text: She supported the US bombing raid on Libya from bases in the UK in 1986 when other NATO allies would not. Her liking for defence ties with the United States was demonstrated in the Westland affair when she acted with colleagues to prevent the helicopter manufacturer Westland, a vital defence contractor, from linking with a European Consortium including the Italian firm Agusta in favour of a link with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation of the United States. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had pushed the European Consortium, resigned in protest at her style of leadership, and thereafter became a potential leadership challenger. Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan then had to resign for having ordered the leak of a confidential legal letter critical of Heseltine; Thatcher survived the crisis as her personal involvement in the leak was not proven.


title: Political history of the United Kingdom (1979–present)

text: By winning the 1987 general election, by another landslide on the economic boom (with unemployment finally falling below 3,000,000 that spring) and against a stubbornly anti-nuclear Labour opposition (now led by Neil Kinnock Following Michael Foot's resignation four years earlier), she became the longest serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the 1820s. Most newspapers supported her – with the exception of "The Daily Mirror" and "The Guardian" — and were rewarded with regular press briefings by her press secretary, Bernard Ingham.


text: She was known as "Maggie" in the popular tabloids, which inspired the well-known "Maggie Out!" protest song, sung throughout that period by some of her opponents. Her unpopularity on the left is evident from the lyrics of several contemporary popular songs: "Stand Down Margaret" (The Beat), "Tramp the Dirt Down" (Elvis Costello), "Mother Knows Best" (Richard Thompson), and "Margaret on the Guillotine" (Morrissey).


text: Many opponents believed she and her policies created a significant north–south divide from the Bristol Channel to The Wash, between the "haves" in the economically dynamic south and the "have nots" in the northern rust belt. Hard welfare reforms in her third term created an adult Employment Training system that included full-time work done for the dole plus a £10 top-up, on the workfare model from the US. The "Social Fund" system that placed one-off welfare payments for emergency needs under a local budgetary limit, and where possible changed them into loans, and rules for assessing jobseeking effort by the week, were breaches of social consensus unprecedented since the 1920s.


text: The sharp fall in unemployment continued. By the end of 1987, it stood at just over 2,600,000 – having started the year still in excess of 3,000,000. It stood at just over 2,000,000 by the end of 1988, and by the end of 1989 less than 1,700,000 were unemployed. However, total economic growth for 1989 stood at 2% – the lowest since 1982 – signalling an end to the economic boom. Several other countries had now entered recession, and fears were now rife that Britain was also on the verge of another recession.


text: In 1988, Thatcher, a trained chemist, became concerned with environmental issues, putting on the national agenda such technical issues as global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. In 1990, she opened the Hadley Centre for climate prediction and research.


text: In September 1988, at Bruges, Thatcher announced her opposition to proposals from the European Community for a federal structure and increasing centralisation of decision-making. Although she had supported British membership, Thatcher believed that the role of the EC should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that new EC regulations would reverse the changes she was making in the UK. "We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a new super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels". The speech caused an outcry from other European leaders, and exposed for the first time the deep split that was emerging over European policy inside her Conservative Party. Since 1985 Thatcher had been blocking British membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), a preparation for Economic and Monetary Union, through which a single currency would replace national currencies, which the EC began seriously to discuss by 1990.


text: Thatcher's popularity once again declined in 1989 as the economy suffered from high interest rates imposed to stop an unsustainable boom. She blamed her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, who had exacerbated the boom by trying to keep the pound sterling low ("shadowing the Deutschmark") as a preparation for European Exchange Rate Mechanism membership; Thatcher claimed not to have been told of this and did not approve. At the Madrid European summit, Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe forced Thatcher to agree the circumstances under which she would join the ERM. Thatcher took revenge on both by demoting Howe, and by listening more to her adviser Sir Alan Walters on economic matters. Lawson resigned that October, feeling that Thatcher had undermined him.


text: That November, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by Sir Anthony Meyer. As Meyer was a virtually unknown backbench MP, he was viewed as a stalking horse candidate for more prominent members of the party. Thatcher easily defeated Meyer's challenge, but there were 60 ballot papers either cast for Meyer or abstaining, a surprisingly large number for a sitting Prime Minister.


text: Thatcher's new system to replace local government rates was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales in 1990. Rates were replaced by the "Community Charge" (more widely known as the poll tax), which applied the same amount to every individual resident, with only limited discounts for low earners. This was to be the most universally unpopular policy of her premiership, and saw the Conservative government split further behind the Labour opposition (still led by Neil Kinnock) in the opinion polls. The Charge was introduced early in Scotland as the rateable values would in any case have been reassessed in 1989. However, it led to accusations that Scotland was a 'testing ground' for the tax. Thatcher apparently believed that the new tax would be popular, and had been persuaded by Scottish Conservatives to bring it in early and in one go. Despite her hopes, the early introduction led to a sharp decline in the already low support for the Conservative party in Scotland.


text: Additional problems emerged when many of the tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predictions. Some have argued that local councils saw the introduction of the new system of taxation as the opportunity to make significant increases in the amount taken, assuming (correctly) that it would be the originators of the new tax system and not its local operators who would be blamed.


text: A large London demonstration against the poll tax in Trafalgar Square on 31 March 1990 – the day before it was introduced in England and Wales – turned into a riot. Millions of people resisted paying the tax. Opponents of the tax banded together to resist bailiffs and disrupt court hearings of poll tax debtors. Mrs Thatcher refused to compromise, or change the tax, and its unpopularity was a major factor in Thatcher's downfall.


text: By the autumn of 1990, opposition to Thatcher's policies on local government taxation, her Government's perceived mishandling of the economy (especially high interest rates of 15%, which were undermining her core voting base within the home-owning, entrepreneurial and business sectors), and the divisions opening within her party over the appropriate handling of European integration made Thatcher and her party seem increasingly politically vulnerable. Her increasingly combative, irritable personality also made opposition to her grow fast and by this point, even many in her own party could not stand her.


text: In November 1990, Michael Heseltine challenged Margaret Thatcher for leadership of the Conservative Party. Thatcher fell short of the required 15% majority in the first round and was persuaded to withdraw from the second round on 22 November, ending her 11-year premiership. Her Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major contested the second round and defeated Michael Heseltine as well as Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, becoming prime minister on 28 November 1990.


text: By this stage, however, Britain had slid into recession for the third time in less than 20 years. Unemployment had started to rise in the spring of 1990 but by the end of the year it was still lower than in many other European economies, particularly France and Italy.


text: John Major was Prime Minister during British involvement in the Gulf War. Polls improved for the Conservatives despite the recession deepening throughout 1991 and into 1992, with the economy for 1991 falling 2% and unemployment passing the 2,000,000 mark. Major called a general election for April 1992 and took his campaign onto the streets, famously delivering many addresses from an upturned soapbox as in his Lambeth days. This populist "common touch", in contrast to the Labour Party's more slick campaign, chimed with the electorate and Major won, albeit with a small parliamentary majority.


text: The narrow majority for the Conservative government proved to be unmanageable, particularly after the United Kingdom's forced exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday (16 September 1992) just five months into the new parliament. From this stage onwards, Labour – now led by John Smith – was ascendant in the opinion polls. Major allowed his economic team to stay in place unchanged for seven months after Black Wednesday before forcing the resignation of his Chancellor, Norman Lamont, whom he replaced with Kenneth Clarke. This delay was seen as indicative of one of his weaknesses, an indecisiveness towards personnel issues that was to undermine his authority through the rest of his premiership.


text: At the 1993 Conservative Party Conference, Major began his ill-fated "Back to Basics" campaign, which he intended to be about the economy, education, policing, and other such issues, but it was interpreted by many (including Conservative cabinet ministers) as an attempt to revert to the moral and family values that the Conservative Party were often associated with. A number of sleaze scandals involving Conservative MP's were exposed in lurid and embarrassing detail in tabloid newspapers following this and further reduced the Conservative's popularity. Despite Major's best efforts, the Conservative Party collapsed into political infighting. Major took a moderate approach but found himself undermined by the right-wing within the party and his Cabinet.


text: Major's policy towards the European Union aroused opposition as the Government attempted to ratify the Maastricht Treaty. Although the Labour opposition supported the treaty, they were prepared to undertake tactical moves to weaken the government, which included passing an amendment that required a vote on the social chapter aspects of the treaty before it could be ratified. Several Conservative MPs (the Maastricht Rebels) voted against the Government and the vote was lost. Major hit back by calling another vote on the following day (23 July 1993), which he declared a vote of confidence. He won by 40 but had damaged his authority.


text: One of the few bright spots of 1993 for the Conservative government came in April when the end of the recession was finally declared after nearly three years. Unemployment had touched 3,000,000 by the turn of the year, but had dipped to 2,800,000 by Christmas as the economic recovery continued. The economic recovery was strong and sustained throughout 1994, with unemployment falling below 2,500,000 by the end of the year. However, Labour remained ascendant in the opinion polls and their popularity further increased with the election of Tony Blair – who redesignated the party as New Labour – as leader following the sudden death of John Smith on 12 May 1994. Labour remained ascendant in the polls throughout 1995, despite the Conservative government overseeing the continuing economic recovery and fall in unemployment. It was a similar story throughout 1996, despite the economy still being strong and unemployment back below 2,000,000 for the first time since early 1991. The Railways Act 1993 was introduced by John Major's Conservative government and passed on 5 November 1993. It provided for the restructuring of the British Railways Board (BRB), the public corporation that owned and operated the national railway system. A few residual responsibilities of the BRB remained with BRB (Residuary) Ltd.


text: Few were surprised when Major lost the 1997 general election to Tony Blair, though the immense scale of the landslide defeat was not widely predicted. In the new parliament Labour won 418 seats, the Conservatives 165, and the Liberal Democrats 46, leaving the Labour party with a majority of 179 which was the biggest majority since 1931. In addition, the Conservatives lost all their seats in Scotland and Wales and several cabinet ministers including Michael Portillo, Malcolm Rifkind and Ian Lang lost their seats, as did former cabinet minister Norman Lamont. Major carried on as Leader of the Opposition until William Hague was elected to lead the Conservative Party the month after the election.


text: Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 after a landslide victory over the Conservative Party. Under the title of "New Labour", he promised economic and social reform and brought Labour closer to the centre of the political spectrum. Early policies of the Labour government included the minimum wage and the introduction of university tuition fees. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown also gave the Bank of England the power to set the base rate of interest autonomously. The traditional tendency of governments to manipulate interest rates around the time of general elections for political gain is thought to have been deleterious to the UK economy and helped reinforce a cyclical pattern of boom and bust. Brown's decision was popular with the City, which the Labour Party had been courting since the early 1990s. Blair presided over the longest period of economic expansion in Britain since the 19th century and his premiership saw large investment into social aspects, in particular health and education, areas particularly under-invested during the Conservative government of the 1980s and early 1990s. The Human Rights Act was introduced in 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2000. Most hereditary peers were removed from the House of Lords in 1999 and the Civil Partnership Act of 2005 allowed homosexual couples the right to register their partnership with the same rights and responsibilities comparable to heterosexual marriage.


text: From the beginning, New Labour's record on the economy and unemployment was strong, suggesting that they could break with the trend of Labour governments overseeing an economic decline while in power. They had inherited an unemployment count of 1,700,000 from the Conservatives, and by the following year unemployment was down to 1,300,000 – a level not seen since James Callaghan was in power some 20 years previously. A minimum wage was announced in May 1998, coming into force from April 1999. Unemployment would remain similarly low for the next 10 years.


text: The long-running Northern Ireland peace process was brought to a conclusion in 1998 with the Belfast Agreement which established a devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and de-escalated the violence associated with the Troubles. It was signed in April 1998 by the British and Irish governments and was endorsed by all the main political parties in Northern Ireland with the exception of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party. Voters in Northern Ireland approved the agreement in a referendum in May 1998 and it came into force in December 1999. In August 1998, a car-bomb exploded in the Northern Ireland town of Omagh, killing 29 people and injuring 220. The attack was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army who opposed the Belfast Agreement. It was reported in 2005, that the IRA had renounced violence and had ditched its entire arsenal.


text: In foreign policy, following the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, Blair greatly supported U.S. President George W. Bush's new War on terror which began with the forced withdrawal of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Blair's case for the subsequent Iraq War was based on their alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction and consequent violation of UN resolutions. He was wary of making direct appeals for regime change, since international law does not recognise this as a ground for war. A memorandum from a July 2002 meeting that was leaked in April 2005 showed that Blair believed that the British public would support regime change in the right political context; the document, however, stated that legal grounds for such action were weak. On 24 September 2002 the Government published a dossier based on the intelligence agencies' assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Among the items in the dossier was a recently received intelligence report that "the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so". A further briefing paper on Iraq's alleged WMDs was issued to journalists in February 2003. This document was discovered to have taken a large part of its text without attribution from a PhD thesis available on the internet. Where the thesis hypothesised about possible WMDs, the Downing Street version presented the ideas as fact. The document subsequently became known as the "Dodgy Dossier".


text: 46,000 British troops, one-third of the total strength of the British Army (land forces), were deployed to assist with the invasion of Iraq. When after the war, no WMDs were found in Iraq, the two dossiers, together with Blair's other pre-war statements, became an issue of considerable controversy. Many Labour Party members, including a number who had supported the war, were among the critics. Successive independent inquiries (including those by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons, the senior judge Lord Hutton, and the former senior civil servant Lord Butler of Brockwell) have found that Blair honestly stated what he believed to be true at the time, though Lord Butler's report did imply that the Government's presentation of the intelligence evidence had been subject to some degree of exaggeration. These findings have not prevented frequent accusations that Blair was deliberately deceitful, and, during the 2005 election campaign, Conservative leader Michael Howard made political capital out of the issue. The new threat of international terrorism ultimately led to the 7 July 2005 bomb attacks in London which killed 52 people as well as the four suicide bombers who led the attack.


text: The Labour government was re-elected with a second successive landslide in the general election of June 2001. Blair became the first Labour leader to lead the party to three successive election victories when they won the 2005 general election, though this time he had a drastically reduced majority.


text: The Conservatives had so far failed to represent a serious challenge to Labour's rule, with John Major's successor William Hague unable to make any real improvement upon the disastrous 1997 general election result at the next election four years later. He stepped down after the 2001 election to be succeeded by Iain Duncan Smith, who did not even hold the leadership long enough to contest a general election – being ousted by his own MP's in October 2003 and being replaced by Michael Howard, who had served as Home Secretary in the previous Conservative government under John Major. Howard failed to win the 2005 general election for the Conservatives but he at least had the satisfaction of narrowing the Labour majority, giving his successor (he announced his resignation shortly after the election) a decent platform to build upon. However, the Conservatives began to re-emerge as an electable prospect following the election of David Cameron as Howard's successor in December 2005. Within months of Cameron becoming Conservative leader, opinion polls during 2006 were showing a regular Conservative lead for the first time since Black Wednesday 14 years earlier. Despite the economy still being strong and unemployment remaining low, Labour's decline in support was largely blamed upon poor control of immigration and allowing Britain to become what was seen by many as an easy target for terrorists.


text: Blair also came into power with a policy of devolution. A pre-legislative referendum was held in Scotland in 1997 with two questions: whether to create a devolved Parliament for Scotland and whether it should have limited tax-varying powers. Following a clear 'yes' vote on both questions in Scotland, a referendum on the proposal for creating a devolved Assembly for Wales was held two weeks later. This produced a narrow 'yes' vote. Both measures were put into effect and the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly began operating in 1999. The first general election to the Scottish parliament saw the creation of a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition with Donald Dewar as First Minister. After the first election to the Welsh Assembly, the Labour Party formed a minority government with Alun Michael as the Welsh First Minister. In the 2007 Scottish general election, the Scottish National Party gained enough seats to form a minority government with its leader Alex Salmond as First Minister.


text: Devolution also returned to Northern Ireland, leaving England as the only constituent country of the United Kingdom without a devolved administration. Within England, a devolved authority for London was re-established following a 'yes' vote in a London-wide referendum.


text: Tony Blair tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to the Queen on 27 June 2007, his successor Gordon Brown assuming office the same afternoon. Brown took over as Prime Minister without having to face either a general election or a contested election for leadership of the Labour Party.


text: Brown's style of government differed from that of his predecessor, Tony Blair, who had been seen as presidential. Brown rescinded some of the policies which had either been introduced or were planned by Blair's administration. He remained committed to close ties with the United States and to the Iraq war, although he established an inquiry into the reasons why Britain had participated in the conflict. He proposed a "government of all the talents" which would involve co-opting leading personalities from industry and other professional walks of life into government positions. Brown also appointed Jacqui Smith as the UK's first female Home Secretary, while Brown's old position as Chancellor was taken over by Alistair Darling.


text: Brown was closer to American thinking, and more distant from Europe, than Blair. In major issues with foreign policy complications, He paid close attention to both the United States and the European Union, especially regarding the deregulation of the Bank of England, the Welfare to Work program, and his response to the worldwide financial crisis at the G20 summit in London in 2009. Brown decided in 1997 to follow the American model and grant operational independence to set interest rates to the Bank of England, rather than have the power remain with the Treasury. He explained the Bank's monetary policy objective "will be to deliver price stability and...to support the Government's economic policy." Brown argued for a neoliberal policy on welfare in 1997. His goal was to move people off welfare and into actual employment. He stated:


text: Brown's reaction to the great 2008 banking crisis was much more pro active than France or Germany, and in many ways resembled the Bush policies in Washington. Brown's goals were to provide more liquidity to the financial system, to recapitalise the banks and to guarantee bank debt. He lowered the VAT to encourage consumer spending and to keep the economy from sinking.


text: Brown's rise to prime minister sparked a brief surge in Labour support as the party topped most opinion polls. There was talk of a "snap" general election, which it was widely believed Labour could win, but Brown decided against calling an election.


text: Brown's administration introduced a number of fiscal policies to help keep the British economy afloat during the financial crisis which occurred throughout the latter part of the 2000s (decade) and early 2010, although the United Kingdom saw a dramatic increase in its national debt. Unemployment soared through 2008 as the recession set in, and Labour standings in the opinion polls plummeted as the Conservatives became ascendant.


text: Several major banks were nationalised after falling into financial difficulties, while large amounts of money were pumped into the economy to encourage spending. Brown was also press ganged into giving Gurkhas settlement rights in Britain by the actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley and attracted criticism for its handling of the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the only person to have been convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.


text: Further European integration was introduced under the Labour governments after 1997, including the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) and the Treaty of Nice (2001). The Treaty of Lisbon (2007)introduced many further changes. Prominent changes included more qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers, increased involvement of the European Parliament in the legislative process through extended codecision with the Council of Ministers, eliminating the pillar system established by the Maastricht Treaty of the early 1990s and the creation of a President of the European Council with a term of two and a half years and a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to present a united position on EU policies. The Treaty of Lisbon will also make the Union's human rights charter, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, legally binding. The Lisbon Treaty also leads to an increase in the voting weight of the UK in the Council of the European Union from 8.4% to 12.4%. In July 2008 the Labour government under Gordon Brown approved the treaty.


text: Initially, during the first four months of his premiership, Brown enjoyed a solid lead in the polls. His popularity amongst the public may be due to his handling of numerous serious events during his first few weeks as Prime Minister, including two attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow at the end of June. However, between the end of 2007 and September 2008, his popularity had fallen significantly, with two contributing factors believed to be his perceived change of mind over plans to call a snap general election in October 2007, and his handling of the 10p tax rate cut in 2008, which led to allegations of weakness and dithering. His unpopularity led eight labour MPs to call for a leadership contest in September 2008, less than 15 months into his premiership. The threat of a leadership contest receded due to his perceived strong handling of the global financial crisis in October, but his popularity hit an all-time low, and his position became increasingly under threat after the May 2009 expenses scandal and Labour's poor results in the 2009 Local and European elections. Brown's cabinet began to rebel with several key resignations in the run up to local elections in June 2009.


text: In January 2010, it was revealed that Britain's economy had resumed growth after a recession which had seen a record six successive quarters of economic detraction. However, it was a narrow return to growth, and it came after the other major economies had come out of recession.


text: The 2010 general election resulted in a hung parliament – Britain's first for 36 years – with the Conservative Party controlling 306 Seats, the Labour Party 258 Seats and the Liberal Democrats 57 Seats. Brown remained as caretaker prime minister while the Liberal Democrats negotiated with Labour and the Conservatives to form a coalition government. He announced his intention to resign on 10 May 2010 to help broker a Labour-Liberal Democrat deal. However, this became increasingly unlikely, and on 11 May Brown announced his resignation as Prime Minister and as Leader of the Labour Party. This paved the way for the Conservatives to return to power after 13 years.


text: His deputy Harriet Harman became Leader of the Opposition until September 2010, when Ed Miliband was elected Leader of the Labour Party.


text: The Conservative Party won the 2010 United Kingdom general election but did not win enough seats to win an outright majority. David Cameron, who had led the party since 2005 became Prime Minister on 11 May 2010 after the Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and several other Liberal Democrats were given cabinet positions. Cameron promised to reduce Britain's spiralling budget deficit by cutting back on public service spending and by transferring more power to local authorities. He committed his government to Britain's continuing role in the War in Afghanistan and stated that he hopes to remove British troops from the region by 2015. An emergency budget was prepared in June 2010 by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne which stated that VAT will be raised to 20% and there will be a large reduction in public spending. A key Liberal Democrat policy is that of voting reform, to which a referendum took place in May 2011 on whether or not Britain should adopt a system of Alternative Vote to elect MPs to Westminster. However, the proposal was rejected overwhelmingly, with 68% of voters in favour of retaining first-past-the-post. The Liberal Democrat turnabout on tuition policy at the universities alienated their younger supporters, and the continuing weakness of the economy, despite spending cutbacks, alienated the elders.


text: In March 2011, UK, along with France and USA voted for military intervention against Gaddafi's Libya leading to 2011 military intervention in Libya. On 6 August, the Death of Mark Duggan sparked the 2011 England riots.


text: In 2012, the Summer Olympics returned to London for the first time since 1948. The United States claimed the largest count of gold medals, with Britain running third place after China.


text: In 2014, Scotland voted in a referendum on the question of becoming an independent country. The No side, supported by the three major UK parties, secured a 55% to 45% majority for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom. Following the result on 18 September 2014, Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, announced his intention to step down as First Minister and leader of the SNP. He was replaced by his deputy, Nicola Sturgeon.


text: Following years of austerity, the British economy was on an upswing in 2015. In line with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the 2015 general election was called for 7 May 2015. The Conservatives claimed credit for the upswing, promising to keep taxes low and reduce the deficit as well as promising an In/Out referendum on the UK's relationship with the European Union. The opposition Labour Party called for a higher minimum wage, and higher taxes on the rich. In Scotland, the SNP attacked the austerity programme, opposed nuclear weapons and demanded that promises of more autonomy for Scotland made during the independence referendum be delivered.


text: Pre-election polls had predicted a close race and a hung parliament, but the surprising result was that a majority Conservative government was elected. The Conservatives with 37% of the popular vote held a narrow majority with 331 of the 650 seats. The other main victor was the Scottish National Party which won 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland, a gain of 50. Labour suffered its worst defeat since 1987, taking only 31% of the votes and 232 seats; they lost 40 of their 41 seats in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats vote fell by 2/3 and they lost 49 of their 57 seats, as their coalition with the Conservatives had alienated the great majority of their supporters. The new UK Independence Party (UKIP), rallying voters against Europe and against immigration, did well with 13% of the vote count. It came in second in over 115 constituencies but came in first in only one. Women now comprise 29% of the MPs.


text: Following the election, the Leaders of the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats both resigned. They were replaced by Jeremy Corbyn and Tim Farron, respectively.


text: On 23 June 2016, UK voters elected to withdraw from the European Union by a thin margin with 48% in favour of remaining, 52% in favour of leaving the European Union. London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland were three regions most in favour of the Remain vote, while Wales and England's northern region were strongly pro-Leave. Although he called for the referendum, British Prime Minister David Cameron had campaigned ardently for the Remain vote. He faced significant opposition from other parties on the right who came to view British membership in the European Union as a detriment to the country's security and economic vitality. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage called the vote Britain's "independence day".


text: Brexit had a few immediate consequences. Hours after the results of the referendum, David Cameron announced that he would resign as Prime Minister, claiming that "fresh leadership" was needed. In addition, because Scottish voters were highly in favour of remaining in the EU, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that the Scottish Government would begin to organize another referendum on the question of Scottish independence. On the economic side of things, the value of the British pound declined sharply after the results of the election were made clear. Stock markets in both Britain and New York were down the day after the referendum. Oil prices also fell.


text: A Conservative Party leadership election occurred following Cameron's announcement of his resignation. All candidates except Theresa May had either been eliminated or withdrawn from the race by 11 July 2016; as a result, May automatically became the new Leader of the Conservative Party and became Prime Minister after Cameron's official resignation on 13 July 2016. On 18 April 2017, the Prime Minister Theresa May called for an election on 8 June 2017, despite previously ruling out an early election on a multitude of occasions. The outcome of the election resulted in the second hung parliament of the 21st century: with the Conservatives being the largest party with 317 seats (which was 9 seats short of a majority). This resulted in the formation of a Conservative minority government which was supported by the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party. Following repeated rejections of her proposed Brexit withdrawal agreement, May announced her resignation.


text: The premiership of Boris Johnson began on 24 July 2019 when Johnson accepted Queen Elizabeth II's invitation, at her prerogative, to form an administration.


text: On 3 September 2019, Johnson threatened to call a general election after opposition and rebel Conservative MPs successfully voted against the government to take control of the order of business with a view to preventing a no-deal exit. The Benn Act, a bill to block a no-deal exit, passed the Commons on 4 September 2019, causing Johnson to call for a general election set for 12 December 2019. After several votes, a new election was approved for December 2019, in which the Conservative Party won an 80-seat majority, partially assisted by the Brexit Party, formed earlier in the year, agreeing to only campaign in non-Conservative seats. On 31 January 2020, Johnson took the country out of the European Union with the new Brexit deal he negotiated. Johnson then oversaw the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in which the government imposed national lockdowns, health programs, and vaccination rollouts. Various scandals rocked the Johnson ministry throughout 2022 including Johnson personally being served a fine for Partygate, in which 10 Downing Street was revealed to host social gatherings during the nationwide lockdown orders during the pandemic.<ref name="bbc12/4/2022"></ref> The embroilment of Chris Pincher in a sex scandal led to mass resignations in Johnson's cabinet, leading Johnson to announce his resignation in July 2022. However, Johnson served as caretaker PM for several weeks until new leader had been chosen.


text: The premiership of Liz Truss began on 6 September 2022 following a leadership election. Queen Elizabeth II's invitation for Truss to form a government was one of her last acts as monarch before her death just two days later. This saw Charles III ascend to the throne and the funeral of the late monarch dominating Truss's first weeks in office.


text: Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a "mini-budget" on 23 September 2022 which proposed cutting various taxes against the backdrop of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. The budget received significant backlash, with the price of the pound as well as Truss's approval rating to fall to record lows. Kwarteng resigned, with Jeremy Hunt taking over as Chancellor, who reversed all proposals of the mini-budget within days; however this did not alleviate the political pressure on Truss. She announced her resignation on 20 October 2022, making her the shortest serving Prime Minister to date. A leadership election was called to replace Truss within a week of her announcement. A head of lettuce gained international notoriety for outlasting Truss during a livestream by the Daily Star.


text: The premiership of Rishi Sunak began on 25 October 2022 following a leadership election. Sunak is the first prime minister invited to form a government during the reign of King Charles III, as well as the first British Asian prime minister.


title: Dust in the Wind

text: "Dust in the Wind" is a song recorded by American progressive rock band Kansas and written by band member Kerry Livgren, first released on their 1977 album "Point of Know Return".


title: Dust in the Wind

text: The song peaked at No. 6 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 the week of April 22, 1978, making it Kansas's only single to reach the top ten in the US. The 45-rpm single was certified Gold for sales of one million units by the RIAA shortly after the height of its popularity as a hit single. More than 25 years later, the RIAA certified Gold the digital download format of the song, Kansas' only single to be so certified as of September 17, 2008.


title: Dust in the Wind

text: A meditation on mortality and the inevitability of death, the lyrical theme bears a striking resemblance to the biblical passages Genesis 3:19 ("...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.") and Ecclesiastes 3:20 ("All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.") as well as to the famous opening lines of the Japanese war epic "The Tale of the Heike" ("...the mighty fall at last, and they are as dust before the wind.") and from a book of Native American poetry, which includes the line "for all we are is dust in the wind."


title: Dust in the Wind

text: Kerry Livgren devised what would be the guitar line for "Dust in the Wind" as a finger exercise for learning fingerpicking. His wife, Vicci, heard what he was doing, remarked that the melody was nice, and encouraged him to write lyrics for it. Livgren was unsure whether his fellow band members would like it, since it was a departure from their signature style. After Kansas had rehearsed all the songs intended for the band's recording sessions of June and July 1976, Livgren played "Dust in the Wind" for his bandmates, who after a moment's "stunned silence" asked: "Kerry, where has this been?" Kansas guitarist Rich Williams would recall that Livgren played his bandmates "a real rough recording of him playing ['Dust in the Wind'] on an old reel to reel. [He] just kind of mumbl[ed] the lyrics, [but] even [hearing it] in that bare form...we said: 'That's our next single.'"


title: Dust in the Wind

text: Recorded at Woodland Studios in Nashville, "Dust in the Wind" featured Livgren playing a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar borrowed from Williams: highlighted by the electric violin work of Robby Steinhardt, the track featured Steve Walsh as lead vocalist despite being recorded after Walsh had given his immediately effective resignation to his bandmates (Walsh's 1977 "departure" from Kansas would last a month).


title: Dust in the Wind

text: In fact passed over as lead single choice in favor of its parent album's title cut, "Dust in the Wind" began receiving radio airplay as an album track, factoring into the underperformance of the "Point of Know Return" single which dropped out of the Top 40 from its "Billboard" Hot 100 peak of No. 29 the week the rush-released single of "Dust in the Wind" debuted at No. 81 on the Hot 100 dated January 21, 1978. On the Hot 100 dated April 1, 1978 "Dust in the Wind" reached No. 10—besting the No. 11 peak of the 1977 Kansas breakout hit "Carry on Wayward Son"—rising to a Hot 100 peak of No. 6 with a total Top Ten tenure of seven weeks. It's failure to chart in the UK and in the top 5 in america is said by Steve Walsh to be due to the lack of rock instrumentation. "Dust in the Wind" would remain the all-time highest charting single for Kansas: of the group's five subsequent Top 40 hits, only two would reach the Top 20, "Play the Game Tonight" and "All I Wanted" having respective Hot 100 peaks of No. 17 and No. 19.


title: Dust in the Wind

text: "Billboard" praised the song's "evocative lyrics", "catchy melody" as well as the lead vocal performance and how the string instruments evoke the mood. "Cash Box" said that it has "solid melody, excellent vocals and harmonies, and an impactful lyric." "Ultimate Classic Rock" critic Eduardo Rivadavia rated "Dust in the Wind" as Kansas' 3rd greatest song, calling it "a stark and gentle lament that bridges the group’s transition from intimidating prog rockers to accessible hitmakers."


title: Dust in the Wind

text: Kansas also released a live version of the "Dust in the Wind" on their album "Two for the Show" and a symphonic version on "Always Never the Same".


title: Dust in the Wind

text: Sarah Brightman recorded "Dust in the Wind" for her 1998 album release "Eden". Cited by some critics as an anachronistic item in the operatic pop singer's repertoire, the song was recorded at the suggestion of "Eden"'s producer: Brightman's then personal partner Frank Peterson.


title: Dust in the Wind

text: During the 8888 Uprising, Naing Myanmar, a Burmese composer, penned "Kabar Makyay Bu" (ကမ္ဘာမကျေဘူး), rendered in English as "We Won’t Be Satisfied till the End of the World" as a protest song. Set to the tune of "Dust in the Wind," the song quickly gained popularity across the country, as an emotional appeal for freedom. The song was recorded and distributed on cassette tapes, reaching millions of Burmese eventually becoming an anthem of the 8888 Uprising. In the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar coup d'etat, the country's nascent civil disobedience movement has revitalized this song, performing it during protests and acts of civil disobedience.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: Sandra Renee Cantu (March 8, 2001 – March 27, 2009) was an American girl who gained national attention after she disappeared from Tracy, California, on March 27, 2009. Her body was discovered ten days later inside a suitcase in a local irrigation pond. On April 10, police arrested a local woman, 28-year-old Melissa Huckaby (born February 23, 1981), and charged her with the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Cantu. Huckaby pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of Cantu and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 2010.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: Sandra Renee Cantu, eight at the time of her death, lived at Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California, with her mother, grandparents and three older siblings. She was a second grade student at Melville S. Jacobson Elementary School. On Friday, March 27, 2009, Cantu played at a friend's house after school until approximately 4:00 p.m., when she returned home. She later left home saying that she was going to play at another friend's house. When she did not return for dinner, she was reported missing to the local police at 7:53 p.m.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: Police collected footage recorded by a surveillance camera near the family home. The footage, which showed Cantu crossing the street in front of her home before moving out of frame, was played on national news stations. A search of the mobile home complex was conducted without results and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was called in to assist on the case. Over the course of the weekend of March 28–29, police dogs, equestrian teams, all-terrain vehicles and a helicopter from the California Highway Patrol were brought in to search for Cantu. A $22,000 reward was offered for information in the case.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: One early suspect was a local man who was witnessed kissing Cantu on the lips two years earlier at a local swimming pool, when she was six. He was interviewed and cleared of any involvement.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: On April 6, a suitcase containing Cantu's body was found during routine draining of an irrigation pond. An autopsy established that Cantu had been beaten and sexually abused with a foreign object before being smothered, while toxicology results showed that she had ingested Alprazolam.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: The profile that FBI experts assigned to the case was a white male aged between 25 and 40 with a criminal history of sexual assault or child pornography. Upon finding Cantu's body, police became suspicious of a number of coincidences regarding Melissa Huckaby, a 28-year-old Sunday school teacher who also lived in the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park and whose daughter was a friend of Cantu. On the day Cantu disappeared, Huckaby sent a text to Cantu's mother that said: "Tell the police that I had something stolen today around 4 p.m. I don't know if that makes a difference or not".


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: The next day, during a vigil for Cantu, Huckaby approached police and FBI agents to report that she had found a note on the ground. They reported she was "very agitated, crying, hyperventilating". The note read: "Cantu locked in stolin suitcase. Thrown in water onn Bacchetti Road and Whitehall Road. Witness." Huckaby had a history of mental health problems, including borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Prior to the discovery of the body, Huckaby was not a prime suspect. She was interviewed on multiple occasions, but her behavior was assumed to be attention-seeking, rather than evidence of involvement.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: After the body was found in the suitcase Huckaby had reported stolen, investigators began taking a closer look at Huckaby's behavior. They took notice of "the unusual fact that a woman who reported losing a suitcase should be the one woman out of everyone in this complex who should happen to find a note that reports that the stolen suitcase was used to hide the child's body". The police got another lead when a retired U.S. Marine and his wife notified police that they had spotted Huckaby and her SUV at the irrigation pond on their property at Bacchetti Road and Whitehall Road between 5:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. on March 27. They reportedly recognized Huckaby on television. The witness described her as "distracted and hurried", and she told him, "I just had to pee real quick" when he saw her. Police continued to review the footage from the surveillance camera installed outside Cantu's home, which showed Cantu walking in the direction of Huckaby's residence at 3:54 p.m. on March 27. The camera had captured Huckaby's SUV driving in the opposite direction eight minutes later. At approximately the same time, Huckaby called the trailer park manager to report that a suitcase made by the manufacturer Eddie Bauer had been stolen from her trailer. Eighty-five minutes later, a surveillance camera located outside the parking lot of the church at which Huckaby taught Sunday school captured her driving away from the church. Thirty minutes after that, she was captured returning to the church. It was during this 30-minute time frame that she was spotted at the irrigation pond. FBI agents searched the church and collected a rolling pin from the kitchen which reportedly had a "bloody smudge" on it as well as a bent handle, authorities said. The rolling pin tested positive for Cantu's DNA.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: On April 10, 2009, Huckaby was arrested and charged with the murder of Cantu. She received further charges regarding the druggings of a 7-year-old girl and a 37-year-old man; these charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain in which Huckaby pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder and kidnapping of Cantu in order to avoid the death penalty. Huckaby was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. At her sentencing, Huckaby said, "I still cannot understand why I did what I did. This is a question I will struggle with for the rest of my life." The prosecutor in the case speculated that she killed Cantu for attention.


title: Murder of Sandra Cantu

text: The case has been covered on the Investigation Discovery true crime show "Deadly Women" as the third case of the episode "Loathe Thy Neighbor."


title: Knot

text: A knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative, or both. Practical knots are classified by function, including hitches, bends, loop knots, and splices: a "hitch" fastens a rope to another object; a "bend" fastens two ends of a rope to each another; a "loop knot" is any knot creating a loop; and "splice" denotes any multi-strand knot, including bends and loops. A knot may also refer, in the strictest sense, to a stopper or knob at the end of a rope to keep that end from slipping through a grommet or eye. Knots have excited interest since ancient times for their practical uses, as well as their topological intricacy, studied in the area of mathematics known as knot theory.


title: Knot

text: Knots and knotting have been used and studied throughout history. For example, Chinese knotting is a decorative handicraft art that began as a form of Chinese folk art in the Tang and Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD) in China, later popularized in the Ming. Knot theory is the recent mathematical study of knots.


title: Knot

text: Knots of ancient origin include the bottle sling, bowline, cat's paw, clove hitch, cow hitch, double fisherman's knot, eskimo bowline, figure-eight knot, fisherman's knot, half hitch, kalmyk loop, one-sided overhand bend, overhand knot, overhand loop, reef knot, running bowline, single hitch, thief knot, Turk's head knot, and two half-hitches.


title: Knot

text: The eleven main knots of Chinese knotting are the four-flower knot, six-flower knot, Chinese button knot, double connection knot, double coin knot, agemaki, cross knot, square knot, Plafond knot, Pan Chang knot, and the good luck knot.


title: Knot

text: Knots of more recent origin include the friendship knot of Chinese knotting. The sheepshank knot originates from 1627 while the Western Union splice originates from the beginning of telegraphy.


title: Knot

text: There is a large variety of knots, each with properties that make it suitable for a range of tasks. Some knots are used to attach the rope (or other knotting material) to other objects such as another rope, cleat, ring, or stake. Some knots are used to bind or constrict objects. Decorative knots usually bind to themselves to produce attractive patterns.


title: Knot

text: While some people can look at diagrams or photos and tie the illustrated knots, others learn best by watching how a knot is tied. Knot tying skills are often transmitted by sailors, scouts, climbers, canyoners, cavers, arborists, rescue professionals, stagehands, fishermen, linemen and surgeons. The International Guild of Knot Tyers is an organization dedicated to the promotion of knot tying.


title: Knot

text: Truckers in need of securing a load may use a trucker's hitch, gaining mechanical advantage. Knots can save spelunkers from being buried under rock. Many knots can also be used as makeshift tools, for example, the bowline can be used as a rescue loop, and the munter hitch can be used for belaying. The diamond hitch was widely used to tie packages on to donkeys and mules.


title: Knot

text: In hazardous environments such as mountains, knots are very important. In the event of someone falling into a ravine or a similar terrain feature, with the correct equipment and knowledge of knots a rappel system can be set up to lower a rescuer down to a casualty and set up a hauling system to allow a third individual to pull both the rescuer and the casualty out of the ravine. Further application of knots includes developing a high line, which is similar to a zip line, and which can be used to move supplies, injured people, or the untrained across rivers, crevices, or ravines. Note the systems mentioned typically require carabiners and the use of multiple appropriate knots. These knots include the bowline, double figure eight, munter hitch, munter mule, prusik, autoblock, and clove hitch. Thus any individual who goes into a mountainous environment should have basic knowledge of knots and knot systems to increase safety and the ability to undertake activities such as rappelling.


title: Knot

text: Knots can be applied in combination to produce complex objects such as lanyards and netting. In ropework, the frayed end of a rope is held together by a type of knot called a whipping knot. Many types of textiles use knots to repair damage. Macramé, one kind of textile, is generated exclusively through the use of knotting, instead of knits, crochets, weaves or felting. Macramé can produce self-supporting three-dimensional textile structures, as well as flat work, and is often used ornamentally or decoratively.


title: Knot

text: Knots weaken the rope in which they are made. When knotted rope is strained to its breaking point, it almost always fails at the knot or close to it, unless it is defective or damaged elsewhere. The bending, crushing, and chafing forces that hold a knot in place also unevenly stress rope fibers and ultimately lead to a reduction in strength. The exact mechanisms that cause the weakening and failure are complex and are the subject of continued study. Special fibers that show differences in color in response to strain are being developed and used to study stress as it relates to types of knots.


title: Knot

text: Relative knot strength, also called knot efficiency, is the breaking strength of a knotted rope in proportion to the breaking strength of the rope without the knot. Determining a precise value for a particular knot is difficult because many factors can affect a knot efficiency test: the type of fiber, the style of rope, the size of rope, whether it is wet or dry, how the knot is dressed before loading, how rapidly it is loaded, whether the knot is repeatedly loaded, and so on. The efficiency of common knots ranges between 40 and 80% of the rope's original strength.


title: Knot

text: In most situations forming loops and bends with conventional knots is far more practical than using rope splices, even though the latter can maintain nearly the rope's full strength. Prudent users allow for a large safety margin in the strength of rope chosen for a task due to the weakening effects of knots, aging, damage, shock loading, etc. The working load limit of a rope is generally specified with a significant safety factor, up to 15:1 for critical applications. For life-threatening applications, other factors come into play.


title: Knot

text: Even if the rope does not break, a knot may still fail to hold. Knots that hold firm under a variety of adverse conditions are said to be more secure than those that do not.


title: Knot

text: The load creates tension that pulls the rope back through the knot in the direction of the load. If this continues far enough, the working end passes into the knot and the knot unravels and fails. This behavior can worsen when the knot is repeatedly strained and let slack, dragged over rough terrain, or repeatedly struck against hard objects such as masts and flagpoles.


title: Knot

text: Even with secure knots, slippage may occur when the knot is first put under real tension. This can be mitigated by leaving plenty of rope at the working end outside of the knot, and by dressing the knot cleanly and tightening it as much as possible before loading. Sometimes, the use of a stopper knot or, even better, a backup knot can prevent the working end from passing through the knot; but if a knot is observed to slip, it is generally preferable to use a more secure knot. Life-critical applications often require backup knots to maximize safety.


title: Knot

text: To capsize (or spill) a knot is to change its form and rearrange its parts, usually by pulling on specific ends in certain ways. When used inappropriately, some knots tend to capsize easily or even spontaneously. Often the capsized form of the knot offers little resistance to slipping or unraveling. A reef knot, when misused as a bend, can capsize dangerously.


title: Knot

text: Sometimes a knot is intentionally capsized as a method of tying another knot, as with the "lightning method" of tying a bowline. Some knots, such as the carrick bend, are generally tied in one form then capsized to obtain a stronger or more stable form.


title: Knot

text: In knots that are meant to grip other objects, failure can be defined as the knot moving relative to the gripped object. While the knot itself is not untied, it ceases to perform the desired function. For instance, a simple rolling hitch tied around a railing and pulled parallel to the railing might hold up to a certain tension, then start sliding. Sometimes this problem can be corrected by working-up the knot tighter before subjecting it to load, but usually the problem requires either a knot with more wraps or a rope of different diameter or material.


title: Knot

text: Knots differ in the effort required to untie them after loading. Knots that are very difficult to untie, such as the water knot, are said to "jam" or be jamming knots. Knots that come untied with less difficulty, such as the Zeppelin bend, are referred to as "non-jamming".


title: Knot

text: The list of knots is extensive, but common properties allow for a useful system of categorization. For example, "loop" knots share the attribute of having some kind of an anchor point constructed on the standing end (such as a loop or overhand knot) into which the working end is easily hitched, using a round turn. An example of this is the bowline. "Constricting" knots often rely on friction to cinch down tight on loose bundles; an example is the Miller's knot. Knots may belong to more than one category.


title: Knot

text: Trick knots are knots that are used as part of a magic trick, a joke, or a puzzle. They are useful for these purposes because they have a deceptive appearance, being easier or more difficult to tie or untie than their appearance would suggest. The easiest trick knot is the slip knot. Other noted trick knots include:


title: Knot

text: The general purpose was to dress-up, protect, or help identify specific items and parts of ships and boats.


title: Knot

text: It is still found today in some whippings and wrappings of small diameter line on boat tillers and ships' wheels to enhance the grip, or to identify rudder amidships.


title: Knot

text: Knot theory is a branch of topology. It deals with the mathematical analysis of knots, their structure and properties, and with the relationships between different knots. In topology, a knot is a figure consisting of a single loop with any number of crossing or knotted elements: a closed curve in space which may be moved around so long as its strands never pass through each other. As a closed loop, a mathematical knot has no proper ends, and cannot be undone or untied; however, any physical knot in a piece of string can be thought of as a mathematical knot by fusing the two ends. A configuration of several knots winding around each other is called a "link". Various mathematical techniques are used to classify and distinguish knots and links. For instance, the Alexander polynomial associates certain numbers with any given knot; these numbers are different for the trefoil knot, the figure-eight knot, and the unknot (a simple loop), showing that one cannot be moved into the other (without strands passing through each other).


title: Knot

text: A simple mathematical theory of hitches has been proposed by Bayman and extended by Maddocks and Keller. It makes predictions that are approximately correct when tested empirically. No similarly successful theory has been developed for knots in general.


title: Knot

text: Knot tying consists of the techniques and skills employed in tying a knot in rope, nylon webbing, or other articles. The proper tying of a knot can be the difference between an attractive knot and a messy one, and occasionally life and death. It is important to understand the often subtle differences between what works, and what doesn't. For example, many knots "spill" or pull through, particularly if they are not "backed up," usually with a single or double overhand knot to make sure the end of the rope doesn't make its way through the main knot, causing all strength to be lost.


title: Knot

text: The tying of a knot may be very straightforward (such as with an overhand knot), or it may be more complicated, such as a monkey's fist knot. Tying knots correctly requires an understanding of the type of material being tied (string, cord, monofilament line, kernmantle rope, or nylon webbing). For example, cotton string may be very small and easy to tie with much internal friction to keep it from falling apart once tied, while stiff 5/8" thick kernmantle rope will be very difficult to tie, and may be so slick as to tend to come apart once tied.


title: Knot

text: The form of the material will influence the tying of a knot as well. Rope is round in cross-section, and has little dependence upon the manner in which the material is tied. Nylon webbing, on the other hand, is flat, and usually "tubular" in construction, meaning that it is spiral-woven, and has a hollow core. In order to retain as much of the strength as possible with webbing, the material must be tied "flat" such that parallel sections do not cross, and that the sections of webbing are not twisted when they cross each other within a knot.


title: Knot

text: The crossing of strands is important when dealing with round rope in other knots; for example, the figure-eight loop loses strength when strands are crossed while the knot is being "finished" and tightened. Moreover, the standing end or the end from which the hauling will be done must have the greater radius of curvature in the finished knot to maximize the strength of the knot.


title: Knot

text: Tools are sometimes employed in the finishing or untying of a knot, such as a fid, a tapered piece of wood that is often used in splicing. With the advent of wire rope, many other tools are used in the tying of "knots." However, for cordage and other non-metallic appliances, the tools used are generally limited to sharp edges or blades such as a sheepsfoot blade, occasionally a fine needle for proper whipping of laid rope, a hot cutter for nylon and other synthetic fibers, and (for larger ropes) a shoe for smoothing out large knots by rolling them on the ground.


title: Knot

text: The hagfish is known to strip slime from its skin by tying itself into a simple overhand knot, and moving its body to make the knot travel toward the tail. It also uses this action in reverse (tail to head) to pry out flesh after biting into a carcass.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Adam John Morrison (born July 19, 1984) is an American former professional basketball player. Morrison played for three years at Gonzaga University and was considered to be one of the top college basketball players in 2005–06. He was a finalist for the Naismith and the Wooden Award. He was named Co-Player of the Year with Duke's JJ Redick by the United States Basketball Writers Association and won the 2006 Chevrolet Player of the Year award. He played for the NBA teams Charlotte Bobcats from 2006 to 2009 and L.A. Lakers in 2009–2010.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison's father, John, worked as a basketball coach, and the family moved with his coaching career: Casper College in Casper, Wyoming, Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, and Dawson Community College in Glendive, Montana. When Morrison was in the fourth grade, his father left coaching, and the family moved to Spokane, Washington. Adam became the Gonzaga men's team's ball boy.


title: Adam Morrison

text: When he was in the eighth grade, he lost 30 pounds (14 kg), and while attending a basketball camp at Gonzaga during this time, he felt sick, later saying about his experience at the camp, "I think I made one shot the whole three days. I was sicker than a dog. I didn't want to play. I couldn't do anything." Shortly after this, Morrison was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He took his diagnosis surprisingly well; the second time a nurse came to administer insulin, he stopped her, telling her, "Since I'm going to be doing this the rest of my life, you might as well show me how to do it." However, his illness did not keep him from becoming a star at Mead Senior High School in Spokane. In his senior year he broke single-season and career scoring records in his high school conference, and led Mead to the finals of the state tournament. Despite playing in the final game with hypoglycemia so severe that he nearly had a seizure, he scored 37 points in a losing effort. It was Mead's only loss that season. Morrison was not heavily recruited out of high school. Dave Telep of scout.com admitted, "In one of the biggest misses of my career, we left him off the Top 100 list. We ranked him the No. 26 small forward. The goal is to never make a mistake of that magnitude again".


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison arrived at Gonzaga University to play for the Gonzaga Bulldogs in 2003. In his freshman year he averaged 11.4 points per game (ppg), with a season-high 22 points against St. Mary's. Gonzaga won the West Coast Conference (WCC) regular-season title. Morrison was named to the WCC All-Freshman Team.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In his sophomore year Morrison averaged 19.0 ppg. He scored a season-high 28 points at home against San Francisco, including the winning shot with 0.6 seconds to play in the game. Gonzaga again won the WCC regular-season title. Morrison made the All-WCC First Team and was selected to the "Basketball Times" All-West Coast Team as well as being named an honorable mention Associated Press All-American.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In his junior year during Gonzaga's first two games of the 2005–06 season at the Maui Invitational, Morrison played well against two of the sport's top programs. In the first round, Morrison scored 25 points in a Gonzaga win over Maryland. He followed up this performance with 43 points in a triple-overtime win over Michigan State in the semifinals. He matched that output against in-state rival Washington on December 4, 2005, in a losing effort. However, Morrison and the Zags bounced back a week later, defeating Oklahoma State after he banked in a three-pointer with 2.5 seconds left to give Gonzaga a two-point lead and eventually the win.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In the regular season, he had 13 games of 30-plus points, with five of them over 40. At 28.1 points per game, he was the nation's leading scorer in 2005–2006. His scoring totals against teams in the "major" conferences were no less impressive; he averaged 28.5 points in 11 such games. On February 18, Morrison recorded a career high 44 points (including 37 in the second half alone) against the Loyola Marymount Lions in a winning effort.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison led the Zags with 24 points in a 2006 NCAA tournament Sweet Sixteen match against UCLA, which the Zags lost in the final seconds after UCLA had eliminated a 17-point deficit coming out of the first half. With seconds left, the lead having slipped away after Morrison's teammates committed 3 turnovers in less than 5 seconds, Morrison broke down in tears and collapsed to the court. He was eventually helped to his feet by UCLA player Arron Afflalo. He has been both criticized and praised for this unbridled show of emotion. He later shared the national player of the year award with friendly rival JJ Redick of Duke. The game against UCLA turned out to be Morrison's final collegiate game, as he later decided to turn pro, foregoing his senior year of college.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison was selected third overall in the 2006 NBA draft by the Charlotte Bobcats, behind Andrea Bargnani (Toronto Raptors) and LaMarcus Aldridge (Chicago Bulls). On July 6, 2006, the Bobcats signed Morrison to a two-year contract. On November 1, 2006, in his NBA debut against the Indiana Pacers, he scored 14 points. He was the first player drafted by Michael Jordan in his tenure as Manager of Basketball Operations with the Bobcats. He scored his career high of 30 points on December 29, 2006, in a 113–102 win over the Indiana Pacers. However, Morrison lost his starting spot midway through his rookie season, in part because of his defense and because he shot only 37% for the year.


title: Adam Morrison

text: On October 21, 2007, the Bobcats announced that Morrison sustained a severe injury to his left knee in a preseason game against the L.A. Lakers while defending Luke Walton, bending his knee laterally and falling to the ground in pain. An MRI scan performed after the game indicated a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). On November 10, Morrison underwent surgery to repair the damage. The injury was confirmed to be a torn ACL, requiring several months of physical therapy after the knee had healed, and Morrison missed the whole 2007–08 NBA season.


title: Adam Morrison

text: On February 7, 2009, Morrison and Shannon Brown were traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Vladimir Radmanović. Morrison won NBA championships with the Lakers in 2009 and 2010, but saw very limited playing time. He was released following the 2009–10 season.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison signed with the Washington Wizards in 2010, but was waived at the end of training camp before playing a regular season game.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In September 2011, Morrison signed with KK Crvena zvezda. He was released from his contract in November 2011 to pursue other opportunities. During his 8-game stay in Belgrade (he missed one away game due to a minor injury), Morrison averaged 15.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 29 minutes a game, becoming his team's top scorer and the second overall top performer during the 2011–12 Adriatic League season.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In January 2012, Morrison signed with Beşiktaş Milangaz for the rest of the 2011–12 season. However, he left the team in April 2012 due to a lack of playing time.


title: Adam Morrison

text: After being absent from the NBA since being waived by the Wizards, Morrison played in the 2012 NBA Summer League for the Brooklyn Nets and averaged 5.2 points and 19.2 minutes in five games with the team. He then joined the Los Angeles Clippers' Summer League team, averaging 20.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists on 55% FG (38–69), 61% 3-PT (13–21) and 78% FT (11–14) in 5 games.


title: Adam Morrison

text: On September 21, 2012, Morrison signed with the Portland Trail Blazers. He was waived on October 27, 2012.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison made four appearances for various junior U.S. national teams. Morrison was selected to train with the senior men's team in preparation for the 2006 FIBA World Championship but was cut prior to the tournament.


title: Adam Morrison

text: In July 2013, Gonzaga basketball coach Mark Few announced that Morrison would become a student assistant with the basketball team. Morrison had returned to Gonzaga to take classes. After completing his undergraduate degree at Gonzaga in 2014, majoring in sports management, Morrison became an assistant video coordinator for the Bulldogs for the 2014–15 season, but was weighing options for his career after the season ended.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison was named the color commentator for the Gonzaga men's basketball radio broadcasts with former KREM 2 sports director Tom Hudson in October 2017.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison lives near Spokane, Washington, with his girlfriend and three children. He is not religious and does not believe in marriage.


title: Adam Morrison

text: Morrison was diagnosed with 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes) at age 13. He was playing in an eighth-grade basketball game, and as the game went into overtime, he began having seizure-like symptoms, which prompted his father to take him to the hospital where the diagnosis was made. Morrison, who managed his diabetes to the point of eating exactly the same meals at the same time on game days, is considered a role model for children with the disease and their families. During his freshman year at Gonzaga, Morrison and his life with diabetes were a subject of a four-page article in "Sports Illustrated". On the first day that the issue appeared in retail outlets, more than 50 parents of children with diabetes contacted the Gonzaga athletic department asking if Morrison could speak to their children. Off the court, Morrison regulates his blood sugar with an insulin pump attached to his abdomen.


title: Ornithopter

text: An ornithopter (from Greek "ornis, ornith-" "bird" and "pteron" "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as flying animals. Larger, crewed ornithopters have also been built and some have been successful. Crewed ornithopters are generally either powered by engines or by the pilot.


title: Ornithopter

text: Some early crewed flight attempts may have been intended to achieve flapping-wing flight, but probably only a glide was actually achieved. They include the purported flights of the 11th-century Catholic monk Eilmer of Malmesbury (recorded in the 12th century) and the 9th-century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas (recorded in the 17th century). Roger Bacon, writing in 1260, was also among the first to consider a technological means of flight. In 1485, Leonardo da Vinci began to study the flight of birds. He grasped that humans are too heavy, and not strong enough, to fly using wings simply attached to the arms. He, therefore, sketched a device in which the aviator lies down on a plank and works two large, membranous wings using hand levers, foot pedals, and a system of pulleys.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 1841, an ironsmith "kalfa" (journeyman), Manojlo, who "came to Belgrade from Vojvodina", attempted flying with a device described as an ornithopter ("flapping wings like those of a bird"). Refused by the authorities a permit to take off from the belfry of Saint Michael's Cathedral, he clandestinely climbed to the rooftop of the Dumrukhana (import tax head office) and took off, landing in a heap of snow, and surviving.


title: Ornithopter

text: The first ornithopters capable of flight were constructed in France. Jobert in 1871 used a rubber band to power a small model bird. Alphonse Pénaud, Abel Hureau de Villeneuve, and Victor Tatin, also made rubber-powered ornithopters during the 1870s. Tatin's ornithopter was perhaps the first to use active torsion of the wings, and apparently it served as the basis for a commercial toy offered by Pichancourt 1889. Gustave Trouvé was the first to use internal combustion, and his 1890 model flew a distance of 80 meters in a demonstration for the French Academy of Sciences. The wings were flapped by gunpowder charges activating a Bourdon tube.


title: Ornithopter

text: From 1884 on, Lawrence Hargrave built scores of ornithopters powered by rubber bands, springs, steam, or compressed air. He introduced the use of small flapping wings providing the thrust for a larger fixed wing; this innovation eliminated the need for gear reduction, thereby simplifying the construction.


title: Ornithopter

text: E. P. Frost made ornithopters starting in the 1870s; first models were powered by steam engines, then in the 1900s, an internal-combustion craft large enough for a person was built, though it did not fly.


title: Ornithopter

text: In the 1930s, Alexander Lippisch and the National Socialist Flyers Corps of Nazi Germany constructed and successfully flew a series of internal combustion-powered ornithopters, using Hargrave's concept of small flapping wings, but with aerodynamic improvements resulting from the methodical study.


title: Ornithopter

text: Erich von Holst, also working in the 1930s, achieved great efficiency and realism in his work with ornithopters powered by rubber bands. He achieved perhaps the first success of an ornithopter with a bending wing, intended to imitate more closely the folding wing action of birds, although it was not a true variable-span wing-like those of birds.


title: Ornithopter

text: Around 1960, Percival Spencer successfully flew a series of uncrewed ornithopters using internal combustion engines ranging from displacement, and having wingspans up to . In 1961, Percival Spencer and Jack Stephenson flew the first successful engine-powered, remotely piloted ornithopter, known as the Spencer Orniplane. The Orniplane had a wingspan, weighed , and was powered by a -displacement two-stroke engine. It had a biplane configuration, to reduce oscillation of the fuselage.


title: Ornithopter

text: Crewed ornithopters fall into two general categories: Those powered by the muscular effort of the pilot (human-powered ornithopters), and those powered by an engine.


title: Ornithopter

text: Around 1894, Otto Lilienthal, an aviation pioneer, became famous in Germany for his widely publicized and successful glider flights. Lilienthal also studied bird flight and conducted some related experiments. He constructed an ornithopter, although its complete development was prevented by his untimely death on 9 August 1896 in a glider accident.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 1929, a man-powered ornithopter designed by Alexander Lippisch (designer of the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet) flew a distance of after tow launch. Since a tow launch was used, some have questioned whether the aircraft was capable of flying on its own. Lippisch asserted that the aircraft was actually flying, not making an extended glide. (Precise measurement of altitude and velocity over time would be necessary to resolve this question.) Most of the subsequent human-powered ornithopters likewise used a tow launch, and flights were brief simply because human muscle power diminishes rapidly over time.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 1942, Adalbert Schmid made a much longer flight of a human-powered ornithopter at Munich-Laim. It travelled a distance of , maintaining a height of throughout most of the flight. Later this same aircraft was fitted with a Sachs motorcycle engine. With the engine, it made flights up to 15 minutes in duration. Schmid later constructed a ornithopter, based on the Grunau-Baby IIa sailplane, which was flown in 1947. The second aircraft had flapping outer wing panels.


title: Ornithopter

text: The French engineer René Riout devoted himself for three decades to the realization of flapping wing ornithopters. In 1905 he invented his first models. In 1909 he won the gold medal in the Lépine competition for a reduced model. In 1913 he worked on the development of a model ordered by a pilot, the Dubois-Riout. The tests were stopped in 1916. In 1937, he finalized the Riout 102T Alérion, certainly the most successful piloted flapping wing ornithopter until the second decade of the 21st century. Unfortunately, the conclusions of the wind tunnel tests were not favorable to the continuation of the project.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 2005, Yves Rousseau was given the Paul Tissandier Diploma, awarded by the FAI for contributions to the field of aviation. Rousseau attempted his first human-muscle-powered flight with flapping wings in 1995. On 20 April 2006, at his 212th attempt, he succeeded in flying a distance of , observed by officials of the Aero Club de France. On his 213th flight attempt, a gust of wind led to a wing breaking up, causing the pilot to be gravely injured and rendered paraplegic.


title: Ornithopter

text: A team at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, headed by Professor James DeLaurier, worked for several years on an engine-powered, piloted ornithopter. In July 2006, at the Bombardier Airfield at Downsview Park in Toronto, Professor DeLaurier's machine, the UTIAS Ornithopter No.1 made a jet-assisted takeoff and 14-second flight. According to DeLaurier, the jet was necessary for sustained flight, but the flapping wings did most of the work.


title: Ornithopter

text: On August 2, 2010, Todd Reichert of the same institution piloted a human-powered ornithopter named Snowbird. The wingspan, aircraft was constructed from carbon fibre, balsa, and foam. The pilot sat in a small cockpit suspended below the wings and pumped a bar with his feet to operate a system of wires that flapped the wings up and down. Towed by a car until airborne, it then sustained flight for almost 20 seconds. It flew with an average speed of . Similar tow-launched flights were made in the past, but improved data collection verified that the ornithopter was capable of self-powered flight once aloft.


title: Ornithopter

text: Practical applications capitalize on the resemblance to birds or insects. Colorado Parks and Wildlife has used these machines to help save the endangered Gunnison sage grouse. An artificial hawk under the control of an operator causes the grouse to remain on the ground so they can be captured for study.


title: Ornithopter

text: Because ornithopters can be made to resemble birds or insects, they could be used for military applications such as aerial reconnaissance without alerting the enemies that they are under surveillance. Several ornithopters have been flown with video cameras on board, some of which can hover and maneuver in small spaces. In 2011, AeroVironment, Inc. demonstrated a remotely piloted ornithopter resembling a large hummingbird for possible spy missions.


title: Ornithopter

text: Led by Paul B. MacCready (of Gossamer Albatross), AeroVironment, Inc. developed a half-scale radio-controlled model of the giant pterosaur, "Quetzalcoatlus northropi", for the Smithsonian Institution in the mid-1980s. It was built to star in the IMAX movie "On the Wing". The model had a wingspan and featured a complex computerized autopilot control system, just as the full-sized pterosaur relied on its neuromuscular system to make constant adjustments in flight.


title: Ornithopter

text: Researchers hope to eliminate the motors and gears of current designs by more closely imitating animal flight muscles. Georgia Tech Research Institute's Robert C. Michelson is developing a reciprocating chemical muscle for use in microscale flapping-wing aircraft. Michelson uses the term "entomopter" for this type of ornithopter. SRI International is developing polymer artificial muscles that may also be used for flapping-wing flight.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 2002, Krister Wolff and Peter Nordin of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, built a flapping-wing robot that learned flight techniques. The balsa-wood design was driven by machine learning software technology known as a steady-state linear evolutionary algorithm. Inspired by natural evolution, the software "evolves" in response to feedback on how well it performs a given task. Although confined to a laboratory apparatus, their ornithopter evolved behavior for maximum sustained lift force and horizontal movement.


title: Ornithopter

text: Since 2002, Prof. Theo van Holten has been working on an ornithopter that is constructed like a helicopter. The device is called the "ornicopter" and was made by constructing the main rotor so that it would have no reaction torque.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 2008, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol started using a realistic-looking mechanical hawk designed by falconer Robert Musters. The radio-controlled robot bird is used to scare away birds that could damage the engines of airplanes.


title: Ornithopter

text: In 2012, RoBird (formerly Clear Flight Solutions), a spin-off of the University of Twente, started making artificial birds of prey (called RoBird®) for airports and agricultural and waste-management industries.


title: Ornithopter

text: Adrian Thomas (zoologist) and Alex Caccia founded Animal Dynamics Ltd in 2015, to develop a mechanical analogue of dragonflies to be used as a drone that will outperform quadcopters. The work is funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the research arm of the British Ministry of Defence, and the United States Air Force.


title: Ornithopter

text: Hobbyists can build and fly their own ornithopters. These range from light-weight models powered by rubber bands, to larger models with radio control.


title: Ornithopter

text: The rubber-band-powered model can be fairly simple in design and construction. Hobbyists compete for the longest flight times with these models. An introductory model can be fairly simple in design and construction, but the advanced competition designs are extremely delicate and challenging to build. Roy White holds the United States national record for indoor rubber-powered, with his flight time of 21 minutes, 44 seconds.


title: Ornithopter

text: Commercial free-flight rubber-band-powered toy ornithopters have long been available. The first of these was sold under the name "Tim Bird" in Paris in 1879. Later models were also sold as Tim Bird (made by G de Ruymbeke, France, since 1969).


title: Ornithopter

text: Commercial radio-controlled designs stem from Percival Spencer's engine-powered Seagulls, developed circa 1958, and Sean Kinkade's work in the late 1990s to present day. The wings are usually driven by an electric motor. Many hobbyists enjoy experimenting with their own new wing designs and mechanisms. The opportunity to interact with real birds in their own domain also adds great enjoyment to this hobby. Birds are often curious and will follow or investigate the model while it is flying. In a few cases, RC birds have been attacked by birds of prey, crows, and even cats. More recent cheaper models such as the Dragonfly from WowWee have extended the market from dedicated hobbyists to the general toy market.


title: Ornithopter

text: Some helpful resources for hobbyists include The Ornithopter Design Manual, book written by Nathan Chronister, and The Ornithopter Zone web site, which includes a large amount of information about building and flying these models.


title: Ornithopter

text: Ornithopters were also of interest as the subject of one of the former events in the American nationwide Science Olympiad event list. The event ("Flying Bird") entailed building a self-propelled ornithopter to exacting specifications, with points awarded for high flight time and low weight. Bonus points were also awarded if the ornithopter happened to look like a real bird.


title: Ornithopter

text: As demonstrated by birds, flapping wings offer potential advantages in maneuverability and energy savings compared with fixed-wing aircraft, as well as potentially vertical take-off and landing. It has been suggested that these advantages are greatest at small sizes and low flying speeds, but the development of comprehensive aerodynamic theory for flapping remains an outstanding problem due to the complex non-linear nature of such unsteady separating flows.


title: Ornithopter

text: Unlike airplanes and helicopters, the driving airfoils of the ornithopter have a flapping or oscillating motion, instead of rotary. As with helicopters, the wings usually have a combined function of providing both lift and thrust. Theoretically, the flapping wing can be set to zero angle of attack on the upstroke, so it passes easily through the air. Since typically the flapping airfoils produce both lift and thrust, drag-inducing structures are minimized. These two advantages potentially allow a high degree of efficiency.


title: Ornithopter

text: If future crewed motorized ornithopters cease to be "exotic", imaginary, unreal aircraft and start to serve humans as junior members of the aircraft family, designers and engineers will need to solve not only wing design problems but many other problems involved in making them safe and reliable aircraft. Some of these problems, such as stability, controllability, and durability, are necessary for all aircraft. Other problems specific to ornithopters will appear; optimizing flapping-wing design is only one of them.


title: Ornithopter

text: An effective ornithopter must have wings capable of generating both thrust, the force that propels the craft forward, and lift, the force (perpendicular to the direction of flight) that keeps the craft airborne. These forces must be strong enough to counter the effects of drag and the weight of the craft.


title: Ornithopter

text: Leonardo's ornithopter designs were inspired by his study of birds, and conceived the use of flapping motion to generate thrust and provide the forward motion necessary for aerodynamic lift. However, using materials available at that time the craft would be too heavy and require too much energy to produce sufficient lift or thrust for flight. Alphonse Pénaud introduced the idea of a powered ornithopter in 1874. His design had limited power and was uncontrollable, causing it to be transformed into a toy for children. More recent vehicles, such as the human-powered ornithopters of Lippisch (1929) and Emil Hartman (1959), were capable powered gliders but required a towing vehicle in order to take off and may not have been capable of generating sufficient lift for sustained flight. Hartman's ornithopter lacked the theoretical background of others based on the study of winged flight, but exemplified the idea of an ornithopter as a birdlike machine rather than a machine that directly copies birds' method of flight. The 1960s saw powered uncrewed ornithopters of various sizes capable of achieving and sustaining flight, providing valuable real-world examples of mechanical winged flight. In 1991, Harris and DeLaurier flew the first successful engine-powered remotely piloted ornithopter in Toronto, Canada. In 1999, a piloted ornithopter based on this design flew, capable of taking off from level pavement and executing sustained flight.


title: Ornithopter

text: An ornithopter's flapping wings and their motion through the air are designed to maximize the amount of lift generated within limits of weight, material strength and mechanical complexity. A flexible wing material can increase efficiency while keeping the driving mechanism simple. In wing designs with the spar sufficiently forward of the airfoil that the aerodynamic center is aft of the elastic axis of the wing, aeroelastic deformation causes the wing to move in a manner close to its ideal efficiency (in which pitching angles lag plunging displacements by approximately 90 degrees.) Flapping wings increase drag and are not as efficient as propeller-powered aircraft. Some designs achieve increased efficiency by applying more power on the down stroke than on the upstroke, as do most birds.


title: Ornithopter

text: In order to achieve the desired flexibility and minimum weight, engineers and researchers have experimented with wings that require carbon fiber, plywood, fabric, and ribs, with a stiff, strong trailing edge. Any mass located aft of the empennage reduces the wing's performance, so lightweight materials and empty space are used where possible. To minimize drag and maintain the desired shape, choice of a material for the wing surface is also important. In DeLaurier's experiments, a smooth aerodynamic surface with a double-surface airfoil is more efficient at producing lift than a single-surface airfoil.


title: Ornithopter

text: Other ornithopters do not necessarily act like birds or bats in flight. Typically birds and bats have thin and cambered wings to produce lift and thrust. Ornithopters with thinner wings have a limited angle of attack but provide optimum minimum-drag performance for a single lift coefficient.


title: Ornithopter

text: Although hummingbirds fly with fully extended wings, such flight is not feasible for an ornithopter. If an ornithopter wing were to fully extend and twist and flap in small movements it would cause a stall, and if it were to twist and flap in very large motions, it would act like a windmill causing an inefficient flying situation.


title: Ornithopter

text: A team of engineers and researchers called "Fullwing" has created an ornithopter that has an average lift of over 8 pounds, an average thrust of 0.88 pounds, and a propulsive efficiency of 54%. The wings were tested in a low-speed wind tunnel measuring the aerodynamic performance, showing that the higher the frequency of the wing beat, the higher the average thrust of the ornithopter.


title: Ornithopter

text: Ornithopters have been depicted in fiction several times, including Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, where they are the primary form of transportation in the desert setting.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The NFL Scouting Combine is a week-long showcase occurring every February at Lucas Oil Stadium (and formerly at the RCA Dome until 2008) in Indianapolis, where college football players perform physical and mental tests in front of National Football League coaches, general managers, and scouts. With increasing interest in the NFL Draft, the scouting combine has grown in scope and significance, allowing personnel directors to evaluate upcoming prospects in a standardized setting. Its origins stem from the National, BLESTO, and Quadra Scouting organizations in 1977.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Athletes attend by invitation only. An athlete's performance during the combine can affect their draft status and salary, and ultimately their career. The draft has popularized the term "workout warrior", whereby an athlete's "draft stock" is increased based on superior measurable qualities such as size, speed, and strength, despite having an average or sub-par college career.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Tex Schramm, the president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1989, proposed to the NFL competition committee a centralization of the evaluation process for NFL teams. Prior to 1982, teams had to schedule individual visits with players to run them through drills and tests. The national invitational camp (NIC) was first held in Tampa, Florida, in 1982. It was originated by National Football Scouting, Inc. as a means for member organizations to look at NFL draft prospects. For non-member teams, two other camps were created and used 1982–1984. The NIC was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1984. It was renamed the NFL Scouting Combine following the merger of the three camps in 1985 to cut the cost of running the extra camps. It was held in Arizona in 1985 and once again in New Orleans in 1986 before permanently moving to Indianapolis in 1987.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: Sports writers question whether these tests have any relationship with NFL performance. Empirical research published in 2011 found that the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, 20-yard shuttle, and 3 cone drill tests have limited validity in predicting future NFL performance, suggesting that a prospect's past performance in college is a better indicator of future NFL performance than the aforementioned physical ability tests.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The 20-yard shuttle, also simply called the short shuttle, is primarily run to evaluate the quickness and change-of-direction ability of players. Although not as highly regarded a test as the 40-yard dash, it is still an important barometer used by NFL personnel to compare players. Canadian football also uses the shuttle test.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The name is derived from the total yards that athletes travel during the drill. This drill is also known as the "short shuttle" or the "5–10–5" drill." The athlete starts at the center cone of three cones, each a distance of 5 yards apart. The athlete then pushes off their dominant leg in the opposite direction for 5 yards and touches the line. After covering this distance and touching the line as quickly as possible, the athlete must reverse and go 10 yards in the opposite direction and again touch the line. Finally, they reverse direction again, ending the drill at the starting point after traveling another 5 yards. The procedure is timed and the athlete starts the drill on reaction to the word "Go" as announced by the person starting the stopwatch. The NFL Scouting Combine allows each participant three opportunities to run the drill, and the best time of the three attempts is recorded as that players' time.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: The drill is designed to measure short-area quickness, lateral movement, flexibility and the speed at which a player can change directions. The drill also gives scouts an idea of how well a player can keep a low center of gravity as well as their ability to sink their hips.


title: NFL Scouting Combine

text: At the NFL combine, bench press is used as a test of muscle strength and stamina, in which athletes lift as many times as possible. Since 1994, only 19 players at the combine have managed to achieve more than 40 repetitions.