title: Competence (human resources)

text: Competency models can help organizations align their initiatives to their overall business strategy. By aligning competencies to business strategies, organizations can better recruit and select employees for their organizations. Competencies have become a precise way for employers to distinguish superior from average or below average performance. The reason for this is because competencies extend beyond measuring baseline characteristics and or skills used to define and assess job performance. In addition to recruitment and selection, a well sound Competency Model will help with performance management, succession planning and career development.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Identifying skill gaps: Knowing whether employees are capable of performing their role in achieving corporate strategy


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Performance management: Provides regular measurement of targeted behaviors and performance outcomes linked to job competency profile critical factors.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Selection: The use of behavioral interviewing and testing where appropriate, to screen job candidates based on whether they possess the key necessary job competency profile:


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Careful, methodical preparation focused on retaining and growing the competency portfolios critical for the organization to survive and prosper


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Training and development: Development of individual learning plans for individual or groups of employees based on the measurable “gaps” between job competencies or competency proficiency levels required for their jobs and the competency portfolio processed by the incumbent.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Behavioral competencies: Individual performance competencies are more specific than organizational competencies and capabilities. As such, it is important that they be defined in a measurable behavioral context in order to validate applicability and the degree of expertise (e.g. development of talent)


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Core competencies: Capabilities and/or technical expertise unique to an organization, i.e. core competencies differentiate an organization from its competition (e.g. the technologies, methodologies, strategies or processes of the organization that create competitive advantage in the marketplace). An organizational core competency is an organization's strategic strength.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Functional competencies: Functional competencies are job-specific competencies that drive proven high-performance, quality results for a given position. They are often technical or operational in nature (e.g., "backing up a database" is a functional competency).


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Management competencies: Management competencies identify the specific attributes and capabilities that illustrate an individual's management potential. Unlike leadership characteristics, management characteristics can be learned and developed with the proper training and resources. Competencies in this category should demonstrate pertinent behaviors for management to be effective.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Organizational competencies: The mission, vision, values, culture and core competencies of the organization that sets the tone and/or context in which the work of the organization is carried out (e.g. customer-driven, risk taking and cutting edge). How we treat the patient is part of the patient's treatment.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Technical competencies: Depending on the position, both technical and performance capabilities should be weighed carefully as employment decisions are made. For example, organizations that tend to hire or promote solely on the basis of technical skills, i.e. to the exclusion of other competencies, may experience an increase in performance-related issues (e.g. systems software designs versus relationship management skills)


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Is alert in a high-risk environment; follows detailed procedures and ensures accuracy in documentation and data; carefully monitors gauges, instruments or processes; concentrates on routine work details; organizes and maintains a system of records.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Understands, encourages and carries out the principles of integrated safety management; complies with or oversees the compliance with Laboratory safety policies and procedures; completes all required


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Writes and speaks effectively, using conventions proper to the situation; states own opinions clearly and concisely; demonstrates openness and honesty; listens well during meetings and feedback sessions; explains reasoning behind own opinions; asks others for their opinions and feedback; asks questions to ensure understanding; exercises a professional approach with others using all appropriate tools of communication; uses consideration and tact when offering opinions.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Works harmoniously with others to get a job done; responds positively to instructions and procedures; able to work well with staff, co-workers, peers and managers; shares critical information with everyone involved in a project; works effectively on projects that cross functional lines; helps to set a tone of cooperation within the work group and across groups; coordinates own work with others; seeks opinions; values working relationships; when appropriate facilitates discussion before decision-making process is complete.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Listens and responds effectively to customer questions; resolves customer problems to the customer's satisfaction; respects all internal and external customers; uses a team approach when dealing with customers; follows up to evaluate customer satisfaction; measures customer satisfaction effectively; commits to exceeding customer expectations.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Remains open-minded and changes opinions on the basis of new information; performs a wide variety of tasks and changes focus quickly as demands change; manages transitions from task to task effectively; adapts to varying customer needs.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Demonstrates knowledge of techniques, skills, equipment, procedures and materials. Applies knowledge to identify issues and internal problems; works to develop additional technical knowledge and skills.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Plans work and carries out tasks without detailed instructions; makes constructive suggestions; prepares for problems or opportunities in advance; undertakes additional responsibilities; responds to situations as they arise with minimal supervision; creates novel solutions to problems; evaluates new technology as potential solutions to existing problems.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Able to challenge conventional practices; adapts established methods for new uses; pursues ongoing system improvement; creates novel solutions to problems; evaluates new technology as potential solutions to existing problems.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Makes sound decisions; bases decisions on fact rather than emotion; analyzes problems skillfully; uses logic to reach solutions.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Able to become a role model for the team and lead from the front. Reliable and have the capacity to motivate subordinates. Solves problems and takes important decisions.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Able to manage multiple projects; able to determine project urgency in a practical way; uses goals to guide actions; creates detailed action plans; organizes and schedules people and tasks effectively.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Anticipates problems; sees how a problem and its solution will affect other units; gathers information before making decisions; weighs alternatives against objectives and arrives at reasonable decisions; adapts well to changing priorities, deadlines and directions; works to eliminate all processes which do not add value; is willing to take action, even under pressure, criticism or tight deadlines; takes informed risks; recognizes and accurately evaluates the signs of a problem; analyzes current procedures for possible improvements; notifies supervisor of problems in a timely manner.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Establishes high standards and measures; is able to maintain high standards despite pressing deadlines; does work right the first time and inspects work for flaws; tests new methods thoroughly; considers excellence a fundamental priority.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Maintains high standards despite pressing deadlines; does work right the first time; corrects own errors; regularly produces accurate, thorough, professional work.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Produces an appropriate quantity of work; does not get bogged down in unnecessary detail; able to manage multiple projects; able to determine project urgency in a meaningful and practical way; organizes and schedules people and tasks.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Personally responsible; completes work in a timely, consistent manner; works hours necessary to complete assigned work; is regularly present and punctual; arrives prepared for work; is committed to doing the best job possible; keeps commitments.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Responds to requests for service in a timely and thorough manner; does what is necessary to ensure customer satisfaction; prioritizes customer needs; follows up to evaluate customer satisfaction.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Works to improve the performance of oneself and others by pursuing opportunities for continuous learning/feedback; constructively helps and coaches others in their professional development; exhibits a “can-do” approach and inspires associates to excel; develops a team spirit.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Treats all people with respect; values diverse perspectives; participates in diversity training opportunities; provides a supportive work environment for the multicultural workforce; applies the employer's philosophy of equal employment opportunity; shows sensitivity to individual differences; treats others fairly without regard to race, sex, color, religion, or sexual orientation; recognizes differences as opportunities to learn and gain by working together; values and encourages unique skills and talents; seeks and considers diverse perspectives and ideas.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Many Human Resource professionals are employing a competitive competency model to strengthen nearly every facet of talent management—from recruiting and performance management, to training and development, to succession planning and more. A job competency model is a comprehensive, behaviorally based job description that both potential and current employees and their managers can use to measure and manage performance and establish development plans. Often there is an accompanying visual representative competency profile as well (see, job profile template).


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Creating a competency framework is critical for both employee and system success. An organization cannot produce and develop superior performers without first identifying what superior performance is. In the traditional method, organizations develop behavioral interview questions, interview the best and worst performers, review the interview data (tracking and coding how frequently keywords and descriptions were repeated, selecting the SKAs that demonstrated best performance and named the competencies)


title: Competence (human resources)

text: One of the most common pitfalls that organizations stumble upon is that when creating a competency model they focus too much on job descriptions instead the behaviors of an employee. Experts say that the steps required to create a competency model include:


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Once the competency model has been created, the final step involves communicating how the organization plans to use the competency model to support initiatives such as recruiting, performance management, career development, succession planning as well as other HR business processes.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Because skills are changing so rapidly, by the time the traditional method is completed, the competency model may already be out of date.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: For this reason, an agile method, designed to model top performers in a particular role, may be used. It includes these steps:


title: Competence (human resources)

text: - Assess the Competency of Managers by experienced managers qualified with expedience and allocation α


title: Competence (human resources)

text: - Calculation of the competency number of each manager for each competency criterion and calculation of the average competency of each manager (a)


title: Competence (human resources)

text: 4-         Choosing the manager with the same score as the obtained number for each project and assign it to the project


title: Competence (human resources)

text: The most frequently mentioned “cons” mentioned by competency modeling experts regarding creating a competency model is time and expense. This is also a potential reason why some organizations either don't have a competency model in place or don't have a complete and comprehensive competency model in place. Building a competency model requires careful study of the job, group, and organization of industry. The process often involves researching performance and success, interviewing high performing incumbents, conducting focus groups and surveys.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: When asked in a recent webcast hosted by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), 67 percent of webcast attendees indicated that hastily written job descriptions may be the root cause of incomplete competencies. Defining and compiling competencies is a long process that may sometimes require more effort and time than most organizations are willing to allocate. Instead of creating a competency model themselves, organizations are enlisting the help of specialist/consultants to assess their organization and create a unique competency model specific to their organization. There are many ways that organizations can outsource these functions. However, many competency models which have been created are usable in many companies. The most important of these are introduced:


title: Competence (human resources)

text: PMCDF framework, studied since 1997, is the first standard of the Project Management Institute (PMI) addressing the issue of "improving performance of project staff". This standard is an important step in continuing the mission of this association for definition of the body of knowledge supporting project management profession and provision of standards for its application. PMCDF framework aims to help project managers and those interested in project management to manage their profession development.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: The International Project Management Institute has divided the project management competencies into three categories: technical, behavioral and structural-environment. According to this standard, we need 46 elements to describe the competency of the project manager (a professional specialist who plans and controls the project).


title: Competence (human resources)

text: The AIPM (Austrian Institute for project management) was formed in 1976 as the project manager's forum and has been instrumental in progressing the profession of project management in Australia. The AIPM developed and documented their standard as the Australian national competency standards for project management.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: This model is designed based on the special conditions of constructional projects. In this model, first, the characteristics of a competent manager based on studies conducted on various standards and models of the world, and after studies on competency in the scientific and traditional attitudes, are divided into several categories and, finally, after identification of the criteria and measurable criteria and sub-criteria, with the help of the network analysis process, each of the criteria and sub-criteria is weighed in two different companies, and finally ranked among the identified factors and based on the weighted average of each of the sub-criteria, for selection of a competent manager among several volunteer managers, modeling is performed. The following figure shows the criteria and sub-criteria required for selection of the competent manager.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: On October 16, 2012, a major human resources organization which was called SABPP created a National Competency Model for South Africa. SABPP is not only a professional organization in the field of Human resource researches but also active in the field of training logistics. This company has developed training programs in the field of management and industrial psychology. Therefore, in development of this model, the views of industrial psychologists have been used. Dr. Lydia Silichemith has headed the research group. According to his early studies, creation of SABPP's competency model is important because it describes the requirements for any professional in a variety of occupational contexts.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: The purpose of this model is to deserve and develop the culture of success in organizations. The value model tries to identify and develop, within several stages, the competencies of its forces:


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Organizations that don't have the time or resources to build to develop competencies can purchase comprehensive competency libraries online. These universal competencies are applicable to all organizations across functions. Organizations can then take these competencies and begin building a competency model.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: For organizations that find they want a specialist to help create a competency model, outsourcing the entire process is also possible. Through outsourcing, a specialist/consultant can work with your company to pinpoint the root causes of your workforce challenges. By identifying these workforce challenges, customized action plans can then be created to meet the specific needs. Typically, these solutions are unique to every organization's culture and challenges.


title: Competence (human resources)

text: Competencies required for a post are identified through job analysis or task analysis, using techniques such as the critical incident technique, work diaries, and work sampling. A future focus is recommended for strategic reasons.


title: Lilla Crawford

text: Lilla Crawford (born 2000 or 2001) is an American actress best known for portraying the title role in the 2012 Broadway revival of "Annie". She made her feature-film debut playing Little Red Riding Hood in the 2014 Disney film "Into the Woods". Since 2017, Crawford has voiced Sunny in the Nickelodeon series "Sunny Day" and has starred in the Netflix series "The Who Was? Show"


title: Lilla Crawford

text: Crawford began her career at the age of six appearing in commercials, and since then has appeared in several more. She states that she begged her mother to find her an agent because it was her dream to be an animated voice.


title: Lilla Crawford

text: She moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she made her Broadway debut in 2011 as Debbie in the closing cast of the musical "Billy Elliot".


title: Lilla Crawford

text: After a nationwide search, she won the title role in James Lapine’s 2012 revival of the Tony-winning musical "Annie" at the age of 11, after having previously been in a community theatre production of the same show, where she played Bert Healy. She competed against over 5,000 other girls auditioning to play Annie over a span of nine months. After her initial audition in New York she had five or six callbacks, the final one with a dozen girls. While performing in "Annie", she filmed the Broadway.com video blog "Simply Red" for the show, which earned her a broadway.com title of "most clicked stars of 2013".


title: Lilla Crawford

text: She played "The Little Girl" in "Ragtime" at Avery Fisher Hall, alongside Lea Salonga, Norm Lewis, and many others. Crawford played Little Katie in a workshop production of "Home the Musical" by Scott Alan in New York City. She also appeared in a workshop of "Melissa Arctic".


title: Lilla Crawford

text: Crawford played Little Red Riding Hood in the Disney film adaption of the musical "Into the Woods". The film was released on December 25, 2014.


title: Lilla Crawford

text: As of 2017, Crawford voices the leading character on the Nickelodeon animated series "Sunny Day". She also starred in the Netflix series "The Who Was? Show", based on the book series "Who Was".


title: Kokura

text: The Ogasawara and Hosokawa clans were "daimyō" at Kokura Castle during the Edo period (1603–1868). Miyamoto Musashi, samurai swordsman, author of "The Book of Five Rings" and founder of the Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryū, famous for its use of two swords, lived in the Kokura castle under the patronage of the Ogasawara and Hosokawa clans briefly during 1634.


title: Kokura

text: After the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate, Kokura was the seat of government for Kokura Prefecture. When the municipal system of cities, towns and villages was introduced, Kokura Town was one of 25 towns in the prefecture, which later merged with Fukuoka Prefecture. Kokura was upgraded to city status in 1900.


title: Kokura

text: Kokura was the primary target for the "Fat Man" bomb on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by morning fog. Kokura had also been mistaken for the neighboring city of Yahata the day before by the reconnaissance missions. Since the mission commander Major Charles Sweeney had orders to drop the bomb visually and not by radar, he diverted to the secondary target, Nagasaki.


title: Kokura

text: When the city of Kitakyushu was created in 1963, Kokura was divided into Kokura Kita ward in the north, and Kokura Minami ward in the south.


title: Kokura

text: The Gion Festival of Kokura is called the "Gion of Drums" and celebrates the life of local folk-hero Muhomatsu.


title: Kokura

text: The city is the site of the main dojo (honbu) of Miyamoto Musashi's sword school, Hyoho Niten Ichi-ryū.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The London and North Eastern Railway LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3 locomotives represented two distinct stages in the history of the British "Pacific" steam locomotives designed by Nigel Gresley. They were designed for main line passenger services and later express passenger services, initially on the Great Northern Railway (GNR), a constituent company of the London and North Eastern Railway after the amalgamation of 1923, for which they became a standard design. The change in class designation to A3 reflected the fitting to the same chassis of a higher pressure boiler with a greater superheating surface and a small reduction in cylinder diameter, leading to an increase in locomotive weight. Eventually all of the A1 locomotives were rebuilt, most to A3 specifications, but no. 4470 was completely rebuilt as Class A1/1.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The names for the locomotives came from a variety of sources. The first, "Great Northern", was named after its parent company. Others were given the names of high-ranking railway officials, but most were given the names of famous racehorses. One was named after the company's most famous long-distance passenger train, the "Flying Scotsman". "Flying Scotsman" is the sole member of the class to be preserved.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The new Pacific locomotives were built at the Doncaster "Plant" in 1922 to the design of Nigel Gresley, who had become Chief mechanical engineer of the GNR in 1911. The intention was to produce an engine able to handle, without assistance, mainline express services that were reaching the limits of the capacity of the Ivatt large-boilered Atlantics.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Gresley's initial Pacific project of 1915 was for an elongated version of the Ivatt Atlantic design with four cylinders. Finally realising that he was in a design impasse, he took as a model the new American Pennsylvania Railroad class K4 Pacific of 1914. This in turn had been updated from a series of prototypes scientifically developed in 1910 under Francis J. Cole, Alco's Chief Consulting Engineer at Schenectady and the Pennsylvania's K29 Alco prototype of 1911, also designed by Cole. Descriptions of those locomotives appeared in the British technical press at the time and gave Gresley the elements necessary to design a thoroughly up-to-date locomotive.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The first two GNR Pacifics, 1470 "Great Northern" and 1471 "Sir Frederick Banbury" were introduced in 1922. The Great Northern board ordered a further ten '1470-class' locomotives, which were under construction at Doncaster at the time of the formation of the LNER in 1923. This included the future sole surviving member of the class, 4472 Flying Scotsman, then nameless and numbered 1472


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: In line with the philosophy behind Cole's Alco prototypes, the Gresley Pacifics were built to the maximum limits of the LNER loading gauge with a large boiler and wide firebox giving a large grate area. The firebox was set low and rested on the trailing carrying axle. However, unlike the Pennsylvania K4, the firebox was not of the flat-topped Belpaire variety, but a round-topped one that was in line with Great Northern tradition. Features in common with the American types were the downward profile towards the back of the firebox and the boiler tapering towards the front. Heat transfer and the flow of gases were helped by use of a combustion chamber extending forward from the firebox space into the boiler barrel, along with a boiler tube length limited to , features inherited from the K4 type but not present on the earlier Cole Prototypes. The boiler pressure was rated at .


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The 1470-class Pacific was the third Great Northern locomotive type to incorporate Gresley's universal 3-cylinder layout. All three cylinders drove the middle coupled axle. The outside cranks were set at 120°, with the inside crank displaced by about 7 degrees to allow for the 1:8 inclination of the inside cylinder, this slight deviation from even spacing being a suggestion by Harold Holcroft of the SECR which enabled the outside cylinders to be perfectly horizontal. Gresley conjugated valve gear derived the motion of the inside valve spindle from the two outside valve spindles: this eliminated an inaccessible middle set of valve gear between the frames. A feature of the K4 that had soon been abandoned by the Pennsylvania Railroad was an unusual three-bar version of the Laird slide-bar. However, Gresley adopted this type of slide-bar for all his locomotives and it was later taken up by Bulleid for his Pacifics and by Riddles for the British Railways standard designs.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The Great Northern Railway was incorporated into the newly formed LNER as a result of the 1923 Grouping. Gresley was appointed Chief Mechanical Engineer of the new company, which was the second largest of the "Big Four" railway companies in Britain. Realising the need for standardisation, Gresley adopted his GNR Pacific design as the standard express passenger locomotive for the LNER main line, designating it 'A1' within the LNER locomotive classification system. The choice was made after comparative trials with an equivalent North Eastern Railway Pacific, classified 'A2'. Between 1923 and 1925, 51 A1 locomotives were built; twenty by the North British Locomotive Company, and the remainder by Doncaster Works. However, Gresley's Pacifics had been designed to work within the bounds of the Great Northern Railway, meaning maximum distances of less than 200 miles (322 km). After the grouping, the locomotives were required to have a far greater operating range.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: In 1924, number 4472 "Flying Scotsman", renumbered and named for the occasion, was displayed at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley along with the first member of the Great Western Railway (GWR) Castle Class, number 4073 "Caerphilly Castle". The latter weighed less than the Pacific, but was claimed to be the most powerful locomotive in Britain with a tractive effort rated at .


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: In the following months, the two railway companies ran comparative exchange trials between the two types from which the Great Western emerged triumphant with 4079 "Pendennis Castle". The LNER learned valuable lessons from the trials which resulted in a series of modifications carried out from 1926 on number 4477 "Gay Crusader". Changes to the valve gear included increased lap and longer travel, in accordance with Great Western practice; this allowed fuller exploitation of the expansive properties of steam and reduced back pressure from the exhaust, transforming performance and economy; the economies in coal and water consumption achieved were such that the 180 psi Pacifics could undertake long-distance non-stop runs that had previously been impossible. There followed a complete redesign of the valve gear, which was applied to 2555 "Centenary" in 1927, with the rest of the class being modified in due course. Locomotives with modified valve gear had a slightly raised running plate over the cylinders in order to give room for the longer combination lever necessary for the longer valve travel. Another modification was made in 1927 when number 4480 "Enterprise" was fitted with a boiler. This was closely followed by two other locomotives which also incorporated variations in the cylinder diameter and superheater size for comparative purposes. This led Gresley to make a radical departure from Churchward practice by increasing the number of large tubes containing superheating elements, hence increasing the superheater surface area in contact with the hot gases, thus raising steam temperature. The presence of the larger superheater could be recognised from the square covers on either side of the smokebox, a feature that the locomotives retained throughout the rest of their existence.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: At the 1925 British Empire Exhibition, "Flying Scotsman" was again exhibited; but this time, the GWR sent "Pendennis Castle".


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The outcome of the various experiments and modifications made to the A1s in the late 1920s was a new Class A3 "Super Pacific", the first example of which was number 2743 "Felstead". This locomotive appeared in August 1928 with 220 psi (1.52 MPa) boiler, 19-inch (483 mm) cylinders, increased superheat, long-travel valves, improved lubrication and modified weight distribution. Another new development was the changeover from right- to left-hand drive, less convenient for a right-handed fireman, but more so for sighting signals, resulting in the modification of all earlier locomotives.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Twenty-seven A3s were built from new, until 1935, with little variation except for a new type of boiler with a "banjo dome", an oval steam collector that was placed on top of the rear boiler ring. The first banjo dome was hidden beneath the casing of Cock o' the North of 1934; it was subsequently used in the A4 streamliners. The last nine A3 Pacifics were constructed with the device in 1935, and it became a standard fitting on all LNER large, wide-firebox boilers that were applied to new locomotives until 1949. It was also applied to replacement boilers on the A3s.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Although all of the original Class A1 locomotives were eventually rebuilt to Class A3 specifications, it was a drawn-out process that lasted until 1949; 60068 "Sir Visto" was the last locomotive to be converted. The changeover to left-hand drive took longer, and continued into the Fifties.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Despite having settled on a new standard type, Gresley continued to experiment on individual locomotives, in one of which experiments ACFI feedwater heaters were installed in A1 2576 "The White Knight" and A3 2580 "Shotover". However, on the Pacifics the increase in efficiency was deemed insufficient and the apparatus was eventually removed. In 1935, number 2544 "Lemberg" received Trofimoff piston valves of an ingenious design with automatically varying steam passages.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: A3s 2747 "Coronach" and 2751 "Humorist" were subjected to smoke deflection trials following an accident on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) due to poor visibility; this included the modification of the upper smokebox area surrounding the chimney. Originally the whole smokebox wrapper was retained in order to form an air duct, with the exit behind the chimney, but this was found ineffective. The next stage, at least with 2751, was to cut off the top part of the wrapper, but retaining the sloping plate that directed air flow upwards, and therefore lifting the smoke above the locomotive. The original chimney was replaced by a double stove-pipe variety, and miniature deflector plates were added on either side, angled to concentrate the air flow when the locomotive was on the move.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Smoke-lifting devices were not a priority with the normal single-chimney Pacifics. However, with its double chimney and subsequent fitting of a double Kylchap exhaust in 1937, "Humorist" continued to pose a problem in this regard and always had small wings on either side of the chimney. Finally, in the 1950s, it acquired the Peppercorn-type of deflector plates.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The original A1s were coupled to a traditional Great Northern type of tender with coal rails of a design that can be traced back to Stirling days. The A1-variant was a much-enlarged eight-wheel version carrying of coal and of water. In 1928, a new special type of tender body was built for the new non-stop Flying Scotsman train. This tender had a corridor connection and an access tunnel through the water tank. It was of a more modern design with high side sheets curved in at the top and had a coal capacity of . In order to be able to pack an extra ton of coal, a single coal rail was provided on this particular series, but was later deemed unnecessary. Ten of these corridor tenders were built, and a non-corridor version of similar design followed with 8-ton coal capacity and no coal rail. Further series of both types had disc wheels instead of the previous spoked variety.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The early A1 Pacifics were a match for the performances demanded of them in the early 1920s. They were certainly able to take loads single-handed that were beyond the capacity of their Atlantic predecessors as was shown in a test run made by No. 1471 "Sir Frederick Banbury" when it took a 20-coach train weighing over the from London to Grantham at an average speed of . However this was at the cost of heavy coal consumption, and general performance was well below the ultimate potential of the design. This was largely due to a regression from the earlier 3-cylinder 2-6-0 design, which was the first to have the standard Gresley conjugated motion combined with long valve travel. However, practical problems were experienced with components quickly suffering from premature wear, especially in the main bearing of the large 2:1 lever which had not yet been fitted with the very necessary ball race; excessive 'play' led to so much over-travel of the middle valve, that it began to hit the end-covers. In order to prevent this, when applying the gear to the Pacifics, Gresley fell back on the expedient of shortening valve travel even though that choked the exhaust at speed, was responsible for the heavy coal consumption, and negated most of the advantages gained by the locomotive's revolutionary design. However, by incorporating the Great Western-inspired valve modifications, the economies in coal and water consumption achieved were such that the 180 psi Pacifics could undertake long-distance non-stop runs that were previously impossible.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The first and most spectacular outcome occurred in 1928, when the Pacifics were called upon daily to work the Flying Scotsman train non-stop over the between London and Edinburgh. Initially three A1s and two A3s took turns on this service. The modifications also gave the A1 locomotives greater speed potential, and the proof of this came in 1933 when a high-speed 3-car diesel railcar service had been mooted. As this would have provided limited accommodation for passengers, it was proposed to use steam traction at similar service speeds with six carriages. A trial return run between London and Leeds was made with modified A1 locomotive number 4472, "Flying Scotsman"; on the return trip with 6 coaches weighing it attained (160 km/h) just outside in Lincolnshire for just over . There were earlier claims to this speed, notably by the Great Western locomotive 3440 "City of Truro", but this 1933 run is generally considered to be the first reliably recorded instance. On a later trial run to Newcastle upon Tyne and back in 1935, A3 number 2750 "Papyrus" reached hauling at the same spot, maintaining a speed above for 12.5 consecutive miles (20.1 km), the world record for a non-streamlined locomotive, shared with a French Chapelon Pacific.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Along with all the Gresley 3-cylinder types, the Pacifics suffered from low wartime maintenance standards, conditions for which they had not been designed. Following Gresley's sudden death in 1941 Edward Thompson took over and following the end of hostilities in 1945 Thompson made a request to his works staff that a locomotive be selected for rebuild, the first of Gresley's A1 Pacifics, "Great Northern" was selected and became the LNER Class A1/1 specification with divided drive and separate valve gear for the inside cylinder. Thompson intended to rebuild to this configuration all the Gresley A1s that had not been converted to A3 standard; in the meantime the remaining Gresley A1s were reclassified as A10s. The rebuilding of these locomotives as A1/1 never happened. Instead, the conversion to A3 standard continued. The A1/1 was at first classified as A1, and reclassified as A1/1 when Arthur Peppercorn designed and constructed his own Class A1s in 1947 this class owing a great deal to the work of Thompson in showing the improvements that could be made on availability and maintenance costs when compared to the Gresley set up of conjugated valve gear instead of 3 sets.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The Gresley 3-cylinder drive arrangement continued to bring a number of practical problems, the root of which was probably the need for the inside cylinder to be steeply inclined in order to give space for the inside connecting rod to clear the leading coupled axle; at the same time, the inside valve spindle had to be parallel with the outside ones from which it derived its motion. This problem had been overcome by what Holcroft called a "twist in the ports" (the passages that carried steam in and out of the cylinders). A consequence was that the length of these passages was greater than that generally recommended, increasing "dead space", and this was combined with a shorter exhaust passage. The net result would be rather different working conditions in the middle cylinder from those on the outside. A contributing problem was that any elongation of the outside valve spindles was multiplied by the conjugated valve gear. Although this had been anticipated at the design stage, the overall consequence was that the inside cylinder had a tendency to give more power than the other two as speed increased, leading to the overloading of the inside connecting rod bearings, especially the big-end which was liable to overheat and fail. Various experiments were tried over the years to cure this chronic ailment, and it was only towards the end of the steam era that a real solution was found in Great Western methods of lubrication and manufacture for the big-end bearing. Other problems persisted, such as a stiff, insensitive regulator and overall design flaws that hampered maintenance.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: In spite of all this and the introduction of more recent Pacifics, in the middle of the 1950s Gresley types continued to have a quasi-monopoly of East Coast Main Line express passenger services, and as the Sixties approached they went through yet another series of improvements comparable to those of the 1920s. The most significant of these was the fitting of the French double Kylchap exhaust system, which was entirely due to the persistence from 1956 of P. N. Townend, Assistant District Motive Power Superintendent at King's Cross locomotive shed. These modifications greatly reduced exhaust back pressure, making the locomotives more economical and free-running, and also kept the firetubes clean, reducing turn-around time, so much so that they were able to fit into the more intensive diesel locomotive workings. The Kylchap arrangement was already being universally applied to the A4 streamlined Pacifics, though with the non-streamlined A3 locomotives, the soft exhaust would cause the smoke and steam to drift into the driver's forward vision. The solution came in the form of narrow German-style smoke deflectors, which somewhat changed the appearance of the A3 locomotives in their latter days.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The prototype locomotive, number 60113 "Great Northern", had been rebuilt by Edward Thompson into a virtually new design. The first to be withdrawn was 60104 "Solario" in 1959, followed by 60095 "Flamingo", and 60055 "Woolwinder" in 1961. Otherwise, the class remained intact until 1962, and was still operating on express passenger work. The last class member to be withdrawn by British Railways was number 60052, "Prince Palatine" in January 1966. 60103 "Flying Scotsman" was withdrawn in 1963, and has since been preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: The sole surviving member of the A3s and A1s is 4472 (60103) "Flying Scotsman". The locomotive was withdrawn from service with British Railways in 1963 and after being saved from scrap it was sold for preservation to Alan Pegler. After overhaul, "Scotsman" worked a number of railtours, including a non-stop London–Edinburgh run in 1968, the final year of steam traction on British Railways.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: After a much-publicised appeal in 2004, "Flying Scotsman" was purchased by the National Railway Museum in York and is now part of the National Collection.


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: A spare A3 boiler that was fitted to 60041 "Salmon Trout" and 60097 "Humorist", but mainly on "Salmon Trout" survives at National Railway Museum's National Collection. Cylinder parts from "Salmon Trout" purchased by Alan Pegler still exist to this day, they are a part of "Flying Scotsman".


title: LNER Gresley Classes A1 and A3

text: Model railway companies Tri-ang, and later Hornby, have produced 'OO'-scale models of both the Gresley A1's and A3's almost continuously since the 1960s. In the 2000s, Hornby also produced live steam examples, re-using the chassis from the initial LNER Class A4 models. Trix and later Liliput made both loco drive and tender drive versions in 'OO' gauge. Although now owned by Bachmann, the models have never been resurrected. Other manufacturers have produced models in other scales, such as Minitrix, Graham Farish, and Dapol (N-gauge) and Bassett-Lowke (O-gauge).


title: Tanya Singh

text: Tanya Singh is a former Bollywood actress known for her work in "Aaja Meri Jaan" (1993) and "Dhadkan" (2000). She is married to actor and T-Series owner Krishan Kumar.


title: Tanya Singh

text: Singh was born in Mumbai and is the daughter of music composer and singer Ajit Singh and numerologist Gittanjali Singh. Her sister is actress Nattasha Singh.


title: History of Siberia

text: The early history of Siberia was greatly influenced by the sophisticated nomadic civilizations of the Scythians (Pazyryk) on the west of the Ural Mountains and Xiongnu (Noin-Ula) on the east of the Urals, both flourishing before the Christian era. The steppes of Siberia were occupied by a succession of nomadic peoples, including the Khitan people, various Turkic peoples, and the Mongol Empire. In the Late Middle Ages, Tibetan Buddhism spread into the areas south of Lake Baikal.


title: History of Siberia

text: During the Russian Empire, Siberia was chiefly developed as an agricultural province. The government also used it as a place of exile, sending Avvakum, Dostoevsky, and the Decemberists, among others, to work camps in the region. During the 19th century, the Trans-Siberian Railway was constructed, supporting industrialization. This was also aided by discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of Siberian mineral resources.


title: History of Siberia

text: According to the field of genetic genealogy, people first resided in Siberia by 45,000 BCE and spread out east and west to populate Europe and the Americas, including the prehistoric Jomon people of Japan, who are the ancestors of the modern Ainu.


title: History of Siberia

text: According to Vasily Radlov, among the Paleo-Siberian inhabitants of Central Siberia were the Yeniseians, who spoke a language different from the later Uralic and Turkic people. The Kets are considered the last remainder of this early migration. Migrants are estimated to have crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America more than 20,000 years ago.


title: History of Siberia

text: The shores of all Siberian lakes, which filled the depressions during the Lacustrine period, abound in remains dating from the Neolithic age. Countless "kurgans" (tumuli), furnaces, and other archaeological artifacts bear witness to a dense population. Some of the earliest artifacts found in Central Asia derive from Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Yeniseians were followed by the Uralic Samoyeds, who came from the northern Ural region. Some descendant cultures, such as the Selkup, remain in the Sayan region. Iron was unknown to them, but they excelled in bronze, silver, and gold work. Their bronze ornaments and implements, often polished, evince considerable artistic taste. They developed and managed irrigation to support their agriculture in wide areas of the fertile tracts.


title: History of Siberia

text: Indo-Iranian influences in southwestern Siberia can be dated to the 2300–1000 BCE Andronovo culture. Between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE, the Indo-Iranian Scythians flourished in the Altai region (Pazyryk culture). They were a major influence on all later steppe empires.


title: History of Siberia

text: As early as the first millennium BCE, trade was underway over the Silk Road. Silk goods were imported and traded in Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: The establishment of the Xiongnu empire in the 3rd century BCE started a series of population movements. Many people were probably driven to the northern borders of the great Central Siberian Plateau. Turkic people such as the Yenisei Kirghiz had already been present in the Sayan region. Various Turkic tribes such as the Khaka and Uyghur migrated northwestwards from their former seats and subdued the Ugric people.


title: History of Siberia

text: These new invaders likewise left numerous traces of their stay, and two different periods may be easily distinguished from their remains. They were acquainted with iron, and learned from their subjects the art of bronze casting, which they used for decorative purposes only. They refined the artistry of this work. Their pottery is more artistic and of a higher quality than that of the Bronze Age. Their ornaments are included among the collections at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Mongols had long maintained relations with the people of the Siberian forest (taiga). They called them "oin irged" ("people of the forest"). Many of them, such as the Barga and Uriankhai, were little different from the Mongols. While the tribes around Lake Baikal were Mongol-speaking, those to the west spoke Turkic, Samoyedic, or Yeniseian languages.


title: History of Siberia

text: By 1206, Genghis Khan had united all Mongol and Turkic tribes on the Mongolian Plateau and southern Siberia. In 1207 his eldest son Jochi subjugated the Siberian forest people, the Uriankhai, the Oirats, Barga, Khakas, Buryats, Tuvans, Khori-Tumed, and Kyrgyz. He then organized the Siberians into three tumens. Genghis Khan gave the Telengit and Tolos along the Irtysh River to an old companion, Qorchi. While the Barga, Tumed, Buriats, Khori, Keshmiti, and Bashkirs were organized in separate thousands, the Telengit, Tolos, Oirats and Yenisei Kirghiz were numbered as tumens. Genghis created a settlement of ethnic Han craftsmen and farmers at Kem-kemchik after the first phase of the Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty. The Great Khans favored gyrfalcons, furs, women and Kyrgyz horses for tribute.


title: History of Siberia

text: Western Siberia came under the Golden Horde. The descendants of Orda Khan, the eldest son of Jochi, directly ruled the area. In the swamps of western Siberia, dog sled Yam stations were set up to facilitate collection of tribute.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1270, Kublai Khan sent an ethnic Han official, with a new batch of settlers, to serve as the judge of the Kyrgyz and Tuvan basin areas (益蘭州 and 謙州). Ogedei's grandson Kaidu occupied portions of Central Siberia from 1275 on. The Yuan dynasty army under Kublai's Kipchak general Tutugh reoccupied the Kyrgyz lands in 1293. From then on the Yuan dynasty controlled large portions of Central and Eastern Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Yenisei area had a community of weavers of ethnic Han origin. Samarkand and Outer Mongolia both had artisans of Han origin.


title: History of Siberia

text: As early as the 11th century the Novgorodians had occasionally penetrated into Siberia. In the 14th century the Novgorodians explored the Kara Sea and the West Siberian river Ob (1364). After the fall of the Novgorod Republic its communications between Northern Russia and Siberia were inherited by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. On May 9, 1483 the Moscow troops of Princes Feodor Kurbski-Cherny and Ivan Saltyk-Travin moved to West Siberia. The troops moved on the rivers Tavda, Tura, Irtysh, up to the River Ob. In 1499 Muscovites and Novgorodians skied to West Siberia, up to the river Ob, and conquered some local tribes.


title: History of Siberia

text: With the breakup of the Golden Horde late in the 15th century, the Khanate of Sibir was founded with its center at Tyumen. The non-Borjigin Taybughid dynasty vied for rule with the descendants of Shiban, a son of Jochi.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the beginning of the 16th century Tatar fugitives from Turkestan subdued the loosely associated tribes inhabiting the lowlands to the east of the Ural Mountains. Agriculturists, tanners, merchants, and mullahs (Muslim clerics) were brought from Turkestan, and small principalities sprang up on the Irtysh and the Ob. These were united by Khan Yadegar Mokhammad of Kazan. Conflicts with the Russians, who were then colonising the Urals, brought him into collision with Muscovy. Khan Yadegar's envoys came to Moscow in 1555 and consented to a yearly tribute of a thousand sables.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the mid-16th century, the Tsardom of Russia conquered the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan, thus annexing the entire Volga Region and making the way to the Ural Mountains open. The colonisation of the new easternmost lands of Russia and further onslaught eastward was led by the rich merchants Stroganovs. Tsar Ivan IV granted large estates near the Urals as well as tax privileges to Anikey Stroganov, who organized large scale migration to these lands. Stroganovs developed farming, hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining on the Urals and established trade with Siberian tribes.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the 1570s, the entrepreneur Semyon Stroganov and other sons of Anikey Stroganov enlisted many cossacks for protection of the Ural settlements against attacks by the Tatars of the Siberian Khanate, led by Khan Kuchum. Stroganov suggested to their chief Yermak, hired in 1577, to conquer the Khanate of Sibir, promising to help him with supplies of food and arms.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1581, Yermak began his voyage into the depths of Siberia with a band of 1,636 men, following the Tagil and Tura Rivers. The following year they were on the Tobol, and 500 men successfully laid siege to Qashliq, the residence of Khan Kuchum, near what is now Tobolsk. After a few victories over the khan's army, Yermak's people defeated the main forces of Kuchum on Irtysh River after a 3-day battle of Chuvash Cape in 1582. The remains of the khan's army retreated to the steppes, abandoning his domains to Yermak, who, according to tradition, by presenting Siberia to tsar Ivan IV achieved his own restoration to favour.


title: History of Siberia

text: Kuchum was still strong and suddenly attacked Yermak in 1585 in the dead of night, killing most of his people. Yermak was wounded and tried to swim across the Wagay River (Irtysh's tributary), but drowned under the weight of his own chain mail. Yermak's Cossacks had to withdraw from Siberia completely, but every year new bands of hunters and adventurers, supported by Moscow, poured into the country. Thanks to Yermak's having explored all the main river routes in West Siberia, Russians successfully reclaimed all of Yermak's conquests just several years later.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the early 17th century, the eastward movement of Russian people was slowed by the internal problems in the country during the Time of Troubles. However, very soon the exploration and colonization of the huge territories of Siberia was resumed, led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. While Cossacks came from the Southern Urals, another wave of Russian people came by the Arctic Ocean. These were Pomors from the Russian North, who had already been making fur trade with Mangazeya in the north of the Western Siberia for quite a long time. In 1607 the settlement of Turukhansk was founded on the northern Yenisey River, near the mouth of the Lower Tunguska, and in 1619 Yeniseysky ostrog was founded on the mid-Yenisey at the mouth of the Upper Tunguska.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1620, a group of fur hunters led by the semi-legendary Demid Pyanda started out from Turukhansk on what would become a very protracted journey. According to folk tales related a century after the fact, in the three and a half years from 1620 to 1624 Pyanda allegedly traversed the total of of hitherto unknown large Siberian rivers. He explored some of the Lower Tunguska (Nizhnyaya Tunguska in Russian) and, having reached the upper part of the Tunguska, he came upon the great Siberian river Lena and explored some of its length. By doing this, he may have become the first Russian to reach Yakutia and meet Yakuts. He returned up the Lena until it became too rocky and shallow, and by land reached Angara. In this way, Pyanda may have become the first Russian to meet Buryats. He built new boats and explored some of the Angara, finally reaching Yeniseysk and discovering that the Angara (a Buryat name) and Upper Tunguska (Verkhnyaya Tunguska, as initially known by the Russian people) were one and the same river.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1627, Pyotr Beketov was appointed Yenisey voevoda in Siberia. He successfully carried out the voyage to collect taxes from Zabaykalye Buryats, becoming the first Russian to enter Buryatia. There he founded the first Russian settlement, Rybinsky ostrog. Beketov was sent to the Lena River in 1631, where in 1632 he founded Yakutsk and sent his Cossacks to explore the Aldan and further down the Lena, to found new fortresses, and to collect taxes.


title: History of Siberia

text: Yakutsk soon turned into a major base for further Russian expeditions eastward, southward and northward. Maksim Perfilyev, who earlier had been one of the founders of Yeniseysk, founded Bratsky ostrog in 1631, and in 1638 he became the first Russian to enter Transbaikalia. In 1639 a group led by Ivan Moskvitin became the first Russian to reach the Pacific Ocean and to discover the Sea of Okhotsk, having built a winter camp on its shore at the Ulya River mouth. The Cossacks learned from the locals about the proximity of the Amur River. In 1640 they apparently sailed south, explored the south-eastern shores of the Okhotsk Sea, maybe even reaching the mouth of the Amur River and discovering the Shantar Islands on their return voyage. Based on Moskvitin's account, Kurbat Ivanov draw the first Russian map of the Far East in 1642. He led a group of Cossacks himself in 1643 to the south of the Baikal Mountains and discovered Lake Baikal, visiting its Olkhon Island. Subsequently, Ivanov made the first chart and description of Baikal.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1643, Vasily Poyarkov crossed the Stanovoy Range and reached the upper Zeya River in the country of the Daurs, who were paying tribute to Manchu Chinese. After wintering, in 1644 Poyarkov pushed down the Zeya and became the first Russian to reach the Amur River. He sailed down the Amur and finally discovered the mouth of that great river from land. Since his Cossacks provoked the enmity of the locals behind, Poyarkov chose a different way back. They built boats and in 1645 sailed along the Sea of Okhotsk coast to the Ulya River and spent the next winter in the huts that had been built by Ivan Moskvitin six years earlier. In 1646 they returned to Yakutsk.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1644, Mikhail Stadukhin discovered the Kolyma River and founded Srednekolymsk. A merchant named Fedot Alekseyev Popov organized a further expedition eastward, and Dezhnyov became a captain of one of the kochi. In 1648 they sailed from Srednekolymsk down to the Arctic and after some time they rounded Cape Dezhnyov, thus becoming the first explorers to pass through Bering Strait and to discover Chukotka and the Bering Sea. All their kochi and most of their men (including Popov) were lost in storms and clashes with the natives. A small group led by Dezhnyov reached the mouth of the Anadyr River and sailed up it in 1649, having built new boats out of the wreckage. They founded Anadyrsk and were stranded there, until Stadukhin found them, coming from Kolyma by land. Later Stadukhin set off to the south in 1651 and discovered Penzhin Bay on the northern side of the Okhotsk Sea. He also may have explored the western shores of Kamchatka as early as the 1650s.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1649–50, Yerofey Khabarov became the second Russian to explore the Amur River. Through the Olyokma, Tungur and Shilka Rivers he reached the Amur (Dauria), returned to Yakutsk and then went back to the Amur with a larger force in 1650–53. This time he was met with armed resistance. He built winter quarters at Albazin, then sailed down the Amur and found Achansk, which preceded the present-day Khabarovsk, defeating or evading large armies of Daurian Manchu Chinese and Koreans on his way. He charted the Amur in his "Draft of the Amur river".


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1659–65, Kurbat Ivanov was the next head of Anadyrsky ostrog after Semyon Dezhnyov. In 1660, he sailed from Anadyr Bay to Cape Dezhnyov. Atop his earlier pioneering charts, he is credited with creation of the early map of Chukotka and Bering Strait, which was the first to show on paper (very schematically) the yet undiscovered Wrangel Island, both Diomede Islands and Alaska.


title: History of Siberia

text: So, by the mid-17th century, the Russian people had established the borders of their country close to the modern ones, and explored almost the whole of Siberia, except eastern Kamchatka and some regions north of the Arctic Circle. The conquest of Kamchatka would be completed later, in the early 18th century by Vladimir Atlasov, while the discovery of the Arctic coastline and Alaska would be nearly completed by the Great Northern Expedition in 1733–1743. The expedition allowed cartographers to create a map of most of the northern coastline of Russia, thanks to the results brought by a series of voyages led by Fyodor Minin, Dmitry Ovtsyn, Vasili Pronchishchev, Semyon Chelyuskin, Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev. At the same time, some of the members of the newly founded Russian Academy of Sciences traveled extensively through Siberia, forming the so-called Academic Squad of the Expedition. They were Johann Georg Gmelin, Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt and others, who became the first scientific explorers of Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: The main treasure to attract Cossacks to Siberia was the fur of sables, foxes, and ermines. Explorers brought back many furs from their expeditions. Local people, submitting to the Russian Empire, received defense from the southern nomads. In exchange they were obliged to pay "yasak" (tribute) in the form of furs. There was a set of "yasachnaya" roads, used to transport yasak to Moscow.


title: History of Siberia

text: A number of peoples showed open resistance to Russian people. Others submitted and even requested to be subordinated, though sometimes they later refused to pay yasak, or not admitted to the Russian authority.


title: History of Siberia

text: There is evidence of collaboration and assimilation of Russian people with the local peoples in Siberia. Though the more Russian people advanced to the East, the less developed the local people were, and the more resistance they offered. In 1607–1610, the Tungus fought strenuously for their independence, but were subdued around 1623. The Buryats also offered some opposition, but were swiftly pacified. The most resistance was offered by the Koryak (on the Kamchatka Peninsula) and Chukchi (on the Chukchi Peninsula), the latter still being at the Stone Age level of development. Resistance by local people may have been the result of forced unfair terms, that recorders would have benefitted from omitting.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Manchu resistance, however, obliged the Russian Cossacks to quit Albazin, and by the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) Russia abandoned her advance into the basin of the river, instead concentrating on the colonisation of the vast expanses of Siberia and trading with China via the Siberian trakt. In 1852, a Russian military expedition under Nikolay Muravyov explored the Amur, and by 1857 a chain of Russian Cossacks and peasants were settled along the whole course of the river. The accomplished fact was recognised by China in 1860 by the Treaty of Aigun.


title: History of Siberia

text: The scientific exploration of Siberia, commenced in the period of 1720 to 1742 by Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt, Johann Georg Gmelin, and Louis de l'Isle de la Croyère, was followed up by Gerhardt Friedrich Müller, Johann Eberhard Fischer, and Johann Gottlieb Georgi. Peter Simon Pallas, with several Russian students, laid the first foundation of a thorough exploration of the topography, fauna, flora, and inhabitants of the country. The journeys of Christopher Hansteen and Georg Adolf Erman were the most important step in the exploration of the territory. Alexander von Humboldt, Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg, and Gustav Rose also paid short visits to Siberia, which gave a new impulse to the accumulation of scientific knowledge; while Carl Ritter elaborated in his "Asien" (1832–1859) the foundations of a sound knowledge of the structure of Siberia. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Middendorf's journey (1843–1845) to north-eastern Siberia — contemporaneous with Matthias Castrén's journeys for the special study of the Ural-Altaic languages — directed attention to the far north and awakened interest in the Amur, the basin of which soon became the scene of the expeditions of Akhte and Schwarz (1852), and later on of the Siberian expedition, advanced knowledge of East Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society was founded at the same time in Irkutsk, and afterwards became a permanent centre for the exploration of Siberia; while the opening of the Amur and Sakhalin attracted Richard Maack, Schmidt, Glehn, Gustav Radde, and Leopold von Schrenck, who created works on the flora, fauna, and inhabitants of Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Russian people that migrated into Siberia were hunters, and those who had escaped from Central Russia: fugitive peasants in search for life free of serfdom, fugitive convicts, and Old Believers. The new settlements of Russian people and the existing local peoples required defence from nomads, for which forts were founded. This way forts of Tomsk and Berdsk were founded.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the beginning of the 18th century, the threat of the nomads' attacks weakened; thus the region became more and more populated; normal civic life was established in the cities.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the 18th century in Siberia, a new administrative "guberniya" was formed with Irkutsk, then in the 19th century the territory was several times re-divided with creation of new guberniyas: Tomsk (with center in Tomsk) and Yenisei (Yeniseysk, later Krasnoyarsk).


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1730, the first large industrial project — the metallurgical production found by Demidov family — gave birth to the city of Barnaul. Later, the enterprise organized social institutions like library, club, theatre. Pyotr Semenov-Tyan-Shansky, who stayed in Barnaul in 1856–1857, wrote: "The richness of mining engineers of Barnaul expressed not merely in their households and clothes, but more in their educational level, knowledge of science and literature. Barnaul was undoubtedly the most cultured place in Siberia, and I've called it Siberian Athenes, leaving Sparta for Omsk".


title: History of Siberia

text: The same events took place in other cities; public libraries, museums of local lore, colleges, theatres were being built, although the first university in Siberia was opened as late as 1880 in Tomsk.


title: History of Siberia

text: Siberian peasants more than those in European Russia relied on their own force and abilities. They had to fight against the harder climate without outside help. Absence of serfdom and landlords also contributed to their independent character. Unlike peasants in European Russia, Siberians had no problems with land availability; the low population density gave them the ability to intensively cultivate a plot for several years in a row, then to leave it fallow for a long time and cultivate other plots. Siberian peasants had an abundance of food, while Central Russian peasantry had to moderate their families' appetites. Leonid Blummer noted that the culture of alcohol consumption differed significantly; Siberian peasants drank frequently but moderately: "For a Siberian vodka isn't a wonder, unlike for a Russian peasant, which, having reached it after all this time, is ready to drink a sea." The houses, according to travellers' notes, were unlike the typical Russian izbas: the houses were big, often two-floored, the ceilings were high, the walls were covered with boards and painted with oil-paint.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1782, under the impression of Pugachev's Rebellion, the Siberian kingdom was divided into three separate viceregencies (наместничество), centered at Tobolsk, Irkutsk and Kolyvan. These viceregencies were downgraded to the status of governorate in 1796 (Tobolsk Governorate, Irkutsk Governorate, Vyatka Governorate).


title: History of Siberia

text: Tomsk Governorate was split off Tobolsk governorate in 1804. Yakutsk Oblast was split off Irkutsk Governorate in 1805.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1822, the subdivision of Siberia was reformed again. It was divided into two governorates general, West Siberia and East Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: West Siberia comprised the Tobolsk and Tomsk governorates, and East Siberia comprised Irkutsk Governorate, and the newly formed Yeniseysk Governorate.


title: History of Siberia

text: Siberia was deemed a good place to exile for political reasons, as it was far from any foreign country. A St. Petersburg citizen would not wish to escape in vast Siberian countryside as the peasants and criminals did. Even the larger cities such as Irkutsk, Omsk, and Krasnoyarsk, lacked that intensive social life and luxurious high life of the capital.


title: History of Siberia

text: About eighty people involved in the Decembrist revolt were sentenced to obligatory work in Siberia and perpetual settlement here. Eleven wives followed them and settled near the labour camps. In their memoirs, they noted benevolence and prosperity of rural Siberians and severe treatment by the soldiers and officers.


title: History of Siberia

text: A number of Decembrists died of diseases, some suffered psychological shock and even went out of their mind.


title: History of Siberia

text: After completing the term of obligatory work, they were sentenced to settle in specific small towns and villages. There, some started doing business, which was well permitted. Only several years later, in the 1840s, they were allowed to move to big cities or to settle anywhere in Siberia. Only in 1856, 31 years after the revolt, Alexander II pardoned and restituted the Decembrists in honour of his coronation.


title: History of Siberia

text: Living in the cities of Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, the Decembrists contributed extensively to the social life and culture. In Irkutsk, their houses are now museums. In many places, memorial plaques with their names have been installed.


title: History of Siberia

text: Yet, there were exceptions: Vladimir Raevskiy was arrested for participation in Decembrists' circles in 1822, and in 1828 was exiled to Olonki village near Irkutsk. There he married and had nine children, traded with bread, and founded a school for children and adults to teach arithmetics and grammar. Being pardoned by Alexander II, he visited his native town, but returned to Olonki.


title: History of Siberia

text: Despite the wishes of the central authorities, the exiled revolutioners unlikely felt outcast in Siberia. Quite the contrary, Siberians having lived all the time on their own, "didn't feel tenderness" to the authorities. In many cases, the exiled were cordially received and got paid positions.


title: History of Siberia

text: Fyodor Dostoevsky was exiled to katorga near Omsk and to military service in Semipalatinsk. In the service he also had to make trips for Barnaul and Kuznetsk, where he married.


title: History of Siberia

text: Anton Chekhov was not exiled, but in 1890 made a trip on his own to Sakhalin through Siberia and visited a katorga there. In his trip, he visited Tomsk, speaking disapprovingly about it, then Krasnoyarsk, which he called "the most beautiful Siberian city". He noted that despite being more a place of criminal rather than political exile, the moral atmosphere was much better: he did not face any case of theft. Blummer suggested to prepare a gun, but his attendant replied: "What for?! We are not in Italy, you know." Chekhov observed that besides of the evident prosperity, there was an urgent demand for cultural development.


title: History of Siberia

text: The development of Siberia was hampered by poor transportation links within the region as well as between Siberia and the rest of the country. Aside from the Sibirsky trakt, good roads suitable for wheeled transport were few and far apart. For about five months of the year, rivers were the main means of transportation; during the cold half of the year, cargo and passengers travelled by horse-drawn sleds over the winter roads, many of which were the same rivers, now ice-covered.


title: History of Siberia

text: The first steamboat on the Ob, Nikita Myasnikov's "Osnova", was launched in 1844; but the early starts were difficult, and it was not until 1857 that steamboat shipping started developing in the Ob system in the serious way. Steamboats started operating on the Yenisei in 1863, on the Lena and Amur in the 1870s.


title: History of Siberia

text: Yenisei, Upper Angara River (Angara River below Bratsk was not easily navigable because of the rapids),


title: History of Siberia

text: The first projects of railroads in Siberia emerged since the creation of the Moscow–St. Petersburg railroad. One of the first was Irkutsk–Chita project, intended to connect the former to the Amur River and, consequently, to the Pacific Ocean.


title: History of Siberia

text: Prior to 1880 the central government seldom responded to such projects, due to weakness of Siberian enterprises, fear of Siberian territories' integration with the Pacific region rather than with Russia, and thus falling under the influence of the United States and Great Britain. The heavy and clumsy bureaucracy and the fear of financial risks also contributed to the inaction: the financial system always underestimated the effects of the railway, assuming that it would take only the existing traffic.


title: History of Siberia

text: Mainly the fear of losing Siberia convinced Alexander II in 1880 to make a decision to build the railway. Construction started in 1891.


title: History of Siberia

text: Trans-Siberian Railroad gave a great boost to Siberian agriculture, allowing for increased exports to Central Russia and European countries. It pushed not only the territories closest to the railway, but also those connected with meridional rivers, such as the Ob (Altai) and the Yenisei (Minusinsk and Abakan regions).


title: History of Siberia

text: Siberian agriculture exported a lot of cheap grain to the West. The agriculture in Central Russia was still under pressure of serfdom, formally abandoned in 1861.


title: History of Siberia

text: Thus, to defend it and to prevent possible social destabilization, in 1896 (when the eastern and western parts of the Trans-Siberian did not close up yet), the government introduced Chelyabinsk tariff break ()—a tariff barrier for grain in Chelyabinsk, and a similar barrier in Manchuria. This measure changed the form of cereal product export: mills emerged in Altai, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk; many farms switched to butter production. From 1896 to 1913 Siberia on average exported 30.6 million poods (~500,000 tonnes) of cereal products (grain, flour) annually.


title: History of Siberia

text: One early significant settlement campaign was carried out under Nicholas II by Prime Minister Stolypin in 1906–1911.


title: History of Siberia

text: The rural areas of Central Russia were overcrowded, while the East was still lightly populated despite having fertile lands. On May 10, 1906, by the decree of the Tsar, agriculturalists were granted the right to transfer, without any restrictions, to the Asian territories of Russia, and to obtain cheap or free land. A large advertising campaign was conducted: six million copies of brochures and banners entitled "What the resettlement gives to peasants", and "How the peasants in Siberia live" were printed and distributed in rural areas. Special propaganda trains were sent throughout the countryside, and transport trains were provided for the migrants. The State gave loans to the settlers for farm construction.


title: History of Siberia

text: Not all the settlers decided to stay; 17.8% migrated back. All in all, more than three million people officially resettled to Siberia, and 750,000 came as foot-messengers. From 1897 to 1914 Siberian population increased 73%, and the area of land under cultivation doubled.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya (Lower Stony) Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m. (0:14 UT, 7:02 a.m. local solar time) on June 30, 1908 (June 17 in the Julian calendar, in use locally at the time).


title: History of Siberia

text: The cause of the explosion is controversial, and still much disputed to this day. Although the cause of the explosion is the subject of debate, it is commonly believed to have been caused by a meteor air burst: the atmospheric explosion of a large meteoroid or comet fragment at an altitude of 5–10 kilometres (3–6 miles) above the Earth's surface. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the object's size, with general agreement that it was a few tens of metres across.


title: History of Siberia

text: Although the Tunguska event is believed to be the largest impact event on land in Earth's recent history, impacts of similar size in remote ocean areas would have gone unnoticed before the advent of global satellite monitoring in the 1960s and 1970s. Because the event occurred in a remote area, there was little damage to human life or property, and it was in fact some years until it was properly investigated.


title: History of Siberia

text: The first recorded expedition arrived at the scene more than a decade after the event. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, visiting the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin as part of a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences, deduced from local accounts that the explosion had been caused by a giant meteorite impact. He persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the Tunguska region, based on the prospect of meteoric iron that could be salvaged to aid Soviet industry.


title: History of Siberia

text: Kulik's party reached the site in 1927. To their surprise, no crater was to be found. There was instead a region of scorched trees about across. A few near ground zero were still strangely standing upright, their branches and bark stripped off. Those farther away had been knocked down in a direction away from the center.


title: History of Siberia

text: By the time of the revolution Siberia was an agricultural region of Russia, with weak entrepreneur and industrial classes. The intelligentsia had vague political ideas. Only 13% of the region's population lived in the cities and possessed some political knowledge. The lack of strong social differences and scarcity of urban population and intellectuals led to the uniting of formally different political parties under ideas of regionalism.


title: History of Siberia

text: The anti-Bolshevik forces failed to offer a united resistance. While Kolchak fought against the Bolsheviks intending to eliminate them in the capital of the Empire, the local Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks tried to sign a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks, on terms of independence. Foreign allies, though being able to make a decisive effort, preferred to stay neutral, although Kolchak himself rejected the offer of help from Japan.


title: History of Siberia

text: After a series of defeats in Central Russia, Kolchak's forces retreated to Siberia. Amid resistance of Socialist-Revolutionaries and waning support from the allies, the Whites had to evacuate from Omsk to Irkutsk, and finally Kolchak resigned under pressure of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, who soon submitted to the Bolsheviks.


title: History of Siberia

text: By the 1920s the agriculture in Siberia was in decline. With the large number of immigrants, land was used very intensively, which led to exhaustion of the land and frequent bad harvests.


title: History of Siberia

text: Agriculture wasn't destroyed by the civil war, but the disorganization of the exports destroyed the food industry and reduced the peasants' incomes. Furthermore, prodrazvyorstka and then the natural food tax contributed to growing discontent. In 1920–1924 there was a number of anti-communistic riots in rural areas, with up to 40,000 people involved. Both old Whites (Cossacks) and old "Reds" partisans, who earlier fought against Kolchak, the marginals, who were the major force of the Communists, took part in the riots. According to a survey of 1927 in Irkutsk Oblast, the peasants openly said they'd participate in anti-Soviet rebel and hoped for the foreign help. It should also be noticed that the KVZhD builders and workers were declared enemies of the people by a special order of the Soviet authorities.


title: History of Siberia

text: The youth, that had socialized in the age of war, was highly militarized, and the Soviet government pushed the further military propaganda by Komsomol. There are many documented evidences of "red banditism", especially in the countryside, such as desecration of churches and Christian graves, and even murders of priests and believers. Also in many cases a Komsomol activist or an authority representative, speaking with a person opposed to the Soviets, got angry and killed him/her and anybody else. The Party faintly counteracted this.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the 1930s, the Party started the collectivization, which automatically put the "kulak" label on the well-off families living in Siberia for a long time. Naturally, "raskulachivanie" applied to everyone who protested. From the Central Russia many families were exiled to low-populated, forest or swampy areas of Siberia, but those who lived here, had either to escape anywhere, or to be exiled in the Northern regions (such as Evenk and Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrugs and the northern parts of Tomsk Oblast). Collectivization destroyed the traditional and most effective stratum of the peasants in Siberia and the natural ways of development, and its consequences are still persisting.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the cities, during the New Economic Policy and later, the new authorities, driven by the romantic socialistic ideas made attempts to build new socialistic cities, according to the fashionable constructivism movement, but after all have left only numbers of square houses. For example, the Novosibirsk theatre was initially designed in pure constructivistic style. It was an ambitious project of exiled architects. In the mid-1930s with introduction of new classicism, it was significantly redesigned.


title: History of Siberia

text: After the Trans-Siberian was built, Omsk soon became the largest Siberian city, but in 1930s Soviets favoured Novosibirsk. In the 1930s the first heavy industrialization took place in the Kuznetsk Basin (coal mining and ferrous metallurgy) and at Norilsk (nickel and rare-earth metals). The Northern Sea Route saw industrial application. At the same time, with growing number of prisoners, Gulag established a large network of labour camps in Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: In 1941, many enterprises and people were evacuated into Siberian cities by the railroads. In urgent need of ammunition and military equipment, they started working right after being unloaded near the stations. The workshops' buildings were built simultaneously with work.


title: History of Siberia

text: Most of the evacuated enterprises remained at their new sites after the war. They increased industrial production in Siberia to a great extent, and became constitutive for many cities, like Rubtsovsk. The most Eastern city to receive them was Ulan-Ude, since Chita was considered dangerously close to China and Japan.


title: History of Siberia

text: On August 28, 1941 the Supreme Soviet stated an order "About the Resettlement of the Germans of Volga region", by which many of them were deported into different rural areas of Kazakhstan and Siberia.


title: History of Siberia

text: By the end of war, thousands of captive soldiers and officers of German and Japanese armies were sentenced to several years of work in labour camps in all the regions of Siberia. These camps were directed by a different administration than Gulag. Although Soviet camps hadn't the purpose to lead prisoners to death, the death rate was significant, especially in winters. The range of works differed from vegetable farming to construction of the Baikal Amur Mainline.


title: History of Siberia

text: In the second half of the 20th century, the exploration of mineral and hydroenergetic resources continued. Many of these projects were planned, but were delayed due to wars and the ever-changing opinions of Soviet politicians.


title: History of Siberia

text: The most famous project is Baikal Amur Mainline. It was planned simultaneously with Trans-Siberian, but the construction began just before World War II, was put on hold during the war and restarted after. After Joseph Stalin's death, it was again suspended for years to be continued under Leonid Brezhnev.


title: History of Siberia

text: The cascade of hydroelectric powerplants was built in the 1960s–1970s on the Angara River, a project similar to Tennessee Valley Authority in the United States. The powerplants allowed creation and support of large production facilities, such as the aluminium plant in Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk, rare-earth mining in Angara basin, and those associated with the timber industry. The price of electricity in Angara basin is the lowest in Russia. But the Angara cascade is not fully finished yet: the Boguchany power plant waits to be finished, and a series of enterprises will be set up.


title: History of Siberia

text: The downside of this development is the ecological damage due to low standards of production and excessive sizes of dams (the bigger projects were favoured by the industrial authorities and received more funding), the increased humidity sharpened the already hard climate. Another powerplant project on Katun River in Altai mountains in the 1980s, which was widely protested publicly, was cancelled.


title: History of Siberia

text: There are a number of military-oriented centers like the NPO Vektor and closed cities like Seversk. By the end of the 1980s a large portion of the industrial production of Omsk and Novosibirsk (up to 40%) was composed of military and aviation output. The collapse of state-funded military orders began an economic crisis.


title: History of Siberia

text: The Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences unites a lot of research institutes in the biggest cities, the biggest being the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Akademgorodok (a scientific town) near Novosibirsk. Other scientific towns or just districts composed by research institutes, also named "Akademgorodok", are in the cities of Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. These sites are the centers of the newly developed IT industry, especially in that of Novosibirsk, nicknamed "Silicon Taiga", and in Tomsk.


title: History of Siberia

text: A number of Siberian-based companies extended their businesses of various consumer products to meta-regional and an All-Russian level. Various Siberian artists and industries, have created communities that are not centralized in Moscow anymore, like the Idea (annual low-budged ads festival), Golden Capital (annual prize in architecture).


title: History of Siberia

text: Until completion of the Chita-Khabarovsk highway, the Transbaikalia was a dead end for automobile transport. While this recently constructed through road will at first benefit mostly the transit travel to and from the Pacific provinces, it will also boost settlement and industrial expansion in the sparsely populated regions of Zabaykalsky Krai and Amur Oblast.


title: History of Siberia

text: Expansion of transportation networks will continue to define the directions of Siberian regional development. The next project to be carried out is the completion of the railroad branch to Yakutsk. Another large project, proposed already in the 19th century as a northern option for the Transsiberian railroad, is the Northern-Siberian Railroad between Nizhnevartovsk,


title: History of Siberia

text: Belyi Yar, Lesosibirsk and Ust-Ilimsk. The Russian Railroads instead suggest an ambitious project of a railway to Magadan, Chukchi Peninsula and then the supposed Bering Strait Tunnel to Alaska.


title: History of Siberia

text: Far Eastern Federal Districts to Western Russia, the Siberian cities attract labour (legal or illegal) from the Central Asian republics and from China. While the natives are aware of the situation, in Western Russia myths about thousands and millions of Chinese living in the Transbaikalia and the Far East are widespread.


title: History of Siberia

text: The largest research center in Russia, which systematically studies the history of Siberia, is Institute of History of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of SciencesГлавная.


title: COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the United States

text: COVID-19 vaccine mandates have been enacted by numerous states and municipalities in the United States, and also by private entities. In September 2021, President Joe Biden announced that the federal government would take steps to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for certain entities under the authority of the federal government or federal agencies.


text: A precedent for mandatory vaccination already existed before the Covid pandemic, as healthcare workers performing exposure-prone procedures were required to be vaccinated against seriously communicable diseases like Hepatitis B.


text: When acting as president-elect in December 2020, Biden said he did not intend to mandate that all citizens receive a COVID-19 vaccine, arguing that "I will do everything in my power as president to encourage people to do the right thing and when they do it, demonstrate that it matters." BBC News writer Anthony Zurcher felt that Biden avoided a general mandate due to the "stubbornly pervasive" anti-vaccine movement in the country, which "could create a groundswell of opposition that would prove counterproductive to public health." Furthermore, in April 2021, the Biden administration ruled out plans for a federal database, "credential", or "passport" to verify COVID-19 vaccination status, citing data privacy and discrimination concerns.


text: As of July 2021, vaccination mandates have largely been enforced by means of employers, including private businesses and governmental divisions, while some private businesses such as restaurants and event promoters may also decline to serve customers if they do not present proof of vaccination. In August 2021, several cities announced plans to require proof of vaccination for patrons of certain types of non-essential indoor venues.


text: In some cases, provisions that are described as a vaccine mandate are officially termed as a constraint requiring those who are not fully-vaccinated for COVID-19 to undergo regular testing—thus allowing for medical or religious exemptions to be fulfilled when needed.


text: In June 2021, the initial EUA status of the vaccines led to challenges as to whether such mandates were legal, as FDA regulations state that a person must be informed "of the option to accept or refuse administration of the product, of the consequences, if any, of refusing administration of the product, and of the alternatives to the product that are available and of their benefits and risks". As these regulations refer to an "option to accept or refuse", some opponents of vaccination initially questioned whether a vaccine issued under EUA can be mandated as a vaccination policy. However, courts addressing the issue uniformly held that such mandates were permissible, with the court in "Klaassen v. Indiana University" in particular addressing this subject at length.


text: In May 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued guidance stating that employers can require their employees to be vaccinated, unless covered by an exemption under the Americans with Disabilities Act (medical exemptions) or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (religious exemptions). By contrast, a presidential waiver would have been required for the U.S. military to mandate vaccination while still under EUA status. When the Pfizer vaccine formally received FDA approval in August 2021, it was anticipated that more organizations and employers would become willing to introduce vaccine mandates.


text: In order to protect their employees and patrons, some businesses and entities may mandate that their on-site employees be vaccinated. Some employers were initially hesitant to impose vaccine requirements, citing concerns over their validity due to the present EUAs among other factors. A June 2021 survey of companies found that only 3% planned to implement a vaccine mandate. Some businesses may also voluntarily require that their customers or patrons present proof of vaccination or a recent negative test in order to receive service or access.


text: However, by late-July 2021 due to the threat of Delta variant, a number of major private employers across many industries announced vaccination requirements for employees. Similar mandates were announced for California state employees, and federal employees and contractors.


text: Many U.S. colleges and universities, both public and privately owned, have started requiring students to be vaccinated before attending in-person classes in fall 2021. This has led to a black market in counterfeit CDC vaccination cards for students who want to violate this requirement instead of attending a different school.


text: The National Football League made rule changes intended to place liabilities on players who are not vaccinated, including monetary fines for each individual violation of COVID-19 protocol, and making teams liable for games canceled due to COVID-19 outbreaks involving unvaccinated players if they cannot be made up during the regular season (which will count as a loss by forfeit, and require the team to pay financial compensation to the opposing team).


text: In mid-August 2021, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) and Live Nation Entertainment both announced that they will mandate vaccination at their venues (where legally possible) in October 2021, with AEG requiring all attendees, staff and performers to be vaccinated with no exceptions effective October 1, and Live Nation requiring attendees to be vaccinated or have recently tested negative for COVID-19 effective October 4.


text: In September 2021, Biden announced the Biden Administration COVID-19 action plan, a six-point plan of new measures to help control the pandemic, which included new executive orders and regulatory actions to effectively mandate vaccination for COVID-19 among a large swath of the American workforce. Executive orders were announced directing all federal agencies to mandate the vaccination of their employees (with exceptions as required by law, and no option for regular testing in lieu of vaccination) per guidance to be developed by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force, and all future government contracts to include a clause requiring compliance with guidance to be developed by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force (likely to include a similar mandate). The administration set a November 22, 2021 deadline for most federal employees to be fully vaccinated and a January 4, 2022 deadline for federal contractors to be vaccinated.


text: In September 2021, the employees of all federally-funded Medicaid and Medicare-certified health care facilities, and Head Start program facilities, were required to be vaccinated, as ordered through the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Companies with more than 100 employees could either require vaccination for all (and give their workers four hours' paid time off for their vaccination appointments); or require any unvaccinated employees to wear masks and be tested weekly for COVID-19, according to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard. These two policies together —federally-funded healthcare facilities and large companies— would apply to 100 million workers and were scheduled to take effect on January 4, 2022.


text: By September 2021, many Republicans asserted Biden's order was an unconstitutional overreach of federal authority, and some Republican governors said they would sue to block it. Despite the network being specifically cited by Biden during his speech as a major employer with vaccine requirements, Fox News pundits criticized Biden; Sean Hannity described Biden as having "cancelled all medical freedom". The next day, Biden responded to the threats, stating "Have at it. Look, I am so disappointed that, particularly some of the Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We're playing for real here, this isn't a game, and I don't know of any scientist out there in this field that doesn't think it makes considerable sense to do the six things I've suggested."


text: In November 2021, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the mandate and ordered OSHA take no steps to implement or enforce the Emergency Temporary Standard. The United States Supreme Court took up emergencies requests to determine if both the OSHA and healthcare facilities mandates can be enforced while litigation continued at lower courts, with oral arguments for both cases held on January 7, 2022.