title: Oprah Winfrey

text: The viewership for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" was highest during the 1991–92 season, when about 13.1 million U.S. viewers were watching each day. By 2003, ratings declined to 7.4 million daily viewers. Ratings briefly rebounded to approximately 9 million in 2005 and then declined again to around 7.3 million viewers in 2008, though it remained the highest rated talk show.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In 2008, Winfrey's show was airing in 140 countries internationally and seen by an estimated 46 million people in the US weekly. According to the Harris poll, Winfrey was America's favorite television personality in 1998, 2000, 2002–06, and 2009. Winfrey was especially popular among women, Democrats, political moderates, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Southern Americans, and East Coast Americans.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: Outside the U.S., Winfrey has become increasingly popular in the Arab world. "The Wall Street Journal" reported in 2007 that MBC 4, an Arab satellite channel, centered its entire programming around reruns of her show because it was drawing record numbers of female viewers in Saudi Arabia. In 2008, "The New York Times" reported that "The Oprah Winfrey Show", with Arabic subtitles, was broadcast twice each weekday on MBC 4. Winfrey's modest dress, combined with her attitude of triumph over adversity and abuse has caused some women in Saudi Arabia to idealize her.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In 2004, Winfrey became the first black person to rank among the 50 most generous Americans and she remained among the top 50 until 2010. By 2012, she had given away about $400 million to educational causes.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: As of 2012, Winfrey had also given over 400 scholarships to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Winfrey was the recipient of the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the 2002 Emmy Awards for services to television and film. To celebrate two decades on national TV, and to thank her employees for their hard work, Winfrey took her staff and their families (1,065 people in total) on vacation to Hawaii in the summer of 2006.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In 2013, Winfrey donated $12 million to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom later that same year.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In 1998, Winfrey created the Oprah's Angel Network, a charity that supported charitable projects and provided grants to nonprofit organizations around the world. Oprah's Angel Network raised more than $80 million ($1 million of which was donated by Jon Bon Jovi). Winfrey personally covered all administrative costs associated with the charity, so 100% of all funds raised went to charity programs. In May 2010, with Oprah's show ending, the charity stopped accepting donations and was shut down.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Oprah created the Oprah Angel Network Katrina registry which raised more than $11 million for relief efforts. Winfrey personally gave $10 million to the cause. Homes were built in Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama before the one-year anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.


title: Oprah Winfrey

text: In 2004, Winfrey and her team filmed an episode of her show, "Oprah's Christmas Kindness", in which Winfrey travelled to South Africa to bring attention to the plight of young children affected by poverty and AIDS. During the 21-day trip, Winfrey and her crew visited schools and orphanages in poverty-stricken areas, and distributed Christmas presents to 50,000 children, with dolls for the girls and soccer balls for the boys, and school supplies. Throughout the show, Winfrey appealed to viewers to donate money to Oprah's Angel Network for poor and AIDS-affected children in Africa. From that show alone, viewers around the world donated over $7 million. Winfrey invested $40 million and some of her time establishing the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley on Klip south of Johannesburg, South Africa. The school set over 22 acres, opened in January 2007 with an enrollment of 150 pupils (increasing to 450) and features state-of-the-art classrooms, computer and science laboratories, a library, a theatre, and a beauty salon. Nelson Mandela praised Winfrey for overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for others. Critics considered the school elitist and unnecessarily luxurious. Winfrey rejected the claims, saying: "If you are surrounded by beautiful things and wonderful teachers who inspire you, that beauty brings out the beauty in you." Winfrey, who has no surviving biological children, described maternal feelings towards the girls at Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. Winfrey teaches a class at the school via satellite.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called "dots" and "dashes", or "dits" and "dahs". Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the inventors of the telegraph.


title: Morse code

text: International Morse code encodes the 26 basic Latin letters ' through ', one accented Latin letter (), the Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals (prosigns). There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters. Each Morse code symbol is formed by a sequence of "dits" and "dahs". The "dit" duration is the basic unit of time measurement in Morse code transmission. The duration of a "dah" is three times the duration of a "dit". Each "dit" or "dah" within an encoded character is followed by a period of signal absence, called a "space", equal to the "dit" duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space of duration equal to three "dits", and words are separated by a space equal to seven "dits". Until 1949, words were separated by a space equal to five "dits".


title: Morse code

text: Morse code can be memorized and sent in a form perceptible to the human senses, e.g. via sound waves or visible light, such that it can be directly interpreted by persons trained in the skill. Morse code is usually transmitted by on-off keying of an information-carrying medium such as electric current, radio waves, visible light, or sound waves. The current or wave is present during the time period of the "dit" or "dah" and absent during the time between "dits" and "dahs".


title: Morse code

text: Since many natural languages use more than the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, Morse alphabets have been developed for those languages, largely by transliteration of existing codes.


title: Morse code

text: To increase the efficiency of encoding, Morse code was designed so that the length of each symbol is approximately inverse to the frequency of occurrence of the character that it represents in text of the English language. Thus the most common letter in English, the letter , has the shortest code: a single "dit". Because the Morse code elements are specified by proportion rather than specific time durations, the code is usually transmitted at the highest rate that the receiver is capable of decoding. Morse code transmission rate ("speed") is specified in "groups per minute", commonly referred to as "words per minute".


title: Morse code

text: Early in the nineteenth century, European experimenters made progress with electrical signaling systems, using a variety of techniques including static electricity and electricity from Voltaic piles producing electrochemical and electromagnetic changes. These experimental designs were precursors to practical telegraphic applications.


title: Morse code

text: Following the discovery of electromagnetism by Hans Christian Ørsted in 1820 and the invention of the electromagnet by William Sturgeon in 1824, there were developments in electromagnetic telegraphy in Europe and America. Pulses of electric current were sent along wires to control an electromagnet in the receiving instrument. Many of the earliest telegraph systems used a single-needle system which gave a very simple and robust instrument. However, it was slow, as the receiving operator had to alternate between looking at the needle and writing down the message. In Morse code, a deflection of the needle to the left corresponded to a "dit" and a deflection to the right to a "dah". By making the two clicks sound different with one ivory and one metal stop, the single needle device became an audible instrument, which led in turn to the "Double Plate Sounder" System.


title: Morse code

text: William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in Britain developed an electrical telegraph that used electromagnets in its receivers. They obtained an English patent in June 1837 and demonstrated it on the London and Birmingham Railway, making it the first commercial telegraph. Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1833) as well as Carl August von Steinheil (1837) used codes with varying word lengths for their telegraph systems. In 1841, Cooke and Wheatstone built a telegraph that printed the letters from a wheel of typefaces struck by a hammer.


title: Morse code

text: The American artist Samuel Morse, the American physicist Joseph Henry, and mechanical engineer Alfred Vail developed an electrical telegraph system. It needed a method to transmit natural language using only electrical pulses and the silence between them. Around 1837, Morse therefore developed an early forerunner to the modern International Morse code.


title: Morse code

text: The Morse system for telegraphy, which was first used in about 1844, was designed to make indentations on a paper tape when electric currents were received. Morse's original telegraph receiver used a mechanical clockwork to move a paper tape. When an electrical current was received, an electromagnet engaged an armature that pushed a stylus onto the moving paper tape, making an indentation on the tape. When the current was interrupted, a spring retracted the stylus and that portion of the moving tape remained unmarked. Morse code was developed so that operators could translate the indentations marked on the paper tape into text messages.


title: Morse code

text: In his earliest design for a code, Morse had planned to transmit only numerals, and to use a codebook to look up each word according to the number which had been sent. However, the code was soon expanded by Alfred Vail in 1840 to include letters and special characters, so it could be used more generally. Vail estimated the frequency of use of letters in the English language by counting the movable type he found in the type-cases of a local newspaper in Morristown, New Jersey. The shorter marks were called "dots" and the longer ones "dashes", and the letters most commonly used were assigned the shortest sequences of dots and dashes. This code, first used in 1844, became known as "Morse landline code", "American Morse code", or "Railroad Morse", until the end of railroad telegraphy in the U.S. in the 1970s.


title: Morse code

text: In the original Morse telegraph system, the receiver's armature made a clicking noise as it moved in and out of position to mark the paper tape. The telegraph operators soon learned that they could translate the clicks directly into dots and dashes, and write these down by hand, thus making the paper tape unnecessary. When Morse code was adapted to radio communication, the dots and dashes were sent as short and long tone pulses. It was later found that people become more proficient at receiving Morse code when it is taught as a language that is heard, instead of one read from a page.


title: Morse code

text: With the advent of tones produced by radiotelegraph receivers, the operators began to vocalize a dot as "dit", and a dash as "dah", to reflect the sounds of Morse code they heard. To conform to normal sending speed, "dits" which are not the last element of a code became voiced as "di". For example, the letter is voiced as Morse code was sometimes facetiously known as "iddy-umpty", a "dit" lampooned as "iddy" and a "dah" as "umpty", leading to the word "umpteen".


title: Morse code

text: The Morse code, as specified in the current international standard, "International Morse Code Recommendation", ITU-R M.1677-1, was derived from a much-improved proposal by Friedrich Gerke in 1848 that became known as the "Hamburg alphabet".


title: Morse code

text: Gerke changed many of the codepoints, in the process doing away with the different length dashes and different inter-element spaces of American Morse, leaving only two coding elements, the dot and the dash. Codes for German umlauted vowels and were introduced. Gerke's code was adopted in Germany and Austria 1851.


title: Morse code

text: This finally led to the International Morse code in 1865. The International Morse code adopted most of Gerke's codepoints. The codes for ' and ' were taken from a code system developed by Steinheil. A new codepoint was added for ' since Gerke did not distinguish between ' and '. Changes were also made to ', ', and '. This left only four codepoints identical to the original Morse code, namely ', ', ' and ', and the latter two had their "dahs" extended to full length. The original American code being compared dates to 1838; the later American code shown in the table was developed in 1844.


title: Morse code

text: In the 1890s, Morse code began to be used extensively for early radio communication before it was possible to transmit voice. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most high-speed international communication used Morse code on telegraph lines, undersea cables, and radio circuits.


title: Morse code

text: Although previous transmitters were bulky and the spark gap system of transmission was dangerous and difficult to use, there had been some early attempts: In 1910, the U.S. Navy experimented with sending Morse from an airplane. However the first regular aviation radiotelegraphy was on airships, which had space to accommodate the large, heavy radio equipment then in use. The same year, 1910, a radio on the airship "America" was instrumental in coordinating the rescue of its crew.


title: Morse code

text: During World War I, Zeppelin airships equipped with radio were used for bombing and naval scouting, and ground-based radio direction finders were used for airship navigation. Allied airships and military aircraft also made some use of radiotelegraphy.


title: Morse code

text: However, there was little aeronautical radio in general use during World War I, and in the 1920s, there was no radio system used by such important flights as that of Charles Lindbergh from New York to Paris in 1927. Once he and the "Spirit of St. Louis" were off the ground, Lindbergh was truly incommunicado and alone. Morse code in aviation began regular use in the mid-1920s. By 1928, when the first airplane flight was made by the "Southern Cross" from California to Australia, one of its four crewmen was a radio operator who communicated with ground stations via radio telegraph.


title: Morse code

text: Beginning in the 1930s, both civilian and military pilots were required to be able to use Morse code, both for use with early communications systems and for identification of navigational beacons that transmitted continuous two- or three-letter identifiers in Morse code. Aeronautical charts show the identifier of each navigational aid next to its location on the map.


title: Morse code

text: In addition, rapidly moving field armies could not have fought effectively without radiotelegraphy; they moved more quickly than their communications services could put up new telegraph and telephone lines. This was seen especially in the blitzkrieg offensives of the Nazi German Wehrmacht in Poland, Belgium, France (in 1940), the Soviet Union, and in North Africa; by the British Army in North Africa, Italy, and the Netherlands; and by the U.S. Army in France and Belgium (in 1944), and in southern Germany in 1945.


title: Morse code

text: Radiotelegraphy using Morse code was vital during World War II, especially in carrying messages between the warships and the naval bases of the belligerents. Long-range ship-to-ship communication was by radio telegraphy, using encrypted messages because the voice radio systems on ships then were quite limited in both their range and their security. Radiotelegraphy was also extensively used by warplanes, especially by long-range patrol planes that were sent out by those navies to scout for enemy warships, cargo ships, and troop ships.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code was used as an international standard for maritime distress until 1999 when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. When the French Navy ceased using Morse code on January 31, 1997, the final message transmitted was "Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence."


title: Morse code

text: In the United States the final commercial Morse code transmission was on July 12, 1999, signing off with Samuel Morse's original 1844 message, , and the prosign ("end of contact").


title: Morse code

text: The United States Coast Guard has ceased all use of Morse code on the radio, and no longer monitors any radio frequencies for Morse code transmissions, including the international medium frequency (MF) distress frequency of However, the Federal Communications Commission still grants commercial radiotelegraph operator licenses to applicants who pass its code and written tests. Licensees have reactivated the old California coastal Morse station KPH and regularly transmit from the site under either this call sign or as KSM. Similarly, a few U.S. museum ship stations are operated by Morse enthusiasts.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code speed is measured in words per minute () or characters per minute (). Characters have differing lengths because they contain differing numbers of "dits" and "dahs". Consequently, words also have different lengths in terms of dot duration, even when they contain the same number of characters. For this reason, a standard word is helpful to measure operator transmission speed. ' and ' are two such standard words. Operators skilled in Morse code can often understand ("copy") code in their heads at rates in excess of 40 .


title: Morse code

text: In addition to knowing, understanding, and being able to copy the standard written alpha-numeric and punctuation characters or symbols at high speeds, skilled high speed operators must also be fully knowledgeable of all of the special unwritten Morse code symbols for the standard Prosigns for Morse code and the meanings of these special procedural signals in standard Morse code communications protocol.


title: Morse code

text: International contests in code copying are still occasionally held. In July 1939 at a contest in Asheville, North Carolina in the United States Ted R. McElroy W1JYN set a still-standing record for Morse copying, 75.2 . Pierpont (2004) also notes that some operators may have passed 100 . By this time, they are "hearing" phrases and sentences rather than words. The fastest speed ever sent by a straight key was achieved in 1942 by Harry Turner W9YZE (d. 1992) who reached 35  in a demonstration at a U.S. Army base. To accurately compare code copying speed records of different eras it is useful to keep in mind that different standard words (50 dit durations versus 60 dit durations) and different interword gaps (5 dit durations versus 7 dit durations) may have been used when determining such speed records. For example, speeds run with the ' standard word and the ' standard may differ by up to 20%.


title: Morse code

text: Today among amateur operators there are several organizations that recognize high-speed code ability, one group consisting of those who can copy Morse at 60 . Also, Certificates of Code Proficiency are issued by several amateur radio societies, including the American Radio Relay League. Their basic award starts at 10  with endorsements as high as 40 , and are available to anyone who can copy the transmitted text. Members of the Boy Scouts of America may put a Morse interpreter's strip on their uniforms if they meet the standards for translating code at 5 .


title: Morse code

text: Through May 2013, the First, Second, and Third Class (commercial) Radiotelegraph Licenses using code tests based upon the standard word were still being issued in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission. The First Class license required 20  code group and 25  text code proficiency, the others 16  code group test (five letter blocks sent as simulation of receiving encrypted text) and 20  code text (plain language) test. It was also necessary to pass written tests on operating practice and electronics theory. A unique additional demand for the First Class was a requirement of a year of experience for operators of shipboard and coast stations using Morse. This allowed the holder to be chief operator on board a passenger ship. However, since 1999 the use of satellite and very high-frequency maritime communications systems (GMDSS) has made them obsolete. (By that point meeting experience requirement for the First was very difficult.)


title: Morse code

text: Currently, only one class of license, the Radiotelegraph Operator License, is issued. This is granted either when the tests are passed or as the Second and First are renewed and become this lifetime license. For new applicants, it requires passing a written examination on electronic theory and radiotelegraphy practices, as well as 16  code-group and 20  text tests. However, the code exams are currently waived for holders of Amateur Extra Class licenses who obtained their operating privileges under the old 20  test requirement.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code has been in use for more than 160 years — longer than any other electrical coding system. What is called Morse code today is actually somewhat different from what was originally developed by Vail and Morse. The Modern International Morse code, or "continental code", was created by Friedrich Clemens Gerke in 1848 and initially used for telegraphy between Hamburg and Cuxhaven in Germany. Gerke changed nearly half of the alphabet and all of the numerals, providing the foundation for the modern form of the code. After some minor changes, International Morse Code was standardized at the International Telegraphy Congress in 1865 in Paris and was later made the standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Morse's original code specification, largely limited to use in the United States and Canada, became known as American Morse code or "railroad code". American Morse code is now seldom used except in historical re-enactments.


title: Morse code

text: In aviation, pilots use radio navigation aids. To ensure that the stations the pilots are using are serviceable, the stations transmit a set of identification letters (usually a two-to-five-letter version of the station name) in Morse code. Station identification letters are shown on air navigation charts. For example, the VOR-DME based at Vilo Acuña Airport in Cayo Largo del Sur, Cuba is coded as "UCL", and UCL in Morse code is transmitted on its radio frequency. In some countries, during periods of maintenance, the facility may radiate a T-E-S-T code () or the code may be removed which tells pilots and navigators that the station is unreliable. In Canada, the identification is removed entirely to signify the navigation aid is not to be used. In the aviation service, Morse is typically sent at a very slow speed of about 5 words per minute. In the U.S., pilots do not actually have to know Morse to identify the transmitter because the dot/dash sequence is written out next to the transmitter's symbol on aeronautical charts. Some modern navigation receivers automatically translate the code into displayed letters.


title: Morse code

text: International Morse code today is most popular among amateur radio operators, in the mode commonly referred to as "continuous wave" or "CW". (This name was chosen to distinguish it from the damped wave emissions from spark transmitters, not because the transmission is continuous.) Other keying methods are available in radio telegraphy, such as frequency-shift keying.


title: Morse code

text: The original amateur radio operators used Morse code exclusively since voice-capable radio transmitters did not become commonly available until around 1920. Until 2003, the International Telecommunication Union mandated Morse code proficiency as part of the amateur radio licensing procedure worldwide. However, the World Radiocommunication Conference of 2003 made the Morse code requirement for amateur radio licensing optional. Many countries subsequently removed the Morse requirement from their licence requirements.


title: Morse code

text: Until 1991, a demonstration of the ability to send and receive Morse code at a minimum of five words per minute () was required to receive an amateur radio license for use in the United States from the Federal Communications Commission. Demonstration of this ability was still required for the privilege to use the HF bands. Until 2000, proficiency at the 20  level was required to receive the highest level of amateur license (Amateur Extra Class); effective April 15, 2000, the FCC reduced the Extra Class requirement to 5 . Finally, effective on February 23, 2007, the FCC eliminated the Morse code proficiency requirements from all amateur radio licenses.


title: Morse code

text: While voice and data transmissions are limited to specific amateur radio bands under U.S. rules, Morse code is permitted on all amateur bands — LF, MF, HF, VHF, and UHF. In some countries, certain portions of the amateur radio bands are reserved for transmission of Morse code signals only.


title: Morse code

text: Because Morse code transmissions employ an on-off keyed radio signal, it requires less complex transmission equipment than other forms of radio communication. Morse code also requires less signal bandwidth than voice communication, typically 100–150 Hz, compared to the roughly 2,400 Hz used by single-sideband voice, although at a slower data rate.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code is usually received as a high-pitched audio tone, so transmissions are easier to copy than voice through the noise on congested frequencies, and it can be used in very high noise / low signal environments. The fact that the transmitted power is concentrated into a very limited bandwidth makes it possible to use narrow receiver filters, which suppress or eliminate interference on nearby frequencies. The narrow signal bandwidth also takes advantage of the natural aural selectivity of the human brain, further enhancing weak signal readability. This efficiency makes CW extremely useful for DX (distance) transmissions, as well as for low-power transmissions (commonly called "QRP operation", from the Q-code for "reduce power"). There are several amateur clubs that require solid high speed copy, the highest of these has a standard of 60 . The American Radio Relay League offers a code proficiency certification program that starts at 10 .


title: Morse code

text: The relatively limited speed at which Morse code can be sent led to the development of an extensive number of abbreviations to speed communication. These include prosigns, Q codes, and a set of Morse code abbreviations for typical message components. For example, ' is broadcast to be interpreted as "seek you" (I'd like to converse with anyone who can hear my signal). ' (old man), ' (young lady) and ' ("ex-young lady" – wife) are common abbreviations. ' or ' is used by an operator when referring to the other operator, ' or ' is used by an operator when referring to his or her spouse. is "transmitting location" (spoken "my Q.T.H." is "my location"). The use of abbreviations for common terms permits conversation even when the operators speak different languages.


title: Morse code

text: Although the traditional telegraph key (straight key) is still used by some amateurs, the use of mechanical semi-automatic keyers (known as "bugs") and of fully automatic electronic keyers is prevalent today. Software is also frequently employed to produce and decode Morse code radio signals. The ARRL has a readability standard for robot encoders called "ARRL Farnsworth spacing" that is supposed to have higher readability for both robot and human decoders. Some programs like WinMorse have implemented the standard.


title: Morse code

text: Radio navigation aids such as VORs and NDBs for aeronautical use broadcast identifying information in the form of Morse Code, though many VOR stations now also provide voice identification. Warships, including those of the U.S. Navy, have long used signal lamps to exchange messages in Morse code. Modern use continues, in part, as a way to communicate while maintaining radio silence.


title: Morse code

text: Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS) uses Morse code to identify uplink sources of analog satellite transmissions.


title: Morse code

text: Many amateur radio repeaters identify with Morse, even though they are used for voice communications.


title: Morse code

text: An important application is signalling for help through SOS, "". This can be sent many ways: keying a radio on and off, flashing a mirror, toggling a flashlight, and similar methods. The SOS signal is not sent as three separate characters; rather, it is a prosign , and is keyed without gaps between characters.


title: Morse code

text: Some Nokia mobile phones offer an option to alert the user of an incoming text message with the Morse tone "" (representing SMS or Short Message Service). In addition, applications are now available for mobile phones that enable short messages to be input in Morse Code.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code has been employed as an assistive technology, helping people with a variety of disabilities to communicate. For example, the Android operating system versions 5.0 and higher allow users to input text using Morse Code as an alternative to a keypad or handwriting recognition.


title: Morse code

text: Morse can be sent by persons with severe motion disabilities, as long as they have some minimal motor control. An original solution to the problem that caretakers have to learn to decode has been an electronic typewriter with the codes written on the keys. Codes were sung by users; see the voice typewriter employing Morse or votem.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code can also be translated by computer and used in a speaking communication aid. In some cases, this means alternately blowing into and sucking on a plastic tube ("sip-and-puff" interface). An important advantage of Morse code over row column scanning is that once learned, it does not require looking at a display. Also, it appears faster than scanning.


title: Morse code

text: In one case reported in the radio amateur magazine "QST", an old shipboard radio operator who had a stroke and lost the ability to speak or write could communicate with his physician (a radio amateur) by blinking his eyes in Morse. Two examples of communication in intensive care units were also published in "QST magazine". Another example occurred in 1966 when prisoner of war Jeremiah Denton, brought on television by his North Vietnamese captors, Morse-blinked the word . In these two cases, interpreters were available to understand those series of eye-blinks.


title: Morse code

text: Morse code can be transmitted in a number of ways: originally as electrical pulses along a telegraph wire, but also as an audio tone, a radio signal with short and long tones, or as a mechanical, audible, or visual signal (e.g. a flashing light) using devices like an Aldis lamp or a heliograph, a common flashlight, or even a car horn. Some mine rescues have used pulling on a rope - a short pull for a dot and a long pull for a "dah".


title: Morse code

text: Morse code is transmitted using just two states (on and off). Historians have called it the first digital code. Morse code may be represented as a binary code, and that is what telegraph operators do when transmitting messages. Working from the above ITU definition and further defining a bit as a dot time, a Morse code sequence may be made from a combination of the following five bit-strings:


title: Morse code

text: Note that the marks and gaps alternate: "Dits" and "dahs" are always separated by one of the gaps, and that the gaps are always separated by a "dit" or a "dah".


title: Morse code

text: Morse messages are generally transmitted by a hand-operated device such as a telegraph key, so there are variations introduced by the skill of the sender and receiver — more experienced operators can send and receive at faster speeds. In addition, individual operators differ slightly, for example, using slightly longer or shorter "dahs" or gaps, perhaps only for particular characters. This is called their "fist", and experienced operators can recognize specific individuals by it alone. A good operator who sends clearly and is easy to copy is said to have a "good fist". A "poor fist" is a characteristic of sloppy or hard to copy Morse code.


title: Morse code

text: The very long time constants of 19th and early 20th century submarine communications cables required a different form of Morse signalling. Instead of keying a voltage on and off for varying times, the dits and dahs were represented by two polarities of voltage impressed on the cable, for a uniform time.


title: Morse code

text: Below is an illustration of timing conventions. The phrase , in Morse code format, would normally be written something like this, where represents "dahs" and represents "dits":


title: Morse code

text: Next is the exact conventional timing for this phrase, with representing "signal on", and representing "signal off", each for the time length of exactly one dit:


title: Morse code

text: Morse code is often spoken or written with "dah" for dashes, "dit" for dots located at the end of a character, and "di" for dots located at the beginning or internally within the character. Thus, the following Morse code sequence:


title: Morse code

text: There is little point in learning to read Morse as above; rather, the of all of the letters and symbols need to be learned, for both sending and receiving.


title: Morse code

text: All Morse code elements depend on the dot length. A "dah" is the length of 3 dits (with no gaps between), and spacings are specified in number of "dit" lengths. An unambiguous method of specifying the transmission speed is to specify the "dit" duration as, for example, 50 milliseconds.


title: Morse code

text: Specifying the "dit" duration is, however, not the common practice. Usually, speeds are stated in words per minute. That introduces ambiguity because words have different numbers of characters, and characters have different "dit" lengths. It is not immediately clear how a specific word rate determines the "dit" duration in milliseconds.


title: Morse code

text: Some method to standardize the transformation of a word rate to a "dit" duration is useful. A simple way to do this is to choose a "dit" duration that would send a typical word the desired number of times in one minute. If, for example, the operator wanted a character speed of 13 words per minute, the operator would choose a "dit" rate that would send the typical word 13 times in exactly one minute.


title: Morse code

text: The typical word thus determines the dot length. It is common to assume that a word is 5 characters long. There are two common typical words: ' and '. ' mimics a word rate that is typical of natural language words and reflects the benefits of Morse code's shorter code durations for common characters such as ' and '. ' offers a word rate that is typical of 5 letter code groups (sequences of random letters). Using the word ' as a standard, the number of "dit" units is 50 and a simple calculation shows that the "dit" length at 20 words per minute is 60 milliseconds. Using the word ' with 60 dit units, the dit length at 20 words per minute is 50 milliseconds.


title: Morse code

text: Because Morse code is usually sent by hand, it is unlikely that an operator could be that precise with the dot length, and the individual characteristics and preferences of the operators usually override the standards.


title: Morse code

text: For commercial radiotelegraph licenses in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission specifies tests for Morse code proficiency in words per minute and in code groups per minute. The FCC specifies that a word is 5 characters long. The Commission specifies Morse code test elements at 16 code groups per minute, 20 words per minute, 20 code groups per minute, and 25 words per minute. The word per minute rate would be close to the ' standard, and the code groups per minute would be close to the ' standard.


title: Morse code

text: While the Federal Communications Commission no longer requires Morse code for amateur radio licenses, the old requirements were similar to the requirements for commercial radiotelegraph licenses.


title: Morse code

text: A difference between amateur radio licenses and commercial radiotelegraph licenses is that commercial operators must be able to receive code groups of random characters along with plain language text. For each class of license, the code group speed requirement is slower than the plain language text requirement. For example, for the Radiotelegraph Operator License, the examinee must pass a 20 word per minute plain text test and a 16 word per minute code group test.


title: Morse code

text: Based upon a 50 dot duration standard word such as , the time for one "dit" duration or one unit can be computed by the formula:


title: Morse code

text: High-speed telegraphy contests are held; according to the "Guinness Book of Records" in June 2005 at the International Amateur Radio Union's 6th World Championship in High Speed Telegraphy in Primorsko, Bulgaria, Andrei Bindasov of Belarus transmitted 230 Morse code marks of mixed text in one minute.


title: Morse code

text: Sometimes, especially while teaching Morse code, the timing rules above are changed so two different speeds are used: A character speed and a text speed. The character speed is how fast each individual letter is sent. The text speed is how fast the entire message is sent. For example, individual characters may be sent at a 13 words-per-minute rate, but the intercharacter and interword gaps may be lengthened so the word rate is only 5 words per minute.


title: Morse code

text: Using different character and text speeds is, in fact, a common practice, and is used in the Farnsworth method of learning Morse code.


title: Morse code

text: People learning Morse code using the "Farnsworth method" are taught to send and receive letters and other symbols at their full target speed, that is with normal relative timing of the "dits", "dahs", and spaces within each symbol for that speed. The Farnsworth method is named for Donald R. "Russ" Farnsworth, also known by his call sign, W6TTB. However, initially exaggerated spaces between symbols and words are used, to give "thinking time" to make the sound "shape" of the letters and symbols easier to learn. The spacing can then be reduced with practice and familiarity.


title: Morse code

text: Another popular teaching method is the Koch method, invented in 1935 by the German engineer and former stormtrooper Ludwig Koch, which uses the full target speed from the outset but begins with just two characters. Once strings containing those two characters can be copied with 90% accuracy, an additional character is added, and so on until the full character set is mastered.


title: Morse code

text: In North America, many thousands of individuals have increased their code recognition speed (after initial memorization of the characters) by listening to the regularly scheduled code practice transmissions broadcast by W1AW, the American Radio Relay League's headquarters station., the United States military taught Morse code as an 81-day self-paced course, having phased out more traditional classes.


title: Morse code

text: Visual mnemonic charts have been devised over the ages. Baden-Powell included one in the Girl Guides handbook in 1918.


title: Morse code

text: In the United Kingdom, many people learned the Morse code by means of a series of words or phrases that have the same rhythm as a Morse character. For instance, ' in Morse is which can be memorized by the phrase "God Save the Queen", and the Morse for ' is which can be memorized as "Did she like it?"


title: Morse code

text: Prosigns for Morse code are special (usually) unwritten procedural signals or symbols that are used to indicate changes in communications protocol status or white space text formatting actions.


title: Morse code

text: The symbols [!], [$], and [&] are not defined inside the official ITU-R "International Morse Code Recommendation", but informal conventions for them exist. (The [@] symbol was formally added in 2004.)


title: Morse code

text: The typical tactic for creating Morse codes for non-Latin alphabetic scripts has been to begin by simply using the International Morse codes used for letters whose sound matches the sound of the local alphabet. Because Gerke's code was in official use in central Europe, and included many non-Latin characters, none of which conflict with the International Morse standard, it has served as a beginning-point for other languages that use an alphabetic script, but require codes for letters not accommodated by International Morse.


title: Morse code

text: The usual method has been to first transliterate the sounds represented by the International, and second the Gerke code into the local alphabet, hence Greek, Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian Morse codes. If more codes are needed, one can either invent a new code or convert an otherwise unused code from either code set to the non-Latin letter. For example:


title: Morse code

text: For Russian and Bulgarian, Russian Morse code is used to map the Cyrillic characters to four-element codes. Many of the characters are encoded the same way (A, O, E, I, T, M, N, R, K, etc.). The Bulgarian alphabet contains 30 characters, which exactly match all possible combinations of 1, 2, 3, and 4 "dits" and "dahs" (Russian ' is used as Bulgarian ', Russian ' is used as Bulgarian '). Russian requires two more codes, for letters Э and Ъ which are each encoded with 5 elements.


title: Morse code

text: Non-alphabetic scripts require more radical adaption. Japanese Morse code (Wabun code) has a separate encoding for kana script; although many of the codes are used for International Morse, their sounds are mostly unrelated. The Japanese / Wabun code includes special prosigns for switching back-and-forth from International Morse: signals a switch from International Morse to Wabun, and to return from Wabun to International Morse.


title: Morse code

text: For Chinese, Chinese telegraph code is used to map Chinese characters to four-digit codes and send these digits out using standard Morse code. Korean Morse code uses the SKATS mapping, originally developed to allow Korean to be typed on western typewriters. SKATS maps hangul characters to arbitrary letters of the Latin script and has no relationship to pronunciation in Korean.


title: Morse code

text: During early World War I (1914–1916), Germany briefly experimented with 'dotty' and 'dashy' Morse, in essence adding a dot or a dash at the end of each Morse symbol. Each one was quickly broken by Allied SIGINT, and standard Morse was restored by Spring 1916. Only a small percentage of Western Front (North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea) traffic was in 'dotty' or 'dashy' Morse during the entire war. In popular culture, this is mostly remembered in the book "The Codebreakers" by Kahn and in the national archives of the UK and Australia (whose SIGINT operators copied most of this Morse variant). Kahn's cited sources come from the popular press and wireless magazines of the time.


title: Morse code

text: Decoding software for Morse code ranges from software-defined wide-band radio receivers, coupled to the Reverse Beacon Network, which decodes signals and detects messages on ham bands, to smartphone applications.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Shailene Diann Woodley (born November 15, 1991) is an American actress. Born in San Bernardino, California, Woodley was raised in Simi Valley, and started modeling at the age of four and began acting professionally in minor television roles. She first gained prominence for her starring role as Amy Juergens in the ABC Family teen drama series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" (2008–2013). She subsequently starred in the films "The Descendants" (2011) and "The Spectacular Now" (2013), receiving a nomination for her first Golden Globe Award for the former.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley achieved wider recognition for her starring role as a teenaged cancer patient in the romantic drama "The Fault in Our Stars" (2014) and as Beatrice Prior in the science-fiction trilogy "The Divergent Series" (2014–2016). She played a sexual assault survivor in the HBO drama series "Big Little Lies" (2017–2019), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. She has since played supporting roles in the films "Snowden" (2016), "The Mauritanian" (2021) and "The Fallout" (2021), and starred in "Adrift" (2018) and "The Last Letter from Your Lover" (2021).


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley is also an environmental activist and serves as a board member of the political action committee, Our Revolution.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley was raised in Simi Valley, California. Both her parents are psychologists. Her mother, Lori ("née" Victor), is a middle school counselor, and her father, Lonnie Woodley, a former school principal, is a family therapist. She has a younger brother, Tanner.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: At the age of five, Woodley began working in commercials, appearing in more than forty TV spots, including advertisements for Leapfrog, Hertz and a Honda minivan. She told "Hollywood Reporter" that her parents only agreed to allow her to work professionally if she promised to adhere to three rules: "I had to stay the person they knew I was; have fun; and do good in school". Woodley was a 4.0 student, who took AP classes and graduated at Simi Valley High School. She also took acting classes from Anthony Meindl.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: At fifteen, she was diagnosed with scoliosis and was put in a chest-to-hips plastic brace for two years. Woodley told "Us Weekly" that "It's like wearing a tacky, disgusting, plastic corset for 18 hours a day. In the beginning, it was hard to eat or breathe. And I had to give up cross-country running. But I needed to have it to realign my spine".


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley began her acting career in 1999 with a minor role in the television film "Replacing Dad". She went on to feature in minor television roles in "The District" and "Crossing Jordan" (in the latter, she portrayed the 10-year-old version of Jill Hennessy's title character). She followed with a leading role in the television film "A Place Called Home" (2004) as California Ford, which earned her a nomination for a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actress in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special. She also originally played the young Kaitlin Cooper in "The O.C." She appeared as the titular character Felicity Merriman in the television film "" (2005). Her performance received another Young Artist Award nomination, this time for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries, or Special (Comedy or Drama). Following this, Woodley appeared in numerous guest roles in other television series, including "Everybody Loves Raymond," "My Name is Earl," "," "Close to Home," and "Cold Case."


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley was then cast as the main character, Amy Juergens, in the ABC Family series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" (2008–2013), about a 15-year-old girl who learns she is pregnant. The show explores the effects of her pregnancy on her family, friends, and herself, as well as life at Grant High School. Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" praised her performance, stating, "[It] lifts a well-meaning, rather brave, but ramshackle show a notch." Popular among viewers, the show became one of ABC Family's most-watched telecasts throughout its five-season run, spanning over 121 episodes.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2011, Woodley made her feature film debut in Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," where she played Alex, the troubled elder daughter of Matt King (played by George Clooney). Her performance received positive reviews from critics. A. O. Scott from "The New York Times" said, "Ms. Woodley [gives] one of the toughest, smartest, most credible adolescent performances in recent memory." Peter Debruge from "Variety" said that her performance is a "revelation" and that "in the role of Alex, [she is] displaying both the edge and depth the role demands." Following accolades for her performance, Woodley received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, and won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Consequently, she was awarded the Trophée Chopard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival Virtuosos Award.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: "People" named her one of 2012's "Most Beautiful at Every Age." Woodley was also considered one of the 55 faces of the future by "Nylon" "Young Hollywood Issue". She also received the Emerging Star Spotlight Award at "Elle"'s 20th Annual "Women In Hollywood".


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley starred in the film adaptation of Tim Tharp's novel, "The Spectacular Now," as Aimee Finecky, an innocent, bookish teenager who begins dating the charming, freewheeling high-school senior (Miles Teller). The film premiered at Sundance on January 18, 2013. Her portrayal of Aimee garnered much praise; "Los Angeles Times"' critic Betsy Sharkey said that Woodley and Teller "bring such an authentic face of confidence and questioning, indifference and need, pain and denial, friendship and first love," while another critic from "The Guardian" said that they gave "remarkably strong performances" that "display a depth of feeling that's breathtaking in its simplicity and honest[y]." Additionally, Woodley won the Special Jury Award for Acting, alongside Teller, at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In October 2012, Woodley was offered the role of Mary Jane Watson in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." On June 19, 2013, she was cut from the film. Director Marc Webb told "The Hollywood Reporter" that the cut was "a creative decision to streamline the story and focus on Peter and Gwen and their relationship," and that everyone loved working with Woodley.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: She had also signed on to star in "White Bird in a Blizzard," directed by Gregg Araki. Although filming took place in October 2012, the film was not released until January 20, 2014, at the Sundance Film Festival and then on October 24, 2014, to wider audiences, where it received mixed reviews. In the film, she plays teenager Katrina "Kat" Connors, whose life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears. Critic Moira MacDonald commended her by saying, "Woodley's depiction of Kat is low-key, natural, and utterly unaffected; as she has in every role, she makes the character her own, with her scratchy little voice and level gaze."


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2014, Woodley starred as Beatrice "Tris" Prior in the film "Divergent," an adaptation of Veronica Roth's best-selling young-adult novel of the same name, and the first installment in "The Divergent Series." Set in a dystopian and postapocalyptic Chicago, the film received mixed reviews, but Woodley's performance as Tris received a positive reception; Sam Allard from "Orlando Weekly" said, "with her performance as Tris Prior in "Divergent," Woodley rescues and then raises up a film that could have been an utter disaster." "Divergent" reached the number-one spot at the box office during its opening weekend, and was a financial success.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Also in 2014, Woodley starred as Hazel Grace Lancaster in "The Fault in Our Stars," the film adaptation of John Green's novel of the same name. She portrayed a 16-year-old cancer patient who meets and falls in love with Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort, who also played her brother in the "Divergent" series), a similarly afflicted teen from her cancer support group. Green said via Twitter about Woodley; "There were so many amazing auditions for the role of Hazel, but Shailene's love for the book and her understanding of Hazel blew me away." The film was a blockbuster success, grossing over $307 million worldwide. Woodley's performance received critical acclaim; Peter Travers in "Rolling Stone" called her a "sublime actress with a résumé that pretty much proves she's incapable of making a false move on camera", and Richard Roeper of "Chicago Sun-Times" called her performance as Hazel Oscar-worthy, adding, "she's that memorable". On November 14, 2014, she received The Hollywood Film Award for Hollywood Breakout Performance – Actress for her depiction of Hazel.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Given her career breakthrough and continuing success since her film debut, she earned a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2015.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2015, Woodley reprised her role as Tris in "," the second installment in "The Divergent Series." Her performance once again received critical acclaim, with Daniel M. Kimmel of "New England Movies Weekly" writing, "Woodley does solid work here as she's done elsewhere, and continues to be someone to watch." Despite a more negative critical reception than the previous film, "Insurgent" was commercially successful, making nearly $100 million in its worldwide debut and grossed $295.2 million worldwide. She reprised her role again in the penultimate film of the series "" (2016). The film, however, was poorly reviewed by critics and a box-office bomb. Lionsgate had planned for the final film in the series to be made for television, but Woodley announced that she would not be a part of it.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: She next starred opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Oliver Stone's biographical thriller "Snowden" (2016), in which Gordon-Levitt portrayed Edward Snowden. Owen Gleiberman's review said that Woodley "gives a performance of breathtaking dimension: As the movie goes on, she makes Lindsay supportive and selfish, loving and stricken."


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Starting in 2015, Woodley took a break from filming for nearly a year and considered quitting as an actor, stating in a later interview that she "had hit a wall with acting" and "felt it was time to do something different". But she eventually "fell in love" with acting again through "Big Little Lies (TV series)". In 2017, Woodley starred as a sexual assault survivor, alongside Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, in the HBO critically acclaimed drama series "Big Little Lies" directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Sarah Rense of "Esquire" called Woodley's performance "underrated" and "brought a quiet complexity", adding that "she was the most realistic character" and her "cool demeanor interrupted by sudden, short outbursts - just seemed so real to anyone who thinks more than they talk". She was nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television respectively for her role. She reprised her role as Jane Chapman for the second season in 2019.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: She also starred in and produced the biographical film "Adrift" (2018), with Baltasar Kormákur as director. Woodley learned sailing and did her own stunts on the film, ninety percent of which was shot on the open ocean off Fiji. Daniel Feingold from "WSVN" called her performance as Tami Oldham Ashcraft, a real-life sailor who was stranded at sea after a storm, "Oscar-worthy". Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" called her "a sensual actress", stating that she "has the gift of making sensuality dramatic; there's a beautiful severity to her features that allows you to feel the things she's showing you. That's a talent, but it's also an instinct". Woodley was awarded the Rising Star Award during the 2018 Deauville Film Festival.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2019, Woodley starred in the romantic drama "Endings, Beginnings" alongside Sebastian Stan, Jamie Dornan, and Matthew Gray Gubler. In 2021, she starred in the real-life Guantanamo Bay drama film "The Mauritanian" alongside Jodie Foster, Tahar Rahim and Benedict Cumberbatch and also had a small supporting role in the critically acclaimed film "The Fallout". She also starred in and executive produced the romantic drama film "The Last Letter from Your Lover" alongside Felicity Jones, based on the bestselling book by Jojo Moyes.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: She will next star in "Misanthrope", an upcoming thriller centered on a talented but troubled cop who is recruited by the FBI to help profile and track down a serial killer. The film is set to be directed by Damián Szifron. Woodley will serve as a producer on the film. She will star in the thriller "Panopticon" with Anthony Mackie and Jacob Latimore, which began filming in New Mexico in summer 2021. She joined Jack Whitehall in the upcoming comedy film "Robots", which was slated to begin filming in New Mexico in August 2021. She is set to star in the upcoming Showtime hourlong drama series "Three Women", based on the award-winning and bestselling book by Lisa Taddeo. Filming was set to begin in Fall 2021. She was also cast in "Girl Named Sue", a film based on the true story of Sue Webber-Brown, a DEA agent who created the Drug Endangered Children (DEC) protocol. She joined Shia LaBeouf and Robert De Niro in the upcoming crime drama "After Exile", with Joshua Michael Stern as director. In November 2020, she joined "The Fence", a political satire film that will reunite her with Miles Teller for their fifth film. The film will be directed by Grímur Hákonarson. She will also star in the animated feature film "Scarygirl", as well as in the romance film "No Baggage", which are in pre-production and development respectively. She is also attached to portray Lina Lardi, mistress of Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari, in Michael Mann's biopic "Ferrari". She also joined the ensemble cast of Craig Gillespie's "Dumb Money".


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2018, Woodley confirmed she was dating Australian-Fijian rugby union player Ben Volavola. In an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", she said: "I fall in love with human beings based on who they are, not based on what they do or what sex they are". In April 2020, the relationship with Volavola reportedly ended.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley was reported to be in a relationship with NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers in 2020. In February 2021, Rodgers referred to his "fiancée" during his acceptance speech for the league's MVP award at the NFL Honors ceremony, confirming that he was engaged, but not to whom. Woodley confirmed she was engaged to Rodgers in a February 22, 2021 appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon". In February 2022, it was reported that Woodley and Rodgers had ended their engagement.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley is an avid environmental activist and climate advocate. In 2010, she and her mother co-founded the nonprofit organization "All it Takes", a youth leadership program that aims to educate young people to practice empathy, compassion, responsibility, and purpose in hopes to foster sustainable, positive change for themselves, others and the environment. She received the Philanthropy Award at "Variety"'s fourth Annual Power of Youth event for the significant contributions made by "All it Takes".


title: Shailene Woodley

text: She supported and campaigned for Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. To keep the momentum going, she organized the "Up To Us" movement, a cross country caravan to the Democratic National Convention. Its goal is to unite the people of the country (USA) in an act of solidarity to raise awareness on the political, social and environmental issues, the political candidates need to address leading up to the elections.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2016, Woodley protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline, an underground petroleum transport pipeline. In October, she was arrested for criminal trespassing in Saint Anthony, North Dakota. The arrest was broadcast as it happened on Woodley's own Facebook Live. She reportedly posted bail for her and the 26 other protestors and was, subsequently, released. Ten days after her arrest, she authored a piece for "Time", titled "The Truth About My Arrest", detailing her experience and raising awareness for the environmental and social issues surrounding the cause. She then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year of probation.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In mid-2016, Woodley joined the board of Our Revolution, a political organization aimed to educate voters about issues, get people involved in the political process, support progressive policies such as Medicare for All, and work to organize and elect progressive leaders.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: On September 29, 2016, Woodley was honored at the 20th Anniversary Global Green Environmental Awards, receiving the Entertainment Industry Environmental Leadership Award for co-founding "All it Takes". In October 2016, she was given the Female EMA Futures Award during the 26th Annual Environmental Media Association (EMA) Awards.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley has expressed her insistence on clean and renewable energy. In 2017, she wrote an opinion piece for "The Hill," titled "US should run on renewable energy by 2050", encouraging Americans to support the technology and the need to transition to an economy powered by 100% clean energy sources. It ultimately gave her the opportunity to introduce the "100 by '50 Act", a bill that calls for the United States to aggressively reduce carbon pollution and achieve 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050, sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley. In 2019, she supported "Indigenized Energy", a local nonprofit that brings solar energy and jobs to Native Americans. The organization was created by Woodley's fellow Dakota Access Pipeline Protest activist, Cody Two Bears.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2018, Woodley took activist Calina Lawrence to the 75th Golden Globe Awards as her guest. They had met at Standing Rock while protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: Woodley has lent her voice to several environmental campaigns such as the Conservation International's "Nature Is Speaking" series, focusing on its goal to reframe why conservation is important and personify different aspects of nature. She also teamed up with American Express, together with Parley for the Oceans, on their "#BackourOceans" initiative to combat marine plastic pollution. She also joined "Ocean Unite's" "30x30" mission to protect at least 30% of the Earth's oceans by 2030 and the WILDOCEANS's "Ocean Impact", promoting the conservation of South Africa's oceans.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In July 2019, Woodley became an Oceans Ambassador for Greenpeace and embarked on a three-week-long expedition to the Sargasso Sea to study the impact of plastics and microplastics on marine life, and to document the importance of this unique ecosystem for protection under a new global ocean treaty that is being negotiated at the United Nations. She wrote a piece for "Time", titled "How I'm Changing My Life to Help Save the Seas", chronicling the time she spent on the Greenpeace ship and the actions to take to save the marine life.


title: Shailene Woodley

text: In 2020, Woodley partnered with "Karün", a certified B Corp that creates high-quality eyewear using recycled waste like fishing nets, ropes, and metals collected by local rural entrepreneurs. Their collaboration created the product line "Karün by Shailene Woodley", building its identity around the connection of product design with nature protection. It was awarded The Most Sustainable Eyewear Brand in 2021 and 2022 by Global Brands Magazine Awards.


title: Great Depression

text: The Great Depression was period of worldwide economic depression between 1929 and 1939. The Depression became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion began around September 1929 and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). The economic shock impacted most countries across the world to varying degrees. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.


title: Great Depression

text: Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%.


title: Great Depression

text: Cities around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered the most.


title: Great Depression

text: Economic historians usually consider the catalyst of the Great Depression to be the sudden devastating collapse of U.S. stock market prices, starting on October 24, 1929. However, some dispute this conclusion, seeing the stock crash less as a cause of the Depression and more as a symptom of the rising nervousness of investors partly due to gradual price declines caused by falling sales of consumer goods (as a result of overproduction because of new production techniques, falling exports and income inequality, among other factors) that had already been underway as part of a gradual Depression.


title: Great Depression

text: After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with the Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932.


title: Great Depression

text: At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S.


title: Great Depression

text: Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then a deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance.


title: Great Depression

text: The decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first; then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated the collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier.


title: Great Depression

text: Because the Great Depression began in the United States and then spread around the world, the origins of the Great Depression are examined in the context of the United States economy. In the aftermath of World War I, the Roaring Twenties had brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. 1929 dawned with considerable economic progress in the American economy. A small stock crash occurred on March 25, 1929, but the crash was stabilized. Despite signs of economic trouble, the market continued to improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at the end of September. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on October 24, Black Thursday, the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on October 28, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday, but the damage had been done. Though the market recovered from November 14, until April 17, 1930, the market entered a prolonged slump. From April 17, 1930, until July 8, 1932, the market lost 89% of its value.Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States (privately run, no relation to the government). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass.


title: Great Depression

text: The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was passed in the United States on June 17, 1930, having been proposed the year prior. Ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy as the Depression began to take root, it backfired enormously and may have even caused the Depression. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians, Monetarists and Austrian economists) is that the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff exacerbated the Great Depression, although there is disagreement as to how much. In the popular view, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a leading cause of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened the Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.


title: Great Depression

text: Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average "ad valorem" (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $5.2 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did the physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber.


title: Great Depression

text: Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during the depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally":


title: Great Depression

text: The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and a monetary contraction first hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism, countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and the domestic price level to decline (deflation).


title: Great Depression

text: There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression.


title: Great Depression

text: Some economic studies have indicated that just as the downturn was spread worldwide by the rigidities of the gold standard, it was suspending gold convertibility (or devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did the most to make recovery possible.


title: Great Depression

text: Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves, in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets.


title: Great Depression

text: Japan and the Scandinavian countries joined the United Kingdom in leaving the gold standard in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and the United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36.


title: Great Depression

text: According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had a silver standard, almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries. This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around the world.


title: Great Depression

text: The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Creditanstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of Nazi and communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in the first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, June 19–20. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on Payment of war reparations. This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on August 19 a standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to the coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933.


title: Great Depression

text: The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse the British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition "National Government". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with a small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard, and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as Prime Minister for a largely Conservative coalition.


title: Great Depression

text: In most countries of the world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933.


title: Great Depression

text: There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and the 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935, which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on the scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions."


title: Great Depression

text: According to Christina Romer, the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of the political situation in Europe. In their book, "A Monetary History of the United States", Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System. Former (2006–2014) Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in the worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective.


title: Great Depression

text: Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births.


title: Great Depression

text: Among the few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially.


title: Great Depression

text: In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be a serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants.


title: Great Depression

text: In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In the United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment.


title: Great Depression

text: Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in a modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside the home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws.


title: Great Depression

text: In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives.


title: Great Depression

text: In Germany, the government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing the behavior of housewives.


title: Great Depression

text: The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II. Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment.


title: Great Depression

text: The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate the economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment.


title: Great Depression

text: When the United States entered the war in 1941, it finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought the U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. In the U.S., massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending the Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts.


title: Great Depression

text: The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject the explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating the drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression.


title: Great Depression

text: Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of the Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that — building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz — add non-monetary explanations.


title: Great Depression

text: There is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort. If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter.


title: Great Depression

text: Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies (Irving Fisher's debt deflation).


title: Great Depression

text: The monetarist explanation was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz. They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction". This caused a price drop of 33% (deflation). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing the monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement:


title: Great Depression

text: The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of the New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did.


title: Great Depression

text: With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch.


title: Great Depression

text: One reason why the Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard. At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act, which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by a greater reduction in credit. On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates, coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold.


title: Great Depression

text: British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to a massive decline in income and to employment that was well below the average. In such a situation, the economy reached equilibrium at low levels of economic activity and high unemployment.


title: Great Depression

text: Keynes's basic idea was simple: to keep people fully employed, governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing, as the private sector would not invest enough to keep production at the normal level and bring the economy out of recession. Keynesian economists called on governments during times of economic crisis to pick up the slack by increasing government spending or cutting taxes.


title: Great Depression

text: As the Depression wore on, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried public works, farm subsidies, and other devices to restart the U.S. economy, but never completely gave up trying to balance the budget. According to the Keynesians, this improved the economy, but Roosevelt never spent enough to bring the economy out of recession until the start of World War II.


title: Great Depression

text: Irving Fisher argued that the predominant factor leading to the Great Depression was a vicious circle of deflation and growing over-indebtedness. He outlined nine factors interacting with one another under conditions of debt and deflation to create the mechanics of boom to bust. The chain of events proceeded as follows:


title: Great Depression

text: During the Crash of 1929 preceding the Great Depression, margin requirements were only 10%. Brokerage firms, in other words, would lend $9 for every $1 an investor had deposited. When the market fell, brokers called in these loans, which could not be paid back. Banks began to fail as debtors defaulted on debt and depositors attempted to withdraw their deposits , triggering multiple bank runs. Government guarantees and Federal Reserve banking regulations to prevent such panics were ineffective or not used. Bank failures led to the loss of billions of dollars in assets.


title: Great Depression

text: Outstanding debts became heavier, because prices and incomes fell by 20–50% but the debts remained at the same dollar amount. After the panic of 1929 and during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 U.S. banks failed. (In all, 9,000 banks failed during the 1930s.) By April 1933, around $7 billion in deposits had been frozen in failed banks or those left unlicensed after the March Bank Holiday. Bank failures snowballed as desperate bankers called in loans that borrowers did not have time or money to repay. With future profits looking poor, capital investment and construction slowed or completely ceased. In the face of bad loans and worsening future prospects, the surviving banks became even more conservative in their lending. Banks built up their capital reserves and made fewer loans, which intensified deflationary pressures. A vicious cycle developed and the downward spiral accelerated.


title: Great Depression

text: The liquidation of debt could not keep up with the fall of prices that it caused. The mass effect of the stampede to liquidate increased the value of each dollar owed, relative to the value of declining asset holdings. The very effort of individuals to lessen their burden of debt effectively increased it. Paradoxically, the more the debtors paid, the more they owed. This self-aggravating process turned a 1930 recession into a 1933 great depression.


title: Great Depression

text: Fisher's debt-deflation theory initially lacked mainstream influence because of the counter-argument that debt-deflation represented no more than a redistribution from one group (debtors) to another (creditors). Pure re-distributions should have no significant macroeconomic effects.


title: Great Depression

text: Building on both the monetary hypothesis of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz and the debt deflation hypothesis of Irving Fisher, Ben Bernanke developed an alternative way in which the financial crisis affected output. He builds on Fisher's argument that dramatic declines in the price level and nominal incomes lead to increasing real debt burdens, which in turn leads to debtor insolvency and consequently lowers aggregate demand; a further price level decline would then result in a debt deflationary spiral. According to Bernanke, a small decline in the price level simply reallocates wealth from debtors to creditors without doing damage to the economy. But when the deflation is severe, falling asset prices along with debtor bankruptcies lead to a decline in the nominal value of assets on bank balance sheets. Banks will react by tightening their credit conditions, which in turn leads to a credit crunch that seriously harms the economy. A credit crunch lowers investment and consumption, which results in declining aggregate demand and additionally contributes to the deflationary spiral.


title: Great Depression

text: Since economic mainstream turned to the new neoclassical synthesis, expectations are a central element of macroeconomic models. According to Peter Temin, Barry Wigmore, Gauti B. Eggertsson and Christina Romer, the key to recovery and to ending the Great Depression was brought about by a successful management of public expectations. The thesis is based on the observation that after years of deflation and a very severe recession important economic indicators turned positive in March 1933 when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office. Consumer prices turned from deflation to a mild inflation, industrial production bottomed out in March 1933, and investment doubled in 1933 with a turnaround in March 1933. There were no monetary forces to explain that turnaround. Money supply was still falling and short-term interest rates remained close to zero. Before March 1933, people expected further deflation and a recession so that even interest rates at zero did not stimulate investment. But when Roosevelt announced major regime changes, people began to expect inflation and an economic expansion. With these positive expectations, interest rates at zero began to stimulate investment just as they were expected to do. Roosevelt's fiscal and monetary policy regime change helped make his policy objectives credible. The expectation of higher future income and higher future inflation stimulated demand and investment. The analysis suggests that the elimination of the policy dogmas of the gold standard, a balanced budget in times of crisis and small government led endogenously to a large shift in expectation that accounts for about 70–80% of the recovery of output and prices from 1933 to 1937. If the regime change had not happened and the Hoover policy had continued, the economy would have continued its free fall in 1933, and output would have been 30% lower in 1937 than in 1933.


title: Great Depression

text: The recession of 1937–1938, which slowed down economic recovery from the Great Depression, is explained by fears of the population that the moderate tightening of the monetary and fiscal policy in 1937 were first steps to a restoration of the pre-1933 policy regime.