title: Latin Church

text: Concerning the nature of God, Thomas felt the best approach, commonly called the "via negativa", is to consider what God is not. This led him to propose five statements about the divine qualities:


title: Latin Church

text: Aquinas shifted Scholasticism away from neoplatonism and towards Aristotle. The ensuing school of thought, through its influence on Latin Christianity and the ethics of the Catholic school, is one of the most influential philosophies of all time, also significant due to the number of people living by its teachings.


title: Latin Church

text: In theology, his "Summa Theologica" is one of the most influential documents in medieval theology and continued into the 20th century to be the central point of reference for the philosophy and theology of Latin Christianity. In the 1914 encyclical "Doctoris Angelici" Pope Pius X cautioned that the teachings of the Catholic Church cannot be understood without the basic philosophical underpinnings of Aquinas' major theses:


title: Latin Church

text: "Actus purus" is the absolute perfection of God. According to Scholasticism, created beings have potentiality—that is not actuality, imperfections as well as perfection. Only God is simultaneously all that He can be, infinitely real and infinitely perfect: 'I am who I am' (Exodus ). His attributes or His operations are really identical with His essence, and His essence necessitates His existence.


title: Latin Church

text: Later, the Eastern Orthodox ascetic and archbishop of Thessaloniki, (Saint) Gregory Palamas argued in defense of hesychast spirituality, the uncreated character of the light of the Transfiguration, and the distinction between God's essence and energies. His teaching unfolded over the course of three major controversies, (1) with the Italo-Greek Barlaam between 1336 and 1341, (2) with the monk Gregory Akindynos between 1341 and 1347, and (3) with the philosopher Gregoras, from 1348 to 1355. His theological contributions are sometimes referred to as Palamism, and his followers as Palamites.


title: Latin Church

text: Historically Latin Christianity has tended to reject Palamism, especially the essence-energies distinction, some times characterizing it as a heretical introduction of an unacceptable division in the Trinity and suggestive of polytheism. Further, the associated practice of hesychasm used to achieve theosis was characterized as "magic". More recently, some Roman Catholic thinkers have taken a positive view of Palamas's teachings, including the essence-energies distinction, arguing that it does not represent an insurmountable theological division between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, and his feast day as a saint is celebrated by some Byzantine Catholic churches in communion with Rome.


title: Latin Church

text: The rejection of Palamism by the West and by those in the East who favoured union with the West (the "Latinophrones"), actually contributed to its acceptance in the East, according to Martin Jugie, who adds: "Very soon Latinism and Antipalamism, in the minds of many, would come to be seen as one and the same thing".


title: Latin Church

text: "Filioque" is a Latin term added to the original Nicene Creed, and which has been the subject of great controversy between Eastern and Western Christianity. It is not in the original text of the Creed, attributed to the First Council of Constantinople (381), the second ecumenical council, which says that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father", without additions of any kind, such as "and the Son" or "alone".


title: Latin Church

text: The phrase "Filioque" first appears as an anti-Arian interpolation in the Creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589), at which Visigothic Spain renounced Arianism, accepting Catholic Christianity. The addition was confirmed by subsequent local councils in Toledo and soon spread throughout the West, not only in Spain but also in the kingdom of the Franks, who had adopted the Catholic faith in 496, and in England, where the Council of Hatfield imposed it in 680 as a response to Monothelitism. However, it was not adopted in Rome.


title: Latin Church

text: In the late 6th century, some Latin churches added the words "and from the Son" ("Filioque") to the description of the procession of the Holy Spirit, in what many Eastern Orthodox Christians have at a later stage argued is a violation of Canon VII of the Council of Ephesus, since the words were not included in the text by either the First Council of Nicaea or that of Constantinople. This was incorporated into the liturgical practice of Rome in 1014, but was rejected by Eastern Christianity.


title: Latin Church

text: Whether that term "Filioque" is included, as well as how it is translated and understood, can have important implications for how one understands the doctrine of the Trinity, which is central to the majority of Christian churches. For some, the term implies a serious underestimation of God the Father's role in the Trinity; for others, denial of what it expresses implies a serious underestimation of the role of God the Son in the Trinity.


title: Latin Church

text: The "Filioque" phrase has been included in the Creed throughout all the Latin Rite except where Greek is used in the liturgy, although it was never adopted by Eastern Catholic Churches.


title: Latin Church

text: Perhaps the most peculiar doctrine of Latin Christianity is purgatory, about which Latin Christianity holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo the process of purification which the Catholic Church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven". It has formulated this doctrine by reference to biblical verses that speak of purifying fire ( and ) and to the mention by Jesus of forgiveness in the age to come (). It bases its teaching also on the practice of praying for the dead in use within the church ever since the church began and which is mentioned even earlier in 2 Macc 12:46.


title: Latin Church

text: The idea of purgatory has roots that date back into antiquity. A sort of proto-purgatory called the "celestial Hades" appears in the writings of Plato and Heraclides Ponticus and in many other pagan writers. This concept is distinguished from the Hades of the underworld described in the works of Homer and Hesiod. In contrast, the celestial Hades was understood as an intermediary place where souls spent an undetermined time after death before either moving on to a higher level of existence or being reincarnated back on earth. Its exact location varied from author to author. Heraclides of Pontus thought it was in the Milky Way; the Academicians, the Stoics, Cicero, Virgil, Plutarch, the Hermetical writings situated it between the Moon and the Earth or around the Moon; while Numenius and the Latin Neoplatonists thought it was located between the sphere of the fixed stars and the Earth.


title: Latin Church

text: Perhaps under the influence of Hellenistic thought, the intermediate state entered Jewish religious thought in the last centuries before Christ. In Maccabees, we find the practice of prayer for the dead with a view to their after life purification, a practice accepted by some Christians. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials. Among other reasons, Western Catholic teaching of purgatory is based on the pre-Christian (Judaic) practice of prayers for the dead.


title: Latin Church

text: Specific examples of belief in a purification after death and of the communion of the living with the dead through prayer are found in many of the Church Fathers. Irenaeus () mentioned an abode where the souls of the dead remained until the universal judgment, a process that has been described as one which "contains the concept of ... purgatory". Both Clement of Alexandria () and his pupil Origen of Alexandria () developed a view of purification after death; this view drew upon the notion that fire is a divine instrument from the Old Testament, and understood this in the context of New Testament teachings such as baptism by fire, from the Gospels, and a purificatory trial after death, from St. Paul. Origen, in arguing against soul sleep, stated that the souls of the elect immediately entered paradise unless not yet purified, in which case they passed into a state of punishment, a penal fire, which is to be conceived as a place of purification. For both Clement and Origen, the fire was neither a material thing nor a metaphor, but a "spiritual fire". The early Latin author Tertullian () also articulated a view of purification after death. In Tertullian's understanding of the afterlife, the souls of martyrs entered directly into eternal blessedness, whereas the rest entered a generic realm of the dead. There the wicked suffered a foretaste of their eternal punishments, whilst the good experienced various stages and places of bliss wherein "the idea of a kind of purgatory … is quite plainly found," an idea that is representative of a view widely dispersed in antiquity. Later examples, wherein further elaborations are articulated, include St. Cyprian (d. 258), St. John Chrysostom (), and St. Augustine (354–430), among others.


title: Latin Church

text: Pope Gregory the Great's "Dialogues", written in the late 6th century, evidence a development in the understanding of the afterlife distinctive of the direction that Latin Christendom would take:


title: Latin Church

text: As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.


title: Latin Church

text: Some Catholic saints and theologians have had sometimes conflicting ideas about purgatory beyond those adopted by the Catholic Church, reflecting or contributing to the popular image, which includes the notions of purification by actual fire, in a determined place and for a precise length of time. Paul J. Griffiths notes: "Recent Catholic thought on purgatory typically preserves the essentials of the basic doctrine while also offering second-hand speculative interpretations of these elements." Thus Joseph Ratzinger wrote: "Purgatory is not, as Tertullian thought, some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where man is forced to undergo punishment in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God, and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints."


title: Latin Church

text: In "Theological Studies", John E. Thiel argued that "purgatory virtually disappeared from Catholic belief and practice since Vatican II" because it has been based on "a competitive spirituality, gravitating around the religious vocation of ascetics from the late Middle Ages". "The birth of purgatory negotiated the eschatological anxiety of the laity. [...] In a manner similar to the ascetic’s lifelong lengthening of the temporal field of competition with the martyr, belief in purgatory lengthened the layperson’s temporal field of competition with the ascetic."


title: Latin Church

text: The speculations and popular imaginings that, especially in late medieval times, were common in the Western or Latin Church have not necessarily found acceptance in the Eastern Catholic Churches, of which there are 23 in full communion with the Pope. Some have explicitly rejected the notions of punishment by fire in a particular place that are prominent in the popular picture of purgatory. The representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Council of Florence argued against these notions, while declaring that they do hold that there is a cleansing after death of the souls of the saved and that these are assisted by the prayers of the living: "If souls depart from this life in faith and charity but marked with some defilements, whether unrepented minor ones or major ones repented of but without having yet borne the fruits of repentance, we believe that within reason they are purified of those faults, but not by some purifying fire and particular punishments in some place." The definition of purgatory adopted by that council excluded the two notions with which the Orthodox disagreed and mentioned only the two points that, they said, were part of their faith also. Accordingly, the agreement, known as the Union of Brest, that formalized the admission of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church stated: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church".


title: Latin Church

text: In the medieval Western tradition, Mary of Bethany the sister of Lazarus was identified as Mary Magdalene perhaps in large part because of a homily given by Pope Gregory the Great in which he taught about several women in the New Testament as though they were the same person. This led to a conflation of Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene as well as with another woman (besides Mary of Bethany who anointed Jesus), the woman caught in adultery. Eastern Christianity never adopted this identification. In his article in the 1910 "Catholic Encyclopedia", Hugh Pope stated, "The Greek Fathers, as a whole, distinguish the three persons: the 'sinner' of ; the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and ; and Mary Magdalen.


title: Latin Church

text: French scholar Victor Saxer dates the identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, and as Mary of Bethany, to a sermon by Pope Gregory the Great on September 21, AD 591, where he seemed to combine the actions of three women mentioned in the New Testament and also identified an unnamed woman as Mary Magdalene. In another sermon, Gregory specifically identified Mary Magdalene as the sister of Martha mentioned in Luke 10. But according to a view expressed more recently by theologian Jane Schaberg, Gregory only put the final touch to a legend that already existed before him.


title: Latin Church

text: Latin Christianity's identification of Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany was reflected in the arrangement of the General Roman Calendar until this was altered in 1969, reflecting the fact that by then the common interpretation in the Catholic Church was that Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene and the sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus were three distinct women.


title: Latin Church

text: By his sin Adam, as the first man, lost the original holiness and justice he had received from God, not only for himself but for all humans.


title: Latin Church

text: Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".


title: Latin Church

text: As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called "concupiscence").


title: Latin Church

text: The concept of original sin was first alluded to in the 2nd century by St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon in his controversy with certain dualist Gnostics. Other church fathers such as Augustine also shaped and developed the doctrine, seeing it as based on the New Testament teaching of Paul the Apostle (Romans and 1 Corinthians ) and the Old Testament verse of Psalm . Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose and Ambrosiaster considered that humanity shares in Adam's sin, transmitted by human generation. Augustine's formulation of original sin after AD 412 was popular among Protestant reformers, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, who equated original sin with concupiscence (or "hurtful desire"), affirming that it persisted even after baptism and completely destroyed freedom to do good. Before 412, Augustine said that free will was weakened but not destroyed by original sin. But after 412 this changed to a loss of free will except to sin. Modern Augustinian Calvinism holds this later view. The Jansenist movement, which the Catholic Church declared to be heretical, also maintained that original sin destroyed freedom of will. Instead the Western Catholic Church declares: "Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle." "Weakened and diminished by Adam's fall, free will is yet not destroyed in the race."


title: Latin Church

text: St. Anselm says: "The sin of Adam was one thing but the sin of children at their birth is quite another, the former was the cause, the latter is the effect." In a child, original sin is distinct from the fault of Adam, it is one of its effects. The effects of Adam's sin according to the Catholic Encyclopedia are:


title: Latin Church

text: Eastern Catholics and Eastern Christianity, in general, do not have the same theology of the Fall and original sin as Latin Catholics. But since Vatican II there has been development in Catholic thinking. Some warn against taking Genesis 3 too literally. They take into account that "God had the church in mind before the foundation of the world" (as in Ephesians 1:4). as also in 2 Timothy 1:9: ". . . his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus "before" the world began." And Pope Benedict XVI in his book "In the Beginning ..." referred to the term "original sin" as "misleading and unprecise". Benedict does not require a literal interpretation of Genesis, or of the origin or evil, but writes: "How was this possible, how did it happen? This remains obscure. ...Evil remains mysterious. It has been presented in great images, as does chapter 3 of Genesis, with the vision of two trees, of the serpent, of sinful man."


title: Latin Church

text: The Immaculate Conception is the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary free from original sin by virtue of the merits of her son Jesus. Although the belief has been widely held since Late Antiquity, the doctrine was dogmatically defined in the Catholic Church only in 1854 when Pope Pius IX declared it "ex cathedra", i.e., using papal infallibility, in his papal bull "Ineffabilis Deus",


title: Latin Church

text: It is admitted that the doctrine as defined by Pius IX was not explicitly noted before the 12th century. It is also agreed that "no direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture". But it is claimed that the doctrine is implicitly contained in the teaching of the Fathers. Their expressions on the subject of the sinlessness of Mary are, it is pointed out, so ample and so absolute that they must be taken to include original sin as well as actual. Thus in the first five centuries, such epithets as "in every respect holy", "in all things unstained", "super-innocent", and "singularly holy" are applied to her; she is compared to Eve before the fall, as ancestress of a redeemed people; she is "the earth before it was accursed". The well-known words of St. Augustine (d. 430) may be cited: "As regards the mother of God," he says, "I will not allow any question whatever of sin." It is true that he is here speaking directly of actual or personal sin. But his argument is that all men are sinners; that they are so through original depravity; that this original depravity may be overcome by the grace of God, and he adds that he does not know but that Mary may have had sufficient grace to overcome sin "of every sort" ("omni ex parte").


title: Latin Church

text: Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th century raised the question of the Immaculate Conception. A feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin had already begun to be celebrated in some churches of the West. St Bernard blames the canons of the metropolitan church of Lyon for instituting such a festival without the permission of the Holy See. In doing so, he takes occasion to repudiate altogether the view that the conception of Mary was sinless, calling it a "novelty". Some doubt, however, whether he was using the term "conception" in the same sense in which it is used in the definition of Pope Pius IX. Bernard would seem to have been speaking of conception in the active sense of the mother's cooperation, for in his argument he says: "How can there be absence of sin where there is concupiscence ("libido")?" and stronger expressions follow, which could be interpreted to indicate that he was speaking of the mother and not of the child. Yet, Bernard also decries those who support the feast for trying to "add to the glories of Mary", which proves he was indeed talking about Mary.


title: Latin Church

text: The theological underpinnings of Immaculate Conception had been the subject of debate during the Middle Ages with opposition provided by figures such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican. However, supportive arguments by Franciscans William of Ware and Pelbartus Ladislaus of Temesvár, and general belief among Catholics, made the doctrine more acceptable so that the Council of Basel supported it in the 15th century, but the Council of Trent sidestepped the question. Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan, had tried to pacify the situation by forbidding either side to criticize the other, and placed the feast of the Immaculate Conception on the Roman Calendar in 1477, but Pope Pius V, a Dominican, changed it to the feast of the Conception of Mary. Clement XI made the feast universal in 1708, but still did not call it the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Popular and theological support for the concept continued to grow and by the 18th century it was widely depicted in art.


title: Latin Church

text: The Blessed John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), a Friar Minor like Saint Bonaventure, argued, that from a rational point of view it was certainly as little derogatory to the merits of Christ to assert that Mary was by him preserved from all taint of sin, as to say that she first contracted it and then was delivered. Proposing a solution to the theological problem of reconciling the doctrine with that of universal redemption in Christ, he argued that Mary's immaculate conception did not remove her from redemption by Christ; rather it was the result of a more perfect redemption granted her because of her special role in salvation history.


title: Latin Church

text: The arguments of Scotus, combined with a better acquaintance with the language of the early Fathers, gradually prevailed in the schools of the Western Church. In 1387 the university of Paris strongly condemned the opposite view.


title: Latin Church

text: Scotus's arguments remained controversial, however, particularly among the Dominicans, who were willing enough to celebrate Mary's "sanctificatio" (being made free from sin) but, following the Dominican Thomas Aquinas' arguments, continued to insist that her sanctification could not have occurred until after her conception.


title: Latin Church

text: Scotus's argument appears in Pope Pius IX's 1854 declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, "at the first moment of Her conception, Mary was preserved free from the stain of original sin, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ." Scotus's position was hailed as "a correct expression of the faith of the Apostles."


title: Latin Church

text: Pope Pius IX explicitly affirmed that Mary was redeemed in a manner more sublime. He stated that Mary, rather than being cleansed after sin, was completely prevented from contracting original sin in view of the foreseen merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race. In , Mary proclaims: "My spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour." This is referred to as Mary's pre-redemption by Christ. Since the Second Council of Orange against semi-pelagianism, the Catholic Church has taught that even had man never sinned in the Garden of Eden and was sinless, he would still require God's grace to remain sinless.


title: Latin Church

text: The definition concerns original sin only, and it makes no declaration about the church's belief that the Blessed Virgin was sinless in the sense of freedom from actual or personal sin. The doctrine teaches that from her conception Mary, being always free from original sin, received the sanctifying grace that would normally come with baptism after birth.


title: Latin Church

text: Eastern Catholics and Eastern Christianity, in general, believe that Mary was sinless but they do not have the same theology of the Fall and original sin as Latin Catholics.


title: Latin Church

text: The Assumption of Mary into Heaven (often shortened to "the Assumption") is the bodily taking up of the Virgin Mary into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.


title: Latin Church

text: On 1 November 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution "Munificentissimus Deus," Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary as a dogma:


title: Latin Church

text: In Pius XII's dogmatic statement, the phrase "having completed the course of her earthly life", leaves open the question of whether the Virgin Mary died before her assumption or not. Mary's assumption is said to have been a divine gift to her as the "Mother of God". Ludwig Ott's view is that, as Mary completed her life as a shining example to the human race, the perspective of the gift of assumption is offered to the whole human race.


title: Latin Church

text: Ludwig Ott writes in his book "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" that "the fact of her death is almost generally accepted by the Fathers and Theologians, and is expressly affirmed in the Liturgy of the Church", to which he adds a number of helpful citations. He concludes: "for Mary, death, in consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin, was not a consequence of punishment of sin. However, it seems fitting that Mary's body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law of death".


title: Latin Church

text: The point of her bodily death has not been infallibly defined by any pope. Many Catholics believe that she did not die at all, but was assumed directly into Heaven. The dogmatic definition within the Apostolic Constitution "Munificentissimus Deus" which, according to Roman Catholic dogma, infallibly proclaims the doctrine of the Assumption leaves open the question of whether, in connection with her departure, Mary underwent bodily death. It does not dogmatically define the point one way or the other, as shown by the words "having completed the course of her earthly life".


title: Latin Church

text: Before the dogmatic definition in "Deiparae Virginis Mariae" Pope Pius XII sought the opinion of Catholic Bishops. A large number of them pointed to the Book of Genesis () as scriptural support for the dogma. In "Munificentissimus Deus" (item 39) Pius XII referred to the "struggle against the infernal foe" as in Genesis 3:15 and to "complete victory over the sin and death" as in the Letters of Paul as a scriptural basis for the dogmatic definition, Mary being assumed to heaven as in : "then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory".


title: Latin Church

text: The Western Feast of the Assumption is celebrated on 15 August, and the Eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholics celebrate the Dormition of the Mother of God (or Dormition of the Theotokos, the falling asleep of the Mother of God) on the same date, preceded by a 14-day fast period. Eastern Christians believe that Mary died a natural death, that her soul was received by Christ upon death, and that her body was resurrected on the third day after her death and that she was taken up into heaven bodily in anticipation of the general resurrection. Her tomb was found empty on the third day.


title: Latin Church

text: Many Catholics also believe that Mary first died before being assumed, but they believe that she was miraculously resurrected before being assumed. Others believe she was assumed bodily into Heaven without first dying. Either understanding may be legitimately held by Catholics, with Eastern Catholics observing the Feast as the Dormition.


title: Latin Church

text: Many theologians note by way of comparison that in the Catholic Church, the Assumption is dogmatically defined, while in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Dormition is less dogmatically than liturgically and mystically defined. Such differences spring from a larger pattern in the two traditions, wherein Catholic teachings are often dogmatically and authoritatively defined—in part because of the more centralized structure of the Catholic Church—while in Eastern Orthodoxy, many doctrines are less authoritative.


title: Latin Church

text: In an early Venetian school "Coronation of the Virgin" by Giovanni d'Alemagna and Antonio Vivarini, (), God the Father is shown in the representation consistently used by other artists later, namely as a patriarch, with benign, yet powerful countenance and with long white hair and a beard, a depiction largely derived from, and justified by, the description of the Ancient of Days in the Old Testament, the nearest approach to a physical description of God in the Old Testament:... the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)


title: Latin Church

text: St Thomas Aquinas recalls that some bring forward the objection that the Ancient of Days matches the person of the Father, without necessarily agreeing with this statement himself.


title: Latin Church

text: By the twelfth century depictions of a figure of God the Father, essentially based on the Ancient of Days in the Book of Daniel, had started to appear in French manuscripts and in stained glass church windows in England. In the 14th century the illustrated Naples Bible had a depiction of God the Father in the Burning bush. By the 15th century, the Rohan Book of Hours included depictions of God the Father in human form or anthropomorphic imagery, and by the time of the Renaissance artistic representations of God the Father were freely used in the Western Church.


title: Latin Church

text: Artistic depictions of God the Father were uncontroversial in Catholic art thereafter, but less common depictions of the Trinity were condemned. In 1745 Pope Benedict XIV explicitly supported the Throne of Mercy depiction, referring to the "Ancient of Days", but in 1786 it was still necessary for Pope Pius VI to issue a papal bull condemning the decision of an Italian church council to remove all images of the Trinity from churches.


title: Latin Church

text: The depiction remains rare and often controversial in Eastern Orthodox art. In Eastern Orthodox Church hymns and icons, the Ancient of Days is most properly identified with God the Son or Jesus, and not with God the Father. Most of the eastern church fathers who comment on the passage in Daniel (7:9–10, 13–14) interpreted the elderly figure as a prophetic revelation of the son before his physical incarnation. As such, Eastern Christian art will sometimes portray Jesus Christ as an old man, the Ancient of Days, to show symbolically that he existed from all eternity, and sometimes as a young man, or wise baby, to portray him as he was incarnate. This iconography emerged in the 6th century, mostly in the Eastern Empire with elderly images, although usually not properly or specifically identified as "the Ancient of Days". The first images of the Ancient of Days, so named with an inscription, were developed by iconographers in different manuscripts, the earliest of which are dated to the 11th century. The images in these manuscripts included the inscription "Jesus Christ, Ancient of Days," confirming that this was a way to identify Christ as pre-eternal with the God the Father. Indeed, later, it was declared by the Russian Orthodox Church at the Great Synod of Moscow in 1667 that the Ancient of Days was the Son and not the Father.


title: Latin Church

text: From the 1990s, the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Western Catholic clergy and other church members has become the subject of civil litigation, criminal prosecution, media coverage and public debate in countries around the world. The Western Catholic Church has been criticised for its handling of abuse complaints when it became known that some bishops had shielded accused priests, transferring them to other pastoral assignments where some continued to commit sexual offences.


title: Latin Church

text: In response to the scandal, formal procedures have been established to help prevent abuse, encourage the reporting of any abuse that occurs, and to handle such reports promptly, although groups representing victims have disputed their effectiveness. In 2014, Pope Francis instituted the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors for the safeguarding of minors.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: HEIF can store images encoded with multiple coding formats, for example both SDR and HDR images. HEVC is an image and video encoding format and the default image codec used with HEIF. HEIF files containing HEVC-encoded images are also known as HEIC files. Such files require less storage space than the equivalent quality JPEG.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: HEIF files are a special case of the ISO Base Media File Format (ISOBMFF, ISO/IEC 14496-12), first defined in 2001 as a shared part of MP4 and JPEG 2000. Introduced in 2015, it was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and is defined as Part 12 within the MPEG-H media suite (ISO/IEC 23008-12).


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The technical development of the specification took about one and a half years and was finalized in the middle of 2015.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: Apple was the first major adopter of the format in 2017 with the introduction of iOS 11 using HEIC variant.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: On some systems, pictures stored in the HEIC format are converted automatically to the older JPEG format when they are sent outside of the system, although incompatibility has led to problems such as US Advanced Placement test takers failing due to their phones uploading unsupported HEIC images by default leading the College Board to request students change the settings to send only JPEG files.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: As HEIF is a container format, it can contain still images and image sequences that are coded in different formats.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The main filename extensions are ".heif" for still images and ".heifs" for sequences, which can both be used with any codec. Generic HEIF image files are typically stored with filename extensions ".heif", but they may use a different extension to indicate the specific codec used.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The Multi-Image Application Format (MIAF) is a restricted subset of HEIF specified as part of MPEG-A.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: It defines a set of additional constraints to simplify format options, specific alpha plane formats, profiles and levels as well as metadata formats and brands, and rules for how to extend the format.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, ITU-T H.265) is an encoding format for graphic data, first standardized in 2013.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: It is the primarily used and implied default codec for HEIF as specified in the normative Annex B to ISO/IEC 23008-12 "HEVC Image File Format".


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: While not introduced formally in the standard, the acronym HEIC (High-Efficiency Image Container) is used as a "brand" and in the MIME subtypes codice_1 and codice_2. If the content conforms to certain HEVC profiles, more specific brands can be used: HEIX for Main 10 of HEVC, HEIM for (Multiview) Main profile and HEIS for (Scalable) Main (10) profile of L-HEVC.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: A HEIC photo takes up about half the space of an equivalent quality JPEG file. The initial HEIF specification already defined the means of storing HEVC-encoded intra images ("i-frames") and HEVC-encoded image sequences in which inter prediction is applied in a constrained manner.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: HEVC image players are required to support rectangular cropping and rotation by one, two and three quarter-turns. The primary use case for the mandatory support for rotation by 90 degrees is for images where the camera orientation is incorrectly detected or inferred. The rotation requirement makes it possible to manually adjust the orientation of a still image or an image sequence without needing to re-encode it. Cropping enables the image to be re-framed without re-encoding. The HEVC file format also includes the option to store pre-derived images.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: Samples in image sequence tracks must be either intra-coded images or inter-picture predicted images with reference to only intra-coded images. These constraints of inter-picture prediction reduce the decoding latency for accessing any particular image within a HEVC image sequence track.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The ".heic" and ".heics" file name extensions are conventionally used for HEVC-coded HEIF files. Apple products, for instance, will only produce files with these extensions, which indicate clearly that the data went through HEVC encoding.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: Advanced Video Coding (AVC, ITU-T H.264) is an older encoding format for video and images, first standardized in 2003.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The registered MIME types are codice_3 for still images and codice_4 for sequences. The format is simply known as AVCI.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: Apple products support playback of AVC-encoded ".avci" still image files and ".avcs" image sequence files but will only generate ".heic" files.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: AV1 is a video encoding format that is intended to be royalty free developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) is an image format based on this codec.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The registered MIME types are codice_5 for still images which usually carry an ".avif" file name extension and codice_6 for sequences which use ".avifs" file name extension.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The original JPEG standard is the most commonly used and widely supported lossy image coding format, first released in 1992 by ITU-T and ISO/IEC. Although Annex H to ISO/IEC 23008-12 specifies JPEG (and indirectly Motion JPEG) as a possible format for HEIF coded image data, it is used in HEIF only for thumbnails and other secondary images. Therefore, neither a dedicated MIME subtype nor a special file extension is available for storage of JPEG files in HEIF container files.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: In 2017, Apple announced that it would adopt HEIC as the default image format in its new operating systems, gradually replacing JPEG.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: Both AVIF and HEIC are currently being considered as possible replacements for the universal JPEG format because, among other technical contributions, both can reduce file size by about 50% while maintaining equivalent quality.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: The proprietary image format WXAM or wxHEPC developed by Tencent and used e.g. within WeChat is apparently based upon HEVC, as is SharpP, also known as TPG ("Tiny Portable Graphics"), which was developed by their SNG division.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: For AVIF, Chrome, Firefox and Opera for desktop and Android support it. Safari on iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 supports AVIF format.


title: High Efficiency Image File Format

text: HEIF itself is a container that may not be subject to additional royalty fees for commercial ISOBMFF licensees. Note however that Nokia also grants its patents on a royalty-free basis for non-commercial purposes. When containing images and image sequences encoded in a particular format (e.g. HEVC or AVC) its use becomes subject to the licensing of patents on the coding format.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The 1993 Bombay bombings were a series of 12 terrorist bombings that took place in Bombay, Maharashtra, on 12 March 1993. The single-day attacks resulted in 257 fatalities and 1,400 injuries. The attacks were coordinated by Dawood Ibrahim, leader of the Mumbai-based international organised crime syndicate D-Company. Ibrahim was believed to have ordered and helped organize the bombings through his subordinates Tiger Memon and Yakub Memon.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: For several years, confusion existed about the number of blasts, whether they were 12 or 13 in number. This was because Sharad Pawar, the then chief minister of Maharashtra, stated on television that day that there had been 13 blasts, and included a Muslim-dominated locality in the list. He later revealed that he had lied on purpose, and that there had been only 12 blasts, none of them in Muslim-dominated areas; he also confessed that he had attempted to mislead the public into believing that the blasts could be the work of the LTTE, a Sri Lankan militant organization, when in fact intelligence reports had already confirmed to him that Mumbai's Muslim underworld (known as the "D-Company", a reference to Dawood Ibrahim) were the perpetrators of the serial blasts.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The Supreme Court of India gave its judgement on 21 March 2013, after over 20 years of judicial proceedings, upholding the death sentence against suspected ringleader Yakub while commuting the previous death sentences against 10 others to life in prison. However, two of the main suspects in the case, Ibrahim and Tiger, have not yet been arrested or tried. After India's three-judge Supreme Court bench rejected his curative petition, saying the grounds raised by him do not fall within the principles laid down by the apex court in 2002, the Maharashtra government executed Yakub on 30 July 2015.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: In December 1992 and January 1993, there was widespread rioting throughout the nation following the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya, where some of the most notable riots occurred in Bombay. Five years after the December–January riots, the Srikrishna Commission report found that 900 individuals had died and over 2,000 had been injured.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: On 9 March 1993, three days before the bombings took place, a small-time criminal from the Behrampada slum in Northeast Mumbai named Gul Noor Mohammad Sheikh (Gullu) was detained at the Nag Pada police station. A participant in the communal riots that had rocked Mumbai the previous year, Gullu was also one of the 19 men handpicked by Tiger Memon, whose office was burnt in the riots. Tiger was a silver smuggler and chief mastermind of the bombings, for training in the use of guns and bomb-making.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Gullu had been sent to Pakistan via Dubai on 19 February 1993 and upon completion of his training returned to Mumbai on 4 March. In his absence, the police had detained Gullu's brothers to encourage him to surrender, which he did. He confessed to his role in the riots, his training in Pakistan, and a conspiracy underway to bomb major locations around the city, including the Bombay Stock Exchange, Sahar International Airport and the Sena Bhavan. However, his conspiracy claim was dismissed by the police as a "mere bluff".


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The arrest of Gul Mohammed spurred Tiger Memon to advance the date of the bombings which had originally been planned to coincide with the Shiv Jayanti celebrations in April 1993.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: At 13:30 hours on 12 March 1993, a powerful car bomb exploded in the basement of the Bombay Stock Exchange building. The 28-storey office building was severely damaged and many nearby office buildings also suffered damage. Reports indicate that 50 were killed by this explosion. About 30 minutes later, another car bomb exploded in front of the Mandvi branch of Corporation Bank. From 13:30 hours to 15:40 hours a total of 12 bombs exploded throughout Mumbai. Most of the bombs were car bombs but some were in scooters.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Three hotels – the Hotel Sea Rock, Hotel Juhu Centaur, and Hotel Airport Centaur – were targeted by suitcase bombs left in rooms booked by the perpetrators. Banks, the regional passport office, the Air India Building, and a major shopping complex were also hit. Bombs exploded at Zaveri Bazaar and opposite it, a jeep-bomb exploded at the Century Bazaar. Grenades were thrown at Sahar International Airport and at Fishermen's Colony, apparently targeting certain citizens at the latter. A double-decker bus was very badly damaged in the deadliest explosion, with as many as 90 people killed.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: On 10 July 2006, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Sharad Pawar, admitted that he had "deliberately misled" people following the 1993 Mumbai bombings by saying there were "13 and not 12" explosions and had added the name of a Muslim-dominated locality to show that people from both communities had been affected. He attempted to justify this deception by claiming that it was a move to prevent communal riots by falsely portraying that both Hindu and Muslim communities in the city had been affected adversely. He also admitted to lying about evidence recovered and misleading people into believing that it pointed to the Tamil Tigers as possible suspects.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The official number of fatalities was 257 with 1,400 others injured (some sources reported that 317 people died; this misreport was due to a bomb which killed 69 in Calcutta on 16 March and was not part of 12 March Bombay bombings).


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The bombings caused a major rift within D-Company, the most powerful criminal organisation in the Bombay underworld, headed by Dawood Ibrahim. Infuriated at the bombings, Ibrahim's right-hand man, Chotta Rajan, split from the organisation and took most of the leadership-level Hindu aides with him, including Sadhu, Jaspal Singh and Mohan Kotiyan. Rajan's split divided the Bombay underworld along communal lines and pitted Chhota Rajan's predominantly Hindu gang against Dawood Ibrahim's predominantly Muslim D-Company. The ensuing gang war took the lives of more than a hundred gangsters and continues in 2017. Seven of the accused (Salim Kurla, Majeed Khan, Shakil Ahmed, Mohammed Jindran, Hanif Kadawala, Akbar Abu Sama Khan and Mohammed Latif) were assassinated by Rajan's hitmen.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Many hundreds of people were arrested and detained in the Indian courts. In 2006, 100 of 129 accused were found to be guilty and were convicted by Justice PD Kode of the specially designated Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) court. Many of those convicted have eluded custody, including the mastermind of the attacks, Tiger Memon.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: On 12 September 2006, the special TADA court convicted four members of the Memon family on charges of conspiring and abetting acts of terror. They face jail terms from five years to life imprisonment, that would be determined based on the severity of their crime. Three other members of the Memon family were acquitted with the judge giving them the benefit of the doubt.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Yakub Memon was charged for possession of unauthorised arms. After the bombings, family members of Tiger Memon, including Yakub, escaped to Dubai and Pakistan. Correspondents say Tiger owned a restaurant in Mumbai and was allegedly closely associated with Dawood Ibrahim, the suspected mastermind.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Except for Tiger and Yakub, the entire family returned to India and were promptly arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 1994. Yakub was later taken into custody and was undergoing treatment for depression. The Memon family was tried in court and found guilty of conspiracy. The defence lawyers asked for leniency in the sentencing and caused delays in the process.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Two of the accused, Mohammed Umar Khatlab and Badshah Khan (pseudonym given by the prosecution to hide his real identity) turned state approvers.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Dawood Ibrahim, believed to have masterminded the terrorist attacks, is the Don of the Mumbai organised crime syndicate D-Company. He is suspected of having connections to terrorist elements such as al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, as well as Lashkar-e-Toiba, and was declared a terrorist by the governments of India and the United States in 2003. Ibrahim is now wanted by Interpol as a part of the worldwide terror syndicate of Osama bin Laden. The Bush administration in the United States imposed sanctions on Ibrahim in 2006.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The penalty stage of the longest-running trial in India's history continued. In February 2007, prosecutors asked for the death penalty for 44 of the 100 convicted. The prosecution also requested the death penalty for those convicted of conspiracy in the case.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Asghar Yusuf Mukadam and Shahnawaz Qureshi, who have been found guilty for involvement in the bombings pleaded for leniency, claiming that they were not terrorists and were emotionally driven to participate in the act. Mukadam claimed that the main conspirators took advantage of his "frame of mind" after the demolition of Babri Masjid and the subsequent riots, alleging police partiality during the riots. "Vested interests" instigated him to act as he did. Quareshi was trained in Pakistan to handle arms and ammunition. He and Muquddam parked the explosive-filled vehicle at Plaza cinema which resulted in 10 deaths and 37 injuries. Qureshi reached Pakistan via Dubai, where he claims he was taken "under the pretext of providing ... an alternative job". He claims that his house was set on fire during the riots.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Some of the conspirators who managed to flee India after the bombings were arrested and extradited to India. These conspirators were declared absconders during the course of the trial. Abu Salem, Mustafa Dossa, Firoz Khan, Taher Merchant, Riyaz Siddiqui, Karimullah Khan, and Abdul Kayoum amongst others were arrested and the trial continued against these absconders in a special TADA court in Mumbai. Ujjwal Nikam who was earlier the Special Prosecutor in these case was replaced by Deepak Salvi to continue with the trial in the light of the subsequent developments. On 16 June 2017 gangster Mustafa Dossa and Firoz Khan were found guilty of conspiracy, which can carry the death penalty. On 26 June 2017 Dossa died of cardiac arrest in a Mumbai Hospital. Kayoom Sheikh was acquitted due to lack of evidence.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: The prosecution had sought the death sentence for all of the following except Imtiaz Ghavate. As he is HIV positive, the prosecution sought a lesser sentence for him.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: In March 2013, most of these death sentences awarded by the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court were commuted to life in prison until death by the Supreme Court of India. Only the death sentence of Yakub Memon was upheld.


title: 1993 Bombay bombings

text: Mohammed Moin Qureshi, Feroz Amani Malik, Bashir Khairulla, Zakir Hussain and Abdul Akhtar Khan had thrown hand grenades in Mahim Causeway causing 3 deaths and injuring 6. The driver, Salim Shaikh, did not throw any hand grenades.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Brandon Xavier Ingram (born September 2, 1997) is an American professional basketball player for the New Orleans Pelicans of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was selected by the Los Angeles Lakers with the second overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft, and was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team. He was traded to New Orleans and became a first-time NBA All-Star and was named the NBA Most Improved Player in 2020 during his first season with the Pelicans.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram had a successful high school career in North Carolina, where he won state titles each of his four years of high school and was named North Carolina's Mr. Basketball. He played one season of college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils, where he was named Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year. After the season, Ingram decided to forgo his remaining college eligibility and declared for the NBA draft. He played three seasons with the Lakers before being traded to New Orleans in 2019 in a package for All-Star Anthony Davis.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram was born on September 2, 1997, in Kinston, North Carolina. He is the son of Donald and Joann Ingram. He has two half-siblings, an older brother, Donovan, and an older sister, Brittany. He shares a father with Donovan and a mother with Brittany. Ingram's father started his career as a police officer and a manager of a local gym, but he is now full-time at a welding plant, where he makes fork lifts. Before that, Donald was a would-be hoops star, pushing his way through the semi-pro leagues. When he moved back home to Kinston, his father started playing pickup games with a young Jerry Stackhouse, who was looking to play locally against older and more experienced players to help him elevate his game. Stackhouse, an ex-NBA star and Kinston native, forged a friendship with Ingram's father on the court.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: While Ingram grew up in a one-story house on Highland Avenue in Kinston, his brother Donovan grew up in a different house but would spend weekends with Brandon, teaching him basketball. Kinston had an extremely high crime rate, but Ingram kept his focus on basketball. Before Ingram was a teenager, his brother allowed him to play with him and his older friends. He described this experience as "the best thing that ever happened to my game". His brother, known as Bo, went on to play college basketball for South Plains College (2008–2010) and UT Arlington (2010–2012). By the time Brandon reached eighth grade, Stackhouse became Ingram's Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) coach and mentored the young basketball player. Those influences "took me to the next level", said Ingram, whose foundation as a player came from his father. His father was a high school and collegiate referee who stated Brandon "was trained correctly, both mentally and physically. He grew up knowing the rules of the game". Ingram played all four years of his high school basketball career at Kinston High School and helped lead Kinston to four straight state championships during his time there.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: During his freshman year at Kinston, he came off the bench on the varsity basketball team but along the way his role grew. In his first year with the Kinston Vikings, the team defeated Cuthbertson High School by three points to win the 2012 NCHSAA 2-A boys basketball state championship in Reynolds Coliseum. As a sophomore, Kinston defeated Cuthbertson for the second year in a row to win the state title and Ingram averaged 12.4 points per game (ppg), 3.9 rebounds per game (rpg) and 1.5 assists per game (apg). Prior to the start of Ingram's junior year, he began to show improvement during the 2013 summer while playing AAU basketball. After shining for the Stackhouse Elite team, the 6-foot-7 junior entered the year with high expectations and received a large amount of attention from college coaches who were lined up to recruit Ingram to a Division I school.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: In his junior year, Ingram led the Kinston Vikings to its third consecutive state title where he scored 28 points to go along with his 16 rebounds against North Rowan. During the season, the Vikings went undefeated in their conference with a 26-4 overall record while Ingram was averaging 19.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 1.5 assists per game and was named Eastern Regional Most Valuable Player (MVP). During the spring 2014, Ingram represented the Stackhouse Elite for the Norman Parker Showcase at the Suwanee Sports Academy where he earned MVP honors after leading the team to the championship. He averaged 17.9 points per game and 5.3 rebounds each contest and shot better than 81 percent from the free throw line during the Adidas Uprising circuit. After his junior year came to an end, Ingram participated in the NBPA Top 100 Camp on June 19, 2014 at John Paul Jones Arena in Virginia. Later that summer, instead of playing for an AAU tournament in the Atlanta area, he decided to compete with his high school team at the annual East Coast Invitational (ECI), an off-season event in his home state.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: As a senior, he averaged 24.3 points and 10.4 rebounds per game and led the Vikings to a 26–4 record. At the Spalding Hoophall Classic, Kinston pulled off a fourth-quarter comeback defeating Trenton Catholic Academy (56-54) behind Ingram's 22 points. In his final high school basketball game, he was named MVP of the state championship game after scoring 28 points to go with 10 rebounds and 5 blocks in a win over East Lincoln High School at the Dean E. Smith Center. This made Ingram the first men's basketball player to win 4 consecutive North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) championships. The Vikings also became the first Class 2A school in North Carolina history to win four consecutive state titles. Following his senior season, Ingram was a participant in the 2015 McDonald's All-American Game, where he scored 15 points and had five rebounds.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram was rated as a five-star recruit and was considered among the best high school prospects of the 2015 class. He was ranked as the No. 3 overall recruit by ESPN and Scout, as well as No. 4 overall by Rivals. He was named North Carolina's Mr. Basketball and Player of the Year by North Carolina Basketball Coaches Association (NCBCA). He also made the "Parade" All-American team, in his senior season, joining Duke teammate Luke Kennard. In his senior year, he was also named to the North Carolina Basketball Coaches Association All-District First Team. On April 27, 2015 he announced that he would attend Duke University and play for the Blue Devils in the 2015–16 season. Ingram said he "probably" would have committed to North Carolina in November if the Tar Heels were not involved in a "far-reaching academic scandal".


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram began his freshman year of college basketball playing two exhibition games against Florida Southern and Livingstone. In his debut for Duke, Ingram scored 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting against Siena. In the second game, he scored 21 points to help Duke defeat Bryant in the 2K Sports Classic. The Blue Devils started out the season ranked fifth in the nation entering the Champions Classic, an event that matches four of the nation's best programs against each other, before receiving their first loss of the season against Kentucky on November 17, 2015. The same day, Ingram became one of seven freshmen named to the 50-man Wooden Award preseason watchlist. Duke quickly bounced back by defeating Georgetown the following week at the 2K Sports Classic Championship in Madison Square Garden on November 22. The same week, Ingram came off the bench for the second time after being removed from Duke's starting line-up for their game against Yale, scoring 15 points. The following game, he was inserted back into the starting line-up and helped Duke start the season 9–1, which included a seven-game win streak, before falling to Utah in overtime. During a five-game stretch in December, Ingram averaged 21.2 points and 8.8 rebounds while filling in at power forward for injured Amile Jefferson. After recording 24 points and 6 rebounds in a win over Indiana in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge on December 2, Ingram scored 23 points to lead Duke over Buffalo. For his efforts, he received his first ACC Rookie of the Week honor.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: On December 12, 2015, Ingram scored a career-high 26 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in a home win over Georgia Southern, and blocked a career-high 6 shots in a home win over Virginia Tech in January 2016. That same month, he scored 25 points and had 9 rebounds in a win at Boston College in his ACC debut. After being voted National Freshman of the Week and ACC Rookie of the Week twice in the month of January, Ingram helped Duke break a three-game losing streak by scoring 25 points to go with 7 rebounds against NC State. In February 2016, he was voted ACC Rookie of the Week for the fourth time after averaging a team-high 21.5 points and added 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists on the week as Duke defeated number thirteen Louisville and number seven Virginia to extend its winning streak to four games. That same month, Ingram was named to the 35-man midseason watchlist for the Naismith College Player of the Year award. In a road game against the number fifth seed and rival North Carolina, Ingram scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to give Duke a one-point win over the Tar Heels on February 17.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: As the fifth seed in the ACC tournament, Duke beat NC State in the second round but lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals. In the 2016 NCAA tournament, Duke was awarded a fourth seed and won their first round match-up against UNC Wilmington. After beating Yale in the second round, Duke was defeated in the Sweet 16 by Oregon despite 24 points from Ingram. In 36 games for Duke in 2015–16, Ingram averaged 17.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 2.0 assists in 34.6 minutes per game, while shooting 44.2% from the field, 41.0% from three-point range and 68.2% from the free throw line. He finished the tournament averaging 23.0 points to go along with 6.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists in the three games. He subsequently earned ACC Rookie of the Year honors and AP All-American honorable mention. Ingram had one of the best seasons ever for a young player at Duke, ranking in the top 3 among the school's all-time freshman leaders in scoring (third), three-pointers (second) and 20-point games (tied for second). On April 4, 2016, Ingram declared for the 2016 NBA draft, forgoing his final three years of college eligibility.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: On June 23, 2016, Ingram was selected with the second overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers. Being only 18 years old at the time, he was the second youngest player drafted in 2016. On August 23, 2016, he signed his rookie scale contract with the Lakers. He made his debut for the Lakers in their season opener on October 26, 2016, scoring nine points off the bench in a 120–114 win over the Houston Rockets. On November 23, in his first career start, Ingram scored a career-high 16 points in a 149–106 loss to the Golden State Warriors. He topped that mark on December 2, scoring 17 points in a 113–80 loss to the Toronto Raptors. On December 17, he had nine points, 10 rebounds and nine assists, finishing just an assist and point shy of becoming the youngest player in NBA history to record a triple-double in Los Angeles' 119–108 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. On January 6, 2017, he had his second 17-point game of the season in a 127–100 win over the Miami Heat. Two days later, he had another 17-point effort in a 111–95 win over the Orlando Magic. During the NBA All-Star Weekend, he participated in the Rising Stars Challenge along with teammate D'Angelo Russell. He hit the 20-point mark for the first time in his career on February 26, scoring 22 points in a 119–98 loss to the San Antonio Spurs. At the season's end, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: During his only game in Summer League, Ingram scored 26 points in the first game and according to the "Los Angeles Times", "had a fabulous debut this summer[...] and outclassed all the other players on the court." On October 20, 2017, he scored a then career-high 25 points in a 132–130 win over the Phoenix Suns. On November 15, 2017, he scored 26 points to go with a career-best 11 rebounds in a 115–109 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. On November 29, he scored a career-high 32 points in a 127–123 overtime loss to the Golden State Warriors. On December 7, he scored 21 points, including the game-winning 3-pointer with 0.8 seconds remaining, leading the Lakers to a 107–104 victory over the 76ers to end a five-game losing streak. On January 5, 2018, he had 22 points and a career-high 14 rebounds in a 108–94 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. For the second year, he participated in the Rising Stars Challenge during NBA All-Star Weekend for Team USA. On March 1, Ingram suffered a groin strain that would cause him to miss 12 straight games. He returned on March 30 against the Milwaukee Bucks but suffered a neck muscle contusion during the game and was placed in the NBA's concussion protocol, causing him to miss the rest of the season.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram received a four-game suspension early in the 2018–19 season for his involvement in an on-court fight against the Houston Rockets on October 20. He missed seven games in December with a sprained left ankle. On January 17, 2019, he had a career-high 11 assists in a 138–128 overtime win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. On January 29, he scored a career-high 36 points in a 121–105 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. On March 9, Ingram was ruled out for the remainder of the season due to a deep vein thrombosis in his arm.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: On July 6, 2019, the Lakers traded Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, the draft rights to De'Andre Hunter, two first round picks, a first-round pick swap and cash to the New Orleans Pelicans for All-Star Anthony Davis. On November 4, 2019, Ingram recorded a then career-high by scoring 40 points in a loss against the Brooklyn Nets. On January 16, 2020, he bested that career high, scoring 49 points in a 138–132 overtime win over the Utah Jazz. Ingram gave New Orleans a one-point lead with a fadeaway jumper with 0.2 seconds remaining in regulation, before Rudy Gobert was fouled and sent the game to overtime with a free throw. He became an NBA All-Star in his first year as a Pelican. He was named the NBA Most Improved Player after averaging 23.8 points. 6.1 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. After becoming a restricted free agent in the 2020 offseason, Ingram re-signed to the Pelicans on a five-year, $158 million contract. His contract has no player or team option, setting Ingram up to become a free agent again in the 2025 offseason.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: On December 3, 2021, Ingram recorded a career-high 12 assists, along with 24 points and eight rebounds, in a 107–91 win over the Dallas Mavericks. Two days later, he scored a season-high 40 points in a 118–108 loss to the Houston Rockets. On January 11, 2022, Ingram recorded 33 points and nine assists, and hit a game-winning three-pointer to lift the Pelicans to a 128–125 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. On 19 April, during Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs, Ingram recorded 37 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists in a 125–114 win over the Phoenix Suns. In Game 4, on April 24, Ingram scored 30 points in a 118–103 win to tie the series at 2–2. New Orleans would go on to lose to Phoenix in six games despite Ingram averaging 27.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 6.2 assists. On June 7, Ingram underwent surgery on his right pinky finger and was ruled out for 6-to-8 weeks.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Ingram was selected to the 2016 U.S. select team, which trained with the 2016 U.S. Olympic basketball team.


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Standing 6 feet 8 inches tall (2.03 m) and weighing 196 pounds (89 kg), Ingram plays mostly at the small forward position. His long arms, stretching to a 7-foot 3 inch wingspan and 9-foot 1 inch standing reach, allows him get his shot off over defenders and block shots on the defensive end. Ingram has drawn frequent comparisons to Kevin Durant, after whom he patterned his playing style revealing, "I try to take bits and pieces out of [Durant's] game and put it in my game [but] at the end of the day, he's Kevin Durant, and I'm Brandon Ingram". Like Durant, Ingram has been criticized for his slim frame; however one Western Conference coach stated that Ingram is "just weak right now. He's not soft, by any stretch of the imagination." After a Team USA practice, Durant told reporters that Ingram is "the first person that I could… look at him and feel like I’m looking in the mirror". In his rookie year, Ingram was utilized as a point forward by coach Luke Walton, who stated that "it helps engage [Ingram] in the game."


title: Brandon Ingram

text: Growing up, one of Ingram's favorite things to do as a kid was fishing with his grandmother at Atlantic Beach. Ingram signed with Excel Sports Management and is represented by Excel founder and president Jeff Schwartz. In 2016, he chose to sign an endorsement deal with Adidas Basketball and made an appearance in a commercial for Speed Stick along with then Minnesota Timberwolves point guard Kris Dunn. In early 2017, he teamed up with L.A. street artist Jonas Never for Delta's "Beyond the Court" campaign, which saw Ingram and former Laker teammate Jordan Clarkson explore their passions outside of basketball. While Clarkson is an aspiring fashion designer, Ingram's passion for art began with him drawing basketball players and cartoon characters, which was bolstered by taking a portrait drawing class at Duke.


title: Fibula

text: The fibula or calf bone is a leg bone on the lateral side of the tibia, to which it is connected above and below. It is the smaller of the two bones and, in proportion to its length, the most slender of all the long bones. Its upper extremity is small, placed toward the back of the head of the tibia, below the knee joint and excluded from the formation of this joint. Its lower extremity inclines a little forward, so as to be on a plane anterior to that of the upper end; it projects below the tibia and forms the lateral part of the ankle joint.


title: Fibula

text: The blood supply is important for planning free tissue transfer because the fibula is commonly used to reconstruct the mandible. The shaft is supplied in its middle third by a large nutrient vessel from the fibular artery. It is also perfused from its periosteum which receives many small branches from the fibular artery. The proximal head and the epiphysis are supplied by a branch of the anterior tibial artery. In harvesting the bone the middle third is always taken and the ends preserved (4 cm proximally and 6 cm distally)


title: Fibula

text: The fibula is ossified from "three" centers, one for the shaft, and one for either end. Ossification begins in the body about the eighth week of fetal life, and extends toward the extremities. At birth the ends are cartilaginous.


title: Fibula

text: Ossification commences in the lower end in the second year, and in the upper about the fourth year. The lower epiphysis, the first to ossify, unites with the body about the twentieth year; the upper epiphysis joins about the twenty-fifth year.


title: Fibula

text: The upper extremity or head of the fibula is of an irregular quadrate form, presenting above a flattened articular surface, directed upward, forward, and medialward, for articulation with a corresponding surface on the lateral condyle of the tibia.


title: Fibula

text: On the lateral side is a thick and rough prominence continued behind into a pointed eminence, the apex ("styloid process"), which projects upward from the posterior part of the head.


title: Fibula

text: The prominence, at its upper and lateral part, gives attachment to the tendon of the biceps femoris and to the fibular collateral ligament of the knee-joint, the ligament dividing the tendon into two parts.


title: Fibula

text: The remaining part of the circumference of the head is rough, for the attachment of muscles and ligaments.


title: Fibula

text: It presents in front a tubercle for the origin of the upper and anterior fibers of the peroneus longus, and a surface for the attachment of the anterior ligament of the head; and behind, another tubercle, for the attachment of the posterior ligament of the head and the origin of the upper fibers of the soleus.


title: Fibula

text: The body of the fibula presents four borders - the antero-lateral, the antero-medial, the postero-lateral, and the postero-medial; and four surfaces - anterior, posterior, medial, and lateral.


title: Fibula

text: The antero-lateral border begins above in front of the head, runs vertically downward to a little below the middle of the bone, and then curving somewhat lateralward, bifurcates so as to embrace a triangular subcutaneous surface immediately above the lateral malleolus. This border gives attachment to an intermuscular septum, which separates the extensor muscles on the anterior surface of the leg from the peronaei longus and brevis on the lateral surface.


title: Fibula

text: The antero-medial border, or interosseous crest, is situated close to the medial side of the preceding, and runs nearly parallel with it in the upper third of its extent, but diverges from it in the lower two-thirds. It begins above just beneath the head of the bone (sometimes it is quite indistinct for about 2.5 cm. below the head), and ends at the apex of a rough triangular surface immediately above the articular facet of the lateral malleolus. It serves for the attachment of the interosseous membrane, which separates the extensor muscles in front from the flexor muscles behind.


title: Fibula

text: The postero-lateral border is prominent; it begins above at the apex, and ends below in the posterior border of the lateral malleolus. It is directed lateralward above, backward in the middle of its course, backward, and a little medialward below, and gives attachment to an aponeurosis which separates the peronaei on the lateral surface from the flexor muscles on the posterior surface.


title: Fibula

text: The postero-medial border, sometimes called the oblique line, begins above at the medial side of the head, and ends by becoming continuous with the interosseous crest at the lower fourth of the bone. It is well-marked and prominent at the upper and middle parts of the bone. It gives attachment to an aponeurosis which separates the tibialis posterior from the soleus and flexor hallucis longus.


title: Fibula

text: The anterior surface is the interval between the antero-lateral and antero-medial borders. It is extremely narrow and flat in the upper third of its extent; broader and grooved longitudinally in its lower third; it serves for the origin of three muscles: the extensor digitorum longus, extensor hallucis longus, and peroneus tertius.


title: Fibula

text: The posterior surface is the space included between the postero-lateral and the postero-medial borders; it is continuous below with the triangular area above the articular surface of the lateral malleolus; it is directed backward above, backward and medialward at its middle, directly medialward below. Its upper third is rough, for the origin of the soleus; its lower part presents a triangular surface, connected to the tibia by a strong interosseous ligament; the intervening part of the surface is covered by the fibers of origin of the flexor hallucis longus. Near the middle of this surface is the nutrient foramen, which is directed downward.


title: Fibula

text: The medial surface is the interval included between the antero-medial and the postero-medial borders. It is grooved for the origin of the tibialis posterior.


title: Fibula

text: The lateral surface is the space between the antero-lateral and postero-lateral borders. It is broad, and often deeply grooved; it is directed lateralward in the upper two-thirds of its course, backward in the lower third, where it is continuous with the posterior border of the lateral malleolus. This surface gives origin to the peronaei longus and brevis.


title: Fibula

text: The fibula does not carry any significant load (weight) of the body. It extends past the lower end of the tibia and forms the outer part of the ankle providing stability to this joint. It has grooves for certain ligaments which gives them leverage and multiplies the muscle force. It provides attachment points for the following muscles:


title: Fibula

text: The most common type of fibula fracture is located at the distal end of the bone, and is classified as ankle fracture. In the Danis–Weber classification it has three categories:


title: Fibula

text: A Maisonneuve fracture is a spiral fracture of the proximal third of the fibula associated with a tear of the distal tibiofibular syndesmosis and the interosseous membrane. There is an associated fracture of the medial malleolus or rupture of the deep deltoid ligament.


title: Fibula

text: An avulsion fracture of the head of the fibula refers to the fracture of the fibular head because of a sudden contraction of the biceps femoris muscle that pulls its site of attachment on the bone. The attachment of the biceps femoris tendon on the fibular head is closely related to the lateral collateral ligament of the knee. Therefore, this ligament is prone to injury in this type of avulsion fracture.


title: Fibula

text: The word "fibula" can be dated back to c. 1670 to describe a clasp or brooch – see fibula (brooch) – and was first used in English for the smaller bone in the lower leg c. 1706. It derives from Latin "fībula," also meaning a clasp or brooch. The bone was so called because it resembles a clasp like a modern safety pin.


title: Fibula

text: The adjective peroneal referring to the fibula bone or its surrounding structures derives from : perónē, the Ancient Greek word for a clasp.


title: Fibula

text: Because the fibula bears relatively little weight in comparison with the tibia, it is typically narrower in all but the most primitive tetrapods. In many animals, it still articulates with the posterior part of the lower extremity of the femur, but this feature is frequently lost (as it is in humans). In some animals, the reduction of the fibula has proceeded even further than it has in humans, with the loss of the tarsal articulation, and, in extreme cases (such as the horse), partial fusion with the tibia.


title: Sakoku

text: The policy was enacted by the shogunate government (or ) under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633 to 1639, and ended after 1853 when the Perry Expedition commanded by Matthew C. Perry forced the opening of Japan to American (and, by extension, Western) trade through a series of treaties, called the Convention of Kanagawa.


title: Sakoku

text: It was preceded by a period of largely unrestricted trade and widespread piracy. Japanese mariners and merchants traveled Asia, sometimes forming communities in certain cities, while official embassies and envoys visited Asian states, New Spain (known as Mexico since the early 19th century), and Europe. This period was also noted for a large number of foreign traders and pirates who were resident in Japan and active in Japanese waters.


title: Sakoku

text: The term originates from the manuscript work written by Japanese astronomer and translator Shizuki Tadao in 1801. Shizuki invented the word while translating the works of the 17th-century German traveller Engelbert Kaempfer concerning Japan.


title: Sakoku

text: Japan was not completely isolated under the policy. was a system in which strict regulations were placed on commerce and foreign relations by the shogunate and certain feudal domains (). There was extensive trade with China through the port of Nagasaki, in the far west of Japan, with a residential area for the Chinese. The policy stated that the only European influence permitted was the Dutch factory at Dejima in Nagasaki. Western scientific, technical and medical innovations flowed into Japan through ("Dutch learning"). Trade with Korea was limited to the Tsushima Domain (today part of Nagasaki Prefecture), and diplomatic exchanges were done through the Joseon Tongsinsa from Korea. Trade with the Ainu people was limited to the Matsumae Domain in Hokkaidō, and trade with the Ryūkyū Kingdom took place in Satsuma Domain (present-day Kagoshima Prefecture). Apart from these direct commercial contacts in peripheral provinces, trading countries sent regular missions to the in Edo and at Osaka Castle.


title: Sakoku

text: In addition, China under the Ming and Qing dynasties as well as Joseon had implemented isolationist policies before Japan did, starting with the Ming implementing "Haijin" from 1371. Unlike "sakoku", foreign influences outside East Asia were banned by the Chinese and Koreans as well, while "Rangaku" allowed Western ideas other than Christianity to be studied in Japan. China was forced to open up in the Treaty of Nanking and in subsequent treaties, following its defeat in the First Opium War. Joseon, which had developed a reputation as a hermit kingdom, was forced out of isolationism by Japan in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, making use of gunboat diplomacy which had been used by the United States to force Japan to open up.


title: Sakoku

text: During the period, Japan traded with five entities, through four "gateways". The largest was the private Chinese trade at Nagasaki (who also traded with the Ryūkyū Kingdom), where the Dutch East India Company was also permitted to operate. The Matsumae clan domain in Hokkaidō (then called Ezo) traded with the Ainu people. Through the Sō clan of Tsushima, there were relations with Joseon-dynasty Korea. Ryūkyū, a semi-independent kingdom for nearly all of the Edo period, was controlled by the Shimazu clan of Satsuma Domain. Tashiro Kazui has shown that trade between Japan and these entities was divided into two kinds: Group A in which he places China and the Dutch, "whose relations fell under the direct jurisdiction of the at Nagasaki" and Group B, represented by the Korean Kingdom and the Ryūkyū Kingdom, "who dealt with Tsushima (the Sō clan) and Satsuma (the Shimazu clan) domains respectively".


title: Sakoku

text: Many items traded from Japan to Korea and the Ryūkyū Kingdom were eventually shipped to China. In the Ryūkyū Islands and Korea, the clans in charge of trade built trading towns outside Japanese territory where commerce actually took place. Due to the necessity for Japanese subjects to travel to and from these trading posts, this resembled something of an outgoing trade, with Japanese subjects making regular contact with foreign traders in essentially extraterritorial land. Commerce with Chinese and Dutch traders in Nagasaki took place on an island called Dejima, separated from the city by a narrow strait; foreigners could not enter Nagasaki from Dejima, nor could Japanese civilians enter Dejima without special permission or authorization. For the island's inhabitants, conditions on Dejima were humiliating; the police of Nagasaki could harass them at will, and at all times a strong Japanese guard was stationed on the narrow bridge to the mainland in order to prevent them from leaving the island.


title: Sakoku

text: Trade in fact prospered during the period, and though relations and trade were restricted to certain ports, the country was far from closed. In fact, even as the shogunate expelled the Portuguese, they simultaneously engaged in discussions with Dutch and Korean representatives to ensure that the overall volume of trade did not suffer. Thus, it has become increasingly common in scholarship in recent decades to refer to the foreign relations policy of the period not as , implying a totally secluded, isolated, and "closed" country, but by the term used in documents at the time, and derived from the similar Chinese concept .


title: Sakoku

text: It is conventionally regarded that the shogunate imposed and enforced the policy in order to remove the colonial and religious influence of primarily Spain and Portugal, which were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of the shogunate and to peace in the archipelago. The increasing number of Catholic converts in southern Japan (mainly Kyūshū) was a significant element of that which was seen as a threat. Based on work conducted by Japanese historians in the 1970s, some scholars have challenged this view, believing it to be only a partial explanation of political reality.


title: Sakoku

text: Before the Tokugawa, Toyotomi Hideyoshi had previously begun to turn against the European missionaries after the Spanish conquest of the Philippines began, and the gradual progress of the Spanish there led to increasing hostility from the Tokugawa as well.


title: Sakoku

text: The motivations for the gradual strengthening of the maritime prohibitions during the early 17th century should be considered within the context of the Tokugawa 's domestic agenda. One element of this agenda was to acquire sufficient control over Japan's foreign policy so as not only to guarantee social peace, but also to maintain Tokugawa supremacy over the other powerful lords in the country, particularly the . These had used East Asian trading linkages to profitable effect during the Sengoku period, which allowed them to build up their military strength as well. By restricting the ability of the to trade with foreign ships coming to Japan or pursue trade opportunities overseas, the Tokugawa could ensure none would become powerful enough to challenge the 's supremacy. This is consistent with the generally agreed rationale for the Tokugawa 's implementation of the system of alternate attendance, or .


title: Sakoku

text: Directing trade predominantly through Nagasaki, which came under Toyotomi Hideyoshi's control in 1587, would enable the bakufu, through taxes and levies, to bolster its own treasury. This was no small matter, as lack of wealth had limited both the preceding Kamakura and the Muromachi in crucial ways. The focus on the removal of Western and Christian influence from the Japanese archipelago as the main driver of the could be argued to be a somewhat eurocentric reading of Japanese history, although it is a common perception.


title: Sakoku

text: Nevertheless, Christianity and the two colonial powers it was most strongly associated with were seen as genuine threats by the Tokugawa . Once the remnants of the Toyotomi clan had been defeated in 1615, Tokugawa Hidetada turned his attention to the sole remaining credible challenge to Tokugawa supremacy. Religious challenges to central authority were taken seriously by the as ecclesiastical challenges by armed Buddhist monks were common during the period. The Empress Meishō (r. 1629–43) also had grave doubts when she heard about how the Spanish and Portuguese were settling in the New World, and thought that Japan would soon become one of the many countries in their possession.


title: Sakoku

text: Protestant English and Dutch traders reinforced this perception by accusing the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries of spreading the religion systematically, as part of a claimed policy of culturally dominating and colonizing Asian countries. The Dutch and English were generally seen by the Japanese to be able to separate religion and trade, while their Iberian counterparts were looked upon with much suspicion. The Dutch, eager to take over trade from the Spanish and Portuguese, had no problems reinforcing this view. The number of Christians in Japan had been steadily rising due to the efforts of missionaries, such as Francis Xavier and converts. The direct trigger which is said to have spurred the imposition of was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–38, an uprising of 40,000 mostly Christian peasants. In the aftermath, the shogunate accused missionaries of instigating the rebellion expelled them from the country, and strictly banned the religion on penalty of death. The remaining Japanese Christians, mostly in Nagasaki, formed underground communities and came to be called .


title: Sakoku

text: All contact with the outside world became strictly regulated by the shogunate, or by the domains (Tsushima, Matsumae, and Satsuma) assigned to the task. Dutch traders were permitted to continue commerce in Japan only by agreeing not to engage in missionary activities. Today, the Christian percentage of the population (1%) in Japan remains far lower than in other East Asian countries such as China (3%), Vietnam (7%) and South Korea (29%).


title: Sakoku

text: The policy was also a way of controlling commerce between Japan and other nations, as well as asserting its new place in the East Asian hierarchy. The Tokugawa had set out to create their own small-scale international system where Japan could continue to access the trade in essential commodities such as medicines, and gain access to essential intelligence about happenings in China while avoiding having to agree to a subordinate status within the Chinese tributary system.


title: Sakoku

text: Japan's generally constructive official diplomatic relationship with Joseon Korea allowed regular embassies ("Tongsinsa") to be dispatched by Korea to Japan. Together with the brisk trade between Tsushima and Korea, as well as the presence of Japanese in Pusan, Japan was able to access Chinese cultural, intellectual and technological developments throughout the Edo period. At the time of the promulgation of the strictest versions of the maritime prohibitions, the Ming dynasty had lost control of much of China and it was unnecessary, and perhaps undesirable, for Japan to pursue official diplomatic relations with either of the Ming or the Qing governments while the issue of imperial legitimacy was unsettled.


title: Sakoku

text: Japan was able to acquire the imported goods it required through intermediary trade with the Dutch and through the Ryukyu Islands. The Japanese actually encouraged the Ryūkyū Kingdom's rulers to maintain a tributary relationship with China, even though the Shimazu clan had surreptitiously established great political influence in the Ryukyu Islands. The Qing became much more open to trade after it had defeated the Ming loyalists in Taiwan, and thus Japan's rulers felt even less need to establish official relations with China.


title: Sakoku

text: Liberalizing challenges to came from within Japan's elite in the 18th century, but they came to nothing. Later on, the policy was the main safeguard against the total depletion of Japanese mineral resources—such as silver and copper—to the outside world. However, while silver exportation through Nagasaki was controlled by the shogunate to the point of stopping all exportation, the exportation of silver through Korea continued in relatively high quantities.


title: Sakoku

text: The way Japan kept abreast of Western technology during this period was by studying medical and other texts in the Dutch language obtained through Dejima. This developed into a blossoming field in the late 18th century which was known as (Dutch studies). It became obsolete after the country was opened and the policy collapsed. Thereafter, many Japanese students (e.g., Kikuchi Dairoku) were sent to study in foreign countries, and many foreign employees were employed in Japan (see ).


title: Sakoku

text: The policies associated with ended with the Convention of Kanagawa in response to demands made by Commodore Perry.


title: Sakoku

text: Many isolated attempts to end Japan's seclusion were made by expanding Western powers during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. American, Russian and French ships all attempted to engage in a relationship with Japan but were rejected.


title: Sakoku

text: These largely unsuccessful attempts continued until July 8, 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy with four warships: "Mississippi", "Plymouth", "Saratoga", and "Susquehanna" steamed into the Bay of Edo (Tokyo) and displayed the threatening power of his ships' Paixhans guns. He demanded that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the , the Black Ships.


title: Sakoku

text: The following year, at the Convention of Kanagawa (March 31, 1854), Perry returned with eight ships and forced the Shogun to sign the "Treaty of Peace and Amity", establishing formal diplomatic relations between Japan and the United States. The United Kingdom signed the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty at the end of 1854.


title: Sakoku

text: Between 1852 and 1855, Admiral Yevfimiy Putyatin of the Russian Navy made several attempts to obtain from the Shogun favourable trade terms for Russia. In June 1853, he brought to Nagasaki Bay a letter from the Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode and demonstrated to Tanaka Hisashige a steam engine, probably the first ever seen in Japan. His efforts culminated in the signing of the Treaty of Shimoda in February 1855.


title: Sakoku

text: Within five years, Japan had signed similar treaties with other western countries. The Harris Treaty was signed with the United States on July 29, 1858. These "Ansei Treaties" were widely regarded by Japanese intellectuals as unequal, having been forced on Japan through gunboat diplomacy, and as a sign of the West's desire to incorporate Japan into the imperialism that had been taking hold of the continent. Among other measures, they gave the Western nations unequivocal control of tariffs on imports and the right of extraterritoriality to all their visiting nationals. They would remain a sticking point in Japan's relations with the West up to the turn of the 20th century.


title: Sakoku

text: Several missions were sent abroad by the , in order to learn about Western civilization, revise treaties, and delay the opening of cities and harbours to foreign trade.


title: Sakoku

text: In the 1861 Tsushima Incident, a Russian fleet tried to force open a harbour not officially opened to foreign trade with foreign countries, but it was repelled with the help of the British.


title: Sakoku

text: An Embassy to Europe was sent in 1862, and a Second Embassy to Europe in 1863. Japan also sent a delegation and participated to the 1867 World Fair in Paris.


title: Sakoku

text: Other missions, distinct from those of the Shogunate, were also sent to Europe, such as the Chōshū Five, and missions by the fief of Satsuma.


title: Aida

text: Aida (or Aïda, ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, "Aida" has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.


title: Aida

text: Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write an opera to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but Verdi declined. However, Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, proposed to Khedive Pasha a plot for a celebratory opera set in ancient Egypt. Khedive Pasha referred Mariette to theatre manager Camille du Locle, who sent Mariette's story idea to Verdi. Eventually, Verdi agreed to compose an opera based on that story, for 150,000 francs.


title: Aida

text: Because the scenery and costumes were stuck in the French capital during the Siege of Paris (1870–71) of the ongoing Franco-Prussian War, the premiere was delayed and Verdi's "Rigoletto" was performed instead. The first opera performed at the Khedivial Opera House, "Aida" eventually premiered in Cairo on Christmas Eve of 1871.


title: Aida

text: Verdi originally chose to write a brief orchestral prelude instead of a full overture for the opera. He then composed an overture of the "potpourri" variety to replace the original prelude. However, in the end he decided not to have the overture performed because of its—his own words—"pretentious silliness". This overture, never used today, was given a rare broadcast performance by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra on 30 March 1940, but was never commercially issued.


title: Aida

text: "Aida" met with great acclaim when it finally opened in Cairo on 24 December 1871. The costumes and accessories for the première were designed by Auguste Mariette, who also oversaw the design and construction of the sets, which were made in Paris by the Opéra's scene painters Auguste-Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon (acts 1 and 4) and Édouard Desplechin and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (acts 2 and 3), and shipped to Cairo. Although Verdi did not attend the premiere in Cairo, he was most dissatisfied with the fact that the audience consisted of invited dignitaries, politicians and critics, but no members of the general public. He therefore considered the Italian (and European) première, held at La Scala, Milan on 8 February 1872, and a performance in which he was heavily involved at every stage, to be its "real" première.


title: Aida

text: Verdi had also written the role of Aida for the voice of Teresa Stolz, who sang it for the first time at the Milan première. Verdi had asked her fiancé, Angelo Mariani, to conduct the Cairo première, but he declined, so Giovanni Bottesini filled the gap. The Milan Amneris, Maria Waldmann, was his favourite in the role and she repeated it a number of times at his request.


title: Aida

text: "Aida" was received with great enthusiasm at its Milan première. The opera was soon mounted at major opera houses throughout Italy, including the Teatro Regio di Parma (20 April 1872), the Teatro di San Carlo (30 March 1873), La Fenice (11 June 1873), the Teatro Regio di Torino (26 December 1874), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (30 September 1877, with Giuseppina Pasqua as Amneris and Franco Novara as the King), and the Teatro Costanzi (8 October 1881, with Theresia Singer as Aida and Giulia Novelli as Amneris) among others.