title: Anton Chekhov

text: Before long, Chekhov was attracting literary as well as popular attention. The sixty-four-year-old Dmitry Grigorovich, a celebrated Russian writer of the day, wrote to Chekhov after reading his short story "The Huntsman" that "You have "real" talent, a talent that places you in the front rank among writers in the new generation." He went on to advise Chekhov to slow down, write less, and concentrate on literary quality.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov replied that the letter had struck him "like a thunderbolt" and confessed, "I have written my stories the way reporters write up their notes about fires—mechanically, half-consciously, caring nothing about either the reader or myself."" The admission may have done Chekhov a disservice, since early manuscripts reveal that he often wrote with extreme care, continually revising. Grigorovich's advice nevertheless inspired a more serious, artistic ambition in the twenty-six-year-old. In 1888, with a little string-pulling by Grigorovich, the short story collection "At Dusk" ("V Sumerkakh") won Chekhov the coveted Pushkin Prize "for the best literary production distinguished by high artistic worth."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In 1887, exhausted from overwork and ill health, Chekhov took a trip to Ukraine, which reawakened him to the beauty of the steppe. On his return, he began the novella-length short story ""The Steppe"," which he called "something rather odd and much too original," and which was eventually published in "Severny Vestnik" ("The Northern Herald"). In a narrative that drifts with the thought processes of the characters, Chekhov evokes a chaise journey across the steppe through the eyes of a young boy sent to live away from home, and his companions, a priest and a merchant. "The Steppe" has been called a "dictionary of Chekhov's poetics", and it represented a significant advance for Chekhov, exhibiting much of the quality of his mature fiction and winning him publication in a literary journal rather than a newspaper.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In autumn 1887, a theatre manager named Korsh commissioned Chekhov to write a play, the result being "Ivanov", written in a fortnight and produced that November. Though Chekhov found the experience "sickening" and painted a comic portrait of the chaotic production in a letter to his brother Alexander, the play was a hit and was praised, to Chekhov's bemusement, as a work of originality. Although Chekhov did not fully realise it at the time, Chekhov's plays, such as "The Seagull" (written in 1895), "Uncle Vanya" (written in 1897), "The Three Sisters" (written in 1900), and "The Cherry Orchard" (written in 1903) served as a revolutionary backbone to what is common sense to the medium of acting to this day: an effort to recreate and express the realism of how people truly act and speak with each other. This realistic manifestation of the human condition may engender in audiences reflection upon what it means to be human.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: This philosophy of approaching the art of acting has stood not only steadfast, but as the cornerstone of acting for much of the 20th century to this day. Mikhail Chekhov considered "Ivanov" a key moment in his brother's intellectual development and literary career. From this period comes an observation of Chekhov's that has become known as "Chekhov's gun", a dramatic principle that requires that every element in a narrative be necessary and irreplaceable, and that everything else be removed.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: The death of Chekhov's brother Nikolai from tuberculosis in 1889 influenced "A Dreary Story", finished that September, about a man who confronts the end of a life that he realises has been without purpose. Mikhail Chekhov, who recorded his brother's depression and restlessness after Nikolai's death, was researching prisons at the time as part of his law studies, and Anton Chekhov, in a search for purpose in his own life, himself soon became obsessed with the issue of prison reform.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In 1890, Chekhov undertook an arduous journey by train, horse-drawn carriage, and river steamer to the Russian Far East and the "katorga", or penal colony, on Sakhalin Island, north of Japan, where he spent three months interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census. The letters Chekhov wrote during the two-and-a-half-month journey to Sakhalin are considered to be among his best. His remarks to his sister about Tomsk were to become notorious.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov witnessed much on Sakhalin that shocked and angered him, including floggings, embezzlement of supplies, and forced prostitution of women. He wrote, "There were times I felt that I saw before me the extreme limits of man's degradation." He was particularly moved by the plight of the children living in the penal colony with their parents. For example:


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov later concluded that charity was not the answer, but that the government had a duty to finance humane treatment of the convicts. His findings were published in 1893 and 1894 as "Ostrov Sakhalin" ("The Island of Sakhalin"), a work of social science, not literature. Chekhov found literary expression for the "Hell of Sakhalin" in his long short story "," the last section of which is set on Sakhalin, where the murderer Yakov loads coal in the night while longing for home. Chekhov's writing on Sakhalin, especially the traditions and habits of the Gilyak people, is the subject of a sustained meditation and analysis in Haruki Murakami's novel "1Q84". It is also the subject of a poem by the Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney, "Chekhov on Sakhalin" (collected in the volume "Station Island"). Rebecca Gould has compared Chekhov's book on Sakhalin to Katherine Mansfield's "Urewera Notebook" (1907). In 2013, the Wellcome Trust-funded play 'A Russian Doctor', performed by Andrew Dawson and researched by Professor Jonathan Cole, explored Chekhov's experiences on Sakhalin Island.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Mikhail Chekhov, a member of the household at Melikhovo, described the extent of his brother's medical commitments:


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's expenditure on drugs was considerable, but the greatest cost was making journeys of several hours to visit the sick, which reduced his time for writing. However, Chekhov's work as a doctor enriched his writing by bringing him into intimate contact with all sections of Russian society: for example, he witnessed at first hand the peasants' unhealthy and cramped living conditions, which he recalled in his short story "Peasants". Chekhov visited the upper classes as well, recording in his notebook: "Aristocrats? The same ugly bodies and physical uncleanliness, the same toothless old age and disgusting death, as with market-women." In 1893/1894 he worked as a Zemstvo doctor in Zvenigorod, which has numerous sanatoriums and rest homes. A local hospital is named after him.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In 1894, Chekhov began writing his play "The Seagull" in a lodge he had built in the orchard at Melikhovo. In the two years since he had moved to the estate, he had refurbished the house, taken up agriculture and horticulture, tended the orchard and the pond, and planted many trees, which, according to Mikhail, he "looked after ... as though they were his children. Like Colonel Vershinin in his "Three Sisters", as he looked at them he dreamed of what they would be like in three or four hundred years."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: The first night of "The Seagull", at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on 17 October 1896, was a fiasco, as the play was booed by the audience, stinging Chekhov into renouncing the theatre. But the play so impressed the theatre director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko that he convinced his colleague Konstantin Stanislavski to direct a new production for the innovative Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski's attention to psychological realism and ensemble playing coaxed the buried subtleties from the text, and restored Chekhov's interest in playwriting. The Art Theatre commissioned more plays from Chekhov and the following year staged "Uncle Vanya", which Chekhov had completed in 1896. In the last decades of his life he became an atheist.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In March 1897, Chekhov suffered a major haemorrhage of the lungs while on a visit to Moscow. With great difficulty he was persuaded to enter a clinic, where the doctors diagnosed tuberculosis on the upper part of his lungs and ordered a change in his manner of life.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: After his father's death in 1898, Chekhov bought a plot of land on the outskirts of Yalta and built a villa (The White Dacha), into which he moved with his mother and sister the following year. Though he planted trees and flowers, kept dogs and tame cranes, and received guests such as Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky, Chekhov was always relieved to leave his "hot Siberia" for Moscow or travels abroad. He vowed to move to Taganrog as soon as a water supply was installed there. In Yalta he completed two more plays for the Art Theatre, composing with greater difficulty than in the days when he "wrote serenely, the way I eat pancakes now". He took a year each over "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard".


title: Anton Chekhov

text: On 25 May 1901, Chekhov married Olga Knipper quietly, owing to his horror of weddings. She was a former protégée and sometime lover of Nemirovich-Danchenko whom he had first met at rehearsals for "The Seagull". Up to that point, Chekhov, known as "Russia's most elusive literary bachelor," had preferred passing liaisons and visits to brothels over commitment. He had once written to Suvorin:


title: Anton Chekhov

text: The letter proved prophetic of Chekhov's marital arrangements with Olga: he lived largely at Yalta, she in Moscow, pursuing her acting career. In 1902, Olga suffered a miscarriage; and Donald Rayfield has offered evidence, based on the couple's letters, that conception occurred when Chekhov and Olga were apart, although Russian scholars have rejected that claim. The literary legacy of this long-distance marriage is a correspondence that preserves gems of theatre history, including shared complaints about Stanislavski's directing methods and Chekhov's advice to Olga about performing in his plays.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In Yalta, Chekhov wrote one of his most famous stories, "The Lady with the Dog" (also translated from the Russian as "Lady with Lapdog"), which depicts what at first seems a casual liaison between a cynical married man and an unhappy married woman who meet while holidaying in Yalta. Neither expects anything lasting from the encounter. Unexpectedly though, they gradually fall deeply in love and end up risking scandal and the security of their family lives. The story masterfully captures their feelings for each other, the inner transformation undergone by the disillusioned male protagonist as a result of falling deeply in love, and their inability to resolve the matter by either letting go of their families or of each other.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In May 1903 Chekhov visited Moscow; the prominent lawyer Vasily Maklakov visited him almost every day. Maklakov signed Chekhov's will. By May 1904 Chekhov was terminally ill with tuberculosis. Mikhail Chekhov recalled that "everyone who saw him secretly thought the end was not far off, but the nearer [he] was to the end, the less he seemed to realise it". On 3 June he set off with Olga for the German spa town of Badenweiler in the Black Forest in Germany, from where he wrote outwardly jovial letters to his sister Masha, describing the food and surroundings, and assuring her and his mother that he was getting better. In his last letter he complained about the way German women dressed. Chekhov died on 15 July 1904 at the age of 44 after a long fight with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his brother.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's death has become one of "the great set pieces of literary history", retold, embroidered, and fictionalized many times since, notably in the 1987 short story "Errand" by Raymond Carver. In 1908 Olga wrote this account of her husband's last moments:


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's body was transported to Moscow in a refrigerated railway-car meant for oysters, a detail that offended Gorky. Some of the thousands of mourners followed the funeral procession of a General Keller by mistake, to the accompaniment of a military band. Chekhov was buried next to his father at the Novodevichy Cemetery.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: A few months before he died, Chekhov told the writer Ivan Bunin that he thought people might go on reading his writings for seven years. "Why seven?" asked Bunin. "Well, seven and a half," Chekhov replied. "That's not bad. I've got six years to live."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's posthumous reputation greatly exceeded his expectations. The ovations for the play "The Cherry Orchard" in the year of his death served to demonstrate the Russian public's acclaim for the writer, which placed him second in literary celebrity only to Tolstoy, who outlived him by six years. Tolstoy was an early admirer of Chekhov's short stories and had a series that he deemed "first quality" and "second quality" bound into a book. In the first category were: "Children", "The Chorus Girl", "A Play", "Home", "Misery", "The Runaway", "In Court", "Vanka", "Ladies", "A Malefactor", "The Boys", "Darkness", "Sleepy", "The Helpmate", and "The Darling"; in the second: "A Transgression", "Sorrow", "The Witch", "Verochka", "In a Strange Land", "The Cook's Wedding", "A Tedious Business", "An Upheaval", "Oh! The Public!", "The Mask", "A Woman's Luck", "Nerves", "The Wedding", "A Defenceless Creature", and "Peasant Wives."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's work also found praise from several of Russia's most influential radical political thinkers. If anyone doubted the gloom and miserable poverty of Russia in the 1880s, the anarchist theorist Peter Kropotkin responded, "read only Chekhov's novels!" Raymond Tallis further recounts that Vladimir Lenin believed his reading of the short story Ward No. 6 "made him a revolutionary." Upon finishing the story, Lenin is said to have remarked: "I absolutely had the feeling that I was shut up in Ward 6 myself!"


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In Chekhov's lifetime, British and Irish critics generally did not find his work pleasing; E. J. Dillon thought "the effect on the reader of Chekhov's tales was repulsion at the gallery of human waste represented by his fickle, spineless, drifting people" and R. E. C. Long said "Chekhov's characters were repugnant, and that Chekhov revelled in stripping the last rags of dignity from the human soul". After his death, Chekhov was reappraised. Constance Garnett's translations won him an English-language readership and the admiration of writers such as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine Mansfield, whose story "The Child Who Was Tired" is similar to Chekhov's "Sleepy". The Russian critic D. S. Mirsky, who lived in England, explained Chekhov's popularity in that country by his "unusually complete rejection of what we may call the heroic values." In Russia itself, Chekhov's drama fell out of fashion after the revolution, but it was later incorporated into the Soviet canon. The character of Lopakhin, for example, was reinvented as a hero of the new order, rising from a modest background so as eventually to possess the gentry's estates.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Despite Chekhov's reputation as a playwright, William Boyd asserts that his short stories represent the greater achievement. Raymond Carver, who wrote the short story "Errand" about Chekhov's death, believed that Chekhov was the greatest of all short story writers:


title: Anton Chekhov

text: One of the first non-Russians to praise Chekhov's plays was George Bernard Shaw, who subtitled his "Heartbreak House" "A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes," and pointed out similarities between the predicament of the British landed class and that of their Russian counterparts as depicted by Chekhov: "the same nice people, the same utter futility."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Ernest Hemingway, another writer influenced by Chekhov, was more grudging: "Chekhov wrote about six good stories. But he was an amateur writer." And Vladimir Nabokov criticised Chekhov's "medley of dreadful prosaisms, ready-made epithets, repetitions." But he also declared “yet it is his works which I would take on a trip to another planet” and called "The Lady with the Dog" "one of the greatest stories ever written" in its depiction of a problematic relationship, and described Chekhov as writing "the way one person relates to another the most important things in his life, slowly and yet without a break, in a slightly subdued voice."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: For the writer William Boyd, Chekhov's historical accomplishment was to abandon what William Gerhardie called the "event plot" for something more "blurred, interrupted, mauled or otherwise tampered with by life."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: While a Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, Michael Goldman presented his view on defining the elusive quality of Chekhov's comedies stating: "Having learned that Chekhov is comic ... Chekhov is comic in a very special, paradoxical way. His plays depend, as comedy does, on the vitality of the actors to make pleasurable what would otherwise be painfully awkward—inappropriate speeches, missed connections, "faux pas", stumbles, childishness—but as part of a deeper pathos; the stumbles are not pratfalls but an energized, graceful dissolution of purpose."


title: Anton Chekhov

text: In the United States, Chekhov's reputation began its rise slightly later, partly through the influence of Stanislavski's system of acting, with its notion of subtext: "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches," wrote Stanislavski, "but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word ... the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak." The Group Theatre, in particular, developed the subtextual approach to drama, influencing generations of American playwrights, screenwriters, and actors, including Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan and, in particular, Lee Strasberg. In turn, Strasberg's Actors Studio and the "Method" acting approach influenced many actors, including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, though by then the Chekhov tradition may have been distorted by a preoccupation with realism. In 1981, the playwright Tennessee Williams adapted "The Seagull" as "The Notebook of Trigorin". One of Anton's nephews, Michael Chekhov would also contribute heavily to modern theatre, particularly through his unique acting methods which developed Stanislavski's ideas further.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Alan Twigg, the chief editor and publisher of the Canadian book review magazine "B.C. BookWorld" wrote,


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov has also influenced the work of Japanese playwrights including Shimizu Kunio, Yōji Sakate, and Ai Nagai. Critics have noted similarities in how Chekhov and Shimizu use a mixture of light humour as well as an intense depictions of longing. Sakate adapted several of Chekhov's plays and transformed them in the general style of "nō". Nagai also adapted Chekhov's plays, including "Three Sisters", and transformed his dramatic style into Nagai's style of satirical realism while emphasising the social issues depicted on the play.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Chekhov's works have been adapted for the screen, including Sidney Lumet's "Sea Gull" and Louis Malle's "Vanya on 42nd Street". Laurence Olivier's final effort as a film director was a 1970 adaption of "Three Sisters" in which he also played a supporting role. His work has also served as inspiration or been referenced in numerous films. In Andrei Tarkovsky's 1975 film "The Mirror", characters discuss his short story "Ward No. 6". Woody Allen has been influenced by Chekhov and reference to his works are present in many of his films including "Love and Death" (1975), "Interiors" (1978) and "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986). Plays by Chekhov are also referenced in François Truffaut's 1980 drama film "The Last Metro", which is set in a theatre. "The Cherry Orchard" has a role in the comedy film "Henry's Crime" (2011). A portion of a stage production of "Three Sisters" appears in the 2014 drama film "Still Alice".


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Several of Chekhov's short stories were adapted as episodes of the 1986 Indian anthology television series "Katha Sagar". Another Indian television series titled "Chekhov Ki Duniya" aired on DD National in the 1990s, adapting different works of Chekhov.


title: Anton Chekhov

text: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Palme d'Or winner "Winter Sleep" was adapted from the short story "The Wife" by Anton Chekhov.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab (; , ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in central-eastern region of the country, Punjab is the second-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the largest province by population. It shares land borders with the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north-west, Balochistan to the south-west and Sindh to the south, as well as Islamabad Capital Territory to the north-west and Autonomous Territory of AJK to the north. It shares an International border with the Indian states of Rajasthan and Punjab to the east and Indian-administered Kashmir to the north-east. Punjab is the most fertile province of the country as River Indus and its four major tributaries Ravi, Jhelum, Chenab and Sutlej flow through it.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The province forms the bulk of the transnational Punjab region, now divided among Pakistan and India. The provincial capital is Lahore — a cultural, modern, historical, economic, and cosmopolitan centre of Pakistan. Other major cities include Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, and Sialkot. Punjab is also the world's fifth-most populous subnational entity, and the most populous outside of China and India.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Modern-day Pakistani Punjab has been inhabited since ancient times; the Paleolithic Soanian culture initially developed in the Soan valley. The Indus Valley civilization, dating to 3300 BCE, was first discovered at Harappa. It features heavily in the Sanskrit-language Indian epic known as the "Mahabharata", and is also home to Taxila, the main centre of Gandhara civilization. It is the site of what is considered by many scholars to be the oldest university in the world. In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great defeated the king Porus in the Battle of the Hydaspes near Mong. He also conquered Multan, an ancient centre of the Punjab region after a fierce battle. Subsequently, Punjab became part of the Maurya Empire, the Kushan Empire, and the Gupta Empire.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: In the 7th century, the region saw its first wave of Muslim conquests, which introduced Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate and its successor states ruled the portions of Punjab region for next 3 centuries with their capital in Multan. In the subsequent centuries, the region was ruled by various dynasties, including the Hindu Shahis, the Ghaznavids, the Ghurids, the Delhi Sultanate, and most notably, the Mughal Empire.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: In the 18th century, an invasion of Mughal Empire under the ruler Nader Shah caused Mughal authority in Punjab to collapse. Later, the region was invaded by Ahmad Shah Durrani; the founder of the Durrani Empire. The next decades saw a series of Afghan–Sikh Wars and in 1799, the Sikh Empire was formally established under Ranjit Singh with its capital in Lahore. Punjab was conquered by the British EIC in 1849. The region was central to the independence movements of Pakistan and India, with Lahore being the site of both the Declaration of Indian Independence as well as the Lahore Resolution that called for the establishment of a separate state for Indian Muslims. The modern-day Pakistani province has its roots in the Punjab Province of British India, which was divided along religious boundaries by the Radcliffe Line during the partition of India in 1947.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab is Pakistan's most industrialized province, with the industrial sector comprising 24 percent of the province's gross domestic product. It is known across Pakistan for its relative prosperity, and has the lowest rate of poverty among all Pakistani provinces. However, a clear divide is present between the northern and southern portions of the province; with poverty rates in northern Punjab being among the lowest in Pakistan, while some in southern Punjab are among the most impoverished. Punjab is also one of the most urbanized regions of South Asia, with approximately 40 percent of its population being concentrated in urban areas.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: It has been strongly influenced by Sufism, with numerous Sufi shrines spread across the province, attracting millions of devotees annually. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, was born in the town of Nankana Sahib, near Lahore. Punjab is also the site of the Katas Raj Temples, which feature prominently in Hindu mythology. Several of the World Heritage Sites listed by UNESCO are located in Punjab, including the Shalimar Gardens, the Lahore Fort, the archaeological excavations at Taxila, and the Rohtas Fort, among others.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Though the name Punjab is of Persian origin, its two parts ( and ) are cognates of the Sanskrit words, and , of the same meaning. The word "pañjāb" thus means 'The Land of Five Waters', referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas. All are tributaries of the Indus River, the Sutlej being the largest. References to a land of five rivers may be found in the "Mahabharata", which calls one of the regions in ancient Bharat "Panchanada" (). Persian place names are very common in Northwest India and Pakistan. The ancient Greeks referred to the region as "Pentapotamía" (), which has the same meaning as the Persian word.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Punjab region is noted as the site of one of the earliest urban societies, the Indus Valley Civilization that flourished from about 3000 B.C. and declined rapidly 1,000 years later, following the Indo-Aryan migrations that overran the region in waves between 1500 and 500 B.C. Frequent intertribal wars stimulated the growth of larger groupings ruled by chieftains and kings, who ruled local kingdoms known as Mahajanapadas. The rise of kingdoms and dynasties in the Punjab is chronicled in the ancient Hindu epics, particularly the Mahabharata.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Multan was the noted centre of excellence of the region which was attacked by Greek army led by Alexander the great. The Mali tribe together with nearby tribes gathered an army of 90,000 personnel to face Greek army. This was the largest army faced by Greeks in entire subcontinent. During the siege of the city's citadel, the Alexander leaped into the inner area of the citadel, where he killed the Mallians' leader. Alexander was wounded by an arrow that had penetrated his lung, leaving him severely injured. The city was conquered after a fierce battle.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: In 326 B.C. The earliest known notable local king of this region was known as Porus, who fought the famous Battle of the Hydaspes against Alexander the Great. His kingdom spanned between rivers "Hydaspes" (Jhelum) and "Acesines" (Chenab); Strabo had held the territory to contain almost 300 cities. He (alongside Abisares) had a hostile relationship with the Kingdom of Taxila which was ruled by his extended family. When the armies of Alexander crossed Indus in its eastward migration, probably in Udabhandapura, he was greeted by the-then ruler of Taxila, Omphis. Omphis had hoped to force both Porus and Abisares into submission leveraging the might of Alexander's forces and diplomatic missions were mounted, but while Abisares accepted the submission, Porus refused. This led Alexander to seek for a face-off with Porus. Thus began the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC; the exact site remains unknown. The battle is thought to be resulted in a decisive Greek victory; however, A. B. Bosworth warns against an uncritical reading of Greek sources who were obviously exaggerative. Alexander later founded two cities—"Nicaea" at the site of victory and "Bucephalous" at the battle-ground, in memory of his horse, who died soon after the battle. Later, tetradrachms would be minted depicting Alexander on horseback, armed with a "sarissa" and attacking a pair of Indians on an elephant. Porus refused to surrender and wandered about atop an elephant, until he was wounded and his force routed. When asked by Alexander how he wished to be treated, Porus replied "Treat me as a king would treat another king". Despite the apparently one-sided results, Alexander was impressed by Porus and chose to not depose him. Not only was his territory reinstated but also expanded with Alexander's forces annexing the territories of Glausaes, who ruled to the northeast of Porus' kingdom. After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, Perdiccas became the regent of his empire, and after Perdiccas's murder in 321 BCE, Antipater became the new regent. According to Diodorus, Antipater recognized Porus's authority over the territories along the Indus River. However, Eudemus, who had served as Alexander's satrap in the Punjab region, treacherously killed Porus. The battle is historically significant because it resulted in the syncretism of ancient Greek political and cultural influences to the Indian subcontinent, yielding works such as Greco-Buddhist art, which continued to have an impact for the ensuing centuries. The region was then divided between the Maurya Empire and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in 302 B.C.E. Menander I Soter conquered Punjab and made Sagala (present-day Sialkot) the capital of the Indo-Greek Kingdom. Menander is noted for having become a patron and convert to Greco-Buddhism and he is widely regarded as the greatest of the Indo-Greek kings. Greek influence in the region ended around 12 B.C.E. when the Punjab fell under the Sassanids.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Islam emerged as the major power in Punjab after the Umayyad caliphate led by Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the region in 711 AD. The city of Multan became a center of the Ismaili sect of Islam. Umayyads after conquering key cities of Uch and Multan inhabited thousands of Arabs in Multan, These Arabs ruled the vast areas of Punjab for next 3 centuries. From their capital in Multan they ruled the far areas of Kashmir. Islam spread rapidly.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: In the ninth century, the Hindu Shahi dynasty emerged in the Punjab, ruling much of Punjab and eastern Afghanistan. Lahore emerged as an important city of Central Punjab in late 10th century. It was ruled by Arabs of Emirate of Multan and then by Hindu Shahi Empire. The 10th century Arab historian Masudi mentioned that in his time the kings of Gandhara were all called "Hajaj", "J.haj" or "Ch'hach", while the area itself was called "country of the "Rahbūt"" (Rajputs). The character transliterated to "Hahaj" and Alexander Cunningham had it equated to the Janjua tribe/clan. Rahman doubts this theory and instead transliterates to "J.haj", an Arabicised form of "Chhachh", which is even today the name of the region around the Hindu Shahi capital of Hund. In the 10th century, this region was occupied by the tribe of the Gakhars/Khokhars, who formed a large part of the Hindu Shahi army according to the Persian historian Firishta.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Turkic Ghaznavids in the tenth century attacked the regions of Punjab. Multan and Uch were conquered after 3 attacks and Multan's Arab ruler Abul Fateh Daud was defeated, thousands of Ismailis were killed or mutilated according to 11th century scholar Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi, though the community was not extinguished, famous Sun Temple was destroyed. This ended the 3 centuries Arab rule over Punjab. Ghaznavids overthrew the Hindu Shahis and consequently ruled for 157 years, gradually declining as a power until the Ghurid conquests of key Punjab cities of Uch, Multan and Lahore by Muhammad of Ghor in 1186, deposing the last Ghaznavid ruler Khusrau Malik.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Following the death of Muhammad of Ghor in 1206, the Ghurid state fragmented and was replaced in northern India by the Delhi Sultanate and for some time independent sultanates ruled by various Sultans. The Delhi Sultanate ruled the Punjab for the next three hundred years, led by five unrelated dynasties, the Mamluks, Khalajis, Tughlaqs, Sayyids and Lodis.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Ghiyath al Din Tughlaq, the former governor of Multan and Dipalpur founded Tughlaq dynasty in Delhi and ruled the subcontinent region . Earlier he served as the governor of Multan and fought 28 battles against Mongols from there and saved Punjab and Sindh regions from advances of Mongols and had survived. After his death his son Muhammad Tughlaq became the emperor.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: 15th century saw rise of many prominent Muslims from Punjab. Khizr Khan established the Sayyid dynasty, the fourth dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate after the fall of the Tughlaqs.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: In 1398, Timur attacked the Punjab region. After his invasion, Khizr Khan established the fourth dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. According to Richard M. Eaton, Khizr Khan was son of a Punjabi chieftain. He was a Khokhar chieftain who travelled to Samarkand and profited from the contacts he made with the Timurid society Later on, Delhi Sultanate, weakened by invasion of Emir Timur, could not control all regions of the Empire and different local kingdoms appeared. In 1445, Sultan Qutbudin, chief of "Langah", a Jat Zamindar tribe established the Langah Sultanate in Multan. The Sultanate included regions of southern and central Punjab and areas of Khyber and Balochistan. A large number of Baloch settlers arrived and towns of Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan were founded.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: During the most of 15th century, the Khokhars and Gakhars tribe were in general revolt in the Pothohar region.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Jasrath Khokhar was one of their major chiefs who helped Sultan Zain Ul Abideen of Kashmir to gain his throne and ruled over vast tracts of Jammu and North Punjab. He also conquered Delhi for a brief period in 1431 but was driven out by Mubarak Shah.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Mughals came to power in the early sixteenth century and gradually expanded to control all of the Punjab. During Mughal period Punjab region was divided into two provinces; Subah of Multan and Subah of Lahore. The Mughal Empire ruled the region until it was severely weakened in the eighteenth century. As Mughal power weakened, Afghan rulers took control of the region. Contested by Marathas and Afghans, the region was the center of the growing influence of the Sikhs, who expanded and established the Sikh empire as the Mughals and Afghans weakened, ultimately ruling the Punjab, eastern Afghanistan, and territories north into the Himalayas.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Sikh Empire ruled the Punjab until the British annexed it in 1849 following the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Most of the Punjabi homeland formed a province of British India, though a number of small princely states retained local rulers who recognized British authority. The Punjab with its rich farmlands became one of the most important colonial assets. Lahore was a noted center of learning and culture, and Rawalpindi became an important military installation.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Most Punjabis supported the British during World War I, providing men and resources to the war effort even though the Punjab remained a source of anti colonial activities. Disturbances in the region increased as the war continued. At the end of the war, high casualty rates, heavy taxation, inflation, and a widespread influenza epidemic disrupted Punjabi society. In 1919 a British officer ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of demonstrators, mostly Sikhs in Amritsar. The Jallianwala massacre fueled the indian independence movement. Nationalists declared the independence of India from Lahore in 1930 but were quickly suppressed.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: When the Second World War broke out, nationalism in British India had already divided into religious movements. Many Sikhs and other minorities supported the Hindus, who promised a secular multicultural and multireligious society, and Muslim leaders in Lahore passed a resolution to work for a Muslim Pakistan, making the Punjab region a center of growing conflict between Indian and Pakistani nationalists. At the end of the war, the British granted separate independence to India and Pakistan, setting off massive communal violence as Muslims fled to Pakistan and Hindu and Sikh Punjabis fled east to India.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The British Raj had major political, cultural, philosophical, and literary consequences in the Punjab, including the establishment of a new system of education. During the independence movement, many Punjabis played a significant role, including Madan Lal Dhingra, Sukhdev Thapar, Ajit Singh Sandhu, Bhagat Singh, Udham Singh, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Bhai Parmanand, Choudhry Rahmat Ali, and Lala Lajpat Rai. At the time of partition in 1947, the province was split into East and West Punjab. East Punjab (48%) became part of India, while West Punjab (52%) became part of Pakistan. The Punjab bore the brunt of the civil unrest following partition, with casualties estimated to be in the millions.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Another major consequence of partition was the sudden shift towards religious homogeneity occurred in all districts across Punjab owing to the new international border that cut through the province. This rapid demographic shift was primarily due to wide scale migration but also caused by large-scale religious cleansing riots which were witnessed across the region at the time. According to historical demographer Tim Dyson, in the eastern regions of Punjab that ultimately became Indian Punjab following independence, districts that were 66% Hindu in 1941 became 80% Hindu in 1951; those that were 20% Sikh became 50% Sikh in 1951. Conversely, in the western regions of Punjab that ultimately became Pakistani Punjab, all districts became almost exclusively Muslim by 1951.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab is Pakistan's second largest province by area after Balochistan with an area of . It occupies 25.8% of the total landmass of Pakistan. Punjab province is bordered by Sindh to the south, the province of Balochistan to the southwest, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, and the Islamabad Capital Territory and Azad Kashmir in the north. Punjab borders Jammu and Kashmir in the north, and the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The capital and largest city is Lahore which was the capital of the wider Punjab region since 17th century. Other important cities include Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Sargodha, Multan, Sialkot, Bahawalpur, Gujrat, Sheikhupura, Jhelum and Sahiwal. The undivided Punjab region was home to six rivers, of which five flow through Pakistan's Punjab province. From west to east, the rivers are: the Indus, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej. It is the nation's only province that touches every other province; it also surrounds the federal enclave of the national capital city at Islamabad.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab's landscape consists mostly consists of fertile alluvial plains of the Indus River and its four major tributaries in Pakistan, the Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej rivers which traverse Punjab north to south – the fifth of the "five waters" of Punjab, the Beas River, lies exclusively in the Indian state of Punjab. The landscape is amongst the most heavily irrigated on earth and canals can be found throughout the province. Punjab also includes several mountainous regions, including the Sulaiman Mountains in the southwest part of the province, the Margalla Hills in the north near Islamabad, and the Salt Range which divides the most northerly portion of Punjab, the Pothohar Plateau, from the rest of the province. Sparse deserts can be found in southern Punjab near the border with Rajasthan and near the Sulaiman Range. Punjab also contains part of the Thal and Cholistan deserts. In the South, Punjab's elevation reaches near the hill station of Fort Munro in Dera Ghazi Khan.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Most areas in Punjab experience extreme weather with foggy winters, often accompanied by rain. By mid-February the temperature begins to rise; springtime weather continues until mid-April, when the summer heat sets in.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The onset of the southwest monsoon is anticipated to reach Punjab by May, but since the early 1970s, the weather pattern has been irregular. The spring monsoon has either skipped over the area or has caused it to rain so hard that floods have resulted. June and July are oppressively hot. Although official estimates rarely place the temperature above 46 °C, newspaper sources claim that it reaches 51 °C and regularly carry reports about people who have succumbed to the heat. Heat records were broken in Multan in June 1993, when the mercury was reported to have risen to 54 °C. In August the oppressive heat is punctuated by the rainy season, referred to as "barsat", which brings relief in its wake. The hardest part of the summer is then over, but cooler weather does not come until late October.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab's region temperature ranges from −2° to 45 °C, but can reach 50 °C (122 °F) in summer and can touch down to −10 °C in winter.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Weather extremes are notable from the hot and barren south to the cool hills of the north. The foothills of the Himalayas are found in the extreme north as well, and feature a much cooler and wetter climate, with snowfall common at higher altitudes.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The province is home to over half the population of Pakistan, and is the world's fifth-most populous subnational entity, and the most populous outside China or India. Punjab has the lowest poverty rates in Pakistan, although a divide is present between the northern and southern parts of the province. Sialkot District in the prosperous northern part of the province has a poverty rate of 5.63%, while Rajanpur District in the poorer south has a poverty rate of 60.05%.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The major native language spoken in the Punjab is Punjabi, representing the largest language spoken in the country. Punjabi is recognized as the provincial language of Punjab but is not given any official recognition in the Constitution of Pakistan at the national level.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Several languages closely related to Punjabi are spoken in the periphery of the region. In the southern half of Punjab, the majority language is Saraiki, while in the north there are speakers of Hindko and Pothwari. Pashto is also spoken in some parts of Punjab, especially in Attock, Mianwali and Rawalpindi districts.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The use of Urdu and English as the near exclusive languages of broadcasting, the public sector, and formal education have led some to fear that Punjabi in Pakistan is being relegated to a low-status language and that it is being denied an environment where it can flourish. Several prominent educational leaders, researchers, and social commentators have echoed the opinion that the intentional promotion of Urdu and the continued denial of any official sanction or recognition of the Punjabi language amounts to a process of "Urdu-isation" that is detrimental to the health of the Punjabi language In August 2015, the Pakistan Academy of Letters, International Writer's Council (IWC) and World Punjabi Congress (WPC) organised the "Khawaja Farid Conference" and demanded that a Punjabi-language university should be established in Lahore and that Punjabi language should be declared as the medium of instruction at the primary level. In September 2015, a case was filed in Supreme Court of Pakistan against Government of Punjab, Pakistan as it did not take any step to implement the Punjabi language in the province. Additionally, several thousand Punjabis gather in Lahore every year on International Mother Language Day.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Hafiz Saeed, chief of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah (JuD) has questioned Pakistan's decision to adopt Urdu as its national language in a country where majority of people speak Punjabi language, citing his interpretation of Islamic doctrine as encouraging education in the mother-tongue. The list of thinktanks, political organisations, cultural projects, and individuals that demand authorities at the national and provincial level to promote the use of the language in the public and official spheres includes:


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Punjabi people first practiced Hinduism, the oldest recorded religion in the Punjab region. The historical Vedic religion constituted the religious ideas and practices in the Punjab during the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE). It is one of the major traditions which shaped Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is markedly different from the historical Vedic religion. The bulk of the Rigveda was composed in the Punjab region between circa 1500 and 1200 BC, while later Vedic scriptures were composed more eastwards, between the Yamuna and Ganges rivers. An ancient Indian law book called the Manusmriti, developed by Brahmin Hindu priests, shaped Punjabi religious life from 200 BC onward. Later, the spread of Buddhisim and Jainism in the Indian subcontinent saw the growth of Buddhism and Jainism in the Punjab. Islam was introduced via southern Punjab in the 8th century, becoming the majority by the 16th century, via local conversion. There was a small Jain community left in Punjab by the 16th century, while the Buddhist community had largely disappeared by the turn of the 10th century. The region became predominantly Muslim due to missionary Sufi saints whose dargahs dot the landscape of the Punjab region. The rise of Sikhism in the 1700s saw some Punjabis, both Hindu and Muslim, accepting the new Sikh faith. A number of Punjabis during the colonial period of India became Christians, with all of these religions characterizing the religious diversity now found in the Punjab region.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The population of Punjab (Pakistan) is estimated to be 110,012,442, of which as per as 2017 census, 107,559,164 i.e. (97.2%) Muslim with a Sunni Hanafi majority and a Shia Ithna 'ashariyah minority. The largest non-Muslim minority is Christians and make up 2,068,233 i.e. (2.5%) of the population. Hindus form about 220,024 people I.e (0.2%) of the population. The other minorities include Sikhs, Parsis and Baháʼís.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Government of Punjab is a provincial government in the federal structure of Pakistan, is based in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab Province. The Chief Minister of Punjab (CM) is elected by the Provincial Assembly of the Punjab to serve as the head of the provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan. The current Chief Minister is Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi He got elected by the National Assembly on 26 July 2022. The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the province of Punjab, which is located in Lahore in eastern Pakistan. The Assembly was established under Article 106 of the Constitution of Pakistan as having a total of 371 seats, with 66 seats reserved for women and eight reserved for non-Muslims.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: There are 48 departments in Punjab government. Each Department is headed by a Provincial Minister (Politician) and a Provincial Secretary (A civil servant of usually BPS-20 or BPS-21). All Ministers report to the Chief Minister, who is the Chief Executive. All Secretaries report to the Chief Secretary of Punjab, who is usually a BPS-22 Civil Servant. The Chief Secretary in turn, reports to the Chief Minister. In addition to these departments, there are several Autonomous Bodies and Attached Departments that report directly to either the Secretaries or the Chief Secretary.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: When the divisions were restored as a tier of government in 2008, a tenth division – Sheikhupura Division – was created from part of Lahore Division.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab has the largest economy in Pakistan, contributing most to the national GDP. The province's economy has quadrupled since 1972. Its share of Pakistan's GDP was 54.7% in 2000 and 59% as of 2010. It is especially dominant in the service and agriculture sectors of Pakistan's economy. With its contribution ranging from 52.1% to 64.5% in the Service Sector and 56.1% to 61.5% in the agriculture sector. It is also a major manpower contributor because it has the largest pool of professionals and highly skilled (technically trained) manpower in Pakistan. It is also dominant in the manufacturing sector, though the dominance is not as huge, with historical contributions ranging from a low of 44% to a high of 52.6%. In 2007, Punjab achieved a growth rate of 7.8% and during the period 2002–03 to 2007–08, its economy grew at a rate of between 7% to 8% per year. and during 2008–09 grew at 6% against the total GDP growth of Pakistan at 4%.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Despite the lack of a coastline, Punjab is the most industrialised province of Pakistan; its manufacturing industries produce textiles, sports goods, heavy machinery, electrical appliances, surgical instruments, vehicles, auto parts, metals, sugar mill plants, aircraft, cement, agricultural machinery, bicycles and rickshaws, floor coverings, and processed foods. In 2003, the province manufactured 90% of the paper and paper boards, 71% of the fertilizers, 69% of the sugar and 40% of the cement of Pakistan.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Despite its tropical wet and dry climate, extensive irrigation makes it a rich agricultural region. Its canal-irrigation system established by the British is the largest in the world. Wheat and cotton are the largest crops. Other crops include rice, sugarcane, millet, corn, oilseeds, pulses, vegetables, and fruits such as kinoo. Livestock and poultry production are also important. Despite past animosities, the rural masses in Punjab's farms continue to use the Hindu calendar for planting and harvesting.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab contributes about 76% to annual food grain production in the country. Cotton and rice are important crops. They are the cash crops that contribute substantially to the national exchequer. Attaining self-sufficiency in agriculture has shifted the focus of the strategies towards small and medium farming, stress on barani areas, farms-to-market roads, electrification for tube-wells and control of water logging and salinity.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab has also more than 68 thousand industrial units. There are 39,033 small and cottage industrial units. The number of textile units is 14,820. The ginning industries are 6,778. There are 7,355 units for processing of agricultural raw materials including food and feed industries.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Lahore and Gujranwala Divisions have the largest concentration of small light engineering units. The district of Sialkot excels in sports goods, surgical instruments and cutlery goods. Industrial estates are being developed by Punjab government to boost industrialization in province, Quaid e Azam Business Park Sheikhupura is one of the industrial area which is being developed near Sheikhupura on Lahore-Islamabad motorway.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Punjab is also a mineral-rich province with extensive mineral deposits of coal, iron, gas, petrol, rock salt (with the second largest salt mine in the world), dolomite, gypsum, and silica-sand. The Punjab Mineral Development Corporation is running over a hundred economically viable projects. Manufacturing includes machine products, cement, plastics, and various other goods.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The incidence of poverty differs between the different regions of Punjab. With Northern and Central Punjab facing much lower levels of poverty than Western and Southern Punjab. Those living in Southern and Western Punjab are also a lot more dependent on agriculture due to lower levels of industrialisation in those regions.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The literacy rate has increased greatly over the last 40 years (see the table below). Punjab has the highest Human Development Index out of all of Pakistan's provinces at 0.564.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The culture in Punjab grew out of the settlements along the five rivers, which served as an important route to the Near East as early as the ancient Indus Valley civilization, dating back to 3000 BCE. Agriculture has been the major economic feature of the Punjab and has therefore formed the foundation of Punjabi culture, with one's social status being determined by landownership. The Punjab emerged as an important agricultural region, especially following the Green Revolution during the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's, has been described as the "breadbasket of both India and Pakistan".


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The Islamic festivals are typically observed. Non-Islamic festivals include Lohri, Basant and Vaisakhi, which are usually celebrated as seasonal festivals. The Islamic festivals are set according to the lunar Islamic calendar (Hijri), and the date falls earlier by 10 to 13 days from year to year.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Some Islamic clerics and some politicians have attempted to ban the participation of non-Islamic festivals because of the religious basis, and they being declared haram (forbidden in Islam).


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Tourism in Punjab is regulated by the "Tourism Development Corporation of Punjab". The province has a number of large cosmopolitan cities, including the provincial capital Lahore. Major visitor attractions there include Lahore Fort and Shalimar Gardens, which are now recognised World Heritage Sites. The Walled City of Lahore, Badshahi Mosque, Wazir Khan Mosque, Tomb of Jahangir and Nur Jahan, Tomb of Asaf Khan, Chauburji and other major sites visited by tourists each year.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: Murree is a famous hill station stop for tourists. The Pharwala Fort, which was built by an ancient Hindu civilisation, is on the outskirts of the city. The city of Sheikhupura also has a number of sites from the Mughal Empire, including the World Heritage-listed Rohtas Fort near Jhelum. The Katasraj temple in the city of Chakwal is a major destination for Hindu devotees. The Khewra Salt Mines is one of the oldest mines in South Asia. Faisalabad's clock tower and eight bazaars were designed to represent the Union Jack.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: The province's southward is arid. Multan is known for its mausoleums of saints and Sufi pirs. The Multan Museum, Multan fort, DHA 360° zoo and Nuagaza tombs are significant attractions in the city. The city of Bahawalpur is located near the Cholistan and Thar deserts. Derawar Fort in the Cholistan Desert is the site for the annual Cholistan Jeep Rally. The city is also near the ancient site of Uch Sharif which was once a Delhi Sultanate stronghold. The Noor Mahal, Sadiq Ghar Palace, Darbar Mall were built during the reign of the Nawabs. The Lal Suhanra National Park is a major zoological garden on the outskirts of the city.


title: Punjab, Pakistan

text: One social/educational issue is the status of Punjabi language. According to Manzur Ejaz, "In Central Punjab, Punjabi is neither an official language of the province nor it is used as medium of education at any level. There are only two daily newspapers published in Punjabi in the Central areas of Punjab. Only a few monthly literary magazines constitute Punjabi press in Pakistan".


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: Donnie Brasco is a 1997 American crime drama film directed by Mike Newell, and starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. Michael Madsen, Bruno Kirby, James Russo, and Anne Heche appeared in supporting roles. The film, written by Paul Attanasio, is based on the 1988 nonfiction book "" by Joseph D. Pistone and Richard Woodley.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: The film is loosely based on the true story of Pistone (Depp), an FBI undercover agent who infiltrated the Bonanno crime family in New York City during the 1970s, under the alias Donnie Brasco, a jewel thief from Vero Beach, Florida. Brasco maneuvers his way into the confidence of an aging Mafia hitman, Lefty Ruggiero (Pacino), who vouches for him. As Donnie moves deeper into the Mafia, he realizes that not only is he crossing the line between federal agent and criminal, but also leading his friend Lefty to an almost certain death.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: "Donnie Brasco" premiered in Century City on February 24, 1997, and was released on February 28, 1997, by TriStar Pictures. The film was a box office success, earning $124.9 million against its $35 million budget, and received positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: In 1978 New York City, Lefty Ruggiero, an aging enforcer in the Bonanno crime family, meets Joe Pistone, a young undercover FBI agent posing as jewel thief "Donnie Brasco". Lefty asks Donnie to sell a diamond he acquired from a strip club owner, but Donnie insists that it's a fake. Insulted, Lefty takes Donnie to the man and demands an explanation. Donnie beats the owner and takes his Porsche as repayment. Lefty teaches Donnie the rules of the Mafia and introduces him to members of his crew, including Sonny Black, Nicky, Paulie, and rival crew leader Sonny Red. After the boss of the family is killed, Sonny receives a promotion, angering Lefty who feels his years of service make him more deserving. As the crew runs a series of successful shakedowns and hijackings in the city, Pistone exploits his position as Lefty's associate to gather information for the FBI via wiretap recordings. He also ends up forming a genuine bond with Lefty, who is struggling with family issues and a lifetime of debt.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: Pistone is asked by his FBI supervisor to incorporate Miami-based undercover FBI Agent Richie Gazzo into the Donnie Brasco operation. He convinces Lefty to meet with Richie and set up an illegal gambling racket in a long-closed tavern he owns. Lefty hopes to impress the local mob boss, Santo Trafficante Jr., by throwing a yacht party and convincing him to support his new business. Sonny finds out about Lefty's plan and intercedes by ingratiating himself to Trafficante and officially taking Donnie under his wing. Lefty believes Donnie betrayed him and cuts ties with him until Lefty's son nearly dies of an overdose and Donnie is the only one who comes to comfort him. Pistone's marriage with his wife Maggie continues to worsen due to long absences while undercover, leaving her alone to look after their three daughters. Pistone's behavior increasingly becomes more like that of the criminal he pretends to be, even hitting Maggie when she talks back to him.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: On its opening day, Sonny's club is raided by corrupt Miami Police officers on Trafficante's payroll as a favor for Sonny Red. Suspecting a setup, Sonny Black and his crew return to New York and gun down Sonny Red and two other mobsters in an ambush. Sonny Black also orders Lefty to kill Nicky for lying about a drug deal and suspecting he snitched on the crew in Florida. Donnie is brought in to help clean up and dispose of the bodies. Sonny Black becomes the new boss and orders Donnie to kill Sonny Red's son, Bruno, so that Donnie can officially become a member of their family. Lefty finds Bruno's hideout and takes Donnie there. Donnie tries to offer Lefty a bag of money so he can leave the Mafia, but Lefty begins questioning his loyalty at gunpoint. The FBI intercedes before Donnie is forced to do anything, and the investigation ends.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: FBI agents visit Sonny Black's hangout and reveal Donnie's true identity to the crew. Knowing the fatal consequences that await him for unknowingly letting an FBI agent infiltrate the crime family, Lefty leaves behind his valuables and tells his wife that if Donnie calls to tell him "if it was going to be anyone, I'm glad it was him", before he is called to a meeting with his crew. With his family in attendance, Pistone attends a small private ceremony for his service, being awarded a medal and a $500 check.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: The end title cards state that the evidence collected by Pistone in the Donnie Brasco operation led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions. Pistone lives with his wife under an assumed name in an undisclosed location, with a $500,000 open contract on his head.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: When Pistone's book, "" was published in 1988, Louis DiGiaimo, who worked as a casting director for Barry Levinson, was a childhood acquaintance of Joseph D. Pistone, and served as a consultant for the book, bought the film rights. DiGiaimo brought it to Levinson's Baltimore Pictures, as well as producers Mark Johnson and Gail Mutrux, who then turned to Paul Attanasio to write the script. Stephen Frears was initially hired as director for the film, but when "Goodfellas", another mob film, was released in 1990, the planning for the film was pushed back. Frears was adamant about casting Pacino to play Lefty. After several years of development hell, Frears was eventually replaced with Mike Newell as director, and development picked up in 1996. Pacino and Depp were ultimately cast in the co-starring roles, and Pistone was hired as a consultant to help them develop their characters.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: "Donnie Brasco" premiered in Century City, California on February 24, 1997. It was given a wide release in North America on February 28, 1997. It was released in the United Kingdom on May 2, 1997.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: "Donnie Brasco" was released on DVD in October 2000 as a "special edition" with bonus materials such as commentary tracks. In January 2006, "Donnie Brasco" was released as part of a DVD mob box set along with "Snatch", "Bugsy" and "The American Gangster". In May 2007, "Donnie Brasco" was released on Blu-ray in an extended cut.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: "Donnie Brasco" was released theatrically in North America on February 28, 1997. The film earned $11.6 million from 1,503 theaters during its opening weekend. It went on to earn $41.9 million in North America and $83 million from other markets, for a total of $124.9 million.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Donnie Brasco" has an approval rating of 88% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A stark, nuanced portrait of life in organized crime, bolstered by strong performances from Al Pacino and Johnny Depp." Metacritic, which assigned a weighted average rating of 76 out of 100, based on 21 critics, reports the film has "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" called it "a sharp, clever encounter, overturning all manner of genre cliches and viewer expectations... and the best crime movie in a long while, is full of similar surprises as it leads Mr. Pacino and Johnny Depp through a fine-tuned tale of deception." "Entertainment Weekly" called it a "wonderfully dense, clever, and moving gangland thriller," and gave it an A−, also praising Paul Attanasio's screenplay as "a rich, satisfying gumbo of back stabbing, shady business maneuvers, and mayhem." "Siskel and Ebert" gave "Donnie Brasco" "two thumbs up" on their syndicated television series. In his print review, Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it three and a half stars out of four: the film had one of Pacino's best performances, and, according to Ebert, "Donnie Brasco" was rare in depicting "two men who grow to love each other, within the framework of a teacher-student relationship." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised the film, saying that ""Donnie Brasco" is one terrific movie." Mick LaSalle from the "San Francisco Chronicle" gave the film a positive review and said that "Donnie Brasco" was "a first class Mafia thriller."


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: Critics praised Depp's performance especially: a "Salon.com" review hailed Depp's performance as "sensational." "New York Magazine" called him "graceful" and found his acting highly believable: "We can believe that the mob might take him for a tough, ambitious young hood—he has the wariness and the self-confidence that creates an aura."


title: Donnie Brasco (film)

text: According to Charles Taylor in his review for "Salon.com", both Pacino and Depp are "in top form"; in remarking on Pacino's frequent collaborations with younger actors (Sean Penn, John Cusack), Taylor called "Donnie Brasco" "the best in this series of duets" and singled out Pacino's skills: "His final scene is all the more heartbreaking for the economy of gesture and feeling he brings it. It's an exit that does justice to both the actor and the role, and it leaves an ache in the movie." "Entertainment Weekly" reserved its highest praise for Pacino: "If "Donnie Brasco" belongs to any actor, though, it's Al Pacino." "The Playlist" called it one of Pacino's best performances, writing "though "Scent of A Woman", "Two Bits" and even (relatively) "Heat" showcased Pacino at his most exuberantly grandiose, Brasco brings him back to a performance of stealth and nuance".


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements such as silicon, oxygen, aluminium, sodium, and potassium. It is commonly found within the margins of rhyolitic lava flows known as obsidian flows. These flows have a high content of silica, granting them a high viscosity. The high viscosity inhibits diffusion of atoms through the lava, which inhibits the first step (nucleation) in the formation of mineral crystals. Together with rapid cooling, this results in a natural glass forming from the lava.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is hard, brittle, and amorphous; it therefore fractures with sharp edges. In the past, it was used to manufacture cutting and piercing tools, and it has been used experimentally as surgical scalpel blades.


title: Obsidian

text: The "Natural History" by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder includes a few sentences about a volcanic glass called obsidian ("lapis obsidianus"), discovered in Ethiopia by Obsidius, a Roman explorer.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is formed from quickly cooled lava, which is the parent material. Extrusive formation of obsidian may occur when felsic lava cools rapidly at the edges of a felsic lava flow or volcanic dome, or when lava cools during sudden contact with water or air. Intrusive formation of obsidian may occur when felsic lava cools along the edges of a dike.


title: Obsidian

text: Tektites were once thought by many to be obsidian produced by lunar volcanic eruptions, though few scientists now adhere to this hypothesis.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is mineral-like, but not a true mineral because, as a glass, it is not crystalline; in addition, its composition is too variable to be classified as a mineral. It is sometimes classified as a mineraloid. Though obsidian is usually dark in color, similar to mafic rocks such as basalt, the composition of obsidian is extremely felsic. Obsidian consists mainly of SiO (silicon dioxide), usually 70% by weight or more. Crystalline rocks with a similar composition include granite and rhyolite. Because obsidian is metastable at the Earth's surface (over time the glass devitrifies, becoming fine-grained mineral crystals), obsidian older than Miocene in age is rare. Exceptionally old obsidians include a Cretaceous welded tuff and a partially devitrified Ordovician perlite. This transformation of obsidian is accelerated by the presence of water. Although newly formed obsidian has a low water content, typically less than 1% water by weight, it becomes progressively hydrated when exposed to groundwater, forming perlite.


title: Obsidian

text: Pure obsidian is usually dark in appearance, though the color varies depending on the impurities present. Iron and other transition elements may give the obsidian a dark brown to black color. Most black obsidians contain nanoinclusions of magnetite, an iron oxide. Very few samples of obsidian are nearly colorless. In some stones, the inclusion of small, white, radially clustered crystals (spherulites) of the mineral cristobalite in the black glass produce a blotchy or snowflake pattern ("snowflake obsidian"). Obsidian may contain patterns of gas bubbles remaining from the lava flow, aligned along layers created as the molten rock was flowing before being cooled. These bubbles can produce interesting effects such as a golden sheen ("sheen obsidian"). An iridescent, rainbow-like sheen ("fire obsidian") is caused by inclusions of magnetite nanoparticles creating thin-film interference. Colorful, striped obsidian ("rainbow obsidian") from Mexico contains oriented nanorods of hedenbergite, which cause the rainbow striping effects by thin-film interference.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is found near volcanoes in locations which have undergone rhyolitic eruptions. It can be found in Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Australia, Canada, Chile, Georgia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Scotland, The Canary Islands, Turkey and the United States. Obsidian flows which may be hiked on are found within the calderas of Newberry Volcano and Medicine Lake Volcano in the Cascade Range of western North America, and at Inyo Craters east of the Sierra Nevada in California. Yellowstone National Park has a mountainside containing obsidian located between Mammoth Hot Springs and the Norris Geyser Basin, and deposits can be found in many other western U.S. states including Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Washington, Oregon and Idaho.


title: Obsidian

text: There are only four major deposit areas in the central Mediterranean: Lipari, Pantelleria, Palmarola and Monte Arci (Sardinia).


title: Obsidian

text: Acıgöl town and the Göllü Dağ volcano were the most important sources in central Anatolia, one of the more important source areas in the prehistoric Near East.


title: Obsidian

text: The first known archaeological evidence of usage was in Kariandusi (Kenya) and other sites of the Acheulian age (beginning 1.5 million years BP) dated 700,000 BC, although only very few objects have been found at these sites relative to the Neolithic. Manufacture of obsidian bladelets at Lipari had reached a high level of sophistication by the late Neolithic, and was traded as far as Sicily, the southern Po river valley, and Croatia. Obsidian bladelets were used in ritual circumcisions and cutting of umbilical cords of newborns. Anatolian sources of obsidian are known to have been the material used in the Levant and modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan from a time beginning sometime about 12,500 BC. Obsidian artifacts are common at Tell Brak, one of the earliest Mesopotamian urban centers, dating to the late fifth millennium BC. Obsidian was valued in Stone Age cultures because, like flint, it could be fractured to produce sharp blades or arrowheads in a process called knapping. Like all glass and some other naturally occurring rocks, obsidian breaks with a characteristic conchoidal fracture. It was also polished to create early mirrors. Modern archaeologists have developed a relative dating system, obsidian hydration dating, to calculate the age of obsidian artifacts.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian artifacts first appeared in the European continent in Central Europe in the Middle Paleolithic and had become common by the Upper Paleolithic, although there are exceptions to this. Obsidian played an important role in the transmission of Neolithic knowledge and experiences. The material was mainly used for production of chipped tools which were very sharp due to its nature. Artifacts made of obsidian can be found in many Neolithic cultures across Europe. The source of obsidian for cultures inhabiting the territory of and around Greece was the island of Milos; the Starčevo–Körös–Criș culture obtained obsidian from sources in Hungary and Slovakia, while the Cardium-Impresso cultural complex acquired obsidian from the island outcrops of the central Mediterranean. Through trade, these artifacts ended up in lands thousands of kilometers away from the original source; this indicates that they were a highly valued commodity. John Dee had a mirror, made of obsidian, which was brought from Mexico to Europe between 1527 and 1530 after Hernando Cortés's conquest of the region.


title: Obsidian

text: In the Ubaid in the 5th millennium BC, blades were manufactured from obsidian extracted from outcrops located in modern-day Turkey. Ancient Egyptians used obsidian imported from the eastern Mediterranean and southern Red Sea regions. In the eastern Mediterranean area the material was used to make tools, mirrors and decorative objects.


title: Obsidian

text: The use of obsidian tools was present in Japan near areas of volcanic activity. Obsidian was mined during the Jōmon period.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian has also been found in Gilat, a site in the western Negev in Israel. Eight obsidian artifacts dating to the Chalcolithic Age found at this site were traced to obsidian sources in Anatolia. Neutron activation analysis (NAA) on the obsidian found at this site helped to reveal trade routes and exchange networks previously unknown.


title: Obsidian

text: Lithic analysis helps to understand pre-hispanic groups in Mesoamerica. A careful analysis of obsidian in a culture or place can be of considerable use to reconstruct commerce, production, and distribution, and thereby understand economic, social and political aspects of a civilization. This is the case in Yaxchilán, a Maya city where even warfare implications have been studied linked with obsidian use and its debris. Another example is the archeological recovery at coastal Chumash sites in California, indicating considerable trade with the distant site of Casa Diablo, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.


title: Obsidian

text: Pre-Columbian Mesoamericans' use of obsidian was extensive and sophisticated; including carved and worked obsidian for tools and decorative objects. Mesoamericans also made a type of sword with obsidian blades mounted in a wooden body. Called a "macuahuitl", the weapon could inflict terrible injuries, combining the sharp cutting edge of an obsidian blade with the ragged cut of a serrated weapon. The polearm version of this weapon was called "tepoztopilli".


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian mirrors were used by some Aztec priests to conjure visions and make prophecies. They were connected with Tezcatlipoca, god of obsidian and sorcery, whose name can be translated from the Nahuatl language as 'Smoking Mirror’.


title: Obsidian

text: Native American people traded obsidian throughout the Americas. Each volcano and in some cases each volcanic eruption produces a distinguishable type of obsidian, allowing archaeologists to trace the origins of a particular artifact. Similar tracing techniques have also allowed obsidian in Greece to be identified as coming from Milos, Nisyros or Gyali, islands in the Aegean Sea. Obsidian cores and blades were traded great distances inland from the coast.


title: Obsidian

text: In Chile obsidian tools from Chaitén Volcano have been found as far away as in Chan-Chan north of the volcano, and also in sites 400 km south of it.


title: Obsidian

text: The Lapita culture, active across a large area of the Pacific Ocean around 1000 BC, made widespread use of obsidian tools and engaged in long distance obsidian trading. The complexity of the production technique for these tools, and the care taken in their storage, may indicate that beyond their practical use they were associated with prestige or high status.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian was also used on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) for edged tools such as "Mataia" and the pupils of the eyes of their Moai (statues), which were encircled by rings of bird bone. Obsidian was used to inscribe the Rongorongo glyphs.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian can be used to make extremely sharp knives, and obsidian blades are a type of glass knife made using naturally occurring obsidian instead of manufactured glass. Obsidian is used by some surgeons for scalpel blades, although this is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use on humans. Well-crafted obsidian blades, like any glass knife, can have a cutting edge many times sharper than high-quality steel surgical scalpels: the cutting edge of the blade is only about three nanometers thick. All metal knives have a jagged, irregular blade when viewed under a strong enough microscope; however, obsidian blades are still smooth, even when examined under an electron microscope. One study found that obsidian incisions produced fewer inflammatory cells and less granulation tissue in a group of rats after seven days but the differences disappeared after twenty-one days. Don Crabtree has produced surgical obsidian blades and written articles on the subject. Obsidian scalpels may currently be purchased for surgical use on research animals.


title: Obsidian

text: The major disadvantage of obsidian blades is their brittleness compared to those made of metal, thus limiting the surgical applications for obsidian blades to a variety of specialized uses where this is not a concern.


title: Obsidian

text: Obsidian is also used for ornamental purposes and as a gemstone. It presents a different appearance depending on how it is cut: in one direction it is jet black, while in another it is glistening gray. "Apache tears" are small rounded obsidian nuggets often embedded within a grayish-white perlite matrix.


title: Obsidian

text: Plinths for audio turntables have been made of obsidian since the 1970s, such as the grayish-black SH-10B3 plinth by Technics.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid , systematically named ethanoic acid , is an acidic, colourless liquid and organic compound with the chemical formula (also written as , , or ). Vinegar is at least 4% acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component of vinegar apart from water and other trace elements.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is the second simplest carboxylic acid (after formic acid). It is an important chemical reagent and industrial chemical, used primarily in the production of cellulose acetate for photographic film, polyvinyl acetate for wood glue, and synthetic fibres and fabrics. In households, diluted acetic acid is often used in descaling agents. In the food industry, acetic acid is controlled by the food additive code E260 as an acidity regulator and as a condiment. In biochemistry, the acetyl group, derived from acetic acid, is fundamental to all forms of life. When bound to coenzyme A, it is central to the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats.


title: Acetic acid

text: The global demand for acetic acid is about 6.5 million metric tons per year (t/a), of which approximately 1.5 t/a is met by recycling; the remainder is manufactured from methanol. Vinegar is mostly dilute acetic acid, often produced by fermentation and subsequent oxidation of ethanol.


title: Acetic acid

text: The trivial name "acetic acid" is the most commonly used and preferred IUPAC name. The systematic name "ethanoic acid", a valid IUPAC name, is constructed according to the substitutive nomenclature. The name "acetic acid" derives from "acetum", the Latin word for vinegar, and is related to the word "acid" itself.


title: Acetic acid

text: "Glacial acetic acid" is a name for water-free (anhydrous) acetic acid. Similar to the German name "Eisessig" ("ice vinegar"), the name comes from the ice-like crystals that form slightly below room temperature at (the presence of 0.1% water lowers its melting point by 0.2 °C).


title: Acetic acid

text: A common symbol for acetic acid is AcOH, where Ac is the pseudoelement symbol representing the acetyl group ; the conjugate base, acetate (), is thus represented as . (The symbol Ac for the acetyl functional group is not to be confused with the symbol Ac for the element actinium; the context prevents confusion among organic chemists). To better reflect its structure, acetic acid is often written as , , , and . In the context of acid–base reactions, the abbreviation HAc is sometimes used, where Ac in this case is a symbol for acetate (rather than acetyl). Acetate is the ion resulting from loss of from acetic acid. The name "acetate" can also refer to a salt containing this anion, or an ester of acetic acid.


title: Acetic acid

text: The hydrogen centre in the carboxyl group (−COOH) in carboxylic acids such as acetic acid can separate from the molecule by ionization:


title: Acetic acid

text: Because of this release of the proton (), acetic acid has acidic character. Acetic acid is a weak monoprotic acid. In aqueous solution, it has a pK value of 4.76. Its conjugate base is acetate (). A 1.0 M solution (about the concentration of domestic vinegar) has a pH of 2.4, indicating that merely 0.4% of the acetic acid molecules are dissociated. However, in very dilute (< 10 M) solution acetic acid is >90% dissociated.


title: Acetic acid

text: In solid acetic acid, the molecules form chains, individual molecules being interconnected by hydrogen bonds. In the vapour at , dimers can be detected. Dimers also occur in the liquid phase in dilute solutions in non-hydrogen-bonding solvents, and a certain extent in pure acetic acid, but are disrupted by hydrogen-bonding solvents. The dissociation enthalpy of the dimer is estimated at 65.0–66.0 kJ/mol, and the dissociation entropy at 154–157 J mol K. Other carboxylic acids engage in similar intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions.


title: Acetic acid

text: Liquid acetic acid is a hydrophilic (polar) protic solvent, similar to ethanol and water. With a relative static permittivity (dielectric constant) of 6.2, it dissolves not only polar compounds such as inorganic salts and sugars, but also non-polar compounds such as oils as well as polar solutes. It is miscible with polar and non-polar solvents such as water, chloroform, and hexane. With higher alkanes (starting with octane), acetic acid is not miscible at all compositions, and solubility of acetic acid in alkanes declines with longer n-alkanes. The solvent and miscibility properties of acetic acid make it a useful industrial chemical, for example, as a solvent in the production of dimethyl terephthalate.


title: Acetic acid

text: The acetyl group, formally derived from acetic acid, is fundamental to all forms of life. When bound to coenzyme A, it is central to the metabolism of carbohydrates and fats. Unlike longer-chain carboxylic acids (the fatty acids), acetic acid does not occur in natural triglycerides. However, the artificial triglyceride triacetin (glycerine triacetate) is a common food additive and is found in cosmetics and topical medicines.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is produced and excreted by acetic acid bacteria, notably the genus "Acetobacter" and "Clostridium acetobutylicum". These bacteria are found universally in foodstuffs, water, and soil, and acetic acid is produced naturally as fruits and other foods spoil. Acetic acid is also a component of the vaginal lubrication of humans and other primates, where it appears to serve as a mild antibacterial agent.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is produced industrially both synthetically and by bacterial fermentation. About 75% of acetic acid made for use in the chemical industry is made by the carbonylation of methanol, explained below. The biological route accounts for only about 10% of world production, but it remains important for the production of vinegar because many food purity laws require vinegar used in foods to be of biological origin. Other processes are methyl formate isomerization, conversion of syngas to acetic acid, and gas phase oxidation of ethylene and ethanol. Acetic acid is often a side product of different reactions, e.g. during heterogeneous catalytic acrylic acid synthesis or fermentative lactic acid production. Acetic acid can be purified via fractional freezing using an ice bath. The water and other impurities will remain liquid while the acetic acid will precipitate out. As of 2003–2005, total worldwide production of virgin acetic acid was estimated at 5 Mt/a (million tonnes per year), approximately half of which was produced in the United States. European production was approximately 1 Mt/a and declining, while Japanese production was 0.7 Mt/a. Another 1.5 Mt were recycled each year, bringing the total world market to 6.5 Mt/a. Since then the global production has increased to 10.7 Mt/a (in 2010), and further; however, a slowing in this increase in production is predicted. The two biggest producers of virgin acetic acid are Celanese and BP Chemicals. Other major producers include Millennium Chemicals, Sterling Chemicals, Samsung, Eastman, and Svensk Etanolkemi.


title: Acetic acid

text: Most acetic acid is produced by methanol carbonylation. In this process, methanol and carbon monoxide react to produce acetic acid according to the equation:


title: Acetic acid

text: The process involves iodomethane as an intermediate, and occurs in three steps. A catalyst, metal carbonyl, is needed for the carbonylation (step 2).


title: Acetic acid

text: Two related processes exist for the carbonylation of methanol: the rhodium-catalyzed Monsanto process, and the iridium-catalyzed Cativa process. The latter process is greener and more efficient and has largely supplanted the former process, often in the same production plants. Catalytic amounts of water are used in both processes, but the Cativa process requires less, so the water-gas shift reaction is suppressed, and fewer by-products are formed.


title: Acetic acid

text: By altering the process conditions, acetic anhydride may also be produced on the same plant using the rhodium catalysts.


title: Acetic acid

text: Prior to the commercialization of the Monsanto process, most acetic acid was produced by oxidation of acetaldehyde. This remains the second-most-important manufacturing method, although it is usually not competitive with the carbonylation of methanol. The acetaldehyde can be produced by hydration of acetylene. This was the dominant technology in the early 1900s.


title: Acetic acid

text: Light naphtha components are readily oxidized by oxygen or even air to give peroxides, which decompose to produce acetic acid according to the chemical equation, illustrated with butane:


title: Acetic acid

text: Such oxidations require metal catalyst, such as the naphthenate salts of manganese, cobalt, and chromium.


title: Acetic acid

text: The typical reaction is conducted at temperatures and pressures designed to be as hot as possible while still keeping the butane a liquid. Typical reaction conditions are and 55 atm. Side-products may also form, including butanone, ethyl acetate, formic acid, and propionic acid. These side-products are also commercially valuable, and the reaction conditions may be altered to produce more of them where needed. However, the separation of acetic acid from these by-products adds to the cost of the process.


title: Acetic acid

text: Under similar conditions and using similar catalysts as are used for butane oxidation, the oxygen in air to produce acetic acid can oxidize acetaldehyde.


title: Acetic acid

text: Using modern catalysts, this reaction can have an acetic acid yield greater than 95%. The major side-products are ethyl acetate, formic acid, and formaldehyde, all of which have lower boiling points than acetic acid and are readily separated by distillation.


title: Acetic acid

text: In more recent times, chemical company Showa Denko, which opened an ethylene oxidation plant in Ōita, Japan, in 1997, commercialised a cheaper single-stage conversion of ethylene to acetic acid. The process is catalyzed by a palladium metal catalyst supported on a heteropoly acid such as silicotungstic acid. A similar process uses the same metal catalyst on silicotungstic acid and silica:


title: Acetic acid

text: It is thought to be competitive with methanol carbonylation for smaller plants (100–250 kt/a), depending on the local price of ethylene.


title: Acetic acid

text: The approach will be based on utilizing a novel selective photocatalytic oxidation technology for the selective oxidation of ethylene and ethane to acetic acid. Unlike traditional oxidation catalysts, the selective oxidation process will use UV light to produce acetic acid at ambient temperatures and pressure.


title: Acetic acid

text: For most of human history, acetic acid bacteria of the genus "Acetobacter" have made acetic acid, in the form of vinegar. Given sufficient oxygen, these bacteria can produce vinegar from a variety of alcoholic foodstuffs. Commonly used feeds include apple cider, wine, and fermented grain, malt, rice, or potato mashes. The overall chemical reaction facilitated by these bacteria is:


title: Acetic acid

text: A dilute alcohol solution inoculated with "Acetobacter" and kept in a warm, airy place will become vinegar over the course of a few months. Industrial vinegar-making methods accelerate this process by improving the supply of oxygen to the bacteria.


title: Acetic acid

text: The first batches of vinegar produced by fermentation probably followed errors in the winemaking process. If must is fermented at too high a temperature, acetobacter will overwhelm the yeast naturally occurring on the grapes. As the demand for vinegar for culinary, medical, and sanitary purposes increased, vintners quickly learned to use other organic materials to produce vinegar in the hot summer months before the grapes were ripe and ready for processing into wine. This method was slow, however, and not always successful, as the vintners did not understand the process.


title: Acetic acid

text: One of the first modern commercial processes was the "fast method" or "German method", first practised in Germany in 1823. In this process, fermentation takes place in a tower packed with wood shavings or charcoal. The alcohol-containing feed is trickled into the top of the tower, and fresh air supplied from the bottom by either natural or forced convection. The improved air supply in this process cut the time to prepare vinegar from months to weeks.


title: Acetic acid

text: Nowadays, most vinegar is made in submerged tank culture, first described in 1949 by Otto Hromatka and Heinrich Ebner. In this method, alcohol is fermented to vinegar in a continuously stirred tank, and oxygen is supplied by bubbling air through the solution. Using modern applications of this method, vinegar of 15% acetic acid can be prepared in only 24 hours in batch process, even 20% in 60-hour fed-batch process.


title: Acetic acid

text: Species of anaerobic bacteria, including members of the genus "Clostridium" or "Acetobacterium" can convert sugars to acetic acid directly without creating ethanol as an intermediate. The overall chemical reaction conducted by these bacteria may be represented as:


title: Acetic acid

text: These acetogenic bacteria produce acetic acid from one-carbon compounds, including methanol, carbon monoxide, or a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen:


title: Acetic acid

text: This ability of "Clostridium" to metabolize sugars directly, or to produce acetic acid from less costly inputs, suggests that these bacteria could produce acetic acid more efficiently than ethanol-oxidizers like "Acetobacter". However, "Clostridium" bacteria are less acid-tolerant than "Acetobacter". Even the most acid-tolerant "Clostridium" strains can produce vinegar in concentrations of only a few per cent, compared to "Acetobacter" strains that can produce vinegar in concentrations up to 20%. At present, it remains more cost-effective to produce vinegar using "Acetobacter", rather than using "Clostridium" and concentrating it. As a result, although acetogenic bacteria have been known since 1940, their industrial use is confined to a few niche applications.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is a chemical reagent for the production of chemical compounds. The largest single use of acetic acid is in the production of vinyl acetate monomer, closely followed by acetic anhydride and ester production. The volume of acetic acid used in vinegar is comparatively small.


title: Acetic acid

text: The primary use of acetic acid is the production of vinyl acetate monomer (VAM). In 2008, this application was estimated to consume a third of the world's production of acetic acid. The reaction consists of ethylene and acetic acid with oxygen over a palladium catalyst, conducted in the gas phase.


title: Acetic acid

text: Vinyl acetate can be polymerised to polyvinyl acetate or other polymers, which are components in paints and adhesives.


title: Acetic acid

text: The major esters of acetic acid are commonly used as solvents for inks, paints and coatings. The esters include ethyl acetate, "n"-butyl acetate, isobutyl acetate, and propyl acetate. They are typically produced by catalyzed reaction from acetic acid and the corresponding alcohol:


title: Acetic acid

text: Most acetate esters, however, are produced from acetaldehyde using the Tishchenko reaction. In addition, ether acetates are used as solvents for nitrocellulose, acrylic lacquers, varnish removers, and wood stains. First, glycol monoethers are produced from ethylene oxide or propylene oxide with alcohol, which are then esterified with acetic acid. The three major products are ethylene glycol monoethyl ether acetate (EEA), ethylene glycol monobutyl ether acetate (EBA), and propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate (PMA, more commonly known as PGMEA in semiconductor manufacturing processes, where it is used as a resist solvent). This application consumes about 15% to 20% of worldwide acetic acid. Ether acetates, for example EEA, have been shown to be harmful to human reproduction.


title: Acetic acid

text: The product of the condensation of two molecules of acetic acid is acetic anhydride. The worldwide production of acetic anhydride is a major application, and uses approximately 25% to 30% of the global production of acetic acid. The main process involves dehydration of acetic acid to give ketene at 700–750 °C. Ketene is thereafter reacted with acetic acid to obtain the anhydride:


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic anhydride is an acetylation agent. As such, its major application is for cellulose acetate, a synthetic textile also used for photographic film. Acetic anhydride is also a reagent for the production of heroin and other compounds.


title: Acetic acid

text: As a polar protic solvent, acetic acid is frequently used for recrystallization to purify organic compounds. Acetic acid is used as a solvent in the production of terephthalic acid (TPA), the raw material for polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In 2006, about 20% of acetic acid was used for TPA production.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is often used as a solvent for reactions involving carbocations, such as Friedel-Crafts alkylation. For example, one stage in the commercial manufacture of synthetic camphor involves a Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement of camphene to isobornyl acetate; here acetic acid acts both as a solvent and as a nucleophile to trap the rearranged carbocation.


title: Acetic acid

text: Glacial acetic acid is used in analytical chemistry for the estimation of weakly alkaline substances such as organic amides. Glacial acetic acid is a much weaker base than water, so the amide behaves as a strong base in this medium. It then can be titrated using a solution in glacial acetic acid of a very strong acid, such as perchloric acid.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is used as part of cervical cancer screening in many areas in the developing world. The acid is applied to the cervix and if an area of white appears after about a minute the test is positive.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid is an effective antiseptic when used as a 1% solution, with broad spectrum of activity against streptococci, staphylococci, pseudomonas, enterococci and others. It may be used to treat skin infections caused by pseudomonas strains resistant to typical antibiotics.


title: Acetic acid

text: While diluted acetic acid is used in iontophoresis, no high quality evidence supports this treatment for rotator cuff disease.


title: Acetic acid

text: As a treatment for otitis externa, it is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid has per 100 g. Vinegar is typically no less than 4% acetic acid by mass. Legal limits on acetic acid content vary by jurisdiction. Vinegar is used directly as a condiment, and in the pickling of vegetables and other foods. Table vinegar tends to be more diluted (4% to 8% acetic acid), while commercial food pickling employs solutions that are more concentrated. The proportion of acetic acid used worldwide as vinegar is not as large as commercial uses, but is by far the oldest and best-known application.


title: Acetic acid

text: Acetic acid undergoes the typical chemical reactions of a carboxylic acid. Upon treatment with a standard base, it converts to metal acetate and water. With strong bases (e.g., organolithium reagents), it can be doubly deprotonated to give . Reduction of acetic acid gives ethanol. The OH group is the main site of reaction, as illustrated by the conversion of acetic acid to acetyl chloride. Other substitution derivatives include acetic anhydride; this anhydride is produced by loss of water from two molecules of acetic acid. Esters of acetic acid can likewise be formed via Fischer esterification, and amides can be formed. When heated above , acetic acid decomposes to produce carbon dioxide and methane, or to produce ketene and water: