title: Richard Montgomery

text: Schuyler's health declined, so Montgomery assumed command of the daily functions of the army. On 10 September, a larger force of 1,700 men led by Montgomery moved toward the fort. In the swampy area around the fort, it was so dark that two parties of Americans ran into each other; each feared the other to be the British, and both fled. Montgomery ran to intercept them and ended the flight. As they advanced toward the fort, the force came under British grapeshot fire. One party of Americans attacked the British breastworks, inflicting 2 casualties, after which they fell back. The next morning, Montgomery called a council of war, in which it was agreed to make another attack on the fort. However, word spread that a British warship was advancing up the river, and half the New England troops fled out of fright. Montgomery, believing his force could no longer take the fort, retreated back to Île aux Noix. Montgomery, furious at the flight of the New England troops, asked Schuyler to appoint a court-martial board. Meanwhile, Schuyler's health had not improved. He left for Ticonderoga on the 16th to recover, giving full control of the operation to Montgomery.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Outside of Fort Saint-Jean (Quebec), Montgomery continued to receive reinforcements. He granted leaves to commanders who he felt were not fit for their position. He said "I hope we shall have none left but fighting men on whom I can rely."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 16 September, Montgomery organized another expedition against the British fort. In total, he had 1,400 men. He sent a naval component, with 1 schooner, 1 sloop, and 10 bateaux with 350 troops to counter any move by the British warship, "Royal Savage". Montgomery took the rest of his force and sailed up the river, landing near St. Johns on 17 September. The British garrison was 725 men commanded by Major Charles Preston, who just 3 years earlier had been Montgomery's superior officer in the British Army.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery and his troops spent the first night near the landing area, under light fire from the British guns. The next morning, he ordered Major Timothy Bedel to occupy a position north of the fort, but when Montgomery saw that his men were apprehensive, he chose to lead the mission himself. As Montgomery led his troops, they came upon a fight between British troops and another American party. Montgomery took command of the skirmish and forced the British party back into the fort. Montgomery sent Bedel with a force to entrench themselves about a mile north of the fort. Montgomery then put other troops around the fort and began a siege.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Preston and the British forces had many more guns and much more ammunition than the Americans and thus achieved a 10-to-1 firepower advantage for the first few weeks. Montgomery concentrated his forces on improving the siege works. Within several days they had erected 2 batteries under consistent fire from the fort. On 22 September, Montgomery was nearly killed while inspecting the breastworks when a cannonball from the fort shot past him, ripping his skirt and knocking him off the breastwork, although he landed on his feet. The troops observed that this "did not seem to hurt or frighten him."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: The Americans continued to receive armaments from Ticonderoga, with guns arriving on 21 September and also on 5 October. However, the artillery were positioned too far away to do much damage to the fort. With the arrival of the new guns, Montgomery planned to move the emphasis of the bombardment from the east side of the fort to the north side, where they would be closer. However, his officers unanimously rejected this plan, fearing that many men would desert due to the increased danger. Montgomery ordered that a new battery be built where the "Royal Savage" could be threatened. On 14 October, the battery was completed and then used to sink the British ship.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: In mid-October, James Livingston, an American expatriate living near Chambly (and a relative of Montgomery's wife Janet), suggested to Montgomery that he might have better success attacking Fort Chambly, which, about 10 miles downstream, was weaker than St. Jean. Montgomery approved of the idea and ordered 350 men to take Chambly. On the night of 16 October, two American guns were slipped past Fort St. Jean and moved towards Chambly. The next morning, these guns opened fire on Chambly. After two days of bombardment, holes were driven into the fort's walls and the chimney had been knocked down. The British commander surrendered the fort, along with 6 tons of gunpowder and 83 men. Montgomery sent the colors of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, who had been defending the fort, to Schuyler, the first standards of a British regiment captured in the war. Washington sent a letter of congratulations to Montgomery and commented that he hoped "that his next letter be dated from Montreal."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: The capture of Chambly improved morale in the ranks of Montgomery's army, so much so that he went through with his plan to establish a battery north of Fort St. Jean, this time without opposition. While the Americans were constructing the batteries, the British heavily bombarded the American workers, but this resulted in few casualties. General Guy Carleton, commanding the British forces at Montreal, realized that the situation at Fort St. Jean was becoming desperate. He personally led a relief force at the end of October, but American forces successfully prevented it from crossing the Saint Lawrence River south of Montreal.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 1 November, the new batteries erected north of the fort were complete. The Americans began to fire at the fort and continued to do so throughout the rest of the day. The British guns fired back, but were less effective. The American guns caused few casualties, but inflicted heavy structural damage inside of the fort. Morale in the besieged garrison fell as the bombardment (and declining rations) took their toll. At sundown, Montgomery ordered the firing to stop and sent a prisoner captured at Chambly inside with a letter asking for the garrison's surrender. A messenger sent from Carleton to Preston was captured during the night, in which Carleton ordered that Preston continue to hold out. On 2 November, the British agreed to surrender with full military honors. They marched out of the fort on 3 November, and were sent into the colonies, where they were interned. The British had suffered 20 killed and 23 wounded, while the Americans had only five killed and six wounded throughout the siege.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery then turned the army toward Montreal. The march was difficult as there was snow, water, and ice on the ground and a winter storm struck several days after their departure. In an attempt to stop an escape of British troops from Montreal to Quebec, Montgomery sent a detachment to Sorel where the force briefly clashed with British troops. The British troops quickly withdrew to their vessels in the St. Lawrence River. When Montgomery and the main army reached the outskirts of the city, Montgomery sent a messenger in demanding the surrender of the city or they would suffer bombardment. While negotiations for the city's surrender took place, Carleton fled down the St. Lawrence River in a small flotilla of ships. The city surrendered on 13 November, and Montgomery and his army marched into the city without a shot being fired.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 19 November, the British flotilla was captured, but Carleton narrowly escaped and made his way to Quebec City. Montgomery's kind treatment toward the captured British prisoners caused several officers to express their concern. Montgomery saw this as a challenge to his authority and this, along with the lack of discipline in the army, caused Montgomery to threaten resignation. Letters from Washington in which Washington also expressed his troubles with the discipline of troops convinced Montgomery to continue his command.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 28 November, Montgomery and 300 men went aboard some of the captured ships and began to sail to Quebec City. On 2 December, Montgomery joined Benedict Arnold's force at Pointe aux Trembles, 18 miles upriver from Quebec. On his arrival, Arnold turned over command of his forces to Montgomery. On 3 December, Montgomery gave Arnold's men, who had marched through the Maine wilderness to Quebec City and suffered much hardship along the way, much-needed supplies, including clothing and other winter supplies taken from the captured British ships. The next day, the army moved toward the city; when they arrived, Montgomery ordered the city to be surrounded. On 7 December, Montgomery sent an ultimatum to Carleton, demanding the surrender of the city. Carleton burned the letter. Several days later, Montgomery sent a letter into the city appealing the merchants telling them that they had come to liberate the civilians of Quebec. However, Carleton discovered the plan and quickly had the messenger arrested. Montgomery, wanting his message to reach the inhabitants of the city, then sent the proclamation over the wall with bows and arrows.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Unknown to Montgomery, he was promoted to major general on 9 December for his victories at St. Johns and Montreal. After Montgomery was unable to convince Carleton to surrender, he placed several mortars a few hundred yards outside the walls of the city. The shelling of the city began on 9 December, but after several days it had failed to make a serious impact on the walls, the garrison, or the civilian population. With the shelling having little effect, Montgomery ordered the emplacement of another battery closer towards the city walls, on the Plains of Abraham, despite the fact it offered little natural cover from returning fire. On 15 December, the new batteries were ready and Montgomery sent a party of men under the flag of truce to ask for the city's surrender. However, they were turned away. Montgomery then resumed firing on the city, but the effect was little better. When the new batteries were hit by more effective fire from the British, Montgomery ordered their evacuation.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: As the bombardment of the city proved to be unsuccessful, Montgomery then began to plan for an assault. Montgomery was to assault the Lower Town district (Saint-Roch), the part of the city near the river shore, while Arnold was to attack and take the Cape Diamond Bastion, a strong part of the city walls on the highest point of the rocky promontory. Montgomery believed that they should attack during a stormy night, therefore the British would not be able to see them. On 27 December, the weather became stormy, and Montgomery ordered that the men prepare to attack. However, the storm soon subsided and Montgomery called off the attack. As Montgomery waited for a storm, he was forced to revise his plans, because a deserter communicated the original plan to the defenders. In the new plan, Montgomery would attack the Lower Town from the south and Arnold would attack the Lower Town from the north. After breaking through the walls, Montgomery and Arnold would meet up in the city and then attack and take the Upper Town, causing resistance to collapse. To increase their chance of surprise, Montgomery planned two feints. One detachment of troops (the 1st Canadian Regiment under James Livingston) would set fire to one of the gates while another (under the command of Jacob Brown) would engage the guard at Cape Diamond Bastion and fire rockets to signal the start of the attack. While the feints were conducted, artillery would fire into the city. Although Montgomery was reluctant to attack, enlistments for Arnold's men were expiring on 1 January, and he was concerned about losing their services.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On the night of 30 December, a snowstorm struck. Montgomery issued the order to attack and the Americans began to move towards their designated positions. At 4:00 a.m., Montgomery saw the rocket flares and began to move his men around the city towards the lower town. Although the rockets were to signal the attack, they also alerted the British of the impending attack, and the city's defenders rushed to their posts. Montgomery personally led the march to the Lower Town, as they descended the steep slippery cliffs outside the city walls. At 6:00 a.m., Montgomery's force reached a palisade at the edge of the Lower Town, which they had to saw through. After they sawed through a second palisade, Montgomery led the advance party through the opening. Seeing a two-story blockhouse down the street, Montgomery led the troops toward it, encouraging the men by drawing his sword and shouting, "Come on, my good soldiers, your General calls upon you to come on." When the Americans were about away, the British forces in the blockhouse (30 Canadian militia and some seamen), opened fire with cannon, musket, and grapeshot. Montgomery was killed with grapeshot through the head and both thighs. Also killed in the burst of gunfire were Captains John Macpherson and Jacob Cheesman.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: With the death of Montgomery, his attack fell apart. Colonel Donald Campbell, the surviving officer, ordered a somewhat panicked retreat. One of Montgomery's staff officers, Aaron Burr, briefly attempted to drag his commander's body to friendly lines, but was foiled by the snow as well as Montgomery's dead weight. Without Montgomery's assistance, Arnold's attack, after initial success, fell apart. Arnold was wounded in the leg, and a large number of his troops were captured, including Daniel Morgan.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 1 January 1776, the British started collecting bodies of the deceased and soon found the body of a high-ranking officer of the American colonial army. After being brought to General Carleton, an American prisoner confirmed that the body was that of Richard Montgomery.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Once Montgomery's death was announced, Benedict Arnold assumed command of the American colonial forces. As Montgomery was a well-respected man on both sides of the battlefield, Carleton ordered that he be buried with dignity, but not with too much fanfare. At sunset on 4 January 1776, Montgomery's remains were put to rest. During his burial, American prisoners acknowledged Montgomery as a "beloved general" with "heroic bravery" and "suavity of manners" who held the "confidence of the whole army."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Schuyler and Washington were devastated upon hearing of Montgomery's death. Schuyler believed that without Montgomery, victory in Canada was not possible. He wrote to Congress and Washington that "My amiable friend, the gallant Montgomery, is no more; the brave Arnold is wounded; and we have met a severe check, in an unsuccessful attempt on Quebec, May Heaven be graciously pleased that the misfortune may terminate here." Washington wrote to Schuyler, "In the death of this gentleman, America has sustained a heavy loss, as he had approved himself a steady friend to her rights and of ability to render her the most essential services." Congress reacted to Montgomery's death by trying to keep the loss as quiet as possible. They feared the news would lower the morale of the troops and civilians.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: On 25 January 1776, Congress approved the establishment of a monument in memory of Montgomery. A state memorial service was also scheduled and carried out on 19 February 1776. Throughout the thirteen colonies, Montgomery was viewed as a hero, and Patriots tried to use his death to promote their cause in the war. Montgomery's name was used very often in literature; among the authors who used his name was Thomas Paine. The poet Ann Eliza Bleecker wrote an "" in his memory.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery was also mourned in Britain. Whigs attempted to use his death to show the failure of the British policies on the American Colonies. Prime Minister Lord North acknowledged Montgomery's military ability but said "I cannot join in lamenting the death of Montgomery as a public loss. Curse on his virtues! They've undone his country. He was brave, he was able, he was humane, he was generous, but still, he was only a brave, able, humane, and generous rebel." Newspapers in London paid tribute to Montgomery, with the "Evening Post" bordering its 12 March edition in black as a sign of mourning.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Janet would outlive Montgomery by 53 years. Janet always referred to him as "my general" or "my soldier" and guarded his reputation. After his death, Janet moved to the house near Rhinebeck on which Montgomery had begun work before the war. Janet remained interested in politics for the rest of the war and was always a harsh critic of Loyalists. After the war, former Continental Army general Horatio Gates proposed marriage to her, but she declined. In 1789, Janet stopped in New York City on her way to visit some of Montgomery's relatives in Ireland. She attended Washington's inaugural ball that followed his swearing as president, and also visited Washington and his family several times more. She sailed for Ireland soon after, and returned to America in 1790 after she had a falling out with her sister-in-law over British-American politics.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: In 1818, Stephen van Rensselaer, Governor of New York, obtained permission for Montgomery's remains to be moved from Quebec to New York. In June 1818, Montgomery's remains set off for New York City. On 4 July they arrived in Albany and took a boat down the Hudson to New York City. Janet stood out on her porch and watched the boat bring Montgomery's remains down the river, fainting at the sight. When his remains arrived in New York City, 5,000 people attended the procession. His remains were interred on 8 July, next to his monument at St. Paul's Chapel in Manhattan, which had been completed in 1776. Janet was pleased with the ceremony and wrote, "What more could I wish than the high honor that has been conferred on the ashes of my poor soldier."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Years later, when Andrew Jackson was corresponding with Edward Livingston he wrote "Present me in the most respectful terms to your aged sister [Janet]. Says to her, if I ever should be within one hundred miles of her dwelling I will visit and have the high honor of shaking by the hand the revered relict of the patriotic Genrl. Montgomery, who will ever live in the hearts of his countrymen." Three months after this letter, Janet died, on 6 November 1824.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery's home in Rhinebeck, New York, is now the General Montgomery House, a historic house museum moved from Montgomery Street to 77 Livingston Street. The oldest structure in the Village of Rhinebeck, the building is also used for monthly meetings of the Chancellor Livingston Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: The United States Navy has named a number of ships over the years, including a frigate that was begun in 1776, and burned before completion to prevent its capture by the British.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: The Liberty cargo ship SS "Richard Montgomery", built in 1943, was sunk in 1944 in the Thames Estuary, and remains there, with its masts showing. Its cargo of 3,173 tons of munitions continues to pose a threat to the local area.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: In Philadelphia, there is a statue of Montgomery in Fairmount Park, near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Fort Montgomery, a massive masonry fortification mounting 125 guns on Lake Champlain was named for the General. Its construction begun in 1844, it was designed to guard the strategically important frontier between Canada and the United States; only ruins remain today.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery has several places named after him. Counties named for him are to be found in North Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky. Cities and towns named for him most notably include Montgomery, Alabama, that state's capital and second largest city, as well as Montgomery, Minnesota and Montgomery, Vermont. There is a township in New Jersey, a town and village in New York, and a town in Massachusetts as well.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland, bears his name, itself located in the county named after him, Montgomery County. Montgomery Place, a mansion in Barrytown, New York, was constructed in 1803 and named in his honor by his widow. General Montgomery had planned it before his departure from Grassmere in 1775, and construction was originally planned to start in 1776.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery is mentioned in a Fort Saint-Jean plaque erected in 1926 by Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean. "Constructed in 1743 by M. de Léry under orders from Governor la Galissonnière. This post was for all the military expeditions towards Lake Champlain. On August 31, 1760, Commandant de Roquemaure had it blown up in accordance with orders from the Governor de Vaudreuil in order to prevent its falling into the hands of the English. Rebuilt by Governor Carleton, in 1773. During the same year, under the command of Major Charles Preston of the 26th Regiment, it withstood a 45 day siege by the American troops commanded by General Montgomery."


title: Richard Montgomery

text: Montgomery is briefly mentioned in the 2015 Broadway musical "Hamilton" in the song "Right Hand Man" in which Aaron Burr states he "was a captain under General Montgomery until he caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec" which refers to his death in the Battle of Quebec.


title: Richard Montgomery

text: He also features significantly in Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's historical novel "Fort Amity" (1904), as the cousin of the hero, John a Cleeve.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: The Thales Watchkeeper WK450 is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for all weather, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) use by the British Army. It is provided under an £800 million contract with UAS Tactical Systems (U-TacS), a joint venture of Elbit and Thales UK, and is based on Elbit's Hermes 450.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: The Watchkeeper WK450 is based on the Elbit Hermes 450 UAV and is built in the UK by a joint venture company, UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS), set up by the Israeli company Elbit Systems (51% ownership) and the Thales group. The Watchkeeper is 6.5m long, with a 10.9m wingspan. Its cruising speed is , and it can operate at an altitude of . It has a takeoff weight of 485 kg, a typical endurance of 14 hours, a payload capacity of 150 kg and uses a rotary Wankel engine provided by UAV Engines Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems, and target acquisition camera by another subsidiary, Instro. It can operate up to 150 km from the Ground Control Station; multiple stations can be linked to extend the range. It was originally intended to enter service in June 2010, but years of delays, technical issues, hardware modifications, difficulties in training sufficient pilots and incidents means that it was not expected to be fully operational until late 2018.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: A prime difference between the Hermes 450 and Watchkeeper is that the 450 is fitted only with an electro-optical/infrared sensor, while the WK450 has in addition a dual-mode synthetic aperture radar and ground moving target indication system that allows it to see through all weather conditions. The British Army was to receive 30 Watchkeepers and a further 24 due to go into store to be deployed as needed.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: The Watchkeeper program was initiated to support an operational need, which was identified at the start of the War in Afghanistan, to provide the UK Armed Forces with all-weather day and night surveillance capability.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: In February 2003, the Ministry of Defence announced that two contenders reached the final stage of the tender, a group that includes Thales (at the time still operating under the name Racal Electronics) and Elbit Systems, and a second contender Northrop Grumman, after BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin were deselected (BAE subsequently entered negotiations to join forces with Northrop for the bid).


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: Thales and Elbit won the tender in July 2004, and proposed to build UAVs based on Elbit Systems' Hermes 180 and Hermes 450, which will be delivered to the British Army between 2006 and 2009. In August 2005 the program agreement was signed, at a cost of £700 million. The tender condition included a requirement to set up a local manufacturing facility for the program, therefore, at the end of 2005 a joint venture company was established, named "UAV Tactical Systems Ltd (U-TacS)", based in Leicester to manufacture the Watchkeeper. Additionally, in October 2005, a flight testing facility was inaugurated at ParcAberporth in West Wales, with a test flight of an Hermes 450.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: In June 2007, the joint venture company UAV Tactical Systems, was awarded a $110 million contract to provide an urgent intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance support capability for the British Army, in Iraq and Afghanistan, using Hermes 450 UAVs leased from Elbit systems (and not using any Watchkeeper WK450, that was still in development).


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: On 15 July 2007, the UK MoD revealed that 54 Watchkeepers would be delivered to the British Army at a cost of £800m. This figure includes construction of new basing facilities at Boscombe Down airfield, ground training facilities and simulators at the School of Artillery, ground control stations, development and testing of extensive aircraft modifications including automatic take-off and landing and the integration and provision of new sensors including radars.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: In October 2008, Rosh Pina Airport in Israel was used for flight trials of the Watchkeeper, after Britain had objected to the trials being conducted at Fik Airfield, Elbit's test site, which is in the Golan Heights.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: Watchkeeper's first UK flight took place on Wednesday 14 April 2010 from ParcAberporth in Wales, but due to numerous delays the delivery date slipped. By 2014 Watchkeeper had gained certification from the Military Aviation Authority, had its Release to Service granted was cleared for military flight training with the Royal Artillery, operating out of Boscombe Down in Wiltshire. In February 2014 the French Ministry of Defence indicated that the French Army might purchase the Watchkeeper WK450, but they instead selected the Sagem Patroller for the tactical unmanned air vehicle requirement.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: By December 2015 delivery to the British Army was progressing well, but there were difficulties in training sufficient pilots. As poor weather in Britain was limiting the time available to conduct flying training the decision was made to conduct future training on the tropical Ascension Island located in the Atlantic Ocean. Although there is hope that future modifications to the aircraft will enable it to fly in poor weather, the training on Ascension Island is set to continue for the foreseeable future. Enough pilots and ground crew are expected to be trained for full operational capability to be reached by early 2018.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: Costs of the programme to March 2018 were £1.08 billion, more than £200 million above the original budget. The original order was for 54 Watchkeepers, though it has not been confirmed that more than 45 had been delivered at that date. A report by the Major Projects Authority, published in June 2015, revealed that the estimated cost of achieving full operational capbility of the program is £1.2bn.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: Watchkeeper achieved the Army's full operational capability 2 (FOC 2) milestone on 30 November 2018, though without formal release to service (RTS) certification, which would allow the trials facility to move from West Wales Airport, which has a nearby oversea trials area, to Boscombe Down.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: Two Watchkeepers crashed on flight trials over Cardigan Bay in February and March 2017, resulting in the grounding of all Watchkeepers for four months. In June 2018 a Watchkeeper crashed on land near the trials base at West Wales Airport, increasing the number of Watchkeepers lost in crashes to five.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: A Watchkeeper crashed in Cyprus in October 2020 during a practice. This was due to an avionics power failure and the air vehicle being unable to regain communication with the ground control system. Following the incident, WK044 operated as planned following the 'lost link procedure' to regain ground communication. This was unsuccessful, so the air vehicle attempted to land. Upon an attempted landing, a nose gear steering failure caused the air vehicle to steer off the runway. The incident resulted in the loss of WK044.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: A Watchkeeper crashed near Cyprus in May 2022 during a practice. Its wreckage was recovered from the sea to begin investigation into the cause of the incident.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: On 29 September 2014, the MoD revealed that an undisclosed number of Watchkeepers had become fully operational and sent to Afghanistan. The aircraft were stationed at Camp Bastion to provide force protection for British troops and worked alongside Hermes 450s that it is derived from. Watchkeeper proved its use by successfully supporting a detachment of U.S. Marines using its Thales I-Master radar. It cued a Hermes 450 onto a target for continued tracking, which then passed the information on to a Royal Air Force MQ-9 Reaper to conduct an airstrike. Some 140 flights were conducted for 8 hours a day until operations ceased in mid-October 2014.


title: Thales Watchkeeper WK450

text: In September 2020 under Operation Devran the UK Border Force started using Watchkeeper to patrol the English Channel for potential illegal entrants into the UK. The operation was criticised as being of little practical value. Just 15 sorties, totalling 43 hours and 52 minutes, were flown in September 2020, and six sorties for 23 hours and 54 minutes were flown the following month. Chris Cole, director of Drone Wars UK, said "the use of military-grade drones at borders is the beginning of the use of drones that blur the boundaries between military and domestic policing".


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The Dino 308 GT4 and 208 GT4 (later Ferrari 308 GT4 and 208 GT4) were mid-engined V8 2+2 cars built by Ferrari. The Dino 308 GT4 was introduced in 1973 and supplemented by the 208 GT4 in 1975. The cars were sold with Dino badging (continuing the Dino brand to differentiate non-V12 Ferrari) until May 1976, when they received Ferrari badging. The GT4 was replaced by the Mondial 8 in 1980 after a production run of 2,826 308s and 840 208s.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The GT4 was a groundbreaking model for Ferrari in several ways: it was the first production Ferrari to feature the mid-engined V8 layout that would become the bulk of the company's business in the succeeding decades, and was the first production Ferrari with Bertone (rather than Pininfarina) designed bodywork. Pininfarina was upset by the decision to give cross-town rival Bertone the design, considering all they had done for Ferrari. The styling featured angular lines entirely different from its curvaceous 2-seater brother, the Dino 246, and was controversial at the time. Some journalists compared it to the Bertone-designed Lancia Stratos and Lamborghini Urraco, also penned by Marcello Gandini.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: From the cockpit the driver sees only the road. Enzo Ferrari himself took a major role in its design, even having a mock-up made where he could sit in the car to test different steering, pedals and cockpit seating positioning.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The chassis was a tubular spaceframe based on the Dino 246, but was stretched for a wheelbase to make room for the second row of seats. The suspension was fully independent, with double wishbones, anti-roll bars, coaxial telescopic shock absorbers and coil springs on both axles. There are claims that Niki Lauda was involved in suspension setup but that is incorrect as Lauda had not joined Ferrari until after the launch of the GT4 and the final specification would have been decided some time before that. The confusion lies in advertising by the USA importer Chinetti which wrongly claimed Lauda's involvement. Some creative licence when sales were difficult.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The 3.0 L (2926.90 cc) V8 was mounted transversally integrally joined with the 5-speed transaxle gearbox. It fitted 205/70VR14 Michelin XWX


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The engine had an aluminium alloy block and heads, 16-valves and dual overhead camshafts driven by toothed belts; it produced in the European version and in the American. The induction system used four Weber 40 DCNF carburetors.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: The Dino 308 GT4 was introduced at the Paris Motor Show in November 1973. The 308 GT4 finally gained the "Prancing Horse" badge in May 1976, which replaced the Dino badges on the hood, wheels, rear panel and the steering wheel while retaining the Dino 308GT4 logo on the rear boot lid. This has caused major confusion over the years by owners, enthusiasts and judges. During the energy crisis at that time many prospective owners were hesitant to buy such an expensive automobile not badged "Ferrari" being confused at the significance of the Dino name. Dino was Enzo Ferrari's son who died in 1956, and his name was to honor his memory on the models it was placed.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: In an effort to improve sales until the 1976 official re-badging, Ferrari sent out factory update #265/1 on July 1, 1975 with technical and cosmetic revisions in many areas. Some of these revisions were implemented piecemeal by dealers. Some made all the revisions while some just made a few. This leaves many 1975 GT4's with a variety of modifications which are hard to document as "correct" to aficionados who may not understand the complicated series of events surrounding this model year. Some of the revisions included adding Prancing Horse badges, repainting in the Boxer two-tone scheme (lower half painted matte black), air conditioning fixes, etc. It also included bumper modification and exhaust changes for North American versions. The Dino 308 GT4 was the only Ferrari legally imported to the US in 1975, and it was also the year Niki Lauda won the Formula One drivers championship and Ferrari won the constructors title.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: There were two series of GT4; the earlier cars featured a twin distributor engine and foglamps mounted in the front valance. Later cars had a single distributor engine, with foglamps mounted behind the front grille.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: Introduced at the Geneva Motor Show in 1975, the 208 GT4 was a low-displacement version of the V8 produced for the Italian market, where cars with engines larger than two litres were subjected to more than double VAT (38%). The engine was de-bored to (66.8 by 71 mm) 2.0 L (1990.64 cc) V8, resulting in the smallest production V8 in history for a road car.


title: Ferrari GT4

text: Power output is at 7700 rpm for a top speed of 137 mph (220 km/h). Smaller Weber 34 DCNF carburetors, a lower final drive ratio and skinnier tires completed the technical changes for the 208. Chrome (rather than black) accents outside and the lack of fog lights were external visual indicators of the smaller-engined GT4. Inside the 208 GT4 featured a black rather than silver dash facing.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Bushra al-Assad () (born 24 October 1960) is the first child and only daughter of Hafez al-Assad, who was the president of Syria from 1971 to 2000. She is the sister of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. She is the widow of Assef Shawkat, the deputy chief of staff of the Syrian Armed Forces and former head of the Syrian Military Intelligence, who was killed in an explosion on 18 July 2012.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: As a result of the Syrian Civil War, in March 2012 she was placed on a list of Syrian government figures who were subject to European Union economic sanctions and travel bans. On 28 September 2012, it was reported that Bushra al-Assad had fled from Syria with her five children to seek refuge in the United Arab Emirates. In January 2013, Bushra al-Assad was joined by her mother Anisa Makhlouf in Dubai.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Bushra is reported to have enjoyed a close relationship with her father Hafez al-Assad and reportedly took a large role in leadership during the last years of his life, particularly as Hafez's health started failing during the 90's and all of his administrative tasks and even much of the important decision making was being delegated to Bushra, who set up her own office next to her father in the Presidential Palace. During the late 70s, she even accompanied her father during foreign visits and was very active in the decision-making within her father's inner circle, especially in matters relating to economic and foreign affairs, leading to speculation that she was being considered for a leadership role and even possible succession. Despite this, by the 1980s, her younger brother Bassel took on that role instead and after 1994, her second oldest brother, Bashar. In both cases, she mounted her own attempt at fighting for the succession, especially after Bashar's selection, believing him to be incapable for the role. There has been widespread speculation that had it not been for her gender, she would have been groomed for the presidency. It is reported that she helped convince her father that jailing her uncle, Rifaat al-Assad, after his failed 1984 coup attempt would disgrace the family.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Bushra received her degree in pharmacy in 1982 from Damascus University. At university Bushra befriended Bouthaina Shaaban who is now member of the Syrian Cabinet. Some sources report Shaaban introduced Bushra to Shawkat, an army officer 10 years her senior and reportedly married with a reputation for womanizing. Despite family opposition, Bushra married Shawkat in 1995.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Since the death of her brother Bassel al-Assad in 1994, Bushra was credited with increasing influence in Syria. She was reported to have played a major role in guiding the development of Syria's pharmaceutical industry. Bushra was also reported to have worked for her late husband to gain acceptance and recognition. In the late 1990s, Shawkat assumed key security roles within Syria's military and intelligence apparatus.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Tensions between Bushra and her sister-in-law Syria's first lady Asma al-Assad were reported. Since Asma's marriage to the Syrian president in 2000, Asma defied social conventions by frequently appearing in public and in the media. It was reported that Bushra disapproved of Asma taking such a public role.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Bushra moved to the United Arab Emirates in September 2012 following her husband's death in a bomb blast. Although rebels claimed responsibility, there was some suspicion the regime of her brother may have played a role. Bushra is living in Dubai with her five children.


title: Bushra al-Assad

text: Her daughter, Anisa, was studying spatial design at the University of the Arts London, despite being a member of family subject to international sanctions. Later, the National Crime Agency seized the remaining £25k in her bank account.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The Rivonia Trial took place in South Africa between 9 October 1963 and 12 June 1964, and led to the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and the others among the accused who were convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life at the Palace of Justice, Pretoria.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The Rivonia Trial took its name from Rivonia, the suburb of Johannesburg where leaders had been arrested (and documents discovered) at Liliesleaf Farm, privately owned by Arthur Goldreich, on 11 July 1963. Various people and groups, including the African National Congress and Communist Party of South Africa, had been using the farm as a hideout. Among others, Nelson Mandela had moved onto the farm in October 1961 and evaded security police while masquerading as a gardener and cook called David Motsamayi (meaning "David the walker").


title: Rivonia Trial

text: "The Rivonia raid was a stunning and welcome development for most white South Africans—a major breakthrough in the nation's fight against terrorism."


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Men such as Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and other high commanders of uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) said on their previous meeting that on 11 July they will be holding their last meeting in the farm, the agenda would be Mayibuye and the new place for their next meetings.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Nelson Mandela was already imprisoned on 5 August 1962; on 11 July at their last meeting at 3:00 pm Lionel Bernstein, Denis Goldberg, Arthur Goldreich, Bob Hepple, Abdulhay Jassat, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Moosa Moolla, Elias Motsoaledi, Walter Sisulu and Harold Wolpe were all arrested by South African Police. Other key leaders such as Oliver Tambo, Moses Kotane, Joe Slovo, Moses Mabhida, Stephen Dlamini, Joe Modise, Alfred Nzo, Wilton Mkwayi and others were not at the farm at the time of the arrests. They were detained under the General Law Amendment Act No 37 of 1963, which allowed for detention of up to ninety days.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The arrest of the MK high command members resulted in them being sentenced to life imprisonment, to others being arrested and to others going into exile.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Goldberg, Bernstein, Wolpe, Kantor, and Goldreich were Jewish South Africans; Hepple was of English descent on his father's side and Dutch and Jewish on his mother's; Jassat, Kathrada, Moolla were Indian Muslims; Mandela, Mbeki and Mhlaba were Xhosa people; Motsoaledi and Mlangeni were Sothos and Sisulu was Xhosa (he had an English father and a Xhosa mother).


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The leaders who were prosecuted in the Rivonia Trial also included Mandela, who was in Pretoria Local prison with the prisoner number 19476/62. He was serving a five-year sentence for inciting workers to strike - trade unions were illegal for black workers - and leaving the country illegally.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The government took advantage of legal provisions allowing for accused persons to be held for 90 days without trial, and the defendants were held incommunicado. Withstanding beatings and torture, Goldreich, Jassat, Moolla and Wolpe escaped from jail on 11 August. Their escape infuriated the prosecutors and police, who considered Goldreich to be "the arch-conspirator".


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The first trial indictment document listed 11 names as the accused. The trial began in October 1963. Counsel for the accused successfully challenged the legal sufficiency of the document, with the result that Justice de Wet quashed it. Prior to dismissal of the first indictment, the state withdrew all charges against Bob Hepple, Hepple subsequently fled the country, without testifying, and stated "that he never had any intention of testifying". The second indictment thus only listed 10 out of the original 11 names, referring to them as Accused 1 through 10:


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Mlangeni, who died on 21 July 2020, was the last surviving Rivonia defendant following the death of Goldberg on 29 April same year.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Nat Levy was attorney of record in Pretoria for Mandela and the other accused, with the exception of Kantor. The defence team comprised Joel Joffe, who was the instructing attorney, Bram Fischer, Vernon Berrangé, Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos. Hilda Bernstein (wife of Rusty Bernstein) approached Joffe after being rebuffed by other lawyers who claimed to be too busy or afraid to act for her husband. Joffe was subsequently also approached by Albertina Sisulu (wife of Walter Sisulu), Annie Goldberg (mother of Dennis Goldberg) and Winnie Mandela (wife of Nelson Mandela). Joffe agreed to act as attorney for all of the accused except Kantor, who would require separate counsel, and Bob Hepple.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Joffe initially secured the services of advocates Arthur Chaskalson and George Bizos, then persuaded Bram Fischer to act as lead counsel. Vernon Berrangé was also later recruited to join the team of advocates. The defence line-up for the majority of the accused was:


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The accused all agreed that Kantor's defence could share nothing in common with the rest of the accused. He thus arranged a separate defence team. Denis Kuny (later counsel in the Bram Fischer trial), was involved at the beginning of the trial defending Kantor. After State Prosecutor Yutar accused him of having been on the mailing list of the Communist Party, Kuny was debriefed and forced to withdraw. While Harold Hanson primarily represented Kantor, he was also invited to deliver the plea for mitigation for the other 9 accused. The defence line-up for Kantor was:


title: Rivonia Trial

text: "Production requirements" for munitions for a six-month period were sufficient, the prosecutor Percy Yutar said in his opening address, to blow up a city the size of Johannesburg.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The trial was condemned by the United Nations Security Council and nations around the world, leading to international sanctions against the South African government in some cases.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: At the beginning of the defence's proceedings, Nelson Mandela gave a three-hour speech from the defendant's dock, in which he explained and defended the ANC's key political positions. He justified the movement's decision, in view of the increasing restrictions on permitted political activity on the part of non-White Africans, to go beyond its earlier use of constitutional methods and Gandhian non-violent opposition to the state, embracing a campaign of sabotage against property (designed to minimize risks of injury and death), while also starting to train a military wing for possible future use. He also discussed in some detail the relationship between the ANC and the SACP, explaining that, while the two shared a commitment to action against the apartheid system, he was wedded to a model of constitutional democracy for South Africa (he singled out the British political model for particular praise), and also supported a market economy rather than a communist economic model. The speech is considered one of the founding moments of South African democracy.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Mandela's closing words have been much-quoted. They were reportedly spoken looking the judge full in the eyes. His statement that he was prepared to die for the cause was strongly resisted by his lawyers, who feared it might itself provoke a death sentence. In a concession to their concerns, Mandela inserted the words "if it needs be". Nelson Mandela, speaking in the dock of the court on 20 April 1964, said:


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Although the prosecution did not formally request the death penalty, close observers of the trial considered such a sentence to be implicit in the prosecutor's presentation of his case. Opposition to the death penalty included both public campaigns internationally, the United Nations, and the defence's arguments within the courtroom. Harold Hanson was called upon to argue in mitigation. He compared the African struggle for rights to the earlier Afrikaner's struggle, citing precedents for temperate sentencing, even in cases of treason. On 12 June 1964, eight defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment; Lionel Bernstein was acquitted. Unsubstantiated evidence suggests that Hanson, in a private hearing with de Wet, persuaded him to commute the death sentence for high treason to life imprisonment.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: Denis Goldberg went to Pretoria Central Prison instead of Robben Island (at that time the only security wing for white political prisoners in South Africa), where he served 22 years.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The Rivonia Trial was recorded on Dictabelts, a now obsolete audio recording format. Nearly 250 hours of the trial proceedings were recorded on 591 Dictabelts, kept by the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA). In 2001 seven of the Dictabelts were digitised by the British Library. This included 'I am prepared to die' Nelson Mandela's statement from the dock. In 2007 documents relating to the Criminal Court Case No. 253/1963 (State Versus N Mandela and Others) were recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2007. In 2012 NARSSA approached the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) and the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA) to start a process of digitisation and restoration of the rest of the Rivonia Trial sound archive. French engineer, historian and inventor, , took a little over 15 months to edit and digitize 230 hours of recording using his own invention the Archeophone.


title: Rivonia Trial

text: The digitised recordings were officially returned to South Africa, in 2018, as part of Nelson Mandela's Centenary, a one-day international colloquium "Listening to the Rivonia Trial : Courts, Archives and Liberation Movements" was organised to commemorate, discussing issues relating to the act of collecting, mapping, digitising and restoring archives and raising ethical questions that, in turn, become historical questions.


title: Auðumbla

text: In Norse mythology, Auðumbla [ˈɔuðˌumblɑ] (also Auðhumla [ˈɔuðˌhumlɑ], and Auðumla [ˈɔuðˌumlɑ], ) is a primeval cow. The primordial frost jötunn Ymir fed from her milk, and over the course of three days she licked away the salty rime rocks and revealed Búri, grandfather of the gods and brothers Odin, Vili and Vé. The creature is solely attested in the "Prose Edda", composed in the 13th century by Icelander Snorri Sturluson. Scholars identify her as stemming from a very early stratum of Germanic mythology, and ultimately belonging to larger complex of primordial bovines or cow-associated goddesses.


title: Auðumbla

text: The cow's name variously appears in "Prose Edda" manuscripts as "Auðumbla" , "Auðhumla" , and "Auðumla" , and is generally accepted as meaning 'hornless cow rich in milk' (from Old Norse "auðr" 'riches' and *"humala" 'hornless').


title: Auðumbla

text: The compound presents some level of semantic ambiguity. A parallel occurs in Scottish English "humble-cow" 'hornless cow', and Northern Europeans have bred hornless cows since prehistoric times. As highlighted above, "Auð-" may mean 'rich' and in turn 'rich hornless cow' remains generally accepted among scholars as a gloss of the Old Icelandic animal name. However, "auðr" can also mean 'fate' and 'desolate; desert,' and so "Auðhum(b)la" may also have been understood as the 'destroyer of the desert'. This semantic ambiguity may have been intentional.


title: Auðumbla

text: Auðumbla's sole attested narrative occurs in the "Gylfaginning" section of the "Prose Edda", and her name appears among ways to refer to cows later in the "Nafnaþulur" section of the book. In "Gylfaginning", Gangleri (described earlier in "Gylfaginning" as king Gylfi in disguise) asks where, in the distant past, Ymir lived and what he ate. High says that the cow Auðumbla's teats produced four rivers of milk, from which Ymir fed. Gylfi asks what Auðumbla ate, and High says that she licked salty rime stones for sustenance. He recounts that Auðumbla once licked salts for three days, revealing Búri: The first day she licked free his hair, the second day his head, and the third day his entire body.


title: Auðumbla

text: The second and final mention of Auðumbla occurs in the "Nafnaþulur", wherein the author provides a variety of ways to refer to cows. Auðumbla is the only cow mentioned by name, and the author adds that "she is the noblest of cows".


title: Auðumbla

text: On the topic of Auðumbla, John Lindow says that cows appear commonly in creation narratives around the world, yet "what is most striking about Audhumla is that she unites the two warring groups in the mythology, by nourishing Ymir, ancestor of all the giants, and bringing into the light Búri, progenitor of the æsir."


title: Auðumbla

text: Rudolf Simek highlights that Roman senator Tacitus's first century CE work ethnography of the Germanic peoples "Germania" mentions that they maintained hornless cattle (see "name" section above), and notes that the "Germania" describes that an image of the Germanic goddess Nerthus was led through the countryside by way of a cattle-driven wagon. Simek compares the deity to a variety of cow-associated deities among non-Germanic peoples, such as the Egyptian goddess Hathor (depicted as cow-headed) and Isis (whose iconography contains references to cows), and the Ancient Greek Hera (described as 'the cow-eyed').


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Rajeshwari Sachdev is an Indian actress who is known for her role in Shyam Benegal's film "Sardari Begum" (1996), for which she won the 1997 National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Sachdev co-hosted the Zee TV musical show, "Antakshari" from 1994 to 2001 with Annu Kapoor. In 2005, she along with her husband Varun Badola, took part a reality TV dance competition show, "Nach Baliye". She also worked in Crime TV series Rihhaee where she played a role of an activist.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Rajeshwari was born on 14 April 1975, in Mumbai to a Punjabi father and a mother from Southern India.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: After completing her graduation from Guru Nanak Khalsa College (King's Circle) in Mumbai, she started her career on stage doing plays with Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). She married Varun Badola in 2004.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Sachdev made her film debut with the Marathi film "Aayatya Gharat Gharoba" (1991), directed by Sachin.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Her second film was Shyam Benegal's "Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda" (1992). She then became a regular in his films, and was cast in "Mammo" (1994), "Sardari Begum" (1996), "Samar" (1999), "Hari-Bhari" (2000), "" (2005) and "Welcome to Sajjanpur" (2008). She also appeared in the Hollywood film "Little Buddha" (1993) and later in (1998). She also worked in the show "Samvidhaan", directed by Shyam Benegal.


title: Rajeshwari Sachdev

text: Sachdev was signed as the lead in TV series Rihhaee replacing actress Divya Dutta who quit the show after shooting for one episode. She is currently playing the role of Mamta Noon in Sony TV's romantic drama series "Dil Hi Toh Hai" and Kusum Kothari in StarPlus's drama series Shaadi Mubarak.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A climate apocalypse (also called a climate dystopia and a climate-induced collapse, among other names) generally denotes a predicted scenario involving the global collapse of human civilization and potential human extinction as either a direct or indirect result of anthropogenic climate change. Many academics and researchers posit that in actuality, unless a major course correction is imminently implemented, some or all of the Earth will be rendered uninhabitable as a result of extreme temperatures, severe weather events, an inability to grow crops, and an altered composition of the Earth's atmosphere.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Many scientists have repeatedly warned about severe risks up to the level of what may described as "climate apocalypse". For example, in September 2021 more than 200 scholarly medical journals published an emergency call for action, saying that a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees would bring catastrophic harm to global health from which the world will never recover.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate apocalypse scenarios are explored in multiple science fiction works, in particular in climate fiction including "The Parable of the Sower" by Octavia Butler, which depicts ecological breakdown through societal collapse; "American War" by Omar El Akkad, which explores the idea of an underwater, war-stricken country; or "The Word for World is Forest" by Ursula Le Guin that engages in space colonization to escape the conditions of Earth.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In academia, fields that investigate such risks include systems theory and climate security where the latter refers to research and development relating to national and international security risks induced, directly or indirectly, by changes in climate patterns. Sometimes, worst-case scenarios are used to highlight the importance of improved efforts in climate change mitigation or in calls for declarations of climate emergency in order to enable such.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Rhetoric and belief centered on apocalypticism has deep roots in religious contexts, and similar rhetorical approaches undergird secular apocalyptic interpretations of climate. Historical interpretations fall into two visions of apocalypse: the tragic and the comic. Tragic apocalypticism frames a clearly divided good and evil, with preordained events. In contrast, comic framing emphasizes flawed human agency, and it tends to be characterized by an open-ended, episodic, and ongoing timeline. Some of the most significant books in environmentalism make use of either the tragic or comic apocalyptic framing: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Paul and Anne Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1972), and Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" (1992).


title: Climate apocalypse

text: The tragic apocalypse places a fate upon society that ends with the apocalypse. There is no deviance from this path and the direction and speed at which they are headed towards this apocalypse is out of anyone's control. Comic on the other hand, suggest that human action does have the capacity to change the apocalypse outcome. It is important to note that the apocalypse will still happen, just the specific circumstances as to which it happens can be influenced more if action is taken.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: There is no single agreed term used to describe an environmental and ecological collapse as either a direct or indirect result of anthropogenic climate change, however such an event has been explored in both fiction and non-fiction for many years. Jules Verne's 1889 novel "The Purchase of the North Pole" imagines climate change due to a deliberate tilting of Earth's axis.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Since World War II, there has been continual discussion of environmental destruction due to nuclear war.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: There is a Western world tradition of describing a climate apocalypse with images and descriptions of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and other features of the apocalypse of the Christian faith.</ref>


title: Climate apocalypse

text: An alternative term and overlapping concept or class of scenarios is "climate endgame". Scholars have suggested that the risk of climate change (indirectly) resulting in worldwide societal collapse, or possibly eventual human extinction, is a "dangerously underexplored" global topic, despite there being indications of such being possible as worst-case scenarios and that "integrated catastrophe assessment", which also considers other unrelated global risks and climate-triggered cascades, is missing.<ref name="10.1073/pnas.2108146119"></ref>


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Severe impacts of climate change can combine, including with climate-unrelated, concurrent risks such as worldwide pollution, fragility, resource depletion, political disenchantment, poverty or wealth inequality, and biotechnology risk, to result in a confluence of developments that cause a drastically aggravated impact on societies or humanity – such or multiple concurrent crises are sometimes referred to as a "perfect storm". Climate change may also be considered as a threat multiplier "which exacerbates existing trends, tensions, and instability". Climate-related factors of a potential collapse may include famine (crop loss, drought), extreme weather (hurricanes, floods), war ([co-]caused by scarce resources) and conflict, systemic risk (relating to migration, famine, or conflict), and disease.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Global warming reduces the capacity of the oceans to absorb oxygen. Biomarkers and geologic evidence suggests that oxygen-deprived oceans resulting from high carbon dioxide concentrations may have contributed to the five previous mass extinction events in Earth's history. Geoscientists have found that anaerobic microbes would have thrived in these conditions and produced vast amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic, and its lethality increases with temperature. At a critical threshold, this toxic gas would have been released into the atmosphere, causing plant and animal extinctions both in the ocean and on land. Models suggest that this would also have damaged the ozone layer, exposing life on Earth to harmful levels of UV radiation. Deformities found in fossil spores in Greenland provides evidence that this may have occurred during the Permian extinction event. At the end of the Paleocene and Triassic eras, mass extinctions occurred at carbon dioxide concentrations of around 1,000 ppm. If these concentrations were reached again in the future, either as a result of anthropogenic or naturally occurring greenhouse gas emissions, it is possible that such an event could be repeated.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate change and infectious diseases are related and as climate changes the risk of epidemic or pandemic increases. As the climate changes, distributors of infectious diseases such as mosquitoes and ticks spread to new areas and transmit illnesses to regions which may not have experienced them otherwise. Epidemics are also made more likely after severe weather events, such as heavy rainfall or flooding. Food scarcity may lead some communities to a more meat-based diet, which raises the risk of outbreaks of diseases such as ebola. Melting permafrost also threatens to release diseases that have been dormant for many years, as was the case in August 2016 when a thawed reindeer carcass that was almost a century old infected several individuals in Siberia with anthrax.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Many plants have a maximum temperature at which they can grow, and climate change may mean that new pests are introduced to areas where it was too cold for them to survive before. Extreme weather events and more frequent droughts will also affect crop production as the Earth approaches and surpasses 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels. A global decline in food availability could lead to severe impacts on public health. If the Earth's temperature increases to 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050, some models predict that global food availability would be 3.2 percent lower than if no climate change occurred, resulting in an additional 529,000 deaths worldwide.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A 2020 study projects that regions inhabited by a third of the human population could become as hot as the hottest parts of the Sahara within 50 years without a change in patterns of population growth and without migration, unless greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. The projected annual average temperature of above 29 °C for these regions would be outside the "human temperature niche" – a suggested range for climate biologically suitable for humans based on historical data of mean annual temperatures (MAT) – and the most affected regions have little adaptive capacity as of 2020. The U.K Met Office came to similar conclusions, reporting that the "numbers of people in regions across the world affected by extreme heat stress – a potentially fatal combination of heat and humidity – could increase" "from 68 million today to around one billion" if the world's temperature rise reaches 2°C, albeit it is unclear if that limit or the 1.5 °C goal of the Paris Agreement is achieved.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: The two broad sets of potential interventions are climate change mitigation and building "greater capacity within vulnerable populations so that they may adapt through means that do not lead to distress migration or conflict".


title: Climate apocalypse

text: The Earth is currently undergoing its sixth mass extinction event as a result of human activity. During the Permian–Triassic extinction event 250 million years ago, the Earth was approximately 6°C hotter than the pre-industrial baseline. At this time, 95% of living species were wiped out and sea life suffocated due to a lack of oxygen in the ocean. During the previous mass extinction around 66 million years ago, evidence shows that an asteroid or comet collided with the Earth, drastically altering the planet's climate and wiping out the dinosaurs as well as around 75% of all plant and animal species on the planet.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events including droughts, storms and flooding. Although it is not possible to determine whether or not a specific natural disaster occurred because of climate change, it is possible to state how much more likely a natural disaster was as a result of climate change or by roughly how much the severity has increased due to it.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: As temperatures increase, glaciers and ice sheets melt and the ocean expands which causes a rise in sea levels. Sea levels have risen by about 23 cm since 1880 and are currently rising at around 3.2 mm each year. It is difficult to predict amounts of sea-level rise over the next century, although the ice sheets are melting earlier than predicted which makes a high-end scenario of 2 metres of sea-level rise by 2100 increasingly plausible. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt, the world's oceans could rise by more than 6 metres. In the past, at times when the Earth has been 6°C above the pre-industrial baseline, sea levels were 20 metres higher than today. If all the ice on land and at the poles melted, sea levels would rise by more than 65 metres. Rising sea levels result in forced migration and threaten services like the Internet, since much of the Internet's key infrastructure is built near coastlines and is not built to be permanently submerged in water.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Around 2% of the planet's water is fresh and approximately 70% of that is snow and ice, which turns into salt water as the Earth's temperatures increase, meaning that as glaciers melt many communities that rely on these sources for water will lose their supply. Climate change can also lead to heavier rainfall in some areas, leading to rapid movement of water to the oceans and reducing the capacity of people to use and store it. In other areas rainfall is reduced, and overall the world experiences more extreme floods and droughts as a result of climate change. Warmer air also results in higher rainfall and less snowfall and an increase in evaporation rates. Different regions will be affected to different degrees, but the IPCC predicts that around one billion people in dry areas of the world may face increasing water scarcity.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Abrupt climate changes have occurred in the past, most clearly recorded in climate records from glacial ice on Greenland. There have been several explanations put forward for these changes, but the prevailing paradigm is that these changes were a result of changes in ocean currents, specifically the northward transport of heat by the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). One example of this is the Younger Dryas, in which a rapid decline in temperature, recorded in Greenland as a drop of 4 to 10°C (7.2 to 18°F) over just a few decades, is thought to have been caused by the melting of the Laurentide Ice Sheet providing extra freshwater to the North Atlantic and interrupting the AMOC.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: It is believed that recent climate change has caused a 15-20% slowing of the Gulf Stream, a current which transports warm water from the Gulf of Mexico towards north-west Europe, due to a melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet resulting in large amounts of freshwater pouring into the North Atlantic. Although it is likely to continue to slow, it is unproven whether the Gulf Stream could come to a complete halt this century, if ever. However if it does, this would have profound impacts upon large parts of the Earth's climate. In the UK, for example, temperatures would drop by an average of 3.4°C (6.1°F) and more so in Scotland. Rainfall during the growing season would also drop by 123 mm. This would reduce the UK's arable land from 32 percent to just 7 percent and it is uncertain if there would be enough water to offset this through irrigation, resulting in food shortages.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Research has shown that aside from worsening income inequality and the strain of an increased population exceeding the carrying capacity of an environment, another important factor which may lead to global collapse is ecological strain. Climate change increases the strain on the planet's ecology, especially in terms of resource depletion.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate change has contributed to the collapse of civilisations in the past. A 200-year drought caused cities of the Indus Valley civilisation to be abandoned; the Khmer Empire collapsed as a result of successive droughts and monsoon floods which led to political and social unrest; and a period of cooling called the Little Ice Age made it more difficult for Vikings to farm in Greenland, which was one of the reasons that they were forced to abandon their settlements.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: More recently, a severe drought in the late 2000s which is likely to have been intensified by anthropogenic climate change contributed to failing agricultural production in Syria, leading to high unemployment, large amounts of internal displacement, heightened ethnic tensions and increased violence. Poor governance and neoliberal economic policies also contributed to the resulting civil war and societal collapse in 2011.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Although the entire planet is affected by climate change, the worst impacts will be felt by the world's poorest countries, and these countries are both more likely to face the effects of societal collapse and more likely to face such effects sooner. This is one of the moral issues described within the climate justice movement of climate change activism.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: As societal collapse becomes more likely, it is possible that denial and anti-intellectualism will increase as well, or that people will assign blame for the crisis on communities other than their own. As localised violence increases, societal collapse also becomes more likely.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: The risk of global conflict, especially in more vulnerable regions, rises with global warming. Studies have shown that extreme weather events can damage economies, lower food production and raise inequality, which can increase risks of violence when combined with other factors. One study found that climate change has influenced between 3% and 20% of armed conflict in the last century, that an increase of 2°C above pre-industrial levels more than doubles the current risk of conflict, increasing it to 13%, and that an increase of 4°C multiplies the risk by five, up to a 26% risk.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A report by the Global Peace Index found that 971 million people lived in areas with either a high or very high climate change exposure and that 400 million of those people lived in countries with low levels of peacefulness. It warned that climate change can increase the likelihood of violent conflict by impacting upon resource availability, job security, and by causing forced migration.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Scientists struggle to reach a consensus on the likelihood of war as a result of climate change as future climate change is likely to be very different from what humanity has experienced previously and the ability of societies to adapt is unclear.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Large-scale changes to the Earth system such as tipping points and possible abrupt climate change are usually not included in climate models and impact assessments. This means that many scientific reports, including the "IPCC Assessment Reports," have often underestimated the impacts of climate change effects.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate scientists may also downplay potentially disastrous scenarios in favor of more restrained predictions that are less likely to be rejected as alarmist or fatalist. Discussions of "tail-end" risks of temperatures rising beyond 3°C (5.4°F) are also often neglected in research more generally.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Current levels of global warming are often calculated in terms of the global average increase in the Earth's temperature compared with levels prior to the Industrial Revolution. In 2016, the Earth is likely to have reached 1.1°C (1.98°F) above pre-industrial levels. The rate of global warming is influenced by the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, which has so far led to a linear increase in global warming. However global warming is non-linear, and is subject to acceleration when certain tipping points are crossed in the Earth's climate system, or as atmospheric pollution disappears from the atmosphere. These may also lead to abrupt climate change. As of December 2019, current global climate policies could take the planet to between 2.3°C and 4.1°C (4.14-7.38°F) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, while current pledges and targets would take the planet to between 2.3°C and 3.5°C (4.14-6.3°F).


title: Climate apocalypse

text: If all of the fossil fuels on Earth were burned, lower-end estimates calculate that 5 trillion tonnes of carbon emissions would be released into the atmosphere, resulting in a possible 10°C of warming relative to 1986-2005 by the year 2300.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: It is more likely that the Earth will cross tipping points and/or trigger abrupt climate change as it approaches and surpasses 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Some of these tipping points may lead to accelerated global warming and runaway climate change. In the event that warming is limited to 2°C by 2100, these carbon cycle feedbacks could still cause an additional 0.24-0.66°C (0.432-1.188°F) of warming by that year. These tipping points could be triggered much earlier, and could continue to warm the planet for hundreds or even thousands of years.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: During the 1950s and 60s, scientists determined that the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth had dropped. This was labelled the global dimming effect and has since been proven to have a strong relationship to atmospheric pollution, the particles of which directly absorb energy from the sun before reflecting it back into space. This has many impacts including the cooling of the Earth and oceans leading to lower rainfall and more droughts. These pollutants also lead to the formation of smog and acid rain and cause various respiratory diseases. Global dimming may also cause heat waves and runaway fires, while the decrease of sunlight negatively impacts plant growth, endangering animal populations.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: As carbon emissions are reduced and the amount of pollution in the atmosphere disappears, the most widely credited studies indicate that there will be an increase of about 0.5°C in global average temperature, however some studies have indicated that up to 1.1°C is possible. Some solutions to this dilemma would be to use natural geoengineering solutions such as mass rewilding and biochar alongside a reduction of carbon emissions. Other potential solutions could be much more dangerous and unpredictable, such as artificially injecting additional sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. This could lead to disproportionately negative impacts on certain regions over others, causing droughts, flooding or desertification.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A paper published in the journal PNAS in August 2018 entitled "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene" described a threshold which, if crossed, could trigger multiple tipping points and self-reinforcing feedback loops that would prevent stabilization of the climate, causing much greater warming and sea-level rises and leading to severe disruption to ecosystems, society, and economies. It described this as the "Hothouse Earth" scenario and proposed a threshold of around 2°C above pre-industrial levels, arguing that decisions taken over the next decade could influence the climate of the planet for tens to hundreds of thousands of years and potentially even lead to conditions which are inhospitable to current human societies. The report also states that there is a possibility of a cascade of tipping points being triggered even if the goal outlined in the Paris Agreement to limit warming to 1.5-2.0°C (2.7-3.6°F) is achieved.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Even in mid-range scenarios of around 3°C above pre-industrial levels, extreme weather events, large-scale loss of agricultural land and freshwater sources, and collapsing ecosystems could lead to widespread suffering and instability and over a billion people who currently live in major coastal cities would need to be relocated due to sea-level rise. One report published by the Global Challenges Foundation wrote that the potential destruction of high-end scenarios are beyond their capacity to model, but that there is a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end. The report states that we are currently in a position where we can reduce the risk of civilization collapse due to climate change, and possibly avoid it.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Although runaway climate change may be triggered at 2°C or even lower, societal collapse in different regions may not happen until later, although there is no consensus as to when this may happen. Some scientists and institutions such as the World Bank have argued that it is uncertain whether adaptation to a 4°C world is possible, and that such an increase in temperature is incompatible with an organised global community.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: "Grist" advised that although some people describe an expectation of a horrible Climate Apocalypse, the effects of climate change could be lessened or worsened depending upon when a coordinated response to lessen the damage develops.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: "KQED" reported that the scientific consensus is to take whatever action possible, wherever possible, even when there are reports of a coming Climate Apocalypse.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Scientists commenting in "The Atlantic" said that the Representative Concentration Pathway was an important measurement to watch, and that as of 2018 this measurement predicts a worst-case scenario for the world.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Stratospheric aerosol injection, a hypothetical process for blocking sunlight from the earth, is proposed as a desperate technological response to reduce existential risk which comes with many risks and is opposed by many scientists.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: An article written for "The New Yorker" by Jonathan Franzen in September 2019 argued that those under the age of sixty at time of publishing were likely to see the radical destabilization of life on earth due to crop failures, fires, crashing economies, flooding, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees, while those under the age of thirty were almost certain to see it. The article attracted huge controversy for arguing that humanity must now accept that a climate apocalypse is inevitable, and was heavily criticized for being defeatist, as well as for drawing false scientific conclusions that such a scenario was inevitable, rather than possible.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A report published in November 2007 by various authors including former director of the CIA R. James Woolsey Jr., former national security advisor to Al Gore Leon Fuerth, and former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton John Podesta entitled "The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change" describes both a "severe" and a "catastrophic" scenario in which global warming rise reaches 1.6°C (2.88°F) above pre-industrial levels by 2040 and 5.6°C (10.08°F) by 2100 respectively.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In the "severe" scenario, nonlinear climate change has devastating impacts on society including a possible pandemic; societal instability due to large increases in migration and food and water shortages; threatened identities of global communities as a result of rising sea levels and coastal flooding; likely conflict over resources and possible nuclear war. The authors write that in this scenario climate change causes humanity to undergo a permanent shift in its relationship to nature.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In the "catastrophic" scenario, the authors write that human society would struggle to adapt, and note that this scenario is so extreme that its impacts are difficult to imagine. The authors encourage readers to compare the scenario to the threat of terrorism, emphasising that the solution to both threats relies on a transformation of the world's energy economy.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In May 2019, Breakthrough - National Centre for Climate Restoration released a report which argued that climate change represents an existential threat to human civilisation in the near to mid-term, calling for a wartime level of response to combat it. The report featured heavily in the media due to the gravity of its message.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: The report described a "2050 scenario" which the authors define as a way of thinking at the high-end of the range of possibilities rather than a scientific projection. Within this scenario, policy-makers fail to act sufficiently and global emissions do not peak until 2030. Climate feedbacks are triggered which lead to global warming of 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels by 2030, and 3°C by 2050, leading the Earth into the "hothouse Earth" scenario. Sea levels increase by 2-3 metres by 2100, with an eventual 25 metres of sea-level rise locked in. Some regions become unlivable due to the intense heat and lack of adaptive capacity and around a billion people are displaced, while two billion people suffer from water shortages. There is not enough food to feed the global population and many of the world's most populous cities are abandoned due to sea level rise.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In an interview for "The Ecologist", the Emeritus Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber warned that if we continue as we are now, then over the next century we may bring civilization to an end. He predicted that humans would survive somehow, but that almost everything which had been built up over the past two thousand years would be destroyed. He rated chances of success in the fight against climate change as more than 5% but definitely less than 50%.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In his 2019 BBC documentary "Climate Change – The Facts", Sir David Attenborough warns that dramatic action needed to be taken against climate change within the next decade to avoid irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of human societies. In a 2019 Channel 4 interview with Jon Snow, Attenborough states that the worst outcome of climate change that could be experienced within the next seventy years would be civil unrest and mass migration on a great scale. He predicts that humans will continue to find enough food, but that their diets will be forced to change.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Professor Emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School Jørgen Randers predicts that we will fail to meet the pledges of the Paris Agreement as in the short-term it is cheaper to continue acting as usual.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: As a lifelong environmentalist, King Charles has given speeches warning that climate change could bring unimaginable horrors and that it calls into question our future survival on the planet.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Pope Francis has stated that climate change threatens the future of the human family and that we must take action to protect future generations and the world's poorest who will suffer the most from humanity's actions. He has also stated that our choice of energy has the potential to destroy our civilization and that this must be avoided.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In an interview, the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres warned that the world was losing the fight against climate change, and described lack of action on climate change as "suicide".


title: Climate apocalypse

text: In a September 2020 presentation to the United Nations, Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama described the present situation as an environmental armageddon.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Various academic publications describe how political discourse, the media, and scientific studies address the idea of a potential climate apocalypse.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: People in various cultures at various times have told stories about climate change. Among all cultures and times which tell these stories, patterns in the stories which include questioning: whether humans caused the change, the relationship between short-term local experiences and longer term global records, people of common cultures producing images of climate change which align with others in their culture but not with those outside their culture, designating certain classes of institutions like laboratories as being reliable sources of information, and the modification of reliable reports to create a more desirable narrative of how the information ought to lead to a particular community changing their behavior. Discussion of climate change is unusual for having attracted unusually diverse participation of communities which strongly present their own view. Those communities include citizens engaged in public participation, academic sectors, any non-academic professional sector asserting knowledge, participants in popular culture, advocates for Indigenous peoples, anyone negotiating the powers of the current and/or dominant economic and political systems, those practicing a religion, and anyone responding to public opinion. Sources of information about climate change tell various categories of stories, including personal experiences, community experiences, scientific models, economic forecasts, and prophecies of apocalypse.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Some researchers have speculated that society cannot comprehend an accurate end of the world prediction, and instead, more governments would be willing to respond productively to prevent catastrophe if reports framed the matter as a smaller problem than it actually is. Talking about potential disaster can have a broad impact upon society by making many people feel that if the situation were truly horrible, then there must be good plans to prevent it so no further action is needed.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: As climate apocalypse becomes more real, the media presents many imagined apocalypse scenarios in a way that conflates them all.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Political conversations about climate apocalypse tend to describe how preventing it in the future would bring zero value for today, therefore the value of doing something today is zero. The lack of response to climate change despite it being an existential risk may be an indication that human society lacks an ability to understand a threat of this magnitude without some radical change in perspective.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: "Esquire" described how since 1990 climate scientists have communicated urgent warnings while simultaneously experiencing the media converting their statements into sensational entertainment.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: A 2013 report described how incorporating the concept of preventing catastrophe into public policy seems unprecedented and challenging to accomplish.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: According to Professor Jem Bendell, Deep Adaptation is the concept purporting that humanity needs to prepare for fundamental disruption of its current civilisation paradigms, due to climate change, with a likelihood of complete societal collapse. Unlike climate change adaptation, which aims to adapt societies gradually to the effects of climate change, Deep Adaptation is premised on accepting abrupt transformation of the environment as a consideration for making decisions today.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Following the August 2021 publishing of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Catholic Priest Thomas J. Reese advocated for the church leadership to speak in favor of strong action to prevent climate apocalypse.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Climate fiction is a popular media genre which frequently features stories of climate apocalypse. Examples include "Ishmael", a 1992 philosophical novel, and "", a 2015 action film.


title: Climate apocalypse

text: Concern over a climate apocalypse has been the subject of satirical news articles. One theme is popular revolt against power brokers. Another is the desire of youth to have a liveable environment in adulthood. Another are fantasies about the romance and adventure of people experiencing the chaos of ecological and societal collapse.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson by the American writer Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. A fifth volume is expected to deal with the bulk of Johnson's presidency and post-presidential years. The series is published by Alfred A. Knopf.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In the first volume, "The Path to Power", Caro retraced Johnson's early life growing up in the Texas Hill Country and working in Washington, D.C. first as a congressional aide and then as a congressman. Caro's research included renting a house in the Hill Country for three years, living there much of that time, to interview numerous people who knew Johnson and his family, and to better understand the environment in which Johnson had grown up.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: This volume covers Johnson's life through his failed 1941 campaign for the United States Senate. This book was released on November 12, 1982. It won the 1982 National Book Critics Circle Award. It was a finalist for the 1983 National Book Award, hardcover autobiography or biography.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In the second volume, "Means of Ascent", Caro detailed Johnson's life from the aftermath of Johnson's first bid for the U.S. Senate in 1941 to his election to the Senate in 1948. Much of the book deals with Johnson's bitterly contested Democratic primary against Coke R. Stevenson in that year. The book was released on March 7, 1990.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In the third volume, "Master of the Senate", Caro chronicles Johnson's rapid ascent in United States Congress, including his tenure as Senate majority leader. This 1,167-page work examines in particular Johnson's battle to pass a landmark civil rights bill through Congress without it tearing apart his party, whose southern bloc was anti-civil rights while the northern faction was more supportive of civil rights. Although its scope was limited, the ensuing Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first such legislation since the Reconstruction era.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: The book was released on April 23, 2002. It won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the 2002 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and the 2002 D.B. Hardeman Prize.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In the fourth volume, "The Passage of Power", Caro covers Johnson's life from 1958 to 1964, the challenges Johnson faced upon his assumption of the presidency, and the significant accomplishments in the months after Kennedy's assassination.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: The 736-page book was released on May 1, 2012. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award (2012; Biography), the "Los Angeles Times" Book Prize (2012; Biography), the Mark Lynton History Prize (2013), the American History Book Prize (2013) and the Biographers International Organization's Plutarch Award (2013). It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction (2012). It was selected as one of "Time" magazine's Best Books of the Year (non-fiction #2).


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In November 2011, Caro estimated that the fifth and final volume—expected to treat the remainder of Johnson's presidency and his life thereafter—would require another two to three years to write. In March 2013, he affirmed a commitment to completing the series with a fifth volume. As of April 2014, he was continuing to research the book. In a televised interview with C-SPAN in May 2017, Caro confirmed over 400 typed pages as being complete, covering the period 1964–65; and that once he completes the section on Johnson's 1965 legislative achievements, he intends to move to Vietnam to continue the writing process.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: In an interview with the "New York Review of Books" in January 2018, Caro said that he was writing about 1965 and 1966 and a non-chronological section about the relationship between Johnson and Bobby Kennedy. Asked if he still planned to visit Vietnam soon, Caro replied: "Not yet, no. This is a very long book. And there's a lot to do before that's necessary. I'm getting close to it now." In December 2018, it was reported that Caro is still "several years from finishing" the volume. In January 2020, Caro said he had "typed 604 manuscript pages so far" and is "currently on a section relating to the creation of Medicare in 1965". Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Caro postponed his research trip to Vietnam and a visit to the Johnson Presidential Library, but continued work on the book from his home in Manhattan. In October 2021, Caro said that he was writing about Johnson's passing of Medicare and his escalation of the Vietnam War.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: Throughout the biography, Caro examines the acquisition and use of political power in American democracy, from the perspective both of those who wield it and those who are at its mercy. In an interview with Kurt Vonnegut and Daniel Stern, he once said: "I was never interested in writing biography just to show the life of a great man," saying he wanted instead "to use biography as a means of illuminating the times and the great forces that shape the times—particularly political power."


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: Caro's books portray Johnson as alternating between scheming opportunist and visionary progressive. Caro argues, for example, that Johnson's victory in the 1948 runoff for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate was achieved through extensive fraud and ballot stuffing, just as Johnson had lost his 1941 Senate race because his opponent stuffed the ballot boxes more than Johnson. Caro also highlights some of Johnson's campaign contributions, such as those from the Texas construction firm Brown & Root; in 1962 the company was acquired by another Texas firm, Halliburton, which became a major contractor in the Vietnam War. Despite these criticisms, Caro's portrayal of Johnson also notes his struggles on behalf of progressive causes such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.


title: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

text: There are plans for a Chinese translation of the series, collectively known under the title "Lindeng Yuehanxun", published by Beijing-based Xiron Books. Chengdu resident He Yujia took four months to translate the first volume. She had not learned a significant amount of information about Lyndon Johnson in her formal education, and in accordance with her usual approach to translating non-fiction, she translated material as she read it instead of reading the entire work and then translating it. In late 2018, she spent four months translating the second volume, "Jinjie zhi Ti" ("Means of Ascent"), but as of 2020 the publisher still has not released the translation. Nor has He Yujia received financial remuneration for her work. Peter Hessler argued that this could be related to a decline in China-United States relations.


title: Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

text: Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed (also known as Ginger Snaps II or Ginger Snaps: Unleashed) is a 2004 Canadian horror film, written by Megan Martin and directed by Brett Sullivan. It is the second installment in the "Ginger Snaps" series and sequel to "Ginger Snaps" (2000), directed by executive producer John Fawcett and written in collaboration with Karen Walton. A prequel, "", was filmed back-to-back with "Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed" and was also released in 2004.


title: Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed

text: Brigitte Fitzgerald uses monkshood extract to fight the effects of lycanthropy that transformed her sister Ginger into a werewolf. Brigitte shaves off excess hair, cuts her arm with a scalpel, and logs the data about her healing ability. Ginger appears as an apparition and warns her that monkshood only slows her transformation progression and is not a cure. After Brigitte injects a second dose of monkshood, she senses the presence of a male werewolf that has been stalking her. She quickly packs and opens the door, only to find Jeremy, a flirtatious librarian who has brought to her several books she attempted to check out earlier. The second injection causes toxic shock, and Jeremy attempts to bring her to the hospital; however, the male werewolf mauls him to death. Brigitte stumbles down the street and collapses in the snow.