title: French Third Republic

text: A notable example of the thesis was William L. Shirer's 1969 book "The Collapse of the Third Republic", where the French defeat is explained as the result of the moral weakness and cowardice of the French leaders. Shirer portrayed Édouard Daladier as a well-meaning, but weak willed; Georges Bonnet as a corrupt opportunist even willing to do a deal with the Nazis; Marshal Maxime Weygand as a reactionary soldier more interested in destroying the Third Republic than in defending it; General Maurice Gamelin as incompetent and defeatist, Pierre Laval as a crooked crypto-fascist; Charles Maurras (whom Shirer represented as France's most influential intellectual) as the preacher of "drivel"; Marshal Philippe Pétain as the senile puppet of Laval and the French royalists, and Paul Reynaud as a petty politician controlled by his mistress, Countess Hélène de Portes. Modern historians who subscribe to argument or take a very critical view of France's pre-1940 leadership without necessarily subscribing to "la décadence" thesis include Talbot Imlay, Anthony Adamthwaite, Serge Berstein, Michael Carely, Nicole Jordan, Igor Lukes, and Richard Crane.


title: French Third Republic

text: The first historian to denounce "la décadence" concept explicitly was the Canadian historian Robert J. Young, who, in his 1978 book "In Command of France" argued that French society was not decadent, that the defeat of 1940 was due to only military factors, not moral failures, and that the Third Republic's leaders had done their best under the difficult conditions of the 1930s. Young argued that the decadence, if it existed, did not impact French military planning and readiness to fight. Young finds that American reporters in the late 1930s portrayed a calm, united, competent, and confident France. They praised French art, music, literature, theatre, and fashion, and stressed French resilience and pluck in the face of growing Nazi aggression and brutality. Nothing in the tone or content of the articles foretold the crushing military defeat and collapse of June 1940.


title: French Third Republic

text: Young has been followed by other historians such as Robert Frankenstein, Jean-Pierre Azema, Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, Martin Alexander, Eugenia C. Kiesling, and Martin Thomas, who argued that French weakness on the international stage was due to structural factors as the impact of the Great Depression had on French rearmament and had nothing to do with French leaders being too "decadent" and cowardly to stand up to Nazi Germany.


title: Goths

text: The Goths (; , ) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe.


title: Goths

text: In his book "Getica" (c. 551), the historian Jordanes writes that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, but the accuracy of this account is unclear. A people called the "Gutones"possibly early Gothsare documented living near the lower Vistula River in the 1st century, where they are associated with the archaeological Wielbark culture. From the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture expanded southwards towards the Black Sea in what has been associated with Gothic migration, and by the late 3rd century it contributed to the formation of the Chernyakhov culture. By the 4th century at the latest, several Gothic groups were distinguishable, among whom the Thervingi and Greuthungi were the most powerful. During this time, Wulfila began the conversion of Goths to Christianity.


title: Goths

text: In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths were invaded from the east by the Huns. In the aftermath of this event, several groups of Goths came under Hunnic domination, while others migrated further west or sought refuge inside the Roman Empire. Goths who entered the Empire by crossing the Danube inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. These Goths would form the Visigoths, and under their king Alaric I, they began a long migration, eventually establishing a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo. Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in the 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths. Under their king Theodoric the Great, these Goths established an Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna.


title: Goths

text: The Ostrogothic Kingdom was destroyed by the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century, while the Visigothic Kingdom was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Remnants of Gothic communities in Crimea, known as the Crimean Goths, lingered on for several centuries, although Goths would eventually cease to exist as a distinct people.


title: Goths

text: In the Gothic language, the Goths were called the *"Gut-þiuda" ('Gothic people') or *"Gutans" ('Goths'). The Proto-Germanic form of the Gothic name is *"Gutōz", which co-existed with an n-stem variant *"Gutaniz", attested in "Gutones", "gutani", or "gutniskr". The form *"Gutōz" is identical to that of the Gutes and closely related to that of the Geats (*"Gautōz"). Though these names probably mean the same, their exact meaning is uncertain. They are all thought to be related to the Proto-Germanic verb *"geuta-", which means "to pour".


title: Goths

text: The Goths are classified as a Germanic people in modern scholarship. Along with the Burgundians, Vandals and others they belong to the East Germanic group. Roman authors of late antiquity did not classify the Goths as "Germani". In modern scholarship the Goths are sometimes referred to as being "Germani".


title: Goths

text: A crucial source on Gothic history is the "Getica" of the 6th-century historian Jordanes, who may have been of Gothic descent. Jordanes claims to have based the "Getica" on an earlier lost work by Cassiodorus, but also cites material from fifteen other classical sources, including an otherwise unknown writer, Ablabius. Many scholars accept that Jordanes' account on Gothic origins is at least partially derived from Gothic tribal tradition and accurate on certain details.


title: Goths

text: According to Jordanes, the Goths originated on an island called "Scandza" (Scandinavia), from where they emigrated by sea to an area called "Gothiscandza" under their king Berig. Historians are not in agreement on the authenticity and accuracy of this account. Most scholars agree that Gothic migration from Scandinavia is reflected in the archaeological record, but the evidence is not entirely clear. Rather than a single mass migration of an entire people, scholars open to hypothetical Scandinavian origins envision a process of gradual migration in the 1st centuries BC and AD, which was probably preceded by long-term contacts and perhaps limited to a few elite clans from Scandinavia.


title: Goths

text: Similarities between the name of the Goths, some Swedish place names and the names of the Gutes and Geats have been cited as evidence that the Goths originated in Gotland or Götaland. The Goths, Geats and Gutes may all have descended from an early community of seafarers active on both sides of the Baltic. Similarities and dissimilarities between the Gothic language and Scandinavian languages (particularly Gutnish) have been cited as evidence both for and against a Scandinavian origin.


title: Goths

text: Scholars generally locate "Gothiscandza" in the area of the Wielbark culture. This culture emerged in the lower Vistula and along the Pomeranian coast in the 1st century AD, replacing the preceding Oksywie culture. It is primarily distinguished from the Oksywie by the practice of inhumation, the absence of weapons in graves, and the presence of stone circles. This area had been intimately connected with Scandinavia since the time of the Nordic Bronze Age and the Lusatian culture. Its inhabitants in the Wielbark period are usually thought to have been Germanic peoples, such as the Goths and Rugii. Jordanes writes that the Goths, soon after settling "Gothiscandza", seized the lands of the Ulmerugi (Rugii).


title: Goths

text: The Goths are generally believed to have been first attested by Greco-Roman sources in the 1st century under the name "Gutones". The equation between Gutones and later Goths is disputed by several historians.


title: Goths

text: Around 15 AD, Strabo mentions the Butones, Lugii, and Semnones as part of a large group of peoples who came under the domination of the Marcomannic king Maroboduus. The "Butones" are generally equated with the Gutones. The Lugii have sometimes been considered the same people as the Vandals, with whom they were certainly closely affiliated. The Vandals are associated with the Przeworsk culture, which was located to the south of the Wielbark culture. Wolfram suggests that the Gutones were clients of the Lugii and Vandals in the 1st century AD.


title: Goths

text: In 77 AD, Pliny the Elder mentions the Gutones as one of the peoples of Germania. He writes that the Gutones, Burgundiones, Varini, and Carini belong to the Vandili. Pliny classifies the Vandili as one of the five principal "German races", along with the coastal Ingvaeones, Istvaeones, Irminones, and Peucini. In an earlier chapter Pliny writes that the 4th century BC traveler Pytheas encountered a people called the "Guiones". Some scholars have equated these "Guiones" with the Gutones, but the authenticity of the Pytheas account is uncertain.


title: Goths

text: In his work "Germania" from around 98 AD, Tacitus writes that the Gotones (or Gothones) and the neighbouring Rugii and Lemovii were "Germani" who carried round shields and short swords, and lived near the ocean, beyond the Vandals. He described them as "ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other German tribes". In another notable work, the "Annals", Tacitus writes that the Gotones had assisted Catualda, a young Marcomannic exile, in overthrowing the rule of Maroboduus. Prior to this, it is probable that both the Gutones and Vandals had been subjects of the Marcomanni.


title: Goths

text: Sometime after settling "Gothiscandza", Jordanes writes that the Goths defeated the neighbouring Vandals. Wolfram believes the Gutones freed themselves from Vandalic domination at the beginning of the 2nd century AD.


title: Goths

text: In his "Geography" from around 150 AD, Ptolemy mentions the Gythones (or Gutones) as living east of the Vistula in Sarmatia, between the Veneti and the Fenni. In an earlier chapter he mentions a people called the Gutae (or Gautae) as living in southern Scandia. These Gutae are probably the same as the later Gauti mentioned by Procopius. Wolfram suggests that there were close relations between the Gythones and Gutae, and that they might have been of common origin.


title: Goths

text: Beginning in the middle of the 2nd century, the Wielbark culture shifted southeast towards the Black Sea. During this time the Wielbark culture is believed to have ejected and partially absorbed peoples of the Przeworsk culture. This was part of a wider southward movement of eastern Germanic tribes, which was probably caused by massive population growth. As a result, other tribes were pushed towards the Roman Empire, contributing to the beginning of the Marcomannic Wars. By 200 AD, Wielbark Goths were probably being recruited into the Roman army.


title: Goths

text: According to Jordanes, the Goths entered Oium, part of Scythia, under the king Filimer, where they defeated the Spali. This migration account partly corresponds with the archaeological evidence. The name "Spali" may mean "the giants" in Slavic, and the Spali were thus probably not Slavs. In the early 3rd century AD, western Scythia was inhabited by the agricultural Zarubintsy culture and the nomadic Sarmatians. Prior to the Sarmatians, the area had been settled by the Bastarnae, who are believed to have carried out a migration similar to the Goths in the 3rd century BC. Peter Heather considers the Filimer story to be at least partially derived from Gothic oral tradition. The fact that the expanding Goths appear to have preserved their Gothic language during their migration suggests that their movement involved a fairly large number of people.


title: Goths

text: By the mid-3rd century AD, the Wielbark culture had contributed to the formation of the Chernyakhov culture in Scythia. This strikingly uniform culture came to stretch from the Danube in the west to the Don in the east. It is believed to have been dominated by the Goths and other Germanic groups such as the Heruli. It nevertheless also included Iranian, Dacian, Roman and probably Slavic elements as well.


title: Goths

text: The first incursion of the Roman Empire that can be attributed to Goths is the sack of Histria in 238. The first references to the Goths in the 3rd century call them "Scythians", as this area, known as Scythia, had historically had been occupied by an unrelated people of that name. It is in the late 3rd century that the name "Goths" () is first mentioned. Ancient authors do not identify the Goths with the earlier Gutones. Philologists and linguists have no doubt that the names are linked.


title: Goths

text: On the Pontic steppe the Goths quickly adopted several nomadic customs from the Sarmatians. They excelled at horsemanship, archery and falconry, and were also accomplished agriculturalists and seafarers. J. B. Bury describes the Gothic period as "the only non-nomadic episode in the history of the steppe." William H. McNeill compares the migration of the Goths to that of the early Mongols, who migrated southward from the forests and came to dominate the eastern Eurasian steppe around the same time as the Goths in the west. From the 240s at the earliest, Goths were heavily recruited into the Roman Army to fight in the Roman–Persian Wars, notably participating at the Battle of Misiche in 244. An inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht in Parthian, Persian and Greek commemorates the Persian victory over the Romans and the troops drawn from "Gwt W Germany xštr", the Gothic and German kingdoms, which is probably a Parthian gloss for the Danubian (Gothic) "limes" and the Germanic "limes".


title: Goths

text: Meanwhile, Gothic raids on the Roman Empire continued, In 250–51, the Gothic king Cniva captured the city of Philippopolis and inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Abrittus, in which the Roman Emperor Decius was killed. This was one of the most disastrious defeats in the history of the Roman army.


title: Goths

text: The first Gothic seaborne raids took place in the 250s. The first two incursions into Asia Minor took place between 253 and 256, and are attributed to Boranoi by Zosimus. This may not be an ethnic term but may just mean "people from the north". It is unknown if Goths were involved in these first raids. Gregory Thaumaturgus attributes a third attack to Goths and Boradoi, and claims that some, "forgetting that they were men of Pontus and Christians," joined the invaders. An unsuccessful attack on Pityus was followed in the second year by another, which sacked Pityus and Trabzon and ravaged large areas in the Pontus. In the third year, a much larger force devastated large areas of Bithynia and the Propontis, including the cities of Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Apamea Myrlea, Cius and Bursa. By the end of the raids, the Goths had seized control over Crimea and the Bosporus and captured several cities on the Euxine coast, including Olbia and Tyras, which enabled them to engage in widespread naval activities.


title: Goths

text: After a 10-year hiatus, the Goths and the Heruli, with a raiding fleet of 500 ships, sacked Heraclea Pontica, Cyzicus and Byzantium. They were defeated by the Roman navy but managed to escape into the Aegean Sea, where they ravaged the islands of Lemnos and Scyros, broke through Thermopylae and sacked several cities of southern Greece (province of Achaea) including Athens, Corinth, Argos, Olympia and Sparta. Then an Athenian militia, led by the historian Dexippus, pushed the invaders to the north where they were intercepted by the Roman army under Gallienus. He won an important victory near the Nessos (Nestos) river, on the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace, the Dalmatian cavalry of the Roman army earning a reputation as good fighters. Reported barbarian casualties were 3,000 men. Subsequently, the Heruli leader Naulobatus came to terms with the Romans.


title: Goths

text: After Gallienus was assassinated outside Milan in the summer of 268 in a plot led by high officers in his army, Claudius was proclaimed emperor and headed to Rome to establish his rule. Claudius' immediate concerns were with the Alamanni, who had invaded Raetia and Italy. After he defeated them in the Battle of Lake Benacus, he was finally able to take care of the invasions in the Balkan provinces.


title: Goths

text: In the meantime, a second and larger sea-borne invasion had started. An enormous coalition consisting of Goths (Greuthungi and Thervingi), Gepids and Peucini, led again by the Heruli, assembled at the mouth of river Tyras (Dniester). The "Augustan History" and Zosimus claim a total number of 2,000–6,000 ships and 325,000 men. This is probably a gross exaggeration but remains indicative of the scale of the invasion. After failing to storm some towns on the coasts of the western Black Sea and the Danube (Tomi, Marcianopolis), the invaders attacked Byzantium and Chrysopolis. Part of their fleet was wrecked, either because of the Goth's inexperience in sailing through the violent currents of the Propontis or because they were defeated by the Roman navy. Then they entered the Aegean Sea and a detachment ravaged the Aegean islands as far as Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus. According to the "Augustan History", the Goths achieved no success on this expedition because they were struck by the Cyprianic Plague. The fleet probably also sacked Troy and Ephesus, damaging the Temple of Artemis, though the temple was repaired and then later torn down by Christians a century later, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. While their main force had constructed siege works and was close to taking the cities of Thessalonica and Cassandreia, it retreated to the Balkan interior at the news that the emperor was advancing.


title: Goths

text: Learning of the approach of Claudius, the Goths first attempted to directly invade Italy. They were engaged near Naissus by a Roman army led by Claudius advancing from the north. The battle most likely took place in 269, and was fiercely contested. Large numbers on both sides were killed but, at the critical point, the Romans tricked the Goths into an ambush by pretending to retreat. Some 50,000 Goths were allegedly killed or taken captive and their base at Thessalonika destroyed. Apparently Aurelian, who was in charge of all Roman cavalry during Claudius' reign, led the decisive attack in the battle. Some survivors were resettled within the empire, while others were incorporated into the Roman army. The battle ensured the survival of the Roman Empire for another two centuries.


title: Goths

text: In 270, after the death of Claudius, Goths under the leadership of Cannabaudes again launched an invasion of the Roman Empire, but were defeated by Aurelian, who, however, did surrender Dacia beyond the Danube.


title: Goths

text: Around 275 the Goths launched a last major assault on Asia Minor, where piracy by Black Sea Goths was causing great trouble in Colchis, Pontus, Cappadocia, Galatia and even Cilicia. They were defeated sometime in 276 by Emperor Marcus Claudius Tacitus.


title: Goths

text: By the late 3rd century, there were at least two groups of Goths, separated by the Dniester River: the Thervingi and the Greuthungi. The Gepids, who lived northwest of the Goths, are also attested as this time. Jordanes writes that the Gepids shared common origins with the Goths.


title: Goths

text: In the late 3rd century, as recorded by Jordanes, the Gepids, under their king Fastida, utterly defeated the Burgundians, and then attacked the Goths and their king Ostrogotha. Out of this conflict, Ostrogotha and the Goths emerged victorious. In the last decades of the 3rd century, large numbers of Carpi are recorded as fleeing Dacia for the Roman Empire, having probably been driven from the area by Goths.


title: Goths

text: In 332, Constantine helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks and thereby enforce the Roman border. Around 100,000 Goths were reportedly killed in battle, and Aoric, son of the Thervingian king Ariaric, was captured. Eusebius, an historian who wrote in Greek in the third century, wrote that in 334, Constantine evacuated approximately 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube after a revolt of the Sarmatians' slaves. From 335 to 336, Constantine, continuing his Danube campaign, defeated many Gothic tribes.


title: Goths

text: Having been driven from the Danube by the Romans, the Thervingi invaded the territory of the Sarmatians of the Tisza. In this conflict, the Thervingi were led by Vidigoia, "the bravest of the Goths" and were victorious, although Vidigoia was killed. Jordanes states that Aoric was succeeded by Geberic, "a man renowned for his valor and noble birth", who waged war on the Hasdingi Vandals and their king Visimar, forcing them to settle in Pannonia under Roman protection.


title: Goths

text: Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century. This came about through trade with the Romans, as well as through Gothic membership of a military covenant, which was based in Byzantium and involved pledges of military assistance. Reportedly, 40,000 Goths were brought by Constantine to defend Constantinople in his later reign, and the Palace Guard was thereafter mostly composed of Germanic warriors, as Roman soldiers by this time had largely lost military value. The Goths increasingly became soldiers in the Roman armies in the 4th century  leading to a significant Germanization of the Roman Army. Without the recruitment of Germanic warriors in the Roman Army, the Roman Empire would not have survived for as long as it did. Goths who gained prominent positions in the Roman military include Gainas, Tribigild, Fravitta and Aspar. Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch, was the childhood tutor and later adviser of Roman emperor Julian, on whom he had an immense influence.


title: Goths

text: The Gothic penchant for wearing skins became fashionable in Constantinople, a fashion which was loudly denounced by conservatives. The 4th-century Greek bishop Synesius compared the Goths to wolves among sheep, mocked them for wearing skins and questioned their loyalty towards Rome: A man in skins leading warriors who wear the chlamys, exchanging his sheepskins for the toga to debate with Roman magistrates and perhaps even sit next to a Roman consul, while law–abiding men sit behind. Then these same men, once they have gone a little way from the senate house, put on their sheepskins again, and when they have rejoined their fellows they mock the toga, saying that they cannot comfortably draw their swords in it.


title: Goths

text: In the 4th century, Geberic was succeeded by the Greuthungian king Ermanaric, who embarked on a large-scale expansion. Jordanes states that Ermanaric conquered a large number of warlike tribes, including the Heruli (who were led by Alaric), the Aesti and the Vistula Veneti, who, although militarily weak, were very numerous, and put up a strong resistance. Jordanes compares the conquests of Ermanaric to those of Alexander the Great, and states that he "ruled all the nations of Scythia and Germany by his own prowess alone." Interpreting Jordanes, Herwig Wolfram estimates that Ermanaric dominated a vast area of the Pontic Steppe stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains, encompassing not only the Greuthungi, but also Baltic Finnic peoples, Slavs (such as the Antes), Rosomoni (Roxolani), Alans, Huns, Sarmatians and probably Aestii (Balts). According to Wolfram, it is certainly possible that the sphere of influence of the Chernyakhov culture could have extended well beyond its archaeological extent. Chernyakhov archaeological finds have been found far to the north in the forest steppe, suggesting Gothic domination of this area. Peter Heather on the other hand, contends that the extent of Ermanaric's power is exaggerated. Ermanaric's possible dominance of the Volga-Don trade routes has led historian to consider his realm a forerunner of the Viking-founded state of Kievan Rus'. In the western part of Gothic territories, dominated by the Thervingi, there were also populations of Taifali, Sarmatians and other Iranian peoples, Dacians, Daco-Romans and other Romanized populations.


title: Goths

text: According to Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek), a 13th-century legendary saga, Árheimar was the capital of Reidgotaland, the land of the Goths. The saga states that it was located on the Dnieper river. Jordanes refers to the region as Oium.


title: Goths

text: In the 360s, Athanaric, son of Aoric and leader of the Thervingi, supported the usurper Procopius against the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens. In retaliation, Valens invaded the territories of Athanaric and defeated him, but was unable to achieve a decisive victory. Athanaric and Valens thereupon negotiated a peace treaty, favorable to the Thervingi, on a boat in the Danube river, as Athanaric refused to set his feet within the Roman Empire. Soon afterwards, Fritigern, a rival of Athanaric, converted to Arianism, gaining the favor of Valens. Athanaric and Fritigern thereafter fought a civil war in which Athanaric appears to have been victorious. Athanaric thereafter carried out a crackdown on Christianity in his realm.


title: Goths

text: Around 375 the Huns overran the Alans, an Iranian people living to the east of the Goths, and then, along with Alans, invaded the territory of the Goths - the Gothic empire A source for this period is the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote that Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdoms in Scythia began in the 370s. It is possible that the Hunnic attack came as a response to the Gothic expansion eastwards.


title: Goths

text: Upon the suicide of Ermanaric (died 376), the Greuthungi gradually fell under Hunnic domination. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Hunnic thrust into Europe and the Roman Empire was an attempt to subdue the independent Goths in the west. The Huns fell upon the Thervingi, and Athanaric sought refuge in the mountains (referred to as Caucaland in the sagas). Ambrose makes a passing reference to Athanaric's royal titles before 376 in his "De Spiritu Sancto" (On the Holy Spirit).


title: Goths

text: Battles between the Goths and the Huns are described in the "Hlöðskviða" (The Battle of the Goths and Huns), a medieval Icelandic saga. The sagas recall that Gizur, king of the Geats, came to the aid of the Goths in an epic conflict with the Huns, although this saga might derive from a later Gothic-Hunnic conflict.


title: Goths

text: Although the Huns successfully subdued many of the Goths who subsequently joined their ranks, Fritigern approached the Eastern Roman emperor Valens in 376 with a portion of his people and asked to be allowed to settle on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even assisted the Goths in their crossing of the river (probably at the fortress of Durostorum). The Gothic evacuation across the Danube was probably not spontaneous, but rather a carefully planned operation initiated after long debate among leading members of the community. Upon arrival, the Goths were to be disarmed according to their agreement with the Romans, although many of them still managed to keep their arms. The Moesogoths settled in Thrace and Moesia.


title: Goths

text: Mistreated by corrupt local Roman officials, the Gothic refugees were soon experiencing a famine; some are recorded as having been forced to sell their children to Roman slave traders in return for rotten dog meat. Enraged by this treachery, Fritigern unleashed a widescale rebellion in Thrace, in which he was joined not only by Gothic refugees and slaves, but also by disgruntled Roman workers and peasants, and Gothic deserters from the Roman Army. The ensuing conflict, known as the Gothic War, lasted for several years. Meanwhile, a group of Greuthungi, led by the chieftains Alatheus and Saphrax, who were co-regents with Vithericus, son and heir of the Greuthungi king Vithimiris, crossed the Danube without Roman permission. The Gothic War culminated in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, in which the Romans were badly defeated and Valens was killed.


title: Goths

text: Following the decisive Gothic victory at Adrianople, Julius, the magister militum of the Eastern Roman Empire, organized a wholesale massacre of Goths in Asia Minor, Syria and other parts of the Roman East. Fearing rebellion, Julian lured the Goths into the confines of urban streets from which they could not escape and massacred soldiers and civilians alike. As word spread, the Goths rioted throughout the region, and large numbers were killed. Survivors may have settled in Phrygia.


title: Goths

text: With the rise of Theodosius I in 379, the Romans launched a renewed offensive to subdue Fritigern and his followers. Around the same time, Athanaric arrived in Constantinople, having fled Caucaland through the scheming of Fritigern. Athanaric received a warm reception by Theodosius, praised the Roman Emperor in return, and was honoured with a magnificent funeral by the emperor following his death shortly after his arrival. In 382, Theodosius decided to enter peace negotiations with the Thervingi, which were concluded on 3 October 382. The Thervingi were subsequently made foederati of the Romans in Thrace and obliged to provide troops to the Roman army.


title: Goths

text: In the aftermath of the Hunnic onslaught, two major groups of the Goths would eventually emerge, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Visigoths means the "Goths of the west", while Ostrogoths means "Goths of the east". The Visigoths, led by the Balti dynasty, claimed descent from the Thervingi and lived as foederati inside Roman territory, while the Ostrogoths, led by the Amali dynasty, claimed descent from the Greuthungi and were subjects of the Huns. Procopius interpreted the name "Visigoth" as "western Goths" and the name "Ostrogoth" as "eastern Goth", reflecting the geographic distribution of the Gothic realms at that time. A people closely related to the Goths, the Gepids, were also living under Hunnic domination. A smaller group of Goths were the Crimean Goths, who remained in Crimea and maintained their Gothic identity well into the Middle Ages.


title: Goths

text: The Visigoths were a new Gothic political unit brought together during the career of their first leader, Alaric I. Following a major settlement of Goths in the Balkans made by Theodosius in 382, Goths received prominent positions in the Roman army. Relations with Roman civilians were sometimes uneasy. In 391, Gothic soldiers, with the blessing of Theodosius I, massacred thousands of Roman spectators at the Hippodrome in Thessalonica as vengeance for the lynching of the Gothic general Butheric.


title: Goths

text: The Goths suffered heavy losses while serving Theodosius in the civil war of 394 against Eugenius and Arbogast. In 395, following the death of Theodosius I, Alaric and his Balkan Goths invaded Greece, where they sacked Piraeus (the port of Athens) and destroyed Corinth, Megara, Argos, and Sparta. Athens itself was spared by paying a large bribe, and the Eastern emperor Flavius Arcadius subsequently appointed Alaric magister militum ("master of the soldiers") in Illyricum in 397.


title: Goths

text: In 401 and 402, Alaric made two attempts at invading Italy, but was defeated by Stilicho. In 405–406, another Gothic leader, Radagaisus, also attempted to invade Italy, and was also defeated by Stilicho. In 408, the Western Roman emperor Flavius Honorius ordered the execution of Stilicho and his family, then incited the Roman population to massacre tens of thousands of wives and children of Goths serving in the Roman military. Subsequently, around 30,000 Gothic soldiers defected to Alaric. Alaric in turn invaded Italy, seeking to pressure Honorious into granting him permission to settle his people in North Africa. In Italy, Alaric liberated tens of thousands of Gothic slaves, and in 410 he sacked the city of Rome. Although the city's riches were plundered, the civilian inhabitants of the city were treated humanely, and only a few buildings were burned. Alaric died soon afterwards, and was buried along with his treasure in an unknown grave under the Busento river.


title: Goths

text: Alaric was succeeded by his brother-in–law Athaulf, husband of Honorius' sister Galla Placidia, who had been seized during Alaric's sack of Rome. Athaulf settled the Visigoths in southern Gaul. After failing to gain recognition from the Romans, Athaulf retreated into Hispania in early 415, and was assassinated in Barcelona shortly afterwards. He was succeeded by Sigeric and then Wallia, who succeeded in having the Visigoths accepted by Honorius as foederati in southern Gaul, with their capital at Toulouse. Wallia subsequently inflicted severe defeats upon the Silingi Vandals and the Alans in Hispania. Periodically they marched on Arles, the seat of the praetorian prefect but were always pushed back. In 437 the Visigoths signed a treaty with the Romans which they kept.


title: Goths

text: Under Theodoric I the Visigoths allied with the Romans and fought Attila to a stalemate in the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, although Theodoric was killed in the battle. Under Euric, the Visigoths established an independent Visigothic Kingdom and succeeded in driving the Suebi out of Hispania proper and back into Galicia. Although they controlled Spain, they still formed a tiny minority among a much larger Hispano-Roman population, approximately 200,000 out of 6,000,000.


title: Goths

text: In 507, the Visigoths were pushed out of most of Gaul by the Frankish king Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé. They were able to retain Narbonensis and Provence after the timely arrival of an Ostrogoth detachment sent by Theodoric the Great. The defeat at Vouillé resulted in their penetrating further into Hispania and establishing a new capital at Toledo.


title: Goths

text: Under Liuvigild in the latter part of the 6th century, the Visigoths succeeded in subduing the Suebi in Galicia and the Byzantines in the south-west, and thus achieved dominance over most of the Iberian peninsula. Liuvigild also abolished the law that prevented intermarriage between Hispano-Romans and Goths, and he remained an Arian Christian. The conversion of Reccared I to Roman Catholicism in the late 6th century prompted the assimilation of Goths with the Hispano-Romans.


title: Goths

text: At the end of the 7th century, the Visigothic Kingdom began to suffer from internal troubles. Their kingdom fell and was progressively conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate from 711 after the defeat of their last king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete. Some Visigothic nobles found refuge in the mountain areas of the Asturias, Pyrenees and Cantabria. According to Joseph F. O'Callaghan, the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the "gens Gothorum" or the "Hispani". An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures, Galicians, Cantabri, Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society. The Christians began to regain control under the leadership of the nobleman Pelagius of Asturias, who founded the Kingdom of Asturias in 718 and defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Covadonga in c. 722, in what is taken by historians to be the beginning of the Reconquista. It was from the Asturian kingdom that modern Spain and Portugal evolved.


title: Goths

text: The Visigoths were never completely Romanized; rather, they were 'Hispanicized' as they spread widely over a large territory and population. They progressively adopted a new culture, retaining little of their original culture except for practical military customs, some artistic modalities, family traditions such as heroic songs and folklore, as well as select conventions to include Germanic names still in use in present-day Spain. It is these artifacts of the original Visigothic culture that give ample evidence of its contributing foundation for the present regional culture. Portraying themselves heirs of the Visigoths, the subsequent Christian Spanish monarchs declared their responsibility for the Reconquista of Muslim Spain, which was completed with the Fall of Granada in 1492.


title: Goths

text: After the Hunnic invasion, many Goths became subjects of the Huns. A section of these Goths under the leadership of the Amali dynasty came to be known as the Ostrogoths. Others sought refuge in the Roman Empire, where many of them were recruited into the Roman army. In the spring of 399, Tribigild, a Gothic leader in charge of troops in Nakoleia, rose up in rebellion and defeated the first imperial army sent against him, possibly seeking to emulate Alaric's successes in the west. Gainas, a Goth who along with Stilicho and Eutropius had deposed Rufinus in 395, was sent to suppress Tribigild's rebellion, but instead plotted to use the situation to seize power in the Eastern Roman Empire. This attempt was however thwarted by the pro-Roman Goth Fravitta, and in the aftermath, thousands of Gothic civilians were massacred in Constantinople, many being burned alive in the local Arian church where they had taken shelter. As late as the 6th century Goths were settled as "foederati" in parts of Asia Minor. Their descendants, who formed the elite "Optimatoi" regiment, still lived there in the early 8th century. While they were largely assimilated, their Gothic origin was still well–known: the chronicler Theophanes the Confessor calls them Gothograeci.


title: Goths

text: The Ostrogoths fought together with the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. Following the death of Attila and the defeat of the Huns at the Battle of Nedao in 454, the Ostrogoths broke away from Hunnic rule under their king Valamir. Mentions of this event were probably preserved in Slavic epic songs. Under his successor, Theodemir, they utterly defeated the Huns at the Bassianae in 468, and then defeated a coalition of Roman–supported Germanic tribes at the Battle of Bolia in 469, which gained them supremacy in Pannonia.


title: Goths

text: Theodemir was succeeded by his son Theodoric in 471, who was forced to compete with Theodoric Strabo, leader of the Thracian Goths, for the leadership of his people. Fearing the threat posed by Theodoric to Constantinople, the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno ordered Theodoric to invade Italy in 488. By 493, Theodoric had conquered all of Italy from the Scirian Odoacer, whom he killed with his own hands; he subsequently formed the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Theodoric settled his entire people in Italy, estimated at 100,000–200,000, mostly in the northern part of the country, and ruled the country very efficiently. The Goths in Italy constituted a small minority of the population in the country. Intermarriage between Goths and Romans were forbidden, and Romans were also forbidden from carrying arms. Nevertheless, the Roman majority was treated fairly.


title: Goths

text: The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early 6th century under Theodoric, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom following the death of Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Shortly after Theodoric's death, the country was invaded by the Eastern Roman Empire in the Gothic War, which severely devastated and depopulated the Italian peninsula. The Ostrogoths made a brief resurgence under their king Totila, who was, however, killed at the Battle of Taginae in 552. After the last stand of the Ostrogothic king Teia at the Battle of Mons Lactarius in 553, Ostrogothic resistance ended, and the remaining Goths in Italy were assimilated by the Lombards, another Germanic tribe, who invaded Italy and founded the Kingdom of the Lombards in 567.


title: Goths

text: Gothic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea, were known as the Crimean Goths. During the late 5th and early 6th century, the Crimean Goths had to fend off hordes of Huns who were migrating back eastward after losing control of their European empire. In the 5th century, Theodoric the Great tried to recruit Crimean Goths for his campaigns in Italy, but few showed interest in joining him. They affiliated with the Eastern Orthodox Church through the Metropolitanate of Gothia, and were then closely associated with the Byzantine Empire.


title: Goths

text: During the Middle Ages, the Crimean Goths were in perpetual conflict with the Khazars. John of Gothia, the metropolitan bishop of Doros, capital of the Crimean Goths, briefly expelled the Khazars from Crimea in the late 8th century, and was subsequently canonized as an Eastern Orthodox saint.


title: Goths

text: In the 10th century, the lands of the Crimean Goths were once again raided by the Khazars. As a response, the leaders of the Crimean Goths made an alliance with Sviatoslav I of Kiev, who subsequently waged war upon and utterly destroyed the Khazar Khaganate. In the late Middle Ages the Crimean Goths were part of the Principality of Theodoro, which was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century. As late as the 18th century a small number of people in Crimea may still have spoken Crimean Gothic.


title: Goths

text: The Goths were Germanic-speaking. The Gothic language is the Germanic language with the earliest attestation (the 4th century), and the only East Germanic language documented in more than proper names, short phrases that survived in historical accounts, and loan-words in other languages, making it a language of great interest in comparative linguistics. Gothic is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, which contains a partial translation of the Bible credited to Ulfilas.


title: Goths

text: The language was in decline by the mid-500s, due to the military victory of the Franks, the elimination of the Goths in Italy, and geographic isolation. In Spain, the language lost its last and probably already declining function as a church language when the Visigoths converted to Catholicism in 589; it survived as a domestic language in the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) as late as the 8th century.


title: Goths

text: Frankish author Walafrid Strabo wrote that Gothic was still spoken in the lower Danube area, in what is now Bulgaria, in the early 9th century, and a related dialect known as Crimean Gothic was spoken in the Crimea until the 16th century, according to references in the writings of travelers. Most modern scholars believe that Crimean Gothic did not derive from the dialect that was the basis for Ulfilas' translation of the Bible.


title: Goths

text: In ancient sources, the Goths are always described as tall and athletic, with light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. The 4th-century Greek historian Eunapius described their characteristic powerful musculature in a pejorative way: "Their bodies provoked contempt in all who saw them, for they were far too big and far too heavy for their feet to carry them, and they were pinched in at the waist – just like those insects Aristotle writes of." Procopius notes that the Vandals and Gepids looked similar to the Goths, and on this basis, he suggested that they were all of common origin. Of the Goths, he wrote that "they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon."


title: Goths

text: Before the invasion of the Huns, the Gothic Chernyakhov culture produced jewelry, vessels, and decorative objects in a style much influenced by Greek and Roman craftsmen. They developed a polychrome style of gold work, using wrought cells or setting to encrust gemstones into their gold objects.


title: Goths

text: The eagle-shaped fibula, part of the Domagnano Treasure, was used to join clothes c. AD 500; the piece on display in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg is well-known.


title: Goths

text: In Spain an important collection of Visigothic metalwork was found in the treasure of Guarrazar, Guadamur, Province of Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, an archeological find composed of twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses from the royal workshop in Toledo, with Byzantine influence. The treasure represents the high point of Visigothic goldsmithery, according to . The two most important votive crowns are those of Recceswinth and of Suintila, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid; both are made of gold, encrusted with sapphires, pearls, and other precious stones. Suintila's crown was stolen in 1921 and never recovered. There are several other small crowns and many votive crosses in the treasure.


title: Goths

text: These findings, along with others from some neighbouring sites and with the archaeological excavation of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and the Royal Spanish Academy of History (April 1859), formed a group consisting of:


title: Goths

text: The aquiliform (eagle-shaped) fibulae that have been discovered in necropolises such as Duraton, Madrona or Castiltierra (cities of Segovia), are an unmistakable indication of the Visigothic presence in Spain. These fibulae were used individually or in pairs, as clasps or pins in gold, bronze and glass to join clothes, showing the work of the goldsmiths of Visigothic Hispania.


title: Goths

text: The Visigothic belt buckles, a symbol of rank and status characteristic of Visigothic women's clothing, are also notable as works of goldsmithery. Some pieces contain exceptional Byzantine-style lapis lazuli inlays and are generally rectangular in shape, with copper alloy, garnets and glass.


title: Goths

text: Archaeological evidence in Visigothic cemeteries shows that social stratification was analogous to that of the village of Sabbas the Goth. The majority of villagers were common peasants. Paupers were buried with funeral rites, unlike slaves. In a village of 50 to 100 people, there were four or five elite couples. In Eastern Europe, houses include sunken-floored dwellings, surface dwellings, and stall-houses. The largest known settlement is the Criuleni District. Chernyakhov cemeteries feature both cremation and inhumation burials; among the latter the head aligned to the north. Some graves were left empty. Grave goods often include pottery, bone combs, and iron tools, but hardly ever weapons.


title: Goths

text: Peter Heather suggests that the freemen constituted the core of Gothic society. These were ranked below the nobility, but above the freedmen and slaves. It is estimated that around a quarter to a fifth of weapon-bearing Gothic males of the Ostrogothic Kingdom were freemen.


title: Goths

text: Initially practising Gothic paganism, the Goths were gradually converted to Arianism in the course of the 4th century. According to Basil of Caesarea, a prisoner named Eutychus taken captive in a raid on Cappadocia in 260 preached the gospel to the Goths and was martyred. It was only in the 4th century, as a result of missionary activity by the Gothic bishop Ulfilas, whose grandparents were Cappadocians taken captive in the raids of the 250s, that the Goths were gradually converted. Ulfilas devised a Gothic alphabet and translated the Gothic Bible.


title: Goths

text: During the 370s, Goths converting to Christianity were subject to persecution by the Thervingian king Athanaric, who was a pagan.


title: Goths

text: The Ostrogoths (and their remnants, the Crimean Goths) were closely connected to the Patriarchate of Constantinople from the 5th century, and became fully incorporated under the Metropolitanate of Gothia from the 9th century.


title: Goths

text: Gothic arms and armour usually consisted of wooden shield, spear and often swords. 'Rank and file' troops did not wear much protection, while warriors of higher social class were better equipped, as was common for most tribal peoples of the time.


title: Goths

text: Armour was either a chainmail shirt or lamellar cuirass. Lamellar was popular among horsemen. Shields were either round or oval with a central boss grip. They were decorated with tribe or clan symbols, such as animal drawings. Helmets were often of spangenhelm type, often with cheek and neck plates. Spears were used both for thrusting and throwing, although specialized javelins were also in use. Swords were one handed, double edged and straight, with a very small crossguard and large pommel. It was called the Spatha by the Romans, and it is believed to have first been used by the Celts. Short wooden bows were also used, as well as occasional throwing axes.


title: Goths

text: Missile weapons were mainly short throwing axes such as Fransica and short wooden bows. Specialized javelins such as angon were more rare but still used


title: Goths

text: Archaeology shows that the Visigoths, unlike the Ostrogoths, were predominantly farmers. They sowed wheat, barley, rye, and flax. They also raised pigs, poultry, and goats. Horses and donkeys were raised as working animals and fed with hay. Sheep were raised for their wool, which they fashioned into clothing. Archaeology indicates they were skilled potters and blacksmiths. When peace treaties were negotiated with the Romans, the Goths demanded free trade. Imports from Rome included wine and cooking-oil.


title: Goths

text: Roman writers note that the Goths neither assessed taxes on their own people nor on their subjects. The early 5th-century Christian writer Salvian compared the Goths' and related people's favourable treatment of the poor to the miserable state of peasants in Roman Gaul:


title: Goths

text: For in the Gothic country the barbarians are so far from tolerating this sort of oppression that not even Romans who live among them have to bear it. Hence all the Romans in that region have but one desire, that they may never have to return to the Roman jurisdiction. It is the unanimous prayer of the Roman people in that district that they may be permitted to continue to lead their present life among the barbarians.


title: Goths

text: The Mausoleum of Theodoric (Italian: "Mausoleo di Teodorico") is an ancient monument just outside Ravenna, Italy. It was built in 520 AD by Theodoric the Great, an Ostrogoth, as his future tomb.


title: Goths

text: The current structure of the mausoleum is divided into two decagonal orders, one above the other; both are made of Istria stone. Its roof is a single 230-tonne Istrian stone, 10 meters in diameter. Possibly as a reference to the Goths' tradition of an origin in Scandinavia, the architect decorated the frieze with a pattern found in 5th- and 6th-century Scandinavian metal adornments. A niche leads down to a room that was probably a chapel for funeral liturgies; a stair leads to the upper floor. Located in the centre of the floor is a circular porphyry stone grave, in which Theodoric was buried. His remains were removed during Byzantine rule, when the mausoleum was turned into a Christian oratory. In the late 19th century, silting from a nearby rivulet that had partly submerged the mausoleum was drained and excavated.


title: Goths

text: The Palace of Theodoric, also in Ravenna, has a symmetrical composition with arches and monolithic marble columns, reused from previous Roman buildings. With capitals of different shapes and sizes. The Ostrogoths restored Roman buildings, some of which have come down to us thanks to them.


title: Goths

text: During their governance of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches of basilical or cruciform floor plan that survive, including the churches of San Pedro de la Nave in El Campillo, Santa María de Melque in San Martín de Montalbán, Santa Lucía del Trampal in Alcuéscar, Santa Comba in Bande, and Santa María de Lara in Quintanilla de las Viñas; the Visigothic crypt (the Crypt of San Antolín) in the Palencia Cathedral is a Visigothic chapel from the mid 7th century, built during the reign of Wamba to preserve the remains of the martyr Saint Antoninus of Pamiers, a Visigothic-Gallic nobleman brought from Narbonne to Visigothic Hispania in 672 or 673 by Wamba himself. These are the only remains of the Visigothic cathedral of Palencia.


title: Goths

text: Reccopolis (Spanish: "Recópolis"), located near the tiny modern village of Zorita de los Canes in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is an archaeological site of one of at least four cities founded in Hispania by the Visigoths. It is the only city in Western Europe to have been founded between the fifth and eighth centuries. According to Lauro Olmo Enciso who is a professor of archaeology at the University of Alcalá, the city was ordered to build by the Visigothic king Leovigild to honor his son Reccared I and to serve as Reccared's seat as co-king in the Visigothic province of Celtiberia, to the west of Carpetania, where the main capital, Toledo, lay.


title: Goths

text: The Goths' relationship with Sweden became an important part of Swedish nationalism, and until the 19th Century, before the Gothic origin had been thoroughly researched by archaeologists, Swedish scholars considered Swedes to be the direct descendants of the Goths. Today, scholars identify this as a cultural movement called Gothicismus, which included an enthusiasm for things Old Norse.


title: Goths

text: In medieval and modern Spain, the Visigoths were believed to be the progenitors of the Spanish nobility (compare Gobineau for a similar French idea). By the early 7th century, the ethnic distinction between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans had all but disappeared, but recognition of a Gothic origin, e.g. on gravestones, still survived among the nobility. The 7th century Visigothic aristocracy saw itself as bearers of a particular Gothic consciousness and as guardians of old traditions such as Germanic namegiving; probably these traditions were on the whole restricted to the family sphere (Hispano-Roman nobles were doing service for the Visigothic Royal Court in Toulouse already in the 5th century and the two branches of Spanish aristocracy had fully adopted similar customs two centuries later).


title: Goths

text: Beginning in 1278, when Magnus III of Sweden ascended to the throne, a reference to Gothic origins was included in the title of the King of Sweden: In 1973, with the accession of King Carl XVI Gustaf, the title was changed to simply "King of Sweden."


title: Goths

text: The Spanish and Swedish claims of Gothic origins led to a clash at the Council of Basel in 1434. Before the assembled cardinals and delegations could engage in theological discussion, they had to decide how to sit during the proceedings. The delegations from the more prominent nations argued that they should sit closest to the Pope, and there were also disputes over who were to have the finest chairs and who were to have their chairs on mats. In some cases, they compromised so that some would have half a chair leg on the rim of a mat. In this conflict, Nicolaus Ragvaldi, bishop of the Diocese of Växjö, claimed that the Swedes were the descendants of the great Goths, and that the people of Västergötland ("Westrogothia" in Latin) were the Visigoths and the people of Östergötland ("Ostrogothia" in Latin) were the Ostrogoths. The Spanish delegation retorted that it was only the "lazy" and "unenterprising" Goths who had remained in Sweden, whereas the "heroic" Goths had left Sweden, invaded the Roman empire and settled in Spain.


title: Goths

text: In Spain, a man acting with arrogance would be said to be ""haciéndose los godos"" ("making himself to act like the Goths"). In Chile, Argentina, and the Canary Islands, "godo" was an ethnic slur used against European Spaniards, who in the early colonial period often felt superior to the people born locally ("criollos"). In Colombia, it remains as slang for a person with conservative views.


title: Goths

text: A large amount of literature has been produced on the Goths, with Henry Bradley's "The Goths" (1888) being the standard English-language text for many decades. More recently, Peter Heather has established himself as the leading authority on the Goths in the English-speaking world. The leading authority on the Goths in the German-speaking world is Herwig Wolfram.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: The Bristol stool scale is a diagnostic medical tool designed to classify the form of human faeces into seven categories. It is used in both clinical and experimental fields.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: It was developed at the Bristol Royal Infirmary as a clinical assessment tool in 1997, and is widely used as a research tool to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments for various diseases of the bowel, as well as a clinical communication aid; including being part of the diagnostic triad for irritable bowel syndrome.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: Types 1 and 2 indicate constipation, with 3 and 4 being the ideal stools as they are easy to defecate while not containing excess liquid, 5 indicating lack of dietary fiber, and 6 and 7 indicate diarrhoea.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: In the initial study, in the population examined in this scale, the type 1 and 2 stools were more prevalent in females, while the type 5 and 6 stools were more prevalent in males; furthermore, 80% of subjects who reported rectal tenesmus (sensation of incomplete defecation) had type 7. These and other data have allowed the scale to be validated. The initial research did not include a pictorial chart with this being developed at a later point.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: The Bristol stool scale is also very sensitive to changes in intestinal transit time caused by medications, such as antidiarrhoeal loperamide, senna, or anthraquinone with laxative effect.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: People with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) typically report that they suffer with abdominal cramps and constipation.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: In some patients, chronic constipation is interspersed with brief episodes of diarrhoea; while a minority of patients with IBS have only diarrhoea.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: The presentation of symptoms is usually months or years and commonly patients consult different doctors, without great success, and doing various specialized investigations.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: It notices a strong correlation of the reported symptoms with stress; indeed diarrhoeal discharges are associated with emotional phenomena.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: Research conducted on irritable bowel syndrome in the 2000s, faecal incontinence and the gastrointestinal complications of HIV have used the Bristol scale as a diagnostic tool easy to use, even in research which lasted for 77 months.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: Historically, this scale of assessment of the faeces has been recommended by the consensus group of Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program (San Diego, California, US) for the collection of data on functional bowel disease (FBD).


title: Bristol stool scale

text: More recently, according to the latest revision of the Rome III Criteria, six clinical manifestations of IBS can be identified:


title: Bristol stool scale

text: These four identified subtypes correlate with the consistency of the stool, which can be determined by the Bristol stool scale.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: In 2007, the "Mayo Clinic College of Medicine" in Rochester, Minnesota, United States, reported a piece of epidemiological research conducted on a population of 4,196 people living in Olmsted County Minnesota, in which participants were asked to complete a questionnaire based on the "Bristol stool scale".


title: Bristol stool scale

text: The research results (see table) indicate that about 1 in 5 people have a slow transit (type 1 and 2 stools), while 1 in 12 has an accelerated transit (type 5 and 6 stools). Moreover, the nature of the stool is affected by age, sex, body mass index, whether or not they had cholecystectomy and possible psychosomatic components (somatisation); there were no effects from factors such as smoking, alcohol, the level of education, a history of appendectomy or familiarity with gastrointestinal diseases, civil state, or the use of oral contraceptives.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: Several investigations correlate the Bristol stool scale in response to medications or therapies, in fact, in one study was also used to titrate the dose more finely than one drug (colestyramine) in subjects with diarrhoea and faecal incontinence.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: In a randomised controlled study, the scale is used to study the response to two laxatives: Macrogol (polyethylene glycol) and psyllium ("Plantago psyllium" and other species of the same genus) of 126 male and female patients for a period of 2 weeks of treatment; failing to show the most rapid response and increased efficiency of the former over the latter. In the study, they were measured as primary "outcomes": the number weekly bowel movements, stool consistency according to the types of the "Bristol stool scale", time to defecation, the overall effectiveness, the difficulty in defecating and stool consistency.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: From 2010, several studies have used the scale as a diagnostic tool validated for recognition and evaluation of response to various treatments, such as probiotics, moxicombustion, laxatives in the elderly, preparing Ayurvedic poly-phytotherapy filed TLPL/AY, psyllium, mesalazine, methylnaltrexone, and oxycodone/naloxone, or to assess the response to physical activity in athletes.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: Developed and proposed for the first time in England by Stephen Lewis and Ken Heaton at the University Department of Medicine, Bristol Royal Infirmary, it was suggested by the authors as a clinical assessment tool in 1997 in the "Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology" after a previous prospective study, conducted in 1992 on a sample of the population (838 men and 1,059 women), had shown an unexpected prevalence of defecation disorders related to the shape and type of stool. The authors of the former paper concluded that the form of the stool is a useful surrogate measure of colon transit time. That conclusion has since been challenged as having limited validity for Types 1 and 2; however, it remains in use as a research tool to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments for various diseases of the bowel, as well as a clinical communication aid.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: The same scale has been validated in Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Polish versions. A version has also been designed and validated for children. More recently, in September 2011, a modified version of the scale was validated using a criterion of self-assessment for ages 6–8 years of age.


title: Bristol stool scale

text: A version of the scale was developed into a chart suitable for use on US television by Gary Kahan of NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Alan Eugene Jackson (born October 17, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for blending traditional honky-tonk and mainstream country pop sounds (for a style widely regarded as "neotraditional country"), as well as penning many of his own songs. Jackson has recorded 16 studio albums, three greatest-hits albums, two Christmas albums, and two gospel albums.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 75 million records worldwide, with 44 million sold in the United States alone. He has had 66 songs appear on the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart; of the 66 titles, and six featured singles, 38 have reached the top five and 35 have claimed the number one spot. Out of 15 titles to reach the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart, nine have been certified multi-platinum. He is the recipient of two Grammy Awards, 16 CMA Awards, 17 ACM Awards and nominee of multiple other awards. He is a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2001. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2017 by Loretta Lynn and into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson was born to Joseph Eugene "Daddy Gene" Jackson (1927–2000) and Ruth Musick "Mama Ruth" Jackson (1930–2017) in Newnan, Georgia, and has four older sisters. He and his immediate family lived in a small home built around his grandfather's old toolshed. The family is primarily of English descent. His mother lived in the home until her death on January 7, 2017. He began writing music in 1983. Growing up, Jackson listened primarily to gospel music, until a friend introduced him to Gene Watson, John Anderson, and Hank Williams Jr. Jackson attended the local Elm Street Elementary and Newnan High School, and joined the band Dixie Steel after graduation. When he was 27, Jackson and his wife of six years, Denise, moved from Newnan to Nashville, Tennessee, where he hoped to pursue music full-time. In 1987, Jackson cut a pre-debut demo album titled "New Traditional" at Doc's Place in Hendersonville, Tennessee, but it is extremely rare and was only released in Japan.


title: Alan Jackson

text: In Tennessee, Jackson got his first job in The Nashville Network's mailroom. His wife Denise was a flight attendant. While working, she came in contact with Glen Campbell and requested advice for her husband. Campbell handed her his business card of his manager and told her to call, which helped jumpstart his career. Jackson eventually signed with Arista, and in 1989, he became the first artist signed to the newly formed Arista Nashville branch of Arista Records. Arista released Jackson's debut single, "Blue Blooded Woman", in late 1989. Although the song failed to reach top 40 on Hot Country Songs, he reached number three by early 1990 with "Here in the Real World". This song served as the title track to his debut studio album, "Here in the Real World", which also included two more top five hits ("Wanted" and "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow") and his first number one, "I'd Love You All Over Again". "Don't Rock the Jukebox" was the title of Jackson's second album. Released in 1991, it included four number-one singles: the title track, "Someday", "Dallas" and "Love's Got a Hold on You", and the number three "Midnight in Montgomery". Jackson also co-wrote several songs on Randy Travis' 1991 album "High Lonesome".


title: Alan Jackson

text: "A Lot About Livin' (And a Little 'bout Love)", his third album, accounted for the number one hits "She's Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)" (which Randy Travis co-wrote) and "Chattahoochee", plus the top five hits "Tonight I Climbed the Wall", "Mercury Blues" and "(Who Says) You Can't Have It All". "Chattahoochee" also won him the 1994 Country Music Association (CMA) awards for Single and Song of the Year. In 1994, Jackson left his management company, Ten Ten Management, which had overseen his career up to that point, and switched to Gary Overton. His fourth album was titled "Who I Am", and it contained four number one hits: a cover of the Eddie Cochran rockabilly standard "Summertime Blues", followed by "Livin' on Love", "Gone Country" and "I Don't Even Know Your Name". An additional track from the album, a cover of Rodney Crowell's "Song for the Life", made number six. In late 1994, Clay Walker reached number one with "If I Could Make a Living", which Jackson co-wrote. Jackson also appeared in the 1996 "When Harry Kept Delores" episode of "Home Improvement", performing "Mercury Blues".


title: Alan Jackson

text: "The Greatest Hits Collection" was released on October 24, 1995. The disc contained 17 hits, two newly recorded songs ("I'll Try" and "Tall, Tall Trees"), and the song "Home" from "Here in the Real World" that had never been released as a single. These first two songs both made number one. "Everything I Love" followed in 1996. Its first single, the Tom T. Hall-penned "Little Bitty", took Jackson to the top of the charts in late 1996. The album also included the number one hit "There Goes" and a number two cover of Charly McClain's 1980 single "Who's Cheatin' Who". The album's fifth single was "A House with No Curtains", which became his first release since 1989 to miss the top 10.


title: Alan Jackson

text: 1998's "High Mileage" was led off by the number four "I'll Go On Loving You". After it came the album's only number one hit, "Right on the Money", co-written by Phil Vassar and Charlie Black. With Jackson's release of "Under the Influence" in 1999, he took the double risk on an album of covers of country classics while retaining a traditional sound when a rock- and pop-tinged sound dominated country radio. When the Country Music Association (CMA) asked George Jones to trim his act to 90 seconds for the 1999 CMA awards, Jones decided to boycott the event. In solidarity, Jackson interrupted his own song and launched into Jones's song "Choices" and then walked offstage.


title: Alan Jackson

text: After country music changed toward pop music in the 1990s and 2000s, he and George Strait criticized the state of country music in the song "Murder on Music Row". The song sparked debate in the country music community about whether "traditional" country music was actually dead or not. Despite the fact that the song was not officially released as a single, it became the highest-charting nonseasonal album cut (not available in any retail single configuration or released as a promotional single to radio during a chart run) to appear on Hot Country Singles & Tracks in the Broadcast Data Systems era, beating the record previously held by Garth Brooks' "Belleau Wood." The duo were invited to open the 2000 Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMAs) with a performance of the tune. "Rolling Stone" commented on Jackson's style remarking, "If Garth and Shania have raised the bar for country concerts with Kiss-style production and endless costume changes, then Alan Jackson is doing his best to return the bar to a more human level." After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Jackson released "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" as a tribute to those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The country/soft rock song became a hit single and briefly propelled him into the mainstream spotlight; Jackson had debuted the song at the 2001 CMA Awards and his performance was generally considered the highlight of the show. Jackson's website crashed the next day from server requests. The song came to Jackson suddenly, and had not been scheduled for any official release, but the live performance began receiving radio airplay and was soon released as a single. It was included on his 2002 album "Drive", both the live version from his CMA performance, and a radio version.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson released his second Christmas album (after "Honky Tonk Christmas" in 1993), titled "Let It Be Christmas" on October 22, 2002. Jeannie Kendall contacted Jackson to do a duet, and he suggested the song "Timeless and True Love"; the song appeared on her first solo album, released in 2003. In early 2006, Jackson released his first gospel music album entitled "Precious Memories". He put together the album by the request of his mother, who enjoyed religious music. Jackson considered this album a "side project" and nothing too official, but it was ultimately treated as such. More than 1.8 million units were eventually sold.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Just a few months later, Jackson released his next album, "Like Red on a Rose". Originally intended to be a bluegrass album, "Like Red on a Rose" had a different producer and sound. Keith Stegall was notably absent from this album and, instead, Alison Krauss took over the producing reins. Unlike Jackson's previous albums, the album abandoned Jackson's typical neotraditional country style and instead, went for a soft rock/adult contemporary sound. This move proved controversial for his fans, who accused him of abandoning his signature style in order to go for a more commercial pop route. Although critically acclaimed, the album was considered a commercial disappointment for the singer. For his next album, he went back to his country roots. "Good Time" was released on March 4, 2008. The album's first single, "Small Town Southern Man", was released to radio on November 19, 2007. "Country Boy", "Good Time", "Sissy's Song" and "I Still Like Bologna", were also released as singles. "Sissy's Song" is dedicated to a longtime friend of the Jackson family (Leslie "Sissy" Fitzgerald) who worked in their house every day. Fitzgerald was killed in a motorcycle accident in mid-2007.


title: Alan Jackson

text: His sixteenth studio album, "Freight Train", was released on March 30, 2010. The first single was "It's Just That Way", which debuted at No. 50 in January 2010. "Hard Hat and a Hammer" is the album's second single, released in May 2010. On November 23, 2010, Jackson released another greatest-hits package, entitled "34 Number Ones", which features a cover of the Johnny Cash hit "Ring of Fire", as well as the duet with Zac Brown Band, "As She's Walking Away". On January 20, 2011, Sony Music Nashville announced that Jackson and his Sony-owned record label, Arista Nashville, had parted. In March of that year, Jackson announced his new deal with Capitol's EMI Records Nashville. It was a joint venture between ACR (Alan's Country Records) and Capitol. All records were to be released and marketed through Capitol's EMI Records Nashville label.


title: Alan Jackson

text: In 2012, Jackson released the album "Thirty Miles West". Three singles were released from the album: "Long Way to Go", "So You Don't Have to Love Me Anymore" and "You Go Your Way". None of the singles reached the top 20. A tour in 2013 supported the album. Jackson released his second gospel album, "Precious Memories Volume II", on March 26, 2013. Later that same year, Jackson released his first (and so far, only) bluegrass album, simply titled "The Bluegrass Album". Two singles were released from the album: "Blue Ridge Mountain Song" and "Blacktop". The album eventually peaked at no. 1 on the "Billboard" Top Bluegrass Albums chart and no. 3 on the country chart. In 2014, Jackson recorded the opening credits song, "A Million Ways to Die", for the film "A Million Ways to Die in the West", co-writing the song with Seth MacFarlane and Joel McNeely.


title: Alan Jackson

text: In August 2014, the Country Music Hall of Fame opened an exhibit celebrating Jackson's 25 years in the music industry. It was also announced that he was an artist in residency as well, performing shows on October 8 and 22. The exhibit highlights the different milestones in his career with memorabilia collected over the years. His twenty-fifth anniversary "Keeping It Country" tour, began on January 8, 2015, in Estero, Florida. In January 2015, Jackson began his 25th anniversary "Keepin' It Country" tour, followed in April with the announcement of his twentieth studio album, "Angels and Alcohol", which was released on July 17. In 2016, Jackson was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on ""Forever Country"", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You" which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. In 2016 and 2017, Jackson extended his "Keepin' It Country" tour with American Idol alumna Lauren Alaina. In August 2016, Legacy Recordings released the collection ""Genuine: The Alan Jackson Story"" digitally and on three CDs with 59 tracks including eight previously unreleased tracks. In October 2017, Alan Jackson released a new song titled "The Older I Get" for a planned future studio album. The album "Where Have You Gone" would be released four years later; the record features an even harder, more traditional country sound than Jackson's usual repertoire, with Jackson noting in interviews that he feared that "country music is gone, and it's not coming back."


title: Alan Jackson

text: In 1989, he was nominated for a total of six Country Music Association Awards (CMAs). He was nominated for four 1994 CMAs, including Entertainer of the Year. Jackson became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1991; he was inducted by Roy Acuff and Randy Travis. Jackson was the most nominated artist at the 29th annual TNN/Music City News Country Awards that was broadcast June 5 from the Grand Ole Opry House. His six nominations included best entertainer, male artist, vocal collaboration, album, single, and video (two nominations in this category).


title: Alan Jackson

text: At the 2002 CMAs, Jackson set a record for having the most nominations in a single year – ten – many rising from the song "Where Were You". It also brought his career total up to the second number of most nominations ever, after George Strait. "Where Were You" also was nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year. At the 2003 Academy of Country Music Awards, Jackson won Album of the Year for "Drive" and Video of the Year for the video to "Drive (For Daddy Gene)."


title: Alan Jackson

text: In 2004, a five-mile (8 km) stretch of Interstate 85 through Jackson's hometown of Newnan was renamed the "Alan Jackson Highway" in the singer's honor. After learning of the honor, he stated "[Newnan] was a great place to grow up. I'm not sure I'm quite qualified for the main highway. Maybe they should've picked a dirt road or something." Jackson was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame on October 22, 2001, in Atlanta. Alan Jackson was selected to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010. In 2017, Alan Jackson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson headlined the 1995 Fruit of the Loom Comfort Tour, a deal worth $40 million. It began January 20 in New Orleans and ran for a hundred dates. Alan Jackson's 2004 concert tour launched January 23 in Fort Myers, Florida, and was sponsored by NAPA Auto Parts in a deal that included Jackson's endorsement in TV spots. The tour included more than 50 U.S. dates. Martina McBride was the opening for some of the shows. In March 2011, he visited Australia to perform for the CMC Rocks The Hunter music festival where he was the headline act for Saturday night. In 2015, Jackson kicked off his 25th Anniversary Keepin' It Country tour. The tour began with a concert in Estero, Florida, on January 8 at the Germane Arena. Jon Pardi & Brandy Clark are special guests for most concerts of the tour. The tour wrapped with a solo concert in Highland Park, Illinois, at the Ravinia Pavilion on August 31.


title: Alan Jackson

text: In March of 2022, Jackson announced his farwell tour "One More For The Road Tour." Alan stoped in many of cities on his farwell tour.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson records his studio albums, in most part, with the backing of some of the members of his live band, the Strayhorns. As of 2022, the band consists of:


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson married his high school sweetheart, Denise Jackson, on December 15, 1979. They have three daughters: Mattie Denise Selecman (born June 19, 1990), Alexandra Jane "Ali" (born August 23, 1993), and Dani Grace (born August 28, 1997). In July 2022, it was announced that the couple was expecting their first grandchild in December. Although the couple separated for several months in 1998 due to the strains of Jackson's career as well as his infidelity, they have since reconciled.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Denise Jackson wrote a book that topped "The New York Times" Best Seller list about her life with Jackson, their relationship, their separation over his infidelity and recommitment to each other, and her commitment to Christianity. The book, "It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life," was published in 2007. In May 2008, she released a gift book titled "The Road Home". Jackson's nephew, Adam Wright, is also a country music singer-songwriter. Adam and his wife, Shannon, perform together as a duo called The Wrights. The Wrights co-wrote two songs and sang harmony vocals on Jackson's "What I Do" album. Jackson is a cousin of former Major League Baseball player Brandon Moss. In June 2009, Jackson listed his estate just outside Franklin, Tennessee, for sale, asking $38 million. The property sold in late May 2010 for $28 million, one of the highest prices ever for a home sale in the Nashville area. In 2010, the singer then moved into a home in the same Nashville suburb. The singer and his wife paid $3.675 million for the estate in June 2010, but less than a year later they listed the home for $3.995 million.


title: Alan Jackson

text: Jackson maintained a close friendship with fellow country singer George Jones. Jones has been mentioned in songs such as "Don't Rock the Jukebox" (Jones also appeared in the video which accompanied it) and "Murder on Music Row." The song "Just Playin' Possum" is dedicated to Jones and talks of how Alan only wants to lie low and play possum (with "possum" referring to George Jones.) Jones can also be seen in the video for "Good Time." In 2008, Jones was a surprise guest at Jackson's "CMT Giants" ceremony, where he thanked Jackson for his friendship. He's also close friends with George Strait, who sang "Murder on Music Row" with him. Besides his associations with big stars, Jackson maintains his connections to his roots and old friends.


title: Alan Jackson

text: At George Jones' funeral service, on May 2, 2013, Jackson performed one of Jones' classics, "He Stopped Loving Her Today," at the close of the service at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. An avid classic car collector, Jackson's collection includes an Amphicar, a 1968 Shelby GT 500 KR Convertible and a 1970 Chevelle SS 396, among others.


title: Alan Jackson

text: In a 2021 appearance on "The Today Show", Jackson announced he had Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, stating "...it's been affecting me for years. And it's getting more and more obvious. And I know I'm stumbling around on stage. And now I'm having a little trouble balancing, even in front of the microphone, and so I just feel very uncomfortable."


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Darkest Hour is a 2017 war drama film directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten. The film is an account of Winston Churchill's early days as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War and the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, depicting his refusal to seek a peace treaty with Nazi Germany amid their advance into Western Europe. It stars Gary Oldman as Churchill, alongside Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill, Lily James as Elizabeth Layton, Stephen Dillane as Viscount Halifax, Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain, and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI. The title of the film refers to a phrase describing the early days of the war, which has been widely attributed to Churchill.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the 44th Telluride Film Festival on 1 September 2017, and it was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. It began a limited release in the United States on 22 November 2017, followed by general release on 22 December, and was released on 12 January 2018 in the United Kingdom. The film grossed $150 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who particularly lauded Oldman's performance and deemed it one of the best of his career.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: "Darkest Hour" received several accolades, including Best Actor for Oldman at the Academy Awards. Oldman also won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: In May 1940, the opposition Labour Party in Parliament demands the resignation of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain for being too weak in the face of the Nazi onslaught. Chamberlain tells Conservative Party colleagues he wants Lord Halifax as his successor, but Halifax does not feel he is right at that time. Chamberlain decides to choose the only man whom the opposition parties will accept as the leader of a national government: Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who correctly predicted the danger from Adolf Hitler before the war.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The next morning, Germany invades the Low Countries. Churchill is brusque with his new secretary Elizabeth Layton for mishearing him, which earns him a rebuke from his wife Clementine. King George VI, who strongly distrusts Churchill due to his support for his brother Edward VIII during the abdication crisis, reluctantly invites him to form a government. Churchill includes Chamberlain (as Lord President of the Council) and Halifax (as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). Churchill has a poor reputation in Parliament because of his record in the Admiralty, his role in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in the First World War, his views on India, the Russian civil war and his past defection from the Liberal Party.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Parliament reacts coolly to Churchill's first speech promising "Blood, toil, tears, and sweat". Chamberlain and Halifax are appalled by Churchill's refusal to negotiate for peace and plan to resign from the government to force a vote of no confidence, creating a situation in which Halifax would be likely to become the Prime Minister.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Churchill visits French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, who thinks Churchill delusional for not admitting that the Allies are losing the Battle of France, while Churchill becomes furious that the French do not have a plan to counterattack. Although US President Franklin Roosevelt is sympathetic to Churchill's plight, his actions are limited by an isolationist Congress and the Neutrality Acts. Churchill draws ire from his cabinet and advisers for delivering a radio address in which he falsely implies the Allies to be advancing in France, earning him a rebuke from the King. Halifax and Chamberlain continue to push to use Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Bastianini as an intermediary with Germany.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The British Expeditionary Force is trapped at Dunkirk and Calais, and Britain begins preparing for a German invasion. Against the advice of the War Cabinet Churchill orders Brigadier Nicholson in Calais to lead the 30th Infantry Brigade to distract the enemy and buy time for the evacuation of soldiers from Dunkirk. Layton tells Churchill that her brother was killed during the retreat.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The debacle in France causes the War Cabinet to support negotiating with Germany. Under heavy pressure, Churchill agrees to consider a negotiated peace, but chokes on the words as he tries to dictate a letter requesting talks. George VI unexpectedly visits Churchill; the King explains that he has come to support Churchill to continue the war. Churchill's idea of a "small boats" evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo, is initiated. Still uncertain, Churchill impulsively rides the London Underground (for the first time in his life) and asks startled passengers their opinions; the civilians all want to continue to fight Hitler. Churchill addresses the Outer Cabinet and other Members of Parliament and rallies their support.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: As Churchill prepares to address Parliament, Halifax asks Chamberlain to continue with their plan to resign, but Chamberlain decides first to listen to the address. Towards the end of his speech, Churchill proclaims that "we shall fight on the beaches" should the Germans invade, to resounding support from the Opposition, while the Tory MPs behind him sit silently, until Chamberlain mops his brow with his handkerchief, a prearranged signal that they should support the PM. Churchill exits the chamber to cheers and enthusiastic waving of order papers.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: This was the final film role for Whitrow, who died a few weeks after the September premiere of the film.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: On 5 February 2015, it was announced that Working Title Films had acquired "Darkest Hour", a speculative screenplay by "The Theory of Everything" screenwriter Anthony McCarten, about Winston Churchill in the early days of the Second World War.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: On 29 March 2016, it was reported that Joe Wright was in talks to direct the film. In April 2016, Gary Oldman was reported to be in talks to play Churchill. On 6 September 2016, it was announced that Focus Features would release the film in the United States on 24 November 2017, while Ben Mendelsohn was set to play King George VI and Kristin Scott Thomas was cast as Clementine Churchill. On 8 November 2016, Stephen Dillane joined the cast. John Hurt was initially cast as Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, but had to drop the role in pre-production because he was undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer. Ronald Pickup assumed the role of Chamberlain instead. Hurt died from cancer in January 2017.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: By November 2016, "Darkest Hour" had begun principal photography, and it was reported that Dario Marianelli would score the film. For his role as Churchill, Oldman spent over 200 hours having make-up applied, and smoked over 400 cigars (worth about $20,000) during filming. Filming took place in Manchester, England at both the Town Hall and John Rylands Library, both doubling for the Houses of Parliament and featuring heavily in the film.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: For locations, the exterior of Chartwell House near Westerham, Kent (Churchill's actual country home) was used for the telegram sequence that sees Churchill's secretary Elizabeth Layton receive a telegram from Buckingham Palace. Fort Amherst in Kent featured as the location for both General Ramsay's Operations HQ and the Calais Garrison. For the interior of Buckingham Palace, Wentworth Woodhouse in Wentworth, South Yorkshire, was used.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: "Darkest Hour" grossed $56.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $93.8 million in other countries (including $33.4 million in the UK), for a worldwide total of $150.2 million.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The film opened in its theatrical weekend alongside "Coco" and "Call Me By Your Name" in United States theatrical release to be Cinemascore did wisely ordinary grades.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, the film began a limited release on 22 November 2017. In its first five days, it grossed $246,761 from four theatres (an average of $61,690), finishing 21st at the box office over the weekend. The film had its wide release on 22 December 2017, alongside the openings of "Downsizing", "Pitch Perfect 3" and "Father Figures", and the wide release of "The Shape of Water", and grossed $3.9 million from 804 theatres over that weekend, and $5.5 million over the four-day Christmas frame. 85% of its audience was over the age of 25, with 30% being 50 or older. The following weekend the film made $5.5 million, and a total of $7 million over the four-day New Years frame. The weekend of 27 January 2018, following the announcement of the film's six Oscar nominations, it made $2.1 million.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 316 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""Darkest Hour" is held together by Gary Oldman's electrifying performance, which brings Winston Churchill to life even when the movie's narrative falters." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, the film has a normalised score of 75 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". PostTrak reported that over 90% of audience members gave the film a rating of either "excellent" or "very good".


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Oldman was praised for his performance, with numerous critics labelling him a frontrunner to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, which he went on to win. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote: "Get busy engraving Oldman's name on an Oscar... those fearing that "Darkest Hour" is nothing but a dull tableau of blowhard stuffed shirts will be relieved to know that they're in for a lively, provocative historical drama that runs on its own nonstop creative fire". David Ehrlich of IndieWire praised Wright's direction and the musical score, writing: "Unfolding with the clockwork precision of a Broadway play... it's a deliciously unsubtle testament to the power of words and their infinite capacity to inspire". Damon Wise of the "Radio Times" described the film as a "near-perfect companion piece" to "Dunkirk", concluding, "Wright's forceful direction depicts not so much a hero as a principled man snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Certain engineered Hollywood moments dilute the overall impact, including a twee meet and greet on a Tube train, but Oldman is never less than sensational."


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Conversely, Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com called the film "an acting exercise weighed down by costumes, make-up, and over-lighting", adding that "there's nothing new to the approach. It feels often like an obligationa story that someone felt should be told again and a way to get a great actor his Oscar". Writing for "GQ", Stuart McGurk described it as "a bad film. It's not terrible, it's just, well, not good. It's the kind of film you'd watch on Netflix if it was raining, or on an iPad if it was the only film on the iPad, or on TV if you'd lost the remote. There are many reasons for this, but the main one is director Joe Wright, who never met a script he didn't dumb-down." However, he also praised Oldman, saying, "despite all this, Gary Oldman winning for Best Actor is well deserved [...] genuinely unrecognizable, his Churchill somehow both less growly but more grave. In short, he plays the character not the caricature."


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: "Darkest Hour" was released on digital streaming platforms on 6 February 2018 and on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K UHD Blu-ray on 12 June 2018.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Writing in "Slate", historian and academic John Broich called "Darkest Hour" "a piece of historical fiction that undertakes a serious historical task", presenting the British decision to fight Hitler as a choice rather than an inevitability. The situation in 1940 was as dire as depicted, but liberties were taken with the facts. The shouting matches over possible peace negotiations were fictional. The journey on the London Underground was also fictional, and there is evidence that many British people were not immediately inspired by Churchill's speeches.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: There is no conclusive evidence that Chamberlain and Viscount Halifax were planning an imminent vote of no confidence, though that threat existed until the mid-war victories in North Africa. It is a fact that Churchill was an object of suspicion for his fellow Tories. The Labour Party confirmed that they would serve in a national government under a leader other than Chamberlain, but did not name Churchill.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: In "The New Yorker", Adam Gopnik wrote: "... in late May of 1940, when the Conservative grandee Lord Halifax challenged Churchill, insisting that it was still possible to negotiate a deal with Hitler, through the good offices of Mussolini, it was the steadfast anti-Nazism of Attlee and his Labour colleagues that saved the day – a vital truth badly underdramatized in the current Churchill-centric film, "Darkest Hour"". This criticism was echoed by Adrian Smith, emeritus professor of modern history at the University of Southampton, who wrote in the "New Statesman" that the film was "yet again overlooking Labour's key role at the most dangerous moment in this country's history ... in May 1940 its leaders gave Churchill the unequivocal support he needed when refusing to surrender. Ignoring Attlee's vital role is just one more failing in a deeply flawed film".


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Referring to Charles Moore's comment that the film was "superb Brexit propaganda", Afua Hirsch wrote in "The Guardian": "I would call the film propaganda, more generally – and a great example of the kind of myth we like to promote in modern Britain. Churchill has been re-branded as a tube-travelling, minority-adoring genius, in line with a general understanding of him as 'the greatest Briton of all time'." Hirsch also criticised the film for "perpetuating the idea that Winston Churchill stood alone at the Darkest Hour, as Nazi fascism encroached, with Britain a small and vulnerable nation isolated in the north Atlantic. In reality, the United Kingdom was at that moment an imperial power with the collective might of Indian, African, Canadian and Australian manpower, resources and wealth at its disposal."


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: The film gives the impression that both Clementine Churchill and the King were able to listen to the 'beaches' speech live from Parliament. This was impossible because radio broadcasts from Parliament did not start until the 1970s. Churchill did record the speech for posterity, but he did not make the recording until 1949. Nor did he, unlike some other speeches, repeat that speech on the radio shortly after giving it in Parliament. The 'beaches' speech was first delivered on 4 June 1940 – after the Dunkirk evacuations, not on 28 May 1940 as suggested by the film.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Elizabeth Layton did not start working as Churchill's private secretary until May 1941, a year after the events depicted in the film. Similarly, the death of her brother during the retreat to Dunkirk, as alluded to in the film, is entirely fictional.


title: Darkest Hour (film)

text: Chamberlain is referred to as 'Chairman' of the Conservative Party, but even after leaving Number 10 and becoming Lord President of the council, he retained the more important post of Leader of the Conservative Party.