title: History of science fiction

text: The 19th century saw a major acceleration of these trends and features, most clearly seen in the groundbreaking publication of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" in 1818. The short novel features the archetypal "mad scientist" experimenting with advanced technology. In his book "Billion Year Spree", Brian Aldiss claims "Frankenstein" represents "the first seminal work to which the label SF can be logically attached". It is also the first of the "mad scientist" subgenre. Although normally associated with the gothic horror genre, the novel introduces science fiction themes such as the use of technology for achievements beyond the scope of science at the time, and the alien as antagonist, furnishing a view of the human condition from an outside perspective. Aldiss argues that science fiction in general derives its conventions from the gothic novel. Mary Shelley's short story "Roger Dodsworth: The Reanimated Englishman" (1826) sees a man frozen in ice revived in the present day, incorporating the now common science fiction theme of cryonics whilst also exemplifying Shelley's use of science as a conceit to drive her stories. Another futuristic Shelley novel, "The Last Man", is also often cited as the first true science fiction novel.


title: History of science fiction

text: In 1836 Alexander Veltman published "Predki Kalimerosa: Aleksandr Filippovich Makedonskii" (The forebears of Kalimeros: Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon), which has been called the first original Russian science fiction novel and the first novel to use time travel. Albeit time travel achieved via a magical hippogriff rather than technological means. The narrator meets Aristotle, and goes on a voyage with Alexander the Great before returning to the 19th century.


title: History of science fiction

text: Somehow influenced by the scientific theories of the 19th century, but most certainly by the idea of human progress, Victor Hugo wrote in "The Legend of the Centuries" (1859) a long poem in two parts that can be viewed like a dystopia/utopia fiction, called "20th century". It shows in a first scene the body of a broken huge ship, the greatest product of the prideful and foolish mankind that called it "Leviathan", wandering in a desert world where the winds blow and the anger of the wounded Nature is; humanity, finally reunited and pacified, has gone toward the stars in a starship, to look for and to bring liberty into the light.


title: History of science fiction

text: The European brand of science fiction proper began later in the 19th century with the scientific romances of H.G. Wells and the science-oriented, socially critical novels of Jules Verne. Verne's adventure stories, notably "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864), "From the Earth to the Moon" (1865), and "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (1869) mixed daring romantic adventure with technology that was either up to the minute or logically extrapolated into the future. They were tremendous commercial successes and established that an author could make a career out of such whimsical material. L. Sprague de Camp calls Verne "the world's first full-time science fiction novelist."


title: History of science fiction

text: Wells's stories, on the other hand, use science fiction devices to make didactic points about his society. In "The Time Machine" (1895), for example, the technical details of the machine are glossed over quickly so that the Time Traveller can tell a story that criticizes the stratification of English society. The story also uses Darwinian evolution (as would be expected in a former student of Darwin's champion, Huxley), and shows an awareness of Marxism. In "The War of the Worlds" (1898), the Martians' technology is not explained as it would have been in a Verne story, and the story is resolved by a deus ex machina, albeit a scientifically explained one.


title: History of science fiction

text: The differences between Verne and Wells highlight a tension that has existed in science fiction throughout its history. The question of whether to present realistic technology or to focus on characters and ideas has been ever-present, as has the question of whether to tell an exciting story or make a didactic point.


title: History of science fiction

text: Wells and Verne had quite a few rivals in early science fiction. Short stories and novelettes with themes of fantastic imagining appeared in journals throughout the late 19th century and many of these employed scientific ideas as the springboard to the imagination. "Erewhon" is a novel by Samuel Butler published in 1872 and dealing with the concept that machines could one day become sentient and supplant the human race. In 1886 the novel The Future Eve by French author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was published, where Thomas Edison builds an artificial woman. Although better known for Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also wrote early science fiction, particularly using the character of Professor Challenger. Rudyard Kipling's contributions to the genre in the early 1900s made Campbell describe him as "the first modern science fiction writer". Other writers in the field were Bengali science fiction authors such as Sukumar Ray and Begum Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, who wrote the earliest known feminist science fiction work, "Sultana's Dream". Another early feminist science fiction work at the time was Charlotte Perkins Gilman' "Herland".


title: History of science fiction

text: Wells and Verne both had an international readership and influenced writers in America, especially. Soon a home-grown American science fiction was thriving. European writers found more readers by selling to the American market and writing in an Americanised style.


title: History of science fiction

text: In the last decades of the 19th century, works of science fiction for adults and children were numerous in America, though it was not yet given the name "science fiction."


title: History of science fiction

text: There were science-fiction elements in the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Fitz-James O'Brien. Edgar Allan Poe is often mentioned with Verne and Wells as the founders of science fiction although Mary Shelley's Frankenstein predates these. A number of his short stories, and the novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" are science fictional. An 1827 satiric novel by philosopher George Tucker "A Voyage to the Moon" is sometimes cited as the first American science fiction novel.


title: History of science fiction

text: In 1835 Edgar Allan Poe published a short story, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" in which a flight to the moon in a balloon is described. It has an account of the launch, the construction of the cabin, descriptions of strata and many more science-like aspects. In addition to Poe's account the story written in 1813 by the Dutch Willem Bilderdijk is remarkable. In his novel "Kort verhaal van eene aanmerkelijke luchtreis en nieuwe planeetontdekking" (Short account of a remarkable journey into the skies and discovery of a new planet) Bilderdijk tells of a European somewhat stranded in an Arabic country where he boasts he is able to build a balloon that can lift people and let them fly through the air. The gasses used turn out to be far more powerful than expected and after a while he lands on a planet positioned between earth and moon. The writer uses the story to portray an overview of scientific knowledge concerning the moon in all sorts of aspects the traveller to that place would encounter. Quite a few similarities can be found in the story Poe published some twenty years later.


title: History of science fiction

text: John Leonard Riddell, a Professor of Chemistry in New Orleans, published the short story "Orrin Lindsay's plan of aerial navigation, with a narrative of his explorations in the higher regions of the atmosphere, and his wonderful voyage round the moon!" in 1847 on a pamphlet. It tells the story of the student Orrin Lindsay who invents an alloy that prevents gravitational attraction, and in a spherical craft leaves earth and travel to the moon. The story contains algebra and scientific footnotes, which makes it an early example of hard science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: William Henry Rhodes published in 1871 the tale "The Case of Summerfield" in the Sacramento Union newspaper, and introduced weapon of mass destruction. A mad scientist and villain called Black Bart makes an attempt to blackmail the world with a powder made of potassium, able to destroy the planet by turning its waters into fire.


title: History of science fiction

text: Charles Curtis Dail, a Kentucky lawyer, published in 1890 the novel "Willmoth the Wanderer, or The Man from Saturn", had his protagonist travel through the solar system by covering his body with an anti-gravity ointment.


title: History of science fiction

text: The newspaper man Edward Page Mitchell would publish his innovative science fiction short stories in "The Sun" for more than a decade, except for his first story which was published in "Scribner's Monthly" in 1874. His stories included invisibility, faster than light travels, teleportation, time travel, cryogenics, mind transfer, mutants, cyborgs and mechanical brains.


title: History of science fiction

text: One of the most successful works of early American science fiction was the second-best selling novel in the U.S. in the 19th century: Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward" (1888), its effects extending far beyond the field of literature. "Looking Backward" extrapolates a future society based on observation of the current society.


title: History of science fiction

text: In 1894, Will Harben published "Land of the Changing Sun," a dystopian fantasy set at the center of the earth. In Harben's tale, the earth's core is populated by a scientifically advanced civilization, living beneath the glow of a mechanical sun.


title: History of science fiction

text: Mark Twain explored themes of science in his novel "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". By means of ""transmigration of souls", "transposition of epochs – and bodies"" Twain's Yankee is transported back in time and his knowledge of 19th-century technology with him. Written in 1889, "A Connecticut Yankee" seems to predict the events of World War I, when Europe's old ideas of chivalry in warfare were shattered by new weapons and tactics.


title: History of science fiction

text: American author L. Frank Baum's series of 14 books (1900–1920) based in his outlandish Land of Oz setting, contained depictions of strange weapons (Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, Glinda of Oz), mechanical men (Tik-Tok of Oz) and a bevy of not-yet-realized technological inventions and devices including perhaps the first literary appearance of handheld wireless communicators (Tik-Tok of Oz).


title: History of science fiction

text: Jack London wrote several science fiction stories, including "The Red One" (a story involving extraterrestrials), "The Iron Heel" (set in the future from London's point of view) and "The Unparalleled Invasion" (a story involving future germ warfare and ethnic cleansing). He also wrote a story about invisibility and a story about an irresistible energy weapon. These stories began to change the features of science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: Edward Everett Hale wrote "The Brick Moon", a Verne-inspired novel notable as the first work to describe an artificial satellite. Written in much the same style as his other work, it employs pseudojournalistic realism to tell an adventure story with little basis in reality.


title: History of science fiction

text: Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) began writing science fiction for pulp magazines just before World War I, getting his first story "Under the Moons of Mars" published in 1912. He continued to publish adventure stories, many of them science fiction, throughout the rest of his life. The pulps published adventure stories of all kinds. Science fiction stories had to fit in alongside murder mysteries, horror, fantasy and Edgar Rice Burroughs' own Tarzan.


title: History of science fiction

text: The next great science fiction writers after H. G. Wells were Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950), whose four major works "Last and First Men" (1930), "Odd John" (1935), "Star Maker" (1937), and "Sirius" (1944), introduced a myriad of ideas that writers have since adopted, and J.-H. Rosny aîné, born in Belgium, the father of "modern" French science fiction, a writer also comparable to H. G. Wells, who wrote the classic "Les Xipehuz" (1887) and "La Mort de la Terre" (1910). However, the Twenties and Thirties would see the genre represented in a new format. Robert Hugh Benson wrote one of the first modern dystopias, Lord of the World (1907).


title: History of science fiction

text: Rudyard Kipling's contributions to science fiction go beyond their direct impact at the start of the 20th century. The Aerial Board of Control stories and his critique of the British military, The Army of a Dream, were not only very modern in style, but strongly influenced authors like John W. Campbell and Robert Anson Heinlein, the latter of whom wrote a novel, Starship Troopers, that contains all of the elements of The Army of a Dream, and whose Stranger in a Strange Land can be compared to The Jungle Book, with the human child raised by Martians instead of wolves. Heinlein's technique of indirect exposition first appears in Kiplings' writing. Heinlein, the central influence of all science fiction from the 1930s forward, has also described himself as influenced by George Bernard Shaw, whose longest work Back to Methuselah (1921) was itself science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: The development of American science fiction as a self-conscious genre dates in part from 1926, when Hugo Gernsback founded "Amazing Stories" magazine, which was devoted exclusively to science fiction stories. Though science fiction magazines had been published in Germany before, "Amazing Stories" was the first English language magazine to solely publish science fiction. Since he is notable for having chosen the variant term "scientifiction" to describe this incipient genre, the stage in the genre's development, his name and the term "scientifiction" are often thought to be inextricably linked. Though Gernsback encouraged stories featuring scientific realism to educate his readers about scientific principles, such stories shared the pages with exciting stories with little basis in reality. Much of what Gernsback published was referred to as "gadget fiction", about what happens when someone makes a technological invention. Published in this and other pulp magazines with great and growing success, such scientifiction stories were not viewed as serious literature but as sensationalism. Nevertheless, a magazine devoted entirely to science fiction was a great boost to the public awareness of the scientific speculation story. "Amazing Stories" competed with several other pulp magazines, including "Weird Tales" (which primarily published fantasy stories), "Astounding Stories", and "Wonder Stories", throughout the 1930s. It was in the Gernsback era that science fiction fandom arose through the medium of the "Letters to the Editor" columns of "Amazing" and its competitors. In August 1928, Amazing Stories published Skylark of Space and Armageddon 2419 A.D., while Weird Tales published Edmond Hamilton's "Crashing Suns", all of which represented the birth of space opera.


title: History of science fiction

text: Fritz Lang's movie "Metropolis" (1927), in which the first cinematic humanoid robot was seen, and the Italian Futurists' love of machines are indicative of both the hopes and fears of the world between the world wars.


title: History of science fiction

text: "Metropolis" was an extremely successful film and its art-deco inspired aesthetic became the guiding aesthetic of the science fiction pulps for some time.


title: History of science fiction

text: Writers attempted to respond to the new world in the post-World War I era. In the 1920s and 30s writers entirely unconnected with science fiction were exploring new ways of telling a story and new ways of treating time, space and experience in the narrative form. The posthumously published works of Franz Kafka (who died in 1924) and the works of modernist writers such as James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and others featured stories in which time and individual identity could be expanded, contracted, looped and otherwise distorted. While this work was unconnected to science fiction as a genre, it did deal with the impact of modernity (technology, science, and change) upon people's lives, and decades later, during the New Wave movement, some modernist literary techniques entered science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: Czech playwright Karel Čapek's plays "The Makropulos Affair", "R.U.R.", "The Life of the Insects", and the novel "War with the Newts" were modernist literature which invented important science fiction motifs. "R.U.R." in particular is noted for introducing the word robot to the world's vocabulary.


title: History of science fiction

text: A strong theme in modernist writing was "alienation", the making strange of familiar surroundings so that settings and behaviour usually regarded as "normal" are seen as though they were the seemingly bizarre practices of an alien culture. The audience of modernist plays or the readership of modern novels is often led to question everything.


title: History of science fiction

text: At the same time, a tradition of more literary science fiction novels, treating with a dissonance between perceived Utopian conditions and the full expression of human desires, began to develop: the dystopian novel. For some time, the science fictional elements of these works were ignored by mainstream literary critics, though they owe a much greater debt to the science fiction genre than the modernists do. Sincerely Utopian writing, including much of Wells, has also deeply influenced science fiction, beginning with Hugo Gernsback's "Ralph 124C 41+".


title: History of science fiction

text: Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1920 novel "We" depicts a totalitarian attempt to create a utopia that results in a dystopic state where free will is lost. Aldous Huxley bridged the gap between the literary establishment and the world of science fiction with "Brave New World" (1932), an ironic portrait of a stable and ostensibly happy society built by human mastery of genetic manipulation.


title: History of science fiction

text: In the late 1930s, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, and a critical mass of new writers emerged in New York City in a group of science fiction fans (many of whom soon became professional writers) called the Futurians, which included Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, James Blish, Judith Merril, and others. Other important writers during this period included Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and A. E. van Vogt. Campbell's tenure at Astounding is considered to be the beginning of the Golden Age of science fiction, characterized by hard science fiction stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress. This lasted until postwar technological advances, new magazines like Galaxy under H.L. Gold and later Pohl as editor, and a new generation of writers began writing stories outside the Campbell mode.


title: History of science fiction

text: George Orwell wrote perhaps the most highly regarded of these literary dystopias, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", in 1948. He envisions a technologically governed totalitarian regime that dominates society through total information control. Zamyatin's "We" is recognized as an influence on both Huxley and Orwell; Orwell published a book review of "We" shortly after it was first published in English, several years before writing "1984".


title: History of science fiction

text: Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Dispossessed:An Ambiguous Utopia", much of Kurt Vonnegut's writing, and many other works of later science fiction continue this dialogue between utopia and dystopia.


title: History of science fiction

text: Orson Welles's "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" produced a radio version of "The War of the Worlds" which, according to urban myth, panicked large numbers of people who believed the program to be a real newscast. However, there is doubt as to how much anecdotes of mass panic had any reflection in reality, and the myth may have originated among newspapers, jealous of the upstart new medium of radio. Inarguably, though, the idea of visitors or invaders from outer space became embedded in the consciousness of everyday people.


title: History of science fiction

text: During World War II, American military planners studied science fiction for ideas. The British did the same, and also asked authors to submit outlandish ideas which the government leaked to the Axis as real plans. Pilots speculated as to the origins of the "Foo fighters" they saw around them in the air. Meanwhile, the Germans had developed flying bombs known as V1s and V2s reminiscent of the "rocket ships" ever-present in pulp science fiction, presaging space flight. Jet planes and the atom bomb were developed. "Deadline", a Cleve Cartmill short story about a fictional atomic bomb project prompted the FBI to visit the offices of "Astounding Science Fiction".


title: History of science fiction

text: Asimov said that "The dropping of the atom bomb in 1945 made science fiction respectable. Once the horror at Hiroshima took place, anyone could see that science fiction writers were not merely dreamers and crackpots after all, and that many of the motifs of that class of literature were now permanently part of the newspaper headlines". With the story of a flying saucer crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, science fiction had become modern folklore.


title: History of science fiction

text: With the emergence in 1937 of a demanding editor, John W. Campbell, Jr., at "Astounding Science Fiction", and with the publication of stories and novels by such writers as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein, science fiction began to gain status as serious fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: Campbell exercised an extraordinary influence over the work of his stable of writers, thus shaping the direction of science fiction. Asimov wrote, "We were extensions of himself; we were his literary clones." Under Campbell's direction, the years from 1938–1950 would become known as the "Golden Age of science fiction", though Asimov points out that the term Golden Age has been used more loosely to refer to other periods in science fiction's history.


title: History of science fiction

text: Campbell's guidance to his writers included his famous dictum, "Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." He emphasized a higher quality of writing than editors before him, giving special attention to developing the group of young writers who attached themselves to him.


title: History of science fiction

text: Ventures into the genre by writers who were not devoted exclusively to science fiction also added respectability. Magazine covers of bug-eyed monsters and scantily clad women, however, preserved the image of a sensational genre appealing only to adolescents. There was a public desire for sensation, a desire of people to be taken out of their dull lives to the worlds of space travel and adventure.


title: History of science fiction

text: An interesting footnote to Campbell's regime is his contribution to the rise of L. Ron Hubbard's religion Scientology. Hubbard was considered a promising science fiction writer and a protégé of Campbell, who published Hubbard's first articles about Dianetics and his new religion. As Campbell's reign as editor of "Astounding" progressed, Campbell gave more attention to ideas like Hubbard's, writing editorials in support of Dianetics. Though "Astounding" continued to have a loyal fanbase, readers started turning to other magazines to find science fiction stories.


title: History of science fiction

text: With the new source material provided by the Golden Age writers, advances in special effects, and a public desire for material that treated with the advances in technology of the time, all the elements were in place to create significant works of science fiction film.


title: History of science fiction

text: As a result, science fiction film came into its own in the 1950s, producing films like "Destination Moon", "Them!", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Forbidden Planet", and many others. Many of these movies were based on stories by Campbell's writers. "The Thing from Another World" was adapted from a Campbell story, "Them" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" were based on Jack Finney novels, "Destination Moon" on a Heinlein novel, and "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" was derived from a Ray Bradbury short story. John Wyndham's cosy catastrophes, including "The Day of the Triffids" and "The Kraken Wakes", provided important source material as well.


title: History of science fiction

text: Science fiction had also been appearing in American comic books such as Planet Comics, but an important step forward came with the anthology series Weird Science (comic) and Weird Fantasy, published by E.C. Comics, which would include some adaptations from authors like Ray Bradbury, along with many original stories. Classics Illustrated had already published adaptations of Wells and Verne stories.


title: History of science fiction

text: At the same time, science fiction began to appear on a new medium – television. In 1953 "The Quatermass Experiment" was shown on British television, the first significant science fiction show, though it could also be described as horror. In the United States, science fiction heroes like "Captain Video", "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers" were shown, programs that more closely resembled pre-Campbellian science fiction. These shows also saw comic book spin-off products.


title: History of science fiction

text: Seeking greater freedom of expression, writers started to publish their articles in other magazines, including "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction", "If magazine", a resurrected "Amazing Stories", and most notably, "Galaxy".


title: History of science fiction

text: Under editors H.L. Gold and then Frederik Pohl, "Galaxy" stressed a more literary form of science fiction that took cues from more mainstream literature. It was less insistent on scientific plausibility than Campbell's "Astounding". The rise of "Galaxy" signaled the end of Golden Age science fiction, though most of the Golden Age writers were able to adapt to the changes in the genre and keep writing. Some, however, moved to other fields. Isaac Asimov and several others began to write scientific fact almost exclusively.


title: History of science fiction

text: Until about 1950, magazines were the only way authors could publish new stories. Only small specialty presses like Arkham House and Gnome Press published science fiction hardcover books, all reprints of magazine stories. With rare exceptions like the collections "Adventures in Time and Space" and "A Treasury of Science Fiction", large mainstream publishers only printed Verne and Wells. Most genre books were sold by mail from small magazine advertisements, because bookstores rarely carried science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: By 1951, the small presses proved that demand existed for science fiction books, enough to cause magazines to print regular review columns. Large, mainstream companies published hardboiled crime fiction during World War II; Doubleday in 1950, then Simon & Schuster, Scribner's, Putnam, and others now entered the science fiction market. They issued fixups such as "The Martian Chronicles", novel versions of serialized stories, and original fiction. Demand for content grew as the specialty presses had depleted the supply of easily reprinted, high-quality stories; new genre magazines appeared (38 different science fiction publications existed in the US and UK in 1953); and large-circulation magazines like "Playboy", "Collier's", and "Esquire" published stories. Genre stories like Walter M. Miller Jr.'s "A Canticle for Leibowitz" became mainstream bestsellers as books. For the first time, an author could write science fiction full-time; Barry N. Malzberg calculated that producing 1,000 words a day would earn twice the national median income, and Asimov stopped teaching at Boston University School of Medicine after making more money as a writer.


title: History of science fiction

text: The mainstream book companies' large print runs and distribution networks lowered prices and increased availability, but displaced the small publishers; Algis Budrys later said that "they themselves would draw little but disaster" from the science fiction boom of the 1950s they helped to begin. While book sales continued to grow, the magazine industry almost collapsed from the glut of new titles, shrinking from 23 in mid-1957 to six by the end of 1960, while authors like Heinlein, Clarke, Vonnegut, and Bradbury published through non-genre publications that paid at much higher rates. Top writers like Budrys, Miller, Theodore Sturgeon, and Robert Silverberg left the industry.


title: History of science fiction

text: Samuel Beckett's "The Unnamable" and "Waiting for Godot" were influential upon writing in the 1950s. In the former all sense of place and time are dispensed with; all that remains is a voice poised between the urge to continue existing and the urge to find silence and oblivion. (The only other major writer to use "The Unnamable" as a title was H. P. Lovecraft.) In the latter, time and the paradoxes of cause and effect become thematic. Beckett's influence on the intelligentsia—as well as the general influence of existentialism and the legal battles to publish books then classified as obscene—made science fiction more sophisticated, especially in Britain.


title: History of science fiction

text: William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) was the writer who finally brought science fiction together with the trends of postmodern literature. With the help of Jack Kerouac, Burroughs published "Naked Lunch", the first of a series of novels employing a semi-dadaistic technique called the Cut-up and postmodern deconstructions of conventional society, pulling away the mask of normality to reveal nothingness beneath. Burroughs showed visions of society as a conspiracy of aliens, monsters, police states, drug dealers and alternate levels of reality. The linguistics of science fiction merged with the experiments of postmodernism in a beat generation gestalt.


title: History of science fiction

text: In 1960, British novelist Kingsley Amis published "New Maps of Hell", a literary history and examination of the field of science fiction. This serious attention from a mainstream, acceptable writer did a great deal of good, eventually, for the reputation of science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: Another milestone was the publication, in 1965, of Frank Herbert's "Dune", a complex work of fiction featuring political intrigue in a future galaxy, mystical religious beliefs, and the ecosystem of the desert planet Arrakis. Another was the emergence of the work of Roger Zelazny, whose novels such as Lord of Light and his famous The Chronicles of Amber showed that the lines between science-fiction, fantasy, religion, and social commentary could be very fine.


title: History of science fiction

text: Also in 1965 French director Jean-Luc Godard's film Alphaville used the medium of dystopian and apocalyptic science fiction to explore language and society.


title: History of science fiction

text: In Britain, the 1960s generation of writers, dubbed "The New Wave", were experimenting with different forms of science fiction, stretching the genre towards surrealism, psychological drama and mainstream currents. The 60s New Wave was centered around the writing in the magazine "New Worlds" after Michael Moorcock assumed editorial control in 1963. William Burroughs was a big influence. The writers of the New Wave also believed themselves to be building on the legacy of the French New Wave artistic movement. Though the New Wave was largely a British movement, there were parallel developments taking place in American science fiction at the same time. The relation of the British New Wave to American science fiction was made clear by Harlan Ellison's original anthology "Dangerous Visions", which presented science fiction writers, both American and British, writing stories that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable in a science fiction magazine. Isaac Asimov, writing an introduction to the anthology, labeled it the "Second Revolution", after the first revolution that produced the Golden Age.


title: History of science fiction

text: The New Wave and their contemporaries placed a greater emphasis on style and a more highbrow form of storytelling. They also sought controversy in subjects older science fiction writers had avoided. For the first time sexuality, which Kingsley Amis had complained was nearly ignored in science fiction, was given serious consideration by writers like Samuel R. Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Norman Spinrad, and Theodore Sturgeon. Contemporary political issues were also given a voice, as John Brunner and J. G. Ballard wrote cautionary tales about, respectively, overpopulation and apocalypse.


title: History of science fiction

text: Asimov noted that the Second Revolution was far less clear cut than the first, attributing this to the development of the anthology, which made older stories more prominent. But a number of Golden Age writers changed their style as the New Wave hit. Robert A. Heinlein switched from his Campbellian Future History stories to stylistically adventuresome, sexually open works of fiction, notably "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Isaac Asimov wrote the New Wave-ish "The Gods Themselves". Many others also continued successfully as styles changed.


title: History of science fiction

text: Science fiction films took inspiration from the changes in the genre. Stanley Kubrick's "" and "A Clockwork Orange" gave visual form to the genre's new style. A myriad of other films, including THX 1138 and Soylent Green, depicted a dystopian future.


title: History of science fiction

text: Ursula K. Le Guin extrapolated social and biological changes that were anthropological in nature. Philip K. Dick explored the metaphysics of the mind in a series of novels and stories that rarely seemed dependent on their science fictional content. Le Guin, Dick, and others like them became associated with the concept of soft science fiction more than with the New Wave.


title: History of science fiction

text: Soft science fiction was contrasted to the notion of hard science fiction. Though scientific plausibility had been a central tenet of the genre since Gernsback, writers like Larry Niven and Poul Anderson gave hard science fiction new life, crafting stories with a more sophisticated writing style and more deeply characterized protagonists, while preserving a high level of scientific sophistication.


title: History of science fiction

text: By the early 1980s the fantasy market was much larger than that of almost all science fiction authors. The New Wave had faded out as an important presence in the science fiction landscape. As new personal computing technologies became an integral part of society, science fiction writers felt the urge to make statements about its influence on the cultural and political landscape. Drawing on the work of the New Wave, the Cyberpunk movement developed in the early 80s. Though it placed the same influence on style that the New Wave did, it developed its own unique style, typically focusing on the 'punks' of their imagined future underworld. Cyberpunk authors like William Gibson turned away from the traditional optimism and support for progress of traditional science fiction.


title: History of science fiction

text: William Gibson's "Neuromancer", published in 1984, announced the cyberpunk movement to the larger literary world and was a tremendous commercial success. Other key writers in the movement included Bruce Sterling, John Shirley, and later Neal Stephenson. Though Cyberpunk would later be cross-pollinated with other styles of science fiction, there seemed to be some notion of ideological purity in the beginning. John Shirley compared the Cyberpunk movement to a tribe.


title: History of science fiction

text: During the 1980s, a large number of cyberpunk manga and anime works were produced in Japan, the most notable being the 1982 manga "Akira" and its 1988 anime film adaptation, the 1985 anime "Megazone 23", and the 1989 manga "Ghost in the Shell" which was also adapted into an anime film in 1995.


title: History of science fiction

text: Contemporary science fiction has been marked by the spread of cyberpunk to other parts of the marketplace of ideas. No longer is cyberpunk a ghettoized tribe within science fiction, but an integral part of the field whose interactions with other parts have been the primary theme of science fiction around the start of the 21st century.


title: History of science fiction

text: Notably, cyberpunk has influenced film, in works such as "Johnny Mnemonic" and "The Matrix" series, in anime such as "Akira" and "Ghost in the Shell", and the emerging medium of video games, with the critically acclaimed "Deus Ex" and "Metal Gear" series. This entrance of cyberpunk into mainstream culture has led to the introduction of cyberpunk's stylistic motifs to the masses, particularly the cyberpunk fashion style. It has also led to other developments including Steampunk (a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery) and Dieselpunk (which combines the aesthetics of the diesel-based technology of the interwar period through to the 1950s with retro-futuristic technology and postmodern sensibilities).


title: History of science fiction

text: Emerging themes in the 1990s included environmental issues, the implications of the global Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as a post-Cold War interest in post-scarcity societies; Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age" comprehensively explores these themes. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels brought the character-driven story back into prominence.


title: History of science fiction

text: The cyberpunk reliance on near-future science fiction has deepened. In William Gibson's 2003 novel, "Pattern Recognition", the story is a cyberpunk story told in the present, the ultimate limit of the near-future extrapolation.


title: History of science fiction

text: Cyberpunk's ideas have spread in other directions, though. Space opera writers have written work featuring cyberpunk motifs, including David Brin's "Kiln People" and Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series. This merging of the two disparate threads of science fiction in the 1980s has produced an extrapolational literature in contrast to those technological stories told in the present.


title: History of science fiction

text: John Clute writes that science fiction around the start of the 21st century can be understood in two ways: "a vision of the triumph of science fiction as a genre and as a series of outstanding texts which figured to our gaze the significant futures that, during those years, came to pass ... [or]... indecipherable from the world during those years ... fatally indistinguishable from the world it attempted to adumbrate, to signify."


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces () are the military of Portugal. They include the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the other unified bodies and the three service branches: Portuguese Navy, Portuguese Army and Portuguese Air Force.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The President of the Republic is the head of the Portuguese military, with the title of "Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces" ("Comandante Supremo das Forças Armadas"). The management of the Armed Forces and the execution of the national defense policy is however done by the government (chaired by the Prime Minister) via its Minister of National Defense. The highest-ranking officer in the military is the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, which has operational control of the Armed Forces during peacetime and assumes their full control when a state of war exists.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Armed Forces are charged with protecting Portugal as well as supporting international peacekeeping efforts when mandated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations and/or the European Union.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Portugal was ranked the 3rd most peaceful country in the World in the Global Peace Index 2017, presently not having significant national security issues. The Portuguese Armed Forces have been thus focused in non military public service activities and in external military operations. Recent external operations include anti-piracy action in the Gulf of Aden, the conflicts in the Central African Republic and in Afghanistan, the peacekeeping missions in East-Timor, Lebanon, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the air policing of Iceland and the Baltic States.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Military units and other bodies are stationed throughout all the Portuguese territory, including Continental Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces were opened regular for women during the early-1990s. Portugal had mandatory conscription for all able-bodied men until November 2004.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The national defense is the activity whose objectives are to guarantee the State sovereignty, the national independence and the territorial integrity of Portugal, as well as to assure the liberty and security of the populations and the protection of the fundamental values of the constitutional order against any external threat or aggression. The national defense also assures the fulfillment of the international military agreements of the State, accordingly with the national interest.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces are responsible for the military defense, which is the military component of the national defense.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces are an essential pillar of the national defense and are the structure of the State that has as its main mission the military defense of the Republic. They obey to the competent bodies of sovereignty, accordingly with the Constitution and the law, being integrated in the State direct administration through the Ministry of National Defense. The bodies of State directly responsible for the national defense and the Armed Forces are the following:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Minister of National Defense is the politician responsible for the elaboration and execution of the military component of the national defense policy, for the administration of the Armed Forces and for the results of their employment.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The system of forces defines the set of capacities that should exist for the fulfillment of the missions of the Armed Forces. It encompasses the set of systems of forces of all branches of the Armed Forces. The system of forces includes two components:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The national deployed forces ("forças nacionais destacadas" or FND) are units or teams deployed by the Portuguese Armed Forces in foreign missions, mostly in the scope of NATO, the United Nations or the European Union. Currently, the Portuguese Armed Forces maintain around 1100 military personnel in forces or elements deployed in the following international missions:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The history of the Portuguese military itself begins in the 12th century with the creation of the Kingdom of Portugal. Since the early beginning, the Kingdom had naval and ground forces. The Portuguese Navy exists as a permanent force since 1317, however non-permanent naval forces existed already before, with their first known naval engagement occurring in 1180. The Portuguese ground forces were established as a standing army in 1570, however they had existed since the 12th century, as the non-permanent "hoste". The Navy and the Army would remain independent from each other for hundreds of years.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: By the early 20th century, some joint military and national defense bodies had been created but these had mostly mere political coordination responsibilities. The administration of the several forces of the military remained in charge of separate government departments, respectively the Navy Ministry for the Navy ("Marinha"), the War Ministry for the Metropolitan Army ("Exército Metropolitano") and the Colonies Ministry for the Colonial Military Forces ("Forças Militares Coloniais"). Operationally, the service branches were also completely independent from each other, with totally separated chains of command.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: During the 1930s, plans were laid to merge all of the previously mentioned ministries under a single defense ministry. However, the service branches lobbies for the maintenance of their autonomy – represented by their separate government departments – politically opposed and were able to block this reorganization for the next couple of decades.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Nevertheless, the need to defend the Overseas Empire against possible foreign aggression during World War II, did lead to a significant step being taken during this period for an increased integration of the several military services, when the Colonial Military Forces were placed under the dependency of the War Ministry, which then became in charge of all Portuguese ground forces (metropolitan and colonial).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Lessons learned from World War II, the start of the Cold War and the creation of NATO (which Portugal integrated as a founding member) partially ended the objections for the creation of a joint command for the military forces. In 1950, the roles of Minister of National Defense and of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMGFA) are created. To the CEMGFA were given almost all the responsibilities until then assigned to the majors-generals of the Navy and of the Army (service branches military commanders), whose roles were at the same time extinct. This can be considered the beginning of the existence of the Portuguese Armed Forces as an unified organization.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: However, opposition from both of the then existing military branches prevented the formation of a single ministry for the military. The political solution for this was to keep the existing Navy and Army ministries and to create the role of Minister of National Defense but without its own ministry, instead integrating the Government's Presidency Office. The Minister of National Defense directed an umbrella organization, named the National Defense Department which included the CEMGFA, the General Secretariat of National Defense (SGDN, "Secretariado-Geral da Defesa Nacional") and the Under-Secretariat of State of the Aeronautics ("Subsecretariado de Estado da Aeronáutica"). As the Navy and Army ministers continued to exist and to administer their own branches, the Minister of Defense had merely coordinating roles regarding the Navy and the Army. The SGDN served as the Defense staff support organization, being headed by the CEMGFA. It was foreseen to be remodeled in order to be transformed in the general staff and joint management body of the Armed Forces, but this transformation would only occur in 1974, when the SGDN became the General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMGFA).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Despite all the challenges, the operational integration of the Armed Forces rapidly progressed in the 1950s. As part of this integration, the role of commander-in-chief was established in each of the Overseas territories, as a permanent unified commander of the local forces of the three branches. Mainly during the Overseas War, these commanders-in-chief would assume increasing responsibilities, until achieving full operational command of all forces assigned to their theater of operations, leaving the territorial service branch leadership with mere logistical responsibilities.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Military Aeronautics (Army aviation branch) – which already had a high degree of autonomy since 1937 – becomes an entirely separate branch of service of the Armed Forces in 1952, at the same time starting to control the Portuguese Naval Aviation (Navy aviation service). This third branch of the Armed Forces would soon become officially designated "Portuguese Air Force" ("Força Aérea Portuguesa"), with the fully integration of the previous Naval Aviation becoming complete in 1958. Unlike the other services which had their own separate ministries, the Air Force was under the fully dependency of the Minister of National Defense via the Under-Secretariat of State of the Aeronautics. In 1961, the status of this department would be upgraded, it becoming the Secretariat of State of the Aeronautics.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In 1953, the National Republican Guard ceased policing the military, with the establishment of the Military Police by the Army. Later, the other service branches would create their respective military police type forces: the Air Police for the Air Force and the Naval Police for the Navy.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Between 1961 and 1974, the Portuguese Armed Forces would be engaged against emerging nationalist movements in several of the Portuguese African provinces. These set of conflicts are collectively referred as the Overseas War in Portugal. In the scope of the Cold War, it was a decisive ideological struggle and armed conflict in African (Portuguese Africa and surrounding nations) and Portuguese European mainland scenarios. Unlike other European nations, the Portuguese regime did not leave its African overseas provinces during the 1950s and 1960s. Several armed independence movements, most prominently led by communist parties who cooperated under the CONCP umbrella and pro US groups became active in these areas (especially in Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces were able to maintain a large military campaign for 13 years, in these three different theaters of operations, thousands of kilometers apart from each other and from the European mainland. This was achieved with almost no external support, in contrast with the nationalist movements which were backed by communist countries and even by some western ones. The Army suffered the majority of the casualties with 8290 soldiers killed in action while the Air Force lost 346 airmen and the Navy lost 195 sailors.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: During the conflict, in each theater of operations, the operational command of the forces of the navy, army and air force was successively transferred from each territorial service branch command to joint commands, led by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in that specific theater. Thus the three branches of the military were able to achieve a high level of operational integration, allowing for an effective cooperation between them, the optimization of their scarce assets and the ability to fight as a single cohesive force. The logistics side however was not able to reach such high levels of integration, mainly because each service branch continued to be administered by its own government department with its own supply chain and different standards.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Due to the nature of the conflict, commando-type forces achieved great importance. With the war's evolution, these assumed almost all of the mobile and offensive operations, with the more conventional forces remaining responsible mainly for the defensive assignments. By 1961, each service branch had created its own light infantry force oriented for asymmetric warfare. The Air Force created the Parachute Rifles ("Caçadores Páraquedistas") in 1956, the Army first raised the Special Rifles ("Caçadores Especiais") in 1960 which were later replaced by the Commandos ("Comandos") in 1962 and the Navy deployed the Marines ("Fuzileiros"), a force reactivated in 1961. The Portuguese military also counted with a number of paramilitary forces, including the Special Groups ("Grupos Especiais") and the Arrows ("Flechas").


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces were also involved in a brief conventional armed conflict with the Indian military, when the latter invaded the Portuguese India in December 1961. Facing overwhelmingly superior forces and after 36 hours of combat, the Portuguese India Commander-in-Chief, General Vassalo e Silva, surrendered to the Indian Forces. Portuguese forces suffered 30 dead and 57 wounded, with almost 3500 personnel being taken as prisoners of war, these being released six months later. The Indian Armed Forces officially recognized to have suffered 76 casualties during the invasion.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: On the morning of 25 April 1974, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA, "Movimento das Forças Armadas") – consisting mostly of junior officers of the three service branches – launched a "coup d'état", known as the Carnation Revolution, which would bring an end to the New State regime and shortly the Overseas War. While the revolt included several military units located on the mainland, the forces that departed from the Cavalry School located in Santarém, led by captain Salgueiro Maia, were the ones that managed to obtain the surrender of prime-minister Marcelo Caetano after a stand-off at the National Republican Guard headquarters in Lisbon, where he and some other members of the Government had taken refuge.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: However, after the revolution and for about a year and a half, the Portuguese military would become highly politicized and split into several factions. By the summer of 1975, the tension between these was so high, that the country was on the verge of civil war. The forces connected to the extreme left-wing launched a further "coup d'état" on 25 November but the Group of Nine, a moderate military faction, immediately initiated a counter-coup. The main episode of this confrontation was the successful assault on the barracks of the left-wing dominated Military Police Regiment by the moderate forces of the Commando Regiment, resulting in three soldiers killed in action. The Group of Nine emerged victorious, thus preventing the establishment of a communist state in Portugal and ending the period of political instability in the country.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Ministry of National Defense would be created during this period of instability. However this ministry had no power over the Armed Forces, his role was simply to act as a connection between the military and the Government. It was the Revolution Council – created in 1975, consisting only of military officers and chaired by the President of the Republic – that had the full control over the Armed Forces, which meant these were completely independent from the civilian administration. The Government military departments (Navy Ministry, Army Ministry and Secretariat of State of the Aeronautics) were disbanded, with each service branch chief of staff assuming the roles of the former ministers, under the coordination of the CEMGFA, to whom was given a status equivalent to that of the Prime Minister of Portugal. This organization would remain in place until 1982, when the Revolution Council was disbanded after the first revision to the 1976 Constitution. The Armed Forces were again placed under the subordination of the civilian administration, more specifically being integrated in the Ministry of National Defense.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: With the decolonization and the end of the Overseas War, the Portuguese military would change from an asymmetric war oriented force to a conventional war oriented force, focused in defense of Western Europe from a possible Soviet invasion.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Meanwhile, the 1980s would see the creation of special operations, namely the Army's Special Operations Forces and the Navy's Special Actions Detachment. In 1990, the Air Force would create Combat Rescue teams ("Resgate em Combate" or "RESCOM") for CSAR operations but in 2006 these were extinct and replaced by the Force Protection Unit ("Unidade de Protecção da Força" or "UPF") whose mission is to provide security for the Air Force elements deployed on international missions.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact triggered a deep transformation of the Armed Forces. They transited from being a conscription based and defensive oriented Armed Forces to gradually becoming a fully professional and expeditionary warfare oriented force, starting to participate in international missions, most of them under the mandate of the United Nations, the European Union and the NATO, besides organizing some unilateral missions abroad on their own.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The conscription was gradually reduced since the early 1990s, with almost no conscripts serving the Armed Forces by the end of that decade. The formal abolishment of the conscription in time of peace for all men was however only implemented in 2004.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In 1993, the Portuguese Army deployed a communications battalion to Mozambique, as part of the UNOMOZ, this being the first participation of the Portuguese Armed Forces in international missions, with a complete military unit. After Mozambique, the Portuguese Military deployed forces to international missions in a number of countries, including Angola, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Timor-Leste, Kosovo, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Lithuania, besides deploying military observers and other individual elements to other countries. Recent Defense policy confirmed the assumption that most considerable operations would be undertaken under international organizations mandates, with Portugal not entering alone in a major military engagement since the 1961–1974 overseas conflict.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Nonetheless, the Portuguese Military have also conducted a number of unilateral and independent peace-enforcing and humanitarian military missions, namely in Guinea-Bissau (1990, 1998, and 1999) and in Angola (1992). The Operation Crocodile conducted in Guinea-Bissau in 1998 was notable, by evidencing the capacity of the Portuguese Armed Forces – despite its small size and limitation of means – to rapidly mount a military operation abroad in a scale that is typically only achievable by major military powers. This operations was mainly aimed at the rescuing of thousands of Portuguese and other foreign nationals caught in the middle of the civil conflict that erupted in Guinea-Bissau and included the deployment of naval and air forces, the landing and occupation of the Port of Bissau by Portuguese Marines, amphibious and helicopter landings in several places of the Guinean coast for the rescuing of civilians, medical and humanitarian aid to the civil population and the support to the peace talks between the two antagonizing parties.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: A Military Programation Law ("Lei de Programação Militar") was launched in 2002 to start the complete modernization of the Armed Forces. Considerable re-equipment of the military started in 2003, led by Defense Minister Paulo Portas, who managed to launch a series of re-equipment programs, including those of new submarines ("Tridente"-class), frigates ("Bartolomeu Dias"-class) and off shore patrol ships (Project NPO 2000 / "Viana do Castelo" class) for the Navy, of armored vehicles (Pandur) for the Army and of heavy helicopters (EH-101) for the Air Force. Ironically one of the most basic challenges – the replacement of the 7.62×51mm battle rifles by 5.56×45mm assault rifles – failed during his mandate due to the soldiers clinging onto their cheap and highly reliable locally made FBP G3.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Some important re-equipment programs were however later canceled or suspended mainly due to cuts in the Defense budget, including the building of a multipurpose amphibious ship (Project NavPoL), the building of coastal patrol ships (Project NPC 2000) and the acquisition of helicopters (EC635 and NH90) for the Army Light Aviation Unit. Another important challenge faced, in terms of equipment, is the lack of funds for the replacement of the Alouette III helicopters and the Alpha Jet advanced trainer jets of the Air Force, which, if not addressed in due course, may compromise the future capacity of the Armed Forces to continue to do the complete training of their own aircraft pilots.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Despite the financial cuts in Defense, all international missions assigned to the Portuguese military have been fulfilled without limitations.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Recently purchased equipment include new main battle tanks (Leopard 2A6) in 2008 and new coastal patrol vessels ("Tejo"-class) in 2014. The process acquisition of the ex-French amphibious assault ship "Siroco" – as an alternative to the suspended NavPoL – failed in 2015, with the Portuguese Armed Forces continuing not having an asset which allows them to easily deploy forces to abroad on a larger scale, enhancing its expeditionary capacity.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In the 2010s, the Portuguese Armed Forces created the Immediate Reaction Force (FRI, "Força de Reação Imediata"), aimed at providing an autonomous national response capability to intervene abroad in complex situations to conduct operations as the possible of evacuation of Portuguese citizens from countries under crisis or tension. The FRI includes naval, ground, air and special operations components. Its initial core has an operational readiness of 48 hours and has permanently assigned assets of the three branches of the Armed Forces.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In April 2013, the Portuguese Government approved a structural reform of the National Defense, named "Defesa 2020" ("Defense 2020"). It was done with the objective of defining the level of ambition of the Armed Forces by establishing the guidance parameters for strategic planning, reinforcing the leading responsibility of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in the execution of the approved military strategy, reducing human resources while at the same time improving their management and enhancing the coordination between the General Staff of the Armed Forces, the branches of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of National Defense.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Future equipment programs are also in course. In May 2019, a new "Military Programming Law" was published, which will regulate the founding of the military investments programs until 2030. Some of the main next military investments present in this document are:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The General Staff of the Armed Forces (EMGFA, "Estado-Maior-General das Forças Armadas") is the superior military body and supreme headquarters of the Portuguese Armed Forces. It is responsible for planning, directing and controlling the usage of the three service branches in their fulfillment of assigned missions and tasks. The EMGFA is headed by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and includes:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMGFA, "Chefe do Estado-Maior-General das Forças Armadas") is the principal military adviser of the Minister of National Defense and is the chief with the highest authority in the hierarchy of the Portuguese Armed Forces.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The CEMGFA is an admiral or a general (four star rank) of one of the branches of service, appointed by the President of the Republic by proposal of the Government. Before being proposed to the President, the nominee has to be presented by the Minister of National Defense to the Council of Chiefs of Staff for a previous hearing. If the nominee is refused by the President, the Government has to present another option. Traditionally, there is a rotation of the branch of service that provides the CEMGFA, but this is not mandatory and not always happens.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The CEMGFA is responsible for the planning and implementation of the operational military strategy, having under his hierarchic dependency the chiefs of staff of the branches of service for the matters that evolve the preparedness, the employment and the sustainment of the forces and assets of the operational component of the system of forces and responding before the Government – through the Minister of National Defense – for the military response capacity of the Armed Forces. He/she is the operational commander of the Armed Forces, being responsible for the employment of all forces and assets of the operational component of the system of forces in operational missions. The sustainment of the forces and assets referred before is under the branches of service responsibility, with the respective chiefs of staff being under the CEMGFA dependency for that.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The branch of service chief of staff who is longer in the function replaces the CEMGFA, in case of his absence or impediment.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces include three branches, these being the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. Created centuries ago, the Navy and the Army are much older than the integrated Armed Forces themselves. The Air Force is however younger, being created as a separate branch already after the establishment of the integrated Armed Forces. The branches of service have as their principal mission to participate, in an integrated form, in the defense of the Republic, in the terms defined by the Constitution and the law, being mainly aimed for the generation, preparation and sustainment of the forces of the operational component of the system of forces. The branches also guarantee their own specific missions established by particular laws and also guarantee the operational missions given to them by the CEMGFA.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The increasing integration and standardization of the different branches of service meant that their organizations gradually approached. Presently, all the three branches have an identical organizational model that includes:


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The chiefs of staff serve as the branch commanders. The staffs are the bodies for planning and decision support of the respective chiefs of staff, being able also to assume roles of management, control, advisement or inspection. The central bodies of administration and management have a functional character and are intended to guarantee the management and execution in specific fundamental areas and activities as the human, material, financial, information and infrastructures resources management. The component commands (naval, land and air) are intended to support the chiefs of staff in their command roles. The component commands can be put under the direct dependency of the CEMGFA for the exercise of his command roles. The bodies of advisement are intended to support the decision of the chiefs of staff in special and important matters regarding the preparedness, discipline and administration of the branch. The bodies of inspection are intended to support the control and evaluation function of the chiefs of staff. The base bodies are those aimed at the training, the sustainment and the general support of the branch. The elements of the operational component of the system of forces are the forces and assets of the branch intended for the accomplishment of the operational missions.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Besides the above referred standard bodies, the Navy also includes the Hydrographic Institute and the Maritime Search and Rescue Service, while the Air Force also includes the Air Search and Rescue Service.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Until recently, the Navy also included the National Maritime Authority. Statutorily, the Maritime Authority is now an entirely separate legal entity, but it continues to be headed by the Chief of Staff of the Navy and continues to be mainly administered, supported and staffed by the Navy. The same happens with the National Aeronautic Authority in relation to the Air Force, the difference being that this Authority was already created as a separate legal entity.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The chiefs of staff of the Navy, of the Army and of the Air Force command their respective branches, being the military chiefs with the higher authority in each of the branches hierarchy and being the principal advisors of the Minister of National Defense and of the CEMGFA in all matters related with their branches. Inside each branch, the respective chief of staff is the only officer with a four-star rank (admiral in the Navy and general in the other two branches).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The chiefs of staff are part of the operational command structure of the Armed Forces, serving as deputy commanders of the CEMGFA. While they report to the CEMGFA in the operational, military intelligence and security, military higher learning, military health and other joint matters, they report directly to the Minister of National Defense in the matters related with the current management of their branches resources.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The chiefs of staff of the branches are appointed by the President of the Republic, by government proposal, in an analogous process of that of the CEMGFA appointment. The CEMGFA must be heard before a name is proposed to the President.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The military bodies of advisement of the armed forces are the Council of Chiefs of Staff and the higher councils of the several branches.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Council of Chiefs of Staff is the principal military coordinating body, being also the body of advisement of the CEMGFA. It is presided over by the CEMGFA and also includes the chiefs of staff of the three branches of service. Other military entities may be invited to participate in their meetings, but without voting rights.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In each of the branches, there is a higher council presided by the respective chief of staff. These are the Council of the Admiralty, the Higher Council of the Army and the Higher Council of the Air Force. The branches may have other advisement bodies like the military careers councils (the councils of class in the Navy, the councils of arm or service in the Army and the councils of specialty in the Air Force).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Navy ("Marinha", with its armed branch also being referred as the "Armada") is the naval component of the Portuguese Armed Forces. It includes around 8000 military personnel (including around 1500 marines), 40 commissioned ships and 50 auxiliary vessels. Unlike the other service branches that have an almost purely military role, the Navy historically has had a wide scope of non-military activities, namely serving as the Portuguese maritime administration, and being responsible for the tutelage over of the merchant marine, fisheries, maritime authority and maritime research affairs. The responsibility over the non-military maritime activities has however been gradually transferred to other organizations since the disbandment of the Navy Ministry in 1974, with only a few – as the maritime authority and the hydrographic survey – remaining now under the Navy tutelage.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Navy is one of the oldest in the world, with its first known naval engagement occurring in 1180. A permanent Navy exists since 1317, when the role of Admiral of Portugal was created.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Navy is headed by the Chief of Staff of the Navy and includes the Navy Staff, the Personnel, the Material, the Finance and the Information Technologies superintendences, the Naval Command (naval component command, with five subordinate maritime zone commands), the Council of the Admiralty and the Inspection-General of the Navy. The base bodies of the branch include the Lisbon Naval Base, the Support Unit of the Central Facilities of the Navy, the Naval School, the technical schools (Marines, Hydrography and Oceanography, Divers and Naval Technologies), the Integrated Center of Naval Training and Evaluation and the squadrons (Surface Ships, Submarines and Helicopters). The elements of the operational component of the system of forces of the Navy include the Marine Corps Command, the naval and marine forces, the operational naval, marine and divers assets and units, the command centers and posts and the operations support centers. The Navy includes the Marine Corps ("Corpo de Fuzileiros"), which is a naval infantry force that serves in the roles of naval force protection, amphibious force projection and maritime special operations. The Marines themselves include the Special Actions Detachment, which is the special operations unit of the Navy. The Sappers Divers Group is the combat divers unit of the Navy. The Navy further includes the Hydrographic Institute, the Maritime Search and Rescue Service and the International Maritime Law Commission.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Army ("Exército") is the land component of the Portuguese Armed Forces and its larger branch. Presently, it includes around 14 000 military personnel. The principal equipment of the Army includes 37 main battle tanks (Leopard 2A6), 300 tracked APCs (M113), 188 wheeled APCs (Pandur II), 139 tactical vehicles (URO VAMTAC), 100 other armored vehicles and 80 field artillery weapons. In 2019, the FN SCAR assault rifle was chosen as the principal infantry weapon, gradually replacing the 7.62mm HK G3 and the several models of 5.56mm rifles used by paratroopers and other special troops.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Army can be considered one of the oldest armies of the world, with its origins going back to the Royal "Hoste" of the 12th century, in the early period of the Kingdom of Portugal. The foundations of a standing army were established in 1570, with the creation of the "Ordenanças". In the middle of the 17th century, the Portuguese land forces started to be referred as the "Exército".


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Army is headed by the Chief of Staff of the Army and includes the Army Staff, the Personnel and the Logistics commands, the Directorate of Finance, the Land Forces Command (land component command, with two subordinate military zone commands) and the Inspection-General of the Army. The base bodies of the branch are divided by the scopes of obtainment and administration of human resources (including psychology, recruiting and selection centers and offices), of readying of forces (including 21 regiments of several arms, the Special Operations Troops Centre and the Army Intelligence and Military Security Center), of logistical support (including the Army Geospatial Intelligence Center, two service support regiments, the Army Material General Support Unit and two health centers), of teaching and training (including the Military Academy, the School of the Arms, the School of the Services, the Army Sergeants School, the Military College and the Army Pupils Institute) and of divulgation and preservation of military culture (including military museums, archives, the Army Band and the Army Fanfare). The Army includes also bodies that support other branches of the Armed Forces, including the Military Prison Establishment, the Military Laboratorial Unit of Biological and Chemical Defense and the Military Unit of Veterinary Medicine. The elements of the operational component of the system of forces of the Army include the Land Forces Command, the formations and operational units commands, the military zones commands and the general support and emergency military support forces. The formations include the Rapid Reaction Brigade, the Mechanized Brigade and the Intervention Brigade. The special troops of the Army include the Paratroopers, the Commandos and the Special Operations Troops, whose units are now all integrated in the Rapid Reaction Brigade.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Traditionally, the Army used to be divided in branches that were designated "arms" if they had a mainly combatant role and designated "services" if their role was logistical. The main branches were the arms of cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineering and communications and the services of health, military administration, materiel and transportation. Each branch constituted an organization that usually included a branch directorate, a branch school, units and a cadre of personnel. As organizations, these branches were abolished in 1993, but they still exist as occupational groups. Also, most of the Army units continue to be associated to a branch, which in most cases correspond to the main role of the respective unit.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Air Force ("Força Aérea") is the air component of the Portuguese Armed Forces and its younger branch. It includes around 6000 personnel and 100 aircraft.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Air Force was established as an independent branch of service in 1952, when the Military Aeronautics arm was completely separated from the Army, at the same time starting to control the Naval Aviation that was part of the Navy.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Air Force is headed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and includes the Air Force Staff, the Air Force Personnel and the Air Force Logistics commands, the Air Force Directorate of Finance, the Air Command (air component command, with two subordinate air zone commands) and the Inspection-General of the Air Force. The base bodies of the branch include the Air Force Academy, the Military and Technical Training Center of the Air Force, five air bases, two maneuver aerodromes, a transit aerodrome and four radar stations. The elements of the operational component of the system of forces of the Air Force include the operational planning bodies, the Air Command and Control System, the flying units and the anti-aircraft intervention units. The flying units include two training squadrons (TB 30 Epsilon and Alpha-Jet), one fighter squadron (F-16 AM), one attack squadron (F-16 AM), three transport squadrons (C-130, C-295M and Falcon 50), two helicopter squadrons (EH-101 and AW119), two maritime patrol squadron (Lockheed P-3C and C-295M Persuader) and one Air Force Academy squadron (ASK-21, OGMA Chipmunk Mk 20 (modif) and L-23 Super Blaník). The "Polícia Aérea" (Air Police) is the ground combat force of the Air Force, which serves as its military police, force protection and ground anti-aircraft defense element, including a special forces unit, this being the Tactical Operations of Protection Core (NOTP).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Nacional Republican Guard (GNR, "Guarda Nacional Republicana") is a special corps of troops that has the special feature of being a military force that is not part of the Armed Forces.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: It is a gendarmerie type security force, made up of around 26 000 military personnel, that is part of the internal security system. It is responsible for the preventive policing of most of the rural areas of the country, the patrolling of the major highways, the customs enforcement and the coastal control. It also performs some special missions like the providing of ceremonial military State honor guards, the security of the Presidential, Parliament and Foreign Ministry palaces, the environment and nature protection and the rescue and forest firefighting. In time of peace, the GNR is subordinated to the minister of Internal Administration, except in the scope of uniforms, military doctrine, equipment and armament within which is subordinated to the minister of National Defense.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Although not being part of the Armed Forces, the GNR can be placed under the operational command of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in the cases foreseen in the statutes governing the National Defense, the Armed Forces, the state of siege and the state of emergency. In the scope of its military missions, the GNR is specially adapted for the fulfillment of military operations other than war. Forces of the GNR have been deployed in international missions in high conflict countries that did not fit with the use of a civilian police force, but where it was not considered politically appropriate to deploy units of the Armed Forces. These international deployments may be done in the scope of the multinational specialized units (MSU) of the European Gendarmerie Force, as it happened with the GNR deployment in Iraq.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Portuguese Armed Forces include a number of different types of special forces, distributed by its three branches.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In the Army, these are generically referred as the "special troops" or the "light infantry" and represent more than 20% of the total strength of the branch. The Army special troops include the Paratroopers, the Commandos and the Special Operations Troops. The Paratroopers are a mainly parachute light infantry force, that however also include some non-infantry specialized units. The Paratroopers in turn include the Air-Land Pathfinders Company, which is a special parachute reconnaissance unit. The Commandos are a light assault infantry force, specialized in conducting high risk conventional operations. The Special Operations Troops is the Army unit specialized in unconventional warfare.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Navy has the Marines Corps ("Corpo de Fuzileiros") as its special forces. These are a light naval infantry force, specialized in amphibious landings, base and ship security, high seas boarding and naval military police. The Marines include the Special Actions Detachment which is the Navy's special operations unit dedicated to the unconventional warfare in naval and coastal environment. The Marines also include the PelBoard (Boarding Platoon) teams, that are specialized in high risk visit, board, search, and seizure (VBSS) actions. The Sappers Divers Group is the Navy's specialized combat divers unit, which however is not usually considered a special forces unit.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The present special forces unit of the Air Force is the Tactical Operations of Protection Core (NOTP). This unit is part of the Air Police and is mainly dedicated to the protection of the forces and assets of the Air Force deployed in high risk areas.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Currently, the Portuguese Armed Forces include 32,992 military personnel, of which 12% are women. The majority of the personnel is in the Army (54%), followed by the Navy (26%) and the Air Force (20%). Conscription in time of peace was fully abolished in 2004 and, since then, 100% of the military personnel is professional.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The defense of the Fatherland is a right and a duty of all the Portuguese. The Portuguese citizens have military obligations from the age of 18 years to the age of 35 years.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: In time of peace, the military personnel falls in two main groups: career personnel (permanent personnel) and volunteer (temporary personnel). In case of war, these two groups are added with conscript personnel.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Career personnel (QP, "Quadro Permanente") includes the persons who choose the military profession as their permanent life career. Admission to this career requires the graduation in one of the higher education service academies for officers or in one of the military technical schools for non-officers. QP personnel only includes officers and sergeants in the Army and the Air Force, but it also includes other ranks in the Navy. Other ranks in the Army and the Air Force are entirely volunteer.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Volunteer personnel includes the persons who usually have a civilian profession, but volunteer to serve temporarily in the military. They might serve in roles related specifically with their civilian professions (e.g.: engineers, legals, psychologists or medics) or in general military roles. They include officers, sergeants and other ranks. Volunteer personnel are further subdivided in two groups: contract regime (RC, "Regime de Contrato") and volunteer regime (RV, "Regime de Voluntariado"). While RC personnel serves for between two and six years, RV personnel serves only for 12 months. Special RC regimes with the duration of up to 20 years are foreseen to be created for roles whose training and technical demands make desirable long periods of service. Personnel in RV can apply to serve in RC after their termination of their period of service.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Accordingly, with their level of responsibility and authority, Portuguese military personnel are divided in three categories: officers ("oficiais"), sergeants ("sargentos") and other ranks ("praças"). Officers are further divided in three subcategories: general officers ("oficiais generais"), senior officers ("oficiais superiores") and junior officers ("oficiais subalternos").


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: Accordingly, with their training and role, each member of the Portuguese Armed Forces is part of an occupational group, to each of which corresponds a career and a particular list of promotion. These occupational groups have different specific designations in each branch of service.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Navy occupational groups are named "classes". For the officers, the classes are navy (M), naval engineers (EN), naval administration (AN), marines (FZ), naval physicians (MN), naval senior technicians (TSN), technical service (ST), health technicians (TS) and musicians (MUS). For the enlisted, the classes are administrative (L), communications (C), auto mechanics-drivers (V), electro mechanics (EM), electro technicians (ET), marines (FZ), maneuvers (M), naval machinists (MQ), divers (U), musicians (B), operations (O), stewards (T) and weapons technicians (A).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Army occupational groups are designated "corps of general officers", "arms" and "services". The corps of general officers include all generals, who may originate from the arms or from some of the services officer careers, but with only those originating from the arms being able to achieve the ranks above that of major-general. The arms are mostly careers associated with combatant roles while the services are mostly careers associated with logistical roles. For the officers, the arms are infantry (INF), artillery (ART), cavalry (CAV), engineering (ENG) and communications (TM) and the services are military administration (ADMIL), materiel (MAT), medicine (MED), pharmacy (FARM), veterinary (VET), dentistry (DENT), nursery, diagnostic and therapeutic technicians (TEDT), chiefs of music band (CBMUS), communications exploration technicians (TEXPTM), communications maintenance technicians (TMANTM), materiel maintenance technicians (TMANMAT), personnel and secretariat technicians (TPESSECR), transportations technicians (TTRANS), Army general service (SGE) and parachutist general service (SGPQ). For the sergeants, the arms are infantry (INF), artillery (ART), cavalry (CAV), engineering (ENG), communications (TM) and parachutists (PARAQ) and the services are military administration (AM), materiel (MAT), medicine (MED), pharmacy (FARM), veterinary (VET), music (MUS), clarions (CLAR), personnel and secretariat (PESSECR), transportations (TRANS), Army general service (SGE) and amanuensis (AMAN).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Army volunteers occupational groups are analogous to the arms and services, but correspond to more specific qualifications. They include functional areas subdivided in specialties for officers and sergeants and specialties for other ranks. The functional areas for the officers and sergeants are mechanized/motorized infantry (AF01), light infantry (AF02), field artillery (AF03), anti-aircraft artillery (AF04), cavalry (AF05), Army police (AF06), communications (AF10), transportation (AF18), materiel (AF21), administration (AF22), personnel and secretariat (AF23), engineering (AF24), senior support technicians (AF25), health – medicine (AF26), health – nursery (AF26), health – nursery, diagnostic and therapeutic (AF27), dental health (AF28), veterinary health (AF29) and pharmacy. The specialties for the other ranks are field (Esp-01), mechanics (Esp-02), auto mechanics (Esp-03), engineering equipment mechanics (Esp-04), panel beater mechanics (Esp-05), auto body painter mechanics (Esp-06), services (Esp-07), audiovisual-multimedia (Esp-08), audiovisual-graphics (Esp-09), services saddler-upholstery (Esp-10), services psychometric laboratory operator (Esp-11), engineering sapper (Esp-12), NBC sapper (Esp-13), military light vehicles driving (Esp-14), military heavy vehicles driving (Esp-15), Army police (Esp-16), communications (Esp-17), music (Esp-18), health (Esp-19), paratroopers (Esp-20), special operations (Esp-21), commandos (Esp-22), construction (Esp-23), plumbing (Esp-24), construction carpenter (Esp-25), construction electrician (Esp-26), engineering heavy equipment operator (Esp-27), metalworking (Esp-28), farrier (Esp-29), catering (Esp-30), bakery (Esp-31) and rescue and assistance systems operator (Esp-32).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The Air Force occupational groups are designated "specialties". The officers specialties include pilots-aviators (PILAV), aeronautic engineers (ENGAER), aerodromes engineers (ENGAED), electrical engineers (ENGEL), physicians (MED), aeronautical administration (ADMAER), jurists (JUR), psychologists (PSI), navigators (NAV), communications and cryptography operations technicians (TOCC), meteorology operations technicians (TOMET), air circulation and traffic radar operations technicians (TOCART), interception conduct operations technicians (TOCI), air materiel maintenance technicians (TMMA), ground materiel maintenance technicians (TMMT), electrical materiel maintenance technicians (TMMEL), armament and equipment maintenance technicians (TMAEQ), infrastructures maintenance technicians (TMI), supply technicians (TABST), IT technicians (TINF), personnel and administrative support technicians (TPAA), health technicians (TS), air police (PA) and chiefs of music band (CHBM). The enlisted personnel specialties include communications operators (OPCOM), meteorology operators (OPMET), air circulation and traffic radar operators (OPCART), detection radar operators (OPRDET), IT operators (OPINF), assistance and aid systems operators (OPSAS), air materiel mechanics (MMA), ground materiel mechanics (MMT), electricity mechanics (MELECT), electronics mechanics (MELECA), aircraft electricity and instruments mechanics (MELIAV), armament and equipment mechanics (MARME), supply (ABS), infrastructure construction and maintenance (CMI), air police (PA), secretariat and service support (SAS) and musicians (MUS).


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: As is usual in most of the Armed Forces in the world, each branch has its own uniform regulation which is distinct from those of the other service branches. The traditional color of the Portuguese military uniforms, since the middle of the 18th century, was the "azul ferrete" (very dark blue). This is still the color of the full dress uniforms of the three service branches.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The service dress uniform colors are the navy blue (Winter) or white (Summer) for the Navy, grey for the Army and air force blue for the Air Force. The 2019 Army uniform regulation abolished the olive green No.2 Army service dress uniform.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: All the three branches have a camouflaged battledress uniform in the DPM pattern (from 1998 to 2010, the Air Force used instead the U.S. Woodland pattern). These camouflage patterns replaced the traditional Portuguese vertical lizard pattern that was in use in the three service branches from the early 1960s to the late 1990s. In the latte 2018, the Portuguese Army started to experiment the "Sistemas de Combate do Soldado" (Soldier's Combat Systems) individual equipment system for the dismounted soldiers, which includes the new "Multiterreno" camouflage pattern of the Multicam-style. The "Multiterreno" became the official camouflage pattern for the Army field and garrison uniforms in 2019.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: The members of most of the branches, units or specialties of the three branches of the Armed Forces are identified by the wearing of berets whose colors are emerald green (Paratroopers), black (Army generic), navy blue (Marines), air force blue (Air Police), red (Commandos), moss green (Special Operations) and blue (Navy generic). The 2019 Army uniform regulation abolished the traditional brown beret, with black becoming the generic color of the Army berets. Until then, black berets were reserved for use by the Cavalry.


title: Portuguese Armed Forces

text: On the contrary of the uniforms, there is a standard common model of rank insignia used in the uniforms of the three service branches. The existence of a common rank insignia system has been in force since 1761, when the Portuguese Army and Navy become one of the first militaries in the world to establish a rank insignia regulation, that was common for the two existing branches at the time. The present system of rank insignia was established in 1911 and is an evolution of the previous ones. Its generic rank devices consists in stars for the general officers, in stripes for the rest of the officers, in Portuguese shields for the senior sergeants and in chevrons for the rest of the sergeants and the other ranks. There is a specific rank insignia for the admirals or generals invested in the office of Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, consisting in four golden stars, which differ from the silver stars worn by the rest of the four-star rank officers (chiefs of staff of the service branches).


title: Vernon Chatman

text: Vernon Chatman (born October 31, 1972) is an American television producer, writer, voice actor, stand-up comedian, musician and a member of PFFR, an art collective based in Brooklyn, New York City. He created the television series "Wonder Showzen", "", "The Heart, She Holler" and "The Shivering Truth". He also produces and voices characters for "South Park".


title: Vernon Chatman

text: Chatman was born in Brooklyn, New York. He is of mixed race, half Euro-American and half African-American. Chatman attended San Francisco State University, from which he graduated in 1994.


title: Vernon Chatman

text: In 1996 Chatman began his career as a stand-up comedian and eventually a comedy writer, producer, musician, and television creator. Chatman previously wrote for television shows such as "The Chris Rock Show" (for which he won an Emmy), "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", "That's My Bush!" and "The Downer Channel". Before "Wonder Showzen", he and long-time friend and PFFR collaborator John Lee created the Snoop Dogg comedy series "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle" for MTV.


title: Vernon Chatman

text: Along with Lee, he is the co-creator of the MTV2 series "Wonder Showzen" as well as the Adult Swim shows "" and "The Heart, She Holler". The two met as undergraduates at San Francisco State University. One of his most high-profile voice acting roles is as Towelie, the marijuana-smoking talking towel on "South Park", where he also serves as a staff writer. In 2012, he became a producer on the third season of the FX series "Louie". In 2017, Adult Swim ordered "The Shivering Truth", a "darkly surreal anthology comedy" from Chatman. In January 13 2022, it was announced that he will write an untitled comedy film with involvement from Kendrick Lamar, Dave Free, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: The 2019 Major League Baseball season began on March 20, while the regular season ended on September 29. It was the 150th anniversary of professional baseball, dating back to the 1869 foundation of the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The postseason began on October 1. The World Series began October 22 and ended October 30 with the Washington Nationals defeating the Houston Astros in seven games to win their first World Series championship. The entire schedule was released on August 22, 2018.


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: The 90th Major League Baseball All-Star Game was held on July 9 at Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians. The American League won, 4–3, for its seventh straight victory.


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: This was the final season when anyone on the 40-man expanded roster could be used in games from September 1 through the end of the regular season (so-called September call-ups).


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: As has been the case since 2013, teams were scheduled to play 19 games against each division opponent for a total of 76 games, and six or seven games against each team from the other two divisions for a total of 66 games. The primary inter-league match-ups were AL East vs NL West, AL Central vs NL East and AL West vs NL Central.


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: The season began on March 20 and 21 with the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners playing in Tokyo, Japan, at the Tokyo Dome.


title: 2019 Major League Baseball season

text: Excluding international openers, March 28 was the earliest Opening Day in history. The previous earliest date was March 29 of the 2018 season.