text: 1948: Jerusalem (British Mandate): A Marine consular guard was sent to Jerusalem to protect the U.S. Consul General.


title: Timeline of United States military operations

text: 1948: Berlin: Berlin Airlift After the Soviet Union established a land blockade of the U.S., British, and French sectors of Berlin on June 24, 1948, the United States and its allies airlifted supplies to Berlin until after the blockade was lifted in May 1949.


text: 1948–1949: China: Marines were dispatched to Nanking to protect the American Embassy when the city fell to Communist troops, and to Shanghai to aid in the protection and evacuation of Americans.


text: 1950–1953: Korean War: The United States responded to the North Korean invasion of South Korea by going to its assistance, pursuant to United Nations Security Council resolutions. U.S. forces deployed in Korea exceeded 300,000 during the last year of the active conflict (1953). Over 36,600 US military were killed in action.


text: 1950–1955: Formosa (Taiwan): In June 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War, President Truman ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to prevent People's Liberation Army attacks upon Formosa and Republic of China Armed Forces operations against mainland China.


text: 1950: Puerto Rico (United States colonial territory): The United States National Guard used P-47 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, land-based artillery, mortar fire, and grenades to counterattack Puerto Rican freedom fighters, Nationalists and independence rebels looking to end U.S. colonial rule during the Jayuya Uprising.


text: 1954–1955: China: First Taiwan Strait Crisis, Naval units evacuated U.S. civilians and military personnel from the Tachen Islands.


text: 1955–1964: Vietnam: First military advisors sent to Vietnam on February 12, 1955. By 1964, U.S. troop levels had grown to 21,000. On August 7, 1964, U.S. Congress approved Gulf of Tonkin resolution affirming "All necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States. . .to prevent further aggression. . . (and) assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asian Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) requesting assistance. . ."


text: 1956: Egypt: A marine battalion evacuated U.S. nationals and other persons from Alexandria during the Suez Crisis.


text: 1958: Lebanon: 1958 Lebanon crisis, Marines were landed in Lebanon at the invitation of President Camille Chamoun to help protect against threatened insurrection supported from the outside. The President's action was supported by a Congressional resolution passed in 1957 that authorized such actions in that area of the world.


text: 1959–1960: The Caribbean: Second Marine Ground Task Force was deployed to protect U.S. nationals following the Cuban Revolution.


text: 1955–1975: Vietnam War: U.S. military advisers had been in South Vietnam for a decade, and their numbers had been increased as the military position of the Saigon government became weaker. After citing what he falsely termed were Vietnam People's Navy attacks on U.S. destroyers, in what came to be known as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked in August 1964 for a resolution expressing U.S. determination to support "freedom and protect peace in Southeast Asia." Congress responded with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia. Following this resolution, and following a communist attack on a U.S. installation in central Vietnam, the United States escalated its participation in the war to a peak of 543,000 military personnel by April 1969.


text: 1962: Thailand: The Third Marine Expeditionary Unit landed on May 17, 1962 to support that country during the threat of Communist pressure from outside; by July 30, the 5,000 marines had been withdrawn.


text: 1962: Cuba: Cuban Missile Crisis, On October 22, President Kennedy instituted a "quarantine" on the shipment of offensive missiles to Cuba from the Soviet Union. He also warned Soviet Union that the launching of any missile from Cuba against nations in the Western Hemisphere would bring about U.S. nuclear retaliation on the Soviet Union. A negotiated settlement was achieved in a few days.


text: 1962–1975: Laos: From October 1962 until 1975, the United States played an important role in military support of anti-Communist forces in Laos. Meanwhile, the United States was fighting a covert military operation using CIA paramilitary forces, known as The Secret War.


text: 1964: Congo (Zaïre): The United States sent four transport planes to provide airlift for Congolese troops during a rebellion and to transport Belgian paratroopers to rescue foreigners.


text: 1965: Invasion of Dominican Republic: Operation Power Pack, The United States intervened to protect lives and property during a Dominican revolt and sent 20,000 U.S. troops as fears grew that the revolutionary forces were coming increasingly under Communist control. A popular rebellion broke out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country's elected leader. The revolution was crushed when U.S. Marines landed to uphold the military regime by force.


text: 1967: Israel: The USS "Liberty" incident, whereupon a United States Navy Technical Research Ship was attacked June 8, 1967 by the Israel Defense Forces, killing 34 and wounding more than 170 U.S. crew members.


text: 1967: Congo (Zaïre): The United States sent three military transport aircraft with crews to provide the Congo central government with logistical support during a revolt.


text: 1968: Laos & Cambodia: U.S. starts secret bombing campaign against targets along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the sovereign nations of Cambodia and Laos. The bombings last at least two years. (See Operation Commando Hunt)


text: 1970: Cambodian Campaign: U.S. troops were ordered into Cambodia to clean out Communist sanctuaries from which Viet Cong and North Vietnam attacked U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in Vietnam. The object of this attack, which lasted from April 30 to June 30, was to ensure the continuing safe withdrawal of American forces from South Vietnam and to assist the program of Vietnamization.


text: 1972: North Vietnam: Christmas bombing Operation Linebacker II (not mentioned in RL30172, but an operation leading to peace negotiations). The operation was conducted from December 18–29, 1972. It was a bombing of the cities Hanoi and Haiphong by B-52 bombers.


text: 1973: Operation Nickel Grass, a strategic airlift operation conducted by the United States to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War.


text: 1974: Evacuation from Cyprus: United States naval forces evacuated U.S. civilians during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.


text: 1975: Evacuation from Vietnam: Operation Frequent Wind, On April 3, 1975, President Gerald Ford reported U.S. naval vessels, helicopters, and Marines had been sent to assist in evacuation of refugees and US nationals from Vietnam.


text: 1975: Evacuation from Cambodia: Operation Eagle Pull, On April 12, 1975, President Ford reported that he had ordered U.S. military forces to proceed with the planned evacuation of the U.S. citizens from Cambodia.


text: 1975: South Vietnam: On April 30, 1975, President Ford reported that a force of 70 evacuation helicopters and 865 Marines had evacuated about 1,400 U.S. citizens and 5,500 third country nationals and South Vietnamese from landing zones in and around the U.S. Embassy, Saigon and Tan Son Nhut Airport.


text: 1975: Cambodia: "Mayaguez" incident, On May 15, 1975, President Ford reported he had ordered military forces to retake , a merchant vessel which was seized from Kampuchean Revolutionary Army naval patrol boats in international waters and forced to proceed to a nearby island.


text: 1976: Lebanon: On July 22 and 23, 1976, helicopters from five U.S. naval vessels evacuated approximately 250 Americans and Europeans from Lebanon during fighting between Lebanese factions after an overland convoy evacuation had been blocked by hostilities.


text: 1976: Korea: Additional forces were sent to Korea after two American soldiers were killed by North Korean soldiers in the Korean Demilitarized Zone while cutting down a tree.


text: 1978: Zaïre (Congo): From May 19 through June, the United States utilized military transport aircraft to provide logistical support to Belgian and French rescue operations in Zaïre.


text: 1980: Iran: Operation Eagle Claw, on April 26, 1980, President Carter reported the use of six U.S. transport planes and eight helicopters in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran.


text: 1980: U.S. Army and Air Force units arrive in the Sinai in September as part of "Operation Bright Star". They are there to train with the Egyptian Armed Forces as part of the Camp David peace accords signed in 1979. Elements of the 101st Airborne Division, (1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry) and Air Force MAC (Military Airlift Command) units are in theater for four months & are the first U.S. military forces in the region since World War II.


text: 1981: El Salvador: After a guerrilla offensive against the government of El Salvador, additional U.S. military advisers were sent to El Salvador, bringing the total to approximately 55, to assist in training government forces in counterinsurgency.


text: 1981: Libya: First Gulf of Sidra incident, on August 19, 1981, U.S. planes based on the carrier USS "Nimitz" shot down two Libyan jets over the Gulf of Sidra after one of the Libyan jets had fired a heat-seeking missile. The United States periodically held freedom of navigation exercises in the Gulf of Sidra, claimed by Libya as territorial waters but considered international waters by the United States.


text: 1982: Sinai: On March 19, 1982, President Reagan reported the deployment of military personnel and equipment to participate in the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula. Participation had been authorized by the Multinational Force and Observers Resolution, Public Law 97-132.


text: 1982: Lebanon: Multinational Force in Lebanon, on August 21, 1982, President Reagan reported the dispatch of 800 Marines to serve in the multinational force to assist in the withdrawal of members of the Palestine Liberation force from Beirut. The Marines left September 20, 1982.


text: 1982–1983: Lebanon: On September 29, 1982, President Reagan reported the deployment of 1200 marines to serve in a temporary multinational force to facilitate the restoration of Lebanese government sovereignty. On September 29, 1983, Congress passed the Multinational Force in Lebanon Resolution (P.L. 98-119) authorizing the continued participation for eighteen months.


text: 1983: Egypt: After a Libyan plane bombed a city in Sudan on March 18, 1983, and Sudan and Egypt appealed for assistance, the United States dispatched an AWACS electronic surveillance plane to Egypt.


text: 1983: Grenada: Operation Urgent Fury, citing the increased threat of Soviet and Cuban influence and noting the development of an international airport following a coup d'état and alignment with the Soviet Union and Cuba, the U.S. invades the island nation of Grenada.


text: 1983–1989: Honduras: In July 1983, the United States undertook a series of exercises in Honduras that some believed might lead to conflict with Nicaragua. On March 25, 1986, unarmed U.S. military helicopters and crewmen ferried Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border to repel Nicaraguan troops.


text: 1983: Chad: On August 8, 1983, President Reagan reported the deployment of two AWACS electronic surveillance planes and eight F-15 fighter planes and ground logistical support forces to assist Chad against Libyan and rebel forces.


text: 1984: Persian Gulf: On June 5, 1984, Saudi Arabian jet fighter planes, aided by intelligence from a U.S. AWACS electronic surveillance aircraft and fueled by a U.S. KC-10 tanker, shot down two Iranian fighter planes over an area of the Persian Gulf proclaimed as a protected zone for shipping.


text: 1985: Italy: On October 10, 1985, U.S. Navy pilots intercepted an Egyptian airliner and forced it to land in Sicily. The airliner was carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro who had killed an American citizen during the hijacking.


text: 1986: Libya: Action in the Gulf of Sidra (1986), on March 26, 1986, President Reagan reported on March 24 and 25, U.S. forces, while engaged in freedom of navigation exercises around the Gulf of Sidra, had been attacked by Libyan missiles and the United States had responded with missiles.


text: 1986: Libya: Operation El Dorado Canyon, on April 16, 1986, President Reagan reported that U.S. air and naval forces had conducted bombing strikes on terrorist facilities and military installations in the Libyan capitol of Tripoli, claiming that Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi was responsible for a bomb attack at a German disco that killed two U.S. soldiers.


text: 1987: Persian Gulf: was struck on May 17 by two Exocet antiship missiles fired from a Dassault Mirage F1 of the Iraqi Air Force during the Iran–Iraq War, killing 37 U.S. Navy sailors.


text: 1987: Persian Gulf: Operation Nimble Archer. Attacks on two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf by United States Navy forces on October 19. The attack was a response to Iran's October 16, 1987 attack on the MV "Sea Isle City", a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker at anchor off Kuwait, with a Silkworm missile.


text: 1987–1988: Persian Gulf: Operation Earnest Will. After the Iran–Iraq War (the Tanker War phase) resulted in several military incidents in the Persian Gulf, the United States increased U.S. joint military forces operations in the Persian Gulf and adopted a policy of reflagging and escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers through the Persian Gulf to protect them from Iraqi and Iranian attacks. President Reagan reported that U.S. ships had been fired upon or struck mines or taken other military action on September 21 (Iran Ajr), October 8, and October 19, 1987 and April 18 (Operation Praying Mantis), July 3, and July 14, 1988. The United States gradually reduced its forces after a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq on August 20, 1988. It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II.


text: 1987–1988: Persian Gulf: Operation Prime Chance was a United States Special Operations Command operation intended to protect U.S.-flagged oil tankers from Iranian attack during the Iran–Iraq War. The operation took place roughly at the same time as Operation Earnest Will.


text: 1988: Persian Gulf: Operation Praying Mantis was the April 18, 1988 action waged by U.S. naval forces in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf and the subsequent damage to an American warship.


text: 1988: Honduras: Operation Golden Pheasant was an emergency deployment of U.S. troops to Honduras in 1988, as a result of threatening actions by the forces of the (then socialist) Nicaraguans.


text: 1988: Panama: In mid-March and April 1988, during a period of instability in Panama and as the United States increased pressure on Panamanian head of state General Manuel Noriega to resign, the United States sent 1,000 troops to Panama, to "further safeguard the canal, U.S. lives, property and interests in the area." The forces supplemented 10,000 U.S. military personnel already in the Panama Canal Zone.


text: 1989: Libya: Second Gulf of Sidra incident. On January 4, 1989, two U.S. Navy F-14 aircraft based on USS "John F. Kennedy" shot down two Libyan jet fighters over the Mediterranean Sea about 70 miles north of Libya. The U.S. pilots said the Libyan planes had demonstrated hostile intentions.


text: 1989: Panama: On May 11, 1989, in response to General Noriega's disregard of the results of the Panamanian election, President Bush ordered a brigade-sized force of approximately 1,900 troops to augment the estimated 1,000 U.S. forces already in the area.


text: 1989: Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru: Andean Initiative in War on Drugs, On September 15, 1989, President Bush announced that military and law enforcement assistance would be sent to help the Andean nations of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru combat illicit drug producers and traffickers. By mid-September there were 50–100 U.S. military advisers in Colombia in connection with transport and training in the use of military equipment, plus seven Special Forces teams of 2–12 persons to train troops in the three countries.


text: 1989: Philippines: Operation Classic Resolve, On December 2, 1989, President Bush reported that on December 1, Air Force fighters from Clark Air Base in Luzon had assisted the Aquino government to repel a coup attempt. In addition, 100 marines were sent from U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay to protect the United States Embassy in Manila.


text: 1989–1990: Panama: United States invasion of Panama and Operation Just Cause, On December 21, 1989, President Bush reported that he had ordered U.S. military forces to Panama to protect the lives of American citizens and bring General Noriega to justice. By February 13, 1990, all the invasion forces had been withdrawn. Around 200 Panamanian civilians were reported killed. The Panamanian head of state, General Manuel Noriega, was captured and brought to the U.S.


text: 1990: Liberia: On August 6, 1990, President Bush reported that a reinforced rifle company had been sent to provide additional security to the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, and that helicopter teams had evacuated U.S. citizens from Liberia.


text: 1990: Saudi Arabia: On August 9, 1990, President Bush reported that he launched Operation Desert Shield by ordering the forward deployment of substantial elements of the U.S. armed forces into the Persian Gulf region to help defend Saudi Arabia after the August 2 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. On November 16, 1990, he reported the continued buildup of the forces to ensure an adequate offensive military option.American hostages being held in Iran.


text: 1991: Iraq: Operation Desert Storm, The Allied air to land offensive from 17 January 1991 to 11 April 1991


text: 1991–1996: Iraq: Operation Provide Comfort, Delivery of humanitarian relief and military protection for Kurds fleeing their homes in northern Iraq during the 1991 uprising, by a small Allied ground force based in Turkey which began in April 1991.


text: 1991: Iraq: On May 17, 1991, President Bush stated that the Iraqi repression of the Kurdish people had necessitated a limited introduction of U.S. forces into northern Iraq for emergency relief purposes.


text: 1991: Zaire: On September 25–27, 1991, after widespread looting and rioting broke out in Kinshasa, Air Force C-141s transported 100 Belgian troops and equipment into Kinshasa. American planes also carried 300 French troops into the Central African Republic and hauled evacuated American citizens.


text: 1992: Sierra Leone: Operation Silver Anvil, Following the April 29 coup that overthrew President Joseph Saidu Momoh, a United States European Command (USEUCOM) Joint Special Operations Task Force evacuated 438 people (including 42 Third Country nationals) on May 3. Two Air Mobility Command (AMC) C-141s flew 136 people from Freetown, Sierra Leone, to the Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany and nine C-130 sorties carried another 302 people to Dakar, Senegal.


text: 1992–1996: Bosnia and Herzegovina: Operation Provide Promise was a humanitarian relief operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav Wars, from July 2, 1992, to January 9, 1996, which made it the longest running humanitarian airlift in history.


text: 1992: Kuwait: On August 3, 1992, the United States began a series of military exercises in Kuwait, following Iraqi refusal to recognize a new border drawn up by the United Nations and refusal to cooperate with UN inspection teams.


text: 1992–2003: Iraq: Iraqi no-fly zones, The U.S., United Kingdom, and its Gulf War allies declared and enforced "no-fly zones" over the majority of sovereign Iraqi airspace, prohibiting Iraqi flights in zones in southern Iraq and northern Iraq, conducting aerial reconnaissance, and several specific attacks on Iraqi air-defense systems as part of the UN mandate. Often, Iraqi forces continued throughout a decade by firing on U.S. and British aircraft patrolling no-fly zones."(See also Operation Northern Watch, Operation Southern Watch)"


text: 1993–1995: Bosnia: Operation Deny Flight, On April 12, 1993, in response to a United Nations Security Council passage of Resolution 816, U.S. and NATO enforced the no-fly zone over the Bosnian airspace, prohibited all unauthorized flights and allowed to "take all necessary measures to ensure compliance with [the no-fly zone restrictions]."


text: 1993: Somalia: Battle of Mogadishu, or the First Battle of Mogadishu, the outcome of Operation Gothic Serpent. October 3–4, 1993, Task Force Ranger, made up largely of the 75th Ranger Regiment and Delta Force entered hostile urban area Mogadishu to seize two high ranking Somali National Army leaders. Two American UH-60 Black Hawks are shot down, 18 Americans are killed in action, with another 73 wounded, and 1 captured. The events of the battle were gathered in the book Black Hawk Down, which was later adapted to a movie of the same name.


text: 1993: Macedonia: On July 9, 1993, President Clinton reported the deployment of 350 U.S. soldiers to the Republic of Macedonia to participate in the UN Protection Force to help maintain stability in the area of former Yugoslavia.


text: 1994: Bosnia: Banja Luka incident, NATO become involved in the first combat situation when NATO U.S. Air Force F-16 jets shot down four of the six Bosnian Serb J-21 Jastreb single-seat light attack jets for violating UN-mandated no-fly zone.


text: 1994–1995: Haiti: Operation Uphold Democracy, U.S. ships had begun embargo against Haiti. Up to 20,000 U.S. military troops were later deployed to Haiti to restore democratically elected Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from a military regime which came into power in 1991 after a major coup.


text: 1994: Macedonia: On April 19, 1994, President Clinton reported that the U.S. contingent in Macedonia had been increased by a reinforced company of 200 personnel.


text: 1994: Kuwait: Operation Vigilant Warrior began in October 1994 when Iraqi Republican Guard Divisions began repositioning within Iraq south near the Kuwaiti border. U.S. Forces countered with a movement of forces to the Gulf - the largest since Operation Desert Shield. The operation as officially terminated on December 22, 1994. Also see


text: 1995: Bosnia: Operation Deliberate Force, On August 30, 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft began a major bombing campaign of Bosnian Serb Army in response to a Bosnian Serb mortar attack on a Sarajevo market that killed 37 people on August 28, 1995. This operation lasted until September 20, 1995. The air campaign along with a combined allied ground force of Muslim and Croatian Army against Serb positions led to a Dayton Agreement in December 1995 with the signing of warring factions of the war. As part of Operation Joint Endeavor, U.S. and NATO dispatched the Implementation Force (IFOR) peacekeepers to Bosnia to uphold the Dayton agreement.


text: 1996: Central African Republic, Operation Quick Response: On May 23, 1996, President Clinton reported the deployment of U.S. military personnel to Bangui, Central African Republic, to conduct the evacuation from that country of "private U.S. citizens and certain U.S. government employees", and to provide "enhanced security for the American Embassy in Bangui." United States Marine Corps elements of Joint Task Force Assured Response, responding in nearby Liberia, provided security to the embassy and evacuated 448 people, including between 190 and 208 Americans. The last Marines left Bangui on June 22.


text: 1996: Kuwait: Operation Desert Strike, American Air Strikes in the north to protect the Kurdish population against the Iraqi Army attacks.


text: 1996: Bosnia: Operation Joint Guard, On December 21, 1996, U.S. and NATO established the SFOR peacekeepers to replace the IFOR in enforcing the peace under the Dayton agreement.


text: 1997: Albania: Operation Silver Wake, On March 13, 1997, U.S. military forces were used to evacuate certain U.S. government employees and private U.S. citizens from Tirana, Albania.


text: 1997: Congo and Gabon: On March 27, 1997, President Clinton reported on March 25, 1997, a standby evacuation force of U.S. military personnel had been deployed to Congo and Gabon to provide enhanced security and to be available for any necessary evacuation operation.


text: 1997: Sierra Leone: On May 29 and 30, 1997, U.S. military personnel were deployed to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to prepare for and undertake the evacuation of certain U.S. government employees and private U.S. citizens.


text: 1997: Cambodia: On July 11, 1997, In an effort to ensure the security of American citizens in Cambodia during a period of domestic conflict there, a Task Force of about 550 U.S. military personnel were deployed at Utapao Air Base in Thailand for possible evacuations.


text: 1998: Iraq: Operation Desert Fox, U.S. and British forces conduct a major four-day bombing campaign from December 16–19, 1998 on Iraqi targets.


text: 1998–1999: Kenya and Tanzania: U.S. military personnel were deployed to Nairobi, Kenya, to coordinate the medical and disaster assistance related to the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.


text: 1998: Afghanistan and Sudan: Operation Infinite Reach. On August 20, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack against two suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical factory in Sudan.


text: 1998: Liberia: On September 27, 1998, America deployed a stand-by response and evacuation force of 30 U.S. military personnel to increase the security force at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia.


text: 1999–2001: East Timor: Limited number of U.S. military forces deployed with the United Nations-mandated International Force for East Timor restore peace to East Timor.


text: 1999: Serbia: Operation Allied Force: U.S. and NATO aircraft began a major bombing of Serbia and Serb positions in Kosovo on March 24, 1999, during the Kosovo War due to the refusal by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to end repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. This operation ended on June 10, 1999, when Milošević agreed to pull his troops out of Kosovo. In response to the situation in Kosovo, NATO dispatched the KFOR peacekeepers to secure the peace under UNSC Resolution 1244.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation common in the era. Firestone soon saw the huge potential for marketing tires for automobiles, and the company was a pioneer in the mass production of tires. Harvey Firestone had a personal friendship with Henry Ford, and used this to become the original equipment supplier of Ford Motor Company automobiles, and was also active in the replacement market.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Firestone was originally based in Akron, Ohio, also the hometown of its archrival, Goodyear, and two other midsized competitors, General Tire and Rubber and BFGoodrich. Founded on August 3, 1900, the company initiated operations with 12 employees. Together, Firestone and Goodyear were the largest suppliers of automotive tires in North America for over 75 years. In 1906, Henry Ford chose Firestone to supply tires for its car models.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1918, Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Canada was incorporated in Hamilton, Ontario, and the first Canadian-made tire rolled off the line on September 15, 1922. During the 1920s, Firestone produced the Oldfield tire, named for racing driver Barney Oldfield.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1926, the company opened one of the world's largest rubber plantations, extending over , in Liberia, West Africa. That year the company also opened its first Firestone Tire and Service Center (later renamed Firestone Complete Auto Care). Firestone Complete Auto Care is the division of Firestone that offers automotive maintenance and repair, including tires.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1927, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone visited southern California to select locations for new factories. His friends said Ford wanted to be near the ocean and picked Long Beach and suggested Firestone locate in South Gate, California a small community southeast of downtown Los Angeles that at the time was mostly farmland. There Firestone identified of beanfields for the site of his new manufacturing plant. Architects Curlett and Beelman designed a spectacular four-story Italianate-style complex, with its own power plant and decorated with polychrome murals by Gladding, McBean depicting the tire and rubber-making process. A year after the plant opened in 1928, it expanded to double the initial size, and by 1954 grew to nearly . The town grew around Firestone, its main boulevard was named after Harvey, and Los Angeles became the number one tire market in the country. By the mid-1970s, Ford and GM had massive layoffs as Firestone and other manufacturers opened new plants in non-union locales like Wilson, North Carolina. After considerable downsizing, the South Gate plant was closed in 1980 and 1,300 workers were laid off. East Los Angeles College has proposed a new satellite campus at the site.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1928, the company built a factory in Brentford, England, a longtime Art Deco landmark on a major route into the city; this closed in 1979. After its purchase by Trafalgar House, the building was demolished during the August 1980 bank holiday weekend, reportedly in anticipation of its becoming listed.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1936, the company opened a plant in Memphis, Tennessee. With a work force exceeding 3,000 employees, the Memphis plant was the largest tire manufacturer in the company's worldwide operation. On July 1, 1963, the company celebrated the production of 100 million tires in Memphis. The Memphis plant closed in 1982, and most of the plant buildings were demolished. The US Environmental Protection Agency considers the tract a brownfield site, and the possible presence of hazardous substances or contaminants have deterred its redevelopment.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: On October 11, 1941, a fire at the Firestone Rubber and Latex plant in Fall River, MA destroyed 5 out of its 8 buildings and destroyed at least 15,000 tons of rubber. The fire caused $12 million in damage (equivalent to $ in ).


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: During World War II, the company was called on by the U.S. Government to make artillery shells, aluminum kegs for food transport, and rubberized military products. Barrage balloons were produced at Akron. Firestone ranked 55th among U.S. corporations in the value of wartime military production contracts. In the 1940s, Firestone was given a defense contract to produce plastic helmet liners; while outproduced by Westinghouse Electric, they still made a fair amount for the M1 Helmet.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1951, Firestone was given the defense contract for the MGM-5 Corporal missile. Firestone was given a total of US$6,888,796 (equivalent to $ in ) for the first 200 units. Known as the "Embryo of the Army," it was a surface-to-surface guided missile which could deliver a high-explosive warhead up to . It was later modified to be able to carry a nuclear payload for use in the event of Cold War hostilities in Eastern Europe. Built in southern California, this missile was replaced in 1962 by the MGM-29 Sergeant system.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1961, Firestone acquired the Dayton Tire division from the Dayco Corporation. Dayco later sued both Firestone and Goodyear, alleging that the two companies conspired to monopolize the tire industry in the United States. The United States District Court dismissed the lawsuit.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In late 1979, Firestone brought in John Nevin, the ex-head of Zenith Electronics, as president to save the hemorrhaging company from total collapse. It was more than a billion dollars in debt at the time and losing $250 million a year (equivalent respectively to $ and $ in ). Nevin closed nine of the company's seventeen manufacturing plants, including six in one day, and relocated the company from its ancestral home in Akron to He spun off non-tire related businesses, including the Firestone Country Club; it was considered a deliberate plan to boost the stock price, and it paid off.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1988, after discussions with Pirelli, Nevin negotiated the sale of the company to the Japanese company Bridgestone, which was able to buy the company for much less than it had been worth a decade and a half earlier. The companies celebrated the 20th anniversary of the merger in 2008, and changed the name of the tire division to Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, LLC. In 2012, Bridgestone Americas opened a $100 million (equivalent to $ in ) technical center in Akron.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Apart from tires, several companies and divisions operate with the Firestone brand in its name. These companies include Firestone Building Products, LLC, Firestone Industrial Products, LLC, Firestone Complete Auto Care, Firestone Natural Rubber Company, and Firestone Specialty Products. Firestone Building Products and Firestone Industrial Products are headquartered in Indianapolis and operate in 23 U.S. states and ten countries, with 11,000 employees worldwide; its annual sales exceed $2.5 billion.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1972, Firestone received a ten-year import "concession" by the Kenyan government to secure Firestone's investment in a domestic tire plant, which gave it a virtual monopoly. This included both general price and foreign exchange controls. When the 10-year period came to an end in 1979, Firestone retaliated by increasing production, making entry less attractive. Headquarters eventually canceled expansion and failed negotiations led to no further investments.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Bridgestone Americas, which has served as the American branch of Japan-based Bridgestone since 1992, moved their corporate office to downtown Nashville in October 2017.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Firestone Complete Auto Care is an American chain of automotive maintenance shops founded in Tennessee, United States, in 1926. It is owned by Firestone.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: There are over 1,700 Complete Auto Care locations in the United States, all of them independently owned by Firestone, with about 20 million customers each year as of 2002. At the start of 2022 Bridgestone, parent company of Firestone, announced that it will expand its hybrid and electric vehicular services


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: The Indianapolis 500 auto race was won in 1911 by a car running Firestone tires, as did all winners of the race from 1920 to 1966. The company also provided tires to NASCAR from 1948 to 1974, and to Formula One from 1950 to 1974. Citing rising costs as the cause, Firestone announced its withdrawal from professional motorsport in August 1974 with the exception of Formula 5000 and Formula One. The change was forecast to reduce Firestone's annual race testing budget from between $6 and $8 million to around $500,000 (in , roughly equivalent to a reduction from $–$ to $.) Shortly afterward, Firestone extended this to a complete withdrawal by the end of the 1974 season. The manufacturer returned in 1995 to the CART series with technical assistance from Bridgestone. Goodyear retired after 1999, thereby leaving Firestone as the single tire supplier for the IndyCar Series as of 2021.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1950, Firestone along with General Motors and Standard Oil, were charged and convicted of criminal conspiracy for their part in the Great American streetcar scandal. The scandal included purchasing streetcar systems throughout the United States and dismantling and replacing them with buses.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Radial tires were introduced to the U.S. market by rivals Goodrich and Michelin in the late 1960s, and Firestone lacked their own radial tire. The first radial tire developed and produced by Firestone was the ill-fated Firestone 500 radial. Manufacturing of the new tire was performed on equipment designed to manufacture bias-ply tires.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: During the 1970s, Firestone experienced major problems with the Firestone 500 radial. The Firestone 500 steel-belted radials began to show signs of separation of the tread at high speeds. While the cause was never proved, it is believed that the failure of bonding cements, used by Firestone to hold the tread to the tire carcass, may have allowed water to penetrate the tire, which in turn may have caused the internal steel wire to corrode. In March 1978, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced publicly a formal investigation into defects of the Firestone 500. The NHTSA investigation found that the tread separation problem was most probably a design defect affecting all Firestone 500s.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1973, only two years after the 500's debut, Thomas A. Robertson, Firestone's director of development wrote an internal memo stating "We are making an inferior quality radial tire which will subject us to belt-edge separation at high mileage". Firestone introduced strict quality control measures in an attempt to fix the inherent problems, however they were not successful in eliminating the basic faults. In 1977 a recall of 400,000 tires produced at the problematic Decatur plant was initiated. Firestone blamed the problems on the consumer, stating underinflation and poor maintenance.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: On October 20, 1978, Firestone recalled over 7 million Firestone 500 tires, the largest tire recall to date. Congressional hearings into the 500 also took place in 1978. The tire was found to be defective and the cause of 250 deaths. In May 1980 after finding that they knew the tires were defective, the NHTSA fined Firestone $500,000 (equivalent to $ in ), which at that time was the largest fine imposed on any U.S. corporation and the largest civil penalty imposed since passage of the 1966 National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Act. Multiple lawsuits were settled out of court and the constant negative publicity crippled the company's sales and share price.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Harvard Business School and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania taught classes and wrote papers on the issues of misjudgments and poor decision-making by the management of Firestone. After years of bad publicity and millions paid out in compensation to victims, Firestone was losing vast amounts of money, and its name was severely damaged.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Firestone established the Firestone Natural Rubber plantation in Harbel, Liberia in 1926. From 1926 until the outbreak of the First Liberian Civil War in 1990, the Firestone Natural Rubber Company was the largest plantation of its kind in the world. It was originally envisioned for 350,000 people to be employed on the newly created plantations. However this was more than the number of able-bodied men in the entire nation at the time, which created intense pressure for labor. In the period between 1926 and 1946 Christine Whyte concluded that: The collusion between Firestone and government officials to keep wages low and coerce workers onto the plantations was at best substantially overlooked, at worst regarded as a form of "development" in itself.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In September 1990, rebel NPFL forces (led by Charles Taylor, who would later be convicted of war crimes) executed sitting Liberian president Samuel Doe and seized the Harbel plantation. Firestone had to evacuate its American workers as a result. In June 1991, Firestone sent a delegation to Monrovia in an attempt to restart operations in Harbel. After a month of waiting, the delegation was brought to meet Taylor, and after a further six months of negotiations the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government's Ministry of Finance in January 1992. This MOU provided for taxes to be paid by Firestone to the Taylor government, and for the Taylor government to provide protection to Firestone's employees and assets in Liberia. Firestone resumed operations in March 1992, but once again had to halt in October that same year as hostilities escalated. Over this period, the company had paid $2.3 million in taxes to the Taylor government (equivalent to $ in ), which some say helped legitimize Taylor's Greater Liberia government and finance and enable its attack on ECOMOG controlled Monrovia. Operations did not fully restart until 2003 at the conclusion of the Second Liberian Civil War. Since the end of the war, Firestone has invested over $100 million in restoring and rebuilding its facilities in Liberia.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: The company's ventures in Liberia have been the subject of considerable scrutiny and criticism, including a 2005 Alien Tort Claims Act case brought in California by the International Labor Rights Fund and a 2014 investigative report by ProPublica entitled "Firestone and the Warlord", and a PBS "Frontline" documentary by the same name.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: In 1996, several state agencies in Arizona began experiencing major issues with Firestone tires on Explorers. According to news reports, various agencies demanded new tires, and Firestone conducted an investigation of the complaints, tested the tires and tried to assert that the tires had been abused or under-inflated.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: On September 6, 2000, in a statement before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Transportation subcommittee the president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, Joan Claybrook, stated:


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: The report went on to indicate that Ford also had been complicit, stating that The Ford Motor Company had instructed Firestone to add a nylon ply to the tires it manufactured in Venezuela for additional strength and that Ford had made suspension changes to the Explorer model available in Venezuela. Ford did not specify adding the nylon ply for U.S.-made Firestone tires nor did it change the Explorer suspension on U.S. models at this time.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: An abnormally high failure rate in Firestone's Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX, and ATX II tires resulted in multiple lawsuits, as well as an eventual mandatory recall. In 2001 Bridgestone/Firestone severed its ties to Ford citing a lack of trust. The lack of trust stemmed from concerns that Ford had not heeded warnings by Bridgestone/Firestone relating to the design of the Ford Explorer. In 2006, Firestone announced renewed efforts to recall tires of the same model recalled in 2000 after the tires were linked to recent deaths and injuries. According to Firestone's last filing with the National Highway Transportation Administration, only 90,259 of more than 2.5 million recalled tires were confirmed as removed from service. In November 2013, two recalled Wilderness AT tires were found in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the tires was offered for sale as new at a used tire retail shop.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Some outside observers have speculated about the blame worthiness of both parties. Firestone's tires being prone to tread separation and failure, and the SUVs being especially prone to rolling over if a tire fails at speed compared to other vehicles. A subsequent NHTSA investigation of real world accident data showed that the Ford Explorer SUVs in question were no more likely to roll over after a tread separation than any other SUV.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Labour economists Alan Krueger and Alexandre Mas concluded that one of the main reasons for the high defect rate of Firestone tires was linked to a dispute between the unions and Firestone at the Decatur plant 1994–1996. They find that the tires manufactured at the plant in question around this time featured substantially increased defect rates, rising with the onset of the dispute and subsiding when the dispute was finally settled at the end of 1996. Other similar plants of Firestone did not report similar increases in the defect rate in this period.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: "Where the Rubber Meets the Road" is an advertisement jingle that was frequently used in the 1960s and 1970s, especially on televised sporting events.


title: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

text: Bridgestone/Firestone also produces tires under the Fuzion brand name. Fuzion is a tire manufactured in China for Bridgestone/ Firestone as a budget replacement tire.


title: Lepton

text: In particle physics, a lepton is an elementary particle of half-integer spin (spin ) that does not undergo strong interactions. Two main classes of leptons exist: charged leptons (also known as the electron-like leptons or muons), and neutral leptons (better known as neutrinos). Charged leptons can combine with other particles to form various composite particles such as atoms and positronium, while neutrinos rarely interact with anything, and are consequently rarely observed. The best known of all leptons is the electron.


title: Lepton

text: There are six types of leptons, known as "flavours", grouped in three "generations". The first-generation leptons, also called "electronic leptons", comprise the electron () and the electron neutrino (); the second are the "muonic leptons", comprising the muon () and the muon neutrino (); and the third are the "tauonic leptons", comprising the tau () and the tau neutrino (). Electrons have the least mass of all the charged leptons. The heavier muons and taus will rapidly change into electrons and neutrinos through a process of particle decay: the transformation from a higher mass state to a lower mass state. Thus electrons are stable and the most common charged lepton in the universe, whereas muons and taus can only be produced in high energy collisions (such as those involving cosmic rays and those carried out in particle accelerators).


title: Lepton

text: Leptons have various intrinsic properties, including electric charge, spin, and mass. Unlike quarks, however, leptons are not subject to the strong interaction, but they are subject to the other three fundamental interactions: gravitation, the weak interaction, and to electromagnetism, of which the latter is proportional to charge, and is thus zero for the electrically neutral neutrinos.


title: Lepton

text: For every lepton flavor, there is a corresponding type of antiparticle, known as an antilepton, that differs from the lepton only in that some of its properties have equal magnitude but opposite sign. According to certain theories, neutrinos may be their own antiparticle. It is not currently known whether this is the case.


title: Lepton

text: The first charged lepton, the electron, was theorized in the mid-19th century by several scientists and was discovered in 1897 by J. J. Thomson. The next lepton to be observed was the muon, discovered by Carl D. Anderson in 1936, which was classified as a meson at the time. After investigation, it was realized that the muon did not have the expected properties of a meson, but rather behaved like an electron, only with higher mass. It took until 1947 for the concept of "leptons" as a family of particles to be proposed. The first neutrino, the electron neutrino, was proposed by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to explain certain characteristics of beta decay. It was first observed in the Cowan–Reines neutrino experiment conducted by Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines in 1956. The muon neutrino was discovered in 1962 by Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger, and the tau discovered between 1974 and 1977 by Martin Lewis Perl and his colleagues from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The tau neutrino remained elusive until July 2000, when the DONUT collaboration from Fermilab announced its discovery.


title: Lepton

text: Leptons are an important part of the Standard Model. Electrons are one of the components of atoms, alongside protons and neutrons. Exotic atoms with muons and taus instead of electrons can also be synthesized, as well as lepton–antilepton particles such as positronium.


title: Lepton

text: The name "lepton" comes from the Greek "leptós", "fine, small, thin" (neuter nominative/accusative singular form: λεπτόν "leptón"); the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek , "re-po-to", written in Linear B syllabic script. "Lepton" was first used by physicist Léon Rosenfeld in 1948:


title: Lepton

text: Following a suggestion of Prof. C. Møller, I adopt—as a pendant to "nucleon"—the denomination "lepton" (from λεπτός, small, thin, delicate) to denote a particle of small mass.


title: Lepton

text: Rosenfeld chose the name because the only known leptons at the time were electrons and muons, whose masses are small compared to nucleons—the mass of an electron () and the mass of a muon (with a value of ) are fractions of the mass of the "heavy" proton (). However, the mass of the tau (discovered in the mid-1970s) () is nearly twice that of the proton and about 3,500 times that of the electron.


title: Lepton

text: The first lepton identified was the electron, discovered by J.J. Thomson and his team of British physicists in 1897. Then in 1930, Wolfgang Pauli postulated the electron neutrino to preserve conservation of energy, conservation of momentum, and conservation of angular momentum in beta decay. Pauli theorized that an undetected particle was carrying away the difference between the energy, momentum, and angular momentum of the initial and observed final particles. The electron neutrino was simply called the neutrino, as it was not yet known that neutrinos came in different flavours (or different "generations").


title: Lepton

text: Nearly 40 years after the discovery of the electron, the muon was discovered by Carl D. Anderson in 1936. Due to its mass, it was initially categorized as a meson rather than a lepton. It later became clear that the muon was much more similar to the electron than to mesons, as muons do not undergo the strong interaction, and thus the muon was reclassified: electrons, muons, and the (electron) neutrino were grouped into a new group of particles—the leptons. In 1962, Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger showed that more than one type of neutrino exists by first detecting interactions of the muon neutrino, which earned them the 1988 Nobel Prize, although by then the different flavours of neutrino had already been theorized.


title: Lepton

text: The tau was first detected in a series of experiments between 1974 and 1977 by Martin Lewis Perl with his colleagues at the SLAC LBL group. Like the electron and the muon, it too was expected to have an associated neutrino. The first evidence for tau neutrinos came from the observation of "missing" energy and momentum in tau decay, analogous to the "missing" energy and momentum in beta decay leading to the discovery of the electron neutrino. The first detection of tau neutrino interactions was announced in 2000 by the DONUT collaboration at Fermilab, making it the second-to-latest particle of the Standard Model to have been directly observed, with Higgs boson being discovered in 2012.


title: Lepton

text: Although all present data is consistent with three generations of leptons, some particle physicists are searching for a fourth generation. The current lower limit on the mass of such a fourth charged lepton is , while its associated neutrino would have a mass of at least .


title: Lepton

text: Leptons are spin  particles. The spin-statistics theorem thus implies that they are fermions and thus that they are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle: no two leptons of the same species can be in the same state at the same time. Furthermore, it means that a lepton can have only two possible spin states, namely up or down.


title: Lepton

text: A closely related property is chirality, which in turn is closely related to a more easily visualized property called helicity. The helicity of a particle is the direction of its spin relative to its momentum; particles with spin in the same direction as their momentum are called "right-handed" and they are otherwise called "left-handed". When a particle is massless, the direction of its momentum relative to its spin is the same in every reference frame, whereas for massive particles it is possible to 'overtake' the particle by choosing a faster-moving reference frame; in the faster frame, the helicity is reversed. Chirality is a technical property, defined through transformation behaviour under the Poincaré group, that does not change with reference frame. It is contrived to agree with helicity for massless particles, and is still well defined for particles with mass.


title: Lepton

text: In many quantum field theories, such as quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics, left- and right-handed fermions are identical. However, the Standard Model's weak interaction treats left-handed and right-handed fermions differently: only left-handed fermions (and right-handed anti-fermions) participate in the weak interaction. This is an example of parity violation explicitly written into the model. In the literature, left-handed fields are often denoted by a capital subscript (e.g. the normal electron: ) and right-handed fields are denoted by a capital subscript (e.g. a positron ).


title: Lepton

text: Right-handed neutrinos and left-handed anti-neutrinos have no possible interaction with other particles ("see" sterile neutrinos) and so are not a functional part of the Standard Model, although their exclusion is not a strict requirement; they are sometimes listed in particle tables to emphasize that they would have no active role if included in the model. Even though electrically charged right-handed particles (electron, muon, or tau) do not engage in the weak interaction specifically, they can still interact electrically, and hence still participate in the combined electroweak force, although with different strengths ().


title: Lepton

text: One of the most prominent properties of leptons is their electric charge, . The electric charge determines the strength of their electromagnetic interactions. It determines the strength of the electric field generated by the particle (see Coulomb's law) and how strongly the particle reacts to an external electric or magnetic field (see Lorentz force). Each generation contains one lepton with formula_1 and one lepton with zero electric charge. The lepton with electric charge is commonly simply referred to as a "charged lepton" while a neutral lepton is called a "neutrino". For example, the first generation consists of the electron with a negative electric charge and the electrically neutral electron neutrino .


title: Lepton

text: In the language of quantum field theory, the electromagnetic interaction of the charged leptons is expressed by the fact that the particles interact with the quantum of the electromagnetic field, the photon. The Feynman diagram of the electron–photon interaction is shown on the right.


title: Lepton

text: Because leptons possess an intrinsic rotation in the form of their spin, charged leptons generate a magnetic field. The size of their magnetic dipole moment is given by


title: Lepton

text: where is the mass of the lepton and is the so-called " factor" for the lepton. First-order quantum mechanical approximation predicts that the  factor is 2 for all leptons. However, higher-order quantum effects caused by loops in Feynman diagrams introduce corrections to this value. These corrections, referred to as the "anomalous magnetic dipole moment", are very sensitive to the details of a quantum field theory model, and thus provide the opportunity for precision tests of the Standard Model. The theoretical and measured values for the "electron" anomalous magnetic dipole moment are within agreement within eight significant figures. The results for the "muon", however, are problematic, hinting at a small, persistent discrepancy between the Standard Model and experiment.


title: Lepton

text: In the Standard Model, the left-handed charged lepton and the left-handed neutrino are arranged in doublet that transforms in the spinor representation ( = ) of the weak isospin SU(2) gauge symmetry. This means that these particles are eigenstates of the isospin projection with eigenvalues and respectively. In the meantime, the right-handed charged lepton transforms as a weak isospin scalar ( = 0) and thus does not participate in the weak interaction, while there is no evidence that a right-handed neutrino exists at all.


title: Lepton

text: The Higgs mechanism recombines the gauge fields of the weak isospin SU(2) and the weak hypercharge U(1) symmetries to three massive vector bosons (, , ) mediating the weak interaction, and one massless vector boson, the photon, responsible for the electromagnetic interaction. The electric charge can be calculated from the isospin projection and weak hypercharge through the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula,


title: Lepton

text: To recover the observed electric charges for all particles, the left-handed weak isospin doublet must thus have  = −1, while the right-handed isospin scalar e must have  = −2. The interaction of the leptons with the massive weak interaction vector bosons is shown in the figure on the right.


title: Lepton

text: In the Standard Model, each lepton starts out with no intrinsic mass. The charged leptons (i.e. the electron, muon, and tau) obtain an effective mass through interaction with the Higgs field, but the neutrinos remain massless. For technical reasons, the masslessness of the neutrinos implies that there is no mixing of the different generations of charged leptons as there is for quarks. The zero mass of neutrino is in close agreement with current direct experimental observations of the mass.


title: Lepton

text: However, it is known from indirect experiments—most prominently from observed neutrino oscillations—that neutrinos have to have a nonzero mass, probably less than . This implies the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model. The currently most favoured extension is the so-called seesaw mechanism, which would explain both why the left-handed neutrinos are so light compared to the corresponding charged leptons, and why we have not yet seen any right-handed neutrinos.


title: Lepton

text: The members of each generation's weak isospin doublet are assigned leptonic numbers that are conserved under the Standard Model. Electrons and electron neutrinos have an "electronic number" of , while muons and muon neutrinos have a "muonic number" of , while tau particles and tau neutrinos have a "tauonic number" of . The antileptons have their respective generation's leptonic numbers of .


title: Lepton

text: Conservation of the leptonic numbers means that the number of leptons of the same type remains the same, when particles interact. This implies that leptons and antileptons must be created in pairs of a single generation. For example, the following processes are allowed under conservation of leptonic numbers:


title: Lepton

text: However, neutrino oscillations are known to violate the conservation of the individual leptonic numbers. Such a violation is considered to be smoking gun evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model. A much stronger conservation law is the conservation of the total number of leptons ( ), conserved even in the case of neutrino oscillations, but even it is still violated by a tiny amount by the chiral anomaly.


title: Lepton

text: The coupling of leptons to all types of gauge boson are flavour-independent: The interaction between leptons and a gauge boson measures the same for each lepton. This property is called lepton universality and has been tested in measurements of the muon and tau lifetimes and of boson partial decay widths, particularly at the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC) and Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) experiments.


title: Lepton

text: The decay rate () of muons through the process is approximately given by an expression of the form (see muon decay for more details)


title: Lepton

text: where is some constant, and is the Fermi coupling constant. The decay rate of tau particles through the process is given by an expression of the same form


title: Lepton

text: where is some other constant. Muon–tauon universality implies that On the other hand, electron–muon universality implies


title: Lepton

text: This explains why the branching ratios for the electronic mode (17.82%) and muonic (17.39%) mode of tau decay are equal (within error).


title: Lepton

text: Universality also accounts for the ratio of muon and tau lifetimes. The lifetime formula_6 of a lepton formula_7 (with formula_7 = "" or "") is related to the decay rate by


title: Lepton

text: where formula_10 denotes the branching ratios and formula_11 denotes the resonance width of the process formula_12 with and replaced by two different particles from "" or "" or "".


title: Lepton

text: Using values from the 2008 "Review of Particle Physics" for the branching ratios of the muon and tau yields a lifetime ratio of ~, comparable to the measured lifetime ratio of ~. The difference is due to and not "actually" being constants: They depend slightly on the mass of leptons involved.


title: Lepton

text: Recent tests of lepton universality in meson decays, performed by the LHCb, BaBar, and Belle experiments, have shown consistent deviations from the Standard Model predictions. However the combined statistical and systematic significance is not yet high enough to claim an observation of new physics.


title: Lepton

text: In July 2021 results on lepton universality have been published testing W decays, previous measurements by the LEP had given a slight imbalance but the new measurement by the ATLAS collaboration have twice the precision and give a ratio of formula_14 which agrees with the standard-model prediction of unity


title: Asociality

text: Asociality refers to the lack of motivation to engage in social interaction, or a preference for solitary activities. Asociality may be associated with avolition, but it can, moreover, be a manifestation of limited opportunities for social relations. Developmental psychologists use the synonyms nonsocial, unsocial, and social uninterest. Asociality is distinct from but not mutually exclusive to anti-social behavior. A degree of asociality is routinely observed in introverts, while extreme asociality is observed in people with a variety of clinical conditions.


title: Asociality

text: Asociality is not necessarily perceived as a totally negative trait by society, since asociality has been used as a way to express dissent from prevailing ideas. It is seen as a desirable trait in several mystical and monastic traditions, notably in Hinduism, Jainism, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Buddhism and Sufism.


title: Asociality

text: Introversion is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life." Some popular writers have characterized introverts as people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction.


title: Asociality

text: Scientific research suggests that asocial traits in human behavior, personality and cognition may have several useful evolutionary benefits: Introverted, aloof traits can protect an individual from impulsive and dangerous social situations because of reduced impulsivity and reward. Frequent voluntary seclusion stimulates creativity and can give people time to think, work, reflect and see useful patterns more easily.


title: Asociality

text: Research indicates the social and analytical functions of the brain function in a mutually exclusive way. With this in mind, researchers posit that people who devoted less time or interest to socialization used the analytical part of the brain more frequently and thereby were often responsible for devising hunting strategies, creating tools and spotting useful patterns in the environment in general for both their own safety and the safety of the group.


title: Asociality

text: Imitation and social learning have been confirmed to be potentially limiting and maladaptive in animal and human populations: When social learning overrides personal experience (asocial learning) negative effects can be observed such as the inability to seek or pick the most efficient way to accomplish a task and a resulting inflexibility to changing environments. Individuals who are less receptible, motivated and interested in sociability are likely less affected by or sensible to socially imitated information and faster to notice and react to changes in the environment, to rigidly hold onto their own observations and consequently to not imitate a maladaptive behavior through social learning. These behaviors, including deficits in imitative behavior, have been observed in those with autism spectrum disorders and introverts, and are correlated with the personality traits of neuroticism and disagreeableness.


title: Asociality

text: The benefits of this behavior for the individual and their kin caused it to be preserved in part of the human population. The usefulness for acute senses, novel discoveries, and critical analytical thought may have culminated in the preservation of the suspected genetic factors of autism and introversion itself due to their increased cognitive, sensorial and analytical awareness.


title: Asociality

text: In schizophrenia, asociality is one of the main 5 "negative symptoms", the others being avolition, anhedonia, reduced affect and alogia. Due to a lack of desire to form relationships, social withdrawal is common in people with schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia may experience social deficits or dysfunction as a result of the disorder, leading to asocial behavior. Frequent or ongoing delusions and hallucinations can deteriorate relationships and other social ties, isolating individuals with schizophrenia from reality and in some cases leading to homelessness. Even when treated with medication for the disorder, they may be unable to engage in social behaviors such as maintaining conversations, accurately perceiving emotions in others, or functioning in crowded settings. There has been extensive research on the effective use of social skills training for the treatment of schizophrenia, in outpatient clinics as well as inpatient units. Social skills training (SST) can be used to help patients with schizophrenia make better eye contact with other people, increase assertiveness, and improve their general conversational skills.


title: Asociality

text: Asociality is common amongst people with avoidant personality disorder (AvPD). They experience discomfort and feel inhibited in social situations, being overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy. Such people remain consistently fearful of social rejection, choosing to avoid social engagements as they do not want to give people the opportunity to reject (or possibly, accept) them. Though they inherently crave a sense of belonging, their fear of criticism and rejection leads people with AvPD to actively avoid occasions that require social interaction, leading to extremely asocial tendencies; as a result, these individuals often have difficulty cultivating and preserving close relationships.


title: Asociality

text: People with AvPD may also display social phobia, the difference being that social phobia is the fear of social circumstances whereas AvPD is better described as an aversion to intimacy in relationships.


title: Asociality

text: Schizoid personality disorder (SzPD) is characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, and apathy. Affected individuals may simultaneously demonstrate a rich and elaborate but exclusively internal fantasy world.


title: Asociality

text: It is not the same as schizophrenia, although they share such similar characteristics as detachment and blunted affect. There is, moreover, increased prevalence of the disorder in families with schizophrenia.


title: Asociality

text: Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by a need for social isolation, anxiety in social situations, odd behavior and thinking, and often unconventional beliefs. People with this disorder feel extreme discomfort with maintaining close relationships with people, and therefore they often do not. People who have this disorder may display peculiar manners of talking and dressing and often have difficulty in forming relationships. In some cases, they may react oddly in conversations, not respond, or talk to themselves.


title: Asociality

text: Asociality has been observed in individuals who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).


title: Asociality

text: Those with ASD may display profoundly asocial tendencies, due to difficulties with socialization and interpersonal relationships. Other causes for asocial behavior include limited social expressiveness and low sensitivity to social cues, emotions, and pragmatic use of language. One suggestion is that individuals with autism lack the mirror neurons that allow neurotypical individuals to mimic the behavior of others.


title: Asociality

text: Asocial tendencies become acutely noticeable in children with ASD from a young age due to deficits in crucial social development skills. These skills include social and emotional reciprocity, eye-to-eye gaze, gestures, normal facial expressions and body posture, and sharing enjoyment and interests with others.


title: Asociality

text: Some children with ASD want to be social, but fail to socialize successfully, which can lead to later withdrawal and asocial behavior, particularly in adolescence.


title: Asociality

text: Asociality can be observed in individuals with major depressive disorder or dysthymia, as individuals lose interest in everyday activities and hobbies they used to enjoy, this may include social activities, resulting in social withdrawal and withdrawal tendencies.


title: Asociality

text: Social skills training can be adapted to the treatment of depression with a focus on assertiveness training. Depressed patients often benefit from learning to set limits with others, to obtain satisfaction for their own needs, and to feel more self-confident in social interactions. Research suggests that patients who are depressed because they tend to withdraw from others can benefit from social skills training by learning to increase positive social interactions with others instead of withdrawing from social interactions.


title: Asociality

text: Asocial behavior is observed in people with social anxiety disorder (SAD), who experience perpetual and irrational fears of humiliating themselves in social situations. They often have panic attacks and severe anxiety as a result, which can occasionally lead to agoraphobia. The disorder is common in children and young adults, diagnosed on average around 13 years of age. If left untreated, people with SAD exhibit asocial behavior into adulthood, avoiding social interactions and career choices that require interpersonal skills. Social skills training can help people with social phobia or shyness to improve their communication and social skills so that they will be able to mingle with others or go to job interviews with greater ease and self-confidence.


title: Asociality

text: Social skills training (SST) is an effective technique aimed towards anyone with "difficulty relating to others," a common symptom of shyness, marital and family conflicts, or developmental disabilities; as well as of many mental and neurological disorders including adjustment disorders, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, social phobia, alcohol dependence, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, avoidant personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizotypal personality disorder.


title: Asociality

text: Fortunately for people who display difficulty relating to others, social skills can be learned, as they are not simply inherent to an individual's personality or disposition. Therefore, there is hope for anyone who wishes to improve their social skills, including those with psychosocial or neurological disorders. Nonetheless, it is important to note that asociality may still be considered neither a character flaw nor an inherently negative trait.


title: Asociality

text: SST includes improving eye contact, speech duration, frequency of requests, and the use of gestures, as well as decreasing automatic compliance to the requests of others. SST has been shown to improve levels of assertiveness (positive and negative) in both men and women.


title: Asociality

text: Additionally, SST can focus on receiving skills (e.g. accurately perceiving problem situations), processing skills (e.g. considering several response alternatives), and sending skills (delivering appropriate verbal and non-verbal responses).


title: Asociality

text: Metacognitive interpersonal therapy is a method of treating and improving the social skills of people with personality disorders that are associated with asociality. Through metacognitive interpersonal therapy, clinicians seek to improve their patients' metacognition, meaning the ability to recognize and read the mental states of themselves. The therapy differs from SST in that the patient is trained to identify their own thoughts and feelings as a means of recognizing similar emotions in others. Metacognitive interpersonal therapy has been shown to improve interpersonal and decision-making skills by encouraging awareness of suppressed inner states, which enables patients to better relate to other people in social environments.


title: Asociality

text: The therapy is often used to treat patients with two or more co-occurring personality disorders, commonly including obsessive-compulsive and avoidant behaviors.


title: Asociality

text: In order to cope with asocial behavior, many individuals, especially those with avoidant personality disorder, develop an inner world of fantasy and imagination to entertain themselves when feeling rejected by peers. Asocial people may frequently imagine themselves in situations where they are accepted by others or have succeeded at an activity. Additionally, they may have fantasies relating to memories of early childhood and close family members.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: The Best Man is a 1999 American film written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. It was produced by 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, with Lee's cousin, Spike Lee, serving as producer. The film stars an ensemble cast led by Taye Diggs and Nia Long, with the debut of Regina Hall.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: A Christmas-themed sequel, "The Best Man Holiday", was released on November 15, 2013 with a reunited cast.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: In Chicago, Harper Stewart is an up-and-coming author whose debut novel, "Unfinished Business", has been selected by Oprah's Book Club. Harper's devoted girlfriend Robyn is frustrated by his unwillingness to commit to her.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Harper travels to New York City to spend the weekend with old friends from college, before they all attend the wedding of Lance Sullivan, a running back for the New York Giants, and Mia Morgan. Serving as best man, Harper reunites with his friends Julian "Murch" Murchison and Jordan Armstrong, who has passed an advance copy of "Unfinished Business" around their inner circle of friends – upon whom the book is based.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: None of the friends approve of Murch's domineering girlfriend Shelby, and Harper chastises Quentin Spivey for being unable to settle down in a job. The weekend reveals that Quentin has always been a free spirit, Lance has renounced his womanizing behavior, Harper is unsure about remaining a bachelor, and Murch has never been able to keep a secret. Flashbacks to their college days reveal that Lance met Mia through Harper, who almost slept with Jordan. Quentin antagonizes Lance about Mia, whom Lance believes has never been with another man. Learning Lance has a copy of his book, Harper worries he will discover that Harper and Mia had a one-night stand in college.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Confronting Harper about their mutual attraction, Jordan admits she wants to have sex with him that night, before Robyn arrives for the wedding the next day, and they share a kiss. Lance confronts Harper in the bathroom, but merely thanks him for his friendship; they are interrupted before Harper can come clean. As the groomsmen depart for the bachelor party, Jordan invites Harper to meet her later, and Murch finally stands up to Shelby.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: At the party, Harper steals Lance's copy of "Unfinished Business", to the disgust of Quentin, who has deduced Harper's secret. As the party gets increasingly drunk, Murch falls for one of the strippers, Candy, and Harper calls Jordan, accepting her invitation. Finding the book in Harper's coat, Lance reads it and finds out the truth, realizing that Mia slept with Harper in college to get back at him for his numerous infidelities. Enraged, he attacks Harper for his betrayal and almost throws him off the balcony, but Quentin talks him down, and Lance calls off the wedding.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: A badly beaten Harper arrives at Jordan's apartment. He blames her for circulating the book, but she berates him for airing his own dirty laundry and leading her on. The next day, Harper meets Robyn at the airport. She notices his injuries, and he confesses. Disappointed, Robyn prepares to leave, but Harper declares how much he needs her, and she reluctantly agrees to help him save the wedding.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Arriving at the church with Candy, Murch breaks up with Shelby. Lance arrives, and his friends try desperately to stop him before he can tell his parents the wedding is off. Harper – who doesn't share Lance's religious devotion – halts him by asking him to pray. While Robyn and Jordan tend to Mia, who is oblivious to the previous night's events, Harper reasons with Lance after much difficulty and assures him of his and Mia's love. After forcing Harper to pray with him, a tearful Lance proceeds with the wedding.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Harper gives a heartfelt speech praising Mia and Lance's love that visibly moves the couple, earning Lance's forgiveness. Shelby pushes a bridesmaid out of the way to seize the bouquet, while Quentin catches the garter. Jordan finds closure with Harper, telling him Robyn is the woman for him. On the dance floor, Harper thanks Robyn for her help and, in front of the entire wedding party, asks her to marry him; she says yes. The film ends as everyone dances the electric slide to the song "Candy" by Cameo.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. The website AllMovie gave the film 3/5 stars, with reviewer Jason Clark stating that the film has "occasional moments of ripe humor, but it fails to say anything new about troubled weddings or the experience of being an upwardly mobile African-American looking for love." The film has earned a B+ average from users at the Yahoo! Movies site.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Howard's performance in particular earned much praise from film critics, and "The Best Man" is considered to be his breakout film. Jason Clark of AllMovie stated Howard "commands the screen with such abandon that one secretly wishes the film could have been all about his oddly captivating character".


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 72% positive rating based on reviews by 71 critics, with the site's consensus stating "With a strong cast and a host of well-defined characters, "The Best Man" is an intelligent, funny romantic comedy that marks an impressive debut for writer/director Malcolm D. Lee." At Metacritic, the film averaged a favorable 61% rating from 30 critics.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: Produced on a relatively small budget of $9 million, the film went on to make over $34 million by the end of its theatrical run.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: The film received numerous awards and accolades. All eight principal cast members received nominations at the 2000 NAACP Image Awards, with wins for Howard and Long, and for Outstanding Motion Picture.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: The film's soundtrack, released on October 12, 1999 by Sony Music Entertainment, peaked at number 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 16 on the "Billboard" 200 in 1999.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: In 2013, Lee wrote and directed a sequel to "The Best Man" titled "The Best Man Holiday". Chestnut, Diggs, Hall, Howard, Lathan, Long, Perrineau, Calhoun and De Sousa returned from the first film. It received positive reviews.


title: The Best Man (1999 film)

text: In February 2021, Peacock gave a limited series order to a follow-up consisting of ten episodes. "" is created by Lee and Dayna Lynne North, who also serve as executive producers. Chestnut, Diggs, Hall, Howard, Lathan, Long, Perrineau and De Sousa are set to reprise their roles. The 8-episode series is scheduled to premiere on December 22, 2022.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The Leidenfrost effect is a physical phenomenon in which a liquid, close to a surface that is significantly hotter than the liquid's boiling point, produces an insulating vapor layer that keeps the liquid from boiling rapidly. Because of this repulsive force, a droplet hovers over the surface, rather than making physical contact with it. The effect is named after the German doctor Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, who described it in "A Tract About Some Qualities of Common Water".


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: This is most commonly seen when cooking, when drops of water are sprinkled onto a hot pan. If the pan's temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, which is approximately for water, the water skitters across the pan and takes longer to evaporate than it would take if the water droplets had been sprinkled onto a cooler pan.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The effect can be seen as drops of water are sprinkled onto a pan at various times as it heats up. Initially, as the temperature of the pan is just below , the water flattens out and slowly evaporates, or if the temperature of the pan is well below , the water stays liquid. As the temperature of the pan rises above , the water droplets hiss when touching the pan, and these droplets evaporate quickly. When the temperature exceeds the Leidenfrost point, the Leidenfrost effect appears. On contact with the pan, the water droplets bunch up into small balls of water and skitter around, lasting much longer than when the temperature of the pan was lower. This effect works until a much higher temperature causes any further drops of water to evaporate too quickly to cause this effect.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The effect happens because, at temperatures at or above the Leidenfrost point, the bottom part of the water droplet vaporizes immediately on contact with the hot pan. The resulting gas suspends the rest of the water droplet just above it, preventing any further direct contact between the liquid water and the hot pan. As steam has much poorer thermal conductivity than the metal pan, further heat transfer between the pan and the droplet is slowed down dramatically. This also results in the drop being able to skid around the pan on the layer of gas just under it.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The temperature at which the Leidenfrost effect appears is difficult to predict. Even if the volume of the drop of liquid stays the same, the Leidenfrost point may be quite different, with a complicated dependence on the properties of the surface, as well as any impurities in the liquid. Some research has been conducted into a theoretical model of the system, but it is quite complicated.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The effect was also described by the Victorian steam boiler designer, William Fairbairn, in reference to its effect on massively reducing heat transfer from a hot iron surface to water, such as within a boiler. In a pair of lectures on boiler design, he cited the work of Pierre Hippolyte Boutigny (1798–1884) and Professor Bowman of King's College, London, in studying this. A drop of water that was vaporized almost immediately at persisted for 152 seconds at . Lower temperatures in a boiler firebox might evaporate water more quickly as a result; compare Mpemba effect. An alternative approach was to increase the temperature beyond the Leidenfrost point. Fairbairn considered this, too, and may have been contemplating the flash steam boiler, but considered the technical aspects insurmountable for the time.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The Leidenfrost point may also be taken to be the temperature for which the hovering droplet lasts longest.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: It has been demonstrated that it is possible to stabilize the Leidenfrost vapor layer of water by exploiting superhydrophobic surfaces. In this case, once the vapor layer is established, cooling never collapses the layer, and no nucleate boiling occurs; the layer instead slowly relaxes until the surface is cooled.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: Droplets of different liquids with different boiling temperatures will also exhibit a Leidenfrost effect with respect to each other and repel each other.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The Leidenfrost effect has been used for the development of high sensitivity ambient mass spectrometry. Under the influence of the Leidenfrost condition, the levitating droplet does not release molecules, and the molecules are enriched inside the droplet. At the last moment of droplet evaporation, all the enriched molecules release in a short time period and thereby increase the sensitivity.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: A heat engine based on the Leidenfrost effect has been prototyped; it has the advantage of extremely low friction.


title: Leidenfrost effect

text: The Leidenfrost point signifies the onset of stable film boiling. It represents the point on the boiling curve where the heat flux is at the minimum and the surface is completely covered by a vapor blanket. Heat transfer from the surface to the liquid occurs by conduction and radiation through the vapour. In 1756, Leidenfrost observed that water droplets supported by the vapor film slowly evaporate as they move about on the hot surface. As the surface temperature is increased, radiation through the vapor film becomes more significant and the heat flux increases with increasing excess temperature.


title: President of Finland

text: The president of the Republic of Finland (; ) is the head of state of Finland. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the Finnish Government and the president, with the latter possessing only residual powers. The president is directly elected by universal suffrage for a term of six years. Since 1994, no president may be elected for more than two consecutive terms. The president must be a natural-born Finnish citizen. The presidential office was established in the Constitution Act of 1919. The incumbent president is Sauli Niinistö. He was elected for the first time in 2012 and was re-elected in 2018.


title: President of Finland

text: Finland has, for most of its independence, had a semi-presidential system in which the president had much authority and power over both foreign and domestic policy, but in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the powers of the president have been subject to decrease, moving the country towards a more parliamentary system. In constitutional amendments, which came into effect in 1991, 2000, and 2012, the president's powers have been reduced. The president still leads the nation's foreign politics in conjunction with the Government, and is the commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces.


title: President of Finland

text: Officially, the current head of state of Finland is the president of the Republic of Finland (; ) or, more often, the president of the Republic (', '). This is in contrast to the former presidents, who retain the title "President".


title: President of Finland

text: Presidential candidates can be nominated by registered parties which have received at least one seat in the previous parliamentary elections. A candidate may also be nominated by 20,000 enfranchised citizens. Between 1919 and 1988, the president was elected indirectly by an electoral college made up of electors chosen by voters in the presidential election. In the 1988 presidential election, a direct and an indirect election were conducted in parallel: if no candidate could gain a majority, the president was elected by an electoral college formed in the same elections. Since 1994, the president has been elected by a direct popular vote.


title: President of Finland

text: If only one candidate is nominated, that candidate becomes president without an election. Otherwise, the first round of balloting takes place on the fourth Sunday of January in the election year. The elections are two-staged. If one of the candidates receives more than half of the votes cast, that candidate is elected president. If no candidate wins a majority in the first stage, the top two candidates rerun in the second stage two weeks later. The candidate who then receives more votes is elected. In the event of a tie, the election is resolved by lot. The Government confirms the outcome of the election and, if necessary, conducts the drawing of lots. The president assumes office on the first day of the month following the election (either 1 February or 1 March depending on whether there were one or two rounds).


title: President of Finland

text: There have been several exceptional presidential elections. The first president, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, was chosen by the Finnish parliament due to the transition rule of the constitution and also due to the martial law. In 1940 and 1943, the 1937 electoral college chose the president, as it was felt that a popular election could not be arranged due to the martial law (1940) and the Continuation War (1943). In 1944 special legislation directly stipulated that Marshal Mannerheim be elected president for six years after Risto Ryti had resigned mid-term. In 1946, special legislation empowered the Parliament to choose a successor for the remainder of Mannerheim's term (until 1950), the latter having resigned. Then Prime Minister Juho Kusti Paasikivi was elected president by Parliament. In 1973, special legislation extended President Urho Kekkonen's term by four years until 1978, when he was re-elected regularly.


title: President of Finland

text: The president-elect, accompanied by the Speaker of the Parliament and the outgoing president, assumes office on the first day of the month following the election by making a solemn affirmation in both Finnish and Swedish at a ceremony in Parliament House. The affirmation is specified in Section 56 of the Constitution, and in English reads "I, [N. N.], elected by the people of Finland as the President of the Republic, hereby affirm that in my presidential duties I shall sincerely and conscientiously observe the Constitution and the laws of the Republic, and to the best of my ability promote the wellbeing of the people of Finland."


title: President of Finland

text: The term of the president-elect begins at the moment the solemn affirmation has been made (about 12:20 on the day of the inauguration). After the inauguration, the new president, accompanied by the president's predecessor, inspects the guard of honour outside Parliament House.


title: President of Finland

text: The president exercises his or her governmental powers "in council" with the Finnish Government, echoing the royal "curia regis". The session is customarily arranged once a week. There is quorum of five ministers and the chancellor of justice is present as well. In the session, the respective ministers present the topic and a proposal for decision. Based on the proposal, the president makes his decision. The president may depart from the proposal and may return the proposal to the Government for reconsideration. There is no voting and normally there are no speeches aside from the aforementioned proposals. Except for approvals of new laws and appointments, the Government may present the issue to the Parliament, which will make the final decision on the matter on the Government's proposal.


title: President of Finland

text: The president's functions and powers are directly defined in the Constitution. In addition to those specified there, the president also discharges functions assigned to the president in other laws. Under the Constitution of Finland, executive power is vested in the president and the Government, which must enjoy the confidence of parliament. This principle is reflected in other provisions of the constitution concerning the president's functions and powers dealing with legislation, decrees, and appointment of public officials. Custom dictates that the president renounces any party affiliation while serving, to remain above day-to-day politics.


title: President of Finland

text: The president was originally vested with fairly broad executive power, particularly in the realm of foreign policy. Constitutional amendments enacted in 1999 reduced the president's powers somewhat, and the president now shares executive authority with the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, presidents are still seen as providing a measure of stability, given that it is all but impossible for one party to win an outright majority in Parliament.


title: President of Finland

text: Upon the proposal of the prime minister, the president may, having consulted the parliamentary groups and while Parliament is in session, order the holding of premature parliamentary election. The new parliament is chosen for a normal four-year term. Parliament itself may decide when to end its session before the election day. From 1919 to 1991 the president's power to order a premature election was unqualified and he could do so whenever considered necessary. Presidents have ordered premature parliamentary elections on seven occasions. The president declares each annual session of parliament open and closes the last Annual Session. This is done in a speech at each opening and closing ceremony.


title: President of Finland

text: The prime minister and other members of the Government are appointed and discharged by the president of the republic. After parliamentary elections or in any other situation where the government has resigned, the president, taking into account the result of consultations between the parliamentary groups and having heard the view of the speaker, submits a nominee for prime minister to Parliament. If confirmed by Parliament with a majority of the votes cast, the president then proceeds to appoint the prime minister and other ministers. The president is constitutionally required to dismiss a government or any minister as soon as that government has lost the confidence of Parliament.


title: President of Finland

text: Most of the appointment process is conducted at the respective ministry: The Office of the President does not process preparations or presentations of the appointment. Nevertheless, presidents have used these powers publicly, even against the internal recommendation of the agency.


title: President of Finland

text: The president conducts Finland's foreign policy in co-operation with the Finnish Government. The provisions of treaties and other international obligations that affect domestic legislation are implemented by acts of parliament. Otherwise, international obligations are implemented by a presidential decree. Decisions on war and peace are taken by the president with the assent of parliament.


title: President of Finland

text: The president must sign and approve all bills adopted by Parliament before they become law. The president must decide on ratification within three months of receiving the bill and may request an opinion from the Supreme Court or the Supreme Administrative Court before giving assent. Should the president refuse assent or fail to decide on the matter in time, Parliament reconsiders the bill and can readopt it with a majority of votes cast. The bill will then enter into force without ratification. If Parliament fails to readopt the bill, it is deemed to have lapsed. Presidential vetoes are generally successful in preventing the bill becoming law.


title: President of Finland

text: In single cases, the president has the power of pardon from any imprisonment, fine, or forfeiture. General pardon requires an act of parliament.


title: President of Finland

text: The power of pardon has effectively become the instrument to limit life imprisonment to 12 years or more, since successive presidents have eventually given pardon to all felons. The president, however, retains the power to deny pardon. In autumn 2006, the regular paroling of convicts serving a life sentence power was transferred to the Helsinki Court of Appeals, and the peculiar arrangement, where the president exercises judicial power, ended. The presidential power of giving pardon is, however, retained. Its use has diminished under the current president, Sauli Niinistö, who exercises the power particularly sparingly.