title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The four bridges, two for each direction with the collector and express lanes, carried an average of 373,700 vehicles daily in 2006.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The highway is one of the major backbones of a network in the Great Lakes region, connecting the populous Quebec City–Windsor corridor with Michigan, New York and central Ontario's cottage country.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: It is the principal connection between Toronto and Montreal, becoming Autoroute 20 at the Ontario–Quebec border.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401 does not yet extend the last few kilometres to Detroit; an extension to Brighton Beach (at the Canada–US border in Windsor) was completed in November 2015, after which the Gordie Howe International Bridge will extend Highway 401 across the Canada–United States border to a connection through Delray to Interstate 75 in Michigan by the end of 2024.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: At present, Highway 401 begins as a six-lane freeway at the west end of the E. C. Row Expressway. At the Dougall Parkway, the highway turns east and exits Windsor. From here, Highway 401 mostly parallels the former route of Highway 98 from Windsor to Tilbury.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Southwestern Ontario is flat, primarily agricultural land, that takes advantage of the fertile clay soil deposited throughout the region.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The main river through the region is the Thames River, which drains the second largest watershed in southern Ontario and largely influences the land use surrounding the highway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Near Tilbury, Highway 401 loses its tall wall median barrier and narrows to four lanes, following lot lines laid between concession roads in a plan designed to limit damage to the sensitive agricultural lands through which the highway runs.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The section from Windsor to London (especially west of Tilbury) has become known for deadly car accidents and pile-ups, earning it the nickname "Carnage Alley".


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Within London, it intersects the city's two municipal expressways, Highbury Avenue and the Veterans Memorial Parkway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The section between London and Woodstock generally parallels the former Highway 2 but lies on the south side of the Thames River. This area is not as flat but the highway is generally straight. This part of Highway 401 often experiences heavy snowsqualls in early winter, sometimes extending as far east as Toronto. To the south of Woodstock, Highway 401 curves northeast and the western terminus of Highway 403 merges into it. From here the highway heads towards Kitchener and Cambridge, substantially north of the route of the former Highway 2 as Highway 403 assumes the role of paralleling the former Highway 2 all the way to Mississauga.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Heading towards Kitchener the highway intersects with Highway 8 and returns to its eastward orientation. Between Highway/Regional Road 8 and Highway/Regional Road 24 in Cambridge, the highway has recently been widened to twelve lanes to accommodate the growing traffic using that segment.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Beyond Highway/Regional Road 24, the highway returns to a six-lane cross section and meanders towards Milton, passing through hills and rock cuts along the way.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: As Highway 401 approaches the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), it descends through the ecologically protected Niagara Escarpment to the west of Milton.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Upon entering the town, it enters the first urbanized section of the GTA, passing through two rural areas between there and Oshawa. Part of this rural gap is the western side of Toronto's Greenbelt, a zone around Toronto protected from development. After this gap, the highway interchanges with the Highway 407 Express Toll Route. Within the GTA, the highway passes several major shopping malls including Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Scarborough Town Centre and Pickering Town Centre.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401 widens into a collector-express system (the first of three distinct sets) as it approaches James Snow Parkway in Milton, a concept inspired by the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago. The system divides each direction of travel into collector and express lanes,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: giving the highway a wide span and four carriageways. To avoid confusion between carriageways, blue signs are used for the collector lanes and green signs for the express lanes. Unlike the collector lanes, which provide access to every interchange, the express lanes only provide direct access to a select few interchanges. Access between the two is provided by "transfers", which are strategically placed to prevent disruptions caused by closely spaced interchanges.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The overall purpose of the collector-express system is to maximize traffic flow for both local and long-distance traffic. In addition, Highway 401 was equipped with a traffic camera system called COMPASS in early 1991.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Using closed-circuit television cameras, vehicle detection loops and LED changeable-message signs, COMPASS enables the MTO Traffic Operations Centre to obtain a real-time assessment of traffic conditions and alert drivers of collisions, congestion and construction.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The system stretches from the Highway 403 / 410 interchange in Mississauga to Harwood Avenue in Ajax.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Three sets of collector-express systems exist in the GTA. The first set is long from James Snow Parkway to Highway 407. The second set is long and runs from Winston Churchill Boulevard to Highway 427, initially terminating just west of Highway 410 in the early 1990s, but since the 2010s has extended westward in stages to include the interchanges with Hurontario Street, Mavis Road, and Mississauga Road, with the final extension to Winston Churchill being completed in 2022.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: This system was originally designed to accommodate and organize various traffic movements from the Highway 403 / 410 and Highway 427 interchanges along Highway 401, replacing an earlier plan that would have run Highway 403 directly to Eglinton Avenue and the never-built Richview Expressway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: East of the interchange with Renforth Drive, the collector lanes diverge to become the on-ramps to Highway 427 northbound and southbound. The second system starts from Highway 409 and passes through the centre of Toronto, ending at Brock Road in Pickering to the east.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The gap between the two systems is a traffic bottleneck. However, the interchange with Highway 427 cannot accommodate future widening of Highway 401.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401 widens to 18 lanes south of Toronto Pearson International Airport. Progressing eastward, eight lanes are carried beneath the large spaghetti junction at Highway 427. The highway curves northeast and follows a power transmission corridor to Highway 409, which merges with the mainline and forms the collector lanes. It returns to its eastward route through Toronto, now carrying 12–16 lanes of traffic on four carriageways.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401 is often congested in this section, with an average of 442,900 vehicles passing between Weston Road and Highway 400 per day as of 2008. In spite of this congestion, it is the primary commuting route in Toronto; over 50 percent of vehicles bound for downtown Toronto use the highway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: East of Highway 400 is The Basketweave, as each direction has a criss-crossing transfer between the express and collectors carriageways. Near Yorkdale Shopping Centre, twelve lanes pass beneath a complicated interchange with Allen Road, built to serve the cancelled Spadina Expressway. Further east, the highway crosses Hogg's Hollow, over the West Don River and Yonge Street in the centre of Toronto, the busiest multi-span bridge crossing in North America, surpassing the Brooklyn Bridge. It then crosses the East Don River and climbs toward an interchange with the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 404, which provides access to downtown Toronto and the suburbs to the north, respectively.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Progressing eastward in Scarborough, the Highway 401 continues through mostly residential areas and Scarborough City Centre including the shopping mall, eventually reaching the city's eastern edge where former Highway 2A merges into it at a vast interchange with Kingston Road and Port Union Road, and crossing the Rouge Valley into Pickering.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: West of Pickering, Highway 401 again meets former Highway 2, which thereafter parallels it to the Ontario–Quebec border. As the highway approaches Brock Road in Pickering, the collector and express lanes converge, narrowing the 14-lane cross-section to 10, divided only at the centre.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Planned expansions east of Salem to improve flow leading into the Highway 412 and Lakeridge Road interchanges will see the highway widened to ten lanes as far as Brock Street in Whitby, where the existing interchange will be reconfigured.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: East of Ajax, the highway passes through the second 3.5 km (2.1 mi) rural gap, and enters Whitby. The stretch of Highway 401 through Whitby and Oshawa features several structures completed during the initial construction of the highway in the 1940s. Several of these structures are to be demolished, either due to their age, or to prepare for the planned widening of Highway 401 through this area.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: A former Canadian National Railway overpass, which was fenced off but commonly used by pedestrians during Highway of Heroes repatriations, was demolished on the night of June 11, 2011. A second structure in Bowmanville was demolished during two overnight closures on July 9 and 16.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: At Harmony Road, the suburban surroundings quickly transition to agricultural land. The highway curves around the south side of Bowmanville and travels towards Highway 35 and Highway 115.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: From east of Highway 35 and Highway 115 to Cobourg, Highway 401 passes through a mix of agricultural land and forests, maintaining a straight course.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Just east of Cobourg, the highway narrows to four lanes and the terrain becomes undulating, with the highway routed around hills and through valleys along the shores of Lake Ontario.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: At Trenton, the highway crosses the Trent Canal and returns to an agricultural setting. It then crosses the Moira River as it goes through Belleville before heading eastward to Kingston. The Kingston portion of the highway, originally named the "Kingston-Bypass", was one of the first sections of the highway to be completed; it is now mostly three lanes each way.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: East of Kingston, the highway continues through a predominantly agricultural area alongside the St. Lawrence River to Gananoque, where it splits with the Thousand Islands Parkway, one of the original sections of the highway designated in 1952. The Highway 401 runs parallel to the parkway several kilometres inland from the river. The Canadian Shield, an ancient geological formation, appears through this heavily forested section of the highway. Highway 401 rejoins the Thousand Islands Parkway immediately southwest of Brockville, now heading northeast.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The remainder of the highway runs parallel to the former Highway 2 along the shore of the St. Lawrence River within the St. Lawrence Valley. Northeast of Brockville is the interchange with Highway 416, which heads north to Ottawa. At the Ontario–Quebec border, Highway 401 becomes Autoroute 20 and continues to Montreal.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The MTO publishes yearly traffic volume data for provincial highways, expressed as an average daily vehicle count over the span of a year (AADT).


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The table below compares the AADT at several locations along Highway 401 using data from 1969, 1988, 2008 and 2016.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401's history predates its designation by over two decades. As automobile use in southern Ontario grew in the early 20th century, road design and construction advanced significantly. Following frequent erosion of Lake Shore Road, then macadamized,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: a concrete road known as the "Toronto–Hamilton Highway" was proposed in January 1914. Construction began on November 8 of that year, following the onset of .


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The highway was designed to run along the lake shore, instead of Dundas Street to the north, because the numerous hills encountered along Dundas would have increased costs without improving accessibility. Middle Road, a dirt lane named because of its position between the two, was not considered since Lake Shore and Dundas were both overcrowded and in need of serious repairs.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The road was formally opened on November 24, 1917, wide and nearly long. It was the first concrete road in Ontario, as well as one of the longest stretches of concrete road between two cities in the world.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Over the next decade, vehicle usage increased substantially, and by 1920, Lakeshore Road was again congested, particularly during weekends.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In response, the Department of Highways examined improving another road between Toronto and Hamilton. The road was to be more than twice the width of Lakeshore Road at and would carry two lanes of traffic in either direction.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Construction on what was then known as the "Queen Street Extension" west of Toronto began in early 1931.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Before the highway could be completed, Thomas McQuesten was appointed the new minister of the Department of Highways, with Robert Melville Smith as deputy minister, following the 1934 provincial elections.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Smith, inspired by the German autobahns—new "dual-lane divided highways"—modified the design for Ontario roads,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: A right-of-way was purchased along the Middle Road and construction began to convert the existing sections to a divided highway. Work also began on Canada's first interchange at Highway 10.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Beginning in 1935, McQuesten applied the concept of a dual-highway to several projects along Highway 2, including along Kingston Road in Scarborough Township.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: When widening in Scarborough reached the Highland Creek ravine in 1936, the Department of Highways began construction on a new bridge over the large valley, bypassing the former alignment around West Hill.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: From here the highway was constructed on a new alignment to Oshawa, avoiding construction on the congested Highway 2. As grading and bridge construction neared completion on the new highway between West Hill and Oshawa in September 1939, World War II broke out and gradually tax revenues were re-allocated from highway construction to the war effort.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: At the same time, between September 6 and 8, 1939, the Ontario Good Roads Association Conference was held at Bigwin Inn, near Huntsville,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: drawing highway engineers from across North America to discuss the new concept of "Dual Highways." On the first day of the convention, McQuesten announced his vision of the freeway: an uninterrupted drive through the scenic regions of Ontario, discouraging local business and local traffic from accessing the highway except at infrequent controlled-access points.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: It was announced in the days thereafter this concept would be applied to a new "trans-provincial expressway", running from Windsor to the Ontario–Quebec border.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway engineers evaluated factors such as grading, curve radius, and the narrow median used along the Middle Road—which was inaugurated on August 23, 1940 as the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW)—and began to plan the course of a new dual highway mostly parallel to Highway 2, with precedence given to areas most hampered by congestion. Unlike the QEW, this highway would not be built along an existing road, but rather on a new right-of-way, avoiding the need to provide access to properties.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Along with immense improvements to machinery and construction techniques over its six-year course, the war provided planners an opportunity to conduct a survey of 375,000 drivers, asking them about their preferred route to travel to their destination. Using this information, a course was plotted from Windsor to Quebec, bypassing all towns along the way.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 2S (S for "Scenic") was the first completed section of new roadway. Built to connect with the Thousand Islands Bridge at Ivy Lea and opened as a gravel road in late 1941 or early 1942,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: the road followed the shore of the Saint Lawrence River and connected with the western end of the twinned Highway 2 near Brockville.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In addition, the highway between Highland Creek and Oshawa was opened as a gravel-surfaced road in May 1942.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Following the war, construction resumed on roadways throughout Ontario. The expressway between Highland Creek and Oshawa was completed in December 1947, while other sections languished. The Toronto–Barrie Highway was the primary focus of the Department of Highways at the time, and the onset of the Korean War in 1950 stalled construction again. Despite the delays, highway minister George Doucett officially announced the plans for construction of the new trans-provincial expressway that year, with the Toronto to Oshawa expressway serving as a model for the design. Work on the most important link, the "Toronto Bypass", began in 1951, but it would not open with that name.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: the Highland Creek to Oshawa expressway and Highway 2S were designated "Controlled-Access Highway No 401", a move scorned by one critic because of the lack of thought given to the numbered name.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Construction was completed for several sections of the Toronto Bypass: between Highway 400 and Dufferin Street in August, west to Weston Road in September, east to Bathurst Street in October and finally to Yonge Street in December.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Extensions east and west began in 1953; the eastern extension to Bayview Avenue opened in April 1955, but the western extension was delayed by the damage caused by Hurricane Hazel on October 15, 1954, which nearly destroyed the new bridge over the Humber River. The reconstruction would take until July 8, 1955,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Upon its opening, the bypass was described by one reporter as "a motorist's dream" providing "some of the most soothing scenery in the Metropolitan area". The reporter continued, with regard to the eastern section through Scarborough, that it "winds smoothly through pastures across streams and rivers, and beside green thickets. It seems a long way from the big city."


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: By 1959 however, the bypass was a lineup of cars, as 85,000 drivers crowded the roadway, designed to handle a maximum of 48,000 vehicles, on a daily basis.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Motorists found the new road to be a convenient way of travelling across Toronto; this convenience helped influence the suburban shift in the city and continues to be a driving force of urban sprawl today.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Meanwhile, beyond Toronto, the highway was being built in a patchwork fashion, focusing on congested areas first. Construction west from Highway 27 began in late 1954,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: After the 1954 New York State Thruway opened from Buffalo to New York City, Michigan officials encouraged Ontario to bypass Highway 3 as the most direct path from Detroit to Buffalo.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: By 1956, construction had begun on a segment between Highway 4 in London and Highway 2 in Woodstock, as well as on the section between Windsor and Tilbury.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In 1958, a section bypassing Morrisburg was opened to accommodate traffic displaced from a portion of Highway 2 through The Lost Villages of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: By the end of 1960, the Toronto section of the highway was extended both eastwards and westwards: first east from Newcastle to Port Hope on June 30; then later west from Highway 25 in Milton to Highway 8 south of Kitchener on November 17.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: By mid-1961, the section between Brighton and Marysville had opened. The gap to the east, from Highway 28 in Port Hope to Highway 30 in Brighton was opened on July 20 of that year.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The gap between Woodstock and Kitchener was completed on November 9, 1961, while the gap between Tilbury and London was completed two lanes at a time; the westbound lanes on October 22, 1963, the eastbound on July 20, 1965. The gap between Marysville and Kingston was opened by 1962.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: two lanes opened to Lancaster on September 11, 1962, but the other two were not completed until July 31, 1964. The last segment, to the Ontario–Quebec border, was opened on November 10, 1964.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Finally, on October 11, 1968, the Thousand Islands Bypass opened. This final piece was commemorated with a plaque to signify the completion of Highway 401.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In Toronto, engineers and surveyors were examining the four-lane bypass, while planners set about designing a way to handle the commuter highway. In 1963, transportation minister Charles MacNaughton announced the widening of Highway 401 in Toronto from four to a minimum of 12 lanes between Islington Avenue and Markham Road. The design was taken from the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, which was widened into a similar configuration around the same time. Construction began immediately. While the plan initially called for construction to end in 1967, it continued for nearly a decade. At least four lanes were always open during the large reconstruction project, which included complex new interchanges at Highway 27, Highway 400, the planned Spadina Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway. The system was completed in 1972, along with the Highway 27 (renamed Highway 427) bypass between the QEW and Pearson Airport. Most of the interchanges in Toronto were reconstructed as partial cloverleafs and a continuous lighting system was installed.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On January 11, 1965, at the dinner celebration of Sir John A. Macdonald's 150th birthday, the Premier of Ontario John Robarts designated Highway 401 the "Macdonald–Cartier Freeway" to honour Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier, two of Canada's Fathers of Confederation.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Unlike other names later applied to the highway, the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway designation covers the entire length of Highway 401. Signs designating the freeway and shields with the letters 'M-C' were installed, but these had been removed by 1997.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In 2003, 38 years after Robarts' naming of the highway, a Member of Provincial Parliament attempted to get the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway highway name enshrined into law; the bill only passed first reading and was not enacted.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In the 1970s, Highway 401 was widened to six lanes in Durham. Between 1977 and 1982, Highway 401 was widened from four to six lanes between Hurontario Street (Highway 10) to Highway 25, with the Jersey median barrier making its debut in Ontario in that segment.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The 1980s saw more sections widened. Most significant was the new collector-express system between Highway403/ 410 and Highway427, including a new set of flyover ramps from the express lanes to Highway 403 which opened in 1984, while a basketweave transfer between the eastbound collector and express lanes near Pearson Airport was completed in mid-1985.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: After the Kennedy Road overpass was replaced, cast-in-place concrete flyover ramps were constructed from 1988 to late 1990 to link up Highway 401 and Highway 410, notably the 11-span flyover ramp from Highway 401 eastbound to Highway 410 northbound which remains the longest in the Greater Toronto Area, while the Highway 410 southbound to Highway 401 eastbound flyover replaced a loop ramp. In the fall of 1991, alongside the widening of Highway 410 into a full freeway, construction began on the connecting ramps between Highway 403 and Highway 410, which pass under the existing bridge structures carrying Highway 401 (which would soon be designated as the collector lanes), while new overpasses were constructed for the Highway 401 express lanes which were extended from east of Tomken Road to just east of Kennedy Road.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Plans were made to extend the eastern system from Neilson Road to Brock Road in Pickering in the late 1980s,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: This was followed shortly thereafter by the widening of the highway through Ajax and a new interchange at Pickering Beach Road (renamed Salem Road) and Stevenson Road.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The 1990s also saw the first step in widening the highway from Toronto to London, by replacing the grass median with the addition of a third traffic lane per direction separated by a tall-wall concrete median barrier. The segment from London to Woodstock received this upgrade first, with the expansion ending near the terminus of Highway 403's newly constructed western segment.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: A project in the mid-1990s brought the highway up to a minimum of six lanes between Highway 8 in Kitchener and Highway 35 / 115 in Newcastle.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In its 2007 plan for southern Ontario, the MTO announced long-term plans to create high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes from Mississauga Road west to Milton;


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In the late 1990s, several prerequisite projects were undertaken for the future widening of Highway 401 throughout Mississauga, including a new underpass structure to accommodate Derry Road which was widened from two to six lanes (1996–97), the addition of an interchange with the Mavis Road extension in 1999 whose overpass was designed to be lengthened with two outer spans, and replacing the Mississauga Road overpass which began on February 15, 2002 (in a cost-sharing agreement between the province and Peel Region) and completed in 2003, although that section of the freeway would retain its six-lane cross section for the next decade. More recent work included the replacement of the McLaughlin Road overpass in 2008. Starting in 2009, Highway 401's collector-express lanes in Mississauga have been extended westward beyond its initial terminus at Highway 410. The widening of this 7 km segment to the Credit River necessitated the replacement of several existing overpasses, including those of Hurontario Street (2013) and Second Line West (2016), with the Second Line West crossing rebuilt as a pedestrian/cyclist bridge since most vehicular traffic was already rerouted to the Mavis Road extension. Tying into this extension of Highway 401's collector-express system, the missing ramps from Highway 401 eastbound to Highway 403 westbound and the opposite movement were completed in 2018 which also provided direct access to Cawthra Road, making the Highway 401-403-410 junction a full four-way interchange.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: A successful construction consortium was announced in 2019 for expanding the route from the Credit River to Regional Road 25 in Milton to a minimum of 10 lanes, including an HOV lane. This project included extending the existing 12-lane collector–express system from the Credit River to just east of Winston Churchill Boulevard, while another 12-lane collector–express system was built from just west of the Highway 407 interchange to just east of the James Snow Parkway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The old Trafalgar Road overpass was demolished in September 2021, and on August 14th, 2022, a westbound express lane opened between Highway407 and James Snow Parkway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On November14, 2022, the westbound express lanes were opened between the Credit River and Winston Churchill Boulevard; the eastbound lanes in both locations opened by mid-December.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In 1993, the stretch of Highway 401 eastbound near Milton and westbound near Whitby had chevrons painted in each lane in an effort to reduce tailgating, a concept borrowed from France and Britain. Signs advised motorists to keep at least two chevrons apart, in essence warning them not to follow too closely.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Some of these chevrons remained intact in the westbound lanes in Whitby until 2012, though the signs stating their use had been removed.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Between June 1990 and 1998, Highway 401 and Interstate 75 were used for a pilot project named "Advantage I-75" to test the reliability and versatility of an automated tracking system for transport trucks. Termed "MACS" (Mainline Automated Clearance System), it allows a truck to travel from Florida to Ontario without a second inspection.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: MACS was initially tested at two truck inspection stations in Kentucky, with transponders installed in 220 trucks. Exact time, date, location, weight and axle data were logged as a truck approached an equipped station.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Following initial tests, MACS was deployed at every inspection station along I-75 from Miami to Detroit, and along Highway 401 from Windsor to Belleville in 1994. The project demonstrated the effectiveness of electronic systems in enforcing freight restrictions without delaying vehicles, while alleviating security fears such systems could be compromised. The concept has since been applied to many parts of Canada, including Highway 407's electronic tolling system.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The section of Highway 401 between Windsor and London has often been referred to as "Carnage Alley", in reference to the numerous crashes that have occurred throughout its history. The term became more commonplace following several deadly pileups during the 1990s. The narrow and open grass median was an ineffective obstacle in preventing cross-median collisions. The soft shoulders consisted of gravel, with sharp slopes which were blamed for facilitating vehicle rollovers.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The nature of that section of highway, described as a mainly straight road with a featureless agricultural landscape, was said to make drivers feel less involved and lose focus on the road. In winter, the area between Woodstock and Chatham is also subject to sudden snow squalls from lake-effect snow.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Several collisions have resulted from motorists deviating from their lane and losing control of their vehicles.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: but "Carnage Alley" became predominant following an 87-vehicle pile-up on September 3, 1999 (the start of Labour Day weekend), the worst in Canadian history, that resulted in eight deaths and 45 injured individuals.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Only a few days prior, then-Transportation Minister David Turnbull had deemed the highway "pleasant" to drive.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On the morning of September 3, the local weather station reported clear conditions due to a malfunction, while a thick layer of fog rolled onto the highway. Dozens of vehicles, including several semi-trailers, quickly crashed into each other shortly after 8 a.m., one following another in the dense fog, with collisions in both directions at that segment of Highway 401, although no vehicles crossed the highway's median.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Beginning in 2004, of the highway was widened from four asphalt lanes to six concrete lanes, paved shoulders were added, and a concrete Ontario Tall Wall median was installed,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: which was the solution the Canadian Automobile Association promoted in 1999. Interchanges were improved and signage was upgraded as part of a five-phase project to improve Highway 401 from Highway 3 in Windsor to Essex County Road 42 (formerly Highway 2) on the western edge of Tilbury.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: From 2008 to 2010, with joint funding from the provincial and federal governments, the section of Highway 401 from Dougall Parkway (former Highway 3B) to Provincial Road (former Highway 98) was widened to six lanes, necessitating the replacement of the Walker Road and Provincial Road underpasses for the freeway's elevated section. As part of that project, the Dougall Parkway split with Highway 401 was reconfigured, replacing a one-lane 1950s-era underpass tunnel with a modern high-speed flyover ramp. The old interchange had reduced eastbound Highway 401 traffic to one lane as it merged with Dougall Parkway, whereas the new interchange allows three lanes per direction of Highway 401 to pass through.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On August 24, 2007, the MTO announced the stretch of Highway 401 between Miller Road in Trenton and the intersection of the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 404 in Toronto would bear the additional name "Highway of Heroes (French: Autoroute des héros)", in honour of Canadian soldiers who have died,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: This length of the highway is often travelled by a convoy of vehicles carrying a fallen soldier's body, with his or her family, from CFB Trenton to the coroner's office at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto. Since 2002, when the first fallen Canadian soldiers were repatriated from Afghanistan, crowds have lined the overpasses to pay their respects as convoys pass.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The origin of the name can be traced to an article in the "Toronto Sun" on June 23, 2007, by columnist Joe Warmington, in which he interviewed Northumberland photographer Pete Fisher. Cobourg resident Ron Flindall was responsible for organizing the first bridge salutes following the loss of four soldiers on April 18, 2002.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Warmington described the gathering of crowds on overpasses to welcome fallen soldiers as a "highway of heroes phenomena".


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: This led a Cramahe Township volunteer firefighter to contact Fisher on July 10 about starting a petition, leading Fisher to publish an article which was posted to the "Northumberland Today" website.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The online article eventually caught the attention of London resident Jay Forbes. Forbes began a petition, which received over 20,000 signatures before being brought to the Minister of Transportation on August 22.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Following the announcement on August 24, the provincial government and MTO set out to design new signs. The signs were erected and unveiled on September 7, and include a smaller reassurance marker (shield), as well as a larger billboard version.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On September 27, 2013, the Highway of Heroes designation was extended west to Keele Street in Toronto, to coincide with the move of the coroner's office to the new Forensic Services and Coroner's Complex at the Humber River Hospital.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Between 2006 and 2008, Highway 401 was widened from four to six lanes between Highway 402 and Wellington Road in London. This included reconfiguring the Wellington Road interchange from a cloverleaf to a Parclo A4 while replacing the original 1956 overpass with a longer and wider structure.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In November 2010, the widening of Highway 401 from four to six lanes between Woodstock and Kitchener was completed after many years of planning and construction.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The project included the installation of a tall-wall median barrier, straightening curves and adding additional interchanges on the freeway, allowing it to be easily vacated in an emergency event.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Beginning in 1998, several projects were initiated on Highway 401 within Toronto. The freeway's pavement through the city was resurfaced. The most significant construction work was widening the route from six to eight lanes though the Highway 427 interchange in 2005, which necessitated the replacement of the Highway 27 underpass, although the rest of the junction's flyovers could accommodate the expansion. Some projects have been completed during overnight construction projects, including the widening and rehabilitation of the Hogg's Hollow bridge,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: the replacement of the original gantries throughout the collector-express system, and rehabilitating the flyover ramps of the Highway 401 / 400 interchange.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On August 10, 2008, following a series of explosions at a propane facility in Toronto, Highway 401 was closed between Highway 400 and Highway 404 as a precautionary measure, the largest closure of the highway in its history.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The highway remained closed until 8 p.m., though several exits near the blast remained closed thereafter.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In Oshawa, exit 416 (Park Road) was replaced by a new interchange at exit 415 (Stevenson Road). The contract, which began September 7, 2005, included the interchange and the resurfacing of of the highway between Oshawa and .


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In 2013, as a prerequisite to construction of the West Durham Link which was eventually numbered as Highway 412, the section of Highway 401 near the Lake Ridge Road overpass was shifted northward on a new alignment away from the parallel railway line to allow sufficient right-of-way for the interchange to the new route. The interchange to Highway 412 opened on June 20, 2016.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In 2004, a joint announcement by the federal government of the United States and Government of Canada confirmed a new border crossing would be constructed between Detroit and Windsor. The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) was formed as a bi-national committee to manage the project.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The MTO took advantage of this opportunity to extend Highway401 to the Canada–US border and began an environmental impact assessment on the entire project in late 2005.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The City of Windsor also hired New York traffic consultant Sam Schwartz to design a parkway to the border. Schwartz's proposal would eventually inspire the DRIC's own design, but his route was not chosen, with the DRIC opting instead to take a northern route.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On February8, 2008, the MTO announced it had begun purchasing property south of the E.C. Row Expressway, upsetting many area residents who had purchased properties in the years prior.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On March3, 2008, the Michigan Department of Transportation and the MTO (in partnership with Transport Canada, the Federal Highway Administration of the United States and the Detroit River International Crossing group) completed a joint assessment on the soils along the Detroit River and determined they could indeed support the weight of a new bridge; the stability of the underlying soil and clay and the impact of the nearby Windsor Salt Mine had caused concern for all parties involved in the project.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: it was announced on May1, 2008, that a preferred route had been selected and the new route would be named the "Windsor–Essex Parkway".


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The new parkway is below-grade and has six through-lanes. It follows (but does not replace) Talbot Road and Huron Church Road from a new interchange at the former end of Highway 401 to the E.C. Row Expressway, where it runs concurrently westward for . From there, it turns northwest and follows a new alignment to the border.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Initial construction of a noise barrier from North Talbot Road to Howard Avenue began in March 2010; full construction began on August19, 2011.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: On November28, 2012, the Ministry of Transportation announced a Federal Order in Council was passed to change the name of the parkway to the "Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway", in honour of the Right Honourable Herb Gray, a Member of Parliament from Windsor.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In early 2015, it was announced the parkway would open to traffic between Highway3 and Labelle Street (near the E.C. Row Expressway) in the spring;


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: an section was opened to traffic on June28, extending Highway401 as far west as the E.C. Row Expressway. It was the first new segment of the highway to be opened since the Thousand Islands Parkway bypass in 1968.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Construction on projects related to the Gordie Howe International Bridge began in 2015 with an initial completion date in 2019–20.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: The "Bridging North America" consortium was selected to build the bridge in July 2018, with construction beginning immediately.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In Southwestern Ontario, several improvements are under way to provide six lanes on Highway 401 from Windsor to Toronto,


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: West of Essex County Road 42 on the west of Tilbury, the highway has been widened to six lanes with a concrete divider in anticipation of the Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Within the London area, traffic volumes are expected to increase considerably, leading to poor highway conditions. The province has put in place an extensive plan to widen and reconstruct the London corridor between 2006 and 2021. This included building a new interchange with Wonderland Road which opened in November 2015 to help improve access to Highway 401 westbound from the city's southwest end and involved replacing the Westminster Drive overpass to allow the highway to be widened. A reconstruction of the outdated cloverleaf interchange at Colonel Talbot Road and widening Highway 401 from four to six lanes between Highway 4 and Highway 402 is also proposed. The MTO is also planning on widening Highway 401 from six to eight lanes through part of the London corridor.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In the Kitchener/Cambridge area, the Y-junction between Highway 401 and Highway 8 Expressway is to be expanded to a full all-directional interchange, with flyover ramps linking eastbound Highway 401 to Highway 8 towards Kitchener and Highway 8 traffic towards Toronto to westbound Highway 401 to bypass the existing connection using King Street, giving Highway 401 direct freeway access to the Conestoga Parkway. The widening of Highway 401 from six to twelve lanes from Highway 8 (King Street) to Highway/Regional Road 24 (Hespeler Road) commenced on June 8, 2015 and concluded in summer 2019. The second phase of expansion scheduled for 2019-21 will see Highway 401 widened from six to ten lanes between Highway/Regional Road 24 and Townline Road. At the interchange with Highway 24 (Hespeler Road), the span carrying northbound traffic which opened in 1989 was torn down on May 1, 2021, with both directions of Highway 24 traffic temporarily relocated to the overpass originally built in 1960 and designated for southbound drivers since 1989, as a new overpass is being constructed to accommodate Highway 401's expanded cross-section.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Expansion in Durham includes widening the highway to 12 lanes, and extending the collector-express system from its end at Brock Road in Pickering to Lake Ridge Road in Whitby.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: A Transportation Environmental Study Report was completed on widening highway 401, extending the collector-express system easterly through to the Highway 412 interchange in Whitby, then ten lanes easterly to Liberty Street in the Municipality of Clarington. The assessment was completed in March 2015. From Liberty Street in Clarington to Highway 35/115, Highway 401 will be widened from six to eight lanes.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: To support this widening, all of the original overpasses dating back in the 1940s and 1950s built through Whitby and Oshawa will be replaced with new overpasses as part of modern highway safety standards and to allow for a future highway widening.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: East of Durham, the MTO is planning to widen parts of Highway 401 to six lanes. Two bridges have been widened in advance of an eventual widening to six lanes of the highway including the bridges over the Trent River in Trenton, as well as the Salmon River bridge between Belleville and Napanee.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: By 2020, the highway was widened to six lanes for through Kingston between exits 611 and 623. Construction began in 2014 to expand the highway to six lanes approximately east of exit 474 in Cobourg.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Highway 401 features 19 ONroute service centres operated under contract from the Ministry of Transportation. They provide a place to park, rest, eat and refuel 24hours a day. Service centres along Highway 401 were first announced in 1961 following public outcry over the lack of rest stops. The centres were originally leased to and operated by several major gasoline distributors; however, those companies chose not to renew their leases as the terms ended.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: In response, the MTO put the operation of the full network of service centres out for tender, resulting in a 50-year lease agreement in 2010 with Host Kilmer Service Centres, a joint venture between hospitality company HMSHost (a subsidiary of Autogrill) and investment company Kilmer van Nostrand.


title: Ontario Highway 401

text: Seventeen of the centres along Highway 401 have been reconstructed entirely. Two centres rebuilt in the late 1990s, specifically Newcastle and Ingersoll, were not redeveloped at that time. Work on rebuilding 15 of the 17 service centres began in late 2009 or early 2010. The new service centres, opened in phases beginning in July 2010, feature a Canadian Tire gas station, an HMSHost-operated convenience store known as "The Market", as well as fast food brands such as Tim Hortons, A&W, Pizza Pizza, Extreme Pita, KFC, Taco Bell, Big Smoke Burger and Burger King.


title: Calendar year

text: Generally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day, and thus consists of a whole number of days. A year can also be measured by starting on any other named day of the calendar, and ending on the day before this named day in the following year. This may be termed a "year's time", but not a "calendar year". To reconcile the calendar year with the astronomical cycle (which has a fractional number of days) certain years contain extra days ("leap days" or "intercalary days").


title: Calendar year

text: The Gregorian year, which is in use in most of the world, begins on January 1 and ends on December 31. It has a length of 365 days in an ordinary year, with 8760 hours, 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds; but 366 days in a leap year, with 8784 hours, 527,040 minutes, or 31,622,400 seconds. With 97 leap years every 400 years, the year has an average length of 365.2425 days. Other formula-based calendars can have lengths which are further out of step with the solar cycle: for example, the Julian calendar has an average length of 365.25 days, and the Hebrew calendar has an average length of 365.2468 days. The Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 354 or 355 days.


title: Calendar year

text: Each Gregorian year has 179 even-numbered days; ordinary years have 186 odd-numbered days, but leap years have 187 odd-numbered days.


title: Calendar year

text: The astronomer's mean tropical year, which is averaged over equinoxes and solstices, is currently 365.24219 days, slightly shorter than the average length of the year in most calendars, but the astronomer's value changes over time, so John Herschel's suggested correction to the Gregorian calendar may become unnecessary by the year 4000.


title: Calendar year

text: While in the Chinese calendar, the quarters are traditionally associated with the 4 seasons of the year:


title: Katie Britt

text: Katie Boyd Britt (born February 2, 1982) is an American politician, attorney, and businesswoman who is a United States senator-elect from Alabama. She served as president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama from 2018 to 2021 and as chief of staff for U.S. Senator Richard Shelby from 2016 to 2018. Britt was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, and will take office on January 3, 2023. She is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama.


title: Katie Britt

text: Britt was born as Katie Elizabeth Boyd to Julian and Debra Boyd on February 2, 1982, in Enterprise, Alabama. She was raised outside Fort Rucker in Dale County, Alabama, and worked at her family's small business throughout her youth. In her youth, she was an attendee of the Girls' State leadership program, and was elected to a governor position at the conference in 1999. A graduate of Enterprise High School, Britt was a cheerleader there and one of 19 valedictorians upon graduation in 2000. She enrolled at the University of Alabama, where she majored in political science and was elected president of its Student Government Association. She graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor of Science degree, and received a Juris Doctor from the University of Alabama School of Law in 2013.


title: Katie Britt

text: Following her graduation from the University of Alabama, Britt joined the staff of U.S. Senator Richard Shelby in May 2004 as deputy press secretary. She was later promoted to press secretary and served in that capacity until 2007. After departing from Shelby's staff, Britt worked as a special assistant to University of Alabama president Robert Witt. She also represented the university's School of Law on its Tax Moot Court team.


title: Katie Britt

text: After law school, Britt first worked at Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose LLP in Birmingham. When the firm shut down in March 2014, Britt joined the Birmingham office of Butler Snow LLP, alongside 17 other former Johnston Barton Proctor & Rose attorneys. While practicing law at Butler Snow, she founded the firm's government affairs branch. In November 2015, Britt took a leave of absence from Butler Snow to return to Shelby's staff, working on his reelection campaign as deputy campaign manager and communications director.


title: Katie Britt

text: Following her work on Shelby's reelection campaign, Britt was named his chief of staff in 2016. She became a top advisor to Shelby and served as head of his Judicial Nomination Task Force. As early as May 2016, "Yellowhammer News" named Britt one of "the people who will be running Alabama in a few years". In December 2018, she was selected as president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama. She was the first woman to lead the organization.


title: Katie Britt

text: During Britt's tenure at the Business Council of Alabama, described by "Alabama Daily News" as one of the state's "most influential political organizations", she focused on workforce and economic development through tax incentive programs, and addressed the state's prison system and participation in the 2020 United States Census. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Britt led a "Keep Alabama Open" effort to self-govern business affairs by avoiding shutdowns, as well as to maintain employment statuses during the pandemic. In April 2021, she was elected to the Alabama Wildlife Federation's board of directors. Britt resigned from her positions at the Business Council of Alabama in June 2021, amid media speculation of a run for the U.S. Senate.


title: Katie Britt

text: On June 8, 2021, Britt announced her candidacy in the Republican primary for the 2022 United States Senate election in Alabama. Britt, who had never previously run for public office, started out the race polling at 2%, but gradually climbed in the polls as the race went on. As a Senate candidate, Britt publicly aligned herself with former President Donald Trump. Britt supported Trump's false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, although she declined to say the election was "stolen". She advanced to a runoff in the Republican primary against Representative Mo Brooks. Trump officially endorsed Britt on June 10, 2022, calling her a "fearless America First warrior". He had previously withdrawn an endorsement of Brooks. Britt defeated Brooks in the runoff on June 21, 2022, with 63% of the vote. She then handily won the general election on November 8. She became the first woman elected U.S. senator from Alabama (previous female U.S. senators from Alabama had been appointed to the position). Britt was also the youngest Republican woman elected U.S. senator and the second-youngest woman overall (Democrat Blanche Lincoln being the youngest).


title: Katie Britt

text: Britt will take office on January 3, 2023. Following leadership elections for the 118th United States Congress, she did not say whether she supported Mitch McConnell or Rick Scott for Senate Minority Leader. Before taking office, Britt was selected as the only incoming senator to serve on the newly formed Republican Party Advisory Council of the Republican National Committee.


title: Katie Britt

text: Britt describes herself as pro-life. Her first television advertisement in the 2022 U.S. Senate election highlighted her position on abortion, stating that life begins at conception and comparing late term abortions to murder. In May 2022, shortly before the first round of the Republican primary, opposing candidate Michael Durant attacked Britt's position on abortion, citing a resolution the Student Senate passed while she was serving as president of the University of Alabama Student Government Association. The resolution called for morning-after pills to be stocked at the university health center's pharmacy, which was already prescribing the pills at the time. Britt's campaign responded that she never supported or voted on the resolution, and that she was unable to veto it due to her position's restrictions. The "Alabama Political Reporter" found these statements to be accurate based on "The Crimson White" articles from the time of Britt's presidency. Britt's campaign added that she would "defend the sacred right to life" as senator.


title: Katie Britt

text: In July 2021, Britt supported a motion from Alabama Governor Kay Ivey to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. She has been called a "vocal proponent" of school choice by "Yellowhammer News".


title: Katie Britt

text: Britt is a critic of the Chinese Communist Party. In August 2022, she charged the Biden administration with inaction and "total weakness" in regard to China, specifically highlighting humanitarian crises in China, as well as its dominance in manufacturing industries, saying that China was "taking jobs". In September 2022, she accused the social media platform TikTok of being a "Trojan horse" for the Chinese Communist Party; other American lawmakers have expressed similar concern about TikTok as a potential threat due to its security practices. In October 2022, Britt pledged to co-sponsor a bill introduced by Senators Tommy Tuberville and Tom Cotton banning Chinese-owned companies from purchasing American farmland.


title: Katie Britt

text: Following the passing of the Protecting Our Kids Act in June 2022, Britt told "1819 News" that she believes red flag laws are a "gateway to push [a] disarming agenda". She opposes gun laws that infringe on the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. She has called the Second Amendment "a critical check against the timeless tyranny of government".


title: Katie Britt

text: In August 2021, Britt wrote a column calling for an open discussion and prioritization of mental health. Her column also expressed her wish to combat the opioid epidemic and suicide rates in the United States. In May 2022, Britt called "affordable access to quality mental health care and resources" a "major component" of her Senate campaign's platform. She supports efforts to eliminate the stigmatization of mental illness.


title: Katie Britt

text: Britt supports reducing legal immigration "to a sensible level" and prioritizing skills and merit over family associations. She has said she will introduce legislation to amend birthright citizenship as only applying to those who are in the country legally. She also supports and has pledged to sponsor the RAISE Act, first introduced by Senator Tom Cotton.


title: Katie Britt

text: Following her election to the U.S. Senate, Britt named expansion of broadband access as one of her areas of focus. After the release of the Twitter Files in December 2022, Britt joined Alabama representatives Jerry Carl and Barry Moore in calling for reform to Section 230, specifically criticizing Big Tech and saying that she was looking forward to congressional hearings "getting to the bottom of what occurred at Twitter in 2020".


title: Katie Britt

text: Katie Britt is married to Wesley Britt, a former NFL player. They met while at the University of Alabama. They live in Montgomery, Alabama, and have two children.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: Jonathan Frederick Antoine (born 13 January 1995) is an English classically-trained tenor. He rose to fame after appearing on the sixth series of "Britain's Got Talent" in 2012 as half of the classical duo Jonathan and Charlotte. He subsequently went solo and his debut album, "Tenore," was released in the UK on 13 October 2014. His follow-up album, "Believe," was released on 19 August 2016, and on 5 June 2020 he then released his third album "Going the Distance".


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: Antoine was born to John, a police inspector, and Tracy, a housewife, in Hainault, Essex. He has an older sister, Charlotte.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: At the age of 11, Antoine enrolled at West Hatch High School in Chigwell and met singing coach Jenny Ewington and head of music Ginette Brown. He said, "I started having lessons with Mrs Ewington and just took to it. It was so nurturing. She was inspirational and she became a fantastic friend." After Antoine's voice broke around the age of 13, Ewington selected "Bring Him Home" from "Les Misérables" for him to perform at the 2010 Stratford and East London Music Festival, where he was named the Young Musician of The Year. He sang "Ave Maria" at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the Rotary Youth Makes Music event in 2011. At 14, Antoine auditioned for a junior place at the four major music conservatories in London. After being accepted at all of them, he chose the Royal Academy of Music. At West Hatch, Brown encouraged him into concert singing to help him overcome his shyness. "Jonathan came into his own," she said. "All the students would see him and say that he was the boy with the incredible voice."


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: Along with Charlotte Jaconelli, Antoine sang "The Prayer" at Ginette Brown's wedding in 2011. It was at this time that the duo Charlotte and Jonathan began.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: In 2012, an audition video of the duo was sent to the talent show "Britain's Got Talent". Antoine and Jaconelli performed together in the Series 6 auditions held in London, which was broadcast on 24 March 2012. Performing as "Charlotte and Jonathan," they sang "The Prayer" and advanced to the semi-final round, which was held on 7 May 2012. The duo sang "Caruso", written by Lucio Dalla, and advanced to the final round. They were the 11th act to perform in the final round, which was held on 12 May 2012, and they again performed "The Prayer." They received a standing ovation and finished second to the dancing dog act Ashleigh and Pudsey.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: On 13 May 2012, the day after the "Britain's Got Talent" final, it was confirmed that Simon Cowell was in negotiations to offer the duo a £1 million recording contract with his record label, Syco. They accepted and released their debut album, "Together," on 24 September 2012 in the UK and 30 October 2012 in the US. After moving from SyCo/Columbia Records to Sony Classical, their second album, "Perhaps Love," was released on 14 October 2013. It was described as an album of covers that also contained classical songs and interpretations of modern songs.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: In February 2014, the duo split up after both were offered solo record deals. In a statement on their website, they said: We have had the most exciting journey together ever since meeting at West Hatch High School in 2006 and are so happy for each other. To come second on BGT and sell over quarter of a million albums was beyond our wildest dreams. To now be offered our own solo record deals by Sony Classical is the most exciting thing ever and we are thrilled to be going back into the recording studio so soon. For those that voted for us, bought our CDs and saw us in concert – thank you. We hope to see you soon at our own shows. Love Jonathan and Charlotte. Antoine performed in an album pre-release tour of the UK, followed by an appearance at the closing concert of iTunes Festival 2014 at the invitation of Plácido Domingo. He started a solo career in the United States and performed at the 2014 Muhammad Ali Celebrity Fight Night in Arizona, California and Florida.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: Antoine's debut solo album ,"Tenore" (Italian for "Tenor"), was released in the UK on 13 October 2014. It contains a selection of classic songs as well as arias. The album was produced by Anna Barry, who has worked with Andrea Bocelli, José Carreras, the Kirov Opera and Andrew Lloyd Webber. One reviewer said, "Here is a new star on the vocal scene and his first solo album attests to his miraculous talent." Antoine added two previously unreleased tracks to his list on "Tenore" available for international download through Amazon and iTunes in time for Mother's Day 2016 in the UK.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: On 19 August 2016, Antoine released his second album, "Believe". It contains classical arias by Puccini, as well as a version of the classic Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah" and new music by British classical composer Chris Broom, with whom Antoine collaborated (co-wrote) the song "A New Tomorrow". The album received positive reviews on its release. Robert Cummings said, "His voice is very versatile, sufficiently powerful and has a velvety, creamy sound that is quite unique".


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: On 15 September 2018, Antoine performed his first solo concert in the United States in the Fred Kavli Theatre at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, California. In June 2019, he performed at the Winter Garden Theatre in Canada in a three-part concert entitled "Beyond the Curtain," where he sang Disney songs, American Songbook classics and opera arias, including singing "Nessun Dorma" publicly for the first time.


title: Jonathan Antoine

text: In November 2022 he launched a crowdfunding campaign on the platform ArtistShare for an album he was working with alongside Diane Warren called "by request"


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" is a pop song by American singer Britney Spears from her second studio album of the same name. It was released on April 11, 2000, by Jive Records as the lead single from the album, and her sixth single overall. It was written and produced by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub. The lyrics refer to a woman who views love as a game, and she decides to use that to her advantage by playing with the emotions of a boy who likes her. Its bridge features spoken dialogue which references the hit 1997 film "Titanic".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Upon its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" received many positive reviews from music critics and some noted similarities to Spears' debut single "...Baby One More Time". The song was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001. Commercially, it peaked at number nine on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. It topped the charts in at least 15 countries, including Australia, Denmark, and Spain.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: The accompanying music video was directed by Nigel Dick; it depicts Spears on Mars, dressed in a red bodysuit, as she addresses an astronaut who has fallen in love with her. It went on to receive three nominations at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. Spears has performed the song live on tour, for Oops!... I Did It Again, Dream Within a Dream, and The Onyx Hotel, as well as for her Las Vegas show, .


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: After attaining huge success with her debut album "...Baby One More Time" (1999) and its singles "...Baby One More Time", "Sometimes", "(You Drive Me) Crazy", "Born to Make You Happy", and "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart", Spears recorded much of her follow-up record "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000) in November 1999 at the Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, Sweden. Its title track was written and produced by Max Martin and Rami Yacoub, while background vocals were provided by Martin and Nana Hedin. The track was released on March 27, 2000, by Jive Records as the lead single from the record.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" is a song that lasts for a duration of three minutes and thirty seconds. It is composed in the key of C minor and is set in time signature of common time, with a moderate tempo of 95 beats per minute. The song has a basic sequence of Cm–A-G as its chord progression, and features a vocal range spanning from C to C. The lyrics to the track discuss a woman who toys with her lover's emotions, who mistakes Spears' flirtatiousness with a serious romantic interest. During its bridge, Spears delivers a spoken-word dialogue that references the blockbuster film "Titanic" (1997).


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Upon its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Lennat Mak of the Asian division of MTV complimented the song as "a perfect 10 on the "wow" scale, with the wacky "Jack-Rose" dialogue", referencing the "Titanic" spoken lyrics. Some however, were not as positive; writing for "Entertainment Weekly", David Browne called it "ludicrously derivative" of Spears' debut single "...Baby One More Time", and commented that it "amounts to nothing so much as a jailbait manifesto".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: A reviewer from "NME" compared the structure of the recording to '80s-style riffs of Michael Jackson and further described the track as a "harder, carbon copy" of "...Baby One More Time" that is "easily as good as her breakthrough single". Robert Christgau recognized "Oops!... I Did It Again" and Spears' rendition of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" as his "choice cuts" from the parent album, Writing for "Rolling Stone", Rob Sheffield compared the track musically to Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love" and lyrically to The Smiths' "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish", and complimented it for being "terrific" and displaying "a violently ambivalent sexual confusion her audience can relate to". Andy Battaglia of "Salon" described the track as a "sweetly sadistic companion piece to the masochism lite lurking beneath her debut '...Baby One More Time'".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2001 ceremony, but lost to "I Try" by Macy Gray. The track was additionally nominated for the Favorite Song at the 2001 Kids' Choice Awards broadcast on Nickelodeon, but lost to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by the Baha Men.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: In the United States, "Oops!... I Did It Again" peaked at number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It additionally peaked at numbers 1 and 27 on the "Billboard" Pop Songs and Adult Pop Songs component charts. In Canada, the track topped the Canadian Hot 100 for six weeks. It topped the singles charts in both Australia and New Zealand, and was certified platinum in the former country for reaching sales of 70,000 copies.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" enjoyed success throughout Europe, and peaked atop the European Hot 100 Singles chart. It also peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart becoming Spears' third UK number one, and was certified platinum for exceeding sales of 600,000 copies. As of August 2022, the song has sold 931,000 copies in the country. The song reached number two in Austria, where it was additionally recognized with platinum certification for sales of 15,000 units. It respectively peaked at numbers one and three on the Wallonia and Flanders charts in Belgium, and also respectively reached numbers one and two in Denmark and Finland.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" reached number four in France, and number two in both Germany and Ireland. In Germany, the single additionally received a gold certification, signifying sales of 250,000 units. It additionally topped singles charts in Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The song was awarded gold certifications in the Netherlands and Switzerland, respectively marking sales of 40,000 and 15,000 copies, and attained platinum certification in Sweden for reaching sales of 20,000 units. As of May 2020, the single has generated over 240 million streams in the US.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: An accompanying music video for "Oops!... I Did It Again" was directed by Nigel Dick and was filmed from March 17–18, 2000 in Universal City, California. It was choreographed by Tina Landon. During its production, Spears was reportedly struck in the head by a falling camera and began bleeding. According to Dick, she was actually struck by the camera's matte box, which fell off the front of the lens. Spears' mother Lynne (who was present) suggested that she might have suffered from a concussion, though she received four stitches and continued work after resting for four hours. Spears created the concept for the clip, commenting that "[she wanted] to be on Mars, dancing on Mars" and "[wanted] to be in a red jumpsuit". The final product premiered on April 10, 2000, on an episode of MTV's "Making the Video".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: The music video begins with a brief scene of an astronaut on Mars uncovering a stone slate featuring the cover of the album "Oops!... I Did It Again". A scientist back on Earth sees it through a video transmitter and says, "Cute. What is it?" As the astronaut replies, "Oh, it's cute alright. It couldn't be...", the ground begins to shake as a large stage rises from the ground. Spears, with long, straight hair, then descends from a platform onto a stage in a red bodysuit as the track begins to play. As she continues to sing and dance, she suspends the astronaut mid-air above her. Interspersed throughout the video are scenes of Spears wearing a midriff-baring white top and skirt, lying barefoot on a white web pad with backup dancers on the ground around her. During its bridge, Spears does a flip in the air to where the astronaut is and appears in a white jacket, short black leather skirt, and leather boots. As a symbol of his love for her, the astronaut gifts Spears with the Heart of the Ocean, the blue diamond from the blockbuster film "Titanic". She questions that she "thought the old lady [Rose] dropped it into the ocean in the end", to which he responds, "Well, baby, I went down and got it for you". Spears comments "Aww, you shouldn't have" and walks away, the astronaut shrugs and leaves (this spoken interlude is also heard on the record). The video concludes as Spears and her performers continue to dance.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: At the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, the music video for "Oops!... I Did It Again" was nominated for the Best Female Video, Best Dance Video, the Best Pop Video, and the Viewer's Choice. However, she lost in each of the four categories.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: The first performance of "Oops I Did It Again" was on March 8, 2000, during the Crazy 2k Tour in Pensacola, Florida. In May 2000, Spears performed "Oops!... I Did It Again" during several television performances, including "All That", "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", "Saturday Night Live", "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", "Total Request Live", and the two-hour concert special "Britney Live". The following month, she appeared in an additional television special, titled "Britney Spears in Hawaii". In collaboration with McDonald's, Spears and NSYNC filmed a commercial for the fast-food chain, where they lip-synced to "Oops!... I Did It Again" and "Bye Bye Bye", respectively.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: On September 7, Spears performed "Oops!... I Did It Again" and her rendition of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where she notably tore off her black suit to unveil a more provocative, flesh-colored two-piece. "Entertainment Weekly" included the performance on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, describing "the pre-breakdown pop tart, then just 19 years old, writhing and shaking her moneymaker in nude-colored rhinestone spandex" to be "pure kitsch bliss".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Spears has performed "Oops!... I Did It Again" on three of her eight concert tours. She premiered the song on the Crazy 2k Tour and later included the track as the encore to her Oops!... I Did It Again Tour in 2000, where it was performed with special effects involving fire and an extended dance break. In 2001, it was featured as the opening to her Dream Within a Dream Tour. In 2004, Spears sang "Oops!... I Did It Again" during The Onyx Hotel Tour, held in support of her fourth studio album "In the Zone". The track was reworked with "...Baby One More Time" as a jazz-style performance.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Spears would not perform the song again for nine years until it was included on the setlist of her Las Vegas residency show at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Since its release, "Oops!... I Did It Again" has been covered on numerous occasions. In 2001, German singer Max Raabe recorded a cabaret version of the song with Palast Orchester for their album "Super Hits". Finnish melodic death metal band Children of Bodom also recorded a cover of the song for their album "Skeletons in the Closet" (2009), while Rochelle released three eurodance hi-NRG renditions of the track. Richard Thompson covered the song on his album "1000 Years of Popular Music" (2006), and in addition included a medieval-style version titled "Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: "Oops!... I Did It Again" has been featured on several television series. In 2004, it was included on the soundtrack for the sitcom "Will & Grace". Irish pop rap duo Jedward performed the song live during the sixth series of the British version of "The X Factor" in 2009. During the episode "Britney/Brittany" for "Glee" in 2010, Brittany Pierce (portrayed by Heather Morris) mimicked Spears as she danced in a red catsuit while performing her later single "I'm a Slave 4 U". The song itself was later performed by Rachel Berry (portrayed by Lea Michele) during the episode "Britney 2.0" in 2012. While on tour with her band the Scene, Selena Gomez covered "Oops!... I Did It Again" during their We Own the Night Tour in 2011. Tori Spelling also covered the song on "The Masked Singer".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Cover versions of the song appear on the video games "Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2" (2005), "Karaoke Revolution Volume 3" (2004), and "Just Dance 4" (2012), while Spears' original version is included on Singstar as DLC and her own video game "Britney's Dance Beat". In 2005, the comedy website Super Master Piece released a parody version of "Oops!... I Did It Again" titled "Oops I Did It Again!: The Original", which they jokingly labeled as the original recording by Louis Armstrong in April 1932 in Chicago, Illinois; their version was actually recorded by Shek Baker. The track has also been parodied under the title "Oops! I Farted Again" by producer Bob Rivers.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: In 2013, it was reported that "Oops!... I Did It Again" and "...Baby One More Time" has been used by the British Navy to scare off pirates near Somalia. "Oops!... I Did It Again" is referenced in the lyrics of Peeping Tom's 2006 single "Mojo" and Fall Out Boy's 2017 single "Young and Menace".


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: Anne Marie referenced the song on the chorus of her single "2002". Miley Cyrus' "Mother's Daughter" music video pays homage to the red latex suit Spears wore in the "Oops!... I Did It Again" music video.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: In 2015, Postmodern Jukebox covered the song in the jazz style of Marilyn Monroe, with Haley Reinhart singing lead. The video has amassed more than 200 million views as of June 2020.


title: Oops!... I Did It Again (song)

text: In the Tesco's British and Irish Christmas adverts for 2020, it uses the song as part of its "No Naughty List" campaign.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: Samira Shahbandar (, born 1946) is an Iraqi former doctor and physician. She was the second wife of Saddam Hussein.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: Shahbandar was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1946. Shahbandar was born into an aristocratic Baghdad family.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: Shahbandar was married to Noureddine Safi, an Iraqi pilot and manager of Iraqi Airways. They have two children. Shahbandar's son is Mohammad Saffi, who was born in 1966.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: In 1983, Shahbandar met Saddam Hussein, whom she had a son with. Saddam’s eldest son Uday was reported to have envied him.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: Kamel Hana Gegeo, Hussein's valet, food taster and friend, introduced Samira to him. Hussein's secret marriage took place while he was married to Sajida Talfah, his first wife. Sajida was extremely jealous and angry when she found out about his mistress, and her brother Adnan Khairallah complained. Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son with Sajida, was also angry over his father's mistress, took it as an insult to his mother, and believed that his status as heir apparent was threatened. In October 1988, during a party, Uday Hussein murdered Kamel Hana Gegeo in front of horrified guests. While Saddam Hussein declared that his son Uday Hussein would go to trial for murder, Gegeo's parents and Sajida begged that Uday Hussein be pardoned.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: In 2002, Shahbandar's son Mohammad Saffi, a resident of New Zealand and a flight engineer with Air New Zealand, was detained in Miami, Florida due to lack of a student visa.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: Her character was featured heavily in the plot of BBC adaptation of "House of Saddam" and was played by Australian actress Christine Stephen-Daly.


title: Samira Shahbandar

text: In a 2007, "Al Riyadh" interview, Ali Al-Nida Husein Al-Omar, chief of the Bejat subtribe of Al-Bu Nasir, was asked about Saddam's son from Samira Shahbandar. The chief replied:


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" is a song written by English musician Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin. It was originally recorded by John for his eighth studio album, "Caribou" (1974), and was released as a single that peaked at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, and reached number 16 on the UK Singles Chart.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: A version of the song recorded live as a duet between John and George Michael reached number one in the UK in 1991 and in the US in 1992. The pair had performed the song together for the first time at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in July 1985.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was co-written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin during a ten-day period in January 1974 along with the other songs for John's "Caribou" album. The song was released as the first single from the album in May 1974 in the United Kingdom, and on 10 June 1974 in the United States.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: The chorus of the song is supported with a horn arrangement by Del Newman, and features backing vocals by Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys and Toni Tennille. The original backing vocalists were Cat Stevens, Danny Hutton, Gerry Beckley, Dusty Springfield and Brian Wilson but according to Bruce "everyone was afraid of one another and I couldn't get a performance out of anyone". Also on the song are percussion accents provided by Ray Cooper and a mellotron played by Dave Hentschel.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: "Cash Box" called it "a gradually building track with pretty lyrics that is as brilliant in performance as it is in production"


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" charted on 1 June 1974 in the UK, reaching number 16 on the UK Singles Chart. The song reached the top 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart after four weeks, peaking at number two for two weeks from 27 July behind John Denver's "Annie's Song". In the US, the single was certified Gold on 6 September 1974 by the RIAA. In Canada, it reached number one, becoming his fifth chart topper in that country.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: Elton John recorded a live version on 14 December 1986 that appears on the "Live in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra" album. In his 2019 autobiography, "Me", Elton claims that this performance is special because he thought it was the last time he was ever going to sing. The singer was going in to dangerous throat surgery a few days later. An edited version of this same recording was released as a single in 1987 and also appears in the "To Be Continued..." box set.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: On 17 May 1990, Elton John recorded a performance on MTV Unplugged at the Chelsea Studios in New York City. An acoustic version of the song was included as a track on "The Unplugged Collection, Volume One."


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: In 1991, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" was covered in a live version as a duet by George Michael and Elton John. The pair had first performed the song at the Live Aid concert in 1985 (with Michael singing and John playing, featuring backup vocals by Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley and Kiki Dee). Six years later, George Michael's Cover to Cover tour regularly included the song, and for the final show at Wembley Arena, London on 23 March 1991, Michael brought out John as a surprise guest to sing it with him.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: Released as a single later that year, the song reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic, spending two weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart in December 1991 and one week on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart dated 1 February 1992. The duet also spent two weeks at number one on the Adult Contemporary chart.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: This version of the song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: It appears on John's "Love Songs" and "Greatest Hits 1970–2002" compilations, as well as his 1993 "Duets" album. The proceeds from the single were divided among 10 charities for children, AIDS and education.


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: The footage used for the single's music video (directed by Andy Morahan) was taken from a "live" concert in Chicago with 70,000 fans. "The video was actually shot over several days," confirms Michael Pagnotta, George's publicist. "It was shot in an airline hangar in Burbank, California where George had been rehearsing; Elton came in for a night and they ran through the song a couple of times. Then the song was filmed in its entirety live in Chicago in the middle of October as part of that Cover to Cover tour, and when Elton came out from the wings, that place went crazy."


title: Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me

text: All b-sides and additional tracks were performed solo by George Michael, except Last Christmas which is performed by Michael's duo Wham!<br>The live version of "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" had previously been issued as the lead track on a free promotional cassette given away at Michael's Wembley Arena gigs in March 1991. Therefore, it is likely to have been recorded at a venue earlier in the tour.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is often regarded as being sensitive to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on notions such as fairness, justice and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature.


title: Compassion

text: The word "compassion" comes from Middle English, and derives from Old French, via ecclesiastical Latin compassio(n- ), from compati (‘suffer with’).


title: Compassion

text: Compassion involves "feeling for another" and is a precursor to empathy, the "feeling as another" capacity (as opposed to sympathy, the "feeling towards another"). In common parlance, active compassion is the desire to alleviate another's suffering.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion involves allowing ourselves to be moved by suffering, and experiencing the motivation to help alleviate and prevent it. An act of compassion is defined by its helpfulness. Qualities of compassion are patience and wisdom; kindness and perseverance; warmth and resolve. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in what manifests in the social context as altruism. Expression of compassion is prone to be hierarchical, paternalistic, and controlling in responses. The difference between sympathy and compassion is that the former responds to others' suffering with sorrow and concern whereas the latter responds with warmth and care. An article by the Clinical Psychology Review suggests that "compassion consists of three facets: noticing, feeling, and responding." This means that compassion is a verb.


title: Compassion

text: The English noun "compassion", meaning "to suffer together with", comes from Latin. Its prefix "com-" comes directly from "com", an archaic version of the Latin preposition and affix cum (= with); the "-passion" segment is derived from "passus", past participle of the deponent verb patior, patī, passus sum. Compassion is thus related in origin, form and meaning to the English noun patient (= one who suffers), from "patiens", present participle of the same patior, and is akin to the Greek verb πάσχειν (= "paskhein", to suffer) and to its cognate noun πάθος (= pathos). Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in almost all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues.


title: Compassion

text: Theoretical perspectives of compassion have been developed through the years, the following proposed perspectives show contrasts in their evolution and approaches to compassion.


title: Compassion

text: Emma Seppala distinguishes compassion from empathy and altruism as follows: "... The definition of compassion is often confused with that of empathy. Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person's feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another's emotion, like tearing up at a friend's sadness. Altruism is an action that benefits someone else. It may or may not be accompanied by empathy or compassion, for example in the case of making a donation for tax purposes. Although these terms are related to compassion, they are not identical. Compassion often does, of course, involve an empathic response and altruistic behavior. However, compassion is defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help." According to Thupten Jinpa, compassion is not the following: Compassion is not pity, Compassion is not attachment, Compassion is not the same as empathetic feeling, Compassion is not simply wishful thinking, Compassion is not self-regard.


title: Compassion

text: The more one person knows about the human condition and the associated experiences, the more vivid the route to identification with suffering becomes. Identifying with another person is an essential process for human beings, which is even illustrated by infants who begin to mirror the facial expressions and body movements of their mother as early as the first days of their lives. Compassion is recognized through identifying with other people (i.e. perspective-taking), the knowledge of human behavior, the perception of suffering, transfer of feelings, knowledge of goal and purpose changes in sufferers, and leads to the absence of the suffering from the group. Personality psychology agrees that people are inherently different and distinct from one another, which leads to the conclusion that human suffering is always individual and unique. Suffering can result from psychological, social, and physical trauma and it happens in acute forms as often as chronically. Due to the inherent differences in people's personalities some may define their early stages of suffering to their external circumstances and those life events being quiet or not discussed. The later stages may involve the person expressing their victimization and searching for help. Suffering has been defined as the perception of a person's impending destruction or loss of integrity, which continues until the threat is vanished or the person's integrity can be restored. Compassion consists of three major requirements: People must feel that troubles that evoke their feelings are serious, the understanding that sufferers' troubles are not self-inflicted, and ability to picture oneself with the same problems in a non-blaming and non-shaming manner. The importance of identifying with others for compassion is contrasted by the negative physical and psychological effects of abandonment.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion is often a characteristic element of democratic societies. The compassion process is highly related to identifying with the other person because sympathizing with others is possible among people from other countries, cultures, locations, etc. A possible source of this process of identifying with others comes from a universal category called "Spirit." Toward the late 1970s, very different cultures and nations around the world took a turn to religious fundamentalism, which has occasionally been attributed to "Spirit". The role of compassion as a factor contributing to individual or societal behavior has been the topic of continuous debate. In contrast to the process of identifying with other people, a complete absence of compassion may require ignoring or disapproving identification with other people or groups. Earlier studies established the links between interpersonal violence and cruelty which leads to indifference. Compassion may have the ability to induce feelings of kindness and forgiveness, which could give people the ability to stop situations that have the potential to be distressing and occasionally lead to violence. This concept has been illustrated throughout history: The Holocaust, genocide, European colonization of the Americas, etc. The seemingly essential step in these atrocities could be the definition of the victims as "not human" or "not us." The atrocities committed throughout human history are thus claimed to have only been relieved, minimized, or overcome its damaging effects through the presence of compassion, although recently, drawing on empirical research in evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, social neuroscience, and psychopathy, it also has been counterargued that compassion or empathy and morality are neither systematically opposed to one another, nor inevitably complementary, since over the course of history, mankind has created social structures for upholding truly universal moral principles to all humanity, such as Human Rights and the International Criminal Court. On one hand, Thomas Nagel, for instance, critiques Joshua Greene by suggesting that he is too quick to conclude utilitarianism specifically from the general goal of constructing an impartial morality; for example, he says, Immanuel Kant and John Rawls offer other impartial approaches to ethical questions. In his defense against the possible destructive nature of passions, Plato compared the human soul to a chariot: the intellect is the driver and the emotions are the horses, and life is a continual struggle to keep the emotions under control. In his apology of a solid universal morality, Immanuel Kant saw compassion as a weak and misguided sentiment: "Such benevolence is called soft-heartedness and should not occur at all among human beings", he said of it.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion has become associated with and researched in the fields of positive psychology and social psychology. Compassion is a process of connecting by identifying with another person. This identification with others through compassion can lead to increased motivation to do something in an effort to relieve the suffering of others.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion is an evolved function from the harmony of a three grid internal system: contentment-and-peace system, goals-and-drives system and threat-and-safety system. Paul Gilbert defines these collectively as necessary regulated systems for compassion.


title: Compassion

text: Paul Ekman describes a "taxonomy of compassion" including: emotional recognition (knowing how another person feels), emotional resonance (feeling emotions another person feels), familial connection (care-giver-offspring), global compassion (extending compassion to everyone in the world), sentient compassion (extended compassion to other species), and heroic compassion (compassion that comes with a risk).


title: Compassion

text: Indeed, Paul Ekman goes on further to make an important distinction between proximal (i.e. in the moment) and distal compassion (i.e. predicting the future; affective forecasting): "... it has implications in terms of how we go about encouraging compassion. We are all familiar with proximal compassion: Someone falls down in the street, and we help him get up. That's proximal compassion: where we see someone in need, and we help them. But, when I used to tell my kids, "Wear a helmet," that's distal compassion: trying to prevent harm before it occurs. And that requires a different set of skills: It requires social forecasting, anticipating harm before it occurs, and trying to prevent it. Distal compassion is much more amenable to educational influences, I think, and it's our real hope." Distal compassion also requires perspective-taking.


title: Compassion

text: Compassion has been associated with important psychological outcomes including increases in mindfulness and emotion regulation.


title: Compassion

text: According to Figley, individuals with a higher capacity or responsibility to empathize with others may be at risk for "compassion fatigue", also called "secondary traumatic stress", which is related to professionals and individuals who spend a significant amount of time responding to information related to suffering. However, newer research by Singer and Ricard suggests that it is lack of suitable distress tolerance which gets people fatigued in compassion activities. Individuals that are at risk for compassion fatigue usually display these four key attributes: diminished endurance and/or energy, declined empathic ability, helplessness and/or hopelessness, as well as emotional exhaustion. Negative coping skills can also increase the risk of developing compassion fatigue.


title: Compassion

text: Smith mentions that people can alleviate the sorrow and distress by doing some self-care activities on a regular basis. Improving consciousness helps to guide people to recognize the impact and circumstances of past events. After people learn the experience from the situation in the past, they are able to find the causes of compassion fatigue in their daily life. Research suggests that practice of nonjudgmental compassion can prevent fatigue and burnout. Smith provides some methods that can help people to heal compassion fatigue. People should do physical activity, eat healthy food with every meal, create good relations with others, enjoy interacting with others in the community, write a journal frequently, and sleep enough every day. The practice of mindfulness and self-awareness has also been proven to help with compassion fatigue.


title: Compassion

text: The psychologist Paul Gilbert provides factors that can reduce the likelihood of someone willing to be compassionate to another, these include (less): likability, competence, deservedness, empathic-capacity, (more) self-focused competitiveness, (more) anxiety-depression, (more) overwhelmed, and inhibitors in social structures and systems.