title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The Miraflores dams are an earth dam connecting the Miraflores Locks in the west and a concrete spillway dam east of the locks. The concrete dam has eight floodgates, similar to those on the Gatun spillway. The earthen, Pedro Miguel dam extends from a hill in the west to the lock. Its face is protected by rock riprap at the water level. The largest and most challenging of the dams is the Gatun Dam. This earthen dam, thick at the base and long along the top, was the largest of its kind in the world when the canal opened.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The original lock canal plan called for a two-step set of locks at Sosa Hill and a long Sosa Lake extending to Pedro Miguel. In late 1907, it was decided to move the Sosa Hill locks further inland to Miraflores, mostly because the new site provided a more stable construction foundation. The resulting small lake Miraflores became a fresh water supply for Panama City.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Building the locks began with the first concrete laid at Gatun on August 24, 1909. The Gatun locks are built into a cutting into a hill bordering the lake, requiring the excavation of of material (mostly rock). The locks were made of of concrete, with an extensive system of electric railways and aerial lifts transporting concrete to the lock-construction sites.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The Pacific-side locks were finished first: the single flight at Pedro Miguel in 1911, and Miraflores in May 1913. The seagoing tugboat "Gatun", an Atlantic-entrance tug used to haul barges, traversed the Gatun locks on September 26, 1913. The trip was successful, although the valves were controlled manually; the central control board was not yet ready.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: On October 10, 1913, the dike at Gamboa which had kept the Culebra Cut isolated from Gatun Lake was demolished; the detonation was made telegraphically by President Woodrow Wilson in Washington. On January 7, 1914, the "Alexandre La Valley", an old French crane boat, became the first ship to make a complete transit of the Panama Canal under its own steam after working its way across during the final stages of construction.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: As construction wound down, the canal team began to disperse. Thousands of workers were laid off, and entire towns were disassembled or demolished. Chief sanitary officer William C. Gorgas, who left to fight pneumonia in the South African gold mines, became surgeon general of the Army. On April 1, 1914, the Isthmian Canal Commission disbanded, and the zone was governed by a Canal Zone Governor; the first governor was George Washington Goethals.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Although a large celebration was planned for the canal's opening, the outbreak of World War I forced the cancellation of the main festivities and it became a modest local affair. The Panama Railway steamship , piloted by Captain John A. Constantine (the canal's first pilot), made the first official transit on August 15, 1914. With no international dignitaries in attendance, Goethals followed the "Ancon" progress by railroad.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The canal was a technological marvel and an important strategic and economic asset to the US. It changed world shipping patterns, removing the need for ships to navigate the Drake Passage and Cape Horn. The canal saves a total of about on a sea trip from New York to San Francisco.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Its anticipated military significance of the canal was proven during World War II, when the canal helped restore the devastated United States Pacific Fleet. Some of the largest ships the United States had to send through the canal were aircraft carriers, particularly "Essex" class; they were so large that although the locks could accommodate them, the lampposts along the canal had to be removed.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The Panama Canal cost the United States about $375 million, including $10 million paid to Panama and $40 million paid to the French company. Although it was the most expensive construction project in US history to that time, it cost about $23 million less than the 1907 estimate despite landslides and an increase in the canal's width. An additional $12 million was spent on fortifications.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: A total of over 75,000 people worked on the project; at the peak of construction, there were 40,000 workers. According to hospital records, 5,609 workers died from disease and accidents during the American construction era.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: A total of of material was excavated in the American effort, including the approach channels at the canal ends. Adding the work by the French, the total excavation was about (over 25 times the volume excavated in the Channel Tunnel project).


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Of the three presidents whose terms spanned the construction period, Theodore Roosevelt is most associated with the canal and Woodrow Wilson presided over its opening. However, William Howard Taft may have given the canal its greatest impetus for the longest time. Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt's secretary of war and twice as president. He hired John Stevens and later recommended Goethals as Stevens' replacement. Taft became president in 1909, when the canal was half finished, and was in office for most of the remainder of the work. However, Goethals later wrote: "The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt".


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The following words by Roosevelt are displayed in the rotunda of the canal's administration building in Balboa:


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: David du Bose Gaillard died of a brain tumor in Baltimore on December 5, 1913, at age 54. Promoted to colonel only a month earlier, Gaillard never saw the opening of the canal whose creation he directed. The Culebra Cut (as it was originally known) was renamed the Gaillard Cut on April 27, 1915, in his honor. A plaque commemorating Gaillard's work stood over the cut for many years; in 1998 it was moved to the administration building, near a memorial to Goethals.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: In the Treaty of the Danish West Indies, the United States purchased the Virgin Islands in 1917 in part to defend the Panama Canal. As the situation in Europe deteriorated during the late 1930s, the US again became concerned about its ability to move warships between the oceans. The largest US battleships already had problems with the canal locks, and there were concerns about the locks being incapacitated by bombing. These supported were validated by several US Navy fleet problems, which showed that the canal's defenses were inadequate.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: These concerns led Congress to pass a resolution on May 1, 1936, authorizing a study of improving the canal's defenses against attack and expanding its capacity to handle large vessels. A special engineering section was created on July 3, 1937, to carry out the study.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The section reported to Congress on February 24, 1939, recommending work to protect the existing locks and the construction of a new set of locks capable of carrying larger vessels than the existing locks could accommodate. On August 11, Congress authorized the work.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Three new locks were planned, at Gatún, Pedro Miguel and Miraflores, parallel to the existing locks with new approach channels. The new locks would add a traffic lane to the canal, with each chamber long, wide and deep. They would be east of the existing Gatún locks and west of the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The first excavations for the new approach channels at Miraflores began on July 1, 1940, following the passage by Congress of an appropriations bill on June 24, 1940. The first dry excavation at Gatún began on February 19, 1941. Considerable material was excavated before the project was abandoned, and the approach channels can still be seen paralleling the original channels at Gatún and Miraflores.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: In 2006, the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (the Panama Canal Authority, or ACP) proposed a plan creating a third lane of locks using part of the abandoned 1940s approach canals. Following a referendum, work began in 2007 and the expanded canal began commercial operations on June 26, 2016. After a two-year delay, the new locks allow the transit of Panamax ships (which have a greater cargo capacity than the original locks can handle). The first ship to cross the canal through the third set of locks was a Panamax container ship, the Chinese-owned "Cosco Shipping Panama". The cost of the expansion was estimated at $5.25 billion.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: After construction, the canal and the Canal Zone surrounding it were administered by the United States. On September 7, 1977, US President Jimmy Carter signed the Torrijos-Carter Treaty setting in motion the process of transferring control of the canal to Panama. The treaty became effective on October 2, 1979, providing for a 20-year period in which Panama would have increasing responsibility for canal operations before complete US withdrawal on December 31, 1999. Since then, the canal has been administered by the Panama Canal Authority (Autoridad de Canal de Panama, or ACP).


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: The transfer of the canal came under heavy attack from conservatives, especially the American Conservative Union, the Conservative Caucus, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, Citizens for the Republic, the American Security Council, the Young Republicans, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the Council for National Defense, Young Americans for Freedom, the Council for Inter-American Security, and the Campus Republican Action Organization. The treaty narrowly passed with the required 2/3 vote in the Senate. Though Panamanians welcomed the return of sovereignty over the Panama Canal, many people at the time also expressed fears of the possible negative economic repercussions.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Although concerns existed in the US and the shipping industry about the canal after the transfer, Panama has exercised good stewardship. According to ACP figures, canal income increased from $769 million in 2000 (the first year under Panamanian control) to $1.4 billion in 2006. Traffic through the canal increased from 230 million tons in 2000 to nearly 300 million tons in 2006. The number of accidents has decreased from an average of 28 per year in the late 1990s to 12 in 2005. Transit time through the canal averages about 30 hours, about the same as during the late 1990s. Canal expenses have increased less than revenue, from $427 million in 2000 to $497 million in 2006. On October 22, 2006, Panamanian citizens approved a referendum to expand the canal.


title: History of the Panama Canal

text: Former US Ambassador to Panama Linda Ellen Watt, who served from 2002 to 2005, said that the canal operation in Panamanian hands has been "outstanding". "The international shipping community is quite pleased", Watt added.


title: Koiné language

text: In linguistics, a koiné language, koiné dialect, or simply koiné (Ancient Greek κοινή, "common [language]") is a standard or common language or dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or more mutually intelligible varieties of the same language.


title: Koiné language

text: As speakers already understood one another before the advent of the koiné, the process of koineization is not as drastic as pidginization and creolization. Unlike pidginization and creolization, there is no "target" in koineization, which thus involves continuity in that speakers do not need to abandon their own linguistic varieties.


title: Koiné language

text: The normal influence between neighbouring dialects is not regarded as koineization. A koiné variety emerges as a new spoken variety in addition to the originating dialects. It does not change any existing dialect, which distinguishes koineization from the normal evolution of dialects.


title: Koiné language

text: While similar to zonal auxiliary languages koiné languages arise naturally, rather than being constructed.


title: Koiné language

text: The term "koine", meaning "common" in Greek, was first used to refer to the form of Greek used as a lingua franca during the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It arose as a mixed vernacular among ordinary people in the Peiraieus, the seaport of Athens, which was inhabited by Greeks from different parts of the Mediterranean.


title: Koiné language

text: Koineization brings new dialect varieties about as a result of contact between speakers of mutually intelligible varieties of that language. Koineization is a particular case of dialect contact, and it typically occurs in new settlements, to which people have migrated from different parts of a single language area. Koineization typically takes two or three generations to complete, but it can be achievable within the first generation.


title: Koiné language

text: Language variation is systematic in that it can be related to social divisions within a community, such as class and gender. Change can be shown to originate with particular social groups based on those divisions. However, a number of linguists have recently argued that language change lies with the individual.


title: Koiné language

text: Kerswill also examined the Norwegian dialects that emerged in two towns around smelters built at the head of the Sørfjord branch of the Hardangerfjord in the mid-20th century. Both towns, Odda and Tyssedal, drew migrants from different parts of Norway. The workers in Odda came predominantly (86%) from western Norway. In Tyssedal, only about one third came from western Norway, another third came from eastern Norway and the other third from other parts of the country. The dialects that evolved in both towns were thus very different from each other.


title: Koiné language

text: Peter Trudgill sees three processes in operation during what Mesthrie calls the accommodation period: mixing, levelling and simplification. The processes of levelling and simplification are both dependent on a wide range of factors, including the relative prestige of the contributing dialects, socio-political contexts in which the new dialect develops, and individual networks of adults involved in the accommodation process. Additionally, both Trudgill and Mesthrie also comment on the process of reallocation in which features that have been retained from contributing dialects take on new meanings or functions within the new dialect.


title: Koiné language

text: Trudgill posits a multigenerational model of the development of a koine. During the first (immigrant) generation, the speakers of the contributing dialects mix, and there is some levelling. The first native-born generation of speakers continues the leveling process. However, in the instances that Trudgill was able to document (such as first-generation speakers of Tyssedal and Odda dialects of Norwegian), the speech of that generation still reflected considerable variability in use of marked forms, both between speakers and in the repertoire of individual speakers.


title: Koiné language

text: It is the third generation that focuses the variations and stabilizes the dialect. Trudgill admits cases in which the focusing takes place in the first generation of native-born speakers and also instances that might be only in the fourth or even later generations. The dialect in its emerging state, a state marked by the heterogeneity of forms, is called by Trudgill an "interdialect" and is often called an interlanguage in other dialect studies.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș (, ; ) is the seat of Mureș County in the historical region of Transylvania, Romania. It is the 16th largest Romanian city, with 134,290 inhabitants as of the 2011 census. It lies on the Mureș River, the second longest river in Romania (after the Danube).


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The current Romanian name of the city, "Târgu Mureș", is the equivalent of the Hungarian "Marosvásárhely", both meaning "market on the Mureș (Maros) [River]". "Târg" means "market" in Romanian and "vásárhely" means "marketplace" in Hungarian. Local Hungarians often shorten "Marosvásárhely" to "Vásárhely" in speech.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Jesuit priest Martin Szentiványi provides the first known written reference naming the city; in his work "Dissertatio Paralipomenonica Rerum Memorabilium Hungariae" (written in 1699) he records the name as "Asserculis" by stating, in Latin, "Asserculis, hoc est Szekely Vasarhely", meaning, "Asserculis, here is Szekely Vasarhely". He provides the year 1230 for the reference. A second work of his, "Curiesiera et Selectiera Variarum Scienetiomm Miscellanea" (dated 1702) also mentions this name.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Another written reference of the city was in the Papal registry in Latin as "Novum Forum Siculorum" in 1332, and later as "Sekulvasarhel" (modern Hungarian: "Székelyvásárhely"), meaning "market of the Székelys", in 1349. Greek traders called it "Agropolis". Another name for it was "Areopolis".


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In 1616, Gabriel Bethlen gave the name "Marosvásárhely" to the newly upgraded royal free city. The Romanian name for the city, "Oșorhei" was a phonetic derivation from "Vásárhely" while the German name for the town, "Neumarkt am Mieresch" (also shortened to "Neumarkt" or "Marktstadt"; in Transylvanian Saxon, "Nai Mark" or "Nai Muark"), can be translated as "New Market".


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Other historical Romanian names for the town besides "Oșorhei" were "Mureș-Oșorhei" and "Târgul-Mureșului"; other historical Hungarian names in addition to "Székelyvásárhely" included "Újszékelyvásár" and "Újvásár".


title: Târgu Mureș

text: After World War I, Marosvásárhely became part of Romania and was renamed "Oșorheiu". The name "Târgu Mureș" became common in the interwar period. After World War II, the spelling of the city's name was changed to "Tîrgu Mureș", following a 1953 spelling reform that replaced the letter "â" with "î" in all words. Another spelling reform in 1993 replaced the letter "î" with "â" in many words and the city's name has since been officially spelled "Târgu Mureș".


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The first known recorded documentation of the city dates to 1332. It is mentioned in the papal registry under the Latin name "Novum Forum Siculorum" meaning "New Szekler Marketplace", and under the Hungarian name "Sekulvasarhel" (Székelyvásárhely) meaning "Szekler Marketplace" in 1349.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In place of its Fortress' Church, the Dominican church stood until the Mongol invasion, when it was destroyed. In its place, the Franciscans started building a new Gothic-style church around 1332, which was completed in 1446.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Since 1439 the town was the scene of the sessions of the Transylvanian parliament (diet) 36 times. In 1405, the King of Hungary Sigismund of Luxembourg granted the city the right to organize fairs. In 1470 King Matthias Corvinus granted the first judicial privilege to the city, and in 1482 declared the city a royal settlement. In 1492, wayvoda (prince) István Báthory strengthened its monastery with fortifications. In 1506, the troops of Pál Tomori were beaten by the Székelys rising against the payment of an extraordinary Ox tax imposed on them on occasion of the birth of Louis II of Hungary. In 1557, the Reformed Church College (i.e., Presbyterians) was established as the oldest Hungarian school of Transylvania. In 1571, the session of the Transylvanian parliament under prince John II Sigismund Zápolya accepted the free preaching of the word of God, including by the Unitarian Church. In 1600–1601, as a result of the siege of Giorgio Basta, the fortress turned to ruins. In 1602, the troops of Gergely Németh put on fire the remaining houses of the town, therefore, in 1602 the reconstruction of the fortress was started on the advice of mayor Tamás Borsos, but it was actually built between 1614 and 1653. Mózes Székely the only prince of Szekler origin visited the city in 1603 when he liberated Transylvania from foreign domination.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In 1616, it was granted the status of a free royal city under the name of Maros-Vásárhely by prince (fejedelem) Gábor Bethlen. In 1658 Turkish and Tartarian troops invaded the city and burned it, and 3,000 people were taken into captivity. In 1661, as no one showed willingness to accept the duty of prince, under Turkish pressure Mihály Apafi was elected prince of Transylvania here. In 1662, resulting from the negligence of the Turkish military residing here, the city almost completely burnt down.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In 1687 it was devastated by German imperial troops. In 1704, the kuruc troops of Pál Kaszás occupied the fortress, which was re-occupied by Austrian troops led by Lőrinc Pekry in 1706. On 5 April 1707 Francis II Rákóczi was raised to the chair of princes here. In 1707 the city was struck by the plague with more than 3,500 deaths. The black death renewed in 1709, 1719 and in 1738–39.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The city received a major boost to its social and economic life when it became home to the Supreme Court of Justice of the Principality of Transylvania in 1754. In 1802, the Teleki Library founded by count Sámuel Teleki opened to the public with 40,000 volumes.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Avram Iancu, the leader of the 1848 Romanian revolution in Transylvania, was a young lawyer in the city of Marosvásárhely before engaging in the fight for the rights of the Romanians living in Transylvania. On 4 November 1848, the Szekler troops were beaten by the Austrian imperial troops under its walls, and the city was also captured. On 13 January 1849 the troops of major Tolnay recaptured it. On 30 July 1849, Sándor Petőfi and Józef Bem set out from here for the Battle of Segesvár.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In 1854, Szekler martyrs Károly Horváth, János Török, and Mihály Gálfi were executed on the Postarét for plotting against Austrian rule. Since 1874 a monument marks the place. In 1861, Marosvásárhely became the seat of Marosszék, in 1876 that of Maros-Torda County. In 1880 the statue of Bem was inaugurated in Roses Square, in downtown area; in 1893 the statue of Kossuth was as well. The statue of Rákóczi was also inaugurated in 1907. All three statues were demolished between 1919 in 1923, after Transylvania became part of Romania.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The provincial appearance of the city changed greatly in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In 1913, the Hungarian Art-Nouveau style city hall complex and Palace of Culture was inaugurated, as part of mayor Bernády György's urban renewal. After World War I, together with the rest of Transylvania, Marosvásáshely became part of Romania and became known as "Târgu Mureș". From having been an 89% Hungarian-populated city (in 1910), the Romanian population increased throughout the second half of the 20th century.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: From 1940 to 1944, as a consequence of the Second Vienna Award, the city was ceded back to the Kingdom of Hungary. After Hungary was occupied by Germany in 1944, a Jewish ghetto was established in the city. Târgu Mureș re-entered the Romanian administration in October 1944. However, on 12 November 1944 General Vladislav Petrovich Vinogradov of the Soviet Red Army expelled the returning Romanian authorities from Northern Transylvania with reference to the massacres committed by members of the so-called Maniu Guard, and the Romanian authorities were not allowed to return until the government of Petru Groza was formed on 6 March 1945.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: After World War II, the communist administration of Romania conducted a policy of massive industrialization that completely re-shaped the community. Between 1950 and 1968, Târgu Mureș was the center of the Magyar Autonomous Region, later renamed as Mureș-Magyar Autonomous Region. On 7 September 1959, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Secretary-General of the Romanian Workers Party, and Prime Minister Chivu Stoica visited the city. It was decided at the time where to build the fertilizer production plant, and the new residential quarters of the city. It was decided that the residential quarters would not be built in the Mureș valley, but on the surrounding hills.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In March 1990, shortly after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 overthrew the communist regime, the city was the scene of violent ethnic clashes between ethnic Hungarians and ethnic Romanians.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In the 21st century, the local economy started to get stronger after various investors settled in the area. In 2020, the city elected an independent candidate as mayor, Zoltán Soós, the first ethnic Hungarian to win in twenty years.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The city is located in the Mureș River valley. The city spreads out from Fortress Church in the center of the town, built in the 14th century, to form an area of . The city is located at the centre of the historical region of Transylvania and covers an area of . It lies at the junction of three geographical regions of Transylvania (Transylvanian Plain, Mureș Valley and Niraj Valley) at above sea level. The city extends onto both banks of the Mureș river, however, the downtown area and the greater part of the districts are located on the left bank. The Cornești plateau () is the city's highest point ( above sea level, co-ordinates: ).


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș is from Bucharest, from Chișinău, from Belgrade, from Budapest, from Sofia and from Kyiv. It is surrounded by the following communes: Sângeorgiu de Mureș, Livezeni, Sântana de Mureș, Sâncraiu de Mureș, Corunca, Cristești and Ceuașu de Câmpie. Two villages, Mureșeni ("Meggyesfalva") and Remetea ("Remeteszeg"), are administered by the city.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș has a continental climate characterised by warm dry summers and relatively cold winters. Winter temperatures are often below . Throughout the year there are 38 days with snow, and more than 60 days when the snow covers the ground. In summer, the average temperature is between and (the average for June, July and August), even though temperatures sometimes reach during this period. On average, there are 143 days with precipitation over the course of the year, most frequently in December with 16 days and the least in August, September and October with 8 rainy days. The average annual temperature for Târgu Mureș is . The lowest temperature registered in the city is , recorded in 1942 and 1963. The highest temperature, , was recorded in 1936.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: As of 2011 census data, Târgu Mureș has a population of 134,290, a decrease from the figure recorded at the 2002 census.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: According to the 2002 census data, the city had a population of 149,577. Among them 69,825 are Hungarians forming the largest urban Hungarian community in Romania, surpassing that of Cluj-Napoca. The 2002 census was the first to show the Hungarians as a local minority. The city is officially bilingual and both Romanian and Hungarian languages are recognised as official and used in public signage, education, justice and access to public administration, however, in case of commercial signage and advertisements the bilingual signage is usually used only by companies if they are owned by Hungarians. Roma people make up 2.51% of the city's population which is considerably lower than their proportion of 6.96% in Mureș County.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The largest religious community in Târgu Mureș is Romanian Orthodox, numbering 46.74% of the population. The most significant other religious communities are Reformed Church (30.06%), Roman Catholic (13.50%), Eastern Catholic (2.60%), and Unitarian (2.58%).


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Reformed Fortress Church is the oldest church in the town. According to historical evidence, less than a century had passed after the first appearance of the Franciscan order in Transylvania, Hungarian Kingdom, that the Franciscan friars arrived at Vásárhely. The building of the church took an entire century, from the middle of the 14th century until the middle of the 15th and it consisted of a monastery building, an older chapel, the church and the steeple. The church was finalized between 1400 and 1450. The church may have been originally decorated with frescos, as traces of mural paintings were found inside. The almost complete disappearance of these paintings is due to the fact that the church became the property of Protestant believers in 1557. The religious reform required for churches to have no paintings, statues or religious frescos.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The existence of the Franciscan order in Vásárhely was directly affected by the religious reform which was largely spread in Transylvania during the 16th century. In 1557, the influence of the Reformed Church over the Hungarians in the town was so strong that it eventually led to the confiscation of the properties of Catholic monastic orders. Franciscan friars, who until that time had been attending the church in the fortress, were forced to leave town. They returned after nearly two centuries when the political climate had become favorable to Catholicism due to the instauration of the Habsburgs in Transylvania. They bought the land in the center of the town where they built a new church and monastery by 1777. The tower, the only part that is still standing, was added to the church's façade in 1802 by architect János Topler. In 1971 the municipality decided to demolish the monastery to create the necessary space for the construction of the National Theater and the square in front of it. A new church was built in 1972 for the Franciscans on Libertății street.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: At the beginning of the 18th century, one of the most representative Baroque churches of Transylvania was built in the town. St John the Baptist Church was erected in the North-Eastern part of the city center and belongs to the Roman Catholic parish. The inside of the church is luxurious, with liturgical objects that are true works of art. The main altar, made in 1755 by Anton Schuchbauer and Johannes Nachtigal is of monumental dimensions and has a pseudo-architectural structure. The paintings of the altars in the lateral chapels: Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary, Saint Joseph, Saint John of Nepomuc, Holy Cross belong to the same Michael Angelo Unterberger. The stained glass windows made by the Türke Company of Grottau were installed in 1898.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Great Synagogue (also known as the Big Synagogue) was built between 1899 and 1900 at the initiative of the Jewish community "Status Quo". The design of the building was drawn up by Gartner Jacob from Vienna and the construction works were coordinated by the Hungarian Pál Soós. The entire edifice is dominated by the central cupola. Each side of the central spire is decorated with a floral rosette similar to the ones on the façade. This type of window is also used several times on the lateral façades. The vast interior is richly decorated, both with shapes and color. The synagogue has 314 seats on the ground floor and 238 on the top floor. The most recent large scale remodeling of the building took place in 2000 when the walls were reinforced and the interior decoration was re-done.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The existence of the Unitarian faith in the town is linked to the name of Ferenc Dávid, founder of Unitarianism and the first Unitarian bishop. The political circumstances in Transylvania became favourable for Ferenc Dávid's activity as the Diet of Torda held between 1557 and 1568 granted freedom of faith to all religions in Transylvania. The Unitarianism became religio-recepta together with all the other Protestant faiths. The king of the state himself, John II Sigismund Zápolya became Unitarian. The Unitarian Church was built between 1929 and 1930 next to the old Unitarian prayer house dating from 1869.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The first fortress in the town was erected in 1492 upon order of voivode Stephen Báthory, and was accomplished somewhere between 1602 and 1652 under judge Tamás Borsos. Having a pentagon plan, surrounded by a defense wall, the Citadel has seven forts, five of them bearing the names of the guild which – according to tradition – supported its maintenance: the leather dressers', the tailors', the butchers', the ironmongers', the coopers'. After the Citadel was taken over by the Austrian troops, it became the headquarters of the military garrison based in the town. In the meantime the Baroque style building was built (on the left hand side of the road in front of the entrance gate) and in the second half of the 18th century the construction works of the "barkey" were started, an addition finished in the 19th century. On the occasion of the Târgu Mureș days – which have as central point of performance the Citadel – a museum center was opened in the gate fort (erected in 1613) presenting the history of the town and of the Citadel.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Teleki-Bolyai Library is a historic public library and current museum in the town. One of the richest Transylvanian collections of cultural artefacts, it was founded by the Hungarian Count Sámuel Teleki in 1802, at the time when Transylvania was part of the Habsburg monarchy, and has been open to the reading public ever since. It was among the first institutions of its kind inside the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary. It houses over 200,000 volumes, of which many are rarities, constituting a comprehensive scientific database. The book collection is divided into several smaller libraries, of which the two main donations are the original 40,000-volume Teleki Library and the 80,000-volume Bolyai Library; the rest, grouped as the "Miscellaneous Collection", is made up of several private libraries, volumes previously held by religious schools and those of a Franciscan friary. Overall, the library constitutes a collection of most traditional types of Transylvanian book.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The old City Hall was built in 1906–1907 after the construction plans of Márcell Komor and Dezső Jakab. The entrance area, including the corridor and the staircase leading to the first floor, is the most representative in this regard. The ribbed stellar vaults that cover this area were inspired by Gothic architecture. The vaults are supported by columns with composite caps, and the keystone is a large floral shape which includes the lighting appliance. The vaults are painted with spiraling vegetal motifs. Elements of the front hall include the stone bench with its legs shaped as those of an animal and with wing-shaped handles. Its shell-shaped, golden back has a shield flanked by two volutes on its upper side. Features of the monumental staircase leading to the first floor include the upper side of the banister resembling a slithering animal or a wave. The exterior decoration is simpler and is based on Hungarian-Székely folk motives made of polychromatic ceramics. The ground floor is marked by a solid, embossed pedestal. Windows with large openings tend to be predominant in the façade. The three semicircular windows in the middle area of the façade are those of the honor hall that has a double elevation with respect to the other rooms. The glass paintings which illustrated Gábor Bethlen, Francis II Rákóczi, Lajos Kossuth, Ferenc Deák and Franz Joseph I of Austria are missing from the halls.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Palace of Culture is a remarkable construction in the city center. It was built upon initiative of the mayor of the town, György Bernády. Building works started in the spring of 1911. They contributed to the establishment of the distinctively flavored Hungarian Art Nouveau school in Transylvania by their works in Deva and Oradea. The plan is an irregular rectangle, with protuberances on the sides and at the extremities. The building has five floors: a tall ground floor, a mezzanine and three floors differentiated by the use of various construction materials. The façades are characterized by bi-dimensionality and by a liniar-rectangular style, with only a few curvilinear elements: the six bow-windows covered by semi-caps above the main portal and the circular balconies on the edges. The main entrance is in the middle of the façade on Enescu street and is made up of four massive doors, protected by an architectural element made of glass and with an iron framing. This element, as well as the doors decorated with iron floral motifs are typical for the early 20th century style. The exterior is richly decorated, with colored mosaic panels, with relieved scenes and busts of Hungarians. The mosaic on the main façade is an allegorical scene inspired by the Hungarian folklore. The cardboards were made by Nagy Sándor, a Hungarian artist, who founded with Körösföy Kriesch Aladár the School of Gödöllő. The art is characterized by bi-dimensionality and vertical rhythmicalness. Most of the mosaics and stained glass windows were authored by Róth Miksa, particularly those on the side facing Square.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mures is home to the Palace of Culture concert hall which is situated in the heart of the city. Weekly classical concerts are performed here by the Târgu Mureș State Philharmonic Orchestra.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: On the other side of the city center is the Târgu Mureș National Theater with two companies, Tompa Miklós (performances in Hungarian language) and Liviu Rebreanu (performances in Romanian language). Beside the main companies, there are also alternative underground theater companies called "Yorick Studio" and "Teatru 74'.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Dorin Florea had three investigations from National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) and did not run for another term in 2020.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In 2020, Zoltán Soós obtained 50.53% of the vote (considerably more than supported UDMR for the local council: 44.57%). The runner-up obtained 17.06%.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș is an important centre for general and higher education. The most important high schools are the Alexandru Papiu Ilarian National College, Unirea National College and the Hungarian-speaking Bolyai Farkas Elméleti Líceum. The latter is a continuator of the traditions of the "Schola Particula", established in Târgu Mureș in 1557, and of the Reformed College banished from Sárospatak at the beginning of the 18th century. The establishment was one of the first schools of the Reformed Church in Transylvania, was first working in the old building of the Franciscan friary in the fortress, and had , Tordai Ádám, Laskói Csókás Péter as teachers, as well as others. After being sacked in 1601 and 1602, the "Schola" was moved into another building, on the place of the present high school. For centuries it had accommodated the Reformed College and the present high school. The present aspect was acquired at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The main statue, facing Bolyai square was erected following the design of architect in 1908–1909, in Hungarian Secession style. Târgu Mureș also has a "School of Arts" (in Romanian "Liceul de Artă"; in Hungarian "Művészeti Líceum") which was set up in 1949. The school offers young musicians and children interested in graphic arts the best education in the county. Along the book-learning, the children attend music theory classes, musical instruments (violin, piano, violoncello, viola, double bass, flute, harp, trumpet, tube, trombone, bassoon, clarinet, oboe, horn, percussion instruments etc.) and graphic arts classes.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Renowned public universities like the University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology (UMFST) (founded in 1945) and University of Arts (1946) account for more than 10,000 students. Other universities are the Sapientia University (2001), a private institution of Hungarian higher education in Transylvania, and Dimitrie Cantemir University (1991).


title: Târgu Mureș

text: In medicine, units in the city are equipped with efficient equipment and highly specialized medical staff, among which stand out: the County Hospital, Emergency County Hospital (which is a regional unit), Institute of Prehospital Emergency Medical Care, Mobile Service Emergency Resuscitation and Extrication (SMURD), who at the time of its appearance was a national pilot project, and the Institute for Cardiovascular Diseases and Transplantation units under the direct authority of the Ministry of Health.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The city's medical services are exerted beyond city and county, with more than 30% of hospital patients in the Târgu Mureș Emergency County Hospital coming from other counties.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș is a major academic center in medicine. The Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy of the UMFST offers a wide range of fields, such as medical and military medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, dental technology, surgical and emergency care. It has a multicultural and multilingual status, national education law. Education is available both in Romanian and Hungarian, and also in English. Research programs are carried out both within the institution and in the hospital, there are several research projects conducted with partner institutions abroad.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The Transylvania Motorway (also known as A3), which is under construction, will pass near Târgu Mureș. Another future highway that will be connected with the city is the East-West Motorway, that will start in the eastern part of the country near Iași, Moldavia and will connect itself with A3. The construction is proposed to begin in the 2020s.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Romanian main-line railways are operated mainly by Căile Ferate Române (CFR). There are three railway termini in Târgu Mureș, South (southbound), Central, and North (northbound), operating both domestic and international rail services. The town is one of the main stops of the routes of MÁV: "Mureș InterCity", "Hargita InterCity". A tourist narrow gauge line (which formed part of an extensive narrow gauge system closed in the 1990s) to Band is operated at certain times of the year.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The city is served by Târgu Mureș Transilvania Airport, which provides both domestic and international flights. The airport was renovated in October 2005. It is the second busiest airport in Transylvania after the Cluj International Airport.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Târgu Mureș is represented in many sports, including: football, handball, basketball, futsal and volleyball.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: Two football teams are based in the city: CSM Târgu Mureș and ACS MSE Târgu Mureș. Historically, the city's most successful clubs are ASA Târgu Mureș and ASA 2013 Târgu Mureș. The former was dissolved in 2007, its biggest achievement being its participation in three editions of the UEFA Cup during the '70s. The latter, founded in 2008, had a relatively short existence, being dissolved in 2017, but managed to win the 2015 Romanian Super Cup.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: BC Mureș is the city's basketball team. It plays in the First Romanian League. In the 2012–13 season, the club reached its highest achievement yet. It was the first time in club history when BC Mureș won the regular season. Eventually they finished second after losing in the final 4–2 to CSU Asesoft Ploiești.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: "CSU Medicina" represents Târgu Mureș in the women's volleyball league. The team has been a constant presence in the top flight of Romanian volleyball in the last 15 years.


title: Târgu Mureș

text: The city has the 3 times national champion futsal team "City'us Târgu Mureș", team who also competed in the UEFA Futsal Champions League.


title: Astragalus

text: Astragalus is a large genus of over 3,000 species of herbs and small shrubs, belonging to the legume family Fabaceae and the subfamily Faboideae. It is the largest genus of plants in terms of described species. The genus is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Common names include milkvetch (most species), locoweed (in North America, some species) and goat's-thorn ("A. gummifer", "A. tragacantha"). Some pale-flowered vetches ("Vicia" spp.) are similar in appearance, but they are more vine-like than "Astragalus".


title: Astragalus

text: Most species in the genus have pinnately compound leaves. There are annual and perennial species. The flowers are formed in clusters in a raceme, each flower typical of the legume family, with three types of petals: banner, wings, and keel. The calyx is tubular or bell-shaped.


title: Astragalus

text: "Astragalus" species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including many case-bearing moths of the genus "Coleophora": "C. cartilaginella", "C. colutella", "C. euryaula", and "C. onobrychiella" feed exclusively on "Astragalus", "C. astragalella" and "C. gallipennella" feed exclusively on the species "Astragalus glycyphyllos", and "C. hippodromica" is limited to "Astragalus gombo".


title: Astragalus

text: The name "Astragalus" is Greek, an old name for this group of plants which were believed to have a positive effect on goat milk production.


title: Astragalus

text: Astragalus has been used in traditional Chinese medicine over centuries to treat various disorders, but there is no high-quality evidence that it is effective or safe for any medical purpose.


title: Astragalus

text: Extracts of astragalus root include diverse phytochemicals, such as saponins and isoflavone flavonoids, which are purported in traditional practices to increase lactation in nursing mothers. There is no valid clinical evidence to indicate such use is effective or safe for the mother or infant. Dietary supplement products containing astragalus extracts may not have been adequately tested for efficacy, safety, purity or consistency. The root extracts of astragalus may be used in soups, teas or sold in capsules.


title: Astragalus

text: Although astragalus supplements are generally well tolerated, mild gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea, and allergic reactions may occur. Because astragalus may affect regulation of blood sugar and blood pressure, it may be risky for people with blood disorders, diabetes, or hypertension to use it as a supplement. Astragalus may interact with prescribed drugs that suppress the immune system, such as medications used by people being treated for cancer or recovery from organ transplants.


title: Astragalus

text: Some astragalus species can be toxic, such as those found in the United States containing the neurotoxin swainsonine, which causes "locoweed" poisoning in animals. Some astragalus species may contain high levels of selenium, possibly causing toxicity.


title: Astragalus

text: Several species, including "A. alpinus" (bluish-purple flowers), "A. hypoglottis" (purple flowers), and "A. lotoides", are grown as ornamental plants in gardens.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" is the seventh season premiere episode of HBO's fantasy television series "Game of Thrones", and the 61st overall. It was written by series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, and directed by Jeremy Podeswa.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: The episode's main plot focuses on Daenerys Targaryen's long-awaited homecoming to Dragonstone with her vast forces, and Cersei and Jaime Lannister treating with Euron Greyjoy for an alliance after the demise of House Frey.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" received positive reviews from critics, who considered Arya's revenge on House Frey, Sandor Clegane's atonement for his old life, and Daenerys's dramatic homecoming to Dragonstone as highlights of the episode. However, a cameo appearance by singer Ed Sheeran received immense criticism. In the United States, the episode achieved a viewership of 10.11 million in its initial broadcast.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Disguised as Walder Frey, Arya Stark kills all the men of House Frey with poisoned wine, avenging the Red Wedding ("The Rains of Castamere"). Arya proceeds south to assassinate Queen Cersei Lannister, and makes camp with friendly Lannister soldiers.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Sandor Clegane and the Brotherhood without Banners take shelter in the farm Sandor once robbed ("Breaker of Chains"); the farmer and his daughter are long dead inside. Beric Dondarrion admits he does not know why he has been repeatedly resurrected. Thoros of Myr shows Sandor a vision in the flames of White Walkers passing a mountain that looks like an arrowhead, on the march to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. At night, Sandor buries the bodies. Discovering him, Thoros helps.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Bran Stark and Meera Reed arrive at the Wall. Eddison Tollett is initially suspicious of them, but lets them in when Bran reveals his knowledge of the attack at Hardhome ("Hardhome"). Meanwhile, the White Walkers and wights march south.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Jon Snow forgives Alys Karstark and Ned Umber for their fathers' betrayals of House Stark in favor of House Bolton, despite Sansa Stark's objections, and they swear their loyalty to him. Jon orders Tormund Giantsbane and the wildlings to fortify the Wall at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, and all Northerners of age to train for battle. In private, Jon is frustrated that Sansa questioned his actions, but Sansa tells him that she doesn't want Jon to repeat the mistakes for which Ned and Robb Stark died. A message from Cersei orders Jon to swear loyalty to her; Jon believes her army poses no threat to them during winter, but Sansa refuses to underestimate her.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Sansa rejects Littlefinger's attempts to ingratiate himself with her. She tells Brienne of Tarth, however, that she can't dismiss him outright because they need the Vale's military support.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Cersei learns that Daenerys Targaryen will return to Westeros soon, and realizes she and Jaime Lannister have very few allies. Euron Greyjoy arrives in King's Landing offering Cersei an alliance and marriage. Cersei accepts the alliance but rejects Euron because he is untrustworthy, but Euron promises to win her over with a priceless gift.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Archmaester Ebrose denies Samwell Tarly access to the library's restricted area; Ebrose believes in the White Walkers, but trusts the Wall will halt their march. Sam sneaks in at night and steals a few books. He learns of a very large dragonglass deposit under Dragonstone, and informs Jon.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Sam encounters Jorah Mormont, who is a patient in isolation due to his greyscale. Jorah asks if Daenerys has arrived in Westeros, but Sam doesn't know.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Daenerys and her fleet arrive at Dragonstone. After she and her advisors enter the castle, she sees the throne her ancestors built, enters the war room with Tyrion and asks, “Shall we begin?”


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" was written by the series' creators, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. The conversation between Jon Snow and Sansa Stark shows Sansa's lingering resentment that she has been insufficiently credited for securing the alliance with the Vale, and also highlights Jon and Sansa's respective, differing identification of the White Walkers and Cersei as primary threats. The dialogue between Jaime and Cersei emphasizes that, with her children dead, Cersei is morally unconstrained and lacks Daenerys's concern for innocents. The writers deliberately excluded dialogue from the scene of Daenerys's arrival at Dragonstone, to preserve the gravitas of that moment.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" saw the introduction of Jim Broadbent as Archmaester Ebrose at the Citadel. His casting in the series was initially announced by HBO to "Entertainment Weekly" in August 2016, and at the time was only revealed as a "significant" role in the seventh season. In a subsequent interview, Broadbent revealed his role in the series, and that he would be sharing his scenes with John Bradley, who portrays Samwell Tarly.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Prior to the episode airing, it was announced that musician Ed Sheeran would be making a cameo appearance at some point during the season. According to David Benioff, they had been trying for years to get him onto the show as a surprise for Maisie Williams, who portrays Arya Stark in the series and is a fan of Sheeran. Before the episode's official release, Sheeran stated about his appearance that "Nothing exciting happens in this scene, we just have a conversation and that's kind of it." In "Dragonstone", Sheeran portrays a Lannister soldier, who Arya happens upon when she hears him singing a song that is unfamiliar to her. The song originates from George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" book series, which the television series is adapted from, and is titled "Hands of Gold". In the book series, it is sung by a character known as Symon Silver Tongue, a character unrelated to Sheeran's portrayal.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" was directed by Jeremy Podeswa. He joined the series as a director in the fifth season, his first episode being "Kill the Boy", which was followed by "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken", for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series. He further directed two more episodes in the series' sixth season, and also directed the seventh season's finale episode. In an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter" following the airing of "Dragonstone", Podeswa discussed his experience with directing Ed Sheeran's cameo appearance, stating "He was lovely to work with. He was lovely on the show. I think he fit right into that world." He continued by noting that Sheeran requested to change the key of the song that he performs in the scene during the episode's filming.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Podeswa also discussed his direction for the cold open, saying he wanted to "honor the great writing", and praised Maisie Williams and David Bradley's performance as Arya Stark and Walder Frey respectively, stating "As we got more into it, you knew the audience would have questions coming right into the scene, knowing Walder Frey is dead. So, what is this? Is it a flashback? Is there something else going on here? It's about playing that line of audience surprise and curiosity and how they read the scene. David's performance is so fantastic where there's a moment you can almost feel Arya inside of him. It's even before the dialogue betrays who he is." The scene was not written as a cold open; Benioff and Weiss made that decision on the strength of Bradley's work. Following the cold open, Podeswa also spoke about directing the opening scene following the title sequence, revealing "We knew it would be one shot. Nothing fancy in terms of camerawork. But it's a shot that very slowly reveals itself over time, and we take that time. Then it was a matter of me conceptualizing it with the storyboard artists and visual effects department." Podeswa also stated that the scene ending on the eye of the giant wight was not originally in the script, but came from working with the art department for the series.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Benioff and Weiss praised Rory McCann's acting in showing the torment and guilt experienced by Sandor Clegane; Weiss identified Clegane's discovery of the farm family's unpleasant deaths as a favorite scene in the episode.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: In discussing the montage of Samwell Tarly at the Citadel, Podeswa noted that his past experience with directing a montage sequence of Arya while she is washing bodies at the House of Black and White may have been the reason for the showrunners to have included it in the episode, saying "In David and Dan's minds, they made a connection between me and montages, even though tonally these two are very different." He also divulged that the original version of the montage was "about seven or eight minutes" due to the amount of material that Podeswa had directed, and that the final version was edited down significantly.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: For the closing scene of Daenerys Targaryen arriving at Dragonstone, Podeswa noted that very little of the scene was shot on a sound stage, but rather on location, saying "The only thing shot on stage were the gates at the top of the stairs that leads to the long winding pathway up to the castle. Everything else was shot on location, in a number of different locations: Zumaia Beach in Spain is where she lands and walks up the stairs and gets to where the gates are. Another place — San Juan — is the place where that amazing staircase that doesn't look real and looks like a CG creation, but it's not, that's a spectacular location going up to Dragonstone castle." The interiors of Dragonstone, however, were all shot on a sound stage, with set designer Deb Riley creating the throne room, and redesigning the map room for the episode.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" was viewed by 16.1 million total viewers, including 10.11 million on its initial viewing on HBO and the remaining coming from DVR and streaming, making it the most watched episode in the series' history up to that point. The episode also acquired a 4.7 rating in the 18–49 demographic. The episode inspired 2.4 million tweets during the time it aired, making it the show's most-tweeted episode yet. The episode was pirated 90 million times in the first three days since it aired. In the United Kingdom, the episode was viewed by 3.495 million viewers on Sky Atlantic during its Simulcast, making it the highest-rated broadcast that week. On August 2, 2017, HBO announced that the episode was about to surpass 30 million U.S. viewers across all of the network's domestic platforms. In the UK, the episode received up to 4.7 million viewers after seven days, making it the highest for any program ever on Sky Atlantic.


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: "Dragonstone" has received widespread praise from critics. It has a 93% rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes from 45 reviews with an average score of 8.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads "With a blistering opening salvo, "Game of Thrones" charts an assured path for its anxiously-anticipated final stretch."


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Matt Fowler of "IGN" wrote in his review for the episode "'Dragonstone' sublimely set the stage for "Game of Thrones" Season 7 with some righteous revenge, a new alliance, a dramatic (and quiet) homecoming, and a surprisingly great sequence from The Hound as he began to atone for his old life." He gave the episode an 8.8 out of 10. Erik Kain of "Forbes" similarly gave praise to the episode, writing "This was easily one of my favorite season premieres of any season of "Game of Thrones". It's a testament to the show's staying power and quality that even this far in, a season's first episode could be so good. So much of it was just setting the stage, and yet I was reeled in, hook, line and sinker, from the opening moment to the closing credits." Jane Mulkerrins of "The Daily Telegraph" also praised the episode, writing "One might wonder whether the biggest, bloodiest, most Dragon-heavy show on television would still have the ability to shock and surprise. The answer, happily, is yes." Matthew Gilbert of "The Boston Globe" said "The season premiere of Game of Thrones was thoroughly satisfying, a transporting hour that brilliantly reestablished the chessboard for the new, penultimate season."


title: Dragonstone (Game of Thrones episode)

text: Ed Sheeran received harshly negative reviews over his cameo appearance. He deleted his Twitter account shortly after it. Much of the criticism was around the fact that there seemed to have been no attempt to disguise his cameo – while other artists such as Coldplay drummer Will Champion and Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol were more difficult to spot in their scenes.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Caren Marsh Doll ( Morris; born April 6, 1919), also credited as Caren Marsh, is an American former stage and screen actress and dancer specializing in modern dance and tap. She is notable as Judy Garland's stand-in in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) and "Ziegfeld Girl" in 1941. She is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: From 1937 until 1948, Marsh appeared in motion pictures with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, including a small uncredited part in "Gone with the Wind". She became a dance instructor in 1956.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Marsh was born in Hollywood, California on April 6, 1919. Her father was a Hollywood stockbroker. She and her family were active in the Methodist church. In 1937, she graduated from Hollywood High School and wanted to become an actress. Her parents did not approve of this choice and preferred she pursue a college education. They compromised by telling Caren that unless she could land an acting job she would be sent to school.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Marsh auditioned for a role in "Rosalie" (1937), starring Nelson Eddy and Eleanor Powell, but did not win the role. She later re-auditioned for that movie and got the part. She was hired as Judy Garland's dance stand-in for "The Wizard of Oz". She was hired largely mostly because she was similar in height and build to Garland and even received her own pair of ruby slippers. She served as a stand-in for Garland a second time with "Ziegfeld Girl" (1941). According to Marsh, when she wasn't filling in for Garland in "The Wizard of Oz" she would be across Hollywood at Selznick International Pictures working as an extra in "Gone with the Wind" (1939).


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: In film, credited under the name Caren Marsh, she appeared in films such as "That Night in Rio" (1941), "Hands Across the Border" (1944), "Wild Harvest" (1947), "Girl Crazy" (1943)," Best Foot Forward" (1943), "Seven Sweethearts" (1942), and "Night and Day" (1946). She did appear in speaking parts in films as "Secrets of a Sorority Girl" (1945) and "Navajo Kid" (1945).


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: In 1947, Marsh was named Miss Sky Lady of 1947 and began appearing in fewer films to focus on her new interest in dance. After appearing in an airshow as Miss Sky Lady, she took flight instruction classes, learned to fly and later dropped leaflets of her acting profile on various movie studios in Hollywood. She made an appearance on "The Gabby Hayes Show" in 1956, after which she became a dance instructor.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: On July 12, 1949, aged 30, Marsh was aboard Standard Air Lines Flight 897R, when the C-46E crashed. The flight had left Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 4:43 am. While on approach to the Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank, California, at 7:40 am, the twin engine plane, flying too low, hooked a wingtip on a hill and crashed near Chatsworth, California, and Marsh was one of the 13 people who survived. Marsh was pulled from the wreckage by another passenger named Judy Frost. Marsh was hospitalized at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for several weeks, and nearly had her left foot amputated. Marsh's doctors told her that she would likely never dance again, but after careful exercise she was able to heal and continue in her dancing.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Although not a credited cast member, Marsh is one of a few known surviving personnel to have worked on the MGM film "The Wizard of Oz". She has appeared in "Wizard of Oz" film festivals, conventions, and reunions.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: In November 2007, Marsh published her autobiography, "Hollywood's Babe", in which she discussed her life in Hollywood, and her love affair with "The Wizard of Oz".


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Marsh moved to Palm Springs, California, in 1957 and married Bill Doll, (died 1979) a press agent to theatre and film producer Mike Todd. The Dolls had one son. Her sister actress Dorothy Morris, became her neighbor when Marsh retired in 1971. The sisters lived next door to each other until Dorothy's death on November 20, 2011. She turned 100 in April 2019.


title: Caren Marsh Doll

text: Once a month on the first Monday, Marsh volunteers as a dance therapy instructor at the Palm Springs Stroke Activity Center where the styles taught range from themes like ballroom dancing, country, Hawaiian, and belly dancing. She is an active member of The Palm Springs United Methodist Community Church.


title: History of the United States (1865–1918)

text: The history of the United States from 1865 until 1918 covers the Reconstruction Era, the Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era, and includes the rise of industrialization and the resulting surge of immigration in the United States. This article focuses on political, economic, and diplomatic history.


text: This period of rapid economic growth and soaring prosperity in the Northern United States and the Western United States saw the U.S. become the world's dominant economic, industrial, and agricultural power. The average annual income (after inflation) of non-farm workers grew by 75% from 1865 to 1900, and then grew another 33% by 1918.


text: With a victory in 1865 over the Southern Confederate States in the Civil War, the United States became a united nation with a stronger national government. Reconstruction brought the end of legalized slavery plus citizenship for the former slaves, but their new-found political power was rolled back within a decade, and they became second-class citizens under a "Jim Crow" system of deeply pervasive segregation that would stand for the next 80–90 years. Politically, during the Third Party System and Fourth Party System the nation was mostly dominated by Republicans (except for two Democratic presidents). After 1900 and the assassination of President William McKinley, the Progressive Era brought political, business, and social reforms (e.g., new roles for and government expansion of education, higher status for women, a curtailment of corporate excesses, and modernization of many areas of government and society). The Progressives worked through new middle-class organizations to fight against the corruption and behind-the-scenes power of entrenched, state political party organizations and big-city "machines". They demanded—and won—women's right to vote, and the nationwide prohibition of alcohol 1920-1933.


text: In an unprecedented wave of European immigration, 27.5 million new arrivals between 1865 and 1918 provided the labor base necessary for the expansion of industry and agriculture, as well as the population base for most of fast-growing urban America.


text: By the late nineteenth century, the United States had become a leading global industrial power, building on new technologies (such as the telegraph and steel), an expanding railroad network, and abundant natural resources such as coal, timber, oil, and farmland, to usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.


text: There were also two very important wars. The U.S. easily defeated Spain in 1898, which unexpectedly brought a small empire. Cuba quickly was given independence, as well as the Philippines (in 1946). Puerto Rico (and some smaller islands) became permanent U.S. territories, as did Alaska (added by purchase in 1867). The independent Republic of Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. as a territory in 1898.


text: The United States tried and failed to broker a peace settlement for World War I, then entered the war after Germany launched a submarine campaign against U.S. merchant ships that were supplying Germany's enemy countries. The publicly stated goals were to uphold American honor, crush German militarism, and reshape the postwar world. After a slow mobilization, the U.S. helped bring about a decisive Allied Forces victory by supplying badly needed financing, food, and millions of fresh and eager soldiers.


text: Reconstruction was the period from 1863 to 1877, in which the federal government temporarily took control—one by one—of the Southern states of the Confederacy. Before his assassination in April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln had announced moderate plans for reconstruction to re-integrate the former Confederates as fast as possible. Lincoln set up the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1865, to aid former enslaved people in finding education, health care, and employment. The final abolition of slavery was achieved by the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865. However, Lincoln was opposed by the Radical Republicans within his own party who feared that the former Confederates would never truly give up on slavery and Confederate nationalism, and would always try to reinstate them behind-the-scenes. As a result, the Radical Republicans tried to impose legal restrictions that would strip most ex-rebels' rights to vote and hold elected office. The Radicals were opposed by Lincoln's Vice President and successor, Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson. However, the Radicals won the critical elections of 1866, winning enough seats in Congress to override President Johnson's vetoes of such legislation. They even successfully impeached President Johnson (in the House of Representatives), and almost removed him from office (in the Senate) in 1868. Meanwhile, they gave the South's "freedmen" new constitutional and federal legal protections.


text: The Radicals' reconstruction plans took effect in 1867 under the supervision of the U.S. Army, allowing a Republican coalition of Freedmen, Scalawags (sympathetic local whites), and Carpetbaggers (recent arrivals from the North), to take control of Southern state governments. They ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, giving enormous new powers to the federal courts to deal with justice at the state level. These state governments borrowed heavily to build railroads and public schools, increasing taxation rates. The backlash of increasingly fierce opposition to these policies drove most of the Scalawags out of the Republican Party and into the Democratic Party. President Ulysses S. Grant enforced civil rights protections for African-Americans that were being challenged in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870 giving African-Americans the right to vote in American elections.


text: U.S. Representative Thaddeus Stevens was one of the major policymakers regarding Reconstruction, and obtained a House vote of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson. Hans Trefousse, his leading biographer, concludes that Stevens "was one of the most influential representatives ever to serve in Congress. [He dominated] the House with his wit, knowledge of parliamentary law, and sheer willpower, even though he was often unable to prevail."


text: Reconstruction ended at different times in each state, the last in 1877, when Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the contentious presidential election of 1876 over his opponent, Samuel J. Tilden. To deal with disputed electoral votes, Congress set up an Electoral Commission. It awarded the disputed votes to Hayes. The white South accepted the "Compromise of 1877" knowing that Hayes proposed to end Army control over the remaining three state governments in Republican hands. White Northerners accepted that the Civil War was over and that Southern whites posed no threat to the nation.


text: The end of Reconstruction marked the end of the brief period of civil rights and civil liberties for African Americans in the South, where most lived. Reconstruction caused permanent resentment, distrust, and cynicism among white Southerners toward the federal government, and helped create the "Solid South," which typically voted for the (then-)socially conservative Democrats for all local, state, and national offices. White supremacists created a segregated society through "Jim Crow Laws" that made blacks second-class citizens with very little political power or public voice. The white elites (called the "Redeemers"—the southern wing of the "Bourbon Democrats") were in firm political and economic control of the south until the rise of the Populist movement in the 1890s. Local law enforcement was weak in rural areas, allowing outraged mobs to use lynching to redress alleged-but-often-unproven crimes charged to blacks.


text: Historians' interpretations of the Radical Republicans have dramatically shifted over the years, from the pre-1950 view of them as tools of big business motivated by partisanship and hatred of the white South, to the perspective of the neoabolitionists of the 1950s and afterwards, who applauded their efforts to give equal rights to the freed slaves.


text: In the South itself the interpretation of the tumultuous 1860s differed sharply by race. Americans often interpreted great events in religious terms. Historian Wilson Fallin contrasts the interpretation of Civil War and Reconstruction in white versus black using Baptist sermons in Alabama. White preachers expressed the view that:


text: Historians in the 21st century typically consider Reconstruction to be a failure, but they "disagree on what caused Reconstruction to fail, focusing on whether it went too far, too fast or did not go far enough."


text: In 1869, the First transcontinental railroad opened up the far west mining and ranching regions. Travel from New York to San Francisco now took six days instead of six months. After the Civil War, many from the East Coast and Europe were lured west by reports from relatives and by extensive advertising campaigns promising "the Best Prairie Lands", "Low Prices", "Large Discounts For Cash", and "Better Terms Than Ever!". The new railroads provided the opportunity for migrants to go out and take a look, with special family tickets, the cost of which could be applied to land purchases offered by the railroads. Farming the plains was indeed more difficult than back east. Water management was more critical, lightning fires were more prevalent, the weather was more extreme, rainfall was less predictable. The fearful stayed home. The actual migrants looked beyond fears of the unknown. Their chief motivation to move west was to find a better economic life than the one they had. Farmers sought larger, cheaper and more fertile land; merchants and tradesmen sought new customers and new leadership opportunities. Laborers wanted higher paying work and better conditions. With the Homestead Act providing free land to citizens and the railroads selling cheap lands to European farmers, the settlement of the Great Plains was swiftly accomplished, and the frontier had virtually ended by 1890.


text: Expansion into the plains and mountains by miners, ranchers and settlers led to conflict with some of the regional Indian tribes. The government insisted the American Indians either move into the general society and become assimilated, or remain on assigned reservations. The Army used force to keep those choosing reservation life from threatening nearby tribes or settlers. The violence petered out in the 1880s and practically ceased after 1890. By 1880 the buffalo herds, a foundation for the hunting economy, had disappeared.


text: American Indians had the choice of living on reservations. The US government provided food, supplies, education and medical care. Individuals could move out on their own in Western society and earning wages, typically on a ranch. Reformers wanted to give as many American Indians as possible the opportunity to own and operate their own farms and ranches, and the issue was how to give individual Indians land owned by the tribe. To assimilate the Indians into American society, reformers set up training programs and schools, such as the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, that produced many prominent Indian leaders. The anti-assimilation traditionalists on the reservations, however, resisted integration. The reformers decided the solution was to allow Indians still on reservations to own land as individuals.


text: The Dawes Act of 1887 was an effort to integrate American Indians into the mainstream; the majority accepted integration and were absorbed into American society, leaving a trace of American Indian ancestry in millions of American families. Those who refused to assimilate remained in poverty on the reservations, supported by Federal food, medicine and schooling. In 1934, U.S. policy was reversed again by the Indian Reorganization Act which attempted to protect tribal and communal life on the reservations.


text: A dramatic expansion in farming took place. The number of farms tripled from 2.0 million in 1860 to 6.0 million in 1905. The number of people living on farms grew from about 10 million in 1860 to 22 million in 1880 to 31 million in 1905. The value of farms soared from $8.0 billion in 1860 to $30 billion in 1906.


text: The federal government issued tracts virtually free to settlers under the Homestead Act of 1862. Even larger numbers purchased lands at very low interest from the new railroads, which were trying to create markets. The railroads advertised heavily in Europe and brought over, at low fares, hundreds of thousands of farmers from Germany, Scandinavia and Britain.


text: Despite their remarkable progress and general prosperity, 19th-century U.S. farmers experienced recurring cycles of hardship, caused primarily by falling world prices for cotton and wheat.


text: Along with the mechanical improvements which greatly increased yield per unit area, the amount of land under cultivation grew rapidly throughout the second half of the century, as the railroads opened up new areas of the West for settlement. The wheat farmers enjoyed abundant output and good years from 1876 to 1881 when bad European harvests kept the world price high. They then suffered from a slump in the 1880s when conditions in Europe improved. The farther west the settlers went, the more dependent they became on the monopolistic railroads to move their goods to market, and the more inclined they were to protest, as in the Populist movement of the 1890s. Wheat farmers blamed local grain elevator owners (who purchased their crop), railroads and eastern bankers for the low prices.


text: The first organized effort to address general agricultural problems was the Grange movement that reached out to farmers. It grew to 20,000 chapters and 1.5 million members. The Granges set up their own marketing systems, stores, processing plants, factories and cooperatives. Most went bankrupt. The movement also enjoyed some political success during the 1870s. A few Midwestern states passed "Granger Laws", limiting railroad and warehouse fees.


text: Few single men attempted to operate a farm; farmers clearly understood the need for a hard-working wife, and numerous children, to handle the many chores, including child-rearing, feeding and clothing the family, managing the housework, and feeding the hired hands. During the early years of settlement, farm women played an integral role in assuring family survival by working outdoors. After a generation or so, women increasingly left the fields, thus redefining their roles within the family. New conveniences such as sewing and washing machines encouraged women to turn to domestic roles. This was further supported by the scientific housekeeping movement, promoted across the land by the media and government extension agents, as well as county fairs which featured achievements in home cookery and canning, advice columns for women in the farm papers, and home economics courses in the schools.


text: Although the eastern image of farm life on the prairies emphasizes the isolation of the lonely farmer and farm life, in reality rural folk created a rich social life for themselves. For example, many joined a local branch of the Grange; a majority had ties to local churches. It was popular to organize activities that combined practical work, abundant food, and simple entertainment such as barn raisings, corn huskings, and quilting bees. One could keep busy with scheduled Grange meetings, church services, and school functions. The womenfolk organized shared meals and potluck events, as well as extended visits between families.


text: Childhood on the American frontier is contested territory. One group of scholars argues the rural environment was salubrious for it allowed children to break loose from urban hierarchies of age and gender, promoted family interdependence, and in the end produced children who were more self-reliant, mobile, adaptable, responsible, independent and more in touch with nature than their urban or eastern counterparts. However other historians offer a grim portrait of loneliness, privation, abuse, and demanding physical labor from an early age.


text: From 1865 to about 1913, the U.S. grew to become the world's leading industrial nation. Land and labor, the diversity of climate, the ample presence of railroads (as well as navigable rivers), and the natural resources all fostered the cheap extraction of energy, fast transport, and the availability of capital that powered this Second Industrial Revolution. The average annual income (after inflation) of non-farm workers grew by 75% from 1865 to 1900, and then grew another 33% by 1918.


text: Where the First Industrial Revolution shifted production from artisans to factories, the Second Industrial Revolution pioneered an expansion in organization, coordination, and the scale of industry, spurred on by technology and transportation advancements. Railroads opened the West, creating farms, towns, and markets where none had existed. The First transcontinental railroad, built by nationally oriented entrepreneurs with British money and Irish and Chinese labor, provided access to previously remote expanses of land. Railway construction boosted opportunities for capital, credit, and would-be farmers.


text: New technologies in iron and steel manufacturing, such as the Bessemer process and open-hearth furnace, combined with similar innovations in chemistry and other sciences to vastly improve productivity. New communication tools, such as the telegraph and telephone allowed corporate managers to coordinate across great distances. Innovations also occurred in how work was organized, typified by Frederick Winslow Taylor's ideas of scientific management.


text: To finance the larger-scale enterprises required during this era, the corporation emerged as the dominant form of business organization. Corporations expanded by merging, creating single firms out of competing firms known as "trusts" (a form of monopoly). High tariffs sheltered U.S. factories and workers from foreign competition, especially in the woolen industry. Federal railroad land grants enriched investors, farmers and railroad workers, and created hundreds of towns and cities. Business often went to court to stop labor from organizing into unions or from organizing strikes.


text: Powerful industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould, known collectively by their critics as "robber barons", held great wealth and power, so much so that in 1888 Rutherford B. Hayes noted in his diary that the United States ceased being a government for the people and had been replaced by a "government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation." In a context of cutthroat competition for wealth accumulation, the skilled labor of artisans gave way to well-paid skilled workers and engineers, as the nation deepened its technological base. Meanwhile, a steady stream of immigrants encouraged the availability of cheap labor, especially in mining and manufacturing.


text: In the fast-growing industrial sector, wages were about double the level in Europe, but the work was harder with less leisure. Economic depressions swept the nation in 1873–75 and 1893–97, with low prices for farm goods and heavy unemployment in factories and mines. Full prosperity returned in 1897 and continued (with minor dips) to 1920.


text: The pool of unskilled labor was constantly growing, as unprecedented numbers of immigrants—27.5 million between 1865 and 1918 —entered the U.S. Most were young men eager for work. The rapid growth of engineering and the need to master the new technology created a heavy demand for engineers, technicians, and skilled workers. Before 1874, when Massachusetts passed the nation's first legislation limiting the number of hours women and child factory workers could perform to 10 hours a day, virtually no labor legislation existed in the country. Child labor reached a peak around 1900 and then declined (except in Southern textile mills) as compulsory education laws kept children in school. It was finally ended in the 1930s.


text: The first major effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis appeared with The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869. Originally a secret, ritualistic society organized by Philadelphia garment workers, it was open to all workers, including African Americans, women, and farmers. The Knights grew slowly until they succeeded in facing down the great railroad baron, Jay Gould, in an 1885 strike. Within a year, they added 500,000 workers to their rolls, far more than the thin leadership structure of the Knights could handle.


text: The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline, and their place in the labor movement was gradually taken by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Rather than open its membership to all, the AFL, under former cigar-makers union official Samuel Gompers, focused on skilled workers. His objectives were "pure and simple": increasing wages, reducing hours, and improving working conditions. As such, Gompers helped turn the labor movement away from the socialist views earlier labor leaders had espoused. The AFL would gradually become a respected organization in the U.S., although it would have nothing to do with unskilled laborers.


text: In times of economic depression, layoffs and wage cuts angered the workers, leading to violent labor conflicts in 1877 and 1894. In the Great Railroad Strike in 1877, railroad workers across the nation went on strike in response to a 10-percent pay cut. Attempts to break the strike led to bloody uprisings in several cities. The Haymarket Riot took place in 1886, when an anarchist allegedly threw a bomb that killed several police dispersing a strike rally at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago. Anarchists were arrested and convicted, weakening the movement.


text: At its peak, the Knights claimed 700,000 members. By 1890, membership had plummeted to fewer than 100,000, then faded away. The killing of policemen greatly embarrassed the Knights of Labor, which was not involved with the bomb but which took much of the blame.


text: In the riots of 1892 at Carnegie's steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a group of 300 Pinkerton detectives, whom the company had hired to break a bitter strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, were fired upon by strikers and 10 were killed. As a result, the National Guard was called in to guard the plant; non-union workers were hired and the strike broken. The Homestead plant completely barred unions until 1937.


text: Two years later, wage cuts at the Pullman Palace Car Company, just outside Chicago, led to a strike, which, with the support of the American Railway Union, soon brought the nation's railway industry to a halt. The shutdown of rail traffic meant the virtual shutdown of the entire national economy, and President Grover Cleveland acted vigorously. He secured injunctions in federal court, which Eugene Debs and the other strike leaders ignored. Cleveland then sent in the Army to stop the rioting and get the trains moving. The strike collapsed, as did the ARU.


text: The most militant working class organization of the 1905–1920 era was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), formed largely in response to abysmal labor conditions (in 1904, the year before its founding, 27,000 workers were killed on the job) and discrimination against women, minorities, and unskilled laborers by other unions, particularly the AFL. The "Wobblies," as they were commonly known, gained particular prominence from their incendiary and revolutionary rhetoric. Openly calling for class warfare, direct action, workplace democracy and "One Big Union" for all workers regardless of sex, race or skills, the Wobblies gained many adherents after they won a difficult 1912 textile strike (commonly known as the "Bread and Roses" strike) in Lawrence, Massachusetts. They proved ineffective in managing peaceful labor relations and members dropped away, primarily because the union failed to build long-term worker organizations even after a successful campaign, leaving the workers involved at the mercy of employers once the IWW had moved on. However, this was not fatal to the union. That the IWW directly challenged capitalism via direct action at the point of production prompted swift and decisive action from the state, especially during and after World War I. According to historian Howard Zinn, "the IWW became a threat to the capitalist class, exactly when capitalist growth was enormous and profits huge." The IWW strongly opposed the 1917–18 war effort and faced a campaign of repression from the federal government. More than a few Wobblies, such as Frank Little, were beaten or lynched by mobs or died in American jails.


text: The "Gilded Age" that was enjoyed by the topmost percentiles of American society after the recovery from the Panic of 1873 floated on the surface of the newly industrialized economy of the Second Industrial Revolution. It was further fueled by a period of wealth transfer that catalyzed dramatic social changes. It created for the first time a class of the super-rich "captains of industry", the "robber barons" whose network of business, social and family connections ruled a largely White Anglo-Saxon Protestant social world that possessed clearly defined boundaries. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, "", employing the ironic difference between a "gilded" and a Golden Age.


text: With the end of Reconstruction, there were few major political issues at stake and the 1880 presidential election was the quietest in a long time. James Garfield, the Republican candidate, won a very close election, but a few months into his administration was shot by a disgruntled public office seeker. Garfield was succeeded by his VP Chester Arthur.


text: Reformers, especially the "Mugwumps" complained that powerful parties made for corruption during the Gilded Age or "Third Party System". Voter enthusiasm and turnout during the period 1872–1892 was very high, often reaching practically all men. The major issues involved modernization, money, railroads, corruption, and prohibition. National elections, and many state elections, were very close. The 1884 presidential election saw a mudslinging campaign in which Republican James G. Blaine was defeated by Democrat Grover Cleveland, a reformer. During Cleveland's presidency, he pushed to have congress cut tariff duties. He also expanded civil services and vetoed many private pension bills. Many people were worried that these issues would hurt his chances in the 1888 election. When they expressed these concerns to Cleveland, he said "What is the use of being elected or reelected, unless you stand for something?"


text: The dominant social class of the Northeast possessed the confidence to proclaim an "American Renaissance", which could be identified in the rush of new public institutions that marked the period—hospitals, museums, colleges, opera houses, libraries, orchestras— and by the Beaux-Arts architectural idiom in which they splendidly stood forth, after Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.


text: Urbanization (the rapid growth of cities) went hand in hand with industrialization (the growth of factories and railroads), as well as expansion of farming. The rapid growth was made possible by high levels of immigration.


text: From 1865 through 1918 an unprecedented and diverse stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, 27.5 million in total. In all, 24.4 million (89%) came from Europe, including 2.9 million from Great Britain, 2.2 million from Ireland, 2.1 million from Scandinavia, 3.8 million from Germany, 4.1 million from Italy, 7.8 million from Russia and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Another 1.7 million came from Canada. Most came through the port of New York City, and from 1892, through the immigration station on Ellis Island, but various ethnic groups settled in different locations. New York and other large cities of the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest, obtaining jobs in industry and mining. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England.


text: Immigrants were pushed out of their homelands by poverty or religious threats, and pulled to America by jobs, farmland and kin connections. They found economic opportunity at factories, mines and construction sites, and found farm opportunities in the Plains states.


text: While most immigrants were welcomed, Asians were not. Many Chinese had been brought to the west coast to construct railroads, but unlike European immigrants, they were seen as being part of an entirely alien culture. After intense anti-Chinese agitation in California and the west, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. An informal agreement in 1907, the Gentlemen's Agreement, stopped Japanese immigration.


text: Some immigrants stayed temporarily in the U.S. then returned home, often with savings that made them relatively prosperous. Most, however, permanently left their native lands and stayed in hope of finding a better life in the New World. This desire for freedom and prosperity led to the famous term, the American Dream.


text: The Third Great Awakening was a period of renewal in Evangelical Protestantism from the late 1850s to the 1900s. It affected pietistic Protestant denominations and had a strong sense of social activism. It gathered strength from the postmillennial theology that the Second Coming of Christ would come after mankind had reformed the entire earth. A major component was the Social Gospel Movement, which applied Christianity to social issues and gained its force from the Awakening, as did the worldwide missionary movement. New groupings emerged, such as the Holiness movement and Nazarene movements, and Christian Science.


text: At the same time, the Catholic Church grew rapidly, with a base in the German, Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrant communities, and a leadership drawn from the Irish. The Catholics were largely working class and concentrated in the industrial cities and mining towns, where they built churches, parochial schools, and charitable institutions, as well as colleges.


text: The Jewish community grew rapidly, especially from the new arrivals from Eastern Europe who settled chiefly in New York City. They avoided the Reform synagogues of the older German Jews and instead formed Orthodox and Conservative synagogues.


text: Starting in the end of the 1870s, African Americans lost many of the civil rights obtained during Reconstruction and became increasingly subject to racial discrimination. Increased racist violence, including lynchings and race riots, lead to a strong deterioration of living conditions of African Americans in the Southern states. Jim Crow laws were established after the Compromise of 1877. Many decided to flee for the Midwest as early as 1879, an exile which was intensified during the Great Migration that began before World War I.


text: In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld the Jim Crow system of racial segregation by its "separate but equal" doctrine.


text: D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915), the first great American film, made heroes of the KKK in Reconstruction.


text: By 1880, the Granger movement began to decline and was replaced by the Farmers' Alliance. From the beginning, the Farmers' Alliance were political organizations with elaborate economic programs. According to one early platform, its purpose was to "unite the farmers of America for their protection against class legislation and the encroachments of concentrated capital." Their program also called for the regulation—if not the outright nationalization—of the railroads; currency inflation to provide debt relief; the lowering of the tariff; and the establishment of government-owned storehouses and low-interest lending facilities. These were known as the Ocala Demands.


text: During the late 1880s, a series of droughts devastated the West. Western Kansas lost half its population during a four-year span. By 1890, the level of agrarian distress was at an all-time high. Mary Elizabeth Lease, a noted populist writer and agitator, told farmers that they needed to "raise less corn and more hell". Working with sympathetic Democrats in the South and small third parties in the West, the Farmer's Alliance made a push for political power. From these elements, a new political party, known as the Populist Party, emerged. The elections of 1890 brought the new party into coalitions that controlled parts of state government in a dozen Southern and Western states and sent a score of Populist senators and representatives to Congress.