title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: I find in myself innumerable ideas of things which, though they may not exist outside me, can't be said to be nothing. While I have some control over my thoughts of these things, I do not make the things up: they have their own real and immutable natures. Suppose, for example, that I have a mental image of a triangle. While it may be that no figure of this sort does exist or ever has existed outside my thought, the figure has a fixed nature (essence or form), immutable and eternal, which hasn't been produced by me and isn't dependent of my mind.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: While thinking about the independence of these ideas of external objects, Descartes realizes that he is just as certain about God as he is about these mathematical ideas. He asserts that this is natural as the ideas of God are the only ideas that imply God's existence. He uses the example of a mountain and a valley. While one cannot picture a mountain without a valley, it's possible that these do not exist. However, the fact that one cannot conceive of God without existence inherently rules out the possibility of God's non-existence. Simply put, the argument is framed as follows:


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: This ontological argument originated in the work of St. Anselm, the medieval Scholastic philosopher and theologian. While Descartes had already claimed to have confirmed God's existence through previous arguments, this one allows him to put to rest any discontent he might have had with his "distinct and clear" criteria for truth. With a confirmed existence of God, all doubt that what one previously thought was real and not a dream can be removed. Having made this realization, Descartes asserts that without this sure knowledge in the existence of a supreme and perfect being, assurance of any truth is impossible:Thus I plainly see that the certainty and truth of all my knowledge derives from one thing: my thought of the true God. Before I knew Him, I couldn't know anything else perfectly. But now I can plainly and certainly know innumerable things, not only about God and other mental beings, but also about the nature of physical objects, insofar as it is the subject-matter of pure mathematics.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: In "Meditation VI: Concerning the Existence of Material Things, and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body", Descartes addresses the potential existence of material outside of the self and God. First, he asserts that such objects "can" exist simply because God is able to make them. Therefore, our assumption of the physical world outside of ourselves in non theoretical sense.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Insofar as they are the subject of pure mathematics, I now know at least that they can exist, because I grasp them clearly and distinctly. For God can undoubtedly make whatever I can grasp in this way, and I never judge that something is impossible for Him to make unless there would be a contradiction in my grasping the thing distinctly.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Knowing that the existence of such objects is possible, Descartes then turns to the prevalence of mental images as proof. To do this, he draws a distinction between imagination and understanding—imagination being a non-linguistic "faculty of knowledge to the body which is immediately present to it…without intellection or conception," which therefore exists like a mental photograph; and understanding (or apprehending) being something that is not necessarily pictured. He uses an example of this to clarify:


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: When I have a mental image of a triangle, for example, I don't just understand that it is a figure bounded by three lines; I also "look at" the lines as though they were present to my mind's eye. And this is what I call having a mental image. When I want to think of a chiliagon, I understand that it is a figure with a thousand sides as well as I understand that a triangle is a figure with three, but I can't imagine its sides or "look" at them as though they were present.… Thus I observe that a special effort of mind is necessary to the act of imagination, which is not required to conceiving or understanding (); and this special exertion of mind clearly shows the difference between imagination and pure intellection ("").


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Descartes has still not given proof that such external objects exist. At this point, he has only shown that their existence could conveniently explain this mental process. To obtain this proof, he first reviews his premises for the "Meditations"—that the senses cannot be trusted and what he is taught "by nature" does not have much credence. However, he views these arguments within a new context; after writing "Meditation I", he has proved the existence of himself and of a perfect God. Thus, Descartes jumps quickly to proofs of the division between the body and mind and that material things exist:


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: After using these two arguments to dispel solipsism and skepticism, Descartes seems to have succeeded in defining reality as being in three parts: God (infinite), minds, and material things (both finite). He closes by addressing natural phenomena that might appear to challenge his philosophy, such as phantom limbs, dreams, and dropsy.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Before publishing the "Meditations", Descartes submitted his manuscript to many philosophers, theologians and a logician, encouraging them to criticize the work. He explained this purpose in a letter to a friend: "I will be very glad if people put to me many objections, the strongest they can find, for I hope that the truth will stand out all the better." The objections which he gathered, and his own replies (many of which are quite extensive), were included in the first publication of the "Meditations".


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Elisabeth of Bohemia also corresponded with Descartes on the "Meditations". She objected both to his description of the union between mind and body, and that virtue and moral truths seem to need to be grasped by something other than the intellect (despite Descartes' assertion that all truths must be grasped intellectually).


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: The historical impact of the six meditations has been divided. The first two meditations, which employed the skeptical methodic doubt and concluded that only the ego and its thoughts are indubitable, have had a huge impact in the history of philosophy. They are often considered as epoch-making for modernity, and an unavoidable first step for any modern philosophical thinking.


title: Meditations on First Philosophy

text: Arthur David Smith, author of the "Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Husserl", claims that since Edmund Husserl usually refers only to "the first two" of the Meditations, therefore Husserl must have thought that they are the only part of Descartes' work with any philosophical importance at all.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell is the silent protagonist in the "Portal" video game series developed by Valve. She appears in both "Portal" and "Portal 2" as the main player character and as a supporting character in some other video games. Not much is known about Chell but some posit she is the daughter of an employee at Aperture Science Laboratories, the main setting of the games.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell's face- and body-model were derived from those of Alésia Glidewell. She experienced a redesign in "Portal 2" which was often changed during development. For example, the original redesign featured a laboratory-hat. A character presented in first-person perspective, Chell can only be seen through reflections and portals in the game.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell was generally well-received by critics and gamers, with many people praising that she does not speak and looks like a "normal-looking and normal-dressing woman" in contrast to many other female characters in first-person shooters.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Valve's Erik Wolpaw felt that it did not really matter what kind of person Chell was, noting that playtesters of the first "Portal" often did not know her name as it was never mentioned. Wolpaw explained that they never mentioned her name as felt like they had this relationship with GLaDOS, and they wanted GLaDOS to recognize them". Chet Faliszek noted that Chell was the female version of Gordon Freeman's role as a silent protagonist (in the "Half-Life" video games). Wolpaw explained it served the game's humour better if she did not talk, and that if the "straight man in a world gone mad" did talk, referring to Chell, "it would suck". In fact, there is one part of the first game where GLaDOS seems to get annoyed by Chell's refusal to respond to her, saying, "Are you even listening to me?" (Wolpaw has commented a few times that Chell simply won't give GLaDOS the satisfaction of a response, but he doesn't intend that theory to be taken seriously). In an interview by IGN about "Portal 2: Lab Rat", Valve's Michael Avon Oeming commented that, currently, "Chell is more of a storytelling device," comparing her to the Spirit character by Will Eisner, but noted that more may be seen of Chell in the future.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell's face and body model were derived from those of the director, producer and voice actress Alésia Glidewell. When making "Portal 2", developers considered not bringing back the character. However, this was changed as playtesters wanted GLaDOS to recognize them as the person who had killed her in the first game. In her original redesign for "Portal 2" developers tried to make her look appealing, yet not overdesigned, with nothing made simply for fashion. They explored changing her nationality, and tried to make her look less human due to the "constant dehumanization of these test subjects". Being a test subject, Chell's suit was designed to look neither sexy nor unattractive. The original redesign of the character featured a laboratory hat, which was thought of halfway through the concepting phase. Matt Charlesworth, Valve's concept artist, commented that the hat reminded him of test pilots.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: This look was eventually abandoned in favor of returning to her original orange jumpsuit, this time with the jumpsuit wrapped around her waist. Valve's art team explained that this was to give her more freedom and help her stand out more as an individual.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: In "Portal", Chell is performing tests for Aperture Science, which are being overseen by GLaDOS, an artificially intelligent computer system. Chell destroys GLaDOS in her efforts to escape but is wounded, and an unseen figure called the Party Escort Bot drags her back inside.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: In "Portal 2: Lab Rat", a tie-in comic for "Portal 2", Chell is put in stasis by Doug Rattmann after the events of "Portal". He is revealed to be responsible for Chell taking part in the tests. Chell reappears in "Portal 2" where she is reawakened by Wheatley. She and Wheatley attempt to escape the laboratory, and in the process accidentally reanimate GLaDOS. GLaDOS, furious with Chell for having "murdered" her, forces her to do more tests until Wheatley helps her escape. Chell and Wheatley team up to destroy GLaDOS's neurotoxin and turret production. GLaDOS eventually recaptures Chell, but fails to kill her due to her lack of neurotoxin and turrets. Chell takes advantage of the moment to replace GLaDOS's core with Wheatley's core. Wheatley, corrupted and driven to megalomania by inhabiting GLaDOS's former shell, betrays Chell and instead of freeing her, sends her to the very bottom of the Testing Facility. There she navigates several Mobility Gel testing areas that were in use between 1956 and 1985. As she ascends through level after level, she learns about the late founder of Aperture Science, Cave Johnson, and his assistant, Caroline, whose personality and intelligence were ultimately implanted in GLaDOS. Chell finds and picks up GLaDOS, whom Wheatley has placed in a small module powered by a potato battery. Opening the hatch that seals off the old facility from the new, Chell inadvertently pumps Mobility Gels up to the new facility, which later proves useful. Wheatley captures her and forces her to run tests for him until she finds his lair. And after attaching corrupted cores onto Wheatley, with the process of reverting being booby-trapped, she fires a portal to the moon which sucks her and Wheatley out into space. Chell is saved by GLaDOS, who lets her leave the facility via an elevator that takes her to the surface.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell's origin is unclear; GLaDOS claims that in Chell's file it states that she is adopted. In "Portal 2", a long-abandoned science fair poster that was part of "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day" — the same day GLaDOS went rogue — is attributed to "Chell", implying that at least one of her parents worked for Aperture Science. Some posit that Chell is the daughter of Cave Johnson, the founder and CEO of Aperture Science.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: As both "Portal" games are presented in a first-person view, Chell is only seen fleetingly in normal gameplay, usually when portals are aligned in such a way that the player is able to create a recursive view of Chell. Placing two portals next to each other on a wall and then partially entering the one portal while facing the other allows the player a close-up view of Chell's face.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Chell is a playable character in the crossover game "Lego Dimensions", and has access to her portal gun. Her character pack includes a sentry turret and a Companion Cube, and unlocks a bonus level in which she returns to Aperture and is reunited with Wheatley, with the two trying to stop GLaDOS once more.


title: Chell (Portal)

text: A Portal-themed costume featuring Chell holding a portal gun is available for the 2020 battle royale game "".


title: Chell (Portal)

text: GamesRadar's Joe McNeilly called Chell an example of "Portal" deconstructing first-person shooter archetypes, noting that she was neither in third-person nor sexualized unlike most female characters in first-person shooters. GamesRadar called Chell the antidote to the half-naked woman cliché, praising her for not being sexualized and being fully clothed, commenting, "The hero of Portal just happens to be a normal-looking and normal-dressing woman, like 50% of the world's population." GamesRadar listed Chell (jokingly) as one of its Mediocre Game Babes, calling her jumpsuit repulsive and saying, "[Her] heel springs make her look like one of those aliens from "The Arrival"." IGN listed Chell as the sixth top gaming heroine, calling her "one of the most resourceful heroines on [their] list". In an in-depth analysis of "Portal", Daniel Johnson from Gamasutra said that Chell being female, as well as GLaDOS's line about testing your daughter in Aperture Science Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, alluded to the testing of women. Johnson also noted that the information about who Chell is and why she is there reinforced the position of the player as an unwilling participant. GamesRadar said that it considered putting Chell on its list of the Top 7 Tasteful game heroines, but said she lost out to Zoey from "Left 4 Dead".


title: Chell (Portal)

text: Kotaku's Luke Plunkett called Chell's original design in the first game memorable, later noting how in the first "Portal" "Chell [...] was never really the "star" of the game" as well as how little she was actually seen. Mike Fahey, also from Kotaku, defended Chell from people saying that she should talk, and said, "The last thing I would want in "Portal 2" is for Chell to speak". When reviewing "Portal 2", Game Informer's Adam Biessener said that much of what makes "Portal" and "Portal 2" so special was the execution and the originality of standing in Chell's shoes and experiencing her destiny.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The "Sovetsky Soyuz"-class battleships (Project 23, , "Soviet Union"), also known as "Stalin's Republics", were a class of battleships begun by the Soviet Union in the late 1930s but never brought into service. They were designed in response to the s being built by Germany. Only four hulls of the fifteen originally planned had been laid down by 1940, when the decision was made to cut the program to only three ships to divert resources to an expanded army rearmament program.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: These ships would have rivaled the Imperial Japanese and America's planned in size if any had been completed, although with significantly weaker firepower: nine guns compared to the nine guns of the Japanese ships and a dozen on the "Montana"s. The failure of the Soviet armor plate industry to build cemented armor plates thicker than would have negated any advantages from the "Sovetsky Soyuz" class's thicker armor in combat.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Construction of the first four ships was plagued with difficulties as the Soviet shipbuilding and related industries were not prepared to build such large ships. One battleship, "Sovetskaya Belorussiya", was cancelled on 19 October 1940 after serious construction flaws were found. Construction of the other three ships was suspended shortly after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and never resumed. All three of the surviving hulls were scrapped in the late 1940s.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Design work began in 1935 on new battleships in response to the existing and planned German battleships, and the Soviets made extensive efforts in Italy and the United States to purchase either drawings or the ships themselves in the late 1930s. The Italian firm of Gio. Ansaldo & C. proposed a ship of standard displacement with nine 16-inch (406 mm) guns, in size and appearance similar to the then under construction by the company. The U.S. firm of Gibbs & Cox provided four designs; one for a conventional battleship, and three hybrid designs which combined battleship main armament with a raised flight deck on the central superstructure capable of operating up to 30 aircraft. While these projects proved useful to the Soviets, they decided to proceed with their own designs.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The first Tactical-Technical Requirement (abbreviated in Russian as ТТZ) for the large battleship design was issued on 21 February 1936 but proved too ambitious, specifying nine 460 mm guns and a speed of on a displacement of 55,000 tons. The TTZ was revised in May 1936 by Admiral Orlov, Commander of the Soviet Navy, reducing speed to , and weakening the secondary and anti-aircraft batteries. A few months later Admiral Orlov further reduced the size of the battleship to 45,000 tons and set the size of the main guns at 406 mm. Shortly afterward, the Soviet Union signed the Anglo-Soviet Quantitative Naval Agreement of 1937 and agreed to follow the terms of the Second London Naval Treaty that limited battleships to a displacement of 35,560 metric tons (35,000 long tons), although they did add a proviso that allowed them to build ships of unlimited size to face the Imperial Japanese Navy if they notified the British. Yet another TTZ was approved by Orlov on 3 August for ships of 41,500 tons with an armament of nine 406-millimeter, twelve , twelve , and forty guns, a maximum armor thickness of and a speed of 30 knots.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The design of KB-4, the surface ship design bureau of the Baltic Shipyard, was selected for further development although the lead designers were convinced that only a larger ship could fulfill the ambitious requirements. They did manage to get agreement on 22 November 1936 for a thickening of the deck armor that raised the displacement to about 47,000 tons. Design work continued on this basis and technical work was completed for a ship of 47,700 tons in April 1937, but the designers continued to press their case for larger ships. The issue was resolved by General Secretary Stalin at a meeting on 4 July when he agreed to increase displacement to about 56,000 tons. This forced the project to begin again.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The timing of the redesign proved to be inauspicious as the Great Purge was spreading through the ranks of the military and related industries. The original deadline for completion of design work by 15 October was missed, and an incomplete version was presented to the navy's Shipbuilding Administration the next month. A number of details remained to be worked out, including the final design of the machinery plant, the 152 mm guns and the 100 mm gun mounts. In the meantime, extensive and expensive testing was conducted on the ship's hull form, deck armor and torpedo protection; 27 million rubles were spent on experimental work in 1938 alone. Over 100 models of the hull were tested in a ship model basin to find the best hull form and two one-tenth-scale launches were built at Sevastopol to test the hull's maneuverability. An old steamship was fitted with a replica of the design's armor decks and tested against bombs, proving that such ordnance would generally penetrate both the upper and middle decks before exploding on the armored deck. The main armor deck was raised one deck in consequence and a splinter deck added underneath it to stop any bomb or shell fragments that might penetrate the armor deck. The underwater protection system was tested on fifteen one-fifth scale models and two full-sized experimental barges. These tests proved that the torpedo belt system of multiple bulkheads was superior to the Pugliese system of a large tube filled with smaller sealed tubes, but it was too late to incorporate these test results into the design as construction was well underway by the time they were completed in late 1939.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: A revised design was approved on 28 February 1938 and the first ship was to be laid down on 15 July, but even this design was incomplete and would be revised later. Trials with similarly shaped motor launches suggested that the hull's propulsive efficiency would be less than planned, and this was accepted in the November 1938 revision as a maximum speed of . However, a new propeller design proved to be more efficient and was predicted to increase speed to . Another change was the deletion of the centerline rudder when tests showed that the two wing rudders would not be able to counteract its effects if it jammed. The weight toward the stern of the boat was calculated to be too great, producing a substantial stern-down trim. To remedy this, the two 100 mm turrets mounted on the quarterdeck were deleted and the height of the armor belt abreast the rear turret was lowered, but this decision was reversed and they were restored by a decision of the State Defense Committee on 14 January 1941. This forced a revision of the aircraft arrangements as the aircraft catapult had to be removed from the centerline of the quarterdeck; two catapults were added to the sides of the quarterdeck instead.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: As designed, the Project 23-class ships, as "Sovetsky Soyuz" and her sisters were designated, were long overall. They had a beam of and a draft of at deep load. They displaced at standard load and at full load, although weight estimates made in 1940 show that they would have exceeded standard and at full load.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The hull form was very full-bodied, especially at the forward magazines, where the torpedo protection system added width to the beam. Coupled with the relatively low length-to-beam ratio of 7.14:1, this meant that very powerful turbines were necessary to achieve even modest speeds. Stalin's decision that the Project 23-class ships would use three shafts instead of four increased the load on each shaft and reduced propulsive efficiency, although it did shorten the length of the armored citadel and thus overall displacement. Metacentric height was designed at and the tactical diameter was estimated at about .


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The "Sovetsky Soyuz"-class ships were provided with facilities to handle two to four KOR-2 flying boats which would be launched by the two catapults mounted on the stern. Two hangars were built into the after end of the forecastle deck to house two of them and cranes were provided at the forward end of the quarterdeck to hoist them out of the water.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The machinery arrangement "provided good dispersal of the machinery spaces, but at the cost of very long runs for the wing shafts (ca. ). The turbine compartments for the wing shafts were located forward of boiler room No. 1 and aft of the No. 2 turret magazines. The engine room for the center shaft's turbine was between boiler room No. 2 and No. 3. This meant that the wing propeller shafts had to run underneath the boilers.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The steam turbines, and a license to build them, were originally going to be ordered from Cammell Laird in the United Kingdom, but their £700,000 cost was more than the Soviets wanted to pay. Instead they bought them from Brown Boveri, using the technical information acquired from Cammell Laird in the process, for £400,000. Four single-reduction, impulse-reduction geared turbines were ordered from the Swiss firm, three to equip "Sovetskaya Rossiya" and one to serve as a pattern for the factory in Kharkov that was to build the remainder. The three produced a total of . Six triangle-type water-tube boilers—two in each boiler room—powered the turbines at a working pressure of and a temperature of .


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Maximum speed was estimated at 28 knots, using the revised propeller design, although forcing the machinery would yield an extra knot. The normal fuel oil capacity was , giving an estimated endurance of at and at full speed. Maximum fuel capacity was which gave a range of at 14.5 knots and at full speed.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The main armament consisted of three electrically powered MK-1 triple turrets, each with three 50-caliber 406 mm B-37 guns. The guns could be depressed to −2° and elevated to 45°. They had a fixed loading angle of 6° and their rate of fire varied with the time required to re-aim the guns. It ranged from 2.0 to 2.6 rounds per minute depending on the elevation. The turrets could elevate at a rate of 6.2 degrees per second and traverse at 4.55 degrees per second. 100 rounds per gun were carried. The guns fired projectiles at a muzzle velocity of ; this provided a maximum range of .


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The secondary armament consisted of twelve 57-caliber B-38 152 mm guns mounted in six twin-gun MK-4 turrets. Their elevation limits were −5° to +45° with a fixed loading angle of 8°. Their rate of fire also varied with the elevation from 7.5 to 4.8 rounds per minute. They were provided with 170 rounds per gun. The turrets could elevate at a rate of 13 degrees per second and traverse at 6 degrees per second. They had a maximum range of about with a shell at a muzzle velocity of .


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Heavy anti-aircraft (AA) fire was provided by a dozen 56-caliber 100 mm B-34 dual-purpose guns in six twin-gun MZ-14 turrets with 400 rounds per gun. The ships began construction with only four turrets, but two additional turrets were restored to the quarterdeck in January 1941. They could elevate to a maximum of 85° and depress to −8°. They could traverse at a rate of 12° per second and elevate at 10° per second. They fired high explosive shells at a muzzle velocity of ; this provided a maximum range of against surface targets, but their maximum range against aerial targets was , the limit of their time fuse.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Light AA defense was handled by ten quadruple, water-cooled, 46-K mounts fitted with 70-K guns with 1800 rounds per gun. Initially only eight mounts were planned when the ships began construction, but two more were added later, probably in January 1941, one on each side of the forward superstructure. Each mount was fully enclosed to protect the crew from the muzzle blast of the larger guns and against splinters. The guns fired shells at a muzzle velocity of . Their effective anti-aircraft range was .


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Each main gun turret was given a DM-12 rangefinder for use in local control, but they were generally controlled by one of three KDP-8 fire-control directors. These had two stereoscopic rangefinders, one to track the target and the other to measure the range to the ship's own shell splashes. Two of these were protected by of armor and were mounted atop the rear superstructure and the tower-mast. The other was mounted on top of the conning tower and was protected by 50 mm of armor. They used a TsAS-0 mechanical computer to generate firing solutions. Four KDP-4t-II directors, with two rangefinders each, controlled the secondary armament. One pair was on either side of the tower-mast and the aft pair was on each side of the aft funnel. Three SPN-300 stabilized directors, each with a 4-meter rangefinder, controlled the heavy anti-aircraft guns. There was one on each side of the forward funnel while the other was atop the rear superstructure.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Soviet armor plate plants proved incapable of producing plates of cemented armor thicker than which forced the decision to replace cemented plates thicker than with face-hardened ones with less resistance in November 1940. The plants tended to compensate by making the thicker plates harder, but this often made them more brittle and large numbers did not pass the acceptance tests. This would have significantly reduced the level of protection enjoyed by the "Sovetsky Soyuz"-class ships in combat.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The "Sovetsky Soyuz"-class ships devoted a total weight of to armor protection, a slightly greater weight than that of the larger Japanese "Yamato" class (). Their armor was intended to resist 406 mm shells and 500 kg bombs, specifically shells fired from forward bearings between 35° and 50° from the centerline. This led to the very unusual situation where the armor belt thickened toward the bow to compensate for the narrowing of the ship near the forward magazines, which had to be compensated for by thicker armor. The belt was long and covered 57% of the total waterline length. It was inclined 5° to increase its resistance to flat-trajectory shells. Over the machinery spaces it was thick and increased in steps until it was thick over the forward magazines. It was over the rear magazine. The belt armor was carried forward of the magazines at a thickness of and terminated in a steeply sloped (30°) transverse bulkhead that reduced to at the lower deck where it was continued down to the inner bottom by a bulkhead. Forward of this bulkhead was a 20 mm splinter belt that continued all the way to the bow. The main armor belt dropped down to the main deck from the upper deck abreast the aft turret to reduce weight. This "step" was protected by plates. A transverse bulkhead separated the rear turret and the ship's sides. The main part of the armored citadel was closed off by a 230 mm forward bulkhead and a 180 mm rear bulkhead, both of homogeneous armor. Splinter armor thick covered the upper portion of the citadel.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The forecastle deck was 25 mm thick while the upper deck was over the citadel. Below it, the 50 mm middle deck acted as a splinter deck. The upper deck was 100 mm thick above the 220 mm waterline belt extension. The bottom edge of the forward splinter belt met with a arched deck. Another arched deck of the same thickness covered the stern aft of the rear transverse bulkhead.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The main gun turrets had faces thick with sides and roofs 230 mm thick. thick plates protected the gun ports and bulkheads separated each gun. The barbettes were thick above the upper deck. The MK-4 turrets had 100 mm faces and 65 mm sides. Their barbettes were 100 mm in thickness, but reduced to 65 mm on their inboard sides. 100 mm of armor protected the faces, sides and backs of the MZ-14 turrets for the 100 mm guns, but their roofs and barbettes were 100 mm thick. The forward conning tower had walls 425 mm thick while the rear conning tower had only . The flag bridge in the tower-mast had of protection.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The torpedo defense system was designed to withstand torpedoes with warheads equivalent to of TNT. The ships were intended to be able to remain afloat with any five adjacent compartments flooded or with three torpedo hits and the destruction of the unarmored above-water side. The Pugliese system protected of the ships' midsection. At the aft end was a multi-bulkhead protection system that extended another to the rear from the Pugliese system. The depth of the system was amidships, but it reduced to fore and aft. The outer plating ranged from in thickness while the inner bottom was thick. The cylinder of the Pugliese system was also 7 mm thick while the semi-circular main bulkhead was thick with a flat bulkhead behind it. The diameter cylinder was intended to be immersed in fuel oil or water.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The August 1938 shipbuilding plan envisioned a total of 15 Project 23-class battleships, and this grandiose scheme was only slightly revised downward to 14 ships in the August 1939 plan. Eight of these were to be laid down before 1942 and the remaining six before 1947. However, only four were actually laid down before the outbreak of World War II forced the Soviets to reassess their ambitious plans. On 19 October 1940 an order was issued, signed by Stalin and Molotov, that no new battleships would be laid down in order to concentrate on smaller ships' building (and also, probably, because more resources were required for the Army), one ship was to be scrapped, and priority should be given to only one of the three remaining battleships.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: The Soviet shipbuilding and related industries proved to be incapable of supporting the construction of so many large ships at the same time. The largest warships built in the Soviet Union prior to 1938 were the s, and even they had suffered from a number of production problems, but the Soviet leadership appeared to ignore the difficulties encountered in the construction of the "Kirov" class when ordering 14 much more ambitious ships. Construction of two more ships planned for Leningrad and Nikolayev had to move to the brand-new Shipyard Nr. 402 in Molotovsk because the existing shipyards could not be expanded to handle so many large ships. Components for these two ships had to be manufactured at Leningrad and shipped via the White Sea – Baltic Canal to Molotovsk. Also, the turret shop at Nikolaev proved to be too poorly equipped to assemble the 406 mm mountings and the propeller shafts had to be ordered in 1940 from Germany and the Netherlands as the domestic plants were already overburdened with orders. Shipbuilding steel proved to be in short supply in 1940, and a number of batches were rejected because they did not meet specifications. Armor plate production was even more problematic as only of the anticipated were delivered in 1939, and more than half of that was rejected. Furthermore, the armor plants proved to be incapable of making cemented plates over 230 mm, and inferior face-hardened plates had to substitute for all thicknesses over 200 mm.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Machinery problems were likely to delay the ships well past their intended delivery dates of 1943–1944. Three turbines were delivered by Brown Boveri in 1939 to Arkhangelsk for "Sovetskaya Rossiya", but the Kharkhovskii Turbogenerator Works never completed a single turbine before the German invasion in June 1941. A prototype boiler was supposed to have been built ashore for evaluation, but it was not completed until early 1941, which further complicated the production plan.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: Construction of all three ships was ordered halted on 10 July 1941, and "Sovetsky Soyuz" was placed into long-term conservation as the most advanced ship. However, all three were officially stricken from the Navy List on 10 September 1941.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: "Sovetsky Soyuz (–Soviet Union)" was formally laid down 15 July 1938 in Shipyard Nr. 189 (Ordzhonikidze) in Leningrad, although evidence suggests that construction actually began in January 1939 after her slipway was completed, the necessary cranes were in place, and working drawings had been completed. When the war began she was estimated to be 21.19% complete, with of steel assembled on the slip. She was only lightly damaged by German air attacks and bombardments, and, as some material had been used during the siege of Leningrad, she was estimated to be 19.5% complete after the end of the war. Some thought was given to completing her, but this was opposed as she was regarded as obsolete in light of the experience gained during the war. Stalin's expressed desire to see one of the Project 23-class ships completed only delayed the decision to scrap her; this was ordered on 29 May 1948 and was well underway by April 1949.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: "Sovetskaya Ukraina (–Soviet Ukraine)" was laid down 31 October 1938 at Shipyard Nr. 198 (Marti South) in Nikolayev. When the war began she was 17.98% complete, with assembled on the slipway. Some effort was made to launch the hull, but little work had been done to dredge the river at the foot of the slipway, and she was captured on 18 August 1941, although retreating Soviet troops slightly damaged her hull. The Germans dismantled of her bow and of her stern for use in fortifications. They were forced to evacuate Nikolayev on 17 March 1944 and demolished the supporting blocks under her port side before they left, which gave her a list between 5 and 10 degrees and made her a total loss. She was ordered scrapped on 27 March 1947.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: "Sovetskaya Rossiya (–Soviet Russia)" was laid down on 22 July 1940 in Shipyard Nr. 402 in Molotovsk. After the end of the war she was only 0.97% complete, with of steel assembled. She was ordered scrapped on 27 March 1947.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: "Sovetskaya Belorussiya (–Soviet Belorussia)" was laid down 21 December 1939 at Shipyard Nr. 402 in Molotovsk, but construction was suspended in mid-1940 when it was discovered that 70,000 rivets used in her hull plating were of inferior quality. This fact probably influenced the decision to cancel her on 19 October 1940. Material intended for her construction was used to construct a floating battery for the defense of Leningrad.


title: Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

text: "Sovetskaya Gruziya" "()" was planned to be laid down in 1941 at the Baltic Works, but this was cancelled due to the invasion of the Soviet Union.


title: Ceol of Wessex

text: Ceol was the son of Cutha (or Cuthwulf), the son of Cynric of Wessex. He reigned from either 591 or 592 to 597. According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", he began his reign in 591, but it was only in the following year that he drove out his uncle Ceawlin in a battle at Woden's Barrow in Wiltshire, thus denying the throne to the rightful heir, Ceawlin's son Cuthwine. Upon his death the throne passed to his brother Ceolwulf. Because his son Cynegils was presumably too young to inherit the throne, it was given to the brother, as was probably the custom among the Saxons. In 1967 Wright and Jackson found a stone at Wroxeter in a Sub-Roman context (dating to c. 460 – 475 AD[4]) with the inscription CUNORIX MACUS MAQVI COLINE, which translates as "Cunorix ('Hound-king' = Cynric) son of Maqui-Coline ('Son-of-Holly'), both of which are regarded as Irish personal names.


title: Ceol of Wessex

text: Ceol was the founding member of a sub-house of the House of Wessex which would rule Wessex from 591 – 645, 648 – 674 and from 676 – 685, comprising Ceol, Ceolwulf, Cynegils, Cenwalh, Seaxburh and Centwine. Coenwulf and Ceolwulf I of Mercia are also believed to be descendants of Ceol, meaning that the Ceolian line flourished for at least three centuries after its founder's death, and possibly longer. (See House of Wessex family tree.)


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo people (, , singular: ; also , singular: ) are a Bantu ethnic group primarily defined as the speakers of Kikongo. Subgroups include the Beembe, Bwende, Vili, Sundi, Yombe, Dondo, Lari, and others.


title: Kongo people

text: They have lived along the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, in a region that by the 15th century was a centralized and well-organized Kingdom of Kongo, but is now a part of three countries. Their highest concentrations are found south of in the Republic of the Congo, southwest of Pool Malebo and west of the Kwango River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, north of Luanda, Angola and southwest Gabon. They are the largest ethnic group in the Republic of the Congo, and one of the major ethnic groups in the other two countries they are found in. In 1975, the Kongo population was reported as 4,040,000.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo people were among the earliest indigenous Africans to welcome Portuguese traders in 1483 CE, and began converting to Catholicism in the late 15th century. They were among the first to protest slavery in letters to the King of Portugal in the 1510s and 1520s, then succumbed to the demands for slaves from the Portuguese through the 16th century. The Kongo people were a part of the major slave raiding, capture and export trade of African slaves to the European colonial interests in 17th and 18th centuries. The slave raids, colonial wars and the 19th-century Scramble for Africa split the Kongo people into Portuguese, Belgian and French parts. In the early 20th century, they became one of the most active ethnic groups in the efforts to decolonize Africa, helping liberate the three nations to self governance.


title: Kongo people

text: The origin of the name Kongo is unclear, and several theories have been proposed. According to the colonial era scholar Samuel Nelson, the term "Kongo" is possibly derived from a local verb for gathering or assembly. According to Alisa LaGamma, the root may be from the regional word "Nkongo" which means "hunter" in the context of someone adventurous and heroic. Douglas Harper states that the term means "mountains" in a Bantu language, which the Congo river flows down from.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo people have been referred to by various names in the colonial French, Belgian and Portuguese literature, names such as "Esikongo" (singular "Mwisikongo"), "Mucicongo", "Mesikongo", "Madcongo" and "Moxicongo". Christian missionaries, particularly in the Caribbean, originally applied the term "Bafiote" (singular "M(a)fiote") to the slaves from the Vili or Fiote coastal Kongo people, but later this term was used to refer to any "black man" in Cuba, St Lucia and other colonial era Islands ruled by one of the European colonial interests. The group is identified largely by speaking a cluster of mutually intelligible dialects rather than by large continuities in their history or even in culture. The term "Congo" was more widely deployed to identify Kikongo-speaking people enslaved in the Americas.


title: Kongo people

text: Since the early 20th century, "Bakongo" (singular "Mkongo" or "Mukongo") has been increasingly used, especially in areas north of the Congo river, to refer to the Kikongo-speaking community, or more broadly to speakers of the closely related Kongo languages. This convention is based on the Bantu languages, to which Kongo language belongs. The prefix "mu-" and "ba-" refer to "people", singular and plural respectively.


title: Kongo people

text: Ne in Kikongo designates a title, it is incorrect to call Kongo people by Ne Kongo or a Kongo person by Ne Kongo.


title: Kongo people

text: The ancient history of the Kongo people has been difficult to ascertain. The region is close to East Africa, considered to be a key to the prehistoric human migrations. This geographical proximity, states Jan Vansina, suggests that the Congo river region, home of the Kongo people, was populated thousands of years ago. Ancient archeological evidence linked to Kongo people has not been found, and glottochronology – or the estimation of ethnic group chronologies based on language evolution – has been applied to the Kongo. Based on this, it is likely the Kongo language and Gabon-Congo language split about 950 BCE.


title: Kongo people

text: The earliest archeological evidence is from Tchissanga (now part of modern Republic of the Congo), a site dated to about 600 BCE. However, the site does not prove which ethnic group was resident at that time. The Kongo people had settled into the area well before the fifth century CE, begun a society that utilized the diverse and rich resources of region and developed farming methods. According to James Denbow, social complexity had probably been achieved by the second century CE.


title: Kongo people

text: According to Vansina small kingdoms and Kongo principalities appeared in the current region by the 1200 CE, but documented history of this period of Kongo people if it existed has not survived into the modern era. Detailed and copious description about the Kongo people who lived next to the Atlantic ports of the region, as a sophisticated culture, language and infrastructure, appear in the 15th century, written by the Portuguese explorers. Later anthropological work on the Kongo of the region come from the colonial era writers, particularly the French and Belgians (Loango, Vungu, and the Niari Valley), but this too is limited and does not exhaustively cover all of the Kongo people. The evidence suggests, states Vansina, that the Kongo people were advanced in their culture and socio-political systems with multiple kingdoms well before the arrival of first Portuguese ships in the late 15th century.


title: Kongo people

text: Kongo oral tradition suggests that the Kingdom of Kongo was founded before the 14th century and the 13th century. The kingdom was modeled not on hereditary succession as was common in Europe, but based on an election by the court nobles from the Kongo people. This required the king to win his legitimacy by a process of recognizing his peers, consensus building as well as regalia and religious ritualism. The kingdom had many trading centers both near rivers and inland, distributed across hundreds of kilometers and Mbanza Kongo – its capital that was about 200 kilometers inland from the Atlantic coast.


title: Kongo people

text: The Portuguese arrived on the Central African coast north of the Congo river, several times between 1472 and 1483 searching for a sea route to India, but they failed to find any ports or trading opportunities. In 1483, south of the Congo river they found the Kongo people and the Kingdom of Kongo, which had a centralized government, a currency called "nzimbu", and markets, ready for trading relations. The Portuguese found well developed transport infrastructure inlands from the Kongo people's Atlantic port settlement. They also found exchange of goods easy and the Kongo people open to ideas. The Kongo king at that time, named Nzinga a Nkuwu allegedly willingly accepted Christianity, and at his baptism in 1491 changed his name to João I, a Portuguese name.


title: Kongo people

text: Around the 1450s, a prophet, Ne Buela Muanda, predicted the arrival of the Portuguese and the spiritual and physical enslavement of many Bakongo.


title: Kongo people

text: The trade between Kongo people and Portuguese people thereafter accelerated through 1500. The kingdom of Kongo appeared to become receptive of the new traders, allowed them to settle an uninhabited nearby island called São Tomé, and sent Bakongo nobles to visit the royal court in Portugal. Other than the king himself, much of the Kongo people's nobility welcomed the cultural exchange, the Christian missionaries converted them to the Catholic faith, they assumed Portuguese court manners, and by early 16th-century Kongo became a Portugal-affiliated Christian kingdom.


title: Kongo people

text: Initially, the Kongo people exchanged ivory and copper objects they made with luxury goods of Portuguese. But, after 1500, the Portuguese had little demand for ivory and copper, they instead demanded slaves in exchange. The settled Portuguese in São Tomé needed slave labor for their sugarcane plantations, and they first purchased labor. Soon thereafter they began kidnapping people from the Kongo society and after 1514, they provoked military campaigns in nearby African regions to get slave labor. Along with this change in Portuguese-Kongo people relationship, the succession system within Kongo kingdom changed under Portuguese influence, and in 1509, instead of the usual election among the nobles, a hereditary European-style succession led to the African king Afonso I succeeding his father, now named João I. The slave capture and the export of slaves caused major social disorder among the Kongo people, and the Kongo king Afonso I wrote letters to the king of Portugal protesting this practice. Finally, he succumbed to the demand and accepted an export of those who willingly accepted slavery, and for a fee per slave. The Portuguese procured 2,000 to 3,000 slaves per year for a few years, from 1520, a practice that started the slave export history of the Kongo people. However, this supply was far short of the demand for slaves and the money slave owners were willing to pay.


title: Kongo people

text: The Portuguese operators approached the traders at the borders of the Kongo kingdom, such as the Malebo Pool and offered luxury goods in exchange for captured slaves. This created, states Jan Vansina, an incentive for border conflicts and slave caravan routes, from other ethnic groups and different parts of Africa, in which the Kongo people and traders participated. The slave raids and volume of trade in enslaved human beings increased thereafter, and by the 1560s, over 7,000 slaves per year were being captured and exported by Portuguese traders to the Americas. The Kongo people and the neighboring ethnic groups retaliated, with violence and attacks, such as the Jaga invasion of 1568 which swept across the Kongo lands, burnt the Portuguese churches, and attacked its capital, nearly ending the Kingdom of Kongo. The Kongo people also created songs to warn themselves of the arrival of the Portuguese, one of the famous songs is "" Malele "" (Translation: "Tragedy", song present among the 17 Kongo songs sung by the Massembo family of Guadeloupe during the Grap a Kongo ). The Portuguese brought in military and arms to support the Kingdom of Kongo, and after years of fighting, they jointly defeated the attack. This war unexpectedly led to a flood of captives who had challenged the Kongo nobility and traders, and the coastal ports were flooded with "war captives turned slaves". The other effect of this violence over many years was making the Kongo king heavily dependent on the Portuguese protection, along with the dehumanization of the African people, including the rebelling Kongo people, as cannibalistic pagan barbarians from "Jaga kingdom". This caricature of the African people and their dehumanization was vociferous and well published by the slave traders, the missionaries and the colonial era Portuguese historians, which helped morally justify mass trading of slaves.


title: Kongo people

text: Modern scholars such as Estevam Thompson have shown that there is much confusion between the "original" Jagas, who left the land of Yaka on the eastern bank of the Kwango River and invaded Mbata and mbanza Kongo, and other later references to "Jaga warriors" roaming the interior of West Central Africa who were, indeed, different Mbangala groups. There are other scholars, such as Joseph Miller, that believed this 16th and 17th centuries' one-sided dehumanization of the African people was a fabrication and myth created by the missionaries and slave trading Portuguese to hide their abusive activities and intentions.


title: Kongo people

text: From the 1570s, the European traders arrived in large numbers and the slave trading through the Kongo people territory dramatically increased. The weakened Kingdom of Kongo continued to face internal revolts and violence that resulted from the raids and capture of slaves, and the Portuguese in 1575 established the port city of Luanda (now in Angola) in cooperation with a Kongo noble family to facilitate their military presence, African operations and the slave trade thereof. The Kingdom of Kongo and its people ended their cooperation in the 1660s. In 1665, the Portuguese army invaded the Kingdom, killed the Kongo king, disbanded his army, and installed a friendly replacement in his place.


title: Kongo people

text: The 1665 Kongo-Portuguese war and the killing of the hereditary king by the Portuguese soldiers led to a political vacuum. The Kongo kingdom disintegrated into smaller kingdoms, each controlled by nobles considered friendly by the Portuguese. One of these kingdoms was the kingdom of Loango. Loango was in the northern part, above the Congo river, a region which long before the war was already an established community of the Kongo people. New kingdoms came into existence in this period, from the disintegrated parts in the southeast and the northeast of the old Kongo kingdom. The old capital of the Kongo people called São Salvador was burnt down, and was in ruins and abandoned in 1678. The fragmented new kingdoms of the Kongo people disputed each other's boundaries and rights, as well as those of other non-Kongo ethnic groups bordering them, leading to steady wars and mutual raids.


title: Kongo people

text: The wars between the small kingdoms created a steady supply of captives that fed the Portuguese demand for slaves and the small kingdoms' need for government income to finance the wars. In the 1700s, a baptized teenage Kongo woman named Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita claimed to be possessed by Saint Anthony of Padua and that she has been visiting heaven to speak with God. She started preaching that Mary and Jesus were not born in Nazareth but in Africa among the Kongo people. She created a movement among the Kongo people which historians call as Kongo Antonianism.


title: Kongo people

text: Dona Beatriz questioned the wars devastating the Kongo people, asked all Kongo people to end the wars that fed the trading in humans, and unite under one king. She attracted a following of thousands of Kongo people into the ruins of their old capital. She was declared a false saint by the Portuguese-appointed Kongo king Pedro IV, with the support of Portuguese Catholic missionaries and Italian Capuchin monks then resident in Kongo lands. The 22 year old Dona Beatriz was arrested, then burnt alive at the stake on charges of being a witch and a heretic.


title: Kongo people

text: After the death of Dona Beatriz in 1706 and another three years of wars with the help of the Portuguese, Pedro IV was able to get back much of the old Kongo kingdom. The conflicts continued through the 18th century, however, and the demand for and the caravan of Kongo and non-Kongo people as captured slaves kept rising, headed to the Atlantic ports. Although, in Portuguese documents, all of Kongo people were technically under one ruler, they were no longer governed that way by the mid-18th century. The Kongo people were now divided into regions, each headed by a noble family. Christianity was growing again with new chapels built, services regularly held, missions of different Christian sects expanding, and church rituals a part of the royal succession. There were succession crises, ensuing conflicts when a local royal Kongo ruler died and occasional coups such as that of Andre II by Henrique III, typically settled with Portuguese intervention, and these continued through the mid 19th-century. After Henrique III died in 1857, competitive claims to the throne were raised by his relatives. One of them, Pedro Elelo, gained the trust of Portuguese military against Alvero XIII, by agreeing to be vassal of the colonial Portugal. This effectively ended whatever sovereignty had previously been recognized and the Kongo people became a part of colonial Portugal.


title: Kongo people

text: In concert with the growing import of Christian missionaries and luxury goods, the slave capture and exports through the Kongo lands grew. With over 5.6 million human beings kidnapped in Central Africa, then sold and shipped as slaves through the lands of the Kongo people, they witnessed the largest exports of slaves from Africa into the Americas by 1867. According to Jan Vansina, the "whole of Angola's economy and its institutions of governance were based on the slave trade" in 18th and 19th century, until the slave trade was forcibly brought to an end in the 1840s. This ban on lucrative trade of slaves through the lands of Kongo people was bitterly opposed by both the Portuguese and Luso-Africans (part Portuguese, part African), states Vansina. The slave trade was replaced with ivory trade in the 1850s, where the old caravan owners and routes replaced hunting human beings with hunting elephants for their tusks with the help of non-Kongo ethnic groups such as the Chokwe people, which were then exported with the labor of Kongo people.


title: Kongo people

text: Swedish missionaries entered the area in the 1880s and 1890, converting the northeast section of Kongo to Protestantism in the early twentieth century. The Swedish missionaries, notably Karl Laman, encouraged the local people to write their history and customs in notebooks, which then became the source for Laman's famous and widely cited ethnography and their dialect became well established thanks to Laman's dictionary of Kikongo.


title: Kongo people

text: The fragmented Kongo people in the 19th century were annexed by three European colonial empires, during the Scramble for Africa and Berlin Conference, the northernmost parts went to France (now the Republic of Congo and Gabon), the middle part along river Congo along with the large inland region of Africa went to Belgium (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the southern parts (now Angola) remained with Portugal. The Kongo people in all three colonies (Angola, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo) became one of the most active ethnic groups in the efforts to decolonize Africa, and worked with other ethnic groups in Central Africa to help liberate the three nations to self governance. The French and Belgium regions became independent in 1960. Angolan independence came in 1975. The Kongo people now occupy influential positions in the politics, administration and business operations in the three countries they are most found in.


title: Kongo people

text: The language of the Kongo people is called Kikongo (Guthrie: Bantu Zone H.10). It is a macrolanguage and consists of Beembe, Doondo, Koongo, Laari, Kongo-San-Salvador, Kunyi, Vili and Yombe sub-languages.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo language is divided into many dialects which are sufficiently diverse that people from distant dialects, such as speakers of Kivili dialect (on the northern coast) and speakers of Kisansolo (the central dialect) would have trouble understanding each other.


title: Kongo people

text: In Angola, there are a few who did not learn to speak Kikongo because Portuguese rules of assimilation during the colonial period was directed against learning native languages, though most Bakongo held on to the language. Most Angolan Kongo also speak Portuguese and those near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo also speak French. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo most also speak French and others speak either Lingala, a common lingua franca in Western Congo, or Kikongo ya Leta (generally known as Kituba particularly in the Republic of the Congo), a creole form of Kikongo spoken widely in the Republic of the Congo and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


title: Kongo people

text: The religious history of the Kongo is complex, particularly after the ruling class of the Kingdom of Kongo accepted Christianity at the start of the 16th century. According to historian John K. Thornton "Central Africans have probably never agreed among themselves as to what their cosmology is in detail, a product of what I called the process of continuous revelation and precarious priesthood." The Kongo people had diverse views, with traditional religious ideas best developed in the small northern Kikongo-speaking area, and this region neither converted to Christianity nor participated in slave trade until the 19th century.


title: Kongo people

text: There is abundant description about Kongo people's religious ideas in the Christian missionary and colonial era records, but states Thornton, these are written with a hostile bias and their reliability is problematic. The Kongo people's beliefs included "Kilundu" as "Nzambi" (god) or "Jinzambi" (gods, deities), all of which had limited powers. They believed in a creator absolute god, which the 16th-century Christian missionaries to Kongo stressed is same as the Christian God, to help spread their ideas by embracing the old Kongo people's ideas. Similarly, the early missionaries used Kongo language words to integrate Christian ideas, such as using the words ""nkisi"" to mean "holy". Thus, states Thornton, church to Kongo people was "nzo a nkisi" or another shrine, and the Bible was "mukanda nkisi" or a charm. Kongo people maintained both churches and shrines, which they called "Kiteki". Their smaller shrines were dedicated to the smaller deities, even after they had converted to Christianity. These deities were guardians of water bodies, crop lands and high places to the Kongo people, and they were very prevalent both in capital towns of the Christian ruling classes, as well as in the villages.


title: Kongo people

text: The later Portuguese missionaries and Capuchin monks upon their arrival in Kongo were baffled by these practices in the late 17th century (nearly 150 years after the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion in the Kingdom of Kongo). Some threatened to burn or destroy the shrines down. However, the Kongo people credited these shrines for abundance and defended them. The Kongo people's conversion was based on different assumptions and premises about what Christianity was, and syncretic ideas continued for centuries.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo people, state the colonial era accounts, included a reverence for their ancestors and spirits. Only Nzambi a Mpungu, the name for the high god, is usually held to have existed outside the world and to have created it. Other categories of the dead include bakulu or ancestors (the souls of the recently departed). In addition, the traditional Kongo belief considered fierce looking "Nkisi" as guardians of particular places, such as mountains, river courses, springs and districts, called "simbi" (pl. "bisimbi").


title: Kongo people

text: However, some anthropologists report regional differences. According to Dunja Hersak, for example, the Vili and Yombe do not believe in the power of ancestors in the same degree as to those living farther south. Furthermore, she and John Janzen state that religious ideas and emphasis have changed over time.


title: Kongo people

text: The slaves brought over by the European ships into the Americas carried with them their traditional ideas. Vanhee suggests that the Afro-Brazilian Quimbanda religion is a new world manifestation of Bantu religion and spirituality, and Kongo Christianity played a role in the formation of Voudou in Haiti.


title: Kongo people

text: The large Bakongo society features a diversity of occupations. Some are farmers who grow staples and cash crops. Among the staples are cassava, bananas, maize, taro and sweet potatoes. Other crops include peanuts (groundnuts) and beans. The cash crops were introduced by the colonial rulers, and these include coffee and cacao for the chocolate industry. Palm oil is another export commodity, while the traditional urena is a famine food. Some Kongo people fish and hunt, but most work in factories and trade in towns.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo people have traditionally recognized their descent from their mother (matrilineality), and this lineage links them into kinship groups. They are culturally organized as ones who cherish their independence, so much so that neighboring Kongo people's villages avoid being dependent on each other. There is a strong undercurrent of messianic tradition among the Bakongo, which has led to several politico-religious movements in the 20th century. This may be linked to the premises of dualistic cosmology in Bakongo tradition, where two worlds exist, one visible and lived, another invisible and full of powerful spirits. The belief that there is an interaction and reciprocal exchange between these, to Bakongo, means the world of spirits can possess the world of flesh.


title: Kongo people

text: The Kongo week was a four-day week: Konzo, Nkenge, Nsona and Nkandu. These days are named after the four towns near which traditionally a farmer's market was held in rotation. This idea spread across the Kongo people, and every major district or population center had four rotating markets locations, each center named after these days of the week. Larger market gatherings were rotated once every eight days, on Nsona Kungu.


title: Kongo people

text: The Haplogroup L2a1f is a mtdna clade that was found to be most common in the Democratic Republic of Congo amongst Bantu groups, including the Bakongo. Haplogroup E1b1a8 was the most commonly observed y-chromosome clade.


title: Kongo people

text: The idea of a Bakongo unity, actually developed in the early twentieth century, primarily through the publication of newspapers in various dialects of the language. In 1910 Kavuna Kafwandani (Kavuna Simon) published an article in the Swedish mission society's Kikongo language newspaper "Misanü Miayenge" (Words of Peace) calling for all speakers of the Kikongo language to recognize their identity.


title: Kongo people

text: The Bakongo people have championed ethnic rivalry and nationalism through sports such as football. The game is organized around ethnic teams, and fans cheer their teams along ethnic lines, such as during matches between the Poto-Poto people and the Kongo people. Further, during international competitions, they join across ethnic lines, states Phyllis Martin, to "assert their independence against church and state".


title: Car SOS

text: Car SOS is a British automotive entertainment television series that airs on National Geographic Channel as well as being repeated on Channel 4 and More4. The series began in 2013 and is presented by Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend.


title: Car SOS

text: Tim and Fuzz work closely with a specialist car restoration team helping to restore owners' classic cars from across the UK and Europe, often beginning in a serious state of disrepair. The owner, unbeknownst to them, and their car are nominated by a relative or friend because the owner is unable to continue the restoration of the vehicle, due to unforeseen medical or financial reasons. The owners are then surprised with their finished car in a staged event, usually set up by Shaw.


title: Car SOS

text: In a special series-three episode, a 1962 Austin-Healey Sebring Sprite destined for the British Motor Museum was restored with the owner's knowledge, breaking the show's format due to the car's significance, having been driven by a racing team that included Steve McQueen, and Sir Stirling Moss, who appears in the episode.


title: Car SOS

text: The series is presented by motor vehicle and engineering enthusiast Tim Shaw and musician and mechanic Fuzz Townshend. Townshend leads a team of car restoration experts who mainly work off camera, though they do have occasional cameos, most notably "Workshop" Phil Palmer's appearances within skits or scripted light-hearted moments taking place within the workshop.


title: Car SOS

text: Each episode begins with Tim and Fuzz picking up and reviewing the featured car. Shaw will discuss why the car is being restored with the nominee's relatives, while Townshend inspects the car's state, working out the amount of work needed. The car is then winched onto a trailer and taken to Townshend's workshop, where it is inspected further by all of the restoration team. As the restoration work begins, Shaw is given a list and travels the country to find the needed parts, often portrayed in a comedic, 'blagging' manner. Shaw and Townshend will occasionally break from the restoration, leaving it in the safe hands of the team to visit other restored models of the same car, test driving them and talking with other owners. Towards the end of the restoration, Shaw invites the nominee's family to discuss setting up a fake scenario or event in which they can return the car to the owner. The staged event is also usually presented in a comedic manner, with Shaw often in disguise before revealing himself and his intentions to the owner, who is then presented with their restored car.


title: Car SOS

text: A special aired as the third episode of the third series featuring Sir Stirling Moss. A 1962 Sebring Austin Healey Sprite, once driven at Sebring as part of a racing team featuring Steve McQueen and Sir Stirling Moss, was restored by the team and was placed in the Heritage Motor Centre (now named the British Motor Museum) once completed. In the 1962 race, a sister car was driven by Moss to a class win, and second overall. That car had since been destroyed, leaving the team car, restored by the team, as the only Sebring Sprite left in the world.


title: Radio jamming

text: Radio jamming is the deliberate jamming, blocking or interference with wireless communications. In some cases, jammers work by the transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio.


title: Radio jamming

text: The concept can be used in wireless data networks to disrupt information flow. It is a common form of censorship in totalitarian countries, in order to prevent foreign radio stations in border areas from reaching the country.


title: Radio jamming

text: Jamming is usually distinguished from interference that can occur due to device malfunctions or other accidental circumstances. Devices that simply cause interference are regulated differently. Unintentional "jamming" occurs when an operator transmits on a busy frequency without first checking whether it is in use, or without being able to hear stations using the frequency. Another form of unintentional jamming occurs when equipment accidentally radiates a signal, such as a cable television plant that accidentally emits on an aircraft emergency frequency.


title: Radio jamming

text: Originally the terms were used interchangeably but nowadays most radio users use the term "jamming" to describe the "deliberate" use of radio noise or signals in an attempt to disrupt communications (or prevent listening to broadcasts) whereas the term "interference" is used to describe "unintentional" forms of disruption (which are far more common). However, the distinction is still not universally applied. For inadvertent disruptions, see electromagnetic compatibility.


title: Radio jamming

text: Intentional communications jamming is usually aimed at radio signals to disrupt control of a battle. A transmitter, tuned to the same frequency as the opponents' receiving equipment and with the same type of modulation, can, with enough power, override any signal at the receiver. Digital wireless jamming for signals such as Bluetooth and WiFi is possible with very low power.


title: Radio jamming

text: The most common types of this form of signal jamming are random noise, random pulse, stepped tones, warbler, random keyed modulated CW, tone, rotary, pulse, spark, recorded sounds, gulls, and sweep-through. These can be divided into two groups: obvious and subtle.


title: Radio jamming

text: Obvious jamming is easy to detect because it can be heard on the receiving equipment. It is usually some type of noise, such as stepped tones (bagpipes), random-keyed code, pulses, music (often distorted), erratically warbling tones, highly distorted speech, random noise (hiss), and recorded sounds. Various combinations of these methods may be used, often accompanied by regular morse identification signal to enable individual transmitters to be identified in order to assess their effectiveness. For example, China, which used jamming extensively and still does, plays a loop of traditional Chinese music while it is jamming channels (cf. Attempted jamming of numbers stations).


title: Radio jamming

text: The purpose of this type of jamming is to block reception of transmitted signals and to cause a nuisance to the receiving operator. One early Soviet attempt at jamming Western broadcasters used the noise from the diesel generator that was powering the jamming transmitter.


title: Radio jamming

text: Subtle jamming is jamming during which no sound is heard on the receiving equipment. The radio does not receive incoming signals; yet everything seems superficially normal to the operator. These are often technical attacks on modern equipment, such as "squelch capture". Thanks to the FM capture effect, frequency modulated broadcasts may be jammed, unnoticed, by a simple unmodulated carrier. The receiver locks on to the larger carrier signal, and hence will ignore the FM signal that carries the information.


title: Radio jamming

text: Digital signals use complex modulation techniques, such as QPSK. These signals are very robust in the presence of interfering signals. But the signal relies on hand shaking between the transmitter and receiver to identify and determine security settings and method of high-level transmission. If the jamming device sends initiation data packets, the receiver will begin its state machine to establish two-way data transmission. A jammer will loop back to the beginning instead of completing the handshake. This method jams the receiver in an infinite loop where it keeps trying to initiate a connection but never completes it, which effectively blocks all legitimate communication.


title: Radio jamming

text: Bluetooth and other consumer radio protocols such as WiFi have built-in detectors, so that they transmit only when the channel is free. Simple continuous transmission on a given channel will continuously stop a transmitter transmitting, hence jamming the receiver from ever hearing from its intended transmitter. Other jammers work by analysing the packet headers and, depending on the source or destination, selectively transmitting over the end of the message, corrupting the packet.


title: Radio jamming

text: During World War II, ground radio operators would attempt to mislead pilots by false instructions in their own language, in what was more precisely a spoofing attack than jamming. Radar jamming is also important to disrupt use of radar used to guide an enemy's missiles or aircraft. Modern secure communication techniques use such methods as spread spectrum modulation to resist the deleterious effects of jamming.


title: Radio jamming

text: Jamming of foreign radio broadcast stations has often been used in wartime (and during periods of tense international relations) to prevent or deter citizens from listening to broadcasts from enemy countries. However, such jamming is usually of limited effectiveness because the affected stations usually change frequencies, put on additional frequencies and/or increase transmission power.


title: Radio jamming

text: Jamming has also occasionally been used by the governments of Germany (during World War II), Israel, Cuba, Iraq, Iran (during the Iran-Iraq War), China, North and South Korea and several Latin American countries, as well as by Ireland against pirate radio stations such as Radio Nova. The United Kingdom government used two coordinated, separately located transmitters to jam the offshore radio ship, Radio North Sea International off the coast of Britain in 1970.


title: Radio jamming

text: In occupied Europe the Nazis attempted to jam broadcasts to the continent from the BBC and other allied stations. Along with increasing transmitter power and adding extra frequencies, attempts were made to counteract the jamming by dropping leaflets over cities instructing listeners to construct a directional loop aerial that would enable them to hear the stations through the jamming. In the Netherlands such aerials were nicknamed "moffenzeef" (English: "kraut filter").


title: Radio jamming

text: Since the Soviet Union started jamming Western radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union in 1948 the primary targets have been the BBC External Broadcasting Services, Voice of America (VOA) and especially RFE/RL. Western nations had allowed jamming prior to World War II , but in the post-War era the Western view has been that jamming violates the freedom of information while the Soviet view has been that under the international law principle of national sovereignty jamming is an acceptable response to foreign radio broadcasts.


title: Radio jamming

text: During much of the Cold War, Soviet (and Eastern Bloc) jamming of some Western broadcasters led to a "power race" in which broadcasters and jammers alike repeatedly increased their transmission power, utilised highly directional antennas and added extra frequencies (known as "barrage" or "frequency diversity" broadcasting) to the already heavily overcrowded shortwave bands to such an extent that many broadcasters not directly targeted by the jammers (including pro-Soviet stations) suffered from the rising levels of noise and interference.


title: Radio jamming

text: There were also periods when China and the Soviet Union jammed each other's programmes. The Soviet Union also jammed Albanian programmes at times.


title: Radio jamming

text: Meanwhile, some listeners in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc devised ingenious methods (such as homemade directional loop antennas) to hear the Western stations through the noise. Because radio propagation on shortwave can be difficult to predict reliably, listeners sometimes found that there were days/times when the jamming was particularly ineffective because radio fading (due to atmospheric conditions) was affecting the jamming signals but favouring the broadcasts (a phenomenon sometimes dubbed "twilight immunity"). On other days of course the reverse was the case. There were also times when jamming transmitters were (temporarily) off air due to breakdowns or maintenance. The Soviets (and most of their Eastern bloc allies) used two types of jamming transmitter. Skywave jamming covered a large area but for the reasons described was of limited effectiveness. Groundwave jamming was more effective but only over a small area and was thus used only in/near major cities throughout the Eastern Bloc. Both types of jamming were less effective on higher shortwave frequencies (above 15 MHz); however, many radios in the Soviet Union didn't cover the higher bands. Skywave jamming was usually accompanied by morse signals in order to enable (coded) identification of the jamming station in order that Soviet monitoring posts could assess the effectiveness of each station.


title: Radio jamming

text: In 1987 after decades of generally refusing to acknowledge that such jamming was even taking place the Soviets finally stopped jamming western broadcasts with the exception of RFE/RL which continued to be jammed for several months into 1988. Previously there had been periods when some individual Eastern bloc countries refrained from jamming Western broadcasts but this varied widely by time and country. In general outside of the Soviet Union itself Bulgaria was one of the most prolific operators of jamming transmitters in the Eastern bloc with East Germany the least.


title: Radio jamming

text: While western governments may have occasionally considered jamming broadcasts from Eastern Bloc stations, it was generally accepted that doing so would be a pointless exercise. Ownership of shortwave radios was less common in western countries than in the Soviet Union where, due to the vast physical size of the country, many domestic stations were relayed on shortwave as it was the only practical way to cover remote areas. Additionally, western governments were generally less afraid of intellectual competition from the Eastern Bloc.


title: Radio jamming

text: In Francoist Spain the dictatorship jammed for decades Radio España Independiente, the radio station of the Communist Party of Spain which broadcast from Moscow (1941–1955) and Bucharest (1955–1977). It was the most important clandestine broadcaster in Spain and the regime considered it a threat, since it allowed its citizens to skip the censorship of the local media.


title: Radio jamming

text: However, in Latin America there were instances of communist radio stations such as Radio Venceremos being jammed, allegedly by the CIA, while there were short lived instances where Britain jammed some Egyptian (during the Suez Crisis), Greek (prior to Cyprus gaining independence) and Rhodesian stations.


title: Radio jamming

text: In 2002, China acquired standard short-wave radio-broadcasting equipment designed for general public radio-broadcasting and technical support from Thales Broadcast Multimedia, a former subsidiary of the French state-owned company Thales Group.


title: Radio jamming

text: Debates have been raised in Iran regarding the possible health hazards of satellite jamming. Iranian officials including the health minister have claimed that jamming has no health risk for humans. However, the minister of communication has recently admitted that satellite jamming has 'serious effects' and has called for identification of jamming stations so they can put a stop to this practice. The government has generally denied any involvement in jamming and claimed they are sent from unknown sources. According to some sources, IRGC is the organization behind satellite jamming in Iran.


title: Radio jamming

text: The Russian Armed Forces have, since the summer of 2015, begun using a multi-functional EW weapon system in Ukraine, known as Borisoglebsk 2. It is postulated that this system has defeated communications in parts of that country, including mobile telephony and GPS systems.


title: Radio jamming

text: Radio jamming (or "comm jamming") is a common plot element in the "Star Wars" franchise. In "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi", when the Rebel fleet approaches the Galactic Empire's force, believing themselves to be launching a surprise attack, General Lando Calrissian realizes the Empire is jamming their signals, and therefore know they are approaching.


title: Radio jamming

text: In the film "", after receiving a distress call from the space station "Regula I", Captain Kirk attempts to establish communications, but the "Enterprise's" comm officer Lt. Uhura reports that further transmissions are "jammed at the source".


title: Quiff

text: The quiff is a hairstyle that combines the 1950s pompadour hairstyle, the 1950s flattop, and sometimes a mohawk. It was born as a post-war reaction to the short and strict haircuts for men. The hairstyle was a staple in the British 'Teddy Boy' movement, but became popular again in Europe in the early 1980s and experienced a resurgence in popularity during the 1990s.


title: Quiff

text: The etymology of the word "quiff" is uncertain, several proposals have been suggested for its origin. It may owe its origin to the French word "coiffe", which can mean either a hairstyle or, going further back, the mail that knights wore over their heads and under their helmets. Another possible candidate for its origin is the Dutch word "kuif", meaning "crest". The Dutch name for Tintin, who sports a quiff, is "Kuifje", which is the diminutive of the same word.


title: Quiff

text: The modern-day quiff includes plenty of hair at the front of the top of the head, receding into shorter hair at the back with a trimmed back and sides. The Japanese punch perm, a favorite among yakuza (organized criminals) and bōsōzoku (biker gangs), is similar to the quiff.


title: Hyperreflexia

text: Hyperreflexia is overactive or overresponsive bodily reflexes. Examples of this include twitching and spastic tendencies, which indicate upper disease of the upper motor neurons and the lessening or loss of control ordinarily exerted by higher brain centers of lower neural pathways (disinhibition).


title: Hyperreflexia

text: The most common cause of hyperreflexia is spinal-cord injury ("see" "Autonomic dysreflexia"). Standard stimuli, such as the filling of the bladder, can cause excessive responses from the nervous system; the causes are not known.


title: Hyperreflexia

text: Hyperreflexia also has many other causes, including the side effects of drugs and stimulants; hyperthyroidism; electrolyte imbalance; serotonin syndrome; severe brain trauma; multiple sclerosis; Reye syndrome; and preeclampsia.


title: Hyperreflexia

text: Treatment depends on the cause of the hyperreflexia. If drugs cause it, treatment may require that they not be used.


title: Hyperreflexia

text: Recovery from hyperreflexia can occur several hours to several months after a spinal-cord injury; the phase of recovery is likely to occur in stages rather than on a continuum. The late stage is between two weeks and several months. Patients with a severe spinal-cord injury (SCI) mainly present with a later stage of recovery because during the early stages they present with spinal shock. Reflex and motor recovery can sometimes occur simultaneously.


title: Coyote (TV series)

text: Coyote is an American crime drama television series created by David Graziano, Michael Carnes and Josh Gilbert. The series stars Michael Chiklis and premiered on CBS All Access on January 7, 2021.


title: Coyote (TV series)

text: The series was originally ordered as ten episodes, targeted for sibling Paramount Network, but eventually was passed off to CBS All Access as a six-episode season.


title: Coyote (TV series)

text: After 32 years of working as a Border Patrol agent, Ben Clemens is forced to work for the people he spent his career trying to keep out of the United States.


title: Coyote (TV series)

text: Development of the series was first announced on May 1, 2019. On June 26, 2019, it was reported that Paramount Network had given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to "Coyote". On November 19, 2020, it was announced that the series will debut on CBS All Access rather than Paramount Network.


title: Coyote (TV series)

text: Review aggregator Metacritic gave the series a score of 65 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on 8 professional critics.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: The Discourses on Livy (, ) is a work of political history and philosophy written in the early 16th century (c. 1517) by the Italian writer and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, best known as the author of "The Prince". The "Discourses" were published posthumously with papal privilege in 1531.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: The title identifies the work's subject as the first ten books of Livy's "Ab urbe condita", which relate the expansion of Rome through the end of the Third Samnite War in 293 BC, although Machiavelli discusses what can be learned from many other eras including contemporary politics. Machiavelli saw history in general as a way to learn useful lessons from the past for the present, and also as a type of analysis which could be built upon, as long as each generation did not forget the works of the past.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli frequently describes Romans and other ancient peoples as superior models for his contemporaries, but he also describes political greatness as something which comes and goes amongst peoples, in cycles.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: "Discourses on Livy" comprises a dedication letter and three books with 142 numbered chapters. The first two books (but not the third) are introduced by unnumbered prefaces. A good deal has been made of the coincidence that Livy's history also contained 142 books in addition to its introduction and other numerological curiosities that turn up in Machiavelli's writings. At the end of I 1, Machiavelli indicates the structure of the work. In the work of Livy, Machiavelli says that the things worked by Rome were divided into two dichotomies: things done either through public counsel or private counsel, and things occurring either inside the city or outside the city. The first book will concern things inside the city and by public counsel. The second book, as he later indicates at the end of the second preface, concerns public counsel of things outside the city. The plan would seem to require two more books, but there is only one, which concerns private counsel of things inside and outside the city.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli dedicates the "Discourses" to two friends, Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai, both of whom appear in Machiavelli's "Art of War". Rucellai had died in 1519, but this did not lead Machiavelli to find a new dedicatee, as he had with "The Prince". Machiavelli justifies dedicating the "Discourses" to his two friends because they deserve to be princes, even if they lack principalities, and he criticizes the custom (which he had adopted in "The Prince") of dedicating works to men who are princes but do not deserve to be.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli notes that Rome's actions as recounted by Livy proceeded either by "public counsel" or by "private counsel", and that they concerned either things inside the city or things outside the city, yielding four possible combinations. He says that he will restrict himself in Book I to those things that occurred inside the city and by public counsel.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: In the preface to Book I, Machiavelli explains why he wrote the "Discourse", noting that he brings new modes and orders—a dangerous task given the envy of men, but one motivated by the desire to work for the common benefit of humanity. He also notes that while his work may not be perfect, it deserves to be heard, because it will aid others after him in fulfilling his vision. He complains that the Italian Renaissance has stimulated a desire to imitate the ancients in art, law, and medicine, but that no one thinks of imitating ancient kingdoms or republics. He traces this to an improper reading of history that suggests that imitation of ancient political virtue is impossible. He declares his intention to overcome this view of the ancient world by examining Livy and modern politics.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Book I begins by explaining how a city is formed, which is done by either natives to the area or foreigners, citing specific examples such as Athens and Venice. Machiavelli then explains this idea and states that this greatly changes the way a city is viewed, in particular for Rome. He states that there are six main different types of government, three of which are good, but "no precaution will prevent it from slipping into its opposite, so closely are the virtues and vices of the two related." Namely, monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy will become tyranny, oligarchy, and anarchy, respectively. Machiavelli then tries to determine what type of government Rome was; he says it was a republic, mixing all three functional political systems together, which kept the violent tendencies of one another in check.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli then delves into more historical events. Once the Tarquins left Rome there seemed to be peace and alliance between the patricians and the plebs, but this in fact was untrue. This disunity resulted in Rome evolving into a Republic. Moving on, he says that a republic has the opportunity to emerge as an empire, like Rome, or just maintain what it is. Also, allowing people to accuse other citizens is necessary in creating a republic, but calumnies, whispered allegations that cannot be proven or disproven in a court, are harmful because they cause mistrust and help create factionalism.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli then goes into how a founder of a republic must "act alone" and gain absolute power to form a lasting regime. He cites Romulus's murder of his own brother Remus and co-ruler Titus Tatius in order to gain power. Machiavelli then excuses Romulus for his crimes, saying he acted for the common good in bringing "civil life".


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli ranks then which rulers are most praiseworthy, the first of which being leaders who lead due to religion, then those who lead because they created a republic or kingdom. Religion in Rome was cited as a primary cause for joy in the city as it is truly an important element. He also states that Livy gives many examples of when religion was utilized to restructure the city. He says Numa Pompilius was more important to Rome than Romulus for bringing the kingdom to arms by using religion. While Machiavelli believes that religion is absolutely necessary for maintaining a government, he also believes in the power and influence of fortune, without which the Roman government would have never broken from the cycle of government demonstrated by Polybius. Fortune acts similarly to the activity of gods, yet it is different in that it exists naturally and benefits those who demonstrate virtue. He criticizes the Catholic Church's ineffectiveness in unifying Italy, writing: The Samnites were defeated by the Romans several times and in order to change this they decided to find a new approach to their religion.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Machiavelli speaks on corruption, and how hard it is to sustain a republic where it has recently been freed from monarchy. He says that to sustain a republic in a newly freed city, it is necessary to "Kill the sons of Brutus", make violent examples out of the enemies of the free regime, citing Brutus's execution of his sons as an example. He also gives similar advice to "princes who have become tyrants of their fatherlands". Machiavelli then states that to keep a corrupt republic free, it is necessary to use extraordinary means.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Discussing then freedom, Machiavelli explains that freedom becomes an issue once a type of government shifts. He explains that the Romans were not corrupt when they regained their freedom and could thus keep it. Questioning what mode a free state can be maintained in a corrupt city, he states that Rome had orders, which kept the citizens checked.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: He then goes into a discussion of the rulers of Rome and how a strong or weak Prince can maintain or destroy a kingdom. He continues, to say that after a weak prince a kingdom could not remain strong with another weak prince. Luckily, the first three kings each had a certain strength, which aided the city. Romulus was fierce, Numa was religious, and Tullus was dedicated to war.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: The book then slightly shifts focus to discussing the reformation of a state. Machiavelli explains that if one wants to change a state they must keep some elements of the previous state. Also, he says that a Prince or republic should not deny citizens necessities. He then conveys that having a dictatorial authority was beneficial for the City of Rome because a republic cannot always make the quick decisions demanded by a crisis, and in these cases one person can do a better job than the rest. Rome benefited because the office of Dictator was written into the constitution so it could be exercised legitimately and then retired during the emergency. Continuing with this, weak republics are not truly able to make important decisions and that any change will come from necessity.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: He also goes into a discussion about how to establish and maintain a tyrannical government, using the example of Appius Claudius, an individual who was unwise in approaching this endeavor. He states that those who are successful in establishing absolutist regimes attack the nobles by appealing to the people, then oppress the people when all of their enemies are eliminated.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: The themes of pride and corruption appear many times throughout "The Discourses" and Machiavelli believes that it is very easy for a person to be corrupted. It is also good for a soldier to have the desire to fight for personal pride and glory.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Towards the end of Book I, Machiavelli adds that great accidents that occur in a city usually come with some kind of sign. This sign could be divine or seen through a revelation. He gives the particular example that in Florence, right before the death of Lorenzo de' Medici the Elder, a cathedral was hit by lightning. Machiavelli explains that Livy stated that people are strong together, but weak when alone, citing the example of the Roman plebs. Machiavelli feels that the multitude is wiser than the one prince. Thus, Book I examines a variety of issues that occur when creating a state, and looks at it with specific examples from Rome and other parts of Italy.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Chapter 1 debates whether Virtue or Fortune had more of a cause of the empire that the Romans acquired. There were many opinions equally distributed to both sides, and there is not final consensus on which had more of a cause, virtue or fortune.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Chapter 2 discusses what people the Romans had to combat, and that they obstinately defended their freedom. In this chapter he also goes into why he thinks that republics are better than principalities.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Chapter 3 talks about how Rome had its rise to power through their ruining of surrounding cities, making Rome the primary power of the region.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Chapter 4 lists the three modes of expanding that republics have taken. Also, Machiavelli gives the reasoning and background information for why these three modes of expanding that the republic took were necessary.


title: Discourses on Livy

text: Chapter 5 talks about how memories can be lost due to issues such as language barriers, floods, or even plague.