title: Julio Iglesias

text: Whenever Iglesias was not on tour, he spent his time at his Miami residence, purchased in 1978 for $650,000. The mansion on the private Indian Creek Island, whose interior design was made by Virginia Sipl, was placed on the market in 2006 for a quoted $28 million, making it one of the "Ten Most Expensive Homes in the South" in 2006 according to "Forbes" magazine.


title: Julio Iglesias

text: After his divorce, Iglesias lived with Dutch model Miranda Rijnsburger, 22 years his junior, whom he married on 26 August 2010 in a small church in Marbella, Spain. They had five children: Miguel Alejandro Iglesias (born 7 September 1997), Rodrigo Iglesias (born 3 April 1999), twins Cristina and Victoria Iglesias (born 1 May 2001), and Guillermo Iglesias (born 5 May 2007). They took up residence in the Dominican Republic, where Iglesias had acquired several hotel complexes, as well as the Punta Cana International Airport, which he acquired jointly with other investors, including fashion designer Oscar de la Renta.


title: Julio Iglesias

text: On 19 December 2005, Iglesias's father died of a heart attack at the age of 90. A week before his father's death, it became known that Ronna Keitt, his father's 42-year-old wife, was pregnant with their second child. Their first child, Jaime, had been born on 18 May 2004. The second child, Ruth, was born on 26 July 2006.


title: Julio Iglesias

text: In 2008, after his house in Indian Creek did not sell at his asking price, he ordered it razed and said he planned to build another on the lot. In 2012, he purchased the property next door for $15 million and announced that he planned to build a new home on the combined properties. In 2020, he agreed to sell it to Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, a daughter of then-U.S. President Donald Trump.


title: Julio Iglesias

text: In 2019, a court in Valencia ruled that Iglesias is the father of Javier Sánchez, son of Portuguese former dancer Maria Edite Santos. Sánchez had been pursuing his paternity suit in court since 1992, arguing that he was conceived when his mother allegedly had an affair with Iglesias in the Catalonia region in July 1975. The singer, who rejected all those claims, had refused on several occasions to undergo a paternity test. The Sánchez legal team argued that DNA evidence obtained in the US by an investigator proved their case; however, the DNA sample did not come directly from the singer but was collected from "a bottle of water" used by his son, Julio Iglesias Jr, which he left on a Miami beach. The presiding judge, José Miguel Bort, rejected this DNA claim but ruled in favor of Sánchez. Delivering the verdict, Judge Bort said his decision was reached in part because of the "resemblance between the two men" and on the basis of Edite's testimony. Iglesias appealed the verdict and the Provincial Court of Valencia reversed Judge Bort's ruling, declaring it cannot be proven that Sánchez is the son of Iglesias. The matter was taken to the Supreme Court of the country, and, in April 2021, the Court dismissed the claims made by Sánchez, imposing also the costs of the process on him.


title: Shopify

text: Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online retailers a suite of services including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools.


title: Shopify

text: The company reported that it had more than 1,700,000 businesses in approximately 175 countries using its platform as of May 2021. According to BuiltWith, 1.58 million websites run on the Shopify platform as of 2021. According to W3Techs, 4.4% of the top 10 million websites use Shopify. The total gross merchandise volume exceeded US$61 billion for calendar 2019. As of July 2022, Shopify is among the top 20 largest publicly traded Canadian companies by market capitalization. Total revenue for the full year 2021 was US$4.611 billion.


title: Shopify

text: Shopify was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake after attempting to open Snowdevil, an online store for snowboarding equipment. Dissatisfied with the existing e-commerce products on the market, Lütke, a computer programmer by trade, instead built his own. Lütke used the open source web application framework Ruby on Rails to build Snowdevil's online store and launched it after two months of development. The Snowdevil founders launched the platform as Shopify in June 2006.


title: Shopify

text: Shopify created an open-source template language called Liquid, which is written in Ruby and used since 2006.


title: Shopify

text: In June 2009, Shopify launched an application programming interface (API) platform and App Store. The API allows developers to create applications for Shopify online stores and then sell them on the Shopify App Store.


title: Shopify

text: In April 2010, Shopify launched a free mobile app on the Apple App Store. The app lets Shopify store owners view and manage their stores from iOS mobile devices. In 2010, Shopify started its Build-A-Business competition, in which participants create a business using its commerce platform. The winners of the competition receive cash prizes and mentorship from entrepreneurs, such as Richard Branson, Eric Ries and others. Shopify was named Ottawa's Fastest Growing Company by the Ottawa Business Journal in 2010. The company received $7 million from an initial series A round of venture capital financing in December 2010. Its Series B round raised $15 million in October 2011. In February 2012, Shopify acquired Select Start Studios Inc ("S3"), a mobile software developer, along with 20 of the company's mobile engineers and designers. In August 2013, Shopify acquired Jet Cooper, a 25-person design studio based in Toronto.


title: Shopify

text: In August 2013, Shopify announced the launch of Shopify Payments, rebranded as Shop Pay in February 2020. Shop Pay allowed merchants to accept credit cards without requiring a third party payment gateway. The company also announced the launch of an iPad-centric point of sale system. It uses an iPad to accept payments from debit cards and credit cards. The company received $100 million in Series C funding in December 2013. By 2014, the platform had hosted approximately 120,000 online retailers, and was listed as #3 in Deloitte’s Fast50 in Canada, as well as #7 in Deloitte’s Fast 500 of North America. Shopify earned $105 million in revenue in 2014, twice as much as it raised the previous year. In February 2014, Shopify released "Shopify Plus" for large e-commerce businesses with access to additional features and support.


title: Shopify

text: On April 14, 2015, Shopify filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "SHOP" and "SH" respectively. Shopify went public on May 21, 2015, and in its debut on the New York Stock Exchange, started trading at $28, more than 60% higher than its US$17 offering price, with its IPO raising more than $131 million. In September 2015, Amazon.com announced it would be closing its Amazon Webstore service for merchants, and had selected Shopify as the preferred migration provider; Shopify's shares jumped more than 20% upon the news.


title: Shopify

text: In April 2016, Shopify announced Shopify Capital, a cash advance product. Shopify Capital was initially piloted to merchants within the US and allowed merchants to receive an advance on future earnings processed through their payment gateway. Since its launch in 2016, Shopify Capital has provided over $2 billion in funding to Shopify merchants with a maximum advance of $2 million. On October 3, 2016, Shopify acquired Boltmade. In November 2016, Shopify partnered with Paystack which allowed Nigerian online retailers to accept payments from customers around the world. On November 22, 2016, Shopify launched Frenzy, a mobile app that improves flash sales. On December 5, 2016, Shopify acquired Toronto-based mobile product development studio Tiny Hearts. The Tiny Hearts building has been turned into a Shopify research and development office.


title: Shopify

text: In January 2017, Shopify announced integration with Amazon that would allow merchants to sell on Amazon from their Shopify stores. Shopify's stock rose almost 10% upon this announcement. In April 2017, Shopify introduced a Bluetooth enabled debit and credit card reader for brick and mortar retail purchases. The company has since released additional technology for brick and mortar retailers, including a point-of-sale system with a Dock and Retail Stand similar to that offered by Square, and a tappable chip card reader.


title: Shopify

text: In September 2018, Shopify announced plans to locate thousands of employees in Toronto's King West neighborhood in 2022 as part of "The Well" complex, jointly owned by Allied Properties REIT and RioCan REIT. In October 2018, Shopify opened their first physical space in Los Angeles. The space offered classes, a "genius bar" for companies that use Shopify software and workshops. Online cannabis sales in Ontario used Shopify's software when the drug was legalized in October 2018. Shopify's software is also used for in-person cannabis sales in Ontario since becoming legal in 2019.


title: Shopify

text: In January 2019, Shopify announced the launch of Shopify Studios, a full-service television and film content and production house. On March 22, 2019, Shopify and email marketing platform Mailchimp ended an integration agreement over disputes involving customer privacy and data collection. In April 2019, Shopify announced an integration with Snapchat to allow Shopify merchants to buy and manage Snapchat Story ads directly on the Shopify platform. The company had previously secured similar integration partnerships with Facebook and Google.


title: Shopify

text: In May 2019, Shopify acquired Handshake, a business-to-business e-commerce platform for wholesale goods. The Handshake team was integrated into Shopify Plus, and Handshake founder and CEO Glen Coates was made Director of Product for Shopify Plus. In June 2019, Shopify announced that it would launch its Fulfilment Network. The service promises to handle shipping logistics for merchants and will compete with an established leader, Amazon FBA. Shopify Fulfillment Network will be available to qualifying U.S. merchants in select states.


title: Shopify

text: On August 14, 2019, Shopify launched Shopify Chat, a new native chat function that allows merchants to have real-time conversations with customers visiting Shopify stores online. On September 9, 2019, Shopify announced the acquisition of 6 River Systems, a Massachusetts-based company that makes warehouse robots. The acquisition was finalized in October, resulting in a cash-and-share deal worth US$450 million.


title: Shopify

text: In 2020, the company announced new hires in Vancouver, Canada, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to lifting stock prices.


title: Shopify

text: On February 21, 2020, Shopify announced plans to join the Diem Association, known as Libra Association at the time. On March 11, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shopify announced it will shift its entire workforce to remote work.


title: Shopify

text: It was reported that Shopify's valuation would likely rise on the back of options it had in the company Affirm that was expecting to go public shortly. In November 2020, Shopify announced a partnership with Alipay to support merchants with cross-border payments.


title: Shopify

text: As a result of Affirm's January 13, 2021 IPO, Shopify's 8% stake in Affirm was worth $2 billion. About half of Shopify's C-level executives left the company in early 2021. On June 11, 2021, Shopify announced its acquisition of Primer, an AR app on the App Store that allows users to preview home improvement items digitally. On June 29, 2021, Shopify removed the 20% revenue share for app developers that make less than US$1 million per year.


title: Shopify

text: On March 22, 2022, Shopify introduced Linkpop, a product to create a branded, social marketplace through which merchants can advertise and market their products via links to be added on social media channels. On April 11, 2022, Shopify announced their acquisition of Dovetale, an influencer marketing startup from New York. On January 18, 2022, Shopify announced a partnership with JD.com to let US merchants expand their operations in China, listing their products on JD’s cross-border e-commerce platform JD Worldwide.


title: Shopify

text: On May 5, 2022, Shopify announced their acquisition of Deliverr, a San Francisco, California-based ecommerce fulfilment startup, for US$2.1 billion in cash and stock.


title: Shopify

text: In June 2022, Shopify partnered with Twitter. As a part of the deal, Twitter announced that it would launch a sales channel app for all of Shopify’s U.S. merchants through its app store. On July 26, 2022, Lütke announced immediate layoffs totalling roughly 10 percent of its workforce. In a message to employees, the CEO said the company's planning on growth rates continuing on the trajectory of the past two years "didn’t pay off" and forced the company to downsize. In August 2022, Shopify announced it was making e-commerce marketing automation platform Klaviyo the recommended email solution partner for its Shopify Plus merchant platform, with a US$100million strategic investment into the company.


title: Shopify

text: In February 2021, Shopify announced that the company has formed an esports organization called Shopify Rebellion, and put together a professional StarCraft II team to compete in international tournaments. The team members include former 2016 world champion Byun Hyun-woo as well as Sasha Hostyn.


title: Shopify

text: In April 2021, Shopify made its first entry in last-mile logistics by investing in Swyft, a Toronto-based digital logistics startup. As part of a Series A round of funding, a total of $17.5 million was raised for Swyft, co-led by Inovia Capital and Forerunner Ventures with participation from Shopify.


title: Shopify

text: In 2017, the #DeleteShopify hashtag campaign called for a boycott of Shopify for allowing "Breitbart News" to host a shop on its platform. Shopify's CEO, Tobias Lütke, responded to the criticism, saying "refusing to do business with the site would constitute a violation of free speech".


title: Shopify

text: In October 2017, Citron Research founder, short-seller Andrew Left released a detailed report which described the e-commerce platform as a "get-rich-quick" scheme in contravention of Federal Trade Commission regulations. The day the report was released, the stock plunged more than 11%. The main question he posed was "Outside the roughly 50,000 verifiable merchants working with Shopify, who are the other 450,000 the company says it has?" Third-party marketing tactics were expected to be improved. Left was quoted in 2019 by "The Street" as saying about Shopify "I still think they are best in class".


title: Shopify

text: In December 2021, a group of publishers including Pearson Education, Inc., Macmillan Learning, Cengage Learning, Inc., Elsevier Inc., and McGraw Hill sued Shopify claiming that it had failed to remove listings and stores selling pirated copies of their books and learning materials.


title: Shopify

text: In September 2020, Shopify confirmed a data breach in which customer data from fewer than 200 merchants was stolen. One of those merchants later said over 4,900 of their customers alone had had their information accessed. Shopify claims that the data stolen included names, addresses and order details, but not "complete payment card numbers or other sensitive personal or financial information." The company also claims that no evidence has proven that the data has been used. Shopify identified two "rogue members" of its support team to be responsible. The employees in question have been fired and the matter has been forwarded to the FBI.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, (24 January 192429 March 1992), styled Viscount Althorp until June 1975, was a British nobleman, military officer, and courtier. He was the father of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the maternal grandfather of William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: Lord Spencer was born Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, the only son and younger child of Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, and his wife the former Lady Cynthia Hamilton, second daughter of the 3rd Duke of Abercorn. He was born on 24 January 1924 in their family home at 24 Sussex Square, Bayswater, London. He was educated at Eton, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and the Royal Agricultural College. Popularly known to his family and friends as Johnnie Althorp, he served as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys from 1944 to 1945, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. He landed in France the day after D-Day. He led a British Army unit in an operation to liberate two French towns, La Neuve-Lyre and La Vieille-Lyre. From 1947 to 1950, he served as Aide-de-Camp to His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir Willoughby Norrie, then Governor of South Australia.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: He was engaged to 1950's debutante of the year, Lady Anne Coke (later Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret). His father objected to the match on the grounds of "mad blood", a reference to the institutionalised relatives of the queen, and the engagement was broken off. Much later, the director of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute thought that a genetic disease in the Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis family may have killed male members of the family in early childhood and caused learning disabilities in females.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: Spencer held the offices of County Councillor for Northamptonshire (1952), High Sheriff of Northamptonshire (1959) and Justice of the Peace for Norfolk (1970). He served as equerry to King George VI (1950–52) and to Queen Elizabeth II (1952–54), and was invested as a Member (fourth class) of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1954. Prior to 1984, the grades of Lieutenant and Member were classified as Members (fourth class) and Members (fifth class), respectively, but both with the post-nominals MVO. He was known by the courtesy title Viscount Althorp until 1975 when he became the 8th Earl Spencer upon his father's death. He was Member of the House of Lords from 9 June 1975 (the day his father died and he inherited the peerage) until his own death.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: On 1 June 1954 Spencer and Frances Ruth Roche, the younger daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy, were married in Westminster Abbey by Percy Herbert, Bishop of Norwich. Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the royal family attended the wedding ceremony. They had five children:


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: The marriage was not a happy one and, in 1967, Frances left John to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, whom she had met the year before. Frances lived with their two youngest children, Diana and Charles, in London during the separation in 1967, but during that year's Christmas holidays, Viscount Althorp refused to let his children return to London with their mother. John and Frances Spencer were divorced in 1969. Immediately thereafter, Frances married Peter Shand Kydd, while John was granted custody of their children by the courts after his former mother-in-law, Lady Fermoy, testified against her own daughter. In 1976, Lord Spencer married Raine McCorquodale, the former wife of the 9th Earl of Dartmouth and daughter of Capt. Alexander McCorquodale, a British Army officer, and the romantic novelist Barbara Cartland.


title: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

text: In 1978, Spencer had suffered a severe stroke, from which, at one stage, he was not expected to recover, and which kept him in hospital for eight months. Shortly before his death, he was hospitalised for pneumonia. He died of a heart attack in 1992, and was succeeded by his son Charles.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. British historian Martin Gilbert wrote that no event in the history of German Jews between 1933 and 1945 was so widely reported as it was happening, and the accounts from foreign journalists working in Germany drew worldwide attention. "The Times" of London observed on 11 November 1938: "No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday."


title: Kristallnacht

text: Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered. Modern analysis of German scholarly sources puts the figure much higher; when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll reaches the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 deaths by suicide. Historians view as a prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust.


title: Kristallnacht

text: In the 1920s, most German Jews were fully integrated into German society as German citizens. They served in the German army and navy and contributed to every field of German business, science and culture. Conditions for German Jews began to worsen after the appointment of Adolf Hitler (the Austrian-born leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party) as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, and the Enabling Act (implemented 23 March 1933) which enabled the assumption of power by Hitler after the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933. From its inception, Hitler's regime moved quickly to introduce anti-Jewish policies. Nazi propaganda alienated 500,000 Jews in Germany, who accounted for only 0.86% of the overall population, and framed them as an enemy responsible for Germany's defeat in the First World War and for its subsequent economic disasters, such as the 1920s hyperinflation and subsequent Great Depression. Beginning in 1933, the German government enacted a series of anti-Jewish laws restricting the rights of German Jews to earn a living, to enjoy full citizenship and to gain education, including the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of 7 April 1933, which forbade Jews to work in the civil service. The subsequent 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped German Jews of their citizenship and prohibited Jews from marrying non-Jewish Germans.


title: Kristallnacht

text: These laws resulted in the exclusion and alienation of Jews from German social and political life. Many sought asylum abroad; hundreds of thousands emigrated, but as Chaim Weizmann wrote in 1936, "The world seemed to be divided into two parts—those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter." The international Évian Conference on 6 July 1938 addressed the issue of Jewish and Romani immigration to other countries. By the time the conference took place, more than 250,000 Jews had fled Germany and Austria, which had been annexed by Germany in March 1938; more than 300,000 German and Austrian Jews continued to seek refuge and asylum from oppression. As the number of Jews and Romani wanting to leave increased, the restrictions against them grew, with many countries tightening their rules for admission. By 1938, Germany "had entered a new radical phase in anti-Semitic activity". Some historians believe that the Nazi government had been contemplating a planned outbreak of violence against the Jews and were waiting for an appropriate provocation; there is evidence of this planning dating back to 1937. In a 1997 interview, the German historian Hans Mommsen claimed that a major motive for the pogrom was the desire of the "Gauleiters" of the NSDAP to seize Jewish property and businesses. Mommsen stated:


title: Kristallnacht

text: The need for money by the party organization stemmed from the fact that Franz Xaver Schwarz, the party treasurer, kept the local and regional organizations of the party short of money. In the fall of 1938, the increased pressure on Jewish property nourished the party's ambition, especially since Hjalmar Schacht had been ousted as "Reich" minister for economics. This, however, was only one aspect of the origin of the November 1938 pogrom. The Polish government threatened to extradite all Jews who were Polish citizens but would stay in Germany, thus creating a burden of responsibility on the German side. The immediate reaction by the Gestapo was to push the Polish Jews—16,000 persons—over the borderline, but this measure failed due to the stubbornness of the Polish customs officers. The loss of prestige as a result of this abortive operation called for some sort of compensation. Thus, the overreaction to Herschel Grynszpan's attempt against the diplomat Ernst vom Rath came into being and led to the November pogrom. The background of the pogrom was signified by a sharp cleavage of interests between the different agencies of party and state. While the Nazi party was interested in improving its financial strength on the regional and local level by taking over Jewish property, Hermann Göring, in charge of the Four-Year Plan, hoped to acquire access to foreign currency in order to pay for the import of needed raw material. Heydrich and Himmler were interested in fostering Jewish emigration.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The Zionist leadership in the British Mandate of Palestine wrote in February 1938 that according to "a very reliable private source—one which can be traced back to the highest echelons of the SS leadership", there was "an intention to carry out a genuine and dramatic pogrom in Germany on a large scale in the near future".


title: Kristallnacht

text: In August 1938, German authorities announced that residence permits for foreigners were being canceled and would have to be renewed. This included German-born Jews of foreign citizenship. Poland stated that it would renounce citizenship rights of Polish Jews living abroad for at least five years after the end of October, effectively making them stateless. In the so-called "Polenaktion", more than 12,000 Polish Jews, among them the philosopher and theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and future literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki were expelled from Germany on 28 October 1938, on Hitler's orders. They were ordered to leave their homes in a single night and were allowed only one suitcase per person to carry their belongings. As the Jews were taken away, their remaining possessions were seized as loot both by Nazi authorities and by neighbors.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The deportees were taken from their homes to railway stations and were put on trains to the Polish border, where Polish border guards sent them back into Germany. This stalemate continued for days in the pouring rain, with the Jews marching without food or shelter between the borders. Four thousand were granted entry into Poland, but the remaining 8,000 were forced to stay at the border. They waited there in harsh conditions to be allowed to enter Poland. A British newspaper told its readers that hundreds "are reported to be lying about, penniless and deserted, in little villages along the frontier near where they had been driven out by the Gestapo and left." Conditions in the refugee camps "were so bad that some actually tried to escape back into Germany and were shot", recalled a British woman who was sent to help those who had been expelled.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Among those expelled was the family of Sendel and Riva Grynszpan, Polish Jews who had emigrated to Germany in 1911 and settled in Hanover, Germany. At the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961, Sendel Grynszpan recounted the events of their deportation from Hanover on the night of 27 October 1938: "Then they took us in police trucks, in prisoners' lorries, about 20 men in each truck, and they took us to the railway station. The streets were full of people shouting: "Juden Raus! Auf Nach Palästina!"" ("Jews out, out to Palestine!"). Their seventeen-year-old son Herschel was living in Paris with an uncle. Herschel received a postcard from his family from the Polish border, describing the family's expulsion: "No one told us what was up, but we realized this was going to be the end ... We haven't a penny. Could you send us something?" He received the postcard on 3 November 1938.


title: Kristallnacht

text: On the morning of Monday, 7 November 1938, he purchased a revolver and a box of bullets, then went to the German embassy and asked to see an embassy official. After he was taken to the office of Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath, Grynszpan fired five bullets at Vom Rath, two of which hit him in the abdomen. Vom Rath was a professional diplomat with the Foreign Office who expressed anti-Nazi sympathies, largely based on the Nazis' treatment of the Jews and was under Gestapo investigation for being politically unreliable. However, he also argued that the anti-Semitic laws were "necessary" to allow the "Volksgemeinschaft" to flourish.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Grynszpan made no attempt to escape the French police and freely confessed to the shooting. In his pocket, he carried a postcard to his parents with the message, "May God forgive me ... I must protest so that the whole world hears my protest, and that I will do." It is widely assumed that the assassination was politically motivated, but historian Hans-Jürgen Döscher says the shooting may have been the result of a homosexual love affair gone wrong. Grynszpan and vom Rath had become intimate after they met in Le Boeuf sur le Toit, which was a popular meeting place for gay men at the time.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The next day, the German government retaliated, barring Jewish children from German state elementary schools, indefinitely suspending Jewish cultural activities, and putting a halt to the publication of Jewish newspapers and magazines, including the three national German Jewish newspapers. A newspaper in Britain described the last move, which cut off the Jewish populace from their leaders, as "intended to disrupt the Jewish community and rob it of the last frail ties which hold it together." Their rights as citizens had been stripped. One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatsoever and imposing a penalty of twenty years' confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Ernst vom Rath died of his wounds on 9 November 1938. Word of his death reached Hitler that evening while he was with several key members of the Nazi party at a dinner commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. After intense discussions, Hitler left the assembly abruptly without giving his usual address. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels delivered the speech, in his place, and said that "the Führer has decided that... demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the party, but insofar as they erupt spontaneously, they are not to be hampered." The chief party judge Walter Buch later stated that the message was clear; with these words, Goebbels had commanded the party leaders to organize a pogrom.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Some leading party officials disagreed with Goebbels' actions, fearing the diplomatic crisis it would provoke. Heinrich Himmler wrote, "I suppose that it is Goebbels's megalomania...and stupidity which is responsible for starting this operation now, in a particularly difficult diplomatic situation." The Israeli historian Saul Friedländer believes that Goebbels had personal reasons for wanting to bring about "Kristallnacht". Goebbels had recently suffered humiliation for the ineffectiveness of his propaganda campaign during the Sudeten crisis, and was in some disgrace over an affair with a Czech actress, Lída Baarová. Goebbels needed a chance to improve his standing in the eyes of Hitler. At 1:20 a.m. on 10 November 1938, Reinhard Heydrich sent an urgent secret telegram to the "Sicherheitspolizei" (Security Police; SiPo) and the "Sturmabteilung" (SA), containing instructions regarding the riots. This included guidelines for the protection of foreigners and non-Jewish businesses and property. Police were instructed not to interfere with the riots unless the guidelines were violated. Police were also instructed to seize Jewish archives from synagogues and community offices, and to arrest and detain "healthy male Jews, who are not too old", for eventual transfer to (labor) concentration camps.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Müller, in a message to SA and SS commanders, stated the "most extreme measures" were to be taken against Jewish people. The SA and Hitler Youth shattered the windows of about 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses, hence the name "Kristallnacht" (Crystal Night), and looted their goods. Jewish homes were ransacked all throughout Germany. Although violence against Jews had not been explicitly condoned by the authorities, there were cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted. Following the violence, police departments recorded a large number of suicides and rapes.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops, and 29 department stores were damaged, and in many cases destroyed. More than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps; primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The synagogues, some centuries old, were also victims of considerable violence and vandalism, with the tactics the Stormtroops practiced on these and other sacred sites described as "approaching the ghoulish" by the United States Consul in Leipzig. Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated. Fires were lit, and prayer books, scrolls, artwork and philosophy texts were thrown upon them, and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognizable. Eric Lucas recalls the destruction of the synagogue that a tiny Jewish community had constructed in a small village only twelve years earlier:


title: Kristallnacht

text: Many Berliners were however deeply ashamed of the pogrom, and some took great personal risks to offer help. The son of a US consular official heard the janitor of his block cry: "They must have emptied the insane asylums and penitentiaries to find people who'd do things like that!"


title: Kristallnacht

text: Tucson News TV channel briefly reported on a 2008 remembrance meeting at a local Jewish congregation. According to eyewitness Esther Harris: "They ripped up the belongings, the books, knocked over furniture, shouted obscenities". Historian Gerhard Weinberg is quoted as saying:


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Houses of worship burned down, vandalized, in every community in the country where people either participate or watch."


title: Kristallnacht

text: Göring, who was in favor of expropriating the property of the Jews rather than destroying it as had happened in the pogrom, directly complained to "Sicherheitspolizei" Chief Heydrich immediately after the events: "I'd rather you had done in two-hundred Jews than destroy so many valuable assets!" (""Mir wäre lieber gewesen, ihr hättet 200 Juden erschlagen und hättet nicht solche Werte vernichtet!""). Göring met with other members of the Nazi leadership on 12 November to plan the next steps after the riot, setting the stage for formal government action. In the transcript of the meeting, Göring said,


title: Kristallnacht

text: I have received a letter written on the Führer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved one way or another... I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The persecution and economic damage inflicted upon German Jews continued after the pogrom, even as their places of business were ransacked. They were forced to pay "Judenvermögensabgabe", a collective fine or "atonement contribution" of one billion Reichsmarks for the murder of vom Rath (equivalent to billion € or 7 billion in 2020 USD), which was levied by the compulsory acquisition of 20% of all Jewish property by the state. Six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community were instead paid to the Reich government as "damages to the German Nation". Jews were required to pay for the cost of all damages caused by the pogrom to their residences and businesses.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The number of emigrating Jews surged, as those who were able to left the country. In the ten months following "Kristallnacht", more than 115,000 Jews emigrated from the Reich. The majority went to other European countries, the U.S. and Mandatory Palestine, and at least 14,000 made it to Shanghai, China. As part of government policy, the Nazis seized houses, shops, and other property the émigrés left behind. Many of the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht were dumped near Brandenburg. In October 2008, this dumpsite was discovered by Yaron Svoray, an investigative journalist. The site, the size of four football fields, contained an extensive array of personal and ceremonial items looted during the riots against Jewish property and places of worship on the night of 9 November 1938. It is believed the goods were brought by rail to the outskirts of the village and dumped on designated land. Among the items found were glass bottles engraved with the Star of David, mezuzot, painted window sills, and the armrests of chairs found in synagogues, in addition to an ornamental swastika.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The reaction of non-Jewish Germans to "Kristallnacht" was varied. Many spectators gathered on the scenes, most of them in silence. The local fire departments confined themselves to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring buildings. In Berlin, police Lieutenant Otto Bellgardt barred SA troopers from setting the New Synagogue on fire, earning his superior officer a verbal reprimand from the commissioner.


title: Kristallnacht

text: The British historian Martin Gilbert believes that "many non-Jews resented the round-up", his opinion being supported by German witness Dr. Arthur Flehinger who recalls seeing "people crying while watching from behind their curtains". Rolf Dessauers recalls how a neighbor came forward and restored a portrait of Paul Ehrlich that had been "slashed to ribbons" by the "Sturmabteilung". "He wanted it to be known that not all Germans supported Kristallnacht."


title: Kristallnacht

text: The extent of the damage done on Kristallnacht was so great that many Germans are said to have expressed their disapproval of it, and to have described it as senseless. There was however no personal comment or even acknowledgment from the German leader Adolf Hitler himself about "Kristallnacht".


title: Kristallnacht

text: In an article released for publication on the evening of 11 November, Goebbels ascribed the events of "Kristallnacht" to the "healthy instincts" of the German people. He went on to explain: "The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race." Less than 24 hours after Kristallnacht, Adolf Hitler made a one-hour long speech in front of a group of journalists where he completely ignored the recent events on everyone's mind. According to Eugene Davidson the reason for this was that Hitler wished to avoid being directly connected to an event that he was aware that many of those present condemned, regardless of Goebbels's unconvincing explanation that Kristallnacht was caused by popular wrath. Goebbels met the foreign press in the afternoon of 11 November and said that the burning of synagogues and damage to Jewish owned property had been "spontaneous manifestations of indignation against the murder of Herr Vom Rath by the young Jew Grynsban [sic]".


title: Kristallnacht

text: In 1938, just after Kristallnacht, the psychologist Michael Müller-Claudius interviewed 41 randomly selected Nazi Party members on their attitudes towards racial persecution. Of the interviewed party-members 63% expressed extreme indignation against it, while only 5% expressed approval of racial persecution, the rest being noncommittal. A study conducted in 1933 had then shown that 33% of Nazi Party members held no racial prejudice while 13% supported persecution. Sarah Ann Gordon sees two possible reasons for this difference. First, by 1938 large numbers of Germans had joined the Nazi Party for pragmatic reasons rather than ideology thus diluting the percentage of rabid antisemites; second, the Kristallnacht could have caused party members to reject antisemitism that had been acceptable to them in abstract terms but which they could not support when they saw it concretely enacted. During the events of Kristallnacht, several Gauleiter and deputy Gauleiters had refused orders to enact the Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders, while expressing disgust. Some Nazis helped Jews during the Kristallnacht.


title: Kristallnacht

text: As it was aware that the German public did not support the Kristallnacht, the propaganda ministry directed the German press to portray opponents of racial persecution as disloyal. The press was also under orders to downplay the Kristallnacht, describing general events at the local level only, with prohibition against depictions of individual events. In 1939 this was extended to a prohibition on reporting any anti-Jewish measures.


title: Kristallnacht

text: To the consternation of the Nazis, the Kristallnacht affected public opinion counter to their desires, the peak of opposition against the Nazi racial policies was reached just then, when according to almost all accounts the vast majority of Germans rejected the violence perpetrated against the Jews. Verbal complaints grew rapidly in numbers, and for example, the Düsseldorf branch of the Gestapo reported a sharp decline in anti-Semitic attitudes among the population.


title: Kristallnacht

text: There are many indications of Protestant and Catholic disapproval of racial persecution; for example, anti-Nazi Protestants adopted the Barmen Declaration in 1934, and the Catholic church had already distributed pastoral letters critical of Nazi racial ideology, and the Nazi regime expected to encounter organised resistance from it following Kristallnacht. The Catholic leadership however, just as the various Protestant churches, refrained from responding with organised action. While individual Catholics and Protestants took action, the churches as a whole chose silence publicly. Nevertheless, individuals continued to show courage, for example, a parson paid the medical bills of a Jewish cancer patient and was sentenced to a large fine and several months in prison in 1941, Reformed Church pastor Paul Schneider placed a Nazi sympathizer under church discipline and he was subsequently sent to Buchenwald where he was murdered. A Catholic nun was sentenced to death in 1945 for helping Jews. A Protestant parson spoke out in 1943 and was sent to Dachau concentration camp where he died after a few days.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Martin Sasse, Nazi Party member and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia, leading member of the Nazi German Christians, one of the schismatic factions of German Protestantism, published a compendium of Martin Luther's writings shortly after the "Kristallnacht"; Sasse "applauded the burning of the synagogues" and the coincidence of the day, writing in the introduction, "On 10 November 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany." The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words "of the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews." Diarmaid MacCulloch argued that Luther's 1543 pamphlet, "On the Jews and Their Lies" was a "blueprint" for the "Kristallnacht".


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" sparked international outrage. According to Volker Ullrich, "...a line had been crossed: Germany had left the community of civilised nations." It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America, leading to a sharp decline in their support. Many newspapers condemned "Kristallnacht", with some of them comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia during the 1880s. The United States recalled its ambassador (but it did not break off diplomatic relations) while other governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest. The British government approved the Kindertransport program for refugee children.


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" marked a turning point in relations between Nazi Germany and the rest of the world. The brutality of the pogrom, and the Nazi government's deliberate policy of encouraging the violence once it had begun, laid bare the repressive nature and widespread anti-Semitism entrenched in Germany. World opinion thus turned sharply against the Nazi regime, with some politicians calling for war. On 6 December 1938, William Cooper, an Aboriginal Australian, led a delegation of the Australian Aboriginal League on a march through Melbourne to the German Consulate to deliver a petition which condemned the "cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany". German officials refused to accept the tendered document.


title: Kristallnacht

text: After the "Kristallnacht", Salvador Allende, Gabriel González Videla, Marmaduke Grove, Florencio Durán and other members of the Congress of Chile sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler denouncing the persecution of Jews.


title: Kristallnacht

text: A more personal response, in 1939, was the oratorio "A Child of Our Time" by the English composer Michael Tippett.


title: Kristallnacht

text: After the end of World War II, there were hundreds of trials over Kristallnacht. The trials were conducted exclusively by German and Austrian courts; the Allied occupation authorities did not have jurisdiction since none of the victims were Allied nationals.


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" changed the nature of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews from economic, political, and social exclusion to physical violence, including beatings, incarceration, and murder; the event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust. In this view, it is not only described as a pogrom, it is also described as a critical stage within a process in which each step becomes the seed of the next step. An account cited that Hitler's green light for "Kristallnacht" was made with the belief that it would help him realize his ambition of getting rid of the Jews in Germany. Prior to this large-scale and organized violence against the Jews, the Nazi's primary objective was to eject them from Germany, leaving their wealth behind. In the words of historian Max Rein in 1988, "Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed."


title: Kristallnacht

text: While November 1938 predated the overt articulation of "the Final Solution", it foreshadowed the genocide to come. Around the time of "Kristallnacht", the SS newspaper "Das Schwarze Korps" called for a "destruction by swords and flames." At a conference on the day after the pogrom, Hermann Göring said: "The Jewish problem will reach its solution if, in anytime soon, we will be drawn into war beyond our border—then it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews."


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" was also instrumental in changing global public opinion. In the United States, for instance, it was this specific incident which came to symbolize Nazism and it was also the reason as to why the Nazis became associated with evil.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Five decades later, 9 November's association with the anniversary of "Kristallnacht" was cited as the main reason as to why "Schicksalstag", the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, was not turned into a new German national holiday; a different day was chosen (3 October 1990, German reunification).


title: Kristallnacht

text: The avant-garde guitarist Gary Lucas's 1988 composition "Verklärte Kristallnacht", which juxtaposes what would become the Israeli national anthem ten years after "Kristallnacht", "Hatikvah", with phrases from the German national anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" amid wild electronic shrieks and noise, is intended to be a sonic representation of the horrors of "Kristallnacht". It was premiered at the 1988 Berlin Jazz Festival and received rave reviews. (The title is a reference to Arnold Schoenberg's 1899 work "Verklärte Nacht" that presaged his pioneering work on atonal music; Schoenberg was an Austrian Jew who would move to the United States to escape the Nazis).


title: Kristallnacht

text: In 1989, Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee and later Vice President of the United States, wrote of an "ecological Kristallnacht" in "The New York Times". He opined that events which were then taking place, such as deforestation and ozone depletion, prefigured a greater environmental catastrophe in the same way that Kristallnacht prefigured the Holocaust.


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" was the inspiration for the 1993 album "Kristallnacht" by the composer John Zorn. The German power metal band Masterplan's debut album, "Masterplan" (2003), features an anti-Nazi song entitled "Crystal Night" as the fourth track. The German band BAP published a song titled "Kristallnaach" in their Cologne dialect, dealing with the emotions engendered by the "Kristallnacht".


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" was the inspiration for the 1988 composition "Mayn Yngele" by the composer Frederic Rzewski, of which he says: "I began writing this piece in November 1988, on the 50th anniversary of the Kristallnacht ... My piece is a reflection on that vanished part of Jewish tradition which so strongly colors, by its absence, the culture of our time".


title: Kristallnacht

text: In 2014, the "Wall Street Journal" published a letter from billionaire Thomas Perkins that compared the "progressive war on the American one percent" of wealthiest Americans and the Occupy movement's "demonization of the rich" to the "Kristallnacht" and antisemitism in Nazi Germany. The letter was widely criticized and condemned in "The Atlantic", "The Independent", among bloggers, Twitter users, and "his own colleagues in Silicon Valley". Perkins subsequently apologized for making the comparisons with Nazi Germany, but otherwise stood by his letter, saying, "In the Nazi era it was racial demonization, now it's class demonization."


title: Kristallnacht

text: "Kristallnacht" has been referenced both explicitly and implicitly in countless cases of vandalism of Jewish property including the toppling of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, and the two 2017 vandalisms of the New England Holocaust Memorial, as the memorial's founder Steve Ross discusses in his book, "From Broken Glass: My Story of Finding Hope in Hitler's Death Camps to Inspire a New Generation". The Sri Lankan Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera also used the term to describe the violence in 2019 against Muslims by Sinhalese nationalists.


title: Kristallnacht

text: Kristallnacht was publicly referenced on 10 January 2021 by the former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger in a speech decrying the actions of President Donald Trump and the attack he incited on the U.S. Capitol on 6 January.


title: Kristallnacht

text: On 9 November 2022, KFC app users in Germany were sent a message reading "It's memorial day for Kristallnacht! Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken." KFC issued an apology approximately an hour later, blaming the original message on an "error in our system".


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: "Desktop", "Server", and "Core" for Internet of things devices and robots. All the editions can run on the computer alone, or in a virtual machine. Ubuntu is a popular operating system for cloud computing, with support for OpenStack. Ubuntu's default desktop changed back from the in-house Unity to GNOME after nearly 6.5 years in 2017 upon the release of version 17.10.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu is released every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases every two years. , the most-recent release is 22.10 ("Kinetic Kudu"), and the current long-term support release is 22.04 ("Jammy Jellyfish").


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu is developed by British company Canonical, and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. Canonical provides security updates and support for each Ubuntu release, starting from the release date and until the release reaches its designated end-of-life (EOL) date. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of premium services related to Ubuntu and donations from those who download the Ubuntu software.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu is named after the Nguni philosophy of "", which Canonical indicates means "humanity to others" with a connotation of "I am what I am because of who we all are".


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu is built on Debian's architecture and infrastructure, and comprises Linux server, desktop and discontinued phone and tablet operating system versions. Ubuntu releases updated versions predictably every six months, and each release receives free support for nine months (eighteen months prior to 13.04) with security fixes, high-impact bug fixes and conservative, substantially beneficial low-risk bug fixes. The first release was in October 2004.


title: Ubuntu

text: Current long-term support (LTS) releases are supported for five years, and are released every two years. Since the release of Ubuntu 6.06, every fourth release receives long-term support. Long-term support includes updates for new hardware, security patches and updates to the 'Ubuntu stack' (cloud computing infrastructure). The first LTS releases were supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server; since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, desktop support for LTS releases was increased to five years as well. LTS releases get regular point releases with support for new hardware and integration of all the updates published in that series to date.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian's unstable branch, which are synchronised every six months. Both distributions use Debian's deb package format and package management tools (e.g. APT and Ubuntu Software). Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other, however, so packages may need to be rebuilt from source to be used in Ubuntu. Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian. Ubuntu cooperates with Debian by pushing changes back to Debian, although there has been criticism that this does not happen often enough. Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, had expressed concern about Ubuntu packages potentially diverging too far from Debian to remain compatible. Before release, packages are imported from Debian unstable continuously and merged with Ubuntu-specific modifications. One month before release, imports are frozen, and packagers then work to ensure that the frozen features interoperate well together.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On 8 July 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical announced the creation of the Ubuntu Foundation and provided initial funding of US$10 million. The purpose of the foundation is to ensure the support and development for all future versions of Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth describes the foundation goal as to ensure the continuity of the Ubuntu project.


title: Ubuntu

text: On 12 March 2009, Ubuntu announced developer support for third-party cloud management platforms, such as those used at Amazon EC2.


title: Ubuntu

text: 32-bit x86 processors were supported up to Ubuntu 18.04. It was decided to support "legacy software", i.e. select 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS.


title: Ubuntu

text: A default installation of Ubuntu contains a wide range of software that includes LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Transmission, and several lightweight games such as Sudoku and Mines. Many additional software packages are accessible from the built in Ubuntu Software (previously Ubuntu Software Center) as well as any other APT-based package management tools. Many additional software packages that are no longer installed by default, such as Evolution, GIMP, Pidgin, and Synaptic, are still accessible in the repositories and installable by the main tool or by any other APT-based package management tool. Cross-distribution snap packages and flatpaks are also available, that both allow installing software, such as some of Microsoft's software, in most of the major Linux operating systems (such as any currently supported Ubuntu version and in Fedora). The default file manager is GNOME Files, formerly called Nautilus.


title: Ubuntu

text: All of the application software installed by default is free software. In addition, Ubuntu redistributes some hardware drivers that are available only in binary format, but such packages are clearly marked in the restricted component.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu aims to be secure by default. User programs run with low privileges and cannot corrupt the operating system or other users' files. For increased security, the sudo tool is used to assign temporary privileges for performing administrative tasks, which allows the root account to remain locked and helps prevent inexperienced users from inadvertently making catastrophic system changes or opening security holes. Polkit is also being widely implemented into the desktop.


title: Ubuntu

text: Most network ports are closed by default to prevent hacking. A built-in firewall allows end-users who install network servers to control access. A GUI (GUI for Uncomplicated Firewall) is available to configure it. Ubuntu compiles its packages using GCC features such as PIE and buffer overflow protection to harden its software. These extra features greatly increase security at the performance expense of 0.01% in 64-bit.


title: Ubuntu

text: The system requirements vary among Ubuntu products. For the Ubuntu desktop release 22.04 LTS, a PC with at least 2 GHz dual-core processor, 4 GB of RAM and 25 GB of free disk space is recommended. For less powerful computers, there are other Ubuntu distributions such as Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Ubuntu also supports the ARM architecture. It is also available on Power ISA, while older PowerPC architecture was at one point unofficially supported, and now newer Power ISA CPUs (POWER8) are supported. The x86-64 ("AMD64") architecture is also officially supported.


title: Ubuntu

text: Live images are the typical way for users to assess and subsequently install Ubuntu. These can be downloaded as a disk image (.iso) and subsequently burnt to a DVD or USB flash drive and then booted. Other methods include running the live version via UNetbootin, or Startup Disk Creator (a pre-installed tool on Ubuntu, available on machines already running the OS) directly from a USB drive (making, respectively, a live DVD or live USB medium). Running Ubuntu in this way is slower than running it from a hard drive, but does not alter the computer unless specifically instructed by the user. If the user chooses to boot the live image rather than execute an installer at boot time, there is still the option to then use an installer called Ubiquity to install Ubuntu once booted into the live environment. Disk images of all current and past versions are available for download at the Ubuntu web site.


title: Ubuntu

text: Additionally, USB flash drive installations can be used to boot Ubuntu and Kubuntu in a way that allows permanent saving of user settings and portability of the USB-installed system between physical machines (however, the computers' BIOS must support booting from USB). In newer versions of Ubuntu, the Ubuntu Live USB creator can be used to install Ubuntu on a USB drive (with or without a live CD or DVD). Creating a bootable USB drive with persistence is as simple as dragging a slider to determine how much space to reserve for persistence; for this, Ubuntu employs casper.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu divides most software into four domains to reflect differences in licensing and the degree of support available. Some unsupported applications receive updates from community members, but not from Canonical Ltd.


title: Ubuntu

text: Free software includes software that has met the Ubuntu licensing requirements, which roughly correspond to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Exceptions, however, include firmware, in the Main category, because although some firmware is not allowed to be modified, its distribution is still permitted.


title: Ubuntu

text: Non-free software is usually unsupported (Multiverse), but some exceptions (Restricted) are made for important non-free software. Supported non-free software includes device drivers that can be used to run Ubuntu on some current hardware, such as binary-only graphics card drivers. The level of support in the Restricted category is more limited than that of Main, because the developers may not have access to the source code. It is intended that Main and Restricted should contain all software needed for a complete desktop environment. Alternative programs for the same tasks and programs for specialized applications are placed in the Universe and Multiverse categories.


title: Ubuntu

text: In addition to the above, in which the software does not receive new features after an initial release, "Ubuntu Backports" is an officially recognized repository for backporting newer software from later versions of Ubuntu. The repository is not comprehensive; it consists primarily of user-requested packages, which are approved if they meet quality guidelines. Backports receives no support at all from Canonical, and is entirely community-maintained.


title: Ubuntu

text: The "-updates" repository provides stable release updates (SRU) of Ubuntu and are generally installed through update-manager. Each release is given its own -updates repository (e.g. intrepid-updates). The repository is supported by Canonical Ltd. for packages in main and restricted, and by the community for packages in universe and multiverse. All updates to the repository must meet certain requirements and go through the "-proposed" repository before being made available to the public. Updates are scheduled to be available until the end of life for the release.


title: Ubuntu

text: In addition to the -updates repository, the unstable "-proposed" repository contains uploads that must be confirmed before being copied into -updates. All updates must go through this process to ensure that the patch does truly fix the bug and there is no risk of regression. Updates in -proposed are confirmed by either Canonical or members of the community.


title: Ubuntu

text: Canonical's partner repository lets vendors of proprietary software deliver their products to Ubuntu users at no cost through the same familiar tools for installing and upgrading software. The software in the partner repository is officially supported with security and other important updates by its respective vendors. Canonical supports the packaging of the software for Ubuntu and provides guidance to vendors. The partner repository is disabled by default and can be enabled by the user. Some popular products distributed via the partner repository are Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Skype. The free software Wine compatibility layer can be installed to allow users to run Windows software.


title: Ubuntu

text: A Personal Package Archive (PPA) is a software repository for uploading source packages to be built and published as an Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) repository by Launchpad. While the term is used exclusively within Ubuntu, Launchpad's host, Canonical, envisions adoption beyond the Ubuntu community.


title: Ubuntu

text: Some third-party software that does not limit distribution is included in Ubuntu's multiverse component. The package "ubuntu-restricted-extras" additionally contains software that may be legally restricted, including support for MP3 and DVD playback, Microsoft TrueType core fonts, Sun's Java runtime environment, Adobe's Flash Player plugin, many common audio/video codecs, and unrar, an unarchiver for files compressed in the RAR file format.


title: Ubuntu

text: Additionally, third-party application suites are available for download via Ubuntu Software and the Snap store, including many games such as Braid, Minecraft and Oil Rush, software for DVD playback and media codecs.


title: Ubuntu

text: Each Ubuntu release has a version number that consists of the year and month number of the release. For example, the first release was Ubuntu 4.10 as it was released on 20 October 2004.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu releases are also given alliterative code names, using an adjective and an animal (e.g. "Xenial Xerus"). With the exception of the first two releases, code names are in alphabetical order, allowing a quick determination of which release is newer, at least until restarting the cycle with the release of "Artful Aardvark" in October 2017. Commonly, Ubuntu releases are referred to using only the adjective portion of the code name; for example, the 18.04 LTS release is commonly known as "Bionic". Releases are timed to be approximately one month after GNOME releases.


title: Ubuntu

text: Upgrades from one LTS release to the next LTS release (e.g. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and then to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) are supported, while upgrades from non-LTS have only supported upgrade to the next release, regardless of its LTS status (e.g. Ubuntu 15.10 to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS). However, it is possible to skip an LTS upgrade, going straight from 16.04 LTS to 18.04.5 LTS, by waiting for a point release that supports such updating.


title: Ubuntu

text: LTS releases have optional extended security maintenance (ESM) support available, including 14.04 "Trusty" that is otherwise out of public support, adding support for that version up to 2022, later extended to a total of 10 years alongside 16.04 LTS.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), was released on 10 October 2010 (10–10–10). This departed from the traditional schedule of releasing at the end of October in order to get "the perfect 10", and makes a playful reference to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" books, since, in binary, 101010 equals decimal 42, the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything" within the series.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu (16.04.5 and later) requires a 2 GB or larger installation medium. However, there is an option to install it with a Minimal CD.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu Desktop (formally named as Ubuntu Desktop Edition, and simply called Ubuntu) is the variant officially recommended for most users. It is designed for desktop and laptop PCs and officially supported by Canonical. A number of variants are distinguished simply by each featuring a different desktop environment, or, in the case of Ubuntu Server, no desktop. LXQt and Xfce are often recommended for use with older PCs that may have less memory and processing power available.


title: Ubuntu

text: Most Ubuntu editions and flavours simply install a different set of default packages compared to the standard Ubuntu Desktop. Since they share the same package repositories, all of the same software is available for each of them. Ubuntu Core is the sole exception as it only has access to packages in the Snap Store.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu had some official distributions that have been discontinued, such as Edubuntu; including some previously supported by Canonical, like Ubuntu Touch, that is now maintained by volunteers (UBports Community).


title: Ubuntu

text: Alongside the official flavours are those that are unofficial. These are still in the process of becoming recognized as official flavours by Canonical.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu offers Ubuntu Cloud Images which are pre-installed disk images that have been customized by Ubuntu engineering to run on cloud-platforms such as Amazon EC2, OpenStack, Microsoft Azure and LXC. Ubuntu is also prevalent on VPS platforms such as DigitalOcean.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu has support for OpenStack, with Eucalyptus to OpenStack migration tools added by Canonical. Ubuntu 11.10 added focus on OpenStack as the Ubuntu's preferred IaaS offering though Eucalyptus is also supported. Another major focus is Canonical Juju for provisioning, deploying, hosting, managing, and orchestrating enterprise data center infrastructure services, by, with, and for the Ubuntu Server.


title: Ubuntu

text: As Ubuntu is distributed freely and historically there was no registration process (still optional), Ubuntu usage can only be roughly estimated. In 2015, Canonical's Ubuntu Insights page stated "Ubuntu now has over 40 million desktop users and counting".


title: Ubuntu

text: Wikimedia Foundation data (based on user agent) for September 2013 shows that Ubuntu generated the most page requests to Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, among recognizable Linux distributions.


title: Ubuntu

text: , Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS is used in a supercomputer on the TOP500 list, currently the fifth fastest one in the world after an upgrade from 7th place, where it entered the list in June. Another Nvidia supercomputer tops the Green500 list (and it and the next one are also Ubuntu-based), a list which is a reordering of former list, ordered by power-efficiency. On the TOP500 list, that supercomputer is ranked 172nd.


title: Ubuntu

text: The public sector has also adopted Ubuntu. , the Ministry of Education and Science of North Macedonia deployed more than 180,000 Ubuntu-based classroom desktops, and has encouraged every student in the country to use Ubuntu-powered computer workstations; the Spanish school system has 195,000 Ubuntu desktops. The French police, having already started using open-source software in 2005 by replacing Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org, decided to transition to Ubuntu from Windows XP after the release of Windows Vista in 2006. By March 2009, the Gendarmerie Nationale had already switched 5000 workstations to Ubuntu. Based on the success of that transition, it planned to switch 15,000 more over by the end of 2009 and to have switched all 90,000 workstations over by 2015 (GendBuntu project). Lt. Colonel Guimard announced that the move was very easy and allowed for a 70% saving on the IT budget without having to reduce its capabilities. In 2011, Ubuntu 10.04 was adopted by the Indian justice system.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2004, the city of Munich, Germany, started the LiMux project, and later forked Kubuntu 10.04 LTS for use on the city's computers. After originally planning to migrate 12,000 desktop computers to LiMux, it was announced in December 2013 that the project had completed successfully with the migration of 14,800 out of 15,500 desktop computers, but still keeping about 5000 Windows clients for unported applications. In February 2017 the majority coalition decided, against heavy protest from the opposition, to evaluate the migration back to Windows, after Microsoft had decided to move its company headquarters to Munich. Governing Mayor Dieter Reiter cited lack of compatibility with systems outside of the administrative sector, such as requiring a governmental mail server to send e-mails to his personal smartphone, as reasons for the return, but has been criticised for evaluating administrative IT based on private and business standards. In May 2020, the recently-elected Alliance 90/The Greens party and the Social Democrat party negotiated a new coalition agreement, stating: "Where it is technologically and financially possible, the city will put emphasis on open standards and free open-source licensed software".


title: Ubuntu

text: In March 2012, the government of Iceland launched a project to get all public institutions using free and open-source software. Already, several government agencies and schools have adopted Ubuntu. The government cited cost savings as a big factor for the decision, and also stated that open-source software avoids vendor lock-in. A 12-month project was launched to migrate the biggest public institutions in Iceland to using open-source software, and help ease the migration for others. US president Barack Obama's successful campaign for re-election in 2012 used Ubuntu in its IT department. In August 2014, the city of Turin, Italy, announced its migration from Windows XP to Ubuntu for the 8,300 desktop computers used by the municipality, becoming the first city in Italy to adopt Ubuntu.


title: Ubuntu

text: Starting in 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization behind Wikipedia, switched from multiple different Linux operating systems to Ubuntu.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu was awarded the Reader Award for best Linux distribution at the 2005 LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in London, received favorable reviews in online and print publications, and has won InfoWorld's 2007 Bossie Award for "Best Open Source Client OS". In early 2008, "PC World" named Ubuntu the "best all-around Linux distribution available today", though it criticized the lack of an integrated desktop effects manager. Chris DiBona, the program manager for open-source software at Google, said "I think Ubuntu has captured people's imaginations around the Linux desktop," and "If there is a hope for the Linux desktop, it would be them". , almost half of Google's 20,000 employees used Goobuntu, a slightly modified version of Ubuntu. In 2012, "ZDNet" reported that Ubuntu was still Google's desktop of choice. In March 2016, Matt Hartley picked a list of best Linux distributions for Datamation; he chose Ubuntu as number one.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2008, Jamie Hyneman, co-host of the American television series "MythBusters", advocated Linux (giving the example of Ubuntu) as a solution to software bloat. Other celebrity users of Ubuntu include science fiction writer Cory Doctorow and actor Stephen Fry.


title: Ubuntu

text: In January 2014, the UK's authority for computer security, CESG, reported that Ubuntu 12.04 LTS was "the only operating system that passes as many as 9 out of 12 requirements without any significant risks", though it was unclear if any other Linux distributions were tested.


title: Ubuntu

text: In June 2019, Canonical announced that they would be deprecating support for 32-bit applications and libraries in Ubuntu 19.10.


title: Ubuntu

text: Because Steam's Linux client depends on these 32-bit libraries, Valve announced that they would no longer be supporting Ubuntu. After uproar from the Linux gaming community, Canonical backtracked on this decision and decided to support select 32-bit libraries. As a result, Valve will support Ubuntu 19.10 again.


title: Ubuntu

text: Wine needs most of the same 32-bit library packages that the Steam package depends on, and more, to enable its version of WoW64 to run 32-bit Windows applications. The parts of Wine that would continue to function without 32-bit libraries would be limited to the subset of Windows applications that have a 64-bit version, removing decades of Windows compatibility. In Canonical's statement on bringing back the libraries, they mentioned using "container technology" in the future to make sure that Wine continues to function.


title: Ubuntu

text: Soon after being introduced in 2012, doubts emerged on the conformance of the "shopping lens" (a feature that displays Amazon suggestions in the searching tool Unity Dash) with the European Data Protection Directive. A petition was later signed and delivered to Canonical demanding various modifications to the feature in order to clearly frame it within European law. Canonical did not reply.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2013, a formal complaint on the shopping lens was filed with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data privacy office. Almost one year later the ICO ruled in favour of Canonical, considering the various improvements introduced to the feature in the meantime to render it conformable with the Data Protection Directive. According to European rules, this ruling is automatically effective in the entirety of the European Union. However, the ruling also made clear that at the time of introduction the feature was not legal, among other things, since it was missing a privacy policy statement.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu has integrated increasing quantities of advertising into the operating system's terminal, leading to multiple controversies with its userbase.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2017, Canonical placed a message regarding HBO's Silicon Valley in the MOTD file, causing the message to be shown whenever a terminal session started. Over the following years, more messages would be placed into the MOTD.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2022, ads for Ubuntu's premium service, Ubuntu Advantage, were introduced into the apt system update utility. This move caused controversy in the user community, with some users considering advertising a fair business model to support development, while other users found the inclusion inappropriate and annoying.


title: Ubuntu

text: In an effort to reach out to users who are less technical, and to foster a sense of community around the distribution, Local Communities, better known as "LoCos", have been established throughout the world. Originally, each country had one LoCo Team. However, in some areas, most notably the United States and Canada, each state or province may establish a team. A LoCo Council approves teams based upon their efforts to aid in either the development or the promotion of Ubuntu.


title: Ubuntu

text: Ubuntu works closely with OEMs to jointly make Ubuntu available on a wide range of devices. A number of vendors offer computers with Ubuntu pre-installed, including Dell, Hasee, Sharp Corporation, and Cirrus7. Specifically, Dell offers the XPS 13 laptop, Developer Edition with Ubuntu pre-installed. Together, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Acer offer over 200 desktop and over 400 laptop PCs preloaded with Ubuntu. System76 computers are also sold with Ubuntu. Dell and System76 customers are able to choose between 30-day, three-month, and yearly Ubuntu support plans through Canonical. Dell computers (running Ubuntu 10.04) include extra support for ATI/AMD Video Graphics, Dell Wireless, Fingerprint Readers, HDMI, Bluetooth, DVD playback (using LinDVD), and MP3/WMA/WMV. Asus also sold some Eee PCs with Ubuntu pre-installed and announced "many more" models running Ubuntu for 2011. Vodafone has made available a notebook for the South African market called "Webbook".


title: Ubuntu

text: Dell sells computers (initially Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops) pre-loaded with Ubuntu in India and China, with 850 and 350 retail outlets respectively. Starting in 2013, Alienware began offering its X51 model gaming desktop pre-installed with Ubuntu at a lower price than if it were pre-installed with Windows.


title: Ubuntu

text: While Linux already works on IBM's mainframe system (Linux on IBM Z), IBM in collaboration with Canonical (and SUSE; "Linux Foundation will form a new Open Mainframe Project") announced Ubuntu support for their z/Architecture for the first time (IBM claimed their system, IBM zEnterprise System, version z13, the most powerful computer in the world in 2015; it was then the largest computer by transistor count; again claimed fastest in 2017 with IBM z14), at the time of their "biggest code drop" ("LinuxOne") in Linux history.


title: Ubuntu

text: In early 2015, Intel launched the Intel Compute Stick small form factor computer available preloaded with Ubuntu or Windows operating systems.


title: Ubuntu

text: In March 2016, Microsoft announced that it would support the Ubuntu userland on top of the Windows 10 kernel by implementing the Linux system calls as a subsystem. At the time, it was focused on command-line tools like Bash and was aimed at software developers. WSL was made available with Windows 10, version 1709. As of 2019, other Linux distributions are also supported.


title: Ubuntu

text: In 2019, Microsoft announced the new WSL 2 subsystem that includes a Linux kernel, that Canonical announced will have "full support for Ubuntu". By this time, it was possible to run graphical Linux apps on Windows. In 2021, Microsoft went on to add out-of-the-box support for graphical Linux apps, through the project.


title: Ubuntu

text: In May 2021, Microsoft extended its Threat and Vulnerability Management solution, which was a Windows-only solution thus far, to support Ubuntu, RHEL, and CentOS. Besides, starting with version 6, PowerShell runs on Ubuntu and can manage both Windows and Ubuntu computers remotely from either platforms.


title: Genoa

text: Genoa ( ; ; ) is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, which in 2015 became the Metropolitan City of Genoa, had 855,834 resident persons. Over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera.


title: Genoa

text: On the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean: it is currently the busiest in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union.


title: Genoa

text: Genoa was the capital of one of the most powerful maritime republics for over seven centuries, from the 11th century to 1797. Particularly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the city played a leading role in the commercial trade in Europe, becoming one of the largest naval powers of the continent and considered among the wealthiest cities in the world. It was also nicknamed "la Superba" ("the proud one") by Petrarch due to its glories on the seas and impressive landmarks. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, and its solid financial sector dates back to the Middle Ages. The Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is the oldest known state deposit bank in the world and has played an important role in the city's prosperity since the middle of the 15th century.


title: Genoa

text: The historical centre, also known as old town, of Genoa is one of the largest and most-densely populated in Europe. Part of it was also inscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO) in 2006 as . Genoa's historical city centre is also known for its narrow lanes and streets that the locals call "caruggi". Genoa is also home to the University of Genoa, which has a history going back to the 15th century, when it was known as Genuense Athenaeum. The city's rich cultural history in art, music and cuisine allowed it to become the 2004 European Capital of Culture. It is the birthplace of Guglielmo Embriaco, Christopher Columbus, Andrea Doria, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Renzo Piano and Grimaldo Canella, founder of the House of Grimaldi, among others.


title: Genoa

text: Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of Northwest Italy, is one of the country's major economic centers. A number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, Mediterranean Shipping Company and Costa Cruises.


title: Genoa

text: The city's modern name may derive from the Latin word meaning "knee" ("genu"; plural, "genua") but there are other theories. It could derive from the god Janus, because Genoa, like him, has two faces: a face that looks at the sea and another turned to the mountains. Or it could come from the Latin word "ianua", also related to the name of the God Janus, and meaning "door", or "passage." Besides that, it may refer to its geographical position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, "oppidum Genua", is recorded by Pliny the Elder ("Nat. Hist." 3.48) as part of the Augustean "Regio IX Liguria".


title: Genoa

text: Another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word "Kainua" which means "New City", based on an inscription on a pottery sherd reading "Kainua", which suggests that the Latin name may be a corruption of an older Etruscan one with an original meaning of "new town".


title: Genoa

text: The city's area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In the fifth century BC the first town, or oppidum, was founded probably by the ancient Ligures (which gave the name to the modern region of Liguria) at the top of the hill today called Castello (Castle), which is now inside the medieval old town. In this period the Genoese town, inhabited by the "Genuati" (a group of Ligure peoples), was considered "the emporium of the Ligurians", given its strong commercial character.


title: Genoa

text: The "Genoese oppidum" had an alliance with Rome through a "foedus aequum" (equal pact) in the course of the Second Punic War. The Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC, it received municipal rights. The original "castrum" then expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trade goods included skins, timber, and honey. Goods were moved to and from Genoa's hinterland, including major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. An amphitheater was also found there among other archaeological remains from the Roman period.


title: Genoa

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa. After the Gothic War, the Byzantines made it the seat of their vicar. When the Lombards invaded Italy in 568, Bishop Honoratus of Milan fled and held his seat in Genoa. During this time and in the following century Genoa was little more than a small centre, slowly building its merchant fleet, which was to become the leading commercial carrier of the Western Mediterranean. In 934–35 the town was thoroughly sacked and burned by a Fatimid fleet under Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Tamimi.


title: Genoa

text: Genoa started expanding during the First Crusade. At the time the city had a population of about 10,000. Twelve galleys, one ship and 1,200 soldiers from Genoa joined the crusade. The Genoese troops, led by noblemen de Insula and Avvocato, set sail in July 1097. The Genoese fleet transported and provided naval support to the crusaders, mainly during the siege of Antioch in 1098, when the Genoese fleet blockaded the city while the troops provided support during the siege. In the siege of Jerusalem in 1099 Genoese crossbowmen led by Guglielmo Embriaco acted as support units against the defenders of the city.


title: Genoa

text: The Republic's role as a maritime power in the Mediterranean region secured many favorable commercial treaties for Genoese merchants. They came to control a large portion of the trade of the Byzantine Empire, Tripoli (Libya), the Principality of Antioch, Cilician Armenia, and Egypt. Although Genoa maintained free-trading rights in Egypt and Syria, it lost some of its territorial possessions after Saladin's campaigns in those areas in the late 12th century.


title: Genoa

text: The commercial and cultural rivalry of Genoa and Venice was played out through the thirteenth century. Thanks to the Republic of Venice major role in the Fourth Crusade, meant that Venetian trading rights were enforced, and Venice gained control of a large portion of the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean.


title: Genoa

text: In order to regain control of the commerce, the Republic of Genoa allied with Michael VIII Palaiologos, emperor of Nicaea, who wanted to restore the Byzantine Empire by recapturing Constantinople. In March 1261 the treaty of the alliance was signed in Nymphaeum. On July 25, 1261, Nicaean troops under Alexios Strategopoulos recaptured Constantinople. As a result, the balance of favour tipped toward Genoa, which was granted free trade rights in the Nicene Empire. The islands of Chios and Lesbos became commercial stations of Genoa as well as the city of Smyrna (Izmir). In the same century the Republic conquered many settlements in Crimea, known as Gazaria, where the Genoese colony of Caffa was established. The alliance with the restored Byzantine Empire increased the wealth and power of Genoa, and simultaneously decreased Venetian and Pisan commerce. The Byzantine Empire had granted the majority of free trading rights to Genoa.


title: Genoa

text: Around the 14th century, Genoa was also considered responsible for the creation of the Jeans. Genoa's jean fabric was a fustian textile of "medium quality and of reasonable cost", very similar to cotton corduroy for which Genoa was famous, and was "used for work clothes in general". The Genoese navy equipped its sailors with jeans, as they needed a fabric which could be worn wet or dry.


title: Genoa

text: As a result of the Genoese support to the Aragonese rule in Sicily, Genoa was granted free trading and export rights in the Kingdom. Genoese bankers also profited from loans to the new nobility of Sicily. While Corsica was formally annexed in 1347.


title: Genoa

text: In the 15th century two of the earliest banks in the world were founded in Genoa: the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, which was the oldest state deposit bank in the world at its closure in 1805 and the Banca Carige, founded in 1483 as a mount of piety, which still exists. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa  1451, and donated one-tenth of his income from the discovery of the Americas for Spain to the Bank of Saint George in Genoa for the relief of taxation on foods. Under the ensuing economic recovery, many aristocratic Genoese families, such as the Balbi, Doria, Grimaldi, Pallavicini, and Serra, amassed tremendous fortunes. According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto and others, the practices Genoa developed in the Mediterranean (such as chattel slavery) were crucial in the exploration and exploitation of the New World.


title: Genoa

text: Thereafter, Genoa underwent something of an associate of the Spanish Empire, with Genoese bankers, in particular, financing many of the Spanish crown's foreign endeavors from their counting houses in Seville. Fernand Braudel has even called the period 1557 to 1627 the "age of the Genoese", "of a rule that was so discreet and sophisticated that historians for a long time failed to notice it" (Braudel 1984 p. 157). The Genoese bankers provided the unwieldy Habsburg system with fluid credit and a dependably regular income. In return the less dependable shipments of American silver were rapidly transferred from Seville to Genoa, to provide capital for further ventures. Genoa's trade, however, remained closely dependent on control of Mediterranean sealanes, and the loss of Chios to the Ottoman Empire (1566), struck a severe blow.


title: Genoa

text: From the 17th century, the Genoese Republic started a period of slow decline, in May 1625 a French-Savoian army briefly laid siege to Genoa. Though it was eventually lifted with the aid of the Spanish, the French would later bombard the city in May 1684 for its support of Spain during the War of the Reunions. In-between, a plague killed as many as half of the inhabitants of Genoa in 1656–57. Genoa continued its slow decline well into the 18th century, losing its last Mediterranean colony, the island fortress of Tabarka, to the Bey of Tunis in 1742.


title: Genoa

text: The Convention of Turin of 1742, in which Austria allied with the Kingdom of Sardinia, caused some consternation in the Republic. Consequently, the Republic of Genoa signed a secret treaty with the Bourbon allies of Kingdom of France, Spanish Empire and Kingdom of Naples. On 26 June 1745, the Republic of Genoa declared war on the Kingdom of Sardinia. This decision would prove disastrous for Genoa, which later surrendered to the Austrians in September 1746 and was briefly occupied before a revolt liberated the city two months later.


title: Genoa

text: In a much weaker state, Genoa was forced to cede Corsica to the French in the 1768 Treaty of Versailles.


title: Genoa

text: The direct intervention of Napoleon (during the Campaigns of 1796) and his representatives in Genoa was the final act that led to the fall of the Republic in early June, who overthrew the old elites which had ruled the state for all of its history, giving birth to the Ligurian Republic on June 14, 1797, under the watchful care of Napoleonic France. After Bonaparte's seizure of power in France, a more conservative constitution was enacted, but the Ligurian Republic's life was short—in 1805 it was annexed by France, becoming the "départements" of Apennins, Gênes, and Montenotte.


title: Genoa

text: Following the fall of Napoleon, Genoa regained an ephemeral independence, with the name of the "Repubblica genovese", which lasted less than a year. However, the Congress of Vienna established the annexation of the whole territories of the former Genoese Republic to the Kingdom of Sardinia, governed by the House of Savoy, contravening the principle of restoring the legitimate governments and monarchies of the old Republic.


title: Genoa

text: In the 19th century, Genoa consolidated its role as a major seaport and an important steel and shipbuilding centre. In Genoa in 1853, founded Gio. Ansaldo & C. whose shipyards would build some of the most beautiful ships in the world, such as ARA Garibaldi, SS Roma, , SS Rex, SS Andrea Doria, SS Cristoforo Colombo, MS Gripsholm, SS Leonardo da Vinci, SS Michelangelo, and SS SeaBreeze. In 1854, the ferry company Costa Crociere was founded. In 1861 the Registro Italiano Navale Italian register of shipping was created, and in 1879 the Yacht Club Italiano. The owner in 1881 was among the founders of the ferry company Navigazione Generale Italiana which then become the Italian Line.


title: Genoa

text: In 1870 was founded Banca di Genova which in 1895 changed its name to Credito Italiano and in 1998 became Unicredit.


title: Genoa

text: In 1874 the city was completely connected by railway lines to France and the rest of Italy: Genoa-Turin, Genoa-Ventimiglia, Genoa-Pisa.


title: Genoa

text: In 1884 founded Piaggio & C. that produced locomotives and railway carriages and then in 1923 began aircraft production.


title: Genoa

text: In 1992 Genoa celebrated the Colombiadi or Genoa Expo '92, the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the American Continent by Christopher Columbus. The area of the ancient port of Genoa is restructured and expanded also with the works of the architect Renzo Piano.


title: Genoa

text: The 27th G8 summit, that took place in July 2001, was hosted in the city of Genoa, however it was overshadowed by violent protests (Anti-globalisation movement), with one protester killed.


title: Genoa

text: In 2004, the European Union designated Genoa as the European Capital of Culture for that year, along with the French city of Lille.


title: Genoa

text: On 14 August 2018 the Ponte Morandi viaduct bridge for motor vehicles collapsed during a torrential downpour, leading to 43 deaths.


title: Genoa

text: The remains of the Ponte Morandi viaduct bridge were demolished in August 2019. The replacement bridge, the Genoa-Saint George Bridge was inaugurated in August 2020 during COVID-19 Pandemic.


title: Genoa

text: The patron saint of Genoa was Saint Lawrence until at least 958, but the Genoese transferred their allegiance to Saint George (and Saint John the Baptist) at some point during the 11th or 12th century, most likely with the rising popularity of the military saint during the Crusades. Genoa also had a banner displaying a cross since at latest 1218, possibly as early as 1113. But the cross banner was not associated with the saint; indeed, the saint had his own flag, the "vexillum beati Georgii" (first mentioned 1198), a red flag showing George and the dragon. A depiction of this flag is shown in the Genoese annals under the year 1227. The Genoese flag with the red cross was used alongside this "Saint George's flag", from at least 1218, known as the "insignia cruxata comunis Janue" ("cross ensign of the commune of Genoa").


title: Genoa

text: The saint's flag was the city's main war flag, but the cross flag was used alongside it in the 1240s.


title: Genoa

text: The Saint George's flag (i.e. the flag depicting the saint) remained the main flag of Genoa at least until the 1280s. The flag now known as the "St. George's Cross" seems to have replaced it as Genoa's main flag at some point during the 14th century. The "Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms" (c. 1385) shows it, inscribed with the word "iustiçia", and described as:


title: Genoa

text: There was also a historiographical tradition claiming that the flag of England was adopted from the Genoese flag during the Third Crusade in 1190, however, it cannot be substantiated as historical.


title: Genoa

text: The city of Genoa covers an area of between the Ligurian Sea and the Apennine Mountains. The city stretches along the coast for about from the neighbourhood of Voltri to Nervi, and for from the coast to the north along the valleys Polcevera and Bisagno. The territory of Genoa is popularly divided into 5 main zones: the centre, the west, the east, the Polcevera and the Bisagno Valley. Although much of the city centre is located at a low elevation, the territory surrounding it is mountainous with undeveloped land usually being in steep terrain.


title: Genoa

text: Genoa is adjacent to two popular Ligurian vacation spots: Camogli and Portofino. In the metropolitan area of Genoa lies Aveto Natural Regional Park.