title: Xavier Becerra

text: Born in Sacramento, California, on January 26, 1958, Becerra is the son of working-class parents, Maria Teresa and Manuel Guerrero Becerra. His father was born in the U.S. and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, and his mother was from Guadalajara. As a child, Becerra grew up in a one-room apartment with his three sisters. He graduated in 1976 from C.K. McClatchy High School, located in the center of Sacramento. He studied abroad at the University of Salamanca in Salamanca, Spain, from 1978 to 1979, before earning his Bachelor of Arts in economics from Stanford University in 1980, becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college. He received his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1984, and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1985.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra began his career as a lawyer, working on cases involving individuals who had mental disorders for the Legal Assistance Corporation of Central Massachusetts (now Community Legal Aid).


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra worked as an administrative assistant for California state senator Art Torres in 1986. He served as a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice under Attorney General John Van de Kamp from 1987 to 1990.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: After incumbent state assemblyman Charles Calderon decided to seek a seat in the California Senate, Becerra launched a grass-roots campaign for the California State Assembly, defeating Calderon's Senate aide Marta Maestas in the Democratic primary. He went on to defeat Republican Lee Lieberg and Libertarian Steven Pencall, receiving 60% of the vote. Becerra served one term in the State Assembly, representing California's 59th district, from 1990 to 1992. As a state legislator, Becerra worked to pass a law that would increase gang members' sentences.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In 1992, 25th district congressman Edward Roybal announced his retirement after 30 years in Congress. Becerra entered the race for the seat, which had been renumbered as the 30th district after redistricting.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra won the Democratic primary with a plurality of 32% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Republican nominee Morry Waksberg, 58%–24%. He won re-election to a second term in 1994 with 66% of the vote. His district was renumbered as the 31st district after the 2000 census.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: After redistricting, ahead of the 2012 elections, most of Becerra's old district became the 34th district. He defeated Republican Stephen Smith 85.6% to 14.4%.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra was a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, of which he served as chairman during the 105th Congress.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 because he "wanted to see direct protections for responsible homeowners" in the bill.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra was appointed assistant to the Speaker of the House for the 110th Congress. He won his bid to succeed John Larson as Vice-Chair in the 111th Congress, defeating Marcy Kaptur of Ohio by a vote of 175–67.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: During the 111th Congress and 112th Congress, Becerra served on several high-profile committees. He was appointed to serve on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often called Bowles-Simpson/Simpson-Bowles) on March 24, 2010. Becerra was selected to serve on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (also known as the Super Committee) on August 11, 2011. And on December 23, 2011, he was appointed to serve on a bi-cameral conference committee to find bi-partisan solutions on middle-class tax cuts, unemployment insurance, and the Medicare physician payment rate.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra had a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee and was the first Latino to serve on the committee.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: A writer for "Vanity Fair" described Becerra as a "strident supporter of women's health and reproductive rights"; "The New York Times" stated that he has been "vocal in the Democratic Party about fighting for women's health". He voted against H.R. 3541, the Prenatal Non-Discrimination Act (PRENDA), which would have imposed civil and criminal penalties on anyone knowingly attempting to perform a sex-selective abortion. The 2012 bill also would have required health care providers to report known or suspected violations to law enforcement, including suspicions about a woman's motives for seeking an abortion. Becerra received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2012. Becerra voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic religious order, should be required to provide birth control services under the Affordable Care Act. In late 2020, arguing that the prosecution would discourage pregnant women from obtaining addiction treatment, Becerra requested that the Supreme Court of California block the murder prosecution of a woman who had consumed methamphetamine during her pregnancy, resulting in a stillbirth. The court declined to do so. In response to the Trump administration's 2020 decision to restrict federal funding to California because it requires insurance providers to cover abortion, Becerra stated that "California has the sovereign right to protect women's reproductive rights".


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra ran for mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. He finished with 6% of the primary vote, finishing behind businessman Steve Soboroff, Councilman Joel Wachs, former California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, and the eventual winner, then-City Attorney James Hahn.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In 2008, Becerra was considered for the position of U.S. Trade Representative in the administration of President-elect Obama. While it was reported that he had already accepted, he announced on December 15 that he would not accept the position. Becerra had endorsed then-Senator Barack Obama for president on January 27, 2008.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra was on the shortlist of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for the vice presidential nomination in 2016. Senator Tim Kaine was eventually chosen.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: During the presidential transition of Joe Biden in 2020, it was reported that Becerra was being considered for the Cabinet positions of Secretary of Homeland Security and Attorney General.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In August 2020, California Senator Kamala Harris was selected by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate. After Biden ultimately won the general election, Becerra was floated as a possible replacement for Harris, along with others such as Representative Karen Bass, Representative Barbara Lee, Secretary of State Alex Padilla (who was eventually chosen), and former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solís. Early December reports that Biden planned to nominate Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services rendered such speculation moot.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra accepted Governor Jerry Brown's offer to be the attorney general of California on December 1, 2016. The California Legislature confirmed Becerra to the post on January 23, 2017. He succeeded Kamala Harris, who was elected to the United States Senate. Becerra was sworn in January 24, 2017, becoming the first Latino to serve as California's attorney general. Becerra was elected to a full four-year term in 2018, after defeating Republican challenger Steven Bailey and securing 61 percent of the vote.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: While Attorney General, Becerra delivered the Democratic Spanish-language response to President Trump's 2019 State of the Union address.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In 2018, Becerra created an environmental justice branch of the California Department of Justice. Among other projects, it opposed the effort to expand San Bernardino International Airport due to concerns regarding air pollution.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra brought fourteen felony charges against Center for Medical Progress activists for recording fourteen videos (see Planned Parenthood 2015 undercover videos controversy), and one felony charge for conspiring to invade privacy, on March 28, 2017. The charges were dismissed by a California Superior Court judge in June for not stating the names of those recorded and the specific dates of the recordings; the charges were refiled with the names and dates in July 2017.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In 2019, Becerra threatened "legal action" against reporters who had received records of California law enforcement officers who had been convicted of crimes during the past decade.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In December 2020, Becerra was faulted by state district attorneys for not taking leadership to help stop unemployment fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic, in what was described as the "biggest taxpayer fraud in California history". In January 2021, investigators said the total fraud was over $11 billion, with $19 billion in claims still under investigation. Most of this money will likely never be recovered, prosecutors said.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: In February 2019, Becerra, Governor Gavin Newsom, and 15 other states filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the president's declaration of a national emergency to fund a wall at the southern U.S. border. As of September 26, 2019, Becerra had sued the Trump administration 62 times in total.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: The Trump administration opened 1 million acres in California to fracking and drilling in December 2019. Under the new policy, the Bureau of Land Management proposed new lease sales for oil and gas extraction along "California's Central Valley and Central Coast, touching eight counties and including 400,000 acres of public land". California officials and agencies, including Becerra, filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management in January 2020.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Despite the multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration filed with other state attorneys general, Becerra had not joined antitrust efforts against any major tech companies. His office would not disclose whether it had examined any tech companies and had not endorsed any joint investigations with other states. On December 9, 2020, it was reported that Becerra's office had joined 47 other states and the Federal Trade Commission in an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, Inc, headquartered in California.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: As Attorney General of California, Becerra was tasked with writing ballot titles and summaries that appeared on voter information guides and ballots in both the 2018 and 2020 elections. Proponents accused Becerra multiple times of writing biased descriptions that violated the law, which requires "a true and impartial statement of the purpose" of measures. In one of many unsuccessful lawsuits against Becerra, a state judge wrote that attorneys general have "wide latitude" in how they write ballot descriptions. Critics said the responsibility to write the ballot title and summary should be transferred to a different, non-partisan office.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: After Joe Biden's election as president in November 2020, Becerra was considered a candidate for United States Attorney General. The "New York Times" reported in early December 2020 that Biden would nominate Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services. His nomination to lead the Health and Human Services Department has been criticized by pro-life and conservative leaders led by Students for Life of America, citing his "absence of health care experience and his disregard for people of faith". Becerra's nomination was deadlocked by the Senate's Finance Committee on March 10, 2021. One day later, on March 11, 2021, Becerra's nomination was discharged from the Finance Committee by the entire Senate, in a vote of 51-48. He was confirmed by the Senate in a vote of 50-49 on March 18, 2021, with all but one Democrat present and one Republican, Susan Collins, voting in favor. This was the narrowest vote for any of Biden's cabinet positions. On March 22, 2021, Becerra was sworn in to be the new secretary.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Soon after officially becoming the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Becerra released a statement praising the Affordable Care Act and encouraging people to keep enrolling in its health care program.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra has been widely criticized as health and human services secretary for being absent in the public eye during the pandemic, for being responsible for confusing messaging by federal public health authorities and for the subsequent loss of public trust, and for his passive management style while serving as secretary, with some administration officials, public health experts, and scientists calling for him to improve his performance or step aside; his defenders said he was given an unclear role as secretary. Becerra was similarly criticized following his agency's response to the 2022 monkeypox outbreak amid issues with health policy communication and what was widely considered a slow response; White House officials said that Becerra sought to scapegoat the states to avoid criticism rather than take responsibility for the subpar response.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: On October 6, 2022, Becerra was tasked by President Biden with expeditiously reviewing the Schedule I classification of Cannabis.


title: Xavier Becerra

text: Becerra is married to physician Carolina Reyes, and they have three daughters. He is a member of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, based in Washington, D.C. Becerra is Roman Catholic.


title: Basmati

text: Basmati, , is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally grown in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. , India accounted for 65% of the international trade in basmati rice, while Pakistan accounted for the remaining 35%. Many countries use domestically grown basmati rice crops; however, basmati is geographically exclusive to certain districts of India and Pakistan.


title: Basmati

text: According to the Indian Government agency APEDA, a rice variety is eligible to be called basmati if it has a minimum average precooked milled rice length of and average precooked milled rice breadth of up to , among other parameters.


title: Basmati

text: According to "Oxford English Dictionary", the word "basmati" derives from Hindi , , literally meaning 'fragrant', from (, 'fragrance') + the word-forming suffix ().


title: Basmati

text: Basmati rice is believed to have been cultivated in the Indian subcontinent for centuries. Earliest mention of Basmati rice has been made in the epic Heer Ranjha composed by the Punjabi poet Varis Shah in 1766.


title: Basmati

text: India accounts for over 70% of the world's basmati rice production. A small portion of that is being grown organically. Organisations such as Kheti Virasat Mission are trying to increase the amount of organic basmati rice that is being grown in the Punjab in India.


title: Basmati

text: The areas which have a geographical indication for basmati rice production in India are in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Western Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. India's total basmati production for the July 2011 – June 2012 crop year was five million tonnes. From April 2018 to March 2019, India exported 4.4 million metric tons of basmati rice. In 2015–2016, Saudi Arabia, Iran and UAE were the three biggest destinations for India's basmati rice exports and exports to these three countries accounted for more than half of India's total basmati exports. In 2015–2016, basmati rice worth US$3.4 billion was exported from India.


title: Basmati

text: According to the FAO, Pakistan's original Basmatic area lies in the Kalar bowl between the Ravi and Chenab rivers. Almost all the cultivation of Basmati takes place in the Punjab province where total production was 2.47 million tonnes in 2010. In fiscal year 2020, basmati exports stood at 890,207 tonnes valuing $790 million. In overall basmati exports, Europe holds a 40% share while the rest are exported to Gulf countries, Australia and US.


title: Basmati

text: Indonesia produced its own local variant of basmati in West Java and Central Kalimantan, with production capacity estimated to reach up to 8.2 tonnes per hectare. Basmati seeds were first brought from Pakistan in 2007; however, the seeds were unable to be grown due to soil incompatibility. The Ministry of Agriculture then managed to produce and cultivate a hybrid between basmati and local rice in 2017.


title: Basmati

text: Basmati rice is produced mainly in the Terai region of Nepal and some parts of Kathmandu valley. Unique Nepali varieties of basmati rice were barred from export to other parts of the world although this ban might be lifted.


title: Basmati

text: Small amounts of basmati rice, especially red basmati rice, are being cultivated in the tropical wet zone areas of Sri Lanka.


title: Basmati

text: Basmati rice has a typical "pandan"-like ("Pandanus amaryllifolius" leaf) flavour caused by the aroma compound 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. Basmati grains contain about 0.09 ppm of this aromatic chemical compound naturally, a level that is about 12 times as much as non-basmati rice varieties, giving basmati its distinctive fragrance and flavour. This natural aroma is also found in cheese, fruit and other cereals. It is a flavoring agent approved in the United States and Europe, and is used in bakery products for aroma.


title: Basmati

text: During cooking, the level of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline decreases. Soaking the rice for 30 minutes before cooking permits 20% shorter cooking times and preserves more of the 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline.


title: Basmati

text: According to the Canadian Diabetes Association, basmati, brown, wild, short and long grain rice has a medium glycemic index (between 56 and 69), opposed to jasmine and instant white rice with a glycemic index of 89, thus making it more suitable for diabetics as compared to certain other grains and products made from white flour.


title: Basmati

text: There are several varieties of basmati rice. Traditional Indian types include basmati 370, basmati 385, and basmati Ranbirsinghpura (R.S.Pura) and Gujjar Chack area in Jammu province situated at the India-Pakistani border in Jammu and Kashmir state of India. 1121 and Muradabadi 6465 Extra Long Grain Rice. Pakistani varieties of basmati rice are PK 385, Super Kernel Basmati Rice and D-98.


title: Basmati

text: Scientists at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Delhi, used conventional plant breeding to produce a hybrid semi-dwarf plant which had most of the good features of traditional basmati (grain elongation, fragrance, alkali content). This hybrid was called Pusa Basmati-1 (PB1; also called "Todal", because the flower has awns); crop yield is up to twice as high as traditional varieties. Fragrant rices that are derived from basmati stock but are not true basmati varieties include PB2 (also called sugandh-2), PB3, and RS-10.


title: Basmati

text: Basmati, P3 Punjab, type III Uttar Pradesh, hbc-19 Safidon, 386 Haryana, Kasturi (Baran, Rajasthan), Muradabadi Basmati 6465, Basmati 198, Basmati 217, Basmati 370 Bihar, Kasturi, Mahi Suganda, Pusa 1121, Pusa 1718, Pusa 1509, Pusa 1692, Pusa 1637, Pusa 1401.


title: Basmati

text: Basmati 370 (Pak Basmati), Super Basmati (Best Aroma), Basmati Pak (Kernal), 386 or 1121 basmati rice, Basmati 385, Basmati 515, Basmati 2000, Basmati 198 and Chanab Basmati.


title: Basmati

text: In Indonesia, the variant of basmati called "baroma" (; aromatic basmati) was launched in February 2019. This variant could be grown in low-altitude terrain and managed to attract interest among potential middle-to-upper class consumers.


title: Basmati

text: In the United States, a variety of rice based on basmati called "Texmati" is grown in Texas. The rice is produced by RiceSelect, previously owned by RiceTec (mentioned below).


title: Basmati

text: In Kenya, a rice variety called "Pishori" or "Pisori" is grown in the Mwea region. The word "Pishori" is an alteration of the word "Peshawari" from where the basmati variety used to be exported to the countries of East Africa in the past.


title: Basmati

text: The Basmati Mark is a DNA-fingerprinting-based certification done by the laboratory of Basmati Export Development Foundation (BEDF).


title: Basmati

text: On 15 February 2016, the Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), an autonomous organisation under the Department of Commerce in India, registered Basmati Rice as a product with Geographical Indication (GI).


title: Basmati

text: Difficulty in differentiating genuine basmati from other types of rice and the significant price difference between them has led fraudulent traders to adulterate basmati rice with crossbred basmati varieties and long-grain non-basmati varieties. In Britain, the Food Standards Agency found in 2005 that about half of all basmati rice sold was adulterated with other strains of long-grain rice, prompting rice importers to agree to a code of practice. A 2010 UK test on rice supplied by wholesalers found 4 out of 15 samples had cheaper rice mixed with basmati, and one had no basmati at all.


title: Basmati

text: A PCR-based assay similar to DNA fingerprinting in humans allows adulterated and non-basmati strains to be detected, with a detection limit from 1% adulteration upwards with an error rate of ±1.5%. Exporters of basmati rice use purity certificates based on DNA tests for their basmati rice consignments. Based on this protocol, which was developed at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, the Indian company Labindia has released kits to detect basmati adulteration.


title: Basmati

text: In September 1997, an American company, RiceTec, was granted U.S. Patent No. 5,663,484 on "basmati rice lines and grains". The patent secures lines of basmati and basmati-like rice and ways of analyzing that rice. RiceTec, owned by Prince Hans-Adam of Liechtenstein, faced international outrage over allegations of biopiracy. It had also caused a brief diplomatic crisis between India and the United States, with India threatening to take the matter to the WTO as a violation of TRIPS, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Both voluntarily and due to review decisions by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, RiceTec lost or withdrew most of the claims of the patent, including, most importantly, the right to call their rice products "basmati". A more limited varietal patent was granted to RiceTec in 2001 on claims dealing with three strains of the rice developed by the company.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Over-the-counter (OTC) drugs are medicines sold directly to a consumer without a requirement for a prescription from a healthcare professional, as opposed to prescription drugs, which may be supplied only to consumers possessing a valid prescription. In many countries, OTC drugs are selected by a regulatory agency to ensure that they contain ingredients that are safe and effective when used without a physician's care. OTC drugs are usually regulated according to their active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) rather than final products. By regulating APIs instead of specific drug formulations, governments allow manufacturers the freedom to formulate ingredients, or combinations of ingredients, into proprietary mixtures.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: The term "over-the-counter" ("OTC") refers to a medication that can be purchased without a medical prescription. In contrast, prescription drugs require a prescription from a doctor or other health care professional and should only be used by the prescribed individual. Some drugs may be legally classified as over-the-counter (i.e. no prescription is required), but may only be dispensed by a pharmacist after an assessment of the patient's needs or the provision of patient education. Regulations detailing the establishments where drugs may be sold, who is authorized to dispense them, and whether a prescription is required vary considerably from country to country.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: As of 2011, around a third of older adults in the U.S. reportedly used OTC drugs. By 2018, the prevalence of use by adults in the U.S. as first-line treatment for minor illnesses had reached 81%.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: All medications other than Schedule 1 may be considered an OTC drug, as they do not require prescriptions for sale. While the National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities provides recommendations on the scheduling of drugs for sale in Canada, each province may determine its own scheduling. The drugs found in each schedule may vary from province to province.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: In November 2016, India's Drug Consultative Committee announced it was embarking on establishing a definition of drugs which could be dispensed without a prescription. Prior to this, the general assumption was that any drug which did not fall into a prescription schedule could be purchased without a prescription. However, the needed definition had not been enacted by early 2018. The lack of a legal definition for OTC drugs has led to this market segment being effectively unregulated.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: A drug that is UA may be sold OTC but only by pharmacists. The drug can be on the shelves like any other product. Examples are domperidone, 400 mg ibuprofen up to 50 tablets and dextromethorphan. A drug that is UAD can also be sold at drugstores which are stores where no prescription can be filled. The drugs are usually on the shelves, and the store also sells items like toys, gadgets, perfumes and homeopathic products. The drugs in this category have limited risk and addiction potential. Examples are naproxen and diclofenac in small amounts, cinnarizine, 400 mg ibuprofen up to 20 tablets and also 500 mg paracetamol up to 50 tablets. Drugs in the AV category can be sold at supermarkets, gas stations, etc. and include only drugs with minimal risk to the public, like paracetamol up to 20 tablets, 200 mg ibuprofen up to 10 tablets, cetirizine and loperamide.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: In the United States, the manufacture and sale of OTC substances are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA requires that all "new drugs" obtain a New Drug Application (NDA) before entering interstate commerce, but the act exempts any drugs generally recognized as safe and effective (GRAS/E). To deal with the vast number of OTC drugs that were already on the market before the requirement that all drugs obtain an NDA, the FDA created the OTC monograph system to review classes of drugs and to categorize them as GRAS/E after review by expert panels. Certain classes of OTC drugs would not be required to obtain an NDA and could remain on the market if they conformed to the monograph guidelines for doses, labeling, and warnings finalized in the Code of Federal Regulations


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Thus, an OTC drug product is allowed to be marketed either (1) pursuant to an FDA monograph or (2) pursuant to an NDA for products that do not fit within a specific monograph. There is also the possibility that certain OTC drug products are marketed under the grandfathering provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, but the FDA has never formally acknowledged that any legitimate grandfathered OTC drug exists.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Examples of OTC substances approved in the United States are sunscreens, anti-microbial and anti-fungal products, external and internal analgesics such as lidocaine and aspirin, psoriasis and eczema topical treatments, anti-dandruff shampoos containing coal tar, and other topical products with a therapeutic effect.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: The Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising of OTC products, in contrast to prescription drug advertising, which is regulated by the FDA.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: The FDA requires OTC products to be labeled with an approved "Drug Facts" label to educate consumers about their medications. The labels comply to a standard format and are intended to be easy for typical consumers to understand. Drug Facts labels include information on the product's active ingredient(s), indications and purpose, safety warnings, directions for use, and inactive ingredients.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: The 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) includes reforms that modernize the way certain OTC drugs are regulated in the United States. Many OTC monographs need to be updated but updating or changing an OTC monograph requires the slow and burdensome notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The CARES Act includes OTC monograph reform provisions that replace the rulemaking process with an administrative order process.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: An ill-defined third category of substances is products having over-the-counter status from the FDA while being simultaneously subject to other restrictions on sale. While they are legally classified as OTC drugs, they are typically stored behind the counter and are sold only in stores that are registered with their state. They may be unavailable in convenience and grocery stores that stock other non-restricted OTC medications.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: For example, many drugstores have moved products containing pseudoephedrine, an OTC product, into locations where customers must ask a pharmacist for them. A prescription is not required; the change has been made in an effort to reduce methamphetamine production. Since the passage of the Illinois Methamphetamine Precursor Control Act and the subsequent federal Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005, the purchase of pseudoephedrine is restricted. Sellers of pseudoephedrine must obtain and record the identity of the purchaser and enforce quantity restrictions. After initial attempts to control methamphetamine use (by requiring documentation of sale with government issued ID as well as limits on the quantity an individual could purchase) failed to realize meaningful reductions in methamphetamine use and production, Mississippi passed House Bill 512 in the State Senate on February 2, 2010 "to require a prescription from a licensed medical professional to purchase over-the-counter medicines with pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, or any other precursor chemical that can readily and illicitly be converted into methamphetamine, Methcathinone or any active/scheduled analogs of Phenylethylamines/ amphetamine." However, products containing the substance are still OTC in most states, since no prescription is required.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: A similar regulation once applied to some forms of emergency contraception. However, on February 25, 2014, the FDA approved generic one-pill emergency contraception products for unrestricted sale on the shelf. There is no age limit or need for ID to purchase.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Furthermore, some Schedule V controlled substances may be classified as OTC products in certain states. Such drugs are sold without a prescription but are subject to record-keeping rules and quantity and/or age restrictions, and they must be dispensed by a pharmacy. Finally, pharmacies frequently require a prescription for Schedule V drugs as a matter of policy, despite their OTC status according to applicable laws and regulations.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: In the United Kingdom, medication is governed by the Medicines Regulations 2012. Medication falls into one of three categories:


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: If it is not appropriate to sell a 'P' medication – i.e. the condition is not suitable for self-management and requires referral to a medical prescriber – then a sale should not occur and the pharmacist has a legal and professional obligation to refer this on to an appropriate service.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Examples of these include some sleep aid tablets such as diphenhydramine, human deworming tablets such as Mebendazole, painkillers with small amounts of codeine (up to 12.8 mg per tablet), and pseudoephedrine. Medication available only with a prescription is marked somewhere on the box/container with [POM]. Pharmacy-only products are marked with [P]. A prescription is not required for [P] medicines, and pharmacy sales assistants are required by Royal Pharmaceutical Society codes to ask certain questions, which varies for what the customer says. If they ask for a specific product, the pharmacy assistant must ask "Who is it for," "How long have you had the symptoms," "Are you allergic to any medication," "Are you taking any medication" ('WHAM' questions). If a customer asks for a remedy, e.g., hay fever, then the two WHAM questions must be followed "Who is it for," "What are the symptoms," "How long have you had the symptoms," "Have you taken any action towards your symptoms," and "Are you taking any other medication." It is with this information that the pharmacist can halt the sale, if need be. No [POM], [P] or [GSL] products that are stocked in a pharmacy can be sold, dispensed, or pre-made until a responsible pharmacist is signed in and on the premises. Some medication available in supermarkets and petrol stations is sold only in smaller packet sizes. Often, larger packs will be marked as [P] and available only from a pharmacy. Frequently, customers buying larger-than-usual doses of [P] medicines (such as DXM, promethazine, codeine or Gee's Linctus) will be queried, due to the possibility of abuse.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: As a general rule, over-the-counter drugs have to be used primarily to treat a condition that does not require the direct supervision of a doctor and must be proven to be reasonably safe and well tolerated. OTC drugs are usually also required to have little or no abuse potential, although in some areas drugs such as codeine are available OTC (usually in strictly limited formulations or requiring paperwork or identification to be submitted during purchase).


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: Over time, often 3–6 years, drugs that prove themselves safe and appropriate as prescription medicines may be switched from prescription to OTC. An example of this is diphenhydramine (Benadryl), an anti-histamine which once required a prescription but now is available OTC nearly everywhere. More recent examples are cimetidine and loratadine in the United States, and ibuprofen in Australia.


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: It is somewhat unusual for an OTC drug to be withdrawn from the market as a result of safety concerns, rather than market forces, though it does happen occasionally. For example, phenylpropanolamine was removed from sale in the United States over concern regarding strokes in young women. A study has been done examining consumer's perceptions about the risk of and access to nonprescription medication. The study concluded that a small percentage of consumers prefer having access to medication over potential risks of taking non-prescribed medication. Ranitidine was suspended in multiple markets due to concerns over the presence of the carcinogen "N"-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA).


title: Over-the-counter drug

text: In the United Kingdom, it was announced in February 2007 that Boots the Chemist would try over-the-counter sales of Viagra in stores in Manchester, England (previous available as prescription only). Men aged between 30 and 65 could buy four tablets after a consultation with a pharmacist.


title: My Life Is Murder

text: My Life Is Murder is an Australian and New Zealand murder mystery, crime comedy-drama television series, broadcast on Network 10 and TVNZ 1. The ten part series premiered on 17 July 2019, at 8:40 pm. In the United States, the series began streaming on Acorn TV on 5 August 2019 and in the United Kingdom, to Alibi on 24 September 2019.


title: My Life Is Murder

text: By the end of October 2020, the series had been renewed for a second 10-episode season, with TVNZ, Network 10, Acorn and other networks signed on to broadcast. The second season premiered August 9, 2021 on TVNZ 1, and began streaming in North America on Acorn on August 30, 2021. In February 2022, the series was renewed for a third 10-episode season by Acorn.


title: My Life Is Murder

text: "My Life Is Murder" follows the adventures of fearless private investigator Alexa Crowe, who solves the most baffling crimes as well as coping with the frustrations of everyday life.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians (, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD, but it is possibly derived from the Proto-Turkic word "*bulģha" ("to mix", "shake", "stir") and its derivative "*bulgak" ("revolt", "disorder"). Alternative etymologies include derivation from a compound of Proto-Turkic (Oghuric) "*bel" ("five") and "*gur" ("arrow" in the sense of "tribe"), a proposed division within the Utigurs or Onogurs ("ten tribes").


title: Bulgarians

text: According to the Art.25 (1) of Constitution of Bulgaria, a Bulgarian citizen shall be anyone born to at least one parent holding a Bulgarian citizenship, or born on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria, should they not be entitled to any other citizenship by virtue of origin. Bulgarian citizenship shall further be acquirable through naturalization. About 77% of Bulgaria's population identified themselves as ethnic Bulgarians in 2011 Bulgarian census.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians are descended from peoples of vastly different origins and numbers, and are thus the result of a "melting pot" effect.


title: Bulgarians

text: From the indigenous Thracian people certain cultural and ethnic elements were taken. Other pre-Slavic Indo-European peoples, including Dacians (if distinct from Thracians), Celts, Goths, Romans, ancient Greeks, Sarmatians, Paeonians and Illyrians also settled into the later Bulgarian land. The Thracian language was still spoken in the 6th century, probably becoming extinct afterwards, but that in a later period the Bulgarians replaced long-established Greek/Latin toponyms with Thracian, might suggest that it had not been completely obliterated then. Some pre-Slavic linguistic and cultural traces might have been preserved in modern Bulgarians (and Macedonians). Scythia Minor and Moesia Inferior appear to have been Romanized, although the region became a focus of barbarian re-settlements (various Goths and Huns) during the 4th and early 5th centuries AD, before a further "Romanization" episode during the early 6th century. According to archeological evidence from the late periods of Roman rule, the Romans did not decrease the number of Thracians significantly in major cities. By the 4th century the major city of Serdica had predominantly Thracian populace based on epigraphic evidence, which shows prevailing Latino-Thracian given names, but thereafter the names were completely replaced by Christian ones.


title: Bulgarians

text: The early Slavs emerged from their original homeland in the early 6th century, and spread to most of the eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, thus forming three main branches: the West Slavs in eastern Central Europe, the East Slavs in Eastern Europe, and the South Slavs in Southeastern Europe (Balkans). The latter gradually inflicted total linguistic replacement of Thracian, if the Thracians had not already been Romanized or Hellenized. Most scholars accept that they began large-scale settling of the Balkans in the 580s based on the statement of the 6th century historian Menander speaking of 100,000 Slavs in Thrace and consecutive attacks of Greece in 582. They continued coming to the Balkans in many waves, but also leaving, most notably Justinian II (685–695) settled as many as 30,000 Slavs from Thrace in Asia Minor. The Byzantines grouped the numerous Slavic tribes into two groups: the Sclaveni and Antes. Some Bulgarian scholars suggest that the Antes became one of the ancestors of the modern Bulgarians.


title: Bulgarians

text: The Bulgars are first mentioned in the 4th century in the vicinity of the North Caucasian steppe. Scholars often suggest that the ultimate origins of the Bulgar is Turkic and can be traced to the Central Asian nomadic confederations, specifically as part of loosely related Oghuric tribes which spanned from the Pontic steppe to central Asia. However, any direct connection between the Bulgars and postulated Asian counterparts rest on little more than speculative and "contorted etymologies". Some Bulgarian historians question the identification of the Bulgars as a Turkic tribe and suggest an Iranian origin. Other Bulgarian scholars actively oppose the "Iranian hypothesis". According to Raymond Detrez, the Iranian theory is rooted in the periods of anti-Turkish sentiment in Bulgaria and is ideologically motivated. Since 1989, anti-Turkish rhetoric is now reflected in the theories that challenge the thesis of the Bulgars' Turkic origin. Alongside the Iranian or Aryan theory, there appeared arguments favoring an autochthonous origin.


title: Bulgarians

text: In the 670s, some Bulgar tribes, the Danube Bulgars led by Asparuh and the Bulgars, led by Kuber, crossed the Danube river and settled in the Balkans with a single migration wave, the former of which Michael the Syrian described as numbering 10,000. The Bulgars are often not thought to have been numerous, becoming a ruling elite in the areas they controlled. However, according to Steven Runciman a tribe that was able to defeat an Emperor-lead Byzantine army, must have been of considerable dimensions. Asparukh's Bulgars made a tribal union with the Severians and the "Seven clans", who were re-settled to protect the flanks of the Bulgar settlements in Scythia Minor, as the capital Pliska was built on the site of a former Slavic settlement.


title: Bulgarians

text: During the Early Byzantine Era, the Roman provincials in Scythia Minor and Moesia Secunda were already engaged in economic and social exchange with the 'barbarians' north of the Danube. This might have facilitated their eventual Slavonization, although the majority of the population appears to have been withdrawn to the hinterland of Constantinople or Asia Minor prior to any permanent Slavic and Bulgar settlement south of the Danube. The major port towns in Pontic Bulgaria remained Byzantine Greek in their outlook. The large scale population transfers and territorial expansions during the 8th and 9th century, additionally increased the number of the Slavs and Byzantine Christians within the state, making the Bulgars quite obviously a minority. The establishment of a new state molded the various Slav, Bulgar and earlier or later populations into the "Bulgarian people" of the First Bulgarian Empire speaking a South Slavic language. In different periods to the ethnogenesis of the local population contributed also different Indo-European and Turkic people, who settled or lived on the Balkans.


title: Bulgarians

text: The Bulgarians are usually regarded as part of the Slavic ethnolinguistic group. However the controversial issue of their ethnogenesis is a popular subject in the works of the nationalist scientists. The fierce debates started in the 19th century and the questionable proportions of the presumed Thracian, Bulgar, and Slavic ancestry, have depended on the geopolitical situation of the country and on ideological and political predilections. These supposed proportions have been changed several times during the 20th century, emphasizing usually the Slavic part of Bulgarian ancestry, related to the traditionally strong Russophilia in the country. However, during the 1970s the Thracology was especially supported by the communist authority, as an attempt to underline the indigenous influence into the Bulgarian ethnogenesis. After the fall of Communism, the spiritualized image of the Thracians began to fade. Following the cooling of the relations with Russia, and the country's EU accession, the opinion on significant Bulgar genetic impact, was launched among nationalist circles, that lately have downplayed the country's Slavic ancestry. From limited group of Turkic equestrian nomads, the Bulgars were reinterpreted by them as numerous settled Aryan people with unique culture.


title: Bulgarians

text: According to a triple analysis – autosomal, mitochondrial and paternal — of available data from large-scale studies on Balto-Slavs and their proximal populations, the whole genome SNP data situates Bulgarians in a cluster with Romanians, Macedonians and Gagauzes, and they are at similar proximity to Serbs and Montenegrins.


title: Bulgarians

text: The First Bulgarian Empire was founded in 681. After the adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 864 it became one of the cultural centres of Slavic Europe. Its leading cultural position was consolidated with the invention of the Cyrillic script in its capital Preslav at the eve of the 10th century. The development of Old Church Slavonic literacy in the country had the effect of preventing the assimilation of the South Slavs into neighbouring cultures and it also stimulated the development of a distinct ethnic identity. A symbiosis was carried out between the numerically weak Bulgars and the numerous Slavic tribes in that broad area from the Danube to the north, to the Aegean Sea to the south, and from the Adriatic Sea to the west, to the Black Sea to the east, who accepted the common ethnonym ""Bulgarians"". During the 10th century the Bulgarians established a form of national identity that was far from modern nationalism but helped them to survive as a distinct entity through the centuries.


title: Bulgarians

text: In 1018 Bulgaria lost its independence and remained a Byzantine subject until 1185, when the Second Bulgarian Empire was created. Nevertheless, at the end of the 14th century, the Ottomans conquered the whole of Bulgaria. Under the Ottoman system, Christians were considered an inferior class of people. Thus, Bulgarians, like other Christians, were subjected to heavy taxes and a small portion of the Bulgarian populace experienced partial or complete Islamisation. Orthodox Christians were included in a specific ethno-religious community called "Rum Millet". To the common people, belonging to this Orthodox commonwealth became more important than their ethnic origins. This community became both, basic form of social organization and source of identity for all the ethnic groups inside it. In this way, ethnonyms were rarely used and between the 15th and 19th centuries, most of the local people gradually began to identify themselves simply as "Christians". However, the public-spirited clergy in some isolated monasteries still kept the distinct Bulgarian identity alive, and this helped it to survive predominantly in rural, remote areas. Despite the process of ethno-religious fusion among the Orthodox Christians, strong nationalist sentiments persisted into the Catholic community in the northwestern part of the country. At that time, a process of partial Hellenization occurred among the intelligentsia and the urban population, as a result of the higher status of the Greek culture and the Greek Orthodox Church among the Balkan Christians. During the second half of the 18th century, the Enlightenment in Western Europe provided influence for the initiation of the National awakening of Bulgaria in 1762.


title: Bulgarians

text: Some Bulgarians supported the Russian Army when they crossed the Danube in the middle of the 18th century. Russia worked to convince them to settle in areas recently conquered by it, especially in Bessarabia. As a consequence, many Bulgarian refugees settled there, and later they formed two military regiments, as part of the Russian military colonization of the area in 1759–1763.


title: Bulgarians

text: During the Russo-Turkish Wars (1806–1812) and (1828–1829) Bulgarian emigrants formed the Bulgarian Countrymen's Army and joined the Russian Army, hoping Russia would bring Bulgarian liberation, but its imperial interests were focused then on Greece and Valachia. The rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire led to a struggle for cultural and religious autonomy of the Bulgarian people. The Bulgarians wanted to have their own schools and liturgy in Bulgarian, and they needed an independent ecclesiastical organisation. Discontent with the supremacy of the Greek Orthodox clergy, the struggle started to flare up in several Bulgarian dioceses in the 1820s.


title: Bulgarians

text: It was not until the 1850s when the Bulgarians initiated a purposeful struggle against the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The struggle between the Bulgarians and the Greek Phanariotes intensified throughout the 1860s. In 1861 the Vatican and the Ottoman government recognized a separate Bulgarian Uniat Church. As the Greek clerics were ousted from most Bulgarian bishoprics at the end of the decade, significant areas had been seceded from the Patriarchate's control. This movement restored the distinct Bulgarian national consciousness among the common people and led to the recognition of the Bulgarian millet in 1870 by the Ottomans. As result, two armed struggle movements started to develop as late as the beginning of the 1870s: the Internal Revolutionary Organisation and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee. Their armed struggle reached its peak with the April Uprising which broke out in 1876. It resulted in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), and led to the foundation of the third Bulgarian state after the Treaty of San Stefano. The issue of Bulgarian nationalism gained greater significance, following the Congress of Berlin which took back the Macedonia and Adrianople regions, returning them under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Also an autonomous Ottoman province, called Eastern Rumelia was created in Northern Thrace. As a consequence, the Bulgarian national movement proclaimed as its aim the inclusion of most of Macedonia, Thrace and Moesia under Greater Bulgaria.


title: Bulgarians

text: Eastern Rumelia was annexed to Bulgaria in 1885 through bloodless revolution. During the early 1890s, two pro-Bulgarian revolutionary organizations were founded: the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization and the Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee. In 1903 they participated in the unsuccessful Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising against the Ottomans in Macedonia and the Adrianople Vilayet. Macedonian Slavs were identified then predominantly as Bulgarians, and significant Bulgarophile sentiments endured up among them until the end of the Second World War.


title: Bulgarians

text: In the early 20th century the control over Macedonia became a key point of contention between Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, who fought the First Balkan War of (1912–1913) and the Second Balkan War of (1913). The area was further fought over during the World War I (1915–1918) and the World War II (1941–1944).


title: Bulgarians

text: Most Bulgarians live in Bulgaria, where they number around 6 million, constituting 85% of the population. Bulgarian minorities exist in Serbia, Romania (Banat Bulgarians), Hungary, Albania, as well as in Ukraine and Moldova (see Bessarabian Bulgarians). Many Bulgarians also live in the diaspora, which is formed by representatives and descendants of the old (before 1989) and new (after 1989) emigration. The old emigration was made up of some 2,470,000 economic and several tens of thousands of political emigrants, and was directed for the most part to the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Germany. The new emigration is estimated at some 970,000 people and can be divided into two major subcategories: permanent emigration at the beginning of the 1990s, directed mostly to the U.S., Canada, Austria, and Germany and labour emigration at the end of the 1990s, directed for the most part to Greece, Italy, the UK and Spain. Migrations to the West have been quite steady even in the late 1990s and early 21st century, as people continue moving to countries like the US, Canada and Australia. Most Bulgarians living in Canada can be found in Toronto, Ontario, and the provinces with the most Bulgarians in Canada are Ontario and Quebec. According to the 2001 census there were 1,124,240 Bulgarian citizens in the city of Sofia, 302,858 in Plovdiv, 300,000 in Varna and about 200,000 in Burgas. The total number of Bulgarians stood at over 9 million.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians are considered most closely related to the neighbouring Macedonians. The ethnic Macedonians were considered Bulgarians by most ethnographers until the early 20th century and beyond with a big portion of them evidently self-identifying as such. The majority of the Slavic speakers of Greek Macedonia and part of the Torlak speakers in Serbia have also had a history of identifying as Bulgarians and being members of the Bulgarian Exarchate, which included most of the Torlak-speaking and Greek Macedonian territory. The greater part of these people were also considered Bulgarians by most ethnographers until the early 20th century and beyond.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians speak a South Slavic language which is mutually intelligible with Macedonian and to a lesser degree with Serbo-Croatian, especially the eastern dialects. The lexical similarities between Bulgarian and Macedonian are 86%, between Bulgarian and other Slavic languages between 71% and 80%, but with the Baltic languages they are 40–46%, while with English are about 20%. Less than a dozen Bulgarian words are derived from Turkic Bulgar.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarian demonstrates some linguistic developments that set it apart from other Slavic languages shared with Romanian, Albanian and Greek (see Balkan language area). Bulgarian was influenced lexically by medieval and modern Greek, and Turkish. Medieval Bulgarian influenced the other South Slavic languages and Romanian. With Bulgarian and Russian there was a mutual influence in both directions. Both languages were official or a lingua franca of each other during the Middle Ages and the Cold War. Recently, Bulgarian has borrowed many words from German, French and English.


title: Bulgarians

text: The Bulgarian language is spoken by the majority of the Bulgarian diaspora, but less so by the descendants of earlier emigrants to the U.S., Canada, Argentina and Brazil.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarian linguists consider the officialized Macedonian language (since 1944) to be a local variation of Bulgarian, just as most ethnographers and linguists until the early 20th century considered the local Slavic speech in the Macedonian region. The president of Bulgaria, Zhelyu Zhelev, declined to recognize Macedonian as a separate language when North Macedonia became a new independent state. The Bulgarian language is written in the Cyrillic script.


title: Bulgarians

text: In the first half of the 10th century, the Cyrillic script was devised in the Preslav Literary School, Bulgaria, based on the Glagolitic, the Greek and Latin alphabets. Modern versions of the alphabet are now used to write five more Slavic languages such as Belarusian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian as well as Mongolian and some other 60 languages spoken in the former Soviet Union. Medieval Bulgaria was the most important cultural centre of the Slavic peoples at the end of the 9th and throughout the 10th century. The two literary schools of Preslav and Ohrid developed a rich literary and cultural activity with authors of the rank of Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, Chernorizets Hrabar, Clement and Naum of Ohrid. Bulgaria exerted similar influence on her neighbouring countries in the mid- to late 14th century, at the time of the Tarnovo Literary School, with the work of Patriarch Evtimiy, Gregory Tsamblak, Constantine of Kostenets (Konstantin Kostenechki). Bulgarian cultural influence was especially strong in Wallachia and Moldova where the Cyrillic script was used until 1860, while Church Slavonic was the official language of the princely chancellery and of the church until the end of the 17th century.


title: Bulgarians

text: There are several different layers of Bulgarian names. The vast majority of them have either Christian (names like Lazar, Ivan, Anna, Maria, Ekaterina) or Slavic origin (Vladimir, Svetoslav, Velislava). After the Liberation in 1878, the names of historical Bulgar rulers like Asparuh, Krum, Kubrat and Tervel were resurrected. The Bulgar name Boris has spread from Bulgaria to a number of countries in the world.


title: Bulgarians

text: Most Bulgarian male surnames have an "-ov" surname suffix (Cyrillic: ), a tradition used mostly by Eastern Slavic nations such as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. This is sometimes transcribed as "-off" or "-of" (John Atanasov—John Atanasoff), but more often as "-ov" (e.g. Boyko Borisov). The "-ov" suffix is the Slavic gender-agreeing suffix, thus "Ivanov" () literally means "Ivan's". Bulgarian middle names are patronymic and use the gender-agreeing suffix as well, thus the middle name of Nikola's son becomes "Nikolov", and the middle name of Ivan's son becomes "Ivanov". Since names in Bulgarian are gender-based, Bulgarian women have the "-ova" surname suffix (Cyrillic: ), for example, "Maria Ivanova". The plural form of Bulgarian names ends in "-ovi" (Cyrillic: ), for example the "Ivanovi" family ().


title: Bulgarians

text: Other common Bulgarian male surnames have the "-ev" surname suffix (Cyrillic: ), for example "Stoev", "Ganchev", "Peev", and so on. The female surname in this case would have the "-eva" surname suffix (Cyrillic: ), for example: "Galina Stoeva". The last name of the entire family then would have the plural form of "-evi" (Cyrillic: ), for example: the "Stoevi" family ().


title: Bulgarians

text: Another typical Bulgarian surname suffix, though less common, is "-ski". This surname ending also gets an "–a" when the bearer of the name is female ("Smirnenski" becomes "Smirnenska"). The plural form of the surname suffix "-ski" is still "-ski", e.g. the "Smirnenski" family ().


title: Bulgarians

text: The ending "–in" (female "-ina") also appears rarely. It used to be given to the child of an unmarried woman (for example the son of "Kuna" will get the surname "Kunin" and the son of "Gana" – "Ganin"). The surname suffix "-ich" can be found only occasionally, primarily among the Roman Catholic Bulgarians. The surname ending "–ich" does not get an additional "–a" if the bearer of the name is female.


title: Bulgarians

text: Most Bulgarians are at least nominally members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church founded in 870 AD (autocephalous since 927 AD). The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is the independent national church of Bulgaria like the other national branches of the Eastern Orthodox communion and is considered a dominating element of Bulgarian national consciousness. The church was abolished once, during the period of Ottoman rule (1396—1878), in 1873 it was revived as Bulgarian Exarchate and soon after raised again to Bulgarian Patriarchate. In 2011, the Orthodox Church at least nominally had a total of 4,374,000 members in Bulgaria (59% of the population), down from 6,552,000 (83%) at the 2001 census. 4,240,000 of these pointed out the Bulgarian ethnic group. The Orthodox Bulgarian minorities in Romania, Serbia, Greece, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova nowadays hold allegiance to the respective national Orthodox churches.


title: Bulgarians

text: Despite the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a unifying symbol for all Bulgarians, small groups of Bulgarians have converted to other faiths through the course of time. During Ottoman rule, a substantial number of Bulgarians converted to Islam, forming the community of the Pomaks or Muslim Bulgarians. In the 16th and the 17th centuries Roman Catholic missionaries converted a small number of Bulgarian Paulicians in the districts of Plovdiv and Svishtov to Roman Catholicism. Nowadays there are some 40,000 Roman Catholic Bulgarians in Bulgaria, additional 10,000 in the Banat in Romania and up to 100,000 people of Bulgarian ancestry in South America. The Roman Catholic Bulgarians of the Banat are also descendants of Paulicians who fled there at the end of the 17th century after an unsuccessful uprising against the Ottomans. Protestantism was introduced in Bulgaria by missionaries from the United States in 1857. Missionary work continued throughout the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Nowadays there are some 25,000 Protestant Bulgarians in Bulgaria.


title: Bulgarians

text: Boris Christoff, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Raina Kabaivanska and Ghena Dimitrova made a precious contribution to opera singing with Ghiaurov and Christoff being two of the greatest bassos in the post-war period. Similarly, Anna-Maria Ravnopolska-Dean is one of the best-known harpists today.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians have made valuable contributions to world culture in modern times as well. Julia Kristeva and Tzvetan Todorov were among the most influential European philosophers in the second half of the 20th century. The artist Christo is among the most famous representatives of environmental art, with projects such as the Wrapped Reichstag.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians in the diaspora have also been active. American scientists and inventors of Bulgarian descent include John Atanasoff, Peter Petroff, and Assen Jordanoff. Bulgarian-American Stephane Groueff wrote the celebrated book "Manhattan Project", about the making of the first atomic bomb and also penned "Crown of Thorns", a biography of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria.


title: Bulgarians

text: Famous for its rich salads required at every meal, Bulgarian cuisine is also noted for the diversity and quality of dairy products and the variety of local wines and alcoholic beverages such as rakia, mastika and menta. Bulgarian cuisine features also a variety of hot and cold soups, an example of a cold soup being tarator. There are many different Bulgarian pastries as well such as banitsa.


title: Bulgarians

text: Most Bulgarian dishes are oven baked, steamed, or in the form of stew. Deep-frying is not very typical, but grilling—especially different kinds of meats—is very common. Pork meat is the most common meat in the Bulgarian cuisine. Oriental dishes do exist in Bulgarian cuisine with most common being moussaka, gyuvetch, and baklava. A very popular ingredient in Bulgarian cuisine is the Bulgarian white brine cheese called "sirene" (сирене). It is the main ingredient in many salads, as well as in a variety of pastries. Fish and chicken are widely eaten and while beef is less common as most cattle are bred for milk production rather than meat, veal is a natural byproduct of this process and it is found in many popular recipes. Bulgaria is a net exporter of lamb and its own consumption of the meat is prevalent during its production time in spring. The bread and salt tradition, which is widespread amongBalto-Slavs, is the usual welcome given tostrangers and politicians.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians may celebrate Saint Theodore's Day with horse racings. At Christmas Eve a Pogača with fortunes is cooked, which are afterwards put under the pillow. At Easter the first egg is painted red and is kept for a whole year. On the Baptism of Jesus a competition to catch the cross in the river is held and is believed the sky is "opened" and any wish will be fulfilled.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarians as well as Albanians nod the head up and down to indicates "no" and shake to indicate "yes". They may wear the martenitsa (мартеница)—an adornment made of white and red yarn and worn on the wrist or pinned on the clothes—from 1 March until the end of the month. Alternatively, one can take off the martenitsa earlier if one sees a stork (considered a harbinger of spring). One can then tie the martenitsa to the blossoming branch of a tree. Family-members and friends in Bulgaria customarily exchange martenitsas, which they regard as symbols of health and longevity. When a stork is seen, the martenitsa should be left on a tree. The white thread represents peace and tranquility, while the red one stands for the cycles of life. Bulgarians may also refer to the holiday of 1 March as Baba Marta (Баба Марта), meaning "Grandmother March". It preserves an ancient pagan tradition, possibly celebrating the old Roman new Year, beginning on 1 March, identical with Romanian Mărțișor. Pagan customs found their way to the Christian holidays. The ancient ritual of kukeri (кукери), similar to Slovenian Kurentovanje, Busójárás and Halloween, is performed by costumed men in different times of the year and after Easter. This seeks to scare away evil spirits and bring good harvest and health to the community. Goat is symbolized, that was left from the Thracian cult of Dionysian Mysteries. The ritual consists of dancing, jumping, shouting and collect gifts from the houses in an attempt to banish all evil from the village. The adornments on the costumes vary from one region to another. The Thracian Heros remains in the image of Saint George, at whose feast the agriculture is celebrated, a lamb is traditionally eaten, accomplished with ritual bathing. Saint Tryphon's fertility and wine is attributed a Thracian origin, considered to preserve the cult to Sabazius as the Kukeri. This is followed in February by Pokladi, a tradition of setting massively large fire and jump over as at the Kupala Night and a competition between couples to eat an egg on a thread is held. Another characteristic custom called nestinarstvo (нестинарство), or "firedancing", distinguishes the Strandzha region, as well as Dog spinning. The authentic nestinarstvo with states of trance is only preserved in the village Balgari. This ancient custom involves dancing into fire or over live embers. Women dance into the fire with their bare feet without suffering any injury or pain.


title: Bulgarians

text: Slavic pagan customs are preserved in Bulgarian Christian holidays. The Miladinov brothers and foreign authors noticed that even pagan prayers are preserved quoting plenty of Slavic pagan rite songs and tales remained in Bulgarians, including Macedonians and Pomaks, mainly dedicated to the divine nymphs samovili and peperuna for the feasts surva, Saint George's Day, Koleda, etc. with evidence of toponymy throughout the regional groups linking directly to the deities Svarog, Perun, Hors and Veles, while the regional group Hartsoi derive their name from god Hors. Songs dedicated to the Thracian divinity Orpheus were found in Pomaks, who is said to marry the samovili. The old Bulgarian name of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple was "Gromnitsa" and "Perunov den" dedicated to the supreme Slavic thunder god Perun. In the mix of Christian and pagan patrons of thunder, at Saint Elijah's feast day Ognyena Maria is worshiped, the Slavic goddesses assisting Perun that took a substitutional dual position of the Christian Mother of God. The custom for rain begging Peperuna is derived from the wife of Perun and the god of the rain Dodola, this was described by a 1792 Bulgarian book as a continued worship of Perun at times of absence of rain with a ritual performed by a boy or a girl dressed like Perun. Similar rain begging is called German. In case of continuous lack of rain, a custom of driving out the zmey from the area is performed. In the dualistic Slavic belief the zmey may be both good tutelary spirit and evil, in which case is considered not local and good, but evil and trying to inflict harm and drought. Saint Jeremiah's feast is of the snakes and the reptiles, there is a tradition of jumping over fire. At the Rusalska Week the girls don't go outside to prevent themselves from diseases and harm that the dead forces Rusalii can cause. This remained the holiday of the samovili. The men performing the custom are also called Rusalii, they don't let anybody pass through between them, don't talk with each other except for the evening, avoid water, if someone lacks behind a member swoops the sword over the lacker's head to prevent him from evil spirits. If the group encounter on their way a well, dry tree, old cemeteries, crossroads, they go round them three times. Before leaving rusalii say goodbye to their relatives as if they went to war, which is not surprising because some of them are killed. When two rusalii groups met there was a fight to the death in which the dead were buried in special "rusaliyski cemetery." Each year there are holidays in honour of wolves and mouses. A relief for the scared believers is celebrated at the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, when according to Bulgarian belief all the mythical figures go back to their caves in a mythical village in the middle of nowhere Zmeykovo of the zmey king, along with the rusalki, samodivi, and return at Annunciation. According to other beliefs the danger peaks at the so-called few days around the New Year Eve "Dirty Days", this time starts at Koleda, which merged with Christmas, when groups of kids koledari visit houses, singing carols and receiving a gift at parting. It is believed that no man can go in Zmeyovo and only the magpie knows the location of this place. At many of the holidays a sexual taboo is said to be practiced to prevent conceiving a vampire or werewolf and not to work, not to go to Sedenki or go out. Live-fire is set in case of epidemics. Babinden for example is rooted in the mother-goddess. On the day of St. Vlas, the tradition of a "wooly" god Veles established itself, a god who is considered to be a protector of shepherds, and bread is given to the livestock on that day. The ancient Slavic custom to marry died people occurred in Bulgarian society. Survakane is performed each new year with a decorated stick by children, who hit adults on the back for health at the New Year Eve, usually in exchange of money. In the Chech region there is a custom forbidding "touching the land", i.e. construction and agriculture, at the equinox on 25 March and the same custom is found in Belarusian Volhynia and Polesia.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarian mythology and fairy tales are mainly about forest figures, such as the dragon zmey, the nymphs samovili (samodivi), the witch veshtitsa. They are usually harmful and devastating, but can also help the people. The samovili are said to live in beeches and sycamores the, which are therefore considered holy and not permitted burning. Samovili, although believed to be masters of everything between the sky and the earth, "run away" from fraxinus, garlic, dew and walnut. Walnut remained in Christianity to be used in prayers to "see" the dead in Spirits Day. Dictamnus is believed to be their favourite herb, which is intoxicating. The samovili are spirits in Bulgarian beliefs are the diseases themselves and punish people, kidnap shepherds, make blind the people or drown them and are in white colored dress, they are in odd numbers, which suggest they are ones of the "dead". Epic heroes as Prince Marko are believed to be descended from the samodivi. The elm is believed to scare the evil forces. Sacral trees in Bulgarian beliefs are beeches and oaks. Hawthorn is believed to expel all evil forces and is applied to cure suspected vampires. The tradition forbids killing of sacred animals – deer, while it is hold a belief the samodivi runaway from horse. The alleged as "unclean" animals resembling the devil such as the goat are, however, exempted from being eaten as the holy ones. The zmey is transhuman and can turn "into" animals, plants and items, he is also "responsible" for diseases, madness and missing women. The female version of the Slavic zmey is Lamia and Ala is another version. The girls who practiced Lazaruvane and other rituals "could not" be kidnapped by the zmey. The main enemy of the Sun is the zmey, which tries to eat the Sun, which scene is preserved in church art. The sun is painted one eyed as recorded by beliefs Perun stabbed one of the sun's eyes to save the world from overheating. The born on Saturday are thought as having supernatural powers, those born at the wolves' holidays and a number of people are alleged as varkolaks and vampires. The most spread Bulgarian view of the vampire was that of a rolling bulbous balloon of blood derived from the Slavic term "pir" "drink". Rusalka is believed to be a variety of the samodivi and Nav, but the latter are considered little fairies. The Thursdays remained feasts of Perun in Bulgarian beliefs. The wind and the hot steam of the bread is believed to be the souls of the dead. From Easter to Feast of the Ascension it is believed that the death are in the flowers and the animals. Mora in Bulgarian beliefs is a black hairy evil spirit with four firing eyes associated with nightmares when causing someone to scream, similarly to Kikimora. Polunoshtnitsa and Poludnica are believed to be evil spirits causing death, while to Lesnik, Domovnik and Vodnik a dualistic nature is attributed. Thanks to the Vlshebnik, a man of the community, a magician and a priest, communication with the "other" world was held. Torbalan is the Sack Man used to scare children, along with Baba Yaga, who is a witch in her Bulgarian version.


title: Bulgarians

text: Kuma Lisa and Hitar Petar are the tricky fox and villager from the fairy tales, the tricked antagonist is often Nasreddin Hoca, whereas Bay Ganyo is a ridiculed Bulgarian villager. Ivancho and Mariika are the protagonists of the jokes.


title: Bulgarians

text: Despite eastern Ottoman influence is obvious in areas such as cuisine and music, Bulgarian folk beliefs and mythology seem to lack analogies with Turkic mythology, paganism and any non-European folk beliefs, sо in pre-Christian times the ancient Bulgars were much inferior to the Slavs in the ethnogenesis and culture that resulted in modern Bulgarians. The Slavic language was officialized at the same time with Christianity, so Slavic paganism has never been a state religion of Bulgaria or more influential than Tengriism. Most of Bulgarian land lack any pagan archeology left from the Bulgars, despite early Christianization and that during most of the pagan period medieval Bulgarian borders spread significantly only in today's northern Bulgaria. Although legacy indicating ancient Bulgar culture is at most virtually absent in modern Bulgarian culture, some authors claim there is a similarity between the dress and customs of the Chuvashes, who descend from the Volga Bulgars, and the Bulgarian ethnographic group "Kapantsi" from Targovishte Province and Razgrad Province, among whom the claim that they are direct descendants of Asparuh's Bulgars is popular, but Slavic elements are found among them.


title: Bulgarians

text: Bulgarian folk costumes feature long white robes, usually with red embrdoiery and ornaments derived from the Slavic Rachenik.


title: Bulgarians

text: The costume is considered to be mainly derived from the dress of the ancient Slavs, the female dress with the overgarments joined at the shoulders that evolved from Sarafan and all the types of sukman, saya and aprons fasten at the waist are said to be directly descended from the ancient Slavs only with negligible mutation. The women's head-dress, which turned to be a must for the Bulgarian costume is a decoration with flowers optionally on a headband, that distinguishes all the Balto-Slavic peoples and is not found in western cultures. The male dress is of likewise origin, usually Riza "robe", poyas "belt", poturi "full-bottomed breeches" typical for the Slavs and often a tsarvul and kalpak for shoes and jacket. Among the most similar relatives of the latter for example is Ukrainian hutsul, but the kalpak is attributed to Ottoman influence. The male skirt fustanella appears on the dress only of the Macedonian Bulgarians and is of indigenous Balkan origin or influence. In some dress of Thrace the symbol of the snake as in medieval tombs is found and is considered a Thracian cultural legacy and belief.


title: Bulgarians

text: Folk songs are most often about the nymphs from Bulgarian and West Slavic mythology (samovili) and the epic heroes (yunaks). Instruments Gadulka, Gusla, Duduk, gaida Dvoyanka are analogous to other Slavic gudok, dudka and Dvodentsivka. Kaval is common in the Balkans and Turkey and is akin to Arab Kawala, as well as Tapan, Goblet Drum, Zurna. The most spread dance is a circle dance called horo and khorovod. Songs are generally loud. Recent eastern influences from the genre music chalga and turbo-folk even brought a prestige for the masculine voices of females.


title: Bulgarians

text: Valya Balkanska is a folk singer thanks to whom the Bulgarian speech in her song "Izlel ye Delyo Haydutin" will be played in the Outer space for at least 60,000 years more as part of the Voyager Golden Record selection of music included in the two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977.


title: Bulgarians

text: As for most European peoples, football became by far the most popular sport for the Bulgarians. Hristo Stoichkov was one of the best football (soccer) players in the second half of the 20th century, having played with the national team and FC Barcelona. He received a number of awards and was the joint top scorer at the 1994 World Cup. Dimitar Berbatov, formerly in Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Bayer Leverkusen and others, the national team and two domestic clubs, is still the most popular Bulgarian football player of the 21st century.


title: Bulgarians

text: In the beginning of the 20th century Bulgaria was famous for two of the best wrestlers in the world – Dan Kolov and Nikola Petroff. Stefka Kostadinova is the best female high jumper, still holding the world record from 1987, one of the oldest unbroken world records for all kind of athletics. Ivet Lalova along with Irina Privalova is currently the fastest white woman at 100 metres. Kaloyan Mahlyanov has been the first European sumo wrestler to win the Emperor's Cup in Japan. Veselin Topalov won the 2005 World Chess Championship. He was ranked No. 1 in the world from April 2006 to January 2007, and had the second highest Elo rating of all time (2813). He regained the world No. 1 ranking again in October 2008.


title: Bulgarians

text: The national symbols of the Bulgarians are the Flag, the Coat of Arms, the National anthem and the National Guard, as well other unofficial symbols such as the Samara flag.


title: Bulgarians

text: The national flag of Bulgaria is a rectangle with three colours: white, green, and red, positioned horizontally top to bottom. The colour fields are of same form and equal size. It is generally known that the white represents – the sky, the green – the forest and nature and the red – the blood of the people, referencing the strong bond of the nation through all the wars and revolutions that have shaken the country in the past.


title: Bulgarians

text: The Coat of arms of Bulgaria is a state symbol of the sovereignty and independence of the Bulgarian people and state. It represents a crowned rampant golden lion on a dark red background with the shape of a shield. Above the shield there is a crown modeled after the crowns of the emperors of the Second Bulgarian Empire, with five crosses and an additional cross on top. Two crowned rampant golden lions hold the shield from both sides, facing it. They stand upon two crossed oak branches with acorns, which symbolize the power and the longevity of the Bulgarian state. Under the shield, there is a white band lined with the three national colours. The band is placed across the ends of the branches and the phrase "Unity Makes Strength" is inscribed on it.


title: Bulgarians

text: Both the Bulgarian flag and the Coat of Arms are also used as symbols of various Bulgarian organisations, political parties and institutions.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Following the declaration of secession by South Carolina on December 20, 1860, its authorities demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On December 26, Major Robert Anderson of the U.S. Army surreptitiously moved his small command from the vulnerable Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island to Fort Sumter, a substantial fortress built on an island controlling the entrance of Charleston Harbor. An attempt by U.S. President James Buchanan to reinforce and resupply Anderson using the unarmed merchant ship "Star of the West" failed when it was fired upon by shore batteries on January 9, 1861. The ship was hit three times, which caused no major damage but nonetheless kept the supplies from reaching Anderson. South Carolina authorities then seized all Federal property in the Charleston area except for Fort Sumter.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: During the early months of 1861, the situation around Fort Sumter increasingly began to resemble a siege. In March, Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, the first general officer of the newly formed Confederate States Army, was placed in command of Confederate forces in Charleston. Beauregard energetically directed the strengthening of batteries around Charleston harbor aimed at Fort Sumter. Conditions in the fort deteriorated due to shortages of men, food, and supplies as the Union soldiers rushed to complete the installation of additional guns.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: The resupply of Fort Sumter became the first crisis of the administration of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, inaugurated March 4, 1861, following his victory in the election of November 6, 1860. He notified the Governor of South Carolina, Francis W. Pickens, that he was sending supply ships, which resulted in an ultimatum from the Confederate government for the immediate evacuation of Fort Sumter, which Major Anderson refused. Beginning at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, the Confederates bombarded the fort from artillery batteries surrounding the harbor. Although the Union garrison returned fire, they were significantly outgunned and, after 34 hours, Major Anderson agreed to evacuate. There were no deaths on either side as a direct result of this engagement, although a gun explosion during the surrender ceremonies on April 14 caused the death of two U.S. Army soldiers. The event often regarded as the "First Bloodshed of the Civil War" was the Baltimore riot of 1861, one week later.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Following the battle, there was widespread support from both North and South for further military action. Lincoln's immediate call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion resulted in an additional four Southern states also declaring their secession and joining the Confederacy. The battle is usually recognized as the first battle of the American Civil War.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: On December 20, 1860, shortly after Abraham Lincoln's victory in the presidential election of 1860, South Carolina adopted an ordinance declaring its secession from the United States of America, and by February 1861 six more Southern states had adopted similar ordinances of secession. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. A February peace conference met in Washington, D.C., but failed to resolve the crisis. The remaining eight slave states declined pleas to join the Confederacy.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: The seceding states seized Federal properties within their boundaries, including buildings, arsenals, and fortifications. President James Buchanan protested but took no action. Buchanan was concerned that an overt action could cause the remaining slave states to leave the Union, and while he thought that there was no constitutional authority for a state to secede, he could find no constitutional authority for him to act to prevent it.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Several forts had been constructed in Charleston's harbor, including Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, which were not among the sites seized initially. Fort Moultrie on Sullivan Island was the oldest—it was the site of fortifications since 1776—and was the headquarters of the U.S. Army garrison. However, it had been designed as a gun platform for defending the harbor, and its defenses against land-based attacks were feeble; during the crisis, the Charleston newspapers commented that sand dunes had piled up against the walls in such a way that the wall could easily be scaled. When the garrison began clearing away the dunes, the papers objected.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Major Robert Anderson of the 1st U.S. Artillery regiment had been appointed to command the Charleston garrison that fall because of rising tensions. A native of Kentucky, he was a protégé of Winfield Scott, the general in chief of the Army, and was thought more capable of handling a crisis than the garrison's previous commander, Col. John L. Gardner, who was nearing retirement. Anderson had served an earlier tour of duty at Fort Moultrie and his father had been a defender of the fort (then called Fort Sullivan) during the American Revolutionary War. Throughout the fall, South Carolina authorities considered both secession and the expropriation of federal property in the harbor to be inevitable. As tensions mounted, the environment around the fort increasingly resembled a siege, to the point that the South Carolina authorities placed picket ships to observe the movements of the troops and threatened to attack when forty rifles were transferred to one of the harbor forts from the U.S. arsenal in the city.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: In contrast to Moultrie, Fort Sumter dominated the entrance to Charleston Harbor and, though unfinished, was designed to be one of the strongest fortresses in the world. In the fall of 1860 work on the fort was nearly completed, but the fortress was thus far garrisoned by a single soldier, who functioned as a lighthouse keeper, and a small party of civilian construction workers. Under the cover of darkness on December 26, six days after South Carolina declared its secession, Anderson abandoned the indefensible Fort Moultrie, ordering its guns spiked and its gun carriages burned, and surreptitiously relocated his command by small boats to Sumter.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: South Carolina authorities considered Anderson's move to be a breach of faith. Governor Francis W. Pickens believed that President Buchanan had made implicit promises to him to keep Sumter unoccupied and suffered political embarrassment as a result of his trust in those promises. Buchanan, a former U.S. Secretary of State and diplomat, had used carefully crafted ambiguous language to Pickens, promising that he would not "immediately" occupy it. From Major Anderson's standpoint, he was merely moving his existing garrison troops from one of the locations under his command to another. He had received instructions from the War Department on December 11, written by Major General Don Carlos Buell, Assistant Adjutant General of the Army, approved by Secretary of War John B. Floyd:


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Governor Pickens, therefore, ordered that all remaining Federal positions except Fort Sumter were to be seized. State troops quickly occupied Fort Moultrie (capturing 56 guns), Fort Johnson on James Island, and the battery on Morris Island. On December 27, an assault force of 150 men seized the Union-occupied Castle Pinckney fortification, in the harbor close to downtown Charleston, capturing 24 guns and mortars without bloodshed. On December 30, the Federal arsenal in Charleston was captured, resulting in the acquisition of more than 22,000 weapons by the militia. The Confederates promptly made repairs at Fort Moultrie and dozens of new batteries and defense positions were constructed throughout the Charleston harbor area, including an unusual floating battery, and armed with weapons captured from the arsenal.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: President Buchanan was surprised and dismayed at Anderson's move to Sumter, unaware of the authorization Anderson had received. Nevertheless, he refused Pickens's demand to evacuate Charleston harbor. Since the garrison's supplies were limited, Buchanan authorized a relief expedition of supplies, small arms, and 200 soldiers. The original intent was to send the Navy sloop-of-war USS "Brooklyn", but it was discovered that Confederates had sunk some derelict ships to block the shipping channel into Charleston and there was concern that "Brooklyn" had too deep a draft to negotiate the obstacles. Instead, it seemed prudent to send an unarmed civilian merchant ship, "Star of the West", which might be perceived as less provocative to the Confederates. As "Star of the West" approached the harbor entrance on January 9, 1861, it was fired upon by a battery on Morris Island, which was staffed by cadets from The Citadel, among them William Stewart Simkins, who were the only trained artillerymen in the service of South Carolina at the time. Batteries from Fort Moultrie joined in and "Star of the West" was forced to withdraw. Major Anderson prepared his guns at Sumter when he heard the Confederate fire, but the secrecy of the operation had kept him unaware that a relief expedition was in progress and he chose not to start a general engagement.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: In a letter delivered January 31, 1861, Governor Pickens demanded of President Buchanan that he surrender Fort Sumter because, "I regard that possession is not consistent with the dignity or safety of the State of South Carolina."


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Conditions at the fort were difficult during the winter of 1860–1861. Rations were short and fuel for heat was limited. The garrison scrambled to complete the defenses as best they could. Fort Sumter was designed to mount 135 guns, operated by 650 officers and men, but construction had met with numerous delays for decades and budget cuts had left it only about 90 percent finished in early 1861. Anderson's garrison consisted of just 85 men, primarily made up of two small artillery companies: Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery, commanded by Capt. Abner Doubleday, and Company H, commanded by Capt. Truman Seymour. There were six other officers present: Surgeon Samuel W. Crawford, First Lt. Theodore Talbot of Company H, First Lt. Jefferson C. Davis of the 1st U.S. Artillery, and Second Lt. Norman J. Hall of Company H. Capt. John G. Foster and First Lt. George W. Snyder of the Corps of Engineers were responsible for the construction of the Charleston forts, but they reported to their headquarters in Washington, not directly to Anderson. The remaining personnel were 68 noncommissioned officers and privates, eight musicians, and 43 noncombatant workmen.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: By April the Union troops had positioned 60 guns, but they had insufficient men to operate them all. The fort consisted of three levels of enclosed gun positions, or casemates. The second level of casemates was unoccupied. The majority of the guns were on the first level of casemates, on the upper level (the parapet or barbette positions), and on the center parade field. Unfortunately for the defenders, the original mission of the fort—harbor defense—meant that it was designed so that the guns were primarily aimed at the Atlantic, with little capability of protecting from artillery fire from the surrounding land or from infantry conducting an amphibious assault.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: In March, Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard took command of South Carolina forces in Charleston; on March 1, President Jefferson Davis had appointed him the first general officer in the armed forces of the new Confederacy, specifically to take command of the siege. Beauregard made repeated demands that the Union force either surrender or withdraw and took steps to ensure that no supplies from the city were available to the defenders, whose food was running low. He also increased drills amongst the South Carolina militia, training them to operate the guns they manned. Major Anderson had been Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point; the two had been especially close, and Beauregard had become Anderson's assistant after graduation. Both sides spent March drilling and improving their fortifications to the best of their abilities.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Beauregard, a trained military engineer, built up overwhelming strength to challenge Fort Sumter. Fort Moultrie had three 8-inch Columbiads, two 8-inch howitzers, five 32-pound smoothbores, and four 24-pounders. Outside of Moultrie were five 10-inch mortars, two 32-pounders, two 24-pounders, and a 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbore. The floating battery next to Fort Moultrie had two 42-pounders and two 32-pounders on a raft protected by iron shielding. Fort Johnson on James Island had one 24-pounder and four 10-inch mortars. At Cummings Point on Morris Island, the Confederates had emplaced seven 10-inch mortars, two 42-pounders, an English Blakely rifled cannon, and three 8-inch Columbiads, the latter in the so-called Iron Battery, protected by a wooden shield faced with iron bars. About 6,000 men were available to man the artillery and to assault the fort, if necessary, including the local militia, young boys and older men.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as president. He was almost immediately confronted with the surprise information that Major Anderson was reporting that only six weeks of rations remained at Fort Sumter. A crisis similar to the one at Fort Sumter had emerged at Pensacola, Florida, where Confederates threatened another U.S. fortification—Fort Pickens. Lincoln and his new cabinet struggled with the decisions of whether to reinforce the forts, and how. They were also concerned about whether to take actions that might start open hostilities and which side would be perceived as the aggressor as a result. Similar discussions and concerns were occurring in the Confederacy.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: After the formation of the Confederate States of America in early February, there was some debate among the secessionists whether the capture of the fort was rightly a matter for South Carolina or for the newly declared national government in Montgomery, Alabama. South Carolina Governor Pickens was among the states' rights advocates who thought that all property in Charleston harbor had reverted to South Carolina upon that state's secession as an independent commonwealth. This debate ran alongside another discussion about how aggressively the installations—including Forts Sumter and Pickens—should be obtained. President Davis, like his counterpart in Washington, preferred that his side not be seen as the aggressor. Both sides believed that the first side to use force would lose precious political support in the border states, whose allegiance was undetermined; before Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, five states had voted "against" secession, including Virginia, and Lincoln openly offered to evacuate Fort Sumter if it would guarantee Virginia's loyalty. When asked about that offer, Abraham Lincoln commented, "A state for a fort is no bad business."


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: The South sent delegations to Washington, D.C., and offered to pay for the Federal properties and enter into a peace treaty with the United States. Lincoln rejected any negotiations with the Confederate agents because he did not consider the Confederacy a legitimate nation and making any treaty with it would be tantamount to recognition of it as a sovereign government. However, Secretary of State William H. Seward, who wished to give up Sumter for political reasons—as a gesture of good will—engaged in unauthorized and indirect negotiations that failed.


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: On April 4, as the supply situation on Sumter became critical, President Lincoln ordered a relief expedition, to be commanded by a former naval captain (and future Assistant Secretary of the Navy) Gustavus V. Fox, who had proposed a plan for nighttime landings of smaller vessels than the "Star of the West". Fox's orders were to land at Sumter with supplies only, and if he was opposed by the Confederates, to respond with the U.S. Navy vessels following and to then land both supplies and men. This time, Maj. Anderson was informed of the impending expedition, although the arrival date was not revealed to him. On April 6, Lincoln notified Governor Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the fort."


title: Battle of Fort Sumter

text: Lincoln's notification had been made to the governor of South Carolina, not the new Confederate government, which Lincoln did not recognize. Pickens consulted with Beauregard, the local Confederate commander. Soon President Davis ordered Beauregard to repeat the demand for Sumter's surrender, and if it did not, to reduce the fort before the relief expedition arrived. The Confederate cabinet, meeting in Montgomery, endorsed Davis's order on April 9. Only Secretary of State Robert Toombs opposed this decision: he reportedly told Jefferson Davis the attack "will lose us every friend at the North. You will only strike a hornet's nest. ... Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."