title: Judiciary

text: Japan's process for selecting judges is longer and more stringent than in various countries, like the United States and in Mexico. Assistant judges are appointed from those who have completed their training at the Legal Training and Research Institute located in Wako. Once appointed, assistant judges still may not qualify to sit alone until they have served for five years, and have been appointed by the Supreme Court of Japan. Judges require ten years of experience in practical affairs, as a public prosecutor or practicing attorney. In the Japanese judicial branch there is the Supreme Court, eight high courts, fifty district courts, fifty family courts, and 438 summary courts.


title: Judiciary

text: Justices of the Mexican Supreme Court are appointed by the President of Mexico, and then are approved by the Mexican Senate to serve for a life term. Other justices are appointed by the Supreme Court and serve for six years. Federal courts consist of the 11 ministers of the Supreme Court, 32 circuit tribunals and 98 district courts. The Supreme Court of Mexico is located in Mexico City. Supreme Court Judges must be of ages 35 to 65 and hold a law degree during the five years preceding their nomination.


title: Judiciary

text: United States Supreme Court justices are appointed by the President of the United States and approved by the United States Senate. The Supreme Court justices serve for life term or until retirement. The Supreme Court is located in Washington, D.C. The United States federal court system consists of 94 federal judicial districts. The 94 districts are then divided up into twelve regional circuits. The United States has five different types of courts that are considered subordinate to the Supreme Court: United States bankruptcy courts, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, United States Court of International Trade, United States courts of appeals, and United States district courts.


title: Judiciary

text: Immigration courts are not part of the judicial branch; immigration judges are employees of the Executive Office for Immigration Review, part of the United States Department of Justice in the executive branch.


title: Judiciary

text: Each state, district and inhabited territory also has its own court system operating within the legal framework of the respective jurisdiction, responsible for hearing cases regarding state and territorial law. All these jurisdictions also have their own supreme courts (or equivalent) which serve as the highest courts of law within their respective jurisdictions.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: Blizzard of Ozz is the debut solo studio album by English singer Ozzy Osbourne, released on 12 September 1980 in the UK and on 27 March 1981 in the US. The album was Osbourne's first release following his firing from Black Sabbath in 1979. "Blizzard of Ozz" is the first of two studio albums Osbourne recorded with guitarist Randy Rhoads prior to Rhoads' death in 1982. In 2017, it was ranked 9th on "Rolling Stone" list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: Much of the album was written by guitarist Randy Rhoads, bassist Bob Daisley, and Ozzy Osbourne in a live-in rehearsal facility in Monmouth, Wales, with a friend of Osbourne's named Barry Screnage performing as the group's drummer. Screnage was never considered as a candidate to be the group's permanent drummer and was not involved in the songwriting process at all. The band recorded demos of the songs "I Don't Know", "Crazy Train", "Goodbye to Romance", and "You Looking at Me Looking at You" in Birmingham in early 1980 with ex-Lone Star drummer Dixie Lee. They had hoped Lee would be a permanent member but "he wasn't the final piece of the puzzle", bassist Daisley recalls. After auditioning several drummers, ex-Uriah Heep member Lee Kerslake was hired as the permanent drummer. The completed lineup retreated to Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire for six days to rehearse and give Kerslake an opportunity to learn the new songs. A week later, they travelled to Ridge Farm Studio to commence recording.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: The first track written for the album was "Goodbye to Romance". Osbourne has stated that the song was his way of saying goodbye to his former band Black Sabbath, as he had thought his career was over after leaving the band. After performing a show in Birmingham, the band hastily returned to Ridge Farm to remix "Goodbye to Romance" for a single. The next morning they were informed that their label Jet Records instead wanted a brand new song to release as a single. Rhoads, Daisley, and Kerslake quickly put together the song "You Said It All", with drummer Kerslake performing the guide vocal at soundcheck while a drunken Osbourne slept under the drum riser. The song was ultimately never recorded, though a live version was released on "Ozzy Osbourne Live EP" in 1980. The final track written was "No Bone Movies", which was originally intended to be used only as a B-side but was added to the album in order to give Kerslake a writing credit, as all the other material had been written before he joined the band. Keyboardist Don Airey claims that parts of "Revelation (Mother Earth)" as well as the intro to "Mr. Crowley" were written by him in the studio, though he never received writing credit for these contributions.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: Chris Tsangarides was originally hired to produce the album, with Max Norman to serve as studio engineer. Osbourne and the band were very unhappy with Tsangarides' production and he was fired and replaced by Norman, who stepped in to complete producing and engineering. Norman's production work on "Blizzard of Ozz" is uncredited, though he did go on to produce all of Osbourne's albums prior to 1986's "The Ultimate Sin".


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: At the time of the album's recording, the band itself was billed as "The Blizzard of Ozz". The band members were expecting the album to be credited to the band with Osbourne's name in smaller print, just as it appeared on the "Crazy Train" single released several days prior. The back cover of the first pressing of the "Crazy Train" single stated that the track came from a forthcoming Jet Records album entitled "Ozzy Osbourne/ Blizzard of Ozz Vol. 1". In fact, when the band appeared at the Reading Festival in 1980 they were billed simply as "Ossie Osborne's New Band". According to Daisley, "When the album was released the words 'Ozzy Osbourne' were in bigger print than 'The Blizzard of Ozz' which made it look like an Ozzy Osbourne album called "The Blizzard of Ozz". Randy [Rhoads] was never one to rock the boat. He knew he was in a situation which was a good opportunity for him being relatively unknown, so when Lee [Kerslake] and I were ousted, Randy had no allies and the act became 'Ozzy Osbourne' and no longer a band." Rhoads felt that he and Daisley were contributing the vast majority of the songwriting and arranging, and he had little interest in performing in a backing band for someone he felt wasn't contributing as much. Drummer Kerslake has maintained that Rhoads almost left the band in late 1981, due to this displeasure. "He didn't want to go [on tour with Osbourne]. We told him we were thrown out. He said he was going to leave the band as he did not want to leave us behind. I told him not to be stupid but thanks for the sentiment", the drummer later recalled. Entertainment attorney Steven Machat, who was involved in the deal Osbourne signed with Jet Records, said in his 2011 book "Gods, Gangsters and Honour: A Rock 'n' Roll Odyssey" that Osbourne's soon-to-be manager and wife Sharon Levy was not happy with the level of creative input that Rhoads, Daisley, and Kerslake had in the "Blizzard of Ozz" album and did not want them to share the credit. Album producer Max Norman concurs that Daisley and Kerslake made considerable songwriting contributions during their time in the band, while also noting that the Osbourne camp "might want to dispute that now."


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: Alhough Sharon has said that the recording of "Blizzard of Ozz" was one of the best experiences of her life, she was in Los Angeles during recording and not yet involved with the band. Osbourne's then-wife Thelma was present at Ridge Farms Studios for much of the recording.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: The album tracks "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" were released as singles in 1980. "Crazy Train" went on to peak the following year at number 9 on "Billboard" Hot Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. In January 2009, the song achieved a 2× Platinum certification status. Though it received little radio airplay upon its initial release, "Crazy Train" has become one of Osbourne's signature songs and a staple of classic rock radio playlists over the ensuing years.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: The album was a commercial success, being certified 4× Platinum in the US in 1997, a feat Osbourne would not achieve again until "No More Tears" was certified in 2000. In 2019 it was certified 5× Platinum. In the UK, it was the first of four Osbourne albums to attain Silver certification (60,000 units shipped) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in August 1981. It also ranked 13th on a "Guitar World" readers poll of the "100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time." In his autobiography, Osbourne readily admitted that at the time the album was being recorded, he felt he was in direct competition with his former band, Black Sabbath.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: "Blizzard of Ozz" was controversially re-released in 2002 with the original bass and drum tracks replaced by newly recorded parts from bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Mike Bordin; however, the original bass and drum tracks were reinstated for the 2011 release due to public outcry. The 2011 release was certified Silver by BPI in 2013. A box set featuring both re-issued albums, the "Blizzard of Ozz/Diary of a Madman 30th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set", was released, featuring both CD re-issues, 180-gram LP Vinyl versions of both albums (original album only), the "Thirty Years After the Blizzard" DVD Documentary, over 70 minutes of additional rare live performances and interviews, a replica of Ozzy's iconic cross, and a 2 sided poster.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: The song "Suicide Solution" has met with its share of controversy, most notably the October 1984 suicide of John McCollum, a depressed teenager who shot himself in the head. The boy's parents alleged that their son had listened to the song immediately prior to killing himself, and they sued Osbourne along with CBS Records for "encouraging self-destructive behavior" in young persons who were "especially susceptible" to dangerous influences ("McCollum et al. v. CBS, Inc., et al."). In his defence, Osbourne stated in court that when the song was being written the words "Wine is fine but whiskey's quicker" came to him suddenly and were a reflection not on the merits of suicide but rather on the death of AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott, a friend of Osbourne's who had recently died of alcohol-related misadventure. Bob Daisley, who claims to have written the majority of the song's lyrics, has stated that he had Osbourne's own substance abuse issues in mind when he composed the song. The McCollums' complaint was dismissed on the grounds that the First Amendment protected Osbourne's right to free artistic expression.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: In 1986, Daisley and Kerslake sued Osbourne for unpaid royalties, eventually winning songwriting credits on "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman". Subsequently, a 2002 reissue was made of these albums which replaced Daisley and Kerslake's original bass and drum parts with new parts recorded by Osbourne's then-current drummer Mike Bordin and bassist Robert Trujillo. The 2002 reissue also included new backing vocals from singers Mark Lennon and John Shanks.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: Osbourne's wife and manager, Sharon, claimed at the time that it was Ozzy, not she, who was responsible for the decision to re-record the parts, stating "because of Daisley and Kerslake's abusive and unjust behaviour, Ozzy wanted to remove them from these recordings. We turned a negative into a positive by adding a fresh sound to the original albums." However, Osbourne contradicted this claim in his 2009 autobiography, stating that the decision to re-record the original bass and drum parts was Sharon's decision, and that he "didn't have anything to do with" it. He said his wife "just snapped" and had it done without his knowledge. He also stated that "a sticker was put on the covers telling everyone about it", although the sticker was not initially placed on the re-issue and was only placed on the covers at a later date due to fan outcry over the altered recordings.


title: Blizzard of Ozz

text: In 2003, Daisley and Kerslake's lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court in Los Angeles. This dismissal was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. With regard to the reissue, Ozzy stated to The Pulse of Radio, reiterating a conversation with Sharon, "You know what, whatever the circumstances were, I want the original thing back." The 30th Anniversary release of "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman" contains the original recordings, not the 2002 reissues.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The Federal Republic of Central America (), originally named the United Provinces of Central America (), and sometimes simply called Central America, in its first year of creation, was a sovereign state in Central America that consisted of the territories of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala of New Spain. It existed from July 1823 to February 1841 as a democratic republic.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The republic consisted of the present-day Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua as well as the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. In the 1830s, a sixth state was added—Los Altos, with its capital in Quetzaltenango—occupying parts of what are now the western highlands of Guatemala and Chiapas.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: Shortly after Central America declared independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, some of its countries were annexed by the First Mexican Empire in 1822 and then Central America formed the Federal Republic in 1823. From 1838 to 1840, the federation descended into civil war, with conservatives fighting against liberals and separatists fighting to secede. These factions were unable to overcome their ideological differences and the federation was dissolved after a series of bloody conflicts.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: From the 16th century through 1821, Central America, apart from Panama, formed the Captaincy General of Guatemala within the Spanish Empire. In 1821 a congress of Central American "Criollos" in Guatemala City composed the Act of Independence of Central America to declare the region's independence from Spain, effective on September 15 of that year. The process was bloodless with no resistance from the Spanish authorities as the Governor General Brigadier Gabino Gaínza, along with all the royal governors of the five provinces, were retained in office as executive powers pending a full transition to local rule. That date is still marked as independence day by most Central American nations.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: Independence proved short-lived, as local law and order broke down. Driven by regional rivalries, many localities refused to accept the newly formed federal powers in Guatemala—San Salvador, Comayagua, León, and Cartago were in open revolt. On January 5, 1822, the Consultive Junta in Guatemala City voted for annexation. A few weeks later Brigadier Vicente Filísola, the envoy of Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of the First Mexican Empire, arrived in Guatemala as the new ruler.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The annexation was controversial, with some seeing the Mexican constitution with its abolition of slavery and establishment of free trade as an improvement over the "status quo". Central American liberals in San Salvador objected to annexation and refused to accept Filísola's authority as captain general. The Mexican army was ordered by Emperor Agustín I to quell dissent.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: In the case of Costa Rica, the country decided not to join the Mexican Empire as part of the resolutions upon conclusion of the Ochomogo War (April 5, 1823), where imperialists lost against Republicans in the first civil war of Costa Rica.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: After Iturbide abdicated (March 19, 1823), Mexico became a republic (formally proclaimed on November 1, 1823) and offered the previously annexed Central American provinces the right to determine their own destiny. Filísola turned over his power to the hastily formed National Constituent Assembly, which comprised representatives from each of the five provinces. On July 1, 1823, the Congress of Central America declared absolute independence from Spain, Mexico, and any other foreign nation, and established a republican system of government.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The liberal-dominated Assembly elected Manuel José Arce as president but he soon turned against his own faction and dissolved the Assembly. San Salvador rose in revolt against federal authority. Honduras and Nicaragua joined the rebellion and Arce was deposed in 1829. The victors led by the Honduran Francisco Morazán took power and Morazán was proclaimed president in 1830. To appease liberal supporters, the capital was relocated from Guatemala City to San Salvador in 1831 but as Morazán's hold on power was waning the opposition regained control in the provinces.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The Assembly in 1838 adjourned with the declaration that the provinces were free to rule themselves as the Federal Republic dissolved. In 1839 Morazán was exiled as rebels from Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua entered San Salvador, evicting the governing institutions that held the region together.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: In practice, the Federation faced insurmountable problems, and the union slid into civil war between 1838 and 1840. Its disintegration began when Nicaragua separated from the federation on November 5, 1838, followed by Honduras and Costa Rica (other sources give Nicaragua's secession date as April 30). Because of the chaotic nature of this period an exact date of disestablishment does not exist, but on May 31, 1838, the Congress met to declare that the provinces were free to create their own independent republics. In reality, this merely legally acknowledged the process of disintegration that had already begun. The union effectively ended in 1840, by which time four of its five states had declared independence. The official end came only when El Salvador declared itself an independent republic in February 1841.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: The flag shows a white band between two blue stripes, representing the land between two oceans. The coat of arms shows five mountains (one for each state) between two oceans, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, the emblem of the French Revolution. The flag was introduced to the area by Commodore Louis-Michel Aury and inspired by the Argentine flag. The nation also adopted the term "united provinces", used in Argentina's original name, ("United Provinces of the River Plate").


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: Today, all five successor nations' flags retain the old federal motif of two outer blue bands bounding an inner white stripe. (Costa Rica modified its flag significantly in 1848, darkening the blue and adding a double-wide inner red band.) The short-lived sixth state of Los Altos was reannexed by Guatemala.


title: Federal Republic of Central America

text: Despite the failure of a lasting political union, the sense of shared history and the hope for eventual reunification persist in the nations formerly in the union. Various attempts were made to reunite Central America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but none succeeded for any length of time:


title: Odds ratio

text: An odds ratio (OR) is a statistic that quantifies the strength of the association between two events, A and B. The odds ratio is defined as the ratio of the odds of A in the presence of B and the odds of A in the absence of B, or equivalently (due to symmetry), the ratio of the odds of B in the presence of A and the odds of B in the absence of A. Two events are independent if and only if the OR equals 1, i.e., the odds of one event are the same in either the presence or absence of the other event. If the OR is greater than 1, then A and B are associated (correlated) in the sense that, compared to the absence of B, the presence of B raises the odds of A, and symmetrically the presence of A raises the odds of B. Conversely, if the OR is less than 1, then A and B are negatively correlated, and the presence of one event reduces the odds of the other event.


title: Odds ratio

text: Note that the odds ratio is symmetric in the two events, and there is no causal direction implied (correlation does not imply causation): an OR greater than 1 does not establish that B causes A, or that A causes B.


title: Odds ratio

text: Two similar statistics that are often used to quantify associations are the relative risk (RR) and the absolute risk reduction (ARR). Often, the parameter of greatest interest is actually the RR, which is the ratio of the probabilities analogous to the odds used in the OR. However, available data frequently do not allow for the computation of the RR or the ARR but do allow for the computation of the OR, as in case-control studies, as explained below. On the other hand, if one of the properties (A or B) is sufficiently rare (in epidemiology this is called the rare disease assumption), then the OR is approximately equal to the corresponding RR.


title: Odds ratio

text: Suppose a radiation leak in a village of 1,000 people increased the incidence of a rare disease. The total number of people exposed to the radiation was formula_1 out of which formula_2 developed the disease and formula_3 stayed healthy. The total number of people not exposed was formula_4 out of which formula_5 developed the disease and formula_6 stayed healthy. We can organize this in a table:


title: Odds ratio

text: The "risk" of developing the disease given exposure is formula_8 and of developing the disease given non-exposure is formula_9. One obvious way to compare the risks is to use the ratio of the two, the "relative risk" (another way is to look at the absolute difference, formula_10


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds ratio is different. The "odds" of getting the disease if exposed is formula_12 and the odds if "not" exposed is formula_13 The "odds ratio" is the ratio of the two,


title: Odds ratio

text: As illustrated by this example, in a rare-disease case like this, the relative risk and the odds ratio are almost the same. By definition, rare disease implies that formula_15 and formula_16. Thus, the denominators in the relative risk and odds ratio are almost the same (formula_17 and formula_18.


title: Odds ratio

text: Relative risk is easier to understand than the odds ratio, but one reason to use odds ratio is that usually, data on the entire population is not available and random sampling must be used. In the example above, if it were very costly to interview villagers and find out if they were exposed to the radiation, then the prevalence of radiation exposure would not be known, and neither would the values of formula_19 or formula_20. One could take a random sample of fifty villagers, but quite possibly such a random sample would not include anybody with the disease, since only 2.6% of the population are diseased. Instead, one might use a case-control study in which all 26 diseased villagers are interviewed as well as a random sample of 26 who do not have the disease. The results might turn out as follows ("might", because this is a random sample):


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds in this sample of getting the disease given that someone is exposed is 20/10 and the odds given that someone is not exposed is 6/16. The odds ratio is thus formula_22. The relative risk, however, cannot be calculated, because it is the ratio of the risks of getting the disease and we would need formula_23 and formula_20 to figure those out. Because the study selected for people with the disease, half the people in the sample have the disease and it is known that that is more than the population-wide prevalence.


title: Odds ratio

text: It is standard in the medical literature to calculate the odds ratio and then use the rare-disease assumption (which is usually reasonable) to claim that the relative risk is approximately equal to it. This not only allows for the use of case-control studies, but makes controlling for confounding variables such as weight or age using regression analysis easier and has the desirable properties discussed in other sections of this article of invariance and insensitivity to the type of sampling.


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds ratio is the ratio of the odds of an event occurring in one group to the odds of it occurring in another group. The term is also used to refer to sample-based estimates of this ratio. These groups might be men and women, an experimental group and a control group, or any other dichotomous classification. If the probabilities of the event in each of the groups are "p" (first group) and "p" (second group), then the odds ratio is:


title: Odds ratio

text: where "q" = 1 − "p". An odds ratio of 1 indicates that the condition or event under study is equally likely to occur in both groups. An odds ratio greater than 1 indicates that the condition or event is more likely to occur in the first group. And an odds ratio less than 1 indicates that the condition or event is less likely to occur in the first group. The odds ratio must be nonnegative if it is defined. It is undefined if "p""q" equals zero, i.e., if "p" equals zero or "q" equals zero.


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds ratio can also be defined in terms of the joint probability distribution of two binary random variables. The joint distribution of binary random variables and can be written


title: Odds ratio

text: where , , and are non-negative "cell probabilities" that sum to one. The odds for within the two subpopulations defined by = 1 and = 0 are defined in terms of the conditional probabilities given , "i.e.", :


title: Odds ratio

text: The simple expression on the right, above, is easy to remember as the product of the probabilities of the "concordant cells" divided by the product of the probabilities of the "discordant cells" . However note that in some applications the labeling of categories as zero and one is arbitrary, so there is nothing special about concordant versus discordant values in these applications.


title: Odds ratio

text: Other measures of effect size for binary data such as the relative risk do not have this symmetry property.


title: Odds ratio

text: If "X" and "Y" are independent, their joint probabilities can be expressed in terms of their marginal probabilities and , as follows


title: Odds ratio

text: In this case, the odds ratio equals one, and conversely the odds ratio can only equal one if the joint probabilities can be factored in this way. Thus the odds ratio equals one if and only if "X" and "Y" are independent.


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds ratio is a function of the cell probabilities, and conversely, the cell probabilities can be recovered given knowledge of the odds ratio and the marginal probabilities and . If the odds ratio "R" differs from 1, then


title: Odds ratio

text: Once we have , the other three cell probabilities can easily be recovered from the marginal probabilities.


title: Odds ratio

text: Suppose that in a sample of 100 men, 90 drank wine in the previous week (so 10 did not), while in a sample of 80 women only 20 drank wine in the same period (so 60 did not). This forms the contingency table:


title: Odds ratio

text: Alternatively, the odds of a man drinking wine are 90 to 10, or 9:1, while the odds of a woman drinking wine are only 20 to 60, or 1:3 = 0.33. The odds ratio is thus 9/0.33, or 27, showing that men are much more likely to drink wine than women. The detailed calculation is:


title: Odds ratio

text: This example also shows how odds ratios are sometimes sensitive in stating relative positions: in this sample men are (90/100)/(20/80) = 3.6 times as likely to have drunk wine than women, but have 27 times the odds. The logarithm of the odds ratio, the difference of the logits of the probabilities, tempers this effect, and also makes the measure symmetric with respect to the ordering of groups. For example, using natural logarithms, an odds ratio of 27/1 maps to 3.296, and an odds ratio of 1/27 maps to −3.296.


title: Odds ratio

text: One approach to inference uses large sample approximations to the sampling distribution of the log odds ratio (the natural logarithm of the odds ratio). If we use the joint probability notation defined above, the population log odds ratio is


title: Odds ratio

text: This is an asymptotic approximation, and will not give a meaningful result if any of the cell counts are very small. If "L" is the sample log odds ratio, an approximate 95% confidence interval for the population log odds ratio is . This can be mapped to to obtain a 95% confidence interval for the odds ratio. If we wish to test the hypothesis that the population odds ratio equals one, the two-sided p-value is , where "P" denotes a probability, and "Z" denotes a standard normal random variable.


title: Odds ratio

text: An alternative approach to inference for odds ratios looks at the distribution of the data conditionally on the marginal frequencies of "X" and "Y". An advantage of this approach is that the sampling distribution of the odds ratio can be expressed exactly.


title: Odds ratio

text: Logistic regression is one way to generalize the odds ratio beyond two binary variables. Suppose we have a binary response variable "Y" and a binary predictor variable "X", and in addition we have other predictor variables "Z", ..., "Z" that may or may not be binary. If we use multiple logistic regression to regress "Y" on "X", "Z", ..., "Z", then the estimated coefficient formula_43 for "X" is related to a conditional odds ratio. Specifically, at the population level


title: Odds ratio

text: so formula_45 is an estimate of this conditional odds ratio. The interpretation of formula_45 is as an estimate of the odds ratio between "Y" and "X" when the values of "Z", ..., "Z" are held fixed.


title: Odds ratio

text: If the data form a "population sample", then the cell probabilities formula_47 are interpreted as the frequencies of each of the four groups in the population as defined by their "X" and "Y" values. In many settings it is impractical to obtain a population sample, so a selected sample is used. For example, we may choose to sample units with with a given probability "f", regardless of their frequency in the population (which would necessitate sampling units with with probability ). In this situation, our data would follow the following joint probabilities:


title: Odds ratio

text: The "odds ratio" for this distribution does not depend on the value of "f". This shows that the odds ratio (and consequently the log odds ratio) is invariant to non-random sampling based on one of the variables being studied. Note however that the standard error of the log odds ratio does depend on the value of "f".


title: Odds ratio

text: In both these settings, the odds ratio can be calculated from the selected sample, without biasing the results relative to what would have been obtained for a population sample.


title: Odds ratio

text: Due to the widespread use of logistic regression, the odds ratio is widely used in many fields of medical and social science research. The odds ratio is commonly used in survey research, in epidemiology, and to express the results of some clinical trials, such as in case-control studies. It is often abbreviated "OR" in reports. When data from multiple surveys is combined, it will often be expressed as "pooled OR".


title: Odds ratio

text: As explained in the "Motivating Example" section, the relative risk is usually better than the odds ratio for understanding the relation between risk and some variable such as radiation or a new drug. That section also explains that if the rare disease assumption holds, the odds ratio is a good approximation to relative risk and that it has some advantages over relative risk. When the rare disease assumption does not hold, the odds ratio can overestimate the relative risk.


title: Odds ratio

text: If the absolute risk in the unexposed group is available, conversion between the two is calculated by:


title: Odds ratio

text: If the rare disease assumption does not apply, the odds ratio may be very different from the relative risk and can be misleading.


title: Odds ratio

text: Consider the death rate of men and women passengers when the Titanic sank. Of 462 women, 154 died and 308 survived. Of 851 men, 709 died and 142 survived. Clearly a man on the Titanic was more likely to die than a woman, but how much more likely? Since over half the passengers died, the rare disease assumption is strongly violated.


title: Odds ratio

text: To compute the odds ratio, note that for women the odds of dying were 1 to 2 (154/308). For men, the odds were 5 to 1 (709/142). The odds ratio is 9.99 (4.99/.5). Men had ten times the odds of dying as women.


title: Odds ratio

text: For women, the probability of death was 33% (154/462). For men the probability was 83% (709/851). The relative risk of death is 2.5 (.83/.33). A man had 2.5 times a woman's probability of dying.


title: Odds ratio

text: Which number correctly represents how much more dangerous it was to be a man on the Titanic? Relative risk has the advantage of being easier to understand and of better representing how people think.


title: Odds ratio

text: Odds ratios have often been confused with relative risk in medical literature. For non-statisticians, the odds ratio is a difficult concept to comprehend, and it gives a more impressive figure for the effect. However, most authors consider that the relative risk is readily understood. In one study, members of a national disease foundation were actually 3.5 times more likely than nonmembers to have heard of a common treatment for that disease – but the odds ratio was 24 and the paper stated that members were ‘more than 20-fold more likely to have heard of’ the treatment. A study of papers published in two journals reported that 26% of the articles that used an odds ratio interpreted it as a risk ratio.


title: Odds ratio

text: This may reflect the simple process of uncomprehending authors choosing the most impressive-looking and publishable figure. But its use may in some cases be deliberately deceptive. It has been suggested that the odds ratio should only be presented as a measure of effect size when the risk ratio cannot be estimated directly.


title: Odds ratio

text: The odds ratio has another unique property of being directly mathematically invertible whether analyzing the OR as either disease survival or disease onset incidence – where the OR for survival is direct reciprocal of 1/OR for risk. This is known as the 'invariance of the odds ratio'. In contrast, the relative risk does not possess this mathematical invertible property when studying disease survival vs. onset incidence. This phenomenon of OR invertibility vs. RR non-invertibility is best illustrated with an example:


title: Odds ratio

text: Suppose in a clinical trial, one has an adverse event risk of 4/100 in drug group, and 2/100 in placebo... yielding a RR=2 and OR=2.04166 for drug-vs-placebo adverse risk. However, if analysis was inverted and adverse events were instead analyzed as event-free survival, then the drug group would have a rate of 96/100, and placebo group would have a rate of 98/100—yielding a drug-vs-placebo a RR=0.9796 for survival, but an OR=0.48979. As one can see, a RR of 0.9796 is clearly not the reciprocal of a RR of 2. In contrast, an OR of 0.48979 is indeed the direct reciprocal of an OR of 2.04166.


title: Odds ratio

text: This is again what is called the 'invariance of the odds ratio', and why a RR for survival is not the same as a RR for risk, while the OR has this symmetrical property when analyzing either survival or adverse risk. The danger to clinical interpretation for the OR comes when the adverse event rate is not rare, thereby exaggerating differences when the OR rare-disease assumption is not met. On the other hand, when the disease is rare, using a RR for survival (e.g. the RR=0.9796 from above example) can clinically hide and conceal an important doubling of adverse risk associated with a drug or exposure.


title: Odds ratio

text: The sample odds ratio "n""n" / "n""n" is easy to calculate, and for moderate and large samples performs well as an estimator of the population odds ratio. When one or more of the cells in the contingency table can have a small value, the sample odds ratio can be biased and exhibit high variance.


title: Odds ratio

text: A number of alternative estimators of the odds ratio have been proposed to address limitations of the sample odds ratio. One alternative estimator is the conditional maximum likelihood estimator, which conditions on the row and column margins when forming the likelihood to maximize (as in Fisher's exact test). Another alternative estimator is the Mantel–Haenszel estimator.


title: Odds ratio

text: The following four contingency tables contain observed cell counts, along with the corresponding sample odds ratio ("OR") and sample log odds ratio ("LOR"):


title: Odds ratio

text: The following joint probability distributions contain the population cell probabilities, along with the corresponding population odds ratio ("OR") and population log odds ratio ("LOR"):


title: Odds ratio

text: There are various other that measure association between two events, such as Yule's "Y", Yule's "Q"; these two are normalized so they are 0 for independent events, 1 for perfectly correlated, −1 for perfectly negatively correlated. studied these and argued that these measures of association must be functions of the odds ratio, which he referred to as the cross-ratio.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: The Wicker Man is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Neil LaBute and starring Nicolas Cage. It is a remake and reimagining of the 1973 British film "The Wicker Man", but also draws from its source material, David Pinner's 1967 novel "Ritual". The film concerns police officer Edward Malus, whose ex-fiancée Willow Woodward informs him that her daughter Rowan has disappeared and asks for his help in her search. When he arrives at the island in the Pacific Northwest where Rowan was last seen, he suspects something sinister about the neo-pagans who live there. The film received negative reviews on Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus calls it unintentionally funny. The film grossed $39 million on a $40 million production budget.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Policeman Edward Malus gets news from his ex-fiancée, Willow Woodward, that her daughter Rowan is missing. He travels to an island off the coast of Washington state where a group of neo-pagans live. The island is led by Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), an elderly woman who represents the goddess they worship. Sister Summersisle explains to Edward that her ancestors had left England to avoid persecution only to settle near Salem and find renewed persecution in the Salem witch trials before arriving on the island. Sister Summersisle explains that their population is predominantly female, as they choose the strongest stock—evading Edward's concern about the birth of unwanted males. The island's economy relies on the production of local honey, which Edward learns has declined recently.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Edward asks the villagers about Rowan, but they give him evasive answers. He later sees two men carrying a large bag that appears to be dripping blood and finds a fresh, unmarked grave in the churchyard. The grave turns out to contain only a burned doll, but Edward finds Rowan's sweater in the churchyard. At the village school, teacher Sister Rose tries to prevent Edward from seeing the class register. When he sees that Rowan's name has been crossed out, he becomes outraged at the teacher's and Rowan's classmates' lies. Rose insists that Edward talk with her outside. After a short discussion of the island people's view of death, she explains that capital punishment is used to enforce their laws. Edward asks how Rowan died and Sister Rose tells him, "She'll burn to death." When Edward catches the tense she used, Sister Rose quickly corrects herself: "She burned to death." When Edward questions Willow about the grave, she reveals that Rowan is their daughter together. On the day of the fertility rite, Edward frantically searches the village for Rowan. Disguised in a bear suit, he joins the parade led by Sister Summersisle, which ends at the site of the festival.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Rowan is tied to a large tree, about to be burned. Edward rescues her and they run away through the woods, but Rowan leads him back to Sister Summersisle. Sister Summersisle thanks Rowan for her help, and Edward realizes that the search for Rowan was a setup the whole time. It is revealed that Willow, known on the island as Sister Willow, is the daughter of Sister Summersisle and that Willow sealed Edward's fate many years ago, when Sister Willow chose him as a human sacrifice to restore the island's honey production (after Edward deliberately destroyed the beehives in their crop earlier). The villagers tackle and overpower Edward, viciously breaking his legs to prevent him from escaping and torturing him with live bees (shown in the alternate version). They carry him to an enormous wicker man where he's hoisted high above the ground and shut inside. Rowan sets fire to the wicker man, and Edward is sacrificed in a giant blaze amid his screams.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Six months later, Sister Willow and Honey go to a bar and meet two policemen, one of them having graduated from the academy. Willow and Honey agree to go home with them.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Universal Pictures had been planning a remake of the 1973 film of the same name since the 1990s. The British film had been in the licensing library of Canal+, which was optioned by producer JoAnne Sellar to Universal. In March 2002 it was revealed that Neil LaBute was writing and directing "The Wicker Man" for Universal and Nicolas Cage's production company Saturn Films. Around the same time, the original film's director Robin Hardy and star Christopher Lee were preparing a semi-remake of their 1973 film, titled "The Riding of the Laddie", with Vanessa Redgrave and Lee's "Lord of the Rings" co-star Sean Astin attached. Hardy stated Lee would not play the villain as he did in the original "Wicker Man", but instead a door-to-door born again Christian preacher who comes to Scotland along with his wife (Redgrave) as they are introduced to the neo-pagan cult. Hardy hoped for filming to begin in Glasgow, Scotland in 2003, but "The Riding of the Laddie" would not materialize until years later, when it had undergone many changes to become the film "The Wicker Tree". Universal's remake with LaBute moved forward, who changed the Scots setting to contemporary America. The remake rights eventually moved from Universal to Millennium Films. Filming began in Vancouver, Canada in July 2005. Millennium sold distribution rights to Alcon Entertainment for distribution through their output deal with Warner Bros. Pictures.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 15% based on 108 reviews and an average rating of 3.70/10. The website's critics consensus says, "Puzzlingly misguided, Neil LaBute's update [of] "The Wicker Man" struggles against unintentional comedy and fails." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polls by CinemaScore gave the film a average rating of "F" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: On "At the Movies", the film got two thumbs down from Richard Roeper and Aisha Tyler, although they both said the film was "entertainingly bad". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that the original film is overrated, but the remake's climax lacks its "tingle of madness".


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: The original film's director, Robin Hardy, had expressed skepticism over the Hollywood remake and had his lawyers make Warner Bros. remove his name from the remake's promotional material. According to Hardy, he was given writing credit for the screenplay when he had not received any for the original. Christopher Lee, who played Lord Summerisle in the original film, commented: "I don't believe in remakes. You can make a follow up to a film, but to remake a movie with such history and success just doesn't make sense to me."


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: Cage himself acknowledged that the film was "absurd". He remarked in 2010, "There is a mischievous mind at work on "The Wicker Man", you know? You know what I mean? And I finally kind of said, 'I might have known that the movie was meant to be absurd.' But saying that now after the fact is OK, but to say it before the fact is not, because you have to let the movie have its own life." In February 2012, Cage gave a live webchat with fans to promote "". When asked what roles from his career he would most like to revisit, Cage responded, "I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made "Ringu", and I would like to take "The Wicker Man" to Japan, except this time he's a ghost.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: The scenes where Nicolas Cage's character gets tortured by bees and where he discovers the burned doll have become internet memes.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: "The Wicker Man" opened on September 1, 2006, in 2,784 venues and earned $9.6 million in its opening weekend, ranking third in the US box office. The film closed on November 16, 2006, after eleven weeks of release, grossing $23.6 million in the US and $15.1 million overseas for a worldwide total of $38.8 million.


title: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

text: The film was released on DVD on December 19, 2006, with an unrated alternate ending included. The film continues in the same way as the theatrical version until the ending. Before Malus is taken to the wicker man to be burned alive, he is overpowered and tackled by villagers and sedated with a hive of bees, whose venom he is allergic to. The credits then begin after the wicker man's burning head falls off, omitting the "6 months later" scene. A Blu-ray of the film was released on January 30, 2007.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Tallulah Jessica Elina Hynes ("née" Stevenson; born 30 October 1972) is an English actress, director and writer. Known professionally as Jessica Stevenson until 2007, she was one of the creators, writers and stars of the British sitcom "Spaced" and has worked as a writer and actress for over two decades.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Hynes has been nominated for a Tony, a Laurence Olivier Award, five BAFTAs (winning two) and three British Comedy Awards (winning two).


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Hynes was born in Lewisham, south London, and grew up in Brighton, where she attended St Luke's Infant and Junior Schools and Dorothy Stringer High School.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: As a teenager Hynes was a member of the National Youth Theatre company, and made her stage début with the company in Lionel Bart's "Blitz" in 1990. In 1992–1993 she played a season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds. In the same year, she appeared in Peter Greenaway's 1993 film "The Baby of Mâcon", playing the first midwife. In 1994, Hynes appeared as an uncredited extra in the first episode of "The Day Today" in the Attitudes Night segment, a parody of UK's changing attitudes represented through TV programmes, Hynes appears in the 'Kiddystare' segment, a parody of "Minipops".


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Known professionally as Jessica Stevenson until 2007, early in her career she teamed up with future "Spaced" co-star Katy Carmichael in a comedy double-act called "the Liz Hurleys", appeared in two productions at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, and played parts on television in the nursing drama "Staying Alive" (1996–1997) and short-lived sketch shows "Six Pairs of Pants", "(Un)natural Acts" and "Asylum"—where the "Spaced" team (Stevenson, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright) first assembled. She guest starred in the first episode of "Midsomer Murders" in 1997. From 1998 to 2000 Hynes played the supporting role of Cheryl in the hit sitcom "The Royle Family" and reprised the role for special episodes in 2006, 2009 and 2010. In 1999, she co-wrote and starred in "Spaced".


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Her London theatre début was in April 2002, playing the tough ex-prisoner "Bolla" in Jez Butterworth's "The Night Heron" at the Royal Court. In 2004 she played a minor part as Yvonne in horror comedy "Shaun of the Dead", again working with Pegg and Wright. In the same year, she was also cast as Magda, friend of the titular character, in the Hollywood sequel "" also called "Bridget Jones' Diary: The Edge of Reason". In 2005, Hynes took the lead role in the BBC One sitcom "According to Bex" (which she would later come to regret), and had a starring role in British comedy "Confetti" alongside Jimmy Carr, Martin Freeman and Mark Heap.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: In early 2007, Hynes took a lead role in the film "Magicians", starring alongside comic duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb. She provided the voice of Mafalda Hopkirk in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Hynes played Joan Redfern in the 2007 "Doctor Who" episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". She then appeared in part two of the story "The End of Time", playing a character named Verity Newman, who is Joan's great granddaughter. Hynes appeared in Big Finish's Eighth Doctor audio adventure "Invaders from Mars", with her "Spaced" colleague Simon Pegg. She starred in "Son of Rambow" (credited as Jessica Stevenson), playing Mary Proudfoot opposite the star of the film, Bill Milner. In November 2007, BBC One released "Learners", a comedy drama television movie which Hynes starred in and wrote.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Hynes co-wrote the pilot "Phoo Action", based on the cartoons of Jamie Hewlett, which was transmitted on BBC Three in early 2008. In the same year, Hynes appeared in the film "Faintheart" and in a revival of Alan Ayckbourn's "The Norman Conquests" at the Old Vic. In 2009 she made her Broadway début in the play's transfer and was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance. Hynes stated that she planned to pursue a solo career as a stand-up comedian and was working on a children's book, "Ants in the Marmalade". Later that year, she returned to the Royal Court in "The Priory", a new play by Michael Wynne.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: Hynes appeared as a "right-on" PR person, Siobhan Sharpe, in the London Olympics centred satire "Twenty Twelve", of which the first series screened on BBC Four in 2011, moving to BBC Two in spring 2012. A further series was screened in July 2012. She reprised the role in the 2014 series "W1A" for which she won a BAFTA. In October 2012, she released a duet with singer Anthony Strong of Slim Gaillard's "Laughing in Rhythm". The following month, Hynes appeared in the film "", in which she plays competition host Angel Matthews. In December 2012 she appeared with co-star Hugh Bonneville in "World's Most Dangerous Roads", travelling through Georgia.


title: Jessica Hynes

text: In 2017 Hynes played the role of a medieval knight in the revival series of "The Crystal Maze" and Emmeline Pankhurst in the UK take of “Drunk History”. In the same year, Hynes directed her first feature film, "The Fight", produced by Noel Clarke and Jason Maza. In 2018, Hynes played the role of a mother in the BBC Four programme "There She Goes". She stars alongside David Tennant, raising a daughter with a severe learning disability. It is based on the real life of writer Shaun Pye, whose daughter was born with a chromosomal disorder. Also in 2018, she played the character of ‘Marv’ in the online series "Jack and Dean of All Trades" which ran for two seasons on Fullscreen and later the Jack and Dean YouTube channel following the closure of Fullscreen's video on-demand service. The following year in 2019, she starred in the BBC and HBO production "Years and Years".


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, as well as independent groups. The Seminole people emerged in a process of ethnogenesis from various Native American groups who settled in Spanish Florida beginning in the early 1700s, most significantly northern Muscogee Creeks from what is now Georgia and Alabama.


title: Seminole

text: The word "Seminole" is derived from the Muscogee word "simanó-li". This may have been adapted from the Spanish word "cimarrón", meaning "runaway" or "wild one". Seminole culture is largely derived from that of the Creek; the most important ceremony is the Green Corn Dance; other notable traditions include use of the black drink and ritual tobacco. As the Seminole adapted to Florida environs, they developed local traditions, such as the construction of open-air, thatched-roof houses known as "chickees". Historically the Seminole spoke Mikasuki and Creek, both Muskogean languages.


title: Seminole

text: Florida had been the home of several indigenous cultures prior the arrival of European explorers in the early 1500s. However, the introduction of Eurasian infectious diseases, along with conflict with Spanish and English colonists, led to a drastic decline of Florida's original native population. By the early 1700s, much of "La Florida" was uninhabited apart from towns at St. Augustine and Pensacola. A stream of mainly Muscogee Creek began moving into the territory at that time to escape conflict with English colonists to the north and established towns mainly in the Florida panhandle.


title: Seminole

text: In part due to the arrival of Native Americans from other cultures, the Seminole became increasingly independent of other Creek groups and established their own identity through ethnogenesis. They developed a thriving trade network by the time of the British and second Spanish periods (roughly 1767–1821). The tribe expanded considerably during this time, and was further supplemented from the late 18th century by escaped slaves from Southern plantations who settled near and paid tribute to Seminole towns. The latter became known as Black Seminoles, although they kept many facets of their own Gullah culture.


title: Seminole

text: After the United States achieved independence, settlers in Georgia increased pressure on Seminole lands, and skirmishes near the border led to the First Seminole War (1816–19). The United States purchased Florida from Spain by the Adams-Onis Treaty (1819) and took possession in 1821. The Seminole were moved out of their rich farmland in northern Florida and confined to a large reservation in the interior of the Florida peninsula by the Treaty of Moultrie Creek (1823). Passage of the Indian Removal Act (1830) led to the Treaty of Payne's Landing (1832), which called for the relocation of all Seminole to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Some resisted, leading to the Second Seminole War, the bloodiest war against Native Americans in United States history. By 1842, however, most Seminoles and Black Seminoles, facing starvation, were removed to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Perhaps fewer than 200 Seminoles remained in Florida after the Third Seminole War (1855–1858), having taken refuge in the Everglades, from where they never surrendered to the US. They fostered a resurgence in traditional customs and a culture of staunch independence.


title: Seminole

text: During the American Civil War, some Seminole bands in Indian Territory allied with the Confederacy, while others were divided between supporting the North and South. After the war, the United States government declared void all prior treaties with the Seminoles of Indian Country because of the "disloyalty" of some in allying with the Confederacy. They required new peace treaties, establishing such conditions as reducing the power of tribal councils, providing freedom or tribal membership for Black Seminoles (at the same time that enslaved African Americans were being emancipated in the South), and forced concessions of tribal land for railroads and other development.


title: Seminole

text: The Confederacy had offered aid to the many fewer Seminoles of Florida, to dissuade them from siding with Union forces operating in the southern part of the state. Although supplies were often not delivered as promised due to wartime shortages, the Seminoles had no desire to enter another war and remained neutral.


title: Seminole

text: After Removal, the Seminoles in Oklahoma and Florida had little official contact until well into the 20th century. They developed along similar lines as the groups strove to maintain their culture while struggling economically. Most Seminoles in Indian Territory lived on tribal lands centered in what is now Seminole County of the state of Oklahoma. The implementation of the Dawes Rolls in the late 1890s parceled out tribal lands in preparation for the admission of Oklahoma as a state, reducing most Seminoles to subsistence farming on small individual homesteads. While some tribe members left the territory at the time to seek better opportunities, most stayed on. Today, residents of the reservation are enrolled in the federally recognized Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, while others belong to unorganized groups. The Florida Seminole re-established limited relations with the U.S. government in the early 1900s and were officially granted of reservation land in south Florida in 1930. Members gradually moved to the land, and they reorganized their government and received federal recognition as the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 1957. The more traditional people living near the Tamiami Trail received federal recognition as the Miccosukee Tribe in 1962.


title: Seminole

text: Old crafts and traditions were revived in both Florida and Oklahoma in the mid-20th century as the Seminole began seeking tourism dollars from Americans traveling along the new interstate highway system. In the 1970s, Seminole tribes began to run small bingo games on their reservations to raise revenue. They won court challenges to initiate Indian gaming on their sovereign land, which many U.S. tribes have adopted to generate revenues for welfare, education, and development.


title: Seminole

text: Given the numerous tourists to the state, the Seminole Tribe of Florida has been particularly successful with gambling establishments since the late 20th century. It purchased the Hard Rock Café in 2007 and has rebranded or opened several casinos and gaming resorts under that name. These include two large resorts on its Tampa and Hollywood reservations that together cost over a billion dollars to construct.


title: Seminole

text: The word "Seminole" is almost certainly derived from the Creek word "simanó-li", which has been variously translated as "frontiersman", "outcast", "runaway", "separatist", and similar words. The Creek word may be derived from the Spanish word "cimarrón", meaning "runaway" or "wild one", historically used for certain Native American groups in Florida. The people who constituted the nucleus of this Florida group either chose to leave their tribe or were banished. At one time, the terms "renegade" and "outcast" were used to describe this status, but the terms have fallen into disuse due to their negative connotations. The Seminole identify as "yat'siminoli" or "free people" because for centuries their ancestors had successfully resisted efforts to subdue or convert them to Roman Catholicism. They signed several treaties with the U.S. government, including the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and the Treaty of Paynes Landing.


title: Seminole

text: Native American refugees from northern wars, such as the Yuchi and Yamasee after the Yamasee War in South Carolina, migrated into Spanish Florida in the early 18th century. More arrived in the second half of the 18th century, as the Lower Creeks, part of the Muscogee people, began to migrate from several of their towns into Florida to evade the dominance of the Upper Creeks and pressure from encroaching colonists from the Province of Carolina. They spoke primarily Hitchiti, of which Mikasuki is a dialect, which is the primary traditional language spoken today by the Miccosukee in Florida. Also fleeing to Florida were African Americans who had escaped from slavery in the Southern colonies.


title: Seminole

text: The new arrivals moved into virtually uninhabited lands that had once been peopled by several cultures indigenous to Florida, such as the Apalachee, Timucua, Calusa, and others. The native population had been devastated by infectious diseases brought by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later colonization by European settlers. Later, raids by Carolina and Native American slavers destroyed the string of Spanish missions across northern Florida, and most of the survivors left for Cuba when the Spanish withdrew after ceding Florida to the British in 1763, following the French and Indian War.


title: Seminole

text: As they established themselves in northern and peninsular Florida throughout the 1700s, the various new arrivals intermingled with each other and with the few remaining indigenous people. In a process of ethnogenesis, they constructed a new culture which they called "Seminole", a derivative of the "Mvskoke"' (a Creek language) word "simano-li", an adaptation of the Spanish "cimarrón" which means "wild" (in their case, "wild men"), or "runaway" [men]. The Seminole were a heterogeneous tribe made up of mostly Lower Creeks from Georgia, who by the time of the Creek Wars (1812–1813) numbered about 4,000 in Florida. At that time, numerous refugees of the Red Sticks migrated south, adding about 2,000 people to the population. They were Creek-speaking Muscogee, and were the ancestors of most of the later Creek-speaking Seminole. In addition, a few hundred escaped African-American slaves (known as the Black Seminole) had settled near the Seminole towns and, to a lesser extent, Native Americans from other tribes, and some white Americans. The unified Seminole spoke two languages: Creek and Mikasuki (mutually intelligible with its dialect Hitchiti), two among the Muskogean languages family. Creek became the dominant language for political and social discourse, so Mikasuki speakers learned it if participating in high-level negotiations. (The Muskogean language group includes Choctaw and Chickasaw, associated with two other major Southeastern tribes.)


title: Seminole

text: During the colonial years, the Seminole were on relatively good terms with both the Spanish and the British. In 1784, after the American Revolutionary War, Britain came to a settlement with Spain and transferred East and West Florida to it. The Spanish Empire's decline enabled the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida. They were led by a dynasty of chiefs of the Alachua chiefdom, founded in eastern Florida in the 18th century by Cowkeeper. Beginning in 1825, Micanopy was the principal chief of the unified Seminole, until his death in 1849, after Removal to Indian Territory. This chiefly dynasty lasted past Removal, when the US forced the majority of Seminole to move from Florida to the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) after the Second Seminole War. Micanopy's sister's son, John Jumper, succeeded him in 1849 and, after his death in 1853, his brother Jim Jumper became principal chief. He was in power through the American Civil War, after which the US government began to interfere with tribal government, supporting its own candidate for chief.


title: Seminole

text: After raids by Anglo-American colonists on Seminole settlements in the mid-18th century, the Seminole retaliated by raiding the Southern Colonies (primarily Georgia), purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The Seminole also maintained a tradition of accepting escaped slaves from Southern plantations, infuriating planters in the American South by providing a route for their slaves to escape bondage.


title: Seminole

text: After the United States achieved independence, the U.S. Army and local militia groups made increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish Florida to recapture escaped slaves living among the Seminole. American general Andrew Jackson's 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole became known as the First Seminole War. Though Spain decried the incursions into its territory, the United States effectively controlled the Florida panhandle after the war.


title: Seminole

text: In 1819 the United States and Spain signed the Adams-Onís Treaty, which took effect in 1821. According to its terms, the United States acquired Florida and, in exchange, renounced all claims to Texas. The president appointed Andrew Jackson as military governor of Florida. As European-American colonization increased after the treaty, colonists pressured the Federal government to remove Natives from Florida. Slaveholders resented that tribes harbored runaway Black slaves, and more colonists wanted access to desirable lands held by Native Americans. Georgian slaveholders wanted the "maroons" and fugitive slaves living among the Seminoles, known today as Black Seminoles, returned to slavery.


title: Seminole

text: After acquisition by the U.S. of Florida in 1821, many American slaves and Black Seminoles frequently escaped from Cape Florida to the British colony of the Bahamas, settling mostly on Andros Island. Contemporary accounts noted a group of 120 migrating in 1821, and a much larger group of 300 enslaved African-Americans escaping in 1823. The latter were picked up by Bahamians in 27 sloops and also by travelers in canoes. They developed a village known as Red Bays on Andros.


title: Seminole

text: Federal construction and staffing of the Cape Florida Lighthouse in 1825 reduced the number of slave escapes from this site. the United States has worked with the Bahamas to designated both Cape Florida and Red Bays as sites on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Trail.


title: Seminole

text: After the independent United States acquired Florida from Spain in 1821, white settlers increased political and governmental pressure on the Seminole to move and give up their lands. "The Seminoles were victims of a system that often blatantly favored whites".


title: Seminole

text: Under colonists' pressure, the US government made the 1823 Treaty of Camp Moultrie with the Seminole, seizing 24 million acres in northern Florida. They offered the Seminole a much smaller reservation in the Everglades, of about . They and the Black Seminoles moved into central and southern Florida.


title: Seminole

text: In 1832, the United States government signed the Treaty of Payne's Landing with a few of the Seminole chiefs. They promised lands west of the Mississippi River if the chiefs agreed to leave Florida voluntarily with their people. The Seminoles who remained prepared for war. White colonists continued to press for their removal.


title: Seminole

text: In 1835, the U.S. Army arrived to enforce the treaty. The Seminole leader Osceola led the vastly outnumbered resistance during the Second Seminole War. Drawing on a population of about 4,000 Seminole and 800 allied Black Seminoles, he mustered at most 1,400 warriors (President Andrew Jackson estimated they had only 900). They countered combined U.S. Army and militia forces that ranged from 6,000 troops at the outset to 9,000 at the peak of deployment in 1837. To survive, the Seminole allies employed guerrilla tactics with devastating effect against U.S. forces, as they knew how to move within the Everglades and use this area for their protection. Osceola was arrested (in a breach of honor) when he came under a flag of truce to negotiations with the US in 1837. He died in jail less than a year later. He was decapitated, his body buried without his head.


title: Seminole

text: Other war chiefs, such as Halleck Tustenuggee and John Jumper, and the Black Seminoles Abraham and John Horse, continued the Seminole resistance against the army. After a full decade of fighting, the war ended in 1842. Scholars estimate the U.S. government spent about $40,000,000 on the war, at the time a huge sum. An estimated 3,000 Seminole and 800 Black Seminole were forcibly exiled to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, where they were settled on the Creek reservation. After later skirmishes in the Third Seminole War (1855 -1858), perhaps 200 survivors retreated deep into the Everglades to land that was not desired by settlers. They were finally left alone and they never surrendered.


title: Seminole

text: Several treaties seem to bear the mark of representatives of the Seminole tribe, including the Treaty of Moultrie Creek and the Treaty of Payne's Landing. The Florida Seminole say they are the only tribe in America never to have signed a peace treaty with the U.S. government.


title: Seminole

text: The remaining Seminole in Florida adapted to their wetlands environment, while keeping many traditional customs and building a culture of staunch independence. During the American Civil War, the Confederate government of Florida offered aid to keep the Seminole from fighting on the side of the Union. The Florida House of Representatives established a Committee on Indian Affairs in 1862 but, aside from appointing a representative to negotiate with the Seminole tribe, failed to follow its promises of aid. The lack of aid, along with the growing number of Federal troops and pro-unionists in the state, led the Seminole to remain officially neutral throughout the war. In July 1864, Secretary of War James A. Seddon received word that a man named A. McBride had raised a company of sixty-five Seminole who had volunteered to fight for the Confederacy. McBride claimed to have an understanding of Florida because of the time he had spent there fighting during the Seminole wars. While McBride never put such a company in the field, this letter shows how the Confederacy attempted to use Seminole warriors against the Union.


title: Seminole

text: The 1868 Florida Constitution, developed by the Reconstruction legislature, gave the Seminole one seat in the house and one seat in the senate of the state legislature. The Seminole never filled the positions. After white Democrats regained control over the legislature, they removed this provision from the post-Reconstruction constitution they ratified in 1885. In the early 20th century, the Florida Seminole re-established limited relations with the U.S. government. The Seminole maintained a thriving trade business with white merchants during this period, selling alligator hides, bird plumes, and other items sourced from the Everglades. Then, in 1906, Governor N.B. Broward began an effort to drain the Everglades in attempt to convert the wetlands into farmland. The plan to drain the Everglades, new federal and state laws ending the plume trade, and the start of World War I (which put a halt to international fashion trade), all contributed to a major decline in the demand for Seminole goods.


title: Seminole

text: In 1930 they received of reservation lands. Few Seminole moved to these reservations until the 1940s. They reorganized their government and received federal recognition in 1957 as the Seminole Tribe of Florida. During this process, the more traditional people near the Tamiami Trail defined themselves as independent. They received federal recognition as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in Florida in 1962.


title: Seminole

text: In the 1950s, the Oklahoma and Florida Seminole tribes filed land claim suits, claiming they had not received adequate compensation for their lands. Their suits were combined in the government's settlement of 1976. The Seminole tribes and Traditionals took until 1990 to negotiate an agreement as to division of the settlement, a judgment trust against which members can draw for education and other benefits. The Florida Seminole founded a high-stakes bingo game on their reservation in the late 1970s, winning court challenges to initiate Indian Gaming, which many tribes have adopted to generate revenues for welfare, education and development.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole were organized around "itálwa", the basis of their social, political and ritual systems, and roughly equivalent to towns or bands in English. They had a matrilineal kinship system, in which children are considered born into their mother's family and clan, and property and hereditary roles pass through the material line. Males held the leading political and social positions. Each "itálwa" had civil, military and religious leaders; they were self-governing throughout the nineteenth century, but would cooperate for mutual defense. The "itálwa" continued to be the basis of Seminole society in Oklahoma into the 21st century.


title: Seminole

text: Historically, the various groups of Seminole spoke two mutually unintelligible Muskogean languages: Mikasuki (and its dialect, Hitchiti) and Muscogee. Mikasuki is now restricted to Florida, where it was the native language of 1,600 people as of 2000, primarily the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is working to revive the use of Creek among its people, as it had been the dominant language of politics and social discourse.


title: Seminole

text: Muscogee is spoken by some Oklahoma Seminole and about 200 older Florida Seminole (the youngest native speaker was born in 1960). Today English is the predominant language among both Oklahoma and Florida Seminole, particularly the younger generations. Most Mikasuki speakers are bilingual.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole use the spines of Cirsium horridulum (also called bristly thistle) to make blowgun darts.


title: Seminole

text: During the Seminole Wars, the Seminole people began to divide among themselves due to the conflict and differences in ideology. The Seminole population had also been growing significantly, though it was diminished by the wars. With the division of the Seminole population between Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and Florida, they still maintained some common traditions, such as powwow trails and ceremonies. But in general, the cultures grew apart in their markedly different circumstances, and they had little contact for a century.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, and the Seminole Tribe of Florida and Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, described below, are federally recognized, independent nations that operate in their own spheres.


title: Seminole

text: Seminole tribes generally follow Christianity, both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. They also observe their traditional Native religion, which is expressed through the stomp dance and the Green Corn Ceremony held at their ceremonial grounds. Indigenous peoples have practiced Green Corn rituals for centuries. Contemporary southeastern Native American tribes, such as the Seminole and Muscogee Creek, still practice these ceremonies. As converted Christian Seminoles established their own churches, they incorporated their traditions and beliefs into a syncretic indigenous-Western practice. For example, Seminole hymns sung in the indigenous (Muscogee) language are inclusive of key Muscogee language terms (for example, the Muscogee term ""mekko"" or chief conflates with "Jesus"). Also, hymns are frequently led by a song leader (a traditional indigenous song practice).


title: Seminole

text: In the 1950s, federal projects in Florida encouraged the tribe's reorganization. They created organizations within tribal governance to promote modernization. As Christian pastors began preaching on reservations, Green Corn Ceremony attendance decreased. This created tension between religiously traditional Seminole and those who began adopting Christianity. In the 1960s and 1970s, some tribal members on reservations, such as the Brighton Seminole Indian Reservation in Florida, viewed organized Christianity as a threat to their traditions.


title: Seminole

text: By the 1980s, Seminole communities were even more concerned about loss of language and tradition. Many tribal members began to revive the observance of traditional Green Corn Dance ceremonies, and some shifted away from Christian observance. By 2000 religious tension between Green Corn Dance attendees and Christians (particularly Baptists) decreased. Some Seminole families participate in both religions; these practitioners have developed a syncretic Christianity that has absorbed some tribal traditions.


title: Seminole

text: In 1946 the Department of Interior established the Indian Claims Commission, to consider compensation for tribes that claimed their lands were seized by the federal government during times of conflict. Tribes seeking settlements had to file claims by August 1961, and both the Oklahoma and Florida Seminoles did so. After combining their claims, the Commission awarded the Seminole a total of $16 million in April 1976. It had established that, at the time of the 1823 Treaty of Moultrie Creek, the Seminole exclusively occupied and used 24 million acres in Florida, which they ceded under the treaty. Assuming that most blacks in Florida were escaped slaves, the United States did not recognize the Black Seminoles as legally members of the tribe, nor as free in Florida under Spanish rule. Although the Black Seminoles also owned or controlled land that was seized in this cession, they were not acknowledged in the treaty.


title: Seminole

text: In 1976 the groups struggled on allocation of funds among the Oklahoma and Florida tribes. Based on early 20th-century population records, at which time most of the people were full-blood, the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma was to receive three-quarters of the judgment and the Florida peoples one-quarter. The Miccosukee and allied Traditionals filed suit against the settlement in 1976 to refuse the money; they did not want to give up their claim for return of lands in Florida.


title: Seminole

text: The federal government put the settlement in trust until the court cases could be decided. The Oklahoma and Florida tribes entered negotiations, which was their first sustained contact in the more than a century since removal. In 1990 the settlement was awarded: three-quarters to the Seminole Tribe of Oklahoma and one-quarter to the Seminole of Florida, including the Miccosukee. By that time the total settlement was worth $40 million. The tribes have set up judgment trusts, which fund programs to benefit their people, such as education and health.


title: Seminole

text: As a result of the Second Seminole War (1835–1842) about 3,800 Seminole and Black Seminoles were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (the modern state of Oklahoma). During the American Civil War, the members and leaders split over their loyalties, with John Chupco refusing to sign a treaty with the Confederacy. From 1861 to 1866, he led as chief of the Seminole who supported the Union and fought in the Indian Brigade.


title: Seminole

text: The split among the Seminole lasted until 1872. After the war, the United States government negotiated only with the loyal Seminole, requiring the tribe to make a new peace treaty to cover those who allied with the Confederacy, to emancipate the slaves, and to extend tribal citizenship to those freedmen who chose to stay in Seminole territory.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma now has about 16,000 enrolled members, who are divided into a total of fourteen bands; for the Seminole members, these are similar to tribal clans. The Seminole have a society based on a matrilineal kinship system of descent and inheritance: children are born into their mother's band and derive their status from her people. To the end of the nineteenth century, they spoke mostly Mikasuki and Creek.


title: Seminole

text: Two of the fourteen are "Freedmen Bands," composed of members descended from Black Seminoles, who were legally freed by the US and tribal nations after the Civil War. They have a tradition of extended patriarchal families in close communities. While the elite interacted with the Seminole, most of the Freedmen were involved most closely with other Freedmen. They maintained their own culture, religion and social relationships. At the turn of the 20th century, they still spoke mostly Afro-Seminole Creole, a language developed in Florida related to other African-based Creole languages.


title: Seminole

text: The Nation is ruled by an elected council, with two members from each of the fourteen bands, including the Freedmen's bands. The capital is at Wewoka, Oklahoma.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma has had tribal citizenship disputes related to the Seminole Freedmen, both in terms of their sharing in a judgment trust awarded in settlement of a land claim suit, and their membership in the Nation.


title: Seminole

text: The remaining few hundred Seminoles survived in the Florida swamplands, avoiding removal. They lived in the Everglades, to isolate themselves from European-Americans. Seminoles continued their distinctive life, such as "clan-based matrilocal residence in scattered thatched-roof chickee camps." Today, the Florida Seminole proudly note the fact that their ancestors were never conquered.


title: Seminole

text: In the 20th century before World War II, the Seminole in Florida divided into two groups; those who were more traditional and those willing to adapt to the reservations. Those who accepted reservation lands and made adaptations achieved federal recognition in 1957 as the Seminole Tribe of Florida.


title: Seminole

text: Many of those who had kept to traditional ways and spoke the Mikasuki language organized as the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, gaining state recognition in 1957 and federal recognition in 1962. (See also Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, below.) With federal recognition, they gained reservation lands and worked out a separate arrangement with the state for control of extensive wetlands. Other Seminoles not affiliated with either of the federally recognized groups are known as Traditional or Independent Seminoles, known formally as the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal People.


title: Seminole

text: At the time the tribes were recognized, in 1957 and 1962, respectively, they entered into agreements with the US government confirming their sovereignty over tribal lands.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole worked hard to adapt, but they were highly affected by the rapidly changing American environment. Natural disasters magnified changes from the governmental drainage project of the Everglades. Residential, agricultural and business development changed the "natural, social, political, and economic environment" of the Seminole. In the 1930s, the Seminole slowly began to move onto federally designated reservation lands within the region. The US government had purchased lands and put them in trust for Seminole use. Initially, few Seminoles had any interest in moving to the reservation land or in establishing more formal relations with the government. Some feared that if they moved onto reservations, they would be forced to move to Oklahoma. Others accepted the move in hopes of stability, jobs promised by the Indian New Deal, or as new converts to Christianity.


title: Seminole

text: Beginning in the 1940s, however, more Seminoles began to move to the reservations. A major catalyst for this was the conversion of many Seminole to Christianity, following missionary effort spearheaded by the Creek Baptist evangelist Stanley Smith. For the new converts, relocating to the reservations afforded them the opportunity to establish their own churches, where they adapted traditions to incorporate into their style of Christianity. Reservation Seminoles began forming tribal governments and forming ties with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1957 the nation reorganized and established formal relations with the US government as the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The Seminole Tribe of Florida is headquartered in Hollywood, Florida. They control several reservations: Big Cypress, Brighton Reservation, Fort Pierce Reservation, Hollywood Reservation, Immokalee Reservation, and Tampa Reservation.


title: Seminole

text: A traditional group who became known as the Trail Indians moved their camps closer to the Tamiami Trail connecting Tampa and Miami, where they could sell crafts to travelers. They felt disfranchised by the move of the Seminole to reservations, who they felt were adopting too many European-American ways. Their differences were exacerbated in 1950 when some reservation Seminoles filed a land claim suit against the federal government for seizure of lands in the 19th century, an action that the Trail Indians did not support.


title: Seminole

text: Following federal recognition of the Seminole Tribe of Florida in 1957, the Trail Indians decided to organize a separate government. They sought recognition as the Miccosukee Tribe, as they spoke the Mikasuki language. It was not intelligible to Creek speakers, but some members of each group were bilingual in the two languages, especially as the Creek-speaking Seminole were more numerous.


title: Seminole

text: The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida received federal recognition in 1962. The federal government assigned them their own reservation lands, collectively known as the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. The Miccosukee Tribe set up a reservation on the northern border of Everglades National Park, about west of Miami.


title: Seminole

text: In the United States 2000 Census, 12,431 people self-reported as Seminole American. An additional 15,000 people identified as Seminole in combination with some other tribal affiliation or race.


title: Seminole

text: The Seminole in Florida have been engaged in stock raising since the mid-1930s, when they received cattle from western Native Americans. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) hoped that the cattle raising would teach Seminoles to become citizens by adapting to agricultural settlements. The BIA also hoped that this program would lead to Seminole self-sufficiency. Cattle owners realized that by using their cattle as equity, they could engage in "new capital-intensive pursuits", such as housing.


title: Seminole

text: Since then, the two Florida tribes have developed economies based chiefly on sales of duty-free tobacco, heritage and resort tourism, and gaming. On December 7, 2006, the Seminole Tribe of Florida purchased the Hard Rock Cafe chain of restaurants. They had previously licensed it for several of their casinos.


title: Seminole

text: From beginnings in the 1930s during the Great Depression, the Seminole Tribe of Florida today owns "one of the largest cattle operations in Florida, and the 12th largest in the nation.


title: Seminole

text: In the early 20th century, Florida had a population boom after the Flagler railroad to Miami was completed. The state attracted a growing number of tourists from the North and Midwest, stimulating the development of many resort towns. In the following years, many Seminoles took jobs in the cultural tourism trade. By the 1920s, many Seminoles were involved in service jobs. In addition, they were able to market their culture by selling traditional craft products (made mostly by women) and by exhibitions of traditional skills, such as wrestling alligators (by men). Some of the crafts included woodcarving, basket weaving, beadworking, patchworking, and palmetto-doll making. These crafts are still practiced today.


title: Seminole

text: In the 21st century, as gaming has become so lucrative for the tribes, fewer Seminole rely on crafts for income. The Miccosukee Tribe earns revenue by owning and operating a casino, resort, a golf club, several museum attractions, and "Indian Village". At "Indian Village", Miccosukee demonstrate traditional, pre-contact lifestyles to educate people about their culture.


title: Seminole

text: "In 1979, the Seminoles opened the first casino on Indian land, ushering in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry operated by numerous tribes nationwide." This casino was the first tribally operated bingo hall in North America. Since its establishment, gaming on Native American sovereign land has been expanded under federal and state laws, and become a major source of revenue for tribal governments. Tribal gaming has provided secure employment, and the revenues have supported higher education, health insurance, services for the elderly, and personal income. In more recent years, income from the gaming industry has funded major economic projects, such as acquisition and development of sugarcane fields, citrus groves, cattle ranches, ecotourism, and commercial agriculture.


title: Seminole

text: There is also a Seminole County in Oklahoma, and a Seminole County in the southwest corner of Georgia (separated from Florida by Lake Seminole).


title: Appian Way

text: The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: Via Appia) is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius, of ("the Appian Way, the queen of the long roads").


title: Appian Way

text: The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC during the Samnite Wars.


title: Appian Way

text: The Appian Way was a Roman road used as a main route for military supplies for its conquest of southern Italy in 312 BC and for improvements in communication.


title: Appian Way

text: The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome (this was essential to the Romans). The few roads outside the early city were Etruscan and went mainly to Etruria. By the late Republic, the Romans had expanded over most of Italy and were masters of road construction. Their roads began at Rome, where the master , or list of destinations along the roads, was located, and extended to the borders of their domain – hence the expression, "All roads lead to Rome".


title: Appian Way

text: Romans had an affinity for the people of Campania, who, like themselves, traced their backgrounds to the Etruscans. The Samnite Wars were instigated by the Samnites when Rome attempted to ally itself with the city of Capua in Campania. The Italic speakers in Latium had long ago been subdued and incorporated into the Roman state. They were responsible for changing Rome from a primarily Etruscan to a primarily Italic state.


title: Appian Way

text: Dense populations of sovereign Samnites remained in the mountains north of Capua, which is just north of the Greek city of Neapolis. Around 343 BC, Rome and Capua attempted to form an alliance. The Samnites reacted with military force.


title: Appian Way

text: Between Capua and Rome lay the Pontine Marshes ("Pomptinae paludes"), a swamp infested with malaria. A tortuous coastal road wound between Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber and Neapolis. The Via Latina followed its ancient and scarcely more accessible path along the foothills of Monti Laziali and Monti Lepini, which are visible towering over the former marsh.


title: Appian Way

text: In the First Samnite War (343–341 BC) the Romans found they could not support or resupply troops in the field against the Samnites across the marsh. A revolt of the Latin League drained their resources further. They gave up the attempted alliance and settled with Samnium.


title: Appian Way

text: The Romans were only biding their time while they looked for a solution. The first answer was the colonia, a "cultivation" of settlers from Rome, who would maintain a permanent base of operations. The Second Samnite War (327–304 BC) erupted when Rome attempted to place a colony at Cales in 334 BC and again at Fregellae in 328 BC on the other side of the marshes. The Samnites, now a major power after defeating the Greeks of Tarentum, occupied Neapolis to try to ensure its loyalty. The Neapolitans appealed to Rome, which sent an army and expelled the Samnites from Neapolis.


title: Appian Way

text: In 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus became censor at Rome. He was of the gens Claudia, who were patricians descended from the Sabines taken into the early Roman state. He had been given the name of the founding ancestor of the gens, Appius Claudius (Attus Clausus in Sabine). He was a populist, i.e., an advocate of the common people. A man of inner perspicacity, in the years of success he was said to have lost his outer vision and thus acquired the name , "blind".


title: Appian Way

text: Without waiting to be told what to do by the Senate, Appius Claudius began bold public works to address the supply problem. An aqueduct (the Aqua Appia) secured the water supply of the city of Rome. By far the best known project was the road, which ran across the Pontine Marshes to the coast northwest of Naples, where it turned north to Capua. On it, any number of fresh troops could be sped to the theatre of operations, and supplies could be moved en masse to Roman bases without hindrance by either enemy or terrain. It is no surprise that, after his term as censor, Appius Claudius became consul twice, subsequently held other offices, and was a respected consultant to the state even during his later years.


title: Appian Way

text: The road achieved its purpose. The outcome of the Second Samnite War was at last favorable to Rome. In a series of blows the Romans reversed their fortunes, bringing Etruria to the table in 311 BC, the very year of their revolt, and Samnium in 304 BC. The road was the main factor that allowed them to concentrate their forces with sufficient rapidity and to keep them adequately supplied, whereafter they became a formidable opponent.


title: Appian Way

text: The road began as a leveled dirt road upon which small stones and mortar were laid. Gravel was laid upon this, which was finally topped with tight fitting, interlocking stones to provide a flat surface. The historian Procopius said that the stones fit together so securely and closely that they appeared to have grown together rather than to have been fitted together. The road was cambered in the middle (for water runoff) and had ditches on either side of the road which were protected by retaining walls.


title: Appian Way

text: The road began in the Forum Romanum, passed through the Servian Wall at the porta Capena, went through a cutting in the clivus Martis, and left the city. For this stretch of the road, the builders used the Via Latina. The building of the Aurelian Wall centuries later required the placing of another gate, the Porta Appia. Outside of Rome the new Via Appia went through well-to-do suburbs along the Via Norba, the ancient track to the Alban hills, where Norba was situated. The road at the time was a via glarea, a gravel road. The Romans built a high-quality road, with layers of cemented stone over a layer of small stones, cambered, drainage ditches on either side, low retaining walls on sunken portions, and dirt pathways for sidewalks. The Via Appia is believed to have been the first Roman road to feature the use of lime cement. The materials were volcanic rock. The surface was said to have been so smooth that you could not distinguish the joints. The Roman section still exists and is lined with monuments of all periods, although the cement has eroded out of the joints, leaving a very rough surface.


title: Appian Way

text: The road concedes nothing to the Alban hills, but goes straight through them over cuts and fills. The gradients are steep. Then it enters the former Pontine Marshes. A stone causeway of about led across stagnant and foul-smelling pools blocked from the sea by sand dunes. Appius Claudius planned to drain the marsh, taking up earlier attempts, but he failed. The causeway and its bridges subsequently needed constant repair. No one enjoyed crossing the marsh. In 162 BC, Marcus Cornelius Cathegus had a canal constructed along the road to relieve the traffic and provide an alternative when the road was being repaired. Romans preferred using the canal.


title: Appian Way

text: The Via Appia picked up the coastal road at Tarracina (Terracina). However, the Romans straightened it somewhat with cuttings, which form cliffs today. From there the road swerved north to Capua, where, for the time being, it ended. Caudine Forks was not far to the north. The itinerary was Aricia (Ariccia), Tres Tabernae, Forum Appii, Tarracina, Fundi (Fondi), Formiae (Formia), Minturnae (Minturno), Suessa, Casilinum and Capua, but some of these were colonies added after the Samnite Wars. The distance was . The original road had no milestones, as they were not yet in use. A few survive from later times, including a first milestone near the porta Appia.


title: Appian Way

text: The Third Samnite War (298–290 BC) is perhaps misnamed. It was an all-out attempt by all the neighbors of Rome: Italics, Etruscans and Gauls, to check the power of Rome. The Samnites were the leading people of the conspiracy. Rome dealt the northerners a crushing blow at the Battle of Sentinum in Umbria in 295. The Samnites fought on alone. Rome now placed 13 colonies in Campania and Samnium. It must have been during this time that they extended the Via Appia 35 miles beyond Capua past the Caudine forks to a place the Samnites called Maloenton, "passage of the flocks". The itinerary added Calatia, Caudium and Beneventum (not yet called that). Here also ended the Via Latina.