title: Darth Vader

text: The new plot element of Luke's parentage had drastic effects on the series. Author Michael Kaminski argues in "The Secret History of Star Wars" that it is unlikely that the plot point had ever seriously been considered or even conceived of before 1978, and that the first film was clearly operating under a storyline where Vader was a separate character from Luke's father. After writing the second and third drafts in which the plot point was introduced, Lucas reviewed the new backstory he had created: Anakin had been Obi-Wan Kenobi's brilliant student and had a child named Luke, but was swayed to the dark side by Palpatine. Anakin battled Obi-Wan on a volcano and was badly wounded, but was then reborn as Vader. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan hid Luke on Tatooine while the Galactic Republic became the tyrannical Galactic Empire and Vader systematically hunted down and killed the Jedi. An early draft of "Return of the Jedi" ended with Luke taking Vader's helmet and declaring, "Now I am Vader."


title: Darth Vader

text: After deciding to create the prequel trilogy, Lucas indicated that the story arc would be a tragic one depicting Anakin's fall to the dark side. He also saw that the prequels could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death, in what he has termed "the tragedy of Darth Vader". This was the final step towards turning the film series into a "saga". For the first prequel, "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" (1999), Lucas made Anakin nine years old to make the character's separation from his mother more poignant. Movie trailers focused on Anakin and a one-sheet poster showing him casting Vader's shadow informed otherwise unknowing audiences of the character's eventual fate. The movie ultimately achieved a primary goal of introducing audiences to Anakin, as well as introducing the concept that he is the Chosen One of an ancient Jedi prophecy, destined to bring balance to the Force. Lucas states in an interview recorded around the time of the third prequel, "Revenge of the Sith" (2005), that "Anakin is the Chosen One. Even when Anakin turns into Darth Vader, he is still the Chosen One."


title: Darth Vader

text: Michael Kaminski offers evidence that issues in Anakin's fall to the dark side prompted Lucas to make fundamental story changes, first revising the opening sequence of "Revenge of the Sith" to have Palpatine kidnapped and his apprentice, Count Dooku, killed by Anakin in cold blood as the first act in the latter's turn towards the dark side. After principal photography was complete in 2003, Lucas re-wrote Anakin's turn to the dark side; Anakin's fall from grace would now be motivated by a desire to save his wife, Padmé Amidala, rather than the previous version in which that reason was one of several, including that he genuinely believed that the Jedi were plotting to take over the Republic. This fundamental re-write was accomplished both through editing the principal footage, and new and revised scenes filmed during pick-ups in 2004.


title: Darth Vader

text: During production of the animated "" television series, Ahsoka Tano was developed to illustrate how Anakin develops from the brash, undisciplined Padawan apprentice in "" (2002) to the more reserved Jedi Knight in "Revenge of the Sith". "Clone Wars" supervising director and "Star Wars Rebels" co-creator Dave Filoni said that giving Anakin responsibility for a Padawan was meant to place the character in a role that forced him to become more cautious and responsible. It would also give him insight into his relationship with Obi-Wan and depict how their relationship matured. Ahsoka and Anakin's relationship was seen as an essential story arc spanning both the animated film and "Clone Wars" television series. Filoni began thinking about the final confrontation between Ahsoka and Vader ever since he created the former; different iterations had different endings, including one in which Vader kills Ahsoka just as she slashes open his helmet to reveal his scarred face. A similar scene is included in an episode of "Rebels", in which Ahsoka slashes Vader's helmet open, and the Sith Lord recognizes her. According to Filoni, Ahsoka's presence in the series allows Vader to encounter the show's lead characters without the latter being "destroyed", as Ahsoka can "stand toe-to-toe" with her former master.


title: Darth Vader

text: The original design of Darth Vader's costume did not originally include a helmet. The idea that Vader should wear a breathing apparatus was first proposed by concept artist Ralph McQuarrie during preproduction discussions for "Star Wars" with George Lucas in 1975. McQuarrie stated that Lucas's artistic direction was to portray a malevolent figure in a cape with samurai armor. "For Darth Vader, George just said he would like to have a very tall, dark fluttering figure that had a spooky feeling like it came in on the wind." McQuarrie noted that the script indicated that Vader would travel between spaceships and needed to survive in the vacuum of space, and he proposed that Vader should wear some sort of space suit. Lucas agreed, and McQuarrie combined a full-face breathing mask with a samurai helmet, thus creating one of the most iconic designs of space fantasy cinema. McQuarrie's of Darth Vader engaged in a lightsaber duel with Deak Starkiller (a character prototype for Luke Skywalker) depicts Vader wearing black armor, a flowing cape and an elongated, skull-like mask and helmet. Its similarity to the final design of Vader's costume demonstrates that McQuarrie's earliest conception of Vader was so successful that very little needed to be changed for production.


title: Darth Vader

text: Working from McQuarrie's designs, the costume designer John Mollo devised a costume that could be worn by an actor on-screen using a combination of clerical robes, a motorcycle suit, a German military helmet and a military gas mask. The prop sculptor Brian Muir created the helmet and armor used in the film.


title: Darth Vader

text: The sound of the respirator function of Vader's mask was created by Ben Burtt using modified recordings of scuba breathing apparatus used by divers. The sound effect is trademarked in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office under Trademark #77419252 and is officially described in the documentation as "The sound of rhythmic mechanical human breathing created by breathing through a scuba tank regulator."


title: Darth Vader

text: Commentators have often pointed to the influence of Akira Kurosawa's films such as "The Hidden Fortress" (1958) on George Lucas, and Vader's samurai-inspired costume design is held up as a significant example of the Japanese influences on "Star Wars".


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader was portrayed by bodybuilder David Prowse in the original film trilogy, with fencer Bob Anderson performing the character's lightsaber fight scenes. George Lucas thought that Prowse, who stood tall, "brought a physicality to Darth Vader that was essential for the character ... with an imposing stature and movement performance to match the intensity and undercurrent of Vader's presence."


title: Darth Vader

text: Lucas chose to have a different actor be the voice of Vader, since Prowse had a strong West Country English accent that led the rest of the cast to nickname him "Darth Farmer". Lucas originally intended for Orson Welles to voice Vader, but after deciding that Welles's voice would be too recognizable, he cast the lesser-known James Earl Jones instead. Jones initially felt his contributions to the films were too small to warrant recognition and his role was uncredited at his request until the release of "Return of the Jedi" (1983). When Jones was specifically asked if he had supplied Vader's voice for "Revenge of the Sith"—either newly or from a previous recording—Jones answered, "You'd have to ask Lucas about that. I don't know." Hayden Christensen and Gene Bryant alternately portray Vader in "Revenge of the Sith". During the production of "Revenge of the Sith", Christensen asked Lucas if a special Vader suit could be constructed to fit his own body, rather than have a different actor don one of the original sets of Vader armor worn by Prowse. Brock Peters provided the voice of Darth Vader in the NPR/USC radio series. Both Spencer Wilding and Daniel Naprous portrayed Vader in "Rogue One" (2016), with Jones reprising his role as the character's voice.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader's character has also been portrayed in several video games; in games such as "" and "", visual effects artist C. Andrew Nelson appears in short sequences in the Vader costume, voiced by Scott Lawrence. Matt Sloan, who appeared in the YouTube parody "Chad Vader", provided the voice of Darth Vader in "The Force Unleashed". As a result of his video game appearances, Nelson was cast to appear as Vader in brief sequences inserted into the Special Edition of "The Empire Strikes Back", in which Vader is seen boarding his shuttle.


title: Darth Vader

text: In September 2022, it was confirmed that Jones would retire from voicing the character. His voice was digitally recreated by the company Respeecher for use in "Obi-Wan Kenobi" using artificial intelligence, and Jones later signed over the rights to his performance for future "Star Wars" productions.


title: Darth Vader

text: During production of "Return of the Jedi", the casting crew sought an experienced actor for the role of Anakin Skywalker since his death was unquestionably the emotional climax of the film, and Sebastian Shaw was selected for the role. When Shaw arrived at the set for filming, he ran into his friend Ian McDiarmid, the actor playing the Emperor. When McDiarmid asked him what he was doing there, Shaw responded, "I don't know, dear boy, I think it's something to do with science-fiction." His presence during the filming was kept secret from all but the minimum cast and crew, and Shaw was contractually obliged not to discuss any film secrets with anyone, even his family. The unmasking scene, directed by Richard Marquand, was filmed in one day and required only a few takes, with no alteration from the original dialogue. Lucas personally directed Shaw for his appearance in the final scene of the film, in which he plays Anakin's Force spirit. Shaw's likeness in this scene was replaced with that of Christensen in the 2004 DVD release. This attempt to tie the prequel and original trilogies together was one of the most controversial changes in a "Star Wars" re-release. Shaw received more fan mail and autograph requests from "Return of the Jedi" than he had for any role in the rest of his career. He later reflected that he enjoyed his experience on the film and expressed particular surprise that an action figure was made of his portrayal.


title: Darth Vader

text: When "The Phantom Menace" was being produced, hundreds of actors were tested for the role of young Anakin before the producers settled on Jake Lloyd, who Lucas considered met his requirements of "a good actor, enthusiastic and very energetic". Producer Rick McCallum said that Lloyd was "smart, mischievous and loves anything mechanicaljust like Anakin." During production of "Attack of the Clones", casting director Robin Gurland reviewed about 1,500 other candidates for the role of the young Anakin before Lucas eventually selected Hayden Christensen for the role, reportedly because he and Natalie Portman (the actress who plays Padmé Amidala) "looked good together". When "Revenge of the Sith" was being produced, Christensen and Ewan McGregor began rehearsing their climactic lightsaber duel long before Lucas would shoot it. They trained extensively with stunt coordinator Nick Gillard to memorize and perform their duel together. As in the previous prequel film, McGregor and Christensen performed their own lightsaber fighting scenes without the use of stunt doubles.


title: Darth Vader

text: Anakin has also been voiced by Mat Lucas for the 2003 micro-series "", and by Matt Lanter in the CGI animated film "", the and for Anakin's small roles in the animated series "Rebels" and "Forces of Destiny". James Earl Jones reprised the voice role for Vader's appearances in "Rebels". Both Lanter and Jones contributed their voices for the second-season finale of "Rebels", at times with identical dialogue spoken by both actors blended together in different ways.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "Attack of the Clones", Anakin Skywalker feels "smothered" by Obi-Wan Kenobi and is incapable of controlling his own life. By "Revenge of the Sith", however, his "father–son" friction with his master has matured into a more equal, brotherly relationship. Once he becomes Darth Vader, each evil act he commits shatters any hope or connection towards his previous life, which makes it harder for him to return to the light, but he ultimately escapes the dark side and redeems himself by sacrificing his life to save his son, Luke Skywalker, and kill the Emperor in "Return of the Jedi".


title: Darth Vader

text: Eric Bui, a psychiatrist at University of Toulouse Hospital, argued at the 2007 American Psychiatric Association convention that Anakin Skywalker meets six of the nine diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD), one more than necessary for a diagnosis. He and a colleague, Rachel Rodgers, published their findings in a 2010 letter to the editor of the journal "Psychiatry Research". Bui says he found Anakin Skywalker a useful example to explain BPD to medical students. In particular, Bui points to Anakin's abandonment issues and uncertainty over his identity. Anakin's mass murders of the Tusken Raiders in "Attack of the Clones" and the young Jedi in "Revenge of the Sith" count as two dissociative episodes, fulfilling another criterion. Bui hoped his paper would help raise awareness of the disorder, especially among teens.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker appears in seven of the live-action "Star Wars" films, the animated series "The Clone Wars" (including the film), "Rebels", and the micro-series "Clone Wars" and "Forces of Destiny". He also has a main and recurring role in games, comics, books and the non-canon "Star Wars Legends" material.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader first appears in "Star Wars" as a ruthless cyborg Sith Lord serving the Galactic Empire. He is tasked, along with Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing), with recovering the secret plans for the Death Star battle station, which were stolen by the Rebel Alliance. Vader captures and tortures Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), who has hidden the plans inside the droid R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and sent it to find Vader's former Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) on the planet Tatooine. During Leia's rescue by Obi-Wan's allies Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Vader strikes down Obi-Wan in a lightsaber duel. Having placed a tracking device aboard their ship, the "Millennium Falcon", Vader is able to track down the Rebel base on the planet Yavin 4. During the Rebel attack on the Death Star, Vader boards his TIE Advanced and shoots down Rebel X-wings, but Solo intervenes and sends Vader's ship spiraling off course, allowing Luke to destroy the Death Star.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "The Empire Strikes Back", Vader becomes obsessed with finding the Force-sensitive Luke and leads his stormtroopers to attack on the Rebel base on Hoth, but the Rebels escape. While conversing with the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) via hologram, Vader convinces him that Luke would be a valuable ally if he could be turned to the dark side. Vader hires a group of bounty hunters to follow Luke's friends, and negotiates with Bespin administrator Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) to set a trap for them to bait Luke. After Han, Leia, Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) arrive, Vader tortures and freezes Han in carbonite and gives him to the bounty hunter Boba Fett (Jeremy Bulloch). When Luke arrives, Vader overpowers him in a lightsaber duel, severing his hand. Vader tells Luke that he is his father, and tries to persuade him to join the dark side and help him overthrow the Emperor. Horrified, Luke escapes through an air shaft. Vader telepathically tells Luke that it is his destiny to join the dark side.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "Return of the Jedi", Vader and the Emperor supervise the final stages of the second Death Star's construction. Thinking that there is still good in his father, Luke surrenders to Vader and tries to convince him to turn from the dark side. Vader takes Luke to the second Death Star to meet the Emperor. While there, the Emperor tempts Luke to give in to his anger, which leads to Vader dueling with Luke once again. Realizing that Leia is Luke's twin sister, Vader threatens to turn her to the dark side if Luke will not submit. Furious, Luke overpowers Vader and severs his father's cybernetic hand. The Emperor entreats Luke to kill Vader and take his place. Luke refuses and the Emperor tortures him with Force lightning. Unwilling to let his son die for the same reasons he once stood for, Vader grabs the Emperor, picks him up and throws the Emperor down a reactor shaft to his death, but is mortally electrocuted in the process. The redeemed Anakin Skywalker asks Luke to remove his mask, and admits that there was still good in him after all as he dies peacefully in his son's arms. Luke escapes the second Death Star with his father's body and cremates it in a pyre on Endor. As the Rebels celebrate the second Death Star's destruction and the Empire's defeat, Luke sees the spirits of Anakin, Yoda (Frank Oz), and Obi-Wan watching over him.


title: Darth Vader

text: In the original trilogy David Prowse physically portrayed Vader while James Earl Jones voiced him. Sebastian Shaw portrayed the unmasked Anakin in "Return of the Jedi", as well as the character's spirit prior to the 2004 re-release when he was replaced by Hayden Christensen as Anakin's Force spirit.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "", which takes place 32 years before "A New Hope", Anakin appears as a nine-year-old slave living on Tatooine with his mother Shmi (Pernilla August). In addition to being a gifted pilot and mechanic, Anakin has built his own protocol droid, C-3PO. Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) meets Anakin after making an emergency landing on Tatooine with Queen of Naboo Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman). Qui-Gon learns from Shmi that Anakin was conceived without a father and can foresee the future. Qui-Gon senses Anakin's strong connection to the Force and becomes convinced that he is the "Chosen One" of Jedi prophecy who will bring balance to the Force. He is even more convinced of this after learning Skywalker's midi-chlorian count was off the charts, revealing his potential to wield the Force was unparalleled. After winning his freedom in a podrace wager, Anakin leaves with Qui-Gon to be trained as a Jedi on Coruscant, but is forced to leave his mother behind. During the journey, Anakin forms a bond with Padmé. Qui-Gon asks the Jedi Council for permission to train Anakin, but they refuse, concerned about his vulnerability to the dark side. Eventually, Anakin helps end the corrupt Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo by destroying their control ship. After Qui-Gon is killed in a lightsaber duel with Sith Lord Darth Maul (portrayed by Ray Park, voiced by Peter Serafinowicz), he asks his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) to train Anakin, with the council's reluctant acceptance. Palpatine, newly elected as the Galactic Republic's Chancellor, befriends Anakin and tells him he will "watch [his] career with great interest".


title: Darth Vader

text: In "", which takes place 10 years after "The Phantom Menace", 19-year-old Anakin is still Obi-Wan's Padawan apprentice. Over the years, he has grown powerful but arrogant, and believes that Obi-Wan is holding him back. After rescuing Padmé from an assassination attempt, Anakin travels with her to Naboo as her bodyguard, and they fall in love, which is against the Jedi Code. Sensing that Shmi is in pain, Anakin travels with Padmé to Tatooine to rescue his mother. While there, Anakin learns that Shmi had been freed by and married farmer Cliegg Lars (Jack Thompson) a few years after he left. He then visits Cliegg and learns from him that she was kidnapped by Tusken Raiders. Anakin locates Shmi at a Tusken campsite, where she dies in his arms. Overcome with grief and rage, Anakin massacres the Tusken tribe and returns to the Lars homestead to bury Shmi. Anakin then travels with Padmé to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan from Sith Lord Count Dooku (Christopher Lee). Dooku captures the trio and sentences them to death. However, a battalion of Jedi arrives with an army of clone troopers to halt the executions. Obi-Wan and Anakin confront Dooku, but the Sith Lord beats them both in a lightsaber duel and severs Anakin's arm. After being rescued by Yoda, Anakin is fitted with a robotic arm and marries Padmé in a secret ceremony.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "", set three years after "Attack of the Clones", Anakin is now a Jedi Knight and a hero of the Clone Wars. He and Obi-Wan lead a mission to rescue Palpatine from Separatist commander General Grievous (voiced by Matthew Wood). The two Jedi battle Count Dooku, whom Anakin overpowers and decapitates in cold blood at Palpatine's urging. They rescue Palpatine and return to Coruscant. Anakin reunites with Padmé, who tells him that she is pregnant. Although initially excited, Anakin soon begins to have nightmares about Padmé dying in childbirth. Palpatine also appoints Anakin to the Jedi Council as his personal representative. Suspicious of Palpatine, the Council allows Anakin as a member, but declines to grant him the rank of Jedi Master and instead instructs him to spy on Palpatine, diminishing Anakin's trust in the Jedi. Later, Palpatine reveals to Anakin that he is Sith Lord Darth Sidious, the mastermind of the war, and says that only he has the power to save Padmé from dying. Anakin reports Palpatine's treachery to Jedi Master Mace Windu (Samuel L. Jackson), who confronts and subdues the Sith Lord. Desperate to save Padmé, Anakin intervenes on Palpatine's behalf and disarms Windu, allowing Palpatine to kill him. Anakin then pledges himself to the Sith, and Palpatine dubs him Darth Vader.


title: Darth Vader

text: On Palpatine's orders, Vader leads the 501st Legion to kill everyone in the Jedi Temple, including the children, and then goes to the volcanic planet Mustafar to assassinate the Separatist Council. A distraught Padmé goes to Mustafar and pleads with Vader to abandon the dark side, but he refuses. Sensing Obi-Wan's presence, and thinking that they are conspiring to kill him, Vader angrily uses the Force to strangle Padmé to unconsciousness. Obi-Wan engages Vader in a lightsaber duel that ends with Obi-Wan severing Vader's limbs and leaving him for dead on the banks of a lava flow, where Vader sustains severe burns. Palpatine finds a barely alive Vader and takes him to Coruscant, where his mutilated body is treated and covered in the black suit first depicted in the original trilogy. When Vader asks if Padmé is safe, Palpatine says that he killed her out of anger, devastating him. At the end of the film, Vader supervises the construction of the first Death Star alongside Palpatine and Tarkin (Wayne Pygram).


title: Darth Vader

text: Jake Lloyd played Anakin Skywalker as a child in "The Phantom Menace", while Hayden Christensen played him as a young adult in the following two films. James Earl Jones reprised his role as the voice of Vader under his mask.


title: Darth Vader

text: Thirty years after the Galactic Civil War, Darth Vader's melted helmet appears in "The Force Awakens" (2015), in which Vader's grandson Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) – who has followed in his grandfather's footsteps by falling to the dark side and betraying the Jedi – is seen addressing him, though Vader does not appear in the film. At one point, his helmet was considered as the film's MacGuffin. The helmet appears again in "" (2019), when Kylo briefly meditates with it, and during the film's first duel between Kylo and Rey (Daisy Ridley). The helmet is last seen on the planet Kijimi, which is later destroyed by a Sith Star Destroyer. The film also reveals that the voice which Ren perceived coming from Vader's helmet in "The Force Awakens" was generated by a resurrected Palpatine.


title: Darth Vader

text: In "The Rise of Skywalker", Anakin makes a vocal cameo, along with other "voices of Jedi Past", where he encourages Rey to "bring back the balance... as [he] did" before she faces Palpatine and his Sith forces. Palpatine uses the voice of Darth Vader to telepathically speak to Ren.


title: Darth Vader

text: In the 2008 3D animated film "", Yoda (voiced by Tom Kane) assigns Ahsoka Tano (voiced by Ashley Eckstein) as Anakin's Padawan apprentice, a responsibility Anakin is at first reluctant to accept. Anakin calls her "Snips" for her "snippy" attitude, while Ahsoka calls him "Skyguy" as a pun on his surname. After earning Anakin's respect during a dangerous mission, Ahsoka joins him on a quest to rescue Jabba the Hutt's infant son, Rotta. Her impetuousness both annoys and endears her to her master, and Anakin develops a friendly affection for his apprentice.


title: Darth Vader

text: In the anthology film "Rogue One" (2016), Darth Vader makes a cameo appearance in which he summons Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the Imperial Director of Advanced Weapons Research, to his castle on Mustafar. He confronts him about his handling of the Death Star project and the destruction of Jedha City, while Krennic asks Vader for an audience with the Emperor regarding the Death Star, which he lost command of to Tarkin. Vader refuses, ordering him to ensure that the Death Star project has not been compromised. When Krennic asks him if he would still regain command of the Death Star, Vader uses the Force to choke him, telling him, "Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director." At the end of the film, Vader boards the disabled Rebel flagship, the MC75 Star Cruiser "Profundity," with a cadre of 501st Legion troopers and kills several Rebel soldiers as he attempts to recover the plans. However, the docked blockade runner "Tantive IV" escapes with the plans, setting up the events of "A New Hope".


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader had a much different role in early versions of the film's story. Screenwriter Gary Whitta stated that in his initial pitch, Vader would appear on Scarif and slaughter the Rebel blockade there. In an earlier storyline, Vader would also have killed Krennic for his failure to prevent the Rebels from stealing the Death Star plans. An image of a deleted scene featuring Vader was revealed in February 2021 by Industrial Light & Magic visual effects animator Hal Hickel, who added that Vader was supposed to have a conversation with Tarkin in that scene.


title: Darth Vader

text: James Earl Jones also reprises his role from previous films as the voice of Darth Vader, who is physically portrayed by Spencer Wilding during the meeting with Krennic and aboard the Star Destroyer, and by Daniel Naprous for the end scene.


title: Darth Vader

text: Anakin is a lead character in all three seasons of the "" micro-series, which takes place shortly after the conclusion of "Attack of the Clones". Anakin becomes a Jedi Knight and is quickly promoted to a General of the Republic's Clone Army, due in part to Palpatine's (voiced by Nick Jameson) influence. Among other missions, he fights a duel with Dooku's apprentice Asajj Ventress (voiced by Grey DeLisle), helps Obi-Wan (voiced by James Arnold Taylor) capture a Separatist-controlled fortress and rescues Jedi Master Saesee Tiin (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) during a space battle. During the third season, Anakin frees a planet's indigenous species from Separatist control and sees a cryptic vision of his future as Darth Vader. In the series finale, Anakin and Obi-Wan go on a mission to rescue Palpatine from General Grievous, leading to the opening of "Revenge of the Sith".


title: Darth Vader

text: Anakin is a lead character in all seasons of "". As a Jedi Knight, he leads the 501st Legion on missions with both his master Obi-Wan and apprentice Ahsoka Tano throughout the war. Some of Anakin's actions taken out of concern for Ahsoka violate the Jedi code, such as torturing prisoners who may know her location when she goes missing. Throughout the series there are several references to Anakin's eventual fall to the dark side, including visions of his future as Darth Vader in the third season, and disillusion with the Jedi Council after they wrongly accuse Ahsoka of bombing the Jedi Temple in the fifth season. While she is later forgiven after the true culprit is found, she nonetheless chooses to leave the Jedi Order. Anakin appears as Vader in the final scene of the series finale, set some time after "Revenge of the Sith". He investigates the crash site of the "Venator"-class Star Destroyer "Tribunal", which was destroyed during Order 66. Finding one of Ahsoka's lightsabers among the wreckage, Vader assumes that his former Padawan has perished and leaves in silence.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader appears in "Star Wars Rebels", which takes place 14 years after "The Clone Wars" concluded. He makes minor appearances throughout the first season, and serves as the main antagonist for most the second season. At the beginning of the series, Vader leads a squadron of Force-sensitive Imperial Inquisitors who actively search for and kill any remaining Jedi and Force-sensitive children. In the first season, he dispatches the Grand Inquisitor to hunt a Rebel cell causing trouble for the Empire on Lothal, and personally arrives on Lothal to deal with the Rebel threat after the Inquisitor is killed. In the second-season premiere, Vader orchestrates the murder of Imperial Minister Maketh Tua, who tried to defect to the Rebellion, and confronts the Jedi Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger. When he later attacks the fleet of the Phoenix Squadron, Vader discovers that Ahsoka is still alive and has joined the Rebel Alliance, while Ahsoka is overwhelmed when she recognizes Anakin under "a layer of hate" in Darth Vader. The Emperor orders Vader to dispatch another Inquisitor to capture her. Later in the season, Ahsoka has a vision in which Anakin blames her for allowing him to fall to the dark side. In the season finale, Ahsoka duels with her former master inside a Sith Temple, allowing her friends to escape Vader and the temple's destruction. As the episode concludes, Vader escapes from the temple's ruins while Ahsoka's fate is left unknown. Vader makes a final voiceless cameo in the late fourth-season episode "A World Between Worlds", in which it is revealed that Ahsoka escaped from her previous duel with Vader by entering a Force-realm that exists outside of time and space. Shortly afterward, Vader's voice (archival audio from "Return of the Jedi") is heard echoing in the void.


title: Darth Vader

text: Matt Lanter reprised his role from "The Clone Wars" as Anakin and James Earl Jones as Vader. Both Lanter and Jones contributed their voices for the second-season finale, at times with identical dialogue spoken by both actors blended together in different ways.


title: Darth Vader

text: Anakin Skywalker appears in multiple episodes of the 2D animated online micro-series "Forces of Destiny" with Matt Lanter reprising his role.


title: Darth Vader

text: Hayden Christensen returned as Darth Vader, both in and out of armor, in the Disney+ streaming series "Obi-Wan Kenobi" with Dimitrious Bistrevesky serving as performance artist for the character, while James Earl Jones returns to voice the character. The series reveals that for a decade after their duel on Mustafar, Obi-Wan believed his fallen apprentice to be dead, only for the Imperial Inquisitor Reva to reveal that Anakin Skywalker is alive. After Reva draws out Kenobi, Vader begins hunting his former master, seeking to exact revenge on Kenobi for the injuries he inflicted upon him back on Mustafar. Christensen also returns in flashback sequences, both as a newly minted Darth Vader carrying out the massacre at the Jedi Temple, and as Padawan Anakin Skywalker, training with Kenobi in the years preceding the Clone Wars.


title: Darth Vader

text: In October 2021, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that, according to undisclosed sources, Christensen would reprise his role as Anakin in the "Ahsoka" series, which is set after the original trilogy and scheduled for 2023.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker have appeared in a number of "Star Wars" since the earliest days of the franchise, though rarely as a playable character. Vader plays a central role in "" (2008), where he is the playable character for the first level of the game. He also appears in the sequel "" as the final boss.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader makes a cameo appearance in the final mission of "", after the main antagonist, the Second Sister, is defeated. After Vader kills her for her failure to retrieve a Jedi Holocron, the protagonist, Padawan Cal Kestis, must escape from Vader, who attempts to get the Holocron in his possession. Cal is ultimately able to escape from Vader's grasp with the help of his allies.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader has appeared as a playable character in every Lego Star Wars video game to date, including "".


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader has appeared as a playable character and a boss in "Angry Birds Star Wars" and its sequel played by Red. When Vader is used, building blocks magnetically stick to his body and are then fired out at various angles.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader is also a playable character in "Disney Infinity 3.0", and a playable character to unlock for a limited time in "Disney Magic Kingdoms".


title: Darth Vader

text: In video games, Darth Vader is often voiced by Scott Lawrence or Matt Sloan, while Anakin is voiced by Mat Lucas and Matt Lanter.


title: Darth Vader

text: "" was one of the first four canon novels to be released in 2014 and 2015. In it, Vader and Palpatine find themselves hunted by revolutionaries on the Twi'lek planet Ryloth.


title: Darth Vader

text: In 2015, Marvel released a 25-issue series called "Darth Vader" (2015–16), written by Kieron Gillen. It focuses on the Sith lord in the aftermath of the Death Star's destruction, as well as his life after learning about his son's existence, and introduces franchise fan favorite character Doctor Aphra. This series takes place parallel to the comic book series "Star Wars", in which Vader and Luke meet; the two series have a crossover titled "Vader Down". A continuation set between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi" debuted in 2020, written by Greg Pak. The first few issues deal with Vader carrying out his revenge on those who concealed Luke; he also visits Padmé's tomb on Naboo and encounters her handmaidens. A subsequent story arc depicts Vader being tested by the Emperor and incorporates elements created for "The Rise of Skywalker".


title: Darth Vader

text: The five-issue limited series "Obi-Wan & Anakin" (2016), written by Charles Soule, depicts the lives of the titular Jedi between "The Phantom Menace" and "Attack of the Clones". At New York Comic Con 2015, Soule described the story as "pretty unexplored territory".


title: Darth Vader

text: Between 2017 and 2018, Soule wrote a prequel-era series, also called "Darth Vader" (sometimes subtitled "Dark Lord of the Sith"). It begins immediately after Vader wakes up in his armor at the end of "Revenge of the Sith" and explores his emotional transformation upon learning of Padmé's death, his adjustment to his mechanical suit, how he creates his red-bladed lightsaber, and his hunting of Jedi in the Inquisitor program (introduced in "Rebels"). Its final arc, which deals with the construction of Vader's fortress on Mustafar, implies that Palpatine used the Force to conceive Anakin "in utero", as some had theorized that "Revenge of the Sith" indicates. A Lucasfilm story group member later clarified that "This is all in Anakin's head".


title: Darth Vader

text: A five-issue limited series written by Dennis Hopeless, "Vader: Dark Visions", was released in 2019. According to Marvel, the series "sheds new light on the many sides of the galaxy's greatest villain".


title: Darth Vader

text: In April 2014, most of the licensed "Star Wars" novels and comics produced since the originating 1977 film "Star Wars" were rebranded by Lucasfilm as "Legends" and declared non-canon to the franchise.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader is featured prominently in novels set in the "Star Wars" universe. In the 1978 novel "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" by Alan Dean Foster, Vader meets Luke Skywalker for the first time and engages him in a lightsaber duel that ends with Luke cutting off Vader's arm and Vader falling into a deep pit. "" (1996) reveals that Vader is conflicted about trying to turn his son to the dark side of the Force, and knows deep down that he still has good in him.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader's supposedly indestructible glove is the MacGuffin of the young-reader's book "The Glove of Darth Vader" (1992). Anakin Skywalker's redeemed spirit appears in "The Truce at Bakura" (1993), set a few days after the end of "Return of the Jedi". He appears to Leia, imploring her forgiveness. Leia condemns Anakin for his crimes and banishes him from her life. He promises that he will be there for her when she needs him, and disappears. In "Tatooine Ghost" (2003), Leia learns to forgive her father after learning about his childhood as a slave and his mother's traumatic death. In "The Unifying Force" (2003), Anakin tells his grandson Jacen Solo to "stand firm" in his battle with the Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong.


title: Darth Vader

text: Upon the release of the prequel films, the Expanded Universe grew to include novels about Vader's former life as Anakin Skywalker. Greg Bear's 2000 novel "Rogue Planet" and Jude Watson's "Jedi Quest" series chronicle Anakin's early missions with Obi-Wan, while James Luceno's 2005 novel "Labyrinth of Evil", set during the Clone Wars, depicts Anakin battling Separatist commander General Grievous. In Luceno's "" (2005), set a few months after the events of "Revenge of the Sith", Vader disavows his identity as Anakin Skywalker as he systematically pursues and kills the surviving Jedi and cements his position in the Empire.


title: Darth Vader

text: In the "Dark Nest" trilogy (2005), Luke and Leia uncover old recordings of their parents in R2-D2's memory drive; for the first time, they see their own birth and their mother's death, as well as their father's corruption to the dark side. In "Bloodlines" (2006), Han and Leia's son Jacen—who has turned to the dark side—uses the Force to envision Vader slaughtering the children at the Jedi Temple.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader also appears in a series of tongue-in-cheek children's books by Jeffrey Brown. In Brown's series, a hapless Vader sets out to be a father to a young Luke and Leia, with some scenes portraying light-hearted versions of their darker film counterparts. For example, one scene shows Vader, Luke and Leia at the carbonite freezing chamber on Bespin, with Vader pronouncing the freezer adequate for making ice cream.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader appears in several comic books such as Marvel Comics' "Star Wars" (1977–1986). In "Dark Empire II", he is revealed to have had a castle on the planet Vjun. Anakin Skywalker is a major character in Dark Horse Comics' "" series (1998–2006). In "Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire" (1999), Vader hires Fett a few years before the events of "A New Hope". In "Vader's Quest" (1999), set soon after "A New Hope", the dark lord encounters Luke for the first time. "" (2002–2005) spans from about a year before "A New Hope" to several months afterwards. Anakin and Vader appear in the non-canonical "Star Wars Tales" (1999–2005); in the story "Resurrection", Darth Maul is resurrected and faces Vader in battle.


title: Darth Vader

text: Vader-centric comics released and set just after "Revenge of the Sith" include "" (2006–2013), "Darth Vader and the Lost Command" (2011), "Darth Vader and the Ghost Prison" (2012), and "Darth Vader and the Cry of Shadows" (2013–14).


title: Darth Vader

text: In the 2015 "Star Wars" Celebration, it was announced David S. Goyer was helping to develop a virtual reality game series based on Darth Vader. As an observer with limited influence, the player is able to walk, pick up, push and open things, and possibly affect the story. The game, titled "Vader Immortal", had three episodes overall, set between "Revenge of the Sith" and "Rogue One"; the first became available with the launch of Oculus Quest, while the last episode was released on November 21, 2019. The game was later ported to the Oculus Rift. On August 25, 2020, all three episodes were also released on PlayStation VR.


title: Darth Vader

text: The "Star Wars Holiday Special", a television special broadcast by CBS in 1978, features a brief appearance of Darth Vader, who appears on-screen speaking with Imperial officer "Chief Bast" in footage cut from the original 1977 film. The sequence is dubbed with new dialogue, performed by James Earl Jones. In the story, Vader colludes with Boba Fett to entrap the Rebels.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader features in the 1981 radio drama adaptation of "Star Wars", voiced by the actor Brock Peters. Vader makes his first appearance on the planet Ralltiir, where he treats Princess Leia with suspicion. In later extended scenes, he is heard interrogating and torturing Leia on board his Star Destroyer and aboard the Death Star.


title: Darth Vader

text: Darth Vader has also appeared in non-"Star Wars" video games as a guest character, for example "Soulcalibur IV" (2008).


title: Darth Vader

text: An action figure of Vader comes to life alongside "RoboCop" and "Jurassic Park" toys in "The Indian in the Cupboard" (1995). Vader also had a brief cameo in "" (2009), in which he and Oscar the Grouch try unsuccessfully to join the army formed by Ivan the Terrible, Napoleon and Al Capone.


title: Darth Vader

text: In 2003, the American Film Institute listed Vader as the third greatest movie villain in cinema history on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains, behind Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates. His role as a tragic hero in the saga has also met with positive reviews.


title: Darth Vader

text: Contrarily, in 1977, a "New Journal and Guide" writer criticized the lack of racial diversity in the original "Star Wars" film, pointing out that "the force of evil ... is dressed in all black and has the voice of a black man." George Lucas felt hurt at such accusations.


title: Darth Vader

text: Psychiatrists have considered Vader to be a useful example for explaining borderline personality disorder to medical students. Anakin's origin story in "The Phantom Menace" has been compared to signifiers of African American racial identity, particularly his being a slave, and his dissatisfaction with his life has been compared to Siddartha's before he became Gautama Buddha. A Mexican church advised Christians against seeing "The Phantom Menace" because it portrays Anakin as a Christ figure.


title: Darth Vader

text: Many films and television series have paid homage to Darth Vader. The 1982 movie "Cosmic Princess", compiled from parts of "" episodes, contains several "Star Wars" references including a character named "Vader". Marty McFly in "Back to the Future" (1985), dressed in a radiation suit, calls himself "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" in one scene. Vader is parodied as "Dark Helmet" (Rick Moranis) in the "Star Wars" parody "Spaceballs" (1987). A primary antagonist in "Final Fantasy IV" (1991) was stated by game creator Takashi Tokita to be based on Vader. In "Chasing Amy" (1997), Hooper X (Dwight Ewell) speaks at a comic book convention about Darth Vader being a metaphor for how poorly the science fiction genre treats Black people; he is especially offended that Vader, the "Blackest brother in the galaxy", reveals himself to be a "feeble, crusty old white man" at the end of "Return of the Jedi". Vader, especially his role as a father, is parodied as Emperor Zurg in "Toy Story 2". The character of Dark Mayhem in "The Thundermans" is also a parody of Vader, especially in his original depiction. The Warner Bros. animated show "Loonatics Unleashed" has a Sylvester the Cat-type character named Sylth Vester, a play on Vader and his name.


title: Darth Vader

text: The slime-mold beetle "Agathidium vaderi" is named after Vader, as is the louse "Ricinus vaderi". Several buildings across the globe are regularly compared to him. A grotesque of Darth Vader looms over the east face of the Washington National Cathedral's northwest tower. During the 2007–08 NHL season, Ottawa Senators goaltender Martin Gerber performed so well in an all-black mask that fans endearingly termed him "Darth Gerber".


title: Darth Vader

text: Many commentators and comedians have also evoked Vader's visage to satirize politicians and other public figures, and several American political figures have been unflatteringly compared to the character. In response to Ronald Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars" by his political opponents), German news magazine "Der Spiegel" portrayed the president wearing Vader's helmet on its cover in 1984. In 2005, Al Gore referred to Tele-Communications Inc.'s John C. Malone as the "Darth Vader of cable", and political strategist Lee Atwater was known by his political enemies as "the Darth Vader of the Republican Party". Native American artist Bunky Echohawk portrayed General George Armstrong Custer as Vader in his painting "Darth Custer". In 2015, a statue of Vladimir Lenin in Odessa, Ukraine, was converted into one of Vader due to a law on decommunization.


title: Darth Vader

text: In 2006, while discussing the war on terror, US Vice President Dick Cheney stated, "I suppose, sometimes, people look at my demeanor and say, 'Well, he's the Darth Vader of the administration.'"


title: Darth Vader

text: In January 2007, Jon Stewart put on a Vader helmet to address Cheney as a "kindred spirit" on "The Daily Show". Cheney's wife, Lynne, presented Stewart with a Darth Vader action figure on her October 2007 appearance on the show. Both Stewart and Stephen Colbert have occasionally referred to Cheney as "Darth Cheney". In the satirical cartoon show "Lil' Bush", Cheney's father is portrayed as Vader. At a presidential campaign event in September 2007, Hillary Clinton also referred to Cheney as Vader. At the 2008 Washington Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner, Cheney joked that his wife told him that the Vader comparison "humanizes" him. In 2009, George Lucas stated that Cheney is more akin to Palpatine, and that a better stand-in for Vader would be George W. Bush. An issue of "Newsweek" referenced this quote, and compared Bush and Cheney to Vader and Palpatine, respectively, in a satirical article comparing politicians to various "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" characters.


title: Darth Vader

text: The Fedayeen Saddam, an Iraqi paramilitary organisation, was issued with fiber glass Darth Vader-style helmets from 1995, apparently at the instigation of their commander, Uday Hussein, who was said to have been an avid "Star Wars" fan. A number of them were brought to the United States and the United Kingdom as souvenirs following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.


title: Darth Vader

text: In Ukraine, the Internet Party of Ukraine regularly lets people named Darth Vader take part in elections.


title: Darth Vader

text: In 2019, an original Vader helmet from "The Empire Strikes Back" was sold for $900,000 in an online auction.


title: Darth Vader

text: On December 2, 2020, a figurine of Vader appeared on the plinth where the statue of Edward Colston once stood in Bristol, United Kingdom, in what was seen as a tribute to David Prowse, who died on November 29, 2020.


title: Baby boomers

text: Baby boomers, often shortened to boomers, are the Western demographic cohort following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the mid-20th century baby boom. The dates, the demographic context, and the cultural identifiers may vary by country. The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave" and as "the pig in the python". Most baby boomers are children of either the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation, and are often parents of late Gen Xers and Millennials. Late baby boomers can also be the parents of older members of Generation Z.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the West, boomers' childhoods in the 1950s and 1960s had significant reforms in education, both as part of the ideological confrontation that was the Cold War, and as a continuation of the interwar period. In the 1960s and 1970s, as this relatively large number of young people entered their teens and young adulthood—the oldest turned 18 in 1964—they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the social movements brought about by their size in numbers, such as the counterculture of the 1960s and its backlash.


title: Baby boomers

text: In many countries, this period was one of deep political instability due to the postwar youth bulge. In China, boomers lived through the Cultural Revolution and were subject to the one-child policy as adults. These social changes and rhetoric had an important impact in the perceptions of the boomers, as well as society's increasingly common tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon. This group reached puberty and maximum height earlier than previous generations.


title: Baby boomers

text: In Europe and North America, many boomers came of age in a time of increasing affluence and widespread government subsidies in postwar housing and education, and grew up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. Those with higher standards of living and educational levels were often the most demanding of betterment. In the early 21st century, baby boomers in some developed countries are the single biggest cohort in their societies due to subreplacement fertility and population aging. In the United States, they are the second most numerous age demographic after millennials.


title: Baby boomers

text: The term baby boom refers to a noticeable increase in the birth rate. The post-World War II population increase was described as a "boom" by various newspaper reporters, including Sylvia F. Porter in a column in the May 4, 1951, edition of the "New York Post", based on the increase of 2,357,000 in the population of the U.S. from 1940 to 1950.


title: Baby boomers

text: The first recorded use of "baby boomer" is in a January 1963 "Daily Press" article by Leslie J. Nason describing a massive surge of college enrollments approaching as the oldest boomers were coming of age. The "Oxford English Dictionary" dates the modern meaning of the term to a January 23, 1970, article in "The Washington Post".


title: Baby boomers

text: A significant degree of consensus exists around the date range of the baby boomer cohort, with the generation considered to cover those born from 1946 to 1964 by various organizations such as the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Pew Research Center, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve Board, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Gallup, YouGov and Australia's Social Research Center. The United States Census Bureau defines baby boomers as "individuals born in the United States between mid-1946 and mid-1964". Landon Jones, in his book "Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation" (1980), defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1946 through 1964.


title: Baby boomers

text: Others have delimited the baby boom period differently. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, in their 1991 book "Generations", define the social generation of boomers as that cohort born from 1943 to 1960, who were too young to have any personal memory of World War II, but old enough to remember the postwar American High before John F. Kennedy's assassination.


title: Baby boomers

text: In Ontario, Canada, David Foot, author of "Boom, Bust and Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century" (1997), defined a Canadian boomer as someone born from 1947 to 1966, the years in which more than 400,000 babies were born. He acknowledges, though, that this is a demographic definition, and that culturally, it may not be as clear-cut. Doug Owram argues that the Canadian boom took place from 1946 to 1962, but that culturally, boomers everywhere were born between the late war years and about 1955 or 1956. Those born in the 1960s might feel disconnected from the cultural identifiers of the earlier boomers.


title: Baby boomers

text: French sociologist Michèle Delaunay in her book "Le Fabuleux Destin des Baby-Boomers" (2019), places the baby-boom generation in France between 1946 and 1973, and in Spain between 1958 and 1975. Another French academic, Jean-François Sirinelli, in an earlier study, "Les Baby-Boomers: Une génération 1945-1969" (2007) denotes the generation span between 1945 and 1969.


title: Baby boomers

text: The Office for National Statistics has described the UK as having had two baby booms in the middle of the 20th century, one in the years immediately after World War II and one around the 1960s with a noticeably lower birth rate (but still significantly higher than that seen in the 1930s or later in the '70s) during part of the 1950s. Bernard Salt places the Australian baby boom between 1946 and 1961.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the US, the generation can be segmented into two broadly defined cohorts: the "leading-edge baby boomers" are individuals born between 1946 and 1955, those who came of age during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights eras. This group represents slightly more than half of the generation, or roughly 38,002,000 people. The other half of the generation, usually called "Generation Jones", but sometimes also called names like the "late boomers" or "trailing-edge baby boomers", was born between 1956 and 1964, and came of age after Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. This second cohort includes about 37,818,000 people. Others use the term Generation Jones to refer to a cusp generation, including early Generation X years, with a typical range of 1954 to 1965.


title: Baby boomers

text: During the time of the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) encouraged couples to have as many children as possible because it believed a growing labor force was needed for national development along socialist lines. China's baby-boom cohort is the largest in the world. According to journalist and photographer Howard French, who spent many years in China, many Chinese neighborhoods were, by the mid-2010s, disproportionately filled with the elderly, to whom the Chinese themselves referred as a "lost generation", who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when higher education was discouraged and large numbers of people were sent to the countryside for political reasons. As China's baby boomers retire in the late-2010s and onward, the people replacing in the workforce will be a much smaller cohort due to the one-child policy. Consequently, China's central government faces a stark economic trade-off between "cane and butter"—how much to spend on social welfare programs such as state pensions to support the elderly and how much to spend in the military to achieve the nation's geopolitical objectives.


title: Baby boomers

text: According to the National Development Council of Taiwan, the nation's population could start shrinking by 2022 and the number of people of working age could fall 10% by 2027. About half of Taiwanese would be aged 50 or over by 2034. At the current rate, Taiwan is set to transition from an aged to super-aged society, where 21% of the population is over 65 years of age, in eight years, compared to seven years for Singapore, eight years for South Korea, 11 years for Japan, 14 for the United States, 29 for France, and 51 for the United Kingdom.


title: Baby boomers

text: Japan at present has one of the oldest populations in the world and persistently subreplacement fertility, currently 1.4 per woman. Japan's population peaked in 2017. Forecasts suggest that the elderly will make up 35% of Japan's population by 2040. As of 2018, Japan was already a super-aged society, with 27% of its people being older than 65 years. According to government data, Japan's total fertility rate was 1.43 in 2017. According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world, with a median age of 47 years in 2017.


title: Baby boomers

text: A baby boom occurred in the aftermath of the Korean War, and the government subsequently encouraged people to have no more than two children per couple. As a result, South Korea's fertility has been falling ever since.


title: Baby boomers

text: From about 1750 to 1950, Western Europe transitioned from having both high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates. By the late 1960s or 1970s, the average woman had fewer than two children, and although demographers at first expected a "correction", such a rebound never came. Despite a bump in the total fertility rates of some European countries in the very late 20th century (the 1980s and 1990s), especially France and Scandinavia, they never returned to replacement level; the bump was largely due to older women realizing their dreams of motherhood. Member states of the European Economic Community saw a steady increase in not just divorce and out-of-wedlock births between 1960 and 1985 but also falling fertility rates. In 1981, a survey of countries across the industrialized world found that while more than half of people aged 65 and over thought that women needed children to be fulfilled, only 35% of those between the ages of 15 to 24 (younger baby boomers and older generation Xers) agreed. Falling fertility was due to urbanization and decreased infant mortality rates, which diminished the benefits and increased the costs of raising children. In other words, investing more in fewer children became more economically sensible, as economist Gary Becker argued. (This is the first demographic transition.) By the 1960s, people began moving from traditional and communal values towards more expressive and individualistic outlooks due to access to and aspiration of higher education, and to the spread of lifestyle values once practiced only by a tiny minority of cultural elites. (This is the second demographic transition.)


title: Baby boomers

text: At the start of the 21st century, Europe has an aging population. This problem is especially acute in Eastern Europe, whereas in Western Europe, it is alleviated by international immigration. Researches by demographers and political scientists Eric Kaufmann, Roger Eatwell, and Matthew Goodwin suggest that such immigration-induced ethnodemographic change is one of the key reasons behind public backlash in the form of national populism across the rich liberal democracies, an example of which is the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum (Brexit).


title: Baby boomers

text: In 2018, 19.70% of the population of the European Union (EU) were 65 or older. The median age was 43 in 2019, and was about 29 in the 1950s. Europe had significant population growth in the late 20th century. However, Europe's growth is projected to halt by the early 2020s due to falling fertility rates and an aging population. In 2015, a woman living in the EU had on average 1.5 children, down from 2.6 in 1960. Although the EU continues to experience a net influx of immigrants, this is not enough to balance out the low fertility rates. In 2017, the median age was 53.1 years in Monaco, 45 in Germany and Italy, and 43 in Greece, Bulgaria, and Portugal, making them some of the oldest countries in the world besides Japan and Bermuda. They are followed by Austria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain, whose median age was 43.


title: Baby boomers

text: By the mid-2010s, sub-replacement fertility and growing life expectancy meant that Canada had an aging population. Statistics Canada reported in 2015 that for the first time in Canadian history, more people were aged 65 and over than people below the age of 15. One in six Canadians was above the age of 65 in July 2015. Projections by Statistics Canada suggest this gap will only increase in the next 40 years. Economist and demographer David Foot from the University of Toronto told that CBC policymakers have ignored this trend for decades. With the massive baby-boom generation entering retirement, economic growth will be slower and demand for social support will rise. This will significantly alter the Canadian economy. Nevertheless, Canada remained the second-youngest G7 nation, as of 2015.


title: Baby boomers

text: Historically, the early Anglo-Protestant settlers in the 17th century were the most successful group, culturally, militarily, economically, and politically, and they maintained their dominance until the early 20th century. Commitment to the ideals of the Enlightenment meant that they sought to assimilate newcomers from outside of the British Isles, but few were interested in adopting a pan-European identity for the nation, much less turning it into a global melting pot, but in the early 1900s, liberal progressives and modernists began promoting more inclusive ideals for what the national identity of the United States should be. While the more traditionalist segments of society continued to maintain their Anglo-Protestant ethnocultural traditions, universalism and cosmopolitanism started gaining favor among the elites. These ideals became institutionalized after the Second World War, and ethnic minorities started moving towards institutional parity with the once-dominant Anglo-Protestants. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (also known as the Hart-Cellar Act), passed at the urging of President Lyndon B. Johnson, abolished national quotas for immigrants, and replaced it with a system that admits a fixed number of persons per year based in qualities such as skills and the need for refuge. Immigration subsequently surged from elsewhere in North America (especially Canada and Mexico), Asia, Central America, and the West Indies. By the mid-1980s, most immigrants originated from Asia and Latin America. Some were refugees from Vietnam, Cuba, Haiti, and other parts of the Americas, while others came illegally by crossing the long and largely undefended U.S.-Mexican border. Although Congress offered amnesty to "undocumented immigrants" who had been in the country for a long time and attempted to penalize employers who recruited them, their influx continued. At the same time, the postwar baby boom and subsequently falling fertility rate seemed to jeopardize America's Social Security system as the baby boomers retire in the early 21st century.


title: Baby boomers

text: Using their own definition of baby boomers as people born between 1946 and 1964 and U.S. Census data, the Pew Research Center estimated 71.6 million boomers were in the United States as of 2019. The age wave theory suggests an economic slowdown when the boomers started retiring during 2007–2009. In 2018, though, 29% of people aged 65–72 in the United States remained active in the labor force, according to the Pew Research Center. This trend follows from the general expectation of Americans to work after the age of 65. The baby boomers who chose to remain in the work force after the age of 65 tended to be university graduates, whites, and residents of the big cities. That the boomers maintained a relatively high labor participation rate made economic sense because the longer they postpone retirement, the more Social Security benefits they could claim, once they finally retire.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the 1980s, James R. Flynn examined psychometric data and discovered evidence that the IQ scores of Americans were increasing significantly between the early 1930s and late 1970s. On average, younger cohorts scored higher than their elders. This was confirmed by later studies and on data in other countries; the discovery became known as the Flynn effect.


title: Baby boomers

text: A 2020 study by sociologist Hui Zheng suggests that early U.S. baby boomers (born between the late-1940s and early-1950s) and middle baby boomers (born between the mid- to late-1950s) had significant cognitive decline at age 50 and over compared to their elders, though the generations born before and during the Second World War had increasing cognitive scores from one generation to the next when they were at the same age. "Baby boomers already start having lower cognition scores than earlier generations at age 50 to 54," Zheng noted. A variety of factors is associated with the cognitive decline of baby boomers relative to older generations - psychological depression and other mental health problems, lower rates of marriage (at the time of the study), having multiple marriages, physical inactivity, obesity, cardiac issues, strokes, and diabetes. What Zheng found surprising was that though many other health problems were negatively correlated with wealth and educational attainment, wealthy and highly educated baby boomers fared little better than their counterparts with lower levels of income or education.


title: Baby boomers

text: After the Second World War, the United States offered massive financial assistance to Western European nations in the form of the Marshall Plan to rebuild themselves and to extend U.S. economic and political influence. The Soviet Union did the same for Eastern Europe with the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Western Europe had considerable economic growth, due to both the Marshall Plan and initiatives aimed at European integration, starting with the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg in 1951 and the European Community in 1957–58. As a matter of fact, the Anglo-Americans spoke of the 'Golden Age' and French of '30 glorious years' ("les trente glorieuses") continued economic growth. For the United States, the postwar economic expansion was a continuation of what had occurred during the war, but for Western Europe and Japan, the primary economic goal was to return to prewar levels of productivity and prosperity, and many managed to close the gap with the United States in productivity per work hour and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Full employment was reached on both sides of the Atlantic by the 1960s. In Western Europe, the average unemployment figure stood at 1.5% at that time. The automobile, already a common sight in North America, became so in Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Many items previously deemed luxurious, such as the private washing machine, the refrigerator, and the telephone, entered mass production for the average consumer. The average person could live like the upper class in the previous generation. Technological advances made before, during, and after the war, such as plastics, television, magnetic tape, transistors, integrated circuits, and lasers, played a key role in the tremendous improvements in the standards of living for the average citizen in the developed world. Prosperity was taken for granted; this was a period of optimism. Indeed, for many young people who came of age after 1945, the interwar experience of mass unemployment and stable or falling prices was confined to the history books. Full employment and inflation were the norm.


title: Baby boomers

text: The new-found wealth made allowed many Western governments to finance generous welfare programs. By the 1970s, all industrialized capitalist nations had become welfare states. Six of them—Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, West Germany, and Italy—spent more than 60% of their national budgets on welfare. When the 'Golden Age' came to an end, such government largess proved problematic.


title: Baby boomers

text: In fact, the 'Golden Age' finally petered out in the 1970s, as automation started eating away jobs at the low to medium skill levels, and as the first waves of people born after the Second World War entered the workplace en masse. In the United States, at least, the onset of a recession—as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research—typically occurred within a few years of a peak in the rate of change of the young-adult population, both positive and negative, and indeed, the recession of the early 1970s took place shortly after the growth of people in their early 20s peaked in the late 1960s. Western capitalist nations slid into recessions during the mid-1970s and the early 1980s. Although the collective GDP of these nations continued to grow until the early 1990s, so much so that they became much wealthier and more productive by that date, unemployment, especially youth unemployment, exploded in many industrialized countries. In the European Community, the average unemployment rate stood at 9.2% by the late 1980s, despite the deceleration of population growth. Youth unemployment during the 1980s was over 20% in the United Kingdom, more than 40% in Spain, and around 46% in Norway. Generous welfare programs alleviated the potential of social unrest, though Western governments found themselves squeezed by a combination of falling tax revenue and high state spending. People born during the baby bust due to the Great Depression in the 1930s found themselves in an abundance of employment opportunities as they entered the workforce in the 1950s. In fact, they could expect to achieve parity with their fathers' wages at the entrance level. This, however, was not the case for the postwar generation. By the mid-1980s, people could only expect to make a third of what their fathers made as new entrants to the labor force.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the 1960s, the economic growth in this period was realized as unprecedented. In the long-term view, though, it was just another upswing in the Kondratiev cycle (see figure), much like the mid-Victorian boom or the "Belle Époque" from around 1850 to 1873 in Britain and France, respectively. Globally, agricultural output doubled between the early 1950s and early 1980s—more than that in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia—while the fishing industry tripled its catches. Average life expectancy increased by about seven years between the 1930s and 1960s.


title: Baby boomers

text: Communist nations, especially the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states, grew considerably, too. Heretofore agrarian states such as Bulgaria and Romania began to industrialize. By the 1960s, though, the growth of the communist states faltered compared to the capitalist industrialized countries. By the 1980s, the economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became stagnant. This was, however, not the case in the newly industrializing economies such as China or South Korea, whose process of industrialization began much later, nor was it in Japan.


title: Baby boomers

text: The developing world achieved significant growth during the 1950s and 1960s, though it never quite reached the level of affluence of industrialized societies. The populations of Africa, Asia, and Latin America boomed between 1950 and 1975. Food production comfortably outpaced population growth. As a consequence, this period saw no major famines other than cases due to armed conflict and politics, which did happen in Communist China. People who experienced the Great Famine of China (1958–1961) as toddlers were noticeably shorter than those who did not. The Great Famine killed up to 30 million people and massively reduced China's economic output. But before the Famine, China's agricultural output increased 70% from the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949 to 1956, according to official statistics. Chairman Mao Zedong introduced a plan for the rapid industrialization of his country, the Great Leap Forward. Steel production, mainly from flimsy household furnaces, tripled between 1958 and 1960, but fell to a level lower than that at the start of the Great Leap Forward by 1962. Rural life—China was a predominantly rural society at this point in history—including family affairs, was collectivized. Women were recruited to the workplace, that is, the fields, while the government provided them with nursery and childcare services. In general, monetary income was replaced by six basic services: food, healthcare, education, haircuts, funerals, and movies. Mao's plan was quickly abandoned, not just because it failed, but also because of the Great Famine. Yet despite the disastrous results of Maoist policies, by the standards of the developing world, China was not doing so poorly. By the mid-1970s, China's food consumption measured in calories was just above the global median and the nation's life expectancy grew steadily, interrupted only by the famine years.


title: Baby boomers

text: Between 1960 and 1975, the Chinese mainland's growth was fast, but lagged behind the growth of Japan and the rise of the Four Asian Tigers (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) grew even faster.


title: Baby boomers

text: Demand for housing exploded. Governments both in the East and the West massively subsidized housing with many public housing projects in urban areas in the form of high-rise apartment buildings. In many cases, this came at the cost of destroying historical sites.


title: Baby boomers

text: Universal literacy was a major goal for practically all governments in the developing world and many made significant progress towards this end, even if their 'official' statistics were questionably optimistic.During the postwar era, the importance of modern mathematics—especially mathematical logic, optimization, and numerical analysis—was acknowledged for its usefulness during the war. From this sprang proposals for reforms in mathematics education. The international movement to bring about such reforms was launched in the late 1950s, with heavy French influence. In France, they also grew out of a desire to bring the subject as it was taught in schools closer to the research done by pure mathematicians, particularly the Nicholas Bourbaki school, which emphasized an austere and abstract style of doing mathematics, axiomatization. Up until the 1950s, the purpose of primary education was to prepare students for life and future careers. This changed in the 1960s. A commission headed by André Lichnerowicz was established to work out the details of the desired reforms in mathematics education. At the same time, the French government mandated that the same courses be taught to all schoolchildren, regardless of their career prospects and aspirations. Thus the same highly abstract courses in mathematics were taught to not just those willing and able to pursue university studies but also those who left school early to join the workforce. From elementary school to the French Baccalaureate, Euclidean geometry and calculus were de-emphasized in favor of set theory and abstract algebra. This conception of mass public education was inherited from the interwar period and was taken for granted; the model for the elites was to be applied to all segments of society. But by the early 1970s, the Commission ran into problems. Mathematicians, physicists, members of professional societies, economists, and industrial leaders criticized the reforms as being suitable for neither schoolteachers nor students. Many teachers were ill-prepared and ill-equipped. One member of the Lichnerowicz Commission asked, "Should we teach outdated mathematics to less intelligent children?" Lichnerowicz resigned and the commission was disbanded in 1973. Nevertheless, the influence of the Bourbaki school in mathematics education lived on, as the Soviet mathematician Vladimir Arnold recalled in a 1995 interview.


title: Baby boomers

text: Before World War II, the share of university-educated people in even the most advanced of industrialized nations, except the United States, a world leader in post-secondary education, was negligible. After the war, the number of university students skyrocketed, not just in the West, but also among developing countries as well. In Europe, between 1960 and 1980, the number of university students increased by a factor of four to five in West Germany, Ireland, and Greece, a factor of five to seven in Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Italy, and a factor of seven to nine in Spain and Norway. In West Germany, the number of university students steadily grew in the 1960s despite the construction of the Berlin Wall, which prevented East German students from coming. By 1966, West Germany had a grand total of 400,000 students, up from 290,000 in 1960. In the Republic of Korea (South Korea), the number of university students as a share of the population grew from around 0.8% to 3% between 1975 and 1983. Families typically considered higher education to be the gateway towards a higher social status and higher income, or, in short, a better life; as such they pushed their children to university whenever possible. In general, the postwar economic expansion made it possible for a larger percentage of the population to send their children to university as full-time students. Moreover, many Western welfare states, starting with U.S. government subsidies to military veterans who wished to attend university, provided financial aid in one form or another to university students, though they were still expected to live frugally. In most countries, with the notable exceptions of Japan and the U.S., most universities were public rather than private. The total number of universities worldwide more than doubled in the 1970s. The rise of university campuses and university towns was a culturally and politically novel phenomenon, and one that would usher in the political turbulence of the late 1960s around the world.


title: Baby boomers

text: After World War I, the goal of primary education in the United States shifted from using schools to realize social change to employing them to promote emotional development. While it might have helped students improve their mental welfare, critics pointed to the de-emphasizing of traditional academic subjects leading to poor work habits and plain ignorance. Such a system became less and less tenable because society increasingly demanded rigorous education. In his book "The American High School Today" (1959), former Harvard president James B. Conant laid out his critique of the status quo. In particular, he pointed to the failure of English classes in teaching proper grammar and composition, the neglect of foreign languages, and the inability to meet the needs of gifted and slow students alike. People like Conant rose to prominence due to the successful launch of the "Sputnik" satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957. As a matter of fact, the passages of the artificial satellite were recorded by the Boston newspapers and viewed with the naked eye from rooftops.This surprising Soviet success demonstrated to the Americans that their education system had fallen behind. "Life" magazine reported that three quarters of American high-school students took no physics at all. The U.S. government realized it needed thousands of scientists and engineers to match the might of its ideological rival. On President Dwight D. Eisenhower's direct orders, science education underwent major reforms and the federal government started pouring enormous sums of money into not just education but also research and development. Private institutions, such as the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation provided funding for education, too. Authors felt inspired to cater to the physics textbook market, and one of the results was the "Berkeley Physics Course", a series for undergraduates influenced by MIT's Physical Science Study Committee, formed right before the launch of "Sputnik". One of the most famous of textbooks from the "Berkeley" series is "Electricity and Magnetism" by Nobel laureate Edward Mills Purcell, which has gone through multiple editions and remains in print in the twenty-first century.


title: Baby boomers

text: Under the 'New Math' initiative, conceptual abstraction gained the central role in mathematics education. Students received lessons in set theory, which is what mathematicians actually use to construct the set of real numbers, something advanced undergraduates learned in a course on real analysis. Arithmetic with bases other than ten was also taught. However, this educational initiative faced strong opposition, not just from teachers, many of whom struggled to understand the new material, let alone teach it, but also parents, who had problems helping their children with homework. It was criticized by experts, too, such as physicist Richard Feynman, mathematician and historian of mathematics Morris Kline, and mathematician and educator George F. Simmons.


title: Baby boomers

text: In any case, academic performance reclaimed its importance in the United States. At the same time, large numbers of young people desired to go to college due to population growth and the needs of society for specialized skills. Prestigious institutions were able to handpick the very best of students from massive pools of applications and consequently became the training centers for a growing class of cognitive elites. Indeed, the share of college graduates among 23-year-olds steadily rose after World War II, first due to veterans returning to civilian life and later due to people born after the war. In 1950, there were 2.6 million students in American institutions of higher learning. By 1970, that number was 8.6 million, and by 1980, it became 12 million. In the 1970s, there was a seemingly infinite number of Baby Boomers applying for admissions at institutions of higher learning in the U.S., so much so that many schools became extremely difficult to get into. This cooled off by the 1980s, though. In the end, about a quarter of baby boomers had at least a bachelor's degree.


title: Baby boomers

text: American physicist Herbert Callen observed that even though a survey conducted by the American Physical Society Committee on the Applications of Physics reported (in the "Bulletin of the APS") in 1971 that industry leaders desired a greater emphasis on more practical subjects, such as thermodynamics as opposed to the more abstract statistical mechanics, academia subsequently went the other way. British physicist Paul Dirac, who had relocated to the United States in the 1970s, opined to his colleagues he doubted the wisdom of educating so many undergraduates in science when so many of them had neither the interest nor the aptitude. Quantitative historian Peter Turchin noted intensifying competition among graduates, whose numbers were larger than what the economy could absorb, a phenomenon he termed elite overproduction, led to political polarization, social fragmentation, and even violence as many became disgruntled with their dim prospects despite having attained a high level of education. Income inequality, stagnating or declining real wages, and growing public debt were contributory factors. Turchin argued that having a youth bulge and massive young population with university degrees were the key reasons for the instability of the 1960s and 1970s and predicted that the 2020s would see the pattern repeat itself. Having a youth bulge can be seen as one factor among many in explaining social unrest and uprisings in society.


title: Baby boomers

text: Because the baby boomers were a huge demographic cohort, when they entered the workforce they took up all the jobs they could find, including those below their skill levels. As a result, wages were depressed and many households needed two streams of income in order to pay their bills.


title: Baby boomers

text: In China, even though the Central Government made plans for increasing the people's access to education, school attendance, including at the elementary level, dropped by 25 million due to the Great Famine, and another fifteen million due to the Cultural Revolution. Yet despite all this, by the mid-1970s almost all Chinese children went to elementary school (96%), up six times from the early 1950s. Although Chinese figures for the people deemed illiterate or semi-literate appeared high—a quarter of Chinese over twelve years of age fell into these categories in 1984—the peculiarities of the Chinese language made direct comparisons with other countries difficult.


title: Baby boomers

text: Ignoring the skepticism of his comrades, Chairman Mao introduced the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956-57 encouraging intellectuals and elites from the old era to share their thoughts freely with the slogan, "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred school of thoughts contend". Mao thought that his revolution had already transformed Chinese society for good. The result was an outburst of ideas deemed unacceptable by the CCP and above all, Mao himself, which fueled his distrust of intellectuals. Mao responded with the Cultural Revolution, which saw the intelligentsia being sent to the countryside for manual labor. Post-secondary education was almost completely abolished in mainland China. There existed only 48,000 university students in China in 1970, including 4,260 in the natural sciences and 90 in the social sciences, 23,000 technical school students in 1969, and 15,000 teachers in training in 1969. Data on post-graduate students was not available, presumably because there were no such students. China had a population of around 830 million in 1970.


title: Baby boomers

text: In China, the baby boomers grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when institutions of higher learning were closed. As a consequence, when China introduced some elements of capitalist reforms in the late 1970s, most of this cohort found itself at a severe disadvantage as people were unable to take the various jobs that became vacant.


title: Baby boomers

text: Soap operas—characterized by melodramatic plots focused on interpersonal affairs and cheap production value—are a genre that was named after being sponsored by soap and detergent companies. They proved to be popular in the 1930s on radio and migrated to television in the 1950s. Again successful in the new broadcast environment, many of their viewers from the 1950s and 1960s grew old with them and introduced them to their children and grandchildren. In the United States, soap operas often dealt with the various social issues of the day, such as abortion, race relations, sexual politics, and inter-generational conflicts, and they often took positions that were, by the standards of their day, progressive. In Europe, and especially in the United Kingdom, the top soap operas typically featured working- or middle-class people, and most soap operas promoted post-war social-democratic values.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the West, those born in the years before the actual boom were often the most influential people among boomers. Some of these people were musicians such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones, as well as writers like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Betty Friedan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Herbert Marcuse and other authors of the Frankfurt School of Social Theory, who were either slightly or vastly older than the boomer generation. Parents, by contrast, saw their influence greatly diminished. This was a time of rapid change, and what the parents could teach their children was less important than what the children knew and what their parents did not. For young people, life was vastly different from what their parents experienced during the interwar and war years. Economic depression, mass unemployment, war, and chaos were a distant memory; full employment and material comfort were the norm. Such a drastic difference in outlook and experience created a rift between the generations. As for the peers, they did have a significant influence on young people, for while the "modus operandi" of youth culture at the time was to be oneself and to disregard the opinions of others, in practice, peer pressure ensured conformity and uniformity, at least within a given subculture.


title: Baby boomers

text: During the 1960s and 1970s, the music industry made a fortune selling rock records to people between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. This era was home to many youthful stars—people like Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix—who had lifestyles that all but guaranteed early deaths.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the Anglosphere, and increasingly in many other countries, middle- and upper-class youths started adopting the popular culture of the lower-classes, in stark contrast with previous generations. In the United Kingdom, for instance, young people from wealthy families changed their accents to approximate how working-class people spoke.A remarkable characteristic of youth culture from this period is its internationalism. Whereas previous generations typically preferred cultural products from their own countries, those who came of age during the 1960s and 1970s readily consumed the music of other countries, above all the United States, the cultural hegemony of the era. English-language music was normally left untranslated. Musical styles from the Caribbean, Latin America, and later, Africa also proved popular.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the United States, the Baby Boomers lived through a period of dramatic cultural cleavage between the left-leaning proponents of change and the more conservative individuals. Analysts believe this cleavage has played out politically from the time of the Vietnam War to the present day, to some extent defining the divided political landscape in the country. Leading-edge boomers are often associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, the later years of the civil rights movement, and the "second-wave" feminist cause of the 1970s. Conversely, many trended in moderate to conservative directions opposite to the counterculture, especially those making professional careers in the military (officer and enlisted), law enforcement, business, blue collar trades, and Republican Party politics.


title: Baby boomers

text: Trailing-edge boomers (also known as Generation Jones) came of age in the "malaise era" of the 1970s with events such as the Watergate scandal, the 1973–1975 recession, the 1973 oil crisis, the United States Bicentennial, and the Iran hostage crisis. Politically, early boomers in the United States tend to be Democrats, while later boomers tend to be Republicans.


title: Baby boomers

text: In China, despite the passage of the National Marriage Law in 1950, which prohibited having concubines, allowed women to file for divorce, and banned arranged marriages, arranged marriages in fact remained common, and the notion of marrying for romantic love was considered a capitalist invention to be opposed during the period of the Cultural Revolution.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the decades following the Second World War, cultural rebellion became a common feature in urbanized and industrialized societies, both East and West. In the context of the ideological competition of the Cold War, governments sought to improve the material standards of living of their own citizens but also to encourage them to seek meaning in their daily lives. However, young people felt a sense of alienation and sought to assert their own "individuality," "freedom," and "authenticity". By the early 1960s, elements of the counterculture had already entered public consciousness on both sides of the Atlantic, but were not yet viewed as a threat. But even then, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer acknowledged that the "most important problem of our epoch" was what many youths viewed as the empty materialism and superficiality of modern life. In the Soviet Union, the official youth periodical, "Komsomol'skaia pravda", called for attention to the "psychology of contemporary young people". By 1968, counterculture was considered a serious threat. In the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reported to the President that counterculture was a highly disruptive force not just in the nation but also abroad. In the CIA's view, it undermined societies East and West, from U.S. allies like West Germany, Japan, and South Korea to Communist nations like Poland, the Soviet Union, and China. It also affected Third World nations—those that chose to remain unaligned in the Cold War. In the Soviet Union, KGB director Yuri Andropov became paranoid about the internal security. Under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, the KGB amplified its efforts to suppress politically dissident voices, though the Soviet Union never quite returned to Joseph Stalin's style of governance.


title: Baby boomers

text: With hindsight, the CIA's assessments proved overly pessimistic. These youth movements had a bark that was worse than their bite. Despite sounding radical, the proponents of counterculture did not exactly demand the complete destruction of society in order to build it anew; they only wanted to work within the confines of the "status quo" to bring about the change they desired. Changes, if they came, were less well-organized than the activists themselves. Moreover, the loudest and most visible participants of counterculture often came from privileged background—with heretofore unheard-of access to higher education, material comfort, and leisure—which allowed them to feel secure enough in their activism. Counterculture was therefore not about material desires.


title: Baby boomers

text: Things got a lot more violent by the late 1960s and early 1970s, however. Many proponents of counterculture idealized violence and armed struggle against what they considered oppression, drawing inspiration from conflicts in the Third World and from the Cultural Revolution in Communist China, a creation of Mao Zedong intended to thoroughly sever the ties of society to its history, with deadly results. Some young men and women simply refused to engage in dialogue with mainstream society and instead believed that violence was a sign of their status as resistance fighters. In May 1968, French youths launched massive protest demanding social and educational reforms, while labor unions simultaneously initiated a general strike, prompting countermeasures by the government. This led to a general mayhem in a manner similar to a civil war, especially in Paris. Finally, the government acquiesced to the demands of the students and workers; Charles de Gaulle stepped down as president in 1969.


title: Baby boomers

text: In the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the 1950s was a period of strong economic growth and prosperity. But like so many other Western nations, it soon faced severe political polarization thanks to youth revolts. By the 1960s there was a general feeling of stagnation, which stimulated the creation of the primarily student-backed Extra-parliamentary Opposition (APO). One of the goals of the APO was reforms to the university system of admissions and registration. One of the most prominent APO activists was Rudi Dutschke, who declared "the long march through the institutions" in the context of recruitment for the civil service. Another major student movement of this era was the Red Army Faction (RAF), a militant Marxist group most active in the 1970s and the 1980s. Members of the RAF believed the West German economic and political systems to be inhumane and fascist; they looted stores, robbed banks, and kidnapped or assassinated West German businessmen, politicians, and judges. The RAF's reign of terror lasted until around 1993. It disbanded itself in 1998. The RAF turned out to be deadlier than its American counterpart, the Weather Underground, which declared itself "movement that fights, not just talks about fighting".


title: Baby boomers

text: Many West German youths in the late 1960s were suspicious of authority. Student demonstrators protested West Germany's rearmament, NATO membership, refusal to recognize the Democratic Republic of Germany (East Germany), and the role of the United States in the Vietnam War. On the other hand, the construction of the Berlin Wall (starting in August 1961) by East Germany boosted anti-communist sentiments in the West, where there was growing demands for high academic standards and opposition to communist indoctrination. A sort of civil war erupted in German academia. The Free University of Berlin was the heart of West German student movements. Many leading professors left because of the asphyxiating political atmosphere. However, by the mid-1970s, things calmed down. Students were more interested in academics and career preparation. Indeed, counterculture had by this time invited stern public backlash. Resistance to change heightened. Major governments around the world implemented various policies intended to ensure "law and order".


title: Baby boomers

text: Some well-known slogans among youth rebels were, "When I think of revolution I want to make love," "I take my desires for reality and I believe in the reality of my desires," and "We want everything and we want it now!" These were evidently not what would normally be recognized as political slogans; rather, they were subjective expressions of the private individual.