title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Pressure placed upon JCO to increase efficiency led the company to employ an illegal procedure wherein they skipped several key steps in the enrichment procedure. The technicians poured the product by hand in stainless-steel buckets directly into a precipitation tank. This process inadvertently contributed to a critical mass level incident triggering uncontrolled nuclear chain reactions over the next several hours.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: JCO facility technicians Hisashi Ouchi, Masato Shinohara, and Yutaka Yokokawa were speeding up the last few steps of the fuel/conversion process to meet shipping requirements. It was JCO's first batch of fuel for the Joyo experimental fast breeder reactor in three years; no proper qualification and training requirements were established to prepare for the process. To save processing time, and for convenience, the team mixed the chemicals in stainless-steel buckets. The workers followed JCO operating manual guidance in this process but were unaware it was not approved by the STA. Under correct operating procedure, uranyl nitrate would be stored inside a buffer tank and gradually pumped into the precipitation tank in increments.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: At around 10:35, the precipitation tank reached critical mass when its fill level, containing about of uranium, reached criticality in the tall and narrow buffer tank. The hazardous level was reached after the technicians added a seventh bucket containing aqueous uranyl nitrate, enriched to 18.8% U, to the tank. The solution added to the tank was almost seven times the legal mass limit specified by the STA.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: The nuclear fuel conversion standards specified in the 1996 JCO Operating Manual dictated the proper procedures regarding dissolution of uranium oxide powder in a designated dissolution tank. The buffer tank's tall, narrow geometry was designed to hold the solution safely and to prevent criticality. In contrast, the precipitation tank had not been designed to hold unlimited quantities of this type of solution. The designed wide cylindrical shape made it favorable to criticality. The workers bypassed the buffer tanks entirely, opting to pour the uranyl nitrate directly into the precipitation tank. An uncontrolled nuclear fission began immediately. The resulting nuclear fission chain became self-sustaining, emitting intense gamma and neutron radiation. At the time of the event, Ouchi had his body draped over the tank while Shinohara stood on a platform to assist in pouring the solution. Yokokawa was sitting at a desk four meters away. All three technicians observed a blue flash (possibly Cherenkov radiation) and gamma radiation alarms sounded. Over the next several hours the fission reaction produced continuous chain reactions.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Ouchi and Shinohara immediately experienced pain, nausea, and difficulty breathing; both workers went to the decontamination room where Ouchi vomited. Ouchi received the largest radiation exposure, resulting in rapid difficulties with mobility, coherence, and loss of consciousness. Upon the point of critical mass, large amounts of high-level gamma radiation set off alarms in the building, prompting the three technicians to evacuate. All three of the workers were unaware of the impact of the accident or reporting criteria. A worker in the next building became aware of the injured employees and contacted emergency medical assistance; an ambulance escorted them to the nearest hospital. The fission products contaminated the fuel reprocessing building and immediately outside the nuclear facility. Emergency service workers arrived and escorted other plant workers outside of the facility's muster zones.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: The next morning, workers ended the nuclear chain reaction by draining water from the surrounding cooling jacket installed on the precipitation tank. The water served as a neutron reflector. A boric acid solution was added to the precipitation tank to reduce all contents to sub-critical levels; boron was selected for its neutron absorption properties.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: By mid-afternoon the plant workers and surrounding residents were asked to evacuate. Five hours after the start of the criticality, evacuation commenced of some 161 people from 39 households within a 350-meter radius from the conversion building. Twelve hours after the incident, 300,000 surrounding residents of the nuclear facility were told to stay indoors and cease all agricultural production. This restriction was lifted the following afternoon. Almost 15 days later, the facility instituted protection methods with sandbags and other shielding to protect from residual gamma radiation.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Without an emergency plan or public communication from the JCO, confusion and panic followed the event. Authorities warned locals not to harvest crops or drink well water. In order to ease public concerns, officials began radiation testing of residents living approximately 6 miles from the facility. Over the next 10 days, approximately 10,000 medical check-ups were conducted. Dozens of emergency workers and residents who lived nearby were hospitalized and hundreds of thousands of others were forced to remain indoors for 24 hours. Testing confirmed 39 of the workers were exposed to the radiation. At least 667 workers, first-responders, and nearby residents were exposed to excess radiation as a result of the accident.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Ultimately the incident was classified as an “irradiation” not “contamination” accident under Level 4 on the Nuclear Event Scale. This determination labeled the situation low risk outside of the facility. The technicians and workers in the facility were measured for radiation contamination. The three technicians measured significantly higher levels of radiation than the measurement designated the maximum allowable dose (50 mSv) for Japanese nuclear workers. Many employees of the Company and local population suffered accidental radiation exposure exceeding safe levels. Over fifty plant workers tested up to 23 mSv and local residents up to 15 mSv. Fatal doses of radiation ended the lives of two technicians, Ouchi and Shinohara.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: According to the radiation testing by the STA, Ouchi was exposed to 17 Sv of radiation, Shinohara 10 Sv, and Yokokawa received 3 Sv. The two technicians who received the higher doses, subsequently suffering vomits and diarrea continued. Ouchi and Shinohara, died several months later.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Hisashi Ouchi, 35, was transported and treated at the University of Tokyo Hospital for 83 days. Ouchi suffered serious radiation burns to most of his body, experienced severe damage to his internal organs, and had a near-zero white blood cell count. Without a functioning immune system, Ouchi was vulnerable to hospital-borne pathogens and was placed in a special radiation ward to limit the risk of contracting an infection. Doctors attempted to restore some functionality to Ouchi's immune system by administering peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, which at the time was a new form of treatment. After receiving the transplant from his sister, Ouchi initially experienced increased white blood cell counts temporarily but succumbed to his other injuries shortly thereafter. The leukocytes being produced by the transplanted tissue were found to have been mutated by the residual radiation present in his body, triggering autoimmune responses that exacerbated his rapidly deteriorating condition, and white blood cell counts began to decrease. Numerous other interventions were conducted in an attempt to arrest further decline of Ouchi's severely damaged body, including repeated use of cultured skin grafts and pharmacological interventions with painkillers, broad-spectrum antibiotics and granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, without any measurable success.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: At the wishes of his family, doctors repeatedly revived Ouchi when his heart stopped, even as it became clear the damage his body had sustained through radiation was untreatable.The family deliberated that if Ouchi's heart stopped again, they would not force the situation again. His wife hoped that he would at least survive to the January 1st since it was the arrival of the millennium. Despite their efforts, his condition deteriorated into multiple organ failure resulting from extensive radiation damage, exacerbated by the repeated incidents where Ouchi's heart stopped. He died on 21 December 1999 following an unrecoverable cardiac arrest.According to japanese law,the doctors they where legally to keep patient living.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Masato Shinohara, 40, was transported to the same facility where he died on 27 April 2000 of multiple organ failure. He endured radical cancer treatment, numerous successful skin grafts, and a transfusion from congealed umbilical cord blood (to boost stem cell count). Despite his seven month battle, he was unable to fight radiation induced infections and internal bleeding, resulting in fatal lung and kidney failure.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Their supervisor, Yutaka Yokokawa, 54, received treatment from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) in Chiba. He was released three months later with minor radiation sickness. He faced negligence charges in October 2000.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the cause of the accidents were "human error and serious breaches of safety principles". Several human errors caused the incident in 1997 including careless material handling procedures, inexperienced technicians, inadequate supervision and obsolete safety procedures on the operating floor. The company had not had any incidents for over 15 years making company employees complacent in their daily responsibilities.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: The 1999 incident resulted from poor management of operation manuals, failure to qualify technicians and engineers, and improper procedures associated with handling nuclear chemicals. The lack of communication between the engineers and workers contributed to lack of reporting when the incident arose. Had the company corrected the errors after the 1997 incident, the 1999 incident would have been considerably less devastating or may not have happened.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Comments within the 2012 Report by the National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission notice regulatory and nuclear industry overconfidence, and governance failures may equally apply to the Tokaimura nuclear accident.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Over 600 plant workers, firefighters, emergency personnel and local residents were exposed to radioactivity following the incident. In October 1999, JCO set up advisory booths to process compensation claims and inquiries of those affected. By July 2000, over 7,000 compensation claims were filed and settled. In September 2000 JCO agreed to pay $121 million in compensation to settle 6,875 claims from people exposed to radiation and affected agricultural and service businesses. All residents within 350 meters of the incident and those forced to evacuate received compensation if they agreed to not sue the company in the future.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: In late March 2000, the STA cancelled JCO’s credentials for operation serving as the first Japanese plant operator to be punished by law for mishandling nuclear radiation. This suit was followed by the company president’s resignation. In October, six officials from JCO were charged with professional negligence derived from failure to properly train technicians and knowingly subverting safety procedures.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: In April 2001 six employees, including the chief of production department at the time, pleaded guilty to a charge of negligence resulting in death. Among those arrested was Yokokawa for his failure to supervise proper procedures. The JCO President also pleaded guilty on behalf of the company. During the trial, the jury learned that a 1995 JCO safety committee had approved the use of steel buckets in the procedure. Furthermore, a widely distributed but unauthorized 1996 manual recommended the use of buckets in making the solution. A STA report indicated JCO management had permitted these hazardous practices beginning in 1993 to shortcut the conversion process, even though it was contrary to approved nuclear chemical handling procedures.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: As a response to the incidents, special laws were put in place stipulating operational safety procedures and quarterly inspection requirements. These inspections focused on the proper conduct of workers and leadership. This change mandated both safety education and quality assurance of all facilities and activities associated with nuclear power generation. Starting in 2000, Japan's atomic and nuclear commissions began regular investigations of facilities, expansive education regarding proper procedures and safety culture regarding handling nuclear chemicals and waste.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Efforts to comply with emergency preparedness procedures and international guideline requirements continued. New systems were put in place for handling a similar incident with governing legislature and institutions in an effort to prevent further situations from occurring.


title: Tokaimura nuclear accidents

text: Japan relies heavily on imports for 80% of all energy requirements, due to this shortage, mounting pressures to produce self-sustaining energy sources remain. In 2014, the Japanese government decided to establish the "Strategic Energy Plan" naming nuclear power as an important power source that can safely stabilize and produce the energy supply and demand of the country. This event contributed to antinuclear activist movements against production of nuclear energy in Japan. To this day, the tensions between the need for produced power outside of nonexistent natural resources and the safety of the country’s population remain. Advocacy for acute nuclear disease victims and eradication of nuclear related incidents has led to several movements across the globe promoting human welfare and environmental conservation.


title: Viagra Boys

text: The band was formed in 2015, with several members coming from the bands Les Big Byrd, Pig Eyes, Nine, Nitad, and Neu-Ronz. In 2018, they released their first album, "Street Worms". Nils Hansson, a journalist at the newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" described the band favorably, praising their musical style, as well as their use of black humor and satire, and rated the album a five out of five.


title: Viagra Boys

text: In 2019, the band won the Independent Music Companies Association (IMPALA) Album of the Year Award for "Street Worms".


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A nuclear meltdown (core meltdown, core melt accident, meltdown or partial core melt) is a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term "nuclear meltdown" is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It has been defined to mean the accidental melting of the core of a nuclear reactor, however, and is in common usage a reference to the core's either complete or partial collapse.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A core meltdown accident occurs when the heat generated by a nuclear reactor exceeds the heat removed by the cooling systems to the point where at least one nuclear fuel element exceeds its melting point. This differs from a fuel element failure, which is not caused by high temperatures. A meltdown may be caused by a loss of coolant, loss of coolant pressure, or low coolant flow rate or be the result of a criticality excursion in which the reactor is operated at a power level that exceeds its design limits. Alternatively, an external fire may endanger the core, leading to a meltdown.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Once the fuel elements of a reactor begin to melt, the fuel cladding has been breached, and the nuclear fuel (such as uranium, plutonium, or thorium) and fission products (such as caesium-137, krypton-85, or iodine-131) within the fuel elements can leach out into the coolant. Subsequent failures can permit these radioisotopes to breach further layers of containment. Superheated steam and hot metal inside the core can lead to fuel–coolant interactions, hydrogen explosions, or steam hammer, any of which could destroy parts of the containment. A meltdown is considered very serious because of the potential for radioactive materials to breach all containment and escape (or be released) into the environment, resulting in radioactive contamination and fallout, and potentially leading to radiation poisoning of people and animals nearby.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Nuclear power plants generate electricity by heating fluid via a nuclear reaction to run a generator. If the heat from that reaction is not removed adequately, the fuel assemblies in a reactor core can melt. A core damage incident can occur even after a reactor is shut down because the fuel continues to produce decay heat.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A core damage accident is caused by the loss of sufficient cooling for the nuclear fuel within the reactor core. The reason may be one of several factors, including a loss-of-pressure-control accident, a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), an uncontrolled power excursion or, in reactors without a pressure vessel, a fire within the reactor core. Failures in control systems may cause a series of events resulting in loss of cooling. Contemporary safety principles of defense in depth ensure that multiple layers of safety systems are always present to make such accidents unlikely.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The containment building is the last of several safeguards that prevent the release of radioactivity to the environment. Many commercial reactors are contained within a thick pre-stressed, steel-reinforced, air-tight concrete structure that can withstand hurricane-force winds and severe earthquakes.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Before the core of a light-water nuclear reactor can be damaged, two precursor events must have already occurred:


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The Three Mile Island accident was a compounded group of emergencies that led to core damage. What led to this was an erroneous decision by operators to shut down the ECCS during an emergency condition due to gauge readings that were either incorrect or misinterpreted; this caused another emergency condition that, several hours after the fact, led to core exposure and a core damage incident. If the ECCS had been allowed to function, it would have prevented both exposure and core damage. During the Fukushima incident the emergency cooling system had also been manually shut down several minutes after it started.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: If such a limiting fault were to occur, and a complete failure of all ECCS divisions were to occur, both Kuan, "et al" and Haskin, "et al" describe six stages between the start of the limiting fault (the loss of cooling) and the potential escape of molten corium into the containment (a so-called "full meltdown"):


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: At the point at which the corium relocates to the lower plenum, Haskin, "et al" relate that the possibility exists for an incident called a "fuel–coolant interaction (FCI)" to substantially stress or breach the primary pressure boundary when the corium relocates to the lower plenum of the reactor pressure vessel ("RPV").


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: This is because the lower plenum of the RPV may have a substantial quantity of water - the reactor coolant - in it, and, assuming the primary system has not been depressurized, the water will likely be in the liquid phase, and consequently dense, and at a vastly lower temperature than the corium. Since corium is a liquid metal-ceramic eutectic at temperatures of , its fall into liquid water at may cause an extremely rapid evolution of steam that could cause a sudden extreme overpressure and consequent gross structural failure of the primary system or RPV. Though most modern studies hold that it is physically infeasible, or at least extraordinarily unlikely, Haskin, "et al" state that there exists a remote possibility of an extremely violent FCI leading to something referred to as an "alpha-mode failure", or the gross failure of the RPV itself, and subsequent ejection of the upper plenum of the RPV as a missile against the inside of the containment, which would likely lead to the failure of the containment and release of the fission products of the core to the outside environment without any substantial decay having taken place.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The American Nuclear Society has commented on the TMI-2 accident, that despite melting of about one-third of the fuel, the reactor vessel itself maintained its integrity and contained the damaged fuel.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: As previously described, FCI could lead to an overpressure event leading to RPV fail, and thus, primary pressure boundary fail. Haskin "et al" report that in the event of a steam explosion, failure of the lower plenum is far more likely than ejection of the upper plenum in the alpha mode. In the event of lower plenum failure, debris at varied temperatures can be expected to be projected into the cavity below the core. The containment may be subject to overpressure, though this is not likely to fail the containment. The alpha-mode failure will lead to the consequences previously discussed.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: It is quite possible, especially in pressurized water reactors, that the primary loop will remain pressurized following corium relocation to the lower plenum. As such, pressure stresses on the RPV will be present in addition to the weight stress that the molten corium places on the lower plenum of the RPV; when the metal of the RPV weakens sufficiently due to the heat of the molten corium, it is likely that the liquid corium will be discharged under pressure out of the bottom of the RPV in a pressurized stream, together with entrained gases. This mode of corium ejection may lead to direct containment heating (DCH).


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Haskin "et al" identify six modes by which the containment could be credibly challenged; some of these modes are not applicable to core melt accidents.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: If the melted core penetrates the pressure vessel, there are theories and speculations as to what may then occur.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In modern Russian plants, there is a "core catching device" in the bottom of the containment building. The melted core is supposed to hit a thick layer of a "sacrificial metal" that would melt, dilute the core and increase the heat conductivity, and finally the diluted core can be cooled down by water circulating in the floor. There has never been any full-scale testing of this device, however.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In Western plants there is an airtight containment building. Though radiation would be at a high level within the containment, doses outside of it would be lower. Containment buildings are designed for the orderly release of pressure without releasing radionuclides, through a pressure release valve and filters. Hydrogen/oxygen recombiners also are installed within the containment to prevent gas explosions.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In a melting event, one spot or area on the RPV will become hotter than other areas, and will eventually melt. When it melts, corium will pour into the cavity under the reactor. Though the cavity is designed to remain dry, several NUREG-class documents advise operators to flood the cavity in the event of a fuel melt incident. This water will become steam and pressurize the containment. Automatic water sprays will pump large quantities of water into the steamy environment to keep the pressure down. Catalytic recombiners will rapidly convert the hydrogen and oxygen back into water. One positive effect of the corium falling into water is that it is cooled and returns to a solid state.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Extensive water spray systems within the containment along with the ECCS, when it is reactivated, will allow operators to spray water within the containment to cool the core on the floor and reduce it to a low temperature.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: These procedures are intended to prevent release of radioactivity. In the Three Mile Island event in 1979, a theoretical person standing at the plant property line during the entire event would have received a dose of approximately 2 millisieverts (200 millirem), between a chest X-ray's and a CT scan's worth of radiation. This was due to outgassing by an uncontrolled system that, today, would have been backfitted with activated carbon and HEPA filters to prevent radionuclide release.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In the Fukushima incident, however, this design failed. Despite the efforts of the operators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to maintain control, the reactor cores in units 1–3 overheated, the nuclear fuel melted and the three containment vessels were breached. Hydrogen was released from the reactor pressure vessels, leading to explosions inside the reactor buildings in units 1, 3 and 4 that damaged structures and equipment and injured personnel. Radionuclides were released from the plant to the atmosphere and were deposited on land and on the ocean. There were also direct releases into the sea.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: As the natural decay heat of the corium eventually reduces to an equilibrium with convection and conduction to the containment walls, it becomes cool enough for water spray systems to be shut down and the reactor to be put into safe storage. The containment can be sealed with release of extremely limited offsite radioactivity and release of pressure. After perhaps a decade for fission products to decay, the containment can be reopened for decontamination and demolition.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Another scenario sees a buildup of potentially explosive hydrogen, but passive autocatalytic recombiners inside the containment are designed to prevent this. In Fukushima, the containments were filled with inert nitrogen, which prevented hydrogen from burning; the hydrogen leaked from the containment to the reactor building, however, where it mixed with air and exploded. During the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, a hydrogen bubble formed in the pressure vessel dome. There were initial concerns that the hydrogen might ignite and damage the pressure vessel or even the containment building; but it was soon realized that lack of oxygen prevented burning or explosion.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: One scenario consists of the reactor pressure vessel failing all at once, with the entire mass of corium dropping into a pool of water (for example, coolant or moderator) and causing extremely rapid generation of steam. The pressure rise within the containment could threaten integrity if rupture disks could not relieve the stress. Exposed flammable substances could burn, but there are few, if any, flammable substances within the containment.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Another theory, called an "alpha mode" failure by the 1975 Rasmussen (WASH-1400) study, asserted steam could produce enough pressure to blow the head off the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). The containment could be threatened if the RPV head collided with it. (The WASH-1400 report was replaced by better-based newer studies, and now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has disavowed them all and is preparing the overarching State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses <nowiki>[SOARCA]</nowiki> study - see the Disclaimer in NUREG-1150.)


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: By 1970, there were doubts about the ability of the emergency cooling systems of a nuclear reactor to prevent a loss-of-coolant accident and the consequent meltdown of the fuel core; the subject proved popular in the technical and the popular presses. In 1971, in the article "Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing", former Manhattan Project nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the term "China syndrome" to describe a possible burn through of the containment structures, and the subsequent escape of radioactive material(s) into the atmosphere and environment. The hypothesis derived from a 1967 report by a group of nuclear physicists, headed by W. K. Ergen. Some fear that a molten reactor core could penetrate the reactor pressure vessel and containment structure and burn downwards to the level of the groundwater.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: It has not been determined to what extent a molten mass can melt through a structure (although that was tested in the loss-of-fluid-test reactor described in Test Area North's fact sheet). The Three Mile Island accident provided real-life experience with an actual molten core: the corium failed to melt through the reactor pressure vessel after over six hours of exposure due to dilution of the melt by the control rods and other reactor internals, validating the emphasis on defense in depth against core damage incidents.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Other types of reactors have different capabilities and safety profiles than the LWR does. Advanced varieties of several of these reactors have the potential to be inherently safe.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: CANDU reactors, Canadian-invented deuterium-uranium design, are designed with at least one, and generally two, large low-temperature and low-pressure water reservoirs around their fuel/coolant channels. The first is the bulk heavy-water moderator (a separate system from the coolant), and the second is the light-water-filled shield tank (or calandria vault). These backup heat sinks are sufficient to prevent either the fuel meltdown in the first place (using the moderator heat sink), or the breaching of the core vessel should the moderator eventually boil off (using the shield tank heat sink). Other failure modes aside from fuel melt will probably occur in a CANDU rather than a meltdown, such as deformation of the calandria into a non-critical configuration. All CANDU reactors are located within standard Western containments as well.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: One type of Western reactor, known as the advanced gas-cooled reactor (or AGR), built by the United Kingdom, is not very vulnerable to loss-of-cooling accidents or to core damage except in the most extreme of circumstances. By virtue of the relatively inert coolant (carbon dioxide), the large volume and high pressure of the coolant, and the relatively high heat transfer efficiency of the reactor, the time frame for core damage in the event of a limiting fault is measured in days. Restoration of some means of coolant flow will prevent core damage from occurring.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Other types of highly advanced gas cooled reactors, generally known as high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) such as the Japanese High Temperature Test Reactor and the United States' Very High Temperature Reactor, are inherently safe, meaning that meltdown or other forms of core damage are physically impossible, due to the structure of the core, which consists of hexagonal prismatic blocks of silicon carbide reinforced graphite infused with TRISO or QUADRISO pellets of uranium, thorium, or mixed oxide buried underground in a helium-filled steel pressure vessel within a concrete containment. Though this type of reactor is not susceptible to meltdown, additional capabilities of heat removal are provided by using regular atmospheric airflow as a means of backup heat removal, by having it pass through a heat exchanger and rising into the atmosphere due to convection, achieving full residual heat removal. The VHTR is scheduled to be prototyped and tested at Idaho National Laboratory within the next decade (as of 2009) as the design selected for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant by the US Department of Energy. This reactor will use a gas as a coolant, which can then be used for process heat (such as in hydrogen production) or for the driving of gas turbines and the generation of electricity.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A similar highly advanced gas cooled reactor originally designed by West Germany (the AVR reactor) and now developed by South Africa is known as the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. It is an inherently safe design, meaning that core damage is physically impossible, due to the design of the fuel (spherical graphite "pebbles" arranged in a bed within a metal RPV and filled with TRISO (or QUADRISO) pellets of uranium, thorium, or mixed oxide within). A prototype of a very similar type of reactor has been built by the Chinese, HTR-10, and has worked beyond researchers' expectations, leading the Chinese to announce plans to build a pair of follow-on, full-scale 250 MWe, inherently safe, power production reactors based on the same concept. (See Nuclear power in the People's Republic of China for more information.)


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Recently heavy liquid metal, such as lead or lead-bismuth, has been proposed as a reactor coolant. Because of the similar densities of the fuel and the HLM, an inherent passive safety self-removal feedback mechanism due to buoyancy forces is developed, which propels the packed bed away from the wall when certain threshold of temperature is attained and the bed becomes lighter than the surrounding coolant, thus preventing temperatures that can jeopardize the vessel’s structural integrity and also reducing the recriticality potential by limiting the allowable bed depth.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The PIUS (process inherent ultimate safety) designs, originally engineered by the Swedes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are LWRs that by virtue of their design are resistant to core damage. No units have ever been built.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Power reactors, including the Deployable Electrical Energy Reactor, a larger-scale mobile version of the TRIGA for power generation in disaster areas and on military missions, and the TRIGA Power System, a small power plant and heat source for small and remote community use, have been put forward by interested engineers, and share the safety characteristics of the TRIGA due to the uranium zirconium hydride fuel used.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The Hydrogen Moderated Self-regulating Nuclear Power Module, a reactor that uses uranium hydride as a moderator and fuel, similar in chemistry and safety to the TRIGA, also possesses these extreme safety and stability characteristics, and has attracted a good deal of interest in recent times.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The liquid fluoride thorium reactor is designed to naturally have its core in a molten state, as a eutectic mix of thorium and fluorine salts. As such, a molten core is reflective of the normal and safe state of operation of this reactor type. In the event the core overheats, a metal plug will melt, and the molten salt core will drain into tanks where it will cool in a non-critical configuration. Since the core is liquid, and already melted, it cannot be damaged.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Advanced liquid metal reactors, such as the U.S. Integral Fast Reactor and the Russian BN-350, BN-600, and BN-800, all have a coolant with very high heat capacity, sodium metal. As such, they can withstand a loss of cooling without SCRAM and a loss of heat sink without SCRAM, qualifying them as inherently safe.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Soviet-designed RBMK reactors ("Reaktor Bolshoy Moshchnosti Kanalnyy)", found only in Russia and other post-Soviet states and now shut down everywhere except Russia, do not have containment buildings, are naturally unstable (tending to dangerous power fluctuations), and have emergency cooling systems (ECCS) considered grossly inadequate by Western safety standards. The reactor involved in the Chernobyl disaster was an RBMK.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: RBMK emergency core cooling systems only have one division and little redundancy within that division. Though the large core of the RBMK is less energy-dense than the smaller Western LWR core, it is harder to cool. The RBMK is moderated by graphite. In the presence of both steam and oxygen at high temperatures, graphite forms synthesis gas and with the water gas shift reaction, the resultant hydrogen burns explosively. If oxygen contacts hot graphite, it will burn. Control rods used to be tipped with graphite, a material that slows neutrons and thus speeds up the chain reaction. Water is used as a coolant, but not a moderator. If the water boils away, cooling is lost, but moderation continues. This is termed a positive void coefficient of reactivity.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The RBMK tends towards dangerous power fluctuations. Control rods can become stuck if the reactor suddenly heats up and they are moving. Xenon-135, a neutron absorbent fission product, has a tendency to build up in the core and burn off unpredictably in the event of low power operation. This can lead to inaccurate neutronic and thermal power ratings.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The RBMK does not have any containment above the core. The only substantial solid barrier above the fuel is the upper part of the core, called the upper biological shield, which is a piece of concrete interpenetrated with control rods and with access holes for refueling while online. Other parts of the RBMK were shielded better than the core itself. Rapid shutdown (SCRAM) takes 10 to 15 seconds. Western reactors take 1 - 2.5 seconds.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Western aid has been given to provide certain real-time safety monitoring capacities to the operating staff. Whether this extends to automatic initiation of emergency cooling is not known. Training has been provided in safety assessment from Western sources, and Russian reactors have evolved in response to the weaknesses that were in the RBMK. Nonetheless, numerous RBMKs still operate.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Though it might be possible to stop a loss-of-coolant event prior to core damage occurring, any core damage incidents will probably allow massive release of radioactive materials.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Upon entering the EU in 2004, Lithuania was required to phase out its two RBMKs at Ignalina NPP, deemed totally incompatible with European nuclear safety standards. The country planned to replace them with safer reactors at Visaginas Nuclear Power Plant.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The MKER is a modern Russian-engineered channel type reactor that is a distant descendant of the RBMK, designed to optimize the benefits and fix the serious flaws of the original.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Several unique features of the MKER's design make it a credible and interesting option. The reactor remains online during refueling, ensuring outages only occasionally for maintenance, with uptime up to 97-99%. The moderator design allows the use of less-enriched fuels, with a high burnup rate. Neutronics characteristics have been optimized for civilian use, for superior fuel fertilization and recycling; and graphite moderation achieves better neutronics than is possible with light water moderation. The lower power density of the core greatly enhances thermal regulation.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: An array of improvements make the MKER's safety comparable to Western Generation III reactors: improved quality of parts, advanced computer controls, comprehensive passive emergency core cooling system, and very strong containment structure, along with a negative void coefficient and a fast-acting rapid shutdown system. The passive emergency cooling system uses reliable natural phenomena to cool the core, rather than depending on motor-driven pumps. The containment structure is designed to withstand severe stress and pressure. In the event of a pipe break of a cooling-water channel, the channel can be isolated from the water supply, preventing a general failure.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The greatly enhanced safety and unique benefits of the MKER design enhance its competitiveness in countries considering full fuel-cycle options for nuclear development.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The VVER is a pressurized light water reactor that is far more stable and safe than the RBMK. This is because it uses light water as a moderator (rather than graphite), has well-understood operating characteristics, and has a negative void coefficient of reactivity. In addition, some have been built with more than marginal containments, some have quality ECCS systems, and some have been upgraded to international standards of control and instrumentation. Present generations of VVERs (starting from the VVER-1000) are built to Western-equivalent levels of instrumentation, control, and containment systems.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Even with these positive developments, however, certain older VVER models raise a high level of concern, especially the VVER-440 V230.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The VVER-440 V230 has no containment building, but only has a structure capable of confining steam surrounding the RPV. This is a volume of thin steel, perhaps in thickness, grossly insufficient by Western standards.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The interior of the pressure vessel is plain alloy steel, exposed to water. This can lead to rust, if the reactor is exposed to water. One point of distinction in which the VVER surpasses the West is the reactor water cleanup facility—built, no doubt, to deal with the enormous volume of rust within the primary coolant loop—the product of the slow corrosion of the RPV.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Bulgaria had a number of VVER-440 V230 models, but they opted to shut them down upon joining the EU rather than backfit them, and are instead building new VVER-1000 models. Many non-EU states maintain V230 models, including Russia and the CIS. Many of these states, rather than abandon the reactors entirely, have opted to install an ECCS, develop standard procedures, and install proper instrumentation and control systems. Though confinements cannot be transformed into containments, the risk of a limiting fault resulting in core damage can be greatly reduced.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The VVER-440 V213 model was built to the first set of Soviet nuclear safety standards. It possesses a modest containment building, and the ECCS systems, though not completely to Western standards, are reasonably comprehensive. Many VVER-440 V213 models operated by former Soviet bloc countries have been upgraded to fully automated Western-style instrumentation and control systems, improving safety to Western levels for accident prevention—but not for accident containment, which is of a modest level compared to Western plants. These reactors are regarded as "safe enough" by Western standards to continue operation without major modifications, though most owners have performed major modifications to bring them up to generally equivalent levels of nuclear safety.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: During the 1970s, Finland built two VVER-440 V213 models to Western standards with a large-volume full containment and world-class instrumentation, control standards and an ECCS with multiply redundant and diversified components. In addition, passive safety features such as 900-tonne ice condensers have been installed, making these two units safety-wise the most advanced VVER-440s in the world.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The VVER-1000 type has a definitely adequate Western-style containment, the ECCS is sufficient by Western standards, and instrumentation and control has been markedly improved to Western 1970s-era levels.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In the Chernobyl disaster, the melted fuel became non-critical as a result of flowing away from the graphite moderator (aided by the dispersion of large portions of the fuel by two large explosions); it took considerable time to cool, however. The molten core of Chernobyl (that part that was not blown outside the reactor or did not vaporize in the fire) flowed in a channel created by the heat of the corium and froze before penetrating the bottommost floor of the basement. In the basement of the reactor at Chernobyl, a large "elephant's foot" of congealed core material was found, one example of the freely flowing corium. Time delay, and prevention of direct emission to the atmosphere (i.e., containment), would have reduced the radiological release. If the basement of the reactor building had been penetrated, the groundwater would have been severely contaminated, and its flow could have carried the contamination far afield.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The Chernobyl reactor was a RBMK type. The disaster was caused by a power excursion that led to a steam explosion, meltdown and extensive offsite consequences. Operator error and a faulty shutdown system led to a sudden, massive spike in the neutron multiplication rate, a sudden decrease in the neutron period, and a consequent increase in neutron population; thus, core heat flux increased rapidly beyond the design limits of the reactor. This caused the water coolant to flash to steam, causing a sudden overpressure within the reactor core (the first of the two major explosions that occurred), leading to granulation of the upper portion of the core and the ejection of the upper biological shield atop the core along with core debris from the reactor building in a widely dispersed pattern. The lower portion of the reactor remained somewhat intact; the graphite neutron moderator was exposed to oxygen-containing air; heat from the power excursion in addition to residual heat flux from the remaining fuel rods left without coolant induced oxidation in the moderator and in the opened fuel rods; this in turn evolved more heat and contributed to the melting of more of the fuel rods and the outgassing of the fission products contained therein. The melted core material initially flowed into a more compact configuration, allowing it to reach prompt criticality (the same mechanism by which a fission weapon explodes, although with far lower efficiency and orders of magnitude lower yield) and resulting in a second, larger thermal explosion which partly disassembled the fissile mass and terminated the chain reaction. The liquefied remains of the melted fuel rods (less those dispersed in the two explosions), pulverized concrete and any other objects in the path flowed through a drainage pipe into the basement of the reactor building and solidified in a mass, though the primary threat to the public safety was the dispersed core ejecta, vaporized and gaseous fission products and fuel, and the gases evolved from the oxidation of the moderator.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Although the Chernobyl accident had dire off-site effects, much of the radioactivity remained within the building. If the building were to fail and dust were to be released into the environment, the release of a given mass of fission products that have aged for almost thirty years would have a smaller effect than the release of the same mass of fission products (in the same chemical and physical form) that had only undergone a short cooling time (such as one hour) after the nuclear reaction had terminated. If a nuclear reaction were to occur again within the Chernobyl plant (for instance if rainwater were to collect and act as a moderator), however, then the new fission products would have a higher specific activity and thus pose a greater threat if they were released. To prevent a post-accident nuclear reaction, steps have been taken, such as adding neutron poisons to key parts of the basement.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The effects of a nuclear meltdown depend on the safety features designed into a reactor. A modern reactor is designed both to make a meltdown unlikely, and to contain one should it occur.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In a modern reactor, a nuclear meltdown, whether partial or total, should be contained inside the reactor's containment structure. Thus (assuming that no other major disasters occur) while the meltdown will severely damage the reactor itself, possibly contaminating the whole structure with highly radioactive material, a meltdown alone should not lead to significant radioactivity release or danger to the public.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A nuclear meltdown may be part of a chain of disasters. For example, in the Chernobyl accident, by the time the core melted, there had already been a large steam explosion and graphite fire, and a major release of radioactive contamination. Prior to a meltdown, operators may reduce pressure in the reactor by releasing radioactive steam to the environment. This would allow fresh cooling water to be injected with the intent of preventing a meltdown.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Although pressurized water reactors are more susceptible to nuclear meltdown in the absence of active safety measures, this is not a universal feature of civilian nuclear reactors. Much of the research in civilian nuclear reactors is for designs with passive nuclear safety features that may be less susceptible to meltdown, even if all emergency systems failed. For example, pebble bed reactors are designed so that complete loss of coolant for an indefinite period does not result in the reactor overheating. The General Electric ESBWR and Westinghouse AP1000 have passively activated safety systems. The CANDU reactor has two low-temperature and low-pressure water systems surrounding the fuel (i.e. moderator and shield tank) that act as back-up heat sinks and preclude meltdowns and core-breaching scenarios. Liquid fueled reactors can be stopped by draining the fuel into tankage, which not only prevents further fission but draws decay heat away statically, and by drawing off the fission products (which are the source of post-shutdown heating) incrementally. The ideal is to have reactors that fail-safe through physics rather than through redundant safety systems or human intervention.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: Certain fast breeder reactor designs may be more susceptible to meltdown than other reactor types, due to their larger quantity of fissile material and the higher neutron flux inside the reactor core. Other reactor designs, such as Integral Fast Reactor model EBR II, had been explicitly engineered to be meltdown-immune. It was tested in April 1986, just before the Chernobyl failure, to simulate loss of coolant pumping power, by switching off the power to the primary pumps. As designed, it shut itself down, in about 300 seconds, as soon as the temperature rose to a point designed as higher than proper operation would require. This was well below the boiling point of the unpressurised liquid metal coolant, which had entirely sufficient cooling ability to deal with the heat of fission product radioactivity, by simple convection.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The second test, deliberate shut-off of the secondary coolant loop that supplies the generators, caused the primary circuit to undergo the same safe shutdown. This test simulated the case of a water-cooled reactor losing its steam turbine circuit, perhaps by a leak.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The China syndrome (loss-of-coolant accident) is a nuclear reactor operations accident characterized by the severe meltdown of the core components of the reactor, which then burn through the containment vessel and the housing building, then (figuratively) through the crust and body of the Earth until reaching the opposite end, presumed to be in "China". The phrasing is metaphorical; there is no way a core could penetrate the several-kilometer thickness of the Earth's crust, and even if it did melt to the center of the Earth, it would not travel back upwards against the pull of gravity. Moreover, any tunnel behind the material would be closed by immense lithostatic pressure. Furthermore, the antipodes of the continental US are, in fact, located in the Indian Ocean, not China.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: In reality, under a complete loss of coolant scenario, the fast erosion phase of the concrete basement lasts for about an hour and progresses into about one meter depth, then slows to several centimeters per hour, and stops completely when the corium melt cools below the decomposition temperature of concrete (about 1,100 °C). Complete melt-through can occur in several days, even through several meters of concrete; the corium then penetrates several meters into the underlying soil, spreads around, cools, and solidifies. It is also possible that there is already a harmless dense natural concentration of radioactive material in the Earth's core (primarily uranium-238, thorium-232 and potassium-40, which have half-lives of 4.47 billion years, 14.05 billion years and 1.25 billion years respectively.)


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The real scare, however, came from a quote in the 1979 film "The China Syndrome", which stated, "It melts right down through the bottom of the plant—theoretically to China, but of course, as soon as it hits ground water, it blasts into the atmosphere and sends out clouds of radioactivity. The number of people killed would depend on which way the wind was blowing, rendering an area the size of Pennsylvania permanently uninhabitable." The actual threat of this was tested just 12 days after the release of the film when a meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island Plant 2 (TMI-2) created a molten core that moved 15 millimeters toward "China" before the core froze at the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel. Thus, the TMI-2 reactor fuel and fission products breached the fuel rods, but the melted core itself did not break the containment of the reactor vessel. Hours after the meltdown, concern about hydrogen build-up led operators to release some radioactive gasses into the atmosphere, including gaseous fission products. Release of the fission products was less than normal background radiation, thus no radioactive related injuries or illnesses. Radioactivity and its related injuries and illnesses were tracked over a 30 year period in the surrounding area with no significant findings. Though there was public confusion due to several miscommunications, there was no evacuation.


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: A similar concern arose during the Chernobyl disaster: after the reactor was destroyed, a liquid corium mass from the melting core began to breach the concrete floor of the reactor vessel, which was situated above the bubbler pool (a large water reservoir for emergency pumps, also designed to safely contain steam pipe ruptures). The RBMK-type reactor had no allowance or planning for core meltdowns, and the imminent interaction of the core mass with the bubbler pool would have produced a considerable steam explosion, increasing the spread and magnitude of the radioactive plume. It was therefore necessary to drain the bubbler pool before the corium reached it. The initial explosion, however, had broken the control circuitry which allowed the pool to be emptied. Three station workers volunteered to manually operate the valves necessary to drain this pool, and later images of the corium mass in the pipes of the bubbler pool's basement reinforced the prudence of their actions. (Despite the extreme risk of their mission, all three workers long outlived the incident: one died in 2005 of heart failure, and the other two remained alive as of 2015.)


title: Nuclear meltdown

text: The system design of the nuclear power plants built in the late 1960s raised questions of operational safety, and raised the concern that a severe reactor accident could release large quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere and environment. By 1970, there were doubts about the ability of the emergency core cooling system of a nuclear reactor to cope with the effects of a loss of coolant accident and the consequent meltdown of the fuel core; the subject proved popular in the technical and the popular presses. In 1971, in the article "Thoughts on Nuclear Plumbing", former Manhattan Project (1942–1946) nuclear physicist Ralph Lapp used the term "China syndrome" to describe a possible burn-through, after a loss of coolant accident, of the nuclear fuel rods and core components melting the containment structures, and the subsequent escape of radioactive material(s) into the atmosphere and environment; the hypothesis derived from a 1967 report by a group of nuclear physicists, headed by W. K. Ergen. In the event, Lapp’s hypothetical nuclear accident was cinematically adapted as "The China Syndrome" (1979).


title: Citadel

text: A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core.


title: Citadel

text: In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy. It is positioned to be the last line of defence, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system. The functions of the police and the army, as well as the army barracks were developed in the citadel.


title: Citadel

text: Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley civilisation, where citadels represented a centralised authority. Citadels in Indus Valley were almost 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive against enemy attacks. Rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters.


title: Citadel

text: Several settlements in Anatolia, including the Assyrian city of Kaneš in modern-day Kültepe, featured citadels. Kaneš' citadel contained the city's palace, temples, and official buildings. The citadel of the Greek city of Mycenae was built atop a highly-defensible rectangular hill and was later surrounded by walls in order to increase its defensive capabilities.


title: Citadel

text: In Ancient Greece, the Acropolis, which literally means "high city", placed on a commanding eminence, was important in the life of the people, serving as a lookout, a refuge, and a stronghold in peril, as well as containing military and food supplies, the shrine of the god and a royal palace. The most well known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth famed as a particularly strong fortress. In a much later period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire, the same strong points were used by the new feudal rulers for much the same purpose.


title: Citadel

text: In the first millennium BC, the Castro culture emerged in northwestern Portugal and Spain in the region extending from the Douro river up to the Minho, but soon expanding north along the coast, and east following the river valleys. It was an autochthonous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities. In 2008, the origins of the Celts were attributed to this period by John T. Koch and supported by Barry Cunliffe. The Ave River Valley in Portugal was the core region of this culture, with a large number of small settlements (the "castros"), but also settlements known as citadels or oppida by the Roman conquerors. These had several rings of walls and the Roman conquest of the citadels of Abobriga, Lambriaca and Cinania around 138 BC was possible only by prolonged siege. Ruins of notable citadels still exist, and are known by archaeologists as Citânia de Briteiros, Citânia de Sanfins, Cividade de Terroso and Cividade de Bagunte.


title: Citadel

text: Rebels who took power in the city but with the citadel still held by the former rulers could by no means regard their tenure of power as secure. One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. The Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious. When finally gaining possession of the place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, though they constructed another citadel for their own use in a different part of Jerusalem.


title: Citadel

text: At various periods, and particularly during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the citadel – having its own fortifications, independent of the city walls – was the last defence of a besieged army, often held after the town had been conquered. Locals and defending armies have often held out citadels long after the city had fallen. For example, in the 1543 Siege of Nice the Ottoman forces led by Barbarossa conquered and pillaged the town and took many captives, but the citadel held out.


title: Citadel

text: In the Philippines, the Ivatan people of the northern islands of Batanes often built fortifications to protect themselves during times of war. They built their so-called "idjangs" on hills and elevated areas. These fortifications were likened to European castles because of their purpose. Usually, the only entrance to the castles would be via a rope ladder that would only be lowered for the villagers and could be kept away when invaders arrived.


title: Citadel

text: In times of war, the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the people living in the areas around the town. However, citadels were often used also to protect a garrison or political power from the inhabitants of the town where it was located, being designed to ensure loyalty from the town that they defended. This was used, for example, during the Dutch Wars of 1664–1667, King Charles II of England constructed a Royal Citadel at Plymouth, an important channel port which needed to be defended from a possible naval attack. However, due to Plymouth's support for the Parliamentarians, in the then-recent English Civil War, the Plymouth Citadel was so designed that its guns could fire on the town as well as on the sea approaches.


title: Citadel

text: Barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid-17th- and early-18th-century rebellions against the Spanish central government. In the 19th century, when the political climate had liberalized enough to permit it, the people of Barcelona had the citadel torn down, and replaced it with the city's main central park, the Parc de la Ciutadella. A similar example is the Citadella in Budapest, Hungary.


title: Citadel

text: The attack on the Bastille in the French Revolution – though afterwards remembered mainly for the release of the handful of prisoners incarcerated there – was to considerable degree motivated by the structure's being a Royal citadel in the midst of revolutionary Paris.


title: Citadel

text: Similarly, after Garibaldi's overthrow of Bourbon rule in Palermo, during the 1860 Unification of Italy, Palermo's Castellamare Citadel – a symbol of the hated and oppressive former rule – was ceremoniously demolished.


title: Citadel

text: Following Belgium gaining its independence in 1830, a Dutch garrison under General David Hendrik Chassé held out in Antwerp Citadel between 1830 and 1832, while the city had already become part of independent Belgium.


title: Citadel

text: The Siege of the Alcázar in the Spanish Civil War, in which the Nationalists held out against a much larger Republican force for two months until relieved, shows that in some cases a citadel can be effective even in modern warfare; a similar case is the Battle of Huế during the Vietnam War, where a North Vietnamese Army division held the citadel of Huế for 26 days against roughly their own numbers of much better-equipped US and South Vietnamese troops.


title: Citadel

text: The Citadelle of Québec (the construction was started in 1673 and completed in 1820) still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America. It is home to the Royal 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army and forms part of the Ramparts of Quebec City dating back to 1620s.


title: Citadel

text: Since the mid 20th century, citadels have commonly enclosed military command and control centres, rather than cities or strategic points of defence on the boundaries of a country. These modern citadels are built to protect the command centre from heavy attacks, such as aerial or nuclear bombardment. The military citadels under London in the UK, including the massive underground complex Pindar beneath the Ministry of Defence, are examples, as is the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in the US.


title: Citadel

text: On armoured warships, the heavily armoured section of the ship that protects the ammunition and machinery spaces is called the armoured citadel.


title: Citadel

text: A modern naval interpretation refers to the heaviest protected part of the hull as "the vitals", and the citadel is the semi-armoured freeboard above the vitals. Generally, Anglo-American and German languages follow this while Russian sources/language refer to "the vitals" as цитадель "citadel". Likewise, Russian literature often refers to the turret of a tank as the 'tower'.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Canadian Confederation () was the process by which three British North American provinces, the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, were united into one federation called the Dominion of Canada, on July 1, 1867. Upon Confederation, Canada consisted of four provinces: Ontario and Quebec, which had been split out from the Province of Canada, and the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Over the years since Confederation, Canada has seen numerous territorial changes and expansions, resulting in the current number of ten provinces and three territories.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Canada is a federation and not a confederate association of sovereign states, which is what "confederation" means in contemporary political theory. It is nevertheless often considered to be among the world's more decentralized federations. The use of the term "confederation" arose in the Province of Canada to refer to proposals beginning in the 1850s to federate all of the British North American colonies, as opposed to only Canada West (Ontario) and Canada East (Quebec). To contemporaries of Confederation, the "con-" prefix indicated a strengthening of the centrist principle compared to the American federation.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In this Canadian context, "confederation" here describes the political process that united the colonies in the 1860s, events related to that process, and the subsequent incorporation of other colonies and territories. The term is now often used to describe Canada in an abstract way, such as in "the Fathers of Confederation". Provinces and territories that became part of Canada after 1867 are also said to have joined, or entered into, confederation (but not "the Confederation"). The term is also used to divide Canadian history into pre-Confederation (i.e. pre-1867) and post-Confederation (i.e. post-1867) periods.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: All the former colonies and territories that became involved in the Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, were initially part of New France, and were once ruled by France. Nova Scotia was granted in 1621 to Sir William Alexander under charter by James VI. This claim overlapped the French claims to Acadia, and although the Scottish colony of Nova Scotia was short-lived, for political reasons, the conflicting imperial interests of France and the 18th century Great Britain led to a long and bitter struggle for control. The British acquired present-day mainland Nova Scotia by the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 and the Acadian population was expelled by the British in 1755. They renamed Acadia "Nova Scotia", which included present-day New Brunswick. The rest of New France was acquired by the British as the result of its defeat of New France in the Seven Years' War, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. From 1763 to 1791, most of New France became the Province of Quebec. However, in 1769 the present-day Prince Edward Island, which had been part of Acadia, was renamed "St John's Island" and organized as a separate colony. It was renamed "Prince Edward Island" in 1798 in honour of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The first English attempt at settlement on that part of the continent that would become modern Canada had been in Newfoundland which would not join Confederation until 1949. The Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol began to settle Newfoundland and Labrador at Cuper's Cove as far back as 1610, and Newfoundland had also been the subject of a French colonial enterprise.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In the wake of the American Revolution, an estimated 50,000 United Empire Loyalists fled to British North America. The British created the separate province of New Brunswick in 1784 for the Loyalists who settled in the western part of Nova Scotia. While Nova Scotia (including New Brunswick) received slightly more than half of this influx, many Loyalists also settled in the Province of Quebec, which by the "Constitutional Act 1791" was separated into a predominantly English Upper Canada and a predominantly French Lower Canada. The War of 1812 and Treaty of 1818 established the 49th parallel as the border with the United States from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains in Western Canada.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Following the Rebellions of 1837, Lord Durham in his Durham Report, recommended Upper and Lower Canada be joined as the Province of Canada and the new province should have a responsible government. As a result of Durham's report, the British Parliament passed the Act of Union 1840, and the Province of Canada was formed in 1841. The new province was divided into two parts: Canada West (the former Upper Canada) and Canada East (the former Lower Canada). Governor General Lord Elgin granted ministerial responsibility in 1848, first to Nova Scotia and then to Canada. In the following years, the British would extend responsible government to Prince Edward Island (1851), New Brunswick (1854), and Newfoundland (1855).


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The area which constitutes modern-day British Columbia is the remnants of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia District and New Caledonia District following the Oregon Treaty. Before joining Canada in 1871, British Columbia consisted of the separate Colony of British Columbia (formed in 1858, in an area where the Crown had granted a monopoly to the Hudson's Bay Company), and the Colony of Vancouver Island (formed in 1849) constituting a separate crown colony until it was united with the colony of British Columbia in 1866.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The remainder of modern-day Canada was made up of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory (both of which were controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company and sold to Canada in 1870) and the Arctic Islands, which were under direct British control and became a part of Canada in 1880.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The idea of unification was presented in 1839 by Lord Durham in his Report on the Affairs of British North America, which resulted in the Act of Union 1840. Beginning in 1857, Joseph-Charles Taché proposed a federation in a series of 33 articles published in the "Courrier du Canada".


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In 1859, Alexander Tilloch Galt, George-Étienne Cartier and John Ross travelled to Great Britain to present the British Parliament with a project for confederation of the British colonies. The proposal was received by the London authorities with polite indifference. By 1864, it was clear that continued governance of the Province of Canada under the terms of the 1840 Act of Union had become impracticable. Therefore, a Great Coalition of parties formed in order to reform the political system.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Several factors influenced Confederation, both caused from internal sources and pressures from external sources.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: There is extensive scholarly debate on the role of political ideas in Canadian Confederation. Traditionally, historians regarded Canadian Confederation an exercise in political pragmatism that was essentially non-ideological. In the 1960s, historian Peter Waite derided the references to political philosophers in the legislative debates on Confederation as "hot air". In Waite's view, Confederation was driven by pragmatic brokerage politics and competing interest groups.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In 1987, political scientist Peter J. Smith challenged the view Canadian Confederation was non-ideological. Smith argued Confederation was motivated by new political ideologies as much as the American and French Revolutions and Canadian Confederation was driven by a Court Party ideology. Smith traces the origins of this ideology to eighteenth and nineteenth-century Britain, where political life was polarized between defenders of classical republican values of the Country Party and proponents of a new pro-capitalist ideology of the Court Party, which believed in centralizing political power. In British North America in the late 1860s, the Court Party tradition was represented by the supporters of Confederation, whereas the anti-capitalist and agrarian Country Party tradition was embodied by the Anti-Confederates.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In a 2000 journal article, historian Ian McKay argued Canadian Confederation was motivated by the ideology of liberalism and the belief in the supremacy of individual rights. McKay described Confederation as part of the classical liberal project of creating a "liberal order" in northern North America. Many Canadian historians have adopted McKay's liberal order framework as a paradigm for understanding Canadian history.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In 2008, historian Andrew Smith advanced a very different view of Confederation's ideological origins. He argues that in the four original Canadian provinces, the politics of taxation were a central issue in the debate about Confederation. Taxation was also central to the debate in Newfoundland, the tax-averse colony that rejected it. Smith argued Confederation was supported by many colonists who were sympathetic to a relatively interventionist, or statist, approach to capitalist development. Most classical liberals, who believed in free trade and low taxes, opposed Confederation because they feared it would result in Big Government. The struggle over Confederation involved a battle between a staunch individualist economic philosophy and a comparatively collectivist view of the state's proper role in the economy. According to Smith, the victory of the statist supporters of Confederation over their anti-statist opponents prepared the way for John A. Macdonald's government to enact the protectionist National Policy and to subsidize major infrastructure projects such as the Intercolonial and Pacific Railways.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In 2007, political scientist Janet Ajzenstat connected Canadian Confederation to the individualist ideology of John Locke. She argued that the union of the British North American colonies was motivated by a desire to protect individual rights, especially the rights to life, liberty, and property. She contends the Fathers of Confederation were motivated by the values of the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She argues their intellectual debts to Locke are most evident when one looks at the 1865 debates in the Province of Canada's legislature on whether or not union with the other British North American colonies would be desirable.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In the spring of 1864, New Brunswick premier Samuel Leonard Tilley, Nova Scotia premier Charles Tupper, and Prince Edward Island premier John Hamilton Gray were contemplating the idea of a Maritime Union which would join their three colonies together.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The government of the Province of Canada surprised the Maritime governments by asking if the Province of Canada could be included in the negotiations. The request was channelled through the Governor-General, Monck, to London and accepted by the Colonial Office. After several years of legislative paralysis in the Province of Canada caused by the need to maintain a double legislative majority (a majority of both the Canada East and Canada West delegates in the Province of Canada's legislature), Macdonald had led his Liberal-Conservative Party into the Great Coalition with Cartier's Parti bleu and George Brown's Clear Grits. Macdonald, Cartier, and Brown felt union with the other British colonies might be a way to solve the political problems of the Province of Canada.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The Charlottetown Conference began on September 1, 1864. Since the agenda for the meeting had already been set, the delegation from the Province of Canada was initially not an official part of the Conference. The issue of Maritime Union was deferred and the Canadians were formally allowed to join and address the Conference.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: No minutes from the Charlottetown Conference survive, but we do know Cartier and Macdonald presented arguments in favour of a union of the three colonies; Alexander Tilloch Galt presented the Province of Canada's proposals on the financial arrangements of such a union; and George Brown presented a proposal for what form a united government might take. The Canadian delegation's proposal for the governmental system involved:


title: Canadian Confederation

text: By September 7, 1864, the delegates from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island gave a positive answer to the Canadian delegation, expressing the view the federation of all of the provinces was considered desirable if the terms of union could be made satisfactory and the question of Maritime Union was waived.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: After the Conference adjourned on September 9, there were further meetings between delegates held at Halifax, Saint John, and Fredericton. These meetings evinced enough interest that the delegates decided to hold a second Conference.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: One of the most important purposes of the Charlottetown Conference was the introduction of Canadians to the leaders from the Maritime Provinces and vice versa. At this point, there was no railway link from Quebec City to Halifax, and the people of each region had little to do with one another. Thomas D'Arcy McGee was one of the few Canadian delegates who had been to the Maritimes, when he had gone down earlier that summer with a trade mission of Canadian businessmen, journalists and politicians.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: George Brown remarked in a letter to his wife Anne that at a party given by the premier of PEI, Colonel John Hamilton Gray, he met a woman who had never been off the island in her entire life. Nevertheless, he found Prince Edward Islanders to be "amazingly civilized".


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Reaction to the Charlottetown Conference varied among the different newspapers. In the Maritimes, there was concern that the smooth Canadians with their sparkling champagne and charming speeches were outsmarting the delegates of the smaller provinces. "From all accounts it looks as if these [Canadian] gentlemen had it all their own way; ... and that, what with their arguments and what with their blandishments, (they gave a champagne lunch on board the "Victoria" where Mr. McGee's wit sparkled brightly as the wine), they carried the Lower Province delegates a little off their feet."


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The delegates from the Quebec conference considered if the resolutions would be better suited for acceptance if a popular vote were held on them. However, due to the divide amongst religious groups and general mistrust between areas in Canada, they believed that such a vote would be defeated. Thus, they went ahead with the resolutions on their own volition.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: After returning home from the Charlottetown Conference, Macdonald asked Viscount Monck, the Governor-General of the Province of Canada to invite delegates from the three Maritime provinces and Newfoundland to a conference with United Canada delegates. At the opening of the conference, a total of 33 delegates were included from the British North American Colonies, including Newfoundland, which had not participated in prior meetings. Monck obliged and the Conference went ahead at Quebec City in October 1864.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The Conference began on October 10, 1864, on the site of present-day Montmorency Park. The Conference elected Étienne-Paschal Taché as its chairman, but it was dominated by Macdonald. Despite differences in the positions of some of the delegates on some issues, the Quebec Conference, following so swiftly on the success of the Charlottetown Conference, was infused with a determinative sense of purpose and nationalism. For the Reformers of Canada West, led by George Brown, the end of what they perceived as French-Canadian interference in local affairs was in sight. For Maritimers such as Tupper of Nova Scotia or Tilley of New Brunswick, horizons were suddenly broadened to take in much larger possibilities for trade and growth.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: On the issue of the Senate, the Maritime Provinces pressed for as much equality as possible. With the addition of Newfoundland to the Conference, the other three Maritime colonies did not wish to see the strength of their provinces in the upper chamber diluted by simply adding Newfoundland to the Atlantic category. It was the matter of the Senate that threatened to derail the entire proceedings. It was Macdonald who came up with the acceptable compromise of giving Newfoundland four senators of its own when it joined.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The delegates from the Maritimes also raised an issue with respect to the level of government—federal or provincial—that would be given the powers not otherwise specifically defined. Macdonald, who was aiming for the strongest central government possible, insisted this was to be the central government, and in this, he was supported by, among others, Tupper.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: At the end of the Conference, it adopted the Seventy-two Resolutions which would form the basis of a scheduled future conference. The Conference adjourned on October 27.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Prince Edward Island emerged disappointed from the Quebec Conference. It did not receive support for a guarantee of six members in the proposed House of Commons, and was denied an appropriation of $200,000 it felt had been offered at Charlottetown to assist in buying out the holdings of absentee landlords.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: "Never was there such an opportunity as now for the birth of a nation" proclaimed a pamphlet written by S. E. Dawson and reprinted in a Quebec City newspaper during the Conference.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: George Brown was the first to carry the constitutional proposals to the British Government in London in December 1864, where it gave "a most gracious answer to our constitutional scheme." He also met with William Gladstone, who was then chancellor of the Exchequer and later prime minister, "who agreed in almost everything." In April 1865, Brown, Macdonald, Cartier and Galt met with the Imperial Government where "The project of a federal union of the colonies was highly approved of by the Imperial authorities."


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Following the Quebec Conference, the Province of Canada's legislature passed a bill approving the union. The union proved more controversial in the Maritime provinces, however, and it was not until 1866 that New Brunswick and Nova Scotia passed union resolutions, while Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland continued to opt against joining.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: In December 1866, sixteen delegates from the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia travelled to London, where the 4th Earl of Carnarvon presented each to Queen Victoria in private audience, as well as holding court for their wives and daughters. At meetings held at the Westminster Palace Hotel, the delegates reviewed and approved the 72 resolutions; although Charles Tupper had promised anti-union forces in Nova Scotia he would push for amendments, he was unsuccessful in getting any passed. Now known as the "London Resolutions", the conference's decisions were forwarded to the Colonial Office.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: After breaking for Christmas, the delegates reconvened in January 1867 and began drafting the "British North America Act". The 4th Earl of Carnarvon continued to have a central role in drafting the act at Highclere Castle alongside the first prime minister of Canada Macdonald, Cartier and Galt, who signed the visitor book in 1866. After suggestions of 'Franklin' and 'Guelfenland', they agreed the new country should be called "Canada", Canada East should be renamed "Quebec" and Canada West should be renamed "Ontario". There was, however, heated debate about how the new country should be designated. Ultimately, the delegates elected to call the new country the Dominion of Canada, after "kingdom" and "confederation", among other options, were rejected. The term "dominion" was allegedly suggested by Sir Samuel Leonard Tilley.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The delegates had completed their draft of the "British North America Act" by February 1867. The act was presented to Queen Victoria on February 11, 1867. The bill was introduced in the House of Lords the next day. The bill was quickly approved by the House of Lords, and then also quickly approved by the British House of Commons. (The Conservative Lord Derby was prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time.) The act received royal assent on March 29, 1867, and set July 1, 1867, as the date for union.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Confederation was accomplished when the Queen gave royal assent to the "British North America Act" (BNA Act) on March 29, 1867, followed by a royal proclamation stating: "We do ordain, declare, and command that on and after the First day of July, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-seven, the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, shall form and be One Dominion, under the name of Canada." That act, which united the Province of Canada with the colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, came into effect on July 1 that year. The act replaced the Act of Union 1840 which had unified Upper Canada and Lower Canada into the united Province of Canada. Separate provinces were re-established under their current names of Ontario and Quebec. July 1 is now celebrated as a public holiday, Canada Day, the country's official National Day.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The form of the country's government was influenced by the American republic to the south. Noting the flaws perceived in the American system, the Fathers of Confederation opted to retain a monarchical form of government. Macdonald, speaking in 1865 about the proposals for the upcoming Confederation of Canada, said:


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The form of government chosen is regarded as having created a federation that is a kingdom in its own right. Macdonald had spoken of "founding a great British monarchy" and wanted the newly created country to be called the "Kingdom of Canada". Although it had its monarch in London, the Colonial Office opposed as "premature" and "pretentious" the term "kingdom", as it was felt it might antagonize the United States. The term "dominion" was chosen to indicate Canada's status as a self-governing polity of the British Empire, the first time it was used in reference to a country.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: While the BNA Act eventually resulted in Canada having more autonomy than it had before, it was far from full independence from the United Kingdom. According to the Supreme Court of Canada, Canadian "sovereignty was acquired in the period between its separate signature of the "Treaty of Versailles" in 1919 and the "Statute of Westminster, 1931"" long after Confederation in 1867. Defence of British North America became a Canadian responsibility. Foreign policy remained in British hands, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council remained Canada's highest court of appeal, and the constitution could be amended only in Britain. Gradually, Canada gained more autonomy, and in 1931, obtained almost full autonomy within the British Commonwealth with the "Statute of Westminster". Because the federal and provincial governments were unable to agree on a constitutional amending formula, this power remained with the British Parliament. In 1982, the constitution was patriated when Elizabeth II gave her royal assent to the "Canada Act 1982". The Constitution of Canada is made up of a number of codified acts and uncodified traditions; one of the principal documents is the "Constitution Act, 1982", which renamed the BNA Act 1867 to "Constitution Act, 1867".


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The act also detailed how power would be distributed at both the provincial and federal levels. Two of the most important sections were 91 and 92. Section 91 gave Parliament jurisdiction over banking, interest rates, criminal law, the postal system, and the armed forces. Section 92 gave the provinces jurisdiction over property, contracts and torts, local works, and general business. However, sometimes Parliament and Provincial law may interfere with each other, in this case federal law would prevail.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Dominion elections were held in August and September to elect the first Parliament, and the four new provinces' governments recommended the 72 individuals (24 each for Quebec and Ontario, 12 each for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) who would sit in the Senate.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The Anti-Confederation Party won 18 out of 19 federal Nova Scotia seats in September 1867, and in the Nova Scotia provincial election of 1868, 36 out of 38 seats in the legislature. For seven years, William Annand and Joseph Howe led the ultimately unsuccessful fight to convince British imperial authorities to release Nova Scotia from Confederation. The government was vocally against Confederation, contending it was no more than the annexation of the province to the pre-existing province of Canada.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Prior to the coming into effect of the "Constitution Act, 1867" there had been some concern regarding a potential "legislative vacuum" that would occur over the 15-month period between the prorogation of the Province of Canada's final Parliament in August 1866 and the opening of the now Dominion of Canada's first Parliament in November 1867. To prevent this, the "Constitution Act, 1867" provided for "continuance of existing laws" from the three colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick until new laws could be established in the Dominion. Thus, the "Dominion's financial systems, structures and actors were able to operate under the provisions of the old Province of Canada Acts" following confederation, and many institutions and organizations were continued and assumed "the same responsibilities for the new federal government that it had held as a provincial organization".


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended any of the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864, or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: There were 36 original Fathers of Confederation. Hewitt Bernard, who was the recording secretary at the Charlottetown Conference, is considered by some to be a Father of Confederation. The later "Fathers" who brought the other provinces into Confederation after 1867 are also referred to as "Fathers of Confederation". In this way, Amor De Cosmos who was instrumental both in bringing democracy to British Columbia and in bringing his province into Confederation, is considered by many to be a Father of Confederation. As well, Joey Smallwood referred to himself as "the Last Father of Confederation", because he helped lead Newfoundland into Confederation in 1949.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: After the initial BNA Act in 1867, Manitoba was established by an act of the Canadian Parliament on July 15, 1870, originally as an area of land much smaller than the current province. British Columbia joined Canada July 20, 1871, by an Imperial order-in-council enacted under the authority of the "British North America Act". The order-in-council incorporated the Terms of Union negotiated by the governments of Canada and British Columbia, including a commitment by the federal government to build a railway connecting British Columbia to the railway system of Canada within 10 years of union. Prince Edward Island (PEI) joined July 1, 1873, also by an Imperial order-in-council. One reason for joining was financial: PEI's economy was performing poorly and union would bring monetary benefits that would assist the province in avoiding bankruptcy. One of the Prince Edward Island Terms of Union was a guarantee by the federal government to operate a ferry link, a term deleted upon completion of the Confederation Bridge in 1997. Alberta and Saskatchewan were established September 1, 1905, by acts of the Canadian Parliament. Newfoundland joined on March 31, 1949, by an act of the Imperial Parliament, also with a ferry link guaranteed.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The Crown acquired Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869 (though final payment to the Hudson's Bay Company did not occur until 1870), and then transferred jurisdiction to the Dominion on July 15, 1870, merging them and naming them North-West Territories. In 1880, the British assigned all North American Arctic islands to Canada, right up to Ellesmere Island. From this vast swath of territory were created three provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) and two territories (Yukon Territory and North-West Territories, now Yukon and Northwest Territories), and two extensions each to Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba. Later, the third territory of Nunavut was carved from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999. The Yukon territory was formed during the Klondike gold rush. People from all around Canada and the United States flocked to the area due to rumours of an easy way to get rich. The Canadian government sought to regulate this migration and tax gold findings, whether American or Canadian.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Below is a list of Canadian provinces and territories in the order in which they entered Confederation; territories are italicized. At formal events, representatives of the provinces and territories take precedence according to this ordering, except that provinces always precede territories. For provinces that entered on the same date, the order of precedence is based on the provinces' populations at the time they entered Confederation.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: The term Confederation has entered into Canadian parlance both as a metaphor for the country and for the historical events that created it. It has therefore become one of the most common names for Canadian landmarks. Examples include Mount Confederation, Confederation Square, Confederation Building, Confederation Park, Confederation Station, Confederation Heights, Confederation Bridge, and so on. This is similar to the American practices of naming things "Union" and likewise the Australians with "Federation".


title: Canadian Confederation

text: Indigenous communities were absent or ignored in the process of Canadian confederation. As a result of Confederation, the Government of Canada assumed the responsibility of the British Crown in treaty dealings with the First Nations. One result of this was the "Indian Act" of 1873, which has governed relations ever since. Canada was no longer a colony of the United Kingdom, but Canadian Confederation continued the conditions of colonialismincluding resource grabbing, broken treaties, forced assimilation, culture loss, ecological destruction, heteropatriarchy, and intergenerational trauma inflicted by the hegemony of the Canadian stateon Indigenous nations that had been self-governing.


title: Canadian Confederation

text: As the 20th century progressed, attention to the conditions of Indigenous peoples in Canada increased, which included the granting of full voting rights. Prior to 1960, Status Indians were generally not eligible to vote in federal elections unless they gave up their status under the "Indian Act". The Diefenbaker government amended the "Canada Elections Act" to remove those restrictions and recognise full voting rights for Status Indians in federal elections, effective July 1, 1960. Treaty rights were enshrined in the Canadian Constitution in 1982. Recognizing the principle of aboriginal title, a process of land claims settlements is ongoing to settle un-extinguished aboriginal title between the federal government and various bands. Created to resolve the effects and after-effects of the residential school system, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was struck to identify further measures to improve conditions.


title: Andrew Callaghan

text: Andrew Thomas Callaghan (born April 23, 1997) is an American journalist, known for his former work on the YouTube series "All Gas No Brakes" and his current show "Channel 5". On March 9, 2021, he announced his departure from "All Gas No Brakes" after disagreements with Doing Things Media. In April 2021, Callaghan launched "Channel 5" via Patreon and YouTube. Callaghan is considered a pioneer in YouTube-style gonzo reporting by other journalists such as "The Department of Information".