title: Religion in Nigeria

text: During the 1980s religious riots occurred in and around the five cities of Kano in 1980, Kaduna in 1982, Bulum-Ketu in 1982, Jimeta in 1984 and Gombe in 1985. These riots were caused by the migration of the rural poor into urban towns during the dry seasons. An offshoot of Islam called the ‘Yan Tatsine’ violently rebelled against the authorities and non-members. These radical Muslims were inspired by Alhaji Mohammed Marwa Maitatsine. He was a Cameroon preacher who slated the government, something which led to his arrest in Nigeria in 1975, yet by 1972 many people followed him across society, ranging from the elite to Koranic students called almajiral or gardawa and unemployed migrants. Maitatsine and his followers became separate from orthodox Islam, condemning the corruption of the religious and secular elites and the wealthy upper classes’ consumption of Western goods during the petrol boom in 1974–81. The Boko Haram movement has been connected to the Maitatsine movement. They want to implement sharia law across the whole of Nigeria.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Nigeria has the largest Christian population in Africa though Christians are about 48% of the population. According to a 2011 Pew report, over 80 million Nigerians are Christians. Among Christians, about a quarter are Catholic, three quarters are Protestant, and about 750,000 belong to other Christian denominations and a few of them are Orthodox Christians.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The leading Protestant churches in the country are the Church of Nigeria of the Anglican Communion, The African Church, the Assemblies of God Church, the Nigerian Baptist Convention and The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations. The Yoruba area contains a large Anglican population, while Igboland is predominantly Catholic and the Edo area is predominantly Assemblies of God, which was introduced into Nigeria by Augustus Asonye and his associates at Old Umuahia.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: From the 1990s to the 2000s, there was significant growth in Protestant churches, including the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Living Faith Church (Winners' Chapel), Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) (the first Aladura Movement in Nigeria), Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Evangelical Church Winning All, Mountain of Fire and Miracles, Christ Embassy, Common Wealth of Zion Assembly, Aladura Church (indigenous Christian churches being especially strong in the Yoruba and Igbo areas), and of evangelical churches in general. Also the Watchman Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement was formed during this period with branches all over Nigeria. These churches have spilled over into adjacent and southern areas of the middle belt. Denominations like the Seventh-day Adventist also exist.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: There are over 300,000 Early Pentecostal Apostolic Churches parishes in Nigeria having about 4.2 million adherents. Such denominations in this group are:


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: There are also about 380,000 New Apostolic Church parishes constituting about 6.5 million believers|New Apostolic Christians in Nigeria include:


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: 1) The Redeemed Church, 4) Deeper Life Church, 5) Overcomers' Ministries and other new springs. By and large, Protestantism particularly the Pentecostals, Apostolic and evangelicals constitute the major Christian population of Nigeria from the late 1990s to the present.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announced creation of new Owerri mission in Nigeria in 2016.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The Archdioceses of the Roman Catholic Church are: Abuja, Onitsha, Jos, Benin City, Calabar, Ibadan, Lagos, and Owerri. It has about 19 million members in Nigeria in 2005. Cardinal Francis Arinze is a Roman Catholic Cardinal from Nigeria. The pope recently appointed a Nigerian in the person of Professor, Kokunre A. Agbontaen-Eghafona into the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) in the Vatican.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Lagos, Ibadan, Ondo, Bendel, The Niger, Niger Delta, Owerri, Abuja, Kaduna and Jos. Its primate is Nicholas Okoh.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The largest ethnic groups in Nigeria are Hausa-Fulani Muslims, the Tarok, Igbo, Kataf which are Christians, And the Yoruba which are almost evenly divided between Islam and Christianity. Prior to British imperialism, citizens of the predominantly Muslim nation lived in a sense of harmony and trust amongst one another, which was later shattered by the British imposition of Christianity to Nigerian society. Ironically, Christianity was introduced by the British under the assumption that it would make Nigerians easier to control and take advantage of their natural resources, namely oil. In reality, however, this introduction made natives suffer massive culture and identity loss, which made the country much more volatile and harder to control, marking the beginning of decades of religion-based wars.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The bulk of religious violence exists mainly in impoverished urban centers in the northern regions of the country, although coastal centers in the south are also prone to instances of political violence based on religious beliefs, as this is where the non-Hausa Christian minorities reside that are disfavored by the predominantly Hausa Muslim government. Non-Hausa groups residing in southern regions of Nigeria are marginalized by the republic, treated as second-class citizens, and denied their entitlements. The Zango Kataf riot of 1992 is one example of political violence in the south; when the local government announced markets would be moved out of southern Zango, riots erupted and thousands of people were killed as this was yet another instance of governmental discrimination that displaced the predominantly Christian locals.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The majority of Christians now are found in the south east, South-South, south west and Middle-belt region. It is estimated that around half the Nigerian population today are Muslim, while just under half are Christian. In northern urban centers, however, about 95% of the population is Muslim.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: An increasing number of mission stations and mission bookstores, along with churches serving southern enclaves and northern Christians in the northern cities and larger towns, are found in the Muslim north. Christianity in Yoruba area traditionally has been Protestant and Anglican, currently Protestant Pentecostal/evangelicals, whereas Igboland has always been the area of greatest activity by the Roman Catholic Church with current infusions of Protestantism. Other denominations abounded as well.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Presbyterians arrived in the late 17th century in the Ibibio, Annang and Efik land and the Niger Delta area and had missions in the middle belt as well. The works of the Presbyterian Church in Calabar from Scotland by missionaries like Rev Hope M. Waddell, who arrived in Calabar 10 April 1846, in the 19th century and that of Mary Slessor of Calabar are examples. Small missionary movements were allowed to start up, generally in the 1920s, after the middle belt was considered pacified. Each denomination set up rural networks by providing schooling and health facilities. Most such facilities remained in 1990, although in many cases schools had been taken over by the local state government in order to standardize curricula and indigenize the teaching staff.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Pentecostals arrived mostly as indigenous workers in the post-independence period, and in the 1980s, Evangelical and Apostolic Pentecostalism were spreading rapidly throughout the south western and middle belt, having major success in hitherto Roman Catholic and Protestant towns of the south as well . There were also breakaway, or Africanized churches, that blended traditional Christian symbols with indigenous symbols. Among these was the Aladura (prayer) movement that was spreading rapidly throughout Yoruba land and into the non-Muslim middle belt areas.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Apart from Benin and Warri, which had come in contact with Christianity through the Portuguese as early as the 15th century, most missionaries arrived by sea in the 19th century. As with other areas in African continent, Roman Catholics and Anglicans each tended to establish areas of hegemony in southern Nigeria. After World War I, smaller denominations such as the Church of the Brethren (as Ekklesiyar Yan'uwa a Nigeria), Seventh-day Adventists and others worked in interstitial areas, trying not to compete. Although less well-known, African-American churches entered the missionary field in the 19th century and created contacts with Nigeria that lasted well into the colonial period. Also, during this period, Jehovah's Witnesses began their missionary work in Nigeria and soon spread throughout the country


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: African churches were founded by small groups breaking off from the European denominations, especially in Yorubaland, where such independence movements started as early as the early 19th century—influenced by American and British missionaries in early 1900s and stimulated by the great revival of the 1930s. They were for the most part ritually and doctrinally identical to the parent church, although more African music, and later dance and dressage/vesture, entered and mixed with the imported church services. Notable among the new springs of 1930 were such Protestant Pentecostals as the Christ Apostolic Church—an offshoot of US-based Faith Tabernacle which swept through the Western Region and complemented by the likes of the Celestial Church and the Cherubim and Seraphim Church which were indigenous autonomous springs. A number of indigenous denominations used Biblical references to support polygamy.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: With political independence came African priests in both Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations. Rituals and forms of worship were strictly those of the home country of the original missionaries. By the 1980s, African music and even dancing were being introduced quietly into western oriented church services, albeit altered to fit into rituals of Euro-American origin. Southern Christians living in the north, especially in larger cities, had congregations and churches founded as early as the 1920s.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Even medium-sized towns (20,000 persons or more) with an established southern enclave had local churches, especially in the middle belt, where both major religions had a strong foothold. The exodus of Igbo from the north in the late 1960s left Roman Catholic churches poorly attended. By the 1980s adherents were back in even greater numbers, and a number of new churches had been built. The middle belt and the west and southwest of Nigeria remain the hold of Protestants (Pentecostal, evangelical and indigenous spring of Christian denominations).


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The Aladura, like several other breakaway churches, stress healing and fulfillment of life goals for oneself and one's family. African beliefs that sorcery and witchcraft are malevolent forces against which protection is required are accepted; rituals are warm and emotional, stressing personal involvement and acceptance of spirit possession. Theology is biblical, but some sects add costumed processions and some accept polygyny.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Major congregations of the larger Anglican and Roman Catholic missions represented elite families of their respective areas, although each of these churches had members from all levels and many quite humble church buildings. Nevertheless, a wedding in the Anglican cathedral in Lagos was usually a gathering of the elite of the entire country, and of Lagos and Yorubaland in particular. Such families had connections to their churches going back to the 19th century and were generally not attracted to the breakaway churches. All major urban centers, all universities, and the new capital of Abuja had areas set aside for the major religions to build churches and mosques and for burial grounds.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Alongside the main religious sect is the traditional belief system that without contradicting civil law manages to also govern ethics and morality amongst much of the population.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Within the city and states of Yorubaland as well as its neighbors, a more reserved way of life expresses a theology that links local beliefs to a centrally placed government and its sovereignty over the neighbourhood or communities through the monarch, the king. The seat of the king (oba) is chiefly responsible for the welfare of its subjects, as a confirmation of the legitimacy of the oba's (king) rule over his subjects.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: In addition to ensuring access to, and the continual fertility of, both land and people, seasonal carnivals act as a spectacle for "tourism" contributing to regional productivity. Meanwhile, the practices are not the same; they have some similarities and differences. The acts in a given traditional carnival is dependent on the type of gods or goddesses to be worshiped. While traditional carnivals usually attracts tourists, fun seekers, and community people, it is also good to note that there are certain forbidden acts which prevent people from doing certain things, probably before and during the carnivals.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: "Society in general has more gradually and selectively expanded to accommodate new influences, it is fairly certain that they will continue to assert their distinctive cultural identity in creative and often ingenious ways".


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: After an isolated presence in the late 1920s, the Baháʼí Faith in Nigeria begins with pioneering Baháʼís coming to Sub-Saharan West Africa in the 1950s especially following the efforts of Enoch Olinga who directly and indirectly affected the growth of the religion in Nigeria. Following growth across West Africa a regional National Spiritual Assembly was elected in 1956. As the community multiplied across cities and became diverse in its engagements it elected its own National Spiritual Assembly by 1979 and Operation World estimated 1000 Baháʼís in 2001 though the Association of Religion Data Archives (relying mostly on the World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 34,000 Baháʼís in 2005.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Hinduism spread to Nigeria mainly by immigration of Hindus from India and of Hare Krishna Missionaries. Many Nigerians have converted to Hinduism mainly due to efforts of ISKCON Missionaries.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Altogether including Nigerians of Indian origin and NRIs there are 250,000 Hindus in Nigeria. Most of them live in Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: "Chrislam" is a blend of Christianity and Islam that takes practices from both the Bible and the Quran. It hopes to quell religious feuds among Nigerians.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Nigeria has become an African hub for the Grail Movement, inspired by the work of Abd-ru-shin, principally "".


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The Grail Movement is not an organisation in the usual legal sense, but a collective term for all kinds of endeavours to spread the knowledge of the Grail Message and to utilise it in all walks of life.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: The associating of adherents of the Grail Message creates the foundation and the outer setting for the holding of hours for the joint worship of God (Hours of Worship) and Grail Festivals.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Facilitating such hours for adherents and readers of the Grail Message is - besides the dissemination of the Grail Message - one of the main concerns of the international Grail Movement. The ideative field of activity with its Hours of Worship and Grail Festivals, lecture events, readings, discussion evenings, seminars, events for children and young people, art exhibitions, concerts and more besides, comprises the actual activity of the Movement.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: A fraternity incorporating references and insignia from the original Ogboni, is based on ancient rites, usages and customs. Established in 1914 by the Ven. Archdeacon T. A. J. Ogunbiyi. Membership is open to all adults who embrace a non-idolatrous faith in God. The fraternity is headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. In 1996 it had about 710 conclaves/Lodges or Iledi in Nigeria and overseas.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: While religious conflict is not new in Nigeria's borders, in the 1980s, serious outbreaks of violence between Christians and Muslims, and between the latter and the government occurred, mainly in the North. Subsequent decades have seen the problem worsen, and insurgencies and new conflicts arise.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Several administrations at the federal level have made efforts to counter this, which are still ongoing.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Nigeria is number seven on Open Doors’ 2022 World Watch List, an annual ranking of the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Christians complain of widespread persecution, especially in the north and Middle Belt. In a speech in the European Parliament, in October 2022, bishop Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Makurdi, compared the situation of Christians in his country to "nothing short of a Jihad clothed in many names: terrorism, kidnappings, killer herdsmen, banditry, other militia groups" and called on the international community to abandon what he termed a "conspiracy of silence" on the subject.


title: Religion in Nigeria

text: Catholic Archbishop Matthew Man-Oso Ndagoso sums up the situation facing Christians in the following way. "For the past 14 years the nation has been grappling with Boko Haram, mostly in the northeast. While we were grappling with that, we had the issue of banditry in the northwest. And while we were grappling with this, we had the issue of kidnappings for ransom, which is becoming more widespread. And while grappling with this we have the old conflict with the Fulani herders."


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. In 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in the ship's surviving whaleboats.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The men suffered severe dehydration, starvation, and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted to eating the bodies of the crewmen who had died. When that proved insufficient, members of the crew drew lots to determine whom they would sacrifice so that the others could live. Seven crew members were cannibalized before the last of the eight survivors were rescued, more than three months after the sinking of the "Essex". First mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson later wrote accounts of the ordeal. The tragedy attracted international attention, and inspired Herman Melville to write his famous 1851 novel "Moby-Dick".


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: By the time of her fateful voyage, "Essex" was already twenty years old, but because so many of her previous voyages had been profitable, she had gained a reputation as a "lucky" vessel. Captain George Pollard Jr. and first mate Owen Chase had served together on the ship's previous trip, which had been highly successful and led to their promotions. In 1819, at the age of 29, Pollard was one of the youngest men ever to command a whaling ship; Chase was 23, and the youngest member of the crew was the cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, who was 14. The crew of 21 was mainly white, but a few were free black men.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: "Essex" had recently been totally refitted, but at only in length, and measuring about 239 tons burthen, she was small for a whaleship. "Essex" was equipped with four whaleboats, each about in length, and she had an additional whaleboat below decks.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: "Essex" departed from Nantucket on August 12, 1819, on what was expected to be a roughly two-and-a-half-year voyage to the bountiful whaling grounds off the west coast of South America. The crew numbered 21 men in total. Among the sailors, there were seven black men: William Bond, Samuel Reed, Richard Peterson, Henry DeWitt, Lawson Thomas, Charles Shorter and Isaiah Sheppard; four individuals from places other than Nantucket: Seth Weeks, Joseph West, William Wright, and Isaac Cole; and one Englishman named Thomas Chapple. Captain George Pollard, First Mate Owen Chase, Second Mate Matthew Joy, and the rest of the crew, Barzillai Ray, Charles Ramsdell, Benjamin Lawrence and Owen Coffin, and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, were all from Nantucket.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Two days after her departure from Nantucket, "Essex" was hit by a sudden squall in the Gulf Stream. She was knocked on her beam-ends and nearly sank. She lost her topgallant sail and two whaleboats were destroyed, with an additional whaleboat damaged. Captain Pollard elected to continue the voyage without replacing the two boats or repairing the damage.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: "Essex" rounded Cape Horn in January 1820 after a transit of five weeks, which was extremely slow. With this and the unsettling earlier incident, the crew began to talk of ill omens. Their spirits were temporarily lifted when "Essex" began the long spring and summer hunt in the warm waters of the South Pacific Ocean, traveling north along the western coast of South America up to Atacames, in what was then the Spanish-ruled territory of the Royal Audience of Quito (present-day Ecuador).


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The crew was divided into three groups of six, each of which manned one of the three usable whaleboats whenever whales were sighted; the remaining three men stayed aboard to manage "Essex". Each whaleboat was led by one of the three officers – Pollard, Chase, and Joy – each of whom then chose his five other crew members.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: In September 1820, a sailor named Henry DeWitt deserted at Atacames, reducing the crew of "Essex" to 20 men. While sailors fled whaling ships all the time, the desertion was bad news for Captain Pollard because each of the ship's three whaleboats required a crew of six. This meant only two men would remain to keep "Essex" while a whale-hunt was in progress, which was not sufficient to safely handle a ship of "Essex"s size and type.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: After finding the area's population of whales exhausted, the crew encountered other whalers who told them of a vast newly discovered hunting ground, known as the "offshore ground", located between 5 and 10 degrees south latitude and between 105 and 125 degrees west longitude, about to the south and west. This was an immense distance from known shores for the whalers, and the crew had heard rumors that cannibals populated the many islands of the South Pacific.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: To restock their food supplies for the long journey, "Essex" sailed for Charles Island (later renamed Floreana Island) in the Galápagos Islands. The crew needed to fix a serious leak and initially anchored off Hood Island (now known as Española Island) on October 8, 1820. During a week at anchor, they captured 300 Galápagos giant tortoises to supplement the ship's food stores. They then sailed for Charles Island, where on October 22 they took another 60 tortoises. The tortoises weighed between each. The sailors captured them alive and allowed some of them to roam the ship at will; the rest they kept in the hold. They believed the tortoises were capable of living for a year without eating or drinking water (though in fact the tortoises slowly starved). The sailors considered the tortoises delicious and extremely nutritious, and planned to butcher them at sea as needed.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: While hunting on Charles Island, helmsman Thomas Chapple decided to set a fire as a prank. It was the height of the dry season, and the fire quickly burned out of control, surrounding the hunters and forcing them to run through the flames to escape. By the time the men returned to "Essex", almost the entire island was burning. The crew was upset about the fire, and Captain Pollard swore vengeance on whoever had set it. The next day, the island was still burning as the ship sailed for the offshore grounds. After a full day of sailing, the fire was still visible on the horizon. Fearing a certain whipping, Chapple only later admitted that he had set the fire.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Many years later, Nickerson returned to Charles Island and found a blackened wasteland; he observed "neither trees, shrubbery, nor grass have since appeared". It has been suggested that the fire contributed to the near-extinction of the Floreana Island tortoise and the Floreana mockingbird, which no longer inhabit the island.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: When "Essex" finally reached the promised fishing grounds thousands of miles west of the coast of South America, the crew was unable to find any whales for days. Tension mounted among the officers of "Essex", especially between Pollard and Chase. When they finally found a whale on November 16, it surfaced directly beneath Chase's boat, with the result that the boat was "dashed ... literally in pieces".


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: At eight in the morning of November 20, 1820, the lookout sighted spouts, and the three remaining whaleboats set out to pursue a pod of sperm whales. On the leeward side of "Essex", Chase's whaleboat harpooned a whale, but its tail struck the boat and opened up a seam, forcing the crew to cut the harpoon line and return to "Essex" for repairs. Two miles away off the windward side, Pollard's and Joy's boats each harpooned a whale and were dragged towards the horizon away from "Essex" in what whalers called a "Nantucket sleighride".


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Chase was repairing the damaged whaleboat on board "Essex" when the crew sighted an abnormally large sperm whale bull (reportedly around in length) acting strangely. It lay motionless on the surface facing the ship and then began to swim towards the vessel, picking up speed by shallow diving. The whale rammed "Essex", rocking her from side to side, and then dove under her, surfacing close on the ship's starboard side. As its head lay alongside the bow and the tail by the stern, it was motionless and appeared to be stunned. Chase prepared to harpoon it from the deck when he realized that its tail was only inches from the rudder, which the whale could easily destroy if provoked by an attempt to kill it. Fearing to leave the ship stuck thousands of miles from land with no way to steer it, Chase hesitated. The whale recovered, swam several hundred yards forward of the ship, and turned to face the ship's bow.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The whale crushed the bow, driving the vessel backwards, and then finally disengaged its head from the shattered timbers and swam off, never to be seen again, leaving "Essex" quickly going down by the bow. Chase and the remaining sailors frantically tried to add rigging to the only remaining whaleboat, while the steward William Bond ran below to gather the captain's sea chest and whatever navigational aids he could find.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The cause of the whale's aggression is not known. In "In the Heart of the Sea", author Nathaniel Philbrick speculated that it may have first struck the boat accidentally, or have had its curiosity aroused by the sound of a hammer as a whaler worked to repair a damaged whaleboat by nailing in a replacement board. The frequency and sound of the nailing may have sounded similar to those made by bull sperm whales to communicate and echolocate.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: "Essex" was attacked approximately west of South America. After spending two days salvaging what supplies they could from the waterlogged wreck, the 20 sailors prepared to set out in the three small whaleboats, aware that they had wholly inadequate supplies of food and fresh water for a journey to land. The boats were rigged with makeshift masts and sails taken from "Essex", and boards were added to heighten the gunwales and prevent large waves from spilling over the sides. Inside Pollard's sea chest, which Bond's quick thinking had managed to save, were two sets of navigational equipment and two copies of maritime charts. These were split between Pollard's and Chase's boats; Joy's boat was left without any means of navigating except to keep within sight of the other boats.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Examining the charts, the officers deduced that the closest known islands, the Marquesas, were more than to the west, and Captain Pollard intended to make for them, but the crew, led by Chase, voiced their fears that the islands might be inhabited by cannibals and voted to sail east instead for South America. Unable to sail against the trade winds, the boats would first need to sail south for before they could take advantage of the Westerlies to turn towards South America, which then would still lie another to the east. Even with the knowledge that this route would require them to travel twice as far as the route to the Marquesas, Pollard acceded to the crew's decision and the boats set their course due south.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Food and water were rationed from the beginning, but most of the food had been soaked in seawater. The men ate this food first even though it increased their thirst. It took them around two weeks to consume the contaminated food, and by this time the survivors were rinsing their mouths with seawater and drinking their own urine. Several of the giant tortoises captured from the Galápagos had been brought aboard the whaleboats as well, but their size prevented the crew from bringing all of them.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Never designed for long voyages, all the whaleboats had been very roughly repaired, and leaks were a constant and serious problem during the voyage. After losing a timber, the crew of one boat had to lean to one side to raise the other side out of the water until another boat was able to draw close, allowing a sailor to nail a piece of wood over the hole. Storms and rough seas frequently plagued the tiny whaleboats, and the men who were not occupied with steering and trimming the sails spent most of their time bailing water from the bilge.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: On December 20, exactly one month after the whale attack, and within hours of the crew beginning to die of thirst, the boats landed on uninhabited Henderson Island, a small uplifted coral atoll within the modern-day British territory of the Pitcairn Islands. The men incorrectly believed that they had landed on Ducie Island, a similar atoll to the east. Had they landed on Pitcairn Island itself, to the southwest, they might have received help; the descendants of the survivors of HMS "Bounty", who had famously mutinied in 1789, still lived there.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: On Henderson Island, "Essex"s crew found a small freshwater spring below the tideline and the starving men gorged themselves on endemic birds, crabs, eggs, and peppergrass. After just one week, they had largely exhausted the island's food resources. On 26 December, they concluded they would starve if they remained much longer. As most of the crew prepared to set sail in the whaleboats once again, three men – William Wright, Seth Weeks, and Thomas Chapple, the only white members of the crew who were not natives of Nantucket – opted to stay behind on Henderson. Almost a year after "Essex" sank, "Lloyd's List" reported that "Surry" had rescued the three men and taken them to Port Jackson, Australia.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The remaining "Essex" crewmen, now numbering 17 in 3 boats, resumed the journey on December 27 with the intention of reaching Easter Island. Within three days they had exhausted the crabs and birds they had stockpiled from Henderson in preparation for the voyage, leaving only a small reserve of the bread previously salvaged from "Essex". On January 4, 1821, they estimated that they had drifted too far south of Easter Island to reach it and decided to make for Más a Tierra island instead, to the east and west of South America. One by one, the men began to die.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Second mate Matthew Joy, whose health had been poor even before "Essex" left Nantucket, was dying; as his condition steadily worsened, Joy asked if he could rest on Pollard's boat until his death. On January 10, Joy became the first crew member to die, and Nantucketer Obed Hendricks assumed the leadership of Joy's boat.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The following day, Chase's whaleboat, which also carried Richard Peterson, Isaac Cole, Benjamin Lawrence, and Thomas Nickerson, became separated from the others during a squall. Peterson, the oldest crew member, lost the will to live and died on January 18. As with Joy, he was sewn into his clothes and buried at sea, as was the custom. On February 8 Isaac Cole died, but with food running out the survivors kept his body, and after a discussion, the men resorted to cannibalism. They ate his liver and kidneys but struggled to eat the sinewy flesh.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Hendricks' boat, carrying crew members William Bond, Lawson Thomas, Charles Shorter, Isaiah Sheppard, and Joseph West, exhausted its food supplies on January 14, and Pollard offered to share his own boat's remaining provisions. Pollard's boat carried Samuel Reed, Owen Coffin, Barzillai Ray, and Charles Ramsdell. They ran out of food on January 21. Thomas died on January 20, and the others decided they had no choice but to keep the body for food. Shorter died on January 23, Sheppard on January 27, and Reed on January 28.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Later that day, the two boats separated; Hendricks' boat was never seen again. All three men are presumed to have died at sea. A whaleboat was later found washed up on Ducie Island with the skeletons of three people inside. Although it was suspected to be Obed Hendricks' missing boat, and the remains those of Hendricks, Bond, and West, the remains have never been positively identified.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: By February 1, the food on Pollard's boat was again exhausted and the survivors' situation became dire. The men drew lots to determine who would be sacrificed for the survival of the remainder. A young man named Owen Coffin, Captain Pollard's 18-year-old first cousin, whom he had sworn to protect, drew the black spot. Pollard allegedly offered to protect his cousin, but Coffin is said to have replied: "No, I like my lot as well as any other". Lots were drawn again to determine who would be Coffin's executioner. His young friend, Charles Ramsdell, drew the black spot. Ramsdell shot Coffin; Ramsdell, Pollard, and Barzillai Ray consumed the body.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: On February 11, Ray also died. For the remainder of their journey, Pollard and Ramsdell survived by gnawing on Coffin's and Ray's bones.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: By February 15, the three survivors of Chase's whaleboat had again run out of food. On February 18 – 89 days after "Essex" sank – off the coast of Chile the British vessel spotted and rescued Chase, Lawrence, and Nickerson. Several days after the rescue, the empty whaleboat was lost in a storm while under tow behind "Indian". Pollard's boat, now containing only Pollard and Ramsdell, was rescued when almost within sight of the South American coast by the Nantucket whaleship "Dauphin", 93 days after "Essex" sank, on February 23. Pollard and Ramsdell by that time were so completely dissociative that they did not even notice "Dauphin" alongside them, and became terrified when they saw their rescuers. On March 5, "Dauphin" encountered , which was sailing to Valparaíso, and transferred the two men to her.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: After a few days in Valparaíso, Chase, Lawrence, and Nickerson were transferred to the frigate and placed under the care of the ship's doctor, who oversaw their recovery. After officials were informed that three "Essex" survivors – Wright, Weeks, and Chapple – had been left behind on Ducie Island (they were actually left on Henderson Island), the authorities asked the merchant vessel "Surry", which already intended to sail across the Pacific, to look for the men. The rescue succeeded. On March 17, Pollard and Ramsdell were reunited with Chase, Lawrence, and Nickerson. By the time the last of the eight survivors were rescued on April 5, 1821, the corpses of seven fellow sailors had been consumed. All eight went to sea again within months of their return to Nantucket. Herman Melville later speculated that all would have survived had they followed Captain Pollard's recommendation and sailed to Tahiti.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: Pollard returned to sea in early 1822 to captain the whaleship "Two Brothers". She was wrecked on the French Frigate Shoals during a storm off the coast of Hawaii on his first voyage, after which he joined a merchant vessel, which was wrecked off the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands) shortly thereafter. By now Pollard was considered a "Jonah" (unlucky), and no ship owner would trust him to sail on a ship again, so he was forced to retire. He subsequently became Nantucket's night watchman. Every November 20, he would reportedly lock himself in his room and fast in memory of the men of "Essex". He died in Nantucket on January 7, 1870, aged 78.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: First Mate Owen Chase returned to Nantucket on June 11, 1821, to find he had a 14-month-old daughter he had never met. Four months later he had completed an account of the disaster, the "Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex"; Herman Melville used it as one of the inspirations for his novel "Moby-Dick" (1851). In December, Chase sailed as first mate on the whaler "Florida", and then as captain of "Winslow" for each subsequent voyage, until he could afford to build his own whaler, "Charles Carrol". Chase remained at sea for 19 years, only returning home for short periods every two or three years, each time fathering a child. His first two wives died while he was at sea. He divorced his third wife when he found she had given birth 16 months after he had last seen her, although he subsequently brought up the child as his own. In September 1840, two months after the divorce was finalized, he married for the fourth and final time and retired from whaling. Memories of the harrowing ordeal on "Essex" haunted Chase, and he suffered terrible headaches and nightmares. Later in his life, he began hiding food in the attic of his Nantucket house on Orange Street and was eventually institutionalized. He died in Nantucket on March 7, 1869, aged 73.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: The cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, became a captain in the Merchant Service and late in his life wrote his own account of the sinking, titled "The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats". Nickerson wrote this account 56 years after the sinking, in 1876, and it was lost until 1960; the Nantucket Historical Association published it in 1984. He died in February 1883, aged 77.


title: Essex (whaleship)

text: As well as inspiring much of American author Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel "Moby-Dick", the story of the "Essex" tragedy has been dramatized in film, television, and music:


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team of engineers and designers directed by Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The machine was based on open architecture and third-party peripherals. Over time, expansion cards and software technology increased to support it.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC had a substantial influence on the personal computer market. The specifications of the IBM PC became one of the most popular computer design standards in the world. The only significant competition it faced from a non-compatible platform throughout the 1980s was from the Apple Macintosh product line. The majority of modern personal computers are distant descendants of the IBM PC.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Prior to the 1980s, IBM had largely been known as a provider of business computer systems. As the 1980s opened, their market share in the growing minicomputer market failed to keep up with competitors, while other manufacturers were beginning to see impressive profits in the microcomputer space. The market for personal computers was dominated at the time by Tandy, Commodore and Apple, whose machines sold for several hundred dollars each and had become very popular. The microcomputer market was large enough for IBM's attention, with $15 billion in sales by 1979 and projected annual growth of more than 40% during the early 1980s. Other large technology companies had entered it, such as Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments and Data General, and some large IBM customers were buying Apples.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: As early as 1980 there were rumors of IBM developing a personal computer, possibly a miniaturized version of the IBM System/370, and Matsushita acknowledged publicly that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer in partnership, although this project was abandoned. The public responded to these rumors with skepticism, owing to IBM's tendency towards slow-moving, bureaucratic business practices tailored towards the production of large, sophisticated and expensive business systems. As with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development, and a well publicized quote from an industry analyst was, "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance."


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM had previously produced microcomputers, such as 1975's IBM 5100, but targeted them towards businesses; the 5100 had a price tag as high as $20,000. Their entry into the home computer market needed to be competitively priced.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: In 1980, IBM president John Opel, recognizing the value of entering this growing market, assigned William C. Lowe to the new Entry Level Systems unit in Boca Raton, Florida. Market research found that computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but they insisted the company use a design based on standard parts, not IBM-designed ones so that stores could perform their own repairs rather than requiring customers to send machines back to IBM for service.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Atari proposed to IBM in 1980 that it act as original equipment manufacturer for an IBM microcomputer, a potential solution to IBM's known inability to move quickly to meet a rapidly changing market. The idea of acquiring Atari was considered but rejected in favor of a proposal by Lowe that by forming an independent internal working group and abandoning all traditional IBM methods, a design could be delivered within a year and a prototype within 30 days. The prototype worked poorly but was presented with a detailed business plan which proposed that the new computer have an open architecture, use non-proprietary components and software, and be sold through retail stores, all contrary to IBM practice. It also estimated sales of 220,000 computers over three years, more than IBM's entire installed base.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: This swayed the Corporate Management Committee, which converted the group into a business unit named "Project Chess", and provided the necessary funding and authority to do whatever was needed to develop the computer in the given timeframe. The team received permission to expand to 150 people by the end of 1980, and in one day more than 500 IBM employees called in asking to join.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The design process was kept under a policy of strict secrecy, with all other IBM divisions kept in the dark about the project.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Several CPUs were considered, including the Texas Instruments TMS9900, Motorola 68000 and Intel 8088. The 68000 was considered the best choice, but was not production-ready like the others. The IBM 801 RISC processor was also considered, since it was considerably more powerful than the other options, but rejected due to the design constraint to use off-the-shelf parts.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM chose the 8088 over the similar but superior 8086 because Intel offered a better price for the former and could provide more units, and the 8088's 8-bit bus reduced the cost of the rest of the computer. The 8088 had the advantage that IBM already had familiarity with the 8085 from designing the IBM System/23 Datamaster. The 62-pin expansion bus slots were also designed to be similar to the Datamaster slots, and its keyboard design and layout became the Model F keyboard shipped with the PC, but otherwise the PC design differed in many ways.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The 8088 motherboard was designed in 40 days, with a working prototype created in four months, demonstrated in January 1981. The design was essentially complete by April 1981, when it was handed off to the manufacturing team. PCs were assembled in an IBM plant in Boca Raton, with components made at various IBM and third party factories. The monitor was an existing design from IBM Japan; the printer was manufactured by Epson. Because none of the functional components were designed by IBM, they obtained no patents on the PC.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Many of the designers were computer hobbyists who owned their own computers, including many Apple II owners, which influenced the decisions to design the computer with an open architecture and publish technical information so others could create compatible software and expansion slot peripherals.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: During the design process IBM avoided vertical integration as much as possible, for example choosing to license Microsoft BASIC rather than utilizing the in-house version of BASIC used for mainframes due to the better existing public familiarity with the Microsoft version.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The IBM PC debuted on August 12, 1981 after a twelve-month development. Pricing started at $1,565 for a configuration with 16 KB RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, and no disk drives. The price was designed to compete with comparable machines in the market. For comparison, the Datamaster, announced two weeks earlier as IBM's least expensive computer, cost $10,000.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM's marketing campaign licensed the likeness of Charlie Chaplin's character "The Little Tramp" for a series of advertisements based on Chaplin's movies, played by Billy Scudder.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC was IBM's first attempt to sell a computer through retail channels rather than directly to customers. Because IBM did not have retail experience, they partnered with the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears, who provided important knowledge of the marketplace and became the main outlets for the PC. More than 190 ComputerLand stores already existed, while Sears was in the process of creating a handful of in-store computer centers for sale of the new product.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Reception was overwhelmingly positive, with analysts estimating sales volume in the billions of dollars in the first few years after release. After release, IBM's PC immediately became the talk of the entire computing industry. Dealers were overwhelmed with orders, including customers offering pre-payment for machines with no guaranteed delivery date. By the time the machine began shipping, the term "PC" was becoming a household name.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Sales exceeded IBM's expectations by as much as 800%, with the company at one point shipping as many as 40,000 PCs per month. IBM estimated that home users made up 50 to 70% of purchases from retail stores. In 1983, IBM sold more than 750,000 machines, while Digital Equipment Corporation, one of the companies whose success had spurred IBM to enter the market, sold only 69,000.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Software support from the industry grew rapidly, with the IBM nearly instantly becoming the primary target for most microcomputer software development. One publication counted 753 software packages available a year after the PC's release, four times as many as were available for the Macintosh a year after its launch. Hardware support also grew rapidly, with 30–40 companies competing to sell memory expansion cards within a year.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: By 1984, IBM's revenue from the PC market was $4 billion, more than twice that of Apple. A 1983 study of corporate customers found that two thirds of large customers standardizing on one computer chose the PC, while only 9% chose Apple. A 1985 "Fortune" survey found that 56% of American companies with personal computers used PCs while 16% used Apple.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Almost as soon as the PC reached the market, rumors of clones began, and the first PC compatible clone was released in June 1982, less than a year after the PC's debut.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: For low cost and a quick design turnaround time, the hardware design of the IBM PC used entirely "off-the-shelf" parts from third party manufacturers, rather than unique hardware designed by IBM.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC is housed in a wide, short steel chassis intended to support the weight of a CRT monitor. The front panel is made of plastic, with an opening where one or two disk drives can be installed. The back panel houses a power inlet and switch, a keyboard connector, a cassette connector and a series of tall vertical slots with blank metal panels which can be removed in order to install expansion cards.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Internally, the chassis is dominated by a motherboard which houses the CPU, built-in RAM, expansion RAM sockets, and slots for expansion cards.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC is built around a single large circuit board called a motherboard which carries the processor, built-in RAM, expansion slots, keyboard and cassette ports, and the various peripheral integrated circuits that connected and controlled the components of the machine.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The peripheral chips included an Intel 8259 PIC, an Intel 8237 DMA controller, and an Intel 8253 PIT. The PIT provides clock "ticks" and dynamic memory refresh timing.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The CPU is an Intel 8088, a cost-reduced form of the Intel 8086 which largely retains the 8086's internal 16-bit logic, but exposes only an 8-bit bus. The CPU is clocked at 4.77 MHz, which would eventually become an issue when clones and later PC models offered higher CPU speeds that broke compatibility with software developed for the original PC. The single base clock frequency for the system was 14.31818 MHz, which when divided by 3, yielded the 4.77 MHz for the CPU (which was considered close enough to the then 5 MHz limit of the 8088), and when divided by 4, yielded the required 3.579545 MHz for the NTSC color carrier frequency.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC motherboard included a second, empty socket, described by IBM simply as an "auxiliary processor socket", although the most obvious use was the addition of an Intel 8087 math coprocessor, which improved floating-point math performance.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: From the factory the PC was equipped with either 16 KB or 64 KB of RAM. RAM upgrades were provided both by IBM and third parties as expansion cards, and could upgrade the machine to a maximum of 256 KB on the motherboard, and 640 KB total.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The BIOS is the firmware of the IBM PC, occupying one 8 KB chip on the motherboard. It provides bootstrap code and a library of common functions that all software can use for many purposes, such as video output, keyboard input, disk access, interrupt handling, testing memory, and other functions. IBM shipped three versions of the BIOS throughout the PC's lifespan.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: While most home computers had built-in video output hardware, IBM took the unusual approach of offering two different graphics options, the MDA and CGA cards. The former provided high-resolution monochrome text, but could not display anything except text, while the latter provided medium- and low-resolution color graphics and text.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: CGA used the same scan rate as NTSC television, allowing it to provide a composite video output which could be used with any compatible television or composite monitor, as well as a direct-drive TTL output suitable for use with any RGBI monitor using an NTSC scan rate. IBM also sold the 5153 color monitor for this purpose, but it was not available at release and was not released until March 1983.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: MDA scanned at a higher frequency and required a proprietary monitor, the IBM 5151. The card also included a built-in printer port.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Both cards could also be installed simultaneously for mixed graphics and text applications. For instance, AutoCAD, Lotus 1-2-3 and other software allowed use of a CGA Monitor for graphics and a separate monochrome monitor for text menus. Third parties went on to provide an enormous variety of aftermarket graphics adapters, such as the Hercules Graphics Card.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The software and hardware of the PC, at release, was designed around a single 8-bit adaptation of the ASCII character set, now known as code page 437.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The two bays in the front of the machine could be populated with one or two 5.25″ floppy disk drives, storing 160 KB per disk side for a total of 320 KB of storage on one disk. The floppy drives require a controller card inserted in an expansion slot, and connect with a single ribbon cable with two edge connectors. The IBM floppy controller card provides an external 37-pin D-sub connector for attachment of an external disk drive, although IBM did not offer one for purchase until 1986.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: As was common for home computers of the era, the IBM PC offered a port for connecting a cassette data recorder. Unlike the typical home computer however, this was never a major avenue for software distribution, probably because very few PCs were sold without floppy drives. The port was removed on the very next PC model, the XT.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: At release, IBM did not offer any hard disk drive option and adding one was difficult - the PC's stock power supply had inadequate power to run a hard drive, the motherboard did not support BIOS expansion ROMs which was needed to support a hard drive controller, and both PC DOS and the BIOS had no support for hard disks. After the XT was released, IBM altered the design of the 5150 to add most of these capabilities, except for the upgraded power supply. At this point adding a hard drive was possible, but required the purchase of the IBM 5161 Expansion Unit, which contained a dedicated power supply and included a hard drive.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Although official hard drive support did not exist, the third party market did provide early hard drives that connected to the floppy disk controller, but required a patched version of PC DOS to support the larger disk sizes.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The only option for human interface provided in the base PC was the built-in keyboard port, meant to connect to the included Model F keyboard. The Model F was initially developed for the IBM Datamaster, and was substantially better than the keyboards provided with virtually all home computers on the market at that time in many regards - number of keys, reliability and ergonomics. While some home computers of the time utilized chiclet keyboards or inexpensive mechanical designs, the IBM keyboard provided good ergonomics, reliable and positive tactile key mechanisms and flip-up feet to adjust its angle. Public reception of the keyboard was extremely positive, with some sources describing it as a major selling point of the PC and even as "the best keyboard available on any microcomputer."


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: At release, IBM provided a Game Control Adapter which offered a 15-pin port intended for the connection of up to two joysticks, each having two analog axes and two buttons.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Connectivity to other computers and peripherals was initially provided through serial and parallel ports.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM provided two different options for connecting Centronics-compatible parallel printers. One was the IBM Printer Adapter, and the other was integrated into the MDA as the IBM Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The expansion capability of the IBM PC was very significant to its success in the market. Some publications highlighted IBM's uncharacteristic decision to publish complete, thorough specifications of the system bus and memory map immediately on release, with the intention of fostering a market of compatible third-party hardware and software.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The motherboard includes five 62-pin card edge connectors which are connected to the CPU's I/O lines. IBM referred to these as "I/O slots," but after the expansion of the PC clone industry they became retroactively known as the ISA bus. At the back of the machine is a metal panel, integrated into the steel chassis of the system unit, with a series of vertical slots lined up with each card slot.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Most expansion cards have a matching metal bracket which slots into one of these openings, serving two purposes. First, a screw inserted through a tab on the bracket into the chassis fastens the card securely in place, preventing the card from wiggling out of place. Second, any ports the card provides for external attachment are bolted to the bracket, keeping them secured in place as well.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC expansion slots can accept an enormous variety of expansion hardware, adding capabilities such as:


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The market reacted as IBM had intended, and within a year or two of the PC's release the available options for expansion hardware were immense.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: One major limitation was the inability to install a hard drive, as described above. Another was that there were only five expansion slots, which tended to get filled up by essential hardware - a PC with a graphics card, memory expansion, parallel card and serial card was left with only one open slot, for instance.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM rectified these problems in the later XT, which included more slots and support for an internal hard drive, but at the same time released the 5161 Expansion Unit, which could be used with either the XT or the original PC. The 5161 connected to the PC system unit using a cable and a card plugged into an expansion slot, and provided a second system chassis with more expansion slots and a hard drive.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM initially announced intent to support multiple operating systems: CP/M-86, UCSD p-System, and an in-house product called IBM PC DOS, developed by Microsoft. In practice, IBM's expectation and intent was for the market to primarily use PC DOS, CP/M-86 was not available for six months after the PC's release and received extremely few orders once it was, and p-System was also not available at release. PC DOS rapidly established itself as the standard OS for the PC and remained the standard for over a decade, with a variant being sold by Microsoft themselves as MS-DOS.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The PC included BASIC in ROM (four 8 KB chips), a common feature of 1980s home computers. Its ROM BASIC supported the cassette tape interface, but PC DOS did not, limiting use of that interface to BASIC only.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: PC DOS version 1.00 supported only 160 KB SSDD floppies, but version 1.1, which was released nine months after the PC's introduction, supported 160 KB SSDD and 320 KB DSDD floppies. Support for the slightly larger nine sector per track 180 KB and 360 KB formats was added in March 1983.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Third-party software support grew extremely quickly, and within a year the PC platform was supplied with a vast array of titles for any conceivable purpose.(It used CUI based operating system BASIC to run the computer)


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Reception of the IBM PC was extremely positive. Even before its release reviewers were impressed by the advertised specifications of the machine, and upon its release reviews praised virtually every aspect of its design both in comparison to contemporary machines and with regards to new and unexpected features.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Praise was directed at the build quality of the PC, in particular its keyboard, IBM's decision to use open specifications to encourage third party software and hardware development, their speed at delivering documentation and the quality therein, the quality of the video display, and the use of commodity components from established suppliers in the electronics industry. The price was considered extremely competitive compared to the value per dollar of competing machines.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Two years after its release, BYTE Magazine retrospectively concluded that the PC had succeeded both because of its features – an 80-column screen, open architecture, and high-quality keyboard – and the failure of other computer manufacturers to achieve these features first:


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: "Creative Computing" that year named the PC the best desktop computer between $2,000 and $4,000, praising its vast hardware and software selection, manufacturer support, and resale value.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Many IBM PCs remained in service long after their technology became largely obsolete. For instance, as of June 2006 (23–25 years after release) IBM PC and XT models were still in use at the majority of U.S. National Weather Service upper-air observing sites, processing data returned from radiosondes attached to weather balloons.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Due to its status as the first entry in the extremely influential PC industry, the original IBM PC remains valuable as a collector's item. , the system had a market value of $50–$500.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: IBM sold a number of computers under the "Personal Computer" or "PC" name throughout the 80s. The name was not used for several years before being reused for the IBM PC Series in the 90s and early 2000s.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: As with all PC-derived systems, all IBM PC models are nominally software-compatible, although some timing-sensitive software will not run correctly on models with faster CPUs.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Because the IBM PC was based on commodity hardware rather than unique IBM components, and because its operation was extensively documented by IBM, creating machines that were fully compatible with the PC offered few challenges other than the creation of a compatible BIOS ROM.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: Simple duplication of the IBM PC BIOS was a direct violation of copyright law, but soon into the PC's life the BIOS was reverse-engineered by companies like Compaq, Phoenix Software Associates, American Megatrends and Award, who either built their own computers that could run the same software and use the same expansion hardware as the PC, or sold their BIOS code to other manufacturers who wished to build their own machines.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: These machines became known as IBM compatibles or "clones", and software was widely marketed as compatible with "IBM PC or 100% compatible". Shortly thereafter, clone manufacturers began to make improvements and extensions to the hardware, such as by using faster processors like the NEC V20, which executed the same software as the 8088 at a higher speed up to 10 MHz.


title: IBM Personal Computer

text: The clone market eventually became so large that it lost its associations with the original PC and became a set of de facto standards established by various hardware manufacturers.


title: VFS Global

text: VFS Global, formerly known as "Visa Facilitation Services Global" is an outsourcing and technology services company for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide. The company manages visa and passport issuance-related administrative and non-discretionary tasks for its client governments. The company began as a "side project" at a luxury Swiss travel group Kuoni in 2001 by chief executive Zubin Karkaria. In 2016, Kuoni was acquired by EQT Partners, a global private equity firm headquartered in Stockholm. By that time, Kuoni had three business segments — global travel distribution, global travel services, and VFS Global, which showed the highest growth rate among all segments. Formerly based in India, the company is now headquartered in Dubai with offices in 147 countries. In 2018, VFS processed more than 25 million visa applications, often containing passport details and financial histories, on behalf of the British Home Office and 61 other governments.


title: VFS Global

text: The inspiration to create VFS Global came to Zubin Karkaria while working with Kuoni Group, which was one of the world’s leading travel companies. The long waiting times for visa applications and growing piles of administrative work for the embassies led him to conceptualize a unique solution - outsourcing the administrative part of the process. Outsourcing visa processing meant improved and more personalized service for applicants with better physical and technological infrastructure. For the Embassies/Consulates, it meant a lower security risk because of less crowded consulates, cost efficiencies, and the ability to focus on the essential decision-making stage of the visa process. While setting up the service was relatively easy, convincing the first government had a long gestation period. According to Karkaria, the U.S. government was initially resistant to his proposal and convincing them "to allow us to run the purely administrative part of a visa application process" proved to be an arduous process. Following protracted negotiations, the company opened its first visa processing centre in Mumbai that same year. Within half-a-decade, VFS Global acquired lucrative contracts with eleven governments including the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.


title: VFS Global

text: The organisation now works with payment gateways, banks, courier services, and client governments. Considering the highly confidential data they deal with, they maintain safety standards in line with GDPR compliance norms. To keep up with evolving customer demands, they conceptualise, incubate, and pilot a number of processes and innovations at their innovation lab in Mumbai, India. The best of these initiatives are taken to other countries.


title: VFS Global

text: The phenomenal growth of the company was largely due to its revenues from service fees paid directly by visa applicants. In 2009, financial records indicated that VFS Global's parent company at the time, VF Worldwide Holdings, was an offshore corporation which had been "incorporated in the African tax haven of Mauritius."


title: VFS Global

text: By 2007, the company had obtained its first global account from UK Visas and Immigration for operations across 33 countries. Within one year of gaining its account with the UK government, the company's image was tarnished by a data breach which exposed the sensitive information of UK visa applicants. Despite this breach, the outsourcing company nevertheless obtained a major contract with the United Kingdom in 2014 to administer the majority of the UK's visa applications. Critics allege "this contract was a crucial step-change in how [British] visa applicants could be squeezed for more money."


title: VFS Global

text: During the past two decades of its operations, VFS Global has attracted considerable criticism. It has been criticized for allegedly exploitative practices and for its lack of transparency. The company has been "accused of pressuring visa applicants" into purchasing premium services which "they often don't need and can't afford." In 2019, the British Home Office was deluged by complaints from customers applying for visas using VFS Global, many of whom accused the company "of exploiting vulnerable applicants for profit." Applicants—"the majority of whom are from lower-income countries"—asserted they "missed flights and were wrongly denied visas due to delays and administrative errors, including apparent failure to scan vital documents."


title: VFS Global

text: VFS Global manages confidential data in collaboration with payment gateways, banks, courier services, and governments. As part of the operations, they rely on tech solutions, security tools and defense-in-depth architecture. The company claims strong adherence to Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data processing norms like the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the Personal Data Protection Bill (India).


title: VFS Global

text: VFS Global has mentioned they invest in developing digital and artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to automate end-to-end visa and citizen document processes. They have also developed an information hub for travellers, which has become one of their most visited web pages globally.


title: VFS Global

text: In August 2017, the outsourcing company acquired the UK-based visa service provider TT Services (TTS) for an undisclosed amount. At the time of the acquisition, TTS operated 51 visa application centres in over 35 countries with 216 employees. Later that year, in November 2017, VFS Global expanded its visa services in Cyprus with new centres launched in the additional cities of Thiruvananthapuram, Goa, Gurugram, and Jaipur. These expansion increased the amount of visa centres where applicants were offered additional services, such as SMS updates, courier services, and online tracking services.


title: VFS Global

text: In June 2018, Kuoni Group, also known as Kuoni Travel Holding, after selling all the travel agency businesses and licensed the brand "Kuoni Travel" to the new owners of the former subsidiaries, had merged with VFS Global, its major business at that time. By December of that year, VFS had over 2,800 application centres with operations in 141 countries.


title: VFS Global

text: In January 2019, the parent company of VFS Global, EQT Partners, declared their intention to sell the company. In August 2019, an in-depth financial investigation by the British newspaper "The Independent" revealed that VFS Global had experienced exponential growth in recent years and its shareholders had "extracted about £567m via 'distribution to owner' payments and writing off inter-company loans in the past two years." The newspaper attributed this growth to the outsourcing company's "exploitative" business practices.


title: VFS Global

text: In October 2021, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in VFS Global. Kuoni and Hugentobler Foundation remains a minority stakeholder. Prior to October 2021, the outsourcing company was owned by a private equity fund and, as VF Worldwide Holdings, is incorporated in the African tax haven of Mauritius. Investors in the outsourcing company include the Chinese and Emiratis investment authorities, the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, and Theo Müller.


title: VFS Global

text: In 2013, the outsourcing company pursued partnerships with foreign tourist boards and airlines in an attempt to increase its revenues. VFS Global partnered with the Italian State Tourist Board to open a Mumbai office to promote Italy as a tourism destination for Indian nationals. In February 2015, VFS Global likewise partnered with the Macau Tourism Office to promote Macau as a popular tourist destination. In 2017, the outsourcing company partnered with Atout France, the France Tourism Development Agency, to promote France as a tourist destination for foreign travellers.


title: VFS Global

text: Throughout its existence during the past two decades, VFS Global has attracted considerable criticism from governments, investigative journalists, and its clients. The company allegedly pressured visa applicants into purchasing premium services which "they often don't need and can't afford." In 2019, the British Home Office was deluged by complaints from customers applying for visas using VFS Global, many of whom accused the company "of exploiting vulnerable applicants for profit." The majority of these applicants were from lower-income countries, and they "missed flights and were wrongly denied visas due to delays and administrative errors, including apparent failure to scan vital documents."


title: VFS Global

text: Between 2005 and 2007, a critical security flaw in the VFS Global application website for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office resulted in many visa applications from India, Nigeria and Russia being publicly accessible. Sensitive data stored in VFS's online service could be accessed by simply "making changes" to the VFS website's URL address. By doing so, any viewer could access the company's "database of visa applicants, which stored passport numbers, names, addresses, and travel details." The security flaw had been known since December 2005, but the issue was addressed only in May 2007 following media reports. The security breach had been first reported in December 2005 by an Indian national, Sanjib Mitra, after which no effective remedial action was taken by VFS. The same applicant went public in May 2007 after he noticed that his earlier warnings were ignored.


title: VFS Global

text: Following this data breach and media outcry, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs appointed an independent investigator to uncover the reasons for the breach of security in the VFS online visa application website. The subsequent report, released in July 2007, highlighted "organisational failures" by VFS. VFS had purportedly underestimated what was necessary in order to protect personal data to the levels expected by the UK Data Protection Act. The report also recommended that the VFS online visa applications not be resumed for applications from India.


title: VFS Global

text: In November 2007, the UK Information Commissioner's Office announced that it had found the Foreign Office's contractual relationship with VFS Global to be in breach of its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. The Information Commissioner's Office required the Foreign Office to sign a statement that it would comply with the Data Protection Act and would not reopen the VFS UK visa online facility. As a result of this ruling, the Foreign Office reviewed its relationship with VFS and briefly sought to significantly reduce its outsourced work, especially in the area of IT. After the report was issued, VFS spent "$2 million on online security in the next year," and introduced various measures to ensure safe and secure business environment. One of them was to make all its centres ISO compliant.


title: VFS Global

text: Following this incident, several governments were critical of VFS Global's abilities and raised concerns over its lacklustre security protocols. "There's the accountability issue, the privacy issue and why are we outsourcing to a for-profit entity something that belongs in the security mandate?" asked Victor Wong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council. Likewise, Liam Clifford, an immigration expert working for "Global Visas", raised security concerns associated with VFS Global's operations: "Once you put this work in the hands of private companies overseas, you no longer have the same protection."


title: VFS Global

text: VFS Global's online security again came under scrutiny in July 2015 when its online visa forms for Italy allowed any user to access the personal information of other applicants—including their date of birth, passport details and addresses—if they input the ID number of another person when logging into the system.


title: VFS Global

text: Following the discovery of 2015 security issues, the outsourcing company stated in 2016 that they had instituted new security protocols. VFS Global claims to annually renew its ISO 27001 audit and certification.


title: VFS Global

text: VFS Global has been alleged to be a monopolistic enterprise operating in the visa outsourcing sector. Its alleged monopoly has led to issues related to prohibitive visa application prices and also sparked concerns in the areas of centralised document handling and content security, though VFS claims a streamlined application submission process in all its centres. For example, VFS staff at its collection offices in Southeast Asia were accused of abusing its dominant market status by creating their own extemporaneous rules for visa applicants. This included entry criteria to the VFS centres and also level of assistance offered to applicants.


title: VFS Global

text: Three years later, in June 2014, the outsourcing company was investigated by the South African Competition Commission regarding allegations of market dominance by VFS Global in the visa support services market to foreign embassies. The Commission's spokesperson Themba Mathebula stated that the commission's screening unit had completed its preliminary investigation and submitted its report, recommending further formal investigations into the outsourcing company.


title: VFS Global

text: In a statement to European Union parliament in July 2018, VFS Global denied that their outsourcing company is operating as a monopoly, though its prepared statement did not cite any outsourcing companies with whom they are in competition for winning contracts.


title: VFS Global

text: The outsourcing company has been accused of "extorting" and "mistreating" vulnerable visa applicants in developing countries such as Nigeria. Additionally, the company was also reported to be under investigation for "allegations of abusive market dominance and unlawful tender procedures, resulting in excessive visa application prices and hidden fees."


title: VFS Global

text: In September 2019, VFS Global had a score of 1.5 out of 5 stars on Trustpilot. Of the 2,608 submitted reviews by customers, approximately 76% awarded the service 1 star. Frequent complaints reported included disrespectful behaviour of the company's staff towards customers, failure to follow-up on applications in a timely fashion, and extended delays in returning passports to applicants, as well as reports of lost passports. Former VFS employees have purportedly alleged the outsourcing company is systematically deceitful to visa applicants and that passports have been occasionally mishandled or lost due to poor organization. Within the next year, a sudden deluge of five-star reviews—over ten thousand posts by newly-created accounts—greatly boosted the Trustpilot score to 4.5 out of 5 stars by October 2020.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: Merriam-Webster, Inc. is an American company that publishes reference books and is especially known for its dictionaries. It is the oldest dictionary publisher in the United States.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: In 1831, George and Charles Merriam founded the company as G & C Merriam Co. in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1843, after Noah Webster died, the company bought the rights to "An American Dictionary of the English Language" from Webster's estate. All Merriam-Webster dictionaries trace their lineage to this source.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: In 1964, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. acquired Merriam-Webster, Inc. as a subsidiary. The company adopted its current name in 1982.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: In 1806, Webster published his first dictionary, . In 1807 Webster started two decades of intensive work to expand his publication into a fully comprehensive dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language". To help him trace the etymology of words, Webster learned 26 languages. Webster hoped to standardize American speech, since Americans in different parts of the country used somewhat different vocabularies and spelled, pronounced, and used words differently.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: Webster completed his dictionary during his year abroad in 1825 in Paris, and at the University of Cambridge. His 1820s book contained 70,000 words, of which about 12,000 had never appeared in a dictionary before. As a spelling reformer, Webster believed that English spelling rules were unnecessarily complex, so his dictionary introduced American English spellings, replacing "colour" with "color", "waggon" with "wagon", and "centre" with "center". He also added American words, including "skunk" and "squash", that did not appear in British dictionaries. At the age of 70 in 1828, Webster published his dictionary; it sold poorly, with only 2,500 copies, and put him in debt. However, in 1840, he published the second edition in two volumes with much greater success.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: In 1843, after Webster's death, George Merriam and Charles Merriam secured publishing and revision rights to the 1840 edition of the dictionary. They published a revision in 1847, which did not change any of the main text but merely added new sections, and a second update with illustrations in 1859. In 1864, Merriam published a greatly expanded edition, which was the first version to change Webster's text, largely overhauling his work yet retaining many of his definitions and the title ""An American Dictionary". This began a series of revisions that were described as being "unabridged" in content. In 1884 it contained 118,000 words, "3000 more than any other English dictionary".


title: Merriam-Webster

text: With the edition of 1890, the dictionary was retitled "Webster's International". The vocabulary was vastly expanded in "Webster's New International" editions of 1909 and 1934, totaling over half a million words, with the 1934 edition retrospectively called "Webster's Second International" or simply "The Second Edition" of the New International.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: The "Collegiate Dictionary" was introduced in 1898 and the series is now in its eleventh edition. Following the publication of "Webster's International" in 1890, two "Collegiate" editions were issued as abridgments of each of their "Unabridged" editions. Merriam overhauled the dictionary again with the 1961 "Webster's Third New International" under the direction of Philip B. Gove, making changes that sparked public controversy. Many of these changes were in formatting, omitting needless punctuation, or avoiding complete sentences when a phrase was sufficient. Others, more controversial, signaled a shift from linguistic prescriptivism and towards describing American English as it was used at that time.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: With the ninth edition ("Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary" (WNNCD), published in 1983), the "Collegiate" adopted changes which distinguish it as a separate entity rather than merely an abridgment of the "Third New International" (the main text of which has remained virtually unrevised since 1961). Some proper names were returned to the word list, including names of Knights of the Round Table. The most notable change was the inclusion of the date of the first known citation of each word, to document its entry into the English language. The eleventh edition (published in 2003) includes more than 225,000 definitions, and more than 165,000 entries. A CD-ROM of the text is sometimes included. This dictionary is preferred as a source "for general matters of spelling" by the influential "The Chicago Manual of Style", which is followed by many book publishers and magazines in the United States. The "Chicago Manual" states that it "normally opts for" the first spelling listed.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: The G. & C. Merriam Company lost its right to exclusive use of the name "Webster" after a series of lawsuits placed that name in public domain. Its name was changed to "Merriam-Webster, Incorporated", with the publication of "Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary" in 1983. Previous publications had used "A Merriam-Webster Dictionary" as a subtitle for many years and will be found on older editions.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: Since the 1940s, the company has added many specialized dictionaries, language aides, and other references to its repertoire. The company has been a subsidiary of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1964.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: The dictionary maintains an active social media presence, where it frequently posts dictionary related content as well as its takes on politics. Its Twitter account has frequently used dictionary jargon to criticize and lampoon the Trump administration. In one viral tweet, Merriam Webster subtly accused Kyle Rittenhouse of fake crying at his trial.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: In 1996, Merriam-Webster launched its first website, which provided free access to an online dictionary and thesaurus.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: Merriam-Webster has also published dictionaries of synonyms, English usage, geography ("Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary"), biography, proper names, medical terms, sports terms, slang, Spanish/English, and numerous others. Non-dictionary publications include "Collegiate Thesaurus", "Secretarial Handbook", "Manual for Writers and Editors", "Collegiate Encyclopedia", "Encyclopedia of Literature", and "Encyclopedia of World Religions".


title: Merriam-Webster

text: On February 16, 2007, Merriam-Webster announced the launch of a mobile dictionary and thesaurus service developed with mobile search-and-information provider AskMeNow. Consumers use the service to access definitions, spelling and synonyms via text message. Services also include Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Day"—and "Open Dictionary", a wiki service that provides subscribers the opportunity to create and submit their own new words and definitions.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: The Merriam-Webster company once used a unique set of phonetic symbols in their dictionaries—intended to help people from different parts of the United States learn how to pronounce words the same way as others who spoke with the same accent or dialect did. Unicode accommodated IPA symbols from Unicode version 1.1 published in 1993, but did not support the phonetic symbols specific to Merriam-Webster dictionaries until Unicode version 4.0 published in 2003. Hence, to enable computerized access to the pronunciation without having to rework all dictionaries to IPA notation, the online services of Merriam-Webster specify phonetics using a less-specific set of ASCII characters.


title: Merriam-Webster

text: Merriam creates entries by finding uses of a particular word in print and recording them in a database of "citations". Editors at Merriam spend about an hour a day looking at print sources, from books and newspapers to less formal publications, like advertisements and product packaging, to study the uses of individual words and choose things that should be preserved in the citation file. Merriam-Webster's citation file contains more than 16 million entries documenting individual uses of words. Millions of these citations are recorded on 3-by-5 cards in their paper citation files. The earliest entries in the paper citation files date back to the late 19th century. Since 2009, all new entries are recorded in an electronic database.


title: Emily Atack

text: Emily Jane Atack (born 18 December 1989) is an English actress, comedian, and television personality. She is best known for playing Charlotte Hinchcliffe on the E4 comedy series "The Inbetweeners" (2008-2010), and for her roles in Keith Lemon shows, such as "Lemon La Vida Loca", "The Keith Lemon Sketch Show", and "The Keith & Paddy Picture Show".


title: Emily Atack

text: Atack appeared on the fifth series of "Dancing on Ice" in 2010. She was runner-up on the eighteenth series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" in 2018, and went on to co-present the final series of its spin off show "" in 2019. Since 2020, she has starred in her own comedy series "The Emily Atack Show."


title: Emily Atack

text: Emily Jane Atack was born in Luton on 18 December 1989, the daughter of actress Kate Robbins and musician Keith Atack (formerly of pop band Child). On her father's side of the family, her uncle was actor Simon Shelton. On her mother's side, she is the first cousin twice removed of musician Paul McCartney and the niece of comedian Ted Robbins and actress Amy Robbins.


title: Emily Atack

text: Aside from "The Inbetweeners" (Channel 4), Atack has appeared in films such as the remake of "Dad's Army" opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones and Bill Nighy. She appeared alongside Harvey Keitel and Gabriel Byrne in the British film "Lies We Tell", and has performed in television programmes such as "Rock and Chips" (BBC), "Little Crackers" (Sky1), "The Keith Lemon Sketch Show" (ITV2) and "Tracey Ullman's Show" (BBC).


title: Emily Atack

text: Atack was a contestant on "Dancing on Ice" in 2010. She was partnered with professional ice skater Fred Palascak; they were voted off in the eighth week. In 2011, Atack presented a stylised public service announcement titled "Ready, Steady, Drink", highlighting the dangers of drinking alcohol.


title: Emily Atack

text: On 12 November 2018, Atack was confirmed to be participating in that year's series of "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" She eventually finished in second place behind Harry Redknapp. She released her first book, "Are We There Yet?: To indignity ... and beyond!", on 31 October 2019. In November 2019 she began co-hosting "" alongside Joel Dommett and Adam Thomas.


title: Emily Atack

text: In 2020, Atack starred in a new series called "The Emily Atack Show", featuring a mixture of stand-up comedy, impressions, and stories about her life experiences including dating, relationships and the pressures of social media and fame.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Initially trained by Último Dragón and making his debut in August 2004, Okada spent his first years in professional wrestling working in Mexico, before returning to Japan and making NJPW his home promotion in mid-2007. Originally working as a junior heavyweight, Okada graduated to the heavyweight division in April 2008, with limited success. In February 2010, NJPW sent Okada on a learning excursion to American promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he spent the next twenty months, mainly performing on the promotion's secondary television program, "Xplosion". From January to March 2011, he performed under the name Okato on TNA's primary television program, "Impact!", as Samoa Joe's sidekick in his rivalry with D'Angelo Dinero.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Okada's run with TNA ended in October 2011 and he returned to NJPW in January 2012, repackaged as , complete with a new look and a villainous persona. Just a month later, Okada defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi to win NJPW's top title, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, which he would hold for four months before losing it back to Tanahashi. The following August, Okada won NJPW's premier tournament, the G1 Climax. At the end of the year, the "Tokyo Sports" magazine named Okada the 2012 MVP in all of Japanese professional wrestling. The following year, Okada first won the New Japan Cup in March and then regained the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Tanahashi in April. After a thirteen-month reign, Okada lost the title in May 2014. Three months later, he won his second G1 Climax. Okada went on to win his third G1 Climax in 2021 and his fourth in 2022, which makes him the wrestler with the second-most wins in the tournament with four, just behind Masahiro Chono who has five. Okada has since won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship three more times and headlined NJPW's biggest annual event—the January 4 Tokyo Dome Show—seven times including (7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 16). Okada became the first Japanese wrestler to top "Pro Wrestling Illustrated"s list of the top 500 wrestlers in the world in 2017.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Okada was born on November 8, 1987, in Anjō, Aichi. As a child, he lived and attended a primary school in Anjō. However, before completing primary school, Okada was lured by the nature in his mother's hometown in the Gotō Islands in Nagasaki Prefecture and chose to complete the rest of his primary education in a special boarding school there. Upon graduation, he returned to Anjō.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: In middle school, Okada joined the school's baseball and track team. Although he did not stand out as a baseball player, Okada was able to win first place in a regional 100 meter dash competition. His reputation as a sprinter was good enough to be scouted by high school recruiters. He was exposed to professional wrestling for the first time when one of his older brothers happened to borrow a New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) video game from his friend.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Trained by Último Dragón at his Toryumon professional wrestling school, Okada made his debut on August 29, 2004, against Negro Navarro and would spend the next couple of years wrestling primarily in Toryumon Mexico. In December 2005, Okada won the 2005 Young Dragons Cup. Okada would also make appearances in the United States and Canada for promotions such as UWA Hardcore Wrestling and Chikara.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: On October 27, 2006, Okada participated in UWA Hardcore Wrestling's 2006 Grand Prix Tournament, but was eliminated in the first round by Puma. The following day, Okada and Último Dragón unsuccessfully challenged Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin for the NWA International Lightweight Tag Team Championship. On November 12, 2006, Okada made his debut for Chikara by defeating Osiris.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: During his time in UWA Hardcore Wrestling, Okada also unsuccessfully challenged Josh Prohibition for the UWA Canadian Championship on May 26, 2007. On July 22, 2007, Okada took part in Último Dragón's 20th anniversary show, where he wrestled in a six-man tag team match alongside NJPW wrestlers Jyushin Thunder Liger and Milano Collection A.T. After the match, it was announced that Okada was graduating from Toryumon and joining NJPW.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Upon joining NJPW, Okada entered the NJPW Dojo, where he went through further training. He would have a pre-debut match for the company on August 26, 2007, losing to Tetsuya Naito. A legitimate injury would sideline Okada for the next eight months and upon his return in April 2008 he would be billed as a heavyweight instead of a junior heavyweight, and have his official debut match on April 12, 2008, against Taichi Ishikari. His career would start to pick up steam the following year with breakout performances in the NJPW vs. Pro Wrestling Noah war against the likes of Takashi Sugiura and Go Shiozaki. He would also wrestle main eventers such as Shinsuke Nakamura, Hirooki Goto and Tajiri and—despite losing all of his big matches—he was becoming a big crowd favorite. In January 2010, NJPW announced that they would be sending Okada to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) for a developmental tour in order for him to become the wrestler NJPW believed he could be. NJPW president Naoki Sugabayashi predicted the tour could take up to two or three years. On January 31, 2010, Okada was defeated by former four-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi in his NJPW farewell match.


title: Kazuchika Okada

text: Okada made his TNA debut at the February 16, 2010, tapings of "Impact!", losing to Alex Shelley in a dark match. At the March 9 tapings, Okada was defeated by Jay Lethal in another dark match. On March 20, Okada made his debut for Jersey All Pro Wrestling (JAPW) at Wild Card VI, where he was defeated by fellow TNA wrestler Samoa Joe. Okada's dark matches for TNA continued on March 23 with a loss against Daniels. On April 6, Okada, using only his last name, competed in his first televised TNA match when he and Homicide were defeated by Generation Me (Jeremy and Max Buck) in a tag team match, which was later broadcast on the "Xplosion" television program and the company's official website and YouTube channel. That same week, Okada also began wrestling at TNA's live events. On May 4, Okada and Homicide were defeated in another "Xplosion" match by Ink Inc. (Jesse Neal and Shannon Moore). On May 17, X Division Champion Douglas Williams defeated Okada in a non-title "Xplosion" match. On July 15, Okada made his first appearance on "Impact!", running out to the ring in an attempt to stop former ECW wrestlers from taking over the show. At the August 9 tapings, Okada picked up his first victory in TNA, defeating Kid Kash in a dark match. On the October 8 "Xplosion", Okada formed a tag team with compatriot Kiyoshi, but the two of them were then defeated in their first match together by Ink Inc. On the November 26 "Xplosion", Okada was defeated by Rob Terry. On the December 17 "Xplosion", Okada was defeated by Stevie Richards. Okada and Kiyoshi had a rematch with Ink Inc. at the December 7 tapings of "Xplosion", but were once again defeated.