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Ad hominem

2008-09-12T20:27:56Z

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An ''argumentum '''ad hominem''''' ([[Latin]]: "argument against the man"), is a [[logical fallacy]] which takes place when one argues by denigrating one's opponent, instead of actually dealing with the flaws in the form and function of the opponent's argument. Note that the statement made in an ''ad hominem'' argument does not have to be false for this type of fallacy to have been committed.

== Classical structure ==
Classically, this fallacy casts doubt on what a person is saying because of (imputed) flaws in the person's character, or circumstances peculiar to the person, that are unrelated to the matter at hand. Its usual structure is:

# A makes claim X.
# A has a flaw in his character, or else his circumstances mean that X somehow serves a special interest of A, etc.
# Therefore X is false.<ref name=Nizkor>The Nizkor Project, [http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html Fallacy: Ad Hominem] (retrieved April 9, 2007)</ref><ref name=Lander>Lander University, Department of Philosophy, ''[http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html Philosophy 103, Introduction to Logic: Argumentum ad Hominem]''. (Retrieved April 9, 2007)</ref>

== Why Ad Hominem is Objectionable ==
The ''ad hominem'' is objectionable and usually fallacious practice because:

# It is an [[appeal to emotion]] rather than to fact.<ref name=heritage>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ad%20hominem Definition of ad hominem] from ''The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language'', 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 (retrieved April 9, 2007)</ref>
# It introduces an irrelevant consideration.<ref name=Engel>S. Morris Engel, ''With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies'', 5th ed., St. Martin's Press, 1994, pp. 198-206. Retrieved April 9, 2007, from [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html The Fallacy Files]</ref>

== Forms of Ad Hominem ==
The ad hominem fallacy can take several forms. The most common of these are personal abuse<ref name=Engel/> and the introduction of an irrelevant circumstance.<ref name=Engel/> Some debaters use the ''ad hominem'' attack pre-emptively, a technique known as ''poisoning the well.''<ref name=Engel2>Engel, ''op. cit.'', pp. 206-209. Retrieved April 9, 2007, from [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/poiswell.html The Fallacy Files]</ref>

In a special form of ''ad hominem'' that is closely akin to [[special pleading]], a debater attempts to deflect criticism of himself by asserting that his opponent has the identical character flaw. This form is called ''tu quoque'' ([[Latin]], "thou too"). The proverbial expression of this fallacy is "It takes one to know one" or "Let the pot call the kettle black."<ref name=Warburton>Nigel Warburton, ''Thinking from A to Z'', 2nd. ed., "Politician's Answer", pp. 103-104. Retrieved April 9, 2007, from [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html The Fallacy Files]</ref>

== Example ==
The statement

:'[[Richard Wagner]] was an opera composer much admired by the Nazis'

might be considered an ad hominem attack on Wagner's music. It is true, and in some contexts might be a relevant comment. But if someone says it in order to suggest that Wagner was a bad composer, then it's an ad hominem attack, because whether some bad people liked his music is not a relevant comment on the quality of his music.

== Ad Hominem Not Always Fallacious ==
The ad hominem attack is usually fallacious, and becomes reasonable ''only'' when the consideration being advanced is directly relevant to whether the other person is generally truthful or reliable, or whether he is telling the truth in this instance, or whether he is engaged in a logical fallacy of his own. The usual case occurs when the other person is engaging in [[special pleading]].<ref name=Lander/> Exposure of special pleading is a valid counterargument--so long as the accusation itself is valid. Technically, this is ''not'' an example of ''ad hominem'', because it is an attack on the specific argument and/or the evidence advanced to support it.

In the modern legal system, most judges allow the prosecutor to attack the credibility of those who testify on the stand.

==Other meanings of ad hominem==

American Heritage Dictionary says:
:The expression now also has a looser use in referring to any personal attack, whether or not it is part of an argument, as in "It isn't in the best interests of the nation for the press to attack him in this personal, ad hominem way." [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ad%20hominem]

== References ==
<references/>

== See Also ==
* [[Special pleading]]

[[Category:Logical Fallacies]]

Series (mathematics)

2008-09-12T19:41:05Z

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In mathematics a '''series''' is the sum of a [[sequence]] of numbers. This article is intended to give the reader some understanding on the summation of finite series and why some infinite series converge whilst others diverge.

==Summation notation==

If ever value in a sequence is denoted <math>a_{n}</math>, then the sum of ''N'' of these are denoted,

<math>a_{1}+a_{2}+a_{3}+\dots+a_{N}=\sum^{N}_{n=1}a_{n}</math>

This is usally pronounced "the sum of 1 to N of a n" (note that this is still an ambigous statement which is why mathematics is more riquerous written down).

If we are conserned with particular number we can move the starting index. For example,

<math>\sum_{n=500}^{1000}n</math>

is the sum of the intergers from 500 to 1000.

==Finite series==
''For more detail see [[Finite series]].''

The sum of finite series is ingenral relativly straight forward to calculate it consist of mearly summing together all the numbers in a sequences. However this can be time consumming and in pre-computer mathematics many shortcuts were found.

Gauss once famously was given the assignment by his teacher to add the number between 1 and 100. The rest of the students were working hard adding carefully, but after less than a minute he correctly wrote 5050. This story whilst is allogorical leads to a key insight in finite sums,

:<math>\sum^{N}_{n=1}n=\frac{N(N+1)}{2}</math>

==Infinite series==
''For more detail see [[Infinite series]].''

The idea that an infinite number of additions lead to a finite number was intial seen as problematic or even impossible, (see [[Zeno's paradox]]). However it is straigtforward to see why this could happen,

:Let <math>S=\sum^{\infty}_{n=1}\frac{1}{2^{n}}</math>

:<math>S=\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{8}+\dots</math>

:<math>2S=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{4}+\dots</math>

:<math>2S=1+S</math>

:<math>S=1</math>

This one of an important class of infinties series called the geometric series.

===Geometric series===

<math>\sum^{\infty}_{n=1}r^{n}=\frac{1}{1-r},\qquad \mathrm{for}\ |r|<1.</math>

Where <math>|r|</math> denotes the [[absolute value]] of ''r''.

===Convergence===
''For more detail see [[Convergence]]''

However all infinite series don't converge, a famous example is,

:<math>\sum^{\infty}_{n}\frac{1}{n}=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{3}+\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{5}+\frac{1}{6}+\frac{1}{7}+\frac{1}{8}+\dots</math>

:<math>\geq 1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{4}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{8}+\frac{1}{8}+\dots</math>

:<math>=1+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2}+\dots</math>

Adding together an infinte string of halves will not give you a finite number so this sequence is said to '''diverge'''.

A series will only converge if <math>\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}a_{n}=0</math>. However there are two other conditions for real series,

====Power Series convergence====

A power series is of the form,

:<math>\sum^{\infty}_{n=1}a_{n}=\sum^{\infty}_{n=1}b_{n}(x-a)^{n}</math>,

This will converge if <math>\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}|\frac{a_{n+1}}{a_{n}}|<1</math>.

====Alternating Series convergence====

An alternating series is of the form,

:<math>\sum^{\infty}_{n=1}(-1)^{n}a_{n}</math>

This will converge if <math>0\leq a_{n+1}<a_{n}</math>.

==Usage==
*[[Integral]]
*[[Riemann Zeta function]]
*[[Taylor series]]
*[[Fourier series]]

[[Category:mathematics]]

Christianity

2008-09-12T19:37:22Z

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{{Christianity}}
'''Christianity''' is the world's largest religion, having over 2 billion adherents, and takes its name from [[Jesus Christ]] meaning "Jesus the Savior" and "Jesus the Anointed One". Adherents are called Christians, meaning "of Christ" or "belonging to Christ".<ref>[http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=2661&dict=CALD Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary]</ref> It seems that at first the [[religion]] was called "The Way" and the adherents were called Nazarenes (after the city of [[Nazareth]] where Jesus lived). The name Christian arose in [[Antioch]] in the first century A. D. and its use spread, probably closer to mid-century since it is recorded in the [[Acts of the Apostles|Book of Acts]] (Acts:11:26)

== Main Christian groups ==

The three largest self-governing bodies of Christians are:

* the [[Roman Catholic Church]] (approx. 1.1 billion baptized members) traces its roots back to [[Saint Peter]] who Catholic believed established the Church and the succession of the [[Pope]]s as the spiritual authority over the Christian body of believers.

* the [[Orthodox Church]]es (approx. 300 million baptized members) also trace their roots back to the beginnings of Christianity, but do not believe in the Primacy of the Pope. Different theological perspectives led to the [[Great Schism]] between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches in A.D. 1054.

* [[Protestantism]], the largest Communions are the [[Anglican Church|Anglicans]] (approx. 77 million baptized members) and the Lutheran World Federation (approx. 68 million baptized members). Protestantism has its origins in the European [[Reformation]]. It first broke away from the Roman Catholic Church under [[Martin Luther]] when differences over the nature of faith and works in the role of [[Christianity#salvation|salvation]] could not be adequately reconciled with Papal prescriptions as well as other practices that Luther saw in the Catholic Church at that time that he did not agree with. Other preachers and movements then followed Luther's example and also left the Catholic fold.

== Christian beliefs ==
Theologians, over two millennia, have debated a definitive summary of the Christian faith. While its interpretations vary drastically, probably the most commonly accepted statement of faith is the [[Nicene Creed| Nicea-Constantinopolitan Creed]] below:

<blockquote>I believe in one God, [[God the Father|the Father Almighty]], Maker of [[heaven]] and [[earth]], and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the [[Holy Spirit]] and the [[Virgin Mary]], and became man. And He was crucified for us under [[Pontius Pilate]], and suffered, and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the [[Bible|Scriptures]]; and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; whose Kingdom shall have no end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. In one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the [[Resurrection]] of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.</blockquote>

Christians and Christian denominations agree on many points of doctrine and disagree on others. According to an online Harris poll from 2003 99% of all American Christians believe in God, 96% in the [[Resurrection of Jesus Christ|resurrection of Jesus Christ]], 93% in Heaven, 93% in the virgin birth, 92% in the survival of the soul after death, 82% in Hell, 50% in ghosts, 27% in astrology and 21% in reincarnation. <ref>http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=359</ref> Note that the latter two beliefs are in opposition to the religious dogma of most Christian denominations.

Nonetheless, the Nicea-Constantinopolitan Creed offers a general overall picture of what Christian theology looks like, and serves as a useful outline.

Other creeds may prove helpful in research. See also: the [[Apostle's Creed]], [[Athanasian Creed]].

===God===
The God of the Christians is a triune being. Though there is only one Divine nature there are three Divine Persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The three Persons are collectively called the [[Trinity]] or the Holy Trinity. Christians reject the idea that they are polytheists because of the oneness of the divine nature (or essence). Though to non-Christians and even many Christians, it might seem like an inconsequential dogma, the doctrine of the Trinity is central to all of Christian theology and life. This is especially true in the relationship between God and human beings. The major theme of the Bible is love. In the Hebrew [[Old Testament]] the idea is expressed in the Hebrew word ''hessed'', which is variously translated as loyal love, tender mercy, steadfast love, mercy, goodness, etc. in the [[New Testament]] the same idea is expressed in the Greek word ''agape'', which is variously translated as love, compassion, charity, etc. The picture that the Biblical writers draw with these words is of a lover (God) who is entirely self-sufficient, needing nothing, and a beloved (human beings) in desperate need of salvation but unable to obtain it for himself. But God the lover is willing to suffer, knows He is going to suffer, even endure death to save the beloved human beings. This love of God for human beings is an extension of the love the Three Persons in the Trinity have for each other. Each loves the others infinitely. Their love for each other and for their creation is such that the [[Apostle John]] equates God and love, in an almost mathematical way saying, "God is love."

Additionally, the God of the Christians is the creator of all things, is everywhere present, exists in all times, is transcendent, all-knowing (omniscient), just, all-powerful (omnipotent).

===Jesus===
Christians hold that during the reign of [[Caeser Augustus]] the Son (e.g. the second Person of the Trinity) took flesh from a virgin woman and was incarnate as a man. He was born in the town of [[Bethlehem]] and was given the name [[Jesus]]. At the age of thirty he was baptized by his cousin, the [[John the Baptist|Prophet John]], and began to preach in the area [[Palestine]]. About three years after his baptism, he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, prompting the Jewish power establishment to plot Jesus death. Jesus was [[crucified]]. He came back from the dead and was seen by over 500 people. He ascended to heaven. The four [[Gospels]] contain the records of some of what Jesus did and said, but he did much more than those four books relate, as the Apostle John admitted in his Gospel.

===Jesus' Self Consciousness===

Jesus, conceived of the Holy Spirit, presented a disturbing surprise to his earthly father, Joseph, knowing he had not impregnated his fiancee, Mary. She would ponder the meaning of this miracle all the days Jesus would grow and finally she would behold her son expire on the cross. But Joseph, told by the Lord who his son really was, and how he had come about, and being warned by the Lord to flee the murderous Herod, took his family to Egypt - until the death of Herod made it safe ("Out of Egypt have I called My Son") to return to Israel. The family settled in Nazareth on the elevated rim of the Jezre'el Valley where he grew well and observably no different from the other youth. But when he was about 12 years old, he was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem, and displayed his consciousness that His real Father was God rather than Joseph ("Didn't you know that I must be here about the matters of My Father?".

They returned to Nazereth in Galilee and it wasn't until 28 years later that He began to publicly show His consciousness as to who he was. This was at his baptism at the Jordan River by John, when the voice came, to him, to John, and to the people privileged to be around, "This is my Son, the Beloved, Listen (Shma'a) to Him!" Here and now, against even the desire of John the Baptizer, Jesus, knowing that sin was not in him, chose to identify with sinful mankind in this baptism of John for repentance of sin, knowing that at the end of his time on earth, he would then be giving this sinless life of his on the cross, bearing the sins of the world upon himself.

Back, now, in Galilee, he would begin to do works of mercy, miracles of compassion, healings of deliverance, and overthrowing the devastaions of Satan upon the people of God's compassion - in short, bringing in the Kingdom of Heaven and of God and supplanting the Kingdom of Darkness. He began to gather around him his followers, simple fishing folk and others, spending most of his time in the area around the north shore of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). among the Jews of this Jewish area. He was bringing in the Messianic Kingdom to those who would understand it best, the Jews. But all the time, there was burning within him the knowledge that the blessings of Abraham would be extended, according to the promise, to all the peoples of the earth, the Gentiles, and there would be a new Kingdom, a new nation, transcending both Jews and Gentiles, the Kingdom of the people of God the Heavenly Father. He began his forays then into gentile areas, Phoenecia, the Decapolis, and other locales, and finding faith there such as he had not found "even in Israel".

A crossroads occurred, then, in the choice of Jesus, and consequently in the options of his disciples. It occurred in the Tetrarchy of Philip, at the foothills of Mt. Hermon, at the town of Caesarea Philipi. He knowing who he was, would force the question upon others - "Who do people say Me to be?". From the lips of Shim'on, whom he would call Peter, as leader of the others, He would hear - "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!" It was enough. Jesus would then begin imparting to them what the nature of His mission to be - not to expel the Romans from the Holy Land, but to go to Jerusalem, to be betrayed, to be spurned and rejected by the High Priests and the Elders of the People, to be hung on a Roman cross at the hands of the Gentiles, to die. Casesarea Philipi was in between, on one hand, Gentile pervaded Roman Tiberius to the southwest of the Sea, and on the other hand, anti-Roman nationalistic and zealotic Gamla to the north east of the Sea. (This latter would end their rebellion against Rome by suicide on Matzada in 73 A.D). Those two polarities were present in the minds of the disciples and Jesus began, on one hand, to divest from their minds the one, the warrior role of the Messiah against the Romans, and the other, to renew their thinking and their commitment to Him as the self sacrificing Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace and the true Messiah of Israel, on the other hand.

This took place on the long 3 or 4 day journey by foot from Galilee to Jerusalem, along the [[Jordan River]] valley, coming to Jericho, ascending to Jerusalem from the east. It was in Jerusalem that he prepared and settled the matter for the perpetuation of the Church at the Lord's last supper of the Passover, to be made palpable later by the descent of the Holy Spirit. It was in Jerusalem, in the Garden of the Oil Press, that what He had been lead to believe about his mission and the meaning and manner of his death was fully embraced and accepted with no reservation or turning back. "Your will be done, Father, if there is no other way", and "There is no other way, Your will be done Father!" It was a perfect decision and commitment, perfecting his life to be a perfect sacrifice. And it was to the west just outside Jerusalem that His teachings came to a concretization and realization on the cross. And just outside of Jerusalem that His Father would vindicate him by raising him from the dead.

"No man takes my life from me. I have power to take it and I have power to lay it down... I lay down my life for the sheep." <ref>Bible, Gospel of John, 10:18,15 http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvJohn.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=10&division=div1</ref>

"Though He was in the form of God, He did not think equality with God something to grasp onto. But He emptied Himself and took to Himself the form of a servant and was made man, And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. For this reason, God has exalted Him..."<ref>Bible, Philippians 2:6-9a, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvPhil.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=2&division=div1 </ref>

===Morality===
The fundamental principle in Christian moral teaching is love and forgiveness, as expressed by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Jesus summarized his teachings in two commandments from the Old Testament:

"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." ([[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 22:37-39; [[Book of Deuteronomy|Deuteronomy]] 6:5; Leviticus 19:18)

Constant debate has resulted as to how a person should express love for God in their moral behavior. This moral dialogue found expression in the New Testament, where the [[Apostle Paul]] addressed such controversies as [[circumcision]] ([[Book of Romans|Romans]] 2:25-29), eating meat that was sacrificed to [[pagan]] deities (1 Corinthians 8), speculating about myths and genealogies (1 Timothy 1:3-5), and observing ceremonial dates and seasons (Galatians 4:9-11).

Regardless of a person's ethical interpretations, adherents commonly point to New Testament passages John 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 as scriptural depictions of love. The former states that <blockquote>"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."</blockquote> The latter characterizes love, saying <blockquote>"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."</blockquote>

Jesus Christ affirmed, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

===The Atonement of Jesus on the Cross===

All Christians believe with the New Testament that the death of Jesus, along with His resurrection, is an indispensable proclamation of a crucial event for the reconciliation of lost sinners with God. There are three elements they see to understanding His death on the cross.

# Jesus having the knowledge that His path would lead to his own death, desired and willed that that take place, and persevered in that path though there was opportunity for Him to avoid it. Though there is ample recognition in the New Testament that others desired Him to die, and that the circumstances in which His path took him would bring Him to His end on earth, the mover of all these things was Himself and the will of the Father. "I have power to take my life and I have power to lay down my life. I lay down my life for the sheep."
# Jesus saw that in His death there would be a way for people to be brought back to the God from whom they were alienated and lost because of their sins. This would involve a substitution of Himself to effect that way. "For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many." How this would take place was not new to the Jews of His day from their understanding of contemporary everyday practice of substitute payment - as in redemption of the first-born (Pidyon Ha Ben), or in the understanding of what aggadic stories such as the Binding of [[Isaac]] implied (see [[Midrash]]), but it was not the prevalent view that the Messiah was to be that payment. Though while alive on earth, he had hinted at it in sayings such as "unless a seed falls and dies, it remains alone, but when it dies, it brings forth..", it was only after He had risen from the dead that He explained Scripture (the Old Testament) clearly about the necessity of His death to have taken place. The disciples would henceforth preach, and Peter among them, that the death of Jesus the Messiah and His resurrection was forplanned and for-ordained by God the Father, and foretold in the Scripture (Isaiah 53). And so, "The Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God".
# It was the belief in Scripture, that in His death a way back to God was made possible for those that were near to God—the Jews. And a way back to God for those that were far away—the Gentiles. That is why the New Testament saw in the requirements of God for Israel a fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah. He was the perfect Israel, taken out of Egypt, to redeem Israel. And that is why the New Testament saw in Jesus, a deepness to the incarnation of the Son of God, deeper than just a Jew of His time of a certain tribe. He was the "Second Adam" to redeem the sons of Adam. This encompassing perspective had further implications.

Christians of all generations have looked to the perfect Atonement, and the hope for reconciliation, accomplished by Jesus on the cross, to provide the means of understanding the solution to the vexing problems of the mind and of life itself - How can I make reconciliation with my enemies, with even the members of my own family, of race with race and people with people?; Does His death for the sins of the world include those who only partially understand, for the baby aborted, the feeble minded, and severely retarded?; For those who have never heard of Jesus, never been "enlightened", distant and remote in place and time?; Does His death for the sins of the world also include a remedy for the ills that have come as a result of those sins—certain sicknesses, ills of the mind, body and the soul? Do they "hold" for today?; Does His death make good, turn to the better, show the way, effect the way, of the illnesses that have befallen the world, not only by sin, but simply by the circumstances of life, of degeneration, of compounded dysfunction? How does the fruit of His death bring in somehow the Kingdom "among us"?

The death of the Son of God on the cross has provided the solution for sin, and it still holds its sway over the imagination and aspirations for the people of our generation.

===Salvation===
The Bible teaches that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). This is often interpreted to mean that everyone has displeased God and is now separated from him in a kind of alienation and enmity that results from the fundamental conflict between selfish human interests and God's interests (Romans 8:5-8; James 4:4).

However, Jesus offered a solution to this Biblical dilemma in that by repentance of sins and faith in him (Jesus), their sins would be forgiven. He said that "...the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." ([[Gospel of Mark|Mark]] 2:10) Jesus also said, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Mark 2:17, and "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men" (Mark 2:28)

Jesus Christ taught that "unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" ([[Gospel of John|John]] 3:3). Protestant Evangelical Christianity often use the terms "saved" and "born again" interchangeably. Other Christians, notably the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church use the phrase ''born again'' as a synonym for [[baptism|baptized]]. "Jesus answered, Amen, amen, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and [of] the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3:5)

Christians are expected to continue living by Christ's teachings (John 8:31), as is appropriate for "children of Light" (Ephesians 5:8-10). Some believe that this is necessary in order to stay saved. However, this is a common misconception of the text. It is rather referring to proving that one is a child of God by their "fruit" (things that they do and how they behave). Christians in the Reformed tradition (following the teaching of the 16th century French lawyer [[John Calvin]], as well as the faith outlined in the Belgic and Heidleberg Confessions) say that salvation is irrevocable and that it cannot be lost, if it were genuinely part of one's life to begin with. Reformed Christians (often called [[Calvinists]]) often point to Romans 8:38-39 as validation of their belief: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39; [[NASB]]). According to Calvinists, the reason it cannot be lost by natural things is because salvation was obtained through a supernatural being, namely Jesus Christ. This does not negate Jesus' human side, only that he was both one-hundred percent God and one-hundred percent man, according to the [[Council of Chalcedon]] (A. D. 451). The Bible also makes it clear that mankind cannot earn their salvation, and that it is a free gift.

== Resurrection of Jesus Christ ==
The [[Resurrection of Jesus Christ|resurrection of Jesus Christ]] is critical to the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul wrote, "if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain" (I Cor:15:14). Traditionally, Christianity has believed in a physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.<ref>http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/crj0056a.txt</ref>

In recent history Gary Habermas is considered the foremost [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] for defending the resurrection of Jesus.<ref>Habermas, Gary, [http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/dialog_rexperience/dialog_rexperiences.htm Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection], ''Dialog: A Journal of Theology'', Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297.</ref><ref>"Wildcat" and Holding, J.P., [http://www.tektonics.org/books/lichabrvw.html Book review of "The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus"], 22nd June, 2004 (Tektonics)</ref><ref>Habermas, Gary, [http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/NTeSources/NTArticles/CTR-NT/Habermas-Resurrection1-CTR.pdf Jesus' Resurrection and Contemporary Criticism: An Apologetic] ''Criswell Theological Review'' 4.1 (1989) 159-74.</ref><ref>Habermas, Gary, [http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/crj_explainingaway/crj_explainingaway.htm Explaining Away Jesus' Resurrection:
The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories], Christian Research Journal / vol. 23, no. 4, 2001.</ref><ref>Habermas, Gary, [http://www.apologetics.com/default.jsp?bodycontent=/articles/historical_apologetics/habermas-nt.html Why I Believe The New Testament Is Historically Reliable] (Apologetics.com)</ref>
Other notable defenders of the resurrection include: [[William Lane Craig]],<ref>Craig, William Lane, [http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/historical.html Articles: Historical Jesus]</ref> [[Lee Strobel]], [[Josh McDowell]],<ref>McDowell, Josh, [http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html Evidence for the Resurrection], 1992.</ref> [[Edwin M. Yamauchi]],<ref>Jamauchi, Edwin M., [http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/yama.html Easter: Myth, Hallucination, or History?]</ref> [[N.T. Wright]]<ref>Wright, N.T., [http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Early_Traditions.htm Early Traditions and the Origins of Christianity], ''Sewanee Theological Review'' 41.2, 1998.</ref> and [[Michael Horner]].<ref>Horner, Michael, [http://www.michaelhorner.com/articles/resurrection/index.html Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?]</ref>

===The Meaning of the Resurrection for Christians===

The Fact of the Resurrection of Christ is a key element of the preaching of the message about Jesus and an essential of Christian belief. But there are also certain effects that this belief has on the lives of believers.

1. It is because Jesus rose from the dead, that believers now can resort to a living Savior to help and deliver them from sin and from situations overwhelming for them by their own powers.

2. The New Testament sees in the resurrection of Christ a certain vindication of what apparently to the world and to all beings was a failure and an overcoming of Him by His crucifixion. He was "declared to be the Son of God" by His resurrection. This brings believers in Him to a strong confidence in the determined power of God to both vindicate in their own lives and to bring His reign upon earth.

3. The coming of Jesus back to life means to the believer that, indeed, their sins are totally forgiven. This is because believers know that His death was as a payment for sins - a "wage of death" for our sins that He received in our stead. If He remained dead, believers would know that the wage had not been fully paid. His resurrection, carries with it our knowledge that our sin with its attendant death has been totally and finally paid for.

4. It is a now living Savior that Christians know can go before them, can closely lead them through life - as He did when He was on earth. This makes following Him practical and real.

5. The New Testament reveals that it is the Risen Christ who received from the Father the Holy Spirit and He, through Himself ascended to the Father, has given the Holy Spirit to us. This gives the believer in Christ both the knowledge and the power to live a godly life, and live a life that can be an intimately and personally directed one.

6. The resurrected Christ was no mere reassembling of the molecules and particles of the Body that had been crucified. It was, indeed, a physical body, but one that was fully under the Spirit's control, guidance, and empowerment. It was a "spiritual body". Christians know that likewise, they will one day be granted the nature of a spiritual body, and full of health. They therefore are full of hope and consolations, and consider that even now in this life, there is an overcoming through Him, a restoration, and that tears, even now, are wiped away.

== Evangelism ==
In what is called the [[Great Commission]], Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to preach the Gospel (literally "good news") and make disciples.
:'''Great Commission'''
:''But the eleven disciples proceeded to [[Galilee]], to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in [[heaven]] and on [[earth]]." Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the [[#God the Father|Father]] and the [[#God the Son|Son]] and the [[#God the Holy Spirit|Holy Spirit]], teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."'' --[[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 28:16-20 [[New American Standard Bible|NASB]]

It should be noted, however, that Jesus said it was the Holy Spirit, not man, who was sent to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness (John 16:8). This relieves Christians of needing to worry when they evangelize. God is the one who gets the credit with the growth and maturity of the Church: "So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth" (1 Corinthians 3:7).

==See also==

'''Denominations or branches of Christianity'''
*[[Roman Catholic Church]]
*[[Orthodox Church]]
*[[Protestantism|Protestant]]
**[[Amish]]
**[[Baptist]]
**[[Church of England]] or ''Anglican Church''
**[[Episcopal Church in the United States of America]] (or ''Episcopal Church'' or ''Episcopalians'') (Non-UK branch of the Anglican Church)
**[[Evangelical Christianity]]
**[[Fundamentalism]]
**[[Liberal Christianity]]
**[[Lutheran]]
**[[Mennonite]]
**[[Methodist]]
**[[Pentecostal]]
**[[Plymouth Brethren]]
**[[Presbyterian]]

'''Disputed'''
*[[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]]
*[[Christian Science]]

'''Other articles'''
*[[Cathedral]]
*[[Catholicism]]
*[[Christian apologetics]] (Defense of Christianity)
*[[Christianity and Science]]
*[[Church]]
*[[Conservative Christianity]]
*[[Eucharist]]
*[[Judaism]]
*[[New Testament understanding through the Jewish perspective]]
*[[Passover Seder]]
*[[Persecution of Christians]]
*[[Red-letter Christian]]
*[[Sign of the Cross]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External Links==
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/christians/ What Liberals Say - Category: Christians], [[Accuracy In Media]]

[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Worldviews]]

Hate crime

2008-09-12T19:31:10Z

Spell:

A '''"hate crime"''' is an action held to involve the illicit expression of hatred to the detriment of another person. Such a wide definition combines religious, ethnic or lifestyle persecution.
==Free speech and the Homosexual Agenda==

Opponents charge that hate crime and hate speech rules amount to an erosion of [[First Amendment]] guarantees of freedom of religion, [[free speech]], and freedom of press. In particular, they object to rules or laws which equate condemnation of sin with prejudice.

Hate crime legislation imposes additional punishment for crimes held to be motivated by such "prejudice".

Liberals promote hate crime legislation to legitimize certain lifestyles by declaring them to be protected by law, and to chill [[free speech]] that criticizes those lifestyles. Hate crime legislation is a stepping stone for a lifestyle to become protected under anti-discrimination laws.

As part of the [[homosexual agenda]], the [[gay rights]] movement has attempted to equate racism and [[anti-Semitism]] with the condemnation of homosexual sin. To do this, they must of course gloss over the fact that race is 100% inherited and immutable. And that religious and ethnic persecution against Jews involved a 6 million person [[Holocaust]] that included the deaths of not only Jews, but also homosexuals, whose lifestyle was seen as vulgar by prominent German politicians (see [[genocide]] and [[ethnic cleansing]]).

Nonetheless, the strategy of anti-goodness crusaders is to insist that condemnation of sin is a type of "prejudice" equivalent to a civil rights violation. They want people of conscience, who already condemn antisemitism and racism, to regard any critique of homosexuality as an expression of "hate".

This is a perverse misinterpretation of a sermon by Jesus, who told people not to "hate" their enemies. What hate crimes legislation ignores is that Jesus never hesitated to condemn sin and frequently criticized wrongdoers. So there can be nothing wrong with pointing out evils and telling people to stop committing sin. This is not "hate" but an expression of love.

A ladder to legislate social acceptance and promotion of a lifestyle would be as follows:

* '''Bottom Rung:''' hate crime legislation to recognize and accept the lifestyle.
* '''Middle Rung:''' anti-discrimination legislation to favor and promote the lifestyle.
* '''Top Rung:''' [[affirmative action]] to fully promote the lifestyle.

The new [[Speaker of the House]] for the 2007-2008 [[Congress]], [[Nancy Pelosi]], sought to pass hate crime legislation proposed in the prior session of [[Congress]] in H.R.3132. [[H.R. 1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007]] was then introduced by [[Democrats]] in the new session [[110th Congress]] that began in 2007.

In July 2007, [[Ted Kennedy]] bypassed a committee vote and attached hate crimes legislation to a massive defense appropriation bill requested by the President, in an effort to compel him to sign the hate crimes legislation.<ref>[http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56702 Kennedy cramming hate crimes into defense bill] 'Shameless attempt to push [[homosexual agenda]] ... by exploiting soldiers', Bob Unruh, ''WorldNetDaily.com'', July 17, 2007.</ref>

== Claims of Hate Crimes ==

It is claimed that about 1100 hate crimes against homosexuals or their property occurred in 2004.<ref>Federal Bureau of Investigation, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html Crime in the United States 2004]</ref> <ref>FBI, Crime in the United States 2004, [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2004/hctable4.htm Table 4 Offense Type by Bias Motivation] </ref> But most of those offenses occurred against property rather than individuals, often the result of drugs or alcohol. Only a tiny percentage even involved aggravated assault or worse, and those classifications are not based on any proof at trial.<ref>''Id.''</ref> 74% of hate crimes are either crimes against property (e.g., theft, vandalism or graffiti) or a vague "intimidation".<ref>FBI, Crime in the United States 2004 [http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/hate_crime/index.html#table2_33 Table 2.33 Incidents, Offenses, Victims, and Known Offenders by Offense Type]</ref>

In regards to [[Homosexuality and Homicide|homosexuality and homicide]], ''The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers'' by Michael Newton reports the following regarding the issue of homosexuality and homocides:
{{cquote|Homosexual slayers clearly have no monopoly on violence, but it is true that their crimes often display extremes of "overkill" and mutilation... On balance, it seems fair to say that while homosexuals sometimes fall prey to "gay bashing" violence by bigoted "straights," they are far more likely to be murdered by another homosexual than in a random hate crime.<ref>The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton, page 103</ref>}}

The world-renowned pathologist Dr. [[William Eckert]] wrote regarding homosexual homocides the following:
{{cquote| Equally high is the number of homicides, many probably related to transient attachments, which often lead to suspicion, jealousy, and murder. When murder does occur it is exceptionally brutal with an overkill appearance... Overkill, as it is seen in homosexual and lesbian murders, is certainly a form of sadistic crime. In these instances multiple stabbing and other brutal injuries...are common findings...<ref>Tedeschi CG, Eckert W, Tedeschi LG, eds. Forensic medicine; vol 2. Philadelphia: WB Saunders, 1977:962</ref>}}
[[Image:Assocchurch138 yzsodw.jpg|thumb|The [[First Baptist Church in Gravois Mills]] was vandalized and threatened by [[homosexuality|homosexual]] activists and received obscene phone calls. An [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agent refused to list the incident as a hate crime.]]
On the other hand, national statistics regarding [[homosexuality|homosexuals]] committing hate crimes against heterosexuals may be underreported. For example, the [[First Baptist Church in Gravois Mills]] was vandalized and threatened by homosexual activists and received obscene phone calls. An [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agent refused to list the incident as a [[hate crime]]. The incident involved an anti-homosexuality [[Bible]] verse on the church's sign.<ref>[http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=17075 Pastor finds FBI unresponsive to homosexual activists' threats], Bob Baysinger, ''Baptist Press'', Nov 13, 2003.</ref>

The Center for Reclaiming America cited the following account of how a [[hate crimes|hate crime]] statute was egregiously applied to an ex-homosexual:
{{cquote|In Madison, Wisconsin, a recovered homosexual who had left the “gay” lifestyle to start a family got into a heated discussion with an open homosexual about homosexuality at a gas station. The ex-“gay” man, David Ott, was holding his child in his arms during the entire incident, and neither man touched the other. The homosexual activist later told police he had felt threatened by Ott, and local prosecutors charged the man with “disorderly conduct” with a “hate crimes” enhancement.

The “hate crime” aspect, stemming from Ott’s belief that homosexuality is morally wrong, raised the potential fine from $1,000 to $10,000, and jail time went up from a possible 90 days to one year. Fearing the possibility of substantial jail time, Ott settled, and received 50 hours of community service plus a mandatory attendance at “tolerance” sessions conducted by [[lesbianism|lesbians]] at the [[University of Wisconsin at Madison]]. A ground rule for the session was the premise that homosexual behavior is not immoral.

The entire process cost Ott almost $7,000 in legal fees.<ref>http://test.reclaimamerica.org/PAGES/fastfacts/HateCrimes2.pdf</ref>}}

Another example of an alleged anti-homosexual "hate crime" occurred at Columbia University in 2005, when two drunken students scrawled racist and anti-homosexual symbols on a dormitory wall. Initially charged with crimes carrying possible 4-year jail sentences, the charges were later dropped in exchange for some sensitivity training.<ref>[http://media.www.columbiaspectator.com/media/storage/paper865/news/2006/06/12/News/Ruggles.Vandalism.Case.Dismissed-2043702.shtml Ruggles Vandalism Case Dismissed], Elizabeth Kraushar and Eleazar David Meléndez, ''Columbia Spectator'', 6/12/06.</ref> "I am pretty sure [the perpetrator] thought he was playing a joke," said one dormitory resident about the incident.<ref>[http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510542 Hate Crime Rocks Columbia’s Campus], Noah S. Bloom, ''The Harvard Crimson'', December 13, 2005.</ref>

There are very few anti-homosexual murders. The most publicized incident, the murder of [[Matthew Shepard]], was the result of severe drug abuse. After the defense attorney failed to exonerate the killers with an argument of self-defense against homosexual advances, the lead killer admitted in jail that homosexuality had nothing to do with his drug-induced murder:<ref>[http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story?id=277685&page=3 New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder], ''20/20'', ABC News. Retrieved 22 July 2007.</ref>

:Asked [by ABC News] directly whether [the lead killer] targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, "No. I did not. ... I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."

:But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely?

:[[Prosecutor]] Rerucha attributes McKinney's rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. "The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs," Rerucha said.

:Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells "20/20" the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior.

:"In the first weeks after you've stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It's completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off" Rawson said.

:"If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today," Rerucha said.

So what was the basis for the claim that this was a hate crime? According to ABC News, "Prosecutor Rerucha recalls that Shepard's friends ... contacted his office. Rerucha told '20/20,' "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed."<ref>''Id.''</ref>

Conversely, threats and vandalism by homosexual activists are typically not treated as hate crimes. For example, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has refused to investigate threats made by homosexual activists against a Missouri Baptist Convention church in the Lake of the Ozarks area."<ref>[http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=17075 Pastor finds FBI unresponsive to homosexual activists' threats], Bob Baysinger, ''Baptist Press'', Nov 13, 2003.</ref>

==Criminalizing the Gospel==

Art Moore posted this at World Net Daily:

:"We don't want to promote hatred against anyone and are opposed to violence for whatever reason," said Bruce Clemenger, head of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Centre for Faith and Public Life. "Our concern, though is that ... courts have not distinguished between the identity of the person and the activity. So sexual orientation refers to both the sexual disposition as well as the activity."

:But homosexual activists contend such a distinction cannot be made with homosexuals any more than it can with matters of race or ethnic origin.

:"The argument of separating the person from the behavior is their concept," insisted Kim Vance, president of Ottawa-based EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere.

:"In reality they are the same thing," Vance said in a WND interview. "That's language that they use to justify [opposition], but it's language that we don't agree with." <ref> [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29328 The Bible as 'hate literature'?], By Art Moore, ''WorldNetDaily.com'', October 21, 2002.</ref>

What this means is the [[gay rights]] activists want the government to agree with their primary claim, i.e., that homosexuality is a matter of '''identity''' - not a behavior, and certainly not a matter of choice.

==See also==
*[[H.R. 1592: Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.cwfa.org/articledisplay.asp?id=9672&department=CFI&categoryid=papers 'Hate Crime' Laws Threaten Religious Freedom]
*[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0617mcnultyjun17,1,2035460.column?coll=chi-news-col&ctrack=1&cset=true 'What is a hate crime?'], Timothy J. McNulty, From the Public Editor, June 17, 2007.
[[Category:Religious persecution]]

Latin

2008-09-11T22:47:07Z

Spell:

'''Latin''' is an [[Indo-European]] language of the [[Italic]] family; its closest relative was [[Umbric]], which is now extinct. Latin was the most widely spoken language in the [[Roman Empire]], and is the language from which all the [[Romance languages]] are derived. These languages include [[Spanish]], [[Romanian]], [[Portuguese]], [[Italian]], [[French]] and [[Catalan]], among others.

Latin [[grammar]] is marked by an extensive system of [[noun]] [[Grammatical case|cases]] and [[verb]]al inflection. Noun cases are organized along nominative-accusative lines, with several other oblique cases also used. Verbal morphology distinguishes [[voice]] (active and passive), tense (past, present, future), mood (indicative, imperative, subjunctive), [[aspect (grammar)|aspect]] (perfect, imperfect, pluperfect), and person (first, second, and third person in singular and plural numbers). Much of the Latin read nowadays is based on [[literature]] written around the time of (Sanath.). The modern Romance languages are descended from Vulgar Latin, which has less literature than its older counterpart. Changes from Classical to Vulgar Latin included the merger of long /e:/ and /o:/ with short /i/ and /u/, respectively, the loss of /h/ and the accusative nasalisation, and the replacement of cases, tenses, and voices with periphrastic constructions (this change occurred across western Europe). Until 1962, Latin was the language in which all Roman [[Catholic]] masses were conducted. A number of Roman Catholics still conduct masses in Latin, and Latin is still the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Phonologically, Latin is generally similar to other western languages of the Indo-European family.

== Contemporary Latin Use ==

Today Latin is used primarily by scientists of all kinds, from biologists to chemists, use Latin for all the important things --such as categorization of anything they see and catchphrases; '''Astronomers''' (Greek, Astron, lit. Star) too, all the planets and stars have Latin (or Greek) names such as "Sol" (solar, the Sun), Mars and "Earth's" proper scientific name is "Terra".

==Further reading==

* John F. Collins, ''A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin'', Catholic University of America Press (1985), ISBN 0-8132-0667-7 An introductory Latin text based mainly on medieval ecclesiastical sources.
* Nicholas Ostler, '' Ad Infinitum: a Biography of Latin'', Walker and Company, New York (2007) ISBN 0-8027-1515-X A history of the Latin language.
* Bob Moore and Maxine Moore, '' Dictionary of Latin and Greek Origins: a Comprehensive Guide to the Classical Origins of English Words'', Barnes and Noble, Inc, New York (2000) ISBN 0-7607-2082-7

[[Category:Romance languages]]
[[Category:Latin Terms/Phrases]]
[[Category:Terms]]

Anti-feminism

2008-09-11T22:45:47Z

Spell:

'''Antifeminism''' is opposition to [[feminism]] in some or all of its forms.<ref>[http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50009621/50009621se1 "Anti-feminist." ''The Oxford English Dictionary''. 2nd ed. 1989]</ref> Anti-Feminist prefer to follow a more biblical representative of women modeled in scripture ([[Christianity]]). Many of the bible verses anti-feminist follow are Ephesians chapter five verse twenty-two, Titus two verses three to five, and Proverbs thirty-one, First Timothy Chapter Five Verse Fourteen, and Proverbs Chapter Fourteen Verse One.

==Ephesians Chapter Five Verse Twenty-Two==
'''"22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."'''

Many Anti-Feminist believe that wives should submit themselves gracefully to their husbands like it says in Ephesians. The only rare exceptions would be their husband leading the wife into sin.

Feminists scoff at this teaching claiming that Anti-Feminists are weak or doormats for doing so, Anti-Feminists believe differently. Anti-Feminists claim that it takes a strong woman to yield to another human being. In return the husband are suppose to love the wives as themselves.

Anti-Feminists believe that this is the best way for a marriage to operate. Claiming that some has to lead the family and someone has to become the helpmeet. Both cannot lead or there will be confusion and much fighting. Anti-Feminists believe that because many women in the western world have adopted the feminist notion of scoffing women who submit to their husbands many marriages are in despair.

==Titus Two Verse Two to Five==
'''3The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;4That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,5To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.'''

Older women in scripture are clearly to teach the younger women of the Christian faith to how to behave and other practical skills/necessities. Titus Two women (a name they like to be called) believe that it is their duty to teach younger women whether it be random women or their very own daughters to love their husbands their children and how to become "keepers of the home."

'''Loving their husbands'''

By loving their husbands they mean how to treat their husbands. Respecting is one of them. By showing their husbands Respect they mean to treat him kindly, not trying to change him, not neglecting him of his physical or emotional needs, encouraging him, praising him for his good deeds, keeping oneself attractive (hair, nails done, nice clothes).

'''Loving their children'''

Many Titus Two women know that the second most important part in the marriage after the husband is the children. Most Titus Two women must teach their daughters or "apprentices" how to love children. Many ways of doing this is babysitting children. Babysitting is use many time to cultivate patience, controlling the emotions and getting used to children and their habits.

Patience is needed when watching children because children are naturally slower to get use to things.

Controlling the emotions are also necessary for children can many times "push" adults buttons it is necessary to learn how to control those emotions especially when dealing with children

Younger women are also taught the habits of children and how to deal with these habits. Everything about children is taught to these young women so that they themselves may be prepared for their own children someday. A variety of things to learn about children is discipline, passing on convictions, how to take care of them physically (cooking, changing diapers), and teaching them spiritually.

'''Keepers of the home'''

The last thing that should be taught is homemaking skills. homemaking skills include the following

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, flower arraignment, sewing, crocheting, stitching, mending, interior decorating, nutrition, basket weaving, calligraphy, painting, scrap booking, first aid, Agriculture, Horticulture, baking, quilting, organizing and hospitality.

Vintage homemaking would include: Candle making, making butter, and spinning wool.

'''Discreet and Chaste'''

Anti-Feminists believe the discreet and chaste, did not mean that women shouldn't be allowed to talk like many feminists believe but to act and looks like ladies of the Lord.

Discreet means (by their accords) to behave accordingly. In other words displaying dignity, diligence, patience, respectful, graceful, a meek and quiet spirit, poise, peace, compassion, responsible, hospitable, cheerfulnesses, humility, discretion, self-control, serenity and love,

Chaste means to be modest in clothing, purity in mind, and to display chastity in the body.

Usually homemaking child care and "marriage lessons" begin at age 2-5.

==Proverbs thirty-one==

'''10Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.11The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.12She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.13She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.14She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.15She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.16She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.17She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.18She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.19She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.20She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.21She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.22She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.23Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.24She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.25Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.26She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.27She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.28Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.29Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.30Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.31Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.'''

Proverbs chapter thirty-one verse 10 explains that a good wife is very hard to find Anti-Feminist believe that it is espisally true for the women of this day because of feminism and how to changed society to them for the worse. Proverbs eleven says that her husbands trust her so Anti-Feminists believe that they should be trust worthy to their husbands and believe it is because the wife submits to husbands is why the husbands trust his wife.It could also be interpreted to mean that the husband should be able to trust his wife and extend the borders of his estate so acquiring business acumen, accounting skills, and political knowledge would be a wise investment.

Proverbs twelve specifically states '''"She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life"''' Anti-Feminist interpret this verse as women should be doing good for their husbands even if they don't who he is ''right now'' not after their maarried because that isn't what the nerse stated. One of the ways that Anti-Feminist believe that they can do their future husbands good right now is acquiring assets (skills) and excellent character to bring into the future marriage.

Anti-Feminist interpret Proverbs thirteen to twenty-four to mean that the wife is very busy and isn't lazy. So they believe that they too shouldn't be lazy.

The end of Proverbs states that the women who does this shall be praised by her children and husband. Her works will also be praised at the gate which could mean that the angels, Jesus, GOD will praise her works and good deeds.

==First Timothy Chapter Five Verse Fourteen==

'''14I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.'''

'''Younger women marry'''

Younger women are by Anti-Feminist definition are suppose to marry young not only because that is when she is in her prime for attracting mates but also in bearing children.

Anti-Feminists are against women delaying marriage for unnecessary purposes like career for they believe that is selfish and unwise because sooner or later the woman's biological clock will begin to "tick" and the women that unwisely delayed marriage will have to cope with infertility. Another problem is when the women will want children she will most likely want marriage or the "whole package" to go with but will find it hard to find a mate because of her old age.

'''Bear children'''

Anti-Feminist believe that ONE of the primary functions of women is to have children. The first command to men (Adam) and women (Eve) was "Be fruitful and multiply" also known as the "Domination mandate" '''28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'''
''
"Be fruitful" Hebrew translation: Parah - to bear fruit to bring forth to increase.

"Multiply" Hebrew translation: Rabah - to increase exceedingly, to be many, to be abundant.

"Replenish Hebrew translation: Male - to fill up the world to over flowing.''

Anti-Feminists relish the idea that they are "baby machines" as many feminists call them and most don't believe that the earth is being overpopulating stating that the earth was made for humans and if the world is overpopulating why would GOD tell them not to have children?

'''Guide the house'''

Interpreted as homemakers or managers of the home.

==Women's Noblest Vocation==

Many Anti-feminists believe that the most noblest vocation a women can aspire to is to be a ''helper to her husband, Mistress of a functional home and third to be the trainer of children.''

'''Helpmate to her husband'''

Women in scripture are commanded to become helpmates to their husbands mainly because man, for all his abilities to lead and conquer cultures, cannot do so without woman's help. In order for a man to lead he needs a helper. Whether a man leads badly or well can depend upon his helper. Women have a huge influence on men which can in turn effect the culture.

The Hebrew word "help" (ezer) [used in 'help meet'] comes from two roots: the first meaning to rescue or save, and the second meaning strong.

Though the wife is devoted to her husband that doesn't make her his slave. The wife is the laborer in the work of the gospel, equal in essence, although subordinate in function. <ref>so much more</ref>

'''Mistress of a functional home'''

The Apostle Paul rarely gave instruction specifically to young women, but one of the instances that he did so is in Titus 4,5:"...that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, '''homemakers''', good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed."

'''Trainer of children'''

Woman's work is the foundation for society, for the state, for the Kingdom of heaven. In the homes of America are born the children of America. Women are considered very important when it comes training children because they are mainly the ones that train them while the husband is working to support the family while the mother is supposedly at home.

==A wise woman==
'''
Proverbs 14:1 The wise woman builds her house, But the foolish pulls it down with her hands.'''

Women (from and anti-feminist viewpoint) have so much power in a marriage. Woman are believe to set the tone in the home if the women is kind to her husband and does not neglect the home children or the husband himself she "builds her house"

If the women is constantly bring grief to her husband and neglecting her roles as a wife she "pulls it (home) down with her own hands."

The following things are considered "Foolish"

''Putting other things before God, children more important than husband, husband neglected, ministry at church (or other things) becomes an idol and first priorities are disregarded, not staying within your budget, downcast countenance, discontentment with the Lord's provisions, listening to lies from the enemy, Being enticed by the world (through music, media, magazines, television shows, you name it), focus on self or self pity, not asking husband before taking on new things, not managing our homes well, neglecting to train our children, never being home, gossip and slander, not filtering everything through scripture, coming up with excuses as to why we do the above.''<ref>http://proverbs14verse1.blogspot.com/2007/05/foolish-woman.html</ref>

==Anti-Feminism View on Feminism==

Anti-Feminists understand that feminism is a danger to society. it is because of feminism we have we have unrestricted sex, the Pill, abortion on demand, an astronomically increased number of single mothers, teenage mothers and women in their 40's struggling with infertility; we have a fatherless generation who hasn't seen a better example; chastity is mocked, women are sexualized and coerced into selling themselves cheap; we have no-fault divorce, and deterioration of family <ref>values.http://ccostello.blogspot.com/2007/05/feminism-vs-womens-rights.html</ref>

==Anti-Feminism views on Abortion and Birth control==

Abortion is seen as a sin against God himself and children are seen as a blessing from the Lord.

'''3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed, But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.'''

Because the bible has said that children are a blessing they believe that it is good and to give up or prevent a blessing (birth control) is morally wrong.

'''Barrenness'''

Barrenness is considered a curse in the bible so not be able to have many children is seen as sorrowful.

==Garments==

Deuteronomy 22:5 - The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.

Because the bible says that women and men shouldn't wear the same clothing they believe that women should retain to wearing modest skirts and dresses.

==Antifeminist organizations==
[[As of 2006]] the most successful antifeminist organization in the US is STOP ERA, founded by [[Phyllis Schlafly]] in October 1972. Schlafly successfully mobilised thousands of people to block the passage of the [[Equal Rights Amendment]] in the USA<ref name="wse2">{{cite book | title=Women's Studies Encyclopedia| url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/unisouthernqld/Doc?id=10017897&ppg=106| last=Tierney| first=Helen|date=1999| pages=p. 95| publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated| location=Westport, CT, USA}}</ref>. It was Schlafly too who forged links between STOP ERA and other conservative organizations, as well as single-issue groups against abortion, pornography, gun control, and unions. By integrating STOP ERA with the so-called [[New Right]] she was able to leverage a wider range of technological, organisational and political resources, successfully targeting pro-feminist candidates for defeat<ref name="wse2">{{cite book | title=Women's Studies Encyclopedia| url=http://site.ebrary.com/lib/unisouthernqld/Doc?id=10017897&ppg=106| last=Tierney| first=Helen|date=1999| pages=p. 95| publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated| location=Westport, CT, USA}}</ref>.

==Antifeminist Websites==

===LadiesAgainstfeminism.com===

There are many websites (and blogs) devoted to theory of anti-feminism. A popular website would be LadiesAgainstFeminism.com [http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/]. Founded by Mrs. Lydia Sherman and Mrs. Jennie Chancey in 2002 as a way to publish thoughtful, biblical responses to feminism and to encourage other women in their God-given roles <ref>http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/artman/publish/About_LAF_12/About_LAF_51005.shtml</ref>. Ladies Against Feminism (or LAF) promotes biblical womanhood, motherhood, modesty, quiverfull and homeschooling. LAF has seventeen categories dedicated to the art of biblical womanhood to choose from.

===BiblicalWomanhoodOnline.com===

Biblical Womanhood launched [http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/] in 2005 started as a ministry to "encourage and equip women and young women. Through our bookstore, articles, newsletter, and blog, we desire to promote femininity and build up women as they embrace their Biblical callings. In this humanistic, feministic culture, we want to be a breath of fresh air to women seeking after something greater than what the world has to offer"<ref>http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/</ref>

===The Posthumous Papers of the Late Adlyn Morrison===

The Posthumous Papers of the Late Adlyn Morrison [http://adlynmorrison.blogspot.com/]launched in the year 2008 by A sixteen year old African-American girl started her blog on blogspot as a response to the popular feminist blog Feministing.com [http://www.feministing.com/]. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Adlyn Morrison is a blog for "antifeminists for antifeminists", and "provides a platform for us to comment, analyze and influence."

Her blog covers an array of topics from a antifeminist perspective, such as, abortion, politics, feminism, biblical womanhood, and more.

==Further reading==
===Literature about antifeminism===
*''Redefining the New Woman, 1920-1963 (Antifeminism in America: A Collection of Readings from the Literature of the Opponents to U.S. Feminism, 1848 to the Present)'', Howard-Zophy
*''Un-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism, and the First Red Scare'', Kim E. Nielsen
* [[Andrea Dworkin]], ''Right-Wing Women: The Politics of Domesticated Females'' (1983; ISBN 0-399-50671-3).
* [[Susan Faludi]], ''Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women'' (1992; ISBN 0-385-42507-4)
* Cynthia D. Kinnard, ''Antifeminism in American Thought: An Annotated Bibliography'' (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1986, ISBN 0-8161-8122-5)
* Jane J. Mansbridge: ''Why We Lost the ERA,'' Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1986
* G. Swanson, ''Antifeminism in America: A Historical Reader'' (2000) ISBN 0-8153-3437-0

===Antifeminist literature===
* [[Helen Andelin]], [[Fascinating Womanhood]] (2007) ISBN 0553384279
* Alan J. Barron, ''The Death of Eve: Women, Liberation, Disintegration'' (1986) ISBN 0949667366
* Alan Carlson, ''The Family in America: Searching for Social Harmony in the Industrial Age'' (2003) ISBN 0765805367
* Alan Carlson, ''Family Questions: Reflections on the American Social Crisis'' (1991) ISBN 1560005556
* [[G. K. Chesterton|Gilbert K. Chesterton]], ''Brave New Family'' (1990; essay collection) ISBN 089870314X
* Thomas Fleming, ''The Politics of Human Nature'' (1988) ISBN 1-56000-693-5
* Maggie Gallagher, ''The Abolition of Marriage: How We Destroy Lasting Love'' (1996) ISBN 0895264641
* [[George Gilder]], ''Men and Marriage'' (1992) ISBN 0882894447
* [[Steven Goldberg]], ''[[Why Men Rule]]: A Theory of Male Dominance'' (1993; originally published 1971) ISBN 0812692373
* Steven Goldberg, ''[[The Inevitability of Patriarchy]]'' (1977) ISBN 0812692373
* F. Carolyn Graglia, ''Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism'' (1998) ISBN 0965320863
* Mary A. Kassian, ''The Feminist Mistake'' (2005) ISBN 1581345704
* Linda Kelly, [http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf ''Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Abuse: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State''] (2003)
* Myron Magnet, ''Modern Sex: Liberation and Its Discontents'' (2001) ISBN 1566633842
* Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young ''Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture'' (2001) ISBN 0773522727
* Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, '''''Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men''''' (2006) ISBN 0773528628
* John Piper and Wayne A. Grudem, ''Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood'' (1991) ISBN 0891075860
* Mary Pride, ''The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality'' (1985) ISBN 0891073450
* Phyllis Schlafly, ''The Power of the Positive Woman'' (1977) ISBN 0-87000-373-9
* Phyllis Schlafly, ''Feminist Fantasies'' (2003) ISBN 1890626465
* Howard Schwartz, ''The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness'' (2003) ISBN 0765805375
* Lionel Tiger, ''The Decline of Males'' (2000) ISBN 0312263112
* Esther Vilar, ''The Manipulated Man'' (1972) ISBN 0953096424
* Danielle Crittenden, ''What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us'' (2000) ISBN 0-684-85959-9
* Midge Decter, ''The New Chastity and Other Arguments Against Women's Liberation'' (1974) ISBN 0-399-50307-2
* Thomas Ellis, [http://www.rannenbergpubs.com/ ''The Rantings of a Single Male''] (2005) ISBN 0-9762613-1-6
* Thomas Fleming, ''The Politics of Human Nature'' (1988) ISBN 1-56000-693-5
* Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, ''Feminism is Not the Story of My Life'' (1996) ISBN 0-385-46790-7
* [[George Gilder]], ''Men and Marriage'' (1992) ISBN 0-88289-444-7
* F. Carolyn Graglia, ''Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism'' (1998) ISBN 0-9653208-6-3
* Richard T. Hise, ''The War Against Men'' (2004) ISBN 1-930859-61-9
* Domestic Violence: The 12 Things You Aren't Supposed to Know; Thomas P. James, Aventine Press, 2003, ISBN 1-59330-122-7
* Gertrude Himmelfarb, ''The De-moralization Of Society'' (1996) ISBN 0-679-76490-9
* Christina Hoff-Sommers, ''The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men'' (2001) ISBN 0-684-84957-7
* Christina Hoff-Sommers, ''Who Stole Feminism?'' (1995) ISBN 0-684-80156-6
* Mary A. Kassian, ''The Feminist Mistake'' (2005) ISBN 1-58134-570-4
* Linda Kelly, [http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf ''Disabusing the Definition of Domestic Abuse: How Women Batter Men and the Role of the Feminist State''] (2003)
* The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability, Laura Kipnis, 2006
* The Lipstick Proviso: Women, Sex & Power in the Real World; Karen Lehrman, 1997, ISBN 0-385-47481-4
* Myron Magnet, ''Modern Sex: Liberation and Its Discontents'' (2001) ISBN 1-56663-384-2
* Harvey C. Mansfield, ''Manliness'' (2006) ISBN 0-300-10664-5
* Diane Medved and Dan Quayle, ''The American Family: Discovering the Values That Make Us Strong'' (1997) ISBN 0-06-092810-7
* Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, ''Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men'' (2006) ISBN 0-7735-2862-8
* Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young ''Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture'' (2001) ISBN 0-7735-2272-7
* Kate O'Beirne, ''Women Who Make the World Worse'' (2005) ISBN 1-59523-009-2
* John Piper and Wayne A. Grudem, ''Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood'' (1991) ISBN 0-89107-586-0
* Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies; Daphne Patai and Noreta Koertge, 1995, ISBN 0-465-09827-4
* [[Erin Pizzey]], [http://www.bennett.com/ptv/ ''Prone to Violence''] (Hamlyn, 1982; ISBN 0-600-20551-7)
* [[Mary Pride]], ''The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality'' (1985) ISBN 0-89107-345-0
* Phyllis Schlafly, ''Feminist Fantasies'' (2003) ISBN 1-890626-46-5
* Howard Schwartz, ''The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the Roots of Political Correctness'' (2003) ISBN 0-7658-0537-5
* [[Philip Gordon Wylie]], ''A Generation of Vipers'' (1942) ISBN 1-56478-146-1

==Antifeminist Advocates==
*[[Erica Catrina D'Alessandro]]
*[[Helen Andelin]]
*[[Ernest Belfort Bax]]
*[[Ann Coulter]]
*[[Caitlin Flanagan]]
*[[George Gilder]]
*[[Jim Goad]]
*[[Henry Makow]]
*[[Adam Norton]]
*[[Mary Pride]]
*[[Phyllis Schlafly]]
*[[Dave Sim]]
*[[Mary Augusta Ward]]
*[[Otto Weininger]]
*[[Philip Gordon Wylie]]
*Jennie Chancey <ref>www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com</ref>
*Stacy McDonald <ref>www.yoursacredcalling.blogspot.com</ref>
*R.C. Sproul <ref>http://www.ligonier.org/</ref>

==See also==
*[[Feminism]]
*[[Anti-suffrage]]
*[[Masculism]]
*[[Men's rights|Men's Rights]]
*[[Feminazi]]
*[[Misogyny]]
*[[Patriarchy]]

==External links==
* [http://www-personal.umich.edu/~eandersn/hownotreview.html How ''Not'' to Criticize Feminist Epistemology], by Elizabeth Anderson, review of "Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology" concluding "[it is a] failure by its own evaluative standards of civility and avoiding gross error, tribalism, cynicism, and political correctness."
* [http://www.ladiesagainstfeminism.com/ Ladies Against Feminism]
* [[s:Transwiki:Dave Sim Tangent|"Tangent" by Dave Sim]]
* [http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/ Biblical Womanhood]
* [http://www.adlynmorrison.blogspot.com/ The Posthumous Papers of the Late Adlyn Morrison]
* [http://www.cbmw.org/ The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood]

==References==
{{reflist}}

Fascism

2008-09-11T22:32:55Z

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'''Fascism''' is an [[totalitarian]] economic and political ideology that arose in early twentieth-century Europe and came to dominate the social and political systems of a number of European and other nations. The last European fascism-related regime, that of [[Francisco Franco]] in Spain, came to an end in 1975.

The name "fascism" derives from an ancient Roman symbol, the ''[[fasces]],'' a group of birch rods bundled together with an axe. It symbolizes strength in unity; the rods are weak by themselves but strong when bundled together. Fascism is at the extreme right of the political spectrum. <ref>George Lavan Weissman, [http://marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm ''FASCISM What It Is and How To Fight It'',]</ref>

== Beliefs ==

Fascists believe that all actions should be done for the good of the state (rather than [[classical liberalism]], which focuses on the good of the individual). This definition expands to [[economic]] policy as well, with [[government]] and [[business]] working together for this end - this is called "corporatism." Modern "public-private partnerships" have their roots in corporatism, though they are not necessarily oppressive.

Characteristics of fascism include a belief that the state is more important than the individual; a leaning towards authoritarian government and centralized [[economic planning]]; an emphasis on [[nationalism]] and national traditions; militarism; information control and censorship; media propagation of the Great Leader which demonizes and trivializes his critics; and a rejection of both free enterprise and [[Social democracy]] in favor of [[corporatism|corporatist]] economic policies.

Fascist regimes have often concentrated on a "scapegoat" to push their agendas, such as the [[Jewish]] people in [[World War II]].

The fourteen characteristics of fascism also include rampant [[cronyism]] and [[corruption]], as well as rigged elections and a general disdain for human rights.<ref>Dr. Lawrence Britt "Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20</ref>

== Examples ==

The prototypical fascist regime was that of [[Benito Mussolini]], who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943. Other regimes which included corporatist elements are those of [[Francisco Franco]] in Spain (1936-1975) and [[Antonio Salazar]] in Portugal (1932-1968). German [[Nazism]] referred to government mandated corporatist entities as industrial cartels and added an obsession with [[race]]. Austrian economist [[Friedrich Hayek]] observed in the final stages of [[World War II]], "the rise of fascism and [[Marxism]] was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies. Yet it is significant that many of the leaders of these movements, from Mussolini down (and including [[Laval]] and [[Quisling]]) began as socialists and ended as fascists or Nazis. <ref>Friedrich A. Hayek, [http://www.iea.org.uk/files/upld-publication43pdf?.pdf ''Road to Serfdom'',] Reader's Digest Condensed Version, April 1945, pg. 31 - 32.</ref>

== World War II Era ==
Fascism as an ideological theory was comprehensively discredited in the eyes of most Westerners because of the defeat of the [[Axis]] powers in [[World War II]], however fascist economic theories of government mandated combines, wage and price controls, [[economic planning]] boards which set production requirements, and regulated monopolies were characteristic of the [[New Deal]] era and government efforts to spend its way out of the [[Great Depression]]. [[Class warfare]] and a hostile stance toward legitimate business and profit is another characteristic feature fascism retained from its [[Socialist]] roots.

== Modern Times ==

"Fascist" is today frequently used as a term of abuse both on the left and on the right against one's political opponents. While few people are willing to describe themselves as fascists or endorse the fascist regimes of the past, fascist parties and parties descended from fascist parties (such as the [[Alleanza Nazionale]] in [[Italy]]) continue to be a minor force in European politics. Fascism seems not to flourish in countries with an Anglo-centric heritage: America, Australia and Canada have never had significant fascist movements, and the [[British Union of Fascists]] was never an important force in UK politics; though it was significant enough for the government to consider its leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, dangerous enough to intern during the war.

Of the Fascist movement, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. wrote:
{{Cquote|The Fascists, for example, were not [[conservative]] in any very meaningful sense. They did not wish to preserve the existing order, or even to turn back the clock to some more stable century. They purposefully planned to transform the existing order into a new and all-absorbing authoritarianism, based upon the energies and frustrations of modern industrialism. The Fascists, in a meaningful sense, were revolutionaries. Yet their totalitarian ideal hardly fitted into the pattern of the Left, which had been the traditional home of greater freedoms and more generous aspirations. So, after boggling and uncertainty, they were assigned positions on the far Right. <ref>Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., ''New York Times Magazine'', April 4, 1948. [http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schlesinger-notrightleft.html Not Right, Not Left, But a Vital Center]</ref>}}

==See Also==
*[[Nazism]]

==References==
<references/>

[[category:Forms of Government]]

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-11T22:17:57Z

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The '''Large Hadron Collider''' (LHC) is the largest and most ambitious piece of machinery ever conceived and built by man. The particle accelerator, with a circumference of 27km, is located at the [[CERN]] facility with straddles the border of [[France]] and [[Switzerland]].

The LHC was powered up on Wednesday 10 September 2008, with the first beams being circulated through the collider, and will reach full power, when scientists will begin smashing particles into each other, in mid-November 2008.

The LHC has 4 giant detectors designed to probe new dimensions, search for the [[Higgs Boson]] (the so called "'''God''' Particle", or Theos (Greek for God) particle, which gives matter and other bosons mass) and to investigate what the [[universe]] was like immediately after the [[Big Bang]].

Legal challenges have been made against the LHC as some believe it could open a [[black hole]] that would swallow the earth however scientists insist that the chances of this happening are minuscule citing the such particle collisions take place quite often naturally. The LHC seeks to prove or disprove other important concepts and theories, including super-, and sanathsymmetry, antimatter, as well as confirming the existence of many leptons, such as the muon and gluon.

==External Links==
[http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc LHC] Homepage at CERN.

[[Category:Science]]

Yes Minister

2008-09-11T22:14:50Z

Spell:

'''Yes Minister''' is a [[British]] satirical television comedy about the workings of a fictional department of the British government; the Department of Administrative Affairs. Much of the humour is derived from the fact that Jim Hacker, despite being the Minister of the DAA is severely limited in his power; indeed, his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby insists that it is his job to run the Department, and Hacker's is only to provide a public face for it.

Through the course of three seasons of '''Yes Minister''', Hacker establishes himself in the DAA, and then in a Christmas episode "Party Games" succeeds in becoming the [[Prime Minister]], backed by Sir Humphrey and the Civil Service, who believe he will be easily manipulated. A sequel series, '''Yes, Prime Minister''' ran for a further two series.

==Characters==

===James "Jim" Hacker===
After backing the loser in a bid for the leadership of his party (it is deliberately ambiguous as to which one), James Hacker (Paul Eddington) is given the Department of Administrative Affairs after spending around seven years as Shadow Minister of Agriculture. Although considered around tenth highest in the Cabinet, it has a reputation for being a political graveyard, much like the Home Office. Hacker has never worked in government before, and is constantly surprised and frustrated that he holds little real power, and that regardless of his promises made in opposition, all policies tend towards maintaining the status quo thanks to the intervention of his Civil Servants. As the series goes on, he starts to become more politically skilled, and in a small number of episodes, succeeds in outwitting Sir Humphrey.
Hacker has an unfortunate tendency to say things that are open to other, unintended interpretations. He mentions once that "ministers... are chosen expressly because they know nothing."
Hacker can be seen as an exaggeration of the typical cabinet minister; he is initially concerned with doing what is right, but then avoids making any decision that can be seen as controversial in fear of losing votes. When asked whether, when he said he wanted to do something about local government, he meant "do" something or "seen to do" something, he hastily affirmed that he meant "seen to do".

===Sir Humphrey Appleby===
Just as Hacker is a caricature of a government minister, the Permanent Secretary of the DAA, Sir Humphrey (Nigel Hawthorne) is a satire of the civil servant. He is arrogant and elitist and considers it ''his'' job to run the department on a common ground, regardless of which party is in power or the minister's own policy. He is shown to have little understanding of the world outside his upper-class, grammar-school educated bubble, but believes that what is best for the Civil Service is honestly best for Britain. He constantly lampoons the fact that Hacker has an "inferior" education from London School of Economics (compared to his own degrees in Greek and Latin from Oxford) and generally talks down to Hacker (and often Bernard).
A lot of Sir Humphrey's humour comes from the euphemisms he uses when advising the Minister:
* "A controversial decision, Minister" ''(That'll cost you votes.)''
* "A courageous decision, Minister" ''(That'll cost you the election.)''
* "Have you considered all of the implications?" ''(That's a bad idea.)''
Although Humphrey can be callous and overbearing, he is not without a form of respect towards Hacker and Bernard; in one episode he forces Hacker to protect Bernard from his mistakes, and occasionally helps Hacker to survive his ministerial career, usually in return for dropping a policy that Humphrey is against.

Sir Humphrey explained the roles of Bernard Wooley and himself to Jim Hacker in the first episode:
:'''Jim:''' Who else is in this department?
:'''Sir Humphrey:''' Well briefly sir I am the Permanent Undersecretary of State known as the Permanent Secretary. Wooley here is your Principle Private Secretary. I too have a Principle Private Secretary, and he is the Principle Private Secretary to the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are ten Deputy Secretaries, eighty-seven Undersecretaries and two hundred and nineteen assistant secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principle Private Secretaries are Plain Private Secretaries. The Prime Minister will be appointing two Parliamentary Undersecretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.
:'''Jim:''' Can they all type?
:'''Sir Humphrey:''' None of us can type Minister, Mrs McKay types, she's the secretary

Sir Humphrey was big on verbosity:
:'''Hacker:''' When you give your evidence to the Think Tank, are you going to support my view that the civil service is overmanned and feather-bedded, or not? Yes or no? Straight answer!
:'''Sir Humphrey:''' Well Minister, if you ask me for a straight answer, then I shall say that, as far as we can see, looking at it by and large, taking one thing with another in terms of the average of departments, then in the final analysis it is probably true to say, that at the end of the day, in general terms, you would probably find that, not to put too fine a point on it, there probably wasn't very much in it one way or the other as far as one can see, at this stage.

===Bernard Woolley===
Hacker's Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds) is trusted by both Hacker (who is supposed to be loyal to) and Sir Humphrey (who he depends on for his future in the Civil Service). This means that both characters confide in him, and thus the audience. Bernard is shown to be extremely pedantic, pointing out the shortcomings in Sir Humphrey's and Hacker's metaphors. For example, when Hacker announced that the idea was to "cut through red tape with a sledgehammer" he points out that it is not possible to "cut" tape with a sledgehammer. Bernard often acts very childlike; when Humphrey insists that an inert compound is one that doesn't "ert", Bernard adds that it "wouldn't ert a fly". However, Humphrey considers him to be a "high flyer" and the novelisations of the series reveal that he eventually becomes head of the Civil Service itself.
Although sometimes ally of Humphrey, he also takes pleasure in conspiring with Hacker against him.

:'''Bernard''': But, you only need to know things on a need-to-know basis.
:'''Sir Humphrey''': I need to know ''everything''. How else can I judge whether or not I need to know it?
:'''Bernard''': So that means you need to know things even when you don't need to know them. You need to know them not because you need to know them but because you need to know whether or not you need to know. If you don't need to know, you still need to know so that you know that there is no need to know.
:'''Sir Humphrey''': Yes!
:'''Bernard''': Good. That's very clear!

==Department of Administrative Affairs==
The (fictional) department that Hacker leads is the DAA, the Department of Administrative Affairs, whose job it is to help administer all the other departments and to reduce needless administration and red tape. Ironically, the idea of having a department whose sole purpose is to check up on other departments is itself needless administration. The DAA's unique purpose means that the programme can use ideas for episodes that would normally fall under the jurisdiction of various other ministries, such as the Foreign Office or the Home Office.
The DAA was founded in 1964, when Sir Humphrey joined the department, but the forerunner of the department was founded by [[William Gladstone]] (so, presumably somewhere between 1868 and 1894).

==Portrayal of the British Government==
Within the programme, the elected officials and ministers are portrayed as being controlled almost exclusively by the civil servants, who have been in their posts for much longer as they are not elected. The Civil Service is portrayed as being hideously overstaffed and overpaid and resistant to change anything about itself. Virtually all of the [[civil servant]]s are upper-class with a grammar school/Oxford education but with little real understanding of the common people.
Politicians in general, and in particular the Cabinet, are portrayed as being relatively ignorant and reliant on their Civil Servants. A running joke in the series in that the Foreign Office does not reflect the views of the British people, or even the government. At one point, after being told that the elaborate reception is to "show the Arab nations whose side we're on", Hacker replies that "this may come as a suprise to the Foreign Office, but you're supposed to be on '''our''' side. Former British Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] commented that the portrayal of government was surprisingly accurate.

== External links ==
=== IMDB links to actors and characters ===
* [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001329/ Nigel Hawthorne] ([http://us.imdb.com/character/ch0030014/ Sir Humphrey Appleby])
* [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0248844/ Paul Eddington] ([http://us.imdb.com/character/ch0030013/ James Hacker])
* [http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0288621/ Derek Fowlds] ([http://us.imdb.com/character/ch0030015/ Bernard Woolley])

[[Category:Television Shows]]
[[Category:Satires]]

Ireland

2008-09-11T22:04:43Z

Spell:

'''Ireland''' is an [[island]] off the north-western coast of [[Europe]]. As a result of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the country was divided into two states:
* [[Ireland]] is the official name in the English language (Irish: ''Éire''), under the Irish Constitution of 1937, of the independent state occupying 83% of Ireland's landmass. The state's descriptive name since the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 is the '''[[Republic of Ireland]]''' (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann). It consists of 26 of Ireland's 32 counties in the island's four provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster. However, only 3 of the 9 counties in [[Ulster]] are under the control of the Republic of Ireland. According to the last census the Republic of Ireland has a population of 4,234,925<ref>[http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/environment/copy_of_census/]</ref>
*'''[[Northern Ireland]]''' is a [[constituent country]] of the [[United Kingdom]] which comprises six counties of the province of Ulster. Northern Ireland has a population of 1,685,267 (2002 est.)<ref>[http://www.nicensus2001.gov.uk/nica/browser/profile.jsp?profile=Demography&mainArea=&mainLevel=]</ref>

==People==
The Irish people are mainly of Celtic origin, with the country's only significant sized minority having descended from the [[Normans]]. English is the common language, but Irish (Gaelic/Gaeilge) is the first official language of the Republic of Ireland; Irish is taught in schools, appears on all official documents, and all road signs are also bilingual. In Northern Ireland, Irish has official recognition under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Schools teaching through the medium of Irish known as [[Gaelscoileanna]] have experienced considerable growth in the past two decades in both parts of Ireland. Although initially reluctant, both the British state in Northern Ireland and the Irish state in the Republic of Ireland have funded this development following protests and requests from parents.

Anglo-Irish writers such as [[Jonathan Swift]], [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan]], [[Oliver Goldsmith]], [[Edmund Burke]], [[Oscar Wilde]], [[James Joyce]], [[William Butler Yeats]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], and [[Samuel Beckett]] have made a major contribution to world literature over the past 300 years.

===Religion===
The majority of the Irish population describe themselves as Roman Catholic (86.8%). Atheists and the non-religious account for 4.4% of the population <ref>[http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/Final%20Principal%20Demographic%20Results%202006.pdf ]</ref>while membership of the Church of Ireland runs at about 3%, with most of the rest of the population belonging to other Protestant/Christian denominations. Southern Protestantism had been in decline since independence due to the ''ne temere'' decree (in which the Catholic church required children of mixed Catholic/Protestant marriages to be raised Catholic) <ref>[http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/ncd05730.htm]</ref> and emigration. However, it has experienced a revival of late due to immigration and some converts from Catholicism. There is a small Jewish community in Ireland. The Muslim community has grown recently due to immigration. The worship of nature and the pagan gods of ancient Ireland has seen a recent resurgence as well.
<ref>[http://www.cso.ie/statistics/popnclassbyreligionandsex2002.htm]</ref>

The Republic has maintained a nominally Catholic ethos since independence. [[Abortion]] remains controversially illegal (although information on obtaining abortions in other jurisdictions is a constitutional entitlement, and many thousands of women travel to the UK for treatment<ref>[http://www.crisispregnancy.ie/pub/statistical_report_2005.pdf]</ref> ). However, in line with a more general liberalization of Irish society since the early nineties, restrictions on the availability of contraception were removed in 1972; homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993; and the right to divorce was enshrined in the constitution in 1995. Equal Rights legislation guarantees homosexuals the same legal rights as heterosexuals, and the Irish parliament is currently debating the possible legalisation of [[same-sex marriage]].

Northern Ireland has a Protestant majority (53%), the main denominations being Presbyterian and Church of Ireland (Anglican/Episcopal). Roughly 44% of the population is Roman Catholic, with most of the remainder professing no religion. <ref>[http://www.nicensus2001.gov.uk/nica/browser/profile.jsp?profile=Cultural&mainArea=&mainLevel=]</ref>

==Government and Political Conditions==
The Republic of Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state with a parliamentary system of government. The president, who serves as head of state in a largely ceremonial role, is elected for a 7-year term and can be re-elected only once. The current president is Mary McAleese, who is serving her second term after having succeeded President Mary Robinson - the first instance worldwide where one woman has followed another as an elected head of state. In carrying out certain constitutional powers and functions, the president is aided by the Council of State, an advisory body. On the [[Taoiseach]]'s advice, the president also dissolves the Oireachtas (Parliament).

The [[Taoiseach]] (pronounced "TEE-shuck") is elected by the Dáil (lower house of Parliament) as the leader of the political party, or coalition of parties, which wins the most seats in the national elections, held approximately every 5 years (unless called earlier). Executive power is vested in a cabinet whose ministers are nominated by the Taoiseach and approved by the Dáil.

The bicameral ''[[Oireachtas]]'' (Parliament) consists of [[Seanad Éireann]] (Senate) and the [[Dáil Éireann]] (House of Representatives). The Seanad is composed of 60 members--11 nominated by the [[Taoiseach]], 6 elected by the national universities, and 43 elected from panels of candidates established on a vocational basis. The Seanad has the power to delay legislative proposals and is allowed 90 days to consider and amend bills sent to it by the Dail, which wields greater power in Parliament. The Dáil has 166 members popularly elected to a maximum term of 5 years under a complex system of proportional representation. A member of the Dáil is known as a Teachta Dála, or TD.

Judges are appointed by the president on nomination by the government and can be removed from office only for misbehavior or incapacity and then only by resolution of both houses of Parliament. The ultimate court of appeal is the Supreme Court, consisting of the chief justice and five other justices. The Supreme Court also can decide upon the constitutionality of legislative acts if the president asks for an opinion.

Local government is by elected county councils and--in the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford--by county borough corporations. County councils/corporations in turn select city mayors. In practice, however, authority remains with the central government.

Irish politics remain dominated by the two political parties that grew out of Ireland's bitter 1922-23 civil war. Fianna Fáil was formed by those who opposed the 1921 treaty that partitioned the island. Although treaty opponents lost the civil war, Fianna Fáil soon became Ireland's largest political party. Fine Gael, representative of the pro-treaty forces, remains the country's second-largest party. The Progressive Democrats, Labour, Sinn Féin, and the Greens are the other significant parties.

The May 2007 national elections brought the Fianna Fáil party and its leader Bertie Ahern back to power in a coalition government for an unprecedented third five-year term. Coalition members joining Fianna Fáil were the Green Party and the Progressive Democrats. In recent months the Mahon Tribunal has been investigating allegations of corruption against Ahern when he was Minister of Finance in the early 1990s. However, although he survived a vote of no confidence on the issue in September 2007, increasing revelations about his finances led to his resignation in May 2007. The new [[Taoiseach]] is his former [[Tánaiste]], Brian Cowen. The new minister for Foreign Affairs is [[Mícheál Martin]], who is the minister who introduced Ireland's ban on smoking in public bars, the first such ban by any state in the [[European Union]].

Local and European elections took place in June 2004 and saw gains for opposition parties. The election also featured a referendum on citizenship. Until that time, Ireland had granted citizenship on the basis of birth on Irish soil. Concerns about security and social welfare abuse prompted the government to seek to bring citizenship laws in line with the more restrictive policies prevalent in the rest of Europe, and the 2004 referendum measure passed by a wide majority. Now, persons with non-Irish parents can acquire Irish citizenship at birth only if at least one parent has been resident in Ireland for three years preceding the birth.

===Political Parties===
* '''Fianna Fáil''': (Pronounced ''Fee-Na Fall'' which is Irish for 'Soldiers of Destiny'). Ireland's main political party, they do not class themselves as either left or right wing but rather as pragmatic centrists and republicans (In the sense of opposing the notion of formal classes in society, in particular the monarchy. Typically republicans in Ireland seek to unite Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland into a single Republic separate from the United Kingdom.). The party was founded as a splinter from Official Sinn Féin by [[Eamon de Valera]]. Traditionally the party of small farmers and the urban working class community, and generally conservative on social issues. Currently the largest party in the ruling coalition. Led by Brian Cowen, current [[Taoiseach]] of the Republic of Ireland. Fianna Fáil generally opposes any action that would be seen to erode Ireland's neutrality and independence in foreign policy, including joining [[NATO]].<ref>[http://www.fiannafail.ie/]</ref>
* '''Fine Gael''': (Pronounced ''Finna Gale'', Irish for 'tribe of the Irish'). Ireland's second largest party. Fine Gael is traditionally socially and fiscally conservative. Under the leadership of [[Garret FitzGerald]] in the 1980's, the party embraced [[social democracy]]. Today the party likes to characterize itself as a party of the "progressive centre". Led by [[Enda Kenny]]. Many of the party's elected members would like to see Ireland join NATO and at least one has called for Ireland to rejoin the [[British Commonwealth]].<ref>[http://www.finegael.com/index.cfm]</ref>
* '''Labour Party''': A social democratic left-wing party, similar to the British Labour Party under [[Tony Blair]]. [[Eamon Gilmore]] is the current leader of the Labour Party.<ref>[http://www.labour.ie/]</ref>
* '''Progressive Democrats''': It is very right wing on economic issues, favoring low-taxation, pro-business policies, but are very liberal on social issues. [[Mary Harney]] is the current leader.<ref>[http://www.progressivedemocrats.ie/]</ref>
* '''Green Party''': A left-wing party in favor of environmental protection, renewable energy and a stronger system of social security. No individual party leader.<ref>[http://www.greenparty.ie/]</ref>
* '''Sinn Féin''': (Pronounced ''Shin Fane'', Irish for 'We Ourselves') Claims to be a remnant of Ireland's oldest political party, it is closely connected with the Provisional [[IRA]], a paramilitary movement that sought the reunification of Ireland under a republican form of government free from British rule. As with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil before it- both parties which originated in Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army's war of indepdencence against Britain- Sinn Féin has sought to achieve its aim through non-violent methods since the 1990s. Sinn Féin is, traditionally, strongly influenced by revolutionary socialist ideals, and are one of Ireland's more liberal parties on issues such as gay marriage and abortion. They organize in all 32 counties of Ireland, and are the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland today. Led by Gerry Adams. <ref>[http://www.sinnfein.ie/]</ref>
* '''Socialist Party''': A left-wing Trotskyite party. They oppose capitalism and seek a United Socialist Ireland. Led by Joe Higgins. <ref> [http://www.socialistparty.net/] </ref>

===Northern Ireland===
Consolidating the peace process in Northern Ireland and encouraging the full implementation of the 1998 [[Belfast Agreement | Good Friday Agreement]] (GFA) and the 2006 St. Andrews Agreement remain U.S. priorities in Ireland.

The conflict in Northern Ireland stems from a history of British rule, historical animosity between Catholics and Protestants, and the various armed and political attempts to unite Northern Ireland with the rest of the island. "Nationalist" and "Republican" groups seek a united Ireland, while "Unionists" and "Loyalists" want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. After decades of violence by both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries, most notably the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the British and Irish governments negotiated an IRA ceasefire in 1994, which was followed by the landmark U.S.-brokered [[Belfast Agreement | Good Friday Agreement]] (GFA) in 1998.

The GFA established a power-sharing legislative assembly to serve as the autonomous local government of Northern Ireland. The 108-member [[Northern Ireland Assembly]] is led by a first minister and deputy first minister, one from each of the two communities, and a 10-minister executive. The GFA also provided for changes in both the British and Irish constitutions. Ireland ceded territorial claim to Northern Ireland, and the U.K. agreed that Northern Ireland could become part of Ireland if a majority (North and South) so voted in the future. Finally, the GFA provided the blueprint for "normalization," to include the eventual removal of British forces, devolution of police and justice functions, and guarantees of human rights and equal opportunity for all individuals. The agreement was approved in a 1998 referendum by 71% of Northern Ireland voters and 95% of Irish voters.

The major political parties in Northern Ireland are:
* '''Democratic Unionist Party''' (DUP): Currently the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland. The DUP is a right-wing, ultra-conservative, hardline unionist party currently led by its founder, the Reverend Ian RK Paisley. The party has strong links with Rev. Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church. <ref>[http://www.dup.org.uk/]</ref>
* '''Sinn Féin''' Currently the largest nationalist party in Northern Ireland, they sit in the Irish parliament and [[Northern Ireland Assembly]], but refuse to take their seats in the British Parliament in Westminster.
* '''Ulster Unionist Party''' (UUP): A moderate right-wing party, which had strong links with the British Conservative Party. Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble is a former leader. Currently in decline, with voters turning to the DUP. Currently led by Sir Reg Empey. <ref> [http://www.uup.org/]</ref>
* '''Social Democratic and Labour Party''' (SDLP): A left-wing nationalist party. Nobel Peace Prize laureate John Hume is a former leader. The SDLP were the largest nationalist party until recently, when they were overtaken by Sinn Féin. Unlike SF, the SDLP have always advocated a non-violent and constitutional approach to achieving a United Ireland. Current leader is Mark Durkan. <ref>[http://www.sdlp.ie/]</ref>
* '''Alliance Party''': The Alliance party identifies as neither unionist or nationalist and thus receives support from both communities. The current leader is David Ford. <ref>[http://www.allianceparty.org/]</ref>

In October 2002, the British Government suspended (for the fourth time) the Assembly, following a breakdown in trust between Unionists and Republicans. The British and Irish Governments began discussions with the parties to try to resolve longstanding unresolved differences between the communities, and to secure a commitment from Sinn Fein that Republicans would divest themselves of all paramilitary activities and capabilities. Efforts to restore the political process in time to stage new elections to the Assembly in May 2003 broke down when the two governments concluded they did not have sufficient assurances from the Republicans. However, the governments proceeded to publish a joint declaration, mapping out the timetable to full implementation of the GFA. The governments also created an International Monitoring Commission to serve as a forum to hear complaints of alleged breaches of GFA commitments by the political parties and/or by British authorities. The four-member commission includes a representative from the United States.

Beginning in 2005, there were significant steps to reinvigorate the peace process. In July 2005, the IRA unilaterally announced that it would end its "armed struggle" and rely upon solely peaceful and democratic means to achieve its political objectives. The Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) confirmed in September 2005 that the IRA had effectively put its weapons "beyond use." A series of reports by the International Monitoring Commission also noted significant progress by the IRA in its move away from criminality. Following upon this momentum, the British and Irish Governments in April 2006 launched a new negotiation process that envisioned the restoration of the Assembly and the selection of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister by year's end.

This process led to a summit at St. Andrews, Scotland, in October 2006, brokered by the then [[Taoiseach]], Bertie Ahern, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which achieved agreement between [[Sinn Féin]] and the [[DUP]] on the process for restoring power to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Elections for the Assembly took place on March 7, 2007, which led to the restoration of the [[Northern Ireland Assembly]] on May 8, 2007. DUP leader [[Ian Paisley]] was elected First Minister, while Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness became Deputy First Minister. Two breakthroughs enabled this historic agreement to proceed: Sinn Fein's decision at an extraordinary Ard Fheis ("AR-desh," party conference) on January 28 to endorse policing and justice; and the DUP's decision to contest the March 7 election, signaling that the party would agree to share power with Sinn Fein in a restored Assembly. In the meantime, both the British and Irish Governments have offered significant new financial packages for the new Assembly.

The Special Envoy for the Northern Ireland Peace Process is Paula Dobriansky, who coordinates with the U.S. Missions in London, Belfast and Dublin to reinforce the views of the British and Irish Governments that the newly restored [[Northern Ireland Assembly]] must govern effectively in order to achieve economic growth and community reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

The United States also continues to provide funding ($13.5 million in 2007) for projects administered under the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), created in 1986 to generate economic opportunity and cross-community engagement in the border areas, both North and South. Since the IFI's establishment, the U.S. Government has contributed over $482 million, roughly half of total IFI funding.

===Principal Government Officials===
*[[Uachtaráin]] (President)--Mary McAleese
*[[Taoiseach]] [[Brian Cowen]]
*[[Tánaiste]] and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment--[[Mary Coughlin (politician)]]
*Ambassador to the United States--Michael Collins

===Foreign Relations===
Ireland is a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the European Union. Ireland has been an important contributor to numerous international peacekeeping missions, such as in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Liberia (UNIMIL), and the Balkans (KFOR and EUFOR). Ireland's overseas development assistance focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa and stands at 5 percent of GDP.

==Economy==
Ireland boasts a vibrant, globalized economy, with GDP per capita second only to Luxembourg's in the EU. The "Celtic Tiger" period of the mid to late 1990s saw several years of double-digit GDP growth, driven by a progressive industrial policy that boosted large-scale foreign direct investment and exports. GDP growth dipped during the immediate post-9/11 global economic slowdown, but has averaged roughly 5 percent yearly since 2004, the best performance for this period among the original EU 15 Member States. Since 2004, the Irish economy has generated roughly 90,000 new jobs annually, attracting over 200,000 foreign workers, mostly from the new EU Member states, in an unprecedented immigration influx. The construction sector has accounted for approximately one-quarter of these jobs, and economists caution that any slowdown in Ireland's vibrant housing market would have ramifications for continued GDP growth.

Economic and trade ties are an important facet of overall U.S.-Irish relations. In 2005, U.S. exports to Ireland were valued at $9 billion, while Irish exports to the U.S. totaled $28 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. The range of U.S. exports includes electrical components and equipment, computers and peripherals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and livestock feed. Irish exports to the United States represent approximately 20% of all Irish exports, and have roughly the same value as Irish exports to the UK (inclusive of Northern Ireland). Exports to the United States include alcoholic beverages, chemicals and related products, electronic data processing equipment, electrical machinery, textiles and clothing, and glassware. According to Ireland's Central Statistical Office, Irish exports to the United States from January to September 2006 rose by 7% compared to the same period in 2005, while Irish imports from the United States from January to September 2006 fell by 14% compared to the same period in 2005.

U.S. investment has been particularly important to the growth and modernization of Irish industry over the past 25 years, providing new technology, export capabilities, and employment opportunities. As of year-end 2006, the stock of U.S. foreign direct investment in Ireland stood at $84 billion, more than double the U.S. total for China and India combined ($31.2 billion). Currently, there are approximately 620 U.S. subsidiaries in Ireland, employing roughly 100,000 people and spanning activities from manufacturing of high-tech electronics, computer products, medical supplies, and pharmaceuticals to retailing, banking, finance, and other services. In more recent years, Ireland has also become an important research and development (R&D) center for U.S. firms in Europe.

Many U.S. businesses find Ireland an attractive location to manufacture for the EU market, since it is inside the EU customs area and uses the euro. In 2005, U.S. firms accounted for 61% of Ireland's total exports of euro 89 billion. Other reasons for Ireland's attractiveness include: a 12.5 percent corporate tax rate for domestic and foreign firms; the quality and flexibility of the English-speaking work force; cooperative labor relations; political stability; pro-business government policies; a transparent judicial system; strong intellectual property protection; and, the pulling power of existing companies operating successfully (a "clustering" effect). Factors that negatively affect Ireland's ability to attract investment include: increasing labor and energy costs (especially when compared to low-cost countries in Eastern Europe and Asia), skilled labor shortages, inadequate infrastructure (such as in the transportation and internet/broadband sectors), and price levels that are ranked among the highest in Europe.

==History==
===Early History===
The earliest inhabitants--people of a mid-Stone Age culture--arrived about 6000 BC. About 4,000 years later, tribes from southern Europe arrived and established a high Neolithic culture, leaving behind gold ornaments and huge stone monuments. The Bronze Age people, who arrived during the next 1,000 years, produced elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons.

The Iron Age arrived abruptly in the fourth century BC with the invasion of the Celts, a tall, energetic people who had spread across Europe and Great Britain in the preceding centuries. The Celts, or Gaels, and their more numerous predecessors divided into five kingdoms in which, despite constant strife, a rich culture flourished.

===Early Christian Ireland===
The coming of Christianity from across the Irish Sea brought major changes and civilizing influences. Ireland's first bishop, Palladius, arrived from [[France]] around 431 AD, evidence that Christianity had already arrived due to trading or other outside contacts. St. Patrick's mission most likely took place later, in the mid-to-late 5th century AD. Modern scholarship has discovered that many dates and facts attributed previously to Saint Patrick were likely the work of Palladius, and that the two had become blended into a single figure in the historical record.

The pagan druid tradition collapsed before the spread of the new faith, and Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished. Missionaries went forth from Ireland to England and the continent, spreading news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations came to Irish monasteries. The excellence and isolation of these monasteries helped preserve Latin and Greek learning during the Dark Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewelry, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island.

===Medieval Ireland===
At the end of the 8th Century, Norse and Danish raiders (commonly called Vikings) began to appear on Ireland's shores (as they were appearing in much of Europe at the same time). Several waves of attacks followed. The first were small, quick raids by small groups of boats on outlying areas (coastal settlements, islands off the coast, etc). Later raiding parties grew much larger, and began making inroads into the island. Eventually, the raiders began to build longphorts in Ireland, which were the first towns. Among these were Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford. The Vikings eventually became integrated into Irish politics and culture, and had major effects on many aspects of Irish life.

In the 12th century, Norman lords invaded Ireland at the behest of Diarmait MacMurrough who wanted their help to regain land that he had lost. While they quickly spread across most of the island, their conquest was incomplete. The Native Irish later began to retake much of the land that was lost and many Normans began to adopt Gaelic culture, which made the island very difficult to govern from England. The English were unable to bring the entire island under their control until the 17th century, after the defeat of the Irish in the Nine Years War. King James I of England (King James VI of Scotland) decided to plant Ulster, in the North of Ireland, with English and Scottish Protestant settlers, in an attempt to prevent future rebellions.<ref>[http://www.hoganstand.com/general/Identity/stories/ulster.htm]</ref>

===Modern Ireland===
In 1690, the Catholic King James II and his Irish allies were defeated by the Protestant William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne. This defeat ushered in an era of Protestant dominance in Ireland. A series of regulations limiting the status of the Catholic majority were passed between 1691 and 1760, known as the Penal Laws. These laws also discriminated against Presbyterians and other dissenting Protestants, who along with Catholics were forced to pay tithes to the Anglican Church.<ref>[http://www.risingroadtours.com/a7_penallaws.htm]</ref> <ref>[http://prorev.com/irish.htm]</ref>

In 1800 the Irish Parliament passed the Act of Union with Great Britain, and Ireland was an official part of the United Kingdom until 1921. Religious freedom, outlawed in the 18th century, was restored in 1829, but this victory for the Irish Catholic majority was overshadowed by a severe economic depression and the great famine from 1846-48 when the potato crop failed. Millions died, and the millions that emigrated spawned the first mass wave of Irish emigration to the United States. A decade later, in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB--also known as the Fenians) was founded as a secret society dedicated to armed rebellion against the British. An aboveground political counterpart, the Home Rule Movement, was created in 1874, advocating constitutional change for independence.

Galvanized by the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, the party was able to force British governments after 1885 to introduce several home rule bills. The turn of the century witnessed a surge of interest in Irish nationalism, including the founding of Sinn Fein ("Ourselves Alone") as an open political movement.

Nationalism was and is a potent populist force in Irish politics. A home rule bill passed in 1914, but its implementation was suspended until war in Europe ended. Believing the mantra: "England's problem is Ireland's opportunity," and tapping into a mood of Gaelic revivalism, Padraic Pearse and James Connolly led the unsuccessful Easter Rising of 1916. Pearse and the other 1916 leaders declared an independent Irish republic, but a lack of popular support doomed the rebellion, which lasted a week and destroyed large portions of Dublin. The decision by the British military government to execute the leaders of the rebellion, coupled with the British Government's threat of conscripting the Irish to fight in the Great War, alienated public opinion and produced massive support for Sinn Fein in the 1918 general election. Under the leadership of Eamon de Valera, the elected Sinn Fein deputies constituted themselves as the first Dail. Tensions only increased: British attempts to smash Sinn Fein ignited the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-1921.

The end of the war brought the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State of 26 counties within the British Commonwealth and recognized the partition of the island into Ireland and Northern Ireland, though supposedly as a temporary measure. The six predominantly Protestant counties of northeast Ulster--Northern Ireland--remained a part of the United Kingdom with limited self-government. A significant Irish minority repudiated the treaty settlement because of the continuance of subordinate ties to the British monarch and the partition of the island. This opposition led to further hostilities--a civil war (1922-23), which was won by the pro-treaty forces.

In 1932, Eamon de Valera, the political leader of the forces initially opposed to the treaty, became Prime Minister, and a new Irish constitution was enacted in 1937. The last British military bases were soon withdrawn, and the ports were returned to Irish control. Ireland was neutral in World War II. The government formally declared Ireland a republic in 1948; however, it does not normally use the term "Republic of Ireland," which tacitly acknowledges the partition, but refers to the country simply as "Ireland."

====Premiers of the Republic of Ireland====
President of the Executive Council

* '''William Thomas Cosgrave''' (Cummann na nGaedheal): 1922-1932.
* '''Éamon de Valera''' (Fianna Fáil): 1932-1937

An Taoiseach
* '''Éamon de Valera''' (Fianna Fáil): 1937-1948, 1951-1954, 1957-1959.
* '''John A.Costello''' (Fine Gael): 1948-1951, 1954-1957.
* '''Seán Lemass''' (Fianna Fáil): 1959-1966.
* '''Jack Lynch''' (Fianna Fáil): 1966-1973.
* '''Liam Cosgrave''' (Fine Gael): 1973-1977.
* '''Jack Lynch''' (Fianna Fáil): 1977-1979.
* '''Charles Haughey''' (Fianna Fáil): 1979-1981, March 1982 - December 82 and March 1987 - February 1992.
* '''Garret FitzGerald''' (Fine Gael): 30 June 1981- 9 March 1982 and 14 December 1982 - 10 March 1987.
* '''Albert Reynolds''' (Fianna Fáil): February 1992-1994.
* '''John Bruton''' (Fine Gael): 1994-1997.
* '''Bertie Ahern''' (Fianna Fáil): 1997-2008.
* '''Brian Cowen''' (Fianna Fáil): 2008- <ref> [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=349&docID=-1] </ref>

====Premiers of Northern Ireland====
Prime Minster of Northern Ireland (1921-1972)
*''Government of Ireland Act''
* '''Sir James Craig''' (UUP): 1921-1940
* '''John Miller Andrews''' (UUP): 1940-1943
* '''Sir Basil Brooke''' (UUP): 1943-1963
* '''Terence O'Neill''' (UUP): 1963-1969
* '''Brian Faulkner''' (UUP): 1969-1972
*''Post abolished in 1972.''

Chief Executive of Northern Ireland (1973–1974)
*''Sunningdale Agreement''
* '''Brian Faulkner''' (UUP) 1973–1974
*''Post abolished in 1972.''

First Minister of Northern Ireland (1998-present)
*''Belfast Agreement''
* '''David Trimble''' (UUP) 1998-July 2001, November 2001-October 2002
* '''Sir Reg Empey''' (UUP) (Acting): July 2001-October 2001
* ''Executive abolished''
*''St Andrews Agreement''
* '''Rev Dr Ian Paisley''' (DUP)/'''Martin McGuinness''' (Sinn Féin) 2007-present
<ref>[http://www.worldstatesmen.org/United_Kingdom.html#Northern]</ref>

==References==

<references/>

{{License|license = This work is in the [[public domain]] in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.| source = [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3180.htm]}}

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[[Category:United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Islands]]

Star

2008-09-11T22:02:45Z

Spell:

[[Image:Moooghj.jpg|300px|right]]'''Stars''' are extremely large, luminous bodies of gas. They are the most obvious features found in the [[universe]]. They are principally composed of [[hydrogen]] that is undergoing nuclear [[fusion]] to become [[helium]]. Our Sun is the nearest star to Earth, at a distance averaging 93 million miles. The Earth orbits the Sun in a period of approximately 365.25 days, and this defines the [[year]]. The diameter of the Sun, which is a typical star, is about 870,000 miles and its power output is about 1026 watts. The temperature inside the Sun is estimated to be in excess of ten million degrees, and this is hot enough for [[nuclear reactions]] to occur.

== Measuring stellar distances ==
The oldest method of measuring the distance from our solar system to a distant star is the parallax method. To use this method, astronomers measure the right ascension on the sky of the star at two times of the year, half a year apart. The two measurements will differ by a small angle with respect to the most distant stars in that region of the sky. Exactly half this angle is the ''parallax angle'', having symbol ''p''. This is the angle that the star makes with the [[sun]] and the position of the [[earth]] at a right angle with that star.<ref name=Britannica3>"[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-52809/star Star: Determining stellar distances]." ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Accessed 21 Apr. 2008</ref> The distance s of the star, in astronomical units (AU), is:

<math>\,\!s = \cot p</math>

In the range of the very small angles typically encountered, the cotangent of the angle measure (in radians) is very nearly equal to the reciprocal, and thus:

<math>\,\!s \approx \frac {180 \times 3600}{p \times \pi}</math>

where p is measured in seconds of arc.

The cotangent of one second (1/3600 of a degree) of arc is approximately 206,264.81. No parallax angle for any star will be larger than one second. Therefore astronomers initially defined a unit of stellar distance, the ''parsec'' (symbol pc), from this relationship. One parsec is the distance corresponding to a parallax angle of one second of arc. Hence:

<math>1 pc \approx 206,264.81 AU</math>

However, the error of measurement of parallax angle is 0.005 arc seconds, and beyond a distance of 100 parsecs, this error becomes significant. 700 stars are near enough to measure their distances directly by using parallax.<ref name=Britannica3/> To measure distances further out than this, astronomers typically use absolute and relative magnitudes, or they apply Hubble's Law to the star's estimated [[redshift]].

== Stellar positions and movements ==
The most common system for describing the position of a star in the sky is the equatorial system. This system uses two coordinates:
# Right ascension on the sky, or the number of hours required for the earth to rotate before an observer can see the star at its highest point in the sky. The zero for right ascension is midnight on the day of the vernal equinox.<ref name=WeissteinRA>Weisstein, Eric W. "[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/RightAscension.html Right Ascension]." ''Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy'', 2007. Accessed April 21, 2008.</ref>
# Declination, or the north-south angle between the star and the celestial equator.<ref name=WeissteinD>Weisstein, Eric W. "[http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/Declination.html Declination]." ''Eric Weisstein's World of Astronomy'', 2007. Accessed April 21, 2008.</ref>

All stars move, but the most distant stars are considered "fixed" because their motion would be undetectable. The ''proper motion'' (symbol m) of any star is the angular velocity of its position across the sky. This describes the motion at right angles to the line of sight of the observer. To convert this to actual ''tangential velocity'', multiply the tangent of this angular velocity by the star's distance.

The motion ''in'' line of sight, or ''radial velocity'', is currently determined from spectral shift.

== Measuring stellar magnitudes ==
The visual magnitude system is defined as follows: a star of any given magnitude is about 2.512 times as bright as is a star of the next magnitude. [[Hipparchus]] devised the magnitude system, and [[Ptolemy]] refined it further. By convention, an arbitrary sample of the twenty brightest stars that they could observe were assigned to the first magnitude, and the stars that they could barely observe were assigned to the sixth. Sixth-magnitude stars are actually 100 times less bright than first-magnitude stars. Magnitude levels between these extremes are assigned on a logarithmic scale. Thus, given two stars of brightness l1 and l2, their magnitude difference (V2 - V1) relates to their respective brightnesses in this way:<ref name=Haworth>Haworth, David. "[http://www.stargazing.net/david/constel/magnitude.html Star Magnitudes]." ''[http://www.stargazing.net/david/index.html Observational Astronomy]'', 2003. Accessed April 21, 2008.</ref>

<math>\,\!V_2 - V_1 = 2.5 \times \log \frac{l_1}{l_2}</math>

The ''absolute'' magnitude of any star is the visual magnitude that it would have if it were ten parsecs distant. To convert apparent magnitude V to actual magnitude M, use this formula:

<math>\,\!M = V + 5 \times \log \frac{s_0}{s}</math>

where s0 is the standard distance. This distance is ten parsecs, or about 2,062,650 AU.

Brightness declines with the square of distance, and squares correspond to doubling of logarithms. One must then multiply that result by 2.5 to stay within the magnitude scale.

== Stellar colors and spectra ==
The ''color'' of a star is objectively quantifiable. To determine color, astronomers view the star through a variety of colored filters and compute ''color indices'' as the differences in apparent magnitudes through the various filters. Stellar colors vary, in order from the coolest to the hottest, from red to yellow to white to blue-white to blue or violet. This is the same gamut of colors that a black body shows as its temperature rises.

In addition, each star has a unique ''spectrum'', which depends on the gases and other elements that it contains, and their distribution. A spectrum can serve two purposes:
# It can serve as a unique signature for the star, to distinguish it from other stars.
# It can provide information on the star's radial velocity vis-à-vis the earth.

To accomplish the latter, astronomers note the placement of various lines in the spectrum and then determine the star's likely constituent elements from the spacing of those lines. Lines that are out of ''place'' are shifted, either toward the blue or toward the red. Nearly all stellar spectra are shifted toward the red; this [[redshift]] indicates a recession, either of the star or of the part of space where the star resides.<ref>Some [[cosmology|cosmological]] models call for an expansion of space itself, not merely the matter in it. According to these models, a redshifted star is in a part of space that was still expanding as the incident light was generated.</ref>

=== Spectral types ===
[[Image:Hertzsprung-Russell.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram]]
In the late nineteenth century, astronomers at the [[Harvard University]] observatory developed the first classification scheme for stellar spectra that would become known as the '''Harvard spectral classification'''. In 1924, Annie Jump Cannon<ref name=Cannon>"[http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/lifecycles/LC_main_p8.html Life Cycles of Stars]." ''Goddard Space Flight Center'', November 21, 2002. Accessed April 22, 2008.</ref> refined the classification from the original A-Q gamut to the familiar "OBAFGKM" gamut. Astronomers have since added classes to this range at the high end and the low.<ref name=Swinburne>"[http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/H/Harvard+Spectral+Classification Harvard Spectral Classification]." ''Study Astronomy Online at Swinburne University''. Accessed April 22, 2008.</ref><ref name=Seattle>Irizarry, David. "[http://www.seattleastro.org/webfoot/feb00/pg2.htm The Secrets of the Harvard Classification Revealed]." ''The Webfooted Astronomer'', Seattle Astronomical Society, February 2000. Accessed April 22, 2008.</ref>

The classic Harvard spectral classes are O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. Each of these has ten subclasses, varying from 0 to 9 in order of decreasing stellar temperature. Thus, for example, the next class after an F9 star is a G0 star. Recently astronomers recognized one class of stars hotter than the O stars (the very hot Wolf-Rayet stars) and three classes of stars (the N, R, and S stars) cooler than the M stars. (Some astronomers include the N and R stars in one class, the C stars, for the carbon compounds that their spectra exhibit.)

In addition to the spectral type, astronomers today add a ''luminosity class'', which varies from I to VI in order of decreasing brightness. The [[sun]]'s spectral type is G2 and its luminosity class is V (five).

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Class
! [[Temperature]]
! Color
! [[Element]]s
! Notes
|-
| W
| 106,000 K
| Violet
| Ionized [[helium]], [[carbon]], [[oxygen]], [[nitrogen]]
| Wolf-Rayet stars. Additional subclasses include WC (overabundant carbon and oxygen) and WN (overabundant nitrogen)
|-
| O
| 30,000 K
| Blue
| Ionized [[Helium]], [[nitrogen]], [[oxygen]]
| Weak Balmer lines ([[hydrogen]]) at higher subclasses.
|-
| B
| 13,000 K to 20,000 K
| Blue
| Neutral helium; ionized [[silicon]], oxygen and [[magnesium]].
| [[Hydrogen]] (Balmer lines) appear in strength
|-
| A
| 75,00 to 10,000 K
| Blue-white
| [[Hydrogen]], [[calcium]], [[helium]]
| Balmer lines dominant. K lines (calcium) now appearing.
|-
| F
| 7,000K to 9,000K
| White-yellow
| [[Hydrogen]], [[calcium]], [[iron]], [[manganese]], [[sodium]]
| Balmer lines weakening. K lines stronger.
|-
| G
| 5,200 to 6,000K
| Yellow
| [[Calcium]], [[hydrogen]], other [[metal]]s
| Balmer lines weaker still. K lines dominant. Metals now appearing.
|-
| K
| 4000K to 5100K
| Orange
| [[Calcium]], neutral metals, [[titanium oxide]]
|
|-
| M
| 3000K
| Red
| [[Titanium oxide]], [[iron iodide]]
| Strong molecular bands
|-
| N,R
| 2300K to 2600K
| Red
| [[Carbon]] compounds
|
|-
| S
| 2300K to 2600K
| Red
| [[Hydrogen]], [[zirconium oxide]]
|
|}

In the early twentieth century, astronomers Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell prepared the first plot of stellar temperature as a function of luminosity, or brightness. Other astronomers have since prepared versions of the diagram showing absolute magnitude as a function of color. This diagram shows a "main sequence" of stars for which brightness declines as temperature increases, but also shows a "white dwarf" population of very hot but dim stars, and the population of giants and supergiants that are far brighter than their temperatures would indicate.<ref name=HR>"[http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/H/Hertzsprung-Russell+Diagram Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram]." ''Study Astronomy Online at Swinburne University''. Accessed April 22, 2008.</ref>
==Variable stars==

Some stars vary in brightness and are known as variable stars. The star [[Algol]] in the constellation of Perseus can drop from its normal magnitude of 2.3 to magnitude 3.5. This is now known to be caused by a dim companion star orbiting Algol, which occasionally passes between Algol and the Earth, blocking some of the light. Other variable stars vary in brightness due to actual variations in the luminosity of the star itself. The time taken from one maximum brightness to the next one is called the '''period'''. The most famous of the variable stars is delta Cepheus, the first-found member of the [[Cepheid]] group of variable stars. In 1908 [[Henrietta Swan Leavitt]] noticed that the variable stars in the [[Magellenic Clouds]] (two nearby galaxies in the [[Local Group]]) had a relationship between their period and their apparent brightness. At that time galaxies outside our own (the [[Milky Way]]) had been discovered, but it was not possible to measure the distances to them. It was soon realized that the variable stars in the Magellenic Cloud were of the Cepheid type. Since Cepheid variables also occur in our [[galaxy]] it was possible measure their distances and thus convert (using the inverse square law) Leavitt's relationship between apparent brightness and period to one of actual brightness and period. Once this formula was discovered, it became possible to apply to Cepheids of unknown distance. By observing their periods, their actual brightness can be calculated and, by the inverse square law, their distance. Through observations of Cepheids in [[globular cluster]]s (compact bunches of stars) in our galaxy it was shown that our galaxy is about 300,000 light-years in diameter.

== Energy production ==
[[Image:CNO_Cycle.png|300px|thumb|CNO cycle]]The [[Sun]], and stars as massive as the Sun or less massive, commonly use a [[nuclear fusion]] process called the '''proton-proton chain reaction''' to produce [[energy]]. A full description of that process appears [[Sun#Energy production and transport|here]].

In 1938 and 1989, two physicists, Carl F. von Weizsäcker<ref name=Weiz>Von Weizsäcker, Carl F. ''Physik. Zeitsch.'' 39:633, 1938.</ref> and Hans Bethe<ref name=Bethe>Bethe, Hans A. "[http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v55/i5/p434_1 Energy Production in Stars]." ''Physics Review'' 55(5):434-456, 1939. {{doi|10.1103/PhysRev.55.434}} Accessed June 27, 2008.</ref> independently proposed a [[nuclear fusion]] process, the '''Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen cycle''', by which stars more massive than the [[sun]] produce energy. In this process, stars convert [[hydrogen]] to [[helium]] using [[carbon]], [[nitrogen]], and [[oxygen]] as catalysts. The reaction also produces two [[positron]]s and two [[electron neutrino]]s.<ref name=Krane>Krane, Kenneth S. ''Introductory Nuclear Physics''. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1988, p. 537. ISBN 9780471805533</ref>

The equations for the cycle are as follows:

<math>{}^{12}_6\!\mbox{C} + {}^1_1\!\mbox{H} \to {}^{13}_7\!\mbox{N} + \gamma + \mbox{1.95 MeV}</math>

<math>{}^{13}_7\!\mbox{N} \to {}^{13}_6\!\mbox{C} + {}^0_1\!e^+ + {}^0_0\!\nu_e + \mbox{2.22 MeV}</math>

<math>{}^{13}_6\!\mbox{C} + {}^1_1\!\mbox{H} \to {}^{14}_7\!\mbox{N} + \gamma + \mbox{7.54 MeV}</math>

<math>{}^{14}_7\!\mbox{N} + {}^1_1\!\mbox{H} \to {}^{15}_8\!\mbox{O} + \gamma + \mbox{7.35 MeV}</math>

<math>{}^{15}_8\!\mbox{O} \to {}^{15}_7\!\mbox{N} + {}^0_1\!e^+ + {}^0_0\!\nu_e + \mbox{2.75 MeV}</math>

<math>{}^{15}_7\!\mbox{N} + {}^1_1\!\mbox{H} \to {}^{12}_6\!\mbox{C} + {}^4_2\!\mbox{He} + \mbox{4.96 MeV}</math>

The last reaction reproduces the <math>{}^{12}_6\!\mbox{C}</math> nucleus that the first reaction consumes. The end result of this process is:

<math>\mbox{4} {}^1_1\!\mbox{H} \to {}^4_2\!\mbox{He} + \mbox{2} {}^0_1\!e^+ + \mbox{2} {}^0_0\!\nu_e + \mbox{3} \gamma + \mbox{26.8 MeV}</math>

Rarely, this cycle branches into a somewhat different cycle involving [[fluorine]], and that second cycle is thought to branch again in some of the most massive stars.

== Young Earth Creationism View ==

[[Young earth creationism|Young earth creationist]] scientists assert that [[materialism|materialistic]] explanations of the origin of stars are errant and contra-evidence and reports of stars forming are invalid. <ref>http://www.icr.org/article/403/</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i2/stars.asp</ref><ref>http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences21.html</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/399.asp#55</ref><ref>http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i1/feedback.asp</ref> In addition, creationists cite the secular scientific literature in order to make the case that materialist explanations of star formation are inadequate:

“We don’t understand how a single star forms, yet we want to understand how 10 billion stars form.” Carlos Frenk, as quoted by Robert Irion, “Surveys Scour the Cosmic Deep,” Science, Vol. 303, 19 March 2004, p. 1750. <ref>http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/303/5665/1750</ref>

“Nobody really understands how star formation proceeds. It’s really remarkable.” Rogier A. Windhorst, as quoted by Corey S. Powell, “A Matter of Timing,” Scientific American, Vol. 267, October 1992, p. 30. <ref>http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992SciAm.267Q..26P</ref>

==Old Universe View of Stars==

A team of astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory recently estimated the age of one of the oldest stars in the Milky Way, HE 1523-0901, at 13.2 billion years. They used radioactive decay dating techniques. This star is close to the estimated age of the universe, 13.7 billion years.

The team leader, Dr. Anna Frebel, said that it was hard to pin down the age of a star, but that it can be inferred that chemically primitive stars must be very old, since they would have been born before many later generations of stars had provided chemical enrichment to the galaxy. A very few old stars contain huge amounts of some chemical elements, including radioactive thorium and uranium, and astronomers can use known rates of decay to deduce the ages of the stars using uniformitarian assumptions.

Frebel's team measured the uranium in HE1523-0901 using the UVES spectrograph on the Kueyen Telescope. This is one of four that together comprise the Very Larte Telescope based in Chile. She explained that although uranium had been discovered in two other stars, HE 1523-0901 also contains thorium. Uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years while thorium has a half-life of 14 billion years. However, HE 1523-0901 also contains other elements that can be anchored to the radioactive elements - europium, osmium and iridium. This combination provided Frebel with six 'cosmic clocks' that could be used to check each other.

The team hopes to gain new experimental data and important clues about the hypothesized creation and evolution of the chemical elements shortly after the Big Bang. <ref> http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5533 </ref>

==Number of Stars==

The [[Bible]] implies that the number of stars is virtually countless<ref>Jeremiah 33:22</ref>, but for many years this was not accepted. [[Hipparchus]] in 128 B.C. stated there were 1,026 stars in the sky. [[Kepler]] in 1600 A.D. did his own count and found the number to be 1,005. Today, thanks to the [[Hubble Telescope]] among other methods, the actual number is put at 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/07/22/stars.survey Star survey reaches 70 sextillion</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Other References==
The ''Observer's Book of Astronomy'', by Patrick Moore. Published by Frederick Warne and Co. 1967.

The ''Cosmological Distance Ladder'', by Michael Rowan-Robinson. Published by Freeman. 1985.

[[category:astronomy]]

American Revolution

2008-09-11T21:56:11Z

Spell:

{| border="1" align="right" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="300" style="margin-left:5px"
|align="center" colspan="2"|[[Image:AmRev Logo.PNG|300px]]
|-
!colspan="2" align="center" style="color: white; height: 30px; background: gray no-repeat scroll top left;"|American Revolutionary War
|-
|Begun
|19 April 1775
|-
|Ended
|13 September 1783
|-
|Victor
|Americans
|}
The '''American Revolutionary War''' (1775-1783) was a [[war]] between [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] and their thirteen [[North America|American]] [[Colony|colonies]]. The leadership of the colonies decided to unite and attempt to gain their [[independence]] from Britain, largely due to high taxes levied by [[Parliament]] without adequate representation. The decision to reject [[British]] rule was not universal in the colonies. Those that favored independence were called [[Patriot]]s and those that remained loyal to the throne were called [[Loyalist]]s. There was also a significant contingent that tried, for the most part, to remain neutral.

== Origins of the Revolution ==
[[Image:american-revolution-map.gif|thumb|200px|The 13 British colonies in North America by 1770]]
The American Revolution came about fundamentally because by 1763 the [[English]]-speaking communities on the far side of the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]] had matured to the extent that their interests and goals were distinct from those of the [[ruling class]]es in the mother country. [[British]] statesmen failed to understand or adjust to the situation. Ironically enough, British victory in the [[Seven Years' War]] set the stage for the revolt, for it freed the colonists from the need for British protection against a [[French]] threat on their frontiers and gave free play to the forces working for separation.

In 1763 the British government, reasonably from its own point of view, moved to tighten the system of imperial control and to force the colonists to contribute to imperial defense. As part of an effort to make the costs of empire be borne by all British subjects, his majesty’s government sought to create an "American Establishment," a force of 10,000 British regular soldiers in North America. The cost of this military force would be paid for by taxes the British Parliament levied on Americans. This imperial defense plan touched off the long controversy about Parliament’s right to tax that started with the Stamp and Sugar Acts and led to a final provocative deed in December 1773: protesting "taxation without representation", a patriot mob dressed as Indians boarded several ships of the East India Company moored in Boston harbor and destroyed their cargo of tea in an event since called the "Boston Tea Party".

The ten-year controversy over taxation escalated to violence in large measure because several successive British ministries failed to understand the differences that had grown between the American colonies and the metropolitan power. Although possessing a professional army and navy, the British government nevertheless failed to act decisively enough to enforce British regulations or work toward the more viable form of imperial union that the colonial leaders, at least until 1776, insisted they sought.

In response to the [[Boston Tea Party]], the King and his ministers blindly pushed through Parliament a series of measures collectively known in America as the [[Intolerable Acts]]: closing the port of Boston, suspending civilian government in [[Massachusetts]], and massing troops in [[Boston]] under the military rule of Maj. Gen. Sir Thomas Gage. Outraged by the heavy-handed response to one colony, the other American political leaders called for a continental congress, in effect an American parliament, to coordinate a political drive to defend what the colonists deemed to be their rights and interests as Englishmen.

Since 1763 the colonial leaders, in holding that only their own popular assemblies, not the British Parliament, had a right to levy taxes on Americans, had raised the specter of an arbitrary British government collecting taxes in America to support red-coated regulars who might be used not to protect the frontiers but to suppress American liberties. Placing Massachusetts under military rule gave that specter some substance and led directly to armed revolt.

==The outbreak==
[[Image:Paul Revere.jpg|200px|left|thumb|Paul Revere]]
The [[First Continental Congress]] meeting at [[Philadelphia]] on September 5, 1774, addressed respectful petitions to Parliament and King but also adopted nonimportation and nonexportation agreements in an effort to coerce the British government into repealing the offending measures. To enforce these agreements, committees were formed in almost every county, town, and city throughout the colonies. In each colony, these committees soon became the effective local authorities, the base of a pyramid of revolutionary organizations with revolutionary assemblies, congresses, or conventions, and with committees of safety at the top.

This loosely knit combination of de facto governments superseded the constituted authorities and established firm control over the whole country before the British were in any position to oppose them. The de facto governments took over control of the militia and other colonial military resources such as armories and powder stores. They also identified which local militia officers could be trusted and which were known to be loyal to Britain. Where possible the various colonies reorganized the standing militia and formed rapid response units, including the famous Minutemen intended to turn out fully armed "in a minute’s notice." In colonies where a British governor’s official control over the militia could not be challenged, volunteer companies began training under the guidance of veterans of the French and Indian War. As winter turned into spring in 1775, patriot leaders were busily shaping the military forces that, if the necessity arose, might oppose the British Army in the field.

Massachusetts, the seat of the crisis, led the way in making military preparations. The Provincial Congress, eyeing Gage’s unprecedented military force in Boston, directed town officials to formally enlist a third of their adult males as Minutemen. It began plans to combine local militia companies into regiments and started selecting generals to command the force. It also began to collect ammunition, artillery pieces, and other military stores at locations outside of Gage’s immediate reach. One of the most important of these depots lay at Concord, about twenty miles inland from Boston.

General Gage learned of the collection of military stores at [[Concord]] and determined to send a force of Redcoats to destroy them. His preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. Yet so alert and ubiquitous were the patriot eyes in Boston that when the picked British force of 700 men set out on the night of April 18, 1775, two messengers, [[Paul Revere]] and William Dawes, preceded them to spread the alarm throughout the countryside. At dawn on the next day, when the British arrived at Lexington, the halfway point to Concord, they found a body of militia drawn up on the village green. Some nervous finger—whether of a British regular or an American militiaman is unknown to this day—pressed a trigger. The impatient British regulars, apparently without any clear orders from their commanding officer, fired a volley then charged with the bayonet. The militiamen dispersed, leaving eight dead and ten wounded on the ground. The British column went on to Concord, engaged in another unanticipated skirmish, and destroyed such of the military stores as the Americans had been unable to remove. Their return journey to Boston took a civil disturbance issue and transformed it into open warfare.

By this time, the alarm had spread far and wide, and both ordinary militia and Minutemen had assembled along the British route. From behind walls, rocks, and trees, and from houses, they poured their fire into the columns of Redcoats, while the frustrated regulars found few targets for their accustomed volleys or bayonet charges. Only the arrival of reinforcements from Gage enabled the British column to get back to the safety of Boston. At day’s end the British counted 273 casualties out of a total of 1,800 men engaged; American casualties numbered 95 men, including the toll at Lexington. What happened was hardly a tribute to the marksmanship of New England farmers — it has been estimated that 75,000 shots poured from their muskets that day — but it did testify to a stern determination of the people of Massachusetts to resist any attempt by the British to impose their will by armed force.

The spark lit in Massachusetts soon spread throughout the rest of the colonies. Whatever really may have happened in that misty dawn on Lexington Green, the news that speedy couriers riding horses to exhaustion carried through the colonies from New Hampshire to Georgia was of a savage, unprovoked British attack and of farmers rising in the night to protect their lives, their families, and their property. Lexington, like Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor, and September 11 in subsequent years, furnished an emotional impulse that led all true patriots to gird themselves for battle. From the other New England colonies, militia poured in to join the [[Massachusetts]] men; together they soon formed a ring around [[Boston]]. Other forces mobilized under Ethan Allen of Vermont and [[Benedict Arnold]] of Connecticut seized the British forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, strategic positions on the route between New York and Canada. These posts yielded valuable artillery and other military stores. The Second Continental Congress, which assembled in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, found itself forced to turn from embargoes and petitions to the problems of organizing, directing, and supplying a military effort.

Before [[Congress]] could assume effective control, the New England forces assembled near Boston fought another battle on their own. After Lexington and Concord, the New England colonies implemented their military plans and, as they had in the earlier wars with the French and Indians, moved to replace the militia gathered before Boston with volunteer forces, constituting what may be loosely called a New England army. Each of the four New England states raised and administered its own force under its own commander. As might be expected with such a loose organization, discipline was lax and there was no unified chain of command. Though Artemas Ward, the Massachusetts commander, exercised overall control by informal agreement, it was only because the other commanders chose to cooperate with him; all decisions were made in council. The volunteers in the Connecticut service had enlisted until December 10, 1775, those from the other New England states until the end of the year. The men were dressed for the most part in homespun clothes and armed with muskets of varied types; powder and ball were short, and only the barest few had bayonets.

Late in May Gage received limited reinforcements from England, bringing his total force to 6,500 rank and file. With the reinforcements came three major generals of reputation—Sir William Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir John Burgoyne—men destined to play major roles in England’s loss of its American colonies. The newcomers all considered that Gage needed more elbow room and proposed to fortify Dorchester Heights, a dominant position south of Boston previously neglected by both sides. News of the intended move leaked to the Americans, who immediately countered by dispatching a force onto the Charlestown peninsula, where other heights, Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill, overlooked Boston from the north. The original intent was to fortify Bunker Hill, the eminence nearest the narrow neck of land connecting the peninsula with the mainland, but the working party sent out on the night of June 16, 1775 decided instead to move closer in and construct works on Breed’s Hill—a tactical blunder, for these exposed works could much more easily be cut off by a British landing on the neck in their rear.

The British scorned such a tactic, making a conscious decision to try and stop the conflict short with a psychologically crushing demonstration of brute force. However, the British generals committed a critical error, having assumed that the assembled "rabble in arms" would disintegrate in the face of an attack by disciplined British regulars. On the seventeenth Gage ferried some 2,200 of his men under Howe over to the tip of the Charlestown peninsula under the cover of Royal Navy warships. Howe then sent his troops directly against the American positions, by this time manned by perhaps an equal force. Twice the British advanced on the front and flanks of the redoubt on Breed’s Hill; and twice the Americans, holding their fire until the compact British lines were at close range, decimated the ranks of the advancing regiments and forced them to fall back and re-form. With reinforcements Howe carried the hill on the third try, largely because the Americans had run short of ammunition and had no bayonets. The American retreat from Breed’s Hill was, for inexperienced volunteers and militia, an orderly one; and Howe’s depleted regiments were unable to prevent the escape. British casualties for the day totaled a staggering 1,054, almost half the force engaged, as opposed to American losses of about 440.
[[image:Bunker hill.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Battle of Bunker Hill]]
The [[Battle of Bunker Hill]] (Bunker gave its name to a battle actually fought on Breed’s Hill) has been aptly characterized as a "tale of great blunders heroically redeemed." The American command structure violated the principle of unity of command from the start; in moving onto Breed’s Hill, the patriots exposed an important part of their force in an indefensible position, violating the principles of concentration of force, mass, and maneuver. Gage and Howe, for their parts, sacrificed all the advantages the American blunders gave them, violating the principles of maneuver and surprise by undertaking a frontal attack on a fortified position. Their gamble to end the rebellion with a single stroke had failed.

Bunker Hill was a Pyrrhic victory, its strategic effect practically nil since the two armies remained in virtually the same position they had held previously. Its consequences, nevertheless, cannot be ignored. Although frequently depicted as a force of farmers and townsmen, fresh from their fields and shops, with hardly a semblance of orthodox military organization, the New Englanders used their militia training to field forces modeled on the British. Led by officers with, in some case, more direct combat experience than many of Gage’s, the Americans had met and fought on equal terms with a professional British Army. On some of the more senior British commanders this astonishing feat had a sobering effect, for it taught them that American resistance was not to be easily overcome; never again would British commanders lightly attempt such an assault on Americans in fortified positions. Many Americans, on the other hand, misread the battle. Bunker Hill, along with Lexington and Concord, went far to create an American myth that the citizen-soldier when aroused by patriotic emotion is more than a match for the trained professional, a tradition that was to be reflected in American military policy for generations afterward.

==Formation of the Continental Army==
The response of George III and his ministers to the events at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill was a determined effort to subdue the rebellious colonists by force. It took time to mount this effort, and after Bunker Hill the Americans enjoyed a respite lasting almost a year. During most of this period the Second Continental Congress reacted to the events in New England and New York by hesitantly assuming the mantle of leadership, but it continued to assert that these actions were defensive in nature. It charged that Americans had banded together to oppose the unconstitutional actions of Parliament but that they still hoped to find a formula for reconciliation by appealing directly to the King for justice. Military preparations were designed for a short struggle, to endure no longer than the end of the year 1776. Nevertheless, the Americans took advantage of the respite to create a national army, to consolidate their hold on the governmental machinery throughout the thirteen colonies, to invade Canada, and finally to force the British to evacuate Boston.

The creation of the [[Continental Army]] was in the long run perhaps their most significant achievement. Some time before Bunker Hill the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, aware of the necessity of enlisting the support of all the colonies in the struggle against the British, appealed to the Continental Congress to adopt the New England army. Because of the need to preserve secrecy, Congress made its decision as a committee of the whole. After determining the necessity of accepting national responsibility for the troops at Boston and in New York, Congress voted to create the Continental Army on June 14, 1775. On the same day it voted to raise ten companies of riflemen—the first soldiers to be enlisted directly in the Continental service—in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to march north to join the army before Boston. The message was clear: This was no regional outbreak of violence but was instead the united response of all of the mainland North American colonies.

===The appointment of Washington===
[[Image:GWashington at Princeton.jpg|200px|right|thumb|George Washington]]
The next day, June 15, Congress chose [[George Washington]], a Virginian, to be Commander in Chief. As was the case with the riflemen, Congress made the choice for geographical and political as much as for military reasons. The New Englanders felt a southerner should be chosen for the post to prove that this was not a New England–only conflict. Washington’s military experience was perhaps greater than that of any other American, and he came from the largest and most important of the southern colonies. His impressive appearance, quiet and confident manner, and good work in the military committees of Congress had impressed all.

The choice proved fortunate. Washington himself recognized, when he accepted the command, that he lacked the requisite experience and knowledge in handling large bodies of men. His whole military experience had been in frontier warfare during the French and Indian War. But he had commanded a brigade of troops from several colonies during the capture of Fort Duquesne in the French and Indian War—he was the only native-born American up to that time to command a force of that size. Experience gained as a political leader in his native Virginia and in directing the business affairs of his large plantation at Mount Vernon also stood him in good stead. He brought to the task traits of character and abilities as a leader that in the end more than compensated for his lack of European military experience. Among these qualities were a determination and a steadfastness of purpose rooted in an unshakable conviction of the righteousness of the American cause, a scrupulous sense of honor and duty, and a dignity that inspired respect and confidence in those around him. Conscious of his own defects, he was always willing to profit by experience. From the trials and tribulations of eight years of war he was to learn the essentials of strategy, tactics, and military organization.

Congress also appointed four major generals and eight brigadiers to serve under Washington, set up a series of staff offices closely resembling those in the British Army, prescribed a pay scale and standard ration, and adopted Articles of War to govern the military establishment. The same mixture of geographical, political, and military considerations governed the choice of Washington’s subordinates. Two - thirds of them came from New England, in recognition of the fact that the existing army was a New England army. Three others — Charles Lee, Horatio Gates, and Richard Montgomery — were chosen because of their experience in the British Army. Lee in particular, who had come from England to the colonies in 1773, was in 1775 deemed the foremost military expert in America, and he was for a time to be Washington’s first assistant.

The army of which Washington formally took command on July 3, 1775, he described as "a mixed multitude of people … under very little discipline, order or government." Out of this mixed multitude, Washington set out to create an army shaped in large part in the British image. Basing his observations on his experience with British regulars during the French and Indian War, he wrote: "Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak and esteem to all." Employing Gates, his experienced Adjutant General, to prepare regulations and orders, the Commander in Chief set out to inculcate discipline. He and his staff made a strenuous effort to halt the random comings and goings of officers and men and to institute regular roll calls and strength returns. Suspicious of the "leveling" tendencies of the New Englanders, Washington made the distinction between officers and enlisted men more rigid. He introduced various punishments (lash, pillory, wooden horse, and drumming out of camp), and on courts-martial sat almost constantly.

While establishing discipline in the existing army, Washington had at the same time to form a new one enlisted directly in the Continental service. Out of conferences with a congressional committee that visited camp in September 1775 emerged a plan for such an army, composed of 26 regiments of infantry of 728 men each, plus 1 regiment of riflemen and 1 of artillery, 20,372 men in all, to be uniformly paid, supplied, and administered by the Continental Congress and enlisted to the end of the year 1776. Except for the short term of enlistment, it was an excellent plan on paper; but Washington soon found he could not carry it out. Both officers and men resisted a reorganization that cut across the lines of the locally organized units in which they were accustomed to serve. The men saw as their first obligation their families and farms at home, and they were reluctant to reenlist for another year’s service. On December 10, despite pressures and patriotic appeals, many of the Connecticut men went home and militia from New Hampshire and Massachusetts had to be brought in to fill their places in the line. Others, who had jeered and hooted when the Connecticut men left, also went home when their enlistment expired only three weeks later. On January 1, 1776, when the army became "Continental in every respect," Washington found that he had only slightly more than 8,000 troops in the lines around Boston instead of the 20,000 planned. Returns in early March showed only a thousand or so more. "I have often thought how much happier I would have been," wrote a sorely tried commander, "if, instead of accepting a command under such circumstances, I had taken up musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks, or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a Wigwam."

While waiting for the regiments to reach full strength, short-term militia continued to fill the gaps in the lines. A Continental Army had been formed, but it fell far short of the goals Washington and Congress had set for it. This army was enlisted for but a year, and the whole troublesome process would have to be repeated at the end of 1776. The short term of enlistment was, of course, a cardinal error; but in 1775 everyone, including Washington, had anticipated only a short campaign.

While organizing and disciplining his army, Washington had also to maintain the siege of Boston and overcome his deficiencies in supply. In these efforts he was more successful. Congress and the individual colonies sponsored voyages to the West Indies, where the French and Dutch had conveniently exported quantities of war materials. Washington put some of his troops on board ship and with an improvised navy succeeded in capturing numerous British supply ships. He sent Col. Henry Knox, later to be his Chief of Artillery, to Fort Ticonderoga; and Knox in the winter of 1775–1776 brought some fifty pieces of captured cannon to Cambridge over poor or nonexistent roads in icebound New York and New England. By March 1776, despite deficiencies in the number of continentals, Washington was ready to close in on Boston.

==The Invasion of Canada==
The major military operations of 1775 and early 1776 were not around [[Boston]] but in faraway Canada, which the Americans considered the fourteenth colony needing only a little shove to join the others in rebellion against Britain. Canada seemed a tempting and vulnerable target. To take it would eliminate a British base at the head of the familiar invasion route along the lake and river chain connecting the St. Lawrence with the Hudson. Congress, while appealing to the Canadians to join in the cause, in late June 1775 instructed Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler of New York to take possession of Canada if "practicable" and "not disagreeable to the Canadians."

Schuyler managed to get together a force of about 2,000 men from [[New York]] and [[Connecticut]], thus forming the nucleus of what was to become known as the Northern Army. In September 1775 Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery set out with this small army from Ticonderoga with the objective of taking Montreal. To form a second prong to the invasion, Washington detached a force of 1,100 under Col. Benedict Arnold, including a contingent of riflemen under Capt. Daniel Morgan of Virginia, to proceed up the Kennebec River, across the wilds of Maine, and down the Chaudière to join with Montgomery before Quebec. Montgomery, advancing along the route via Lake George, [[Lake Champlain]], and the Richelieu River, was seriously delayed at the British fort at St. Johns but managed to capture Montreal on November 13. Arnold, meanwhile, had arrived opposite Quebec on November 8, after one of the most rugged marches in history. Part of his force had turned back, and others were lost by starvation, sickness, drowning, and desertion. Only 600 men crossed the St. Lawrence on November 13, and in imitation of Wolfe
scaled the cliffs and encamped on the Plains of Abraham. It was a magnificent feat, but the force was too small to prevail even against the scattered Canadian militia and British regulars who, unlike Montcalm, shut themselves up in the city and
refused battle in the open.

Arnold’s men were finally forced to withdraw to Point aux Trembles, where Montgomery joined them with all the men he could spare from the defense of Montreal, a total of 300. Although the Canadians did raise two regiments for the Continental Army, most did not rally to the American cause. With the enlistments of about half their men expiring by the new year, Arnold and Montgomery undertook a desperate assault on the city during the night of December 30 in the middle of a raging blizzard. The defenders outnumbered the Americans, and the attack was a failure. Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded.

The wounded Arnold, undaunted, continued to keep up the appearance of a siege with the scattered remnants of his force while he waited for reinforcements. Continental regiments raised in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania came in driblets. There were never enough to build a force capable of again taking the offensive, though a total of 8,000 men were eventually committed to the Canadian campaign. Smallpox and other diseases took their toll; and the supply line never brought in adequate food, clothing, or ammunition. Meanwhile, the British received reinforcements and in June 1776 struck back against a disintegrating American army that retreated before them almost without a fight. By mid-July the Americans were back at Ticonderoga, where they had started less than a year earlier. The initiative on the northern front passed to the British.

While the effort to conquer Canada was moving toward its dismal end, Washington finally took the initiative at Boston. On March 4, 1776, he moved onto Dorchester Heights and emplaced his newly acquired artillery in position to menace the city; a few days later he fortified Nook’s Hill, standing still closer in. On March 17 the British moved out. It would be presumptuous to say that their exit was solely a consequence of American pressure. Sir William Howe, who succeeded Gage in command, had concluded long since that Boston was a poor strategic base and intended to stay only until the transports arrived to take his army to Halifax in Nova Scotia to regroup and await reinforcements. Nevertheless, Washington’s maneuvers hastened his departure, and the reoccupation of Boston was an important psychological victory for the Americans, balancing the disappointments of the Canadian campaign. The stores of cannon and ammunition the British were forced to leave behind were a welcome addition indeed to the meager American arsenal.

==The New Nation==
[[Image:76485685i79.jpg|right|thumb|300px|''The Signing of the Declaration of Independence'', by [[John Trumbull]] (1817–1819)]]
The [[Declaration of Independence]] on July 4, 1776, established a new nation and transformed a limited uprising to secure rights within the British Empire into a far-reaching revolution aimed at complete independence from British control. Since the King and his ministers had determined to restore British rule, the Americans now faced a long, difficult struggle for independence that required a sustained national effort such as they had not expected in 1775.

The new nation was still a weak confederation of thirteen independent states. Such national feeling as existed was a new phenomenon growing out of common opposition to British measures. Colonial tradition, divided loyalties, the nature of the economy, and the spirit of a revolt born in opposition to the use of military force to suppress popular liberties all worked against the creation of any new strong central authority capable of mobilizing resources effectively for the long struggle that lay ahead.

The thirteen states proclaiming their independence in 1776 possessed a total population of about 2.5 million people, but not all the males of military age were part of the military potential. About 20 percent were African American slaves who except under special circumstances were not eligible for service, though African Americans did serve in the Revolution in integrated units (a feature that Americans did not repeat until after World War II). A significant minority within the colonies remained loyal to the King, either reluctantly out of sense of obligation or passionately as armed supporters. As in any society, there were also the apathetic and indifferent who swayed with the tide. The genuine patriots still provided a far larger potential of military manpower than the British could possibly transport and supply across the Atlantic, but most of the men of military age were farmers with families. Whatever their patriotic sentiments, few were ready to undertake long terms of military service, fearing that their farms and families at home would suffer. Accustomed to the tradition of short-term militia service under local commanders, they infinitely preferred it to longer terms in the Continental Army.

The economy of the thirteen new states was neither self-sufficient nor truly national. The states were essentially a collection of separate agricultural communities accustomed to exchanging their agricultural surplus for British-manufactured goods and West Indian products. Manufacturing was still in its infancy, and America produced few of the essentials of military supply. Despite diligent efforts to promote domestic production during the war years, the Continental Army had to rely primarily on captures and imports from Europe and the West Indies, run through a British blockade, for much of its military hardware and even for clothing. While the country produced foodstuffs in ample quantity, transport from one area to another was difficult. The normal avenues of commerce ran up and down the rivers, not overland; roads running north and south were few and inadequate. There were always shortages of wagons, boats, and other means of transportation. Under these circumstances, it was far easier to support local militia for a few days or weeks than any sizable and continuously operating national army in the field.

The governmental machinery created after the Declaration was characterized by decentralization and executive weakness. The thirteen new "free and independent states" transformed their existing de facto revolutionary governments into legal state governments by adapting institutions. Almost invariably the new constitutions vested most of the powers of government in the state legislatures, successors to the popular assemblies of the colonial period, and severely restricted the executive authority of the governors. At the national level the same general distrust of strong authority was apparent; and the existing Continental Congress, essentially a gathering of delegates chosen by the state legislatures and without either express powers of its own or an executive to carry out its enactments, was continued as the only central governing body. Articles of Confederation stipulating the terms of union and granting Congress specific but limited powers were drawn up shortly after the Declaration, but jealousies among the states prevented ratification until 1781. In the interim, Congress exercised most of the powers granted it under the Articles; but the Articles did not include either the right to levy taxes or the power to raise military forces directly under its auspices. Congress could only determine the Confederation’s need for troops and money to wage war and set quotas for the states to meet in proportion to their population and wealth. It had no means of ensuring that the states met their quotas; indeed, they seldom did.

One major weakness of this decentralized structure was that it provided no adequate means of financing the war. The state legislatures, possessing the power to tax that Congress lacked, hesitated to use it extensively in the face of popular opposition to taxation and was usually embarrassed to meet even its own expenses. Congress very early took unto itself the power to issue paper money and to negotiate domestic and foreign loans, but it shared these powers with the states, which also printed paper money in profusion and borrowed both at home and abroad to the extent they could. The paper money was a useful expedient in the early part of the war; indeed, the Revolution could not have been carried on without it. But successive issues by Congress and the states led to first gradual and then galloping [[inflation]], leaving the phrase "not worth a Continental" as a permanent legacy in the American language. The process of depreciation and the exhaustion of credit gradually robbed both the states and Congress of the power to pay troops, buy supplies, and otherwise meet the multitudinous expenses of war.

==Evolution of the Continental Army==
It is not surprising that under these circumstances Washington never got the kind of army molded in the European image that he desired. The experience before Boston in 1775 was repeated many times, as local militia had to be called in frequently to give the American Army a numerical superiority in the field. The Continental Army nevertheless became the center of American resistance and its commander, Washington, the symbol of the patriot cause. The extent to which militia could be expected to rally to that cause was very largely determined by the Continental Army’s success or failure in the field.

Though the militia belonged to the states, the Continental Army was a creation of the [[Continental Congress]]. Congress prescribed its size and composition, chose its generals, commissioned its officers, and governed the system for its administration and supply. Suspicious on principle of a standing army and acutely aware of historic examples of seizure of political power by military leaders, its members kept a watchful eye on the Army’s commanders and insisted they defer to civilian authority. Washington countered these suspicions by constantly deferring to congressional wishes, and he was rewarded by the assiduity with which Congress usually adopted his recommendations.

Lacking an executive, Congress had to rely on committees and boards to carry out its policies—unwieldy devices at best and centers of conflicting interest and discord at worst. In June 1776 it set up a Board of War and Ordnance, consisting of five of its members, the lineal ancestor of the War Department. In 1777 Congress changed the composition of the board, directing that it henceforth be made up of persons outside Congress who could devote full time to their military duties. Neither of these devices really worked well, and Congress continually handled administrative matters by action of the entire membership or by appointment of special committees to go to camp. In 1781, with the implementation of the Articles of Confederation, the board was replaced by a single Secretary at War.

Under the Articles of Confederation, while the Continental Congress passed the authorizing legislation setting the terms, size, and configuration of the army, the states remained responsible for raising the troops. Therefore, recruiting and equipping efforts depended heavily on thirteen separate bodies, each acting in response to local conditions and concerns. State authorities called out militia sometimes at the request of Congress and sometimes on their own initiative. When they joined the Continental Army, the militia normally shared in its supplies and equipment. The states, however, maintained an interest in supplying and administering the troops of their own "lines" as well as their militia. As a result, the Continental agents continually went through delicate negotiations with state officials any time they tried to accomplish major tasks. Lines of authority crisscrossed at every turn.

It was an inefficient military system for an organized national effort. Washington could never depend on having enough trained men or supplies. He continually inveighed against sending militia to fight his battles and by early 1776 had concluded that he needed an army enlisted for the duration of the war. Congress did not, as has often been charged, ignore his wishes. In October it voted a new establishment, superseding the plan developed for the army before Boston in 1775 and haphazard arrangements made in the interim for raising Continental regiments in various states. This establishment was to contain eighty-eight infantry regiments, or about 60,000 men, enlisted to serve three years or "during the present war," with each state assigned a quota in proportion to its population. After the disastrous retreat across New Jersey in December 1776, Congress authorized additional regiments to be recruited by Washington’s officers directly into the Continental service, including regiments of artillery and light cavalry. These regiments remained the authorized strength of the Continental Army until 1781, when Congress cut it to fifty-nine.

The large army fell short from the start. Many states found it impossible to sustain their quotas, especially as the war dragged on. By the winter of 1777–1778, the effort to enlist men for the duration of the war collapsed; the following spring, with the sanction of Washington, Congress reverted to a system of shorter enlistments and recommended to the states that they institute a system of drafting men from the militia for one year’s service. This first American wartime draft was applied irregularly because it was not a national program. Each state followed its own policies and procedures, some effectively; but most states performed no better when trying to draft men than they had when trying to encourage volunteers. Bounties, instituted by both the states and the Congress very early in the war and progressively increased one step behind the pace of inflation, also produced only temporary and irregular results.

The coin did have another side. In reality the shortage of arms and ammunition and of facilities for producing them limited the number of men who could be kept continuously in the field as effectively as did the failure of enlistment drives. The militia system allowed many able-bodied males to perform part-time military service and still remain most of the time in the labor force that kept the economy going. It is doubtful whether the American economy could have sustained such an army as Washington and Congress had proposed in 1776, even had there been a central administration with adequate power. As it was, the small Continental Army that did remain in the field intermittently faced extreme hardship and even near starvation. On the other hand, the American ability to raise local armies in any threatened region helped to balance the strategic mobility that the British Fleet gave to the British Army. Although militia generally did not perform well in regular warfare, when highly motivated and ably led they could fight well on terrain suited to their capabilities. Washington and most of his generals recognized this and sought to use the mobilized militia for flank security or to perform envelopments of isolated British detachments and outposts. Given the conditions under which the Revolution was fought, the American military system was more effective than its critics have recognized, though it failed to provide adequately for a sustained military effort over a period of years.

Perhaps Washington’s greatest achievement was simply in maintaining the Continental Army continuously in the field. Despite its many vicissitudes and defeats, that army remained constituted as an ever-present threat to any British field force, while the American militia units solidified patriot control of all the areas not fully garrisoned by the British. The Army of the United States was thus shaped by the war into a distinctively American military organization, neither a replica of a professional European Army on which it was modeled nor yet the type of national army raised by conscription that was to appear in France after the Revolution of 1789.

The Continental Army operated in territorial divisions or departments, each containing one or more maneuver forces. Washington exercised direct command over the main area and defended the Middle States, operating most of the time in the area between New York City and Philadelphia. After the British retreat from Boston, the New England department operated mostly in the Rhode Island area. The Northern Department was located in northern New York, and the Southern Department controlled military operations in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia. Two additional departments existed at times with limited independent roles: the Western Department centered on Pittsburgh, and the Canadian Department focused on Canada until the retreat from that region in the summer of 1776. A special territorial area, the Highlands Department, consisting of the mountains in the vicinity of West Point, was an area of such great strategic concern that it deserved its own department.

Although Washington was Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, the commanders of the other departmental armies still operated with a considerable measure of independence. Congress, rather than Washington, named their commanders and communicated directly with them. Of the two "separate armies," the Northern Army was by far the most important until 1777; the small Southern Army performed limited defensive missions in a relatively quiet sector of the country. By 1780 the situation was reversed as the British transferred their main effort to the southern states.

The Continental Army was composed mainly of infantry with limited cavalry and artillery. The basic unit of infantry organization was the regiment, composed of eight or more companies. Regiments were administrative formations; different terms were used when talking about tactical employment. A battalion served as the basic tactical unit. It contained eight platoons, the number needed in linear warfare to provide a constant wave of volley fire. Customarily in both the American and British armies of the Revolution, a regiment of eight companies would form a single battalion with each company serving as a single platoon. A brigade was usually formed of several regiments plus an attached direct support artillery company and was usually commanded by a brigadier general; a division consisted of several brigades commanded by a major general. In the northern areas, the artillery consisted of a brigade of four regiments and several separate companies under the Chief of Artillery, Henry Knox. Knox employed some of the separate companies in direct support of the infantry brigades but used others in garrison or general support assignments. The army’s mounted arm consisted of four regiments of light dragoons, normally employed in reconnaissance and counterreconnaissance duties, plus several smaller units, including two deep-strike partisan corps (a mix of light dragoons and light infantry). Other regular forces included a corps of engineers; three companies of sappers and miners; several military police elements; two regiments of artificers, who handled the servicing and repair of ordnance and vehicles; and a headquarters guard force.

Washington was provided with a staff generally corresponding to that of contemporary European armies. One of his critical staff officers was the Quartermaster General, responsible not only for transportation and delivery of supplies but also for arranging the camp, regulating marches, and employing the army’s watercraft. There were also an Adjutant General (responsible for issuing orders for the commander and administrative paperwork), a Judge [[Advocate]] General, a Paymaster General, a Commissary General of Musters, several Commissary Generals of Provisions (procurement and issue of rations), a Clothier General, a Chief Surgeon, and a Chief Engineer. Each of the separate armies usually had staff officers in these positions, designated as deputies to those of the main army. Early in 1778 the Continental Army introduced a new innovation—the Inspector General. This officer provided a focal point for developing standard battle drills and written tactical texts and during the second half of the war emerged as Washington’s de facto chief of staff.

All these staff officers had primarily administrative and supply functions. The modern concept of a general staff that acts as a sort of collective brain for the commander had no real counterpart in the eighteenth century. For advice on strategy and operations, Washington relied on a council of war made up of his principal subordinate commanders; and, conforming to his original instructions from Congress, he usually consulted the council before making major decisions.

Both organization and staff work suffered from the ills that afflicted the whole military system. Regiments were constantly under strength, were organized differently by the various states, and prior to Valley Forge used varying systems of drills and training. In the promotion of officers in the state lines, Continental commanders shared authority with the states; the confused system gave rise to all sorts of rivalries, jealousies, and resentment, leading to frequent resignations. Staff officers were generally inexperienced, and few had the patience and perseverance to overcome the obstacles posed by divided authority, inadequate means, and poor transportation and communication facilities. The supply and support services of the Continental Army never really functioned efficiently; and with the depreciation in the currency, they came close to collapse.

==The British Problem==
Whatever the American weaknesses, the British government faced no easy task when it undertook to subdue the revolt by military force. Even though England possessed the central administration, stable financial system, and well-organized army and navy that the Americans so sorely lacked, the whole establishment was ill prepared in 1775 for the struggle in America. A large burden of debt incurred in the wars of the preceding century had forced crippling economies on both Army and Navy. British administrative and supply systems, though far superior to anything the Americans could improvise, were also characterized by division and confusion of authority; and there was much corruption in high places.

To suppress the revolt, Britain had first to raise the necessary forces, then transport and sustain them over 3,000 miles of ocean, and finally use them effectively to regain control of a vast and sparsely populated territory. Recruiting men for an eighteenth century army was most difficult. The British government had no power to compel service except in the militia in defense of the homeland, and service in the British Army overseas was immensely unpopular. To meet Howe’s request for 50,000 men to conduct the campaign in 1776, the ministry resorted to an old practice of obtaining auxiliary troops, mercenaries, from many of the small German states, particularly Hesse-Cassell (hence Hessians). These [[German]] states were to contribute almost 30,000 men to the British service during the war—complete organizations with their own officers up to the rank of lieutenant general and schooled in the system of Frederick the Great. Howe did not get his 50,000 men; but by midsummer 1776 his force had grown to 30,000 British and Hessians, and additional reinforcements were sent to Canada during the year.

Maintaining a force of this size proved to be another problem. The attrition rate in America from battle losses, sickness, disease, and desertion was tremendously high. English jails and poorhouses were drained of able-bodied men; bounties were paid; patriotic appeals were launched throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland; and all the ancient methods of impressments were tried. But the British were never able to recruit enough men to meet the needs of their commanders in America and at the same time defend the home islands and provide garrisons in the [[Caribbean]], the [[Mediterranean]], [[Africa]], and [[India]].

Providing adequate support for this army over a long ocean supply line was equally difficult. Even for food and forage, the British Army had to rely primarily on sea lines of supply. Transports were in short supply, the hardships of the two-to-four-month voyage terrible, and the loss of men and supplies to natural causes heavy. Moreover, though the Americans could muster no navy capable of contesting British control of the seas, their privateers and the ships of their infant navy posed a constant threat to unprotected troop and supply transports. British commanders repeatedly had to delay their operations to await the arrival of men and supplies from England.

Once in America, British armies could find no strategic center or centers whose capture would bring victory. Flat, open country where warfare could be carried on in European style was not common. Woods, hills, and swamps suited to the operations of militia and irregulars were plentiful. A British Army that could win victories in the field over the continentals had great difficulty in making those victories meaningful. American armies seemed to possess miraculous powers of recuperation; a British force, once depleted or surrendered, took a tremendous effort to replace.

As long as the British controlled the seas, they could land and establish bases at nearly any point on the long American coastline. The many navigable rivers dotting the coast also provided water avenues of invasion well into the interior. But to crush the revolt, the British Army had to cut loose from coastal bases and rivers. When it did so, its logistical problems multiplied and its lines of communications became vulnerable to constant harassment. British armies almost inevitably came to grief every time they moved very far from the areas where they could be nurtured by supply ships from the homeland. These difficulties, a British colonel asserted in 1777, had "absolutely prevented us this whole war from going fifteen miles from a navigable river."

The British could not, in any case, ever hope to muster enough strength to occupy with their own troops the vast territory they sought to restore to British rule. Their only real hope of meaningful victory was to use Americans loyal to the British cause to control the country, as one British general put it, to help "the good Americans to subdue the bad." However, there were many obstacles to making effective use of the Tories. Patriot organization, weak at the center, was strong at the grass roots, in the local communities throughout America; the Tories were neither well organized nor energetically led. The patriots seized the machinery of local government in most communities at the outset, held it until the British Army appeared in their midst, and then normally regained it after the British departed. Strong local control enabled the patriots to root out the more ardent Tories at the very outset, and by making an example of them to sway the apathetic and indifferent. British commanders were usually disappointed in the number of Tories who flocked to their standards and even more upset by the alacrity with which many of them switched their allegiance when the British Army departed. They found the Tories a demanding, discordant, and puzzling lot; they made no earnest effort to enlist them in British forces until late in the war. By 1781 they had with their armies some 8,000 "provincial rank and file"; perhaps 50,000 in all served the British in some military capacity during the war.

On the frontiers, the British could also expect support from the Indian tribes who almost inevitably drifted into the orbit of whatever power controlled Canada. But support from the Indians was a two-edged sword, for nothing could raise frontier enthusiasm for battle like the threat of an Indian attack. Ruthless Indian raids would often polarize a frontier community that otherwise might have remained sympathetic or at least neutral to the British cause.

Finally, the British had to fight the war with one eye on their ancient enemies in Europe. France, thirsting for revenge for its defeat in the Seven Years’ War, stood ready to aid the American cause if for no other purpose than to weaken British power. By virtue of the Bourbon family connections, [[France]] could almost certainly carry Spain along in any war with England. France and Spain could at the very least provide badly needed money and supplies to sustain the American effort and force the British to divert their forces from the contest in America. At most, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet might well prove a match for the British Fleet and neutralize that essential control of the seas the British needed to carry on the American war. As the war dragged on, the British found themselves increasingly isolated from the international community.

==Strategy==
The story of the American Revolution can hardly be told in terms of long-term strategy and its success or failure. Neither side ever had any really consistent plan for the conduct of the war. The British, who retained the strategic initiative most of the time, failed to use it to great advantage. They were highly uncertain about their objective; they laid plans from year to year and seldom coordinated them even for a single year. Blame for this uncertain approach falls in almost equal part on the administration in England and the commanders in America. [[King]] George III; Lord North, his Principal Minister; and [[Lord]] George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Department, were the three British officials mainly responsible for the conduct of the war. If they never provided the timely guidance that might have been expected of them, their inability to do so came about in part because the commanders in the field never furnished accurate enough predictions of what to expect and differed so much among themselves as to the proper course to pursue. In assessing blame in this fashion, one must keep in mind the difficulties of logistics and communications under which the British labored, for these difficulties made it virtually impossible to coordinate plans over great distances or to assemble men and materials in time to pursue one logical and consistent plan.

The American strategy was primarily defensive and consequently had to be shaped largely in terms of countering British moves. Uncertainties as to the supply of both men and materials acted on the American side even more effectively to thwart the development of a consistent plan for winning the war. Yet Washington was never so baffled by the conditions of the war or uncertain of his objective as were the various British commanders. After some early blunders, he soon learned both his own and the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses and did his best to exploit them. Though unable to develop a consistent plan, he did try to develop a consistent line of action. He sought to maintain his principal striking force in a central position to block any British advance into the interior; to be neither too bold nor too timid in seeking battle for limited objectives; to avoid the destruction of his army at all costs; and to find some means of concentrating a sufficient force to strike a decisive offensive blow whenever the British overreached themselves. He showed a better appreciation than did the British commanders of the advantages in mobility their Navy gave them. After 1778, when the French entered the war, he clearly saw that the decisive blow he desired could be struck only by a combined effort of the Continental Army and the French Fleet.

==The British Offensive in 1776==
If the British ever had a single strategic objective in the war, it was the Hudson River–Lake Champlain line. The British believed that by taking and holding this line they would separate [[New England]], considered to be the principal center of the rebellion, from colonies they considered more malleable in the south. Howe proposed to make this the main objective of his campaign in 1776 by landing at New York, securing a base of operations there, and then pushing north. He wanted to concentrate the entire British force in America in New York, but the British government diverted part of it to Canada in early 1776 to repel the American invasion, laying the groundwork for the divided command that was so to plague British operations thereafter.

After the evacuation of Boston, Howe stayed at [[Halifax]] from March until June, awaiting the arrival of supplies and reinforcements. While he tarried, the British government ordered another diversion in the south, aimed at encouraging the numerous loyalists who, according to the royal governors watching from their havens on board British warships, were waiting only for the appearance of a British force to rise and overthrow rebel rule. Unfortunately for the British, a naval squadron and army expedition sent from Ireland under Sir Peter Parker was delayed and did not arrive off the American coast until late in May. By this time all hopes of effective cooperation with the Tories had been dashed. Loyalist contingents had been completely defeated and dispersed in [[Virginia]], [[North Carolina]], and [[South Carolina]].

Parker joined Lt. Gen. [[[Henry Clinton]], sent south by Howe, off the North Carolina coast. Undeterred by the local setbacks, they determined to attack Charleston, the largest city in the south. There, South Carolina militia and newly raised continentals from the Carolinas and Virginia had prepared and manned defenses under the guidance of Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, whom Washington had dispatched south to assist them. The South Carolinians, contrary to Lee’s advice, centered their defenses in Fort Moultrie, a palmetto log fort constructed on Sullivan’s Island, commanding the approach to the harbor. It was an unwise decision, somewhat comparable to that at Bunker Hill, but fortunately for the defenders the British had to mount an uncoordinated attack in haste. Clinton’s troops landed on nearby [[Battle of Long Island|Long Island]], but on the day the Navy attacked, June 28, the water proved too deep for them to wade across to Sullivan’s Island as expected. The British Army consequently sat idly by while the gunners in Fort Moultrie devastated the British warships. Sir Peter suffered the ultimate indignity when his pants were set afire.

The battered British Fleet hastily embarked the British soldiers and sailed north to join Howe at New York, for it was already behind schedule. For three years following the fiasco at Charleston the British were to leave the south unmolested. Overconfident Americans decided they did not need to send any large regular forces to the south, creating a weakness that would come back to haunt them. The latent loyalists in the south, whatever their potential strength in 1775, never recovered from the devastating blows they suffered while expecting British help. Loyalist refugees in London and New York, however, continued to insist that large numbers of loyal subjects of the King were still waiting for the British in the south, ready to rise again if only British troops returned.

Howe was meanwhile beset by other delays in the arrival of transports from England, and his attack did not get under way until late August, leaving insufficient time before the advent of winter to carry through the planned advance along the Hudson River–Lake Champlain line. He therefore started his invasion of New York with only the limited objective of gaining a foothold for the campaign the following year.

The British commander had, when his force was all assembled, an army of about 32,000 men, supported by a powerful fleet under the command of his brother, [[Admiral]] Richard Howe. To oppose him, Washington had brought most of his army down from Boston; Congress exerted its utmost efforts to reinforce him by raising Continental regiments in the surrounding states and issuing a general call for the militia. Few of Washington’s roughly 19,000 troops could match Howe’s forces in training, nor did his senior commanders have much in the way of experience in maneuvering large forces in the open.

Washington and Congress made the same decision the South Carolinians had made at [[Charleston]] and Maj. Gen. Sir Guy Carleton had made in Canada in 1775—to defend their territory in the most forward positions—and they paid the price for their mistake. The geography of the area gave the side possessing naval supremacy an almost insuperable advantage. The city of New York stood on Manhattan Island, surrounded by the Hudson, Harlem, and East Rivers. There was only one connecting link with the mainland, Kingsbridge across the Harlem River at the northern tip of Manhattan. Across the East River on Long Island, Brooklyn Heights stood in a position dominating the southern tip of [[Manhattan]]. With the naval forces at their disposal, the Howes could land troops on either Long Island or Manhattan proper and send warships a considerable distance up either the East or the [[Hudson River]].

Washington decided he must defend Brooklyn Heights on Long Island if he was to defend Manhattan. He therefore divided his army between the two places—a violation of the principle of mass and the first step toward disaster. For all practical purposes, command on Long Island was also divided. Maj. Gen. [[Nathanael Greene]], to whom Washington first entrusted the command, came down with malaria and was replaced by Maj. Gen. John Sullivan. Not completely satisfied with this arrangement, at the last moment Washington placed Maj. Gen. [[Israel Putnam]] over Sullivan; but Putnam hardly had time to become acquainted with the situation before the British struck. The forces on Long Island, numbering about 10,000, were disposed in fortifications on Brooklyn Heights and in forward positions in back of a line of thickly wooded hills that ran across the southern end of the island. Sullivan was in command on the left of the American forward line, Brig. Gen. William Alexander on the right. Four roads ran through the hills toward the American positions. Unfortunately Sullivan, in violation of the principle of security, left the Jamaica-Bedford road virtually unguarded.

Howe consequently was able to teach the Americans lessons in maneuver and surprise. On August 22 he landed a force of 20,000 on the southwestern tip of Long Island and, in a surprise attack up the Jamaica-Bedford road against the American left flank, crumpled the entire American position. Alexander’s valiant fight on the right went for naught as some of the more inexperienced American units along the line fled in terror before the British and Hessian bayonets, falling back to the fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. Had Howe pushed his advantage immediately, he might have carried the heights and destroyed half of the American Army then and there. Instead, perhaps rendered cautious by his repulse the previous year at Bunker Hill, he halted at nightfall and began to dig trenches, signaling an intent to take the heights by "regular approaches" in traditional eighteenth century fashion. Washington managed to evacuate his forces across the East River on the night of August 29. According to one theory, wind and weather stopped the British warships from entering the river to prevent the escape; according to another, the Americans had placed impediments in the river that effectively barred their entry. In any case, it was a narrow escape, made possible in large measure by the skill, bravery, and perseverance of Col. John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment, infantrymen who had been recruited from Massachusetts fishing villages, who manned the boats.

Washington had two weeks to prepare his defenses on Manhattan before Howe struck again, landing a force at Kip’s Bay above the city of New York (now about 34th Street) on September 15 under the cover of a devastating naval bombardment. Raw Connecticut militia posted behind shallow trenches at this point broke and ran "as if the Devil was in them," defying even the efforts of a raging Washington to halt them. Howe once again had an opportunity to split the American Army in two and destroy half, but again he delayed midway across the island to wait until his entire force had landed. General Putnam was able to bring the troops stationed in the city up the west side of Manhattan to join their compatriots in new fortifications on Harlem Heights. There, the Americans held out for another month and even won a morale-enhancing skirmish; but this position was vulnerable to being outflanked.

In mid-October Howe landed again in Washington’s rear at Pell’s Point. The American commander then finally evacuated the Manhattan trap via Kingsbridge and took up a new position at White Plains. He left a garrison behind to hold Forts Washington and Lee, on opposite sides of the Hudson, in an attempt to block British ships from going up the river. Howe launched a probing attack on the American position at White Plains and was repulsed; but Washington, sensing his inability to meet the British in battle on equal terms, moved away to the north toward the Hudson highlands. Uncertain of Howe’s next move, Washington divided his forces into three elements. Lee with one contingent remained on the east side of the Hudson to counter any advance into [[Connecticut]]. Washington crossed over to the west bank with a comparable force to counter any attempt by Howe to invade [[New Jersey]]. Maj. Gen. William Heath occupied the forts in the Highlands themselves to provide the lines of communication between the two maneuver forces and to prevent a British advance up the river. On November 16 Howe turned against Fort Washington and with the support of British warships on the Hudson stormed it successfully, capturing 3,000 American troops and large quantities of valuable munitions. Greene then hastily evacuated Fort Lee; by the end of November Washington, with mere remnants of his army, was in full retreat across New Jersey with Lord Charles Cornwallis, detached by Howe, in hot pursuit.

While Washington was suffering these disastrous defeats, the army that had been gathered was slowly melting away. Militia left by whole companies when their periods of service expired. Casualties and disease took their toll among the continentals. By early December Washington had crossed the Delaware River into [[Pennsylvania]], where his small force began to regroup and draw supplies from Philadelphia’s extensive network of depots. Other regiments, including forces released by the British retreat to Canada, slowly joined him while other regiments from Lee’s force swung through the Highlands and started south toward Washington (without their general, who was captured in a tavern by a British cavalry raid). Washington’s situation was precarious, but he determined to go on the offensive as soon as possible and began planning a lightning descent on West Jersey toward the end of December.

Neither the unreliability of the militia nor the short period of enlistment fully explained the debacle that had befallen the Continental Army. Washington’s generalship also came under criticism. In contrast to the defeat of British invasion forces at Charleston and Lake Champlain, where militia seemed to be more effective than Continental regulars, the main defenses of the important city of New York crumpled at the first blow. Many faulted the Commander in Chief’s decision to hold Fort Washington. General Lee, the ex–British colonel, ordered by Washington to bring his forces down from New York to join him behind the Delaware, delayed, believing that he might himself salvage the American cause by making incursions into New Jersey. He wrote Horatio Gates, "entre nous [between us], a certain great man is most damnably deficient."

There was only one bright spot in the picture in the autumn of 1776. While Howe was routing Washington around New York City, other British forces under Carleton were attempting to follow up the advantage they had gained in repulsing the attack on Canada earlier in the year. Carleton rather leisurely built a flotilla of boats to carry British forces down Lake Champlain and Lake George, intending at least to reduce the fort at Ticonderoga before winter. Benedict Arnold countered by throwing together a much weaker flotilla of American boats to contest the British passage. Arnold lost this naval action on the lakes, but he so delayed Carleton’s advance that the British commander reached Ticonderoga too late in the year to consider undertaking a siege. He returned his army to winter quarters in Canada, leaving the British with no advance base from which to launch the next year’s campaign. Once again Arnold had shown himself one of the most dynamic and courageous of the patriot commanders.

Although the consequences were to be far reaching, this limited victory did little to dispel the gloom that fell on the patriots after Washington’s defeats in New York. The British, aware that Continental enlistments expired at the end of the year, had high hopes that the American Army would simply fade away and the rebellion would collapse. Howe halted Cornwallis’ pursuit of Washington and sent Clinton with a detachment of troops under naval escort to seize Newport, Rhode Island. He then dispersed his troops into winter quarters, establishing a line of posts in New Jersey at Perth Amboy, New Brunswick, Princeton, Trenton, and Bordentown and retiring himself to New York. Howe had gained the object of the 1776 campaign, a strong foothold, and possibly, as he thought at the time, a great deal more.

===Trenton and Princeton===
[[Image:washington-deleware.jpg|300px|right|thumb|''Washington Crossing the Delaware'', by Emmanuel Leutze (1850)]]
While Howe rested comfortably in New York, he dispatched Clinton to capture Newport, Rhode Island, as a much-desired winter anchorage for the Royal Navy. Washington took advantage of this distraction. By the last week of December 1776, Washington had built up a small, but competent striking force of veteran regiments about 7,000 strong. If he was to use this force, he would have to do so before the enlistments expired on December 31. With great boldness, Washington formulated a plan to strike enemy garrisons along the [[Delaware]] River early on the twenty-sixth of December, when the troops might be expected to have relaxed their guard for holiday revelry. The plan was for American forces to cross the river simultaneously and conduct raids on the outposts at Trenton and Bordentown, each held by a reinforced brigade of Hessian soldiers. A Continental force of around 2,400 men under Washington’s personal command was to cross the Delaware at McConkey’s Ferry above Trenton and then proceed in two columns by different routes, converging on the opposite ends of the main street of Trenton in the early morning of December 26. A second force, mainly militia under Col. John Cadwalader, was to cross below near Bordentown to attack the Hessian garrison there. A third force, also militia, under Brig. Gen. James Ewing, was to cross directly opposite Trenton to block the Hessian route of escape across Assunpink Creek.

Christmas night was cold, windy, and snowy; and the Delaware River was filled with blocks of ice. These adverse conditions prevented Cadwalader and Ewing from fulfilling their parts of the plan. Driven on by Washington’s indomitable will, the main force did cross as planned; the two columns, commanded respectively by Greene and Sullivan, converged on Trenton at eight o’clock in the morning of December 26, taking the Hessians completely by surprise. A New England private noted in his diary for that day: "This morning at 4 a clock we set off with our Field pieces and Marched 9 miles to Trenton where we ware attacked by a Number of Hushing and we Toock 1000 of them besides killed some. Then we marched back and got to the River at Night and got over all the Hushing." This rather undramatic description of a very dramatic event was not far wrong, except in attributing the attack to the "Hushings." The Hessians surrendered after a fight lasting only an hour and a half. Forty were killed, and the prisoner count was 918. Only 400 escaped to Bordentown, only because Ewing was not in place to block their escape because he could not cross the river. The Americans lost only 4 wounded, among the wounded being future President [[James Monroe]].

Encouraged by this success, Washington determined to make another foray. By an impassioned appeal to the patriotism of the men, supplemented by an offer of a $10 bounty in hard money, he persuaded at least part of his old army to remain for six more weeks. With a force of around 5,000 Washington again crossed the Delaware on the night of December 30–31. By this time Cornwallis had hastily gathered together the scattered British garrisons in New Jersey and took up a position confronting Washington at Trenton on January 2, 1777. Convinced that he had the Americans in a trap, he put off battle until the next day because of the exhausted state of his troops. In the night Washington slipped away, leaving campfires burning brightly to deceive the British. The next morning he struck another surprise blow at Princeton, inflicting heavy losses on three British regiments just leaving the town to join Cornwallis. Washington then went into winter quarters in the hills around Morristown, New Jersey. Cornwallis did not pursue. The British had had enough of winter warfare, and Howe drew in his outposts in New Jersey to New Brunswick and Perth Amboy.

Trenton and Princeton not only offset the worst effects of the disastrous defeats in New York but also restored Washington’s prestige as a commander with friend and foe alike. In the execution of the two strokes east of the Delaware, Washington had applied the principles of offensive, surprise, and maneuver with great success and finally achieved stature as a military commander. If these victories did not assure him that he could recruit such an army as Congress had voted, they did at least guarantee that he would be able to field a force the following year. Sir William Howe found that, despite his smashing rout of the Americans in New York, he was left with little more than that city, a foothold in New Jersey, and the port of Newport in Rhode Island. The rebellion was far from being crushed.

==The Campaign of 1777==
With secure bases at New York and Newport, Sir William Howe had a chance to get the early start in 1777 that had been denied him the previous year. His first plan, advanced on November 30, 1776, was probably the most comprehensive put forward by any British commander during the war. He proposed to maintain a small force of about 8,000 to contain Washington in New Jersey and 7,000 to garrison New York, while sending one column of 10,000 from Newport into New England and another column of 10,000 from New York up the Hudson to form a junction with a British force moving down from Canada. On the assumption that these moves would be successful by autumn, he would next capture [[Philadelphia]], the rebel capital, then make the southern provinces the "objects of the winter." For this plan, Howe requested 35,000 men, 15,000 more effective troops than he had remaining at the end of the 1776 campaign. Lord George Germain, the Secretary of State responsible for strategic planning for the American theater, could promise Howe only 8,000 replacements. Even before receiving this news, but evidently influenced by Trenton and Princeton, Howe refined his plan and proposed to devote his main effort in 1777 to taking Philadelphia. On March 3, 1777, Germain informed Howe that the Philadelphia plan was approved but that there might be only 5,500 reinforcements. At the same time Germain and the king urged a "warm diversion" against New England.

Meanwhile, Sir John Burgoyne, who had succeeded in obtaining the separate military command in Canada, submitted his plan for an advance south to "a junction with Howe." Germain and the king also approved this plan on March 29, though they had earlier approved of Howe’s intention to go to Philadelphia. Because of the lag in communicating across the Atlantic, Germain and other senior planners in London viewed themselves merely as coordinators and providers of resources, not as operational commanders. Operational decisions, they felt, should be made by the commanders on the scene. They seem to have expected that Burgoyne and Howe would work together without direction from London. Specifically, they believed that Howe would be able to form his junction with Burgoyne by the warm diversion or that he would take Philadelphia quickly and then turn north to aid Burgoyne. In any case, they felt sure that Howe’s drive south would draw Washington and most American troops away from Burgoyne. Once Germain approved the two separate plans, difficulties in communicating in a timely manner left Howe and Burgoyne to go their separate ways.

Howe’s Philadelphia plan left only enough force in New York under General Sir Henry Clinton for what the latter would call "a damn’d starved offensive," but Clinton’s orders called upon him only to assist Burgoyne’s drive. His first priority remained the safety and security of New York City and its outposts. There is no question that Burgoyne knew before he left England for Canada that Howe was going to Philadelphia, but ambitious "Gentleman Johnny" was determined to make a reputation in the American war. Never one to doubt his own abilities and having enjoyed swift victory by driving the Americans from the Ticonderoga complex with minimal effort, Burgoyne quickly convinced himself that he could succeed alone. Even when he learned certainly on August 3, 1777, that he could not expect Howe’s cooperation, he persisted in his design. As Howe thought Pennsylvania was filled with loyalists, Burgoyne cherished the illusion that legions of Tories in upstate New York and western New England were simply awaiting the appearance of the king’s troops to rally to the colors.
[[Image:Marquis de Lafayette.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Marie Paul Yves Roch Gilbert de Motier, the
Marquis de Lafayette]]
[[Image:VonSteuben.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben]]
Again in 1777 the late arrival of Howe’s reinforcements and supply ships gave Washington time that he sorely needed. Men to form the new Continental Army came in slowly, and not until June did the Americans have a force of 8,000. On the northern line, the defenses were even more thinly manned. Supplies for troops in the field were also short, but the arrival of the first three ships bearing secret aid from France vastly improved the situation. They were evidence of the covert support of the French government; a mission Congress sent to France was meanwhile working diligently to enlist open aid and to embroil France in a war with England. The French Foreign Minister, Charles Gravier, the Comte de Vergennes, had already decided to take that risk when and if the American rebels demonstrated their serious purpose and ability to fulfill it by some signal victory in the field. With the first foreign material aid in 1777, the influx of foreign officers into the American Army began. These officers were a mixed blessing. Most were adventurers in search of fortune or of reputation with little aptitude for adjusting themselves to American conditions. Few were willing to accept any but the highest ranks. Nevertheless, many brought with them professional military knowledge and competence the Continental Army sorely lacked. When the misfits were culled out, the knowledge and competence were used to considerable advantage. Louis DuPortail, a Frenchman, and Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Pole, did much to advance the art of engineering in the Continental Army. Casimir Pulaski, another Pole, organized its first genuine cavalry contingent. Johann de Kalb and [[Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben]], both Germans, and Maj. Gen. Gilbert du Montier, the [[Marquis de Lafayette]], an influential French nobleman who financed his own way, were all to make valuable contributions as trainers and leaders. But as the 1777 campaign began, these foreign volunteers had not yet had time to make much of an impact on the Continental Army.

In the spring of 1777 Washington’s army occupied high ground at Middlebrook, New Jersey, in a position either to bar Howe’s overland route to Philadelphia or to move rapidly up the Hudson to oppose any northward advance. Washington confidently expected Howe to move north to form a junction with Burgoyne but decided he himself must stay in front of the main British Army wherever it went. Following the principle of economy of force, he disposed a small part of his army under Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam in fortifications guarding the approaches up the Hudson, and at a critical moment detached a small force to aid Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler against Burgoyne. The bulk of his army he kept in front of Howe in an effort to defend Philadelphia. Forts were built along the Delaware River, and other steps were taken to block the approach to the Continental capital by sea.

In the effort to defend Philadelphia, Washington again failed but hardly so ignominiously as he had the year before in New York. With American forts and a galley squadron blocking a direct advance up the Delaware River, in August Howe put most of his army on board ship and sailed down the coast and up the Chesapeake Bay to Head of Elk (now Elkton) in Maryland, putting himself even farther away from Burgoyne. Surprised by Howe’s movement, Washington did not oppose the landing but rapidly shifted his own force south and took up a position at Chad’s Ford on Brandywine Creek, blocking the approach to Philadelphia.

There, on September 11, 1777, Howe executed a flanking movement reminiscent of his tactics on Long Island the previous year. He sent Lt. Gen. Wilhelm van Knyphausen’s largely Hessian column directly against the American position at Chad’s Ford to fix the American attention on that part of the battlefield. During the predawn darkness Howe and Lord Charles Cornwallis took the larger part of the British army north by back roads and crossed the Brandywine at unguarded lesser fords miles upstream, hoping to take Washington from the flank and rear.

Confusing reports caused by inadequate reconnaissance befuddled Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, who commanded the American forces on that flank. Washington himself realized what was happening only at the eleventh hour. He immediately ordered Sullivan to lay a trap, set up a reverse slope ambush on high ground, and shifted reinforcements under Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene from positions facing Knyphausen to extend Sullivan’s line. Cornwallis and Howe moved slowly, preventing the British plan from working as intended; ironically, that very slowness worked to their advantage. Because the Americans lacked iron discipline, they kept creeping up to the crest of their ridge to look for the British. Alert scouts, mostly Hessian jaegers (woodsmen armed with rifles), noted the movement; and Howe avoided walking into the trap.

What followed was one of the most intense battles of the war. In a series of five separate attacks, the British drove Sullivan off the high ground in some confusion. General Greene with two brigades of Virginians allowed Sullivan’s men to fall back through their lines and then carried out a valiant rear-guard action lasting until dark. Once he could hear the sounds of the fighting, Knyphausen drove across the ford and struck Brig. Gen. Anthony Wayne’s defenses that had been weakened by the transfers, forcing the Americans to fall back. Darkness and the heavy, bloody fighting left Howe’s men too exhausted to pursue, and the Continental Army retired in good order to Chester. However, the way to Philadelphia was now left open to Howe.

Howe followed his victory at the Brandywine with a series of maneuvers comparable to those he had executed in New York and entered Philadelphia with a minimum of fighting on September 26. A combined attack of British Army and Navy forces shortly afterward reduced the forts on the Delaware and opened the river as a British supply line.

On entering Philadelphia, Howe dispersed his forces, stationing 9,000 men at Germantown, north of the city; 3,000 in New Jersey; and the rest in Philadelphia. As Howe had repeated his performance in New York, Washington sought to repeat Trenton by a surprise attack on Germantown. The plan was much like that he used at Trenton but involved far more complicated movements by much larger bodies of troops. Four columns (two assault forces of continentals under Sullivan and Greene and two flank security forces of militia), moving at night over different roads, were to converge simultaneously on Germantown at dawn on October 4. The plan violated the principle of simplicity, for such a maneuver would have been difficult even for well-trained professionals to execute. The two columns of continentals arrived at different times and fired on each other in an early morning fog. Despite losing the element of surprise, the Americans drove forward and smashed two elite battalions of British light infantry.

Initial success rapidly turned to disappointment. Part of a British regiment took cover in Cliveden, the Chew family mansion, and opened a galling fire on Americans attempting to move up or join the advance. Instead of isolating and bypassing this annoyance, the inexperienced American generals held up a large portion of the [[Maryland]] Division while they argued whether they could leave a "fortress" in their rear. The British, though surprised, had better discipline and cohesion and were able to re-form and send fresh troops into the fray. Once Washington realized that he had lost the chance for a decisive victory, he wisely chose to avoid risking his army and broke contact.The Americans retreated about 8:00 a.m., leaving Howe’s troops in command of the field.

After Germantown Howe once again concentrated his army and moved to confront Washington at Whitemarsh, hoping to lure the Virginian into a rash attack. The ploy failed, so he withdrew to winter quarters in Philadelphia without giving battle. Washington chose the site for his own winter quarters at a place called Valley Forge, twenty miles northwest of the city. Howe had gained his objective, but it proved of no lasting value to him. Congress fled west to York, Pennsylvania. No swarms of loyalists rallied to the British standards. And Howe had left Burgoyne to lose a whole British army in the north.

Burgoyne set out from Canada in June, his object to reach Albany by fall. His force was divided into two parts. The first and largest part (7,200 British and Hessian regulars and 650 Tories, Canadians, and Indians under his personal command) was to take the route down Lake Champlain to Ticonderoga and thence via Lake George to the Hudson. The second (700 regulars and 1,000 Tories and Indians under Col. Barry St. Leger) was to move via Lake Ontario to Oswego and thence down the Mohawk Valley to join Burgoyne before Albany. In his preparations, Burgoyne evidently forgot the lesson the British had learned in the French and Indian War: In the wilderness, troops had to be prepared to travel light and fight like Indians. He carried 138 pieces of artillery and a heavy load of officers’ personal baggage. Numerous ladies of high and low estate accompanied the expedition. When he started down the lakes, Burgoyne did not have enough horses and wagons to transport his artillery and baggage once he had to leave the water and move overland.

At first Burgoyne’s American opposition was very weak: only about 2,500 continentals at Ticonderoga and about 450 at old Fort Stanwix, the sole American bulwark in the Mohawk Valley. Dissension among the Americans was rife; the New Englanders refused to support Schuyler, the aristocratic New Yorker who commanded the Northern Army, and openly intrigued to replace him with their own favorite, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates. Ticonderoga fell to Burgoyne on June 27 all too easily. The American forces dispersed, and Burgoyne pursued the remnants down to Skenesborough. Once that far along, he decided to continue overland to the Hudson instead of returning to Ticonderoga to float his force down Lake George, though much of his impedimenta still had to be carried by boat down the lake.

The overland line of advance was already a nightmare, running along wilderness trails, through marshes, and across wide ravines and creeks swollen by abnormally heavy rains. Schuyler, who had wrestled with supply problems during the French and Indian Wars on this very ground, adopted the tactic of making it even worse by destroying bridges, felling trees into Burgoyne’s path, and digging trenches to let the waters of swamps onto drier ground. The British were able to move at a rate of little more than a mile a day and took until July 29 to reach Fort Edward on the Hudson. By that time Burgoyne was desperately short of horses, wagons, and oxen. Yet Schuyler, with an unstable force of 4,500 men discouraged by continual retreats, was in no position to give battle.

Washington did what he could to strengthen the Northern Army at this juncture. He first dispatched Maj. Gen. [[Benedict Arnold]], his most aggressive field commander, and Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, a Massachusetts man noted for his influence with the New England militia. On August 16 he detached Col. Daniel Morgan with 500 riflemen from the main army in Pennsylvania and ordered them along with 750 men from Putnam’s force in the New York highlands to join Schuyler. The riflemen were calculated to furnish an antidote for Burgoyne’s Indians who despite his efforts to restrain them were terrorizing the countryside.

It was the rising militia, rather than Washington, that was to provide the Northern Army with the most numerous reinforcements. Nothing worked more to produce this result than Burgoyne’s employment of Indians. The murder and scalping of a white woman, Jane McCrea, dramatized the Indian threat as nothing else probably could have. New England militiamen now began to rally to the cause, though they still refused to cooperate with Schuyler. New Hampshire commissioned John Stark, a colonel in the Continental Army and a veteran of Bunker Hill and Trenton, as a brigadier general in the state service (a rank Congress had denied him), and Stark quickly assembled 2,000 men. Refusing Schuyler’s request that he join the main army, Stark took up a position at Bennington in southern Vermont to guard the New England frontier. On August 11 Burgoyne detached a force of 650 men under Hessian Col. Friedrich Baum to forage for cattle, horses, and transport in the very area Stark was occupying. At Bennington on August 16, Stark annihilated Baum’s force and nearly did the same to a second column of reinforcements Burgoyne sent to rescue Baum. Burgoyne not only failed to secure his much-needed supplies and transport but also lost about a tenth of his command.

Meanwhile, St. Leger with his Tories and Indians had appeared before Fort Stanwix on August 2. The garrison, fearing massacre by the Indians, was determined to hold out to the bitter end. On August 4, the Tryon County militia under Brig. Gen. Nicholas Herkimer set out to relieve the fort but was ambushed by the Indians in a wooded ravine near Oriskany. The militia, under the direction of a mortally wounded Herkimer, took cover in the woods and fought a bloody, ferocious, close-quarters battle all afternoon in a summer thunderstorm. Both sides suffered heavy losses; and though the militia was unable to relieve Stanwix, the losses discouraged St. Leger’s Indians, who were already restless in the static siege operation at Stanwix. More significantly, the Continental garrison of the fort sallied out during the Oriskany fight and destroyed most of St. Leger’s camp and siege supplies.

Despite Shuyler’s own weak position, when he learned of the plight of the Stanwix garrison he courageously detached Benedict Arnold with 950 continentals to march to its relief. Arnold devised a ruse that took full advantage of the dissatisfaction and natural superstition of the Indians. Employing a half-wit Dutchman, his clothes shot full of holes, and a friendly Oneida Indian as his messengers, Arnold spread the rumor that the continentals were approaching "as numerous as the leaves on the trees." The Indians, who had special respect for any madman, departed in haste; and St. Leger was forced to abandon the siege and retreat to Canada.

Bennington and Stanwix were serious blows to Burgoyne. By early September he knew he could expect help from neither Howe nor St. Leger. Disillusioned about the Tories, he wrote Germain: "The great bulk of the country is undoubtedly with Congress in principle and zeal; and their measures are executed with a secrecy and dispatch that are not to be equaled. Wherever the King’s forces point, militia in the amount of three or four thousand assemble in twenty-four hours; they bring with them their subsistence, etc., and the alarm over, they return to their farms." Nevertheless, gambler that he was, Burgoyne crossed the Hudson to the west side on September 13 and 14. A victim of his own preconceptions and already seeking to protect himself politically, Burgoyne now stated that his orders required him to get to Albany at all costs. While his supply problem daily became worse, his Indians, sensing approaching disaster, drifted off into the forests, leaving him with little means of gaining intelligence of the American dispositions.

The American forces were meanwhile gathering strength. Congress finally deferred to New England sentiment on August 19 and replaced Schuyler with Gates. Gates was more the beneficiary than the cause of the improved situation, but his appointment helped morale and encouraged the New England militia. (Washington’s emissary, General Lincoln, also did his part.) Gates did not change Schuyler’s tactics and continued to take full advantage of Burgoyne’s plight. He advanced his forces four miles north and took up a position, surveyed and prepared by the Polish engineer Kosciusko on Bemis Heights, a few miles below Saratoga. Against this position, Burgoyne launched his attack on September 19 and was repulsed with heavy losses. In the battle, usually known as the First Battle of Freeman’s Farm, Arnold persuaded Gates to let him go forward to counter the British attack. Colonel Morgan’s riflemen, in a wooded terrain well suited to the use of their specialized weapon, took a heavy toll of British officers and men.
===Saratoga===
[[Image:Surrender of General Burgoyne.jpg|300px|right|thumb|''Surrender of General Burgoyne'', by John Trumbull, c. 1819]]
After Freeman’s Farm, the lines remained stable for three weeks. Burgoyne had heard that Clinton, with the force Howe had left in New York, had started north to relieve him. Clinton in fact had finally received reinforcements from Europe and launched a lightning strike against Putnam’s weakened Highlands Department. The British stormed Forts Clinton and Montgomery on the Hudson on October 6 and forced a path through the mountains. Clinton could not do more because he received explicit orders from Howe to send the reinforcements on to Philadelphia. He took a chance and sent out a small diversion to Kingston but returned to New York when that probe indicated it could do nothing of value.

Burgoyne was left to his fate. Gates strengthened his entrenchments and calmly awaited the attack he was sure Burgoyne would have to make. Militia reinforcements increased his forces to around 10,000 by October 7. Meanwhile, Burgoyne’s position grew more desperate. Unable to hold his supply line open, Burgoyne faced a choice. He could cut his losses and fall back toward Canada and safety, or he could stay and fight. He chose to stay and fight in hopes of defeating the army in front of him and pushing on to Albany. Food was running out; the animals had grazed the meadows bare; and every day more men slipped into the forest, deserting the lost cause. With little intelligence of American strength or dispositions, on October 7 Burgoyne sent out a reconnaissance in force to feel out the American positions. On learning that the British were approaching, Gates sent out a contingent including Morgan’s riflemen to meet them; a second battle developed, usually known as Bemis Heights or the Second Battle of Freeman’s Farm. Although Gates intended to fight a cautious, defensive battle, he lost control of his own men. Arnold, an open supporter of Schuyler and critic of the cautious Gates, had been placed under house arrest for insubordination. When Arnold learned of Burgoyne’s probe, he impetuously broke arrest and rushed into the fray, distinguishing himself before he was wounded in leading an attack on Breymann’s Redoubt. The British suffered severe losses, five times those of the Americans, and were driven back to their fortified positions.

Two days after the battle, Burgoyne withdrew to a position in the vicinity of [[Battle of Saratoga|Saratoga]]. Militia soon worked around to his rear and hemmed him in from the north as well. His position hopeless, Burgoyne finally capitulated on October 17 at Saratoga. The total prisoner count was nearly 6,000, and great quantities of military stores fell into American hands. The victory at Saratoga brought the Americans out well ahead in the campaign of 1777 despite the loss of Philadelphia. What had been at stake soon became obvious. In February 1778 France negotiated a treaty of alliance with the American states, tantamount to a declaration of war against England.

===Valley Forge===
[[Image:Washington at Valley Forge.jpg|300px|right|thumb|''Washington at Valley Forge'', William B.T. Trego, 1883]]
The name of Valley Forge has come to stand, and rightly so, as a patriotic symbol of suffering, courage, and perseverance. The hard core of continentals who stayed with Washington during that bitter winter of 1777–1778 suffered much indeed. Supply problems caused some men to go without shoes, pants, and blankets. Weeks passed when there was no meat, and men were reduced to boiling and eating their shoes. It was no place for "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots."

The symbolism of Valley Forge should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the suffering was largely unnecessary. While the soldiers shivered and went hungry, food rotted and clothing lay unused in depots throughout the country. True, access to Valley Forge was difficult, but little determined effort was made to get supplies into the area. The supply and transport system had broken down. In mid-1777 both the Quartermaster and Commissary Generals resigned along with numerous subordinate officials in both departments, mostly merchants who found private trade more lucrative. Congress, in refuge at York, Pennsylvania, and split into factions, found it difficult to find replacements. If there was not, as most historians now believe, an organized cabal seeking to replace Washington with Gates, there were many, both in and out of the Army, who were dissatisfied with the Commander in Chief; and much intrigue went on. Gates was made President of the new Board of War set up that winter, and at least two of its members were Washington’s enemies. In the administrative chaos at the height of the Valley Forge crisis, there was no functioning Quartermaster General at all.

Washington weathered the storm, and the Continental Army would emerge from Valley Forge a more effective force than before. With his advice, Congress instituted reforms in the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments that temporarily restored the effectiveness of both agencies. Washington’s ablest subordinate, General Greene, reluctantly accepted the post of Quartermaster General. The Continental Army itself gained a new professional competence from the training given by Steuben.

Steuben appeared at Valley Forge in February 1778. He represented himself as a baron, a title of dubious validity, and as a former lieutenant general on the staff of [[Frederick the Great]]. (In reality he had been only a captain. The fraud was harmless, for Steuben had a broad knowledge of military affairs and had the ability to communicate with the American soldiers and teach them the basics of their new craft.) Appointed by Washington as Inspector General in charge of a training program, Steuben vigorously drilled the troops that remained under arms during the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge. He taught the Continental Army a simplified but effective version of the drill formations and movements of European armies and the proper care of equipment and supplemented American marksmanship with instruction on the use of the bayonet, a weapon in which British superiority had previously been marked. All through the training, Steuben never lost sight of a major difference between the American citizen-soldier and the European professional. He early noted that American soldiers had to be told why they did things before they would do them well, and he applied this philosophy in his training program. His trenchant good humor and vigorous profanity delighted the Continental soldiers and made the rigorous drill more palatable. After Valley Forge, continentals would fight on equal terms with British regulars in the open field.

==First Fruits of the French Alliance==
While the Continental Army was undergoing its ordeal and transformation at Valley Forge, Howe dallied in Philadelphia, forfeiting whatever remaining chance he had to win a decisive victory before the effects of the French alliance were felt. He had had his fill of the American war; and the king accepted his resignation from command, appointing General Clinton as his successor. As Washington prepared to sally forth from Valley Forge, the British Army and the Philadelphia Tories said goodbye to Howe in a series of lavish parties. However, Clinton already had orders to evacuate the American capital. With the French in the war, the strategic situation had changed dramatically. England now had to ensure the safety of the long ocean supply line to America, as well as its valuable commercial possessions in other parts of the world, in particular the rich sugar plantations of the Caribbean. Clinton’s orders were to detach 5,000 men to the West Indies and 3,000 to Florida and to return the rest of his army to New York by sea. He was then to give thought to recovering the southern states, where once again ever-hopeful refugees insisted the majority of the population would rally to the royal standard.

As Clinton prepared to depart Philadelphia, Washington had high hopes that the war might be won in 1778 by a cooperative effort between his army and the French Fleet. Charles Hector, the Comte d’Estaing, with a French naval squadron of eleven ships of the line and transports carrying 4,000 troops left France in May to sail for the American coast. D’Estaing’s fleet was considerably more powerful than any Admiral Howe could immediately concentrate in American waters. For a brief period in 1778, the strategic initiative passed from British hands; Washington hoped to make full use of it.

Clinton had already decided, before he learned of the threat from d’Estaing, to move his army overland to New York prior to making any detachments, largely because he lacked sufficient transports to make the voyage by sea. On June 18, 1778, he set out with about 10,000 men. Washington, having gathered by that time about 12,000, immediately occupied Philadelphia and then took up the pursuit of Clinton. His council of war was divided, though none of his generals advised a "general action." The boldest, General Wayne, and the young General Lafayette urged a "partial attack" to strike at a portion of the British Army while it was strung out on the road. The most cautious, Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, who had been exchanged and had rejoined the army at Valley Forge, advised only guerrilla action to harass the British columns. On June 26 Washington decided to take a bold approach, though he issued no orders indicating an intention to bring on a general action. He sent forward an advance guard composed of almost half his army to strike at the British rear when Clinton moved out of Monmouth Court House on the morning of June 27. Lee, the cautious, claimed the command from Lafayette, the bold, when he learned the detachment would be so large.

In the early morning Lee advanced over rough ground that had not been reconnoitered and made contact with the British rear, but Clinton reacted quickly and maneuvered to envelop the American right flank. Lee, feeling that his force was in an untenable position and underestimating the training transformation of the American Army during the encampment at Valley Forge, fell back in confusion. Washington rode up and, exceedingly irate to find the advance guard in retreat, exchanged harsh words with Lee. He then assumed direction of what had to be a defense against a British counterattack. The battle that followed, involving the bulk of both armies, lasted until nightfall on a sultry day with both sides holding their own. For the first time the Americans fought well with the bayonet as well as with the musket and rifle, and their battlefield behavior generally reflected the Valley Forge training. Nevertheless, Washington failed to strike a telling blow at the British Army, for Clinton slipped away in the night and in a few days completed the retreat to New York. Lee demanded and got a court-martial at which he was judged, perhaps unjustly, guilty of disobedience of orders, poor conduct of the retreat, and disrespect for the Commander in Chief. As a consequence he retired from the Army, though the controversy over his actions at Monmouth was to go on for years.

Washington meanwhile sought his victory in cooperation with the French Fleet. D’Estaing arrived off the coast on July 8, and the two commanders at first agreed on a combined land and sea attack on New York; but d’Estaing feared he would be unable to get his deep-draft ships across the bar that extended from Staten Island to Sandy Hook to get at Howe’s inferior fleet. They decided to transfer the attack to the other and weaker British stronghold at Newport, Rhode Island, a city standing on an island with difficult approaches. They agreed that the French Fleet would force the passage on the west side of the island and an American force under General Sullivan would cross over and mount an assault from the east. The whole scheme soon went awry. The French Fleet arrived off Newport on July 29 and successfully forced the passage; Sullivan began crossing on the east on August 8, and d’Estaing began to disembark his troops. Unfortunately, at this juncture Admiral Howe appeared with a reinforced British Fleet, forcing d’Estaing to reembark his troops and put out to sea to meet him. As the two fleets maneuvered for advantage, a great gale scattered both on August 12. The British returned to New York to refit and the French Fleet to Boston; d’Estaing decided to move on to tasks he considered more pressing in the West Indies. Sullivan was left to extricate his forces from an untenable position as best he could, and the first experiment in Franco-American cooperation came to a disappointing end with recriminations on both sides.

The fiasco at Newport ended any hopes for an early victory over the British as a result of the French alliance. By the next year, as the French were forced to devote their major attention to the West Indies, the British regained the initiative on the mainland; the war entered a new phase.

==The New Conditions of the War==
After France entered the war in 1778, it rapidly took on the dimensions of a major European as well as an American conflict. In 1779 Spain declared war against England, and in the following year Holland followed suit. The necessity of fighting European enemies in the West Indies and other areas and of standing guard at home against invasion weakened the British effort against the American rebels. Yet the Americans were unable to take full advantage of Britain’s embarrassments, for their own effort suffered more and more from war weariness, lack of strong direction, and inadequate finance. Moreover, the interests of the European states fighting Britain did not necessarily coincide with American interests. Spain and Holland did not ally themselves with the American states at all, and even France found it expedient to devote its major effort to the West Indies. Finally, the entry of ancient enemies into the fray spurred the British to intensify their effort and evoked some, if not enough, of that characteristic tenacity that has produced victory for England in so many wars. Despite the many new commitments the British were able to maintain in America an army that was usually superior in numbers to the dwindling Continental Army, though it was never strong enough to undertake offensives again on the scale of those of 1776 and 1777.

Monmouth was the last major engagement in the north between Washington’s and Clinton’s armies. In 1779 the situation there became a stalemate and remained so until the end of the war. The defense system Washington set up around New York with its center at West Point was too strong for Clinton to attack. The British commander did, in late spring 1779, attempt to draw Washington into the open by descending in force on unfinished American outpost fortifications at Verplanck’s Point and Stony Point, but Washington refused to take the bait. When Clinton withdrew his main force to New York, the American commander retaliated on July 15, 1779, by sending General Wayne with an elite corps of light infantry on a stealthy night attack on Stony Point, a successful action more notable for demonstrating the proficiency with which the Americans now used the bayonet than for any important strategic gains. Thereafter the war around New York became largely an affair of raids, skirmishes, and constant vigilance on both sides. Twice in 1780 large British forces pushed into northern New Jersey in foraging operations intended to lure Washington into the open, but both times the flexible American defensive belt repulsed them easily.

Clinton’s inaction allowed Washington to attempt to deal with British-inspired Indian attacks. Although Burgoyne’s defeat ended the threat of invasion from Canada, the British continued to incite the Indians all along the frontier to bloody raids on American settlements. From Fort Niagara and Detroit, they sent out their bands, usually led by Tories, to pillage and burn in the Mohawk Valley of New York, the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, and the new American settlements in Kentucky. Although local defense was primarily the responsibility of state governments and the militia, the pressure on the Mohawk frontier soon prompted a Continental response. In August 1779 Washington detached General Sullivan with a force to deal with the Iroquois in Pennsylvania and New York. Sullivan laid waste the Indians’ villages and defeated a force of Tories and Indians at Newtown on August 29. Although Sullivan’s mission did not end Indian frontier raids, it essentially broke the back of Iroquois power and ensured the flow of supplies to the army from these fertile areas.

In the winter of 1778–1779, the colony of Virginia had sponsored an expedition that struck a severe blow at the British and Indians in the northwest. Young Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark, with a force of only 175 men ostensibly recruited for the defense of Kentucky, overran all the British posts in what is today Illinois and Indiana. Neither he nor Sullivan, however, was able to strike at the sources of the trouble—Niagara and Detroit. Indian raids along the frontiers continued, though they were somewhat less frequent and less severe.

==British Successes in the South==
Late in 1778 the British began to turn their main effort to the south. The king’s ministers hoped to bring the southern states into the fold one by one. From bases there, they would strangle the recalcitrant north. A small British force operating from [[Florida]] cooperated with the first reinforcements sent by Clinton and quickly overran thinly populated Georgia in the winter of 1778–1779. Alarmed by this development, Congress sent General Lincoln south to Charleston in December 1778 to command the Southern Army and organize the southern effort. It hoped that he could repeat his performance during the Saratoga campaign as a leader who could mix Continental regulars and militiamen. Lincoln gathered 3,500 continentals and militiamen; but in May 1779, while he maneuvered along the Georgia border, the British commander, Maj. Gen. Augustine Prevost, slipped around him to raid Charleston. The city barely managed to hold out until Lincoln returned to relieve it.

In September 1779 Admiral d’Estaing arrived off the coast of [[Georgia]] with a strong French Fleet and 6,000 troops. Lincoln hurried south with 1,350 Americans to join him in a siege of the main British base at Savannah. Unfortunately, the Franco-American force had to hurry its attack because d’Estaing was unwilling to risk his fleet in a position dangerously exposed to autumn storms. The French and Americans mounted a direct assault on Savannah on October 9, abandoning their plan to make a systematic approach by regular parallels. The British in strongly entrenched positions repulsed the attack in what was essentially a Bunker Hill in reverse, with the French and Americans suffering staggering losses. D’Estaing then sailed away to the West Indies, Lincoln returned to Charleston, and the second attempt at Franco-American cooperation ended in much the same atmosphere of bitterness and disillusion as the first.

Meanwhile Clinton, urged on by the British government, determined to push the southern campaign in earnest. In October 1779 he withdrew the British garrison from Newport, pulled in his troops from outposts around New York, and prepared to move south against Charleston with a large part of his force. With d’Estaing’s withdrawal, the British regained control of the sea along the American coast, giving Clinton a mobility that Washington could not match. While Clinton drew from New York and Savannah to achieve a decisive concentration of force (14,000 men) at Charleston, Congress had sent only piecemeal reinforcements to Lincoln over difficult overland routes.

Applying the lessons of his experience in 1776, Clinton this time carefully planned a coordinated Army-Navy attack. First, he landed his force on John’s Island to the south, then moved up to the Ashley River, investing Charleston from the land side. Lincoln, under strong pressure from the South Carolina civilian authorities, concentrated his forces in a citadel defense on the neck of land between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, leaving Fort Moultrie and other harbor defenses lightly manned. On April 8 British warships successfully forced the passage past Moultrie, investing Charleston from the sea. The siege then proceeded in traditional eighteenth century fashion, and on May 12, 1780, despite a masterful delaying defense that humiliated Clinton, Lincoln had to surrender his entire force of 5,466 men in the greatest disaster to befall the American cause during the war. Meanwhile, Col. Abraham Buford with 350 Virginians was moving south to reinforce the garrison. When he learned of the garrison’s fate, Buford tried to withdraw; but Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton with a force of British light cavalry and infantry took Buford by surprise at the Waxhaws, a district near the North Carolina border, and slaughtered most of Buford’s men after they attempted to surrender. This brutality shocked most Americans and, as had happened with the Jenny McCrea incident, motivated the militia forces to take to the field in ever-increasing numbers.

After the capture of Charleston, Clinton returned to New York with about a third of his force, leaving General Cornwallis with 8,000 men to follow up the victory. Cornwallis established his main seaboard bases at Savannah, Beaufort, Charleston, and [[Georgetown]]. In the interior, he extended his line of control along the Savannah River westward to Ninety-Six and northward to Camden and Rocky Mount. Cornwallis’ force, however, was too small to police so large an area, even with the aid of the Tories who took to the field. Though no organized Continental force remained in the Carolinas and Georgia, American guerrillas, led by Brig. Gens. Thomas Sumter and Andrew Pickens and Lt. Col. Francis Marion, began to harry British posts and lines of communications and to battle the bands of Tories. A bloody, ruthless, and confused civil war ensued, its character determined in no small degree by Tarleton’s action at the Waxhaws. In this way, as in the Saratoga campaign, the American grass roots strength began once again to assert itself and to deny the British the fruits of military victory.

On June 22, 1780, the Maryland Division (two understrength brigades) from Washington’s army arrived at Hillsborough, North Carolina, to form the nucleus of a new Southern Army around which militia could rally and which could serve as the nerve center of guerrilla resistance. In July [[Congress]], without consulting Washington, provided a commander for this army in the person of General Gates, the hero of Saratoga. Gates soon lost his northern laurels. Gathering a force of about 4,000 men, over half of them militia, and ignoring the advice of his subordinates who were more familiar with the terrain, he set out to attack the British post at Camden, South Carolina. Instead of taking a more circuitous route that could be supported logistically, Gates marched through a district already denuded of food. Cornwallis hurried north from Charleston with reinforcements, and his army of 2,200 British regulars made contact with Gates outside Camden on the night of August 15.

In the battle that ensued the following morning, Gates deployed his militia on the left and the continentals under Maj. Gen. Johann de Kalb on the right. Morning fog, compounded by the smoke muskets, prevented each of the two parts of the American force from seeing what was happening to the other. The militia was still forming when Cornwallis struck, and they fled in panic before the British onslaught. On the other side of the field, de Kalb’s continentals drove back the British forces opposing them. At this point the British who had driven the militia from the field wheeled on the continentals and brought an end to the valiant but hopeless fight. Tarleton’s cavalry pursued the fleeing Americans for thirty miles, killing or making prisoner those who lagged. Gates himself fled too fast for Tarleton, reaching Hillsborough, 160 miles away, in three days and leaving his men to fend for themselves. To add to the disaster, Tarleton caught up with General Sumter, whom Gates had sent with a detachment to raid a British wagon train, and virtually destroyed his force in a surprise attack at Fishing Creek on August 18. Once more South Carolina seemed safely in British hands.

==Nadir of the American Cause==
In the summer of 1780 the American cause seemed to be at as low an ebb as it had been after the New York campaign in 1776 or after the defeats at Ticonderoga and Brandywine in 1777. Defeat in the south was not the only discouraging aspect of patriot affairs. In the north, a creeping paralysis had set in as the patriotic enthusiasm of the early war years waned. The Continental currency had depreciated virtually out of existence, and Congress was impotent to pay the soldiers or purchase supplies. At Morristown, New Jersey, in the winter of 1779–1780, the army suffered worse hardships than at Valley Forge. Congress could do little but attempt to shift its responsibilities onto the states, giving each the task of providing clothing for its own troops and furnishing certain quotas of "specific supplies" for the entire Army. The system of specific supplies worked not at all. Not only were the states laggard in furnishing supplies, but when they did it was seldom at the time or place they were needed. This breakdown in the supply system was more than even General Greene as Quartermaster General could withstand; in early 1780, under heavy criticism in Congress, he resigned his position.

Under such difficulties, Washington had to struggle to hold even a small Army together. Recruiting of continentals, difficult to begin with, became almost impossible when the troops could neither be paid nor supplied adequately and had to suffer such winters as those at Morristown. Enlistments and drafts from the militia in 1780 produced not quite half as many men for one year’s service as had enlisted in 1775 for three years or the duration. While recruiting lagged, morale among those men who had enlisted for the longer terms naturally fell. Mutinies in 1780 and 1781 were suppressed only by measures of great severity.

Germain could write confidently to Clinton: "so very contemptible is the rebel force now … that no resistance … is to be apprehended that can materially obstruct … the speedy suppression of the rebellion … the American levies in the King’s service are more in number than the whole of the enlisted troops in the service of the Congress." The French were unhappy. In the summer of 1780 they occupied the vacated British base at Newport and moved in a naval squadron and 4,000 troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the Comte de Rochambeau. Rochambeau immediately warned his government: "Send us troops, ships and money, but do not count on these people nor on their resources, they have neither money nor credit, their forces exist only momentarily, and when they are about to be attacked in their own homes they assemble … to defend themselves." Another French commander thought only one highly placed American traitor was needed to decide the campaign.

Clinton had in fact already found his highly placed traitor in Benedict Arnold, the hero of the march to Quebec, the naval battle on the lakes, Fort Stanwix, and Saratoga. "Money is this man’s God," one of his enemies had said of Arnold earlier; evidently, he was correct. Lucrative rewards promised by the British led to Arnold’s treason, though he evidently resented the slights Congress had dealt him; and he justified his act by claiming that the Americans were now fighting for the interests of Catholic France and not their own. Arnold wangled an appointment as commander at West Point and then entered into a plot to deliver this key post to the British. Washington discovered the plot on September 21, 1780, just in time to foil it, though Arnold himself escaped to become a British brigadier.

Arnold’s treason in September 1780 marked the nadir of the patriot cause. Yet in the closing months of 1780, the Americans somehow put together the ingredients for a final and decisive burst of energy in 1781. Congress persuaded Robert Morris, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, to accept a post as Superintendent of Finance; Col. Timothy Pickering, an able administrator, would replace Greene as Quartermaster General. Greene, as Washington’s choice, was then named to succeed Gates in command of the Southern Army. General Lincoln, exchanged after Charleston, was appointed Secretary at War; and the old board was abolished. Morris took over many of the functions previously performed by unwieldy committees. Working closely with Pickering, he abandoned the old paper money entirely and introduced a new policy of supplying the army by private contracts, using his personal credit as eventual guarantee for payment in gold or silver. It was an expedient but, for a time at least, it worked.

==Greene’s Southern Campaign==
It was the frontier militia assembling "when they were about to be attacked in their own homes" who struck the blow that actually marked the turning point in the south. Late in 1780, with Clinton’s reluctant consent, Cornwallis set out on the invasion of North Carolina. He sent Maj. Patrick Ferguson, who had successfully organized the Tories in the upcountry of South Carolina, to move north simultaneously with his "American Volunteers," spread the Tory gospel in the North Carolina back country, and join the main army at Charlotte with a maximum number of recruits. Ferguson’s advance northward alarmed the independent- minded "over-mountain men" in western North Carolina, southwest Virginia, and what is now east Tennessee. A picked force of mounted militia riflemen gathered on the Catawba River in western North Carolina, set out to find Ferguson, and brought him to bay at King’s Mountain near the border of the two Carolinas on October 7. In a battle of patriot against Tory (Ferguson was one of only a handful of British soldiers present), the patriots’ triumph was complete. Ferguson himself was killed, and few of his command escaped death or capture. Some got the same "quarter" Tarleton had given Buford’s men at the Waxhaws.

King’s Mountain was as fatal to Cornwallis’ plans as Bennington had been to those of Burgoyne. The North Carolina Tories, cowed by the fate of their compatriots, gave him lame support. The British commander on October 14, 1780, began a wretched retreat in the rain back to Winnsboro, South Carolina, with militia harassing his progress. Meanwhile, Clinton, acting on guidance from London, launched an expedition of 2,500 men under Benedict Arnold to establish a base in Virginia to reinforce Cornwallis.

The frontier militia had turned the tide; but having done so, they returned to their homes. To keep the tide moving against the British was the task of the new commander, General Greene. When Greene arrived at Charlotte early in December 1780, he found 1,500 men fit for duty, only 949 of them continentals. The army lacked clothing and provisions and had little systematic means of procuring them. Greene decided not to engage Cornwallis’ army in battle until he had built up his strength, instead to pursue delaying tactics to wear down his stronger opponent. To accomplish this goal, he built on Gates’ earlier dispositions. Gates had created a mobile screening force from his best troops. Greene first took the unorthodox step of dividing his army in the face of a superior force, moving part under his personal command to Cheraw Hill and the augmented light screening forces under Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan west across the Catawba over 100 miles away. It was an intentional violation of the principle of mass. Greene wrote:
:''"I am well satisfied with the movement.… It makes the most of my inferior force, for it compels my adversary to divide his, and holds him in doubt as to his own line of conduct. He cannot leave Morgan behind him to come at me, or his posts at Ninety-Six and Augusta would be exposed. And he cannot chase Morgan far, or prosecute his views upon Virginia, while I am here with the whole country open before me. I am as near to Charleston as he is, and as near Hillsborough as I was at Charlotte; so that I am in no danger of being cut off from my reinforcements."''
Left unsaid was the fact that divided forces could live off the land much easier than one large force and would constitute two rallying points for local militia instead of one. Greene was in effect sacrificing mass to enhance maneuver.

Cornwallis, at this point in his career an aggressive commander often prone to act before thinking, had determined to gamble everything on a renewed invasion of North Carolina. Ignoring Clinton’s warnings, he depleted his Charleston base by bringing almost all his supplies forward. In the face of Greene’s dispositions, Cornwallis divided his army into not two but three parts. He sent a holding force to Camden to contain Greene, directed Tarleton with a fast-moving contingent of 1,100 infantry and cavalry to find and crush Morgan, and moved cautiously with the remainder of his army up into North Carolina to cut off any of Morgan’s force that escaped Tarleton.

===Cowpens===
[[Image:Cornwallis.JPG|left|thumb|200px|Lord Charles Cornwallis]]
On January 17, 1781, Tarleton caught up with Morgan west of King’s Mountain at a place called the Cowpens, an area of open forest near the Broad River. Morgan chose this site to make his stand less by design than by necessity, for he had intended to get across the Broad. Nevertheless, on ground seemingly better suited to the action of regulars, he achieved a little tactical masterpiece, making the most effective use of his heterogeneous force, numerically equal to that of Tarleton but composed of three-fourths militia. Selecting a low hill as the center of his position, he placed his Continental infantry on it, deliberately leaving his flanks open. In front of the main line he posted militia infantry in two lines, instructing the first line to fire two volleys and then fall back on the second, the combined line to fire until the British pressed them, then to fall back to the rear of the continentals and re-form as a reserve. He placed Lt. Col. William Washington’s cavalry detachment behind the hill, ready to charge the attacking enemy at the critical moment. Every man in the ranks was informed of the plan of battle and the part he was expected to play in it.

On finding Morgan, Tarleton ordered an immediate attack. His men moved forward in regular formation and were momentarily checked by the militia rifles; but, taking the retreat of the first two lines to be the beginning of a rout, Tarleton’s men rushed headlong into the steady fire of the continentals on the hill. When the British were well advanced, the American cavalry struck them on the right flank, broke the British [[cavalry]], and then wheeled on the infantry. The militia, having re-formed, charged out from behind the hill to hit the British left. Caught in a classic double envelopment, the British surrendered after suffering heavy losses. Tarleton managed to escape with only a small force of cavalry he had held in reserve. It was on a small scale and with certain significant differences a repetition of the classic double envelopment of the [[Romans]] by a [[Carthaginian]] army under [[Hannibal]] at Cannae in 216 b.c., an event of which Morgan, no reader of books, probably had not the foggiest notion. But it was a clever use of the terrain and troops by one of the American Army’s most intuitive and inspirational commanders.

Having struck this fatal blow against Tarleton, Morgan still had to move fast to escape Cornwallis. Covering 100 miles and crossing two rivers in five days, he rejoined Greene early in February. Cornwallis by now was too heavily committed to the campaign in North Carolina to withdraw. Hoping to match the swift movement of the Americans, he destroyed all his superfluous supplies, baggage, and wagons and set forth in pursuit of Greene’s army. The American general retreated through North Carolina into southern Virginia and crossed to safety behind the Dan River. Cornwallis’ exhausted forces began to retreat into North Carolina to reach their depot and replenish their supplies. As the British started south, Greene recrossed the Dan and followed, keeping just out of reach of his adversary to avoid any battle he did not wish. Finally, on March 15, 1781, at Guilford Court House in North Carolina, on ground he had chosen himself, Greene gave battle. By this time he had collected 1,500 continentals and 3,000 militia to oppose the 1,900 regulars the British could muster. The British nominally won this contest because they managed to hold the field after a hard-fought battle, but they suffered disproportionate casualties of about one-fourth of the force engaged. It was like Bunker Hill a Pyrrhic victory. His ranks depleted and his supplies exhausted, Cornwallis withdrew to Wilmington on the coast to once again rebuild his army. Then he decided to move north to join the British forces General Clinton had sent to Virginia.

Greene, his army in better condition than six months earlier, pushed quickly into South Carolina to reduce the British posts in the interior. He fought two battles—at Hobkirk’s Hill on April 25 and at Eutaw Springs on September 8—losing both but with approximately the same results as at Guilford Court House. One by one the British interior posts fell to Greene’s army or to militia and partisans. By October 1781 the majority of the British had been forced to withdraw to their two strongholds along the coast, Charleston and Savannah. Greene had lost battles but won a campaign. In so doing, he paved the way for the greater victory to follow at Yorktown.

==[[Battle of Yorktown|Yorktown]]==
As Howe and Burgoyne went their separate ways in 1777, each seemingly determined to satisfy only personal ambitions, so Clinton and Cornwallis in 1781 paved the road to Yorktown with their disagreements and lack of coordination. Clinton was Cornwallis’ superior in this case, but the latter enjoyed the confidence of Germain to an extent that Clinton did not. Clinton, believing that without substantial reinforcements the British could not operate far from coastal bases, had opposed Cornwallis’ ventures in the interior of the Carolinas. When Cornwallis came to Virginia, he did so without even informing his superior of his intention.

Since 1779 Clinton had sought to paralyze the state of Virginia by conducting raids up its great rivers, arousing the Tories, and establishing a base in the Chesapeake Bay region. He thought this base might eventually be used as a starting point for one arm of a pincers movement against Pennsylvania for which his own idle force in New York would provide the other. A raid conducted in the Hampton Roads area in 1779 was highly successful; but when Clinton sought to follow it up in 1780, the force sent for the purpose had to be diverted to Charleston to bail out Cornwallis after King’s Mountain. Finally, in 1781 he got an expedition into Virginia, a contingent of 1,600 under the American traitor, Benedict Arnold. In January Arnold conducted a destructive raid up the James River all the way to [[Richmond]]. His presence soon proved to be a magnet that drew forces of both sides to Virginia.

In an effort to trap Arnold, Washington dispatched Lafayette to Virginia with 1,200 of his scarce continentals and persuaded the French to send a naval squadron from Newport to block Arnold’s escape by sea. The plan went awry when a British fleet drove the French squadron back to Newport and Clinton sent another 600 men to Virginia along with a new commander, Maj. Gen. William Phillips. Phillips and Arnold continued their raids, which Lafayette was too weak to prevent. Then on May 20 Cornwallis arrived from Wilmington and relieved Phillips. With additional temporary reinforcements sent by Clinton, he was able to field a force of about 7,000 men, about a quarter of the British strength in America. Washington sent down an additional reinforcement of 800 continentals under General Wayne; but even with Virginia militia, Lafayette’s force remained greatly outnumbered.

Cornwallis and Clinton were soon working at cross-purposes. Cornwallis proposed to carry out major operations in the interior of Virginia, but Clinton saw as little practical value in this tactic as Cornwallis did in Clinton’s plan to establish a base in Virginia to launch amphibious raids along the Chesapeake Bay. Cornwallis had no respect for his superior’s military skills and saw no reason to give up his independent command. Instead, he did his level best to ignore Clinton’s orders. Cornwallis at first turned to the interior and engaged in a fruitless pursuit of Lafayette north of Richmond. Then, on receiving Clinton’s positive order to return to the coast and return part of his force to New York, Cornwallis moved back down the Virginia peninsula to take up station at Yorktown, a small tobacco port on the York River just off the Chesapeake Bay. In the face of Cornwallis’ insistence that he must keep all his troops with him, Clinton vacillated, reversing his own orders several times and in the end granting Cornwallis’ request. Lafayette and Wayne followed Cornwallis cautiously down the peninsula, lost a skirmish with him at Green Spring near Williamsburg on July 6, and finally took up a position at Williamsburg to keep an eye on Yorktown.

Meanwhile, Washington had been trying to persuade the French to cooperate in a combined land and naval assault on New York in the summer of 1781. Rochambeau brought his 4,000 troops down from Newport and placed them under Washington’s command. The prospects were still bleak, since the combined Franco-American regular force numbered but 10,000 and would still be outnumbered by Clinton’s 17,000 in well-fortified positions. Then on August 14 Washington learned that the French Fleet in the West Indies, commanded by Admiral Francois de Grasse, would not come to New York but would arrive in the Chesapeake later in the month and remain there until October 15. He saw immediately that if he could achieve a superior concentration of force on the land side while de Grasse still held the bay, he could destroy the British army at Yorktown before Clinton had a chance to relieve it.

The movements that followed illustrate most effectively a successful application of the principles of the offensive, surprise, objective, mass, and maneuver. Even without unified command of Army and Navy forces, Franco-American cooperation this time was excellent. Admiral Louis, the Comte de Barras, immediately put out to sea from Newport to join de Grasse. Washington sent orders to Lafayette to contain Cornwallis at Yorktown. Employing an elaborate deception to convince Clinton that the Americans were about to attack New York, on August 21 Washington started the major portion of the Franco-American army on a rapid secret movement to Virginia via the Chesapeake Bay, leaving only 2,000 Americans under General Heath behind to watch Clinton.

On August 30, while Washington was on the move south, de Grasse arrived in the Chesapeake with his entire fleet of twenty-four ships of the line and a few days later debarked 3,000 French troops to join Lafayette. Admiral Thomas Graves, the British naval commander in New York, meanwhile had put out to sea in late August with nineteen ships of the line, hoping either to intercept Barras’ squadron or to block de Grasse’s entry into the Chesapeake. He failed to find Barras; and when he arrived off Hampton Roads on September 5, he found de Grasse already in the bay. The French admiral sallied forth to meet Graves, and the two fleets fought an indecisive action off the Virginia capes. Yet for all practical purposes the victory lay with the French, for while the fleets maneuvered at sea for days following the battle, Barras’ squadron slipped into the Chesapeake and landed heavy artillery for the siege. Then de Grasse got back into the bay and joined Barras, confronting Graves with so superior a naval force that he decided to return to New York to refit.

===Surrender of Cornwallis===
[[Image:Yorktown Surrender.JPG|right|thumb|300px|''The Surrender at Yorktown'', by John Trumbull, 1820]]
When Washington’s army arrived at Williamsburg on September 26, the French Fleet was in firm control of the bay, blocking Cornwallis’ sea route of escape. A decisive concentration had been achieved. Counting 3,000 Virginia militiamen, Washington had a force of over 9,000 Americans and 6,000 French troops with which to conduct the siege. It proceeded in the best traditions of Marshal Sebastien Vauban under the direction of French engineers. Cornwallis obligingly abandoned his forward position on September 30, and on October 6 the first parallel was begun 600 yards from the main British position. [[Artillery]] placed along the trench began its destructive work on October 9. By October 11 the zigzag connecting trench had been dug 300 yards forward and work on the second parallel had begun. Two British redoubts needed to be reduced to extend the line to the York River. Washington brilliantly carried out that action by using a surprise attack at bayonet point just after
dark: Americans under Lafayette took Redoubt 10; and Frenchmen under Lafayette’s brother-in-law, the Viscount Louis-Marie Noailles, secured Redoubt 9. This accomplished, Cornwallis’ only recourse was a desperate attempt to escape across the river to Gloucester Point, where the allied line was thinly held. A storm on the night of October 16 frustrated his attempt to do so, leaving him with no hope except relief from New York. Clinton had been considering such relief for days, but he acted too late. On the very day, October 17, that Admiral Graves set sail from New York with a reinforced fleet and 7,000 troops for the relief of Yorktown, Cornwallis began negotiations on terms of surrender. On October 19 his entire army marched out to lay down its arms with the British band playing an old tune, "The World Turned Upside Down."

So far as active campaigning was concerned Yorktown ended the war, though neither side realized it at the time. Both Greene and Washington maintained their armies in positions near New York and Charleston for nearly two years more, but with only some minor skirmishing in the south. Cornwallis’ defeat led to the resignation of the British [[Cabinet]] and the formation of a new government that decided the war in America was lost. With some success, Britain devoted its energies to trying to salvage what it could in the West Indies and in India. The independence for which Americans had fought thus virtually became a reality when Cornwallis’ command marched out of its breached defenses at Yorktown.

==Summary==
The American victory in the War of the Revolution was a product of many factors, no one of which can be positively assigned first importance. Washington, looking back on the vicissitudes of eight years, could only explain it as the intervention of "Divine Providence." American historians in the nineteenth century saw that divine providence as having been manifested primarily in the character and genius of the modest Commander in Chief himself. Washington’s leadership was clearly one of the principal factors in American success; it seems fair to say that the Revolution could hardly have succeeded without him. Yet in many of the events that led to victory—Bennington, Saratoga, King’s Mountain, and Cowpens, to name but a few—his personal influence was remote.

Today many scholars stress not the astonishment that Washington felt at the victory of a weak and divided confederation of American states over the greatest power of the age but the practical difficulties the British faced in suppressing the revolt. These were indeed great, but they do not appear to have been insuperable if one considers military victory alone and not its political consequences. The British forfeited several chances for military victory in 1776–1777, and again in 1780 they might have won had they been able to throw 10,000 fresh troops into the American war. American military leaders were more resourceful and imaginative than their British counterparts, and they proved quite capable of profiting from British blunders. In addition to [[George Washington]], Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Daniel Morgan, and Benedict Arnold showed remarkable military abilities; of the foreign volunteers, Steuben and the young [[Marquis de Lafayette|Lafayette]] were outstanding. The resourcefulness of this extraordinary group of leaders was matched by the dedication to the cause of the Continental rank and file. Only men so dedicated could have endured the hardships of the march to Quebec, the crossing of the Delaware, Valley Forge, Morristown, and Greene’s forced marches in the southern campaign. British and Hessian professionals never showed the same spirit; their virtues were exhibited principally in situations where discipline and training counted most.

The militia, the men who fought battles and then went home, also exhibited this spirit on many occasions. The militiamen have been generally maligned as useless by one school of thought and glorified by another as the true victors in the war. Any balanced view must recognize that their contributions were great, though they would have counted for little without the Continental Army to give the American cause that continued sustenance that only a permanent force in being could give it. It was the ubiquity of the militia that made British victories over the continentals in the field so meaningless. And the success with which the militia did operate derived from the firm political control the patriots had established over the countryside long before the British were in any position to challenge it—the situation that made the British task so difficult in the first place.

For all these American virtues and British difficulties and mistakes, the Americans still required French aid—money, supplies, and in the last phase military force—to win a decisive and clear-cut military victory. Most of the muskets, bayonets, and cannon used by the Continental Army came from France. The French contested the control of the seas that was so vital to the British and compelled them to divert forces from the American mainland to other areas. The final stroke at Yorktown, though a product of Washington’s strategic conception, was possible only because of the temporary predominance of French naval power off the American coast and the presence of a French army. The French entered the war for reasons of their own national interest, but they were no less instrumental in the winning of American independence.

French aid was doubly necessary because the American war effort lacked strong national direction. The Revolution showed conclusively the need for a central government with power to harness the nation’s resources for war. It is not surprising that in 1787 nearly all those who had struggled so long and hard as leaders in the Continental Army or in administrative positions under the Congress were to be found in the ranks of the supporters of a new constitution that created such a central government with a strong executive and the power to "raise armies and navies," call out the militia, and directly levy taxes to support itself.

The strictly military lessons of the Revolution were more equivocal. Tactical innovations were not radical; but they did represent a culmination of the trend, which started during the French and Indian War, toward employment of light troops as skirmishers in conjunction with traditional linear formations. By the end of the war both armies were fighting in this fashion. The Americans strove to develop the same proficiency as the British in regular line-of-battle tactics, while the British adapted to the American terrain and tactics by employing skirmishers and fighting when possible from behind cover. Washington was himself a military conservative, and Steuben’s training program was designed to equip American troops to fight in European fashion with modifications to provide for the increased use of light infantry. The guerrilla tactics that characterized many actions, principally those of the militia, were no product of the design of Washington or his leading subordinates but of circumstances over which they had little control. The American rifle, most useful in guerrilla actions or in the hands of skirmishers, played no decisive role in the Revolution. It was of great value in wooded areas, as at Saratoga and King’s Mountain; but for open-field fighting, its slow rate of fire and lack of a bayonet made it inferior to the musket.

Since both militiamen and continentals played roles in winning the war, the Revolutionary experience provided ammunition for two diametrically opposed schools of thought on American military policy: the one advocating a large Regular Army, the other reliance on the militia as the bulwark of national defense. The real issue, as Washington fully recognized, was less militia versus regulars—for he never believed the infant republic needed a large standing army—than the extent to which militia could be trained and organized to form a reliable national reserve. The lesson Washington drew from the Revolution was that the militia should be "well regulated," that is, trained and organized under a uniform national system in all the states and subject to call into national service in war or emergency.

The lesson had far greater implications for the future than any of the tactical changes wrought by the American Revolution. It balanced the rights of freedom and equality proclaimed in the [[Declaration of Independence]] with a corresponding obligation of all citizens for military service to the nation. This concept, which was to find explicit expression in the "nation in arms" during the French Revolution, was also implicit in the American; and it portended the end of eighteenth century limited war fought by professional armies officered by an aristocratic class. As Steuben so well recognized, American continentals were not professional soldiers in the European sense and militia even less so. They were instead a people’s army fighting for a cause. In this sense then, the American Revolution began the "democratization of war," a process that eventually lead to the new concept of a nation in arms.

== See also ==

*[[French Revolution]]
*[[Virginia Declaration of Rights]]

==References==
*Billias, George A., ed. ''George Washington’s Generals'', Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut (1967).
*Higginbotham, Don, ed. ''Reconsiderations on the Revolutionary War: Selected Essays'', Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut (1978).
*Hoffman, Ronald, and Peter J. Albert, eds. ''Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution'', University of Virginia Press (1984).
*Middlekauf, Robert. ''The Glorious Cause'' Oxford University Press, New York (1986).
*Morgan, John S., and Daniel J. Boorstein. ''The Birth of the Republic, 1763–1789'', University of Chicago Press (1993).
*Shy, John. ''A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence'', University of Michigan Press (1990).
*Wright, Robert K., Jr. ''The Continental Army'', U.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington D.C. (1983).

[[Category:American Revolutionary War Battles]]

[[Category: United States]]
[[Category:American Revolutionary War]]

Tyrannosaurus

2008-09-11T21:41:11Z

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[[Image:Tyrannosaurus rex.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Joe Tucciarone's illustration of a Tyrannosaurus rex. (Rights reserved, reproduced here with consent.)]]
The '''Tyrannosaurus rex''', or T-rex, was a large carnivorous [[dinosaur]] with very small forelimbs, large hind legs and a long tail. It is one of the largest land carnivores to have ever walked the earth, measuring about 13 meters long and 5 meters high.<ref>Brochu, C.R. 2003. Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex: insights from a nearly complete skeleton and high-resolution computed tomographic analysis of the skull. Memoirs of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. 7: 1-138.</ref>

[[Young Earth Creationism|Young Earth Creationists]] believe that they became extinct sometime since the [[Great Flood]], dated to approximately 4,500 years ago.

[[Theory of evolution|Evolutionary]] scientists believe that the T-rex lived at the end of the [[Cretaceous]] period, dated to approximately 65 million years ago, and that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs such as T-rex. <ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/04/12/dinosaur.reut/index.html Bird Family Ties]</ref><ref>[http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_trex_tissues.html T Rex Tissue]</ref>

== Fossils ==
The earliest find of a Tyrannosaurus rex occurred in 1892. In 1905, after additional discoveries of fossils, the president of the American Museum for Natural History named the dinosaur. Since then, more than 30 specimens have been found.

In 1990, amateur paleontologist Susan Hendrickson discovered the most complete Tyrannosaurus fossil yet. The fossil, named Sue, is also one of the largest Tyrannosaurus specimens discovered.<ref>Guinness World Records Ltd. (2003). 2003 Guinness World Records. pg 90.</ref>

Paleontologist Mary Schweitzer has discovered unfossilized soft tissue in T-rex skeletons. This was unexpected as tissue was not known to stay unfossilized for 65 million years. Evolutionists saw this as evidence that tissue can last that long, whilst creationists saw it as evidence that the fossils were not that old.<ref>[http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3042 Still soft and stretchy], by Carl Wieland.</ref><ref>[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0324_050324_trexsofttissue.html National Geographic - T. Rex Soft Tissue Found Preserved]</ref>

==Diet==

T-rex had forward-facing eyes, which gave it [[Binocular vision|binocular vision]]. Binocular vision is usually present in carnivores, as it gives them better depth perception and helps them catch their prey<ref>[http://www.nhm.org/mammals/page010.html Natural History Museum - Mammals - Eat or be Eaten]</ref>, therefore it is very likely that Tyrannosaurus was a carnivore. Young earth creationists believe that the Tyrannosaurus, along with all other carnivores, was herbivorous in the [[Garden of Eden]] before the Fall, but afterwards it adapted to be [[carnivore|carnivorous]].

Some have suggested that T-rex was exclusively a scavenger. This may be partially true, since most carnivores today will happily scavenge available meat. However, it probably was not an ''exclusive'' scavenger, as most meat-eaters must also hunt in order to survive. T-rex's jaws were also quite adaptive to grabbing live prey, and probably used them in the same way most carnivores do: bit the throat to either crush the larynx and thus kill by suffocation or through blood loss. Also, the T-rex's large body probably required a great amount of food and therefore scavenging probably wouldn't be sufficient to support its high metabolism.<ref>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3790/is_200103/ai_n8932547|</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Dinosaurs]]

Occam's razor

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'''Ockham's Razor''' is one of the most widely used [[ontological principle|ontological principles]] in all fields of applied logic, most notably [[philosophy]], [[theology]], and [[systemology]]. It is attributed to [[William of Ockham]], an English Franciscan [[Friar]] who lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Briefly, it can be stated as follows:

:"From any set of equally probable explanations, we should assume the one which makes the fewest [[fundamental assumptions]] is correct, until we have reason to believe otherwise"

This is different from the shortest explanation, the shortest logical argument, and the simplest explanation, and the razor is often incorrectly quoted and/or applied. Some people have argued that these criteria qualify as better principles than the razor.

Occam's razor is a ''guiding principle''. That is, it says that the explanation with the fewest assumptions ''is to be preferred'', not ''is correct''. The explanation with the fewest assumptions can turn out to be the wrong explanation.

== Illustration ==

Ockham's razor can be illustrated be the following common example. A tree is found uprooted in the middle of a field with no apparent cause. Two people offer competing hypotheses for how this occured. Person A says that there must have been a storm last night, which combined with heavy rainfall the previous day, resulted in the uprooting of the tree. Person B says that last night aliens visited the planet Earth, and uprooted the tree as a message to mankind. There is no way of determining which of these hypotheses is correct after the fact, but as A's hypothesis makes far fewer fundamental assumptions (basically that the planet Earth has weather) than B's hypothesis (basically that aliens exist, have a way of finding humans in the cosmos, have a way of traversing space to reach our planet, could topple such a tree without being noticed, and so forth), we should assume A is correct and that a storm felled the tree unless B can provide some other evidence to support their claim.

[[John Wisdom]] and [[Anthony Flew]] indirectly use the razor in [[The Parable of the Gardener]].

== Use by atheists ==

Among its practical applications, Occam's Razor has been used by [[atheist]]s to argue against the existence of God.<ref>The Skeptic's Dictionary</ref>
Let us take for an example the origin of intelligent life on Earth. One possibility for intelligent life is naturalistic [[evolution]] via [[natural selection]]. A second possibility is that God used evolution as His means of creation. Occam's Razor allows us to eliminate God from the hypothesis, since the idea is an unnecessary additional assumption. The 'simpler' explanation (that which makes fewer fundamental assumptions) is that God had nothing to do with the development of Intelligent Life and that it came about as a result of natural processes. Therefore, the earlier explanation is the most reasonable to believe.

== Use by Christians ==
The problem with the [[atheist]] example above is that it assumes that naturalistic evolution ''can'' explain the origin of intelligent life. Most theists would argue that God is not an unnecessary additional assumption, but a ''necessary'' additional assumption. Creationists would further argue that ''evolution'' is an unnecessary additional assumption—If you assume that God could create life, there is no need to assume that He needed to use evolution to do so.

Christian apologist [[William Lane Craig]] also has used Occam's razor to argue against [[polytheism]]. He argues that the [[Kalam Cosmological Argument]] argues against [[atheism]], and that Occam's Razor would only require the existence of one god. <ref>Strobel, 2004</ref>

== Bibliography ==
* [http://skepdic.com/occam.html Occam's razor] (The Skeptic's Dictionary).
* Grigg, Russell, [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5096/ Occam’s Razor and creation/evolution] 22nd May 2007 (Creation Ministries International).
* Strobel, Lee. The Case for a Creator. Zondervan 2004

== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:Ontological Principles]]

Air

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The [[atmosphere]] surrounding the [[Earth]] consists of a mixture of gases commonly called '''air'''. The most common gases are [[nitrogen]] (77%) and [[oxygen]] (about 22%). There are other gases as well, but in very small quantities. The air is important for almost all life on Earth including [[plant]]s and [[animal]]s. Plants need carbon dioxide for [[photosynthesis]]. Animals need to breathe air to get the oxygen they need to survive. As you move up in [[altitude]] through the atmosphere, the concentration of air molecules decreases. The air is thinner higher in the atmosphere because there is lower pressure the higher you go up.

There is a special layer of air molecules high in the [[stratosphere]] layer of Earth’s atmosphere, called the [[ozone layer]]. The composition of the atmosphere is different in the ozone layer. There are more [[ozone]] molecules than anywhere else. Ozone molecules help block some of the [[Sun]]’s strongest rays. Currently, [[scientist]]s are monitoring this layer. It has recently become so thin at the [[South Pole]] where the molecules are being destroyed that we call it a hole.
[[category:environment]]

Los Angeles

2008-09-11T13:26:04Z

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'''Los Angeles''' (from [[Spanish]] "Los Ángeles, meaning "The Angels", often called the "'''City of The Angels'''", "'''L.A.'''" or just "'''LA'''") is a city in [[California]], the biggest city in the state. Approximately 3.8 million people reside in LA. The city covers nearly 500 square miles. The City of LA is within Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the country.

The movie industry of [[Hollywood]] is based in LA. Many world-class aerospace firms are there too, like Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Howard Hawks Aviation. Beaches line the coast along the Santa Monica bay and include the famous neighborhoods of Malibu beach to the north, and Venice Beach. The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach make up the largest port on the west Coast, larger even than Seattle or San Diego. Los Angeles has one of the country's largest manufacturing sectors, with the textile industry being highly prominent. Several oil refineries lie along the southern basin of the county. Including refineries in the cities of Torrance, Carson, and the los angeles neighborhood of Wilmington.

Los Angeles is in an arid area, and a great amount of water comes from the [[Colorado]] River through the Los Angeles Aqueduct and from the California Water project.

Many people from all over the world live in LA, and as a result there are restaurants from well over 300 nations there. The weather is excellent all year around, which is why the movie business moved there - the light is excellent for 'shooting' for over 300 days a year. The Mayor of LA is Antonio Villaraigosa.

Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer [[Olympics]].

==See Also==
*[[Los Angeles California Temple]]

[[Category:California Cities and Towns]]

United States of America

2008-09-11T13:20:42Z

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{{Country
|name =''United States of America''
|map =US map.PNG
|flag =50 star flag.png
|arms =United States arms.png
|capital =Washington, D.C.
|government =Federal Republic
|language =English (unofficial)
|president =George W. Bush
|area =3,718,695 sq mi
|pop =301,554,000 (2007)
|gdp-year =$13.049 trillion (2007
|gdp-pc =$44,333 (2007)
|currency =dollar
}}
The '''United States of America''' (commonly referred to as '''the United States''', '''the USA''', '''the US''', '''the States''', or simply as '''America''') is a North American nation that consists of a federal union of fifty individual states and the federal [[District of Columbia]]. Its origins lie in the [[British Empire]]: it was founded on July 4, 1776 with the signing of the [[Declaration of Independence]], and its independence from Britain was formally recognized in 1783, following the [[American Revolutionary War|War of Independence]]. The US is currently the world's sole [[superpower]]; it has the world's largest economy, and is recognized as having the world's most powerful military.

==Overview==

The United States has land borders with [[Canada]] and [[Mexico]], as well as several territorial water boundaries with Canada, [[Russia]] and The Bahamas. It is otherwise bounded by the [[Pacific Ocean]], the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Two of the fifty states, [[Alaska]], an exclave, and [[Hawaii]], an archipelago, are not contiguous with any of the other states. Alaska is located in northwest North America and the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also has a collection of overseas territories and possessions around the world. Each of the 50 states has a high level of local autonomy under the federal system.

At over 3.7 million square miles (over 9.6 million km²), the U.S. (including its non-contiguous and overseas states and territories) is the third largest country by total area. It is the world's third most populous nation, with over 350 million people.

The United States' military, economic, cultural, and political influence increased through the 19th and 20th centuries. Since the mid-20th century, the United States has become a dominant global influence in contemporary economic, political, military, scientific, technological and cultural matters. With the collapse of the [[Soviet Union]] at the end of the [[Cold War]], the nation emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower, greatly influencing world affairs, as it continues to do today.

==The Constitution and Politics in the United States==

[[Image:76485685i79.jpg|left|thumb|300px|The drafting committee presenting the [[Declaration of Independence]] to the [[Continental Congress]], painted by John Trumbull 1817–1819.]]

[[George Washington]], [[Thomas Jefferson]], and the other [[Founding Fathers]] risked a sentence of death for treason against the English Crown by signing the [[Declaration of Independence]] on July 4th, 1776.

Between the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the ratification of the [[Constitution]] in 1788, the United States was governed according to the [[Articles of Confederation]].

The Founding Fathers formally established the current structure of the United States by ratification of the [[U.S. Constitution]] in 1788.
Since then, that constitution has been the only official governing document.

Although officially a [[republic]], the United States has been governed by two or more [[political parties]] under the rules of a "[[representative democracy]]." Presently, the two major political parties are the [[Democratic Party]], and the [[Republican Party]], the latter being created in 1854, making it the younger of the two.

== The Role of Religion in Government ==

Americans overwhelmingly consider the U.S. a [[Christianity|Christian]] nation. A Pew Report showed 76% of Republicans, 63% of Democrats,and 67% of independents view the U.S. a Christian nation. [[Humanism#Secular_Humanism|Secular]] categories are the only subgroup in which fewer than a majority sees the U.S. as a Christian country. <ref>[http://pewforum.org/docs/index.php?DocID=153#1 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life], August 24, 2006. Retrieved June 7, 2007.</ref>

The [[Declaration of Independence]] acknowledges the existence of a [[God]] when it refers to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and says all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." That statement was inserted by the author, [[Thomas Jefferson]], whose religious beliefs were Deistic.

Many early Americans emigrated because of religious persecution in their home countries. The American Founding Fathers adhered to various sects of Christianity, including [[Catholicism]], [[Protestantism]], and [[Deism]]. They recognized that [[Judeo-Christian]] tradition in addition to other legal traditions should inform the Constitution.

Based upon these beliefs, the Founding Fathers specifically placed into the [[First Amendment]] to the U.S. Constitution a sentence which states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first clause is referred to as the [[Establishment Clause]], and the second the [[Free Exercise Clause]]. Even in contemporary times, citizens often mistakenly insist the First Amendment mandated [[separation of church and state]], which it clearly does not. It is obvious by the writings and the documents they produced that the Founding Fathers could not even conceptualize (let alone desire) a [[government]] without Christian principles.

This "Free Exercise Clause" of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution began increasingly to be tested and interpreted by the judiciary in the late 19th century as a result of the increasing population of religious minorities in the country.

The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the [[Federalist Papers]], and the many personal papers of the Founding Fathers have been used to examine the issue. Different and sometimes contradicting statements have been noted regarding the influence of religion on government, and it can be difficult sometimes to interpret the importance and precedence of personal beliefs, legal intent, and actual verbiage in the documents.

In recent decades, the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] has used the "[[lemon test]]" as a means for determining whether or not a particular controversy causes excessive entanglement between government and religion, though in some cases has allowed religious icons (such as [[the Ten Commandments]] display in [[Texas]].<ref> http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-1500 </ref>)

In America today, an individual's party affiliation is at times determined by their personal view of the relationship between religion and government. Many other social issues, such as [[abortion]], [[euthanasia]], [[freedom of speech]], and [[cloning]] are based on an individual's religious beliefs.

==History and geography==

[[Image:56eugyjnm.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The [[White House]], the official home and workplace of the [[President of the United States]] of America.]]

=== Independence ===

In [[1783]], when the [[1783 Treaty of Paris|Treaty of Paris]] concluded hostilities against [[Great Britain]], the former [[colonial power]], the United States' population totalled some three million [[citizens]] and [[slaves]] living on slightly less than one million square miles of land. An unknown number of [[Native Americans]] also lived in the western part of the United States, which was then bordered on the west by the [[Mississippi River]], on the north by [[Lake Superior]], [[Lake Huron]], [[Lake Erie]] and [[Lake Ontario]], on the east by the [[Atlantic Ocean]], and on the south by [[Florida]], then controlled by [[Spain]]. The land border with Canada was not clarified until the [[Rush-Bagot Agreement]] of 1816.

The majority of the taxable population lived in the thirteen original [[States of the Unites States of America|states]]. In alphabetical order they are [[Connecticut]], [[Delaware]], [[Georgia]], [[Maryland]], [[Massachusetts]], [[New Hampshire]], [[New Jersey]], [[New York]], [[North Carolina]], [[Pennsylvania]], [[Rhode Island]], [[South Carolina]] and [[Virginia]]. In 1790, an agreement between supporters of Jefferson and those of [[Alexander Hamilton]] resulted in the creation of the [[District of Columbia]] from part of [[Maryland]]; it has served as the national capital since 1800. The remainder of the 1783 territory was eventually organized as the states of [[Ohio]], [[Indiana]], [[Michigan]], [[Illinois]], [[Wisconsin]], [[Kentucky]], [[Tennessee]], [[Mississippi]] and [[Alabama]]. Two additional states were added during the first fifty years by [[secession]] from existing states: [[Vermont]] from New York, and [[Maine]] from Massachusetts. After that, the legality of secession became an issue.

=== Louisiana Territory ===

In 1803, [[French]] emperor [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] took advantage of a lull in his war with Great Britain to sell the [[Louisiana Territory]] to the United States, more than doubling the nation's land area. This territory would later be organized as the states of [[Minnesota]], [[North Dakota]], [[South Dakota]], [[Montana]], [[Wyoming]], [[Nebraska]], [[Iowa]], [[Missouri]], [[Arkansas]], [[Kansas]], [[Oklahoma]], and [[Louisiana]] proper. President Jefferson commissioned [[Lewis and Clark]] to explore the new territory, which they did from 1802 to 1804.

=== Revolutions ===

[[Florida]] and [[Texas]] joined the United States as a result of [[revolutions]] by settlers from the United States against their central governments. Florida's was fought in 1810, while the much better remembered [[Texas Revolution]] was fought in 1836. While Spain was willing to cut its losses in Florida and relinquished any claims on the state in the [[Adams-Oniz Agreement]] of 1819, one of the successors to its empire in the Americas, Mexico, was considerably more attached to Texas and fought the [[Mexican War]] between 1846 and 1848 to reverse its annexation by the United States. Losing badly, Mexico was forced to cede the sparsely populated northern portion of itself under the [[Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo]]. This territory eventually became the states of [[California]], [[Nevada]], [[Utah]], [[Colorado]], [[New Mexico]] and [[Arizona]]. At approximately the same time, [[President]] [[James K. Polk]] had agreed with the British that the 49th Parallel (degree of latitude) would serve as the boundary between the U. S. and Canada from [[Lake of the Woods]] (partially in Minnesota) to the [[Pacific Ocean]]. This territory was later organized as the states of [[Washington]], [[Oregon]] and [[Idaho]].

=== Alaska ===

In 1867, [[Secretary of State]] [[William Seward]] purchased [[Alaska]] from [[Russia]]. Critics referred to this as "Seward's Folly." Alaska is the westernmost extremity of [[North America]] bounded on the east by Canada, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, on the west by the [[Bering Strait]] and on the north by the [[Arctic Ocean]]. At $7,000,000, Alaska cost the United States considerably less per acre than the [[Mexican Cession]] and slightly less than the Louisiana Territory. Of course, [[inflation]] was less of a factor at this time due to the world [[economy]] still being principally [[agrarian]]. Although at the time it was considered a foolish bargain, Alaska would later become a large source of economic prosperity due to large gold, oil, and other natural resources. Alaska would not be admitted as a state until 1959.

=== Hawaii ===

The 50th and so far final state, [[Hawaii]], was also admitted in 1959, 67 years after the DOLE corporation, sugar producers, and the US Marine Corps deposed the last native [[queen]] of the archipelago and 62 years after annexation had become politically feasible as a result of the [[Spanish-American War]], in which the United States also annexed [[Puerto Rico]], [[Guam]] and [[Wake Island]]. The last three islands are not states, although [[Puerto Rico]] has occasionally held non-binding [[referendum|referenda]] to express its desired status within the United States.

=== Relinquishments ===

The United States has occasionally relinquished territory. The most significant example of this was certainly the granting of independence in 1946 to the [[Philippines]] as part of the general [[decolonization]] of [[Asia]] and [[Africa]] following [[World War II]]. Under both [[autocratic]] and [[democratic]] governments, the Philippines have subsequently remained a strong United States ally, and today contribute more troops to the U. S. [[military]] than some states. Other Pacific territories such as the [[Federated States of Micronesia]] and [[Palau]] have also become independent in the postwar era with little objection from opinion leaders on the mainland. More controversial was the 1977 agreement between President [[Jimmy Carter]] and [[General]] [[Omar Torrijos]] to return the [[Panama Canal Zone]], which had been part of the United States since 1914, to [[Panama]] in the year 2000. Ultimately the United States lived up to this agreement despite the worst fears of both [[liberals]] (who decried [[Operation Just Cause]], the 1989 invasion of Panama) and [[conservatives]] (who feared the management of the [[Panama Canal]] by [[Chinese]] interests).

=== United Nations ===

The United States has been criticized for holding back a portion of its [[United Nations]] dues (currently amounting to 41%, or $1.246 billion dollars.

== See Also: ==

*[[Flag of the United States of America]]
*[[Pledge of Allegiance]]
*[[Americas]]
*[[America (continent)]]

== External links ==

*[http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/america.htm America]
*[http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/flags_of_us_states.htm Flags of the U.S. States]
*[http://www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf Interactive map test of the 50 U.S. states]

== References ==
{{reflist|2}}

[[Category:North American Countries]]
[[Category:NATO members]]
[[Category:United States]]

Conservative

2008-09-11T13:18:48Z

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A '''conservative''' is one who adheres to principles of limited government, personal responsibility and moral values. A conservative would likely agree with the statement in [[George Washington]]'s [[Farewell Address]] that "religion and morality are indispensable supports" to political prosperity.<ref>[http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/49.htm United States Department of State] George Washington, farewell address, 1796</ref> Conservatism arose in the 19th century as a response to [[liberalism]], particularly as manifested in the [[French Revolution]].<ref>In addition, Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary has the following definition of conservative: "tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions : TRADITIONAL"[http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/conservative] Therefore, a conservative Christian would be one that tends to adhere to the doctrines of the early Christianity and [[Judeo-Christian]] values.</ref>

== Conservatives in the United States ==

In the United States, conservatives are generally characterized by adherence to limited government, public morality and free enterprise. Specifically, conservatives tend to adhere to the following principles:

* Checking change on tradition
* A strong national defense
* Return of prayer in school
* The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, as long as such possession does not threaten national security
* Economic allocative efficiency (as opposed to popular equity)
* Stronger law enforcement and anti-crime laws, including the death penalty
* Parents, rather than school teachers, educating children about sex
* Choice in education
* Private medical care and retirement plans
* Weakening or cancellation of failed social support programs
* Prohibition of abortion
* Opposition to same-sex marriage licenses and homosexuals
* Support of laws against pornography
* Generally opposed to the United Nations
* Support enforcement of current laws regarding immigration
* Support tightening of border security
* Respect for our military... past and present
* Low taxes, especially in upper income brackets
* Opening foreign markets to U.S. products

About every 20-60 years a conservative has been elected president of the United States. Examples include:

*[[George Washington]]
*[[James Monroe]]
*[[Grover Cleveland]]
*[[William Howard Taft]]
*[[Warren G. Harding]]
*[[Ronald Reagan]]

In America, most conservatives tend to align with the [[Republican Party]], but not exclusively so.

== Conservative News Organizations ==
Some of the more notable news organizations which tend to be more conservative are [[Fox News]], [[WorldNetDaily]], [[NewsMax]], and [[Cybercast News Service]].

== Conservative Magazines and Blogs ==
Two well known conservative magazines in the United States are The Weekly Standard and the [[National Review]].

Some of the more notable [[Conservative political blogs|conservative political blogs]] are Power Line, Captain's Quarters, the blog of [[Michelle Malkin]], Newbusters, the Heritage Policy Weblog, Humanevents, Townhall, and the Conservative Caucus blog.

== Neoconservatives ==

American commentators who ally themselves with the conservative movement but reject its religious or moral underpinnings are generally known as [[neoconservatives]].<ref>Jonah Goldberg, [http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWMxNWNiNDJkY2JmNTExY2E1MzdkYWU3MWU1MTBiOGU= "What Is a 'Conservative'?"], [[National Review|National Review Online]], 11 May 2005</ref>

In the United States, conservatives are generally characterized by the following beliefs:

# A deep suspicion of the power of the state.
# A preference for liberty over equality.
# Patriotism.
# A belief in established institutions and hierarchies.
# Skepticism about the idea of progress.

However, neoconservatives generally support government power and are indifferent to liberty and equality.

==Conservatives in the United Kingdom==

In the United Kingdom the present parliamentary opposition party is called the [[Conservative Party]] and, as its name suggests, it holds traditional conservative views. Its current leader is [[David Cameron]].<ref>[http://www.conservatives.com Conservative party UK]</ref>

Up until the mid-19th century, the forerunners of the Conservatives were known as [[Tory|Tories]], and the name has persisted as a common nickname both for the political party and those believed to be in agreement with it. Since the late 1970s, UK conservatives have been defined by an advocacy of [[laissez-faire]] economics, privatization and lower taxation.

Levels of prayer and worship are much lower in the [[U.K.]] than in the [[U.S.]]{{fact}}, and religious issues thereby play less of a role in [[England]]. Religious issues remain a significant factor in [[Northern Ireland]] and in 2008 religious issues were significant during a special election in [[Scotland]].

In common with conservatives in many other countries, UK Conservatives tend towards a Nationalist outlook, and are traditionally skeptical of the [[European Union]].

In the United Kingdom the broadcast media is almost exclusively [[liberal]] in tone. The main Conservative newspapers are the [[Daily Telegraph]] and the more populist [[Daily Mail]]. [[The Spectator]] is a fortnightly journal of opinion which expresses broadly conservative views; until recently it was edited by [[Boris Johnson]], the newly-elected Conservative Mayor of [[London]].

== See also ==
*[[Previous Breaking News/Conservatives|Articles about '''Conservatives''' from previous "Breaking News"]]
*[[More News/Conservatives|Articles about '''Conservatives''' from "More News"]]
*[[Conservative Links]]

== References ==
{{reflist|2}}

==External Links==
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/conservatives/ What Liberals Say - Category: Conservatives], [[Accuracy In Media]]

[[Category:Conservative|Conservative]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District

2008-09-11T13:17:24Z

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<div style="float:right; width:50%"><center>'''The text of the statement'''<ref name="Memo">[http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf Memorandum Opinion] 20th December, 2005.</ref></center>{{QuoteBox|The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's Theory of Evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People, is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the Origins of Life to individual students and their families. As a Standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on Standards-based assessments.}}</div>

'''Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al'''., 400 F. Supp. 2d 707 (M.D. Pa. 2005), Case No. 04cv2688, was a lawsuit filed by the [[ACLU]] and the [[Americans United for Separation of Church and State]] against the Dover ([[Pennsylvania]]) Area School District to censor any mention of [[intelligent design]] (ID) in [[public school]].

The court completely and permanently censored the reading of the proposed statement on [[Intelligent Design]],<ref name="Memo" /> and approved an award of over $2 million in legal fees to the [[ACLU]] and other plaintiffs' attorneys.<ref>http://www.docstoc.com/docs/530239/2006-02-22_stipulation</ref> The court also denied an attempt to intervene in the case by parents who wanted the ID statement,<ref>http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/opinions/jones/04v2688.pdf</ref> and completely excluded ("stricken in its entirety") an [[amicus brief]] submitted by the Discovery Institute which included information from Drs. [[Stephen Meyer]] and [[William Dembski]]. The court's final order was based on a stipulation about attorneys' fees which also foreclosed any appeal of the ruling.<ref>http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/all_legal/2006-02-24_Judgment.pdf</ref> Taxpayers in the district paid $1,000,011 of the massive legal fee award to the [[ACLU]] and other plaintiffs' attorneys.<ref name="Note">[http://www.umt.edu/mlr/editors'%20note.pdf ''Montana Law Review'' Editor's Notes]</ref>

The court's decision relied heavily on a district court decision from another jurisdiction, quoting from it nearly a dozen times, but that decision was subsequently reversed on appeal.<ref>''Selman v. Cobb County Sch. Dist.'', 390 F. Supp. 2d 1286 at 1306 (N.D. Ga. 2005), ''vacated on appeal'', 449 F.3d 1320 (11th Cir. 2006).</ref> A final judgment and dismissal with prejudice was entered on December 19, 2006 in which the school board in question was prohibited from taking any action that would "prevent or hinder the teaching of evolution in the school district."<ref> http://www.cobbk12.org/news/2006/20061219_EvolutionCase.htm</ref>
== Criticism==
Immediately after the ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, Judge Jones, who had been recommended for the bench by [[liberal]] [[Republican]] [[Pennsylvania]] governor [[Tom Ridge]] and appointed by Pres. [[George W. Bush]], was criticized for [[judicial activism]] by the [[Discovery Institute]].<ref name="Activ">[http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/11/judge_jones_admits_the_activis.html Judge Jones Admits the Activist Nature of Kitzmiller Ruling on Lehrer Newshour] (Discovery Institute).</ref>
{{QuoteBox|Judge Jones's Kitzmiller decision was based upon faulty reasoning, non-existent evidence, and a serious misrepresentation of the scientific theory of intelligent design. Despite Judge Jones's protestations to the contrary, his attempt to use the federal bench to declare evolution a sacred cow turns out to be a textbook case of good-old-American judicial activism. [http://www.discovery.org/csc/traipsing/]}}

The [[Discovery Institute]] found that in his decision Jones has copied verbatim from the [[ACLU]]'s proposed findings of fact. Casey Luskin, a scholar of [[intelligent design]] at the Discovery Institute, has shown that the decision amounts to judicial activism, although Judge Jones has denied this.<ref name="Activ" />

Judge Jones gave many public statements and speeches after his ruling. In the conclusion of his ruling, he answered his expected critics by stating, "Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."<ref name="Memo" /><ref>http://www.adl.org/Civil_Rights/speech_judge_jones.asp</ref>

== Details of the case ==

The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

=== Plaintiffs ===

The plaintiffs were a group of eleven parents that brought the case on behalf of their children that attended the Dover Area School District. Dover resident Tammy Kitzmiller learned of the school board's revised policy during November 2004 and filed suit with the other parents on December 14, 2004. They were represented by [[American Civil Liberties Union]], [[Americans United for Separation of Church and State]], and Pepper Hamilton LLP. Pepper Hamilton LLP accepted the lead role of presenting the plaintiffs' case.<ref name="Memo" /><ref>http://www.pepperlaw.com/pepper/pracarea/doverID/doverID.cfm</ref>

=== Defendants ===
The defendants were the Dover Area School District and the Dover Area School District Board of Directors. The Board presided over schools in the Dover area that taught approximately 3700 students. About 1000 students attended Dover High School, the school where the ID policy was to be implemented (in fact, the statement never was read to students by teachers). The Defendants retained the services of the Thomas Moore Law Center on a pro bono basis.<ref name="Memo" /><ref name="NYD">http://yorkdispatch.inyork.com/searchresults/ci_3535139</ref>

=== Endorsement and Lemon Tests ===

Based on the "Consideration of the Applicability of the Endorsement and [[Lemon Test]]s to Assess the Constitutionality of the ID Policy", the court determined that both the "endorsement test and the Lemon Test should be employed in the case to analyze the constitutionality of the ID policy under the [[Establishment Clause]]." The court determined this course of action based on the opinions of Justice Sandra Day O'Conner and previous court cases involving the establishment clause, the Lemon Test, and other cases involving the teaching of creationism and evolution in public schools. <ref name="Memo" />

=== Verdict ===

On December 20, 2005, Judge [[John E. Jones III]] rendered his verdict and ruled the Dover ID policy violated the Establishment Clause of the [[First Amendment]] of the [[Constitution of the United States]] and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The court summarized in stating, "The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." Judge Jones held that "the disclaimer singles out the theory of evolution for special treatment, misrepresents its status in the scientific community, causes students to doubt its validity without scientific justification, presents students with a religious alternative masquerading as a scientific theory, directs them to consult a creationist text as though it were a science resource, and instructs students to forego scientific inquiry in the public school classroom and instead to seek out religious instruction elsewhere." The defendants were permanently enjoined from maintaining the ID policy in any school within the Dover Area School District. <ref name="Memo" />

==References==
<references/>

== See also ==
* [[Intelligent design and creationism]]
* [[Suppression of alternatives to evolution]]

[[category:United States Law]][[category:Judicial activism]][[category:Intelligent Design]]

Terrorism

2008-09-11T13:12:04Z

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[[Image:Terrormunich.jpg|thumb|right|300px|A member of [[Black September]], a terrorist group, during the [[1972 Munich Olympics]]]]'''[[Terrorism]]''' is defined by the US [[Department of Defense]] as "''the unlawful use of -- or threatened use of -- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives.''"

==Terrorist==
One who uses [[terroristic tactics]] to coerce behavior in another person or group is generally considered to fall under the definition of the term "terrorist". One who uses such terroristic tactics ([[suicide bombing]], [[sniper]], [[assassination]], [[random bombing]], etc.) can often be described as such. Aeroflight in the UK [http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/definitions.htm], defines it as: ''"One who utilizes the systematic use of violence and/or intimidation to achieve political objectives, while disguised as a civilian non-combatant. The use of a civilian disguise while on operations exempts the perpetrator from protection under the Geneva Conventions, and consequently if captured they are liable for prosecution as common criminals."''

==Terrorism==
Terrorism is the use of terror (fear), violence, and intimidation to achieve an end. Terrorism also refers to any fear and subjugation produced by this. The term is also used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians by groups or persons for political or ideological goals. Terrorism is the unlawful use or threatened use, of force, ''intimidation'', and/or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

===Leftist (Radical) Terrorism===

Leftist Terrorism, often referred to as radical terrorism, is terrorism that embraces the fringe left side of the political spectrum (Countries that are hostile to dissident terrorist movements often also see violence from the far left as well). Radical terrorists are future orientated. That is, radicals believe that they are currently being oppressed by some current government, ideology or regime, and therefore they should overthrow that oppressor and install a better government. Radical terrorists often operate with the belief that it is possible to create a utopia for the people. Radicals generally follow the beliefs of Karl Marx and Lenin, with emphasis on the idea of Lenin's vanguard party. Leftist terrorists often choose symbolic targets that emphasize what they see as a an oppressor to the working class. Leftist terrorist tend to target buildings and governmental structures that represent capitalism, or assassinate government leaders and capitalists. Leftist terrorists are self characterized as the young, self-educated elites of society, who are destined to both weaken the oppressive government and at the same time expose the weakness of the government to the exploited workforce. Radicals also tend be more exclusive with what issues they champion. Often, very narrow radicals will focus on one issue, resulting in animal rights, feminist, and eco-terrorists. Radical groups often operated in highly organized and clandestine groups, easily recognizable and orderly. However, leftist groups often had internal divisions in the larger groups that often broke off to create new group.<ref>Gus Martin. Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues.</ref>

====Famous Radical Groups====

*[[Al-Qaeda]]
*[[Animal Liberation Front]]
*[[Earth Liberation Front]]
*[[Irish Republican Army]]
*[[John Brown Anti-Klan Committee]]
*[[May 19th Communist Organization]]
*[[Muslim Brotherhood]]
*[[Prairie Fire Organizing Committee]]
*[[Red Army Faction]]
*[[Revolutionary Organization 17 November]]
*[[Symbionese Liberation Army]]
*[[Weather Underground Organization]]
*[[Youth International Party]]

===Right (Reactionary) Terrorism===

Historically, reactionary terrorism has been less organized and less symbolic than leftist terrorists. Reactionary terrorists, like radical terrorists, see the current government as corrupt, but unlike radical leftists, reactionaries do not see the current government as needing revolutionary change. Rather, reactionaries view the government as a perversion of some older, better, government or social order. Reactionary terrorist violence is an attempt to regain the lost government and return to "order" and status quo. Reactionary violence is often justified by a use of mysticism about the old order. Scapegoating is a common tactic among reactionary terrorists to create an enemy for which to blame for the current order. Historical scapegoats among reactionary terrorists have included Jews, foreigners, homosexuals, atheists, leftists, blacks, illegal immigrants, and other racial minorities. Reactionary groups often defined by racial supremacy and a sense of order. Goals of reactionary terrorist include the delegation of minorities back to secondary status with respect to the national majority and a creation of a strong government to sustain order and prevent chaos through a police state. It should be noted however that due to conspiracy theories prevalence in the American fringe right, American reactionaries do not seek the creation of a strong government. Reactionaries often act as individuals or small groups and are not as discriminate with their targets as are leftist groups. This is partially due to the lack of unity between reactionaries and the scope of reactionary targets, often encompassing entire races.<ref>Gus Martin. Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues.</ref>

====Famous Reactionary Groups====

*[[Ku Klux Klan]]
*[[Skinheads]]
*[[New Order]]
*The [[Contras]] in Nicaragua

== Domestic terrorists ==
In describing domestic terrorism before the House Resources Committee on February 12, 2002, James F. Jarboe, Domestic Terrorism Section Chief of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, stated:
:''"Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States (or its territories) without foreign direction, committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. During the past decade we have witnessed dramatic changes in the nature of the terrorist threat. In the 1990s, right-wing extremism overtook left-wing terrorism as the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat to the country. During the past several years, special interest extremism, as characterized by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), has emerged as a serious terrorist threat. Generally, extremist groups engage in much activity that is protected by constitutional guarantees of free speech and assembly. Law enforcement becomes involved when the volatile talk of these groups transgresses into unlawful action. The FBI estimates that the ALF/ELF have committed more than 600 criminal acts in the United States since 1996, resulting in damages in excess of 43 million dollars."'' [http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/jarboe021202.htm]

The following organizations have been accused by the FBI of being involved with domestic terrorism:
*[[Animal Liberation Front]]
*[[Black Liberation Army]]
*[[Earth Liberation Front]]
*[[Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional]] (FALN)
*[[Ku Klux Klan]]
*[[Symbionese Liberation Army]]
*[[Army of God]]
*[[Weather Underground]]

== International ==

*[[Al-Qaeda]]

*[[PIRA]]

*[[Hamas]]

==Terrorism and the Media==

The prime goal of any terrorist is mass media exposure. Terrorism cannot recruit new initiates like regular armies, rather when they run out of discontented radicals within their state, they must rely on the media to spread their message. Therefore, media outlets and the press must be careful when choosing a story, as often running a story about a terrorist attack just creates more support for a terrorist cause.

However, terrorists must be careful, as if an attack goes too far, it is possible to cause political backlash against the group, as what happened in the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

== Groups Considered by the United States to be Terrorist Organizations ==

*[[Abu Sayyaf]]
*[[Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade]]
*[[Al-Qaeda]]
*[[Ansar Al-Islam]]
*[[ETA]]
*[[Hamas]]
*[[Hizbollah]]
*[[Jemaa Islamiya]]
*[[Maoist rebels]]
*[[Palestinian Islamic Jihad]]
*[[PKK]]
*[[Real ETA]]
*[[Tamil Tigers]]
*[[Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan]]
*[[Turkistan Islamic Party]]

==Groups directly or indirectly supporting terrorists==
The following organizations within the United States have either directly supported terrorist organizations world-wide through the use of money contributions or media influence, or have prevented enforcement of the laws on the books via court petitions and lawsuits:
*[[Electronic Frontier Foundation]]
*[[Council on American-Islamic Relations]] (CAIR)
*[[American Civil Liberties Union]]
*[[Noraid]]

== Groups receiving CIA support ==
The American CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) has the stated objective of ''"Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt threats or achieve US policy objectives."''[https://www.cia.gov/cia/information/mission.html]. Over the course of it's well-documented history, this has involved the establishment, funding and organization of various organizations some have regarded as terrorist, including:

*The [[Contras]]
*[[Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti]] (FRAPH)<ref>Reed Lindsay,[http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1163909,00.html ''Cold War returns to US backyard''], The Observer, March 7, 2004</ref>.

== War on terror ==

===Fighting terrorism===
*[http://lightonthings.blogspot.com#fight The Reality Show - The Watch the Fight] links to many sites that deal with the 'war on terror'.
*[[Fox News Channel|Fox News]] has compiled a [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335500,00.html list of known terror plots] thwarted by the U.S. government since Sept. 11, 2001.

==See also==
*[[FBI Most Wanted Terrorist List]]
*[[September 11, 2001 attacks]]
*[[June 2007 UK terror attacks]]
*[[Osama Bin Laden]]
*[[Homicide Bombers]]
*[[Pyroterrorism]]
*[[Sudden Jihad Syndrome]]

==References==
<references/>

==External Links==
*[http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?is_campus_support=1 DiscoverTheNetworks.org - Campus Support For Terrorism]
*[http://www.aim.org/wls/category/terrorism/ What Liberals Say - Category: Terrorism], [[Accuracy In Media]]

[[category:politics]]
[[Category: Terrorism]]

Americas

2008-09-11T13:10:29Z

Spell:

[[Image:America map.jpg|thumb|right|375px|The Americas]]
The '''Americas''' are a pair of continents in the Western Hemisphere, including the entire [[North America|North American]] continent and the entire [[South America|South American]] continent. They cover over 8.3% of the Earth's total surface and constitute 28.4% of its total landmass. 14% of the human population lives in the Americas.

The word "America" is often used in US to refer particularly to the [[United States of America]].

'''''The Americas''''' is a general term usually meaning North, Central and South America collectively.

{{Clear}}
''The name America is derived from that of the Italian merchant and navigator [[Americo Vespucci]], one of the earliest European explorers of the New World.''

''The climatic zones of the two continents are quite different. In North America, subarctic climate prevails in the north, gradually warming southward and finally becoming tropical near the southern isthmus. In South America, the climate in the north is tropical, becoming cooler southward, and finally becoming a cold, marine climate'' [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-20369/Americas America] Encyclopædia Britannica.

America is also understood as one of the five continents of the globe, with an area of 16,000,000 square miles, and been larger than Europe and Africa together. Its length from the northern limit of Alaska to the southern limit of Chile is 8,700 miles.

Throughout history eight Europeans countries have controlled different parts of the Americas, they are [[Denmark]], which still controls [[Greenland]], [[France]], which has in the past controlled, [[Canada]], [[Haiti]], [[Louisiana]] and other places, [[Netherlands]], which founded a colony in North America called [[New Netherlands]], which contained parts of what is now [[Delaware]], [[New Jersey]], [[New York]], and [[Connecticut]], [[Portugal]] in the past controlled [[Brazil]], [[Russia]], used to own [[Alaska]], which Russia later sold to the [[United States of America]], [[Spain]] in the past controlled most of what is now [[Central America|Central]] and [[South America]], [[Puerto Rico]], [[Cuba]], [[Dominican Republic]], and large parts of the Southern part of [[North America]], including [[Mexico]], and much of the Southern half of the [[United States]], including [[California]], [[Florida]], which Spain ceded to the [[United States of America]] in 1819, [[Nevada]], [[Texas]], [[Utah]], and parts of what is now, [[Arizona]], [[Colorado]], [[Kansas]], [[New Mexico]], [[Oklahoma]] and [[Wyoming]]. Sweden in the past founded a colony in North America, called [[New Sweden]], which contained parts of what are now [[Delaware]], [[New Jersey]], and [[Pennsylvania]], the [[United Kingdom]] in the past controlled the [[thirteen colonies]], which would later become the [[United States of America]], and also controlled [[Canada]], [[Jamaica]], [[Belize]], [[Antigua and Barbuda]], [[Trinidad and Tobago]], [[Barbados]] and other places in the Americas.

== External links ==

*[http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/flags_of_the_americas.htm National Flags of the Americas and the Caribbean.]

[[Category:Geography]]
[[Category:Continents]]

Denmark

2008-09-11T13:01:02Z

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{{Country
|name =''Kongeriget Danmark''
|map =Denmark rel99.jpg
|flag =Flag of Denmark.png
|arms =Arms of Denmark.png
|capital =Copenhagen
|capital-raw =
|government =Parliamentary Democracy, Constitutional Monarchy
|government-raw =
|language =Danish
|king =
|queen =Margrethe II
|monarch-raw =
|president =
|president-raw =
|chancellor =
|chancellor-raw =
|pm =Anders Fogh Rasmussen
|pm-raw =
|area =16,639 sq mi
|pop =5,475,791
|pop-basis =2008
|gdp =$198.5 billion
|gdp-year =2006
|gdp-pc =$46,600
|currency =Danish krone
|idd =
|tld =
}}
The '''Kingdom of Denmark''' is a [[Scandinavia]]n country in [[Europe]] located on the Jutland Peninsula to the north of [[Germany]]. Its capital is [[Copenhagen]].

==Geography==
Denmark proper consists of the Jutland Peninsula plus many adjecent islands in the Baltic Sea.
*Area: 43,094 sq. km. (16,639 sq. mi.); slightly smaller than Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
*Cities: Capital--Copenhagen (pop. 0.5 million in Copenhagen and 1.1 million in the Copenhagen Region). Other cities--Arhus (293,510), Odense (185,206), Aalborg (163,231).
*Terrain: Low and flat or slightly rolling; highest elevation is 173 m. (568 ft.).
*Climate: Temperate. The terrain, location, and prevailing westerly winds make the weather changeable.

Two autonomous provinces with home rule are considered part of Denmark, despite their distance from the Jutland Peninsula. They are the [[Faroe Islands]], a small archipelago located in tne Norwegian Sea between [[Scotland]] and [[Iceland]]; and [[Greenland]], off northeast [[Canada]], part of the [[North America]]n landmass and the largest island in the world.

==People==
The Danes, a homogenous Gothic-Germanic people, have inhabited Denmark since prehistoric times. Danish is the principal language. English is a required school subject, and fluency is high. A small German-speaking minority lives in southern Jutland; a mostly Inuit population inhabits Greenland; and the Faroe Islands have a Nordic population with its own language. Education is compulsory from ages seven to 16 and is free through the university level.

Although religious freedom is guaranteed, the state-supported Evangelical Lutheran Church accounts for about 95% of those persons claiming religious affiliation. Several other Christian denominations, as well as other major religions, find adherents in Denmark. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Denmark.
*Population (July 2006): 5,434,567.
*Annual growth rate: 0.33%.
*Ethnic groups: Scandinavian, Inuit, Faroese, German, Turkish, Iranian, Somali.
*Religion membership: Evangelical Lutheran 95%; other Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics 3%; Muslim 2%.
*Languages: Danish, Faroese, Greenlandic (Inuit dialect), some German. English is the predominant second language.
*Education: Years compulsory--9. Attendance--100%. Literacy--100%.
*Health: Infant mortality rate (2006)--4.51/1,000. Life expectancy--men 75 years, women 80 years.
*Work force (2006): 2.8 million. Employment: Industry, construction, mining and utilities--23%; government--35%; private services--38%; agriculture and fisheries--4%.

====Cultural Achievements====
Denmark's rich intellectual heritage has made multifaceted contributions to modern culture the world over. The discoveries of astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), geologist and anatomist Niels Steensen (1639-86), and the brilliant contributions of Nobel laureates Niels Bohr (1885-1962) to atomic physics and Niels Finsen (1860-1904) to medical research indicate the range of Danish scientific achievement. The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75), the philosophical essays of Soeren Kierkegaard (1813-55), and the short stories of Karen Blixen (pseudonym Isak Dinesen; 1885-1962) have earned international recognition, as have the symphonies of Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). Danish applied art and industrial design have won so many awards for excellence that the term "Danish Design" has become synonymous with high quality, craftsmanship, and functionalism. Among the leading lights of architecture and design was Arne Jacobsen (1902-1971), the "father of modern Danish design." The name of Georg Jensen (1866-1935) is known worldwide for outstanding modern design in silver, and "Royal Copenhagen" is among the finest porcelains. No 'short list' of famous Danes would be complete without the entertainer and pianist Victor Borge (1909-2000), who emigrated to the United States under Nazi threat in 1940, and had a worldwide following when he died a naturalized U.S. citizen in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 91.

Visitors to Denmark will discover a wealth of cultural activity. The Royal Danish Ballet specializes in the work of the great Danish choreographer August Bournonville (1805-79). Danish dancers also feature regularly on the U.S. ballet scene, notably Peter Martins as head of New York City Ballet.

The Danish Film Institute, one of the oldest in Scandinavia, offers daily public screenings of Danish and international movies in their original language and plays an active role in the maintenance and restoration of important archival prints. Over the decades, movie directors like Gabriel Axel (Babette's Feast, 1987 Oscar for Best Foreign Film), Bille August (Buster's World, 1984; Pelle the Conqueror, 1988 Oscar for Best Foreign Film; The House of the Spirits, 1993) and Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves, 1996; Dancer in the Dark, 2000 Cannes Golden Palm) have all won international acclaim. In addition, Denmark has been involved virtually from the start in development of the "Dogma film" genre, where small, hand-held digital cameras have permitted greater rapport between director and actor and given a documentary film feel to their increasingly realistic works. Besides von Trier's Dogville (2003) starring Nicole Kidman, and The Idiots (1998), The Celebration (1998 Cannes Special Jury prize) by Thomas Vinterberg, Mifune's Last Song (1999 Berlin Silver Bear award) by Soeren Kragh-Jacobsen, and Italian for Beginners (2000 Berlin Silver Bear award) by Lone Scherfig all are prime examples of the Dogma concept.

International collections of modern art enjoy unusually attractive settings at the Louisiana Museum north of Copenhagen, "Arken" south of Copenhagen, and the North Jutland Art Museum in Aalborg. The State Museum of Art and the Glyptotek, both in Copenhagen, contain masterpieces of Danish and international art. Denmark's National Museum building in central Copenhagen harbors most of the state's anthropological and archeological treasures with especially fine prehistoric and Viking Age collections; two of its finest satellite collections are the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde west of the metropolis and the Open Air Museum in a near northern suburb where original buildings have been transported from their original locations around the country and reassembled on plots specially landscaped to evoke the original site. The Museum of Applied Art and Industrial Design in Copenhagen exhibits the best in Danish design. The world-renowned Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory exports worldwide. The ceramic tradition is carried on by designers such as Bjoern Wiinblad, whose whimsical creations remain as popular today as when they burst on the scene in the 1950s, and is carried on by younger talents such as Gertrude Vasegaard and Michael Geertsen.

Denmark has more than its share of impressive castles, many of which have been converted to museums. Frederiksborg Castle, on a manmade island in a lake north of Copenhagen, was restored after a catastrophic fire in the 1800s and now houses important collections in awe-inspiring splendor amidst impeccably manicured gardens. In Elsinore, Kronborg (or Hamlet's) Castle that once exacted tribute from passing ships now houses important furniture and art collections of the period, while hosting in its courtyard many touring summer productions of Shakespearean works. In Copenhagen, Rosenborg Castle houses the kingdom's crown jewels and boasts spectacular public gardens in the heart of the city.

Among today's Danish writers, probably the best-known to American readers is Peter Hoeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow; Borderliners), while the most prolific is Klaus Rifbjerg--poet, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Benny Andersen writes poems, short stories, and music. Poems by both writers have been translated into English by the Curbstone Press. Suzanne Broegger focuses on the changing roles of women in society. Kirsten Thorup's "Baby" won the 1980 Pegasus Prize and is printed in English by the University of Louisiana Press. The psychological thrillers of Anders Bodelsen and political thrillers by Leif Davidsen also appear in English.

In music, Hans Abrahamsen and Per Noergaard are the two most famous living composers. Abrahamsen's works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. Other international names are Poul Ruders, Bo Holten, and Karl Aage Rasmussen. Danes such as bass player Niels Henning Oersted Petersen have won broad international recognition, and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival held each year in July has acquired a firm place on the calendar of international jazz enthusiasts.

====Cultural Policy====
The Ministry of Cultural Affairs was created in 1961. Cultural life and meaningful leisure time were then and remain now subjects of debate by politicians and parliament as well as the general public. The democratization of cultural life promoted by the government's 1960s cultural policy recently has come to terms with the older "genteel culture;" broader concepts of culture now generally accepted include amateur and professional cultural, media, sports, and leisure-time activities.

Denmark's cultural policy is characterized by decentralized funding, program responsibility, and institutions. Danish cultural direction differs from that of other countries with a Ministry of Culture and a stated policy in that special laws govern each cultural field--e.g., the Theater Act of 1990 (as amended) and the Music Law of 1976 (as amended).

The Ministry of Cultural Affairs includes among its responsibilities international cultural relations; training of librarians and architects; copyright legislation; and subsidies to archives, libraries, museums, literature, music, arts and crafts, theater, and film production. During 1970-82, the Ministry also recognized protest movements and street manifestations as cultural events, because social change was viewed as an important goal of Danish cultural policy. Different governments exercise caution in moderating this policy and practice. Radio and TV broadcasting also fall under the Ministry of Culture.

Although government expenditures for culture totaled about 1.0% of the budget in 1996, in 2006 government expenditures for culture totaled 0.66% of gross domestic product (GDP). Viewed against the new government's firm objective to limit public expenditures, contributions are unlikely to increase in the future. Municipal and county governments assume a relatively large share of the costs for cultural activities in their respective districts. Most support goes to libraries and archives, theater, museums, arts and crafts training, and films.

==Government==
Denmark is a constitutional monarchy. Queen Margrethe II has largely ceremonial functions; probably her most significant formal power lies in her right to appoint the prime minister and cabinet ministers, who are responsible for administration of the government. However, she must consult with parliamentary leaders to determine the public's will, since the cabinet may be dismissed by a vote of no confidence in the Folketing (parliament). Cabinet members are occasionally recruited from outside the Folketing.

The 1953 constitution established a unicameral Folketing of not more than 179 members, of whom two are elected from the Faroe Islands and two from Greenland. Elections are held at least every 4 years, but the prime minister can dissolve the Folketing at any time and call for new elections. Folketing members are elected by a complicated system of proportional representation; any party receiving at least 2% of the total national vote receives representation. The result is a multiplicity of parties (seven represented in the Folketing after the February 2005 general election), none of which holds a majority. Electorate participation normally is around 80-85%.

The judicial branch consists of about 100 local courts, two high courts, several special courts (e.g., arbitration and maritime), and a Supreme Court of 15 judges appointed by the crown on the government's recommendation.

Since a structural reform of local government was passed by the Folketing in 2004 and 2005, Denmark has been divided into five regions and 98 municipalities. The regions and municipalities are both led by councils elected every four years, but only the municipal councils have the power to levy taxes. Regional councils are responsible for health services and regional development, while the municipal councils are responsible for day care, elementary schools, care for the elderly, culture, environment and roads.

The Faroe Islands and Greenland enjoy home rule, with the Danish Government represented locally by high commissioners. These home rule governments are responsible for most domestic affairs, with foreign relations, monetary affairs, and defense falling to the Danish Government.

===Principal Government Officials===
*Monarch--Queen Margrethe II
*Prime Minister--Anders Fogh Rasmussen

===Political Conditions===
Political life in Denmark is orderly and democratic. Political changes occur gradually through a process of consensus, and political methods and attitudes are generally moderate. Growing numbers of immigrants and refugees throughout the 1990s, and less than successful integration policies, however, have in recent years led to growing support for populist anti-immigrant sentiments in addition to several revisions of already tight immigration laws, with the latest revision taking effect July 1, 2002.

The Social Democratic Party, historically identified with a well-organized labor movement but today appealing more broadly to the middle class, held power either alone or in coalition for most of the postwar period except from 1982 to 1993. From February 1993 to November 2001, Social Democratic Party chairman Poul Nyrup Rasmussen led a series of different minority coalition governments, which all included the centrist Social Liberal Party. However, with immigration high on the November 2001 election campaign agenda, the Danish People's Party doubled its number of parliamentary seats; this was a key factor in bringing into power a new minority right-of-center coalition government led by Liberal Party chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen (no relation to Nyrup Rasmussen).

Parliamentary elections held February 8, 2005 returned the coalition to government for another term of up to four years. The coalition consists of the Liberal Party ("Venstre") and the Konservative Party, holding 71 of the 179 seats in the Folketing, and has the parliamentary support of the Danish People's Party, holding another 24 seats. The opposition Social Democrats hold 47 seats and the Social Liberals hold 16 seats. Addressing the costs and benefits of the Denmark's comprehensive social welfare system, restraining taxes, and immigration are among the key issues on the current domestic political agenda.

Denmark's role in the European Union (EU) remains an important political issue. Denmark emerged from two referenda (June 2, 1992 and May 18, 1993) on the Maastricht Treaty on the European Union with four exemptions (or "opt-outs"): common defense, common currency, EU citizenship, and certain aspects of legal cooperation, including law enforcement. The Amsterdam Treaty was approved in a referendum May 28, 1998, by a 55% majority. Still, the electorate's fear of losing national identity in an integrated Europe and lack of confidence in long-term stability of European economies run deep. These concerns were at the forefront of the September 28, 2000 referendum on Denmark's participation in the third phase of the Economic and Monetary Union, particularly the common currency, the euro; more than 53% voted "no," and Denmark retained its "krone" currency unit. The government and the pro-EU opposition have agreed, and Denmark has received an EU green light, to maintain the four opt-outs throughout the process of approving and ratifying a new EU constitutional treaty, with the ambition to eliminate all opt-outs in the longer term. The government intended to put Danish approval of the new EU constitution to the public in a referendum, but that process has been put on hold until further discussion of the constitution has taken place in the European Council.

Denmark's relatively quiet and neutral role in international affairs was abruptly changed on September 30, 2005, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed 12 caricatures of Mohammed. Islamic law prohibits any visual portrayal of Mohammed, and Muslims viewed the caricatures as offensive. Muslims worldwide were infuriated with the Danes, beginning a boycott of Danish products and burning several Danish embassies. The Danish Government defended freedom of expression while it chastised the newspaper for inconsideration. The newspaper apologized, and the Danish Government repeatedly reiterated its support for freedom of religion, but the Islamic community still holds much animosity toward the Danes.

===Foreign Relations===
Danish foreign policy is founded upon four cornerstones: the United Nations, NATO, the EU, and Nordic cooperation. Denmark also is a member of, among others, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund; the World Trade Organization (WTO); the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE); the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); the Council of Europe; the Nordic Council; the Baltic Council; and the Barents Council. Denmark emphasizes its relations with developing nations. Although the government has moved to tighten foreign assistance expenditures, it remains a significant donor and one of the few countries to exceed the UN goal of contributing 0.7% of GNP to development assistance.

In the wake of the Cold War, Denmark has been active in international efforts to integrate the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into the West. It has played a leadership role in coordinating Western assistance to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The country is a strong supporter of international peacekeeping. Danish forces were heavily engaged in the former Yugoslavia in the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), as well as in NATO's Operation Joint Endeavor/Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IFOR/SFOR), and currently in the Kosovo Force (KFOR).

Denmark has been a member of NATO since its founding in 1949, and membership in NATO remains highly popular. There were several serious confrontations between the U.S. and Denmark on security policy in the so-called "footnote era" (1982-88), when a hostile parliamentary majority forced the government to adopt specific national positions on nuclear and arms control issues. With the end of the Cold War, however, Denmark has been supportive of U.S. policy objectives in the Alliance.

Danes have had a reputation as "reluctant" Europeans. When they rejected ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on June 2, 1992, they put the European Community's (EC) plans for the European Union on hold. In December 1992, the rest of the EC agreed to exempt Denmark from certain aspects of the European Union, including a common defense, a common currency, EU citizenship, and certain aspects of legal cooperation. On this revised basis, a clear majority of Danes approved continued participation in the EU in a second referendum on May 18, 1993, and again in a referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty on May 28, 1998.

Since September 11, 2001, Denmark has been highly proactive in endorsing and implementing United States, UN, and EU-initiated counter-terrorism measures, just as Denmark has contributed substantially to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the neighboring countries. In 2003, Denmark was among the first countries to join the "Coalition of the Willing" and supplied a submarine, Corvette-class ship, and military personnel to the coalition's effort in Iraq to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Since that time it has provided 500 troops to assist with stabilization efforts in Iraq. Prime Minister Rasmussen announced in February 2007 that most Danish troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2007, as Iraqi forces had become capable of taking over security responsibilities in the Basra area, where the Danish troops had been concentrated.

==Defense==
Although Denmark remained neutral during the First World War, its rapid occupation by Nazi Germany in 1940 persuaded most Danes that neutrality was no longer a reliable guarantee of Danish security. Danish security policy is founded on its membership in NATO. Since 1988, Danish budgets and security policy have been set by multi-year agreements supported by a wide parliamentary majority, including government and opposition parties. In 2006, Danish defense expenditures were 1.4% of GDP according to a NATO estimate.

==Economy==
Denmark's industrialized market economy depends on imported raw materials and foreign trade. Within the European Union, Denmark advocates a liberal trade policy. Its standard of living is among the highest in the world, and the Danes devote about 1% of gross national product (GNP) to foreign aid to less developed countries. In addition, Denmark in 2006 devoted 0.81% of GNP for overseas development, including for peace and stability purposes, refugee pre-asylum costs, and for environmental purposes in central and eastern Europe and developing countries.
*GDP (2006): $275.24 billion.
*Annual growth rate (real terms, 2006 est.): 3.2%.
*Per capita GDP: $50,625.
*Agriculture and fisheries (2.4% of GDP at gross value added): Products--meat, milk, grains, seeds, hides, fur skin, fish and shellfish.
*Industry (21.0% of GDP at gross value added): Types--industrial and construction equipment, food processing, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, furniture, textiles, windmills, and ships.
*Natural resources: North Sea--oil and gas, fish. Greenland--fish and shrimp, potential for hydrocarbons and minerals, including zinc, lead, molybdenum, uranium, gold, platinum. The Faroe Islands--fish, potential for hydrocarbons.
*Trade (2006 .): Exports--$90.97 billion: manufactured goods 81% (of which machinery and instruments 35%); agricultural products 10% (of which pork and pork products cover 48%), fuels 2%, fish and fish products 3%, other 4%. Imports--$84.23 billion: raw materials and semi-manufactures 43%, consumer goods 29%, capital equipment 14%, transport equipment 7%, fuels 5%, other 2%. Partners (percent of total trade in goods)--Germany 21%, Sweden 13%, U.K. 8%, U.S. 5%, Norway 5%, Japan 2%, east European countries 5%.
*Official exchange rate: 5.70 kroner=U.S. $1 as of late February 2007.

Denmark is a net exporter of food and energy. Its principal exports are machinery, instruments, and food products. The United States is Denmark's largest non-European trading partner, accounting for about 6% of total Danish merchandise trade. Aircraft, computers, machinery, and instruments are among the major U.S. exports to Denmark. Among major Danish exports to the United States are industrial machinery, chemical products, furniture, pharmaceuticals, canned ham and pork, windmills, and plastic toy blocks (Lego). In addition, Denmark has a significant services trade with the U.S., a major share of it stemming from Danish-controlled ships engaged in container traffic to and from the United States (notably by Maersk-SeaLand). There are some 375 U.S.-owned companies in Denmark.

The Danish economy is fundamentally strong. Since the mid-1990s, economic growth rates have averaged close to 3%, the formerly high official unemployment rate stands at around 4%, and public finances have been in surplus. Except for one year--1998--Denmark since 1989 has had comfortable balance-of-payments current account surpluses, in 2006 corresponding to 2.45% of GDP. The former Social Democratic-led government coalition lowered marginal income tax rates but at the same time reduced tax deductions, increased environmental taxes, and introduced a series of user fees, thus increasing overall revenues. Under the tax reform plan agreed upon by the government and the Danish People's Party on March 31, 2003, taxpayers received tax relief in 2004, albeit at a lesser rate than the government proposed originally. Denmark has maintained a stable currency policy since the early 1980s, with the krone fomerly linked to the Deutschmark and since January 1, 1999, to the euro. Denmark meets, and even exceeds, the economic convergence criteria for participating in the third phase (a common European currency--the euro) of the European Monetary Union (EMU). Although a referendum on EMU participation held on September 28, 2000 resulted in a firm "no" and Denmark, therefore, has not yet adopted the euro, opinion polls show support for EMU membership now exceeds 60%.

Danes are generally proud of their welfare safety net, which ensures that all Danes receive basic health care and need not fear real poverty. However, at present the number of working-age Danes living mostly on government transfer payments amounts to more than 800,000 persons (roughly 23% of the working-age population). Although this number has been reduced in recent years, the heavy load of government transfer payments burdens other parts of the system. Health care, other than for acute problems, and care for the elderly and children have particularly suffered, while taxes remain at a painful level. More than one-fourth of the labor force is employed in the public sector.

====Greenland and the Faroe Islands====
The Greenland economy has increased by an average of some 3% to 4% annually since 1993, the result of increasing catches and exports of shrimp, Greenland halibut and, more recently, crab. However, it was not until 1999 that the economy had fully recovered from the economic downturn in the early 1990s. During the last decade the Greenland Home Rule Government (GHRG) has pursued a fiscal policy with mostly small budget surpluses and low inflation. The GHRG has taken initiatives to increase the labor force and thus employment by, among other things, raising the retirement age from 60 to 63 years. However, structural reforms are still needed in order to create a broader business base and economic growth through more efficient use of existing resources in both the public and the private sector. Due to the continued critical dependence on exports of fish, the economy remains very vulnerable to foreign developments. The public sector, including publicly owned enterprises and the municipalities, plays the dominant role in Greenland's economy. Close to one-half of the government revenues come from Danish Government grants, an important supplement of GDP. Greenland has registered a foreign trade deficit since the closure of the last remaining lead and zinc mine in 1989. Despite several interesting hydrocarbon and mineral exploration activities, it will take several years before production can materialize. Two major aluminum producers reportedly have expressed interest in building smelters in Greenland to take advantage of abundant hydropower potential. Besides a continued increase in local content, i.e., using a Greenlandic rather than Danish work force in both the public and private sectors, tourism appears to be the sector that offers the best near-term potential, and even this is limited due to a short season and high costs. Air Greenland has announced it will begin its first scheduled service to North America in May 2007, with summer season flights to Baltimore.

Politically, the Greenland Home Rule Government has had increasing autonomy since its creation in 1979. An independent commission from Greenland made recommendations for greater self-rule in 2003. In May 2003, the Danish and Greenland Home Rule governments reached agreement on a set of power-sharing principles on Greenland's involvement in Danish foreign and security policy. The so-called Itilleq Declaration provides that Greenland will have foreign policy involvement with a view toward having equal status on questions of concern to both Denmark and Greenland. The Danish Government intends to form, together with Greenland, a new Danish-Greenlandic Commission to make joint recommendations to the Danish parliament on ways to update the Home Rule Act of 1979.

The Faroese economy has performed strongly since the mid-1990s with annual growth rates averaging close to 6%, mostly as a result of increasing fish landings and salmon farming and high and stable export prices. Unemployment is insignificant and there are labor shortages in several sectors. Most of the Faroese who emigrated in the early 1990s (some 10% of the population) due to the economic recession have now returned. The positive economic development also has helped the Faroese Home Rule Government produce increasing budget surpluses that in turn help to reduce the large public debt, most of it to Denmark. However, the total dependence on fishing and salmon farming makes the Faroese economy very vulnerable, and the present fishing efforts appear in excess of what is required to ensure a sustainable level of fishing in the long term. Initial discoveries of oil in the Faroese area give hope for eventual oil production, which may lay the basis for a more diversified economy and thus less dependence on Denmark and Danish economic assistance. Aided by a substantial annual subsidy from Denmark, albeit reduced from some 10% of GDP to about 6% in 2002, the Faroese have a standard of living comparable to that of the Danes and other Scandinavians.

Politically, the present Faroese Home Rule Government has initiated a process toward greater independence from Denmark, if not complete secession from the realm, a project the outcome of which it is too early to predict. In that respect, agreement on how to phase out the Danish subsidy plays a crucial role.

==History==
During the Viking period (9th-11th centuries), Denmark was a great power based on the Jutland Peninsula, the Island of Zealand, and the southern part of what is now Sweden. In the early 11th century, King Canute united Denmark and England for almost 30 years.

Viking raids brought Denmark into contact with Christianity, and in the 12th century, crown and church influence increased. By the late 13th century, royal power had waned, and the nobility forced the king to grant a charter, considered Denmark's first constitution. Although the struggle between crown and nobility continued into the 14th century, Queen Margrethe I succeeded in uniting Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland under the Danish crown. Sweden and Finland left the union in 1520; however, Norway remained until 1814. Iceland, in a "personal union" under the king of Denmark after 1918, became independent in 1944.

The Reformation was introduced in Denmark in 1536. Denmark's provinces in today's southwestern Sweden were lost in 1658, and Norway was transferred from the Danish to the Swedish crown in 1814, following the defeat of Napoleon, with whom Denmark was allied.

The Danish liberal movement gained momentum in the 1830s, and in 1849 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy. After the war with Prussia and Austria in 1864, Denmark was forced to cede Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia and adopt a policy of neutrality. Toward the end of the 19th century, Denmark inaugurated important social and labor market reforms, laying the basis for the present welfare state.

Denmark remained neutral during World War I. Despite its declaration of neutrality at the beginning of World War II, it was invaded by the Germans in 1940 and occupied until liberated by the Allied forces in May 1945. Resistance against the Germans was sporadic until late 1943. By then better organized, the resistance movement and other volunteers undertook a successful rescue mission in which nearly the entire Jewish population of Denmark was shipped to Sweden (whose neutrality was honored by Germany). However, extensive studies are still being undertaken for the purpose of establishing a clearer picture of the degree of Danish cooperation--official and corporate--with the occupying power. Denmark became a charter member of the United Nations and was one of the original signers of the North Atlantic Treaty.

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!colspan=2 style="width: 100%; text-align: center; background-color: #000088; color: white; "|'''Copyright Details'''
|-
!style="background-color: #000088; color:white;"|License:
|style=" background-color: none;"| This work is in the [[Public Domain]] in the United States because it is a work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the U.S. Code
|-
!style=" background-color: #000088; color:white;"|Source:
|style="background-color: none;border-top: 2px solid black"| File available from the {{{1|[[United States Federal Government]] [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3167.htm]}}}.
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[[Category:European Countries]]
[[Category:EU Members]]
[[Category:NATO members]]
[[Category:Scandinavian Countries]]
[[Category:Denmark]]
[[Category:Christian-Majority Countries]]

User talk:Spell

2008-09-11T12:51:39Z

Spell: New page: Mr. Spell corrects spelling mistakes.

Mr. Spell corrects spelling mistakes.