title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: A few cases of accidental death as a result of autoerotic electrostimulation have been reported in the forensic science literature; the cases reported involved mains-powered, self-made devices, with current passing through the chest intentionally (usually via nipple stimulation) or unintentionally (for instance, touching an energized part with a hand). In one case reported in the press, a man from York, Pennsylvania was sentenced to 20–40 years in prison for third-degree murder and reckless endangerment after killing his wife with electrostimulation to her nipples directly from a power strip plugged into the mains.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: The use of electricity for entertainment purposes dates back at least as early as the 1740s. In the 1830s, insertable electrode attachments for small magnetos could be purchased. Later in the 1800s, various electric belts (some complete with "suspensory sack") were advertised as cures for impotence. In the 1920s, the American Medical Association investigated such devices, and concluded that they provided "more or less mechanical masturbation".


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Modern electrostimulation first became recognized during the 1950s with the introduction of a device called the "Relax-A-Cizor", which was originally designed to stimulate the muscles of a relaxing subject using electric currents as a means of "passive exercise". Such power sources are still in medical use today and are known as EMS (electrical muscle stimulation) units. Some people soon found alternative uses for the Relax-A-Cizors by placing the contacts on sexual parts of the body.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: By the 1970s, medical TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) units were also being used for electrostimulation. In the 1980s the first devices manufactured specifically for erotic electrostimulation became available, in particular the Titillator and the Pleasure Box, later known as the PES Power Box.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: In the 1970s, experimenters noticed that bare speaker wires could deliver a jolt and began using recorded and live sound for electrostimulation. At that time, there were no professionally made attachments for such play, so people built their own out of copper plumbing parts and other metal pieces with attention to resistors placed in series with the human parts to control the current for safety. Although early e-stim units used only a simple, pulsed, sinusoidal wave, newer units use more complex wave forms and also allow for the use of ambient sound or prerecorded wave forms like music or specially designed computer files for specific types of stimulation. There are now sites dedicated to the creation of MP3 files specifically for erotic journeys or symphonies, which can include such routines as rewards, punishments, very strong, and pleasantly soft portions.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: There are repackaged TENS and EMS units marketed as erotic electrostimulation power sources. EMS units are designed to cause muscle contraction.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: An increasing number of "body toner" or "electromassage"-type power sources are being marketed directly to consumers. Though lacking in options compared to the more expensive specialized units, these have proven to be an inexpensive method for entry level practice.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Some people craft "homemade" electrostimulation power sources, or adapt or modify commercial products (such as a Hifi or DVD system) that were never intended for electrostimulation of the human body. These can be dangerous practices; such improvised devices not specifically designed for use on the human body can easily cause injury. The risk is mostly twofold. First the device can supply too much power. Second the insulation of most devices is not suited for medical equipment. For example, a transient over-voltage on the mains input can damage the isolation of the transformer, resulting in the output terminals becoming live.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Erotic electrostimulation power sources are specifically designed and manufactured for erotic use on the human body. The first analog devices became popular during the mid-1980s, and during the late 1990s digital devices also became available. Both types usually allow for adjustments of frequency and power output levels, some with complex preset "programs" and computer controls. The setups usually consist of a "box" and electrodes connected by wiring. Many of the boxes are portable and can be powered by batteries or come with built-in rechargeable batteries. Some units can be connected to remote operators via an Internet-connected computer or controlled via radio frequency key fobs. Units which can be powered by a 9 volt battery are preferable to those plugged into mains as they reduce the risk of accidental injury.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: There are other medical methods that have led to patent filings, such as the discovery that placing electrodes in the spinal cord can induce pleasurable feelings leading to orgasm. There are also various apparatuses, with external or internal stimulation.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Other kinds of apparatus use interferential currents with four surface electrodes to replace the internal electrodes.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: The image of the woman receiving electrostimulation shows a deprecated practice. Placing electrodes anywhere on the chest is risking current passing through the heart, which risks cardiac arrhythmia or arrest. The general rule for electrostimulation is 'only below the waist'.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: For erotic electrostimulation, these are typically items designed to be applied to the genitals such as vaginal plugs and shields, anal plugs, probes to directly stimulate the prostate, testicle rings, CBT boards, cock rings, urethral probes, and other items for penile application. The pads used with TENS units are also used in the sexual application of electrostimulation. There are also electrified nipple and breast electrodes available, but while there is disagreement within the e-stim community about their safety the most commonly held consensus is 'only below the waist'.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: The electrodes can be made of metals such as gold, silver, aluminum, and stainless steel. There are also electrodes made out of conductive silicone. Conductive rubber is a cheap, flexible and efficient option.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Violet wands were originally electric and neon testers, but are now split into two types: mechanical (Tesla Coil), and solid-state wands. They are used for the application of low current, high voltage (min 35 kV to max 65 kV typically), high-frequency electricity to the body, as such they are most commonly used in BDSM for erotic sensation play. Violet wands can deliver a variety of sharp, cutting, or piercing type sensations.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: A violet wand typically consists of a hand-held "wand" made of plastic case which encases the mechanical (Tesla coil) or solid state components; a power cable, a collet (7/16" in the United States, 11 mm in Europe), and a cone. The collet is inside the cone end of the violet wand and is where glass and metal probes are inserted to be used with the wand. The cone is there to prevent sparks jumping from the collet directly to subject. Violet wands can be used anywhere on the body but should not be used around the eyes.


title: Erotic electrostimulation

text: Electroconductive gels play an important role in the success of erotic electrostimulation since without it, there is a greater risk of high-current skin burning. Water-based lubricants are generally recommended. Typically it is recommended to avoid any lubricant that contains silicone since it is an insulator and hence reduces conductivity. Practitioners of electrostimulation select lubricants for compatibility with the material of the electrodes, as well as for desirable conductive properties, which can maximize the strength and quality of the signal.


title: WolframAlpha

text: WolframAlpha ( ) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It answers factual queries by computing answers from externally sourced data.


title: WolframAlpha

text: WolframAlpha was released on May 18, 2009 and is based on Wolfram's earlier product Wolfram Mathematica, a technical computing platform. WolframAlpha gathers data from academic and commercial websites such as the CIA's "The World Factbook", the United States Geological Survey, a Cornell University Library publication called "All About Birds", "Chambers Biographical Dictionary", Dow Jones, the "Catalogue of Life", CrunchBase, Best Buy, and the FAA to answer queries. A Spanish version was launched in 2022.


title: WolframAlpha

text: Users submit queries and computation requests via a text field. WolframAlpha then computes answers and relevant visualizations from a knowledge base of curated, structured data that come from other sites and books. It is able to respond to particularly phrased natural language fact-based questions. It displays its "Input interpretation" of such a question, using standardized phrases. Mathematical symbolism can also be parsed by the engine, which responds with numerical and statistical results.


title: WolframAlpha

text: WolframAlpha is written in the Wolfram Language, a general multi-paradigm programming language, and implemented in Mathematica, that is proprietary and not commonly used by developers.


title: WolframAlpha

text: WolframAlpha was used to power some searches in the Microsoft Bing and DuckDuckGo search engines but is no longer used to provide search results. For factual question answering, WolframAlpha was formerly used by Apple's Siri and Amazon Alexa for math and science queries but is no longer operational within those services. WolframAlpha data types became available beginning in July 2020 with Microsoft Excel, but the Microsoft-Wolfram partnership ended nearly two years later, in 2022, in favor of Microsoft Power Query data types. WolframAlpha functionality in Microsoft Excel will be over in June 2023.


title: WolframAlpha

text: Launch preparations began on May 15, 2009 at 7 p.m. CDT and were broadcast live on Justin.tv. The plan was to publicly launch the service a few hours later. However, there were issues due to extreme load. The service was officially launched on May 18, 2009, receiving mixed reviews. In 2009, Wolfram Alpha advocates pointed to its potential, some even stating that how it determines results is more important than current usefulness. WolframAlpha was initially launched as free, but later WolframAlpha attempted monetizing the service by launching an iOS application with a cost of $50, while the website itself was free. That plan was abandoned after criticism.


title: WolframAlpha

text: On February 8, 2012, WolframAlpha Pro was released, offering users additional features for a monthly subscription fee.


title: WolframAlpha

text: WolframAlpha is used by some high-school and college students to cheat on math homework, though the company says the service helps students understand math with its problem-solving capabilities.


title: WolframAlpha

text: "InfoWorld" published an article warning readers of the potential implications of giving an automated website proprietary rights to the data it generates. Free software advocate Richard Stallman also opposes the idea of recognizing the site as a copyright holder and suspects that Wolfram would not be able to make this case under existing copyright law.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The economy of Denmark is a modern mixed economy with comfortable living standards, a high level of government services and transfers, and a high dependence on foreign trade. The economy is dominated by the service sector with 80% of all jobs, whereas about 11% of all employees work in manufacturing and 2% in agriculture. The nominal gross national income per capita was the seventh-highest in the world at $58,439 in 2020. Correcting for purchasing power, per capita income was Int$57,781 or 10th-highest globally. The income distribution is relatively equal but inequality has somewhat increased during the last decades. This increase was attributed to both a larger spread in gross incomes and various economic policy measures. In 2017, Denmark had the seventh-lowest Gini coefficient (a measure of economic inequality) of the then 28 European Union countries. With 5,892,871 inhabitants (1 May 2022), Denmark has the 36th largest national economy in the world measured by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the 51st largest in the world measured by purchasing power parity (PPP).


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has a very long tradition of adhering to a fixed exchange-rate system and still does so today. It is very unique among OECD countries to do so while maintaining an independent currency: The Danish krone, which is pegged to the euro. Though eligible to join the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU), the Danish voters in a referendum in 2000 rejected exchanging the krone for the euro. Whereas Denmark's neighbours like Norway, Sweden, Poland and the United Kingdom generally follow inflation targeting in their monetary policy, the priority of Denmark's central bank is to maintain exchange rate stability. Consequently, the central bank has no role in a domestic stabilization policy. Since February 2015, the central bank has maintained a negative interest rate to contain an upward exchange rate pressure.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In an international context, a relatively large proportion of the population is part of the labour force, in particular because the female participation rate is very high. In 2017, 78.8% of all 15-to-64-year-old people were active on the labour market, the sixth-highest number among all OECD countries. The unemployment is relatively low, in comparison to other European countries. In October 2018, 4.8% of the Danish labour force were unemployed, as compared to an average of 6.7% for all EU countries. There is no legal minimum wage in Denmark. The labour market is traditionally characterized by a high degree of union membership rates and collective agreement coverage. Denmark invests heavily in active labor market policies and the concept of flexicurity has been important historically.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark is an example of the Nordic model, characterized by an internationally high tax level, and a correspondingly high level of government-provided services (e.g. health care, child care and education services). There are also income transfers to various groups, such as retired or disabled people, unemployed persons, students, etc. Altogether, the amount of revenue from taxes paid in 2017 amounted to 46.1% of the GDP. The Danish fiscal policy is generally considered healthy. The net government debt is very close to zero, amounting to 1.3% of GDP in 2017. The Danish fiscal policy is characterized by a long-term outlook, taking into account likely future fiscal demands. During the 2000s, a challenge was perceived to government expenditures in future decades. It was ultimately a challenge to fiscal sustainability from demographic development, in particular higher longevity. Responding to this, age eligibility rules for receiving public age-related transfers were changed. Since 2012, calculations of future fiscal challenges, from both the government and independent analysts, have generally perceived Danish fiscal policy to be sustainable. In recent years, it was considered overly sustainable.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark's long-term economic development has largely followed the same pattern as other Northwestern European countries. In most of recorded history Denmark has been an agricultural country with most of the population living on a subsistence level. Since the 19th century Denmark has gone through an intense technological and institutional development. The material standard of living has experienced formerly unknown rates of growth, and the country has been industrialized and later turned into a modern service society.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Almost all of the land area of Denmark is arable. Unlike most of its neighbours, Denmark has not had extractable deposits of minerals or fossil fuels, except for the deposits of oil and natural gas in the North Sea, which started playing an economic role only during the 1980s. On the other hand, Denmark has had a logistic advantage through its long coastal line and the fact that no point on Danish land is more than 50 kilometers from the sea – an important fact for the whole period before the industrial revolution when sea transport was cheaper than land transport. Consequently, foreign trade has always been very important for the economic development of Denmark.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Already during the Stone Age there was some foreign trade, and even though trade has made up only a very modest share of total Danish value added until the 19th century, it has been decisive for economic development, both in terms of procuring vital import goods (like metals) and because new knowledge and technological skills have often come to Denmark as a byproduct of goods exchange with other countries. The emerging trade implied specialization which created demand for means of payments, and the earliest known Danish coins date from the time of Svend Tveskæg around 995.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: According to economic historian Angus Maddison, Denmark was the sixth-most prosperous country in the world around 1600. The population size relative to arable agricultural land was small so that the farmers were relatively affluent, and Denmark was geographically close to the most dynamic and economically leading European areas since the 16th century: the Netherlands, the northern parts of Germany, and Britain. Still, 80 to 85% of the population lived in small villages on a subsistence level.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Mercantilism was the leading economic doctrine during the 17th and 18th century in Denmark, leading to the establishment of monopolies like Asiatisk Kompagni, development of physical and financial infrastructure like the first Danish bank Kurantbanken in 1736 and the first "kreditforening" (a kind of building society) in 1797, and the acquisition of some minor Danish colonies like Tranquebar.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: At the end of the 18th century major agricultural reforms took place that entailed decisive structural changes. However, the Napoleonic Wars caused Copenhagen to lose its status as an international centre of finance and trade. Politically, mercantilism was gradually replaced by liberal thoughts among the ruling elite. Following a monetary reform after the Napoleonic wars, the present Danish central bank Danmarks Nationalbank was founded in 1818.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: There exists national accounting data for Denmark from 1820 onwards thanks to the pioneering work of Danish economic historian Svend Aage Hansen. They find that there has been a substantial and permanent, though fluctuating, economic growth all the time since 1820. The period 1822–94 saw on average an annual growth in factor incomes of 2% (0.9% per capita) From around 1830 the agricultural sector experienced a major boom lasting several decades, producing and exporting grains, not least to Britain after 1846 when British grain import duties were abolished. When grain production became less profitable in the second half of the century, the Danish farmers made an impressive and uniquely successful change from vegetarian to animal production leading to a new boom period. Parallelly industrialization took off in Denmark from the 1870s. At the turn of the century industry (including artisanry) fed almost 30% of the population.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: During the 20th century agriculture slowly dwindled in importance relative to industry, but agricultural employment was only during the 1950s surpassed by industrial employment. The first half of the century was marked by the two world wars and the Great Depression during the 1930s. After World War II Denmark took part in the increasingly close international cooperation, joining OEEC/OECD, IMF, GATT/WTO, and from 1972 the European Economic Community, later European Union. Foreign trade increased heavily relative to GDP. The economic role of the public sector increased considerably, and the country was increasingly transformed from an industrial country to a country dominated by production of services. The years 1958–73 were an unprecedented high-growth period. The 1960s are the decade with the highest registered real per capita growth in GDP ever, i.e. 4.5% annually.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: During the 1970s Denmark was plunged into a crisis, initiated by the 1973 oil crisis leading to the hitherto unknown phenomenon stagflation. For the next decades the Danish economy struggled with several major so-called "balance problems": High unemployment, current account deficits, inflation, and government debt. From the 1980s economic policies have increasingly been oriented towards a long-term perspective, and gradually a series of structural reforms have solved these problems. In 1994 active labour market policies were introduced that via a series of labour market reforms have helped reducing structural unemployment considerably. A series of tax reforms from 1987 onwards, reducing tax deductions on interest payments, and the increasing importance of compulsory labour market-based funded pensions from the 1990s have increased private savings rates considerably, consequently transforming secular current account deficits to secular surpluses. The announcement of a consistent and hence more credible fixed exchange rate in 1982 has helped reducing the inflation rate.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In the first decade of the 21st century new economic policy issues have emerged. A growing awareness that future demographic changes, in particular increasing longevity, could threaten fiscal sustainability, implying very large fiscal deficits in future decades, led to major political agreements in 2006 and 2011, both increasing the future eligibility age of receiving public age-related pensions. Mainly because of these changes, from 2012 onwards the Danish fiscal sustainability problem is generally considered to be solved. Instead, issues like decreasing productivity growth rates and increasing inequality in income distribution and consumption possibilities are prevalent in the public debate.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The global Great Recession during the late 2000s, the accompanying Euro area debt crisis and their repercussions marked the Danish economy for several years. Until 2017, unemployment rates have generally been considered to be above their structural level, implying a relatively stagnating economy from a business-cycle point of view. From 2017/18 this is no longer considered to be the case, and attention has been redirected to the need of avoiding a potential overheating situation.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Average per capita income is high in an international context. According to the World Bank, gross national income per capita was the tenth-highest in the world at $55,220 in 2017. Correcting for purchasing power, income was Int$52,390 or 16th-highest among the 187 countries.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: During the last three decades household saving rates in Denmark have increased considerably. This is to a large extent caused by two major institutional changes: A series of tax reforms from 1987 to 2009 considerably reduced the effective subsidization of private debt implicit in the rules for tax deductions of household interest payments. Secondly, compulsory funded pension schemes became normal for most employees from the 1990s. Over the years, the wealth of the Danish pension funds have accumulated so that in 2016 it constituted twice the size of Denmark's GDP. The pension wealth consequently is a very important both for the life-cycle of a typical individual Danish household and for the national economy. A large part of the pension wealth is invested abroad, thus giving rise to a fair amount of foreign capital income. In 2015, average household assets were more than 600% of their disposable income, among OECD countries second only to the Netherlands. At the same time, average household gross debt was almost 300% of disposable income, which is also at the highest level in OECD. Household balance sheets are consequently very large in Denmark compared to most other countries. Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank, has attributed this to a well-developed financial system.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Income inequality has traditionally been low in Denmark. According to OECD figures, in 2000 Denmark had the lowest Gini coefficient of all countries. However, inequality has increased during the last decades. According to data from Statistics Denmark, the Gini coefficient for disposable income has increased from 22.1 in 1987 to 29.3 in 2017. The Danish Economic Council found in an analysis from 2016 that the increasing inequality in Denmark is due to several components: Pre-tax labour income is more unequally distributed today than before, capital income, which is generally less equally distributed than labour income, has increased as share of total income, and economic policy is less redistributive today, both because public income transfers play a smaller role today and because the tax system has become less progressive.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In international comparisons, Denmark has a relatively equal income distribution. According to the CIA World Factbook, Denmark had the twentieth-lowest Gini coefficient (29.0) of 158 countries in 2016. According to data from Eurostat, Denmark was the EU country with the seventh-lowest Gini coefficient in 2017. Slovakia, Slovenia, Czechia, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands had a lower Gini coefficient for disposable income than Denmark.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The Danish labour market is characterized by a high degree of union membership rates and collective agreement coverage dating back from "Septemberforliget" (The September Settlement) in 1899 when the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions and the Confederation of Danish Employers recognized each other's right to organise and negotiate. The labour market is also traditionally characterized by a high degree of flexicurity, i.e. a combination of labour market flexibility and economic security for workers. The degree of flexibility is in part maintained through active labour market policies. Denmark first introduced active labour market policies (ALMPs) in the 1990s after an economic recession that resulted in high unemployment rates. Its labour market policies are decided through tripartite cooperation between employers, employees and the government. Denmark has one of the highest expenditures on ALMPs and in 2005, spent about 1.7% of its GDP on labour market policies. This was the highest amongst the OECD countries. Similarly, in 2010 Denmark was ranked number one amongst Nordic countries for expenditure on ALMPs.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark's active labour market policies particularly focus on tackling youth unemployment. They have had a "youth initiative" or the Danish Youth Unemployment Programme in place since 1996. This includes mandatory activation for those unemployed under the age of 30. While unemployment benefits are provided, the policies are designed to motivate job-seeking. For example, unemployment benefits decrease by 50% after 6 months. This is combined with education, skill development and work training programs. For instance, the Building Bridge to Education program was started in 2014 to provide mentors and skill development classes to youth that are at risk of unemployment. Such active labour market policies have been successful for Denmark in the short-term and the long-term. For example, 80% of participants in the Building Bridge for Education program felt that "the initiative has helped them to move towards completing an education". On a more macro scale, a study of the impact of ALMPs in Denmark between 1995 and 2005 showed that such policies had positive impact not just on employment but also on earnings. The effective compensation rate for unemployed workers has been declining for the last decades, however. Unlike in most Western countries there is no legal minimum wage in Denmark.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: A relatively large proportion of the population is active on the labour market, not least because of a very high female participation rate. The total participation rate for people aged 15 to 64 years was 78.8% in 2017. This was the 6th-highest number among OECD countries, only surpassed by Iceland, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand and the Netherlands. The average for all OECD countries together was 72.1%.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: According to Eurostat, the unemployment rate was 5.7% in 2017. This places unemployment in Denmark somewhat below the EU average, which was 7.6%. 10 EU member countries had a lower unemployment rate than Denmark in 2017.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The share of employees leaving jobs every year (for a new job, retirement or unemployment) in the private sector is around 30% – a level also observed in the U.K. and U.S.- but much higher than in continental Europe, where the corresponding figure is around 10%, and in Sweden. This attrition can be very costly, with new and old employees requiring half a year to return to old productivity levels, but with attrition bringing the number of people that have to be fired down.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: As a small open economy, Denmark is very dependent on its foreign trade. In 2017, the value of total exports of goods and services made up 55% of GDP, whereas the value of total imports amounted to 47% of GDP. Trade in goods made up slightly more than 60% of both exports and imports, and trade in services the remaining close to 40%.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Machinery, chemicals and related products like medicine and agricultural products were the largest groups of export goods in 2017. Service exports were dominated by freight sea transport services from the Danish merchant navy. Most of Denmark's most important trading partners are neighbouring countries. The five main importers of Danish goods and services in 2017 were Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Norway. The five countries from which Denmark imported most goods and services in 2017 were Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, China and United Kingdom.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: After having almost consistently an external balance of payments current account deficit since the beginning of the 1960s, Denmark has maintained a surplus on its BOP current account for every year since 1990, with the single exception of 1998. In 2017, the current account surplus amounted to approximately 8% of GDP. Consequently, Denmark has changed from a net debtor to a net creditor country. By 1 July 2018, the net foreign wealth or net international investment position of Denmark was equal to 64.6% of GDP, Denmark thus having the largest net foreign wealth relative to GDP of any EU country.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: As the annual current account is equal to the value of domestic saving minus total domestic investment, the change from a structural deficit to a structural surplus is due to changes in these two national account components. In particular, the Danish national saving rate in financial assets increased by 11 per cent of GDP from 1980 to 2015. Two main reasons for this large change in domestic saving behaviour were the growing importance of large-scale compulsory pension schemes and several Danish fiscal policy reforms during the period which considerably decreased tax deductions of household interest expense, thus reducing the tax subsidy to private debt.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The Danish currency is the Danish krone, subdivided into 100 øre. The krone and øre were introduced in 1875, replacing the former rigsdaler and skilling. Denmark has a very long tradition of maintaining a fixed exchange-rate system, dating back to the period of the gold standard during the time of the Scandinavian Monetary Union from 1873 to 1914. After the breakdown of the international Bretton Woods system in 1971, Denmark devalued the krone repeatedly during the 1970s and the start of the 1980s, effectively maintaining a policy of "fixed, but adjustable" exchange rates. Rising inflation led to Denmark declaring a more consistent fixed exchange-rate policy in 1982. At first, the krone was pegged to the European Currency Unit or ECU, from 1987 to the Deutschmark, and from 1999 to the euro.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Although eligible, Denmark chose not to join the European Monetary Union when it was founded. In 2000, the Danish government advocated Danish EMU membership and called a referendum to settle the issue. With a turn-out of 87.6%, 53% of the voters rejected Danish membership. Occasionally, the question of calling another referendum on the issue has been discussed, but since the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 opinion polls have shown a clear majority against Denmark joining the EMU, and the question is not high on the political agenda presently.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Maintenance of the fixed exchange rate is the responsibility of Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank. As a consequence of the exchange rate policy, the bank must always adjust its interest rates to ensure a stable exchange rate and consequently cannot at the same time conduct monetary policy to stabilize e.g. domestic inflation or unemployment rates. This makes the conduct of stabilization policy fundamentally different from the situation in Denmark's neighbouring countries like Norway, Sweden, Poland and the United Kingdom, in which the central banks have a central stabilizing role. Denmark is presently the only OECD member country maintaining an independent currency with a fixed exchange rate. Consequently, the Danish krone is the only currency in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II).


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In the first months of 2015, Denmark experienced the largest pressure against the fixed exchange rate for many years because of very large capital inflows, causing a tendency for the Danish krone to appreciate. Danmarks Nationalbank reacted in various ways, chiefly by lowering its interest rates to record low levels. On 6 February 2015 the certificates of deposit rate, one of the four official Danish central bank rates, was lowered to −0.75%. In January 2016 the rate was raised to −0.65%, at which level it has been maintained since then.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Inflation in Denmark as measured by the official consumer price index of Statistics Denmark was 1.1% in 2017. Inflation has generally been low and stable for the last decades. Whereas in 1980 annual inflation was more than 12%, in the period 2000–2017 the average inflation rate was 1.8%.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Since a local-government reform in 2007, the general government organization in Denmark is carried out on three administrative levels: central government, regions, and municipalities. Regions administer mainly health care services, whereas municipalities administer primary education and social services. Municipalities in principle independently levy income and property taxes, but the scope for total municipal taxation and expenditure is closely regulated by annual negotiations between the municipalities and the Finance Minister of Denmark. At the central government level, the Ministry of Finance carries out the coordinating role of conducting economic policy. In 2012, the Danish parliament passed a Budget Law (effective from January 2014) which governs the over-all fiscal framework, stating among other things that the structural deficit must never exceed 0.5% of GDP, and that Danish fiscal policy is required to be sustainable, i.e. have a non-negative fiscal sustainability indicator. The Budget Law also assigned the role of independent fiscal institution (IFI, informally known as "fiscal watchdog") to the already-existing independent advisory body of the Danish Economic Councils.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Danish fiscal policy is generally considered healthy. Government net debt was close to zero at the end of 2017, amounting to DKK 27.3 billion, or 1.3% of GDP. The government sector having a fair amount of financial assets as well as liabilities, government gross debt amounted to 36.1% of GDP at the same date. The gross EMU-debt as percentage of GDP was the sixth-lowest among all 28 EU member countries, only Estonia, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Romania having a lower gross debt. Denmark had a government budget surplus of 1.1% of GDP in 2017.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Long-run annual fiscal projections from the Danish government as well as the independent Danish Economic Council, taking into account likely future fiscal developments caused by demographic developments etc. (e.g. a likely ageing of the population caused by a considerable expansion of life expectancy), consider the Danish fiscal policy to be overly sustainable in the long run. In Spring 2018, the so-called Fiscal Sustainability Indicator was calculated to be 1.2 (by the Danish government) respectively 0.9% (by the Danish Economic Council) of GDP. This implies that under the assumptions employed in the projections, fiscal policy could be permanently loosened (via more generous public expenditures and/or lower taxes) by ca. 1% of GDP while still maintaining a stable government debt-to-GDP ratio in the long run.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The tax level as well as the government expenditure level in Denmark ranks among the highest in the world, which is traditionally ascribed to the Nordic model of which Denmark is an example, including the welfare state principles which historically evolved during the 20th century. In 2017, the official Danish tax level amounted to 46.1% of GDP. The all-record highest Danish tax level was 49.8% of GDP, reached in 2014 because of high extraordinary one-time tax revenues caused by a reorganization of the Danish-funded pension system. The Danish tax-to-GDP-ratio of 46% was the second-highest among all OECD countries, second only to France. The OECD average was 34.2%. The tax structure of Denmark (the relative weight of different taxes) also differs from the OECD average, as the Danish tax system in 2015 was characterized by substantially higher revenues from taxes on personal income, whereas on the other hand, no revenues at all derive from social security contributions. A lower proportion of revenues in Denmark derive from taxes on corporate income and gains and property taxes than in OECD generally, whereas the proportion deriving from payroll taxes, VAT, and other taxes on goods and services correspond to the OECD average.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In 2016, the average marginal tax rate on labour income for all Danish tax-payers was 38.9%. The average marginal tax on personal capital income was 30.7%.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Professor of Economics at Princeton University Henrik Kleven has suggested that three distinct policies in Denmark and its Scandinavian neighbours imply that the high tax rates cause only relatively small distortions to the economy: widespread use of third-party information reporting for tax collection purposes (ensuring a low level of tax evasion), broad tax bases (ensuring a low level of tax avoidance), and a strong subsidization of goods that are complementary to working (ensuring a high level of labour force participation).


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Parallel to the high tax level, government expenditures make up a large part of GDP, and the government sector carries out many different tasks. By September 2018, 831,000 people worked in the general government sector, corresponding to 29.9% of all employees. In 2017, total government expenditure amounted to 50.9% of GDP. Government consumption took up precisely 25% of GDP (e.g. education and health care expenditure), and government investment (infrastructure etc.) expenditure another 3.4% of GDP. Personal income transfers (for e.g. elderly or unemployed people) amounted to 16.8% of GDP.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has an unemployment insurance system called the A-kasse ("arbejdsløshedskasse"). This system requires a paying membership of a state-recognized unemployment fund. Most of these funds are managed by trade unions, and part of their expenses are financed through the tax system. Members of an A-kasse are not obliged to be members of a trade union. Not every Danish citizen or employee qualifies for a membership of an unemployment fund, and membership benefits will be terminated after 2 years of unemployment. A person that is not a member of an A-kasse cannot receive unemployment benefits. Unemployment funds do not pay benefits to sick members, who will be transferred to a municipal social support system instead. Denmark has a countrywide, but municipally administered social support system against poverty, securing that qualified citizens have a minimum living income. All Danish citizens above 18 years of age can apply for some financial support if they cannot support themselves or their family. Approval is not automatic, and the extent of this system has generally been diminished since the 1980s. Sick people can receive some financial support throughout the extent of their illness. Their ability to work will be re-evaluated by the municipality after 5 months of illness.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The welfare system related to the labor market has experienced several reforms and financial cuts since the late 1990s due to political agendas for increasing the labor supply. Several reforms of the rights of the unemployed have followed up, partially inspired by the Danish Economic Council. Halving the time unemployment benefits can be received from four to two years, and making it twice as hard to regain this right, was implemented in 2010 for example.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Disabled people can apply for permanent social pensions. The extent of the support depends on the ability to work, and people below 40 can not receive social pension unless they are deemed incapable of any kind of work.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Agriculture was once the most important industry in Denmark. Nowadays, it is of minor economic importance. In 2016, 62,000 people, or 2.5% of all employed people worked in agriculture and horticulture. Another 2,000 people worked in fishing. As value added per person is relatively low, the share of national value added is somewhat lower. Total gross value added in agriculture, forestry and fishing amounted to 1.6% of total output in Denmark (in 2017). Despite this, Denmark is still home to various types of agricultural production. Within animal husbandry, it includes dairy and beef cattle, pigs, poultry and fur animals (primarily mink) – all sectors that produce mainly for export. Regarding vegetable production, Denmark is a leading producer of grass-, clover- and horticultural seeds. The agriculture and food sector as a whole represented 25% of total Danish commodity exports in 2015.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: 63% of the land area of Denmark is used for agricultural production – the highest share in the world according to a report from University of Copenhagen in 2017. The Danish agricultural industry is historically characterized by freehold and family ownership, but due to structural development farms have become fewer and larger. In 2020 the number of farms was approximately 33,000, of which approximately 10,000 were owned by full-time farmers.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The tendency toward fewer and larger farms has been accompanied by an increase in animal production, using fewer resources per produced unit.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The number of dairy farmers has reduced to about 3,800 with an average herd size of 150 cows. The milk quota is 1,142 tonnes. Danish dairy farmers are among the largest and most modern producers in Europe. More than half of the cows live in new loose-housing systems. Export of dairy products accounts for more than 20 percent of the total Danish agricultural export. The total number of cattle in 2011 was approximately 1.5 million. Of these, 565,000 were dairy cows and 99,000 were suckler cows. The yearly number of slaughtering of beef cattle is around 550,000.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: For more than 100 years the production of pigs and pig meat was a major source of income in Denmark. The Danish pig industry is among the world's leaders in areas such as breeding, quality, food safety, animal welfare and traceability creating the basis for Denmark being among the world's largest pig meat exporters. Approximately 90 percent of the production is exported. This accounts for almost half of all agricultural exports and for more than 5 percent of Denmark's total exports. About 4,200 farmers produce 28 million pigs annually. Of these, 20.9 million are slaughtered in Denmark.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Fur animal production on an industrial scale started in the 1930s in Denmark. Prior to a government-mandated culling during the COVID-19 pandemic, Denmark was the world's largest producer of mink furs, with 1,400 mink farmers fostering 17.2 million mink and producing around 14 million furs of the highest quality every year (see mink industry in Denmark). Approximately 98 percent of the skins sold at Kopenhagen Fur Auction were exported. Fur ranked as Danish agriculture's third largest export article, at more than DKK 7 billion annually. The number of farms peaked in the late 1980s at more than 5,000 farms, but the number has declined steadily since, as individual farms grew in size. Danish mink farmers claim their business to be sustainable, feeding the mink food industry waste and using all parts of the dead animal as meat, bone meal and biofuel. Special attention is given to the welfare of the mink, and regular "Open Farm" arrangements are made for the general public. Mink thrive in, but are not a native to Denmark, and it is considered an invasive species. American Mink are now widespread in Denmark and continues to cause problems for the native wildlife, in particular waterfowl. Denmark also has a small production of fox, chinchilla and rabbit furs.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Two hundred professional producers are responsible for the Danish egg production, which was 66 million kg in 2011. Chickens for slaughter are often produced in units with 40,000 broilers. In 2012, 100 million chickens were slaughtered. In the minor productions of poultry, 13 million ducks, 1.4 million geese and 5.0 million turkeys were slaughtered in 2012.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Organic farming and production has increased considerably and continuously in Denmark since 1987 when the first official regulations of this particular agricultural method came into effect. In 2017, the export of organic products reached DK 2.95 billion, a 153% increase from 2012 five years earlier, and a 21% increase from 2016. The import of organic products has always been higher than the exports though and reached DK 3.86 billion in 2017. After some years of stagnation, close to 10% of the cultivated land is now categorized as organically farmed, and 13.6% for the dairy industry, as of 2017.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has the highest retail consumption share for organic products in the world. In 2017, the share was at 13.3%, accounting for a total of DKK 12.1 billion.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has large proven reserves of oil and natural gas in the North Sea with Esbjerg being the main city for the oil and gas industry. Denmark is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the EU. Production has decreased in recent years, though. Whereas in 2006 output (measured as gross value added or GVA) in mining and quarrying industries made up more than 4% of Denmark's total GVA, in 2017 it amounted to 1.2%. The sector is very capital-intensive, so the share of employment is much lower: About 2,000 persons worked in the oil and gas extraction sector in 2016, and another 1,000 persons in extraction of gravel and stone, or in total about 0.1% of total employment in Denmark.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark houses a number of significant engineering and high-technology firms, within the sectors of industrial equipment, aerospace, robotics, pharmaceutical and electronics.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Danfoss, headquartered in Nordborg, designs and manufactures industrial electronics, heating and cooling equipment, as well as drivetrains and power solutions.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark is also a large exporter of pumps, with the company Grundfos holding 50% of the market share, manufacturing circulation pumps.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In 2017 total output (gross value added) in manufacturing industries amounted to 14.4% of total output in Denmark. 325,000 people or a little less than 12% of all employed persons worked in manufacturing (including utilities, mining and quarrying) in 2016. Main sub-industries are manufacture of pharmaceuticals, machinery, and food products.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In 2017 total output (gross value added) in service industries amounted to 75.2% of total output in Denmark, and 79.9% of all employed people worked here (in 2016). Apart from public administration, education and health services, main service sub-industries were trade and transport services, and business services.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Significant investment has been made in building road and rail links between Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden (the Øresund Bridge), and between Zealand and Funen (the Great Belt Fixed Link). The Copenhagen Malmö Port was also formed between the two cities as the common port for the cities of both nations.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The main railway operator is Danske Statsbaner (Danish State Railways) for passenger services and DB Schenker Rail for freight trains. The railway tracks are maintained by Banedanmark. Copenhagen has a small Metro system, the Copenhagen Metro and the greater Copenhagen area has an extensive electrified suburban railway network, the S-train.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Private vehicles are increasingly used as a means of transport. New cars are taxed by means of a registration tax (85% to 150%) and VAT (25%). The motorway network now covers 1,300 km.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark is in a strong position in terms of integrating fluctuating and unpredictable energy sources such as wind power in the grid. It is this knowledge that Denmark now aims to exploit in the transport sector by focusing on intelligent battery systems (V2G) and plug-in vehicles.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has changed its energy consumption from 99% fossil fuels (92% oil (all imported) and 7% coal) and 1% biofuels in 1972 to 73% fossil fuels (37% oil (all domestic), 18% coal and 18% natural gas (all domestic)) and 27% renewables (largely biofuels) in 2015. The goal is a full independence of fossil fuels by 2050. This drastic change was initially inspired largely by the discovery of Danish oil and gas reserves in the North Sea in 1972 and the 1973 oil crisis. The course took a giant leap forward in 1984, when the Danish North Sea oil and gas fields, developed by native industry in close cooperation with the state, started major productions. In 1997, Denmark became self-sufficient with energy and the overall emission from the energy sector began to fall by 1996. Wind energy contribution to the total energy consumption has risen from 1% in 1997 to 5% in 2015.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Since 2000, Denmark has increased gross domestic product (GDP) and at the same time decreased energy consumption. Since 1972, the overall energy consumption has dropped by 6%, even though the GDP has doubled in the same period. Denmark had the 6th best energy security in the world in 2014. Denmark has had relatively high energy taxation to encourage careful use of energy since the oil crises in the 1970s, and Danish industry has adapted to this and gained a competitive edge. The so-called "green taxes" have been broadly criticised partly for being higher than in other countries, but also for being more of a tool for gathering government revenue than a method of promoting "greener" behaviour.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has low electricity costs (including costs for cleaner energy) in EU, but general taxes (11.7 billion DKK in 2015) make the electricity price for households the highest in Europe. , Denmark has no environment tax on electricity.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark is a long time leader in wind energy and a prominent exporter of Vestas and Siemens wind turbines, and Denmark derives 3.1% of its gross domestic product from renewable (clean) energy technology and energy efficiency, or around €6.5 billion ($9.4 billion). It has integrated fluctuating and less predictable energy sources such as wind power into the grid. Wind produced the equivalent of 43% of Denmark's total electricity consumption in 2017. The share of total energy production is smaller: In 2015, wind accounted for 5% of total Danish energy production.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Energinet.dk is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. The electricity grids of western Denmark and eastern Denmark were not connected until 2010 when the 600MW Great Belt Power Link went into operation.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Cogeneration plants are the norm in Denmark, usually with district heating which serves 1.7 million households.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Waste-to-energy incinerators produce mostly heating and hot water. in Glostrup Municipality operates Denmark's largest incinerator, a cogeneration plant which supplies electricity to 80,000 households and heating equivalent to the consumption in 63,000 households (2016). Amager Bakke is an example of a new incinerator.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: In addition to Denmark proper, the Kingdom of Denmark comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean: Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Both use the Danish krone as their currency, but form separate economies, having separate national accounts etc. Both countries receive an annual fiscal subsidy from Denmark which amounts to about 25% of Greenland's GDP and 11% of Faroese GDP. For both countries, fishing industry is a major economic activity.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Neither Greenland nor the Faroe Islands are members of the European Union. Greenland left the European Economic Community in 1986, and the Faroe Islands declined membership in 1973, when Denmark joined.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has fostered and is home to many multi-national companies. Many of the largest are interdisciplinary with business – and sometimes research activities – in several fields. The most notable companies include:


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Many of the largest food producers are also engaged in biotechnology and research. Notable companies dedicated to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector, includes:


title: Economy of Denmark

text: Denmark has a long tradition for cooperative production and trade on a large scale. The most notable cooperative societies today includes the agricultural coop of Dansk Landbrugs Grovvareselskab (DLG), dairy producer Arla Foods and the retail cooperative Coop Danmark. Coop Danmark started out as ""Fællesforeningen for Danmarks Brugsforeninger"" (FDB) in 1896 and now has around 1.4 million members in Denmark as of 2017. It is part of the larger multi-sector cooperative Coop amba which has 1.7 million members in that same year.


title: Economy of Denmark

text: The cooperative structure also extends to both the housing and banking sector. Arbejdernes Landsbank, founded in 1919, is the largest bank cooperative and it is currently the 6th largest bank in the country as of 2018. The municipality of Copenhagen alone holds a total of 153 housing cooperatives and ""Arbejdernes Andelsboligforening Århus"" (AAB Århus) is the largest individual housing cooperative in Denmark, with 23,000 homes in Aarhus.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The word "Hyborian" is derived from the legendary northern land of the ancient Greeks, Hyperborea and it is rendered as such in the earliest draft of Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age". Howard described the Hyborian Age taking place sometime after the sinking of Atlantis and before the beginning of recorded ancient history. Most later editors and adaptors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Roy Thomas placed the Hyborian Age around 10,000 BC. More recently, Dale Rippke proposed that the Hyborian Age should be placed further in the past, around 32,500 BC, prior to the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. Rippke's date, however, has since been disputed by Jeffrey Shanks, who argues for the more traditional placement at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Howard had an intense love for history and historical dramas; however, at the same time, he recognized the difficulties and the time-consuming research needed in maintaining historical accuracy. By conceiving a timeless setting – a "vanished" age – and by carefully choosing names that resembled our history, Howard avoided the problem of historical anachronisms and the need for lengthy exposition.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Howard explained the origins and history of the Hyborian civilization in his essay "The Hyborian Age". The essay begins with the end of the Thurian Age (the setting for Howard's King Kull stories) and the destruction of its civilizations, Lemuria and Atlantis, by a geological cataclysm.


title: Hyborian Age

text: After this cataclysm, the surviving humans were reduced to a primitive state and a technological level hardly above the Neanderthal. Several such tribes migrated to the northern areas of what was left of the Thurian continent to escape destruction. They discovered the region to be safe, but covered with snow and already inhabited by a race of vicious white-furred apes. A vicious territorial war ensued until the humans drove the apes further North, past the Arctic Circle. Believing the apes were destined to perish, the humans turned to taming their harsh new home.


title: Hyborian Age

text: One thousand five hundred years later, the descendants of this initial group were called "Hyborians". They were named after their highest ranking god deity, Bori. The essay mentions that Bori had actually been a great tribal chief of their past who had undergone deification. Their oral tradition remembered him as their leader during their initial migration to the north, though the antiquity of this man had been exaggerated.


title: Hyborian Age

text: By this point, the various related but independent Hyborian tribes had spread throughout the northern regions of their area of the world. Some of them were already migrating south at a "leisurely" pace in search of new areas in which to settle. The Hyborians had yet to encounter other cultural groups, but engaged in wars against each other. Howard describes them as a powerful and warlike race with the average individual being tall, tawny-haired, and gray-eyed. Culturally, they were accomplished artists and poets. Most of the tribes still relied on hunting for their nourishment. Their southern offshoots, however, had been practicing animal husbandry on cattle for centuries.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The only exception to their long isolation from other cultural groups came due to the actions of a lone adventurer, unnamed in the essay. He had traveled past the Arctic Circle and returned with news that their old adversaries, the apes, were never annihilated. They had instead evolved into apemen and, according to his description, were by then numerous. He believed they were quickly evolving to human status and would pose a threat to the Hyborians in the future. He attempted to recruit a significant military force to campaign against them, but most Hyborians were not convinced by his tales; only a small group of foolhardy youths followed his campaign. None of them returned.


title: Hyborian Age

text: With the population of the Hyborian tribes continuing to increase, the need for new lands also increased. The Hyborians expanded outside their familiar territories, beginning a new age of wanderings and conquests. For 500 years, the Hyborians spread towards the south and the west of their nameless continent.


title: Hyborian Age

text: They encountered other tribal groups for the first time in millennia. They conquered many smaller clans of various origins. The survivors of the defeated clans merged with their conquerors, passing on their racial traits to new generations of Hyborians. The mixed-blooded Hyborian tribes were in turn forced to defend their new territories from pure-blooded Hyborian tribes which followed the same paths of migration. Often, the new invaders would wipe away the defenders before absorbing them, resulting in a tangled web of Hyborian tribes and nations with varying ancestral elements within their bloodlines.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The first organized Hyborian kingdom to emerge was Hyperborea. The tribe that established it entered their Neolithic age by learning to erect buildings in stone, largely for fortification. These nomads lived in tents made out of the hides of horses, but soon abandoned them in favor of their crude but durable stone houses. They permanently settled in fortified settlements and developed cyclopean masonry to further fortify their defensive walls.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The Hyperboreans were by then the most advanced of the Hyborian tribes and set out to expand their kingdom by attacking their backwards neighbors. Tribes who defended their territories lost them and were forced to migrate elsewhere. Others fled the path of Hyperborean expansion before ever engaging them in war. Meanwhile, the apemen of the Arctic Circle emerged as a new race of light-haired and tall humans. They started their own migration to the south, displacing the northernmost of the Hyborian tribes.


title: Hyborian Age

text: For the next thousand years, the warlike Hyborian nations advanced to become the rulers of the western areas of the nameless continent. They encountered the Picts and forced them back to the western wastelands, which would come to be known as the "Pictish Wilderness". Following the example of their Hyperborean cousins, other Hyborians migrated Southward and created their own kingdoms.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The southernmost of the early kingdoms was Koth, which was established north of the lands of Shem and soon started extending its cultural influence over the southern shepherds. Just south of the Pictish Wilderness was the fertile valley known as "Zing". The wandering Hyborian tribe which conquered it found other people already settled there. They included a nameless farming nation related to the people of the Shem and a warlike Pictish tribe who had previously conquered them. They established the kingdom of Zingara and absorbed the defeated elements into their tribe. Hyborians, Picts, and the unnamed kin of the Shemites would merge into a nation calling themselves Zingarans.


title: Hyborian Age

text: On the other hand, at the north of the continent, the fair-haired invaders from the Arctic Circle had grown in numbers and power. They continued their expansion south while in turn displacing defeated Hyborians to the south. Even Hyperborea was conquered by one of these barbarian tribes. But the conquerors here decided to maintain the kingdom with its old name, merged with the defeated Hyperboreans and adopted elements of Hyborian culture. The continuing wars and migrations would keep the state of the other areas of the continent for another five hundred years.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The Hyborian Age was devised by author Robert E. Howard as the post-Atlantean setting of his Conan the Cimmerian stories, designed to fit in with Howard's previous and lesser known tales of Kull, which were set in the Thurian Age at the time of Atlantis. The name "Hyborian" is a contraction of the Greek concept of the land of "Hyperborea", literally "Beyond the North Wind". This was a mythical place far to the north that was not cold and where things did not age.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Howard's Hyborian epoch, described in his essay "The Hyborian Age", is a mythical time before any civilization known to anthropologists. Its setting is prehistoric Europe and North Africa (with occasional references to Asia and other continents).


title: Hyborian Age

text: On a map Howard drew conceptualizing the Hyborian Age, his vision of the Mediterranean Sea is dry. The Nile, which he renamed the River Styx, takes a westward turn at right angles just beyond the Nile Delta, plowing through the mountains so as to be able to reach the Straits of Gibraltar. Although his Black Sea is also dry, his Caspian Sea, which he renames the Vilayet Sea, extends northward to reach the Arctic Ocean, so as to provide a barrier to encapsulate the settings of his stories. Not only are his Baltic Sea and English Channel dry, but most of the North Sea and a vast region to the west, easily including Ireland, are, too. Meanwhile, the west coast of Africa on his map lies beneath the sea.


title: Hyborian Age

text: In his fantasy setting of the Hyborian Age, Howard created imaginary kingdoms to which he gave names inspired by or adapted from a variety of mythological and historical sources. Khitai is his version of China, lying far to the east, Corinthia is his name for a Hellenistic civilization, a name derived from the city of Corinth and reminiscent of the imperial fief of Carinthia in the Middle Ages. Howard imagines the Hyborian Picts occupying a large area in the northwest. The probable intended analogues are listed below; notice that the analogues are sometimes very generalized, and are portrayed by "non-historical" stereotypes. Most of these correspondences are drawn from "Hyborian Names", an appendix featured in "Conan the Swordsman" by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The Stygian followers of Set worship their deity with human sacrifice and actively venerate serpents, and Ishtar's worshippers follow the pleasures of the flesh. In Vendhya, the followers of Asura seek truth beyond the illusions of the physical world, and the Hyborian devotees of Mitra are almost Christian in their merging of asceticism with a commitment to compassion and justice.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Crom is a deity in Robert E. Howard's fantasy tales of the Hyborian Age. He is acknowledged as the chief god by the lead character Conan, and his proto-Celtic Cimmerian people.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, and he lives on a great mountain, from where he sends forth doom or death. It is considered useless to call upon Crom, because he is a gloomy and savage god who hates weaklings. However, Crom gives a man courage, free will, and the strength to fight his enemies. Crom doesn't care if individuals live or die, and his name is typically only invoked as an oath or curse. He is the only member of the Cimmerian pantheon named with any regularity.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Crom is never depicted as directly intervening or otherwise explicitly causing any event in the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. There is little consistent evidence in his works that Crom actually exists, in contrast to the demons and highly advanced aliens appearing in "The God in the Bowl" and "The Tower of the Elephant", while the story "The Phoenix on the Sword" implies that Set is one of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Howard's story "Black Colossus" features a princess vocally directed by Mitra to recruit Conan as her champion, but Crom makes no such appearances.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Crom is exclusively a Cimmerian god, with other civilizations paying him little attention, and Conan swearing with Crom's name immediately identifies him as a Cimmerian.


title: Hyborian Age

text: He is probably loosely based on the Vedic and Zoroastrian figure by the same name, and in the Hyborian universe, his worship generally represents Christianity. In the essay "The Hyborian Age", Howard writes that followers of Mitra are urged to forgive their enemies (though many of them fail to do so). Mitra's religion is missionary; its adherents are sometimes martyred trying to spread their faith to hostile peoples.


title: Hyborian Age

text: Mitra's worship is dominant, effectively the state religion, in the Hyborian countries corresponding to modern Western Europe. In lands corresponding to Asia and Africa, Mitra is, at best, one god among many, and his worship is forbidden in Stygia (Egypt and North Africa).


title: Hyborian Age

text: Mitra is the chief god of most of the civilized Hyborian kingdoms, including Aquilonia, Ophir, Nemedia, Brythunia, Corinthia, and Zingara. His worshippers are monolatristic, since at least one tale depicts priests of Mitra recognizing the existence of Set. He is depicted as a "gentle" god. In Khoraja, which is on the border between the Hyborian kingdoms and the Shemite ones, the worship of Mitra was largely forgotten in favor of the Shemite gods – but in hours of great need, Khorajans still call on Mitra and are answered ("Black Colossus").


title: Hyborian Age

text: While Mitra and his followers are in general presented favorably in the Conan stories, in Howard's "The Hour of the Dragon" they intolerantly persecute followers of Asura. Conan, being a "barbarian", does not share this "civilized" prejudice and protects Asura's followers, who prove helpful later.


title: Hyborian Age

text: The Mitra cult never practices sacrifice and values aesthetic simplicity. Thus, his shrines are usually unadorned and feature little or no iconography except for a single idol. The idol itself has the appearance of an idealized, bearded male figure and is the primary object of worship. However, being omnipresent and incorporeal, Mitra is not considered to reside in the icon, nor share its appearance. He is also symbolically represented by a phoenix in Howard's writing, by an Ankh in the "Age of Conan" MMORPG, and by a bronze colossus in the survival video game "Conan Exiles".


title: Hyborian Age

text: Mitra appears directly in Howard's "Black Colossus", where he speaks to Princess Yasmela of Khoraja and guides her in an hour of desperate danger. Mitra's involvement has a significant effect on Conan's career. Though he had never commanded more than a "company of cut-throats", Conan emerges as a victorious general in a historically important battle involving tens of thousands of soldiers. Though Conan's career would know many more ups and downs, this was an important step towards eventually becoming a king. From Mitra's point of view, Conan was evidently the best choice to defeat a sworn enemy of the Hyborian kingdoms.


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: Mike Stone (born June 29, 1943) is an American martial artist, retired karate fighter, fight choreographer, stuntman, actor, author, and motivational speaker.


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: Mike Stone was born in Makawao, Maui, Hawaii. Stone's first introduction to the martial arts was in Aikido while as a student Lahainaluna High School. After graduating Stone enlisted in the US Army in 1962. Stone began studying Shorin-ryu Karate earning his black belt in only six months under Herbert Peters while stationed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. Well known for his karate tournament success in the 1960s, Stone known for his aggressiveness earned the nicknamed "The Animal" would amass a record of 91 consecutive wins.


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: In 1964, Stone won the sparring grand championship at the first ever International Karate Championships in Long Beach, California. Stone has authored several books, most notably "Mike Stone's Book of American Eclectic Karate".


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: Stone met Elvis and Priscilla Presley in 1968 at the Mainland vs. Hawaii Karate Championships promoted by Elvis' longtime karate instructor Ed Parker. Stone had a young child and a pregnant wife. Stone had been working as a bodyguard for record producer Phil Spector. After the show, Elvis invited Stone back to the couple's penthouse suite where Elvis suggested that Priscilla train with Stone. Three weeks later Priscilla made the 45-minute drive to Stone's school in Huntington Beach. Because of the distance Priscilla opted to train with Chuck Norris who had a school in West Los Angeles, which was closer to the Presley home. Stone would make occasional trips to Norris's school to train Priscilla. The relationship soon turned romantic, contributing to Elvis and Priscilla's split in February 1972 and divorce in 1973. Stone and Priscilla would eventually split up because he sold a story to the "Globe" tabloid entitled "How I Stole Elvis Presley's Wife From Him". Priscilla said she split with Stone then, "because he went to the press".


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: In 1963, Stone won the Southwest Karate Championship in the black belt division. The promoter was Allen Steen, who held victories over Stone and Chuck Norris. At Ed Parker's 1964 Internationals Karate Championship, Stone defeated Harry Keolanui in the finals to become Grand Champion. In Chicago that same year, Stone scored victories over Ray Cooper and Mills Crenshaw to win the First World Karate Tournament. At the U.S. National Karate Championships in 1965, Stone won the championship by beating Walter Worthy. Also that year, Stone again won Ed Parker's International Karate Championship by defeating Art Pelela and Tony Tulleners. Three years later, Stone won the World Professional Karate Championship on November 24, 1968 by beating Bob Taian by points decision. In 1969 at the U.S. National Karate Championship, Stone lost an upset decision to Victor Moore.


title: Mike Stone (karate)

text: Stone has been married three times. He met his first wife, Mary Ann Dobbs, while in the army stationed at Fort Chaffee. He met his second wife, Francine Doxey in Newport Beach where he was working as a bouncer. In 1985, Stone sold all his possessions and moved to an isolated island in the Philippines where he and his current wife Taina live.


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, and Warren remained in office until he retired in 1969. Warren was succeeded as Chief Justice by Warren Burger. The Warren Court is often considered the most liberal court in US history.


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court expanded civil rights, civil liberties, judicial power, and the federal power in dramatic ways. It has been widely recognized that the court, led by the liberal bloc, has created a major "Constitutional Revolution" in the history of United States.


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court brought "one man, one vote" to the United States through a series of rulings, and created the Miranda warning. In addition, the court was both applauded and criticized for bringing an end to "de jure" racial segregation in the United States, incorporating the Bill of Rights (i.e. including it in the 14th Amendment Due Process clause), and ending officially sanctioned voluntary prayer in public schools. The period is recognized as the highest point in judicial power that has receded ever since, but with a substantial continuing impact.


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court began on October 5, 1953, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren, the incumbent governor of California, to replace Fred Vinson as Chief Justice of the United States. The court began with Warren and the final eight members of the Vinson Court: Hugo Black, Stanley Forman Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, Harold Hitz Burton, Tom C. Clark, and Sherman Minton.


title: Warren Court

text: Jackson died in 1954 and Minton retired in 1956, and they were replaced by John Marshall Harlan II and William Brennan. Another vacancy took place when Reed retired in 1957 and was replaced by Charles Evans Whittaker, and then Burton retired in 1958, with Eisenhower appointing Potter Stewart in his place. When Frankfurter and Whittaker retired in 1962, then-President John F. Kennedy was given the power to appoint two new justices: Byron White and Arthur Goldberg. However, President Lyndon B. Johnson encouraged Goldberg to resign in 1965 to become Ambassador to the United Nations, and nominated Abe Fortas to take his place. Clark retired in 1967, and Johnson appointed the first African American justice, Thurgood Marshall to the court. The Warren Court concluded on June 23, 1969 when Earl Warren retired and was replaced by Warren Burger. Prominent members of the Court during the Warren era besides the Chief Justice included justices: Brennan, Douglas, Black, Frankfurter, and Harlan II.


title: Warren Court

text: Presidents during this court included Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Congresses during this court included 83rd through the 91st United States Congresses.


title: Warren Court

text: One of the primary factors in Warren's leadership was his political background, having served two and a half terms as Governor of California (1943–1953) and experience as the Republican candidate for vice president in 1948 (as running mate of Thomas E. Dewey). Warren brought a strong belief in the remedial power of law. According to historian Bernard Schwartz, Warren's view of the law was pragmatic, seeing it as an instrument for obtaining equity and fairness. Schwartz argues that Warren's approach was most effective "when the political institutions had defaulted on their responsibility to try to address problems such as segregation and reapportionment and cases where the constitutional rights of defendants were abused."


title: Warren Court

text: A related component of Warren's leadership was his focus on broad ethical principles, rather than narrower interpretative structures. Describing the latter as "conventional reasoning patterns," Professor G. Edward White suggests Warren often disregarded these in groundbreaking cases such as "Brown v. Board of Education", "Reynolds v. Sims" and "Miranda v. Arizona", where such traditional sources of precedent were stacked against him. White suggests Warren's principles "were philosophical, political, and intuitive, not legal in the conventional technical sense."


title: Warren Court

text: Warren's leadership was characterized by remarkable consensus on the court, particularly in some of the most controversial cases. These included "Brown v. Board of Education", "Gideon v. Wainwright", and "Cooper v. Aaron", which were unanimously decided, as well as "Abington School District v. Schempp" and "Engel v. Vitale", each striking down religious recitations in schools with only one dissent. In an unusual action, the decision in "Cooper" was personally signed by all nine justices, with the three new members of the Court adding that they supported and would have joined the Court's decision in "Brown v. Board".


title: Warren Court

text: Fallon says that, "Some thrilled to the approach of the Warren Court. Many law professors were perplexed, often sympathetic to the Court's results but skeptical of the soundness of its constitutional reasoning. And some of course were horrified."


title: Warren Court

text: Professor John Hart Ely in his book "Democracy and Distrust" famously characterized the Warren Court as a ""Carolene Products" Court". This referred to the famous Footnote Four in "United States v. Carolene Products", in which the Supreme Court had suggested that heightened judicial scrutiny might be appropriate in three types of cases:


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court, while in many cases taking a broad view of individual rights, generally declined to read the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment broadly, outside of the incorporation context (see "Ferguson v. Skrupa", but see also "Griswold v. Connecticut"). The Warren Court's decisions were also strongly nationalist in thrust, as the Court read Congress's power under the Commerce Clause quite broadly and often expressed an unwillingness to allow constitutional rights to vary from state to state (as was explicitly manifested in "Cooper v. Aaron").


title: Warren Court

text: Professor Rebecca Zietlow argues that the Warren Court brought an expansion in the "rights of belonging", which she characterizes as "rights that promote an inclusive vision of who belongs to the national community and facilitate equal membership in that community".


title: Warren Court

text: Archibald Cox, who as Solicitor General from 1961 to 1965 saw the Court up close, summarized: "The responsibility of government for equality among men, the openness of American society to change and reform, and the decency of the administration of criminal justice received both creative and enduring impetus from the work of the Warren Court."


title: Warren Court

text: Important decisions during the Warren Court years included decisions holding segregation policies in public schools ("Brown v. Board of Education") and anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional ("Loving v. Virginia"); ruling that the Constitution protects a general right to privacy ("Griswold v. Connecticut"); that states are bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court and cannot ignore them ("Cooper v. Aaron"); that public schools cannot have official prayer ("Engel v. Vitale") or mandatory Bible readings ("Abington School District v. Schempp"); the scope of the doctrine of incorporation ("Mapp v. Ohio", "Miranda v. Arizona") was dramatically increased; reading an equal protection clause into the Fifth Amendment ("Bolling v. Sharpe"); holding that the states may not apportion a chamber of their legislatures in the manner in which the United States Senate is apportioned ("Reynolds v. Sims"); and holding that the Constitution requires active compliance ("Gideon v. Wainwright").


title: Warren Court

text: Warren took his seat January 11, 1954, on a recess appointment by President Eisenhower; the Senate confirmed him six weeks later. Despite his lack of judicial experience, his years in the Alameda County district attorney's office and as state attorney general gave him far more knowledge of the law in practice than most other members of the Court had. Warren's greatest asset, what made him in the eyes of many of his admirers "Super Chief," was his political skill in manipulating the other justices. Over the years his ability to lead the Court, to forge majorities in support of major decisions, and to inspire liberal forces around the nation, outweighed his intellectual weaknesses. Warren realized his weakness and asked the senior associate justice, Hugo L. Black, to preside over conferences until he became accustomed to the drill. A quick study, Warren soon was in fact, as well as in name, the Court's chief justice.


title: Warren Court

text: When Warren joined the Court in 1954 all the justices had been appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or Truman, and all were committed New Deal liberals. They disagreed about the role that the courts should play in achieving liberal goals. The Court was split between two warring factions. Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson led one faction, which insisted upon judicial self-restraint and insisted courts should defer to the policymaking prerogatives of the White House and Congress. Hugo Black and William O. Douglas led the opposing faction that agreed the court should defer to Congress in matters of economic policy, but felt the judicial agenda had been transformed from questions of property rights to those of individual liberties, and in this area courts should play a more central role. Warren's belief that the judiciary must seek to do justice, placed him with the latter group, although he did not have a solid majority until after Frankfurter's retirement in 1962.


title: Warren Court

text: Warren was a more liberal justice than anyone had anticipated. Warren was able to craft a long series of landmark decisions because he built a winning coalition. When Frankfurter retired in 1962 and President John F. Kennedy named labor union lawyer Arthur Goldberg to replace him, Warren finally had the fifth vote for his liberal majority. William J. Brennan, Jr., a liberal Democrat appointed by Eisenhower in 1956, was the intellectual leader of the faction that included Black and Douglas. Brennan complemented Warren's political skills with the strong legal skills Warren lacked. Warren and Brennan met before the regular conferences to plan out their strategy.


title: Warren Court

text: The very first case put Warren's leadership skills to an extraordinary test. The Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP (a small legal group formed for tax reasons from the much better known NAACP) had been waging a systematic legal fight against the "separate but equal" doctrine enunciated in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and finally had challenged Plessy in a series of five related cases, which had been argued before the Court in the spring of 1953. However the justices had been unable to decide the issue and asked to rehear the case in fall 1953, with special attention to whether the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause prohibited the operation of separate public schools for whites and blacks.


title: Warren Court

text: While all but one justice personally rejected segregation, the self-restraint faction questioned whether the Constitution gave the Court the power to order its end. Warren's faction believed the Fourteenth Amendment did give the necessary authority and were pushing to go ahead. Warren, who held only a recess appointment, held his tongue until the Senate, dominated by southerners, confirmed his appointment. Warren told his colleagues after oral argument that he believed segregation violated the Constitution and that only if one considered African Americans inferior to whites could the practice be upheld. But he did not push for a vote. Instead, he talked with the justices and encouraged them to talk with each other as he sought a common ground on which all could stand. Finally he had eight votes, and the last holdout, Stanley Reed of Kentucky, agreed to join the rest. Warren drafted the basic opinion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and kept circulating and revising it until he had an opinion endorsed by all the members of the Court.


title: Warren Court

text: The unanimity Warren achieved helped speed the drive to desegregate public schools, which came about under President Richard M. Nixon. Throughout his years as Chief, Warren succeeded in keeping all decisions concerning segregation unanimous. Brown applied to schools, but soon the Court enlarged the concept to other state actions, striking down racial classification in many areas. Congress ratified the process in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Warren did compromise by agreeing to Frankfurter's demand that the Court go slowly in implementing desegregation; Warren used Frankfurter's suggestion that a 1955 decision (Brown II) include the phrase "all deliberate speed."


title: Warren Court

text: The Brown decision of 1954 marked, in dramatic fashion, the radical shift in the Court's and the nation's priorities from issues of property rights to civil liberties. Under Warren the courts became an active partner in governing the nation, although still not coequal. Warren never saw the courts as a backward-looking branch of government.


title: Warren Court

text: The Brown decision was a powerful moral statement. His biographer concludes, "If Warren had not been on the Court, the Brown decision might not have been unanimous and might not have generated a moral groundswell that was to contribute to the emergence of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Warren was never a legal scholar on par with Frankfurter or a great advocate of particular doctrines, as were Black and Douglas. Instead, he believed that in all branches of government common sense, decency, and elemental justice were decisive, not "stare decisis" (that is, reliance on previous Court decisions), tradition, or the text of the Constitution. He wanted results that in his opinion reflected the best American sentiments. He felt racial segregation was simply wrong, and Brown, whatever its doctrinal defects, remains a landmark decision primarily because of Warren's interpretation of the equal protection clause.


title: Warren Court

text: The one man, one vote cases ("Baker v. Carr" and "Reynolds v. Sims") of 1962–1964, had the effect of ending the over-representation of rural areas in state legislatures, as well as the under-representation of suburbs. Central cities which had long been underepresented were now losing population to the suburbs and were not greatly affected.


title: Warren Court

text: Warren's priority on fairness shaped other major decisions. In 1962, over the strong objections of Frankfurter, the Court agreed that questions regarding malapportionment in state legislatures were not political issues, and thus were not outside the Court's purview. For years underpopulated rural areas had deprived metropolitan centers of equal representation in state legislatures. In Warren's California, Los Angeles County had only one state senator. Cities had long since passed their peak, and now it was the middle class suburbs that were underrepresented. Frankfurter insisted that the Court should avoid this "political thicket" and warned that the Court would never be able to find a clear formula to guide lower courts in the rash of lawsuits sure to follow. But Douglas found such a formula: "one man, one vote."


title: Warren Court

text: In the key apportionment case Reynolds v. Sims (1964) Warren delivered a civics lesson: "To the extent that a citizen's right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen," Warren declared. "The weight of a citizen's vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives. This is the clear and strong command of our Constitution's Equal Protection Clause." Unlike the desegregation cases, in this instance, the Court ordered immediate action, and despite loud outcries from rural legislators, Congress failed to reach the two-thirds needed pass a constitutional amendment. The states complied, reapportioned their legislatures quickly and with minimal troubles. Numerous commentators have concluded reapportionment was the Warren Court's great "success" story.


title: Warren Court

text: In "Gideon v. Wainwright", the Court held that the Sixth Amendment required that all indigent criminal defendants receive publicly funded counsel (Florida law at that time required the assignment of free counsel to indigent defendants only in capital cases);


title: Warren Court

text: "Miranda v. Arizona", required that certain rights of a person interrogated while in police custody be clearly explained, including the right to an attorney (often called the "Miranda warning").


title: Warren Court

text: While most Americans eventually agreed that the Court's desegregation and apportionment decisions were fair and right, disagreement about the "due process revolution" continues into the 21st century. Warren took the lead in criminal justice; despite his years as a tough prosecutor, he always insisted that the police must play fair or the accused should go free. Warren was privately outraged at what he considered police abuses that ranged from warrantless searches to forced confessions.


title: Warren Court

text: Warren’s Court ordered lawyers for indigent defendants, in "Gideon v. Wainwright" (1963), and prevented prosecutors from using evidence seized in illegal searches, in "Mapp v. Ohio" (1961). The famous case of "Miranda v. Arizona" (1966) summed up Warren's philosophy. Everyone, even one accused of crimes, still enjoyed constitutionally protected rights, and the police had to respect those rights and issue a specific warning when making an arrest. Warren did not believe in coddling criminals; thus in "Terry v. Ohio" (1968) he gave police officers leeway to stop and frisk those they had reason to believe held weapons.


title: Warren Court

text: Conservatives angrily denounced the "handcuffing of the police." Violent crime and homicide rates shot up nationwide in the following years; in New York City, for example, after steady to declining trends until the early 1960s, the homicide rate doubled in the period from 1964 to 1974 from just under 5 per 100,000 at the beginning of that period to just under 10 per 100,000 in 1974. Controversy exists about the cause, with conservatives blaming the Court decisions, and liberals pointing to the demographic boom and increased urbanization and income inequality characteristic of that era.


title: Warren Court

text: The Warren Court also sought to expand the scope of application of the First Amendment. The Court's decision outlawing mandatory school prayer in "Engel v. Vitale" (1962) brought vehement complaints by conservatives that echoed into the 21st century.


title: Warren Court

text: Warren worked to nationalize the Bill of Rights by applying it to the states. Moreover, in one of the landmark cases decided by the Court, "Griswold v. Connecticut" (1965), the Warren Court affirmed a constitutionally protected right of privacy, emanating from the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, also known as substantive due process.


title: Warren Court

text: This decision was fundamental, after Warren's retirement, for the outcome of "Roe v. Wade" and consequent legalization of abortion.


title: Warren Court

text: With the exception of the desegregation decisions, few decisions were unanimous. The eminent scholar Justice John Marshall Harlan II took Frankfurter's place as the Court's self-constraint spokesman, often joined by Potter Stewart and Byron R. White. But with the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice (as well as the first non-white justice), and Abe Fortas (replacing Goldberg), Warren could count on six votes in most cases.


title: Drakengard (video game)

text: Drakengard, known in Japan as is a 2003 action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 2. The game is the first installment of the "Drakengard" series and features a mixture of ground-based hack-and-slash, aerial combat, and role-playing elements which have become a staple of the series. The story is set during a religious war between two factions—the Union and the Empire—with the war tipping in favor of the Empire. The player controls Caim, a deposed prince of the Union, in his quest for vengeance against the Empire. Wounded in battle while protecting his sister Furiae, he is forced to make a pact with a red dragon named Angelus as they journey together on a quest to prevent the Empire from destroying magical seals that keep the world in balance.


title: Drakengard (video game)

text: Takamasa Shiba and Takuya Iwasaki conceived the game as a hybrid between the popular "Dynasty Warriors" series and Namco's aerial combat game "Ace Combat". It was Shiba's first project as a producer. The dark story was created by director Yoko Taro and Sawako Natori, who wrote the majority of the script. The music was written by Nobuyoshi Sano and Takayuki Aihara. A Europe-exclusive mobile adaptation was developed by Macrospace and published by Square Enix for Vodafone devices in August 2004. "Drakengard" sold well in Japan and received mixed to positive reviews in the west: reviewers praised the game's story and music, but were mixed about the graphics and criticized the gameplay for being repetitive.


title: Drakengard (video game)

text: "Drakengard" is an action role-playing video game featuring three types of gameplay: ground missions, aerial missions, and Free Expedition Mode. The gameplay modes are called Ground Mode, Strafe Mode, and Air Mode. In some levels, players can switch between ground-based and aerial combat. Ground-based gameplay primarily has the player controlling the main protagonist, Caim. He has access to three types of attack: a standard sword-slash, a magic attack and a dash attack that throws enemies to the ground. Additional weapons can be accessed and swapped via the menu. Weapons gain experience levels through use, dealing more damage as a result. Each has a four-level cap. The player can access up to eight weapons during a mission. Pressing the attack button repeatedly while in combat with enemy units triggers combos, and pressing another button mid-combo will trigger a special attack which will temporarily incapacitate enemy units in the immediate area. The player can also temporarily switch between Caim and an assigned ally, who shares similar attacks but deals more damage. These allies are gained in optional levels and can only be summoned a limited number of times.