title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Regarding plans for the U.S. broadcast market, the editor-in-chief of "Sputnik U.S." said in a June 2017 interview that there were no immediate plans for expansion into markets beyond Washington, D.C. This came on the heels of a late June 2017 announcement that Radio Sputnik would sublease Reston, Virginia-licensed translator station "W288BS" (105.5 FM) from Reston Translator, LLC, which transmits from the WIAD tower in Bethesda, Maryland, and begin broadcasting Sputnik on that signal; the station's reach includes DC proper and the western suburbs in Northern Virginia. From November 2017, Radio Sputnik began to be carried on AM in Washington, D.C., on WZHF 1390 AM. The American owners of the stations were required to register as a foreign agent by the United States Department of Justice.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Sputnik is blocked from owning an American radio station outright due to Federal Communications Commission rules against foreign ownership of broadcast assets, as enacted in the Communications Act of 1934. Prior to 1 July 2017, Radio Sputnik (initially as its predecessor) had broadcast in the Washington, D.C., area on WTOP-HD2 (103.5-HD2) since June 2013, if not earlier. W288BS translates Urban One's WKYS (93.9)'s digital HD3 signal for analog broadcasting.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Sputnik distributes its programming to American stations via brokered programming, through agent Arnold Ferolito and his holding company RM Broadcasting, LLC. Its availability in Kansas City, Missouri on stations KCXL and KOJH from the beginning of January 2020 was contentious, especially in the latter case because the station has a jazz-centered community radio format and led to a clash on the radio spectrum.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Following the closure of the Echo of Moscow station on 3 March 2022, its frequencies were taken over by Radio Sputnik.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: During the 2016 presidential election campaign, according to former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul writing in "The Washington Post", Sputnik made clear publicly its preference for the then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the Democrat's nominee Hillary Clinton.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: According to a fake news story circulated by Sputnik, President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton created ISIS; the website praised Trump, before he was elected in 2016, for making such an assertion. The website published an article entitled “Secret File Confirms Trump Claim: Obama, Hillary ‘Founded ISIS’ to Oust Assad”, while tweets from Sputnik used the hastag #CrookedHillary. Trump revived another discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Sputnik that Google was suppressing bad news about Clinton.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In October 2016, Sputnik improperly cited an article written by Kurt Eichenwald for "Newsweek" misattributing comments to Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal (who quoted Eichenwald in a non-verified email released by WikiLeaks). Sputnik took down the article. Aspects of his story as it related to Trump were disputed at the time, Sputnik then put up an article reputedly denying its control by the Kremlin and attacking "Newsweek" and Eichenwald. He wrote that the Trump campaign emailed reporters a link to the Sputnik article and asked them to follow up on the story. The author of the Sputnik article, Bill Moran, successfully sued "Newsweek" over his assertion that Eichenwald had used bribery and threats.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: "Forbes" reported that Sputnik International reported fake news and fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest during the 2016 presidential election. Sputnik falsely reported on 7 December 2016 that Earnest stated sanctions for Russia were on the table related to Syria, falsely quoting Earnest as saying: "There are a number of things that are to be considered, including some of the financial sanctions that the United States can administer in coordination with our allies. I would definitely not rule that out." "Forbes" analyzed Earnest's White House press briefing from that week, and found the word "sanctions" was never used by the Press Secretary. Russia was discussed in eight instances during the press conference, but never about sanctions. The press conference focused solely on Russian air raids in Syria towards rebels fighting President of Syria Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Lee Stranahan was hired by Sputnik News after his departure from "Breitbart News" and, according to "The Washington Post", he is Sputnik's most visible Trump supporter". In early 2020, at the time of the Impeachment of President Trump, Stranahan stated "the entire impeachment is a lie.” "The Washington Post" stated that "many Sputnik hosts profess skepticism that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election," in contradiction to the assessment of the US intelligence community.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: On 26 May 2017, Andrew Feinberg, who had been Sputnik's White House Correspondent since the Trump administration came into office the previous January, announced on Twitter that he would no longer be reporting for the agency. He said those in charge were more interested in employing "propagandists" rather than "real journalists". In one tweet he explained the agency's policy in article's attribution: "The truth is they don't want their reporters to have their own reputations, b/c a lie is easier when it doesn't come with a byline." He told Erik Wemple of "The Washington Post": "It's the fact that if you don't have bylines on stories and there's no one accountable for words, then you can really print whatever you want. Sputnik, in a statement to "The Washington Post", accused Feinberg of making "false accusations" and expressed the "hope that the fruits of his rich imagination would not create more conspiracy theories around Sputnik."


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Feinberg, in discussing his period at Sputnik, said that Sputnik's editors asked him to write stories and ask questions at the White House press conference about the conspiracy theory between the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich in Washington and the leaking of DNC documents to WikiLeaks. Feinberg wrote of his discomfort as "there was absolutely no factual basis for doing so." The District of Columbia police believed that Rich had been murdered while being robbed. Feinberg believed that the editors wanted to shift blame for the leaking of the DNC documents from Russian hackers to Rich. Sputnik News has published articles promoting conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In an interview with Brian Stelter for CNN, Feinberg said that Sputnik management had insisted on approving or dictating questions he would ask at White House press briefings, and wanted him to ask questions to imply that the April 2017 Sarin gas attack in Syria was a hoax: "I was asked to put questions to the White House that framed the issue in such a way that made it seem that the attack didn't happen, that it was staged," In particular, he was asked to raise at the White House the assertions made by Ted Postol querying Syrian responsibility for the attack. On that occasion, he was not called. Feinberg wrote in a "Politico" August 2017 article, he had concluded after the request that Sputnik's "mission wasn’t really to report the news as much as it was to push a narrative that would either sow doubts about situations that weren’t flattering to Russia or its allies, or hurt the reputation of the United States and its allies."


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In April 2018, journalist John Stanton, who had been Sputnik's Pentagon Correspondent for roughly two years, published a report highly critical of Sputnik News, Sputnik Radio, and RIA Novosti, declaring that both the organizations were part of a larger Russian Information Warfare Operation. His public findings were part of an insider research effort while at Sputnik on behalf of the US government.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In May 2018, the Public Broadcasting Service's "NewsHour" website published an article by Elizabeth Flock who reported that Sputnik News and Radio reports "seemed intended to polarize" and "to distract and confuse" after listening to them over a week. On a visit to the station, she discovered "a stranger picture than I anticipated, one in which I began to understand how persuasive disinformation could be." According to Flock, Stanton told her "They mix real with unreal, use dubious sources". It was difficult for him to point to the real problem as it "was like pushing a wet noodle." In other words, establishing what can be labelled disinformation is extremely difficult, she concluded.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: "Foreign Policy" magazine has described Sputnik as a slick and internet-savvy outlet of Kremlin propaganda, which "remixes President Vladimir Putin's brand of revanchist nationalism for an international audience... beating a predictable drum of anti-Western rhetoric."


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In January 2022, the U. S. State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) published a report titled "Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem." Its case studies included one on "false narratives" published by Sputnik and RT justifying Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Ben Nimmo, in a paper for the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), wrote that Sputnik invitations concentrate on a select group of politicians for their east European services, especially those known for their pro-Russian (Tatjana Ždanoka in Latvia) or anti-EU opinions (Janusz Korwin-Mikke in Poland). These two political figures have limited support in their countries; Korwin-Mikke gained slightly more than 3% in Poland's presidential election in May 2015, while Ždanoka is barred from holding public office for her opposition to Latvia's independence from Russia. Sputnik has spread a false claim about Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, who was wrongly said to have posed for a selfie with an ISIS suspect.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In the opinion of Kevin Rothrock, Russia editor for Global Voices, Sputnik "acts as a spoiler to try and disrupt or blur information unfriendly to Russia, such as Russian troops' alleged involvement in the war in Ukraine". Historical comparisons have been made to "Pravda", the former official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in particular Sputnik's alleged apologia for Joseph Stalin and denial of the 1932–1933 famine in Ukraine known as the Holodomor.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: German journalist and author Michael Thumann describes Sputnik as being part of what he calls Russia's "digital information war against the West". Peter Pomerantsev, in an article for the London "Sunday Times", wrote that in the 2017 German elections the Sputnik news agency was negative or neutral about the country's political parties, with the exception of the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD).


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Alexander Podrabinek, a Russian journalist who works for Radio France Internationale (part of French Government's France Médias Monde) and Radio Liberty (supervised by Broadcasting Board of Governors, an Independent agency of the U.S. Federal government) has accused Sputnik of disseminating Russian state propaganda abroad. In a vote urging for the European Union (EU) to "respond to information warfare by Russia", the European Parliament accused broadcasting channels Sputnik and RT of "information warfare", and placed Russian media organisations alongside terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State. The federal agency of "Rossotrudnichestvo" and the Russkiy Mir Foundation were also seen as tools for Russian propaganda. According to a study by Masaryk University, Sputnik is one of the major sources of Russian propaganda in the Czech Republic.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In August 2016, Sputnik opened offices in Edinburgh, Scotland, its headquarters in the UK. The agency established its radio studio and bureau in the city. </ref> In April 2021, "The Times" reported Russian sources had said Sputnik's London and Edinburgh offices were closing with the outlet's English language staff being concentrated in Washington DC and Moscow.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: A January 2017 report by The Swedish Institute of International Affairs found that a Swedish-language version of Sputnik News website was one of the main tools used by the Russian government to spread false information in Sweden including publicizing documents posted on little-known Swedish and Russian websites which were found to be forgeries. According to the report, Sputnik News frequently focused on negative stories about NATO and the EU, consistent with Russia's foreign policy interest of minimizing NATO's role in the Baltic region and keeping Sweden out of NATO. A research analysis done by Martin Kragh and Sebestian Asberg at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, found that Swedish Sputnik focused on depicting Russia as under attack by aggressive Western governments, describing EU as being in "terminal decline", and NATO as a dangerous military threat. These efforts were believed to try to change how the public in Sweden viewed its government and the EU. The Swedish-language version ran for a year from April 2015 to spring of 2016, where it was forced to shut down and removed from the internet in that year.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In April 2017, Emmanuel Macron's campaign team banned both RT and Sputnik from campaign events. A Macron spokesperson said the two broadcasting outlets showed a "systematic desire to issue fake news and false information". A report claiming the pro-Russian candidate, François Fillon, had returned to the lead prior to the election was the subject of a reprimand from the country's election commission. Sputnik had falsely attributed the result to an opinion poll, whereas the assertion had actually originated from Brand Analytics, a Moscow-based company. A few weeks after Macron won the presidential election, President Putin visited the Versailles Palace. During a joint press conference with the Russian leader, Macron himself accused Sputnik and RT of having "produced slanderous countertruths".


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In June 2019, it was found that Serbian language outlet of Sputnik has infiltrated a disinformation hub in Bosnia And Herzegovina. These findings were published by internationally recognized fact-checking platform Raskrinkavanje, which wrote reports about Sputnik bias towards spreading disinformation, in a 106-page document.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: With the intention of protecting democratic values and to combat Russian disinformation campaigns utilizing RT and Sputnik, the European Union established The East StratCom Task Force in 2015.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sputnik republished an RIA Novosti article titled "The arrival/attack of Russia and the new world" ("Наступление России и нового мира"), which falsely claimed that Russia had won the Russo-Ukrainian War, lauded Putin's invasion for solving the "Ukrainian question", and declared the end of "Western global domination" with the start of a "new world order" that joined Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine against the rest of Europe. The article remained available on Sputnik's website after RIA Novosti took it down from its own.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: A report by Sputnik's Belarusian service claimed the virus was an "anglo-Saxon" plot to counter China while Sputnik's associated outlet in South Ossetia (currently occupied by Russian armed forces) said the COVID-19 virus was created as a weapon in the West for information warfare. Its Armenian affiliate insisted the virus had been created in a US laboratory. A Sputnik-associated outlet in Latvia, suggested it might have been created in Latvia.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In the Middle East, Russia used Sputnik and RT Arabic to promote its foreign policy goals through "informational warfare". Russia tried to increase its power and presence in the Middle East as well as reduce United States influence in the region, fight terrorism, and establish allies in Syria with Bashir al-Assad.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In April 2017, Sputnik and RT reported little to no information on the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack in Syria. During the attacks, Sputnik and RT did not report on the incident; there was no coverage provided on the survivors or their testimonies, and the history of violence in the area such as massacres, bombings, and chemical attacks that have occurred in the Syrian regime were not recorded. After the massacre, Sputnik and RT widely questioned the cause and the history of the massacre through daily reports; false and missing information was frequently cited as the identities of the claimed "experts" were not shared, and alternative versions of the event were falsely reported as they claimed that the attacks were done by the White Helmets, a Syrian civil volunteer organization. Journalist Finian Cunningham wrote that the White Helmets were "propaganda conduits for al-Qaeda terror groups" which contributed to the controversy and negative news that the White Helmets faced. Published reports by Sputnik at the time were considered biased and did not consist of reliable sources or experts. These statements were shared by Sputnik and RT throughout social media platforms as well as other news outlets that supported the Syrian regime.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In March 2016, access to Sputnik's online content was blocked by Turkish authorities, as well as denying the Turkish bureau chief Tural Kerimov access to the country. The development was thought to have been in response to comments by the Russian leadership critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Turkish government's record on human rights and freedom of speech. The website was unblocked later that same year. In 2018, the agency shut down its website in the Kurdish language without mentioning any particular reason for the decision. Former employees of Sputnik said that the news agency decided to shut it down at Turkey’s request, as part of both anti-Kurdish political movement and pro-Russian politics of Erdoğan.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In October 2017, Twitter banned both RT and Sputnik from advertising on their social networking service following the conclusions of the U.S. national intelligence report the previous January that both Sputnik and RT had been used as vehicles for Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election. It prompted a stern response from spokeswoman Maria Zakharova of the Russian Foreign Ministry. It said the ban was a "gross violation" by the United States of the guarantees of free speech. "Retaliatory measures, naturally, will follow". In November, Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt announced that Google will be "deranking" stories from RT and Sputnik in response to "weaponised" content and allegations about election meddling by President Putin's government, provoking claims of censorship from both outlets.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: To reduce the spread of disinformation, Facebook and Google implemented fact-checking tools throughout their platforms. In January 2019, Facebook removed 289 pages and 75 accounts that the company said were used by Sputnik for misinformation on Facebook. The removed pages posed as independent news sites in eastern Europe and elsewhere but were actually run by employees at Sputnik. It was another in a series of actions taken by Facebook against Russian disinformation. Along with Chinese and other Russian state media outlets, Twitter attached a "state-affiliated media" label to Sputnik's account.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In July 2019, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office banned both RT and Sputnik from attending the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London for "their active role in spreading disinformation". The Russian Embassy called the decision "direct politically motivated discrimination". European Union External Action East StratCom Task Force and separate fact-checkers have discerned reoccurrences of Sputnik and RT publishing false information.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: In January 2020, the Estonian offices of Sputnik were closed after police warned its journalists about potential criminal charges. The action taken by the Estonian government was a result of European Union sanctions imposed on Dmitry Kiselyov. Banks in Estonia suspended Sputnik related accounts in October 2019.


title: Sputnik (news agency)

text: Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the banning of Sputnik, along with RT and their subsidiaries, from the European Union. Social media services including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube blocked Sputnik and RT content for their European Union users, while Reddit blocked outgoing links to Sputnik's and RT's websites in all regions. On 2 March, the regulation was published which meant the ban was in force. Microsoft and Apple Inc. responded by removing the Sputnik and RT apps from the Microsoft Store and the App Store, respectively. On 11 March, YouTube blocked Sputnik and RT worldwide.


title: Overwatch 2

text: Overwatch 2 is a 2022 first-person shooter by Blizzard Entertainment. As a sequel to the 2016 hero shooter "Overwatch", the game intends a shared environment for player-versus-player (PvP) modes while introducing persistent cooperative modes. A major change in PvP modes was to reduce team sizes from six to five. Several major characters were also reworked. "Overwatch 2" is free-to-play on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in early access on October 4 and features full cross-platform play.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" is a hero shooter, where players are split into two teams and select a "hero" from a roster of 35 characters. Characters are organized into a "damage" class, responsible for offensive efforts; a "support" class, responsible for healing and buffing; and a "tank" class, responsible for the team's protection. Each character has a unique set of skills, made up of active, passive, and ultimate abilities. "Overwatch 2", like its predecessor, primarily centers on player versus player (PvP) combat across several different modes and maps, and includes both casual and ranked competitive matches.


title: Overwatch 2

text: The original "Overwatch" was designed for six-on-six team combat, with two of each class on a team. In "Overwatch 2," the number of tank slots was reduced by one, bringing the total number of players per team to five. According to game director Aaron Keller, developers hoped that losing a tank would speed up gameplay as they believed that the original six players scheme rendered gameplay slow. It is also intended to ease the amount of things players and spectators need to watch out for. New maps were designed to include more cover options to compensate for reduced tank-based protection. Additionally, damage class heroes now have an increased movement speed, support heroes slowly regenerate, and tank heroes were redesigned so they could take on a more offensive role. Heroes were visually refurbished as to reflect the passage of time since the events of the first game. "Overwatch 2" includes a ping system to direct the attention of teammates to specific points on the map.


title: Overwatch 2

text: The game also introduces a new PvP mode named "Push", similar to tug of war, in which teams vie for control of a robot that pushes a team's payload to the opponent's side of the map. Along with being incorporated into Unranked and Competitive play, Push has become part of the standard map rotation of the Overwatch League, replacing the Assault mode. Some existing gameplay modes may be dropped in "Overwatch 2"; former game director Jeff Kaplan has stated that some Assault maps (colloquially referred to as "2CP", meaning "two control points"), such as Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony, will likely not be available in "Overwatch 2" as these have been deemed unbalanced in response to community feedback. Other Assault maps, such as Hanamura and Temple of Anubis, may be available in the form of custom games or non-competitive arcade modes.


title: Overwatch 2

text: The game features player versus environment (PvE) game modes. Similar to the special seasonal events, they will consist of four-player cooperative missions against non-playable characters and are available on a permanent as opposed to a seasonal basis. In this mode, players can garner experience points for their hero and unlock new passive abilities called "talents", allowing them to influence how the hero plays. There are least two PvE modes; a story-based mission mode, where players are limited to their hero selection in replaying missions based on "Overwatch" lore, and Hero missions which allow all heroes to be used in fending off waves of enemies at various locations. Blizzard anticipates that "Overwatch 2" will offer over 100 different PvE missions, utilizing new maps as well as existing multiplayer maps expanded out to include new areas, and adding in dynamic effects, such as day and night times as well as varying weather conditions. Enemy types are expanded out from the Null Sector robots that were introduced in the original seasonal PvE events, adding in new types with unique behaviors.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" was released as free-to-play as opposed to the premium monetization model of its predecessor. It also discontinued loot boxes in favor of a battle pass system which is offered on a seasonal basis and corresponds with the introduction of new maps and heroes. The game also includes an in-game store where players can purchase cosmetics directly. Blizzard stated that new heroes will be introduced as rewards on the free tier of the battle pass, and players who fail to make the associated tier will have other routes to obtain the hero for free in later seasons.


title: Overwatch 2

text: A Battle.net account is required to play "Overwatch 2", regardless of platform. "Overwatch 2" features cross-progression, with in-game cosmetic items and progress being shared across PC and console versions. Unlocked cosmetic items, in-game currency, and player statistics from any "Overwatch" profile linked to such an account are merged, and are available on all platforms. Competitive skill ratings are separate, with console and PC ranks remaining independent of each other.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" was announced at BlizzCon on November 1, 2019, with plans that the game would maintain a "shared multiplayer environment" between it and the original "Overwatch", so that players in either game can compete in the existing player versus player (PvP) game modes, retaining all unlocked cosmetics and other features. Jeff Kaplan, director for "Overwatch", explained that this was a major decision and that he had to justify this "player-first standpoint" to Blizzard executives, given the current industry trend to draw in new sales. All new heroes, maps, and PvP modes were to be added to both games to maintain this shared environment. However, "Overwatch 2" was later announced as a free-to-play title, and that on its release on October 4, 2022, Blizzard affirmed that "Overwatch 2" live services will replace those of the original game; the original "Overwatch" servers will be shut down on October 2, 2022. Players will retain their existing cosmetics and in-game currency, while the remaining loot boxes will be opened automatically upon release of "Overwatch 2". At least three new heroes will be added to the roster, including Sojourn, a Canadian Overwatch officer, Junker Queen, the ruler of Junkertown, and Kiriko, the protector of Kanezaka.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" runs on an upgraded version of the original game's engine which allows for larger map sizes to better support the new story-based PvE elements. Additionally, all of the existing heroes received visual redesigns for "Overwatch 2", although Blizzard did not expect every hero to have their redesigns finished when the game launched. Twelve of the existing 31 redesigns were completed at the time of "Overwatch 2"s reveal.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" was released for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in early access on October 4, 2022. Kaplan stated when the game was announced that they were more concerned about quality of the product than timeliness of the release. Investor documents released in November 2021 reported that the initial 2022 release window was delayed to at least 2023, intended for "giving the teams some extra time to complete production and continue growing their creative resources to support the titles after launch". Kaplan anticipated that "Overwatch" and "Overwatch 2" will ultimately merge into a single product to avoid having any engine differences affecting player experience. Technical director John Lafleur has stated they are also interested in supporting, at minimum, cross-platform progression and are looking at the possibility of cross-platform play. In the interim from its announcement prior to release, Kaplan left Blizzard in April 2021, with Aaron Keller taking over the lead development role, while the lead developer for new heroes, Geoff Goodman, left sometime in mid-2022.


title: Overwatch 2

text: In March 2022, Blizzard stated that they had put too much focus on "Overwatch 2" over the past few years to the detriment of support of the original game, and have changed plans to release "Overwatch 2" in parts, with the PvP portion to be released in beta form starting in April 2022 and the PvE part to come at a later time. This would allow them to also continue to support "Overwatch" alongside "Overwatch 2" development. Later, Blizzard announced that the first wave of "Overwatch 2" invitation-only betas would begin on April 26, 2022, and end on May 17. Access to the closed beta could be earned either by signing up for a chance to participate or by watching select Twitch streamers for a limited time on April 27.


title: Overwatch 2

text: The game without its PVE mode was released as early access on October 4, 2022, for Windows, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. That day, in addition to a large number of players, the game's servers were hit with a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack that made it difficult for many to access the game. Additionally, as part of Blizzard's efforts to reduce smurfing, the use of new accounts by experienced players as to try to game the system, the company required all players to confirm their identity through a SMS message on their cell phone linked to their account. For many with prepaid cellular plans, particularly in the United States, they cannot use SMS on their plans, and effectively locked them out of "Overwatch 2", though Blizzard stated they were working to resolve that issue. By October 7, Blizzard removed the need to verify one's identity for those that had played "Overwatch" since at least June 2021. As a means to make up this lost time to players, Blizzard planned to offer double experience point weekends and free cosmetic items to all players.


title: Overwatch 2

text: "Overwatch 2" received "generally favorable" reviews from critics upon release according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: Overwatch 2

text: Tyler Colp of "PC Gamer" was critical of the sequel, writing that the game "intentionally or not, is trying to bury its predecessor alive." Colp added, "the original "Overwatch" is still in there, bruised and broken, but the weight of Blizzard's commercial and competitive expectations keeps piling up."


title: Overwatch 2

text: On the game's 5v5 gameplay dynamic, as opposed to its predecessor's 6v6 dynamic, "IGN"s Simon Cardy wrote: "it fully drags "Overwatch 2" out of the stagnant meta swamp its predecessor found itself in over the past couple of years, but also denies itself some of the lustre of its satisfying team play." Cardy also wrote "if the pertinent question to ask about "Overwatch 2" is simply if it's a fun game, then the answer right now is yes. It's still a fundamentally great hero shooter, just one that is perhaps not currently operating at the towering height of its powers."


title: Overwatch 2

text: Jessica Howard of "Gamespot" wrote, ""Overwatch 2" takes the franchise from a genre-defining shooter to a trend-chasing one. As such, it has begun to feel less like a unique sci-fi, superhero comic book in video game form, and more like, well, a lot of other games." Chris Carter of "Destructoid" wrote that ""Overwatch 2" doesn't have the same cachet that "Overwatch 1" did, but I can still see myself jumping in for a few matches after a long evening. The charm is still there, even if the delivery system has been muddled, and the game is no longer a premium product with easy-access characters that you can readily jump in and out of. Perhaps the PVE update can change that, but it has some work to do."


title: Overwatch 2

text: The game's removal of loot boxes in favor of a battle pass system received backlash. Players directed criticism toward Blizzard's decision to lock the character Kiriko as a free reward on the first season's battle pass. Following Kiriko's reveal trailer, CJ Wheeler of "Rock Paper Shotgun" wrote: "One look at PlayOverwatch's mentions on Twitter is, well, eye-opening. It reveals so much criticism of the battle passes, from cries of pay to win to complaints about the grind before the game's even dropped. There are quite a few accusations that Blizzard are money-hungry too." Further criticism was levied at both the pricing of cosmetic items found with the in-game shop, as well as the time it would take to unlock cosmetics solely through grinding for those players who opt not to using real money within the shop.


title: Overwatch 2

text: Over 35 million users played "Overwatch 2" in its first month of release in early access, compared to "Overwatch" which had only 15 million players three months after release.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: Kim Yo-han (, born September 22, 1999), also known by the mononym Yohan (), is a South Korean singer and actor. He is a member of the boy group WEi and a former member of boy group X1, finishing first on "Produce X 101". He made his solo debut with the digital single "No More" on August 25, 2020. He debuted in acting through "A Love So Beautiful".


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: Kim was born on September 22, 1999, in Jungnang District, Seoul, South Korea. He has two younger sisters. Prior to his debut, Kim was a national taekwondo athlete. He was a two-time champion at the National Youth Sports Festival.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: In May 2019, Kim participated in the Mnet reality-survival program "Produce X 101" despite having only three months of training. The original intention of the show was for the eleven winners of the program to form a boy group that would promote for 5 years under Swing Entertainment. Kim finished first in the competition, and debuted as a member and center of X1 on August 27, 2019, with its debut showcase held at Gocheok Sky Dome. However, X1 would later disband on January 6, 2020 due to allegations of vote-rigging in the show. On November 5, 2019, Ahn Joon-young, the producer of "Produce X 101", was arrested, and he later admitted to manipulating the vote rankings.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: Kim was in the talks to join the "School series", "School 2020". It was later confirmed in February 2020, with the show slated to air in August 2020. In April 2020, it was reported that the series had been cancelled by KBS due to casting controversy over the female lead role.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On June 17, 2020, Oui Entertainment announced that they will be debuting a new boy group, tentatively called "OUIBOYZ", in the second half of the year. Kim is expected to be a part of this group, alongside label mates Kim Dong-han, Jang Dae-hyeon, and Kang Seok-hwa.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On July 10, 2020, Oui Entertainment launched social media accounts for their new boy group called "WEi" which Kim has been confirmed to be a member of. They also released an image film for the logo.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On August 6, 2020, it was announced that Kim would be releasing a solo song, in the form of a digital single, on August 25, 2020, ahead of his future debut with WEi, titled "No More", produced by Zion. T.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On October 5, 2020, Kim debuted with WEi with the mini album "Identity: First Sight", with the title track "Twilight".


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: He also starred as the main lead in the K-drama "A Love So Beautiful", which is the remake of the C-drama of the same name, marking his acting debut. He also contributed to the OST by making a soundtrack appearance in "Recently", which was released on January 11, 2021.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On March 2, 2021, Kim became one of the hosts for SBS MTV's music program "The Show" alongside Ateez's Yeosang and Weeekly's Jihan.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: In 2021, Kim joins the cast of variety show "Chick High Kick" along with HaHa and Na Tae-joo. Later, Kim will be confirmed to join the KBS drama "School 2021" with Jo Yi-hyun.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: On January 10, 2022, Kim released his first solo mini album "Illusion", with the title track "Dessert".


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: In February of 2022, "Vanity Teen" editor Aedan Juvet revealed Kim's debut magazine cover, making him the magazine's first K-pop artist to receive a digital cover feature.


title: Kim Yo-han (singer)

text: All song credits are adapted from the Korea Music Copyright Association's database, unless otherwise noted.


title: Lou Adler

text: Lester Louis Adler (born December 13, 1933) is an American record and film producer and the co-owner of the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood, California. Adler has produced and developed a number of iconic musical artists, including The Grass Roots, Jan & Dean, The Mamas & the Papas and Carole King. King's album "Tapestry", produced by Adler, won the 1972 Grammy Award for Album of the Year and has been called one of the greatest pop albums of all time.


title: Lou Adler

text: Adler was an executive producer of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and discovered and produced comedy albums and films for Cheech & Chong. In 2006, Adler was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in music. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 as the winner, alongside Quincy Jones, of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.


title: Lou Adler

text: His career in music began as co-manager, alongside Herb Alpert, of Jan & Dean. Adler and Alpert transitioned from managing into songwriting, composing the songs "River Rock" in 1958 for Bob "Froggy" Landers and The Cough Drops and "Wonderful World" with Sam Cooke.


title: Lou Adler

text: In 1964, Adler founded Dunhill Records. He was president and chief record producer of the label from 1964 to 1967. During that time, Adler signed The Mamas & the Papas to Dunhill, producing six top-five hits for the group, including "California Dreamin'" and "Monday, Monday". Dunhill also reached #1 on the pop charts with Barry McGuire's single "Eve of Destruction". Through additional efforts by co-producers and songwriting duo P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, the label reached #8 on the pop charts with The Grass Roots single "Let's Live for Today".


title: Lou Adler

text: Capitalizing on Dunhill's success, Adler sold the label to ABC in 1967 and founded Ode Records, to which he signed Carole King, Spirit, Cheech & Chong, Scott McKenzie, Peggy Lipton, and others. Adler produced all of King's albums on Ode, which include four gold, one platinum, and one diamond album, as certified by the RIAA. King's second album for Ode, "Tapestry", sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, and is considered one of the greatest albums of all time. Adler's work on "Tapestry" garnered him two Grammy Awards in 1972: Record of the Year (for producing "It's Too Late") and Album of the Year.


title: Lou Adler

text: In addition to work with his own label's artists, Adler produced a number of live albums for Johnny Rivers. In June 1967, Adler helped to produce the Monterey International Pop Festival, as well as the film version, "Monterey Pop", which he co-produced with John Phillips from The Mamas & the Papas.


title: Lou Adler

text: After "Monterey Pop", Adler and Phillips teamed up again to produce the 1970 Robert Altman film, "Brewster McCloud". In 1975, Adler served as executive producer of the cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". After seeing "The Rocky Horror Show" at a theater in London, Adler bought the American rights to the show, presented it live in Los Angeles, and executive-produced the film version (adding "Picture" to the title). The movie went on to become the longest-running theatrical film in history.


title: Lou Adler

text: In 1978, Adler directed the movie "Up in Smoke", starring Cheech & Chong. The movie remains a cult hit, and in 2000 Adler recorded a commentary track along with Cheech Marin for the DVD release. His 1981 film, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains", did not make a large impact upon release but has enjoyed a long life on cable TV broadcasts. Also in 1981, Adler executive produced the follow-up to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "Shock Treatment".


title: Lou Adler

text: Adler was born to a Jewish family, the son of Manny and Josephine (Alpert) Adler in Chicago, Illinois in 1933 and raised in the Boyle Heights section of Los Angeles, California. Adler was married to actress and singer Shelley Fabares in 1964 and produced several of her songs. They separated in 1966 but were not formally divorced until 1980. In 1973 he fathered his first son, Nic Adler, with actress Britt Ekland. In 1978 he fathered another son, Cisco Adler, with then-girlfriend Phyllis Somer. In the 1980s his son Sonny was born from a brief relationship. Today, Adler is married to former actress Page Hannah, three decades his junior. The couple has four sons: Manny, Ike, Pablo, and Oscar.


title: Lou Adler

text: Adler could often be seen sitting courtside next to Jack Nicholson at Los Angeles Lakers home games, as reported in 2020. Adler owns The Roxy Theatre with his son Nic, who operates the historic music venue on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. Peter Fonda based his character Terry Valentine in "The Limey" on Adler.


title: Lou Adler

text: In 1976, Adler and his administrative assistant were kidnapped from their Malibu home. One of the perpetrators pulled a gun on Adler's administrative assistant, and gained entry. The two men were held for eight hours and released after $25,000 in ransom money was paid. Three suspects were arrested and sheriff's deputies later recovered $14,900 of the ransom money. Two suspects were later convicted and one suspect was later sentenced to life in prison.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Louisiana (; "La Louisiane Française") or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682 to 1769 and 1801 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. It originally covered an expansive territory that included most of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Louisiana included two regions, now known as Upper Louisiana (), which began north of the Arkansas River, and "Lower Louisiana" (). The U.S. state of Louisiana is named for the historical region, although it is only a small part of the vast lands claimed by France.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: French exploration of the area began during the reign of Louis XIV, but French Louisiana was not greatly developed, due to a lack of human and financial resources. As a result of its defeat in the Seven Years' War, France was forced to cede the east part of the territory in 1763 to the victorious British, and the west part to Spain as compensation for Spain losing Florida. France regained sovereignty of the western territory in the secret Third Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800. Strained by obligations in Europe and the Caribbean, Napoleon Bonaparte sold the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, ending France's presence in Louisiana.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The United States ceded part of the Louisiana Purchase to the United Kingdom in the Treaty of 1818. This section lies above the 49th parallel north in a part of present-day Alberta and Saskatchewan.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In the 18th century, Louisiana included most of the Mississippi River basin (see drawing alongside) from what is now the Midwestern United States south to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Within this vast territory, only two areas saw substantial French settlement: Upper Louisiana (), also known as the Illinois Country (), which consisted of settlements in what are now the states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana; and Lower Louisiana, which comprised parts of the modern states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Both areas were dominated numerically by Native American tribes. At times, fewer than two hundred French soldiers were assigned to all of the colony, on both sides of the Mississippi. In the mid-1720s, Louisiana Indians numbered well over 35,000, forming a clear majority of the colony's population."


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Generally speaking, the French colony of Louisiana bordered the Great Lakes, particularly Lake Michigan and Lake Erie towards the north; this region was the "Upper Country" of the French province of Canada. To the east was territory disputed with the thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard; the French claim extended to the Appalachian Mountains. The Rocky Mountains marked the western extent of the French claim, while Louisiana's southern border was the Gulf of Mexico.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The general flatness of the land aided movement through the territory; its average elevation is less than . The topography becomes more mountainous towards the west, with the notable exception of the Ozark Mountains, which are located in the mid-south.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Lower Louisiana consisted of lands in the Lower Mississippi River watershed, including settlements in what are now the U.S. states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The French first explored it in the 1660s, and a few trading posts were established in the following years; serious attempt at settlement began with the establishment of Fort Maurepas, near modern Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1699. A colonial government soon emerged, with its capital originally at Mobile, later at Biloxi and finally at New Orleans (in 1722, four years after the city's founding). The government was led by a governor-general, and Louisiana became an increasingly important colony in the early 18th century.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The earliest settlers of Upper Louisiana mostly came from French Canada, while Lower Louisiana was colonized by people from all over the French colonial empire, with various waves coming from Canada, France, and the French West Indies.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Upper Louisiana, also known as the Illinois Country, was the French territory in the upper Mississippi River Valley, including settlements and fortifications in what are now the states of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. French exploration of the area began with the 1673 expedition of Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, which charted the upper Mississippi. As noted above, Upper Louisiana was primarily settled by colonists from French Canada. There was further substantial intermarriage and integration with the local Illinois peoples. French settlers were attracted by the availability of arable farmland as well as by the forests, abundant with animals suitable for hunting and trapping.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Between 1699 and 1760, six major settlements were established in Upper Louisiana: Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Fort de Chartres, Saint Philippe, and Prairie du Rocher, all on the east side of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois; and Ste. Genevieve across the river in today's Missouri. The region was initially governed as part of Canada, but was declared to be part of Louisiana in 1712, with the grant of the Louisiana country to Antoine Crozat. By the 1720s a formal government infrastructure had formed; leaders of the towns reported to the commandant of Fort de Chartres, who in turn reported to the governor-general of Louisiana in New Orleans.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The geographical limits of Upper Louisiana were never precisely defined, but the term gradually came to describe the country southwest of the Great Lakes. A royal ordinance of 1722 may have featured the broadest definition: all land claimed by France south of the Great Lakes and north of the mouth of the Ohio River, which would include the Missouri Valley as well as both banks of the Mississippi.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: A generation later, trade conflicts between Canada and Louisiana led to a defined boundary between the French colonies; in 1745, Louisiana governor general Vaudreuil set the northeastern bounds of his domain as the Wabash valley up to the mouth of the Vermilion River (near present-day Danville, Illinois); from there, northwest to "le Rocher" on the Illinois River, and from there west to the mouth of the Rock River (at present-day Rock Island, Illinois). Thus, Vincennes and Peoria were the limit of Louisiana's reach. The outposts at Ouiatenon (on the upper Wabash near present-day Lafayette, Indiana), Fort Miamis (near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana), and Prairie du Chien operated as dependencies of Canada.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: This boundary remained in effect through the capitulation of French forces in Canada in 1760 until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, after which France surrendered its remaining territory east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. (Although British forces had occupied the "Canadian" posts in the Illinois and Wabash countries in 1761, they did not occupy Vincennes or the Mississippi River settlements at Cahokia and Kaskaskia until 1764, after the peace treaty was ratified.) As part of a general report on conditions in the newly conquered Province of Canada, Gen. Thomas Gage (then commandant at Montreal) explained in 1762 that, although the boundary between Louisiana and Canada was not exact, it was understood that the upper Mississippi (above the mouth of the Illinois) was in Canadian trading territory.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Following the transfer of power (at which time many of the French settlers on the east bank of the Mississippi crossed the river to what had become Spanish Louisiana) the eastern Illinois Country became part of the British Province of Quebec, and later the United States' Northwest Territory. French colonists who migrated after they lost control over New France founded outposts such as the important settlement of St. Louis (1764). This became a French fur-trading center, connected to trading posts on the Missouri and Upper Mississippi rivers, leading to later French settlement in that area.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, France ceded Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain, its ally in the war, as compensation for the loss of Spanish Florida to Britain. Even after France had lost its claim to Louisiana, francophone settlement of Upper Louisiana continued for the next four decades. French explorers and frontiersmen, such as Pedro Vial, were often employed as guides and interpreters by the Spanish and later by the Americans. The Spanish lieutenant governors at St. Louis maintained the traditional "Illinois Country" nomenclature, using titles such as "commander in chief of the western part and districts of Illinois" and administrators commonly referred to their capital St. Louis "of the Ylinuses".


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In 1800 Spain returned its part of Louisiana to France in the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, but France sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Through this time, but especially following the Louisiana Purchase, French Creoles, as they called themselves, began to move further into the Missouri Ozarks, where they formed mining communities such as Mine à Breton and La Vieille Mine (Old Mines).


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: A unique dialect, known as Missouri French, developed in Upper Louisiana. It is distinguished from both Louisiana French and the various forms of Canadian French, such as Acadian. The dialect continued to be spoken around the Midwest, particularly in Missouri, through the 20th century. It is nearly extinct today, with only a few elderly speakers still able to use it.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In 1660, France started a policy of expansion into the interior of North America from what is now eastern Canada. The objectives were to locate a Northwest Passage to China; to exploit the territory's natural resources, such as fur and mineral ores; and to convert the native population to Catholicism. Fur traders began exploring the "pays d'en haut" (upper country around the Great Lakes) at the time. In 1659, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart des Groseilliers reached the western end of Lake Superior. Priests founded missions, such as the Mission of Sault Sainte Marie in 1668. On May 17, 1673, Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette began the exploration of the Mississippi River, which they called the "Sioux Tongo" (the large river) or "Michissipi". They reached the mouth of the Arkansas River, and then returned upstream, having learned that the great river ran toward the Gulf of Mexico, not toward the Pacific Ocean as they had presumed. In 1675, Marquette founded a mission in the Native American village of "Kaskaskias" on the Illinois River. A permanent settlement was made by 1690.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier and the Italian Henri de Tonti descended to the Mississippi River Delta. They left Fort Crèvecoeur on the Illinois River, accompanied by 23 Frenchmen and 18 Indians. They built Fort Prud'homme (later the city of Memphis) and claimed French sovereignty on the whole of the valley, which they called "Louisiane" in honor of the French king, Louis XIV. They sealed alliances with the Quapaw Indians. In April 1682, they arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi. Cavelier eventually returned to Versailles, where he convinced the Minister of the Marine to grant the command of Louisiana to him. He claimed that Louisiana was close to New Spain by drawing a map showing the Mississippi as much farther west than it really was.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: With four ships and 320 emigrants, Cavelier set sail for Louisiana. Cavelier did not find the river's mouth in the Mississippi River Delta and tried to establish a colony on the Texas coast. Cavelier was assassinated in 1687 by members of his exploration party, reportedly near what is now Navasota, Texas.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: It was not easy for an absolute monarchy to administer Louisiana, a territory several times larger than European France. Louis XIV and his successors tried to impose their absolutist ambitions on the colony, often without giving the colonial administration enough financial means to do its work.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: If the leaders of "Ancien Régime" took control of, and sometimes encouraged, the colonization of New France, it was for many reasons. The reign of Henry IV gave an important impetus to the colonisation of New France. Henry IV, the first Bourbon king, was personally interested in foreign affairs. In the 17th century, the ministers Richelieu and later Colbert advanced colonial politics. Louis XIV and his ministers were worried about the size of the kingdom, over which they constantly competed with other European nations. European rivalry and a game of political alliances greatly marked the history of Louisiana, in direct and indirect ways. Within those shifting conditions, the French desire to limit British influence in North America was a constant issue in royal politics.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Louis XIV took care to limit the appearance of intermediary bodies and countervailing powers in North America. He did not want an assembly of notables or parliament. In the 1660s, the colony was royal property. In 1685, Louis XIV banned all publishing in New France. Between 1712 and 1731, the French possession came under the control of Antoine Crozat, a rich businessman, then under that of the Mississippi Company (created by John Law), which recruited immigrants to settle the colony. In 1731, Louisiana reverted to royal rule.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In contrast to Metropolitan France, the government applied a single unified law of the land: the Custom of Paris for civil law (rather egalitarian for the time); the "Code Louis", consisting of the 1667 ordinance on civil procedure and 1670 ordinance on criminal procedure; the 1673 "Code Savary" for trade; and the 1685 "Code noir" for slavery. This served as an equaliser for a while; riots and revolts against authority were rare. But, the centralised government had difficulty maintaining communications over the long distance and sailing time that separated France from Louisiana. Toward the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, the colonists on the Gulf of Mexico were left almost completely to fend for themselves; they counted far more on the assistance of the Native Americans than on France. The distance had its advantages: the colonists smuggled goods into the colony with impunity.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's Minister of the Navy and Trade, was eager to stuff the coffers of the Crown. He dissolved the trading companies and took care to increase the production of the country and the colonies. Being a mercantilist, he believed it was necessary to sell as much as possible and to reduce reliance on imports. He imposed a French monopoly on trade. Colbert wanted to reduce the expenditure of the monarchy. It was, however, necessary to invest much money and to mobilize important human resources retain the American colony. Much work was done on the economic infrastructure (factories, ports) in metropolitan France, but the investment was not enough in Louisiana. No plan to facilitate the movement of goods or men was ever carried out. The French budget was exhausted because of the wars in Europe, but the colonists in Louisiana did not have to pay royal taxes and were free of the hated "gabelle".


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Under the Ancien Régime, Louisiana formed part of a larger colonial unit, French American territory—New France ("Nouvelle France"), which included a large part of modern-day Canada. New France was initially ruled by a viceroy in 1625, the Duke of Ventadour. The colony was then given a government like the Bourbons' other possessions. Its capital was Quebec City until 1759. A governor-general, assisted by a single intendant, was charged with ruling this vast region. In theory, Louisiana was subordinate to Canada, and so it was explored and settled chiefly by French-Canadians rather than colonists from France. Given the enormous distance between New Orleans and Quebec, communications outside cities and forts were limited.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: French settlements were widely dispersed, which afforded them "de facto" autonomy. The government decided to break up governance of the vast varied colony of New France into five smaller provinces, including Louisiana. The Illinois Country, south of the Great Lakes, was added to Louisiana in 1717 and became known as Upper Louisiana. Mobile served as French Louisiana's first "capital". The seat of government moved to Biloxi in 1720, and then to New Orleans in 1722, where the governor lived. While the office of governor general was the most eminent, it was not the most powerful. His was a military position that required him to lead the troops and maintain diplomatic relations. The second provincial authority was the commissaire-ordonnateur. His was a civil post with similar functions as that of the intendants in France: the king's administrator and representative, he oversaw justice, the police force, and finances. He managed the budget, set prices, presided the Superior Council ("Conseil supérieur"—the court of justice), and organized the census. Appointed by the king, Louisiana's commissaire-ordonnateur had broad powers that sometimes conflicted with those of the governor general. The military outposts of the hinterland were directed by commanders.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The French possessions of North America were under the authority of a single Catholic diocese, whose seat was in Quebec. The archbishop, named and paid by the king, was spiritual head of all New France. With loose religious supervision, the fervor of the population was very weak; Louisianans tended to practice their faith much less than did their counterparts in France and Canada. The tithe, a tax by the clergy on the congregations, produced less revenue than in France.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The Church nevertheless played an important part in the exploration of French Louisiana; it sent missions, primarily carried out by Jesuits, to convert Native Americans. It also founded schools and hospitals: By 1720, the Ursulines were operating a hospital in New Orleans. The church and its missionaries established contact with the numerous Amerindian tribes. Certain priests, such as Father Marquette in the 17th century, took part in exploratory missions. The Jesuits translated collections of prayers into numerous Amerindian languages to convert the Native Americans. They also looked for ways to relate Indian practices to Christian worship, and helped show the Natives how these were related. A syncretic religion developed among new Christians. Sincere and permanent conversions were limited in number; many who received missionary instruction tended to assimilate the Holy Trinity into their belief of "spirits", or rejected the concept outright.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: It is difficult to estimate the total population of France's colonies in North America. While historians have relatively precise sources regarding the colonists and enslaved Africans, estimates of Native American peoples is difficult. During the 18th century, the society of Louisiana became quite creolized.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Colonial French (commonly known as Colonial Louisiana French) is a variety of Louisiana French. It is associated with the misnomer the Cajun French dialect and with Louisiana Creole French, a related creole language. Spoken widely in what is now the U.S. state of Louisiana, it is now considered to have been relabeled as "Cajun French".


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Colonial French is conventionally described as the form of French spoken in Lower French Louisiana prior to the mass arrival of Acadians after the Great Upheaval of the mid-18th century, which resulted in the birth of the Cajun dialect. The prestige dialect still used by Creoles and Cajuns is often identified as deriving from Colonial French, but some linguists differentiate between the two, referring to the latter as Plantation Society French.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Historically spoken by Louisiana Creole population in lower French Louisiana, Colonial French is generally considered to have been adopted by whites, blacks and Cajuns. It is known among the educated that it has been incorrectly relabelled "Cajun French" by Cajuns and CODOFIL.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Following the Great Upheaval in 1764, when many Acadians were exiled to French Louisiana, Louisiana French was adopted by the Acadians. Some scholars suggested that it survived as the prestige dialect spoken by Creoles, both white and of color, into the 21st century. There are populations of Creoles and Cajuns among other ethnic groups in the parishes of St. Martin, Avoyelles, Iberia, Pointe-Coupée, St. Charles, St. Landry, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, and other parishes south of Orleans, that still speak this prestige dialect.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: However, linguists have pointed out this prestige dialect is distinct from the pre-Upheaval Colonial French, and is largely derived from the standard French of the mid-19th century, Spanish, African languages, and Native Americans languages. As such, in 1998 linguist Michael Picone of the University of Alabama introduced the term "Plantation Society French" for the prestige dialect. There is a history of diglossia between Plantation Society French and Louisiana Creole French. Plantation Society French, at any rate, is quite close to the Standard French of the time of its origin, with some possible differences in pronunciation and vocabulary use.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: It is still spoken by the Louisiana Indians, such as the Houmas, Avoyelles, Choctaw, and other tribal remnants, all present in pre-Acadian Louisiana and still present in contemporary Louisiana.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: According to the demographer Russel Thornton, North America contained approximately seven million native inhabitants in 1500. The population plummeted from the 16th century onward, primarily because of the new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, to which the Native Americans had no acquired immunity. At the end of the 17th century, there were likely no more than 100,000 to 200,000 Native Americans in Lower Louisiana. French colonists forced a small number of Native Americans into slavery, in spite of official prohibition. These slaves were persons who had been captured by rival tribes during raids and in battle, and sold to French colonists. At the time, many were sent to Saint Domingue in the West Indies for sale as slaves, or to Canada. In Louisiana, planters generally preferred using African slaves, though some had Native American servants.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: In 1717, John Law, the French Comptroller General of Finances, decided to import African slaves into Louisiana. His objective was to develop the plantation economy of Lower Louisiana. The Royal Indies Company held a monopoly over the slave trade in the area. It imported approximately 6,000 slaves from Africa between 1719 and 1743. A small portion of these were sent to the Illinois Country to cultivate the fields or to work the lead mines. The economy of Lower Louisiana consequently became slave-dependent. As in other French colonies, the treatment of the slaves was regulated by the "Code Noir". The slaves often had a degree of autonomy beyond that suggested by the code. Initially, during public holidays, slaves were permitted to sell a portion of the crops they had cultivated. Some would hunt, cut wood or keep livestock far from the plantation. Lastly, although interracial marriages and regroupings of slaves were prohibited, planters often kept slave mistresses. The life and work of the slaves was difficult, with the intense harvest season and processing of sugar undoubtedly the hardest. The maintenance of canals for rice irrigation and travel also involved much labor.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Slave residences and furnishings as supplied by planters were modest. The slaves were given simple straw pallets as beds. They typically had some trunks and kitchen utensils. The condition of the slaves depended on the treatment they received from their masters. When it was excessively cruel, the slaves often fled and hid in the marshes or in New Orleans. The Maroon societies that runaway slaves founded were often short-lived; Louisiana did not have the larger and semi-permanent Maroon villages that developed in the West Indies. Meanwhile, slave revolts were not as frequent in this area as they were in the Caribbean. The possibility of being set free was rather low; the slaves could not purchase their freedom. One of the first slaves to be freed was Louis Congo, who, in 1725, received freedom, land, and compensation in exchange for becoming the public executioner of New Orleans. Some freed slaves (notably women and former soldiers) formed small communities, which suffered from segregation; justice was more severe against them, and they did not have right to possess weapons. Slaves contributed to the creolization of Louisianan society. They brought okra from Africa, a plant common in the preparation of gumbo. While the Code Noir required that the slaves receive a Christian education, many secretly practiced animism and often combined elements of the two faiths.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The commonly accepted definition of Louisiana Creole today is the community whose members are a descendant of the "native-born" individuals of la Louisiane. Some individuals may not have each ethnic heritage, and some may have additional ancestries. It is estimated that 7,000 European immigrants settled in Louisiana during the 18th century—a hundredth the number of inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic coast. Initially, "creole" was the term used for Europeans (and sometimes, separately for Africans) born in Louisiana, in contrast to those who immigrated there.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Louisiana attracted considerably fewer French colonists than did its West Indian colonies. After the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, which lasted several months, the colonists had several challenges ahead of them. Their living conditions were difficult: uprooted, they had to face a new, often hostile, environment. Many of these immigrants died during the maritime crossing or soon after their arrival. Physical conditions were harsh, and the tropical climate was difficult for colonists. Hurricanes, unknown in France, periodically struck the coast, destroying whole villages. The Mississippi River Delta was plagued with periodic floods and yellow fever epidemics, to which malaria and cholera were added as part of the Eurasian diseases that arrived with the Europeans. These conditions slowed colonization.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Moreover, French villages and forts were not necessarily safe from enemy offensives. Attacks by Native Americans represented a real threat to the groups of isolated colonists; in 1729, their attacks killed 250 in Lower Louisiana. Forces of the Native American Natchez people took Fort Rosalie (now Natchez, Mississippi) by surprise, killing, among others, pregnant women. The French responded with warfare during the next two years: some Natchez were captured and deported as slaves to Saint Domingue; others left the area if they escaped.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Colonists were often young men, volunteers recruited in French ports or in Paris. Many served as indentured servants; they were required to remain in Louisiana for a length of time fixed by the contract of service to pay off their passage. During this time, they were "temporary semi-slaves". To increase the colonial population, the crown sent "filles à la cassette" ("casket girls," referring to the small trunks they arrived with), young Frenchwomen, to marry the soldiers. They were given a dowry financed by the King. This practice built upon the 17th-century precedent when Louis XIV paid for transport and dowries for about 800 "filles du roi" (King's Daughters) to emigrate to New France to encourage marriage and formation of families in the colony.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: By contrast, other arrivals were described as women "of easy virtue", vagrants or outlaws, and those without family, who arrived in Louisiana with a "lettre de cachet"; they were sent by force to the colony, especially during the Régence period early in the reign of Louis XV. Their stories inspired the novel "Story of the Knight of Grieux and Manon Lescaut", written by Abbé Prévost in 1731. In 1721, the ship "La Baleine" carried nearly 90 women of childbearing age to Louisiana; they were recruited from the Paris prison of La Salpetrière. Most quickly found husbands among the residents of the colony. These women, many of whom were most likely prostitutes or felons, were known as "The Baleine Brides".


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Communities of Swiss and German peoples also settled in French Louisiana, but royal authorities always referred to the population as "French". After the Seven Years' War, in which Britain defeated France, the settlement attracted a variety of groups: Spanish settlers, refugees from Saint Domingue (particularly after 1791 when the slave uprisings began), opponents of the French Revolution, and Acadians. In 1785, 1633 people of Acadian origin were brought from France to New Orleans, 30 years after having been expelled from Acadia by the British. Other Acadians were transported there by the British after they were expelled from Acadia. About 4,000 are thought to have settled in Louisiana, gradually forming the Cajun community.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Social mobility was easier in America than in France at the time. The seigneurial system was not imposed on the banks of the Mississippi, although the long lot land division scheme of the seigneurial system was adapted to some of the meandering rivers and bayous there. There were few corporations treated hierarchically and strictly regulated. Certain tradesmen managed to build fortunes rather quickly. The large planters of Louisiana were attached to the French way of life: they imported wigs and clothing fashionable in Paris. In the Country of Illinois, the wealthiest constructed stone-built houses and had several slaves. The largest traders mostly wound up settling in New Orleans.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The King sent the army in the event of conflict with the other colonial powers; in 1717, the colony of Mississippi counted 300 soldiers out of 550 people (Havard G, Vidal C, "History of French America", p. 225.). However, the colonial army, like that of France, suffered from desertions. Certain soldiers fled to become "coureurs de bois". There were few mutinies because repression was severe. The army held a fundamental place in the control of the territory. Soldiers built forts and frequently negotiated with the Native Americans.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The "coureurs des bois" (literally "runners of the woods") played an important part, though not well documented, in the expansion of French influence in North America. By the end of the 17th century, these adventurers had journeyed the length of the Mississippi River. They were motivated by the hope of finding gold or of carrying out a profitable fur trade with the Indians. The fur trade, often practiced without authorization, was a difficult activity, carried on most of the time by young unmarried men. Many ultimately wished to go on to more sedentary agricultural activities. Meanwhile, a good number of them were integrated into native communities, learned the languages, and took native wives. A well-known example is the French Canadian Toussaint Charbonneau, husband to Sacagawea, who gave birth to Jean-Baptiste. They took part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804–1806.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Ancien Régime France wished to make Native Americans subjects of the king and good Christians, but the distance from Metropolitan France and the sparseness of French settlement prevented this. In official rhetoric, the Native Americans were regarded as subjects of the king of France, but in reality, they were largely autonomous due to their numerical superiority. The local authorities (governors, officers) did not have the means of imposing their decisions, and often compromised. The tribes offered essential support for the French in Louisiana: they ensured the survival of the colonists, participated with them in the fur trade, and were used as guides in expeditions. Their alliance was also essential in wars against other tribes and European colonies.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The two peoples influenced each other in many fields: the French learned the languages of the natives, who bought European goods (fabric, alcohol, firearms, etc.), and sometimes adopted their religion. The "coureurs des bois" and the soldiers borrowed canoes and moccasins. Many of them ate native food such as wild rice and various meats, like bear and dog. The colonists were often dependent on the Native Americans for food. Creole cuisine is the heir of these mutual influences: thus, "sagamité", for example, is a mix of corn pulp, bear fat and bacon. Today jambalaya, a word of Seminole origin, refers to a multitude of recipes calling for meat and rice, all very spicy. Sometimes shamans succeeded in curing the colonists thanks to traditional remedies, such as the application of fir tree gum on wounds and Royal Fern on rattlesnake bites.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Many colonists both admired and feared the military power of the Native Americans, but others scorned their culture and regarded them as racially less pure than the Whites. In 1735, interracial marriages without the approval of the authorities were prohibited in Louisiana. The Jesuit priests were often scandalized by the supposedly libertine ways of the Native Americans. In spite of some disagreements (the Indians killed pigs, which devastated corn fields), and sometimes violent confrontations (Fox Wars, Natchez uprisings, and expeditions against the Chicachas), the relationship with the Native Americans was relatively good in Louisiana. French imperialism was expressed through some wars and the slavery of some Native Americans. But most of the time, the relationship was based on dialogue and negotiation.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: This comparatively sparsely-settled northern area of French Louisiana was formerly the southern part of French Canada, and was transferred in 1717 by order of the King. It lies along the Mississippi and its tributaries, and was primarily devoted to grain and cereals agriculture. The French farmers lived in villages (such as near Fort de Chartres (the colonial administrative center), Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher, and Sainte-Geneviève). They cultivated the land with paid and slave laborers, producing mostly corn and wheat. The fields were cleared with ploughs. They raised horses, cows and pigs, and also grew a little tobacco, hemp, flax and grapes (though most wine was still imported from France). Agriculture was seasonal and periodic flooding of the Mississippi took its toll on these communities.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The trading posts in the Illinois Country concentrated mostly on the fur trade. Placed at strategic points, they were modestly fortified. Only a few were made out of stone (e.g., Fort de Chartres). Like their American "mountain man" counterparts, the "coureurs des bois" exchanged beaverskin or deer pelts for weapons, cloth or shoddy goods, because the local economy was based on barter. The skins and fur are later sold in the forts and cities of New France. The Illinois Country also produced salt and lead, and provided New Orleans with game.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Lower Louisiana's plantation economy was based on slave labor. The owners generally had their main residence in New Orleans and entrusted the supervision of the fields to a treasurer.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Crops were varied and adapted to the climate and terrain. Part of the production was intended for use by Louisianans (corn, vegetables, rice, livestock), the rest being exported to France (especially tobacco and indigo).


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: New Orleans was the economic capital of Louisiana, though it remained a village for several decades. The colonists built infrastructure to encourage trade; a canal was dug in 1723. The shops on the banks of the Mississippi also served as warehouses. The city exported pelts from the interior as well as agricultural products from the plantations. It was also, of course, a local hub of commerce.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The rare shipments from France brought food (lard, wheat...), alcohol, and various indispensable finished products (weapons, tools, cloth, and clothing). Exports remained relatively weak on the whole. New Orleans continued to sell wood, rice, and corn to the French West Indies.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The hostility between the French and British flared up again two years before the beginning of the Seven Years' War in Europe. In North America, the war became known as the French and Indian War. After some early victories from 1754 to 1757, thanks to help from their Native American allies, the French suffered several disastrous defeats in Canada from 1758 to 1760, culminating in the surrender of the capital city Quebec. With the loss of Canada, defense of Louisiana became impossible.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The Treaty of Paris, signed on 10 February 1763, formalized the eviction of the French from North America. Canada and the east bank of the Mississippi were handed over to Great Britain (Province of Quebec (1763–91)). New Orleans and the west bank of the river had been secretly given to Spain the previous year. This decision provoked the departure of a small number of settlers; however, the Spaniards effectively took control of their new territories, which they named Luisiana, rather late (in 1769), and there was not much Spanish immigration. To the East, the United States foresaw the conquest of the West; commercial navigation on the Mississippi was opened to Americans in 1795.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: During the French Revolution, Louisiana was agitated under Spanish control: certain French-speaking colonists sent petitions to the metropolis and the slaves attempted revolts in 1791 and 1795.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: The Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in secrecy on October 1, 1800, envisaged the transfer of Western Louisiana as well as New Orleans to France in exchange for the Duchy of Parma. The transfer was confirmed by the Treaty of Aranjuez signed on March 21, 1801. However, Napoleon Bonaparte soon decided not to keep the immense territory. The army he sent to take possession of the colony was first required to put down a revolution in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti); its failure to do so, and the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens with the United Kingdom, prompted him to decide to sell Louisiana to the newly founded United States. This was done on April 30, 1803 for the sum of 80 million francs (15 million dollars). American sovereignty was established on December 20, 1803.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: French colonization in Louisiana left a cultural inheritance that has been celebrated significantly in recent decades. The heritage of the French language, Louisiana Creole French, and Cajun French has been most threatened; for this reason, the CODOFIL (Council for the Development of French in Louisiana) was created in 1968. A subject of debate is the variety of French that should be taught: that of France, Canadian French, standard Louisiana French, or Cajun French. Today, many Cajun-dominated areas of Louisiana have formed associations with Acadian communities in Canada, which send French professors to re-teach the language in the schools. In 2003, 7% of Louisianans were French-speaking, though most also spoke English. An estimated 25% of the state's population has some French ancestry, carrying a number of last names of French origin (e.g., LeBlanc, Cordier, Dauthier, Dion, Menard, Pineaux, Hébert, Ardoin, Roubideaux).


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: Many cities and villages have names of French origin. They include St. Louis, Detroit, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lafayette, Mobile, Des Moines, St. Cloud, and Duluth. (However, present day Duluth is located in what used to be the old Northwest Territory, not the former Louisiana Territory). The flag and the seal of the state of Minnesota carry a French legend. The Iowa state flag uses a variation of the French national flag as its base. The Missouri state flag and flag of New Orleans colors are based on the French flag. The flag of St. Louis has a fleur-de-lis prominently displayed. Historical festivals and commemorations point out the French presence: in 1999, Louisiana celebrated the 300th anniversary of its foundation; in 2001, Detroit did the same. In 2003, the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase was commemorated on numerous occasions as well as by a formal conference to recall its history. Certain places testify to a cultural inheritance left by the French; a prime example is the French Quarter of New Orleans. In 2015, St. Louis celebrated the 250th anniversary of its founding by the French in 1764. Many French forts have been rebuilt and opened to visitors.


title: Louisiana (New France)

text: A key part of Louisianan culture finds its roots in the French period: Creole songs influenced the blues and jazz. Cajun music, often sung in French, remains very much alive today. New Orleans' Carnival season, with its height on Mardi Gras Day, testifies to a long-lived Roman Catholic heritage.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Shirley Jean Douglas (April 2, 1934 – April 5, 2020) was a Canadian actress and activist. Her acting career combined with her family name made her recognizable in Canadian film, television and national politics.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Douglas was born April 2, 1934, in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the daughter of Irma May (née Dempsey; 1911–95) and Tommy Douglas (1904–86), the late Scottish-born Canadian statesman, Premier of Saskatchewan and the first leader of the federal New Democratic Party. She attended high school at Central Collegiate Institute (now closed) in Regina. Douglas attended the Banff School of Fine Arts at the age of 16.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Douglas's acting career began in 1950 with a role in the Regina Little Theatre entry at the Dominion Drama Festival, where she won the best actress award. In 1952 Shirley graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and stayed in England for several years, performing for theatre and television, before returning to Canada in 1957.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: She continued to act; and her career encompassed several memorable roles on stages in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. She portrayed prominent feminist Nellie McClung, family matriarch and business woman May Bailey in the television series "Wind at My Back", Hagar Shipley in Margaret Laurence's "The Stone Angel", and even characters in popular science fiction series like "The Silver Surfer" and "Flash Gordon".


title: Shirley Douglas

text: In 1997, Douglas appeared on stage with her son Kiefer Sutherland at the Royal Alexandra Theatre and at the National Arts Centre in "The Glass Menagerie". In 2000, she performed on stage in "The Vagina Monologues". In 2006, she portrayed former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in the ABC mini-series "The Path to 9/11".


title: Shirley Douglas

text: In 2003, for her contributions to the performing arts, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Douglas was the mother of three children: Thomas Emil Sicks from her marriage to Canadian prairie brewery heir Timothy Emil Sicks in 1957, and twins Rachel Sutherland and Kiefer Sutherland from her second marriage to Canadian actor Donald Sutherland (1966–70).


title: Shirley Douglas

text: By 2009, Douglas was in a wheelchair due to a degenerative spine condition that caused her severe pain.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Douglas died on April 5, 2020, due to complications from pneumonia, three days after her 86th birthday.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Douglas moved to Los Angeles, California in 1967 after marrying actor Donald Sutherland. She became involved in the American Civil Rights Movement, the campaign against the Vietnam War, and later on behalf of immigrants and women. She helped establish the fundraising group "Friends of the Black Panthers".


title: Shirley Douglas

text: In 1969, she was arrested in Los Angeles for Conspiracy to Possess Unregistered Explosives. According to a sworn statement by FBI agents, she allegedly attempted to purchase hand grenades for the Black Panthers using a cheque from those FBI agents. As her defence, she claimed the FBI was framing her by creating a crime where none existed prior to their involvement.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: Subsequently, the FBI denied her a work permit based on this allegation. Douglas, by then divorced from Sutherland, left America in 1977. She and her three children moved to Toronto. The courts eventually dismissed the case and exonerated her.


title: Shirley Douglas

text: As the daughter of Tommy Douglas, promoter of Medicare, she was one of Canada's activists in favour of tax-payer funded health-care instead of privatized care. In the 2006 Canadian federal election, Douglas campaigned on behalf of the federal New Democratic Party and in 2012 she supported Brian Topp for that party's leadership.


title: Letter of credit

text: A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an exporter of goods. Letters of credit are used extensively in the financing of international trade, when the reliability of contracting parties cannot be readily and easily determined. Its economic effect is to introduce a bank as an underwriter that assumes the counterparty risk of the buyer paying the seller for goods.


title: Letter of credit

text: The letter of credit has been used in Europe since ancient times. Letters of credit were traditionally governed by internationally recognized rules and procedures rather than by national law. The International Chamber of Commerce oversaw the preparation of the first Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP) in 1933, creating a voluntary framework for commercial banks to apply to transactions worldwide.


title: Letter of credit

text: In the late 19th century and early 20th century, travelers commonly carried a circular letter of credit issued by a relationship bank, which allowed the beneficiary to withdraw cash from other banks along their journey. This type of letter of credit was eventually replaced by traveler's checks, credit cards and automated teller machines.


title: Letter of credit

text: Although letters of credit first existed only as paper documents, they were regularly issued by telegraph in the late 19th century, and by telex in the latter half of the 20th century. Beginning in 1973 with the creation of SWIFT, banks began to migrate to electronic data interchange as a means of controlling costs, and in 1983 the UCP was amended to allow "teletransmission" of letters of credit. By the 21st century, the vast majority of LCs were issued in electronic form and entirely "paperless" LCs were becoming more common. Marcell David Reich (commonly known as Marc Rich) popularised the use of letters of credit in the oil trade.


title: Letter of credit

text: UCP 600 (2007 Revision) regulates common market practice within the letter of credit market. It defines a number of terms related to letters of credit which categorise the various factors within any given transaction. These are crucial to understanding the role financial institutions play within. These include:


title: Letter of credit

text: A letter of credit is an important payment method in international trade. It is particularly useful where the buyer and seller may not know each other personally and are separated by distance, differing laws in each country, and different trading customs. It is a primary method in international trade to mitigate the risk a seller of goods takes when providing those goods to a buyer. It does this by ensuring that the seller is paid for presenting the documents which are specified in the contract for sale between the buyer and the seller. That is to say, a letter of credit is a payment method used to discharge the legal obligations for payment from the buyer to the seller, by having a bank pay the seller directly. Thus, the seller relies on the credit risk of the bank, rather than the buyer, to receive payment. As will be seen, and is observed in Image 2, the bank will pay the seller the value of the goods when the seller provides negotiable instruments, documents which themselves represent the goods. Upon presentation of the documents, the goods will traditionally be in the control of the issuing bank, which provides them security against the risk that the buyer (who had instructed the bank to pay the seller) will repay the bank for making such a payment.


title: Letter of credit

text: In the event that the buyer is unable to make payment on the purchase, the seller may make a demand for payment on the bank. The bank will examine the beneficiary's demand and if it complies with the terms of the letter of credit, will honor the demand. Most letters of credit are governed by rules promulgated by the International Chamber of Commerce known as Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits. The current version, UCP 600, became effective July 1, 2007. Banks will typically require collateral from the purchaser for issuing a letter of credit and will charge a fee which is often a percentage of the amount covered by the letter of credit.


title: Letter of credit

text: Several categories of LCs exist which seek to operate in different markets and solve different issues. An example of these include:


title: Letter of credit

text: Additionally, a letter of credit may also have specific terms relating to the payment conditions which relate to the underlying reference documents. Some of these include


title: Letter of credit

text: Credits are made transferable when the original beneficiary is a "middleman", who does not supply the documents himself, but procures either goods or documents from other suppliers and arranges them to be sent to the issuing bank. A letter of credit can be transferred to the second beneficiary at the request of the first beneficiary only if it expressly states that the letter of credit is "transferable". A bank is not obligated to transfer a credit. It can further be transferred to more than one alternate beneficiary as long as it allows partial shipments.


title: Letter of credit

text: The terms and conditions of the original credit must be replicated exactly in the transferred credit. However, to keep the workability of the transferable letter of credit, some figures can be reduced or curtailed, including:


title: Letter of credit

text: The first beneficiary may demand from the transferring bank to substitute for the applicant. However, if a document other than the invoice must be issued in a way to show the applicant's name, in such a case that requirement must indicate that in the transferred credit it will be free. Transferred credit cannot be transferred again to a third beneficiary at the request of the second beneficiary.


title: Letter of credit

text: In some cases, the middleman does not want the buyer and supplier to know each other. The middleman is entitled to substitute his own invoice for the supplier's and acquire the difference as profit.


title: Letter of credit

text: Typically, after a sales contract has been negotiated, and the buyer and seller have agreed that a letter of credit will be used as the method of payment, the Applicant will contact a bank to ask for a letter of credit to be issued. Once the issuing bank has assessed the buyer's credit risk – i.e. that the Applicant will be able to pay for the goods – it will issue the letter of credit, meaning that it will provide a promise to pay the seller upon presentation of certain documents. Once the Beneficiary (the seller) receives the letter of credit, it will check the terms to ensure that it matches with the contract and will either arrange for shipment of the goods or ask for an amendment to the letter of credit so that it meets with the terms of the contract. The letter of credit is limited in terms of time, the validity of credit, the last date of shipment, and in terms of how much late after shipment the documents may be presented to the Nominated Bank.


title: Letter of credit

text: Once the goods have been shipped, the Beneficiary will present the requested documents to the Nominated Bank. This bank will check the documents, and if they comply with the terms of the Letter of Credit, the issuing Bank is bound to honor the terms of the letter of credit by paying the Beneficiary.


title: Letter of credit

text: If the documents do not comply with the terms of the letter of credit they are considered Discrepant. At this point, the Nominated Bank will inform the Beneficiary of the discrepancy and offer a number of options depending on the circumstances after consent of applicant. However, such a discrepancy must be more than trivial. Refusal cannot depend on anything other than reasonable examination of the documents themselves. The bank then must rely on the fact that there was, in fact, a material mistake. A fact that if true would entitle the buyer to reject the items. A wrong date such as an early delivery date was held by English courts to not be a material mistake. If the discrepancies are minor, it may be possible to present corrected documents to the bank to make the presentation compliant. Failure of the bank to pay is grounds for a chose in action. Documents presented after the time limits mentioned in the credit, however, are considered discrepant.


title: Letter of credit

text: If the corrected documents cannot be supplied in time, the documents may be forwarded directly to the issuing bank "in trust"; effectively in the hope that the Applicant will accept the documents. Documents forwarded in trust remove the payment security of a letter of credit so this route must only be used as a last resort.