title: Monica (actress)

text: Monica (born Rekha Maruthiraj) is a former Indian actress, who starred predominantly in Tamil language films. A child actor in the early 1990s, she mostly appeared in supporting roles, before taking lead roles from the late 2000s on. She is probably best known for performances in the films "Azhagi", "Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi" and "Silandhi". In 2012, she changed her name to Parvana for Malayalam films. In 2014, she converted to Islam, changing her name to M. G. Rahima, and announced that she had quit acting.


title: Monica (actress)

text: On 30 May 2014, Monica embraced islam with her new name M. G. Raheema where M is Maruthi Raj (father) and G is Gracy (mother). Monika's father is Hindu and mother is a Christian.


title: Monica (actress)

text: Rahima married Malik, a Chennai-based entrepreneur who hails from Salem. Malik is into import and export of electronic items.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically robust and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation. Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization occurs in many physical, chemical, biological, robotic, and cognitive systems. Examples of self-organization include crystallization, thermal convection of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization is realized in the physics of non-equilibrium processes, and in chemical reactions, where it is often characterized as self-assembly. The concept has proven useful in biology, from the molecular to the ecosystem level.


title: Self-organization

text: Cited examples of self-organizing behaviour also appear in the literature of many other disciplines, both in the natural sciences and in the social sciences (such as economics or anthropology). Self-organization has also been observed in mathematical systems such as cellular automata. Self-organization is an example of the related concept of emergence.


title: Self-organization

text: The cybernetician William Ross Ashby formulated the original principle of self-organization in 1947. It states that any deterministic dynamic system automatically evolves towards a state of equilibrium that can be described in terms of an attractor in a basin of surrounding states. Once there, the further evolution of the system is constrained to remain in the attractor. This constraint implies a form of mutual dependency or coordination between its constituent components or subsystems. In Ashby's terms, each subsystem has adapted to the environment formed by all other subsystems.


title: Self-organization

text: The cybernetician Heinz von Foerster formulated the principle of "order from noise" in 1960. It notes that self-organization is facilitated by random perturbations ("noise") that let the system explore a variety of states in its state space. This increases the chance that the system will arrive into the basin of a "strong" or "deep" attractor, from which it then quickly enters the attractor itself. The biophysicist Henri Atlan developed this concept by proposing the principle of "complexity from noise" () first in the 1972 book "L'organisation biologique et la théorie de l'information" and then in the 1979 book "Entre le cristal et la fumée". The physicist and chemist Ilya Prigogine formulated a similar principle as "order through fluctuations" or "order out of chaos". It is applied in the method of simulated annealing for problem solving and machine learning.


title: Self-organization

text: The idea that the dynamics of a system can lead to an increase in its organization has a long history. The ancient atomists such as Democritus and Lucretius believed that a designing intelligence is unnecessary to create order in nature, arguing that given enough time and space and matter, order emerges by itself.


title: Self-organization

text: The philosopher René Descartes presents self-organization hypothetically in the fifth part of his 1637 "Discourse on Method". He elaborated on the idea in his unpublished work "The World".


title: Self-organization

text: Immanuel Kant used the term "self-organizing" in his 1790 "Critique of Judgment", where he argued that teleology is a meaningful concept only if there exists such an entity whose parts or "organs" are simultaneously ends and means. Such a system of organs must be able to behave as if it has a mind of its own, that is, it is capable of governing itself.


title: Self-organization

text: Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) and Rudolf Clausius (1822–1888) discovered the second law of thermodynamics in the 19th century. It states that total entropy, sometimes understood as disorder, will always increase over time in an isolated system. This means that a system cannot spontaneously increase its order without an external relationship that decreases order elsewhere in the system (e.g. through consuming the low-entropy energy of a battery and diffusing high-entropy heat).


title: Self-organization

text: 18th-century thinkers had sought to understand the "universal laws of form" to explain the observed forms of living organisms. This idea became associated with Lamarckism and fell into disrepute until the early 20th century, when D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948) attempted to revive it.


title: Self-organization

text: The psychiatrist and engineer W. Ross Ashby introduced the term "self-organizing" to contemporary science in 1947. It was taken up by the cyberneticians Heinz von Foerster, Gordon Pask, Stafford Beer; and von Foerster organized a conference on "The Principles of Self-Organization" at the University of Illinois' Allerton Park in June, 1960 which led to a series of conferences on Self-Organizing Systems. Norbert Wiener took up the idea in the second edition of his "Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine" (1961).


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization was associated with general systems theory in the 1960s, but did not become commonplace in the scientific literature until physicists Hermann Haken et al. and complex systems researchers adopted it in a greater picture from cosmology Erich Jantsch, chemistry with dissipative system, biology and sociology as autopoiesis to system thinking in the following 1980s (Santa Fe Institute) and 1990s (complex adaptive system), until our days with the disruptive emerging technologies profounded by a rhizomatic network theory.


title: Self-organization

text: Around 2008–2009, a concept of guided self-organization started to take shape. This approach aims to regulate self-organization for specific purposes, so that a dynamical system may reach specific attractors or outcomes. The regulation constrains a self-organizing process within a complex system by restricting local interactions between the system components, rather than following an explicit control mechanism or a global design blueprint. The desired outcomes, such as increases in the resultant internal structure and/or functionality, are achieved by combining task-independent global objectives with task-dependent constraints on local interactions.


title: Self-organization

text: The many self-organizing phenomena in physics include phase transitions and spontaneous symmetry breaking such as spontaneous magnetization and crystal growth in classical physics, and the laser, superconductivity and Bose–Einstein condensation in quantum physics. It is found in self-organized criticality in dynamical systems, in tribology, in spin foam systems, and in loop quantum gravity, river basins and deltas, in dendritic solidification (snow flakes), in capillary imbibition and in turbulent structure.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization in chemistry includes molecular self-assembly, reaction–diffusion systems and oscillating reactions, autocatalytic networks, liquid crystals, grid complexes, colloidal crystals, self-assembled monolayers, micelles, microphase separation of block copolymers, and Langmuir–Blodgett films.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organization in biology can be observed in spontaneous folding of proteins and other biomacromolecules, self-assembly of lipid bilayer membranes, pattern formation and morphogenesis in developmental biology, the coordination of human movement, social behaviour in insects (bees, ants, termites) and mammals, and flocking behaviour in birds and fish.


title: Self-organization

text: The mathematical biologist Stuart Kauffman and other structuralists have suggested that self-organization may play roles alongside natural selection in three areas of evolutionary biology, namely population dynamics, molecular evolution, and morphogenesis. However, this does not take into account the essential role of energy in driving biochemical reactions in cells. The systems of reactions in any cell are self-catalyzing but not simply self-organizing as they are thermodynamically open systems relying on a continuous input of energy. Self-organization is not an alternative to natural selection, but it constrains what evolution can do and provides mechanisms such as the self-assembly of membranes which evolution then exploits.


title: Self-organization

text: The evolution of order in living systems and the generation of order in certain non-living systems was proposed to obey a common fundamental principal called “the Darwinian dynamic” that was formulated by first considering how microscopic order is generated in simple non-biological systems that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Consideration was then extended to short, replicating RNA molecules assumed to be similar to the earliest forms of life in the RNA world. It was shown that the underlying order-generating processes of self-organization in the non-biological systems and in replicating RNA are basically similar.


title: Self-organization

text: In his 1995 conference paper "Cosmology as a problem in critical phenomena" Lee Smolin said that several cosmological objects or phenomena, such as spiral galaxies, galaxy formation processes in general, early structure formation, quantum gravity and the large scale structure of the universe might be the result of or have involved certain degree of self-organization. He argues that self-organized systems are often critical systems, with structure spreading out in space and time over every available scale, as shown for example by Per Bak and his collaborators. Therefore, because the distribution of matter in the universe is more or less scale invariant over many orders of magnitude, ideas and strategies developed in the study of self-organized systems could be helpful in tackling certain unsolved problems in cosmology and astrophysics.


title: Self-organization

text: Phenomena from mathematics and computer science such as cellular automata, random graphs, and some instances of evolutionary computation and artificial life exhibit features of self-organization. In swarm robotics, self-organization is used to produce emergent behavior. In particular the theory of random graphs has been used as a justification for self-organization as a general principle of complex systems. In the field of multi-agent systems, understanding how to engineer systems that are capable of presenting self-organized behavior is an active research area. Optimization algorithms can be considered self-organizing because they aim to find the optimal solution to a problem. If the solution is considered as a state of the iterative system, the optimal solution is the selected, converged structure of the system. Self-organizing networks include small-world networks self-stabilization and scale-free networks. These emerge from bottom-up interactions, unlike top-down hierarchical networks within organizations, which are not self-organizing. Cloud computing systems have been argued to be inherently self-organising, but while they have some autonomy, they are not self-managing as they do not have the goal of reducing their own complexity.


title: Self-organization

text: Norbert Wiener regarded the automatic serial identification of a black box and its subsequent reproduction as self-organization in cybernetics. The importance of phase locking or the "attraction of frequencies", as he called it, is discussed in the 2nd edition of his "". K. Eric Drexler sees self-replication as a key step in nano and universal assembly. By contrast, the four concurrently connected galvanometers of W. Ross Ashby's Homeostat hunt, when perturbed, to converge on one of many possible stable states. Ashby used his state counting measure of variety to describe stable states and produced the "Good Regulator" theorem which requires internal models for self-organized endurance and stability (e.g. Nyquist stability criterion). Warren McCulloch proposed "Redundancy of Potential Command" as characteristic of the organization of the brain and human nervous system and the necessary condition for self-organization. Heinz von Foerster proposed Redundancy, "R"=1 − "H"/"H", where "H" is entropy. In essence this states that unused potential communication bandwidth is a measure of self-organization.


title: Self-organization

text: In the 1970s Stafford Beer considered self-organization necessary for autonomy in persisting and living systems. He applied his viable system model to management. It consists of five parts: the monitoring of performance of the survival processes (1), their management by recursive application of regulation (2), homeostatic operational control (3) and development (4) which produce maintenance of identity (5) under environmental perturbation. Focus is prioritized by an alerting "algedonic loop" feedback: a sensitivity to both pain and pleasure produced from under-performance or over-performance relative to a standard capability.


title: Self-organization

text: In the 1990s Gordon Pask argued that von Foerster's H and Hmax were not independent, but interacted via countably infinite recursive concurrent spin processes which he called concepts. His strict definition of concept "a procedure to bring about a relation" permitted his theorem "Like concepts repel, unlike concepts attract" to state a general spin-based principle of self-organization. His edict, an exclusion principle, "There are No Doppelgangers" means no two concepts can be the same. After sufficient time, all concepts attract and coalesce as pink noise. The theory applies to all organizationally closed or homeostatic processes that produce enduring and coherent products which evolve, learn and adapt.


title: Self-organization

text: The self-organizing behaviour of social animals and the self-organization of simple mathematical structures both suggest that self-organization should be expected in human society. Tell-tale signs of self-organization are usually statistical properties shared with self-organizing physical systems. Examples such as critical mass, herd behaviour, groupthink and others, abound in sociology, economics, behavioral finance and anthropology.


title: Self-organization

text: In social theory, the concept of self-referentiality has been introduced as a sociological application of self-organization theory by Niklas Luhmann (1984). For Luhmann the elements of a social system are self-producing communications, i.e. a communication produces further communications and hence a social system can reproduce itself as long as there is dynamic communication. For Luhmann, human beings are sensors in the environment of the system. Luhmann developed an evolutionary theory of society and its subsystems, using functional "analyses" and systems "theory".


title: Self-organization

text: In economics, a market economy is sometimes said to be self-organizing. Paul Krugman has written on the role that market self-organization plays in the business cycle in his book "The Self Organizing Economy". Friedrich Hayek coined the term "catallaxy" to describe a "self-organizing system of voluntary co-operation", in regards to the spontaneous order of the free market economy. Neo-classical economists hold that imposing central planning usually makes the self-organized economic system less efficient. On the other end of the spectrum, economists consider that market failures are so significant that self-organization produces bad results and that the state should direct production and pricing. Most economists adopt an intermediate position and recommend a mixture of market economy and command economy characteristics (sometimes called a mixed economy). When applied to economics, the concept of self-organization can quickly become ideologically imbued.


title: Self-organization

text: Enabling others to "learn how to learn" is often taken to mean instructing them how to submit to being taught. Self-organised learning (S.O.L.) denies that "the expert knows best" or that there is ever "the one best method", insisting instead on "the construction of personally significant, relevant and viable meaning" to be tested experientially by the learner. This may be collaborative, and more rewarding personally. It is seen as a lifelong process, not limited to specific learning environments (home, school, university) or under the control of authorities such as parents and professors. It needs to be tested, and intermittently revised, through the personal experience of the learner. It need not be restricted by either consciousness or language. Fritjof Capra argued that it is poorly recognised within psychology and education. It may be related to cybernetics as it involves a negative feedback control loop, or to systems theory. It can be conducted as a learning conversation or dialogue between learners or within one person.


title: Self-organization

text: The self-organizing behavior of drivers in traffic flow determines almost all the spatiotemporal behavior of traffic, such as traffic breakdown at a highway bottleneck, highway capacity, and the emergence of moving traffic jams. In 1996–2002 these complex self-organizing effects were explained by Boris Kerner's three-phase traffic theory.


title: Self-organization

text: Order appears spontaneously in the evolution of language as individual and population behaviour interacts with biological evolution.


title: Self-organization

text: Self-organized funding allocation (SOFA) is a method of distributing funding for scientific research. In this system, each researcher is allocated an equal amount of funding, and is required to anonymously allocate a fraction of their funds to the research of others. Proponents of SOFA argue that it would result in similar distribution of funding as the present grant system, but with less overhead. In 2016, a test pilot of SOFA began in the Netherlands.


title: Self-organization

text: Heinz Pagels, in a 1985 review of Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers's book "Order Out of Chaos" in "Physics Today", appeals to authority:


title: Self-organization

text: Of course, Blumenfeld does not answer the further question of how those program-like structures emerge in the first place. His explanation leads directly to infinite regress.


title: Self-organization

text: In theology, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) in his "Summa Theologica" assumes a teleological created universe in rejecting the idea that something can be a self-sufficient cause of its own organization:


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: These three parties respectively nominated Mauricio Macri, Ernesto Sanz, and Elisa Carrió as their representatives in the August 2015 primary elections, which were held to choose which candidate would run in the 2015 presidential election on 25 October. On 9 August, Macri was elected as the candidate who would represent Cambiemos in the presidential election; on 22 November, where he won in second round by 51%.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: It wants the definitive modernization of the country and the creation of a new anti-populist and republican-liberal political culture.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Initially, the pre-candidates Mauricio Macri, Daniel Scioli, and Sergio Massa had a triple tie in the polls for the 2015 presidential election. Scioli was the candidate of the Front for Victory, the ruling party at the time.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: The other parties created a political coalition, the Broad Front UNEN. Elisa Carrió, leader of the Civic Coalition, left UNEN and joined a coalition with Macri's PRO instead. Both of them would run in the primary elections.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: The Radical Civic Union was divided: Ernesto Sanz proposed to join Macri as well, and Julio Cobos proposed to stay in UNEN. The party held a convention to decide what to do, and Sanz's proposal prevailed. Thus, the UCR left UNEN and joined the PRO-CC.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: The new coalition was named "Cambiemos", suggesting a change from the 12-year long rule of center-left Kirchnerists.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Macri, Sanz, and Carrió ran to be the nominee in the primary elections with Macri winning by a wide margin. He won the presidential election against the Kirchnerite candidate Daniel Scioli in a ballotage. In lower-level posts, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta was elected as Macri's replacement, keeping the City of Buenos Aires under coalition control. Alfredo Cornejo and Gerardo Morales became governors of Mendoza and Jujuy Provinces, respectively. María Eugenia Vidal defeated Aníbal Fernández and became the governor of the populous Buenos Aires Province, ending 28 years of Peronist control.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: The 2017 Argentine legislative election renewed a third of the seats in the Senate and half in the Chamber of Deputies. The result was a victory for the ruling Cambiemos alliance, being the most voted force in 13 of the 24 districts.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In June 2019, an extension of the Cambiemos alliance was made: it is renamed Together for Change, by adding to Federal Peronism led by Miguel Ángel Pichetto, who would share the presidential formula of space together with Mauricio Macri. In the 2019 presidential elections, JxC was in second place, with 40% of the votes, behind Alberto Fernández, who won first round with 48% of the votes.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In the province of Buenos Aires, Governor María Eugenia Vidal sought re-election but was defeated by the candidate of the Frente de Todos, Axel Kicillof, who won 52% of the votes against 38% obtained by JxC.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In the City of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta joins the Radical Civic Union and the Socialist Party to the district alliance and is reelected as Chief of Government with 56% of the votes in the first round.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: On 10 December 2019, the Centre-Left Alberto Fernández of the Justicialist Party was inaugurated President, after defeating the incumbent Mauricio Macri in the 2019 Argentine general election.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: On 14 November 2021, the center-left coalition of Argentina's ruling Peronist party, Frente de Todos (Front for Everyone), lost its majority in Congress for the first time in almost 40 years in midterm legislative elections. The election victory of Juntos por el Cambio meant a tough final two years in office for President Alberto Fernández. Losing control of the Senate made it difficult for him to make key appointments, including to the judiciary. It also forced him to negotiate with the opposition every initiative he sends to the legislature.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: According to the media, "Cambiemos" is a center-right coalition, because it is led by Mauricio Macri.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Hours after Argentina's political landscape underwent a tectonic rightward shift, president-elect Mauricio Macri announced a series of radical changes that would realign his country's place in the world. Macri said he would tear up Argentina's memorandum of understanding with Iran, seek Venezuela’s exclusion from the regional free trade association Mercosur and ease away from a fixed exchange rate with the dollar. This is the "change of an era we need to be in the world", he declared at a press conference.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: He aligned the country with gradualist neoliberalism and re-opened Argentina to international markets by lifting currency controls, restructuring sovereign debt, and pressing free-market solutions.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: President Mauricio Macri said he would seek more sweeping reforms for Argentina after his governing coalition scored a resounding victory in 2017 congressional elections. Macri told reporters Argentinians should expect reforms in tax, education and labor, without providing details. The conservative leader had been pushing a free-market reform agenda to try to overhaul Argentina's economy.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: His presidency has been criticized for failing to materially reform the economy while receiving praise for leaving a legacy of anti-corruption and increasing Argentina's sovereign marketability.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: The members of Cambiemos were constituted to "promote economic development, the strengthening of democracy and the republican system, the independence of justice, the quality of education, social solidarity, and the personal happiness of the inhabitants of the Argentine Republic."


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Mauricio Macri received a country with huge economic problems, and sought to reverse things. Quickly, moved from a fixed exchange-rate system to a floating one, removed taxes on exports and reduced subsidies on energy, to reduce the fiscal deficit.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In April 2016, he negotiated with the vulture fund and ended the default to return to the international capital markets.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Since May 2018, as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the government accelerated the austerity plans, aiming to completely remove the fiscal deficit.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Domestically, he pursued moderate socially liberal policies, liberalized the energy sector, and combatted public corruption.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: President Mauricio Macri encouraged the discussion of an abortion law during the 2018 opening of regular sessions of the National Congress of Argentina. The bill, called "Voluntary termination of pregnancy", divided the coalition, that had no official position and the legislators voted according their beliefs.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Mauricio Macri, Maria Eugenia Vidal, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Elisa Carrió, and ministers Marcos Peña, Rogelio Frigerio, Esteban Bullrich, etc., are anti-abortion; Martin Lousteau, Mario Negri, Luis Petcoff Naidenoff and ministers Sergio Rubinstein, Patricia Bullrich, Sergio Bergman, Juan José Aranguren, etc.; are pro-abortion.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In this coalition of 108 members, the rejection of the project was imposed, with 65 negative votes compared to 42 positive.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Within the ruling alliance, the PRO prevailed with the negative vote (37) - it should be remembered that President Mauricio Macri had expressed himself "in favor of life" - while 17 voted for the positive. In radicalism, 24 supported the initiative, 16 rejected it. In the Civic Coalition, of its 10 members, only Juan Manuel López voted in favor.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: When the bill was brought up again in late 2020, the coalition split, with 69 voting against and 42 in favour. In the PRO 40 members voted against while only 11 voted in favour, while in the Civic Coalition 4 supported the bill and 9 voted against. In contrast the radicals saw a greater endorsement of the bill, having 27 of its members in support and only 18 against.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: In the senate the coalition was divided more evenly, with 11 members voting in favour and 14 against. It also resulted in an inversion of party support, with a majority of PRO voting favourably (5 yes and 3 no), while the radicals voted 9 against and 5 in favour. Other minor parties in JxC on both chambers also voted in different positions.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Cambiemos opposes strongly the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela for human rights abuses and calls for a restoration of democracy in the country. It recognized Juan Guaidó, who was elected President of Venezuela by the National Assembly during the Venezuelan presidential crisis of 2019.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: and from Mercosur achieved a free trade agreement with the European Union and closer ties with the Pacific Alliance.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Macri and his Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, which was won by Republican Donald Trump.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: Mauricio Macri said he wanted to start a "new kind of relationship" with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands as he tried to move his country towards a centrist position in world affairs.


title: Juntos por el Cambio

text: During the first week in office, Macri annulled the Memorandum of understanding between Argentina and Iran, which would have established a joint investigation into the 1994 bombing with AMIA, a terrorist attack on a Jewish organization for which Argentina blamed Hezbollah and Iran.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Burke and Wills expedition was organised by the Royal Society of Victoria in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills, with the objective of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south, to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles). At that time most of the inland of Australia had not been explored by non-Indigenous people and was largely unknown to the European settlers.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The expedition left Melbourne in winter. Very bad weather, poor roads and broken-down horse wagons meant they made slow progress at first. After dividing the party at Menindee on the Darling River Burke made good progress, reaching Cooper Creek at the beginning of summer. The expedition established a depot camp at the Cooper, and Burke, Wills and two other men pushed on to the north coast (although swampland stopped them from reaching the northern coastline).


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The return journey was plagued by delays and monsoon rains, and when they reached the depot at Cooper Creek, they found it had been abandoned just hours earlier. Burke and Wills died on or about 30 June 1861. Several relief expeditions were sent out, all contributing new geographical findings. Altogether, seven men died, and only one man, the Irish soldier John King, crossed the continent with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Gold was discovered in Victoria in 1851 and the subsequent gold rush led to a huge influx of migrants, with the local population increasing from 29,000 in 1851 to 139,916 in 1861 (Sydney had 93,686 at the time). The colony became very wealthy and Melbourne grew rapidly to become Australia's largest city and the second largest city of the British Empire. The boom lasted forty years and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne". The influx of educated gold seekers from England, Ireland and Germany led to rapid growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries and art galleries. The University of Melbourne was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria in 1856. The Philosophical Institute of Victoria was founded in 1854 and became the Royal Society of Victoria after receiving a Royal Charter in 1859.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: By 1855 there was speculation about possible routes for the Australian Overland Telegraph Line to connect Australia to the new telegraph cable in Java and then Europe. There was fierce competition between the colonies over the route with governments recognising the economic benefits that would result from becoming the centre of the telegraph network. A number of routes were considered including Ceylon to Albany in Western Australia, or Java to the north coast of Australia and then either onto east coast, or south through the centre of the continent to Adelaide. The Victorian government organised the Burke and Wills expedition to cross the continent in 1860. The South Australian government offered a reward of £2000 to encourage an expedition to find a route between South Australia and the north coast.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1857 the Philosophical Institute formed an "Exploration Committee" with the aim of investigating the practicability of fitting out an exploring expedition. While interest in inland exploration was strong in the neighbouring colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, in Victoria enthusiasm was limited. Even the anonymous donation of £1,000 (later discovered to be from Ambrose Kyte) to the "Fund Raising Committee" of the Royal Society failed to generate much interest and it was 1860 before sufficient money was raised and the expedition was assembled.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Exploration Committee called for offers of interest for a leader for the "Victorian Exploring Expedition". Only two members of the committee, Ferdinand von Mueller and Wilhelm Blandowski, had any experience in exploration but due to factionalism both were consistently outvoted. Several people were considered for the post of leader and the Society held a range of meetings in early 1860. Robert O'Hara Burke was selected by committee ballot as the leader, and William John Wills was recommended as surveyor, navigator and third-in-command. Burke had no experience in exploration and it is strange that he was chosen to lead the expedition. Burke was an Irish-born ex-officer with the Austrian army, and later became police superintendent with virtually no skills in bushcraft. Wills was more adept than Burke at living in the wilderness, but it was Burke's leadership that was especially detrimental to the mission.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Rather than take cattle to be slaughtered during the trip the Committee decided to experiment with dried meat. The weight required three extra wagons and was to slow the expedition down appreciably.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Victorian Exploration Committee gave Burke written instructions. These included suggestions for the route to take but also gave Burke discretion depending on conditions and barriers he might encounter. The instructions were signed by the Honorary Secretary Dr John Macadam and in part advised:


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Camels had been used successfully in desert exploration in other parts of the world, but by 1859 only seven camels had been imported into Australia.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Victorian Government appointed George James Landells to purchase 24 camels in India for use in desert exploration. The animals arrived in Melbourne in June 1860 and the Exploration Committee purchased an additional six from George Coppin's Cremorne Gardens. The camels were initially housed in the stables at Parliament House and later moved to Royal Park. Twenty-six camels were taken on the expedition, with six (two females with their two young calves and two males) being left in Royal Park.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The expedition set off from Royal Park, Melbourne at about 4 pm on 20 August 1860 watched by around 15,000 spectators. The 19 men of the expedition included six Irishmen, five Englishmen, three Afghan and one Indian camel drivers, three Germans and an American. They took 23 horses, 6 wagons and 26 camels.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The expedition took a large amount of equipment, including enough food to last two years, a cedar-topped oak camp table with two chairs, rockets, flags and a Chinese gong; the equipment all together weighed as much as 20 tonnes.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Committee member Captain Francis Cadell had offered to transport the supplies from Adelaide up the Murray to the junction with the Darling River to be collected on the way.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: However, Burke declined his offer, possibly because Cadell had opposed Burke's appointment as leader of the expedition.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Everything was instead loaded onto six wagons. One wagon broke down before it had even left Royal Park and by midnight of the first day the expedition had reached only Essendon on the edge of Melbourne. At Essendon two more wagons broke down. Heavy rains and bad roads made travelling through Victoria difficult and time-consuming. The party arrived at Lancefield on 23 August and set up their fourth camp. The first day off was taken on Sunday, 26 August at Camp VI in Mia Mia.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The expedition reached Swan Hill on 6 September and arrived in Balranald on 15 September. There, to lighten the load, they left behind their sugar, lime juice and some of their guns and ammunition. At Gambala on 24 September, Burke decided to load some of the provisions onto the camels for the first time, and to lessen the burden on the horses he ordered the men to walk. He also ordered that personal luggage be restricted to . At Bilbarka on the Darling, Burke and his second-in-command, Landells, argued after Burke decided to dump the 60 gallons (≈270 litres) of rum that Landells had brought to feed to the camels in the belief that it prevented scurvy. At Kinchega on the Darling, Landells resigned from the expedition, followed by the expedition's surgeon, Dr Hermann Beckler. Third-in-command Wills was promoted to second-in-command. They reached Menindee on 12 October having taken two months to travel from Melbourne—the regular mail coach did the journey in little more than a week. Two of the expedition's five officers had resigned, thirteen members of the expedition had been fired and eight new men had been hired.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In July 1859 the South Australian government offered a reward of £2,000 (about A$289,000 in 2011 dollars) for the first successful south–north crossing of the continent west of the 143rd line of longitude. The experienced explorer John McDouall Stuart had taken up the challenge. Burke was concerned Stuart might beat him to the north coast and he soon grew impatient with their slow progress often averaging only an hour. Burke split the group, taking the strongest horses, seven of the fittest men and a small amount of equipment, with plans to push on quickly to Cooper Creek (then known as Cooper's Creek) and then wait for the others to catch up. They left Menindee on 19 October, guided by William Wright who was appointed third-in-command. Travel was relatively easy because recent rain made water abundant, while in unusually mild weather temperatures exceeded only twice before the party reached Cooper Creek. At Torowotto Swamp Wright was sent back to Menindee alone to bring up the remainder of the men and supplies and Burke continued on to Cooper Creek.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1860 Cooper Creek was the outer limit of the land that had been explored by Europeans, the river having been visited by Captain Charles Sturt in 1845 and Augustus Charles Gregory in 1858. Burke arrived at the Cooper on 11 November and they formed a depot at Camp LXIII (Camp 63) while they conducted reconnaissance to the north. A plague of rats forced the men to move camp and they formed a second depot further downstream at Bullah Bullah Waterhole. This was Camp LXV (Camp 65) and they erected a stockade and named the place Fort Wills.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: It was thought that Burke would wait at Cooper Creek until autumn (March the next year) so that they would avoid having to travel during the hot Australian summer. However, Burke waited only until Sunday, 16 December before deciding to make a dash for the Gulf of Carpentaria. He split the group again, leaving William Brahe in charge of the depot, with Dost Mahomet, William Patton and Thomas McDonough. Burke, Wills, John King and Charles Gray set off for the Gulf with six camels, one horse and enough food for just three months. By now it was mid-summer and the daily temperature often reached in the shade, and in the Strzelecki and Sturt Stony Deserts there was very little shade to be found. Brahe was ordered by Burke to wait for three months; however, the more conservative Wills had reviewed the maps and developed a more realistic view of the task ahead, and secretly instructed Brahe to wait for four months.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Except for the heat, travel was easy. As a result of recent rains water was still easy to find and the Aborigines, contrary to expectations, were peaceful. On 9 February 1861 they reached the Little Bynoe River, an arm of the Flinders River delta, where they found they could not reach the ocean because of the mangrove swamps in their way. Burke and Wills left the camels behind with King and Gray at Camp CXIX (Camp 119), and set off through the swamps, although after they decided to turn back. By this stage, they were desperately short of supplies. They had food left for 27 days, but it had already taken them 59 days to travel from Cooper Creek.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: On their way north, the weather had been hot and dry, but on the way back the wet season broke and the tropical monsoonal rains began. A camel named "Golah Sing" was abandoned on 4 March when it was unable to continue. Three other camels were shot and eaten along the way and they shot their only horse, "Billy", on 10 April on the Diamantina River, south of what is today the town of Birdsville. Equipment was abandoned at a number of locations as the number of pack animals was reduced. One of these locations, "Return Camp 32", was relocated in 1994 and The Burke and Wills Historical Society mounted an expedition to verify the discovery of camel bones in 2005.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: To extend their food supply, they ate portulaca. Gray also caught an Python (probably "Aspidites melanocephalus", a black-headed python), which they ate. Both Burke and Gray immediately came down with dysentery. Gray was ill, but Burke thought he was "gammoning" (pretending). On 25 March on the Burke River (just south of what is now the town of Boulia), Gray was caught stealing skilligolee (a type of watery porridge) and Burke beat him. By 8 April, Gray could not walk; he died on 17 April of dysentery at a place they called Polygonum Swamp. The location of Gray's death is unknown, although it is generally believed to be Lake Massacre in South Australia. While the possibility that Burke killed Gray has been discounted, the severity of the beating Burke gave has been widely debated. The three surviving men stopped for a day to bury Gray, and to recover their strength—they were by this stage very weak from hunger and exhaustion. They finally reached Cooper Creek on 21 April, only to find that the camp had been abandoned several hours earlier.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Burke had asked Brahe and the depot party to remain at the camp on the Cooper for 13 weeks. The party had actually waited for 18 weeks and was running low on supplies and starting to feel the effects of scurvy; they had come to believe that Burke would never return from the Gulf. After one of his men had injured his leg, Brahe decided to return to Menindee, but before leaving buried some provisions in case Burke did return, and blazed (cut or carved) a message on a tree to mark the spot.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Brahe left the depot on Cooper Creek on the morning of Sunday, 21 April 1861. Burke, Wills and King returned that evening. Finding the camp deserted, they dug up the cache of supplies, and a letter explaining that the party had given up waiting and had left. Burke's team had missed them by only nine hours. The three men and two remaining camels were exhausted; they had no hope of catching up to the main party.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: They decided to rest and recuperate, living off the supplies left in the cache. Wills and King wanted to follow their outward track back to Menindee, but Burke overruled them and decided to attempt to reach the furthest outpost of pastoral settlement in South Australia, a cattle station near Mount Hopeless. This would mean travelling southwest through the desert for . They wrote a letter explaining their intentions and reburied it in the cache under the marked tree in case a rescue party visited the area. Unfortunately, they did not change the mark on the tree or alter the date. On 23 April they set off, following the Cooper downstream and then heading out into the Strzelecki Desert towards Mount Hopeless.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Meanwhile, while returning to Menindee, Brahe had met with Wright trying to reach the Cooper with the supplies. The two men decided to go back to Cooper Creek to see if Burke had returned. When they arrived on Sunday, 8 May, Burke had already left for Mount Hopeless, and the camp was again deserted. Burke and Wills were away by this point. As the mark and date on the tree were unaltered, Brahe and Wright assumed that Burke had not returned, and did not think to check whether the supplies were still buried. They left to rejoin the main party and return to Menindee.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Brahe might have stayed at Cooper Creek longer, but one of his men, the blacksmith Patton, had injured his leg after being thrown from his horse, so they decided to leave for Menindee that morning. Patton was to die from complications six weeks later. Burke and Wills discussed catching up with them, but they were too exhausted and decided to wait.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Meanwhile, the other mission led by William Wright was having terrible problems of its own. Wright was supposed to bring supplies up from Menindee to Cooper Creek, but it was the end of January 1861 before he managed to set out from Menindee. Wright's delay subsequently resulted in his being blamed for the deaths of Burke and Wills. In 1963, Alan Moorehead wrote of the 'mystery' surrounding Wright's delay:


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: An in-depth study of Wright's action formed a part of Dr Tom Bergin's 1982 MA thesis. Bergin, who recreated the original journey from Cooper Creek to the Gulf of Carpentaria with camels in 1978, showed that a lack of money and too few pack animals to carry the supplies meant Wright was placed in an unenviable position. His requests to the Exploration Committee were not acted on until early January, by which time the hot weather and lack of water meant that the party moved extremely slowly. They were harassed by the Bandjigali and Karenggapa Murris, and three of the men, Dr Ludwig Becker, Charles Stone and William Purcell, died from malnutrition on the trip. On his way north, Wright camped at Koorliatto Waterhole on the Bulloo River while he tried to find Burke's tracks to Cooper Creek. While he was there he met Brahe, who was on his way back from the Cooper to Menindee.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Brahe blazed two trees () at Depot Camp LXV on the banks of Bullah Bullah Waterhole on Cooper Creek, both are coolibahs ("Eucalyptus coolabah" formerly "Eucalyptus microtheca") and both are estimated to be at least 250 years old. One tree has two blazes on it; one denoting the date of arrival and the date of departure "DEC-6-60" carved over "APR-21-61" and the other showing the initial "B" (for Burke) carved over the Roman numerals for (camp) 65; "B" over "LXV". The date blaze has grown closed and only the camp number blaze remains visible today. On an adjacent smaller tree Brahe carved the instruction to 'DIG'. The exact inscription is not known, but is variously recalled to be "DIG", "DIG under", "DIG 3 FT N.W.", "DIG 3FT N.E." or "DIG 21 APR 61".


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Initially the tree with the Date and Camp Number blaze was known as "Brahe's Tree" or the "Depot Tree" and the tree under which Burke died attracted most attention and interest. However, the tree at Depot Camp LXV became known as the "Dig Tree" from at least 1912.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1899 John Dick carved a likeness of Burke's face in a nearby tree along with his initials, his wife's initials and the date.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: After leaving the "Dig Tree" they rarely travelled more than a day. One of the two remaining camels, "Landa", became bogged in Minkie Waterhole and the other, "Rajah" was shot when he could travel no further. Without pack animals, Burke, Wills and King were unable to carry enough water to leave Cooper Creek and cross the Strzelecki Desert to Mount Hopeless, and so the three men were unable to leave the creek. Their supplies were running low and they were malnourished and exhausted. The Cooper Creek Aborigines, the Yandruwandha people, gave them fish, beans called "padlu" and a type of damper made from the ground sporocarps of the "ngardu" (nardoo) plant ("Marsilea drummondii") in exchange for sugar.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: At the end of May 1861, Wills returned to the "Dig Tree" to put his diary, notebook and journals in the cache for safekeeping. Burke bitterly criticised Brahe in his journal for not leaving behind any supplies or animals. While Wills was away from camp, Burke foolishly shot his pistol at one of the Aborigines, causing the whole group to flee. Within a month of the Aborigines' departure, Burke and Wills both perished.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Towards the end of June 1861 as the three men were following the Cooper upstream to find the Yandruwandha campsite, Wills became too weak to continue. He was left behind at his own insistence at Breerily Waterhole with some food, water and shelter. Burke and King continued upstream for another two days until Burke became too weak to continue. The next morning Burke died. King stayed with his body for two days and then returned downstream to Breerily Waterhole, where he found that Wills had died as well.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The exact dates on which Burke and Wills died are unknown and different dates are given on various memorials in Victoria. The Exploration Committee fixed 28 June 1861 as the date both explorers died. King found a group of Yandruwandha willing to give him food and shelter and in return he shot birds to contribute to their supplies.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1861, five expeditions were sent out to search for Burke and Wills; two commissioned by the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria, one by the Government of Victoria one by the Government of Queensland and one by the Government of South Australia. HMCSS "Victoria" was sent from Melbourne to search the Gulf of Carpentaria for the missing expedition, and SS "Firefly" sailed from Melbourne to Brisbane where they picked up Landsborough's Queensland Relief Expedition. The other expeditions went overland, with Howitt's Victorian Contingent Party departing from Melbourne, McKinlay's South Australian Burke Relief Expedition departing from Adelaide and Walker's Victorian Relief Expedition departing from Rockhampton.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: After six months without receiving word from the Burke expedition, the media began questioning its whereabouts. Public pressure for answers increased and on 13 June 1861, the Exploration Committee agreed to send a search party to find the Burke and Wills expedition and, if necessary, offer them support. The Victorian Contingent Party left Melbourne on 26 June 1861 under the leadership of Alfred William Howitt. At the Loddon River, Howitt met Brahe, who was returning from Cooper Creek. As Brahe did not have knowledge of Burke's whereabouts, Howitt decided a much larger expedition would be required to find the missing party. Leaving three of his men at the river, Howitt returned to Melbourne with Brahe to update the Exploration Committee. On 30 June, the expanded expedition left to follow Burke's trail. On 3 September, the party reached Cooper Creek, on 11 September the "Dig Tree", and four days later Edwin Welch found King living with the Yandruwandha. Over the next nine days, Howitt found the remains of Burke and Wills and buried them. In pitiful condition, King survived the two-month trip back to Melbourne, and died eleven years later, aged 33, never having recovered his health. He is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: On 4 August 1861, HMVS "Victoria" under the Command of William Henry Norman sailed from Hobson's Bay in Victoria with orders to search the Gulf of Carpentaria. The Victorian Government also chartered "Firefly" (188 tons, built 1843) to assist with transportation. "Firefly" left Hobson's Bay (Melbourne) on 29 July and arrived at Moreton Bay (Brisbane) on 10 August 1861, the same day as HMVS "Victoria". "Firefly" transported the Queensland party led by William Landsborough, and thirty horses. The two ships sailed for the Gulf of Carpentaria on 24 August 1861.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The ships became separated in a storm on 1 September and "Firefly" hit a reef off Sir Charles Hardy Islands. The crew were able to free and save 26 of the horses by cutting a hole in the side of the ship. "Victoria" arrived shortly afterwards. "Firefly" was repaired and able to be towed by "Victoria". They recommenced their journey on 22 September, arriving near Sweers Island and Albert River on 29 September, where they rendezvoused with the brig "Gratia" and the schooner "Native Lass", which had also been chartered by the Victorian Government as support. They established a land base on Sweers, after visiting Bentinck Island and finding it inhabited by "hostile natives".


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Using "Victoria" boats, "Firefly" was manoeuvred up the Albert River some to a suitable place to transfer the horses and stores to land.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: After disembarking from "Victoria" in November, the Queensland Relief Expedition, under the leadership of William Landsborough, searched the gulf coast for the missing expedition. The party proceeded south and while they found no trace of the Burke and Wills party they continued all the way to Melbourne arriving in August 1862. This was the first European expedition to traverse mainland Australia from northern to southern coast. In 1881, the Queensland Parliament awarded Landsborough £2000 for his achievements as an explorer.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Frederick Walker led the Victorian Relief Expedition. The party, consisting of twelve mounted men, seven of them ex-troopers from the Native Police Corps, started from Rockhampton on 7 September 1861 with the goal of reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria. They found traces of Burke and followed them to Burke's northernmost Camp, but lost the trail from there. On 4 December, they came across a group of Aborigines, killing 12 in the fight that ensued. On 7 December, Walker met up with the HMVS "Victoria" in the Gulf. Walker's party went on to explore much of the Gulf region.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The South Australian House of Assembly chose John McKinlay to lead the South Australian relief expedition that left Adelaide on 16 August 1861. On 20 October the grave of a European, thought to be Charles Gray, was found at Polygonum Swamp near Cooper Creek. Finding another grave nearby, McKinlay assumed that the Burke expedition had been killed there and named the site Massacre Lake. Learning that Howitt had found the remains of Burke and Wills, McKinlay decided to search in the direction of Central Mount Stuart but was driven back by heavy rains and floods. McKinlay then made for the Gulf of Carpentaria, hoping to find "Victoria" still there. By 20 May 1862, McKinlay was around five miles (8 km) from the shore of the Gulf, but the intervening country was found to be impassable and he decided to turn east and make for Port Denison on the north Queensland coast. On 2 August 1862, McKinlay reached a station on the Bowen River near Port Denison and after resting a few days the expedition reached Port Denison. The party then returned by sea to Adelaide. McKinlay received a grant of £1000 from the government and a gold watch from the Royal Geographical Society of England.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1862 Alfred Howitt was tasked with returning to Cooper Creek, exhuming Burke and Wills' remains and returning them to Melbourne for a State Funeral. On 9 December 1861 Howitt left Melbourne for the Cooper. After a long stay in Menindee and again at Mount Murchison the party arrived at Cooper Creek on 25 February 1862, camping at Cullyamurra waterhole. From there Howitt undertook numerous exploratory trips into the surrounding area. On 13 April 1862, Wills' remains were exhumed, and in September 1862, Burke's bones were retrieved from the grave that Howitt had dug a year earlier.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: For the next six months Howitt explored the Australian interior before deciding in November to return to the settled areas. On 8 December the party arrived in Clare, South Australia. Howitt and the expedition's doctor continued on to Adelaide while the rest of the expedition members followed three days later by train. Burke's and Wills' remains were then taken to Melbourne, arriving on 29 December 1862.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Breastplates were issued to Aboriginal people between 1815 and 1946 for faithful service, for saving the lives of non-Indigenous people and to recognise stockmen and trackers. On this trip to exhume Burke and Wills' remains, Howitt presented three breastplates commissioned by the Victorian Exploration Committee to the Yandruwandha people in appreciation of the assistance they had given to Burke, Wills and King. One of these plates is in the collection of the National Museum of Australia. The inscription on the plate states that it was presented "for the Humanity shewn to the Explorers Burke, Wills and King 1861".


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Unknown to the explorers, "ngardu" sporocarps contain the enzyme thiaminase, which depletes the body of vitamin B (thiamin). It is probable that they were not preparing the seedcakes in accordance with Aboriginal food preparation methods, as the food was a staple among the local people. It has been argued that they did not first process the food into a paste, which might have prevented the ill effects they suffered. Despite eating, the men got weaker and weaker. Wills wrote in his diary:My pulse is at 48 and very weak and my legs and arms are nearly skin and bone. I can only look out like Mr Micawber for something to turn up, but starvation on nardoo is by no means unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels, and the utter inability to move oneself, for as the appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: As a result, it is likely that the deaths of Burke and Wills resulted in part from a vitamin deficiency disease called beriberi. Evidence to this effect is further provided by King's account, which revealed that Burke complained of leg and back pain shortly before his death. However, other research suggests that scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) and environmental factors also contributed to their deaths.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Victorian Government held a Commission of Enquiry into the deaths of Burke and Wills. Howitt was sent back to Cooper Creek to recover their bodies.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: A Commission of Enquiry was convened on 18 November 1861, and the results of their investigations were presented to both houses of the Colonial Parliament. It was laid on the table of the Legislative Council on 4 March 1862.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The Commission found that Burke "evinced far greater amount of zeal than prudence in finally departing from Cooper's Creek before the depot party had arrived from Menindie", found the conduct of Mr Wright "to have been reprehensible" and had some sympathy for Brahe, upon whom "a responsibility far beyond his expectations devolved upon him". The Commission judged that in leaving the depot before Burke returned or further relief had arrived was regrettable, but that Brahe had "acted from a conscientious desire to discharge his duty."


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Subsequent historians have posited that the commissioners were compromised by their close relationships with members of the Royal Society and failed to question them with the same zeal that was applied to men like Brahe.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Howitt sailed from Adelaide to Melbourne on the SS "Havilah" with the remains of Burke and Wills in a small wooden box, arriving at Sandridge on 28 December 1862. The box was taken to the hall of the Royal Society of Victoria, and a coffining ceremony was held on 31 December. This ceremony was delayed because Macadam, who held the only key to the box, arrived late. A lock smith was called but before he could pick the lock Dr Macadam, blaming his own distress for his lateness, finally arrived with the key.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The remains were placed in state for two weeks and around 100,000 people visited the Royal Society of Victoria to view the coffins.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: It was originally proposed that the funeral should take place at St James Cathedral but it was decided this would be impractical because of the expected crowds and the difficulty of moving the coffins into the church from the grand mourning vehicle. It was agreed that a service at the cemetery would be appropriate.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The order and carriage of the clergy was discussed with agreement that they would walk in the procession with the Protestant clergy in front followed by the Roman Catholics. This small example of ecumenism is interesting given the general enmity and divisive sectarianism between Irish Catholics and English Protestants that blighted Victoria's history for a century.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: The funeral was held on 21 January 1863. It was an elaborate affair, with the funeral car modelled on the design used for the Duke of Wellington ten years earlier. It was estimated that 40,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne. Melbourne's population was estimated at only 120,000 at the time. Many had travelled from country Victoria, especially the Castlemaine area where Burke had served most recently as Police Superintendent. (The total population of Victoria was about 600,000).


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: Burke and Wills were buried at the Melbourne General Cemetery. At the cemetery the Dean of Melbourne, Hussey Burgh Macartney, conducted a Church of England burial service, but clergy representing various Christian denominations were represented in the funeral procession.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: At 8 p.m. that evening there was a public meeting at St. George's Hall, where Macadam addressed the crowd, and acknowledged the contributions of Ambrose Kyte, Howitt, and Commander Norman.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In some ways the tragic expedition was not a waste. It completed the picture of inland Australia, and proved that there was no inland sea. More importantly, each of the rescue parties sent from different parts of the continent added in some way to the understanding of the land it crossed.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1862 monuments were erected in Back Creek Cemetery, Bendigo, and also on the hill overlooking Castlemaine where Burke had been stationed before leading the expedition. The Victorian towns of Beechworth and Fryerstown also unveiled memorials.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1863, when Julius von Haast searched for a crossing from Otago to the West Coast in New Zealand, he named two rivers flowing into the Haast River after Burke and Wills.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: On 21 April 1865, the anniversary of the return to Cooper's Creek, a monument by Charles Summers was unveiled in Melbourne by the Governor, Sir Charles Darling.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1867 Ballarat erected the Explorer's Fountain on Sturt and Lydiard Streets. Wills, his brother Tom and their father, Dr William Wills, had all lived in Ballarat.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1890 a monument was erected at Royal Park, the expedition's departure point in Melbourne. The plaque on the monument states, "This memorial has been erected to mark the spot from whence the Burke and Wills Expedition started on 20 August 1860. After successfully accomplishing their mission the two brave leaders perished on their return journey at Coopers Creek in June 1861."


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1983 they were honoured on a postage stamp depicting their portraits issued by Australia Post. In August 2010 Australia Post issued four stamps to commemorate the 150th anniversary.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1918 a silent movie, "A Romance of Burke and Wills Expedition of 1860", was released. The plot is fictional and only loosely connected to the Burke and Wills expedition.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1975 an episode of a British documentary series called "The Explorers" on the BBC featured the Australian expedition story, in an episode titled "Burke and Wills", narrated by David Attenborough (replaced with narration by Anthony Quinn in the later 1976 US broadcast) and directed by Lord Snowdon.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In 1985 the film, "Burke & Wills", was made with Jack Thompson as Burke, and Nigel Havers as Wills. Also in 1985, the spoof "Wills & Burke" was released with Garry McDonald as Burke and Kym Gyngell as Wills.


title: Burke and Wills expedition

text: In November 2009 the Royal Australian Mint issued two coins, $1 and a 20 cent, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the expedition.


title: Mo Yan

text: Guan Moye (; born 17 February 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan (, ), is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazine "TIME" referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers", and Jim Leach called him the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".


title: Mo Yan

text: He is best known to Western readers for his 1986 novel "Red Sorghum", the first two parts of which were adapted as the Golden Bear-winning film "Red Sorghum" (1988). He won the 2005 International Nonino Prize in Italy. In 2009, he was the first recipient of the University of Oklahoma's Newman Prize for Chinese Literature.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan was born in February of 1955 into a peasant family in Ping'an Village, Gaomi Township, northeast of Shandong Province, the People's Republic of China. He is the youngest of four children with two older brothers and an older sister. His family was of a upper-middle peasant class background. Mo was 11 years old when the Cultural Revolution was launched, at which time he left school to work as a farmer. In the autumn of 1973, he began work at the cotton oil processing factory. During this period, which coincided with a succession of political campaigns from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution, his access to literature was largely limited to novels in the socialist realist style under Mao Zedong, which centered largely on the themes of class struggle and conflict.


title: Mo Yan

text: At the close of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, Mo enlisted in the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and began writing while he was still a soldier. During this post-Revolution era when he emerged as a writer, both the lyrical and epic works of Chinese literature, as well as translations of foreign authors such as William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, would make an impact on his works.


title: Mo Yan

text: In 1984, he received a literary award from the "PLA Magazine", and the same year began attending the People's Liberation Army Arts College, where he first adopted the pen name of Mo Yan. He published his first novella, "A Transparent Radish," in 1984, and released "Red Sorghum" in 1986, launching his career as a nationally recognized novelist. In 1991, he graduated from the creation graduate class of Lu Xun School of literature, and obtained a master's degree in Literature from Beijing Normal University.


title: Mo Yan

text: "Mo Yan" – "don't speak" in Chinese – is his pen name. Mo Yan has explained on occasion that the name comes from a warning from his father and mother not to speak his mind while outside, because of China's revolutionary political situation from the 1950s, when he grew up. It also relates to the subject matter of Mo Yan's writings, which reinterpret Chinese political and sexual history.


title: Mo Yan

text: In an interview with Professor David Wang, Mo Yan stated that he changed his "official name" to Mo Yan because he could not receive royalties under the pen name.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan began his career as a writer in the reform and opening up period, publishing dozens of short stories and novels in Chinese. His first published short story was "Falling Rain on a Spring Night", published in September 1981.


title: Mo Yan

text: In 1986, the five parts that formed his first novel, "Red Sorghum" (1987), were published serially. It is a non-chronological novel about the generations of a Shandong family between 1923 and 1976. The author deals with upheavals in Chinese history such as the Second Sino-Japanese War, the 1949 Communist Revolution, and the Cultural Revolution, but in an unconventional way; for example from the point of view of the invading Japanese soldiers.


title: Mo Yan

text: His second novel, "The Garlic Ballads", is based on a true story of when the farmers of Gaomi Township rioted against a government that would not buy its crops. "The Republic of Wine" is a satire around gastronomy and alcohol, which uses cannibalism as a metaphor for Chinese self-destruction, following Lu Xun. "Big Breasts & Wide Hips" deals with female bodies, from a grandmother whose breasts are shattered by Japanese bullets, to a festival where one of the child characters, Shangguan Jintong, blesses each woman of his town by stroking her breasts. The book was controversial in China because some leftist critics objected to "Big Breasts"' perceived negative portrayal of Communist soldiers.


title: Mo Yan

text: Extremely prolific, Mo Yan wrote "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" in only 42 days. He composed the more than 500,000 characters contained in the original manuscript on traditional Chinese paper using only ink and a writing brush. He prefers writing his novels by hand rather than by typing using a pinyin input method, because the latter method "limits your vocabulary". "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" is a meta-fiction about the story of a landlord who is reincarnated in the form of various animals during the Chinese land reform movement. The landlord observes and satirizes Communist society, such as when he (as a donkey) forces two mules to share food with him, because "[in] the age of communism... mine is yours and yours is mine."


title: Mo Yan

text: "Pow!," Mo Yan’s first work to be translated into english after receiving the Nobel Prize, is about a young storytelling boy named Luo who was famous in his village for eating so much meat. His village is so carnivorous it is an obsession that leads to corruption. "Pow!" cemented his writing style as “hallucinatory realism”. Another one of his works, "Frog", Yan’s latest novel published, focuses on the cause and consequences of China’s One-Child Policy. Set in a small rural Chinese town called Gaomi, the narrator Tadpole tells the story of his aunt Gugu, who once was a hero for delivering life into the world as a midwife, now takes away life as an abortion provider. Steven Moore from the Washington Post wrote, “another display of Mo Yan’s attractively daring approach to fiction. The Nobel committee chose wisely.”


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan's ability to convey traditionalist values inside of his mythical realism writing style in "The Old Gun" has allowed insight and view on the swift modernization of China. This short story of Mo Yan was an exemplary example for the "Xungen movement" Chinese literary movement and influenced many to turn back to traditional values. This movement portrayed the fear of loss of cultural identity due to the swift modernization of China in the 1980s.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan’s masterpieces have been translated into English by translator Howard Goldblatt. Goldblatt has effectively transmitted Chinese culture to target audiences by using a domestication technique augmented with foreignization.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan's works are predominantly social commentary, and he is strongly influenced by the social realism of Lu Xun and the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez. In terms of traditional Chinese literature, he is deeply inspired by the folklore-based classical epic novel "Water Margin". He cites "Journey to the West" and "Dream of the Red Chamber" as formative influences. Mo Yan's writing style has also been influenced by the Six Dynasties, Chuanqi, notebook novels of the Ming and Qing Dynasties and especially by folk oral literature. His creation combines all of these inspirations into one of the most distinctive voices in world literature.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan, who himself reads foreign authors in translation, strongly advocates the reading of world literature. At a speech to open the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, he discussed Goethe's idea of "world literature", stating that "literature can overcome the barriers that separate countries and nations".


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan's works are epic historical novels characterized by hallucinatory realism and containing elements of black humor. Mo Yan's language is distinguished by his imaginative use of colour expressions. A major theme in Mo Yan's works is the constancy of human greed and corruption, despite the influence of ideology. Using dazzling, complex, and often graphically violent images, he sets many of his stories near his hometown, Northeast Gaomi Township in Shandong province. Mo Yan says he realised that he could make "[my] family, [the] people I'm familiar with, the villagers..." his characters after reading William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury". He satirizes the genre of socialist realism by placing workers and bureaucrats into absurd situations.


title: Mo Yan

text: Mo Yan's writing is characterised by the blurring of distinctions between "past and present, dead and living, as well as good and bad". Mo Yan appears in his novels as a semi-autobiographical character who retells and modifies the author's other stories. His female characters often fail to observe traditional gender roles, such as the mother of the Shangguan family in "Big Breasts & Wide Hips", who, failing to bear her husband any sons, instead is an adulterer, becoming pregnant with girls by a Swedish missionary and a Japanese soldier, among others. Male power is also portrayed cynically in "Big Breasts & Wide Hips", and there is only one male hero in the novel.


title: Mo Yan

text: This is a complete list of Mo Yan's works published as a collection in 2012 in China (after Mo Yan received the Nobel Prize).


title: Tical (album)

text: Tical is the debut studio album by American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man. It was released November 15, 1994, by Def Jam Recordings. It was the first Wu-Tang solo album released after the group's debut, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)". Similar to all first generation solo Wu-Tang projects, "Tical" was mainly produced by group member RZA, who provided a dark, murky and rugged sound. The album features guest appearances from RZA, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, as well as several affiliates, who would later appear on future group projects. On October 5, 2017, Method Man revealed on the Viceland talk show Desus & Mero that the album's title is an acronym for "taking into consideration all lives."


title: Tical (album)

text: "Tical" was a critical and commercial success, reaching number four on the US "Billboard" 200, and number one on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums. On January 18, 1995, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and on July 13, 1995, the record was certified platinum for the shipment of one million copies in the United States. The success for the album was driven by two singles: "Bring the Pain" and "I'll Be There for You / You're All I Need to Get By".


title: Tical (album)

text: In 1991, rapper GZA assisted Method Man in shopping him to label executives at Cold Chillin' Records. Though this would turn out to be unsuccessful, he formed the Wu-Tang Clan with his cousins RZA and Ol' Dirty Bastard, and Method Man was included in the group. Method Man went on to perform on eight of the twelve tracks on the group's acclaimed 1993 debut album, "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)", and even had a solo song entitled "Method Man". That song as well as "C.R.E.A.M.", on which he performed the chorus line, reached #69 and #60 respectively on the "Billboard" Hot 100. These two songs had higher chart positions than any other tracks on the album, and thus caused much anticipation for Method Man's solo career. At the time of Wu-Tang Clan's debut album, Method Man's rhymes, charisma, and smooth, deep voice made him the group's most visible, popular member.


title: Tical (album)

text: With the exception of "Sub Crazy" and "P.L.O. Style", which were co-produced by 4th Disciple and Method Man respectively, group member RZA produced "Tical" in its entirety – leading Jason Birchmeier of Allmusic to refer to the album as "a two-man show". As with the rest of the first round of Wu-Tang albums, RZA would recreate the distinct "Shaolin" sound while tailoring it to the featured rapper. On "Tical", his production was especially gritty, dark and murky, complementing both Method Man's distinctly smooth-yet-rugged voice and his raps of cannabis smoking, project love, and traditional hardcore hip hop lyricism. During this time period of the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA was the sole provider of beats for all of its members, whom he would then have battle over the rights to record over them. This competitive approach to quality control would result in "Tical"'s "Meth vs. Chef", a recorded battle between Method Man and Raekwon. "Meth vs. Chef" was recorded in 1993 before RZA's 36 Chambers Studios was flooded, destroying reportedly fifteen beats per Wu-Tang Clan rapper. Many of the beats for "Tical" would be hastily recreated, and mixed.


title: Tical (album)

text: In 1994 the lead single "Bring the Pain" (backed with "P.L.O. Style") was released. "Bring the Pain" was a RZA-produced track with an understated but funky groove, capped with the ragga vocals of Booster. The single would reach number 45 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and number 1 on the Hot Dance chart. The follow-up single, 1995's "Release Yo' Delf", was a more upbeat track, and featured Wu-affiliate Blue Raspberry singing an interpolation of Gloria Gaynor's disco anthem, "I Will Survive". "Release Yo' Delf" reached number 98 on the Hot 100, failing to match the success of "Bring The Pain", but fared better in the UK, peaking at number 45 on the Official Singles Chart. "Tical" remains the only Method Man album with two singles reaching the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Tical (album)

text: To continue the album's promotion, "All I Need" was remixed and released as a single in the summer of 1995 as "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By". There are two remixes of this song: "Razor Sharp Mix" by the RZA, and the remix by Puff Daddy, both featuring Mary J. Blige. RZA's version proved to be more successful, with its accompanying music video aiding the song to reach number 3 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and number one on the Hot Rap, Dance and R&B charts. "Razor Sharp Mix" also won the two a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 1996.


title: Tical (album)

text: "Tical" was well received by most music critics. Tracy E. Hopkins from "Entertainment Weekly" stated "Method Man proves to be one of rap's most formidable players. On his solo outing, "Tical", the Wu-Tang Clan's standout MC wages lyrical warfare. His gripping rhymes creep out of the darkness and take listeners hostage". "Melody Maker" wrote "Meth comes correct with this beamed-down-from-Planet-Mars making music that's way darker and more disorienting than was previously thought possible". "NME" commented "The East coast hip hop renaissance continues apace... supremely laid-back, mooching along at a bass-weighted amble, whether it's framing the monogamous lover's lament of "All I Need" or the 'I Will Survive' hook of "Release Yo Self".


title: Tical (album)

text: "Rolling Stone" praised the album's singles, but stated "It's with its heaviest numbers that "Tical" delivers the primo goods". Writing for "The Source", Mitchell Pierce described the album's production as "dark bass and distorted wails that sound like someone is being hacked to death". Pierce concluded ""Tical" combines verbal terrorism, tenebrous grooves and home-demo lunacy to produce a gritty production". Michael A. Gonzales from "Vibe" magazine described "Tical" as "Incredible", and further stated "The production wizardry and vocal complexity build with each listen."


title: Tical (album)

text: Although "Tical" failed to achieve the critical success of several other Wu-Tang solo albums of its era, such as "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..." and "Liquid Swords", it has acquired a fair amount of acclaim over the years from various music writers and publications. In 1996, "Select" magazine ranked it number 28 on their 100 Best Albums of the 90s list, and in 1999, "Ego Trip" ranked it number 12 on their list of greatest hip-hop albums released in 1994.


title: Tical (album)

text: In a later review for "Tical", Jason Birchmeier from AllMusic praised Method Man's charisma and RZA's production and stated ""Tical" strictly spotlights the group's two stars and does so with refreshingly straightforward flair. There's none of the epic overreaching that mars so many rap albums of the era; rather, there's just over a dozen tracks here, and they're filled to the brim with rhymes and beats and little else; no pop-crossover concessions, nor any heady experimentation for the sake of experimentation. Just good ol'-fashioned hip-hop, albeit with a dark, deranged twist". In 2005, Robert Dimery included "Tical" on his list of "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", and in 2008, Tom Moon included it on his "1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die" list.


title: Tical (album)

text: "Tical" debuted at number four on the US "Billboard" 200 chart and number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, becoming his first US top-ten album and his first number one on the latter. On July 13, 1995, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over one million copies. As of October 2009, the album has 1,613,000 copies in the United States.


title: Ferris State University

text: Ferris State University (FSU or Ferris) is a public university with its main campus in Big Rapids, Michigan. It was founded in 1884 and became a public institution in 1950. Ferris is the ninth-largest institutions of higher education by enrollment in the State of Michigan with over 10,000 students studying on its main campus, at one of the 19 off-campus locations across the state, or online. Two- and four-year degrees are offered through eight academic colleges and graduate degrees from six. Ferris grants professional doctoral degrees via its optometry and pharmacy colleges and a multidisciplinary doctorate of education in community college leadership.


title: Ferris State University

text: The Ferris State Bulldogs competes in the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in all sports except men's ice hockey, in which the team is part of the NCAA Division I Central Collegiate Hockey Association.


title: Ferris State University

text: Big Rapids Industrial School, as it was originally named, opened on September 1, 1884, in temporary quarters in the Vandersluis Block (present location of J.C. Penney Co.) in Big Rapids. The goal of the school was to provide students with marketable skills for a changing society. By the beginning of the next semester in January 1885 the school changed its name to Ferris Industrial School. In January 1894, the School moved into and dedicated its new building, Old Main, on the corner of Oak and Ives Streets. At this same time, the school was incorporated with capital stock of $50,000.


title: Ferris State University

text: In 1898, the institution was again renamed to Ferris Institute. In 1900, W. N. Ferris sold capital stock in Ferris Institute to the public, keeping a controlling interest in his own hands. It remained privately owned until August 25, 1931, when the Board of Incorporators, a group of 39 businessmen, purchased Ferris Institute from the old stockholders and selected a board of trustees from their number to govern the school.


title: Ferris State University

text: In February 1943, alumnus Colin Smith introduced a bill in the legislature for the state to purchase Ferris Institute. It passed both houses but was vetoed by Governor Harry Kelly. Six years later on May 17, 1949, Governor G. Mennen Williams signed the bill accepting Ferris Institute as a gift to the State of Michigan, which took over its governance on July 1, 1950. But before the state took control, fire destroyed the Old Main and the Old Pharmacy Buildings on February 21, 1950. Only the Alumni Building and some minor buildings were left standing. Immediate rebuilding of the Institute began and on July 1, 1963, it was again renamed, this time as Ferris State College.


title: Ferris State University

text: In November 1987 the institution became Ferris State University. When Ferris became a state college in the fall of 1950, it had consisted entirely of one permanent structure, the Alumni Building, and some surplus Army barracks. At that time, fewer than 1,000 students were enrolled; there were fewer than 50 faculty members, and the campus itself covered less than . By contrast, current enrollment is more than 10,000, and the campus contains 115 buildings, including educational, administrative, maintenance, student activity and residence hall facilities.


title: Ferris State University

text: Ferris State University is considered "less selective" by "U.S. News & World Report". For the Class of 2025 (enrolling Fall 2021), Ferris State University received 10,480 applications and accepted 8,884 (84.8%), with 1,405 enrolling. The middle 50% range of SAT scores for enrolling freshmen was 910-1050. The middle 50% ACT composite score range was 19-26.


title: Ferris State University

text: The university has 8 colleges offering more than 170 educational programs—Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Human Services, Engineering Technology, Health Professions, the Kendall College of Art and Design, Michigan College of Optometry, and Pharmacy. Program offerings lead to bachelor's and associate degrees and certificates. Master's degrees in Information Security and Intelligence, Career and Technical Education, Criminal Justice, Business Administration, Curriculum and Instruction, Nursing, and Fine Arts are available. Ferris also offers doctoral degrees in Optometry, Pharmacy, and Community College Leadership.


title: Ferris State University

text: Kendall College of Art and Design offers graduate and undergraduate fine arts degrees as well as a B.S. degree in Art History. Kendall's campus is in Grand Rapids, Michigan.


title: Ferris State University

text: The Michigan College of Optometry is one of 16 schools or colleges of optometry in the United States and the only college of optometry in Michigan. MCO doctors and student interns deliver eye-care to patients in the region. Graduates receive a Doctor of Optometry degree.


title: Ferris State University

text: The College of Pharmacy graduates comprise more than half of Michigan's practicing pharmacists. Graduates receive a Doctor of Pharmacy degree.


title: Ferris State University

text: Within the Colleges there exist some schools of specialized education. These Schools exist to provide focused education for specific careers.


title: Ferris State University

text: Housed in the College of Education and Human Services, there are three areas of concentration for undergraduate degrees: Corrections, Generalists, and Law Enforcement.


title: Ferris State University

text: Housed in the College of Education and Human Services. Three bachelor's degree programs in early childhood, elementary, and secondary education in addition to master's degrees with several concentrations.


title: Ferris State University

text: The Honors Program includes students from every college and school at Ferris except Kendall—students from almost every major participate in the Honors Program. About of the Honors students major in Pre-Pharm or similar disciplines, but there is a large number of students in the College of Business, College of Health Professions and the College of Engineering Technology. Honors students live in specialized residence halls (mostly in single rooms), take enhanced general education courses, attend cultural events, and complete 15 hours of community service per semester.


title: Ferris State University

text: Ferris State University joined the state's Higher Education System in 1950. The campus was all but destroyed by fire the same year. The only building to survive was the Alumni Building, built in 1929, at the north edge of campus. Since the fire, more than 117 buildings have been built on the main campus.


title: Ferris State University

text: Located on the southern edge of the City of Big Rapids, straddling the border between Big Rapids Township and the city, the university has over for its main campus. The campus begins about four blocks south of the historic central business district. It is bordered on the north by single-family homes built in the early to middle of the twentieth century. North of Perry Street, the university is bordered by strip commercial development. The university is bordered to the south and west by Big Rapids Township. The township is mostly undeveloped and rural.


title: Ferris State University

text: The main campus is within easy walking distance of downtown Big Rapids with its restaurants, shops, movie theater, art gallery and municipal park. Bicyclists, hikers and in-line skaters have easy access to the White Pine Trail, Michigan's longest "rails to trails" project.


title: Ferris State University

text: The campus has undergone major changes since 1990. Several new and renovated buildings, reworked roads and parking areas, pedestrian walkways, and greenspace areas have contributed to the changes on campus.


title: Ferris State University

text: In addition to the main campus, Ferris State University has programs offered at 19 off-campus locations including Dowagiac, Grand Rapids, Flint, Lansing, Traverse City, and University Center. Although the main campus of the university is located in a rural setting the satellite locations are all located in larger, more urban communities. Some programs, such as the Doctor of Pharmacy program, are split between locations having students take the first 2 years of study at a campus in one city and the next 2 years at another. These locations are managed by the division of Extended and International Operations under the heading Ferris Statewide and Online.


title: Ferris State University

text: Ferris State University is governed by a board of trustees which has general supervision of the institution and controls and directs institutional expenditures. Members of the Board serve eight-year, staggered terms as appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the State Senate.


title: Ferris State University

text: The President of the university is appointed by the Board of Trustees as its principal executive officer and serves at its pleasure. The President is an ex-officio member of the Board without the right to vote.


title: Ferris State University

text: At present, the university is led by its 19th president, Bill Pink, who was inaugurated on June 30, 2022.


title: Ferris State University

text: The mission of the Student Government of Ferris State University is to represent student interests in all aspects of campus life as well as maintain open channels of communication between students, faculty, staff, administration, and the Big Rapids community.


title: Ferris State University

text: The General Assembly of Student Government is composed of two voting bodies; a House of Representatives and a Senate. Each registered student organization (RSO) in good standing is eligible to hold one seat on the House of Representatives. Senators are elected by the students in their respective academic colleges.


title: Ferris State University

text: The leadership rests in the Cabinet; president, executive vice president, treasurer, director of finance, and director of internal assessment.


title: Ferris State University

text: The Ferris State Bulldogs are the athletic teams for the university. Ferris State offers an intercollegiate athletic program that includes 14 men's and women's sports at the NCAA Division II level, except for men's ice hockey which competes in NCAA Division I. Ferris State is a member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) in all sports except men's ice hockey, in which the team is part of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.


title: Ferris State University

text: Year in and year out, nearly 400 student-athletes have the opportunity to compete for the Bulldogs on a regional and national level for conference titles and NCAA Championships. Ferris' men's club ice hockey won the American Collegiate Hockey Association Division II national title in 1994. In March 2018, the men's basketball team won the NCAA Division II national championship. The football team won the NCAA Division II national championship in December 2021.


title: Ferris State University

text: Ferris State has seen a dramatic drop in enrollment in recent years. In 2013 total enrollment was 14,707. In 2021 total enrollment had dropped to 10,361. Similarly, Big Rapids City population dropped by more than 27% between 2010 and 2020.


title: Ferris State University

text: The Ferris State "Torch" is a student run newspaper first published in 1931. It is a weekly publication between 16 and 28 pages in length with a circulation of just under 5,000. The "Torch" has been completely student governed, with the exception of a faculty adviser and business manager. The Department of Languages and Literature acts as a liaison between the publication and the rest of the university.


title: Ferris State University

text: There are 27 Greek organizations on campus, subdivided into four different groups: Interfraternity Council fraternities, Black Greek Council Fraternities & Sororities, Panhellenic Council Sororities, and Professional Fraternities & Sororities.


title: Ferris State University

text: Organizations in the Interfraternity Council include: Alpha Chi Rho, Delta Chi, Kappa Psi, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Sigma Kappa, Pi Kappa Alpha, Pi Lambda Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and Sigma Pi. Black Greek Council fraternities and sororities on campus are: Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Phi Delta Psi, and Zeta Phi Beta. Panhellenic Council member organizations are: Alpha Sigma Tau, Alpha Xi Delta, Delta Zeta, Phi Sigma Sigma and Zeta Tau Alpha, and honorary member Lambda Kappa Sigma. The profession fraternities and sororities include: Delta Sigma Pi, Gamma Epsilon Tau, Kappa Psi, Lambda Alpha Epsilon, Lambda Kappa Sigma, Phi Alpha Delta, Kappa Kappa Psi, Phi Alpha Theta, and Alpha Psi Omega. Organizations in the United Greek Council are Sigma Lambda Beta and Sigma Lambda Gamma


title: Ferris State University

text: The adoption of the new Ferris alma mater song, "Ferris Fidelity" and its first performance under direction of composer Graham T. Overgard were at the Christmas concert in 1957.


title: Meowth

text: Meowth ( or , known as in the original Japanese version) is a Pokémon species in Nintendo and Game Freak's "Pokémon" franchise. Created by Ken Sugimori, Meowth first appeared in the video games "Pokémon Red" and "Blue" and subsequent entries in the franchise. In addition, it was one of the Pokémon to get an Alolan Form variant of the Dark type. It now also has a Galarian Form, which is a Steel type, and is the only Pokémon to have both an Alolan form and a Galarian form. It later appeared in various merchandise, spinoff titles and animated and printed adaptations of the franchise. A male Meowth capable of human speech is considered by many fans as Team Rocket's mascot because he is a member of the Team Rocket Trio, a group of antagonists in the anime comprising himself and two Team Rocket grunts called Jessie and James. Meowth is voiced by Inuko Inuyama in Japanese, and by Maddie Blaustein (dub episodes 33-419), and Jimmy Zoppi (dub episodes 420 – current) in English.