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57,185,536 | Georgia Hopley | 1,163,683,705 | American journalist and temperance advocate | [
"1858 births",
"1944 deaths",
"19th-century American journalists",
"19th-century American women journalists",
"19th-century American women writers",
"20th-century American journalists",
"20th-century American women journalists",
"American temperance activists",
"Hopley family",
"Journalists from Ohio",
"Ohio Republicans",
"People from Bucyrus, Ohio"
] | Georgianna Eliza Hopley (1858–1944) was an American journalist, political figure, and temperance advocate. A member of a prominent Ohio publishing family, she was the first woman reporter in Columbus, and editor of several publications. She served as a correspondent and representative at the 1900 Paris Exposition and the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She was active in state and national politics, serving as vice-president of the Woman's Republican Club of Ohio and directing publicity for Warren G. Harding's presidential campaign.
In 1922 Hopley became the first woman prohibition agent of the United States Bureau of Prohibition, where she was involved in education and publicity. She resigned among criticism of the costs of her publicity and the scope of her duties.
## Early life
Georgia Hopley was born April 29, 1858, in Bucyrus, Ohio. Her father, John P. Hopley (1821–1904), was longtime editor of the Bucyrus Evening Journal, and her mother, Georgianna (Rochester) Hopley was active in the temperance movement of the 1870s. Georgia was the sixth child out of a family of three daughters and seven sons, one of whom died in childhood. All but one of her surviving siblings would follow their father into the newspaper business.
Hopley was educated in Bucyrus Union Schools and then abroad, spending one year in Paris and three in London. Her involvement in temperance began during high school. In Ohio she worked as a reporter and writer in the offices of her father and brothers.
## Journalism and politics
While working in the office of a brother who was then secretary of the Ohio Prohibition Party, Hopley conceived the idea that a woman should be better qualified to report certain events for newspapers than a man. She wrote a letter to a Columbus, Ohio, newspaper editor stating as much, and was invited to become a society editor and feature writer. Hopley thus became known as the first woman reporter assigned to regular work in Columbus. In 1893 she became editor and owner of The Columbus School Journal, a periodical for Columbus parents, students, and teachers, and in the early 1900s was editor of the Columbus Press Post.
In 1900, she was appointed by Ohio Governor George K. Nash to represent Ohio at the Paris Exposition. While there she continued her newspaper work as correspondent for a bureau of United States publications as well as the Associated Press and Scripps-McRae syndicate. In 1901, she was again appointed by Governor Nash as a member of the Board of Women Managers of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. In the fall of that year she was appointed by Commissioner M. B. Ratchford, State Bureau of Labor Statistics, as special inspector of workshops and factories with a view to bettering the condition of women and children. This took her to many factories and before workers, to whom she spoke in the evenings.
In 1918, she was appointed by E. M. Fullington, chairman of the Ohio Republican Advisory Committee to supervise the work of the women and publicity in the campaign for governor and for nationwide prohibition. In 1919 she was appointed by the Franklin County, Ohio Republican committee to conduct the women's campaign and publicity in the municipal election. In the summer of that year, she was engaged on the publicity force at the time of the World's Methodist Centenary in Columbus. In 1920 she was chosen by the Republican State Chairman of Columbus to supervise publicity in the Republican pre-primary campaign for Warren G. Harding and in the fall was engaged to conduct the same work for the presidential campaign. She was one of the hostesses at the Congress Hotel when the Republican National Convention was held in Chicago.
Hopley served as vice-president of the Woman's Republican Club of Ohio, chair of the Civic Improvement Committee, and was a member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Order of the Eastern Star.
## Prohibition agent
In early 1922, Hopley was sworn in as the first female general agent of the Bureau of Prohibition (then a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue), serving under Federal Prohibition Commissioner Roy A. Haynes. Her appointment made news around the country. She traveled the nation, speaking on prohibition, law enforcement, and women's voting issues. Haynes told Congress that Hopley was employed not as an enforcement agent but to give information as part of "wise propaganda work". She decried films that belittled or made light of prohibition. She also highlighted the problem of women bootleggers, telling a reporter: "There you have the worst problem for prohibition officials. [Women] resort to all sorts of tricks, concealing metal containers in their clothing, in false bottoms of trunks and traveling bags, and even in baby buggies." Her hiring encouraged local law enforcement agencies to hire more women to investigate women bootleggers. In August 1922 she estimated that "dry laws" of the Volstead Act had decreased liquor drinkers in America by 17,500,000, and urged women to actively support dry laws through civic and religious organizations. Her philosophy was driven by a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "Let reverence for the laws be the political religion of the nation."
The cost and scope of Hopley's duties drew some criticism. David H. Blair, the Internal Revenue Commissioner, requested she resign in 1924, but she was supported by Haynes. In 1925, General Lincoln C. Andrews, the new Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in charge of Prohibition enforcement, demanded Hopley resign as part of his reorganization of the Bureau. Despite support from Haynes and prominent Ohio politicians, Hopley resigned from the Bureau in July 1925, when it was determined her activities were outside the scope of the federal government, and publicity expenditures of around \$50,000 drew criticism.
## Later years
After leaving the Prohibition Bureau, Hopley returned to journalism, focusing on women's suffrage. In her later years she lived in Bucyrus with her brothers, former State Senator James R. Hopley, and Frank L. Hopley, of the Lincoln Highway Council. She died in Bucyrus on July 1, 1944, at the age of 86. |
15,394,015 | Willis Ward | 1,170,257,280 | Track and field athlete and American football player | [
"1912 births",
"1983 deaths",
"20th-century African-American lawyers",
"20th-century African-American sportspeople",
"20th-century American lawyers",
"African-American players of American football",
"American football ends",
"Detroit College of Law alumni",
"Michigan Wolverines football players",
"Michigan Wolverines men's track and field athletes",
"Michigan lawyers",
"Northwestern High School (Michigan) alumni",
"Players of American football from Detroit"
] | Willis Franklin Ward (December 28, 1912 – December 30, 1983) was a track and field athlete and American football player who was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1981.
Ward was the Michigan High School Athlete of the Year, after setting a national prep record in the high jump. At the University of Michigan, he was a collegiate champion in the high jump, the long jump, the 100-yard dash, and the 440-yard dash, and finished second in the voting for the Associated Press Big Ten Athlete of the Year award in 1933. In track and field he was a three-time All-American and eight-time Big Ten champion.
In football, Ward was only the second African-American to win a varsity letter for the Michigan Wolverines football team, lettering in 1932, 1933, and 1934. In 1934, a controversy developed when Georgia Tech refused to play if Ward took the field, and university officials opted to keep Ward out of the game. Teammate Gerald R. Ford reportedly threatened to quit the team in response to the university's decision. After being excluded from the Georgia Tech game, Ward went on to score all 12 of Michigan's points that year outside of the Georgia Tech game, without another Wolverine even having an extra point or a field goal.
Ward later became a lawyer in Detroit and up through World War 2 he worked for Ford Motor Company in the Service Division as a voice for black workers, but also helping Ford oppose labor unions; later he was a member of the Michigan Public Service Commission from 1966 to 1973, serving as chairman from 1969 to 1973. He also served as a probate court judge in Wayne County, Michigan.
## Early years
Ward was born in Alabama in 1913. His father, Henry R. Ward, was an Alabama native who moved to Detroit and worked there in a Ford Motor Company factory. His mother, Bessie, was a Georgia native.
Ward attended Detroit's Northwestern High School where he excelled in both track and football. As a high school junior, he was named Michigan High School Athlete of the Year, after setting a national prep record in the high jump at 6–4.5. He was city champion in the low hurdles (with a time of 13.0) and the high hurdles (with a time of 15.8). Ward also won the 220 hurdles at Ann Arbor (with a time of 25.9) and Class A (with a time of 26.1).
## University of Michigan
### Freshman track star
Ward attended the University of Michigan from 1931 to 1935, where he became one of the most successful track athletes in the school's history. As a freshman in 1932, Ward's specialty was the high jump. Ward won the NCAA high jump championship in June 1932 with a jump of 6–7 1/3. He jumped as high as 6-7-1/2 in his freshman year. Ward's best jump in 1932 was two inches above the mark that won the gold medal at the 1932 Summer Olympics (Canada's Duncan McNaughton won the gold with a jump of 6 feet, 51⁄2 inches), but Ward did not qualify for the team.
Ward's accomplishments were not limited to the high jump. An Associated Press article in 1932 noted: "His specialty is the high jump for which he has a mark of 6 feet 71⁄2 inches. He can run the high hurdles and the low hurdles. He has broad jumped 22 feet without training in that event. He put the 16-pound shot over 43 feet without prior experience, and it believed he might be developed into a world champion weight man. He unquestionably could be trained to do the springs. He is only 19. Ward has an ideal build for a track man, six feet, one inch tall, 185 pounds of well-distributed weight, good legs, natural co-ordination. He is quiet and unassuming, and popular with coaches and fellow members of the squad."
When Ward decided to try out for the football team as a sophomore, Michigan track fans worried that Ward would be injured. The Associated Press reported: "University of Michigan track fans do a lot of worrying these days because a Negro boy from Detroit insists on playing football. Willis Ward, they believe, will be the greatest track man ever to compete for the Maize and Blue—if he doesn't get hurt. ... Ward is a good football player and loves the game. . . . Well wishers even have told him about the advantages of competing only in track and staying away from the gridiron, but he is determined to play on the eleven, and he is good enough to make the grade." Michigan's track coach, Chuck Hoyt, noted that "Ward is his own boss and football is his recreation."
### First African-American football player in 40 years
In addition to the concerns of track fans, Ward's decision to try out for the football team raised issues of race. Though George Jewett had broken the race barrier as Michigan's first African-American football player in 1890, Michigan had not played another African-American in the 40 years after Jewett. During Fielding Yost's tenure as coach several African-American students joined the football team, but records indicate that none of them ever saw game action and only one earned even a "reserve letter". Some reports attribute the de facto segregation of the football team to racism on the part of Yost, who was the son of a Confederate soldier.
While in high school, Ward had decided to attend Dartmouth College. With head coach Harry Kipke's assurance that he would be given full opportunity to play football, Ward enrolled at Michigan. Kipke had played with African-American athletes in high school and was eager to have Ward on his team. According to John Behee, the author of a book on the history of African-American athletes at Michigan, Kipke "threatened to fight, physically fight, those alumni and fellow coaches who opposed his playing Ward." Behee wrote that "on several occasions Kipke took off his coat and was prepared to fight with those who bitterly opposed having a Negro play for Michigan."
Ward got the opportunity to prove himself in spring football practice in May 1932. According to one account, Kipke ordered his veterans to pound Ward "without mercy" during practice. "If, at the end of the week", said Kipke, "he doesn't turn in his uniform, then I know I've got a great player." The United Press reported on the results of spring practice: "Three young freshmen at the University of Michigan—Jerry Ford, of Grand Rapids; Russell Oliver, of Pontiac, and Willis Ward, Detroit Negro—displayed such brilliance during spring football practice that they are expected to become important cogs next fall in the Wolverine varsity eleven." Another report in July 1932 described Ward, the "giant negro," as being "the outstanding athlete becoming eligible for play."
Ward made the team in 1932 and started four games at end. Ivy Williamson, captain of the 1932 football team, greeted Ward at the field house and told him, "If you have any problems with anybody, let me know because we're prepared to take care of them." Reporting on his decision to play football and risk injury, the Associated Press noted: "Ward would rather win an 'M' on the gridiron than be an Olympic champion."
The 1932 Michigan Wolverines football team went 8–0, outscored its opponents 123–13, and won the national championship.
### 1933 track season
During the 1933 track season, Ward was so dominant that he was dubbed Michigan's "one-man track team" and became a national sensation. He led Michigan to Big Ten championships in both indoor and outdoor track. Going into the Big Ten track meet in May 1933, Ward was expected to dominate. Coach Hoyt described Ward as "a good 'un," and praised him for his unassuming character and tolerance of the spotlight of publicity. One report noted: "He is altogether likeable, for he always speaks without raising his voice and never protests a decision. ... Ward is a star now, but he is just finishing his first year of competition. Unless injuries hamper him it is likely he will be as great an attraction or possibly even greater than the two Negro track stars who preceded him here, DeHart Hubbard and Eddie Tolan."
Michigan won the Big Ten meet with 601⁄2 points, with Ward individually accounting for 18 points. One writer noted that the Wolverines would have finished in second place "without the huge, versatile negro." At the meet, Ward won the 100-yard dash and the high jump and placed second in the 120 yard high hurdles and the broad jump. His performance at the Big Ten meet was described as "the greatest individual performance since Carl Johnson scored 20 points for Michigan in 1918."
Even TIME magazine took note of Ward's dominating performance. Time noted: "The other entrants in the Intercollegiates last week had reason to consider with awe another athlete who—until he helped Michigan win the Western Conference title last week, with 601⁄2 points to Indiana's 471⁄2 had not often been heard of outside the Midwest, except as a member of Michigan's football team. He was Willis Ward, 196-lb. Negro sophomore. At the Big Ten meet in Evanston last week. Willis Ward won the 100-yd. dash in 9.6 sec. He won the high jump, placed second in the broad jump. In the 120-yd. high hurdles, he forced Ohio State's Jack Keller to world's record time of 14.1 sec., finished a close second. The 18 points he won were what enabled Michigan to beat Indiana. They made his the most efficient individual performance in a Big Ten meet since Carl Johnson scored 20 points for Michigan in 1918. Quiet, unassuming, an above-average student of literature, Ward was the first Negro ever elected to Sphinx, Michigan's junior honor society."
At the Drake Relay Carnival in April 1933, he finished second in the 100-yard dash, narrowly losing to Ralph Metcalfe. The 1934 Michigan yearbook, the Michiganensian, noted: "Michigan climaxed a successful season by winning the Annual Butler Relays and taking the title from Indiana. Willis Ward won the meet almost single-handed when he scored thirteen of the team's 183⁄4 points. In winning the 60 yard dash, the Flashy negro star equaled the recognized world mark of 6.2 seconds." At the Big Ten indoor track championship, the Michiganensian noted that Ward, "Michigan's all around athlete, was easily the outstanding star of the meet." Ward won the 60-yard dash, the 70-yard high hurdles and the high jump.
### 1933 football season
In 1933, Ward started all eight games for Michigan at right end and was a key player in Michigan's second consecutive undefeated football season and national championship. Time magazine credited the work of Ward and halfback Herman Everhardus: "Michigan came perilously close to slipping from the top of the Big Ten, where it has been for three years. That it did not slip was largely due to a crack halfback named Herman Everhardus and to Willis Ward, a rangy Negro end. It was Ward who, after hard-fighting Illinois had marched to a touchdown in the first period, shot through and blocked the place kick which would have given Illinois a seventh point." After the season was over, Coach Kipke also credited the play of Everhardus and his ends for the undefeated season: "Our ends, Ward and Petoskey, were near perfection." Michigan's left end, Ted Petoskey was named a first-team All-American in 1933, and Ward earned honorable mention All-American honors at right end.
### Runner up for 1933 Big Ten athlete of the year
In December 1933, Ward finished second in close balloting for the Associated Press Big Ten Athlete of the Year award. The AP reported that Duane Purvis of Purdue beat Ward "by the slender margin of two votes." In the AP's polling of conference coaches and sports writers, 55 votes were cast, with Purvis receiving 17 votes to 15 for Ward, described by the AP as "Michigan's 'one-man track team.'" The AP pointed to Ward's dual contributions in football and track: "Ward, in addition to his feats in track, was one of the bright stars of Michigan's championship football team this fall. Fast and rangy, he was classed as one of the finest wingmen in football. In track, he has run the century in 9.6, high jumped 6 feet 71⁄2 inches, leaped 24 feet in the broad jump and won his share of glory in the high hurdles."
### 1934 track season
In 1934, Ward won the Big Ten long jump championship with a distance of 23–21⁄4.
### 1934 football season
The 1934 football season proved to be one of the low points in the school's history, both because of the team's 1–7 record, and the ugly racial incident that kept Ward out of the game against Georgia Tech. Though excluded from the Georgia Tech game, Willis started every other game—five games at right end, and two games at halfback. Michigan scored only 21 points in the entire 1934 season, and Ward scored 12 of those points. In fact, Michigan scored nine points against Georgia Tech and Ward's 12 points were the only points scored by the Wolverines in the seven games in which Ward played. Michigan was shut out in the first two games, before beating Georgia Tech in the season's third game. The following week, Michigan lost to Illinois, 7–6, as Ward scored Michigan's only touchdown from the line of scrimmage of the entire 1934 season. (The season's only other touchdown came on a punt return against Georgia Tech.) Ward's touchdown came on a trick play, as fullback Johnny Regeczi passed the ball to end Mike Savage who lateraled to Ward. According to the Chicago Tribune, the lateral "enabled the fleet Negro to outfoot the Illinois secondary." After being shut out in three games after the Illinois match, Michigan closed the season with a 13–6 loss to Northwestern. Michigan's only points against Northwestern came on two field goals by Ward. Thus, all 12 of Michigan's 1934 points outside the Georgia Tech game were scored by Ward, without another Wolverine even having an extra point or a field goal.
### 1934 Georgia Tech game
Despite his many accomplishments, the event for which Ward is most remembered is the game he did not play. In 1934, Michigan had scheduled Georgia Tech as the third game of the season. After learning that Michigan had an African-American player, Georgia Tech football coach and athletic director W. A. "Bill" Alexander refused to allow his team to take the field if Ward played. As early as the fall of 1933, Alexander wrote to Yost asking what was going to be done about Ward, asserting that his team would not take the field if Ward played.
As the game approached, word spread that Georgia Tech was insisting that Ward not play, and that the administration might capitulate to the demand. Ward's right to play became a major controversy on the campus. Mass meetings and demonstrations were held. Some students and faculty demanded that either Ward must play or the game should be canceled. Petitions were circulated, and formal protests were lodged with the university by the Ann Arbor Ministerial Association, the NAACP, the National Student League and many other groups. The student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, opined: "If the athletic department forgot it had Ward on its football team when it scheduled a game with Georgia Tech, it was astonishingly forgetful; ... if it was conscious of Ward's being on the team but scheduled the game anyway, it was extraordinarily stupid."
Time magazine ran a story about the uproar on Michigan's campus: "Fifteen hundred Michigan students and faculty members signed a petition asking that the team's star end, Negro Willis Ward, be allowed to play against Georgia Tech." According to Time, 200 "campus radicals" threatened to prevent the game from being played by standing in the middle of the field. Rumors of a sit-down protest on the 50-yard line during the game spread across campus in the week before the game. One alumnus recalled that, the night before the game, "bonfires lit all over the campus echoed with screams of student anger, and 'Kill Georgia Tech' was heard throughout Ann Arbor." In an attempt to thwart any attempt to disrupt the game, Yost hired a Pinkerton agent to infiltrate "The United Front Committee on Ward", a conglomerate of student organizations that supported Ward's right to play.
Athletic authorities argued that Ward should not play because it would be discourteous to Georgia Tech, and he might be injured. There was fear that if Ward played, he would be injured by malicious blows after the play had ended. Playwright Arthur Miller, then a writer for Michigan's student newspaper, learned first-hand about the strong resistance among the Georgia Tech team to playing on the same field with an African-American athlete. In his biography of Miller, Enoch Brater noted that Miller had friends from Arkansas who knew one of the Georgia Tech players. Brater described Miller's involvement this way: "Remmel [Miller's friend from Arkansas] took Miller with them to meet with members of the team, to protest but also to appeal to the athletes' sense of fair play. 'Miller was right in the middle of this', Remmel recalls. Not only did the visiting team rebuff 'the Yankee' Miller 'in salty language', but they told him they would actually kill Ward if he set one foot on the Michigan gridiron. 'The Georgia Tech team was wild.' Miller was furious. He 'went immediately to the office of the Michigan Daily and wrote an article about it, but it was not published.' . . . Remmel said that Miller 'could not believe that the Georgia Tech team would have tried to destroy Willis Ward—but, I am sure they would have.'"
In the end, Ward was not allowed to play. But in exchange, Georgia Tech agreed to reciprocate by benching their own star end, Hoot Gibson. As his teammates faced Georgia Tech, there are conflicting reports as to Ward's whereabouts. According to Time, Ward "sat calmly in a radio booth, watched his teammates defeat the Southerners, 9-to-2, earning what turned out to be their only win of the season." According to Behee, Ward was not even allowed to watch the game from the press box, or even from the bench of his own stadium. Instead, he spent the afternoon in a fraternity house. A third account states that Kipke "quietly sent Willis Ward off to scout another Michigan game in Wisconsin." The day after the Georgia Tech game was played, an editorial ran in The Michigan Daily stating "that everyone who touched (the Ward affair) did so only to lose in respect and esteem." In Georgia, some sports journalists and fans blamed the player exchange for the loss. Journalist Ralph McGill said "Willis Ward won the football game," arguing the loss of Gibson hurt Georgia Tech more than the loss of Ward hurt Michigan.
### Gerald Ford's role in the Georgia Tech controversy
The school's refusal to play Ward in the Georgia Tech game later became part of the public legacy of President Gerald R. Ford. Ward recalled that he met "my man Jerry" during freshman orientation in 1932, and the two became friends and roommates when the football team traveled for road games. When Ford learned that the school had capitulated to Georgia Tech, some accounts indicate that he "quit the team" or threatened to quit in order "to make a statement and take a stand because Willis Ward was his friend." Ford wrote about the Georgia Tech incident in his autobiography, recalling that he felt the decision to keep Willis out of the game was "morally wrong." "I went to Willis himself. He urged me to play. 'Look,' he said, 'the team's having a bad year. We've lost two games already and we probably won't win any more. You've got to play Saturday. You owe it to the team.' I decided he was right. That Saturday afternoon, we hit like never before and beat Georgia Tech 9–2." Years later, Ford wrote that the Ward incident had influenced his thinking about race. Ford noted: "His sacrifice led me to question how educational administrators could capitulate to raw prejudice." Ford used the story to voice his support for U-M's affirmative action admissions policy saying, "Do we really want to risk turning back the clock to an era when the Willis Wards were isolated and penalized for the color of their skin, their economic standing or national ancestry?"
In 1976, Ward, then a probate court judge in Wayne County, said that Ford never mentioned the incident to him, but that Ford's brother later told him about it. "Jerry was very concerned," Ward recalled. "His brother told me, 'Jerry was so upset he wrote father asking him if he should quit the team. He was that angry.'" At Ford's funeral, President George W. Bush also spoke about the Willis Ward incident. Bush said: "Long before he was known in Washington, Gerald Ford showed his character and his leadership. As a star football player for the University of Michigan, he came face to face with racial prejudice when Georgia Tech came to Ann Arbor for a football game. One of Michigan's best players was an African American student named Willis Ward. Georgia Tech said they would not take the field if a black man were allowed to play. Gerald Ford was furious at Georgia Tech for making the demand, and for the University of Michigan for caving in. He agreed to play only after Willis Ward personally asked him to. The stand Gerald Ford took that day was never forgotten by his friend. And Gerald Ford never forgot that day either and three decades later, he proudly supported the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the United States Congress."
### Impact of Racism on Ward
Ward proved to be one of the most successful athletes in the history of the University of Michigan. He earned six varsity letters in football and track. In track, he won Big Ten titles in the 100-yard dash in 1933; in the high jump in 1933 and 1935; in the 400 meter dash in 1933; and in the long jump in 1934. On several occasions, Ward even beat Jesse Owens in the 100-yard dash. Because of his all-around skills, Ward was considered a likely contender for the U.S. decathlon team in the 1936 Olympics.
However, the Georgia Tech incident left Ward angry and disillusioned. He recalled that it sapped his competitive spirit. Ward considered quitting football, even writing a letter to Coach Kipke about his intentions of leaving the team. He recalled later that the refusal to let him play against Georgia Tech destroyed his will. "It was the fact that I couldn't play in the Georgia Tech game. That all of a sudden, the practice that you just did because it was the thing to do that was good—a tremendous amount of burnt up energy—all of a sudden becomes drudgery." His one sports highlight in 1935 was beating Jesse Owens at Yost Fieldhouse in the 60-yard dash and 65 high hurdles. Ward's times were neck-and-neck with Owens' up until the NCAA track and field championship. He took part in the Olympic trials in 1936, but having lost his competitive drive, Ward, in his own words, did not train to his peak and failed to make the U.S. team. "They were urging me to go out in '36," Ward recalled. "But that Georgia Tech game killed me. I frankly felt they would not let black athletes compete. Having gone through the Tech experience, it seemed an easy thing for them to say 'Well, we just won't run 'em if Hitler insists.'" Interviewed about the incident in 1976, Ward said: "It was like any bad experience—you can't forget it, but you don't talk about it. It hurts." But Ward would eventually come to the Owens' aid.
Following the 1936 Olympics and Owens winning four gold medals, racism back home led to difficulty earning a living despite his international acclaim. Owens struggled to find work and took on menial jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor, and manager of a dry cleaning firm and at times resorted to racing against motorbikes, cars, trucks and horses for a cash prize.
Prohibited from making appearances at amateur sporting events, such commercial offers eventually disappeared. Willis Ward had befriended Owens, his former track competitor, while a student at the University of Michigan. In 1942, Ward worked as a director for the Ford Motor Company's "ad hoc civil rights division, serving as the liaison between black and white workers" and an advocate for African American employees in the personnel department. He invited Owens to Detroit to replace him and remained with Ford until 1946.
## Later years
Willis Ward went on to earn a law degree from Detroit College of Law in 1939 and had a distinguished career as a lawyer and judge. In 1964, Ward spoke out against Barry Goldwater and in favor of Michigan Governor George Romney as a possible Presidential candidate. In 1966, Romney appointed Willis to the Michigan Public Service Commission, the state agency responsible for regulating Michigan's public utilities; Willis became chairman of the PSC in 1969, serving in that capacity until 1973. Ward later was elected a probate judge in Wayne County, Michigan.
Ward was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor in 1981, as part of the fourth group inducted. |
62,958,021 | Instant Replay Game | 1,166,130,448 | Notable American football game | [
"1989 National Football League season",
"1989 in sports in Wisconsin",
"American football in Wisconsin",
"Chicago Bears",
"History of the Green Bay Packers",
"National Football League controversies",
"National Football League games"
] | The Instant Replay Game, also known as the Asterisk Game, was a National Football League (NFL) game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears on November 5, 1989. The Packers defeated the visiting Bears 14–13 on a controversial fourth-down touchdown pass from Don Majkowski to Sterling Sharpe with less than a minute to play in the game. Line judge Jim Quirk initially called a penalty on the play for an illegal forward pass, thus nullifying the potentially game-winning score. Quirk's penalty was based on the belief that Majkowski had thrown the pass after the ball had passed the line of scrimmage.
The use of instant replay in the NFL had been adopted three years prior in 1986; this allowed referees to review certain calls on the field to either confirm or overturn the initial ruling. After a long replay review, the instant replay official overturned the call on the field and awarded the touchdown to the Packers. It was determined that the ball was behind the line of scrimmage when it was released, which based on the rules of the NFL at the time made the pass legal. The successful extra point put the Packers up 14–13, which would eventually be the winning score. The game was notable for its dramatic finish, the controversial use of instant replay, and it being the first Packers victory over the Bears since 1984.
## Background
The Bears–Packers rivalry is the most played rivalry in NFL history, with over 200 games played since 1921. Each team has had periods of sustained success over the other, but the late 1980s saw the Bears win eight straight games against the Packers from 1985 to 1988. During these four seasons, the Bears went to the playoffs each year, including winning the Super Bowl during the 1985 NFL season. The Packers on the other hand had only been to the playoffs twice since 1967, with the last time being the strike-shortened 1982 NFL season.
Because the Bears and Packers are in the same division, they are scheduled to play each other twice a season: once in Green Bay and once in Chicago. In 1989, their first match-up was scheduled for November 6 in Green Bay and the second was scheduled for December 17 in Chicago. Chicago started off their 1989 season strong, winning their first four games of the season. They then proceeded to lose their next three games before beating the Los Angeles Rams the week before the match-up against the Packers. They entered Week 9 with a record of 5–3. The Packers started their season with a record of 3–4, before beating the Detroit Lions in overtime to even their record before their match-up with the Bears.
## Game summary
The Packers took the lead in the first quarter with a 24-yard touchdown pass from Don Majkowski to tight end Clint Didier. The Bears quickly responded with a 25-yard field goal by kicker Kevin Butler. Neither team scored in the second quarter, leaving the score as 7–3 with the Packers in the lead going into halftime. In the third quarter, Butler kicked a 37-yard field goal to bring the Bears to within one point, down 7–6. The Bears finally scored their first touchdown later in the quarter with a two-yard run by fullback Brad Muster, putting them in the lead 13–7 going into the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter saw the Bears and Packers go back and forth, with neither team scoring. Two Packers drives in the fourth quarter ended in turnovers.
The Packers got the ball on their own 27-yard line with a little under five minutes left in the game. They drove down the field to the seven-yard line with a minute and a half left to play. On first down, Majkowski was sacked and fumbled the ball, but the Packers recovered. Now on the 14-yard line, Majkowski threw two incompletions, bringing up fourth down and goal with 41 seconds left on the game clock. Majkowski received the snap and scrambled to his right, improvizing from the original play call due to a Bears' blitz. As he approached the line of scrimmage, he threw the ball to Sterling Sharpe in the end zone for an apparent touchdown. However, line judge Jim Quirk threw a penalty flag for an illegal forward pass, thus negating the touchdown and giving the Bears possession after a turnover on downs. As the Bears celebrated, the replay official notified referee Tom Dooley that he was going to review the play to determine if the penalty was correct. After over four minutes elapsed, Dooley indicated to the crowd that the penalty was overturned and the Packers touchdown would stand. Chris Jacke kicked the extra point to put the Packers up by 14–13. With only 32 seconds left, the Bears attempted a few desperation plays after the kick-off but were unsuccessful, with the Packers holding on for a 14–13 victory.
### Box score
### Starting lineups
## Impact
For the Packers, the win was significant. It was their first victory over their biggest rivals since 1984 and gave them a winning record of 5–4. The game's dramatic finish and other several close wins contributed to a new nickname for the 1989 team: "The Cardiac Pack". Don Majkowski would later note the importance of the game on his career, stating "that's probably my defining moment as a Green Bay Packers, my most famous play." The victory also contributed to quarterback Majkowski's nickname, the "Majik Man", for his proclivity for dramatic and sometimes improbable finishes. This victory over the Bears was one of a then-record four one-point victories for the 1989 Packers. The Packers would finish with a record of 10–6, with the 10 wins being the most of any Packers team since 1972. One of those wins was a Week 15 victory over the Bears in Soldier Field, giving the Packers the season's sweep. The Packers would go on to just miss the playoffs due to a tie-breaker with the Minnesota Vikings. The Bears responded well the next week, shutting out the Steelers 20–0. However, they then ended the season on a six-game losing streak and finished with a record of 6–10. The Bears missed the playoffs for the first time since 1983.
## Legacy
Instant replay in the NFL was still relatively new; it had only been first implemented in 1986. The way that instant replay was applied at the end of the game was controversial. Quirk, the official that threw the flag for illegal forward pass, was positioned on the line of scrimmage on the other side of the field, but arguably had the best view of the play. At the time, the rule for an illegal forward pass dictated that the ball had to cross the line of scrimmage before it was thrown to be a penalty, regardless of the location of the person throwing the ball. Quirk judged from his position that the ball had passed the line of scrimmage before Majkowski had thrown the ball. When the play went to replay review, replay official Bill Parkinson only had a few camera angles available to review. The best view was from approximately the 20-yard line, but even that one was fuzzy and unclear. Art McNally, the NFL's director of officials, made no official statement on the play or the replay process after the game. However, according to Quirk, McNally noted on multiple occasions in private that Parkinson lacked the indisputable visual evidence required to overturn the call on the field. The NFL abandoned the instant replay process in 1991 until a new system was put in place in 1999. The rule for an illegal forward pass was also changed to make it easier to make a determination, now stating that the player throwing the ball had to be fully past the line of scrimmage for the pass to be considered illegal.
The Bears did not agree with the call, with many players and coaches commenting on it for years to come, and others never acknowledging the loss. For 10 years, the Bears media guide put an asterisk next to the result of the game, noting their belief the call was incorrect. This gave the game its other name: the Asterisk Game. When asked about the game in 2014, the Bears head coach during the game, Mike Ditka, noted his belief that the call went the way it did because the game was in Green Bay, and that it would have gone the other way if the game had been played in Chicago. However, that same year, Bears middle linebacker Mike Singletary noted his acceptance of the result of the game, saying "In all honesty, they deserved to win the game. The fact that the call was overturned in the end I thought it was fitting."
## See also
- 2018 NFC Championship Game – playoff game with a controversial call in the 4th quarter that led to NFL rule changes |
17,546 | Louvre | 1,172,724,876 | Art museum in Paris, France | [
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"History museums in France",
"Institut de France",
"Louvre",
"Louvre Palace",
"Museums in Paris",
"Museums of Ancient Near East in France",
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] | The Louvre (English: /ˈluːv(rə)/ ), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre ), is a national art museum in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward) and home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.
The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.
The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed from 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection. The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds. At any given point in time, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are being exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres (782,910 sq ft). With over 7.8 million visitors in 2022, the Louvre is the world's most-visited museum.
## Location and visiting
The Louvre museum is located inside the Louvre Palace, in the center of Paris, adjacent to the Tuileries Gardens. The two nearest Métro stations are Louvre-Rivoli and Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, the latter having a direct underground access to the Carrousel du Louvre commercial mall.
Before the Grand Louvre overhaul of the late 1980s and 1990s, the Louvre had several street-level entrances, most of which are now permanently closed. Since 1993, the museum's main entrance has been the underground space under the Louvre Pyramid, or Hall Napoléon, which can be accessed from the Pyramid itself, from the underground Carrousel du Louvre, or (for authorized visitors) from the passage Richelieu connecting to the nearby rue de Rivoli. A secondary entrance at the Porte des Lions, near the western end of the Denon Wing, was created in 1999 but is not permanently open.
The museum's entrance conditions have varied over time. Initially, artists and foreign visitors had privileged access, a feature that only disappeared in the 1850s. At the time of initial opening in 1793, the French Republican calendar had imposed ten-day "weeks" (French: décades), the first six days of which were reserved for visits by artists and foreigners and the last three for visits by the general public. In the early 1800s, after the seven-day week had been reinstated, the general public had only four hours of museum access per weeks, between 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays. In 1824, a new regulation allowed public access only on Sundays and holidays; the other days the museum was open only to artists and foreigners, except for closure on Mondays. That changed in 1855 when the museum became open to the public all days except Mondays. It was free until 1922, when an entrance fee was introduced except on Sundays. Since its post-World War II reopening in 1946, the Louvre has been closed on Tuesdays, and habitually open to the public the rest of the week except for some holidays.
The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.
Beginning in 2012, Nintendo 3DS portable video game systems were used as the official museum audio guides. In November 2013, Nintendo announced an upgraded audio guide that also included floor maps with the user's location marked to help visitors navigate the museum, over 600 photographs of artwork including high-resolution images and 3D models. The upgraded audio guide was also announced in a special Nintendo Direct, regularly used by the company to announce new game titles, hardware or other content, featuring a demonstration of the guide at the museum by Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president and CEO, and Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Nintendo franchises including Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox and Pikmin. Before the Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo DS was discontinued in 2023, the guide was also available there for users to download onto their own systems for live or virtual tours. As of August 2023, there are virtual tours through rooms and galleries accessible online.
## History
### Before the museum
The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun by King Philip II in the late 12th century to protect the city from the attack from the West, as the Kingdom of England still held Normandy at the time. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre are still visible in the crypt. Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, and it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower.
The origins of the name "Louvre" are somewhat disputed. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with a wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara). In the 7th century, Burgundofara (also known as Saint Fare), abbess in Meaux, is said to have gifted part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery, even though it is doubtful that this land corresponded exactly to the present site of the Louvre.
The Louvre Palace has been subject to numerous renovations since its construction. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building from its military role into a residence. In 1546, Francis I started its rebuilding in French Renaissance style. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, construction works slowed to a halt. The royal move away from Paris resulted in the Louvre being used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage. For example, four generations of craftsmen-artists from the Boulle family were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre.
Meanwhile, the collections of the Louvre originated in the acquisitions of paintings and other artworks by the monarchs of the House of France. At the Palace of Fontainebleau, Francis collected art that would later be part of the Louvre's art collections, including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
The Cabinet du Roi consisted of seven rooms west of the Galerie d'Apollon on the upper floor of the remodeled Petite Galerie. Many of the king's paintings were placed in these rooms in 1673, when it became an art gallery, accessible to certain art lovers as a kind of museum. In 1681, after the court moved to Versailles, 26 of the paintings were transferred there, somewhat diminishing the collection, but it is mentioned in Paris guide books from 1684 on, and was shown to ambassadors from Siam in 1686.
By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery in the Louvre. Art critic Étienne La Font de Saint-Yenne in 1747 published a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV decided on a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the "king's paintings" (Tableaux du Roy) on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Luxembourg gallery included Andrea del Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck. It closed in 1780 as a result of the royal gift of the Luxembourg palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778. Under Louis XVI, the idea of a royal museum in the Louvre came closer to fruition. The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed to convert the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which at that time contained the plans-reliefs or 3D models of key fortified sites in and around France – into the "French Museum". Many design proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum, without a final decision being made on them. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.
### Revolutionary opening
The Louvre finally became a public museum during the French Revolution. In May 1791, the National Constituent Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts". On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.
The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise, as Muséum central des Arts de la République. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated". The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three-quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property (biens nationaux). To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres per year. In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as the Laocoön and Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".
The early days were hectic. Privileged artists continued to live in residence, and the unlabeled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling". The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns. On 15 August 1797, the Galerie d'Apollon was opened with an exhibition of drawings. Meanwhile, the Louvre's Gallery of Antiquity sculpture (musée des Antiques), with artefacts brought from Florence and the Vatican, had opened in November 1800 in Anne of Austria's former summer apartment, located on the ground floor just below the Galerie d'Apollon.
### Napoleonic era
On 19 November 1802, Napoleon appointed Dominique Vivant Denon, a scholar and polymath who had participated in the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, as the museum's first director, in preference to alternative contenders such as antiquarian Ennio Quirino Visconti, painter Jacques-Louis David, sculptor Antonio Canova and architects Léon Dufourny or Pierre Fontaine. On Denon's suggestion in July 1803, the museum itself was renamed Musée Napoléon.
The collection grew through successful military campaigns. Acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as the result of war looting or formalized by treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino. At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the Austrian Monarchy. This treaty marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy and the end of the first phase of the French Revolutionary Wars. It compelled Italian cities to contribute pieces of art and heritage to Napoleon's "parades of spoils" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum. The Horses of Saint Mark, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris where they were placed atop Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in 1797. Under the Treaty of Tolentino, the two statues of the Nile and Tiber were taken to Paris from the Vatican in 1797, and were both kept in the Louvre until 1815. (The Nile was later returned to Rome, whereas the Tiber has remained in the Louvre to this day.) The despoilment of Italian churches and palaces outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.
After the French defeat at Waterloo, the looted works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrator, Denon, was loath to comply in absence of a treaty of restitution. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, though far from all. In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with the Austrian government for the keeping of works such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection.
### From 1815 to 1852
For most of the 19th century, from Napoleon's time to the Second Empire, the Louvre and other national museums were managed under the monarch's civil list and thus depended much on the ruler's personal involvement. Whereas the most iconic collection remained that of paintings in the Grande Galerie, a number of other initiatives mushroomed in the vast building, named as if they were separate museums even though they were generally managed under the same administrative umbrella. Correspondingly, the museum complex was often referred to in the plural ("les musées du Louvre") rather than singular.
During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X added to the collections. The Greek and Roman sculpture gallery on the ground floor of the southwestern side of the Cour Carrée was completed on designs by Percier and Fontaine. In 1819 an exhibition of manufactured products was opened in the first floor of the Cour Carrée's southern wing and would stay there until the mid-1820s. Charles X in 1826 created the Musée Égyptien and in 1827 included it in his broader Musée Charles X, a new section of the museum complex located in a suite of lavishly decorated rooms on the first floor of the South Wing of the Cour Carrée. The Egyptian collection, initially curated by Jean-François Champollion, formed the basis for what is now the Louvre's Department of Egyptian Antiquities. It was formed from the purchased collections of Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt and the second collection of Bernardino Drovetti (the first one having been purchased by Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia to form the core of the present Museo Egizio in Turin). The Restoration period also saw the opening in 1824 of the Galerie d'Angoulême, a section of largely French sculptures on the ground floor of the Northwestern side of the Cour Carrée, many of whose artefacts came from the Palace of Versailles and from Alexandre Lenoir's Musée des Monuments Français following its closure in 1816. Meanwhile, the French Navy created an exhibition of ship models in the Louvre in December 1827, initially named musée dauphin in honor of Dauphin Louis Antoine, building on an 18th-century initiative of Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau. This collection, renamed musée naval in 1833 and later to develop into the Musée national de la Marine, was initially located on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's North Wing, and in 1838 moved up one level to the 2nd-floor attic, where it remained for more than a century.
Following the July Revolution, King Louis Philippe focused his interest on the repurposing of the Palace of Versailles into a Museum of French History conceived as a project of national reconciliation, and the Louvre was kept in comparative neglect. Louis-Philippe did, however, sponsor the creation of the musée assyrien to host the monumental Assyrian sculpture works brought to Paris by Paul-Émile Botta, in the ground-floor gallery north of the eastern entrance of the Cour Carrée. The Assyrian Museum opened on 1 May 1847. Separately, Louis-Philippe had his Spanish gallery displayed in the Louvre from 7 January 1838, in five rooms on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's East (Colonnade) Wing, but the collection remained his personal property. As a consequence, the works were removed after Louis-Philippe was deposed in 1848, and were eventually auctioned away in 1853.
The short-lived Second Republic had more ambitions for the Louvre. It initiated repair work, the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon and of the salle des sept-cheminées, and the overhaul of the Salon Carré (former site of the iconic yearly Salon) and of the Grande Galerie. In 1848, the Naval Museum in the Cour Carrée's attic was brought under the common Louvre Museum management, a change which was again reversed in 1920. In 1850 under the leadership of curator Adrien de Longpérier, the musée mexicain opened within the Louvre as the first European museum dedicated to pre-Columbian art.
### Second Empire
The rule of Napoleon III was transformational for the Louvre, both the building and the museum. In 1852, he created the Musée des Souverains in the Colonnade Wing, an ideological project aimed at buttressing his personal legitimacy. In 1861, he bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. For its display, he created another new section within the Louvre named Musée Napoléon III, occupying a number of rooms in various parts of the building. Between 1852 and 1870, the museum added 20,000 new artefacts to its collections.
The main change of that period was to the building itself. In the 1850s architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel created massive new spaces around what is now called the Cour Napoléon, some of which (in the South Wing, now Aile Denon) went to the museum. In the 1860s, Lefuel also led the creation of the pavillon des Sessions with a new Salle des Etats closer to Napoleon III's residence in the Tuileries Palace, with the effect of shortening the Grande Galerie by about a third of its previous length. A smaller but significant Second Empire project was the decoration of the salle des Empereurs below the Salon carré.
### From 1870 to 1981
The Louvre narrowly escaped serious damage during the suppression of the Paris Commune. On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret [fr] set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the Tuileries and spreading to the north west wing of the museum next to it. The emperor's Louvre library (Bibliothèque du Louvre) and some of the adjoining halls, in what is now the Richelieu Wing, were separately destroyed. But the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees led by curator Henry Barbet de Jouy.
Following the end of the monarchy, several spaces in the Louvre's South Wing went to the museum. The Salle du Manège was transferred to the museum in 1879, and in 1928 became its main entrance lobby. The large Salle des Etats that had been created by Lefuel between the Grande Galerie and Pavillon Denon was redecorated in 1886 by Edmond Guillaume [fr], Lefuel's successor as architect of the Louvre, and opened as a spacious exhibition room. Edomond Guillaume also decorated the first-floor room at the northwest corner of the Cour Carrée, on the ceiling of which he placed in 1890 a monumental painting by Carolus-Duran, The Triumph of Marie de' Medici originally created in 1879 for the Luxembourg Palace.
Meanwhile, during the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new artefacts mainly via donations, gifts, and sharing arrangements on excavations abroad. The 583-item Collection La Caze, donated in 1869 by Louis La Caze, included works by Chardin; Fragonard, Rembrandt and Watteau. In 1883, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which had been found in the Aegean Sea in 1863, was prominently displayed as the focal point of the Escalier Daru. Major artifacts excavated at Susa in Iran, including the massive Apadana capital and glazed brick decoration from the Palace of Darius there, accrued to the Oriental (Near Eastern) Antiquities Department in the 1880s. The Société des amis du Louvre was established in 1897 and donated prominent works, such as the Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. The expansion of the museum and its collections slowed after World War I, however, despite some prominent acquisitions such as Georges de La Tour's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books.
From the late 19th century, the Louvre gradually veered away from its mid-century ambition of universality to become a more focused museum of French, Western and Near Eastern art, covering a space ranging from Iran to the Atlantic. The collections of the Louvre's musée mexicain were transferred to the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro in 1887. As the Musée de Marine was increasingly constrained to display its core naval-themed collections in the limited space it had in the second-floor attic of the northern half of the Cour Carrée, many of its significant holdings of non-Western artefacts were transferred in 1905 to the Trocadéro ethnography museum, the National Antiquities Museum in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and the Chinese Museum in the Palace of Fontainebleau. The Musée de Marine itself was relocated to the Palais de Chaillot in 1943. The Louvre's extensive collections of Asian art were moved to the Guimet Museum in 1945. Nevertheless, the Louvre's first gallery of Islamic art opened in 1922.
In the late 1920s, Louvre Director Henri Verne devised a master plan for the rationalization of the museum's exhibitions, which was partly implemented in the following decade. In 1932–1934, Louvre architects Camille Lefèvre and Albert Ferran redesigned the Escalier Daru to its current appearance. The Cour du Sphinx in the South Wing was covered by a glass roof in 1934. Decorative arts exhibits were expanded in the first floor of the North Wing of the Cour Carrée, including some of France's first period room displays. In the late 1930s, The La Caze donation was moved to a remodeled Salle La Caze above the salle des Caryatides, with reduced height to create more rooms on the second floor and a sober interior design by Albert Ferran.
During World War II, the Louvre conducted an elaborate plan of evacuation of its art collection. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to the Château de Valençay. On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement". In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre.
New arrangements after the war revealed the further evolution of taste away from the lavish decorative practices of the late 19th century. In 1947, Edmond Guillaume's ceiling ornaments were removed from the Salle des Etats, where the Mona Lisa was first displayed in 1966. Around 1950, Louvre architect Jean-Jacques Haffner [fr] streamlined the interior decoration of the Grande Galerie. In 1953, a new ceiling by Georges Braque was inaugurated in the Salle Henri II, next to the Salle La Caze. In the late 1960s, seats designed by Pierre Paulin were installed in the Grande Galerie. In 1972, the Salon Carré's museography was remade with lighting from a hung tubular case, designed by Louvre architect Marc Saltet [fr] with assistance from designers André Monpoix [fr], Joseph-André Motte and Paulin.
In 1961, the Finance Ministry accepted to leave the Pavillon de Flore at the southwestern end of the Louvre building, as Verne had recommended in his 1920s plan. New exhibition spaces of sculptures (ground floor) and paintings (first floor) opened there later in the 1960s, on a design by government architect Olivier Lahalle.
### Grand Louvre
In 1981, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to relocate the Finance Ministry, until then housed in the North Wing of the Louvre, and thus devote almost the entire Louvre building (except its northwestern tip, which houses the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs) to the museum which would be correspondingly restructured. In 1984 I. M. Pei, the architect personally selected by Mitterrand, proposed a master plan including an underground entrance space accessed through a glass pyramid in the Louvre's central Cour Napoléon.
The open spaces surrounding the pyramid were inaugurated on 15 October 1988, and its underground lobby was opened on 30 March 1989. New galleries of early modern French paintings on the 2nd floor of the Cour Carrée, for which the planning had started before the Grand Louvre, also opened in 1989. Further rooms in the same sequence, designed by Italo Rota, opened on 15 December 1992.
On 18 November 1993, Mitterrand inaugurated the next major phase of the Grand Louvre plan: the renovated North (Richelieu) Wing in the former Finance Ministry site, the museum's largest single expansion in its entire history, designed by Pei, his French associate Michel Macary, and Jean-Michel Wilmotte. Further underground spaces known as the Carrousel du Louvre, centered on the Inverted Pyramid and designed by Pei and Macary, had opened in October 1993. Other refurbished galleries, of Italian sculptures and Egyptian antiquities, opened in 1994. The third and last main phase of the plan unfolded mainly in 1997, with new renovated rooms in the Sully and Denon wings. A new entrance at the porte des Lions opened in 1998, leading on the first floor to new rooms of Spanish paintings.
As of 2002, the Louvre's visitor count had doubled from its pre-Grand-Louvre levels.
### 21st century
President Jacques Chirac, who had succeeded Mitterrand in 1995, insisted on the return of non-Western art to the Louvre, upon a recommendation from his friend the art collector and dealer Jacques Kerchache [fr]. On his initiative, a selection of highlights from the collections of what would become the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac was installed on the ground floor of the Pavillon des Sessions and opened in 2000, six years ahead of the Musée du Quai Branly itself.
The main other initiative in the aftermath of the Grand Louvre project was Chirac's decision to create a new department of Islamic Art, by executive order of 1 August 2003, and to move the corresponding collections from their prior underground location in the Richelieu Wing to a more prominent site in the Denon Wing. That new section opened on 22 September 2012, together with collections from the Roman-era Eastern Mediterranean, with financial support from the Al Waleed bin Talal Foundation and on a design by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti.
In 2007, German painter Anselm Kiefer was invited to create a work for the North stairs of the Perrault Colonnade, Athanor. This decision announces the museum's reengagement with contemporary art under the direction of Henri Loyrette, fifty years after the institution's last order to a contemporary artists, George Braque.
In 2010, American painter Cy Twombly completed a new ceiling for the Salle des Bronzes (the former Salle La Caze), a counterpoint to that of Braque installed in 1953 in the adjacent Salle Henri II. The room's floor and walls were redesigned in 2021 by Louvre architect Michel Goutal to revert the changes made by his predecessor Albert Ferran in the late 1930s, triggering protests from the Cy Twombly Foundation on grounds that the then-deceased painter's work had been created to fit with the room's prior decoration.
That same year, the Louvre commissioned French artist François Morellet to create a work for the Lefuel stairs, on the first floor. For L'esprit d'escalier Morellet redesigned the stairscase's windows, echoing their original structures but distorting them to create a disturbing optical effect.
On 6 June 2014, the Decorative Arts section on the first floor of the Cour Carrée's northern wing opened after comprehensive refurbishment.
In January 2020, under the direction of Jean-Luc Martinez, the museum inaugurated a new contemporary art commission, L'Onde du Midi by Venezuelan kinetic artist Elias Crespin. The sculpture hovers under the Escalier du Midi, the staircase on the South of the Perrault Colonnade.
The Louvre, like many other museums and galleries, felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage. It was closed for six months during French coronavirus lockdowns and saw visitor numbers plunge to 2.7 million in 2020, from 9.6 million in 2019 and 10.2 million in 2018, which was a record year.
## Collections
The Musée du Louvre owns 615,797 objects of which 482,943 are accessible online since 24 March 2021 and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.
### Egyptian antiquities
The Louvre is home to one of the world's most extensive collections of art, including works from diverse cultures and time periods. Visitors can view iconic works like the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, as well as pieces from ancient civilizations such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The museum also features collections of decorative arts, Islamic art, and sculptures.
The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces, includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD. The collection, among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.
The department's origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre. After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt, and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe.
Guarded by the Great Sphinx of Tanis, the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons. Pieces from the ancient period include the Gebel el-Arak Knife from 3400 BC, The Seated Scribe, and the Head of King Djedefre. Middle Kingdom art, "known for its gold work and statues", moved from realism to idealization; this is exemplified by the schist statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden Offering Bearer. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.
### Near Eastern antiquities
Near Eastern antiquities, the second newest department, dates from 1881 and presents an overview of early Near Eastern civilization and "first settlements", before the arrival of Islam. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the Levant, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace. These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department.
The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's Stele of the Vultures from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The 2.25-metre (7.38 ft) Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim and the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum.
A significant portion of the department covers the ancient Levant, including the Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II discovered in 1855, which catalyzed Ernest Renan's 1860 Mission de Phénicie. It contains one of the world's largest and most comprehensive collections of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions. The section also covers North African Punic antiquities (Punic = Western Phoenician), given the significant French presence in the region in the 19th century, with early finds including the 1843 discovery of the Ain Nechma inscriptions.
The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I. This section also contains rare objects from Persepolis which were also lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005.
### Greek, Etruscan, and Roman
The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic to the 6th century. The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under Francis I. Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the Venus de Milo'''. Works such as the Apollo Belvedere arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, but these pieces were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. In the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection, bronzes such as the Borghese Vase from the Bibliothèque nationale.
The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical Hera of Samos, c. 570–560 BC. After the 4th century BC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the Borghese Gladiator. The Louvre holds masterpieces from the Hellenistic era, including The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art. The long Galerie Campana displays an outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries. In the galleries paralleling the Seine, much of the museum's Roman sculpture is displayed. The Roman portraiture is representative of that genre; examples include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.
### Islamic art
The Islamic art collection, the museum's newest, spans "thirteen centuries and three continents". These exhibits, of ceramics, glass, metalware, wood, ivory, carpet, textiles, and miniatures, include more than 5,000 works and 1,000 shards. Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. Among the works are the Pyxide d'al-Mughira, a 10th century ivory box from Andalusia; the Baptistery of Saint-Louis, an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century Mamluk period; and the 10th century Shroud of Saint-Josse from Iran. The collection contains three pages of the Shahnameh, an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi in Persian, and a Syrian metalwork named the Barberini Vase. In September 2019, a new and improved Islamic art department was opened by Princess Lamia bint Majed Al Saud. The new department exhibits 3,000 pieces were collected from Spain to India via the Arabian peninsula dating from the 7th to the 19th centuries.
### Sculptures
The sculpture department consists of works created before 1850 not belonging in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department. The Louvre has been a repository of sculpted material since its time as a palace; however, only ancient architecture was displayed until 1824, except for Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave. Initially the collection included only 100 pieces, the rest of the royal sculpture collection being at Versailles. It remained small until 1847, when Léon Laborde was given control of the department. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, King Childebert and stanga door, respectively. The collection was part of the Department of Antiquities but was given autonomy in 1871 under Louis Courajod, a director who organized a wider representation of French works. In 1986, all post-1850 works were relocated to the new Musée d'Orsay. The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu Wing, and foreign works in the Denon Wing.
The collection's overview of French sculpture contains Romanesque works such as the 11th-century Daniel in the Lions' Den and the 12th-century Virgin of Auvergne. In the 16th century, Renaissance influence caused French sculpture to become more restrained, as seen in Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu, Étienne Maurice Falconet's Woman Bathing and Amour menaçant, and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787). The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptors like Alfred Barye and Émile Guillemin.
### Decorative arts
The Objets d'art collection spans the time from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The department began as a subset of the sculpture department, based on royal property and the transfer of work from the Basilique Saint-Denis, the burial ground of French monarchs that held the Coronation Sword of the Kings of France. Among the budding collection's most prized works were pietre dure vases and bronzes. The Durand collection's 1825 acquisition added "ceramics, enamels, and stained glass", and 800 pieces were given by Pierre Révoil. The onset of Romanticism rekindled interest in Renaissance and Medieval artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and faïence works. In 1862, the Campana collection added gold jewelry and maiolicas, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries.
The works are displayed on the Richelieu Wing's first floor and in the Apollo Gallery, named by the painter Charles Le Brun, who was commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) to decorate the space in a solar theme. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of Louis XIV, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century porphyry vase. The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze Nessus and Deianira and the tapestry Maximillian's Hunt. From later periods, highlights include Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres vase collection and Napoleon III's apartments.
In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the Gilbert Chagoury and Rose-Marie Chagoury Gallery to display tapestries donated by the Chagourys, including a 16th-century six-part tapestry suite, sewn with gold and silver threads representing sea divinities, which was commissioned in Paris for Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.
### Painting
The painting collection has more than 7,500 works from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought. The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court. After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the d'Orsay train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu Wing and Cour Carrée; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon Wing.
Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Pietà of Enguerrand Quarton; the anonymous painting of King Jean le Bon (c. 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era; Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented.
Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's The Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox.
The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini's Calvarys, which reflect realism and detail "meant to depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world". The High Renaissance collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist, and Madonna of the Rocks. The Baroque collection includes Giambattista Pittoni's The Continence of Scipio, Susanna and the Elders, Bacchus and Ariadne, Mars and Venus, and others Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian's Le Concert Champetre, The Entombment, and The Crowning with Thorns.
The La Caze Collection, a bequest to the Musée du Louvre in 1869 by Louis La Caze, was the largest contribution of a person in the history of the Louvre. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. The bequest included Antoine Watteau's Commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot ("Gilles"). In 2007, this bequest was the topic of the exhibition "1869: Watteau, Chardin... entrent au Louvre. La collection La Caze".
Some of the best known paintings of the museum have been digitized by the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.
### Prints and drawings
The prints and drawings department encompasses works on paper. The origins of the collection were the 8,600 works in the Royal Collection (Cabinet du Roi), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200 works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations. The department opened on 5 August 1797, with 415 pieces displayed in the Galerie d'Apollon. The collection is organized into three sections: the core Cabinet du Roi, 14,000 royal copper printing-plates, and the donations of Edmond de Rothschild, which include 40,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 5,000 illustrated books. The holdings are displayed in the Pavillon de Flore; due to the fragility of the paper medium, only a portion are displayed at one time.
## Management, administration, partnerships
The Louvre is owned by the French government. Since the 1990s, its management and governance have been made more independent. Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects. By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75 percent of the total budget to 62 percent. Every year, the Louvre now raises as much as it gets from the state, about €122 million. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety, and maintenance), while the rest – new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions – is up to the museum to finance. A further €3 million to €5 million a year is raised by the Louvre from exhibitions that it curates for other museums, while the host museum keeps the ticket money. As the Louvre became a point of interest in the book The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on the book, the museum earned \$2.5 million by allowing filming in its galleries. In 2008, the French government provided \$180 million of the Louvre's yearly \$350 million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales.
The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez, who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Martinez replaced Henri Loyrette in April 2013. Under Loyrette, who replaced Pierre Rosenberg in 2001, the Louvre has undergone policy changes that allow it to lend and borrow more works than before. In 2006, it loaned 1,300 works, which enabled it to borrow more foreign works. From 2006 to 2009, the Louvre lent artwork to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a \$6.9 million payment to be used for renovations.
In 2009, Minister of culture Frédéric Mitterrand approved a plan that would have created a storage facility 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Paris to hold objects from the Louvre and two other national museums in Paris's flood zone, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Musée d'Orsay; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor Aurélie Filippetti announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art held in a 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) basement storage area in Liévin; the cost of the project, estimated at €60 million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%). The Louvre will be the sole owner and manager of the store. In July 2015, a team led by British firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was selected to design the complex, which will have light-filled work spaces under one vast, green roof.
In 2012, the Louvre and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced a five-year collaboration on exhibitions, publications, art conservation and educational programming. The €98.5 million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of €31 million, as well as €17 million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The Republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total €26 million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide €400 million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand. Loyrette has tried to improve weak parts of the collection through income generated from loans of art and by guaranteeing that "20% of admissions receipts will be taken annually for acquisitions". He has more administrative independence for the museum and achieved 90 percent of galleries to be open daily, as opposed to 80 percent previously. He oversaw the creation of extended hours and free admission on Friday nights and an increase in the acquisition budget to \$36 million from \$4.5 million.
In March 2018, an exhibition of dozens of artworks and relics belonging to France's Louvre Museum was opened to visitors in Tehran, as a result of an agreement between Iranian and French presidents in 2016. In the Louvre, two departments were allocated to the antiquities of the Iranian civilization, and the managers of the two departments visited Tehran. Relics belonging to Ancient Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia as well as French royal items were showcased at the Tehran exhibition.
Iran's National Museum building was designed and constructed by French architect André Godard. Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the Khorasan Grand Museum in Mashhad, northeastern Iran in June 2018.
On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Louvre held the largest ever single exhibit of his work, from 24 October 2019 to 24 February 2020. The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. Five of them are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among visitors to the Louvre museum; the work remained on display in its gallery. Salvator Mundi was also not included since the Saudi owner did not agree to move the work from its hiding place. Vitruvian Man, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice.
In 2021, a Renaissance era ceremonial helmet and breastplate stolen from the museum in 1983 were recovered. The museum noted that the 1983 theft had "deeply troubled all the staff at the time." There are few publicly accessible details on the theft itself.
In May 2021, it was announced that Laurence des Cars has been picked by French president Emmanuel Macron as the next leader of the Louvre. For the first time in its 228-year history, the Louvre will be directed by a woman. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Louvre has launched a platform where most of its works, including those that are not on display, can be seen. The new platform, collections.louvre.fr, already has more than 482,000 illustrated records – representing 75% of its rich and varied collections. The museum was visited by over 7.6 million visitors in 2022, up 170 percent from 2021, but still below the 10.8 million visitors in 2018 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
## Archaeological research
The Louvre's ancient art collections are to a significant extent the product of excavations, some of which the museum sponsored under various legal regimes over time, often as a companion to France's diplomacy and/or colonial enterprises. In the Rotonde d'Apollon, a carved marble panel lists a number of such campaigns, led by:
- Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel in Greece (1818)
- Jean-François Champollion in Egypt (1828–1829)
- Guillaume-Abel Blouet and Léon-Jean-Joseph Dubois with the Morea expedition in Greece (1829)
- Adolphe Delamare [fr] in Algeria (1842–1845)
- Paul-Émile Botta in the Nineveh Plains (1845)
- Joseph Vattier de Bourville [fr] in Cyrenaica (1850)
- Auguste Mariette in Egypt (1850–1854)
- Victor Langlois in Cilicia (1852)
- Ernest Renan with the Mission de Phénicie following the 1860 civil conflict in Mount Lebanon and Damascus (1860–1861)
- Léon Heuzey and Honoré Daumet in Macedonia (1861)
- Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé and Edmond Duthoit in Cyprus (1863–1866)
- Charles Champoiseau in Samothrace (1863)
- Emmanuel Miller [de] in Thessaloniki and Thasos (1864–1865)
- Olivier Rayet and Albert-Félix-Théophile Thomas in Ionia (1872–1873)
- Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau in Palestine (1873)
- Antoine Héron de Villefosse [fr] in Algeria and Tunisia (1874)
- Ernest de Sarzec in Tello / ancient Girsu, Mesopotamia (1877–1900)
- Paul Girard in Greece (1881)
- Edmond Pottier, Salomon Reinach and Alphonse Veyries in Myrina (Aeolis) (1872–1873)
- Marcel-Auguste Dieulafoy and Jane Dieulafoy in Susa, Persia (1884–1886)
- Charles Huber in Tayma, Arabia (1885)
- Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher in India and present-day Pakistan (1895–1897)
- Arthur Engel and Pierre Paris in Spain (1897)
- Jacques de Morgan in Susa (1897)
- Gaston Cros in Tello / ancient Girsu (1902)
- Paul Pelliot in Chinese Turkestan (1907–1909)
- Maurice Pézard in Northern Palestine (1923)
- Georges Aaron Bénédite in Egypt (1926)
- François Thureau-Dangin in Northern Syria (1929)
- Henri de Genouillac in Mesopotamia (1912, 1929)
- the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo, created in 1880
The rest of the plaque combines donors of archaeological items, many of whom were archaeologists themselves, and other archaeologists whose excavations contributed to the Louvre's collections:
- Frédéric Moreau (archeologist) [Frédéric Moreau; Frédéric Moreau (archéologue)] in France (1899)
- Édouard Piette in France (1902)
- Joseph de Baye [fr] in France (1899–1906)
- Henri and Jacques de Morgan in Susa (1909–1910)
- Léon Henri-Martin [fr] (1906–1920) and his daughter Germaine in France (1976)
- Louis Capitan [fr] in France (1929)
- René de Saint-Périer [fr] and his wife Suzanne in France (1935)
- Fernand Bisson de la Roque in Egypt (1922–1950)
- Bernard Bruyère in Egypt (1920–1951)
- Raymond Weill in Egypt (1952)
- Pierre Montet in Egypt (1921–1956)
- Jean Marie Casal [de] in the Indus Valley and Afghanistan (1950–1973)
- Suzanne de Saint-Mathurin [fr] in France (1973)
- André Parrot in Mari, Syria (1931–1974)
- Claude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer in Ugarit, Syria (1929–1970)
- Roman Ghirshman in Iraq and Iran (1931–1972)
## Satellites and offshoots
Several museums in and outside France have been or are placed under the Louvre's administrative authority or linked to it through exclusive partnerships, while not being located in the Louvre Palace. Since 2019, the Louvre has also maintained a large art storage and research facility in the Northern French town of Liévin, the Centre de conservation du Louvre [fr], which is not open to the public.
### Musée de Cluny (1926–1977)
In February 1926, the Musée de Cluny, whose creation dates back to the 19th century, was brought under the aegis of the Louvre's department of decorative arts (Objets d'Art). That affiliation was terminated in 1977.
### Musée du Jeu de Paume (1947–1986)
The Jeu de Paume building in the Tuileries Garden, initially intended as a sports venue, was repurposed from 1909 as an art gallery. In 1947, it became the exhibition space for the Louvre's collections of late 19th and early 20th paintings, most prominently Impressionism, as the Louvre Palace was lacking space to display them, and was consequently brought under direct management by the Louvre's Département des Peintures. In 1986, these collections were transferred to the newly created Musée d'Orsay.
### Gypsothèque du Louvre (since 2001)
The gypsothèque (plaster cast gallery) of the Louvre is a collection of plaster casts that was formed in 1970 by the reunion of the corresponding inventories of the Louvre, the Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Art and Archaeology Institute of the Sorbonne University, the latter two following depredations during the May 68 student unrest. Initially called the Musée des Monuments Antiques from 1970 to 1978, the project was subsequently left unfinished and only came to fruition after being brought under the Louvre's management by ministerial decision in 2001. It is located in the Petite Écurie, a dependency of Versailles Palace, and has been open to the public since 2012.
### Musée Delacroix (since 2004)
The small museum located in Eugène Delacroix's former workshop in central Paris, created in the 1930s, has been placed under management by the Louvre since 2004.
### Louvre-Lens (since 2012)
The Louvre-Lens follows a May 2003 initiative by then culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon to promote cultural projects outside of Paris that would make the riches of major Parisian institutions available to a broader French public, including a satellite (antenne) of the Louvre. After several rounds of competition, a former mining site in the town of Lens was selected for its location and announced by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin on 2004-11-29. Japanese architects SANAA and landscape architect Catherine Mosbach were respectively selected in September 2005 to design the museum building and garden. Inaugurated by President François Hollande on 2012-12-04, the Louvre-Lens is run by the Hauts-de-France region under a contract (convention scientifique et culturelle) with the Louvre for art loans and brand use. Its main attraction is an exhibition of roughly 200 artworks from the Louvre on a rotating basis, presented chronologically in a single large room (the Galerie du Temps or "gallery of time") that transcends the geographical and object-type divisions along which the Parisian Louvre's displays are organized. The Louvre-Lens has been successful at attracting around 500,000 visitors per year until the COVID-19 pandemic.
### Louvre Abu Dhabi (since 2017)
The Louvre Abu Dhabi is a separate entity from the Louvre, but the two entities have a multifaceted contractual relationship that allows the Emirati museum to use the Louvre name until 2037, and to exhibit artworks from the Louvre until 2027. It was inaugurated on 2017-11-08 and opened to the public three days later. A 30-year agreement, signed in early 2007 by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, establishes that Abu Dhabi shall pay €832,000,000 (US\$1.3 billion) in exchange for the Louvre name use, managerial advice, art loans, and special exhibitions. The Louvre Abu Dhabi is located on Saadiyat Island and was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and engineering firm of Buro Happold. It occupies 24,000 square metres (260,000 sq ft) and is covered by an iconic metallic dome designed to cast rays of light mimicking sunlight passing through date palm fronds in an oasis. The French art loans, expected to total between 200 and 300 artworks during a 10-year period, come from multiple museums, including the Louvre, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, the Guimet Museum, the Musée Rodin, and the Musée du quai Branly.
## Controversy
The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. But after the war, 61,233 articles on more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Office des Biens Privés. In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 paintings) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs (Musées Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork). Some 10% to 35% of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections.
They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister Alain Juppé initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by Jean Mattéoli, to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678 pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners. During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights (Gentili di Giuseppe and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006.
According to Serge Klarsfeld, since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of prescription acquisitive of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II.
Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the British Museum. On the other hand, the Dendera zodiac is, like the Rosetta Stone, claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via UNESCO's Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin. The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30 cm x 15 cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of déclassement from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France.
In 2011, over 130 international artists urged a boycott of the new Guggenheim museum as well as Louvre Abu Dhabi, citing reports, since 2009, of abuses of foreign construction workers on Saadiyat Island, including the arbitrary withholding of wages, unsafe working conditions, and failure of companies to pay or reimburse the steep recruitment fees being charged to laborers. According to Architectural Record, Abu Dhabi has comprehensive labor laws to protect the workers, but they are not conscientiously implemented or enforced. In 2010, the Guggenheim Foundation placed on its website a joint statement with Abu Dhabi's Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) recognizing the following workers' rights issues, among others: health and safety of the workers; their access to their passports and other documents that the employers have been retaining to guaranty that they stay on the job; using a general contractor that agrees to obey the labor laws; maintaining an independent site monitor; and ending the system that has been generally used in the Persian Gulf region of requiring workers to reimburse recruitment fees.
In 2013, The Observer reported that conditions for the workers at the Louvre and New York University construction sites on Saadiyat amounted to "modern-day slavery". In 2014, the Guggenheim's Director, Richard Armstrong, said that he believed that living conditions for the workers at the Louvre project were now good and that "many fewer" of them were having their passports confiscated. He stated that the main issue then remaining was the recruitment fees charged to workers by agents who recruit them. Later in 2014, the Guggenheim's architect, Gehry, commented that working with the Abu Dhabi officials to implement the law to improve the labor conditions at the museum's site is "a moral responsibility." He encouraged the TDIC to build additional worker housing and proposed that the contractor cover the cost of the recruitment fees. In 2012, TDIC engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers as an independent monitor required to issue reports every quarter. Labor lawyer Scott Horton told Architectural Record'' that he hoped the Guggenheim project will influence the treatment of workers on other Saadiyat sites and will "serve as a model for doing things right."
## See also
- Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France
- List of museums in Paris
- Musée de la mode et du textile |
13,280,513 | Launch Party | 1,150,875,056 | null | [
"2007 American television episodes",
"The Office (American TV series) episodes in multiple parts",
"The Office (American season 4) episodes"
] | "Launch Party" is the fifth and sixth episode of the fourth season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's fifty-eighth and fifty-ninth episode overall. The episode was written by Jennifer Celotta and directed by Ken Whittingham. It first aired in the United States on October 11, 2007, on NBC.
In this episode, Dunder Mifflin prepares for the launch of their new website. Dwight tries to outsell the website, Andy makes a move for Angela, and Michael kidnaps a pizza delivery boy (Kevin McHale).
## Plot
Michael has arranged a meeting to discuss making the Quarterly Report more exciting, unaware that the office workers are more interested in the screensaver, and believes their disappointment whenever the bouncing box doesn't make it into a corner are reactions to his statements. Eventually, the box makes it into a corner, and the cheering employees leave, to his confusion.
Dunder Mifflin is preparing a launch party for their new website. Jan Levinson doesn't want to go so Michael invites Pam Beesly, who makes Jim Halpert take her place. Only after they reach New Jersey does Jim realize that Michael received an invitation to a chat room, not the actual party. Jim reveals he turned down the corporate job that Ryan Howard accepted. Michael returns to Scranton and attempts to plan a better party, irritating party planner Angela Martin, already irritable due to the death of her cat. She takes out her frustrations on fellow Party Planning Committee member Phyllis, who quits the committee.
Dwight Schrute wants to win back Angela's affection by competing against the website to see who can make more sales. Andy Bernard keeps a tally of reams sold, blowing an airhorn whenever Dwight makes a sale. Jim and Pam send Dwight instant messages pretending to be the computer system having achieved self-awareness. Dwight wins the challenge, but when he gloats to Angela she makes it clear they are broken up for good. She asks Pam to set her up with a friend of hers. Pam sends a message as the computer acknowledging Dwight as the superior being. Andy sets up a conference call with his old Cornell friends to serenade Angela with "Take a Chance on Me".
Michael realizes that Ryan doesn't respect him, and on the chat room he snaps that Dwight outsold DMI and curses at Ryan. Everyone complains that Michael confused the office's favorite pizza place, Alfredo's Pizza Cafe, with a terrible pizza place, Pizza by Alfredo. When his coupon is refused he holds the teenaged delivery driver hostage. Eventually realizing he is breaking the law he lets the kid go, then crashes the party in NYC with Dwight. Michael is cheered when a young corporate worker says they liked his rant against Ryan. When Michael points out that it was Dwight who beat the website in sales, the worker says it was funny to see Ryan embarrassed, and the two head home.
## Production
"Launch Party" was the sixth episode of the series directed by Ken Whittingham. Whittingham had previously directed "Health Care", "Michael's Birthday", "The Convention", "The Merger", and "Phyllis' Wedding". "Launch Party" was written by Jennifer Celotta, making it the sixth episode written by her.
According to Jennifer Celotta, the idea for the first scene of the episode where the office workers are watching a logo bounce around a television screen, came when the writers were in a room watching the DVD logo bounce around the television screen, and were arguing about whether it would ever hit the corner.
## Reception
"Launch Party" received a 5.2 Nielsen Rating and an 8% Share. The episode was watched by 8.91 million viewers and achieved a 4.7/11 in the key adults 18–49 demographic.
"Launch Party" received mixed reviews from critics. TV Squad's Jay Black wondered why the writers "feel the need to veer off into increasingly more ridiculous places", especially because The Office is "hailed by critics and adored by fans for its ability to find humor in the smallest pieces of real-life human interaction". Black did say that except for the kidnapping, he "thought tonight's episode was the best of the season." Travis Fickett of IGN wrote that "Launch Party" was "a very entertaining episode with some terrific moments." Fickett did say that with all the hour-long episodes "things start to feel stretched and some scenes take on a sense of redundancy and certain storylines seem to peter out before they even get going." |
25,420,409 | 2001 Gujarat cyclone | 1,167,707,453 | North Indian cyclone in 2001 | [
"2001 disasters in India",
"Extremely severe cyclonic storms",
"Tropical cyclones in 2001",
"Tropical cyclones in India",
"Tropical cyclones in Pakistan"
] | The 2001 Gujarat cyclone was the third strongest tropical cyclone, in terms of barometric pressure, to form in the Arabian Sea on record; only Cyclones Gonu in 2007 and Kyarr in 2019 were stronger. The storm originated from a tropical disturbance that formed east of Somalia on May 18. Over the following few days, the system gradually organized into a tropical depression. Tracking eastward, towards the coastline of southwestern India, the storm slowly intensified. Shortly before reaching shore, the system turned north and later west, away from land. After taking this turn, the storm intensified into a very severe cyclonic storm, attaining its peak intensity on May 24 with winds of 215 km/h (130 mph 3-minute winds) and a barometric pressure of 932 mbar (hPa). At the time, this ranked the cyclone as the strongest known storm in the Arabian Sea.
After stalling several hundred kilometres offshore, the storm weakened over cooler waters that it had upwelled. By May 27, the system weakened to a cyclonic storm and by this time was approaching the northwestern coastline of India, near Gujarat. The following day, the storm made landfall in the Saurashtra region as a deep depression with winds of 55 km/h (35 mph 3-minute winds). The depression quickly weakened after moving inland and dissipated early on May 29.
Although a powerful cyclone over water, the storm had relatively little impact over land. In the Valsad district, two coastal communities lost a combined 200 homes due to large swells produced by the storm. However, the losses were more extensive offshore. Between 120 and 900 fishermen were listed as missing after contact was lost with their vessels during the storm.
## Meteorological history
The origins of the 2001 Gujarat cyclone can be traced to a tropical disturbance over the Arabian Sea on May 18. The following day, the system was determined to be relatively stationary near the island of Socotra. Although deep convection was associated with the disturbance, there was no evidence of a low-level circulation. By May 20, the disturbance slowly moved towards the southeast in response to an upper-level trough over India. The overall structure gradually improved as good outflow developed. A mid-level circulation finally developed late on May 21, prompting the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) to issue a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert. Several hours later, they began monitoring the system as a tropical depression with the identifier 01A; however, operational advisories were not issued until the cyclone was estimated to have attained tropical storm intensity. By the morning of May 22, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) also took notice of the system.
Situated in a region favoring tropical cyclone development about 650 km (400 mi) southwest of Mumbai, India, the storm rapidly developed. By the afternoon of May 22, the JTWC estimated that 01A attained winds of 120 km/h (75 mph), equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale. Additionally, a 22 km (14 mi)-wide eye developed within the center of circulation during this intensification phase. Throughout most of May 22, the strengthening slowed considerably as it paralleled the southwestern coast of India. Initially, it was feared that the storm would move inland as a powerful cyclone; however, a ridge over the northern Arabian Sea caused the storm to turn westward, back over open water. Once further away from land, the cyclone resumed intensification, becoming a rare, Category 3 equivalent storm by the morning of May 24. Later that morning, 01A attained its peak intensity with winds of 205 km/h (125 mph), according to the JTWC. However, the IMD considered the storm to be slightly stronger, estimating that it attained winds of 215 km/h (135 mph) by three-minute sustained winds along with a barometric pressure of 932 mbar (hPa; 27.52 inHg).
At the time of peak intensity, the cyclone displayed a well-defined eye and excellent outflow. Although a powerful storm, it quickly weakened as conditions became hostile for tropical cyclone development. Strong wind shear tore convection away from the cyclone and caused it to become disorganized. Within 48 hours, the system had degraded to a tropical storm and was situated roughly 555 km (345 mi) west-southwest of Mumbai. The weakening trend lessened shortly thereafter but still continued. Operationally, the JTWC issued their final advisory on the cyclone on May 28 as it weakened to a tropical depression over open waters. The once powerful cyclone, now devoid of all convection, tracked towards the northwestern coast of India. During the afternoon of May 29, the cyclone rapidly regenerated as it made landfall in Gujarat. The JTWC estimated that it crossed the coastline with winds of 100 km/h (60 mph). Not long after moving overland, the system rapidly weakened and dissipated over India within several hours.
## Preparations and impact
Ahead of the storm, all ports in Gujarat, including Kandla, one of the largest in the country, were closed as a precautionary measure. On May 25, over 10,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas in the threatened region. Throughout India, a total of 118,800 people were evacuated and 100,000 more were evacuated in Pakistan. The Indian military was placed on standby to undertake search-and-rescue missions immediately after the storms' passage. Fourteen districts of Gujarat were placed on red alert, the highest level of preparedness. Seven emergency control centers were set up across the country and officials alerted hospitals and fire crews about the approaching storm.
Several relief agencies were already positioned in the region in response to a magnitude 7.7 earthquake in January of that year that killed over 20,000 people. Additional disaster relief teams were deployed to the region to further prepare residents for the cyclone. Food, water and other necessities were stored and ready to be provided to victims of the storm. Large swells produced by the storm affected a large portion of the western Indian coastline, especially in the city of Bombay. In the Valsad district, two coastal communities lost a combined 200 homes due to large swells produced by the storm. Offshore, between 1,500 and 2,000 fishing vessels had lost contact with the mainland. Later reports indicated that between 120 and 900 fishermen had gone missing as a result of the cyclone.
## Records
Operationally, the cyclone was considered to be a Category 4 equivalent storm by the JTWC, with peak winds of 215 km/h (135 mph). This would have made the system the first recorded storm of that intensity on record in the Arabian Sea. However, in post-storm analysis, it was discovered that 1-minute winds did not exceed 205 km/h (125 mph). The next storm to reach this intensity was Cyclone Gonu in 2007 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, which became the first known super cyclonic storm in the region. Upon attaining its peak intensity, the storm attained a barometric pressure of 932 mbar (hPa), the lowest in the region at the time. The cyclone was ranked as the strongest in the Arabian Sea for six years until it was surpassed by Gonu in 2007, which attained a minimum pressure of 920 mbar (hPa). In 2010, Cyclone Phet surpassed the 2001 cyclone as the second-strongest storm in the region, attaining winds of 230 km/h (145 mph), according to the JTWC. Again it was surpassed to sixth place as Cyclone Kyarr, Cyclone Chapala, Cyclone Tauktae and Cyclone Nilofar surpassed its windspeed intensity as they become category 4 tropical cyclones in later years. Now this cyclone is tied with Cyclone Megh for sixth strongest cyclone in Arabian Sea based on windspeed of one minute mean.
## See also
- 2001 North Indian Ocean cyclone season
- Cyclone Gonu
- List of the most intense tropical cyclones |
399,970 | Morpeth, Northumberland | 1,172,991,937 | Town in Northumberland, England | [
"Civil parishes in Northumberland",
"County towns in England",
"Market towns in Northumberland",
"Morpeth, Northumberland",
"Towns in Northumberland"
] | Morpeth is a historic market town in Northumberland, North East England, lying on the River Wansbeck. Nearby towns include Ashington and Bedlington. In the 2011 census, the population of Morpeth was given as 14,017, up from 13,833 in the 2001 census. The earliest evidence of settlement is believed to be from the Neolithic period, and some Roman artifacts have also been found. The first written mention of the town is from 1080, when the de Merlay family was granted the barony of Morpeth. The meaning of the town's name is uncertain, but it may refer to its position on the road to Scotland and a murder which occurred on that road. The de Merlay family built two castles in the town in the late 11th century and the 13th century. The town was granted its coat of arms in 1552. By the mid-1700s it had become one of the main markets in England, having been granted a market charter in 1200, but the opening of the railways in the 1800s led the market to decline. The town's history is celebrated in the annual Northumbrian Gathering.
Morpeth is governed by Northumberland County Council and Morpeth Town Council. The town is split into three wards – North, Kirkhill and Stobhill – for the purposes of parish elections. In 2008 the town suffered a severe flood, which was repeated in 2012, resulting in the construction of new flood defences. Morpeth railway station is on the east coast line and a curve to the south of it has caused several rail crashes. Several sports teams compete in Morpeth, with Morpeth Town A.F.C. having been the winner of the FA Vase in 2016. The town hosted its own Olympics from 1873 to 1958. Two middle schools, a high school and seven first schools are situated in Morpeth, as well as several churches of Anglican, Roman Catholic, United Reformed and Methodist denominations. Morpeth's Carlisle Park, the recipient of several awards, contains one of the four floral clocks in England.
## History
Morpeth was founded at a crossing point of the River Wansbeck. Remains from prehistory are scarce, but the earliest evidence of occupation found is a stone axe thought to be from the Neolithic period. There is a lack of evidence of activity during the Roman occupation of Britain, although there were probably settlements in the area at that time. The first written reference is from 1080 when William de Merlay was rewarded for his part in suppressing a rebellion in Northumbria with "the Barony of Morthpeth stretching from the Tyne to the Coquet". The name derives from Old English morð pæð and literally means "murder path"; writing in 1666, the antiquarian John Stainsby attributed this moniker to "the many robberies and murders in those parts committed".
The barony of Morpeth was granted to the de Merlay family in around 1080, and by 1095 a motte-and-bailey castle had been built by William de Merlay. It is uncertain whether there was any settlement at Morpeth at the time that the barony was created, and documents relating to the foundation of an abbey in 1137 refer to the "new town of Morpeth". Newminster Abbey, located on the outskirts of Morpeth, was founded in 1138 by William's son, Ranulf de Merlay, lord of Morpeth, and his wife, Juliana, daughter of Gospatric II, Earl of Lothian, as one of the first daughter houses of Fountains Abbey. King John granted a market charter for the town to Roger de Merlay in 1200. It became one of the main markets in Northern England by the mid-1700s and by the mid 18th century was one of the key cattle markets in England selling cattle driven by drovers over the border from Scotland; however, the opening of the railways made transport to Newcastle easier in the 19th century, and the market accordingly declined. The market is still held on Wednesdays.
The town was badly damaged by fire set by the barons in 1215 during the First Barons' War, in an attempt to block the military operations of King John. Whilst it is common report that the motte-and-bailey castle was burnt down by King John in 1216 and a new Morpeth Castle was built later in the 13th century by Ranulph de Merlay, to the south of Haw Hill, there is no firm evidence that King John destroyed the castle and an alternative narrative suggests that the second castle was in fact "completed by William de Merlay (the 2nd) in the year of his death" (c. 1170). In the 13th century, a stone bridge was built over the Wansbeck in Morpeth, to the west of the current bridge, replacing the ford previously in use in Morpeth. For some months in 1515–16, Margaret Tudor (Henry VIII's sister) who was the Queen Consort of Scotland (James IV's widow), had laid ill in Morpeth Castle, having been brought there from Harbottle Castle. The only remains of the castle are the inner gatehouse, which was restored by the Landmark Trust, and parts of the ruined castle walls.
In 1540, Morpeth was described by the royal antiquary John Leland as "long and metely well-builded, with low houses" and "a far fairer town than Alnwick". During the 1543–51 war of the Rough Wooing, Morpeth was occupied by a garrison of Italian mercenaries, who "pestered such a little street standing in the highway" by killing deer and withholding payment for food. In 1552, William Hervey, Norroy King of Arms, granted the borough of Morpeth a coat of arms. The arms were the same as those granted to Roger de Merlay, but with the addition of a gold tower. In the letters patent, Hervey noted that he had included the arms of the "noble and valyaunt knyght ... for a p'petuall memory of his good will and benevolence towardes the said towne".
Morpeth was a borough by prescription, but received its first charter of confirmation from Charles II. The corporation it created was controlled by seven companies: the Merchant Tailors, the Tanners, the Fullers and Dyers, the Smiths, the Cordwainers, the Weavers and the Butchers. This remained the governing charter until the borough was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. During the Second World War, RAF Morpeth, an air-gunnery training school, opened at nearby Tranwell.
The town and the county's history and culture are celebrated at the annual Northumbrian Gathering. The gathering is held over a weekend in mid-April and includes the Border Cavalcade and Pageant. The 50th gathering took place in 2017.
## Governance
Morpeth has two tiers of local government.
The lower tier is Morpeth Town Council, which has 15 members. Morpeth is a civil parish with the status of a town. For the purposes of parish elections the town is divided into three wards: North, Kirkhill and Stobhill, each returning five town councillors. Each ward also elects one County Councillor. In May 2021, the political make up of the Town Council was ten Conservatives, two Liberal Democrats, two Green and one Labour member.
The upper tier of local government is Northumberland County Council, which meets at County Hall in Morpeth. Since April 2009 the county council has been a unitary authority. Previous to this there was an intermediate tier, the non-metropolitan district of Castle Morpeth, which has been abolished along with all other districts in the county. The county council has 67 councillors, of whom three represent Morpeth, one each from the electoral wards of Morpeth Kirkhill, Morpeth North and Morpeth Stobhill. The 2017 and 2021 County Council elections both elected three Conservative councillors for the three wards.
## Climate
Cockle Park, located slightly north of Morpeth, contains a Met Office weather station, founded in 1897.
### 2008 and 2012 floods
On 6 September 2008, Morpeth suffered a severe flood, causing damage to 1,000 properties and leading 400 residents to be evacuated. The town's flood defences were breached after 12 hours, when a month's worth of rain fell on Morpeth.
In September 2012, flooding occurred again, causing damage to properties, although floodwaters were reportedly 3 feet (1 m) shallower than in 2008.
### Flood defences
Work on flood defences started in 2013 in response to the 2008 floods. New flood defences were built in the town centre and a dam with a storage reservoir was built on the Mitford Estate. A second £27m dam was completed in May 2017 to reduce flooding from the Cotting Burn and marked the completion of the Morpeth flood defence plan.
## Transport
### Road
The A1, the longest numbered road in the UK, used to pass through Morpeth until the bypass was opened in 1970. Other roads that pass though the town are: A192, A196, A197, B1337, B6343 and the B6524.
Morpeth Northern Bypass
The Morpeth Northern Bypass was a project to decrease traffic congestion in Morpeth town centre and decrease journey times from Pegswood, Ashington and Newbiggin to the A1 and beyond. The Bypass follows on from the Pegswood Bypass at Whorral Bank Roundabout and continues to the St George's Roundabout and then onto Northgate Roundabout and St Leonard's A1 Junction. The Project was completed in 2017, which has allowed increased connectivity to SE Northumberland and beyond.
### Rail
Morpeth's railway station is on the main East Coast Main Line which runs between London and Edinburgh. To the south of the station is a sharp curve which has been the scene of several train crashes. A non-passenger line operates between Morpeth and Bedlington. A former line, closed in 1966, ran west from Morpeth to Scots Gap (from where there was a branch line to Rothbury), then west to Redesmouth, and lastly south to Hexham.
### Bus
Arriva North East are the main operator of bus services in the town, with services going to nearby towns and villages such as Pegswood, Guide Post, Ashington, Bedlington or to Newcastle, Alnwick, Amble, Berwick or Widdrington.
## Education
The local state school, King Edward VI School, was originally founded as a chantry school in the early 14th century and was located in the Morpeth Chantry. The school was refounded in 1552 by royal charter as the Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth, being commonly referred to as the Morpeth Grammar School by locals. The school was renamed to King Edward VI Grammar School by 1947 and in the 1970s lost its grammar school status, becoming a comprehensive under the current name.
The town has two middle schools, Newminster and Chantry, which are built next door to one another. It also has several first schools: Abbeyfields First School in Kirkhill, Morpeth First School in Loansdean to the south of the town, Stobhillgate First School in the Stobhillgate housing estate, and Morpeth All Saints' Church of England-aided First School in Lancaster Park, which is located north of the town. Additionally, St. Robert's R.C. First School, a primary school for Roman Catholics, is located in Oldgate, Morpeth.
## Religious sites
### Church of England
The ancient Church of England parish church of Morpeth is St Mary's at High Church, which was the main Anglican place of worship in the area until the 1840s. The church is mostly in the 14th century style. The grave of Emily Wilding Davison lies in St Mary's graveyard.
In 1843, a public meeting was called to address the lack of attendance at the church, and it was found that the walk to the current church, then on the southern edge of the town, was too much for many of the parishioners. From this meeting, it was decided to build a new church in the town centre and accordingly, the church of St James the Great was consecrated for worship on 15 October 1846. Benjamin Ferrey designed the church in a "Neo-Norman" style, based on the 12th century Monreale Cathedral, Sicily.
A third parish church, St Aidan's, was founded as a mission church in 1957, located on the Stobhill estate on the south-east of the town.
### Roman Catholic Church
Morpeth's Roman Catholic Church, St Robert of Newminster Church, was built off Oldgate on land adjacent to Admiral Lord Collingwood's house. It was consecrated on 1 August 1850 by the Right Reverend William Hogarth, Bishop of Samosata (later Bishop of Hexham). Collingwood House is now the presbytery (residence) for the priest in charge of the Church.
### United Reformed Church
Morpeth has had a Presbyterian ministry since 1693. Their first service was held in a tannery loft in the town in February 1693 and in 1721 a chapel was built in Cottingwood Lane, which still exists as a private home. The construction of St. George's United Reformed Church began in 1858 and the first service in the new building was held on 12 April 1860. The Church stands immediately to the north of the Telford Bridge and is in the style of the early English era, containing a stained glass rose window and an octagonal spirelet.
### Methodist Church
The present Methodist Church in Howard Terrace was opened as a Primitive Methodist place of worship on 24 April 1905. Designed by J. Walton Taylor, it was built from local quarry stone. Although the Primitive Methodists were united with the Wesleyan Church to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain in 1932, a separate Wesleyan Church continued to function in Manchester Street until 1964, when the congregations were united at Howard Terrace. The former Wesleyan Church (built in 1883) is currently used as the Boys' Brigade headquarters.
## Sport
Morpeth Town A.F.C., Morpeth RFC and the Morpeth Golf Club play competitively within Morpeth. In addition, the Morpeth Harriers compete in athletics. The town also offers opportunities to play sport on a non-competitive basis through facilities such as Carlisle Park, the common for playing golf and football, and the Riverside leisure centre for swimming, indoor sports and fitness gym activities. Morpeth Town A.F.C. was the 2016 winner of the FA Vase.
The Morpeth Olympic Games, a professional event consisting mainly of athletics and wrestling, were staged from 1873 until 1958, barring interruptions during the two world wars. The Games were held on the Old Brewery Field until 1896, then at Grange House Field until the First World War. After two years at the town's cricket pitch at Stobhill (1919–20), the Olympics moved to Mount Haggs Field until 1939, and then back to Grange House Field after the war until the end of the games in 1958.
In 1730, a racecourse was built for horse racing, which was used until 1854, when the racetrack was replaced with St. George's Hospital.
The town was the start point of the Morpeth To Newcastle Road Race. It was held annually on New Year's Day from 1902 to 2004, when insurance and policing costs became prohibitively high, and winners included Commonwealth champion Jack Holden and Olympic medallist Mike McLeod.
## Landmarks
The historical layout of central Morpeth consisted of Bridge Street, Oldgate Street and Newgate Street, with burgage plots leading off them. Traces of this layout remain: Old Bakehouse Yard off Newgate Street is a former burgage plot, as is Pretoria Avenue, off Oldgate. The town stands directly on what used to be the Great North Road, the old coaching route between London and Edinburgh.
Carlisle Park is located on the southern bank of the River Wansbeck in Morpeth. The park has the William Turner Garden, one of the only four floral clocks in England, a statue of Emily Wilding Davison, as well as other facilities and attractions. Morpeth's Mafeking Park, at the bottom of Station Bank, was unsuccessfully put forward by locals to be listed as the smallest park in the world in the Guinness Book of Records.
Other landmarks are:
- Morpeth Clock Tower, a free-standing 17th century clock tower
- Morpeth Town Hall, originally designed by Sir John Vanbrugh (rebuilt 1869)
- Collingwood House, the Georgian home of Admiral Lord Collingwood
- Morpeth Chantry, a 13th-century chapel that now houses the town's tourist information centre and the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum
- Morpeth Castle, which stands on a hill to the south, is now operated by the Landmark Trust as holiday accommodation
- A nuclear bunker located underneath Morpeth County Hall
- A gateway on High Stanners framed by a whale's jawbone
- Ruins of Newminster Abbey, a former Cistercian abbey about one mile to the west of Morpeth
- Morpeth Court, former courthouse and prison, now converted into apartments
## Notable people
- Bill Rutherford (1955-), Professor and Chair in Biochemistry of Solar energy in the Department of Life sciences at Imperial College London.
- Lawrence William Adamson (1829–1911), High Sheriff of Northumberland, who died at Linden Hall near Morpeth in 1911
- James (Jim) Alder (born 1940), athlete, who spent his childhood in Morpeth after being adopted by Adler family
- Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge (1817–1892), founder of Bainbridge Department Store – the first such store in the world – in Newcastle upon Tyne, who, from 1877, lived near Morpeth at Eshott Hall
- Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham (1849–1931), born at Linden Hall, near Morpeth, who became private secretary to Queen Victoria and George V
- Robert Blakey (1795–1878), radical journalist and philosopher, born in Manchester Street, Morpeth
- Luke Clennell (1781–1840), engraver and painter, born in Morpeth
- Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood (1748–1810), Royal Navy Admiral. He lived at Collingwood House in Oldgate and once said "Whenever I think how I am to be happy again, my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth".
- Emily Wilding Davison, a suffragette who was killed when she fell under the King's horse during the Epsom Derby in 1913. Following her funeral in London, her coffin was brought by train to Morpeth for burial in St Mary's churchyard.
- William Elliott, Baron Elliott of Morpeth (1920–2011), Conservative politician born in Morpeth
- Toby Flood (born 1985), rugby union player for Leicester Tigers and England, who attended Morpeth Chantry School
- Hamish Turnbull (born 1999), Cyclist representing British Cycling and Great Britain.
- John Cuthbert Hedley (1837–1913), Benedictine monk and Roman Catholic Bishop of Newport born at Carlisle House, Morpeth
- Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle (1669–1738), MP for Morpeth in 1689–1692
- Robert Morrison (1782–1834), translator of the Bible into Chinese and first Protestant missionary in China, born in Buller's Green, Morpeth
- John Peacock (c. 1756–1817), piper, born in Morpeth
- John Urpeth Rastrick (1780–1856), railway engineer, born in Morpeth
- Joe Robinson (1919–1991), footballer, born in Morpeth, who played for Blackpool in the 1948 FA Cup Final
- Walter Trevelyan (1821 – 1894), first-class cricketer and barrister, born in Morpeth
- William Turner (naturalist) (c. 1508 – 13 July 1568), an English divine and reformer, physician and natural historian. The William Turner Garden is situated in Carlisle Park, Morpeth.
- Dr. N. T. Wright (born 1948), Anglican theologian and author, born in Morpeth
## See also
- Viscount Morpeth, the heir apparent to the Earl of Carlisle. |
42,627,652 | Five Days at Memorial | 1,164,962,764 | Book by Sheri Fink | [
"2013 non-fiction books",
"American non-fiction books",
"Books about Hurricane Katrina",
"Books about health care",
"Crown Publishing Group books",
"Ethics books",
"J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize-winning works",
"Non-fiction books adapted into television shows"
] | Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is a 2013 non-fiction book by the American journalist Sheri Fink. The book details the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in August 2005, and is an expansion of a Pulitzer Prize-winning article written by Fink and published in The New York Times Magazine in 2009. It describes the events that took place at Memorial Medical Center over five days as thousands of people were trapped in the hospital without power. The triage system put into effect deprioritized critically ill patients for evacuation, and it was later alleged that a number of these patients were euthanized by medical and nursing staff shortly before the entire hospital was evacuated on the fifth day of the crisis. Fink examines the legal and political consequences of the decision to euthanize patients and the ethical issues surrounding euthanasia and health care in disaster scenarios. The book was well received by most critics and won three awards, including a National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction.
The book was set to be the basis of the third season of the FX anthology true crime series American Crime Story before being scrapped. It has been adapted as a miniseries by John Ridley and Carlton Cuse for Apple TV+.
## Background
Five Days at Memorial originated as a 13,000-word magazine article titled "The Deadly Choices at Memorial", published by The New York Times Magazine in August 2009, the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The story focused on the events that unfolded in New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center (now Ochsner Baptist Medical Center) when the hospital was flooded and its generators failed in the aftermath of Katrina, drawing particular attention to the euthanasia of numerous patients by the medical and nursing staff. Fink was drawn to the subject matter because of her experience as a doctor working in areas of conflict and as a journalist reporting on hospitals in war zones. The article, which was a joint assignment for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, drew on two years' worth of research and interviews with 140 people and won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
While she was writing "The Deadly Choices at Memorial", Fink decided to expand the article into a book. Since she "kept finding out new facts and trying to fit them into the story because they seemed essential", she was encouraged by her editor to save the extra material to publish in a book. Expanding on her original research, Fink conducted over 500 interviews with people who were at the hospital during the disaster, families of the dead patients, hospital executives, law enforcement officials and ethicists. She interviewed Dr. Anna Pou, one of the principal characters of the story, about her experiences at Memorial, but Pou declined to discuss details related to patient deaths based on her lawyer's advice. Fink said that while "some of the medical and nursing professionals were observing a code of silence", she was impressed by the openness of several staff members, including two doctors who talked freely of their decision to euthanize their patients. Fink also reviewed photographs, videos, emails and diary entries produced at the time, and consulted weather reports and the hospital's floor plans.
## Content
The book is divided into two parts. The first part, titled "Deadly Choices", focuses on the events that occurred at Memorial Medical Center over the "five days" referred to in the book's title: August 28 – September 1, 2005. During these five days, Memorial's emergency plans proved inadequate as the hospital lost power and its back-up generators had failed, leaving it without lights, air conditioning, sewer systems and essential medical equipment. Thousands of staff, patients and evacuees were trapped by floodwaters inside the building awaiting evacuation by boat or helicopter. Fink describes the unconventional method of triage adopted by the medical staff, whereby ambulatory patients were prioritized for evacuation and those with "do not resuscitate" orders were placed last in the list. Patient evacuation began on the third day and progressed slowly until the fifth day, when some medical staff decided to hasten the deaths of critically ill patients, believing they would not survive, with lethal injections of morphine. The story is described from the perspective of several participants, pieced together from interviews, emails and phone logs.
The second part, titled "Reckoning", discusses the legal and political ramifications of Memorial's response to the crisis and especially the decisions to euthanize patients. In total, 45 patients died before the hospital was evacuated and 23 were identified as having concentrations of morphine and other drugs in their tissues. Fink focuses largely on the investigation into the actions of Dr. Anna Pou and two intensive care nurses, Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, all three of whom were charged with second-degree murder following allegations that they had administered lethal doses of morphine to some patients. The public's sympathy lay largely with the three accused Memorial staff; the charges against Landry and Budo were eventually dropped, and a grand jury chose not to indict Pou in 2007. Fink discusses the ethical issues surrounding the events at Memorial, as well as those involved in disaster settings and euthanasia in general. A brief epilogue critiques health care protocols in disasters and uses the example of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to illustrate the lack of change undertaken by hospitals in response to the disaster caused by Katrina and a failure of the US government to enforce standards for "emergency preparedness".
## Reception
Critical reviews of Five Days at Memorial were mostly positive. Jason Berry of The New York Times commended the "shimmering intelligence" of Fink's discussion of the events and their ethical issues, and summarized the book as "social reporting of the first rank". Another New York Times critic, bioethicist Sherwin B. Nuland, felt the book displayed "masterly reporting and the glow of fine writing" and offered particular praise for the tone and language of Fink's writing. The Independent's Hirsh Sawhney admired the detail and variety of perspectives offered in the book and described the book as "soar[ing] to artistic and intellectual heights undreamed of in other realms of media". Peter Beaumont, writing for The Guardian, found parts of the book awkward in structure, but felt that overall it was "tight, provocative and gripping" with a "fair and deeply sympathetic" approach to the involved parties. A review by John B. Saul in The Seattle Times commended Fink's ability to produce a "compelling and revealing account" of events despite limited access to evidence such as investigative reports and Pou's testimony, while the Star Tribune's Curt Schleier described Five Days at Memorial as "an important book that will make your blood boil no matter which side of the issue you support".
A more negative review came from Julia M. Klein of The Boston Globe, who found the book to be "overly long and detailed, sometimes hard to follow, and without a real narrative payoff" and felt that Fink's conclusions were presented more clearly in her original magazine article than in the book. Salon magazine's Laura Miller found the first half of the book lacking in "shape or coherence, the meaning of this or that detail unclear and the timeline occasionally muddled", but was more impressed with the discussion of the disaster aftermath in the second half. NPR critic Susan Jane Gilman faulted the book for "provok[ing] more debate than it answers" but praised Fink's "fair and balanced", "nuanced" writing.
### Awards and honors
Five Days at Memorial won the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction, the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Current Interest category, the 2014 Ridenhour Book Prize, and the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award (2015). It was shortlisted for the 2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It was an ALA Notable Books for Adults (2014), YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound (2014; Science and Technology) and Christian Science Monitor "15 Best" (2013; Nonfiction).
## Miniseries
On September 1, 2020, it was announced that Apple TV+ had given a series order to a television limited series adaptation of the book. John Ridley and Carlton Cuse will serve as showrunners, writers and executive producers. Ridley will direct the limited series and produced by ABC Signature, and Vera Farmiga, Adepero Oduye, Cornelius Smith Jr., Julie Ann Emery, Cherry Jones, Molly Hager, and Michael Gaston will star. |
13,863,187 | Constitution Center (Washington, D.C.) | 1,116,182,011 | null | [
"1969 establishments in Washington, D.C.",
"Buildings and structures completed in 1969",
"Landmarks in Washington, D.C.",
"Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certified buildings",
"Office buildings completed in 2009",
"Skyscraper office buildings in Washington, D.C.",
"Southwest Federal Center",
"United States Department of Transportation"
] | Constitution Center (formerly known as the David Nassif Building) is an office building located at 400 7th Street SW in Washington, D.C. It is 140 feet (43 m) high and has 10 floors. Covering an entire city block, it is the largest privately owned office building in the District of Columbia. Current tenants include the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. As of February 2014, Constitution Center was worth \$725.8 million, making it the most valuable taxable property in the city.
## Original structure
In the 1950s, the U.S. Congress, then the governing institution of the District of Columbia, undertook the Southwest D.C. urban renewal project, the first in the capital district and one of the earliest such programs in the nation. In 1946, Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped, and how. The RLA was not funded, however, until passage of the Housing Act of 1949. A 1950 study by the NCPC found that the small Southwest quarter of the city suffered from high concentrations of old and poorly maintained buildings, overcrowding, and threats to public health (such as lack of running indoor water, sewage systems, electricity, central heating, and indoor toilets). Competing visions for the redevelopment ranged from renovation to wholesale leveling of neighborhoods, but the latter view prevailed as more likely to qualify for federal funding. Original plans called for the demolition of almost all structures in Southwest Washington beginning in 1950, but legal challenges led to piecemeal razing of the area until the mid-1950s.
Issues surrounding the planning and construction of L'Enfant Plaza (immediately to the west of the site) delayed construction of any buildings on the block until the late 1960s. In 1963, the RLA purchased the land from the Westminster Memorial Church, Fifth Baptist Church, and homeowners. The United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare wished to purchase the site for its new headquarters, but the RLA declined to sell the property. (The federal government does not pay taxes on land and structures it owns, and the RLA wanted a private owner who would add to the tax base.) The RLA attempted to sell the land on January 29, 1965, but there were no buyers.
The building was constructed pursuant to an agreement between the General Services Administration (GSA) and Boston developer David Nassif, Sr. In July 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson began planning to unite various disparate transportation agencies into a new United States Department of Transportation. GSA (the property owner and manager for the U.S. federal government) began seeking to lease or build a structure to house the new agency in late 1965. Donald T. Kirwan, chief of GSA's leasing division, knew Nassif from a previous lease negotiation, and discussed with him the siting of a building and its size. Nassif approached the RLA on April 21, 1966, and asked to buy the newly razed block of land bounded by 6th, 7th, D, and E Streets SW. In May 1967, GSA sent a letter to Nassif advising him that it was likely to lease the entire structure he intended to build. The \$5.9 million land purchase was finalized on October 30, 1967. The cost of the structure is unclear. On November 15, 1967, Nassif had secured a \$39 million construction loan. But The Washington Post pegged the cost of the building at \$27 million in July 1968. The newspaper said in August 1970 that the cost of the structure was \$26.5 million. The building was designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone, who also designed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. On April 11, 1968, GSA leased the entire building from Nassif for 20 years for \$98 million. John A. Volpe Construction was the chief contractor.
Construction began in July 1968 (although it was delayed for a very short time when unionized ironworkers at the site went on strike) and was completed in 1969. The main entrance faced 7th Street SW. It included a central courtyard (open to the sky) which featured a fountain, footpaths, benches, and landscaping. Four 15-foot (4.6 m) high arcades pierced the building in the center of the block on each side, creating access to the courtyard. The facade's vertical marble ribs were obtained from the same quarry near Carrara, Italy, that provided the marble for the Kennedy Center. The finished building had 10 floors, three basement floors, overhanging eaves, and 2,500,000 square feet (230,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space (1,019,000 square feet (94,700 m<sup>2</sup>) of usable space). It was the largest privately owned office building in the city at the time.
Kirwan's contacts with Nassif later became the subject of a legal investigation. Kirwan not only shared inside information with Nassif about leasing plans of the GSA, he later invested in Nassif's D.C. business and became an officer in it. This relationship (Kirwan left GSA in December 1966, before the letter indicating intention to lease was set to Nassif), and GSA's irregular leasing of the building, became public knowledge in August 1970. An internal GSA audit was critical of the leasing process and the costs of the lease.
That same month, refinancing of the building was called into question. In the U.S., it is common business practice for the initial lender to provide an interim loan (the "construction loan") to build a building. The interim loan is then paid off by a second lender, who becomes the mortgage lender and receives payments from the building's owner. Riggs Bank, a local D.C. bank, had provided the interim construction loan to Nassif. The New York City Employees Retirement System was to have paid off this construction loan. That payment was halted when the loan officer Nassif had dealt with was indicted for taking bribes to approve loans. When the pension fund refused to provide the loan, Riggs Bank sued for payment and threatened to foreclose on the Nassif Building.
From 1969 until 2007, the Nassif Building served as the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The building was designed to have removable interior walls to permit easy reconfiguration of the interior space. In November 1970, the federal government exercised its powers of eminent domain and seized control of the three-story basement parking garage from Nasif in order to provide inexpensive parking for DOT workers. Over the years, so many government workers complained of ailments while working in the structure that some believed it suffered from sick building syndrome. David Nassif Associates, owner of the building, disputed these claims. However, when the Department of Transportation announced it would leave the building in 2000, the owners promised a \$100 million renovation that included a new air ventilation and cleaning system as an inducement for the agency to stay. The owners also unsuccessfully sued the General Services Administration in 1999 to force it to renew the federal lease on the building. The Department of Transportation completed their move out of the Nassif Building and into their new headquarters in June 2007.
The L'Enfant Plaza Metro station opened an escalator entrance in the structure's north arcade on July 1, 1977. The entrance was one of two which opened that day (Metro Blue Line's opening day). The third entrance (inside the L'Enfant Promenade underground shopping center at L'Enfant Plaza) opened in October 1977. In June 1992, Virginia Railway Express opened the \$1.1 million VRE L'Enfant Station on Virginia Avenue SE (about a half block north of Constitution Center).
## Renovation
In 2006, Nassif Associates announced a \$220 million renovation of the building and renamed it "Constitution Center". SmithGroup was the architectural firm overseeing the redesign, and Davis Construction oversaw the construction.
The renovation included some of the highest security features of any building in the D.C. area. They included a central and perimeter security system; closing of the central plaza of the building, which, along with other changes, increased its interior footage by 80,000 square feet (7,400 m<sup>2</sup>); steel-jacketed underground parking garage columns capable of withstanding a powerful explosion; six fully staffed security screening points; concrete blockades built into the façade; communication, potable water, and utilities contained in blast-proof spaces; ventilation shafts for the parking garage in a secure area; and special security procedures to obtain access to the building's critical systems. The security enhancements made the office building suitable for all federal agencies with the exception of the United States Department of Defense. The 700,000-square-foot (65,000 m<sup>2</sup>) underground parking garage contains 1,500 spaces.
Several amenities were also added to the building. These included a 10,000-square-foot (930 m<sup>2</sup>), 400-seat auditorium on the courtyard/plaza level; a six-room, 11,000 square feet (1,000 m<sup>2</sup>) conference center which can accommodate meetings of 10 to 500 people; a full-service cafeteria on the plaza level, with access to the courtyard; and a fitness center for 100 people.
The exterior of the building was also radically changed. The celebrated key visual feature of the building, its exterior vertical white marble ribbing, was completely removed after it was found to be bowed from age and weather. Although this fundamentally changed the nature of Durrell's building, there was almost no public outcry. It was replaced by an energy-efficient, all-glass facade. Perhaps the most significant renovation feature was the structure's use of a chilled beam HVAC system, which uses chilled or heated water circulated in strategically placed columns in the interior space to cool and warm the building. To test the efficiency of the chilled beam technology, the system was installed in the penthouse of the building and tested for a full year. The architect agreed to use the system after the test outperformed specifications. The installation represented the first large-scale use of the chilled beam technology in the United States. Other energy-saving enhancements included motion and daylight detectors to turn lights off when not needed, and special exterior windows which automatically dim to prevent daytime heating. The building's ventilation system was also upgraded. The renovation left the structure with 1,400,000 square feet (130,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of interior space. The final cost of the renovation was pegged at \$250 million.
Some aesthetic improvements were made as well. The building now features a 1 acre (0.40 ha) park in its open-to-the-sky central courtyard. Most of the courtyard's concrete was removed and trees, shrubs, and flowers planted to absorb rainwater. The park, which is now no longer accessible by the public, also includes a very large granite abstract art sculpture ("Legacy") by Richard Deutsch. The sculpture is meant to reflect the original facade of the building by Edward Durrell Stone as well as the memory of David Nassif, Sr. and his son, David Nassif, Jr. The L'Enfant Plaza Metro station still has an entrance under the building on D Street SW (although this entrance closed between October 2007 and July 2008 for the building's reconstruction). The renovation installed artwork by internationally-known artist Stephen Knapp near this entrance, in which strong beams of light are passed through dyed glass to splay brightly colored patterns on the ceiling. The light sculpture, titled "Transformation", symbolizes the building's renovation and rebirth.
The Constitution Center is registered with the Green Building Council for Gold LEED Certification.
The renovated Constitution Center won two awards. The Mid-Atlantic Construction construction news Web site gave the building its "Project of the Year – Renovation/Restoration" accolade in December 2010. On March 25, 2011, the Washington Building Congress bestowed its 2011 WBC Craftsmanship Award on J.E. Richards, Inc. for excellence in workmanship in installing the power generation, distribution, and switchgear at Constitution Center.
In January 2011, Constitution Center was valued at \$446 million by city tax assessors, making it the third most valuable private property in the city that year.
## Tenants
The late-2000s recession left the renovated building struggling to find tenants. It was empty for nearly two years after it was opened for occupancy in April 2009. Both the United States Department of Homeland Security and NASA explored leasing all or part of it in 2009 and 2010, but chose not to do so. In August 2010, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) signed a letter contract for 900,000 square feet (84,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space at Constitution Center. The SEC planned to take occupancy in September 2011. In January 2011, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency agreed to lease 640,000 square feet (59,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space and the Federal Housing Finance Agency signed an agreement to occupy 335,000 square feet (31,100 m<sup>2</sup>) of space. The Office of the Comptroller and the Federal Housing Finance Agency both occupied the building by March 2012.
The SEC's occupancy of the building did not occur as planned. In October 2010, the SEC informed Nassif Associates that it needed only 340,000 square feet (32,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of the 900,000 square feet (84,000 m<sup>2</sup>) it had leased. On January 20, 2011, the SEC's inspector general launched an investigation into whether the SEC leased was proper and legal. SEC chairman Mary Schapiro was strongly criticized by Republicans in the United States House of Representatives for her handling of the lease, which she had personally approved. By May, it was unclear if the SEC would occupy any space at all in the building. On May 23, the SEC inspector general requested a formal opinion by the Comptroller General of the United States as to whether the lease violated the Antideficiency Act. The inspector general said SEC "grossly overestimated the amount of space needed at SEC Headquarters for the SEC's projected expansion by more than 300 percent and used these groundless and unsupportable figures to justify the SEC committing to an expenditure of \$556.8 million over 10 years".
In early July 2011, Nassif Associates said it had agreed to release the SEC from occupying 550,000 square feet (51,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space at Constitution Center. The company asked the SEC to reimburse it for \$45 million in build-out and other expenses incurred between August 2010 and July 2011, but the agency declined to do so. Nassif Associates said it declined to file suit against the agency, although it indicated it would continue to negotiate with the SEC and other federal agencies to seek reimbursement. At the same time, the United States Department of Justice said it was considering whether to prosecute officials at the SEC over the lease's handling and the alleged forging of documents designed to justify it.
Occupancy issues at Constitution Center were further confused by legislative action. In October 2011, the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted 31-to-22 to permit the Federal Trade Commission to lease 160,000 square feet (15,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space at Constitution Center and vacate the Apex Building (which would be turned over to the National Gallery of Art). Although this legislation was not adopted by Congress, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in March 2012 directed the General Services Administration (GSA) to analyze space needs for the Federal Trade Commission and several other federal agencies in the District of Columbia and issue a report to the committee on how Constitution Center could meet these needs. GSA reported in June 2012 that Constitution Center held too little space to house the entire FTC, and it was too costly to do so (after accounting for moving expenses and rental prices). GSA instead proposed that the FTC lease additional space at 601 New Jersey Avenue NW and 1800 M Street NW (where it already leased space, and where additional room was available).
In April 2012, Nassif Associates said the SEC owed it rent as well. The company said the letter contract required the agency to pay \$1.3 million a month beginning November 1, 2011. As of April 30, 2012, the agency owed \$7.75 million in back rent, a company spokesperson said. The agency disputed the cost, saying the build-out of the interior was never completed. SEC officials also said the agency now needed no space at all at Constitution Center, and that the SEC was working with GSA to find other federal tenants to take over its lease. In late May, the Federal Aviation Administration said it might lease 270,000 square feet (25,000 m<sup>2</sup>) of space in the building as part of a major consolidation of six of its offices in the city.
In July 2012, GSA bowed to congressional pressure and moved 1,100 FTC workers into Constitution Center from leased locations at 601 New Jersey Avenue NW and 1800 M Street NW. The deal kept the FTC in its Apex Building headquarters. Three months later, GSA rented out the last of its space in Constitution Center by signing leases for the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.
## 2012 sale
On April 22, 2011, David Nassif Associates announced it was putting Constitution Center up for sale, and said it hoped to find a buyer by the end of summer 2011. The company also said it hoped for a \$900 million purchase price. Real estate banking firm Eastdil Secured assisted in securing a buyer.
In June 2012, the Washington Business Journal reported that CommonWealth Partners and Nassif Associates had negotiated a purchase agreement, but were unable to reach agreement. CommonWealth Partners then withdrew from any further discussions.
A deal for the sale of Constitution Center was agreed to in December 2012. MetLife and an unidentified investor (represented by Clarion Partners LLC) each purchased a 50 percent interest in the building. The sale price was \$734 million, or \$524 per square foot (0.093 square meters). The sale price was the most expensive in D.C. history for a single building. (It was not the most paid per square foot, however. That record went to two-building Market Square at 701 and 801 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, which sold in 2011 to Wells Real Estate Investment Trust for \$905 per square foot.) When the deal closed in February 2013, David Nassif Associates announced it would wind down its operations and liquidate its remaining obligations.
City tax assessors said that Constitution Center's value rose to \$725.8 million in 2014, up from \$573.5 million in 2013 (an increase of \$152.3 million), making it the most valuable taxable property in the District of Columbia. |
17,695,243 | Tropical Storm Arthur (2008) | 1,171,670,571 | Atlantic tropical storm in 2008 | [
"2008 Atlantic hurricane season",
"2008 in Mexico",
"Atlantic tropical storms",
"Off-season Atlantic tropical cyclones",
"Tropical cyclones in 2008"
] | Tropical Storm Arthur was the first Atlantic tropical storm that formed during the month of May since 1981. The first tropical cyclone of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, the storm formed on May 30, 2008 from the interaction of two tropical waves and the remnants of the eastern Pacific Tropical Storm Alma, which had crossed into the western Caribbean Sea. The system quickly organized and was named Tropical Storm Arthur on May 31, while crossing the shore of Belize. It dissipated two days later over the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Arthur and its remnants triggered severe flooding which killed a reported nine people and affected 100,000 more in Belize. Damage was light to moderate, estimated at \$78 million (2008 USD).
## Meteorological history
By May 29, 2008, the western Caribbean Sea became tropically active due to the presence of two tropical waves and Tropical Storm Alma, which was located in the east Pacific Ocean. The system generated a broad surface low pressure system, as well as clusters of atmospheric convection. The next day, Alma made landfall on Nicaragua, pulling deep tropical moisture into the region. Upper level outflow was spreading outwards from the tropical storm with a high pressure system over the Caribbean. A surface trough developed and extended from inland Honduras to just south of the Cayman Islands, which sparked further development of strong convection. Later that day, the remnants of Alma merged with another tropical wave in the western Caribbean, which sparked the development of a new surface low.
On May 31, the remnants of Alma were situated along the coast of Belize as a 1004 mbar low-pressure system. A broad upper-level ridge was anchored over the Gulf of Honduras, which covered the entire region and maintained deep tropical moisture. Satellite imagery and a NOAA buoy reported sustained tropical storm-force winds. Despite moving ashore, the system was named Tropical Storm Arthur about 45 mi (72 km) north-northwest of Belize City. In post-analysis, it was determined that Arthur had developed more than 12 hours earlier, late on May 30, and made landfall early on May 31 with 45 mph (75 km/h) winds in northeastern Belize. While over land, Arthur maintained minimal tropical storm force winds, concentrated primarily over open waters to the east and northeast. Despite being over land for several hours, the storm maintained a fairly organized structure. The storm contained a large low-level center, accompanied by convective banding, and was developing new convective cells. Initially, it was thought Arthur would continue generally westward due to a ridge to its north, and later re-intensify in the Bay of Campeche.
The associated thunderstorm activity became separated from the center of circulation, and early on June 1, the center became difficult to locate due to becoming disorganized. It remained a tropical storm over land for nearly 24 hours before weakening to a tropical depression later that day. While drifting southwestward over land, Arthur weakened further, and the National Hurricane Center issued its last advisory on the system late on June 1. By June 4, the remnants of Arthur were diminishing over southeastern Mexico without any redevelopment. Thunderstorms briefly redeveloped two days later, as its associated circulation crossed over the Bay of Campeche into Veracruz, although it dissipated soon after.
## Impact and records
In preparation for the storm, ports were closed in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, while residents and tourists were encouraged to take precautions in coastal areas. Also, ports were closed on the islands of Cozumel, Isla Mujeres and in Chetumal. Small boats were restricted from leaving some ports, but evacuations were deemed unnecessary. Tropical storm warnings were issued as soon as the storm was first classified for the coast of Belize and the coast of Mexico south of Cabo Catoche, and remained in effect until Arthur weakened to a tropical depression.
While crossing Belize, Arthur dropped heavy rainfall, estimated as high as 15 in (380 mm). The storm produced rainfall as far south as Belize City and kicked up strong surf on the island of Ambergris Caye. Winds from Arthur forced the closure of two of Mexico's three main oil exporting ports in the Gulf of Mexico due to rough seas. The storm's remnants, combined with recent heavy rains from Tropical Storm Alma, triggered flash flooding and caused rivers in southern and northern Belize to overflow. The flooding damaged one bridge and one highway, and several other bridges were under water. One village was evacuated, and shelters in Corozal and Orange Walk were opened. In rural areas the electricity was cut off due to safety issues. Dozens were stranded on their roof due to high water, and work to repair an important highway was halted when flood waters washed away the repaired section. Papaya plantations, shrimp farms and rice crops were also affected by the unsettled weather.
In all, about 100,000 people were affected by the flooding, and nine fatalities were reported; five of which were directly attributed to Arthur. A total of 714 houses were damaged, and damage in Belize was estimated at \$78 million (2008 USD). British helicopters helped rescue stranded people following the storm, and Mexico provided a helicopter to help carry supplies to areas affected by the flooding. Prime Minister Dean Barrow declared a disaster area in southern Belize's Stann Creek Valley. Additionally, the government rushed food, water and clothing to about 13,000 people.
When Arthur later moved over Mexico, it dropped heavy rainfall, with a maximum 24-hour total of 8.34 in (212 mm) in Pijijiapan, Chiapas. There were no reports of damage or deaths in the country. Arthur was the first tropical storm to form in May in the Atlantic since Tropical Storm Arlene in 1981, and the last until Tropical Storm Alberto in May 2012.
## See also
- Other tropical cyclones named Arthur
- Timeline of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season
- List of off-season Atlantic hurricanes
- Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020) |
15,162,865 | New York State Route 268 (1934–1974) | 1,054,948,495 | Former highway in New York | [
"Former state highways in New York (state)",
"Transportation in Erie County, New York"
] | New York State Route 268 (NY 268) was a state highway in northeastern Erie County, New York, in the United States. It served as a connector between NY 5 in the town of Clarence and NY 78 at the Clarence–Amherst town line. The route passed through rural areas of the town of Clarence and did not serve any areas of significant development. The northern portion of NY 268 followed the southern bank of Tonawanda Creek.
The route was assigned c. 1934 as a connector between NY 78 and Tonawanda Creek Road, then part of NY 263. In between the two routes, NY 268 followed Wolcott and Goodrich Roads. NY 268 was moved onto Tonawanda Creek and Salt Roads c. 1938 and remained on those two roads until it was replaced by a reextended NY 263 c. 1974. NY 263 was truncated back to its current northern terminus within three years time, and ownership and maintenance of all of NY 268's former routing was transferred to Erie County by April 1980. Tonawanda Creek Road became County Route 559 (CR 559) while Salt Road was redesignated as County Route 560.
## Route description
NY 268 began at an intersection with NY 5 in the hamlet of Clarence in the town of the same name. It headed north, following Salt Road out of the hamlet and into a mostly rural area of northeastern Erie County. Here, the route intersected with several east–west highways of local importance and passed by Beeman Creek Park before meeting Tonawanda Creek Road at a junction on the southern bank of Tonawanda Creek. The highway turned west at this junction, following Tonawanda Creek Road along the edge of the creek to the Clarence–Amherst town line, where NY 268 ended at a junction with NY 78 in the hamlet of Millersport.
## History
The origins of NY 268 date as far back as 1926, by which time the state of New York had assumed maintenance of several highways in the town of Clarence. The farthest north of these was Tonawanda Creek Road, which was state-maintained from Transit Road (NY 78) in Millersport to Salt Road. From here, state maintenance continued south on Salt Road to a junction with Main Street (what is now NY 5). Also state-maintained by this time was Goodrich Road, a north–south road connecting Tonawanda Creek Road to Main Street (modern NY 5), and Wolcott Road, an east–west highway linking Goodrich Road to Transit Road (what is now NY 78).
NY 263 was assigned c. 1931 to an alignment extending from Getzville to Akron via Millersport. Even though Tonawanda Creek Road was state-maintained from NY 78 to Goodrich Road, NY 263 initially followed a more circuitous route via Wolcottsburg on NY 78, Wolcott Road, and Goodrich Road. East of Goodrich Road, the route proceeded generally southeastward along Tonawanda Creek and Salt Roads to a junction with Hunts Corners–Akron Road 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of NY 5. At this point, NY 263 turned east to follow Hunts Corners–Akron Road toward Akron. The remainder of Salt Road between NY 263 and NY 5 was designated as NY 267.
NY 263 was gradually realigned to use all of Tonawanda Creek and Salt Roads between NY 5 and NY 78. The first change came c. 1934 when it was realigned to head due east from Millersport on Tonawanda Creek Road. The former routing of NY 263 on Wolcott and Goodrich Roads by way of Wolcottsburg was redesignated as NY 268. By the following year, NY 263 was realigned south of Hunts Corners–Akron Road to use Salt Road, supplanting NY 267. NY 263 was realigned c. 1938 to follow NY 78 north from Middleport instead while NY 268 was shifted onto NY 263's former routing along Tonawanda Creek and Salt Roads.
The routing of NY 268 remained unchanged until c. 1974, when NY 268 was supplanted by a reextended NY 263. The extension was short-lived, however, as NY 263 was pulled back to its junction with NY 78 by 1977. Ownership and maintenance of NY 268's former routing north of Greiner Road was transferred from the state of New York to Erie County at some point prior to 1980. The remainder was given to Erie County on April 1, 1980, as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. The Tonawanda Creek Road portion of old NY 268 was redesignated as CR 559 while the Salt Road portion was redesignated as CR 560.
## Major intersections
## See also
- List of county routes in Erie County, New York (545–580) |
7,750,611 | Mongolia at the 1994 Winter Olympics | 1,145,113,903 | null | [
"1994 in Mongolian sport",
"Mongolia at the Winter Olympics by year",
"Nations at the 1994 Winter Olympics"
] | Mongolia sent a delegation to compete at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway from 12–27 February 1994. The Mongolian delegation consisted of a single short track speed skater Batchuluuny Bat-Orgil. He competed in two events, where he finished the 500 metres event in 24th place and the 1000 metres competition in 29th position.
## Background
The Mongolian National Olympic Committee was recognized by the International Olympic Committee on 1 January 1962, and the nation entered Olympic competition soon after, talking part in both the 1964 Winter and Summer Olympics. Mongolia has only missed two Olympic Games since, the 1976 Winter Olympics; and the 1984 Summer Olympics as the Mongolians joined in the Soviet-led boycott of the Games in Los Angeles. Lillehammer was Mongolia's seventh appearance at a Winter Olympics. The 1994 Winter Olympics were held from 12–27 February 1994; a total of 1,737 athletes representing 67 National Olympic Committees took part. Batchuluuny Bat-Orgil, a short-track speed skater, was the only competitor Mongolia sent to Lillehammer. He was selected as the flag-bearer for the opening ceremony.
## Competitors
The following is the list of number of competitors in the Games.
## Short track speed skating
Batchuluuny Bat-Orgil was 24 years old at the time of the Lillehammer Olympics, and was making his only Olympic appearance. He entered two events: the 500 metres and the 1000 metres. The 1000 metres race was held on 22 February, and he was drawn into heat one, which he finished in a time of 1 minute and 40.41 seconds, which was fourth and last in his heat. Only the top two from each heat were allowed to advance, and as a result Batchuluuny was eliminated. The gold medal was won by Kim Ki-hoon of South Korea, the silver was won by his fellow South Korean Chae Ji-hoon, and the bronze by Marc Gagnon of Canada.
The 500 metres race was held from 24–26 February, and Batchuluuny was drawn into heat four. He finished the heat in 48.63 seconds, third out of three finishers in his heat, but only the top two in each heat were allowed to advance, and he was eliminated. Based on his heat time, he was classified as 24th place out of 31 competitors. The gold medal was eventually won by Chae Ji-hoon of South Korea, the silver was taken by Mirko Vuillermin of Italy, and the bronze medal was won by Nicky Gooch of Great Britain.
## See also
- Mongolia at the 1994 Asian Games |
14,494,103 | Ed Muransky | 1,121,580,888 | American football player (born 1960) | [
"1960 births",
"All-American college football players",
"American football offensive tackles",
"Living people",
"Los Angeles Raiders players",
"Michigan Wolverines football players",
"Players of American football from Youngstown, Ohio",
"Washington Federals/Orlando Renegades players"
] | Edward William "Ed" Muransky (born January 20, 1960) is a former professional American football offensive tackle who played for the Los Angeles Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) and Orlando Renegades of the United States Football League (USFL). He was a member of the Super Bowl XVIII Champion Raiders. Prior to this he was an All-American and Academic All-American athlete who played for the University of Michigan Wolverines during the 1979–1981 seasons.
After retiring from football he became a business partner and advisor to Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., former San Francisco 49ers owner. Muransky testified in the March 2000 trial of Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, mainly about what DeBartolo had confided to Muransky. DeBartolo was the only extortion victim who claimed to have been extorted directly by Edwards, but Muransky could not provide direct testimony about private meetings between DeBartolo and Edwards. Muransky has continued to pursue business interests even after the controversies about DeBartolo have waned.
## Cardinal Mooney High School
Born in Youngstown, Muransky played football for Cardinal Mooney High School where he was affectionately known as "Big Ed" by family and teammates. He was a three-year varsity letterman and two-year starter as an interior lineman at Cardinal Mooney. In 1976, he won All-Steel Valley, All-NEO, and All-State honors, and received the Mack Truck Award, given annually to the most outstanding high school lineman in the Youngstown area.
## University of Michigan
Highly recruited by numerous "blue chip" schools, Muransky chose to play collegiate football at the University of Michigan. He lettered for three years at Michigan, where he wore \#72, and earned All-Big Ten honors in 1980 and 1981. Muransky started 33 straight games at offensive tackle for the Wolverines from his sophomore through senior years, 1979–1981. The 6-foot-7-inch (2.01 m), 320-pound (150 kg; 23 st) lineman was a key member of the 1980 Wolverines, coach Bo Schembechler's first bowl-winning team. In fact, he started all twelve games at right tackle. This includes the 1981 Rose Bowl against the Washington Huskies football team won by Michigan 23–6. The game was Schembechler's first bowl victory, and the coach was carried off the field on Muransky's shoulders. Muransky was named to the Associated Press, UPI, and The Sporting News All-American teams in 1981 and also garnered "Academic All-American" his senior year. He was part of a 1981 team that had five All-American honorees (Anthony Carter, Butch Woolfolk, Bubba Paris and Kurt Becker).
### "Beef Bowl" Record Holder
Muransky also set the all-time "Beef Bowl" record by consuming 8 pounds (3.63 kg) of prime rib at Lawry's before the 1979 Rose Bowl. Muransky later recalled: "Bubba Paris and I were two happy freshmen eating together at the Lawry's Beef Bowl event before the 1979 Rose Bowl Game. After we had enjoyed our fourth plate of prime rib, mashed potatoes, corn and Yorkshire pudding, Bubba asked what the record was, and they said 7 cuts. Bubba continued for 3 more cuts, and I continued for four, totally under the Bo Schembechler radar screen. When they delivered the 8th cut to me, the media started to gather around my table, Bo walked by and let me know what he was thinking without ever saying a word. Afterward, a Paris-Muransky night out ended with some pizza. The next morning in practice, Bo made an example of Bubba and me. We never ran so much in our lives as we did that day. We were in every play of scrimmage and then we ran sprints." When the Wolverines returned to Pasadena for the 1981 Rose Bowl, "Bo made it a point to come to the back of the plane and talk to me and Bubba Paris. He wanted to let us know that my record from a couple years earlier would not be in jeopardy because we were going to be sitting with him at the Lawry's Beef Bowl. He said he was going to limit each of us to two cuts of prime rib." Schembechler had his own take on the story: "I let 'em eat because they were freshmen. They weren't gonna play anyway."
### Big Chill Cameo
Muransky is also remembered for a cameo appearance in the 1983 film The Big Chill: "I was in the theater watching it, not knowing what was going to happen. It was kind of interesting with all of (the characters) watching (the 1980 Michigan-Michigan State game). It was pretty cool. Watching [quarterback] John Wangler go back was pretty cool. For a split-second as they're going back, I'm thinking to myself, 'Oh my God, I pray to God I'm not holding or I missed a block for a sack or something on the big screen pass.' But it was a good block, and it was a fun moment. Any time I hear 'The Big Chill,' it's good memories."
### Quitters
The Wolverines were the unanimous pre-season Number 1 pick in 1981 but lost their opener to Wisconsin 21–14. In the team meeting the next day, Schembechler walked into the room and wrote "Ed Muransky" and "Stan Edwards" on the chalkboard, and then barked out, "The rest of you are quitters. I want nothing more to do with you," and left. According to the coach, Muransky and Edwards were the only two who played with intensity against Wisconsin, and Bo left it to them to motivate the rest of the team. Muransky issued a challenge to the offense on the night before the following week's game: "I looked at everyone and said, 'If we continue to play as great individuals, we'll continue to lose. If we start to play as a great team, we'll start winning." The next day, the Wolverines beat \#1 ranked Notre Dame, 25–7.
## Professional football career
### Los Angeles Raiders
Muransky was selected in the fourth round (82nd pick) by the Oakland Raiders in the 1982 NFL Draft, and he played in 24 games for the Raiders from 1982–1984. The Raiders moved from Oakland to Los Angeles to play the 1982 NFL season. Thus, although he was drafted by the Oakland Raiders, he played his NFL career with the Los Angeles Raiders. In his second season in the NFL, he won a Super Bowl ring with the Raiders' 1983 Super Bowl Championship team. He played all 16 regular season games for Tom Flores' Raiders that season. The team went 12–4 during the 1983 NFL season and produced eight Pro Bowlers. Muransky played for an offensive line that included Pro Bowlers Henry Lawrence and Todd Christensen. The team was led that season by quarterback Jim Plunkett and future Hall of Famer Marcus Allen, who rushed for nine touchdowns, caught two and threw three on a 4–7 passing performance. Muransky described the Super Bowl experience as a "whirlwind" with "two weeks of hype like you've never seen." He recalled: "It was a big deal because offensive linemen weren't making what they make today. That year, I made \$77,000, which was a pretty decent contract at the time. But if you won the Super Bowl, you won \$64,000. So it wasn't peanuts. I remember walking off the field after that, thinking to myself, 'I have a Super Bowl ring for the rest of my life.'" Although Muransky was cut in for a Super Bowl gameshare, he was not on the official gameday roster.
Although the Raiders only won one Super Bowl with Muransky, they had great success. In his rookie season, they were 8–1 in the strike-shortened season. This was the best record in the American Football Conference and tied for the best in the League. The team, however, was upset by the 6–3 New York Jets in the second round of the 1982-83 NFL Playoffs. The 1984 Raiders went 11–-5 and also made the 1984-85 NFL playoffs. The Raiders teams of Muransky's years went 31–10 in the regular season and 4–2 in the playoffs under Flores.
### USFL Orlando Renegades
After playing for the Raiders, Muransky signed with the Orlando Renegades of the USFL. He played and started 14 of the Renegades 18 games under Lee Corso. The team was not as successful as the Raiders and went 5–13. When the league folded, he decided to retire and enter the business world.
## Business career
After his football career ended, Muransky worked briefly as a sportscaster at WYTV in Youngstown. He later became CEO and chairman of Gallagher Pipino, Inc and the Muransky companies. He is married to the former Christine Pipino and has three children: Eddie, Deloran and Donielle.
### Work with Eddie DeBartolo and the Edwards trial
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Muransky became the most trusted advisor and business partner of Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., heir to a real estate empire and former owner of the San Francisco 49ers. For a time, Muransky was the CEO of the DeBartolo Property Group, and the two partnered in numerous business ventures. DeBartolo ventured into the casino business against the wishes of his sister, Denise DeBartolo York and hired family contact, Muransky to head DeBartolo Entertainment. Eventually, Muransky who is said to have a keen business sense, became DeBartolo's most trusted advisor, which caused a rift with Carmen Policy, 49ers president.
In 1997, Muransky became involved in DeBartolo's efforts to open a riverboat gambling casino in Louisiana. The project required approval of the state gambling board and resulted in a highly publicized bribery scandal that ended with the conviction of former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards on 17 counts, including racketeering, extortion, mail fraud, and wire fraud. In order to secure licensing of the casino, Edwards and associates allegedly solicited bribes from DeBartolo, including a briefcase filled with \$400,000. Of the many who claimed that they were extortion victims, DeBartolo was the only one who claimed to have been extorted directly by Edwards. Muransky was able to describe his relationship with DeBartolo but could not provide testimony about private meetings between DeBartolo and Edwards.
### Post-trial business
DeBartolo had Muransky placed on the board of directors of the DeBartolo Corporation after reaching a plea agreement which left him (DeBartolo) a convicted felon and precluded him from serving on the corporate board. Eventually, after DeBartolo became involved in the corruption, he turned over control of the 49ers to his sister. DeBartolo and Muransky reportedly went through an acrimonious breakup in 2002. Following the break with DeBartolo, Muransky moved with his family back to Youngstown.
In 2007, Muransky, as owner of Muransky Co. and Southwoods Surgical Center in Boardman, Ohio, filed for monetary damages and dissolution of a joint venture intended to open a full-service, for-profit hospital in southern Mahoning County. Muransky told The Vindicator: "I'm very disappointed for this community. There was an absolute opportunity to grow the health system ... In a few years, we are going to find ourselves having to drive to Akron and Pittsburgh and Cleveland for health care because it is no longer available here. I'm dumbfounded it has come to this." Muransky said one of the reasons he came back to Youngstown was to use his skills to give back to the community.
Ed also serves as Founder, Chairman and CEO of Chestnut Land Company, the holding company for Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzel franchises operating throughout the United States. He successfully operates almost 70 stores under this franchise name, with locations in 15 states. |
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GoodWiki Dataset
GoodWiki is a 179 million token dataset of English Wikipedia articles collected on September 4, 2023, that have been marked as Good or Featured by Wikipedia editors. The dataset provides these articles in GitHub-flavored Markdown format, preserving layout features like lists, code blocks, math, and block quotes, unlike many other public Wikipedia datasets. Articles are accompanied by a short description of the page as well as any associated categories.
Thanks to a careful conversion process from wikicode, the markup language used by Wikipedia, articles in GoodWiki are generally faithful reproductions of the corresponding original Wikipedia pages, minus references, files, infoboxes, and tables. Curated template transclusion and HTML tag handling have minimized instances where entire words and phrases are missing mid-sentence.
The hope is that this more comprehensive data will play a small role in improving open-source NLP efforts in language modeling, summarization, and instruction tuning.
GoodWiki is more than 1.5 times larger (when compared using the same tokenizer) than the widely used WikiText-103 dataset by Merity et al., even after excluding article descriptions. Also limited to articles marked as Good or Featured, WikiText inspired GoodWiki.
The code used to build this dataset can be found on GitHub.
Composition
The dataset consists of 44,754 rows in a 482.7 MB snappy-compressed Parquet file. Each row consists of the following fields:
pageid(int64): The Wikipedia id of the article.title(string): The title of the article.revid(int64): The Wikipedia id of the revision used.description(string | null): Plaintext short description/summary of the article written by Wikipedia contributors.categories(list[string]): The article's Wikipedia categories.markdown(string): The content of the article in GitHub-flavored Markdown format.
Here's an example row in JSON format:
{
"pageid": 40961074,
"title": "Attarsiya",
"revid": 1164804042,
"description": "Military leader of Ahhiya",
"categories": [
"Ancient Anatolia",
"Greek military leaders",
"Mycenaean Greeks"
],
"markdown": "Attarsiya was a 15th–14th century BCE military leader of Ahhiya. In the Hittite archives of circa 1400 BCE, he is described as a \"man of Ahhiya\", a country identified with the Achaeans and Mycenaean Greece. The campaigns of Attarsiya, as well as his conflict with the Hittite vassal, Madduwatta, represent the first recorded Mycenaean Greek military activity on the Anatolian mainland, as well as the first conflict between Achaeans and Hittites...",
}
The markdown field contains a total of 179,198,101 tokens tokenized using HuggingFace's pretrained facebook/opt-350m tokenizer. It also contains 811,791,686 characters and 132,691,055 words.
Even with the markdown formatting, GoodWiki can also be used as a plaintext dataset as markdown formatting syntax is fairly minimal.
Languages
While articles are taken exclusively from English Wikipedia, they sometimes contain small snippets from other languages as well as recurring use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in article ledes. Some articles include code blocks in pseudocode as well as in popular programming languages.
Markdown Details
GoodWiki articles follow the GitHub-flavored Markdown spec, including for blockquotes, code blocks, and lists. Bolding, italicizing, underlining, and strikethroughs have been removed as they introduce a lot of noise especially in math/computing articles.
Some markdown details are worth highlighting:
Math
Content in math templates and XML tags are enclosed in markdown with $ delimiters. For example,
<math>O(n^2)</math>
becomes: $O(n^2)$.
Super/Subscript
Superscripts and subscripts are denoted using <sup></sup> and <sub></sub> tags respectively.
$ and #
Dollar signs and hashes are escaped with \ to avoid interfering with math and heading syntax.
Methodology
On the evening of September 4, 2023 PT, we downloaded the wikicode of articles associated with the Good and Featured categories in the main namespace (ns=0) on Wikipedia via the Query API.
After some preprocessing including removing comments, applying magic code, and removing unrecognized or unnecessary template tags, we sent the resulting code to Wikipedia's Expandtemplates API. This endpoint transcludes template tags, turning them into HTML and plaintext. We chose the templates to transclude by counting all the templates used across the dataset and selecting the ones that are not rare, not used for citations, and not used for asides like infoboxes and tables.
The Expandtemplates output is then postprocessed. During this phase, we remove sections associated with references (e.g. Sources Cited), extract text from wikilinks and external links, delete media links, and handle HTML tags. The postprocessed output is then converted to GitHub-flavored Markdown using Pandoc. We also discarded articles detected by Pandoc to have corrupt wikicode (n=125).
The markdown output is then cleaned using regular expressions to remove excessive spacing, empty list items, unnecessary escaping, and resolve other problems with Pandoc's conversion. We normalized the markdown output unicode to a composed form (NFKC).
Alternatives Considered
Converting End-To-End Using Pandoc
While Pandoc can in theory convert raw wikicode to markdown, it is not a complete wikicode parser and therefore often produces errant output without preprocessing. Furthermore, direct conversion of raw wikicode would lose a lot of the content attached to wikicode templates as Pandoc cannot perform transclusion.
Using TextExtracts API
Wikipedia has a TextExtracts API that directly outputs a limited HTML or plaintext output of a page given that page's title. In practice, I've found the HTML output generated by this endpoint to often contain malformed or incomplete HTML with injected references that are difficult to parse. The plaintext output was also often poor, including reference artifacts and missing content.
Other caveats are listed here and were the reasons why this approach was discarded.
Transcluding All Templates
During the preprocessing process, we eliminate templates outside of a given subset. We did this because we found that transcluding all templates injected a lot of noise in the output, including janky HTML, styles, references, and unnecessary content. This noise made parsing difficult and error-prone, resulting in poor quality markdown littered with artifacts similar to those visible in the TextExtracts output.
Transcluding a subset largely solved these issues while still preserving as much content as possible.
Limitations
- Chemical equations sometimes include formatting issues like unnecessary line-breaks. These equations, however, are rare.
- In articles about ancient civilizations and languages, rare Unicode characters are occasionally included in the markdown. It might be worth removing these characters during the tokenization process.
- In rare cases, book/article names may be missing from the markdown as they are considered citations in the wikicode.
- Inflation data is missing from some articles. These articles use the
Inflationtemplate tag to include this information, which works poorly with the Extracttemplates API. - Articles may feature empty sections due to table/box removal.
- Some code blocks are denoted using indents instead of formal code blocks. This is due to the original wikicode not denoting them as such.
- Template subset allowing transclusion will probably need to be updated for use in future data dumps. The list of templates used on Wikipedia is constantly evolving.
Future Work
Time permitting, we hope to apply this careful conversion/generation process on all of English Wikipedia which will require our conversion script to be much faster and better parallelized. We also hope to extract other information from pages like entries in infoboxes that could be useful for question answering and instruction tuning applications.
If you're interested in helping out, please reach out!
License
The dataset and accompanying code are licensed under an MIT license. Pandoc, which must be downloaded separately, is GPL-licensed.
While this project is permissively licensed, we hope that you contribute any improvements you make to this dataset.
Citation
If you use the GoodWiki Dataset in your research or projects, please cite it using the following citation:
@misc{GoodWiki,
title = {GoodWiki Dataset},
author = {Choi, Euirim},
howpublished = {\url{https://www.github.com/euirim/goodwiki}},
month = {September},
year = {2023}
}
Feedback and Contributions
Contributions via pull requests and discussions are welcome. If you don't know how you could help improve this project, please look at the Future Work section.
Was this dataset useful for your work? Please let us know. We'd love to feature your project :)
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