title: Latte macchiato

text: The "macchia" is the little "spot" of crèma left on top of the milk to clearly distinguish that the beverage is a latte macchiato and not a caffè latte, where the espresso traditionally has been added before the milk, hence having no "mark". Conversely, caffè macchiato, another similarly named beverage, is actually espresso "stained" with a small amount of milk.


title: Latte macchiato

text: A latte macchiato may be prepared simply by frothing milk, generally producing generous foam, pouring it into a glass, and adding espresso. The frothing is generally extensive, yielding significant light, "dry" foam, with a layer of liquid milk underneath, rather than the "wet" microfoam used in latte art.


title: Latte macchiato

text: Alternatively, it may be prepared as a layered drink, with the espresso "gently" poured (most gently out of a small espresso brew pitcher, over the back of a spoon) so that it forms a layer between the denser liquid milk below and the lighter foam above. In this case a glass is essential for the layers to be visible.


title: Latte macchiato

text: The espresso may be brewed into a standard espresso cup or shot glass and then swiftly dumped in, or may be brewed into a specialized espresso brew pitcher, which makes pouring easier, particularly for layering.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities is an English language non-fiction book by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy (given as pseudonym Catherine A. Liszt for the book's first edition in 1997).


title: The Ethical Slut

text: The authors define the term "slut" as "a person of any gender who has the courage to lead life according to the radical proposition that sex is nice and pleasure is good for you." The term is reclaimed from its usual use as a pejorative and as a simple label for a promiscuous person. Instead, it is used to signify a person who is accepting of their enjoyment of sex and the pleasure of physical intimacy with others, and chooses to engage and accept these in an ethical and open way—rather than as cheating.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: "The Ethical Slut" discusses how to live an active life with multiple concurrent sexual relationships in a fair and honest way. Discussion topics include how to deal with the practical difficulties and opportunities in finding and keeping partners, maintaining relationships with others, and strategies for personal growth.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: It contains chapters discussing how consensual non-monogamy is handled in different subcultures such as the gay and lesbian communities, information on handling scheduling, jealousy, communication, conflict in relationships, and etiquette for group sexual encounters.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: A 2007 article in the "East Bay Express" reported that Moses Ma would be producing a movie adaptation, but as of 2014, the project had not come to fruition.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: In 2013, Ben Fritz (producer/director) raised funding privately and via Kickstarter to create an episodic web series inspired by the book with input from Easton and Hardy. By 2016, four seasons of "The Ethical Slut" were released on YouTube despite struggles for funding after the first season. There are 50 episodes, which range between 4 and 9 minutes. The series follows two female friends as they decide to explore open relationships with the help of "The Ethical Slut".


title: The Ethical Slut

text: A play adaptation of the book by John Sable called "Multiple O", described as an "erotic comedy", opened on May 2, 2008, at the Broom Street Theater in Madison, Wisconsin.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: In May 2007, co-author Dossie Easton reported that she and Liszt were working on a second edition, including more communication exercises and information about online polyamory communities. It was published in March 2009 and is called "The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures".


title: The Ethical Slut

text: A third edition was released in August 2017 entitled "The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love". It was revised to include interviews with polyamorous millennials, who had grown up without the prejudices their elders encountered regarding gender, orientation, sexuality, and relationships. It also contains tributes to poly pioneers and sidebars on topics such as asexuality and sex workers. The authors also include new content addressing nontraditional relationships beyond the polyamorous paradigm of "more than two": couples who don't live together, couples who don't have sex with each other, nonparallel arrangements, couples with widely divergent sex styles, power disparities, and cross-orientation relationships, while utilizing non-binary gender language and new terms that have come into common usage since the last edition.


title: The Ethical Slut

text: "The Ethical Slut" has been translated into several different languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: "The Miller's Tale" () is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (1380s–1390s), told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" (a Middle English term meaning requite or pay back, in both good and negative ways) "The Knight's Tale".


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The general prologue to "The Canterbury Tales" describes the Miller, Robin, as a stout and evil churl fond of wrestling. In the Miller's Prologue, the pilgrims have just heard and enjoyed "The Knight's Tale", a classical story of courtly love, and the Host asks the Monk to "quite" with a tale of his own. Before the Monk can respond, however, the drunken Miller insists on going next. The Host tries to persuade the Miller to let some "bettre" man tell the next tale, but acquiesces when the Miller threatens to leave the company. The Miller claims that his tale is "noble", but reminds the other pilgrims that he is quite drunk and cannot be held accountable for what he says. He explains that his story is about a carpenter and his wife, and how a clerk "hath set the wrightes cappe" (that is, fooled the carpenter). Osewold the Reeve, who had originally been a carpenter himself, shouts out his immediate objection to such ridicule, and protests that the tale will insult carpenters and wives, but the Miller insists on proceeding with his tale.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: "The Miller's Tale" begins the trend in which succeeding tellers "quite" (or one-up) the previous story with their own. In a way, the Miller requites the "Knight's Tale" and is himself directly requited with "The Reeve's Tale", in which the Reeve follows Robin's insulting story about a carpenter with his own tale disparaging a miller.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: "The Miller's Tale" is the story of a carpenter, his lovely wife, and two younger men who are eager to sleep with her. The carpenter, John, lives in Oxford with his much younger wife, Alisoun, who is a local beauty. In order to make extra money, John rents out a room in his house to a clever Oxford University student named Nicholas, who has taken a liking to Alisoun. Another man in the town, Absolon, the parish clerk, also has his eye on Alisoun.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The action begins when John makes a day trip to a nearby town. While he is gone, Nicholas grabs Alisoun "by the queynte". When she threatens to cry for help, he begins to cry and, after a few sweet words, she agrees to have sex with him when it is safe to do so. Their affair begins. Shortly afterward, Alisoun goes to church, where Absolon sees her and immediately is filled with "love-longing." He tries to woo Alisoun by singing love songs under her window during the full moon and sending her gifts. He also seeks her attention by taking a part in a local play. However, Alisoun rebuffs all his efforts because she is already involved with Nicholas.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: Nicholas, meanwhile, longs to spend a whole night in Alisoun's arms rather than just the few moments they get during John's absences. With Alisoun, he hatches a scheme that will enable him to do that. Being a student of astrology, Nicholas tells John that he has divined that a terrible event is about to occur. The next Monday night, there will be a massive flood, twice as great as the one in Noah's time. God has told him they can save themselves by hanging three large tubs from the ceiling of the barn, each loaded with provisions and an axe. When the flood waters have risen, they can cut the ropes, hack through the roof, and float until the flood subsides. John believes him and, on Monday night, they ascend by ladders into the hanging tubs. As soon as John is asleep, Nicholas and Alisoun climb down, run back to the house, and sleep together in John's bed.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: That same night, Absolon comes to the house and begs Alisoun to kiss him. At first she refuses, but Absolon persists, so she offers him one quick kiss. Instead of presenting her lips to Absolon, though, she sticks her backside out the bedroom's "shot-window" (privy vent), and Absolon kisses her "ers" (arse) in the dark. Angry at being fooled, Absolon gets a red-hot coulter from the blacksmith, with which he intends to burn Alisoun in revenge. He returns with it to the window and knocks again, promising Alisoun a gold ring in exchange for a kiss. This time, Nicholas, having gotten up to relieve himself anyway, sticks his buttocks out to get in on the joke and farts thunderously in Absolon's face. Absolon thrusts the coulter "amidst the ers" of Nicholas who cries out for "Water!" to assuage the pain.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The screams wake John who, hearing the cries of "water!", thinks "Nowel's flood" (the unlettered carpenter confuses "Noe" (Noah) with "Nowel" (Christmas)) is upon them and cuts the rope attaching his tub to the ceiling. He crashes to the floor, breaking his arm, and the townspeople, hearing the noise, rush to the scene. Upon hearing Nicholas' and Alisoun's version of events, they laugh at poor John and consider him mad. The tale ends: "Thus, swyved was this carpenteris wyf, / For al his kepyng and his jalousye, / And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye, / And Nicholas is scalded in the towte. This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!"


title: The Miller's Tale

text: Nicholas is described not by his valor in battle or honour in the court. Instead, his many skills are described at great length, including the fact that he is studying one of the many scholarly arts that were popular at that time. Chaucer then goes on to describe what Nicholas is wearing and his skills as a musician.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: Again Nicholas is shown not as a brave knight but as a talented musician. He is shown to be very cultured as well as studied. Chaucer shows that Nicholas was skilled in the art of music, as he knew these certain songs which might have been quite popular at the time. What Nicholas wears could also be here to show that Nicholas wore clothes befitting his social class status This focus on what a person could wear based on status was also important to Richard II.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The tale appears to combine the motifs of two separate fabliaux, the 'second flood' and 'misdirected kiss', both of which appear in continental European literature of the period. Its bawdiness serves not only to introduce the Reeve's tale, but the general sequence of low comedy which terminates in the unfinished Cook's tale.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: A third theme, that of knowledge and science, appears in several marginal comments. Nicholas is an avid astrologer (as Chaucer himself was), equipped with, "His Almageste, and bookes grete and smale, / His astrelabie, longynge for his art..." John the carpenter represents unintellectual laymen; John tells Nicholas:


title: The Miller's Tale

text: He also recounts a story (sometimes told of Thales) of an astrologer who falls into a pit while studying the stars. The issue of whether learned or unlearned faith is better is also relevant to The Prioress's Tale and The Parson's Tale.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The Miller’s Tale draws on a lot of biblical information, mainly that of the Ark of the Covenant and Noah’s Ark. The Ark of the Covenant is referenced due to the root of the word arc meaning both chest and hidden in Latin, making an ark a hiding place. The ark of the Covenant was made to hide the tablets of law, Aaron’s Rod and the pot of manna, in a similar way, the tubs in which Nicholas, John and Alisoun are made to hide the 3 of them to keep them safe. The more obvious reference is to that of Noah’s Ark, Both Nicholas and Noah make reference to “Astrologye” being a catalyst for the information they receive about the coming flood. The stars were said to be able to predict events at the time. They also reference Divine Intervention of God speaking to them and the stars showing that a great cataclysm is coming. Nicholas uses this mix of astrology and information from God to convince John that he is not crazy by rooting it in how Noah found out. Chaucer also manages to draw a parallel between Gabriel the Angel and Nicholas by giving John the message about the flood, much like how Gabriel gave the message of Mary being pregnant with the son of God to her. Nicholas resembles Gabriel in the fact he is described somewhat effeminate and is eloquent with his words. The two diverge in the fact that Nicholas seduces John’s wife, and they commit adultery, which Gabriel did not do with Mary.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The tale is replete with word-puns. Much is made of variations on "priv-" implying both secret things and private parts. Nicholas fondles Alisoun's "queynte", a noun, while Absolom is described after his humiliation as having his ardour "yqueynt" or quenched.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The Miller's name is intended as a pun on the phrase "rob 'em". As told in the Reeve's Tale the Miller is a not just a bully but a thief of grain he is supposed to grind for his customers.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The 15th-century Tale of Beryn depicts the Miller trying and failing to explain the stained glass windows of Canterbury cathedral.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: Chaucer refers to the Distichs of Cato when discussing the age difference between Alison and her husband with this passage: ""He knew nat Catoun, for his wit was rude."" The Distichs of Cato was one of the most common textbooks in schools throughout medieval Europe, and was familiar to almost anyone with a basic education in Latin.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The painting Netherlandish Proverbs by Pieter Breugel the Elder illustrates many of the themes in this story including a shot-window in use, a man with his backside on fire, a falling through a basket from a roof, pious hypocrisy, and cuckolding.


title: The Miller's Tale

text: The Miller's Tale is one of eight of Chaucer's tales adapted in Pasolini's "The Canterbury Tales". Jenny Runacre portrays Alison, Michael Balfour portrays John the carpenter, Dan Thomas portrays Nicholas, Peter Cain portrays Absolom, Martin Philips portrays Martin and Alan McConnell portrays Gervase the blacksmith.


title: Tre Jones

text: Tre Isiah Jones (born January 8, 2000) is an American professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils.


title: Tre Jones

text: Jones played high school basketball for Apple Valley High School in Apple Valley, Minnesota. He joined the varsity team while in eighth grade and became a starter in his next season. Jones led Apple Valley to two Minnesota 4A state titles, in 2015 and 2017, and averaged 23.5 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 7.5 assists in the 2016–17 season. Jones left as a two-time Minnesota Gatorade Player of the Year and earned McDonald's All-American and Minnesota Mr. Basketball honors after his senior season.


title: Tre Jones

text: By the end of his high school career, he was considered a five-star recruit and one of the best point guards in the 2018 class.


title: Tre Jones

text: Jones made his college debut for Duke on November 6, 2018, chipping in 6 points, 4 rebounds, and 7 assists in a 118–84 win over Kentucky at the Champions Classic. On December 20, he led his team to a 69–58 victory over Texas Tech, collecting 13 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 6 steals. Jones suffered a shoulder injury on January 14, 2019, during a collision with Frank Howard of Syracuse. He missed two games with the injury and returned on January 26 versus Georgia Tech. In his freshman season at Duke, Jones averaged 9.4 points, 5.3 assist, and 3.8 rebounds per game in 36 games for the Blue Devils.


title: Tre Jones

text: On April 8, 2019, it was announced Jones would return to Duke for the 2019–20 season. He scored 15 points in his sophomore debut, a 68–66 win over Kansas. Jones had a career-high 31 points in a 74–63 win over Georgia State on November 15. Jones missed games against Wofford and Brown in late December with a mild foot injury. At the conclusion of the regular season, Jones was named ACC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. Jones averaged 16.2 points, 6.4 assists, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.8 steals per game as a sophomore. After the season, Jones declared for the 2020 NBA draft.


title: Tre Jones

text: Jones was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the 41st pick overall in the 2020 NBA draft which was hosted on November 18, 2020. On November 27, Jones signed with the Spurs. On February 1, 2021, Jones received his first assignment at G League.


title: Tre Jones

text: Jones played for the United States at the 2015 FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship in Argentina, winning the gold medal. He recorded 19 steals in the competition, breaking the American under-16 record set by Malik Newman in 2013.


title: Tre Jones

text: Jones has three older brothers: Tyus was a former NCAA champion with Duke and now plays for the Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association (NBA), while Jadee played college basketball for Furman before becoming a basketball coach at Apple Valley High School, additionally Tre has a half brother Reggie Bunch that played at Robert Morris University. His grandfather, Dennis Deutsch, was a member of the United States Armed Forces.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Jehovah's Witnesses originated as a branch of the Bible Student movement, which developed in the United States in the 1870s among followers of Christian restorationist minister Charles Taze Russell. Bible Student missionaries were sent to England in 1881 and the first overseas branch was opened in London in 1900. The group took on the name International Bible Students Association and by 1914 it was also active in Canada, Germany, Australia and other countries.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The movement split into several rival organizations after Russell's death in 1916, with one—led by Joseph "Judge" Rutherford—retaining control of "The Watch Tower" and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. Under Rutherford's direction, the International Bible Students Association introduced significant doctrinal changes that resulted in many long-term members leaving the organization. The group regrew rapidly, particularly in the mid-1930s with the introduction of new preaching methods. In 1931, the name "Jehovah's witnesses" was adopted, further cutting ties with Russell's earlier followers.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Substantial organizational changes continued as congregations and teaching programs worldwide came under centralized control. Further changes of its doctrines led to the prohibition of blood transfusions by members, abandonment of the cross in worship, rejection of Christmas and birthday celebrations and the view of the biblical Armageddon as a global war by God that will destroy the wicked and restore peace on earth. In 1945, the Watch Tower Society, which Russell had founded as a publishing house, amended its charter to state that its purposes included preaching about God's Kingdom, acting as a servant and governing agency of Jehovah's Witnesses and sending out missionaries and teachers for the public worship of God and Jesus.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The denomination was banned in Canada in World War I, and in Germany, the Soviet Union, Canada and Australia during World War II; members suffered widespread persecution and mob violence in some of those countries and in the United States. The group initiated dozens of high-profile legal actions in the United States and Canada between 1938 and 1955 to establish the right of members to sell literature from door to door, abstain from flag salute ceremonies and gain legal recognition as wartime conscientious objectors. Members of the denomination suffered persecution in some African countries in the 1960s and 1970s; since 2004 the group has suffered a series of official bans in Russia.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: About 1869 17-year-old Russell attended a meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of a group he called "Second Adventists" and heard Advent Christian preacher Jonas Wendell expound his views on Bible prophecy. Wendell, influenced by the teachings of William Miller, rejected traditional Christian beliefs of the "immortal soul" and a literal hell and interpreted scriptures in the books of Daniel and Revelation to predict that Christ would return in 1873. Russell became convinced that God would reveal his purpose in the last days of the "Gospel age" and formed an independent Bible study group in Pittsburgh. He rejected Adventist teachings that the purpose of Christ's return was to destroy the earth and instead formed the view that Christ had died to pay a "ransom price" to atone for sinful humans, intending to restore humans to Edenic perfection with the prospect of living forever. Like Wendell, he rejected the concept of "hellfire" and the immortal soul. In the mid-1870s, he published 50,000 copies of a pamphlet, "The Object and Manner of Our Lord's Return" explaining his views and his belief that Christ would return invisibly before the battle of Armageddon. He later acknowledged the influence of Adventist ministers George Storrs (who had earlier predicted Christ's return in 1844) and George Stetson in the formation of his doctrines; author James Penton claims he also strongly reflected the teachings of Philadelphia Lutheran pastor Joseph Seiss.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In January 1876, Russell read an issue of "Herald of the Morning", a periodical edited by Adventist preacher Nelson H. Barbour of Rochester, New York, but which had almost ceased publication because of dwindling subscriptions. Barbour, like other Adventists, had earlier applied the biblical time prophecies of Miller and Wendell to calculate that Christ would return in 1874 to bring a "bonfire"; when this failed to eventuate he and co-writer J.H. Paton had concluded that though their calculations of the "timing" of Christ's return were correct, they had erred about its "manner". They subsequently decided that Christ's return, or "parousia", was invisible, and that Christ had therefore been present since 1874. Russell "rejoiced" to find that others had reached the same conclusion on the "parousia" and decided their application of Adventist time prophecies — which he said he had "so long despised" — merited further examination. He met Barbour, accepted his detailed and complex arguments on prophetic chronology and provided him with funds to write a book that combined their views.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The book, "Three Worlds and the Harvest of This World", was published in early 1877. It articulated ideas that remained the teachings of Russell's associates for the next 40 years, many of which are still embraced by Jehovah's Witnesses: it identified a 2520-year-long era called "the Gentile Times", which would end in 1914, and broke from Adventist teachings by advancing Russell's concept of "restitution" — that all humankind since Adam would be resurrected to the earth and given the opportunity for eternal perfect human life. Russell claimed it was the first book to combine biblical end-time prophecies with the concept of restitution. It discussed the concept of parallel dispensations, which held that there were prophetic parallels between the Jewish and Gospel ages, and suggested the "new creation" would begin 6000 years after Adam's creation, a point in time he believed had been reached in 1872. It also revealed the authors' belief that Christ had left heaven in 1874 to return to earth and their expectation that God's "harvest" of the "saints" would end in early 1878, when they would all be taken to heaven. Russell, Barbour and Paton began traveling to hold public meetings to discuss their beliefs. For Russell, it was not enough: "Noticing how quickly people seemed to forget what they had heard, it soon became evident that while the meetings were useful in awakening interest, a monthly journal was needed to hold that interest and develop it." He provided Barbour with additional funds to resurrect "The Herald of the Morning". Russell severed his relationship with the magazine in July, 1879 after Barbour publicly disputed the concept of the ransom. He began publishing his own monthly magazine, "Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence" (now known as "The Watchtower"), which he sent to all the subscribers of the "Herald", disputing Barbour's teaching.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1881, Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society was formed as an unincorporated administrative agency for the purpose of disseminating tracts, papers, doctrinal treatises and Bibles, with "Pastor" Russell, as he was by then called, as secretary and William Henry Conley as president. Three years later, on December 15, 1884, Russell became the president of the society when it was legally incorporated in Pennsylvania. He said the corporation was "not a 'religious society' in the ordinary meaning of this term," explaining: "This is a business association merely ... a business convenience in disseminating the truth." Russell began to write a stream of articles, books, pamphlets and sermons, which by his death totaled 50,000 printed pages, with almost 20 million copies of his books printed and distributed around the world. In 1886, he wrote "The Divine Plan of the Ages", a 424-page book that was the first of what became a six-volume series called "Millennial Dawn," later renamed "Studies in the Scriptures," which established his fundamental doctrines. (As a consequence, the Bible Students were sometimes called "Millennial Dawnists".)


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The first study groups or congregations were established in 1879, and within a year more than 30 of them were meeting for six-hour study sessions under Russell's direction, to examine the Bible and his writings. The groups were autonomous "ecclesia", an organizational structure Russell regarded as a return to "primitive simplicity". In an 1882 "Watch Tower" article he said his nationwide community of study groups was "strictly unsectarian and consequently recognize no sectarian name ... we have no creed (fence) to bind us together or to keep others out of our company. The Bible is our only standard, and its teachings our only creed." He added: "We are in fellowship with all Christians in whom we can recognize the Spirit of Christ." Two years later he said the only appropriate names for his group would be "Church of Christ", "Church of God" or "Christians". He concluded: "By whatsoever names men may call us, it matters not to us; we acknowledge none other name than 'the only name given under heaven and among men' — Jesus Christ. We call ourselves simply Christians." In 1895, discussing the best form of meeting to study his writings, Russell warned: "Beware of organization. It is wholly unnecessary. The Bible rules will be the only rules you will need. Do not seek to bind others' consciences, and do not permit others to bind yours."


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Elders and deacons were elected by congregations and Russell tolerated a great latitude of belief among members. He discouraged formal disciplinary procedures by congregation elders, claiming this was beyond their authority, instead recommending that an individual who continued in a wrong course be judged by the entire ecclesia, or congregation, which could ultimately "withdraw from him its fellowship". Disfellowshipping did not mean the wrongdoer was shunned in all social circumstances or by all Bible Students.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1894, Russell introduced the role of "pilgrim" workers, men chosen for their maturity, meekness and Bible knowledge, who would visit congregations for up to three days when requested, giving talks. The pilgrims, who initially served part-time but later became full-time workers, also delivered talks at conventions.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: From 1895, he recommended that congregations study his "Studies in the Scriptures" paragraph-by-paragraph to learn the "truth" he had discovered, and in 1905 he recommended replacing verse-by-verse Bible studies with what he called "Berean Studies" of topics he chose.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Russell advertised for 1000 preachers in 1881, and encouraged all who were members of "the body of Christ" to go forth as "colporteurs" or evangelizers and preach to their neighbors in order to gather the remainder of the "little flock" of saints before they were called to heaven. Colporteurs (renamed "pioneers" in the 1930s) left householders with a copy of Russell's 130-page booklet "Food For Thinking Christians" and a sample copy of "Zion's Watch Tower" and returned days later to retrieve the book or accept a payment for it. The workers received a commission on the sale, but Russell warned them to concentrate less on the money than on the task of spreading the truth.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: When a Pittsburgh newspaper's publication of the full text of Russell's 1903 debates with Methodist minister Dr E. L. Eaton resulted in a huge demand for copies, several newspapers began printing weekly sermons by Russell. By 1907 21 million copies of his sermons were being printed a year in 11 U.S. newspapers. Russell entered a contract with a newspaper syndicate to give his sermons wider coverage and by December 1909 they were appearing in 400 papers to a weekly readership of 2.5 million. By 1910 his sermons were supplied to more than 1000 newspapers, some of which billed him as "the people's favorite preacher", and a peak of 2024 papers in the U.S., Canada, Britain, South Africa and Australia was reached in 1913. The publicity, including press coverage of annual overseas tours between 1908 and 1913, gave Russell a measure of international celebrity, prompting letters of concern by Bible Students over his supposed ostentatiousness, which in turn led Russell to defend his mode of transport and accommodation.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1914, Russell released an eight-hour-long film, "The Photo-Drama of Creation", that attempted to portray chronologically the history of the world from creation to the millennial reign of Christ. The film, accompanied by a gramophone soundtrack, was screened for free in two four-hour sittings around the world, attracting more than 1.2 million patrons in Britain in 1914 alone. The cost of the production and screenings was so high it created financial difficulties for the society, but by Russell's death it was reported that the film had been seen by more than nine million people.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Two missionaries were sent to England in 1881 and overseas branches were opened in London (1900), Germany (1903) and Australia and Switzerland (1904). The Watch Tower Society's headquarters were transferred to Brooklyn, New York in 1908.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1910, Russell introduced the name "International Bible Students Association" as a means of identifying his worldwide community of Bible study groups. The name was also used when advertising and conducting conventions of Russell's followers.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The first foreign-language edition of "Zion's Watch Tower" was published in 1883 when Russell produced a sample copy in Swedish and in 1885 the magazine was also translated into German for German-speaking Pennsylvanians.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: By 1904, Russell's doctrinal development was almost complete. His sixth and final part of "Studies in the Scriptures", "The New Creation", established that Revelation 7 spoke of two heavenly classes of Christians — 144,000 who would serve as a royal priesthood with Christ and a Great Company who would be brought to perfection on a lesser plane, similar to that of angels, serving the 144,000. He believed that 1878 marked the "fall of Babylon", when God officially judged that Christendom had proven unfaithful. He believed the "time of the end" in Daniel 12 ran from 1799 to 1914, that Christ had returned to earth in 1874, began his reign in 1878 and that from that date the anointed had been resurrected to heaven at their death. He initially taught that Armageddon had begun in 1874, which would culminate in worldwide anarchy and the overthrow of all political rulership in 1914 at the conclusion of the "times of the Gentiles", but by 1897 began to teach that Armageddon would instead begin in 1914. The earthly part of God's kingdom would be administered from Jerusalem in a re-established nation of Israel and under the control of the resurrected ancient Jewish prophets. All of mankind would over time be resurrected to earth in reverse order of death, Adam and Eve being the last, and be given the instruction and guidance necessary to prove themselves obedient to God in order to attain eternal life. Early in the resurrection, "ancient worthies" including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be raised to occupy positions of overseers and representatives of the invisible heavenly government ruling from Jerusalem. The Millennial Age, which he believed had begun in 1874, would run to 2874 or 2914 AD, when a test of earth's inhabitants would decide their ultimate destinies, to life or everlasting death.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1905, Paul S. L. Johnson, one of the traveling "Pilgrim" speakers and a former Lutheran minister, pointed out to Russell that his doctrines on the New Covenant had undergone a complete reversal: until 1880 he had taught that the New Covenant would be inaugurated only after the last of the 144,000 anointed Christians had been taken to heaven, but since 1881 he had written that it was already in force. Russell reconsidered the question and in January 1907 wrote several "Watch Tower" articles reaffirming his 1880 position—that "the new covenant belongs exclusively to the coming age"—adding that the church had no mediator, but that Christ was the "advocate". He also taught that Christians making up the 144,000 would join Christ as a "joint heir" and assistant mediator during the millennium.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: On October 24, 1909, former Watch Tower Society secretary-treasurer E.C. Henninges, who was by then the Australian branch manager based in Melbourne, wrote Russell an open letter of protest trying to persuade him to abandon the teaching, and calling on Bible Students to examine its legitimacy. When Russell refused, Henninges and most of the Melbourne congregation left Russell's movement to form the New Covenant Fellowship. Hundreds of the estimated 10,000 U.S. Bible Students also left, including pilgrim M. L. McPhail, a member of the Chicago Bible Students, and A. E. Williamson of Brooklyn, forming the New Covenant Believers.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Russell died on October 31, 1916, in Pampa, Texas during a cross-country preaching trip. For the next 10 years, the Watch Tower Society continued to teach the view that he had fulfilled the roles of the "Laodicean Messenger" of Revelation 3:14–22 and the "Faithful and Wise Servant" of Matthew 24:45.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: At the corporation's annual general meeting on January 6, 1917, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, the Society's legal counsel, was elected as Russell's successor, with new by-laws passed to strengthen the president's authority. Within months, four of the Society's seven directors claimed he was acting without consulting the board and described him as "dogmatic, authoritarian and secretive". A directors' meeting in June proposed returning control of the Society to the board, but at a stormy five-hour meeting on July 17, 1917, Rutherford announced he had appointed four new directors to replace the four who had opposed him, claiming they had no legal status on the board because of conflict with Pennsylvania law.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: At the same meeting Rutherford surprised the headquarters staff and most of the directors by announcing the release of the book "The Finished Mystery", dealing with the prophecies of the books of Revelation and Ezekiel and based on Russell's writings. The book, written by Bible Students Clayton J. Woodworth and George H. Fisher, was described as the "posthumous work of Russell" and the seventh volume of "Studies in the Scriptures". It was an immediate best-seller and was translated into six languages. Rutherford and the ousted directors published a number of newsletters through 1917 and 1918 attacking each other and some congregations split into opposing groups of those loyal either to the president or those he had expelled.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Rutherford staged a purge within the Brooklyn headquarters to force out those not wholeheartedly on his side and required those who remained to sign an oath of allegiance to him. He was re-elected as president in 1918 with a big majority, but by mid-1919 about one in seven Bible Students had left, forming such groups as The Stand Fast Bible Students Association, Laymen's Home Missionary Movement, Dawn Bible Students Association, Pastoral Bible Institute, Elijah Voice Movement and Eagle Society. Subscriptions to "The Watch Tower" also fell from 45,000 to fewer than 3000 between 1914 and 1918.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Rutherford introduced a vast advertising campaign to expose the "unrighteousness" of religions and their alliances with "beastly" governments, expanding on claims in "The Finished Mystery" that patriotism was akin to murder. The campaign provoked anger among the clergy and governments in North America and Europe, where Bible Students began to be arrested, mobbed and tarred and feathered. On February 12, 1918, "The Finished Mystery" was banned by the Canadian government for what a Winnipeg newspaper described as "seditious and antiwar statements".


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: On February 24 in Los Angeles Rutherford gave the first of his talk series "Millions Now Living May Never Die" (the title of the talk was changed five weeks later to "Millions Now Living Will Never Die") in which he attacked the clergy, describing them as "the most reprehensible men on earth for the great war that is now afflicting mankind". Three days later the Army Intelligence Bureau seized the Society's Los Angeles offices and on March 4 the US government ordered the removal of seven pages of "The Finished Mystery" if distribution was to continue.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In early May 1918 US Attorney General Thomas Watt Gregory condemned the book as dangerous propaganda and days later warrants were issued for the arrest of Rutherford and seven other Watch Tower directors and officers on charges of sedition under the Espionage Act amid claims they were conspiring to cause disloyalty and encouraging the refusal of military duty. On June 21 seven of them, including Rutherford, were sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. They were released on bail in March 1919 after an appeals court ruled they had been wrongly convicted and in May 1920 the government announced all charges had been dropped.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: On his release from prison, Rutherford began a major reorganization of Bible Student activities. The Watch Tower Society set up its own printing establishment and in 1919 Rutherford founded the magazine "The Golden Age" (now "Awake!"), which the Bible Students began distributing in response to an increasing emphasis by the Brooklyn headquarters on door-to-door preaching. Brooklyn appointed a "director" in each congregation in 1919, and a year later directed all congregation members who participated in the preaching work to report weekly on their witnessing activity. As the Bible Students' preaching work expanded, Rutherford moved to take greater control over their message in a bid to unify the message and become the spokesman for the organization.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Major annual conventions were organized from 1922 and 1928, which were as much publicity events as spiritual gatherings. At an eight-day assembly at Cedar Point, Ohio in 1922 he launched a series of international conventions under the theme "Advertise the King and Kingdom", attracting crowds of up to 20,000, who were urged to "herald the message far and wide". "Behold the King!" Rutherford told conventioners. "You are his publicity agents." He stressed that the prime purpose of all Bible Students was to preach publicly in fulfillment of Matthew 24:14, especially in the form of door-to-door evangelism with the Society's publications, rather than prayer, meditation or Bible study. The traditional Bible Student prayer and testimony meetings were divided into two parts with one becoming a "service meeting", devoted to promoting public preaching.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1924, he expanded his means of spreading the Watch Tower message with the start of 15-minute radio broadcasts, initially from WBBR, based on Staten Island, and eventually via a network of as many as 480 radio stations. A 1931 talk was broadcast throughout North America, Australia and France, but the virulence of his attacks on the clergy was strong enough to result in both the NBC and BBC radio networks banning him from the airwaves. Later still, in the late 1930s, he advocated the use of "sound cars" and portable phonographs with which talks by Rutherford were played to passersby and householders.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The new preaching methods brought an influx of members through the early 1920s, but attendance at the Bible Students' yearly Memorial fell sharply again, dropping from 90,434 in 1925 to 17,380 in 1928. Rutherford dismissed their defection as the Lord "shaking out" the unfaithful. Author Tony Wills, who analyzed attendance and "field worker" statistics, suggests it was the "more dedicated" Bible Students who quit through the 1920s, to be replaced by newcomers in larger numbers, creating what author Robert Crompton described as one of the most significant of the movement's breaks with its early history.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: At a convention at Columbus, Ohio on July 26, 1931, Rutherford made a psychological break with the large number of disaffected Bible Students by proposing the adoption of the name "Jehovah's witnesses", based on the scripture at Isaiah 43:10, "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord". "The Watch Tower" said the new, distinctive name was designed to exalt God's name and end public confusion caused by the proliferation of groups carrying the name "Bible Students". It explained: "It will be a name that could not be used by another, and such as none other will want to use."


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1932, he eliminated the system of congregations electing bodies of elders, claiming the office of elder was unscriptural; in 1938, he replaced the earlier system of congregational self-government with a "theocratic" or "God-ruled" organizational system in which the Brooklyn headquarters would make all appointments in congregations worldwide. "Consolation" magazine explained: "The Theocracy is at present administered by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, of which Judge Rutherford is the president and general manager." Rutherford, who had shown an earlier interest in politics, applied terms to the organization that were more common in politics and business: "organization" replaced "congregation" when referring to the worldwide community of believers, while "companies" denoted individual congregations. He pushed for more "field service" and "campaigns" of kingdom "advertising" in "territories", with "publishers" working under the direction of a field service "captain".


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Under Rutherford, Jehovah's Witnesses grew from about 44,000 in 1928 to about 115,000 at the time of his death on January 8, 1942.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Rutherford's term as president was marked by a succession of changes to doctrines, with many of Russell's teachings altered or abandoned and many new teachings introduced. "The Finished Mystery" declared that God would destroy churches "wholesale" and church members by the millions in 1918, and that all earthly governments would be destroyed in 1920, resulting in anarchy. Expectations remained strong that the change of the "saints" and completion of the "body of Christ" in heaven was imminent. A "Watch Tower" report on the 1918 Brooklyn convention said there was good reason to believe the gathering "might be the last in this vicinity, before the great convention beyond the veil".


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Disregarding Russell's rejection of 1925 as a year of importance, Rutherford announced in 1920 that Christ's thousand-year reign would begin in that year, bringing the restoration of an earthly paradise and the resurrection to earth of the ancient Jewish prophets referred to as "the ancient worthies" (such as Abraham and Isaac). Jerusalem would become the world capital, and the "princes" would communicate with all humankind by radio. The pronouncements prompted many Bible Students to give up their businesses and jobs and sell their homes, while Bible Student farmers in Canada and the US refused to seed their spring crops in 1925 and mocked members of their movement who did. Rutherford had a luxury villa, Beth Sarim, built in San Diego, California, in 1930 to house the biblical "princes" who were expected to be resurrected before Armageddon. Watch Tower publications made no admission of error over the predictions for 1925, but Rutherford gave apologies at IBSA conventions.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Armageddon was redefined in 1925 as a battle between God and Satan, resulting in the overthrow of human governments and false religion and a 1926 "Watchtower" article introduced a new emphasis on the importance of the name "Jehovah". From 1926 publications began discrediting earlier teachings on the importance of Christian "character development" or personal "sanctification" and a year later they discarded the teaching that Russell had been the "faithful and wise servant" of Matthew 24:45–47. By then the Watch Tower Society had rejected the belief that Russell alone had been the sole channel of scriptural enlightenment. In 1927 the Society disposed of remaining copies of Russell's "Studies in the Scriptures" and "The Finished Mystery" and ceased printing the books. A year later Russell's teaching that the natural Jews would be restored to Palestine and hold a prominent place in the earthly part of God's kingdom was dropped. Christmas celebrations ceased in 1928 after a radio broadcast and "Golden Age" articles on their pagan origins.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1929, Rutherford announced that the vindication of God's name—which would ultimately occur when millions of unbelievers were destroyed at Armageddon—was the primary doctrine of Christianity and more important than God's display of goodness or grace towards humans. By 1933, the timing of Christ's "parousia" and the start of the "last days" had been moved from 1874 to 1914 with the principles of parallel dispensations retained to place Christ's enthronement 3½ years later in 1918. In 1935 a new interpretation of the "great company" of Revelation 7 placed them on earth as survivors of Armageddon rather than in heaven and from that point converts to the movement were generally identified as those who, if worthy, would qualify for life on a paradise earth. The same year, Witnesses were told they should refuse to salute the flag, stand for the national anthem, or accept alternative service provided for those who had conscientious objection to military service. Reference to the cross and crucifixion in Watch Tower publications ceased in 1936 when it was asserted that Christ had actually died on a tree. By 1939 Watch Tower publications explained that only those who were part of God's "organization" would be spared at Armageddon.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: From 1927 onwards, Bible Students were urged to extend their door-to-door preaching to include Sundays. The move quickly attracted opposition from the clergy and the following year Bible Students began to be arrested in the U.S. for breaching local by-laws on Sabbath observance. Rutherford challenged the laws in courts, ultimately fighting hundreds of cases in New Jersey alone as he insisted the preachers were not selling literature, but distributing it for a contribution to Society funds.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1935, Witnesses were told they should refuse to salute national flags, stand for national anthems, or accept alternative service provided for those who had conscientious objection to military service. In late 1936 U.S. schools began expelling Witness children who refused to salute the flag. When the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of schools to expel non-conforming children in June 1940, many states began passing laws requiring compulsory flag salute and similarly expelling children. The Supreme Court decision prompted a wave of violence against U.S. Witnesses, mostly in small towns and rural areas, where they were beaten, castrated, tarred and feathered and in some cases killed. More than 2500 cases were reported from 1940 to 1944 and hundreds of Witnesses were arrested and charged with crimes including sedition. The Witnesses responded with campaigns of mass witnessing, descending on hostile towns in their hundreds, and organizing "information marches", some long, in which members wore sandwich boards and held placards and banners.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In Germany, preaching activity was banned and the Watch Tower Society headquarters seized and closed. Thousands of Witnesses were arrested on peddling charges from 1922; in 1933, following the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, government restrictions were tightened, prompting the public distribution of more than two million copies of a Declaration of Facts in which the Witnesses protested at their treatment and requested the right to preach. It had little effect: Witnesses were fired from their jobs and about 2000 were imprisoned in concentration camps. Jehovah's Witnesses were the first Christian denomination to be banned and the most extensively persecuted Christian group during the Nazi era.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Witnesses in Japan were imprisoned and tortured, while members in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Britain were also imprisoned as conscientious objectors. The Witnesses were banned in Germany in 1936, Canada in July 1940 and Australia in January 1941. Under Rutherford's leadership, a legal staff was developed to establish their right to preach and their right to refrain from nationalistic ceremonies. Between 1938 and 1955 the Watch Tower Society won 36 out of 45 religion-related court cases. These legal battles resulted in significant expansions in freedom of speech and religion in both countries.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Writers including American essayist Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, William Whalen, Alan Rogerson and William Schnell have claimed the group was complicit in its own victimisation in the United States, often goading authorities with cartoons and books that ridiculed and denigrated church and state and provocative mass assemblies in which the Witnesses flooded towns with preachers. They claim a deliberate course of martyrdom served to attract society's dispossessed and oppressed members and also provided apparent validation of the "truth" of the Watchtower cause as evidenced by the level of opposition from the outside world as they struggled to serve God.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Rutherford was succeeded by Nathan Homer Knorr. Knorr's tenure as president was notable for the transfer from individual to corporate leadership. None of the Society's publications after 1942 acknowledged authorship, and were instead attributed to an anonymous Writing Committee. From about 1944, the term "governing body" began to be used with a measure of frequency, with the term initially applied to the Watch Tower Society's seven-man Board of Directors. Knorr began a campaign of real estate acquisition in Brooklyn to expand the organisation's world headquarters, expanded printing production throughout the world, and organized a series of international assemblies that dwarfed those of Rutherford in the 1920s. In 1958, more than 253,000 Witnesses gathered at two New York City venues, Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds, for an eight-day convention where more than 7000 were baptized. Other large conventions were held in the US, Canada and Germany.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: He instituted major training programs, including the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead to train missionaries, and the Theocratic Ministry School to give instruction in preaching and public speaking at the congregational level. He commissioned a new translation of the Bible, which was released progressively from 1950, before being published as the complete "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures" in 1961. Also produced were a Greek-English New Testament interlinear ("The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures") and a Bible encyclopedia ("Aid to Bible Understanding"). The offices of elder and ministerial servant (deacon) were restored to Witness congregations in 1972, with appointments being made from headquarters.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Knorr's vice-president, Frederick William Franz, became the leading theologian for the group and the pace of doctrinal change slowed. Blood transfusions were prohibited for Witnesses from 1945 and in 1961 the eating of blood in meat was also proscribed, "The Watchtower" instructing Witnesses to check with their butcher whether the animals and fowl he sold had been properly drained of their blood. Birthday celebrations were described as "objectionable" in 1951 because of their pagan origins and other explicit rules regarding acceptable conduct among members were introduced, with a greater emphasis placed on disfellowshipping as a disciplinary measure.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Adult male Witnesses in the US, Britain, and some European countries were jailed for refusal of military service in the post-war years, with particularly harsh treatment meted out in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, East Germany and Romania. Wide-scale persecution of Witnesses in several African nations was launched between 1967 and 1975, with as many as 21,000 fleeing Malawi to refugee camps in Zambia after a series of murders and beatings in 1972, and 7000 Mozambiquean members of the denomination were arrested in 1975 to be sent to communist re-education camps.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: During Knorr's presidency, membership of Jehovah's Witnesses grew from 108,000 to more than two million.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: From 1966, Witness publications heightened anticipation of Christ's thousand-year millennial reign beginning in late 1975. Repeating the 1925 cycle of excitement, anticipation and then disappointment, Witness publications and convention talks intensified focus on 1975 as the "appropriate" time for God to act, with statements that "the immediate future is certain to be filled with climactic events ... within a few years at most the final parts of the Bible prophecy relative to these 'last days' will undergo fulfillment". The September 15, 1971 issue of "The Watchtower" warned that "all worldly careers are soon to come to an end", and advised youths that they should not "get interested in ‘higher education’ for a future that will never eventuate." A chart in a 1971 "Awake!" indicated the "thrilling hope" of a "grand Sabbath of rest and relief" in the mid-1970s at the close of 6000 years of human history. Some Witnesses sold businesses and homes, gave up jobs, deferred medical procedures and set aside plans to start a family in anticipation of Armageddon's arrival. The May 1974 issue of the Watch Tower Society's newsletter, "Our Kingdom Ministry", commended Witnesses who had sold homes and property to devote themselves to preaching in the "short time" remaining.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Watch Tower literature did not state dogmatically that 1975 would definitely mark the end, and the buildup was tempered with cautions that there was no certainty that Armageddon would arrive in 1975, but magazines warned that "time is running out rapidly" and that "only a few years, at most" remained before Armageddon. Circuit assemblies in 1970 held a public talk entitled "Who will conquer the world in the 1970s?" and in a speech in Australia in 1975 the society's vice-president Frederick Franz went so far as to name a precise date—September 5, 1975—as the "end of the present wicked system". Witnesses were also urged that they should not be "toying with the words of Jesus that 'concerning that day and hour nobody knows' ... to the contrary, one should be keenly aware that the end of this system of things is rapidly coming to its violent end." The number of baptisms soared from about 59,000 in 1966, to more than 297,000 in 1974, but membership declined after expectations for the year failed. In 1976 "The Watchtower" advised those who had been "disappointed" by the failure of the predictions for 1975 to adjust their viewpoint because their understanding had been "based on wrong premises", but four years later, after several proposals by Governing Body members to apologize to Witnesses were voted down, the Watch Tower Society admitted its responsibility in building up hope regarding 1975.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: The leadership structure of Jehovah's Witnesses was reorganized from January 1, 1976, with the power of the presidency passed to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses and the establishment of six committees to oversee tasks such as writing, teaching, publishing and evangelizing work. At this time, Watch Tower Society publications began using the capitalized name, "Jehovah's "W"itnesses". Subsequent presidents of the Watch Tower Society after Knorr's death in 1977 have been Frederick William Franz, Milton George Henschel and Don A. Adams.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: A purge of senior Brooklyn headquarters staff was carried out in April and May 1980 after it was discovered some at the highest ranks of the hierarchy dissented with core Watch Tower Society doctrines, particularly surrounding the significance of 1914, and wished to propose adjustments as "new understandings" to continue the century-long tradition of changes in doctrines. Unease at the chronology doctrines had in fact surfaced within the Governing Body earlier that year. In February, three Governing Body members – aware that those who had been alive in 1914 were rapidly dwindling in number despite the teaching that their generation would be alive to see Armageddon—had proposed a radical change in Watch Tower doctrines to require that the "generation" that would see the arrival of Armageddon had been alive only since 1957, the year of the launch of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik. The proposal, which would have extended the deadline for Armageddon by 43 years, failed to gain a majority vote. Internal dissatisfaction with official doctrines continued to grow, however, leading to a series of secret investigations and judicial hearings. Among those expelled from the Witnesses was former Governing Body member Raymond Franz. Many of those expelled were labelled by Governing Body members as "spiritual fornicators", "mentally diseased" and "insane". The purge resulted in a number of schisms in the movement in Canada, Britain, and northern Europe, and prompted the formation of loose groups of disaffected former Witnesses. The Watch Tower Society responded to the crisis with a new, hardened attitude towards the treatment of defectors and expelled Witnesses.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 2000, members of the Governing Body resigned from positions on the boards of the Watch Tower Society and its subsidiary corporations in order to focus on doctrinal matters. Beginning in 2004, various Watch Tower Society properties in Brooklyn were sold in preparation for the establishment of a new world headquarters in Warwick, New York, completed in 2016.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: In 1995, changes regarding their understanding of Jesus' comments regarding "this generation" (from Matthew 24:34) were published. Throughout the previous four decades, Jehovah's Witnesses had taught that the generation that saw the events of 1914 would not die out before Armageddon came. The understanding of the "generation" was again adjusted in 2008, to refer to the remnant of the anointed. In 2010, the definition of the generation was changed again, wherein the lives of anointed individuals living in 1914 overlap with a second group alive in the present day, some of whom will see Armageddon. Jehovah's Witnesses continue to teach that Armageddon is imminent.


title: History of Jehovah's Witnesses

text: Four official histories of Jehovah's Witnesses have been published by the Watch Tower Society. The first two are out of print. The most recent one is available online.


title: Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent

text: Buddhism, which originated in India, gradually dwindled and was replaced by approximately the 12th century. According to Lars Fogelin, this was "not a singular event, with a singular cause; it was a centuries-long process."


text: The decline of Buddhism has been attributed to various factors, especially the regionalisation of India after the end of the Gupta Empire (320–650 CE).


text: Another factor was invasions of north India by various groups such as Indo-Iranian Huns, Hephthalites, Turkic-Mongolians, Arabs and Persians and subsequent destruction of Buddhist institutions such as Taxila and Nalanda and religious persecutions. Religious competition with other Indic religions and later Islam were also important factors. The invasions of Huns in 5th century and subsequent destruction of Buddhist centres caused the decline of Buddhism in the northwest Indian subcontinent. A similar process occurred in northeast, where Islamization of Bengal and demolitions of Nalanda, Vikramasila and Odantapuri by Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, a general of the Delhi Sultanate are thought to have severely weakened the practice of Buddhism in East India where it previously received strong patronage under the Pala Empire.


text: The total Buddhist population in 2010 in the Indian subcontinent – excluding that of Sri Lanka, Bhutan (both Buddhist majority states) and Nepal – was about 10 million, of which about 7.2% lived in Bangladesh, 92.5% in India and 0.2% in Pakistan.


text: Buddhism expanded in the Indian subcontinent in the centuries after the death of the Buddha, particularly after receiving the endorsement and royal support of the Maurya Empire under Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. It spread even beyond the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia and China.


text: The Buddha's period saw not only urbanisation, but also the beginnings of centralised states. The successful expansion of Buddhism depended on the growing economy of the time, together with an increase in the number of centralised political organisations capable of change.


text: Buddhism spread across ancient India and state support by various regional regimes continued through the 1st millennium BCE. The consolidation of monastic organisations made Buddhism the centre of religious and intellectual life in India. The succeeding Kanva Dynasty had four Buddhist Kanva Kings.


text: During the Gupta dynasty (4th to 6th century), Mahayana Buddhism turned more ritualistic, while Buddhist ideas were adopted into Vedic schools. The differences between Buddhism and Hinduism blurred, and Vaishnavism, Shaivism and other Hindu religions became increasingly popular, while Brahmins developed a new relationship with the state. As the system grew, Buddhist monasteries gradually lost control of land revenue. In parallel, the Gupta kings built Buddhist temples such as the one at Kushinagara, and monastic universities such as those at Nalanda, as evidenced by records left by three Chinese visitors to India.


text: Chinese scholars traveling through the region between the 5th and 8th centuries, such as Faxian, Xuanzang, Yijing, Hui-sheng, and Sung-Yun, began to speak of a decline of the Buddhist "Sangha" in the Northwestern parts of Indian subcontinent, especially in the wake of the Hun invasion from central Asia in the 6th century CE. Xuanzang wrote that numerous monasteries in north-western India had been reduced to ruins by the Huns.


text: The Hun ruler Mihirakula, who ruled from 515 CE in north-western region (modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and north India), suppressed Buddhism as well. He did this by destroying monasteries as far away as modern-day Prayagraj. Yashodharman and Gupta Empire rulers, in and after about 532 CE, reversed Mihirakula's campaign and ended the Mihirakula era.


text: According to Peter Harvey, the religion recovered slowly from these invasions during the 7th century, with the "Buddhism of Punjab and Sindh remaining strong". The reign of the Pala Dynasty (8th to 12th century) saw Buddhism in North India recover due to royal support from the Palas who supported various Buddhist centers like Nalanda. By the eleventh century, Pala rule had weakened, however.


text: The regionalisation of India after the end of the Gupta Empire (320–650 CE) led to the loss of patronage and donations. The prevailing view of decline of Buddhism in India is summed by A. L. Basham's classic study which argues that the main cause was the rise of an ancient Hindu religion again, "Hinduism", which focused on the worship of deities like Shiva and Vishnu and became more popular among the common people while Buddhism, being focused on monastery life, had become disconnected from public life and its life rituals, which were all left to Hindu Brahmins.


text: The growth of new forms of Hinduism (and to a lesser extent Jainism) was a key element in the decline in Buddhism in India, particularly in terms of diminishing financial support to Buddhist monasteries from laity and royalty. According to Kanai Hazra, Buddhism declined in part because of the rise of the Brahmins and their influence in socio-political process. According to Randall Collins, Richard Gombrich and other scholars, Buddhism's rise or decline is not linked to Brahmins or the caste system, since Buddhism was "not a reaction to the caste system", but aimed at the salvation of those who joined its monastic order.


text: The disintegration of central power also led to regionalisation of religiosity, and religious rivalry. Rural and devotional movements arose within Hinduism, along with Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Bhakti and Tantra, that competed with each other, as well as with numerous sects of Buddhism and Jainism. This fragmentation of power into feudal kingdoms was detrimental for Buddhism, as royal support shifted towards other communities and Brahmins developed a strong relationship with Indian states.


text: Over time the new Indian dynasties which arose after the 7th and 8th centuries tended to support Hinduism, and this conversion proved decisive. These new dynasties, all of which supported Hinduism, include "the Karkotas and Pratiharas of the north, the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, and the Pandyas and Pallavas of the south" (the Pala Dynasty is one sole exception to these). One of the reasons of this conversion was that the Brahmins were willing and able to aid in local administration, and they provided councillors, administrators and clerical staff. Moreover, Brahmins had clear ideas about society, law and statecraft (and studied texts such as the Arthashastra and the Manusmriti) and could be more pragmatic than the Buddhists, whose religion was based on monastic renunciation and did not recognize that there was a special warrior class that was divinely ordained to use violence justly. As Johannes Bronkhorst notes, Buddhists could give "very little" practical advice in response to that of the Brahmins and Buddhist texts often speak ill of kings and royalty.


text: Bronkhorst notes that some of the influence of the Brahmins derived from the fact that they were seen as powerful, because of their use of incantations and spells (mantras) as well as other sciences like astronomy, astrology, calendrics and divination. Many Buddhists refused to use such "sciences" and left them to Brahmins, who also performed most of the rituals of the Indian states (as well as in places like Cambodia and Burma).


text: Lars Fogelin argues that the concentration of the sangha into large monastic complexes like Nalanda was one of the contributing causes for the decline. He states that the Buddhists of these large monastic institutions became "largely divorced from day-to-day interaction with the laity, except as landlords over increasingly large monastic properties". Padmanabh Jaini also notes that Buddhist laypersons are relatively neglected in the Buddhist literature, which produced only one text on lay life and not until the 11th century, while Jains produced around fifty texts on the life and conduct of a Jaina layperson.


text: These factors all slowly led to the replacement of Buddhism in the South and West of India by Hinduism and Jainism. Fogelin states that


text: Buddhist sources also mention violence against Buddhists by Hindu Brahmins and kings. Hazra mentions that the eighth and ninth centuries saw "Brahminical hostilities towards Buddhism in South India"


text: Buddhism's distinctiveness also diminished with the rise of Hindu sects. Though Mahayana writers were quite critical of Hinduism, the devotional cults of Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism likely seemed quite similar to laity, and the developing Tantrism of both religions were also similar. Also, "the increasingly esoteric nature" of both Hindu and Buddhist tantrism made it "incomprehensible to India's masses", for whom Hindu devotionalism and the worldly power-oriented Nath Siddhas became a far better alternative. Buddhist ideas, and even the Buddha himself, were absorbed and adapted into orthodox Hindu thought, while the differences between the two systems of thought were emphasized.


text: Elements which medieval Hinduism adopted during this time included vegetarianism, a critique of animal sacrifices, a strong tradition of monasticism (founded by figures such as Shankara) and the adoption of the Buddha as an avatar of Vishnu. On the other end of the spectrum, Buddhism slowly became more and more "Brahmanized", initially beginning with the adoption of Sanskrit as a means to defend their interests in royal courts. According to Bronkhorst, this move to the Sanskrit cultural world also brought with it numerous Brahmanical norms which now were adopted by the Sanskrit Buddhist culture (one example is the idea present in some Buddhist texts that the Buddha was a Brahmin who knew the Vedas). Bronkhorst notes that with time, even the caste system eventually became widely accepted for "all practical purposes" by Indian Buddhists (this survives among the Newar Buddhists of Nepal). Bronkhorst notes that eventually, a tendency developed in India to see Buddhism's past as having been dependent on Brahmanism and secondary to it. This idea, according to Bronkhorst, "may have acted like a Trojan horse, weakening this religion from within".


text: The political realities of the period also led some Buddhists to change their doctrines and practices. For example, some later texts such as the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra and the Sarvadurgatipariśodhana Tantra begin to speak of the importance of protecting Buddhist teachings and that killing is allowed if necessary for this reason. Later Buddhist literature also begins to see kings as bodhisattvas and their actions as being in line with the dharma (Buddhist kings like Devapala and Jayavarman VII also claimed this). Bronkhorst also thinks that the increase in the use of apotropaic rituals (including for the protection of the state and king) and spells (mantras) by 7th century Indian Buddhism is also a response to Brahmanical and Shaiva influence. These included fire sacrifices, which were performed under the rule of Buddhist king Dharmapala (r. c. 775–812). Alexis Sanderson has shown that Tantric Buddhism is filled with imperial imagery reflecting the realities of medieval India, and that in some ways work to sanctify that world. Perhaps because of these changes, Buddhism remained indebted to the crept in Brahmanical thought and practice now that it had adopted much of its world-view. Bronkhorst argues that these somewhat drastic changes "took them far from the ideas and practices they had adhered to during the early centuries of their religion, and dangerously close to their much-detested rivals." These changes which brought Buddhism closer to Hinduism, eventually made it much easier for it to be absorbed into Hinduism and lose its separate identity for them.


text: In ancient India, regardless of the religious beliefs of their kings, states usually treated all the important sects relatively even-handedly. This consisted of building monasteries and religious monuments, donating property such as the income of villages for the support of monks, and exempting donated property from taxation. Donations were most often made by private persons such as wealthy merchants and female relatives of the royal family, but there were periods when the state also gave its support and protection. In the case of Buddhism, this support was particularly important because of its high level of organisation and the reliance of monks on donations from the laity. State patronage of Buddhism took the form of land grant foundations.


text: Numerous copper plate inscriptions from India as well as Tibetan and Chinese texts suggest that the patronage of Buddhism and Buddhist monasteries in medieval India was interrupted in periods of war and political change, but broadly continued in Hindu kingdoms from the start of the common era through the early first millennium CE. The Gupta kings built Buddhist temples such as the one at Kushinagara, and monastic universities such as those at Nalanda, as evidenced by records left by three Chinese visitors to India.


text: According to some scholars such as Lars Fogelin, the decline of Buddhism may be related to economic reasons, wherein the Buddhist monasteries with large land grants focused on non-material pursuits, self-isolation of the monasteries, loss in internal discipline in the "sangha", and a failure to efficiently operate the land they owned. With the growing support for Hinduism and Jainism, Buddhist monasteries also gradually lost control of land revenue.


text: The Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent was the first great iconoclastic invasion into the Indian subcontinent. As early as the 8th century, Arab conquerors invaded present-day Pakistan. In a second wave, from the 11th through the 13th centuries, Turkic, Turkic-Mongolian and Mongolian overtook the northern Indian plains. The Persian traveller Al Biruni's memoirs suggest Buddhism had vanished from Ghazni (Afghanistan) and medieval Punjab region (northern Pakistan) by early 11th century. By the end of the twelfth century, Buddhism had further disappeared, with the destruction of monasteries and stupas in medieval north-west and western Indian subcontinent (now Pakistan and north India). The chronicler of Shahubuddin Ghori's forces records enthusiastically about attacks on the monks and students and victory against the non-Muslim infidels. The major centers of Buddhism were in north India and the direct path of the armies. As centers of wealth and non-Muslim religions they were targets. Buddhist sources agree with this assessment. Taranatha in his "History of Buddhism in India" of 1608, gives an account of the last few centuries of Buddhism, mainly in Eastern India. Mahayana Buddhism reached its zenith during the Pala dynasty period, a dynasty that ended with the Islamic invasion of the Gangetic plains.


text: According to William Johnston, hundreds of Buddhist monasteries and shrines were destroyed, Buddhist texts were burnt by the armies, monks and nuns killed during the 12th and 13th centuries in the Gangetic plains region. The Islamic invasions plundered wealth and destroyed Buddhist images.


text: The Buddhist university of Nalanda was mistaken for a fort because of the walled campus. The Buddhist monks who had been slaughtered were mistaken for Brahmins according to Minhaj-i-Siraj. The walled town, the Odantapuri monastery, was also conquered by his forces. Sumpa basing his account on that of Śākyaśrībhadra who was at Magadha in 1200, states that the Buddhist university complexes of Odantapuri and Vikramshila were also destroyed and the monks massacred. forces attacked the north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent many times. Many places were destroyed and renamed. For example, Odantapuri's monasteries were destroyed in 1197 by Mohammed-bin-Bakhtiyar and the town was renamed. Likewise, Vikramashila was destroyed by the forces of Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khilji around 1200. Many Buddhist monks fled to Nepal, Tibet, and South India to avoid the consequences of war. Tibetan pilgrim Chöjepal (1179–1264), who arrived in India in 1234, had to flee advancing troops multiple times, as they were sacking Buddhist sites.


text: The north-west parts of the Indian subcontinent fell to Islamic control, and the consequent take over of land holdings of Buddhist monasteries removed one source of necessary support for the Buddhists, while the economic upheaval and new taxes on laity sapped the laity support of Buddhist monks. Not all monasteries were destroyed by the invasions (Somapuri, Lalitagiri, Udayagiri), but since these large Buddhist monastic complexes had become dependent on the patronage of local authorities, when this patronage dissipated, they were abandoned by the sangha.


text: In the north-western parts of medieval India, the Himalayan regions, as well as regions bordering central Asia, Buddhism once facilitated trade relations, states Lars Fogelin. With the Islamic invasion and expansion, and central Asians adopting Islam, the trade route-derived financial support sources and the economic foundations of Buddhist monasteries declined, on which the survival and growth of Buddhism was based. The arrival of Islam removed the royal patronage to the monastic tradition of Buddhism, and the replacement of Buddhists in long-distance trade by the eroded the related sources of patronage.


text: After the conquest, Buddhism largely disappeared from most of India, surviving in the Himalayan regions and south India. Abul Fazl stated that there was scarcely any trace of Buddhists left. When he visited Kashmir in 1597, he met with a few old men professing Buddhism, however, he "saw none among the learned".


text: According to Randall Collins, Buddhism was already declining in India by the 12th century, but with the pillage by invaders it nearly became extinct in India in the 1200s. In the 13th century, states Craig Lockard, Buddhist monks in India escaped to Tibet to escape Islamic persecution; while the monks in western India, states Peter Harvey, escaped persecution by moving to south Indian Hindu kingdoms that were able to resist the power.


text: Brief accounts and the one eye-witness account of Dharmasmavim in wake of the conquest during the 1230s talk about abandoned viharas being used as camps by the Turukshahs. Later historical traditions such as Taranatha's are mixed with legendary materials and summarised as "the Turukshah conquered the whole of Magadha and destroyed many monasteries and did much damage at Nalanda, such that many monks fled abroad" thereby bringing about a demise of Buddhism with their destruction of the Viharas.


text: While the sacked the Buddhists viharas, the temples and "stupas" with little material value survived. After the collapse of monastic Buddhism, Buddhist sites were abandoned or reoccupied by other religious orders. In the absence of viharas and libraries, scholastic Buddhism and its practitioners migrated to the Himalayas, China and Southeast Asia. The devastation of agriculture also meant that many laypersons were unable to support Buddhist monks, who were easily identifiable and also vulnerable. As the Sangha died out in numerous areas, it lacked the ability to revive itself without more monks to perform ordinations. Peter Harvey concludes:


text: Fogelin also notes that some elements of the Buddhist sangha moved to the Himalayas, China, and Southeast Asia, or they may have reverted to secular life or become wandering ascetics. In this environment, without monasteries and scholastic centers of their own, Buddhist ascetics and laypersons were eventually absorbed into the religious life of medieval India.


text: Buddhist institutions survived in eastern India right until the Islamic invasion. Buddhism still survives among the Barua (though practising Vaishnavite elements), a community of Bengali Magadh descent who migrated to Chittagong region. Indian Buddhism also survives among Newars of Nepal, who practice unique form of Vajrayana known as Newar Buddhism and among the weavers of the villages of Maniabandha and Nuapatna in the Cuttack District of Odisha, a region that had been isolated for long.


text: In Bihar and Bengal, many Buddhist shrines and temples have remained intact with the Buddha or Bodhisattva inside being reappropriated and worshipped as a Brahmanical deity. Around the neighbourhood of Nalanda, the remains of votive stupas are worshipped as Shiva lingas. An image of the Buddha in bhūmisparśa mudrā at the village of Telhara receives full-fledged pūjā as Hanuman during Rama Navami. A sculpture of the Buddha has ended up as Vāsudeva at Gunaighar in Comilla.


text: While the Buddhist monastic centers like Nalanda had been sacked, the temples and "stupas" at pilgrimage sites (such as Bodh Gaya) didn't receive the same treatment. The reason these were left unharmed was because they were "not material legitimations of rival royal families". The last abbot of Bodh Gaya Mahavihara was Sariputra who was active during the 14th and 15th centuries before he left India for Nepal. Inscriptions at Bodh Gaya show that the Mahabodhi temple was in some use till 14th century. According to the 17th century Tibetan Lama Taranatha's "History of Buddhism in India", the temple was restored by a Bengali queen in the 15th century, later passing on to a landowner and becoming a Shaivite center. Inscriptions at Bodh Gaya mention Buddhist pilgrims visiting it throughout the period of Buddhist decline:


text: Abul Fazl, the courtier of Mughal emperor Akbar, states, "For a long time past scarce any trace of them (the Buddhists) has existed in Hindustan." When he visited Kashmir in 1597 he met with a few old men professing Buddhism, however, he 'saw none among the learned'. This can also be seen from the fact that Buddhist priests were not present amidst learned divines that came to the Ibadat Khana of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri.


text: After the Islamization of Kashmir by sultans like Sikandar Butshikan, much of Hinduism was gone and a little of Buddhism remained. Fazl writes, "The third time that the writer accompanied His Majesty to the delightful valley of Kashmir, he met a few old men of this persuasion (Buddhism), but saw none among the learned."


text: 'Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni mentions, "Moreover samanis and Brahmans managed to get frequent private audiences with His Majesty." The term "samani" (Sanskrit: "Sramana" and Prakrit: "Samana") refers to a devotee a monk. Irfan Habib states that while William Henry Lowe assumes the Samanis to be Buddhist monks, they were Jain ascetics.


text: Taranatha's history which mentions Buddhist sangha surviving in some regions of India during his time which includes Konkana, Kalinga, Mewad, Chittor, Abu, Saurastra, Vindhya mountains, Ratnagiri, Karnataka etc. A Jain author Gunakirti (1450–1470) wrote a Marathi text, Dhamramrita, where he gives the names of 16 Buddhist orders. Dr. Johrapurkar noted that among them, the names Sataghare, Dongare, Navaghare, Kavishvar, Vasanik and Ichchhabhojanik still survive in Maharashtra as family names.


text: Buddhism survived in Gilgit and Baltistan until 13–14th century, perhaps slightly longer in the nearby Swat Valley. In Ladakh region, adjacent to Kashmir valley, Tibetan Buddhism survives to this day. The historic prevalence and history of Tibetan Buddhism in the above mentioned Northern regions of Jammu and Kashmir is reported in the Rajatarangini of Kalhana written in 1150/1 CE. It survived in the Kashmir Valley at least until the introduction of Islam in 1323 by the Ladakhi Rinchana, who as King of Kashmir converted to Islam, and even beyond, into the 15th century, when King Zain ul Abidin (1419–1470) had a Buddhist minister.


text: In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Buddhism survived until 15–16th century, as witnessed by the manuscript of the Manjusrimulakalpa. At Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu, Buddhist icons were cast and inscribed until this time, and the ruins of the Chudamani Vihara stood until they were destroyed by the Jesuits in 1867. In the South in some pockets, it may have survived even longer.


text: Buddhism was virtually extinct in British Raj by the end of the 19th century, except its Himalayan region, east and some niche locations. According to the 1901 census of British India, which included modern Bangladesh, India, Burma, and Pakistan, the total population was 294.4 million, of which total Buddhists were 9.5 million. Excluding Burma's nearly 9.2 million Buddhists in 1901, this colonial-era census reported 0.3 million Buddhists in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan in the provinces, states and agencies of British India or about 0.1% of the total reported population.


text: The 1911 census reported a combined Buddhist population in British India, excluding Burma, of about 336,000 or about 0.1%.


text: In 1891, the Sri Lankan (Sinhalese) pioneering Buddhist activist Don David Hewavitarane later to be world-renowned as Anagarika Dharmapala visited India. His campaign, in cooperation with American Theosophists such as Henry Steel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky, led to the revival of Buddhist pilgrimage sites along with the formation of the Maha Bodhi Society and Maha Bodhi Journal. His efforts increased awareness and raised funds to recover Buddhist holy sites in British India, such as the Bodh Gaya in India and those in Burma.


text: In the 1950s, B. R. Ambedkar pioneered the Dalit Buddhist movement in India for the Dalits (formerly referred to as "untouchables"). Dr. Ambedkar, on 14 October 1956 in Nagpur converted to Buddhism along with his 365,000 followers. Many other such mass-conversion ceremonies followed. Many converted employ the term "Navayana" (also known as "Ambedkarite Buddhism" or "Neo Buddhism") to designate the Dalit Buddhist movement, which started with Ambedkar's conversion. Now Marathi Buddhists are the largest Buddhist community in India.


text: In 1959, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, escaped from Tibet to India along with numerous Tibetan refugees, and set up the government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, India, which is often referred to as "Little Lhasa", after the Tibetan capital city. Tibetan exiles numbering several thousand have since settled in the town. Most of these exiles live in Upper Dharamsala, or McLeod Ganj, where they established monasteries, temples, and schools. The town has become one of the centres of Buddhism in the world.


text: In India, the most influential representative of Vipassana movement is the Vipassana Research Institute founded by S. N. Goenka (1924–2013) who promoted Buddhist Vipassanā Meditation in a modern and non-sectarian manner. This form of Buddhist meditation is mainly practiced by elite and middle class Indians, and the Vipassana movement has also spread to many other countries in Europe, America and Asia. In November 2008, the construction of the Global Vipassana Pagoda was completed on the outskirts of Mumbai. Ten-day Vipassanā meditation courses are regularly conducted free of charge at the Dhamma Pattana Meditation Centre that is part of the Global Vipassana Pagoda complex.


text: The Buddhist population in the modern era nation of India grew at a decadal rate of 22.5% between 1901 and 1981, due to birth rates and conversions, or about the same rate as Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, but faster than Christianity (16.8%), and slower than Islam (30.7%).


text: According to a 2010 Pew estimate, the total Buddhist population had increased to about 10 million in the nations created from British India. Of these, about 7.2% lived in Bangladesh, 92.5% in India and 0.2% in Pakistan.


title: Human development (economics)

text: Human development involves studies of the human condition with its core being the capability approach. The inequality adjusted Human Development Index is used as a way of measuring actual progress in human development by the United Nations. It is an alternative approach to a single focus on economic growth, and focused more on social justice, as a way of understanding progress


title: Human development (economics)

text: The United Nations Development Programme defines human development as "the process of enlarging people's choices", said choices allowing them to "lead a long and healthy life, to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living", as well as "political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect". Thus, human development is about much more than economic growth, which is only a means of enlarging people's choices. Fundamental to enlarging these choices is building human capabilities—the range of things that people can do or be in life. Capabilities are "the substantive freedoms [a person] enjoys to lead the kind of life [they have] reason to value".


title: Human development (economics)

text: Human Development Theory has roots in ancient philosophy and early economic theory. Aristotle noted that "Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for something else", and Adam Smith and Karl Marx were concerned with human capabilities. The theory grew in importance in the 1980s with the work of Amartya Sen and his Human Capabilities perspective, which played a role in his receiving the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. Notable early active economists who formulated the modern concept of human development theory were Mahbub ul Haq, Üner Kirdar, and Amartya Sen. The Human Development Index developed for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stems from this early research. In 2000, Sen and Sudhir Anand published a notable development of the theory to address issues in sustainability.


title: Human development (economics)

text: Martha Nussbaum's publications in the late 1990s and 2000s pushed theorists to pay more attention to the "human" in the theory, and particularly to human emotion. A separate approach stems in part from needs theories of psychology which in part started with Abraham Maslow (1968). Representative of these are the Human-Scale Development approach developed by Manfred Max-Neef in the mid-to-late 1980s which addresses human needs and satisfiers which are more or less static across time and context.


title: Human development (economics)

text: Anthropologists and sociologists have also challenged perspectives on Human Development Theory that stem from neoclassical economics. Examples of scholars include, Diane Elson, Raymond Apthorpe, Irene van Staveren, and Ananta Giri. Elson (1997) proposes that human development should move towards a more diverse approach to individual incentives. This will involve a shift from seeing people as agents in control of their choices selecting from a set of possibilities utilizing human capital as one of many assets. Instead, theorists should see people as having more mutable choices influenced by social structures and changeable capacities and using a humanistic approach to theory including factors relating to an individual's culture, age, gender, and family roles. These extensions express a dynamic approach to the theory, a dynamism that has been advocated by Ul Haq and Sen, in spite of the implicit criticism of those two figures.


title: Human development (economics)

text: One measure of human development is the Human Development Index (HDI), formulated by the United Nations Development Programme. The index encompasses statistics such as life expectancy at birth, an education index (calculated using mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling), and gross national income per capita. Though this index does not capture every aspect that contributes to human capability, it is a standardized way of quantifying human capability across nations and communities. Aspects that could be left out of the calculations include incomes that are unable to be quantified, such as staying home to raise children or bartering goods/services, as well as individuals' perceptions of their own well being. Other measures of human development include the Human Poverty Index (HPI) and the Gender Empowerment Measure. It measures many aspects of development.


title: Human development (economics)

text: There are six basic pillars of human development: equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, cooperation and security.


title: Human development (economics)

text: In seeking that something else, human development shares a common vision with human rights. The goal is human freedom. Therefore, human development is interconnected with human rights and human freedom, because in well-managed prisons life expectancy and literacy as measured by the Human Development Index could be quite high. And in pursuing capabilities and realizing rights, this freedom is vital. People must be free to exercise their choices and to participate in decision-making that affects their lives. Human development and human rights are mutually reinforcing, helping to secure the well-being and dignity of all people, building self-respect and the respect of others. In the days of fast globalization, human rights issues surface in relation to multilateral corporations and poverty issues. The idea of human development stipulates the need for education, better conditions for work and more choices for individuals. The idea goes with human rights. The two concepts are simultaneously promoted first by good governance, implementation of human rights policy and a formation of participation of community in decision making processes, second by the promotion of civil and political rights and economic and social rights, which are components of the level of development. For instance, the right for education relates to intellectual development, and political rights relates to the level of the political development of that society.


title: Human development (economics)

text: The axis of development is that it may harm or benefit human health, and eventually human development, as it proceeds. In concern of health, we divided it into disease and poverty issues. On 16 June 2006 the World Health Organization


title: Human development (economics)

text: (WHO) presented the report Preventing disease through healthy environments. No one in the world is without the environmental health issues and wealth problems. Development had been first approached as the future for more cure and hope. However, the criticism argues of the side effects such as environmental pollution and the gap between increasing wealth and poor. The ineffectiveness of many public health policies in terms of health inequality issues and social problems should be held by global community. Therefore, the ultimate goal is to achieve environmental sustainability.


title: Human development (economics)

text: Some critics say development is undermined by health concerns as it both directly and indirectly influences growth to be lower. HIV/AIDS, in addition to malaria, has negatively influenced development and increased poverty in many places, especially in Africa. Achieving adequate health standards is important for the success of development and the abolition of poverty.


title: Human development (economics)

text: The Global Human Development Reports (HDR) is an annual publication released by the UNDP's Human Development Report Office and contains the Human Development Index. Within global HDR there are four main indexes: Human Development Index, Gender-related Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measure and the Human Poverty Index. There are not only a global Human Development Reports but there are also regional and national reports. The Regional, National and subnational (for portions of countries) HDRs take various approaches, according to the strategic thinking of the individual authorship groups that craft the individual reports. In the United States, for example, Measure of America has been publishing human development reports since 2008 with a modified index, the human development index American Human Development Index, which measures the same three basic dimensions but uses slightly different indicators to better reflect the U.S. context and to maximize use of available data.