title: Jin Yong

text: Cha's parents were Zha Shuqing () and Xu Lu (). He had four brothers and two sisters, and was the second oldest among the seven of them. His brothers were Zha Liangjian (; 1916–1988), Zha Lianghao (; b. 1934), Zha Liangdong (; 1930s) and Zha Liangyu (; b. 1936). His sisters were Zha Liangxiu (; b. 1926) and Zha Liangxuan (; 1928–2002).


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha married three times. His first wife was Du Zhifen (), whom he married in 1948 but divorced later. In 1953, he married his second wife, Zhu Mei (), a newspaper journalist. They had two sons and two daughters: Zha Chuanxia (), Zha Chuanti (), Zha Chuanshi () and Zha Chuanne (). Cha divorced Zhu in 1976 and married his third wife, Lin Leyi (; b. 1953), who was 29 years his junior and 16 years old when they first met. In 1976, his son Zha Chuanxia, then 19 years old, committed suicide after a quarrel with his girlfriend while studying at Columbia University.


title: Jin Yong

text: On 30 October 2018, Cha died after a long illness at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, aged 94.


title: Jin Yong

text: His funeral service was held privately at Hong Kong Funeral Home in Quarry Bay in 13 November 2018 with his family and friends, with well known figures including writers Ni Kuang, Chua Lam, Chip Tsao, Benny Lee, producer Zhang Jizhong, actor Huang Xiaoming, former President of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Poon Chung-kwong, image designer Tina Liu, politicians Tung Chee-hwa and Edward Leong, and founder of Alibaba Group Jack Ma among them in attendance.


title: Jin Yong

text: At noon, his coffin was moved to Po Lin Monastery at Ngong Ping, Lantau Island, where he was cremated and his ashes was interred at the Hoi Wui Tower’s columbarium.


title: Jin Yong

text: In addition to his wuxia novels, Cha also wrote many non-fiction works on Chinese history. For his achievements, he received many honours.


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the British government in 1981. He was made a "Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur" (1992) and a "Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" (2004) by the French government.


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha was also an honorary professor at Peking University, Zhejiang University, Nankai University, Soochow University, Huaqiao University, National Tsing Hua University, Hong Kong University (Department of Chinese Studies), the University of British Columbia, and Sichuan University. Cha was an honorary doctor at National Chengchi University, Hong Kong University (Department of Social Science), Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Open University of Hong Kong, the University of British Columbia, Soka University and the University of Cambridge. He was also an honorary fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford and Robinson College, Cambridge, and a Waynflete Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.


title: Jin Yong

text: When receiving his honorary doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 2004, Cha expressed his wish to be a full-time student at Cambridge for four years to attain a non-honorary doctorate. In July 2010, Cha earned his Doctor of Philosophy in oriental studies (Chinese history) at St John's College, Cambridge with a thesis on imperial succession in the early Tang dynasty.


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha wrote a total of 16 fictional works, of which only one is a non-wuxia autobiographical short story (Yue Yun). His wuxia works are made up of 2 novellas ("White Horse Neighs in the Western Wind" and "Blade-dance of the Two Lovers"), a standalone novel ("Ode to Gallantry"), 11 interconnected novels of varying lengths, and a novelette ("Sword of the Yue Maiden"). Most of his novels were first published in daily instalments in newspapers, then later in 3 authorised book editions each with various changes to the plots and the characters. There are 4 editions of his novels:


title: Jin Yong

text: Aqing, the protagonist of the novelette "Sword of the Yue Maiden", is the ancestor of Han Xiaoying from "The Legend of the Condor Heroes". "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" is a prequel; the Northern Beggar of the Five Greats, Hong Qigong succeeds Qiao Feng as the new chief of the Beggars' Sect in "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and Duan Yu is the fictional ancestor of the historical character Duan Zhixing who later becomes the Reverend Yideng, another member of the Five Greats. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", "The Return of the Condor Heroes" and "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre" make up the Condor Trilogy (considered by many to be Cha's "magnum opus") and should be read in that order. Dugu Qiubai's Heavy Iron Sword is used by Yang Guo and broken down to create the Heaven Sword and the Dragon Sabre. Guo Xiang inherits the Heaven Sword and passes it to her disciples of the Emei Sect. Linghu Chong from "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" learns Dugu Qiubai's 9 Swords of Dugu from Feng Qingyang, a reclusive Mount Hua Sect swordsman. Some characters and sects from "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" are mentioned in "Sword Stained with Royal Blood".


title: Jin Yong

text: In a very brief inner monologue in "The Deer and the Cauldron", Chengguan, a knowledgeable but naïve Shaolin monk, ponders two great swordsmen in the past who performed swordplay without following any defined stances: Dugu Qiubai and Linghu Chong. A few major characters from "Sword Stained with Royal Blood" also appear as minor characters. Wu Liuqi, a historical character from "The Deer and the Cauldron", is mentioned in the third edition of "A Deadly Secret" as the martial arts teacher of Mei Niansheng.


title: Jin Yong

text: Numerous characters from "The Book and the Sword" appear in "The Young Flying Fox" including Chen Jialuo. Hu Yidao, Mei Renfeng, Tian Guinong, Feng family in "The Young Flying Fox" are the fictional descendants of the 4 bodyguards of Li Zicheng, who appears in the "Sword Stained with Royal Blood" and "The Deer and the Cauldron". "The Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain" is the seequel to "The Young Flying Fox" with the same protagonist, Hu Fei.


title: Jin Yong

text: After Cha completed all his works, it was discovered that the first characters of the first 14 titles can be joined together to form a couplet (duilian) with 7 characters on each line:


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha stated that he had never intended to create the couplet. The couplet serves primarily as a handy mnemonic to remember all of Cha's works for his fans.


title: Jin Yong

text: Most of Cha's works were initially published in instalments in Hong Kong newspapers, most often in "Ming Pao". "The Return of the Condor Heroes" was his first novel serialised in "Ming Pao", launched on 20 May 1959. Between 1970 and 1980, Cha revised all of his works. The revised works of his stories are known as the "New Edition" (), also known as "Revised Edition" (), in contrast with the "Old Edition" (), which refers to the original, serialised versions. Some characters and events were written out completely, most notably mystical elements and 'unnecessary' characters, such as the "Blood Red Bird" () and "Qin Nanqin" (), the mother of Yang Guo in the first edition.


title: Jin Yong

text: In Taiwan, the situation is more complicated, as Cha's books were initially banned. As a result, there were multiple editions published underground, some of which were revised beyond recognition. Only in 1979 was Cha's complete collection published by Taiwan's Yuenching Publishing House ().


title: Jin Yong

text: In China, the "Wulin" () magazine in Guangzhou was the first to officially publish Cha's works, starting from 1980. Cha's complete collection in Simplified Chinese was published by Beijing's SDX Joint Publishing in 1994. Meanwhile, Mingheshe Singapore-Malaysia () published his collection, in Simplified Chinese for Southeast Asian readers in 1995.


title: Jin Yong

text: From 1999 to 2006, Cha revised his novels for the second and last time. Each of his works was carefully revised, re-edited and re-issued in the order in which he wrote them. This revision was completed in spring 2006, with the publication of the last novel, "The Deer and the Cauldron". The newer revised edition, known variably as the "New Century Edition" (), "New Revised Edition" () and "New New Edition" (), is noted for its annotations where Cha answers previous criticisms directed at the historical accuracy of his works. In the newer revision, certain characters' personae were changed, such as Wang Yuyan, and many martial art skills and places have their names changed. This edition faced a number of criticisms from Cha's fans, some of whom prefer the older storyline and names. The older 1970–80 "New Edition" () is no longer issued by Cha's publisher Mingheshe (). In mainland China, it is re-issued as "Langsheng, Old Edition" () in simplified Chinese characters.


title: Jin Yong

text: Chinese nationalism or patriotism is a strong theme in Cha's works. In most of his works, Cha places emphasis on the idea of self-determination and identity, and many of his novels are set in time periods when China was occupied or under the threat of occupation by non-Han Chinese peoples such as the Khitans, Jurchens, Mongols and Manchus. However, Cha gradually evolved his Chinese nationalism into an inclusionist concept which encompasses all present-day non-Han Chinese minorities. Cha expresses a fierce admiration for positive traits of non-Han Chinese people personally, such as the Mongols and Manchus. In "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", for example, he casts Genghis Khan and his sons as capable and intelligent military leaders against the corrupt and ineffective bureaucrats of the Han Chinese-led Song dynasty.


title: Jin Yong

text: Cha's references range from traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, martial arts, music, calligraphy, weiqi, tea culture, philosophical schools of thought such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism and imperial Chinese history. Historical figures often intermingle with fictional ones, making it difficult for the layperson to distinguish which are real.


title: Jin Yong

text: His works show a great amount of respect and approval for traditional Chinese values, especially Confucian ideals such as the proper relationship between ruler and subject, parent and child, elder sibling and younger sibling, and (particularly strongly, due to the wuxia nature of his novels), between master and apprentice, and among fellow apprentices. However, he also questions the validity of these values in the face of a modern society, such as ostracism experienced by his two main characters – Yang Guo's romantic relationship with his teacher Xiaolongnü in "The Return of the Condor Heroes". Cha also places a great amount of emphasis on traditional values such as face and honour.


title: Jin Yong

text: In all but his 14th work, "The Deer and the Cauldron", the protagonists or heroes are explored meticulously through their relationships with their teachers, their immediate kin and relatives, and with their suitors or spouses. In each, the heroes have attained the zenith in martial arts and most would be the epitome or embodiment of the traditional Chinese values in words or deeds, i.e. virtuous, honourable, respectable, gentlemanly, responsible, patriotic, and so forth.


title: Jin Yong

text: In "The Deer and the Cauldron", Cha departed from his usual writing style, creating in its main protagonist Wei Xiaobao an antihero who is greedy, lazy, and utterly disdainful of traditional rules of propriety. Cha intentionally created an anticlimax and an "antihero" possessing none of the desirable traditional values and no knowledge of any form of martial arts, and dependent upon a protective vest made of alloy to absorb full-frontal attack when in trouble and a dagger that can cut through anything. Wei is a street urchin and womanizer and seems to have no positive qualities based on a superficial assessment; but he actually embodies the same essential qualities of the heroes from Cha's earlier novels. The fiction writer Ni Kuang wrote a connected critique of all of Cha's works and concluded that Cha concluded his work with "The Deer and the Cauldron" as a satire to his earlier work and to restore a balanced perspective in readers.


title: Jin Yong

text: The study of Cha's works has spun off a specific area of study and discussion: Jinology. For years, readers and critics have written works discussing, debating and analysing his fictional world of martial arts; among the most famous are those by Cha's close friend and science fiction novelist, Ni Kuang. Ni is a fan of Cha, and has written a series of criticisms analysing the various personalities and aspects of his books called "I Read Jin Yong's Novels" ().


title: Jin Yong

text: Despite Cha's popularity, some of his novels were banned outside of Hong Kong due to political reasons. A number of them were outlawed in the People's Republic of China in the 1970s as they were thought to be satires of Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution; others were banned in Taiwan as they were thought to be in support of the Chinese Communist Party. None of these bans are currently in force, and Cha's complete collection has been published multiple times in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Many politicians on both sides of the Straits are known to be readers of his works; Deng Xiaoping, for example, was a well-known reader himself.


title: Jin Yong

text: In late 2004, the People's Education Publishing House () of the People's Republic of China sparked controversy by including an excerpt from "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" in a new senior high school Chinese textbook. While some praised the inclusion of popular literature, others feared that the violence and unrealistic martial arts described in Cha's works were unsuitable for high school students. At about the same time, Singapore's Ministry of Education announced a similar move for Chinese-learning students at secondary and junior college levels.


title: Jin Yong

text: 03. "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" (2018–2021; four volumes) – published by MacLehose Press (an imprint of Quercus Publishing), translated by Anna Holmwood, Gigi Chang, and Shelly Bryant. The volumes are titled "A Hero Born", "A Bond Undone", "A Snake Lies Waiting", and "A Heart Divided".


title: Jin Yong

text: 08."The Deer and the Cauldron" (1997–2002; abridged in three volumes only 28 chapters) – published by Oxford University Press, translated by John Minford.


title: Jin Yong

text: 10. "The Book and the Sword" (2005) – published by Oxford University Press, 2005, translated by Graham Earnshaw, edited by John Minford and Rachel May.


title: Jin Yong

text: 12."Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain" – published by Chinese University Press, translated by Olivia Mok.


title: Jin Yong

text: There are over 90 films and TV shows adapted from Cha's wuxia novels, including King Hu's "The Swordsman" (1990) and its sequel "Swordsman II" (1992), Wong Jing's 1992 films "Royal Tramp" and "Royal Tramp II", and Wong Kar-wai's "Ashes of Time" (1994). Dozens of role-playing video games are based on Cha's novels, including "Heroes of Jin Yong".


title: Jin Yong

text: Jin Yong co-directed 2 films produced by Hong Kong's Great Wall Movie Enterprises. In both films he is credited as Cha Jing-yong, his official name in Hong Kong.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: Astrud Gilberto (; born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, March 29, 1940) is a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer. She gained international attention in the 1960s following her recording of the song "The Girl from Ipanema".


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: Astrud Gilberto was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a German father, in the state of Bahia, Brazil. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. Her father was a language professor, and she became fluent in several languages. She married João Gilberto in 1959 and had a son, João Marcelo Gilberto, who later joined her band. Astrud and João divorced in the mid-1960s. She has another son from a second marriage, Gregory Lasorsa, who also played with his mother. Later she began a relationship with her husband's musical collaborator, American jazz saxophone player Stan Getz. She immigrated to the United States in 1963, residing in the U.S. from that time.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: She sang on two tracks on the 1963 album "Getz/Gilberto" featuring João Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Antônio Carlos Jobim. While it was her first professional recording, Astrud "wasn’t a complete novice. She grew up steeped in music (her mother Evangelina Neves Lobo Weinert played multiple instruments) and sang regularly with her husband in Brazil, including in a concert at the Faculdade de Arquitetura, part of one of Rio de Janeiro’s top universities." Her "beguiling, whispery voice" and steadfast approach to singing played a significant role in popularizing "The Girl from Ipanema", earning a Grammy for Song of the Year and a nomination for Best Vocal Performance by a female.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: The 1964 edited single of "The Girl from Ipanema" omitted the Portuguese lyrics sung by João Gilberto, and established Astrud Gilberto as a Bossa Nova singer. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. For the recording, it is reported Astrud only ever received the standard session fee, $120. However, according to Gene Lees in "Singers and the Song II", Getz asked producer Creed Taylor to ensure she was paid nothing. In 1964, Gilberto appeared in the films "Get Yourself a College Girl" and "The Hanged Man". Her first solo album was "The Astrud Gilberto Album" (1965). Upon moving to the United States, she went on tour with Getz. Beginning as a singer of bossa nova and American jazz standards, Gilberto started to record her own compositions in the 1970s. She has recorded songs in Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Japanese.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: In 1982, Gilberto's son Marcelo joined her group, touring with her for more than a decade as bassist. In addition, he collaborated as co-producer of the albums "Live in New York" (1996) and "Temperance" (1997). Her son Gregory Lasorsa played guitar on the "Temperance" album on the song "Beautiful You", which features singer Michael Franks.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: Gilberto received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1992, and was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2002. In 1996, she contributed to the AIDS benefit album "Red Hot + Rio" produced by the Red Hot Organization, performing the song "Desafinado" (Portuguese for "slightly out of tune", or "off-key") along with George Michael at his invitation. Although she did not officially retire, Gilberto announced in 2002 that she was taking "indefinite time off" from public performances.


title: Astrud Gilberto

text: Her original recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" was edited as a duet using a recording of the same song by Frank Sinatra for the soundtrack of "Down with Love" (2003). Her recording "Who Can I Turn To?" was sampled by The Black Eyed Peas in the song "Like That" from the 2005 album "Monkey Business". Her vocals on "Berimbau" were sampled by Cut Chemist in his song "The Garden". Her recording of "Once I Loved" was featured in the 2007 film "Juno". The "Astrud" track on Basia Trzetrzelewska's 1987 album, "Time and Tide", is a tribute to Gilberto.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Estonian Defence Forces () are the unified military forces of the Republic of Estonia. The Estonian Defence Forces consist of the Estonian Land Forces, the Estonian Navy, the Estonian Air Force, and the paramilitary Estonian Defence League. The national defence policy aims to guarantee the preservation of the independence and sovereignty of the state, the integrity of its land area, territorial waters, airspace and its constitutional order. Its main goals remain the development and maintenance of a credible capability to defend the nation's vital interests and development of the defence forces in a way that ensures their interoperability with the armed forces of NATO and European Union member states to participate in the full range of missions for these military alliances.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: After the German Revolution, between 11 and 14 November 1918, ending the German occupation in Estonia, the representatives of Germany formally handed over political power to the Government of Estonia. A few days later Estonia was invaded by the military forces of Bolshevist Russia, marking the beginning of the Estonian War of Independence. The small, poorly armed Estonian military, also known as the "Peoples Force" (in ), was initially pushed back by the Red Army into the vicinity of the capital city of Estonia - Tallinn. A mere 34 kilometers separated Tallinn and the front line. Partly due to the timely arrival of a shipment of arms brought by a British naval squadron the Bolsheviks were stopped.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In January 1919, the Estonian armed forces launched a counteroffensive, the "May Offensive", under Commander-in-Chief Johan Laidoner. The Ground Forces were supported by the Royal Navy as well as Finnish, Swedish and Danish volunteers. By the end of February 1919, the Red Army had been expelled from all of the territory of Estonia. On 2 February 1920, the Peace Treaty of Tartu was signed by the Republic of Estonia and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. After winning the Estonian Liberation War against Soviet Russia and German Freikorps volunteers, Estonia maintained its independence for twenty-two years.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In August 1939, just prior to the start of World War II, Stalin and Hitler secretly decided the fate of the Republic of Estonia. The two leaders agreed to divide Eastern Europe into "spheres of special interest" as outlined by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in its . According to this treaty Estonia was to be occupied by the Soviet Union. The Estonian government decided to give their assent to an agreement which allowed the USSR to establish military bases and station 25,000 troops on Estonian soil for "mutual defence". On 12 June 1940, the order for a total military blockade of Estonia was given to the Soviet Baltic Fleet. Given the overwhelming Soviet force, in order to avoid bloodshed and a futile and hopeless war, on 17 June 1940 the Estonian government decided not to resist. The military occupation of Estonia was complete by 21 June 1940. The armed forces of Estonia were disarmed in July 1940 by the Red Army according to Soviet orders. Only the Signal Battalion stationed in Tallinn at Raua Street, in front of the Tallinn School No. 21 continued to resist. As the Red Army brought in additional reinforcements supported by armoured fighting vehicles, the battle lasted several hours until sundown. There was one dead, several wounded on the Estonian side and about 10 killed and more wounded on the Soviet side. Military resistance ended with negotiations. Signal Battalion surrendered and was disarmed. In the Second World War, many Estonians joined German Wehrmacht auxiliary units, as well as eventually contributing the volunteers and conscripts for the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) which fought against the Red Army.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The "Eesti Kaitsevägi" was restored on 3 September 1991 by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia. Since 1991, the armed forces of Estonia have re-opened and restored more than 30 old and new units and several army branches.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Since 2011, the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces is appointed by and is responsible to the Government of Estonia through the Ministry of Defence, rather than to the Riigikogu, as it had been before. It was due to constitutional amendments proposed by the former President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Its main goals remain the development and maintenance of a credible capability to defend the nation's vital interests and development of the EDF in a way that ensures their interoperability with the armed forces of NATO and EU member states and their capability to participate in the full range of Alliance missions.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In peacetime, the main tasks of EDF are to monitor and maintain control over territorial borders and airspace, maintain combat readiness, train conscripts and develop reserve units, participate in NATO and UN-led international missions, and provide assistance to civilian authorities in case of national emergency.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In crises, the main tasks of EDF are to increase the readiness levels of units as required, prepare for transition to wartime structure and begin mobilization as ordered, integrate units from other ministries, and prepare for assistance from and reception of friendly forces.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In wartime the main tasks of EDF are to defend the territorial integrity of the state, to facilitate the arrival and deployment of forces from other countries and co-operate with them, to maintain control over national airspace, and facilitate the air defence of strategic assets in co-operation with forces from other countries.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The national defence of Estonia is conducted on the principles of civilian control inherently bound with the democratic organisation of the state. Democratically elected and appointed executive institutions make decisions on the use of the defence forces and determine the respective objectives, allocate the necessary resources and monitor the attainment of the objectives.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The implementation of the principles of civilian control is guaranteed by defence-related rights, obligations and responsibilities legislatively laid upon the parliament, the president of the republic and the government of the republic.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The highest leader of the national defence is the president of the republic advised in national defence matters by the National Defence Council composed of the chairman of the Parliament, the prime minister, the chief of the defence forces (the commander-in-chief of the defence forces in wartime), the defence minister, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the Parliamentary National Defence Committee. Executive power in the leadership of the national defence is executed by the Government of the Republic.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In peacetime the Estonian Defence Forces and the national defence organisations, including the Defense League, are led by the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces. In wartime all these components are commanded by the commander-in-chief of the defence forces. The chief of the defence forces and the commander-in-chief of the defence forces are both appointed and released from office by the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet on the proposal of the President of the Republic of Estonia.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Headquarters of the Estonian Defence Forces is the headquarters of the military of Estonia and the working body of the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces. The General Staff is a joint staff engaged with operational leadership, training and development of the defence forces. Operational leadership is implemented by the Operational Staff, which plans and controls operations and ensures defence readiness and mobilisation. The departments for training and development are responsible for long-term and mid-term planning, resource planning, organisation and control of the planning of training and implementation of national defence activities. The general staff of the defence forces is headed by the Chief of the Headquarters of the Estonian Defence Forces.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Estonian Land Forces is the main arm of the defence forces. The average size of the military formation in peacetime is about 6,700 of whom about 3,200 are conscripts. The Army component of the operational structure consists of 2 infantry brigades. Both infantry brigades act as training and support frames for deployable units.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Land Force development priorities are the capability to participate in missions outside the national territory and the capability to perform operations to protect the territory of Estonia, also in co-operation with the Allies.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The "Merevägi" is responsible for all naval operations and protecting of the territorial waters of Estonia. The main functions of the naval force are the preparation and organisation of the defence of the territorial waters and coastal line, ensuring the maritime security, communications and sea traffic in the territorial waters and co-operation with NATO and the navies of other friendly countries around. In case of a crisis situation the "Merevägi" must be ready to defend sea approaches, harbour areas, sea lines of communication and to co-operate with the coalition units. The "Merevägi" includes units of patrol ships, minesweepers, a frigate and coast guard units, necessary to ensure the security of maritime communications lines and to establish and clear mine barriers. The majority of the naval forces are situated at the Miinisadam naval base. The current structure operates the Mineships Division which also includes a divers group. In addition there are the Naval Academy, Naval Base at Miinisadam and the Naval Headquarters which are situated in Tallinn.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Since 1995 numerous mine clearance operations have been carried out in Estonian waters in close co-operation with other navies of the Baltic Sea region in order to find and dispose ordnance and contribute to safe seagoing. In 2007 the "Merevägi" mineships fleet was modernized and equipped with the "Sandown" class minehunters. In 2010, according to the long-term defence development plan, it was announced that the "Merevägi" will receive some new capabilities. Of those new warfare capabilities the procurement of multirole fast patrol boats will be the priority. The operational need for such vessels is likely to ensure defence of territorial waters and to improve maritime surveillance. In addition to the current capabilities the command and control and shore-to-vessel communications will also be further improved.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Estonian Air Force is the main arm of the Estonian aviation forces. The roots of the current organization go back to 1918 when August Roos organized the first Estonian aviation unit. The Independence War gave great impetus to the development of the Estonian Air Force, which had by the middle of the 1930s more than 130 modern aircraft. The organization consisted of the Naval Aviation Group, Flight School, Air Base, Air Defence Artillery Group. Estonian engineers designed and constructed the fighter aircraft, which displayed outstanding performance. The Estonian Air Force was re-established in 1991 with the objectives of controlling Estonian airspace and the air defence of strategic objects.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Estonian air force was slow to reform because of the severely damaged infrastructure left behind by the Soviet Air Force and air defence units. The Estonian Air Force was restored on April 13, 1994. From 1993 to 1995, Estonia received two Let L-410UVP transport aircraft, three Mil Mi-2, and four Mil Mi-8 helicopters. The service branch received old Soviet radar and AAA equipment. The majority of Estonian Air Force units are stationed at one military airfield, Ämari Air Base, where renovation was completed in 2012. The airfield and garrison at Ämari is focused on preparing and assisting cooperation with NATO and the air forces of partner nations, and allows it to supply the standardized airfield and aircraft services necessary for host nation support.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Estonian Special Operations Force ESTSOF is the special operations command of the Estonian Defence Forces. Its tasks include special reconnaissance and surveillance, military support and direct action. The primary objective of the Special Operations Force is the development of capabilities for unconventional warfare.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Estonian Defence Forces Cyber Command is responsible for conducting cyber operations to provide support for Ministry of Defence's area of responsibility. Its tasks include ensuring the operation of IT services and conducting defensive and offensive cyberwarfare. It consists of the Headquarters Support and Signal Battalion, Information and Communication Technology Center, Cyber Information Operations Center and Strategic Communications Center.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Military of Estonia has been introducing a new 21st century based cyber warfare and defence formation in order to protect the vital infrastructure and e-infrastructure of Estonia. One of the leading organization in the Estonian cyber defence is the CERT (the Computer Emergency Response Team of Estonia), established in 2006, as an organisation responsible for the management of security incidents in .ee computer networks. Its task is to assist Estonian internet users in the implementation of preventive measures in order to reduce possible damage from security incidents and to help them in responding to security threats. The unit deals with security incidents that occur in Estonian networks, are started there, or have been notified of by citizens or institutions either in Estonia or abroad.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: On 25 June 2007, Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves met with the president of United States, George W. Bush. Among the topics discussed were the attacks on Estonian e-infrastructure.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The attacks triggered a number of military organisations around the world to reconsider the importance of network security to modern military doctrine. On 14 June 2007, defence ministers of NATO members held a meeting in Brussels, issuing a joint communiqué promising immediate action. First public results were estimated to arrive by autumn 2007.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In the aftermath of the Cyberattacks on Estonia 2007, plans to combine network defence with Estonian military doctrine, and related NATO plans to create a Cybernetic Defence Centre in Estonia, had been nicknamed the "Tiger's Defence" (), in reference to Tiigrihüpe.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Territorial Defence is a reserve force, which is based on the Estonian Defence League - a voluntary military national defence organisation, which acts in the area of responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. It consists of four territorial districts. It is tasked with planning and conducting military operations with units that are under its command.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Defence League possesses arms and engages in military exercises. The main goal of the Defence League is, on the basis of the citizens’ free will and initiative, to enhance the readiness of the nation to defend its independence and its constitutional order, including in the event of military threat. It plays an important role in supporting the civil structures. Its members aid in putting out wildfires, volunteer as assistant police members, and ensure safety at various events. Units, consisting of voluntary members of the Defence League, also participate in international peace support operations such as in the Balkan states. The Defence League and its affiliated organizations have positive relations with partner organizations in the Nordic countries, the United States and the United Kingdom.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: The Defence Forces consist of regular military units totaling 6,500 officers and conscripts. The planned size of the operational (wartime) structure as of 2017 was 21,000 personnel, which is to be increased to over 24,400 by 2026. The Estonian Army is structured according to the principle of a reserve force which means that the main part of the defence forces of the state are units in the reserve.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: In peacetime the reservists conduct periodic training, and the state purchases equipment and weapons. In wartime the reservists are mobilized into military units. The reserve units are formed on the territorial principle, i.e. conscripts from one area are called up at one time to one unit and after service they are sent to the reserve as one unit. The Estonian Army is always in constant defence readiness in co-operation with the other services.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Estonia instituted compulsory military service in late 1991. Around 3200 conscripts, including a small number of women, enter military units of Estonian Defence Forces every year. There are no conscripts in Estonian Air Force. The service is 11 months long for those trained as junior NCOs, drivers, military policemen and specialists. Other soldiers serve 8 months. Conscripts are serving in infantry, artillery, air defence, engineering, communications, naval, combat service support units and antitank, recce, mortar and military police subunits.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: According National Defence Development Plan the annual number of conscripts should reach 4000 by 2022 after a revision of medical and physical requirements. Increasing the number of soldiers would require more barracks, weapons and other infrastructure.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Among the discussions there have been proposals to reform service term to 6-9-12 months, such as in the Finnish Defence Forces, and to make female conscription mandatory. On the other hand, the private should gain practical skills in all weather conditions and should stay in reserve for at least 15 years.


title: Estonian Defence Forces

text: Since 2004 Estonia has been a full member of the NATO; it had been one of its foremost priorities since the restoration of independence. The United States is among the countries with which Estonia has very close cooperation in the defence and security fields. Currently, Estonia participates in the NATO Response Force and contributes in NTM-I (NATO Training Mission - Iraq). Until 2009, Estonia had 40 soldiers fighting alongside American Forces in the Iraq War and 150 soldiers, or about 3% of its total active military force, fighting alongside British Forces during the War in Afghanistan. Estonian forces have since been withdrawn from Iraq. In both cases, the units were regularly rotated. Estonia also provides peacekeepers for international missions in both Bosnia and Kosovo within the framework of the KFOR, and also contributes to EU battlegroups and NATO Response Force rotations and the EU’s anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. The Estonian military employs STANAG (NATO interoperable) weapons and equipment acquired from Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, the United States and Israel.


title: Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark (1906–1969)

text: Princess Theodora of Greece and Denmark (; 30 May 1906 – 16 October 1969) was by birth a Greek and Danish princess as well as Margravine of Baden through her marriage to Berthold, pretender to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden.


text: The second of five children of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Theodora spent a happy childhood between Athens and Corfu. In her youth, however, she witnessed the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), followed by the First World War (1914–1918) and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). For the young princess and her relatives, these conflicts had dramatic consequences and led to their exile in Switzerland (between 1917 and 1920), then in France and the United Kingdom (from 1922 to 1936). During their exile, Theodora and her family depended on the generosity of their foreign relatives, in particular Marie Bonaparte (who offered them accommodation in Saint-Cloud) and Lady Louis Mountbatten (who supported them financially).


text: At the end of the 1920s, Theodora's mother was struck by a mental health crisis which led to her confinement in a Swiss psychiatric hospital. Shortly after, in 1931, Theodora married Berthold, Margrave of Baden, son of Chancellor of the German Reich Prince Maximilian. The couple then moved to Salem Castle, where Berthold ran a school with teacher Kurt Hahn. The princess gave birth to three children there: Margarita (1932–2013), Maximilian (born 1933) and Ludwig (born 1937). Opposed to Nazism, Theodora and her husband kept their distance from the Nazi regime, however this did not prevent Berthold from enlisting in the "Wehrmacht" at the start of the Second World War. Affected by the conflict, which divided her family into two factions, Theodora became involved in the German Red Cross and other charitable organizations.


text: The defeat of Germany and its occupation by the Allies brought new upheavals in the life of Theodora and Berthold. Though not held by the Soviets, responsible for the death of several of their cousins, the couple was ostracized by the British royal family at the time of the marriage of Prince Philip, Theodora's only brother, to Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom (later Queen Elizabeth II) in 1947. Over the years, the couple was nevertheless reintegrated into the life of the European elite, as illustrated by their invitation and presence at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 and at the wedding of Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias, and Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark in 1962. Theodora died of heart problems six years after her husband, in 1969. She was the paternal aunt of Charles III.


text: The second daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg, Theodora was born at Tatoi Palace, near Athens, on 30 May 1906. At the time of her birth, her father was traveling to Spain, where he represented the Greek royal family on the occasion of the marriage of King Alfonso XIII of Spain to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, a cousin of her mother Alice. Baptized "Theodora" in honor of the Byzantine empress, but nicknamed "Dolla" by her family, the princess was raised within a united household, together with her elder sister Margarita (1905–1981), and younger sisters Cecilie (1911–1937), and Sophie (1914–2001). With their mother, Theodora and her sisters communicated in English, but they also used French, German, and Greek in the presence of their relatives and governesses. The princesses were formally educated in English and Greek.


text: Theodora's early childhood was affected by the instability that the Kingdom of Greece experienced at the start of the twentieth century. Tired of attacks from the press and the opposition, Andrew and Alice found refuge in travel and spent most of the period between 1907 and 1908 outside the borders of their country. With their daughters, they stayed in the United Kingdom, Germany, Malta and Russia, where they reunited with their many relatives including Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, Alexandra Feodorovna, and Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg (Alice's parents). At this time, Theodora was introduced to her young maternal uncle and aunt, Louis and Louise, to whom she and her sister Margarita later became very close.


text: In 1909, the Goudi coup occurred, a military putsch organized against the government of King George I of Greece, Theodora's grandfather. Shortly after this event, Prince Andrew and his brothers were forced to resign from the army. Concerned about the political situation of their country, Andrew and Alice once again found refuge abroad and stayed in the United Kingdom, France and Hesse. After considering a life in exile for a while, the couple returned to live in Greece, where their third daughter was born. At that time, Theodora was described by her maternal grandmother as a funny and imaginative little girl, but also very scatterbrained.


text: Between 1912 and 1913, Greece engaged in the Balkan Wars, which put the country in opposition to the Ottoman Empire and to Bulgaria. Called to join the army again, Prince Andrew served under Crown Prince Constantine, while Princess Alice worked as a nurse for wounded soldiers. Too young to follow their parents, Theodora and her sisters spent the duration of the conflict in Athens, with the exception of a brief stay in Thessaloniki in December 1912. Greece came out of the Balkan Wars with an expanded territory, but the conflict also led to the assassination of George I in March 1913. The death of the King of the Hellenes caused significant changes in the life of Theodora and her relatives. In his will, the sovereign bequeathed the Corfiote palace of Mon Repos to Andrew. After years of living in close proximity to the monarch, in the palaces of Athens and Tatoi, Andrew and his family therefore finally had their own residence.


text: When peace returned, Andrew, Alice and their daughters left Greece in August 1913. After a visit to Germany, they stayed in the United Kingdom, with Theodora's maternal grandparents. For little princesses, this trip was an opportunity to visit St Paul's Cathedral and London Zoo with their parents. Returning to Greece on 17 November 1913, the family was then retained in the country by Alice's fourth pregnancy and, above all, by the outbreak of the First World War. With Greece having proclaimed its neutrality, this new conflict initially hardly affected Theodora and her relatives. She and her sisters thus spent the summer of 1914 in Corfu, where they enjoyed the sun and the sea for four months.


text: Things changed as war entered into the life of the country's people. Stationed in Thessaloniki with his garrison, Andrew was thus confronted with the occupation of the city by the Allies in October 1915. Shortly after, in December, the routed Serbian army found refuge in Corfu, leading Alice and her daughters to abandon Mon Repos for the capital. Over the months, the amount of threats against members of the royal dynasty increased. In July 1916, an arsonist attacked the domain of Tatoi while the king was there with his wife and several of their children. In addition, on 1 December, the French navy bombarded the royal palace in Athens, forcing Theodora and her sisters to take refuge in the cellars with their mother.


text: In June 1917, King Constantine I was deposed and driven out of Greece by the Allies, who replaced him on the throne by his second son, the young Alexander. Fifteen days later, Theodora's family was in turn forced into exile in order to remove the possibility of the new monarch being influenced by those close to him. Forced to reside in German-speaking Switzerland, the small group first stayed in a hotel in St. Moritz, before settling in Lucerne, where they lived with uncertainty about their future.


text: Exile was not the only source of concern for the family, however. Following the Russian Revolution, several of Theodora's relatives (the Romanovs) were executed in Russia. Shortly after these events, the Grand Ducal family of Hesse, to which Theodora was closely related through her mother, was overthrown along with all the other German dynasties during the winter of 1918–1919. Finally, the family went through some health problems, several of them contracting the flu in 1920.


text: At the beginning of 1919, Theodora nevertheless had the joy of reuniting with her paternal grandmother, the Dowager Queen Olga, spared by the Bolsheviks thanks to the diplomatic intervention of the Danes. In the months that followed, she also reconnected with her maternal grandparents, whom the war had forced to abandon the name of Battenberg for that of Mountbatten. For Theodora, who now formed a duo with her elder sister Margarita, exile was synonymous with sadness but also an opportunity for long family reunions and walks in the mountains.


text: On 2 October 1920, King Alexander, cousin of Theodora, was bitten by a domestic monkey during a walk in Tatoi. Poorly cared for, he contracted sepsis, which prevailed on 25 October, without any member of his family being allowed to come to his bedside. The death of the sovereign caused a violent institutional crisis in Greece. Already stuck, since 1919, in a new war against Turkey, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos lost the 1920 Greek legislative election. Humiliated, he retired abroad while a referendum reinstalled Constantine I on the throne.


text: Prince Andrew was received triumphantly in Athens on 23 November 1920, and his wife and four daughters joined him a few days later. Theodora then returned to live in Corfu with her family. At the same time, Princess Alice found out that she was pregnant again. On 10 June 1921, the family welcomed Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (later Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, 1921–2021). The joy that surrounded this birth, however, was obscured by the absence of Prince Andrew, who joined the Greek forces in Asia Minor during the Occupation of Smyrna. Despite concerns about the war, Theodora and her siblings enjoyed life at Mon Repos, where they received a visit from their maternal grandmother and their aunt Louise in the spring of 1922. In the park near the palace, built on an ancient cemetery, the princesses devoted themselves to archeology and discovered some pottery, bronze pieces and bones.


text: During this period, Theodora and her sisters also participated, for the first time, in a number of great social events. In March 1921, the princesses attended in Athens the wedding of their cousin Helen to Crown Prince Carol of Romania. In July 1922, they went to the United Kingdom to be bridesmaids at the wedding of their uncle Louis Mountbatten to the wealthy heiress Edwina Ashley.


text: However, the military defeat of Greece against Turkey and the political unrest that it caused disrupted the life of Theodora and her family. In September 1922, Constantine I abdicated in favor of his eldest son, George II. A month later, Prince Andrew was arrested before being tried by a military tribunal, which declared him responsible for the defeat of the Sakarya. Saved from execution by the intervention of foreign chancelleries, the prince was condemned to banishment and cashiering. After a brief stop in Corfu, the prince and his relatives hurriedly left Greece aboard HMS "Calypso" in early December 1922.


text: After a journey of several weeks, which led them successively to Italy, France and the United Kingdom, Theodora, her parents and her siblings settled in Saint-Cloud in 1923. Settled in a house adjoining the home of Princess Marie Bonaparte, the family depended for seven years on her generosity, and two other aunts of Theodora: first Princess Anastasia and then Lady Louis Mountbatten. Marie Bonaparte financed the studies of her nieces and nephew, while Lady Mountbatten got into the habit of offering her nieces her "used" clothes. In fact, Theodora's parents had little income and the children were the regular witnesses to their money problems and their difficulty in maintaining a household.


text: Deprived of their Greek nationality after the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic in March 1924, Theodora and her family received Danish passports from their cousin King Christian X. Now of marrying age, the princess and her sister Margarita regularly left France for Great Britain, where they lived with their maternal grandmother, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven. With their aunt Louise, who increasingly replaced their mother as a chaperone and confidante, the two young girls attended most of the events by British aristocracy during the 1920s, including balls and dances, birthdays and garden parties at Buckingham Palace, horse races, etc. The two princesses also took advantage of their stays in London to visit their many relatives, such as their paternal grandmother, Queen Olga, who was Queen Alexandra's regular guest at Sandringham. However, the young girls' lack of fortune and their life in exile meant that they hardly had any suitors. By 1930, none of them had yet found a fiancé. This did not prevent them from rejoicing for their aunt Louise when she was asked by Gustaf Adolf, Crown Prince of Sweden, to marry him in June 1923.


text: Theodora, Margarita and Philip spent the summer of 1928 in Romania. Invited by Princess Helen, whose son Miachel I was the same age as Philip, the two young women and their brother stayed for several weeks in Sinaia. At the time, Prince Nicholas of Romania was still single and Helen wanted to see him marry one of her relatives, but her plans for her brother-in-law to marry one of her cousins came to nothing.


text: A few months after this trip, Alice began to suffer from psychological problems. Struck by a mental health crisis, the princess convinced herself that she possessed healing powers and that she was receiving divine messages about potential husbands for her daughters. She then took herself for a saint and soon declared herself the bride of Jesus. Distraught by the situation, Prince Andrew finally made the decision to place his wife in a sanatorium. He took advantage of his family's stay in Darmstadt, Germany, in April 1930, to send Alice to a psychiatric hospital located in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.


text: In the months which followed, Theodora's three sisters successively married German princes. Sophie married Prince Christoph of Hesse in December 1930, followed by Cecilie who married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse in February 1931, and Margarita who married Gottfried, Hereditary Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg in April 1931. Theodora thus became the last of the four sisters to get married.


text: In June 1931, Théodora became engaged to Berthold, Margrave of Baden. Son of the last chancellor of the German Empire and titular Grand Duke of Baden from November 1929, Berthold was in charge of a substantial fortune. A man of culture, he lived in Salem, where his father had founded a school with the help of his secretary, Kurt Hahn, in 1920. On 17 August 1931, Theodora and Berthold married in a double religious ceremony, both Lutheran and Orthodox, at the "Neues Schloss" in Baden-Baden, which resulted in a large family reunion, at which the bride's mother, Princess Alice, was not present. After the ceremony, the newlyweds went on their honeymoon in Capri, Italy, where they were hosts to the Swedish poet Axel Munthe.


text: Back in Germany, the couple moved to Salem Castle, a former Cistercian abbey transformed into a princely residence after its secularization in 1803. The Margrave and Margravine of Baden had three children: Margarita (1932–2013), Maximilian (born 1933) and Ludwig (born 1937). Concerned about her mother's fate, Theodora visited her several times in Kreuzlingen, but Alice did not always receive her daughter warmly. Aware that her brother had been living a chaotic existence since their mother's placement in a sanatorium, Theodora got Philip to go to school in Salem and to come and live with her and her husband in 1933. The rise of Nazism in Germany, however, led her to reverse her decision and send him back to the United Kingdom, where he finally enrolled in Gordonstoun in 1934.


text: Over the years, Theodora welcomed several members of her family to Salem. The Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven stayed on several occasions with her granddaughter, as did Prince Andrew. The princess also received her mother, once she had recovered from her health problems, and her sisters. Cecilie made a last visit to Salem in July 1937, before being killed in a plane crash with her family on 16 November 1937.


text: While several of their relatives such as Cecilie and Margarita, (Theodora's sisters) as well as Marie Alexandra (Berthold's sister), gradually joined the Nazi Party, the Margrave and Margravine of Baden tried to keep their distance from the Nazi regime. Shortly after the Reichstag Fire Decree established the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, the Jewish Kurt Hahn was arrested. Freed thanks to the intervention of the British government, the pedagogue was however removed from the direction of Salem and had to find refuge in the United Kingdom. Despite these events, Berthold obtained permission from the German authorities to keep his school open. Enjoying relative autonomy until 1941, the institution nevertheless underwent a process of Nazification which took it away from its initial values.


text: While Germany underwent Nazification from 1933, the Hellenic Republic was overthrown by General Kondylis in October 1935. A month later, King George II, Theodora's cousin, was reinstalled on the throne after a referendum. At the beginning of 1936, the banishment sentence issued in 1922 against Theodora's father Prince Andrew was lifted, which allowed him to stay in his country again. A regular target for the Hellenic press, the prince however chose to stay abroad for most of the year. Estranged from her husband since her confinement, Princess Alice made the choice to return and live in Athens, where she settled in November 1938. In the meantime, Theodora also returned to Greece with Berthold on the occasion of the marriage of Crown Prince Paul to Princess Frederica of Hanover in January 1938.


text: Enlisted in the "Wehrmacht" shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Theodora's husband was seriously injured in the leg during the Battle of France in 1940. Treated in Giessen, he then returned to Salem, where he spent the duration of the conflict with his wife and their children, without experiencing too many hardships. While Theodora engaged with the German Red Cross and other charitable organizations, Berthold took part in riskier actions, by attempting to hide Jews in his castle.


text: Affected by the occupation of Greece by the Nazis, Theodora was cut off from a large part of her family because of the conflict. Her father, Prince Andrew, found himself isolated on the French Riviera and contacting him became very difficult. As for her mother, she spent the war in Athens, but managed to pay a few visits to her daughters in 1940, 1942, and 1944 Added to this was the anguish of knowing her brothers-in-law Christoph and Gottfried and her brother Philip were fighting in opposite camps.


text: The war brought its share of tragedies for Theodora and her relatives. In October 1943, her sister Sophie's husband died in a plane crash while flying over the Apennine Mountains. A few months later, in January 1944, Marie Alexandra, Berthold's only sister, died in an attack by the U.S. Army Air Forces during an air-raid on Frankfurt am Main. Finally, in December 1944, her father Prince Andrew died in Monaco without having been able to see his children again. These events greatly affected Theodora, who then went through a period of depression.


text: The defeat of Germany and its occupation by the Allies brought new upheavals in the life of the former German princely families, several of whom (such as Hermine Reuss of Greiz, Joachim Ernst, Duke of Anhalt, or Georg, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen) perished in hands of the Soviets. Baden was placed under the administration of France and the United States, however, Berthold and Theodora were not under threat, and it did not take long for the margrave to find a leading social role. Berthold was thus able to reopen the Salem School, which he entrusted to his cousin, Prince George William of Hanover, in 1948. Two years earlier, the latter had married Theodora's sister Sophie (widowed since 1943), and the couple's move to Salem allowed Theodora to maintain close ties with her sister.


text: Theodora's relationship with her brother Philip was, on the other hand, more complicated. Since 1939, he had been linked to Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, and the two's engagement was officially announced on 10 July 1947. The preparations for the wedding began immediately. However, the ties of Philip's family to Germany frightened the British court and government, who feared that the public could be reminded of the Germanic origins of the House of Windsor if the royal family were publicly associated with former Nazi Party members.


text: Prince Philip found himself unable to invite his sisters to his wedding. Aware of the difficulties their brother had to face, Theodora, Margarita and Sophie considered their sidelining wrong and hurtful. They felt snubbed when they realized that their cousins, the Queen Mother of the Romanians and the Duchess of Aosta, had been invited despite their countries being allies of the Nazi regime during the conflict.


text: Harassed by the press, who submitted requests for interviews with them, Theodora and her sisters spent the day of 20 November 1947 at Marienburg Castle with their families. Invited by the Duke and Duchess of Brunswick, they celebrated the union of their brother in the company of their cousin Princess Elizabeth of Greece and Denmark and Prince Louis and Princess Margaret of Hesse and by Rhine. A few days later, the Greek princesses received a visit from the Queen of the Hellenes (who came to bring them a letter from their mother Princess Alice describing the wedding in detail) and the Duchess of Kent.


text: Once the monarchy was restored in Greece in 1946, Theodora and her husband were regularly invited to Athens. The couple was among the many individuals invited by King Paul and Queen Frederica to take part in the "cruise of the kings" in 1954, and in the celebrations for the centenary of the Hellenic dynasty in 1963. Theodora and her family were also invited to Athens on the occasion of the marriage of Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark and Juan Carlos, Prince of Asturias in 1962, and the marriage of King Constantine II and Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark in 1964.


text: In the early 1950s, relations between the British royal family and their German relatives in turn normalized. Theodora, her sisters, their husbands and some of their children were thus invited to the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Over the years, Theodora forged a close relationship with the British sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, who came to consider her as her favorite sister-in-law, according to the Spanish biographer Ricardo Mateos Sainz de Medrano.


text: The Margrave and Margravine of Baden also regularly invited their families to their residence in Salem. The marriages of their daughter Margarita to Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia in 1957 and their son Maximilian to Archduchess Valerie of Austria in 1966 were the occasions for great meetings of the European aristocracy. In 1965, Theodora organized a large reception in Salem on the occasion of the official trip of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to West Germany.


text: At the end of the 1940s, Theodora began to suffer from heart problems. Over time, her health deteriorated and she appeared very diminished at the wedding of Prince Juan Carlos and Princess Sophia in 1962. Her health then alternated between times when she had the greatest difficulty speaking or walking and times when she felt absolutely good. Unable to anticipate her next seizures, she had to move around with a cane at all times. Forced to have all her teeth pulled out, she acquired a strange smile, which her mother struggled to get used to.


text: As his wife's health deteriorated, Berthold suffered a fatal heart attack while driving with their son Ludwig on 27 October 1963. Upset by the demise of her husband, Theodora then hurriedly returned from Italy, where she was on vacation.


text: Theodora's last years were affected by the establishment of the Regime of the Colonels in Greece and by the departure into exile of King Constantine II and his family. Hospitalized at the clinic of Doctor Büdingen in Konstanz, Theodora died on 16 October 1969. Her funeral was held at the mausoleum of the Baden family in Salem in the presence of many members of the aristocracy, including her nephew Prince Charles, but not her brother Prince Philip who was on an official trip to Canada.


text: A brief allusion to Theodora and Berthold is made in the episode "Dear Mrs Kennedy" (season 2, episode 8) of the historical drama series "The Crown" (2017).


text: Through her father, she was a grandchild of George I of Greece and Olga Konstantinovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. Through her mother she was a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her mother was a granddaughter of Princess Alice, second daughter of Queen Victoria.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: A geomagnetic storm, also known as a magnetic storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave and/or cloud of magnetic field that interacts with the Earth's magnetic field.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The disturbance that drives the magnetic storm may be a solar coronal mass ejection (CME) or (much less severely) a co-rotating interaction region (CIR), a high-speed stream of solar wind originating from a coronal hole. The frequency of geomagnetic storms increases and decreases with the sunspot cycle. During solar maximum, geomagnetic storms occur more often, with the majority driven by CMEs.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The increase in the solar wind pressure initially compresses the magnetosphere. The solar wind's magnetic field interacts with the Earth's magnetic field and transfers an increased energy into the magnetosphere. Both interactions cause an increase in plasma movement through the magnetosphere (driven by increased electric fields inside the magnetosphere) and an increase in electric current in the magnetosphere and ionosphere. During the main phase of a geomagnetic storm, electric current in the magnetosphere creates a magnetic force that pushes out the boundary between the magnetosphere and the solar wind.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Several space weather phenomena tend to be associated with or are caused by a geomagnetic storm. These include solar energetic particle (SEP) events, geomagnetically induced currents (GIC), ionospheric disturbances that cause radio and radar scintillation, disruption of navigation by magnetic compass and auroral displays at much lower latitudes than normal.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The largest recorded geomagnetic storm, the Carrington Event in September 1859, took down parts of the recently created US telegraph network, starting fires and shocking some telegraph operators. In 1989, a geomagnetic storm energized ground induced currents that disrupted electric power distribution throughout most of Quebec and caused aurorae as far south as Texas.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: A geomagnetic storm is defined by changes in the Dst (disturbance – storm time) index. The Dst index estimates the globally averaged change of the horizontal component of the Earth's magnetic field at the magnetic equator based on measurements from a few magnetometer stations. Dst is computed once per hour and reported in near-real-time. During quiet times, Dst is between +20 and −20 nano-Tesla (nT).


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: A geomagnetic storm has three phases: initial, main and recovery. The initial phase is characterized by Dst (or its one-minute component SYM-H) increasing by 20 to 50 nT in tens of minutes. The initial phase is also referred to as a storm sudden commencement (SSC). However, not all geomagnetic storms have an initial phase and not all sudden increases in Dst or SYM-H are followed by a geomagnetic storm. The main phase of a geomagnetic storm is defined by Dst decreasing to less than −50 nT. The selection of −50 nT to define a storm is somewhat arbitrary. The minimum value during a storm will be between −50 and approximately −600 nT. The duration of the main phase is typically 2–8 hours. The recovery phase is when Dst changes from its minimum value to its quiet time value. The recovery phase may last as short as 8 hours or as long as 7 days.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The size of a geomagnetic storm is classified as moderate (−50 nT > minimum of Dst > −100 nT), intense (−100 nT > minimum Dst > −250 nT) or super-storm (minimum of Dst < −250 nT).


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: In 1931, Sydney Chapman and Vincenzo C. A. Ferraro wrote an article, "A New Theory of Magnetic Storms", that sought to explain the phenomenon. They argued that whenever the Sun emits a solar flare it also emits a plasma cloud, now known as a coronal mass ejection. They postulated that this plasma travels at a velocity such that it reaches Earth within 113 days, though we now know this journey takes 1 to 5 days. They wrote that the cloud then compresses the Earth's magnetic field and thus increases this field at the Earth's surface. Chapman and Ferraro's work drew on that of, among others, Kristian Birkeland, who had used recently-discovered cathode ray tubes to show that the rays were deflected towards the poles of a magnetic sphere. He theorised that a similar phenomenon was responsible for auroras, explaining why they are more frequent in polar regions.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The first scientific observation of the effects of a geomagnetic storm occurred early in the 19th century: from May 1806 until June 1807, Alexander von Humboldt recorded the bearing of a magnetic compass in Berlin. On 21 December 1806, he noticed that his compass had become erratic during a bright auroral event.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. From August 28 until September 2, 1859, numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the Sun, with the largest flare on September 1. This is referred to as the Solar storm of 1859 or the Carrington Event. It can be assumed that a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) was launched from the Sun and reached the Earth within eighteen hours—a trip that normally takes three to four days. The horizontal field was reduced by 1600 nT as recorded by the Colaba Observatory. It is estimated that Dst would have been approximately −1760 nT. Telegraph wires in both the United States and Europe experienced induced voltage increases (emf), in some cases even delivering shocks to telegraph operators and igniting fires. Aurorae were seen as far south as Hawaii, Mexico, Cuba and Italy—phenomena that are usually only visible in polar regions. Ice cores show evidence that events of similar intensity recur at an average rate of approximately once per 500 years.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Since 1859, less severe storms have occurred, notably the aurora of November 17, 1882 and the May 1921 geomagnetic storm, both with disruption of telegraph service and initiation of fires, and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: In early August 1972, a series of flares and solar storms peaks with a flare estimated around X20 producing the fastest CME transit ever recorded and a severe geomagnetic and proton storm that disrupted terrestrial electrical and communications networks, as well as satellites (at least one made permanently inoperative), and spontaneously detonated numerous U.S. Navy magnetic-influence sea mines in North Vietnam.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The March 1989 geomagnetic storm caused the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid in seconds as equipment protection relays tripped in a cascading sequence. Six million people were left without power for nine hours. The storm caused auroras as far south as Texas. The storm causing this event was the result of a coronal mass ejected from the Sun on March 9, 1989. The minimum Dst was −589 nT.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: On July 14, 2000, an X5 class flare erupted (known as the Bastille Day event) and a coronal mass was launched directly at the Earth. A geomagnetic super storm occurred on July 15–17; the minimum of the Dst index was −301 nT. Despite the storm's strength, no power distribution failures were reported. The Bastille Day event was observed by "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2", thus it is the farthest out in the Solar System that a solar storm has been observed.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Seventeen major flares erupted on the Sun between 19 October and 5 November 2003, including perhaps the most intense flare ever measured on the GOES XRS sensor—a huge X28 flare, resulting in an extreme radio blackout, on 4 November. These flares were associated with CME events that caused three geomagnetic storms between 29 October and 2 November, during which the second and third storms were initiated before the previous storm period had fully recovered. The minimum Dst values were −151, −353 and −383 nT. Another storm in this sequence occurred on 4–5 November with a minimum Dst of −69 nT. The last geomagnetic storm was weaker than the preceding storms, because the active region on the Sun had rotated beyond the meridian where the central portion CME created during the flare event passed to the side of the Earth. The whole sequence became known as the Halloween Solar Storm. The Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was offline for approximately 30 hours due to the storm. The Japanese ADEOS-2 satellite was severely damaged and the operation of many other satellites were interrupted due to the storm.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The solar wind also carries with it the Sun's magnetic field. This field will have either a North or South orientation. If the solar wind has energetic bursts, contracting and expanding the magnetosphere, or if the solar wind takes a southward polarization, geomagnetic storms can be expected. The southward field causes magnetic reconnection of the dayside magnetopause, rapidly injecting magnetic and particle energy into the Earth's magnetosphere.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: During a geomagnetic storm, the ionosphere's F layer becomes unstable, fragments, and may even disappear. In the northern and southern pole regions of the Earth, auroras are observable.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Magnetometers monitor the auroral zone as well as the equatorial region. Two types of radar, coherent scatter and incoherent scatter, are used to probe the auroral ionosphere. By bouncing signals off ionospheric irregularities, which move with the field lines, one can trace their motion and infer magnetospheric convection.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Computers have made it possible to bring together decades of isolated magnetic observations and extract average patterns of electrical currents and average responses to interplanetary variations. They also run simulations of the global magnetosphere and its responses, by solving the equations of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) on a numerical grid. Appropriate extensions must be added to cover the inner magnetosphere, where magnetic drifts and ionospheric conduction need to be taken into account. At polar regions, directly linked to the solar wind, large-scale ionospheric anomalies can be successfully modeled, even during geomagnetic super-storms. At smaller scales (comparable to a degree of latitude/longitude) the results are difficult to interpret, and certain assumptions about the high-latitude forcing uncertainty are needed.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: It has been suggested that a geomagnetic storm on the scale of the solar storm of 1859 today would cause billions or even trillions of dollars of damage to satellites, power grids and radio communications, and could cause electrical blackouts on a massive scale that might not be repaired for weeks, months, or even years. Such sudden electrical blackouts may threaten food production.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: When magnetic fields move about in the vicinity of a conductor such as a wire, a geomagnetically induced current is produced in the conductor. This happens on a grand scale during geomagnetic storms (the same mechanism also influenced telephone and telegraph lines before fiber optics, see above) on all long transmission lines. Long transmission lines (many kilometers in length) are thus subject to damage by this effect. Notably, this chiefly includes operators in China, North America, and Australia, especially in modern high-voltage, low-resistance lines. The European grid consists mainly of shorter transmission circuits, which are less vulnerable to damage.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The (nearly direct) currents induced in these lines from geomagnetic storms are harmful to electrical transmission equipment, especially transformers—inducing core saturation, constraining their performance (as well as tripping various safety devices), and causing coils and cores to heat up. In extreme cases, this heat can disable or destroy them, even inducing a chain reaction that can overload transformers. Most generators are connected to the grid via transformers, isolating them from the induced currents on the grid, making them much less susceptible to damage due to geomagnetically induced current. However, a transformer that is subjected to this will act as an unbalanced load to the generator, causing negative sequence current in the stator and consequently rotor heating.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: According to a study by Metatech corporation, a storm with a strength comparable to that of 1921 would destroy more than 300 transformers and leave over 130 million people without power in the United States, costing several trillion dollars. The extent of the disruption is debated, with some congressional testimony indicating a potentially indefinite outage until transformers can be replaced or repaired. These predictions are contradicted by a North American Electric Reliability Corporation report that concludes that a geomagnetic storm would cause temporary grid instability but no widespread destruction of high-voltage transformers. The report points out that the widely quoted Quebec grid collapse was not caused by overheating transformers but by the near-simultaneous tripping of seven relays.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Besides the transformers being vulnerable to the effects of a geomagnetic storm, electricity companies can also be affected indirectly by the geomagnetic storm. For instance, internet service providers may go down during geomagnetic storms (and/or remain non-operational long after). Electricity companies may have equipment requiring a working internet connection to function, so during the period the internet service provider is down, the electricity too may not be distributed.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: By receiving geomagnetic storm alerts and warnings (e.g. by the Space Weather Prediction Center; via Space Weather satellites as SOHO or ACE), power companies can minimize damage to power transmission equipment, by momentarily disconnecting transformers or by inducing temporary blackouts. Preventive measures also exist, including preventing the inflow of GICs into the grid through the neutral-to-ground connection.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: High frequency (3–30 MHz) communication systems use the ionosphere to reflect radio signals over long distances. Ionospheric storms can affect radio communication at all latitudes. Some frequencies are absorbed and others are reflected, leading to rapidly fluctuating signals and unexpected propagation paths. TV and commercial radio stations are little affected by solar activity, but ground-to-air, ship-to-shore, shortwave broadcast and amateur radio (mostly the bands below 30 MHz) are frequently disrupted. Radio operators using HF bands rely upon solar and geomagnetic alerts to keep their communication circuits up and running.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Military detection or early warning systems operating in the high frequency range are also affected by solar activity. The "over-the-horizon radar" bounces signals off the ionosphere to monitor the launch of aircraft and missiles from long distances. During geomagnetic storms, this system can be severely hampered by radio clutter. Also some submarine detection systems use the magnetic signatures of submarines as one input to their locating schemes. Geomagnetic storms can mask and distort these signals.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The Federal Aviation Administration routinely receives alerts of solar radio bursts so that they can recognize communication problems and avoid unnecessary maintenance. When an aircraft and a ground station are aligned with the Sun, high levels of noise can occur on air-control radio frequencies. This can also happen on UHF and SHF satellite communications, when an Earth station, a satellite and the Sun are in alignment. In order to prevent unnecessary maintenance on satellite communications systems aboard aircraft AirSatOne provides a live feed for geophysical events from NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. allows users to view observed and predicted space storms. Geophysical Alerts are important to flight crews and maintenance personnel to determine if any upcoming activity or history has or will have an effect on satellite communications, GPS navigation and HF Communications.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Telegraph lines in the past were affected by geomagnetic storms. Telegraphs used a single long wire for the data line, stretching for many miles, using the ground as the return wire and fed with DC power from a battery; this made them (together with the power lines mentioned below) susceptible to being influenced by the fluctuations caused by the ring current. The voltage/current induced by the geomagnetic storm could have diminished the signal, when subtracted from the battery polarity, or to overly strong and spurious signals when added to it; some operators learned to disconnect the battery and rely on the induced current as their power source. In extreme cases the induced current was so high the coils at the receiving side burst in flames, or the operators received electric shocks. Geomagnetic storms affect also long-haul telephone lines, including undersea cables unless they are fiber optic.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Damage to communications satellites can disrupt non-terrestrial telephone, television, radio and Internet links. The National Academy of Sciences reported in 2008 on possible scenarios of widespread disruption in the 2012–2013 solar peak. A solar superstorm could cause large-scale global months-long Internet outages. A study describes potential mitigation measures and exceptions – such as user-powered mesh networks, related peer-to-peer applications and new protocols – and analyzes the robustness of the current Internet infrastructure.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and other navigation systems such as LORAN and the now-defunct OMEGA are adversely affected when solar activity disrupts their signal propagation. The OMEGA system consisted of eight transmitters located throughout the world. Airplanes and ships used the very low frequency signals from these transmitters to determine their positions. During solar events and geomagnetic storms, the system gave navigators information that was inaccurate by as much as several miles. If navigators had been alerted that a proton event or geomagnetic storm was in progress, they could have switched to a backup system.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: GNSS signals are affected when solar activity causes sudden variations in the density of the ionosphere, causing the satellite signals to scintillate (like a twinkling star). The scintillation of satellite signals during ionospheric disturbances is studied at HAARP during ionospheric modification experiments. It has also been studied at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: One technology used to allow GPS receivers to continue to operate in the presence of some confusing signals is Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM). However, RAIM is predicated on the assumption that a majority of the GPS constellation is operating properly, and so it is much less useful when the entire constellation is perturbed by global influences such as geomagnetic storms. Even if RAIM detects a loss of integrity in these cases, it may not be able to provide a useful, reliable signal.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Geomagnetic storms and increased solar ultraviolet emission heat Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. The heated air rises, and the density at the orbit of satellites up to about increases significantly. This results in increased drag, causing satellites to slow and change orbit slightly. Low Earth orbit satellites that are not repeatedly boosted to higher orbits slowly fall and eventually burn up. Skylab's 1979 destruction is an example of a spacecraft reentering Earth's atmosphere prematurely as a result of higher-than-expected solar activity. During the great geomagnetic storm of March 1989, four of the U.S. Navy's navigational satellites had to be taken out of service for up to a week, the U.S. Space Command had to post new orbital elements for over 1000 objects affected, and the Solar Maximum Mission satellite fell out of orbit in December the same year.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: The vulnerability of the satellites depends on their position as well. The South Atlantic Anomaly is a perilous place for a satellite to pass through, due to the unusually weak geomagnetic field at low Earth orbit.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Rapidly fluctuating geomagnetic fields can produce geomagnetically induced currents in pipelines. This can cause multiple problems for pipeline engineers. Pipeline flow meters can transmit erroneous flow information and the corrosion rate of the pipeline can be dramatically increased.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Earth's atmosphere and magnetosphere allow adequate protection at ground level, but astronauts are subject to potentially lethal radiation poisoning. The penetration of high-energy particles into living cells can cause chromosome damage, cancer and other health problems. Large doses can be immediately fatal. Solar protons with energies greater than 30 MeV are particularly hazardous.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Solar proton events can also produce elevated radiation aboard aircraft flying at high altitudes. Although these risks are small, flight crews may be exposed repeatedly, and monitoring of solar proton events by satellite instrumentation allows exposure to be monitored and evaluated, and eventually flight paths and altitudes to be adjusted to lower the absorbed dose.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Ground level enhancements, also known as ground level events or GLEs, occur when a solar particle event contains particles with sufficient energy to have effects at ground level, mainly detected as an increase in the number of neutrons measured at ground level. These events have been shown to have an impact on radiation dosage, but they do not significantly increase the risk of cancer.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: There is a large but controversial body of scientific literature on connections between geomagnetic storms and human health. This began with Russian papers, and the subject was subsequently studied by Western scientists. Theories for the cause include the involvement of cryptochrome, melatonin, the pineal gland, and the circadian rhythm.


title: Geomagnetic storm

text: Some scientists suggest that solar storms induce whales to beach themselves. Some have speculated that migrating animals which use magnetoreception to navigate, such as birds and honey bees, might also be affected.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: The Singapore Grand Prix is a motor racing event which forms part of the Formula One World Championship. The event takes place on the Marina Bay Street Circuit and was the inaugural night race and first street circuit in Asia designed for Formula One races.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: The original Singapore Grand Prix was held at Thomson Road from 1966 to 1973, before returning to the calendar in 2008 at Marina Bay. Fernando Alonso won the inaugural Formula One edition of the renewed Grand Prix, driving for the Renault team amid controversial circumstances, when it emerged a year later that his teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. had been ordered to crash on purpose by senior team management to bring out the safety car at a time chosen to benefit Alonso. The race itself was also notable for being the 800th Formula One World Championship race since its inception in 1950, and the first ever Formula One race held at night.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Since its inception, Marina Bay has been known for featuring at least one safety car in every race edition, with a total of 23 safety car deployments as of 2022. The Singapore Grand Prix has been considered to be one of the most challenging and unique tracks on the Formula One calendar. Sebastian Vettel has the most wins on the track, with five Singapore Grand Prix victories. In 2022, a contract extension was announced which will put the race on the Formula One calendar until at least 2028.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: First organised in 1961, the race was initially known as the "Orient Year Grand Prix", located at the Thomson Road Grand Prix circuit.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: It was renamed to the Singapore Grand Prix in 1966, shortly after Singapore became a sovereign country in 1965. The event was discontinued after 1973 and a variety of reasons have been suggested, including an increase in traffic, the very high danger and unsuitability of the track for racing, the inconvenience of having to close roads for the event and fatal accidents during the 1972 and 1973 races.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Announced in 2008, an agreement for a five-year deal was signed by Singapore GP Pte Ltd, the Singapore Tourism Board and Bernie Ecclestone. In November 2007, it was announced that the telecommunications company Singtel would be the title sponsor of the event. The official name of the event became the Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix. The race was co-funded by the Government of Singapore, footing 60% of the total bill, or S$90 million, out of a total tab of S$150 million.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Around 110,000 tickets were made available for the country's first Formula One race. Corporate hospitality suites and packages went on sale at the end November 2007, three-day passes to the public went on sale in February 2008. Single-day passes went on sale a month later. The event went on to achieve a full sell-out for all of its tickets. The 2008 race hosted the Amber Lounge after-party and in 2010, Singapore became the second location to host the Amber Lounge Fashion show.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: The first race held at the new Marina Bay Street Circuit was the 15th round of the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship, and was also the first night-time event in Formula One history. The timing of the night event also meant that it could be broadcast live at a convenient time for TV audiences outside of the Asia-Pacific. The track was also illuminated by a series of projectors which adapt their output to match the shape of the course. On track, Felipe Massa was the first man to sit on the Singapore pole in his Ferrari, and dominated the race until he was released early at a pit stop, breaking his fuel rig and dropping him to last place. The race was won by Fernando Alonso driving for the Renault team, though that result has since been tarnished by controversy. Renault were found to have ordered Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash, as the ensuing safety car would strongly benefit Alonso.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: For the 2009 race, the circuit was reprofiled slightly, including modifications to turns 1, 2 and 3 to aid overtaking, and also at turn 10 where high kerbs caused many accidents in 2008. McLaren driver and reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton took pole position and sprinted away to win. Timo Glock finished second for Toyota, and Fernando Alonso was third in the first race for Renault after they received a suspended disqualification from the sport for manipulating the previous year's race.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Fernando Alonso became the first man to win twice in Singapore. Now at Ferrari, he took pole and resisted Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel on his way to the 25th victory of his F1 career. Michael Schumacher, making his F1


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: comeback in 2010, struggled in his Mercedes and was 13th, while Heikki Kovalainen leapt from his burning Lotus T127, borrowed a fire extinguisher and put the fire out himself.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Sebastian Vettel, an eight-time winner in 2011 before Marina Bay, led the drivers' championship by over 100 points. He won the race from his 11th pole of the season. Vettel, Button, Webber, Alonso and Hamilton filled the top five places. Michael Schumacher again struggled as he slammed into the Sauber of Sergio Pérez.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: On 22 September 2012, the AP reported that Bernie Ecclestone and the Singapore Grand Prix had agreed that the Grand Prix would remain on the Formula One calendar until 2017. Lewis Hamilton claimed his fifth pole of the season for McLaren and his second in Singapore. A surprise visitor to the front row alongside him was the Williams of Pastor Maldonado, but it was Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull that inherited the race lead when Hamilton pulled out with gearbox problems. Vettel then dedicated his 23rd Grand Prix win to Sid Watkins, who had died shortly before the race.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: For the 2013 race, it was announced that the 10th turn of the track, the "Singapore Sling" chicane, would be reconfigured so the cars would have to navigate a flowing left-hander before accelerating towards the Anderson Bridge.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Sebastian Vettel took his third successive win in Singapore with Red Bull and the 33rd of his career as a fourth straight title also loomed. He did it from his second Singapore pole, recovering from the surprise of seeing Nico Rosberg's Mercedes briefly ahead at race start to take victory by over half a minute. Fernando Alonso was on the podium yet again before stopping his Ferrari to pick up Mark Webber, whose Red Bull was in flames at Turn 7.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: On 15 April 2014, it was announced that Singapore Airlines would sponsor the Singapore Grand Prix, starting from that year.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: F1's new-generation turbo-charged, hybrid-powered cars brought a new look to the track, ending the reign of the 2.4-litre power unit, but a controversial ban on radio communications dominated pre-race proceedings. Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton sailed to his seventh win of the year, becoming Singapore's third multiple winner in the process as teammate Nico Rosberg retired with technical problems. Sebastian Vettel, bound for Ferrari in 2015, finished second ahead of new Red Bull partner Daniel Ricciardo.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Lewis Hamilton arrived in Singapore one pole position shy of his idol Ayrton Senna's record run of eight in a row. Another win would also put Hamilton on 41 – the same number as Senna. Sebastian Vettel took his first Ferrari pole, then made it four wins at Marina Bay as Hamilton retired with a loss of electrical power just after half-distance. Daniel Ricciardo split the two Ferraris in second place, while Formula One rookie Max Verstappen shouted 'No!' when told to move over for Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: During the 2015 race a spectator entered the track on the straight after Anderson Bridge, as leaders Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo sped by. He climbed over the fencing when the safety car was deployed. Eventual race winner Vettel described the man as 'crazy' in his post-race interview. The 27-year-old man was arrested by Singapore police after the incident. CCTV footage showed he had sneaked through a gap in the fencing.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Nico Rosberg was making his 200th Grand Prix start. He was locked in a two-man tussle for the title with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. Rosberg took pole position, and held off Daniel Ricciardo to win while Hamilton finished third. Rosberg went on to win the title.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: On 19 June 2017, the FIA's World Motor Sport Council in Geneva released its provisional 2018 calendar, in which the Singapore Grand Prix was given a tentative date of 16 September. At the time, the race (as well as the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai) were subject to confirmation by the commercial rights holders. On the eve of the 2017 race, the track and F1 announced an extension for the race through 2021. This race was a critical event in the season as polesitter and title contender, Sebastian Vettel, was involved in a first corner collision with Ferrari teammate Kimi Räikkönen and Red Bull's Max Verstappen, which led to the retirement of all three drivers. Vettel's title rival, Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton, took full advantage and won the race from 5th on the grid to extend his championship lead over Vettel from 3 points to 28.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: After a disappointing weekend in Monza, Ferrari arrived in Singapore with high hopes of a victory. However, Lewis Hamilton took pole position, ahead of Max Verstappen and the Ferrari of Vettel. At the start, the two Racing Point Force India drivers, Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon had an incident which resulted in Ocon retiring. Vettel overtook Verstappen right before the Safety Car was deployed. Vettel was the first of the front runners to pit, on lap 15. He was put on ultrasoft tyres, while most other people who pitted during that time went for the softs. He exited behind Pérez but overtook him a lap later. Verstappen pitted for soft tyres on lap 18, and exited just in front of Vettel. Vettel, being on the higher wear ultrasofts, did not attack in order to make it to the end. On lap 34, Pérez had a clash with Sergey Sirotkin which resulted in him getting a drive-through penalty. Sirotkin himself got a 5-second time penalty after forcing Brendon Hartley off the track. Later on in the race, he was battling with Romain Grosjean as Hamilton and Verstappen approached to lap them. Instead of letting the leaders pass, Grosjean continued to attack Sirotkin which allowed Verstappen to close the gap to Hamilton and nearly overtake him. The Frenchman was handed a 5-second penalty and 2 penalty points on his licence. In the end Hamilton won, with Verstappen second and Vettel third, increasing his championship lead over the German to 40 points.


title: Singapore Grand Prix

text: Both the 2020 and 2021 iterations of the event were cancelled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions then-imposed by the Government of Singapore, on arriving foreign tourists.