title: Politics of North Korea

text: The politics of North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) takes place within the framework of the official state philosophy, Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. "Juche", which is a part of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism, is the belief that only through self-reliance and a strong independent state, can true socialism be achieved.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: North Korea's political system is built upon the principle of centralization. While the North Korean constitution formally guarantees protection of human rights, in practice there are severe limits on freedom of expression, and the government closely supervises the lives of North Korean citizens. The constitution defines North Korea as "a dictatorship of people's democracy" under the leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), which is given legal supremacy over other political parties. WPK General Secretary is typically the supreme leader, who controls the WPK Presidium, the WPK Politburo, the WPK Secretariat and the WPK Central Military Commission, making the officeholder the most powerful person in North Korea.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: The WPK is the ruling party of North Korea. It has been in power since its creation in 1948. Other minor political parties also exist, but are legally bound to accept the ruling role of the WPK. They, with the WPK, comprise a popular front, known as the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland (DFRF). Elections occur only in single-candidate races where the candidate is effectively selected beforehand by the WPK. In addition to the parties, there are over 100 mass organizations controlled by the WPK. Those who are not WPK members are required to join one of these organizations. Of these, the most important ones are the Socialist Patriotic Youth League, Socialist Women's Union of Korea, General Federation of Trade Unions of Korea, and Union of Agricultural Workers of Korea. These four organizations are also DFRF members.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Outside observers generally view North Korea as a totalitarian dictatorship particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung and his family. The WPK, led by a member of the ruling family, holds power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members. The government has formally replaced all references to Marxism–Leninism in its constitution with the locally developed concept of "Juche", or self-reliance. Kim Jong-il placed emphasis on the "Songun" or "military-first" philosophy, and all references to communism were removed from the North Korean constitution in 2009. Under Kim Jong-un, terminology such as communism and the socialist economy is again in common use. He additionally made Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism the main ideology of the country.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Kim Il-sung ruled the country from 1948 until his death in July 1994, holding the offices of General Secretary of the WPK from 1949 to 1994 (titled as Chairman from 1949 to 1972), Premier of North Korea from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1994. He was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-il. While the younger Kim had been his father's designated successor since the 1980s, it took him three years to consolidate his power. He was named to his father's old post of General Secretary in 1997, and in 1998 became Chairman of the National Defence Commission (NDC), which gave him command of the armed forces. The constitution was amended to make the NDC chairmanship "the highest post in the state." At the same time, the presidential post was written out of the constitution, and Kim Il-sung was designated "Eternal President of the Republic" in order to honor his memory forever. Most analysts believe the title to be a product of the cult of personality he cultivated during his life.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: According to the Constitution of North Korea, the country is a democratic republic and the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) and Provincial People's Assemblies (PPA) are elected by direct universal suffrage and secret ballot. Suffrage is guaranteed to all citizens aged 17 and over. In reality, these elections are for show and feature single-candidate races only. Those who want to vote against the sole candidate on the ballot must go to a special booth—in the presence of an electoral official—to cross out the candidate's name before dropping it into the ballot box—an act which, according to many North Korean defectors, is far too risky to even contemplate.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: All elected candidates are members of the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland (DFRF), a popular front dominated by the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK). The two minor parties in the coalition are the Chondoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party, who also have a few elected officials. The WPK exercises direct control over the candidates selected for election by members of the other two parties. In the past, elections were contested by other minor parties as well, including the Korea Buddhist Federation, Democratic Independent Party, Dongro People's Party, Gonmin People's Alliance, and People's Republic Party.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Originally a close ally of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, North Korea has increasingly emphasized "Juche", an adoption of socialist self-reliance, which roots from Marxism–Leninism, its adoption of a certain ideological form of Marxism–Leninism is specific to the conditions of North Korea. "Juche" was enshrined as the official ideology when the country adopted a new constitution in 1972. In 2009, the constitution was amended again, quietly removing the brief references to communism (). However, North Korea continues to see itself as part of a worldwide leftist movement. The Workers' Party maintains a relationship with other leftist parties, sending a delegation to the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties. North Korea has a strong relationship with Cuba; in 2016, the North Korean government declared three days of mourning after Fidel Castro's death.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: For much of its history, North Korean politics have been dominated by its adversarial relationship with South Korea. During the Cold War, North Korea aligned with the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The North Korean government invested heavily in its military, hoping to develop the capability to reunify Korea by force if possible and also preparing to repel any attack by South Korea or the United States. Following the doctrine of "Juche", North Korea aimed for a high degree of economic independence and the mobilization of all the resources of the nation to defend Korean sovereignty against foreign powers.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the loss of Soviet aid, North Korea faced a long period of economic crisis, including severe agricultural and industrial shortages. North Korea's main political issue has been to find a way to sustain its economy without compromising the internal stability of its government or its ability to respond to perceived external threats. Recently, North Korean efforts to improve relations with South Korea to increase trade and to receive development assistance have been mildly successful. North Korea has tried to improve its relations with South Korea by participating in the Pyeongchang Olympics, when Kim Jong-un sent his band and a few officials to visit South Korea. But North Korea's determination to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has prevented stable relations with both South Korea and the United States. North Korea has also experimented with market economics in some sectors of its economy, but these have had limited impact.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Although there are occasional reports of signs of opposition to the government, these appear to be isolated, and there is no evidence of major internal threats to the current government. Some foreign analysts have pointed to widespread starvation, increased emigration through North Korea-China border, and new sources of information about the outside world for ordinary North Koreans as factors pointing to an imminent collapse of the regime. However, North Korea has remained stable in spite of more than a decade of such predictions. The Workers' Party of Korea maintains a monopoly on political power and Kim Jong-il remained the leader of the country until 2011, ever since he first gained power following the death of his father.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: After the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-il became the new leader, which marked the closure of one chapter of North Korean politics. Combined with external shocks and the less charismatic personality of Kim Jong-il, the transition of the leadership moved North Korea toward less centralized control. There are three key institutions: the Korean People's Army (KPA), the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), and the cabinet. Rather than dominate a unified system as his father had, each party has their own enduring goals, therefore providing checks and balances to the government. No one party could claim victory and power over the other ones. With changing internal situation, combined with external pressure, the cabinet started to endorse policies it had rejected for years. North Korea politics is gradually becoming more open and negotiable with foreign countries. The fact that the leader of North Korea is willing to talk with other leaders shows a huge step towards peace and negotiation.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Under Kim Jong-il the status of the military was enhanced, and appeared to occupy the center of the North Korean political system; all the social sectors were forced to follow the military spirit and adopt military methods. Kim Jong-il's public activity focused heavily on "on-the-spot guidance" of places and events related to the military. The enhanced status of the military and military-centered political system was confirmed in 1998 at the first session of the 10th Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) by the promotion of NDC members into the official power hierarchy. All ten NDC members were ranked within the top twenty on 5 September, and all but one occupied the top twenty at the fiftieth anniversary of the Day of the Foundation of the Republic on 9 September. Under Kim Jong-un there has been an increased emphasis on economic matters, with major defence spending needing support from an economic standpoint.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: While the commonly accepted view is that no dissent can be expressed in North Korea, the notionally academic economic journal "Kyo’ngje Yo’ngu" and the philosophical and economic journals of Kim Il-sung University permit the presentation and discussion of the different views of various parts of the government.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: In 2005, a riot began at Kim Il-sung Stadium during a World Cup qualification match, after a dispute between a Korean player and a Syrian referee and the subsequent disqualification of the player.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Between 2006–2007, "market riots" erupted in the countryside when the government "unsuccessfully tried to restart" the Public Distribution System. Andrei Lankov goes on to say that the "outbreak of public discontent usually happens at the markets when vendors believe that their right to make money is being unfairly infringed by some decision of the authorities".


title: Politics of North Korea

text: In June 2011, it was reported that the government had ordered universities to cancel most classes until April 2012, sending students to work on construction projects, presumably for fear of similar developments as in North Africa. In the previous months, the regime had ordered riot gear from China. However, "as soon as universities were reopened, graffiti appeared again. Perhaps the succession is not the real reason, but greater awareness among North Koreans could lead to changes."


title: Politics of North Korea

text: After the death of Kim Jong-il on December 17, 2011, his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, inherited the political leadership of the DPRK. The succession of power was immediate: Kim Jong-un became Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army on December 30, 2011, was appointed First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) on April 11, 2012, and was entitled First Chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC) two days later. To gain complete political power, he became the military rank of Marshal of the KPA.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: Up until his death, Kim Jong-il maintained a strong national military-first political system that equated stability with military power. Kim Jong-un continues to carry on the militarized political style of his father, but with less commitment to complete military rule. Since he took power, Kim Jong-un has attempted to move political power away from the KPA and has divided it among the WPK and the cabinet. Because of his political lobbying, the WPK's Central Committee has vastly shifted power in April 2012: out of 17 members and 15 alternates of the Committee, only five members and six alternates derive from military and security sectors. Ever since, the economic power of the WPK, the cabinet, and the KPA has been in a tense balance. The KPA has lost a significant amount of economic influence because of the current regime, which continually shifts from what Kim Jong-il built his regime on, and may cause later internal issues.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: The foreign relations of North Korea have been shaped by its conflict with South Korea and its historical ties with world communism. Both the government of North Korea and the government of South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea) claim to be the sole legitimate government of the whole of Korea. The Korean War in the 1950s failed to resolve the issue, leaving North Korea locked in a military confrontation with South Korea and the United States Forces Korea across the Demilitarized Zone.


title: Politics of North Korea

text: At the start of the Cold War, North Korea only had diplomatic recognition by communist countries. Over the following decades, it established relations with developing countries and joined the Non-Aligned Movement. When the Eastern Bloc collapsed in the years 1989–1992, North Korea made efforts to improve its diplomatic relations with developed capitalist countries. At the same time, there were international efforts to resolve the confrontation on the Korean peninsula (known as the Korean conflict). At the same time, North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, adding to the concerns of the international community.


title: The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014 film)

text: The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a 2014 American slasher film and serves as a metafictional sequel to the 1976 film of the same name. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon in his feature-length directorial debut, the film was written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and produced by Jason Blum and Ryan Murphy. The film stars Addison Timlin, Travis Tope, Spencer Treat Clark, Veronica Cartwright and Gary Cole and was one of the last films of Ed Lauter and Edward Herrmann before their deaths in October 2013 and December 2014, respectively.


text: The project was initially planned as remake of the 1976 film of the same name, with Gomez-Rejon directing it from a screenplay written by Aguirre-Sacasa and produced by Jason Blum through its Blumhouse Productions banner, alongside "American Horror Story" co-creator Ryan Murphy. However, it was conceived as a sequel, with several elements and references from the original. Filming in Texarkana began Monday, June 17, 2013 and ended in the early morning of June 20, 2013.


text: "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" was theatrically released on October 16, 2014, by Orion Pictures. The film had grossed only $120,459 in its initial release and received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, who praised its production values, visuals and performances, but criticized its screenplay, unoriginality, and character development. As of February 2019, the film has grossed over $100k through video sales.


text: On October 31, 2013, in the city of Texarkana, the local drive-in theater is hosting the Halloween annual showing of the 1976 film "The Town That Dreaded Sundown", based on the true story of the Phantom Killer who murdered several people in Texarkana in 1946. Corey Holland and Jami Lerner leave to talk and kiss but The Phantom kills Corey, and tells Jami, "This is for Mary. Make them remember."


text: Two days before Thanksgiving, Kendra Collins-Thompson and her boyfriend, Daniel Torrens, are killed by the Phantom while having sex at a motel. The Phantom calls Jami with Corey's phone, telling her, "I'm going to do it again and again until you make them remember." She decides to tell her police escort, Deputy Foster. She is helped with her research into the killings by former classmate Nick Strain. Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Morales takes over the investigation. Jami receives an email from the Phantom and takes it to the police. Nick asks Jami to a vigil for the Phantom victims. There, a suicidal teenager shows up dressed as the Phantom and is killed, causing the townspeople to believe the murderer is actually dead. However, band members Johnny and Roy go to a junkyard to experiment sexually, where they are attacked by the real Phantom. The Phantom recreates the trombone weapon from the original film. Johnny is shot to death and Roy is stabbed.


text: Morales and Deputy Tillman visit Reverend Cartwright. They discovered that he sent Jami the email, but do not believe he is the Phantom. Jami learns that Charles B. Pierce's son is still alive and lives in Texarkana. On Christmas Eve, Tillman and his date are killed by the Phantom. Jami and Nick visit Charles Pierce Jr. and learn about Hank McCreedy, a sixth victim of the original Phantom whose story was forgotten. Pierce believes the new Phantom is McCreedy's grandson, because the family was angered that McCreedy's death was not remembered. McCreedy had a wife named Mary.


text: Lillian, Jami's grandmother, finds out that Jami was accepted into a college in California and decides to move there so Jami can go to school. Jami tells Nick she is leaving and they have sex. Nick is later killed by the Phantom. While leaving town, Jami pulls into a gas station. There, the Phantom starts firing from a window, killing Lillian and several others. Jami runs into the old Union train station and finds Nick's body. She is shot down by arrows and confronted by two Phantom Killers. One is Deputy Foster and the other is Corey, who faked his death. Foster is McCreedy's grandson. Corey tries to convince Jami they are the same: that Texarkana trapped them in roles they hated. He brags about how everyone will know what he did, and decides to kill her, but is killed by Foster who plans to kill Jami and blame the killings on her and Corey. Jami finds the gun and shoots Foster but his body is never found. Jami leaves Texarkana and moves on with her life. In the end, the Phantom's shadow is seen stalking Jami.


text: Ryan Murphy found the movie, brought it to me and said, "I wanna do it". I didn't find it. He brought it to me. I think he is an amazing, creative force, especially with horror. I think he thinks about horror in a really unique way. So, he pitched it to me and I really wanted to work with him. I didn't know the [original] movie. That's what got me interested in it. I have had a really good working relationship with him. And the whole point of why my business exists and why I'm such a fanatic about making movies inexpensively is that you get to do different stuff. We just wanted to try it. That's the fun thing. When you don't have a $20 million horror film, which is a typical horror movie studio budget, or a $180 million tent-pole budget, looming down at you, you can try new stuff. It may work or it may not work, but the fun is that we can try. It's a really weird movie to remake, and I really like doing weird things.


text: Though the film is about Texarkana, most of the film was shot in Shreveport, Louisiana in mid-May 2013 for a six-week shoot. Some of its locals were recruited as extras. Three of those days were filmed in Texarkana. Downtown State Line Avenue was decorated with out-of-season Christmas decorations on June 12. Filming in Texarkana began Monday, June 17 and ended in the early morning of June 20. The crew then finished filming in Shreveport.


text: "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" had its first screening at the 10th Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas on September 18–25, 2014, which director Gomez-Rejon attended, and then later at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, California on October 4, 2014. Its international debut was at the BFI London Film Festival on October 14, 2014. Both "Deadline Hollywood" and Bloody Disgusting indicated that the film would be released by Orion Pictures, a long-dormant subsidiary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in select theaters on October 16, 2014. The film was then released digitally on Video on Demand through Blumhouse Productions' new BH Tilt, a new label which releases films via multi-platform.


text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 66% approval rating based on 29 reviews with an average rating of 6/10. On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 47 based on five reviews.


text: "Variety" found the film lacking and said "this tediously metatextual exercise conjures few inspired jolts of its own." Chris Tilly of "IGN" said the film was "ultimately, not very good." "Bloody Disgusting" praised the film's visuals but said "It’s unfortunate that the script can’t reach the same bar—particularly when it comes to the tired twist ending, which seems to exist simply because the filmmakers assumed audiences would expect it."


text: "Empire Online" gave the film three stars and called it "Smart, fun, mid-list horror with Scream overtones." "Fangoria" gave the film three out of four skulls and said, "the plot somewhat falls apart in the third act... But despite this disappointing final blow, "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" is still well worth a visit."


text: Jonathan Romney of "The Guardian" gave the film three stars and called it "a southern-fried "Scream"" and said it "proves that a brazen lack of originality doesn’t preclude inventiveness and brio." However, Benjamin Lee also writing for "The Guardian" gave it two stars and called it "cookie-cutter carnage."


text: Image Entertainment acquired the U.S. home video distribution rights and released the film on DVD and Blu-ray exclusively at Best Buy on July 7, 2015.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: "1984" is an American television commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow at Chiat/Day, produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. English athlete Anya Major performed as the unnamed heroine and David Graham as Big Brother. In the US, it first aired in 10 local outlets, including Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chiat/Day ran the ad on December 31, 1983, at the last possible break before midnight on KMVT, so that the advertisement qualified for the 1984 Clio Awards. Its second televised airing, and only US national airing, was on January 22, 1984, during a break in the third quarter of the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: In one interpretation of the commercial, "1984" used the unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her white tank top with a stylized line drawing of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother). These images were an allusion to George Orwell's noted 1949 novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother". The estate of George Orwell and the television rightsholder to the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" considered the commercial to be a copyright infringement and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple and Chiat/Day in April 1984.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Originally a subject of contention within Apple, it has subsequently been called a watershed event and a masterpiece in advertising. In 1995, The Clio Awards added it to its Hall of Fame, and "Advertising Age" placed it on the top of its list of 50 greatest commercials.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The commercial opens with a dystopian, industrial setting in blue and grayish tones, showing a line of people (of ambiguous gender) marching in unison through a long tunnel monitored by a string of telescreens. This is in sharp contrast to the full-color shots of the nameless runner (Anya Major). She looks like a competitive track and field athlete, wearing an athletic "uniform" (red athletic shorts, running shoes, a white tank top with a cubist picture of Apple's Macintosh computer, a white sweat band on her left wrist, and a red one on her right), and is carrying a large brass-headed sledgehammer. Rows of marching minions evoke the opening scenes of "Metropolis".


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: As she is chased by four police officers (presumably agents of the Thought Police) wearing black uniforms, protected by riot gear, helmets with visors covering their faces, and armed with large night sticks, she races towards a large screen with the image of a Big Brother-like figure (David Graham, also seen on the telescreens earlier) giving a speech:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The runner, now close to the screen, hurls the hammer towards it, right at the moment Big Brother announces, “we shall prevail!” In a flurry of light and smoke, the screen is destroyed, leaving the audience in shock.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The commercial concludes with a portentous voiceover, accompanied by scrolling black text (in Apple's early signature "Garamond" typeface); the hazy, whitish-blue aftermath of the cataclysmic event serves as the background. It reads:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The commercial was created by the advertising agency Chiat/Day, of Venice, California, with copy by Steve Hayden, art direction by Brent Thomas, and creative direction by Lee Clow. The commercial "grew out of an abandoned print campaign" with a specific theme:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Ridley Scott (whose dystopian sci-fi film "Blade Runner" had been released one and a half years prior) was hired by agency producer Richard O'Neill to direct it. Less than two months after the Super Bowl airing, "The New York Times" reported that Scott "filmed it in England for about $370,000"; In 2005 writer Ted Friedman said the commercial had a then-"unheard-of production budget of $900,000."


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The actors who appeared in the commercial were paid $25 per day. Scott later admitted that he accepted brutal budget constraints because he believed in the ad's concept, outlining how the total cost was less than $250,000 and that he used local skinheads to portray the broken, pale "drones" in the commercial.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Steve Jobs and John Sculley were so enthusiastic about the final product that they "...purchased one and a half minutes of ad time for the Super Bowl, annually the most-watched television program in America. In December 1983 they screened the commercial for the Apple Board of Directors. To Jobs' and Sculley's surprise, the entire board hated the commercial." However, Sculley himself got "cold feet" and asked Chiat/Day to sell off the two commercial spots.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Despite the board's dislike of the film, Steve Wozniak and others at Apple showed copies to friends, and he offered to pay for half of the spot personally if Jobs paid the other half. This turned out to be unnecessary. Of the original ninety seconds booked, Chiat/Day resold thirty seconds to another advertiser, then claimed they could not sell the other 60 seconds, when in fact they did not even try.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: In his 1983 Apple keynote address, Steve Jobs read the following story before showcasing a preview of the commercial:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: In March 1984 Michael Tyler, a communications expert quoted by "The New York Times", said "The Apple ad expresses a potential of small computers. This potential may not automatically flow from the company's product. But if enough people held a shared intent, grass-roots electronic bulletin boards (through which computer users share messages) might result in better balancing of political power."


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Art director Brent Thomas said Apple "had wanted something to 'stop America in its tracks, to make people think about computers, to make them think about Macintosh.' With about $3.5 million worth of Macintoshes sold just after the advertisement ran, Thomas judged the effort 'absolutely successful.' 'We also set out to smash the old canard that the computer will enslave us,' he said. 'We did not say the computer will set us free—I have no idea how it will work out. This was strictly a marketing position.'"


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Ted Friedman, in his 2005 text, "Electric Dreams: Computers in American Culture", notes the impact of the commercial:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The "1984" ad became a signature representation of Apple computers. It was scripted as a thematic element in the 1999 docudrama, "Pirates of Silicon Valley", which explores the rise of Apple and Microsoft (the film opens and closes with references to the commercial, including a re-enactment of the heroine running towards the screen of "Big Brother" and clips of the original commercial).


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: The commercial was also prominent in the 20th anniversary celebration of the Macintosh in 2004, as Apple reposted a new version of the ad on its website and showed it during Jobs's Keynote Address at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California. In this updated version, an iPod, complete with signature white earbuds, was digitally added to the heroine. Keynote Attendees were given a poster showing the heroine with an iPod as a commemorative gift. And the ad has also been cited as the turning point for Super Bowl commercials, which had been important and popular before (especially with the Coca-Cola ad featuring Joe Greene from years earlier) but after "1984" those ads became the most expensive, creative and influential advertising set for all television coverage.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Revisiting the commercial in "Harper's Magazine" thirty years after it aired, social critic Rebecca Solnit suggested that "1984" did not so much herald a new era of liberation as a new era of oppression. In the December 2014 issue of the magazine, she wrote:


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: Media archivist (and early Apple supporter) Marion Stokes recorded said Super Bowl featuring the legendary ad, which was also featured in the 2019 documentary film "".


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: In March 2007, the advertisement attracted attention again when "Hillary 1984", a video mashup of the original commercial with footage of Hillary Clinton used in place of Big Brother, went viral in the early stages of the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. The video was produced in support of Barack Obama by Phil de Vellis, an employee of Blue State Digital, but was made without the knowledge of either Obama's campaign or his own employer. De Vellis stated that he made the video in one afternoon at home using a Mac and some software. Political commentators including Carla Marinucci and Arianna Huffington, as well as de Vellis himself, suggested that the video demonstrated the way technology had created new opportunities for individuals to make an impact on politics.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: In May 2010, Valve released a short video announcing the release of "Half-Life 2" on OS X featuring a recreation of the original commercial, with the people replaced with City 17's citizens, Big Brother with a speech from Wallace Breen, the agents of the Thought Police with Combine Soldiers, and the nameless runner with Alyx Vance.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: On August 13, 2020, Apple removed "Fortnite" from the App Store after Epic Games introduced a direct payment option that circumvented Apple's 30% revenue cut policy, violating terms of service policies. In response, Epic filed a lawsuit against Apple, and created a parody of the "1984" ad called "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite". In the ad, Big Brother is replaced by a personification of the Apple logo (Tart Tycoon) addressing an audience of "Fortnite"s default outfits, with the character Brite Bomber acting as the heroine.


title: 1984 (advertisement)

text: On August 26, 2022, South Korean girl group TWICE parodied the advertisement in their music video "Talk That Talk".


title: Caleb Bradham

text: Caleb Davis Bradham (May 27, 1867 – February 19, 1934) was an American pharmacist, best known as the inventor of soft drink Pepsi.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: Bradham was born Caleb Davis Bradham on May 27, 1867, in Chinquapin, North Carolina to George Washington Bradham, and Julia McCann Bradham. Bradham was of English and Irish descent.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of the Philanthropic Society, and attended the University of Maryland School of Medicine.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: Circa 1890, he dropped out of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, owing to his father's business going bankrupt. After returning to North Carolina, he was a public school teacher for about a year, and soon thereafter opened a drug store in New Bern named the "Bradham Drug Company" that, like many other drug stores of the time, also housed a soda fountain. Middle Street and Pollock Street in downtown New Bern, is where Bradham, in 1893, invented the recipe—a blend of kola nut extract, vanilla, and "rare oils"—for what was initially known as "Brad's Drink," but on August 28, 1898, was renamed Pepsi-Cola. Bradham named his drink after a combination of the terms “pepsin” and “cola,” as he believed that his drink aided digestion much like the pepsin enzyme does, even though it was not used as an ingredient. His assistant James Henry King was the first to taste the new drink.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: On December 24, 1902, the Pepsi-Cola Company was incorporated in North Carolina, with Bradham as the president, and on June 16, 1903, the first Pepsi-Cola trademark was registered. Also in 1903, he moved his Pepsi-Cola production out of his drug store and into a rented building nearby. In 1905, Bradham began selling Pepsi-Cola in six-ounce bottles (up until this time he sold Pepsi-Cola as a syrup only), and awarded two franchises to North Carolina bottlers.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: On January 4, 1901, Bradham married Charity Credle in New Bern, North Carolina. He owned the Slover-Bradham House from 1908 to 1934. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: In addition to running his drug store, he served as the president of the People's Bank of New Bern, and was a chairman of the Craven County Board of Commissioners. At one point he was even suggested as a candidate for governor of North Carolina. He also served as an officer in the naval reserve for 25 years; he was named a lieutenant in the North Carolina Naval Militia, was promoted to commander in 1904, and to captain in 1913. He retired as a rear admiral. Additionally, in 1914 he was appointed by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to the General Naval Militia Board.


title: Caleb Bradham

text: At the peak of success, Bradham had authorized Pepsi-Cola franchises in over 24 states; however, on May 31, 1923, Bradham and his Pepsi-Cola Company declared bankruptcy. The major factor for Bradham's business failure was the price of sugar immediately following World War I, when prices went up to 28 cents per pound (it was three cents per pound pre-war), and Bradham had purchased a large amount of sugar at that price but the price of sugar nosedived soon after he purchased it. The assets of his company were sold to the Craven Holding Company for $30,000. After declaring bankruptcy, Bradham returned to operating his drug store. He died on February 19, 1934, at New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: Walter Afanasieff (born Vladimir Nikitich Afanasyev; February 10, 1958), formerly nicknamed Baby Love in the 1980s, is an American record producer and songwriter of Russian-Chinese descent. He was a collaborator with Mariah Carey on her first six studio albums. He won the 1999 Grammy Award in the Record of the Year category for producing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, and the 2000 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: Afanasieff was born in São Paulo, Brazil. He is of Russian-Chinese descent; his maternal family is from China.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: Starting out as a working jazz musician in 1980, Afanasieff initially played keyboards with the jazz/fusion violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. Later, he formed The Warriors with another former Ponty sideman, guitarist Joaquin Lievano, and with 1980s music producer/songwriter and drummer Narada Michael Walden, and these experiences gave him the background and confidence to take an active role as a producer.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: Walden hired Afanasieff as a staff producer/arranger and began using him as a keyboardist on Whitney Houston's self-titled debut album released in 1985, which went on to become the artist's best-selling studio album to date. It was also during this time that Afanasieff and Walden began writing pop songs together. Together with his mentor Narada, Afanasieff's first major production was the title track of the James Bond movie "Licence to Kill", sung by Gladys Knight and co-written by Afanasieff and Walden.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: One of Afanasieff's biggest hits as a producer was "My Heart Will Go On", the theme tune to the 1997 film "Titanic", sung by Celine Dion. The song became the world's best-selling single of 1998. Afanasieff produced and arranged other motion picture soundtracks, including Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" (the Celine Dion/Peabo Bryson title-track duet), "Aladdin" ("A Whole New World") and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" ("Someday"). Afanasieff was also the producer and arranger for "Go the Distance", the Oscar-nominated Michael Bolton song from the animated film "Hercules".


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: Afanasieff created music with Mariah Carey from 1990 to 1998. He had a role in some of Carey's most successful songs, including "Hero", which he co-produced, co-wrote, and on which he played all of the music tracks. "Hero" was released as the second single from Carey's album "Music Box", and reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart on December 25, 1993. It remained at the top of the chart for four weeks. "Hero" has become one of Carey's signature songs, and Carey closes many of her concerts with it. Carey and Afanasieff also wrote "One Sweet Day", a duet between Carey and Boyz II Men, which held the record for the longest run at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (16 weeks) for 23 years; the record was matched in 2017 by "Despacito", and broken by "Old Town Road" in 2019. The song was nominated for the 1996 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and received the ASCAP Song of the Year Award for 1996. In 1994, Carey released the Christmas song "All I Want for Christmas Is You", composed by Afanasieff and herself. As of December 2018, the song has earned cumulative worldwide sales of over 14 million copies.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: In 2009, Afanasieff started working with Russian singer Yulia Nachalova. Their album "Wild Butterfly" was released in 2012 on iTunes. They later produced a video "Zhdi menya" ("Wait for Me") in Russian, released on iTunes in 2015.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: In 2014, Afanasieff became head of the composers/producers department at Isina, a worldwide talent search and development mentorship for those seeking to pursue a career in music.


title: Walter Afanasieff

text: In 2015, he became one of the mentors of the Russian TV project "Glavnaya Stsena" ("Main Stage"), the Russian version of "The X Factor".


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Ediacaran (; formerly Vendian) biota is a taxonomic period classification that consists of all life forms that were present on Earth during the Ediacaran Period (). These were composed of enigmatic tubular and frond-shaped, mostly sessile, organisms. Trace fossils of these organisms have been found worldwide, and represent the earliest known complex multicellular organisms.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Ediacaran biota may have undergone evolutionary radiation in a proposed event called the Avalon explosion, . This was after the Earth had thawed from the Cryogenian period's extensive glaciation. This biota largely disappeared with the rapid increase in biodiversity known as the Cambrian explosion. Most of the currently existing body plans of animals first appeared in the fossil record of the Cambrian rather than the Ediacaran. For macroorganisms, the Cambrian biota appears to have almost completely replaced the organisms that dominated the Ediacaran fossil record, although relationships are still a matter of debate.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The organisms of the Ediacaran Period first appeared around and flourished until the cusp of the Cambrian , when the characteristic communities of fossils vanished. A diverse Ediacaran community was discovered in 1995 in Sonora, Mexico, and is approximately 555 million years in age, roughly coeval with Ediacaran fossils of the Ediacara Hills in South Australia and the White Sea on the coast of Russia. While rare fossils that may represent survivors have been found as late as the Middle Cambrian (510 to 500 million years ago), the earlier fossil communities disappear from the record at the end of the Ediacaran leaving only curious fragments of once-thriving ecosystems. Multiple hypotheses exist to explain the disappearance of this biota, including preservation bias, a changing environment, the advent of predators and competition from other life-forms. A sampling, reported in 2018, of late Ediacaran strata across Baltica suggests the flourishing of the organisms coincided with conditions of low overall productivity with a very high percentage produced by bacteria, which may have led to high concentrations of dissolved organic material in the oceans.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Determining where Ediacaran organisms fit in the tree of life has proven challenging; it is not even established that most of them were animals, with suggestions that they were lichens (fungus-alga symbionts), algae, protists known as foraminifera, fungi or microbial colonies, or hypothetical intermediates between plants and animals. The morphology and habit of some taxa (e.g. "Funisia dorothea") suggest relationships to Porifera or Cnidaria (e.g. "Auroralumina"). "Kimberella" may show a similarity to molluscs, and other organisms have been thought to possess bilateral symmetry, although this is controversial. Most macroscopic fossils are morphologically distinct from later life-forms: they resemble discs, tubes, mud-filled bags or quilted mattresses. Due to the difficulty of deducing evolutionary relationships among these organisms, some palaeontologists have suggested that these represent completely extinct lineages that do not resemble any living organism. Palaeontologist Adolf Seilacher proposed a separate subkingdom level category Vendozoa (now renamed Vendobionta) in the Linnaean hierarchy for the Ediacaran biota. If these enigmatic organisms left no descendants, their strange forms might be seen as a "failed experiment" in multicellular life, with later multicellular life evolving independently from unrelated single-celled organisms. A 2018 study confirmed that one of the period's most-prominent and iconic fossils, "Dickinsonia", included cholesterol, suggesting affinities to animals, fungi, or red algae.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The first Ediacaran fossils discovered were the disc-shaped "Aspidella terranovica" in 1868. Their discoverer, Scottish geologist Alexander Murray, found them useful aids for correlating the age of rocks around Newfoundland. However, since they lay below the "Primordial Strata" of the Cambrian that was then thought to contain the very first signs of animal life, a proposal four years after their discovery by Elkanah Billings that these simple forms represented fauna was dismissed by his peers. Instead, they were interpreted as gas escape structures or inorganic concretions. No similar structures elsewhere in the world were then known and the one-sided debate soon fell into obscurity. In 1933, Georg Gürich discovered specimens in Namibia but the firm belief that complex life originated in the Cambrian led to them being assigned to the Cambrian Period and no link to "Aspidella" was made. In 1946, Reg Sprigg noticed "jellyfishes" in the Ediacara Hills of Australia's Flinders Ranges but these rocks were believed to be Early Cambrian so, while the discovery sparked some interest, little serious attention was garnered.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It was not until the British discovery of the iconic "Charnia" that the Precambrian was seriously considered as containing life. This frond-shaped fossil was found in England's Charnwood Forest first by a 15 year-old girl in 1956 (Tina Negus, who was not believed) and then the next year by a group of three schoolboys including 15 year-old Roger Mason. Due to the detailed geological mapping of the British Geological Survey, there was no doubt these fossils sat in Precambrian rocks. Palaeontologist Martin Glaessner finally, in 1959, made the connection between this and the earlier finds and with a combination of improved dating of existing specimens and an injection of vigour into the search many more instances were recognised.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: All specimens discovered until 1967 were in coarse-grained sandstone that prevented preservation of fine details, making interpretation difficult. S.B. Misra's discovery of fossiliferous ash-beds at the Mistaken Point assemblage in Newfoundland changed all this as the delicate detail preserved by the fine ash allowed the description of features that were previously undiscernible. It was also the first discovery of Ediacarans in deep water sediments.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Poor communication, combined with the difficulty in correlating globally distinct formations, led to a plethora of different names for the biota.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: In 1960 the French name "Ediacarien" – after the Ediacara Hills – was added to the competing terms "Sinian" and "Vendian" for terminal-Precambrian rocks, and these names were also applied to the life-forms. "Ediacaran" and "Ediacarian" were subsequently applied to the epoch or period of geological time and its corresponding rocks. In March 2004, the International Union of Geological Sciences ended the inconsistency by formally naming the terminal period of the Neoproterozoic after the Australian locality.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The term "Ediacaran biota" and similar ("Ediacara" / "Ediacaran" / "Ediacarian" / "Vendian" and "fauna" / "biota") has, at various times, been used in a geographic, stratigraphic, taphonomic, or biological sense, with the latter the most common in modern literature.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Microbial mats are areas of sediment stabilised by the presence of colonies of microbes that secrete sticky fluids or otherwise bind the sediment particles. They appear to migrate upwards when covered by a thin layer of sediment but this is an illusion caused by the colony's growth; individuals do not, themselves, move. If too thick a layer of sediment is deposited before they can grow or reproduce through it, parts of the colony will die leaving behind fossils with a characteristically wrinkled ("elephant skin") and tubercular texture.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Some Ediacaran strata with the texture characteristics of microbial mats contain fossils, and Ediacaran fossils are almost always found in beds that contain these microbial mats. Although microbial mats were once widespread, the evolution of grazing organisms in the Cambrian vastly reduced their numbers. These communities are now limited to inhospitable refugia, such as the stromatolites found in Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve in Shark Bay, Western Australia, where the salt levels can be twice those of the surrounding sea.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The preservation of these fossils is one of their great fascinations to science. As soft-bodied organisms, they would normally not fossilize and, unlike later soft-bodied fossil biota such as the Burgess Shale or Solnhofen Limestone, the Ediacaran biota is not found in a restricted environment subject to unusual local conditions: They were a global phenomenon. The processes that were operating must have been systemic and worldwide. There was something very different about the Ediacaran Period that permitted these delicate creatures to be left behind and it is thought the fossils were preserved by virtue of rapid covering by ash or sand, trapping them against the mud or microbial mats on which they lived. Their preservation was possibly enhanced by the high concentration of silica in the oceans before silica-secreting organisms such as sponges and diatoms became prevalent. Ash beds provide more detail and can readily be dated to the nearest million years or better using radiometric dating.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: However, it is more common to find Ediacaran fossils under sandy beds deposited by storms or high-energy bottom-scraping ocean currents known as turbidites. Soft-bodied organisms today rarely fossilize during such events, but the presence of widespread microbial mats probably aided preservation by stabilising their impressions in the sediment below.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The rate of cementation of the overlying substrate relative to the rate of decomposition of the organism determines whether the top or bottom surface of an organism is preserved. Most disc-shaped fossils decomposed before the overlying sediment was cemented, whereupon ash or sand slumped in to fill the void, leaving a cast of the organism's underside.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Conversely, quilted fossils tended to decompose "after" the cementation of the overlying sediment; hence their upper surfaces are preserved. Their more resistant nature is reflected in the fact that, in rare occasions, quilted fossils are found "within" storm beds as the high-energy sedimentation did not destroy them as it would have the less-resistant discs. Further, in some cases, the bacterial precipitation of minerals formed a "death mask", ultimately leaving a positive, cast-like impression of the organism.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Ediacaran biota exhibited a vast range of morphological characteristics. Size ranged from millimetres to metres; complexity from "blob-like" to intricate; rigidity from sturdy and resistant to jelly-soft. Almost all forms of symmetry were present. These organisms differed from earlier fossils by displaying an organised, differentiated multicellular construction and centimetre-plus sizes.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Classification of the Ediacarans is difficult, and hence a variety of theories exist as to their placement on the tree of life.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Martin Glaessner proposed in "The Dawn of Animal Life" (1984) that the Ediacaran biota were recognizable crown group members of modern phyla, but were unfamiliar because they had yet to evolve the characteristic features we use in modern classification.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: In 1998 Mark McMenamin claimed Ediacarans did not possess an embryonic stage, and thus could not be animals. He believed that they independently evolved a nervous system and brains, meaning that "the path toward intelligent life was embarked upon more than once on this planet".


title: Ediacaran biota

text: In 2018 analysis of ancient sterols was taken as evidence that one of the period's most-prominent and iconic fossils, "Dickinsonia", was an early animal.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Since the most primitive eumetazoans—multi-cellular animals with tissues—are cnidarians, and the first recognized Ediacaran fossil "Charnia" looks very much like a sea pen, the first attempt to categorise these fossils designated them as jellyfish and sea pens. However, more recent discoveries have established that many of the circular forms formerly considered "cnidarian medusa" are actually holdfasts – sand-filled vesicles occurring at the base of the stem of upright frond-like Ediacarans. A notable example is the form known as "Charniodiscus", a circular impression later found to be attached to the long 'stem' of a frond-like organism that now bears the name.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The link between certain frond-like Ediacarans and sea pens has been thrown into doubt by multiple lines of evidence; chiefly the derived nature of the most frond-like pennatulacean octocorals, their absence from the fossil record before the Tertiary, and the apparent cohesion between segments in Ediacaran frond-like organisms. Some researchers have suggested that an analysis of "growth poles" discredits the pennatulacean nature of Ediacaran fronds.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: This leaves the Canadian polyp "Haootia" and the British "Auroralumina" as the only recognized cnidarian body fossils from the Ediacaran, both being sessile forms showing a quadrilateral symmetry of the body. So while this shows that Cnidarians were already well established in the Ediacaran period, the question remains if there were only sessile polyps or that a medusal stage had also developed.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Adolf Seilacher has suggested the Ediacaran sees animals usurping giant protists as the dominant life form. The modern xenophyophores are giant single-celled protozoans found throughout the world's oceans, largely on the abyssal plain. A recent genetic study suggested that the xenophyophores are a specialised group of Foraminifera. There are approximately 42 recognised species in 13 genera and 2 orders; one of which, "Syringammina fragilissima", is among the largest known protozoans at up to in diameter.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Seilacher has suggested that the Ediacaran organisms represented a unique and extinct grouping of related forms descended from a common ancestor (clade) and created the kingdom Vendozoa, named after the now-obsolete Vendian era. He later excluded fossils identified as metazoans and relaunched the phylum "Vendobionta".


title: Ediacaran biota

text: He described the Vendobionta as 'quilted' cnidarians lacking stinging cells. This absence precludes the current cnidarian method of feeding, so Seilacher suggested that the organisms may have survived by symbiosis with photosynthetic or chemoautotrophic organisms. Mark McMenamin saw such feeding strategies as characteristic for the entire biota, and referred to the marine biota of this period as a "Garden of Ediacara".


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Greg Retallack has proposed that Ediacaran organisms were lichens. He argues that thin sections of Ediacaran fossils show lichen-like compartments and hypha-like wisps of ferruginized clay, and that Ediacaran fossils have been found in strata that he interprets as desert soils.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The suggestion has been disputed by other scientists; some have described the evidence as ambiguous and unconvincing, for instance noting that "Dickinsonia" fossils have been found on rippled surfaces (suggesting a marine environment), while trace fossils like "Radulichnus" could not have been caused by needle ice as Retallack has proposed. Ben Waggoner notes that the suggestion would place the root of the Cnidaria back from around 900 mya to between 1500 mya and 2000 mya, contradicting much other evidence. Matthew Nelsen, examining phylogenies of ascomycete fungi and chlorophyte algae (components of lichens), calibrated for time, finds no support for the hypothesis that lichens predated the vascular plants.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Several classifications have been used to accommodate the Ediacaran biota at some point, from algae, to protozoans, to fungi to bacterial or microbial colonies, to hypothetical intermediates between plants and animals.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: A new extant genus discovered in 2014, "Dendrogramma", which at the time of discovery appeared to be a basal metazoan but of unknown taxonomic placement, had been noted to have similarities with the Ediacaran fauna. It has since been found to be a siphonophore, possibly even sections of a more complex species, though this in turn has raised suspicions for a similar status for at least some Ediacaran organisms.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It took almost 4 billion years from the formation of the Earth for the Ediacaran fossils to first appear, 655 million years ago. While putative fossils are reported from , the first uncontroversial evidence for life is found , and cells with nuclei certainly existed by : The reason why it took so long for forms with an Ediacaran grade of organisation to appear is uncertain.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It could be that no special explanation is required: the slow process of evolution simply required 4 billion years to accumulate the necessary adaptations. Indeed, there does seem to be a slow increase in the maximum level of complexity seen over this time, with more and more complex forms of life evolving as time progresses, with traces of earlier semi-complex life such as "Nimbia", found in the Twitya formation, and older rocks dating to in Kazakhstan, possibly displaying the most complex morphology of the time.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The alternative train of thought is that it was simply not advantageous to be large until the appearance of the Ediacarans: the environment favoured the small over the large. Examples of such scenarios today include plankton, whose small size allows them to reproduce rapidly to take advantage of ephemerally abundant nutrients in algal blooms. But for large size "never" to be favourable, the environment would have to be very different indeed.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: A primary size-limiting factor is the amount of atmospheric oxygen. Without a complex circulatory system, low concentrations of oxygen cannot reach the centre of an organism quickly enough to supply its metabolic demand.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: On the early Earth, reactive elements, such as iron and uranium, existed in a reduced form that would react with any free oxygen produced by photosynthesising organisms. Oxygen would not be able to build up in the atmosphere until all the iron had rusted (producing banded iron formations), and all the other reactive elements had been oxidised.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Donald Canfield detected records of the first significant quantities of atmospheric oxygen just before the first Ediacaran fossils appeared – and the presence of atmospheric oxygen was soon heralded as a possible trigger for the Ediacaran radiation. Oxygen seems to have accumulated in two pulses; the rise of small, sessile (stationary) organisms seems to correlate with an early oxygenation event, with larger and mobile organisms appearing around the second pulse of oxygenation. However, the assumptions underlying the reconstruction of atmospheric composition have attracted some criticism, with widespread anoxia having little effect on life where it occurs in the Early Cambrian and the Cretaceous.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Periods of intense cold have also been suggested as a barrier to the evolution of multicellular life.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The earliest known embryos, from China's Doushantuo Formation, appear just a million years after the Earth emerged from a global glaciation, suggesting that ice cover and cold oceans may have prevented the emergence of multicellular life. Potentially, complex life may have evolved before these glaciations, and been wiped out. However, the diversity of life in modern Antarctica has sparked disagreement over whether cold temperatures increase or decrease the rate of evolution.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: In early 2008 a team analysed the range of basic body structures ("disparity") of Ediacaran organisms from three different fossil beds: Avalon in Canada, to ; White Sea in Russia, to ; and Nama in Namibia, to , immediately before the start of the Cambrian. They found that, while the White Sea assemblage had the most species, there was no significant difference in disparity between the three groups, and concluded that before the beginning of the Avalon timespan these organisms must have gone through their own evolutionary "explosion", which may have been similar to the famous Cambrian explosion .


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The paucity of Ediacaran fossils after the Cambrian could simply be due to conditions that no longer favoured the fossilisation of Ediacaran organisms, which may have continued to thrive unpreserved. However, if they were common, more than the occasional specimen might be expected in exceptionally preserved fossil assemblages (Konservat-Lagerstätten) such as the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang. There are at present no widely accepted reports of Ediacara-type organisms in the Cambrian period, though there are a few disputed reports, as well as unpublished observations of 'vendobiont' fossils from 535 Ma Orsten-type deposits in China.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It is suggested that by the Early Cambrian, organisms higher in the food chain caused the microbial mats to largely disappear. If these grazers first appeared as the Ediacaran biota started to decline, then it may suggest that they destabilised the microbial substrate, leading to displacement or detachment of the biota; or that the destruction of the mat destabilised the ecosystem, causing extinctions.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Alternatively, skeletonised animals could have fed directly on the relatively undefended Ediacaran biota.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: However, if the interpretation of the Ediacaran age "Kimberella" as a grazer is correct then this suggests that the biota had already had limited exposure to "predation".


title: Ediacaran biota

text: There is however little evidence for any trace fossils in the Ediacaran Period, which may speak against the active grazing theory. Further, the onset of the Cambrian Period is defined by the appearance of a worldwide trace fossil assemblage, quite distinct from the activity-barren Ediacaran Period.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It is possible that increased competition due to the evolution of key innovations among other groups, perhaps as a response to predation, drove the Ediacaran biota from their niches.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: However, this argument has not successfully explained similar phenomena. For instance, the bivalve molluscs' "competitive exclusion" of brachiopods was eventually deemed to be a coincidental result of two unrelated trends.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: While it is difficult to infer the effect of changing planetary conditions on organisms, communities and ecosystems, great changes were happening at the end of the Precambrian and the start of the Early Cambrian. The breakup of the supercontinents, rising sea levels (creating shallow, "life-friendly" seas), a nutrient crisis, fluctuations in atmospheric composition, including oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, and changes in ocean chemistry (promoting biomineralisation) could all have played a part.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: Ediacaran-type fossils are recognised globally in 25 localities and a variety of depositional conditions, and are commonly grouped into three main types, known as assemblages and named after typical localities. Each assemblage tends to occupy its own region of morphospace, and after an initial burst of diversification changes little for the rest of its existence.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Avalon-type assemblage is defined at Mistaken Point in Canada, the oldest locality with a large quantity of Ediacaran fossils.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The assemblage is easily dated because it contains many fine ash-beds, which are a good source of zircons used in the uranium-lead method of radiometric dating. These fine-grained ash beds also preserve exquisite detail. Constituents of this biota appear to survive through until the extinction of all Ediacarans at the base of the Cambrian.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: One interpretation of the biota is as deep-sea-dwelling rangeomorphs such as "Charnia", all of which share a fractal growth pattern. They were probably preserved "in situ" (without post-mortem transportation), although this point is not universally accepted. The assemblage, while less diverse than the Ediacara- or Nama-types, resembles Carboniferous suspension-feeding communities, which may suggest filter feeding – by most interpretations, the assemblage is found in water too deep for photosynthesis. The low diversity may reflect the depth of water – which would restrict speciation opportunities – or it may just be too young for a rich biota to have evolved. Opinion is currently divided between these conflicting hypotheses.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Ediacara-type assemblage is named after Australia's Ediacara Hills, and consists of fossils preserved in facies of coastal lagoons and rivers. They are typically found in red gypsiferous and calcareous paleosols formed on loess and flood deposits in an arid cool temperate paleoclimate. Most fossils are preserved as imprints in microbial earths, but a few are preserved "within" sandy units.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: The Nama assemblage is best represented in Namibia. Three-dimensional preservation is most common, with organisms preserved in sandy beds containing internal bedding. Dima Grazhdankin believes that these fossils represent burrowing organisms, while Guy Narbonne maintains they were surface dwellers. These beds are sandwiched between units comprising interbedded sandstones, siltstones and shales – with microbial mats, where present, usually containing the fossils. The environment is interpreted as sand bars formed at the mouth of a delta's distributaries. Mattress-like vendobionts ("Ernietta", "Pteridinium", "Rangea") in these sandstones form a very different assemblage from vermiform fossils ("Cloudina", "Namacalathus") of Ediacaran "wormworld" in marine dolomite of Namibia.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: In the White Sea region of Russia, all three assemblage types have been found in close proximity. This, and the faunas' considerable temporal overlap, makes it unlikely that they represent evolutionary stages or temporally distinct communities. Since they are globally distributed – described on all continents except Antarctica – geographical boundaries do not appear to be a factor; the same fossils are found at all palaeolatitudes (the latitude where the fossil was created, accounting for continental drift) and in separate sedimentary basins.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It is most likely that the three assemblages mark organisms adapted to survival in different environments, and that any apparent patterns in diversity or age are in fact an artefact of the few samples that have been discovered – the timeline (right) demonstrates the paucity of Ediacaran fossil-bearing assemblages. An analysis of one of the White Sea fossil beds, where the layers cycle from continental seabed to inter-tidal to estuarine and back again a few times, found that a specific set of Ediacaran organisms was associated with each environment.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: As the Ediacaran biota represent an early stage in multicellular life's history, it is unsurprising that not all possible modes of life are occupied.


title: Ediacaran biota

text: It has been estimated that of 92 potentially possible modes of life – combinations of feeding style, tiering and motility — no more than a dozen are occupied by the end of the Ediacaran. Just four are represented in the Avalon assemblage. The lack of large-scale predation and vertical burrowing are perhaps the most significant factors limiting the ecological diversity; the emergence of these during the Early Cambrian allowed the number of lifestyles occupied to rise to 30.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The national flag of Azerbaijan (), often referred to in Azerbaijani as (), is a horizontal tricolour that features three equally sized bars of bright blue, red, and green; a white crescent; and a centred eight-pointed star. The flag has become the predominant and most recognizable symbol of Azerbaijan. The bright blue represents Azerbaijan's Turkic heritage, the red represents progress, and the green represents Islam, which is Azerbaijan's majority religion.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The Azerbaijani Flag Day, held every year on 9 November, was established by Law No. 595 on 17 November 2009. The day commemorates the first official adoption of the tricolour as a national flag by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which occurred on 9 November 1918. The flag was used by the republic until the 1920 Soviet invasion of Azerbaijan. It was reinstated, with slight variations to the colours and size, on 5 February 1991 following the country's independence from the Soviet Union.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The flag is referred to in the national constitution and mentioned twice in the national anthem, Azərbaycan marşı. On land, the flag is used as the civil, state and war flag; at sea, it is used as the civil, state, naval ensigns, and the naval jack. The Azerbaijani law regulates the flag's use and display, protecting it from desecration. The flag also has official status in Nakhchivan, an autonomous republic within Azerbaijan.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: On 28 May 1918, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) declared independence. One of the first actions of the republic was the adoption of national symbols. Taking inspiration from the Flag of the Ottoman Empire, the ADR adopted its first state flag on 21 June 1918, which depicted a white crescent and a white eight-pointed star on a red background. The new flag was almost identical to the old Ottoman Empire flag, which also featured an eight-pointed star until 1844 when it was replaced by a five-pointed star. The similarities between the flags reflected the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire at the time, as well as the ethnic kinship between the Turkic populations of ADR and the Ottoman Empire.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: Within a few months, the newly adopted flag began to be questioned due to it exclusively representing Turkism. Thus, it was suggested that a new flag be created. The new flag was to reflect three ideas: Turkism, Islamism and the desire for progress. These ideas reflected the official ideology of ADR, which was "Turkification, Islamization, and Modernization". The formation of these ideas was influenced by the work of Islamic ideologist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who, in his books "The Philosophy of National Unity and the True Essence of Religious Unification" and "Islamic Unity", wrote that the progress of Muslim peoples is possible under the condition of religious consolidation, national unity and the study of the progressive traditions of European statehood.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: On 9 November 1918, a draft of an updated state flag was approved. Created by Ali bey Huseynzade, the new flag was a horizontal tricolour of blue, red and green with a white crescent and an eight-pointed star placed in the centre.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: On 7 December 1918, the updated state flag was raised over Azerbaijan's parliament building. In a speech to the parliament, Mammad Amin Rasulzade, the Azerbaijani National Council chairman who had declared ADR's independence, stated: "[...] and for this reason, gentlemen, the National Council has raised this three-coloured flag, which represents Azerbaijan, and this flag, the symbol of Turkic sovereignty, Islamic culture, and modern European power, will always fly above us. This flag, once raised, will never come down again".


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: After the fall of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in April 1920 following the Red Army invasion, their flag was used by emigrant organizations outside the Soviet Union. During World War II, the ADR flag was used by the battalions of the Azerbaijani Legion, who were military formations of ethnic Azerbaijanis fighting on the side of Nazi Germany. Depicted on the sleeve emblems of the Azerbaijan Legion's uniforms were three horizontal equal stripes of blue, red and green; a white crescent; and a five-pointed star on a red field.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The ADR flag was used during a congress of Azerbaijanis headed by former Soviet Azerbaijani major Abdurrahman Fatalibeyli, held in Berlin, Germany on 6 November 1943. In 1922, Mammad Amin Rasulzade fled from Soviet Russia, through Finland and to Turkey. While there in 1952, he made a copy of the ADR flag, which he later gave to his friend Gulmirza Baghirov. Baghirov secretly brought the flag to Azerbaijan and hung it on his home in Maştağa in 1976. It was given to the National Museum of History of Azerbaijan in July 2003 and has since been kept in the museum.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: In 1956, a protestor named Jahid Hilaloghlu raised the ADR flag over Maiden Tower in Baku, showing his defiance of Soviet Azerbaijan. Hilaloghlu was sentenced to four years of imprisonment and his supporter Chingiz Abdullayev was institutionalized.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: On 28 April 1920, Azerbaijan became a Soviet republic, as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Soviet Azerbaijan). The state flags of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic were banned during this period. While under Soviet rule, the Soviet Azerbaijan used eight different flags. Most of the flags only variated slightly. The adaptations were the result of the chaotic early years of the Soviet Union in the Caucasus. The first unofficial Soviet Azerbaijan flag was used during the Soviet conquest of Baku on 28 April 1920.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: Soviet Azerbaijan's first official flag was adopted on 19 May 1921, in its first constitution under Article 104. At the time, the state language of Soviet Azerbaijan was Azerbaijani Turkic and its alphabet was based on the Arabic script. Therefore, the words "A.S.R." were written in Arabic. The eighth and final flag of Soviet Azerbaijan was issued on 7 October 1952. The design was similar to the Soviet national flag but included a horizontal blue band on the bottom, which took up a quarter of the flag's height. The flag's definition was as follows:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: In the late 1980s, during unrest in Soviet Azerbaijan, the tricolour Azerbaijan Democratic Republic flag was used in demonstrations calling for independence. On 17 November 1990, during the first session of the Supreme Assembly of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, the 1918 ADR flag was adopted as the national flag of the autonomous state. This flag was later adopted with the decree, "On change the name and national flag of Azerbaijan SSR". The decree was issued on 29 November 1990 by the president of Azerbaijan SSR and ratified on 5 February 1991 by the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SRR. The first constitution since independence was adopted on 12 November 1995 after a national vote; one of the articles described the three-colour flag of the republic.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: On 17 November 2007, the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev issued a decree "On creation of the National Flag Square" in Baku. The square had a 162 metre tall flag pole weighing 220 tons. The flag flown on the pole was 35 meters wide and 70 metres long, and weighed 350 kilograms. A museum dedicated to the national flag was also built at the flagpole. On 1 September 2010, the flag was officially raised to open the museum; subsequently becoming the world's tallest unsupported flagpole, until being overtaken by Tajikistan 165 meter Dushanbe Flagpole in 2011. The flagpole was dismantled in 2017 following repeated incidents of the flag being ripped by the wind.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The national flag of Azerbaijan consists of three horizontal stripes of equal width, from top to bottom: light blue, red, and green. A white crescent and an eight-pointed star are in the centre. The basic description of the flag, along with its ratio, is indicated in the Constitution of Azerbaijan:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: Further specifications of the flag were detailed in the presidential decree, "On the National Flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan", issued on 5 February 1991. The ratio was kept at 1:2, which was used during the Soviet era. Each stripe fully extends to one-third of the flag's total height. The star and crescent are placed in the centre of the red stripe. The outside diameter of both the crescent and the red inside circle intersects with the diameter of the star. The diameter of the star is one-sixth the height of the flag, while the inscribed circle within the star is one-twelfth the height of the flag.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The flag is coloured green, red, sky blue, and white. The exact specifications for its colours were issued in the 2004 decree "On the Rules of the National Flag of the Republic of Azerbaijan". The colours, later updated in 2013 and specified in Pantone, are as follows:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The colour scheme used between 2004 and 2013 (approximate colors of the flag used in 1918–1920) is as follows:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The bright blue symbolizes the Turkic heritage of Azerbaijan, the red reflects the creation of a modern state and the development of democracy, and green symbolizes Islam. In the centre of the flag, appearing on both the front and the back, exists a crescent and star, made from a white crescent and an eight-pointed star.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: While the crescent and star are typically seen as markers of Islam, some historians and researchers disagree about why the eight-pointed star is on the flag. Fatali Khan Khoyski points to the eight letters in the word "Azerbaijan" (آذربایجان) when written in Arabic. The eight points of the star are also thought to stand for the eight Turkic peoples classified in pre-Soviet times: Azeris, Ottomans (Turks), Jagatais, Tatars, Kipchaks, Seljuks, and Turkomans. It is possible the Kipchaks actually reflect two peoples, the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, which would make eight.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: According to Article 2 of Law No. 683 of the Republic of Azerbaijan, dated 8 June 2004 (as amended on 1 September 2005), the national flag must be raised by the following:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The national flag must also be raised over the buildings, military courts and headquarters of military units and naval vessels of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the following cases:


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: When hanging upright without a flagpole, the Azerbaijani flag must be placed on the wall of the building in a vertical position, so that the green side of the flag appears on the left.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: Flag desecration in Azerbaijan is considered a crime. According to Article 324 Criminal Code of Azerbaijan "Desecration of the State Flag or the State Emblem of the Republic of Azerbaijan" is punishable by restriction of liberties for up to two years or imprisonment for up to one year. Desecration can be expressed in the commission by persons over the age of 16 of a wide variety of active public actions, indicating a disrespectful attitude towards the flag, for example, its destruction, damage, or cynical drawings or inscriptions.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The Day of the State Flag of Azerbaijan was established by Law No. 595, enacted 17 November 2009 by president Ilham Aliyev. It is held annually on 9 November. The date is considered a non-working day in the country. During his speech at the opening ceremony of the State Flag Square, Ilham Aliyev stated that the reason for signing the order on 17 November was that the ADR flag was reinstated as the state flag of Republic of Azerbaijan on 17 November 1990.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The expression by Rasulzade (; "The flag once raised will never fall!") was the rallying cry of Azerbaijani independence in early 20th century. In 1919, Jafar Jabbarly wrote the poem, "To Azerbaijani flag" in dedication to the state symbols of Azerbaijan.


title: Flag of Azerbaijan

text: The national flag is also mentioned in the national anthem of Azerbaijan, "Azərbaycan marşı" (), in the fifth and fifteenth sentences. The passages have the following unofficial English translation: "With three colour banner live happily!" and "To hold high your honoured flag."


title: John Conroy

text: Sir John Ponsonby Conroy, 1st Baronet, KCH (21 October 1786 – 2 March 1854) was a British Army officer who served as comptroller to the Duchess of Kent and her young daughter, Princess Victoria, the future Queen of the United Kingdom.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy was born in Wales to Anglo-Irish parents. In 1817, after holding several ranks in the army, he became the equerry of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. The Duke died two years later, leaving a widow and infant daughter. Holding the position of comptroller of the Duchess of Kent's household for the next nineteen years, Conroy also acted as her confidant and political agent, among other roles. Together, they designed the Kensington System, an elaborate and strict system of rules for the upbringing of young Victoria, designed to render her weak-willed and utterly dependent upon them in the hope of allowing them one day to wield power through her.


title: John Conroy

text: Princess Victoria grew to hate Conroy, thanks to the oppressive system, and he was also unpopular among the rest of the British royal family. His efforts to place the Duchess in the role of regent were ultimately unsuccessful, as Victoria ascended the throne after reaching her majority in 1837. Conroy was immediately expelled from Victoria's household, though he remained in the Duchess of Kent's service for several more years. Given a pension and a baronetcy, Conroy retired to his estate near Reading, Berkshire, in 1842 and died heavily in debt twelve years later.


title: John Conroy

text: Historians have often referred to Conroy as someone with strong ambition, with varying degrees of positive or negative opinion. Rumours circulated during and after his lifetime that he was perhaps the Duchess of Kent's lover. Queen Victoria was shocked to hear this, stating that her mother's piety would have prevented it.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy was born on 21 October 1786 in Maes-y-castell, Caerhun, Caernarfonshire, Wales. He was one of six children born to John Ponsonby Conroy, Esq., and Margaret Wilson, both native to Ireland. His father was a barrister and the younger Conroy was privately educated in Dublin. On 8 September 1803, he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery as a Second Lieutenant and was promoted to first lieutenant on 12 September. In 1805, Conroy enrolled in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He made his career during the Napoleonic Wars, though his ability to avoid battle attracted disdain from other officers. Conroy did not participate in the Peninsular War or the Waterloo Campaign.


title: John Conroy

text: Further advancement of rank was facilitated with Conroy's marriage to Elizabeth Fisher on 26 December 1808 in Dublin, though not as far as Conroy felt he deserved. Elizabeth was the daughter of Colonel (later Major-General) Benjamin Fisher and Conroy served under him in Ireland and England while performing various administrative duties. Conroy was promoted to Second Captain on 13 March 1811 and appointed adjutant in the Corps of Artillery Drivers on 11 March 1817.


title: John Conroy

text: Through the connection of his wife's uncle, Conroy came to the attention of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Conroy was appointed as an equerry in 1817, shortly before the Duke's marriage to Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. An efficient organiser, Conroy's planning ensured the Duke and Duchess' speedy return to England in time for the birth of their first child. The child was Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, later Queen Victoria.


title: John Conroy

text: While the Duke of Kent had promised Conroy military advancement, he was still a captain by the time of the Duke's death in 1820. Conroy was named an executor of the Duke's will, though he was unsuccessful in persuading the dying man to name him Victoria's guardian. Aware that he needed to find another source of revenue quickly, Conroy offered his services as comptroller to the now-widowed Duchess of Kent and her infant daughter. He retired from military service on half-pay in 1822.


title: John Conroy

text: Together in a hostile environment, Conroy's relationship with the Duchess was very close, with him serving as her comptroller and private secretary for the next nineteen years, as well as holding the unofficial roles of public relations officer, counsellor, confidant and political agent. While it is not clear which of the two was more responsible for devising the Kensington System, it was created to govern young Victoria's upbringing.


title: John Conroy

text: An elaborate and oppressive system of rules regulating every facet of Victoria's life, it kept her in reclusive isolation most of the time, with the goal of making her weak, compliant and utterly dependent upon her mother and Conroy. The intention was for the Duchess to be appointed regent upon Victoria's (assumed youthful) ascension and for Conroy to be created Victoria's private secretary and given a peerage.


title: John Conroy

text: Aware of the reasons behind King George IV's unpopularity, Conroy promoted a public image of the Duchess that was pure, modest and decorous, while at the same time increasing her paranoia against the British royal family, particularly the Duke of Cumberland.


title: John Conroy

text: Princess Victoria soon came to hate Conroy who bullied and insulted her, mocking her economical habits. Some historians have conjectured that Conroy's arrogant behaviour towards Victoria may have stemmed from a personal belief that his wife Elizabeth was secretly the illegitimate child of the Duke of Kent. While the rumour was later proven false, Conroy's strong ambition may have stemmed from this self-perceived connection to the aristocracy. Ambition may also have been influenced by Conroy's claim of descent from the ancient kings of Ireland. Regardless of his claims of grandeur, Conroy belonged to the middle class and recognised the growing power of this group within British society.


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy effectively barred Victoria from anyone other than the Duchess or his relatives and the princess was prevented from becoming close to her extended family. The enforced isolation meant the only companions of her own age whom she frequently came into contact with were Conroy's daughters, who included Victoire, a girl a few months older than Victoria. Victoria does not appear to have been fond of either Conroy sister as there is little positive comment in her personal journals.


title: John Conroy

text: The young princess depended on her devoted governess Louise Lehzen, who defended her against Conroy's machinations. As Victoria grew older, attempts were made by Conroy and the Duchess to secure Lehzen's removal, or at least the lessening of her influence. Such tactics proved unsuccessful, as the princess became more devoted to Lehzen than before, as evident in her journals.


title: John Conroy

text: Early in his stay at Kensington Palace, Conroy made an effort to become close to Princess Sophia, an elderly sister of George IV who also resided at the palace. Sophia is described by Christopher Hibbert as an "impressionable and mentally unstable woman", and Conroy had little difficulty in persuading her to let him take control of her finances. In return for making Sophia a member of the Duchess's social circle, the princess reported back to Conroy on activities at St. James's Palace and Kensington when he was absent.


title: John Conroy

text: In 1827, the Duke of York died, making the Duke of Clarence heir presumptive and Victoria second-in-line to the throne. Conroy complained that the princess should not be surrounded by commoners, leading King George IV to appoint Conroy a Knight Commander of the Hanoverian Order and a Knight Bachelor that year. The Duchess and Conroy continued to be unpopular with the royal family and, in 1829, the Duke of Cumberland spread rumours that they were lovers in an attempt to discredit them. The Duke of Clarence referred to Conroy as "King John", while the Duchess of Clarence wrote to the Duchess of Kent to advise that she was increasingly isolating herself from the royal family and that she must not grant Conroy too much power.


title: John Conroy

text: The Duke of Clarence became King William IV in 1830, by which point Conroy felt very confident of his position; his control of the household was secure. The Duchess prevented her daughter from attending William's coronation out of a disagreement of precedence, a decision attributed by the Duke of Wellington to Conroy. By then, it had become clear to Victoria that she would succeed to the throne. The new king and queen attempted to gain custody of their niece, but Conroy quickly replied that Victoria could not be "tainted" by the moral atmosphere at court. Conroy solidified the stance that mother and daughter could not be separated, and continued to promote the Duchess' virtue as a fit regent.


title: John Conroy

text: As King William intensely disliked the Duchess and Conroy, he vowed to wait until Victoria came of age to die simply to keep them from a regency. In 1831, the year of William's coronation, Conroy and the Duchess embarked on a series of royal tours with Victoria to expose her to the people and solidify their status as potential regents. On one trip Conroy was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Oxford. Their efforts were ultimately successful and, in November 1831, it was declared that the Duchess would be sole regent in the event of Victoria's young queenship, while Conroy could claim to be the closest adviser to the Duchess and her daughter.


title: John Conroy

text: Aware that a regency was becoming increasingly unlikely, Conroy and the Duchess began promoting the view of Victoria as a "weak-minded, frivolous and foolish" girl in need of guidance. While increasing their bullying of the princess, they implied that Victoria desired a regency even if she succeeded later than her majority at eighteen. Victoria was forbidden to be alone with her beloved Lehzen; either the Duchess's ally Lady Flora Hastings or a Conroy sister (now appointed as companions) were required to accompany her.


title: John Conroy

text: In 1835, Victoria became seriously ill of typhoid fever on the last of the royal tours. Exploiting her weakened state, the Duchess and Conroy unsuccessfully tried to force her into signing a document; this document would have appointed Conroy her personal secretary upon her accession. Victoria emerged from the incident more determined than ever to become self-reliant. Her increased intransigence alarmed the Duchess. At her behest, family adviser Baron Stockmar investigated, recommending to the Duchess that she dismiss Conroy and make peace with her daughter. But Conroy easily convinced the Duchess to ignore Stockmar's advice. Even after Victoria's eighteenth birthday on 24 May 1837, Conroy continued to pressure her to appoint him as her private secretary or acknowledge her need for a regent until she turned twenty-one.


title: John Conroy

text: The king died just weeks after Victoria's eighteenth birthday and she succeeded him as sovereign. Conroy was the subject of numerous discussions Victoria had with Stockmar on the first day of her reign. At the same time, Conroy created a list of demands to give to Stockmar with the intent that he pass them on to Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. Conroy demanded "a pension of £3,000 a year, the Grand Cross of the Bath, a peerage and a seat on the Privy Council." Victoria left the negotiating to Melbourne, who agreed to most of Conroy's demands, most likely to avoid a scandal. On the advice of Melbourne, Conroy was granted a baronetcy and a pension of £3,000 per annum. This did not satisfy Conroy, who continued in the following years to petition Victoria for an Irish peerage. Each request was refused, as the peerage would have enabled him to attend court.


title: John Conroy

text: One of Victoria's first acts as queen was to dismiss Conroy from her own household, though she could not dismiss him from her mother's. Queen Victoria, as an unmarried young woman, was still expected to live with her mother, but she relegated the Duchess and Conroy to remote apartments at Buckingham Palace, cutting off personal contact with them. The Duchess unsuccessfully insisted that Conroy and his family be allowed at court; Victoria disagreed, saying: "I thought you would not expect me to invite Sir John Conroy after his conduct towards me for some years past." In 1839, the Duke of Wellington convinced Conroy to leave the Duchess's household and take his family to the Continent in effective exile. "The Times" reported that he no longer had official duties, though they were unsure if he had resigned or been dismissed. That year rumours abounded that Lady Flora Hastings, whose abdomen had grown large, was pregnant by Conroy. A subsequent medical investigation concluded that Lady Flora was a virgin and she died from liver cancer several months later. This scandal, in tandem with the Bedchamber Crisis, damaged Victoria's reputation.


title: John Conroy

text: In 1842, Conroy settled at his family home in Arborfield Hall near Reading, Berkshire and became a gentleman farmer, winning prizes for his pig breeding. He founded the Montgomery Regiment of Militia in 1849. Despite his pensions and ownership of properties and lead mines in Wales, Conroy was in substantial debt when he died on 2 March 1854 at Arborfield. His eldest son Edward succeeded him to the baronetcy. After his death, the Duchess of Kent finally agreed to open her financial accounts and acknowledged that significant funds were missing. She was moved to admit that Conroy had swindled her while at the same time hurting her relationship with Victoria for his own benefit. A rapprochement followed between mother and daughter.


title: John Conroy

text: Princess Sophia's substantial income, provided from the civil list, had allowed Conroy to enjoy a wealthy lifestyle. The princess died in 1848, leaving only £1,607 19s 7d in her bank accounts despite a lifestyle of savings and low expenses. The Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Gloucester had a lawyer write to Conroy demanding that he account for the rest of their sister Sophia's funds, but Conroy simply ignored it. According to Flora Fraser, the most recent biographer of George III's daughters, Princess Sophia had in fact personally spent huge sums on Conroy, including heavy contributions to the purchase prices of his residences and supporting his family in a style he judged appropriate to their position. Conroy ultimately received £148,000 in gifts and money from Sophia.


title: John Conroy

text: In 1850, the Duchess of Kent's new comptroller, Sir George Couper, studied the old accounts. He found huge discrepancies. No records for her household or personal expenses had been kept after 1829. There was also no record of nearly £50,000 the Duchess had received from her brother, Leopold, nor of an additional £10,000 from William IV.


title: John Conroy

text: Following his death in 1854, "The Times" published a positive obituary that declared "the name, person and character of Sir John Conroy are so well and, in many respects, so favourably known in British society that we have no doubt the announcement of his death will be received with feelings of general regret". The article briefly summarised his lifetime and praised Conroy for "considerable shrewdness, no small knowledge of human nature and a very winning address" as well as "devoting himself with great zeal and assiduity" to members of the royal family.


title: John Conroy

text: Described in his own lifetime as a "ridiculous fellow", Conroy has not been the recipient of much recent positive historical opinion.


title: John Conroy

text: Twentieth-century historian Christopher Hibbert writes that Conroy was a "good-looking man of insinuating charm, tall, imposing, vain, clever, unscrupulous, plausible and of limitless ambition." For her part, 21st-century historian Gillian Gill describes Conroy as "a career adventurer, expert manipulator and domestic martinet" who came to England with "small means, some ability and mighty ambition." In 2004, Elizabeth Longford wrote that Conroy "was not the arch-villain Victoria painted, but the victim of his own inordinate ambition."


title: John Conroy

text: Conroy's relationship with the Duchess was the subject of much speculation both before and after his death in 1854. When the Duke of Wellington was asked if the Duchess and Conroy were lovers, he replied that he "supposed so". In August 1829, Wellington reported to court diarist Charles Greville that Victoria, then ten years old, had caught Conroy and her mother engaged in "some familiarities". Victoria told her governess, Baroness Lehzen, who in turn told Madame de Spaeth, one of the Duchess's ladies-in-waiting. De Spaeth confronted the Duchess about the relationship and was immediately dismissed. All of this was recorded by Greville; his subsequent diary entry has led to the persistent belief that the Duchess and Conroy were lovers. Later, as an aged Queen, Victoria was aghast to discover that many people did indeed believe that her mother and Conroy were intimate and stated that the Duchess' piety would have prevented this.