where is crowley's ridge located in arkansas

Crowley's Ridge (also Crowleys Ridge) is an unusual geological formation that rises 250 to 550 feet (170 m) above the alluvial plain of the Mississippi embayment in a 150-mile (240 km) line from southeastern Missouri to the Mississippi River near Helena, Arkansas. It is the most prominent feature in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain between Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Crowley's Ridge

This narrow rolling hill region rising above the flat plain is the sixth, and smallest, natural division of the state of Arkansas. It is protected within Ozark–St. Francis National Forest.

Most of the major cities of the Arkansas Delta region lie along Crowley's Ridge. It was named after Benjamin Crowley, known as the first European-American settler to reach the area, sometime around 1820. The Civil War Battle of Chalk Bluff was fought on Crowley's Ridge on May 1â€“2, 1863.

The ridge is primarily composed of the windblown glacially derived sediment known as loess. It contrasts greatly with the flat table land around it and with the black soil that makes up the delta. The ridge varies from half a mile to 12 miles (19 km) wide and reaches an elevation of 550 feet (170 m) near its northern extremity. The formation is generally thought to have originally been an island between the Mississippi River and Ohio River that was isolated as a long low hilly ridge after the rivers changed course millions of years ago.[1] Recent research, however, questions the fluvial origin.[2]

Loess deposits are found along both sides of the Mississippi River Alluvial Valley. These loess deposits are a classic example of periglacial loess.[3][4] Crowley's Ridge is a natural loess accumulation point. A comparable example of this type of deposit is the Loess Hills in northwestern Missouri and southwestern Iowa.

There is evidence that the area's elevation has increased over the years, suggesting that uplift is still taking place. This alternative explanation posits a link between the ridge and the nearby New Madrid Seismic Zone.[2]

The flora and fauna of the ridge seem more closely related to the Tennessee hills to the east than to the Ozark Mountains to the west. This unique habitat has been protected by the establishment of several state and city parks, the St. Francis National Forest, recreational lakes, and in 1997 a national scenic byway, the Crowley's Ridge Parkway.[5][6]

The soils in this area are moderately fertile and sometimes rich. The land is moderately rugged, discouraging row-crop agriculture. These soils are easily eroded. There is some commercial agriculture in the loessal plains area of the ridge. The ridge is surrounded by the fertile lands of the delta region. The vegetation is predominantly oak and hickory forests, similar to vegetation found in the Appalachian Mountains. Examples are the tulip tree (a yellow poplar) and the American beech. Ferns and flowers abound here, including the American bell flower, crimson catchfly, butterfly weed, cardinal flower, blue lobelia, phlox, verbena, wild hydrangea, hibiscus, aster and yellow jasmine. The low-lying areas around the ridge were once much swampier, and the ridge provided a natural and more healthful place for settlers to establish homes. The ridge became a natural north-south communications link for the region, since travel along the ridge was much easier than through the swampy lowlands.[7]

The region adjacent to the ridge is covered with thick deltaic soils, and few fossils are found except in gravel pits. These pits sometimes reveal the teeth of large mastodons, mammoths and horses, which roamed the continent as recently as 10,000 years ago. Crowley's Ridge contains important exposures of fossiliferous Tertiary sediments and contains the only documented Miocene exposures in the state. A silicified conifer stump weighing several tons was unearthed near Wittsburg, and many more were found around Piggott. Mastodon bones were found within the city limits of Helena at the southern end of the ridge. Near Forrest City, in the bed of Crow Creek, a deposit of oyster shells estimated to be nearly 7,000,000 cubic yards in size was discovered.[7]

Crowley's Ridge is named after Benjamin Crowley (1758â€“1842), the first European-American settler of the Ridge near Paragould, Arkansas. Crowley is buried in the Shiloh Cemetery in Greene County, Arkansas, and a monument marks the spot. The cemetery is part of Crowley's Ridge State Park. Next to Crowley's grave, other early settlers of the ridge are buried in unmarked graves.

The Forrest L. Wood Crowley’s Ridge Nature Center in Jonesboro, Arkansas features self-guided exhibits about area's topography and natural history and wildlife of Crowley’s Ridge.[8] Operated by the Arkansas Fish and Game Commission (AGFC) and opened in 2004, the Center includes an exhibit area, discovery room, observation tower, meeting rooms, auditorium, and gift shop.[9] Outside there are trails through trails through wetlands, forest and prairie, and a 1/4 mile universally accessible trail and boardwalk around a pond. The Center offers many activities and nature education programs. It is named after Forrest L. Wood, a former commissioner and supporter of the AGFC.


who led the nationalists in the chinese civil war

The following year, Chiang Kai-shek became the de facto leader of the Kuomintang (KMT). Chiang led the Northern Expedition through China with the intention of defeating the warlords and unifying the country. Chiang received the help of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party; however, he soon dismissed his Soviet advisors. He was convinced, not without reason, that they wanted to get rid of the KMT (also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party) and take over.[2] Chiang decided to strike first and purged the Communists, killing thousands of them. At the same time, other violent conflicts took place in the south of China where the Communist Party fielded superior numbers and were massacring  Nationalist supporters. These events eventually led to the Chinese Civil War between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek pushed the Communist Party into the interior as he sought to destroy them, and moved the Nationalist Government to Nanjing in 1927.[3] Leftists within the KMT still allied to the communists, lead by Wang Jingwei, had established a rival Nationalist Government in Wuhan two months earlier, but soon joined Chiang in Nanjing in August 1927. By the following year, Chiang's army had captured Beijing after overthrowing the Beiyang government and unified the entire nation, at least nominally, marking the beginning the Nanjing Decade.

Nationalist government

The Nationalist government, officially the National Government of the Republic of China (Chinese: 中華民國國民政府; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ; literally: "Chinese People's State Nation-People Government"), refers to the government of the Republic of China between 1 July 1925 to 20 May 1948, led by the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party). The name derives from the Kuomintang's translated name "Nationalist Party". The government was in place until the Government of the Republic of China under the newly promulgated Constitution of the Republic of China was established in its place.

After the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution on 10 October 1911, revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was elected Provisional President and founded the Provisional Government of the Republic of China. To preserve national unity, Sun ceded the presidency to military strongman Yuan Shikai, who established the Beiyang government. After a failed attempt to install himself as Emperor of China, Yuan died in 1916, leaving a power vacuum which resulted in China being divided into several warlord fiefdoms and rival governments. They were nominally reunified in 1928 by the Nanjing-based government led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, which after the Northern Expedition, governed the country as a one-party state under the Kuomintang, and was subsequently given international recognition as the legitimate representative of China.

The oldest surviving republic in East Asia, the Republic of China was formally established on 1 January 1912 in mainland China following the Xinhai Revolution, which itself began with the Wuchang Uprising on 10 October 1911, replacing the Qing Dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. Central authority waxed and waned in response to warlordism (1915–28), Japanese invasion (1937–45), and the Chinese Civil War (1927–49), with central authority strongest during the Nanjing Decade (1927–37), when most of China came under the control of the Kuomintang (KMT) under an authoritarian one-party state.[1]

At the end of World War II in 1945, the Empire of Japan surrendered control of Taiwan and its island groups to the Allies, and Taiwan was placed under the Republic of China's administrative control. The legitimacy of this transfer is disputed and is another aspect of the disputed political status of Taiwan.

After World War II, the civil war between the ruling Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China resumed, despite attempts at mediation by the United States. The Nationalist Government began drafting the Constitution of the Republic of China under a National Assembly, but was boycotted by the communists. With the promulgation of the constitution, the Nationalist Government abolished itself and was replaced by the Government of the Republic of China. Following their loss of the Civil War, the Nationalist Government retreated moved their capital to Taiwan while claiming that they were the legitimate government of the mainland.

After Sun's death on 12 March 1925, four months later on 1 July 1925, the National Government of the Republic of China was established in Guangzhou.

According to Sun Yat-sen's "Three Stages of Revolution" theory, the KMT was to rebuild China in three phases: the first stage was military unification, which was carried out with the Northern Expedition; the second was "political tutelage" which was a provisional government led by the KMT to educate people about their political and civil rights, and the third stage was constitutional government.[4] By 1928, the Nationalists, having taken over power militarily and reunified China, started the second phase, promulgating a provisional constitution and beginning the period of so-called "tutelage".[5] The KMT was criticized for instituting authoritarianism, but claimed it was attempting to establish a modern democratic society. Among others, they created at that time the Academia Sinica, the Central Bank of China, and other agencies. In 1932, China sent a team for the first time to the Olympic Games. Historians, such as Edmund Fung, argue that establishing a democracy in China at that time was not possible. The nation was at war and divided between Communists and Nationalists. Corruption within the government and lack of direction also prevented any significant reform from taking place. Chiang realized the lack of real work being done within his administration and told the State Council: "Our organization becomes worse and worseÂ ... many staff members just sit at their desks and gaze into space, others read newspapers and still others sleep."[6] The Nationalist government wrote a draft of the constitution on 5 May 1936.[7] Mass killing under the nationalists were common with millions of people killed[citation needed]. Notable mass killings include deaths from forced army conscription[citation needed] and the White Terror.[8]

The Nationalists faced a new challenge with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, with hostilities continuing through the Second Sino-Japanese War, part of World War II, from 1937 to 1945. The government of the Republic of China retreated from Nanjing to Chongqing. In 1945, after the war of eight years, Japan surrendered and the Republic of China, under the name "China", became one of the founding members of the United Nations. The government returned to Nanjing in 1946.

After the defeat of Japan during World War II, Taiwan was surrendered to the Allies, with ROC troops accepting the surrender of the Japanese garrison. The government of the ROC proclaimed the "retrocession" of Taiwan to the Republic of China and established a provincial government on the island. The military administration of the ROC extended over Taiwan, which led to widespread unrest and increasing tensions between local Taiwanese and mainlanders.[9] The shooting of a civilian on 28 February 1947 triggered an island-wide unrest, which was brutally suppressed with military force in what is now known as the February 28 Incident. Mainstream estimates of casualties range from 18,000 to 30,000, mainly Taiwanese elites.[10][11] The 28 February Incident has had far-reaching effects on subsequent Taiwan history.

From 1945 to 1947, under United States mediation, especially through the Marshall Mission, the Nationalists and Communists agreed to start a series of peace talks aiming at establishing a coalition government. The two parties agreed to open multiparty talks on post-World War II political reforms via a Political Consultative Conference. This was included in the Double Tenth Agreement. This agreement was implemented by the Nationalist Government, who organized the first Political Consultative Assembly from 10â€“31 January 1946. Representatives of the Kuomintang, Communist Party of China, Chinese Youth Party, and China Democratic League, as well as independent delegates, attended the conference in Chongqing. However, shortly afterward, the two parties failed to reach an agreement and the civil war resumed.[12] In the context of political and military animosity[citation needed], the National Assembly was summoned by the Nationalists without the participation of the Communists and promulgated the Constitution of the Republic of China. The constitution was criticized by the Communists,[13] and led to the final break between the two sides.[14] The full-scale civil war resumed from early 1947.[15]

After the National Assembly election, the drafted Constitution was adopted by the National Assembly on 25 December 1946, promulgated by the National Government on 1 January 1947, and went into effect on 25 December 1947. The Constitution was seen as the third and final stage of Kuomintang reconstruction of China. Chiang Kai-shek was also elected as the 1st President of the Republic of China under the constitution by the National Assembly in 1948, with Li Zongren being elected as Vice-President. The Nationalist Government was abolished on 20 May 1948, after the Government of the Republic of China was established with the presidential inauguration of Chiang. The Communists, though invited to the convention that drafted it, boycotted and declared after the ratification that not only would it not recognize the ROC constitution, but all bills passed by the Nationalist administration would be disregarded as well. Zhou Enlai challenged the legitimacy of the National Assembly in 1947 by accusing KMT hand-picked the members of the National Assembly 10 years earlier and thus could not have legal representation of the Chinese people.

The National Government governed under a dual-party state apparatus under the ideology of Dang Guo, effectively making it a one-party state; however, existing parties continued to operate and new ones form.  After the end of the Second World War, and particularly after the passage of the constitution in 1946, the National Government was reconstituted to include multiple parties, in preparation of full democratic government to come.

In February 1928, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 2nd Kuomintang National Congress held in Nanjing passed the Reorganization of the National Government Act. This act stipulated the National Government was to be directed and regulated under the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, with the Committee of the Nationalist Government being elected by KMT Central Committee. Under the National Government were seven ministries â€“ Interior, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Transport, Justice, Agriculture and Mines, Commerce in addition institutions such as the Supreme Court, Control Yuan and the General Academy.

With the promulgation of the Organic Law of the National Government in October 1928, the government was reorganized into five different branches or Yuan, namely the Executive Yuan, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan as well as the Control Yuan. The Chairman of the National Government was to be the head-of-state and commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army. Chiang Kai-shek was appointed as the first Chairman of the National Government, a position he would retain until 1931. The Organic Law also stipulated that the Kuomintang, through its National Congress and Central Executive Committee, would exercise sovereign power during the period of political tutelage, and the KMT's Political Council would guide and superintend the National Government in the execution of important national affairs, and that the council has the power to interpret or amend the organic law.[16]

The Nationalist government of China has been accused of mass killings, as Rudolph Rummel estimates the Nationalist government of China is responsible for between 6 and 18.5 million deaths
He attributes this death toll to a few major causes for example:[8]

The National Revolutionary Army (NRA) (traditional Chinese: 國民革命軍; simplified Chinese: 国民革命军; pinyin: Guómín Gémìng Jūn; Wade–Giles: Kuo-min Ke-ming Chün), pre-1928 sometimes shortened to 革命軍 or Revolutionary Army and between 1928 and 1947 as 國軍 or National Army was the Military Arm of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1925 until 1947, as well as the national army of the Republic of China during the KMT's period of party rule beginning in 1928.

Originally organized with Soviet aid as a means for the KMT to unify China against warlordism, the National Revolutionary Army fought major engagements in the Northern Expedition against the Chinese Beiyang Army warlords, in the Second Sino-Japanese War against the Imperial Japanese Army, and in the Chinese Civil War against the People's Liberation Army.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the armed forces of the Communist Party of China were nominally incorporated into the National Revolutionary Army (while retaining separate commands), but broke away to form the People's Liberation Army shortly after the end of the war. With the promulgation of the Constitution of the Republic of China in 1947 and the formal end of the KMT party-state, the National Revolutionary Army was renamed the Republic of China Armed Forces (中華民國國軍), with the bulk of its forces forming the Republic of China Army, which retreated to Taiwan in 1949.

The military was formed through bloody and inhumane forced conscription campaigns; these campaigns are described by Rudolph Rummel as thus:[8]

"Then there was the process of conscription. This was a deadly affair in which men were kidnapped for the army, rounded up indiscriminately by press-gangs or army units among those on the roads or in the towns and villages, or otherwise gathered together. Many men, some the very young and old, were killed resisting or trying to escape. Once collected, they would be roped or chained together and marched, with little food or water, long distances to camp. They often died or were killed along the way, sometimes less than 50 percent reaching camp alive. Then recruit camp was no better, with hospitals resembling Nazi concentration camps like Buchenwald. Probably 3,081,000 died during the Sino-Japanese War; likely another 1,131,000 during the Civil War â€“ 4,212,000 dead in total. Just during conscription."

After the Kuomintang reunified the country in 1928, China entered a period of relative prosperity despite civil war and Japanese aggression. In 1937, the Japanese invaded and laid China to waste in eight years of war. The era also saw additional boycott of Japanese products.

Chinese industries continue to develop in the 1930s with the advent of the Nanjing decade in the 1930s, when Chiang Kai-shek unified most of the country and brought political stability. China's industries developed and grew from 1927 to 1931. Though badly hit by the Great Depression from 1931 to 1935 and Japan's occupation of Manchuria in 1931, industrial output recovered by 1936. By 1936, industrial output had recovered and surpassed its previous peak in 1931 prior to the Great Depression's effects on China. This is best shown by the trends in Chinese GDP. In 1932, China's GDP peaked at 28.8 billion, before falling to 21.3 billion by 1934 and recovering to 23.7 billion by 1935.[17] By 1930, foreign investment in China totaled 3.5 billion, with Japan leading (1.4 billion) and the United Kingdom at 1 billion. By 1948, however, the capital stock had halted with investment dropping to only 3 billion, with the US and Britain leading.[18]

However, the rural economy was hit hard by the Great Depression of the 1930s, in which an overproduction of agricultural goods lead to massive falling prices for China as well as an increase in foreign imports (as agricultural goods produced in western countries were "dumped" in China). In 1931, imports of rice in China amounted to 21 million bushels compared with 12 million in 1928. Other goods saw even more staggering increases. In 1932, 15 million bushels of grain were imported compared with 900,000 in 1928. This increased competition lead to a massive decline in Chinese agricultural prices (which were cheaper) and thus the income of rural farmers. In 1932, agricultural prices were 41 percent of 1921 levels.[19] Rural incomes had fallen to 57 percent of 1931 levels by 1934 in some areas.[19]

In 1937, Japan invaded China and the resulting warfare laid waste to China. Most of the prosperous east China coast was occupied by the Japanese, who carried out various atrocities such as the Rape of Nanjing in 1937 and random massacres of whole villages. In one anti-guerilla sweep in 1942, the Japanese killed up to 200,000 civilians in a month. The war was estimated to have killed between 20 and 25 million Chinese, and destroyed all that Chiang had built up in the preceding decade.[20] Development of industries was severely hampered after the war by devastating conflict as well as the inflow of cheap American goods. By 1946, Chinese industries operated at 20 percent capacity and had 25 percent of the output of pre-war China.[21]

One effect of the war was a massive increase in government control of industries. In 1936, government-owned industries were only 15% of GDP. However, the ROC government took control of many industries in order to fight the war. In 1938, the ROC established a commission for industries and mines to control and supervise firms, as well as instilling price controls.  By 1942, 70 percent of the capital of Chinese industry were owned by the government.[22]

Following the war with Japan, Chiang acquired Taiwan from Japan and renewed his struggle with the communists. However, the corruption of the KMT, as well as hyperinflation as a result of trying to fight the civil war, resulted in mass unrest throughout the Republic[23] and sympathy for the communists. In addition, the communists' promise to redistribute land gained them support among the massive rural population. In 1949, the communists captured Beijing and later Nanjing as well. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed in Beijing on 1 October 1949. The Republic of China central government relocated in Taipei on 7 December 1949, to Taiwan where Japan had laid an educational groundwork.[24]

Almost all of the former sites of the nationalist government are headquartered in the city of Nanking, the capital at the time, with only one exception.

When the city of Nanking was not captured by the Nationalist Government, they chose the following buildings as their headquarters.


who sings with jackson browne on the song stay

"The Load-Out" describes the daily practices of a band and its road crew on a concert tour, and the emotions evoked throughout such an endeavor. The first three verses of the song consist of Browne singing and playing piano with David Lindley playing steel guitar. They are later joined by a synthesizer, followed by the rest of the band. Eventually "The Load-Out" segues into an interpretation of Maurice Williams' 1960 hit "Stay," sung by Browne, Rosemary Butler, and Lindley.[1] It is Lindley who sings the falsetto.

The Load-Out

"The Load-Out" is a song co-written and performed live by Jackson Browne from his 1977 album Running on Empty. It is a tribute to his roadies and fans. The song was recorded live at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland on August 27, 1977, as part of the tour in support of the album The Pretender.

Many radio stations played "The Load-Out" and "Stay" together as a medley, and, although it wasn't released as a single to the public initially ("Rosie" was the original B-side to "Stay"), "The Load-Out" charted as a tag-along to "Stay" on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts, based on airplay. "Stay" debuted on the Hot 100 on June 10, 1978 as a sole A-side, but was listed along with "The Load-Out" on the chart beginning with the August 5, 1978 chart for eight weeks, both showing a peak at #20. "Stay" stayed on the Hot 100 for a total of fifteen weeks.[2][3][4][5]

In his March 9, 1978, Rolling Stone review of the Running on Empty album, Paul Nelson discussed the song in the context of the album's "consciously created documentary," and reviewed the song's significance placed as its finale. The "Load-Out/Stay" medley, he claimed, was "worthy of such earlier" Browne album-closing "anthems as 'For Everyman,' 'Before the Deluge' and 'The Pretender.' 'The Load-Out' is Jackson Browne's tribute to and summation of every aspect of live performance: the cheering audience out front, the band playing hard-nosed rock & roll, the backstage crew loading up the trucksâ€”and, always, the road to the next town. Packed to capacity with the data of first-rate reporting and with music so warm and soaring it belies the album's title, this song flows triumphantly into 'Stay,' where Browne tells us he doesn't ever want it to end."[6]

In an essay for the 2005 Rhino Records reissue of the album, critic Anthony DeCurtis wrote that one of the major themes of the album is how "the joy of performing before an audience lends a purpose to everything that happens - the good and the bad - behind the scene." That theme, he wrote, is expressed "eloquently in the easy rolling transition from the wistful regret of "The Load-Out" to the smile-inducing high jinks of "Stay."[7]

In 1981, Austrian singer-songwriter Georg Danzer recorded a German cover version of this song titled Roadie-Lied.

The final episode of the 2016 television series Roadies was named after the song, and featured a live performance of it by Browne.


which lighting feature in most nursing homes compromises older adults ability to function

In addition to the aging eye, lighting designers need to consider the unique lifestyle needs of the elderly.  It is especially important to provide strong illumination in stairwells to prevent slip and trips, for example. Due to physical limitations, they may be deprived of natural sunlight.  Many nursing homes and assisted living facilities have dim, constant light levels and poor light spectra, often caused by extensive use of fluorescent lighting. Although widely used in offices and factories, it is unsuitable for clinics and homes. This can cause disruption of the bodyâ€™s  circadian rhythms, which can potentially lead to negative health effects. Flicker from the bulbs can be disturbing, especially for epilepsy patients, and the colour rendition is poor when compared with incandescent bulbs.

Lighting for the elderly

Designing lighting for the elderly requires special consideration and care from architects and lighting designers.  As people age, they experience neurodegeneration in the retina and in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Less light reaches the back of the eyes because the pupils decrease in size as you age, the lens inside your eye becomes thicker, and the lens scatters more light, causing objects and colors to appear less vivid.[1] These symptoms are particularly common with persons having alzheimer's disease. Older people also have reduced levels of retinal illuminance, such as having smaller pupils and less transparent crystalline lenses.  Furthermore, as an individual ages, they begins to lose retinal neurons, which not only compromises the ability to see but also to register a robust daily pattern of light-dark that is needed to maintain biological rhythms. The 24-hour light-dark cycle is the most important external stimulus for regulating the timing of the circadian cycle.

Low lighting levels may contribute to slips, trips and falls in the elderly by lowering visibility of hazards such as unexpected steps, or sudden changes in floor surfaces. Obstacles to a safe passage may include clutter or ill-placed furniture, which can cause a slip or a trip. Grab bars and stair rails are obvious aids but must be visible to the user, and so such environments demand strong lighting. Falls of elderly people causes a significant number of hip joint fractures, replacement of which is a serious medical event. Depending on fall configuration, other bones may be fractured. Head injury is also possible. Falls from ladders are very common among the elderly, especially men, with potentially worse injuries owing to the greater heights involved.

Fall prevention is thus an important consideration in designing homes for the elderly, and one of the most critical parts of that design process is supplying strong and effective lighting. Thus, when switched on, lights should react instantaneously, so the user is not surprised by a hidden obstacle as they moves into a kitchen or bathroom, for example. In such a case, incandescent light bulbs are preferred over fluorescent lighting, because they react instantaneously while a CFL takes time to warm up and become bright. Incandescent light bulbs also offer much greater illuminance than many other light sources, are relatively low cost and easy to install. Higher lighting levels enable users to see potential hazards before they need to take avoiding action, and so negotiate them safely and easily. Excellent colour rendering (as measured by the Colour rendering index) by such incandescent light also helps users identify  colours correctly. Halogen bulbs are also available for greater efficiency, as are rough service bulbs to avoid discriminatory regulations, especially in the EU. No doubt LED lights will become an alternative source of high quality lighting in the future, but in 2013 they remain expensive for domestic use. Rough service bulbs are available in sizes up to 200 watt in all varieties of fittings. Although lifetime is generally lower than for CFLs, they are replaced easily.

But lighting should also be free from glare and highlights so as not to distract or even temporarily blind the user. Some skill is needed to meet the several criteria governing good lighting systems, especially for senior citizens and patients. Lighting ergonomics attempts to address the problem of designing safe light environments as well as specific lighting products.

Underlying the foundation of light as therapy is the understanding that all living organisms have biological rhythms that repeat approximately in 24-hour cycles, in accordance with the cycle of sunlight.  The most prominent way to measure whether a body is entrained in this circadian cycle is by measuring melatonin secretion, cortisol, and core body temperature. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) regulates melatonin and temperature and typically produces melatonin at night.  Melatonin informs the body when it is time to sleep.

When circadian cycles become disrupted (due either to too little light or too much light at the wrong time of day), melatonin is produced at disrupted times. This causes an individual to experience disrupted sleep patterns, which in turn causes numerous health issues to arise.

The key external stimulus is variation in light and darkness over the course of the day. The elderly are at high risk for physical ailments when their circadian cycles are disrupted.  Impairment of these SCN-mediated circadian rhythms becomes increasingly common with advancing age, diminished health, and Alzheimer's disease, thereby contributing to the high prevalence of sleep disturbances in these populations.

Surveys show that 40 to 70 percent of those 65 years old and older suffer from chronic sleep disturbances.[2]  The elderly tend to go to bed early in the evening and wake earlier in the morning than younger adults. Furthermore, the elderly often wake several times throughout the night and have difficulty falling asleep. They are prone to taking numerous naps during the day.  Furthermore, constant lighting in assisted living facilities has been demonstrated to impair sleep ability.[3]

In persons with Alzheimer's Disease, sleep disturbances are much more frequent and tend to be more severe.  These patients exhibit intermittent sleep throughout the 24-hour day, instead of consolidated sleep at night and wakefulness during the day.[4]

Poor sleep is one of the largest complaints among the elderly, and poor sleep can be linked to a wide variety of problems including increased cardiovascular problems, disruption of endocrine functions, decline of immune functions, stability problems, and poor cognition.[5]  Studies have shown that when the elderly are exposed to high circadian light levels during the day and dim circadian levels at night, their sleep duration and efficiency has significantly improved.[6]

The elderly frequently cite depression as a notable ailment. Many researchers have linked the depression to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and seasonal mood variations have been linked to lack of light.  (SAD is markedly more frequent in extreme latitudes, such as the arctic and in Finland[7]).  Light therapy in the form of light boxes are a frequent non-drug treatment for SAD. Several preliminary studies have shown that light therapy is a positive treatment for depressive symptoms for older persons[8][9][10] although more studies need to be done in this area.

Typical measurements of light have used a Dosimeter. Dosimeters measure an individual's or an object's exposure to something in the environment, such as light dosimeters and ultraviolet dosimeters.

In order to specifically measure the amount of light entering the eye, personal circadian light meter called the Daysimeter has been developed.[11] This is the first device created to accurately measure and characterize light (intensity, spectrum, timing, and duration) entering the eye that affects the human body's clock.

The device is a small, head-mounted device which measures an individual's daily rest and activity patterns, as well as exposure to circadian light—short-wavelength light, particularly natural light from the blue sky—that stimulates the circadian system. The device measures activity and light together at regular time intervals and electronically stores and logs its operating temperature. The Daysimeter can gather data for up to 30 days for analysis.[12]

Providing light early in the evening can help seniors sleep better at night and be more alert during the day because the light delays the biological, circadian clock.[13] Many studies have shown that when the elderly are exposed to bright white light, the elderly individual saw improved sleep efficiency.[14][15][16][17] A recent study also demonstrated that exposure to 30 lx of blue light from LEDs in the evening (peaking at 470Â nm at the eye for two hours) increased sleep efficiency for older adults who previously had difficulty sleeping.

Providing white light and blue light has even greater impact for those with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). So far, two lighting methods have been shown to improve nighttime sleep in AD patients: (1) exposure to bright white light (at least 2500 lx and as high as 8000 lx at the cornea) for at least one hour in the morning, for two weeks and (2) exposure to 30 lx of blue light from LEDs, peaking at 470Â nm at the eye for two hours. The light, or the better sleep, also helped to reduce agitated behavior such as pacing, aggressiveness, and speaking loudly.[18][19][20][21][22]  Evening exposure to bright white light (1500 to 2000 lx at the cornea) for two hours decreased nocturnal activity and severity of evening agitation.

Daylight is an ideal light source because it provides high circadian stimulation during the day.  Daylight also has the correct intensity and spectrum needed to stimulate the circadian systems.[23] Architectural designs should consider adding sun rooms, skylights, patios, and courtyards into the design of facilities for the elderly.  Architects can also select lighting fixtures that emit an array of blue light LEDS (λmax=470 nm) which deliver at least 30 lux at the corner.  Lighting schemes that have timers are also helpful in providing the right type of light at the right type of day.

Nightlights are also helpful in reducing falls and injuries and, at the same time, help the elderly to maintain sleep.  Falls are a major concern with the elderly; they threaten their independence and risk further health complications.[24]  Lighting systems can help seniors maintain balance and stability.[25] Furthermore, sleep deprivation can contribute to decreased postural control.[26][27]  Nightlights that accent horizontal and vertical spaces, such as soft lighting above a doorway or at the foot of a bed, can reduce the risk of falls without disturbing sleep.


who built the temple to jupiter optimus maximus ( best and greatest ) in rome

Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from later Roman tradition. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed this temple while battling with the Sabines and, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, began the terracing necessary to support the foundations of the temple.[8] Modern coring on the Capitoline has confirmed the extensive work needed just to create a level building site.[9] According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, the foundations and most of the superstructure of the temple were completed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome.[10]

Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus

The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, also known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Latin: Aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini; Italian: Tempio di Giove Ottimo Massimo; English: "Temple of Jupiter Best and Greatest on the Capitoline") was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It had a cathedral-like position in the official religion of Rome, and was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where certain assemblies met, and numerous shrines, altars, statues, and victory trophies were displayed.

The first building was the oldest large temple in Rome, and can be considered as essentially Etruscan architecture. It was traditionally dedicated in 509 BC,[1] but in 83 BC it was destroyed by fire, and a replacement in Greek style completed in 69 BC (there were to be two more fires and new buildings). For the first temple Etruscan specialists were brought in for various aspects of the building, including making and painting the extensive terracotta elements of the Temple of Zeus[disambiguation needed] or upper parts, such as antefixes.[2] But for the second building they were summoned from Greece, and the building was presumably essentially Greek in style, though like other Roman temples it retained many elements of Etruscan form. The two further buildings were evidently of contemporary Roman style, although of exceptional size.

The first version is the largest Etruscan temple recorded,[3] and much larger than other Roman temples for centuries after. However, its size remains heavily disputed by specialists; based on an ancient visitor it has been claimed to have been almost 60 m × 60 m (200 ft × 200 ft), not far short of the largest Greek temples.[4] Whatever its size, its influence on other early Roman temples was significant and long-lasting.[5] Reconstructions usually show very wide eaves, and a wide colonnade stretching down the sides, though not round the back wall as it would have done in a Greek temple.[6] A crude image on a coin of 78 BC shows only four columns, and a very busy roofline.[7]

With two further fires, the third temple only lasted five years, to 80 AD, but the fourth survived until the fall of the empire. Remains of the last temple survived to be pillaged for spolia in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but now only elements of the foundations and podium or base survive; as the subsequent temples apparently reused these, they may partly date to the first building. Much about the various buildings remains uncertain.

Livy also records that before the temple's construction shrines to other gods occupied the site. When the augurs carried out the rites seeking permission to remove them, only Terminus and Juventas were believed to have refused. Their shrines were therefore incorporated into the new structure. Because he was the god of boundaries, Terminus's refusal to be moved was interpreted as a favorable omen for the future of the Roman state. A second portent was the appearance of the head of a man to workmen digging the foundations of the temple. This was said by the augurs (including augurs brought especially from Etruria) to mean that Rome was to be the head of a great empire.[11]

Traditionally the Temple was dedicated on September 13, the founding year of the Roman Republic, 509Â BCE according to Livy.[12] According to Dionysius, it was consecrated two years later in 507 BCE. It was sacred to the Capitoline Triad consisting of Jupiter and his companion deities, Juno and Minerva.[citation needed]

The man to perform the dedication of the temple was chosen by lot. The duty fell to Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, one of the consuls in that year.[13]

Livy records that in 495 BCE the Latins, as a mark of gratitude to the Romans for the release of 6,000 Latin prisoners, delivered a crown of gold to the temple.[14]

The original temple may have measured almost 60 m × 60 m (200 ft × 200 ft), though this estimate is hotly disputed by some specialists.[15] It was certainly considered the most important religious temple of the whole state of Rome. Each deity of the Triad had a separate cella, with Juno Regina on the left, Minerva on the right, and Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the middle. The first temple was decorated with many terra cotta sculptures. The most famous of these was of Jupiter driving a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, which was on top of the roof as an acroterion. This sculpture, as well as the cult statue of Jupiter in the main cella, was said to have been the work of Etruscan artisan Vulca of Veii.[16] An image of Summanus, a thunder god, was among the pedimental statues.[17] The original temple decoration was discovered in 2014.The findings allowed the archaeologists to reconstruct for the first time the real appearance of the temple in the earliest phase.[18] The wooden elements of the roof and lintels were lined with terracotta revetment plaques and other elements of exceptional size and richly decorated with painted reliefs, following the so-called Second Phase model (referring to the decorative systems of Etruscan and Latin temples), that had its first expression precisely with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The temple, which immediately rose to fame, established a new model for sacred architecture that was adopted in the terracotta decorations of many temples in Italy up to the 2nd century BC. The original elements were partially replaced with other elements in different style in the early 4th century BC and anew at the end of 3rd – beginning 2nd century BC. The removed material was dumped into the layers forming the square in front of the temple, the so-called Area Capitolina, in the middle years the 2nd century BC.[19]

The plan and exact dimensions of the temple have been heavily debated.[20] Five different plans of the temple have been published following recent excavations on the Capitoline Hill that revealed portions of the archaic foundations.[21] According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the same plan and foundations were used for later rebuildings of the temple,[22] but there is disagreement over what the dimensions he mentions referred to (the building itself or the podium).

The first temple burned in 83Â BCE, during the civil wars under the dictatorship of Sulla. Also lost in this fire were the Sibylline Books, which were said to have been written by classical sibyls, and stored in the temple (to be guarded and consulted by the quindecimviri (council of fifteen) on matters of state only on emergencies).

Speculative plan of the first temple

Another of the many guesses at a plan

19th century artist's impression

Back wall in 2005

During Lucius Cornelius Sulla's sack of Athens in 86 BC, while looting the city, Sulla seized some of the gigantic incomplete columns from the Temple of Zeus and transported them back to Rome, where they were re-used in the Temple of Jupiter. Sulla hoped to live until the temple was rebuilt, but Quintus Lutatius Catulus (Capitolinus) had the honor of dedicating the new structure in 69 BCE.[23] The new temple was built to the same plan on the same foundations, but with more expensive materials for the superstructure. Literary sources indicate that the temple was not entirely completed until the late 60s BCE.[24] Brutus and the other assassins locked themselves inside it after murdering Caesar. The new temple of Quintus Lutatius Catulus was renovated and repaired by Augustus.[citation needed]

The second building burnt down during the course of fighting on the hill on December 19, 69 CE, when an army loyal to Vespasian battled to enter the city in the Year of the Four Emperors.[25] Domitian narrowly escaped with his life.{[cn}}

The new emperor, Vespasian, rapidly rebuilt the temple on the same foundations but with a lavish superstructure. The third temple of Jupiter was dedicated in 75CE.[26] The third temple burned during the reign of Titus in the great fire of 80CE.

Domitian immediately began rebuilding the temple, again on the same foundations, but with the most lavish superstructure yet. According to Plutarch, Domitian used at least twelve thousands talents of gold for the gilding of the bronze roof tiles alone.[27] Elaborate sculpture adorned the pediment. A Renaissance drawing of a damaged relief in the Louvre Museum shows a four-horse chariot (quadriga) beside a two-horse chariot (biga) to the right of the latter at the highest point of the pediment, the two statues serving as the central acroterion, and statues of the god Mars and goddess Venus surmounting the corners of the cornice, serving as acroteria.

In the centre of the pediment the god Jupiter was flanked by Juno and Minerva, seated on thrones. Below was an eagle with wings spread out. A biga driven by the sun god and a biga driven by the moon were depicted either side of the three gods.

The temple completed by Domitian is thought to have lasted more or less intact for over three hundred years, until all pagan temples were closed by emperor Theodosius I in 392. During the 5th century the temple was damaged by Stilicho (who according to Zosimus removed the gold that adorned the doors) and Gaiseric (Procopius states that the Vandals plundered the temple during the sack of Rome in 455, stripping away the roof shingles made of gold and bronze). In 571, Narses removed many of the statues and ornaments. The ruins were still well preserved in 1447 when the 15th-century humanist Poggio Bracciolini visited Rome. The remaining ruins were destroyed in the 16th century, when Giovanni Pietro Caffarelli built a palace (Palazzo Caffarelli) on the site reusing material from the temple.

Today, portions of the temple podium and foundations can be seen behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori, in an exhibition area built in the Caffarelli Garden, and within the Musei Capitolini.[28] A part of front corner is also visible in via del Tempio di Giove.[citation needed]

The second Medici lion was sculpted in the late 16th century by Flaminio Vacca from a capital from the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.[29]

The Area Capitolina was the precinct on the southern part of the Capitoline that surrounded the Temple of Jupiter, enclosing it with irregular retaining walls following the hillside contours.[30] The precinct was enlarged in 388 BCE,[31] to about 3,000m2.[32] The Clivus Capitolinus ended at the main entrance in the center of the southeast side, and the Porta Pandana seems to have been a secondary entrance; these gates were closed at night. The sacred geese of Juno, said to have sounded the alarm during the Gallic siege of Rome, were kept in the Area,[33] which was guarded during the Imperial period by dogs kept by a temple attendant. Domitian hid in the dog handler's living quarters when the forces of Vitellius overtook the Capitoline.[34]

Underground chambers called favissae held damaged building materials, old votive offerings, and dedicated objects that were not suitable for display. It was religiously prohibited to disturb these. The precinct held numerous shrines, altars, statues, and victory trophies.[35] Some plebeian and tribal assemblies met there.[36] In late antiquity, it was a market for luxury goods, and continued as such into the medieval period: in a letter from 468, Sidonius describes a shopper negotiating over the price of gems, silk, and fine fabrics.[37]


who was the african american scientist who created synthetic physostigmine

Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899 â€“ April 19, 1975) was an African American research chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants.[1] He was the first to synthesize the natural product physostigmine, and a pioneer in the industrial large-scale chemical synthesis of the human hormones progesterone and testosterone from plant sterols such as stigmasterol and sitosterol. His work laid the foundation for the steroid drug industry's production of cortisone, other corticosteroids, and birth control pills.[2][3][4]

Percy Lavon Julian

He later started his own company to synthesize steroid intermediates from the wild Mexican yam. His work helped greatly reduce the cost of steroid intermediates to large multinational pharmaceutical companies, helping to significantly expand the use of several important drugs.[5][6]

Julian received more than 130 chemical patents. He was one of the first African Americans to receive a doctorate in chemistry. He was the first African-American chemist inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, and the second African-American scientist inducted (behind David Blackwell) from any field.[5]

Percy Lavon Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama, as the first child of six born to James Sumner Julian and Elizabeth Lena Julian, nÃ©e Adams. Both of his parents were graduates of what was to be Alabama State University. His father, James, whose own father had been a slave, was employed as a clerk in the Railway Service of the United States Post Office, while his mother, Elizabeth, worked as a schoolteacher.[7][8][9] Percy Julian grew up in the time of racist Jim Crow culture and legal regime in the southern United States. Among his childhood memories was finding a lynched man hanged from a tree while walking in the woods near his home. At a time when access to an education beyond the eighth grade was extremely rare for African-Americans, Julian's parents steered all of their children toward higher education.

Julian attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. The college accepted few African-American students. The segregated nature of the town forced social humiliations. Julian was not allowed to live in the college dormitories and first stayed in an off-campus boarding home, which refused to serve him meals. It took him days before Julian found an establishment where he could eat. He later found work firing the furnace, waiting tables, and doing other odd jobs in a fraternity house; in return, he was allowed to sleep in the attic and eat at the house. Julian graduated from DePauw in 1920 as a Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian.[10] By 1930 Julian's father would move the entire family to Greencastle so that all his children could attend college at DePauw. He still worked as a railroad postal clerk.[7]

After graduating from DePauw, Julian wanted to obtain his doctorate in chemistry, but learned it would be difficult for an African-American to do so. Instead he obtained a position as a chemistry instructor at Fisk University. In 1923 he received an Austin Fellowship in Chemistry, which allowed him to attend Harvard University to obtain his M.S. However, worried that white students would resent being taught by an African-American, Harvard withdrew Julian's teaching assistantship, making it impossible for him to complete his Ph.D. at Harvard.

In 1929, while an instructor at Howard University, Julian received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to continue his graduate work at the University of Vienna, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1931. He studied under Ernst Späth and was considered an impressive student. In Europe, he found freedom from the racial prejudices that had stifled him in the States. He freely participated in intellectual social gatherings, went to the opera and found greater acceptance among his peers.[11][12] Julian was one of the first African Americans to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry, after St. Elmo Brady and Dr. Edward M.A. Chandler.[5][13]

After returning from Vienna, Julian taught for one year at Howard University. At Howard, in part due to his position as a department head, Julian became caught up in university politics, setting off an embarrassing chain of events. At university president Mordecai Wyatt Johnson's request,[14] he goaded white Professor of chemistry, Jacob Shohan (Ph.D from Harvard [15]), into resigning.[16][17] In late May 1932, Shohan retaliated by releasing to the local African-American newspaper the letters Julian had written to him from Vienna. The letters described "a variety of subjects from wine, pretty Viennese women, music and dances, to chemical experiments and plans for the new chemical building."[16] In the letters, he spoke with familiarity, and with some derision, of specific members of the Howard University faculty, terming one well-known Dean, an "ass".[16][18]

Around this same time, Julian also became entangled in an interpersonal conflict with his laboratory assistant, Robert Thompson. Julian had recommended Thompson for dismissal in March 1932.[19] Thompson sued Julian for "alienating the affections of his wife",[16] Anna Roselle Thompson, stating he had seen them together in a sexual tryst. Julian counter-sued him for libel. When Thompson was fired, he too gave the paper intimate and personal letters which Julian had written to him from Vienna. Dr. Julian's letters revealed "how he fooled the [Howard] president into accepting his plans for the chemistry building"[18] and "how he bluffed his good friend into appointing" a professor of Julian's liking.[18] Through the summer of 1932, the Baltimore Afro-American published all of Julian's letters. Eventually, the scandal and accompanying pressure forced Julian to resign. He lost his position and everything he had worked for.[5]

Some happiness for Dr. Julian, however, was to come from this scandal. On December 24, 1935 he married Anna Roselle (Ph.D. in Sociology, 1937, University of Pennsylvania). They had two children: Percy Lavon Julian, Jr. (August 31, 1940 – February 24, 2008), who became a noted civil rights lawyer in Madison, Wisconsin;[20] and Faith Roselle Julian (1944– ), who still resides in their Oak Park home and often makes inspirational speeches about her father and his contributions to science.[21]

At the lowest point in Julian's career, his former mentor, William Blanchard, threw him a much-needed lifeline. Blanchard offered Julian a position to teach organic chemistry at DePauw University in 1932. Julian then helped Josef Pikl, a fellow student at the University of Vienna, to come to the United States to work with him at DePauw. In 1935 Julian and Pikl completed the total synthesis of physostigmine and confirmed the structural formula assigned to it. Robert Robinson of Oxford University in the U.K. had been the first to publish a synthesis of physostigmine, but Julian noticed that the melting point of Robinson's end product was wrong, indicating that he had not created it. When Julian completed his synthesis, the melting point matched the correct one for natural physostigmine from the calabar bean.[5]

Julian also extracted stigmasterol, which took its name from Physostigma venenosum, the west African calabar bean that he hoped could serve as raw material for synthesis of human steroidal hormones. At about this time, in 1934, Butenandt and Fernholz, in Germany,[22][23] had shown that stigmasterol, isolated from soybean oil, could be converted to progesterone by synthetic organic chemistry.

In 1936 Julian was denied a professorship at DePauw for racial reasons. DuPont had offered a job to fellow chemist Josef Pikl but declined to hire Julian, despite his superlative qualifications as an organic chemist, apologizing that they were "unaware he was a Negro".[10] Julian next applied for a job at the Institute of Paper Chemistry (IPC) in Appleton, Wisconsin. However, Appleton was a sundown town, forbidding African Americans from staying overnight, stating directly: "No Negro should be bed or boarded overnight in Appleton."

Meanwhile, Julian had written to the Glidden Company, a supplier of soybean oil products, to request a five-gallon sample of the oil to use as his starting point for the synthesis of human steroidal sex hormones (in part because his wife was suffering from infertility). After receiving the request, W. J. O'Brien, a vice-president at Glidden, made a telephone call to Julian, offering him the position of director of research at Glidden's Soya Products Division in Chicago. He was very likely offered the job by O'Brien because he was fluent in German, and Glidden had just purchased a modern continuous countercurrent solvent extraction plant from Germany for the extraction of vegetable oil from soybeans for paints and other uses.[5]

Julian supervised the assembly of the plant at Glidden when he arrived in 1936. He then designed and supervised construction of the world's first plant for the production of industrial-grade, isolated soy protein from oil-free soybean meal. Isolated soy protein could replace the more expensive milk casein in industrial applications such as coating and sizing of paper, glue for making Douglas fir plywood, and in the manufacture of water-based paints.

At the start of World War II, Glidden sent a sample of Julian's isolated soy protein to National Foam System Inc. (today a unit of Kidde Fire Fighting), which used it to develop Aer-O-Foam,[24][25] the U.S. Navy's beloved fire-fighting "bean soup." While it was not exactly Julian's brainchild, his meticulous care in the preparation of the soy protein made the fire fighting foam possible. When a hydrolyzate of isolated soy protein was fed into a water stream, the mixture was converted into a foam by means of an aerating nozzle. The soy protein foam was used to smother oil and gasoline fires aboard ships and was particularly useful on aircraft carriers. It saved the lives of thousands of sailors and airmen.[25] Citing this achievement, in 1947 the NAACP awarded Julian the Spingarn Medal, its highest honor.

Julian's research at Glidden changed direction in 1940 when he began work on synthesizing progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone from the plant sterols stigmasterol and sitosterol, isolated from soybean oil by a foam technique he invented and patented.[2][26] At that time clinicians were discovering many uses for the newly discovered hormones. However, only minute quantities could be extracted from hundreds of pounds of the spinal cords of animals.

In 1940 Julian was able to produce 100Â lb of mixed soy sterols daily, which had a value of $10,000 ($82,000 today)[27] as sex hormones. Julian was soon ozonizing 100 pounds daily of mixed sterol dibromides. The soy stigmasterol was easily converted into commercial quantities of the female hormone progesterone, and the first pound of progesterone he made, valued at $63,500 ($520,000 today),[27] was shipped to the buyer, Upjohn,[28] in an armored car.[4] Production of other sex hormones soon followed.[29]

His work made possible the production of these hormones on a larger industrial scale, with the potential of reducing the cost of treating hormonal deficiencies. Julian and his co-workers obtained patents for Glidden on key processes for the preparation of progesterone and testosterone from soybean plant sterols. Product patents held by a former cartel of European pharmaceutical companies had prevented a significant reduction in wholesale and retail prices for clinical use of these hormones in the 1940s. He saved many lives with this discovery.[30][31][32]

On April 13, 1949, rheumatologist Philip Hench at the Mayo Clinic announced the dramatic effectiveness of cortisone in treating rheumatoid arthritis. The cortisone was produced by Merck at great expense using a complex 36-step synthesis developed by chemist Lewis Sarett, starting with deoxycholic acid from cattle bile acids. On September 30, 1949, Julian announced an improvement in the process of producing cortisone.[33][34][35][36] This eliminated the need to use osmium tetroxide, which was a rare and expensive chemical.[33] By 1950, Glidden could begin producing closely related compounds which might have partial cortisone activity. Julian also announced the synthesis, starting with the cheap and readily available pregnenolone (synthesized from the soybean oil sterol stigmasterol) of the steroid cortexolone (also known as Reichstein's Substance S), a molecule that differed from cortisone by a single missing oxygen atom; and possibly 17Î±-hydroxyprogesterone and pregnenetriolone, which he hoped might also be effective in treating rheumatoid arthritis,[33][34][35][36][37] but unfortunately they were not.[36]

On April 5, 1952, biochemist Durey Peterson and microbiologist Herbert Murray at Upjohn published the first report of a fermentation process for the microbial 11α-oxygenation of steroids in a single step (by common molds of the order Mucorales). Their fermentation process could produce 11α-hydroxyprogesterone or 11α-hydroxycortisone from progesterone or Compound S, respectively, which could then by further chemical steps be converted to cortisone or 11β-hydroxycortisone (cortisol).[38]

After two years, Glidden abandoned production of cortisone to concentrate on Substance S. Julian developed a multistep process for conversion of pregnenolone, available in abundance from soybean oil sterols, to cortexolone. In 1952, Glidden, which had been producing progesterone and other steroids from soybean oil, shut down its own production and began importing them from Mexico through an arrangement with Diosynth (a small Mexican company founded in 1947 by Russell Marker after leaving Syntex). Glidden's cost of production of cortexolone was relatively high, so Upjohn decided to use progesterone, available in large quantity at low cost from Syntex, to produce cortisone and hydrocortisone.[36]

In 1953, Glidden decided to leave the steroid business, which had been relatively unprofitable over the years despite Julian's innovative work.[39] On December 1, 1953, Julian left Glidden after 18 years, giving up a salary of nearly $50,000 a year (equivalent to $460,000 in 2017)[27] to found his own company, Julian Laboratories, Inc., taking over the small, concrete-block building of Suburban Chemical Company in Franklin Park, Illinois.[40][41][42]

On December 2, 1953, Pfizer acquired exclusive licenses of Glidden patents for the synthesis of Substance S. Pfizer had developed a fermentation process for microbial 11β-oxygenation of steroids in a single step that could convert Substance S directly to 11β-hydrocortisone (cortisol), with Syntex undertaking large-scale production of cortexolone at very low cost.[36]

Circa 1950, Julian moved his family to the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, becoming the first African-American family to reside there.[43] Although some residents welcomed them into the community, there was also opposition. Before they even moved in, on Thanksgiving Day, 1950, their home was fire-bombed. Later, after they moved in, the house was attacked with dynamite on June 12, 1951. The attacks galvanized the community, and a community group was formed to support the Julians.[44] Julian's son later recounted that during these times, he and his father often kept watch over the family's property by sitting in a tree with a shotgun.[5]

In 1953, Julian founded his own research firm, Julian Laboratories, Inc. He brought many of his best chemists, including African-Americans and women, from Glidden to his own company. Julian won a contract to provide Upjohn with $2 million worth of progesterone (equivalent to $16 million today).[27] To compete against Syntex, he would have to use the same Mexican yam Mexican barbasco trade as his starting material. Julian used his own money and borrowed from friends to build a processing plant in Mexico, but he could not get a permit from the government to harvest the yams. Abraham Zlotnik, a former Jewish University of Vienna classmate whom Julian had helped escape from the Holocaust, led a search to find a new source of the yam in Guatemala for the company.

In July 1956, Julian and executives of two other American companies trying to enter the Mexican steroid intermediates market appeared before a U.S. Senate subcommittee. They testified that Syntex was using undue influence to monopolize access to the Mexican yam.[32][45] The hearings resulted in Syntex signing a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department. While it did not admit to restraining trade, it promised not to do so in the future.[32] Within five years, large American multinational pharmaceutical companies had acquired all six producers of steroid intermediates in Mexico, four of which had been Mexican-owned.[32]

Syntex reduced the cost of steroid intermediates more than 250-fold over twelve years, from $80 per gram in 1943 to $0.31 per gram in 1955.[32][45] Competition from Upjohn and General Mills, which had together made very substantial improvements in the production of progesterone from stigmasterol, forced the price of Mexican progesterone to less than $0.15 per gram in 1957. The price continued to fall, bottoming out at $0.08 per gram in 1968.[32][36]

In 1958, Upjohn purchased 6,900 kg of progesterone from Syntex at $0.135 per gram, 6,201 kg of progesterone from Searle (who had acquired Pesa) at $0.143 per gram, 5,150 kg of progesterone from Julian Laboratories at $0.14 per gram, and 1,925 kg of progesterone from General Mills (who had acquired Protex) at $0.142 per gram.[46]

Despite continually falling bulk prices of steroid intermediates, an oligopoly of large American multinational pharmaceutical companies kept the wholesale prices of corticosteroid drugs fixed and unchanged into the 1960s. Cortisone was fixed at $5.48 per gram from 1954, hydrocortisone at $7.99 per gram from 1954, and prednisone at $35.80 per gram from 1956.[32][46] Merck and Roussel Uclaf concentrated on improving the production of corticosteroids from cattle bile acids. In 1960 Roussel produced almost one-third of the world's corticosteroids from bile acids.[36]

Julian Laboratories chemists found a way to quadruple the yield on a product on which they were barely breaking even. Julian reduced their price for the product from $4,000 per kg to $400 per kg.[5] He sold the company in 1961 for $2.3 million (equivalent to $19 million today).[27] The U.S. and Mexico facilities were purchased by Smith Kline, and Julian's chemical plant in Guatemala was purchased by Upjohn.

In 1964, Julian founded Julian Associates and Julian Research Institute, which he managed for the rest of his life.[47]

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1973 in recognition of his scientific achievements.[5] He became the second African-American to be inducted, after David Blackwell.

Ruben Santiago-Hudson portrayed Percy Julian in the Public Broadcasting Service Nova documentary about his life, called "Forgotten Genius". It was presented on the PBS network on February 6, 2007, with initial sponsorship by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and further funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Approximately sixty of Julian's family members, friends, and work associates were interviewed for the docudrama.[5][59]

Production on the biopic began at DePauw University's Greencastle campus in May 2002 and included video of Julian's bust on display in the atrium of the university's Percy Lavon Julian Science and Mathematics Center. Completion and broadcasting of the documentary program was delayed in order for Nova to commission and publish a matching book on Julian's life.[60]

According to University of Illinois historian James Anderson in the film, "His story is a story of great accomplishment, of heroic efforts and overcoming tremendous odds...a story about who we are and what we stand for and the challenges that have been there and the challenges that are still with us."[59]

The Percy Lavon Julian family papers are archived at DePauw University.[61]


who is the minister for education in ireland

The current Minister for Education and Skills is Richard Bruton, TD. He is assisted by:

Minister for Education and Skills

The Minister for Education and Skills (Irish: An tAire Oideachais agus Scileanna) is the senior government minister at the Department of Education and Skills in the Government of Ireland.

The Minister engages in a wide range of activities relating to education in the Republic of Ireland, including policy planning, quality assurance and the provision of a broad range of services.

The department officially aims to:

In recent years some of these functions have been devolved to statutory authorities, in particular the Higher Education Authority, the National Qualifications Authority and the State Examinations Commission. Irish universities and colleges are to a large extent free of government control, with this being largely limited to policy formation and statistics preparation.

Until September 1997 the department was known simply as the "Department of Education" and on 23 March 2010 the department was renamed from Department of Education and Science to its current title.


propan 2 ol on reaction with iodine and sodium hydroxide gives

This reaction forms the basis of the iodoform test which was commonly used in history as a chemical test to determine the presence of a methyl ketone, or a secondary alcohol oxidizable to a methyl ketone. When iodine and sodium hydroxide are used as the reagents a positive reaction gives iodoform, which is a solid at room temperature and tends to precipitate out of solution causing a distinctive cloudiness.

Haloform reaction

The haloform reaction is a chemical reaction where a haloform (CHX3, where X is a halogen) is produced by the exhaustive halogenation of a methyl ketone (a molecule containing the R–CO–CH3 group) in the presence of a base.[1][2][3] R may be alkyl or aryl. The reaction can be used to transform acetyl groups into carboxyl groups or to produce chloroform (CHCl3), bromoform (CHBr3), or iodoform (CHI3).

In the first step, the halogen disproportionates in the presence of hydroxide to give the halide and hypohalite (example with bromine, but reaction is the same in case of chlorine and iodine; one should only substitute Br for Cl or I):

If a secondary alcohol is present, it is oxidized to a ketone by the hypohalite:

If a methyl ketone is present, it reacts with the hypohalite in a three-step process:

1. Under basic conditions, the ketone undergoes keto-enol tautomerization. The enolate undergoes electrophilic attack by the hypohalite (containing a halogen with a formal +1 charge).

2. When the α(alpha) position has been exhaustively halogenated, the molecule undergoes a nucleophilic acyl substitution by hydroxide, with −CX3 being the leaving group stabilized by three electron-withdrawing groups. In the third step the −CX3 anion abstracts a proton from either the solvent or the carboxylic acid formed in the previous step, and forms the haloform. At least in some cases (chloral hydrate) the reaction may stop and the intermediate product isolated if conditions are acidic and hypohalite is used.

Substrates are broadly limited to methyl ketones and secondary alcohols oxidizable to methyl ketones, such as isopropanol. The only primary alcohol and aldehyde to undergo this reaction are ethanol and acetaldehyde, respectively. 1,3-Diketones such as acetylacetone also give the haloform reaction. Î²-ketoacids such as acetoacetic acid will also give the test upon heating. Acetyl chloride and acetamide don't give this test. The halogen used may be chlorine, bromine, iodine or sodium hypochlorite.[4] Fluoroform (CHF3) cannot be prepared by this method as it would require the presence of the highly unstable hypofluorite ion. However ketones with the structure RCOCF3 do cleave upon treatment with base to produce fluoroform; this is equivalent to the second and third steps in the process shown above.

In organic chemistry, this reaction may be used to convert a terminal methyl ketone into the analogous carboxylic acid.

It was formerly used to produce iodoform, bromoform, and even chloroform industrially.[citation needed]

Water chlorination can result in the formation of haloforms if the water contains suitable reactive impurities (e.g. humic acid).[5][6] There is a concern that such reactions may lead to the presence of carcinogenic compounds in drinking water.[7]

The haloform reaction is one of the oldest organic reactions known.[8] In 1822, Georges-Simon Serullas added potassium metal to a solution of iodine in ethanol and water to form potassium formate and iodoform, called in the language of that time hydroiodide of carbon.[9] In 1831, Justus von Liebig reported the reaction of chloral with calcium hydroxide to form chloroform and calcium formate. The reaction was rediscovered by Adolf Lieben in 1870. The iodoform test is also called the Lieben haloform reaction. A review of the Haloform reaction with a history section was published in 1934.[2]


where is the hearing center located in the brain

The primary auditory cortex is the part of the temporal lobe that processes auditory information in humans and other vertebrates. It is a part of the auditory system, performing basic and higher functions in hearing.[1]

Auditory cortex

It is located bilaterally, roughly at the upper sides of the temporal lobes â€“ in humans on the superior temporal plane, within the lateral fissure and comprising parts of Heschl's gyrus and the superior temporal gyrus, including planum polare and planum temporale (roughly Brodmann areas 41, 42, and partially 22).[2] [3] Unilateral destruction results in slight hearing loss, whereas bilateral destruction results in cortical deafness.

The auditory cortex was previously subdivided into primary (A1) and secondary (A2) projection areas and further association areas. The modern divisions of the auditory cortex are the core (which includes A1), the belt, and the parabelt. The belt is the area immediately surrounding the core; the parabelt is adjacent to the lateral side of the belt.[4]

Besides receiving input from the ears via lower parts of the auditory system, it also transmits signals back to these areas and is interconnected with other parts of the cerebral cortex.

Data about the auditory cortex has been obtained through studies in rodents, cats, macaques, and other animals. In humans, the structure and function of the auditory cortex has been studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and electrocorticography.[5][6]

Like many areas in the neocortex, the functional properties of the adult primary auditory cortex (A1) are highly dependent on the sounds encountered early in life. This has been best studied using animal models, especially cats and rats. In the rat, exposure to a single frequency during postnatal day (P) 11 to 13 can cause a 2-fold expansion in the representation of that frequency in A1.[7] Importantly, the change is persistent, in that it lasts throughout the animal's life, and specific, in that the same exposure outside of that period causes no lasting change in the tonotopy of A1.

As with other primary sensory cortical areas, auditory sensations reach perception only if received and processed by a cortical area. Evidence for this comes from lesion studies in human patients who have sustained damage to cortical areas through tumors or strokes,[8] or from animal experiments in which cortical areas were deactivated by surgical lesions or other methods.[9] Damage to the Primary Auditory Cortex in humans leads to a loss of any awareness of sound, but an ability to react reflexively to sounds remains as there is a great deal of subcortical processing in the auditory brainstem and midbrain.[10][11][12]

Neurons in the auditory cortex are organized according to the frequency of sound to which they respond best. Neurons at one end of the auditory cortex respond best to low frequencies; neurons at the other respond best to high frequencies. There are multiple auditory areas (much like the multiple areas in the visual cortex), which can be distinguished anatomically and on the basis that they contain a complete "frequency map." The purpose of this frequency map (known as a tonotopic map) is unknown, and is likely to reflect the fact that the cochlea is arranged according to sound frequency. The auditory cortex is involved in tasks such as identifying and segregating auditory "objects" and identifying the location of a sound in space.

Human brain scans have indicated that a peripheral bit of this brain region is active when trying to identify musical pitch. Individual cells consistently get excited by sounds at specific frequencies, or multiples of that frequency.

The auditory cortex plays an important yet ambiguous role in hearing. When the auditory information passes into the cortex, the specifics of what exactly takes place are unclear. There is a large degree of individual variation in the auditory cortex, as noted by biologist James Beament, who wrote, â€œThe cortex is so complex that the most we may ever hope for is to understand it in principle, since the evidence we already have suggests that no two cortices work in precisely the same way."[13]

In the hearing process, multiple sounds are transduced simultaneously. The role of the auditory system is to decide which components form the sound link. Many have surmised that this linkage is based on the location of sounds. However, there are numerous distortions of sound when reflected off different media, which makes this thinking unlikely[citation needed]. The auditory cortex forms groupings based on fundamentals; in music, for example, this would include harmony, timing, and pitch.[14]

The primary auditory cortex lies in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe and extends into the lateral sulcus and the transverse temporal gyri (also called Heschl's gyri). Final sound processing is then performed by the parietal and frontal lobes of the human cerebral cortex. Animal studies indicate that auditory fields of the cerebral cortex receive ascending input from the auditory thalamus, and that they are interconnected on the same and on the opposite cerebral hemispheres.

The auditory cortex is composed of fields which differ from each other in both structure and function.[15] The number of fields varies in different species, from as few as 2 in rodents to as many as 15 in the rhesus monkey. The number, location, and organization of fields in the human auditory cortex are not known at this time. What is known about the human auditory cortex comes from a base of knowledge gained from studies in mammals, including primates, used to interpret electrophysiological tests and functional imaging studies of the brain in humans.

When each instrument of a symphony orchestra or the jazz band plays the same note, the quality of each sound is different â€” but the musician perceives each note as having the same pitch. The neurons of the auditory cortex of the brain are able to respond to pitch. Studies in the marmoset monkey have shown that pitch-selective neurons are located in a cortical region near the anterolateral border of the primary auditory cortex. This location of a pitch-selective area has also been identified in recent functional imaging studies in humans.[16][17]

The primary auditory cortex is subject to modulation by numerous neurotransmitters, including norepinephrine, which has been shown to decrease cellular excitability in all layers of the temporal cortex. alpha-1 adrenergic receptor activation, by norepinephrine, decreases glutamatergic excitatory postsynaptic potentials at AMPA receptors.[18]

The auditory cortex is the most highly organized processing unit of sound in the brain. This cortex area is the neural crux of hearing, and—in humans—language and music. The auditory cortex is divided into three separate parts: the primary, secondary, and tertiary auditory cortex. These structures are formed concentrically around one another, with the primary cortex in the middle and the tertiary cortex on the outside.

The primary auditory cortex is tonotopically organized, which means that neighboring cells in the cortex respond to neighboring frequencies.[19] Tonotopic mapping is preserved throughout most of the audition circuit. The primary auditory cortex receives direct input from the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and thus is thought to identify the fundamental elements of music, such as pitch and loudness.

An evoked response study of congenitally deaf kittens by Klinke et al. utilized local field potentials to measure cortical plasticity in the auditory cortex. These kittens were stimulated and measured against a control (an un-stimulated congenitally deaf cat (CDC)) and normal hearing cats. The field potentials measured for artificially stimulated CDC were eventually much stronger than that of a normal hearing cat.[20] This finding accords with a study by Eckart Altenmullerâ€™s, in which it was observed that students who received musical instruction had greater cortical activation than those who did not.[21]

The auditory cortex has distinct responses to sounds in the gamma band. When subjects are exposed to three or four cycles of a 40 hertz click, an abnormal spike appears in the EEG data, which is not present for other stimuli. The spike in neuronal activity correlating to this frequency is not restrained to the tonotopic organization of the auditory cortex. It has been theorized that gamma frequencies are resonant frequencies of certain areas of the brain, and appear to affect the visual cortex as well.[22] Gamma band activation (25 to 100 Hz) has been shown to be present during the perception of sensory events and the process of recognition. In a 2000 study by Kneif and colleagues, subjects were presented with eight musical notes to well-known tunes, such as Yankee Doodle and Frère Jacques. Randomly, the sixth and seventh notes were omitted and an electroencephalogram, as well as a magnetoencephalogram were each employed to measure the neural results. Specifically, the presence of gamma waves, induced by the auditory task at hand, were measured from the temples of the subjects. The OSP response, or omitted stimulus response, was located in a slightly different position; 7 mm more anterior, 13 mm more medial and 13 mm more superior in respect to the complete sets. The OSP recordings were also characteristically lower in gamma waves, as compared to the complete musical set. The evoked responses during the sixth and seventh omitted notes are assumed to be imagined, and were characteristically different, especially in the right hemisphere.[23] The right auditory cortex has long been shown to be more sensitive to tonality, while the left auditory cortex has been shown to be more sensitive to minute sequential differences in sound, such as in speech.

Tonality is represented in more places than just the auditory cortex; one other specific area is the rostromedial prefrontal cortex (RMPFC).[24] Janata et al., in their 2002 study, explored the areas of the brain which were active during tonality processing, by means of the fMRI technique. The results of this experiment showed preferential blood-oxygen-level dependent activation of specific voxels in RMPFC for specific tonal arrangements. Though these collections of voxels do not represent the same tonal arrangements between subjects or within subjects over multiple trials, it is interesting and informative that RMPFC, an area not usually associated with audition, seems to code for immediate tonal arrangements in this respect. RMPFC is a subsection of the medial prefrontal cortex, which projects to many diverse areas including the amygdala, and is thought to aid in the inhibition of negative emotion.[25]


what's the flower for the month of april

April: This month is associated with Sweet pea flower which bloom in a wide range of soft colors as well as two tone colours. It is said to symbolise pleasure or good-bye. In the Victorian era, these flowers formed a part of the bouquet which was sent to someone to convey gratefulness.

Birth flower

Each month has a flower that symbolizes the month of somebody's birth. The characteristics that the flower has may be "inherited" by whomever is born in that certain month person. Every month has a flower that is sometimes referred to as a Birth Month Flower.

Flowers by month is a term describing flowers related to a recipient's birth month, and in general flowers associated with particular months of the year. It is one of a class of specialized categorizations offered by florists.

In a cultural sense, flower characteristics such as appearance, color, and scent, have relevance as gifts. It is believed that it were the Romans who started celebrating birth and birthdays using flowers. Seasonal flowers were used not just for decoration, but also taken as gifts and therefore can probably be credited with the tradition of birth flowers.[citation needed] Some have been inspired by this tradition to create lists that associate a birthday flower with each of the days in a year.[1]

Enumerated below are flowers of the month and their special meanings which are associated with specific months. It would be a helpful guide for gifting flowers for someoneâ€™s birthday. The language of flowers was introduced to England in the early 18th century by Mary Wortley, Lady Montague, whose husband was Ambassador to Turkey.[5]

January: In the north of the northern hemisphere, January is a cold and gloomy month, but in non-frozen areas, many flowers will bloom in the cool weather, and carnation is one of them. The flower associated with the month is Carnation and is said to symbolise love, fascination and distinction. Carnation, which is also commonly called Gillyflower, is found in a number of colors from pink to red-purple.

February: This month is associated with St. Valentine’s Day and red roses. However, the flower for the month is Violet. The flower symbolises faithfulness, humility and chastity. Gifting violets in the Victorian era conveyed the message 'I’ll always be true’. The flower is found in shades of blue, mauve as well as yellow and cream. One must remember that an older English name for the plant is "heartease."

March: This month is synonymous with the onset of spring (in the Northern Hemisphere). Accordingly, the flower associated with this month is Daffodil also known as Jonquil or Narcissus. The colours of the bloom include white, yellow and orange. A gift of these flowers conveys the hidden meaning of friendship and happiness.

May: The month of May is associated with the Lily of the valley flower. It is generally white in colour. The flower conveys sweetness and humility. In the Victorian era, it was gifted to convey the romantic message ‘you have made my life complete’.

June: Rose is the flower of this month. Though roses are available in many colors from red to pink to white to yellow, all with their own special meanings, the underlying message the flowers convey is that of love and passion.

July: Larkspur is the flower for July. With its simple form, feelings of open heart and ardent attachment are attributed to it.

August: The flower for this month is the Gladiolus. It blooms in a variety of colours like red, pink, white, yellow and orange. It stands for sincerity and symbolises strength of character.

September: Aster or September flower is the flower for this month. It is found in a number of colours â€“ pink, red, white, lilac and mauve. The name of the flower which looks like a star is derived from the Greek word for star. The flower symbolises love, faith, wisdom and colour.

October: Marigold or Calendula is the flower associated with October. For the Hindus, the month of October is associated with festivals like Dusshera and Diwali and Marigold, although a relatively recent introduced flower from the New World, has come to be an auspicious flower is part of religious ceremonies. However, in the English culture, marigold stands for sorrow and sympathy, perhaps derivative of its original symbolic association with death in the traditions of Mexico, as in the Day of the Dead, parallel to the Lily in Europe.

November: Chrysanthemum, which stands for cheerfulness and love, is associated with the month of November. According to Feng Shui, Chrysanthemums bring happiness and laughter in the house.

December: Poinsettia. These flowers are typically associated with Christmas. While considered by the ancient Aztecs to be symbols of purity, in today's language of flowers, red, white or pink poinsettias, the December birth flower, symbolize good cheer and success and are said to bring wishes of mirth and celebration.


what was the reason for the sharpeville massacre

After a day of demonstrations against pass laws, a crowd of about 5,000 to 7,000 protesters went to the police station. The South African Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 69 people. Sources disagree as to the behaviour of the crowd; some state that the crowd was peaceful, while others state that the crowd had been hurling stones at the police, and that the shooting started when the crowd started advancing toward the fence around the police station. There were 289 casualties in total, including 29 children. Many sustained back injuries from being shot as they fled.[1]

Sharpeville massacre

The Sharpeville massacre was an event which occurred on 21 March 1960, at the police station in the South African township of Sharpeville in Transvaal (today part of Gauteng).

In present-day South Africa, 21 March is celebrated as a public holiday in honour of human rights and to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre.

South African governments since the eighteenth century had enacted measures to restrict the flow of black South Africans into cities. Pass laws intended to control and direct their movement and employment were updated in the 1950s. Under the country's National Party government, black residents in urban districts were subject to influx control measures. Individuals over sixteen were required to carry passbooks, which contained an identity card, employment and influx authorisation from a labour bureau, name of employer and address, and details of personal history.[2] Leading up to the Sharpeville massacre, the National Party administration under the leadership of Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd used these laws to enforce greater racial segregation[3] and, in 1959-1960, extended them to include women.[4]:pp.14,528 From the 1960s, the pass laws were the primary instrument used by the state to detain and harass its political opponents.[4]:p.163

The African National Congress (ANC) prepared to initiate a campaign of protests against pass laws. These protests were to begin on 31 March 1960, but the rival Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), led by Robert Sobukwe, decided to pre-empt the ANC by launching its own campaign ten days earlier, on 21 March, because they believed that the ANC could not win the campaign.[5][6]

On March 21, a group of between 5,000 and 10,000 people converged on the local police station in the township of Sharpeville, offering themselves up for arrest for not carrying their passbooks.[7] The Sharpeville police were not completely unprepared for the demonstration, as they had already been forced to drive smaller groups of more militant activists away the previous night.[8]

Many of the civilians present attended to support the protest, but there is evidence that the PAC also used intimidating means to draw the crowd there, including the cutting of telephone lines into Sharpeville, the distribution of pamphlets telling people not to go to work on the day, and coercion of bus drivers and commuters.[4]:p.534

By 10:00, a large crowd had gathered, and the atmosphere was initially peaceful and festive. Fewer than 20 police officers were present in the station at the start of the protest. Later the crowd grew to about 20,000,[3] and the mood was described as "ugly",[3] prompting about 130 police reinforcements, supported by four Saracen armoured personnel carriers, to be rushed in. The police were armed with firearms, including Sten submachine guns and Lee–Enfield rifles. There was no evidence that anyone in the gathering was armed with anything other than rocks.[3]

F-86 Sabre jets and Harvard Trainers approached to within a hundred feet of the ground, flying low over the crowd in an attempt to scatter it. The protesters responded by hurling stones (striking three policemen) and menacing the police barricades. Tear gas proved ineffectual, and policemen elected to repel these advances with their batons.[8] At about 13:00 the police tried to arrest a protestor, resulting in a scuffle, and the crowd surged forward.[3] The shooting began shortly thereafter.[3]

The official figure is that 69 people were killed, including 8 women and 10 children, and 180 injured, including 31 women and 19 children. Many were shot in the back as they turned to flee, causing some to be paralyzed.[1]

Police reports in 1960 claimed that young and inexperienced police officers panicked and opened fire spontaneously, setting off a chain reaction that lasted about forty seconds. It is likely that the police were nervous as two months before the massacre, nine constables had been assaulted and killed during a raid at Cato Manor.[8] In addition, few of the policemen present had received public order training. Some of them had been on duty for over twenty-four hours without respite.[8] Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar, the commanding officer of the police reinforcements at Sharpeville, said in his revealing statement that "the native mentality does not allow them to gather for a peaceful demonstration. For them to gather means violence."[1] He also denied giving any order to fire and stated that he would not have done so.

Other evidence given to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission 38 years later in 1998 by two of the victims claimed "a degree of deliberation in the decision to open fire".[4]:p.537

The uproar among South Africa's black population was immediate, and the following week saw demonstrations, protest marches, strikes, and riots around the country. On 30 March 1960, the government declared a state of emergency, detaining more than 18,000 people, including prominent anti-apartheid activists who were known as members of the Congress Alliance.[citation needed]

A storm of international protest followed the Sharpeville shootings, including sympathetic demonstrations in many countries[9][10] and condemnation by the United Nations. On 1 April 1960, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 134. Sharpeville marked a turning point in South Africa's history; the country found itself increasingly isolated in the international community. The event also played a role in South Africa's departure from the Commonwealth of Nations in 1961.[citation needed]

The Sharpeville massacre contributed to the banning of the PAC and ANC as illegal organisations. The massacre was one of the catalysts for a shift from passive resistance to armed resistance by these organisations. The foundation of Poqo, the military wing of the PAC, and Umkhonto we Sizwe, the military wing of the ANC, followed shortly afterwards.[citation needed]

Not all reactions were negative: embroiled in the Civil Rights Movement, the Mississippi House of Representatives voted a resolution supporting the South African government "for its steadfast policy of segregation and the stanch adherence to their traditions in the face of overwhelming external agitation."[11][12]

Since 1994, 21 March has been commemorated as Human Rights Day in South Africa.[13]

Sharpeville was the site selected by President Nelson Mandela for the signing into law of the Constitution of South Africa on 10 December 1996.[citation needed]

In 1998, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) found that the police actions constituted "gross human rights violations in that excessive force was unnecessarily used to stop a gathering of unarmed people."[4]:p.537

On 21 March 2002, the 42nd anniversary of the massacre, a memorial was opened by former President Nelson Mandela as part of the Sharpeville Human Rights Precinct.[14]

UNESCO marks March 21 as the yearly International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in memory of the massacre.