title: History of Belgium

text: In the mid-1860s during the "Mexican Adventure", around 1,500 Belgian soldiers joined the "Belgian Expeditionary Corps," better known as the "Belgian Legion" to fight for Emperor Maximilian I, whose wife, Charlotte was the daughter of Leopold I of Belgium.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium was not a belligerent in the Franco-Prussian War 1870–71, but the proximity of the war led to the mobilisation of the army. The 1839 international guarantee of Belgian neutrality was not violated.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the conflict, there was talk of modernising the military. The system of "Remplacement" (whereby wealthy Belgians conscripted into the military could pay for a "replacement") was abolished and an improved system of conscription implemented. These reforms, led by d'Anethan under pressure from Leopold II, divided Belgian politics. The Catholics united with the Liberals under Frère-Orban to oppose them, and the reforms were finally defeated when d'Anethan's government fell during an unrelated scandal. Eventually, the military was reformed. The 1909 System instituted compulsory military service of eight years on active duty and five years in the reserves. This swelled the size of the Belgian army to over 100,000 well-trained men. Construction of a chain of forts along the border was intensified, and let to a series of very modern fortifications, including the so-called "National redoubt" at Antwerp, at the fortified positions of Liège and Namur, many of them designed by the great Belgian fortress architect, Henri Alexis Brialmont.


title: History of Belgium

text: The economy was stagnant during the long depression of 1873–95, as prices and wages fell and labour unrest grew. The Belgian Workers' Party was founded in 1885 in Brussels. It issued the Charter of Quaregnon in 1894 calling for an end to capitalism and a thorough reorganization of society. Though, the Belgian Workers' Party was not elected to government until the late 20th century, it exerted considerable pressure on the rest of the political process, both through direct participation in politics themselves, but also through general strikes.


title: History of Belgium

text: During the late 19th century, general strikes became an established aspect of the political process. Between 1892 and 1961, there were 20 major strikes, including 7 general strikes. Many of these had overtly political motives, like the 1893 General Strike that helped achieve universal suffrage.


title: History of Belgium

text: On several occasions, Belgian general strikes escalated into violence. In 1893, soldiers fired on the striking crowd, killing several. Karl Marx wrote, "There exists but one country in the civilised world where every strike is eagerly and joyously turned into a pretext for the official massacre of the Working Class. That country of single blessedness is Belgium!"


title: History of Belgium

text: Nevertheless, Belgium created a welfare net particularly early, thanks in part to the trade unions. Sickness compensation was established in 1894, voluntary old-age insurance in 1900 and unemployment insurance in 1907, achieving good coverage nationwide much more quickly than its neighbours.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1893 the government rejected a proposal for universal male suffrage. Outraged, the Belgian Labour Party called a General Strike; by April 17, there were more than 50,000 strikers. Violent confrontations broke out with the "Garde Civique" (the "Civil Guard" or militia) around the country, as in Mons, where several strikers were killed. Violence escalated. The government soon backed down, and passed male universal suffrage but reduced its impact by creating plural votes based on wealth, education and age. The Catholic conservatives, with 68% of the seats, remained in power, as the Liberals dropped to only 13% of the seats and the Socialists held their share.


title: History of Belgium

text: Again in 1902 and 1913 there were general strikes aimed at forcing electoral reform and ending the system of plural voting. After the 1913 strike a commission was created and was expected to remove plural voting – but implementation was delayed by the 1914 German invasion of Belgium. In 1918, King Albert forged a post-war "Government of National Union" and brought about one man, one vote universal male suffrage. The last restrictions on women's voting were only lifted in 1948.


title: History of Belgium

text: Artistic and literary culture in Belgium began a revival towards the late 19th century. Particularly, among Walloons with the new French language literary and artistic review "La Jeune Belgique".


title: History of Belgium

text: A core element of Belgian nationalism was the scientific study of its national history. The movement was led by Godefroid Kurth (1847–1916), a student of the German historian Ranke. Kurth taught modern historical methods to his students at the University of Liège. The most prominent Belgian historian was Henri Pirenne (1862–1935), who was influenced by this method during his period as a student of Kurth.


title: History of Belgium

text: At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, monumental Historicism and Neoclassicism dominated the urban Belgian landscape, particularly in government buildings, between the 1860s and 1890s. Championed in part by King Leopold II (known as the "Builder King"), the style can be seen in the Palais de Justice (designed by Joseph Poelaert) and the Cinquantenaire, both of which survive in Brussels.


title: History of Belgium

text: Nevertheless, Brussels became one of the major European cities for the development of the Art Nouveau style in the late 1890s. The architects Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Henry van de Velde became particularly famous for their designs, many of which survive today in Brussels. Four buildings designed by Horta are listed by UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Horta's largest work, the "Maison du Peuple" was demolished in 1960.


title: History of Belgium

text: Stanard rejects the widely held notion that Belgians were "reluctant imperialists." He argues that "ordinary people came to understand and support the colony. Belgians not only sustained the empire in significant ways, but many became convinced imperialists, evidenced by the widespread, enduring and eagerly embraced propaganda in favor of the Congo."


title: History of Belgium

text: King Leopold II of Belgium had been the principal shareholder in the Belgian trading company which established trading stations on the lower Congo between 1879 and 1884. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 the future Congo was personally assigned to Leopold, who named the territory the Congo Free State. It was originally intended to be an international Free Trade zone, open to all European traders. The area included in this territory was just under 1 million square miles, almost 80 times the size of Belgium. The first infrastructure projects took place during the Free State period, such as a railway that ran from the Léopoldville to the coast which took several years to complete.


title: History of Belgium

text: The era of the Congo Free State is most infamous for the large number of atrocities committed under it. Since it was, in effect, a business venture, run by a private company headed by Leopold himself, it aimed to gain as much money as possible from primary exports from the territory. Leopold's personal fortune was greatly increased through the proceeds of selling Congolese rubber, which had never previously been mass-produced in such surplus quantities, to the growing market for tyres. During the period between 1885 and 1908, as many as eight million Congolese died of exploitation and disease while the birth rate dropped. However, these are only rough estimates, as no figures are available for the period.


title: History of Belgium

text: To enforce the rubber quotas, the Force Publique (FP) was created. While the Force Publique was nominally a military force – it would later fight during both the First and Second World Wars) -during the Congo Free State period its primary duties involved enforcing rubber quotas in rural areas. If a village did not meet the rubber quota which had been set, soldiers were often sent to the respective village, and numerous measures could be adopted to enforce the taxes: rape, abduction, forced labor, executions. Imprisonment and summary executions were common. Severing of limbs was sometimes used by the Force Publique as a method of enforcing the quotas. A Belgian captain, Leon Rom, had ornamented his flowerbeds with the heads of 21 decapitated natives which had been murdered in a punitive expedition.


title: History of Belgium

text: Following reports from missionaries, there was growing moral outrage, particularly in Britain and the United States. The Congo Reform Association, led by Edmund Dene Morel, was particularly important in this campaign, and published numerous best-selling tracts and pamphlets (including "Red Rubber") which reached a vast public. King Leopold appointed and financed his own commission to put these accusations to rest, but it too confirmed the atrocities.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Belgian parliament long refused to take over the colony, which was considered a financial burden. In 1908, the Belgian parliament responded to the international pressure, annexing the Free State, as the campaigners had argued for. After World War II, Belgium was criticized by the United Nations for making no progress on the political front. Despite propaganda campaigns within Belgium, few Belgians showed much interest in the colony; very few went there, and imperial enthusiasm was never widespread. Also, the government limited the possibility of Congolese settling inside Belgium.


title: History of Belgium

text: Political rights were not granted to the Africans until 1956 when the growing middle class (the so-called "Évolué") received the franchise, and the economy remained relatively undeveloped despite the mineral wealth of Katanga. At the Round Table Talks on independence, Belgium requested a process of gradual independence over 4 years, but following a series of riots in 1959, the decision was made to bring forward independence in matter of months. The chaos in which Belgium departed the Congo caused the secession of rich Western-backed province Katanga and the prolonged civil war known as the Congo Crisis.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Belgian Tianjin Concession in China was established in 1902. There was little investment and no settlement. However it led to a contract to supply an electric light and trolley system. In 1906, Tianjin became the first city in China with a modern public transportation system. The supply of electricity and lighting and the trolley business were profitable ventures. All the rolling stock was supplied by Belgian industries and by 1914, the network also reached nearby Austrian, French, Italian, Japanese and Russian concessions.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the defeat of Germany in World War I, Belgium inherited League of Nations mandates over Ruanda-Urundi.


title: History of Belgium

text: The colony was administered in a similar way as by the former German administrators, continuing policies such as ethnic identity cards. In 1959, moves towards independence could be seen in the territory and agitation by PARMEHUTU, a Hutu political party, was evident. In 1960, the Rwandan Revolution occurred and Belgium changed the appointments of chiefs and vice-chiefs to promote Hutus into the posts.


title: History of Belgium

text: When World War I began, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg as part of the Schlieffen Plan, trying to take Paris quickly. The threat to France caused Britain to enter the war; it used the 1839 agreement as justification. The Belgian army is remembered for their stubborn resistance during the early days of the war, with the army – around a tenth the size of the Germany Army – holding up the German offensive for nearly a month, giving the French and British forces time to prepare for the Marne counteroffensive later in the year. The German invaders treated any resistance—such as sabotaging rail lines—as illegal and subversive, and shot the offenders and burned buildings in retaliation.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium had a prosperous economy in 1914 at the start of the war but after four years of occupation, it emerged in a poor state; although Belgium itself had suffered few deaths. The Germans had "brutally and efficiently stripped the country bare. Machinery, spare parts, whole factories including the roofs, had disappeared eastward. In 1919, 80 percent of its workforce was unemployed."


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian soldiers fought delaying actions in 1914 during the initial invasion. They succeeded in throwing the elaborate German invasion plan off schedule and helped sabotage the Schlieffen Plan that Berlin had counted on for a quick victory over France, At the Battle of Liège, the town's fortifications were able to hold off the invaders for over a week, buying valuable time for the Allies. The German "Race to the Sea" was held off by Belgian forces at the Battle of the Yser. King Albert I stayed in the Yser as commander of the military to lead the army while Broqueville's government withdrew to nearby Le Havre in France.


title: History of Belgium

text: Forces from the Belgian Congo also played a major role in the African Campaign and a small unit of Belgian soldiers also served on the Eastern Front.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Germans governed the occupied areas of Belgium through a General Governorate of Belgium, while a small area of the country remained unoccupied by the Germans.


title: History of Belgium

text: The whole country was ruled under martial law. On the advice of the government, civil servants remained in their posts for the duration of the conflict, carrying out the day-to-day functions of government.


title: History of Belgium

text: The German army executed between 5,500 and 6,500 French and Belgian civilians between August and November 1914, usually in near-random large-scale shootings of civilians ordered by junior German officers. Individuals suspected of partisan activities were summarily shot. Several important Belgian figures, including politician Adolphe Max and historian Henri Pirenne were deported to Germany.


title: History of Belgium

text: Flemish feeling of identity and consciousness grew through the events and experiences of war. The German occupying authorities viewed the Flemish as an oppressed people and had taken several Flemish-friendly measures, known as "Flamenpolitik". This included introducing Dutch as the language of instruction of all state-supported schools in Flanders in 1918. This prompted a renewed Flemish movement in the years following the war. The Flemish "Frontbeweging" ("Soldiers' Movement") was formed from Flemish soldiers in the Belgian army to campaign for greater use of Dutch language in education and government, though not separatist.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Germans left Belgium stripped and barren. Over a 1.4 million refugees fled to France or to neutral Netherlands. After the systematic atrocities by the German army in the first few weeks of the war, German civil servants took control and were generally correct, albeit strict and severe. There was never a violent resistance movement, but there was a large-scale spontaneous passive resistance of refusal to work for the benefit of German victory. Belgium was heavily industrialized; while farms operated and small shops stayed open most large establishments shut down or drastically reduced their output. The faculty closed the universities; many publishers shut down their newspapers. Most Belgians "turned the four war years into a long and extremely dull vacation," says Kossmann. In 1916 Germany shipped 120,000 men and boys to work in Germany; this set off a storm of protest from neutral countries and they were returned. Germany then stripped the factories of all useful machinery, and used the rest as scrap iron for its steel mills.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium faced a food crisis and an international response was organized by the American engineer Herbert Hoover. It was unprecedented in world history. Hoover's Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) had the permission of Germany and the Allies. As chairman of the CRB, Hoover worked with the leader of the Belgian "Comité National de Secours et d'Alimentation" (CNSA), Émile Francqui, to feed the entire nation for the duration of the war. The CRB obtained and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs for the CN to distribute, and watched over the CN to make sure the German army did not appropriate the food. The CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. Private donations and government grants (78%) supplied an $11-million-a-month budget.


title: History of Belgium

text: At its peak, the American arm, the ARA fed 10.5 million people daily. Great Britain grew reluctant to support the CRB, preferring instead to emphasize Germany's obligation to supply the relief; Winston Churchill led a military faction that considered the Belgian relief effort "a positive military disaster."


title: History of Belgium

text: King Albert returned as a war hero, leading the victorious army and acclaimed by the population. In contrast, the government and the exiles came back discreetly. Belgium had been devastated—not so much by combat, but rather by German seizure of valuable machinery. Only 81 operable locomotives remained, out of the 3,470 available in 1914. 46 of 51 steel mills were damaged, with 26 destroyed totally. More than 100,000 houses had been destroyed, as well as more than of farmland.


title: History of Belgium

text: Waves of popular violence accompanied liberation in November and December 1918 and the government responded through the judicial punishment of collaboration with the enemy conducted between 1919 and 1921. Shop windows were broken and houses sacked, men were harassed, and women's heads were shaved. Manufacturers who had closed their businesses sought the severe repression of those who had pursued their activities. Journalists who had boycotted and stopped writing called for harsh treatment of the newspapers that submitted to German censorship. Many people stigmatized profiteers and demanded justice. Thus in 1918, Belgium was already confronted with the problems associated with occupation that most European countries only discovered at the end of World War II.


title: History of Belgium

text: However, despite the status quo, Belgium recovered surprisingly quickly. The first postwar Olympic Games were held in Antwerp in 1920. In 1921, Luxembourg formed a customs union with Belgium.


title: History of Belgium

text: German reparations to Belgium for damage incurred during the First World War was set at £12.5 billion pounds sterling.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles the area of Eupen-Malmedy, along with Moresnet was transferred to Belgium. "Neutral Moresnet" was transferred to Belgium, as well as the Vennbahn railway. An opportunity was given to the population to "oppose" against the transfer by signing a petition, which gathered few signatures, in large part thanks to intimidation by local authorities, and all regions remain part of Belgium today.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian requests to annex territory considered as historically theirs, from the Dutch, who were perceived as collaborators, was denied.


title: History of Belgium

text: Between 1923 and 1926, Belgian and French soldiers were sent to the Ruhr in Germany to force the German government to agree to continue reparation payments. The Occupation of the Ruhr led the Dawes Plan which allowed the German government more leniency in paying reparations.


title: History of Belgium

text: The League of Nations in 1925 made Belgium the trustee for the former German East Africa which bordered the Belgian Congo to the east. It became Rwanda-Urundi (or "Ruanda-Urundi") (modern day Rwanda and Burundi). Although promising the League it would promote education, Belgium left the task to subsidised Catholic missions and unsubsidised Protestant missions. As late as 1962, when independence arrived, fewer than 100 natives had gone beyond secondary school. The policy was one of low-cost paternalism, as explained by Belgium's special representative to the Trusteeship Council: "The real work is to change the African in his essence, to transform his soul, [and] to do that one must love him and enjoy having daily contact with him. He must be cured of his thoughtlessness, he must accustom himself to living in society, he must overcome his inertia."


title: History of Belgium

text: The Expressionism painting movement found a distinctive form in Flanders under artists like James Ensor, Constant Permeke and Léon Spilliaert.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian Surrealist art grew during the inter-war period. René Magritte's first surrealist painting, "The Lost Jockey", appeared in 1926. Paul Delvaux was also an extremely influential painter in this genre.


title: History of Belgium

text: Comic strips became extremely popular in Belgium during the 1930s. One of the most popular comics of the 20th century, Hergé's "The Adventures of Tintin" first appeared in 1929. The growth of comic strips was also accompanied by a popular art movement, exemplified by Edgar P. Jacobs, Jijé, Willy Vandersteen and André Franquin.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium tried to pursue a policy of unaligned neutrality before the war, but on May 10, 1940 the country was invaded by German forces. In the initial attacks, the fortifications which had been constructed to protect the borders like Fort Eben-Emael and the K-W Line were captured or bypassed by German forces. On May 28, after 18 days of fighting, Belgian forces (including the commander in chief, King Leopold III) surrendered. The elected government of Belgium, under Hubert Pierlot, escaped to form a government in exile.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the defeat in 1940, significant numbers of Belgian soldiers and civilians managed to escape to Britain to join the Belgian army in Exile.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian soldiers formed the 1st Belgian Infantry Brigade, which also included a battery of soldiers from Luxembourg, more often known as the "Brigade Piron" after its commanding officer, Jean-Baptiste Piron. The Brigade Piron was involved in the Normandy Invasion and the battles in France and the Netherlands until liberation. Belgians also served in British special forces units during the war, forming a troop of No.10 Commando which was heavily involved in the Italian Campaign and Landings on Walcheren. The 5th Special Air Service (SAS) was entirely made up of Belgians.


title: History of Belgium

text: Two Belgian squadrons, amounting to over 400 pilots, served in the Royal Air Force during the war, both 349 and 350 Squadrons, which claimed over 50 'kills'.


title: History of Belgium

text: Two Corvettes and a group of Minesweepers were also operated by the Belgians during the Battle of the Atlantic, comprising some 350 men in 1943


title: History of Belgium

text: A significant contribution was made by the Belgian Congo. Congolese soldiers of the Force Publique were involved in fighting with Italian forces during the East African Campaign. Congolese soldiers also served in the Middle East and Burma. The Congo was also a vitally important economic asset to the allied powers, particularly through its exports of rubber and uranium; in fact the uranium used during the Manhattan Project – including that used for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was supplied by the Belgian firm Union Minière du Haut Katanga from Katanga Province in the Belgian Congo.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium was run by a Germany military government between its surrender and liberation in September 1944.


title: History of Belgium

text: The former fort at Breendonk, near Mechelen was requisitioned by the Nazis and used for detainment and interrogation of Jews, political prisoners and captured members of the resistance. Of the 3,500 incarcerated in Breendonk between 1940 and 1944, 1,733 died. About 300 people were killed in the camp itself, with at least 98 of them dying from deprivation or torture.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1940, nearly 70,000 Jews were living in Belgium. Of these, 46 percent were deported from the Mechelen transit camp, while a further 5,034 people were deported via the Drancy internment camp (close to Paris). From the summer of 1942 until 1944, twenty-eight transports left Belgium carrying 25,257 Jews and 351 Roma to eastern Europe. Their destination was often Auschwitz Death Camp. Over the course of the war, 25,257 Jews were transported (including 5,093 children) and 352 Roma over the Mechelen-Leuven railway to concentration camps. Only 1,205 returned home alive at the end of the war.


title: History of Belgium

text: Resistance against the German occupiers of Belgium can be seen at all levels and from all quarters of the political spectrum, but was highly fragmented. The Government in Exile dealt with resistance collectively under the name "Armée Secrète", however this was just a broad name for the many resistance organisations which existed. Some organisations were very left-wing, like the Communist "Front de l'Indépendance", but there was also a far-right resistance movement, the "Légion Belge" which comprised dissident Rexists. However, there were also other groups like "Groupe G" which had no obvious political affiliation.


title: History of Belgium

text: Resistance to the occupiers chiefly came in the form of helping allied airmen escape, and numerous lines were set up to organise this, for instance the Comet line which evacuated an estimated 14,000 allied airmen to Gibraltar. Sabotage was also used, and "Group G's" activities alone are estimated to have cost the Nazis 20 million man-hours of labor to repair damages done. The resistance were also instrumental in saving Jews and Roma from deportation to death camps, for instance the attack on the "Twentieth convoy" to Auschwitz Death Camp. There was also significant low-level resistance, for instance in June 1941, the City Council of Brussels refused to distribute Stars of David badges. Many Belgians also hid Jews and political dissidents during the occupation, with one estimate putting the number at some 20,000 people.


title: History of Belgium

text: During the period of Nazi occupation, some Belgians collaborated with their occupiers. There were pro-Nazi political organizations in both Flemish and Walloon communities before and during the war. The most significant were the Flemish DeVlag and "Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond" (VNV) as well as the Catholic Walloon "Rexist" movement. These organisations were also fundamental to encouraging Belgians to enlist into the German army. Two divisions of the Waffen SS, the Flemish 27th SS "Langemarck" Division and the Walloon 28th SS "Wallonien" Division. Some organisations, like Verdinaso appealed directly to Flemish separatist ideologies, though they did not become very popular.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the war, many of those who had collaborated – including many of the guards at Fort Breendonk – were tried, imprisoned or shot.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium was liberated late in 1944 by Allied forces, including British, Canadian, and American armies, including the Brigade Piron. On 3 September 1944 the Welsh Guards liberated Brussels. The British Second Army seized Antwerp on 4 of September 1944, and the First Canadian Army began conducting combat operations around the port that same month. Antwerp became a highly prized and heavily fought-over objective because its deep-water port was necessary to keep the allied armies supplied. The Battle of the Scheldt in October 1944 was fought primarily on Dutch soil, but with the objective of opening the way for boats to Antwerp. The port city was also the ultimate objective of German armies during the Ardennes Offensive which resulted in heavy fighting on Belgian soil during the winter of 1944–5.


title: History of Belgium

text: Following liberation, large numbers of Belgians who had remained in the country during the occupation were mobilised into the Belgian army in 57 "Fusilier Battalions". 100,000 Belgians were mobilised for the allies by the end of the war.


title: History of Belgium

text: Immediately after the war, Léopold III, who had surrendered himself to the German army in 1940, was released; however, the issue of whether he had betrayed his country by surrendering, while most government ministers had escaped to the United Kingdom, presented an important constitutional dilemma. In particular, the Belgian public was concerned that he might be a collaborator with the Nazis. He had met Hitler in Berchtesgaden on November 19, 1940 and had even remarried (to Lilian Baels) during the war. Many Belgians, especially the Socialists, strongly opposed his return to power. He was kept in exile in Switzerland until 1950, while his brother Prince Charles presided as regent.


title: History of Belgium

text: A referendum was proposed in 1950 to solve the problem. However, it produced a very close result. In Flanders, the electorate voted 70% in favour ("Yes") of his return but Wallonia voted 58% against. Brussels also returned a 51% "No" vote. Although the referendum narrowly produced a favourable result for Léopold (about 57.68% in the country as a whole), the militant socialist movement in Liège, Hainaut and other urban centres incited major protests and even called a General Strike against his return.


title: History of Belgium

text: Because of the possibility that the situation might escalate even further, Léopold III abdicated on July 16, 1951, in favour of his 20-year-old son Baudouin.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the defeat of Germany in 1945, Belgian soldiers were assigned to occupy a section of West Germany, known as "Belgian Forces in Germany" or FBA-BSD. The last Belgian soldiers left Germany in 2002.


title: History of Belgium

text: The European Defence Community planned in the early 1950s would have involved Belgian soldiers, as well as soldiers from Germany, France and other Benelux countries. Though the planned EDC was never actually realised, it was still responsible for a major re-organisation of the Belgian army along US Army lines. Belgium was also involved in NATO.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1950, a unit of volunteers from the Belgian army was sent to fight for the United Nations in the Korean War against Chinese and North Korean troops. The Belgian United Nations Command (or BUNC) arrived in Korea in early 1951, and fought at several key engagements of the conflict, including at the Battle of the Imjin River, Haktang-ni and Chatkol. BUNC was decorated and received presidential citations from both the United States and Republic of Korea. Over 300 Belgians were killed in action during the conflict. The last Belgian soldiers returned from Korea in 1955.


title: History of Belgium

text: On September 5, 1944, the Benelux Customs Union was created. It entered into force in 1948, and ceased to exist on 1 November 1960, when it was replaced by the Benelux Economic Union after a treaty signed in The Hague on February 3, 1958. The Benelux Parliament was created in 1955.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement, which Belgium became an official member of on April 4, 1949. The headquarters of NATO are located in Brussels, and the headquarters of SHAPE near Mons.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium was also one of the original founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in July 1952 and of the European Economic Community formed by the Treaty of Rome on March 25, 1957. Belgium has been a member of the Schengen area since 1985.


title: History of Belgium

text: The American Marshall Plan (officially named the "European Recovery Program" or ERP) gave Belgium $559 million in grants from 1948 to 1951; it was not a loan and there was no repayment. A central goal of the ERP was to promote the growth of productivity along the lines of American management and labor practices. Obstacles arose which clearly limited its impact. The interest among some Belgian employers in increasing rates of productivity per worker was motivated by the rise in wage levels. But the Americans also intended to inject a new "spirit of productivity" in Belgian industries, which implied, among other measures, a reinforcement of structures of corporatist negotiation between the social partners at a local level. The ambitions of the American strategy therefore extended beyond the defined goal of introducing a Fordist type of economic system with high wages, high productivity, and low prices to consumers. After the belated establishment of the Belgian Office for the Increase of Productivity in 1952, the political character of the program became apparent. By incorporating American management principles, while at the same time decoding them and adapting them to the national situation, Belgian employers' organizations and trade unions skillfully exploited their position as intermediaries in order to appropriate the "modernist" label that they advocated. The "policy of productivity" was successful for a certain time because it matched the contours of the evolution of social reforms in Belgium. This policy success, however, was rendered impotent by the failure of the economic dimension of the productivity campaigns. The Americans had in effect failed to recognize the structural importance of the major financial groups which dominated heavy industry in Belgium. By not adopting the American notions of productivity, and more generally by not carrying out any large-scale programs of innovation and investment in the key sectors that they controlled in the aftermath of the war, these holding companies greatly restricted the scope for American influence. Consequently, it was by other means, such as the training of managers, that the American paradigms entered into Belgian economic culture.


title: History of Belgium

text: During the period 1945–1975, Keynesian economic theory guided politicians throughout Western Europe and this was particularly influential in Belgium. After the war, the government cancelled Belgium's debts. It was during this period that the well-known Belgian highways were built. In addition, both the economy and the average standard of living rose significantly. As noted by Robert Gildea, "Social and economic policy was designed to restore liberal capitalism tempered by social reform, as prepared for during the war. Trade unions were also involved in a price and wage policy to cut inflation and this, together with the Allied use of Antwerp as the main entry point for war supplies, produced the so-called Belgian miracle of high economic growth combined with high wages." According to one study, Belgian workers by 1961 earned wages “second only to those of the French in the Common Market area,” and earned 50% more than their Italian counterparts and 40% more than their Dutch counterparts.


title: History of Belgium

text: Despite postwar affluence, however, many Belgians continued to live in poverty. An organisation of several poverty action groups, known as the National Action for Security of Subsistence, claimed that more than 900,000 Belgians (about 10% of the population) lived in poverty in 1967, while in the early Seventies, a group of social scientists called the Working Group on Alternative Economics estimated that about 14.5% of the Belgian population lived in poverty.


title: History of Belgium

text: In the sphere of economics, World War II marks a turning point. Because Flanders had been widely devastated during the war and had been largely agricultural since the Belgian uprising, it benefited most from the Marshall Plan. Its standing as an economically backward agricultural region meant that it obtained support from Belgium's membership of the European Union and its predecessors. At the same time, Wallonia experienced a slow relative decline as the products of its mines and mills came to be less in demand. The economic balance between the two parts of the country has remained less in favour of Wallonia than it was before 1939.


title: History of Belgium

text: After victory in the 1950 elections, a Christian Social Party (PSC-CVP) government came to power in Belgium. The new education minister, Pierre Harmel increased the wages of teachers in private (Catholic) schools and introduced laws linking the subsidies for private schools to the number of pupils. These measures were perceived by the anti-clerical Liberals and Socialists as a "declaration of war".


title: History of Belgium

text: When the 1954 elections brought to power a coalition of Socialists and Liberals, the new Education Minister, Leo Collard, immediately set out to reverse the measures taken by his predecessor, founding a large number of secular schools and only permitting teachers with a diploma, forcing many priests out of the profession. These measures sparked mass protests from the Catholic bloc. A compromise was eventually found by the next government (a Catholic minority led by Gaston Eyskens), and the ""Schools War"" was concluded by the November 6, 1958 "School Pact".


title: History of Belgium

text: After riots in the Congo in 1959, the scheduled gradual transition to independence was speeded up dramatically. In June 1960, the Belgian Congo was replaced by the short lived First Republic of Congo, led by the democratically elected and charismatic Congolese statesman Patrice Lumumba, a former political prisoner. Belgian forces withdrew, leaving the military force, the Force Publique, under Congo's control. Order broke down as mutinying soldiers attacked whites who remained in the country. Belgians forces were briefly sent in to evacuate Belgian nationals and army officers.


title: History of Belgium

text: In July 1960, the southern state of Katanga Province declared its independence, forming the State of Katanga. Katanga's bid for sovereignty was supported by Belgian mining companies and soldiers, who had considerable assets in the area. Later that month, United Nations peacekeepers were deployed to the country. During this period of anarchy, the region of South Kasai also declared independence. Faced with the possibility that the Soviet Union would attempt to use the situation to install a sympathetic regime, western powers including Belgium, supported Joseph Mobutu who installed his own, right-wing regime in the Congo. Lumumba was murdered and civil war ensued. Belgian paratroopers were again deployed to the country, this time to rescue civilian hostages captured in Stanleyville during an operation known as "Dragon Rouge". At the end Mobutu emerged as the ruler of the re-unified country, which he named Zaire.


title: History of Belgium

text: In December 1960, Wallonia was gripped by a general strike in response the general decline of Wallonian manufacturing but it succeeded only in Wallonia, in a period of turbulence in the aftermath of the "Second Schools War". The Wallonian workers demanded federalism, in addition to structural reforms. Even though the strike had been intended to be nationwide, Flemish workers appeared reluctant to support it.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Strike was led by André Renard, the founder of "Renardism" which combined militant socialism with Walloon nationalism. The historian Renée Fox described Wallonia's alienation:


title: History of Belgium

text: At the beginning of the 1960s (...), a major reversal in the relationship between Flanders and Wallonia was taking place. Flanders had entered a vigorous, post–World War II period of industrialization, and a significant percentage of the foreign capital (particularly from the United States, coming into Belgium to support new industries, was being invested in Flanders. In contrast, Wallonia's coal mines and time-worn steel plants and factories were in crisis. The region had lost thousands of jobs and much investment capital. A new Dutch-speaking, upwardly mobile "populist bourgeoisie" was not only becoming visible and vocal in Flemish movements but also in both the local and national policy... [The strike of December 1960 against the austerity law of Gaston Eyskens ] was replaced by a collective expression of the frustrations, anxieties, and grievances that Wallonia was experiencing in response to its altered situation, and by the demands of the newly formed Walloon Popular Movement for...regional autonomy for Wallonia...


title: History of Belgium

text: Nationwide the economy was generally healthy with an annual growth rate of 5% in the 1960s. However old inefficient factories were being shut down in textiles and leather goods. Coal miners were angered by the closure of used-up mines. Limburg miners at the Zwartberg mine rioted in 1966 to protest its closure. Two miners were killed by police and ten were injured, while nineteen policemen were hurt. In 1973 a series of worldwide crises adversely affected the Belgian economy.


title: History of Belgium

text: This Flemish resurgence has been accompanied by a corresponding shift of political power to the Flemish, who constituted the majority of the population of around 60%. An official Dutch translation of the constitution was only accepted in 1967.


title: History of Belgium

text: The linguistic wars reached a climax in 1968 with the splitting of the Catholic University of Leuven along linguistic lines into the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Université Catholique de Louvain. The government of Paul Vanden Boeynants fell over the issue in 1968.


title: History of Belgium

text: The successive linguistic disputes have made the successive Belgian governments very unstable. The three major parties (Liberal -right wing-, Catholic -center- and, Socialist -left wing-) all split in two according to their French- or Dutch-speaking electorate. A language border was determined by the first Gilson Act of November 8, 1962. The boundaries of certain provinces, arrondissements and municipalities were modified (among others, Mouscron became a part of Hainaut and Voeren became a part of Limburg) and facilities for linguistic minorities were introduced in 25 municipalities. On August 2, 1963, the second Gilson Act entered into force, fixing the division of Belgium into four language areas: a Dutch, a French and a German language area, with Brussels as a bilingual area.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1970, there was a first state reform, which resulted in the establishment of three cultural communities: the Dutch Cultural Community, the French Cultural Community and the German Cultural Community. This reform was a response to the Flemish demand for cultural autonomy. The constitutional revision of 1970 also laid the foundations for the establishment of three Regions, which was a response to the demand of the Walloons and the French-speaking inhabitants of Brussels for economic autonomy. On February 18, 1970, Prime Minister Gaston Eyskens announces the end of "La Belgique de papa".


title: History of Belgium

text: The second state reform took place in 1980, when the cultural communities became Communities. The Communities assumed the competencies of the cultural communities with regard to cultural matters, and became responsible for the 'matters relating to the person', such as health and youth policy. From then on, these three Communities were known as the Flemish Community, the French Community and the German-speaking Community. Two Regions were established as well in 1980: the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. However, in Flanders it was decided in 1980 to immediately merge the institutions of the Community and the Region. Although the creation of a Brussels Region was provided for in 1970, the Brussels-Capital Region was not established until the third state reform.


title: History of Belgium

text: During the third state reform in 1988 and 1989, under Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, the Brussels-Capital Region was established with its own regional institutions, as well as Dutch and French institutions for community matters. The Brussels-Capital Region remained limited to 19 municipalities. Other changes included that the competencies of the Communities and Regions were expanded. One notable responsibility that was transferred to the Communities during the third state reform was education.


title: History of Belgium

text: The fourth state reform, which took place in 1993 under Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, consolidated the previous state reforms and turned Belgium into a fully-fledged federal state. The first article of the Belgian Constitution was amended to read as follows, “Belgium is a Federal State which consists of Communities and Regions”. During the fourth state reform, the responsibilities of the Communities and the Regions were expanded again, their resources were increased and they were given more fiscal responsibilities. Other major changes included the direct election of the parliaments of the Communities and the Regions, the splitting up of the Province of Brabant into Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, and the reformation of the Federal Parliament's bicameral system and the relations between the Federal Parliament and the Federal Government. The first direct elections for the parliaments of the Communities and the Regions took place on May 21, 1995.


title: History of Belgium

text: However, the fourth state reform was not the end of the process of federalization. In 2001, a fifth state reform took place, under Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, with the Lambermont and the Lombard Accords. In the course of that reform, more powers were transferred to the Communities and the Regions, with regard to agriculture, fisheries, foreign trade, development cooperation, auditing of electoral expenses and the supplementary financing of the political parties. The Regions became responsible for twelve regional taxes, and local and provincial government became a matter for the Regions. The first municipal and provincial elections under the supervision of the Regions were the 2006 municipal elections. The functioning of the Brussels institutions was also amended during the fifth state reform, which resulted among other things in a guaranteed representation of the Flemish inhabitants of Brussels in the Parliament of the Brussels-Capital Region.


title: History of Belgium

text: At the end of 2011, following the longest political crisis in Belgium's contemporary history, a constitutional accord between the four main political families (socialists, liberals, social-Christians, ecologists), but excluding the Flemish nationalists, ushered in the sixth state reform which provided for major institutional changes and additional transfers of competences from the federal level to the Communities and the Regions. Among other changes, the Senate ceased to be directly elected to become an assembly of regional parliaments, the Brussels-Capital Region was granted constitutive autonomy, and the Regions received economic, employment and family welfare competences as well as greater fiscal autonomy.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium was one of the founders of the European Common Market. Between 1999 and 2002, the Euro gradually replaced the Belgian franc (the currency of Belgium since 1830) at the rate of 1 EUR=40.3399 BEF Belgian Euro coins usually depict King Albert II on the obverse.


title: History of Belgium

text: From the 1960s, most political parties, which had previously stood in elections in both Flemish and Walloon areas, split down linguistic divides. The Catholic party split in 1968 while the Belgian Socialist Party split in 1978 into the French-speaking Parti Socialiste and Flemish Socialistische Partij. The Liberals also split on regional lines in 1992.


title: History of Belgium

text: "Green" politics in Belgium became quite successful in the aftermath of the Marc Dutroux Scandal and the "Dioxin Affair" which led to disillusionment with the preexisting parties and the decline of the Catholic vote.


title: History of Belgium

text: In 1996, confidence in the political and criminal justice systems was shaken by the news that one Marc Dutroux and his accomplices had kidnapped, tortured, and murdered young girls. Parliamentary inquiries found the police forces were incompetent and bureaucratic, and the judicial system suffered from bureaucracy, very poor communication with, and support for, the victims, slow procedures and many loopholes for criminals. On October 26, 1996, about 300,000 Belgians joined the "White March" in Brussels in protest.


title: History of Belgium

text: The United Nations mission in Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War, known as UNAMIR, involved a significant Belgian contingent under the command of Roméo Dallaire. Belgium, as the former colonial power in the country, sent the largest force of around 400 soldiers from the 2nd Commando Battalion.


title: History of Belgium

text: After the downing of the Rwandan and Burundian presidential plane 10 Belgian peacekeepers were kidnapped, mutilated and murdered by the Hutu-dominated government army. In response, Belgium withdrew all of its peacekeepers, blaming UNAMIR for failing to rescue their men. The Belgians had represented the largest and most capable element in the UNAMIR mission, leaving it incapacitated and unable to cope with the events of the Rwandan genocide.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian paratroopers were deployed to Somalia during Operation Restore Hope as part of UNOSOM tasked with securing aid deliveries and peacekeeping. Several Belgian soldiers were killed during the deployment.


title: History of Belgium

text: During the Kosovo crisis of 1999, 600 Belgian paratroopers participated in Operation Allied Harbour, a NATO operation to protect and provide assistance to the huge number of ethnic Albanian refugees in Albania and Macedonia. That same year, 1,100 Belgian soldiers left for Kosovo to participate in the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led peacekeeping force.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgian soldiers have served in Lebanon, under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Approximately 394 Belgians have served in Lebanon, in demining and medical operations, and a frigate is also present.


title: History of Belgium

text: In the 2011, the Belgian Air Force deployed six F-16 fighter jets in support of the NATO intervention in the Libyan Civil War in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. Belgian aircraft were involved in airstrikes on pro-Ghadaffi forces.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium is part of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, joint with soldiers from Luxembourg. Its continent is named "BELU ISAF 21," with the main objective of providing security at Kabul International Airport, while detachments ("KUNDUZ 16") assist in the northern PRTs of Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif. In September 2008, four F‑16 jets with about 140 support personnel were deployed. They operate from Kandahar Airport. The Belgian Air Force operated close together with the Dutch F-16 fighter jets already deployed there.


title: History of Belgium

text: Belgium created huge debts during times when rates were low and generated new debts to service the initial debt. Its debts amounted to about 130% of the GDP in 1992 and were increased to about 108,2% in 2001. This drastic economic policy resulted in deep budget spending cuts, such as significant cuts to scientific research.


title: History of Belgium

text: In the 1999 Belgian federal election, the traditional government parties suffered a significant defeat due to the so-called "Dioxin Affair", leading to the fall of Jean-Luc Dehaene's government after eight years in office. Guy Verhofstadt formed a government of Liberals, Socialists and Greens, forming a government without the Christian People's Party for the first time since 1958.


title: History of Belgium

text: In July 1999, a government of Greens and Flemish Liberals and Democrats announced a gradual phase-out of Belgium's seven nuclear reactors after 40 years of operation. Though it was speculated that the next government without Greens would immediately revoke this legislation. after the 2003 elections there was still no sign of a policy reversal, particularly in the aftermath of the incident at Tihange reactor in 2002. In 2006, the Christian-Democratic and Flemish proposed a reconsideration of the phase out.


title: History of Belgium

text: The Belgian government was strongly opposed to the Iraq War during the Iraq crisis of 2003. The Verhofstadt government proposed a diplomatic solution regarding WMD and took the view that military action could only be taken with UN approval.


title: History of Belgium

text: On January 30, 2003, Belgium became the second country in the world to legally recognize same-sex marriage. However, this law did not permit adoption by same-sex partners. In December 2005, a controversial proposal by the Socialist Party to permit adoption was approved by the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.


title: History of Belgium

text: The 2010 Belgian federal election produced a highly fragmented political landscape, with 11 parties elected to the Chamber of Representatives, none of which had more than 20% of the seats. The separatist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest party in Flanders and the country as a whole, controlled 27 of 150 seats in the lower chamber. The Francophone Socialist Party (PS), the largest party in Wallonia, controlled 26 seats. Belgium beat the world record for time taken to form a new democratic government after an election, at 353 days. Finally a government coalition was sworn in on 6 December 2011, with Socialist Elio Di Rupo becoming Prime Minister of the Di Rupo Government.


title: History of Belgium

text: The 2014 federal election (coinciding with the regional elections) resulted in a further electoral gain for the Flemish nationalist N-VA, although the incumbent coalition (composed of Flemish and French-speaking Social Democrats, Liberals, and Christian Democrats) maintains a solid majority in Parliament and in all electoral constituencies. On 22 July 2014, King Philippe nominated Charles Michel (MR) and Kris Peeters (CD&V) to lead the formation of a new federal cabinet composed of the Flemish parties N-VA, CD&V, Open Vld and the French-speaking MR, which resulted in the Michel Government. It was the first time N-VA was part of the federal cabinet, while the French-speaking side was represented only by the MR, which achieved a minority of the public votes in Wallonia.


title: History of Belgium

text: In May 2019 federal elections in the Flemish-speaking northern region of Flanders far-right Vlaams Belang party made major gains. In the French-speaking southern area of Wallonia the Socialists were strong. The moderate Flemish nationalist party the N-VA remained the largest party in parliament. In July 2019 prime minister Charles Michel was selected to hold the post of President of the European Council. His successor Sophie Wilmès was Belgium's first female prime minister. She led the caretaker government since October 2019. The Flemish Liberal party politician Alexander De Croo became new prime minister in October 2020. The parties had agreed on federal government 16 months after the elections.


title: History of Belgium

text: Modern historiography of Belgium began to appear in the later 18th century, as scholars moved beyond the chronicles of particular provinces, cities or leaders and relied on rapidly accumulating data. They wrote dissertations using the critical approach to particular historical problems. This development was sponsored by The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium and reflected Enlightenment influences—such as that of Voltaire—in exploring the history of the people. They pondered questions of causality. Their goal was building the blocks for a general history of the Austrian Netherlands, thus marking an important step toward the creation of a Belgian national history.


title: History of Belgium

text: Since Belgium became an independent nation only in 1830, defining nationhood was a special issue for the historians of the late 19th century. The usual European solutions which defined nationhood in terms of language would not work. The Romantic Joseph-Jean de Smet portrayed his country as a "phoenix" (a reference to the great bird that rose from the dead.) The challenge of defining the nation's past and present in the face of Dutch, Spanish, Austrian, French, and German influences posed a central problem. Defending the boundaries of Belgium (especially why Flanders should not be in the Netherlands) was another issue that preoccupied historical writers such as Pirenne.


title: History of Belgium

text: The medievalist Godefroid Kurth (1847–1916) was a student of Germany's famous professor Leopold von Ranke. Kurth introduced Ranke's advanced scholarly methods in his seminar at the Universite de Liège. Belgian historiography achieved international stature in the early 20th century with the work of medievalist Henri Pirenne (1862–1935).


title: History of Belgium

text: Historiography at Ghent University was pioneered by medievalists, especially Hubert Van Houtte. After 1945 Charles Verlinden introduced the methods of the French Annales School of social history. Research topics at Ghent included colonial and maritime history, the history of prices and wages, agrarian history, business history, and the textile industry. In the 1970 and 1980s came a broadening to such topics as historical demography; living standards and lifestyles; beggary and crime; and the history of culture and mind-sets.


title: History of Belgium

text: \* Tollebeek, Jo. "Historical representation and the Nation-State in romantic Belgium (1830–1850)." "Journal of the History of Ideas" 59.2 (1998): 329-353. online


title: Xscape (group)

text: Xscape is an American girl group from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 1991 by Kandi Burruss, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, LaTocha Scott, Tamera Coggins-Wynn, and Tamika Scott. The following year Coggins-Wynn left the group and Xscape became a quartet. They were discovered by Jermaine Dupri who signed the group to his So So Def label. The group released their debut album "Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha" in 1993, which spawned two of their biggest hits "Just Kickin' It" and "Understanding". The album was certified Platinum on February 1, 1994. Xscape has sold more than 7 million records worldwide.


title: Xscape (group)

text: The group went on to release their second album, "Off the Hook" in 1995 and was certified Platinum on November 16, 1995. The lead single "Feels So Good" and "Who Can I Run To" were both certified Gold in the United States. Their third and final album "Traces of My Lipstick" was released in 1998. The lead single "The Arms of the One Who Loves You" was certified Gold on May 14, 1998, and the album was certified Platinum on June 21, 1999, in the United States. The group disbanded in 1998 to pursue solo projects and reformed in 2017.


title: Xscape (group)

text: On February 11, 2018, it was announced that Kandi Burruss had taken a hiatus due to being on Broadway and wouldn't be featured on new music. This caused the group to temporarily downsize and rebrand to XSCAP3 (featuring Tameka "Tiny" Harris, sisters Tamika Scott and LaTocha Scott).


title: Xscape (group)

text: XSCAP3 released singles "Wifed Up" and "Dream Killa", which spawned their release of their first EP as a trio "Here for It" released March 2, 2018. It was also announced that they fired their manager, Vincent Herbert.


title: Xscape (group)

text: After Tamera Coggins left the group in 1993, Xscape became a quartet. They were later discovered by Jermaine Dupri, who immediately signed the group to his So So Def label and debuted the quartet at his birthday party in 1992. The group released their debut album, "Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha", on October 12, 1993, which peaked at number seventeen the U.S. "Billboard" 200 and number three on the Top R&B Albums chart. It was critically and commercially successful, being certified platinum within a year, and launched two top 10 singles. The debut single, "Just Kickin' It", and second single, "Understanding", both entered the top 10 of the official Hot 100 and became platinum and gold-certified number-one hits, respectively, on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The follow-up singles, "Love on My Mind" and "Tonight", did not achieve the same success.


title: Xscape (group)

text: After promotion for "Hummin' Comin' at 'Cha" concluded, the group contributed to "The Mask" soundtrack with the song "Who's That Man?", and also appeared on "Freedom (Theme from Panther)" from the soundtrack to the 1995 film "Panther", which the group along with TLC, SWV, En Vogue, Jade and others.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Xscape released their second studio album, "Off the Hook", in 1995. The lead single, "Feels So Good", reached #32 of the US Hot 100, while "Who Can I Run To" peaked at #8. The follow-up singles, "Do You Want To" and "Can't Hang", the latter featuring rapper MC Lyte, were released as a double A-side single. It went only as high as number 50 on the Hot 100 but peaked at #9 on the "Hot R&B/Hip Hop" charts. The album eventually went platinum.


title: Xscape (group)

text: In 1996, the group was featured on a number of singles, including singing background vocals on a remix version of Mariah Carey's 11th Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper "Always Be My Baby". The remix, formally known as the "Mr. Dupri Mix", also featured a rap verse by their So So Def label mate, Da Brat. The group also appeared on MC Lyte's single "Keep On Keepin' On", which appeared on the "Sunset Park" soundtrack. The single reached number 10 on the Hot 100, becoming MC Lyte's best single on the pop charts and #3 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts. In 1997, the group's songs appeared on the soundtracks to the films "Love Jones" and "Soul Food".


title: Xscape (group)

text: In early 1998, Xscape was featured on the Keith Sweat produced single, a cover of Atlantic Starr's "Am I Dreamin'", by R&B newcomer group Ol' Skool. The single was a success in North America, peaking at #31 on the "Hot 100", and was later featured on Xscape's third album "Traces of My Lipstick".


title: Xscape (group)

text: "Traces of My Lipstick" debuted at #28 on the Billboard 200 and at #6 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop album chart; over a million copies were sold in the U.S. The album featured the top 10 hit "The Arms of the One Who Loves You", which reached #7 on the Hot 100 chart, and "My Little Secret", which reached #9. Although their unofficial third single was released, "Softest Place on Earth" reached #28 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.


title: Xscape (group)

text: After "Traces of My Lipstick", LaTocha Scott initially left the group to pursue a solo career. She later joined her sister Tameka Scott and Tameka Cottle to reform the group. The three members requested Burruss also rejoin. When Burruss declined, she was asked to sign a "leaving member notice", signing over her rights to the Xscape name. She signed and the remaining three original members went on to make appearances on the "Big Momma's House" and "Hardball" soundtracks, before going on another hiatus until 2005.


title: Xscape (group)

text: After a five-year hiatus, sisters LaTocha Scott and Tamika Scott reunited with Tameka "Tiny" Cottle and new member Kiesha Miles to record a fourth album, "Unchained". The new single, "What's Up", was released on a mixtape and later got some airplay in hometown Atlanta. However, the album was not released due to lack of promotion from the record label.


title: Xscape (group)

text: On June 25, 2017 the original four group members had their first performance together in over 18 years at the 2017 BET Awards. They would also perform at the Essence Festival and at Chene Park in Detroit.


title: Xscape (group)

text: In September 2017, the group announced a reunion tour featuring 29 cities from late November through early January 2018, and were to be joined by Monica and Tamar Braxton. On September 22 of the same year, the group made their first appearance together on daytime television on The Wendy Williams Show, performing "My Little Secret" and "Understanding". On November 12, Kandi publicly announced that she would not be making new music with Xscape at this time. Two new singles titled "Wifed Up" and "Dream Killa" were released on December 1, neither single featuring Burruss.


title: Xscape (group)

text: In late 2017, Kandi Burruss indicated in numerous interviews her lack of interest in recording new music as Xscape, stating that she was pursuing Broadway roles instead. Because of this, Tiny, LaTocha and Tamika formed the subunit XSCAP3, which included three of the five original Xscape members, with the notable exception of Burruss. As a trio, XSCAP3 signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in January 2018 for representation in all areas. The trio also formally created a recording label, XSCAP3 Entertainment. In late 2017 to early 2018, the members of XSCAP3 recorded six original songs that were later included in their subunit's debut EP.


title: Xscape (group)

text: On May 8, 2021, Verzuz presented a pre-Mother's day battle featuring both Xscape and another popular 1990s female R&B group, SWV. Both DJs, AONE and Spinderella, were responsible for music play for both groups.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Kandi Burruss (born May 17, 1976) is a contralto, singing the lower harmonies. She was also known for her head voice, as sung in "Understanding" and "My Little Secret". Burruss also sang lead parts on other Xscape singles, such as "Just Kickin' It", "Feels So Good",Can't Hang" & Tonight.


title: Xscape (group)

text: After leaving Xscape, she co-wrote songs for artists such as Mariah Carey, Faith Evans, Pink, Whitney Houston, and Alicia Keys. She has also written songs for the groups TLC, Destiny's Child, RichGirl, 'N Sync, and Boyz II Men. She is also responsible for discovering the male R&B quartet Jagged Edge. In 1999, she appeared on Solé's debut album, and was in a video for the single "4, 5, 6". Also that year, Burruss teamed with groupmate Tameka "Tiny" Cottle to score the international number one hit "No Scrubs" for TLC. and "Bills, Bills, Bills" for Destiny's Child. Kandi would go on to work with Pink by co-writing her debut single "There You Go". In 2000, Columbia Records released her solo debut, "Hey Kandi", which featured the hit song "Don't Think I'm Not". In 2003, Burruss sang backup on "Wide Open" for LSG's final album "LSG2". In 2006 she released "I Need", featuring Eightball & MJG from an unreleased solo album on UpFront Records. She is also featured on E-40's hit "U and Dat" under the name Kandi Girl. In 2007, she formed a duo, Peach Candy, with Atlanta female rapper Rasheeda.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Burruss has been a cast member of the hit Bravo reality show "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" since the show's second season. During her first season on the show she recorded material for her latest album "Kandi Koated", featuring tracks "Fly Above" and "Leave U". The album was released in December 2010. She currently produces the adult sex-toy line Bedroom Kandi, owns a restaurant called Old Lady Gang, owns a clothing company in honor of her son Ace (Raising Ace) as well as TAGS Boutique, a cosmetics line called "Kandi Koated Cosmetics", the non-profit organization Kandi Cares, and finally Kandi Koated Entertainment.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Tameka "Tiny" Harris (born July 14, 1975) is a soprano in the group, usually singing the melody on their songs, but sometimes taking the top note as well (as in "Tonight"). She sang lead parts on the Xscape singles "Understanding", "Tonight", "Do You Want To", "My Little Secret", and the single "Am I Dreamin'", an Atlantic Starr remake by Ol' Skool with Keith Sweat.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Cottle is well known for co-writing TLC's 1999 hit "No Scrubs" with Burruss, singing vocals on the song's chorus. She also sang the chorus of Lil' Kim's "I Know You See Me", Bow Wow's "Let's Get Down", and on 8Ball & MJG's "Things We Used to Do".


title: Xscape (group)

text: Cottle starred in the BET reality show "Tiny & Toya", which followed Cottle and her friendship with Antonia "Toya" Johnson Carter, the ex-wife of rap artist Lil’ Wayne. In 2011, she and her husband T.I. began appearing in the reality series "", and appeared in its spin-off "Tiny and Shekinah's Weave Trip", in October 2014.


title: Xscape (group)

text: LaTocha Scott (born October 2, 1973) is a light lyric mezzo-soprano in the group, usually singing soprano in the harmonies (as seen in several live performances), but sometimes singing mezzo-soprano (as in the backgrounds of "Tonight" and other songs) and sometimes even singing contralto when Kandi is leading (as in "Feels So Good"). She sang lead parts on most Xscape songs, and is considered the lead singer in the group due to this and being the eldest group member. After Xscape's first disbanding, heart released a solo album titled "Solo Flight 404" featuring "One Night Stand", her duet with artist J-Shin. She also contributed the song "Liar, Liar" to the soundtrack of "The Best Man", and was a featured artist on Cha Cha's "Dear Diary" and Trick Daddy's single "Thug Holiday", and released the single "Bad Timing" in 2012.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Scott was cast in the second season of TVOne's : Atlanta along with Faith Evans, Syleena Johnson, Nicci Gilbert, Monifah, Angie Stone, and Keke Wyatt, though she was not a part of the third season, nor was there any mention of her previous involvement.


title: Xscape (group)

text: Tamika Scott (born November 19, 1975) is a lyric mezzo soprano in the group, typically singing the melody between Burruss and her sister LaTocha in the harmony. She's most known for her lead vocals on "Understanding", "Love on My Mind", "Who Can I Run To", and "The Arms of the One Who Loves You". After Xscape's breakup, Scott released a song titled "Day and Night" with Giant Swing, and played the role of Milay Brown in Tyler Perry’s hit "Meet the Browns". She wrote and produced four songs for Tyler Perry’s movie soundtrack "Daddy's Little Girls". On the soundtrack, she performed a song titled "Greatest Gift". Scott also wrote and performed the title song from Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married". She is set to appear in the upcoming film "Conundrum: Secrets Among Friends".


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: A duplex communication system is a point-to-point system composed of two or more connected parties or devices that can communicate with one another in both directions. Duplex systems are employed in many communications networks, either to allow for simultaneous communication in both directions between two connected parties or to provide a reverse path for the monitoring and remote adjustment of equipment in the field. There are two types of duplex communication systems: full-duplex (FDX) and half-duplex (HDX).


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: In a full-duplex system, both parties can communicate with each other simultaneously. An example of a full-duplex device is plain old telephone service; the parties at both ends of a call can speak and be heard by the other party simultaneously. The earphone reproduces the speech of the remote party as the microphone transmits the speech of the local party. There is a two-way communication channel between them, or more strictly speaking, there are two communication channels between them.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: In a half-duplex or semiduplex system, both parties can communicate with each other, but not simultaneously; the communication is one direction at a time. An example of a half-duplex device is a walkie-talkie, a two-way radio that has a push-to-talk button. When the local user wants to speak to the remote person, they push this button, which turns on the transmitter and turns off the receiver, preventing them from hearing the remote person while talking. To listen to the remote person, they release the button, which turns on the receiver and turns off the transmitter.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Systems that do not need duplex capability may instead use simplex communication, in which one device transmits and the others can only listen. Examples are broadcast radio and television, garage door openers, baby monitors, wireless microphones, and surveillance cameras. In these devices, the communication is only in one direction.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: A "half-duplex" (HDX) system provides communication in both directions, but only one direction at a time, not simultaneously in both directions.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Typically, once a party begins receiving a signal, it must wait for the transmission to complete, before replying.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: An example of a half-duplex system is a two-party system such as a walkie-talkie, wherein one must say "over" or another previously designated keyword to indicate the end of transmission, to ensure that only one party transmits at a time. A good analogy for a half-duplex system would be a one-lane road that allows two-way traffic, traffic can only flow in one direction at a time.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Half-duplex systems are usually used to conserve bandwidth, at the cost of reducing the overall bidirectional throughput, since only a single communication channel is needed and is shared alternately between the two directions. For example, a walkie-talkie or a DECT phone or so-called TDD 4G or 5G phones requires only a single frequency for bidirectional communication, while a cell phone in the so-called FDD mode is a full-duplex device, and generally requires two frequencies to carry the two simultaneous voice channels, one in each direction.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: In automatic communications systems such as two-way data-links, time-division multiplexing can be used for time allocations for communications in a half-duplex system. For example, station A on one end of the data link could be allowed to transmit for exactly one second, then station B on the other end could be allowed to transmit for exactly one second, and then the cycle repeats. In this scheme, the channel is never left idle.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: In half-duplex systems, if more than one party transmits at the same time, a collision occurs, resulting in lost or distorted messages.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: A "full-duplex" (FDX) system allows communication in both directions, and, unlike half-duplex, allows this to happen simultaneously.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Land-line telephone networks are full-duplex since they allow both callers to speak and be heard at the same time. Full-duplex operation is achieved on a two-wire circuit through the use of a hybrid coil in a telephone hybrid. Modern cell phones are also full-duplex.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: There is a technical distinction between full-duplex communication, which uses a single physical communication channel for both directions simultaneously, and dual-simplex communication which uses two distinct channels, one for each direction. From the user perspective, the technical difference doesn't matter and both variants are commonly referred to as "full duplex".


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Many Ethernet connections achieve full-duplex operation by making simultaneous use of two physical twisted pairs inside the same jacket, or two optical fibers which are directly connected to each networked device: one pair or fiber is for receiving packets, while the other is for sending packets. Other Ethernet variants, such as 1000BASE-T use the same channels in each direction simultaneously. In any case, with full-duplex operation, the cable itself becomes a collision-free environment and doubles the maximum total transmission capacity supported by each Ethernet connection.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Full-duplex has also several benefits over the use of half-duplex. Since there is only one transmitter on each twisted pair there is no contention and no collisions so time is not wasted by having to wait or retransmit frames. Full transmission capacity is available in both directions because the send and receive functions are separate.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Some computer-based systems of the 1960s and 1970s required full-duplex facilities, even for half-duplex operation, since their poll-and-response schemes could not tolerate the slight delays in reversing the direction of transmission in a half-duplex line.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Full-duplex audio systems like telephones can create echo, which is distracting to users and impedes the performance of modems. Echo occurs when the sound originating from the far end comes out of the speaker at the near end and re-enters the microphone there and is then sent back to the far end. The sound then reappears at the original source end but delayed.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Echo cancellation is a signal-processing operation that subtracts the far-end signal from the microphone signal before it is sent back over the network. Echo cancellation is important technology allowing modems to achieve good full-duplex performance. The V.32, V.34, V.56, and V.90 modem standards require echo cancellation. Echo cancelers are available as both software and hardware implementations. They can be independent components in a communications system or integrated into the communication system's central processing unit.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Where channel access methods are used in point-to-multipoint networks (such as cellular networks) for dividing forward and reverse communication channels on the same physical communications medium, they are known as duplexing methods.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Time-division duplexing (TDD) is the application of time-division multiplexing to separate outward and return signals. It emulates full-duplex communication over a half-duplex communication link.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Time-division duplexing is flexible in the case where there is asymmetry of the uplink and downlink data rates or utilization. As the amount of uplink data increases, more communication capacity can be dynamically allocated, and as the traffic load becomes lighter, capacity can be taken away. The same applies in the downlink direction.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: The "transmit/receive transition gap" (TTG) is the gap (time) between a downlink burst and the subsequent uplink burst. Similarly, the "receive/transmit transition gap" (RTG) is the gap between an uplink burst and the subsequent downlink burst.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Frequency-division duplexing (FDD) means that the transmitter and receiver operate using different carrier frequencies.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: The method is frequently used in ham radio operation, where an operator is attempting to use a repeater station. The repeater station must be able to send and receive a transmission at the same time and does so by slightly altering the frequency at which it sends and receives. This mode of operation is referred to as "duplex mode" or "offset mode". Uplink and downlink sub-bands are said to be separated by the "frequency offset".


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Frequency-division duplex systems can extend their range by using sets of simple repeater stations because the communications transmitted on any single frequency always travel in the same direction.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Frequency-division duplexing can be efficient in the case of symmetric traffic. In this case, time-division duplexing tends to waste bandwidth during the switch-over from transmitting to receiving, has greater inherent latency, and may require more complex circuitry.


title: Duplex (telecommunications)

text: Another advantage of frequency-division duplexing is that it makes radio planning easier and more efficient since base stations do not "hear" each other (as they transmit and receive in different sub-bands) and therefore will normally not interfere with each other. Conversely, with time-division duplexing systems, care must be taken to keep guard times between neighboring base stations (which decreases spectral efficiency) or to synchronize base stations, so that they will transmit and receive at the same time (which increases network complexity and therefore cost, and reduces bandwidth allocation flexibility as all base stations and sectors will be forced to use the same uplink/downlink ratio).


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Vampire's Kiss is a 1989 American black comedy horror film directed by Robert Bierman and written by Joseph Minion. Starring Nicolas Cage, María Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, and Elizabeth Ashley, the film tells the story of a literary agent who falls in love with a vampiress. It was a box office failure but went on to become a cult film.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Peter Loew is a driven literary agent and an example of the stereotypical narcissistic and greedy yuppie of the 1980s: he works all day and club hops at night, with little in his life but alcohol, cocaine, one-night stands with numerous women, and the pursuit of money and supposed prestige. However, he is slowly going insane and sees a therapist frequently. During these sessions, his declining mental health becomes clear through a series of increasingly bizarre rants which eventually begin to scare the psychiatrist. After taking home a girl named Jackie from a club, a bat flies in through his window, scaring them both. At his next session he mentions to his therapist that the struggle with the bat aroused him. While visiting an art museum with Jackie the next day, he ditches her, and she later leaves an angry message on his phone.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Loew meets Rachel at a night club, and seemingly takes her home. As they make love, she pins him down, exposing vampire fangs, and bites him on the neck. The following morning, Loew is seen with an uninjured neck, serving coffee and making conversation with a non-existent Rachel, casting doubt on the reality of the previous night's events.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Loew cuts his neck shaving and applies a bandage to the spot, thereafter believing it to be the location of his vampire bite. He soon believes that he is turning into a vampire. He fails to see his reflection in mirrors and wears dark sunglasses indoors. When his fangs fail to develop, he purchases a pair of cheap plastic novelty fangs. All the while, he has delusions of Rachel visiting him nightly to feed on his blood. Shortly after, Loew experiences severe mood swings and calls Jackie back apologetically, asking to meet her at a bar. As he is about to leave, a jealous Rachel appears and beckons him back inside. A dejected Jackie eventually leaves the bar and leaves an angry note on his door asking him to leave her alone.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Loew constantly torments a secretary working at his office named Alva Restrepo, typically by forcing her to search through an enormous paper file for a contract. When she fails to find the contract, he at first browbeats and humiliates her, then visits her at home and tricks her into returning to work, and finally attacks and attempts to bite her at the workplace after hours. She pulls out a gun, and Loew begs her to shoot him. Since it is only loaded with blanks, she fires at the floor to scare him off. He eventually overpowers her, ripping her shirt open, pinning her to the floor as he attempts to bite her neck, while hallucinating that she is Rachel. Afterwards, overcome by despair, he takes the gun and fires it into his mouth, but is not harmed, attributing it to his supposed transformation.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Thinking he is a vampire, Loew goes out to a club wearing his novelty fangs and moves around erratically like the character Orlok from the film "Nosferatu" with a crazed look in his eyes. He begins to seduce a woman, but when he gets too grabby she slaps him, making Loew even more unhinged. He overpowers her and bites her neck, having taken out the fangs and using his real teeth, leaving the woman unconscious and bloody. He hallucinates another encounter with a disdainful Rachel.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Afterwards, Loew encounters the real Rachel dancing with another man on the dance floor. She appears to recognize him, but gives the impression that they have not been in contact for a long time. Loew attempts to manhandle her into revealing her fangs as her date fights him off. He screams that he loves her and accuses her of being a vampire as he is dragged off and expelled from the club by security.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Alva wakes up with her shirt ripped open, possibly thinking she was raped, and eventually tells her brother Emilio who is enraged and goes after Loew with Alva to seek revenge. Meanwhile, Loew is wandering the streets, disheveled in a blood-spattered business suit from the previous night, excitedly talking to himself. Standing on a street corner, he has a hallucinatory exchange with his therapist, claiming that he raped someone and murdered someone else; a nearby newspaper headline confirms the latter. As Loew returns to his now-destroyed apartment, Alva points him out to Emilio, who pursues him inside the apartment block with a tire iron.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: In the midst of an abusive argument with an imaginary romantic interest (supposedly a patient of his psychiatrist) Loew begins to retch again from the blood he had swallowed, then crawls under his upturned sofa on the floor, as though it were a coffin. Emilio finds Loew and upturns the sofa. Loew holds a large broken piece of wood to his chest as a makeshift stake, repeating the gesture he had made earlier to strangers on the street when he had asked them to kill him. Emilio pushes down on the wood and it pierces Loew's chest in a gruesome manner. Emilio flees the apartment. As Loew dies, he envisions the vampiress Rachel staring at him one last time.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: In addition, Jessica Lundy plays Sharon, the patient his therapist sets Peter up with, Cage's brother Marc Coppola briefly appears as the joke guy, and the musical group ESG has a cameo performing in a club.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Written "as darkly comic and deft as its bizarre premise," Joseph Minion wrote the film as he grappled with depression. In an interview with Zach Schonfeld of "The Ringer", Minion said that while on vacation in Barbados with his then-girlfriend, Barbara Zitwer, he wrote the screenplay as a response to his "toxic relationship" with her. Dealing with themes of isolation, loneliness, and domination, Zitwer, who would come on as a producer for the film, found the final product to be "horrifying." The story was extremely emblematic of their relationship together and Minion's depiction of Zitwer as a "vampire and destroying him," was clear foreshadowing to their end of their relationship during production. Known previously for having written "After Hours", directed by Martin Scorsese, Minion sought to keep the "grim view of the Manhattan nightlife," found in the aforementioned film central to his newest work.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Originally intent on taking the helm of directing the project, Minion soon gave the position up stating that the “darkness of it,” was too much for him to bear. Instead, the film was led by British newcomer Robert Bierman who held previous experience working on commercials and short films such as "The Rocking Horse Winner" (1983) and "The Dumb Waiter" (1979). This sudden departure however also prompted the then cast Nicolas Cage to drop out after his agent pressured him stating "this was not a good movie to make after "Moonstruck."" His departure was short lived however and Cage's "outrageously unbridled performance," was destined for the screen. Cage described the story as being about "a man whose loneliness and inability to find love literally drives him insane".


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: The role of Peter Loew was originally given to Dennis Quaid, then passed on to Cage after the former dropped out to do "Innerspace". Cage and Beals reportedly did not get along on set with their friction most likely stemming from the part of Rachel going to Beals rather than Cage's then-girlfriend, Patricia Arquette.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: Going purposefully against the method acting technique, Cage "took a highly surrealistic approach" to Loew. Apart from his “pseudo-Trannsylvanian dialect,” scenes of Cage screaming the alphabet, eating cockroaches, and ranting "I'm a vampire!" shocked viewers and critics alike. The original script called for Loew to eat a raw egg but Cage decided a cockroach would be more effective claiming it would "shock the audience." This shock was further extended to a couple of real homeless people who Cage ran into on the streets of Manhattan as he pleaded with them to drive a stake through his heart as Bierman and crew shot from afar. Physicality played a central role in the creation of this character for Cage who in several terrifying scenes sought to see "how big [he] could get [his] eyes." This was then furthered with scenes of Cage jumping on tables, sprinting across the office, and many frantic hand gestures which he claims were "extremely choreographed."


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: While many such as Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" criticized this style of "scorched-earth acting," it cemented the film as a cult classic and become the source of many internet memes.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: "Vampire's Kiss" was released June 2, 1989. It grossed $725,131 in the U.S. It was released on home video in August 1990. MGM released it on DVD in August 2002, and Scream Factory released it on Blu-ray in February 2015. It was subsequently re-released on Blu-Ray through the MVD Rewind label in June, 2022.


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: "Vampire's Kiss" was considered a commercial flop upon its initial release but has developed a cult following since that time. Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Vampire's Kiss

text: "Variety" wrote, "Cage's over-the-top performance generates little sympathy for the character, so it’s tough to be interested in him as his personality disorder worsens." Caryn James of "The New York Times" wrote, "[T]he film is dominated and destroyed by Mr. Cage's chaotic, self-indulgent performance." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "a sleek, outrageous dark comedy that's all the funnier for constantly teetering on the brink of sheer tastelessness and silliness." Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" called the film "stone-dead bad, incoherently bad", but said that Cage's overacting must be seen to be believed. Carrie Rickey of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" called it an "imaginative, if warped, black comedy" that "succeeds as a wicked allegory of What Men Want". Reviewing the film on Blu-ray, Anthony Arrigo of Bloody Disgusting wrote, "The film may not work very well as a comedy, but there's enough of a dark derangement present to make it almost unsettling." Furthermore, Peter Travers from the Rolling Stone argues that the film doesn't need further criticism but rather “a stake through the heart.”


title: Red Planet (film)

text: Red Planet is a 2000 science fiction action film directed by Antony Hoffman. The film stars Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Tom Sizemore.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: "Red Planet" was released in the United States on 10 November 2000. The film was a critical and commercial failure and is Hoffman's only feature film to date.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: In 2056 A.D., Earth is in ecological crisis as a consequence of pollution and overpopulation. Automated interplanetary missions have been seeding Mars with atmosphere-producing algae as the first stage of terraforming the planet. When the oxygen quantity produced by the algae is inexplicably reduced, the crew of "Mars-1" investigate—a crew consisting of Quinn Burchenal, a geneticist; Bud Chantilas, an aging philosophical scientist and surgeon; systems engineer Robby Gallagher; commander Kate Bowman; pilot Ted Santen; and terraforming scientist Chip Pettengill.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: When "Mars-1" is damaged in arrival by a gamma-ray burst, Bowman remains aboard for repair while the others land to locate an automated habitat (HAB 1) in order to manufacture food and oxygen. During insertion, the team's landing craft is damaged and lands off-course. In the aftermath, "AMEE" (Autonomous Mapping Exploration and Evasion), a military robot programmed to guide them, is lost, and Chantilas suffers a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding, and tells the others to leave him behind. Santen refuses, but Chantilas tells them that they have limited oxygen left to make it to HAB 1. Chantilas tells Gallagher that it is all right, as he got to see Mars for the first time. The crew leaves to allow Chantilas to die in peace. In orbit around Mars, Bowman contacts Houston, which informs her that "Mars-1" is in decaying orbit, but offers hope of restoring engine function in departing Mars.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: On Mars, the landing party find HAB 1 mysteriously destroyed. They are baffled for an explanation, since the module was designed and field-tested in Tornado Alley to withstand any storms on Mars. All expect their imminent deaths by suffocation. Pettengill and Santen wander from the others to explore, reaching a canyon where they fight over whether or not the mission was a failure. Pettengill accidentally kills Santen when the fight turns physical. Pettengill returns to Burchenal and Gallagher and tells them that Santen committed suicide. His oxygen depleted, Gallagher opens his helmet, choosing a quick death over asphyxiation – and discovers that Mars' atmosphere is thin but breathable.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: The only salvageable material from the habitat is all of the liquid fuel, which has ruptured out of its containers but pooled under the wreck. With no remaining power in their suits, the astronauts set it on fire with a flare so they can have a bonfire to survive the massive temperature drop of the Martian night. AMEE reunites with the crew, and the three astronauts notice the robot is damaged and attempt to shut it down so they can recover its guidance device. Perceiving their actions as a threat, AMEE breaks Burchenal's ribs and pursues the others before retreating. Gallagher tells the others she has gone into military mode and intends to kill them all one by one. She wounded Burchenal instead of killing him because she has been programmed with knowledge of the old guerrilla tactic that a wounded man will slow the enemy down since effort must be expended to transport a wounded teammate.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: Eventually, Gallagher builds a makeshift radio from parts of the Mars Rover "Pathfinder", through which Bowman instructs them to use a Russian probe's sample-return system to launch themselves into orbit. During the trip, Bowman tells Gallagher that the probe can hold only two people. The trio takes shelter from an ice storm inside of a cave. Devastated by the recent news and afraid of being left behind, Pettengill flees with the radio, only to be killed by AMEE. After the storm subsides Gallagher and Burchenal recover the radio from Pettingill's corpse, and discover that it has become infested by insect-like native Martian life (identified by Burchenal as "nematodes"). The insects are highly flammable, as using a simple cutting torch on Pettengill's corpse to free his grip caused a chain reaction. Later, the two encounter a field of algae being eaten by the insects, and Burchenal pieces together what happened.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: The Martian insects had lain dormant on their almost dead world, but when the probes from Earth spread algae fields across Mars it gave them a massive new food source and led to a population explosion. The Martian insects are what caused the algae to disappear, but in the process they actually gave Mars breathable oxygen levels, because they produce oxygen as a waste product (explaining why they are so flammable). The insects are also what destroyed the habitat module, as they tore in to get to the food supplies inside.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: Burchenal explains to Gallagher that the biochemistry of alien insects' respiratory metabolism is capable of producing oxygen far more efficiently than human science is currently able to. Studying the insects' biochemistry is the key to terraforming Mars, and may even lead to discoveries which will allow Earth's polluted atmosphere to be repaired. However, Burchenal is attacked by swarms of the insects when blood drips from an open wound. Rather than be eaten alive, he passes his sample vial of insects to Gallagher before immolating himself and his attackers.


title: Red Planet (film)

text: Gallagher reaches the Russian probe, finds sufficient fuel to power the rocket's engine, but not enough electrical power to launch the probe, and realizes that the only available replacement is AMEE's power core. In a final confrontation, Gallagher is able to lure AMEE into a trap and disable her using one of the probe's sample launchers, then takes her battery. Gallagher launches himself in the probe's sample-return capsule and reaches orbit where "Mars-1" is waiting for him, and he is recovered and revived by Bowman. Gallagher becomes upset that four astronauts died so that he could live, but Bowman tells him that they did not die for nothing. The computer is busy analyzing the sample of Martian insects which Gallagher brought back, and research on them might lead to repairing Earth itself. With a six-month-long trip back to Earth, the computer has plenty of time to analyze the insects, and Bowman and Gallagher have time to start pursuing a romantic relationship.