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936), directed by Pare Lorentz.

L'amore in città (1953), segment "Paradise for three hours" (Paradiso per tre ore), directed by Dino Risi, starring nonprofessional actors, featuring a long sequence in a ballroom, where a passionate tango of Mario Nascimbene is played.

Tango (1981), a short animation film by Zbigniew Rybczynski. Received an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, Academy Awards 1982.

Le Tango Des Rashevski (2002).

(2002), starring Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere, directed by Rob Marshall includes a song titled "Cell Block Tango" and is accompanied with a dance.

Madonna featured choreography inspired by the Argentine tango styles for the Die Another Day section of her 2004 Re-Invention Tour. Segments of the 2005 documentary I'm Going To Tell You A Secret show this choreography in use.

Tanghi Argentini, Oscar nominated short film by Guy Thys, starring Dirk Van Dijck and Koen van Impe

(2010), in which Rick Malambri, Sharni Vinson and some of the supporting characters at a ballroom dance a tango to Jazmine Sullivan's Bust Your Windows.

Pixilation II (2011), short animation film by Kambras.

Tango Libre (2012) starring François Damiens and Anne Paulicevich, directed by Frédéric Fonteyne

Two to Tango (2021), directed by Dimitri Sterckens

Finnish tango is featured to a greater or lesser extent in the following films:

Davis, Kathy (2015). Dancing Tango: passionate encounters in a globalising world'. NYUP.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1996). Du tango au reggae: musiques noires d'Amérique latine et des Caraïbes. Paris: Flammarion. ISBN 2082108139.

Leymarie, Isabelle (1997). La música latinoaméricana: Ritmos y danzas de un continente. Barcelona: BSA. ISBN 8440677057.

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Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Rioplatense Candombe celebrations, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Argentine Milonga.

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A favela ( Portuguese pronunciation: ), Brazilian Portuguese for , is a low-income historically informal urban area in Brazil. The first favela, now known as Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro, appeared in the late 19th century, built by soldiers who had nowhere to live following the Canudos War.

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Rio Carnival

Also called

"The biggest show on Earth" ( Portuguese: O maior show da Terra)

Type

cultural, religious

Significance

Celebration prior to fasting season of Lent.

Celebrations

Parades, parties, open-air performances

Begins

Friday before Ash Wednesday (51 days to Easter)

Ends

Ash Wednesday noon (46 days before Easter)

2022 date

Afternoon, April 20 - midday, April 29

2023 date

Afternoon, February 17 -
midday, February 22

2024 date

Afternoon, February 9 -
midday, February 14

2025 date

Afternoon, February 28 -
midday, March 5

Frequency

annual

Related to

Carnival, Brazilian Carnival, Ash Wednesday, Lent

The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro ( Portuguese: Carnaval do Rio de Janeiro) is a festival held every year before Lent; it is considered the biggest carnival in the world, with two million people per day on the streets. The first Carnival festival in Rio occurred in 1723.

The typical Rio carnival parade is filled with revelers, floats, and adornments from numerous samba schools which are located in Rio (more than 200 approximately, divided into five leagues/divisions). A samba school is composed of a collaboration of local neighbours that want to attend the carnival together, with some kind of regional, geographical and common background.

There is a special order that every school has to follow with their parade entries. Each school begins with the "comissão de frente" (meaning "Front Commission"), that is the group of people from the school that appear first. Made of ten to fifteen people, the comissão de frente introduces the school and sets the mood and style of their presentation. These people have choreographed dances in elaborate costumes that usually tell a short story. Following the "comissão de frente" is the first float of the samba school, called "abre-alas" ("Opening Wing"). These are followed by the Mestre-sala and Porta-Bandeira ("Master of Ceremonies and Flag Bearer"), with one to four pairs, one active and three reserve, to lead the dancers, which include the old guard veterans and the "ala das baianas", with the drum line battery at the rear and sometimes a brass section and guitars.

The origins of the Rio Carnival celebration dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries. Carnival was brought to Brazil by Portuguese colonizers between the 16th and 17th centuries, manifesting itself initially through the 'Entrudo', a popular festival where public games and lighthearted mockery would run wild in the streets. Over time, the festival acquired other ways of manifesting itself, such as in the use of masks and costumes. The emergence of carnival societies created by the monarch elite also contributed to the popularization of the party among the poor.

In 1840, the very first Rio masquerade took place, and polka and waltz took center stage. Later in the beginning of the 20th century the Samba and Batucada rhythms classically associated with Rio carnival were introduced by afro-brazilians and pardos, by adapting different cultural inputs to produce a new musical genre. During this period, Carnival assumed its position as the biggest popular festival in Brazil.

There was no carnival in 1915-18 or 1940-45. Once more it was canceled with strict warnings against clandestine celebrations in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and was postponed in 2022 for similar reasons. It returned in 2023.

Parade of Mangueira, one of the most traditional samba schools in the Rio Carnival

The pre-existing traditions of the 'Entrudos' and other popular festivities such as the 'ranches' and 'Cordão carnavalesco' that dated from the Empire would eventually be combined into carnival blocks by the 1920s, and evolve into their ultimate form - the Rio samba schools.

Estácio de Sá, together with Portela and Estação Primeira de Mangueira paraded for the first time in the city in 1929. All three were former carnival blocks which transformed into schools with professional staffing and city support. In 1930, seven schools were already active in the city. With the works of in Avenida Presidente Vargas, the parade moved there, and from 1942 to 1945 the parade was held in São Januário. From 1952 temporary stands for the public were annually assembled, and in 1961 paid tickets made their debut to take advantage of the rising international and national interest and the increasing tourist arrivals. In 1974, due to the works of the subway, the parade was held on Avenida Presidente Antônio Carlos, from where it was also broadcast for the first time in color television. In 1978, the parade was transferred to the Marquês de Sapucaí Avenue, where it remains up to this day. In 1983, the then governor Leonel Brizola commissioned the architect Oscar Niemeyer the project of a permanent local stadium for the parades in that same area, because until then the bleachers had continued to be temporary, and only assembled and disassembled for the event.

With the increase in the number of schools taking part, which made the parade longer and tiring for the public, in 1984 the parade was separated into two dates and categories: Friday evening into Saturday morning for the lower-level schools; and Sunday evening into Monday morning for the major schools, including the more recognizable ones. That year, a "super-champion" school was also announced following the parade of the champions that took place the following Saturday, which by that time were awarded for the best performances of the past nights of competition. Since this practice was never again repeated, Mangueira remains the only samba school to ever be awarded with the title and dignity of "super-champion" of the annual event. Portela is the samba school that has the largest number of championships with 22.

The schools of the Special Group under LIESA parade over two days (Sunday and Monday), while the A Series schools parade on Friday and Saturday under LIERJ, which also has the B Series, which parades on Fat Tuesday. Both organizations were under the AESCRJ banner before it lost organizing rights, thus also providing for the establishment of new organizations like LIESB and Samba é Nosso for the lower level divisions. The Gold Division (A Series) champion school which advances directly as a participant in the Special Group for the next year's Carnival parades last on Carnival Monday while the Special Group champion parades once more on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday.

As of 2018, LIESB handed over the management of the E series and its schools to ACAS, which now operates it as a rookie level organization for samba schools, in 2020 the C Series (Silver Division) fell under a new organization, LIVRES, with LIESB handling the divisions above and below it.

A typical performer of Samba dance

Rio's Carnival begins on the Friday preceding Lent and ends on Ash Wednesday, but the Winners' Parade happens on the Saturday after the carnival ends. The winning school and runners' up of the Special Group, as well as the A Series champion school, all march past one final time in front of their supporters on this night.

February 21 to 26, 2020

February 12 to 17, 2021 (cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic)

April 20 to April, 2022 (moved up due to COVID-19 and coincide with Tiradentes' Day)

February 17 to 22, 2029

Sambadrome sectors diagram

In 1984, the government decided to give Rio Carnival its new home in the Sambadrome. Today, some of the most famous events of Rio Carnival are ticketed events. There are different types of Sambadrome tickets that are available for purchase. Grandstand tickets are general admissions tickets that are available on a first-come, first-served basis and are not allocated ahead of time. Frisas are open air box seats located along the samba runway. Camarotes are luxury boxes situated between the frisas and the grandstands. Sector 9 is the tourist sector which are the same as grandstand tickets, with the difference being that they are allocated so people have assigned seats.

Carnival ticket prices can vary depending on the ticket type, sector and season. The cheapest sectors are 12 and 13. Tickets can be bought in advance through international brokers, or through local travel agents in Rio de Janeiro. 'Purchase of a ticket' normally means purchase of a voucher which is then exchangeable for the ticket close to the date. Ticket sales are organised by LIESA, who will often also make tickets available at late notice via a venue (often a bank) announced the day before. LIESA prices for grandstand tickets vary from Rs5 to Rs500 for the Tourist Sector (2014 prices) (Rs500 = approx. US$250). LIESA publish the base price of the tickets, and agents and brokers charge more (sometimes significantly more) but offer considerable convenience and other benefits.

Flag bearer and master of ceremony

Cordão da Bola Preta, the oldest street block of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival

As the parade is taking place in the Sambadrome and the balls are being held in the Copacabana Palace and beach, many carnival participants are at other locations. Street festivals are very common during carnival and are highly populated by the locals. Elegance and extravagance are usually left behind, but music and dancing are still extremely common. Anyone is allowed to participate in the street festivals. Bandas are very familiar with the street carnival especially because it takes nothing to join in on the fun except to jump in. One of the most well known bandas of Rio is Banda de Ipanema. Banda de Ipanema was first created in 1965 and is known as Rio's most irreverent street band.

Incorporated into every aspect of the Rio carnival are dancing and music. The most famous dance in brazilian carnival is samba. The samba remains a popular dance not only in carnival but in the ghettos outside of the main cities. These villages keep alive the historical aspect of the dance without the influence of the western cultures.

Music is another major part of all aspects of the carnival. As stated by Samba City, "Samba Carnival Instruments are an important part of Brazil and the Rio de Janeiro carnival, sending out the irresistible beats and rhythms making the crowd explode in a colourful dance revolution fantasy fest!" The samba that is found in Rio is Battucanada, referring to the dance and music being based on percussion instruments. It "is born of a rhythmic necessity that it allows you to sing, to dance, and to parade at the same time." This is why the batucada style is found in most all of Rio's street carnivals.

Street parades, blocos, and bandas take place throughout the city of Rio during Carnival, the most famous and largest carnival celebration of the world. There can be more than 300 bandas taking place at any given point in time. While the biggest street party takes place right outside the Sambadrome, the largest organized street dance is typically found on Cinelândia Square in Rio's Centro. In 2012, more than 2 million revelers took to the streets of Rio de Janeiro to participate in the Cordão da Bola Preta bloco. According to police estimates, more than 5 million people attended a bloco during Rio Carnival 2012 and there was not one reported incident of crime.

When the Sambadrome was built in 1984, it had the side-effect of taking street parades from the downtown area to a specific, ticketed performance area. Some samba schools have since been motivated by an agenda that focuses on regaining public space, and using the carnival tradition to occupy the streets with parades or blocos. Many of these represent a local community of the area but are open to all.

Several of the Rio street carnival blocks that hold the parties are affiliated to the Rio de Janeiro State Street Carnival Blocks Federation (FBCERJ), established in 1965.

The Queen of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and up to two princesses having the duty to woo the revelry, along with the King Momo. Unlike some cities, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Queens of Carnival do not see a certain school of samba. In competitions, princesses are usually placed as second and third, and are correspondingly 1st and 2nd Princess. Some of them after the reign become queens or battery bridesmaids.

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Rio Carnival Also called "The biggest show on Earth" ( Portuguese: O maior show da Terra) Type cultural, religious Significance Celebration prior to fasting season of Lent.

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Capoeira (Portuguese pronunciation: ) is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and game that includes elements of dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality.

It is known for its acrobatic and complex maneuvers, often involving hands on the ground and inverted kicks. It emphasizes flowing movements rather than fixed stances; the , a rocking step, is usually the focal point of the technique. Though often said to be a martial art disguised as a dance, capoeira served not only as a form of self defense, but also as a way to maintain spirituality and culture.

Capoeira has been played among Black Brazilians for centuries. The date of its creation is unknown, but it was first mentioned in a judicial document under the name capoeiragem in 1789, as "the gravest of crimes". In the 19th century, the street fighting style called capoeira carioca was developed. It was repeatedly outlawed and its performers persecuted, and it was declared totally illegal and banned in 1890. In the early 1930s, Mestre Bimba reformed traditional capoeira and incorporated elements of jiu jitsu, gymnastics and sports. In doing so, the government viewed capoeira as a socially acceptable sport. in 1941, Mestre Pastinha Later founded his school where he cultivated the traditional capoeira Angola, distinguishing it from reformed capoeira as the Brazilians' national sport.

In the late 1970s, trailblazers such as Mestre Acordeon started bringing capoeira to the US and Europe, helping the art become internationally recognized and practiced. On 26 November 2014, capoeira was granted a special protected status as intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.

Martial arts from the African diaspora similar to capoeira include knocking and kicking from the Sea Islands, and from Martinique, both of which likely originate from engolo.

In the past, many participants used the name angola or the term brincar de angola ("playing angola") for this art. In police documents, capoeira was known as capoeiragem, with a practitioner being called capoeira. Gradually, the art became known as capoeira with a practitioner being called a capoeirista. In a narrower sense, capoeiragem meant a set of fighting skills. The term jogo de capoeira (capoeira game) is used to describe the art in the performative context.

Although debated, the most widely accepted origin of the word capoeira comes from the Tupi words ka'a ("forest") paũ ("round"), referring to the areas of low vegetation in the Brazilian interior where fugitive slaves would hide.

Negroes fighting by Augustus Earle, c. 1824. Painting depicting an illegal capoeira-like game in Rio de Janeiro.

San Salvador, 1835, by Rugendas. "The scene is set in a clearing surrounded by tropical vegetation and palm trees, corresponding precisely to the space called capoeira in Brazil."

Well, there is one thing that nobody doubts: the ones to teach capoeira to us were the negro slaves that were brought from Angola.

In the past, some participants used the name angola or the term brincar de angola ("playing angola") for this art. In formal documents, capoeira was known as "capoeiragem", with a practitioner being known as a "capoeira". Gradually, the art became known as capoeira with a practitioner being called a capoeirista.

Capoeira first appeared among Africans in Brazil, during the early colonial period. According to the old capoeira mestres and tradition within the community, capoeira originates from Angola. Although the origin of capoeira is not entirely clear, many studies have supported the oral tradition, identifying engolo as an ancestral art and locating the Cunene region as its birthplace. Still, some authors believe there were more ancestors besides engolo. However, at the core of capoeira we find techniques developed in engolo, including crescent kicks, push kicks, sweeps, handstands, cartwheels, evasions and even the iconic Meia lua de compasso, scorpion kick and L-kick.

The street capoeira in 19th-century Rio was very violent and far from the original art. This street-fighting capoeiragem was mix of five fighting techniques: foot kicks, head butts, hand blows, knife fight and stick-fighting, only the first of them arguably originates from Angolan art. That now extinct version of capoeira was called capoeira carioca (meaning of Rio de Janeiro).

Modern capoeira comes from Bahia, and was codified by mestre Bimba and mestre Pastinha, in and style. Despite their significant differences, both mestres introduced major innovations - they moved training and away from the street, instituted the academia, prescribed uniforms, started to teach women and presented capoeira to a broader audiences.

Capoeira is a fast and versatile martial art that is historically focused on fighting when outnumbered or at a technological disadvantage. The style emphasizes using the lower body to kick, sweep and take down their aggressors, using the upper body to assist those movements and occasionally attack as well. It features a series of complex positions and body postures that are meant to get chained in an uninterrupted flow, to strike, dodge and move without breaking motion, conferring the style with a characteristic unpredictability and versatility.

Simple animation depicting part of the ginga

The ginga (literally: rocking back and forth; to swing) is the fundamental movement in capoeira, important both for attack and defense purposes. It has two main objectives. One is to keep the capoeirista in a state of constant motion, preventing them from being a still and easy target. The other, using also fakes and feints, is to mislead, fool or trick the opponent, leaving them open for an attack or a counter-attack.

The attacks in the capoeira should be done when opportunity arises, and though they can be preceded by feints or pokes, they must be precise and decisive, like a direct kick to the head, face or a vital body part, or a strong takedown. Most capoeira attacks are made with the legs, like direct or swirling kicks, rasteiras (leg sweeps), tesouras or knee strikes. Elbow strikes, punches and other forms of takedowns complete the main list. The head strike is a very important counter-attack move.

The defense is based on the principle of non-resistance, meaning avoiding an attack using evasive moves instead of blocking it. Avoids are called esquivas, which depend on the direction of the attack and intention of the defender, and can be done standing or with a hand leaning on the floor. A block should only be made when the esquiva is completely non-viable. This fighting strategy allows quick and unpredictable counterattacks, the ability to focus on more than one adversary and to face empty-handed an armed adversary.

A capoeira movement (Aú Fechado) (click for animation)

A series of rolls and acrobatics (like the cartwheels called aú or the transitional position called negativa) allows the capoeirista to quickly overcome a takedown or a loss of balance, and to position themselves around the aggressor to lay up for an attack. It is this combination of attacks, defense and mobility that gives capoeira its perceived "fluidity" and choreography-like style.

Through most of its history in Brazil, capoeira commonly featured weapons and weapon training, given its street fighting nature. Capoeiristas usually carried knives and bladed weapons with them, and the berimbau could be used to conceal those inside, or even to turn itself into a weapon by attaching a blade to its tip. The knife or razor was used in street rodas and/or against openly hostile opponents, and would be drawn quickly to stab or slash. Other hiding places for the weapons included hats and umbrellas.

Mestre Bimba included in his teachings a curso de especialização or "specialization course", in which the pupils would be taught defenses against knives and guns, as well as the usage of knife, straight razor, scythe, club, chanfolo (double-edged dagger), facão ( facón or machete) and tira-teima ( cane sword). Upon graduating, pupils were given a red scarf which marked their specialty. This course was scarcely used, and was ceased after some time. A more common custom practised by Bimba and his students, however, was furtively handing a weapon to a player before a jogo for them to use it to attack their opponent on Bimba's sign, with the other player's duty being to disarm them.

This weapon training is almost completely absent in current capoeira teachings, but some groups still practice the use of razors for ceremonial usage in the rodas.

Capoeiristas outside

In Bantu culture, the Nkhumbi term ochimama encapsulates the overlapping meanings of game, dance, and tradition. This overlap is also found in Afro-Brazilian folklore, where many similar forms of expression are called brincadeiras (games). Some scholars have interpreted capoeira as a way of concealing martial arts within dance movements. However, research from Angola suggests that the relationship between game, fight, and dance may be even deeper. These scholars propose that the ambivalence between these three elements is a fundamental aspect of the ancestral grammar shared by engolo and capoeira.

Playing capoeira is both a game and a method of practicing the application of capoeira movements in simulated combat. It can be played anywhere, but it's usually done in a roda. During the game most capoeira moves are used, but capoeiristas usually avoid punches or elbow strikes unless it's a very aggressive game. The game does not focus on knocking down or defeating opponents, but rather on body dialogue and highlighting skills.

Capoeiristas in a roda (Porto Alegre, Brazil)

The (pronounced ) is a circle formed by capoeiristas and capoeira musical instruments, where every participant sings the typical songs and claps their hands following the music. Two capoeiristas enter the roda and play the game according to the style required by the musical rhythm. The game finishes when one of the musicians holding a berimbau determines it, when one of the capoeiristas decides to leave or call the end of the game, or when another capoeirista interrupts the game to start playing, either with one of the current players or with another capoeirista.

In a roda every cultural aspect of capoeira is present, not only the martial side. Aerial acrobatics are common in a presentation roda, while not seen as often in a more serious one. Takedowns, on the other hand, are common in a serious roda but rarely seen in presentations.

The batizado (lit. baptism) is a ceremonial roda where new students will get recognized as capoeiristas and earn their first graduation. Also more experienced students may go up in rank, depending on their skills and capoeira culture. In Mestre Bimba's Capoeira Regional, batizado was the first time a new student would play capoeira following the sound of the berimbau.

Students enter the roda against a high-ranked capoeirista (such as a teacher or master) and normally the game ends with the student being taken down. In some cases the more experienced capoeirista can judge the takedown unnecessary. Following the batizado the new graduation, generally in the form of a cord, is given.

Traditionally, the batizado is the moment when the new practitioner gets or formalizes their apelido (nickname). This tradition was created back when capoeira practice was considered a crime. To avoid having problems with the law, capoeiristas would present themselves in the capoeira community only by their nicknames.

Chamada means 'call' and can happen at any time during a roda where the rhythm angola is being played. It happens when one player, usually the more advanced one, calls their opponent to a dance-like ritual. The opponent then approaches the caller and meets them to walk side by side. After it both resume normal play.

While it may seem like a break time or a dance, the chamada is actually both a trap and a test, as the caller is just watching to see if the opponent will let his guard down so she can perform a takedown or a strike. It is a critical situation, because both players are vulnerable due to the close proximity and potential for a surprise attack. It's also a tool for experienced practitioners and masters of the art to test a student's awareness and demonstrate when the student left herself open to attack.

The use of the chamada can result in a highly developed sense of awareness and helps practitioners learn the subtleties of anticipating another person's hidden intentions. The chamada can be very simple, consisting solely of the basic elements, or the ritual can be quite elaborate including a competitive dialogue of trickery, or even theatric embellishments.

Volta ao mundo means around the world.

The volta ao mundo takes place after an exchange of movements has reached a conclusion, or after there has been a disruption in the harmony of the game. In either of these situations, one player will begin walking around the perimeter of the circle counter-clockwise, and the other player will join the volta ao mundo in the opposite part of the roda, before returning to the normal game.

Music is integral to capoeira. It sets the tempo and style of game that is to be played within the roda. Typically the music is formed by instruments and singing. Rhythms ( toques), controlled by a typical instrument called berimbau, differ from very slow to very fast, depending on the style of the roda.

A capoeira bateria showing three berimbaus a reco- reco and a pandeiro

Capoeira instruments are disposed in a row called bateria. It is traditionally formed by three berimbaus, two pandeiros, three atabaques, one agogô and one ganzá, but this format may vary depending on the capoeira group's traditions or the roda style.

The berimbau is the leading instrument, determining the tempo and style of the music and game played. Two low-pitch berimbaus (called berra-boi and médio) form the base and a high-pitch berimbau (called viola) makes variations and improvisations. The other instruments must follow the berimbau's rhythm, free to vary and improvise a little, depending upon the capoeira group's musical style.

As the capoeiristas change their playing style significantly following the toque of the berimbau, which sets the game's speed, style and aggressiveness, it is truly the music that drives a capoeira game.

Many of the songs are sung in a call and response format while others are in the form of a narrative. Capoeiristas sing about a wide variety of subjects. Some songs are about history or stories of famous capoeiristas. Other songs attempt to inspire players to play better. Some songs are about what is going on within the roda. Sometimes the songs are about life or love lost. Others have lighthearted and playful lyrics.

There are four basic kinds of songs in capoeira, the Ladaínha, Chula, Corrido and Quadra. The Ladaínha is a narrative solo sung only at the beginning of a roda, often by a mestre (master) or most respected capoeirista present. The solo is followed by a louvação, a call and response pattern that usually thanks God and one's master, among other things. Each call is usually repeated word-for-word by the responders. The Chula is a song where the singer part is much bigger than the chorus response, usually eight singer verses for one chorus response, but the proportion may vary. The Corrido is a song where the singer part and the chorus response are equal, normally two verses by two responses. Finally, the Quadra is a song where the same verse is repeated four times, either three singer verses followed by one chorus response, or one verse and one response.

Capoeira songs can talk about virtually anything, being it about a historical fact, a famous capoeirista, trivial life facts, hidden messages for players, anything. Improvisation is very important also, while singing a song the main singer can change the music's lyrics, telling something that's happening in or outside the roda.

The capoeirista resorts to an endless number of tricks to confuse and distract his opponent. He pretends to step back but he returns quickly; jumps from side to side; lies down and gets up; advances and retreats; pretends not to see the opponent to deceive him; turns in all directions; and shrinks in a cunning and bewildering ginga.

Diário Nacional, from 1927, shows a drawing of a sailor tripping a policeman, while another figure is already on the ground.

The basic term of capoeira philosophy is malícia ( malice). One aspect of malicia consists of deceiving the opponent into thinking that you are going to execute a certain move when in fact you are going to do something completely different. There is an example of malicia of Besouro who once fell to the ground during a game, crying like a woman and begging for mercy. Mestre João Pequeno claimed that he teaches his students how to play capoeira, but they should learn malícia for themselves since it cannot be taught.

The meaning of malícia in capoeira has expanded over time to cunning, suspicion, alertness, readiness, flexibility, and adaptation. Basically, it is the capacity to understand someone's intentions and making use of this understanding to misdirect someone as to your next move. In the contemporary capoeira, this is done good-naturedly, contrary to what the word may suggest. Nestor Capoeira explicated malícia as follows:

I think malícia is not only to feign, to pretend that you are going to deliver a certain blow and do something else, but a system of signs and signals. It is as if you were casting a spell or a charm in order to build a specific reality, a seductive reality, during the game and also outside the roda in day-to-day life and in any type of struggle or combat.

Gregory Downey explains:

Malícia, not coincidentally, is the quality, or constellation of qualities, that the ideal capoeirista should most evidence in his or her everyday life: a combination of wariness, quick wit, savvy, unpredictability, opportunism, playfulness, viciousness, and a talent for deception. The ability to fool, distract, and deceive the opponent is the key to success. The basic movement in capoeira, the ginga, is a constant fluid movement backward and forward, and a good capoeirista will use malícia in the ginga to deceive his opponent.

The is the first principle of capoeira and the embodiment of malice. The continuous, ceaseless bodily motion, known as gingar, is the principle that creates deception or trickery, catching the opponent off guard.

The kick, ironically named, reflects another form of malícia. Slave owners would gather slaves in the morning, often on Sundays, to offer blessings, despite their mistreatment. In a deceptive twist, bênção appears as a blessing but swiftly becomes an attack on the opponent's belly.

Malandragem is a word that comes from malandro, a men who used street smarts to make a living. In the 19th century, capoeira was quite similar to the type of urban person who was a constant source of trouble - the malandro (punk).

In the 19th century Rio de Janeiro, the capoeirista was a malandro (a rogue) and a criminal, expert in the use of kicks ( golpes), sweeps ( rasteiras) and head-butts ( cabecadas), as well in the use of blade weapons.

In capoeira, malandragem is the ability to quickly understand an opponent's intentions, and during a fight or a game, fool, trick and deceive him.

A popular Brazilian saying, " Malandro demais se atrapalha" means that when one tries to be too clever or smart, instead of confusing his opponent, he confuses himself.

Spirituality in capoeira is shaped under the influence of various African beliefs. Some important concepts of candomblé, such as dendé and axé, which refer to different conceptions of energy, have become common among capoeiristas.

Divination Ceremony and Dance, Brazil, by Zacharias Wagener, 1630.

Dr Maya Talmon-Chvaicer suggests that capoeira should be explained in Bantu terms. For the African slaves, capoeira was a social expression that incorporated all the basic African elements: circle, dance, music, rituals and symbols. It also contains all the ingredients of a game from the Kongolese perspective: a means to train and prepare for life, providing the experience needed to strengthen the body and the soul.

Within the Bantu culture, carries profound symbolism. Dancing in a circle holds significance, representing protection and strength, symbolizing the bond with the spirit world, life, and the divine.

A major means of communication with the ancestors is music. Musical instruments play a pivotal role in bridging the realms of the living, the deceased, and the gods. This explains why African dances customarily commence by paying homage to the primary instrument, often through kneeling or bowing before it. This practice of appeasement and seeking divine assistance from the gods is mirrored in the capoeira tradition of kneeling before the during the .

African martial arts naturally take the form of dance. In Bantu culture, dance is an integral part of daily life, encompassing song, music, movements, and rituals. This holistic view applies to Congo/ Angola, where dance is intricately linked to song, music, and ritual.

In Bantu religion, kalûnga represents the idea that, in the realm of the living everything is reversed from the realm of the ancestors. Where men walk on their feet, the spirits walk on their hands; where men reach their peak physical abilities, the ancestors reach their peak spirituality. Inhabitants of the ancestral realm are inverted compared to us, as viewed from our mirrored perspective. With this particular worldview, practitioners of African martial arts deliberately invert themselves upside down to emulate the ancestors, and to draw strength and power from the ancestral realm.

One of the capoeira ritual is performing the "au" at the beginning of the game. This act symbolizes a profound transition in Kongolese religion, where touching the ground with hands while feet are up in the air signifies the player crosses over to other worlds.

Capoeira has been additionally shaped by the cosmic worldview of candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion that has engaged with various manifestations of natural energies. The capoeira player in past usually had his or santo ( patron saint) as Ogum (the Warrior) or Oxóssi (the Hunter).

Capoeira is slave mandinga, desirous of freedom.

Its principles have no method,

its aim is inconceivable even to the wisest of the mestres.

Capoeira holds a core of mandinga, which can be translated as a magic, sorcery, witchcraft. Mandinga suggests an understanding of fundamental natural forces and their utilization through magic rituals to some extent. In the past, capoeiristas used protective amulets and performed specific rituals to ensure their safety. Same players "do their mandinga" before the game by drawing magical symbols on the ground with their fingers.

Some magic elements in capoeira are clear and familiar, while others have become obscure over time. Folklorist Edison Carneiro noted that the ladainha, sung before entering the capoeira circle, invokes the gods, adding a touch of mysticism to the ritual. Actions like touching the ground symbolize drawing signs in the dust, and gestures such as kissing hands, crossing oneself, and prayer are reminders of long-forgotten traditions, the Bantus' prayer for divine blessings, aid, and bravery in battle.

Mandinga is also a certain esthetic, where the game is expressive and sometimes theatrical, especially in the Angola style. An advanced capoeira player is sometimes referred to as a mandingueiro, someone who embodies mandinga.

The roots of the term mandingueiro would be a person who had the magic ability to avoid harm due to protection from the Orixás. Alternately the word mandinga originates from the name of Mandinka people.

It is a task, and a lonely one, to find and develop your own style, breaking with the "correct" way of playing that you learned from your teacher, who many times presents himself as "owner of the truth." But this can be done after one has experience and an idea of what capoeira is ... maybe after ten or fifteen years of practice.

Determining styles in capoeira is difficult, since there was never a unity in the original capoeira, or a teaching method before the decade of 1920. However, a division between two styles and a sub-style is widely accepted.

Capoeira Angola roda.

Capoeira de Angola ( Angolan capoeira) is the traditional style of capoeira. However, it can refer to two things:

the popular Bahian capoeira prior to codification in 20th century

the contemporary style of capoeira codified by Mestre Pastinha, based on an older one

The ideal of capoeira Angola is to maintain capoeira as close to its roots as possible. Although Pastinha strove to preserve the original Angolan art, he nevertheless introduced significant changes to capoeira practice of his time. He forbid weapon and violent moves, prescribed uniforms, moved training away from the street into the academia, and started to teach women.

Capoeira Angola is characterized by being strategic, with sneaking movements executed standing or near the floor depending on the situation to face, it values the traditions of malícia, malandragem and unpredictability of the original capoeira. The anthropologist Alejandro Frigerio defines capoeira Angola as art, versus capoeira Regional as sport. He emphasizes the following characteristics of contemporary capoeira Angola, namely: cunning, complementation (of the two players" movements), a low game, the absence of violence, beautiful movements (according to a "black aesthetic"), slow music and the importance of ritual and theatricality.

Unlike many other capoeira groups that play barefoot, angoleiros always train with shoes. When it comes to the color of the uniforms, there is a lack of uniformity within the style. Although mestre Pastinha at his academy required students to wear yellow and black jerseys, some of his successors have adopted white only uniforms within their schools.

Capoeira Regional began to take form in the 1920s, when Mestre Bimba met his future student, José Cisnando Lima. Both believed that capoeira was losing its martial side and concluded there was a need to re-strengthen and structure it. Bimba created his sequências de ensino (teaching combinations) and created capoeira's first teaching method. Advised by Cisnando, Bimba decided to call his style Luta Regional Baiana, as capoeira was still illegal at that time.

The base of capoeira regional is the original capoeira without many of the aspects that were impractical in a real fight, with less subterfuge and more objectivity. Training focuses mainly on attack, dodging and counter-attack, giving high importance to precision and discipline. Bimba also added a few moves from other arts, notably the batuque, an old street fight game invented by his father. Use of jumps or aerial acrobatics stay to a minimum, since one of its foundations is always keeping at least one hand or foot firmly attached to the ground.

Capoeira Regional also introduced the first ranking method in capoeira. Regional had three levels: calouro (freshman), formado (graduated) and formado especializado (specialist). After 1964, when a student completed a course, a special celebration ceremony occurred, ending with the teacher tying a silk scarf around the capoeirista's neck.

The traditions of roda and capoeira game were kept, being used to put into use what was learned during training. The disposition of musical instruments, however, was changed, being made by a single berimbau and two pandeiros.

The Luta Regional Baiana soon became popular, finally changing capoeira's bad image. Mestre Bimba made many presentations of his new style, but the best known was the one made at 1953 to Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas, where the president would say: " A Capoeira é o único esporte verdadeiramente nacional" (Capoeira is the only truly national sport).

Capoeira carioca was a street fighting version of capoeira that existed in Rio de Janeiro during the 19th century, used by gangs. In capoeira carioca, all available means were used, including various types of weapons, such as knives, straight razors, clubs and machetes. Capoeira from this period is also known as capoeiragem. The widespread violent capoeira practice in Rio led to a nationwide ban on capoeira. After the ban in 1890 and the subsequent mass arrests of capoeira gang members, this version of capoeira is generally extinct.

The main reformators and proponents of this fighting-oriented capoeira were Mestre Sinhozinho and Mestre Zuma.

Capoeira Contemporânea

Capoeira flourished in the city of São Paulo since the 1960s. Mestre Suassuna was prominent figure throughout this period. Mestre Canjiquinha played important role in shaping the capoeira style that began to emerge in São Paulo during the 1960s. This evolving style, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, drew from both Regional and Angola styles while maintaining its distinct characteristics. The majority of modern practitioners affirm to be neither Angola nor Regional, emphasizing that "there is only one capoeira".

This new capoeira incorporated not only berimbaus and pandeiros but also atabaque and agogô into its musical ensemble. In contrast to Bimba's preference for quadras, these modern rodas typically commenced with ladainhas. The games in these rodas often featured a fast and upright style, even though they might start with an Angola toque and a slower game.

Nowadays the label Contemporânea applies to any capoeira group who don't follow Regional or Angola styles, even the ones who mix capoeira with other martial arts. Some notable groups whose style cannot be described as either Angola or Regional but rather "a style of their own", include Senzala de Santos, Cordão de Ouro and Abada. In the case of Cordão de Ouro, the style may be described as "Miudinho", a low and fast-paced game, while in Senzala de Santos the style may described simply as "Senzala de Santos", an elegant, playful combination of Angola and Regional.

Because of its origin, capoeira never had unity or a general agreement. Ranking or graduating system follows the same path, as there never existed a ranking system accepted by most of the masters. That means graduation style varies depending on the group's traditions. The most common modern system uses colored ropes, called corda or cordão, tied around the waist. Some masters use different systems, or even no system at all. In a substantial number of groups (mainly of the Angola school) there is no visible ranking system. There can still be several ranks: student, treinel, professor, contra-mestre and mestre, but often no cordas (belts).

There are many entities (leagues, federations and association) with their own graduation system. The most usual is the system of the Confederação Brasileira de Capoeira (Brazilian Capoeira Confederation), which adopts ropes using the colors of the Brazilian flag, green, yellow, blue and white. However, the Confederação Brasileira de Capoeira is not widely accepted as the capoeira's main representative.

Children's system (3 to 14 years)

1st stage: Iniciante (Beginner) - No color

2nd stage: Batizado (Baptized) - Green/Light Grey

3rd stage: Graduado (Graduated) - Yellow/Light Grey

4th stage: Adaptado (Adept) - Blue/Light Grey

5th stage: Intermediário (Intermediary) - Green/YellowLight Grey

6th stage: Avançado (Advanced) - Green/Blue/Light Grey

7th stage: Estagiário (Trainee) - Yellow/Green/Blue/Light Grey

Adult system (above 15)

8th stage: Iniciante (Beginner) - No color

9th stage: Batizado (Baptized) - Green

10th stage: Graduado (Graduated) - Yellow

11th stage: Adaptado (Adept) - Blue

12th stage: Intermediário (Intermediary) - Green

13th stage: Avançado (Advanced) - Green/Blue

14th stage: Estagiário (Trainee) - Yellow/Blue

Instructors' system

15th stage: Formado (Graduated) - Yellow/Green/Blue

16th stage: Monitor (Monitor) - White/Green

17th stage: Instrutor (Instructor) - White/Yellow

18th stage: Contramestre (Foreman) - White/Blue

19th stage: Mestre (Master) - White

Even though those activities are strongly associated with capoeira, they have different meanings and origins.

Performed by many capoeira groups, samba de roda is a traditional Brazilian dance and musical form that has been associated with capoeira for many decades. The orchestra is composed by pandeiro, atabaque, berimbau-viola (high pitch berimbau), chocalho, accompanied by singing and clapping. Samba de roda is considered one of the primitive forms of modern Samba.

Originally the Maculelê is believed to have been an indigenous armed fighting style, using two sticks or a machete. Nowadays it's a folkloric dance practiced with heavy Brazilian percussion. Many capoeira groups include Maculelê in their presentations.

Puxada de Rede is a Brazilian folkloric theatrical play, seen in many capoeira performances. It is based on a traditional Brazilian legend involving the loss of a fisherman in a seafaring accident.

I think beating ( pancadaria) is good. I learned capoeira being beaten up and I like a rough game, heavy game. Sometimes, when I receive a kick that breaks my mouth, my nose, I even like it because I am learning. Beating is important in capoeira. Pancadaria is not violence.

-  Nanico, the boxer and capoeira teacher

Professor Barrãozinho from Axé Capoeira performing a meia-lua de compasso against Keegan Marshall.

Combat capoeira, often referred to as rough capoeira ( capoeira dura), places a primary emphasis on combat. It is commonly observed in ring competitions and street rodas, and sometimes even in graduations within certain groups.

Several capoeira fighters have gained national reputation, including Mestre King Kong from Salvador, Mestre Maurão from São Paulo, and King from Rio de Janeiro (formerly associated with Abadá). They advocate for capoeiristas to be skilled in playing intense games to ensure that the art retains its combat effectiveness.

It's important to note that capoeira fights have, on occasion, resulted in severe injuries and even fatalities, as seen in Petrópolis in 1996. The most suitable context for combat-focused capoeira appears to be the ring, where predetermined fighting rules provide clarity. In the tradition of Ciriaco, Sinhozinho, Bimba, and Arthur Emídio, contemporary capoeira fighters have expanded their training by incorporating various martial arts disciplines, including ju-jitsu, boxing, and taekwondo.

Even Brazilian mixed martial arts champions like Marco Ruas acknowledge the significance of capoeira in their training. The use of capoeira techniques in free-style competitions shows to what extent the art still provides essential fighting skills.

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Capoeira (Portuguese pronunciation: ) is an Afro-Brazilian martial art and game that includes elements of dance, acrobatics, music and spirituality. It is known for its acrobatic and complex maneuvers, often involving hands on the ground and inverted kicks. It emphasizes flowing movements rather than fixed stances; the , a rocking step, is usually the focal point of the technique.

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Terrace Farming: A Unique Agricultural Solution

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Farmers use terraces to grow crops on steep hillsides.

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Samba is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival. Considered one of the most popular Brazilian cultural expressions, samba has become an icon of Brazilian national identity.

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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile, led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon. On September 11, 1973, a group of military officers, led by General Augusto Pinochet, seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule. In 2000, the CIA admitted his role in the 1970 kidnapping of a top general who had refused to use the army to stop Allende's inauguration. 2023 declassified documents showed that Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the United States government, which had branded Allende as a dangerous communist, were aware of the coup and its plans to overthrow Allende's democratically-elected government.

Following the coup, a military junta was established, and suspended all political activities in Chile and suppressed left-wing movements, particularly communist and socialist parties, such as the Communist Party of Chile and the Socialist Party of Chile, as well as the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). Pinochet swiftly consolidated power and was officially declared president of Chile in late 1974. The Nixon administration, which had played a role in creating favorable conditions for the coup, promptly recognized the junta government and supported its efforts to consolidate power. During the air raids and ground attacks preceding the coup, Allende delivered his final speech, expressing his determination to remain at Palacio del La Moneda and rejecting offers of safe passage for exile. Although he died in the palace, the exact circumstances of Allende's death are still disputed.

Chile had previously been regarded as a symbol of democracy and political stability in South America, while other countries in the region suffered under military juntas and caudillismo; the Chilean period prior to the coup is known as the Presidential Republic (1925-1973) era. At the time, Chile was a middle-class country, with about 30% or 9 million Chileans being middle class. The collapse of Chilean democracy marked the end of a series of democratic governments that had held elections since 1932. Historian Peter Winn described the 1973 coup as one of the most violent events in Chilean history. It led to a series of human rights abuses in Chile under Pinochet, who initiated a brutal and long-lasting campaign of political suppression through torture, murder, and exile, which significantly weakened leftist opposition to the military dictatorship of Chile (1973-1990). The internationally-supported 1989 Chilean constitutional referendum held under the military junta led to the peaceful Chilean transition to democracy. Due to the coup's occurrence on the same date as the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, it has sometimes been referred to as "the other 9/11".

Allende contested the 1970 Chilean presidential election with Jorge Alessandri Rodriguez of the National Party and Radomiro Tomic of the Christian Democratic Party. Allende received 36.6% of the vote, while Alessandri was a very close second with 35.3%, and Tomic third with 28.1%, in what was a close three-way election. Although Allende received the highest number of votes, according to the Chilean constitution and since none of the candidates won by an absolute majority, the National Congress had to decide among the candidates.

The Chilean Constitution of 1925 did not allow a person to be president for consecutive terms. The incumbent president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, was therefore ineligible as a candidate. The CIA's "Track I" operation was a plan to influence the Congress to choose Alessandri, who would resign after a short time in office, forcing a second election. Frei would then be eligible to run. Alessandri announced on 9 September that if Congress chose him, he would resign. Allende signed a Statute of Constitutional Guarantees, which stated that he would follow the constitution during his presidency trying to shore up support for his candidacy. Congress then decided on Allende. The U.S. feared the example of a "well-functioning socialist experiment" in the region and exerted diplomatic, economic, and covert pressure upon Chile's elected socialist government. At the end of 1971, the Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro made a four-week state visit to Chile, alarming American observers worried about the "Chilean Way to Socialism".

In 1972, Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic adopted monetary policies that increased the amount of circulating currency and devalued the escudo, which increased inflation to 140 percent in 1972 and engendered a black market economy. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the participants were small-scale businessmen, some professional unions, and student groups. Its leaders - Vilarín, Jaime Guzmán, Rafael Cumsille, Guillermo Elton, Eduardo Arriagada - expected to depose the elected government. Other than damaging the national economy, the principal effect of the 24-day strike was drawing Army head, General Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister, an appeasement to the right wing. replacing General René Schneider, who had been assassinated (Schneider had been shot on 22 October 1970 by a group led by General Roberto Viaux, whom the Central Intelligence Agency had not attempted to discourage, and died three days later.) General Prats supported the legalist Schneider Doctrine and refused military involvement in a coup d'état against President Allende.

Despite the declining economy, President Allende's Popular Unity coalition increased its vote to 43.2% in the March 1973 parliamentary elections; but, by then, the informal alliance between Popular Unity and the Christian Democrats ended. The Christian Democrats allied with the right-wing National Party, who were opposed to Allende's government; the two right-wing parties formed the Confederation of Democracy (CODE). The internecine parliamentary conflict between the legislature and the executive branch paralyzed the activities of government.

Allende began to fear his opponents, convinced they were plotting his assassination. Using his daughter[which? ] as a messenger, he explained the situation to Fidel Castro. Castro gave four pieces of advice: convince technicians to stay in Chile, sell only copper for US dollars, do not engage in extreme revolutionary acts which would give opponents an excuse to wreck or seize control of the economy, and maintain a proper relationship with the Chilean military until local militias could be established and consolidated. Allende attempted to follow Castro's advice, but the latter two recommendations proved difficult.

Prior to the coup, the Chilean military had undergone a process of de-politicization since the 1920s, when military officers had held cabinet positions. Subsequently, most military officers remained under-funded, having only subsistence salaries. Because of the low salaries, the military spent much time in military leisure-time facilities (e.g., country clubs) where they met other officers and their families. The military remained apart from society and was to some degree an endogamous group as officers frequently married the sisters of their comrades or the daughters of high-ranked older officers. Many officers also had relatives in the military. In 1969 elements of the military made their first act of rebellion in 40 years when they participated in the Tacnazo insurrection. The Tacnazo was not a proper coup, but a protest against under-funding. In retrospect General Carlos Prats considered that Christian Democrats who were in power in 1969 committed the error of not taking the military's grievances seriously.

Throughout the 1960s, the governments of Brazil ( 1964), Argentina ( 1966), Peru ( 1968), and Bolivia ( 1969) were overthrown in US-backed coups and replaced by military governments. In June 1973 Uruguay joined the coup d'état wave that swept through the region. The poor conditions of the Chilean military contrasted with the change of fortune the military of neighboring countries experienced as they came to power in coups.

During the decades prior to the coup, the military became influenced by the United States' anti-communist ideology in the context of various cooperation programs, including the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

On 29 June 1973, Colonel Roberto Souper surrounded the La Moneda presidential palace with his tank regiment and failed to depose the Allende Government. That failed coup d'état - known as the Tanquetazo tank putsch - had been organized by the nationalist " Fatherland and Liberty" paramilitary group.

In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred; the Supreme Court publicly complained about the government's inability to enforce the law of the land. On 22 August, the Chamber of Deputies (with the Christian Democrats united with the National Party) accused the government of unconstitutional acts and called upon the military to enforce constitutional order.

For months, the government had feared calling upon the Carabineros national police, suspecting them of disloyalty. On 9 August, Allende appointed General Carlos Prats as Minister of Defense. He was forced to resign both as defense minister and as the Army commander-in-chief on 24 August 1973, embarrassed by the Alejandrina Cox incident and a public protest of the wives of his generals at his house. General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as Army commander-in-chief the same day. In late August 1973, 100,000[disputed ] Chilean women congregated at Plaza de la Constitución to protest against the government for the rising cost and increasing shortages of food and fuels, but they were dispersed with tear gas.

On 23 August 1973, with the support of the Christian Democrats and National Party members, the Chamber of Deputies passed 81-47 a resolution that asked "the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces" to "put an immediate end" to "breach[es of] the Constitution . . . with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans".

The resolution declared that the Allende government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state ... [with] the goal of establishing a totalitarian system", claiming it had made "violations of the Constitution ... a permanent system of conduct". Essentially, most of the accusations were about the government disregarding the separation of powers, and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government. Finally, the resolution condemned the "creation and development of government-protected armed groups, which ... are headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterised as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".

It can be argued that the resolution called upon the armed forces to overthrow the government if it did not comply, as follows: "To present the President of the Republic, Ministers of State, and members of the Armed and Police Forces with the grave breakdown of the legal and constitutional order ... it is their duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land with the aim of redirecting government activity toward the path of Law". The resolution was later used by Pinochet a way to justify the coup, which occurred two weeks later.

Salvador Allende's response

On 24 August 1973, two days after the resolution, Allende responded. He accused the opposition of trying to incite a military coup by encouraging the armed forces to disobey civilian authorities. He described the Congress's declaration as "destined to damage the country's prestige abroad and create internal confusion", and predicted: "It will facilitate the seditious intention of certain sectors." He observed that the declaration (passed 81-47 in the Chamber of Deputies) had not obtained the two-thirds Senate majority "constitutionally required" to convict the president of abuse of power, thus the Congress was "invoking the intervention of the armed forces and of Order against a democratically-elected government" and "subordinat[ing] political representation of national sovereignty to the armed institutions, which neither can nor ought to assume either political functions or the representation of the popular will."

Allende argued that he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism. In contrast, he said that Congress was promoting a coup d'état or a civil war with a declaration full of affirmations that had already been refuted beforehand and which in substance and process (directly handing it to the ministers rather than directly handing it to the president) violated a dozen articles of the then-current constitution. He further argued that the legislature was usurping the government's executive function.

Allende wrote: "Chilean democracy is a conquest by all of the people. It is neither the work nor the gift of the exploiting classes, and it will be defended by those who, with sacrifices accumulated over generations, have imposed it ... With a tranquil conscience ... I sustain that never before has Chile had a more democratic government than that over which I have the honor to preside ... I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences...Congress has made itself a bastion against the transformations ... and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives." Adding that economic and political means would be needed to relieve the country's current crisis, and that the Congress was obstructing said means; having already paralyzed the state, they sought to destroy it. He concluded by calling upon the workers and all democrats and patriots to join him in defending the Chilean constitution and the revolutionary process.

In mid-July, a month before the resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, there was general agreement in the heart of the Army's high command on the desirability of terminating the Unidad Popular "experiment." How to do it was still nebulous. The constitutional generals, gathered around Army Commander-in-Chief General Carlos Prats, were facing pressure from an increasingly hardline anti-Allende faction within the Army. Prats had coined the idea of an Allende-Armed Forces government, including a "political peace treaty" with the Christian Democrats and restricted participation of the Chilean Communist party and a group of Socialists. Prats argued that "only thus will we prevent the extremist workers from rebelling." This idea had the support of Generals Joaquin Lagos Osorio, Herman Brady Roche, Washington Carrasco Fernandez, Hector Bravo Munoz, Mario Sepulveda Squella, Guillermo Pickering, and Orlando Urbina Herrera, but with variations. While Lagos Osorio and Urbina Herrera did not object to the Prats plan, the other five generals thought the Allende-Armed Forces government ought to be "transitional" and of "short duration," to prepare conditions for a "purely military government including the military police." The hardline faction, consisting of Generals Oscar Bonilla, Sergio Arellano Stark, and Javier Palacios formed another group, joined by Augusto Pinochet, which posited that the Allende-Armed Forces phase was not necessary.

After Prats' resignation on 24 August caused by the Alejandrina Cox incident, the hardline anti-Allende, anti-constitutional faction that disregarded the Schneider Doctrine and opted for a full-fledged military coup, gained the upper hand in the Army leadership. The original members of the faction, Arellano (who later headed the infamous Caravan of Death) and Palacios (who on September 11 led the tank regiment that besieged La Moneda), were joined by Pinochet, Generals Mendoza, Leigh, Benavides and Admirals Merino and Carvajal. Constitutionalist General Urbina also joined the coup faction. Orlando Letelier, Allende's last Defense Minister, later wrote: "Urbina also joined Pinochet's double game and acted in terms of a great traitor. He had a reputation as an Allendista military man, but he had been Pinochet's classmate and even his confidant during the Unidad Popular government."

At noon on Sunday, September 9, Pinochet, together with General Orlando Urbina, met with President Allende. The president requested that they draw up an emergency plan in the event of a coup riot. Pinochet promised to have it by the next day."

On the day of the coup, the only high-ranking military officers to remain loyal to Chile's Constitution were Admiral Montero of the Navy and General Sepúlveda of the Carabineros.

"Like Caesar peering into the colonies from distant Rome, Nixon said the choice of government by the Chileans was unacceptable to the president of the United States. The attitude in the White House seemed to be, "If in the wake of Vietnam I can no longer send in the Marines, then I will send in the CIA."-Senator Frank Church, 1976

Many people in different parts of the world immediately suspected the U.S. of foul play. In early newspaper reports, the U.S. denied any involvement or previous knowledge of the coup. Prompted by an incriminating New York Times article, the U.S. Senate opened an investigation into U.S. interference in Chile. A report prepared by the United States Intelligence Community in 2000, at the direction of the National Intelligence Council, that echoed the Church committee, states that:

Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende's government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and-because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970-probably appeared to condone it.

The report stated that the CIA "actively supported the military Junta after the overthrow of Allende but did not assist Pinochet to assume the Presidency." After a review of recordings of telephone conversations between Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Robert Dallek concluded that both of them used the CIA to actively destabilize the Allende government. In one particular conversation about the news of Allende's overthrow, Kissinger complained about the lack of recognition of the American role in the overthrow of a "communist" government, upon which Nixon remarked, "Well, we didn't - as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one." A later CIA report contended that US agents maintained close ties with the Chilean military to collect intelligence but no effort was made to assist them and "under no circumstances attempted to influence them."

Historian Peter Winn found "extensive evidence" of United States complicity in the coup. He states that its covert support was crucial to engineering the coup, as well as for the consolidation of power by the Pinochet regime following the takeover. Winn documents an extensive CIA operation to fabricate reports of a coup against Allende, as justification for the imposition of military rule. Peter Kornbluh asserts that the CIA destabilized Chile and helped create the conditions for the coup, citing documents declassified by the Clinton administration. Other authors point to the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency, agents of which allegedly secured the missiles used to bombard the La Moneda Palace.

The U.S. Government's hostility to the election of Allende in 1970 in Chile was substantiated in documents declassified during the Clinton administration, which show that CIA covert operatives were inserted in Chile in order to prevent a Marxist government from arising and for the purpose of spreading anti-Allende propaganda. As described in the Church Committee report, the CIA was involved in multiple plots designed to remove Allende and then let the Chileans vote in a new election where he would not be a candidate. The first, non-military, approach involved attempting a constitutional coup. This was known as the Track I approach, in which the CIA, with the approval of the 40 Committee, attempted to bribe the Chilean legislature, tried to influence public opinion against Allende, and provided funding to strikes designed to coerce him into resigning. It also attempted to get congress to confirm Jorge Alessandri as the winner of the presidential election. Alessandri, who was an accessory to the conspiracy, was ready to then resign and call for fresh elections. This approach completely failed in 1970 and was not attempted again.

The other approach of the CIA in 1970 (but not later), also known as the Track II approach, was an attempt to encourage a military coup by creating a climate of crisis across the country. A CIA telegram sent to the Chile station on October 16, 1970, stated:

It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. It would be much preferable to have this transpire prior to 24 October but efforts in this regard will continue vigorously beyond this date. We are to continue to generate maximum pressure toward this end utilizing every appropriate resource. It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG and American hand be well hidden."

False flag operatives contacted senior Chilean military officers and informed them that the U.S. would actively support a coup, but would revoke all military aid if such a coup did not happen. In addition, the CIA gave extensive support for black propaganda against Allende, channeled mostly through El Mercurio. Financial assistance was also given to Allende's political opponents, and for organizing strikes and unrest to destabilize the government. By 1970, the U.S. manufacturing company ITT Corporation owned 70% of Chitelco (the Chilean Telephone Company), and also funded El Mercurio. The CIA used ITT as a means of disguising the source of the illegitimate funding Allende's opponents received. On 28 September 1973, the Weather Underground bombed ITT's headquarters in New York City in retaliation.

According to an article written by lifelong CIA operative Jack Devine, although it was widely reported that the CIA was directly involved in orchestrating and carrying out the coup, subsequently released sources suggest a much reduced role of the US government.

In September 2020, Declassified UK revealed that the UK government had interfered in Chile's democracy as well:

Under the Labour government of Harold Wilson (1964-1970), a secret Foreign Office unit initiated a propaganda offensive in Chile aiming to prevent Allende, Chile's leading socialist figure, winning power in two presidential elections, in 1964 and 1970.

The unit - the Information Research Department (IRD) - gathered information designed to damage Allende and lend legitimacy to his political opponents, and distributed material to influential figures within Chilean society.

The IRD also shared intelligence about left-wing activity in the country with the US government. British officials in Santiago assisted a CIA-funded media organisation which was part of extensive US covert action to overthrow Allende, culminating in the 1973 coup.

An Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) station was established in Chile at the Australian embassy in July 1971 at the request of the CIA and authorised by then Liberal Party Foreign Minister William McMahon. Newly elected Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was informed of the operation in February 1973 and signed a document ordering the closure of the operation several weeks later. It appears, however, the last ASIS agent did not leave Chile until October 1973, one month after the coup d'état had brought down the Allende Government. There were also two officers of Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia's internal security service, who were based in Santiago working as migration officers during this period. The failure of timely closure of Australia's covert operations was one of the reasons for the sacking of the Director of ASIS on 21 October 1975. This took effect on 7 November, just four days before Prime Minister's Whitlam's own dismissal in the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis with allegations of CIA political interference.

In June 2021, Clinton Fernandes, a former intelligence analyst, announced that he was trying to confirm the rumours of Australia's involvement in the coup by fighting for the declassification of key documents. On 10 September 2021, the day before the 48th anniversary of the coup, declassified documents confirmed that McMahon did indeed approve the CIA's request to conduct covert operations in Chile.

By 7:00 am on 11 September 1973, a date chosen to match a historical 1924 coup, the Navy captured Valparaíso, strategically stationing ships and marine infantry in the central coast and closed radio and television networks. The Province Prefect informed President Allende of the Navy's actions; immediately, the president went to the presidential palace with his bodyguards, the " Group of Personal Friends" (GAP). By 8:00 am, the Army had closed most radio and television stations in Santiago city; the Air Force bombed the remaining active stations; the President received incomplete information and was convinced that only a sector of the Navy conspired against him and his government.

President Allende and Defense Minister Orlando Letelier were unable to communicate with military leaders. Admiral Montero, the Navy's commander and an Allende loyalist, was rendered incommunicado; his telephone service was cut, and his cars were sabotaged before the coup d'état, to ensure he could not thwart the opposition. Leadership of the Navy was transferred to José Toribio Merino, planner of the coup d'état and executive officer to Adm. Montero. Augusto Pinochet, General of the Army, and Gustavo Leigh, General of the Air Force, did not answer Allende's telephone calls to them. The General Director of the Carabineros (uniformed police), José María Sepúlveda, and the head of the Investigations Police (plain clothes detectives), Alfredo Joignant answered Allende's calls and immediately went to the La Moneda presidential palace. When Defense Minister Letelier arrived at the Ministry of Defense, controlled by Adm. Patricio Carvajal, he was arrested as the first prisoner of the coup d'état.

Despite evidence that all branches of the Chilean armed forces were involved in the coup, Allende hoped that some units remained loyal to the government. Allende was convinced of Pinochet's loyalty, telling a reporter that the coup d'état leaders must have imprisoned the general. Only at 8:30 am, when the armed forces declared their control of Chile and that Allende was deposed, did the president grasp the magnitude of the military's rebellion. Despite the lack of any military support, Allende refused to resign his office.

At approx. 9:00 the carabineros of the La Moneda left the building. By 9:00 am, the armed forces controlled Chile, except for the city centre of the capital, Santiago. Allende refused to surrender, despite the military's declaring they would bomb the La Moneda presidential palace if he resisted being deposed. The Socialist Party along with his Cuban advisors proposed to Allende that he escape to the San Joaquín industrial zone in southern Santiago, to later re-group and lead a counter- coup d'état; the president rejected the proposition. According to Tanya Harmer, Allende's refusal to lead an insurgency against the coup is evidence of his unrelenting desire to bring about change through non-violent methods. The military attempted negotiations with Allende, but the President refused to resign, citing his constitutional duty to remain in office. Finally, Allende gave a farewell speech, telling the nation of the coup d'état and his refusal to resign his elected office under threat.

Leigh ordered the presidential palace bombed but was told the Air Force's Hawker Hunter jet aircraft would take forty minutes to arrive. Pinochet ordered an armoured and infantry force under General Sergio Arellano to advance upon the La Moneda presidential palace. When the troops moved forward, they were forced to retreat after coming under fire from GAP snipers perched on rooftops. General Arellano called for helicopter gunship support from the commander of the Chilean Army Puma helicopter squadron and the troops were able to advance again. Chilean Air Force aircraft soon arrived to provide close air support for the assault (by bombing the Palace), but the defenders did not surrender until nearly 2:30 pm. First reports said the 65-year-old president had died fighting troops, but later police sources reported he had committed suicide.

The facilities of the National Stadium were used as a detention and torture center after the coup.

In the first months after the coup d'état, the military killed thousands of Chilean leftists, both real and suspected, or forced their " disappearance". The military imprisoned 40,000 political enemies in the National Stadium of Chile; among the tortured and killed desaparecidos (disappeared) were the U.S. citizens Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. In October 1973, the Chilean songwriter Víctor Jara was murdered, along with 70 other people in a series of killings perpetrated by the death squad Caravan of Death ( Caravana de la Muerte).

The government arrested some 130,000 people in a three-year period; the dead and disappeared numbered thousands in the first months of the military government. Those include the British physician Sheila Cassidy, who survived to publicize in the UK the human rights violations in Chile. Among those detained was Alberto Bachelet (father of future Chilean President Michelle Bachelet), an Air Force official; he was tortured and died on 12 March 1974, the right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio, reported that Mr Bachelet died after a basketball game, citing his poor cardiac health. Michelle Bachelet and her mother were imprisoned and tortured in the Villa Grimaldi detention and torture centre on 10 January 1975.

After Gen. Pinochet lost the election in the 1988 plebiscite, the Rettig Commission, a multi-partisan truth commission, in 1991 reported the location of torture and detention centers, among others, Colonia Dignidad, the tall ship Esmeralda and Víctor Jara Stadium. Later, in November 2004, the Valech Report confirmed the number as fewer than 3,000 killed and reduced the number of cases of forced disappearance; but some 28,000 people were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Sixty individuals died as a direct result of fighting on 11 September, although the MIR and GAP continued to fight the following day. In all, 46 of Allende's guard (the GAP, Grupo de Amigos Personales) were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the Moneda. Allende's Cuban-trained guard would have had about 300 elite commando-trained GAP fighters at the time of the coup, but the use of brute military force, especially the use of Hawker Hunters, may have handicapped many GAP fighters from further action.

According to official reports prepared after the return of democracy, at La Moneda only two people died: President Allende and the journalist Augusto Olivares (both by suicide). Two more were injured, Antonio Aguirre and Osvaldo Ramos, both members of President Allende's entourage; they would later be allegedly kidnapped from the hospital and disappeared. In November 2006, the Associated Press noted that more than 15 bodyguards and aides were taken from the palace during the coup and are still unaccounted for; in 2006 Augusto Pinochet was indicted for two of their deaths.

On the military side, there were 34 deaths: two army sergeants, three army corporals, four army privates, 2 navy lieutenants, 1 navy corporal, 4 naval cadets, 3 navy conscripts and 15 carabineros. In mid-September, the Chilean military junta claimed its troops suffered another 16 dead and 100 injured by gunfire in mopping-up operations against Allende supporters, and Pinochet said: "sadly there are still some armed groups who insist on attacking, which means that the military rules of wartime apply to them." A press photographer also died in the crossfire while attempting to cover the event. On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old army corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper. The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.

While fatalities in the battle during the coup might have been relatively small, the Chilean security forces sustained 162 dead in the three following months as a result of continued resistance, and tens of thousands of people were arrested during the coup and held in the National Stadium. An estimated 40,000 Chileans were tortured under the Pinochet regime in the years following the coup.

Allende's death

President Allende died in La Moneda during the coup. The junta officially declared that he committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro, two doctors from the infirmary of La Moneda stated that they witnessed the suicide, and an autopsy labelled Allende's death a suicide. Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal, one of the primary instigators of the coup, claimed that "Allende committed suicide and is dead now".[This quote needs a citation ] Patricio Guijon, one of the president's doctors, had testified to witnessing Allende shoot himself under the chin with the rifle while seated on a sofa.

At the time, few of Allende's supporters believed the explanation that Allende had killed himself. Allende's body was exhumed in May 2011. The exhumation was requested by members of the Allende family, including his daughter Isabel who viewed the question of her father's death as "an insult to scientific intelligence". A scientific autopsy was performed, and the autopsy team delivered a unanimous finding on 19 July 2011 that Allende committed suicide using an AK-47 rifle. The team was composed of international forensic experts to assure an independent evaluation.

However, on 31 May 2011, Chile's state television station reported that a top-secret military account of Allende's death had been discovered in the home of a former military justice official. The 300-page document was found only when the house was destroyed in the 2010 Chilean earthquake. After reviewing the report, two forensic experts told Televisión Nacional de Chile "that they are inclined to conclude that Allende was assassinated". Two forensics experts said they believed he was shot with a small-calibre weapon prior to the AK-47. One expert, Luis Ravanal, noted the lack of blood on his collar, sweater and throat suggested someone else fired the AK-47 when he was already dead.

Allende's widow and family escaped the military government and were accepted for exile in Mexico, where they remained for 17 years.

Original members of the Government Junta of Chile (1973)

On 13 September, the Junta dissolved Congress, outlawed the parties that had been part of the Popular Unity coalition, and all political activity was declared "in recess". The military government took control of all media, including the radio broadcasting that Allende attempted to use to give his final speech to the nation. It is not known how many Chileans actually heard the last words of Allende as he spoke them, but a transcript and audio of the speech survived the military government. Chilean scholar Lidia M. Baltra details how the military took control of the media platforms and turned them into their own "propaganda machine". The only two newspapers that were allowed to continue publishing after the military takeover were El Mercurio and La Tercera de la Hora, both of which were anti-Allende under his leadership. The dictatorship's silencing of the leftist point of view extended past the media and into "every discourse that expressed any resistance to the regime". An example of this is the torturing and death of folk singer Victor Jara. The military government detained Jara in the days following the coup. He, along with many other leftists, was held in Estadio Nacional, or the National Stadium of Chile in the capital of Santiago. Initially, the Junta tried to silence him by crushing his hands, but ultimately, he was murdered. Immediately after the coup the military sought television host Don Francisco to have him report on the events. Don Francisco declined the offer, encouraging the captain that had approached him to take the role of reporter himself.

Initially, there were four leaders of the junta: In addition to General Augusto Pinochet, from the Army, there were General Gustavo Leigh Guzmán, of the Air Force; Admiral José Toribio Merino Castro, of the Navy (who replaced Constitutionalist Admiral Raúl Montero); and General Director César Mendoza Durán, of the National Police ( Carabineros de Chile) (who replaced Constitutionalist General Director José María Sepúlveda). Coup leaders soon decided against a rotating presidency and named General Pinochet permanent head of the junta.

In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and Admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self-coup (the alleged , or Plan Z) that Allende's government or its associates were purportedly preparing. Historian Peter Winn states that the Central Intelligence Agency had an extensive part to play in fabricating the conspiracy and in selling it to the press, both in Chile and internationally. Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda, Gonzalo Vial has pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.

A document from September 13 shows that Jaime Guzmán was by then already tasked to study the creation of a new constitution. One of the first measures of the dictatorship was to set up a Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud (SNJ, National Youth Office). This was done on 28 October 1973, even before the Declaration of Principles of the junta made in March 1974. This was a way of mobilizing sympathetic elements of the civil society in support for the dictatorship.

Pictures of persons missing after the 1973 Chilean coup

The newspaper published on its front page a photograph showing prisoners at the Quiriquina Island Camp who had been captured during the fighting in Concepción. The photograph's caption stated that some of the detained were local leaders of the " Unidad Popular" while others were "extremists who had attacked the armed forces with firearms". The photo is reproduced in Docuscanner. This is consistent with reports in newspapers and broadcasts in Concepción about the activities of the Armed Forces, which mentioned clashes with "extremists" on several occasions from 11 to 14 September. Nocturnal skirmishes took place around the Hotel Alonso de Ercilla in Colo Colo and San Martín Street, one block away from the Army and military police administrative headquarters. A recently published testimony about the clashes in Concepcion offers several plausible explanations for the reticence of witnesses to these actions.

Besides political leaders and participants, the coup also affected many everyday Chilean citizens. Thousands were killed, went missing, and were injured. Because of the political instability in their country, many relocated elsewhere. Canada, among other countries, became a main point of refuge for many Chilean citizens. Through an operation known as "Special Movement Chile", more than 7,000 Chileans were relocated to Canada in the months following 11 September 1973. These refugees are now known as Chilean Canadian people and have a population of over 38,000.

The U.S. view of the coup continues to spark controversy. Beginning in late 2014 in response to a request by then Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin, United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), located at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., has been under investigation by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Insider national security whistleblower complaints included that the Center knowingly protected a CHDS professor from Chile who was a former top advisor to Pinochet after belonging to the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional / DINA state terrorist organization (whose attack against a former Chilean foreign minister in 1976 in Washington, D.C. resulted in two deaths, including that of an American). "Reports that NDU hired foreign military officers with histories of involvement in human rights abuses, including torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians, are stunning, and they are repulsive", said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the author of the "Leahy Law" prohibiting U.S. assistance to military units and members of foreign security forces that violate human rights.

Roberto Thieme, the military leader of Fatherland and Liberty, who was imprisoned on 11 September was shocked to hear about the degree of violence the coup was carried out with. Despite being an arduous opponent of Unidad Popular he had expected a cleaner coup.

President of Argentina Juan Domingo Perón condemned the coup calling it a "fatality for the continent". Before the coup Perón had warned the more radical of his followers to stay calm and "not do as Allende". Argentine students protested the coup at the Chilean embassy in Buenos Aires, where part of them chanted that they were "ready to cross the Andes" ( dispuestos a cruzar la cordillera).

A number of cargo shipments involving trade with Cuba were affected by government policy decisions, and subsequently performance of the trade contracts underlying the shipping deliveries was made illegal under Cuban law. The Chilean company Iansa had purchased sugar from the Cuban business entity, Cubazukar, and several shipments were at different stages of the shipping and delivery process. The ships involved included:

Playa Larga (delivery in Chile was underway but was not completed before the ship left)

The Marble Island (the ship was en route for Chile but was diverted elsewhere)

Aegis Fame (hire was cancelled before the cargo had been loaded).

The shipping contracts used c.i.f. trade terms. Iansa sued Cubazukar for non-delivery. The High Court (in England) ruled that IANSA was entitled to damages in respect of the undelivered balance of the Playa Larga cargo and to restitution of the price paid for the Marble Island cargo. Subsequent appeals by both parties were dismissed. In regard to the Aegis Fame shipping, the contract was frustrated and therefore Cubazukar were not in breach.

The commemoration of the coup is associated to competing narratives on its cause and effects. The coup has been commemorated by detractors and supporters in various ways.

On 11 September 1975 Pinochet lit the Llama de la Libertad (lit. Flame of Liberty) to commemorate the coup. This flame was extinguished in 2004. Avenida Nueva Providencia in Providencia, Santiago, was renamed Avenida 11 de Septiembre in 1980. In the 30th anniversary of the coup President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated the Morandé 80 entrance to La Moneda. This entrance to the presidential palace had been erased during the repairs the dictatorship did to the building after the bombing.

The 40th anniversary of the coup in 2013 was particularly intense. That year the name of Avenida 11 de Septiembre was reversed to the original Avenida Nueva Providencia. The Association of Chilean Magistrates issued a public statement in early September 2013 recognizing the past unwillingness of judges to protect those persecuted by dictatorship. On 11 September 2013 hundreds of Chileans posed as dead in the streets of Santiago in remembrance of the ones "disappeared" by the dictatorship.

The centre-left opposition refused to attend the commemoration event organized by Sebastián Piñera's right-wing government organizing instead a separate event. Osvaldo Andrade of the Socialist Party explained that attendance was not viable as Piñera's government was "packed with passive accomplices" of the dictatorship. Some right-wing politicians also declined the invitation. Presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet planned to spend the day visiting Museum of Memory and Human Rights. President Piñera held an unusual speech in which he denounced "passive accomplices" like news reporters who deliberately changed or omitted the truth and judges who rejected recursos de amparos that could have saved lives. People who knew things or could have known things but decided to stay quiet were also criticized as passive accomplices in Piñera's speech.

A number of new films, theatre plays, and photography expositions were held to cast light on the abuses and censorship of the dictatorship. The number of new books published on the subject in 2013 was such that it constituted an editorial boom. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights also displayed a collection of declassified CIA, FBI, Defense Department, and White House records illustrating the U.S. role in the dictatorship and the coup. Conferences and seminaries on the subject of coup were also held. Various series and interviews with politicians on the subject of the coup and the dictatorship were aired on Chilean TV in 2013.

1. ^ Lawson, George (2005). Negotiated Revolutions. p. 182. The only armed resistance came in a handful of factories, the La Legua poblacion in Santiago and in isolated gunfights with MIR activists.

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4. ^ Cohen, Youssef (1994). Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries: The Prisoner's Dilemma and the Collapse of Democracy in Latin America. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. pp. 98-118. ISBN 978-0-2261-1271-8 - via Google Books.

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7. ^ Ross, Jen (December 12, 2006). "Controversial legacy of former Chilean dictator". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Chile's democratically elected Communist government in a 1973 coup and ruled for 17 years, died Sunday without ever having been condemned for the human rights abuses committed during his rule.

8. ^ "Allende and Chile: 'Bring Him Down'". National Security Archive. November 3, 2020 - via The George Washington University.

9. ^ Peter Kornbluh (11 September 2013). The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. The New Press. ISBN 1595589120

10. Lubna Z. Qureshi. ^ Nixon, Kissinger, and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile. Lexington Books, 2009. ISBN 0739126563

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13. ^ Winn, Peter (2010). "Furies of the Andes". In Grandin & Joseph, Greg & Gilbert (ed.). A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. p. 259. doi:10.1215/9780822392859. ISBN 978-0-8223-9285-9.

14. ^ François, David (2018). Chile 1973, the Other 9/11: The Downfall of Salvador Allende. Solihull, West Midlands: Helion & Company. ISBN 978-1-912174-95-9. OCLC 1001447543.

15. ^ Osborn, Catherine (September 10, 2021). "The Other 9/11". Foreign Policy. In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States this month, a leading Chilean university, the University of Concepción, held a series of panel discussions on their legacy. The program referred to the events as 'the other Sept. 11.'
'Other' because, in Chile, Sept. 11 is best known as the date of the country's own national tragedy: the 1973 U.S.-backed coup against leftist President Salvador Allende that ushered in over 16 years of military rule.

16. ^ "CIA Activities in Chile". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on June 12, 2007. The political action program under consideration called for the Embassy and Station to influence the Chilean Congress as it took up the matter. This involved encouraging Congress to vote for Alessandri for President in spite of the fact Allende received a slightly higher popular vote. Allende's 36.3 percent of the vote on 4 September was a plurality, not the majority required by the Constitution to prevent Congressional reaffirmation of the victory. The Station and the Embassy, working through intermediaries, urged Frei to use his influence with Congress to convince non-leftist forces to vote for Alessandri. The scenario was to have Congress elect Alessandri as President; he would then resign, thereby allowing Frei to run as a candidate against Allende in a new election.

17. ^ "Castro speech database" Archived 30 May 2004 at the Wayback Machine, University of Texas: English translations of Castro speeches based upon the records of the (United States) Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). See locations of speeches for November-December 1971. Retrieved 22 September 2006.

18. "Comienzan los problemas" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on August 2, 2007., part of series "Icarito > Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006.

19. ^ Development and Breakdown of Democracy, 1830-1973, United States Library of Congress Country Studies: Chile. Undated; according to Preface, "The body of the text reflects information available as of 31 March 1994." Accessed 22 September 2006.

20. González 2013, p. 35.

21. , originally on RebelYouth.ca. Unsigned, but with citations. Archived on ^ Internet Archive 13 October 2004.

22. "el Presidente de la República y a los señores Ministros de Estado y miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y del Cuerpo de Carabineros" Acuerdo de la Cámara de Diputados).

23. ^ Goldberg, Peter A. (1975). "The Politics of the Allende Overthrow in Chile". Political Science Quarterly. 90 (1): 93-116. doi:10.2307/2148700. ISSN 0032-3195.

24. ^ "The murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean way to socialism". The Róbinson Rojas Archive.

25. ^ Bill D. Moyers; Henry Steele Commager (December 1990). The secret government: the Constitution in crisis : with excerpts from "An essay on Water-gate". Seven Locks Press. ISBN 978-0-932020-85-7.

26. ^ "Estados Unidos niega en forma rotunda participación en golpe". La Nación. September 13, 1973 - via Google Newspapers.

27. Gustafson, Kristian (2007). Hostile Intent:U.S. Covert Operations in Chile, 1964-1974. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. pp. 12, 203.

28. ^ CIA Activities in Chile, September 18, 2000, archived from the original on June 12, 2007, To respond to Section 311 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 (referred to hereafter as the Hinchey Amendment), the Intelligence Community (IC), led by the National Intelligence Council, reviewed [...]

29. ^ Shane, Scott (April 18, 2007), "Robert Dallek on Nixon and Kissinger", The New York Times, archived from the original on January 14, 2014, [...] phone call reacting to news of the 1973 coup in Chile [...] Kissinger grumbled [...] that American newspapers, 'instead of celebrating,' were 'bleeding because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.' 'Isn't that something?' Nixon remarked. 'In the Eisenhower period, we would be heroes,' Kissinger said. 'Well, we didn't - as you know - our hand doesn't show on this one,' the president said.

30. ^ The Pinochet File: How U.S. Politicians, Banks and Corporations Aided Chilean Coup, Dictatorship. Democracy Now! 10 September 2013.

31. pp78-92, 2015 in ^ 40 Years are Nothing: History and memory of the 1973 coups d'état in Uruguay and Chile Edited by Pablo Leighton and Fernando López, ISBN 1443876429

32. ^ Pérez de Arce, Hermógenes (January 15, 2006). "Michelle Bachelet, ¿quién es realmente usted?". El Mercurio.

33. ^ Hilton, Ronald (December 22, 1997). "Chile: The Continuing Historical Conflict". World Association of International Studies. Archived from the original on October 26, 2006.

34. ^ Rojas, Róbinson (1975). The murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean way to socialism. Harper and Row, Fitzhenry & Whiteside - via RRojasDatabank.info.

35. ^ "Mexico dio asilo a la viuda de Allende". La Nacion. September 14, 1973 - via Google Newspapers.

36. ^ Cucurella, Paula (2014). "A Weak Force: On the Chilean Dictatorship and Visual Arts". The New Centennial Review. 14 (1): 99-127. doi:10.14321/crnewcentrevi.14.1.0099. S2CID 144977347.

37. ^ Hinchey Report on CIA Activities in Chile (Report). September 18, 2000. Archived from the original on October 20, 2009.

38. ^ "III Contexto". Comisión Nacional sobre Prisión Política y Tortura (PDF). Government of Chile. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 20, 2005.

39. ^ Vial Correa, Gonzalo (September 23, 2003). "Carlos Altamirano, el Plan Z y la "Operación Blanqueo"". La Segunda.

40. ^ González, Yanko (2015). "El "Golpe Generacional" y la Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud: purga, disciplinamiento y resocialización de las identidades juveniles bajo Pinochet (1973-1980)" [The "Generational Putsch" and the National youth Office: Purge, disciplining and resocialization of youth identities under Pinochet (1973-1980)]. (in Spanish). 512 (512): 10.4067/S0718-04622015000200006. doi:10.4067/S0718-04622015000200006.

41. ^ Chilean 70's torture survivor seeks justice. McClatchy Washington Bureau. March 12, 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2021 - via YouTube.

42. ^ DiFilm (March 10, 2014). "DiFilm - Protesta de estudiantes en la Embajada de Chile 1973". Archived from the original on November 2, 2021 - via YouTube.

43. Todd, P. N., Empresa Exportadora de Azucar v. Industria Azucarera Nacional S.A. (The Playa Larga and Marble Islands), n.d., archived 4 May 2014, accessed 27 May 2021

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45. ^ Waldman, Gilda (2014). "A cuarenta años del golpe militar en Chile. Reflexiones en torno a conmemoraciones y memorias". Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales (in Spanish). 59 (221): 243-265. doi:10.1016/S0185-1918(14)70823-2.

46. "Municipio cambia de señalética de avenida por "Nueva Providencia"". 24 Horas (in Spanish). July 14, 2013.

John R. Bawden (2016). The Pinochet Generation: The Chilean Military in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

Simon Collier & William F. Sater (1996). A History of Chile: 1808-1994. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Ignacio González Camus, ed. (1988). El día en que murió Allende (The day that Allende Died), Chilean Institute of Humanistic Studies (ICHEH) / CESOC.

González, Mónica (2013). La Conjura: Los mil y un días del golpe (in Spanish) (3rd ed.). Santiago de Chile: Catalonia. ISBN 978-956-324-134-1.

Anke Hoogvelt (1997). Globalisation and the postcolonial world, London: Macmillan.

Thomas Karamessines (1970). Operating guidance cable on coup plotting in Chile, Washington: National Security Council.

Jeane Kirkpatrick (1979). "Dictatorships and Double Standards", Commentary, November, pp 34-45.

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Richard Norton-Taylor (1999). "Truth will out: Unearthing the declassified documents in America which give the lie to Lady Thatcher's outburst", The Guardian, 8 July 1999, London.

Alec Nove (1986). Socialism, Economics and Development, London: Allen & Unwin.

James F. Petras & Morris H. Morley (1974). How Allende fell: A study in U.S.-Chilean relations, Nottingham: Spokesman Books.

Sigmund, P.E. (1986). "Development Strategies in Chile, 1964-1983: The Lessons of Failure", Chapter 6 in I.J. Kim (Ed.), Development and Cultural Change: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, New York: Paragon House Publishers, pp. 159-178.

Valenzuela, J.S., & Valenzuela, A. (1993). "Modernisation and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin-American Underdervelopment", in M.A. Seligson & J.T. Pass-Smith (Eds.), Development and Underdevelopment: The Political Economy of Inequality, Boulder: Lynnes Rienner, pp. 203-216.

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The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military overthrow of the Popular Unity government in Chile, led by the democratic socialist Salvador Allende as president of Chile. Allende, who has been described as the first Marxist to be democratically elected president in a Latin American liberal democracy, faced significant social unrest, political tension with the opposition-controlled National Congress of Chile, and economic warfare ordered by United States president Richard Nixon.

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Meanwhile, an example of communist tactics was being unfolded in Cuba, within 90 miles of the U.S. southeastern shoreline. Early in 1959, after battling for several years,

Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro succeeded in overthrowing the government of Cuban dictator
Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's cruel record of repression, the U.S. government and the American public in general welcomed Castro's rise to power as a victory for democracy.

American sympathy rapidly evaporated, however, when Premier Castro began to act and sound like a communist dictator. He failed to hold the free elections he had promised the Cuban people. He put to death hundreds of his former political enemies in hasty trials intended more as propaganda than as judicial proceedings. Then he proceeded to fill Cuba's jails once more with political critics, including many of Castro's former comrades, anti-communist labor leaders, and other veteran opponents of the Batista regime. The press was placed under strict censorship. Foreign-owned property was expropriated arbitrarily without fair compensation, and in many cases without any compensation at all. Only the communists emerged unscathed from Castro's repressive and vindictive actions.

As his internal dictatorship hardened, Castro began increasingly to denounce the United States and to seek support from the communist bloc nations. In the face of rising provocations, the Eisenhower administration at first adopted a policy of patient waiting. During the summer of 1960, however, American policy stiffened. The United States placed a temporary embargo on the purchase of Cuban sugar and urged the 21-nation Organization of American States (OAS) to condemn Cuba's actions. The OAS, while it did not directly criticize the Castro regime on this occasion, did condemn communist interference in the Western Hemisphere.

Another international gathering, held later in 1960, seemed to sum up the hopeful and disturbing aspects of the world scene. Meeting in New York, the U.N. General Assembly admitted 16 new nations, all but one from the African continent, a reflection of the rapid postwar movement of formerly colonial peoples to full independence and nationhood. In a speech to the U.N. delegates, President Eisenhower asked other nations to join the United States in providing increased aid to developing areas generally and to the new African nations in particular. He also pledged that the United States would continue to seek a workable program of world disarmament based on an effective system of inspection and control.

Prior to the General Assembly session, world concern over the mounting arms race had been heightened by man's conquest of space, a development which in more tranquil times would have been a source only of admiration and pride. The launching of the first Soviet space satellite in October 1957, and the first American satellite in January 1958-followed by many others-demonstrated that both countries now had rockets powerful enough to hurl atomic and hydrogen bombs into the heart of an enemy country thousands of miles away. In the absence of a foolproof arms inspection system, there was always the danger that, accidentally or otherwise, a push-button war might break out which could destroy millions of lives in a single blinding instant. World opinion was therefore shocked and disheartened when Premier Khrushchev told the U.N. General Assembly in belligerent tones that the Soviet Union would not accept inspection and control in the initial stages of a disarmament agreement. Soviet leaders knew that disarmament without inspection was unacceptable to the democratic nations, since it would give dangerous advantage to a closed society like the Soviet Union which could violate its disarmament pledges with little chance of being found out, whereas violations within a democracy would have a high chance of being discovered and publicized.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meanwhile, an example of communist tactics was being unfolded in Cuba, within 90 miles of the U.S. southeastern shoreline. Early in 1959, after battling for several years, Fidel Castro Fidel Castro succeeded in overthrowing the government of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Mindful of Batista's cruel record of repression, the U.S.

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"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."

-- V.I. Lenin

"No force, no torture, no intrigue can eradicate Marxism-Leninism from the minds and hearts of men."

-- Enver Hoxha

"If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?"

-- Ho Chi Minh

"Every departure from class struggle has fatal results for the destiny of socialism."

-- Enver Hoxha

"A nation which enslaves another forges its own chains."

-- Karl Marx

"Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement - in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods."

-- Friedrich Engels

"The entire party and country should hurl into the fire and break the neck of anyone who dared trample underfoot the sacred edict of the party on the defense of women's rights."

-- Enver Hoxha, 1967

"Today, in fact, 'Stalinism' has become a meaningless term of abuse employed to denote political views with which one disagrees."

-- Bill Bland

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

-- Desmond Tutu

"The class struggle does not disappear under the dictatorship of the proletariat; it merely assumes different forms... The class of exploiters, the landowners and capitalists, has not disappeared and cannot disappear all at once under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The exploiters have been smashed, but not destroyed. They still have an international base in the form of international capital, of which they are a branch. They still retain certain means of production in part, they still have money, they still have vast social connections."

-- V.I. Lenin, 1919

"We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don't clutch at us and don't besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are 'free' to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!"

-- Lenin, "What is to be Done?"

"I have not brought you liberty, I found it here, among you."

-- George Kastrioti "Skanderbeg"

"[The children's] life will be better than ours; much of what was our life, they will not experience. Their lives will be less cruel. [...] Our generation has succeeded in doing a job of astounding historical importance. The cruelty of our life, forced upon us by conditions, will be understood and justified. It will all be understood, all of it!"

-- V.I. Lenin

"There is one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is-working whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the revolutionary struggle in one's own country, and supporting (by propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this, line, in every country without exception."

-- V.I. Lenin, 1917

"When the enemy attacks you, it means you are on the right road."

-- Enver Hoxha

"You'll hang me now, but I am not alone. There are two hundred million of us. You can't hang us all."

-- Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

"The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and, in particular, not in the least proletarian."

-- Enver Hoxha

"Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx's proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism."

-- J. V. Stalin, "Anarchism or Socialism?"

"You speak of Sinified socialism. There is nothing of the sort in nature. There is no Russian, English, French, German, Italian socialism, as much as there is no Chinese socialism. There is only one Marxist-Leninist socialism."

-- J.V. Stalin, 1949

"Nixon is to go to Peking! We are not in agreement. Therefore I think we should write to the Chinese a letter saying that we are opposed to this decision. Nixon is an aggressor, a murderer of peoples, an enemy of socialism - especially of Albania, which the USA has never recognised as a people's democratic state and against which it has hatched a thousand plots. The invitation to Nixon will benefit imperialism and world reaction, and will gravely harm the new Marxist-Leninist Parties which have looked upon China and Mao Tse-tung as the pillar of the revolution and as defenders of Marxism-Leninism."

-- Enver Hoxha

"It is only the working class at the head of the masses, it is only the working class headed by its real Marxist-Leninist party, it is only the working class through armed revolution, through violence, that can and must bury the traitorous revisionists."

-- Enver Hoxha

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we would but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the guillotine, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

- Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"

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Posts about Contras vs. Sandinistas on The Espresso Stalinist

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"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." -- V.I. Lenin "No force, no torture, no intrigue can eradicate Marxism-Leninism from the minds and hearts of men." -- Enver Hoxha "If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?"

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Learn the US interventions in Latin America

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Learn the US interventions in Latin America

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History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America

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Seized from Spain, U.S. still holds Navy base at Guantanamo

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Slash and burn agriculture is the process of cutting down the vegetation in a particular plot of land, setting fire to the remaining foliage, and using the ashes to provide nutrients to the soil for the use of planting food crops.

The cleared area following slash and burn, also known as swidden, is used for a relatively short period of time, and then left alone for a longer period of time so that vegetation can grow again. For this reason, this type of agriculture is also known as shifting cultivation.

Steps to Slash and Burn

Generally, the following steps are taken in slash and burn agriculture:

1. Prepare the field by cutting down vegetation; plants that provide food or timber may be left standing.

2. The downed vegetation is allowed to dry until just before the rainiest part of the year to ensure an effective burn.

3. The plot of land is burned to remove vegetation, drive away pests, and provide a burst of nutrients for planting.

4. Planting is done directly in the ashes left after the burn.

Cultivation (the preparation of land for planting crops) on the plot is done for a few years until the fertility of the formerly burned land is reduced. The plot is left alone for longer than it was cultivated, sometimes up to 10 or more years, to allow wild vegetation to grow on the plot of land. When vegetation has grown again, the slash and burn process may be repeated.

Geography of Slash and Burn Agriculture

Slash and burn agriculture is most often practiced in places where open land for farming is not readily available because of dense vegetation. These regions include central Africa, northern South America, and Southeast Asia. Such farming is typically done within grasslands and rainforests.

Slash and burn is a method of agriculture primarily used by tribal communities for subsistence farming (farming to survive). Humans have practiced this method for about 12,000 years, ever since the transition known as the Neolithic Revolution-the time when humans stopped hunting and gathering and started to stay put and grow crops. Today, between 200 and 500 million people use slash and burn agriculture, roughly 7% of the world's population.

When done properly, slash and burn agriculture provides communities with a source of food and income. Slash and burn allows people to farm in places where it usually is not possible because of dense vegetation, soil infertility, low soil nutrient content, uncontrollable pests, or other reasons.

Negative Aspects of Slash and Burn

Many critics claim that slash and burn agriculture contributes to a number of persistent environmental problems. They include:

Deforestation: When practiced by large populations, or when fields are not given sufficient time for vegetation to grow back, there is a temporary or permanent loss of forest cover.

Erosion: When fields are slashed, burned, and cultivated next to each other in rapid succession, roots and temporary water storages are lost and unable to prevent nutrients from leaving the area permanently.

Nutrient Loss: For the same reasons, fields may gradually lose the fertility they once had. The result may be desertification, a situation in which land becomes infertile and unable to support the growth of any kind.

Biodiversity Loss: When plots of land area are cleared, the various plants and animals that lived there are swept away. If a particular area is the only one that holds a particular species, slashing and burning could result in extinction for that species. Because slash and burn agriculture is often practiced in tropical regions where biodiversity is extremely high, endangerment and extinction may be magnified.

The negative aspects above are interconnected, and when one happens, typically another happens also. These issues may come about because of irresponsible practices of slash and burn agriculture by large numbers of people. Knowledge of the ecosystem of the area and agricultural skills may provide ways to practice slash and burn agriculture in restorative, sustainable ways.

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How Slash and Burn Agriculture Affects Geography

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Slash and burn agriculture is the process of cutting down the vegetation in a particular plot of land, setting fire to the remaining foliage, and using the ashes to provide nutrients to the soil for the use of planting food crops.

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Which country has the lowest percentage of population living in poverty?

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Which country has the lowest percentage of population living in poverty?

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Population below poverty line - Country Comparison

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List of countries ranked by Population below poverty line.

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Which country has the highest percentage of population living in poverty?

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Which country has the highest percentage of population living in poverty?

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Measuring poverty rates is mixture of art and science, a combination of objective measurements and subjective decisions. The objective measurements are the well grounded statistics such as the wealth distribution within a country. Less objective data like cost-of-living rates or price-purchase-parity adjustments are often incorporated as well. Since poverty can often be context-specific, the subjective decision of how to define poverty is a key challenge in comparing poverty rates across countries. Someone who is considered poor in the United States may be considered wealthy in another country based on their assets. There are global measures of extreme poverty but those measures aren't relevant when discussing middle and upper-income countries. Additionally, the household surveys conducted in developing countries don't translate easily for developed countries. The U.S. government defines poverty levels as those whose income falls below poverty thresholds in a similar manner to these OECD definitions, where the U.S. government-defined poverty thresholds also take into consideration the household size.

The OECD publishes a poverty rate which is defined as the percent of people living on less than half of the median household income. This is a viable, though imperfect, definition. Many will immediately notice that this poverty definition is really a measure of the income distribution where countries with high levels of income inequality will tend to have high poverty rates and those with low levels of income inequality will tend to have lower poverty rates. In fact, this poverty metric has a correlation of nearly 80% with the Gini Index and the countries with the highest poverty rate also have the highest degrees of wealth inequality.

Using this poverty measure, the 5 OECD countries with the highest poverty level are, in order, (5) Turkey, (4) the United States, (3) Chile, (2) Israel and (1) Mexico. The US is very distinct from the other countries in this list for countless reasons though the one of the most obvious is that the US is a much wealthier country when measuring the mean GDP per capita.

It is worth discussing why this poverty metric uses the percent of people living on less than half of the median, rather than the mean, household income. The mean is highly subject to distortion, while the median is a robust metric that isn't influenced as much by outliers. Because the goal is to describe the economic situation with as few data points as possible, the median is a more accurate reflection of reality than the mean.

Here's an example to clarify this point:

Imagine 99 people are in a room. Everyone in the room has a net worth between $20K and $120K with the mean net worth being $70K. The distribution is symmetric around $70K so not just the mean, but also the median is $70K. Carlos Slim, the world wealthiest person, walks into the room along with your younger brother, who has a net worth of $0. Carlos is a huge outlier with respect to net worth, as he is estimated to have a total net worth of around $75 Billion. With the arrival of these last two guests, the mean net worth has just risen to nearly $750 million (total net worth divided by 101 people) yet the typical person in the room is no richer just because Carlos and your younger brother have arrived. The mean is sensitive to outliers and can give a distorted assessment of the typical situation. In this example it shifted from $70K to nearly $750 million by adding to additional guests. On the other hand, the median net worth is the same with or without these last two guests. The median is computed by lining everyone up in order of wealth and selecting the person in the middle. With Carlos taking his spot at the front of the line and your brother bringing up the rear, the person in the center remains the same and so that person's net worth is still the median. In general, when you know your data includes large outliers, the median usually gives a better single snapshot assessment of the situation than the mean.

Why is this relevant to the U.S. economy? Because the U.S. has such as high degree of income inequality, reports of the overall GDP growth and overall rises in GDP per capita mask the fact that while the mean may be rising, the median may be falling! How is this possible? Imagine our 101 guest return to the room one year later. Carlos has a terrific year and is now worth $85 billion, your brother is still worth $0 and the other 99 people in the room all lost $10K. For the 99 people in the room, it was a bad year and both the mean and median of the 99 people dropped from $70K to $60K. What about for the entire 101 people? The mean net worth rose by nearly $100 million all due to Carlos but the median, a more accurate reflection of how most people are doing, declined by $10K.

Note: The data for this article was extracted from the OECD database.

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5 Countries With the Highest Poverty Rate (OECD)

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Measuring poverty rates is mixture of art and science, a combination of objective measurements and subjective decisions. The objective measurements are the well grounded statistics such as the wealth distribution within a country. Less objective data like cost-of-living rates or price-purchase-parity adjustments are often incorporated as well.

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A factory entrepôt, a basic example of colonialism illustrating its different elements, hierarchies and impact to the land and people (the Dutch V.O.C. factory in Hugli-Chuchura, Bengal, in 1665)

Colonialism is a practice by which a one group of people, social construct, or nation state controls, directs, or imposes taxes or tribute on other people or areas, often by establishing colonies, generally for strategic and economic advancement of the colonizing group or construct. There is no clear definition of colonialism; definitions may vary depending on the use and context.

Colonialism is etymologically rooted in the Latin word " Colonus", which was used to describe tenant farmers in the Roman Empire. The coloni sharecroppers started as tenants of landlords, but the system evolved so they were permanently indebted to the landowner and were trapped in servitude.

Colonialism has existed since ancient times. In the modern period, the concept is most strongly associated with the European and Japanese empires, starting in the 15th century and extending to the mid-1900s. At first, conquest followed policies of mercantilism, aiming to strengthen the home-country economy, so agreements usually restricted the colony to trading only with the metropole (mother country). By the mid-19th century, many empires gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and adopted the principle of free trade, with few restrictions or tariffs.

Missionaries were active in practically all of the European-controlled colonies because the metropoles were Christian. Historian Philip Hoffman calculated that by 1800, before the Industrial Revolution, Europeans already controlled at least 35% of the globe, and by 1914, they had gained control of 84% of the globe. In the aftermath of World War II colonial powers retreated between 1945 and 1975; over which time nearly all colonies gained independence, entering into changed colonial, so-called postcolonial and neocolonialist relations.

Definitions

The East Offering its Riches to Britannia, painted by Spiridione Roma for the boardroom of the British East India Company

Collins English Dictionary defines colonialism as "the practice by which a powerful country directly controls less powerful countries and uses their resources to increase its own power and wealth". Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary defines colonialism as "the system or policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories". The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers four definitions, including "something characteristic of a colony" and "control by one power over a dependent area or people". Etymologically, the word " colony" comes from the Latin - "a place for agriculture".

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy uses the term "to describe the process of European settlement and political control over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia". It discusses the distinction between colonialism, imperialism and conquest and states that "[t]he difficulty of defining colonialism stems from the fact that the term is often used as a synonym for imperialism. Both colonialism and imperialism were forms of conquest that were expected to benefit Europe economically and strategically," and continues "given the difficulty of consistently distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use colonialism broadly to refer to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended with the national liberation movements of the 1960s".

In his preface to Jürgen Osterhammel's Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Roger Tignor says "For Osterhammel, the essence of colonialism is the existence of colonies, which are by definition governed differently from other territories such as protectorates or informal spheres of influence." In the book, Osterhammel asks, "How can 'colonialism' be defined independently from 'colony?'" He settles on a three-sentence definition:

Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonised people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule.

Additional definitions

The Times once quipped that there were three types of colonial empire: "The English, which consists in making colonies with colonists; the German, which collects colonists without colonies; the French, which sets up colonies without colonists." Modern studies of colonialism have often distinguished between various overlapping categories of colonialism, broadly classified into four types: settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, surrogate colonialism, and internal colonialism. Some historians have identified other forms of colonialism, including national and trade forms.

Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration by settlers to colonies, often motivated by religious, political, or economic reasons. This form of colonialism aims largely to supplant prior existing populations with a settler one, and involves large number of settlers emigrating to colonies for the purpose of establishing settlements. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, United States, Uruguay are examples of nations created or expanded in their contemporary form by settler colonization.

Exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on the exploitation of natural resources or labour to the benefit of the metropole. This form consists of trading posts as well as larger colonies where colonists would constitute much of the political and economic administration. The European colonization of Africa and Asia was largely conducted under the auspices of exploitation colonialism.

Surrogate colonialism involves a settlement project supported by a colonial power, in which most of the settlers do not come from the same ethnic group as the ruling power.

Internal colonialism is a notion of uneven structural power between areas of a state. The source of exploitation comes from within the state. This is demonstrated in the way control and exploitation may pass from people from the colonizing country to an immigrant population within a newly independent country.

National colonialism is a process involving elements of both settler and internal colonialism, in which nation-building and colonization are symbiotically connected, with the colonial regime seeking to remake the colonized peoples into their own cultural and political image. The goal is to integrate them into the state, but only as reflections of the state's preferred culture. The Republic of China in Taiwan is the archetypal example of a national-colonialist society.

Trade colonialism involves the undertaking of colonialist ventures in support of trade opportunities for merchants. This form of colonialism was most prominent in 19th-century Asia, where previously isolationist states were forced to open their ports to Western powers. Examples of this include the Opium Wars and the opening of Japan.

Socio-cultural evolution

As colonialism often played out in pre-populated areas, sociocultural evolution included the formation of various ethnically hybrid populations. Colonialism gave rise to culturally and ethnically mixed populations such as the mestizos of the Americas, as well as racially divided populations such as those found in French Algeria or in Southern Rhodesia. In fact, everywhere where colonial powers established a consistent and continued presence, hybrid communities existed.

Notable examples in Asia include the Anglo-Burmese, Anglo-Indian, Burgher, Eurasian Singaporean, Filipino mestizo, Kristang, and Macanese peoples. In the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia) the vast majority of "Dutch" settlers were in fact Eurasians known as Indo-Europeans, formally belonging to the European legal class in the colony (see also Indos in pre-colonial history and Indos in colonial history).

Activity that could be called colonialism has a long history, starting at least as early as the ancient Egyptians. Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans founded colonies in antiquity. Phoenicia had an enterprising maritime trading-culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC; later the Persian Empire and various Greek city-states continued on this line of setting up colonies. The Romans would soon follow, setting up coloniae throughout the Mediterranean, in North Africa, and in Western Asia.

Medieval Period

Beginning in the 7th century, Arabs colonized a substantial portion of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia and Europe. From the 9th century Vikings ( Norsemen) such as Leif Erikson established colonies in Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, North America, present-day Russia and Ukraine, France (Normandy) and Sicily. In the 9th century a new wave of Mediterranean colonisation began, with competitors such as the Venetians, Genovese and Amalfians infiltrating the wealthy previously Byzantine or Eastern Roman islands and lands. European Crusaders set up colonial regimes in Outremer (in the Levant, 1097-1291) and in the Baltic littoral (12th century onwards). Venice began to dominate Dalmatia and reached its greatest nominal colonial extent at the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, with the declaration of the acquisition of three octaves of the Byzantine Empire.

The European early modern period began with the Turkish colonization of Anatolia. After the Ottoman Empire colonialised Constantinople in 1453, the sea routes discovered by Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) became central to trade, and helped fuel the Age of Discovery.

The Crown of Castile encountered the Americas in 1492 through sea travel and built trading posts or conquered large extents of land. The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the areas of these "new" lands between the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire in 1494.

The 17th century saw the birth of the Dutch Empire and French colonial empire, as well as the English overseas possessions, which later became the British Empire. It also saw the establishment of Danish overseas colonies and Swedish overseas colonies.

A first wave of separatism started with the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), initiating the Rise of the "Second" British Empire (1783-1815). The Spanish Empire largely collapsed in the Americas with the Spanish American wars of independence (1808-1833). Empire-builders established several new colonies after this time, including in the German colonial empire and Belgian colonial empire. Starting with the end of the French Revolution European authors such as Johann Gottfried Herder, August von Kotzebue, and Heinrich von Kleist prolifically published so as to conjure up sympathy for the oppressed native peoples and the slaves of the new world, thereby starting the idealization of native humans.

Map of European empires in 1800

The Habsburg monarchy, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire existed at the same time but did not expand over oceans. Rather, these empires expanded through the conquest of neighbouring territories. There was, though, some Russian colonization of North America across the Bering Strait. From the 1860s onwards the Empire of Japan modelled itself on European colonial empires and expanded its territories in the Pacific and on the Asian mainland. The Empire of Brazil fought for hegemony in South America. The United States gained overseas territories after the 1898 Spanish-American War, hence, the coining of the term " American imperialism".

American Progress (1872) by John Gast is an allegorical representation of the idea of manifest destiny. Columbia, a personification of the United States, leads settler civilization westward, bringing light, stringing telegraph wire, holding a book,[35] and highlighting different stages of economic activity and evolving forms of transportation,[36] while on the left, displacing Native Americans in the United States from their homeland

In the late 19th century many European powers became involved in the Scramble for Africa.

20th century

The world's colonial population at the outbreak of the First World War (1914) - a high point for colonialism - totalled about 560 million people, of whom 70% lived in British possessions, 10% in French possessions, 9% in Dutch possessions, 4% in Japanese possessions, 2% in German possessions, 2% in American possessions, 3% in Portuguese possessions, 1% in Belgian possessions and 0.5% in Italian possessions. The domestic domains of the colonial powers had a total population of about 370 million people. Outside Europe, few areas had remained without coming under formal colonial tutorship - and even Siam, China, Japan, Nepal, Afghanistan, Persia, and Abyssinia had felt varying degrees of Western colonial-style influence - concessions, unequal treaties, extraterritoriality and the like.

Asking whether colonies paid, economic historian Grover Clark (1891-1938) argues an emphatic "No!" He reports that in every case the support cost, especially the military system necessary to support and defend colonies, outran the total trade they produced. Apart from the British Empire, they did not provide favoured destinations for the immigration of surplus metropole populations. The question of whether colonies paid is a complicated one when recognizing the multiplicity of interests involved. In some cases colonial powers paid a lot in military costs while private investors pocketed the benefits. In other cases the colonial powers managed to move the burden of administrative costs to the colonies themselves by imposing taxes.

Map of colonial and land-based empires throughout the world in 1914

After World War I (1914-1918), the victorious Allies divided up the German colonial empire and much of the Ottoman Empire between themselves as League of Nations mandates, grouping these territories into three classes according to how quickly it was deemed that they could prepare for independence. The empires of Russia and Austria collapsed in 1917-1918. Nazi Germany set up short-lived colonial systems (Reichskommissariate, Generalgouvernement) in Eastern Europe in the early 1940s.

After World War II (1939-1945), decolonisation progressed rapidly, due to a number of reasons. First, the Japanese victories in the Pacific War of 1941-1945 had showed Indians and other subject peoples that the colonial powers were not invincible. Second, World War II had significantly weakened all the overseas colonial powers economically.

The word " neocolonialism" originated from Jean-Paul Sartre in 1956, to refer to a variety of contexts since the decolonisation that took place after World War II. Generally it does not refer to a type of direct colonisation - rather to colonialism or colonial-style exploitation by other means. Specifically, neocolonialism may refer to the theory that former or existing economic relationships, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or the operations of companies (such as Royal Dutch Shell in Nigeria and Brunei) fostered by former colonial powers were or are used to maintain control of former colonies and dependencies after the colonial independence movements of the post-World War II period.

The term "neocolonialism" became popular in ex-colonies in the late 20th century.

The Dutch Public Health Service provides medical care for the natives of the Dutch East Indies, May 1946.

The impacts of colonisation are immense and pervasive. Various effects, both immediate and protracted, include the spread of virulent diseases, unequal social relations, detribalization, exploitation, enslavement, medical advances, the creation of new institutions, abolitionism, improved infrastructure, and technological progress. Colonial practices also spur the spread of conquerers' languages, literature and cultural institutions, while endangering or obliterating those of native peoples. The native cultures of the colonised peoples can also have a powerful influence on the imperial country.

Economy, trade and commerce

Economic expansion, sometimes described as the colonial surplus, has accompanied imperial expansion since ancient times. Greek trade networks spread throughout the Mediterranean region while Roman trade expanded with the primary goal of directing tribute from the colonised areas towards the Roman metropole. According to Strabo, by the time of emperor Augustus, up to 120 Roman ships would set sail every year from Myos Hormos in Roman Egypt to India. With the development of trade routes under the Ottoman Empire,

Gujari Hindus, Syrian Muslims, Jews, Armenians, Christians from south and central Europe operated trading routes that supplied Persian and Arab horses to the armies of all three empires, Mocha coffee to Delhi and Belgrade, Persian silk to India and Istanbul.

Aztec civilisation developed into an extensive empire that, much like the Roman Empire, had the goal of exacting tribute from the conquered colonial areas. For the Aztecs, a significant tribute was the acquisition of sacrificial victims for their religious rituals.

On the other hand, European colonial empires sometimes attempted to channel, restrict and impede trade involving their colonies, funneling activity through the metropole and taxing accordingly.

Despite the general trend of economic expansion, the economic performance of former European colonies varies significantly. In "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-run Growth", economists Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson compare the economic influences of the European colonists on different colonies and study what could explain the huge discrepancies in previous European colonies, for example, between West African colonies like Sierra Leone and Hong Kong and Singapore.

According to the paper, economic institutions are the determinant of the colonial success because they determine their financial performance and order for the distribution of resources. At the same time, these institutions are also consequences of political institutions - especially how de facto and de jure political power is allocated. To explain the different colonial cases, we thus need to look first into the political institutions that shaped the economic institutions.

Dutch East India Company was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange.

For example, one interesting observation is "the Reversal of Fortune" - the less developed civilisations in 1500, like North America, Australia, and New Zealand, are now much richer than those countries who used to be in the prosperous civilisations in 1500 before the colonists came, like the Mughals in India and the Incas in the Americas. One explanation offered by the paper focuses on the political institutions of the various colonies: it was less likely for European colonists to introduce economic institutions where they could benefit quickly from the extraction of resources in the area. Therefore, given a more developed civilisation and denser population, European colonists would rather keep the existing economic systems than introduce an entirely new system; while in places with little to extract, European colonists would rather establish new economic institutions to protect their interests. Political institutions thus gave rise to different types of economic systems, which determined the colonial economic performance.

European colonisation and development also changed gendered systems of power already in place around the world. In many pre-colonialist areas, women maintained power, prestige, or authority through reproductive or agricultural control. For example, in certain parts of sub-Saharan Africa women maintained farmland in which they had usage rights. While men would make political and communal decisions for a community, the women would control the village's food supply or their individual family's land. This allowed women to achieve power and autonomy, even in patrilineal and patriarchal societies.

Through the rise of European colonialism came a large push for development and industrialisation of most economic systems. When working to improve productivity, Europeans focused mostly on male workers. Foreign aid arrived in the form of loans, land, credit, and tools to speed up development, but were only allocated to men. In a more European fashion, women were expected to serve on a more domestic level. The result was a technologic, economic, and class-based gender gap that widened over time.

Within a colony, the presence of extractive colonial institutions in a given area has been found have effects on the modern day economic development, institutions and infrastructure of these areas.

Slavery and indentured servitude

European nations entered their imperial projects with the goal of enriching the European metropoles. Exploitation of non-Europeans and of other Europeans to support imperial goals was acceptable to the colonisers. Two outgrowths of this imperial agenda were the extension of slavery and indentured servitude. In the 17th century, nearly two-thirds of English settlers came to North America as indentured servants.

European slave traders brought large numbers of African slaves to the Americas by sail. Spain and Portugal had brought African slaves to work in African colonies such as Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, and then in Latin America, by the 16th century. The British, French and Dutch joined in the slave trade in subsequent centuries. The European colonial system took approximately 11 million Africans to the Caribbean and to North and South America as slaves.

European empire

Colonial destination

Number of slaves imported between 1450 and 1870

Abolitionists in Europe and Americas protested the inhumane treatment of African slaves, which led to the elimination of the slave trade (and later, of most forms of slavery) by the late 19th century. One (disputed) school of thought points to the role of abolitionism in the American Revolution: while the British colonial metropole started to move towards outlawing slavery, slave-owning elites in the Thirteen Colonies saw this as one of the reasons to fight for their post-colonial independence and for the right to develop and continue a largely slave-based economy.

British colonising activity in New Zealand from the early 19th century played a part in ending slave-taking and slave-keeping among the indigenous Māori. On the other hand, British colonial administration in Southern Africa, when it officially abolished slavery in the 1830s, caused rifts in society which arguably perpetuated slavery in the Boer Republics and fed into the philosophy of .

The labour shortages that resulted from abolition inspired European colonisers in Queensland, British Guaiana and Fiji (for example) to develop new sources of labour, re-adopting a system of indentured servitude. Indentured servants consented to a contract with the European colonisers. Under their contract, the servant would work for an employer for a term of at least a year, while the employer agreed to pay for the servant's voyage to the colony, possibly pay for the return to the country of origin, and pay the employee a wage as well. The employees became "indentured" to the employer because they owed a debt back to the employer for their travel expense to the colony, which they were expected to pay through their wages. In practice, indentured servants were exploited through terrible working conditions and burdensome debts imposed by the employers, with whom the servants had no means of negotiating the debt once they arrived in the colony.

India and China were the largest source of indentured servants during the colonial era. Indentured servants from India travelled to British colonies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and also to French and Portuguese colonies, while Chinese servants travelled to British and Dutch colonies. Between 1830 and 1930, around 30 million indentured servants migrated from India, and 24 million returned to India. China sent more indentured servants to European colonies, and around the same proportion returned to China.

Following the Scramble for Africa, an early but secondary focus for most colonial regimes was the suppression of slavery and the slave trade. By the end of the colonial period they were mostly successful in this aim, though slavery persists in Africa and in the world at large with much the same practices of de facto servility despite legislative prohibition.

Military innovation

Conquering forces have throughout history applied innovation in order to gain an advantage over the armies of the people they aim to conquer. Greeks developed the phalanx system, which enabled their military units to present themselves to their enemies as a wall, with foot soldiers using shields to cover one another during their advance on the battlefield. Under Philip II of Macedon, they were able to organise thousands of soldiers into a formidable battle force, bringing together carefully trained infantry and cavalry regiments. Alexander the Great exploited this military foundation further during his conquests.

The Spanish Empire held a major advantage over Mesoamerican warriors through the use of weapons made of stronger metal, predominantly iron, which was able to shatter the blades of axes used by the Aztec civilisation and others. The use of gunpowder weapons cemented the European military advantage over the peoples they sought to subjugate in the Americas and elsewhere.

End of empire

The populations of some colonial territories, such as Canada, enjoyed relative peace and prosperity as part of a European power, at least among the majority. Minority populations such as First Nations peoples and French-Canadians experienced marginalisation and resented colonial practices. Francophone residents of Quebec, for example, were vocal in opposing conscription into the armed services to fight on behalf of Britain during World War I, resulting in the Conscription crisis of 1917. Other European colonies had much more pronounced conflict between European settlers and the local population. Rebellions broke out in the later decades of the imperial era, such as India's Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.

The territorial boundaries imposed by European colonisers, notably in central Africa and South Asia, defied the existing boundaries of native populations that had previously interacted little with one another. European colonisers disregarded native political and cultural animosities, imposing peace upon people under their military control. Native populations were often relocated at the will of the colonial administrators.

The Partition of British India in August 1947 led to the Independence of India and the creation of Pakistan. These events also caused much bloodshed at the time of the migration of immigrants from the two countries. Muslims from India and Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan migrated to the respective countries they sought independence for.

Post-independence population movement

The annual Notting Hill Carnival in London is a celebration led by the Trinidadian and Tobagonian British community.

In a reversal of the migration patterns experienced during the modern colonial era, post-independence era migration followed a route back towards the imperial country. In some cases, this was a movement of settlers of European origin returning to the land of their birth, or to an ancestral birthplace. 900,000 French colonists (known as the ) resettled in France following Algeria's independence in 1962. A significant number of these migrants were also of Algerian descent. 800,000 people of Portuguese origin migrated to Portugal after the independence of former colonies in Africa between 1974 and 1979; 300,000 settlers of Dutch origin migrated to the Netherlands from the Dutch West Indies after Dutch military control of the colony ended.

After WWII 300,000 Dutchmen from the Dutch East Indies, of which the majority were people of Eurasian descent called Indo Europeans, repatriated to the Netherlands. A significant number later migrated to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Global travel and migration in general developed at an increasingly brisk pace throughout the era of European colonial expansion. Citizens of the former colonies of European countries may have a privileged status in some respects with regard to immigration rights when settling in the former European imperial nation. For example, rights to dual citizenship may be generous, or larger immigrant quotas may be extended to former colonies.

In some cases, the former European imperial nations continue to foster close political and economic ties with former colonies. The Commonwealth of Nations is an organisation that promotes cooperation between and among Britain and its former colonies, the Commonwealth members. A similar organisation exists for former colonies of France, the Francophonie; the Community of Portuguese Language Countries plays a similar role for former Portuguese colonies, and the Dutch Language Union is the equivalent for former colonies of the Netherlands.

Migration from former colonies has proven to be problematic for European countries, where the majority population may express hostility to ethnic minorities who have immigrated from former colonies. Cultural and religious conflict have often erupted in France in recent decades, between immigrants from the Maghreb countries of north Africa and the majority population of France. Nonetheless, immigration has changed the ethnic composition of France; by the 1980s, 25% of the total population of "inner Paris" and 14% of the metropolitan region were of foreign origin, mainly Algerian.

Introduced diseases

Aztecs dying of smallpox, (Florentine Codex, 1540-1585)

Encounters between explorers and populations in the rest of the world often introduced new diseases, which sometimes caused local epidemics of extraordinary virulence. For example, smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, and others were unknown in pre-Columbian America.

Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox. Smallpox also ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlan alone, including the emperor, and Peru in the 1530s, aiding the European conquerors. Measles killed a further two million Mexican natives in the 17th century. In 1618-1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans. Smallpox epidemics in 1780-1782 and 1837-1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians. Some believe that the death of up to 95% of the Native American population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases. Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the indigenous peoples had no time to build such immunity.

Smallpox decimated the native population of Australia, killing around 50% of indigenous Australians in the early years of British colonisation. It also killed many New Zealand Māori. As late as 1848-49, as many as 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians are estimated to have died of measles, whooping cough and influenza. Introduced diseases, notably smallpox, nearly wiped out the native population of Easter Island. In 1875, measles killed over 40,000 Fijians, approximately one-third of the population. The Ainu population decreased drastically in the 19th century, due in large part to infectious diseases brought by Japanese settlers pouring into Hokkaido.

Conversely, researchers have hypothesised that a precursor to syphilis may have been carried from the New World to Europe after Columbus's voyages. The findings suggested Europeans could have carried the nonvenereal tropical bacteria home, where the organisms may have mutated into a more deadly form in the different conditions of Europe. The disease was more frequently fatal than it is today; syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance. The first cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. Ten thousand British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic. Between 1736 and 1834 only some 10% of East India Company's officers survived to take the final voyage home. Waldemar Haffkine, who mainly worked in India, who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague in the 1890s, is considered the first microbiologist.

According to a 2021 study by Jörg Baten and Laura Maravall on the anthropometric influence of colonialism on Africans, the average height of Africans decreased by 1.1 centimetres upon colonization and later recovered and increased overall during colonial rule. The authors attributed the decrease to diseases, such as malaria and sleeping sickness, forced labor during the early decades of colonial rule, conflicts, land grabbing, and widespread cattle deaths from the rinderpest viral disease.

Countering disease

As early as 1803, the Spanish Crown organised a mission (the Balmis expedition) to transport the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies, and establish mass vaccination programs there. By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans. Under the direction of Mountstuart Elphinstone a program was launched to propagate smallpox vaccination in India. From the beginning of the 20th century onwards, the elimination or control of disease in tropical countries became a driving force for all colonial powers. The sleeping sickness epidemic in Africa was arrested due to mobile teams systematically screening millions of people at risk. In the 20th century, the world saw the biggest increase in its population in human history due to lessening of the mortality rate in many countries due to medical advances. The world population has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to over seven billion today.

Colonial botany refers to the body of works concerning the study, cultivation, marketing and naming of the new plants that were acquired or traded during the age of European colonialism. Notable examples of these plants included sugar, nutmeg, tobacco, cloves, cinnamon, Peruvian bark, peppers, Sassafras albidum, and tea. This work was a large part of securing financing for colonial ambitions, supporting European expansion and ensuring the profitability of such endeavors. Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus were seeking to establish routes to trade spices, dyes and silk from the Moluccas, India and China by sea that would be independent of the established routes controlled by Venetian and Middle Eastern merchants. Naturalists like Hendrik van Rheede, Georg Eberhard Rumphius, and Jacobus Bontius compiled data about eastern plants on behalf of the Europeans. Though Sweden did not possess an extensive colonial network, botanical research based on Carl Linnaeus identified and developed techniques to grow cinnamon, tea and rice locally as an alternative to costly imports.

Settlers acted as the link between indigenous populations and the imperial hegemony, thus bridging the geographical, ideological and commercial gap between the colonisers and colonised. While the extent in which geography as an academic study is implicated in colonialism is contentious, geographical tools such as cartography, shipbuilding, navigation, mining and agricultural productivity were instrumental in European colonial expansion. Colonisers' awareness of the Earth's surface and abundance of practical skills provided colonisers with a knowledge that, in turn, created power.

Anne Godlewska and Neil Smith argue that "empire was 'quintessentially a geographical project'". Historical geographical theories such as environmental determinism legitimised colonialism by positing the view that some parts of the world were underdeveloped, which created notions of skewed evolution. Geographers such as Ellen Churchill Semple and Ellsworth Huntington put forward the notion that northern climates bred vigour and intelligence as opposed to those indigenous to tropical climates (See The Tropics) viz a viz a combination of environmental determinism and Social Darwinism in their approach.

Political geographers also maintain that colonial behaviour was reinforced by the physical mapping of the world, therefore creating a visual separation between "them" and "us". Geographers are primarily focused on the spaces of colonialism and imperialism; more specifically, the material and symbolic appropriation of space enabling colonialism.

Comparison of Africa in the years 1880 and 1913

Maps played an extensive role in colonialism, as Bassett would put it "by providing geographical information in a convenient and standardised format, cartographers helped open West Africa to European conquest, commerce, and colonisation". Because the relationship between colonialism and geography was not scientifically objective, cartography was often manipulated during the colonial era. Social norms and values had an effect on the constructing of maps. During colonialism map-makers used rhetoric in their formation of boundaries and in their art. The rhetoric favoured the view of the conquering Europeans; this is evident in the fact that any map created by a non-European was instantly regarded as inaccurate. Furthermore, European cartographers were required to follow a set of rules which led to ethnocentrism; portraying one's own ethnicity in the centre of the map. As J.B. Harley put it, "The steps in making a map - selection, omission, simplification, classification, the creation of hierarchies, and 'symbolisation' - are all inherently rhetorical."

A common practice by the European cartographers of the time was to map unexplored areas as "blank spaces". This influenced the colonial powers as it sparked competition amongst them to explore and colonise these regions. Imperialists aggressively and passionately looked forward to filling these spaces for the glory of their respective countries. The Dictionary of Human Geography notes that cartography was used to empty 'undiscovered' lands of their Indigenous meaning and bring them into spatial existence via the imposition of "Western place-names and borders, [therefore] priming 'virgin' (putatively empty land, 'wilderness') for colonisation (thus sexualising colonial landscapes as domains of male penetration), reconfiguring alien space as absolute, quantifiable and separable (as property)."

David Livingstone stresses "that geography has meant different things at different times and in different places" and that we should keep an open mind in regards to the relationship between geography and colonialism instead of identifying boundaries. Geography as a discipline was not and is not an objective science, Painter and Jeffrey argue, rather it is based on assumptions about the physical world. Comparison of exogeographical representations of ostensibly tropical environments in science fiction art support this conjecture, finding the notion of the tropics to be an artificial collection of ideas and beliefs that are independent of geography.

Versus imperialism

Governor-General Félix Éboué welcomes Charles de Gaulle to Chad

Imperial powers in 1800[107]

Imperial powers in 1945

Marxism views colonialism as a form of capitalism, enforcing exploitation and social change. Marx thought that working within the global capitalist system, colonialism is closely associated with uneven development. It is an "instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency". Colonies are constructed into modes of production. The search for raw materials and the current search for new investment opportunities is a result of inter-capitalist rivalry for capital accumulation. Lenin regarded colonialism as the root cause of imperialism, as imperialism was distinguished by monopoly capitalism via colonialism and as Lyal S. Sunga explains: "Vladimir Lenin advocated forcefully the principle of self-determination of peoples in his "Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination" as an integral plank in the programme of socialist internationalism" and he quotes Lenin who contended that "The right of nations to self-determination implies exclusively the right to independence in the political sense, the right to free political separation from the oppressor nation. Specifically, this demand for political democracy implies complete freedom to agitate for secession and for a referendum on secession by the seceding nation." Non Russian marxists within the RSFSR and later the USSR, like Sultan Galiev and Vasyl Shakhrai, meanwhile, between 1918 and 1923 and then after 1929, considered the Soviet Regime a renewed version of the Russian imperialism and colonialism.

In his critique of colonialism in Africa, the Guyanese historian and political activist Walter Rodney states:

The decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power. Power is the ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and if necessary to impose one's will by any means available ... When one society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society that in itself is a form of underdevelopment ... During the centuries of pre-colonial trade, some control over social political and economic life was retained in Africa, in spite of the disadvantageous commerce with Europeans. That little control over internal matters disappeared under colonialism. Colonialism went much further than trade. It meant a tendency towards direct appropriation by Europeans of the social institutions within Africa. Africans ceased to set indigenous cultural goals and standards, and lost full command of training young members of the society. Those were undoubtedly major steps backwards ... Colonialism was not merely a system of exploitation, but one whose essential purpose was to repatriate the profits to the so-called 'mother country'. From an African view-point, that amounted to consistent expatriation of surplus produced by African labour out of African resources. It meant the development of Europe as part of the same dialectical process in which Africa was underdeveloped. Colonial Africa fell within that part of the international capitalist economy from which surplus was drawn to feed the metropolitan sector. As seen earlier, exploitation of land and labour is essential for human social advance, but only on the assumption that the product is made available within the area where the exploitation takes place.

According to Lenin, the new imperialism emphasised the transition of capitalism from free trade to a stage of monopoly capitalism to finance capital. He states it is, "connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partition of the world". As free trade thrives on exports of commodities, monopoly capitalism thrived on the export of capital amassed by profits from banks and industry. This, to Lenin, was the highest stage of capitalism. He goes on to state that this form of capitalism was doomed for war between the capitalists and the exploited nations with the former inevitably losing. War is stated to be the consequence of imperialism. As a continuation of this thought G.N. Uzoigwe states, "But it is now clear from more serious investigations of African history in this period that imperialism was essentially economic in its fundamental impulses."

Liberalism and capitalism

Classical liberals were generally in abstract opposition to colonialism and imperialism, including Adam Smith, Frédéric Bastiat, Richard Cobden, John Bright, Henry Richard, Herbert Spencer, H.R. Fox Bourne, Edward Morel, Josephine Butler, W.J. Fox and William Ewart Gladstone. Their philosophies found the colonial enterprise, particularly mercantilism, in opposition to the principles of free trade and liberal policies. Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that Britain should grant independence to all of its colonies and also argued that it would be economically beneficial for British people in the average, although the merchants having mercantilist privileges would lose out.

Race and gender

During the colonial era, the global process of colonisation served to spread and synthesize the social and political belief systems of the "mother-countries" which often included a belief in a certain natural racial superiority of the race of the mother-country. Colonialism also acted to reinforce these same racial belief systems within the "mother-countries" themselves. Usually also included within the colonial belief systems was a certain belief in the inherent superiority of male over female. This particular belief was often pre-existing amongst the pre-colonial societies, prior to their colonisation.

Popular political practices of the time reinforced colonial rule by legitimising European (and/ or Japanese) male authority, and also legitimising female and non-mother-country race inferiority through studies of craniology, comparative anatomy, and phrenology. Biologists, naturalists, anthropologists, and ethnologists of the 19th century were focused on the study of colonised indigenous women, as in the case of Georges Cuvier's study of Sarah Baartman. Such cases embraced a natural superiority and inferiority relationship between the races based on the observations of naturalists' from the mother-countries. European studies along these lines gave rise to the perception that African women's anatomy, and especially genitalia, resembled those of mandrills, baboons, and monkeys, thus differentiating colonised Africans from what were viewed as the features of the evolutionarily superior, and thus rightfully authoritarian, European woman.

In addition to what would now be viewed as pseudo-scientific studies of race, which tended to reinforce a belief in an inherent mother-country racial superiority, a new supposedly "science-based" ideology concerning gender roles also then emerged as an adjunct to the general body of beliefs of inherent superiority of the colonial era. Female inferiority across all cultures was emerging as an idea supposedly supported by craniology that led scientists to argue that the typical brain size of the female human was, on the average, slightly smaller than that of the male, thus inferring that therefore female humans must be less developed and less evolutionarily advanced than males. This finding of relative cranial size difference was later attributed to the general typical size difference of the human male body versus that of the typical human female body.

Within the former European colonies, non-Europeans and women sometimes faced invasive studies by the colonial powers in the interest of the then prevailing pro-colonial scientific ideology of the day.

Othering is the process of creating a separate entity to persons or groups who are labelled as different or non-normal due to the repetition of characteristics. Othering is the creation of those who discriminate, to distinguish, label, categorise those who do not fit in the societal norm. Several scholars in recent decades developed the notion of the "other" as an epistemological concept in social theory. For example, postcolonial scholars, believed that colonising powers explained an "other" who were there to dominate, civilise, and extract resources through colonisation of land.

Political geographers explain how colonial/imperial powers "othered" places they wanted to dominate to legalise their exploitation of the land. During and after the rise of colonialism the Western powers perceived the East as the "other", being different and separate from their societal norm. This viewpoint and separation of culture had divided the Eastern and Western culture creating a dominant/subordinate dynamic, both being the "other" towards themselves.

Post-colonialism

Post-colonialism (or post-colonial theory) can refer to a set of theories in philosophy and literature that grapple with the legacy of colonial rule. In this sense, one can regard post-colonial literature as a branch of postmodern literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires.

Many practitioners take Edward Saïd's book Orientalism (1978) as the theory's founding work (although French theorists such as Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) and Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) made similar claims decades before Saïd). Saïd analyzed the works of Balzac, Baudelaire and Lautréamont, arguing that they helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority.

Writers of post-colonial fiction interact with the traditional colonial discourse, but modify or subvert it; for instance by retelling a familiar story from the perspective of an oppressed minor character in the story. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak? (1998) gave its name to Subaltern Studies.

In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999), Spivak argued that major works of European metaphysics (such as those of Kant and Hegel) not only tend to exclude the subaltern from their discussions, but actively prevent non-Europeans from occupying positions as fully human subjects. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), famous for its explicit ethnocentrism, considers Western civilisation as the most accomplished of all, while Kant also had some traces of racialism in his work.

The 2014 YouGov survey found that British people are mostly proud of colonialism and the British Empire:

A new YouGov survey finds that most think the British Empire is more something to be proud of (59%) than to be ashamed of (19%). 23% don't know. Young people are least likely to feel pride over shame when it comes to the Empire, though about half (48%) of 18-24 year old's do. In comparison, about two-thirds (65%) of over 60's feel mostly proud. ... A third of British people (34%) also say they would like it if Britain still had an empire. Under half (45%) say they would not like the Empire to exist today. 20% don't know.

Colonistics

The field of colonistics studies colonialism from such viewpoints as those of economics, sociology and psychology.

Migrations

Nations and regions outside Europe with significant populations of European ancestry

References

Further reading

Albertini, Rudolf von. European Colonial Rule, 1880-1940: The Impact of the West on India, Southeast Asia, and Africa (1982) 581 pp

Benjamin, Thomas, ed. Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450 (2006)

Cooper, Frederick. Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (2005)

Cotterell, Arthur. Western Power in Asia: Its Slow Rise and Swift Fall, 1415-1999 (2009) popular history; excerpt

Getz, Trevor R. and Heather Streets-Salter, eds.: Modern Imperialism and Colonialism: A Global Perspective (2010)

Jensen, Niklas Thode; Simonsen, Gunvor (2016). "Introduction: The historiography of slavery in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, c. 1950-2016". Scandinavian Journal of History. 41 (4-5): 475-494. doi:10.1080/03468755.2016.1210880.

LeCour Grandmaison, Olivier: Coloniser, Exterminer - Sur la guerre et l'Etat colonial, Fayard, 2005, ISBN 2-213-62316-3

Lindqvist, Sven: Exterminate All The Brutes, 1992, New Press; Reprint edition (June 1997), ISBN 978-1-56584-359-2

Morris, Richard B. and Graham W. Irwin, eds. Harper Encyclopedia of the Modern World: A Concise Reference History from 1760 to the Present (1970) online

Ness, Immanuel and Zak Cope, eds. The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism (2 vol 2015), 1456 pp

Nuzzo, Luigi: Colonial Law, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2010, retrieved: December 17, 2012.

Osterhammel, Jürgen: Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Princeton, NJ: M. Wiener, 1997.

Page, Melvin E. et al. eds. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol 2003)

Petringa, Maria, Brazza, A Life for Africa (2006), ISBN 978-1-4259-1198-0.

Prashad, Vijay: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, The New Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-56584-785-9

Resendez, Andres (2016). The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 448. ISBN 978-0544602670.

Rönnbäck, K. & Broberg, O. (2019) Capital and Colonialism. The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869-1969 (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)

Schill, Pierre : Réveiller l'archive d'une guerre coloniale. Photographies et écrits de Gaston Chérau, correspondant de guerre lors du conflit italo-turc pour la Libye (1911-1912), Créaphis, 480 p., 2018 (ISBN 978-2-35428-141-0). Awaken the archive of a colonial war. Photographs and writings of a French war correspondent during the Italo-Turkish war in Libya (1911-1912). With contributions from art historian Caroline Recher, critic Smaranda Olcèse, writer Mathieu Larnaudie and historian Quentin Deluermoz.

Stuchtey, Benedikt: Colonialism and Imperialism, 1450-1950, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: July 13, 2011.

Townsend, Mary Evelyn. European colonial expansion since 1871 (1941).

U.S. Tariff Commission. Colonial tariff policies (1922), worldwide; 922pp survey online

Velychenko, Stephen (2002). "The Issue of Russian Colonialism in Ukrainian Thought. Dependency Identity and Development". Ab Imperio. 2002 (1): 323-367. doi:10.1353/imp.2002.0070. S2CID 155635060. Ab Imperio E

Wendt, Reinhard: European Overseas Rule, European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: June 13, 2012.

Primary sources

Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, 1899

Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Constance Farrington. London: Penguin Book, 2001

Las Casas, Bartolomé de, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542, published in 1552).

External links

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Colonialism is a practice by which a one group of people, social construct, or nation state controls, directs, or imposes taxes or tribute on other people or areas, often by establishing colonies, generally for strategic and economic advancement of the colonizing group or construct.

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Economic inequality is the difference found in various measures of economic well-being among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries. Economic inequality sometimes refers to income inequality , wealth inequality , or the wealth gap. Economists generally focus on economic disparity in three metrics: wealth, income, and consumption.

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Seized from Spain, U.S. still holds Navy base at Guantanamo

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We work both across the United States and abroad to tackle the most pressing human rights violations. Join us to ensure human rights are enjoyed by all!

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The term was used by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution,[verification needed ] by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book The Decline of the West, and Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline.

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The Cajuns (, French: les Cadiens ), also known as Acadians (French: les Acadians , [lez‿akadʒɛ̃]) are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting in part of the descendants of the original Acadian exiles - French-speakers from Acadia ( L'Acadie) in what are now the Maritimes of Eastern Canada.

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Directed by Kurt Neumann. With Joel McCrea, Dean Stockwell, Chill Wills, Leon Ames. A cowboy finds the spoiled son of a railroad magnate lost in the deserted hills and teaches him survival skills and hard work values.

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The breadbasket of a country is a region which, because of richness of soil and/or advantageous climate, produces large quantities of wheat or other grain. Rice bowl is a similar term used to refer to Southeast Asia, and California's Salinas Valley is often referred to as the world's salad bowl.

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Directed by Paul Schrader. With Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Ed Begley Jr.. Three workers, Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto), are working at a car plant and drinking their beers together. One night, when they steal away from their wives to have some fun, they get the idea to rob the local union's bureau safe.

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The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces ( French: Provinces maritimes ) or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island (PEI). The Maritimes had a population of 1,813,606 in 2016.

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union.

Signing of the NATO Treaty

NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. After the destruction of the Second World War, the nations of Europe struggled to rebuild their economies and ensure their security. The former required a massive influx of aid to help the war-torn landscapes re-establish industries and produce food, and the latter required assurances against a resurgent Germany or incursions from the Soviet Union. The United States viewed an economically strong, rearmed, and integrated Europe as vital to the prevention of communist expansion across the continent. As a result, Secretary of State George Marshall proposed a program of large-scale economic aid to Europe. The resulting European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, not only facilitated European economic integration but promoted the idea of shared interests and cooperation between the United States and Europe. Soviet refusal either to participate in the Marshall Plan or to allow its satellite states in Eastern Europe to accept the economic assistance helped to reinforce the growing division between east and west in Europe.

In 1947-1948, a series of events caused the nations of Western Europe to become concerned about their physical and political security and the United States to become more closely involved with European affairs. The ongoing civil war in Greece, along with tensions in Turkey, led President Harry S. Truman to assert that the United States would provide economic and military aid to both countries, as well as to any other nation struggling against an attempt at subjugation. A Soviet-sponsored coup in Czechoslovakia resulted in a communist government coming to power on the borders of Germany. Attention also focused on elections in Italy as the communist party had made significant gains among Italian voters. Furthermore, events in Germany also caused concern. The occupation and governance of Germany after the war had long been disputed, and in mid-1948, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin chose to test Western resolve by implementing a blockade against West Berlin, which was then under joint U.S., British, and French control but surrounded by Soviet-controlled East Germany. This Berlin Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of conflict, although a massive airlift to resupply the city for the duration of the blockade helped to prevent an outright confrontation. These events caused U.S. officials to grow increasingly wary of the possibility that the countries of Western Europe might deal with their security concerns by negotiating with the Soviets. To counter this possible turn of events, the Truman Administration considered the possibility of forming a European-American alliance that would commit the United States to bolstering the security of Western Europe.

Signing of the Brussels Treaty

The Western European countries were willing to consider a collective security solution. In response to increasing tensions and security concerns, representatives of several countries of Western Europe gathered together to create a military alliance. Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Brussels Treaty in March, 1948. Their treaty provided collective defense; if any one of these nations was attacked, the others were bound to help defend it. At the same time, the Truman Administration instituted a peacetime draft, increased military spending, and called upon the historically isolationist Republican Congress to consider a military alliance with Europe. In May of 1948, Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg proposed a resolution suggesting that the President seek a security treaty with Western Europe that would adhere to the United Nations charter but exist outside of the Security Council where the Soviet Union held veto power. The Vandenburg Resolution passed, and negotiations began for the North Atlantic Treaty.

In spite of general agreement on the concept behind the treaty, it took several months to work out the exact terms. The U.S. Congress had embraced the pursuit of the international alliance, but it remained concerned about the wording of the treaty. The nations of Western Europe wanted assurances that the United States would intervene automatically in the event of an attack, but under the U.S. Constitution the power to declare war rested with Congress. Negotiations worked toward finding language that would reassure the European states but not obligate the United States to act in a way that violated its own laws. Additionally, European contributions to collective security would require large-scale military assistance from the United States to help rebuild Western Europe's defense capabilities. While the European nations argued for individual grants and aid, the United States wanted to make aid conditional on regional coordination. A third issue was the question of scope. The Brussels Treaty signatories preferred that membership in the alliance be restricted to the members of that treaty plus the United States. The U.S. negotiators felt there was more to be gained from enlarging the new treaty to include the countries of the North Atlantic, including Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, and Portugal. Together, these countries held territory that formed a bridge between the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which would facilitate military action if it became necessary.

The result of these extensive negotiations was the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. In this agreement, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom agreed to consider attack against one an attack against all, along with consultations about threats and defense matters. This collective defense arrangement only formally applied to attacks against the signatories that occurred in Europe or North America; it did not include conflicts in colonial territories. After the treaty was signed, a number of the signatories made requests to the United States for military aid. Later in 1949, President Truman proposed a military assistance program, and the Mutual Defense Assistance Program passed the U.S. Congress in October, appropriating some $1.4 billion dollars for the purpose of building Western European defenses.

Soon after the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the outbreak of the Korean War led the members to move quickly to integrate and coordinate their defense forces through a centralized headquarters. The North Korean attack on South Korea was widely viewed at the time to be an example of communist aggression directed by Moscow, so the United States bolstered its troop commitments to Europe to provide assurances against Soviet aggression on the European continent. In 1952, the members agreed to admit Greece and Turkey to NATO and added the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. West German entry led the Soviet Union to retaliate with its own regional alliance, which took the form of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and included the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe as members.

The collective defense arrangements in NATO served to place the whole of Western Europe under the American "nuclear umbrella." In the 1950s, one of the first military doctrines of NATO emerged in the form of "massive retaliation," or the idea that if any member was attacked, the United States would respond with a large-scale nuclear attack. The threat of this form of response was meant to serve as a deterrent against Soviet aggression on the continent. Although formed in response to the exigencies of the developing Cold War, NATO has lasted beyond the end of that conflict, with membership even expanding to include some former Soviet states. It remains the largest peacetime military alliance in the world.

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Milestones: 1945-1952 - Office of the Historian

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The official website of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)

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Bilateral Trade | Latest & Breaking News on Bilateral Trade | Photos, Videos, Breaking Stories and Articles on Bilateral Trade

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Get all latest & breaking news on Bilateral Trade. Watch videos, top stories and articles on Bilateral Trade at moneycontrol.com.

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Check Notes

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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) | U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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Information for U.S. Exporters is available through the Department of Commerce at: http://www.export.gov/FTA/index.asp